Chapter VI: Part 6

The Cathedral is attributed to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and as it now stands consists of a large nave, without aisles, which were swept away for purposes of roof construction, as at Angers and in Notre-Dame-de-la-Coûture at Le Mans. According to Mr. Bond, an early tower was built in 550, which was noticed by Fortunatus. In plan the building shows the influence of the well-known church of the Cordeliers at Toulouse. “Its western portion is a vast nave without aisles, sixty feet wide internally and nearly two hundred feet in length. Its foundations show that, like that at Angoulême, it was originally roofed by three great domes; but being rebuilt in the thirteenth century, it is now covered by an intersecting vault ... and an immense array of flying buttresses to support its thrust, all which might have been dispensed with had the architects retained the original simple and more beautiful form of roof.”

Within easy distance of Bordeaux is Libourne, a little town upon the Dordogne, which, though now overshadowed by the great port of the Garonne, was in the Middle Ages of almost equal importance in the wine-growing country, and had a special interest as being one of the _villes bastides_ found in several places in the south of France, especially in Guyenne. These really owe their origin to England, for they were founded by Edward I. during his French wars as refuges for those unable to take an active part in the struggle.

Mr. Barker, in his “Two Summers in Guyenne,” gives a very interesting description of these towns, noticing particularly the straight lines of their streets. “In contrast to the typical mediæval town that grew up slowly around some abbey or at the foot of some strong castle that protected it, and in the building of which, if any method was observed, it was that of making the streets as crooked as possible, to assist the defenders in stopping the inward rush of an enemy, the streets of the _bastide_ were all drawn at right angles to each other.” The _bastides_ were built merely for shelter, not, as was the case with other towns, for defence as well, though in the lawless days of the thirteenth century it was sometimes necessary even here to put up a wall, palisade and moat. Libourne has a remnant of such fortification in a quaint old round Tour de l’Horloge with machicolations and a pointed roof. The term _bastide_ was also applied to a single work of defence which, although isolated, formed part of a continuous system of fortification. A single house outside the walls of a town was also called a _bastide_.

Passing out from Libourne, we reach the very heart of this wine-growing country--a true country of the south it seems in summer, with the endless stretches of vineyards--row after row of green, twisting, climbing wreaths round their stiff, straight poles, under a blazing southern sky, and every now and then a single hill rising suddenly out of the plain, whilst the river slips quietly away in the distance to the sea. On, or rather in, one of these hills the hermit Émilion fixed his cave-dwelling, far back in the legendary years of history; and now--strange contrast!--the town founded by this ascetic, abstemious saint owes its fame to the purple juice of the grape, and sends forth from its slopes not water from his dripping well, but good red wine to gladden the heart of man. A visitor to Saint-Émilion in early summer will find a curious greenness over everything--not only in the freshness of the vineyards. When evening falls the very labourers rise from their task and move home through the dusk like so many green spectres--though from no other cause than from their constant watering of the vines with sulphur-water to kill off the devouring insects.

Irrespective of wine-growers, Saint-Émilion has many things to be seen on its crescent-shaped hill. There is the wonderful church, carved out of the cliff-face, now in ruins, but possessing store enough of massive square piers and round-headed arches to bear witness to its ancient grandeur; and a separate Gothic tower and spire of the twelfth century points a long tapering finger above the narrow creeper-grown streets and low, crowded roofs on the hill-side. The church to which the tower really belongs is not this curious monument carved from the rock, but the collegiate church farther up the hill, now used as a parish church. Other monuments there are besides--the icy-cold, moss-grown vault known as the “Grotte de Saint-Émilion,” where superstitious maidens drop pins into the well to find out when they shall be married; the ruined convent of the Cordeliers, with its grass-grown courts and ivy-covered cloister arcades, and the great walnut tree whose branches shade an empty, silent place where once the brothers chanted and the novices worked at their simple tasks; and the cave-dwellings, where seven of the Girondists hid from the wrath of the Terror, sheltered and fed by a kindly couple who paid later for their good nature by the guillotine, after four of the seven refugees had been captured and executed.

The ancient Saint-Émilion--the town to which most of these buildings carry us back--is in reality an old English fortress, growing from the oppidum of the Gauls to the fortified stronghold which passed to Edward I. and continued, with a few interruptions, to enjoy the privileges of a royal borough of England until the fifteenth century.

Chapter Sixteen

SENS, AUXERRE, AND TROYES

The Senones, who settled on the banks of the river Yonne and founded the city of Agenticum, which we know to-day as Sens, were one of the most influential people in Gaul--even the Parisii were considered of less account--and did not submit to the Roman yoke until the final defeat of Vercingetorix. The change of dominion, however, in no way detracted from the importance of their capital city, but rather enhanced it, since the conquerors made the town metropolis of the fourth Lugdunensis, and were at some pains to rebuild it in a fashion befitting its position. Six great highways met within its walls; arches, aqueducts and amphitheatres sprang up all over the city, and Agenticum henceforth became a prosperous and powerful stronghold, well able to withstand the incursions of later days, of which there were many, on the part of the Franks and the Saracens and, finally, of the Normans.

