Chapter II: Part 2

Soissons was laid out on a plan which recalls the plan of Noyon. Its south transept, as at Noyon, dating from the end of the twelfth century, is rounded and flanked by a circular chapel. Although it is doubtful whether the Cathedral of Soissons was built in the latter part of the twelfth century, or only commenced at that time, it is certain that the nave and choir have the distinct appearance of thirteenth-century design. During this period, however, a kind of uncertainty existed in the planning of the religious edifices. These were constructed on a vast scale, and emancipated themselves from the restricted Romanesque design in obedience to the religious movement which declared itself during the reigns of Louis le Jeune and Philippe Auguste, but the _cathedral_ type had not yet been created. The requirements of the nascent ceremonial were not yet fulfilled.

The once magnificent and now ruined Abbey of St. Jean des Vignes is situated on the hill facing the entrance to the town from the station. The west end only remains, surmounted by two towers with spires. “These are a great ornament to the town, and were spared at the entreaty of the citizens when the ruthless democrats destroyed the rest. The towers and the portal are probably of the thirteenth century, the spires more modern.” They were much damaged in the Franco-Prussian war, when the town was bombarded.

Chapter Four

ROUEN

Rouen is a town with two faces, ancient and modern, and the face which it apparently considers the most becoming is the modern one. The ancient, historic face, which the town wore when Joan of Arc rode through, is hidden away as though it were out of fashion, and it is to be found, not in the broad streets, but in lanes, courts and alleys, where the way grows narrow and the houses meet overhead. Rouen, the _chef-lieu_ of a department and fourth on the list of French ports, finds more important business on hand than dreaming itself back into the past, and, sacrificing the old life to the new, or, rather, building up a new life round the old, has made of itself a busy, thriving commercial town on the banks of that river up which the beak-headed ships of Rolf the Ganger sailed a thousand years ago to destroy and to conquer. But the town’s history is only put aside, not forgotten; indeed, there is too much of it to forget. The records of Rouen go back before the Roman era in Gaul; the Romans found it as Ratuma or Ratumacos, and then, Romanising the name, as they did everything else, made it into Rotomagus. Even in these early days it was a capital city, the headquarters of the Veliocassian tribe, though not of primary importance. Later, by the end of the third century A. D., we find it the chief city of the province Lugdunensis Secunda, and presently an archiepiscopal see, with an archbishop (now of course a saint) to guide it in matters spiritual.

Saint Mellon and his successors made a goodly record for about five centuries. They were a thoroughgoing race, these early bishops of Rouen, with the zeal of the Christian Fathers fresh upon them, and their very names have a strong, vigorous sound: Avitian, Victrix, Godard, Prétextat, Romain, Ouen, of whom the memory yet remains to Rouen in the names of church, street and tower. After this long line of bishops came a bad time for Rouen. These were the days when the lands to the south-west seemed good and pleasant to the Vikings, the fierce Northmen who in after days were to give their names to Normandy. England had already been over-run with them; first by Jutes and Saxons, then by the fiercer Danes, who in their turn pushed out the Saxons. Only a few miles south of England was another land just as fair, with a river easily navigable even to the great Northern ships, and thriving towns, rich and full of booty for Northern plunderers. Rouen, peaceful and prosperous, was yet dangerously near the sea, and the year 841 saw the dreaded prow of Oger the Dane coming slowly up the Seine, scattering to right and left all lesser craft, while the terrible war song, which England already knew and feared, rose and fell upon the wind. This was only the beginning. Long fiery years followed, years of ravages, bloodshed and burning, when human laws were in abeyance and the only rule was that of might. Thirty-five years after Oger’s invasion came the famous Rolf the Ganger, who laid waste the land anew, until, in 912, Charles the Simple was forced to treat with him at Saint Clair-sur-Epte and to cede to him the duchy of Neustria or Normandy. Rolf then embraced Christianity, and, with the land in his possession, seemed determined to show the despised Franks how a Northman could govern. In point of fact the dukedom, as handed over by Charles, was practically represented by Rouen alone; that is, Rouen apart from the Bessin and the Côtentin, and all the adjacent lands which we now include under the name of Normandy. Further, it did not really belong to Charles. Neustria was part of the great duchy of Paris, and the cession of it to Rolf cut off Paris from all access to the sea. But that Duke Robert had the sense to hold his tongue, probably from fear of losing Paris as well, there might have been serious results. As it was, Northern France fell into three divisions--the royal city of Lâon, the duchy of Paris, and the settlement of Rolf at Rouen. In these three cities centres most of the subsequent history of Normandy.

