How France Built Her Cathedrals Part 46

861, and vol. 35, p. 709; Alexis Martin, _Excursions dans les environs de Paris_ (Paris, 1900); Henri Stein, _Les architectes des cathedrales gothiques_ (Paris, 1908); emile Male, _L'art religieux du XIIIe siecle en France_ (Paris, Colin, 1908), 4to.

[72] "Les ardentes prieres, les sanglots desesperes du moyen age avaient a jamais impregne ces piliers et tanne ces murs."--J. K. HUYSMANS.

[73] "Il me sembla que tout le pa.s.se de mon pays se dressait devant moi.

Tout ce qu'elles ont vu, ces pierres!... Tout ce qu'elles ont entendu, ces votes!"

--PIERRE L'ERMITE (Abbe Loutil)

[74] "The first of the great Gothic facades in point of dignity is undoubtedly that of Paris, a design of which no words can express the exalted beauty. Grandeur of composition, n.o.bility of silhouette, perfection of proportion, wealth of detail, infinitely varied play of light and shade combine to raise this composition, so majestic, so serene, to the place it has ever occupied in the heart of everyone endowed with the slightest feeling for the beautiful."--ARTHUR KINGSLEY PORTER.

[75] The problem of Universals remains still a real one for the thinker--how our intellectual concepts correspond to things existing outside our intellect.

[76] In his _Summa totius theologiae_ St. Thomas held that the existence of G.o.d was to be known by reason. He took his stand on a palpable fact--the existence of creatures. He began with the fecund idea of motion, the stars in their orbits, man engendering man. If there is movement there must be a First Motor. If there ever had been an instant when nothing was, nothing ever would have been. Effects must have a cause. Either nothing is, which is an absurdity, or there must be One Being eternally immutable.

That the movement is ordered, such as night and day, season following season, shows a supreme power directing. That creatures are more or less perfect supposes a perfect being. One by one Aquinas laid his foundation stones till a solid lower wall was built, on which he reared his majestic structure. In the Roman Breviary, he is thus recorded: "Thou hast written well of me, Thomas, what recompense do you ask of me?"

"None but yourself, Lord!" ("_Non aliam, Domine, nisi te ipsum!_").

[77] The father of St. Thomas was the Count of Aquin, nephew of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. His mother came of the line of the Norman rulers in Sicily; the same stocks produced that undisciplined, undecipherable genius of the XIII century, Frederick II.

[78] L. Liard, _L'Universite de Paris_ (Collection, Les grandes inst.i.tutions de France), (Paris, H. Laurens); L. Maitre, _Les ecoles episcopales et monastiques de l'occident depuis Charlemagne jusqu'a Philippe-Auguste_ (Paris, 1866); Tarsot, _Les ecoles et les ecoliers a travers les ages_ (Paris, H. Laurens); H. Rashdall, _The Universities of the Middle Ages_ (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1895), 2 vols.; Bonnard, _Histoire de l'abbaye royale de St. Victor de Paris_ (1907); V. Cousin, ed., _OEuvres de Pierre Abelard_ (Paris, 1849-59), 2 vols.; B.

Haureau, ed., _Les oeuvres de Hugues de St. Victor_ (Paris, 1887); B.

Haureau, _Histoire de la philosophie scholastique_ (Paris, 1872), 3 vols.; A. Mignon, _Hugues de St. Victor_ (Paris, 1895); Leon Gautier, ed., _OEuvres poetiques d'Adam de St. Victor_ (Paris, 1858), 2 vols.; Leon Gautier, _Histoire de la poesie religieuse dans les cloitres des Xe et XIe siecle_ (Paris, 1887); Noel Valois, _Guillaume d'Auvergne_ (Paris, 1880); E. Berger, _La Bible francaise au moyen age_ (Paris, 1884); Lecoy de la Marche, _La chaire francaise au moyen age_ (Paris, 1886); _Histoire litteraire de la France_. (Begun by the XVII-century Benedictines, continued by the Inst.i.tute of France.) Vol.

9, p. 1, "L'etat des lettres en France, XIIe siecle" (Paris, 1750); vol. 10, p. 309, "Guillaume de Champeaux" (Paris, 1759); vol. 12, p. 1, "Hugues de St. Victor"; p. 86, "Abelard"; p. 585, "Pierre Lombard"; p.