Christianity was introduced by the martyr-saints Savinian and Potentian, who, as at Chartres, built the first church in the city, thus laying, so tradition has it, the foundations of the Cathedral which was to come in after times. The town then became an archbishopric, and later, like most towns of any standing, a hereditary countship, the proximity of the two overlords, spiritual and temporal, leading not infrequently to disastrous results, especially when in the twelfth century a communal power sprang up and contributed a third factor to the contest.

In 1234 Louis IX. married Marguerite de Provence in the Cathedral of Saint Etienne, and on his return from the Holy Land, five years later, with the precious relics purchased from the Emperor of Constantinople, the reliquary and its contents were paraded through the streets in a palanquin, borne by the king and his brother, Robert d’Artois, who walked bare-headed and bare-footed at the head of the procession, casting aside all their royal state--which, indeed, poor Louis would have gladly left for ever--to set an example of reverent homage to the people of Sens. Thomas à Becket lived for some months in the Abbey of Sainte-Colombe by the river-side, founded by one of the Chlothars in the seventh century in memory of the young virgin saint who suffered martyrdom under the rule of Aurelian.

Sens, on its quiet, graceful little river, “bending ... link after link through a never-ending rustle of poplar-trees,” is a picturesque place, like most towns which have left their importance behind them in the Middle Ages, and have come down to modern days unmodernised. Standing on the far bank of the Yonne, looking across the river reaches, one gets a very delightful picture of the town, almost like that of some of our English Cathedral cities--the shining river, the green water-meadows, and above them the deeper green of the grand old trees, clustering round the great church, whose high grey tower rises from their midst, watching the town, meadows and river by day and by night, when men wake and when they take their rest, as it has watched ever since William the architect built up its stones and brought their pattern across the water that the church of Britain’s first Christian city might share the glories of her sister in France.

Sens is not very well known to travellers, although there is no cathedral in the whole breadth of France which ought to be dearer in the eyes of every Englishman, on account of its being in all probability the parent of the choir of Canterbury. Hither Becket is said to have fled, and to have sought sanctuary at the altar of St. Thomas against the persecution of Henry II. Viollet-le-Duc describes St. Etienne as a cathedral unique both in plan and style of architecture--a mixture of arches both round and pointed, such as we find in the choir of Canterbury, showing how much it is under the influence of the Burgundy school. This is proved by the great similarity of plan between the other Burgundy cathedrals, and it is surmised that after the eleventh century Autun, Langres, Auxerre and Sens possessed certain dispositions of plan peculiar to themselves, which were adopted in the Eastern portions of Canterbury. There appears to be no precise information as to the early foundation of the Cathedral of Sens, and the architect who designed it is unknown. The west front exhibits a number of fine sculptures relating to the lives of St. Stephen, St. John, and other saints; in the central portion, which dates from the end of the twelfth century, religion has given place to the arts and sciences, which are represented by twelve sculptured figures, now in a mutilated condition--Grammar, Medicine (a figure holding plants), Rhetoric (giving a discourse), Painting (represented drawing on a tablet placed on the knee), Astronomy, Music, Philosophy, &c. Under each figure is sculptured an animal or monster; in one case a lion is devouring a child, an elephant carrying a tower.... The “encyclopædic spirit” was dominant in the twelfth century, and in the object lesson of these stones an ignorant and unlettered crowd could find its elementary instruction.

Auxerre, which is about twelve miles from the main line between Paris and Dijon, may be considered as an outpost lying on the threshold of the Morvan country. Many of the towns in this district, notably Semur and Avallon, are built on large granite bosses protruding through the oolitic formation. Auxerre possesses churches as fine as those of any other city of its size in France. As one enters the town by the lower of the two bridges which cross the Yonne, the three churches--St. Pierre, St. Etienne and St. Germain--suddenly burst into view. On the left is St. Pierre, with its picturesque tower and forecourt entered through a Renaissance gateway; the Cathedral of St. Etienne with its single tower, high nave, and girdle of flying buttresses, stands on the highest ground in the centre of the group; and further eastwards the abbey church of St. Germain, detached from its spire, spreads out along the beautiful river front of the Yonne.

“Towards the middle of the tenth century the Cathedral of St. Etienne was complete in its main outline; what remained was the building of the great tower, and all that various labour of final decoration which it would take more than one generation to accomplish. Certain circumstances, however, not wholly explained, led to a somewhat rapid finishing, as it were out of hand, yet with a marvellous fulness at once and grace. Of the result much has perished, or been transferred elsewhere; a portion is still visible in sumptuous relics, in stained glass windows, and, above all, in the reliefs which adorn the west portals, very delicately carved in a fine firm stone from Tounerre, of which time has only browned the surface and which, for early mastery in art, may be compared to the contemporary work in Italy.”--WALTER PATER, “Imaginary Portraits.”

