The Cathedrals Of Southern France Part 19

For the rest, the lines of this church follow the conventionality of its time. Its proportions, while not great, are good, and there is no marked luxuriance of ornament or any exceeding grace in the entire structure, if we except the detached tower before mentioned.

The situation of the town is most picturesque; not daintily pretty, but of a certain dignified order, which is the more satisfying.

The ancient chateau, called Le d.u.c.h.e, is the real architectural treat of the place.

XVI

ST. JEAN D'ALAIS

Alais is an ancient city, but greatly modernized; moreover it does not take a supreme rank as a cathedral city, from the fact that it held a bishop's throne for but a hundred years. Alais was a bishopric only from 1694 to 1790.

The cathedral of St. Jean is an imposing structure of that obtrusive variety of architectural art known as "Louis Quinze," and is unworthy of the distinction once bestowed upon it.

Perhaps it is due to the fact that the Cevenole country was so largely and aggressively Protestant that the see of Alais did not endure. Robert Louis Stevenson tells of a stranger he met in these mountain parts--that he was a Catholic, "and made no shame of it. No shame of it! The phrase is a piece of natural statistics; for it is the language of one of a minority.... Ireland is still Catholic; the Cevennes still Protestant.

Outdoor rustics have not many ideas, but such as they have are hardy plants and thrive flouris.h.i.+ngly in persecution."

Built about in the facade of this unfeeling structure are some remains of a twelfth-century church, but they are not of sufficient bulk or excellence to warrant remark.

An advancing porch stands before this west facade and is surmounted by a ma.s.sive tower in a poor Gothic style.

The vast interior, like the exterior, is entirely without distinction, though gaudily decorated. There are some good pictures, which, as works of art, are a decided advance over any other attributes of this church--an "a.s.sumption," attributed to Mignard, in the chapel of the Virgin; in the left transept, a "Virgin" by Deveria; and in the right transept an "Annunciation" by Jalabert.

Alais is by no means a dull place. It is busy with industry, is prosperous, and possesses on a minute scale all the distractions of a great city. It is modern to the very core, so far as appearances go. It has its Boulevard Victor Hugo, its Boulevard Gambetta, and its Lycee Dumas. The Hopital St. Louis--which has a curious doubly twisted staircase--is of the eighteenth century; a bust of the Marquis de la Fere-Alais, the Cevenole poet, is of the nineteenth; a monument of bronze, to the glory of Pasteur, dates from 1896; and various other bronze and stone memorials about the city all date and perpetuate the name and fame of eighteenth and nineteenth-century notables.

The Musee--another recent creation--occupies the former episcopal residence, of eighteenth-century construction.

The Hotel de Ville is quite the most charming building of the city. It has fine halls and corridors, and an ample bibliotheque. Its present-day Salle du Conseil was the ancient chamber of the _etats du Languedoc_.

XVII

ST. PIERRE D'ANNECY

The Savoian city of Annecy was formerly the ancient capital of the Genevois.

Its past history is more closely allied with other political events than those which emanated from within the kingdom of France; and its ecclesiastical allegiance was intimately related with Geneva, from whence the episcopal seat was removed in 1535.

In reality the Christian activities of Annecy had but little to do with the Church in France, Savoie only having been ceded to France in 1860.

Formerly it belonged to the ducs de Savoie and the kings of Sardinia.

Annecy is a most interesting city, and possesses many, if not quite all, of the attractions of Geneva itself, including the Lake of Annecy, which is quite as romantically picturesque as Lac Leman, though its proportions are not nearly so great.

The city's interest for the lover of religious a.s.sociations is perhaps greater than for the lover of church architecture alone, but, as the two must perforce go hand in hand the greater part of the way, Annecy will be found to rank high in the annals of the history and art of the religious life of the past.

In the chapel of the Visitation, belonging to the convent of the same name, are buried St. Francois de Sales (d. 1622) and Ste. Jeanne de Chantal (d. 1641). The chapel is architecturally of no importance, but the marble ornament and sculptures and the rich paintings are interesting.

The ancient chapel of the Visitation--the convent of the first monastery founded by St. Francis and Ste. Jeanne--immediately adjoins the cathedral.

Christianity first came to Annecy in the fourth century, with St.

Emilien. For long after its foundation the see was a suffragan of the ancient ecclesiastical province of Vienne. To-day it is a suffragan of Chambery.

The rather ordinary cathedral of St. Pierre has no great interest as an architectural type, and is possessed of no embellishments of a rank sufficiently high to warrant remark. It dates only from the sixteenth century, and is quite unconvincing as to any art expression which its builders may have possessed.

The episcopal palace (1784) adjoins the cathedral on the south.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XVIII

CATHeDRALE DE CHAMBeRY

The city of Chambery in the eighteenth century must have been a veritable hotbed of aristocracy. A French writer of that day has indeed stated that it is "the winter residence of all the aristocracy of Savoie; ... with twenty thousand francs one could live _en grand seigneur_; ... a country gentleman, with an income of a hundred and twenty louis d'or a year, would as a matter of course take up his abode in the town for the winter."

To-day such a basis upon which to make an estimate of the value of Chambery as a place of residence would be, it is to be feared, misleading.

Arthur Young closes his observations upon the agricultural prospects of Savoie with the bold statement that: "On this day, left Chambery much dissatisfied,--for the want of knowing more of it."

Rousseau knew it better, much better. "_S'il est une pet.i.te ville au monde ou l'on goute la douceur de la vie dans un commerce agreable et sur, c'est Chambery._"

Savoie and the Comte de Nice were annexed to France only as late as 1860, and from them were formed the departments of Savoie, Haute-Savoie, and the Alpes-Maritimes.

Chambery is to-day an archbishopric, with suffragans at Annecy, Tarentaise, and St. Jean de Maurienne. Formerly conditions were reversed, and Chambery was merely a bishopric in the province de Tarentaise. Its first bishop, Michel Conseil, came in office, however, only in 1780.

The cathedral is of the fourteenth century, in the pointed style, and as a work of art is distinctly of a minor cla.s.s.

The princ.i.p.al detail of note is a western portal which somewhat approaches good Gothic, but in the main, both inside and out, the church has no remarkable features, if we except some modern gla.s.s, which is better in colour than most late work of its kind.

As if to counteract any additional charm which this gla.s.s might otherwise lend to the interior, we find a series of flamboyant traceries over the major portion of the side walls and vaulting. These are garish and in every way unpleasing, and the interior effect, like that of the exterior, places the cathedral at Chambery far down the scale among great churches.

Decidedly the architectural embellishments of Chambery lie not in its cathedral.

The chapel of the ancient chateau, dating in part from the thirteenth century, but mainly of the Gothic-Renaissance period, is far and away the most splendid architectural monument of its cla.s.s to be seen here.

_La Grande Chartreuse_ is equally accessible from either Chambery or Gren.o.ble, and should not be neglected when one is attempting to familiarize himself with these parts.

[Ill.u.s.tration]