32255	----	by Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the 60 lovely original illustrations in color. See 32255-h.htm or 32255-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32255/32255-h/32255-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32255/32255-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See http://www.archive.org/details/cathedralcitieso00colluoft CATHEDRAL CITIES OF SPAIN 60 reproductions from original water colours by W. W. Collins. R. I. William Wiehe Collins * * * * * Five Portfolios of Colour Plates These make good studies and are full of suggestions for everyone doing water colour work. All uniform in size. 5-1/4 x 9. like sample. Each portfolio done by a different artist Sent prepaid on receipt of price NEW SERIES Spanish Cathedrals. $2.00 60 reproductions from original water colours by W. W. Collins. R. I. English Cathedrals. $2.00 60 reproductions from original water colours by W. W. Collins, R. I. French Cathedral. $2.00 60 reproductions from original water colours by Herbert Marshall. R. W. S. Versailles and the Trianons. $2.00 56 reproductions from original water colours by Renei Binet. Cairo, Jerusalem and Damascus. $2.00 58 reproductions from original water colours and paintings by W. S. S. Tyrwhitt, R. B. A. and Reginald Barratt, A. R. W. S. The five portfolios will be sent, express paid on receipt of $9.00 They are all interesting J. H. JANSEN SUCCESSOR TO M. A. VINSON Publisher, Importer and Dealer Books on Architecture, Decoration and Illustration 205-206 Caxton Building Cleveland, O. _Portion of review from "American Architect," page 16, issue of July 8, 1908._ "Probably the most interesting moments of the trip abroad by the architectural students are those spent in sketching bits of interest in water color. And it is equally true, we believe, that nothing is so helpful, so reminiscent as these same notes of color when viewed in alter years. We have been prompted to these remarks by the receipt of five portfolios of color plates, being copies of original water color drawings by English and French water colorists." * * * * * List of Plates [Illustration: BARCELONA. _In the Cathedral._] [Illustration: ASTORGA.] [Illustration: MALAGA. _The Market._] [Illustration: TORTOSA.] [Illustration: TOLEDO. _The Cathedral._] [Illustration: GERONA. _The Cattle Market._] [Illustration: GERONA. _The Cathedral._] [Illustration: SEGOVIA. _Plaza Mayor._] [Illustration: TOLEDO. _The Alcántara Bridge._] [Illustration: GRANADA. _The Alhambra, Court of Lions._] [Illustration: VALENCIA. _San Pablo._] [Illustration: LEON. _San Marcos._] [Illustration: SANTIAGO. _The Cathedral._] [Illustration: CORDOBA. _Interior of the Mesquita._] [Illustration: SARAGOSSA. _La Seo._] [Illustration: BURGOS. _The Cathedral._] [Illustration: CADIZ. _The Cathedral._] [Illustration: CORDOBA. _The Campanario Tower._] [Illustration: OVIEDO. _The Cloisters._] [Illustration: SALAMANCA. _The old Cathedral._] [Illustration: SEGOVIA. _The Aqueduct._] [Illustration: BURGOS. _Arch of Santa Maria._] [Illustration: BURGOS. _The Capilla Mayor._] [Illustration: LEON. _The West Porch of the Cathedral._] [Illustration: SEVILLE. _In the Alcazar._] [Illustration: SEVILLE. _View over the Town._] [Illustration: SANTIAGO. _South Door of the Cathedral._] [Illustration: VALENCIA. _Door of the Cathedral._] [Illustration: VALLADOLID. _San Pablo._] [Illustration: ORENSE. _In the Cathedral._] [Illustration: TUY.] [Illustration: SEVILLE. _The Giralda Tower._] [Illustration: SEVILLE. _In the Cathedral._] [Illustration: TARRAGONA.] [Illustration: VALENCIA. _Religious Procession._] [Illustration: TARRAGONA. _The Cloisters._] [Illustration: TARRAGONA. _The Archbishop's Tower._] [Illustration: SALAMANCA.] [Illustration: SALAMANCA. _An old Street._] [Illustration: AVILA.] [Illustration: TOLEDO. _The South Transept._] [Illustration: MALAGA. _View from the Harbour._] OVIEDO. _In the Cathedral._ [Illustration: ZAMORA. _The Cathedral._] [Illustration: GRANADA. _Calle del Darro._] [Illustration: SANTIAGO. _Interior of the Cathedral._] [Illustration: TOLEDO. _The Zócodover._] [Illustration: GATEWAY AT AVILA. _Puerta de San Vicente._] [Illustration: CADIZ. _The Market Place._] [Illustration: GRANADA. _The Alhambra._] [Illustration: GRANADA. _Exterior of the Cathedral._] 
35237	----	Cathedral Cities of England 60 reproductions from original watercolors By W. W. Collins J. H. Jansen Cleveland, Ohio 1908 [Illustration: BATH PULTENEY BRIDGE] [Illustration: CANTERBURY THE BAPTISTERY AND CHAPTER HOUSE] [Illustration: CANTERBURY CHRISTCHURCH GATEWAY] [Illustration: CANTERBURY INTERIOR OF THE NAVE] [Illustration: CANTERBURY FROM THE MEADOWS] [Illustration: CANTERBURY THE NORMAN STAIRWAY] [Illustration: CHESTER THE ROWS] [Illustration: CHESTER ST. WERBURGH STREET] [Illustration: CHESTER BISHOP LLOYD'S PALACE AND WATERGATE STREET] [Illustration: CHESTER EASTGATE STREET] [Illustration: CHICHESTER FROM THE NORTHEAST] [Illustration: DURHAM THE WESTERN TOWERS] [Illustration: DURHAM FROM THE RAILWAY] [Illustration: DURHAM INTERIOR OF CATHEDRAL LOOKING ACROSS THE NAVE INTO SOUTH TRANSEPT] [Illustration: DURHAM ELVET BRIDGE] [Illustration: DURHAM FRAMWELL GATE BRIDGE] [Illustration: ELY FROM THE WEST FRONT] [Illustration: ELY INTERIOR OF THE NAVE] [Illustration: ELY FROM THE FENS] [Illustration: ELY THE MARKET PLACE] [Illustration: EXETER FROM THE PALACE GARDENS] [Illustration: EXETER MOL'S COFFEE TAVERN] [Illustration: EXETER INTERIOR OF THE NAVE] [Illustration: GLOUCESTER THE CATHEDRAL AND OLD PARLIAMENT HOUSE] [Illustration: GLOUCESTER FROM THE PADDOCK] [Illustration: GLOUCESTER INTERIOR OF THE NAVE] [Illustration: HEREFORD THE NORTH TRANSEPT] [Illustration: LONDON ST. PAUL'S AND LUDGATE HILL] [Illustration: LONDON WESTMINSTER ABBEY THE NORTH TRANSEPT] [Illustration: LINCOLN BY MOONLIGHT] [Illustration: LINCOLN THE WEST TOWERS] [Illustration: LINCOLN THE STEEP HILL] [Illustration: NORWICH THE ÆTHELBERT GATE] [Illustration: NORWICH THE MARKET PLACE] [Illustration: NORWICH FROM THE NORTHEAST] [Illustration: OXFORD CHRISTCHURCH GATEWAY] [Illustration: OXFORD CHRISTCHURCH INTERIOR OF THE NAVE] [Illustration: PETERBOROUGH THE WEST FRONT] [Illustration: PETERBOROUGH THE MARKET PLACE] [Illustration: RIPON THE CATHEDRAL] [Illustration: ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL AND CASTLE] [Illustration: ST. ALBANS FROM THE WALLS OF OLD VERULAM] [Illustration: SALISBURY THE MARKET CROSS] [Illustration: SALISBURY THE CATHEDRAL] [Illustration: SALISBURY THE CLOISTERS] [Illustration: SALISBURY HIGH STREET GATEWAY INTO THE CLOSE] [Illustration: WINCHESTER FROM THE DEANERY GARDEN] [Illustration: WINCHESTER THE NORTH AISLE] [Illustration: WINCHESTER ST. CROSS] [Illustration: WINCHESTER FROM ST. CATHERINE'S HILL] [Illustration: WORCESTER THE CATHEDRAL] [Illustration: WELLS THE RUINS OF THE BANQUETING HALL] [Illustration: WELLS CATHEDRAL AND THE POOLS] [Illustration: WELLS FROM THE FIELDS] [Illustration: YORK THE SHAMBLES] [Illustration: YORK MICKLEGATE BAR] [Illustration: YORK MONK BAR] [Illustration: LICHFIELD THE WEST FRONT] [Illustration: YORK BOOTHAM BAR] [Illustration: YORK STONEGATE] [Illustration: 
34818	----	STAINED GLASS TOURS IN ENGLAND BY CHARLES HITCHCOCK SHERRILL WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY: MCMX SECOND EDITION Printed by BALLANTYNE &. CO. LIMITED Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London STAINED GLASS TOURS IN ENGLAND BY THE SAME AUTHOR STAINED GLASS TOURS IN FRANCE. WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS. [Illustration: KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE] TO LEWIS F. DAY FROM ONE WHOM HE TAUGHT TO LOVE STAINED GLASS FOREWORD Although the purpose of this book is the quest of windows, it happens that these very windows are so obligingly disposed throughout the length and breadth of England, and light such different sorts of edifices, that in the search of them we shall obtain a very comprehensive idea of English architecture. Not only shall we visit many noble cathedrals (Canterbury, York, Winchester, Wells, &c. &c.), and smaller religious edifices (Fairford, St. Neot, Norbury, &c.), but we shall also see secular buildings of many types. In this latter category will be included both the great universities of Oxford and Cambridge, a civic guildhall (Coventry), an ancient hostel for the aged (Guildford), and one of the finest of the "stately homes of England" (Knole). Thus it will be seen that our tours are more broadly catholic than their title would indicate--indeed, we are tempted to promise that by the time the pilgrim has completed them he will have obtained a well-rounded impression not only of glass, but also of the history as well as the ancient manners and customs of England. Unfortunately, no form of illustration can hope to reproduce the combination of light and colour which makes the beauty of stained glass; those selected for this book are the best obtainable, but are chiefly useful in showing how the windows are set. This is not a technical book, so scale-drawings would be out of place. CHARLES HITCHCOCK SHERRILL. 20 EAST 65TH STREET, NEW YORK CITY. _March 1, 1909._ CONTENTS INTRODUCTION _Page_ 1 TOURS 17 EARLY ENGLISH 21 EARLY ENGLISH TOUR 29 SALISBURY 30 CANTERBURY 36 LINCOLN 51 YORK 57 DECORATED 65 DECORATED TOUR 75 YORK 76 NORBURY 82 SHREWSBURY 85 LUDLOW 92 HEREFORD 96 TEWKESBURY 100 DEERHURST 104 BRISTOL 107 WELLS 114 EXETER 120 DORCHESTER 124 OXFORD 129 PERPENDICULAR 135 PERPENDICULAR TOUR 140 OXFORD 142 FAIRFORD 148 CIRENCESTER 154 GLOUCESTER 158 GREAT MALVERN 166 LITTLE MALVERN 172 ROSS 174 WARWICK 177 COVENTRY 181 YORK 185 SALISBURY 192 WINCHESTER 195 ST. NEOT 203 RENAISSANCE 209 RENAISSANCE TOURS 214 LONDON 216 CAMBRIDGE 223 LICHFIELD 230 GUILDFORD 236 GATTON 239 KNOLE 242 ITINERARIES 251 LIST OF TOWNS 253 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS _To face page_ Cambridge, King's College Chapel _Frontispiece_ General Map 18 Map of Early English Tour 30 Canterbury, "Becket's Crown" 36 Thirteenth century medallions; notice circular and other forms enclosing the figures. The heavy iron bars needed to support the great weight of lead are skilfully adjusted to the design. The world-famous shrine stood in the centre of this space. Tombof Black Prince in foreground, and above it armour he wore at Crécy. Lincoln, Rose Window 56 Tracery unusual in that it does not radiate from centre. Quantity of greenish grisaille used emphasises leaf-like design. Thirteenth century medallions in the tall lancets below. York Minster, "Five Sisters" 62 Softly toned grisaille, with delicate patterns in faint colour. Of its type unsurpassed in the world. Note difference between mellow strength of this glass and thinness of modern glazing in upper tier of lancets. Map of Decorated Tour 76 York Minster, Chapter-House 78 Note the grouping together in each embrasure of five narrow lights below gracefully elaborated tracery openings. Later on, in the Perpendicular period, these traceries lose their individuality, become stiffly regular, and part of the window below. Tewkesbury Abbey, Choir 100 A rare example of rounded apse, generally replaced in England by a square-ended chancel. Chief charm of these windows is their rich colouring. Wells, "Golden Window" 116 Notice graceful setting, permitting a glimpse through into the Lady chapel beyond. The large Tree of Jesse, rising from the loins of the patriarch, is portrayed in colours of almost barbaric richness. Exeter, East Window 122 Perpendicular stone frame, glazed chiefly with very typically decorated figure-and-canopy glass preserved from the earlier and smaller window. Below and beyond appears the Lady chapel. Map of Perpendicular Tour 140 Oxford, New College Antechapel 144 Transition window, presented by William of Wykeham, Founder of the College. Stone frames are already Perpendicular: note the "pepper-box" tracery lights. The glazing, as usual, lags behind the architecture, and, because of its strong colour and flat drawing, is more Decorated than Perpendicular. Gloucester, Choir 162 Great east window commemorative of knights who fought at Crécy. Backgrounds of pink and soft blue. Tracery lights no longer differentiated from window below, as during Decorated period. Note elaborate masking of earlier walls by later Perpendicular work. Coventry, Guildhall 182 Splendid row of ancient English kings, and, below, a great tapestry. In the centre of the window, and again on the tapestry, appears Henry VI., who was a member of the guild. Handsome example of mediæval hall. York Minster, East Window 188 Tremendous sheet of colour, 78 by 32 feet. Lower half of stone frame built in a double plane, and carries a gallery across face of the glass. Winchester, Nave 200 The excellent effect produced by the Fifteenth Century fragments with which this window is glazed proves that colour is more important than design in glass. Note swerving to right and left of two principal mullions, thus relieving a monotony of upright lines. Map of Renaissance Tours 214 London, St. George's, Hanover Square 220 A Renaissance Tree of Jesse from Belgium, readjusted to fit its new embrasures. Figures unusually large for this subject. Fine colours and drawing. Lichfield, Lady Chapel 232 Excellent example of Renaissance colouring, freer from applied paint than then customary. This glass was brought from Belgium. Guildford, Bishop Abbott's Hospital 240 Charming and complete glazing of a small chapel. Renaissance glass coloured by the process of enamelling, often unsatisfactory because bits are apt to peel off. STAINED GLASS TOURS : : IN ENGLAND : : INTRODUCTION The errand of a window seems always to have been that of beauty, although it has more than one way of performing that service. Sometimes it seems to have chosen the inspiring manner of recalling ancient wars, as would appear from the "Dreme" of Chaucer: "And sooth to sayn, my chamber was Full well depainted, and with glass Were all the windows well y-glazed Full clear, and not an hole y-crazed, That to behold it was great joy: For wholly all the story of Troy Was in the glazing y-wrought thus, Of Hector, and of King Priamus; Of Achilles, and of King Laomedon, And eke of Medea, and of Jason; Of Paris, Helen, and of Lavine." Sometimes the errand is that of beauty alone, so "mystic, wonderful," as to make it seem that magic was invoked to yield so fair a result. In his "Earthly Paradise" Morris voices this feeling: "Folk say, a wizard to a northern king At Christmastide such wondrous things did show, That through one window men beheld the spring, And through another saw the summer glow, And through a third the fruited vines a-row, While still, unheard, but in its wonted way, Piped the drear wind of that December day." Again, the errand of the window may have been not so much that of a story-teller, nor of a beautiful object to regale one's eyes withal, but rather to tint and temper the illumination of some holy place like that described in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" (Canto XI.): "The silver light, so pale and faint, Show'd many a prophet and many a saint, Whose image on the glass was dyed; Full in the midst, his Cross of Red Triumphant Michael brandished, And trampled the Apostate's pride. The moonbeam kissed the holy pane, And threw on the pavement a bloody stain." Beyond the enjoyment and artistic refreshment to be obtained from the contemplation of stained glass, who shall say that we do not receive other benefits, the nature of which are as yet undiscovered? It is only recently that our learned brothers, the scientists, have acquainted us with the helpful qualities of those rays of light which, in the language of the spectrum, are "out beyond the violet." In this connection, it may be edifying to quote from the "Anecdotes and Traditions" of Aubrey: "The curious oriental reds, yellows, blews, and greens in glasse-painting, especially when the sun shines, doe much refresh the spirits. After this manner did Dr. R. revive the spirits of a poor distracted gentleman, for whereas his former physitian shutt up his windows and kept him in utter darknesse, he did open his window lids, and let in the light, and filled his windows with glasses of curious tinctures, which the distempered person would always be looking on, and it did conduce to the quieting of his disturbed spirits." (Aubrey in "Anecdotes and Traditions," edited for the Camden Society by W. J. Thomas, p. 96.) Nor is this the only _terra incognita_ still awaiting exploration. During some recent French experiments wide differences have been observed in the same kind of vegetable when grown under differently coloured glass covers. However, these are matters that will not be "dreamed of in our philosophy"--our investigations will be confined to a geographical search for that with which to delight our eyes. When one pauses to consider how fragile the beauty of a stained glass window, it becomes amazing that even so much as we can now visit has survived. Over every European country there has, at one time or another, swept a wave of destruction engulfing things artistic. The causes for, as well as the agents of, this iconoclasm, differ widely. Sometimes it comes from within, and is the result of civil war or of religious fanaticism--less often it is the result of foreign invasion. English windows had the good fortune to escape the destruction by foreigners which the French had to suffer during those dreadful fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when the Hundred Years' War outlasted its title, and when the hot-headed Plantagenet kings kept France continually plagued with English soldiery. Although we must record this particular immunity, other agencies equally baleful were at work. The Puritans made a practice of smashing stained glass, either because they regarded it as one of the hated insignia of popery (some of their ministers even knocking out the glass in churches under their own charge, like "Blue Dick" Culmer at Canterbury Cathedral), or for reasons of revenge, as in the case of the troops infuriated by the death of their leader in the assault upon Lichfield. Dwellers within the precincts of Lincoln made a common practice of shooting with crossbows at the windows! At Great Malvern the possible excuse of crossbow practice is missing; the villagers quite simply amused themselves by throwing stones at the great east window, just from the sheer joy of destruction. In some instances, even the mitigating circumstances of religious fanaticism, revenge, competitive sport, or even amusement are entirely lacking. Aubrey tells us in his "History of Surrey," that "At a later date, one Blesse was hired for half-a-crown a day to break the painted glass windows of Croydon." Little wonder is it that the citizens of York should have voted Fairfax, the leader of the Roundheads, a tun of wine, &c., in reward for his protecting care of the cathedral after he and his soldiers had captured that city. In an earlier book ("Stained Glass Tours in France") we observed that French windows divided themselves into periods which were practically coterminous with the centuries, thus enabling us to designate the styles by their century number. In England the development of this craft brought about the style-changes at irregular dates; but here also the steps of this development are so marked as to separate it into distinct epochs. English glass follows its architecture so closely that one cannot do better than to accept the period-designation of the latter, and especially is this true during the so-called Decorated and Perpendicular epochs. For our purpose we will therefore use the following sub-divisions: Early English, which will include all the glass prior to 1280; Decorated, 1280 to 1380; Perpendicular, 1380 to 1500; Renaissance (sometimes styled sixteenth century or Cinque Cento), 1500 to 1550. There are extremely few examples of the first and of the last schools, in marked contrast to the great wealth in France of windows contemporary thereto. Edward I. came to the throne in 1272, and it was during his reign that the Decorated period began, running through the reigns of Edward II. (1307), Edward III. (1327), and Richard II. (1377)--all of them Plantagenets. This and the succeeding period produced very little glass anywhere in France, because of the Hundred Years' War, begun 1337, lasting until 1447, and waged throughout the length and breadth of the land. The exact opposite is true in England, where during the Decorated and Perpendicular epochs it reached its greatest importance and beauty. The Perpendicular period begins in 1380, shortly before Richard II., the last of the Plantagenets, was succeeded by the representatives of the rival Houses of Lancaster and York, three Lancastrians, Henry IV., V., and VI. (1399), (1413), (1422), being succeeded by three Yorkists, Edward IV. (1461), Edward V. (1483), and Richard III. (1483). This Perpendicular period came to an end at just about the same time as that tremendous civil struggle, the War of the Roses, was concluded by the accession of the House of Tudor, in the person of Henry VII. (1485). Our Renaissance glass period begins under him and lasts on through practically all the reigns of the House of Tudor--Henry VIII. (1509), Edward VI. (1547), Mary (1553), Elizabeth (1558). At the time that the Tudors were succeeded by the Stuarts (James I., 1603), there was hardly any English glass being manufactured, save a little for domestic use, although many Dutch glaziers were then active in this country, as we shall regretfully observe when we visit Oxford and Cambridge. It is clear from many an entry in ancient English church archives that French glaziers were often in the early days summoned across the Channel, and that it is to them that we owe the beginning of English glass; but we shall see that although it owes its origin to this foreign assistance, it developed along distinctly original lines, and that therefore the English glaziers deserve full credit for the charming traits peculiar to them. Although the period styled Early English has left comparatively few examples north of the Channel, and cannot hope to vie with the many and rich displays of mosaic glass to be seen in France, we shall be greatly consoled by the splendid grisaille (or uncoloured glazing) that fills the "Five Sisters" at York, and by the remains of the great series at Salisbury. We have just referred to the scarcity of French stained glass during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, those sorry days during which the English occupation of a large part of the country, repeated plagues, and uprisings of the lower classes against the nobles (like the Jacquerie), vied with each other in the work of devastation. Indeed, it is not strange that any art so dependent upon the fostering care of a luxury-loving class should have been entirely superseded by the sterner requirements of self-defence, to say nothing of the repairs necessitated by the ravages of war, pestilence, and famine. Those two centuries, so dreadful to France and so discouraging to French glaziers, produced in England the greatest flowers of this craft. It is, therefore, clear that if one wishes to obtain a comprehensively consecutive knowledge of stained glass on both sides of the Channel, he must leave France and cross over to England when the thread of his studies has obtained so far as the Decorated and the Perpendicular. When, however, he reaches the sixteenth century he must return to France, to revel in the wealth of Renaissance glass so wofully lacking in England. After one has observed a sufficient number of windows to provide a basis for comparisons, it becomes easy to tell not only the epoch to which they belong, but also, in most instances, whether they are early or late in that epoch. In England one is assisted by an unusual amount of reliable information from two sources, viz., old records and heraldic indications from the coats of arms which are so often displayed. There is so little sixteenth century glass in this country as to give but small opportunity to observe the characteristic Renaissance custom of placing the dates on the picture itself, which was then common in France. Of earlier windows, however, English records and a knowledge of heraldry give us the dates of many more than are obtainable for their contemporaries in France. By way of example, the original contracts date the glass at Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick, 1447; at King's College, Cambridge, 1527; at York, in the nave, 1338, and in the choir, 1405, &c. A comparative and historical study of their heraldic blazons gives us a date for many of the windows at Bristol and at Wells, and of more still in private houses. The duty of the glazier was to adorn the window embrasures constructed for him by the architect, and thus assist in the decoration of the church. It is obvious that the size and shape of these apertures must necessarily have had considerable, if not controlling, effect upon the styles and methods of the glazier. A glance at the conformation of these openings often tells the sub-divisions in which its glass belongs. During Norman times the window arch was round and the opening wide. In the Early English style the arch at the top becomes pointed and the embrasures narrower. When the Decorated time arrives several narrow lights are grouped together, separated only by slender stone mullions, and culminating under the pointed arch at the top in a group of gracefully adjusted small apertures called tracery lights. The Perpendicular architect did little but straighten out the lines of his predecessors, especially in the traceries, so that they, as well as the mullions, should produce the effect of upright parallels which gave this type its name. In the sixteenth century the Renaissance architect provided large windows, and the glazier filled them with great pictures of splendid colour. In our investigation of English glass of the Early English (or mosaic) period, we shall often find ourselves regretting the almost entire absence of rose windows, so frequent and splendid across the Channel, where those great blossoms of Gothic architecture provided such glorious opportunities for the decorating hand of the glazier. For this lack we shall later on find ample compensation (especially during Decorated and Perpendicular times) in the huge sheet of glass filling the great east window of many English churches. While the southern architect decided in favour of the rounded apse for the east end of his cathedrals, his northern neighbour preferred a square ended one, thus permitting a fine broad embrasure, broken only by narrow mullions, and providing a golden chance for the glazier, which he lost no time in seizing. Therefore, if we miss the innumerable rose windows of France, it is but fair to state that it possesses nothing that can vie with the great expanse of glowing colour found at the east end of York or Gloucester or Malvern. It is clear that the glass artist, whatever his nationality, had at all times to take heed of the architecture which provided the setting for his glass, and which his work was to help decorate. It is but natural, therefore, that his designs should have been influenced by the prevailing architectural style, and this was particularly true in England during the prevalence of both the Decorated and the Perpendicular schools. When the time arrived to change from the mosaic method of constructing stained glass, the whole effort of the Englishman seemed to have been devoted to making his new product conform to the new Decorated style of building. Not so his neighbour across the Channel, for there everything was then being sacrificed to the demand for better lighted interiors, even to the extent of filling much of his embrasures with grisaille, and using deep colour only in the borders or in bands of canopy-framed figures across parts of the windows (Sées, Evreux). The need for more illumination did not exist in England, for in that land of cloudy skies and infrequent sunshine they had already realised how greatly mosaic medallion glass obscured the light, and, therefore, had early struck out for themselves, and developed an admirable use of grisaille, as one may see at York and Salisbury. They had already solved the problem of better illumination, and were that much ahead of their French neighbours. In France, because of light-admitting grisaille then demanded (either alone or in conjunction with the early canopies), the fourteenth century window gives a lighter effect than when later on, in the fifteenth century, the artist dispensed with the grisaille, enlarged his canopy completely to fill its lancet, and, thanks to the development of coated glass--_i.e._, several layers of different colours permitting, in combination, a wide range of hues--introduced more varied and richer colouring in both figures and costumes. In England, however, where light-admitting grisaille had already been freely used during the mosaic period, and the glazier began the fourteenth century untrammelled by any sudden demand for brilliant illumination, we shall easily observe a tendency directly contrary to that just remarked in France. The English Decorated windows are much deeper in tone than the Perpendicular ones which followed them. These latter seemed to have proved a satisfactory solution of the lighting problem for the English climate. Indeed, we shall see some at St. Neot, manufactured as late as 1530, that are copied after others of the preceding century, and yet the later ones are obviously from the hand of an artist so skilful as to have readily worked in the contemporary Renaissance manner, had he not deliberately preferred the earlier one. Those who desire to study this subject seriously should read Lewis F. Day's excellent "Windows of Stained Glass" (1897). EARLY ENGLISH BEFORE 1280 -------------------------------------------------------------- PLANTAGENET { Edward I. 1272 1280-1380 { Edward II. 1307 DECORATED { Edward III. 1327 { (Crécy, 1346) { (Poitiers, 1356) ------------{------------------------------------------------- { Richard II. 1377 1380-1500 PERPENDICULAR LANCASTER { Henry IV. 1399 { Henry V. 1413 { (Agincourt, 1415) { Henry VI. 1422 YORK { Edward IV. 1461 { Edward V. 1483 { Richard III. 1483 TUDOR { Henry VII. 1485 ------------{------------------------------------------------- { Henry VIII. 1509 1500-1550 { Edward VI. 1547 RENAISSANCE { Mary, 1553 { Elizabeth, 1558 STUART { James I. 1603 TOURS Our glass-hunting tours will take us into almost every part of England. We shall go up and down the east coast cathedrals, from York in the north to Canterbury in the south-east. We shall also wander through the entire range of southern counties, and see the whole coast from Winchester, west through Salisbury and Exeter to St. Neot, far off in Cornwall, hard by Land's End. But it will be in that corner of England which lies between Oxford and the Welsh border, that the greatest wealth of windows will be found. We shall arrange the tours so that the order in which the windows are viewed will conform chronologically with the stages of the craft's development. It will, of course, largely depend on whether he elects to travel by rail, by automobile, or by bicycle, just how slavishly the pilgrim follows the order in which the towns have been set out. The trips have been arranged with an eye to geography rather than to railway time-tables--geography is so much more stable than "Bradshaw's General Railway Guide"! The omission from the list of sundry important cathedrals, like Durham, Ely, Peterborough, Worcester, &c., is caused by the deplorable fact that all their ancient stained glass has been destroyed. The order of towns is as follows: Early English Epoch Salisbury, Canterbury, Lincoln, York. Decorated Epoch York, Norbury, Shrewsbury, Ludlow, Hereford, Tewkesbury, Deerhurst, Bristol, Wells, Exeter, Dorchester, Oxford. Perpendicular Epoch Oxford, Fairford, Cirencester, Gloucester, Great Malvern, Little Malvern, Ross, Warwick, Coventry, York. Salisbury. Winchester. St. Neot. Renaissance Epoch London, Cambridge, Lichfield, Shrewsbury. Guildford, Gatton, Knole. In selecting the order of the above itineraries, we have ended the first, or Early English period, at York, because that city is not only rich in early mosaic glass, but also in that of the Decorated period, thus making it most convenient for us there to begin the second or Decorated tour. In the same manner we have concluded the itinerary of the Decorated period at Oxford, for there are found not only Decorated, but also Perpendicular windows, thus permitting us to commence the Perpendicular tour in the same city which ends our Decorated one. York is set down as the last of the Perpendicular trip, but if our pilgrim has already visited that city on either the Early English or the Decorated tour, he will doubtless also have seen all of its Perpendicular glass, which will obviate the necessity for again making the long journey north. In that event, with York left out of the Perpendicular tour, it will prove to be much more condensed, both as to territory and distance, than either of the two earlier ones. The last, or Renaissance epoch, has but few examples in England, and these are so widely separated that it seems best to break them up into two tours. Of the seven places cited (London, Cambridge, Lichfield, Shrewsbury, Guildford, Gatton, and Knole) the best English glass is at London and Cambridge, while that at Lichfield is Flemish, and most of that at Shrewsbury German. For tables of distances, &c., _see_ pp. 251-254. [Illustration: GENERAL MAP] EARLY ENGLISH We shall find it more convenient to group all early glass under the heading of "Early English," although it will be found not only in its own narrow, pointed-arched windows, but also before that, in the round-arched ones of the Norman style. So slow was the development of our craft during all the time covered by those two schools of architecture as to make it hardly proper or necessary that our subject be likewise divided into two epochs. During both of them there is found richly coloured glass of the "mosaic" type, and also uncoloured windows of the sort styled by the French "grisaille." Obviously, uncoloured glass admits much more light than that made up of rich dark hues, and, therefore, it is but natural that the glazier who dwelt in a cloudy northern land should early have realised the need for sufficient light in his churches, a need which did not concern his fellow craftsmen in the sunny lands of the south. Indeed if he had not appreciated this practical side of his craft he would not have been the artist which his windows prove him to have been. The glaziers of sunny Italy were never confronted with this problem of sufficient illumination--if anything, they had too much, no matter how richly they painted the panes. Their fellows in France had less sunlight than they, but more than the English, and therefore occupied an intermediate ground in the matter of church illumination; the result was that the French neglected it so entirely during both the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and so darkened their interiors by heavily leaded mosaic glazing as to bring about, at the opening of the fourteenth century, a sudden revulsion in favour of better lighted interiors, which went so far as to produce the excessive light and glare observable at Sées, St. Ouen (Rouen) and Evreux. This sudden revulsion did not appear in England where, indeed, there were no grounds for it, because, as we have just seen, the glaziers had already thoroughly grasped the need for, as well as the value of, light-admitting grisaille. That they thoroughly mastered the technique of uncoloured glass we will readily conclude from the splendid monuments to their genius in the "Five Sisters" at York, and the grisaille in the south transept at Salisbury, ideal glazing for a land of infrequent sunshine. Turning from these untinted windows to those filled with colour, one notices at once that the early examples of the latter are made up of very small pieces of different hues bound together by winding strips of lead having little sunken channels on both sides to hold the glass in place. So small are these pieces that the windows seem to have been composed much in the same way that the diminutive cubes are assembled to make a mosaic. It is because of this striking similarity of method, that this early glazing, constructed of small fragments, is frequently referred to as "mosaic" glass. Another name which it often receives is also easily explainable. The stories on these early windows are told by groups of very small figures, and to prevent a chaotic multitude of these little persons spread over the glass, each episode or group is separated from the others by a frame of contrasting colour, thus breaking up the whole surface into medallions. For this reason, early mosaic glazing is sometimes spoken of as "medallion glass." Unfortunately for England, it possesses but few remains of this delightful product, and therefore suffers sadly by comparison with the great wealth of it to be seen in France. We shall find enough, however, at Canterbury and Lincoln to kindle our enthusiasm for the splendid jewelled glow which the glazier of that time, and of no other, knew how to make his windows produce. It will not take long for the intelligent observer to notice that this glitter is due partly to the fact that the glass is free from paint (except that used to delineate features, folds of garments, &c.), and partly because its surface is not regular as is ours to-day. Furthermore, the pieces were small, and the constantly recurring leadlines (breaking up and combining the rays of light coming through the little panes) assisted materially to produce the brilliancy and shimmer which so delight the eye. There is no doubt that the glazier thoroughly realised this, and availed himself of this mingling of the coloured rays to suit the purposes of his picture. We frequently see a thirteenth century window that produces a purple effect, and yet a closer inspection will reveal that there is only red and blue glass used in it, but so cunningly have they been intermingled as to produce a much warmer purple than any sheet of purple glass could render. Some writers would have us believe that the glazier had no choice but to use these small bits in building up his picture, and that therefore the rich glowing effect was the result of chance, and not that of intelligent deliberation. Any one who has been fortunate enough to visit St. Maurice's Cathedral at Angers is amply equipped to refute this theory, and will be prepared to give full credit to the glazier of the thirteenth century, for, in that church, the twelfth century mosaic glass of the nave is readily seen to be composed of much larger fragments than were employed in the choir by the thirteenth century man. These latter in the choir glisten and glitter, while the earlier ones in the nave, composed of larger pieces, do not. This indicates that the improvement shown by the thirteenth century windows over those of the twelfth century was caused by artistic intelligence, and at the expense of more labour to the glazier, because in lessening the size of his panes, he greatly increased the work of leading them together. As he purposely used smaller fragments, he should receive full credit for his splendid results. Those who have been so fortunate as to see the French thirteenth century windows will not only regret the fewness of examples of that period in England, but will also remark the dearth there of the great rose windows so frequent in France. Furthermore, he will notice that in the case of English medallion windows, the medallions are smaller than those across the Channel; this is caused by the fact that the lancets of the Early English school were narrower than contemporary French ones, and therefore necessitated a smaller medallion. While it is true that it is only at Lincoln that one finds the splendid rose windows which reach their greatest perfection in France, compensation for their absence is found in the development in their place of a style of window almost unknown in France, _i.e._, the great east window, of which such superb examples will be seen during the next (or Decorated) period at York, Bristol, and many other places. This difference in the development of the largest light aperture of a church is due to the architect; in France he built the eastern end of his churches round, but in England they were square, thereby permitting a large sheet of glazing at the east end, which the French rounded apse could not afford. It is gratifying to note the way in which the genius of the glazier, no matter where he lived, seized upon and developed to the utmost the artistic possibilities of his glass, and, furthermore, how cleverly he adapted them to the structures prepared for him by his architect. We shall see at Canterbury, more clearly even than elsewhere, that in the manufacture of this early mosaic glass the English glaziers followed the French models. In "Stained Glass Tours in France," p. 17, we have made some conjectures as to the beginnings of glass in France and whence it came into that country. Indications appear to be in favour of its first steps being guided by a group of enamellers in Limoges, who were instructed or influenced by a colony of Venetians that settled near by in 979, bringing with them their Byzantine art. Whatever opinion we may hold, there can be no doubt that a striking similarity in drawing, colouring, &c., is to be remarked between stained glass of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Limoges enamels of those two and the two preceding centuries, and the Byzantine mosaics of St. Mark's in Venice, &c. EARLY ENGLISH TOUR Even though we shall encounter but few examples of this period in England, a tour of the towns in which they are to be found will perhaps yield us more interesting glimpses into history than our later tours, far richer though they may be in glass. Starting at ancient Salisbury hard by the site of Druid Stonehenge, we follow the oldest of English national roads, the "Pilgrim's Way," through Winchester (for so long the English capital) on to Canterbury with its dramatic history of the martyred archbishop. Close to Canterbury are Chartham and Willesborough; these may be seen _en route_ from Salisbury. Thence we go north to Lincoln, and, after an interesting visit to its sanctuary-crowned hilltop, we will push on still further north to York, that treasure-house of glass of this as well as of all periods. Although we end our first tour in that city, we shall also be able there to begin our second one, and may also, if we choose, inspect the glass of a still later (the Perpendicular) epoch. [Illustration: MAP OF EARLY ENGLISH TOUR] SALISBURY There is no country in the world whose ancient history is writ so large upon its broad acres as old England. It is full of silent testimonials to past events which render those early days and their happenings more vivid than any printed page can hope to effect. Many of these remains are of such remote antiquity as to long antedate our glass, but nevertheless we must not be so prejudiced as to neglect them when encountered on our travels. Indeed, it may well be that the existence of other attractions of this sort may secure for us the company of certain archæological friends who at first will have but small interest in glass. Nor need we distress ourselves about how small that interest may be; for if they, for any reason, accompany us, our charming windows will surely make converts of them long before the journey is ended. These same archæological folk will tell us that few localities in England can show more extraordinary historical remains than Stonehenge and Old Sarum near Salisbury. The great upright monoliths of Stonehenge, stationed in the form of a horse-shoe within a circle, loom up in such a solitary and impressive way upon the great reaches of Salisbury Plain as to produce a mental picture long to be remembered. Their very isolation makes them much more striking than the voluminous remains of a similar nature erected also by the Druids on the west coast of Brittany. As for Old Sarum, it is now nothing but a lofty fortified camp, but the enclosure within its circle of high walls formerly contained a town which was the predecessor of Salisbury. The shape of this high truncated cone recalls the pictures of the Tower of Babel that used to appear in our child's geographies. Whatever may have been the real cause for the removal of Salisbury to its present site, the one generally alleged was that Sarum lacked water--this certainly cannot be charged against the present city, which is so sorely harassed at certain seasons of the year by local floods, as well to merit the name often given it of the "English Venice." Its vast cathedral is much more regular and balanced in its proportions than are most examples of mediæval church architecture. The two great twin spires are esteemed the most beautiful in England. To one who has become accustomed to the archaic appearance of most European cathedrals, Salisbury will prove quite a surprise; in the words of Emerson, "The cathedral, which was finished six hundred years ago, has even a spruce and modern air." This splendid building, even if it were not so impressive as it is, would have been rendered sufficiently picturesque because of the setting provided by the shaded walks and green swards of its Close. Within the roomy interior are examples not only of thirteenth century medallion glass, but also some of the best types of English grisaille of that period. Because of the belief that the doors, windows and pillars exactly coincide respectively with the number of months, days and hours in the year, Thomas Fuller said, "All Europe affords not such an almanac of architecture." We are concerned only with that portion of the almanac that has to do with the days. An old rhyme says: "As many days as in one year there be So many windows in this church we see." Notwithstanding the great number of light apertures thus provided by the architect, the glazier was not permitted to make excessive use of the light-obscuring coloured mosaic glass, as was then the custom in France. Grisaille was plentifully used, and Salisbury was famous for it. Most of its remains are found in the upper lancets at the south end of the easterly transepts, as well as a little in the west windows of the nave aisles, the east one of the choir aisles, and the lower triplet in the south end of the small transepts. Two of the easterly clerestory lights of the large northern transept also show this early pattern glass. Instead of filling the other embrasures with rudely contrasting modern glazing, a very intelligent effort has been made throughout the choir and transept to model as closely as possible upon these ancient examples. The result is very agreeable--at least it contrives to give us some idea of how the church must have looked with its original windows all complete. Little touches of colour are very judiciously interspersed throughout the strapwork, and serve to correct what otherwise might be dull-toned. Blue is very extensively used here for this purpose, and to a greater extent than is usually found elsewhere. It tones in admirably with the greenish hue of the glass, and enriches it without risking too striking a contrast. The thirteenth century medallion remains have been collected into the three lancets at the western end. Note especially the plentiful and interesting fragments of the Tree of Jesse done in mosaic style which has been introduced in two parallel columns into the central lancet: the borders are contemporary. The side lancets are not so satisfactorily filled, for the combination of strips of later glass separated by equally wide ones of old grisaille, and all surrounded by a rich old border on ruby and blue backgrounds, is not pleasing. The medallions are interesting, but nothing like so fine as we shall see elsewhere. We shall chiefly remember Salisbury Cathedral for the effective glazing of its choir and transepts afforded by thirteenth century grisaille eked out with good modern glass copied after it. One does not have to search far in the records of Salisbury to find why there is so little remaining of its ancient glazing. Time has been materially aided and abetted in its work of destruction by ruthless restorations, of which the worst was Wyatt's in the eighteenth century. We read that "whole cartloads of glass, lead, and other rubbish were removed from the nave and transepts, and shot into the town ditch, then in course of being filled up; whilst a good deal of similar rubbish was used to level the ground near the chapter-house." Nor was destruction the only means used to get rid of the Salisbury windows, as will appear from the following letter written to Mr. Lloyd, of London, in 1788, by John Berry, a glazier of Salisbury: "SIR.--This day I have sent you a Box full of old Stained & Printed glass, as you desired me to due, which I hope will sute your Purpos, it his the best that I can get at Present. But I expect to Beate to Peceais a great deal very sune, as it his of now use to me, and we do it for the lead. If you want more of the same sorts you may have what thear is, if it will pay you for taking out, as it is a Deal of Truble to what Beating it to Peceais his; you will send me a line as soon as Possable, for we are goain to move our glasing shop to a Nother plase and thin we hope to save a great deal more of the like sort, which I ham your most Omble servent--JOHN BERRY." There is also later glass to be seen here. St. Thomas's Church, in the first embrasure from the east of the north aisle, has the remains of a Decorated Tree of Jesse, in which, as well as in other fragments along the traceries, there is a good deal of yellow stain observable. In the vestry, which is off the north aisle, are three small lancets upon which appear figures against quarry backgrounds not as usual ensconced in canopies. The wooden ceilings in the north and south aisles are especially fine. For the Perpendicular glass at Salisbury _see_ p. 192. CANTERBURY Even a careless observer of the life and customs of the Middle Ages will have noticed that one of its most extraordinary features is the extent to which people of every European country went upon pilgrimages. The nature and object of these religious journeys varied widely, running the gamut from the Crusades to the visiting of neighbouring shrines. The history of the Crusades is well known, but perhaps few of us realise the tremendous interest taken in the more domestic and near-by pilgrimages. The English were like all the rest of Christendom in this curious craze, and for several centuries the most revered, as well as the most popular of their many shrines was that of the martyred Thomas à Becket at Canterbury. More highly prized than any other similar trophy was the small leaden flask hung about the neck of one who had taken that journey, and was thus qualified to bear away this pilgrim's token filled with water from the holy well beneath the cathedral. A modern counterpart is afforded by the value Mohammedans set upon the wearing of a green turban, the privilege accorded to one who has visited Mecca. Although Canterbury had always since the earliest days possessed many saintly relics, a marked increase in the number of pilgrims was noted after the martyrdom of à Becket. These pilgrimages steadily grew in vogue until when, in the fifteenth century, they had reached their height, not only did the stream of travellers continue steadily throughout the year, but during the months of December and July (anniversaries of the martyrdom and the transference of the relics) we read that the numbers swelled to such an extent that the housing facilities of the little city were greatly overtaxed. A jubilee was held every fifty years, and on these occasions the crowds grew to enormous size. During the jubilee of 1420 we are told that over 100,000 pilgrims were gathered in the city at the same time. Hay and wood were provided gratuitously for them, a bounty which the cathedral could well afford, because of the great value of the gifts constantly received from these visitors. It is easy to see how important a nationalising influence must have resulted from this meeting together of all classes of society from different parts of the country. How widely these pilgrims varied in station and occupation can be gathered from Chaucer's inimitable "Canterbury Tales." Those amusing chronicles also show that while religion was doubtless a powerful motive in causing these pilgrimages, there was besides a great deal of what is called to-day "the desire for foreign travel." In fact, it is difficult to find much religious flavour in the tales of merriment and adventure which follow each other in this delightful series. Chaucer probably selected a Canterbury pilgrimage as the setting for his poem in order to appeal to a great number of readers, for he well knew the kingdom to be full of people who had taken this journey, and to whom, therefore, his tales would be of peculiar interest. Although Chaucer was the son and grandson of vintners, he won his way into high favour at Court, a hint of which is obtained from the fact that Edward III. paid £16 (then a considerable sum) to ransom him after his capture by the French. [Illustration: _J. G. Charlton, photo._ "BECKET'S CROWN," CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL Thirteenth Century medallions; notice circular and other forms enclosing the figures. The heavy iron bars needed to support the great weight of lead are skilfully adjusted to the design. The world-famous shrine stood in the centre of this space. Tomb of Black Prince in foreground, and above it armour he wore at Crécy] Another group of equally diverting but more whimsical poems are inseparably connected with this neighbourhood. Rev. Richard Barham lived near Canterbury, and many of his engaging Ingoldsby Legends have their scenes laid there, some within the cathedral precincts. The county of Kent, of which Canterbury is the chief city, is peopled by a sturdy folk who have always been jealous of their rights and insistent upon their own interpretation of the law, as, for example, although primogeniture existed almost everywhere else in England, Kent always preferred gavelkind (an equal division of property among the children of the deceased). As illustrating the strength of Kentish traditions, it is amusing to note that one must remember carefully to apply the expression "Kentish man" to a dweller in the western half of the county, and "Man of Kent" to him of the eastern. Confuse these two designations at your peril! There is a bit of local history which has a fine heroic flavour, and which points our moral excellently. After William the Conqueror had won the battle of Hastings, all Kent, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, gathered to protect its ancient rights against the invader. They marched forth to meet William at Swanscourt, each man fully armed, and carrying above him a green bough to mask the numbers of their host. William's surprise and perplexity at seeing this perambulating forest approaching him can well be imagined. When he inquired the reason for it, there came the fine reply that Kent demanded its ancient rights, and if granted them would live peaceably under his rule, but if they were to be denied, then there must be instant war! The politic Norman complied with their request, and the Kentish forest marched off. So beautiful are the distant prospects of Canterbury Cathedral that excellent æsthetic reasons may be advanced for the religious custom that required all mounted pilgrims to dismount as soon as they could spy the Angel Steeple, and complete the last stage of the pilgrimage on foot. Proceeding in this more leisurely fashion, the beauties of the picturesque grouping of the buildings about the cathedral developed slowly before their eyes. On descending into the town, many interesting sights meet one's view in the quaint winding streets and narrow lanes. The name of one of these, Watling Street, recalls the fact that through this city ran that great Roman road. Another element of the picturesque is added by the meandering through the town of the river Stour, over whose narrow stream project many of the houses. Finally we arrive at a large gatehouse, whose modest portal affords access to the sacred precincts, and introduces us to a series of most delightful pictures, for there are few cathedrals in the world placed in so charming a setting. An old legend gravely narrates that when the walls of the sanctuary were heightened about the middle of the tenth century, the building was, perforce, roofless for three years, and that during that period no rain fell within this favoured enclosure! We need not stop to consider the different features of the architecture which have delighted so many eyes and are so well known from photographs and other reproductions. We must, however, note in passing that during à Becket's exile he chanced to be in Sens at the very time that the great French architect, William of Sens, was finishing the first attempt in pointed Gothic. This probably explains why, when the choir of Canterbury Cathedral was destroyed by fire, the monks in 1174 summoned William to rebuild it. During the work he fell from the scaffold and received injuries from which he died. The selection of that foreign architect assists in explaining why the mosaic glass at Canterbury so closely resembles the late twelfth century windows at Sens, and permits us to conjecture that with the French architect there came over French glaziers. The French Gothic which was here introduced by William of Sens was, to a certain extent, copied elsewhere. Traces of it at York Cathedral are doubtless due to the fact that the Archbishop of York who caused its introduction had been Archdeacon at Canterbury during the time that William of Sens was working there. We will enter the church and press on to the northern transept, where took place that tragic episode resulting from the constant strife between Henry II. and the proud churchman à Becket. In the dimness of this old-world corner one can almost live over again the scene at twilight, December 29, 1170, when the four knights, taunted into exasperation by à Becket's hot words, cut down the defenceless priest, thinking thus to serve their royal master. Not only did this base act bring upon Henry the open shame of being forced to do most abject penance before the shrine of his sainted victim, but it also produced many extraordinary results of widely differing nature during the centuries to follow. Just after the assassination the monks, upon removing the garments of their murdered chief, found, to their great surprise, that beneath the rich raiment of him whom they had always mistrusted as a brilliant courtier, was worn the haircloth shirt of their monastic order. Their sudden revulsion of feeling, and the religious enthusiasm which overcame them at that sight, seems prophetic of other revulsions that were to take place during the Middle Ages in the attitude of the public mind towards this bloody page of Church history. Just as then their feelings abruptly changed, so after wealth and costly gifts had flowed to this shrine for centuries, and almost every city in Christendom had an altar or a church dedicated to St. Thomas, suddenly men of thought became disgusted by the many reprehensible features connected with this cult, which, perhaps, were only the natural results of the throngs attending the pilgrimages. The pendulum, which had swung too high on one side, swept back to the other extreme; and this brings us to one of the strangest parts of this story, if not, indeed, the weirdest in all the annals of the law. Henry VIII. cast covetous eyes upon the hoard of jewels gathered together in Canterbury Cathedral, so he instituted a legal proceeding to enable him to lay hold upon them. As royal successor to Henry II. he caused the Attorney-General in 1538 to bring suit against à Becket for treason, and had the papers duly served upon the famous shrine! Counsel was appointed to represent the long dead subject, and the case was argued with all the pomp and circumstance of legal warfare. The martyr was found guilty, and all the wealth of his shrine was declared escheated to the Crown. We read that it was necessary to employ twenty-six carts to carry off the booty. Could anything be more strange and fantastic than so material an outcome to the wild deed of the four knights! Of the other tombs here, the most interesting are those of Henry IV. and the Black Prince. Above the latter is suspended the armour worn by him at the battle of Crécy. Before commencing to examine the stained glass, we must warn the reader that it suffered severely at the hands of that arch-ruffian of all glass destroyers, Dick Culmer (or "Blue Dick," as he was called), the minister in charge of the Abbey during the Commonwealth. So violently opposed to his appointment were the townspeople that they locked all the cathedral's doors against him, thus forcing him to effect his first entrance by breaking in one of the windows--an evil omen! No sooner was he installed than he set diligently to work to destroy the stained glass, and, furthermore, openly boasted of his energy in that respect. In his "Cathedral News from Canterbury," he says, "A minister on top of the city ladder, nearly sixty steps high, with a whole pike in his hand, rattling down proud Becket's glassie bones when others present would not venture so high." This glass, so destroyed, was in the north transept. There is but little mosaic medallion thirteenth century glass in England, and therefore what there is of it at Canterbury would for that reason alone have great value, but because the examples there found are among the best of that period now extant, its importance is thereby greatly enhanced. An ancient supplement to the "Canterbury Tales" relates, with amusing conversational detail, how the pilgrims, upon entering the church by the south-western door of the nave, at once fell to admiring the windows and studying out their legends. The ruthless hand of time, assisted by those of Dick Culmer and Co., have made it impossible for us to enjoy that same pleasure, but certain fragments of that glass gathered together into the western window give a hint of what the beauty of the complete series must have been. With this exception there is nothing to detain one long in the nave, so we will pass on to the eastern end of the church to inspect the remaining contemporary windows--they are the finest of their type in England, and will be found in the north choir aisle, the circular apse at the extreme easterly end (known as Becket's Crown) and Trinity Chapel. There has been preserved for us an old Latin list describing and locating all the windows in their original order, and from this we learn that the ancient panels now in the north choir aisle between the easterly transept and the chapel of the Martyrdom (north end of the westerly transepts) were formerly in the embrasures of the latter. Their workmanship is very fine, and they tell their parables with great distinctness. Proceeding eastward to Becket's Crown, we shall be afforded an edifying opportunity to observe how much more brilliant and generally delightful are the old mosaic medallions than even the best modern copies. The oldest window dates from the middle of the thirteenth century, and it takes but a glance to betray those of its companions which are modern. The improvements of centuries in glass manufacture fail utterly to yield us an equivalent for the brilliancy of the crudely constructed panels of that time. The most interesting and, for various reasons, the most valuable medallions are those filling the six windows of Trinity Chapel which retain their original glazing. In those on the north side of where the shrine used to stand, are medallions whose groups display miracles performed by the saint, or episodes illustrative of his healing power. At the top of the second from the east on this side is a medallion of very peculiar interest because it depicts Benedict's vision of the saint emerging from his shrine in full canonicals and moving toward the high altar to say mass. Examine it carefully, for here we have the only representation now existing of that world-renowned shrine, whose lavish decoration of gold and jewels so roused the cupidity of Henry VIII. as to cause its destruction. There is every reason to believe this to be a veracious reproduction, for being installed directly opposite and a few yards from the shrine of which it was the counterfeit presentment, any but a careful copy thereof would have been useless in telling the window's story. More of this splendid glass is found filling the lower embrasures along the north side between the two sets of transepts, and also above in the three upper half-circle windows, both on this and the opposite side of the church ambulatory; note the mellow richness of their reds and blues. The central embrasure of the most easterly or Trinity Chapel retains its early mosaic medallions, easily distinguished from the modern imitations on either side. High up in the north wall of the easterly transepts is a rose window which retains its thirteenth century glazing in the large central circle, but alas! white glass replaces all but the borders of the outer circles, thus drowning the old glass in a glare of light and utterly extinguishing the splendid glow which would otherwise delight our eyes. Although the handsome five-light Decorated window on the south side of St. Anselm's Chapel (lying off the south choir aisle) has lost its original glass, the records of the cost contain features of interest. The contract for its construction is dated 1336, and the items of expense (which total £42 17_s._ 2_d._) indicate that the heavy iron saddle-bars, &c., required to support the great quantity of lead used in joining the glass, cost almost as much as the glazing; £4 4_s._ 0_d._ was paid for twenty hundredweight of iron, £6 13_s._ 4_d._ "for glass and the labour of the glaziers." The chief window of the north-west transept, generally called the chapel of the Martyrdom, was presented by Edward IV., and when complete must have been a fine example of the Perpendicular school. Its seven tall lancets are broken into four tiers, and surmounted by handsome tracery lights. Here formerly appeared "The Seven Glorious Appearances of the Virgin," with à Becket in the centre, but "Blue Dick" Culmer destroyed them all while engaged in his pleasing task of "rattling down proud Becket's glassie bones." Notwithstanding the treatment to which this window was subjected, it still presents a very attractive appearance. The original fragments have been collected within coloured borders and throw into bold relief the richly toned kneeling figures of Edward IV. and his wife, which are placed facing each other. Behind the queen are stationed her five daughters, divided into one group of three and another of two, while behind the king are the two little princes, who were later murdered in the Tower of London. The backgrounds behind the figures are noteworthy because they are composed of repetitions of the badge of each individual; behind the king are the white roses and suns of York; behind the queen, green thistles; feathers behind the Prince of Wales, &c. Above them is a tier of white-robed angels with red wings, against backgrounds of blue or green, supporting heraldic shields. Just below this window and leading off to the east is the Dean's Chapel, lighted on the east by a very pleasant quarry window, upon each of whose panes appears in yellow stain the double knot which indicates the donor to have been Archbishop Bourchier, whom we shall encounter later on at Knole. A relieving note of colour is lent by the shield of arms at the bottom of each lancet. Three of the small windows that light the picturesque little baptistery contain effigies of ecclesiastical dignitaries and saints within richly toned borders, while in the small traceries above them are heraldic blazons. Splendid as this noble cathedral now is, how much more impressive must it have been when all its windows were filled with mosaic medallions through which a warmly tinted illumination tempered the minster gloom. It is difficult to repress the anachronistic wish that the knights who came here seeking to slay à Becket might instead have wreaked their lust for blood upon "Blue Dick" Culmer! * * * * * Near Canterbury there are some Early English fragments at Chartham, four miles west on the road to Maidstone. They are in the tracery lights on the north side of the chancel. In one of these small openings there has been inserted a baptismal scene, but because it is upside down the water seems like a cross between a shower-bath and the sword of Damocles! The chief reason for stopping at this church is the very agreeable lighting of its chancel in the Decorated manner. In the two embrasures on the north side have been collected all that remains of the original pattern glass, but the other lights have been glazed as much like these two as possible. A mellow richness, not often seen, is the chief characteristic of this low-toned grisaille, overrun with graceful coloured designs. In its perfection that style was most attractive. In a south-easterly suburb of Ashford called Willesborough there are in the chancel a couple of very complete and pleasing Decorated windows. They both have quarry backgrounds with coloured borders, but the one to the north is much more attractive. Upon its surface are not only the coloured bosses seen in the one across the chancel, but also some handsome canopy-framed figures. The leaf design on the borders should be noted, and also the labels below the figures. LINCOLN A golden-brown cathedral crowning the summit of a solitary hill rising from a wide plain--so Lincoln lingers in one's memory! Few towns have their situation more clearly described by their names than this one, derived, as it is, from "llin" a mere, and "dun" a hill, a hill above a mere. The plain is now drained of the marshes which formerly overspread it, but the great isolated mount remains always the same, and upon the summit is stationed, like a splendid sentinel, the mighty bulk of the cathedral. Rarely, indeed, does a great church have so dominating and superb a site, nor is it often that so prominent a point is crowned by such a noble structure. Near it is the ancient castle, built first by the Romans and later strengthened by warriors of other races equally quick to appreciate the military strength of its commanding position. From the tower at one corner of its perfectly preserved ramparts is afforded a most inspiring view in every direction. Nor were the great walls of the cathedral less serviceable in affording a strong refuge in war. It needs but a glance at the sturdy west front to show why Stephen in 1141, during the war of the Barons, finding the Earls of Lincoln and Chester in possession of the castle, threw himself into the adjacent cathedral and thus secured as strong a fortress as they. Not only is the western façade very beautiful, but it is also a manifestation, rare in England, of the practice usual in France of making this portion of the exterior the most important of all. Here at Lincoln it is as if a wide mask of stone had been built on to the end of the nave, lending as great an impression of width as one gets of height by a similar trick at Peterborough. These two are almost the only attempts in England to use this façade for other than simply closing the end of the edifice. The result at Lincoln is most imposing, but it produces its best effect when seen from a little distance, because then one gets the great sweep of the lines, relieved by the galleries of statues and warmed by the yellowish brown of the stone. A nearer inspection discloses how the later work has been pieced on to the older, which tends to distract our attention from the front as a whole. Not satisfied with the great strength of the building itself, permission was early obtained from the Crown to surround the Close with walls and gates, of which the picturesque Exchequer gate survives. This enclosure goes by the name of the Minster Yard. When visiting the little hamlet of Dorchester we will remark upon how great was once its glory and how widely the sway of its Bishop then extended. This glory departed when Bishop Remigius (who built the central and oldest part of the Lincoln west front) decided about 1072 to remove his seat to the more lofty and far safer site upon Lincoln Hill. Before concluding the inspection of the cathedral's exterior, it is timely to remark that through all the centuries it has been famous in story and song for its chime of bells. During the period when that delightful industry, the making of ballads, prevailed throughout England, there were many whose scenes were laid at Lincoln, and in almost every one of these some reference is made to "The bells o' merrie Lincoln." Sad havoc has been played with the ancient glass, but here we cannot blame the Puritans alone. To be sure, they exercised their usual zeal in destroying the windows as far up as they could reach, but it must be admitted that they only completed the task earlier begun by the citizens, who were wont to amuse themselves by shooting with arrows and crossbow bolts at the roof and at the windows. This appears in the defence set up by the Dean when, during the time of Henry VIII., charges had been brought against him for permitting the cathedral to fall into such shocking disrepair. Notwithstanding the efforts of the crossbow vandals and their successors, the Puritans, there has been preserved for us a very considerable amount of old glass, and that, too, of the Early English type, a period of which there are so few remains in England. These remnants are so placed as to be seen to great advantage. They fill the east windows of the north and south aisles of the choir, and the large windows in the end of the great northerly transept. The old glazing of the eastern windows of the north and south choir aisles is complete and very interesting. It is not so beautiful as it would have been if the spaces between the brilliant medallions had also been filled with colour instead of the greenish grisaille which the practical Englishman used so as to admit more light than would have been possible through the entirely coloured panes of his more artistic, if less utilitarian, French contemporary. He succeeded in getting his illumination, but he lost the jewelled shimmer that meets one's eyes at Chartres and Reims. Moreover, there is also lacking the richness and solidity of tone which is so enjoyable in France. The French system was followed at Canterbury, and there is a marked difference in the effect of that glass from this at Lincoln. Unfortunately, the great east window between these two excellent aisle ones is filled with modern glass that suffers sadly by comparison with its ancient neighbours. Passing to the transepts we shall encounter the pleasant custom so rare in England (though common in France) of giving a familiar name to a great window. Here the splendid northern rose is called "The Dean's Eye," and its sister to the south "The Bishop's Eye," which names they have borne for more than six hundred years. Many are the reasons that have been advanced for these titles, but probably the practical one is correct, viz., the Dean's Eye faces the Deanery and the Bishop's Eye the Bishop's palace. Among the many fanciful and more poetic explanations there is one which, although it is less reasonable, we must be pardoned for finding more attractive, viz., as the north is the region of the Evil One, it is proper that the Dean's Eye should look into that direction in order to guard against any attempt on his part to invade the sanctuary. The Bishop's Eye is turned toward the sunny south, "The region of the Holy Spirit whose sweet influence alone can overcome the wiles of the wicked one." The older of the pair, the Dean's Eye, was probably glazed about 1220. It is best seen from the gallery or from the triforium which runs along just below it, and is a fine rose of the usual type. Below it there extends a row of five pointed lancets containing very light toned grisaille which almost entirely lacks the usual touches of colour. Below these are two larger lancets flanking the doorway; the one to the east has grisaille quarries as a border and within, geometric designs in colour. The westerly lancet shows a vine in whose branches are angels playing upon musical instruments, the whole surrounded by grisaille touched with colour. Across in the southern end of these transepts is one of the most delightful windows to be seen anywhere, the Bishop's Eye. Not only is this rose window a jewel of the glazier's art, but the mason as well has added a wondrous charm by the lightness of his stone traceries and the curious interpenetrated stone frame which he has placed about it. The architect, too, has joined in beautifying the _ensemble_ by stationing below it four large lancets of such harmonious proportions as admirably to balance and set off their more important neighbour just above them. In these lancets are found some Early English glass--broad borders of grisaille enframing the rich-toned medallions within. The Bishop's Eye was glazed about the middle of the fourteenth century and yields a warm greenish grey light. Instead of having its lines radiate from the centre in the customary manner, its gracefully curved mullions tend to flow up and down and suggest the fibres of five great leaves standing upright side by side. [Illustration: ROSE WINDOW, LINCOLN CATHEDRAL Tracery unusual in that it does not radiate from centre. Quantity of greenish grisaille used emphasises leaf-like design. Thirteenth Century medallions in the tall lancets below] YORK To one approaching York by road, especially if coming by way of Scarcroft Hill, the ancient appearance of the town seems to translate it out of the Middle Ages. The dust-grey line of walls along the grassy banks that slope down to the moat, sweep far around in unbroken majesty, strengthened here and there by bastions or by a sturdy gatehouse. To complete the old-world picture, above the walls peep red-tiled gables, or occasionally the towers and spires of numerous churches, all dominated by the great bulk of the cathedral. Insignificant historically ever since the days when the city of Eboren was the capital of Britain, York is chiefly known for the use of its name in two prolonged struggles (fought out, however, on other fields), the one between the House of York and Lancaster, called "The War of the Roses," and the other the great contest lasting from 601 on till the middle of the fourteenth century to decide whether the Archbishop of York or he of Canterbury should be the Primate of England. York's unimportance in English history may be due partly to its situation too far north to have been in the heart of the constant struggle for power, and partly to the fact that it was so repeatedly ravaged by Danes and other invaders, the worst blow of all being when William the Conqueror gave all that neighbourhood such a dreadful harrowing that the lands from York to Durham laid untilled for nine years, and did not fully recover for centuries. Almost the sole exception to this unimportant _rôle_ was the seven years during which Edward I. moved the law courts to York and made it his royal capital. Fortunately for the city, its connection with the bloody struggle of the rival Roses was almost entirely confined to lending its name to one of the Houses, for this great drama was chiefly enacted to the south of it. Although the other famous contest to which we alluded, and which dragged its weary length through nearly eight centuries, had to do only with ecclesiastical predominance, yet it exercised a potent influence upon the destinies of the generations it concerned. It is impossible to obtain a realising sense of men and events in the Middle Ages unless one takes into account the tremendous force, and that, too, a militant one, exercised by the great ecclesiastics. A striking example is provided by Archbishop Scrope of York, who aspired so high that he rebelled against his king and was only defeated after the strenuous campaign described in Shakespeare's "Henry IV." He was executed at York in 1405. We remarked another example at Canterbury in the bloody ending of à Becket's attempt to brave Henry II. Because he was Archbishop of Canterbury and opposed to the king, it is not surprising to find that the contemporary Archbishop of York, Roger Pont l'Evêque, was a staunch adherent of Henry. It was this very Roger who, in 1176, precipitated one of the many disgraceful rows that besmirched this struggle for the Primacy. The Papal Legate was presiding at the Council of Westminster, and à Becket's successor, Richard of Canterbury, was seated on his right. Roger came in late, and, declining to accept any but the most honoured seat, sat down on Richard's lap, whereupon a brawl ensued, ending in Roger's discomfiture. Pitiable as was this scene, at least it was less disastrous to the people at large than many another episode of this tedious and acrimonious struggle, finally ended by the Bull of Pope Innocent VI., designating the Archbishop of Canterbury as the Primate of all England. York is by all odds the most important of all English glass centres. Although one often finds occasion elsewhere to curse the glass-destroying Puritan, at York it must be admitted that the presence of so many ancient windows is due to the control exercised by Fairfax over his Parliamentary troops after a successful siege of the place. He well deserved the butt of sack and tun of French wine voted him by the Corporation in recognition of his efforts in restraining the misguided enthusiasm of the soldiery. Indeed, his action here almost atones for the devilish tricks at Canterbury of "Blue Dick" Culmer. Even the most casual observer, and one entirely unlearned in our beautiful art, cannot fail to notice how large an amount of wall-space is given over to ancient glass in York Minster. As a matter of fact it covers an area of more than 25,000 square feet, easily double that in any other English cathedral, and challenging comparison with any in the world. Nor are the examples confined to one epoch, for there are fragments of Norman mosaic medallions in the great transepts and the vestibule of the chapter-house, Early English in the "Five Sisters" and along the nave clerestory, Decorated in the nave and chapter-house, and Perpendicular in the choir. Not only are these examples plentiful, but they are of the first order. Entering by the door at the southern end of the great transepts, one is at once confronted by the five tall lancets opposite him in the north wall, filled with the most deliciously soft greyish green grisaille. Of their type there is nothing in the world to approach them for beauty. From where we stand the lead lines used in construction do not exist as lines, but melt away into a dainty film, like dew on the grass at morn. This set of lights is gracefully grouped, and is known by the pleasantly familiar title of the "Five Sisters." Many fanciful tales are told of when and where they were constructed and how they received this name. Dickens in his "Nicholas Nickleby" relates an engaging legend to explain how the design and the name were provided for them. That this legend has no basis in fact should not make us forget that his narrative has doubtless caused many of his readers to visit these windows--a most excellent justification. Dickens tells of five maiden ladies having worked upon a large piece of embroidery and how, years later, when four of them met together in York (the youngest, Alice, having been buried in the minster's nave), "They sent abroad, to artists of great celebrity in those times (Henry IV.), and having obtained the church's sanction to their work of piety, caused to be executed in five large compartments of richly stained glass, a faithful copy of their old embroidery work. These were fitted into a large window until that time bare of ornament; and when the sun shone brightly, as she had so well loved to see it, the familiar patterns were reflected in their original colours, and throwing a stream of brilliant light upon the pavement, fell warmly on the name of Alice." Those of our company who are by nature critical may point out that the windows date from the thirteenth century, not from the reign of Henry IV., and also that they contain grisaille, not colour, and further, that being at the end of the north transept, they could not very well throw a stream of light into the nave! The writer urges leniency of criticism, but nevertheless, one is forced to the melancholy conclusion that the great Dickens could never have delighted his eyes by this splendid glass, else he could not have made the windows coloured, or placed them in the nave! As for the four surviving sisters, they are certainly open to the severest censure in that they sent abroad for stained glass during the reign of Henry IV., because there was then the highest development of the art in England, and its product could not be approached by that of any foreign contemporaries. Close inspection discloses the design of the leads to be that of a graceful adjustment of the foliage of the benet plant. At the bottom of the central light is observable a panel of highly coloured mosaic glass. The glazing of the five small lancets above is modern. We must turn to the nave to see the rest of the Early English glass, of which, however, only fragments remain. They are to be found along the clerestory, in all of its tracery lights on the south side except the third from the west, and also some in its lower panes; on the north side they are in the traceries of the second from the west, the next five east of it, and also in the lower panels of the fifth and seventh. [Illustration: _F. Valentine, photo._ "FIVE SISTERS," YORK MINSTER Softly-toned grisaille with delicate patterns in faint colour. Of its type unsurpassed in the world. Note difference between mellow strength of this glass and thinness of modern glazing in upper tier of lancets] The church of St. Dennis, Walmgate, has attractive panels of early English glass dating from the latter half of the thirteenth century inserted in two Decorated windows on the north side of the church. An account of the Decorated glass at York will be found at p. 76, and of that of the Perpendicular at p. 185. DECORATED Before crossing the threshold into the two next periods (the Decorated and Perpendicular), it is worth pausing to notice that although architecture generally tends to elaborate as time goes on, the opposite was true in England during the two centuries of which we are about to speak. In fact, the work of the earlier of these two epochs obviously deserves the title of "Decorated" and the later does not. Its glass, too, is much more florid than its successor, and is far more ambitiously ornamental. It bears many bits of leafy foliage, twining vine tendrils, &c., all drawn as true to life as possible. Later these bits of flora are rarely used, and then only in a conventional and, therefore, less decorative form. In our introduction we have stated that in England, the arrival of the fourteenth century does not show the abrupt difference found in France between the light-obscuring mosaic glass of the thirteenth century and the fainter tints of the fourteenth, permitting the brighter interior then demanded. The explanation seems to be that the English, having been early forced by cloudy skies to use light-admitting grisaille (either alone, or combined with their early medallions) already enjoyed the proper illumination which, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, was so lacking in France as to bring about a cry for light at any cost. In place of the early fourteenth century glare that strikes one at Sées, Evreux, and in St. Ouen at Rouen, we have rich strong colour in their contemporaries at Tewkesbury, Wells and Bristol. Occasionally grisaille will be found pleasantly combined with small coloured scenes, as at Dorchester and in Merton Chapel, Oxford, but even then it seems much like a local survival of the thirteenth century tradition. So much for the difference between the English Decorated and the French fourteenth century windows. Now let us briefly consider what it was that succeeded to the mosaic medallion style seen at Canterbury, Lincoln, &c., and also what causes must have been at work to produce the change. About the end of the thirteenth century there chanced to be discovered a method of producing yellow which obviated the necessity of cutting out a piece of glass of that tint and laboriously leading it into the picture where needed, as was still obligatory if they wanted blue or red, &c. Some lucky glazier stumbled on the fact that if chloride of silver be put on a sheet of glass it would, when exposed to the fire, produce a handsome golden stain, and that only at the points to which it was applied. Many stories are related to explain this discovery, but as they are all more pleasing than convincing, it seems best to credit Dame Fortune with this valuable assistant to the glazier. It is obvious that this facility in staining a touch of yellow just at the point desired by the artist was eagerly seized upon. He at once made use of it to decorate the robes of great personages, or to brighten the hair of women and angels, as well as to liven any bits of stonework necessary to his drawing. It made possible the development of an unimportant detail in the earlier windows into the perfected result called the "Canopy window," which we shall learn to know as a most useful and satisfactory combination of decoration and serviceability. It will be remembered that from the earliest times there frequently appeared above the heads of saints certain conventional coverings meant to indicate an architectural shelter. Upon the arrival of the Decorated period this detail became more complete, the roof being fully depicted (although as yet in flat drawing, with no attempt at perspective) and columns added at the side to support it, thus completely enclosing the little figures in a niche. Here we have the first, or Decorated canopy, now complete in form although crude. It must be noticed, however, that these canopies, generally drawn to a small scale, do not attempt alone to fill the embrasures, and either are shown in bands across a ground of grisaille or occur alone surrounded by grisaille. Their architectural portion is of a strong brassy yellow, that colour being provided by pot metal glass leaded in. Now comes the next and final development. The discovery of yellow stain did away with the laborious need for leading in the yellow bits to simulate stonework, so the limit as to size of the canopy was removed, and at once they began to increase in dimensions. The obvious result ensued, each canopy was made to fill an entire lancet, its simulated stonework occupying as much surface as the enclosed figure, and we have the logical whole of a decorative colour panel within surrounded by a frame of lighter panes which admit the necessary amount of illumination. So satisfactory did this style of window prove that it persisted longer than almost any other type of glazing, and we must remember it is the discovery of yellow stain that we have to thank for making this result possible. During the period we are now considering, the canopy was, of course, rather crude, in fact it looked more like a sentry-box than anything else. There was as yet no pedestal beneath it, and the pinnacles at the top showed entire ignorance of perspective, as well as of drawing in relief. During the Perpendicular period that followed, they did little but elaborate this canopy idea, combining and softening the colours so as to prevent jarring contrasts, and generally much improving the logical combination of a coloured central portion surrounded by light-admitting canopy framing. Without the use of yellow stain all this would have been difficult, if not impossible, for without the little touches of gold livening the grey stonework these canopies would have been dull and unconvincing. Nor was this the only novelty in the method of imparting colour to glass. They now began to enrich their palettes by coating one colour with another, thus getting a tint not before obtainable. For example, red on blue gave a rich purple, blue on yellow a fine green, &c. This was effected in a very simple manner. Suppose the glass-blower wanted a purple--he dipped his pipe into liquid blue glass, and started to blow his bubble. When it began to take shape he dipped the small bubble into liquid red glass and then finished his blowing. This last dipping of course coated the outside of the blue bubble with red, and when it was completely blown, cut and opened out, it produced a sheet which was red on one side and blue on the other. Held up to the light, the red and blue combined to produce purple. Nor did the glass-blower confine himself to combinations of two colours, for the writer knows of an instance in France showing six superimposed coats. The French call this "verre doublé" (or lined glass), a very descriptive name. In passing we may say that although this manner of colouring glass first reached prominence during the Decorated period, it was but an elaboration of the way the ruby or red glass had always been made, _i.e._, coated on to the colourless glass. We have said that the earlier canopies did not have pedestals below them. This lack was soon noted, and the need was felt for something to complete them below; the first expedient hit upon for this purpose was shields gay with heraldic tinctures. Not only were these decorative, but we shall learn at Tewkesbury and Gloucester how valuable they have proved to be in enabling those learned in heraldry definitely to date windows whose histories have long since been forgotten. It must not be overlooked that the architect had much to do with the development from the mosaic to the canopy style. He decided to change from the wide single windows that one sees at Salisbury, and to substitute for them groups of narrower lights separated only by slender stone mullions and all bound together at the top and tapered off by a pyramid of smaller openings called tracery lights. These latter will be particularly enjoyed by the glass-lover while studying this period, for the Decorated glazier was singularly happy in his treatment of these smaller panes--much more so, in fact, than his successor of the Perpendicular era, who was obliged to conform to the stiff little pill-boxes provided for him by the architect. The use of vines and leaves was of great assistance in this problem of treating small irregular openings; nor were these the only motives--at Wells there is a very happy use of busts filling small trefoils. Besides the canopy treatment, the English glazier of the Decorated period was very fond of the Tree of Jesse theme, and, as is usually the case with congenial tasks, obtained most satisfactory results. He used it to great effect in his broad windows made up of several narrow lights, separated by slender mullions. The very shape of these windows invited this design, because a separate branch of the vine bearing its little personages could be run up each lancet without disturbing the coherence of the picture. The men of that time used the Tree of Jesse nearly as much as did their fellow craftsmen across the Channel during the sixteenth century. In France the descendants of Jesse almost always appear as blossoms on the vine, but their earlier English prototypes usually stand in small cartouches formed by convolutions of the vine. This brings us to yet another reason why the Decorated glazier liked the Tree of Jesse. We have already stated that he was much given to introducing leaves, tendrils, &c., done in the natural manner, which, of course, made him entirely at home in delineating the great vine rising from the loins of the Patriarch. What success he achieved with this style of window we shall judge for ourselves at Ludlow, Bristol, and Wells. A convenient touchstone for deciding whether a window belongs to this or the next period is provided by an examination of the manner in which the artist executed his shading. It was smeared upon Decorated glass, and a close inspection will reveal the streaky lines. During the Perpendicular epoch the shading was stippled on with the end of a brush. To recapitulate, the distinctive features of the Decorated epoch may be enumerated as follows: 1. Windows of several lancets, with tracery lights above them. 2. Decorative treatment of tracery lights. 3. Yellow stain. 4. Coated glass (several layers of different colours). 5. Deep rich colouring. 6. Canopies. 7. Use of leaves, vines, &c., copied closely from nature. 8. Tree of Jesse windows. 9. Shading which was smeared on. DECORATED TOUR Our Decorated tour will lead us far afield through the western part of the beautiful English country. At the end of the Early English tour we found ourselves in the interesting walled city of York. There we shall also begin our study of the succeeding, or Decorated, period. We shall next strike across to Norbury, in Derbyshire, then on to steep-streeted Shrewsbury, and thence down through Ludlow with its church and ancient castle, and stately Hereford beside the Wye to Tewkesbury, and its ancient neighbour Deerhurst. Gloucester will be passed _en route_, and then west to smoky Bristol, where the Severn meets the Bristol Channel. From Bristol it is only a short trip south to Wells, then down to Exeter, followed by a long one northeasterly to Saxon Dorchester, a few miles from Oxford. This tour will end in that famous university town, where, in like manner to the ending of the last tour in York, we shall find ourselves able to begin the inspection of the next, or Perpendicular, glass, without leaving the city. YORK An account of the Early English glass at York will be found on p. 57. The Decorated glass in the cathedral is almost entirely confined to the nave and the chapter-house (with the vestibule leading thereto). Notwithstanding their early date, the nave windows are large and afford more illumination than one would expect at that time. So much wall-space is used for light apertures that of the entire height of ninety-nine feet only thirteen feet of stone intervene between the bottom of the clerestory windows and the top of the main arches. All this portion of the edifice is dominated by the great west window, given by Archbishop Melton in 1338, a splendid sheet (fifty-six feet by twenty-five feet) of highly coloured glass, supported by curvilinear stonework. Its eight lights retain their original glazing almost intact (as does also the head of the door below). It is skilfully fitted to the elaborate pattern of the supporting stone frame. First there is a row of archbishops, then one of saints, and highest of all a line of smaller personages. The [Illustration: MAP OF DECORATED TOUR] windows in the west wall at the end of each aisle are of the same period, and also display excellent workmanship, especially the Crucifixion in the northern one. It should be remarked that all the aisle embrasures but two, and all those of the clerestory but two, retain their original glazing, and if to this we add the windows in the west wall just described, it is clear that Winston was right in stating that this nave contains the most perfect and extensive remains in England of the early part of the fourteenth century. His studious heraldic analysis of the first window from the east in the north aisle yields him the conclusion that it was made in 1306 or 1307. He remarks that the yellow stain there used to tint the hair of one of the personages is the earliest instance he ever found of the use of that new colour. Next this on the west is a very charming window given by Richard Tunnoc, Lord Mayor of York, who died in 1330: above his effigy appears a small reproduction of this gift window. This is perhaps the finest of its type in England. It was in honour of the Bell-Founders' Guild, and is appropriately ornamented by numerous bells in the borders as well as other parts of the design. For the rest of the Decorated glass we must go to the chapter-house and the vestibule which leads thereto. It would be difficult to find a spot in which one becomes so thoroughly imbued with the feeling of Decorated glazing as in this vestibule. Here we have no distracting features from other periods. The tall, slender lancets that light this L-shaped hallway are completely filled with grisaille overrun with archaic figures and crude canopies, here displayed to the greatest advantage. Passing through to the handsome octagonal chapter-house, we are at first disappointed to notice that the window facing us contains modern glass. Although this first glance is unfortunate, one is soon consoled by observing that all the other six have excellent Decorated glazing of the time of Edward II. and III., showing four bands of late medallions in colour drawn across a grisaille background livened with occasional touches of red and blue. The grisaille here leans to grey rather than to the usual greenish hue, and moreover, the quarries are cut into irregular shapes, thus relieving the monotony of the commoner diamond-shaped panes. [Illustration: _F. Valentine, photo._ CHAPTER-HOUSE, YORK MINSTER Note the grouping together, in each embrasure, of five narrow lights below gracefully elaborated tracery openings. Later on, in the Perpendicular period, these traceries lose their individuality, become stiffly regular, and part of the window below] Even if the vast Minster were not one of the world's greatest treasure-houses of glass, the many smaller churches of York would provide ample grounds for its being included in this book of tours. So numerous are these churches that, in several instances, there are found to be more than one dedicated to the same saint, and therefore the pilgrim will do well to note carefully the name of street or gate placed after that of the saint's to indicate which one is intended. The most interesting of these modest shrines is All Saints' (or, as it is sometimes called, All Hallows'), in North Street. It alone is well worth a visit to York. Not only is its Decorated glass in excellent repair and in satisfactory quantity, but it evidences such careful attention to the little touches which make a window successful that one concludes the best artists must have been employed in its manufacture. For example, the canopies in the eastern embrasure of the north aisle have pedestals beneath them, a most unusual feature at that early date. Furthermore, the scenes from the life of the Virgin are depicted in a very careful manner, not only appearing in the three lancets below, but in the three major lights of the traceries above, although not there surrounded by canopies as below. Older than this window, but also typically Decorated, is that at the east end of the south aisle. The brassy tint is more noticeable in the canopies which run in two bands across its three lancets, and the canopies themselves are cruder in drawing than those just described, but are excellently illustrative of their period. These two windows are assisted in their service of beauty by the fact that the embrasures about them are not burdened with modern mistakes, but were glazed during the Perpendicular period. Reference will be made to this later glass further on (_see_ p. 188); although much more famous than its earlier neighbours, it is not a whit more satisfactory. These two sets contrive to set each other off in admirable fashion, and together they effect a delightful illumination for this interesting church. St. Dennis (Walmgate) has already been mentioned for its two Early English panels (p. 63), but its chief interest lies in the really fine Decorated remains. On entering you will not long be detained by the fragments of Perpendicular canopies that are gathered into parts of the central eastern window and two other embrasures, but will pass on to the north aisle. The three most easterly windows in the north wall taken with the eastern one of that aisle provide an excellent exposition of the glazier's art during the epoch we are now considering. The eastern one has a fairly well preserved Tree of Jesse, filling all of its five lancets, except just along the lower sill. Note the green vine and the use of many green leaves. Turning to the three lights in the north wall we find the usual brassy canopies against a quarry background, surrounded by a coloured border. The traceries, too, show the most approved treatment of leaves, green vines, &c., as well as some small heads. The diminutive kneeling donors on the quarry-panes below are very interesting; note the pendent sleeves, and especially the tiny gift window held up by one of these little people. It is upon the central lancet of one of these windows that we find the two Early English panels. St. Martin-cum-Gregory boasts of ten windows of Decorated work, mostly small brassy canopies enclosing coloured figures, all placed upon a background of quarries. The best is that at the east end of the south aisle; across its three lancets is carried a row of canopies larger than then generally drawn--in fact, the space usually occupied by quarries at the upper parts of the lights is here pre-empted by the lofty pinnacles of the canopies; the quarries appear below, as usual, and upon them in the two outer lancets are the small kneeling donors. Under the centre canopy is St. Martin dividing his cloak with a beggar, and above in the flowing tracery lights are kneeling angels. This window is rendered especially brilliant by the generous use of red in the backgrounds. There is also some unimportant Perpendicular glass in this church (_see_ p. 185). NORBURY Tucked away within the Peak of Derbyshire there is a "Happy Valley" wherein, embowered in green woods and pleasant pastures, lie Chatsworth and Haddon Hall, well known to and well beloved of all industrious tourists. Sweeping around this valley as a protecting wall are rolling hills, whose bare summits have their sombre treeless austerity clothed by a mantle of purple heather. Not very far to the south of this protecting girdle lies a little group of houses called Norbury, nestled alongside a leaping stream that comes down from above. In the midst of this hamlet stands a small church which knows not the industrious tourist aforesaid, but to which we counsel the enlightened and eclectic pilgrims of our company to repair. The chancel here is a delicious morsel preserved for us out of the fourteenth century, complete, enchanting. In its midst are stationed two splendid marble tombs, one double, and both of the most exquisite workmanship. Upon them are stretched the life-size effigies of the deceased, while along the sides are sculptured in high relief angels supporting shields. Around the walls runs mellow wood panelling, set off by carved oak stalls of great beauty. To complete the picture the many windows which light the chancel contain some of the finest Decorated pattern glass in England. Nor does the quantity of it yield in any respect to the high quality. There are four three-lanceted windows on each side, while a larger one of five lights completely fills the eastern end. In those few parts of the surface which have lost their original glazing, no attempt at modern restoration has been made, but the space has been quite simply filled with white glass. Across the pattern of the east window have been drawn two bands of very light-hued figures (lacking the usual canopies) and harmonising agreeably with the decorous tints of the background. Labels appear above the heads. The figures in the upper row are slightly larger than those below. Turning to the side windows, nothing of their type could be more attractive than the graceful grisaille patterns pricked out with points of colour and surrounded by broad borders which, in diminished scale, are carried up, into and around the tracery lights. Very satisfactory use of blue is made, and that, too, in an unusually free manner. The heraldic blazons placed upon the panes add materially to the charm of the glazing, and in very decorative fashion preserve the names of the donors. Although a special emphasis has been deservedly laid upon this altogether lovely chancel, the pilgrim must not leave the church without a peep into the diminutive chapel that opens off to the south. Here we shall see a cross-legged Crusader lying in effigy upon his place of last repose. The light that falls upon him streams through two small windows, one on the east and the other on the south, both having three lancets. These lancets each contain a saint framed in a Perpendicular canopy, while below, in the center, an armorial shield separates two kneeling groups of donors. The southerly window shows the father with two sons on one side, and the mother similarly attended by her daughters on the other; while on the easterly lancets the father is accompanied by no less than eight sons and the mother by five daughters--a goodly company, and one which would have alarmed the philosopher Malthus. Note the steeple head-dresses of the women, pendent behind. "Tell it not in Gath" that this charming sanctuary lies hidden away in Derbyshire, come away privately with us and enjoy its beauties undisturbed--"Odi profanum vulgus et arceo." SHREWSBURY _"High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam Islanded in Severn stream; The bridges from the steepled crest Cross the water east and west._ _The flag of morn in conqueror's state Enters at the English gate; The vanquished eve, as night prevails, Bleeds upon the road to Wales."