The Cathedrals of Northern France Part 11

V

ST. VAAST D'ARRAS

The capital of ancient Flanders was removed from Arras to Ghent when Artois was ceded to France, and thus it was that the city became French, as it were, but slowly, its Low Country traditions and customs clinging closely to it until a late day. The former Cathedral of Notre Dame ranked as a grand example of the ogival style of the fourteenth century, in which it was built, and gave to the city of the "tapestry makers" the distinction of possessing a church composed of much that was best of the architecture of a fast growing art. Such was the mediaeval rank to which the cathedral at Arras had attained. The new Cathedral of St. Vaast, dating from 1755 to 1833, is of the Grecian style of temple building, little suited to the needs of a Christian church. The crucial plan consecrated by catholic usages of centuries is not however wholly abandoned. There is something of a suggestion of the Latin cross in its design, but its abside faces toward the southeast rather than due south, with its princ.i.p.al entrance to the northwest, a sufficiently unusual arrangement, where most French churches are duly orientated, to be remarked, particularly as there is little that can be said in praise of the structure. The interior follows the general plan of the Corinthian order; the windows, neither numerous nor of sufficiently ample dimensions to well serve their purpose, number nine only in the choir, and five on each side of the nave.

There are, to the abside, seven collateral chapels, some of which contain pa.s.sable sculptured monuments, removed from the old abbey of St.

Vaast, a foundation erected in the sixth century and reconstructed by Cardinal de Rohan in 1754. The remains of the old abbey buildings have been built around and incorporated in the present Episcopal Palace, the extensive Musee, and Bibliotheque; and are situated immediately to the right of the facade of the cathedral.

The grisaille gla.s.s seen in the interior is unusual, but mediocre in the extreme.

There are, however, some good statues in white marble in the Chapelle de St. Vaast, while in another chapel, given by Cardinal de la Tour d'Auvergne, is one equally good of Charles Borromee.

There are four great statues at the extremities of the transepts, representing the four evangelists; and three others in the choir, of Faith, Hope, and Charity.

In the north transept, also, are two triptychs of the Flemish school, by Bellegambe, a native of Douai (1528).

The Abbe Boura.s.se, in his charming work on the cathedrals of France, says, plainly, and without fear or favour: "We have tried to speak impartially of all species of architecture--but why do we not admire the Cathedral of Arras? It is against all traditions of '_notre art catholique_.' We contend that this is not good. What, say you, can we praise? It is a great work--of the stone-mason; you should study it from some distance. It is without life, without movement, without dignity."

Whatever may be the faults of its cathedral, Arras is, nevertheless, an interesting city,--modernized, to be sure, by boulevards laid out along the old fortifications. The Citadel of Vauban (1670), called ironically "_la belle inutile_," may be cla.s.sed as a worthless, if not wholly unpicturesque, ruin, though ranking, when built, as among the most wonderful fortifications of the times. The wave of Renaissance which swept northward has left its ineradicable marks here. The Hotel de Ville is a remarkable specimen of that art of overloading ornament upon a square hulk, and making it look like a wedding-cake; though, truth to tell, coming upon it after the chilliness of the cathedral itself, it is a cheerful antidote. Dating from 1510, at which time was built the curious Gothic facade of seven arches, each different as to size and spring. The added wings in elaborate Renaissance are of the late sixteenth century and rank among the most effective examples of the style in France. A belfry surmounts all, 240 feet in height, the "_joyeuse_" of which weighs nearly nine tons.

Arras may perhaps be most revered for its tapestries, its workers taking rank with those of the famous manufactories at Paris and Beauvais.

Indeed, it would appear as though experts knew not to which of these three centres to a.s.sign precedence, both Arras and Paris claiming the honour of having set up the first looms. It is an ancient art, as the work of craftsmen goes, and more than one writer who has studied deeply the fascinating intricacies of _haute_ and _ba.s.se lisse_, of colour, texture, design, and what not, has not hesitated to proclaim the city as having been the grandest centre of tapestry-making which the world has ever known; and regret can but be universal that it came to an end when its citizens were put to the sword by Louis XI.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _TOUL_]

VI

ST. ETIENNE DE TOUL

Annexed to France, in company with Metz and Verdun, in 1556, Toul, situated on the left bank of the Moselle, is to-day ranked as a fortress of the first order. "Can be seen in two hours"--such is the description usually given by the guide-books to the city which contains, in its one-time Cathedral St. Etienne, an example which, with respect to the decorative tracery of its facade savants have declared the equal even of Reims.

One of the three former bishoprics of Lorraine, Toul is none too ample to merit the cognomen of a large town. It once held within its walls, beside the Cathedral, the Church of St. Gengoult, and several parish churches and monasteries. Shorn to-day of some of these dignities, with its bishopric removed to Nancy, it ranks as a military and strategic stronghold rather than a centre of churchly domination. Since Metz and Strasbourg were given over to the Germans, Toul's former fortress has been greatly strengthened.

The cathedral itself may truly be said to bear the characteristics of both the German and French manner of building, the western or later end being a superb front, after the French manner, and the easterly or earlier end having a simple apse and long narrow windows, in the German fas.h.i.+on. A comparison has been made by Professor Freeman between the western facade of this church and Notre Dame de Reims. He says, "We are daring enough to think that, simply as a design, the west front of Toul outdoes that of Reims; though it will be hardly needful to prove that, as a whole, Reims far outdoes that of Toul." Quite non-committal, to be sure, as was this charming writer's way; but, of itself, a sort of preparation to the observer for the beauties which he is to behold. Here is the case of a superb richness having been added to a plainer body, and by no means inharmoniously done. The gable is nearly perfect as to its juxtaposition. The towers are higher in proportion than at Reims, giving the effect of being the finished thing as they stand, though lacking spires or pinnacles. The walls are of those just proportions in relation to the window piercings which is again French, as contrasted with a neighbouring example at Metz, where the reverse is the case.

