few people would guess it to have played an important part in the
history of north-eastern France. Yet that pleasant, modern appearance is
itself a proof of what the town endured in earlier days. So fierce was
the struggle it had for existence, that the old Soissons has almost worn
itself out, and, seen from the outside at least, a new and prosperous
town would seem to have taken its place. It might well be called the
city of sieges, for few towns have suffered more in this respect. From
Roman days down to the Franco-Prussian war the place has seemed good and
desirable from soldiers and conquerors, and has had to pay penalty for
its splendid position on the Aisne. Both Cæsar and Napoleon recognised
its importance as a military station, though a stretch of eighteen
hundred years divided the Soissons of one general to the Soissons of the
other. Like Lâon, it was for some time a royal seat; and it was here
that Clovis the Frank defeated Syagrius, “Romanorum Rex,” in 486, and
turned a Roman into a Frankish kingdom, in which Soissons was for
some time the capital. It was in the Abbey of St. Médard, which, except
for some subterranean buildings, is now destroyed, that Louis le
Débonnair was twice imprisoned by his unnatural children; and on the
walls of one of these dungeons have been found some verses, apparently a
description of the unfortunate prisoner, but dating only from the
fifteenth century.
[Illustration: RHEIMS]
During the “Hundred Days” Soissons was twice taken and twice retaken in
the course of a month. Blücher laid siege to the town in 1814, and but
for a sudden surrender on the part of the governor, which gave it into
his hands for the time, it would probably have been annihilated by
Napoleon, who, as matters turned out, had not time to come up with the
Prussian Army. In 1870 another Prussian force entered the town under the
Duke of Mecklenburg, after a siege which closes the roll of Soissons’
struggles.
On both occasions of our visiting Soissons, we came away with the
feeling that the interior of the Cathedral of Notre Dame was even more
impressive than that of Rheims. It is, indeed, a worthy rival to its
neighbouring sister church; the beautiful proportions of the nave, the
simplicity and purity of the carved capitals, the splendid glass, render
it one of the most beautiful cathedrals of France. There is a lovely
little chapel in the salle capitulaire at the west end, approached by a
cloister, early Gothic in design, with its vaulting supported by two
graceful columns, which reminds one of some of the chapter houses of our
English cathedrals.
In the Place du Cloitre is a doorway into the Cathedral, with a graceful
pediment enclosing a high-springing Gothic tympanum, which is glazed.
The mouldings of the arch have alternating crocketted courses, and the
capitals are carved to represent vine leaves and grapes. It is not easy
to understand why so beautiful a porch should occupy so obscure a
position, unless it were in the early days some special entrance for the
bishops or for the canons.
On the south side there is a Transition, semicircular chapel or apse,
with a roof lower than that of the rest of the Cathedral. A low
clerestory, with three lights, and a small triforium, whose base rakes
with the main triforium of the church, form the upper members of the
elevation. Below there is a graceful three-arched ambulatory, large and
open, spreading backwards over a vaulted chapel. The main arches, simple
and delicate in design, complete the whole bay.
[Illustration: SOISSONS]
Soissons was laid out on a plan which recalls the plan of Noyon. Its
south transept, as at Noyon, dating from the end of the twelfth
century, is rounded and flanked by a circular chapel. Although it is
doubtful whether the Cathedral of Soissons was built in the latter part
of the twelfth century, or only commenced at that time, it is certain
that the nave and choir have the distinct appearance of
thirteenth-century design. During this period, however, a kind of
uncertainty existed in the planning of the religious edifices. These
were constructed on a vast scale, and emancipated themselves from the
restricted Romanesque design in obedience to the religious movement
which declared itself during the reigns of Louis le Jeune and Philippe
Auguste, but the _cathedral_ type had not yet been created. The
requirements of the nascent ceremonial were not yet fulfilled.
The once magnificent and now ruined Abbey of St. Jean des Vignes is
situated on the hill facing the entrance to the town from the station.