The interior of the Cathedral offers one very striking piece of architectural planning: the Lady Chapel and _chevet_ are joined together by two slender shafts, an arrangement by which the three features, ambulatory, _chevet_ and Lady Chapel, are united in one broad design. This conception gives a very beautiful and harmonious effect. The eleventh-century spire of St. Germain, which appears quite detached from the body of the church, is one of the very early stone spires which exist now in France. It springs from a fairly broad base, and has a slight entasis or swelling to avoid the appearance of any midway gathering-in of the outline of the spire. The crypt of the eleventh century is “deep sunk into the ground and very dark,” having aisles, and is in plan practically a small edition of the choir of Canterbury, following the true Burgundian type, the details of its capitals resembling those of the old crypt of Nevers. Mr. Bond, referring to the crypt, or _confessio_ of St. Germain, remarks that the burial chamber of a martyr was called a _confessio_: “where lay one who had confessed and given witness to his faith by his blood.” The term “Martyrdom,” applied to the north transept at Canterbury, is an exact equivalent to _confessio_.

Saint Germain, the missionary bishop, lived here, and died at Ravenna; but his body was brought back from Italy to his birthplace by five pious sisters, one of whom, canonised under the name of Sainte Maxime, lies buried in the abbey church founded by the great saint; where also, in the beautiful crypt, is the tomb of Germain himself, surrounded by a whole company of dead saints, among them the valiant Saint Loup, who, when bishop of Auxerre, drove out the Huns under Attila, and saved his city from destruction. One interesting point in connection with this abbey is that it is the mother-foundation of Selby in Yorkshire. There is a long and mythical legend on the subject, teeming of course with miracles, from which may be gathered that one Bernard of Auxerre wandered from his native town and settled down--why is not very clear--upon the banks of the river Ouse, where he led the life of a hermit. The reports of his sanctity attracted to his cell many persons in the neighbourhood, influential men amongst them; and he attained such fame that his hermit’s hut became the nucleus of a large monastery. However much of this is true, and however much legend, enough remains to show that the monks at Selby did come from Auxerre.

In addition to these three churches, it would be impossible to overlook St. Eusèbe, a church standing in the middle of the town, especially if it be the traveller’s lot to stay at the excellent Hôtel de l’Épée, and to occupy a room giving on its court-yard. There cats, cooks, and chauffeurs combine to enliven the watches of the night, and when the morning dawns, and the “web of night undone,” the jackdaws and the bells of St. Eusèbe announce that sleep is no longer befitting, and he realises that a restless night is the price to be cheerfully paid if he desires, as an architectural enthusiast, to do his duty by Auxerre.

Troyes, the ancient capital of Champagne, was formerly another “city of counts”--the residence of a long line of Thibauts, almost as famed in their day as the Fulks at Angers, and one of whom, called “le Chansonnier,” might be compared to the minstrel King René. These counts of Champagne kept up their state at Troyes until the fourteenth century, when the countship became merged in the French crown. The city likewise made of itself a landmark during the Hundred Years’ War. After the battle of Agincourt it fell into the hands of the allied Burgundians and English; and the name of Troyes now recalls the triumph, as brief as it was splendid, of the English arms in France. By this time Henry V. had set his foot upon the steps of the French throne, and the famous treaty signed here in 1420 secured the succession to him and his heirs, and, to complete the alliance, gave him the hand of the French princess, Catherine, the betrothal taking place in the Cathedral, and the marriage itself in the church of Saint Jean. Here is a contemporary account of the proceedings by the chronicler Monstrelet: “At this period Henry, King of England, accompanied by his two brothers, the Dukes of Clarence and of Gloucester, the Earls of Huntington, Warwick, and Kyme, and many of the great lords of England, with about sixteen hundred combatants, the greater part of whom were archers, set out from Rouen, came to Pontoise, and then to Saint Denis. He crossed the bridge at Charenton and left part of his army to guard it, and thence advanced by Provins to Troyes in Champagne. The Duke of Burgundy and several of the nobility, to show him honour and respect, came out to meet him, and conducted him to the hotel, where he was lodged with his princes, and his army was quartered in the adjacent villages.... When all relating to the peace had been concluded, King Henry, according to the custom of France, affianced the Lady Catherine. On the morrow of Trinity Day the King of England espoused her in the parish church near to which he was lodged; great pomp and magnificence were displayed by him and his princes as if he were at that moment king of all the world.”

Ten years later, however, Joan of Arc captured the town on her march through France, and put an end to the English dominion. In 1525 Troyes was attacked by the Emperor Charles V., who burnt at least half the town, with the result that many of the old churches had to be rebuilt, and date therefore from the sixteenth century, with remains of earlier work here and there. Soon after the fire the city was overswept by the great wave of religious controversy which was to break over France in the latter years of the century, and since most of the inhabitants declared for the Huguenot cause, their fortunes and ultimate fate were none of the happiest. In 1562 the whole Huguenot population was driven out and compelled to fall back for safety upon the town of Bar-sur-Seine; and another decade saw a repetition of the terrible day of Saint Bartholomew, when the Romanists in Troyes followed the ghastly example of their white-sleeved brothers in Paris, and massacred every Huguenot prisoner within the walls.