As for what Rolf actually did for Rouen, that remains to be seen rather from the after state of affairs. “The founder of the Rouen colony,” Freeman says, “is a great man who must be content to be judged in the main by the results of his actions.” Rolf is not in the least a vague or shadowy personality, but it is noticeable how he has grown to us out of a great tangle of myths and very little fact. All we have to go upon is the not very authentic Roman de Rou, a few Norse legends, and sundry brief allusions by later French writers, who class him, together with all the Rouennais, under the contemptuous term Pirate. It was a well-ordered, strong, self-dependent colony that he handed down to the long line of his successors. These carried on bravely the traditions of their founder and brought up a hardy race of fighters, although Rouen itself was never thoroughly Teutonic, never at least since the very early days of Rolf’s colony. The religion, the language, and many of the customs of the French at Lâon were grafted on to the Northmen of Rouen by their leader, and thus the town stood as much apart from the rest of Neustria as from the Franks themselves. After the death of Rolf and of his successor, William Longsword, Louis from beyond Sea, of the race of Charlemagne, ruled at Lâon, and cast envious eyes on Normandy, even occupying Rouen for some time during the minority of Richard the Fearless. But although Rouen was ultimately to become a town of France, the time was not yet, and for the present her destiny was averted by an outsider--Harold, King of Denmark, curiously surnamed Blue-tooth. He determined to resist the encroachments of Louis, and finally made him prisoner in the city where he had hoped to establish another capital.

The Norman dukes only deteriorated as rulers when they joined to their domain the crown of England, won by the hardiest and strongest of them all. We remember the passionate, self-willed Robert, son of the Conqueror, and John, called Lackland, that disgrace to the English throne, the worst and likewise the last Norman duke, for the French king, Philippe Auguste, confiscated Normandy, together with other English possessions, and joined it to the crown of France, taking possession of Rouen after a siege in 1204. From this point the history of Rouen becomes the history of a French and not of a Norman town. As a reward for its submission, Philippe Auguste presented the town with a castle, of which one tower (the Tour Jeanne d’Arc) alone remains standing. Two centuries later, Rouen was in danger from the English. Henry V., during his brilliant campaign in northern France, was not likely to leave to itself such an important place. In 1419 he set up his cannon outside the walls, and proceeded to blockade the town, which opened its gates to him after a six months’ siege. Here he also built a castle, which, in the hopefulness born of youth and victory, he intended to use as a royal residence when all France should be at rest under his firm rule. But before the conquest was completed, before he had time to think about any residence other than his camp, came that last fatal sickness at Vincennes, and the castle, which seemed, like all his victories, so sure and so lasting, has been swept off the face of the earth. The years after Henry’s death, however, were significant ones for Rouen, now in English hands, and in 1431 we come to the great point in its history, the trial and burning of Joan of Arc in the market-place.

Captured near Compiègne, Joan had been sent to Rouen by the bishop of Beauvais. This was in March. The girl was examined fifteen or sixteen times, a wearying repetition of question and answer, often going round and round in a circle and never advancing any further. Joan’s replies were simple but firm. She persisted in her divine mission, and when asked whether she was in a state of grace or of sin replied, “If I am not in a state of grace, I hope God will make me so. How can I be in much sin while the saints will visit me?” In May matters were delayed by her illness, which was so serious that it seemed for a time as though her enemies were to be defeated by death; but on her recovery learned doctors were sent to her in prison to persuade her of her wrong attitude of mind. Later came a warning from Cauchon, the bishop of Beauvais, to the effect that he was about to have her brought forth and made the object of a public sermon, after which, if she would recant, her safety would be assured. Worn out with her trials, the poor girl declared her submission and signed a recantation, for she saw that the end could not but come soon. A penance of perpetual imprisonment was then imposed upon her, and she submitted passively to the injunctions laid upon her; but at her final abjuration she seemed to be overcome by a sudden access of penitence towards the saints, and resumed her old attitude of determination, declaring that all she had said in submission was said in fear of being burned at the stake, of which she had a very natural horror. After this her fate was sealed. Cauchon handed her over to the secular arm, and a few hours later she was led to the stake in the old market-place. It is needless to dwell upon this last scene, because it is one of the stock dramatic occurrences in our history books, which nearly always represent Joan of Arc as suffering trial, torment and death, for the sake of her country with almost unnatural fortitude; but, on the other hand, the more one reads about her, the more clear it becomes that the heroism of the Maid of Orléans, though none the less heroic, was a heroism of the simplest order, born of a pure heart, a steady, straightforward faith in her mission, and only wavering at the last from a very human and girlish horror of so infamous and dreadful a death. And as for her judges, needlessly cruel though they were, yet, as one writer points out, they were almost bound to condemn their prisoner. To try her for sorcery and to burn her as a witch seems of course to our modern eyes not merely horrible, but absurd. Cauchon and his followers, however, did not live in an enlightened age; in their day the “Black Art” was a thing to be dreaded above all others, and death seemed a light thing in comparison with the putting down the power of the Evil One. Others besides Joan of Arc, for generations before and generations after, had died at the stake for reputed practice of magic; and in the case of the Maid, “to acquit her would have been to accept her celestial mission and place her, with some modern French historians, by the side, nay, in the place, of the Messiah.” The trial and burning of Joan cannot be looked upon by the light of a modern world; they are of their time, and that time was, above all things, a superstitious one. And only after her death did France realise what the Domrémy peasant girl had done for her country. The French monarchy, as Louis XI. established it, is perhaps the best monument to her memory. After, and as some say because of, Joan’s death English prestige in Rouen began steadily to decline. Two years afterwards, in 1433, came the death of John, Duke of Bedford, brother of Henry V., perhaps the only man left with anything of Henry’s strength and singleness of purpose. Rouen held out against two attempts at recapture on the part of Charles VII., but in 1449 Somerset was forced to capitulate to a strong expedition, and the English left the town for ever.

