Chapter VII: The Cathedral (1)

‘Monument unique, et qu’il faudrait comparer aux gigantesques
constructions de l’Egypte, aux monstrueuses pagodes de l’Inde pour
lui trouver des analogues.’--DIDRON.

‘Notre-Dame de Chartres! It is a world to explore, as if one
explored the entire Middle Ages.’--PATER.

The Cathedral of Chartres is gifted to a peculiar degree with the quality of impressiveness. This quality it owes to the living unity, the animated harmony of its members, and also to the sensation of space, not emptiness, to the impression of massiveness which is yet not heavy, suggested by the whole, whether viewed from near or afar, and equally by the parts, such as the west front or the nave.

‘Dependent,’ says Pater, ‘on its structural completeness, or its wealth of well-preserved ornament, or its unity in variety, perhaps on some undefinable operation of genius, beyond, but concurrently with, all these, the Church of Chartres has still the gift of a unique power of impressing. In comparison, the other famous Churches of France, at Amiens for instance, at Reims or Beauvais, may seem but formal, and to a large extent reproducible, effects of mere architectural rule on a gigantic scale.’

The main body of the Cathedral was completed by 1210, for it is written in the Latin version (1210) of the _Poem of Miracles_ that one day there came a shining light which dimmed the candles that were lit, and a noise as of thunder that drowned the voices of the many faithful praying in the church, and that a belief sprang up that the Virgin herself had appeared to honour with her presence the Cathedral built to her praise.[74]

The north and south porches, which were not part of the original plan, as is evident from the manner in which they have been applied to the walls and the buttresses cut away to admit them, would appear to have been begun in this same year 1210.

But the dedication of the Cathedral was long deferred. It did not take place till 1260, when S. Louis himself, the devoted benefactor of the Cathedral, whose personality has filled the north transept, the Rose of France and the north porch, attended with all his family, and with multitudes of people from every side, princes and dukes and peasants, and the bishop, surrounded by his seventy canons, joined in the solemn dedication of the temple.

By the fire of 1194 the whole of the upper church had been destroyed. The narthex, with the western porch and its three twelfth-century windows, alone remained. Beyond the church stood the two towers still, but their bells and woodwork were all gone, and the masonry was so charred that traces of the fire may be seen to this day.

Briefly, the steps that were now taken to give us the Cathedral which we have may be summarised as follows. Four apsidal chapels were added in the crypt, completing thus the favourite Gothic number of seven; all the soil of the crypt (except the martyrium) was levelled up to that of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre; aisles were constructed over the corridors of the crypt; a vast transept was added; an enormous choir, with double aisles and apsidal chapels, was erected over new vaulting of the crypt; the narthex was displaced and made room for two new bays in the nave; whilst the west porch was moved skilfully westwards, with the same object, and set in a line flush with the two towers. Traces of this latter process will be found in the fact that the three doorways, having existed before the present nave and aisles, do not now correspond with them, and traces of what was once exterior masonry of the towers may also be seen _inside_ the present church, between the Chapel of the Seven Sorrows and that of the Calvary.

At the same time, above the triplet window, in a severe quadrangular framework, was inserted the splendid Rose window, which is a masterpiece of masonry, a superb creation, recalling at once to mind the magnificent circular window of Lincoln, which, however, was a good score years later, and also--for the thick radii of the circle still suggest the spokes of a wheel quite as much as the petals of a rose--the rather earlier Wheel of Barfreston (Kent, 1180). It is 46 feet in diameter, and has been set, designedly, not in the exact centre of its flat stone frame, in order to counterbalance the inequality noticeable in the breadth of the two towers. There, with its double row of sculptured spokes, which radiate from its centre, it looks, to borrow Mr. Henry James’s fine phrase, on its lofty field of stone, as expansive and symbolic as if it were the wheel of Time itself.

Above this window stretch a noble cornice and a simple balustrade which serve for communication between the two towers, and above this again are the sixteen niched figures which have earned for this gallery the title of the Gallery of Kings. Higher still is the gable which terminates the front, containing in a niche a colossal statue of the Virgin and Child, and on the apex a statue of Christ in the act of blessing. (Both these statues were re-made in 1855).

The kings stand upright in their niches; their pose is little varied; their costumes uniform. M. Viollet-le-Duc suggested that they represent the Kings of Judah, but there is no reason to doubt the tradition that, like the royal statues at Wells and Notre-Dame de Paris and the stained-glass figures at Strasbourg, they really represent the kings of the country who were benefactors of the church.

The first seven, then, are the figures of Merovingian Kings, the eighth Pepin-le-Bref, as you may tell by his small stature and the fact that he is standing upon a lion, in allusion to his courageous feat when, after challenging the French nobles who despised him for his smallness, he slew a raging lion single-handed, and then demanded, ‘Do you think me worthy to rule you now?’ The ninth statue was broken by a cannon-ball in the siege of 1591. It was Charlemagne or Charles-le-Fauve. The others are, according to M. Bulteau, Philippe I., Louis le Gros, Louis le Jeune, Philippe Auguste, Louis le Lion, Louis IX., and Philippe le Hardi, in whose reign the gallery was finished (1280).

As at Rouen and at Bayeux, it was originally intended that six new towers, two at each corner of the north and south front, making eight in all, should be grouped round the soaring spire of a central tower which was to rest on the four huge piers at the point of intersection of the transepts of the nave and choir. But they remain incomplete, even as, in accordance it might be fancied with some inscrutable degree, almost every Cathedral in the world is unfinished.

