The Cathedrals Of Southern France Part 27

There are, as before said, no accessories of great artistic worth in the eglise de Gra.s.se, and the lover of art and architecture will perforce look elsewhere. In the Hopital are three paintings attributed to Rubens, an "Exaltation," a "Crucifixion," and a "Crowning of Thorns." They may or may not be genuine works by the master; still, nothing points to their lack of authenticity, except the omission of all mention thereof in most accounts which treat of this artist's work.

VII

ANTIBES

Cap d'Antibes, on the Golfe Jouan, is one of those beauty-spots along the Mediterranean over which sentimental rhapsody has ever lent, if not a glamour which is artificial, at least one which is purely aesthetic.

One must not deny it any reputation of this nature which it may possess, and indeed, with St. Raphael and Hyeres, it shares with many another place along the French Riviera a popularity as great, perhaps, as if it were the possessor of even an extraordinarily beautiful cathedral.

The churchly dignity of Antibes has departed long since, though its career as a former bishopric--in the province of Aix--was not brief, as time goes. It began in the fourth century with St. Armentaire, and endured intermittently until the twelfth century, when the see was combined with that of Gra.s.se, and the ruling dignity transferred to that place.

VIII

STE. MARIE MAJEURE DE Ma.r.s.eILLES

"These brown men of Ma.r.s.eilles, who sing as they bend at their oars, are Greeks."

--CLOVIS HUGHES.

Ma.r.s.eilles is modern and commercial; but Ma.r.s.eilles is also ancient, and a centre from which have radiated, since the days of the Greeks, much power and influence.

It is, too, for a modern city,--which it is to the average tourist,--wonderfully picturesque, and shows some grand architectural effects, both ancient and modern.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Ma.r.s.eilles_]

The _Palais de Long Champs_ is an architectural grouping which might have dazzled luxurious Rome itself. The Chamber of Commerce, with its decorations by Puvis de Chavannes, is a structure of the first rank; the _Cannebiere_ is one of those few great business thoroughfares which are truly imposing; while the docks, s.h.i.+pping, and hotels, are all of that preeminent magnitude which we are wont to a.s.sociate only with a great capital.

As to its churches, its old twelfth-century cathedral remains to-day a mere relic of its former dignity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Old Cathedral, Ma.r.s.eilles_]

It is a reminder of a faith and a power that still live in spite of the attempts of the world of progress to live it down, and has found its echo in the present-day cathedral of Ste. Marie Majeure, one of the few remarkably successful attempts at the designing of a great church in modern times. The others are the new Westminster Roman Catholic Cathedral London, the projected cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, and Trinity Church in Boston.

As an exemplification of church-building after an old-time manner adapted to modern needs, called variously French-Romanesque, Byzantine, and, by nearly every expert who has pa.s.sed comment upon it, by some special _nomenclature of his own_, the cathedral at Ma.r.s.eilles is one of those great churches which will live in the future as has St. Marc's at Venice in the past.

Its material is a soft stone of two contrasting varieties,--the green being from the neighbourhood of Florence, and the white known as _pierre de Calissant_,--laid in alternate courses. Its deep sunken portal, with its twin flanking Byzantine towers, dominates the old part of the city, lying around about the water-front, as do few other churches, and no cathedrals, in all the world.

It stands a far more impressive and inspiring sentinel at the water-gate of the city than does the ludicrously fas.h.i.+oned modern "sailors' church"

of Notre Dame de la Gard, which is perched in unstable fas.h.i.+on on a pinnacle of rock on the opposite side of the harbour.

This "curiosity"--for it is hardly more--is reached by a cable-lift or funicular railway, which seems princ.i.p.ally to be conducted for the delectation of those winter birds of pa.s.sage yclept "Riviera tourists."

The true pilgrim, the sailor who leaves a votive offering, or his wife or sweetheart, who goes there to pray for his safety, journeys on foot by an abrupt, stony road,--as one truly devout should.

This sumptuous cathedral will not please every one, but it cannot be denied that it is an admirably planned and wonderfully executed _neo-Byzantine_ work. In size it is really vast, though its chief remarkable dimension is its breadth. Its length is four hundred and sixty feet.

At the crossing is a dome which rises to one hundred and ninety-seven feet, while two smaller ones are at each end of the transept, and yet others, smaller still, above the various chapels.

The general effect of the interior is--as might be expected--_grandoise_. There is an immensely wide central nave, flanked by two others of only appreciably reduced proportions.

Above the side aisles are galleries extending to the transepts.

The decorations of mosaic, gla.s.s, and mural painting have been the work of the foremost artists of modern times, and have been long in execution.

The entire period of construction extended practically over the last half of the nineteenth century.

The plans were by Leon Vaudoyer, who was succeeded by one Esperandieu, and again by Henri Revoil. The entire detail work may not even yet be presumed to have been completed, but still the cathedral stands to-day as the one distinct and complete achievement of its cla.s.s within the memory of living man.

The pillars of the nave, so great is their number and so just and true their disposition, form a really decorative effect in themselves.

The choir is very long and is terminated with a domed apse, with domed chapels radiating therefrom in a symmetrical and beautiful manner.

The episcopal residence is immediately to the right of the cathedral, on the Place de la Major.

Ma.r.s.eilles has been the seat of a bishop since the days of St. Lazare in the first century. It was formerly a suffragan of Arles in the Province d'Arles, as it is to-day, but its jurisdiction is confined to the immediate neighbourhood of the city.

IX

ST. PIERRE D'ALET

In St. Pierre d'Alet was a former cathedral of a very early date; perhaps as early as the ninth century, though the edifice was entirely rebuilt in the eleventh. To-day, even this structure--which is not to be wondered at--is in ruins.

There was an ancient abbey here in the ninth century, but the bishopric was not founded until 1318, and was suppressed in 1790.

The most notable feature of this ancient church is the wall which surrounds or forms the apside. This quintupled _pan_ is separated by four great pillars, in imitation of the Corinthian order; though for that matter they may as well be referred to as genuine antiques--which they probably are--and be done with it.

The capitals and the cornice which surmounts them are richly ornamented with sculptured foliage, and, so far as it goes, the whole effect is one of liberality and luxury of treatment.

Immediately beside the ruins of this old-time cathedral is the eglise St. Andre of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

X

ST. PIERRE DE MONTPELLIER