629, "Helose" (Paris, 1764); vol. 13, p. 472, "Richard de St. Victor"

(Paris, 1814); vol. 15, p. 40, "Adam de St. Victor"; p. 149. "Maurice de Sully" (Paris, 1820); vol. 16, p. 1, "L'etat des lettres en France au XIIIe siecle" p. 574, "Eudes de Sully" (Paris, 1824); vol. 18, p.

357, "Guillaume d'Auvergne" p. 449, "Vincent de Beauvais" (Paris, 1835); vol. 19, p. 38, "Hugues de Saint-Cher"; p. 143, "St. Louis"; p. 238, "St. Thomas d'Aquin"; p. 266, "St. Bonaventure"; p. 291, "Robert de Sorbon"; p. 621, "Les trouveres," (Paris, 1838).

[79] The last vestige of St. Victor's monastery, foyer of sanct.i.ty for the XII century, was wiped out by order of a stupid munic.i.p.ality of Paris, in 1842.

[80] Pet.i.t de Julleville, ed., _Histoire de la langue et de la litterature francaise_ (Paris, Colin, 1900), 8 vols. In vols. 1 and 2 the Middle Ages are treated by Gaston Paris, Leon Gautier, and Joseph Bedier; Gaston Paris, _La litterature du XIIe siecle_ (Paris, Hachette, 1895). He places the cla.s.sic epoch of the literature of the Middle Ages between 1108 (opening of Louis VI's reign) and 1223 (end of Philippe-Auguste's rule); Joseph Bedier, _Les legendes epiques_ (Paris, H. Champion, 1908-13), 4 vols.; Remy de Gourmont, _Le Latin mystique_.

[81] _Paradiso_, x.x.xiii: 4-6.

[82] Some of the modern archbishops of Paris have added to the prestige of their see. Monseigneur Affre was shot on the barricades, in 1848, when he went forth bearing a message of peace. Monseigneur Darboy was shot in prison by the Commune of 1871. Both are commemorated in side chapels of the cathedral's choir.

[83] G. Sanoner, "La Bible racontee par les artistes du moyen age," in _Revue de l'art chretien_, 1907-13; _ibid._, "La vie de Jesus-Christ racontee par les imagiers du moyen age sur les portes d'eglises," in _Revue de l'art chretien_, 1905-08.

[84] Once the Paris churches were filled with late-Gothic windows, though the troubled history of the city has left but few. Some XVI-century gla.s.s is still to be found in St. Merri and St.

Germain-l'Auxerrois, for which churches see Huysman's _Trois eglises et trois primitifs_ (1908). St etienne-du-Mont has in a chapel an Engrand Le Prince window, a symbolic wine press with portraits of Pope Paul II, Charles V, Francis I, and Henry VIII; and reset in the pa.s.sage leading to the catechism chapel is the masterpiece of Pinaigrier, twelve panels that are veritable enameling on gla.s.s. In St. Gervais, where on Good Friday, 1918, a projectile from the long-distance German gun crashed through the masonry roof, killing many, are two windows, Solomon's judgment (1531), and St. Laurence (1551), said to be by Jean Cousin, also some Pinaigrier gla.s.s. To Jean Cousin are attributed the five splendid windows of the Apocalypse in the chapel at Vincennes, whose design derives from Durer's woodcuts, published in 1498. They have deep shadows and are strong in color and plan. M. Male says that Durer's German has here been translated into graceful Renaissance Italian.

Vincennes' chapel had been begun by Charles V in 1378. Then came the pause of a century, and the works were finished by Henry II, still on the Gothic plan, however. Henry donated the windows and he had Diana of Poitiers pictured among the righteous souls in the fifth seal of the Apocalypse. Francis I is represented at the base of the second window.

