Cathedral, which has evidently been defaced by some fanatical hand. The
irregularity of its porches gives to this façade a curious one-sided
appearance, that on the north having a round arch and the central and
southern arches being pointed. The two towers are of different periods.
In the seventeenth century, when the Cathedral was rebuilt, the
perforated stone spires were added, the architect finding his
inspiration in those at Bayeux and Caen. The best view of these is from
the Ville Basse, where they come remarkably well into the picture,
standing high above the grey roofs.
Here the Cathedral-church is, as usual, the centre of all that there is
of antiquity in the town. There is one especially beautiful timber
house, known as the Maison Dieu, some little distance from the west
front; north and south of the church are various narrow streets--the Rue
de la Porte Dollée runs over the stream of the same name, and under a
curious old gateway tower; the Rue Henri Amiard leads to the precincts
of the Cathedral, the south flank and its outward trend being well seen
from here; but there is nothing very tangible in the way of antiquity,
and one has an impression that when the bishop departed from Saint-Lô he
must have taken with him the soul of the place.
Notre Dame de Saint-Lô has a very unusual and original plan, widening
towards the east and adding another aisle to the north and south
ambulatories. On the north side is its chief curiosity, an outdoor
pulpit, built at the end of the fifteenth century and probably used by
Huguenot preachers, to whom a sermon was a sermon, whether preached
under a vaulted roof or the open sky. What strikes one most about the
interior of the church is its want of light. The nave is absolutely
unlighted, having neither triforium nor clerestory, and the aisles have
only one tier of large windows, whose glass is old and very fine, though
in most cases pieced together; the nave piers are massive, with a
cluster of three shafts; those of the choir are quite simple, and have
one noticeable feature, the absence of capitals, the vault mouldings
dying away into the pier.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL FRONT ST. LÔ]
Like Saint-Lô, Coutances is a city built on a hill, and has therefore a
peculiar charm all its own. The steep hill rises very impressively
from the rolling country below, showing the Cathedral on the height, the
towers of St. Pierre and the grey houses and apple orchards on the lower
slope. As a town it has more to say for itself than Saint-Lô; small
though it is, in respect of the part it has played in the history of its
surroundings it can hold its own with many larger towns. Coutances on
its granite rock is the watch-tower of the flat marshy Côtentin. It
looks out to sea on the one side and over its subject towns on the
other; it has seen the sun flash on the winged helmets of the Danes, on
the spears of Englishmen of Agincourt, on the grim figures of the
Huguenot leaders in the days of the League, as each in their day marched
over the plains to Coutances for the sake of plunder, conquest and
religion. Even in Roman times it was of importance; the Gauls called it
Cosedia of the Unelli, but towards the end of the third century
Constantius Chlorus fortified the town and called it after his name,
which it bears at the present day--Constantius--Constance--Coutances.
The son and successor of this Constantius was Constantine the Great,
from whose reign dates the spread of Christianity over Western Europe;
and the Côtentin, as an old saying goes, now found itself divided
between Saint Martin and Sainte Maria. Churches were built all over the
land; bishops--every one a saint in these early days--followed the light
of St. Augustine in England, and journeyed about the country making
conversions and working miracles.
In the fifth century Coutances received its first great church, the
basilica of St. Eureptiolus, built, according to local tradition, upon
the foundations of a pagan temple. Later on, Norman invaders did their
best to undo the good work of the Christian bishops, and we hear that
the bishops of Coutances in particular were compelled to take refuge in
Rouen for a century and a half, until the peninsula finally passed into
the hands of William Longsword in 931, and for a time the churches had
peace.
The barons of the Côtentin played a considerable part in the Norman
Conquest of England, being among William’s most loyal supporters.
