The Cathedrals of Northern France Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: _St. Gatien de Tours_]

IV

ST. GATIEN DE TOURS

The _soi-disant_ provincial metropolis of Mr. James' appreciative favour, the capital of old Touraine, is possessed of great and many charms for the seeker after new things. He may be pa.s.sionately fond of churches; if so, the trinity here to be seen, and the history of their founders and prelates, and the important part which they played in church affairs, will edify him greatly. If romance fills his or her mind, there is no more convenient centre than Tours from which to "_do_"

the chateaux of the Loire. If it be French history, or the study of modern economic or commercial conditions, the past activities and present prosperity of the city will give much food for thought. If to literature one's mind turns, there is the a.s.sociation with Balzac's birth in the Rue Royale, and his delightful picturings of the city's environment in the "Cure de Tours," "Le Lys dans la Vallee," and "La Grenadiere." Says Balzac of the habitant: "...He is a listless and un.o.bliging individual." But the sojourner for a day will probably not notice this, and, if he should, must simply make allowance, and think with Henry James of the other memories of "this land of Rabelais, Descartes, and Balzac; of good dinners, good company, and good houses."

To link the city still closer with letters, the first printing-press in Touraine was set up here in 1496. Nicolas Jensen, famed as the foremost Venetian printer of his time, was born in the neighbourhood and was at one time "Master of the Mint" at Tours. Christopher Plantin, the head of the famous Antwerp family of printers, likewise was born in the near-by suburb of St. Avertin pres Tours.

Climatically, Touraine appears to linger between the rigours of the north and the mildness of the southland; at least we are conscious of another atmosphere, made apparent by such evidences as palms and prunes growing in the open.

Tours, says her historian, has ever employed the pure French in her spoken and written word; "patois and provincialisms have no place here."

St. Martin of Tours erected a church here, in honour of St. Peter and Paul, as a sort of antidote to the many pagan temples which he had caused to be destroyed. His successors built several others round about the city, but they appear to have been all of small size until, in the fifth century, Perpetus, Bishop of Tours in the reign of Childeric, caused to be built a more splendid church to replace that which Briceius had erected over the tomb of St. Martin. This, in turn, was rebuilt by the celebrated Gregory of Tours, or so ordered by him; until finally in the seventh century the abbey church of St. Martin of Tours became a place of pilgrimage for all the Turones. To-day, nought remains of this great church but the two towers, which have been bisected by the running of a street throughout the old nave of the church; and thus they stand as silent sentinels of the means through which Tours arose to its ecclesiastical dignity. The Tour St. Martin or "de l'Horloge" is of the twelfth century, and the other, called the Tour de Charlemagne, being the burial-place of his wife Luitgarde, is, in its lower portions, of the eleventh century.

The Cathedral of St. Gatien, which should be greatly endeared to the English people, was commenced by Henry II. in 1170, the choir being the earliest portion. The transepts followed in the next century, and the facade as late as the fifteenth, or the beginning of the sixteenth, century. Of manifestly Renaissance tendency, this facade for sheer charm and picturesqueness must rank with the best, with the qualifying statement added that it offends against many consistent artistic and architectural principles. It is certainly an effective type, although perhaps not warranting the statement of a certain monarch, whose art training may to some degree have been wanting, that it was a "jewel in a gemmed setting." An exceedingly picturesque and attractive pair of towers rise, through no less than three different styles, to the inverted egg-cups, which in a purer example might perhaps prove less pleasing, but which in the present case seem at least to be imbued with something of the Oriental or Mediterranean influence, not yet fallen before the actual decadence. Another peculiarity of this charmingly toned west front is that the rose window is of a peculiar lozenge shape, "neither square nor round," as one authority puts it. This, of itself, is decidedly not a graceful arrangement; but the proportions are ample and the gla.s.s is good, so its deficiencies may in a measure be said to be overbalanced by its merits; and, for that matter, as it is only seen in its minutia of detail from the inside, where the excellent coloured gla.s.s is seen at its best, it hardly detracts from the general fine effect of the exterior facade. The western doorways are thoroughly Renaissance, both inside and out, while the portals themselves offer a livid suggestion as to what they might have been, were all the bare niches and blocks filled and mounted with worthy statues. The effect would have been an undeniable approach to the best matured Gothic, and would have enhanced greatly this already highly interesting facade. The b.u.t.tresses of the choir follow the accepted forms of grace and effectiveness, and, while not numerous or remarkable as to size, each springs to a supporting pier gracefully pinnacled and gargoyled. One instance of the functions of this valuable adjunct to the towering forms taken by most Gothic structures, is a b.u.t.tress which springs, unsymmetrically enough, from the north transept. This rather ungainly limb flies out like the tentacles of an octopus, grasps a small building on the opposite side of a narrow roadway, and forms a support to the irregular construction of the north transept. This was perhaps necessary as a means of bracing the transept wall, which it might not have been possible to accomplish otherwise.