Thus at Chartres the Cathedral type, after which, with tentative, uncertain hand, the twelfth-century architects of Poitiers and Soissons, Laon and Paris had been striving, was struck out at last. It was to serve as a model for Central Europe throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, just as the sculpture of the western porch was to be copied at Corbeil and Paris, Sentis, Laon and Sens.

The name of the genius who achieved this glorious success we do not know, though the names of the builders of Reims, of Rouen and of Amiens have come down to us. All we do know is, as has been said above, that there was an active school of architects and sculptors, drawn chiefly from the monks of the Monasteries of Tiron and S. Père, established at this time in La Beauce, who worked with humble zeal, anonymous.

But, whatever his name, he succeeded at last, after the efforts and by aid of the efforts of his so many predecessors, in striking out the cathedral type, in shaping the mould in which, with various alterations, modifications, improvements and excesses, all the cathedrals of France were henceforth to be cast. In striking out the type he was himself confined by local conditions, and limited by his lack of experience. By bringing the western façade flush with the western extremities of the towers he was enabled to increase the length of that nave, which he made to leap heavenwards with almost the same joyous spring as that of Amiens, and the length and breadth, and height and strength of that nave, with its massive piers, its splendid vaulting, and its jewelled windows casting their purple and crimson rays across its dark roomy spaces, and the dim distances of the mysterious aisles, render Chartres ‘awful’ in a manner seldom or never elsewhere achieved by Gothic architect. But the proportion of the nave to the choir, or, again, to the vast transepts, is not perfect, for the builder was limited by the existing towers. As a pioneer, too, he was limited by inexperience. There is, indeed, no effect of heaviness in this nave, for the massiveness of the work, which is almost equal to that which we call Norman, is relieved by the stupendous height. And the solemnity, the overwhelming impressiveness of Chartres are due, it might almost seem, to that accident of ignorance. For if he had dared, if he had known that it was possible and safe, can you doubt that the architect would have added to the soaring spires of Chartres the soaring nave of Amiens? But what we should have gained in sheer beauty we should have lost in character. For Amiens is light and joyous; Chartres is mysterious and sad. Amiens rises as naturally as the sparks fly upward, as ethereal as the flute-like notes of a treble voice, as careless as a child’s light laughter. But Chartres it would seem has more sympathy with the sadder, deeper sides of human life; it is older, stronger, more masculine, and more wise; combining the stern philosophy of the Pagan Stoic with the comforting tidings of the Christian martyrs and saints; combining, that is, as never before or since so harmoniously, the Romanesque and the Gothic styles, the rounded and the pointed arch, taking the best of each, and uniting them in a transition that is yet a triumph, in an attempt that is an eternal monument of success.

The transition of style is to be observed on almost every side. Not, indeed, so much in the plain round pillars with capitals in imitation of the Roman composite, and with square abaci, as the eye accustomed only to English work might assume, for these in France were retained much later than in England, even throughout the period of Flamboyant. But in almost every direction you can see the tentative mason at work, leaving the old heavy style with its horizontal lines behind him, and making new experiments, discarding or developing fresh ideas which tended to the achievement of lightness and spring, but as yet hardly daring to believe to the full in the capacity of stone. Here, for instance, in the nave, the blind triforium has not broken yet into one continuous window, as it was soon to do in the Church of S. Père, of S. Ouen at Rouen, and at Amiens; nor have the heavy masses of stone been resolved into a network of delicate tracery, leaving not a span uncovered by its gossamer thread. The desire for lightness, again, which was in time to lead to the adoption of bar tracery is, in the case of the windows, evident, but not fully attained. Combined, however, with the rare opportunities offered to the architect by the excellent quality of the stone of Berchères, it has led him to invent a very simple and handsome type of window, which consists of two lancet lights under one arch, with a foliated circle in the head, the plate tracery of which is peculiarly heavy, and is cut through the solid stone. Between these circular openings, which fill a whole bay between the flying buttresses, and the heads of the lower lights, there is, as at Soissons, Bourges, Reims and so forth, a considerable interval of masonry. The foliated circles themselves are surrounded by a number of small trefoil or quatrefoil openings, not formed of bars, but likewise pierced through the solid stone.

The buttresses of the nave, again, are amazingly heavy and massive, as if the workmen were still afraid to trust them to support the thrust of the vaulting of the roof at so great a height. This is borne by flying buttresses of enormous solidity, composed of an upper and a lower section, which are strengthened in turn by an arcade. The arcading is remarkable for its rugged grace, its masculine beauty. Its round-headed arches, which are supported by short, thick shafts, that remind one of the spokes of the wheel window, are composed of two large blocks of hewn stone.

Compare these flying buttresses with the later and lighter but less pleasing ones of the choir, or with the almost impudent development of the use of them in the Abbey Church of S. Père, and, without any doubt, you perceive in what direction lay the ambition of the transitional architect.

These buttresses of the nave will be best seen from the galleries of the roof, with their graceful balustrading, along which you pass, when, under the guidance of a verger from the Maison-des-Clercs, you make your ascent of the _clochers_, starting from a door near the north entrance and the sacristy. Passing, then, along these galleries, you come to the Clocher Neuf, with its Flamboyant spire, the work of Jehan de Beauce (1507-1513); built after the spire of timber and lead, which replaced the one destroyed in 1194, had been destroyed itself in 1506. It was raised 4 feet by Claude Augé in 1690, so that the present height of the Clocher Neuf is 378 feet, that of the Clocher Vieux being 350. Augé, in the following year, added the enormous bronze vase on the top; the cross above that was placed in position in 1854. There is a vane in the form of a sun (Jesus, the Sun of Justice, the Light of the World) upon this cross, corresponding to the moon on the old spire (Mary, ‘clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet.’--Rev. xii.)