The city was the seat of a bishop as early as the sixth century, and its government was under his control until 1261, when it became a free commune. Finally it was conquered by Henry II., and its future a.s.sured to France by the Treaty of Westphalia.

The cathedral dates in part from Romanesque remains of the tenth century, but its entire interior arrangements were much battered during the Revolution.

The choir and transept are of the best of thirteenth-century building, while the nave and side aisles are of the century following. Two towers, which flank the magnificent facade, rise for nearly two hundred and fifty feet, and are the work of Jacquemin de Commercy in the fifteenth century. Adjoining the right aisles are the very beautiful Gothic cloisters of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They form a rectangular enclosure, 225 feet by 165 feet, and are made up of twenty-four sections of four arches, each with cl.u.s.tered columns.

A fine sculptured altarpiece, "The Adoration of the Shepherds," is in the Chapelle de la Creche, entered from the cloister.

The present Hotel-de-Ville was formerly the bishop's palace.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _North Portal Cathedral Chalons-sur-Marne_]

VII

ST. ETIENNE, CHaLONS-SUR-MARNE

Chalons is perhaps first of all famed as the scene of Attila's great defeat in the fifth century, one of the world's fifteen decisive battles.

The Cathedral of St. Etienne is not usually considered to be a remarkable structure; but it is thoroughly typical and characteristic of a _locale_, which stamps it at once with a mark of genuineness and sincerity. Of early primitive Gothic in the main, it shares interest to-day with the four other churches of the city, not overlooking Notre Dame de l'Epine, some five miles distant to the northward, one of the most perfectly designed and appointed late Gothic churches which the world has ever known. It has been called a "miniature cathedral," using the term, it may be supposed, in the sense of referring only to a magnificently ornate church. It is indeed worth a pilgrimage thither to see this true gem of architecture in a wholly undefiled countrified setting.

The Cathedral at Chalons-sur-Marne follows somewhat the traditions of the German manner of building, at least so far as a certain plainness and lack of ornate decoration in the main body of the church is concerned; likewise in the arrangement of its towers, which lie to the eastward of the transepts; and further with respect to its decidedly Teutonic arrangement of the rounded columns, or, more properly, pillars, of its nave.

In general this thirteenth-century church is in the best style of its era; but the west front presents an incongruous seventeenth-century addition in the whilom cla.s.sical style of that day, bad as to its art, and apparently badly welded into conjunction with the older portion. The aisles and clerestory windows are of the later decorated period of Gothic, and present, whether viewed from without or from within, an exceedingly fine appearance.

Probably the finest and most pleasing impression of the whole structure is that obtained of the interior, with its pillars of nave and choir, of the ma.s.sive order made familiar in the Rhine churches. A reasonable share of twelfth to sixteenth century gla.s.s is still left as its portion, and the general arrangement of the choir, prolonged, as it is, well into the nave, gives a certain majesty to this portion of the church which is perhaps not warranted when we take into consideration that it must perforce dwarf the nave itself. The arrangement, though not common, is by no means an unusual one, and it is recalled also, that it is so employed at Reims.

Situated near the frontier, Chalons-sur-Marne has ever been subject to that inquietude which usually befalls a border city. German influences have ever been noticeable, and, even to-day, the significant fact is to be noted that a cure will hear confessions in German, and that services are held in that tongue on "Sat.u.r.days in St. Joseph's Chapel."

The Episcopal Palace, behind the cathedral, contains a collection of some sixty paintings, the gift, in 1864, of the Abbe Joannes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _S. DIe_]

VIII

ST. DIe

St. Die gets its name, by the corruption of Dieudonne, from St.

Deodatus, who founded a monastery here in the seventh century. It was built, as was many another great cathedral, in accordance with the custom of erecting a church over the body or relic of a saint whom it was especially desired to honour; usually one of local importance, a patron or a devotee.

The town is perhaps the most inaccessible and "out-of-the-way" place which harbours a cathedral in all northern France. We might perhaps except St. Pol-de-Leon and Treguier in Brittany, neither of which is on a railway, whereas St. Die is, but at the very end. When you get there and want to go on, not back, you simply journey on foot, or awheel if you can find a conveyance, and take up with another "loose end" of railway some fifteen miles away, which will take you southward, should you be going that way. If not, there appears to be nothing for it, but to retrace your steps whence you came.

The cathedral (locally "La Grande Eglise," it only having been made a cathedral so recently as 1777) has a fine Romanesque nave of the eleventh century, with choir and aisles of good Gothic, after the accepted Rhine manner of building.

The portal, of red sandstone, is of inferior thirteenth-century workmans.h.i.+p, with statues of Faith and Charity on either side. The facade is flanked by two square towers.

The interior is curiously arranged with a cordon of sculpture, high in the vaulting. The capitals of the pillars are likewise ornamented with highly interesting and ornately sculptured capitals. The choir, as is most usual, is the masterpiece of the collection, the windows, in particular, being of the purest ogival style.

In the first chapel, on the right, is a painting, "The Martyrdom of St.

Sebastian," and behind the choir is an ancient work commemorative of "_Le Peste de St. Die_."