district Chartres was once the capital, the spires of Chartres are
visible. The river and the hill constitute at Chartres the basis of its
strength in long-forgotten warfare; its walls in piping times of peace
have been leveled into leafy boulevards, but it may still be entered
through one of the antique gates that survive as memorials of its
former fortifications.
The cathedral itself is one of that group to which belong Amiens,
Rheims, Bourges and Notre Dame de Paris. It is noted for its size,
magnificence and completeness, and contains in itself, from its crypt
to its highest stone, an exemplification of architectural history in
France from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries. We may suppose
that Christianity was first published in the Beauce province by the
same apostles, Savinienus and Potentienius, who had evangelized Sens
and the Senones. Their disciple, Aventin (Aventinus), is recognized as
the first Bishop of Chartres, and as the builder of the first cathedral
which stood on the site of the present building....
The naves, the north and south transept portals, and the choir belong
to the thirteenth century, the north tower to the fifteenth, and the
magnificent jubé, or screen, which runs round the choir, is evidently
sixteenth century style, being an example of that Renaissance
employment of Gothic details, of which we find such glorious
counterparts at Rouen and Albi. The western façade of Chartres is plain
in comparison with those of Amiens or Rheims. The voussures of the
three central portals are comparatively shallow. Above them are three
lancet windows which resemble windows of the Early English Style. The
rose-window, beneath which the lancets are placed, is of great
dimensions and effective tracery. The highest story of the front
between the towers is screened by a rich arcade, over which rises the
gable point.
This arcade, or gallery, is intended to break the abruptness with which
the pointed roof rises between the two spires. These spires are
different in design, the southern tower being much earlier than that at
the north. The southern spire, in its austere simplicity and exquisite
proportions, is certainly the finest I have seen in France, and can
only be paralleled elsewhere by that which rises like a flower-bud
almost ready to burst over Salisbury plain. The northern tower is very
much more elaborate, and reminded me of those examples with which the
traveler becomes so familiar in the many churches of Rouen. The richly
crocketed gables, the flying buttresses and pinnacles which run half
way up this spire, while they adorn it, seem to stunt the profile and
rob it of its towering altitude, just as is the case with the western
spires of St. Ouen. Yet this northern tower is considerably higher than
the ancient one at the south, being 374 feet high, while the more
ancient spire is only 348. The other dimensions of the church are as
follows: It is 420 feet long; 110 feet wide; its height from ceiling
vault to pavement is 115 feet. The modern tower was built by Louis XII.
in 1514, the architect being an inhabitant of Beauce, a certain Jean
Texier.
The carvings in the west front of the cathedral are examples of the
beginning of French sculpture, as it emerges from the severity and
rigidity of Byzantine types. The human figures are long, slender, and
swathed almost like mummies in their drapery. The faces are strongly
individualized and seem to be portraits. While these statues must be
attributed to a period previous to the middle of the twelfth century,
we see in them the originality of French genius struggling to break
away from the fetters of Eastern precedent.
Viollet-de-Duc thinks that these faces belong to the type of the
ancient Gaul; the flat forehead and raised arch of the eyebrows, the
projecting eyes, the long jaws, the peaked and drooping nose, the long
upper lip, the wide, closed mouth, the square chin, the long wavy hair
are neither German, Roman, or French. There is a blending of firmness,
grandeur and refinement in these wonderful countenances, each of them
apparently copied from a different model. They are crowned and nimbused
as the kings and saints of antique France. A more impressive gallery of
illustrious personages is nowhere else to be found.
Rheims
By Epiphanius Wilson
[Footnote: From "The Cathedrals of France." By permission of the
author. Copyright, 1900.]
French cathedrals have, as it were, a royal character, and this is
emphasized especially in the history and architecture of Rheims
cathedral, which became, from the time of Philippe Auguste, the church
at whose altar the kings of France were crowned.
