Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3
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Various >> Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3
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Amiens
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
[Footnote: From "French and Italian Note Books." By special arrangement
with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co.
Copyright, 1871, 1883, 1889.]
The aspect of the old French town was very different from anything
English; whiter, infinitely cleaner; higher and narrower houses, the
entrance to most of which seeming to be through a great gateway affording
admission into a central court-yard; a public square, with a statue in the
middle, and another statue in a neighboring street. We met priests in
three-cornered hats, long frock-coats, and knee-breeches; also soldiers
and gendarmes, and peasants and children, clattering over the pavements in
wooden shoes.
It makes a great impression of outlandishness to see the signs over the
shop doors in a foreign tongue. If the cold had not been such as to dull
my sense of novelty, and make all my perceptions torpid, I should have
taken in a set of new impressions, and enjoyed them very much. As it was,
I cared little for what I saw, but yet had life enough left to enjoy the
Cathedral of Amiens, which has many features unlike those of English
cathedrals.
It stands in the midst of the cold, white town, and has a high-shouldered
look to a spectator accustomed to the minsters of England, which cover a
great space of ground in proportion to their height. The impression the
latter give is of magnitude and mass; this French Cathedral strikes one as
lofty. The exterior is venerable, tho but little time-worn by the action
of the atmosphere; and statues still keep their places in numerous niches,
almost as perfect as when first placed there in the thirteenth century.
The principal doors are deep, elaborately wrought, pointed arches; and the
interior seemed to us, at the moment, as grand as any that we had seen,
and to afford as vast an idea of included space; it being of such an airy
height, and with no screen between the chancel and nave, as in all the
English cathedrals.
We saw the differences, too, betwixt a church in which the same form of
worship for which it was originally built is still kept up, and those of
England, where it has been superseded for centuries; for here, in the
recess of every arch of the side-aisles, beneath each lofty window, there
was a chapel dedicated to some saint, and adorned with great marble
sculptures of the crucifixion, and with pictures, execrably bad, in all
cases, and various kinds of gilding and ornamentation. Immensely tall wax
candles stand upon the altars of these chapels, and before one sat a
woman, with a great supply of tapers, one of which was burning. I suppose
these were to be lighted as offerings to the saints, by the true
believers. Artificial flowers were hung at some of the shrines, or placed
under glass.
In every chapel, moreover, there was a confessional--a little oaken
structure, about as big as a sentry-box, with a closed part for the priest
to sit in, and an open one for the penitent to kneel at, and speak through
the open-work of the priest's closet. Monuments, mural and others, to
long-departed worthies, and images of the Savior, the Virgin, and saints,
were numerous everywhere about the church; and in the chancel there was a
great deal of quaint and curious sculpture, fencing in the Holy of Holies,
where the high altar stands. There is not much painted glass; one or two
very rich and beautiful rose-windows, however, that looked antique; and
the great eastern window, which, I think, is modern. The pavement has,
probably, never been renewed, as one piece of work, since the structure
was erected, and is foot-worn by the successive generations, tho still in
excellent repair. I saw one of the small, square stones in it, bearing the
date of 1597, and no doubt there are a thousand older ones.
Rouen
By Thomas Frognall Dibdin
[Footnote: From "A Bibliographical Tour in France and Germany."]
The approach to Rouen is indeed magnificent. I speak of the immediate
approach, after you reach the top of a considerable rise, and are stopt by
the barriers. You then look down a straight, broad, and strongly paved
road, lined with a double row of trees on each side. As the foliage was
not thickly set, we could discern, through the delicately clothed
branches, the tapering spire of the cathedral, and the more picturesque
tower of the Abbaye St. Ouen--with hanging gardens, and white houses, to
the left--covering a richly cultivated ridge of hills, which sink, as it
were, into the Boulevards, and which is called the Faubourg Cauchoise. To
the right, through the trees, you see the River Seine (here of no
despicable depth or breadth), covered with boats and vessels in motion,
the voice of commerce, and the stir of industry, cheering and animating
you as you approach the town. I was told that almost every vessel which I
saw (some of them of two hundred, and even of three hundred tons burden)
was filled with brandy and wine....