The interior presents the unusual feature of the omission of the organ case from over the western doorway, the organ being in this instance in the south transept, as at Le Mans. The wall s.p.a.ce centered upon the nave proper is entirely given over to the lozenge-shaped "rose," which, in spite of its rather heavy framing and kaleidoscopic and patchworky gla.s.s, is withal effective beyond many more gracefully formed openings, where the gla.s.s is either too severely plain, or worked into a supposed design, which, by reason of its minute particles, is undecipherable. The design and arrangement of a series of lancets supporting the lozenge would be remarkable, were it in company with the best gla.s.s of the middle ages. It depicts an "Adoration" in which kings, saints, and bishops are modelled brilliantly, and with evidence of much good drawing, a detail often wanting in old, or, for that matter, modern gla.s.s.

The gla.s.s of the choir, on the other hand, is far better in arrangement, and shows deep, rich particles which are only at their best in the work of the early period here shown. In this gla.s.s are depicted the arms of St. Louis, Blanche of Castile, and of the City of Tours. The choir itself widens out from the crossing of the transept, causing that deviation between the piers of nave and choir which made necessary the ungainly flying b.u.t.tress of the north wall.

The aisles of the nave are of no great width and are fringed with a series of chapels of which only one, that of the Sacred Heart, is in any way remarkable. The radiating chapels of the choir are more interesting, notably the lady-chapel, which contains old gla.s.s removed thither from the church of St. Julien, the subject of one of Turner's rhapsodies in his "Seine and Loire."

The clerestory of the nave consists of plain gla.s.s only; and on the triforium alone, of exceedingly graceful arcaded columns, depends the beauty of the upper ranges.

The chief treasure of artistic value and moment is unquestionably the tomb of the children of Charles VIII. and Anne of Brittany, by whose early deaths the throne pa.s.sed to the Valois branch of the Orleans family. This remarkable monument is of the early sixteenth century and, according to the report of the _Commission des Monuments Historiques_, is the work of Guillaume Regnault, a statement which is much more likely to be correct than the usual guide-book information, which in some instances credits it to Goujon, and in others to a local apprentice of his, named Juste. On a Renaissance sarcophagus lie the two tiny effigies, in white marble, surrounded by guardian angels and other symbolical figures. The base bears escutcheons of the Dauphins of France, the arms and two inscriptions referring to the princes and their birth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Flying b.u.t.tress, St. Gatien de Tours_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _St. Maurice d'Angers_]

V

ST. MAURICE D'ANGERS

Historically and romantically, Angers, the former capital of Anjou, is possessed of a past (which may be said to have actively commenced in 989) that cannot fail to arrest and hold one's attention. Capital of the Dukes of Anjou, and the home of Margaret of Anjou, daughter of Rene, who married Henry VI. of England; likewise the cradle of the first Plantagenets; and immortalized by Shakespeare's King John, who soliloquizes anent "The flinty ribs of this contemptuous town." With all this, Angers has perhaps a supreme claim for English consideration. In spite of all this, and the added attraction of a "real castle," such as is seldom found outside the children's fairy-tale books, not to mention the Cathedral of St. Maurice,--of which more anon,--Angers leaves one with the impression that very much is wanting in order to merit preeminence in the cla.s.sification of those memories which a traveller is wont to store up as a result of his travels and observations. Perhaps it is the city's pitiful attempt to be gay, to be modern, to undertake pretentious improvements,--all of which appear to fail utterly in their purpose. These things cannot be unless they are of a spontaneous growth, which here they apparently are not. Not that the city still merits the opprobrious (_sic_) term of "Black Angers" with which most writers and all makers of guide-books are pleased to refer to it,--it hardly does.

In fact it is doubtful as to just what the term originally meant.

Perhaps it was merely a reference to the gloom caused by the extensive use in the construction of its buildings of the black slate in which the neighbourhood abounds;--at any rate the expression is one of undoubted antiquity.

The two chief attractions are the cathedral and the castle, both "historical monuments." The latter, as before noted, is the ideal military stronghold of our early imagination; and if age, magnitude, and the general air of good preservation, count for anything, it must be one of the most impressive monuments of its cla.s.s still to be seen.