By the middle of the next century we find Rouen in the thick of religious troubles. In 1562 it was for six months in Huguenot hands, six months of warfare, oppression and persecution of all Romanists within the walls, with worse to follow; for when the Royalists recaptured the town they repaid the Huguenots in their own coin, and revenged the Catholic massacres with a terrible revenge. After this the Army of the League held Rouen until, in 1596, Henry IV. of France effected an entrance into the town.

Nowadays the first view of Rouen is a smoky, dreary little station, surrounded by _cochers_ and porters in linen blouses; but Arthur Young, an agriculturist of the eighteenth century, visited the old city during his travels, before the days of the “iron way,” and he was more fortunate in what he saw from his _diligence_: “The first view of Rouen is sudden and striking; but the road doubling, in order to turn more gently down the hill, presents from an elbow the finest view of a town I have ever seen; the whole city, with all its churches and convents, and its cathedral proudly rising in the midst, fills the vale. The river presents one reach crossed by the bridge, and then, dividing into two fine channels, forms a large island covered with wood; the rest of the vale, full of verdure and cultivation, of gardens and habitations, finish the scene, in perfect unison with the great city that forms the capital feature.” To get this view to-day one must climb the long, dusty hill to the convent of Bon Secours, or rather, half-way only, since the city, river and meadows, show their beauties just as well from a lower point, and the modern convent and church upon the hilltop are not worth a further climb.

From the main street of the town the Cathedral is reached by the Rue de la Grosse Horloge, which leads underneath the archway of the belfry. The Tour St. Romain rises at the end of the street like a tall white guide, and here, suddenly, we find ourselves face to face with the west façade of Notre Dame. The remark made by an American traveller, that he found Rome very much out of repair, is appropriate to many of the French cathedrals. Scheduled as historic monuments, they receive annually a dole from the Government towards maintenance and restoration, but so miserable is this contribution, and so inadequate to the possibility of early completion of the work, that a generation may pass away before the scaffolding is finally removed. The west portal of Rouen is half covered by a forest of timbering. Rheims suffers even more, and the same may be said for Notre Dame at Evreux, St. Urbain at Troyes, and many other cathedrals. Such glimpses, however, as we get of the west front of Rouen show us its glory. Ruskin writing of it says: “It is the most exquisite piece of pure Flamboyant work existing. There is not one cusp, one finial, that is useless, not a stroke of the chisel is in vain; the grace and luxuriance of it all are visible--sensible, rather, even to the uninquiring eye; and all its minuteness does not diminish the majesty, while it increases the mystery of the noble and unbroken vault.”

Of the origin of this Flamboyant style a distinguished French writer, M. Enlart, in a paper lately read before the Archæological Institute of Great Britain, has asserted that it is to be found not in France, but in England; and specialising the west front of Rouen, he further states that, in the arrangement of its large bay enclosing the rose window and flanked by tiers of statues, it recalls absolutely the façades, earlier in date, of the cathedrals of Wells, Salisbury and Lichfield.

With one or two exceptions, viz., St. Urbain at Troyes and a chapel in Amiens Cathedral, the Flamboyant style did not appear in France until the last quarter of the fourteenth century, and when it had once taken root, it maintained its integrity until the Renaissance, having the same characteristics from one end of the country to the other. It was not the evolution of any previous French style, but it derived its origin, as above stated, from a style which existed in England a century before. Roughly speaking, the features which distinguish the Flamboyant are, first, the ogee arch which is typical of the style, then special systems of vaulting, and flowing tracery of windows, forms of arches, “anse de panier,” &c., arch mouldings dying into piers without impost or capital, and generally a love of vegetal and undulating decoration. This “decorative caprice” reigned in France in the fifteenth century at a time when the Perpendicular style became universal in England and had completely driven out the ogee arch.

The occupation of the greater part of France by the English in the Hundred Years’ War would naturally result in an English influence being noticeable in its buildings, the contact of nations producing an exchange of art as of commerce. The Flamboyant may therefore be said to be the by-product of the Hundred Years’ War.

There is documentary evidence that both at Rouen and at Evreux the foreign occupation did not interfere with the work going on at the cathedrals; indeed, at Rouen, two canons of York were received with the greatest courtesy by the chapter, and contributions were made by the English towards the completion of the Cathedral. The domination of the English was no hindrance to the progress of art in France, and as soon as the latter had freed itself and realised its national unity, its architects applied themselves heart and soul to the development of this style which was “borrowed from the enemy.”

A long list can be made of buildings where the ogee arch and other typical features obtained in England, from the end of the thirteenth to the latter part of the fourteenth century, during which time no parallels existed in France. One of the most ancient examples is Queen Eleanor’s Cross at Northampton (1291-1294), where Flamboyant features show themselves.

The tomb of William de la Merche at Wells (1302), Aymer de Valence at Westminster (1323), and many other early fourteenth-century examples, furnished by almost every cathedral, testify to the prevalence of the passion for the ogee motive of decoration. These are given in detail by M. Enlart as irrefragable proofs of the English origin of the Flamboyant style.