The third storey of the Clocher Neuf into which the gallery brings us is the beginning of the Flamboyant work of Jehan de Beauce. An elegant balustrade connects the parts of the different date. On the south wall of the _Chambre des Sonneurs_, as the third storey is called, is graven in Gothic, but now scarce legible characters, an inscription in six quatrains, in which the clocher tells us the history of the disaster of 1506, and the event of its rebuilding by Jehan de Beauce, the skilful mason, just as the bronze vase above relates in Latin prose the further history of the spire down to 1690, and the name of the bronze-founder, Ignace Gabois.

‘Je fus jadis de plomb et boys construit,
Grant, hault et beau, de somptueux ouvraige,
Jusques ad ce que tonnerre et oraige
M’a consumé, dégâté et détruit.

Le jour sainte Anne vers six heures de nuyt
En l’année mil cinq cens et six.
Je fu brulé démoly et recuyt
Et avec moy de grosses cloches six.

Après Messieurs en plain Chappitre assis
Ont ordonné de pierre me reffaire
A grant voultes et pilliers bien massifs
Par Jehan de Beausse, maçon qui le sut faire.

L’An dessu dist après pour l’euvre faire
Assouar firent le vint quatrième jour
Du moys de mars pour le premier affaire
Première pierre et aultres sans ce jour.

Et en avril huitiesme jour exprès
René d’Illiers évesque de regnon
Pardist la vie au lieu duquel après
Feust Erard mis par postulacion.

En ce temps là que avoys nicessité
Avoit des gens qui pour moy lors vieilloient
Du bon du cœur feust yver ou esté,
Dieu le pardont et à ceulx qui s’y emploient.
1508.’

The fourth storey, lit by four large bays, contains two great bells cast in 1840, Marie (C., 13,228 lbs.) and Joseph, the tenor, who sounds the Angelus throughout the year.

The fifth storey, pierced on each of its eight sides by a large bay, contains four large bells of 1845, Anne (D., 2040 kilos.), Elizabeth (E., 1510 kilos.), Fulbert (F., 1510 kilos.), Piat (G., 870 kilos.). The first-named bell is always known as Anne of Bretagne. For she, when visiting the Cathedral in 1510, was so delighted with the voice of one of the lads singing in the choir that she begged him of the canons, and when they granted her request she thanked them in these words: ‘Messieurs, you have given me a little voice, and I in return wish to give you a big one.’ This she did, giving them the bell which has ever since been called by her name. It was known also by the name of the _Cloche des biens_, for at one season of the year it was rung for an hour every evening to secure an abundant harvest. ‘At the first stroke of the bell,’ wrote Sablon, in 1697, ‘all the people make the sign of the cross and recite an Ave Maria for the products of the soil.’

The fifth storey marks the beginning of the spire, and is itself octagonal. The transition is ingeniously concealed by the richly-ornamented pinnacles at the four corners, which tie the balustrade to the tower and support, each of them, three colossal statues (John the Baptist and the eleven Apostles). Light flying buttresses, adorned with graceful mouldings and admirable grotesques, connect the pinnacles with the tower. Over one of the lights is a Christ in the act of benediction.

The sixth storey, surrounded by a gallery in Flamboyant style, panels of rich tracery and gargoyles, and pinnacles at the corners of the octagon, contains the room of the watchmen, whose duty it was every half-hour during the night to walk round this gallery and give the alarm when they saw a fire in the town. A Latin inscription records that by the peculiar grace of God this pyramid was preserved from the effects of a fire (1674) due to the watchman’s carelessness. This good man, Gendrin by name, finding that the hours of the night watch hung heavy on his hands, used to amuse himself by reading. One night the candle fell and set light to his straw mattress, and thence the flames spread rapidly to the timber of the room. The wooden belfry was saved from destruction by the great bravery of a workman named Claude Gauthier. A quotation from Psalms cxxvii., outside the western door, draws the moral, ‘Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’ It is signed F. Foucault. But the significance of the name has died away.

At last, after having mounted 377 steps, we reach the seventh storey, where hangs the ‘Tocsin’ bell, ‘in accordance with which,’ says an old writer, ‘all the people of Chartres order and conduct themselves.’[75] It weighs 5000 kilos., and was cast on the 23rd September, 1520, by Pierre Sayvet, as the inscription tells us, ‘Petrus Sayvet me fecit.’ Another and longer inscription, in beautiful Gothic characters, runs round the bell in two lines. The bell, speaking in Latin verses, tells us that it has been raised ‘to the lofty summit of this mighty building to announce the eclipses of the sun and the moon.’ And it fixes its date as 1520, with a reference to the great event of that year, the meeting of Henry VIII. and François I., near Calais, on the field of the Cloth of Gold, ‘when the Frenchmen met the English and lay down together in everlasting goodwill.’

‘Facta ad signandos solis luneque labores
Evehor ad tante culmina celsa domus
Annus erat Christi millesimus adde priori
Quingentos numero bis quoque junge decem
Illo quippe anno quo francus convenit anglum
Perpetuaque simul discubuere fide.’

The arms of the Chapter, the chemisette of Notre-Dame, and the escutcheon of a dauphin will be noticed at the end of the last line.