The west end only remains, surmounted by two towers with spires. “These
are a great ornament to the town, and were spared at the entreaty of the
citizens when the ruthless democrats destroyed the rest. The towers and
the portal are probably of the thirteenth century, the spires more
modern.” They were much damaged in the Franco-Prussian war, when the
town was bombarded.
Chapter Four
ROUEN
Rouen is a town with two faces, ancient and modern, and the face which
it apparently considers the most becoming is the modern one. The
ancient, historic face, which the town wore when Joan of Arc rode
through, is hidden away as though it were out of fashion, and it is to
be found, not in the broad streets, but in lanes, courts and alleys,
where the way grows narrow and the houses meet overhead. Rouen, the
_chef-lieu_ of a department and fourth on the list of French ports,
finds more important business on hand than dreaming itself back into the
past, and, sacrificing the old life to the new, or, rather, building up
a new life round the old, has made of itself a busy, thriving commercial
town on the banks of that river up which the beak-headed ships of Rolf
the Ganger sailed a thousand years ago to destroy and to conquer. But
the town’s history is only put aside, not forgotten; indeed, there is
too much of it to forget. The records of Rouen go back before the Roman
era in Gaul; the Romans found it as Ratuma or Ratumacos, and then,
Romanising the name, as they did everything else, made it into
Rotomagus. Even in these early days it was a capital city, the
headquarters of the Veliocassian tribe, though not of primary
importance. Later, by the end of the third century A. D., we find it the
chief city of the province Lugdunensis Secunda, and presently an
archiepiscopal see, with an archbishop (now of course a saint) to guide
it in matters spiritual.
Saint Mellon and his successors made a goodly record for about five
centuries. They were a thoroughgoing race, these early bishops of Rouen,
with the zeal of the Christian Fathers fresh upon them, and their very
names have a strong, vigorous sound: Avitian, Victrix, Godard,
Prétextat, Romain, Ouen, of whom the memory yet remains to Rouen in the
names of church, street and tower. After this long line of bishops came
a bad time for Rouen. These were the days when the lands to the
south-west seemed good and pleasant to the Vikings, the fierce Northmen
who in after days were to give their names to Normandy. England had
already been over-run with them; first by Jutes and Saxons, then by the
fiercer Danes, who in their turn pushed out the Saxons. Only a few miles
south of England was another land just as fair, with a river easily
navigable even to the great Northern ships, and thriving towns, rich and
full of booty for Northern plunderers. Rouen, peaceful and prosperous,
was yet dangerously near the sea, and the year 841 saw the dreaded prow
of Oger the Dane coming slowly up the Seine, scattering to right and
left all lesser craft, while the terrible war song, which England
already knew and feared, rose and fell upon the wind. This was only the
beginning. Long fiery years followed, years of ravages, bloodshed and
burning, when human laws were in abeyance and the only rule was that of
might. Thirty-five years after Oger’s invasion came the famous Rolf the
Ganger, who laid waste the land anew, until, in 912, Charles the Simple
was forced to treat with him at Saint Clair-sur-Epte and to cede to him
the duchy of Neustria or Normandy. Rolf then embraced Christianity, and,
with the land in his possession, seemed determined to show the despised
Franks how a Northman could govern. In point of fact the dukedom, as
handed over by Charles, was practically represented by Rouen alone; that
is, Rouen apart from the Bessin and the Côtentin, and all the adjacent
lands which we now include under the name of Normandy. Further, it did
not really belong to Charles. Neustria was part of the great duchy of
Paris, and the cession of it to Rolf cut off Paris from all access to
the sea. But that Duke Robert had the sense to hold his tongue, probably
from fear of losing Paris as well, there might have been serious
results. As it was, Northern France fell into three divisions--the royal
city of Lâon, the duchy of Paris, and the settlement of Rolf at Rouen.
In these three cities centres most of the subsequent history of
Normandy.