First for the cathedral, for what traveler of taste does not doff his
bonnet to the mother-church of the town through which he happens to be
traveling, or in which he takes a temporary abode? The west front, always
the forte of the architects's skill, strikes you as you go down, or come
up, the principal street--La Rue des Carmes--which seems to bisect the
town into equal parts. A small open space, which, however, has been
miserably encroached upon by petty shops, called the Flower Gardens, is
before this western front; so that it has some little breathing room in
which to expand its beauties to the wondering eyes of the beholder. In my
poor judgment, this western front has very few elevations comparable with
it--including even those of Lincoln and York. The ornaments, especially
upon the three porches, between the two towers, are numerous, rich, and
for the greater part entire, in spite of the Calvinists, the French
Revolution, and time.
As you enter the cathedral, at the center door, by descending two steps,
you are struck with the length and loftiness of the nave, and with the
lightness of the gallery which runs along the upper part of it. Perhaps
the nave is too narrow for its length. The lantern of the central large
tower is beautifully light and striking. It is supported by four massive
clustered pillars, about forty feet in circumference; but by casting your
eye downward, you are shocked at the tasteless division of the choir from
the nave by what is called a Grecian screen; and the interior of the
transepts has undergone a like preposterous restoration.
The rose windows of the transepts, and that at the west end of the nave,
merit your attention and commendation. I could not avoid noticing, to the
right, upon entrance, perhaps the oldest side chapel in the cathedral, of
a date less ancient than that of the northern tower, and perhaps of the
end of the twelfth century. It contains by much the finest specimens of
stained glass--of the early part of the sixteenth century. There is also
some beautiful stained glass on each side of the chapel of the Virgin,
behind the choir; but altho very ancient, it is the less interesting, as
not being composed of groups, or of historical subjects. Yet, in this as
in almost all the churches which I have seen, frightful devastations have
been made among the stained glass windows by the fury of the
Revolutionists....
On gazing at this splendid monument of ancient piety and liberality--and
with one's mind deeply intent upon the characters of the deceased--let us
fancy we hear the sound of the great bell from the southwest tower--called
the Amboise Tower--erected, both the bell and the tower, by the uncle and
minister of Amboise. Know, my dear friend, that there was once a bell (and
the largest in Europe, save one), which used to send forth its sound for
three successive centuries from the said tower. This bell was broken about
thirty years ago, and destroyed in the ravages of the immediately
succeeding years. The southwest tower remains, and the upper part of the
central tower, with the whole of the lofty wooden spire--the fruits of the
liberality of the excellent men of whom such honorable mention has been
made. Considering that this spire is very lofty, and composed of wood, it
is surprising that it has not been destroyed by tempest or by lightning.
Leaving the cathedral, you pass a beautifully sculptured fountain, of the
early time of Francis I., which stands at the corner of the street, to the
right; and which, from its central situation, is visited the livelong day
for the sake of its limpid waters. Push on a little further, then, turning
to the right, you get into a sort of square, and observe the abbey--or
rather the west front of it--full in face of you. You gaze, and are first
struck with its matchless window: call it rose, or marigold, as you
please.
I think, for delicacy and richness of ornament, this window is perfectly
unrivaled. There is a play of line in the mullions, which, considering
their size and strength, may be pronounced quite a masterpiece of art. You
approach, regretting the neglected state of the lateral towers, and enter
through the large and completely opened center doors, the nave of the
abbey. It was toward sunset when we made our first entrance. The evening
was beautiful; and the variegated tints of sunbeam, admitted through the
stained glass of the window, just noticed, were perfectly enchanting. The
window itself, as you look upward, or rather as you fix your eye upon the
center of it, from the remote end of the abbey, or the Lady's Chapel, was
a perfect blaze of dazzling light; and nave, choir, and side aisles seemed
magically illumined. We declared instinctively that the Abbey of St. Ouen
could hardly have a rival--certainly not a superior.
Let me, however, put in a word for the organ. It is immense, and perhaps
larger than that belonging to the cathedral. The tin pipes (like those of
the organ in the cathedral) are of their natural color. I paced the
pavement beneath, and think that this organ can not be short of forty
English feet in length. Indeed, in all the churches which I have yet seen,
the organs strike me as being of magnificent dimensions.
