The Cathedrals Of Southern France Part 35

The only monument of note in the interior is the tomb of Bishop Alain de Solminiac (seventeenth century).

The paintings of the choir are supposed to date from 1315, which certainly places them at a very early date. A doorway in the right of the nave gives on the fifteenth-century cloister, which, though fragmentary, must at one time have been a very satisfactory example. The ancient episcopal palace is now the prefecture. The bishop originally bore the provisional t.i.tle of Count of Cahors, and was ent.i.tled to wear a sword and gauntlets, and it is recorded that he was received, upon his accession to the diocese, by the Vicomte de Sessac, who, attired in a grotesque garb, conducted him to his palace amid a ceremony which to-day would be accounted as buffoonery pure and simple. From the accounts of this ceremony, it could not have been very dignified or inspiring.

The history of Cahors abounds in romantic incident, and its capture by Henry of Navarre in 1580 was a brilliant exploit.

Cahors was the birthplace of one of the French Popes of Avignon, John XXII. (who is buried in Notre Dame des Doms at Avignon).

XI

ST. CAPRAIS D'AGEN

Agen, with Cahors, Tulle, Limoges, Perigueux, Angouleme, and Poitiers, are, in a way, in a cla.s.s of themselves with respect to their cathedrals. They have not favoured aggrandizement, or even restoration to the extent of mitigating the sentiment which will always surround a really ancient fabric.

The cathedral at Bordeaux came strongly under the Gothic spell; so did that at Clermont-Ferrand, and St. Nazaire, in the Cite de Carca.s.sonne.

But those before-mentioned did not, to any appreciable extent, come under the influence of the new style affected by the architects of the Isle of France during the times of Philippe-Auguste (d. 1223).

At the death of Philippe le Bel (1314), the royal domain was considerably extended, and the cathedrals at Montpellier, Carca.s.sonne, and Narbonne succ.u.mbed and took on Gothic features.

The diocese of Agen was founded in the fourth century as a suffragan of Bordeaux. Its first bishop was St. Pherade. To-day the diocese is still under the parent jurisdiction of Bordeaux, and the see comprises the department of Lot-et-Garonne.

A former cathedral church--St. Etienne--was destroyed at the Revolution.

The Romanesque cathedral of St. Caprais dates, as to its apses and transepts, from the eleventh century.

Its size is not commonly accredited great, but for a fact its nave is over fifty-five feet in width; greater than Chartres, and nearly as great as Amiens in the north.

This is a comparison which will show how futile it is not to take into consideration the peers, compeers, or contemporaries of architectural types when striving to impress its salient features upon one's senses.

This immense vault is covered with a series of cupolas of a modified form which finally take the feature of the early development of the ogival arch. This, then, ranks as one of the early transitions between barrel-vaulted and domed roofs, and the Gothic arched vaulting which became so common in the century following.

As to the general ground-plan, the area is not great. Its Romanesque nave is stunted in length, if not in width, and the transepts are equally contracted. The choir is semicircular, and the general effect is that of a tri-apsed church, seldom seen beyond the immediate neighbourhood of the Rhine valley.

The interior effect is considerably marred by the modern mural frescoes by Bezard, after a supposed old manner. The combination of colour can only be described as polychromatic, and the effect is not good.

There are a series of Roman capitals in the nave, which are of more decided artistic worth and interest than any other distinct feature.

At the side of the cathedral is the _Chapelle des Innocents_, the ancient chapter-house of St. Caprais, now used as the chapel of the college. Its facade has some remarkable sculptures, and its interior attractions of curiously carved capitals and some tombs--supposed to date from the first years of the Christian era--are of as great interest as any of the specific features of the cathedral proper.

XII

STE. MARIE D'AUCH

The first bishop of Auch was Citerius, in the fourth century.

Subsequently the Province d'Auch became the see of an archbishop, who was Primate of Aquitaine. This came to pa.s.s when the office was abolished or transferred from Eauze in the eighth century. The diocese is thus established in antiquity, and endures to-day with suffragans at Aire, Tarbes, and Bayonne.