Originally its wall, now minus battlements, fronted close upon the river. It is surrounded by a dry yawning _fosse_, formerly a moat, and possesses no less than seventeen enormous and perfectly formed towers, each perhaps eighty feet in height, banded near the top in white and black stripes. Hardly more than a circling wall to-day, it has stood well the test of time since it was erected by Philip Augustus and completed under St. Louis in 1180. Little remains of the Renaissance portion originally occupied by the Counts of Anjou. Its charm lies rather in its exterior, the interior confines resembling more a lumber-yard than anything else,--not worth spending one's time upon, under the present facilities which are offered for its inspection. One small structure within the walls is notable as being that in which King Rene was born. It is recorded that Wellington received a part of his military education in Angers. If so, it is probable that he studied this military defence with some care and minuteness. To us, at least, who have not been educated with respect to military fortification, it seems to fill all demands that are likely to be made upon a building of its cla.s.s. Doubtless it could have been besieged successfully, and even battered through to the extent of allowing the outside foe to enter, but it would probably have been at a fearful cost, and it is possible that the attempt would be given up before any surrender took place. Such would appear to an outsider to be the lines on which these magnificent works of feudal times were built.

One should not speak slightingly of the Cathedral of St. Maurice, though it comes upon one who journeys from the north, as a thing apart from anything he has met before; so much so that he is hardly likely to be able to judge it dispa.s.sionately until he has turned his impressions of it many times over in his mind.

The Angevine style, seen here, is representative of but a very restricted area. The _Societe des Monuments Historiques_ defined it as "a small district on both sides of the Loire between Normandy and Acquitaine." It is suggestive of the Roman manner, far more than the Gothic; though the primitiveness shown in the long, upright lines of the west front of this cathedral marks it at once as something different from either Romanesque or Transition,--though Transition it must be, unless we delimit the confines of that useful term. In any case, it points unto heaven in a truly devout manner, is not debased in any particular, and, if not a consistent style, has many of the good qualities of both. The Cathedral of St. Maurice is best seen from a point of view which will exaggerate its height, its slimness, and its straight and upright lines; but even this does not appear to work out to its disadvantage, in spite of the new note it strikes. It is an interesting work when viewed from any distance sufficient to throw its outline well into the air. From across the Maine, it is charming; from the foot of the stairwayed street which runs downwards from its western portal, it is picturesque and irresistible, while from any other view-point in the town, it is grand.

The easterly end is dwarfed by close-lying houses, picturesque enough in themselves; but the gracefulness of the b.u.t.tress is wanting. The south side is, here and there, broken into by additions and interpolations, none apparently of a contemporary era. It offers a grand effect for an artist who would study gray walls and crumbling roofs, but the lack of uniformity will offend most people.

The facade of the west is the most effective feature, so far as genuineness is concerned. It towers to the sky, its needle-pointed spires overtopping a crooked street which rises sharply from the river.

There is but one portal, and that is centred with a curious Romanesque arch half-way across its height, above which is a bas-relief of great size. The sculpture of this portal, while not as excellent as that seen in the Isle of France, is of an unusual richness and execution. The next range is unique among west fronts, being a large central window, but slightly pointed and little removed from the Romanesque. It is bare of coloured gla.s.s, and is decidedly not an attractive feature. On each side of this great window are a series of blunt pointed lancets, which form a sort of arcade which otherwise relieves the bareness which would exist.

Immediately above is a row of niches which hold eight armour-clad knights of the fifteenth century, inferior perhaps, in execution, to the sculpture of the portal, but producing an effect, when viewed from the ground, undeniably fine. It is a detail as interesting, in its way, as the long "Gallery of the Kings" at Reims. Above rise the slim spires, with an octagonal cupola superimposed over a central structure, which looks to this day as though it were originally intended as one of a battery of three uniform spires. The general plan of this facade is the masterpiece of design of the building, and, except for the ludicrously diminutive clock-face, could withstand n.o.bly the cavil of the most exacting pedant who ever read or studied architectural forms, solely out of books. In the immediate foreground falls the before mentioned street of steps. Many old tumble-down houses have recently been cleared away, and, at the present writing, the view from this point is one which has apparently not previously existed, and one which it is to be hoped will not be marred by the erection of any so-called modern improvements.

The interior fills no accepted formula of architectural expression, save that it is of the manner common to Anjou, the borderland between the Gothic aisled and the great and aisle-less southern naves, but it holds one's interest none the less. Perhaps, after all, it is the quality to interest, quite as much as that to please, which is the standard by which one makes estimates and forms opinions. There is a not very long nor very wide nave and choir, neither with aisles, and both with a vaulting which gives the appearance of being much lower than it really is, quite the contrary impression to that received from contemplation of the exterior. The bishop's throne sets midway on the right of the nave.

Each bay of the side walls of the nave is composed of a wide pointed arch resting immediately upon the ground and filled with stone instead of gla.s.s; reminiscent of a similar effect in the Church of Notre Dame de la Cloture at Le Mans. The true windows of the nave rise in pairs above this arch, and contain rich, though somewhat fragmentary, gla.s.s of the thirteenth century. As characteristic of the Angevine style, there is no triforium or clerestory, and hence, it is claimed, no necessity for flying b.u.t.tresses, the support being accomplished by less graceful, if as effective, heavy square piers built into the outer wall.