Historic interest at the present day divides the repute of Troyes with something less romantic--the system of weights and measures which we call “Troy weight,” and which remains as a memorial of the mercantile fame of ancient Troyes. The fairs of Troyes date back to 1230, when Count Thibaut IV. granted to his subjects a municipal charter, and laid the foundations of a commercial repute which could vie with that of any town in France. From this time onwards Troyes occupied an important position in the commercial world, and became the resort of wealthy merchants from Italy and weavers with bales of rich stuffs from Flanders, to say nothing of the goldsmiths, silversmiths, and workers in precious stones who must have brought Troy weight into fame. Neither the Hundred Years’ War nor the wars of the League appear to have affected the town’s commerce to any great extent, but the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, by forcing the Protestant population, which included the majority of the ablest citizens, to emigrate, struck a blow at the industry of Troyes from which it never recovered; and now-a-days both population and commerce have fallen to a state so low that it might almost be called one of decay, compared with the brilliant busy life of the mediæval town. What a scene they must have afforded at fair-time, these narrow-built streets and small close squares, narrower and closer than ever we can picture them to-day, but alive with movement, laughter, above all with colour--such colour as your sober work-a-day crowd can never aspire to in these times!

Picturesque and lively as a French market of to-day undoubtedly is, with the red and green, russet and pearl-colour of its vegetables, the white caps of its women, the gay blues and crimsons of the umbrellas guarding the stalls, the laughter and chatter of the buyers, sellers, and idlers, it has nothing to compare with the wonderful colour-mass and movement of a mediæval crowd, above all in such a place as this, the fame of whose fairs might well have attracted buyers from all parts of Europe. Stately, bearded Italian merchants--men like Antonio of Venice with argosies on every sea--in furred cap and gold chain, dark-faced, keen-eyed Jews, young nobles, exquisite in silk and velvet, wandering minstrels fantastically arrayed, dancing-girls like bright-hued butterflies, all the good citizens of Troyes in their gayest holiday attire, and the inevitable jester in his motley, skimming in and out of the crowd, shaking his cap and bells in every face--the many-coloured banners of the town guilds streaming in the breeze above their heads, and the summer sunshine flooding the whole scene, giving added light to every street-corner, added brilliancy to every hue. The Troyes of to-day is a picturesque town enough, with many beautiful timber-framed houses; but the light and life of the town went out with the departure of the fairs, and beyond its churches Troyes now has little to distinguish it from the hundreds of quondam-mediæval towns scattered through the length and breadth of France.

On our architectural pilgrimage through the town the Cathedral naturally claimed our first attention; but we had not got much further than admiration of the splendour of the stained glass, and a short analysis of the beauty of the interior, when a remorseless sacristan informed us that the Cathedral was about to close for two hours. Driven outside, the contemplation of the splendid Flamboyant west portal reminded us of what we have referred to elsewhere--that these deep-set porches in the French cathedrals are considered as lineal descendants of the ancient narthex. Troyes, Lâon, Bourges and many other churches lead one to an attempt to follow out the evolution of these great porches. In the ancient basilican churches the narthex was the first section of the building--an ante-temple, long and narrow, in front of the nave. In the primitive Church it was especially allotted to the monks and the women, and used for certain offices, such as rogations, supplications, and night watches; it was further destined as a place for catechumens and penitents, who were permitted to assist at Divine Service outside the Temple. Heretics and schismatics might also here attend and listen to the reading of the Scriptures, this privilege being accorded them in the hope of their ultimate conversion; and corpses were placed in the narthex during the performance of the funeral rites. In the Middle Ages the denomination narthex was given to closed porches of churches, and ceased to be any longer applicable to a portion of a religious edifice lying within the walls. It was ultimately replaced by the word _porch_. These porches were both open and closed and formed a kind of vestibule.

The baptism of children and not of adults rendered it unnecessary to provide for the preparation of converts before being introduced into the Church. There were no more catechumens undergoing their time of probation, and in consequence the spacious vestibule to which they had hitherto been relegated disappeared as an essential portion of a large church, and was replaced by a porch which was either open or closed, and occupied a position in front of the nave similar to that in which its predecessor, the narthex, had stood. These porches being reserved for the faithful remained, _qua_ porches, as very important annexes to the churches, and formed large vestibules, often closed, which ran along the outside of the western wall of a church, having sometimes the appearance of a cloister, as at Toury, which was built in 1230.

Under the porches before the main entrances of many ancient cathedrals bishops, emperors and honoured citizens were often buried, as the ecclesiastical law in the primitive Church did not allow people to be buried inside the walls of the sacred building. Many important services were held under these porches; prayers for the dead were offered up, ablutions performed by the faithful before entering the church, relics and images were exposed, and litanies chanted. Later it became absolutely necessary to keep them strictly closed on account of the abuse of the shelter of the porch by the erection of market stalls and booths on fair-days under the shadow of the church, and the crowd of buyers and sellers making the air ring with their noisy bargainings.

A further development was to make the porch a kind of arcaded _avant-porte_ surmounted by a gable with sculptured features. These decorated canopies were by degrees thrown back into the main wall, became merged into the mouldings of the doorway, and were finally lost as a separate feature in the highly ornamented and deeply splayed portal.