The interior of the Cathedral of Rouen is considered by Mr. Bond to be curiously Romanesque in plan. Its nave bays are four-storied, an upper and lower pier arch with small triforium and clerestory. The upper pier arch might also be regarded as a triforium, for a passage-way runs along the sill of the arch and is continued behind the main piers on an elegant group of shafted corbels. These were originally intended to support a vault of a lower aisle. The east end is more dignified and has simpler factors, clerestory, triforium and pier arch. The glass is magnificent, dating from the thirteenth century.

South of the Cathedral a narrow street leads eventually to the river by way of the _halles_, the Place Haute-Vieille-Tour and its sister of the Basse-Vieille-Tour. The first square is a large open place, fenced round with solid stone buildings, and having on its south side the Chapelle de la Fierte Saint-Romain. With this monument, on which a flight of steps leads up to a Renaissance chapel of six stages, is connected a curious _privilège_ and legend, both of which have of course been recorded before, but which are interesting enough to bear repetition. The charter for this privilege was accorded to the chapter of Rouen Cathedral by King Dagobert--he who founded the Abbey of Saint Denis. Each year, on Ascension Day, the archbishop was empowered to release a man condemned to death; and therefore every Ascension Day the good folk of Rouen flocked into the streets to watch the procession of the Fierte Saint-Romain. First came the solemn visit of the arm of the Church to the arm of the Law, with the annual formal proclamation of the privilege. Then every prison in the city must be searched, and every prisoner put on oath and examined as to the cause of his imprisonment. Finally the election of the favoured prisoner was put to the vote by the chapter, his name sent to the Palais de Justice, and the paper duly signed and sealed, after which the “messe du prisonnier” was celebrated in the Salle des Pas-Perdus; and finally, the prisoner himself was called before his lords, secular and spiritual, and formally examined; he then confessed to the chaplain of Saint-Romain, his fetters were removed, and he followed the archbishop to the Place Haute-Vieille-Tour, where, in the Chapelle de la Fierte, a solemn service made him once more a free man. A solemn and magnificent procession then bore him, crowned with flowers, to the great thanksgiving Mass, after which he was free to go whither he would. No less curious is the legend connected with the ceremony. It is said that while Romain was bishop of Rouen a terrible dragon laid waste all the land and devoured the inhabitants.

No one dared to approach this monster, who was known as the Gargoyle, until Saint Romain, armed only with his sanctity, set out to subdue it, accompanied by a condemned criminal--the prototype of those who were released on Holy Thursday--when the Gargoyle at once submitted and, with the episcopal stole round its neck, was led by the prisoner to the water’s edge. The sequel does not reflect much credit upon the bishop--at least, it seems rather of the nature of meanness to conjure the beast into good nature and then to push it, all unawares, into the river to drown. At the head of the Portail de la Calende, the north porch of the Cathedral, stands the figure of Saint Romain, and under his feet, with the stole round its neck, is the Gargoyle, craning its head round to look into the face of the bishop with the expression of a very hideous but very faithful dog--a most disarming expression if it be meant to represent that worn by the Gargoyle before it was sent to its death! In memory of this occurrence, the standard of the dragon was borne in the processions at the _privilège_--banners similar to those of the dragons at Bayeux and Salisbury. The legend, however, appears to be of later date than the festival, which is mentioned certainly as early as the twelfth century, and continued to delight the Rouennais as late as 1790.

The Abbey Church of St. Ouen is placed at the head of the collegiate churches of France so far as its beauty and perfection of architecture is concerned. In its proportion of nave, transepts and choir it is considered to outshine Cologne, its great rival and contemporary. The vast area of clerestory and glazed triforium recalls the interior arrangement of Amiens. The triforium passage is worked between the lower mullions of the windows, which are duplicated; but, as is pointed out by Mr. Bond, care was taken that the inner and the outer tracery of the windows should be different in pattern. Freeman says: “St. Ouen goes further to unite the two forms of excellence”--external outline and internal height--“than any other church, French or English,” and states that “St. Ouen is the loftiest church in the world that has a real central tower.”

This central lantern is, according to Ferguson, a very noble feature and appropriate to its position; unhappily it does not enjoy the admiration of all writers: Ruskin condemns the false buttresses of the tower, which he describes as merely a hollow crown, and declares that it needs no more buttressing than does a basket.

The third church of Rouen is that of St. Maclou. Its most noticeable feature is the west end, which terminates in a very beautiful porch of pentagonal form, and might be taken as another example of the rich Flamboyant ornament seen in the western façade of the Cathedral. The church itself is a complete specimen of its period, and dates from the latter half of the fifteenth century.

On the north side of the church, in the Rue Martainville, is the Aître de St. Maclou, an old parish cemetery of the fifteenth century. There is a small quadrangle, an old disused stone well with an iron crucifix in the centre, and round all runs a cloister with two low stories, timbered in black and white, with the famous “Danse Macabre” carved on the lower beams. It is now used as a school for the poor children of Rouen, and on working days is full of life--the life of a growing generation going on side by side with the relics of a dead and half-forgotten past, for the quaint seriousness of an old fifteenth-century builder has traced upon the lintel a constant reminder of death and the grave--skulls, bones, spades, and here and there a grim skeleton Death bearing away a human figure in his arms. Many of the most beautiful figures are headless, not from the ravages of a symbolic Death, but from those of a very real and equally unsparing hand--the hand of the Revolution.

