The Cathedrals Of Southern France Part 28

_La Ville de Montpellier_

"Elle est charmante et douce ...

Avec son vast ciel, toujours vibrant et pur,

Elle est charmante avec ses brunes jeunes filles ... le noir diamant de leurs yeux!"

--HENRI DE BORNIER.

Montpellier is seated upon a hill, its foot washed by two small and unimportant rivers.

A seventeenth-century writer has said: "This city is not very ancient, though now it be the biggest, fairest, and richest in Languedoc, after Toulouse."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. PIERRE _de MONTPELLIER_]

From a pa.s.sage in the records left by St. Bernard, the Abbot of Clairvaux, it is learned that there was a school or seminary of physicians here as early as 1155, and the perfect establishment of a university was known to have existed just previous to the year 1200.

This inst.i.tution was held in great esteem, and in importance second only to Paris. To-day the present establishment merits like approbation, and, sheltered in part in the ancient episcopal palace, and partly enclosing the cathedral of St. Pierre, it has become inseparable from consideration in connection therewith.

The records above referred to have this to say concerning the university: "Tho' Physic has the Precendence, yet both Parts of the Law are taught in one of its Colleges, by Four Royal Professors, with the Power of making Licentiates and Doctors." Continuing, he says: "The ceremony of taking the M. D. degree is very imposing; if only the putting on and off, seven times, the old gown of the famous Rabelais."

Montpellier was one of "the towns of security" granted by Henry IV. to the Protestants, but Louis XIII., through the suggestions of his cardinals, Richelieu and Mazarin, forced them by arms to surrender this place of protection. The city was taken after a long siege and vigorous defence in 1622.

Before the foundation of Montpellier, the episcopal seat was at Maguelonne, the ancient Magalonum of the Romans. The town does not exist to-day, and its memory is only perpetuated by the name Villeneuve les Maguelonne, a small hamlet on the bay of that name, a short distance from Montpellier.

The Church had a foothold here in the year 636, but the ferocity of Saracen hordes utterly destroyed all vestiges of the Christian faith in their descent upon the city.

Says the Abbe Boura.s.se: "In the eleventh century another cathedral was dedicated by Bishop Arnaud, and the day was made the occasion of a fete, in consideration of the restoration of the church, which had been for a long time abandoned."

It seems futile to attempt to describe a church which does not exist, and though the records of the later cathedral at Maguelonne are very complete, it must perforce be pa.s.sed by in favour of its descendant at Montpellier.

Having obtained the consent of Francois I., the bishop of Maguelonne solicited from the pontiff at Rome the privilege of transferring the throne. In a bull given in 1536, it was decreed that this should be done forthwith. Accordingly, the bishop and his chapter transferred their dignity to a Benedictine monastery at Montpellier, which had been founded in 1364 by Pope Urban V.

The wars of the Protestants desecrated this great church, which, like many others, suffered greatly from their violence, so much so that it was shorn entirely of its riches, its reliquaries, and much of its decoration.

The dimensions of this church are not great, and its beauties are quite of a comparative quality; but for all that it is a most interesting cathedral.

The very grim but majestic severity of its canopied portal--with its flanking cylindrical pillars, called by the French _tourelles elances_--gives the key-note of it all, and a note which many a more perfect church lacks.

This curious porch well bespeaks the time when the Church was both spiritual and militant, and ranks as an innovation--though an incomplete and possibly imperfect one--in the manner of finis.h.i.+ng off a west facade. Its queer, suspended canopy and slight turreted towers are unique; though, for a fact, they suggest, in embryo, those lavish Burgundian porches; but it is only a suggestion, because of the incompleteness and bareness. However, this porch is the distinct fragment of the cathedral which will appeal to all who come into contact therewith.

The general effect of the interior is even more plain than that of the outer walls, and is only remarkable because of its fine and true proportions of length, breadth, and height.

The triforium is but a suggestion of an arcade, supported by black marble columns. The clerestory above is diminutive, and the window piercings are infrequent. At the present time the choir is hung with a series of curtains of _panne_--not tapestries in this case. The effect is more theatrical than ecclesiastical.

The architectural embellishments are to-day practically _nil_, but instead one sees everywhere large, uninterrupted blank walls without decoration of any sort.