You reach the old tower from the new by way of the Gallery of Kings or by crossing, within, the vaulting of the nave, beneath the copper roof which has taken the place of the old wooden roof destroyed in the fire of 1836. The old roof was an immense and elaborate construction of timber known to the people as The Forest, because, one old chronicler explains, had the trees of which it was composed still been growing they would constitute a large forest by themselves; because, says another, the sight of it recalled to the people the sacred groves of the ancient Druids, who once performed their rites upon this spot. The magnificent woodwork of the belfry of the old tower was consumed in the same fire, and the huge bells that were once its boast--Mary and Gabriel--were melted down in 1793 to supply the men of reason with bullets.

The great bell of the old tower (Marie) had been re-made in 1723 and carried the inscription--

‘Marie-Anne je m’appèle
Et trente mille je pèse,
Celui qui bien me pèsera
34,000 trouvera.’

At the foot of the Clocher Neuf is the extremely elegant little Renaissance clock tower, which was built by Jehan de Beauce in 1520, when he had completely abandoned the Gothic style and adopted the classic manner lately introduced by the Italian artists who had followed Louis XII. and François I. into France. Partisans of pure Gothic may call it mythological, mannered, mundane, but the more catholic lover of the beautiful will not dismiss it so contemptuously. From this pavillon de l’horloge there used to run alongside the nave up to the transept some fourteenth-century buildings, which were demolished in 1860. They served as a lodging for the Sœurs-cryptes, who, when the epidemic known as the Mal des Ardents was scourging France in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, had charge of the Hôpital des Saints-Lieux-Forts, organised in the north gallery of the crypt to receive the crowds of sufferers who flocked to the shrine of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre. The patients were received and nursed in this hospital for nine days and then dismissed, healed or not.[76] From the fourteenth century onwards the plague gradually decreased in intensity, cases became less and less rare, and the staff of Sisters was finally reduced to one, known as La Dame des Grottes.

We will leave for the present the exterior of the Cathedral and return later to the consideration of the north and south porches. For it is time to enter, by the western portal which we know, the sanctuary of Notre-Dame. Here, amid the dim shadows of old dreams, the mystic may indulge his fancy, and here, if anywhere, wandering through this veritable gallery of Madonnas, in escaping from the feverish passions of the world, a man may cool his hands awhile in the gray twilight of Gothic things. More souls, they say, have been healed at Chartres than bodies at Lourdes. In solitude and silence it is best; but wonderful also and impressive is the Cathedral when filled with long trains of pilgrims, whose shuffling feet and murmured prayers echo through the vast nave and resound from the innumerable chapels. These sounds, these sights carry us back in a flash of memory to those mediæval days when Sébastien Rouillard was astonished at the crowds of all nations who congregated here ‘and slept all night in the church or in the grottoes for lack of lodgings.’ On the very threshold the sloping floor of the west end of the nave, so made that it might the more easily be cleansed, suggests that scene.

Surely the vast nave with its gloomy spaces is filled with the ghosts of forgotten worshippers, and it thrills with the unheard echoes of unanswered prayers. It is melancholy with the records of perverted faith and false enthusiasm, and it is magnificent with the chanted hopes of the faithful and the undying promises of the Risen Lord. The blood of martyrs and the blood of infidels cries aloud from those stones which once resounded with the fiery exhortations of a crusading monk or of a fanatic preaching the extermination of the Jews and the persecution of the Huguenots.

Here knights have kept their vigil and watched by their armour on the eve of a Crusade, and here many a young squire after his night watch by the altar, clothed in vestments of white linen that symbolised his moral purity, has been struck on the shoulder with the consecrated sword and made ‘a knight in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.’ Hither, again, courtier pilgrims have brought with them the perfume of Paris, and Norman peasants the odour of the fields. Here many a penitent Magdalen has poured out her soul in contrite supplication. Here, too, the hand of the sacrilegious destroyer has wrought its vile work, and yet failed to leave more than a few blots and stains upon the mighty fabric reared by mediæval faith.

You may close your eyes and imagine that you are present at a Mass of old days--a Mass of the dead--a silent Mass, at which no sound escapes from the lips of the praying, and no tinkle comes from the bell that is vainly shaken. Kings do penance before the sacred altar, knights in chain armour kneel and take the sign of the cross; noble lords, clad in velvet and brocade, with plumes in their hats and swords at their sides, carry in their hands tall canes, with golden knobs, and bow to great dames with powdered hair, who hide behind their fans lovely faces powdered, painted, patched. And in the aisles a crowd of youthful artisans, in brown jerkins, dimity breeches, and hose of blue, stand beside young women with rosy cheeks and downcast eyes. Elsewhere peasant women, in their old skirts and laced bodices, sit tranquil, whilst upright, behind them, their young lovers shift their legs and twist their hats in their fingers, gazing open-eyed.

