|THERE was no better way of realizing the great bulk and height of the
Cathedral than by proceeding to the banks of the river Somme northward,
and from this point appraising its architectural wonder rising above
the large and small old gray houses, tier above tier, misted in the soft
clouds of gray smoke from their myriad chimneys, capped with red dots of
chimney pots, "a giant in repose."
In approaching Amiens the traveler was offered no "coup d'oeil" like
that of other cathedral towns; here "this largest church in the world
except St. Peter's, at Rome," was hidden from view as one entered the
town, and followed the Rue des Trois Cailloux, along what was formerly
the boundaries of the ancient walls. It was difficult to obtain a good
view of the façade, that of the west point was seen from a parvis, which
qualified the difference in level between the east and west ends, and
here was the central porch which took its name, "Porche de le Beau Dieu
d'Amiens," from the figure of the Savior on its central pillar, and of
which Ruskin wrote, "at the time of its erection, it was beyond all that
had then been reached of sculptured tenderness."
It is not known at this time of writing (May, 1917) whether Amiens
has suffered greatly at the hands of the Germans. Perhaps without its
destruction there have been sufficient crimes committed against the
church in the name of military necessity, and it thus has been spared.
For some reason or other Ruskin was not overenthusiastic over Amiens.
He described the beautiful "flèche," which rose so gracefully from
the great bulk against the sky, as "merely the caprice of a village
carpenter," and he further declared that the Cathedral of Amiens is "in
dignity inferior to Chartres, in sublimity to Beauvais, in decorative
splendor to Rheims, and in loveliness of figure sculpture to Bourges."
On the other hand, the great Viollet-le-Duc called it the "Parthenon of
Gothic Architecture."
Of the two authorities, one may safely pin one's faith to the opinion
of the eminent Frenchman, who spent his life in restoring great works
rather than in abusing them.
Whewell says: "The mind is filled and elevated by the enormous height
of the building (140 feet), its lofty and many colored clerestory, its
grand proportions, its noble simplicity. The proportion of height to
breadth is almost double that to which we are accustomed in English
cathedrals; the lofty solid piers, which bear up this height, are far
more massive in their plan than the light and graceful clusters of
our English churches, each of them being a cylinder with four engaged
columns. The polygonal E apse is a feature which we seldom see, and
nowhere so exhibited, and on such a scale; and the peculiar French
arrangement which puts the walls at the outside edge of the buttresses,
and thus forms interior chapels all around, in addition to the aisles,
gives a vast multiplicity of perspective below, which fills out the idea
produced by the gigantic height of the center. Such terms will not be
extravagant when it is recollected that the roof is half as high again
as Westminster Abbey." Indeed this great height is only surpassed by
that of one cathedral in all of France--Beauvais.
The vast arches here rose to nearly half the height of the structure,
and then above these the architect placed a lovely band or frieze of
carved foliage; then the triforium, and above this the glorious windows,
separated from each other only by tall slender pillars springing
gracefully from heavier ones. Nearly all the original painted glass was
destroyed in the thirteenth century, but that which replaced it was of a
certainty entirely satisfying.
Between two immense pillars at the entrance to the nave were the heavily
ornamented gilded brass tombs of the Bishops who founded the Cathedral.
That on the left was Geoffroi d'Eu, who died in 1236, and on the right
was that of Evrard de Fouilloy, who died in 1223. Each shows a recumbent
figure in full robes inclosed in Gothic canopies with pointed arches,
and sustained by lions. The great organ loft was beneath the magnificent
"rose de mer" window which was filled with the arms of the house of
Firmin de Coquerel. In the choir were one hundred and ten carved stalls,
said to have been designed and made by local artists of Amiens, and
these alone would have made any cathedral noteworthy. According to that
eminent authority, Mr. Francis Bond, the height of the nave and the
aisles is three times their span, and this feature gave the effect for
which the architect worked, that is, a splendid blaze of luminosity
shining down into gloomy and most mysterious shadow. This blaze of
light and color came not only from the clerestory, but also from the
triforium, in which the superb blue glass shone with celestial splendor.
The meaning of the word "triforium" is perhaps somewhat obscure to all
save architects. Herbert Marshall * defines the word as "Applied to the
ambulatory or passage, screened by an arcade, which runs between the
pier arches and clerestory windows and is considered to refer to the
three openings, or spaces, 'trinae fores,' into which the arcading
was sometimes divided. It probably has nothing to do with openings
in multiples of three, nor with a Latinised form of 'thoroughfare' as
suggested by Parker's Glossary, although the main idea is a passage
running round the inside of a church, either as at Westminster, in the
form of an ambulatory chamber, or of a gallery pierced through the main
walls, from whence the structure may be inspected without the trouble of
using ladders. M. Enlart in his 'Manuel d'Archéologie Française' derives
the word from a French adjective, 'trifore,' or 'trifoire,' through the
Latin 'transforatus,' a passage pierced through the thickness of the
wall; and this idea of a passageway is certainly suggested by an
old writer, Gervase, who, in his description of the new cathedral of
Canterbury, rebuilt after the fire, alludes to the increased number
of passages round the church under the word 'triforia.' 'Ibi triforium
unum, hie duo in Choro, et in alâ ecclesiae tercium.'"