_ So sang the "Shropshire Lad" (A. E. Housman) concerning that fair city of the Welsh Marches, high-perched Shrewsbury. Most picturesque is the fashion in which the river Severn knots itself about the foot of the high peninsula upon which the town has been built, and to which access is given by the two ancient bridges, named English and Welsh from the direction in which they lead. The Kirkland Bridge is an addition of modern times. Thoroughly mediæval is the impression one receives as he approaches and enters Shrewsbury. In the first place, the passage of a bridge always affords an excellent adjustment of the traveller's mental attitude; it lends a certain aloofness to the town on the other side. It seems to say, "We are letting you across the natural barrier established for us by this river; but remember, it is a privilege, and not a right!" Directly we are arrived on the other side, there commences the ascent of the steep streets, and on the way up there is unfolded before us a series of old white and black half-timbered houses, which will serve to complete the mental picture of those distant days when protecting rivers and steep streets were not eschewed on the grounds of inconveniencing the city's prospective growth. Safety was then vastly more important than commercial convenience. That features hampering to modern commerce were exactly suited to a border stronghold was proved by the way this town withstood shock after shock of warring tribes, or nations, or factions. In his play of _Henry IV._, Shakespeare tells how the Prince of Wales here made his sudden transformation from dissolute youth to resolute manhood by defeating and slaying Harry Hotspur, thus in one day quelling the mutinous combination of the Scotch, the Welsh under Owen Glendower, and the rebellious English Archbishop Scrope of York. Quaint and ancient to the last degree is the flavour of this old city, which has owned, first and last, thirty-one charters. Those interested in half-timbered dwellings will do well to come here and inspect their number, variety, and excellent state of preservation. Perhaps the best are around Wye Cop, passed on the way up the steep streets. The remains of the ancient castle and walls add still other picturesque features to this artistically noteworthy town. An inspection of St. Mary's Church brings home to us the fact that as this was a fortress city, ground could not be spared to provide the usual Close which so pleasantly surrounds most English churches; in fact, this modest sanctuary is so set upon by other buildings that it seems almost to shrink from public gaze. An outpost occupying a strategic position on an embattled frontier required every foot of ground within its walls, and could devote no space to artistic surroundings, even for a church. St. Mary's is very rich in glass, and that, too, of varied epochs and styles. Fortunately alike for that church and for us, the Rev. W. G. Rowlands (Vicar from 1825 to 1850), was a discriminating collector of stained glass. He secured not only the great St. Bernard window (of which we will speak later), but also much of the other glass that decorates the interior. We will begin our examination by inspecting the large east window, which displays a fourteenth century Tree of Jesse in the usual Decorated manner, of which we shall see prototypes at Ludlow, Bristol, and Wells. Jesse is reclining across the bottom of three of the lancets, the convolutions of the vine arising from him forming series of oval enclosures in which appear his descendants. Note the skilful use of the leads in providing the black outlines needed to draw the figure of Jesse. In the row of panels below appear small figures of the donors. The fine reds and blues are hurt by the use of too much green--a common fault at that time. We must look to the nave windows (all of three lancets) for the other glazing of that period. The middle embrasure on the northerly side is beautified by the tasteful use of written scrolls, which wind about the figures and the columns of simulated architecture. Scrolls are also used in the next one to the east, but there they are not so important a part of the decoration. On the southerly side of the nave the embrasures nearest to the west and to the east have single figures in canopy. That to the east displays shields below the figures, a decoration which is absent in the western one. The central window on this side dates from the sixteenth century, and is the best of that period here. It contains three subjects in each side lancet, and two in the central one. Such intelligent use has been made of the leads that one concludes that the men who made the designs, and they who constructed the window, were either identical or else worked side by side. The result forms a pleasing contrast to the usual disregard during the Renaissance for the decorative and useful purposes of the leads. The most interesting and pleasing of all the windows is the large one of three lancets on the north side of the choir showing fourteen scenes from the life of St. Bernard, six in the central lancet, and four in each of the side ones. Four more episodes from the same life are to be seen in the middle one of the south aisle. This glass, originally in the German Abbey of Altenberg, and then for many years in the vaults of St. Severin at Cologne, was finally brought to London, where it was secured for St. Mary's by the Rev. Mr. Rowlands. The designs are attributed to Albrecht Dürer, but this is a common claim for German glass of that time. The perspective throughout is good, and the colouring very satisfactory. An unusual charm is added to the little figures by the use of Latin labels issuing from their mouths. There are also inscriptions below most of them, but these are frequently mutilated and misplaced. If proof were needed that this glass was not specially constructed for its present location, it is provided by the fact that the scenes do not follow in their proper order. A field-glass can be had on application to the clerk, and the use of it reveals many interesting and amusing details. The second window on the east in the chapel, south of the choir, has in its tracery-lights written music carried by angels. The pilgrim will later observe a great deal of this in the Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick. Although rare in England, it is rarer still in France. A fine sixteenth-century Crucifixion scene, covering three lancets, decorates the north window just off the north transept. In the modest-sized east window of this transept are twelve small sixteenth-century enamel panels placed on white, a demonstration of yet another style of that later period. The rest of the glazing in St. Mary's is either modern or so completely repaired with new glass as to have lost all its ancient feeling. An inspection of this church would not be complete without observing the fine wooden ceilings of both the nave and the choir. Devotees of the Ingoldsby Legends will remember that when the Great Dog in the castle of "Bloudie Jacke of Shrewsberrie" was about to seize upon Mary Anne, she vicariously appeased him with: "A Shrewsbury cake, of Pallin's own make, Which she happened to take Ere her run she begun, She'd been used to a luncheon at One." Mindful of this dainty's historic existence, the traveller will doubtless regale himself therewith, that product of the town being as excellent and famous to-day as ever it was of yore. From Shrewsbury our route lies southward over that centuries-old battle-ground, the Welsh Marches. We shall find not only much architectural beauty and fine glass, but also many inspiring memories of the border warfare whose bitterness lasted so many centuries. LUDLOW Perched high in a strong position at a bend in the River Teme rises the noble ruin of what was once the castle of Ludlow, visible from quite a distance, no matter from which direction one approaches it along the winding Shropshire lanes. It still retains enough of its ancient walls and towers to demonstrate what valiant service it must have rendered in keeping the turbulent Welsh back on their own side of the Border. Nor is the note of war the only one that echoes from the early history of this castle, for in its great hall was enacted for the first time Milton's "Comus." After a brief visit to the castle let us wend our way to St. Lawrence's Church in the town, for which an effective and judicious restoration has revived much of its original charm. A diverting legend relates that the arrow at the top of the north transept gable was shot hither by Robin Hood from the Old Field two miles away. Although many of the parishioners devoutly believe this to be true, it strikes the modern traveller that the great outlaw must on that occasion have drawn a very "long bow"! The ancient appearance of the fine hexagonal porch with the room above it makes a most inviting entrance. We shall find our glass in unusual parts of the church, nor is this the only unique feature of the edifice. The Lady chapel is not at the east, but at the south side of the chancel; in it is an interesting Tree of Jesse in the approved Decorated method, very like the one we have just seen at Shrewsbury. Unfortunately, the restorer has here been too thorough, but, nevertheless, the pattern has been preserved, and also many of the figures, for example, those just above the head and feet of Jesse. He lies recumbent along the bottom of three of the five lancets which compose the window, while above, in compartments formed by the convolutions of the vine, are his descendants. In accordance with the common practice, too much green was used. Although the chancel does not as usual afford the greatest attraction in the way of glazing, we must observe an interesting fifteenth century window in the middle of the southerly wall. Its five lancets each contain three tiers of figures in canopy, the details of which are much elaborated, especially in the pedestals. Notice also the jewelled borders to the robes. The red and blue glass is free from obscuring paint. Although our principal object was the Decorated glass, this church would repay a visit because of the Perpendicular glazing of the chapel of St. John which lies north of the chancel, from which it is shut off by a beautiful fifteenth century screen. The two most easterly windows in the north wall are much lower in tone than either the very golden Annunciation which adjoins them on the west, or the red, white and blue legend of Edward the Confessor and the Palmers, which is round the corner in the east wall. This latter dates from about 1430 and has two tiers of canopies across its four lancets. There is here illustrated an absurd contradiction into which this originally graceful style was developed;--within one of its elaborately pinnacled shrines we find a ship! and under another a rural scene with trees! most out-of-place substitutes for the customary and appropriate saint. Let us return to the two low-toned windows in the north wall, of which we have just spoken. The writer does not remember ever having seen any similar to them. Each embrasure has three lancets subdivided horizontally at the middle, making six spaces. The two windows thus afford twelve panels, which are used to display the Twelve Apostles. Local tradition says that there is here represented the Council at which the Apostolic Creed was composed. Each holy man sits on a bench behind a rail, but as they are drawn to a modest scale and occupy each the centre of his panel, they are thereby so far removed one from the other as to destroy utterly any appearance of a Council. There is a great deal of soft-hued architecture throughout, but it is used as background and not as a frame, thus differing radically from typical canopies. A more satisfactory result would have been attained if they had adhered closely to contemporary tradition, for here the figures, low-hued as they are, start out too abruptly from the over-spacious architectural background. The general effect is not that of a series of gracefully framed Apostolic portraits, but of lonely figures seated in empty halls. If for no other reason than that they have provoked this criticism, these windows should be carefully remarked, because they demonstrate how sound was the theory of employing the architectural canopy as a light-admitting frame for the coloured central figure. The east window of the south transept contains fragments of fourteenth and fifteenth century glass from other parts of the church. The wooden ceilings are well worthy of inspection. HEREFORD A very charming feature of English country life is the pleasure one can derive from boating on the small rivers. Our American watercourses are generally too wide or too turbulent to become such a domestic pet as we all know the river Thames to be. To one who has not seen Boulter's Lock on a bright Sunday, or who has never witnessed a Henley Regatta, that most brilliant of all athletic spectacles, it would be difficult to explain how thoroughly the Englishman enjoys and how constantly he uses the opportunity which Father Thames affords for a short outing. Nor is the Thames the only stream thus available. Small watercourses of the same sort are to be found all over the country, and afford delightful trips for those who are willing to travel in so leisurely a fashion. The writer remembers with the keenest pleasure certain canoe trips, one of three days from Bedford to Ely on the Ouse, another on the Stour, from Sudbury to Manningtree, lasting two days, and a third of similar duration from Petworth down the Rother into the Arun at Pullborough and thence to Arundel. All the preparation necessary is to buy your canoe a third-class ticket, put it into the luggage van at the railway station, and set out for the point at which you wish to begin. Jerome K. Jerome has immortalised a similar trip taken down the Thames from Oxford to London. One of the most charming of all English river journeys is that down the Wye. If one wishes to take a long trip, the start can be made at Hay, thirty-four miles above Hereford, or perhaps better at Whitney, twenty-eight miles above. The next stretch is from Hereford to Ross, twenty-seven miles, and, if desired, this can be lengthened by continuing on down to Monmouth, Tintern and Chepstow. The charming bits of scenery that unfold themselves as this little river lazily winds down the Welsh Marches are most varied and delightful. It must, however, be admitted that it is only the middle section of this agreeable trip that properly concerns one engaged in glass-hunting. We should, therefore, content ourselves with the stretch from Hereford to Ross, twenty-seven miles, if, indeed, we have the time to devote to this slow method of travelling. Over by the river end of the peaceful town of Hereford is the lovely green Close which lies about the sturdy reddish brown cathedral. Few churches, even those of great size, give such a square and solid impression as results here from the combination of the ruddy tones of the building material and the early type of its architecture. The defacing effects of an earlier restoration are being rectified by the erection of a new west front, now almost completed. The massive Norman columns that support the nave within, carry out in their grand simplicity the sturdy promise of the exterior. Every division of the church seems spacious, the ample transepts, wide choir aisles, and large Lady chapel, completing the effect begun by the nave and choir. Indeed, so commodious is the Lady chapel, that it is used as a parish church. The cathedral has a number of interesting possessions, chief among which is the large Mappa Mundi made in 1300, and showing the world as then known. It hangs in the south choir aisle. The world is represented as round like a plate, and in addition to the cities and countries marked thereon, there also appear the fabulous animals which were then a part of orthodox geography. It was about this time that there was written the adventures of that famous traveller, Sir John de Maundeville, whose voyages were only exceeded in extent by his imagination. His reports of fabulous beasts, &c., are in excellent accord with the pictures on this map. The ancient glass here is somewhat limited, and is all of the Decorated period. On the south side of the Lady chapel we shall remark two windows, chiefly glazed in greenish grisaille, but each bearing four coloured decorations placed one above the other. In one case these prove to be geometrical designs outlined in colour, while in the other they are small coloured groups, the topmost scene showing Christ, on a red background, pointing upward. Glass even more typically Decorated is to be seen in the eastern wall of the north-east transept, and again in the most easterly embrasure of the south choir ambulatory. These windows each contain four lancets surmounted by tracery lights, and in each lancet is a coloured figure framed in an unusually lofty canopy--in fact the latter is three times as high as the figure it encloses. Note the brassy tone of the early golden stain used in the architecture. Modern grisaille has replaced its ancient prototype, which, in accordance with the conventions, surrounded these early canopies to increase the light-admitting power of the embrasures. This glass was formerly in St. Peter's Church, but about sixty years ago that church disposed of it for £5 to a purchaser who presented it to the cathedral. Limited though it be in amount, it will repay a careful examination. TEWKESBURY As one wanders through the streets of quiet Tewkesbury, the half-timbered houses on every side lend it an Old World flavour that most suitably prepares us for the sturdy Abbey, the dignity of whose recessed west front is all in harmony with the mediæval gravity so characteristic of the place. It is as if that eloquently silent edifice had never been able to shake off the sombre memories of the sanguinary scenes enacted within it May 4, 1471, when, after the defeat of the Lancastrians under the Duke of Somerset by Edward IV. in the "Bloody Meadow" just outside the town, the slaughter of the wearers of the Red Rose was not only carried on through the streets of Tewkesbury, but even into the Abbey itself. An echo of this butchery is heard in Shakespeare's _Richard III._, when the ghost of the murdered Prince Edward (son of Henry VI.) appears to King Richard the night before the fatal battle of Bosworth and cries out: "Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow! Think, how thou stabb'st me in the prime of youth At Tewkesbury." With what reproach must not that splendid row of fourteenth century knights, victors over the French at Crécy, have looked down from the windows of the choir clerestory upon this bloody violation of the rights of sanctuary by those fifteenth century butchers of the House of York. Indeed, these effigies of the earlier warriors were fortunate to have escaped those later desperate struggles. The ravages of war do not seem to have dealt so harshly with stained glass in this country as elsewhere. A learned French contemporary of these tragic events, Philippe de Comines, remarked this fact, and spoke of England as a land where "there are no buildings destroyed or demolished by war, and where the mischief falls on those who make the wars." Although Tewkesbury's fame in history rests largely upon its having been the theatre of this wild closing scene of the War of the Roses, it is not because of any fifteenth century happening that we are moved to come here, but by reason of the seven large windows of the preceding, or Decorated, period which fill the choir clerestory. This is one of the few instances where we shall remark the absence of the square eastern end so usual in England. It is here omitted in favour of the rounded apse then prevalent in France. Advantage has been taken of this unusual shape to throw out a series of chapels around the chancel, which add greatly to the beauty of the Decorated choir, and contrast sharply with the sturdy Norman nave. The seven large embrasures that light the choir clerestory each contain a group of lancets, five in every case, except in the most westerly pair, where there are but four. Although the design is the same throughout (a large figure in colour surrounded by a canopy frame), these frames are differently occupied, those in the westerly pair containing armoured knights, while in all the others are saints. The depth of their colour scheme is due partly to the great quantity of rich greens and reds used, and partly to the opacity of the panes depicting the canopies. The figures generally occupy about one half the window height, the rest being given over to the canopy. Below the feet of the knights are their shields, which serve to provide the artistic balance later obtained from pedestals. The same conventional attitude has been assumed for all these warriors; each stands with his feet well apart, his left hand on the sword by his side, the right hand on the hip, holding up a sceptre. The pinnacles of almost all the canopies are outlined against red backgrounds. Note the little rose windows introduced in the upper part of the canopies. The most easterly window provides a variation in that the enshrined saints are higher up on the panes, thus making room below them for small groups consisting mostly of naked figures, with flesh tints glazed in brown. The right-hand lancet shows six kneeling figures praying, doubtless the donors. The borders are carried up and around all the tracery lights, which are very Decorated in form and do not yet show any hint of the stiffer Perpendicular treatment to follow. Perhaps here more effectively than anywhere in England shall we feel the warm colour-value of Decorated glass, with as yet no tendency toward the paler tints that are to come with the Perpendicular style. A similar warmth of tone is to be remarked in the east windows of Bristol and Wells Cathedrals, and the writer is moved to conjecture that the same glazier had to do with all these three. This conjecture is not only based on the still undiminished strength of colour throughout them all, but also on the marked similarity in the drawing and tinting of a certain white vine decoration upon a red ground, to be remarked in the upper tracery lights of all three, and also in the traceries of certain transept windows at Gloucester. Whoever this workman was, we feel his results so satisfactory to-day that it would be small wonder if contemporary appreciation caused his employment in these different towns. [Illustration: CHOIR, TEWKESBURY ABBEY A rare example of rounded apse, generally replaced in England by a square ended chancel. Chief charm of these windows is their rich colouring] DEERHURST Possibly some of our travellers are proceeding in so leisurely a fashion that they may decide to sojourn a day or two in Tewkesbury. To them we address the suggestion that they visit the adjoining town of Deerhurst and see its venerable church. It is but a two-mile walk across the fields, or a pleasant trip by boat on the Severn. It may, however, by means of a small _détour_, be visited on the way to Gloucester. Although it can boast of but little Decorated glass, that little is lodged in an edifice of great interest, because it is the earliest dated one in England. The obviously Saxon architecture, with its "herring-bone" and "long and short" work, the window-tops composed of two slanting stones, or else of arches cut from one piece--these unmistakable signs would have told us that it antedated the Normans, but of such buildings there are many in this country. Here, however, we have an exact date given us, and, furthermore, the earliest known in all the land. A stone found here (now preserved at Oxford) relates that this chapel was dedicated in 1056, and that Earl Odda caused it to be erected "in honour of the Holy Trinity and for the good of the soul of his brother, Elfric, which at this place quitted the body." It goes on further to say that "Bishop Ealdred dedicated it on 12th April in the 14th year of Edward King of the English." Two other early Saxon edifices of even more modest dimensions lie close at hand. The ancient glass is contained in the four small lancets of the west wall on the right as one enters, and is obviously of the Decorated period. The most attractive bit is the small panel showing St. Catherine framed in a canopy, holding her wheel in one hand, and revolving it with the other. The background is red within the canopy, but green outside, a very frequent adjustment at that time. In both the upper and lower parts of these lancets are groups of three and four kneeling donors, about eight inches high, with labels above them. This glass has not always remained in its original embrasures, but, fortunately, did not stray far. Its travels were cut short by a gentleman who purchased it for £5 from an antiquary's shop in a neighbouring town, and restored it to its early home. More important and more beautiful sanctuaries will be encountered in our travels, but it is well to have halted for even a brief time at this ancient Saxon fane, if only to ponder upon how tenacious must have been the traits of those early ancestors of ours, to have persisted to these modern days with such vigour as to have made the adjective "Anglo-Saxon" so significant. BRISTOL Bristol is connected with London by the Old Bath Road. What memories that name arouses of beaux and belles of stage-coach days, gaily chatting to while away the fifteen-hour trip from London to Bath, or furtively glancing out to see if bold Dick Turpin, or some gentleman of his profession, be not lurking in the shadows of the trees, intent on relieving the tired horses by lightening the passengers' luggage. This stage-coach period is of peculiar interest to visitors from across the seas, because it takes one back to old Colony days, and the War of the Revolution. In England the improved facilities of travel provided by the stage coach had much to do with advancing parliamentary government and doing away with the system of "rotten borough" representation in Parliament. Bustling and hearty days were those of the four Georges, which produced a Prime Minister like William Pitt. In this progressive era of railroad construction and stock manipulation, it is interesting to read how Richard Palmer besought the Government to establish a regular mail-coach service on the Bath Road, alleging the great profits they could thereby secure, but really hoping in this way to increase the profits of his theatre in Bath. After a long struggle he finally got the ear of William Pitt. The service was established, and his subsidy (which was to be regulated by the amount saved in carrying the mails) proved so large that they cut it down to the lump sum of £50,000! The first coach started on August 8, 1784. Nowadays it causes us to smile when we read of the tremendous effect produced throughout the country by the news that this coach left London at eight o'clock in the morning and arrived at Bristol at eleven the same evening! Such unheard-of speed aroused wide interest, and had much to do with the great success of Bath as a fashionable watering-place. Bowling along this historic road we shall only stop long enough at Bath to see the remains of the baths built by the Romans, and the famous Pump Room, the scene of the triumphs of Beau Nash, and many another. We may also take a peep into the small, but fine, church whose great window surface has earned for it the title of the "Lantern of the West." It will not detain us long because its glass is all modern, except in the second embrasure from the west in the north aisle, where seven shields surmounted by elaborately plumed helmets are agreeably disposed across the five lancets. On we go out of Bath and along the narrow valley of the Avon, twelve miles further to smoky Bristol, squatted like a puffing Dutch burgher at the point where the Severn empties into the Bristol Channel. Although the great shipping industry that gave the town its early importance has of late years diminished, it still retains enough to be an active port of trade. To some fanciful folk the pall of smoke that hangs over the town may seem a gloomy retribution for the fact that from the days of the Saxon and the Norman down to the abolition of slavery, Bristol was the greatest port in England for that nefarious traffic. Changing to a brighter subject, this was the harbour from which John Cabot, the Anglicised Venetian, and his son Sebastian (who was born here), sailed upon their voyages of discovery across the little-known Atlantic. The Mayor's Chapel contains some very interesting sixteenth century glass, but as it was bought abroad and fetched here, it has not, for us, the interest which we shall feel in the home-made Decorated windows of the cathedral. Bristol Cathedral lacks the pleasing setting of foliage and green lawns which one finds about almost every English church. Indeed, in this respect, it is more like the famous French ones, which nearly all rely upon architectural charm for their effectiveness. Inside, the chief matters of interest are the great Tree of Jesse which fills the east window, and the two large lights on each side of the chancel. These side windows are glazed in grisaille upon which are figures framed in canopy, two tiers, one above the other. The most westerly embrasure of the southerly pair has in its upper row three canopies which, taken together, show the martyrdom of St. Edmund. He is within the central canopy, while those on each side contain archers drawing their bows to shoot at him. The bent knees, the awkward pose of the heads, &c., show the drawing to be most primitive. The tracery lights are glazed in red, with white winding vines, and are remarkably like the traceries at Tewkesbury. The Berkeleys, who gave this glass, were related to the de Clares of Tewkesbury, so it is more than likely that they employed the same glazier. The great east window is in a very good state owing to its restoration in 1847 and is a graceful work of the Decorated period. The erudite Winston concludes that as it does not bear the arms of Piers Gaveston (murdered in 1312), and does show those of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford (slain in open rebellion against his sovereign in 1322), the date of the window is probably about 1320, which furthermore is borne out by internal evidence. This great window rises above and behind the altar and has its nine lancets subdivided into three groups of three each by two mullions which, as was usual at that time, curve away from each other when nearing the upper part of the embrasure. Although the subject is a Tree of Jesse, the patriarch himself does not appear. The various branches of the vine rise perpendicularly from the lower sill and are then gracefully intertwined. The treatment of the personages is the same throughout, each being enclosed by a loop of the vine. The 1847 restoration was so well done that except for an occasional harsh note of colour in the robes, it conceals its modern substitutions quite successfully. The lancets each contain two figures, one above the other. It is fair to comment that the encircling vine is rather too light to harmonise well with the figures in the background. After descending the hill, crowned by the cathedral, we cross over into the other part of the town to see the fine church of St. Mary Redcliffe, where, although there is but little glass, that little is arranged in a unique manner. Each of the three easterly windows of the south transept consists of three lancets. For each window there is provided a border consisting of a series of fifteen small four-pointed openings fitted over it in the shape of an inverted U. The glazing of these stars reminds one of the ordinary Decorated treatment of tracery lights. Within a narrow border is a red field upon the centre of which appears a coloured boss from which radiate four leaves. The general effect is a yellowish green. These windows date from about 1360. On the way out let us stop in the north-west corner of the nave and notice in the north wall a window filled with a collection of about eighty-five roundels and heads, all helter-skelter, eked out with fragments from other embrasures. The effect, though motley, is interesting. A window in the westerly wall of this corner also contains _débris_, but here it is of figures and canopies. This church, called by Queen Elizabeth "the fairest, the goodliest, and the most famous parish church in England," is chiefly known for having been the literary browsing-ground of that infant prodigy Thomas Chatterton, who announced that it was an old chest in its muniment-room that yielded what he alleged to be transcriptions from certain ancient Rowley manuscripts. So well were these forgeries contrived that it took Horace Walpole, himself the constructor of an imitation Gothic romance ("The Castle of Otranto"), to discover the fraud. Although but seventeen years old when he committed suicide in 1770, Chatterton had already published a number of writings. No good American should depart without a glance at the monument and armour of Admiral Penn, father of our William Penn. It will be no small relief to emerge from the smoky pall which hangs over this enterprising city and escape again into the clearer atmosphere of the charming English country. WELLS Off in Somerset, snugly tucked away at the foot of the Mendip Hills, lies one of the most charming cathedrals to be seen anywhere, and, in the opinion of Fergusson, certainly the most beautiful in England. The fact that it has grouped about it more perfect ecclesiastical buildings than any other church of its size, and also that the town which grew up around is very interesting, combine to make Wells a peculiarly delightful place. The distant prospects of it are very attractive, whether you stand upon Moulton Hill and look toward its western façade, or view the eastern end with the group of adjoining buildings from the top of Thor Hill. Even when you have come down into the quiet town and the cathedral is near at hand, the approach to it continues to be most picturesque, first through a battlemented gateway in one corner of the market square, and then across a lovely lawn shaded by fine trees. The ample proportions of the rugged west front are saved from the appearance of excessive breadth because of the perpendicular lines lent by the buttresses built against it. A most attractive feature of this great façade is the unusual collection of carved figures beneath canopies with which, at the close of the thirteenth century, it was lavishly adorned. There are over six hundred in all, carved of stone from a local quarry, and originally gilded and coloured. Nearly all are of life-size, and represent not only Biblical characters, but also kings and queens of the Saxon, Norman, and Plantagenet dynasties. Within the building the scene is one of exceptional splendour and beauty. Even what elsewhere might prove ugly is here turned to artistic account, as, for example, when the stability of the great central tower demanded a strengthening arch across the nave at that point, it was rendered a decorative feature by placing above it another arch inverted so that the lines should sweep upward as well as downward. An odd and unusual position was selected for the chapter-house--above and to the north of the chancel--and nothing could be more delightful than the way in which the old stone stairway bends gently up to it. East of the chancel is a fine roomy Lady chapel. The entrance to this chapel is provided by the removal of the lower third of the east wall of the chancel, the middle third being stone wall with empty niches, and the upper third a great arched window of seven lancets containing a Tree of Jesse in the Decorated manner, above which, in the traceries, is shown the Judgment Day. This is known as the "Golden Window," and Canon Church calls it "one of the most remarkable in England for simplicity and harmony and richness of colouring, for the force of character in the faces, and the stately figures in flowing mantles of green and ruby and gold, like Arab chiefs; figures such as some artists in the last Crusading host under Edward might have seen and designed, and so different from the conventional portraiture of Bible characters." Although this window is less lofty than the similar one at Bristol, it does not seem so incomplete and cut off, because we have here the recumbent figure of Jesse across the bottom of the five central lancets, a feature lacking at Bristol. Another point of difference is that the convolutions of the vine do not here enclose the seventeen figures of the descendants, but instead they stand under canopies, of which, however, only the topmost ones have pinnacles. The broad borders have the same design throughout, viz., gold crowns alternated with colour, which changes from red to blue in each successive lancet. The backgrounds within the canopies also alternate red and blue, always contrasting with the colour outside. Almost all the small personages are draped in either green or yellow, and four have undergarments of red. Though their colouring is splendid, the figures are rather too crowded. The two most easterly lights on each side of the chancel are contemporary with the east window--they are each of three lancets and contain single figures, occupying about half the height of the embrasure, and have no pedestals below them. So similar is the treatment here to that at Bristol that it seems safe to assign the same date to both (1320). The tracery lights around the choir ambulatory still retain their Decorated glazing. To the right and left just before we enter the Lady chapel are single windows containing fragments of ancient glass. The Lady chapel itself is finely illuminated by five large windows of five lancets each containing figure and canopy work. One should remark the unique pedestals consisting of golden lions or bears surmounted by the characteristic ball-flower ornament. Very interesting, also, are the tracery lights, which consist of pyramids of small trefoil openings, four at the base, then three, then two, then one. They are reminiscent of the tracery lights of the Lichfield Lady chapel, but here the glazier has been more adroit in the use of his opportunities. Instead of putting a head alone in each opening, he has availed himself of the broader space at the bottom to put in the shoulders as well. These little busts adjust themselves admirably to the trefoils. Although the glass which once filled the octagonal chapter-house is all gone save that up in the traceries, those remnants are of interest because the disposal of the designs against the red backgrounds is reminiscent of the work at Tewkesbury and Gloucester. The great west window of the nave has seventeenth and eighteenth century glass at the sides, and in the centre a fine sixteenth century French panel showing the beheading of St. John. This bears the date 1507 and a Gascon inscription, and was bought by Bishop Creyghton during the time that he was sharing the exile of Charles II. on the Continent. This provokes the comment that not only is there a small amount of sixteenth century glass in England, but curiously enough much of it proves upon inspection to have been made across the Channel. Before leaving this noble interior one should notice a feature of quaint interest. In the south choir aisle stands the monument to Bishop Bytton (1524), long renowned for his cures of toothache. After his canonisation this tomb was resorted to by pilgrims seeking relief from that malady, and so famous were the cures that we find carved upon the capitals of piers on the west side of the south transept, and again in the north transept, little men whose sufferings from toothache are reproduced in the most detailed and dramatic manner. [Illustration: "GOLDEN WINDOW," WELLS CATHEDRAL Notice graceful setting, permitting a glimpse through into the Lady Chapel beyond. The large Tree of Jesse rising from the loins of the Patriarch is portrayed in colours of almost barbaric richness] No matter by which road we leave Wells, one should look back more than once to enjoy the charming views of the cathedral and its Close. EXETER In travelling about England one is struck by how greatly the colour of the building-stone varies. One sees greenish grey around Tavistock in West Devon; golden brown in the country just north of Oxford; silver-grey in many parts of Yorkshire, &c. &c. One might continue to enumerate instances, but in the end the most marked of all would surely be the red seen about Exeter. Not only are many of the edifices built of this ruddy stone, but the earth in any ploughed field thereabouts shows the same unusual colouring. The Normans must have been struck by this fact, for they called the hill on which they built their castle "Rougemont." In view of this marked peculiarity of the Exe Valley, it is noteworthy that the exterior of the rugged cathedral, with its mighty transeptal towers, is blackish grey. Within, it shows the reddish hue which one would expect hereabouts, but outside is similar in tone to Westminster Abbey. If one be so whimsically-minded as to group cathedrals by colour, one must class Exeter with Peterborough as black, while Lincoln will be golden brown, York and Canterbury soft grey, &c. &c. Very fine as well as decorative glass is to be seen in this cathedral. It fills the east window, and another near it in the north choir clerestory, as well as a large window in each of the chapels that close the easterly end of the choir aisles. These charming little chapels are each reached by an entrance from the choir ambulatory, and are only separated from the Lady chapel between them by a light screen. The east window of the northerly chapel has five lancets, although the glass was seemingly made for one of six, the number which still exists in that of the southerly chapel. The treatment in both is the same, a handsome and well-balanced combination of quarry-panes relieved by gaily-tinted heraldic shields, and all surrounded by coloured borders. In the northerly chapel there has been introduced into the central lancet a Decorated panel, showing a kneeling chantry priest within a canopy praying for the donor. This appears to have been removed hither from the chapter-house, where there still remain a couple of similar panels. The two windows just described are excellent examples of one of the glazing methods of the epoch, while of still another style (the figure in canopy), equally good ones are above in the choir clerestory, the fourth from the east on the north side showing in each of its four lancets a figure under a canopy with a shield of arms at the feet. It is practically complete, except that the shields have lost their heraldic bearings. [Illustration: EAST WINDOW, EXETER CATHEDRAL Perpendicular stone frame glazed chiefly with very typically decorated figure-and-canopy glass preserved from the earlier and smaller window. Below and beyond appears the Lady chapel] The archives tell of a large purchase of glass in Rouen in 1301 and again in 1317 for use in this cathedral. Much of these purchases is still to be seen in the large east window. Here we are struck by a strange anomaly of obviously Decorated glass in purely Perpendicular masonry. Nothing could be more distinctive of the later period than the Perpendicular mullions surmounted by stiffly upright tracery lights, and yet the glazing could not be mistaken for anything but Decorated. Evidently old wine has been put into new bottles. Although a great deal of restoration is noticeable in this window, the strongly brassy tone of the canopies in the three outer lancets on each side clearly indicate that they antedate the discovery of yellow stain. An explanation of this anachronistic clash between the glazing and its framing stonework appears upon the rolls of the Chapter. April 21, 1389, one Henry de Blakeborn, then Canon, moved by the fine appearance of the newly constructed west window, offered 100 marks towards properly enlarging the eastern one. This offer was accepted and the work at once put in hand. The glazing of the earlier east window was saved to put into the new and larger embrasure. As yellow stain was not known at the time of glazing the first east window, it is absent from the early glass, although it is plentifully used in the heads, &c., of the additions made necessary in 1389 by the increased size of the window. One must not quarrel with the judicious restoration which has preserved so charming an _ensemble_. But this indulgent mood will be abruptly dismissed when one examines the lights along the north side walls of the choir aisles, for here the colour in the patterns upon the white panes proves to be Decorated glass cut up into bits for this purpose by some modern glazier! Any further comment upon his taste is unnecessary. It is one of the instances which causes one to query if it be always wise to impose a punishment for murder! DORCHESTER Before setting out upon our journeys we stated that although the viewing of stained glass was our main purpose, we intended to be broad-minded and enjoy whatever other interesting sights might be encountered. When we approach the little hamlet that "Dorchester ys ycluped, that bysyde Oxenford ys" those of our company learned in archæology will doubtless point out the Dykes, those two great parallel earthworks twenty feet high, separated by a dry fosse twenty yards wide, which run for a distance of 900 yards round the south side of the town, from the banks of the Thames to those of the little Thame. Our archæological friend will not need to point out how strong a defence was provided for the ancient Briton by these walls and the two rivers, but he will doubtless earnestly set forth many arguments for and against the theory that this fortification was an outpost of the entrenched camp on Sinodun Hill near by. The writer well remembers how strongly these Dykes impressed him when he first saw them years ago. In company with two friends he was rowing down from Oxford to London, and having arrived at Dorchester after sunset, stopped there to spend the night. Early in the morning, on our way down to the boat, we came upon these earthworks overgrown with yellow wheat and red poppies sparkling with dew. Instantly one forgot the dull modern village, and went back in fancy to the days when these great lines of earth were thrown up to protect the early owners of this land, later to be so often harried by conqueror after conqueror. The greatest glory of Dorchester came much later, in fact even after the centuries of Roman occupation had come to an end and the last legions had left England for ever. It was under the rule of the West Saxons that Dorchester became the seat of a Bishop whose See was so important that it included all those now known under the names of Winchester, Salisbury, Exeter, Bath, Wells, Lichfield, Hereford and several others. The exact date of the present long stone church is not known, but it is generally believed to be about 1150. The interior will provide but little of interest that one does not often see in many another old English church, but a glance toward the eastern end reveals that some architect of the Decorated period there added a veritable bower of light. One must search far and wide to find so pleasing a combination of excellent glass, disposed in such light and noteworthy stone traceries. The walls which enclose this chancel on the north, east and south are nearly of equal length, but the architect's treatment of each is quite different. That to the east seems almost entirely of glass, so greatly has the builder subordinated his stone structure to the glazing. In fact, so much is given over to the glazier as to necessitate the erection of a stout buttress which runs up the centre, and without the assistance of which the slender mullions would be unable to support so great a weight of glass. This buttress stops about three-fourths of the way up the window, the explanation of which is that the original roof was lowered to this point, and it was not until 1846 that it was again elevated to its original height, making necessary the modern glass in this restored portion. Very graceful is the adjustment of the cartouches into which the stone mullions divide the entire surface, and also the way in which they tend to become pointed in the upper part of the embrasure. Within each one we find evidence of the beginnings of the canopy style which was destined soon to emerge from the cramped methods of the glazier here visible. Upon the four lancets of the northern window appear large figures displaying much more freedom of drawing. Our first criticism tends to be that they would be more attractive if they had some background or framing and were not stationed alone upon white panes. The reason for this appears from a close inspection of the supporting mullions. Along each of these are little carved figures. The writer believes this window to be unique in the respect that the carvings on the stone and the figures on the panes combine to form a Tree of Jesse. Jesse, as usual, is reclining below; the stone mullions are used to represent the branches of the vine, and at their intersections are disposed the descendants, much as we have often seen them depicted on glass. They hold scrolls on which probably their names were once painted. The figures on the glass (some of them still labelled) supplement those in the carvings. Carved figures are also freely introduced at the intersections of the stone mouldings of the east window, but here they represent New Testament episodes, such as the cutting off of Malchus's ear, the rousing of the sleeping guards, &c. So, too, along the transom that runs across the southern window are carved figures representing a religious procession. Above are coats of arms distributed upon the panes. Below is a handsome Gothic stone seat or sedilia which has for us a great interest in that four little star-shaped lights are let into the back of it, containing late twelfth century medallions. These earliest remains were doubtless preserved from the edifice which preceded the present one. One of them shows a scene in which appears St. Birinus, who converted the great kingdom of Wessex and was the first Bishop of Dorchester (635-49). This little chancel, with its delightful glass gracefully supported by the quaintly carved stone traceries, will remain in one's memory as one of the loveliest nooks in England for the glass-lover. OXFORD Probably there is no city in all England where the average American tourist feels more at home than at Oxford. All of us have read a great deal about this city of colleges, and most American boys have perused "Tom Brown at Oxford" more than once. Besides, we all feel an interest in colleges and college men. While many realise the charms of this ancient city of learning, some of us know them in great detail; we have wandered in the lovely gardens of Magdalen, of New and of Worcester; we have heard the shouting of the multitudes along the banks of the Isis when one eight has succeeded in bumping another just ahead; we have canoed up the silent tree-shaded windings of the Cherwell--in a word, we are familiars of the place. Apart from its life as a university, as a city of students, its chief association in history may be said to be that it was a refuge and stronghold of the ill-fated Charles I., after his defeat at Edgehill. It was admirably suited for this purpose, because rendered well-nigh impregnable by the encircling streams of the Isis and the Cherwell, the surrounding morass of flooded fens, and, last of all, its stout city walls. Right loyally did both townspeople and students rally to the support of the unfortunate monarch. The colleges even melted down their plate to eke out his military chest. Of all the towns of England it can, therefore, best lay claim to having been the most loyal to the fortunes of Charles Stuart at a time when loyalty meant most. But it is not for reminders of that dreadful civil strife, terminated by bloody tragedy, that we are coming to the ancient town built on the river near the "ford of the oxen," no, our researches lie a couple of centuries earlier than those bitter days. First of all we shall enter Merton College to see its windows of the first part of the Decorated period. Then we will repair to New College to view its glass so instructive of the transition from Decorated to Perpendicular. Lastly, All Souls' Chapel must be inspected for its examples of the Perpendicular style. In many another college can be seen later glazing, but none so good or so important as those just cited. The presence here of such fine examples of the two best periods of English glass makes easy an instructive comparison of their methods and results. Furthermore, it justifies the selection of Oxford as the last stage of our second tour, because we have only to step from one college into another to begin our third tour. Not only do the most ancient traditions of all Oxford linger about Merton, but it looks the part--it conveys the impression of its extreme age to any one who enters its gates. Mob Quad is the oldest quadrangle in the whole University. Bishop Walter de Merton, Chancellor of Henry III., devised the idea of segregating the students into colleges, so as to govern them better, and to render more difficult, if not impossible, the general lawlessness and bloody frays between nationalities that used to be so frequent. A visit to the chapel will not only show us glass of the early part of the Decorated period, but in such quantity and so well placed as to give one the best possible impression of it. The large east window is filled with modern glazing, only the upper half of the traceries above retaining the original red and blue diaper work. In addition to this great embrasure, the choir is lighted by seven ample three-lanceted windows on each side. These are filled with grisaille bordered in colour, while across them, about two-thirds of the way up from the bottom, is drawn a band of strongly hued canopied figures. Because of their early manufacture we are not surprised to find the canopies very crude, lacking pedestals, &c. The enclosed backgrounds are generally blue, although a few toward the east are red. In the central lancet of each embrasure the canopy usually contains an upright figure, while in the side lancets they are almost all kneeling. Each personage has a written label which either winds gracefully over his head and down behind his back, or runs along beneath him. The borders are not carried up into the traceries; their design is sometimes a vine, sometimes yellow castles, or fleur-de-lis of white or green. In addition to the band of canopies, the duller grisaille is further enlivened by three coloured bosses in each lancet, mostly containing heads. The western end of the choir opens into the antechapel, which lacks its ancient glazing except for the fragments gathered together into the central western embrasure, whose original tracery glass, however, remains intact. Before leaving Merton mount the stairs to the quaint L-shaped library and inspect its attractive remains of Renaissance glass. Along the lower side of the east wall of the north wing are seven narrow lancets filled with dainty grisaille quarries, bordered in faint colour and bearing a brightly toned boss. Of more importance to us, however, is the pleasing bay window at the east end of the south wing. Here we find quarries of soft grey, each containing a monogram in yellow stain. In the midst of these quarry panes are placed little scenes, circular in form and decorated with enamel paint in grey and stain, each bearing a German inscription. The central embrasure contains six of these, three above and three below, and the two side bays have two each, one above the other. They bear the date 1598. An account of the Perpendicular glass at Oxford will be found at p. 142. PERPENDICULAR Little proof is needed of how greatly the glazier depended upon the architect, or of how necessary and proper it was that his glazing should harmonise with the prevailing architectural style. The period we are about to study affords a striking example of this subserviency of the window to the building it lights. In no country can there be found a school whose glass was so dominated by its architecture as was that of the Perpendicular in England. This Perpendicular style never crossed the Channel, for the French Gothic of that time, instead of becoming stiff and regular, grew more flamboyant and elaborated. Another marked difference is that all the time the English were softening their tints and striving for a silvery sheet of low tones (Great Malvern, &c.), the fifteenth century French were, on the contrary, using stronger and more varied colours than during the century before. To such excellence of delicate drawing and tints did the English attain in their Perpendicular windows that it may safely be said that in those respects they were never surpassed elsewhere. This is particularly noticeable at Ross and Cirencester. An opportunity to compare the French with the English glass of that time is afforded by the fact that the French windows of the Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick will be visited between the distinctively English ones of Great Malvern and York. This Warwick glass was brought from France because the contract exacted "Glasse from beyond the Seas," and we at once notice the strong hues, which differ so markedly from the then prevailing English ones. Nothing could be more convenient than the way in which these particular windows enable us to differentiate between contemporary glass on opposite sides of the Channel. When the Perpendicular architect arrived upon the scene, he found the canopy window already well developed. The shape of the embrasures which he provided were peculiarly suited to this agreeable method of glazing. The straight upward sweep of his mullions made easy an effective adjustment of the narrow canopy-framed niches, and left the artist little to do but elaborate the more modest sentry-box of the Decorated period. This he did in a very artistic and pleasing manner. The signs of development are easily distinguishable, and chief among them are the elaboration of the architectural detail of the canopy (by increasing the number of pinnacles and drawing them in relief instead of flat), and the completing of the frame effect by adding elaborate pedestals below the feet of the figures. We must remember that the earlier glazier either placed nothing below the enframed figure or else, in a few instances, heraldic shields (as at Tewkesbury). In many instances the earlier solitary figures within the canopies now give way to groups, although not so frequently as in France. The glazier did well to abstain from this change as much as possible, for although it is logical to find a saint within a shrine, nothing could be more absurd than to install therein a rural scene or a small battle picture. The Perpendicular architect, unlike his Decorated predecessor, was not content to leave the tracery lights differentiated from the rest of the window below. Instead, he tied the upper and lower lights together by carrying his mullions straight up through them all, and thus deprived the tracery ones of the independence as well as the decorative success they formerly enjoyed. In a few instances (as at Great Malvern), the glazier accentuates the stiff regularity of these upper lights by filling each with a canopy-enclosed figure. Lest the upright parallel lines of the mullions lend too monotonous an appearance, care was generally taken to make two of them (usually thicker than the others) swerve outward when nearing the top of the embrasure, one to the right and the other to the left. These two thicker mullions served the further artistic purpose of breaking the line of tall lights into groups of two or three each. This can be observed in the illustration. The chief features of this school are as follows: (_a_) Increasingly lighter and softer tones; (_b_) Stiff parallel lines of upright mullions; (_c_) Tracery lights lose their independence; (_d_) Greatly elaborated canopies; (_e_) Stipple shading, replacing the earlier smear shading. It can be said with no fear of contradiction that we have now arrived at the finest period of English glazing. PERPENDICULAR TOUR Our Decorated tour was brought to a close by viewing the glass of that period in Merton College at Oxford. Not only shall we be able to begin our new tour in that same city, by inspecting the fully developed Perpendicular windows at All Souls', but we are also afforded an opportunity, thanks to the transition character of the New College windows (1386), to learn the intermediate steps through which the change of style was effected. On leaving Oxford, we will betake ourselves to the famously glazed church at Fairford, and thence journey, _viâ_ Cirencester, to Gloucester. The next point will be Great Malvern and its neighbour Little Malvern, and then over the bold uplift of the Malvern Hills to Ross. A northerly _détour_ will take us first to Warwick and then to Coventry, which will probably conclude this tour, for although York appears as the last of this series, it is so placed for the sake of regularity, and only for those who may not have taken the first or second tours. York was visited on both of those, and occasion was given to inspect the Perpendicular glass which there abounds. [Illustration: MAP OF PERPENDICULAR TOUR] In addition to the places just mentioned there are three so situated as to make it inconvenient to include them in this tour--Salisbury, Winchester, and St. Neot (Cornwall). Salisbury has already been visited on our Early English tour. Winchester lies well to the south near Southampton, while St. Neot is off in the west, a few miles beyond Plymouth. These two towns should, however, be on no account omitted, even though each require a separate trip. OXFORD An account of the Decorated glass at Oxford will be found at p. 129. Having visited Merton, and, by examining its Decorated glass, concluded our second tour, we must address ourselves to the third one, devoted to the Perpendicular period. Nothing could be easier. We have only to walk as far as New College to see how the forces of transition performed their work, and then to All Souls' Chapel to study the fully fledged product of the Perpendicular glazier. New College is picturesquely alluring to all who visit Oxford, thanks to the agreeable manner in which the college buildings are set off by attractive gardens enclosed within remnants of the ancient city walls. This corner of the old ramparts owes its preservation to a covenant for its upkeep between the Founder and the city. We glass-lovers will remark that in similar fashion a very advantageous placing enhances the beauty of the glass which we are about to see. It is contained in the antechapel, which adjoins the chapel proper on the west and opens into it. A dim passage-way leads to the small portal by which one enters, admirably preparing our eyes to appreciate the beauty of the glazing. There is also some later work in the main chapel, but it is fortunately shut off from our observation by a conveniently placed screen, thus enabling us to enjoy the antechapel and its glazing without any distraction. The original glass that once filled the large window in the middle of the antechapel's west wall is now stored in boxes at that other foundation of William of Wykeham, Winchester College, Winchester, having been removed to make room for an ambitious effort by Sir Joshua Reynolds. All the other embrasures retain the original glazing, given about 1386 by the Founder, whose name frequently appears thereon. Let us not be drawn into the violent discussion which has so long raged on the subject of the rival merits of the earlier and later glazing. All glaziers condemn the work of the great Sir Joshua, and even most art critics agree with Horace Walpole that the painting of this large subject is "washy." He has confined himself to the use of browns, greys, and some pink in depicting the Virtues and the other figures assembled in his composition; but, as was to be expected from one who was only a painter, and not also a glazier, he used so much paint as to interfere perceptibly with the translucence of the glass. Nevertheless, the writer, although he vastly prefers the earlier windows, frankly states that he began by liking the west one best. The advantage which stained glass windows have over paintings on canvas is that while the latter have only colour the former have both colour and light. For this reason one should be disposed to admit a great deal on behalf of this picture painted by a great artist on a medium which adds light to his colour. There is no good reason why we should quarrel with a man who begins by preferring Sir Joshua's window, because it may lead him to become interested in stained glass. Almost every one unlearned in our subject admires this west window;--if he will but come with us we will promise sooner or later to open his eyes to far greater beauties, which he will grow to love in the seeing! For those who have learned to enjoy the Wykeham windows more than their showier neighbour, it is suggested that there are two points from which to view them so as to eliminate the contrasting presence of the later one--either stand close to the small entrance door, or else near the chapel screen so that one of the columns comes between you and the west window. Thus one sees only the Wykeham glazing, and that, too, in a frame of mind receptive of the Latin legends which unceasingly beseech us to pray for him. This glass is not only beautiful, but very important, because it clearly illustrates the transition from the Decorated to the Perpendicular. The sixty-four personages ensconced in their canopies, while possessing traits of both schools, demonstrate clearly how naturally one led into the other. The figures are not yet well drawn, are rudely posed, and are still strongly coloured. Although there is a general flatness in the composition, indicative of the earlier school, tapestries are already hung across the backs of the little niches, and handsome ones too, with crowned initials powdered over them. So, too, pedestals appear below the canopies, although, of course, not yet so complete or elaborate as those to be seen presently in All Souls' Chapel. The canopies themselves are more robust and not so finished as will be later encountered. An examination of the method of shading also bears witness to a transition, for there is observable both smear and stipple work. The learned Winston makes a very interesting argument to the effect that the panels have been considerably changed about since their original placing, based on the seemingly disordered arrangement of the six varieties of canopies, the unusual order of displaying the Apostles, &c. For us who are less enlightened, however, the chief interest of this delightful series is in the general harmony of the colour scheme, the judgment shown in adjusting the figures to the canopies, and both to the embrasures, and the graceful use of the written scrolls. [Illustration: _Taunt, photo._ NEW COLLEGE ANTECHAPEL, OXFORD Transition window presented by William of Wykeham, Founder of the College. Stone frames are already Perpendicular: note the "pepper-box" tracery lights. The glazing, as usual, lags behind the architecture, and, because of its strong colour and flat drawing, is more Decorated than Perpendicular] The dining-hall possesses some interesting coats of arms glazed into seven of its large lights. Half of these are contemporaneous with the Founder, among them appearing his arms and those of his See; the other half are of the time of Henry VIII. From "the High" we enter All Souls' College, undaunted by the scathing comment of Humphrey Prideaux in 1674, that "All Souls' is a scandalous place and full of fast gentlemen." Without stopping to remark the beauty of the full-domed Radcliffe Library, rising beyond the graceful stone screen that walls in the westerly side of All Souls' inner quadrangle, we press on to the chapel at the further end. We shall not spend much time over the windows of the chapel proper, for they contain nothing of interest, but for this there is ample compensation in the splendid display all about the antechapel that opens off to the west. It is true that some of the panels have been restored, but this has been done so judiciously and patterned so closely after the originals that it is not only no detriment, but, on the contrary, enables us to enjoy a completed whole. As was to be expected, figures within canopies meet our eyes on all sides. Owing to the date of their manufacture, the depicted architecture of the shrines is very elaborately worked out. Pedestals are provided, and in the westerly embrasures we find small supplemental and supporting canopies on each side of the principal ones, which latter, however, alone contain figures. These western lights show more restoration than the others. There is a great deal of red and blue everywhere, not only in the backgrounds, but even in the pedestals below. The four large windows (each containing a double row of three lancets) in the easterly wall are, perhaps, more interesting than their more elaborate neighbours. Especially note, in the one just north of the choir entrance, the charming group of Salome and two children in the lowest panel on the left. Most pleasing of all is the scene of St. Mary, with two children in her arms and two more at her feet, in the right-hand lowest panel of the most northerly of these east windows. The glass here is so conveniently placed as to afford every facility for studying details, thus preparing us admirably for the highly interesting tour upon which we are about to set out. FAIRFORD Lying in the midst of a pleasing but tame countryside the little village of Fairford has nothing to recommend it to the seeker after the unusual but the windows of its parish church. This glass is not only historically famous, but also very complete and beautiful. On the outer side of the little church door we are still in the midst of the commonplace, nothing rises above the level of the unimportant; once inside that modest portal, what a change do we not experience! Around us on every side and above in the clerestory opens out a complete series of windows--harmonious, excellent, delightful! And to add unneeded supplement to the charm that meets the eye, our ears are regaled with the strange tale of how these lovely panels found themselves here, and why they so perfectly fit the church. This latter query is answered most simply--the church was built to provide embrasures for these treasures. The records state that Richard Tame caused the building to be erected and finished in 1493 expressly for this glass, which had been captured at sea from a Dutch vessel. From the same source we also learn that his son, who died in 1534, completed the building--a rather anomalous statement for, if it was finished in 1493, it would not seem to have needed a further completion by the son. It is to the windows themselves one must turn for some explanation of this seeming contradiction. Although but little comment has hitherto been made upon the subject, the writer was struck by the lack of any similarity between the figure-and-canopy windows in the western half of the church (including the clerestory), and those around the eastern half. The former show a conscientious following of Perpendicular conventions and a careful attention to the proper use of colours, but the latter enjoy an easy victory in style, combination of hues and general artistic appreciation of the possibilities of glass. The sexton relates the usual legend about Albrecht Dürer having designed this latter series, but it is probably no truer here than elsewhere in England, for it is the customary tale one hears about German glass. There is no doubt, however, that in composition and style it differs noticeably from anything made north of the Channel. While the figure-and-canopy work is clearly of the fifteenth century, it must be admitted that if the windows in the eastern part of the church be likewise of that period, then they certainly represent an early manifestation of a style that did not generally prevail until the sixteenth century. May not this very difference help to explain the second "completion" of the church? Suppose we credit Richard Tame with having secured the canopy windows for the edifice he completed in 1493, and leave to his son the honour of having added the series showing later attributes when he finally finished the structure in 1534. The first windows may have been captured in the way reported in the legend, and the later ones secured in some other manner from the Continent, for it is known that most of the sixteenth century glass in England was procured from foreign sources. Let us leave this moot point to be conclusively decided by others, and turn to observing and enjoying the glass. The shape of the church is unusual and requires a brief word of description in order to understand the placing of the windows. The westerly half consists of the regulation nave with a broad aisle on each side. Above the nave runs a glazed clerestory, which, of course, does not extend over the aisles. There are no transepts. At the middle of the church just where the nave ends there rises the tower, of the same width as the nave. The clerestory stops on the nave side of this tower; there is no clerestory above the eastern half of the church. This easterly half is the same width as that to the west, but it is all open and not separated into aisles like the other part. In the southerly wall of the building are six windows and a door, and in the northerly, seven windows. The clerestory has four lights of three lancets on each side. Canopies containing figures standing upon pedestals and with gracefully written scrolls about them are to be found in all the clerestory windows, and also below in the four most westerly aisle windows on each side. The figures on the north of the clerestory represent Roman emperors, and above in the traceries are little devils on a red ground. Opposite them on the south appear Martyrs and Prophets of the Faith, appropriately attended in the traceries above by angels on a blue ground. All the windows thus far described are clearly fifteenth century; the workmanship is good but not of such marked excellence as is shown in the eastern part of the church. These latter evidence remarkably skilful designing, and, furthermore, demonstrate that the artist understood the medium in which he had to work out his cartoons. They lean strongly towards the Renaissance type: the colours used are very good, especially some of the greens. Most of the subjects on the north are taken from the life of the Virgin, while opposite, across the choir, appear scenes from the life of Christ, such as the Last Supper, the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, &c. The sexton delights to tell the visitor that the towers in the background of the last-named scene are faithful counterfeits of the towers of Nuremburg, thus proving conclusively (except to hypercritical cavillers) that Albrecht Dürer designed them. The story is picturesque, but it is fortunate that the good man never saw Nuremburg, or his conscience might force the suppression of this agreeable fiction. It must be admitted, however, that some of this glass is sufficiently excellent to have been designed by that great master. The five-lanceted window that fills the end of the little eastern extension behind the altar has five scenes across its lower half, while above them, occupying the entire width of the embrasure, is a fine Crucifixion. The original background has been replaced by white glass, which enables us to appreciate all the more readily how well the picture is composed. The flowing garments and certain other details are very German in character, while some of the implements displayed are purely Teutonic--_e.g._, the swinging mace, showing the spiked ball hanging from the handle by a chain. The perspective displayed in all these scenes is noticeably good. We must pass to the other end of the church in order to see its most entertaining window, at least to all those not deeply interested in the intricacies of technique. It fills the western end of the nave just above the portal, and is one of the rare sort known as "doom windows." There is here set forth a most edifying demonstration in glowing colours of what will some day happen to those who are not wise enough to be good! Even Foxe's "Book of Martyrs" cannot provide the exhilarating horrors that the numerous ingeniously minded devils here afford. Most delightful is the enthusiasm and earnestness with which they are carrying on their presumably daily toil of keeping Hades up to its unpleasant reputation. CIRENCESTER If the account of this town is not to be read aloud, everything will pass off peacefully, but if sound is going to be given to written words, then our trouble will begin at once, for the methods of pronouncing its name have led to unlimited discussion. All the disputants may be divided into two camps, in one the educated and refined citizens of the town, who pronounce the word as it is spelt, and are aided and abetted therein by all non-residents, while in the other camp we shall find an agreeable company, headed by the late William Shakespeare, and consisting of all the humbler townspeople and the country folk residing near by. This latter group prefer the sound, which, reduced to spelling, approximates "Cisseter." Notwithstanding this centuries-long dispute, the town has declined in importance since the days of the Romans! Then it was the cross-roads of three great highways, and when one reflects that the Roman road was even more potential in its developing effect upon territory than the modern railway, it is easy to see the advantages that Cirencester enjoyed over towns not so favoured. While considering this practical feature there must not be forgotten the romantic glamour lent by the legend that King Arthur was crowned here. The parish church is particularly delightful, not only because of its characteristically Perpendicular Gothic exterior, but also because of the logical way in which that same style has been carried out within, especially in the charming fan tracery of the vaults. The stained glass must be studied in detail in order to yield a full appreciation of its beauty, for we must not expect to find here the splendid _ensemble_ often seen elsewhere. There are few places in the land where Perpendicular glass shows so clearly the delicacy of both design and colour which the art achieved in England during that epoch. This fact is borne home with marked emphasis because we are viewing it immediately after an examination of the much better designed but less delicately painted windows of Fairford. As a result of this careful treatment of tint and drawing there is derived an unexpectedly satisfactory result from the collection of figures in canopies assembled in the five tall lancets of the east window. Seen from the nave this collection is quite cool and silvery, and does not betray its composite nature. Where the ancient heads have been lost or destroyed, their space has been frankly filled with white glass. Toward the bottom are eight small panels containing kneeling donors. The large west window is also a composite one, but here honesty proves to have been the worst possible policy, because the original background having been lost, they filled in between the canopies with splotches of hideous modern blue! Of course this kills any chance for the softly toned effect which we have often observed as the chief charm of the perfected canopy style. In this instance it is peculiarly unfortunate, because the canopies are carefully worked out in detail, showing as many little spires above them as we shall find later at Great Malvern. The figures which they enclose repay study. The centre three in the lower row are almost enveloped by broad written scrolls, which lend a most decorative effect. In the pedestals below the figures are little open galleries containing diminutive kneeling donors, very modestly and appropriately displayed. The colours here are noteworthy, especially the rich deep red in the robe of the cardinal at the top of the second lancet from the north; in the second to the south notice the combination of the mulberry gown, blue cape, and golden halo. The use of the leads to delineate folds in the cloth is as good as the colouring. It is evident that no mean artist produced these satisfactory results, but it is fortunate for him that he cannot see the atrocious blue that now strives to off-set his delightful work. In the chapel to the right of the chancel, the most easterly embrasure on the north has its three lancets filled with agreeably arranged figures and fragments. Being on a level with the eye of the observer, this glazing can be examined closely. Note the careful adjustment of the leads to suit the drawing of the hands in the right-hand lower corner. It is so evident that this glazier thoroughly understood his art that we are not surprised at the richness of the reds and the blues, or the mellow strength of his yellow stain. It is easy to deduce from the Cirencester windows the lesson that design is not so important as colour, and that, while excellent effects can be produced by a collection of well-toned fragments, the best design done in bad colouring is sure to be unsatisfactory. GLOUCESTER In our wanderings to see glass we have observed how many and varied were the reasons for the presentation of those splendid offerings to religious edifices, and also that these reasons are often storied upon the windows themselves. Wide as is the range of such causes it is reserved for Gloucester Cathedral to show us an ancient window erected to commemorate the winning of a great battle. Thanks to the painstaking studies of Charles Winston (1863), backed by his exhaustive knowledge of heraldry, it is now known that the great expanse of coloured glass at the eastern end of the Gloucester chancel is a thank-offering for the epoch-making victory at Crécy of the little army of English over the French hosts. How incongruous it seems that such a feat of arms should be commemorated in this mild manner! The mind wanders off from this glorious wall of colour back to a certain cloudy afternoon in August 1346. Edward III. and his young son the Black Prince, with a force of only eight thousand Englishmen, had swept triumphantly through Normandy up to the very gates of Paris. There the presence of a huge army of French and mercenaries forced them to turn northward toward the Flemish border. Fatigued by their dashing campaign, they were overtaken and brought to bay by the French at Crécy, about fifteen miles east of Abbeville. In the very front of the French hosts was stationed a body of 15,000 Genoese crossbowmen who, by their discharge of arrows, were to disconcert the English, and disorder their ranks preparatory to the onslaught of the French knights. Suddenly a great storm breaks upon the embattled armies, terrifying the Genoese unaccustomed to the thunder, lightning and driving rainbursts of a northern tempest. Nor is this all, for when the storm passes and the sun darts out from behind the clouds, the Genoese, ordered to discharge their crossbows, find to their dismay that the bowstrings are rain-soaked and cannot be drawn. Just at this juncture the English archers, taking their bows from water-tight cases, loose such a pestilential shower of arrows upon the already harassed Genoese that they break and flee, throwing into the wildest confusion the ranks of the Frenchmen behind them. Effective as were the bows of the English archers, the long knives of the Welshmen prove equally so, stabbing the horses of the French and thus placing the riders _hors de combat_. Together these two bands of yeomen reverse the verdict of centuries of warfare;--they show the armoured knight to be an anachronism, and thus in one day feudalism begins to totter to its fall. The moment has come for the charge of the English chivalry. On they dash, led by the sixteen-year-old Black Prince. They fall upon the already panic-stricken French and what has been a battle becomes a rout. The king witnessed the conflict from a windmill on a ridge, being desirous that his son alone might have the glory of the victory. It is doubtful if the annals of chivalry record a finer scene than the meeting of the king and the Black Prince after the battle. In the blaze of the great camp-fires, and before the whole army, the father embraced his son, and would have given him alone the praise, but the Prince "bowed to the ground and gave all the honour to the king his father." Ten years later we find him of the same generous nature, for, in the evening after the great victory at Poitiers, he caused the captured King John of France and his son to be seated, and standing behind, served them himself, modestly refusing to join in their repast. Long since hushed is the din of that ancient strife, unless perhaps an harmonious echo thereof comes to us from the great east window. Along its lower panes are displayed the shields of the Black Prince and the Earls of Warwick and Oxford, who were with him in the 1st Division on that glorious day, and of the Earls of Arundel and Northampton who led the 2nd Division (the 3rd being in command of King Edward III. himself). In this brave array we also find the shields of Thomas Lord de Berkeley, his brother Sir Maurice de Berkeley, Richard Lord Talbot, and Thomas Lord Bradeston, who all served in this expedition. Here, also, are the arms of the Earls of Lancaster and Pembroke, who, although at that time fighting in the south at Aiguillon in Guienne, were included as companions-in-arms of the same war. In this beautiful manner the glory and gallant memory of these knights are preserved within this stately cathedral, far removed from the din and carnage, the hissing flight of arrows, the clang of the forward dash of knights, the clash of steel on steel, the battle-cries, and the mingled roar of retreating hosts hotly pursued by exultant victors. Here they dwell for ever in the midst of a great peace: around the grey walls and sturdy tower are the quiet walks, the green swards, the leafy foliage of a peaceful England--an England preserved inviolate from foreign invasion by the splendid deeds of these gallant warriors, and many another like them. So modestly are their blazons set out along the lower part of the great window that the story of their gift and its giving was forgotten, and lay hidden for centuries until rediscovered by Mr. Winston. Much as our windows have hitherto revealed to us of quaint episode and romantic story, never have we happened upon so portentous a memory, nor one which so richly deserved this magnificent tribute. Its huge expanse of 72 by 38 feet is only rivalled by that of the east window of York (78 by 33 feet). Well did Winston say, "I know of no window so likely as this to improve by a long contemplation the taste of modern glass-painters and their patrons." [Illustration: _J. Valentine, photo._ CHOIR, GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL Great east window commemorative of knights who fought at Crécy. Backgrounds of pink and soft blue. Tracery lights no longer differentiated from window below, as during decorated period. Note elaborate masking of earlier walls by later Perpendicular work] A great deal of really fine glass is so badly placed as to appeal only to the student, and not to the sightseer, but at Gloucester this masterpiece exhibits itself to the greatest advantage. One should not speak of this vast window as being in the eastern wall, for it is so large that it takes the place of that wall. In fact it is somewhat wider than the interior of the church at that point, which for this reason has had its side walls slightly slanted out to receive the window. How great is this disparity in size may be estimated if one sights along the inside of either side wall, for you will miss entirely the outermost tier of glass panels. The superficial area of the glass is also increased by a slight bowing outward of the window structure. Behind and to the east of this end of the cathedral was later built a Lady chapel which, however, opens through into the older church. Of course the shadow of this later structure could not help but fall upon the east window, and to that extent obscure it, but what might have proved a serious defect was avoided by stationing the chapel somewhat to the east of the older building, and also by not beginning the coloured canopied figures upon the east window until above the line of shadow cast by the Lady chapel. The panes below that line are glazed in white bordered by colour, here and there relieved by the coats of arms already mentioned. Viewed from the crossing this great window is more than delightful. Row upon row of canopy-framed personages on red or blue backgrounds, are stationed one above another in splendid profusion. Many of the books class it with the Decorated period, although always explaining that its looks belie that early dating. Our errand is to see how windows look, and therefore, because its stone framework is so obviously Perpendicular, as is also the delicacy of the tones of its glass (particularly in the canopies), it would be unwise for us to consider it otherwise than as an early manifestation of the later style. It is very Perpendicular in its lines and its colouring, and absolutely unlike the deep rich windows at Tewkesbury, Bristol and Wells, which are so typically Decorated. We must remember that the glazier had to conform to the styles of the architect, and because it was the latter who inaugurated the changes he was, perforce, always in advance of the glazier, which helps to explain why some of the details of the glass design are more archaic than the stone framework. Looking eastward from the crossing, we can see through below this great window and above the altar into the ample Lady chapel beyond. Passing on into that chapel, we at once observe its most prominent feature, the east window, constructed during the latter part of the fifteenth century, a clearly marked example of the Perpendicular. The colouring is here much richer than we are accustomed to find in English work of this time, in fact it reminds one of contemporary French windows. The figures within the canopies are more varied, and occur in groups, thus differing widely from the almost monotonous similarity of the softer toned solitary figures upon the choir window. In the north aisle of the nave the third, fifth and fifteenth embrasures from the west provide us with marked examples of the Perpendicular. Double sets of pinnacles, two-storeyed pedestals, jewels separately leaded into the borders of robes, &c., show a distinct advance upon the earlier and simpler methods of the great wall of glazing in the choir. One should remark the Decorated work on the easterly side of both transepts. The clerestory lights are glazed in quarries with coloured borders, while above them the tracery embrasures are not only like those at Tewkesbury, but are also glazed in the same fashion, white lines wound about on a red ground; we have remarked the same treatment at Bristol and Wells. Even a brief glance about this great sanctuary reveals that huge sums must have been spent not only in veiling the older walls with the later Decorated work, but also in the elaboration which is everywhere noticeable. Nor is it difficult to understand how sufficient funds for this purpose were collected when one considers the vast store of gold, silver, and jewels brought here as offerings by pilgrims to the tomb of the murdered King Edward II. We must not depart without having a walk about the charming cloisters, which are by many considered the most beautiful in England. GREAT MALVERN Great Malvern lies on the easterly slope of the famous Malvern Hills, which run nearly north and south, and form the western barrier of the Severn Valley. Its site provides a pleasant and far-reaching prospect of smiling country, dotted here and there with the towers of Worcester, Gloucester, Tewkesbury and many another town and hamlet. So lofty are these hills that the views from their summits are hardly to be equalled elsewhere in England; indeed, it is reckoned that on a fine day one can look into a dozen counties. The three chief heights have long been known as Worcester Beacon, Hereford Beacon, and Gloucester Beacon, each named after the county in which it stands. Peaceful as is this delightful scene, certain of the memories which it awakens are those of warlike strife, for one can see from this vantage-point six of the great battlefields of England--Edgehill, Worcester, Evesham, Tewkesbury, Shrewsbury, and Mortimer's Cross. Nor are these the only reminders of warlike deeds, for about the top of two of those great eminences run encircling lines of strong earthworks, known to have existed since the time of the early Britons, if, indeed, they do not antedate them--eloquently silent proof of how long men have realised that this fair land is worth fighting for. Wonderful and inspiring is the view that unfolds itself before the eye of the traveller when he has reached the topmost point of the road and pauses before descending to Great Malvern. No wonder that William Langland selects this site for the slumber which yielded him that marvellous dream which he describes in his "Vision of Piers Plowman" (1362). He says: "On a May mornege · on Malverne hulles, I was wery forwandred · and went me to reste Under a brode banke · bi a bornes side, And as I lay and lened · and loked in ye wateres I slombred in a slepyng." Tradition tells us that he learned the profession of clerk in Great Malvern Priory, and there composed his splendid poem. His attempt to correct the abuses of his times accords more readily with the work of one contemporary, John Wyclif (who about 1380 gave the people the Bible in English), than it does with the merry "Canterbury Tales," written in 1387 by that Court favourite Chaucer. We have already encountered that jovial soul during our visit to the early glass of Canterbury. It is significant that in a work which produced such a marked effect upon its time as "Piers Plowman," frequent testimony is given to show the esteem in which stained glass was then held. Whenever church decoration is mentioned by any of his characters, they almost invariably dwell longer on this feature than upon any other. The Franciscan monk speaks of his church: "With gay glitering glas Glowying as the sunne." In similar fashion the Dominican brother is made to say: "Wyde wyndowes y-wrought, y-wryten ful thikke, Shynen with shapen sheldes." A severe rap is given at those who glaze windows in order "Hevene to have," and vain-glorious souls are urged not "To writen in wyndowes Of youre wel dedes." But let us, like Langland, arouse ourselves from the reverie superinduced by this wondrous outlook, and wend our way down the side of the great hill to the Priory Church. Although its more famous windows date from a century later than Langland's day, it may well be that his eye was gladdened by the older glass in the south aisle of the chancel. It is certainly fine enough to have attracted his notice, and one may safely assume that he loved glass, else his lines would not so frequently refer to it. Before observing the Perpendicular glazing in which this building abounds, let us consider that of the Decorated epoch in the three embrasures that light the southerly wall of the aisle chapel south of the choir, and which were there in Langland's time. The most westerly of these three is filled with heads and _débris_, formerly in other parts of the church. We shall have a treat in the two windows adjoining this to the east. Each contains a dozen small scenes from the Old Testament, the four lancets of each window subdividing these scenes into three rows of four each. The backgrounds are diapered red or blue, and a crude border of architecture surrounds each. The drawing is crisp and the colours are strong and good. Note particularly the red in the "Naming of the Fowls"; also observe Noah sending forth the dove, while various sorts of animals crowd about his feet. The rich tones, the crudeness of the canopy work, and sundry other signs unmistakably mark this glazing as Decorated. The corresponding chapel on the north side of the chancel has lost all its ancient glass, except a little in the tracery lights. The chief beauty of the interior is the delightful east window, whose stout central mullion, two-thirds of the way up, divides and inclines outward to right and left until it touches the frame. A charmingly soft colour scheme is here used, quite in the best manner of the Perpendicular epoch. It is difficult to puzzle out the original order of the figures and canopies, for the window was greatly damaged during the prevalence of the playful custom, many years ago, of permitting the village urchins to throw stones at it! Although the design has been injured, nothing could spoil the colour effect. Viewed from a proper distance the whole presents an appearance of tender grey, mellowed by soft blue, with here and there a note of red. The tracery lights escaped practically unscathed, and each contains a complete figure and canopy. This great central embrasure is flanked on both the north and the south by three large clerestory lights, the glazing of the southerly ones being much less complete than that of their neighbours across the chancel, where the figure and canopy work is excellent, and the combination of tints remarkably good. The side columns of the shrines are broader than is customary, while at the top are an unusual number of pinnacles, as many as fifteen being noted in one case. These little spires are shown to advantage against backgrounds of soft blue and pink. At the top of the north-west window is the martyrdom of St. Woerstan, in the background of which appear the Malvern Hills. The next most important glass occupies the large embrasure at the end of the north transept, which, however, is somewhat reduced from its original proportions by having the lower panels in some of the side lancets walled up. The glass here is not so disarranged as in the east window, and we are able to decipher portraits of Henry VII., his queen, and members of his family. Something out of the ordinary is the large blue corona spread over the central part, serving to tie three of the lancets into one picture. Interesting details occur in the "Adoration of the Magi" (third from the right in lower row). In the west wall at the north-west corner of this transept are single figures in canopy, two rows of three each, one above the other. The great west window is filled with fragments brought from the nave clerestory, and is mostly figures and canopies. Taken as a whole, the glass in this church provides a delightful experience. It is very typical of the lighter tones that came in with the Perpendicular style, but its greatest service is in teaching the lesson that, no matter how much a window's design may have suffered, it will carry its message of beauty, if only the original colour scheme be sound. The fine encaustic tiles, not only in the flooring, but also set in the walls, are of local make. Some date from the fourteenth century, and others from the fifteenth, at which latter time Great Malvern enjoyed a wide reputation for their manufacture. Other examples may be seen at Little Malvern and at Tewkesbury. LITTLE MALVERN About three miles from the centre of Great Malvern lies the hamlet of Little Malvern, dominated by its priory, now used as a parish church. Of the original building, built by the Benedictines, little now remains but the chancel and a great perpendicular tower, separated from it by an oakwood screen rich with carved vines. The chief attraction, however, is the east window, which, on the whole, is well preserved. Its story can best be told in the words of that ancient writer Nash: "The windows were curiously painted, rivalling those of Great Mal. In the E. wind. of the choir are 6 large compartments: in the middle one is represented Edward IV. in a robe of ermine with an imperial crown on his head; in the next compartment is his queen with a like diadem; in the pane between them is painted his oldest son, afterwards Edward V., his surcoat azure and his robe gules turned down and lined with ermine; and in the next panel is his brother Richard, Duke of York, his surcoat also gules, and his robe azure turned down one row to the feet, on his head a Duke's coronet." ROSS Twenty-seven miles below Hereford on the Wye (but only fifteen by road), there rises a small but steep bluff overlooking the sinuous windings of the river, and straggling down from its top is built the town of Ross. Pope, in his "Moral Essays," would give the credit for every one of the town's agreeable features to a certain John Kyrle, who died in 1724 at the advanced age of ninety. The elaborately thorough Pope credits him with all the civic virtues, and appends an inventory of benefits, which includes the benches disposed along the hill's brow for those wishing to view the landscape, the causeways, bridges, &c., not omitting minute charities to the villagers. Some members of the legal and medical professions may join the writer in esteeming the poet fortunate in that he did not fall into our clutches after he had penned the following lines: "Is any sick? the Man of Ross relieves, Prescribes, attends, the med'cine makes, and gives. Is there a variance; enter but his door, Balk'd are the Courts, and contest is no more. Despairing Quacks with curses fled the place, And vile Attorneys, now an useless race." This public benefactor lies buried in the northern side of the chancel, and near by there comes through an opening in the wall a large vine, rooted outside but bearing its leaves within the church. The glass here is limited in extent but very delicate and charming. It fills the eastern end of the chancel, which extends a short distance further to the east than do the two ample additions opening out from each side of that central portion of the church. These chancel windows are composed of four lancets each, and the treatment is the same throughout, viz., a single figure within a canopy. The personages are of good size, occupying about half of the entire height of the canopy. Because the windows are near the ground, Ross affords an excellent opportunity to examine the peculiarly delicate drawing on English glass at this time, which far excelled any contemporary French work. The architectural details of the canopies are carefully worked out, and each is surmounted by seven slender pinnacles standing out clearly against their red background. Up the sides and into the cusps of each lancet runs a light border. A very sober use is made of the tints throughout, yielding a harmonious _ensemble_ of colour, well set off by the soft brownish shades used in the depicted architecture. WARWICK Warwick Castle should be visited in order to inspect one of the most perfectly preserved strongholds of the Middle Ages, the many features of interest which it contains and its picturesque situation on the river Avon, rather than for the small amount of domestic stained glass (of the grey and yellow stain type) to be found in the long corridor and large banquet-room. Although worth seeing if one is there, it is not of sufficient importance to cause a special visit. There are also some well-preserved panels showing coats of arms at the Leicester Hospital, but this is a form of glazing frequent in England, and it is no better here than in many other places. There is, however, glass of great value and beauty in the famous Beauchamp Chapel which adjoins, on the south, the chancel of St. Mary's Church. Much interest is added to this glazing, because the contract for it (dated June 23, 1447) is so full of details and specifications as to throw valuable light on the conditions and requirements of the craft at that time. After one's eyes have become accustomed to the soft-hued English Perpendicular glass, then in the height of its favour, it is very difficult to realise that these windows, with their strong colouring, are of the same period as the delicately toned ones which we have seen at Great Malvern and elsewhere. The explanation is provided in the contract. It there appears that the executors of Richard Earl of Warwick were not satisfied with the then prevailing English system of soft tints, and also that they were sufficiently advised of the state of the art on the other side of the Channel to realise that the richer hues which they demanded could be obtained in France, even though it was impossible or difficult in England. We read that they required the glazier, John Prudde of Westminster, to work "with Glasse beyond the Seas, and with no Glasse of England." Again and again they insist on richness of hue; not only must he glaze "in most fine and curious colours," but it is specified just what he shall use, for they provide him with a selection "of the finest colours of blew, yellow, red, purpure, sanguine and violet, and all other colours that shall be most necessary." They require that his designs be made by another artist, and even those must be "in rich colouring." The contract contains another criticism of earlier English methods, for they say "of white Glasse, green Glasse, black Glasse, he shall put in as little as shall be needful." He complied with his requirements pretty strictly, and further, he used a glass so hard and tough that its surface has resisted the disintegration which the weather so frequently caused in English glass of that period. Unfortunately all the ancient panes are not in place. The entire east window is filled with them, although a close scrutiny reveals that several of its panels are brought from side windows. Along the sides of the chapel the original glazing is only to be found in the tracery lights and the upper parts of the embrasures, what little there was left in the lower panes having been used to eke out the east window. The effect of this latter is complete and splendid. The richness of its colours is assisted by the golden rays which are so plentiful in the central part of the picture. The use of the leads is very elaborated and painstaking, many of the folds of the garments being delineated in this laborious manner. Two schemes are used for the backgrounds, one, red with lozenge-shaped squares enclosed by white and gold strapwork, and the other, blue with similarly bordered squares. Note in the traceries the red angels, poised upon golden wheels. The most striking feature of this tracery glazing is the liberal use throughout of written music, generally supported by angels. In some instances psalms are written on the white sheets, but more often it is staves of notes. Above the most easterly pair of windows on each side are groups of angels playing musical instruments and walking about on a blue sky dotted over with white stars, much resembling the apples on the trees of children's storybooks. One should observe what an agreeable use is made of these small angels that people the traceries. The glazier has skilfully avoided the ugly effect which would have been produced had the white sheets of music or psalms been continued in a horizontal line around the chapel, and has so waved this white line up and down that it becomes as decorative as the labels so common in German glazing. This appearance of music on glass is rare in England and rarer still in France. The rich colours demanded by the Earl's executors must have produced a splendid effect in this chapel when all the embrasures were glazed as sumptuously as is the east window. Enough remains, however, to make the Beauchamp Chapel an important station in any stained glass pilgrimage. On the other side of the chancel is the vestry, into whose small east window have been collected six diminutive panels formerly in the chancel's east window. They date from 1370 and contrast markedly with some small enamelled scenes in white and yellow stain (dated 1600) placed in the same embrasure with them. While the contrast is too sharp to be agreeable, we are afforded a comfortable, near-at-hand opportunity to observe the great strides which this craft took during that interval of time. COVENTRY An English friend of a flippant turn of mind once remarked to the writer that the three most famous rides in English history were undoubtedly the Charge of the Light Brigade, John Gilpin's famous infringement of speed regulations, and Lady Godiva's effort on behalf of the citizens of Coventry--and that the last was the most praiseworthy, because it had really accomplished something! Viewed in this light, the episode of Lady Godiva passes from a matter of local interest to the higher plane of national pride;--upon the equity of this promotion it is certain that every citizen of quaint Coventry will agree. If, peradventure, there shall have intruded into our company any who love not glass, let us protest with Falstaff, "I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat." The distant prospect of that Warwickshire city is beautified by the three famous spires that proudly thrust their red sandstone peaks high above the huddled housetops. The ancient flavour of the place is preserved for us by the numerous old houses, one of which has in its topmost window a wooden figure, "Peeping Tom," that wicked exception who proved the rule that the worthy citizens could be relied upon to be loyal and true even under the application of that most searching test, curiosity. One of the three great spires rises from St. Michael's Church, a building of very great size, about whose spacious interior are disposed many Perpendicular fragments, some arranged in bands along the clerestory, and others filling two windows (each of four lancets) that face each other in the chancel. These panels afford a useful part of the decoration, even in their present kaleidoscopic condition, and their colours put to shame those of the modern windows near them. [Illustration: GUILDHALL, COVENTRY Splendid row of ancient English Kings, and below, a great tapestry. In the centre of the window and again on the tapestry appears Henry VI, who was a member of the Guild. Handsome example of mediæval hall] Just across the narrow street is one of the finest examples in England of stained glass used to decorate a municipal building devoted to secular purposes. It is to be found at the north end of St. Mary's Hall, and is as admirably placed as it is excellently composed. Across that entire end of the spacious hall is a great window occupying the whole upper half of the wall, and broken up into nine wide lancets surmounted by tracery lights of the usual Perpendicular form. Across the entire lower half of the wall is suspended a long tapestry, which we shall see accords with the subjects appearing in the glass above it. Nowhere can there be found a great window and a large tapestry used with such harmony of purpose and result. History tells us that Henry VI. took so pronounced an interest in the Guild of Coventry that he was regularly inducted into its membership in 1450, and therefore we are not surprised that his effigy occupies the middle lancet of the window. Inspection reveals