They seem to follow with their silent lips the noiseless priests as they perform that ritual order of Notre-Dame de Chartres, which rejoiced the Gothic soul of Gaston de Latour; a year-long dramatic action, in which everyone had and knew his part--the drama or mystery of redemption, to the necessities of which the great church had shaped itself. For all those various ‘offices’ which, in pontifical, missal and breviary, devout imagination had elaborated from age to age with such a range of spiritual colour and light and shade, with so much poetic tact in quotation, such a depth of insight into the Christian soul, had been joined harmoniously together, one office ending only where another began, in the perpetual worship of this mother of churches. And Notre-Dame had also its own picturesque peculiarities of ‘use,’ and was proud of its maternal privilege therein.[77]

You notice the rich tones of the masonry, made richer by the jewelled lights of those rare windows; you notice in the centre of the nave the mysterious maze traced upon the pavement, the scene in old times of much devotional exercise,--la Lieue, it is vulgarly termed, for the miniature pilgrimages, along the line of white stones, with prayers at stated intervals, as once at Reims, Amiens, Arras, and Bayeux, earned many indulgences, and took the place of a journey to Jerusalem. This, with the exception of that at S. Quentin, is the only remaining instance of a labyrinth in the French churches. Above you, around you, tower the piers and vaulting of the nave--

‘Heavy as nightmare, airy light as fern,
Imagination’s very self in stone.
Solemn the lift of high-embowered roof;
Solemn the deepening vault.’

Something of the power of impressing which this Cathedral possesses is due, one begins to reflect, to the fortunate scarcity of side-chapels, and the complete absence of the tombs, which fill up the spaces, and therefore detract from the effect of so many churches. The reason for this happy freedom from monuments is given by the old writer, Rouillard. ‘This church has the special prerogative of being reputed the chamber or couch of the Virgin. As a sign thereof the soil of this church has always hitherto been preserved pure and undefiled, without ever having been dug or opened for any sepulture.’ But there was one exception. One military leader was interred there with all honours in 1568, within the precinct of the high altar itself. Much against their will, the canons had yielded to the pressure of the King and the Court, and consented at last to inter in the Choir the body of the Baron of Bourdeilles, the colonel of the Gascons, who had fallen in the defence of the breach against the Huguenots (_see_ p. 277). To the sound of tabourins and fifes the funeral _cortège_ wound its way through the town of mourning citizens, and the remains of the valiant D’Ardelay were regretfully lowered into a vault to the left of the high altar, which was not to prove their last resting-place. Rouillard, who saw the tomb of the gallant colonel in 1608, adds that many believed then that the body would not long remain where it was. And, indeed, fifty years afterwards, the reverend canons, resenting, on the part of their immaculate Patroness, this intrusion, reported that the corpse itself, ill at ease, had protested, lifting up its hands above the surface of the pavement, as if to beg interment elsewhere. This it easily obtained in the cemetery of S. Jerome.

The nave exceeds in width any in France or Germany. Its width, as also its length, which is short in comparison with the other parts of the Cathedral, was determined, as we have seen, by the position of the two towers. In height it falls short of the naves of Bourges and Amiens, and of Beauvais, which out-rivalled even its sisters, and fell in the moment of its mad success. But it is an unprofitable business, this comparison of cathedrals. One is not less beautiful because another is of larger dimensions, nor less perfect because another is more uniform. This nave has its own qualities, which I have feebly endeavoured to suggest, qualities different from, but not less valuable than the pure beauty of that of Amiens.

Architecturally speaking, Parker put the matter in a nutshell when he wrote that the nave of Chartres was ‘nearly as massive as Norman work, although the effect of heaviness is removed by the enormous height.’[78] Detached piers and engaged pilasters support the vaulting, which is as daring as it is strong.

‘The main ribs of the vault spring from, or are rather continuations of the tall clustered pilasters, which are themselves continuations of the main piers; and from the points where each of the main ribs rise two other cross-ribs also spring. These at their points of intersection are adorned with crown-shaped bosses, for the most part enriched with carvings of foliage, coloured in part, which have been marred with colour-wash. Lines, in imitation of ashlar-work, have been painted upon the vault’ (Massé).[79]

The piers in the nave and transept are alternately cylindrical and octagonal in section, and have supplementary cylindrical or octagonal columns; but in the ambulatory of the choir there are several piers circular in section, with octagonal bases and square plinths, but without any supplementary columns. Such plain round piers, which in England are called Norman, are rare in France. Examples of them are, however, to be found at Laon, Soissons and Paris. The capitals are rich and varied, and consist chiefly of foliage; those of the piers in the Chapel of the Seven Sorrows (Clocher Neuf), and, again, those of the Norman pillars, in the deambulatory of the choir opposite the shrine of Notre-Dame du Pilier, are remarkably fine. But the most noteworthy of the piers are the four ‘Toureaus,’ as they are called: the enormous piers at the intersection of nave and transept, which were intended to support the central tower and spire, and which rise sheer to the roof, in an unbroken line, to the height of 120 feet. Their faces are covered with a quantity of slender columns.

The arcading of the triforium varies in width and character in the nave, the choir, and the transepts and the apse. The arches of the smaller bays into which each main bay is divided are pointed. The soffit is flat, with a round moulding at the inner and the outer edge. The capitals are richly carved with foliage; the bases are plain and severe.

The clerestory is composed of pairs of tall lancet windows, with a rose window above them, which fill the whole available space in each bay. Of the glass we have spoken in the previous chapter.

The _Flamboyant_ period is represented in the Cathedral by the spire of Jehan de Beauce and the _Chapelle Vendôme_, next to the south transept. It was founded in 1413 by Louis de Bourbon, and dedicated to the Annunciation. It has recently been restored. The style is incongruous with this massive transitional nave, but serves perhaps to accentuate the beauty of its masculine grandeur and reserve. The remains of S. Piat and S. Taurin are preserved here; the one is invoked for fair weather, the other for rain by the farmers of La Beauce.