The cathedral of Ste. Marie d'Auch is not of itself an ancient structure, dating only from the late fifteenth century. Its choir, however, ranks among the most celebrated in the Gothic style in all Europe, and the entire edifice is usually accorded as being the most thoroughly characteristic (though varied as to the excellence of its details) church of the _Midi_ of France, though built at a time when the ogival style was projecting its last rays of glory over the land.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STE. MARIE _d'AUCH_]

In its general plan it is of generous though not majestic proportions, and is rich and aspiring in its details throughout.

An ancient altar in this present church is supposed to have come from the humble basilica which was erected here by St. Taurin, bishop of Eauze, soon after the foundation of the see. If this is so, it is certainly of great antiquity, and is exceedingly valuable as the record of an art expression of that early day.

Taurin II., in 845, rebuilt a former church, which stood on the site of the present cathedral; but, its dimensions not proving great enough for the needs of the congregation, St. Austinde, in 1048, built a much larger church, which was consecrated early in the twelfth century.

Various other structures were undertaken, some completed only in part and others to the full; but it was not until 1548 that the present Ste.

Marie was actually consecrated by Jean Dumas.

"This gorgeous ceremony," says the Abbe Boura.s.se, "was accomplished amid great pomp on the anniversary day of the dedication of the eleventh-century basilica on the same site."

In 1597 further additions were made to the vaulting, and the fine choir gla.s.s added. Soon after this time, the gla.s.s of the nave chapels was put into place, being the gift of Dominique de Vic. The final building operations--as might be expected--show just the least suspicion of debas.e.m.e.nt. This quality is to be remarked in the choir-screen, the porch and towers, and in the bal.u.s.trades of the chapels, to say nothing of the organ supports.

The west front is, in part, as late as the seventeenth century.

In this facade there is an elaborately traceried rose window, indicating in its painted gla.s.s a "Glory of Angels." It is not a great work, as these chief decorative features of French mediaeval architecture go, but is highly ornate by reason of its florid tracery, and dates, moreover, from that period when the really great accomplishment of designing in painted gla.s.s was approaching its maturity.

If any feature of remark exists to excite undue criticism, it is that of a certain incongruity or mixture of style, which, while not widely separated in point of time, has great variation as to excellence.

In spite of this there is, in the general _ensemble_, an imposing picturesqueness to which distance lends the proverbial degree of enchantment.

The warm mouse-coloured cathedral and its archbishop's palace, when seen in conjunction with the modern ornamental gardens and _escalier_ at the rear, produces an effect more nearly akin to an Italian composition than anything of a like nature in France.

It is an _ensemble_ most interesting and pleasing, but as a worthy artistic effort it does perhaps fall short of the ideal.

The westerly towers are curious heavy works after the "French Cla.s.sical"

manner in vogue during the reign of Louis XIV. They are not beautiful of themselves, and quite unexpressive of the sanct.i.ty which should surround a great church.

The portal is richly decorated, and contains statues of St. Roche and St. Austinde. It has been called an "imitation of the portal of St.

Peter's at Rome," but this is an opinion wholly unwarranted by a personal acquaintance therewith. The two bear no resemblance except that they are both very inferior to the magnificent Gothic portals of the north.

The interior embellishments are as mixed as to style, and of as varied worth, as those of the exterior.

The painted gla.s.s (by a Gascon artist, Arnaud de Moles, 1573) is usually reckoned as of great beauty. This it hardly is, though of great value and importance as showing the development of the art which produced it.

The colour is rich,--which it seldom is in modern gla.s.s,--but the design is coa.r.s.e and crude, a distinction that most modern gla.s.s has as well.

_Ergo_, we have not advanced greatly in this art.

The chief feature of artistic merit is the series of one hundred and thirteen choir-stalls, richly and wonderfully carved in wood. If not the superior to any others in France, these remarkable examples of Renaissance woodwork are the equal of any, and demonstrate, once again, that it was in wood-carving, rather than sculptures in stone, that Renaissance art achieved its greatest success.

A distinct feature is the disposition made of the accessories of the fine choir. It is surrounded by an elaborate screen, surmounted by sculpture of a richness quite uncommon in any but the grander and more wealthy churches.