Fortunately the ecclesiastical interest of Troyes is not confined to one corner, and the churches of Saint Urbain and the Madeleine lie in one’s path to the market-place along the very picturesque streets of sixteenth-and seventeenth-century houses, which offer every conceivable variation of roof and gable.

The beautiful details of the unfinished church of Saint Urbain may well have won for itself the reputation of equalling if not of surpassing anything of its kind either in France or Germany; and although it is still in the hands of the restorer, there is now no scaffolding to prevent one looking in admiration at the graceful choir and transepts. The detached _pignons_ above the chancel window spring from the buttresses clear of the wall, and throw a deep shadow over the upper portion of the windows. This shadow gives an appearance of weight and stability to the building, which is certainly required as an assurance against the result of too daring construction.

In the Madeleine, which is not far from Saint Urbain, is a notable rood-screen, full of luxuriant tracery and sculpture of a late Flamboyant period. It attracts attention, not because it fulfils any ceremonial requirements or forms any part of an architectural effect in the interior of the church, but rather on account of its singular appearance of being slung between two pillars.

Chapter Seventeen

MEAUX, SENLIS, AND BEAUVAIS

Meaux is a beautifully situated little town on the banks of the Marne some thirty miles from Paris, on the way to the Champagne country. Its general appearance can best be gathered from the delightful public promenade along the river-side which is entered immediately on the right of the station. The Cathedral dates back to the early thirteenth century, but very shortly after it was finished, either owing to the work of construction being hurried or to the foundations being insecure, large cracks and actual shifting of the masonry declared themselves, and a great deal of remodelling and alterations became necessary. The vaulting and first stage of the choir aisles--or triforium ambulatory--were removed, the aisles being thereby doubled in height. The choir elevation is a very beautiful expression of thirteenth-century design. The transept is short, and has a large rose window and a richly-decorated portal.

It is said that at one time, namely in the thirteenth century, architects conceived the idea of covering the walls on the inside of the porch with some vast design of decoration, by which the colour poured into the church through the large rose-window should be enhanced by great spaces of painted wall-surface. This conception, however, was very short-lived, and towards the end of the century painted subjects were confined almost entirely to the windows; and the internal decoration of the _revers_ of the porches was conceived, as at Meaux, more in an architectural spirit with pilasters, arcading, etc., as motives, rather than with features suggested by the painter’s art.

Meaux as well as Lâon, Soissons, Beauvais, Noyon and other towns in the district felt the effects of the Jacquerie revolts in the thirteenth century. Indeed, many of the ladies who suffered from the horrors of the persecution at Beauvais fled at first to Meaux to escape the fury of the rebels; and once having got within the town, they did not dare to leave it, so that to all intents and purposes they were prisoners within its walls. Throughout the whole district bands of robbers and furious peasants infested the roads or lay in ambush to catch the unwary, and it was thus very dangerous to go from one town to another, even under an armed escort. Hearing of the plight of these ladies in Meaux, among whom were the Duchesses of Orléans and Normandy, the Earl of Foix and the Captal de Buch resolved to go to their aid, and set out forthwith from Châlons, to find a great host of the peasantry also bound for the same place. The rebels had heard that Meaux was chiefly inhabited by refugee women and children, also that it contained a great deal of treasure; and they were now flocking down every road, from Valois, from Beauvoisie and from Paris, towards the little town upon the Marne. Foix and his company were received with the utmost joy, for the peasants had already begun to fill the streets and to do what damage they could, and the ladies were naturally in great alarm. “But when these banditti perceived such a troop of gentlemen, so well equipped, sally forth to guard the market-place, the foremost of them began to fall back. The gentlemen then followed them, using their lances and swords. When they felt the weight of their blows, they, through fear, turned about so fast, they fell one over the other. All manner of armed persons then rushed out of the barriers, drove them before them, striking them down like beasts, and clearing the town of them, for they kept neither regularity nor order, slaying so many that they were tired. They flung them in great heaps into the river. In short, they killed upwards of seven thousand. Not one would have escaped if they had chosen to pursue them further.”

Another siege famous in the annals of Meaux is that during the wars of Henry V., when the English king encamped before the town in October, 1421, and set engines to batter down the gates and walls, having entrenched his own army meanwhile in a strong position between hedges and ditches. “The King of England,” Monstrelet tells us, “was indefatigable in the siege of Meaux, and having destroyed many parts of the walls of the market-place, he summoned the garrison to surrender themselves to the King of France and himself, or he would storm the place. To this summons they replied that it was not yet time to surrender, on which the King ordered the place to be stormed. The assault continued for seven or eight hours in the most bloody manner; nevertheless, the besieged made an obstinate defence, in spite of the great numbers that were attacking them. Their lances had been almost all broken, but in their stead they made use of spits, and fought with such courage that the English were driven back from the ditches, which encouraged them much.” This state of affairs lasted for six months; the garrison of Meaux, who seem to have behaved all through with the utmost gallantry, were in hopes of relief from the Dauphin, but at the end of April, finding further resistance impossible, they gave themselves up into the hands of Henry. A treaty was set on foot whereby, “on the 11th day of May, the market-place and all Meaux were to be surrendered into the hands of the kings of France and England.” The leaders were made prisoners of war, and the chief offender, the bastard of Vaurus, who “had in his time hung many a Burgundian and Englishman,” was beheaded and hung as a warning on a tree outside the walls of the town. King Henry himself--adds the French chronicler--“was very proud of this victory, and entered the place in great pomp, and remained there some days with his princes to repose and solace himself, having given orders for the complete reparation of the walls that had been so much damaged by artillery at the siege.”