The influence of the _Renaissance_ is to be traced in the clock tower at the foot of the _Clocher Neuf_, in the later portions of the _Clôture du Chœur_ and, in its most fatal form, in the alterations that were made in the eighteenth century within the choir.[80] The Chapter, about 1750, was composed of men with much taste, all of it bad. A terrible mania for ugliness had seized mankind. Men like Bossuet, Fénelon, Montesquieu and Racine, enamoured of the classical style, declared the Gothic barbarous. At that inopportune crisis of taste the Chapter began to ‘decorate’ the choir. The result is simply nauseating.

The jubé, the beautiful screen which had come down from the century of S. Louis, required repair. The excuse was welcomed, and it was destroyed. A few fragments only remain in the Chapel of S. Martin in the crypt. The pillar upon which the Vierge Noire (Notre-Dame du Pilier) was then set is said to have been part of the _débris_ of this screen. The present grille replaced in 1866 the pretentious iron-work of the eighteenth century.

This achievement of the Chapter seems to have whetted rather than satisfied their shameless appetite for the hideous. ‘Sans doute,’ wrote Victor Hugo, ‘C’est encore aujourd’hui un majestueux et sublime édifice que Notre-Dame de Chartres. Mais si belle qu’elle se soit conservée en vieillissant, il est difficile de ne pas soupirer, de ne pas s’indigner devant les dégradations, les mutilations sans nombre que simultanément le temps et les hommes ont fait subir au vénérable monument.’

Italians were sent for from Milan to wash the grand old stone of Berchères a sickly yellow; the noble simplicity of the piers, capitals and soffits of the arches disappeared beneath a mess of stucco, gilding and sham marble. The choir was treated like an eighteenth century drawing-room. The old tapestry hangings, five of which are happily preserved in the Museum, were removed, and in their place eight mediocre bas-reliefs in glaring white marble were substituted by Bridan, two of which have been removed to the Bishop’s Palace. The old paving of the choir, on which S. Louis and a thousand other illustrious pilgrims had knelt, was also removed, and an utterly unsuitable pavement of black and white marble laid down in its stead. In order to throw light upon the atrocious transformation that had been wrought, several of the priceless thirteenth-century windows were taken out and plain glass substituted. To such an extent was this done, indeed, that in 1786 we find a canon of the Cathedral gravely complaining that there was too much light, and asking for a curtain to be drawn across the window! But the Revolution surprised these canons seated in their new stalls ere the curtains had yet been made to hide the results of their pious Paganism. They were sent to the scaffold, and their church was converted into a Temple of Reason amid scenes of abominable profanity and vile orgy.

The group of the Assumption was preserved by the presence of mind of an architect, by name Morin, who placed a red cap of liberty on the Virgin’s head and a lance in her hand. It might have been more reasonable to destroy it. For anything more detestably out of place than this soulless mass of Carrara marble in the old Gothic sanctuary it is impossible to discover without going to Westminster Abbey. It is the work of Antoine Bridan, the King’s sculptor, and the Chapter were so pleased with it that they settled a pension on him and his wife, and cheerfully destroyed more windows in order to throw more light upon the monument.

Vandals, alas, are of all time and of all countries. Even the beautiful Clôture, the great horse-shoe wall

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which, chiselled like a silver bowl, encloses the choir, has been and continues to be horribly defaced and defiled by the ignorant vandalism of impious idiots and pious pilgrims, whose zeal has eaten them up and moves them to write or scratch their names upon the walls of this exquisite though unequal work.

More beautiful than the fourteenth-century screen of Notre-Dame de Paris, but inferior in unity and nobility of feeling to the _Pourtoir_ of Amiens, this Clôture, although executed at various periods, is one in design. The plan of forty groups, representing the principal scenes in the life of the Virgin and the Gospel story was drawn up by the Chancellor of the Chapter, Mainterne, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The work was begun in 1514 under Jehan de Beauce. It was continued in 1611 by Boudin. It was finished by various sculptors at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and the style naturally varies from late Gothic to Renaissance. The earliest work is the best.

It comprises the first twelve groups in the south ambulatory. These were wrought by or under the supervision of Jehan Soulas, a Parisian sculptor, engaged for that purpose by the Chapter (1518). For Jehan de Beauce, being an architect and not a sculptor, was responsible only for the framework, and not for the groups of figures. But that framework is a masterpiece of delicate grace and prolific imagination. A wealth of ornament, of foliage and arabesques, of mythical personages and fantastic beasts, covers the base and the innumerable columns about it. The stone openwork above and the canopies are exquisite in their lightness and finish. Before he died in 1529 Jehan de Beauce had passed completely under the influence of the Renaissance. The elegant and ingenious clock tower, which breaks the series of niches on the south side of the clôture, with its decorative Titus and Vespasian, and so forth, gives evidence of this. The elaborate clockwork with which it was originally provided, and which showed the days, hours, months, time of sunrise and sunset, and signs of the Zodiac, was destroyed in 1793. The initial F, with a crown, which appears on the vertical band, refers to the then reigning François I.

Apart from the infinite variety of other ornamental details in which the framework is so rich, there are thirty-five medallions on the base. The first on the south side refers to the Siege of Chartres by Rollo in 911; the next fifteen to the lives of David, Daniel, Moses, Samson, Abraham and Jonas; the next twelve to mythological subjects--Labours of Hercules--and the last seven are heads of Roman emperors.

The pillars of the screen carry statuettes of founders and bishops, of whom we have already mentioned S. Fulbert and S. Ives at the eastern extremity. The small doors in their beautiful frames give access to rooms of which four were once chapels, and two others served for the night-watchers.

