|INSTEAD of being in appearance "a most venerable and aged town," as one
might be led to expect from the accounts in the various guides, Rheims,
or Reims (so variously spelled) was (1910) nothing of the sort. Situated
on the right bank of the river Vesle in the midst of a vast plain
encompassed by vine-clad hills, a most ideal setting, it was the busy
and chief center of the champagne trade, and also otherwise occupied in
the manufacture of both woolen and other fabrics. Until recently one
of the most picturesque towns in France, it was intersected by wide
and handsome streets reminding one of the Parisian boulevards,
which although convenient gave it quite another character. And this
"Haussmanization" (if one may so style it) did away with its former
quaint mediævalness.
Formerly there was an ideally artistic approach to the great cathedral
of "Notre Dame," in a quaint narrow street lined with strangely
gabled houses and small shops shown in my sketch, but these have
been demolished, and a wide straight street, lined with characterless
buildings, now forms a very commonplace frame to hold one's first
view of this noble and magnificent structure, the master work of the
architects Rob. de Coucy and J. d'Orbais, which Fergusson justly names
and qualifies as "perhaps the most beautiful structure produced in
the middle ages." Far down this commonplace street one could see the
exquisite recessed portals (there are three), with its rows of saints,
surmounted by the great rose window, nearly forty feet in circumference,
and above the forty-two exquisite lancets, each containing a colossal
figure representing the Baptism of Clovis, and the Kings of France.
All detail softened by distance, like unto carved tracery upon a jewel
casket.
The three portals, so exquisitely recessed, were adorned with some
five hundred and fifty statues of various sizes, some of them of great
antiquity, and many of them on close inspection proving to be much worn
by the action of the elements, or having suffered mutilation in the
wars.
Without entering into a tiresome architectural description, which would
be out of place in these pages, one may call attention to some of the
remarkable details of the façade above the three portals pierced by
large windows, which was so lavishly decorated with sculpture; to the
left, Christ in the garb of a pilgrim; to the right, the Virgin, and the
Apostles, David and Saul; and Goliath.