During the Franco-Prussian War Rouen had unhappily to record its own chapter of reverses, when the French determined to dislodge Manteuffel. Faidherbe’s army, together with the army of the Havre and General Roy’s army of the South, had planned out an admirable scheme, which, however, was lacking in one essential, actual execution. Manteuffel was to be routed and driven out of Rouen. The Prussians were equally confident of success, and it is said that Manteuffel ordered his train to take him to Amiens to be ready next day at twelve o’clock, by which time he felt sure that he would have disposed of the enemy.

“The battle began before daylight, the pursuit lasted until after dark and was resumed on the following morning; but the victory was virtually gained when the first blow was struck, or, rather, the first shot fired. Here and there, on the road along which they were driven, or on the wooded heights by which the road is in many places commanded, they made a desperate resistance, but it was throughout a question, in regard to the French, of the rate of retreat, never a question of retreat and advance.”

Chapter Five

EVREUX AND LISIEUX

We left Rouen by a “quick” train, that is, one which occupied itself in stopping at every wayside station that caught its fancy. However, this mattered little, as the road to Evreux runs through the most enchanting country, and we had plenty of time to admire it. Wonderful woods stretch over the slope of the hills and widen out into valleys scattered with old timbered farm-houses, and here and there a château, seen amongst the trees of its _propriété_; little poplar-shaded rivers run through the fields, decked in holiday garlands of loosestrife and meadowsweet and unmolested by any eager _pêcheur_, whether boy with string and bent pin, or more “compleat angler” with rod and line. The Seine, divested of barge and steam tug, greets one by glimpses now and then; and after leaving the tunnel before Elbœuf, it bursts suddenly into view--a wide sweep of river, with the busy little town by its side. Then the valley closes in all at once, and we run under the shadow of chalk cliffs with steep scarped faces and deep caverns, into whose blackness we may almost peer from the carriage window. Lastly comes a run up on to high ground again; and there below, shut in by hills, with three towers rising from its low roofs, is Evreux. The railway takes a great curve from one side of the town to the other before running into the station, so that the place passes in review before one; and it is an impressive review, seen as we first saw it, in the light of a summer sundown, a purple haze, “mystic, wonderful,” hanging like a veil over the little town.

Besides the Cathedral and the bishop’s palace, Evreux possesses little that strikes one as being either very old or very new; a cheerful, clean mediocrity prevails all through the town, which, nevertheless, dates back to very early times. Remains of a Roman settlement have been discovered some little distance away, at Vieil Evreux, then known as Mediolanum Aulercolum, and afterwards as Eburovices, whence is derived the modern name of Evreux. A bishopric was founded at Evreux by St. Taurin, during the great movement towards Christianity in the fourth century; later, Clovis destroyed the Roman encampment and founded a town of his own, which in its turn was burnt and pillaged by the Northmen in the ninth century. After this it probably shared the bounty of its former scourge, Duke Rolf, and became part of the Norman duchy and a Naboth’s vineyard to Count Thibaut of Chartres, who did actually take possession of it in 962, though Richard the Fearless must have reclaimed the town, as he presented the “Comté d’Evreux,” which was to pass later into the family of Montfort l’Amaury, to one of his younger sons. Henry I. set fire to Evreux for some mysterious reason, but with the full consent of the bishop, who must have had peculiar ideas on the subject of his pastoral duties; and in the reign of Cœur-de-Lion John Lackland gave it up to the French Crown, and afterwards, filled with remorse, or more probably with alarm, at the news that his brother was returning from Palestine and might demand what had become of Evreux, ordered a general massacre of the French garrison quartered there and ran away himself, leaving his wretched English subjects to bear the brunt of the French king’s wrath when the story should come to his knowledge.

After several vicissitudes of this kind, Evreux was in 1404 finally joined to the Crown of France, though it still seems to have been tossed about in the most confusing way, and we hear of it as belonging now to France, now to Navarre, then sold to the Darnley Stuarts and back again to France; and so on until Napoleon, having divorced Josephine, presented her out of his imperial bounty with a part of the Comté d’Evreux as a compensation for her trials. The modern town, however, has not at all the air of having been the plaything of kings and states. The only noticeable traces of its ancient warfare are the machicolated walls of the bishop’s palace, and the moat below, running between the palace and the Boulevard Chambaudin. The moat is now filled up by a kitchen-garden--a striking example of how peace has succeeded war in Evreux--but it is easy to imagine how it must have looked in the old days; the dark, still water, the steep walls rising up to their turrets, the treacherous machicolations, apparently ornamental but in reality only too useful, and above it all the grey towers of Notre Dame.