The first group in the south ambulatory represents the angel appearing to S. Joachim, who is watching his flocks with two shepherds and a dog, and announcing the birth of the Virgin. This and the three following groups are certainly the work of Jehan Soulas (1520).

The second group shows S. Anne receiving a similar message from an invisible angel, to whom she listens with the most intent absorption. The servant, whose attention has also been arrested, is portrayed with equally vivid realism. The sculptor was evidently a master of exact observation. There is something Flemish in his closeness to life. The third group, where the aged couple meet and embrace before the Golden Gate, shows a minute and vivid understanding of the gestures of old age, and the attitude of the servant is admirably suggestive of her naïve, sympathetic delight. There is something Flemish, again, in the homely details with which (4) the Birth of the Virgin is portrayed. S. Anne lies on a curtained couch in the background, attended by a servant, whilst another prepares to wash the Infant.

The next eight groups owe much to Jehan Soulas, but they cannot be ascribed with certainty to his chisel. They show (5) the Virgin Mary ascending the steps of the Temple with S. Joachim and S. Anne, (6) the Marriage of the Virgin, (7) the Annunciation, (8) the Visitation.

The ninth group, next to the Renaissance clock, is of extraordinary excellence. It is conceived in a spirit of the most bold and vivid realism, absolutely justified in the result. Mary is sewing and reading a book; Joseph asleep (and not his eyes only but his whole body proclaims profound slumber), learns in a dream the immaculate conception of the Virgin. Then follow three excellent groups--the Adoration of the Shepherds and Angels, the Circumcision and the Adoration of the Magi. In the latter the figure of the Virgin is particularly noteworthy. On the threshold of the Renaissance the sculptor has suddenly left the uninspired style of his day and gone back to the mystic ideal charm of the thirteenth century.

The next two scenes, the Presentation in the Temple (13), and the Massacre of the Innocents (14), with the Flight into Egypt in the background, were finished by François Marchand, of Orléans, in 1542, and, in spite of mutilation and restoration, they reveal the beginnings of the influence which the Italian Renaissance was to exercise upon French art. The Baptism of Christ in the Jordan (15), which follows, is by Nicholas Guybert, who lacked the draughtsmanship and anatomical study of Marchand, but was inspired with a devotional feeling quite foreign to the seventeenth-century work of Thomas Boudin, (16, 17, 18) the Temptation, the Canaanitish woman, the Transfiguration (1612). The Woman taken in Adultery (19) is the work of Jean de Dieu (1681), and (20) the Man born Blind, that of Pierre Legros (1683).

The centre of the _Tour du Chœur_, as it is called, was formerly filled by an altar, above which were relics of several saints in rich caskets (SS. Piat, Lubin, Calétric, Tugdualus, etc.); but those have disappeared, and a fifteenth-century group, representing S. Martin sharing his cloak with a poor man, has taken its place.

Tuby the younger executed the next two groups in 1703. They represent (21, 22) the Entry into Jerusalem, whilst the next six are as late as 1714, and are by Simon Arazières. They depict (23) the Agony in the Garden, (24) the Betrayal, (25) the Trial before Pontius Pilate, (26) the Scourging of Jesus, (27) the Crown of Thorns, (28) the Crucifixion, (29) the Virgin gazing at the dead Christ.

Thomas Boudin, again, is responsible for the next four groups (1611)--(30) the Resurrection, (31) the Holy Women bringing vases of perfume to the Tomb, (32) Christ and the Disciples of Emmaus, (33) Christ dispelling the doubts of S. Thomas.

The remaining eight groups are of the same date, and almost of the same excellence as those by Jehan Soulas at the beginning of the clôture opposite, and contrast favourably with the cold and Pagan feeling of the foregoing. They are probably the work of a pupil of that sculptor, and were made under the supervision, in part, perhaps, with the aid of Jehan Texier, called De Beauce. An inscription of the plinth beneath explains the subject of each scene.

(34.) _Comment Jésus-Christ ressuscité apparoist à la Vierge Marie._ Christ appearing to the Virgin and S. John.

(35.) _Comme Nostre-Seigneur monte ès-cieux._ The Virgin and the Apostles grouped round the stone which bears the imprint of the Saviour’s feet, look upwards to the sky, where the robe and feet of the ascending Lord can be seen.

(36.) _Comme le S.-Esprit descent sur les apôtres._ The tongues of fire descending on the day of Pentecost on the Virgin and the eight Apostles round her.

(37.) _Comme Nostre-Dame adore la Croix._ The Adoration of the Cross by the Virgin, accompanied by S. John, Mary Magdalen, Mary Salome.

(38.) _C’est le trépassement de Nostre-Dame._ The Death of the Virgin, who lies upon a couch, holding a taper, whilst all the Apostles attend--S. John weeping, S. James the Less taking off his spectacles, and so forth.

(39.) _Le Portement de Nostre-Dame._ The Virgin is borne on the shoulders of eight Apostles to the Tomb in the Valley of Jehoshaphat.

(40.) _Le Sépulcre de Nostre-Dame._ Four angels raise the body of the Virgin from the Tomb, whilst Christ descending between two angels blesses the body, which has half risen from the grave.

(41.) _Le couronnement Nostre-Dame._ The crowning of the Virgin by the three Persons of the Trinity is a charming group, worthy to be compared with the best of the first twelve in the south ambulatory.