that he is the central figure of a gallery of kings, for he is flanked on the left by Henry III., Richard Coeur de Lion, William the Conqueror, and King Arthur; and on the right by Edward III., Henry IV., Henry V., and the Emperor Constantine (who was born in Britain). All these royalties are in full armour, except their crowned heads, and they all stand firmly poised with their feet well apart. The backgrounds are unusually interesting, and consist of upright strips of red and blue separated by narrow lines of yellow, the strips being sprinkled over with the letter M, because St. Mary is the patron saint of the hall. These figures all stand beneath canopies, and in the traceries above is still other canopy work, serving as background for gaily tinctured coats of arms. One, displaying a black eagle upon a yellow field, is said to be the blazon of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, Lady Godiva's husband, "that grim Earl who ruled in Coventry." This hall was finished in 1414, and the glazier is said to have been the same Thornton to whom we are indebted for the east window at York Minster. Henry VI. appears again in the tapestry below, this time attended by his wife, Queen Margaret of Anjou, who shared his interest in Coventry. Nor were these the only royalties to feel a kindly interest in this city, for we also read that Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York were enrolled as members of the Guild in 1499. Upon this tapestry there is gathered a numerous company of individuals attending upon Henry VI. and his wife, who are kneeling in their midst, while between them is a female figure labelled "Justitia." Local tradition says this label is a later substitute for a religious name, but whether that be true or not, a tapestry made for a Guild Hall in which justice was administered might well have originally had "Justitia" as its central figure. The harmony between the splendid window and the adjoining tapestry finds an answering note in the ancient wooden ceiling with its quaintly carved bosses, and also in the fine wooden gallery at the south end, against which are arranged many suits of armour. Our visit will not be complete without a peep into the spacious kitchen below, and also into a small muniment-room above, which is proved by a carefully preserved letter, bearing Queen Elizabeth's signature, to have once served as a prison for Mary Queen of Scots. YORK An account of the Early English glass at York will be found at p. 57, and of that of the Decorated period at p. 76. The huge choir of the cathedral abounds in splendid specimens of the glazier's art during the Perpendicular period. Here is collected all that the minster possesses of that epoch except a few fragments in the east and west aisles of the great south transept. So attractive is the manner in which the illumination of the choir is effected, as to inspire many poetic descriptions of its windows. One author says that they "remind one of particles of sunlight on running water"; another speaks of "the glittering screens of colour and soaring shafts of stone." With this latter author we are disposed to take issue upon his use of the word "glittering" in describing glass of this period, for that description more properly belongs to the earlier brightly hued mosaic medallions. In fact, so soft and delicate are the colour and design upon Perpendicular glass that one is apt to neglect the picture which it bears. Indeed, one might say that the service performed at that time by the picture was but to lend coherence to the window, or, perhaps better, to prevent the colours from being unmeaningly kaleidoscopic when viewed from near at hand. Winston says that the earliest windows in the choir date from the close of the fourteenth century, and are the third from the east in the south aisle, the third and fourth from the east in the north clerestory, and the fourth from the east in the south clerestory. Note the early Tree of Jesse of this period in the third embrasure from the west in the south choir aisle. The other windows of these aisles east of the small easterly transepts, as well as the lancets on the east side of the great westerly transepts, are from the time of Henry IV., while all the others date from Henry V. and VI., chiefly from the latter. These small easterly transepts rejoice in the possession of two large windows, one at the north and the other at the south end, the former dedicated to St. William and the latter to St. Cuthbert. In the latter, which is seventy-three feet by sixteen feet, appear members of the House of Lancaster. Beginning at the eastern end of the north aisle, we shall find that the first window possesses a few fragments, but that the next three are among the finest here, their combination of greys, browns and blues being noticeably good. The next three are paler in tone and not satisfactory. The Crucifixion at the end of this aisle in the east wall is excellent. Its companion at the east end of the south aisle is also fine in both colour and design. Observe the drawing of the heads in the second window from the east in this aisle. The last one of all is French of about the end of the sixteenth century, and was brought here from Rouen by Lord Carlisle in 1804. Fine as it undeniably is, its rich Renaissance hues do not harmonise with the lower tints of its earlier English neighbours. The examination of these minor possessions of this part of the edifice now leads us up to its crowning glory, the great east window. The nine lofty lights are subdivided into three groups of three each by two mullions thicker than the others. All these mullions are swerved above and then disposed in accordance with the best Perpendicular traditions. Like the large windows of the east transepts there is here a double plane of stonework reaching half-way up the face of the embrasure. At the point where this double stonework stops there is carried across its top a gallery right against the face of the glass. So vast is this great surface (seventy-eight feet by thirty-two feet) that the gallery would escape notice if it were not pointed out. The two hundred panels of figures which here appear depict in the upper half Old Testament scenes from the creation of the world to the death of Absalom; below are scenes from the Book of Revelations, and lowest of all a series of kings and archbishops. The contract for the glazing is dated 1405 and calls for the completion of the work in three years. Even if the rest of its great wealth of windows be disregarded, York Cathedral, by virtue of this vast screen of colour and of the exquisite group of the "Five Sisters," would rank as one of the most notable points of interest in the world for the lover of stained glass. [Illustration: EAST WINDOW, YORK MINSTER Tremendous sheet of colour, 78 by 32 feet. Lower half of stone frame built in a double plane, and carries a gallery across face of the glass] Several churches of this city also contain Perpendicular windows of great interest. We have already visited most of these to inspect their Decorated remains (_see_ p. 78), and, for the sake of regularity, will now take them up in the same order when viewing their Perpendicular glazing. All Saints' in North Street, tucked snugly away among its surrounding buildings and only accessible by means of a narrow alley, is the most interesting of all the smaller churches. It is, fortunately, in the possession of a rector (Rev. P. J. Shaw) so keenly alive to its store of beauties that he has preserved them in a handsome volume, and thus made their enjoyment possible for those who live far away. Fine as are the Decorated windows already described, the Perpendicular ones are finer still. They fill almost all the embrasures not occupied by the earlier glass. Most of them are in the usual figure-and-canopy style, although here groups generally replace the figures, and the details of the architecture are worked out in a painstaking way. A very fine one is the east window with its three lancets containing respectively St. Christopher carrying Christ, St. Ann instructing the youthful Mary, and John the Baptist, while below and in the side compartments are the donors, and in the central one a composition representing the Trinity. Still more interesting is the embrasure containing the "Six Corporal Acts of Mercy" with its engaging little groups, of which, perhaps, the quaintest is the upper central one, "Giving Drink to the Thirsty." But the most interesting of all, indeed a famous window, is the eastmost in the north aisle. It is of the kind called "Bede" window from its showing a bede or prayer for the donors. The fifteen small scenes under their squatty canopies are a most interesting representation of the last fifteen days of the world as recounted in the "Prick of Conscience" by Richard Rolle, a learned and pious writer who died 1349. The story begins at the lower left-hand corner and goes to the right. Notice the careful realism of the timid worthies in the scene whose label describes it as "ye XI day sal men come owt Of their holes and wende abowt." In St. Dennis (Walmgate) the chief remnants of Perpendicular glass are gathered in the central east window, but they are not to be compared for excellence with their earlier neighbours. So, too, in St. Martin-cum-Gregory the Perpendicular remains cannot vie with the Decorated specimens. There is, however, a fine picture of St. George killing the dragon in the central lancet of the westmost embrasure in the south aisle. Holy Trinity (Goodram Gate) has a large east window dating from about 1470, whose five roomy lancets contain single figures in the upper canopies and groups within the lower ones. Especially note the central lowest panel, for there appear three men intended to represent the Trinity. This is said to be the only instance in English glass where the Trinity is thus symbolised. On either side of this large window are smaller two-lanceted ones containing figures in canopy. All this glass is supposed to date from the reign of Henry VI., as does also that at St. Martin's (Coney Street). St. Martin's is not only valuable as affording an example of the general arrangement of designs throughout an interior, but it specially rejoices in a great west window that is a real delight. Its five lights set forth the life of St. Martin, and from the records we learn that it was erected with funds received from a bequest dated 1447. Three splendid tiers of canopies rise one above the other across the five lights, while below, where the shadow of an adjoining building might have robbed figures of their brilliancy or interest, the space is filled with elaborate quarry work. Along the clerestory are four-lanceted lights with large saintly figures upon white quarries and blazons above them, each lancet bordered in colour. Kneeling donors reveal whose piety contributed to these windows. St. Michael's (Spurrier's Gate) has quite an amount of Perpendicular glass which is in good condition owing to having been recently releaded. The windows along the south aisle beginning at the east are each four-lanceted; in the first appear the nine choirs of angels, and in the next two the genealogy of Christ. In the south-west window are Biblical scenes, while in the north-west one there has been collected heads, armorial bearings and conventional designs. Fragments have also been gathered into the south-east window, including heads of three kings and a bishop. SALISBURY At p. 30 will be found an account of the Early English glass at Salisbury. As one reads history, the kings and nobles are apt to stand out in such sharp relief against the background of less illustrious folk that one often neglects to inquire into the nature of that background, if, indeed, it be not entirely ignored. Nevertheless, the foreign campaigns of the English kings could never have been carried on without the "sinews of war," which brings us abruptly to the unromantic necessity of considering that very large portion of the community who stayed at home and paid the taxes and did other unattractive but necessary background work. Chief among these useful people were the great merchants of England, and of these none were more important than those who dealt in wool. Men of their significance in the financial world naturally lived in fine houses, so we are not surprised to find such edifices as Crosby Hall in London or the hall of John Halle at Salisbury. We read that this Halle and one other "merchant of the staple" bought all the wool that came from Salisbury Plain, which fact helps to explain how he came to be four times chosen Mayor of Salisbury, and also sent to represent the Burgesses when the king had occasion to summon Parliament in London. His handsome hall is lighted by numerous windows, retaining to this day most of their original glazing. Upon them appear sundry heraldic blazons, and also the merchant's mark of John Halle, which is repeated again on the stone transom of the great fireplace. If we are to venture a date for the building, we may select the year 1471, and for the following reasons: the records show that John Halle bought the land in 1467; the window above the fireplace displays that honest worthy in brave attire with motley hose supporting a banner whereon appear the arms of Edward IV., but surcharged with the plain label of three points, indicating that they belong to his son the Prince of Wales (murdered in the Tower); on the other window appear the arms of Warwick, the "kingmaker." Now a glance into history reveals that the Prince was born November 4, 1470, during the time that his mother was obtaining sanctuary in Westminster Abbey, his father having fled the country. Further, we know that his father returned and defeated Warwick at the battle of Barnet, April 12, 1471, which defeat cost the great Earl his life. It is fair to conjecture that the Warwick arms would not have been put upon these windows after his death, nor those of the Prince of Wales before young Edward was born, so there remains to us only the period between his birth and Warwick's death (viz., November 4, 1470 to April 12, 1471) as the probable time of the hall's erection. The embrasures were glazed in uniform manner (except the one over the fireplace already described), and they repay close examination. Within coloured borders are quarry lights across which are drawn bands slanting downward from left to right which bear the word "Drede" often repeated. Up and down the lancets are placed gaily tinted shields of arms. These slanting bands, marked with motto or single words, were not uncommon at that time; interesting examples are to be seen at Ockwell's Manor (Berks), Gatton Chapel (Surrey), and Benedict's Chapel (Peterborough), &c. It has been suggested that the word "Drede" used here is a rebus composed of the initials of the words "dominus rex Edwardus domina Elizabeth," referring to Edward IV. and his Queen. The handsome pointed roof assists the windows and the fireplace in completing a most pleasing interior, giving one a high opinion of the style in which once lived John Halle, the great wool merchant of Salisbury. WINCHESTER The oldest known road in all England is the "Pilgrim's Way" which used to run along the southern coast from the neighbourhood of Salisbury to Canterbury. In very early times it started from Stonehenge, but when that place yielded in importance to the newer settlement of Sarum, and it in turn to Salisbury, the section from Stonehenge to Alton was abandoned because of the new demands of traffic from Salisbury to Alton. Many parts of it are still easily traceable and are worth study by those interested in historic national highways. Maurice Hewlett, in that charming book in the mediæval manner, "New Canterbury Tales," has his pilgrims proceed not from London, as did Chaucer's people, but along this very road from Salisbury to Winchester and thence to Canterbury. Nothing is known of Stonehenge, the earliest starting-point of this road--it lies hidden behind the veil on the hither side of which history begins. Likewise, very ancient are the traditions which we shall find at Winchester. As we wend our way along this time-worn highway toward the latter town, we are (in the words of Le Gallienne) "now entering on a region where the names of Saxon kings are still on the lips of peasants, where the battlefields have been green for a thousand years, and the Norman Conquest is spoken of as elsewhere we speak of the French Revolution--a comparatively recent convulsion of politics." To us, pondering upon these ancient thoughts, there comes forth to meet us from Royal Winchester a strange array of "Visions, like Alcestis, Brought from underlands of memory." We seem to see Alfred the Great and his tutor St. Swithin; King Canute, whose imperious sway stopped only at controlling the tide; William of Wykeham, the great builder of cathedrals, churches and colleges; Jane Austen, friend of us all; the gentle Isaac Walton, and many another. Shades and visions of shades! Nay, even the lovely New Forest through which we are travelling seems peopled with ghosts from homes destroyed to provide space for it by the ruthless Norman conqueror William--ghosts that old legends say winged the arrow that here slew his son William Rufus. And is not Winchester itself the ghost of the kingly capitals it has been--the Saxon capital of Alfred, who here wrote the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; the Danish capital of Canute, whose sway extended far out over Scandinavia; the Norman capital of William ruling both sides of the Channel? In harmony with this weird ghostliness is a strange story that has to do with the building of the cathedral. William's Bishop, Walkelin, received a grant from his royal master of all the wood that he could cut from the forest of Hannepings during the space of four days. When William rode forth to see how much had been removed for the purposes of the new building, he at first thought magic had been invoked, for lo! the entire forest was gone! The only magic used proved to be the great energy shown by the Bishop in collecting such a horde of workmen as to perform this tremendous feat in so short a time. Stately and impressive as is the long grey cathedral, and pregnant as are its memories, there are others in Winchester equally potent to conjure up the distant past, for in the County Hall we shall see suspended against the wall the Table Round of King Arthur and his knights. Tennyson, in his description of King Arthur's Hall, shows himself a stout advocate of how glorious a part stained glass can play in a scheme of decoration. He says: "And, brother, had you known our hall within, Broader and higher than any in all the lands! Where twelve great windows blazon Arthur's wars And all the light that falls upon the board Streams thro' the twelve great battles of our King. Nay, one there is, and at the eastern end, Wealthy with wandering lines of mount and mere Where Arthur finds the brand Excalibur." The cathedral, although giving the impression of spaciousness, does not receive full credit for its size--as a matter of fact it is the largest in England. According to the delightful English custom, it lies within a charming Close of green lawn and trees, while on one side a narrow passage called the Slype, quaintly inscribed, gives access to the Deanery, Library, &c., close by, which buildings add so much to the picturesque effect of the whole. Within the portal we shall find the remains of many ancient great ones, some in mortuary chests placed high aloft, and others interred in the customary manner beneath slabs of the pavement. Walpole justly says, "How much power and ambition under half a dozen stones!" The remains of old glass in this church are more interesting than numerous. Cromwell's ruffians here outdid themselves. Not content with their usual method of smashing the windows as high up as they could thrust their pikes, they broke open the ancient mortuary chests containing the remains of early kings and ecclesiastics, and hurled through the upper window panes the bones of Canute, William Rufus, and many another long dead ruler--a gruesome destruction indeed! The most important examples of stained glass date from just after the death of William of Wykeham (1404). So interested was this great man in our gentle art that he placed in his will minute instructions covering the glazing of the windows of his beloved cathedral. He ordains that it be commenced in the nave at the first embrasure west of the new work done by him and then proceed "bene et honeste et decenter" easterly along the south aisle and south clerestory, then, provided any money remains unexpended, the north aisle and the north clerestory. There are more remains of his beneficence on the north side than on the south. Four of his canopied figures have been moved to the first embrasure from the east in the choir clerestory. All of this glass is quite similar to that which he installed in the antechapel of New College at Oxford. There are earlier Perpendicular remains in the great west window, in those at the west end of the nave aisles, and in the first of the south aisle. If it were not for the west window with its deliciously mellow effect, Winchester would hardly have been included in this tour, for the remainder of the glass, though of interest, is not important. One should proceed eastward as far as the transept before turning to look at the west window, for thus he will be able to enjoy its effect without having first learned that it is really only a jumble of old glass put together every which way, another example of colour outlasting design. Strangely enough, its soft grey-greenish tones remind one of the Five Sisters at York, earlier by two centuries. A nearer approach not only reveals the disordered array of fragments but also permits one to remark a few of the original figures and canopies in the upper left-hand corner. The nine lofty lights are subdivided into three groups of three each by means of two of the mullions which are thicker than the others; these two swerve off to the left and right when nearing the top in the usual Perpendicular manner. An unusual feature is the fact that the mullions of the window have been carried down over the face of the stone wall below, thus agreeably tying together the wall of glass and the supporting one of stone. In this window there are two circles of geometric patterns, made up of early Decorated fragments. Glass dating from the end of the reign of Henry VI. is to be seen in the three most westerly embrasures of the clerestory on the north, and the two most easterly on the south. These latter are from six to ten inches too short for the embrasures, thus indicating that they have been transferred from elsewhere. [Illustration: NAVE, WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL The excellent effect produced by the Fifteenth Century fragments with which this window is glazed proves that colour is more important than design in glass. Note swerving to right and left of two principal mullions, thus relieving a monotony of upright lines] Our first glance toward the east makes one inclined to quarrel with what seems to be the excessive height of the gracefully carved reredos, which appears to encroach upon the east window and to leave only so much of it visible as to make it too wide for its height. A closer view exculpates the reredos, for it turns out that the window is placed so unusually high in the wall that none of it is concealed by the great altar. Its seven lights separate into a central group of three and two side ones of two each. The original glazing has been replaced by some given about 1525 by Bishop Fox, which, however, is now much restored; there appear upon it his arms and motto, "Est deo Gracia." The top central light has some of the earlier Wykeham glass. The manufacture of glass had much improved by the time of Bishop Fox, but the effect of this window cannot be compared with the larger one to the west. From fragments observable in some side windows, and also in the traceries of both the north and south aisles of the choir, it seems that the Fox glass was also used there. It is to be regretted that there is not on view the contents of two boxes in the cloisters of Winchester School, where are stored the Wykeham panels taken from the west embrasures of New College antechapel to make room for Sir Joshua Reynolds' "Virtues." Before leaving Winchester one should take time to see the ancient church of St. Cross. In 1136 Henry de Blois commanded that every one who demanded a piece of bread and a draught of beer at the gate of this church should receive it, a quaint echo of mediæval hospitality. ST. NEOT The earliest appreciation by the outside world of the great natural wealth of England was evidenced by those perilous voyages out into the unknown sea beyond the Pillars of Hercules, undertaken by the early Phoenicians in order to trade for tin with the inhabitants of what we now call Cornwall. By one of the odd philological quirks of slang, the word "tin" is now endowed with a meaning inclusive of every form of wealth--a strange modern acknowledgment of the earliest form of English value. Many of these ancient mines are still worked, as we shall see for ourselves when we visit St. Neot. This centuries-old continuance of tin-mining is strongly in accord with all things Cornish, for in that westernmost corner of England change does not intrude, and as things have been so they continue to be. We will assume that the pilgrim has reached Plymouth, that western outpost of Devon, seated beside her ample harbour, whose many bays and estuaries running up into the land seem to symbolise Father Neptune laying his mighty hand upon the smiling country. Ferrying across to the Cornish side, we proceed by pleasant woody roads giving glimpses of Plymouth Harbour, and on to solid stone-built Liskeard. Pushing past along the high road that leads to Bodmin and the Land's End, we shall be at some pains to notice a little road that, four miles beyond Liskeard, turns off to the right up a narrow valley. A mile of pretty windings past several ancient but still active tin mines, brings us to St. Neot, snugly stowed away among the hills. Here, in this small community, which shows no trace of ever having been any larger, nor any indication of becoming so in the future, stands one of the most interesting glass shrines in England. The church has the appearance of many another of the Perpendicular school--a type so common throughout the land. One notices that it is lighted by an ample number of large windows, each of four lancets. Once inside the door, however, and the change from the usual to the extraordinary is immediate. The roomy interior is practically unbroken by the usual divisions of chancel, nave, &c., and this very appearance of spaciousness assists admirably in showing off the windows to the greatest advantage. The oldest ones are at diagonally opposite ends of the church from each other, and are found in the north-westerly and south-easterly corners. The many small groups or scenes (each installed in a canopy) into which these are subdivided render their legends all the more attractive, because they depict so many different points in the story's development. The architecture of their canopy frames shows that they date from rather early in the fifteenth century. In addition to this more common style of glazing there is another type, which has a number of examples here--a saint standing upon a bracket and displayed against a quarry background, but lacking a canopy. These date from a little later in the Perpendicular period. This bracket feature is very English, and may also be seen at Nettlestead and West Wickham in Kent. So pleased were the parishioners with these two types that, when some new windows were presented in 1528-29-30 (now seen along the north wall), the glazier did not work in the then prevailing Renaissance method, but designed his story of St. Neot's life after the earlier many-scened type, as well as copying some of them after that of the bracketed saints. One of these sixteenth century windows was presented by the young men of the parish, another by the young women, a third by the married women, and the rest by private individuals or families. Below the two given by the married and the unmarried women are a row of kneeling donors which afford an interesting study of female costume. In the south wall is a window given by the Mutton family. Here the glazier did not copy earlier types, but struck out along a new line, making a very graceful use of winding scrolls. Extremely pleasing as is the effect of all these windows, the result would have been even more gratifying had it not been for a restoration which befell the church in 1820, and which, when it subsided, left behind it not only three unsatisfactory new windows, but also certain misguided retouchings of the old ones. Even this gentle criticism must not be allowed to affect the fact that the _ensemble_ of the interior here is delightful and one of the most complete in England. Nor is this general effect one whit less engaging than the host of quaint details revealed by a close investigation of the glass, especially in the case of the Noah window (most easterly of the south wall), and that devoted to St. Neot (most westerly of the north wall). The mediæval idea of Noah's Ark is very diverting, as is also the artist's idea of how most of his wild animals must have looked. Then, too, the attention paid by good St. Neot to the sacred fish which his over-zealous servant had wickedly roasted and broiled is most entertaining. For beauty, and for interest as well, this noteworthy set of windows in far-off Cornwall amply repay the length of the trip necessary to seek them out. RENAISSANCE In England there is not to be found the same awakening and change in art at the opening of the sixteenth century which is encountered in France, and is known to us as the Renaissance. This revival of art reached the English at second hand, having been transmitted to them through the French. The soldiers of Louis XII. and Francis I., who fought in Italy at the close of the fifteenth century, could not help but see and feel the new movement in matters artistic then bursting into bloom, and they carried home with them not only memories of what they had seen, but also many fine examples in their spoils of war. The tales and trophies of these soldiers proved a great force in starting the French Renaissance. One of its first fruits was the change from the then flamboyant Gothic to the classical style in architecture. In glass it was first evidenced by substituting canopies of classic form for the Gothic ones which had been so much in vogue. The pictures they enclosed were gradually widened until it soon became necessary to discard altogether the canopy frame, which, on the passing of the narrow Gothic embrasures, was seen to have outlived its usefulness. While this awakening in art ultimately reached England, it came slowly and never gained the influence it attained in France. The English ear and eye were not surprised and delighted as were the French by the return of soldiery laden with artistic spoils and enthusiastic over the new beauties which they had seen in Italy. Art in England developed quietly, steadily, as was but natural, lacking, as it did, this sudden impetus from the outside. There is another, and for us, a far more regrettable difference between those two countries during the sixteenth century, in that very little good glass was then made in England, while France was constantly adding to her wealth of windows during all of this, her great period of artistic revival. Just as the golden age of glass seemed to die in France at the end of the sixteenth century, so, in England, it perished at the end of the fifteenth, a whole century earlier. There are, however, some fine examples of the sixteenth century in England even though much of it (as at Lichfield) will prove to have come from abroad. What we shall find at Cambridge is delightful, in fact so fine is it that one must deeply regret that there are so few towns on the roster of this epoch. A modest amount of glass was made in England during the seventeenth century (as, for example, the work of the Crabeth Brothers and Von Linge in certain Oxford colleges), but as this is only fairly good and was, moreover, made by foreigners, we will not take our pilgrim to see it because its lesser interest might detract from his delightful memories of the glorious Decorated and Perpendicular windows. In English sixteenth century glass it is not easy to trace the transition from the Perpendicular canopies to the large brilliant pictures, which can be so readily studied in France. The English glazier would almost seem to have realised abruptly the beauty of the large picture windows, and to have transferred his allegiance suddenly to this new method. Delightful examples are to be seen at Shrewsbury, but most satisfying of all is the very complete series around the chapel of King's College, Cambridge, that gem of English architecture. Lichfield must also be visited to view its Flemish windows about the Lady chapel, and St. Margaret's Church (close to Westminster Abbey) for its east window of the same provenance. Concerning English glass of this period it may be said that it possesses all the rich colour treatment of its French contemporaries, and, moreover, that it has the added advantage of a more careful use of the leads in providing outlines for the designs. Almost insignificant as are these sixteenth century remains when compared with the innumerable ones across the Channel, their great beauty goes far towards compensating us for their lack of numbers. RENAISSANCE TOURS The seven towns containing noteworthy Renaissance glass fall naturally into two groups, one to the north and the other to the south. Supposing we begin with the one of greater distances, the first stage, after viewing the London windows, will be Cambridge. Thence we go north-westerly to Lichfield, and, lastly, due west to Shrewsbury. If the pilgrim has not already visited Shrewsbury on our Decorated tour, he will find an account of its sixteenth century glazing at p. 85. The second tour is to the south, and not only are all the points near London, but close to each other as well. The first will be Guildford, which lies in Surrey, as does also Gatton Park, the next in order. Twenty miles to the east, over the Kentish border, is Knole, which concludes the tour. [Illustration: MAP OF RENAISSANCE TOUR] If a stay of any length is made in Cambridge, occasion may be taken to use it as a centre for side-trips to Margaretting, Levrington and Lowick. So, too, proximity may serve as an excuse for seeing Nettlestead and West Wickham on our way back to London from Knole. LONDON London, that capital of the world, contains no examples of early glass _in situ_, and it is not until we have arrived at the study of Renaissance windows that she provides something to engage our attention. It must not be overlooked that there is an excellent collection of early glass at the Victoria and Albert Museum which, by the way, is most advantageously displayed, thanks to the manner in which all light is cut off save that coming through the coloured panes: it is unfortunate that the same good taste and judgment is not in evidence at the Louvre and other great museums. Some of the original mosaic medallions from the Sainte Chapelle, Paris, are here preserved. After all, though this South Kensington exhibit is undeniably good, glass appeals to one less in a museum than when seen in its natural home, a church. Two London churches have interesting examples of Renaissance glass, which, however, came from abroad, the east window in St. Margaret's, Westminster, and three in the east wall of St. George's, Hanover Square. Westminster Abbey is generally entered by the north transept door, and almost every one of its visitors overlooks the modest little parish church of St. Margaret, standing only a few paces off, so completely dwarfed and rendered almost insignificant is it by the imposing proportions of its impressive neighbour. Nevertheless, small as is this interior, it possesses a window which the Abbey would be proud to have, one of such pre-eminent excellence as to draw from Winston the statement that "the harmonious arrangement of the colouring is worthy of attention. It is the most beautiful work in this respect that I am acquainted with." It completely fills the large eastern embrasure, and one needs but a glance to recognise it as a Renaissance work of an excellent type. The three central lancets show Christ between the thieves, and below, the Holy Women, and soldiers. The drops of blood from His wounded side fall into chalices held by three angels. The repentant thief has his soul carried away by an angel to heaven, while a devil is mocking the other one. On the north side is St. George, and below him a kneeling figure which provides the only authentic portrait of Arthur Prince of Wales. On the left is Katharine of Aragon, the _fiancée_ of Prince Arthur, and later the first wife of Henry VIII. Above her head appears her badge, the pomegranate. As no stranger tale could be related of the vicissitudes to which a glass window could be subjected than the adventures of this window during the 300 years that elapsed between its making and its installation at St. Margaret's, the writer is moved to set it out in full in the words of the historian of that church, Mrs. J. E. Sinclair: "The window was ordered in 1499, and took five years to be executed at Dordrecht (or, as some authorities state, at Gouda) in Holland. It was intended as a gift from King Ferdinand the Catholic and his wife, Queen Isabella, to Henry VII. to commemorate the marriage of their children, and was originally purposed to be erected in the Lady chapel of Westminster Abbey, then in course of construction by Henry VII., and now generally designated by his name. As Prince Arthur died in 1502, before the arrival of the window in England, and as it was the policy of Henry VII. to avoid the repayment of the widow's dowry by her marriage to his younger son, for obvious reasons, the window was never erected in the Lady chapel of the Abbey of St. Peter. After the vicissitudes of three centuries, it has been eventually put up in St. Margaret's Church, within a very short distance of its original destination. Henry VIII., after marrying his brother's widow, naturally disliked the window, and presented it to the Abbey of Waltham, where it remained till the Dissolution of Religious Houses in 1540. Then the Abbot, with a view to its preservation, transferred it to his private chapel at New Hall in Essex. This property, strange to relate, fell at the Reformation into the hands of Sir Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, father of Queen Katharine's rival, Anne Boleyn. On the death of Sir Thomas without a male heir, Henry VIII. seized New Hall with the rest of the Boleyn patrimony, in right of his murdered wife, on behalf of her daughter Elizabeth. He then wished to alter the name of New Hall into Beaulieu, but the old nomenclature survived. Queen Elizabeth bestowed the estate on Ratcliffe, Earl of Essex, who sold it to Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. His son, in turn, sold it to General Monk, Duke of Albemarle, who caused the window to be taken down and buried in chests, thus preserving it from the iconoclastic zeal of the Puritans during the Civil War. The next owner of New Hall, John Olmius, offered the window, in a letter dated July 30, 1738, preserved in the British Museum, to the authorities of Wadham College, Oxford, for their chapel; he terms it 'one of the finest large windows of painted glass in England.' The negotiation apparently fell through, for it was bought from him by Mr. John Conyers of Copt Hall, Essex, for fifty guineas. The son of this gentleman, on February 8, 1759, sold the 'window with its stone frame, ironwork, and other appurtenances' to the Churchwardens of St. Margaret's, Westminster, for £420. This sum formed part of the Parliamentary Grant of £4500 then voted for the repair of the Parish Church of the House of Commons." The parishioners of that small sanctuary possess in this much-travelled window as inspiring and beautiful a treasure as any of those which attract so great an attendance to its mighty neighbour Westminster Abbey. [Illustration: ST. GEORGE'S, HANOVER SQUARE, LONDON A Renaissance Tree of Jesse from Belgium, readjusted to fit its new embrasures. Figures unusually large for this subject. Fine colours and drawing] Certainly one would not visit the Abbey because of its stained glass, but equally certain is it that no one who happens into its neighbourhood can resist its spell and must enter the portal, if only for a moment of old-world inspiration. Let us yield gracefully, and when we have entered look about us for what little ancient glazing remains after the visit of the Roundhead despoilers. There are fragments in the two small windows of the nave's west end, but the most important remains are those in the east window above the altar. Here are assembled pieces dating from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries, which serve as a background for Edward the Confessor and his patron saint--these figures are of the fifteenth century. Passing on to the east through the maze of kingly remains, a few steps lead us up into the magnificent Henry VII. Chapel, whose noble proportions seem to mock the modesty of its name. The ancient glory of its glass has departed, but those who interest themselves in the light which heraldry throws upon history should repair to the easternmost chapel and examine the coats of arms set out upon its panes. Here are blazoned all the Tudor badges, picturing the claims upon which that new house based its right to occupy the throne of England. The red rose of Lancaster and the white one of York are there alone and in combination. The portcullis of the Beauforts, the family of Henry VII.'s mother; the Countess of Richmond's root of daisies; the English lions; the fleur-de-lis of France; the Cadwalader dragon, a reminder of Henry's descent from the last of the British kings; the greyhound of the Nevilles, from whom Elizabeth of York descended through her grandmother, and also the badge of her father, Edward IV.--a falcon within the open fetterlock; and last, but most significant of all, the green bush with its golden crown, emblematic of Henry's hasty coronation on Bosworth Field with the diadem of Richard III. picked from off a hawthorn bush. In those strenuous days the proof of a legal title was not infrequently deferred until after the mailed fist had laid hold upon its prey! St. George's, Hanover Square, has long been famed far and wide for the great number of weddings there solemnised. It is perhaps not inappropriate that the old glass to be seen here once constituted a Tree of Jesse. The spacious window at the back of the chancel, and also those which flank it on either side, are filled with it. So large are the figures (the largest the writer has ever seen in this favourite glass design) that two of them suffice to fill each of these side windows, although their embrasures are by no means small. The glass was originally made for a church at Mechlin, Belgium, and though its figures have been necessarily readjusted to suit their new home, there remain so many sections of the vine as well as of the familiar name-labels as to make it obvious that the panels as originally combined made up a Tree of Jesse. The glazing as a whole is rich in tone, unmistakably Renaissance, and, best of all, so agreeably disposed in its present abiding-place as to make it seem as if it had always belonged there. CAMBRIDGE In the mind of most Americans the names of Oxford and Cambridge are firmly locked together--a sort of Siamese twins of University education. As a matter of fact, they are strangely different--very much more so, indeed, than any two American universities. While Oxford has her charming quadrangles with their delightful gardens, Cambridge not only has them also, but further rejoices in a very special beauty, her "Backs," those admirable contrivances for preventing overstudy on the part of too zealous students. A "Back" is that portion of a college's territory through which meanders the narrow Cam, the scenic opportunities of that slender stream being developed to the uttermost with green banks, graceful bridges, and shaded walks. The writer never pursued a course of study at Cambridge, and, therefore, is not competent to judge of the charms of her undergraduate life, but he has spent sundry happy hours canoeing on the gentle Cam, which same hours have yielded him the impression that, fascinating as the undergraduates doubtless find the lecture halls, there is much to be said in favour of idling along the delightful "Backs." Hints of the joys of Cambridge college life pervade the clever verses of Calverley, and also those of his lineal successor, the unfortunate J. K. Stephen. Chief among the many victories of the wearers of the "light blue" are those won by the oarsmen, and these victories become doubly praiseworthy when we visit the miserable little stream on which the crews have to train. That a long line of successes have been achieved in the face of such disheartening obstacles adds all the more to the credit and glory of men like the brothers Close, the giant Muttlebury, Dudley Ward, and many another. Most of the colleges follow the quadrangle system like their Oxford cousins, but there is an exception in the case of King's College. Here a handsome openwork screen of stone shuts off the street, but not the view. Through it we are able to see, standing haughtily apart from the neighbouring buildings, the beautiful chapel of the college, one of the few perfect buildings in existence. Goldwin Smith says, "Cambridge, in the Chapel of King's College, has a single glory which Oxford cannot match." It is a long, tall edifice, of the same width throughout, lighted by high windows of even size, and ceiled by graceful groups of fan vaultings of the most exquisite type. The only division of the interior is that effected by a wooden screen which runs across the middle, but, fortunately, stops before reaching a height which would interfere with an uninterrupted view of the sweep of the fan vaultings above. A full two-thirds of the wall-height is given over to lighting apertures. The records show that the two contracts for glazing the windows were dated 1527 and 1528. They require that the "wyndows be well, suerly, workmanly, substantyally, curyously, and sufficiently glase and sette up." It is said that Holbein drew the cartoons from which they were made. The excellence and charm of this complete series makes one regret that there are so few examples of their epoch in this country; this strikes with peculiar force one coming from France, so prodigally rich in sixteenth century windows. At King's College the large picture treatment is seen at its best. Not only is the composition of the groups of figures carefully studied, but so also is the adroit opposing of one colour by another. Particularly daring is the use of large masses of the same tint. So little was the artist willing to be hampered in the development of his colour scheme that he even made his foliage red when he happened to need that hue in a certain part of his design. Although the pictures here display careful drawing and elaborate composition, the excellence of the general result is certainly due to the fact that the artist thought fully as much of colour values as he did of his designs, something his contemporaries were prone to forget. These windows come as a delightful relief to one accustomed to the ill-considered use of Renaissance architecture that so overloads and encumbers the sixteenth century stained glass pictures on the Continent. An exquisite sense of balance seems to prevail throughout the interior, and in no feature of the decoration is it so noticeable as in the windows. The large expanse of each is broken into two parts by a horizontal transom, and both the upper and lower divisions are again subdivided, since the central lancet of each contains a figure in Renaissance canopy over a similar figure below in the pedestal. This leaves a space two lancets wide on either side both above and below, and each of these spaces contains a large subject. This method of avoiding the monotony which would have been caused by the singlet-lancet treatment is carried out along both of the long sides. The nine lancets in the large east window permit the introduction of three pictures above, each spreading over three lancets, and the same number below. The three in the upper row set forth the Crucifixion, the central one displaying the usual subject of Christ crucified between the two thieves, while to the left is the preparation of the crosses, and to the right the taking down from the cross. The blues in these pictures are particularly fine. Above in the traceries are red Lancastrian roses, as well as some Tudor ones of red and white combined. These roses are frequently repeated in the carvings of both stone and wood, as is also the portcullis badge of the Tudors. The beautifully carved wooden panelling about the walls of the choir is rivalled by the rich stone screens that shut off the lateral chapels from the nave. There is some seventeenth century glass in the chapel of Peterhouse College which should be seen, if only to learn how windows should not be coloured, for the thick application of blues and other tints have rendered the glass here and there almost opaque. There was in England about that time a good deal of thickly coloured, and therefore unsatisfactory, glass. One does not have to see many examples of it before the conclusion becomes inevitable that the English glaziers would better have followed the example of the Frenchmen, who, when their art became moribund at the end of the sixteenth century, let it die and gave it decent burial! * * * * * Most visitors find it difficult to escape speedily from the fascinations of Cambridge, and if some of our pilgrims be minded to make a short stay in these erudite surroundings, we will remind them that there are, not far away, three pleasing bits of glass, and all of them Trees of Jesse--one of the Perpendicular period at Margaretting, about fifty miles south-east in Essex, another one of the same period at Levrington, thirty-three miles north in Cambridgeshire, and a Decorated example of the same subject at Lowick, thirty-six miles west in Cambridgeshire. The Margaretting window is of three lancets and displays twenty-two figures, each with its own label, and together affording a peculiarly interesting study of costume. Don't fail to notice how deftly the glazier has concealed the fact that the same cartoon is made to serve for several figures by facing them about, or varying the colour in the costumes. The handling of the whitish vine and the use of leaves is very artistic. The Levrington window has five lancets, and its Tree of Jesse is larger and has more figures than the one at Margaretting; it shows the marks of careful restoration. Including the figures in the tracery lights, there are sixty in all--an unusually large number. Each figure is placed within a loop of the deep orange-coloured vine, these enclosures being about 12 by 8 inches. This great company of personages, and the agreeable harmony of colour, make this window well worth a visit. Lowick Church does not have to rely alone upon its stained glass, but has many other attractions, such as its fine tombs, elaborately carved pew-heads, wooden ceiling, and last, but not least pleasing, the venerable prayer-books, dated 1724 and still in their original bindings, ornamented by coloured coats of arms on the covers. There are some heraldic panes along the south side of the chancel, but the chief interest for us is in the very fine series of sixteen personages originally forming a Decorated Tree of Jesse, but now stationed along the upper lights on the north side of the nave. The drawing is good and the colouring strong, with as yet no trace of stain, the frequent touches of yellow being of pot-metal glass. The four most westerly figures are kings, and the eastmost is a knight in full armour, his head, arms and legs being covered with chain-mail. In his hands he holds a model of the church, upon which can be distinctly seen these windows, thus clearly indicating that he was the donor. LICHFIELD There are few cathedrals in the world which, as one approaches, reveal themselves more charmingly than does Lichfield; here one feels an almost studied coquetry, disclosing new beauties at each stage of our advance. When viewed from a distance the three graceful spires, "The Ladies of the Vale," seem to beckon one on to a nearer view of the sanctuary over which they preside. On entering the town it is temporarily lost from view, only promptly to appear again, this time across the little pools which lie along the south side of the Close and which, aided by the green of the trees, provide so lovely a foreground and setting for the full-length picture of the great edifice. Again we lose it, and then the last revelation of all comes when one rounds the corner into the green Close and there bursts upon you the final and complete aspect of the glorious west front, brilliant in its red sandstone, adorned by its army of over 150 stone figures of prophets, saints, and English kings, a splendid façade, impressively culminated by the towering spires that first signalled to us where we should find this lovely picture. Unfortunately for the cathedral, Bishop de Langdon, Treasurer of England under Edward I., by surrounding the Close with a wall and a fosse, made of it a stout fortress. Centuries after this very feature resulted most disastrously, for, during the Civil Wars, the military strength of its position caused it to sustain three successive sieges. Of these the first was the most disastrous, for, when the Roundheads broke in after a three days' assault, they revenged the death of their leader, Lord Brooke, first upon the Royalist defenders, and next upon the cathedral itself, wrecking and destroying ancient tombs, stalls, &c., and, of course, the old glass. In addition to their work of destruction they carried off all that had been left by Henry VIII.'s Commissioners of the rich offerings brought by devout pilgrims to the shrine of St. Chad. To this same Lord Brooke Sir Walter Scott pays his respects in the lines telling how Lord Marmion's body was brought "To moated Lichfield's lofty pile; And there, beneath the southern aisle, A tomb, with Gothic sculpture fair, Did long Lord Marmion's image bear, (Now vainly for its sight you look; 'Twas levelled when fanatic Brook The fair cathedral stormed and took; But thanks to Heaven and good St. Chad, A guerdon meet the spoilers had!)" The interior is of modest dimensions, and is elaborately decorated, the richly carved capitals, &c., giving us indications of how gorgeous it must all have been before it was looted. An interesting feature is the slight inclination of the choir northward from the axis of the nave, which is said to be symbolic of the inclination of Christ's head on the cross after death. At Troyes and at Quimper in France there is the same deviation in orientation and the same poetic explanation, but investigation reveals that it was caused by a change in the street line in the first instance, and in the other by the annexation of an existing chapel standing slightly north of the true axis. [Illustration: LADY CHAPEL, LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL Excellent example of Renaissance colouring, freer from applied paint than then customary. This glass was brought from Belgium] Practically all of the ancient glass which originally adorned the embrasures has been destroyed; the north window of the north transept has some Early English work much restored, and on the east of the south portal of the south transept is a short lower window, in the central lancet of which is a richly dressed female figure with arms thrown about a cross. Just before entering the Lady chapel we remark two small three-lanceted windows, one on each hand, the one to the left having donors on each side, and in the middle St. Christopher carrying the infant Jesus. But it is to the seven most easterly windows of the Lady chapel that we must repair to see the famous Flemish glass, brought here in 1803, which is the cause of our visit. The dates which appear upon them run from 1534 to 1539, and they were originally made for the Abbey of Herckenrode, near Liége, Belgium, by Lambert Lombard--the earliest and best of those glaziers of the Low Countries who show the Italian influence. All are of three lancets, except the most westerly pair, which have six. The traceries above them are grouped in pyramids of trefoil openings, similar to some in the Lady chapel at Wells. The scenes are taken from the life of Christ, and there are as well portraits of certain benefactors of the Abbey. The composition as well as the grouping of the figures is not so crowded as in the slightly earlier (1527) glazing of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, or St. Margaret's, Westminster. The artist drew his personages on such a large scale that it is evident his work was planned for a more spacious interior--this chapel is so narrow that one cannot stand far enough away to get the full effect of the pictures. Although now in the fully developed picture epoch and passed beyond the conventional trammels of the canopy with its imitation stonework, the glazier is not forgetful of what his craft had learned during that period, for he has made agreeable use of architecture, notably as the background for the Last Supper in the east window. Even if the dates were not displayed in the usual sixteenth century continental fashion, we would have no difficulty in fixing them, not only because of the obviously Renaissance style of the architecture depicted, but also by reason of the general breadth and style of the treatment. Nor is it difficult to note the effect upon the artist of the Italian influence, coming as it did from a land where abundant sunshine makes it desirable that the illumination of the windows be somewhat reduced by the use of paint. Still, it is only fair to say that these particular windows contain much more than was then customary of glass coloured during the making and not painted afterwards. An excellent impression of the colour effect as a whole can be got if we retire to the central aisle of the nave and look east. Now the sides of the choir become a graceful frame for the three easterly windows. The upper part and the centre show an almost solid expanse of blue, while all the rest of the glass yields a golden grey, forming an excellent _ensemble_. Before leaving the town, admirers of English literature will do well to visit the house in which Dr. Samuel Johnson was born. It now appropriately serves as a museum wherein are exposed a number of manuscripts, pictures, and familiar objects in some way related to that great scholar. Although the worthy Doctor said that his fellow townsmen were "more orthodox in their religion, purer in their language, and politer in their manners than any other town in the Kingdom," one must be pardoned for taking _his_ opinion upon manners with a pinch of salt! GUILDFORD In England one is constantly coming upon manifestations only to be observed in a land whose civilisation and habits of life were long ago settled and have continued stable. One of the most interesting of these is the different methods adopted for perpetuating one's memory by a benevolent act toward the public--making it worth the public's while to act as trustee for the preservation of the said memory, so to speak! A very charming instance thereof is afforded by the buildings erected in Guildford by Archbishop Abbott in 1619 as a permanent home for ten elderly men and eight elderly women, all presided over by a Master: according to the fashion of the times it was styled Bishop Abbott's Hospital. Built on North Street in the quadrangular form so reminiscent of an Oxford or Cambridge college, the rich plum-colour which age has lent to the brick needs only the primly demure assistance of the formal flower beds to make the altogether charming enclosure which we see to-day. Entering this tranquil and ancient quadrangle one seems suddenly whisked by some magic wand far from the twentieth century world outside. The elderly resident of the establishment who escorts one about the premises descants upon each admirable detail in measured phrase that is pleasantly appropriate to the ancient flavour of the scene. One is shown the old dining-room below and the library above, both of which retain their Elizabethan panelling on the walls and the carved overmantels, together with much of the original furniture. The large table in the library is an interesting piece, the lumpy adornment of its legs reminding one of the puffed sleeves and trunk hose then affected by gentlemen, while the rail running along the floor and connecting the legs prevents us from forgetting that rushes then strewed the floor, and that these rails were used to provide a convenient place to put the feet. The most interesting part of the building is the small square chapel which forms the north-east corner of the quadrangle. It is lighted by two large windows dating from the end of the Renaissance period (1621) and contemporary with the chapel they adorn. They are unusually agreeable examples of the day when colour was applied to glass by enamelled painting. The serious technical defect of that method (the tendency of the enamel to peel off) is here noticeable in several spots, but not to such an extent as to impair seriously their decorative value. Of these two ample embrasures, the easterly one is the larger, having five lancets surmounted by elaborate tracery lights, while its neighbour in the north wall has but four lancets with traceries of more modest design. All these lancets contain scenes taken from the life of Jacob, the four to the north show Rachel's subterfuge to obtain for Jacob the parental blessing that should have been Esau's, while the five easterly ones set forth Jacob's dream, and the trick played upon him by Laban in substituting Leah for Rebecca, together with Jacob's retaliation by marking the cattle. Remark Esau shaking his fist at Jacob for stealing his blessing; the solidity of the stairway in Jacob's dream; the unusual number of animals shown in all the scenes. There should also be observed the very elaborate treatment of the eastern traceries. An examination of the outside of these windows indicates that they were probably brought from some other edifice, for the wall seems to have been cut away to provide sufficient room for them. [Illustration: BISHOP ABBOTT'S HOSPITAL, GUILDFORD Charming and complete glazing of a small chapel. Renaissance glass coloured by the process of enamelling, often unsatisfactory because bits are apt to peel off] GATTON It is not uncommon in England to find the chapel attached to the manor house of an estate used as a parish church for the neighbourhood. This is true of the family chapel at Gatton Park, Surrey, just north of Redhill, off the road leading to London. This chapel stands close to the mansion, and is connected with it by a passage. Finer carved wood than the wainscotting of this small interior is far to seek. The wooden pulpit, too, is of skilful workmanship, and together with the panelling, is said to have come from Germany, and to be the work of Albrecht Dürer; its beauty is certainly due to some great craftsman, if not to this very man. The principal illumination of the narrow edifice is derived from two large windows, one over the altar at the east end and the other of similar size in the south wall; there is none in the north one. Both these embrasures are glazed with Renaissance work of considerable excellence; the one to the east dates from about 1500, and the southerly one from about eighty years later. This latter, as is to be expected, shows a liberal use of enamel painting, something entirely absent in the earlier one, and each of its three lancets contains a different subject, against elaborate landscape backgrounds. The delicately outlined trees in the extreme distance are drawn upon a white field instead of upon the light blue then used in France. Such architecture as appears in the design is, of course, Renaissance. Across the whole of the easterly window is stretched one large picture, the "Eating of the Passover," which is pleasantly brightened by the golden staves held by the figures who, with their raiment girded up and their feet shod by sandals, carry out to the full the Mosaic law, "And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, with shoes on your feet and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste; it is the Lord's Passover" (Exodus xii. 2). When about to leave this beautifully panelled charmingly glazed interior, note the small window in the west wall of the entrance vestibule. It is of a domestic type familiar during the Perpendicular epoch. In the centre are the arms of Henry VII. between two supporters. Across the quarry background are bands slanting from the left down to the right bearing the motto, "Honi soit qui mal y pense." Some of the quarries show small leaves, and others an H surmounted by a crown. This window is similar in style to those already remarked at Salisbury, in John Halle's hall, and others maybe seen in many private houses dating from that time. Although of modest size and possessing but two windows, Gatton Chapel is as delightful a bit of complete Renaissance glazing as one will see in England. KNOLE East and west across almost the whole width of Kent run three parallel lines of low hills affording many charming views which, however, are only part of the many beauties of that picturesque county. Upon the easterly end of one of these ridges lies Sevenoaks. Although the present town is by no means an ancient one, it possesses great interest in that just below its edge lies the large estate of Knole Park which, if we may play upon words, is a series of knolls that together with their intersecting glades are shaded by groves of great beeches whose soft green foliage has for many a long day sheltered the herds of deer wandering to and fro beneath them. Upon an eminence of greater size than its fellows stands the ancient dwelling known as "Knole," a great series of courts and quadrangles combined into an abode of such size that it is said to contain, in addition to its superb state apartments, no fewer than 365 bedrooms. Enclosed within a wide sweeping battlemented wall are charming old-world gardens that nestle about the ancient grey mansion, and soften by their dainty setting of variegated flowers, green lawns and trees, the fortress-like appearance of its towers and long stretches of stone enclosure. Thanks to a fine combination of patriotism and hospitality so often seen in England, a large portion of this house is (upon payment of a trifling fee) thrown open to the study and appreciation of the public on the afternoons of Thursday and Saturday (2-5), as well as all day Friday (10-5). It is because it can be so conveniently seen by our glass-hunting pilgrim (owing to the generosity of the owners and the fact that it is under an hour by train from Charing Cross, London) that Knole has been selected to illustrate in how decorative a fashion the sixteenth century glazier could spread the gay tints of heraldic story upon his windows. Here can also be remarked one or two other minor manifestations of stained glass at that time. One of these is to be seen in the first stairway up which visitors are conducted. Upon some of its diminutive diamond-shaped panes are enamelled armorial crests, much in vogue at the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the following one. On one of these little panes in the chapel of Lullingstone Castle near here appears the date 1612: these on the Knole staircase are of about the same date. This house was long the property of the See of Canterbury; perhaps the pilgrim may have one of the rare opportunities to visit the bedroom so long occupied by Archbishop Cranmer and observe in the upper lights of the bay window the six large ovals containing coats of arms in enamel, bits of which have peeled off, as is so often the case with this method of applying colour. How mystified that worthy ecclesiastic would be to see the modern bathroom which now opens into his old bedroom! While speaking of Canterbury, it is of interest that we are enabled to date one of the Knole towers by the fact that a morsel of glazing high up in the traceries of one window (all that is left of the original equipment) bears a double knot, the insignia of Archbishop Bourchier, thus proving that it is at least as old as his tenancy here (1456-86). But let us come to the main reason for our visit--the Cartoon Gallery. Named after the set of Raphael's cartoons especially copied for Charles I., and by him presented to the Earl of Dorset to decorate these walls, this long room is brilliantly lighted by a series of windows giving off upon the delightful gardens. This is no place to dwell upon the sumptuous silver furnishings of King James' bedroom that opens out to the south, nor of the treasures of English portraiture in the rooms through which we have come to this gallery. We are here to enjoy the work of the glazier who set upon the windows the arms of the great houses allied to this one by marriage. One after another they unfold themselves all along the upper lights of this series of embrasures, and tell their story in a far more brilliant manner than can ever be attained by any musty tome on genealogy. This estate was more than once the property of the Crown, and an evidence of one of these periods is provided by the appearance on some of the westerly windows of the arms of certain Law Officers of the Crown, such as the Lord Chief Justice, Attorney-General, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, Master of the Requests, Judge of Admiralty, &c. These are somewhat earlier than those first mentioned and are freer from the unfortunate enamel painting. Taking into consideration the dimensions of this superb apartment, and the paintings and glass that adorn it, together with the pleasing outlook upon the gardens below, it is doubtful if a more impressive gallery is to be found in any of the stately homes of England. The chapel, which was built by Archbishop Cranmer, has an unpleasantly smeared east window, but upon its surface high up are a series of Apostles done in grey and stain which, if brought down to the level for which they were originally intended, would show themselves to be very attractive. At the south end of the little gallery used as the "Family Pew" are a group of about a dozen scenes in grey and stain of excellent execution, and so placed as to permit of a satisfactory examination of this agreeable form of Renaissance glass-painting. * * * * * If one be travelling by bicycle or automobile, a pleasant addition to this trip may be made, on the way back to London, by taking one small _détour_ of about ten miles to visit Nettlestead, and another of about three to West Wickham Church. The glass at both these places is Perpendicular, but not of sufficient importance to have made them stations on that tour. However, they can be so conveniently seen at this stage of our rambles that they are here duly mentioned. It is only recently that, thanks to the skilful heraldic researches of W. E. Ball, LL.D., the date of the Nettlestead windows has been discovered, as well as the significance of the many coats of arms scattered over them. Recent restoration has made complete the glazing of the entire north side and also of the east window. Note the narrow one at the north of the small chancel--quarry background with a large figure standing on a bracket, very reminiscent of sundry prototypes at St. Neot in Cornwall. The other windows on this side (except the westmost) are rich, almost florid examples of the elaborated canopy style. Indeed, so deep are the tones that one is tempted to suspect that some Frenchman had a hand in their manufacture. The smaller chancel light just noted is much lower in colour and therefore more typical of the then prevailing English taste. This is also true of the westmost or "Becket window," as it is called, because it shows scenes from that martyr's life. The south windows retain their original glass only in the tracery lights, but it is planned to reglaze them as nearly as possible like those on the north side. Nettlestead Church is not easily noticed from the road because of some farm buildings and an orchard which mask it. If, when we resume our journey Londonward, it be decided to take a peep at the West Wickham glass, one should be careful not to overshoot the church, for it lies at least a half-mile nearer the London road than does the village whose name it bears. The embrasures on the north and east of a chapel opening off the chancel contain examples of a saint standing on a bracket against a quarry background, which we have just observed in the Nettlestead chancel light and also on a former tour at St. Neot. The quarries here each bear the monogram "I.H.S." in stain. The supports below the brackets are shorter than is customary. What painstaking care was used in the manufacture of these windows is revealed by an examination of the central one on the north side, bearing the familiar figure of St. Christopher carrying the infant Jesus. Notice that the little pool of water in which he stands contains small golden fishes; also remark the careful leading of the three tiny red trees in the background. This very attention to detail noticeable in all the panels has much to do with the satisfactory effect of these windows. ITINERARIES SHOWING DISTANCES IN MILES EARLY ENGLISH (84 miles from London) Salisbury--125--Canterbury--180--Lincoln--135 --York (197 miles to London) DECORATED (197 miles from London) York--84--Norbury--62--Shrewsbury--29--Ludlow --24--Hereford--28--Tewkesbury--4--Deerhurst--42--Bristol--20--Wells --63--Exeter--130--Dorchester--12--Oxford (54 miles to London) PERPENDICULAR (54 miles from London) Oxford--27--Fairford--8--Cirencester--17-- Gloucester--27--Great Malvern--2--Little Malvern--20--Ross--60-- Warwick--10--Coventry--128--York (197 miles to London) Salisbury (84 miles from London) Winchester (68 miles from London) St. Neot (257 miles from London) RENAISSANCE London--53--Cambridge--103--Lichfield--41--Shrewsbury (154 miles to London) (28 miles from London) Guildford--23--Gatton--20--Knole (24 miles to London) LIST OF TOWNS SHOWING DISTANCES FROM LONDON MILES FROM LONDON PAGE 119 Bristol Decorated 107 53 Cambridge Renaissance 223 56 Canterbury Early English 36 52 Chartham Decorated 49 90 Cirencester Perpendicular 154 91 Coventry Perpendicular 181 100 Deerhurst Decorated 104 42 Dorchester Decorated 124 169 Exeter Decorated 120 83 Fairford {Perpendicular 148 {Renaissance 148 18 Gatton Renaissance 239 102 Gloucester Perpendicular 158 117 Great Malvern {Perpendicular 166 {Decorated 166 28 Guildford Renaissance 236 131 Hereford Decorated 96 24 Knole Renaissance 242 91 Levrington Perpendicular 228 117 Lichfield Renaissance 230 135 Lincoln Early English 51 120 Little Malvern Perpendicular 172 -- London Renaissance 216 75 Lowick Decorated 228 150 Ludlow {Decorated 92 {Perpendicular 92 30 Margaretting Perpendicular 228 32 Nettlestead Perpendicular 246 136 Norbury Decorated 82 54 Oxford Decorated 129 54 Oxford Perpendicular 142 118 Ross Perpendicular 174 257 St. Neot Perpendicular 203 84 Salisbury Early English 30 84 Salisbury Perpendicular 192 {Decorated 85 154 Shrewsbury {Perpendicular 85 {Renaissance 85 103 Tewkesbury Decorated 100 92 Warwick Perpendicular 177 121 Wells Decorated 114 17 West Wickham Perpendicular 247 32 Willesborough Decorated 49 68 Winchester Perpendicular 195 197 York Early English 57 197 York Decorated 76 197 York Perpendicular 58 STAINED GLASS TOURS IN ENGLAND _With 16 Full-page Illustrations_ BY C. H. SHERRILL Demy 8vo. (9 × 5-3/4 ins.) Price 7s. 6d. net. Postage 6d. extra _Spectator_: "Mr. Sherrill has written a book which not only proves him to be a true lover of mediæval glass, but proves also his enlightened comprehension of its evolution and its changing style.... A pleasant and entertaining instructor." _Sunday Times_: "The illustrations are delightful, and successfully capture the blended notes of opulence and beauty which the mediæval designers threw into their work." _Daily Telegraph_: "Mr. Sherrill leads his fellow-travellers by delightful paths.... He is a model guide, and all his illustrations are to the point. It is difficult to imagine how any instructor could pack more fruitful information into a smaller or more attractive parcel." _Morning Post_: "Is well written, and in a style which shows that the author really feels the attraction of the art he describes." _Daily Chronicle_: "A distinct triumph to write a book of 250 pages on a restricted though very beautiful subject, and never become monotonous; this is the triumph Mr. Sherrill has achieved. A really delightful volume." _Literary World_: "All who care for beautiful handiwork, and all interested visitors to our old cathedrals, colleges, and churches, should possess themselves of this charming book.... The illustrations are extremely good." _Western Morning News_: "The author describes the beauties he has seen in a most interesting style, and with exceedingly good taste. This volume deserves unstinted praise." JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD, VIGO STREET, LONDON, W. STAINED GLASS TOURS IN FRANCE _With Illustrations_ BY C. H. SHERRILL Crown 8vo. 6s. net _The Builder_: "A very well-written book, with a very good æsthetic perception as to what is best and most to be admired in ancient stained glass." _The Antiquary_: "A well-qualified guide for all who can appreciate the loveliness of the old glass in which France is still so rich." ROGER FRY in _The Burlington Magazine_: "He has really looked, and looked lovingly, at the windows he describes. His knowledge is evidently adequate, and he rearranges it in a form which he who automobiles may read." _Westminster Gazette_: "Useful and interesting. Mr. Sherrill gives just enough information to enable the lay reader to understand the difficulties with which the artist in coloured glass had to contend. Moreover, he has the eloquence of a true enthusiast, and is able to communicate to others his own delight." _Pall Mall Gazette_: "Exceedingly useful. A work showing much industry, enthusiasm, and good taste, it is a really valuable supplementary volume to one's Murray or Baedeker. The author has excellent taste." _Morning Post_: "Mr. Sherrill does feel very sincerely the beauty of stained glass, and is able to communicate his feeling in writing. Mr. Sherrill pilots us on a pleasant cruise among some of the greatest of the French examples of the style." _British Architect_: "The writer manages to say a good many interesting things. Mr. Sherrill's book is written in a most interesting style." _Architectural Review_: "A useful book. Mr. Sherrill has an acute appreciation of the important relationship between the glass and the surrounding architecture, and he has brought the fresh mind of the amateur to his subject." JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD, VIGO STREET, LONDON, W. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent. 
21688	----	THE GUILD LIBRARY "All the manuals are fine examples of careful workmanship and scholarly industry."--"Independent and Nonconformist," 17th August 1896. "A series of which we have often spoken in terms of very high commendation."--"Record," 11th March 1898. "A most admirable series."--"Methodist Times," 25th August 1898. "No more beautiful series of the kind passes under our notice."--"Literary World," 21st October 1898. LONDON: A. & C. BLACK. EDINBURGH: R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED. Edited by Rev. Prof. CHARTERIS, D.D., LL.D., Edinburgh, and Rev. J. A. M'CLYMONT, D.D., Aberdeen. _Crown 8vo Edition, Price 1s. 6d. net. Copies may be had interleaved for 8d. extra._ _Now Ready._ SCOTTISH CATHEDRALS AND ABBEYS. By Rev. D. BUTLER, M.A., Abernethy. With Introduction by Very Rev. Principal STORY, D.D., LL.D. =First Series.= RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 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Edited by Rev. Prof. CHARTERIS, D.D., LL.D., Edinburgh, and Rev. J. A. M'CLYMONT, D.D., Aberdeen. All the volumes in the First Series of the GUILD LIBRARY are also to be had in the Sixpenny form with reduced contents also "Bible Manners and Customs." LIFE AND CONDUCT. By Very Rev. J. CAMERON LEES, D.D., LL.D., Dean of the Chapel Royal of Scotland. _30th Thousand._ "An excellent manual of instruction."--_Religious Review of Reviews._ "Written in an unusually bright lively manner."--_Manchester Guardian._ EXPOSITION OF THE APOSTLES' CREED. By Rev. J. DODDS, D.D., Corstorphine. _10th Thousand._ "This is an excellent little volume, and from its conciseness, clearness, and comprehensiveness is a great improvement on the well-known 'Pearson' of an earlier generation."--_Aberdeen Journal._ HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE. By Rev. GEORGE MILLIGAN, B.D., Caputh. _10th Thousand._ "This book is like a fine sermon following a beautiful text."--_Expository Times._ "When we say that it is worthy of its position in such a series we know of no higher praise we can give."--_Methodist N. C. Magazine._ CHURCH, MINISTRY, AND SACRAMENTS. By Rev. NORMAN MACLEOD, D.D., Inverness. _10th Thousand._ "The subject is handled with great good sense and in a liberal spirit."--_Critical Review._ "The book may be safely recommended as a safe guide along a thorny but important path of study."--_Scotsman._ "A model of what such a text-book should be."--_Glasgow Herald._ STUDIES IN THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. By Rev. WM. ROBERTSON, M.A., Coltness. [_In the Press._ * * * * * SCOTTISH CATHEDRALS AND ABBEYS [Illustration: _From Photo by T. & R. Annan & Sons._ GLASGOW CATHEDRAL.] SCOTTISH CATHEDRALS AND ABBEYS BY REV. D. BUTLER, M.A. ABERNETHY, PERTHSHIRE AUTHOR OF 'THE ANCIENT CHURCH AND PARISH OF ABERNETHY,' 'JOHN WESLEY AND GEORGE WHITEFIELD IN SCOTLAND,' 'HENRY SCOUGAL AND THE OXFORD METHODISTS' WITH INTRODUCTION BY THE VERY REV. R. HERBERT STORY, D.D., LL.D. PRINCIPAL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW LONDON: A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE EDINBURGH: R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED PUBLICATION AGENTS FOR THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND 1901 PREFACE In preparation for this Guild Book I wrote an account of every pre-Reformation structure in Scotland of which any remains now survive, but the prescribed limits of the series necessitated a selection. The Scottish cathedrals are all here treated, with representative collegiate and monastic buildings. Reference is also made to parish churches that represent the architecture of the various periods indicated in Chapter II. A survey of Scottish mediæval architecture will be found in pp. 194-206 that may enable readers to take a comprehensive view of the whole. A study of those treated in particular will lead to a study of those treated of necessity in general, and illustrate the idea that the history of the Scottish Church is the history of the ideality and faith of the Scottish people, and that the one cannot be separated from the other. A healthy present must always be bound by a natural piety to the past that has made it, or at least helped it to be what it is, and this study may enable readers to realise more that the Church of Scotland has a great and glorious past that begins with the days of St. Ninian and St. Columba. The past has much to teach the present, and the narrative of historical facts is not without suggestiveness to the varied life and work that characterise the Church of Scotland to-day. I desire to express my indebtedness to the investigations of many workers, which I have striven to recognise in the many references throughout the work, but most of all I am indebted to Messrs. MacGibbon and Ross in their colossal work, the _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_--a book of national importance. D. B. MANSE OF ABERNETHY, PERTHSHIRE, _14th January 1901_. CONTENTS GLASGOW CATHEDRAL _Frontispiece_ PAGE INTRODUCTION ix CHAP. 1. RELATION OF CELTIC CHURCH TO ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 1 2. SCOTTISH ARCHITECTURE 4 NORMAN ARCHITECTURE 7 TRANSITION STYLE 8 FIRST POINTED PERIOD 9 MIDDLE POINTED PERIOD 10 LATE POINTED PERIOD 11 3. CATHEDRALS-- ST. ANDREWS 13 GLASGOW 22 DUNKELD 35 ABERDEEN 37 MORAY 40 BRECHIN 44 DUNBLANE 47 ROSS 52 CAITHNESS 54 GALLOWAY 56 LISMORE 59 ISLES 60 (KIRKWALL) ORKNEY 69 4. COLLEGIATE CHURCHES-- INTRODUCTION 76 BIGGAR 77 BOTHWELL 77 ST. NICHOLAS (NEW ABERDEEN) 78 KING'S COLLEGE (OLD ABERDEEN) 80 ROSLIN 85 CHAPEL ROYAL (STIRLING) 88 ST. GILES' (EDINBURGH) 89 ST. MARY'S AND ST. SALVATOR'S (ST. ANDREWS) 102 5. SCOTTISH NORMAN PARISH CHURCHES-- DALMENY 102 LEUCHARS 104 MIDDLE POINTED-- LINLITHGOW 105 HADDINGTON 107 LATE POINTED-- ST. JOHN'S (PERTH) 108 DUNDEE 113 STIRLING 114 ST. LEONARD (ST. ANDREWS) 116 HOLY TRINITY 117 6. SCOTTISH MONASTICISM 119 ST. ANDREW'S PRIORY (AUGUSTINIAN) 123 HOLYROOD ABBEY " 124 JEDBURGH " " 129 DRYBURGH " (PRAEMONSTRATENSIAN) 134 DUNFERMLINE " (BENEDICTINE) 139 PAISLEY " (CLUNIACENSIAN) 148 KELSO " (TYRONENSIAN) 169 ARBROATH " " 177 MELROSE " (CISTERCIAN) 184 7. GENERAL SURVEY OF SCOTTISH MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE-- NORMAN 194 TRANSITION STYLE 197 FIRST POINTED PERIOD 198 MIDDLE POINTED PERIOD 201 LATE POINTED PERIOD 203 APPENDIX-- DEFINITION OF LEADING ARCHITECTURAL TERMS 209 INTRODUCTION This book is designed to render to Scottish Churchmen the special service of presenting to them, in a brief but comprehensive survey, the record of their ecclesiastical history which is engraved in their ecclesiastical architecture. There is no record so authentic as that which is built in stone. There is none so sacred as that which attests and illustrates the religion of our forefathers. Much of that record has perished: enough remains to engage our reverent study and our dutiful care. Foreign war and rapine have wasted and destroyed our heritage of sacred places. Kelso, Jedburgh, Melrose, and Haddington fell before the English invader. Iona was ravaged by the Dane, while yet the island formed part of a Scandinavian diocese. Internal lawlessness and tribal fury have wrought like disasters. Elgin, once "the fair glory of the land," stands a forlorn monument of the savagery of a Highland chief. St. Andrews, Lindores, Perth, Paisley, and many others bear witness to the reckless outrage which cloaked its violence under the guise of religious zeal. Of all our spoilers this has been the most destructive. The pretence (for it often was nothing else) of "cleansing the sanctuary" not only robbed the Church of many a priceless possession, but begat, in the popular mind, a ruthless disregard of the sacred associations of places where generation after generation had worshipped God, and a coarse indifference to the solemnity of His ordinances, which made it easy for those who should have been the guardians of the churches to let them fall, unheeded, into decay. It is not uncommon, even yet, to find people who ought to know, and perhaps do know, better, blaming Knox and his co-reformers for the dilapidation and desecration of our ancient fanes. The blame belongs to the "rascal multitude," and to the rapacious laymen who were served heirs to the properties of the despoiled Church. What is the Church the better for their enrichment? What has religion gained by it? The Reformed Faith could have flourished none the less graciously if its purified doctrine had been preached, and its reasonable worship offered, under the same roofs that had protected priest and people in the days of Romanist error. Is the cause of pure and undefiled religion stronger in the land because Melrose and Crossraguel and Pluscarden are desolate; St. Andrews a roofless ruin; Iona as yet open to the Atlantic winds? Is the voice of praise and prayer sweeter in the North because Mortlach is effaced and Fortrose shattered, and the bells are silent which men on the mainland used to hear when the north wind blew from Kirkwall? Granted that ignorant superstition may have tainted the veneration in which our fathers' holy and beautiful houses were held 400 years ago, the iconoclasm which devastated them was not the remedy for it. The revived interest in our old churches, which has asserted its influence in such restorations as those of St. Giles, Dunblane, Linlithgow, St. Vigeans, and Arbuthnott, is no revival of superstition. It is the outcome of a more reverent spirit; of a deeper sense of the honour due to God; of the conviction that we owe Him, in all that pertains to His worship, the offering of our very best; and of a deeper consciousness also of the supreme value of the Church's national position and character, and of the duty of piously conserving whatever helps to illustrate the historical continuity which binds its present to its past. As regards this, nothing is so full of helpful stimulus as an intelligent study of our ecclesiastical architecture. In it we can read the lessons of the gradual growth of the Scottish nation from the loosely connected tribal conditions of the ninth and tenth centuries onwards to its consolidation under a settled monarchy; the development of its commercial and industrial progress; its expanding relations to the peoples of the Continent; and the vital changes in its political life, and its religious system and belief, thence resulting. All these have left their mark in those records which neither time nor revolution, neglect nor violence, have been able wholly to destroy--the architecture of our cathedrals, abbeys, and monasteries. The primitive buildings of the early Celtic period of the Church have long since disappeared. Their clay and wattles could not withstand the wear and tear of time; only in a distant glen or lonely island can we discover scattered traces of the beehive cell or simple shrine of the anchorite or missionary. Few relics of the more substantial structures of that time survive. The Roman era of Church organisation superseded the Celtic; and with the Roman dominance came the architecture of the Anglo-Normans, whom the presence and policy of Margaret, saint and queen, attracted to Scotland. It developed itself, always with some national characteristics of its own, until the War of Independence broke off all friendly intercourse with England. Later came, in place of alliance with England, the alliance with France, which lasted till the Reformation, and left its mark on many of the pages of "The Great Stone Book," which chronicle for us the vicissitudes of the past, the days of peace and prosperity, of war and penury, of reviving national health and energy, of new combinations and ideas in politics and statecraft, of spiritual decay and carnal pride and ostentation. These annals can be deciphered by the patient student of the walls and cloisters of the ancient churches and religious houses. To the founders and the owners of the latter, and chiefly to the great orders of the Augustinians, the Benedictines, and the Cistercians, we owe many of our noblest remnants of the past--all of them unhappily ruined; for the popular violence of the sixteenth century raged more fiercely against the monasteries than against the cathedrals. To the Episcopal system of government, introduced under Margaret, we owe the bishops' churches or cathedrals. The life and thought of the Church at the present day, move far enough apart from either prelacy or monasticism to allow us to look at each with an impartial eye, and to consider whether in its abolition we have parted with aught that it would have profited the Church to retain. The monasteries, at first the homes and shelters of charity and learning, had, before the sixteenth century, waxed fat with unduly accumulated wealth, become enervated with luxury and corrupt through bad government. They were swept away, their possessions secularised, and their communities broken up. But with them disappeared two things which were of great price: a large and liberal provision for the poor, and a comprehensive scheme of Education. The monastery gate was never shut against the suffering and the needy. The monks were indulgent landlords and kind neighbours; the sick benefited by their medical skill; the indigent could always look to them for eleemosynary aid; the houseless wanderer was never sent empty away. Those great centres of friendly helpfulness and charity were planted all over the land. No doubt the gift of indiscriminate alms to every applicant would tend to abuse and lazy beggary; but a scheme of sympathetic and well directed aid thoughtfully administered would not. _Abusus non tollit usum._ The scandals of the monasteries did not justify the robbery of the destitute for the benefit of the secular supplanters of the monks. The Kirk-sessions of the Reformed Kirk did their best to take the place of the former guardians and kindly benefactors of the poor, but their funds were scanty; the old wealth had fallen into tenacious hands; and schism and sectarianism finally necessitated the transfer of the care of the poor from the Church to the State. Could the ancient system have been reformed and not destroyed, the poverty of the country would have been less grievous than it is to-day; the Church's relation to the poor more intimate; and the method of relief pleasanter to the recipients than that which makes them familiar with the grim charity of the Poor's House, the Inspector, and the Parochial Board. The monasteries were the seats of a general system of higher education. The burghs had their own independent seminaries; the "song schools" were more closely connected with the churches in town and in country; but the highest grade of education was found in the monasteries. Before the foundation of any of the universities they supplied the place both of secondary school and university, and trained the youth, especially of the higher ranks, until prepared to go out into the world, as they constantly did, speaking the "lingua-franca" of all scholars, and carrying Scottish energy, genius, and scholarship into the halls and cloisters of many a college and many a monastery, from Coimbra to Cracow, from Salerno to Upsala. These schools all perished with the downfall of the monasteries; and consequently we cannot, to this day, cope with the great public schools of England, or adequately supply the blank in our educational system created by their spoliation and abolition. Here, too, wise reform might have spared and remodelled what misguided zeal, allied with unprincipled greed, destroyed. With the ruination and impoverishment of the cathedrals, an element in the Church's life inseparable from them, and most salutary and useful, ceased to be. The bishops' deprivation of an authority they had too often disgraced and misused, vested the government of the Church in the presbyterate; and the national sentiment approved of the change. But there was no necessity for upsetting the whole cathedral system, and rooting out the whole cathedral staff, because the bishop was turned adrift. Had the Canonries been spared, an immense boon would have been secured for the Reformed Church. Had the stipends attached to them not been alienated, the Church would have possessed, at all its most important centres, a staff of clergymen chosen for their ability and worth, for their learning and power of government and organisation, aiding the minister in his work, or enriching the theological literature of their time. With them might have been associated younger men, either under their supervision as candidates for the ministry, or as probationers acquiring practical knowledge of its duties and requirements. The cathedral would have stood out, in its city, great or small, as the Mother Church--holding forth the model of devout ritual, of earnest and learned teaching, of zealous work. How vastly superior its influence would have been, spiritually, intellectually, socially, to that of struggling _quoad sacra_ churches, with their ill-paid clergy, or "missions" in charge of worse-paid probationers, it is, I think, needless to point out. But the possibility of such an institution passed away when the cathedrals were desecrated, and their revenues were "grippit"--to use Knox's phrase--by the ungodly robbers of the Church. I have written these few pages to serve as an introduction to what follows, from the hand of my friend, Mr. Butler. The Committee of the Guild asked me to prepare a volume on the most notable of our ancient churches; and finding that other engagements stood in the way of my doing so, I recommended that the work should be entrusted to Mr. Butler, of whose ability to do it well I felt confident. Having read what he has written, I find my confidence was not misplaced, and that his treatment of the subject is most instructive, thorough, and exact. It will add to the reputation he has already gained by his history of his own parish of Abernethy on Tay, and his books on Wesley in Scotland, and on Henry Scougal; and will prove an invaluable guide to all students of our historic churches, cathedral, collegiate, and monastic. R. H. S. SCOTTISH CATHEDRALS AND ABBEYS CHAPTER I RELATION OF CELTIC CHURCH TO ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH The period begun by the influence of Queen Margaret (1047-1093), continued by her sons and their successors on the Scottish throne, and culminating in the Scottish Reformation of 1560, is that with which this book deals. The old Celtic Church of Scotland was brought to an end by two causes--internal decay and external change. Under the first head, notice must be taken of the encroachment upon the ecclesiastic element by the secular, and of the gradual absorption of the former by the latter. There was a vitality in the old ecclesiastical organisation, but it was weakened by the assimilation of the native Church to that of Rome in the seventh and eighth centuries, which introduced a secular element among the clergy; and the frequent Danish invasions, which may be described as the organised power of Paganism against Scottish Christianity, grievously undermined its native force. The Celtic churches and monasteries were repeatedly laid waste or destroyed, and the native clergy were compelled either to fly or take up arms in defence; the lands, unprotected by the strong arm of law, fell into the hands of laymen, who made them hereditary in their families, and ultimately nothing was left but the name of abbacy, applied to the lands, and that of abbot, borne by a secular lord. Under the second head--external change--may be noted the policy adopted towards the Celtic Church by the kings of the race of Queen Margaret. It consisted (1) in placing the Church upon a territorial in place of a tribal basis, in substituting the parochial system and a diocesan episcopacy for the old tribal churches with monastic jurisdiction and functional episcopacy; (2) in introducing the orders of the Church of Rome, and founding great monasteries as counter influences to the Celtic Church; (3) in absorbing the Culdees or Columban clergy into the Roman system, by first converting them from secular into regular canons, and afterwards by merging them in the latter order.[1] King David especially founded bishoprics and established cathedrals, equipped with the ordinary cathedral staff of deans, canons, and other functionaries, and monasteries equipped with representatives of the monastic orders. Thus the native Celtic Church, undermined by internal decay, was extinguished by external change and a course of aggression which rolled from St. Andrews until it reached the far-off shores of Iona. All that remained to speak of its vitality and beneficence to the people of Scotland consisted of the roofless walls of an early church, or an old churchyard with its Celtic cross; the names of the early pastors by whom the churches were founded, or the neighbouring wells at the old foundations, dedicated to their memory; the village fairs, stretching back to a remote antiquity, and held on the saint's day in the Scottish calendar; here and there a few lay families possessing the church lands as the custodiers of the pastoral staff or other relics of the founder of the church, and exercising a jurisdiction over the ancient "girth" or sanctuary boundary such as the early missionaries instituted in the days when might was right, and they nobly witnessed to the right against the might. The new policy was connected with the introduction of the orders of the Roman Catholic Church, and with the building of cathedrals and abbeys. This movement commenced with the close of the eleventh century, and continued to the middle of the sixteenth; it embraced all the time when the Church of Scotland was guided by the regime of Rome, although it is to be recalled that the Scottish Church never ceased to maintain a native independence--its heirloom from the ancient Celtic Church. This independence, manifested on important historical occasions throughout mediæval times, at last found its national embodiment in the Reformed Church of 1560. Scotland was divided into thirteen dioceses--St. Andrews, Glasgow, Dunkeld, Aberdeen, Moray, Brechin, Dunblane, Ross, Caithness, Galloway, Lismore or Argyll, the Isles, and Orkney; but before sketching the history and architecture of each of the thirteen cathedrals, it will be necessary to indicate the general features of the various periods of Scottish architecture itself, as it is of this movement the structures themselves are all an expression. CHAPTER II SKETCH OF SCOTTISH ARCHITECTURE Architecture is a great stone book in which nations have recorded their annals, before the days of the printing-press: have written their thoughts, expressed their aspirations, and embodied their feelings as clearly and truly as by any other form of utterance. We know Egypt as vividly by its pyramids, the age of Pericles by the Parthenon of Athens, Imperial Rome by the Flavian Amphitheatre and the Baths of Caracalla, as from the pages of their respective literature. The mediæval cathedrals, monasteries, and churches are a living record of the faith and devotion of mediæval men, who have left besides them but little else whereby we can know their aspirations and civilisation; we find in them an expression of the deepest life that characterised the periods to which they belong, and a record which, though often mutilated, and sometimes nearly obliterated, never deceives. Wherever these architectural creations are found, there also a voice ought to be heard, telling what at that spot and at some previous time men thought and felt; what their civilisation enabled them to accomplish, and to what state they had attained in their conception of God. In a very true sense it can be said that the architecture of a country is the history of that country, and that the record of the architecture is the record of its civilisation. "Mediæval architecture," said Sir Gilbert Scott, "is distinguished from all other styles as being the last link of the mighty chain which had stretched unbroken through nearly 4000 years--the glorious termination of the history of original and genuine architecture....[2] It has been more entirely developed under the influence of the Christian religion, and more thoroughly carried out its tone and sentiment, than any other style. It is _par eminence_ Christian.... Its greatest glory is the solemnity of religious character which pervades the interior of its temples. To this all its other attributes must bend, as it is this which renders it so pre-eminently suited to the highest uses of the Christian Church. It was this, probably, which led Romney to exclaim, that if Grecian architecture was the work of glorious men, Gothic was the invention of gods."[3] This architecture was perfected by the mediæval builders--the round arch in the twelfth and the pointed arch in the two succeeding centuries. Its progress was the realisation of three great aims, towards which the Romanesque architects were ever striving--the perfecting of the arcuated and vaulted construction, the increase of the altitude of their proportion, and the general adding of refinement and delicacy to their details.[4] Scotland, it has been maintained by those competent to judge, can show a continuous series of Christian structures, beginning with the primitive cells and oratories of the early anchorites, and extending through all the periods of mediæval art. It exemplifies two distinctive phases of artistic development--the first comprising the rise and decline of Celtic Art in early Christian times, and the second allied to the various stages of general European culture. The Celtic churches, round towers, and sculptured monuments similar to those found in Ireland, are followed by primitive examples of Norman work, pointing to the Saxon and Norman influence of the eleventh century, which produced a complete revolution in the artistic elements of the country and led to a full development of the Romanesque or Norman style of architecture--a style similar to the round arched architecture of other European countries in the twelfth century. This is manifested chiefly in small parish churches, but also in large, elaborate buildings, and one cathedral.[5] The succeeding Gothic styles are also well represented in Scotland, and exhibit both certain local peculiarities and a general correspondence with the arts of the different periods in France and England. The First Pointed style is represented in Scotland during the thirteenth century, but owing to the disastrous situation of the country during the fourteenth century, the number of "decorated" buildings is pronounced to be comparatively small. On the other hand, it is maintained that during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the "Perpendicular" style prevailed in England and the "Flamboyant" in France, the architecture of Scotland was distinguished by a style peculiar to the country, in which many features derived from both the above styles may be detected.[6] "While the mediæval architecture of Scotland thus corresponds on the whole with that of the rest of Europe, there exists in the ecclesiology of the country an amount of native development sufficient to give it a special value as one of the exponents of the art of the Middle Ages. Its buildings further contribute largely to the illustration of the history of the country, by showing in their remains the condition and growth of its religious ideas and observances at different epochs, and the manner in which its civilisation advanced. We observe striking evidences of the Irish influence in the relics of the primitive Celtic Church. The Norman and English influences are clearly traceable up to the invasion of Edward I., and the political connection with France and the Netherlands is distinctly observable in the period of the Jameses."[7] 1. NORMAN ARCHITECTURE The Abernethy Round Tower, the Priory of Restennet, Forfarshire, and St. Regulus' or St. Rule's Church, St. Andrews, illustrate the transition from Celtic to Norman architecture.[8] The dates of the Irish round towers[9] extend from the ninth to the twelfth century, and the Abernethy Tower is regarded on historical grounds by Dr. Skene as belonging to the period about 870 A.D.; the upper windows and doorway are either additions of the twelfth century, or, as this was an early Irish house in Scotland, may illustrate what has been asserted, that in Ireland a form of Romanesque was introduced before the Anglo-Saxon Invasion.[10] At any rate, the tower is a combination of Celtic and Norman work. As to Restennet, the present choir is a First Pointed structure. David I. founded there an Augustinian Priory, which Malcolm IV. made a cell of the Abbey of Jedburgh. The tower is the only one of the square towers which has very marked features of a pre-Norman character.[11] The building above the second story is probably fifteenth-century work. St. Regulus' Church is treated pp. 17-19. The twelfth century was in Scotland as elsewhere the great church-building period, and the number of churches in the south and east that reflect the Norman movement is very large. All the large ones were conventual. Parish churches of the period are generally small and aisleless--the most of them being single oblong chambers, with an eastern chancel, sometimes with an eastern apse, and occasionally with a western tower.[12] Towards the close of the period, the ornament became very elaborate, especially in the arched heads of doorways. A common feature was the arcade running round the walls below the windows, either in the exterior, interior, or both; the caps and arches are generally carved elaborately and richly with ornaments, the chevron or zig-zag enrichment being a characteristic feature. The windows are always single and simple in detail.[13] Some of the towers connected with such churches are amongst the earliest instances of Norman work which survive; they are simple in design, square on plan, and are carried up, without break or buttress, to the parapet, where they are finished with a gable roof, forming the saddle-back arrangement still preserved in the Muthill Tower.[14] The break in the height is formed by string courses, which mark the unequal stories. A small wheel-stair usually leads to the top, and the doorway is occasionally several feet from the ground. Such are the leading features that can be traced in the buildings connected with the period. 2. SCOTTISH TRANSITION STYLE The term "transition" is by general agreement reserved for the architecture of the end of the twelfth century, when the Norman style gradually gave place to the first pointed Gothic style. In England this period extends from about 1180 to 1200; in Scotland it extends considerably into the thirteenth century. The characteristics of the style are the gradual introduction of the pointed arch and its use along with some of the decorative features of the Norman style. "The pointed arch shows the advent of the new style, but the ornaments of the old style continue to linger for a time. The first pointed style was not complete till these old ornaments were abandoned, and the more vigorous enrichments of the new style were introduced. The other constructive features of the Norman style gradually changed at the same time as the arch. The buttresses by degrees assumed the projecting form of the first pointed style, and the pinnacles and spires of the latter style were in course of time introduced."