As for what Rolf actually did for Rouen, that remains to be seen rather
from the after state of affairs. “The founder of the Rouen colony,”
Freeman says, “is a great man who must be content to be judged in the
main by the results of his actions.” Rolf is not in the least a vague or
shadowy personality, but it is noticeable how he has grown to us out of
a great tangle of myths and very little fact. All we have to go upon is
the not very authentic Roman de Rou, a few Norse legends, and sundry
brief allusions by later French writers, who class him, together with
all the Rouennais, under the contemptuous term Pirate. It was a
well-ordered, strong, self-dependent colony that he handed down to the
long line of his successors. These carried on bravely the traditions of
their founder and brought up a hardy race of fighters, although Rouen
itself was never thoroughly Teutonic, never at least since the very
early days of Rolf’s colony. The religion, the language, and many of
the customs of the French at Lâon were grafted on to the Northmen of
Rouen by their leader, and thus the town stood as much apart from the
rest of Neustria as from the Franks themselves. After the death of Rolf
and of his successor, William Longsword, Louis from beyond Sea, of the
race of Charlemagne, ruled at Lâon, and cast envious eyes on Normandy,
even occupying Rouen for some time during the minority of Richard the
Fearless. But although Rouen was ultimately to become a town of France,
the time was not yet, and for the present her destiny was averted by an
outsider--Harold, King of Denmark, curiously surnamed Blue-tooth. He
determined to resist the encroachments of Louis, and finally made him
prisoner in the city where he had hoped to establish another capital.
The Norman dukes only deteriorated as rulers when they joined to their
domain the crown of England, won by the hardiest and strongest of them
all. We remember the passionate, self-willed Robert, son of the
Conqueror, and John, called Lackland, that disgrace to the English
throne, the worst and likewise the last Norman duke, for the French
king, Philippe Auguste, confiscated Normandy, together with other
English possessions, and joined it to the crown of France, taking
possession of Rouen after a siege in 1204. From this point the history
of Rouen becomes the history of a French and not of a Norman town. As a
reward for its submission, Philippe Auguste presented the town with a
castle, of which one tower (the Tour Jeanne d’Arc) alone remains
standing. Two centuries later, Rouen was in danger from the English.
Henry V., during his brilliant campaign in northern France, was not
likely to leave to itself such an important place. In 1419 he set up his
cannon outside the walls, and proceeded to blockade the town, which
opened its gates to him after a six months’ siege. Here he also built a
castle, which, in the hopefulness born of youth and victory, he intended
to use as a royal residence when all France should be at rest under his
firm rule. But before the conquest was completed, before he had time to
think about any residence other than his camp, came that last fatal
sickness at Vincennes, and the castle, which seemed, like all his
victories, so sure and so lasting, has been swept off the face of the
earth. The years after Henry’s death, however, were significant ones for
Rouen, now in English hands, and in 1431 we come to the great point in
its history, the trial and burning of Joan of Arc in the market-place.
[Illustration: ROUEN FROM THE RIVER]
Captured near Compiègne, Joan had been sent to Rouen by the bishop of
Beauvais. This was in March. The girl was examined fifteen or sixteen
times, a wearying repetition of question and answer, often going round
and round in a circle and never advancing any further. Joan’s replies
were simple but firm. She persisted in her divine mission, and when
asked whether she was in a state of grace or of sin replied, “If I am
not in a state of grace, I hope God will make me so. How can I be in
much sin while the saints will visit me?” In May matters were delayed by
her illness, which was so serious that it seemed for a time as though
her enemies were to be defeated by death; but on her recovery learned
doctors were sent to her in prison to persuade her of her wrong attitude
of mind. Later came a warning from Cauchon, the bishop of Beauvais, to
the effect that he was about to have her brought forth and made the
object of a public sermon, after which, if she would recant, her safety
would be assured. Worn out with her trials, the poor girl declared her
submission and signed a recantation, for she saw that the end could not
but come soon. A penance of perpetual imprisonment was then imposed upon
her, and she submitted passively to the injunctions laid upon her; but
at her final abjuration she seemed to be overcome by a sudden access of
penitence towards the saints, and resumed her old attitude of
determination, declaring that all she had said in submission was said in
fear of being burned at the stake, of which she had a very natural
horror. After this her fate was sealed. Cauchon handed her over to the
secular arm, and a few hours later she was led to the stake in the old
market-place. It is needless to dwell upon this last scene, because it
is one of the stock dramatic occurrences in our history books, which
nearly always represent Joan of Arc as suffering trial, torment and
death, for the sake of her country with almost unnatural fortitude; but,
on the other hand, the more one reads about her, the more clear it
becomes that the heroism of the Maid of Orléans, though none the less
heroic, was a heroism of the simplest order, born of a pure heart, a
steady, straightforward faith in her mission, and only wavering at the
last from a very human and girlish horror of so infamous and dreadful a
death. And as for her judges, needlessly cruel though they were, yet, as
one writer points out, they were almost bound to condemn their prisoner.