The princ.i.p.al decorations of the southern portal are the only relaxation in this otherwise simple and austere fabric. Here is an elaborately carved tympanum and an ornamented architrave, which suggests that the added mellowness of a century or two yet to come will grant to it some approach to distinction. This portal is by no means an insignificant work, but it lacks that ripeness which is only obtained by the process of time.

Three rectangular towers rise to unequal heights above the roof, and, like the western porch, are bare and primitive, though they would be effective enough could one but get an _ensemble_ view that would bring them into range. They are singularly unbeautiful, however, when compared with their northern brethren.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XI

CATHeDRALE D'AGDE

This tiny Mediterranean city was founded originally by the Phoenicians as a commercial port, and finally grew, in spite of its diminutive proportions, to great importance.

Says an old writer: "Agde is not so very big, but it is Rich and Trading-Merchantmen can now come pretty near Agde and Boats somewhat large enter into the Mouth of the River; where they exchange many Commodities for the Wines of the Country."

Agde formerly, as if to emphasize its early importance, had its own viscounts, whose estates fell to the share of those of Nimes; but in 1187, Bernard Atton, son of a Viscount of Nimes, presented to the Bishop of Agde the viscounty of the city. Thus, it is seen, a certain good-fellows.h.i.+p must have existed between the Church and state of a former day.

Formerly travellers told tales of Agde, whereby one might conclude its aspect was as dull and gloomy as "Black Angers" of King John's time; and from the same source we learn of the almost universal use of a dull, slate-like stone in the construction of its buildings. To-day this dulness is not to be remarked. What will strike the observer, first and foremost, as being the chief characteristic, is the castellated _ci-devant_ cathedral church. Here is in evidence the blackish basalt, or lava rock, to a far greater extent than elsewhere in the town. It was a good medium for the architect-builder to work in, and he produced in this not great or magnificent church a truly impressive structure.

The bishopric was founded in the fifth century under St. Venuste, and came to its end at the suppression in 1790. Its former cathedral is cared for by the _Ministere des Beaux-Arts_ as a _monument historique_.

The structure was consecrated as early as the seventh century, when a completed edifice was built up from the remains of a pagan temple, which formerly existed on the site. Mostly, however, the work is of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, notably the ma.s.sive square tower which, one hundred and twenty feet in height, forms a beacon by sea and a landmark on sh.o.r.e which no wayfarer by s.h.i.+p, road, or rail is likely to miss.

A cloister of exceedingly handsome design and arrangement is attached to the cathedral, where it is said the _machicoulis_ is the most ancient known. This feature is also notable in the roof-line of the nave, which, with the extraordinary window piercings and their disposition, heightens still more the suggestion of the manner of castle-building of the time.

The functions of the two edifices were never combined, though each--in no small way--frequently partook of many of the characteristics of the other.

Aside from this really beautiful cloister, and a rather gorgeous, though manifestly good, painted altar-piece, there are no other noteworthy accessories; and the interest and charm of this not really great church lie in its aspect of strength and utility as well as its environment, rather than in any real aesthetic beauty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _St. Nazaire de Beziers_]

XII

ST. NAZAIRE DE BeZIERS

St. Nazaire de Beziers is, in its strongly fortified attributes of frowning ramparts and well-nigh invulnerable situation, a continuation of the suggestion that the mediaeval church was frequently a stronghold in more senses than one.

The church fabric itself has not the grimness of power of the more magnificent St. Cecile at Albi or Notre Dame at Rodez, but their functions have been much the same; and here, as at Albi, the ancient episcopal palace is duly barricaded after a manner that bespeaks, at least, forethought and strategy.

These fortress-churches of the South seem to have been a product of environment as much as anything; though on the other hand it may have been an all-seeing effort to provide for such contingency or emergency as might, in those mediaeval times, have sprung up anywhere.

At all events, these proclaimed shelters, from whatever persecution or disasters might befall, were not only for the benefit of the clergy, but for all their const.i.tuency; and such stronghold as they offered was for the shelter, temporary or protracted, of all the population, or such of them as could be accommodated. Surely this was a doubly devout and utilitarian object.

In this section at any rate--the extreme south of France, and more particularly to the westward of the _Bouches-du-Rhone_--the regional "wars of religion" made some such protection necessary; and hence the development of this type of church-building, not only with respect to the larger cathedral churches, but of a great number of the parish churches which were erected during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.