[15] 3. SCOTTISH FIRST POINTED PERIOD "The pointed Gothic style which had its origin in the north of France about the middle of the twelfth century appeared in England about 1170, but can scarcely be said to have reached Scotland till after the close of the twelfth century.... The pointed arch, for example, although generally adopted, did not entirely displace, as it had done in the south, the round form of the Normans, a feature which, especially in doorways, continued to be employed not only in the thirteenth century, but throughout the whole course of Gothic art in Scotland. In other respects the thirteenth century style in this country corresponds very closely with that of England. Its features are however, generally speaking, plainer and the structures are smaller."[16] "This new departure sprung from the necessity which arose for the invention of an elastic system of vaulting which should admit of all the arches, forming vaults over spaces of any form or plan, being carried to the same height at the ridge. This requirement led to the introduction of the pointed arch in the vaulting, and from that departure it soon spread to all the other arched features of the architecture."[17] Architecture, which had hitherto been confined to the monasteries, was now undertaken by laymen, and while the great monasteries were either rebuilt or founded, the cathedrals mostly belong to this period. To these attention was chiefly devoted, and the number of parish churches constructed was comparatively small. This partly arose from the large number of parish churches built during the Norman period. In Scotland the cathedrals of St. Andrews, Dunblane, Glasgow (the choir and crypt), Elgin, Brechin, Dunkeld, Caithness, the choir of St. Magnus in Orkney and Galloway belong in whole or in part to this epoch.[18] 4. SCOTTISH MIDDLE POINTED OR DECORATED PERIOD The period from 1214 to 1286 comprised the first pointed work in Scotland. The country was during the time prosperous, and is believed to have been more wealthy than at any time till after the Union with England.[19] The disputed succession after the death of Alexander III. gave Edward I. the opportunity of asserting his claims to the Scottish throne; war followed, and with it poverty and barbarism. "The first note of contest," says Dr. Joseph Robertson, "banished every English priest, monk, and friar from the northern realm. Its termination was followed by the departure of those great Anglo-Norman lords--the flower of the Scottish baronage--who, holding vast possessions in both countries, had so long maintained among the rude Scottish hills the generous example of English wealth and refinement. Then it was that De la Zouche and De Quincy, Ferrars and Talbot, Beaumont and Umfraville, Percy and Wake, Moubray and Fitz-Warine, Balliol and Cumyn, Hastings and De Coursi, ceased to be significant names beyond the Tweed--either perishing in that terrible revolution or withdrawing to their English domains, there to perpetuate in scutcheon and pedigree the memory of their rightful claims to many of the fairest lordships of Albany, and to much of the reddest blood of the north."[20] This had a twofold consequence to architecture. Comparatively few buildings arose in the north, and these were in a smaller scale. And England now becoming an hereditary enemy, no longer supplied models for the churches north of the Tweed, which received the impress of France. In England the First Pointed was succeeded about 1272 by the Middle Pointed or Decorated, which swayed for about a century, being succeeded by the Third Pointed or Perpendicular, whose reign, beginning about 1377, ended with the Reformation.[21] The Decorated style did not reach Scotland till it had passed away in England, and the Scottish representatives of the style are scanty in number and late in date.[22] When the country revived after the long struggle with England, and building began towards the close of the fourteenth or the beginning of the fifteenth century, few new works were undertaken, energy and resources were concentrated on the rebuilding or completion of the edifices that had been destroyed or left unfinished. This period, along with the Third Pointed in Scotland, is regarded as the work of native architects.[23] 5. SCOTTISH THIRD OR LATE POINTED PERIOD The Middle Pointed passed by a gentle gradation into the Late Pointed style, and it is difficult to say when the one ceased and the other began. Yet there are some characteristics of the Third Pointed which are peculiar to it and render it a distinct epoch. The large churches are nearly all restorations, and no new churches of great size were undertaken. The Scottish churches are usually smaller in size than the English ones, and consist of single compartments without aisles. The east end frequently terminates with a three-sided apse--a feature which owes its origin to the Scottish alliance and intercourse with France. The leading and distinguishing feature is, however, the vaulting--the pointed barrel vault being almost universally employed. The windows of these churches are necessarily low, so as to allow the point of the arch-head to come beneath the spring of the main vault. The buttresses are generally somewhat stunted. The windows are almost always pointed, and contain simple tracery derived from the earlier styles. The doorways are generally of the old round-headed form, with late foliage and enrichments. Porches are occasionally introduced, and coats of arms are commonly carved on shields of the period, and are useful in determining the dates of portions of the buildings. Towers were generally erected or intended, and are somewhat stunted, finished with short spires, having small dormer windows inserted in them. Monuments are of frequent occurrence, and are frequently placed in arched and canopied recesses. Richly carved sacrament-houses are occasionally introduced, and perhaps some of the good carving may be due to the French masons who were numerous in Scotland during the reigns of James IV. and James V. The structures of the period were either parish or collegiate churches.[24] CHAPTER III 1. DIOCESE OF ST. ANDREWS The connection between St. Andrews and the neighbouring Pictish Church at Abernethy was, during the early period, very close. Dr. Skene thinks that the first church at Abernethy was built during the visit of St. Ninian to the Southern Picts, or the people living between the Forth and the territory south of the Grampians; it was endowed with lands by King Nectan in 460 A.D., and dedicated to St. Bride;[25] and between 584 and 596, during St. Columba's visit, and as a result of his mission, a church was rebuilt by Gartnaidh, King of the Picts.[26] St. Columba is distinctly stated to have preached among the tribes on the banks of the Tay,[27] and to have been assisted in this work by St. Cainnech, who founded a church in the east end of the province of Fife, near where the Eden pours its waters into the German Ocean, at a place called Rig-Monadh, or the royal mount, which afterwards became famous as the site on which the church of St. Andrews was founded, and as giving to that place the name of Kilrimont.[28] The earliest Celtic church at St. Andrews was probably, like that of Iona, constructed with wattles and turf and roofed with thatch. It was customary to have caves or places of retirement for the hermits; they were used, too, as oratories or places of penance, and one such there is at St. Andrews, known as St. Rule's cave:-- Where good Saint Rule his holy lay, From midnight to the dawn of day, Sang to the billows' sound.[29] The connection of the place with St. Andrew has no historical basis till between 736 and 761, when a cathedral was dedicated to St. Andrew, and a portion of his relics was brought by Acca, Bishop of Northumbria, who was banished from that country in 732, and founded a church among the Picts. Dr. Skene points to the similarity of the events which succeeded one another in Northumbria and Southern Pictland in the eighth century. In the former country the Columban clergy were expelled, secular clergy were introduced, dedications were made to St. Peter, and afterwards Hexham was dedicated to St. Andrew and received the relics of the Apostle, brought there by one of its bishops; in the latter country, sixty years later, the Picts expelled the Columban monks, introduced the secular clergy, placed the kingdom under the patronage of St. Peter, and then receiving from some unknown quarter the relics of St. Andrew, founded the church in honour of that Apostle, who became the national patron-saint.[30] This "cathedral," dedicated to St. Andrew, was probably of stone, and was the church intervening between the early Celtic Church and that of St. Regulus. Angus, King of the Picts, endowed it with lands. On the destruction of Iona by the Danes, the bishopric was first transferred to Dunkeld (850-864); then to Abernethy (865-908), when the Round Tower was probably built;[31] and in 908 it was transferred to St. Andrews, which retained it until the Reformation. St. Adrian was probably one of the three bishops of Alban[32] at Abernethy, as chapels and crosses in the district are all connected with his name; and Cellach appears as the first Bishop at St. Andrews, and he was succeeded by eight Culdee bishops, the last of whom was Fothad, who officiated at the marriage of Malcolm Canmore and Queen Margaret. The next three bishops all died before consecration, and for about sixteen years after the death of Malcolm the bishopric would appear to have been vacant. Turgot, Queen Margaret's friend and confessor, was the thirteenth bishop, and ruled from 1107-1115--the first bishop not of native birth. Prior to 1107 the Culdee community had split up into two sections, dividing the spiritualities and temporalities between them, and Bishop Robert (1121-1159), with the object of superseding the Culdees, founded in 1144 a priory for the regular monks of St. Augustine, granting to them the Hospital of St. Andrews, with portions of the altarage. In the same year King David granted a charter to the prior and canons of St. Andrews, in which he provided that they shall receive the Keledei of Kilrimont into the canonry, with all their possessions and revenues, if they were willing to become canons-regular; but, if they refused, those who are now alive are to retain the property during their lives, and, after their death, as many canons-regular are to be instituted in the church of St. Andrews as there are now Keledei, and all their possessions are to be appropriated to the use of the canons. There were thus two rival ecclesiastical bodies in St. Andrews--the old corporation of secular priests and the new order of Austin-canons; the former enjoyed the greater part of the old endowments, and the latter recovered a considerable portion of the secularised property that had passed into lay hands. Popes, bishops, and kings endeavoured to end this rivalry, but their efforts were not crowned with success; although influence was on the side of the canons-regular, the Keledei clung to their prescriptive right to take part in the election of a bishop down to 1273, when they were excluded by protest; in 1332 they were absolutely excluded, and the formula of their exclusion from taking part in the election was repeated;[33] we hear of them afterwards not as Keledei, but as "the provostry of the Church of St. Mary of the city of St. Andrews," of "the Church of the Blessed Mary of the Rock," and of "the provostry of Kirkheugh"--the society consisting of a provost and ten prebendaries.[34] In the reign of Malcolm IV. the bishopric of St. Andrews included the counties of Fife, Kinross, Clackmannan, the three Lothians, Berwickshire, Roxburghshire, parts of Perthshire, Forfarshire, and Kincardineshire; and, although the see was lessened by the creation of new bishoprics, the importance of St. Andrews was always great, for at the Reformation the primate's ecclesiastical jurisdiction included 2 archdeaconries, 9 rural deaneries, the patronage of 131 benefices, the administration of 245 parishes. In 1471 or 1472 the see was erected into an archbishopric by a bull of Pope Sixtus IV. and at this time the Archbishop of York surrendered his claim to have the Bishop of St. Andrews as his suffragan--a claim repeatedly made since the time of Turgot and as frequently resented. The office of bishop or archbishop involved great spiritual and temporal power; the primates were lords of regality and ultimate heirs of all confiscated property within their domains; they levied customs and at times had the power of coining money; they presided at synods, controlled the appointment of abbots and priors, were included with the King in the oath of allegiance, and took precedence next to the royal family, and before all the Scottish nobility. There were in all thirty-one bishops and six archbishops, who held the see in succession from 908 to 1560, and among the more famous of them may be mentioned Turgot, the friend and biographer of Queen Margaret (1107-1115); Robert, prior of Scone, who founded the Priory of St. Andrews, received the gift of the Culdee Monastery of Lochleven, and built the church and tower of St. Rule (1124-1158); Arnold, Abbot of Kelso, who started the building of the great cathedral (1158-1159); William Wishart of Pitarrow, who was lord-chancellor and bishop (1273-1279), and rebuilt, between 1272 and 1279, the west front, which was blown down by a tempest of wind; William Lamberton (1298-1328), who consecrated the cathedral in 1318, in the presence of King Robert the Bruce; Henry Wardlaw (1404-1440), who founded in 1411 the University of St. Andrews; James Kennedy (1440-1466)--the greatest of all the bishops--who founded St. Salvador's College; James Stewart (1497-1503), second son of James III., Duke of Ross and Marquis of Ormond, who was made primate at twenty-one; Alexander Stewart (1506-1513), who was the natural son of James IV., and fell with his father at Flodden; James Beaton (1522-1539), who founded St. Mary's College and burnt Patrick Hamilton; David Beaton, nephew of James Beaton (1539-1546), who burnt Wishart and was murdered; John Hamilton (1549-1571), who was the author of the Catechism of 1552.[35] As to the buildings, St. Regulus' or St. Rule's, standing in the ancient churchyard at a distance of about 120 feet south-east of the east end of the Cathedral of St. Andrews, was unquestionably the earlier Cathedral Church, and occupies probably the site of the earlier Celtic church. Bishop Robert (1121-1159) introduced the canons-regular of St. Augustine in 1144, and these gradually absorbed many of the Culdees into their community. It was during this time also that St. Rule's was built. Dr. Joseph Robertson says of it:--"The little Romanesque church and square tower at St. Andrews, which bear the name of St. Rule, have, so far as we know, no prototype in the south.... No one acquainted with the progress of architecture will have much difficulty in identifying the building with the small 'basilica' reared by Bishop Robert, an English canon-regular of the order of St. Augustine, between the years 1127 and 1144."[36] The Pictish Chronicle states that Robert was elected Bishop in the reign of Alexander I., but was not consecrated till the reign of David I. in 1138; that, after his consecration by Thurstan, Archbishop of York, he expended on this work one-seventh of the altar dues which fell to him, reserving them for his own use. "But inasmuch as the outlay was small, the building made correspondingly small progress, until, by the Divine favour, and the influence of the King, offerings flowed in, and the work went on apace. The basilica was thus founded and in great part constructed."[37] What now remains of this building consists of a square tower, 112 feet high, and an oblong chamber. Discussion has arisen as to whether there ever was a nave, and in favour of the positive view it is urged that marks of three successive roofs may be seen on the tower-wall, and that the seals of the church, dated 1204 and 1214, show a nave and chancel. Eminent authorities take this view. Sir Gilbert Scott thinks that the large size of the western arch, and the mark of the roof on the tower, suggest a nave;[38] while later authorities, recalling that this church was once a cathedral, as well as the church of a monastery, and served the purpose of a parish church, hold it as more than probable that it must have been a larger building than the simple oblong chamber to the east of the tower which now survives.[39] The architecture corresponds with the period of Bishop Robert,[40] so that there is more than probability in averring that St. Rule's was the cathedral built by this bishop, and took the place of an earlier Celtic church, founded by Bishop Acca. The square tower of St. Regulus was probably designed to fulfil the same purposes as the Round Towers of Abernethy and Brechin: (1) to serve as a belfry; (2) to be a keep or place of strength in which the sacred utensils, books, relics, and other valuables were deposited, and into which the ecclesiastics could retire for security in case of sudden predatory attack; (3) when occasion required, to be a beacon or watch-tower.[41] Besides the Church of St. Regulus, there are still to be seen the ruins of the great Cathedral of St. Andrews, which consisted of a short aisleless presbytery, and choir of five bays with side aisles, with an eastern chapel in each aisle; north and south transepts, each of three bays with eastern aisles; nave of twelve bays with north and south aisles, and a large central tower over the crossing. The interior dimensions were--total length, 355 feet; width of nave, 63 feet; length of transepts, 167 feet 6 inches; width, 43 feet 2 inches. The older parts of the Cathedral exhibit traces of the transition from the Norman architecture, but the principal parts of the structure have been carried out in the First Pointed style.[42] The Cathedral Church was also the Conventual Church of the Austin-canons, and the Bishop was _ex officio_ prior of the monastery. Of the conventual buildings erected by Bishop Robert nothing remains. The Cathedral was erected from east to west in about 115 years.[43] The work was commenced by Bishop Arnold in 1161, was continued by eleven successive bishops, and was consecrated by Bishop Lamberton in 1318. During its progress in 1276, the eastern end was greatly injured by a violent tempest, and in 1378 the Cathedral suffered from fire, which according to Wyntoun destroyed the south half of the nave from the west end, and eastward to and including the ninth pillar. The restoration was begun at once by Bishop Landel (1341-1385), and completed in the time of Bishop Wardlaw (1404-1440), who in 1430 improved the interior by the introduction of fine pavements in the choir, transept, and nave, and by filling the nave with stained glass and building a large window in the eastern gable. The south wall of the nave extends considerably westwards beyond the present west end, and contains the remains of a vaulting shaft, leading to the inference that the Cathedral was originally of greater length than it now is by at least 34 feet. The north wall of nave also projects westwards about 7 feet. There is a difficulty in connection with the west front, and it is regarded by competent authorities that this wall was not part of a western porch, but "indicates that there has been a change in the design, and that the original intention of having a wide porch extending along the whole of the west end has been departed from after the first story was built up to the level of the above string course, all above that point being of later design and execution."[44] The early chapter-house was 26 feet square, and was vaulted with four central pillars. It opened to the cloisters, and the doorway is pronounced to be in the purest style of early pointed architecture.[45] Bishop Lamberton (1298-1328) erected a new chapter-house, and the old one was made a vestibule to the new. South of the early chapter-house was probably the fratery; on the upper floor of this building and the chapter-house was the dormitory--a wheel-stair leading to it from the south transept. On the west side of the cloister was the sub-prior's house, known also as Senzie House; south-east of the fratery is the prior's house or Hospitium Vetus, which was sometimes the residence of the bishop. West of the cathedral are the remains of the entrance gateway, called the "Pends," and in continuation of the "Pends" was the enclosing wall of the priory grounds, containing sixteen towers. The Guest-House was within the precinct of St. Leonard's College, and was built about the middle of the thirteenth century.[46] Within the precincts of the Priory-grounds were the various offices connected with the great ecclesiastical establishment. The conventual and other buildings attached to the Cathedral have been recently excavated at the expense of the late Marquis of Bute, and considerable remains of the foundations disclosed to view. The ruins of the castle stand on a rocky promontory, overhanging the sea, N.N.W. of the Cathedral; and between the Cathedral-wall on the N.E. and the sea are the foundations of a chapel dedicated to the Virgin. In 1559 the Cathedral was attacked by the mob and greatly destroyed. Time and weather helped to complete the work of destruction; the Protestant Archbishop Spottiswoode in 1635 strove to make provision for its restoration, but nothing appears to have been done to arrest the work of destruction. The Barons of Exchequer in 1826 took possession of the ruins, had the rubbish cleared away, and what remained of the great building strengthened. The pier-bases have been made visible, and the outline of the building marked on the turf. St. Andrews has been associated with most of the stirring events in Scottish Church history, and will always possess its two great voices of the Cathedral and the Sea. 2. DIOCESE OF GLASGOW Towards the end of the fourth century, St. Ninian, a Christian missionary trained at Rome in the doctrine and discipline of the Western Church, is said to have established a religious cell on the banks of the Molendinar. How long he remained there is uncertain, but his labours are chiefly centred around the Candida Casa at Whithorn and among the southern Picts, whose district, according to Bede, he evangelised. With St. Ninian's departure, the district around the Molendinar relapsed into barbarism, and the only remaining monument of his work was a cemetery which he was reputed to have consecrated. The next historical reference to Glasgow is in connection with St. Kentigern, or, as he was popularly known, St. Mungo, about the middle of the sixth century. He was of royal descent, and was born in 518 or 527. His biographer, Joceline, states that he was adopted and educated by St. Servanus or St. Serf, who lived at Culross, and by him was named "Munghu," _i.e._ dearest friend. But this must be a mistake, for Servanus lived two centuries after Kentigern's time;[47] if it is correct, there must have been an earlier and a later St. Serf. On attaining his twenty-fifth year, according to Joceline, he proceeded to Carnock, where lived a holy man named Fergus. After he reached the abode of Fergus, the good man said his "nunc dimittis" and died; and Kentigern, placing his body on a wain drawn by two bulls, took his departure, praying to be guided to the place which might be appointed for burial. The place where the wain stopped was Cathures, afterwards called Glasgow, where St. Ninian had consecrated a cemetery, and here Fergus was buried. Such is Joceline's account of Kentigern's first connection with Glasgow. The king and people of the district pressed him to remain as their bishop, and he consented, establishing his see at Cathures and founding a lay society of the servants of God, and fixing his own abode on the banks of the Molendinar. After some years of austerity and beneficence there, he was driven from his work by the persecutions of an apostate prince and settled in the vale of Clwyd, North Wales, where he founded a monastery. After a time he returned to Glasgow, at the solicitation of the King of Cumbria, and appointed St. Asaph as his successor in Wales. In a martyrology ascribed to the year 875 Kentigern appears as "bishop of Glasgow and confessor."[48] While resident at Glasgow, St. Kentigern was visited by St. Columba, his distinguished contemporary and the apostle of the Picts, who presented him with a crozier, which, Fordun says, was afterwards preserved in St. Wilfrid's Church at Ripon. Bishop Forbes describes the meeting of the two great men "as one of those incidents which we wish to be true, and which we have no certainty for believing not to be so."[49] St. Kentigern died in 603 or 614, and was buried in Glasgow, which is still known as the city of St. Mungo--Mungo being his name of honour or affection. Everything connected with St. Mungo's early church, of wood and wattles or of stone, on the banks of the Molendinar, is shrouded in the mists of antiquity until the first quarter of the twelfth century, when David, Prince and Earl of Cumbria, the youngest son of Queen Margaret, took measures to reconstruct the see and recover its property. Of Glasgow during the Culdee period nothing can be definitely known. The result of Prince David's inquest is contained in the _Register_ of the Bishopric,[50] and it sets forth that Prince David, from love to God and by the exhortation of the Bishop, having caused inquiry to be made concerning the lands belonging to the church in Cumbria, had ascertained that they belonged to the church of Glasgow, and restored them. These lands extended from the Clyde on the north to the Solway and English March on the south, from the western boundary of Lothian on the east to the river Urr on the west, including Teviotdale, and comprehended what afterwards formed the site of the city of Glasgow.[51] The building of the cathedral would appear to have been begun before David succeeded to the throne in 1124, and he appointed his tutor John (called Achaius) to the bishopric. In 1136 the church, which was probably chiefly of wood, was dedicated, and King David endowed it further with lands, tithes, and churches. The church of Achaius was destroyed by fire, but through the exertions of Bishop Joceline a society was founded to collect funds for its restoration, and the work was sufficiently advanced for its consecration on 6th July 1197.[52] Although built at different dates, the building has a very homogeneous appearance, and might be mistaken for a building of one period. Under competent guidance,[53] we now propose to give a short sketch of the cathedral itself. The first attempt to erect a cathedral was made by Bishop Achaius, whose episcopate extended from 1115 to 1147, and Mr. Honeyman regards the portion of the lower church at the south-west angle as the most ancient part of the structure. He holds that the church built by Achaius was restored by Bishop Joceline (1175-1199) at the end of the twelfth century, and that the above portion formed a chapel, and was part of that restoration. The strongest argument is its nearness to the tomb of the patron saint. If we assume that the old choir terminated in a semicircular apse, projecting eastward beyond the aisles, we shall find that the tomb would be enclosed in such a position as to admit of the high altar being placed immediately over it. Assuming that the choir was not apsidal but square, we get the same result. The probability is that the end of the church erected or altered by Joceline was square, and that it projected two bays beyond the aisles, as at St. Andrews and other churches of the same period.[54] The crypt, or, strictly speaking, "lower church," was evidently suggested by the sloping eastward character of the site, which would have placed St. Mungo's tomb at a depth below the level on which a large church could possibly be built; while Achaius, from his long residence in Italy, would be led to imitate some notable Italian examples.[55] Some similarities between Glasgow and Jedburgh (which was in the diocese of Glasgow) have suggested that there was in the olden times such a servant of the church as a diocesean architect.[56] "One thing is abundantly clear," says Mr. Honeyman, "to any one who intelligently studies the building, namely, that the whole design was carefully thought out and settled before a stone was laid. It is a skilful and homogeneous design, which could only be produced by a man of exceptional ability and great experience. Nothing has been left to chance, or to the sweet will of the co-operating craftsman, but the one master-mind has dictated every moulding and every combination, and has left the impress of his genius upon it all. The mark of the master may be discerned by the practised eye in every feature of the magnificent edifice; the marks of the craftsmen may be seen on the work they were told to do, and did so well."[57] To Bishop Joceline is due the credit of having formed a society to collect funds for the restoration of Bishop John's church, which was burnt by fire,[58] and he appears to have rebuilt the choir, and also to have designed, if he did not also partly build, the nave.[59] This part of his work was sufficiently advanced for consecration on 6th July 1197.[60] The work was probably continued by his successors, but the next great benefactor of the cathedral was Bishop William de Bondington (1233-1258), who perfected Joceline's work, and built both choir and lower church or "crypt," as they now are.[61] According to Mr. Honeyman, the foundations of the nave were laid and part of the walls was carried up before the building of the choir was begun.[62] Most of the nave appears, from its architecture, to have been erected at the end of the thirteenth, or the beginning of the fourteenth century, and is pronounced to form "one of the finest examples of the late First Pointed or Early Decorated style in Scotland."[63] "The spacing (of the piers) is that of the twelfth century (considerably less than that of the choir), while the height and the treatment, in other respects, is that of the latter portion of the thirteenth."[64] Bishop Wishart during the war of Independence supported the Scottish party; he obtained permission from Edward I. to cut timber in Luss forest for erecting the spire of the cathedral, and it was one of the causes of accusation against him, which led to his imprisonment in England, that he had used the said timber not for building the spire but for making engines of war wherewith to attack Edward's army. In 1400 the wooden spire of the cathedral was destroyed by lightning, but a new tower of masonry was erected over the crossing by Bishop Lauder (1408-1425), who carried the work as high as the main parapet. "This bishop appears also to have begun the completion of the chapter-house, a detached structure lying to the north-east of the choir. The walls of this building were partly erected about the time of the construction of the choir, but were afterwards raised to two storeys in height, and vaulted by Bishop Cameron."[65] This latter prelate (1426-1446) was known as "the Magnificent," from the splendour of his retinue and court. He erected the stone spire above the tower of Bishop Lauder, and also completed the chapter-house wing containing the sacristy on the upper floor, and the chapter-house on the ground floor. His arms are still to be seen on the portions of the structure erected by him. The beautiful rood-screen was also probably constructed by him.[66] Bishop Cameron also increased the number of prebendaries from seven to thirty-two, and ordained that they should all have manses and reside near the cathedral. In his day the episcopal court was said to rival that of the King, and he built the great tower of the castle or episcopal palace, which was probably erected by Bishop Bondington and stood with the garden in the open space between the cathedral and the present Castle Street, now called Infirmary Square. The Bishop's palace was a Scottish baronial structure, and had an elaborate turreted gateway or port at the south-east angle of the wall nearly opposite the gate that now leads to the cathedral yard.[67] Bishop William Turnbull, who succeeded Bishop Cameron, held office from 1448 to 1454. He did not add much to the cathedral, but his memory ought to be gratefully remembered, for in response to his representation and that of the King, Pope Nicholas V. issued his bull, on 7th January 1450-1451, by which he erected the University, ordaining that it should flourish in all time to come, as well in theology and canon and civil law as in the arts and every lawful faculty, and that the doctors, masters, readers, and students might there enjoy all the liberties, honours, exemptions, and immunities granted by the Apostolic see to the doctors, masters, and students in the University of Bologna. He gave the power to confer degrees and make licentiates--an important recognition in those days, for it brought the influence of the Church on the side of schools of learning, and gave universal European validity to the degrees so conferred.[68] The Bishop of Glasgow was the patron and head of the University of Glasgow, which was thus founded forty years after that of St. Andrews, and forty years before that of Aberdeen. The next prelate, Bishop Andrew Muirhead (1455-1473) took an important part in the State affairs of the period, and as far as his work in the cathedral is concerned, built the hall of the choral vicars. It is situated between the two buttresses at the west end of the north aisle of the choir, and is a low building now roofed with flags. It was called the "aula vicariorum chori," and was built as an accommodation for the vicars choral, whose duties were to serve and sing in the choir. They were formed into a college by Bishop Muirhead, were originally twelve in number, but were afterwards increased to eighteen, and were aided by boy choristers. Archbishop Eyre thinks that this building on the north side of the cathedral was the early song-school of the church, which passed into the hands of the college of vicars choral, and was a hall for their business meetings and musical practice, the second storey being probably their reading-room, or the sleeping-place of the sacristan, who was required to sleep in the church.[69] Robert Blacader (1484-1508) was high in favour with King James IV., and was one of the embassy sent to England to arrange the marriage of the Scottish monarch with the daughter of Henry VII. James had previously sought consolation under the Bishop's care, enrolled himself as a prebendary in the cathedral, and in person attended as a member of the cathedral-chapter. The King was always favourable to Glasgow, and did not desire the see to be subordinate to that of St. Andrews. He urged upon the Pope that the pallium should be granted to the Bishop of Glasgow, whose cathedral, he urged, "surpasses the other cathedral churches of my realm by its structure, its learned men, its foundation, its ornaments, and other very noble prerogatives." A bull was granted in 1491-1492 by Pope Innocent VIII. in which he declared the see to be metropolitan, and appointed the bishops of Dunkeld, Dunblane, Galloway, and Argyll to be its suffragans.[70] Blacader was the first Archbishop of Glasgow, and beautified his cathedral by building or adorning the fine rood-screen which separates the nave from the choir[71] by founding altarages and erecting two altars in front of the rood-screen, on both of which his arms and initials are carved.[72] He built also the decorated flights of steps from the aisles of the nave to the choir, and partly erected the building in continuation of the south transept, called Blacader's aisle, but it was never carried higher than the ground storey or crypt.[73] It is also known as Fergus's aisle.[74] Archbishop Blacader was the last to add to the cathedral, and there is reason to believe that his addition occupies the site of the cemetery consecrated by St. Ninian, and thus the earliest consecration and the latest building effort are identified with the same spot.[75] Glasgow, like Elgin, Aberdeen, and Brechin, possessed originally two western towers, but at Glasgow, grievously and unfortunately, the south-west tower was removed in 1845, and the north-west one in 1848 by the Restoration Committee. They were venerable in their antiquity, and were probably built after the completion of the nave and aisles, if not at the same time. Evidence showed "that probably the north-west tower was part of the original design, or if not, that its erection was resolved on before the north aisle was completed, and it was built before the west window of the north aisle required to be glazed. The south-west tower was probably of the same date."[76] The latter was best known as the consistory house, and was the place where the bishops held their ecclesiastical courts and the diocesan records were kept. The only comfort amid the demolition of the towers is that the proposed new ones were not erected in their place; and better counsel ought to have prevailed, since Mr. Billings described the removal as an act of barbarism. "All who now see the grand old building, shorn of its cathedral features, and made like a large parish church, mock and laugh at the action of the local committee, saying, "These men had two towers, and they went and pulled them both down.""[77] The higher church had twenty-four altars or chapels;[78] the lower church, commonly but incorrectly called the crypt, had six altars;[79] the high altar occupied the usual place, was dedicated to St. Kentigern, had a wooden canopy or tabernacle work over it, and in front of it, on the right-hand side, was the bishop's throne.[80] When it is recalled that the cathedral possessed these thirty altars or chapels (most of them beautiful works of art), thirty-two canons, college of choral vicars, with other assistants, one can well understand the great, almost dangerous power which the "Spiritual Dukedom" possessed, and the dread, felt even by its own chapter, when it was first proposed to make the bishopric into an archbishopric, for they regarded the movement as conferring too much power on the bishop.[81] A conception of the archbishop's power may be formed by recalling that the archdeaconry of Glasgow contained the following deaneries--Nycht, Nith, or Dumfries, with 31 parishes, besides 2 in Annandale and 8 in Galloway; Annandale, 28 parishes, besides 8 in Eskdale; Kyle, 17 parishes; Cunningham, 15; Carrick, 9; Lennox, 17; Rutherglen, 34; Lanark or Clydesdale, 25; Peebles or Stobo, 19; the archdeaconry of Teviotdale, 36 parishes.[82] Besides the prelates already mentioned there were, as the direct successors of Blacader, James Beaton (1508-1522), afterwards Archbishop of St. Andrews; Gavin Dunbar (1524-1547); James Beaton, the last Roman Catholic archbishop, who at the Reformation retired to France with the writs of the see, which were deposited, by his directions, partly in the archives of the Scots College, and partly in the Chartreuse of Paris, and have been since published by the Maitland Club.[83] Among the Protestant archbishops space will only permit us recording the names of John Spottiswood (1612-1615) and Robert Leighton (1671-1674).[84] Glasgow has passed through the various stages of burgh, burgh of barony, burgh of regality, city, royal burgh, and county of a city.[85] But it grew under the protection of the Church, for as David I. granted to Bishop John of St. Andrews the site of the burgh of that name, so William the Lion granted to Bishop Joceline of Glasgow the right to have a burgh in Glasgow, with all the freedoms and customs which any royal burgh in Scotland possessed.[86] Glasgow thus owed its existence to the Church, under whose fostering care it developed for centuries, and the ruling ecclesiastic elected the provost, magistrates, and councillors. Its motto still is "Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the Word," and its seal emblems have been thus interpreted: "The employment of these four emblems (fish, bird, tree, bell) in connection with St. Kentigern was meant to convey that he was sent as a fisher of men, that his work from small beginnings grew to very large dimensions, 'like to a grain of mustard-seed, ... which is the least indeed of all seeds, but when it is grown up ... becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and dwell in the branches thereof'; and that his name and fame became so great that he was heard of everywhere. 'Verily their sound hath gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the whole world.'"[87] The most beautiful features of the exterior are pronounced to be the doorways, especially those of the lower church,[88] the vaulting of which was said by Sir Gilbert Scott to contain nowhere two compartments in juxtaposition which are alike.[89] It has been suggested that the motive of the architect was to reproduce, as nearly as circumstances permitted, the plan of Solomon's Temple, and the arrangement corresponds exactly.[90] The beauty of the lower church is much obscured by the dark stained glass in the windows, and it is matter for regret that this masterpiece of design and wonderful variety of effect[91] are not more visible. "The plan of the cathedral," says Mr. Honeyman, "is remarkably compact, and the exterior is symmetrical and harmonious. The best points of view are from the north-east and the south-east. From either of these points the full height of the structure is seen, and that is sufficiently great to give the building a dignified and impressive effect, the height from the ground-level to the apex of the choir gable being 115 feet. The well-proportioned short transept breaks the monotony of the long clerestory, without unduly hiding it, as transepts with more projections do. The gable of the choir, with its four lancets, rises picturesquely over the double eastern aisles, while the sombre keep-like mass of the chapter-house adds a romantic element to the effect of the whole composition, which culminates gracefully in the lofty spire. The pervading characteristic is simplicity, and the effect solemnising. Sir Walter Scott, with his usual quick perception of _character_ in buildings, as well as in man, puts an admirable reference to these salient points into the mouth of Andrew Fairservice, who exclaims, 'Ah! it's a brave kirk; nane o' yer whigmaleeries an' curliwurlies, an' open-steek hems about it.' It may, indeed, be called severe, but not tame."[92] Internally the cathedral has a nave of eight bays, with side aisles; transepts, not projecting beyond the aisles; a choir of five bays, with side aisles and an aisle at the east end, with chapels beyond it. At the north-east corner of the choir is the sacristy or vestiarium; below it is the chapter-house, with an entrance from the lower church; on the south side of the church, as a continuation of the transept, is another low church or crypt, called "Blacader's Aisle"; on the north side are the foundations of a large chapel. Over the crossing rise the tower and spire, 217 feet high. The church within is 283 feet long by 61 feet broad.[93] The history of the cathedral is closely connected with many of the stirring events in Scottish history. King Edward prostrated himself before its altar; Robert the Bruce within it received absolution, "while the Red Cumyn's blood was scarce yet dry upon his dagger"; and within its walls was held the Glasgow Assembly of 1638, when the Episcopate was abolished, and the Presbyterian government was restored. Robert Leighton has preached within its choir, in his low, sweet voice, and with those angelic strains of eloquence and devotion which lingered in the memory of his hearers to their dying day. 3. DIOCESE OF DUNKELD Dunkeld is situated amid lovely scenery, and was from the earliest times a religious centre. The name means fort of the Culdees. After the destruction of Iona by the Norsemen in the beginning of the ninth century, Dunkeld became the seat of the Columban authority in Scotland, and part of the relics of St. Columba were brought here by King Kenneth Macalpine in 850. Its abbot was named Bishop of Fortreum, but in 865 the primacy was transferred to Abernethy, and thence to St. Andrews in 908. One of the lay abbots at Dunkeld married a daughter of Malcolm II., and through the influence of their descendants the religious order in Scotland was changed. Emerging as great secular chiefs, these lay abbots weakened, if they did not destroy, the ecclesiastical foundation. The bishopric was revived by Alexander I. in 1107, and prior to the thirteenth century was not confined to Atholl, but extended to the western sea, and included the districts stretching along its shores from the Firth of Clyde to Lochbroom, and forming the province of Argyll.[94] The western part was separated about 1200, and formed into a new bishopric, termed first that of Argyll, and afterward that of Lismore.[95] Cormac, the Culdee abbot, was the first bishop under the new order, and among his successors may be mentioned Bishop Sinclair (1312-1338), the friend of Bruce, and a "man of courage, the champion of the Church, and the brave defender of the constitution of the kingdom";[96] Bishop Lauder (1452-1476), who filled the see "with unfading honour,"[97] and built a bridge across the Tay, as well as adorned the cathedral; George Brown (1485-1514), who divided the see into four deaneries, procured Gaelic preachers,[98] promoted clerical efficiency, enlarged the palace at Dunkeld, and built the castle of Cluny;[99] Gavin Douglas (1516-1522), "a noble, learned, worthy bishop,"[100] who translated the _Æneid_ into Scots verse, and thus in a barbarous age, Gave to rude Scotland Virgil's page. The diocese had four deaneries: (1) Atholl and Drumalbane, with 47 parishes; (2) Angus, with 5; (3) Fife, Fotherick, and Stratherne, with 7; (4) South Forth, with 7.[101] Canon Myln's quaint _Lives of the Bishops of Dunkeld_ professes to give an account of the building of the cathedral, and it appears that the existing structure is chiefly of the fifteenth century.[102] It consists of an aisleless choir, a nave with two aisles, a north-west tower, and a chapter-house to the north of the choir. It appears that the different parts of the structure were begun at the dates given by Abbot Myln, but were not completed until some time afterwards.[103] All are Third Pointed in style except the choir, which retains some scanty portions of First Pointed work. The following are given as the approximate dates of the original construction: choir (1318-1400); nave (1406-1465); chapter-house (1457-1465); tower (1469-1501). The episcopal palace was a little south-west of the cathedral, which contained many valuable ornaments and vessels, a painted reredos, and in its great tower two large bells, named St. George and St. Colm (Columba). At the Reformation in 1560, the cathedral suffered the common fate of most of such structures, although Argyll and Ruthven, in requiring the lairds of Airntully and Kinvaid "to purge the kirk of all kinds of monuments of idolatry," requested them also "to tak good heid that neither the desks, windocks, nor doors be onyways hurt or broken, either glassin work or iron work." The closing injunction was not observed, and the roofs were also demolished. In 1600 the choir was re-roofed, and is the present parish church. But the ruins still speak of the former grandeur of this old church-town, and perhaps a like day may yet dawn for Dunkeld, as has been seen at Dunblane. 4. DIOCESE OF ABERDEEN The earliest ecclesiastical history of Aberdeen is connected with St. Machar (a disciple of St. Columba), who preached the Gospel among the Northern Picts and settled on the banks of the Don, founding there both a Christian colony and a church, which, from its situation, was called the Church of Aberdon. Another band of Columban missionaries established themselves in the sequestered vale of the Fiddich, at Morthlac, and in the beginning of the twelfth century the "Monastery of Morthlach" possessed five dependent churches.[104] The tradition that there was a bishopric at Murthlack or Morthlach is not founded on reliable evidence, and is discredited by Dr. Cosmo Innes[105] and Dr. Skene.[106] What David I. did was to graft on the Culdee monastery of St. Machar the chapter of a new diocese, and in this manner the bishopric was founded before 1150, and endowed with old Culdee possessions, among others with the "Monastery of Morthlach" and its five churches.[107] The third bishop, Matthew de Kininmond, began to build a cathedral between 1183 and 1199 to supersede the primitive church then existing,[108] "which (new building), because it was not glorious enough, Bishop Cheyne threw down."[109] The second edifice was begun by Bishop Cheyne about 1282, and the work was interrupted by the Scottish war with Edward I. during the bishop's absence in temporary banishment. "The king (Bruce) seeing the new cathedral he had begun, made the church to be built with the revenues of the bishopric."[110] The cathedral thus built was thrown down in turn by Bishop Alexander Kininmond, who succeeded in 1355 and began the present cathedral about 1366. "Of his operations there remain two large piers for the support of the central tower, which form the earliest portion of the structure of St. Machar's now remaining."[111] The dean and chapter (of which Barbour, the father of Scottish poetry, was a member) taxed themselves for the fabric in sixty pounds annually for ten years; the bishop surrendered revenues worth about twice that sum; the Pope in 1380 made a grant of indulgences to all who should help the work. All these appliances but availed to raise the foundations of the nave a few feet above ground.[112] Forty years elapsed before Bishop Leighton (1422-1440) completed the wall of the nave, founded the northern transept, and reared the two western towers.[113] Bishop Lindsay (1441-1459) paved and roofed the cathedral; it was glazed by Bishop Spens (1459-1480). Bishop Elphinstone (1487-1514), who founded King's College in 1500, and who was "the most distinguished of all who ever filled the episcopal chair," ... and possessed "manners and temperance in his own person, befitting the primitive ages of Christianity,"[114] adorned the cathedral. He built the great central tower and wooden spire, provided the great bells, and covered the roofs of nave, aisles, and transept with lead.[115] This central tower was four storey high, and square, and had two battlements and fourteen bells; it was a noted landmark to mariners at sea.[116] Bishop Gavin Dunbar (1519-1531) built the southern transept, added spires to Leighton's towers, and constructed at his own "pains and expenses" the flat ceiling of oak, which still remains with the heraldries of the Pope, the Emperor, St. Margaret, the kings and princes of Christendom, the bishops and the earls of Scotland. Bishop Elphinstone began to rebuild the choir, but it never seems to have been finished. Alluding to 1560, Orme says, "The glorious structure of said cathedral church, being near nine score years in building, did not remain twenty entire, when it was almost ruined by a crew of sacrilegious church robbers."[117] The ruins of the choir have been entirely removed; of the transepts only the foundations now remain, the architecture being destroyed by the fall of the central tower in 1688. The nave is nearly perfect, and is used as the parish church. The west front, except the spires, is entirely built with granite, and is regarded as one of the most impressive and imposing structures in Scotland,[118] and as stately in the severe symmetry of its simple design.[119] There is a remarkable entrance doorway, the jambs being mere rounds and hollows, with a flat stone laid along at the springing of the round arch. Above the doorway are seven lofty narrow windows, crowned each with a round and cusped arch, and forming a striking feature of the whole. The clerestory windows are narrow and round arched, without any moulding, while the aisle windows are filled with the simplest tracery. East of the cathedral was the bishop's palace (1470), "a large and fair court, having a high tower at each of its four corners";[120] to the south stood the deanery. Aberdeen was created a city or bishop's see by King David,[121] and the diocese contained five deaneries, with 94 parishes. 5. DIOCESE OF MORAY Previously to Elgin, the see was successively at Birnay, Kinnedor, and Spyny, but without a proper cathedral.[122] Alexander I., shortly after his accession in 1107, founded the bishopric, but it was not till the time of Bricius, the sixth Bishop of Moray, who filled that position from 1203 to 1222, that the bishops had any fixed residence in the diocese.[123] When Bricius became bishop in 1203, he fixed his cathedral at Spyny, founded a chapter of eight secular canons, and gave to his church a constitution founded on the usage of Lincoln, which he ascertained by a mission to England.[124] Andrew de Moravia succeeded him in 1222, and in his time (1224) the transference of the episcopal see and the cathedral of the diocese to Elgin was effected, which had probably been designed and solicited by his predecessor.[125] This bishop probably built the cathedral church, munificently endowed it, increased the number of prebends to twenty-three, of which he held one, and sat as a canon in the chapter.[126] The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity was founded in 1224, on the site of an older church with the same dedication, and the work proceeded under Bishop Andrew's supervision during the eighteen remaining years of his life.[127] The _Register_ of the see shows us "Master Gregory the mason and Richard the glazier" at work in autumn 1237.[128] Of the building itself probably now little is left, for it is recorded by Fordun under the year 1270 that the Cathedral of Elgin and the houses of the canons were burnt, but whether by accident or design he does not add. The ruins now standing probably date from a subsequent period, when there was raised the stately building, of which Bishop Alexander Bur wrote to the king that it was "the pride of the land, the glory of the realm, the delight of wayfarers and strangers, a praise and boast among foreign nations, lofty in its towers without, splendid in its appointments within, its countless jewels and rich vestments, and the multitude of its priests, serving God in righteousness."[129] This description is taken from a letter addressed to King Robert III., complaining that on the feast of St. Botolph, in 1390, the king's own brother, the Earl of Buchan, popularly known as the "Wolf of Badenoch," had descended from the hills with a band of wild Scots, and burned a considerable part of the town of Elgin, St. Giles Church, the Maison Dieu, the manses of the clergy, and the cathedral itself. The bishop appealed for aid and reparation, and the "Wolf of Badenoch" was compelled to yield, but, on condition that he should make satisfaction to the bishop and church of Moray and obtain absolution from the Pope, he was absolved by the Bishop of St. Andrews in the Blackfriars Church at Perth. Notwithstanding his age and feebleness, Bishop Bur energetically pressed on the restoration of the cathedral, and it was continued by Bishops Spynie (1397-1406) and Innes (1406-1421), and even then it was not completed. It thus occupied many years, even though it was promoted by grants of the royal favour, by a third part of the whole revenues of the see being devoted to it for a time, and by yearly subsidies being levied on every benefice in a diocese stretching "from the Ness to the Deveron, from the sea to the passes of Lochaber and the central mountains that divide Badenoch and Athol."[130] Early in the sixteenth century the central tower showed signs of weakness, and had to be rebuilt in 1538. It fell in 1711, destroying the nave and transepts.[131] The Cathedral of Elgin was complete in all arrangements, and had a large nave with double aisles, an extended choir and presbytery, north and south transepts, a lady chapel, and a detached octagonal chapter-house. It had a great tower and spire over the crossing, two beautiful turrets at the east end, and two noble towers at the west end. Most of the existing portions are pronounced to belong to the period when Scottish architecture was at its best.[132] The existing ruins testify to the former splendour of the completed structure, which was said to be a building of Gothic architecture inferior to few in Europe. "Elgin alone," says Dr. Joseph Robertson, "among the Scottish cathedrals of the thirteenth century, had two western towers. They are now shorn of their just height, but still they may be seen from far, lifting their bulk above the pleasant plain of Murray, and suggesting what the pile must have been when the amiable and learned Florence Wilson loved to look upon its magnificence as he meditated his _De Animi Tranquillitate_ on the banks of the Lossie, and when the great central spire soared to twice the altitude of the loftiest pinnacle of ruin that now grieves the eye."[133] The destruction of the cathedral was hastened by the alienation of Church lands by Bishop Patrick Hepburn, among the worst of the bishops; by the Privy Council in 1568 ordering the removal of lead from the roofs; by wind and weather; by Cromwell's troops; by an irrational zeal, which in 1630 broke down the carved screen and lovely wood-work; and lastly by the falling of the central tower, which destroyed the whole nave and part of the transepts. The passing away of such a colossal work of beauty is grievous, and not less so when it is recalled that the cathedral expressed the devoted labour of centuries. According to the latest authorities, the following are the probable dates. The transept was erected about 1224, and may possibly have formed part of the original Church of the Trinity. The western towers followed soon after; the western portal somewhat later. The west part of the north wall of the choir may have been part of the original church, but the general work of choir, nave, and early chapter-house would appear to have been carried out during the thirteenth century, and before the Scottish War of Independence. The cathedral, thus completed, remained for about a century, when the "Wolf of Badenoch" deformed or destroyed nave and chapter-house. The west front above the portal and the whole of the nave were reconstructed about the time of Bishop Dunbar (1422-1435), and the chapter-house by Bishop David Stewart (1482-1501). The architecture corresponds with their respective periods, and bears their coats of arms, engraved on each department.[134] Dr. Thomas Chalmers considered the ruins of Elgin to be the finest remains of antiquity in Scotland, and as picturesque in their variety.[135] 6. DIOCESE OF BRECHIN The two bishoprics of Brechin and Dunblane were formed from the old Pictish bishopric of Abernethy, in so far as its churches were not yet absorbed by the growing bishopric of St. Andrews, which immediately succeeded it.[136] Abernethy was the last of the bishoprics which existed while the kingdom ruled over by the Scottish dynasty was called the kingdom of the Picts; St. Andrews was associated with that of the Scots.[137] Abernethy was from the earliest days dedicated to St. Bride, and Panbride in the diocese of Brechin, and Kilbride in that of Dunblane, indicate, in Dr. Skene's view, that the veneration of the patroness of Abernethy had extended to other churches included in these dioceses.[138] From this old Pictish diocese the bishopric of Brechin was formed, towards the end of King David's reign, about 1150.[139] The Church of Brechin has no claim to represent an old Columban monastery:[140] its origin as a church is clearly recorded in the Pictish Chronicle, which states that King Kenneth, son of Malcolm, who reigned from 971 to 995, gave "the great city of Brechin to the Lord," founding a church to the Holy Trinity, a monastery apparently after the Irish model, combined with a Culdee college. We hear of it next in two charters of David I. to the Church of Deer, and in the second of these the "abbot" of the first appears as "Bishop of Brechin" (about 1150). The abbacy passed to lay hereditary bishops, and the Culdees were first conjoined with, next distinguished from, and at last superseded by, the cathedral chapter.[141] The early Church of Brechin emanated from the Irish Church, and was assimilated in its character to the Irish monastery. Of the early connection, there still survives at Brechin the famous Round Tower, which now occupies the place of a spire at the south-west angle of the present church. This, with the older one at Abernethy, and the ruined one at Egilshay in Orkney, are the only surviving types in Scotland. There were said to have been four others, which are no longer existing, viz. Deerness in Orkney; West Burray, Tingwall, and Ireland Head, in Shetland.[142] Dr. Skene gives the date of the Abernethy one as about 870, or between that year and the close of the century, and asserts that the date of the Brechin tower can be placed with some degree of certainty late in the succeeding century.[143] Probably it was erected in the reign of Kenneth (971-995), or about 1012, when Brechin was destroyed by the Danes.[144] Egilshay probably dates about 1098.[145] The Brechin tower is capped by a conical stone roof. Dr. Joseph Anderson shows that those round towers are outliers of a group of which Ireland is the home;[146] and they were erected during the time when the Celtic Church was much perplexed by the pillaging attacks of the Danes, that the ecclesiastics might protect their valuable illuminated manuscripts, and other costly possessions. The Brechin one corresponds with the Irish ones, and is built in sixty irregular courses, of blocks of reddish-grey sandstone, dressed to the curve, but squared at neither top nor bottom; within, string-courses divide it into seven storeys, the topmost lighted by four largish apertures facing the cardinal points. A western doorway, 6-2/3 feet from the ground, has inclined jambs and a semicircular head, all three hewn from single blocks, and the arch being rudely sculptured with a crucifix, each jamb with a bishop bearing a pastoral staff, and each corner of the sill with a nondescript crouching animal.[147] The sculpture on the graceful Tower of Brechin was, there as elsewhere, the repetition in stone of the illuminated page of the Celtic scribe, who in turn repeated many of the graceful and varied designs of the pre-Christian worker in bronze and gold,[148] adding to them Christian symbols. Dr. Joseph Anderson finds in the figures of the crouching beast and winged griffin at Brechin a close affinity to the figures of nondescript creatures carved on the early sculptured memorial stones.[149] The cathedral, founded about 1150, and added to at various periods, was originally a cruciform structure, consisting of a five-bayed nave with two aisles, late First Pointed mixed with Second Pointed; a transept formed by an extension of these aisles to the north and south; an aisleless choir (with lancet windows), the ruins of which are a fine example of First Pointed work,[150] and which when complete must have been a very pure and beautiful piece of architecture. The north-west tower was being constructed in the time of Bishop Patrick (1351-1373), but must have been a long time in erection. The western doorway presents the oldest feature of the existing building,[151] and is simple and massive. The tower and spire are pronounced to be the completest and best remaining example of their kind in Scotland.[152] By the alteration of 1806 the choir was reduced, the transepts demolished, new and wider aisles built on each side of the nave, while the outer walls of the aisles were carried to such a height that the whole nave could be covered with a roof of one span, "thus totally eclipsing the beautiful windows in the nave, and covering up the handsome carved cornice of the nail-head quatrefoil description which ran under the eaves of the nave."[153] The cathedral was thus sadly deformed, but plans of restoration have been recently adopted, funds are being raised, and the noble minster will before long be restored to its former grandeur. The diocese contained thirty parishes, and the bishop sat in the chapter as Rector of Brechin, that being his prebend.[154] The Maison Dieu formed part of a hospital, and is an interesting part of First Pointed work. The rector of the Grammar School is still "Praeceptor Domus Dei." 7. DIOCESE OF DUNBLANE Dunblane was an early ecclesiastical centre. Its first church dates back to the seventh century, and seems to have been an offshoot of the Church of Kingarth in Bute, the founder of which was St. Blane, whose name is perpetuated in that of the cathedral town.[155] St. Blane was of the race of the Irish Picts, and "bishop" of the Church of Kingarth which Cathan his uncle had founded. The church at Dunblane seems to have had a chequered history, for the ancient town was burned (844-860) by the Britons of Strathclyde, and in 912 was again ravished by Danish pirates. Bishop Keith thinks there was a college of Culdees at Dunblane,[156] but we do not hear anything about it in history, and the important college was at Muthill, where the Dean of Dunblane afterwards had his seat. Centres of the Celtic Church were also at the neighbouring Blackford, Strageath, and Dunning, and they all served their day, until the new order, inaugurated by Queen Margaret and continued by her successors on the Scottish throne, was established in the district. About 1150, King David I. established the bishopric of Dunblane, and about 1198 Earl Gilbert and his countess introduced canons-regular by the foundation of the Priory of Inchaffray. Under the growing importance of these centres, the possession of the Keledei fell into lay hands, and after 1214 the prior and Keledei of Muthill disappear from the records.[157] The square tower of Dunblane, which still survives, is a relic of the structure erected in the twelfth century,[158] and is one of the group, centred in early Pictavia, revealing characteristics of Norman work, and all connected with the sites of early Culdee establishments. Those north of the Tay are at Brechin and Restennet; those south of it, at St. Andrews (Regulus), Markinch, and Dunblane; Abernethy, Muthill, and Dunning.[159] The lower four storeys of the Dunblane tower form part of the original structure; the two highest are evidently of a late date;[160] the walls are not parallel with those of the nave, and the tower projects into the south aisle from 6 to 7 feet, and may have been associated with an earlier church. The see seems to have fallen into a forlorn condition, for when the learned Dominican, Clement, was bishop (1233-1258), he made a pilgrimage to Rome, and represented to the Pope among other things that "its rents were barely sufficient to maintain him for six months; there was no place in the cathedral wherein he could lay his head; there was no collegiate establishment, and that in this unroofed church, the divine offices were celebrated by a certain rural chaplain."[161] Evidently the fourth part of the tithes of all the parishes within the diocese were given for the support of the bishop and the building of the cathedral, and he left it "a stately sanctuary, rich in land and heritage, served by prebendary and canon." Bishop Clement built the nave, the most beautiful part of the structure, but later in its architecture than the north aisle of the choir or lady chapel, which was originally separated from the choir by a solid wall, in which there never was any opening into the aisle except the small doorway near the east end, which is of First Pointed date.[162] Above the vault there is an upper storey with small two-lighted windows, which may possibly have been used as a scriptorium.[163] The cathedral consists of a nave of eight bays, with north and south aisles, an aisleless choir of six bays, an eastern aisle unconnected with the choir except by a doorway, and the tower attached to the south aisle of nave. The following is a narrative of the building of the cathedral as given by the most recent authorities. "The greater part of the structure is of First Pointed date. The lady chapel may be the oldest part (after the tower), and next to it is the east portion of the nave. The western half of the nave seems to have followed soon after the eastern portion, and is carried out nearly after the same design. The transition tracery in the arcade of the clerestory and west end is very interesting, as showing bar tracery in the act of being formed. This could scarcely have occurred in Scotland before the end of the thirteenth century. The style of the choir is further advanced than the nave, and exhibits some transitional features between First Pointed and Decorated work. The great east window and the large side windows of the choir probably contained tracery more advanced than that of the west end, and may probably date from the fourteenth century. The pinnacles and parapet are of about 1500."[164] The west end, with its doorway, deeply recessed with shafts and mouldings of First Pointed work, with an acutely pointed blind arch on each side with trefoiled head within it; with three lofty pointed windows, each divided into two lights by a central mullion, and with arch-heads filled with cinquefoil and quatrefoils; with north buttress so large as to contain a wheel stair--is the finest part of the cathedral. Above the western window is a vesica, set within a bevilled fringe of bay-leaves arranged zigzagwise, with their points in contact. Of this Ruskin said in his lecture,[165] "Do you recollect the west window of your own Dunblane Cathedral? It is acknowledged to be beautiful by the most careless observer. And why beautiful? Simply because in its great contours it has the form of a forest leaf, and because in its decoration it has used nothing but forest leaves. He was no common man who designed that cathedral of Dunblane. I know nothing so perfect in its simplicity, and so beautiful, so far as it reaches, in all the Gothic with which I am acquainted. And just in proportion to his power of mind, that man was content to work under Nature's teaching, and, instead of putting a merely formal dog-tooth, as everybody else did at that time, he went down to the woody bank of the sweet river beneath the rocks on which he was building, and he took up a few of the fallen leaves that lay by it, and he set them in his arch, side by side for ever." Six of the stalls with, and several others without, canopies still survive, and on one of the misereres are the arms of the Chisholm family, surmounted by a mitre. Three bishops of this name presided in Dunblane,[166] and the stalls were probably provided by the first, Bishop James Chisholm, dating between 1486 and 1534. The stalls were probably brought from Flanders, and the carving is spirited and full of grotesque figures.[167] Other bishops, who ought gratefully to be remembered for building done, are Bishop Dermoch (1400-1419) and Bishop Ochiltree (1429-1447). Maurice, Abbot of Inchaffray and Bishop of Dunblane (1320-1347), is described as a man of fervent spirit, who gave great encouragement at the battle of Bannockburn, and was chosen by King Robert the Bruce as his chaplain and confessor.[168] There are some vestiges of the bishop's palace still left to the south-west of the cathedral; and the Bishop's Walk, leading southward not far from the river, and overshadowed by venerable beech trees, will always be associated with Leighton, of whom Burnet wrote, "He had the most heavenly disposition that I ever yet saw in mortal ... and I never once saw him in any other temper but that which I wished to be in, in the last moments of my life."[169] Leighton was Bishop of Dunblane from 1661 to 1670, and chose it as the poorest and smallest of Scotland's sees. At his death he bequeathed to it his library, which is still preserved. Those who wish to understand his devotion and inner life may be directed to Dr. Walter Smith's beautiful poem _The Bishop's Walk_. Until recently, only the choir was used as the parish church, but in 1893 the cathedral was reopened after a complete restoration costing £28,000. The restoration was largely due to the munificent generosity of Mrs. Wallace of Glassingall. The town bears witness to the influence of the cathedral-- A quaint old place--a minster grey, And grey old town that winds away Through gardens, down the sloping ridge To river's brim and ancient bridge, Where the still waters flow To the deep pool below.[170] 8. DIOCESE OF ROSS David I. followed the foundation of the great bishoprics by dividing the country north of the great range of the Mounth into separate sees, and the first of such appears to have been the diocese of Rosemarky or Ross. Makbeth, the first Bishop of Ross, appears as the witness to a charter between 1128 and 1130.[171] The church was founded as a Columban monastery by Lugadius or Moluoc of Lismore before 577, and Bonifacius refounded it in the eighth century, and dedicated the church to St. Peter. The Culdees disappear in the course of history, and instead there emerges a regular cathedral body of canons under a dean.[172] The Bishop of Ross had this peculiarity, that he took his title from the province, and not from the town, where he held his see. When the see was founded by David I., Rosmarkie continued as the cathedral centre, but after the chapter was enlarged by Gregory IX. in 1235, the cathedral site was changed to Fortrose or Chanonry, and the church was dedicated to SS. Peter and Bonifacius. Chanonry is half a mile south-westward from Rosemarkie, and was united with it in 1455 by James II. as a free burgh under the common name of Fortrose. The presence of an educated clergy made the place a centre of culture, and famous schools of divinity and law flourished under the shadow of the cathedral. The undercroft of the sacristy (afterwards enlarged) seems to indicate that the work must have been begun before 1250,[173] but the architecture of the aisle presents a beautiful specimen of the Middle Pointed or Decorated period, and dates before or about the beginning of the fifteenth century.[174] The cathedral, when entire, was a handsome red sandstone building, comprising a nave of four bays, with aisles 14 feet wide and round-headed windows; a choir, with aisles, lady chapel, west tower, quasi-transept, rood-turret, and to the north-east a vaulted chapter-house over a crypt. It stood on level ground, and commanded a fine view of the Moray Firth. When complete it must have been an architectural gem, and its mouldings have been said to show that in whatever other respects these remote parts of Scotland were barbarous, in ecclesiology at least they were on a par with any other branch of the mediæval Church.[175] All that now remains of the cathedral consists of the south aisle of the nave, and the sacristy or undercroft of the chapter-house. No vestige remains of the various manses of the chapter that were within the cathedral precincts. The cathedral suffered at the Reformation, but was repaired by Bishop Lindsay in 1615, and in 1649 was not very ruinous. It would appear that the tradition is correct which says that the masonry of the walls was removed by Cromwell, like that of Kinloss Abbey, to provide material for the construction of his fort at Inverness. In the south wall there is a beautiful piscina, and in the north wall an ambry with a small stone penthouse; an octagonal baptismal font of remarkable design stands against the east wall of the aisle. There is a range of canopied monuments, which stand between the pillars on the north side. The east end had a large traceried window of five lights, and when complete it must have been very beautiful. The most famous of the bishops was John Leslie (1527-1596), who studied at King's College, Aberdeen, at Paris, and at Poitiers. He held offices both in the Aberdeen University and in the State, and in 1566 Queen Mary bestowed on him the Abbey of Lindores _in commendam_, and subsequently appointed him Bishop of Ross. He was a zealous supporter of Queen Mary, and, after her flight to England, followed her, and never afterwards returned to reside in Scotland. He was imprisoned in the Tower,[176] where he wrote two small books for her spiritual profit, which Queen Mary liked and endeavoured to turn into French verse. After his release he retired to France, where he wrote his _History of Scotland_. On the day before her execution, Queen Mary wrote to Philip of Spain, beseeching him to show kindness to the Bishop of Ross for his faithful and devoted services to her. The request was complied with, and he was able to end his days tranquilly in a monastery near Brussels. It is said that the bishop persuaded the Queen in 1565 to grant to all men a liberty of conscience.[177] 9. DIOCESE OF CAITHNESS The early history of the Church in Caithness points to a time before the Northmen had any footing there, and connects it with the missionaries of Ireland and Scotland. The legend of St. Finbar or St. Barr marks the settlement of some Irish colonists, who brought with them the veneration they had rendered in their old country to the patron saint of their tribe or province.[178] SS. Duthac and Fergus are also associated with the church of the district during the Celtic period, and during the time of the former Keledei they may have been introduced here. The early church of Dornoch was dedicated to St. Bar or Finbar, and before 1196 the Culdees had disappeared, and the clerical element was reduced to a single priest.[179] The deed establishing a cathedral chapter of ten canons, with dean, precentor, chancellor, treasurer, and archdeacon, proceeds on the narrative "that in the times of his (Bishop Gilbert's) predecessors there was but a single priest ministering in the cathedral, both on account of the poverty of the place and by reason of frequent hostilities; and that he desired to extend the worship of God in that church, and resolved to build a cathedral church at his own expense, to dedicate it to the Virgin Mary, and, in proportion to his limited means, to make it conventual."[180] This benefactor of Dornoch was Bishop Gilbert de Moravia (1222-1245), who organised the chapter after the pattern of Elgin, which again had Lincoln for its model; and although the see of Caithness is first heard of about 1130, to him is due the credit of rebuilding the cathedral, which consisted of an aisled nave, transept, choir, and massive central tower, with dwarfish spire. The old cathedral town, with its society of learned churchmen, maintaining a high position by their influence and example, cultivating letters, preaching peace and practising it, must have been a centre of good in the north, and Bishop Gilbert's name deserves to be honourably remembered for his statesmanship, beneficence, and Christian character. "He rests," says the breviary of Aberdeen, "in the church which he built _with his own hands_"; even the glass was manufactured at Cyderhall under his personal supervision.[181] The tower is all that remains of Bishop Gilbert's work, for the cathedral was burnt in 1570; the tower escaped with some fine Gothic arches which fell before the terrific gale of 5th November 1605--the day on which the Gunpowder Plot was discovered. In 1614 the 13th Earl of Sutherland partially repaired the cathedral, to make it available for the parish church, and in 1835-1837 it was rebuilt by the Duchess of Sutherland at a cost of £6000. It had thus the misfortune to be restored at a time when church restoration in Scotland was at its lowest ebb. "The blame really attaches to those whom she entrusted with the execution of her design."[182] The structure is now used as the parish church of Dornoch. The square tower of the bishop's palace still survives. 10. DIOCESE OF GALLOWAY The name of Whithorn is a venerable one in Scottish Church history. It is mentioned by Ptolemy, the Alexandrian geographer, in the second century as Leukopibia, a town of the Novantae. The Greek name is synonymous with the Latin Candida Casa or "White House," under which designation it was latterly known. It is associated with the first known apostle of Christianity in Scotland, St. Ninian, who was probably born here about the middle of the fourth century. Of studious and ascetic habits, he visited Rome, and on his homeward journey visited St. Martin of Tours, who died in 397. After his arrival in Scotland, he founded the Candida Casa or Church of Whithorn, dedicated it to St. Martin, and, although Christianity was probably known in Scotland before his time, his work is the first distinct fact in the history of the Scottish Church. After preaching the Gospel among the Southern Picts, he died in 432, and was buried within his church at Whithorn. It is a matter of dispute, whether this first Christian oratory was built, after the custom of the early Scottish Church, on a small island or peninsula at the point of the promontory which lies between the bays of Luce and Wigtown, about three miles south from Whithorn, or on the spot where the monastery afterwards arose. There are the ruins of a small chapel on "The Isle," and although belonging to a later date, it is more than probable that it was the successor of St. Ninian's first church. Whithorn was famous also for its early schools and monastery, and exercised no small influence in Christianising both the surrounding district and Northumbria, or what is now known as the northerly parts of England. A bishopric of Whithorn was founded by the Angles in 727, was held by five successive bishops, and came to an end about 796, when the disorganisation of the Northumbrian kingdom enabled the native population to eject the strangers and assert their own independence. During the reign of David I. (1124-1153), Fergus, Lord of Galloway, re-established the see of Galloway, and founded at Whithorn a Premonstratensian priory, whose church became the cathedral, and contained the shrine of St. Ninian. The see included the whole of Wigtownshire and the greater part of Kirkcudbrightshire; the bishop remained under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of York till at least the fourteenth century, and in 1472 became suffragan of St. Andrews. In 1491, when Glasgow became a metropolitan see, the Bishop of Galloway became a Vicar-General of it during vacancies. The canons of Whithorn Priory formed the chapter of the see of Galloway, and the prior ranked next to the bishop; the diocese was divided into three rural deaneries. The shrine of St. Ninian became a place of pilgrimage for people from all parts of Scotland, and was visited by Scottish queens and kings--James IV. visited it generally once and frequently twice a year throughout his whole reign. The priory became wealthy, and the church and other buildings were of great extent. Among its priors may be mentioned Gavin Dunbar (1514), who was tutor to James V. and afterwards Archbishop of Glasgow; and James Beaton, who was prior and afterwards Bishop of Galloway, was advanced to the archbishopric of Glasgow in 1509, and of St. Andrews in 1522. The buildings of the priory are now reduced to the nave--an aisleless structure--and to some underground vaulted buildings, which no doubt formerly supported the choir and other erections above.[183] The west tower fell in the beginning of last century; the cloister lay to the north of the nave; the chapter-house, slype, and site of domestic buildings extended to the north of the transept. The north wall of the nave interior contains two pointed recesses for monuments, which are of excellent design. At the south-west angle of the nave is a doorway which is undoubtedly Norman,[184] and the sculptures on the right and left of the projecting wall point to a close affinity between the sculptured figures on the ancient stones and the architecture of the twelfth century in Scotland.[185] The ancient font, probably of Norman date, bowl-shaped, and of simple design, has been preserved in the church, and St. Ninian's Cave--probably a place of religious retirement--about three miles south-east of the village, contains some very old stone crosses, and on its east wall some very old inscriptions, a number of which are partly unintelligible by being covered with more recent ones. The neighbourhood will always be associated with St. Ninian, the apostle of the Britons and of the Southern Picts, and may be called the historical fountain-head of the Scottish Church. 11. DIOCESE OF LISMORE OR ARGYLL Lismore is an ancient settlement, and is the Epidium of Ptolemy, one of his five Ebudae.[186] The island lies near the south end of Loch Linnhe, and at a short distance from the mainland of Argyllshire. The bishopric was formed about 1200 by the separation of the districts, belonging to the bishopric of Dunkeld, which lay to the west of the great range of Drumalban. Eraldus was the first Bishop of Argyll, and had his seat at Muckairn, while his church bore the name of Killespeckerill, or the church of Bishop Erailt.[187] It is possible that some of the Keledei from Dunkeld may have accompanied the new bishop and been established there. In 1236 the see was transferred from Muckairn, on the south side of Loch Etive, to Lismore, where, long before, a Columban monastery had been founded by St. Lughadh or Moluoc. The see was afterwards known as the bishopric of Lismore, and contained the following deaneries: Kintyre, with twelve parishes; Glassary or Glasrod, with thirteen; Lorn, with fourteen; and Morvern, with eight.[188] The cathedral was perhaps the humblest in Britain, and was probably erected soon after the transference of the see in the thirteenth century. It is said to have been a structure 137 feet long by 29-1/3 wide, but of this there only now survives an aisleless choir, with traces of a chapter-house and sacristy; and, as re-roofed in 1749, this choir now serves as a parish church. It has four buttresses of simple form against the south wall, and two at each of the north and south angles of the east wall. In the south wall, and in the usual position near the east end, there are remains of a triple sedilia; there is a piscina in a pointed recess, having a trefoil-headed niche in the wall behind.[189] One of the deans of Lismore, Sir James MacGregor, between 1512 and 1540, compiled a commonplace book, filled chiefly with Gaelic heroic ballads, several of which are ascribed to the authorship of Ossian. 12. DIOCESE OF THE ISLES The history of Iona is associated with St. Columba, and, although its church did not attain full cathedral status until 1506, the island was one of the earliest centres of Christianity in Scotland. St. Columba (Columcille or Colm) was born at Gartan, County Donegal, 7th December 521, and was the son of a chief related to several of the princes then reigning in Ireland and the west of Scotland. He studied under St. Finnian at Moville, and under another of the same name at Clonard. In 546 he founded the monastery of Derry, and in 553 that of Durrow. The belief that he had caused the bloody battle of Culdremhne led to his excommunication and exile from his native land, and, accompanied by twelve disciples, he left Ireland and sailed for the Western Islands, settling ultimately at Iona, where he and his companions began their work among the heathen Picts. The legend of his perpetual exile seems to be a fable, and Dr. Skene adds, "His real motive for undertaking this mission seems therefore to have been partly religious and partly political. He was one of the twelve apostles of Ireland who had emerged from the school of Finnian of Clonard, and he no doubt shared the missionary spirit which so deeply characterised the monastic Church of Ireland at that period. He was also closely connected through his grandmother with the line of the Dalriadic kings, and, as an Irishman, must have been interested in the maintenance of the Irish colony in the west of Scotland. Separated from him by the Irish Channel was the great pagan nation of the Northern Picts, who, under a powerful king, had just inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Scots of Dalriada, and threatened their expulsion from the country; and, while his missionary zeal impelled him to attempt the conversion of the Picts, he must have felt that, if he succeeded in winning a pagan people to the religion of Christ, he would at the same time rescue the Irish colony of Dalriada from a great danger, and render them an important service by establishing peaceable relations between them and their greatly more numerous and powerful neighbours, and replacing them in the more secure possession of the western districts they had colonised."[190] It was in 563, and at the age of forty-two, that he settled at Iona and commenced his mission-work by founding his monastery[191] there. He met there "two bishops," who came to receive his submission from him, but "God now revealed to Columcille that they were not true bishops, whereupon they left the island to him, when he told of them their history." They were, thinks Dr. Skene, the remains of that anomalous church of seven bishops which here, as elsewhere, preceded the monastic church, while Columba appears to have refused to recognise them as such, and the island was abandoned to him. Possessed as he was with the soul of a poet, and susceptible to the impressive in nature, Columba could not have chosen a finer spot than Iona for his work, or one where he could better combine with missionary activity a life of purity and self-denial. Tradition says he landed at the bay now known as Port-a-churaich, and proceeded to found the monastery and establish the church which was ultimately to embrace in its jurisdiction the whole of Scotland north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, to be for a century and a half the national church of Scotland, and to give to the Angles of Northumbria the same form of Christianity for a period of thirty years. The buildings that now remain are of much later date, but it may be inferred that in its constitution, spirit, and work the Columban Church was not isolated, but was in reality a mission from the Irish Church, formed an integral part of it, and never lost its connection with it. The principal buildings were constructed of wood and wattles, and were originally (1) a monastery with a small court, on one side of which was the church, with a small side chamber, on a second side the guest-chamber, on the third a refectory, and on the fourth dwellings of the monks; a little way off on the highest part of the ground were (2) the cell of St. Columba, where he sat and read or wrote during the day, and slept at night on the bare ground with a stone for his pillow; and (3) various subsidiary buildings, including a kiln, a mill, a barn, all surrounded by a rampart or rath. Not far off was a sequestered hollow (Cabhan cuildeach) to which Columba retired for solitary prayer. The mill has left its traces in the small stream to the north of the present cathedral ruins, and remains of old causeways may be traced from the landing places of Port-na-martir, Port-Ronan, and Port-na-muintir. All the early buildings, except the kiln, were of wood; the guest-chamber was wattled, Columba's cell was made of planks, and the church was of oak. The members of the community were termed brethren, and were addressed by Columba as familia or chosen monks. They consisted of three classes: (1) the older brethren, who devoted themselves to the religious services of the church, and to reading and transcribing the Scriptures; (2) the younger and stronger working brothers, who devoted themselves to agriculture and the service of the monastery; (3) the alumni or youth, who were under instruction. The dress of the monks consisted of a white tunica or undergarment, over which they wore a camilla, consisting of a body and hood made of wool, and of the natural colour of the material. When working or travelling their feet were shod with sandals; they took a solemn monastic vow on bended knees in the oratorium, were tonsured from ear to ear--the fore part of the head being made bare, and the hair allowed to grow only on the back part of the head. The church of Iona was monastic, and in it we find neither a territorial episcopacy nor a presbyterian parity. The bishops were under the monastic rule, and were, in respect of jurisdiction, subject to the abbot, even though a presbyter, as the head of the monastery; the privilege of the episcopate was not interfered with.[192] The monastery was described as a "gloriosum caenobium." Columba made Iona his centre of activity, but his labours were not confined to it. He travelled with his companions and preached the Gospel as far north as Inverness, where King Brude was converted. He also preached among the Southern Picts, and a church was built at Abernethy by King Gartnaidh, as an outcome of his mission and as a memorial of his labours. He was also a far-seeing statesman, and succeeded in reconciling the feuds of the Northern and Southern Picts, and in making the two kingdoms one. His life was spent in missionary activity and beneficent service, and he died at Iona. The day before his death he "ascended the hill that overlooketh the monastery, and stood for some little time on its summit, and as he stood there with both hands uplifted, he blessed his monastery, saying, 'Small and mean though this place is, yet it shall be held in great and unusual honour, not only by Scotic kings and people, but also by the rulers of foreign and barbarous nations, and by their subjects; the saints also, even of other churches, shall regard it with no common reverence.'" On the following day, at nocturnal vigils, he went into the church, and knelt down in prayer beside the altar, and "his attendant Diormit, who more slowly followed him, saw from a distance that the whole interior of the church was filled with a heavenly light in the direction of the saint," which, as he drew near, quickly disappeared. "Feeling his way in the darkness, as the brethren had not yet brought in the lights, he found the saint lying before the altar," and all the monks coming in, Columba moved his hand to give them his benediction, and died 9th June 597, while "the whole church resounded with loud lamentations of grief." He left behind him an imperishable memory in the hearts of the people converted by him to the Christian faith, and in the national church which he so splendidly helped to build up. He wrote an Altus, and is said to have copied 300 books with his own hand. He was buried at Iona. After Columba's death, the monastery of Iona appears to have been the acknowledged head of all the monasteries and churches which his mission had founded in Scotland, as well as of those previously founded by him in Ireland. It was a centre of light and life, but the monks were not permitted to pursue their work unmolested. The monastery was burned and plundered by the sea-pirates in 795, 798, and 802; in 806 sixty-eight of the community were ruthlessly slain. The monks remaining were filled with fear, and before 807 the relics of St. Columba were carried away to Ireland, and enshrined at Kells. In 818 they were brought back, and the monastery at Iona was rebuilt with stone. The Danes, however, granted little respite, and in 878 the relics were again removed, and were probably placed first at Dunkeld and afterwards at Abernethy,[193] where the primacy was successively established, and a memorial of which exists in the Abernethy round tower. The plundering continued at intervals, and the buildings were more or less ruinous till about 1074, when Queen Margaret "restored the monastery, ... rebuilt it, and furnished it with monks, with an endowment for performing the Lord's work." "One of the present buildings," said the late Duke of Argyll--"the least and the most inconspicuous, but the most venerable of them all--St. Odhrain's Chapel, may possibly be the same building which Queen Margaret of Scotland is known to have erected in memory of the saint, and dedicated to one of the most famous of his companions. But Queen Margaret died in A.D. 1092, and therefore any building which she erected must date very nearly five hundred years after Columba's death; that is to say, the most ancient building which exists upon Iona must be separated in age from Columba's time by as many centuries as those which now separate us from Edward III. But St. Odhrain's Chapel has this great interest--that in all probability it marks the site of the still humbler church of wood and wattles in which Columba worshipped."[194] Shortly afterwards the island passed into the possession of Magnus Barefoot, King of Norway, and in 1099 the old order culminated in the death of Abbot Duncan, the last of the old abbots. Under the bishopric of Man and the Isles, the monastery became subject to the Bishop of Drontheim till 1156, when Somerled won it, and once more restored the connection between Iona and Ireland by placing the monastery under the care of the Abbot of Derry. In 1164 the community was represented by the priest, the lector, the head of the Culdees, and the Disertach or the head of the disert for the reception of pilgrims.[195] Somerled appears to have rebuilt the ruined monastery on a larger scale, and about 1203 the Lord of the Isles (Reginald) adopted the policy of the Scottish kings, and founded at Iona a monastery of Benedictine monks (Tyronenses), and at the same time a nunnery for Benedictine nuns, of which Beatrice, sister of Reginald, was first prioress. It is of this Benedictine monastery and nunnery that the present ruins are the remains, and they were formerly connected by a causeway which extended from the nunnery to the monastery. After a struggle, the Culdees seem to have conformed to the new order of Benedictines, and the head of the Culdees was represented by the Prior of Iona, whom we afterwards find in the monastery. Iona was suffragan to the Bishop of Man and the Isles till 1431, when the Abbot of Iona made obedience to the Bishop of Dunkeld. In 1498, the Isles were made suffragan to St. Andrews; in 1506 they passed back to the care of the Bishop of the Isles; and from that date till the Reformation the abbey church became the cathedral church of the diocese. In 1648 Charles I. granted the island to Archibald, Marquis of Argyll,[196] and it still belongs to his descendant, the Duke of Argyll. The diocese contained forty-four parishes. Surrounding the Chapel of St. Oran is a very ancient churchyard, containing beautiful specimens of Highland carved tombstones, and near which reposes the dust of Scotch, Irish, and Norwegian kings and ecclesiastics. The late Duke of Argyll both preserved and restored, and the foundations of the chapels and cloisters have been plainly marked out, and give a clear idea of the original plan of the abbey. The abbey or cathedral, although begun in the twelfth century, took a long time in building, was altered and added to, and is classed with the buildings of the Third Pointed period, as the greater part of the work connected with it belongs to a late date.[197] It is cruciform in shape, consisting of nave, transepts, and choir, with sacristy on the north side of the choir, and aisle on the south. Near the west entrance was a small chamber called St. Columba's tomb. Over the crossing is a square tower, 70 feet high, and supported by arches resting on four pillars. It is lighted on one side by a window formed by a slab with quatrefoil openings, and on the other by a marigold or Catherine-wheel window with spiral mullions. The capitals of the pillars are carved with beautiful ornamentation and grotesque figures, which are still sharp and well defined.[198] There are three sedilia, and the high altar seems to have been of marble. North of the nave is the cloister-garth; to the north and east of the cloisters are the refectory and chapter-house; the building over the chapter-house was the library, which was large and valuable. There were said to be many crosses in Iona; the entire ones are St. Martin's Cross, opposite the west door of the abbey church, and Maclean's Cross, on the wayside between the nunnery and the cathedral. There are the ruins of a small detached chapel to the north-east of the chapter-house, and of another to the west of the cloister: to the north-east of the cloister lie the total ruins of what is called the abbot's house.[199] A short distance north-east of the abbey church, at Cladh-an-diseart, there was found in 1872 a heart-shaped stone, with an incised cross on it, which Dr. Skene is disposed to think was the stone used by St. Columba as a pillow.[200] The ruins of the nunnery, of which Beatrice, sister of Reginald, was the first abbess, and which was apparently erected soon after 1203, consist of a quadrangle about 68 feet square, having the church on the north side, foundations of the chapter-house and other apartments on the east side, and the refectory on the south side. There may have been other buildings on the west side, as the walls are broken at the ends; but if so, they are now removed.[201] The church was an oblong structure, divided into nave and choir, and had a northern aisle extending along both. At a distance of about 30 feet north of the convent church stand the ruins of another building, said to have been the parish church. It was a simple oblong chamber, and was dedicated to St. Ronan.[202] Lovely carved work has been found around the buildings, and these are carefully preserved and have been reproduced in illustration.[203] These designs were probably carved on stone from the beautiful illuminated tracery which the Celtic monks executed in their scriptorium. No ruthless destruction about the Reformation period could deprive Iona of its three great voices of the mountain, the sky, and the sea. That St. Columba's poetic nature and susceptible heart were impressed by them is beyond doubt, for they survive in his poem-- Delightful would it be to me to be in Uchd Ailiun On the pinnacle of a rock, That I might often see The face of the ocean: That I might see its heaving waves Over the wide ocean, When they chant music to their Father Upon the world's course: That I might see its level sparkling strand, It would be no cause of sorrow: That I might hear the song of the wonderful birds, Source of happiness: That I might hear the thunder of the crowding waves Upon the rocks: That I might hear the roar by the side of the church Of the surrounding sea: . . . . . That I might bless the Lord Who conserves all, Heaven with its countless bright orders, Land, strand, and flood: . . . . . At times kneeling to beloved heaven: At times at psalm singing: At times contemplating the King of Heaven, Holy the chief: At times at work without compulsion; This would be delightful.[204] Thus Iona, the isle of the saints, the lamp lit amid the darkness of the western sea, impressed the founder as he heard its voices. May there soon be added another, the voice of the restored cathedral, connecting the present with a glorious past, carrying us away in thought by its architecture to earlier days, and by its situation to the hour when the great apostle of the Picts first landed on its shores. This may at no distant future be realised, since the late Duke of Argyll gifted the ruined cathedral to the Church of Scotland, which hopes to do for it what has already been done for Dunblane. 13. DIOCESE OF ORKNEY Christianity reached the Orkneys through the labours of the Columban clergy, and there are many traces in the islands that speak of their work. Under the rule of the Norse, in the ninth and tenth centuries any Christian influence that survived from the labours of such early pioneers of the Christian faith must have died out. The first actual Bishop of Orkney was William the Old, who was consecrated in 1102, held the bishopric for sixty-six years, and died in 1168. His see was first at Birsay, and was removed to Kirkwall on the erection of the cathedral in 1137-1152. The Bishop of Orkney was one of the suffragans of the metropolitan see at Throndhjeim, erected in 1154. In 1472 the see of Orkney was placed under the metropolitan Bishop of St. Andrews. The story of the foundation at Kirkwall is as follows. The possession of the Orkneys was divided between two relatives, and about the beginning of the twelfth century two cousins, Hacon and Magnus, shared the government. In 1115 Magnus was treacherously slain at Egilsay by Hacon, who thus obtained the whole earldom. Rognvald, son of Magnus' sister, became a claimant for Magnus' share of the earldom, and vowed that if he succeeded he would erect a "stone minster" in honour of his predecessor St. Magnus, who had been canonised. Rognvald was successful, and fulfilled his vow by founding at Kirkwall a cathedral dedicated to St. Magnus. The building was designed and superintended by the Norwegian Kol, the father of Rognvald; the relics of St. Magnus were brought from Christ's Kirk in Birsay, to be deposited in the cathedral as soon as it was prepared to receive them, and until the work was finished they rested in the Church of St. Olaf, an older edifice which then existed in Kirkwall.[205] "The Cathedral of St. Magnus was thus designed and erected by a Norwegian earl, while the bishopric was under the authority of the Norwegian Metropolitan of Throndhjeim. It is thus practically a Norwegian edifice, and is by far the grandest monument of the rule of the Norsemen in Orkney. In these circumstances, it is not to be expected that the architecture should in every detail follow the contemporary styles which prevailed in Britain, but it is astonishing to find how closely the earlier parts correspond with the architecture of Normandy, which was developed by a kindred race,--the successors of Rollo and his rovers, who settled in that country at an earlier date. There can be little doubt that the Romanesque architecture which prevailed in the north of Europe found its way at a comparatively late date into Scandinavia. The Norman form of that style would naturally follow the same course amongst the kindred races in Norway and Denmark, just as it did in England and Scotland, and from Norway it would be transplanted into Scotland."[206] Kirkwall Cathedral, begun in 1137, was carried on with great expedition, unlike Glasgow Cathedral, which took so long in completion that it gave rise to a proverb, "Like St. Mungo's work, it will never be finished." The Orcadians did their work nobly, and when a difficulty arose as to funds, it was overcome by allowing the proprietors of land in Orkney to redeem their property by a single payment of a sum per acre, paid at once, instead of according to the usual practice, on each succession.[207] Help was received from far and wide, and the building was so liberally sped by the oblations of a past age, that all Christendom was popularly said to have paid tribute for its erection;[208] but the spirit of religion must have been fervid in the islands themselves. The earl who founded the cathedral died after a pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem. "He had begun his High Church on no mean scale, and it was afterwards greatly enlarged in length. To this circumstance, together with its severe simplicity, its narrowness, its height, and the multiplicity of its parts, must be ascribed the most striking characteristic of the pile--its apparent vastness."[209] It has been doubted if either York or Lincoln gives the _idea_ of greater internal length, though Kirkwall measures less by half than the smaller of these minsters. As pointed out by the latest authorities on the cathedral, its western doorways recall the portals of the cathedrals of France rather than those of England; its interior gives the impression of great size, arising from the height and length of the building as compared with its width; the exterior presents at a glance the changes which have taken place in it, and the layers and masses of different coloured stones tell their own tale; the oldest work (comprising several periods) is constructed with dark slaty stone, having red freestone dressings; the Norman work is observed in the transept and several bays of the nave and choir nearest the transept, while the pointed work is specially noticeable in the eastern half of the choir.[210] The first parts of the cathedral built were the three westmost or Norman bays of the choir, with their aisles, both the transepts, the crossing (afterwards altered) intended to receive a tower over it, and two bays of the nave, which served to form an abutment for the crossing. These portions, where unaltered, are said to be in the earliest style of Norman work in the edifice. The round piers and responds of the choir, the two south piers and one north pier of the nave (with their cushion caps), the main arches (with their label mouldings in the choir and transept), the round arched and labelled windows in choir, transept, and nave, and the interlaced arcades in the nave, all point to a somewhat advanced period of Norman work. The choir originally terminated with a central apse beyond the third pier. The Norman windows of the choir aisle have three external orders, with a label ornament in the outer order; the single shafts have cushion caps; the windows are largely splayed internally.[211] An interlacing arcade of round arches, with single shafts and cushion caps (some with volutes) runs round the north, south, and west sides of the transept. The large arches leading into the east chapels are part of the original structure, but the chapels were built later. The lower string-course of the transept is enriched with a four-leaved flower.[212] After the completion of these portions, attention was given to the continuation of the nave westwards for several bays. The north aisle wall opposite the three bays, west from the crossing, would appear to have been built early.[213] The buttresses are of flat Norman form. The north aisle doorway is pronounced to be Norman in detail, but has been restored at a later date; the south aisle doorway retains its old Norman arch and shafts in the interior, but has been altered externally. The nave piers were probably continued as far as the above doors about this time, with the triforium, but the upper part of the nave walls and the vaulting are later.