To try her for sorcery and to burn her as a witch seems of course to our
modern eyes not merely horrible, but absurd. Cauchon and his followers,
however, did not live in an enlightened age; in their day the “Black
Art” was a thing to be dreaded above all others, and death seemed a
light thing in comparison with the putting down the power of the Evil
One. Others besides Joan of Arc, for generations before and generations
after, had died at the stake for reputed practice of magic; and in the
case of the Maid, “to acquit her would have been to accept her celestial
mission and place her, with some modern French historians, by the side,
nay, in the place, of the Messiah.” The trial and burning of Joan cannot
be looked upon by the light of a modern world; they are of their time,
and that time was, above all things, a superstitious one. And only after
her death did France realise what the Domrémy peasant girl had done for
her country. The French monarchy, as Louis XI. established it, is
perhaps the best monument to her memory. After, and as some say because
of, Joan’s death English prestige in Rouen began steadily to decline.
Two years afterwards, in 1433, came the death of John, Duke of Bedford,
brother of Henry V., perhaps the only man left with anything of Henry’s
strength and singleness of purpose. Rouen held out against two attempts
at recapture on the part of Charles VII., but in 1449 Somerset was
forced to capitulate to a strong expedition, and the English left the
town for ever.
By the middle of the next century we find Rouen in the thick of
religious troubles. In 1562 it was for six months in Huguenot hands, six
months of warfare, oppression and persecution of all Romanists within
the walls, with worse to follow; for when the Royalists recaptured the
town they repaid the Huguenots in their own coin, and revenged the
Catholic massacres with a terrible revenge. After this the Army of the
League held Rouen until, in 1596, Henry IV. of France effected an
entrance into the town.
Nowadays the first view of Rouen is a smoky, dreary little station,
surrounded by _cochers_ and porters in linen blouses; but Arthur Young,
an agriculturist of the eighteenth century, visited the old city during
his travels, before the days of the “iron way,” and he was more
fortunate in what he saw from his _diligence_: “The first view of Rouen
is sudden and striking; but the road doubling, in order to turn more
gently down the hill, presents from an elbow the finest view of a town I
have ever seen; the whole city, with all its churches and convents, and
its cathedral proudly rising in the midst, fills the vale. The river
presents one reach crossed by the bridge, and then, dividing into two
fine channels, forms a large island covered with wood; the rest of the
vale, full of verdure and cultivation, of gardens and habitations,
finish the scene, in perfect unison with the great city that forms the
capital feature.” To get this view to-day one must climb the long, dusty
hill to the convent of Bon Secours, or rather, half-way only, since the
city, river and meadows, show their beauties just as well from a lower
point, and the modern convent and church upon the hilltop are not worth
a further climb.