Excursions can be made from Paris to places within easy distance that posses Gothic-Renaissance gla.s.s. At ecouen, nine miles from Paris, in the church of St. Acceul, are sixteen windows due to De Montmorency patronage. Originally in ecouen's guard hall were the forty-four panels (made for the constable, Anne de Montmorency) now in the long gallery of Chantilly, the chateau bequeathed to the Inst.i.tute of France in 1897 by the Duc d'Aumale. The story of Cupid and Psyche is told in that camaeu gla.s.s so suited for domestic decoration, a species of iron-red grisaille, whose only other hue is yellow stain. Chantilly's panels were painted in the Raphaelesque style by the Flemish master, Coexyen, trained in Van Orley's school. At Montmorency, ten miles from Paris, in St. Martin's church, the history of France seems written in the windows, with the portraits of Francis I, Henry II, Adrian VI, and members of the houses of Montmorency, Pot, and Coligny. Three of the lights are by Engrand Le Prince. More portrait work appears in the many windows at Montfort l'Amaury, twenty-nine miles from Paris (1544-78), work not equal to the earlier XVI-century gla.s.s.

H. Havard, ed., _La France artistique et monumentale_, vol. 4, ecouen; vol. 5, Chantilly, Vincennes, Pierrefonds; F. de Fossa, _Le chateau de Vincennes_ (Collection, Pet.i.tes Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens); E.

Macon, _Chantilly et le musee Conde_ (Paris, H. Laurens).

[85] Henri Stein, _La Sainte-Chapelle de Paris_ (Paris, 1912); F. de Guilhermy, _Description de la Sainte-Chapelle_ (Paris, 1899), 12me; Troche, _Notice historique et descriptive sur la Sainte-Chapelle_; Morand, _Histoire de la Sainte-Chapelle_ (Paris, 1790); Louis Courajod, _La polychromie dans le statuaire du moyen age et de la Renaissance_ (Paris, 1888); Abbe A. Bouillet, _Les eglises paroissiales de Paris_, vol. 5, _La Sainte-Chapelle_ (Paris, 1900); F. de Mely, "La sainte couronne d'epines," in _Revue de l'art chretien_, 1899, vol. 42.

[86] Armand le Brun, _L'eglise St. Julien-le-Pauvre_ (Paris, 1889); J.

Viatte, _L'eglise de St. Julien-le-Pauvre de Paris_ (Chateaudun, Prudhomme, 1899).

[87] Jules Quicherat, "St. Germain-des-Pres," in _Bibli. de l'ecole des chartes_, 1865, vol. I, p. 513; and _Memoires de la Soc. des Antiquaires de France_, 1864, vol. 28, p. 156; Jacques Bouillart, _Histoire de l'abbaye royale de St. Germain-des-Pres_ (Paris, 1724); Auger, _Les dependances de St. Germain-des-Pres_ (Paris, 1909), 3 vols.; E.

Lefevre-Pontalis, "etude sur le choeur de l'eglise de St.

Martin-des-Champs a Paris," in _Bibliotheque de l'ecole des chartes_, 1886, vol. 47; F. Deshoulieres, _St. Pierre de Montmartre_ (Caen, H.

Delesque, 1913); also in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1913, vol. 77, p. 4; H.

Havard, ed., _La France artistique et monumentale_, vol. 6, p. 66, "Le conservatoire des arts et metiers" (St. Martin-des-Champs); A. Lenoir, _Statistique monumentale de la ville de Paris_ (Paris, Imprimerie Imperiale, 1867), 3 vols., folio (valuable drawings of the Parisian abbeys); Em. de Broglie, _Mabillon et la societe de l'abbaye de St.

Germain-des-Pres_ (Paris, 1881).

[88] The Hotel Cluny, which became a national museum in 1848, was built as the town house for the abbot of Burgundian Cluny, by those two art patrons, Jean de Bourbon (1456-81) and Jacques d'Amboise (1481-1514). It is one of the best works of Gothic civic architecture in France. It stands on the site of Roman baths, alleged to be those of Julian the Apostate, above which had later risen a residence of the Merovingian kings. In the time of the Carolings, Alcuin taught on this spot. The Palais des Termes was purchased for Cluny by Abbot Pierre de Chastellux (1322-43). H. Havard, ed., _La France artistique et monumentale_, vol.

1, p. 161, A. Darcel, on Musee Cluny; E. du Sommerard, _Le palais des thermes et l'Hotel de Cluny_; Ch. Normand, _l'Hotel de Cluny_ (Paris, 1888).