You should be informed, however, that the extreme length of the interior,
from the further end of the chapel of the Virgin, to its opposite western
extremity, is about four hundred and fifty English feet; while the height,
from the pavement to the roof of the nave, or the choir, is one hundred
and eight English feet. The transepts are about one hundred and forty feet
in length. The central tower, upon the whole, is not only the grandest
tower in Rouen, but there is nothing for its size in our own country that
can compare with it. It rises upward of one hundred feet above the roof of
the church; and is supported below, or rather within, by four magnificent
cluster-pillared bases, each about thirty-two feet in circumference. Its
area, at bottom, can hardly be less than thirty-six feet square. The choir
is flanked by flying buttresses, which have a double tier of small arches,
altogether "marvelous and curious to behold."
I could not resist stealing quietly round to the porch of the south
transept, and witnessing, in that porch, one of the most chaste, light,
and lovely specimens of Gothic architecture which can be contemplated.
Indeed, I hardly know anything like it. The leaves of the poplar and ash
were beginning to mantle the exterior; and, seen through their green and
gay lattice work, the traceries of the porch seemed to assume a more
interesting aspect. They are now mending the upper part of the facade with
new stone of peculiar excellence--but it does not harmonize with the old
work. They merit our thanks, however, for the preservation of what remains
of this precious pile. I should remark to you that the eastern and
northeastern sides of the abbey of St. Ouen are surrounded with promenades
and trees: so that, occasionally, either when walking or sitting upon the
benches, within these gardens, you catch one of the finest views
imaginable of the abbey.
Chartres
By Epiphanius Wilson
[Footnote: From "The Cathedrals of France." By permission
of the author. Copyright, 1900.]
For many a mile over the rich cornfields of Beauce, of which ancient
district Chartres was once the capital, the spires of Chartres are
visible. The river and the hill constitute at Chartres the basis of its
strength in long-forgotten warfare; its walls in piping times of peace
have been leveled into leafy boulevards, but it may still be entered
through one of the antique gates that survive as memorials of its former
fortifications.
The cathedral itself is one of that group to which belong Amiens, Rheims,
Bourges and Notre Dame de Paris. It is noted for its size, magnificence
and completeness, and contains in itself, from its crypt to its highest
stone, an exemplification of architectural history in France from the
eleventh to the fourteenth centuries. We may suppose that Christianity was
first published in the Beauce province by the same apostles, Savinienus
and Potentienius, who had evangelized Sens and the Senones. Their
disciple, Aventin (Aventinus), is recognized as the first Bishop of
Chartres, and as the builder of the first cathedral which stood on the
site of the present building....
The naves, the north and south transept portals, and the choir belong to
the thirteenth century, the north tower to the fifteenth, and the
magnificent jube, or screen, which runs round the choir, is evidently
sixteenth century style, being an example of that Renaissance employment
of Gothic details, of which we find such glorious counterparts at Rouen
and Albi. The western facade of Chartres is plain in comparison with those
of Amiens or Rheims. The voussures of the three central portals are
comparatively shallow. Above them are three lancet windows which resemble
windows of the Early English Style. The rose-window, beneath which the
lancets are placed, is of great dimensions and effective tracery. The
highest story of the front between the towers is screened by a rich
arcade, over which rises the gable point.
This arcade, or gallery, is intended to break the abruptness with which
the pointed roof rises between the two spires. These spires are different
in design, the southern tower being much earlier than that at the north.
The southern spire, in its austere simplicity and exquisite proportions,
is certainly the finest I have seen in France, and can only be paralleled
elsewhere by that which rises like a flower-bud almost ready to burst over
Salisbury plain. The northern tower is very much more elaborate, and
reminded me of those examples with which the traveler becomes so familiar
in the many churches of Rouen. The richly crocketed gables, the flying
buttresses and pinnacles which run half way up this spire, while they
adorn it, seem to stunt the profile and rob it of its towering altitude,
just as is the case with the western spires of St. Ouen. Yet this northern
tower is considerably higher than the ancient one at the south, being 374
feet high, while the more ancient spire is only 348. The other dimensions
of the church are as follows: It is 420 feet long; 110 feet wide; its
height from ceiling vault to pavement is 115 feet. The modern tower was
built by Louis XII. in 1514, the architect being an inhabitant of Beauce,
a certain Jean Texier.