The interior of the Cathedral extends in date from the Romanesque to the Renaissance period. The nave bays offer examples of what is known as “skeleton construction”; they consist of a Romanesque pier arch (said to be the remaining work of Lanfranc) surmounted by a large clerestory and small glazed triforium; the clerestory wall, as Mr. Bond points out, is so shallow that it “ceases to exist _quâ_ wall.” It is in some way analogous to the choir of Gloucester in its “attenuated construction.” The lights are filled in with glass, apparently of the late fifteenth century. As Whewell says, the transepts and part of the choir are most remarkable and most ancient examples of the Flamboyant style. The choir, burnt down in 1346, was restored in the second half of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries; the transept was finished about 1450. The English took possession of the town in 1418, but this did not in any way hinder the work from being carried on. In 1422 Tchan le Boy was made _maître de l’œuvre_, and to him is attributed the Lantern Tower, springing from a beautiful vaulted base. The _vitrail_ of the Saintes Maries and its mouldings, probably designed by Le Boy, follows the English type.

Evreux is, according to Whewell, “a mixture of Flamboyant and Renaissance. The Flamboyant dies down gradually into Italian, especially in the series of wooden screens to the chapels round the choir, where every sort of mixture is noticeable.” In some of the glass and on the outside panels of the west doors the artists have attempted to show their knowledge of the newly-discovered science of perspective, but they pay little regard to the vanishing point. On the north side, the windows of the aisle, with high pediments cutting the balustrades, are very beautiful examples of the prevailing style. The western towers “are to be considered as Gothic conceptions expressed in classical phrases.”

In the far west of the town, at the end of the Rue Josephine, lies Saint Taurin, the second church of Evreux, in its quiet little square, screened by magnificent elm-trees, a square and solid-looking building, with a good deal of work that is very interesting and undoubtedly ancient. Originally the church formed part of a Benedictine Abbey founded in 1026; an ancient crypt remains, built, as purports to be the case with so many churches, round the tomb of the patron, Saint Taurin, who in the fourth century brought Christianity into the town, and whose story may be read in the fifteenth-century glass of the choir. His relics are preserved in a wonderful carved casket of the thirteenth century, which may be seen by the curious in the church treasury. In three bays of the south nave the vaulting ends in some curious stone carving in the form of grotesque heads, which belong to the sixteenth century.

“Once a cathedral, always a cathedral” was the theory which led us to Lisieux _en route_ for Bayeux. It seemed almost as absurd that the great church of St. Pierre should not be counted a cathedral as that St. Etienne and the other churches of Caen should be churches and nothing more. In this respect, indeed, Lisieux takes precedence of Caen, for until the days of the Empire she had a bishopstool of her own, while Caen never actually possessed the dignity of an episcopal see.

Lisieux is one stage further on the high road between French Normandy and Norman Normandy, and is some way over the Norman border; at Rouen, at Evreux even, we were in France, but here all around us, as at Bayeux, are signs and tokens of a land more closely akin to our own, and we feel that we have at last reached Normandy proper. Lisieux, both for its Cathedral and for itself, is full of interest. The general impression is that of a bright little place with a great deal of life--the life of shop and market--to be seen on all sides, but none of the modern commercial spirit, such as dominates a place like Rouen. There is a very mediæval air about Lisieux, and the old houses, of which there are plenty, are to be found not in out-of-the-way alleys, but in the chief streets. The Grande Rue has one magnificent specimen, now a boot-maker’s shop, opposite the Rue du Paradis; down at the bottom of the hill, in the Rue de Caen, is a house where Charlotte Corday spent the night on the way to Paris to fulfil her terrible mission, and the Rue aux Fèvres, where one seems to have walked straight into the Middle Ages, contains the “Manoir de François Ier,” a beautiful sixteenth-century house, from whose name one would at least suppose that François once spent a night there, whereas he probably never went near the place, and its chief claim to the title lies in the abundance of carved salamanders on the splendid house-front, and even these are mixed up with apes and other grotesque creatures.

The Church of St. Jacques stands almost at the top of the hill, between the Rue St. Jacques and the Marché au Beurre, where most of the straggling streets converge. It was built in the last years of the fifteenth century, and is a fairly complete specimen of the French style of that period, standing upon a long, wide flight of steps, with a balustrade running completely round the building. The floor inside follows the slope of the hill, and slants upwards from west to east.

The church contains some half-effaced frescoes on the nave pillars, and a very curious old painting on wood, representing the miraculous translation of St. Ursin’s relics to Lisieux in 1055. This picture hangs in a chapel in the south aisle, dedicated to St. Antony of Padua, not in St. Ursin’s own chapel, which is on the other side of the nave.

Lisieux looks like a town with a history, and, like most French towns, goes back to Roman times, when it was known as Noviomagus or as Lexovii, from the Gallic tribe which had settled there. Rolf obtained it as part of his Norman duchy; Geoffrey Plantagenet and Stephen of Blois fought over it and between them reduced the town to a terrible state of famine, for which Henry II. of England tried to make amends by causing his own marriage with Eleanor of Poitou to take place in the Cathedral. Thomas à Becket took refuge at Lisieux on one occasion and left behind him some vestments, which are proudly displayed in the chapel of the _Hospice_.

During the Hundred Years’ War and the religious quarrels two centuries later, Lisieux shared the fate of other towns as regards sieges and conflagrations; but after this we hear little of its history, and may assume that it emerged from its trials much as we see it now--busy and peaceful once more, with leisure to turn again to the old-world town routine which makes the Lisieux of to-day.