Taillefer, the famous warrior at the battle of Senlac, the seigneurs of
Pommeraye, Blainville, Pierrepont, all kept up the honour of Coutances
in the lands across the water, as well as Bishop de Montbray, who, like
Odo of Bayeux, held the office of a bishop in his own country and of a
feudal lord in England. History has it on record that he held no less
than two hundred and eighty fiefs in the conquered country, besides the
lands which belonged to his ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the
Côtentin. After the death of the Conqueror various pretenders to the
dukedom of Normandy arose, and Coutances suffered from the local wars,
falling into the hands of Fulk of Anjou and being retaken by Henry I.,
and to complete the harassed state of the Côtentin a dreadful famine
spread over the district and reduced the town to a state of the utmost
misery. In 1203 it was joined to France with the rest of Normandy; but
this practically meant an entire renunciation of its freedom. Philip
Augustus and Louis IX. confiscated its seigneurial rights and set a
French governor to rule over the country instead of the Norman lords,
though the latter king probably made up, in the eyes of the people of
Coutances, for these encroachments by paying a visit to their town,
which honour is remembered by them to-day not only as an act of royal
condescension but of saintly beneficence.
In the wars of Edward III. and Henry V. Coutances had its share.
Standing in the western corner of Normandy, the town came at the end of
a long line of strongholds which one after the other had surrendered to
the English assault. Valognes fell, then the Ponts d’Ouve, then Carentan
and Saint-Lô. Next Edward turned off towards Caen and followed on to
Crécy; so that it seemed at first as though Coutances would escape
altogether. However, the treachery of one of the neighbouring lords was
to attempt what the enemy had left undone. In 1358 there lived in the
château of Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte a certain Geoffrey d’Harcourt,
surnamed Le Boiteux, whose nephew had been treacherously murdered at
Rouen. D’Harcourt resolved to revenge the crime upon the city of
Coutances. He got together an army with the help of the King of Navarre,
and drew up his troops outside the town, with heavy machines for
battery; and he had succeeded in forcing a breach, when the royal army,
arriving at an opportune moment, upset his schemes and sent him back to
his château of Saint-Sauveur. In the latter part of the war, however,
this good fortune left the city. After his victory at Agincourt the
English king marched westward to subdue the towns in the far corner of
Normandy, and Coutances fell into his hands in 1418, remaining under the
same rule until the Constable de Richemont drove out the English in
1449; and it is said that to all those of the inhabitants who had
remained faithful to his cause Charles VII. made reparation for all the
spoliation they had suffered at the hands of the English. This may, of
course, have emanated from that prince’s indolent good nature, which did
not object to granting a favour where it was not too much trouble; but
considering the utter laziness of Charles it seems unlikely that he
should have troubled himself to this extent in the cause of a little
city in the west, far away from Paris, when he was occupied with the new
experience of being king in fact as well as name.
[Illustration: COUTANCES]
The League Wars were the next to touch Coutances.
Bricqueville-Colombières, who, as we saw, was to meet a soldier’s death
upon the walls of Saint Lô some years later, took possession of the town
in the name of the Protestants in 1561, and as the standards of both
armies were followed by crowds of half-savage, ignorant peasants,
thirsty for plunder of any sort, Coutances found itself overrun as it
had been by a tribe of wild beasts. Men, women and children were
massacred without quarter, churches and houses were rifled and, worse
than all, the beautiful Cathedral of de Montbray suffered a like fate
and was despoiled of sculpture, carving, statues and sainted relics, the
bishop and clergy being struck down before they could attempt to quell
these barbarian inroads. This scene was repeated two years later, when
Colombières burnt part of the town, and again in 1566. After such
treatment, it is hardly to be wondered at that the inhabitants of
Coutances declared for the League, in spite of the fact that this
disobedience caused the temporary removal of both their civil and
seigneurial rights, the one passing to Saint-Lô and the other to
Granville.
In the reign of Louis XIII. Richelieu imposed upon the inhabitants of
Normandy the hateful tax known as the Gabelle, and by this means stirred
up the revolt of the “Nu-pieds.” Coutances shared in several of the
subsequent disorders. One Poupinel, charged with a commission from the
Parliament of Rouen, was murdered in the streets of Avranches; and the
tax-gatherer at Coutances, fearing a like fate, armed all his followers
in the event of a possible disturbance. The worthy man’s extra
precaution, however, proved to do more harm than good; his servants in
their excess of zeal saw an enemy in every harmless farmer come to do
his marketing in the town, and a deadly weapon in every ashen stick, and
the pitch of excitement grew so high that when the bell of Saint Pierre
began to ring for a christening, they took it for the warning peal of
the tocsin, and rushed out into the streets with loud cries, brandishing
their weapons and assaulting in their excitement every innocent burgher
whom they met.
