The Cathedrals Of Southern France Part 29

The other side of the picture is shown by the acts of intolerance on the part of the Church, for those who merely differed from them in their religious tenets and principles. Fanatics these outsiders may have been, and perhaps not wholly tractable or harmless, but they were, doubtless, as deserving of protection as were the faithful themselves. This was not for them, however, and as for the violence and hatred with which they were held here, one has only to recall that at Beziers took place the crowning ma.s.sacres of the Albigenses--"the most learned, intellectual, and philosophic revolters from the Church of Rome."

Beneath the shadow of these grim walls and towers over twenty thousand men and women and children were slaughtered by the fanatics of orthodox France and Rome; led on and incited by the Bishop of Beziers, who has been called--and justly as it would seem--"the blackest-souled bigot who ever deformed the face of G.o.d's earth."

The cathedral at Beziers is not a great or imposing structure when taken by itself. It is only in conjunction with its fortified walls and ramparts and commanding situation that it rises to supreme rank.

It is commonly cla.s.sed as a work of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, and with the characteristics of its era and local environment, it presents no very grand or ornate features.

Its first general plan was due to a layman-architect, Gervais, which perhaps accounts for a certain lack of what might otherwise be referred to as ecclesiastical splendour.

The remains of this early work are presumably slight; perhaps nothing more than the foundation walls, as a fire in 1209 did a considerable damage.

The transepts were added in the thirteenth century, and the two dwarfed towers in the fourteenth, at which period was built the _clocher_ (151 feet), the apside, and the nave proper.

There is not a great brilliancy or refulgent glow from the fabric from which St. Nazaire de Beziers is built; as is so frequent in secular works in this region. The stone was dark, apparently, to start with, and has aged considerably since it was put into place. This, in a great measure, accounts for the lack of liveliness in the design and arrangement of this cathedral, and the only note which breaks the monotony of the exterior are the two statues, symbolical of the ancient and the modern laws of the universe, which flank the western portal--or what stands for such, did it but possess the dignity of magnitude.

So far as the exterior goes, it is one's first acquaintance with St.

Nazaire, when seen across the river Orb, which gives the most lively and satisfying impression.

The interior attributes of worth and interest are more numerous and pleasing.

The nave is aisleless, but has numerous lateral chapels. The choir has a remarkable series of windows which preserve, even to-day, their ancient protecting _grilles_--a series of wonderfully worked iron scrolls. These serve to preserve much fourteenth-century gla.s.s of curious, though hardly beautiful, design. To a great extent this ancient gla.s.s is hidden from view by a ma.s.sive eighteenth-century _retable_, which is without any worth whatever as an artistic accessory.

A cloister of the fourteenth century flanks the nave on the south, and is the chief feature of really appealing quality within the confines of the cathedral precincts.

The view from the terrace before the cathedral is one which is hardly approachable elsewhere. For many miles in all directions stretches the low, flat plain of Languedoc; the Mediterranean lies to the east; the Cevennes and the valley of the Orb to the north; with the lance-like Ca.n.a.l du Midi stretching away to the westward.

As might be expected, the streets of the city are tortuous and narrow, but there are evidences of the march of improvement which may in time be expected to eradicate all this--to the detriment of the picturesque aspect.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XIII

ST. JEAN DE PERPIGNAN

Perpignan is another of those provincial cities of France which in manners and customs sedulously imitate those of their larger and more powerful neighbours.

From the fact that it is the chief town of the Department des Pyrenees-Orientales, it perhaps justifies the procedure. But it is as the ancient capital of Rousillon--only united with France in 1659--that the imaginative person will like to think of it--in spite of its modern cafes, tram-cars, and _magazins_.

Like the smaller and less progressive town of Elne, Perpignan retains much the same Catalonian flavour of "physiognomy, language, and dress;"

and its narrow, tortuous streets and the _jalousies_ and _patios_ of its houses carry the suggestion still further.

The Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 changed the course of the city's destinies, and to-day it is the fortress-city of France which commands the easterly route into Spain.