In the dim aisle, opposite the groups of the Clôture which we have just described, is the shrine which draws from every side the greater number of the visitors to Chartres. Notre-Dame de la belle Verrière is, save for the devotion of a few aged peasants, a deserted Madonna, and even the cult of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre or of the Voile de Marie is at the present time less popular than that of _Notre-Dame du Pilier_, the _Vierge Noire_, black also and comely. The chapel in which this statue is placed is next to the sacristy, which was built, like the three gables of the façades, with their turrets, galleries, balustrades and statues, about the year 1310, under the direction of Jean des Carrières, ‘mason and master of the work of Notre-Dame.’ The Chapel of Notre-Dame du Pilier is not, properly speaking, a chapel, but part of the ambulatory of the choir in which the statue of the _Vierge Noire du Pilier_ or the _Vierge aux Miracle_s is set. A priest from the _Œuvre des clercs_ is always in attendance; innumerable lamps and candles burn before the shrine, and countless pilgrims kiss the pillar devoutly and obtain the forty days’ indulgence granted for that act of faith. ‘The column,’ said Rouillard (1608), ‘is worn hollow by the kisses of the faithful.’ The statue dates from the latter part of the fifteenth century, and was originally placed at the foot of the cross above the choir screen. When that screen was destroyed in 1763 it was moved near a pier in the choir, and afterwards, in 1791, banished to the crypt and its place taken by the statue of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre. It was established in its present position in 1806, and set upon a column which is a fragment of the old jubé. Notre-Dame du Pilier was solemnly crowned, in the name of Pius IX., on May 31, 1855, after a month-long festival, and amid a scene of extraordinary splendour and jubilation. Ever since then, on the anniversary of that feast, the statue is borne in triumphant procession round the church.

I do not think that there is any other detail in the Cathedral over which it is necessary to linger. For the crypt and the Chapel of S. Piat have already been described at length. Let us, then, seek the open air and examine the copper-stained statuary of the northern porch, choosing, if possible, the late afternoon for our visit, when the cold stone is warmed by the rose-pink tint of the setting sun. The effect of this gallery of seven hundred thirteenth century statues of all sizes is splendid enough as it is, but it must have been greatly enhanced originally, when, in accordance with the early regulation of the church, every piece of carving was coloured or gilded. The same perfect harmony of structure which distinguishes the western and southern porches is visible in the northern, and the latter is even richer in detail. It was given by the Royal Family, like the rose window above, and, like the south porch, it was added after the plan of the Cathedral was more or less completed. Traces of this fact are evident. Buttresses had to be cut away to make room for it, and it was soon found necessary to insert iron ties to hold it to the main building.

There is nothing outside France which can be compared with the splendour of these porches. And among French churches those of S. Urbain at Troyes, S. Maclou at Rouen, S. Germain at Paris, and the Cathedral of Bourges and of Alby rival, but cannot claim to surpass, in harmonious effect and delicate grace of detail, the open porches of Chartres. The fact that these porches are opened and advanced, verandah-like, beyond the line of the building, relieving thereby the severity of it, is significant. It indicates the change from the primitive architecture of the church. For the early buildings, the style of which was based on that of the Roman basilicas, had closed porches beneath which persons of importance were buried, catechumens were instructed and baptized, and exorcisms of the devil performed. But in the thirteenth century it became the practice, as here with regard to the western façade, to build the entrance flush with the towers, and when later, in the reign of S. Louis, the fashion of lateral porches was revived, they were no longer used for sacred purposes as before, but merely as shelters for the faithful coming into or going out of the church. It was not therefore any longer necessary to build them entirely covered in.

The architect will study with pleasure the arrangement of the arcading and the exquisite plinths of the piers which support it. To the artist the study of the sculpture with which the bays and the piers of the porch are filled will prove of profound interest. Comparing this statuary with that of the western front, he will notice a distinct difference in feeling, a marked advance in style. The overwhelming influence of the East has disappeared. Classical and Byzantine art have given place to the original genius of France. Throwing away the debased classical traditions, the neo-Christian artist has given expression to the new Christian ideal of character in a type of Germanic origin, with wavy hair and prominent forehead, which he has observed from the men and women of his own time and country. He has given expression, that is, to the ideal of humility and graciousness which has been traced by the teaching of chivalry, with all its appreciation of physical perfection and its teaching of noble manners. ‘We have then,’ it has been well observed, ‘in this new art, evidences of a sudden increase in the feeling for pure sensuous charm, and at the same time for spiritual grace.’ A perfect union between sense and spirit has arisen, imparting to each a rare intensity. In the grace and movement of the drapery (for the old straight folds have been discarded), and in the simple grandeur of pose as well as in the qualities of truth and self-restraint, these sculptors are nearer to the masterpieces of Greek sculpture than perhaps any before or since. Yet they lack, do they not? something of the intimate mystic charm of the kings and queens of the Porche Royal. In the name of Philosophy and the Republic it was proposed (1793) to destroy them. And this, save for the firm opposition of the deputy, Sargent-Marceau, would have been done.

Some damage, however, they did succeed in doing. The left bay, for instance, is sadly mutilated, and the large statue of Philippe-Auguste, who had provided for the yearly expenses in connection with the work of the porch, has disappeared from the column of the vestibule on which it used to be. The statue of his son, Louis VIII., however survives (central bay). Louis IX., S. Louis, followed the example of his mother, Blanche of Castile, and, besides founding windows and chapels, he, ‘by reason of his particular devotion to the Church of Notre-Dame, and for the saving of his soul and the souls of his forefathers,’ to quote the words of a charter of the year 1259, caused the north porch to be completed. His statue is to be seen on the pier of the central bay.