The interior of St. Pierre, according to Whewell, “bears a great resemblance to Early English work, although the French square abacus is still to be found here. The round abacus is noticeable in the arcades under the windows of the choir, giving quite an English look to this portion of the church.” There is at the west end a large interior porch, which is referred to by most writers on architecture. The two towers vary in their openings, one having lancet lights and the other small round-headed windows. The nave is large, consisting of eight bays, and built, it is said, about 1160. The tympana of the choir triforium arches are filled with plate tracery, quatrefoil and cusped. The most beautiful interior elevation, however, is that of the north wall of the transept. Here the three large upper lights remind one of the well-known “Five Sisters” at York. The lower double-light window is deeply recessed, with elegant clusters of engaged shafts supporting the graceful mouldings round the opening. The transept also possesses an eastern aisle, which is said to be a rarity in France.

The church itself is unfortunately situated in a corner of the _Place_, and a large building which abuts on its north-west tower detracts considerably from its beauty and importance. The south transept door opens into the Rue du Paradis--a name which one is glad to see preserved in the neighbourhood of French cathedrals. It may refer to a garden or close which has been absorbed by surrounding buildings, or to a closed-in porch, the upper stories of which have been used either as libraries, or as lodgings for chantry-priests.

Chapter Six

BAYEUX

We read of Bayeux--before going there--as a place where many went but few stayed, because of the towns behind and before; memories of Caen and Lisieux, expectations of Coutances and Saint-Lô, which dimmed the modest light of little Bayeux. It is curious, however, that this should be the case, when we remember how important was the position it held in the history of mediæval Normandy. It was the chief town of the country known as the Bessin, a district lying immediately to the west of Rolf’s duchy at Rouen, and the conquest of which was the next stage on his westward road. One interesting point here is that the inhabitants of the Bessin, even as far back as the later days of the Roman Empire, were not Celts but Saxons--men of the same race as Rolf, who took possession of Bayeux in 924, and established there a Danish settlement, which, as Freeman says, was always a thorn in the side of the Celts, and provoked many attacks from its Breton neighbours. Saxon and Dane made common cause against the enemies both to the east and to the west; and thus at Bayeux there grew up a strong Teutonic colony, without the Frankish element which, as we have seen, worked such changes at Rouen. The old Norse religion obtained here long after eastern Normandy had become Christian; and the Bayeux colony bore much more affinity to the Danish settlements in England than to that at Rouen, the nucleus of Normandy, which was hardly Norman at all, whereas, as Freeman remarks, “the acquisition of Bayeux gave Normandy all that created and preserved the genuine Norman character.” For this reason William Longsword chose that his son, Richard the Fearless, should be brought up at Bayeux rather than at Rouen--so that, living amongst his own people, he might in time come to be not only Duke of Normandy, but also Duke of the Normans.

The Bessin still preserves this ancient distinction, and both country and inhabitants bear a great resemblance to those of England. Bayeux itself is a quiet country town, built up one low hill and down another--a town of long streets and grey-shuttered houses, possessing three principal interests--the Cathedral, the Seminary Chapel and the Tapestry. It is also the birthplace of Alain Chartier, minstrel and court-poet to Charles VII., and author of that curious document, the “Curiale,” whose best praise lies in the fact that it was one of the earliest books selected for publication by Caxton. It is a brilliant and vivid picture of the court life of the time; and the story says of Maître Alain that he intended it as an answer to a letter from his brother Jean, enquiring whether he, too, could not find fame at court. Certainly it looks as if the favoured brother wished to keep to himself the good things of life, for although he paints in brilliant colours, Alain does not spare the follies and vices of court life, and one cannot help feeling that his object was to put the more obscure Jean “off the scent.”

Little is known of the circumstances either of Chartier’s birth or his death, though of his actual life several records exist. He is known to have been one of the most brilliant men of letters of his time, probably rivalled only by Charles d’Orléans, and--since a court minstrel is always a picturesque figure--he has come down to our times surrounded by a certain halo of romance. His many writings, both in prose and verse, are very little known to modern readers, though he had many disciples among the men of his own time, and his “Bréviaire des Nobles” was considered such a standard for courtly manners that it was apportioned out, so Jean de Masles tells us, into daily passages for the youth of the court--that court of which Chartier knew every turn, every corner, every glittering folly and every dark intrigue--to learn by heart. A modern statue in his native town at the end of the Rue Général de Daïs shows him in furred cap and flowing robe, a pen in one hand, and in the other a sheaf of papers from which he is apparently declaiming some gay rondel or pathetic ballad.

His house in the Rue des Bouchers is also shown, with an inscription to the effect that he was born there with his two brothers, Jean and Guillaume; but it has now become a very small and dingy shop, and one goes away with a feeling that a link with the past has been broken. But although Chartier’s house would scarcely be singled out as an ancient landmark, one or two there are in the quiet grey line of the Bayeux streets that seem to belong to a better time, a time when watchmen walked the streets by night and armed men clattered down them by day: and among these stands out the really beautiful gabled specimen at the corner of the Rue St. Martin. Here cross-timbers, black and white, tall gables and lattice windows call for our admiration on our road to the Cathedral; and nearer the great church itself is the sixteenth-century Maison du Gouverneur, and another “Maison d’Adam.” It is curious how often street and house names in France reverted in this way to our common origin. In countless places do we find Maisons d’Adam (Eve sometimes has a share in the patronage of the house), with their figures of Adam, Eve and the Serpent; sometimes, as at Rouen, a whole street bears the name of the Père Adam. It would be interesting to know if this is a cropping up of the Revolutionary _êgalité_--a wooden form of

“When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?”