[89] Paul Abadie, who over-restored the cathedrals of Angouleme and Perigieux, won the compet.i.tion for the national memorial basilica of the Sacre-Coeur, and began his strange Romano-Byzantine monument in 1873.

He united Auvergne's Romanesque ambulatory with the cupola church of Aquitaine. There is not sufficient contrast between his elongated dome and the tower. Nevertheless, the immense pile of white stone standing over the capital presents exotic and superb effects in sun and mist, and no one can deny that a profound religious spirit breathes in this new shrine of France, as if the prayers and sufferings of generations had already hallowed its walls. Below the basilica stands a statue of the young Chevalier de la Barre, a victim of the personal intrigue of a corrupt magistrate of Abbeville and the lax law courts of Louis XV's time, not in any way the object of clerical hate, as the inscription on his statue would indicate. His abbess aunt was his warm defender, as was the bishop of Amiens, and on the day of his execution he received the sacraments piously. See Cruppi, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, March, 1895. As this mythical hero meets one in many a French city, it were well to know his real story.

[90] Some of the later manifestations of Gothic art in the capital are the porch and facade of St. Germain l'Auxerrois (1431-39), one of the first signs of renewed energy after Jeanne d'Arc's mission; the tower of St. Jacques (1508-22), attributed to the late-Gothic master, Martin Chambiges, and formerly part of a Flamboyant church destroyed by the Revolution; and the church of St. Merri (1520-1612), still Gothic in spirit. Th e Renaissance appears in St. etienne-du-Mont (1517-63), whose interior is alluringly graceful, though it cannot boast of purity of style. St. Eustache (1532-1642), begun slightly after St. Merri, has a Gothic skeleton, "dressed in Renaissance robes sewed together like the pieces of a harlequin's garment, bizarre and contradictory, satisfactory to neither taste nor reason." The old church of St. Severin used to be employed by M. Jules Quicherat as an object lesson for his pupils, since four different epochs are traceable in it; the three westernmost bays of the nave are early XIII century; and there is much Flamboyant Gothic with disappearing moldings. Abbe A. Bouillet, _Les eglises paroissiales de Paris_ (1903); H. Escoffier, _Les dernieres eglises gothiques au diocese de Paris_ (These, ecole des chartes, 1900).

[91] Le Nain de Tillemont, _Vie de St. Louis_ (Paris, 1848-51 ed., Gauble), 6 vols.; Sertillanges, _St. Louis_ (Collection, L'art et les saints), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1918); H. Wallon, _St. Louis et son temps_ (Tours, 1865), 2 vols.; A. Beugnot, _Essai sur les inst.i.tutions de St.

Louis_ (Paris, 1821); Jean, sire de Joinville, texte original accompagne d'une traduction, Natalis de Wailly, ed., Paris, 1867. Translated into English, Bohn's Antiquarian Library, London; Gaston Paris, "Jean de Joinville," in _Hist. litteraire de la France_, 1848, vol. 32, p. 291; also Delaborde's biography; Lecoy de la Marche, _La France sous St.

Louis et sous Philippe le Hardi_ (Paris, 1894); A. Molinier, _Les sources de l'histoire de France_ (Paris, 1901-06); U. Chevalier, Repertoire _des sources hist. du moyen age_ (Montbeliard, 1903).

[92] Philippe Lauer, "Royaumont," in _Congres Archeologique_, 1908, vol.

2, p. 215.

[93] One sister of St. Louis' queen married Henry III of England, under whom was built Westminster Abbey (1217-54). The second was the wife of King Henry's brother, Richard of Cornwall, who was t.i.tular emperor of Germany. The youngest sister inherited Provence and wedded St. Louis'

brother, Charles d'Anjou, king of the Two Sicilies. E. Boutarie, _Marguerite de Provence, femme de St. Louis_ (Paris, 1869); E. Berger, _Blanche de Castille_ (Paris, 1900).