[214] The transition style is prominently seen in the piers and arches of the crossing, and the windows in the choir nearest the main arches of the crossing, and the triforium openings into the transept, appear to have been altered and rebuilt at the time of this operation. The upper part of the north transept was probably raised and its windows inserted at this time; the raising of the south transept and the introduction of the rose windows is of somewhat later date.[215] This circular window is very similar to that in the east window of the choir. The chapels on the east side of the transept are of the advanced transition period, which, in Orkney, was probably the middle of the thirteenth century.[216] The completion of the nave would be next undertaken.[217] The apse was taken down, and the choir, with its aisles, was extended by three bays eastwards,[218] the style having a resemblance to advanced First Pointed work, with some peculiarities of detail, exhibiting probable French influence from Upsala.[219] The triforium consists of plain, chamfered, semicircular arches and jambs in three orders; the clerestory has simple pointed windows, moulded on sconsion, but without cusps. A vaulting shaft is carried up between the piers.[220] The east end of the cathedral is of First Pointed period, and the great east window fills the whole space available.[221] The three western doorways and the pointed doorway in the south transept are later than the choir;[222] they present the finest examples in Great Britain of the use of coloured stones in the construction.[223] The north doorway and the central doorway of the west front have the colours arranged in concentric rings in the arches, red and yellow alternating. In the south doorway the same colours radiate and alternate, and in the doorway of the south transept the red and yellow stones are arranged chequerwise.[224] They are among the most charming portions of the edifice, and are unique in Scotland. The upper part of the gablet over the centre doorway is of the seventeenth century, and bears the shield of Sir George Hay of Kinfauns, who rented the lands of the bishopric about the beginning of the seventeenth century, the crozier being added to the shield in connection with the lands of the see.[225] The tower has been considerably operated upon in modern times; the old wooden spire was destroyed by lightning in 1671. The parapet and pinnacles are modern, as also the pointed and slated roof--the lower part being of considerable age. The part within the roof of the church is apparently of transition date; the upper part, with the large pointed windows, is probably of fifteenth-century work.[226] There were originally beautiful specimens of wood-work; the canopy over the bishop's throne has disappeared.[227] The tower contains four bells, three of which were given by Bishop Maxwell (1526-1540). The cathedral does not appear to have suffered during the Reformation period, but an attempt made by the Earl of Caithness to destroy it in 1606, during the rebellion of Earl Patrick Stewart and his son, was prevented by the intervention of Bishop Law (sacred be his memory!). The bishop's palace was founded about the beginning of the thirteenth century. Twenty bishops held the see in succession. The diocese contained the archdeaconries of Orkney, with thirty-five parishes, and of Tingwall (Shetland) with thirteen. The church suffered from vandalism in 1701 and 1855, and the east end is used as the parish church. May the northern minster soon be restored and made worthy of its glorious past. Lord Tennyson's son's diary contains the following entry on the Cathedral of St. Magnus: "Gladstone and my father admired the noble simplicity of the church, and its massive stone pillars, but we all shuddered at the liberal whitewash and the high pews."[228] A catalogue of the Bishops of Orkney, by Professor Munch of Christiania, will be found in the _Bannatyne Miscellany_.[229] CHAPTER IV SCOTTISH COLLEGIATE CHURCHES The creation of collegiate churches was a practical endeavour toward ecclesiastical reform in the fifteenth century, when the foundation of monastic establishments ceased. They had no parishes attached to them, and were regulated very much as the cathedrals. They arose with the purpose of counteracting the evils incidental to the monastic system, and were formed by grouping the clergy of neighbouring parishes into a college, or by consolidating independent chaplainries. They were called præposituræ, were presided over by a dean or provost, and the prebendaries were generally the clergy holding adjacent cures. In Scotland, during more recent times, the term "collegiate" was applied to a church where two ministers (as at St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh) served the cure as colleagues, but in the fifteenth century the term had a different and wider significance. Collegiate churches were then an expression of the zeal and munificence that were displayed in the enlargement and decoration of buildings, when all classes vied with each other in the endowment of chaplainries for the maintenance of daily stated service, always including prayers and singing of masses for the souls of their founders, their relations, and benefactors. The collegiate churches were also an evidence from within the Church itself of the need for reform in the great Benedictine and Augustinian abbeys that were then in the ascendant throughout the country. Scotland possessed forty-one collegiate churches, but space will only permit us here to deal with nine of them: Biggar, Bothwell, St. Nicholas (Aberdeen), King's College (Aberdeen), Roslin, Stirling (Chapel Royal), St. Giles (Edinburgh), St. Mary's and St. Salvator's (St. Andrews). _Biggar (Lanarkshire)._--The collegiate parish church of St. Mary was founded in 1545 by Malcolm, third Lord Fleming, for a provost, eight prebendaries, four singing boys, and six bedesmen. It is interesting as being among the latest, if not indeed the last, of the Scottish pre-Reformation churches. It belongs to the Late Pointed period, is cruciform in plan, consists of chancel with apsidal east end, transept, and nave, with square tower and north-east belfry turret over the crossing. There are no aisles. Formerly a chapter-house existed on the north side of the chancel, but it has been removed. The ancient roof was of oak, and the timbers in the chancel were gilt and emblazoned. _St. Bride's Collegiate Church, Bothwell_, was founded by Archibald "the Grim," Earl of Douglas, in 1398, for a provost and eight prebendaries. He endowed and added a choir to the existing parish church. The present church is a fine Gothic building, erected in 1833, with a massive square tower to the height of 120 feet. East of this tower is the choir of the old collegiate church, of the Middle Pointed or Decorated period; it is a simple oblong chamber with a sacristy on the north side. The church, externally divided by buttresses, has four bays with a series of pointed windows in the south wall, and three windows in the north wall. The arch of the entrance doorway in the south wall is elliptic in form. The roof of the church is covered with overlapping stone slabs, which rest on a pointed barrel vault--one of the earliest examples met with. In the sacristy there are a piscina and a locker, and in the south wall of the choir the remains of a triple beautifully carved sedilia and a piscina. The sacristy is roofed with overlapping stone flags supported on a vault. Monuments to the two Archibald Douglases, Earls of Forfar, are in the church. In this church David, the hapless Earl of Rothesay, wedded Marjory, the founder's daughter, in 1400, and one of its provosts was Thomas Barry, who celebrated the victory of Otterburn in Latin verse. It has been recently restored and made worthy of its great past. _New Aberdeen._--The Parish Church of St. Nicholas, said to be the largest mediæval parish church in Scotland, was made collegiate about 1456 by Bishop Ingeram de Lyndesay (1441-1459), and is said to have possessed, besides the vicar, "chaplains to the number of thirty."[230] Its clergy were named the "College of the Chaplains" of St. Nicholas, and after, as before, the institution of this new order the church remained the parish church. Only two portions of the ancient building now remain--the transepts and the crypt at the east end below the choir.[231] The present nave was rebuilt about 1750; the choir was taken down in 1835 and rebuilt in the most tasteless fashion; the walls of the crypt and transepts were all refaced except the north front of the transept, which was altered considerably in the seventeenth century; the central tower was burned in 1874, and the existing central spire was thereafter erected. A carillon of thirty-seven bells has been placed within it. After the Reformation the rood-screen gave place to a wall, and St. Nicholas was divided into two churches, the West consisting of the former nave, the East of the choir, and the Romanesque transept between (known as Drum's and Collison's aisles) serving as vestibule. For the early architecture attention must be confined to the interior of the transept and crypt. The transepts are of the transitional style of the end of the twelfth century; the piers which carry the central tower are of the usual transitional type, having graceful capitals and square abaci supporting round arches; on each side of the north transept there are two original clerestory windows, and one of them has angle shafts, with carved caps and mouldings. The present large north window has remains of its original features, but its tracery is of late work. There is a transition attached shaft with carved cap and square abacus in the low pointed recess. There is only a shaft on one side of the recess, and the pointed arch of this recess, as well as the tomb alongside, below the large window, are of later work.[232] On the west side of the north wall there has been a round arched doorway, and traces of it are yet visible. The crypt is at the east end of the choir, but is on a lower level, and was approached by two stairs, one from the north and another from the south aisle of the choir. Only their round arched openings remain as recesses in the walls of the crypt. The present stairs are modern. The crypt consists of one central and two side aisles, with an eastern apse; it is pronounced to be a very picturesque and interesting structure, and it fortunately escaped being rebuilt, like the rest of the church. It has a groined roof, and the three compartments in the length are separated by pointed arches that spring from moulded caps on octagonal responds. "The opening into the apse has a stunted round arch, and is a prominent example of the love of the Scottish builders for this form of arch all through the Gothic period."[233] Each compartment of the apse has a central boss, and there is a considerable amount of carved woodwork in the crypt--some of the fifteenth or sixteenth century, and some later. The choir that was recently taken down superseded an older one, and it is probably to this former choir that references are contained in the _Council Register_ for about a century from 1442. _Old Aberdeen, King's College._--Of Bishop Elphinstone of Aberdeen (1488-1514) it is said: "With no private fortune, and without dilapidating his benefice, he provided for the buildings requisite for his University and Collegiate Church, and for the suitable maintenance of its forty-two members; and the Cathedral Choir, the King's College, and the old gray bridge spanning the valley of the Dee are monuments to his memory that command the respect of those who have no sympathy with his Breviary, rich in legends of Scottish Saints, and who would scarcely approve of his reformed Gregorian chant."[234] The college was dedicated to the Holy Trinity and the Virgin Mary, and being placed under the immediate protection of the King, came to be known as King's College. King James IV. and Bishop Elphinstone endowed it with large revenues. It was a faithful copy of the University of Paris. The Collegiate Church of St. Mary, on the north side of the quadrangle, was consecrated by Edward, Bishop of Orkney, and had eight priests or vicars choral belonging to it, and six singing boys.[235] It was begun in 1500 and finished in 1506, and it was said that all its stones and beams proclaim Bishop Elphinstone their founder, who also presented the chapter with many valuable vestments, vessels, etc. The chapel is a long, narrow building, with a three-sided apsidal east end. It is divided into six bays by projecting buttresses, and has a large window filled with mullions and tracery in each bay on the north side, except the second one from the west, which contains a doorway. Similar large windows are continued in the apse, and there is also one in the east bay of the south side. Over the west doorway there is a large west window of four lights, with solid built mullions and loop tracery enclosed within a round arch.[236] The tower at the south-west corner has massive corner buttresses. It is finished with one of the few crown steeples remaining in Scotland, forming, "with that of St. Giles, Edinburgh, and the Tolbooth, Glasgow, the only three surviving of those which we could at one time boast. The general style of the structure is very similar to that of St. Giles, but in this case there are only four arches thrown from the angles of the tower to the central lantern, while in the case of St. Giles there are eight, which produce a fuller and richer effect.... The part blown down (by a violent storm in 1633) was probably only the lantern on the top of the four arches, the details of this part having a decidedly Renaissance character, and being different from the other parts of the tower. Doubtless the arches themselves would suffer in the crash, and would require repairing and rebuilding in part, which was evidently done, as the date 1634 is carved on the soffit of the crossing. This difference of detail is interesting as showing how persistently these old designers wrought in the style of their time. Although it is evident that the present lantern is not quite the same as the original one, it must be admitted to be an extremely happy and picturesque composition."[237] The chapel suffered both externally and internally in the course of the centuries, but, thanks to the enlightened liberality of Aberdeen citizens and alumni, it has been recently restored under the direction of Dr. Rowand Anderson. In 1823 the choir end was fitted up for worship on the Sundays, and the nave was occupied by the library, which was not removed and located in a building of its own until 1873. The choir screen was then shifted westward from its original position, where its west front formerly bisected the chapel. "In the ideas of Bishop Elphinstone," said the late Principal Sir William Geddes, "and his age, the choir-screen was intended to partition off the sacred _clerus_ from the _non-clerus_ or laity, and, by the predominance of anthems and songs in the choir-service, to image forth the conception of the blest society in heaven, where there is only praise; but the 'Collegium' which he constituted has, through historical causes, given way to the wider society of the 'Congregation,' in which preaching is as prominent as praise, and hence came the removal of the choir-screen westward, so as to accommodate a larger audience than the Collegium proper. This removal the Restoration Committee of 1891 acquiesced in and accepted, but the change is one for which they are not responsible."[238] It will be interesting to give here a brief resumé of what has been stated by the Principal regarding shields and symbolism in the restored chapel. (1) As to the treatment of the floor: no shield has been admitted into the floor but such as represent persons in close relation to the King's College, of a date antecedent to the Scottish Reformation of 1560. When the series is completed, they will be found to represent:-- _Royal Shields_ 1. James IV., the Royal Founder. Motto, _Leo Magnanimus_. 2. Margaret Tudor, his Queen. " _Rosa sine spina_. 3. St. Margaret, Queen of Malcolm " _Crux columbis lex_. III. (Canmore). _Episcopal_ 4. Bishop Elphinston. Motto, _Non confundar_. 5. " Gavin Dunbar. " _Sub spe_. 6. " William Stewart. " _Virescit vulnere virtus_. 7. " John Leslie. " _Memento_. _Literary_ 8. Principal Hector Boece. Motto, _Silva frequens trabibus_. 9. Dean Robert Maitland. " _Consilio et animis._ _In Ante-Chapel_ 1. (North side) _Domine, dilexi decorem domus tuae_ (Lord, I have loved the beauty of Thy House), Psalm xxvi. 8. 2. (East side) _Initium sapientiae timor Domini_ (The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom), Motto of the University. 3. (South side) _Te Deum laudamus, te Dominum confitemur_ (We praise Thee, O Lord, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord). 4. (West side) _In te Domine speravi: non confundar_ (In Thee, O Lord, have I trusted: let me never be confounded). The roof has a continuous system of decoration in colour and floral ornament, except in the four compartments at the extreme east end over the apse, where structural necessities imposed a variation. The central space of the roof is filled with scrolls containing the words, Laus, Potestas, Honor, Gloria, in ecclesiastical letter, varied by insertions of the monogram of the Saviour, I.H.S., at intervals recurring. "Below these, and towards the junction of the roof with walls, appears what may be called a flying scroll of inscriptions, being a series of Latin texts and chants, chiefly from the Vulgate, capable of being read continuously, round the roof, and interrupted only by the apse, which, as explained, has a separate treatment." "In the apse, which, like Scottish apses of that period, is not semicircular, but has three facets, being semi-hexagonal, the frieze inscriptions are the University motto in its two clauses, with Sursum Corda in the centre. These occupy severally the three divisions into which the apse frieze falls, while in the compartments above are the symbolical figures in gold usually associated with the four Evangelists, viz. the Angel of S. Matthew, the Lion of S. Mark, the Ox of S. Luke, and the Eagle of S. John. The flying scroll attached to these figures is the text in Revelation (iv. 8). The band at the springing of the arched roof is variegated by a series of shields or disks, in which the sacred monogram alternates with the emblems of the Passion. The order in which the emblems have been placed is as follows: _West End_ South side ends. North side begins. 15. Moon. 1. Sun. 14. Ladder. 2. Bag of Judas. 13. Spear and Sponge. 3. Lantern. 12. Dice. 4. Cock. 11. Seamless Coat. 5. Scourges. 10. Hammer and Pincers. 6. Pillar and Cords. 9. Three Nails. 7. Crown of Thorns. 8. Cross, I.N.R.I. _East or Apse End_ "The figures of the sun or moon, which are usually represented in the Crucifixion scene, on either side of, and close to, the cross, have here by a certain liberty been made to commence and close the series." ... "Fortunately the fretwork, when reversed, was found, though fragile, to be fairly sound; and, although not all entirely on a uniform pattern, a large section of it, when turned upward, presented the appearance of a series of Pots of Lilies, side by side, a discovery which largely reconciled one to the alteration, inasmuch as this emblem of the Virgin is known to have been not only familiar to, but also a favourite with, the Founder of the College. The King's College, besides, was originally the College of S. Mary." _Chancel and Apse_ The Professorial stalls have for the cresting the emblems of the Seven Virtues, viz. the four cardinal virtues of the Philosophers, and the three celestial virtues, or Graces of the Theologians. The sequence is:-- {1. Justice, symbolised by the Scales and Balance. {2. Courage " " Thistle. {3. Temperance " " Bridle. {4. Prudence " " Compasses (Mariner's and Carpenter's). {5. Faith " " Pillar with Wreath of Victory. {6. Hope " " Anchor. {7. Love " " Flaming Heart. They are repeated in such order on both sides, and the four Cardinal Virtues are towards the west or exterior; the three Theological Virtues toward the east or interior of the apse. On the stall forming the eighth on the south side, there is the monogram of the Alpha and Omega. On the panels of the stalls, "the leading idea sought to be maintained was the representation in sequence of the various emblems of Christ and the Christian life, as drawn from the cornu copiæ of Nature, in the fruits and flowers of the vegetable world, that unfallen portion of creation which the Divine Teacher honoured by drawing from it, and from it alone, His similes and parables. They are severally as follows, commencing from the west:-- 1. The Lily.} 2. The Palm.} 3. The Rose.} 4. The Trefoil. 5. The Vine and Grapes.} 6. The Olive. } 7. The Wheat-ears." } At the eighth panel on the south side, under the [Greek: Alpha] and [Greek: Omega] of the cresting, stands the Pot of Lilies as a symbol of the Virgin. We have given an account of the late learned Principal's paper as appropriate to this history. It shows how art can both express the spirit of the place and become a servant of religion. It illustrates Professor Flint's declaration:--"God as the perfectly good is not only Absolute Truth and Absolute Holiness, but also Absolute Beauty. He is the source, the author, the giver of all beautiful things and qualities. All the beauties of earth and sea and sky, of life and mind and spirit, are rays from His beauty. The powers by which they are perceived are conferred by Him. The light in which they are seen is His light."[239] _Roslin (Mid-Lothian)._--The church was founded in 1450 by Sir William St. Clair, Baron of Roslin and third Earl of Orkney. It was dedicated to St. Matthew, and founded for a provost, six prebendaries, and two choristers. In the quaint language of Father Hay:-- "His adge creeping on him, to the end that he might not seem altogither unthankfull to God for the benefices he receaved from Him, it came in his mind to build a house for God's service, of most curious worke: the which that it might be done with greater glory and splendor, he caused artificers to be brought from other regions and forraigne kingdomes, and caused dayly to be abundance of all kinde of workmen present: as masons, carpenters, smiths, barrowmen, and quarriers, with others. The foundation of this rare worke he caused to be laid in the year of our Lord 1446: and to the end the worke might be the more rare: first he caused the draughts to be drawn upon Eastland boords, and made the carpenters to carve them according to the draughts thereon, and then gave them for patterns to the masons that they might thereby cut the like in stone." He was probably himself the source of the design, and his enlightened liberality attracted to the place the best workmen in Scotland, as well as from parts of the Continent. It has been said by the most recent authorities:-- "The church, so far as erected, is in perfect preservation, and is a charming portion of an incomplete design. It is, in some respects, the most remarkable piece of architecture in Scotland; and had the church been finished in the same spirit as that in which it has been so far carried out, it would have gone far to have realised a poet's dream in stone. When looked at from a strictly architectural point of view, the design may be considered faulty in many respects, much of the detail being extremely rude and debased, while as regards construction many of the principles wrought out during the development of Gothic architecture are ignored. But notwithstanding these faults, the profusion of design so abundantly shown everywhere, and the exuberant fancy of the architect, strike the visitor who sees Rosslyn for the first time with an astonishment which no familiarity ever effaces."[240] The original intention was to complete the building as a cross church, with choir, nave, and transepts, but the choir only has been completed. The transepts have been partly erected, the east wall being carried up to a considerable height, but the nave has not been erected. The church consists of a choir, with north and south aisles, connected by an aisle which runs across the east end, giving access to a series of four chapels beyond it to the east. Beyond the east end of the church, and on a lower level, to suit the slope of the ground, a chapel has been erected that is reached from the south aisle by a stair. It is barrel-vaulted and is lighted by an eastern window. There are ambries in the walls and an eastern altar with a piscina. There are also a fireplace and a small closet on the north side. On the south a door leads to what has been an open court, where there are indications of other buildings having existed or being intended. In all probability there was a residence here, and the chapel may have served both as sacristy and private chapel. This chapel was probably built by the liberality of Lady Douglas, Sir William St. Clair's first wife. The church is profusely adorned with sculpture which generally represents Scripture scenes, and one of the most curious examples in the remarkable decoration of the edifice is the ornamentation of the south pillar of the east aisle, known as the "Prentice Pillar"--named by Slezer (1693) as the "Prince's Pillar" and by Defoe (1723) the "Princess's Pillar." It consists of a series of wreaths twisted round the shaft, each wreath curving from base to capital round one quarter of the pillar. The ornamentation of the wreaths corresponds in character with the other carving of the church, and the grotesque animals on the base find a counterpart in those of the chapter-house pillar at Glasgow Cathedral. At the Reformation the lands and revenue of the church were virtually taken away, and in 1572 they were relinquished by a formal deed of resignation. The chapel does not seem to have suffered much violence till 1688, when a mob did much mischief. It remained uncared for, and gradually became ruinous till the middle of the eighteenth century, when General St. Clair glazed the windows, relaid the floor, renewed the roof, and built the wall round about. Further repairs were executed by the first Earl of Rosslyn, and again by the third Earl, who spent £3000 principally in renewing and retouching the carvings of the Lady Chapel--a work said to have been suggested by the Queen, who visited the church in 1842. Since 1862, services in connection with the Scottish Episcopal Church have been held within it. At the west end a vestry and organ-chamber were erected a few years ago. _Stirling (Chapel Royal, St. Mary's, and St. Michael's)._--On the north side of the Castle Square is the building erected by King James VI. as a chapel, and generally called now the armoury. There seems to have been a chapel in the castle founded by Alexander I., and it was connected with the monastery at Dunfermline. The original dedication is unknown, but in the fourteenth century there is mention of the chapel of St. Michael, which may possibly date from the time when an Irish ecclesiastic--St. Malachi or Michael--visited David I. at Stirling Castle, and healed his son, Prince Henry. The chapel was rebuilt in the early part of the fifteenth century, and in the time of James III. became an important church. It was constituted both as a royal chapel and as a musical college, and endowed with the rich temporalities of Coldingham Abbey. This chapel was the scene of the penitence of James IV., who, after the victory at Sauchie, "daily passed to the Chapel Royal, and heard matins and evening song: in the which every day the chaplains prayed for the King's grace, deploring and lamenting the death of his father: which moved the King, in Stirling, to repentance, that he happened to be counselled to come against his father in battle, wherethrough he was wounded and slain. To that effect he was moved to pass to the dean of the said Chapel Royal, and to have his counsel how he might be satisfied, in his own conscience, of the art and part of the cruel deed which was done to his father. The dean, being a godly man, gave the King a good comfort: and seeing him in repentance, was very glad thereof." James IV. endowed the chapel with large revenues, and in 1501 erected it into a collegiate church for dean, subdean, chanter, sacristan, treasurer, chancellor, archpriests, sixteen chaplains, six singing boys and a choir master. It was the richest of the provostries, and held many churches. The deans of the chapel, who were first the provosts of Kirkheugh at St. Andrews, afterwards the bishops of Galloway, and eventually the bishops of Dunblane, possessed in their capacity as deans an episcopal jurisdiction. The chapel, erected by James III., fell evidently into a ruinous condition, and in 1594 James VI. pulled the old structure down and erected on its site the present building. It was the scene of the baptism of Prince Henry. ST. GILES, EDINBURGH "In the centre of the old town of Edinburgh," writes Dr. Cameron Lees, "stands the great church of St. Giles. From whatever point of view the city is looked at, the picturesque crown of the steeple is seen sharply outlined against the sky. Soaring aloft unlike every other spire in its neighbourhood, it seems like the spirit of old Scottish history, keeping watch over the city that has grown up through the long years beneath its shadow. Edinburgh would not be Edinburgh without it. The exterior of the church itself is plain and unadorned, and it is evident that unsympathetic hands have been laid upon it and modernised it; but when one enters the building, a vast and venerable interior is presented to him, and every stone seems to speak of the past. St. Giles is a church whose history is closely interwoven with the history of Scotland from the very earliest ages, and it has been the scene of many remarkable events which have left their impress upon our national character."[241] Dr. David Laing thinks that a parish church of small dimensions may have existed nearly coeval with the castle and town,[242] and the present St. Giles occupies the site of the original parish church of Edinburgh. Symeon of Durham, who flourished in the early part of the thirteenth century, includes Edinburgh under the year 854 in reckoning the churches and towns belonging to the Bishopric of Lindisfarne or Holy Island, in the district of Northumbria, a see which, previous to the Scoto-Saxon period, extended over the range of Lothian and the more southern districts of North Britain.[243] The name "Edwinesburch" is taken as having a special reference to the castle and town.[244] When David I. founded the abbey in honour of the Holy Cross, the Virgin Mary, and all the saints, he conferred upon the canons (among other churches) the church of the castle, the Church of St. Cuthbert under the castle wall, and at the period there were lands lying to the south of Edinburgh which bore the name of St. Giles' Grange--so called from being the grange of the vicar of St. Giles' Church. These lands were gifted by King David I. to the English abbey of Holm Cultram or Harehope in Cumberland, and probably the church went along with them; at all events, it continued to belong to some monastery. In 1393 it belonged to the Crown, and King Robert III. granted it to the Abbey of Scone; to that house it belonged for some time, remaining still an humble vicarage.[245] It is the most reasonable conjecture that the parish church, dedicated in honour of St. Ægidius or St. Giles, and which has ever since retained the name of that patron saint, was erected during the reign of Alexander I. (1107-1124), the founder also of the Abbey of Scone and other religious houses.[246] Some fragments of this church remained till the end of last century, the richly ornamented Norman porch, which had formed the entrance to the nave on the north side of the church, being removed about 1797.[247] Dr. Lees thinks that possibly some of the pillars of the choir, and also the door at the entry to the royal pew, belonged to the first church of St. Giles.[248] The edifice appears to have been rebuilt about the time of David II.[249] In the frequent wars with England, Edinburgh suffered much, notably so in 1322 and 1335. This latter raid, having occurred in February, was afterwards known as the "burnt Candlemas." A reconstruction of the church was probably required after these repeated conflagrations, and this appears to have been carried out during the fourteenth century. But shortly afterwards a devastation of the town and its buildings was occasioned by Richard II. in 1385, when, during his occupation of five days, he left the town and parish church in ashes. The citizens, with the help of the Crown, made a great effort to repair the disaster to their church, and from this period the history of the present structure may be said to date. "It is said that during the restoration, which took place in 1870-80, traces of fire were observed on the pillars of the choir, and it is inferred that these pillars must have existed before the burning caused by Richard II. This view is confirmed by the fact that, after 1387, when, doubtless, the town authorities were doing all they could to complete the restoration of St. Giles', they entered into a contract with certain masons to erect five chapels along the south side of the nave, having pillars and vaulted roofs, covered with dressed stone slabs. These chapels still exist, and the wall rib of the vaulting is yet visible on the south side of the arcade, next the south aisle; but the vault and stone roof have been removed, and a plaster ceiling of imitation vaulting substituted. The above contract indicates that the walls of the nave then existed. We must, therefore, assume that the church had been rebuilt previous to the destruction of 1385, and that the above contract was an addition to the building connected with its restoration two years after the fire. Although, doubtless, much injured by the conflagration, the walls and pillars of the church seem to have escaped total destruction. The style of the architecture would lead to the same view; the octagonal pillars of the choir, with their moulded caps, being most probably of the fourteenth century."[250] The church, as restored and added to after 1387, is regarded as consisting of a choir of four bays, with side aisles; a nave of five bays, also with side aisles; a central crossing, north and south transepts, and the five chapels just added south of the nave.[251] An open porch, to the south of these chapels, was also erected along with them, with a finely groined vault in the roof, and over it a small chamber, lighted by a picturesque oriel window, supported on a corbel, carved with an angel displaying the city arms.[252] The whole of the main divisions of the structure were vaulted, and the massive octagonal piers of the crossing were probably raised about this period.[253] The vaulting of the crossing, with its central opening, was executed about 1400.[254] The ancient Norman porch, forming the north entrance to the nave, was the only part of the twelfth century structure then preserved. The restoration seems to have continued from 1385 to 1416. Shortly after the erection of the five south chapels, another chapel, called the Albany Aisle, was built on the north side of the nave to the west of the old doorway. It opens from the nave with two arches, resting on a central pillar, and the roof is covered with groined vaulting in two bays.[255] On the pillar are sculptured the arms of the Duke of Albany and also those of the Earl of Douglas. Their names are often ominously found together in the history of the times, and both were accused of the murder of the Duke of Rothesay, heir to the throne. They were justly accused, and, although acquitted of the deed, the stain continues to rest on their memory. The chapels were either built to expiate their crime, or more probably to get a reputation for piety and obtain the favour of the Church.[256] Two other chapels were probably added to the north side of the nave about the same period; they were on the east side of the Norman doorway, and between it and the transept. One of them has disappeared, and the eastern one was dedicated to St. Eloi. The vaulting of the north aisle of the nave was necessarily rebuilt at the time when the north chapels were erected.[257] About fifty years later, great extensions and improvements were carried out under the auspices of Queen Mary of Gueldres, by whom Trinity College Church was also founded in 1462. The Town Council and merchants of Edinburgh also endowed it. The extensions of St. Giles consisted of (1) the lengthening of the choir by one bay; (2) the heightening of the central aisle of the choir and vaulting it anew, together with the introduction of a new clerestory; and (3) the lengthening of the transepts.[258] The church is thus the work of many generations, and is the outcome of public and private contributions. That the choir was enlarged at this period is chiefly made evident by the heraldic devices and armorial bearings still existing. While the pillars nearest to the centre are plain octagons, with arches corresponding in simplicity, those at the east end have decorated capitals, supporting moulded arches. The King's pillar, as it is called, is the first from the window on the north side, and is near the spot where stood the High Altar. On the foliated capital are four coats of arms, and the first has the lion within the double tressure, and the armorial bearings are usually supposed to be those of King James II. (1436-1460); the second, impaled, of his Queen, Mary of Gueldres (1449-1463); the third has also the lion within the double tressure and a label of three points, which is held to denote a prince or heir, if not a younger son. The fourth shield has three _fleurs-de-lys_ for France.[259] These shields clearly connect the pillar with Mary of Gueldres, and her husband, James II., and their son, James III., who was born in 1453. The work was probably executed between 1453 and 1463.[260] On the opposite pillar, on the south side of the high altar, are also four coats of arms, viz. those of the town of Edinburgh and of the families of Kennedy, Otterburn, and Preston. To commemorate other benefactors, on the demi-pillar, on the north side of the eastern window, we have the arms (three cranes _gorged_) of Thomas Cranstoun, chief magistrate of Edinburgh in 1439 and 1454; on the south side, those of Napier of Merchiston, Provost of Edinburgh in 1457--a saltier engrailed, cantoned with four rosettes.[261] (2) The heightening of the choir and the introduction of a new clerestory were also carried out shortly after the middle of the fifteenth century, the height of the former choir being shown by the vault of the crossing, which it doubtless resembled, and which was not altered at that time. The outline of the old roof may also be observed against the east and west walls of the tower--the raglet and a stepped string-course above it being yet preserved, and being specially visible on the east side next the choir. The beauty of the vaulting of the central choir aisle is noticeable when contrasted with that of the side aisles.[262] The central crossing, with its vault, was left unaltered, and still remains in the same position, with its vaulting at the level it was raised to about 1400. It forms a break between the nave and the choir, in both of which the vault has been raised.[263] (3) The transepts were extended, their original length being marked by breaks in the roof, where the vaulting terminates. In a charter dated 11th January 1454-1455,[264] it is narrated that William Preston of Gourtoun, after much trouble and expense abroad, and aided by "a high and mighty prince, the King of France, and many other Lords of France," had succeeded in obtaining an arm bone of the patron saint, which he generously bequeathed to the church. The Town Council were so gratified with the gift that they resolved to add an aisle to the choir in commemoration of the event, and to place therein a tablet of brass recording the bounty of the donor. This aisle was to be built within six or seven years "furth frae our Lady isle, quhair the said William lyis." It thus appears that the south aisle of the nave was known as the lady chapel, and that Sir William was buried there. The resolution was carried into effect, and a new aisle called the Preston Aisle was constructed, south of the lady chapel. The Preston Aisle was afterwards known as the Assembly Aisle. In carrying out the work the south wall opposite the three westmost bays of the choir was removed, and three arches carried on two piers substituted. These piers and arches correspond with the work of the same period at the east end of the choir. One of the caps contains a shield bearing the three unicorns' heads of the Prestons. The structure extends into the choir the great width of the four aisles of the church previously formed in the nave, and adds greatly both to spaciousness and grandeur. The church was now complete in all its parts, as, internally, it still remains, with a few exceptions, to the present day.[265] Several additional chapels were afterwards thrown out. In 1513 an aisle of two arches was formed by Alexander Lauder of Blyth, Provost of the city; in 1518 the altar of the Holy Blood was erected in this aisle, which lay on the south of the nave, and to the east of the south porch, immediately adjoining the south transept. It opened into the south chapels of the nave with two arches, and had two windows to the south. There was within it a handsome monument containing a recumbent statue, or forming, as some suppose, part of the altar canopy. The monument is still preserved, but one half of the chapel was obliterated in 1829. In 1466 the parish church of St. Giles was erected by charter of James III. into a collegiate establishment, but it is not called collegiate till 1475. The chapter consisted of a provost or dean, sixteen prebendaries, a master of the choir, four choristers, a sacristan, and a beadle with chaplains. The revenues of the altars and chaplainries in the church were appropriated for the support of the several officers in the new establishment. The King reserved the nomination of the dean or provost, who enjoyed the tithes and other revenues of St. Giles' Church, with the adjacent manse; the provost had the right of choosing a curate, who had a yearly allowance of 25 marks with a house adjoining.[266] In subsequent charters the church is called the College Kirk of St. Geill of Edinburgh. About this period a few additions were made. A small chapel, called the Chapman Aisle, was thrown out from the Preston Aisle close to the south transept. It was dedicated to St. John the Evangelist by Walter Chapman, called the Scottish Caxton, from his having introduced into Scotland in 1507 the art of printing. The chapel was dedicated within a month of King James' death at Flodden. The south transept seems to have been extended southward during the erection. The chapel to the east of the north transept contained several storeys and a staircase. It is said to have been erected after the Reformation. Used as the Town Clerk's office, and later as a vestry, it has been recently set apart to contain the monument of Dr. William Chambers, by whose liberality the cathedral has been recently restored. In 1829 the church was entirely renewed as regards the exterior, and two chapels to the south of those built in 1389 and the south porch were removed. The round arched doorway of the south porch was again erected between the north pillars of the crossing as the entrance to the central division of the church. It has now been transferred to the entrance doorway to the royal pew at the east end of the Preston Aisle.[267] The only portions of the exterior which escaped the unfortunate renewal of 1829 were the tower and steeple. Fortunately the well-known crown of St. Giles was not interfered with. It was probably erected about 1500.[268] "This crown," say the same authorities, "seems to have been a favourite feature with Scottish architects. The crown of the tower of King's College, Aberdeen, was built after 1505, and similar crowns formerly existed on the towers of Linlithgow and Haddington churches. The crown of St. Nicholas' Church, Newcastle, which is probably the only other steeple of this kind in Great Britain, is also of a late date. There is a crown of the same description on the tower of the Town Hall at Oudenarde, in Belgium, which is also of late Gothic work.... Some of the above crown steeples have an arch thrown from each angle to a central pinnacle, an arrangement which renders them rather thin and empty looking; but that of St. Giles' has, in addition to the arches from the angles, another arch cast from the centre of each side to the centre pinnacle. This produces an octagonal appearance, which, together with the numerous crocketed pinnacles with which the arches are ornamented, gives a richness and fulness of effect which is wanting in some of the other steeples of this description. The steeple of St. Giles' was partly rebuilt in 1648."[269] In the tower was placed the great bell of St. Giles, which must have been heard far and near on special occasions, as when, after the news of the disastrous field of Flodden, the inhabitants were ordered at the tolling of the common bell to assemble in military array for the defence of the city. The bell was cast in Flanders.[270] About 1500 several of the guilds had chapels assigned to them, and for these they contributed to the church funds. Many famous Scotsmen were buried within St. Giles, and amongst them were the Napiers of Merchiston, although it is doubtful whether Baron Napier rests there or not.[271] The Regent Murray, assassinated at Linlithgow in 1569, was buried in the south aisle; his monument was destroyed, but the brass plate, with the inscription written in his honour by George Buchanan, was rescued, and is inserted in a new monument erected in the Murray Aisle. The scattered members of the body of the great Montrose were collected and buried in the Chapman Aisle, in the south part of St. Giles, in 1661, but all trace of his remains has now been lost, and no monument until recently indicated his grave. The last day on which mass was said in St. Giles was probably the 31st of March 1560;[272] the disturbances connected with the Reformation broke out in Edinburgh at an early date, and St. Giles' Church was one of the first to suffer. All things have their end. Churches and cities, which have diseases like to men, Must have like death that we have. The images were stolen from the church; that of St. Giles was carried off by the mob, drowned in the North Loch, and then burned; his arm bone, so precious before, is supposed to have been thrown into the adjacent churchyard; the church was pillaged and the altars and images cast down; the valuables were taken by the authorities and sold, while the proceeds were spent in the repairs of the church. "Irreverence," writes Dr. Lees, "had long been common. It was not to be expected that with the change of religion would come any additional reverence for the things and places which the old religion had proclaimed sacred. We read without much surprise, therefore, of weavers being allowed to set up their looms and exercise their craft 'in ane volt prepared for them in the rufe of Sanct Gellis Kirk,' of the vestry of the church being turned into an office for the town clerk.... It is almost inconceivable that old associations should so thoroughly and quickly have died out."[273] The church suffered from the over-zeal of the early reformers and also from the effects of civil contention when Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange and Queen Mary's adherents retained possession of the castle. Kirkaldy took forcible possession of St. Giles' Church, and placed some of his men in the steeple to keep the citizens in awe. They made "holes in the vaute of the Great Kirk of Edinburgh, which they made like a riddell, to shoot thorough at suche as they pleased within the kirk, or at such as would prease to breake down the pillars."[274] In 1560 St. Giles' again became the parish church, with John Knox for its minister. It was afterwards considered too large for Protestant worship, and in Knox's time the Magistrates began to cut it up into sections and formed several churches. Other alterations were made at different times, so that besides the High Church in the choir and the Tolbooth Church in the nave there were under the same roof a grammar school, courts of justice, the Town Clerk's office, a weaver's workshop, and a place for the Maiden, or instruments of public executions! In 1633, on the introduction of Laud's form of worship, the church became the seat of a bishop, and the choir was used as a cathedral. Between 1637 and 1661 it was again Presbyterian; from 1661 to 1690 it was once more Episcopalian; at the Revolution the Presbyterian worship was again restored, and the cathedral was divided with walls and filled with galleries. The Tolbooth Church occupied the south-west angle, and Haddow's Hole Church the north-west angle. The Old Church comprised the south transept and portions adjoining; the Preston Aisle was used as a place of meeting for the General Assembly and other purposes. The dark portions under the crossing and north transept were occupied as the police office. The alterations and rebuilding of 1829 left the cathedral still divided into three separate churches, and "the ancient architecture of the exterior of St. Giles was entirely obliterated by the reconstruction."[275] As to this "restoration," Dr. Lees writes, "What ensued was deplorable, and can scarcely be conceived by those who have not themselves seen what was done."[276] On the other hand, advantage was obtained by the removal of the small houses and booths that had been built against the structure and between the buttresses. All must at least be grateful that the steeple "was left alone." The position of affairs remained thus until Dr. William Chambers, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, conceived the idea of removing the partitions and opening up the whole building. By his exertions, and largely by his own personal munificence, the restoration was effected between 1870 and 1883. "The Cathedral," says Dr. Cameron Lees, "restored from end to end, was opened with a public service on the 23rd May 1883. Her Majesty the Queen was represented by a Scottish nobleman (the Earl of Aberdeen), and representatives of all the chief corporations in Scotland attended. The ceremonial was fitting the occasion, and three thousand persons filled the immense building. The whole scene recalled the brilliant pageants of an earlier day. But there was sadness in the hearts of all present, for three days previous to the ceremonial Dr. William Chambers had passed away. The words of the preacher[277] received, and still receive a response from many. 'So long as these stones remain one upon another, will men remember the deed which William Chambers hath done, and tell of it to their children.' Two days after the reopening of the church, the funeral service of the restorer was conducted within the building his patriotism had beautified and adorned, and amid a vast and solemn crowd his body was borne forth from the place he loved so well, and for which he had done so much, to his burial."[278] "What a strange story its old gray crown, as it towers high above the city, tells out day by day to all who have ears to hear. It is the story of Scotland's poetry, romance, religion--the story of her progress through cloud and sunshine, the story of her advance from barbarism to the culture and civilisation of the present day."[279] _St. Andrews--St. Mary's, or Kirkheugh._--A very old chapel, known as St. Mary's on the Rock, is said to have stood on the Lady's Craig, but no trace of it now remains. Another chapel, also dedicated to St. Mary, stood on the Kirk Heugh, and was known as the Chapel of the King of Scotland on the Hill. All traces of it were for a long time lost, but in 1860 the foundations were discovered, and they show it to have been a cruciform structure. It is between the cathedral wall on the north-east and the sea. It had a provost and ten prebendaries.[280] _St. Salvator's, St. Andrews._--The College of St. Salvator was founded and endowed by Bishop Kennedy in 1456 for a provost and prebendaries. This bishop was distinguished for his liberality to the Church. The Church of St. Salvator is the only portion of the college buildings which still survives. It is now attached to the united colleges of St. Leonard's and St. Salvator, which form the existing University of St. Andrews, and the other buildings of which are modern. The church bears the mark of the period when it was erected, the latter half of the fifteenth century.[281] It consists of a single oblong chamber, with a three-sided apse at the east end, a tower, with octagonal spire, at the south-west angle of the church. In the interior of the north wall, close to the apse, there is the splendid monument erected to Bishop Kennedy, the founder of the college. The south wall is divided by buttresses into seven bays. CHAPTER V PARISH CHURCHES ILLUSTRATING THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE NORMAN PERIOD _Dalmeny Church (Linlithgowshire)._--"Two nearly perfect churches of the Romanesque age," says Dr. Joseph Robertson, "survive at Dalmeny and Leuchars--the former apparently in the twelfth century a manor of the Anglo-Norman house of Avenel, the latter a Scottish fief of one of the Magna Charter barons, Saier de Quincy, Earl of Winchester. Neither building need fear comparison with the common standard of English examples. Both are late in style: Leuchars is the richer, Dalmeny the more entire of the two. Both have semicircular apses--a feature found also in the parish churches of St. Kentigern at Borthwick, and St. Andrew at Gulane, and in the chapel bearing the name of St. Margaret within the walls of Edinburgh Castle."[282] Dalmeny Church is the most complete of Scottish Norman churches, and consists of a chancel with eastern apse, and a nave separated from the chancel by an elaborate chancel arch. The arch has three orders, decorated with elaborate chevron ornaments, enclosed with a hood moulding carved with an enrichment somewhat resembling the dog-tooth. The soffit contains a similar faceted enrichment. The arch is carried on three attached shafts on each side, built in ashlar, and provided with subdivided cushion caps and plain bases. The chancel has one small window on the south side, and is vaulted with bold diagonal groin-ribs, enriched with chevron ornaments and springing from grotesque corbels. The apse is semicircular, and is entered from the chancel by an enriched arch with shafts and caps similar to those of the chancel arch. It is lighted by three plain window openings, the central one being enlarged. In the exterior a string-course runs round the building immediately below the windows, of which it forms the sills, and is enriched with a carved floral pattern. The chief feature is the main entrance door in a porch, projecting to the south, the archway of which is supported on two plain pillars with Norman capitals. There are over this door the remains of a line, concentric with the arch, of sculptured figures and animals, very similar to those found on the ancient sculptured monuments of Scotland. Associated with the Agnus Dei, Leo, Sagittarius, serpents, birds, dragons, and human figures, we have one perhaps bearing a pastoral staff. From the rough nature of the masonry at the west end of the nave it is probable that a tower was intended to be built there.[283] On the north side projecting wings have been added to the church, but the south front and east end are almost untouched and show twelfth century work, uninjured save by weather and natural decay. The church is believed to have been dedicated to St. Adamnan, and this is rendered very probable by the fact that the neighbouring church of Cramond was dedicated to St. Columba. _Leuchars Church, Fifeshire._--We hear of a church here in 1187, and it was given to the canons of St. Andrews (1171-1199). The church now consists of a choir with a circular apse; there are traces of an arch at the west end of the choir which opened into the nave, that has been rebuilt. In the seventeenth century a turret was built, which is incongruous and out of place; and to support the belfry a plain arch has been introduced in the interior amongst the Norman work of the apse. The exterior of the semicircular apse shows an arcade of two storeys, "the shafts of the upper tier resting on the arches of the lower one, and all the shafts bearing cushion caps. Those of the lower story are double shafts, and those of the upper story are double shafts, with a broad fillet between them. All the arches are enriched with chevron and billet mouldings, and the upper tier has an extra order of elaborate billet-work. The string-course between the two arcades is carved with zigzags. The cornice is supported on a series of boldly-carved grotesque heads, all varying in design.... The design of the exterior of the choir is similar to that of the apse, there being two arcades, one above the other, surmounted by a cornice, with corbels carved as grotesque heads. The lower arcade, however, has interlacing arches, which indicate a late period of the style. The two arcades are separated by a string-course, enriched with scroll floral ornament. In the interior ... the chancel arch (which has elaborate carving) is carried on a central attached shaft and two plain nook shafts, built in courses, with simple cushion caps and plain bases. The chancel is vaulted with heavy moulded groins, springing from the cushion caps of short single shafts resting on grotesque heads. A small window is introduced in each of the divisions formed by the shafts, and each window has a pair of nook shafts in the interior and enriched arch above. The lower part of the apse is plain, and is separated from the upper part by a string-course, enriched with faceted ornaments."[284] PARISH CHURCHES ILLUSTRATING MIDDLE POINTED OR DECORATED PERIOD _St. Michael's Parish Church, Linlithgow_, was the scene of the apparition that is said to have warned King James IV. against the battle of Flodden, and is one of the largest parish churches in Scotland. A church dedicated to St. Michael existed here as early as the time of David I. A new church is said to have been erected in 1242, and probably some parts of this are incorporated in the present edifice. In 1384 Robert II. contributed to the erection or repair of the church tower, and in 1424 the church was injured and considerably destroyed by the fire that reduced the town to ashes. The reconstruction of the edifice probably progressed, under the Jameses, simultaneously with that of the palace adjoining. St. Michael's consists of a choir, including two aisles and a three-sided apse at the east end; a nave, including two aisles; two chapels inserted, north and south, in the place usually occupied by the transept; a square tower at the west end, and a south porch giving access to the nave. The nave is the oldest part of the building, and appears to have been erected before the middle of the fifteenth century. The choir is of somewhat later date.[285] A broad stone bench or seat is carried round the nave, and the bases of the triple wall shafts of the vaulting rest upon it. Those of the choir, different in design, rest on the floor. In the nave there are triforium openings in each bay, and clerestory windows above them. The windows throughout the church are of large size, and filled with varied geometric tracery. The windows of the apse are large, and the tracery of two of the windows is perpendicular in character. The transepts (or north and south chapels) and the south porch have crow-stepped gables both on their outer walls and also over the inner or aisle wall which separates them from the church. Each of these contains an apartment over the vault, that over the south porch being probably a place for preserving documents. The buttresses of the nave have a simpler character than those of the apse and north transept. The canopies of the niches are ornamented somewhat similarly to those of Rosslyn. The buttress of the south-west angle of the nave, crowned with the sculptured figure of St. Michael, is a striking feature on approaching the church. The western tower was originally terminated with a crown of open stone-work, similar to that of St. Giles, Edinburgh. About 1821 it was found to be in a dangerous condition, and had to be taken down. The tower is of late design and contains a doorway, continental in style, which may possibly be the work of Thomas French, the King's master-mason, and above which there is a large perpendicular window. The upper part of the tower would contrast well with the crown on the top. The tower opens into the nave with a wide and lofty arch, carried up to the clerestory level, and the groined vault with large window below produces a good effect. In each side wall of the tower is a richly canopied recess, intended for monuments or sculpture. A portion of what seems to have been a carved altar-piece is preserved in the church and represents scenes in our Lord's Passion.[286] The steeple contains three bells with inscriptions. The south transept contained an altar dedicated to St. Katherine, and was the place where James IV. is reported to have seen the apparition that warned him against the fatal expedition to England--an incident chronicled by Pitscottie, and forming the basis of Sir David Lyndsay's tale in _Marmion_. The church contained twenty-four altarages, which were removed in 1559 by the Lords of the Congregation in their march from Perth to Edinburgh; and probably still further damage was done by Cromwell's dragoons, who used it as a stable. The church belonged to St. Andrew's priory, and was long served by perpetual vicars. It has been recently restored, and made worthy of its great past. The west doorway is pronounced to be a pleasing specimen of the half continental manner in which that feature was usually treated in Scotland.[287] _Haddington Parish Church (East Lothian)_ is one of the ecclesiastical structures belonging to the ancient royal burgh of Haddington. Besides it there were the monasteries of the Franciscans and Dominicans, the Cistercian nunnery, and the chapels of St. Martin, St. Ann, St. Katherine, St. John, and St. Ninian. Of these establishments the only two that now survive are St. Martin's (a very ancient chapel) and the parish church, which deserves the name now applied to it (although originally it seems to have been given to the vanished church of the Franciscan monastery) on account both of its beauty and the distance at which its lights were visible--Lucerna Laudoniæ, or Lamp of Lothian. The ancient church of Haddington was founded by David I., dedicated to the Virgin, and by him granted in 1134 to the priory of St. Andrew. The present structure is of later date, and from the style of the architecture, was probably rebuilt in the first half of the fifteenth century.[288] The church is cruciform, having choir and nave, both with side aisles, and north and south transepts without aisles. Over the crossing is the central tower. The choir and transepts are ruinous, and the restored nave is used as the parish church. The tower was originally crowned with a canopy or spire of open work similar to that of St. Giles, Edinburgh, and King's College, Aberdeen; and large picturesque gargoyles still break the line of the cornice on the top. Although the edifice has been so sadly damaged, it does not appear to have suffered at the Reformation. The town was under siege in 1548, when it was held by the English after the battle of Pinkie, and was attacked and taken by the Scots and their French allies. It is not unlikely that the church suffered at that time. PARISH CHURCHES OF THIRD OR LATE POINTED PERIOD _Parish Church of St. John the Baptist, Perth._--The ancient city of Perth possessed many endowed religious establishments, but the only one that survives is the church of St. John the Baptist, from which the city derived its title of "St. John's Town." This church, divided by walls so as to form three separate places of worship, is still the parish church of the town. The first church of Perth was probably connected with the neighbouring Pictish monastery at Abernethy, and was erected by the monks there during the Celtic period. The register of Dunfermline contains the earliest historical mention of the church under the years 1124-1127, when it was granted by David I., with its property and tithes, to that abbey. The church was consecrated by David de Bernham, Bishop of St. Andrews, in 1242, and it is stated that the heart of Alexander III. was buried in the church of St. John.[289] The abbots of Dunfermline allowed the building to become ruinous, and tried to place upon the citizens of Perth the burden of upholding the fabric. The interest of the citizens seems to have been diverted from the church, and directed, probably at the beginning of the thirteenth century, to the building of the Dominican monastery, and about the middle of the century to the erection of the Carmelite or Whitefriars' monastery. It is probable that in connection with repairs necessary for the church, King Robert the Bruce in 1328 granted that stones might be taken from quarries belonging to the Abbey of Scone, "for the edification of the Church of Perth." Of the twelfth century church of St. John nothing now remains to indicate its architecture, although it may have been both magnificent and extensive. After the death of Robert the Bruce in 1329 the restoration begun by him probably ceased, and during the unrest of the fourteenth century the church probably suffered further damage. In 1335 King Edward III. was in Perth, and slew his brother, John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall, before the high altar of the Church of St. John for his excesses and ravages in the western districts of Scotland. In 1393-1394, after a parliament at Scone, Walter Trail, Bishop of St. Andrews, conducted divine service in St. John's Church. From 1401 till 1553-1556 there is a continuous record of the foundation of altars in the church, and of endowment of already existing ones. The chapel in which St. James' altar was situated stood on the south side of the church, and the foundation charter of the altar of St. John the Evangelist, founded in 1448 by Sir John de Bute, states that the altar was situated "in the new choir of the Parish Church." The church consists of a choir and nave, with north and south aisles, and north and south transepts without aisles. The nave and choir are of almost equal length; there was a chapel on the west side of the north transept that no longer exists, but the wide arch of the opening into it is partly visible in the transept. It was two storeys in height. It is pronounced[290] as evident from the style of the architecture that the choir and crossing beneath the central tower belong to the period about 1448. The transepts may be later, and both are of the same period. The two eastern bays of the main arcade of the choir are more elaborately moulded than the others, and round the eastmost pillar on the south side there is cut an inscription containing the names of John Fullar and his wife.[291] It has been remarked that the tithes and fees received by the magistrates probably did not suffice for the work laid on them by the monks of Dunfermline, and that John Fullar and his wife volunteered to pay for a part, certainly for the pillar on which their names are inscribed. In the second bay of the choir from the east on the north side there is a round arched doorway, now built up, and it led to the sacristy, afterwards used as a session-house; it was taken down about 1800, and the meetings were held in a building on the south side of the nave near the west end, which has also been removed. The present north and south doorways in the choir are modern, although the south one is in the position of the old doorway. The choir has no triforium, but good plain masonry instead, undivided by wall shafts; the clerestory windows are small and round arched, are divided into two lights by a central mullion, and have plain tracery in the arch-head. The nave is divided, like the choir, into five bays, and has no triforium nor clerestory; there is a deep blank wall above the arcade arches. "This wall is of rough masonry compared to that in the choir, and the whole of this part of the church is of a much coarser and ruder description, betokening a later age. The capitals of the piers are of the very rudest kind, and are a perfect contrast to the delicate work of the choir. In the meagre description of St. John's to be found in the books on Perth, this rudeness is pointed to as a sign of great antiquity, but the reverse is unquestionably the case. This nave is undoubtedly 'the New Kirk of Perth' referred to in the Chronicle, in which 'ane Synodall assemblie' was held in April 1606."[292] Early in the nineteenth century it was contemplated to raise the nave wall and erect a clerestory; two of the windows adjoining the tower on the north side were actually built, and still remain with massive buttresses, surmounted by high finials; the work was never finished, and could not be carried farther west, as there is no proper support for such a massive building. Tradition says that at one time the church extended farther west, and it seems not improbable that a western tower in the centre of the front may have been contemplated, and even begun. "This tower, like those at Stirling, Linlithgow, and Dundee, may have been intended to open towards the church with a wide arch, of which the jambs still remain; but this idea having been abandoned, and any part of the tower which then had been built having been taken down, the present makeshift gable was put up instead to fill up the gap, which, in these circumstances, would be left for the supposed opening into the church."[293] On the north side of the nave there is a large porch called Halkerston's Tower. It was a two-storied building, the upper storey being of great height and vaulted as well as the lower one. The erection of the west end of the church is referable to about 1489,[294] when payments were made "to the kirk werk of Pertht." The central tower was erected after the adjoining part of the nave, and has one window in each face. The parapet and corbelling were renewed about forty years ago.[295] The exterior of the church has been altered at various times, and an open parapet carried along the top of the choir wall over the clerestory windows as well as along the aisle walls and up the sloping gables of the east end. Dormer windows to light the galleries break in on this aisle-wall parapet, as well as on the roof of the nave. It was in the Church of St. John, Perth, that John Knox denounced the Mass in 1559, and the multitude afterwards demolished the ornaments, images, and altarpieces as well as the monasteries and religious houses in Perth--an example quickly followed by others throughout the country. In Scott's novel, _The Fair Maid of Perth_, the church is the scene of the trial by bier-right to discover the slayer of Proudfute. The East Church (or choir) has been recently restored, and many look forward to the day when, the present partition walls being removed, St. John's Church will once more reveal the full splendour of its striking and grand interior. Perth awaits a generous restorer, and St. John's affords a grand opportunity for patriotism and beneficence. DUNDEE CHURCH TOWER About 1198 the church of Dundee was bestowed on Lindores Abbey, and the church then existing is stated to have been erected by David, Earl of Huntingdon, as a thank-offering for his escape from a storm at sea. About 1442 an agreement was formed between the abbot of Lindores and the provost and burgesses of Dundee, by which the latter undertook the construction and maintenance of the choir of Dundee Church. The only part of the ancient church which now remains is the western tower, and it was erected about 1450.[296] Three parish churches in connection with the tower were developed from the original chapel--St. Mary's or the East Church, St. Paul's or the South Church, St. Clement's or the West Church. The church was damaged by the English before the Union, and St. Clement's had to be rebuilt in 1789. The three churches were almost totally destroyed by fire in 1841, and the choir and transepts were thereafter rebuilt. The church tower survived, and has resisted for over four centuries storm and tempest, fire and siege. Its massive strength and height are features that strike the eye from far. It is square, and 165 feet high. The western entrance consists of two round arched doorways, comprised within a larger circular or elliptical arch, which is again enclosed by a square moulding. The arch mouldings are enriched with foliage, while the jambs and central pillar are moulded with alternate rounds and hollows. In the spandril over the centre shaft there is a circular panel with a Virgin and Child; below are the arms of the diocese of Brechin on a shield. Above the doorway is a lofty traceried window, and above this window the tower is vaulted. The height from the floor to the groined ceiling is about 47 feet. At each of the four corners there is a large circular shaft, and each shaft is fitted into its position in a manner different from the others. The sedilia or stone seats still remain entire, and extend along the north, south, and west walls. The tower is divided into two principal stages by an enriched parapet and outside passage. The parapet is pierced with quatrefoils and ornamented with crocketed pinnacles. The roof is of the saddle-back kind, with gables towards the east and west. It was evidently meant to have an open crown termination, and the preparations exist for the springing of the angle arches.[297] The tower was restored by the eminent Sir Gilbert Scott in 1871-1873. _Stirling Parish Church._--Two churches in Stirling are spoken of in the reign of David I. One of them was the chapel royal, which was dedicated by Alexander I.; and the "vicar" of the "Kirk of Stirling" is mentioned in 1315 and in the time of David II. There are also notices of it in the reigns of Robert II. and Robert III., when it is designated as the Church of the Holy Cross of Stirling. Of this earlier church, which was burnt, nothing now remains. The present edifice consists of two divisions, the nave and the choir, which were built at two different periods. The nave, which is the oldest part, is referred to in the Chamberlain's Accounts from July 1413 to June 1414, and the date of the choir is known to be between 1507 and 1520. The church contains a central nave with north and south aisles (the aisles being vaulted in stone), an eastern apse, and a western tower. The nave has five bays, the choir three bays, and they are separated by a wide bay which may be termed the crossing. The crossing now serves as an entrance hall to the two churches, into which the building is now divided. Walls are built across each side of the crossing, so as to enclose the choir as one church and the nave as the other. The west tower, which is vaulted, opens into the nave through a lofty pointed arch, springing from moulded responds. The original entrance to the church was through the western tower, but the western doorway was destroyed in 1818, and part of a window now occupies its place. The tower is pronounced to be one of the best specimens of the Scottish architecture of the sixteenth century, as applied to ecclesiastical structures,[298] and the situation of the church on the Castle Hill gives it an imposing and picturesque effect. The piers of the nave (with the exception of two) are round and massive cylinders, and the east and west responds are semi-cylinders. The general appearance of these pillars has been taken to illustrate what is so often found in Scotland (both in ecclesiastic and domestic work) during the fifteenth century and onwards--viz. a tendency to imitate Norman and Early Pointed details. "This tendency is also seen in the nave piers of Dunkeld Cathedral, in the piers and arches of the naves of Aberdour Church and Dysart Church, in the imitation of First Pointed work in the late cloisters of Melrose, and many other examples which might be cited. But the later counterfeit is never perfect, there being always some touch of contemporary design which reveals the imitation.[299]" Over the crossing was an upper room, known as the King's room, from which the service could be seen, but it was destroyed about the middle of this century. At the north-west corner of the church was a chapel (now removed) with a wide opening into the church. It was called Queen Margaret's, and is supposed to have been built by James IV. in honour of his queen. Another chapel was dedicated to St. Andrew at the north-east end of the nave, and is still entire. It was erected by Duncan Forrester of Garden, Knight, who was a liberal benefactor of the church. The church is associated with many historical events. It was here that the Regent Arran publicly renounced Protestantism in 1543, and here in the following year also the Convention met that appointed Mary of Guise regent. The church, although "purged" in 1559, was not injured, and was used in 1567 for the coronation of James VI., then but thirteen months old. When General Monk in 1651 was besieging the castle, the church tower was one of the points of vantage seized by his soldiers, and the little bullet pits all over it indicate how hot must have been the fire directed against them. It was held by the Highlanders in 1746, and its bells pealed in honour of the victory at Falkirk. John Knox has preached within its venerable walls. It was divided into two buildings in 1656, and comprises still the east and west parish churches, the east being renovated in 1869. Since then a large number of stained-glass windows have been introduced. _Church of St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews._--The Hospitium or Guest Hall of St. Leonard's was founded by Prior John White in the middle of the thirteenth century for the reception of pilgrims and visitors to St. Andrews. Some remains of the guest hall have been excavated, from which it seems to have been a hall with central nave and two side aisles. The building was afterwards used as a nunnery, and in 1512 was appropriated as a college. It was then founded by Prior John Hepburn in conjunction with Archbishop Alexander Stewart. As a college, it was under the superintendence of the prior and chapter, and was for the education of twenty-four poor students. It became famous, however, and was attended by sons of noblemen. George Buchanan was at one time principal, and the college helped to spread a knowledge of sacred music throughout the country. A long range of buildings on the south side of the church was used as the students' residence. The church was long used for public worship, but after the college of St. Leonard's was united to that of St. Salvator in 1747, St. Leonard's was abandoned in 1759. Within recent times several alterations have been made on it, the steeple being taken down and the west end "set back" to give more room for access to a private house. The chapel is an oblong, and is without division between nave and chancel. The church appears to have been extended 24 feet at the east end, when it was converted into a college.[300] The design of windows and buttresses (perpendicular) is pronounced to accord well with the date of erection in the sixteenth century, and is similar to that of English colleges. On the north side is a room with a round barrel vault, probably the sacristy.[301] There is a piscina in the east window sill. _Church of The Holy Trinity, St. Andrews._--This church, usually named the Town Church, is of ancient foundation, but was almost entirely rebuilt at the end of the eighteenth century. An early church is said to have been built here in 1112 by Bishop Turgot, and subsequently dedicated by Bishop de Bernham to the Holy Trinity. It had in its palmy days thirty altarages, each with a separate priest and fifteen choristers, and it was from the pulpit here that John Knox preached his famous sermon on the purifying of the temple. The church demolished at the close of last century is believed to have been erected in 1412.[302] The north-west tower is the only part of the old structure which survives.[303] "Like the north-west tower at Cupar, it rises from the north and west walls of the north aisle, without buttresses to mark its outline or break the upright form of the walls. The square outline, however, is partly relieved by a square projection at north-west angle, which contains the staircase. The east and south walls are carried by arches, which formerly allowed the lower story of the tower to be included within the church, and the round pier at the south-east angle is made of extra thickness, so as to bear the weight of the tower."[304] The parapet is plain and rests on simple corbels. Above it rises a short and stunted octagonal spire with lucarnes, like most of the late Scottish examples. There is over the staircase a small turret with pointed roof. It is carried up within the parapet, and groups picturesquely with the main spire. The tower resembles the one at Wester Crail, and both are of fifteenth century date. It is of this tower or steeple[305] that we hear in John Knox's _History of the Reformation in Scotland_. When a captive on a French galley lying between Dundee and St. Andrews the second time that the ship returned to Scotland (probably June 1548), "The said Johne (Knox), being so extreamlye seak that few hoped his lyeff, the said Maister James (Balfour) willed him to look to the land, and asked if he knew it? Who answered, "Yes, I know it weall: for I see the stepill of that place whare God first in publict opened my mouth to His glorie, and I am fullie persuaded, how weak that ever I now appear, that I shall nott departe this lyif till that my toung shall glorifie his godlie name in the same place."[306] His hope, as we have just seen, was not disappointed." CHAPTER VI SCOTTISH MONASTICISM The old Celtic monastic system, with Iona as its centre, was superseded by the monastic system of the Roman Church in the eleventh century, and the old Culdee monks were either driven from their ancient settlements or compelled to become Augustinian canons or Benedictine monks. The life of Queen Margaret marks the period of transition in Scotland from the old system to that of the Church of Rome both in building and in every other department, and what Queen Margaret began, her sons, Edgar, Alexander and David completed. St. Margaret had a monk of Durham for her chaplain; Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, was her chosen counsellor. She introduced Benedictines from Canterbury into her foundation at Dunfermline. Edgar and Alexander took for their adviser St. Anselm--Lanfranc's successor, preferred English priests, and peopled the monasteries with English monks. David was even more earnest in the pursuit of this policy, and the kings who followed him found little to "Anglicise." Saxon refugees were followed into Scotland by Norman knights; these were received by David and presented with lands, and the extent of their possessions is apparent in the names of the proprietors settled in every part of the country. The policy is apparent: their settlement helped to keep the country in order, and defend it from the attacks of the unsubdued tribes in the north and west. It also helped to facilitate the spread of the Roman Catholic system throughout the country. "The new colonists," says Dr. Cosmo Innes, "were of the 'upper classes' of Anglican families long settled in Northumbria, and Normans of the highest blood and name. They were men of the sword, above all service and mechanical employment. They were fit for the society of court, and many became the chosen companions of our princes. The old native people gave way before them, or took service under the strong-handed strangers, who held lands by the written gift of the sovereign."[307] ... "The new settlers were of the progressive party, friends of civilisation and the Church. They had found churches on their manors, or if not already there, had founded them. To each of these manorial churches the lord of the manor now made a grant of the tithes of his estate; his right to do so does not seem to have been questioned, and forthwith the manor--tithed to its church--became what we now call a parish."[308] Examples of these parish churches have already been considered, and the two-fold movement of a cathedral system with parochial benefices was continued for a time. It was the most effective way of superseding the old Celtic church, and the policy was throughout inspired by the aim of substituting the parochial system with a diocesan episcopacy for the old tribal churches with monastic jurisdiction and functional episcopacy. But this was accompanied by a third movement, which to a very great extent paralysed it, and became a source of weakness to religion. The parochial system was shipwrecked when scarcely formed by the introduction of monasticism, which was then in the ascendant throughout Europe. "The new monks," says Dr. Cosmo Innes, "of the reformed rule of St. Benedict or canons of St. Augustine, pushing aside the poor lapsarian Culdees, won the veneration of the people by their zealous teaching and asceticism.... The church, too, with all its dues and pertinents, was bestowed on the monastery and its patron saint for ever, reserving only a pittance for a poor priest to serve the cure, or sometimes allowing the monks to serve it by one of their own brethren. William the Lion gave thirty-three parishes to the new monastery of Arbroath, dedicated to the latest and most fashionable High Church saint, Thomas à Becket."[309] The Church thus became territorial instead of tribal; episcopal instead of abbatial, and the new abbeys began to acquire large territory in the country. By the end of the thirteenth century the old line of Celtic kings closed in Alexander, and the movement was complete; the Church had ceased to be Celtic in usage and character, and had become Roman. This stream of tendency came from the south, and cathedrals with abbeys were constituted after English models. "Of the Scottish sees, all," says Dr. Joseph Robertson, "save three or four, were founded or restored by St. David, and their cathedral constitutions were formally copied from English models. Thus the chapter of Glasgow took that of Salisbury for its guide. Dunkeld copied from the same type, venerable in its associations with the name of St. Osmund, whose "Use of Sarum" obtained generally throughout Scotland. Elgin or Moray sent to Lincoln for its pattern, and transmitted it, with certain modifications, to Aberdeen and to Caithness. So it was also with the monasteries. Canterbury was the mother of Dunfermline; Durham, of Coldingham; St. Oswald's at Nosthill, near Pontefract, was the parent of Scone, and through that house, of St. Andrews and Holyrood. Melrose and Dundrennan were daughters of Rievaux, in the North Riding. Dryburgh was the offspring of Alnwick; Paisley, of Wenlock."[310] Roman monasticism thus became an important factor in Scottish life, and it is true to say that for a very considerable period the history both of piety and civilisation in Scotland was the history of its monasticism. It was a stage in the national development, a movement in religious progress, and it was only abolished when the salt had lost its savour, when monasticism had ceased to be spiritual and had become worldly and corrupt. The system had served its day in helping to educate the nation, and when its purpose was achieved it passed away. Mediæval architecture was, too, the outcome of the leisure in the cloister, and the men who designed and built those venerable temples must have been men to whom their work was their religion, and who regarded it as the way of honouring God. One cannot look at their architecture without realising how true are Ruskin's definitions of Art:--"Art has for its business to praise God."[311] "Great Art is the expression of a God-made great man."[312] "Art is the expression of delight in God's work."[313] "All great art is praise." "Art is the exponent of ethical life."[314] One cannot look at their ruins and not recall that by their destruction a beauty has passed away from the earth; one cannot read of the rude forces that destroyed them, and not see that the judgment on things is always on character, and that the last testing principle is, "See--not what manner of stones, _but what manner of men_." While we deplore the forces that destroyed, we have also to deplore the indefensible lives of the monks which at their last stage stirred such forces to their depths. There were four principal rules, under which might be classed all the religious orders. (1) _That of St. Basil_, which prevailed by degrees over all the others in the East, and which is retained by all the Oriental monks; (2) _That of St. Augustine_, which was adopted by the regular canons, the order of Premontré, the order of the Preaching Brothers or Dominicans, and several military orders. (3) _That of St. Benedict_, which, adopted successively by all the monks of the West, still remained the common rule of the monastic order, properly so called, up to the thirteenth century; the orders of the Camaldules of Vallombrosa, of the Carthusians, and of Citeaux recognised this rule as the basis of their special constitutions, although the name of monk of St. Benedict or Benedictine monk may still be specially assigned to others. (4) _The Rule of St. Francis_ signalised the advent of the Mendicant orders in the thirteenth century. It is to be noted that the denomination of monks is not generally attributed to the religious who follow the rule of St. Augustine, nor to the Mendicant orders.[315] The canonical hours at which the monastic bell regularly summoned the monks were seven in number:--(1) Prime, about 6 A.M.; (2) Tierce, about 9 A.M.; (3) Sext, about noon; (4) Nones, from 2 to 3 P.M.; (5) Vespers, about 4 P.M. or later; (6) Compline, 7 P.M.; (7) Matins and Lauds, about midnight. Scottish monasticism exhibited the expansion of the two main streams--the Augustinian and the Benedictine, and each subsequent order is to be regarded as an endeavour towards reform. Space will only permit us to deal with the Augustinian establishments at St. Andrews, Holyrood, and Jedburgh; with the Premonstratensian abbey of Dryburgh; with the Benedictine abbey of Dunfermline; with the Cluniacensian abbey of Paisley; with the Tyronensian abbeys of Kelso and Arbroath; with the Cistercian abbey of Melrose. The Premonstratensian order was a reform on the Augustinian, and the Cluniacensian, Tyronensian, and Cistercian orders, reforms on the Benedictine order. A study of their history and architecture in representative forms will introduce us to the piety and beauty of former days, as well as to an order of things very different from our own.[316] _St. Andrew's Priory._--The priory or Augustinian monastery was situated to the south of the cathedral (_q.v._), and was founded by Bishop Robert in 1144. The structure has now almost disappeared. It comprised about twenty acres, and was enclosed about 1516 by Prior John Hepburn with a magnificent wall, which, starting at the north-east corner of the cathedral, passed round by the harbour and along behind the houses, till it joined the walls of St. Leonard's College on the south-west. This, about a mile in extent, is all that now remains, but it is thought at one time to have passed back from the college to the cathedral. The wall has thirteen turrets, and each has a canopied niche for an image. The portion towards the shore has a parapet on each side, as if designed for a walk. There were three gateways, the chief of which, on the S.W., is known as the Pends, and of which considerable ruins still remain. Another gateway is near the harbour, and the third was on the S. side. Martine in his _Reliquiæ Divi Andreæ_ mentions that in his time fourteen buildings were discernible besides the cathedral and St. Rule's Chapel. Among these were the Prior's House or the old inn to the S.E. of the cathedral, of which only a few vaults now remain; the cloisters, W. of this house, and now the garden of a private house, in the quadrangle of which the Senzie Fair used to be held, beginning in the second week of Easter, and continuing for fifteen days; the Senzie House, or house of the sub-prior, subsequently used as an inn, but now pulled down and the site occupied by a private house. The refectory was on the S. side of the cloister, and has now disappeared, as well as the dormitory between the Prior's House and the cloister, and from which Edward I. carried off all the lead to supply his battering machines at the siege of Stirling. The Guests' Hall was within the precincts of St. Leonard's College, S.W. of Pend's Lane; the Teinds' Barn, Abbey Mill, and Granary were all to the S.W. The new inn, the latest of all the buildings, was erected for the reception of Magdalene, the first wife of James V. The young queen, of delicate constitution, was advised by her physicians to reside here; she did not live to occupy the house, as she died on 7th July 1537, six weeks after her arrival in Scotland. It was for a short time the residence of Mary of Guise when she first arrived in Scotland, and after the priory was annexed to the archbishopric in 1635 the building became the residence of the later archbishops. Several of its canons had sympathies with the Scottish Reformation. The prior of St. Andrews had superiority over the priories of Pittenweem, Lochleven, Monymusk, and the Isle of May, and was also a lord of regality. In Parliament he took precedence of all priors, and he, his sub-prior, and canons formed the cathedral chapter. The priory possessed in all thirty-two churches or their great tithes. From 1144 to 1535 there were twenty-five priors; from 1535 to 1586 the lands were in the possession of the Earl of Murray and Robert Stewart, as lay commendators; from 1586 to 1606 they were held by the Crown; from 1606 to 1635 by the Duke of Lennox; from 1635 to 1639 by the Archbishop of St. Andrews; from 1639 to 1661 by the University; from 1661 to 1688 by the archbishop again; from 1688 by the Crown. The part within the abbey wall was sold by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests to the United Colleges.[317] _Holyrood Abbey (Midlothian)._--The abbey of Holyrood was founded by King David I. in 1128 for the canons regular of the order of St. Augustine, and was dedicated in honour of the holy cross or rood brought to Scotland by his mother, Queen Margaret. This cross, called the Black Rood of Scotland, fell into the hands of the English at the battle of Neville's Cross in 1346. The abbey was several times burned by the English, and the nave on the last of these occasions, 1547, was repaired with the ruins of the choir and transepts. This was used as the parish church till 1672, when it was converted into the chapel royal. In 1687 it was set apart by King James VII. for the service of the Roman Catholic Church, but was plundered and again burned at the Revolution in the following year. It remained neglected until 1758, when it was repaired and roofed; the new roof, proving too heavy for the walls, fell with a crash in 1768, destroying all the new work. It suffered neglect again till 1816, when it was repaired, and in 1857 it was still further improved. The abbey early became the occasional abode of the kings of Scotland, and James II. was born, crowned, married, and buried in it. The foundations of a palace apart from the abbey were laid in the time of James IV., Edinburgh having then become the acknowledged capital of the country. Holyrood Palace was henceforth the chief seat of the Scottish sovereigns. In it the nuptials of James IV. were celebrated; here also Mary Queen of Scots took up her abode in 1561 on her return from France, and here James VI. dwelt much before his accession to the throne of England in 1603. The abbey church was beautiful in its architecture and of great size. It consisted of nave, choir, transepts with aisles, and probably lady chapel to the east, two western towers, and a tower over the crossing; but of all that splendid structure there now only remain the ruins of the nave and one western tower. The surviving nave is in a ruinous state and consists of eight bays, the main piers of which are complete on the south side, but only represented by two fragments on the north side.[318] The vaulting of the south aisle still survives, but that of the north aisle is gone. The north wall of the aisle still stands, and the east and west ends of the nave are restored. The N.W. tower is still preserved, but the companion tower at the S.W. angle was demolished when the palace was rebuilt in the seventeenth century. Some remains of the cloister are still observable on the S. side of the nave. The chief part of the architecture is pronounced to be first pointed, but the doorway at the S.E. angle, which led from the cloister into the nave is pronounced to be of genuine though late Norman architecture. There was a nook shaft on either side, the divided cushion caps of which survive. The arch is round and contains two orders, both ornamented with zigzags. These orders are enclosed with a label, containing a double row of square facets and sinkings. Some alterations have taken place adjoining the doorway, and two of the windows, that over the doorway and that to the west of it, are circular-headed and have a Norman character in their nook shafts and cushion caps. These windows were probably constructed in imitation of Norman windows which existed there originally. It is not improbable that the choir was built before the nave, and was of Norman work, and this supposition is regarded as accounting for the Norman work found at the first bay of the nave, and which may have been erected in connection with the choir and crossing. The oldest part of the nave after the S.E. doorway is the wall of the north aisle. The windows above the arcade are single lancets, one in each bay. The south wall of the south aisle is similarly designed, but the details are different and of a rather later character. The lower story contains a wall arcade having single pointed arches, with first pointed mouldings. The windows over the arcade correspond generally to those in the north wall, and are all pointed except the two east bays already mentioned. The lower part of the exterior of the south wall, running westward from the Norman doorway, is arcaded with a series of large pointed arches, each enclosing five smaller pointed arches, and with a plain wall space between the large and small arches. The above large arches were the wall arches for a groined roof over the cloister walk, but whether that vault was ever built it is now regarded as impossible to say. The vaulting of both aisles has apparently been similar, but the south aisle alone retains it, which is of a simple character, consisting of transverse and diagonal ribs. The main arcade of the nave has consisted of eight bays; the triforium is divided into two arches in each bay by a single central shaft, springing from a corbel over the apex of each arch of the main arcade, and running up to the string-course beneath the clerestory. This would suggest the view that the vaulting was sex-partite. Each arch of the triforium is acutely pointed, and contains two smaller pointed arches within it, each of which has an inner trefoiled arch. The tympanum of the large arch is pierced with a quatrefoil or trefoil. To counteract the weakening tendency of the triforium passage, saving arches, as may be seen from the south, have been introduced to carry the chief pressure across from main pier to main pier. A similar strengthening arch exists in the outer wall of the triforium gallery at Amiens. The west end is pronounced to have contained the finest work of the building, and the west door with the two towers must have presented a lovely and imposing front. The S.W. tower was removed to make way for the palace being erected, and even the W. doorway is encroached on by the palace wall. A portion of the S.W. tower is still visible in the interior, and contains a doorway. The upper part of the W. end was reconstructed by Charles I. in 1633, and contains two nondescript windows of seventeenth century Gothic with an inscription between them. The tympanum of the doorway has also been altered at this time, and an oaken lintel introduced containing a shield with the initials of Charles I. The western doorway has been a beautiful specimen of first pointed work, and the W. side of the N.W. tower is ornamented with two tiers of arcades. "The lower arcade contains five pointed arches, with a trefoiled arch within each. These rest on triple shafts, with carved caps and rounded abaci. Over each shaft and between the arches there is a circle containing a boldly carved Norman head. The feature is unique and its effect is fine. The upper arcade consists of three larger arches, each containing two smaller arches, and all resting on shafts with carved and rounded caps. The shields in the larger arches are pierced with bold quatrefoils. Two circles occur in the spandrils over the arches, but they do not now contain heads."[319] The same design is continued round the S. side of the tower, and along the W. wall of the nave as far as the main doorway, but the N. and E. sides of the tower are plain. Above the two arcades the tower contains a large two-light window on the N.E. and W. sides. Each window is divided into two openings by a single central shaft, having a carved cap and broad square abacus, on which rest the two plain pointed arches of the inner openings. The shield above is pierced with a bold quatre-foil. The two western piers of the crossing are still standing, and within the arch there has been erected in modern times a large traceried window. The spaces below the window and across the side aisles have been built up with fragments of the demolished structure, and a window is thus formed at the east end of each aisle. The church has evidently undergone a thorough repair during the fifteenth century, probably during the period when Crawford was abbot (1460-1483). "The work executed at this time consisted of the addition of seven buttresses on the north side and several buttresses on the south side of the aisles. Those on the north side are large, and may either enclose the old buttresses or have been substituted for them. They have a set-off near the centre, above which each contains an elaborately ornamented and canopied niche. Beneath and above the niche there are carved panels, which have contained angels and shields, with coats of arms. The arms of Abbot Crawford are said to have been carved on the panels, but they are now too much decayed to be distinguishable. Above the upper panels the buttresses are continued with several set-offs, and finished with a small square pinnacle. The pinnacles have been crocheted and terminated with a carved finial, but they are now greatly wasted away. There were, doubtless, flying arches from the above buttresses to the clerestory, but they must have fallen with the roof. A somewhat elaborate north doorway has been introduced, in a style similar to that of the buttresses, in the second bay from the west tower. The arch is semicircular, and has an ogee canopy. There are small niches above the arch on each side which contained statues, now demolished. This doorway was probably constructed by Abbot Crawford at the same date as the buttresses."[320] "A series of buttresses was also erected about the same time on the south side of the fabric. It is believed, however, that these buttresses are partly old or are on old foundations. In order not to interfere with the cloister walk, which ran along next the south wall, and where it would have been inconvenient to have any projections, the buttresses were carried in the form of flying arches over the top of the cloister roof. At the clerestory level flying arches, similar to those on the north side, rested against the upper portions of buttresses and pinnacles introduced between the windows. On the outside of the cloister walk the flying arch abutted upon oblong masses of masonry, which probably at one time were finished with pinnacles, but these no longer exist."[321] Robert Bellenden, the twenty-fifth abbot of Holyrood, and successor to Abbot Crawford,[322] presented the abbey with bells, a great brass font, and a chalice of gold. He was also beneficent to the poor, and completed the restoration of the fabric by covering the roof with lead. This happened about 1528, and in 1539 the office of commendator was given to Robert, natural son of James V., while still an infant. The brass font was carried off by Sir Richard Lee, an officer in Hertford's army, in 1544, and was removed to St. Alban's Abbey. It was afterwards sold for old metal. The brass lectern of the abbey was also taken by Sir Richard Lee, and presented to the Parish Church of St. Stephen's at St. Alban's, where it still is. It is in the form of an eagle with outstretched wing, and contains a shield with a lion rampant and a crozier, with the inscription, "Georgius Crichton, Episcopus Dunkeldensis."[323] Before becoming bishop, Crichton was abbot of Holyrood, 1515-22. _Jedburgh Abbey (Roxburghshire)._--In 1118 David I., while Prince of Cumbria, founded a priory on the banks of the Jed, and placed it in possession of canons regular from the Abbey of St. Quentin at Beauvais in France. In 1147 the priory was raised to the dignity of an abbey and dedicated to the Virgin Mary, while the smaller buildings of the priory served as a nucleus for the larger buildings of the abbey. Its abbots were sometimes men of distinction, and in 1285, when John Morel was abbot, Alexander III. was married in the abbey with much ceremony to Iolanda, daughter of the Count de Dreux. In the wars between England and Scotland (1297-1300) the abbey suffered so severely that the monks were unable to inhabit it, and were billeted on other religious houses. Jedburgh had to bear the brunt of many English onslaughts, and in 1410, 1416, 1464 it was damaged by repeated attacks of the English. In 1523 both town and abbey fell before the forces of the Earl of Surrey. The abbey was stripped of everything valuable and set on fire. In 1544-1545 the process of destruction was twice repeated under Sir Ralph Eure and the Earl of Hertford respectively. In 1559 the abbey was suppressed, and its resources went to the Crown. For some years it was left a roofless ruin, and a building designed for the parish church was afterwards erected within the nave, roofed over at the level of the triforium, and used as a place of worship till 1875, when a new church built in excambion by the Earl of Lothian was opened for worship, and the abbey ruin can now be viewed "clear of that incubus upon its lovely proportions." Like most ancient buildings that have been added to from time to time, the abbey shows different styles of architecture, and the choir, which is early Norman, is undoubtedly the oldest part. The church consists of a choir with side aisles extending eastward for two bays, beyond which was an aisleless presbytery, the east end of which is demolished; a nave of nine bays, which had vaulted side aisles; a central crossing with square tower above; a north transept well preserved, and a south transept, of which the south end is destroyed.[324] It has been suggested that the choir may have terminated with an eastern apse, but of this there is no proof. What survives consists of two bays next the crossing, the lower portions of which are in the Norman style. A unique arrangement is visible here, as far as Scotland is concerned, and resembles a somewhat similar design at Gloucester Cathedral and Romsey Church, Hampshire. The main piers have the peculiarity of being carried up as massive cylindrical columns to the arch over the triforium. The lower story has the round arch and vaulting ribs supported on corbels, projected from the round face of the piers. The triforium arch is round and moulded, and has a well-wrought chevron ornament. "It rests on large caps of the divided cushion pattern. The main arch is formed into two openings by a central round shaft and two half round responds, with massive cushion caps carrying plain arches."