The transepts are not p.r.o.nounced as to length or breadth, their chief beauty being their rose windows.

The choir, of the twelfth century, shows an interpolated and elaborately flamboyant doorway of a much later period.

An ornate oaken pulpit of none too good Renaissance carving is in the nave, and the organ case over the western doorway is supported on the shoulders of a series of huge, grotesque, but monstrously human, wooden caryatides. This, with the gigantic, high canopied carven wood pulpit, one of the most extraordinary in the country, forms a relief to coldly chiselled stone, certainly;--but few will consider their charms such as would warrant counting them amongst ecclesiastical treasures.

The fourteenth-century tapestries from Arras (or Paris) were made for King Rene and by him given to the cathedral. They represent scenes from the Apocalypse, and, though having suffered somewhat from the depredations of the Revolution, still exhibit evidences of rare qualities of workmans.h.i.+p in their design and colouring.

The _benitier_ of _verd-antico_ marble supported by figures of lions is a Byzantine work of the eastern empire, given to the cathedral by King Rene.

The Dukes of Anjou and Margaret of Anjou were buried here, but the tomb of the latter was desecrated and destroyed during the Revolution. Aside from these, no other monuments of note are to be seen.

The Bishop's Palace, of the twelfth century, standing high beside the cathedral, was restored by Viollet-le-Duc and reflects a mediaeval splendour unseen elsewhere in the city, with respect to any great or small domestic establishment.

The Maison Barrault in the Logis Barrault, built by a former mayor of the city, one time Chancellor of Brittany, was the scene of the magnificent entertainment offered Caesar Borgia in 1497. Afterwards it became the residence of Marie de Medicis; later, a monastic establishment, then a seminary, and lately simply an ordinary private school. Says one writer, "No wonder its remains should be so scanty and ill preserved."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _CATHEDRAL of St. PIERRE NANTES_]

VI

ST. PIERRE DE NANTES

As a city of commercial and strategic importance, no one will deny that Nantes is supreme in the Loire valley; that its relations with the affairs of Church and State are equally important, is a debatable point.

True, the edict in favour of Protestant wors.h.i.+p, fathered by Henry IV., was a momentous and significant event; but the revocation, and the subsequent ma.s.sacres of the rascally Carrier, well-nigh wiped that out.

The history of the city is one long record of warfare and bloodshed.

Though holding the command of the Loire, the city has ever been more closely identified with Brittany. Here, in its frowning tenth-century castle, which fronts upon the river immediately in the foreground of the Cathedral of St. Pierre, with which it forms an unusual grouping of ecclesiastical and military architecture (M. H.), lived at one time or another, most of the Kings of France, from Charles VIII. downward. Here, too, Anne of Brittany was born, and here she married Charles VIII., thus uniting the Duchy of Brittany with the crown of France. Her subsequent marriage, in the chapel of the castle, with Louis XII., made for ever impossible the future independence of the city.

Following the edict came the Revolution; and, as if the preliminary horrors of ma.s.sacres and atrocities, which spread to Orange in Vaucluse and to Arras in Picardy, were not of sufficient stringency, the "Noyades," or drownings, carried off the poor unfortunates, a boatload at a time, until it is estimated that perhaps nine thousand were thus cruelly murdered,--women, children, royalty, and the clergy alike. The wrath which spent itself seemed to know no rank. The guillotine, disease, and famine finished the work, so that the population of the city was, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, immeasurably inferior in numbers to what it had been a decade before. The details of these significant events are recounted quite fully enough by historians generally; but, in reality, it has little to do with the aspect of the city as it exists to-day, which, if not one of great splendour, partakes in no small measure of the attributes of a large metropolis, amply planned, beautifully laid out, and possessing, in addition to the characteristics of Brittany with which it has been so long identified, not a little of the influences and attributes of the south.

Immediately to the rear of the chateau is the Cathedral of St. Pierre, ancient as to its foundation, and grand as to its general effect, both inside and out, though its exterior is marred by its uncompleted towers.

Lofty, but of heavy proportions, St. Pierre de Nantes would, at first sight, appear to offer much that goes to make a satisfying ecclesiastical building. As a matter of fact, it fails in many particulars to realize any ideal which we have come to admire. The western facade is more indebted to the rich and reasonably ornate portals for its undeniable impressiveness, than to the gable of towers, which have crumbled exceedingly from the effects of wind and weather, rather than of great age, since they date only from the fifteenth century.

The choir rests on the remains of an older church, hardly to be seen to-day in any appreciable evidence, in that restoration and rebuilding have been so extensively carried on.