Meaux is of course notably associated with Bossuet, the famous preacher, who was appointed to its bishopric in 1681. The study and garden where he wrote many of his sermons are still shown among his other memorials in the Évêché, near the Cathedral.

“Dans les choses nécessaire, l’unité; dans les douteuses, la liberté; dans tous les cas, la charité.” In these few words one may look for the keynote of Bossuet’s whole life. Temperate in all things, yet possessed with an eloquence more moving, it was said, than that of any man since the days of the Christian Fathers, and employed always in the cause of the Church he loved so well, the “Aigle de Meaux” well deserves his place among the greatest ecclesiastics France has ever known, and France, just at this time, was rich in ecclesiastical genius. There was Fénélon at Cambrai and Mascaron at Tulle, there were Massillon and Bourdaloue, Arnauld and Fleury--all of them men of note, both in the pulpit and in the world of books; but Bossuet stands out before them all.

He made an early entrance into the cultivated world, preaching his first sermon, upon a subject chosen at random, in the salon of the Hôtel Rambouillet, when hardly out of his teens; and the Marquis de Feuquières, who had introduced him into this society of Précieuses, soon found reason to be proud of his protégé. The young man was destined to go on as he had begun; a few more years saw him established as Canon of Metz, the close friend of Condé and of the Calvinist Paul Ferri, with whom he never tired of disputing theological questions in a perfectly amicable spirit, acting up to his maxim of “liberty in doubtful things”; and finally his reputation brought him to Paris, where he preached during Lent, 1656, and brought before the world the sermon as he created it, purified from the profanities of an immoral age, strengthened by his steadfast simplicity, and quickened by the fire of his eloquence. Bossuet found that in spite of himself his fame as an orator--a fame after which he had never striven--was firmly established in the capital, and after he had preached before the king in the chapel of the Louvre his success was practically assured. Honours and dignities came fast upon him; he became Bishop of Condom, and in the following year (1670) was entrusted with the education of the Dauphin, while the Académie Française opened its doors to his genius, and in 1681 he was appointed to the See of Meaux. Hardly had Bossuet settled down, however, in the quiet little _évêché_, with its pleasant green garden, than he was called out again into the world of noise and controversy. In 1682 Louis XIV. convoked the famous assembly of clergy to discuss the breach which had lately disclosed itself between the State of France and the Papacy. The king contended for the right of patronage over any vacant sees or benefices, claiming that so long as they remained unoccupied, their revenues fell due to the Crown; and called together the clergy of the realm to uphold his right and to draw up a code of rules that should set a line between spiritual and temporal authority. Bossuet preached the sermon which was to open the Convocation; and his clear practical sense and eloquent denunciation of the encroachments of the Papacy destroyed the remnants of Pope Innocent’s power in France. He summed up the case in four clauses. First, “That the Pope has no temporal power over kings”; secondly, “That his spiritual authority is inferior to that of a general assembly”; thirdly, “That, in consequence, the use of this authority ought to be regulated by the canons of the Church and by customs generally approved”; and last, “That the papal decision on matters of faith is only infallible by consent of the Church.” Thus did Bossuet establish the privileges and the liberty of the Gallican Church.

As soon as possible the great bishop disengaged himself from the affairs of the nation, and was occupied, not in gaining fresh honours, but with the care of his diocese. The picture of his last years is a graceful and pleasant one, and shows the great man leading the life of a simple country priest; writing sermons in his study or garden, directing his convents, schools and hospitals, visiting his poor and sick people, even catechising the children of Meaux; and at times retiring into the seclusion of the monastery of La Trappe, to gather strength and courage for the better fulfilment of his pastoral duties.

The old timber water-mills behind the Town Hall are the outward sign of one of the great industries of Meaux. They have withstood for many generations the rushing torrents of the Marne, which threaten to undermine the starlings and timbers of the mills and to engulf them in its waters. These for some reason or other are almost as green as the outpourings of the Rhone at Geneva. It would be interesting to know if Meaux possessed any feudal right over the neighbouring peasants, compelling them to come and wait their turn at the mill, and pay whatever price might be demanded, and forbidding them, even in times of heavy yield, to get their corn ground elsewhere. Such oppressions actually existed in the villages attached to the great châteaux, where the seigneur had a right to keep huge rabbit-warrens and pigeon-houses, whose inhabitants devastated, year in, year out, the surrounding crops of the peasants.