* "Gothic Architecture in England."
Ruskin wrote in his diary under date of May 11th, 1857: "I had a happy
walk here (Amiens) this afternoon, down among the branching currents
of the Somme: it divides into five or six, shallow, green and not
over-wholesome; some quite narrow and foul, running beneath clusters of
fearful houses, reeling masses of rotten timber; and a few mere stumps
of pollard willow sticking out of the banks of soft mud, only retained
in shape of bank by being shored up with timbers; and boats like paper
boats, nearly as thin at least, for costermongers to paddle about
in among the weeds, the water soaking through the lath bottoms, and
floating the dead leaves from the vegetable baskets with which they were
loaded. Miserable little back yards, opening to the water, with steep
stone steps down to it, and little platforms for the ducks; and separate
duck staircases, composed of a sloping board with cross bits of wood
leading to the ducks' doors; and sometimes a flower pot or two on them,
or even a flower--one group of wall flowers and geraniums curiously
vivid, being seen against the darkness of a dyer's backyard, who had
been dyeing black, and all was black in his yard but the flowers, and
they fiery and pure; the water by no means so, but still working its way
steadily over the weeds, until it narrowed into a current strong enough
to turn two or three 'wind mills,' (!) one working against the side
of an old Flamboyant Gothic church, whose richly traceried buttresses
sloped down into the filthy stream; all exquisitely picturesque, and no
less miserable. (! ) We delight in seeing the figures in these boats,
pushing them about the bits of blue water, in Prout's drawings; but as
I looked to-day at the unhealthy face and melancholy mien of the man in
the boat pushing his load of peat along the ditch, and of the people,
men as well as women, who sat spinning gloomily at cottage doors, I
could not help feeling how many persons must pay for my picturesque
subject and happy walk."
The reader will probably exclaim: "Well, if this is Ruskin's idea of a
'happy walk,' what then would be his description of a gloomy one?"
We did not find the view of the town so squalid as this. Rising against
the golden glow of the evening sky, the great bulk of the Cathedral
massed itself in purple mist, its slender needle-like center tower and
spire piercing the sky. Below lay the dull reds and slaty grays of the
houses, concealed here and there by the massive foliage of the trees
that lined the river bank. Barges of picturesque shape were tied up to
the banks here and there, with lines of pink, white and blue freshly
washed clothes strung along the decks, where children played, and there
were brightly painted cabin deck houses, all white and green, from the
chimney pipes of which ascended long pale lines of smoke from the galley
stoves, showing that the evening meal was being cooked. On the decks of
these barges nervous shaggy dogs ran up and down barking furiously at
one thing or another; over all seemed to rest the air of well being and
sweet content. If there were stagnant pools of filthy water, as Ruskin
claimed, we saw them not, nor did the peasants seem unhealthy or
miserable to our eyes.
Amiens was delightful to look upon, and we drove back to the hotel quite
satisfied with our first view of it.
Day by day afterwards we haunted the great Cathedral, studying it from
every viewpoint. Again and again we returned to the choir to gloat over
the one hundred and ten magnificent stalls, carved as fluently as if
modeled in clay, the forms so flowing and graceful as to suggest living
branches, pinnacle crowning pinnacle, and detail of grace of design so
exquisite as to be almost painful to follow--"Imperishable, fuller of
leafage than any forest, and fuller of story than any book." (Ruskin.)
The outside wall of the choir was quite concealed by the most richly
Flamboyant Gothic archwork. In these arches were quantities of figures
of saints, all emblazoned with gold and crimson and blue. These groups
have been described by Lubke so well that I can do no better than quote
him: "St. John is shown when he sees Christ and points him out to the
multitude; then St. John preaching in the wilderness, and the Baptism
of Christ, which is arranged with peculiar beauty and simplicity; lastly
St. John as a preacher of repentance when the listening multitude is
depicted with life. Then there are four scenes: the Apprehension of St.
John; the Banquet, at which Herodias asks for the head of the Preacher
of Repentance--a scene executed with genre-like style, the figures
appearing in the costume of the period; the 'Beheading of St. John';
and, lastly, another banquet scene, in which the severed head appears on
the table, and Herodias puts out the eyes, at which her daughter sinks
in a swoon, and is caught up by a young man, while a page in horror runs
away with the dish. Below these larger representations, in the one case
in ten, in the other in five medallions, scenes from the youth of
St. John are depicted. The relief is more shallow, and with simple
arrangement is very attractive in expression."
The great blazing rose windows of the transept were named "Fire" and
"Water," but which was which we never quite discovered, because of a
difference of opinion held by those whom we questioned, but this did
not in the least affect our opinion of their great artistic value, or
interfere with our admiration.