As was but natural, this unprovoked attack roused the dormant spirit of
revolt among the people; Nicolle, the unfortunate tax-gatherer, found
out his mistake too late; the “Nu-pieds,” under their chief, Le
Sauvage, burnt down his house and murdered his brother; and for a few
days, until the popular fury had quieted down, Coutances was thrown into
a state of revolution. The terrible disturbances of the next century,
however, did not work much havoc here. Only twenty-three persons in all
were sent to the guillotine from Coutances during the Terror, and most
of these, we are told, were burghers and not aristocrats, and the
victims of private vengeance rather than of public fury.
Coutances had a good many notable bishops. There was Eureptiolus,
mentioned above; there were Laudus, the founder of Saint-Lô; and Robert
of Lisieux, who built his church on the foundations of the old basilica;
and Geoffroy de Montbray, whose best life-work was given to finishing
what Robert had begun; Hugues de Morville, who restored the Cathedral in
the thirteenth century; and energetic, tenacious Geoffroy Herbert, who
was possessed with a perfect mania for building, in and out of
Coutances, and to whom the town owes the church of St. Pierre.
The Cathedral at Coutances was founded by the widow of Richard the
Fearless in 1030, and completed towards the end of the century by
Geoffroy de Montbray, William the Conqueror’s fighting bishop. After
the union of Normandy to France it was rebuilt, and the work of
restoration extended into the fifteenth century. Entering by the north
porch one is struck by the beauty of the doorway, whose overhanging
mouldings and shafts are designed with great elegance and freedom. The
English type of capital, with round abacus and vigorous foliation,
reminds one of the cathedrals of Salisbury and Lincoln; and the tympanum
with its sadly-mutilated figures is carried on a corbel table of great
beauty. The interior elevation of the bays is composed of three
features--pier arches, a fine triforium with quatrefoil balustrade, and
a rather small clerestory with a passage-way crossing its base. There is
a great deal of exquisite glass in the cathedral, especially in the
transepts. In the choir the love of high clerestories, admitting as much
light as possible to the chancel, to the almost complete extinction of
the triforium, shows itself here as in many other churches already
noticed. The upper windows are in two planes, with a light shaft
supporting the interior arches.
In the ambulatory there is what looks like a blind stone bay, corbelled
out and resting on the capitals of the columns. Probably this is a
staircase leading to the upper passages of the triforium and clerestory.
The lantern, which is octagon in plan, has three tiers of arches, the
over-hanging sides being supported by a simple pendentive with very
slight mouldings.
[Illustration: THE SOUTH PORCH OF THE CATHEDRAL, COUTANCES]
Beyond the Place du Parvis, where the Cathedral stands, is the Musée,
once the house of Quesnel Morinière, who at his death left to the town
both house and garden. The latter is now converted into a Jardin Public,
which every French town, however small, seems to possess; and sitting or
walking amidst its shady alleys and green lawns, with catalpas and
orange trees in full bloom overhead, one feels very kindly disposed
towards the good citizen who planted them and left this possession for
the enjoyment of his fellows.
During our stay at Coutances one incident took place which may be
interesting as showing how mediæval customs still survive in these
little towns. In the middle of the night we were roused from sleep by
the blast of a bugle in the street below. This was presently followed by
a roll of drums and shouts of “Au feu! au feu!” The deep-toned bell of
St. Nicolas then took up the alarm and echoed out far and wide its
warning notes. In a moment the town was awake. Heads peered out at every
window, and the street was soon alive with the tread of hurrying feet;
café and cabaret furnished their contingent to the excited crowd, and
even children were brought out of their beds to gaze down the blazing
street. The gregarious and sympathetic Frenchman can never allow any
event to take place, be it funeral, festival or fire, without calling
all his friends to assist at it; and the general turn-out into the
streets reminds one of the thousands of Londoners who left their beds to
celebrate the relief of Mafeking.