The little city of Senlis, with its girdle of Roman walls and watch towers, is one of the most attractive places within reach of Paris. It is situated about thirty-five miles to the northeast, in the midst of the great forest land of Hallatte and Chantilly. Until the dissolution of the Carlovingian empire Senlis enjoyed the privileges of a royal residence, and, indeed, down to the time of Henri de Navarre the kings of France continued to visit the city, and were lodged in a castle built on the site of the Roman prætorium. The ruins of this castle, some of which date from the eleventh century, may still be seen among the attractions of Senlis; and of even greater interest are the Roman ramparts which surround the town and which were built when it still held its position as the township of the Silvanectes. These walls, “twenty-three feet high and thirteen feet thick, are, with those of St. Lizier (Ariège) and Bourges, the most perfect in France. They enclosed an oval area 1024 feet long from east to west and 794 feet wide from north to south. At each of the angles formed by the broken lines of which the circuit of 2756 feet is composed, stands or stood a tower; numbering originally twenty-eight and now only sixteen, they are semicircular in plan, and up to the height of the wall are unpierced. The Roman city had only two gates; the present number is five.”

As one approaches the town from the station through the boulevard, the Renaissance tower of Saint Pierre and the beautiful _flèche_ of the Cathedral stand right ahead. The first of these two churches is now desecrated and converted into a large market hall, having previously been used as cavalry barracks. It is short and broad, having only three bays to the nave, two to the choir, and an apse of three lights; but it has one very marked feature, which is also seen, though to a lesser extent, in the Cathedral of Saint Gatien at Tours--the axis of the choir trends northwards, making with the nave an angle of some seventeen to twenty degrees. There is a certain amount of early Gothic work worth notice, but the prevailing style is Flamboyant; in the two last side chapels of the choir some curious vaulting is to be found, resembling rude attempts at fan tracery with heavy keyed pendants.

The Cathedral of Notre-Dame covers during its construction a period of some four hundred years, and is probably only part of what was originally designed. The glory of the building is the beautiful spire to the south-west tower. Rising from a base octagonal in plan, the angles are lightened by detached pillars supporting a pyramidal canopy; the upper dormer windows are high and lancet-shaped, with the back of their gables sloping downwards and forming a sharp angle with the richly crocketed spire. Internally the church is a mixed product of the Transition and Flamboyant architects; the large clerestory windows may have been rebuilt later when the vaulting was constructed. In the ambulatory behind the altar the twelfth-century capitals remain, showing archaic Romanesque sculpture; and traces of this early work are to be found in many other parts of the building. The large west door is of the Chartres type; in the tympanum are the figures of our Lord and the Virgin Mary, with a representation of the resurrection of the dead; some of the figures are flying upwards, while others are being tenderly awakened by angels swinging censers.

Long before the train arrives at Beauvais the Cathedral is seen like a huge fortress in the distance, overtopping the quiet, modest landscape of the Thérain valley; and its great size is more acutely felt as one approaches its south doorway along the streets of little white-painted houses and shop-fronts. The immediate effect of the interior of this marvellous building is startling. Whatever emotion has been aroused in the architectural traveller by the glories of Amiens, Chartres, or Bourges, is for the moment entirely eclipsed by the first view of the choir of Beauvais, whose clerestory windows soar upwards with such a restless vitality as almost to pierce the vaulting. These choir bays look like shafts of masonry so elongated, so delicate, that one trembles for their stability. And this sensation gradually increases. The sense of strength and repose gives way to a feeling that this great “church in the air” is struggling against dissolution, and that its vast flying buttresses are only just sufficient to withstand the tremendous strain that is constantly being exerted on the building. It is only fair, however, to the architect of Beauvais choir to say that he was hampered by the want of means and probably also by the insufficient site assigned to him for the planning out of his Cathedral. Had he worked under more favourable conditions he would have accomplished “an incomparable work,” for it is not, as Viollet-le-Duc remarks, “the theory” that was fatal to its construction, but the execution, which is poor and mediocre. The lesson learnt from the Beauvais architect’s temerity on the one hand, and from his beautiful disposition of plan on the other, was of the greatest value to the designers of other Cathedrals executed at the same time--notably that of Cologne, which was constructed more or less contemporaneously with Beauvais.

West of the Cathedral is the _Basse Œuvre_, a building which Fergusson describes as an example of the Latin style, and a stepping-stone from the Roman basilica to the Gothic church. This intermediate style is noticeable in the Romanesque church of S. Vicenzo alle Fontane in Rome, where the bay is divided simply into pier arch and clerestory, showing in very simple terms an arrangement nearly approaching to Gothic.

Of the history of Beauvais there is but little to be said, for it possesses none worthy of the name, or rather--since every town must have a story of some kind--none which associates itself to any great degree with outside events. It was established in the Roman era as the capital of the Bellovaci, under the name of Cæsaromagus; it was Christianised by Saint Lucian, who for his good works suffered martyrdom within the town; and later on it became the head of a countship. This dignity, however, Beauvais did not long retain, for in the tenth century the temporal power of the count was vested in the spiritual power of the bishop, and any celebrity which the town may have attained was henceforth of purely ecclesiastical order.

It did, however, play a prominent part in the peasant revolt known as the “Jacquerie” in the fourteenth century. A body of peasants, “without any leader,” says Froissart, rose up with the intent to exterminate the upper classes--a forerunner of the Revolution--and perpetrated the most horrible atrocities upon every knight and noble they could lay hands on in Beauvais. “They said that the nobles of the kingdom of France, knights and squires, were a disgrace to it, and that it would be a very meritorious act to destroy them all; to which proposition every one assented as a truth, and added, shame befall him who should be the means of preventing the gentlemen from being wholly destroyed.”