The origin of the Church at Rheims dates from the third century; when
we are told Pope Fabian sent into Gaul a band of bishops and teachers.
Rheims was chosen as the seat of an episcopal primacy, and it was in
the church built by St. Nicaise, or Nicasius, in 401, that Clovis was
baptized and crowned in 496. This ancient building, doubtless of simple
Roman proportions, was rebuilt in the reign of Louis the Debonair in
822, when Ebon was archbishop.
It was completed with a magnificence which vied with the churches of
Constantinople, Ravenna and Rome. It was considered in its day the most
splendid church in France. Its roof and walls blazed with gilding and
many-tinted paintings. Its floors were of marble mosaic. Rich
tapestries hung round the choir, and its treasury was filled with
masterpieces of the goldsmith and the jeweler. This church continued to
be the wonder of Gallic Christianity until the beginning of the
thirteenth century, when it was destroyed by fire. It is remarkable to
notice in the history of French cathedrals how many of them were
rebuilt just at the time when the pointed style, which may be called
preeminently the Christian style of architecture, had come to birth
almost simultaneously in various countries of Europe.
We are obliged to come to the conclusion that the pointed arch was
introduced in Germany, France and England by the Crusaders, who had
seen it used in the East, and had considered it best fitted for
buildings that enshrined the sublime mysteries of the Christian faith.
It was in the pointed style, therefore, that the new cathedral of
Rheims was built. The name of its architect is not known, but his plan
shows that he must have been a man of profound genius. Archbishop
Alberic Humbert laid the foundation stone in 1212. The whole province
contributed liberally to the work, and in 1242 the building was
sufficiently advanced for the celebration of divine service in the
choir.
The Church of Notre Dame of Rheims would require a volume to describe
it completely. The front is perhaps the most elaborate to be found in
France. The three vast portals, peopled with statues of colossal size,
their arched vaulting covered with saintly and angelic figures, the
mighty rose-windows, flanked with pointed openings, crowned with carved
tabernacle work, and the great gallery of kings crossing the whole
front, just below the peak of the gable, and above all, the two towers
pierced by majestic windows and supported at each corner by niches with
three open faces, give an impression of richness and brightness and
grace, mingled with that indefinable majesty, which is due partly to
the vast dimensions, partly to the harmonious proportions of the whole
structure.
The divisions of the front façade resemble somewhat the same part of
the edifice at Amiens, excepting that it is far more florid, and less
strict and severe in its main divisions. At Amiens the details are kept
in strictest subservience to the structural lines of the edifice. At
Rheims it is the magnificent wealth of details that crowds upon the
view, the walls and arches are surcharged with statues, with niches,
with brackets, pinnacles, tracery, foliage, finials and turrets. The
sides of the entrances of the three portals are crowded with colossal
statues, thirty-nine in number, representing patriarchs, prophets,
kings, bishops, virgins and martyrs. On the trumeau of the central gate
is a fine statue of the Virgin Mary; on the sides of this trumeau are
bas-reliefs representing the Fall of Man, of whose restoration Mary
should be the instrument.
It is quite characteristic of a medieval church that we should find, on
the lintels and side-posts of these doorways, emblems of agricultural
work in the various seasons of the year, as well as different symbols
of arts and handicrafts. Amid the carvings of these doorways are the
heroes and saints of the Old Testament, types and forerunners of the
Messiah, as well as historic scenes, representing the Redemption of the
World, the Conversion of the Gentiles, the Resurrection of the Dead,
the Last Judgment, the Condemnation of the Wicked, the Reception of the
Just into the habitations of the blest. Finally, the Assumption and
Coronation of the Blessed Virgin sums up, with an imaginative legend,
this series of Christian dogma perpetuated in stone.