Chapter Eight
LE MANS
“Each land and city,” says Freeman, “has its special characteristics
which distinguish it from others. One is famous for its church and its
bishops, another for its commonwealth, another for its princes. Le Mans
has the special privilege of being alike famous for all three.” At Le
Mans, church, counts and commune have each made a separate mark upon the
roll of French history. The communal power gave the town strength within
itself; the counts of Maine, whose line dates back to the time of Hugh
Capet, made of it a mighty feudal possession; and the great church above
the Sarthe, whose traditions have been handed down even from Saint
Martin of Tours, stood apart on its hill-crest and watched over the
city.
[Illustration: ST. PIERRE, COUTANCES]
As was usually the case in these powerful cities the commune was the
last element to arise at Le Mans; before its appearance we find both
Church and State fully established on the hill. Julian built his church
under the rule of Trajan; Defensor, the local ruler, lived in his palace
side by side with the great missionary bishop who had converted him to
Christianity; and after him came the line of counts who seem to have
been always at war either with Normandy on the one side or with Anjou on
the other. Considering these two powerful neighbours, it is wonderful
what a prestige Maine did succeed in establishing, by the help of her
bishops, and also by the help of the strong fortress which was her
capital city. But in the reign of the prince from Liguria, Azo, to whom
Maine had descended in an indirect line, a third factor thrust itself
into the growing fabric of the city. It may have been the example of
Italian states which the coming of an Italian ruler had brought before
the Cenomannians more forcibly; it may have been the encroachments of
the Countess Gersendis, regent in the absence of her husband; but from
whatever cause, it was certain that memories of the municipal rights of
ancient Gaul were being kindled amongst the people--murmurs were heard
of a time when, under the Roman yoke, a prince did not signify a
tyrant--and presently the Cenomannian burghers took the law into their
own hands and met together to declare their freedom and--a testimony of
their strength--compelled Geoffrey of Mayenne and all the surrounding
princes to swear their civic oath. Thus was founded the earliest
_commune_ in Gaul, and when, soon afterwards, the Conqueror subdued Le
Mans and the whole state of Maine, the city still retained its newly won
privileges, William binding himself over to respect and observe the
customs pertaining to the same, the ancient “justices” of the city. A
threefold history of this kind leads one naturally to look for a
threefold interest within the town itself; yet this is lacking in the
city of to-day--its past glories lie rather in tradition and association
than in anything more tangible. The church still stands upon the hill,
but it stands alone. Almost every trace of feudal prince and ancient
commune has been swept away, and the old Le Mans has become a city of
solid white-painted buildings and clean, sunny _places_. By the
river-side and near the Cathedral a few old houses and crooked alleys
still remain, and here too may be seen fragments of the old city walls,
built by Roman forethought in the third and fourth centuries. These
ramparts have stood the town in good stead. From its position and
importance, Le Mans has always been coveted by the enemy, and since the
days of Clovis down to the war with Prussia it has known the tread of
besieging hosts at its gates. The Normans had it under the Conqueror,
and lost it under his son, Duke Robert; during the Hundred Years’ War it
was besieged five times; the Huguenots took it during the wars of the
League; after the fall of the Bourbon monarchy it was seized in
desperation by the Royalists of La Vendée, but retaken by Marceau; and
nearer our own day comes the terrible “week of battles” in January,
1871, during which the Prussians occupied Le Mans and defeated the army
of the Loire so severely as to destroy all hope of relieving Paris.
“In the second half of the campaign, in the contest against France ...