If so, the idea is certainly before its time, since many of these houses and streets were built, and presumably named, when the Revolution was as yet in its cradle.

The Lanterne des Morts, a quaint structure with a quaint title, raises a perforated cone on the south-west of the Cathedral. This mediæval lamp-post had it name from the fact that it was lighted whenever a funeral procession passed through the town; and it must certainly have added to the impressiveness of the scene, especially when, as was often the case in old days, the burial took place in the dead of night, and this red glowing beacon towered above the low roofs like a great funeral torch as the chanting of the monks broke the stillness, and the sombre figures with their burden moved into the church.

Returning to the three principal attractions of Bayeux noticed above, the Cathedral--the only church of importance--falls naturally into the first place. Entering by one of the five beautiful gabled doorways, one stands on a platform above the level of the nave floor. The standpoint being thus raised, the length of the church is apparently enhanced. There is a church in Rome and another at Modena where this _coup d’œil_ is effected by the street level being some twenty or thirty steps above the nave.

The bays of the nave, especially in their lower compartments, are very remarkable. Above the twelfth-century round-headed pier arches, and reaching to the very small triforium balustrade, the whole wall face is decorated with beautiful diaper carving. This surface decoration is to be found in Westminster Abbey, but not in the same varied richness as on the walls and spandrils at Bayeux. On one of the bays the old corbels which carried the organ in the thirteenth century still remain. The clerestory windows are beautiful in proportion and constructed in double planes. The spandrils and tracery of the choir arches show examples of early plate tracery.

In the treasury one of the most interesting pieces of furniture is a large _armoire_ containing church vestments, and another example of early joinery is to be found in the fine door in the south aisle. Here huge planks, some eighteen feet in length, are fastened together by iron bands and hinges, without framework of any kind. The two western towers, together with the crypt, are said to be the only parts remaining of the old church of Odo, brother of the Conqueror.

We made two unsuccessful attempts to obtain entrance to the Seminary Chapel; but as it is said to be a very beautiful specimen of early Gothic, the short description given by Whewell may perhaps act as an incentive to other visitors, and spur them on to greater importunity than we used. He considers it to be “the most elegant and complete example of the Early English style. The details resemble those of the Temple Church in London, in the shafts, capitals, vaulting, &c. The arrangement of the east end is remarkable, uniting as it does in a considerable degree the effect of the polygonal apse and of the east windows, having diverging vaulting but with eastern lights.”

At the present day it is upon the Tapestry that Bayeux bases its chief claim to notoriety, and the first feeling is one of surprise if not of disappointment on finding that it can hardly be reckoned as tapestry at all. This impression, however, soon disappears when we come to consider the interest and importance of the work, not merely as a local but also as an historic monument. Many and fierce have been the controversies as to its origin--all the more so from the fact that it was not brought to light until (speaking relatively) within recent times, so that little can be gained from history or tradition, or, indeed, from anything beyond the internal evidence. The form of the Tapestry is well known to all visitors of Bayeux (and without going so far afield, a very accurate copy may be seen at the South Kensington Museum)--a long, narrow piece of linen, embroidered in crewel work of five different colours, setting forth the conquest of England by Duke William. In 1724 M. Lancelot found a copy of some of the scenes among the papers of the Intendant of Normandy, and concluding after a close investigation that everything pointed to the work being contemporary with the events depicted, communicated his discovery to the Académie Française. Montfaucon carried on the investigation, and finally discovered the original of Lancelot’s copy in a length of tapestry which was hung round the Cathedral at Bayeux on great festivals. The early authorities seem to have entertained no doubt of its being contemporary, but later accounts set forth theories so widely different from one another, and in some cases so flatly contradictory, that it is impossible to enter into them within a very limited space. Following the authority of Freeman, who treats the subject in a very complete manner in his “History of the Norman Conquest” (vol. iii. Appendix, note A), we may assume that the “Toilette du Duc Guillaume,” as it is called in an ecclesiastical inventory at Bayeux of the fifteenth century, is contemporary with the history of the Conqueror, but is more likely to have been connected with Odo than with Queen Matilda. This theory is supported by the prominence given in the various scenes to “Turold, Vital, and Wadard, ” who are mentioned in Domesday Book as vassals of the bishop, but are in themselves quite unimportant, which would suggest that the original interest of the Tapestry was intended to be a purely local one, for the Bishop of Bayeux alone. Freeman thinks it possible that the work may have been done in England. When Napoleon became First Consul he sent for the tapestry from Bayeux, and displayed it in the Louvre as an incentive to Frenchmen to conquer England as Duke William had conquered it some seven centuries before. After this it returned to Bayeux, and was formerly shown to the curious visitor rolled on a windlass; but later days have treated it more reverently, and it is now preserved under glass in a condition of colour and texture which, considering its age and its adventures, it little short of marvellous.