[325] The clerestory is of Transition work, having one lofty stilted and pointed arch, and two smaller pointed arches in each bay. When the Transitional clerestory was erected, the eastern part of the choir is thought to have been built, and the remains of two lofty pointed windows are preserved to the east of the cylindrical piers. The same Norman style of architecture as in the choir is continued in the south and north transepts, and appears to have originally also extended into the nave. "This is apparent from the mode in which the string-course over the triforium runs along on the north side from the choir to the nave, where it is broken off. That the Norman nave has probably extended westwards from the crossing is further evidenced by the existence of the west end wall, with its great doorway and windows, and the south doorway to the cloister, which portions are all of characteristic Norman design." The Norman work must have preceded the Transition work in choir and nave by a considerable portion of time. There is no gradual development visible. The nave (129 feet in length and 27-1/2 feet in breadth) "is divided into nine bays, each of which comprises a main arch resting on clustered piers, a triforium with one round arch containing two pointed arches, and a clerestory forming a continuous arcade, with four pointed arches in each bay. The main clustered piers contain four principal shafts at the angles, and four intermediate shafts between them. The former are brought to a point on the face, the latter are flatter. The caps are simple and of an ordinary transitional form, each with a square abacus. The bases are also simple, and stand on a massive square plinth, a feature not uncommon in Norman work. The arches of the main arcade are somewhat acutely pointed, and the mouldings are bold, and resemble first pointed work." The clerestory shafts are of trefoil section; the arches are all pointed, and contain first pointed mouldings. The west end of the nave and doorway are Norman in character, and Sir Gilbert Scott declared the great western doorway and south doorway to be "perfect gems of refined Norman of the highest class and most artistic finish." The doorpiece is surrounded by three gablets, the central one still retaining a trefoiled arch. The west wall has flat buttresses of Norman character, and "the upper portion of the wall has a central round-headed window, flanked on each side by three small pointed arch heads, the caps carrying which rested on long single free shafts, now gone. The central window has deep mouldings, but no enrichments. The west front has been finished with an octagonal turret on each side, as at Kelso Abbey, and the gable contains a central circular window, which has been filled with tracery at a late date. The west end walls of the aisles have each contained a circular-headed window of Norman design, with a chevron ornament in the arch and a nook shaft at each side." "The lower part of the walls of the choir and the western wall and doorway and south doorway being all of Norman work, it seems probable that the whole building was set out and partially executed in Norman times, and that the work was either stopped for a considerable period and then resumed, or that the structure, after being completed, was destroyed, and had to be restored in the late Transition style. The Transition work is well advanced in style, and may be regarded as being of the date of the end of the twelfth century or beginning of the thirteenth century." "The Norman north transept is fairly well preserved, but both the north and south transepts have undergone great repairs about the end of the fifteenth century. The crossing appears to have been so greatly damaged by the assaults of the fifteenth century that it was found necessary to rebuild it. The restoration is distinctly visible in the south-east pier of the crossing, the style of which is quite different from that of the Norman work adjoining in the choir and south transept, and the junction of the new work with the old is very apparent. This pier has clearly been rebuilt. It is plain next the crossing, but next the aisle it consists of a series of shafts with a moulded cap of late date. The upper mouldings of the cap form a continuous straight line, while the bells of the caps are broken round the shafts--a style of cap common in Scotland at the end of the fifteenth century." "This pier and the south aisle of the choir beside it appear to have been restored by Abbot John Hall (appointed 1478), whose name occurs on the pier and on one of the bosses. The south-west pier of the crossing has also been rebuilt. This work was carried out by Abbot Thomas Cranston (appointed 1482). On a shield on this pier are carved the arms and initials of Abbot Cranston--three cranes and two pastoral staves--saltierwise. The same abbot's initials are placed on the north side of the west arch of the crossing, where the chamfer begins, and on the lower part of the north-west pier. The south-west pier, the north-west pier, and the arch between them would thus appear to have been rebuilt by Abbot Cranston. The base inserted by him is different from the old Norman base. "About half-way up the south-east pier, rebuilt by Abbot Hall, the springer of an arch may be seen projecting to the west. Abbot Hall had evidently intended to throw an arch across the transept at this point, but Abbot Cranston changed his plan and the arch was not carried out. The mouldings of the portions executed by the two abbots differ in their respective parts of the structure. "To the north of the original Norman north transept an addition to the transept has been erected. It is cut off from the old transept by a wall, and thus forms a separate chapel, measuring 27 feet in length by 22 feet in width internally. This chapel is vaulted with the pointed barrel vault usual in Scotland in the fifteenth century, and, consequently, the side windows are low, their pointed arch being kept below the springing of the vault. The window in the north end wall, however, is of large dimensions. The windows are all filled with good fifteenth century tracery, similar to that in the restored south aisle of the choir. This part of the edifice is now used as a mortuary chapel for the family of the Marquess of Lothian. The tower over the crossing is 33 feet square and 86 feet in height. It contains three pointed and cusped lancets on each side, and is without buttresses. It appears to have been erected about 1500. At the top, near the north-west corner, are engraved the arms and initials of Abbot Robert Blackadder, who was afterwards promoted to the offices of Bishop and Archbishop of Glasgow. He was appointed to that see in 1484, and died 1508. His arms are a chevron between three roses." The abbey thus completed was not permitted to remain unmolested. Described by Sir Ralph Eure as "the strength of Teviotdale," and by Hertford as "a house of some strength which might be made a good fortress," it was, as already mentioned, the frequent object of attacks by the English. It was pillaged and burnt in 1544 and 1545, and never recovered from the damage done. In 1559 the monastery was suppressed. In 1587 the bailery of the abbey was continued or restored by a grant of King James VI. to Sir Andrew Ker, and in 1622 the entire property of the lands and baronies which had belonged to the canons of Jedburgh was erected into a temporal lordship, and granted to him with the title of Lord Jedburgh. Sir Alexander Kerr of Fernieherst was ancestor to the Marquess of Lothian.[326] _Dryburgh Abbey (Berwickshire)._--The name Dryburgh has been derived by some from the Celtic darach-bruach, "bank of the grove of oaks," and vestiges of pagan worship have been found in the Bass Hill, a neighbouring eminence. St. Modan, a champion of the Roman party, is said to have come hither from Ireland in the eighth century, and a monastery on very scanty evidence has been attributed to him. St. Mary's Abbey was founded by Hugh de Morville, Lord of Lauderdale and Constable of Scotland, in 1150. According to the Chronicle of Melrose, Beatrix de Beauchamp, wife of de Morville, obtained a charter of confirmation for the new foundation from David I.; the cemetery was said to have been consecrated on St. Martin's Day 1150, "that no demons might haunt it"; the community, however, did not come into residence till 13th December 1152. The monks were Premonstratenses or White Friars; called by the latter name because their garb was a coarse black cassock, covered by a white woollen cape, "in imitation of the angels in heaven, who are clothed with white garments." The monks introduced were from Alnwick. "A large part of the domestic buildings seems to have been erected within fifty or sixty years of the date of the foundation, as they are built in the transition style of the beginning of the thirteenth century. The church appears to have been in progress during the thirteenth century, as in 1242 the Bishop of St. Andrews, owing to the debts incurred in building the monastery and other expenses, gave the canons permission to enjoy the revenues of the churches under their patronage, one of their number performing the office of vicar in each parish. The canons took the oath of fidelity to Edward I. in 1296, upon which their property was restored to them. Their possessions were widely spread, and extended into several counties, as appears from letters addressed by Edward regarding them to the sheriffs in the counties of Fife, Berwick, Roxburgh, and Edinburgh."[327] Tradition states that the English under Edward II., in their retreat in 1322, provoked by the imprudent triumph of the monks in ringing the church bells at their departure, returned and burned the abbey in revenge. Dr. Hill Burton remarks that Bower cannot be quite correct in saying that Dryburgh was entirely reduced to powder, since part of the building yet remaining is of older date than the invasion. King Robert the Bruce contributed to its repair, but it has been doubted whether it ever was fully restored to its former magnificence. Certain disorders among the monks in the latter part of the fourteenth century brought the censure of Pope Gregory XI. upon its inmates. Being within twenty miles of the border, the abbey was frequently exposed to hostile English attacks, and we hear of its burning by Richard II. in 1385, by Sir Robert Bowes and Sir Bryan Latoun in 1544, and again by the Earl of Hertford in 1545--James Stewart, the abbot commendator, having with others crossed the Tweed into Northumberland and burned the village of Horncliffe. It was annexed to the Crown in 1587, and the lands were erected into a temporal barony, with the title of Lord Cardross, in favour of the Earl of Mar, from whom they have passed by purchase through the hands of several proprietors. Chaucer was held to have visited the abbey, but the claim has been demolished by Dr. Hill Burton in Billings' _Antiquities_. Among the distinguished men, however, connected with the abbey was Ralph Strode, "the Philosophicall Strode," to whom and the "moral Gower" Chaucer inscribed his Troilus and Cresseide. He was a friend both of Chaucer and John Wiclif.[328] Andrew Forman was superior of Dryburgh, and was much occupied with affairs of Church and State under James IV. and James V. He was appointed in 1501 to the bishopric of Moray, holding at the same time the priories of Coldingham and Pittenweem, with the commendatorship of Dryburgh. He became afterwards Archbishop of Brouges, and finally Archbishop of St. Andrews. He is said to have written (1) _Contra Lutherum_, (2) _De Stoica Philosophia_, (3) _Collectanea Decretalium_.[329] The monastery had the usual buildings around the cloister; the church was on the north side, and stood about ten steps above the level of the cloister garth. The sacristy, chapter-house, fratery, and other apartments stretch from the transept southwards along the east side; above these, on the upper floor, were the dormitories, entering by an open staircase from the south transept. Along the south side of the cloisters lay the refectory, which, on account of the slope of the ground, was raised on a basement floor of vaulted cellars. On the west side of the cloister garth are now only a few vaulted cellars. A small stream runs along the S.W. side of the monastic buildings, and beyond the stream are the remains of what seems to have been a detached chapel. The oldest portions of the structure are those forming the eastern range; they are of Transitional date or about the beginning of the thirteenth century.[330] The sacristy has a stone bench round the walls and three steps in the floor. It has a door from the transept and an outer semicircular-headed doorway of Transition character from the cloister. Access is also obtained by a small door in the north side to a wheel-stair leading to the upper floors, and visible as a projecting turret at the S.E. angle of the transept. The east window of the sacristy is pronounced remarkable, having two round-headed windows surmounted by a visica-formed aperture. It has a piscina in the south wall near the east end. The apartment next the sacristy may originally have been a parlour, but is now appropriated as a mausoleum. There is an ambry in the south wall near the east end, and the doorway is semicircular and of Norman character. The floor of the chapter-house is several feet below the level of the cloister walk; the ordinary central doorway and side windows opening from the cloister are placed in their usual position on the level of the cloister walk. The side openings were unglazed, and were used for seeing and hearing what was proceeding in the chapter-house below. The doorway is large and deeply recessed; the outer arches of the windows on each side of the doorway are plain semicircles, filled in with two pointed lights having a central shaft. The chapter-house retains its round barrel vault, and has three pointed windows in the east end and two similar ones in the side walls, where the chapter-house projects beyond the general line of the buildings. In the interior a round arched arcade runs along the east side, supported on single shafts, and there are traces of a similar arcade running round the side walls. There is an entrance doorway in the south wall; the east gable wall over the chapter-house still exists, possessing flat buttresses of a Norman type at the angles and between the windows, but the pointed arches indicate Transition work. There is a lovely fragment of carved work still preserved in the chapter-house, representing the pascal lamb slain and surrounded by a wreath of foliage, above which are the letters I.H.S. The vine leaves flowing from the lamb may symbolise the branches springing from the true vine. South of the chapter-house was probably the fratery or monks' day room. It has been vaulted at a late period--probably third pointed. There is a fire-place in the centre of the west wall, and an outer doorway at the south end of the same wall. The apartment was lighted by three plain round arched windows in the east wall, one of which has had tracery inserted in after times. At the N.W. angle, opening from the level of the cloister, is a round-headed doorway, and traces of a staircase which served as the day access to the dormitory. South of the fratery is the slype or passage, with arched openings to the east and west. It has also a doorway to the fratery, and another to the apartment on the south side, the latter of which now only exists in part, the south end of the range having been destroyed. The range of these buildings still retains its eastern wall to the full height of two stories--the upper story being doubtless the dormitory. On the south side of the cloister, where the refectory once stood, there are now only the ruins of the vaulted basement on which it stood. At the east end of this range there is a doorway from the cloister giving access to a staircase which led down to the lower level of the fratery, and the remainder of the south side was probably all occupied by the refectory. The west wall is almost all that survives; it is now ivy-clad, and contains a picturesque circular window, with radiating tracery. Adjoining this wall in the S.W. angle of the cloister there is an arched recess, apparently intended for a tomb and monument, but now empty. Over the doorway in this angle is a large shield, containing the arms of John Stewart, who was commendator in 1555. On the shield are the initials J.S., with the crozier in the centre. He was brother to the Earl of Lennox, and uncle to Lord Darnley, who married Queen Mary. The arms are those of the Stewarts of Lennox. The cloister occupies a space of 93 feet by 91 feet, and was surrounded by a vaulted walk which has entirely disappeared. It is evident that the cloister walk was at least partly vaulted, from the small remains of the springing of the vaults which are visible in the eastern wall on each side of the doorway to the chapter-house. The south wall of the nave of the church extends along the north side of the cloister, and at the N.E. angle is the doorway which led from the cloister into the nave--a handsome specimen of the Transition style. The nave of the church is entered through this handsome doorway by ten steps up from the cloister, and presents a scene of terrible destruction. The west end wall partly remains, "and shows by the responds attached to it the form of the nave piers, with their caps and bases. The position of the piers along the nave is now roughly indicated by a collection of fragments arranged as nearly as possible in the original position and form. The mouldings indicate a late date, and were, doubtless, restorations; but the responds, which were not so liable to destruction, are of first pointed date. The responds which form part of the west wall show that there was a central nave 28 feet wide and side aisles, each about 13 feet 6 inches wide, making a total width of 55 feet. There have been side chapels in the nave, apparently divided by walls, some portions of which remain, with ambries in the chapels. The western doorway has a round arched head, but its details show that it is of late design. This part of the edifice has apparently been restored in the fifteenth century, after the destruction of the abbey by Richard II. in the end of the fourteenth century."[331] The transept has a slight projection to the north and south; this part of the building and all to the east of it are evidently of thirteenth century work, but only a few detached portions remain. The south transept gable has a large window filled with simple pointed tracery, rising in steps above the roof of the dormitory. The arch through which the stair to the dormitory passed is visible in this wall. To the east of the transept is a choir of two bays, with aisles, and beyond which is an aisleless presbytery. The portions left are pronounced to be of a very beautiful design, both internally and externally. The exterior is simple but elegant, and of first pointed work; the interior shows evidence of more advanced design. The clerestory is of beautiful design; "each bay contains an arcade of three arches, the central one, which is opposite the window, being larger than the side arches. The arches are supported on detached piers, behind which runs a gallery. These piers each consist of two shafts, with central fillet. They have first pointed round caps, over which a round block receives the arch mouldings as they descend. A small portion of the north end of the transept adjoins the above, which shows that the structure has been carried up in two stories of richly moulded windows, all in the same style as the adjoining portions of the choir. The remaining portion of the aisle is vaulted with moulded ribs springing from responds and corbels corresponding in style with the choir."[332] Here rests the dust of Sir Walter Scott and his kinsfolk, and of it Alexander Smith wrote that "when the swollen Tweed raves as it sweeps, red and broad, round the ruins of Dryburgh, you think of him who rests there--the magician asleep in the lap of legends old, the sorcerer buried in the heart of the land he has made enchanted." _Dunfermline Abbey (Fife)._--Dunfermline was from a very early period the residence of the kings of Scotland and here Malcolm Canmore had his tower; here he entertained the royal fugitives from England, and married the Princess Margaret in 1068. The Glen of Pittencrieff contains the remains of the Tower of Malcolm Canmore, and of a subsequent royal palace, and they were in 1871 pronounced by the House of Lords to be Crown property. Malcolm's Tower is believed to have been built between 1057 and 1070, and the royal palace may have been founded as early as 1100, although more likely it was not built till after the departure of Edward I. of England, in February 1304. The kings of Scotland, from Robert Bruce onward, appear to have frequently resided in the palace. According to Turgot, Queen Margaret, after her marriage, founded a church "in that place where her nuptials were celebrated," and it was dedicated to the Holy Trinity in 1074. It became the place of royal sepulture, and Queen Margaret was buried within it. There are frequent references from this time onwards of grants to the church of the Holy Trinity, and to interments of royal personages therein. "The original church of Canmore," says Professor Innes, "perhaps not of stone, must have been replaced by a new edifice when it was dedicated in the reign of David I.,"[333] and Messrs. MacGibbon and Ross add "As no notice has been preserved of the erection of any new church till the building of the choir in the first quarter of the thirteenth century, it has been supposed that the nave of the existing structure (which is in the Norman style) may have been the church founded and erected by Queen Margaret. But the style of the building forbids this supposition. None of the English cathedrals were founded till the end of the eleventh century, and few were carried out till the expiry of the first quarter of the twelfth century. Scotland would certainly not be in advance of England in its style of architecture, and we know that little, if any, Norman work was executed in this country till the days of David I.... The style of the structure is early Norman, and would naturally follow the erection of Durham Cathedral, which took place about twenty-five years earlier."[334] The same authorities think that the original church of Malcolm stood where the new choir was afterwards erected, and that David I. added the Norman nave to it. "The nature of the site seems to favour this view, as the ground to the west slopes rapidly away, and scarcely allows room for the west end of the nave; while the conventual buildings, for want of suitable space, have had to be carried with an archway over a public street."[335] Alexander I. seems to have contemplated its erection into an abbey, and in the year of his succession David I. remodelled it as a Benedictine Abbey, and placed in it an abbot and twelve brethren brought from Canterbury. By the close of the thirteenth century it had become one of the most magnificent institutions in Scotland. David I., after introducing the Benedictine order, probably added the Norman nave to the then existing church erected by his royal parents, and it was evidently resolved at no distant time from this to rebuild the early church and form a new choir and transept worthy of the new settlement. This was done, and between 1216 and 1226 the choir, aisles, transept, and presbytery were erected, and Abbot Patrick, formerly Dean and Prior of Canterbury, presided at Dunfermline during the whole of the above time. Appeals were made to the Popes Honorius III. and Gregory IX. on account of the expenses incurred by church erection and the increase of the number of canons from thirty to fifty. In the dispute of 1249 regarding the consecration of the new choir, Pope Honorious IV. decided that a new consecration was not necessary, as the consecrated walls of the oldest part (the nave) continued in use. In that year Queen Margaret was canonised, and in 1250 her body was transferred from the old church to the new lady chapel in presence of all the chief men of the kingdom. "The translation of the saintly foundress," says Professor Innes, "was probably arranged to give solemnity to the opening of the new church."[336] This is known in history as the "Translation of S. Margaret," and the "grate companie" of king, nobles, bishops, abbots, and dignitaries in procession kept time "to the sound of the organ and the melodious notes of the choir singing in parts." Soon after this, describing what it had become towards the close of the thirteenth century, Matthew of Westminster wrote: "Its boundaries were so ample, containing within its precincts three carrucates of land, and having so many princely buildings, that three potent sovereigns, with their retinues, might have been accommodated with lodgings here at the same time without incommoding one another." In 1244 it had become a mitred abbey, Pope Innocent IV. having, at the request of Alexander II., empowered and authorised the abbot to assume the mitre, the ring, and other pontifical ornaments; and in the same year, in consideration of the excessive coldness of the climate, he granted to the monks the privilege of wearing caps suitable to their order; but they were, notwithstanding, enjoined to show proper reverence at the Elevation of the Host and other ceremonies.[337] "This sumptuous pile," says Professor Innes, "was destroyed and levelled with the ground by the soldiers of Edward in 1303, excepting only the church and a few dwellings for the monks[338]--Edward I. of England having occupied it from 6th November 1303 to 10th February 1304. It was restored, probably in much less than its former magnificence, after Bruce was settled on the Scottish throne, and it evidently remained in that condition until 28th March 1560, when the choir, transepts, and belfry were, with the monastic buildings, "cast down."" It was a very wealthy abbey, and the greater part of the lands in the western, southern, and eastern districts of Fife, as well as in other counties, belonged to it. The abbey also possessed many rights, and the abbot was Superior of lands--the property of others--and received the resignation of his vassals sitting on their bended knees, and testifying all due humility. The abbot and convent were invested with the power of enforcing their rights by excommunication, and they exercised it on several occasions. The abbey possessed the right of a free regality, with civil jurisdiction equivalent to that of a sheriff over the occupiers of the lands belonging to it, and with a criminal jurisdiction equivalent to that of the Crown, wielding the power of life and death. A bailie of regality, appointed by the abbot, and officiating in his name, resided in an edifice called the Bailie House, near the Queen's House, and presided in the regality courts. The abbey church succeeded Iona as a place of royal sepulture, and kings, queens, and princes were buried within it. Gordon gives the list of eight kings, five queens, seven princes, and two princesses, besides other notable persons,[339] so that it may well be called the "Scottish Westminster." The abbey church, when complete, was cruciform, and comprised a seven-bayed nave, with side aisles, a transept, a choir with a lady chapel, and three towers, two western ones terminating the aisles and flanking the gable of the nave, and the great central tower rising from the crossing. The monastic buildings were also on a magnificent scale, but of the church and monastic structures there only now remain the Norman nave, the base of the Lady Chapel, and part of the refectory and kitchen. The nave is well preserved and the piers are circular. The plan of these with that of the wall responds shows that the original intention was to groin the aisles. The two eastern bays between the eastern pillars are built up with solid masonry, and only a portion of the arches is visible. The two western bays and the triforium arches above them have also been filled up with solid building to strengthen the western towers.[340] "The pillars which support the west towers are of greater size than the others, and are of a different section. One of the pillars and the corresponding arch of the north arcade are of late Gothic work, and may be part of the repairs ordered by the Privy Council in 1563, or of the work done in 1594 under the direction of William Schaw, Master of Works, who at that time built the north-west tower and steeple, as well as the porch on the north side of the nave. At the same time, also, certain great buttresses were built against the outer walls, which are now conspicuous features of the structure."[341] The great western doorway, a good example of Norman work, remains unaltered, and consists of five orders, having alternately round and octagonal shafts, chiefly with cushion caps, but some are ornamented with scrolls. The abacus is heavy, and is carved with sunk diapers. The orders are continued round the arches, and contain chevron ornaments (much decayed), rosettes, and diapers.[342] The outer order contains large heads and geometric figures in the alternate voussoirs--an arrangement similar to that of Whithorn and Dalmeny, where the geometric figures also resemble those adopted here.[343] The _original_ north doorway, partly concealed by Schaw's porch, is similar in design, with the addition of an arcade above the arch, resembling but still plainer than that over the doorway of Dalmeny Church. The south doorway of the church is of late work, and there appears to have been another south doorway at the east end of the nave, but it is now built up.[344] The whole of the aisle walls are arcaded in the interior up to the height of the window sills, but the arcade has been partly cut away for monuments. The general design of the nave recalls that of Durham Cathedral, and Dr. Joseph Robertson remarks, "Though not of great size, the sombre masses of the (nave) interior are impressive. The English visitor will remark more than one point of resemblance to Durham and Lindisfarne; and there is no violence in the conjecture that the same head may have planned, or the same hands have hewn, part of all the three. We know that when the foundations of Durham were laid in 1093 by the confessor and biographer of St. Margaret, her husband Malcolm was present; and when the new church received the relics of St. Cuthbert in 1104, her son Alexander witnessed the rites."[345] Both at Durham and Dunfermline there are the same circular piers with zig-zag ornaments, and massive cushion caps and clustered piers occur in each. The small circular bases, resting on great square plinths, are also common to both. The triforium and clerestory are simple in design, and the aisles are vaulted and groined. The windows of the aisles are single round-headed lights, having plain sconsions, with one recessed shaft on each side, and the arch enriched with chevron mouldings.[346] Internally and externally they are of similar design. From the existence of the large west end pillars, it was evidently intended from the first to have two western towers. The northern one, along with the upper part of the adjoining gable, was destroyed to a considerable extent at the Reformation, and in its present state it was designed and built up by William Schaw. The bold corbelling at the top recalls the similar treatment of the towers of St. Machar's, Aberdeen, and other examples derived from domestic architecture.[347] The south-west tower seems to have remained intact, although in a ruinous condition, till 1807, when it fell, having been struck with lightning. Three years later the present top was put on the old walls.[348] The Lady Chapel at the east end was built to receive Queen Margaret's shrine, and is now reduced to a small fragment, consisting of part of the south and east walls, which remain to the height of about 2 or 3 feet. "It has been a small structure of about 26 feet 9 inches by 22 feet, of delicate and refined pointed work, as is apparent from the bases of the wall arcading and the edge of the surrounding seat, enriched with nail-head ornaments, which still exist. The Lady Chapel appears from an old view to have been a low structure, reaching only to the sill of the great east window of the choir, and it was evidently vaulted in two compartments."[349] No stones now remain of the thirteenth century choir, as they were all removed to make room for the modern church, begun in 1818; before this, however, considerable remains of the choir and the whole of the foundations were standing.[350] The choir was a prolongation of the present nave, having transepts and a great aisle on the north side. There was a lofty central tower of two stories, with three windows in each storey facing the four sides, and it was this part of the structure which suffered on the 28th March 1560, when "the wholl lordis and barnis that were on thys syde of Forth passed to Stirling, and be the way kest doun the Abbey of Dunfermling."[351] The nave was used as a parish church till 1821, when the new choir was opened. In the south transept of it are three much-admired white marble monuments: General Bruce's by Foley (1868), the Hon. Dashwood Preston Bruce's by Noble (1870), and Lady Augusta Stanley's by Miss Grant of Kilgraston (1876). The remains of King Robert the Bruce were discovered in 1818 at the digging for the foundation of the new parish church. They were found wrapped in a pall of cloth of gold, thrown apparently over two coverings of sheet lead, in which the body was encased, all being enclosed in a stone coffin. "There was strong internal evidence of the remains being those of Robert Bruce, and after a cast of the skull had been taken, they were replaced in the coffin, immersed in melted pitch, and reinterred under mason work in front of the _pulpit_ of the new parish church. An inlaid monumental brass was in 1889 inserted in the floor over his tomb." Near the east end of the church is a square tower, with terminals showing an open hewn stone-work, in place of a Gothic balustrade, having in capitals on the four sides of the tower's summit the words "King Robert the Bruce," and at each corner of the tower there is a lofty pinnacle. The church occupies a commanding situation, from which the ground falls away on the west and south sides. The monastic buildings were on the south side of the nave, but on a lower level. Of these structures considerable remains still exist. "The ground between the dark walls and the church has, in recent years, been levelled up, the outer portions of the monastic buildings serving as retaining walls. With the exception of these outer walls, the site of the monastery is thus buried."[352] The refectory stood on the south side of the cloister, and the whole length and height of its south and west walls still exist. The south wall was divided into seven bays, and in six of them there are lofty two-light windows. The eastern bay has a reading desk, from which one of the monks read aloud during meals. It is lighted from the outside by two windows. On the side next the hall there are two lofty openings.[353] Adjoining the refectory on the south-west is a large tower, beneath which runs St. Catherine's Wynd, through a "pend" or archway, whence it is called the "Pend Tower." "The outside of the refectory and 'Pend Tower' is very imposing, with a simple row of lofty buttresses and windows along the top. The west gable wall of the refectory is still entire, and has a large window of seven lights. The tracery of this window is in good preservation, and is one of the most favourable examples of a kind of tracery developed in Scotland during the fifteenth century. At the north-west corner of the refectory is the staircase tower, which leads down to the offices below, and upwards to the refectory roof, over which access was obtained to the upper story of the 'Pend Tower.' In the north wall of the refectory, near the west end, are the remains of a flue, which may have belonged to a fire-place. The 'Pend Tower' is still entire, wanting only the cape house and roof. It served as a connecting passage between the abbey buildings and the royal palace beyond. A door led from the refectory by a passage into a groined chamber, and from thence into a room in the palace situated over the kitchen. The kitchen is a lofty room, now roofless, having remains of large fire-places and some curious recesses. Below the kitchen, but entering from another part of the palace, there is a large vaulted apartment with central pillars. These pillars were continued up through the kitchen, and probably to the room, now gone, which stood over the kitchen. Another arched passage led from this apartment through below St. Catherine's Wynd and up to the monastery. The building known as the palace was doubtless intimately connected with the monastery, and the kitchen may have been used in connection with both."[354] Within the "Pend Tower" on the first floor is a five-sided room with a fire-place, and it appears to have been a sort of guard room. It is vaulted and has irregularly placed ribs. Over this, and entering from the circular stair adjoining, is another groin-vaulted room, which had a fire-place of good design. The passage and staircase are additions made at the time when the tower was built, and the arches were thrown between the already existing buttresses of the refectory, and in the second bay the arch is at a low level to permit of the descending stair, while the builders have just managed to save a very beautiful doorway belonging to the earlier building, and now hardly seen in the shadow of the overhanging addition.[355] To the east of the refectory is a narrow chamber with the remains of a two-light window in the south wall, and projecting southwards from this is the lower part of the wall of the fratery, reaching as high as the floor of the refectory. On the east side of the fratery extends the south wall of a building called the Baillery Prison.[356] These fragmentary structures exhaust the remains of the monastic buildings. The chapter-house was on the east side of the cloister garth. The monastery was burned by Edward I. in 1303-4, but Tytler says the church escaped.[357] Froissart states that in 1385 Richard II. burned the abbey and town, and it is doubted if any of the existing monastic buildings belong to an earlier date than that last mentioned.[358] "William Schaw, Master of Works, besides the buildings already referred to,[359] erected in 1594 certain of the immense buttresses which form such conspicuous features in all the views of the abbey. He likewise built, and doubtless designed, the Queen's House and the Bailie and Constabulary House. In connection with the latter houses there are considerable remains of buildings still existing to the north-west of the abbey, and there seems every probability that they formed part of the structures of the abbey and of the Queen's House. They are extremely picturesque as seen from the low ground to the west. The lofty house on the right hand dates probably from the end of the seventeenth century, and is a fine example of the period. The adjoining buildings are considerably earlier, and in the lower parts, where they are buttressed, they are probably of pre-Reformation times. The upper portions are somewhat later, and are very likely part of the work of Schaw. The porch to the latter buildings is on the other side, and is quaint and well known from being seen from the church. William Schaw died in 1602, and was buried in the nave, when the monument to his memory was erected by order of Queen Anne."[360] _Paisley Abbey (Renfrewshire)._--In his history of this great abbey, the Very Rev. Dr. Cameron Lees thus describes its situation:-- "In the heart of the busy town of Paisley stands the Abbey, its venerable appearance contrasting most strangely with its surroundings. Many chimneys--so many that it seems impossible to count them--pour forth their smoke on every side of it; crowds of operatives jostle past it; heavily laden carts cause its old walls to tremble; the whirr of machinery and the whistle of the railway engine break in upon its repose; while within a stone's throw of it flows the River Cart, the manifold defilements of which have passed into a proverb. But it is not difficult, even without being imaginative, to see how beautiful for situation was once the spot where the Abbey rose in all its unimpaired and stately grace. It stood on a fertile and perfectly level piece of ground, close by the Cart, then a pure mountain stream, which, after falling over some bold and picturesque rocks in the middle of its channel, moved quietly by the Abbey walls on its course to the Clyde. Divided from the Abbey by this stream, rose wooded slopes, undulating like waves of the sea till they reached the lofty ridge called the Braes of Gleniffer, from the summit of which the lay brother, as he herded his cattle or swine, could get views of the Argyleshire hills, the sharp peaks of Arran, and the huge form of Ben Lomond. To the north, on the other side of the Clyde, were the fertile glades of Kilpatrick, and beyond, the Campsie range. Gardens and deer parks girdled the Abbey round; few houses were near except the little village of dependants on the other side of the stream; and no sound beyond the precincts broke the solitude, save the wind as it roared through the beech forest, the bell of a distant chapel, or, on a calm evening, the chimes of the Cathedral of Saint Mungo, seven miles away. It was a well-chosen spot, answering in every way the requirements of the Benedictines, who, we are told, "preferred to build in an open position at the back of a wooded chain of hills.""[361] Paisley illustrates what was said by Dr. Cosmo Innes regarding the country as a whole. "Scotland of the twelfth century had no cause to regret the endowment of a church.... Repose was the one thing most wanted, and people found it under the protection of the crozier."[362] The Church became the great factor in the development of civilisation throughout the district. Had not the monastic system been good, it would not have lasted so long; had it not had within it the elements of weakness, it would not have come to such an untimely end. And even while we criticise it is well to recall the words of Newman: "Not a man in Europe who talks bravely against the Church, but owes it to the Church that he can talk at all."[363] The great abbey of Paisley was much to its neighbourhood, and its history is the history of its district. It is a memorial of the coming to Scotland of the great family of Stewart, which has left such a deep impress on Scottish history. Walter, son of Alan of Shropshire, joined David I. at the siege of Winchester, and the king showed to him great favour, taking him into his household, and conferring on him the title of Lord High Steward of Scotland. King Malcolm was even more generous, ratified the title to Walter and his heirs, and bestowed on him a wide territory, chiefly in Renfrewshire.[364] The Steward soon colonised after the fashion of the time, built a castle for himself in the neighbourhood of Renfrew, and gave holdings to his followers throughout the wide territory of Strathgyff, as his Renfrewshire property was called. But in those days no colonisation was complete without a monastery, and this the Lord High Steward proceeded to found, entering into an agreement with Humbold, Prior of Wenlock Abbey in the native county of his family, to establish at "Passelay" a house of the Cluniac Order of Benedictines, being the same order as the house at Wenlock. Humbold in 1169 brought thirteen monks from the parent house, and, having settled them at Renfrewshire in an island of the Clyde called the King's Inch, returned to Wenlock. There was at this time in Paisley an early church, dedicated to St. Mirinus, an Irish saint of the sixth century, and a disciple of the great school of St. Congal at Bangor. St. Mirin was a contemporary of St. Columba, and must have been a friend of the great apostle of Scotland. He was probably the founder of the early Celtic church at Paisley, and seems to have been an itinerant preacher round the district, regarding Paisley as his centre, where at last, "full of miracles and holiness, he slept in the Lord." It matters little whether these legends regarding miracles are historically correct, for the value lies in the moral of them. "The falsehood would not have been invented unless it had started in a truth, and in all these legends there is set forth the victory of a good and beneficent man over evil, whether it be of matter or of spirit."[365] When the monks had founded their church at Paisley they dedicated it to the Virgin Mary, to St. James, St. Milburga, and St. Mirinus. St. James was the patron saint of the Stewarts, and to him the church on the Inch of Renfrew, where the monks first took up their abode, was dedicated. St. Milburga was the patron saint of Wenlock, and it was natural that the Shropshire monks should place their new home at Paisley under the patronage of a saint whom they held in reverence, and who was a link between Paisley and the scene of former days. St. Mirinus was the Celtic saint of the neighbourhood, and by calling the new monastery after his name they reconciled the sympathies of the people to themselves, and connected their church with the old historic church of Scotland. The monastery was at first in the second rank of religious houses, and was ruled by a prior. The abbey of Clugny was very jealous of raising any of its subordinate houses to the rank of an abbey, but it was very inconvenient for the monastery of Paisley to be in subjection to one so far away as the French abbot, and commissioners appointed by a papal bull in 1219 decreed that the monks of Paisley might proceed to the canonical election of an abbot, the patron of Paisley, the Lord High Stewart, also giving his permission. Twenty-six years later, the abbot of Clugny surrendered his rights, which had been reserved by the papal bull,--the monks, through the Bishop of Glasgow, promising prompt payment of the two marks for the future, and undertaking that the abbot of Paisley should personally or by proxy visit Clugny every seven years to make obeisance and render an account to his superior.[366] William was probably the first abbot of Paisley, and he presided from 1225 to 1248. He established and consolidated the prosperity of the convent, and obtained from the Popes several bulls conferring privileges on the monastery.[367] The following picture, drawn by a master-hand, has been applied by Dr. Lees to the monastic life at Paisley during the prosperous reigns of Alexander II. and III. "In black tunics, the mementoes of death, and in leathern girdles, the emblems of chastity, might then be seen carters silently yoking their bullocks to the team, and driving them in silence to the field, or shepherds interchanging some inevitable whispers while they watched their flocks; or wheelwrights, carpenters, and masons plying their trades like the inmates of some dumb asylum, and all pausing from their labours as the convent bell, sounding the hours of prime, nones, or vespers, summoned them to join in spirit where they could not repair in person, to those sacred offices. Around the monastic buildings might be seen the belt of cultivated land continually encroaching on the adjoining forest, and the passer-by might trace to the toil of these mute workmen the opening of roads, the draining of marshes, the herds grazing, and the harvests waving in security under the shelter of ecclesiastical privileges which even the Estergoth and Vandal regarded with respect. If we exchange for the 'Estergoth and Vandal' the marauding baron and Highland chief, the picture is a true one of the surroundings of Paisley Abbey in those peaceful years."[368] "During the prosperous reigns of Kings Alexander II. and III. the church was erected, but of the work of that period (the thirteenth century) there remain only a portion of the west front and part of the south wall of the nave, including the south-east doorway to the cloister and three windows. The structure appears to have suffered severely during the War of Independence. It stood in the vicinity of Elderslie, the land of Sir William Wallace, and doubtless met with a similar savage treatment to that allotted to the patriot leader. It is stated to have been burnt by the English in 1307, and the burning would appear to have led to a very complete destruction of the edifice, as the portions of the original work which survive are very small."[369] The abbey church was a parish church, within the territory of which the house of Elderslie was situated, and the connection of the family of Elderslie with the monks of Paisley would naturally be very close. Wallace himself was probably educated at the school of the Paisley Clunaics,[370] and the influence of the abbey may have helped to mould within him the character which Fordun thus describes:-- "He (Wallace) venerated the church and respected the clergy; his greatest abhorrence was for falsehood and lying; his uttermost loathing for treason, and therefore the Lord was with him, through whom he was a man whose every work prospered in his hand."[371] The monks of Paisley during the times of Wallace and Bruce were on the patriotic side. After Bruce had murdered the Red Comyn before the altar of the Franciscan friars at Dumfries, the deed lay heavy on his conscience, and the Steward used his influence with the Pope to procure absolution. A commission was issued to the abbot of Paisley by Berengarius, the penitentiary of the Pope, to absolve the Bruce and appoint him proper penance for his crime. "How the duty committed to him was discharged by the Abbot or what penance he enjoined, we do not know. It may have been to fulfil the penance imposed at Paisley that Bruce desired so ardently to visit the Holy Sepulchre. He was excommunicated again soon afterwards, and years elapsed before he was finally restored to the favour of the Church; but his absolution at Paisley was a gleam of sunshine in the midst of his stormy life, and one of the most interesting pictures in the history of our abbey is that of the monarch kneeling before its altar and amidst its fire-stained walls."[372] James, the Steward, died on 16th July 1309, and, like the earlier Stewarts, was probably buried in the ruined abbey. He was succeeded by his son Walter, who married Marjory, the daughter of Robert the Bruce. Their married life was short, and the untimely death of Marjory took place within a year. Walter died at Bathgate in 1326, and, like his wife, was buried in the abbey. "When long time their dule had made The corps to Paslay have they had, And there with great solemnity And with great dule eirded was he." Robert, the son of Walter and Marjory, was but a boy of ten or eleven years of age at his father's death, but he was a boy with great expectations. Failing the death of the king's son without heirs, the Scottish Parliament had solemnly ratified his succession to the Scottish throne. King Robert the Bruce died in 1329, and his only son, David II., succeeded him. By neither of his marriages had he any issue, and he was succeeded by his sister's son, Robert II., who became the founder of the Stewart dynasty. "The abbey was now under royal patronage, and Walter, the son of Alan, its founder--the Shropshire colonist--the progenitor of a race of kings."[373] Under royal favour and patronage the abbey entered on a course of prosperity, unbroken till the time of the Reformation. Robert II. died in 1390, and was buried at Scone. "If this be true, he was the first of the Stewarts who were laid elsewhere than in the precincts of the abbey, and the circumstance is all the more strange because Elizabeth More, the much-loved wife of his youth, and Euphan Ross, his queen, are buried there."[374] Robert III. had two sons, the elder of whom was David, Duke of Rothesay (1378-1402). He was under the guardianship of Albany, who after a short time starved him to death at Falkland. Robert, anxious for the safety of his younger son, James, resolved to send him to France, but on his way thither he was captured by an English vessel, and thereafter imprisoned in the Tower of London. There is good reason for believing that Albany and the Douglases had to do with the imprisonment of the Prince, and they did everything to prevent his release. When the news was brought to the king in the castle of Rothesay, he succumbed to paroxysms of grief, and died 4th April 1406. "Touched by grief," says Fordun, "his bodily strength vanished, his countenance paled, and, borne down by sorrow, he refused all food, until at last he breathed forth his spirit to his Creator." He was buried in the abbey of Paisley before the high altar, and was the last of the Stewarts who was laid there.[375] After the destruction of the abbey, caused by the wars with England, the edifice seems to have remained for long in a dismantled condition, but gifts having been received from the Bishops of Argyle and Glasgow to aid the restoration of the building, the work was begun. Besides, the abbey was from 1388 to 1408 under the ban of excommunication, and this must have powerfully added to the delay in the building operations. Part of this work was carried out under Abbot Lithgow (1384-1433), who was buried by his own desire in the north porch, where his memory is still preserved. The chief part of the rebuilding of the abbey church was carried out under Abbot Thomas de Tervas (1445-1459). The _Chronicle of Auchinleck_ says of this abbot:-- "The quhilk wes ane richt gud man, and helplyk to the place of ony that ever wes, for he did mony notabil thingis, and held ane nobil hous, and wes ay wele purvait. He fand the place al out of gud reule, and destitute of leving, and al the kirkis in lordis handis, and the kirk unbiggit. The bodie of the kirk fra the bucht stair up he biggit, and put on the ruf, and theekit it with sclats and riggit it with stane, and biggit ane great porcioun of the steple, and ane staitlie yet-hous: and brocht hame mony gude jowellis, and clathis of gold, silver, and silk, and mony gud bukis, and made statelie stallis, and glassynnit mekle of al the kirk, and brocht hame the staitliest tabernakle that wes in al Skotland, and the maist costlie: and schortlie he brocht al the place to fredome and fra nocht till ane michty place, and left it out of al kind of det, and al fredome, till dispone as them lykit, and left ane of the best myteris that wes in Skotland, and chandillaris of silver, and ane lettren of brass, with mony uther gud jowellis."[376] Abbot Thomas is said to have obtained the privilege of having a tavern and selling wine within the gates of the monastery, and is believed to have raised money thereby for the reconstruction of his church.[377] The quaint language of the ancient _Chronicle of Auchinleck_, translated into ordinary English, means that besides journeying to Rome and procuring the articles mentioned, he carried up the triforium and clerestory, finished the roof, erected a great part of the steeple, and built a stately gate-house. At the death of Abbot Tervas, Pope Pius II. decreed that the disposition of the office and of the whole revenues of the monastery should fall to the Pope, and he appointed Henry Crichton, a monk of Dunfermline, to be commendator of the abbey, and assigned a pension of 300 florins out of the revenues to Pietro Barlo, Cardinal of St. Mark's in Venice, to be paid to him by Henry and his successors at the Feast of St. John the Baptist, under pain of excommunication, in case of his failing to make payment within thirty days after the appointed term, and total deprivation if he persisted in his opposition six months after his excommunication. When he got himself fairly installed as abbot he declined to pay the stipulated pension to the Cardinal of St. Mark's, and made some legal quibble the ground of his neglect. Trouble followed, and since this, the appointment of its first commendator, the rights of the abbey began to be invaded. Abbot George Shaw (1472-1498) endeavoured to guard the monastery against encroachments; he built a refectory and other structures, reared a lofty tower over the principal gate, enclosed the church, the precincts of the convent, the gardens, and a little park for deer within a wall about a mile in circuit.[378] Of this once magnificent wall, with its four-sided beautiful stones and lofty statues, very few fragments now remain, but there are still two tablets that belonged to it. The central shield bears the royal arms, the shields to the right and left of it the Stewart arms and the abbot's own; and there is an inscription by the pious builder himself, which is as follows:-- Ye call it ye Abbot Georg of Schawe About yis Abbey gart make yis waw A thousande four hundereth zheyr Auchty ande fywe the date but veir [Pray for his saulis salvacioun] That made thys nobil fundacioun. It has been thought that this inscription was designed by John Morow, whose name appears on a tablet in Melrose Abbey.[379] "The character of the lettering in design and workmanship is the same as at Melrose. The references to the building operations, the poetical form of the composition, the manner in which the names are introduced, 'Callit was I,' and 'Ye callit,' and the devout expressions with which they close, make it clear that the inscriptions are the work of the same author." The fifth line is chiselled away, and was possibly deleted because it did not harmonise with the theology of the Reformed Church. Abbot George Shaw was succeeded by his nephew, Robert Shaw, vicar of Munkton, and a son of the Governor of Stirling. He was canonically elected, and his election was approved by the Crown,--the Pope also gave his consent on condition that Robert Shaw should take the monastic habit within six months, and decreed that the old abbot should enjoy as his pension a third part of the fruits of the monastery, and might return to his former position when he thought proper. Robert Shaw took office in 1498, and his uncle lived for some years after, "the pensioner of the abbey" as he is called in charters. George Shaw died probably in 1505, and Dr. Lees says of him:-- "He filled his place well, and the visitor to Paisley who sees his shield of three covered cups with the pastoral crook behind them upon the wall of one of the outhouses, which has been ruthlessly transformed by modern iconoclasts, or reads the defaced inscription which tells of the 'nobil fundacioun' he reared, will do well to remember that they are the memorials of a good man, one of the best of his time, to whose wisdom and benevolence the town of Paisley owes its existence."[380] This refers to the creation of Paisley as a burgh by Abbot Shaw, who obtained in 1488 a charter creating the village of Paisley into a free burgh of barony, and thereby raising the status of the people both socially and politically. The burgher was no longer in the condition of a serf or slave, who could be transferred from one master to another, and he escaped from all the severities and exactions of the feudal system. The burghs had power of self-government, and were able to develop commercial and industrial operations. The burgh of Paisley was endowed with the usual privileges, and a right to hold a market every Monday, and two yearly fairs--one on the day of St. Mirren, and the other on the day of St. Marnock. In 1490 the abbot and chapter granted to the magistrates of the burgh in feu-farm the ground on which the old town stands and certain other privileges. After an examination of the Rental Book, Dr. Lees regards it as "corroborating all that historians tell us regarding the lands of those ecclesiastics being the best cultivated and the best managed in Scotland.... The neighbourhood of a convent was always recognisable by the well-cultivated land and the happy tenantry which surrounded it, and those of the Abbey of Paisley were no exception to the general rule prevailing throughout the rest of Scotland.[381] "The monks were kind masters. No cases of eviction or deprivation are recorded. The same lands descended without rise of rent from father to son. Children are held bound to maintain their parents in their old age, and widows are specially cared for, and are occasionally provided with another husband!"[382] During the fifteenth century many altars were erected and endowed by the burgesses, and the Chapel of St. Mirin, which occupies part of the site of the south transept, was erected in 1499, and endowed by James Crawford of Kylwynet, a burgess of Paisley, and his wife. Abbot Robert (1498-1525) was received on 19th October 1525 as Bishop of Moray in the cathedral of his northern diocese, and the next abbot was John Hamilton, a natural son of the Earl of Arran, who had entered the church as a monk of Kilwinning, and whom Magnus speaks of with contempt as a "yonge thing." The earl was high in favour with the queen, who had at the time the disposal of the church benefices, and he wished the bishopric for his son. The queen, however, appointed Abbot Robert to the see of Moray, and Hamilton to the abbey of Paisley. It was one of the deeds of shame enacted in the Scottish Church which ultimately brought its severe judgment. Abbot John Hamilton (1525-1547) rebuilt at immense cost the first tower that appears to have had insecure foundation, and fell. It seems to have had an untimely end, falling, according to one account, with its own weight, and with it the choir of the church, or, according to an another account, being struck with lightning. In 1559, with Kilwinning and Dunfermline, the abbey of Paisley was suppressed, and what that meant can best be expressed in the words of Sir Walter Scott:-- "They fumigated the church with burnt wool and feathers instead of incense, put foul water into the holy-water basins; they sung ludicrous and indecent parodies to the tunes of church hymns; they violated whatever vestments belonging to the abbey they could lay their hands upon; and playing every freak which the whim of the moment could suggest to their wild caprice. At length they fell to more lasting deeds of demolition, pulled down and destroyed carved woodwork, dashed out the painted windows, and in their vigorous search after sculpture dedicated to idolatry, began to destroy what ornaments yet remained entire upon the tombs and around the cornices of the pillars." Although the monks were expelled, the people of Paisley still continued firm in adhering to the old faith, and the doors of the abbey were "steyked" against the reformed preachers. The abbot and his friends were accused as "in the toun of Paslay, Kirkyard and Abbey place thereof, openlie, publicklie, and plainlie taking auricular confession in the said kirk, toun, kirkyaird, chalmeris, barns, middens, and killogies thereof, and thus makand an alteration and innovation in the state of religion, which our Soverane Lady found publicklie standing and professit within this realm, ministrand, and alswa irreverently and indecentlie the Sacramentis of Holy Kirk, namely, the Sacramentis of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ." It was a serious charge, and if proven was punishable by death. Hamilton had a powerful friend in Queen Mary, who interfered in his behalf, and he and his companions were committed to ward. Besides retaining the office of abbot at Paisley, Hamilton was appointed Bishop of Dunkeld in 1543-44 by his brother, acting for the Queen, and after the murder of Cardinal Beaton, on 29th May 1546, was raised to the position of Archbishop of St. Andrews and Primate of Scotland. Probably he never returned to Paisley until, in the adversities of his later years, and the monastery being sacked and burnt by the Reformers, he was forced to take refuge at Dumbarton Castle, where he was made prisoner, and afterwards executed at Stirling. The Master of Sempill had been appointed bailie of the monastery, and, at the dissolution, the whole of the church property was handed over to Lord Sempill. The property finally came into the possession of Lord Claud Hamilton, nephew of the archbishop, and the monastic buildings were converted into the "Place of Paisley," the residence of the Abercorn family. After the archbishop's execution his body was quartered, and afterwards buried, probably in Paisley. Dr. Lees says:-- "There is in the church a tablet, which looks as if it had marked his grave. It has upon it the archbishop's coat of arms, the letters J. H., the initials of his name, and the motto he assumed, and which contrasts strangely with his troubled life and tragic end--'Misericordia et Pax.'"[383] Amid all that is said against the last archbishop of the old Church of Scotland, and the last abbot of Paisley, it is well to recall that the "Catechisme," which usually passes under his name, from having been printed at his expense at St. Andrews in 1552, exhibits a solitary instance of an attempt on the part of the old Roman Catholic clergy to convey spiritual instruction to the people, and is creditable to Archbishop Hamilton's memory.[384] Referring to the disposal of the abbey property, Dr. Lees says:-- "The manner in which the Church property was gifted away forms a scandalous episode in the history of Scotland. Men like Claud Hamilton, who never had done anything for their country, became enriched and ennobled through the spoliation. It is vain to picture regretfully what might have been; but any one can see how much better it would have been for Scotland if the whole community, instead of a few unworthy individuals, had got the benefit of the Church's wealth. Those who did get it have in too many instances made a very miserable use of their ill-gotten gain."[385] Prior to the Reformation the monastery consisted of a church, the cloister and conventual buildings. The church comprised a long aisleless choir, a nave with aisles, a north transept, a south transept, with St. Mirin's Chapel attached to the south of it, and a tower and spire over the crossing.[386] The choir walls, containing an elegant sedilia and piscina, remain standing to the height of 9 feet, and it is questioned whether the choir was ever finished during the restoration. There is a string-course all round; the building is of fifteenth century work, and occupies the place of an earlier choir, which has been demolished. The wall at the east end of the nave, which separates it from the transept, may have been erected during the restoration of the fifteenth century, with the intention of rendering the nave a complete church until the transept and choir were restored. This seems to have been in progress when the Reformation interrupted the work. The design of the sedilia resembles that at St. Monans, Fife, and adjoining the sedilia is the piscina, the aperture of which is still visible. The north transept is in ruins, but the north wall, with the remains of a fine traceried window, still exists, as well as a traceried window in the west wall. The south transept is also in ruins, while the tower and spire have disappeared. St. Mirin's Chapel is well preserved, but the openings connecting it with the south transept are built up. The nave survives as a whole, and contains six bays, divided by massive piers, and surmounted by a triforium and clerestory. There is a north porch, and two doorways from the cloister on the south side. The oldest portion of the building is pronounced to be the eastern part of the south wall of the south aisle of the nave, where it adjoins the transept. This portion of the wall consists of three bays, containing the S.E. doorway from the cloister to the nave, and three pointed windows in the upper part. The doorway is of the transition style, and the windows above are simple in style, and are early pointed work--this part of the building probably dating from the first half of the thirteenth century.[387] The western portion of the south aisle of the nave and the whole of the south clerestory are evidently portions of the restored church of the fifteenth century.[388] The south aisle wall contains the S.W. and S.E. doors from the nave to the cloister. The west end of the nave is in part amongst the ancient portions of the structure, and the western entrance doorway is thirteenth century work.[389] The aisle windows of the west front belong to the first pointed period. The upper portion of the west front above the two large windows is of considerably later date.[390] "The design of the west front, which contains above the door-piece two large windows, with pointed niches and small circles inserted between the arch-heads, is probably original, but the upper portion and gable, including the large traceried window, are doubtless part of the restoration of the fifteenth century. The tracery of the two central windows is peculiar, and may possibly be of the fourteenth century, but that of the large upper window is later, probably of the same period as the restoration of the interior of the nave. The tracery of the large upper window is a specimen of the late kind of design employed in Scotland in the fifteenth century."[391] The interior of the west end of the nave exhibits the change of style caused by the restoration of the fifteenth century. The first or western bay of the main arcade is original, including the first arches (one on each side), the first pillars, and the arches between them, and the aisle responds. "These pillars and arches are of large dimensions and first pointed section, and appear to have been designed to carry western towers, but a part of their thickness has been cut off next the choir. A portion of the triforium wall, a piece of the string-course over the main arcade, and the corbelled vaulting shaft in the angle as high as the top of the triforium, are also parts of the original structure. The later work has been joined to the above old parts in a very awkward manner."[392] The cap of the west pier on the north side belongs to the first pointed work, while the corresponding cap on the south side and all the other caps belong to the fifteenth century restoration.[393] Except the west piers, the piers of the nave are of the clustered form, common in late Scottish work, and might be about the same date as the restoration of St. Giles, Edinburgh (which they resemble), in the early part of the fifteenth century.[394] The triforium design consists of large segmental arches, the same width as the main arches, springing from short clustered piers introduced between them. It somewhat resembles the triforium of the nave at Dunkeld Cathedral. The clerestory is probably designed in imitation of that of Glasgow Cathedral, and is divided into two pointed arches in each bay. They spring from a series of clustered shafts with round moulded caps that are late imitations of early work.[395] The earlier part of the nave restoration, including the main piers and arches, and perhaps the tracery of the two lower windows of the west front, were possibly executed by Bishop Lithgow, who built the north porch, and the completion of the nave (the upper portions) was carried out in the time of Abbot Tervas--the middle of the fifteenth century. A peculiarity of the nave interior is a series of large corbels, which project from the spandrils of the triforium arcade, and the object of which was to enable a passage to be carried round the solid piers introduced between the windows. Each of the large corbels springs at its lowest point from the sculptured grotesque figure of a man or animal. They were mostly the work of Thomas Hector, a sculptor, who lived at Crossflat,[396] and whom the abbot retained for his skill in the art.[397] The employment of such grotesque figures was very much affected by the monks of Clugny, and was the occasion of a rebuke from St. Bernard. "What business had these devils and monstrosities in Christian churches, taking off the attention of the monks from their prayers." One of these figures near the west gable represents a man in a kilt, and Dr. Lees thinks that many worshippers in the Abbey in more modern times have in the midst of long sermons found relief in the contemplation of those curious carvings which the saint thus vigorously denounced.[398] St. Mirin's Aisle was erected in 1499, and there is a large pointed window in the east end, having jambs with single shafts. It is divided into four lights, and the arch-head is filled with good simple tracery. Beneath the eastern window is a frieze of one foot eight inches deep between two cornices of eight inches deep, which were intended for sculpture. Three compartments, measuring four feet, at the north or right side, and seven compartments, measuring ten feet, at the south or left side, are carved and filled with sculpture. Dr. Lees says the reference of them to Mirin is clear beyond all doubt: "In the one on the extreme left we see Mirin's mother bringing him to St. Congal. In the next St. Congal putting the religious habit on Mirin. In the next Mirin taking oversight of the monastery of Banchor. There is after this a blank, and then we have certain sculptures relating to Mirin's encounter with the Irish king, who wears a crown on his head. In the first we have the servant of the King driving Mirin away from the door of the palace. In the next the King roaring with pain and held by his servants. In the next the Queen lying in bed with a picture of the Virgin on the wall, it being the custom to hang such before women during confinement. Then we have the King on his knees before Mirin, and afterwards Mirin received by him with joy. The next two sculptures represent the last two acts of the Saint--the brother looking through the keyhole and seeing Mirin illuminated by a celestial light, and the Saint restoring to life the dead man in the Valley of Colpdasch.... As they are evidently earlier than the date of the erection of the chapel, they have probably been transferred with the relics of the Saint from an older shrine. They look like twelfth-century work, but it is possible they may be even earlier."[399] The ceiling of the chapel is beautifully groined, and the east end, where the altar stood, is raised four steps above the western part. The west wall contains an outer doorway from the cloister court, and there is a traceried window above it. A large ambry adjoins the door in the outer wall. The chapel was connected with the south transept by two wide archways, now built up, and near the east end is a piscina, with three-sided head, like that in the choir. There is a dormitory above the chapel, arched by stone, and the entrance is by a doorway in the middle of the south side of the arch. The apartment is lighted by two windows--one in the east gable, and the other in the west. In the west gable there is a private stair leading from the dormitory to the chapel, and the priest, who was bound by the charter to live at the chapel, doubtless occupied the sleeping-place above it.[400] The chapel at the Reformation was converted into a family burying-place by Claud Hamilton, the commendator, and various members of the Abercorn family lie buried in the vault below, the chapel belonging to the present Duke, and being under his control. On the floor of this chapel there now stands an ornamental altar tomb, which was found lying in fragments near the Abbey by the Rev. Dr. Boog, one of the Abbey ministers, and who in 1817 had it brought within the chapel and erected again. It supports a recumbent figure, believed to be the effigy of Marjory Bruce, the daughter of Robert I. and the mother of Robert II. "The head of the figure is surmounted by a large cusped canopy, placed in a horizontal position, on the end of which is carved a crucifixion. The pedestal is carved with a series of Gothic compartments, in each of which there is carved a shield, enriched with heraldic blazons and figures of ecclesiastics. The panels at the west end contain--the first the _fess chequé_ of the Stewarts between three roses; the third the _fess chequé_, surmounted of a lion rampant, and the central one, two keys saltierwise, between two crosiers in pale."[401] The chapel is famed for an echo, described by Pennant in his _Tour Through Scotland_,[402] but Dr. Lees regards the description of the far-famed traveller as either much exaggerated, or the strength of the echo has become diminished since his time. "When any number of persons are within the building, an echo is scarcely audible at all. It is amusing sometimes to see a group of people expending the strength of their lungs in vain by attempting to evoke it."[403] Crosses seem to have been placed at intervals on the roads leading to the church. One of the south piers of the nave is called the Cathcart pillar, and has carved upon it a shield bearing the Cathcart arms. This is believed to be a memorial of Sir Allan Cathcart, who has thus been described by Barbour:-- A knycht, that their wis in hys rout, Worthy and wycht, stalwart and stout, Curtaiss and fayr, and off gud fame, Schyr Allane of Catkert by name. King Robert the Bruce died in 1329, and Sir Allan of Cathcart and Sir James of Douglass sailed in 1330 for the Holy Land with the King's heart. Sir James was killed in Spain in conflict with the Moors, and Sir Allan came back with the heart of the King, which was buried in Melrose Abbey. The pillar commemorates his safe return. On the west buttress of the north transept, at 21 feet in height, is the shield of the Stewarts, with a pastoral staff, and the word "Stewart." The first central tower erected over the crossing seems to have been of inferior workmanship and to have given way. Another is believed to have been erected by Abbot Tervas, which probably fell during the siege by Lennox and Glencairn, and may have destroyed much of the choir and transept in its fall. Western towers appear to have been contemplated. "We are only able," says Dr. Cameron Lees, "to conjecture what was the position of the conventual buildings. But after comparing the plan of Wenlock, from which the monks originally came, with that of Crosraguel, which they afterwards erected, we think it is probable that the chapter-house, with Saint Mirin's Chapel, occupied the east side of the cloister court, the refectory the south side, and the dormitory the west. The Abbot's house probably stood at the south end of what is called Cotton Street. There were buildings also between the Abbey and the river Cart attached to the monastery, portions of the foundations of which are occasionally uncovered."[404] "The shape of the cloister court has been partially retained. The conventual buildings were almost all converted after the Reformation into dwelling-houses, and though fragments of the old houses, such as an occasional pillar or arch, are to be found, there is little to remind one of dormitory, parlour, or refectory."[405] The nave is still used as the parish church. About 1782 it was in a dreadful condition. The roof was full of holes, through which the birds obtained free access, "distracting the attention of the worshippers in time of sermon." They built their nests and reared their young under the arches of the clerestory. A few of the gentry had "lofts" or galleries, but the bulk of the worshippers brought their seats to church with them, while the poorest sat upon stones on the earthen floor.[406] Things had become so bad that the heritors thought of pulling down the abbey, and building a "commodious kirk" with the stones.[407] This insane proposal was averted from execution by the energy and wisdom of the Rev. Dr. Boog, minister of the First Charge in 1782, and to him the country owes the credit of preserving all that now remains. "He received much assistance from the Dowager Countess of Glasgow, who resided at Hawkhead, and through their joint exertions the Abbey was not only saved from destruction, but was repaired in a way which, considering the ignorance of that time on the subject of restoration, was highly creditable."[408] Dr. Lees describes the condition of the building at his induction in 1859 as dreadful: "The interior was like a vault in a churchyard."[409] But thanks to the exertions of the Rev. Mr. Wilson and Dr. Lees himself, several thousand pounds were collected and spent in remedying this state of affairs. The church was made seemly as a venerable temple for prayer ought to be. "The unsightly galleries were taken down, the floor cleared of the accumulated rubbish of centuries, the body of the church re-seated, the clerestory windows opened up, the transept walls and windows restored, and the turrets rebuilt. Men of all creeds contributed to the work, and when the Abbey, on the 27th April 1862, was re-opened for public worship, it could scarcely be recognised, so changed was it from its former condition."[410] In closing his splendid volume Dr. Lees adds, "We trust the time is not far distant when the Abbey of the first Stewart will stand forth again in all its pristine beauty--with transept, and choir, and tower, as in the days of the founder." That hope will soon pass into a reality, and Scotland will have a completely restored abbey church used as a parish church. _Kelso Abbey (Roxburghshire)._--In 1113 David, Earl of Huntingdon, and heir-presumptive to the Scottish throne, introduced a colony of thirteen Reformed Benedictine monks from the newly founded abbey of Tiron in Picardy, and planted it near his forest castle of Selkirk. He endowed it with large possessions in Scotland, and a valuable territory in his southern earldom of Huntingdon, but the French monks were dissatisfied with their position on the banks of the Ettrick, and on David's accession to the throne of his brother he removed them from Selkirk--"a place unsuitable for an abbey"--and established the monastery "at the Church of the Blessed Virgin on the bank of the Tweed, beside Roxburgh, in the place called Calkow."[411] The abbey was dedicated to the Virgin and St. John the Baptist. Its first abbot was Ralph, one of the French monks, and the Scotch chronicles state that he succeeded St. Bernard, the reformer of the order, in his abbacy at Tiron, on his death in 1116, but Dr. Cosmo Innes thinks this can scarcely be reconciled with the succession of abbots as given by the French writers.[412] The monastery soon became the richest and most powerful in Scotland, and in 1165 the Pope granted permission to the abbot to wear the mitre, and the abbot claimed precedence of all the superiors of monasteries in Scotland. In 1420 this precedence was decided by James I. in favour of the prior of St. Andrews.[413] Many of the abbots were distinguished men, who were employed in the affairs of the kingdom, and several were promoted to bishoprics.[414] Foremost in rank and power, the monks of Kelso also vindicated their place by the practice of the monastic virtues, and a copy of Wyntoun's _Chronicle_ is supposed to have been written at Kelso.[415] They seem to have recalled the saying, claustrum sine lîteratura vivi hominis est sepultura ("the cloister without literature is the grave of a living man"), and Dr. Cosmo Innes remarks "That the arts were cultivated within the Abbey walls we may conclude without much extrinsic evidence. The beautiful and somewhat singular architecture of the ruined church itself still gives proof of taste and skill and some science in the builders, at a period which the confidence of modern times has proclaimed dark and degraded; and if we could call up to the fancy the magnificent Abbey and its interior decorations, to correspond with what remains of that ruined pile, we should find works of art that might well exercise the talents of high masters. The erection of such a structure often extended over several hundred years. Kelso bears mark of having been a full century in building; and during all that time at least, perhaps for long afterwards, the carver of wood, the sculptor in stone and marble, the tile-maker and the lead and iron-worker, the painter, whether of scripture stories or of heraldic blazonings, the designer and the worker in stained glass for those gorgeous windows which we now vainly try to imitate--must each have been in requisition, and each, in the exercise of his art, contributed to raise the taste and cultivate the minds of the inmates of the cloister. Of many of these works the monks themselves were the artists and artisans, and it would be a grievous mistake to suppose that the effect was merely that of living and working in an artist's shop. The interest and honour of the convent, the honest rivalry with neighbouring houses and other orders; above all, the zeal for religion which was honoured by their efforts, the strong desire to render its rites magnificent, and to set forth in a worthy manner the worship of the Deity--all these gave to the works of the old monks a principle and a feeling above what modern art must ever hope to reach."[416] Situated as it was near the Border, the abbey suffered severely during the War of Independence. The monastery was laid waste and the monks were supported by contributions from the other houses of their own order. In 1344 the abbey buildings were destroyed by fire, and David II. granted permission to the monks to cut wood in Selkirk and Jedwart Forest to enable them to carry out the necessary repairs. In 1511 the Bishop of Caithness was appointed commendator, and decline of the abbey soon followed. After the battle of Flodden in 1513, David Ker of Cessford took possession of the abbey, and his brother was appointed abbot. In 1522 and 1523 invasion and havoc spread over Teviotdale; Lords Ross and Dacre pillaged the town, sparing the abbey; but in 1523 Lord Dacre sacked and burned it. The abbot's house and buildings surrounding it, the chapel of the Virgin, and the cells of the dormitory were all reduced to ashes; the lead was stripped from the roof, and the abbey rendered uninhabitable. All religious services were stopped, and the monks had to retire in want and poverty to a village near. From 1536 to 1538 James Stewart, natural son of James V., was abbot, and drew the revenues. In 1542 the Duke of Norfolk, and in 1545 the Earl of Hertford, again attacked and further destroyed the abbey. On the latter occasion the garrison of the abbey--numbering 100, of whom 12 were monks--refused the summons of the Herald to surrender, and succeeded in repulsing the Spanish mercenaries, who were the first to attack the building. It was then bombarded and the monastery captured; but the garrison still held out in the strong square tower of the church, whence some of them, though strictly watched, escaped by means of ropes during the night. The next day the assault was resumed, the tower carried, and the defenders were put to the sword. The buildings were then sacked and destroyed, the order being given to "breik them" and "thake of the leied, and outer myen the towres and strong places, and to owaier trowe all." By the following Sunday this had been strictly carried out; the abbey was razed, and "all put to royen, howsses, and towres, and stypeles." The removal of the lead to Wark alone occupied the carts of the army for several days. After this the abbeys of Melrose, Dryburgh, and Jedburgh shared in the fate of Kelso,[417] but, unlike it, they did not resist. Kelso Abbey was still further reduced by Lord Eure in 1546; and finally in 1560, when a few monks still remained, the buildings were attacked by the mob, and all the remaining fittings and furnishings destroyed. In 1559 the revenues and property of the abbey were taken possession of by the Lords of the Congregation in the name of the Crown. The temporalities were afterwards distributed amongst the favourites of James VI., and were finally conferred on Sir Robert Ker of Cessford, who was created Lord Roxburgh in 1599. The abbey still belongs to his successor, the Duke of Roxburgh, and the remains of the late duke are buried in the south transept.[418] In 1649 a vault was thrown over the transept so as to convert it into a parish church, and above this another vault served as a prison! This is seen in Grose's view, made about a century ago. "During service on a Sunday in 1771 a panic was caused by the fall of a fragment of cement, and the church was thereafter abandoned. The ruins were partly disencumbered by the Duke of Roxburgh, 1805-16, and in 1823 the buildings were repaired by the noblemen and gentlemen of the county."[419] Referring to the modern town, Dr. Cosmo Innes says:-- "Reposing on the sunny bank of its own beautiful river, the modern town of Kelso looks a fitting rural capital for 'pleasant Teviotdale.' It has little of the air of an old monastic burgh, and still less calls up any recollection of the heaps of ruins that impeded the plans of the English engineers. There is not much knowledge or tradition of its former state, and but few memorials of its old inhabitants. Last year (1845) a worthy burgher, who had dug up in his garden under the abbey walls what seemed to him a rare coin of a Scotch king, was scarcely well pleased to learn that it was a leaden _bulla_ of Pope Alexander III., bronzed with the oxidising of seven centuries. In the midst of the modern town the abbey church stands alone, like some antique Titan predominating over the dwarfs of a later world."[420] Considering all the dangers and neglect of the centuries, it is astonishing that so many of the ruins still exist. The building has consisted of choir or chancel of considerable length, with north and south aisles, and of a transept and nave without aisles. The north and south divisions of the transept and nave form three arms of equal length round the three sides of the crossing, above which rises the massive square tower.[421] The church was originally constructed in the late Norman style of about the end of the twelfth century, passing into the transition style--the upper part of the tower having been rebuilt at a later period.[422] Of the chancel only a fragment remains--two of the south main piers with arches and two stories of arcades above, which represent the triforium and clerestory. The chancel only had aisles. The main piers consist of a circular column, five feet in diameter, with smaller attached half-columns on three sides to carry the moulded arches between the main piers and the arches between the latter and the aisles.[423] "The piers have caps of the usual Norman modified cushion pattern, and the arches were moulded and arranged in several orders. The arcade immediately over the main arches has a row of single round shafts, with spreading Norman caps, which carry a series of moulded arches, occupying the position of the triforium. The upper arcade, which takes the place of the clerestory, has shafts of triple form, with wide spreading bases and caps of Norman and transition design. On the latter rest the round boldly-moulded arches. The arches opposite the windows in the outer wall are slightly larger than the others. It will be observed that there is no main vaulting shaft carried up over the main piers, as is almost invariably the case, for the purpose of strengthening the wall. On the contrary, the triforium arcade is continuous, and no provision is made to support the side wall, except the single shafts of the running arcade, which have a very weak effect. In the usual arrangement, the triforium arches are separated by a substantial piece of wall, including a vaulting shaft, and the triforium arch, which is generally subdivided into several subordinate arches, is introduced between the vaulting shafts. That is a much more substantial form of construction, and also more satisfactory to the eye, than the plan adopted here of a simple continuous arcade." In the exterior of this portion of the choir the outside of the clerestory windows is visible, being simple round-headed openings, with flat buttresses between them. The remainder of the wall is plain, but, judging from the level of the triforium window, the vaulting of the aisle, which was very high and partly covered the windows, seems to have been added at a later date. The crossing is square; the piers are about nine feet square--that at the south-east angle standing detached in consequence of the opening into the south aisle, while those at the north-west and south-west angles are incorporated with the walls. The piers are designed as a series of shafts, set in square nooks (four on each of the complete sides), with a large semicircular shaft at each angle. The shafts are all built in courses with the piers, and have transition bases and caps. From the latter spring large pointed arches, with plain chamfered orders. The pointed arch indicates the transitional character of this part of the building, and was probably introduced in this position to give strength to sustain the tower. The three arms of the cross branching to the north, south, and west from the crossing are of equal size--an unusual arrangement, as the nave is generally the longest division of the church. This was part of the original design, as the western doorway is one of the most prominently Norman portions of the edifice, and no satisfactory explanation has yet been given of the shortness of the Kelso nave. The upper portion of the west front has been in the transitional style, and the Norman arcading, which runs round the interior of the nave, was continued across the west end. The nave, north and south transepts, contain each four stories in height, consisting of an interlacing arcade of Norman work in the interior of the ground level, and three stories of windows above. The upper arcades of the choir do not extend round the nave and transepts, except in a portion of the south transept. The windows in the different stories have all round arches, both inside and outside, and the exterior is marked at each angle by broad and shallow Norman buttresses, with nook shafts in the angles, and an interlacing arcade round the lower story, both internally and externally. In the façades of the west end and north transept the windows of the different stories have been grouped so as to form distinct designs. "In the west end, over the great west doorway, there has been an arrangement of tall windows of apparently lancet form, having on either side an interlacing arcade of round arches, supported on tall, bended shafts. This is now, unfortunately, greatly destroyed. Above the arcade there runs a horizontal flat cornice, enriched with several rows of carved ornaments, and this was surmounted by a large opening of quatrefoil shape, surrounded with numerous mouldings and enrichments. The angle buttresses have been crowned with octagonal turrets."[424] The north wall of the north transept has a fine transitional door-piece, occupying the two lower stories. The next two stories have each two windows, separated by a small buttress, and the upper story has three arches in the interior. "Above these stories is a small circular window with a curious saving arch over it, and the whole is crowned with a top story, containing three round-headed openings, and a gable with a small circular aperture. The buttresses at the angles are crowned with circular turrets, which have been finished with a projecting parapet, the corbels for carrying which still survive. The upper part of the gable shows signs of having been altered."[425] The west doorway and the north door-piece are interesting; the former, the south half of which has perished, and which was finished with a sloping gable and stone roof, is regarded as a rich specimen of the elaborate carved work that characterised the late Norman period. "The jambs contained five detached shafts set in nooks, and having Norman bases and carved caps. Over each of these shafts there springs a circular order, carved with rich Norman ornament, now, however, very much decayed. The jambs of the doorway also formed moulded shafts, supporting their order in the arch."[426] The door-piece of the north transept wall is a prominent feature, projects 4 feet 6 inches from the main wall, has two stories, and is roofed with a sloping stone roof. The shafts have the usual Norman caps and bases, and the mouldings of the arch are pronounced to be peculiar in their profile. The outer one is enriched with small medallions, the central with the billet, and the inner one with rosettes. Above the archway there is an arcade of interlacing round shafts--the shafts, which were destroyed, having Norman caps. "The tympanum of the gable is covered with a reticulation of round beads or rolls."[427] The south and west sides and a small portion of the north and east sides of the tower remain. It is 35 feet square over the walls, and "is carried up with plain masonry externally, but the interior has immediately over the great arches of the crossing an arcade of round moulded arches, supported on triple shafts similar to those of the choir. Above this arcade is another story containing simple round arched openings, which are lighted on the exterior by circular windows containing quatrefoils. Over this tier is the upper story, which contains three pointed and deeply-recessed windows on each side of the tower. Broad, flat buttresses are placed at each angle of the tower, similar to those of the main building, and these were, no doubt, originally finished with turrets like those of the transepts.... The upper part of the tower is later than the lower part. This is apparent from the pointed windows of the top story and the quatrefoiled circular windows of the story beneath. The lower story immediately over the great arches is, without doubt, of about the same date as the choir."[428] There were probably similar staircases in other parts of the structure now removed, but the approach to the upper floors is now by one staircase in the N.W. angle of the transept. Passages between the arcades and the outer walls went round the building on every floor, and in the angles of the tower there are small wheel stairs leading to every floor, and passages running round the tower on every story. These arcades and passages have tended to weaken the structure, and it has been found necessary to strengthen it with numerous iron tie-rods, iron beams, etc.[429] There was an outer door in the S.W. angle of the transept, and another in the north wall of the nave adjoining the crossing. A tomb recess is in the south transept wall, and in the recess beneath are two ambries or lockers and a piscina, the only one remaining in the building. To the south of the transept there is a vaulted chamber that may have been the sacristy.[430] _Arbroath Abbey (Forfarshire)._--This abbey was founded in 1178 by William the Lion, and dedicated to S.S. Mary and Thomas à Becket. Becket had been martyred at the high altar of Canterbury Cathedral only seven years before, and William the Lion had recently suffered defeat and capture by the English at Alnwick. William had been personally acquainted with Becket, and is supposed to have regarded him as a private friend. "Was this the cause," asks Dr. Cosmo Innes, "or was it the natural propensity to extol him who, living and dead, had humbled the crown of England, that led William to take St. Thomas as his patron saint, and to entreat his intercession when he was in greatest trouble? Or may we consider the dedication of his new abbey, and his invocation of the martyr of Canterbury, as nothing more than the signs of the rapid spreading of the veneration for the new saint of the high church party, from which his old opponent himself, Henry of England, was not exempt?" As showing the eagerness with which King William pushed on the buildings, Hollinshed mentions that "The King came by the Abbey of Aberbrothoc to view the work of that house, how it went forward, commanding them that were overseers and masters of the works to spare for no cost, but to bring it up to perfection, and that with magnificence."[431] The abbey received great endowments from King William and from many subsequent princes and barons; acquired in 1204 a charter of privileges from King John of England and was one of the foremost and richest in Scotland. Its monks were Tyronenses, and the first were brought from Kelso Abbey. "By the year 1178 part of the church was ready for dedication. William the Lion died in 1214, and was buried in the east end of the edifice, which was then finished. Shortly afterwards the south transept was sufficiently well advanced to admit of the burial within it, before the altar of St. Catherine, of Gilchrist, Earl of Angus. On the 18th of March 1233, during the time of Abbot Ralph de Lamley, the church was dedicated. The time occupied in the erection and completion of the structure was thus a little over fifty-five years, and when its dimensions are considered, it will be found in comparison with other churches to have been carried on with great rapidity."[432] The abbots had several special privileges; they were exempted from assisting at the yearly synods; they had the custody of the Brecbennach, or consecrated banner of St. Columba; they acquired from Pope Benedict, by Bull, dated at Avignon, the right to wear a mitre, and were in some instances the foremost churchmen of the Kingdom. The abbey was toll-free, _i.e._ protected against the local impositions which of old beset all merchandise. "But," says Dr. Cosmo Innes, "the privilege the abbot most valued (and intrinsically the most valuable) was the tenure of all his lands, 'in free regality,' _i.e._ with sovereign power over his people, and the unlimited emoluments of criminal jurisdiction.... Even after the Reformation had passed over abbot and monk, the lord of regality had still the same power, and the Commendator of Arbroath was able to rescue from the King's Justiciar and to 'repledge' into his own court four men accused of the slaughter of William Sibbald of Cair--as dwelling within his bounds (quasi infra bondas ejusdem commorantes). The officer who administered this formidable jurisdiction was the Bailie of the Regality, or 'Justiciar Chamberlain and Bailie'--the Bailiary had become virtually hereditary in the family of Airlie.[433] ... The mair and the coroner of the abbey were the executors of the law within the bounds of the regality, and the best thought it no degradation to hold their lands as vassals of the great abbey."[434] The monks made a harbour and fixed a bell on the Inchcape Rock as a warning to sailors; the abbey was burnt in 1272 and 1380. Referring to its chartulary as a record of the names of the old Scottish families Dr. Cosmo Innes says:-- "Many of our ancient families went down in the War of Independence, and few of our present aristocracy trace back beyond the revolution of families and property which took place under Bruce. The Earls of Angus, Fife, and Strathearn are little more than mythological personages to the modern genealogist.... It is the common case all over Scotland."[435] In connection with the monks he has the following interesting note:-- "It is to be remarked that in Scotland, as in other countries, while the secular or parochial clergy were often the younger sons of good families, the convents of monk and friars were recruited wholly from the lower classes; and yet--not to speak of the daily bread, the freedom from daily care, all the vulgar temptations of such a life in hard times--the career of a monk opened no mean path to the ambitious spirit. The offices of the monastery alone might well seem prizes to be contended for by the son of the peasant or burgess, and the highest of these placed its holder on a level with the greatest of the nobility."[436] The last abbot was Cardinal Beaton, at the same time Archbishop of St. Andrews. The abbey suffered after the Reformation from the revenues having become the property of the Hamiltons, and as they were appropriated to the private use of that family, there were no funds to keep up the buildings, which fell gradually into decay, and were freely used by the magistrates and townspeople as a quarry. The property was converted into a temporal lordship in favour of Lord Claude Hamilton, third son of the Duke of Chatelherault. In sketching the history of this famous abbey, the "Aberbrothock Manifesto" of 1320 must be recalled, in which it becomes manifest that the Scottish Church was never a complaisant vassal of Rome.[437] There breathes in it a spirit of freedom and natural independence, and a refusal to accept the interference of Rome in the affairs of the State. The Scottish nobles protest against the papal countenance given to the English aggressions, and distinctly tell Pope John XXII. that "not for glory, riches, or honour we fight, but for _liberty alone_, which no good man loses but with his life."[438] The abbey church consisted of a choir of three bays, with side aisles and an aisleless presbytery; a nave of nine bays, with aisles and north and south transepts with eastern aisles; two western towers and one large central tower. Considerable portions of these divisions still remain, but the greater part of the north side of the choir, the north transept and nave, and almost all the piers and pillars have been swept away. Beginning at the east end, the eastern wall is entire for nearly half its height, having an arcade below and three lancet windows above, with the lower portions of an upper row of similar windows. Somewhat less of the return wall of the south side of the presbytery, comprising two bays, remains, and adjoining it is the sacristy, a late building fairly well preserved. The end wall of the south transept is almost complete, along with a considerable portion of the west wall of the transept, which gives a good idea of the grandeur of the church. The whole of the nave south wall remains, showing a row of windows and indications of the groining of the aisle. The central aisle was not vaulted, but covered with a wooden roof. Most of the bases of the nave pillars are in position, as are also the foundations of the north transept. The west end fragment and the two towers left standing, are striking and impressive in their vigorous work.[439] Bold, vigorous work, with refinement of detail, is seen in the western doorway. It is round arched, and its outer order, if it may be so called, extends inwards for about five feet, unadorned as a bold and plain tunnel arch, having a pointed arch in each ingoing. It then becomes shafted and richly moulded, after the transition manner. This arrangement, while it gives a fine shadow under the arch, has a feeling of rudeness, which, to a considerable extent, characterises the whole west front. "There is a remarkable resemblance in the decoration of this doorway to that of the doorway in the porch of Lerida Cathedral, Spain, supposing the tunnel arch of Arbroath away, and the moulded part brought forward to the face of the wall, as is the case at Lerida.... A similar ring ornament, on a large scale, is also to be seen in a doorway at Lamington, Lanarkshire, where it is likewise used along with the zig-zag, but there the ringed order is the outer enrichment."[440] The removal of the outer part of a gallery, which existed over this doorway, has increased the rude appearance of the west front, but the inner part of this gallery still remains. Within the great thickness of the wall a chamber of considerable size was obtained, and it opens into the nave by six pointed arches, and to the outside over the doorway by three arches. It is regarded as obvious that three gablets projected outwards from the wall for a distance of about four feet, supported on two intermediate shafts, and that the gallery was closed in at each end with walls or haffits, both of which still remain in part. We now see the west front robbed of its most unique features; the gallery was reached by a long passage at each end from stairs in the angle-buttresses. It probably was a gallery for an orchestra, and may have also been used as a pulpit to address an open-air audience.[441] Above this gallery was an immense circular window, a portion of which still survives. "It is probable that this part of the building was erected at two different times, the west doorway and some of the pillars of the gallery being in the early transition style, while the triple windows to the front and the six-light arcade towards the interior are in the first pointed style. When the gallery was completed in the first pointed period, the floor space was enlarged by extending it to the front, hence the necessity for the deep tunnel arch over the west doorway. The pointed arches in the ingoing also indicate this first pointed period."[442] The western towers opened with arches into the north, south, and central aisles, but only the north tower retains its massive pier and arches, while of the south tower nothing but the foundation of the pier exists. The south wall of the transept is externally plain, the upper part being visible above the dormitory roof. The façade has two plain lancet windows, one shorter than the other, and above them is a large wheel window. The interior of the transept is a very grand design in the early pointed style.[443] Beneath the splayed lancets there is a round arched open arcade, with a passage behind it, and beneath this, two tiers of wall arcades with pointed arches, the central arcade being very acutely pointed, the lower one not so decidedly, and with trefoil cusps in the arches. A staircase in the S.E. angle of the transept gave access to the dormitory by the door, seen built up on the outside.[444] This staircase also leads to the various passages in the thickness of the walls, and the church doorway leading to this stair is round arched and ranges with the lower pointed arcade. The lower arcade of the south end is continued along the west wall, and above this rise two widely-splayed windows. All the lofty south transept windows have passages on two floors, and the transepts had chapels on the east side. "The respond of the great arcade against the south wall is beautiful in detail. Above this there exist fragments of the responds of the triforium story and the clerestory. All the above features of this part of the abbey point plainly to its having some lingering remains of transition style, retaining, as it does, some round arches along with the general features of the design."[445] The vestry or sacristy was built by Abbot Walter Painter between 1411 and 1433, and is a two-storied building, the ground floor having a groined ceiling, still entire, and the upper room being roofless. Its features are of fifteenth-century work, and the building is in good preservation. Only fragments of the conventual buildings remain. "An octagonal turret marks the south-east corner of the chapter-house with the south and east return walls, and adjoining the south transept is the slype, the walls of which determine the other walls of the chapter-house. On the wall of the south transept is clearly seen the mark of the dormitory roof, with the door between the church and dormitory now built up."[446] The north wall and a portion of the west wall proceeding southward from it are all that remain of the extensive enclosure of the abbey. The enclosure was said to have been of great height and to have extended 1150 feet on the east and west, 760 feet on the north, and 480 feet on the south. There were great towers at the angles and entrance gateways on the north and at the south-east angle. In the centre of the north wall is the portcullis entrance gatehouse. The front wall is almost entire, and the upper floor window is crossed by the corbels which carried the movable wooden hoarding that was erected over the gateway when required for its defence.[447] At the western extremity of the north enclosing wall there is a large square tower, three stories in height in the inside, and four stories on the outside, owing to the fall of the ground. The two lower floors are round-vaulted, and the cape-house on top is said to have been removed during this century.[448] The building adjoining the tower to the east was called the Regality Court-house, and had a groined ceiling. The abbot's house is on the south side of the cloister, and is the best preserved abbot's house in Scotland. It is three stories high, and the two upper floors have been converted into a modern private dwelling-house. It has been altered externally and spoiled of its ancient internal fittings, with the exception of two fine carved panels, one representing the Virgin, and the other a large Scotch thistle. The kitchen has central pillars supporting a groined roof,[449] and the other offices connected with the kitchen are all vaulted. The abbey suffered from fire in 1272 and in 1380, while in 1350 it was injured "from the frequent assaults of the English ships."