both belligerents kept the same goal before their eyes--Paris: the one
in order to dictate peace from within the walls of the conquered
capital, the other in order to gain that victory which would give to the
war the long and eagerly-desired change of fortune.” During the winter
of 1870 the army of the Loire had set out to reach Paris from Orléans;
but a succession of defeats drove it back to the Loire, from whence it
was to retreat upon Le Mans. Pursuit did not follow at once. The
Prussian Army, under Prince Frederick Charles, waited between Orléans
and Vendôme until the New Year, when an advance was ordered, and the
three divisions of the army marched upon Le Mans by their respective
roads. Passing Vendôme, which was the scene of a sharp engagement with
the enemy, they crossed the country between the Loire and the Sarthe
with some difficulty; bad weather had made the roads almost impassable,
and the district was cut up into vineyards, farmsteads and small
valleys. “The invader rarely gets a general view of the country even
from elevated positions; he must renounce any plan of acting with large
displayed masses, especially in the case of artillery; the action of
cavalry is restricted to the roads, and the whole burden of the contest
falls exclusively on the infantry.” Fighting their way through the
scattered French forces two divisions managed to come within ten miles
of Le Mans by January 9, and on the next day the battle began. The
Prussian watchword was “Forward with all speed,” and such speed did they
make that at the end of three days they had advanced upon the French in
their strong position, keeping always to the maxim, “Stand firm in the
centre and act on the offensive at the two wings.”
“On January 11, the French army of the West was completely defeated near
Le Mans by the German Second Army, under Prince Frederick Charles and
the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, and Le Mans was immediately occupied.”
Such was the announcement in _The Times_ newspaper on the morning of
January 13, 1871.
General Chanzy, who was in command of the French army of the West,
courted defeat by advancing upon Paris, and by his retreat upon Le Mans
invited the Germans to occupy it. Prince Frederick Charles, leaving
Orléans and passing Beaugency and Vendôme, arrived at the latter place
in time to see Chanzy repulsed, but not in time to cut off the French
army, which was now in full retreat towards Paris. A series of
rear-guard engagements followed as the Prussians drove the French before
them towards Le Mans. The storming of Changé was the last of the many
battles around Le Mans. It lies in a hollow with hills curving round it
on two sides, the north and west, and on these hills the French had
taken up their position. They had, apparently, no desire to advance and
clear away the Germans who were attacking them, laboriously marching
through snow and the thick woods which covered the position. The
attacking force ran from tree to tree and sought whatever shelter was
available, making frequent charges whenever an occasion offered itself.
Notwithstanding their pertinacity they failed to carry the heights, and
were for some time in danger of suffering a severe repulse, as the
reserves on whom they relied had not yet come up, but were pounding
their way along the frozen roads from La Chartre to Le Mans. The troops
bivouacked in the snow on the night of the 11th, and when the frosty
sun rose on the morning of the 12th the French outposts had been
withdrawn and retired upon Le Mans. By this time the Tenth Corps had
joined the attacking force, and after heavy fighting in the streets and
squares the town was won in the evening, and on the following day Prince
Frederick Charles established there his headquarters.
[Illustration: LE MANS]
General Chanzy in his defence of Le Mans accomplished all that courage
and gallantry in his dire situation could suggest; he disputed the
country inch by inch before the advancing armies of the Duke of
Mecklenburg and Von der Tann, but he was unable with his raw levies,
with recruits undrilled, unshod and unofficered, to withstand the
furious onslaught of the enemy. Such is the short tribute paid to the
French general by _The Times_ correspondent with the Prussian Army.
The Cathedral of Saint-Julien sits astride a great rock overlooking the
Place des Jacobins--a square wide enough for once to allow of an
adequate view of the great church on its eastern side. It stands so high
that the want of a central tower is felt less than would be the case at
a lower level. The only tower of any pretensions is over the south
transept--originally the north transept possessed one also--but even
this is rather inefficient. It is advisable to enter the Cathedral by
the west door rather than by the south porch, so as to prevent the
uninteresting west wall of the nave from becoming a factor of one’s
first impression. From this point it is the choir that first arrests our
attention; we pass on through the lower, simpler nave and through the
great soaring chancel arch that to look upon makes us giddy, to the
blaze of deep-coloured glass and the magnificent _chevet_ of stilted
arches placed close together and looking from their great height much
narrower than they really are. The same idea of height and light
prevails in the transepts, for by this time the French architect had
begun to gauge the emotional effect of tremendous height, and to dare
greater things than his predecessors had ever dreamed; while the same
insatiable desire for light that we saw in the choir at Amiens has
possessed the builder of Saint Julien, and led him to make his transepts
nearly all window--especially the northern one, which has a triforium
lighted by beautiful fifteenth-century glass--and to put a double
ambulatory round the choir, both lighted by that marvellous jewelled
glass.