The carvings in the west front of the cathedral are examples of the
beginning of French sculpture, as it emerges from the severity and
rigidity of Byzantine types. The human figures are long, slender, and
swathed almost like mummies in their drapery. The faces are strongly
individualized and seem to be portraits. While these statues must be
attributed to a period previous to the middle of the twelfth century, we
see in them the originality of French genius struggling to break away from
the fetters of Eastern precedent.
Viollet-de-Duc thinks that these faces belong to the type of the ancient
Gaul; the flat forehead and raised arch of the eyebrows, the projecting
eyes, the long jaws, the peaked and drooping nose, the long upper lip, the
wide, closed mouth, the square chin, the long wavy hair are neither
German, Roman, or French. There is a blending of firmness, grandeur and
refinement in these wonderful countenances, each of them apparently copied
from a different model. They are crowned and nimbused as the kings and
saints of antique France. A more impressive gallery of illustrious
personages is nowhere else to be found.
Rheims
By Epiphanius Wilson
[Footnote: From "The Cathedrals of France." By permission
of the author. Copyright, 1900.]
French cathedrals have, as it were, a royal character, and this is
emphasized especially in the history and architecture of Rheims cathedral,
which became, from the time of Philippe Auguste, the church at whose altar
the kings of France were crowned.
The origin of the Church at Rheims dates from the third century; when we
are told Pope Fabian sent into Gaul a band of bishops and teachers. Rheims
was chosen as the seat of an episcopal primacy, and it was in the church
built by St. Nicaise, or Nicasius, in 401, that Clovis was baptized and
crowned in 496. This ancient building, doubtless of simple Roman
proportions, was rebuilt in the reign of Louis the Debonair in 822, when
Ebon was archbishop.
It was completed with a magnificence which vied with the churches of
Constantinople, Ravenna and Rome. It was considered in its day the most
splendid church in France. Its roof and walls blazed with gilding and
many-tinted paintings. Its floors were of marble mosaic. Rich tapestries
hung round the choir, and its treasury was filled with masterpieces of the
goldsmith and the jeweler. This church continued to be the wonder of
Gallic Christianity until the beginning of the thirteenth century, when it
was destroyed by fire. It is remarkable to notice in the history of French
cathedrals how many of them were rebuilt just at the time when the pointed
style, which may be called preeminently the Christian style of
architecture, had come to birth almost simultaneously in various countries
of Europe.
We are obliged to come to the conclusion that the pointed arch was
introduced in Germany, France and England by the Crusaders, who had seen
it used in the East, and had considered it best fitted for buildings that
enshrined the sublime mysteries of the Christian faith. It was in the
pointed style, therefore, that the new cathedral of Rheims was built. The
name of its architect is not known, but his plan shows that he must have
been a man of profound genius. Archbishop Alberic Humbert laid the
foundation stone in 1212. The whole province contributed liberally to the
work, and in 1242 the building was sufficiently advanced for the
celebration of divine service in the choir.
The Church of Notre Dame of Rheims would require a volume to describe it
completely. The front is perhaps the most elaborate to be found in France.
The three vast portals, peopled with statues of colossal size, their
arched vaulting covered with saintly and angelic figures, the mighty rose-
windows, flanked with pointed openings, crowned with carved tabernacle
work, and the great gallery of kings crossing the whole front, just below
the peak of the gable, and above all, the two towers pierced by majestic
windows and supported at each corner by niches with three open faces, give
an impression of richness and brightness and grace, mingled with that
indefinable majesty, which is due partly to the vast dimensions, partly to
the harmonious proportions of the whole structure.
The divisions of the front facade resemble somewhat the same part of the
edifice at Amiens, excepting that it is far more florid, and less strict
and severe in its main divisions. At Amiens the details are kept in
strictest subservience to the structural lines of the edifice. At Rheims
it is the magnificent wealth of details that crowds upon the view, the
walls and arches are surcharged with statues, with niches, with brackets,
pinnacles, tracery, foliage, finials and turrets. The sides of the
entrances of the three portals are crowded with colossal statues, thirty-
nine in number, representing patriarchs, prophets, kings, bishops, virgins
and martyrs. On the trumeau of the central gate is a fine statue of the
Virgin Mary; on the sides of this trumeau are bas-reliefs representing the
Fall of Man, of whose restoration Mary should be the instrument.