[450] Service was up to 1590 conducted in the lady chapel "stripped of its altars and images." _Melrose Abbey (Roxburghshire)._--The editor of the _Liber de Melros_ has said in reference to this abbey:-- "The incidental mention of the condition of the abbey itself at different times strongly illustrates the history of the district and the age. At one time powerful and prosperous, accumulating property, procuring privileges, commanding the support of the most powerful, and proudly contending against the slightest encroachment; at another, impoverished and ruined by continual wars, obliged to seek protection from the foreign invader: in either situation it reflects back faithfully the political condition of the country. But the political events of a country of so narrow bounds and small resources as Scotland are insignificant unless they are associated with the development of principles and feelings that know no limits of place or power. How rich Scotland has been in such associations is testified by the general sympathy which attends her history and her literature, and gives a pride to her children that forms not the weakest safeguard of their virtue. It is in recalling freshly the memory of times in which the proud and virtuous character of her people was formed, and which it is their delight and their duty to look back upon, that such studies as the present are most useful. Every local association, every faint illustration of antiquity, each indication of the bygone manners of a simple age, are in this view to be treasured, not only as filling a page of a meagre history, but as so many moral ties to bind us closer in affection to the country of our fathers."[451] This abbey has a charming site in the hill-girt hollow known as the vale of Melrose, occupying one of those peaceful situations near a river which the Cistercians delighted to choose and colonise. An ancient monastery of Melrose had existed since the seventh century, on a broad meadow nearly surrounded by a "loop" of the Tweed, about 2-1/2 miles lower down the river. It was established about 650 by St. Aidan, the missionary from Iona, who preached in Northumbria, and founded the abbey of Lindisfarne. Eata was the first abbot we hear of, and he was a disciple of St. Aidan. St. Cuthbert spent much of his early life at this monastery of old Melrose, and afterwards chose as the scene of his labours Hexham and Lindisfarne. The monks of Lindisfarne, when expelled by the Danes, took refuge at Melrose, and brought with them St. Cuthbert's body, which afterwards found its resting-place at Durham. In the eleventh century this old monastery of Melrose had become a ruined and desolate place. It afterwards became the retreat of a few monks, amongst whom was the celebrated Turgot, the confessor of Queen Margaret. A chapel was erected and dedicated to St. Cuthbert, which at first belonged to Coldingham, but was gifted finally by David I. to the new abbey of Melrose. This abbey was founded in 1136 at a place then called Fordell, and was endowed by David I. and his nobles with extensive lands. The monks were of the Cistercian order, and were brought from Rievalle in Yorkshire. The original buildings were not finished till 1146, and on the 28th of July in that year the church was solemnly consecrated and dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It is thought that such buildings with an oratory were probably the residence of the monks, and their period would suggest the Norman style, like that of the abbeys of Kelso, Jedburgh, and Dryburgh. Every trace of these early buildings has disappeared, and, situated as it was on the border-country, Melrose Abbey was exposed to danger, and frequently suffered in the wars between the two countries. It was in the chapter-house at Melrose that the Yorkshire barons united against King John and swore fealty to Alexander II. in 1215. In 1295 Edward I. gave formal protection to its monks, and in 1296 he issued a writ ordering a restitution to them of all the property they had lost in the preceding struggle. In 1321 or 1322 the original structure was destroyed by the English under Edward II., and the abbot, with a number of the monks, was killed. In 1326 Robert I. gave a grant of £2000 to be applied to the rebuilding of the church, and in 1329, a few months before his death, he wrote a letter to his son David, requesting that his heart should be buried at Melrose and commending the monastery and the church to his successor's favour. His wish was granted, and so late as 1369 we hear of King David II. renewing his father's gift, and it is to this grant we owe a considerable part of the present building. In 1328 Edward III. ordered the restoration to the abbey of pensions and lands which it had held in England, and which had been seized by Edward II. In 1334 the same king granted a protection to Melrose in common with the other Border abbeys, and in 1341 he came to Melrose to spend Christmas. In 1385 Richard II., exasperated by his fruitless expedition into Scotland, spent a night in the abbey and caused it to be burned. Notwithstanding these disasters, the abbey increased in wealth and architectural splendour, and it was not till more severe damage and dilapidations befell it during the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI. and Elizabeth, that ruin began finally to impend. The approach of the Reformation influenced its downfall, and though donations for rebuilding were given by various individuals, the abbey never recovered the damage then suffered. In 1541 James V. obtained from the Pope the abbeys of Melrose and Kelso, to be held _in commendam_ by his illegitimate son James, who died in 1558. In 1560 all the "abbacie" was annexed to the Crown, and in 1566 Mary granted the lands to James, Earl of Bothwell, with the title of Commendator. After passing through the hands of Douglas of Lochleven and Sir John Ramsay, the estates were ultimately acquired by the Scotts of Buccleuch. The abbey gradually fell into decay through neglect. The materials were used for the erection of other structures, and Douglas built from the ruins a house which still stands to the north of the cloisters and bears the date 1590. The masonry also formed a quarry for the neighbourhood, and in 1618 the remaining portion of the structure was fitted up as the parish church, "and in order to render it secure, a plain pointed barrel vault was thrown across the nave, and was supported by plain square piers built against the old piers on the north side. The original vaulting seems to have been previously demolished."[452] A great number of the stone images of saints which filled the numerous wall niches were left untouched till 1649, when they were almost all cast down and destroyed, but by whose order is unknown. Of the abbey there now only remain the ruins of the church, and of it the most competent authorities say:-- "No building in Scotland affords such an extensive and almost inexhaustible field for minute investigation and enjoyment of detail such as this. Whether we consider the great variety of the beautifully sculptured figures of monks and angels playing on musical instruments, or displaying 'the scrolls which teach us to live and die,' or turn to the elaborate canopies and beautiful pinnacles of the buttresses, or examine the rich variety of foliage and other sculptures on the capitals of the nave and the doorway and arches of the cloisters; or if, again, we take a more general view of the different parts of the edifice from the numerous fine standpoints from which it can be so advantageously contemplated, we know of no Scottish building which surpasses Melrose either in the picturesqueness of its general aspect or in the profusion or value of its details. It occupies an important position also historically, and it in part supplies an admirable example of that decorated architecture, the existence of which in this country has been so often denied, but of which, we trust, a sufficient number of examples are now provided to render that reproach to Scottish architecture no longer justifiable. We have to thank the fine red sandstone of the district, of which the church is built, for the perfect preservation of all the details of the structure. These remain, even in the minutest carving, as perfect and complete as the day they were executed."[453] The cloister and domestic buildings, including the hall of Abbot Matthew, were situated on the _north_ side of the church. They have now entirely disappeared, leaving only a portion of the cloister which indicates their position. The church is cruciform, and the choir is unusually short and the nave unusually long. The aisled choir extends only two bays eastwards from the crossing, beyond which point the presbytery is carried one bay farther, without aisles, and is lighted by large north and south windows as well as by the great eastern window. The shortness of the choir rendered it necessary that part of the nave should be appropriated for the monks, and the enclosing screen wall of this portion of the "choir" extended to the fourth pier west from the crossing, where it was carried across the nave and formed the rood screen. The screen was wide and contained a gallery, on the top of which stood the rood.[454] The nave extends to eight bays, but it has been intended to be longer--the west end being incomplete. Extending southwards, beyond the south aisle, is a series of eight chapels, which produced externally, along with the south aisle, the appearance of a double aisle.[455] The north aisle is narrower than the south aisle, and the position of the cloister may have hampered the design. This difference may have arisen from the plan of the original abbey of the twelfth century being adhered to in the later construction.[456] The transepts contain the usual eastern aisle only, in which are situated four chapels. The superstructure of the church has severely suffered and the western part is greatly demolished. The portion eastwards from the rood screen is in better preservation. The vaulting of the aisles is well-preserved, but that of the centre aisle is demolished--a pointed tunnel vault having been constructed in 1618. The eight chapels are well preserved, but some parts of the three furthest west ones are damaged and have lost their vaulting. The tracery in the chapel windows is lovely; the vaulting of the nave, south aisle and chapels, is supported by a series of flying buttresses, "which form one of the most prominent and beautiful elements of the building. No church in Scotland retains such a striking example of that important feature of Gothic architecture."[457] The eastern piers of the crossing were demolished probably in Henry VIII.'s time, and their destruction entailed that of the central tower, of which the western wall only remains. The transepts have suffered by the fall of the tower, but fortunately the south wall of the transept with its finely decorated window is still preserved. From the south transept access is obtained to the roof of the nave aisle and to the uppermost parts of the structure by a turnpike stair, which also forms the only mode of approach to the tower.[458] "The choir, so far as the east is concerned, is well preserved, the buttresses and gable, the celebrated eastern window, and the remarkable vaulting of the presbytery being all in good order. The remainder of the choir, however, has been greatly wrecked by the fall of the central tower; but many of the windows of the choir and transept with their perpendicular tracery have escaped destruction, and afford the best example in Scotland of that form of design."[459] The building, as it now stands, is, generally speaking,[460] of a date subsequent to Bruce's time, and much of it is later than the destruction which occurred under Richard II. in 1385.[461] "The nave, from the crossing to the rood loft, and part of the transepts are, undoubtedly, the oldest portions of the existing edifice. The work in these is, for the most part, of the Scottish decorated period. The nave piers, with their beautifully carved caps, and the mouldings of the arches are distinctly decorated work; and the flying buttresses and pinnacles on the south side of the nave are, without doubt, of the same period. So also is the south wall of the transept, with its magnificent window and tracery and its buttresses, enriched with fine canopies and quaint figures carved as corbels. "All these features bear a close affinity to the decorated work of the nave of York Minster, erected about 1400. The flying buttresses, with pinnacles enriched with crockets and foliaged finials; the niches, with their elaborate canopies and corbels composed of figures of monks and angels; the statues which formerly filled the niches, of which very few now remain; the decorated tracery of the south transept window, and the whole character of the work, both in its general scope and in its details, is of fine decorated design, and vividly recalls that of York, Beverley, and other English examples. It is not improbable that some parts of the nave and transept were erected during the period between the death of King Robert Bruce and the invasion of Richard II. It should be mentioned that Bruce's bequest was not all received till 1399, and the operations also probably proceeded slowly. The doorway in the south wall of the south transept is apparently an insertion in older work."[462] The south chapels of the nave have apparently been added during the repairs in the earlier part of the fifteenth century; the buttresses were probably executed towards the middle of that century, and the east one contains the arms of Abbot Hunter.[463] There is a distinct change in the transept's design from that of the nave, as if the former had been added to the latter at a later period.[464] The east wall and the other eastern parts of the choir are more recent than the nave, and probably this portion of the church had been more damaged by Richard II. than the nave, and required to be almost wholly rebuilt. The style here corresponds closely with the "perpendicular" of England which prevailed in the fifteenth century.[465] The great eastern window is exceptional and unique, and has more of the character of perpendicular than any other style. Scott, referring to it, has described the moon as shining Through slender shafts of shapely stone, By foliaged tracery combined; Thou would'st have thought some fairy's hand, Twixt poplars straight, the osier wand, In many a freakish knot, had twined; Then framed a spell, when the work was done, And changed the willow-wreaths to stone. The design of the west wall of the north transept is different from that of the other parts of the building, but the clerestory windows are of the same design as the rest of the older church. "The wall ribs of the vaulting include two windows in each; and the space between the windows is occupied by two niches, each carried up from a shaft--with late canopies, containing statues of St. Peter and St. Paul, the former having the keys and the latter holding his sword. These are the best preserved statues in the church, but they are not of very remarkable workmanship."[466] The building or restoration of the eastern part of the edifice is regarded as indicating, from its style, work of the middle of the fifteenth century, and the vaulting of the south transept appears to have been erected by Abbot Hunter about the same time,[467] probably from 1450 to 1460. More of the vaulting in the eastern part of the nave may have been carried out at that epoch. The vaults all contain, besides the main and ridge ribs, subsidiary ribs, or tiercerons, indicating a similarity to English examples.[468] The vaulting of the presbytery is peculiar, and points to a somewhat later time; examples of vaulting similar to that of the presbytery of Melrose may be seen at Winchester Cathedral, and other English examples of the fifteenth century.[469] The south chapels to the west of the fifth buttress west from the transept, on which buttress another specimen of Abbot Hunter's arms is engraved, are of comparatively late date.[470] "This buttress belongs to the earlier part of the nave, and the chapel seems to have been repaired when the additional chapels to the west were erected. Besides the three hunting horns in the shield of Abbot Hunter in the examples above mentioned, the arms engraved on the fifth buttress contain two crosiers, saltierwise, and the initials A. H. on the right and left; also, in chief a rose, and in base a mason's mell for Melrose. The work in the chapels to the west is inferior to that of those to the eastward, although copied from them. The chapels each contain an enriched piscina, and these are so inferior in style of workmanship as to lead to the belief that they were inserted after the chapels were built. One of them contains the initials of Abbot William Turnbull, whose date is the beginning of the sixteenth century. A late piscina has also been inserted in the south transept. "Work in the nave and in the south chapels was apparently in progress during the reign of James IV., as the royal arms, with the letters I. Q. (Jacobus Quartus) and the date 1505 on the westmost buttress testify."[471] On the south side of the cloister is a very lovely doorway that leads into the church. To the right of this and along the east wall of the cloister, are arched recesses of a late style, and in the south wall is an arcade of trefoil form, with nail-head enrichments. The latter is an example of the late revival of early forms which prevailed towards the close of the Gothic epoch.[472] It has been stated that the arcade of the cloister formerly extended 150 feet each way. The cloister wall is now reduced to the portions which abut against the nave and transept--50 feet on the east side and 80 feet on the south side. "The former side contains a wall arcade of seven arches. These are of the form called drop arches, with crocketed ogee hood moulding, and have plain spandrils above, over which there runs a straight cornice, enriched with flowers and shells of all descriptions very beautifully carved."[473] Of these Sir Walter Scott said:-- Nor herb nor floweret glistened there But was carved in the cloister arches as fair. The tower was doubtless erected about the same time as the transept.[474] In the south transept are two inscriptions that have given rise to much speculation and continue to exercise Border antiquaries. One of these is carved over the doorway in the west wall which gives access to the wheel stair, and part of the inscription is carried down one side for want of room. It is the following:-- Sa gays the cumpas evyn about, Sa trouth and laute. do but duite. Behald to ye hende q. Johne Morvo.[475] The other inscription is carved on a tablet in the wall on the south side of the same door:-- John Morow sum tym callit was I And born in Parysse certanly And had in kepyng al masoun werk Of Santandroys ye hye kyrk Of Glasgw Melros and Paslay Of Nyddysdayll and of Galway I pray to God and Mari bath And sweet S. John kep this haly kirk frae skaith. In the centre of the former inscription is a sunk panel containing a shield with two masons' compasses, arranged somewhat like a saltier, and beneath a figure resembling a _fleur-de-lys_. The late Dr. John Smith, in the _Proceedings of the Antiquarian Society of Scotland_, considers these inscriptions as applying to one man, who may have been the master mason of the building. But Mr. Pinches, in his account of the abbey, mentions that John Murdo, or Morow, was engaged in building a church in Galloway in 1508. It thus seems likely that these inscriptions are not earlier than that date, and have been added to the building after its completion.[476] An interesting view regarding John Morow will be found in _A Mediæval Architect_, by Mr. P. MacGregor Chalmers. He believes that the south chapel of the transept was that of St. John, and as John Morrow's tablet is opposite this chapel, his prayer to "sweet St. John" is most appropriate. Mr. Chalmers also points out that the chapels at the east end of Glasgow Cathedral are dedicated to the same saints and in the same order as those in the east aisle of the transept at Melrose.[477] Immediately beneath the site of the high altar at Melrose is the resting-place of the heart of Robert Bruce, and to the south of it is a dark-coloured polished slab of encrinital limestone said to mark the grave of Alexander II., who was buried near the high altar in 1249. Others maintain, however, that it marks the burial-place of St. Waltheof or Waldeve, who was the second abbot of the monastery founded by King David, and that it is the slab placed here by Ingram, Bishop of Glasgow (1164-1174). The chancel was also the burial-place of the Douglases. The Douglas tombs were all defaced by Sir Ralph Evers in 1544. At the northern end of the north transept a small doorway leads into the sacristy, in which is the tombstone of Johanna, Queen of Alexander II., with the inscription "Hic jacet Johanna d. Ross." Melrose is the Kennaquhair of the _Abbot_ and the _Monastery_. CHAPTER VII GENERAL SURVEY OF SCOTTISH MEDIÆVAL ARCHITECTURE Mediæval architecture of Scotland arranged according to the periods stated in Chapter II.:[478]-- _Transition from Celtic to Norman Architecture_:--_Abernethy Round Tower_, Perthshire (p. 7). _Restennet Priory_, Forfarshire (p. 7). _St. Regulus, St. Andrews_, Fifeshire (p. 18). _Norman Architecture_:--_Markinch Tower_ (Fifeshire). Present church modern, early church consecrated 1243; the tower is an ancient Norman building. _Muthill Church_ (Perthshire), has Norman tower at the west end, with nave having north and south aisles and an aisleless choir. The church is now in ruins, and was built by Michael Ochiltree, who was Dean of Dunblane (1425) and Bishop (1430). _St. Serf's, Dunning_ (Perthshire), has Norman tower, with elaborately carved and pointed archway opening from the tower into the church, which has been greatly altered. The W. gable wall of the church and part of the N. and E. wall are original. There appears to have been a chancel; the ancient corbels at N. parapet survive, and the raggle of the original roof is seen against the E. side of the tower. Church mentioned here in 1219 (ecclesia sancti servani de Dunnyne). _Cruggleton Church_ (Wigtownshire), in ruins; has early Norman chancel arch and north doorway recently restored; the plan shows a simple oblong with chancel arch. _Monymusk Church_ (Aberdeenshire), founded by Malcolm Canmore; remains of ancient Norman church in lower part of the tower and chancel arch, incorporated in modern church on old site. Ancient Celtic centre. _St. Brandon's, Birnie_ (Morayshire), has nave and chancel without aisles; chancel has no window in E. wall, but round-headed windows in N. and S. walls; chancel arch has semicircular attached shaft with moulded base and heavy Norman cap, with numerous sub-divisions. Advanced date. Stone font of Norman design, and Celtic bell. _St. Oran's Chapel, Iona_ (p. 65). _St. Margaret's Chapel, Edinburgh Castle_, comprises a nave with chancel arch and chancel, which has a round apse, formed within the square E. end of the exterior. The genuine surviving Norman masonry begins below the line of the S. windows; rest later work. Chancel has locker and piscina, chancel arch decorated with chevron design, nave arched roof is later than the walls. Chapel is a fairly advanced example of Norman work in plan and decoration. _Dunfermline Abbey_ (p. 139). _Kirkwall Cathedral_ (p. 69). _St. Blane's Church_ (Bute) has oblong nave and chancel separated by lofty wall with chancel arch. Norman masonry in nave and chancel arch. _Dalmeny Church_ (p. 102). _Leuchars Church_ (p. 104). _Bunkle Church_ (Berwickshire) has Norman work in ruined semicircular apse, with arch leading into it, and may be earlier than 12th century. _Edrom Church_ (Berwickshire) has still surviving a Norman doorway of beautiful design, now an entrance to a burial vault. An aisle is attached to the church, and was founded by Archbishop Blackadder in 1499; two angle buttresses are of interest. _Legerwood_ (Berwickshire) has attached to the parish church (old, but frequently repaired), and cut off by a wall, the roofless ruins of the original Norman chancel. A Celtic interlaced stone is built into the S. wall near the W. end. _Chirnside_ (Berwickshire) has Norman work in the doorway of the ruined church, and at the sides there are remains of a projection, probably a porch. A western tower, vaulted in stone, was removed in 1750. _St. Helen's Church_ (Berwickshire), near Cockburnspath, now in ruins, was a Norman structure, with the exception of the W. gable wall (14th or 15th century). It was barrel-vaulted throughout, and the N. chancel wall is entire. There is a narrow E. window. _Tyninghame Church_ (Haddingtonshire) was one of the churches dedicated to St. Baldred; the structural remains exhibit elaborate ornamental work of the Norman style. _Stobo Church_ (Peeblesshire) is a Norman structure, to which alterations and additions have been made in the 16th and 17th centuries. It was the church of a plebania, with subordinate churches. _Duddingston_ (Mid-Lothian) is a Norman edifice, used since 12th century as the parish church. It has been much altered, originally consisting of nave, chancel, and perhaps tower, and the chancel arch is the only Norman feature now remaining in the interior. _St. Andrew's Church, Gullane_ (Haddingtonshire), is now a roofless ruin, and was made collegiate in 1446. The semicircular chancel arch is almost the only part of the 12th century work now surviving. _Uphall Church_ and _St. Nicholas Church_ (Linlithgowshire). Uphall Church, consisting of nave, chancel, western tower, is a Norman structure throughout, much altered. When this became the parish church in the 16th century, St. Nicholas (one mile east) was abandoned. Two relics of it remain--the font, of which the basin is old, and the bell, now used in Uphall Church, and dated 1441. _Abercorn_ (Linlithgowshire). A church was founded here in 675 under St. Wilfrid, and became the see of the earliest bishopric in Scotland from 681 to 685. The monks were forced to retire to Whitby, but the site was occupied by a church, and part of the existing structure (the round-headed doorway in S. wall) is of Norman date. The tympanum is filled with stones arranged in zig-zag patterns. The church has been altered in modern times; there are good specimens in the churchyard of hog-backed tombstones, with figures of fish scale pattern arranged in rows, and scales of a squarer shape. _Kelso Abbey_ (p. 169). _St. Martin's Church_ (Haddington) is a very ancient chapel; a simple oblong; portion of barrel vault still exists; choir formerly existed; the arch is late Norman in design. _Kirkliston Church_, Linlithgowshire, has ancient tower and Norman doorways (S. and N.E.), and belonged originally to the Knights Hospitallers of St. John. _St. Mary's, Ratho_, Mid-Lothian, has Norman work preserved in doorway in S.W. wall. _St. Peter's, Peterhead_, Aberdeenshire, has chancel of Norman period. _St. Mary's, Rutherglen_, Lanarkshire, had a nave with side aisles and a chancel, but of the ancient church only a fragment now remains in the E. wall with eastern tower attached to it. The E. wall masonry indicates the Norman period, and the eastern tower, although built against, had no connection with the church, while it is of later erection by two or three centuries. _Lamington Church_ (Lanarkshire) has the old N. doorway still preserved. _St. Boswell's Church_, Roxburghshire, has been entirely rebuilt, but has some relics of carved corbels and other fragments of Norman date. _Smailholm Church_, Roxburghshire, is distinctly a Norman structure throughout its entire length, although greatly altered in the 17th century. _Linton Church_, Roxburghshire, is old, but has been restored and renewed. There is a Norman font, and a sculpture in the tympanum of the ancient church doorway may possibly represent St. George and the Dragon, or Faith overcoming Evil. It was placed in 1858 over the entrance to a new porch then erected. _Duns Church_, Berwickshire, had the chancel of the ancient structure existing until 1874, when it was removed, and not a stone now remains. Its masonry, judged from a photograph, looks very like Norman work. _St. Lawrence Church, Lundie_, Forfarshire, was a Norman structure, of which little remains except the ashlar walls, a narrow window, and outside check for a shutter. The chancel arch was built up in 1786, when the apse appears to have been taken down; the top of a sacrament house of late date survives. _Kirkmaiden Church_, Wigtownshire, has a nave that appears to be of Norman date, and there is an apparent chancel at the east end, but its dimensions and origin are not distinct. _Herdmanston Font_, Haddingtonshire, is a relic of the Norman period, and stands in the burial vault of the Sinclairs of Herdmanston. _The Transition Style._--_Dundrennan Abbey_ (Cistercian), Kirkcudbrightshire, was founded by David I. about 1142. Portions of N. and S. transepts, choir, chapter-house, some cellar walls and other walls, with a few carved caps now remain. Queen Mary was welcomed at the abbey after her flight from Langside, and embarked for England from Port Mary, at the mouth of the Abbey Burn. _Jedburgh Abbey_ (p. 129). _Kinloss Abbey_ (Cistercian), Morayshire, was founded by David I. in 1150, and colonised from Melrose. The enlightened Robert Reid, founder of the College of Edinburgh, was its abbot in 1528. Till 1650 the buildings were tolerably entire, and were then used to construct Cromwell's citadel at Inverness. The remains are now mere fragments. _The Nunnery_, Iona (p. 68). _St. Nicholas Church, Aberdeen_ (p. 78). _Coldingham Priory_ (Benedictine), Berwickshire, was founded or refounded in 1098 by Edgar, son of Queen Margaret, and dedicated to St. Cuthbert, S.S. Mary and Ebba. The canons of Durham controlled it until 1504, and in 1509 it was placed under the rule of Dunfermline. It suffered both from fire and its nearness to the Border; it was also damaged by Cromwell, and was afterwards used as a quarry. Little of the monastery now remains, and of the church only the N. and E. walls of the choir and fragments of the S. transept. In 1662 the W. and S. walls of the choir were rebuilt to make that part of the edifice suitable for worship, and in 1854-55 the choir was restored, its W. and S. walls being again partly rebuilt, S. porch added, and the corner turrets carried up to their present height. Stones are preserved of an earlier church than the existing one. _Dryburgh Abbey_ (p. 134). _Airth Church_ (Stirlingshire) dates from the period about the beginning of the 13th century, but only a small part of the early structure remains--a bay of what has been a nave arcade, opening into a north aisle. _Lasswade Church_, Mid-Lothian, had an old church, consisting of oblong chamber and tower. The S. wall doorway and tower reveal Transition work about first half of 13th century. _Bathgate Church_, Linlithgowshire, is now a ruin, being abandoned in 1739 for a new church. The doorway is almost the only feature of its architecture left, and its details are of transitional period. In the church is a recumbent statue. _First Pointed Period._--_St. Andrews Cathedral and Priory_ (pp. 13, 123); _St. Mary's, Kirkheugh, St. Andrews_ (p. 102); _Arbroath Abbey_ (p. 177); _Holyrood Abbey_ (p. 124). _Kilwinning Abbey_ (Tironensian), Ayrshire, was erected on a site occupied in the 8th century by an Irish monk called St. Winnan, who is believed to be the same as St. Finnan of Moville. On the spot sanctified by his cell the monastery was erected in the 12th century by Richard or Hugh Moville, who came from England, was created by the Scottish king Great Constable of the Kingdom and presented with the lordships of Cuninghame, Largs, and Lauderdale. The church was erected early in 13th century. The buildings were destroyed shortly after the Reformation, and the parish church was erected on the site of the choir about 1775. The ruins consist of S. wall and gable of S. transept, one pier with respond and arch between S. transept and E. aisle; handsome door which led from nave to cloisters; entrance to the chapter-house from cloisters; long ancient wall which formed the wall of S. aisle of nave; some portions of W. end of nave and S.W. tower. The N. tower remained complete till this century, and a new tower has in recent times been erected on its site. _Dunblane Cathedral_ (p. 47). _Inchmahome Priory_ (Augustinian), Stirlingshire, was founded and endowed by Walter Comyn, fourth Earl of Menteith, and the church, which has striking resemblances in detail to the neighbouring cathedral of Dunblane, evidently dates about 1250. Inchmahome means Isle of Rest, and the church is fairly well preserved. In 1543 Queen Mary, as a child, found refuge here along with her mother after the battle of Pinkie, and stayed for some months. Dr. John Brown has charmingly written about the young queen's miniature or child's garden--a small flower plot, the boxwood edging of which has grown up into a thick shrubbery. _Elgin Cathedral_ (p. 40). _Pluscarden Priory_ (Valliscaulian), Morayshire, was, along with Beauly and Ardchattan, founded by Alexander II. for the Order of Vallis Caulium. Pluscarden is situated in a long, well-sheltered valley. About 1460, when the monks had become corrupt, they were superseded by the Black Benedictine monks from Dunfermline, and the priory became dependent on that house. The last prior was Alexander Dunbar, and the first lay prior Lord Seton. The existing buildings consist chiefly of the remains of the church--an aisleless choir N. and S. transepts with eastern aisles, and square tower. There is no nave. The monastic buildings consist of the sacristy, or St. Mary's aisle, the chapter-house, the slype, and monks' hall--the whole forming the E. side of the cloisters. To the S.E. of cloister garth is probably the prior's house. The oldest parts are transepts with eastern aisles, built doubtless soon after the foundation. _Glasgow Cathedral_ (p. 22). _Brechin Cathedral_ (p. 44). _Lindores Abbey_ (Tironensian), Fifeshire, was founded in 1178 by David, Earl of Huntingdon, grandson of David I., and brother of King William the Lion. The church of Dundee belonged to the monks of Lindores, and the name Lindores is believed to mean "church by the water." Alexander III., Wallace, Edward I., David II. visited the abbey, and the Duke of Rothesay was buried in the church. James, Earl of Douglas, passed the last years of his life here. Two small coffins, found buried in the choir, are believed to have contained the remains of two children of Earl David, the founder. The buildings, entering from the E. side of the cloister, are the best preserved, and of the church little but the foundations and some portions of the wall survive. Adjoining S. transept is the vaulted slype, and the room over it may have been the scriptorium or library. The night passage of the monks led through that apartment, as the stair was in S.W. angle of transept, and could only be thus reached. _Cambuskenneth Abbey_ (Augustinian), Stirlingshire, was founded by David I. about 1147. James III. and his queen, Margaret of Denmark, were interred before the high altar, and a stone altar monument has been erected over their remains by Queen Victoria. The detached tower at the W. is almost the only part remaining in a completed state; the W. doorway is nearly entire, as is also portion of gable wall and side walls at S.E. corner of the buildings. _Culross Abbey_ (Cistercian) and _Parish Church_, Perthshire. The abbey was founded in 1217 by Malcolm, Earl of Fife, and considerable remains of that period, and some walls of what might be of earlier date, still survive, but principal parts of existing church are of later date. A few fragments of the monastic structure survive. The tower divides the E. from the W. church. The aisleless choir serves as parish church. The old parish church is a ruinous structure, about one mile N.W. from the abbey; plain oblong; in 1633 the abbey became the parish church. _Beauly Priory_ (Valliscaulian), Inverness-shire, was founded in 1230 and endowed by Sir John Bisset of Lovat. The ruined church survives, but has been sadly abused. Monastic buildings have nearly disappeared. First Pointed was later here than elsewhere. _Newbattle or Newbotle Abbey_ (Cistercian), Mid-Lothian, was founded by David I. in 1140 for monks brought from Melrose. It was a great house, and about 1350 its annual income could maintain eighty monks and seventy lay brethren, with the corresponding establishment. The last abbot was Mark Ker, and the lordship of Newbotle was conferred on his son. The abbey appears to have been almost abolished shortly after the Reformation, the only parts of the monastic buildings allowed to remain being the fratery and portions of the chapter-house, which were incorporated with the mansion-house. The nave of the church contained 10 bays; the choir and presbytery comprised 1-1/2 bay. The piers supported a tower over the crossing, and the architecture of the transepts was massive. _Lismore Cathedral_ (p. 59). _St. Kentigern's_, Lanark, was ancient parish church; abandoned for new one about 1777. It consisted of two six-bayed aisles, each with a chancel, but without a nave; there remain the lofty pointed arches dividing the two aisles, the wall of the S. one, and a fragment of the chancels. In the S. wall is a beautiful doorway. _Burntisland Church_, Fifeshire, _Prestonkirk_, Haddingtonshire, _Cowie_, Aberdeenshire, also illustrate in whole or part this period. _Deer Abbey_ (Cistercian), Aberdeenshire, was founded in 1218, and succeeded a church founded in 580 by St. Columba and his nephew Drostan. The conventual buildings now existing are subsequent in date to the founding of the abbey church (completed first), and this may account for the abbot demitting office in 1267, "choosing rather to live in the sweet converse of his brethren at Melrose than to govern an unworthy flock under the lowly roofs of Deir." _Luffness Monastery, Redfriars_, Haddingtonshire, was founded by Patrick, Earl of Dunbar, in 1286. The church consisted of nave and choir, without aisles; the choir has arched recess and much-worn effigy. The remains consist mostly of foundations. _Tungland Abbey_ (Premonstratensian), Kirkcudbrightshire, was founded by Fergus, first lord of Galloway, in 12th century, and is now represented by only one doorway. _Inchcolm Abbey_ (Augustinian), Fifeshire, was founded in 1123 by Alexander I., who had been driven ashore on the island by a storm, and was maintained with his followers for three days by a hermit who made Inchcolm his retreat. There is still a small cell covered with a pointed barrel vault, which may have been his abode. The island was the cradle of religion in E. Scotland, and may have been visited by St. Columba himself. Like Inchkeith, the Bass, Isle of May, and Fidra, it possesses early ecclesiastical remains. The island, like Iona, was celebrated as a place of burial. The monastic buildings date from 1216 chiefly; Walter Bower continued the Scotichronicon in the abbey. The ruins consist of the cloister court with church on N. side, and chapter-house beyond E. range. To the N. of the church was possibly the infirmary. The S.E. has cellars, stores, and offices. First Pointed work is also found at the churches of _Deer_; _Auchindoir_; _St. Cuthbert's, Monkton_; _St. Nicholas, Prestwick_; _Altyre_; _St. Mary's, Rattray_; _Abdie_; _St. Ninian's on the Isle_; _St. Colmanel's, Buittle_; _Cockpen_; _Pencaitland_; _Gogar Font_. _Middle Pointed or Decorated Architecture._--_New Abbey_ or _Sweetheart Abbey_ (Cistercian), Kirkcudbrightshire, was dedicated to the Virgin. It was called New Abbey because it was founded a considerable time after Dundrennan, which was regarded as the old abbey. The founder was Devorgilla, daughter of Allan, Lord of Galloway, wife of John Baliol of Castle Barnard in Yorkshire, and mother of King John Baliol. When her husband died in 1269, Devorgilla had his heart embalmed and placed in an ivory coffin, which she carried about with her; at her death it was buried with her in a grave in front of the abbey high altar, hence the touching name of Sweetheart Abbey. She endowed the abbey, founded Balliol College, Oxford, and built the bridge over the Nith at Dumfries, portions of which still survive. The abbey suffered much last century, but it has since been well cared for, and is in good preservation. Few of our ancient churches are so well preserved, and the ruins represent a period of Scottish Gothic of which not many examples survive. The conventual buildings have been almost entirely demolished, but the church is complete, although the roof is gone, and the walls are much damaged. It comprises a nave with two side aisles, a choir without aisles, N. and S. transepts (with eastern chapels opening off them), and a square tower over the crossing. The precinct--a level field of about 20 acres--surrounds the abbey, and is still partly enclosed with a strong wall, built with large blocks of granite. _Melrose Abbey_ (p. 184). _Lincluden College_, Kirkcudbrightshire, was founded anew about the end of the 14th century by Archibald, the Grim, who expelled the nuns. It was a frequent residence of the Earls of Douglas, and consisted of choir separated from nave and transept by stone screen with wide doorway. The choir is aisleless, consisting of three bays; the nave had three bays with a window in each, and aisle on S. side. The architecture is of great beauty. _Fortrose Cathedral_ (p. 52). _Crossraguel Abbey_ (Cluniac), Ayrshire, was founded by the Earl of Carrick and dedicated to St. Mary. The last abbot, Quentin Kennedy, in 1562 held a famous dispute with John Knox at Maybole. The abbey was much associated with the Bruces. In 1570 occurred the cruel "roasting of the abbot." George Buchanan received a pension out of the abbey revenues, and King James intended to restore it as a residence for his son Henry. The abbey ruins comprise, with the remains of the church, cloisters, and usual buildings, an outer court to the S.W. with picturesque gate-house, pigeon-house, and domestic buildings. The church is a simple oblong with choir and nave, without aisles and transepts. _St. Giles'_, Edinburgh (p. 89). _St. Michael's_, Linlithgow (p. 105). _St. Monans_, Fifeshire, derives its name from St. Monanus, a missionary of the 8th century, who suffered martyrdom by the Danes on the Isle of May. The original chapel was replaced about 1362 by the present edifice, which suffered much at the hands of the English, and has been altered. It consists of chancel, N. and S. transepts, with tower and spire over the crossing, and is still used as the parish church. It is picturesque and interesting. _Whithorn Priory_ (p. 56). _St. Mary's_, Haddington (p. 107). _Fearn Abbey_ (Premonstratensian), Ross-shire, was founded during the reign of Alexander II. Of it there now only remain a part of the church, and the ruins of some structures attached to it. The church is a simple oblong, and part of it is still used as the parish church. _Balmerino Abbey_ (Cistercian), Fifeshire, was founded in 1229 by Ermengard, widow of William the Lion, and her son Alexander II. Ermengard was buried in the church before the high altar; she was a liberal benefactress, and her son was a frequent visitor at Balmerino. Bishop Leslie ascribes the demolition of the abbey in 1559 to "certain most worthless men of the common people," for the damage of 1547, when Admiral Wyndham "bornt the abbey with all thyngs that were in it," seems to have been much repaired. The abbey buildings are now in a ruinous state, only the chapter-house, with the erections adjoining it, being at all well preserved. To the E. of the chapter-house are the ruins of the abbot's house. The church is situated, as the mother church at Melrose, on the S. of the cloister, and consisted of nave with S. aisle, transepts with the usual eastern aisle, and short presbytery without aisles. _St. Bride's College_, Bothwell (p. 77). _Temple Church_, Mid-Lothian; _the Chapel in Rothesay Castle_; _St. Bride's_, Douglas, Lanarkshire; _St. Duthus'_, Tain, Ross-shire; _St. Peter's_, Inverkeithing, Fife; _St. Devenic's_, Creich, Fife; _Faslane Church_, Argyleshire; _the Monument of Sir W. Olifurd_, Aberdalgie, Perthshire, also embody architecture of this period. _Third or Late Pointed Period._--_Paisley Abbey_ (p. 148). _Dunkeld Cathedral_ (p. 35). _Iona Cathedral_ (p. 60). _St. Machar's Cathedral_ (p. 37). _Trinity College Church_, Edinburgh, was situated on the W. side of Leith Wynd, and founded by Mary of Gueldres, Queen of James II., in 1462. It was a very fine specimen of Scottish Gothic architecture of the 15th century, and consisted of a choir with N. and S. aisles, a five-sided apse, N. and S. transepts, with the commencement of a tower over the crossing and N. sacristy. The nave was never erected--the arch having a circular window inserted in it. It was the church of Trinity College Parish till 1848, when it was removed to make way for the railway station. The new church is in many details an exact reproduction of the corresponding features of the original building. _St. John's, Perth_ (p. 108). _Dundee Church_ (p. 113). _Glenluce Abbey_ (Cistercian), Wigtownshire, was founded in 1190 by Roland, Lord of Galloway; the chapter-house is the only portion of the abbey in good preservation. _Torphichen Church_, Linlithgowshire, represents the hospital or preceptory of Torphichen, from 1153 the principal Scottish residence of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. Of the cruciform church, the chancel and nave are entirely gone, and there is only left a portion of the transept or "quier." The modern church is on the site of the nave. _St. Anthony's Chapel, Edinburgh_--"Sanct Antonis in the crag"--stands conspicuous from the Firth of Forth, and was perhaps chosen with the intention of attracting the notice of seamen coming up the Firth, who, in cases of danger, might be induced to make vows to its tutelary saint. There is a fine spring of clear water close to the site, which may have led to the establishment of the hermitage there. Wall remains survive. _Rosslyn Church_ (p. 85). _Dunglass Collegiate Church_, Haddingtonshire, is cruciform, and a deserted but complete edifice. The choir and tower may have been built in 1403, the nave after 1450. It was founded by Sir Alexander Home of Home. _Foulis-Easter Church_, Perthshire, is a simple, oblong structure without buttresses or projections of any kind; is well preserved and most interesting. It was built by Andrew, second Lord Gray. _St. Salvador's, St. Andrews_ (p. 102). _Dalkeith Church_ (Mid-Lothian) was constituted collegiate in the 15th century, and consists of a nave of three bays with aisles, N. and S. transepts, a W. tower, and aisleless choir of three bays with E. apse. Part is used as the parish church. _St. Mungo's, Borthwick_ (Mid-Lothian) has been rebuilt, with the exception of the S. aisle or chapel, and the structure has originally been a Norman one, with aisleless nave, choir, and round E. apse. _Ladykirk, Berwickshire_, is very complete and almost unaltered. It is situated on the high N. bank of the Tweed, and is said to have been built in 1500, and dedicated to St. Mary by James IV. in gratitude for his delivery from drowning by a sudden flood of the Tweed. It is a triapsidal cross church, without aisles, with an apsidal termination at the E. end of the chancel and at the N. and S. ends of the transept. The body of the church and transepts are covered with pointed barrel vaults, with ribs at intervals springing from small corbels, and the whole is roofed with overlapping stone flags. The upper part of the tower has been rebuilt, the lower part being of the same date as the church, which is still the parish church. _Seton Collegiate Church_, Haddingtonshire, probably rebuilt about the close of the 15th century, was added to by the second Lord Seton when he made the church collegiate in 1493, and was completed by the third Lord Seton. The transepts, tower, and spire would appear to have been erected by the Dowager Lady Seton in the 16th century, after her husband's death at Flodden. _Arbuthnott Church_, Kincardineshire, is an interesting and picturesque structure, containing work of three distinct periods. The chancel was dedicated in 1242, and the nave may be in part of the same period. The S. wing or aisle was built by Sir Robert Arbuthnott in the end of the 15th century. The quaint W. end represents a combination of the ecclesiastical and domestic architecture of Scotland. The church has been well restored; the Arbuthnott Missal with the Psalter and office were written for the use of this church by the vicar, James Sybbald, about 1491. _King's College, Aberdeen_ (p. 80). _Church of the Holy Rood, Stirling_ (p. 114). _St. Mary's Parish Church, Whitekirk_, Haddingtonshire, was a great place of pilgrimage, and was visited among others by Pope Pius II. (Æneas Sylvius), who came to render thanks to the Virgin for his safe landing in Scotland. The church is on the plan of a cross without aisles; the choir is vaulted with a pointed barrel vault, and the roof is slated. Over the crossing is a square tower, finished with a plain parapet; the E. end is square, and there is a fine porch at the S.W. angle. The S.W. porch is one of the most striking features of the structure, and its interior is roofed with pointed barrel vaulting, having ribs springing from carved corbels. Third or late Pointed architecture is also found at _Crichton Collegiate Church_, Mid-Lothian; _Corstorphine Collegiate Church_, Mid-Lothian; _Crail Collegiate Church_, Fife; _Mid-Calder Church_, Mid-Lothian; _St. Mary's Church of the Carmelite Friars_, South Queensferry, Linlithgowshire; _Yester Collegiate Church_, Haddingtonshire; _Tullibardine Collegiate Church_, Perthshire; _Maybole Collegiate Church_, Ayrshire; _Biggar Collegiate Church_ (p. 77); _Carnwath Collegiate Church_, Lanarkshire; _St. Mary's Collegiate Church, Castle Semple_, Renfrewshire; _Church of the Franciscans or Greyfriars, Elgin_, Morayshire, and at _Aberdeen_; _Rowdil Priory_ (Augustinian), Harri, Inverness-shire; _Oronsay Priory_ (Augustinian), Argyleshire. Examples of Scottish mediæval architecture are also to be found in the following churches, arranged alphabetically by counties. _Aberdeenshire_:--Kinkell, Kintore, Leask. _Argyleshire_:--Ardchattan and St. Mund's Collegiate Church, Kilmun. _Ayrshire_:--Alloway, Old Dailly, and Straiton. _Banffshire_:--Cullen Collegiate Church, Deskford, and Mortlach. _Berwickshire_:--Church of Abbey St. Bathans (Cistercian Nuns), Bassendean, Cockburnspath (an ancient structure), Preston. _Buteshire_:--Church of St. Mary's Abbey, Rothesay. _Dumbartonshire_:--Dumbarton Collegiate Church and Chapel at Kirkton of Kilmahew. _Dumfriesshire_:--Canonby Priory (Augustinian), Kirkbryde, St. Cuthbert's, Moffat; Sanquhar. _Fifeshire_:--Carnock, Dysart, Kilconquhar, Kilrenny, Rosyth, Dominican Church, St. Leonard's (p. 116), Holy Trinity (p. 117), St. Andrews. _Forfarshire_:--Airlie, Invergowrie, Mains, Maryton, Pert, St. Vigean's. _Haddingtonshire_:--Church of Trinity Friars, Dunbar, and Keith. _Kincardineshire_:--St. Palladius' Church, Fordoun. _Kirkcudbrightshire_:--Old Girthon. _Lanarkshire_:--Blantyre Priory (Augustinian), and Covington. _Linlithgowshire_:--Auldcathie. _Mid-Lothian_:--St. Triduan's Collegiate Church, Restalrig. _Peeblesshire_:--Newlands, Churches of Holy Cross and St. Andrew, Peebles. _Perthshire_:--Aberuthven; St. Moloc, Alyth; St. Mechessoc, Auchterarder; Cambusmichael; Abbey of Coupar (Cistercian); Dron Church, Longforgan; Ecclesiamagirdle or Exmagirdle, Glenearn; Forgandenny; Abbey of Inchaffray (Augustinian); Innerpeffray (Collegiate); Kinfauns; Methven (Collegiate); Moncrieff Chapel; Wast-town (near Errol). _Renfrewshire_:--Houston, St. Fillan's, and Kilmalcolm. _Selkirkshire_:--Selkirk. _Wigtownshire_:--St. Machutus' Church, Wigtown. Mediæval architecture terminated with the Reformation in 1560. In closing this necessarily brief record of our ancient Scottish churches, a word must be added on the Scottish Reformation. It was the aim of Knox to cleanse, not to destroy the temple, and the iconoclasm that followed was the work of the "rascal multitude," while many of the churches and abbeys were ruined by the attacks of the English before the Reformation, as the previous pages indicate. The old builders, too, did a great deal of what is now known as "scamped work," although it was partly counteracted by the excellence of their lime and the thickness of their walls. The real cause of the subsequent destruction was _neglect_, not violence, while the secularising of the old endowments alienated into other channels the means that were necessary to undo the effects of wind and weather. As Carlyle said, "Knox wanted no pulling down of stone edifices; he wanted leprosy and darkness to be thrown out of the lives of men," and it is known that he exerted himself to save the Abbey of Scone from destruction. In the case of Dunkeld Cathedral, the order makes it quite clear that neither desks, windows, nor doors, glass work nor iron work, was to be destroyed (pp. 36, 37). The aim of the reformers was at heart an endeavour to make the old temples fit symbols of the reformed faith, and the iconoclasm of the multitude is not to be attributed to them, but to the ignorance and savagery of the time, for which the Church of Rome was primarily to blame. It was this that lessened church feeling and separated the power of truth from the beauty of holiness. It is our privilege to-day to seek the unity of truth and goodness with beauty, to maintain the faith of the Reformation along with that beauty of church architecture which, in its brighter days, the old church witnessed to. It is a one-sided view which sees in Gothic nothing but the development of utility or the endeavour to attain greater height; it is the true view which beholds in it the ideality, piety, and faith that possessed the hearts of our forefathers. The architect's design could never have been realised apart from their offerings of devotion to the Christian religion. When Emerson visited Carlyle at Craigenputtock, the latter, pointing to the parish church, said to his American friend, "Christ's death built Dunscore Church yonder." It is a deep, true utterance, for Christ's death has built every church in Christendom, and these embodiments of beauty not least of all. In this light we see what is at the heart of these ancient Scottish churches, and what has created the affection that treasures them. The ruined walls of so many of them ought to have been the home of the reformed faith, life, and work, linking the present to the past by natural piety, and visibly reminding the worshippers of the church that endureth throughout all generations. The present revival of interest in them is like a new-discovered sense, and is undoing the spoliation and neglect of an age subsequent to the Reformation, and for which the Scottish Reformers are not to blame. Theirs was no easy work, and history has vindicated its results in the progressive genius of the Scottish people. The Reformation saved religion, but the alienation of the religious endowments to secular purposes, often by unworthy hands, is the chief cause of the ruins which tell of a beauty that has left the earth, and it has deprived the Church of so many of its venerable heirlooms. Otherwise there might have been said of the Scottish as was said of the English Reformation that but for it there would have been little Norman or Early English left in the cathedrals, for it just came at a time when the early styles were being pulled fast down to make room for the later.[479] It was the Scottish Reformers' aim to make all the churches parish churches, and each church the centre of the life and work of each parish. Their grievance against monasticism arose from the corrupt lives of the monks and from its intrusion on the parochial system with the alienation of the parish teinds to the use of the monastery. But the idea of _a church in the centre of a residence_, is one not without suggestiveness to the life of to-day, with its many activities, as a training home for workers; as a temporary retreat for rest, meditation, and prayer to the hard-wrought ministers in the city parishes; as a place for conference on the religious problems; as a theological hall and settlement for divinity students, like that at Loccum near Hanover, where a reformed mediæval monastery, free from vows, and in the full vigour of its life, is used as a college and residence for the students of the Reformed Church, and where the old monastic church is used as the parish church for the people around. To visit Loccum and see it presided over by the venerable Protestant theologian, Dr. Ullhorn, with its garden, grounds, and farm, its church and cloisters, its great library and residence for professors and students, is to be persuaded of the rich possibilities that lie within the reach of the Scottish Church in the restoration of some of its ruined abbeys. The saintly Leighton felt the need of this, and thought "the great and fatal error of the Reformation was, that more of these houses and of that course of life, _free from the entanglements of vows and other mixtures_, was not preserved; so that the Protestant churches had neither places of education nor retreat for men of mortified tempers."[480] The Reformed Church would thereby purify a great idea, and if it be true, as the late Master of Balliol asserted, that it is the great misfortune of Protestantism never to have had an art or architecture,[481] it can restore and adopt the old architecture that was the creation of the Christian spirit, amid the leisure of the cloister and in times more restful than our own. APPENDIX DEFINITION OF LEADING ARCHITECTURAL TERMS[482] _Abacus_--the flat member at the top of a capital. _Apse_--the semicircular space at the end of a building. _Arcade_--a series of arches; is usually applied to the small ornamental arches only. _Barrel vault_--resembling the inside of a barrel. _Bead_--a small round moulding. _Boss_--a projecting ornament in a vault at the intersection of the ribs. _Canopy_--the head of a niche over an image; also the ornamental moulding over a door or window or tomb. _Capital_, _cap_--the head of a column, pilaster, etc. _Chamfer_--a sloping surface forming the bevelled edge of a square pier, moulding, or buttress, when the angle is said to be chamfered off. _Chevron_--an inflected moulding, also called zigzag, characteristic of Norman architecture. _Clere-story_ or _clear-story_--the upper story of a church, as distinguished from the triforium or blind story below it, in which the openings, though resembling windows, are usually blank or blind, not glazed. _Corbel_--a projecting stone to carry a weight, usually carved. _Crocket_--an ornament usually resembling a leaf half opened, and projecting from the upper edge of a canopy or pyramidal covering. The term is supposed to be derived from the resemblance to a shepherd's crook. _Crypt_--a vault beneath a church, generally beneath the chancel only, and sometimes used for the exhibition of relics. _Cusp_--an ornament used in the tracery of windows, screens, etc., to form foliation. _Dormer_--an upright window placed on a sloping roof, giving light to the chambers next the roof. _Fillet_--a small square band used on the face of mouldings. _Finial_--the ornament which finishes the top of a pinnacle, a canopy, or a spire, usually carved into a bunch of foliage. _Flying buttress_--an arch carried over the roof of an aisle from the external buttress to the wall of the clerestory, to support the vault. _Gargoyle_--a projected water-spout, often ornamented with grotesque figures. _Jambs_--the sides of a window opening or doorway. _Mullion_--the vertical bar dividing the lights of a window. _Ogee_--a moulding formed by the combination of a round and hollow. _Pier arches_--the main arches of the nave or choir resting on piers. _Pinnacle_--a sort of small spire usually terminating a buttress. _Piscina_--a water-drain in a church placed on the right-hand side of an altar for the use of the priest. _Plinth_--the projecting member forming the lower part of a base or of a wall. _Shaft_--a small, slender pillar usually attached to a larger one, or in the sides of a doorway or window. _Slype_--a passage leading from the transept to the chapter-house. _String-course_--a horizontal moulding or course of masonry, usually applied to the one carried under the windows of the chancel, both externally and internally. _Tooth ornament_--an ornament resembling a row of teeth, sometimes called dog's tooth and shark's tooth. _Transept_--the portion of a building crossing the nave and producing a cruciform plan. _Transition_--the period of a change of style, during which there is frequently an overlapping of the styles. _Transom_--the transverse horizontal piece across the mullions of a window. _Triforium_ or blind story--the middle story of a large church, over the pier arches and under the clerestory windows; it is usually ornamented by an arcade, and fills the space formed by the necessary slope of the aisle roofs. _Tympanum_--the space between the flat lintel of a doorway and the arch over it, usually filled with sculpture. THE END. _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh._ * * * * * THE SCOTT COUNTRY By W. S. CROCKETT [Illustration] _In One Volume. Large Crown 8vo, Cloth. Containing about 200 Illustrations._ _Probable price 3s. 6d. net._ Mr. W. S. Crockett's book on "The Scott Country" will tell the story of the famous Borderland and its undying associations with Sir Walter, its greatest son. His early years at Sandyknowe and Kelso will be sketched by one who is himself a native of that very district. Scott's first Border home at Ashestiel, and the making of Abbotsford, the Ettrick and Yarrow of Scott, the memories that cluster round Melrose, the district of Hawick, and the country of "Marmion," will all have a place in the work. Not a spot of historic and romantic interest but will be referred to all along the line of Tweedside and its tributaries from Berwick to the Beild. The Border country of Scotland has already been the subject of a very extensive literature, but the "Scott Country" being presented upon a more compact and comprehensive plan than has yet been attempted, will, we feel sure, be a source of satisfaction to every reader, whether Border-born or not. To the Scott abroad the volume will recall many a familiar memory, and at home it should take its place as a standard work of its kind, the author being, according to Dr. Robertson Nicoll and others, perhaps the most capable living student of the Border and its literature. The "Scott Country" will have close on 200 illustrations, many of them quite new; and the price is such as to bring it within the reach of all. A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON. * * * * * NEW POCKET EDITION. =HORÆ SUBSECIVÆ= BY JOHN BROWN, M.D., LL.D., ETC. [Illustration] CLOTH, GILT TOP, 2/- net EACH VOLUME. LIMP LEATHER, 2/6 net EACH VOLUME. _New Edition. In Three Volumes. 6-1/4 × 4-1/4 inches. Printed on thin Bible paper and bound uniform with Black's NEW POCKET EDITION WAVERLEY NOVELS. Volume I. contains a photogravure frontispiece of a portrait of Dr. John Brown, by Sir George Reid, P.R.S.A._ * * * * * =Some Appreciations of Dr. John Brown and his Books.= =WILLIAM ARCHER.=--"How came it that no one ever told me it was a thing unique in literature, the autobiography--yes, that is the word--of one of the most wonderful children, and quite the most adorable, that ever lived?... Never has so brief a piece of printed matter affected me so profoundly." (This refers to the story of "Pet Marjorie.") =W. E. GLADSTONE.=--"My estimate of Dr. John Brown was particularly high. It is easy and obvious to say he was a clever man and a good man, but this is only part of the truth, and he stood, I think, both in the intellectual and the moral order, much higher than these words of themselves convey." =ANDREW LANG.=--"Three volumes of essays are all that Dr. Brown has left us in the way of compositions; a light but imperishable literature.... No man of letters could be more widely regretted, for he was the friend of all who read his books, as even to people who only met him once or twice in life he seemed to become dear and familiar." =Professor DAVID MASSON.=--"Yes, many long years hence, when all of us are gone, I can imagine that a little volume will be in circulation, containing 'Rab and his Friends,' etc.; and that then readers now unborn, thrilled by that peculiar touch which only things of heart and genius can give, will confess to the same charm that now fascinates us, and will think with interest of Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh." =ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.=--"Marjorie Fleming I have known, as you surmise, for long. She was possibly--no, I take back possibly--she was one of the greatest works of God." A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON. * * * * * FOOTNOTES: [1] Skene's _Celtic Scotland_, vol. ii. pp. 365, 366. [2] _Mediæval Architecture_, vol. i. p. 8. [3] _Ibid._ pp. 8, 9, 26. [4] _Ibid._ p. 145. [5] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. pp. 1, 2. [6] _Ibid._ [7] _Eccles. Arch. of Scot._ vol. i. pp. 1, 2. [8] _Ibid._ pp. 175-190. [9] _Ibid._ p. 28. [10] _Ibid._ p. 28. [11] _Ibid._ p. 178. [12] _Eccles. Arch. of Scot._ vol. i. p. 191. [13] _Ibid._ p. 192. [14] _Ibid._ [15] _Eccles. Arch, of Scot._ vol. i. pp. 387, 388. [16] _Ibid._ pp. 46, 47. [17] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 1. [18] _Ibid._ p. 3. [19] _Ibid._ vol. i. p. 50. [20] _Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals_, pp. 68, 69. [21] _Ibid._ p. 70. [22] _Eccles. Arch. of Scot._ vol. ii. p. 332. [23] _Ibid._ vol. i. p. 57. [24] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. pp. 1-7. [25] _Ancient Church and Parish of Abernethy_, p. 95. [26] _Pictish Chronicle_, p. 201. [27] _Amra Columcille_, pp. 29, 63. [28] _Celtic Scotland_, vol. ii. pp. 136, 137. [29] Scott's _Marmion_. [30] _Celtic Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 274. [31] _Celtic Scotland_, vol. ii. pp. 309, 310. [32] _Scotichronicon_, bk. iv. c. 12. [33] _Reg. Pri. S. And._ App. p. xxxi. [34] Reeves's _British Culdees_, p. 41. [35] _Church of Scotland: Past and Present_, vol. ii. pp. 309, 310. [36] _Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals_, p. 34. [37] _Chronicle of the Picts and Scots_, p. 191. [38] Lecture II. p. 24. [39] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 190. [40] _Ibid._ p. 186. [41] Petrie's _Round Towers and Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_. [42] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. pp. 6-8. [43] _Ibid._ p. 6 [44] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 16. [45] _Ibid._ p. 19. [46] _Ibid._ p. 26. [47] _Celtic Scotland_, vol. ii. pp. 184, 185. [48] _Celtic Scotland_, ii. p. 186. [49] _Historians of Scotland_, v. p. lxxxix. [50] Vol. i. pp. 3-5. [51] Sir James Marwick's _Charters and Documents relating to the City of Glasgow_, part i. p. dxxiii. [52] Preface to _Register_, p. xxiv. [53] Messrs. MacGibbon and Ross and Honeyman, architects. [54] _The Book of Glasgow Cathedral_, p. 229. [55] _Ibid._ [56] _The Book of Glasgow Cathedral_, p. 231. [57] _Ibid._ p. 274. [58] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, ii. p. 160. [59] _Book of Glasgow Cathedral_, p. 232. [60] _Registrum Epis. Glas._ p. xxiv. [61] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, ii. p. 161. [62] _Ibid._ [63] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, ii. p. 161. [64] _Book of Glasgow Cathedral_, p. 267. [65] _Eccles. Arch. of Scotland_, ii. p. 161. [66] _Ibid._ pp. 161, 162. [67] _The Book of Glasgow Cathedral_, p. 324. [68] See Professor Laurie's _Lectures_, pp. 136, 137. [69] _Book of Glasgow Cathedral_, pp. 292-302. [70] _Theiner_, p. 505; _Reg. Epis. Glasg._ ii. 470-473, 543, 544. [71] _Book of Glasgow Cathedral_, p. 265. [72] MacGibbon and Ross, vol. ii. p. 162. [73] _Ibid._ [74] See p. 23. [75] _Book of Glasgow Cathedral_, p. 108. [76] _Ibid._ p. 277. [77] _Book of Glasgow Cathedral_, p. 291. [78] _Ibid._ p. 305. [79] _Ibid._ p. 317. [80] _Ibid._ p. 304. [81] Sir James Marwick's _Charters and Documents of Glasgow_, part i. p. xli. [82] Dr. Rankin, vol. ii. p. 315. [83] _Registrum Episcopatus Glasguensis._ [84] Complete list in _Book of Glasgow Cathedral_, pp. 190-197. [85] Sir James Marwick's _Charters_, part. i. p. dxxiv. [86] _Ibid._ p. v. [87] _Book of Glasgow Cathedral_, pp. 375, 376. [88] _Ibid._ p. 244. [89] _Mediæval Architecture_, vol. ii. p. 200. [90] _Book of Glasgow Cathedral_, p. 252. [91] MacGibbon and Ross, vol. ii. p. 172. [92] _Book of Glasgow Cathedral_, pp. 239, 240. [93] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 165. [94] _Celtic Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 405. [95] _Ibid._ p. 408. [96] Myln's _Lives of the Bishops of Dunkeld_, p. 38. [97] _Ibid._ p. 44. [98] Myln's _Lives of the Bishops of Dunkeld_, p. 46. [99] _Ibid._ p. 56. [100] _Ibid._ p. 66. [101] _Scoti-Monasticon_, pp. 216, 217. [102] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 31. [103] _Ibid._ p. 47. [104] _Registrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis_, p. x. [105] _Ibid._ [106] _Celtic Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 379. [107] _Reg._ p. xi. [108] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 75. [109] _View of the Diocese of Aberdeen_, p. 148. [110] _Ibid._ p. 163. [111] _Ecclesiastical Architecture_, vol. iii. p. 75. [112] _Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals_, p. 75. [113] _Ibid._ [114] Preface to _Register_, pp. xlii., xliii. [115] _Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals_, p. 75. [116] _Collections of the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff_, p. 150. [117] P. 104. [118] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, p. 77. [119] _Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals_, p. 76. [120] _View of the Diocese of Aberdeen_, p. 151. [121] _Ibid._ p. 152. [122] _Registrum Episcopatus Moraviensis_, p. xii. [123] _Celtic Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 369. [124] _Registrum_, pp. xiii and 40. [125] _Ibid._ p. xiii. [126] _Ibid._ [127] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 121. [128] P. xiii., No. 26. [129] _Register_, No. 173, p. 204. [130] _Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals_, p. 52. [131] _Ecclesiastical Architecture_, vol. ii. pp. 122, 123. [132] _Ibid._ p. 125. [133] _Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals_, p. 50. [134] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 145. [135] _Life_, vol. ii. p. 437. [136] _Celtic Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 397. [137] _Ibid._ [138] _Ibid._ [139] Preface to the Brechin _Register_, p. vi. [140] _Celtic Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 400. [141] _Ibid._ pp. 400, 401. [142] Dr. Rankin's _History_, vol. ii. p. 328. [143] _Celtic Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 309. [144] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 209. [145] Miss Stokes, _Early Christian Architecture_, p. 73. [146] _Scotland in Early Christian Times_, p. 45. [147] _Ordnance Gazetteer_, vol. i. p. 187. [148] _Early Christian Architecture in Ireland_, p. 5. [149] _Scotland in Early Christian Times_, p. 41. [150] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 213. [151] _Ibid._ p. 212. [152] _Ibid._ [153] Black's _Brechin_, pp. 253, 254. [154] Preface to _Register_, p. xvii. [155] _Celtic Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 402. [156] _Catalogue of the Scottish Bishops_, p. 174. [157] Reeves' _British Culdees_, p. 141. [158] MacGibbon and Ross, vol. ii. p. 86. [159] _Ibid._ vol. i. p. 174. [160] _Ibid._ vol. ii. p. 89. [161] _Lib. Ins. Missarum_, preface, p. xxix. [162] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 92. [163] _Ibid._ [164] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 102. [165] _Edinburgh Lectures._ [166] Keith's _Scottish Bishops_, pp. 177-180. [167] MacGibbon and Ross, vol. ii. p. 107. [168] Keith's _Scottish Bishops_, p. 175. [169] _History of His Own Times_, vol. ii. p. 243. [170] _The Bishop's Walk_, p. 7. [171] _Regist. de Dunf._, p. 3. [172] Reeves' _Culdees_, p. 46. [173] _The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 395. [174] _Ibid._ p. 399. [175] Mr. Neale. [176] His diary for 1571 is published in the _Bannatyne Miscellany_, vol. iii. pp. 113-156. [177] Keith's _Scottish Bishops_, p. 198. [178] Cosmo Innes's "Records of the Bishopric of Caithness," _Bannatyne Miscellany_, vol. iii. p. 3. [179] _Celtic Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 383. [180] _Orig. Par._ vol. ii. part ii. p. 601. [181] _Transactions of the Aberdeen Ecclesiological Society_ (1892), p. 36. [182] _Transactions of the Aberdeen Ecclesiological Society_ (1892), p. 40. [183] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 482. [184] _Ibid._ p. 485. [185] _Ibid._ p. 486. [186] _Celtic Scotland_, vol. i. p. 69. [187] _Ibid._ vol. ii. p. 408. [188] Dr. Rankin, vol. ii. p. 350. [189] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 265. [190] _Celtic Scotland_, vol. ii. pp. 83, 84. [191] _Ibid._ p. 85. [192] _Celtic Scotland_, vol. ii. pp. 85-102. [193] They were thence taken to Ireland. [194] _Iona_, pp. 84, 85. [195] _Celtic Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 414. [196] _Register of the Great Seal_ (1634-1651), p. 708, No. 1903; _Origines Parochiales_, vol. ii. part i. p. 294. [197] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 49. [198] _Ibid._ pp. 57-59. [199] _Ibid._ p. 74. [200] _Transactions._ [201] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 421. [202] _Ibid._ p. 426. [203] Cf. Drummond's _West Highland Monuments_. [204] _Celtic Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 92. [205] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 266. [206] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. pp. 266-273. [207] _Ibid._ p. 273. [208] Dr. Joseph Robertson's _Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals_, p. 39. [209] Dr. Joseph Robertson's _Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals_, p. 40. [210] MacGibbon and Ross's _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. pp. 259-262. [211] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 273. [212] _Ibid._ pp. 273-275. [213] _Ibid._ p. 276. [214] _Ibid._ p. 277. [215] _Ibid._ [216] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 278. [217] _Ibid._ p. 279. [218] _Ibid._ p. 280. [219] _Ibid._ [220] _Ibid._ [221] _Ibid._ p. 282. [222] _Ibid._ [223] _Ibid._ p. 284. [224] _Ibid._ [225] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 288. [226] _Ibid._ p. 289. [227] _Ibid._ p. 290. [228] _Tennyson: A Memoir_, vol. ii. p. 280. [229] Vol. iii. pp. 181-196. [230] Dr. Cooper's Introduction to _Chartulary_, pp. xxv.-xxvi. [231] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 426. [232] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. pp. 427, 428. [233] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 431. [234] _Records of the University and King's College, Aberdeen_, p. xv. [235] _Collections of the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff_, p. 210. [236] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. pp. 287-289. [237] _Ibid._ p. 295. [238] _Transactions of the Aberdeen Ecclesiological Society_, sixth year (1891), p. 63 _et seq._ to p. 76. [239] _Sermons and Addresses_, p. 29. [240] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 151, also to p. 179. [241] _St. Giles, Edinburgh, Church, College, and Cathedral_, p. 1. [242] Of the early church, which stood on the site of the present _St. Cuthbert's_, Edinburgh, Dr. Skene has declared that "there is no doubt the church was founded by S. Cuthbert himself," and so there has been Christian worship there for over 1200 years (Rev. Dr. A. Wallace Williamson's paper in _Aberdeen Ecclesiological Transactions_, ninth year, p. 114). [243] _Charters of the Collegiate Church of St. Giles_, p. iv. [244] _Ibid._ [245] Dr. Lees' _St. Giles, Edinburgh_, p. 3. [246] Introduction to _Charters_, p. v. [247] _Ibid._ p. vi. [248] _St. Giles_, p. 4. [249] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 419. [250] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 420. [251] _Ibid._ [252] _Ibid._ p. 422. [253] _Ibid._ [254] _Ibid._ [255] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 425. [256] Dr Lees' _St. Giles_, p. 23. [257] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 426. [258] _Ibid._ [259] Introduction to _Charters_, p. xiv. [260] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 430. [261] Introduction to _Charters_, p. xv. [262] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 434. [263] _Ibid._ p. 436. [264] No. 77, p. 106. [265] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 441. [266] Dr. Laing's Introduction to _Charters_, p. xxx. [267] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 445. [268] _Ib._ p. 446 [269] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, pp. 445-449. [270] Intro. to _Charters_, p. xix. [271] Dr. Lees' _St. Giles_, p. 273. [272] Dr. Lees' _St. Giles_, p. 117. [273] _Ibid._ pp. 124, 125. [274] Calderwood's _History_, vol. iii. pp. 73, 257. [275] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 454. [276] _St. Giles_, p. 262. [277] Very Rev. Dr. Cameron Lees. [278] _St. Giles_, p. 270. [279] _Ibid._ p. 214. [280] Rankin, vol. ii. p. 361. [281] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 199. [282] _Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals_, p. 36. [283] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. pp. 298-309. [284] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. pp. 313, 314. [285] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 455. [286] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, pp. 455-470. [287] Fergusson's _History of Architecture_, vol. ii. p. 222. [288] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 493. [289] Hay's _Sacra Scotia_, p. 323. [290] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 109. [291] Rev. John Fergusson of Aberdalgie in _Scottish Antiquary_, January 1897, p. 137. [292] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 116. [293] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 116. [294] _Ibid._ p. 121, and Lord High Treasurer's Accounts. [295] _Ibid._ p. 122. [296] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 125. [297] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 132. [298] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 330. [299] _Ibid._ p. 138. [300] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 450. [301] _Ibid._ p. 450 [302] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 451. [303] _Ibid._ [304] _Ibid._ [305] Professor Mitchell's _Scottish Reformation_, p. 96. [306] _The Works of John Knox_, vol. i. p. 228. [307] _Sketches of Early Scotch History_, p. 10. [308] _Ibid._ p. 11. [309] _Ibid._ p. 18. [310] _Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals_, p. 27. [311] _Modern Painters_, vol. i. p. 23. [312] _Ibid._ vol. iii. p. 44. [313] _Ibid._ vol. v. p. 206. [314] _Oxford Lectures_, p. 27. [315] Montalembert's _Monks of the West_, vol. ii. pp. 40, 41. [316] The Augustinian order had also monasteries at Scone, Inchcolm, Lochleven, Isle of May, and Pittenweem, Blantyre, Cambuskenneth, Restennet, Canonby, and Inchaffray, as well as smaller houses at Loch Tay, Portmoak, Monymusk, St. Mary's Isle Priory at Trail, Rowadil, Oronsay, Colonsay, Inchmahome, Rosneath, Strathfillan, Scarinche, Abernethy (Perthshire); the _Premonstratensian_ order had also abbeys at Saulseat, Holywood, Whithorn, Tongland, Fearn; the _Benedictine_ order had also abbeys at Coldingham and Urquhart; the _Cluniacensian_ order had also abbeys at Crossraguel, Fail, and Dalmulin; the _Tyronensian_ order had also abbeys at Lesmahagow, Kilwinning, Lindores, Iona, and smaller houses at Dull, Fyvie, Inchkenneth, Rothesay (St. Mary's); the _Cistercian_ order had also abbeys at Newbattle, Dundrennan, Kinloss, Deir, Cupar, Glenluce, Culross, Balmerino, Sweetheart, and smaller houses at Saddel, Friars Carse (near Dumfries), Hassendean, Mauchline, Cadvan (in Dunbog), and Holm Cultram; the _order of Vallis Caulium_ had priories at Pluscardine, Beauly, and Ardchattan; the _Carthusians_ had houses at Perth and Makerstone (Roxburghshire). There were 14 religious houses belonging to the Trinity Friars, 12 to the Carmelites, 18 to the Dominicans, 7 to the Franciscans, 13 to the Observantines, 6 to the Knights of Malta, 16 to the Knights Templars. [317] _Scottish Ordnance Gazetteer_, vol. vi. p. 300. [318] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 54 _et seq._ to p. 72. [319] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 68. [320] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 71. [321] _Ibid._ pp. 71, 72. [322] Gordon's _Monasticon_, p. 156. [323] Gordon's _Monasticon_, p. 158. [324] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 401 _et seq._ to p. 414. [325] _Ibid._ p. 403. [326] Gordon's _Monasticon_, p. 254. [327] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 448. [328] _Monasticon_, p. 324. [329] _Ibid._ p. 340. [330] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 451 _et seq._ to p. 464. [331] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 462. [332] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 464. [333] Introduction to _Registrum de Dunfermlyn_, p. 25. [334] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 231. [335] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 231. [336] Introduction to _Registrum_, p. 25. [337] _Monasticon_, p. 404. [338] _Registrum_, p. 25. [339] _Monasticon_, pp. 411, 412. [340] _The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 234. [341] _Ibid._ pp. 234, 238. [342] _Ibid._ p. 238. [343] _Ibid._ [344] _Ibid._ [345] _Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals_, pp. 33, 34. [346] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 238. [347] _Ibid._ p. 241. [348] _Ibid._ [349] _Ibid._ [350] _Ibid._ p. 242. [351] Lindsay's _Chronicle of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 555. [352] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 245. [353] _Ibid._ [354] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. pp. 246-249. [355] _Ibid._ pp. 251, 252. [356] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. pp. 252-254. [357] _History_, vol. i., year 1303-1304. [358] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 254. [359] See p. 144. [360] _Ecc. Arch. of Scot._ vol. i. pp. 254-256. [361] _The Abbey of Paisley_, pp. 1, 2. [362] _Scotland in the Middle Ages_, p. 114. [363] _Historical Sketches_, p. 109. [364] _The Abbey of Paisley_, pp. 26, 27. [365] Kingsley's _Roman and Teuton_, pp. 204-206. [366] _The Abbey of Paisley_, pp. 58, 59. [367] _Ibid._ p. 63. [368] _Ibid._ p. 65. [369] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 8. [370] _The Abbey of Paisley_, p. 91. [371] _Ibid._ p. 91. [372] _The Abbey of Paisley_, p. 96. [373] _Ibid._ p. 109. [374] _The Abbey of Paisley_, p. 117. [375] _Ibid._ p. 120. [376] Page 19. [377] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 8. [378] _The Abbey of Paisley_, p. 142. [379] _A Scots Mediæval Architect_, by P. MacGregor Chalmers, pp. 14, 15 (Scots Lore). [380] _The Abbey of Paisley_, pp. 144, 145. [381] _The Abbey of Paisley_, pp. 159, 160. [382] _Ibid._ p. 165. [383] _The Abbey of Paisley_, p. 205. [384] See Laing's _Knox_. [385] _The Abbey of Paisley_, pp. 228, 229. [386] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. pp. 10-26. [387] _Ibid._ p. 13. [388] _Ibid._ [389] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 16. [390] _Ibid._ [391] _Ibid._ [392] _Ibid._ [393] _Ibid._ p. 21. [394] _Ibid._ [395] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 21. [396] _The Abbey of Paisley_, p. 166. [397] _Ibid._ p. 209. [398] _Ibid._ [399] _The Abbey of Paisley_, pp. 211, 212. [400] _Ibid._ p. 212. [401] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. iii. pp. 25, 26. [402] _Ibid._ p. 168. [403] _The Abbey of Paisley_, p. 214. [404] _The Abbey of Paisley_, p. 215. [405] _Ibid._ p. 206. [406] _Ibid._ p. 337. [407] _Ibid._ p. 338. [408] _Ibid._ [409] _The Abbey of Paisley_, p. 339. [410] _Ibid._ p. 340. [411] Introduction to _Reg. Cart. de Kelso_, i. p. viii. [412] _Ibid._ [413] _Ibid._ p. xli. [414] _Ibid._ pp. viii-xvi. [415] _Ibid._ p. xliv. [416] Introduction to _Reg. Cart. de Kelso_, pp. xliii, xliv. [417] _Roxburgh, Selkirk, and Peebles_, by Sir George Douglas, Bart., pp. 284, 285. [418] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. pp. 350-352. [419] _Ibid._ p. 352. [420] Introduction to _Chartulary_, p. xlix. [421] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. pp. 353-361. [422] _Ibid._ [423] _Ibid._ [424] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. pp. 356, 357. [425] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. pp. 357, 358. [426] _Ibid._ p. 359. [427] _Ibid._ p. 360. [428] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. pp. 360, 361. [429] _Ibid._ p. 361. [430] _Ibid._ [431] Hay's _History of Arbroath_, p. 27. [432] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 31. [433] _Sketches of Early Scotch History_, p. 161. [434] _Ibid._ [435] _Ibid._ p. 171. [436] _Sketches of Early Scotch History_, p. 159. [437] _National Manuscripts_, part ii. [438] See Principal Story's _Apostolic Ministry in the Scottish Church_, p. 197. [439] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. pp. 31-35. [440] _Ibid._ pp. 35-37. [441] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 39. [442] _Ibid._ pp. 39-41. [443] _Ibid._ p. 41. [444] _Ibid._ [445] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. pp. 43-45. [446] _Ibid._ p. 45. [447] _Ibid._ pp. 46, 48. [448] _Ibid._ p. 48. [449] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 50. [450] Millar's _Arbroath and its Abbey_, p. 103. [451] Pp. xxxi, xxxii. [452] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 347. [453] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 377. [454] _Ibid._ p. 349. [455] _Ibid._ p. 351. [456] _Ibid._ [457] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. pp. 353, 356. [458] _Ibid._ p. 356. [459] _Ibid._ pp. 356, 357. [460] Messrs. MacGibbon and Ross consider it probable that a fragment of the original north wall may have been preserved as the core of the present wall, and faced up on both sides with newer work (_Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. pp. 360, 361). [461] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 361. [462] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 362, 363. [463] _Ibid._ p. 366. [464] _Ibid._ [465] _Ibid._ [466] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 372. [467] _Ibid._ p. 373. [468] _Ibid._ [469] _Ibid._ [470] _Ibid._ p. 374. [471] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. pp. 373, 374. [472] _Ibid._ p. 375. [473] _Ibid._ [474] _Ibid._ p. 377. [475] As given in Monteith's _Theater of Mortality_ (1713)--earliest and most accurate reference. [476] _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 378. [477] See _Scots Lore_, Nos. 1-7. [478] In this summary I am specially indebted to the _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland_, vol. i. pp. 175-477, vol. ii. pp. 5-559, vol. iii. pp. 7-533. The statements are much compressed on account of the limitations of the space at my disposal. [479] _Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett_, vol. ii. pp. 72, 73. [480] _Burnet's History of my Own Time_ (Clarendon edition), vol. i. p. 246. [481] _Life and Letters_, vol. ii. p. 71. [482] Cf. Parker's _Introduction to Gothic Architecture_, 321-331; also _Glossary of Architecture_, vol. i. 
36552	----	Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 36552-h.htm or 36552-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36552/36552-h/36552-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36552/36552-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See http://www.archive.org/details/yorkminster00cust [Illustration: York Minster] YORK MINSTER by The Very Rev. A. P. PUREY-CUST, D.D. Dean of York Illustrated by Alexander Ansted London: Isbister & Co. Ltd. 15 & 16 Tavistock Street Covent Garden MDCCCXCVII York Minster "Ut rosa flos florum sic est domus ista domorum" are the words which some unknown hand has inscribed upon the walls of our Minster; and we who love the habitation of His house and the place where God's honour dwelleth venture to think that these are "words of truth and soberness" even now, though we remember that when they were written there were many features of art and taste adorning the great fabric which have long since passed away. Still York Minster is "a thing of beauty" in spite of ruthless improvements and fanatical zeal and Puritan Philistinism and indiscriminating utilitarianism and ignorant restorations. In spite of these, and in consequence of these perhaps, York Minster is what it is; and if we cannot recall all that tradition tells us once adorned its courts and enriched its sanctuaries, we can admire and appreciate what has come into our hands, and thank God that it is our privilege to worship in a house so worthy of His holy name. Yes, and it is a pleasure and interest to recall the gradual development thereof through so many generations of men; how it has come up like a flower, from a very small and insignificant beginning, putting forth gradually, as time went on, larger developments, like the seed, first the blade then the ear; extending like the vine of old her branches unto the sea and her boughs unto the river--each with some fresh and characteristic novelty, as affected by the different schools of architectural taste, which, like the different seasons of the year, have shed their influence over it. And we love to idealise the scenes which have taken place therein, and the persons, many not unknown to history, who have had their share in the good work or whose lives and actions are associated therewith, or to recall how, sometimes in accordance with, sometimes in opposition to, what they most earnestly desired, it, at length, far eclipsed the most sanguine anticipations of its founders, and in its sober dignity and chastened ornamentation acquired a reputation second to none of "the Houses of God in the land." It is, of course, a mere speculation, but fancy will sometimes be busy with vain surmises as to whether the present Minster is a development of the original British church, a mere grain of mustard seed, no doubt, as compared with its aftergrowth. But some primitive building did exist, for, as far back as the year 180, Beda tells us, missionaries were sent from Rome by Eleutherius at the request of the British chieftain Lucius, not for the conversion of the people, but to settle controverted points of differences as to Eastern and Western ceremonials which were disturbing the Church, and tradition speaks of twenty-eight British bishops, one for each of the greater British cities, over whom presided the Archbishops of London, York and Caerleon-on-Usk. So that the Romans probably found a Christian Church already established when Agricola took possession of Eburacum, towards the close of the first century after Christ's birth, and probably tolerated it with proud indifference for many generations until the great persecution of Diocletian in 294, when Constantius Chlorus, one of his associates in the empire, was in command, who, Eusebius says, was nevertheless most liberal and tolerant; though Beda tells us of numbers of martyrs and confessors, and how churches were thrown down, while trembling believers fled for refuge to the wilderness and the mountains. But certainly Constantius professed himself favourable to Christianity in 305, when he divided the empire with Galerius, and, after reigning for a few months, died, and his body was probably burnt and buried here. Here, at York, his son, Constantine, if not born, was saluted as Imperator by the army on his father's death, and eventually deliberately adopted the Christian faith. [Illustration: West Front] This would lead us to expect that favour would be shown to the Christian Church, and tradition has handed down the names of several prelates of York about this date: Eborius, who was present with two others at the Councils of Arles, 314, and Nicæa and Sardica and Ariminium; Sampson, who was driven out of the city by the incursion of Pagans and fled to St David's; Pyramus, Chaplain of King Arthur, that last tower of British strength, and charged by him to restore the desolated and ruined churches; and finally Tadiocus, who, when he saw the armies of Saxons pouring in, joined Theonus, Bishop of London, and fled to Wales, whither, as the Saxons did not tolerate Christianity, they were followed by all those who desired to keep the faith in peace. However, in 597, Augustine landed at Ebbsfleet in Kent, and eventually converted and baptized Ethelbert, King of Kent, who had married Bertha, daughter of the Frankish king, Charibert, and in 601, Pope Gregory, with a desire to assist Augustine in his work amongst the Anglo-Saxons, sent over Paulinus, as a likely person, should occasion offer, to resuscitate the desolated Church of Northumbria, and restore the Metropolitan See of York. It is said that "Paulinus" was the Latin title assumed by Rum, the son of Urien, a British chief, who having opposed the Saxons in the north had, on their supremacy, fled with his family from the country and sought safety at Rome, and that, therefore, Augustine having endeavoured in vain to persuade the British clergy in Kent to co-operate with him, Gregory selected Paulinus as likely to be a useful coadjutor to him in the evangelisation of Kent. Subsequent events, perhaps unexpectedly, favoured this plan, for Edwin, the legitimate heir to the throne of Northumbria, being driven away by his brother-in-law, Ethelfrith, who had usurped the crown, sought for security and protection in other kingdoms, and, in his wanderings, came to the court of Ethelbert, where he became fascinated by Ethelburga, his daughter, and sought her for his wife. Assent was given on condition that she, being a Christian, should be allowed Christian worship, and that he would consider the faith. This he promised to do, and Redwald, King of East Anglia, having slain Ethelfrith in a battle near the sluggish waters of the river Idle, Edwin was restored to his inheritance, and proceeded to take possession of his kingdom accompanied not only by his wife but by Paulinus as her chaplain, who had been consecrated Bishop of the Northumbrians by Justus on July 21st, 625. For two years Edwin remained uninfluenced alike by the entreaties of his wife and the arguments of the bishop, but at length gave way, and on Easter day, April 12th, 627, he was baptized in a little church or chapel of wood, hastily constructed at his bidding, and dedicated to St. Peter, right in front of the great heathen temple in the centre of his capital, Eburacum. Nothing is left of this primitive structure, but the well is still pointed out from which the water used at the ceremony was drawn, and a little beyond is a flight of stone stairs ending in a square stone slab which tradition says were the steps and altar of the temple. There are still traces, however, of the stone church which Archbishop Albert built in its place (741), when it had been greatly injured by fire. Part of the herring-bone walls is still to be seen, and after the great fire in 1829, Brown, the antiquary, successfully traced out the foundations, which, however, are now concealed. However, it remained uninjured, in spite of incursions of Picts and Scots, until the Conquest, when it shared in the universal destruction meted out by the Conqueror to York and the surrounding country; and Thomas, the first Norman archbishop, found little left but a few tottering roofless walls which had survived the flames. He re-roofed and restored the church as well as he could, rebuilt the refectory and dormitory, and in other respects set in order the affairs of the establishment. And so it remained until Roger de Pont l'Evêque succeeded to the archiepiscopate in 1154. Langfranc, on his accession to the See of Canterbury in 1073, had found the cathedral of Christ Church, of which Eadmer has left a curious record, almost consumed by fire; but in seven years he succeeded in rebuilding the whole church from the foundation on the plan and dimensions of St. Stephen's at Caen, the abbacy of which he had quitted to become archbishop. A detailed and singularly precise account by Gervase, the monk, is still extant. On the death of Lanfranc, 1089, the see was bestowed on Anselm, who as soon as possible took down the short choir and replaced it with one extending magnificently eastward, provided with a crypt, an apsidal aisle, a processional path with flanking towers, called St. Anselm's and St. Andrew's towers, and radiating chapels, as well as with eastern transepts, all which was, in fact, an imitation of the great Abbey of Cluny, entrusting the superintendence of the work to the priors Ernulph and Conrad, eventually his successor, who, in 1114, completed the choir with so much magnificence that it was denominated "the glorious choir of Conrad." All this, however, was destroyed by fire in 1174, which Gervase himself witnessed, but in four years was restored and even improved by the great French architect William of Sens. In 1154, when Archbishop Fitzherbert died at York, this fair building must have been in the zenith of its beauty, and we can well imagine the anxiety of Robert the Dean and Osbert the Archdeacon to secure the election by the Chapter of Roger, who had been Archdeacon of Canterbury from 1148, and who had no doubt already given promise of that architectural ability and liberality of character which eventually made him the most munificent ruler that ever presided over the See of York. Becket succeeded him in the archdeaconry until 1162, when, elevated to the See of Canterbury, the two quondam archdeacons of Canterbury were at the very helm of the Church of England. [Illustration: Norman Piers in Crypt] Roger seems at once to have commenced the reproduction at York of this great work, by substituting for the short simple chancel of the Minster a complex eastern building which, making due allowance for its want of equal dimensions with Canterbury choir, was yet evidently planned on the same system, with the aisles square ended instead of apsidal, and the flanking towers made to perform the part of eastern transepts. Of this choir, portions only of the crypt still survive. The base of the beautiful western entrance doorway to the north aisle can still be seen by adventurous explorers. The ordinary visitor can still admire the substantial and elaborately incised columns, which once supported the floor of the choir above, and see the arches, with the bold zigzag mouldings, which once rested on them, but which were removed in the days of Edward I. to support a stone platform behind the high altar, on which was erected the shrine of William Fitzherbert, then canonised as "St. William of York," to provide for the northern province a counter-attraction to St. Thomas of Canterbury. If the arches were replaced on the piers the pavement of the choir would be 15½ feet above the pavement of the crypt, within 6 inches of that of Canterbury, and if the present nave floor were reduced 4 feet to its original level, the respective levels of the nave, crypt, and choir at York and Canterbury would be the same. No doubt the arrangement of the different flights of steps from the nave to the choir and to the crypt, broken in the centre aisle with a broad landing which still remains at Canterbury, was followed at York. But all this has passed away, and the feature of the "glorious choir" of Roger can now only be realised from the conjectures of the archæologist or the dreams of the antiquary. [Illustration: The Choir looking East] But there were munificent laymen as well as ecclesiastics in those days, for Lord William de Percy gave the church of Topcliffe, with all things pertaining, to the church of St. Peter at York, as a perpetual alms for the repairing and building thereof, a gift which still remains in the possession of the Dean and Chapter; and he and his successors continued to assist the development of the Cathedral with munificent contributions of wood until the completion of the nave, when his statue was placed, to commemorate his liberality, above the west door, on the right hand of Archbishop Melton, the Metropolitan at that time. On his left stands another figure commemorating equally liberal benefactors: Mauger le Vavasour, who gave a grant of free way for the stone required for the foundation of the Minster by Archbishop Thomas; his son, Robert le Vavasour, also gave 10 acres and half a rood of his quarry in Thievesdale in free, pure and perpetual alms; and their descendants, in like manner, presented almost all the material required for the present buildings, even as late as the great fire in 1829, when Sir Edward Vavasour, although a Roman Catholic, at once placed his quarries at the service of the Dean and Chapter for the restoration of the choir. Fancy would fain idealise the choir of Roger, which has passed away, for the superstructure to such substantial and dignified masonry as still remains must have been solemn and imposing. Professor Willis suggests a choir the floor of which was raised 15 feet above the floor of the nave, and transepts with eastern towers approached by flights of steps such as still exist at Canterbury, but the learned professor had few reliable data for his conjectures, and it must remain a conjecture _usque ad finem_. Geoffrey Plantagenet, who succeeded Roger, had not the opportunity, even if he had the will and capacity, to extend the buildings of the Minster. The youngest child of fair Rosamond, the lawful wife, historians now tell us, of Henry II., he was at least a loving son. On his breast his father died, to him the King gave his royal ring, and on his head with his last dying breath he invoked the blessing of heaven. But if his dutiful conduct caused the warm-hearted members of the Chapter to elect their Treasurer Archbishop, it did not conciliate either of his half-brothers, Richard and John. Sixteen years of incessant discord ensued, and then he gave place to one more capable of his position, Walter de Gray. But the Chapter did not at first think so. He was not one of themselves; they knew little of the Bishop of Worcester, and what they knew they disliked. He was, in their eyes, an illiterate person. Simon de Langton was more to their mind. But Walter de Gray was King John's friend, and John was not a man to be thwarted. He meant him to be Archbishop, and his representatives persuaded Pope Innocent III. to overrule the election of the Chapter. At least, he was a man of pure life, they said. "Per sanctum Petrum," replied the Pope, "virginitas magna est virtus, et nos eum damus vobis." And certainly posterity has had no reason to regret his decision. The glorious early English transepts and tower are believed to have been his conception, vast beyond anything which had been erected in those days, and, as the late Mr. Street has often told me, after all his experiences on the Continent, unsurpassed in Christendom. Walter de Gray, at least, completed the south transept, "in boldness of arrangement and design, and in richness of decoration without a peer." And there his body rests in the grave which received all that was mortal of him on the vigil of Pentecost, 1255, still surmounted with the effigy of the great man in full canonicals carved in Purbeck marble, under a comely canopy resting on ten light and graceful pillars, hidden, alas! by a crude and modern screen of iron, the well-intentioned addition of Archbishop Markham some eighty years ago. [Illustration: South Transept and Founder's Tomb] And Providence had associated with Walter de Gray one worthy of such a fellowship, John le Romain, the treasurer of the church, an Italian ecclesiastic who, tradition says, smitten with the charms of some dark-eyed beauty of the South gladly associated himself with the clergy of the Church where celibacy, at that day at least, was not _de rigueur_. He it was who completed the great work his superior had commenced, raised, at his own expense, the great tower, built the north transept, designed "the Five Sisters," and filled it with the exquisite grisaille geometrical glass, which has been the admiration of successive generations for six hundred years. How much Walter de Grey laid out in the erection of the transepts I cannot say: I only know that the South Transept cost £23,000 to restore fifteen years ago. In addition to his work on the material fabric of the Minster, Archbishop Walter de Grey achieved that which had a substantial influence on its progress to its completion. Archbishop Roger had initiated the great work, but had died in his bed, and his influence had died with him. Thomas à Becket, his successor as Archdeacon of Canterbury, had also advanced to the dignity of the archiepiscopate, but he had fallen a victim to his zeal for the Church spiritual, and his martyrdom and canonisation had entailed a shrine in the Cathedral which was eliciting from innumerable pilgrims munificent offerings for the fabric of the church. If York were to compete with Canterbury it was necessary that here, too, a shrine of some popular saint should attract the presence of the devout, and appeal to their munificence and liberality. This also Walter de Grey, supported as he was by the king, was able to accomplish, and in compliance with a petition from the Archbishop and Dean and Chapter, Pope Honorius, on March 18th, 1226, issued a letter, "tied with thread of silk and a Bull," to the effect that the name of William (Fitzherbert) of holy memory, formerly Archbishop of York, nominated by them for this honour, the predecessor of Archbishop Roger, was "inscribed in the catalogue of the Saints of the Church Militant." Little, however, seems to have been done during the archiepiscopates of Sewell de Bovell, Geoffry de Ludham and Walter Gifford. However, in 1279, William de Wykewayne, Chancellor of the Church, was elected to the see, and he at once took action by translating the remains of the canonised William, on December 29th, to a becoming shrine prepared for them behind the high altar on a platform raised upon the arches of the crypt removed to this, their present, position, for that purpose. It was a grand day in the Minster. Edward I. himself, together with the bishops who were present, carried on their shoulders the chest or feretory containing the precious relics to their new resting-place, and Anthony Beck, consecrated the same day Bishop of Durham, paid all the expenses. In 1286, Archbishop Wykewayne died, and was succeeded by another, John Romanus, the worthy son of the munificent treasurer, who had doubtless inherited the taste and munificence of his father. Perhaps for that very reason the Chapter selected him, when only Prebendary of Warthill in the church, to be his successor, and his ten years of office, if too short to do much, was sufficient to initiate the great work of building a nave consistent with the transepts. Another style of architecture was setting in, the Decorated, and where could it be better inaugurated than in such a church as this? For one hundred and fifty years the good work went on. Four prelates in succession, Henry de Newark, Thomas de Corbridge, William de Greenfield, William de Melton, each, during his tenure of office, strove to promote the completion of the grand design his predecessor had indicated, in that full perfection of ecclesiastical architecture. No effort was spared, no personal self-denial evaded; clergy and laity alike shared in the enthusiasm of the moment, the Plantagenet kings, for the most part resident in York, by offerings and by influence, encouraging and stimulating the good work. Archbishop Melton contributed many thousands of pounds from his own purse, and had the privilege of seeing the grand conception completed; and there he sits above the central doorway graven in stone in his archiepiscopal attire, with his hand still raised in the attitude of benediction; over his head one of the finest flamboyant windows in the world, and on either side the representatives of the houses of Vavasour and Percy, bearing in their arms emblems of the wood and stone which they had offered. [Illustration: The Chapter House showing Vestibule Exterior] And concurrently with the great work, another, in perfect harmony therewith, was proceeding, viz. the Chapter House, with its great circumference occupied with stalls, surmounted by elaborate and delicate canopies, enriched with innumerable quaint and suggestive carvings of heads and features, some as warnings, some as encouragements, to those who have eyes to see, and of graceful foliage of trefoil and other plants, specially the _planta benedicta_, which illustrated the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the love of God, girdled with a simple yet emblematical wreath of the vine; while the varied foliage rises again in the glass, bordering the noble windows, rich with heraldry and sacred subjects, until lost in the stately roof, which, spanning the whole area without any central column, and once glowing with emblematical figures and stars, is centred with a majestic boss of the Lamb of God. Alas that Willement ever essayed to restore it, scraped the paintings from the walls, plastered the ceiling, repaired the floor, and ruined the east window which he had taken to pieces and found himself incompetent to put together again! Still, though but the survival of its ancient glories, it is "the flower of our flowers," the focus of all the beauties which in their wanton profusion extend on all sides around us. Who built it? Who conceived this stately hall, with this elegant vestibule unique in the cloisters of Europe? Who furnished the funds by which it was founded and completed? Well, if conjecture may supply what faith or modesty may have left unexpressed, Bogo de Clare, for the shields in the tracery point to that family. He, an ecclesiastical courtier nearly related to the royal family, and a not altogether worthy scion of the House of Clare, but wealthy beyond all conception with the plurality of