When the revolt grew, instead of being crushed, the “gentlemen of Beauvoisie” were forced to send for help out of France, since matters were come to such a pass that “in the bishoprics of Noyon, Lâon and Soissons, there were upwards of one hundred castles and good houses of knights and squires destroyed.” Aid soon came, notably from Flanders, Hainault and Navarre, the king of Navarre especially signalising himself by putting three thousand rebels to death in one day. “When they were asked,” says the chronicler, “for what reason they acted so wickedly, they replied they knew not, but they did so because they saw others do it; and they thought that by this means they should destroy all the nobles and gentlemen in the world.”

Edward III. besieged Beauvais in 1346, but without success, and it only fell into English hands in 1420 through the treachery of Bishop Pierre Cauchon, whose name also appears as one of the witnesses against Joan of Arc at Rouen eleven years later. The memory of this latter offence so preyed upon his mind that when he became bishop of Lisieux--having presumably been ejected from the see of Beauvais--Couchon sought to expiate his sin by dedicating a chapel to the Virgin in the Cathedral of Saint Pierre.

Hearing of the siege of Compiègne by the Burgundian forces, Joan had left Charles’s army, which was still dawdling by the Loire in a state of inaction, and marched off to Compiègne to relieve his party there. Arrived without the town, she soon headed a sortie against the Burgundians; they were driven back, and it is probable that the expedition would have been attended by the success which, to do her justice, had up to this moment crowned the efforts of the Maid, had not a body of Englishmen come up unexpectedly between her and the town and driven her into a corner. She was of course speedily captured. As soon as the news reached Paris both the University and the Vicar of the Inquisition demanded her person. Cauchon, however, stood firm. The Maid, he contended, had been captured within the diocese of Beauvais, and he, as the foremost prelate of the English party, claimed the right of putting her on trial; and after having paid to Burgundy 10,000 livres for this right, sent the Maid to Rouen, there to stand on her trial for sorcery, before a court of which Cauchon was president; and this fact alone might reasonably destroy all hope for poor Joan.

Another fourteenth-century bishop of Beauvais brought his diocese before the world in no small degree. Jean de Dormans was not only bishop; he became Chancellor of France, and obtained from Rome the rank of a cardinal, under the title of the Four Crowned Saints. In Paris Dormans endowed a foundation which still bears the name of Collège de Beauvais, though what remains of the building serves as barracks, and the light of learning has left its precincts for ever. The old college is now united to its neighbour, the Collège de Presle; but the fourteenth-century chapel dedicated to Saint John the Evangelist still stands almost intact, though it, too, has been desecrated, and now serves the use of the military occupiers. Formerly there stood within this chapel six life-size figures, representing three men and three women of the Dormans family, and it is believed that when mediæval fragments were pieced together to form the chapel of Abélard and Héloise, which is now part of the burial-ground of Père-la-Chaise, the figure of one of these ladies of the fourteenth century was used to represent that of Héloise.

One name there is on the page of their history which the inhabitants of this town remember with a veneration almost equal to that which the Orléannais regard Joan of Arc, and whose memory even now receives an annual tribute. It is that of another Jeanne, poor and obscure, who rose to heroism in the moment of her city’s danger, and who, though she did not lead a mighty host to victory nor bring a monarch back to his own, yet saved her city from the encroachments of Burgundy, and gave the women of Beauvais a right to their country’s esteem. The besieging army of Charles the Bold probably never received such a surprise as on that day in the year of grace 1472, when Jeanne Hachette led her _concitoyennes_ through the streets of Beauvais, menaced the foe from the ramparts, and actually bore away with her own hands one of the Burgundian standards. The banner is still kept in the Hôtel-de-Ville; and every year, on the feast of Ste. Angadrème, a grand procession marches through the streets, in which the women are given the right of precedence over the men, in memory of the brave deeds of Jeanne and her sisters.

Chapter Eighteen

PARIS AND SOME OF ITS CHURCHES

As a Cathedral city, Paris hardly comes within the scheme of this book. It has been written about so much and so often, and occupies, both architecturally and historically, such a position as would scarcely justify any but a full and detailed description. This great city, the living, moving source of one of the greatest nations of to-day, and at one time the mainspring of Europe itself, is not to be passed over with a few terse remarks; it is as though one tried to compress the history of France itself into a single chapter. On the one hand, a short sketch can hardly hope to do justice to Paris; on the other, to describe it at such length as it deserves would not be dealing fairly by the lesser towns, and further, this length would be so great as to render absurd its inclusion in a book of traveller’s notes. Rather let it be regarded here in the light of _point d’appui_ from which other places may be visited which do not lie on the direct route from Paris to the provinces. Without attempting any architectural description, however, it may be as well, before we pass outside the city walls, to mention three churches within Paris of which illustrations are given here, and to offer the briefest possible outline of their early history and foundation, as well as that of the great city of which they form a part.