In the south transept we readily found the gravestone in memory of the
Spanish Captain Hernando Tiello, who captured Amiens in 1597, and just
opposite, the great stone sarcophagus of the Canon Claude Pierre, who
must have been a canon of great importance, to have been so favored and
placed. In the Chapel of Notre Dame de Puy were a great number of marble
tablets emblazoned with the names of the Fraternity of Puy, and bore
reliefs in marble, showing scenes in the life of the Virgin Mary. Here
there was much intricate Flamboyant tracery framing some scenes in the
life of St. James the Great, of the sixteenth century style, presented
by Canon Guillaume Aucouteaux.
The north transept contained the fine monument of the Canon Jehan Wyts,
who died in 1523. This showed the temple at Jerusalem, in four
scenes depicting the "Sanctum," the "Atrium," the "Tabernaculum," and
"Sanctum-Sanctorum." In this transept was buried the remains of the
comic poet "Gresset," who flourished in the eighteenth century, and a
great shrine for the head of John the Baptist, said to be incased here,
and to have been brought from the Holy Land and presented with imposing
ceremonies, by the Crusader Wallon de Sarton, who was likewise Canon of
Picquigny. Singularly enough there were several other heads incased in
magnificent jeweled reliquaries which were to be seen in other churches,
notably in the south of France, and in Genoa, each one claiming, with
much documentary proof, to be the sole and only authentic head of the
Great Preacher of Repentance.
In one of the chapels in the left aisle of the nave, that of St. Saulve,
was a remarkable crucifix, which enjoyed great repute, for it was
gravely alleged to have bowed its head upon the occasion of the
installment of the sacred relics of St. Honoré.
Inside the great open porches the whole space was filled with the most
delicate fourteenth century lacework in stone. The principal one showed
on its frontal a statue of St. Michael conquering the dragon. The
fine ironwork of the doors was made in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries by natives of Amiens, whose names are forgotten. Walter Pater
("Miscellaneous Studies") says: "The builders of the church seem to have
projected no very noticeable towers; though it is conventional to regret
their absence, especially with visitors from England, where indeed
cathedral and other towers are apt to be good and really make their
mark.... The great western towers are lost in the west front, the
grandest, perhaps the earliest, of its species--three profound
sculptured portals; a double gallery above, the upper gallery carrying
colossal images of twenty-two kings of the house of Judah, ancestors
of our Lady; then the great rose; above it the Singers' Gallery, half
marking the gable of the nave, and uniting at their topmost stories the
twin, but not exactly equal or similar towers, oddly oblong in plan as
if meant to carry pyramids or spires. In most cases these early Pointed
churches are entangled, here and there, by the construction of the old
round-arched style, the heavy Norman or other, Romanesque chapel or
aisle, side by side, though in strange contrast, with the soaring new
Gothic nave or transept. But of the older manner of the round arch,
the 'plein-cintre,' Amiens has nowhere, or almost nowhere, a trace.
The Pointed style, fully pronounced, but in all the purity of its first
period, found here its completest expression."
Amiens, the ancient capital of Picardy, was one of the greatest of the
manufacturing towns of France. There were many large factories engaged
in the production of cashmere, velvet, linen, and woolens, and in the
early morning, and again at night, thousands of the employees filled the
streets of the town on their way to and from work. It was called by the
Ambiani, before it was captured by Cæsar, Samarobriva, and was their
chief town.
Christianity was introduced by St. Firmin in the year 301, which perhaps
is as far back as any one cares to go in the matter. And history farther
cautions the reader not to confound this St. Firmin with that other St.
Firmin, who was only a "Confessor" or something of the sort.
The Normans seem to have had a strong desire to put an end to the town,
for they regularly pillaged and burned it. The place was ceded to the
Duke of Burgundy in 1435, but was recovered in 1463 by Louis XI. The
Spaniards conquered it in 1597, but Henry IV retook it from them. The
Peace of Amiens between France, Great Britain, Spain and Holland was
signed here in 1802.
The battle of Amiens, in the Franco-Prussian War, resulted in the entry
of the Germans in November, 1870. Its present fate is problematical,
but it would seem, in view of the retirement of the invader northward of
Arras and Lens, that the great and noble monuments of the ancient town
are now safe.
Heinrich Heine long ago wrote the following prophetic words:
"Christianity--and this is its highest merit--has in some degree
softened, but it could not destroy, the brutal German joy of battle.
When once the taming talisman, the Cross, breaks in two, the savagery
of the old fighters, the senseless Berserker fury, of which the Northern
poets sing and say so much, will gush up anew. That talisman is decayed,
and the day will come when it will piteously collapse. Then the old
stone gods will rise from the silent ruins, and rub the dust of a
thousand years from their eyes. Thor, with his giant's hammer, will at
last spring up, and shatter to bits the Gothic Cathedrals."