The city's Christian influences began when the see was removed hither from Elne, where it had been founded as early as the sixth century.

The cathedral of St. Jean is a wonderful structure. In the lines of its apside it suggests those of Albi, while the magnitude of its great strongly roofed nave is only comparable with that of Bordeaux as to its general dimensions. The great distinction of this feature comes from the fact that its Romanesque walls are surmounted by a truly ogival vault.

This great church was originally founded by the king of Majorca, who held Rousillon in ransom from the king of Aragon in 1324.

The west front is entirely unworthy of the other proportions of the structure, and decidedly the most brilliant and lively view is that of the apside and its chapels. There is an odd fourteenth-century tower, above which is suspended a clock in a cage of iron.

The whole design or outline of the exterior of this not very ancient cathedral is in the main Spanish; it is at least not French.

This Spanish sentiment is further sustained by many of the interior accessories and details, of which the chief and most elaborate are an altar-screen of wood and stone of great magnificence, a marble _retable_ of the seventeenth century, a baptismal font of the twelfth or thirteenth century, some indifferent paintings, the usual organ _buffet_ with fifteenth-century carving, and a tomb of a former bishop (1695) in the transept.

The altars, other than the above, are garish and unappealing.

A further notable effect to be seen in the ma.s.sive nave is the very excellent "pointed" vaulting.

There are, close beside the present church, the remains of an older St.

Jean--now nought but a ruin.

The Bourse (locally called _La Loge_, from the Spanish _Lonja_) has a charming cloistered courtyard of a mixed Moorish-Gothic style. It is well worthy of interest, as is also the citadel and castle of the King of Majorca. The latter has a unique portal to its chapel.

It is recorded that Bishop Berengarius II. of Perpignan in the year 1019 visited the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and on his return built a church or chapel on similar lines in memory of his pilgrimage. No remains of it are visible to-day, nor can it be further traced. Mention of it is made here from the fact that it seems to have been a worthy undertaking,--this memorial of a prelate's devotion to his faith.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XIV

STE. EULALIA D'ELNE

Elne is the first in importance of the dead cities which border the Gulf of Lyons.

It is the ancient _Illiberis_, frequently mentioned by Pliny, Livy, and, latterly, Gibbon.

To-day it is ignored by all save the _commis voyageur_ and a comparatively small number of the genuine French _touristes_.

Formerly the ancient province of Rousillon, in which Elne is situated, and which bordered upon the Spanish frontier, was distinctly Spanish as to manners and customs. It is, moreover, the reputed spot where Hannibal first encamped after crossing the Pyrenees on his march to Rome.

Like Bayonne, at the other extremity of the Pyrenean mountain chain, it commanded the gateway to Spain, and even to-day is the real entrance of the railway route to Barcelona, as is Bayonne to Madrid.

Between these two cities, for a distance approaching one hundred and eighty miles, there is scarce a highway over the mountain barrier along which a wheeled vehicle may travel with comfort, and the tiny Republic of Andorra, though recently threatened with the advent of the railway, is still isolated and unspoiled from the tourist influence, as well as from undue intercourse with either France or Spain, which envelop its few square miles of area as does the Atlantic Ocean the Azores.

To-day Elne is no longer the seat of a bishop, the see of Rousillon having been transferred to Perpignan in the fourteenth century, after having endured from the time of the first bishop, Domnus, since the sixth century.

There has been left as a reminder a very interesting and beautiful smaller cathedral church of the early eleventh century.

Alterations and restorations, mostly of the fifteenth century, have changed its material aspect but little, and it still remains a highly captivating monumental glory; which opinion is further sustained from the fact that the _Commission des Monuments Historiques_ has had the fabric under its own special care for many years.

It is decidedly a minor edifice, and its parts are as unimpressive as its lack of magnitude; still, for all that, the church-lovers will find much crude beauty in this Romanesque basilica-planned church, with its dependant cloister of a very beautiful flowing Gothic of the fifteenth century.