From the main street of the town the Cathedral is reached by the Rue de
la Grosse Horloge, which leads underneath the archway of the belfry. The
Tour St. Romain rises at the end of the street like a tall white guide,
and here, suddenly, we find ourselves face to face with the west façade
of Notre Dame. The remark made by an American traveller, that he found
Rome very much out of repair, is appropriate to many of the French
cathedrals. Scheduled as historic monuments, they receive annually a
dole from the Government towards maintenance and restoration, but so
miserable is this contribution, and so inadequate to the possibility of
early completion of the work, that a generation may pass away before the
scaffolding is finally removed. The west portal of Rouen is half covered
by a forest of timbering. Rheims suffers even more, and the same may be
said for Notre Dame at Evreux, St. Urbain at Troyes, and many other
cathedrals. Such glimpses, however, as we get of the west front of Rouen
show us its glory. Ruskin writing of it says: “It is the most exquisite
piece of pure Flamboyant work existing. There is not one cusp, one
finial, that is useless, not a stroke of the chisel is in vain; the
grace and luxuriance of it all are visible--sensible, rather, even to
the uninquiring eye; and all its minuteness does not diminish the
majesty, while it increases the mystery of the noble and unbroken
vault.”
Of the origin of this Flamboyant style a distinguished French writer, M.
Enlart, in a paper lately read before the Archæological Institute of
Great Britain, has asserted that it is to be found not in France, but in
England; and specialising the west front of Rouen, he further states
that, in the arrangement of its large bay enclosing the rose window and
flanked by tiers of statues, it recalls absolutely the façades, earlier
in date, of the cathedrals of Wells, Salisbury and Lichfield.
With one or two exceptions, viz., St. Urbain at Troyes and a chapel in
Amiens Cathedral, the Flamboyant style did not appear in France until
the last quarter of the fourteenth century, and when it had once taken
root, it maintained its integrity until the Renaissance, having the same
characteristics from one end of the country to the other. It was not the
evolution of any previous French style, but it derived its origin, as
above stated, from a style which existed in England a century before.
Roughly speaking, the features which distinguish the Flamboyant are,
first, the ogee arch which is typical of the style, then special systems
of vaulting, and flowing tracery of windows, forms of arches, “anse de
panier,” &c., arch mouldings dying into piers without impost or capital,
and generally a love of vegetal and undulating decoration. This
“decorative caprice” reigned in France in the fifteenth century at a
time when the Perpendicular style became universal in England and had
completely driven out the ogee arch.
The occupation of the greater part of France by the English in the
Hundred Years’ War would naturally result in an English influence being
noticeable in its buildings, the contact of nations producing an
exchange of art as of commerce. The Flamboyant may therefore be said to
be the by-product of the Hundred Years’ War.
There is documentary evidence that both at Rouen and at Evreux the
foreign occupation did not interfere with the work going on at the
cathedrals; indeed, at Rouen, two canons of York were received with the
greatest courtesy by the chapter, and contributions were made by the
English towards the completion of the Cathedral. The domination of the
English was no hindrance to the progress of art in France, and as soon
as the latter had freed itself and realised its national unity, its
architects applied themselves heart and soul to the development of this
style which was “borrowed from the enemy.”
A long list can be made of buildings where the ogee arch and other
typical features obtained in England, from the end of the thirteenth to
the latter part of the fourteenth century, during which time no
parallels existed in France. One of the most ancient examples is Queen
Eleanor’s Cross at Northampton (1291-1294), where Flamboyant features
show themselves.
The tomb of William de la Merche at Wells (1302), Aymer de Valence at
Westminster (1323), and many other early fourteenth-century examples,
furnished by almost every cathedral, testify to the prevalence of the
passion for the ogee motive of decoration. These are given in detail by
M. Enlart as irrefragable proofs of the English origin of the Flamboyant
style.
The interior of the Cathedral of Rouen is considered by Mr. Bond to be
curiously Romanesque in plan. Its nave bays are four-storied, an upper
and lower pier arch with small triforium and clerestory. The upper pier
arch might also be regarded as a triforium, for a passage-way runs along
the sill of the arch and is continued behind the main piers on an
elegant group of shafted corbels. These were originally intended to
support a vault of a lower aisle. The east end is more dignified and has
simpler factors, clerestory, triforium and pier arch. The glass is
magnificent, dating from the thirteenth century.
[Illustration: RUE DE L’HORLOGE, ROUEN]