It is quite characteristic of a medieval church that we should find, on
the lintels and side-posts of these doorways, emblems of agricultural work
in the various seasons of the year, as well as different symbols of arts
and handicrafts. Amid the carvings of these doorways are the heroes and
saints of the Old Testament, types and forerunners of the Messiah, as well
as historic scenes, representing the Redemption of the World, the
Conversion of the Gentiles, the Resurrection of the Dead, the Last
Judgment, the Condemnation of the Wicked, the Reception of the Just into
the habitations of the blest. Finally, the Assumption and Coronation of
the Blessed Virgin sums up, with an imaginative legend, this series of
Christian dogma perpetuated in stone.
But the medieval genius is many-sided, and never satisfied with that which
is beautiful alone; and this magnificent array of Christian carving would
not be complete to the mind of the medieval artist unless he had crowned
the angles of his buildings with a series of grotesque gargoyles and
allegoric statues, representing the streams that watered the earthly
paradise, while at the summit of the roof are niched angles bearing
instruments of music. As the rose is a peculiarity of Gothic churches, and
from its remarkable shape gives ample room for sculpture in stone, and
color in glass, so the rose at Rheims is among the most beautiful examples
of the kind, and illustrates the principle that the rose is intended to
light up high, remote and shadowy spaces in a long nave or aisle.
Above the great rose-window is a pointed arch in whose voussures are ten
statues, relating the history of David, while over this arch runs a band
of niches, forty-two in number, in which are colossal statues of the kings
of France from Clovis to Charles VI.
The two portals of the transepts are richly decorated in harmony with the
style of the western facade. A graceful spire rises from the eastern part
of the roof. It is called "The Angel's spire," from the fact that poised
upon its summit is an angel covered with gilt and holding aloft a cross.
This turret rises 59 feet above the roof of the church. The church itself
is 486 feet in length, and from the vaulting of the roof to the pavement
is 125 feet. The towers are 272 feet high. I noticed the church is built
in the form of a cross, but the transept is very close to the apse, so
that the choir being too confined for the great ceremonies, such as that
of royal coronations, which used to take place there, has been extended
westward across the transept so as to take up three bays of the nave.
There are seven chapels at the east of the church, but none are found in
the naves. The plainness of the nave, in comparison with the ornate
character of the exterior, is very remarkable, but this plainness detracts
nothing from the impressiveness of its long arcades, its towering roof,
the noble lines which rise from the ground and support, as it were, on
slender sinews of stone, the shadowy ceiling. The rose-windows, four in
number, are filled with glass of the thirteenth century, and the tall
windows of the chevet and clerestory contain a many colored mosaic of a
similar sort. I was particularly struck with the rose-window over the
western portal. It represents the Beautiful Vision; the Eternal Father is
throned in the central ring of the window, and in the radiating panes is
the Hierarchy of Paradise, angels and archangels and all the company of
Heaven, while in a wider circumference are grouped the redeemed,
contemplating in adoration the majesty of God.
I noticed two very interesting tombs in Rheims cathedral. The first was
the sarcophagus of Jovinus, the Christian prefect of Rheims, in the fourth
century, who protected the church and was originally buried in the Abbey
of St. Nicaise, from whence his tomb was brought to the cathedral. It
consists of a single block of snowy marble, nine feet long, and four feet
high, on which the consular general is represented in a spirited bas-
relief mounted on horseback and saving the life of a man from the lion, in
whose flank Jovinus has launched his spear. Very fine indeed is the
workmanship of this monument. The figures which surround Jovinus are men
of handsome countenance, evidently portraits, their dress and arms being
finished with the utmost nicety of detail. The figures are about half
life-size.
The other tomb is that of St. Remigius, a Renaissance work erected by
Cardinal Delenoncourt in 1533. It is sumptuous and gaudy rather than
beautiful. Twelve statues, full life-size, represent the twelve peers of
France, six are the prelates of Rheims, Laon, Langres, Beauvais, Chalons,
and Noyon; the six lay peers are the dukes of Burgundy, Normandy and
Aquitaine, and the counts of Flanders, Champagne, and Toulouse. The white
marble of these somewhat stagey figures is beautifully worked and the
effect is imposing.
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