But the medieval genius is many-sided, and never satisfied with that
which is beautiful alone; and this magnificent array of Christian
carving would not be complete to the mind of the medieval artist unless
he had crowned the angles of his buildings with a series of grotesque
gargoyles and allegoric statues, representing the streams that watered
the earthly paradise, while at the summit of the roof are niched angles
bearing instruments of music. As the rose is a peculiarity of Gothic
churches, and from its remarkable shape gives ample room for sculpture
in stone, and color in glass, so the rose at Rheims is among the most
beautiful examples of the kind, and illustrates the principle that the
rose is intended to light up high, remote and shadowy spaces in a long
nave or aisle.
Above the great rose-window is a pointed arch in whose voussures are
ten statues, relating the history of David, while over this arch runs a
band of niches, forty-two in number, in which are colossal statues of
the kings of France from Clovis to Charles VI.
The two portals of the transepts are richly decorated in harmony with
the style of the western façade. A graceful spire rises from the
eastern part of the roof. It is called "The Angel's spire," from the
fact that poised upon its summit is an angel covered with gilt and
holding aloft a cross. This turret rises 59 feet above the roof of the
church. The church itself is 486 feet in length, and from the vaulting
of the roof to the pavement is 125 feet. The towers are 272 feet high.
I noticed the church is built in the form of a cross, but the transept
is very close to the apse, so that the choir being too confined for the
great ceremonies, such as that of royal coronations, which used to take
place there, has been extended westward across the transept so as to
take up three bays of the nave.
There are seven chapels at the east of the church, but none are found
in the naves. The plainness of the nave, in comparison with the ornate
character of the exterior, is very remarkable, but this plainness
detracts nothing from the impressiveness of its long arcades, its
towering roof, the noble lines which rise from the ground and support,
as it were, on slender sinews of stone, the shadowy ceiling. The
rose-windows, four in number, are filled with glass of the thirteenth
century, and the tall windows of the chevet and clerestory contain a
many colored mosaic of a similar sort. I was particularly struck with
the rose-window over the western portal. It represents the Beautiful
Vision; the Eternal Father is throned in the central ring of the
window, and in the radiating panes is the Hierarchy of Paradise, angels
and archangels and all the company of Heaven, while in a wider
circumference are grouped the redeemed, contemplating in adoration the
majesty of God.
I noticed two very interesting tombs in Rheims cathedral. The first was
the sarcophagus of Jovinus, the Christian prefect of Rheims, in the
fourth century, who protected the church and was originally buried in
the Abbey of St. Nicaise, from whence his tomb was brought to the
cathedral. It consists of a single block of snowy marble, nine feet
long, and four feet high, on which the consular general is represented
in a spirited bas-relief mounted on horseback and saving the life of a
man from the lion, in whose flank Jovinus has launched his spear. Very
fine indeed is the workmanship of this monument. The figures which
surround Jovinus are men of handsome countenance, evidently portraits,
their dress and arms being finished with the utmost nicety of detail.
The figures are about half life-size.
The other tomb is that of St. Remigius, a Renaissance work erected by
Cardinal Delenoncourt in 1533. It is sumptuous and gaudy rather than
beautiful. Twelve statues, full life-size, represent the twelve peers
of France, six are the prelates of Rheims, Laon, Langres, Beauvais,
Chalons, and Noyon; the six lay peers are the dukes of Burgundy,
Normandy and Aquitaine, and the counts of Flanders, Champagne, and
Toulouse. The white marble of these somewhat stagey figures is
beautifully worked and the effect is imposing.
The western wall of the interior is faced with niches, in which the
statues seem to emerge from a cloud of gloom. At one time tombs of the
most magnificent sort crowded the aisles, enshrining the relics of
saints and bishops, but during the raging of the Terror the
Revolutionists violated these tombs, seizing their treasures, breaking
down with ax and hammer their carvings. But, after all, the church of
Notre Dame of Rheims does not seem to have suffered very much loss from
the clearing away of these obstructions to the vista of her arcades,
which now depend for their solemn beauty upon the simplicity and
dignity of their lines and proportions, the effect of their windows,
and the religious gloom which lingers in their lofty recesses.