_M. Henry Jadart, Librarian of the City of Rheims and Curator of the
Museum of that city, was present at the bombardments of the 4th and
the 19th of September. He was well placed to enlighten us on the
destruction accomplished at the time._
_He was kind enough to send us the communication which we publish
below. From the testimony of M. Jadart, it will appear how many
monumental constructions at Rheims were mutilated or destroyed, and
how these attest, not less than the ruins of the cathedral, the
vandalism of the German armies:_
Friday, Sept. 4.--The bombardment, which took place suddenly from
half-past 9 till quarter-past 10 in the morning, caused some accidents
to the cathedral, more or less notable from the point of view of art,
(some stained glass more or less ancient, some slight scratches to the
statues;) at the Church of Saint-Remi (ancient stained glass, tapestry
of the sixteenth century, pictures of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, altar screen, statues, south portal, and vault of transept)
and at the Museum of Fine Arts, Rue Chanzy, 8, (salle Henry Vasnier
broken in by a shell, about twenty modern pictures damaged.) Besides,
among the houses struck, the Gothic house, 57 Rue de Vesle, suffered
mutilation in the sculpture of a fireplace--it was entirely demolished
by the bombardment and fire of Sept. 19.
Saturday, Sept. 19.--This was the day of the great destruction by the
bombs and the fires caused in the cathedral, the ancient residence of
the Archbishop, in the houses of the Place Royale, and the Ceres
quarter. On the afternoon of this day and during the night from
Saturday to Sunday, flames consumed the most precious collections of
the city, at the Archbishop's palace and in private houses, an
inventory of which it will never be possible to prepare.
The top of the cathedral burned after the scaffolding of the northern
tower of the great portal had taken fire, toward 3 o'clock in the
afternoon. The statues and sculptures of this side of the same portal
were licked by the flames and scorched through and through. The eight
bells in this tower also were caught by the flames, and the whole
thing fell down near the cross aisle of the transept. The spire of the
Belfry of the Angel, at the apse, fell, and with it disappeared the
leaden heads which decorated its base. In the interior the sculptures
and the walls of the edifice were damaged by fire in the straw which
had been strewn about for the German wounded; the great eighteenth
century tympanums of the lateral doors, west side, were damaged
likewise. The thirteenth century stained glass suffered shocks from
the air and were perforated, in the rose windows as also in the high
windows of the nave. The pictures in the transept were spared, but the
choir stalls (eighteenth century work) were consumed--at the left on
entering.
Of the adjacent palace all the buildings were attacked by the flames
and are now nothing but ruined walls, save the chapel of the
thirteenth century, of which the main part subsists intact, and the
lower hall of the King's Lodge, under the Hall of Anointment, (of the
end of the fifteenth century.) The anointment rooms on the ground
floor, reconstructed in the seventeenth century, contained a great
number of historical portraits and furniture of various periods, which
were all a prey to the flames. It was the same in the apartments of
the Archbishops, which also contained numerous pictures and different
views of the city, transported from the Hotel de Ville and intended
for the formation of a historical museum of Rheims. Precious
furniture, bronzes of great value--like the foot of the candelabra of
Saint Remi and the candelabra of the Abbaye d'Igny--were also in these
apartments, of which nothing is left but the walls. The archaeological
collections of the city were consumed in the upper apartments, as also
a whole museum, organized and classified to represent the ethnography
of la Champagne by a thousand objects tracing back the ancient
industries, the trades, the arts, and usages of this province.
Finally, the rich library founded by Cardinal Gousset, offering superb
editions and assembled in a vast paneled hall, was totally burned up
in the modern building constructed for it at the expense of the State.
After the disasters to the arts at the cathedral and the palace, we
must note also the mansions and private houses, remarkable through
their architecture and their decoration, that were demolished, burned,
and annihilated. No. 1 Rue du Marc, Renaissance mansion--damage to the
sculptured ceiling and the sculptures of the court. Two pavilions of
the Place Royale, creations of the eighteenth century, are now only
calcined walls. The same fate overtook the Gothic house, 57 Rue de
Vesle, (of which mention was made above;) the house, 40 Rue de
l'Universite, built in the eighteenth century; the house next to the
Ecu de Rheims, of the same period; the mansion at 12 Rue la Grue,
which was decorated with carved lintels and forged iron banisters; the
mansion at 19 Rue Eugene-Destenque, in the style of the Henri IV.
period, having a great stone fireplace and decorative paintings in one
gallery. Finally, in the Rue des Trois-Raisinets, the remains of the
monastery of the Franciscans, with a cloister, and the framework of a
granary of the Middle Ages.
These notes are really only observations to be completed later with
the aid of descriptions of ancient date, but they offer sure
information of the lamentable losses suffered by our unfortunate city
during the first month of its bombardment.
Paris, Jan. 20, 1915.
No. 2.