[94] Joinville, in Syria, went to the Krak, the great Christian fortress beyond the Jordan, to obtain, as a relic for his church at Joinville, the s.h.i.+eld of his crusading ancestor whom Richard Coeur-de-Lion had admired. His "_beau chastel_" on the Marne was wrecked by the Revolution. His line had ended in an heiress who married into the ruling house of Lorraine, so that the XVI-century Duke of Guise, whose personal charm made him the idol of the French people, was fifth, by female descent, from the irresistible seneschal. A brother of Joinville's, Geoffrey, married Mahaut de Lacy, heiress of Meath, and became Lord Chief Justice of Ireland in 1273. Under Henry III and Edward I he played a role, and went crusading in 1270. He left nine children. On his wife's death he entered the Dominican convent of Tuam, where he died in 1314.

[95] Often did Louis IX sigh over his youngest brother. "Charles d'Anjou! Charles d'Anjou!" he would say, sadly. As king of the Two Sicilies, Charles won the t.i.tle of the Merciless, and his harshness was punished by the Sicilian Vespers, 1282. Dante abominated the house of Anjou in Italy. Of Charles he wrote in the _Paradiso_ (viii: 73-75), "His evil rule, which ever cuts into the heart of subject people, caused Palermo to shriek out: 'Die! Die!'" St. Louis loved especially his brother Robert d'Artois, whose overhardy courage caused the defeat of the crusaders at Mansourah. When word was brought to the king of his brother's death in that battle, tears warm and full fell from his eyes, though he said, "G.o.d must be thanked for all he sends." The other brother of Louis IX was Alphonse of Poitiers, who married the heiress of Toulouse and took guidance of the king in his administration of the Midi.

[96] In 1841 Louis-Philippe built a chapel on the site where St. Louis had died in Tunis, 1270. In the _Ville d'Art Celebres_ series (H.

Laurens, Paris), see H. Saladin, _Tunis et Kairouan_, and R. Cagnat, _Carthage, Tingad, Tebessa_.

[97] Shakespeare, "Richard II." iv: 1.

[98] _Congres Archeologique_, 1905; Leon Gautier, _La France sous Philippe-Auguste_ (Tours, Mame et fils, 1869); A. Luchaire, _La societe francaise au temps de Philippe-Auguste_ (Paris, Hachette, 1909); W. H.

Hutton, _Philip-Augustus_ (London and New York, Macmillan Company, 1896); Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire de l'architecture_; see articles on cathedral, rose, triforium.

[99] Two miles from Mantes, across the river, is Ga.s.sicourt (Seine-et-Oise), once a Cluniac priory. Its earliest diagonals were built about 1125. The nave and tower are XII century; the choir and transept are Rayonnant Gothic. Some of the windows donated by Blanche of Castile remain. Bossuet long held the living of Ga.s.sicourt. See Lefevre-Pontalis, "Monographie des eglises Ga.s.sicourt, Meulan," etc., in _Bul. de la Commission des antiquites et des arts de Seine-et-Oise_, 1885-88, vols. 5 to 8.

[100] J. Formige, _La cathedrale de Meaux_ (Pontoise, 1917); Amedee Boinet, "La cathedrale de Meaux," in _Revue de l'art chretien_, 1912; I.

Taylor, _La cathedrale de Meaux_ (Paris, Didot, 1858), folio; Emile Lambin, "La cathedrale de Meaux," in _Revue de l'art chretien_, 1900; Henri Stein, _La cathedrale de Meaux et l'architecte Nicolas de Chaumes_ (Arcis-sur-Aube, 1890); Du Carro, _Histoire de Meaux et du pays meldois_ (Meaux, 1865); Monseigneur Allon, _Chronique des eveques de Meaux_; also his _Notice hist. et descript. de la cathedrale de Meaux_ (1871); O.

Join-Lambert, _Le diocese de Meaux_ (These, ecole des chartes, 1894).

[101] Lionel Johnson, _Poetical Works_ (New York and London, Macmillan Company), p. 252.

[102] Peguy pierced to the very soul of the Maid in his _Mystere de la charite de Jeanne d'Arc_. Jeanne, in Domremy, seeing the evil round her caused by war, says: "Je pourrais pa.s.ser ma vie entiere a la maudire, et les villes n'en seront pas moins efforcees, et les hommes d'armes n'en feront pas moins chevaucher leurs chevaux dans les bles venerables ...

bles sacres, bles qui faites le pain ... sacres bles qui devintes le corps de Jesus-Christ."