his benefices, which the late Chancellor Raine estimated at about £20,000 per annum, was treasurer of the Minster from 1274 to 1285. A man probably not likely to do much to promote the devotion of the Minster, though ready to devote the vast accumulation of money which he had acquired to exalt the glories of the house of which he was a member, and, for the time at least, the reputation of his name. Melton's days closed under the dark shadow of his defeat at Myton by the Scotch, and Zouche, Dean of York, his successor, though he wiped off the stain thereof by his triumphant victory over them at Nevill's Cross, and took care of Queen Philippa and her children during the absence of Edward III. in his French wars, did little to promote the material dignity of the Minster, save to build the chapel which bears his name, and which he had intended for a place of sepulture for himself. But Thoresby, a Yorkshireman from Wensleydale, and a Prebendary of the Minster, his successor in 1352, Bishop of Worcester and Lord Chancellor, was a man of very different temperament. He had the further development of the glories of the Minster thoroughly at heart. At once he sacrificed his palace at Sherburn to provide materials for an appropriate Ladye Chapel, gave successive munificent donations of £100 at each of the great festivals of the Christian year, and called on clergy and laity alike to submit cheerfully to stringent self-denial to supply the funds. [Illustration: Chapter House doorway from within] During his tenure of office of twenty-three years the Ladye Chapel was completed, a chaste and dignified specimen of Early Perpendicular style, into which the Decorated gradually blended after the year 1360, and unique in its glorious east window 78 feet high and 33 feet wide, still the largest painted window in the world, enriched with its double mullions, which give such strength and lightness to its graceful proportions. But Roger's choir, which was still standing, must now have looked sadly dwarfed between the lofty Ladye Chapel and the tower and transepts. Alexander Nevill, his immediate successor, probably did not do much to remedy this, for he soon became involved in Richard II.'s rash proceedings, and had to fly to Louvain, where he died in poverty. Neither did Arundel or Waldby, his successors, for the former was soon translated to Canterbury, the latter soon died. But Richard Scrope, who was appointed in his place, would naturally be earnest and vigorous in the good work, for he was a Yorkshireman by birth, son of Lord Scrope of Masham, kinsman of Lord Scrope of Bolton, and, during the short nine years which elapsed between his installation and his wanton, cruel murder by Henry IV., the building seems to have made rapid progress. This was energetically continued by Henry Bowet, who followed him, and who, invoking the aid of Pope Gregory XII. to enforce his appeal for funds, and enlisting the aid of Skirlaw, Bishop of Durham, one of the greatest architects of mediæval times, glazed the great East window with its elaborate glass executed by John Thornton of Coventry, 1409, raised the lantern on the central tower, completed the groining of the choir aisles, rebuilt Archbishop Zouche's chapel, the treasury and vestry, and commenced the library. He was indeed a man of action to the end, for when incapacitated for walking or riding by age and infirmity, he was carried in his chair, arrayed in a breastplate with three buckles, five pendants, and ten bars of silver gilt, at the head of the forces raised by the wardens of the North of England, and through the influence of his presence, encouraged the soldiers to rout the Scotch who had invaded Northumberland and besieged Berwick, 1417. [Illustration: The Lady Chapel] Little now remained to be done. Robert Wolvedon and John de Bermyngham, two munificent treasurers in succession, helped to bring matters to a prosperous conclusion, the former filling some of the windows with painted glass, the latter raising the south-western tower. The north-western tower was added probably during the archiepiscopate, if not by the munificence, of Archbishop George Nevill. The organ screen, with its elaborate cornice and canopies enriched with angels singing and playing instruments of music, and its stately niches filled with figures of the Kings of England, from William I. to Henry VI., was built by Dean Andrew, himself the friend and secretary of the last-named monarch. And the great church was solemnly reconsecrated as a completed building on July 3rd, 1472, when an ordinance was passed by the Dean and Chapter that "on the same day the feast of the Dedication shall be celebrated in time to come." [Illustration: Perpendicular Piscina] I have no space to dwell on all the innumerable details of architectural ornament or quaint mediæval devices which decorate the walls, neither on the many interesting monuments scattered throughout the aisles, such as the delicate piscinas, or the Fiddler, a modern reproduction of an old figure which had crowned the little spiral turret of the south transept, intended as a portrait of Dr. Camidge, the organist, at the beginning of this century; or the tomb of good Archbishop Frewen, the first prelate of the Province after the Restoration. [Illustration: The Fiddler] But even a sketch of York Minster would not be complete without some mention of the glass, for if the beauty in the form of our "flos florum" is due to its architecture, very much of its beauty in colour depends on the glowing and mellowed tints with which its windows are filled. But it is a large subject to enter upon, for as regards quantity there are no less than one hundred and three windows in the Minster, most of them entirely, and the remainder partly filled with real old mediæval glass, excepting the tracery. Some of the windows too are of great size. The east window, which is entirely filled with old glass, consists of nine lights, and measures 78 ft. in height, 31 ft. 2 in. in width. The two choir transept windows, that in the north transept to St. William, and the south to St. Cuthbert, measure 73 ft. by 16 ft. They have both been restored, the latter very recently, but by far the greater part of them is old glass. On each side of the choir the aisles contain nine windows measuring 14 ft. 9 in. by 12 ft., only the tracery lights of which are modern; the same number of windows fill the clear-story above, the greater portions of which are ancient. The famous window of the north transept, the Five Sisters, consists of five lights, each measuring 53 ft. 6 in. by 5 ft. 1 in., and is entirely of old glass. There are six windows in the north and six in the south aisles of the nave, with only a little modern glass in the tracery. The superb flamboyant window at the west end of the centre aisle measures 56 ft. 3 in. by 25 ft. 4 in., and consists, I believe, entirely of old glass, except the faces of the figures. The clear-story windows are studded with ancient shields, but a great part of the glass is, I fancy, modern; those of the vestibule, 8 in number, measuring 32 ft. by 18, are of old glass, including the tracery lights. And in the Chapter House the seven windows, of five lights each, are filled with old glass. The east window has been clumsily restored by Willement. In the side windows of the transepts there is some old glass, and the great rose window over the south entrance still retains much of the old glass; while far overhead in the tower there are some really fine bold designs of late, but genuine, design and execution. Altogether, according to actual measurements, there are 25,531 superficial feet of mediæval glass in the Minster, _i.e._, more than half an acre--a possession, we should think, unequalled by any church in England, if not in Christendom. But the difficulty in describing the glass arises from the fact that many of the windows are composed of fragments of glass of different dates, which, for various reasons, perhaps to preserve them, have been interchanged during past generations. The educated eye of the glass painter can detect splendid specimens of every school of glass painting throughout the Minster, but sometimes comparatively small portions isolated in the midst of glass of a totally different period. The Five Sisters window is an almost complete specimen of Early English glass, with an elaborate geometrical pattern formed by the conventional foliage of the _planta benedicta_, but at the foot of the central light there is a panel consisting of distinctly Norman glass, portraying Jacob's dream, or Daniel in the lion's den, for it is indistinct, and critics differ. The suggestion is that this panel formed part of the previous window, in the old Norman transept, and, for some unknown reason, being specially valuable, was preserved and incorporated in its successor. The tracery lights of the vestibule windows are filled with old Norman glass, and the late Canon Sutton was of opinion that the stone tracery had been specially designed to suit it. The clear-story tracery in the nave contains also much Norman glass, probably from the old Norman nave, and in many other windows we can trace similar insertions. [Illustration: Transept, Lantern, and Five Sisters' Window] Sometimes groups of figures may be noticed evidencing, by their utter lack of connection with their environment, that they have been transplanted from some other window. Sometimes a single figure, under a Decorated canopy, stands out in a window of distinctly Perpendicular tracery. Sometimes several of such figures fill separate lights when they have evidently been intended to be together. Sometimes kneeling figures, each of which had been intended to represent the donor of some window, have been brought together in a rather amusing and inharmonious fellowship. Sometimes the whole of some large figure has been removed, and only the outline left, which has been indiscriminately filled up with a patchwork of scraps of all kinds and subjects. This is specially noticeable in the window on the north side of the choir, where the letters R.S., in the bordure, indicate that it had been put up to the memory of Archbishop Scrope; here there are three large outlines of female figures, each with a child in her arms, one of them probably the Virgin, but all detail has been obliterated. Sometimes only a portion of a figure remains, _e.g._, a beautiful and venerable head and shoulders of some grave ecclesiastic in the most delicate mezzotint; or a dignified face with splendid crown and nimbus, and cope and pectoral cross adorning what remains of a saintly figure; or a crowned head, in a maze of painted fragments, around which the initials, E., in the bordure, evidently denote Edward the Confessor. Again, there are legs only, with the water flowing over the feet and the end of the staff which the hands had grasped, evidently the remains of some grand figure of St. Christopher, a very frequent and favourite figure in the church windows of York. Or, again, draped figures of ecclesiastics, complete almost to the hem of their robes, but destitute of feet, which may be discovered in the tracery above, where they have been utilised simply to supply some fracture. Sometimes heads and bodies, which have evidently no real association, are found united together. The former occasionally the work of some modern painter, who had attempted with his own brush to supply what was lacking. This is manifestly the case in the west windows of the central aisle of the nave, where the faces of the archbishops are evidently modern insertions, and in the west window of the south aisle, where a stately figure of our Lord on the Cross, tended by little angels, has been terribly marred by a most repulsive modern face, which has been added. But sometimes the head and body are both mediæval, but sadly incongruous, for male faces are to be found on female shoulders, and delicate crowned heads of virgins or angels on the stalwart bodies of men. And similar confusion exists in many other details: borders of different dates which have been pieced together, or incongruous modern borders which have been devised to make up the space on each side of some smaller window, which has been brought from some other church. Some of the windows, indeed, are almost, if not altogether, perfect. The east window has been patched with pieces of crude coloured glass, but only as repairs, possibly after the great fire in 1829, otherwise it must be very much as put up by John Thornton, 1405; and in its nine lights divided into six tiers, it contains two hundred panels of groups of figures, the two upper tiers being subjects from the creation of the world to the death of Jacob, the remainder from the book of Revelation. The tracery lights of the east window of the north aisle seem to me altogether untouched. [Illustration: The North Aisle] The choir transept windows have been restored, but contain a large portion of the old glass in five lights. That on the north side, erected by some member of the family of de Ros, has one hundred panels of groups of figures illustrating the life of St. William, that on the south, erected by Langley, Bishop of Durham, seventy-five similar panels illustrating the life of St. Cuthbert. The grand series of windows in the vestibule also seems to me absolutely untouched since the day when they were first put up, and, with their figures of kings and queens and borders of Plantagenet badges, contain very striking specimens of the best date of painted glass. The windows on the north aisle of the nave, no doubt erected soon after its completion, are equally perfect, and were probably presented by members of the court of Edward I. The window next to the transept given by Peter le Dene, the court ecclesiastic and tutor of Edward II., when Prince of Wales, has six illustrations of the life and martyrdom of St. Catherine, step-niece of Constantine the Great, and therefore a very acceptable subject to the people of York. It is adorned, moreover, with the shields of the immediate relations of Edward I., while the border of the central light contains figures in tabards emblazoned with the arms of some of the principal nobility of the day. The next window, presented by Richard Tunnoc, the bell-founder, has three illustrations of the entrance of St. William to York, and two of the founding of bells, while peals of gold and silver bells are spread in profusion throughout it, and the worthy bell-founder himself kneels at the foot of the central light presenting his window to the Archbishop. The next window, from its quaint border of birds and animals, seems to be the offering of Brian FitzAlan, Lord of Bedale, who treated with good-humoured banter and ridicule the dilemma caused at the siege of Caerlaverock by banners emblazoned with similar coats of arms being displayed by Hugh Poyntz and himself. And the window beyond was evidently given by some member of the family of Clare. On the opposite side the glass is more mutilated, and it is difficult to trace the subject in some of the windows. One, however, conspicuous with the lions of Edward I. and the castle and dolphin of Blanche of Castile, in compliment to her great grand-daughter, his second wife, is believed to have been presented by Archdeacon de Maulay, when his friend, Anthony Bek, was consecrated Bishop of Durham here in the presence of the king. At the foot of the window the figures of his brothers, gallant knights in those days, bearing their shields above their heads, may be still traced on close examination. Splendid figures of St. Lawrence, St. Christopher, and another fill the lights of the next window. The glass in all the windows is good and probably coeval with the building, though much of the tracery glass is modern and bad, the work of William Peckett, a glass painter of some local repute, who, at the close of the last century, undertook to restore the glass of the Minster. It is difficult to accord the measure of praise and blame to which he was entitled, for certainly, on the one hand, we are indebted to him for preserving many fragments which otherwise would have been lost, and yet, on the other, we cannot but condemn the strange medley of groups and figures, heads and bodies, together with large diapers of bright and coarse designs to fill up vacant spaces, which are evidently his work, and, in some instances, sadly inharmonious with the rest of the window. The single figures in the south window of the south transept are specimens of what he could do, and if lacking in artistic treatment of form and drawing, are not altogether defective in colouring. But we have much to be thankful for, for the elaborate MS. account of the Minster, written by Torre, the antiquary, in the reign of James II., shows us that we have lost very little of what existed in his day; and it is marvellous to think that so much should have survived not only the mistaken zeal of would-be preservers and restorers, but the flames of the terrible fires, one of which consumed the woodwork and roof of the choir in 1829, and the other burnt off the roof of the nave in 1840. We could wish that we knew something more definitely about the glass painters of the Minster. The fabric rolls tell us nothing before the fourteenth century, and are rather tantalising than satisfying afterwards. As early as 1338 Thomas de Boneston covenants by indenture to glaze two windows at his own proper cost, find all the glass, pay the workmen their wages for the finishing thereof, and Thomas de Ludham, the _custos_ of the fabric, became bound to pay him twenty-two marks sterling for the same. Another indenture of the same date was made between Thomas de Boneston and Robert: for making a window at the west gable of the cathedral church, the said Robert is to find all sorts of glass and be paid 6d. per foot for white and 12d. per foot for coloured glass. In Archbishop Melton's register of the same year, the Archbishop pays to Master Thomas Sampson 100 marks for glasswork of the window at the west end of the church lately constructed--_i.e._, the great west window. In 1361 Agnes de Holm leaves 100s. to the fabric for a glass window containing figures of St. James the Apostle and St. Catherine. In 1371 the name of William de Auckland appears as Vitriarius, and it would seem that the Dean and Chapter always maintained such an official, with a working staff to execute what glass might be required. From time to time great stores of glass and lead seem to have been accumulated, and there are constant entries of expenses occurring in wages and materials, _e.g._, white glass for the great windows of the new choir, "coloured glass," "old coloured glass," "glass of small value." In 1400 John Burgh seems to have been the glazier at 27s. 5d. per annum, with Robert, his assistant, at 25s. In 1419 John Glasman, of Ruglay, supplies three sheets of white glass. John Chambre is glazier in 1421. In 1443, Thomas Schirley with his assistant William; Thomas Cartmell in 1444; Matthew Pete with two assistants, Thomas Mylett and William Cartmell, in 1447; Matthew Pete in 1456, when he seems to have employed several assistants, Thomas Clerk, Thomas Shirwynd, Thomas Coverham, William Franklan, Robert Hudson, &c., with much expenditure for "yalow glass," &c.; John Pety, 1472; Robert Pety, 1509, the last member of a family which had long filled the office. Richard Taylor supplies two chests of Rennyshe glass in 1530; William Matthewson, of Hull, twenty-two wisps of Borgandie glass; and in 1538, one cradle of Normandie glass. The indenture with John Thornton for glazing the great east window is still extant; he is to "complete it in three years, pourtray with his own hands the histories, images, and other things to be painted on the same. He is to provide glass and lead, and workmen, and receive four shillings per week, five pounds at the end of each year, and, after the work is completed, ten pounds for his reward." Little enough it seems to us; but the system was very different from that which prevails now; yet certainly the result which it produced justified the system, whatever it was, for, admitting that length of time and atmospheric influences may have toned and mellowed the colouring, there are evidences of craftsmanship in the designing and production of those days, which the best workmen of our own time have been ever ready to acknowledge, and before which they have been willing to pay generous homage. [Illustration: ACCEPTUS FREWEN qui inter vivos esse desijt Mar 28 AD 1664] Truly, at the Reformation, the building must have been "flos florum," enriched with everything which the taste of man could devise or his skill execute. The massive walls, fashioned according to the highest canons of Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular architectural taste, the great windows glowing with painted glass of each successive style, the vast area subdivided by stately screens of carved wood and stone into countless chapels and chantries; shrines glittering with offerings of precious and jewelled metals, and adorned with colour and gilding; the treasury stored, as the fabric rolls tell us, with gold and silver plate in rich profusion; vestments of the most costly fabrics and approved fashions. Exuberant in all that was of the earth earthy; but, I am afraid, sadly lacking in those inward and spiritual graces of which these should have been the outward and visible signs. History may not be impartial, perhaps not altogether accurate, and mixed motives may have animated those who dealt vigorously, not to say ruthlessly, with these things. But too many records remain to show us that "cleansing fires" were needed, and that, however depraved the instruments, however debased their motives, the work which they did was imperative, if Christian faith and life, and the worship of God in spirit and in truth were to flourish and abound in this our fatherland. Nor need we indulge in unavailing regrets. It is impossible not to wish that much which has been ruthlessly destroyed had been spared, and that many things of beauty could be recovered. We could wish that the unhallowed fingers which hesitated not even to rifle the very graves, had been checked, that the fires of 1829 and 1840 had not swept over the choir and nave; but enough survives to gladden eye and heart with the noblest evidences of mediæval work and taste, and tokens on every side abound to testify that, in these latter days, Yorkshiremen have been as ready to repair the decay of age, restore the ravages of fire, and support the glory and dignity of God's house as ever they were in days gone by. We walk about our Zion and go round about her and tell the towers thereof, and they speak to us of a living faith, not of an effete ecclesiasticism or of mere archæological interest. We rejoice that it is still emphatically a house of prayer, not only when "two or three are gathered together," but when its aisles are thronged with a vast multitude, uniting in some special act of prayer and praise, or listening to some eloquent exponent of the Gospel of peace; and "when through the long drawn aisle and fretted vault the pealing anthem swells the notes of praise," we lift up grateful hearts in devout unison, that we are permitted to worship Him in this His house on earth, and desiring that we may be permitted to attain to the "building of God, the house not made with hands eternal in the heavens." [Illustration: Perpendicular Shell-Ornament Piscina] _Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. _London & Edinburgh_ 
10120	----	ENGLAND of my HEART SPRING BY EDWARD HUTTON WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS BY GORDON HOME MCMXIV TO MY FRIEND O.K. INTRODUCTION England of my heart is a great country of hill and valley, moorland and marsh, full of woodlands, meadows, and all manner of flowers, and everywhere set with steadings and dear homesteads, old farms and old churches of grey stone or flint, and peopled by the kindest and quietest people in the world. To the south, the east, and the west it lies in the arms of its own seas, and to the north it is held too by water, the waters, fresh and clear, of the two rivers as famous as lovely, Thames and Severn, of which poets are most wont to sing, as Spenser when he invokes the first: "Sweete Themmes runne softly till I end my song"; or Dryden when he tells us of the second: "The goodly Severn bravely sings The noblest of her British kings, At Caesar's landing what we were, And of the Roman conquest here...." Within England of my heart, in the whole breadth of her delight, there is no industrial city such as infests, ruins, and spoils other lands, and in this she resembles her great and dear mother Italy. Like her, too, she is full of very famous towns scarcely to be matched for beauty and ancientness in the rest of the world, and their names which are like the words of a great poet, and which it is a pleasure to me to recite, are Canterbury, Chichester, Winchester, Salisbury, Bath, Wells, Exeter, and her ports, whose names are as household words, even in Barbary, are Dover, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Falmouth, and Bristol. All these she may well boast of, for what other land can match them quite? But there is a certain virtue of hers of which she is perhaps unaware, that is nevertheless among her greatest delights: I mean her infinite variety. Thus she is a true country, not a province; indeed, she is made up of many counties and provinces, and each is utterly different from other, and their different genius may be caught by the attentive in their names, which are Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, and Berkshire. Her variety thus lies in them and their dear, and let us hope, immortal differences and characteristics, their genius that is, which is as various as their scenery. For England of my heart not only differs fundamentally from every other country of the known world, but from itself in its different parts, and that radically. Thus in one part you have ranges of chalk-hills, such as no other land knows, so regular, continuous, and tremendous withal, that you might think some army of archangels--and such might well abide there--had thrown them up as their vast and beautiful fortifications, being good Romans and believing in the value of such things, and not as the heathen despising them. These chalk downs are covered, as indeed becomes things so old, with turf, the smoothest, softest, and sweetest under the sun. There are other hills also that catch the breath, and these be those of the west. They all bear the beautiful names of home, as Mendip, Quantock, Brendon, and Cotswold. And as there are hills, so there are plains, plains uplifted, such as that great silent grassland above Salisbury, plains lonely, such as the Weald and the mysterious marsh of Romney in the east by which all good things go out of England, as the legions went, and, as, alas, the Faith went too, another Roman thing many hundred years ago. There is also that great marsh in the west by the lean and desolate sea, more mysterious by far, whence a man may see far off the great and solemn mountains of another land. By that marsh the Faith came into England of my heart, and there lies in ruin the greatest of its shrines in loving but alien hands, and desolate. I have said nothing of the valleys: they are too many and too fair, from the fairest of all through which Thames flows seaward, to those innumerable and more beloved where are for sure our homes. I say nothing of the rivers, for who could number them? Yet I will tell you of some if only for the beauty of their names, passing the names of all women but ours, as Thames itself, and Medway, Stour, and Ouse and Arun and Rother; Itchen and Test, Hampshire streams; and those five which are like the fingers of an outstretched hand about Salisbury in the meads, Bourne and Avon and Wylye and Nadder and Ebble; and those of the West, Brue, which is holiest of all, though all be holy, Exe and Barle, Dart and Taw, Fal under the sloping woods, Tamar, which is an eastern girdle to a duchy, and Camel, which kissed the feet of Iseult, and is lost ere it finds the sea. Of the uplifted moorlands which are a part of the mystery of the west, of the forests, of the greenwood, of the meads, of the laughing coast, white as with dawn in the east, darkling in the west, I know not how to speak, for in England of my heart we take them for granted and are satisfied. They fill all that quiet and fruitful land with their own joy and beneficence, and are a part of God's pleasure. Because of them the name of England of my heart might be but Happiness, or--as for ages we have named that far-off dusky Arabia,--Anglia Felix. And yet, perhaps, the chief thing that remains with the mere sojourner in this country of mine, the true Old England, is that in the whole breadth of it, it is one vast graveyard. Do you not know those long barrows that cast their shadows at evening upon the lonely downs, those round tumuli that are dark even in the sun, where lie the men of the old time before us, our forefathers? Do you not know the grave of the Roman, the mystery that seems to lurk outside the western gate of the forgotten city that was once named in the Roman itinerary and now is nothing? Do you not know many an isolated hill often dark with pines, but, more often still, lonely and naked where they lie of whom we are come, with their enemies, and they call the place Battlebury or Danesbury, or for ever deserted like all battlefields it is nameless? If you know not these you know not England of my heart, though you know those populous graveyards about the village churches where the grass is so lush and green and the dead are more than the living; though you know that marvellous tomb, the loveliest thing in all my country, where the first Earl of Salisbury lies in the nave of the great church he helped to build; though you know that wonder by the roadside where Somerset and Wiltshire meet; though you know the beauty that is fading and crumbling in the little church under the dark woods where the dawn first strikes the roots of the Quantock Hills. There is so much to know, and all must be got by heart, for all is a part of us and of that mighty fruitful and abiding past out of which we are come, which alone we may really love, and which holds for ever safe for us our origins. After all, we live a very little time, the future is not ours, we hold the present but by a brittle thread; it is the past that is in our hearts. And so it is that to go afoot through Southern England is not less than to appeal to something greater and wiser than ourselves, out of which we are come, to return to our origins, to appeal to history, to the divine history of the soul of a people. There is a _genius loci_. To look on the landscapes we have always known, to tread in the footsteps of our fathers, to follow the Legions down the long roads, to trudge by the same paths to the same goal as the pilgrims, to consider the silence of the old, old battlefields, to pray in forgotten holy places to almost forgotten deities, is to be made partakers of a life larger and more wonderful than that of the individual, is to be made one with England. For in the quietness of those ancient countrysides was England made by the men who begat us. And even as a man of the Old Faith when he enters one of his sanctuaries suddenly steps out of England into a larger world, a universal country; so we in the earthwork by Thannington or the Close of Canterbury, or upon the hill where Battle Abbey stood, surely have something added to us by the genius of the place, indeed pass out of ourselves into that which is England, a splendour and a holiness beyond ourselves, which cannot die. It is in such places we may best face reality, for they lend to history all its poetry and, as Aristotle knew, there is more truth in poetry than in history. And this, at least to-day, is perhaps the real value and delight of our churches; I mean those great sanctuaries we call Cathedrals which stand about England like half-dismantled castles and remind us more poignantly than any other thing of all we are fain to forget. There are the indelible words of our history most clearly written. Consider the bricks of S. Martin's, the rude stones of the little church of Bradford, the mighty Norman work of Romsey, the Early English happiness of Salisbury, the riches and security of the long nave of Winchester. Do we not there see the truth; can stones lie or an answer be demanded of them according to folly? And if a man would know the truth, let us say, of the thirteenth century here in England, where else will he find any answer? Consider it then, the joy as of flowers, the happiness as of Spring, in that architecture we call Early English, which for joy and happiness surpasses any other in the world. The men who carved those shafts and mouldings and capitals covering them with foliage could not curb their invention nor prevent their hands from beauty and joy. They forgot everything in their delight, even the great logic of design, even to leap up to God, since He was here in the meadows in this garden of ours that He has given us and blest. But these great buildings, scarcely to be understood by us save by the grace of God and now a little lonely too, missing so many of their sisters, and certainly in an alien service, are how much less appealing and less holy than those village churches so humble and so precious that everywhere ennoble and glorify England of my heart. They stand up still for our souls before God, and are to be loved above all I think--and even the humblest of them is to be loved--for the tombs they shelter within and without. More than any Cathedral they touch in us some profound and fundamental mystery common to us all, that is the life and the energy of the Christian soul. They, above all, express England, England of my heart, in them we find utterance, are joined with the great majority and together approach, in their humility, beauty, and quietness, God who has loved us all and given us England therein and thereby to serve Him in delight. They kneel with the hind and now as ever in the name of Our Lord. It is enough. The Cathedrals are haunted by the Old Faith, and by Rome, whose they are: but the village churches are our own. Nor though we be of the Old Faith let us be too proud to salute their humility. They stand admittedly in the service of man, and this at least is admirable in the Church of England of my heart--I mean her humility. To her, unlike Rome, absolute Truth has not been revealed; she is so little sure of anything that she will condemn no man, no, not one of her officers, though he deny the divinity of Christ. She desires only to serve: and if any man, even an atheist, can approach the God he ignorantly denies most easily through her open gates, she will not say him nay, nor deny him, nor send him away. It is her genius. Let us salute its humility. And so I look upon England of my heart and am certain I am of the civilisation of Christ. He hath said, ye shall not die but live-- England blossoms in fulfilment. He hath founded his Church, whose children we are, whether we will or no, and after a far wandering presently shall return homeward. For those words endure and will endure; more living than the words even of our poets, more lasting than the cliffs of the sea, or the rocks of the mountains, or the sands of the deserts, because they are as the flowers by the wayside. Therefore England is not merely what we see and are; it is all the past and all the future, it is inheritance; the fields we have always ploughed, the landscape and the sea, the tongue we speak, the verse we know by heart, all we hope for, all we love and venerate, under God. And there abides a sense of old times gone, of ancient law, of friendship, of religious benediction. E. H. CONTENTS CHAPTER I TO CANTERBURY THE PILGRIMS' ROAD TO DARTFORD CHAPTER II THE PILGRIMS' ROAD TO ROCHESTER CHAPTER III THE PILGRIMS' ROAD--ROCHESTER CHAPTER IV THE PILGRIMS' ROAD TO FAVERSHAM CHAPTER V THE PILGRIMS' ROAD TO CANTERBURY CHAPTER VI THE CITY OF ST THOMAS CHAPTER VII CAESAR IN KENT CHAPTER VIII THE WEALD AND THE MARSH CHAPTER IX RYE AND WINCHELSEA CHAPTER X THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS CHAPTER XI LEWES AND SIMON DE MONTFORT CHAPTER XII THE DOWNS CHAPTER XIII THE WEALD CHAPTER XIV TO ARUNDEL AND CHICHESTER CHAPTER XV CHICHESTER CHAPTER XVI SELSEY, BOSHAM AND PORCHESTER CHAPTER XVII SOUTHAMPTON CHAPTER XVIII BEAULIEU AND CHRISTCHURCH CHAPTER XIX THE NEW FOREST AND ROMSEY ABBEY CHAPTER XX WINCHESTER CHAPTER XXI SELBORNE INDEX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS CHEYNEY COURT AND THE CLOSE GATE, WINCHESTER SHOOTERS' HILL DARTFORD CHURCH AND BRIDGE THE GATEWAY OF THE MONASTERY CLOSE, ROCHESTER ROCHESTER CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL FROM CHRISTCHURCH GATE WEST GATE, CANTERBURY ON THE STOUR NEAR CANTERBURY CHILHAM A CORNER OF ROMNEY MARSH RYE WINCHELSEA CHURCH BATTLE ABBEY LEWES CASTLE THE DOWNS THE WEALD OF SUSSEX, NORTH OF LEWES ARUNDEL CASTLE THE MARKET CROSS, CHICHESTER BOSHAM THE TUDOR HOUSE, OPPOSITE ST MICHAEL'S CHURCH, SOUTHAMPTON IN THE NEW FOREST ROMSEY ABBEY NORTH TRANSEPT, WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL ST CROSS, WINCHESTER SELBORNE FROM THE HANGER ENGLAND OF MY HEART CHAPTER I THE PILGRIMS' ROAD TO CANTERBURY FROM THE TABARD INN TO DARTFORD When I determined to set out once more to traverse and to possess England of my heart, it was part of my desire first of all to follow, as far as might be, in the footsteps of Chaucer's pilgrims. Therefore I sought the Tabard Inn in Southwark. For true delight, it seems to me, a journey, especially if it be for love or pleasure, should always have about it something of devotion, something a little rigid too, and dutiful, at least in its opening stages; and in thus determining my way I secured this. For I promised myself that I would start from the place whence they set out so long ago to visit and to pray at the tomb of the greatest of English saints, that I would sleep where they slept, find pleasure in the villages they enjoyed, climb the hills and look on the horizons that greeted them also so many hundred years ago, till at last I stood by the "blissful martyr's tomb," that had once made so great a rumour in the world and now was nothing. In many ways I came short of all this, as will be seen; but especially in one thing--the matter of time. Chaucer and his pilgrims are generally thought to have spent three and a half or four days and three nights upon the road. It is true they went ahorseback and I afoot, but nevertheless a man may easily walk the fifty-six miles from London to Canterbury in four days. I failed because I found so much to see by the wayside. And to begin with there was London itself, which I was about to leave. It was very early on an April morning when I set out from my home, coming through London on foot and crossing the river by London Bridge. It was there I lingered first, in the half light, as it were to say good-bye. I do not know what it is in London that at long last and in some quite impersonal way clutches at the heart and receives one's eager affection. At first, even though you be one of her children, she seems and for how long like something fallen, calling you with the monotonous, mighty, complaining voice of a fallen archangel, ceaselessly through the days, the years, the centuries and the ages. She is one of the oldest of European cities, she is one of the most beautiful, of all capitals she is by far the most full of character: and yet she is not easy to know or to love. Perhaps she does not belong to us, but is something apart, something in and for herself, a mighty and a living thing, owing us nothing and regarding us, whom she tortures, with a sort of indifference, if not contempt. And yet she is ours after all; she belongs to us, is more perhaps our very likeness and self than the capital of any other people. What is Berlin but a brutalised village, or Paris now but cosmopolis, or Rome but a universe? She is ours, the very gate of England of my heart. For she stands there striding the boundary of my country, the greatest of our cities, the greatest even of our industrial cities--a negative to all the rest. To the North she says Nay continually, for she is English, the greater successor of Winchester, and in her voice is the soul of the South, the real England, the England of my heart. Ah, we have never known her or loved her enough or understood that she is a universe, without the self-consciousness of lesser things or the prepared beauty of mortal places. Indeed, she has something of the character of the sea which is our home, its changefulness, its infinity, its pathos in the toiling human life that traverses it. Almost featureless if you will, she is always under the guidance of her ample sky, responding immediately to every mood of the clouds; and in her, beauty grows up suddenly out of life and is gone e'er we can apprehend it.... But to come into Southwark on a Spring morning in search of Chaucer and the Tabard Inn is to ask of London more than she will give you. It is strange, seeing that she is so English, that for her the living are more than the dead. Consider England, southern England, if you know her well enough, and remember what in the face of every other country of Europe she has conserved of the past in material and tangible things--roads, boundaries, churches, houses, and indeed whole towns and villages. Yet London has so little of her glory and her past about her in material things, that it is often only by her attitude to life you might know she is not a creation of yesterday. It is true the fire of 1666 destroyed almost all, but apparently it did not destroy the Tabard Inn, which nevertheless is gone--it and its successors. Something remained that should have been sacred, not indeed from Chaucer's day but at least from that of the Restoration, something that was beautiful, till some forty years ago. All is gone now; of the old Inn as we may see it in a drawing of 1810, a two-storied building with steepish roofs of tiles, dormer windows and railed balconies supported below by pillars of stone, above by pillars of wood, standing about two sides of a courtyard in which the carrier's long covered carts from Horsham or Rochester are waiting, nothing at all remains. The last of it was finally destroyed in 1875, and the Tabard Inn of the new fashion was built at the corner as we see. The old hostelry, which besides its own beauty had this claim also upon our reverence, that it represented in no unworthy fashion the birthplace as it were of English poetry, owes of course all its fame to Chaucer, who lay there on the night before he set out for Canterbury as he tells us: When that Aprille with his shoures sote The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote.... Bifel that, in that season on a day In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage To Caunterbury with ful devout corage, At night was come into that hostelrye Wel nyne and twenty in a companye Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle In felawshipe, and pilgrims were they alle, That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde; The chambres and the shelter weren wyde, And wel we weren esed atte beste And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste, So hadde I spoken with hem everichon, That I was of hir felawshipe anon And made forward erly for to ryse, To take our wey, there as I yow devyse. It is in these verses lies all the fame of the Tabard, which it might seem was not a century old when Chaucer lay there. In the year 1304 the Abbot of Hyde, near Winchester, bought two houses here held of the Archbishop of Canterbury by William de Lategareshall. The abbot bought these houses in order to have room to build himself a town house, and it is said that at the same time he built a hostelry for travellers; at any rate three years later we find him applying to the Bishop of Winchester for leave to build a chapel "near the inn." In a later deed we are told that "the abbots lodgeinge was wyninge to the backside of the inn called the Tabarde and had a garden attached." Stow, however, tells us: "Within this inn was also the lodging of the Abbot of Hide (by the city of Winchester), a fair house for him and his train when he came from that city to Parliament." Here then from the Inn of the Abbot of Hyde Chaucer set out for Canterbury with those pilgrims, many of whose portraits he has given us with so matchless a power. The host of the inn at that time was Harry Bailey, member of Parliament for Southwark in 1376 and 1379. He was the wise and jocund leader of the pilgrimage as we know, and though Chaucer speaks of him last, not one of the pilgrims is drawn with a livelier touch than he: Greet chere made our hoste us everichon And to the soper sette us anon; And served us with vitaille at the beste, Strong was the wyn, and wel to drinke us leste. A semely man our hoste was with alle For to han ben a marshal in an halle; A large man he was eyen stepe, A fairer burgeys is ther noon in Chepe; Bold of his speche and wys, and wel y-taught, And of manhod him lakkede right naught. Eek therto he was right a mery man, And after soper pleyen he bigan, And spak of mirthe amonges others thinges, Whan that we hadde maad our rekeninges.... A noble portrait in the English manner; there is but one, and that is wanting, we should have preferred. I mean the portrait of Chaucer himself--that "wittie" Chaucer who "sate in a Chaire of Gold covered with Roses writing prose and risme, accompanied with the Spirites of many Kyngs, Knightes and Faire Ladies." For that we must go to a lesser pen, to Greene, who thus describes him in his vision: His stature was not very tall, Lean he was; his legs were small Hos'd within a stock of red A button'd bonnet on his head From under which did hang I ween Silver hairs both bright and sheen; His beard was white, trimmèd round; His countenance blithe and merry found; A sleeveless jacket, large and wide With many plaits and skirts side Of water-camlet did he wear; A whittle by his belt he bear; His shoes were cornèd broad before; His ink-horn at his side he wore, And in his hand he bore a book;-- Thus did this ancient poet look. There is one other personage upon whom indeed the whole pilgrimage depended of whom Chaucer says next to nothing, but we should do wrong to forget him: I mean the "blissful martyr" himself--St Thomas of Canterbury. In old days, certainly in Chaucer's, we should have been reminded of him more than once on our way e'er we gained the Tabard. For upon old London Bridge, the first stone bridge, built in the end of the twelfth century, there stood in the very midst of it a chapel of marvellous beauty with a crypt, from which by a flight of steps one might reach the river, dedicated in honour of St Thomas Becket. This chapel was built in memory of St Thomas by one Peter, priest of St Mary Colechurch, where the martyr had been christened. It was this same Peter who began to build the great bridge of stone, and when he died he was buried in the chapel he had erected in the midst of it. Such a wonder was, however, by no means the only memorial here, at the very opening of the way, of the great and holy end and purpose of it. Every schoolboy knows St Thomas's Hospital in Lambeth, but not all know that the saint whose name that hospital bears is not the Apostle, but England's Martyr. Now, until 1868 St Thomas's Hospital stood not in Lambeth but in Southwark, upon the site of London Bridge Station. [Footnote: The fact is still remembered in the name of St Thomas Street, leading out of the Borough High Street on the east.] It seems that within the precincts of St Mary Overy a house of Austin Canons, now the Anglican Cathedral of St Saviour, Southwark, was a hospital for the sick and poor founded by St Thomas, which after his beatification was dedicated in his honour. But in the first years of the thirteenth century, Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, rebuilt the little house in a healthier situation--_ubi aqua est uberior et aer est melior_--where the water was purer and the air better, and this new house, finished in 1215, of course also bore the name of St Thomas of Canterbury. That the hospital fulfilled its useful purpose we know from a petition which it presented to Pope Innocent VI., in 1357, wherein it was stated that so many sick and poor resorted to it that it could not support its charges. Not quite two hundred years later, in 1539, a few days before the feast of St Thomas upon December 29, it was surrendered to King Henry VIII., the infamous Layton having been its visitor. From the king it was bought by the City of London, a rare comment upon its suppression, and so notoriously useful was it that Edward VI. was compelled to refound it, and therefore in some sort it still remains to us. It is curious to note that, ages before the hospital came to Lambeth, St Thomas was at home there, for he had a statue upon the Lollards' Tower, and it was the custom of the watermen to doff their caps to it as they rowed by. It is meet and right that this pilgrimage should be begun with thoughts of St Thomas, and especially of what we owe to him, for the first few miles of the way upon what we need not doubt was of old the Pilgrims' road, is anything but uplifting, crowded though it be with memories, most of them of course far later than the Canterbury pilgrimage. As you go down the Borough High Street, for Southwark is of course the old _borgo_ of London, and all the depressing ugliness of modern life, it is not of anything so serene as that great poet of the fourteenth century, the father of English poetry, that you think, but of one who nevertheless, in the characteristic nationalism of his art, in his humanity and love of his fellow-men, was only second to Chaucer, and in his compassion for the poor and lowly only second to St Thomas: I mean Charles Dickens. No one certainly can pass the site of the Marshalsea Prison without recalling that solemn and haunting description in the preface to "Little Dorrit": "Whosoever goes into Marshalsea Place, turning out of Angel Court leading to Bermondsey, will find his feet on the very paving stones of the extinct Marshalsea jail; will see its narrow yard to the right and to the left, very little altered if at all, except that the walls were lowered when the place got free; will look upon the rooms in which the debtors lived; will stand among the crowding ghosts of many miserable years." It is still of Dickens most of us will think in passing St George's Church, for was it not there that Little Dorrit was christened and married, and was it not in the vestry there she slept with the burial- book for a pillow? But St George's has other memories too, for it was there that Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London, who staunchly refused the oath of supremacy to Elizabeth, was buried at midnight after his death in the Marshalsea, on September 5th, 1569. There too General Monk was married to Anne Clarges. These memories, for the most part so unhappy, have, however, nothing to do with the Pilgrims' Way. No memory of that remains at all amid all the dismal wretchedness of to-day, until one comes to the "Thomas à Becket" public-house at the corner of Albany Road. This was the site of the "watering of Saint Thomas": A-morwe, whan that day bigan to springe, Up roes our host, and was our aller cok, And gadrede us togirde, alle in a flok, And forth we riden, a litel more than pas Unto the watering of seint Thomas. The "watering of St Thomas" was a spring dedicated to St Thomas, and it came to be the first halting-place of the pilgrims. It is still remembered in the name of St Thomas's Road close by, and not inappropriately in the tavern which bears St Thomas's name. It was here that the immortal tales were begun: And there our host bigan his hors areste, And seyde; Lordinges, herkneth, if yow leste. Ye woot your forward, and it yow recorde If even-song and morwe-song acorde, Lat see now who shal telle the firste tale.... No memory of the pilgrims would seem to remain at all in the road after St Thomas's watering until we come to Deptford. The "Knight's Tale" and the "Miller's Tale" have filled, and one would think more than filled that short three miles of road, till in the Reve's Prologue the host began "to spake as loudly as a king...." Sey forth thy tale and tarie nat the tyme, Lo, Depeford! and it is half-way pryme. Nothing more lugubrious is to be found to-day in the whole length of the old road than Deptford; but it is there that we begin to be free of the mean streets. For Deptford, which the pilgrims reached, after their early start, at "half-way pryme"--any hour, I suppose, between six and nine--lies at the foot of Blackheath Hill above Greenwich: Lo, Greenwich, ther many a shrewe is inne. Deptford Bridge, the only remaining landmark of old time, by which we cross Deptford Creek, had in the fourteenth century a hermitage at its eastern end dedicated in honour of St Catherine of Alexandria, and Mass was said there continually from Chaucer's day down to the suppression in 1531, the king, Henry VIII., having previously helped to repair the chapel. It is at Deptford, as I say, that we begin to leave the mean streets, for at the cross-roads we turn up Blackheath Hill, and though this is not in all probability the ancient way, it is as near it as modern conditions have allowed us. The old road, as far as can be made out, ran farther to the east, quite alongside Greenwich Park, and not over the middle of the Heath, as the modern road does. Blackheath is not alluded to in Chaucer's poem, though it must have been famous at the time he was writing, for in 1381 Jack Straw, Wat Tyler, and their company were there gathered. Perhaps the most famous spectacle, however, that Blackheath has witnessed was not this abortive revolt of the peasants nor the rising of Jack Cade in 1450, but the meeting here in 1400 of King Henry IV. and the Emperor of Constantinople, who came to England to ask for assistance against the ever-encroaching Turk, then at the gates of Constantinople, which some fifty years later was to fall into his hands. Blackheath, indeed, has always played a considerable part in the history of southern England, partly because it was the last great open space on the southern confines of London, and partly because of the royal residence at Greenwich. Fifteen years after it had seen a guest so strange as the Emperor of the East, it saw Henry V. return from Agincourt, and the Mayor of London with the aldermen and four hundred citizens, "all in scarlet with hoods of red and white," greet the hero king. ... London doth pour out her citizens The mayor and all his brethren in best sort Like to the senators of the antique Rome With the plebeians swarming at their heels, Go forth and fetch their conquering Caesar in! Across the Heath we go, taking the road on the right at the triangle, before long to find ourselves perhaps for the first time on the very road the pilgrims followed--the great Roman highway of the Watling Street. I call the Watling Street a great Roman highway, for that, as we know it, is what it is, but in its origin it is far older than the Roman occupation. It ran right across England from the continental gate at Dover, through Canterbury to Chester, fording the Thames at Lambeth, and it was the first of the British trackways which the Romans straightened, built up, and paved. It has been in continuous use for more than three thousand years, and may therefore be said to be the oldest road in England. It is older than the greatness of London, for in its arrow flight across England it ignores the City. After the ford at Lambeth, to-day represented by Lambeth Bridge, an older crossing of the Thames than that at London Bridge, it mounted the northern slope, passing perhaps across the present gardens of Buckingham Palace and the eastern end of Hyde Park, where to-day it is lost or merely represented by Grosvenor Place and Park Lane, to cross the great western road out of London at Tyburn, the original "Cross Roads," the ancient place of execution close by the present Marble Arch, and to pursue its way, as we may see it still, directly and in true Roman fashion down what we know as Edgware Road. That great north-western highway lies over the very pavement of the Romans, which lies only a few feet below the surface of the modern road. It is then upon this most ancient highway that in the footsteps of the Britons, the Romans their beneficent conquerors, and the English pilgrims our forefathers, we shall march on to Canterbury. The road of course is broken here and there, indeed in many places, and notably between Dartford and Rochester, but for the most part it remains after three thousand years the ordinary highway between the capital and the archi-episcopal city. The Watling Street takes Shooters' Hill, so called, I suppose, from the highwaymen that infested the woods thereabouts, in true Roman fashion, and it is from its summit that we get the first really great view on our way, for that so famous from Greenwich Park does not properly belong to our journey. We must, however, turn to another and a later poet than Chaucer for any description of that tremendous spectacle. Here indeed, more than in any other prospect the road affords, the horizon is changed from that Chaucer looked upon. [Illustration: SHOOTERS' HILL] For we turn to gaze on London, the Protestant, not the Catholic, city: A mighty mass of brick and smoke and shipping, Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping In sight, then lost amid the forestry Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy; A huge dun cupola like a foolscap crown On a fool's head--and there is London town! Don Juan had got out on Shooters' Hill Sunset the time, the place the same declivity Which looks along that vale of good and ill Where London streets ferment in full activity; While everything around was calm and still Except the creak of wheels which on their pivot he Heard--and that bee-like, babbling, busy hum Of cities, that boil over with their scum. The prospect eastward across the broad valley of the Darent, if less wonderful, is assuredly far lovelier than that north-westward over London; but from the top of Shooters' Hill we probably do not follow the actual route of the ancient way until we come to Welling. The present road down the hill eastward is said to date from 1739 only. [Footnote: See H. Littlehales, "Some Notes on the Road from Canterbury in the Middle Ages" (Chaucer Society, 1898).] There is nothing to keep us in Welling, nor indeed in Bexley Heath, except to note that they are the first two Kentish villages upon our route, now little more than suburban places spoiled of any virtue they may have possessed. It is said that at Clapton Villa in the latter place there is preserved "an ancient and perfect sacramental wafer"-- perhaps an unique treasure. The road runs straight on through a rather sophisticated countryside, almost into Crayford, but in preparing to cross the Cray the old road has apparently been lost. We may be sure, however, of not straying more than a few yards out of the way, if we keep as straight on as maybe, that is to say, if we take the road to the right at the fork, which later passes Crayford church on the south. Crayford, though it be anything but picturesque, is nevertheless not without interest. It is the Creccanford of the "Saxon Chronicle," and was the scene of the half-legendary final battle between the Britons here and Hengist, who utterly discomfited them, so that we read they forsook all this valley, even, so we are asked to believe, those strange caves which they are said to have burrowed in the chalk for their retreat, and which are so plentiful hereabouts, but which assuredly are infinitely older than the advent of the Saxon pirates. The real interest of Crayford, however, as of more than one place in this valley, lies in its church. This is dedicated in honour of the companion of St Augustine, St Paulinus, who became the third Bishop of Rochester. The form of the church is curious, the arcade of the nave being in the midst of it, while the chancel, of about the same width as the nave, is possessed of two arcades and divided into three aisles; thus the arcade of the nave abuts upon the centre of the chancel arch. Parts of the church certainly date from Chaucer's day, but most of it is Perpendicular in style. More interesting than Crayford itself are North Cray and Foot's Cray in the upper valley beyond Bexley. At North Cray there is one of the best pictures Sassoferrato ever painted, a Crucifixion, over the altar. At Foot's Cray, the church, besides being beautiful in its situation, possesses a great square Norman font. These places are, however, off the Pilgrims' Road, which climbs up through Crayford High Street, and then in about two miles begins to descend into the very ancient town of Dartford, where it is said Chaucer's pilgrims slept, their first night on the road. CHAPTER II THE PILGRIMS' ROAD FROM DARTFORD TO ROCHESTER The entry into Dartford completes the first and, it must be confessed, the dullest portion of the Pilgrims' Road to Canterbury. Here at Dartford the pilgrims slept, here to-day we say farewell to all that suburban district which now stretches for so many miles in every direction round the capital, spoiling the country as such and making of it a kind of unreality very hard to tolerate. The traveller must then realise that it is only at Dartford his pleasure will begin. Dartford, as one sees at first sight, is an old, a delightful, English town, full of happiness and old-world memories. Its situation is characteristic, for it lies in the deep and narrow valley of the Darent between two abrupt hills, that to the west of chalk, that to the east of sand, up both of which it climbs without too much insistence. Between these two hills runs a rapid stream from the Downs to the southward, that below the town opens out suddenly into a small estuary or creek. Where the Watling Street forded the Darent there grew up the town of Dartford, on the verge of the marshes within reach of the tide, but also within reach of an inexhaustible river of fresh water. The ford was presently replaced by a ferry, and later still, in the latter years of Henry VI., by a great bridge, as we see, but the town had already taken its name from its origin, and to this day is known as Dartford, the ford of the Darent. The situation of Dartford is thus very picturesque, and as we might suppose its main street is the old Roman highway that the pilgrims used. This descends the West Hill steeply after passing the Priory, or as it is now called the Place House, the first religious house which Dartford could boast that the pilgrims would see. In Chaucer's day this was a new foundation, Edward III., in 1355, having established here a convent of Augustinian nuns dedicated in honour of Our Lady and St Margaret. The house became extremely popular with the great Kentish families, for it was not only very richly endowed, but always governed by a prioress of noble birth, Princess Bridget, youngest daughter of Edward IV., at one time holding the office, as later did Lady Jane Scrope and Lady Margaret Beaumont: all are buried within. In the miserable time of Henry VIII., when it was suppressed, its revenues amounted to nearly four hundred pounds a year. The king immediately seized the house for his own pleasure, but later gave it to Anne of Cleves. On her death it came back to the Crown, but James I. exchanged it with the Cecil family for their mansion of Theobalds. They in their turn parted with it to Sir Edward Darcy. Little remains of the old house to-day, a gate-house of the time of Henry VII., and a wing of the convent, now a farm-house; but considerable parts of the extensive walls may be seen. It may well have been when the bell of that convent was ringing the Angelus that Chaucer and his pilgrims entered Dartford on that April evening so long ago. As they came down the steep hill, before they entered the town, they would pass an almshouse or hospital, midway upon the hill, a leper-house in all likelihood, dedicated in honour of St Mary Magdalen. Something of this remains to us in the building we see, which, however, is later than the Reformation. Nothing I think actually in the town can, as we see it, be said to have been there when Chaucer went by except the very noble church. He and his pilgrims looked and wondered, as we do still, upon the great tower said to have been built by Gundulph as a fortress to hold the ford, which, altered though it has been more than once, is still something at which one can only admire. The upper part, however, dates from the fifteenth century. Then there is the chancel restored in 1863, the north part of which is supposed to have been built in the thirteenth century in honour of St Thomas himself, no doubt by the pilgrims who, passing by on their way to Canterbury, were wont to spend a night in Dartford town, and certainly to hear Mass in the place of their sojourn e'er they set out in the earliest morning. The screen is of the fourteenth century, as are the arcades of the nave and the windows on the north, and these too Chaucer may have seen; but all the monuments, some of them interesting and charming, are much later, dating from Protestant days. Certain brasses, however, remain from the fifteenth century, notably that of Richard Martyn and his wife (1402), that of Agnes Molyngton (1454), and that of Joan Rothele (1464). There is, too, a painting of St George and the Dragon at the end of the south chancel chapel, behind the organ. Within the town one or two houses remain, perhaps in their foundations, from the fifteenth century. The best of these is that on the left just west of the church, at the corner of Bullis Lane. This house, according to Dunken, the historian of Dartford, was the dwelling of one "John Grovehurst in the reign of King Edward IV. That gentleman in 1465 obtained permission of the Vicar and church-wardens of Dartford to erect a chimney on a part of the churchyard, and in acknowledgment thereof provided a lamp to burn perpetually during the celebration of divine service in the parish church. The principal apartment in the upper floor (a room about twenty-five feet by twenty feet) was originally hung round with tapestry, said to be worked by the nuns of the priory, who were occasionally permitted to visit at the mansion. The principal figures were in armour, and two of them as large as life, latterly called Hector and Andromache; in the background was the representation of a large army with inscribed banners." [Illustration: DARTFORD CHURCH AND BRIDGE] The churchyard upon which John Grovehurst was allowed to erect a chimney was till about the middle of the nineteenth, century larger than it now is, part of it at that time being taken "to make the road more commodious for passengers." This road was of course the Pilgrims' Road, the Watling Street. That this always passed to the south of the church is certain, but it may have turned a little in ancient time to take the ford. It turns a little to-day to approach the bridge, and thereafter climbs the East Hill. Dartford Bridge, which already in the Middle Ages had supplanted ford and ferry, happily remains to the extent of about a third of the width of the two pointed arches which touch the banks. It was kept in order and repair by the hermit who dwelt in a cell at the foot of the bridge on the east, a cell older than the bridge, for the hermits used to serve the ford. Here stood the Shrine of Our Lady and St Catherine of Alexandria, which was much favoured by the pilgrims, so we may well suppose that Chaucer and his friends did not pass it by without a reverence. Here too at the eastern end of the town stood a hospital dedicated in honour of the Holy Trinity, but this Chaucer knew not, any more than we may do, for it was only founded in 1452. It seems, however, to have been built really over the stream upon piers, perhaps in something the same way as the thirteenth-century Franciscan house at Canterbury was built, which we may still see. Dunken tells us that "the steep ascent of the Dover road leading towards Brent was in ancient times called St Edmunde's Weye from its leading to a Chapel dedicated to that saint situated near the middle of the upper churchyard." This chapel, of which nothing remains, Edward III. bestowed upon the Priory of Our Lady and St Margaret. On its site, such is the irony of time, a "martyr's memorial" has been erected to the unhappy and unfortunate folk burnt here in the time of Queen Mary. But Dartford is too pleasant a place to be left with such a merely archaeological survey as this. It is a town in which one may be happy; historically, however, it has not much claim upon our notice, its chief boast being that it was here the first act of violence in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 occurred, when Wat Tyler broke the head of the poll-tax collector who had brutally assaulted his daughter. Wat or Walter--Tyler, because of his trade, which was that of covering roofs with tiles--would seem, however, not to have been a Dartford man at all. The very proper murder of the tax-collector would appear to have been the work of a certain John "Tyler" of the same profession, here in Dartford. The Peasants' Revolt, which, alas! came to nothing, brings us indeed quite into Chaucer's day, but it would have had little sympathy from him, nor indeed has it really anything specially to do with this town. The true fame of Dartford, which is its paper-making, dates from the end of the sixteenth century, when one Sir John Speelman, jeweller to Queen Elizabeth, is said to have established the first paper-mill. If Dartford is poor in history, nevertheless it is worth a visit of more than an hour or so for its own sake, as I have said. It boasts of a good inn also, and the country and villages round about are delicious. All that upper valley of the Darent, for instance, in which lie Darenth, Sutton-at-Hone, Horton Kirby, and, a little way off Fawkham, Eynsford, and Lullingstone, is worth the trouble of seeing for its own beauty and delight. There is Darenth for instance, Darne, as the people used to call it, only two miles from the Pilgrims' Road, it is as old as England, and doubtless saw the Romans at work straightening, paving, and building that great Way which has remained to us through so many ages, and which the Middle Age hallowed into a Via Sacra. What can be more worthy and right than that a modern pilgrim should visit this little Roman village to see the foundations of the Roman buildings, to speculate on what they may have been, and generally to contemplate those origins out of which we are come? And then there is the church too, dedicated in honour of St Margaret, the dear little lady who is so wonderfully and beautifully represented in Westminster Abbey for all to worship her, high up over the rascal politicians. All the village churches in England of my heart are entrancingly holy and human places, but it is not always that one finds a church so rare as that of St Margaret in Darenth. For not only is it built of Roman rubble or brick, the work of the Saxons, the Normans, and of us their successors, but it boasts also an arch of tufa, has an Early English vaulted chancel of two stories, and a Norman font upon which are carved scenes from the life of St Dunstan, to say nothing of a thirteenth-century tower. Not far away at Horton Kirby, to be reached through South Darenth, are the remains of Horton Castle and a very interesting, aisleless cruciform church of Our Lady with central tower, a great nave, arcaded transepts, and much Early English loveliness, to say nothing of the Decorated tomb of one of the De Ros family, lords of Horton Castle, and fifteenth- and sixteenth-century brasses. Horton got its name of Kirby in this manner. At the time of the Domesday Survey the place was held by Auschetel de Ros from Bishop Odo, but the heir of De Ros was Lora, Lady of Horton, who married into the north-country family of Kirby, who, however, had for long owned lands hereabouts. In the time of Edward I. the Kirby of that day, Roger, rebuilt the castle, but it is not the ruins of his work we see, these being of a much later building. Nor will any one who visits Horton fail to see Fawks, the famous old Elizabethan mansion of the London Alderman Lancelot Bathurst, who died in 1594. All this valley, as I have said, was used and cultivated by the Romans, whose work we find not only at Darenth but also here at Horton. At Fawkham, however, on the higher ground to the east I found something more germane to the pilgrimage. For in the old church of Our Lady there, over the western door, is a window in which we may see one William de Fawkham clothed as a pilgrim with a book in his hand, and on one side a figure of Our Lord, on the other the Blessed Virgin. But the goal of my journey from the highway was reached at Eynsford. Here indeed I found my justification for leaving the road while on pilgrimage to Canterbury. For not only is Eynsford a beautiful place in itself, beautifully situated, but it was the quarrel which William de Eynesford had with St Thomas Becket, when the great archbishop was in residence at Otford Castle, that led to the murder in Canterbury Cathedral and the great pilgrimage which has brought even us at this late day on our way. Becket's quarrel with the king and the civil power was, as we know, concerning the liberty of the Church, and more particularly here a dispute as to the presentation to the church of St Martin in Eynsford, which still retains many features of that time. After the martyrdom, William de Eynesford, though he does not appear to have been directly concerned in the murder, was excommunicated, and Eynsford Castle was left without inhabitants, for no one would enter it. It fell into decay, and was never after used or restored or rebuilt, only Henry VIII. venturing to use it as a stable; but his work has been cleared away, and what we see is a ruin of the time of St Thomas, and indeed in some sort his work. The ruin bears a strong resemblance to the mighty castle of Rochester, and though it is of course very small in comparison with that capital fortress, it must have been a place of some strength when Henry II. was king. St Martin's Church, whose spire rises so charmingly out of the orchards white with spring, has a fine western doorway and tower of Norman work, and a chancel and south transept lighted by Early English lancets. That tower certainly heard the rumour of St Thomas's murder, and frightened men no doubt crowded into that western door to hear William de Eynesford denounced from the altar. Now when I had seen all this and reminded myself thus of that great tale which is England, I set out on my way back to Dartford, passing by the footpath through the park to the south-east towards Lullingstone Castle, which, however, is not older in the main than the end of the eighteenth century. And then from Lullingstone through the shining afternoon I made my way by the western bank of the Darent to Sutton-at-Hone, where there are remains of a Priory of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem; the place is still called St John's. The church dedicated to St John Baptist is a not uninteresting Decorated building, the last resting place of that Sir Thomas Smyth of Sutton Place, who was not the least of Elizabethan navigators, director of the East India Company, interested in the Muscovy trade, and treasurer of the Virginia Company (1625). So I came back to Dartford and on the next day set out once more for Canterbury. One leaves Dartford, on the Pilgrim's Road, with a certain regret, to find oneself, at the top of the East Hill, face to face with a problem of the road. For there on the hill-top the road forks; to the left runs the greater way of the two, into Gravesend; straight on lies a lane which after a couple of miles suddenly turns southward to Betsham, where the direct way is continued by a footpath across Swanscombe Park. Which of these ways was I to follow? That question was hard to answer, because the road through Gravesend is full of interest, while the direct way is almost barren all the way to Rochester. There can be little doubt, too, that many of the pilgrims on the way to Canterbury did pass through Gravesend, to which town doubtless many also travelled from London by water, while others landed there from Essex and East Anglia. But the lane which is the straight way and its continuation in the footpath across Swanscombe Park is undoubtedly the line of the Roman road and in all probability the route of Chaucer. Face to face with these considerations, being English, I decided upon a compromise. I determined to follow the Gravesend road so far as Northfleet, chiefly for the sake of Stone, and there by a road running south-east to come into the Roman highway again, two miles or so east of Swanscombe Park, whence I should have a practically straight road into Rochester. I say I chose this route chiefly for the sake of seeing Stone. This little place, some two miles and a half from Dartford, has one of the loveliest churches in all England, to say nothing of a castellated manor house known as Stone Castle. "It is a common jest," says Reginald Scot, writing in the time of Elizabeth, "It is a common jest among the watermen of the Thames to show the parish church of Stone to their passengers, calling the same by the name of the 'Lanterne of Kent'; affirming, and that not untruly, that the said church is as light (meaning in weight not in brightness) at midnight as at noonday." The church, indeed, dedicated in honour of Our Lady is a very beautiful and extraordinarily interesting building of the end of the thirteenth century, in the same style as the practically contemporary work in Westminster Abbey and, according to the architect and historian, G.E. Street, who restored it, possibly from the design of the same master-mason. Certainly nothing in the whole county of Kent is better worth a visit. It would seem to have been built with a part of the money offered at the shrine of St William in the Cathedral of Rochester upon the Pilgrim's Way; for Stone belonged to the Bishops of Rochester, who had a manor house there. The nave, aisles, chancel, and tower are all in the Early English style and very noble work of their kind, built in the time of Bishop Lawrence de Martin of Rochester (1251-1274); while to the fourteenth century belongs the vestry to the north of the chancel and the western windows in nave and aisles and the piers of the tower as we now see them. Perhaps the oldest thing in the church is the doorway in the north aisle which would seem to be Norman, but Street tells us that this "is a curious instance of imitation of earlier work, rather than evidence of the doorway itself being earlier than the rest of the church." Within, the church is delightful, increasing in richness of detail eastward towards the chancel where nothing indeed can surpass the beauty of the arcade, so like the work at Westminster, borne by pillars of Purbeck, its spandrels filled with wonderfully lovely, delicate, and yet vigorous foliage. Here are two brasses, one of 1408 to John Lambarde, the rector in Chaucer's day, the other of 1530 to Sir John Dew. In the north aisle we may find certain ancient paintings the best preserved of which represents the Madonna and Child. The north aisle of the chancel is not at one with the church; it was built in the early sixteenth century by the Wilshyre family as their Chantry. Here lies Sir John Wilshyre, Governor of Calais in the time of Henry VIII. The glass everywhere is unfortunately modern. One leaves Stone church with regret; it is so fair and yet so hopelessly dead that one is astonished and almost afraid. Less than a mile along the road, to the north of it one passes Ingress Abbey, where once the nuns of Dartford Priory had a grange. The present house, once the residence of Alderman Harmer, the radical and reformer of our criminal courts, was built of the stone of old London Bridge. Here upon the high road one is really in the marshes by Thames side; but a little way off the highway to the south on higher ground stands Swanscombe and it is worth while to see it for it is a very famous place. "After such time," says Lambarde, quoting Thomas the monk and chronicler of St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury, "after such time as Duke William the Conqueror had overthrown King Harold in the field at Battell in Sussex and had received the Londoners to mercy he marched with his army towards the castle of Dover, thinking thereby to have brought in subjection this county of Kent also. But Stigande, the archbishop, perceiving the danger assembled the countrymen together and laid before them the intolerable pride of the Normans that invaded them and their own miserable condition if they should yield unto them. By which means they so enraged the common people that they ran forthwith to weapon and meeting at Swanscombe elected the archbishop and the abbot for their captains. This done each man got him a green bough in his hand and beare it over his head in such sort as when the Duke approached, he was much amazed therewith, thinking at first that it had been some miraculous wood that moved towards him. But they as soon as he came within hearing cast away their boughs from them, and at the sound of a trumpet bewraied their weapons, and withall despatched towards him a messenger, which spake unto him in this manner:--'The Commons of Kent, most noble Duke, are ready to offer thee either peace or war, at thy own choice and election; Peace with their faithfull obedience if thou wilt permit them to enjoy their ancient liberties; Warr, and that most deadly, if thou deny it them.'" They prevailed according to the legend and this as some say is the difference between the Men of Kent and the Kentish Men, for the former retained their old liberties and were never conquered, and these dwelt in the valley of Holmsdale; but the rest were merely _victi_. As the old rhyme has it-- The vale of Holmsdale Never conquered, never shall. It is pleasing with the memory of all this in one's heart--and upon it there is a famous song--to come upon Swanscombe church, in which much would seem to be of Saxon times, as parts of the walls of both nave and chancel, and the lower part of the tower, where one may see signs of Roman brick. The nave, however, at least within, is late Norman if not Transitional, and the windows in the chancel are Norman and Early English. Here, too, is the tomb of Sir Anthony Weldon, the malicious gossip [Footnote: He was the author of "The Secret History of the first Two Stuart Kings" and of "A Catt may look at a King, or a Briefe Chronicle and Character of the Kings of England..."] of the time of James I., who had acted as clerk of the kitchen to Elizabeth. His wife lies opposite him with others of his family. It is more interesting for us, however, to note that in Chaucer's day the church was chiefly famous for its shrine of St Hildefrith, a soveran advocate against the vapours. I left Swanscombe in the early afternoon, and passing through Northfleet with its great church of St Botolph I followed the road with many happy glimpses of the Thames, avoiding Gravesend and making southward for the Watling Street, which I found at last, and an old Inn at the cross roads upon it. Thence I marched upon what I took to be the veritable way and was presently assured of this at Singlewell, which it is said was originally Schingled well, that is a well roofed with shingles of wood. This well stood within the parish of Ifield, but so famous was it, for it was known to every pilgrim, that it presently quite put out the name of the parish, which in 1362 is described as Ifield-juxta-Schyngtedwell, and to this day the place is marked on the maps as Singlewell or Ifield. A chapel was soon built beside the well and here doubtless the pilgrims prayed and made offerings. Singlewell, however, must not be confused with St Thomas's well a mile further on the road, which is still used and still known as St Thomas's well. All this proved to me that I was indeed upon the old road, and so I went on across Cobham Park without a thought of the great house, intent now on the noble city of Rochester, which presently as I came over the last hill I saw standing in all its greatness over the broad river of Medway, its mighty castle four square upon the further bank. Then was I confirmed in my heart in the words of Chaucer-- Lo Rouchestre stant here fast by. CHAPTER III THE PILGRIMS' ROAD ROCHESTER One comes down the hill into Rochester, through Strood, on this side the Medway, to find little remaining of interest in a place that has now become scarcely more than a suburb of the episcopal city. Some memory, however, lingers still in Strood of St Thomas, for certain folks there hated him and to spite him one day as he rode through the village they cut the tail from his horse. Mark now the end of this misdeed. In Strood thereafter everyone of their descendants was born, it is said, with a tail, even as the brutes which perish. The church of Strood, restored in 1812, is without interest, but close to the churchyard is the site of a Hospital, founded, in the time of Richard I., who endowed it, by Bishop Glanville of Rochester. This place must have been known to Chaucer and his pilgrims. It was dedicated in honour of Our Lady and cared for "the poor, weak, infirm and impotent as well as neighbouring inhabitants or travellers from distant places, until they die or depart healed." Those who served it followed the Benedictine Rule. A singular example of the hatred of these for the monks of Rochester appears in the story of the fight between the monks and the Hospital staff with whom sided the men of Strood and Frinsbury, a village hard by, which took place in the orchard of the Hospital. The Bishop, however, soon brought all to reason, and as a punishment the men of Strood were obliged to go in procession to Rochester upon each Whit-Monday, carrying the clubs with which they had assaulted the monks. [Illustration: THE GATEWAY OF THE MONASTERY CLOSE, ROCHESTER] That Strood stood on the ancient way its name assures us, since it is but another form of Street or Strada, as they say in Italy. From Strood we cross the great iron bridge, the successor of that at the Strood end of which Bishop Glanville built a small chapel. The story of the bridge is interesting. We do not know that there was a bridge at all in Roman times, but certainly a wooden bridge was supplemented in the time of Richard II. by a new one of stone, consisting of twenty-one arches of different spans. This bridge stood higher up the river than that of to-day, nearer indeed to the Castle, and as at its western end there was a chapel, so at its eastern under the Castle, John de Cobham founded, in Chaucer's time, in 1399, a Chantry for all Christian souls, of which some ruins remain. This bridge, patched, altered, and constantly repaired, lasted till the existing bridge was built in our own time on the site of the old one of wood. From the bridge we enter the High Street, almost certainly lying over the old Roman road. Here are the old Inns, the Crown, the Bull, and the King's Head. It is even probable that Chaucer may have stayed at the Crown, the oldest of the three, not of course in the present house, but in that which stood on the same site till 1863, and which was said to date from the fourteenth century. [Footnote: The old house was famous at least as the scene of Shakespeare's "Henry IV.," pt. i. act ii. sc. i., as the resting-place of Queen Elizabeth in 1573, and as the inn honoured by Mr Pickwick. It should never have been destroyed.] In Rochester, serene and yet active, the very ancient seat of a bishopric, we have something essentially Roman, the fortress on the Watling Street guarding the passage of the Medway, precisely as Piacenza was and is a Roman fortress upon the Emilian Way guarding the passage of the Po. The Romans called the place Durobrivae, and though we know little of it during the Roman occupation of Britain, we may be sure it was a place of very considerable importance, as indeed it has remained ever since, twice in fact in our history the possession of Rochester has decided a whole campaign. Rochester, indeed, could not have escaped the military eye of the Romans. It must be remembered that the natural entry into England is by the Straits of Dover, and that for a man entering by that gate there is only one way up into England and that the line of the Watling Street, for he must cross the Thames, even though he be going only to London. The lowest ford upon the Thames is that at Lambeth, which the Watling Street used. Now there is but one really formidable obstacle in the whole length of the Watling Street south of the Thames. That obstacle is the estuary of the Medway, which Rochester guarded and possessed. Rochester then was first and foremost a great fortress, just as Piacenza was and is. What was its fate in the Dark Age that followed the failure of the Roman administration we do not know; but with the advent of St Augustine Rochester at once received a Bishop. It was, indeed, the first post in St Augustine's advance from Canterbury, King Ethelbert himself building there a church in 597 in honour of St Andrew. It thus became a spiritual as well as a material fortress. Of its fate after the Battle of Hastings we know little, but it submitted without resistance and came into the hands of that Odo of Bayeaux who gave so much trouble to William Rufus. It is now that we see Rochester suddenly appear in its true greatness. Odo, expelled by William, had on the Conqueror's death returned and successfully obtained of Rufus his estates, among them the Castle of Rochester, which he had built. In 1088, however, he was once more in rebellion against the Crown on behalf of the Conqueror's eldest brother, Robert of Normandy. Rufus struck him first at Pevensey, which was the Norman gate of England. He took it but unwisely released Odo, on his oath to give up Rochester Castle and leave the country. Rochester was then in the hands of Eustace of Boulogne, sworn friend of Duke Robert, and when Odo appeared with the King's Guard before the Castle, demanding its surrender, he, understanding everything, captured his own lord and the king's guard also and brought them in. Rufus then turned to his English subjects and demanded their assistance, for his Barons were then, as they have invariably been throughout English history, against the Crown, which truly represented and defended the people. They flocked to the Royal Standard, and after six weeks' siege, plague and famine ravaging the garrison, Odo surrendered and was imprisoned at Tonbridge, and later expelled the kingdom. As this great rascal Bishop came out of Rochester Castle, the English youths sang out "Rope and Cord! Rope and Cord for the traitor Bishop." But Odo was too near to the king. That was the first time we know of in which Rochester stood like the gage of England; the second was in the Barons' wars. When King John, in 1215, had taken Rochester and notably discomfited the rascal Barony, they immediately invited Louis of France to assist them. He set sail with some seven hundred vessels, landed at Sandwich, and retook Rochester, which had been so badly damaged that it could not defend itself. Forty-eight years later, in 1264, Henry III. being king, Simon de Montfort coming into Kent, burnt the wooden bridge over the Medway which was too strongly held by the loyal inhabitants of Rochester for him to capture, took the city by storm, sacked the Cathedral and the Priory, and laid siege to the Castle. He failed, and Lewes could not give him what Rochester had denied. Rochester Castle, which hitherto only famine had been able to open, was to fall at last to Wat Tyler and his Peasants in 1381, with the help of the people of the city. After that culminating misery of the fourteenth century, which was so full of miseries, Rochester plays little part in history for many years. She appears again to take part in innumerable pageants, such as that in which Henry VIII. in 1540, and on New Year's day, first saw Anne of Cleves and was astonished at her little beauty, or that which greeted Elizabeth in 1573, or that which greeted Charles I. and his bride after their wedding at Canterbury, or that which shouted for the Merry Monarch, when Charles II. rode down the High Street in 1660, after his landing at Dover. It was his brother, unfortunate and unhappy, who came in without any herald and stole away in the night of December 19, 1688, having foregone a throne and lost a kingdom. All these, sieges or pageants, however, what are they but a tale that is told. There remains, in some sort at least, the Cathedral. This is the oldest thing in Rochester and the most lasting. It was founded in the end of the sixth century as we have seen, and its first Bishop was that St Justus who had come with St Augustine from the monastery of St Andrew on the Coelian Hill in Rome, the monastery we now know by the name of the man who sent them, St Gregory the Great. St Augustine and St Justus were not, however, at first received with enthusiasm in Rochester. Indeed, it is said that fish tails were hung to their habits as they went through the city and that in consequence the people of the diocese of Rochester were ever after born with tails, and were thus known as caudati or caudiferi, while upon the Continent this beastly appellation was even till our fathers' time applied to all English people. What the Cathedral suffered in the centuries between its foundation and the Norman Conquest, we shall never rightly know. That it was ravaged, burnt and sacked by the Danes is certain and it seems even at the time of the Norman Conquest to have scarcely recovered itself. Indeed, Pepys, who was in Rochester in 1661, tells us that he found the western doors of the church still "covered with the skins of Danes." Nor did it fare much better when Odo of Bayeaux was lord. But when Gundulph, the associate of the good and great Lanfranc, became bishop in 1077, the Cathedral was almost entirely re-established and the Priory which served it rebuilt. Gundulph, however, would have nothing to do with the seculars who had hitherto served the great church. He established Benedictine monks in their place and Ernulph, Prior of Canterbury, where Lanfranc had done the same, succeeded him. Of the Saxon church which St Justus built, he and his successors, nothing remains but the foundations discovered in 1888. This church, which was very small, about forty-two feet long by twenty-eight feet in breadth, was furnished with an apse, but had neither aisles nor transepts. Of the first Norman church which Bishop Gundulph built, very little remains, perhaps a part of the crypt, the nave, and the great fortress tower he built on the north side of the church. This church was a very curious piece of Norman building. It was a long aisled church, that was unbroken from end to end, but the choir-proper was shut off from its aisles by walls of stone as at St Albans. There were no transepts or central tower, but two porches, one on the north and the other on the south, and in the angle formed by them with the choir, Gundulph built towers, one a belfry, the other a fortress detached from the church. To the south of the nave stood the first monastery and it is there that we may still see fragments, five arches in all, of Gundulph's nave. It was Ernulph who built the second monastery to replace the probably wooden buildings of the first, to the south of the choir of which parts remain to us. This done, he turned to the Cathedral and began entirely to rebuild it, recase it with Caen stone or to remodel what he left. It is therefore twelfth century Norman work we see at Rochester. All this work, however, some of it not twenty-five years old, was damaged in 1179 by fire, and once more the monks began to rebuild their church. They seem to have begun on the north aisle of the choir, and then to have set to work on the south aisle. Thence they proceeded to rebuild the eastern end of the church, erecting a transept beyond the old choir, finishing their new sanctuary in 1227. The work did not stop there, however; by 1245 the north-west transept was finished, and by 1280 the south-west and the two eastern bays of the nave. It is astonishing to find the monastery able to support such immense and extravagant operations, but we know that in 1201 the monks had successfully established a new shrine in their church, the shrine of St William. This popular sanctuary was the tomb of a Scotch pilgrim from Perth who had been a baker. "In charity he was so abundant that he gave to the poor the tenth loaf of his workmanship; in zeal so fervent that in vow he promised and in deed attempted, to visit the places where Christ was conversant on earth; in which journey he made Rochester his way, where, after he had rested two or three days, he departed towards Canterbury. But ere he had gone far from the city, his servant--a foundling who had been brought up by him out of charity--led him of purpose out of the highway and spoiled him both of his money and his life. The servant escaped, but his master, because he died in so holy a purpose of mind, was by the monks conveyed to St Andrews and laid in the choir. And soon he wrought miracles plentifully." The enormous fame of St William and the popularity of his shrine, not only with those who were on the way to Canterbury, but with such as were merely travellers to the coast, lasted for nearly a hundred years, enriching the monks of Rochester. By the end of the thirteenth century, however, this shrine of St William had been utterly eclipsed by the fame of the shrine of St Thomas. For this reason, then, the monks of Rochester were happily never able to rebuild their nave, which remains a Norman work of the twelfth century. In the fourteenth century the central tower was at last completed, but it ceased to exist in 1749. Indeed, the resources of Rochester seem to have been small after the third quarter of the thirteenth century. They had no Lady Chapel and when one was provided it was contrived out of the south-west transept. Later the north aisle of the choir, always dark on account of Gundulph's tower, was heightened and vaulted and lighted with windows. Later still, similar Perpendicular windows were placed in the old nave, the Norman clerestory was destroyed and a new one built, together with a new wooden roof and the great western window was inserted. In 1830 Cottingham, and in 1871 Scott, worked their wills upon the place under the plea of restoration. Little has escaped their attention, neither the beautiful Decorated tomb of Bishop Walter de Merton (1278) nor that of Bishop John de Sheppey (1360). The best thing left to us in the Cathedral and that which gives it its character is the great western doorway with its sombre Norman carving of the earlier part of the twelfth century. The nave is also beautiful and the crypt is undoubtedly one of the most interesting monuments left in England. Of the Priory practically nothing remains but a few fragments. [Illustration: ROCHESTER] Doubtless Chaucer and his company did not leave the great church unvisited nor fail to look curiously, nor perhaps to pray, at the shrine of St William, for they, too, were travellers and pilgrims. But the spectacle in the little city which it might seem most filled their imagination, as it does ours, was not the Cathedral at all, but the great Keep which stands above it, frowning across the busy Medway. Nothing more imposing of its kind than this great Norman Castle remains in England. Having a base of seventy feet square, and consisting of walls twelve feet thick and one hundred and twenty feet high, it still seems what in fact it was, almost impregnable by any arms but those of the modern world. Its great weakness lay always in the matter of provision, but it was perfectly supplied with water, by means of a well sixty feet under ground, in which stood always ten feet of water. From this well a stone pipe or tunnel, two feet nine inches in diameter, led up to the very roof, access to it being given on each of the four floors into which the keep was divided within. These apartments one and all were divided from east to west by walls five feet thick, so that on each floor there were two chambers forty-six feet long by about twenty feet in breadth. That this enormous keep is the work of Gundulph and contemporary with the Tower of London, there seems to be no reason to doubt. Of the great part it played in English history I have already spoken. But even in ruin it impresses one as few things left to us nowadays, when everything we make is so monstrous in comparison with the work of our fathers, are able to do. To stand there on the platform a hundred and twenty feet in the air and look out over the Medway crowded with shipping, ringing, echoing with factories on either shore, to see the great ships in the tideway and the fog and smoke of Chatham and its dockyards down the stream, is to receive an impression of the fragile, but tremendous, greatness of our civilisation such as few other places in South England would be able to give us suddenly between two heart beats. Such a vision of feverish and yet noble energy and endeavour, wholly material if you will, and seemingly unaware of any world or life but this, is altogether alien from Rochester itself, where an old fashioned leisure, an air almost Georgian lingers yet. Indeed, one expects to meet Mr Pickwick in the High Street or at least Charles Dickens come in from Gadshill. The only mood that has quite passed from Rochester, and that is yet more securely crystallised there in the Cathedral and the Castle than any other, is that of the Middle Age. You will not find it in any of the churches now, nor in any inn that is left to us, nor in the houses often both interesting and charming. All day long Rochester expects the coach and not the pilgrims; but at night, under a windy sky, if you wander up the hill and linger about the Cathedral in the shadow of the great Keep while the moon reels steeply up the heavens, you may in early Spring at any rate return for a little to that age which built such things as these, so that they have outlasted everything that has followed them and put it under their feet. And yet their heart was set upon no such victory, but in the heavens. It was the great and self-forgetting act of an obscure baker, but a saint of God, that built the mighty half abandoned church we see at Rochester, nor was he for sure altogether forgotten when all England went by to kneel and to pray beside Becket's shrine at Canterbury, raised there in a heavenly cause, which must prevail in the end, though neither Rochester nor Canterbury to-day might seem to bear out any such certainty. The modern pilgrim, knowing what he knows, will be fain to remember at Rochester, on his way to St Thomas, one who died in the same cause, but as it might seem, disastrously without success. For the liberty of the Church St Thomas died, that neither the king nor any civil power should control, or govern that which Christ had founded long ago upon the rock of Peter. In that same cause died Blessed John Fisher, the last Catholic Bishop of Rochester, in the year 1535. He was almost the first of Henry's victims, and he was beheaded, as was Blessed Thomas More, for refusing to recognise the royal supremacy. It was treason to deny the king's right to the title of Supreme Governor of the Church in England; and though it be still treason to deny it, a host to-day will gladly stand beside St Thomas Becket and Blessed John Fisher of Rochester. This quarrel need never have arisen had not Henry, perjured and adulterous, desired to make the Pope his accomplice in putting away his lawful wife in order that he might marry Anne Boleyn. Because the Pope refused to aid him in this crime Henry destroyed the Catholic Church in England, and he and his successors founded the so-called Church of England, with himself as first Supreme Governor. Among those who had most strenuously opposed the claim for divorce was Blessed John Fisher of Rochester, and with equally unflinching firmness he opposed the doctrine of the royal supremacy. He asserted that "The acceptance of such a principle would cause the clergy of England to be hissed out of the society of God's Holy Catholic Church." He was right, his prophecy has come true, and he nearly won. His opposition so far prevailed that a saving clause was added to the oath of convocation, "so far as the law of God allows." This Henry refused. The King persecuted him, Anne Boleyn tried to poison him, all England was putrid with lies concerning him contrived by those masters of lies, the Tudors; but the imperial ambassador asserted that the Bishop of Rochester was "the paragon of Christian prelates both for learning and holiness," and the Pope made him Cardinal with the title of San Vitalis. Henry, in November 1534, with the passing of the Act of Supremacy, attainted him of treason and declared the see of Rochester vacant. But Blessed John Fisher said, as St Thomas had said, "The King our Sovereign is not supreme head on earth of the Church in England." For this he was condemned to die a traitor's death; that is, to be hanged, disembowelled, and quartered at Tyburn in order that Henry might enjoy his Kentish mistress in peace, and found a new Church eager to acknowledge his adultery as lawful and to enjoy the spoil of God. That death, once shameful but soon to be rendered glorious by the Carthusians, was denied to Fisher. His sentence was commuted to that of death by beheading upon Tower Hill, where he suffered upon June 22, 1535. His head was exposed on London Bridge; his body, interred without ceremony, now lies in the Tower, where a little later that of Blessed Thomas More was laid beside it--two countrymen of St Thomas Becket martyred in the same cause. They might seem to have died in vain; their cause, as old as Christendom, might seem to have been long since defeated. Not so: this battle truly is decided, but in their favour, and my little son may live to see the glory of their victory. For he shall know and believe in his heart that his love and hope are set upon a country and a city founded in the heavens of which David sang, to which St John looked forth from Patmos, and of which these our Saints have told us. CHAPTER IV THE PILGRIMS' ROAD ROCHESTER TO FAVERSHAM The old road leaves Rochester to pass through Chatham, and is by no means delightful until it has left what Camden called "the best appointed arsenal the world ever saw." Chatham, indeed, is little else but a huge dockyard and a long and dirty street, once the Pilgrim's Way. There is, however, very little to detain us; only the Chapel of St Bartholomew to the south of the High Street is worth a visit for Bishop Gundulph's sake, for he founded it. Even here, however, only the eastern end is ancient. The parish church of Our Lady was for the most part rebuilt in 1788, but it still keeps a good Norman door to the south of the nave. It was here that Our Lady had in Chaucer's day a very famous shrine concerning which the following rather gruesome legend is told. The body of a man, no doubt a criminal or suicide, having been cast upon the beach in this parish, was buried here in the churchyard. Our Lady of Chatham, however, was offended thereby, and by night went Herself to the house of the clerk and awakened him. And when he would all trembling know wherefor She was come. She answered that near to Her shrine an unshriven and sinful person had been laid, which thing offended Her, for he did naught but grin in ghastly fashion. Therefore unless he were removed She Herself must withdraw from that place. The Clerk arose hurriedly we may be sure, and, going with Our Lady along towards the church, it happened that She grew weary and rested in a bush or tree by the wayside, and ever after this bush was green all the winter through. But the Clerk, going on, dug up the body and flung it back into the water from which it had so lately been drawn. Now, as to this story, all I have to say of it is that I do not believe a word of it. Not because I am blinded by any sentimentalism of to-day, which, as in a child's story, brings all right for everyone in the end; but for this very cogent reason that of all created beings Our Lady is the most merciful, loving and tender--Refugium Peccatorum. Also I know a better story. For it is said that one day Our Lord was walking with Sampietro in Paradise, as the Padrone may do with his Fattore, when after a while He said, not as complaining exactly but as stating a fact, "Sampietro, this place is going down!" Here Sampietro, who is always impetuous and knew very well what He meant, dared to interrupt, "Il Santissimo can't blame me," said he huffily. "Il Santissimo does not suppose they all come in by the gate? _Che Che!_" "Not come in by the gate, Sampietro. What do you mean?" said Our Lord. "If Il Santissimo will but step this way, round by these bushes," said Sampietro, "He shall see." And there sure enough He saw; for there was Our Lady drawing us all up helter-skelter, pell-mell, willy-nilly into Heaven in a great bucket, to our great gain and undeserved good. O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria. The road between Chatham and Sittingbourne might seem to be unquestionably that by which the pilgrims rode, and as certainly the Roman highway. It is, however, rather barren of mediaeval interest, little being left to us older than the change of religion. At Rainham we have a church, however, dedicated in honour of St Margaret, parts of which date from the thirteenth century, though in the main it is a Perpendicular building. Within are two ornaments of the late seventeenth century, and two brasses, one to William Bloor, who died in 1529, and the other to John Norden, who died in 1580, and to his four wives. As for William Bloor, there is a local story of some relation of his, Christopher Bloor by name, and of a nightly journey on a coach driven by a headless coachman beside whom sits a headless footman, and all drawn by headless horses, Christopher himself sitting within, his head in his hands. So much I heard, but I could not find out what it portended or referred to. But it is not till we come into Newington that we find any sign or memory of St Thomas or the Pilgrimage. This village, however, became famous as a station for the pilgrims, because on his last journey from London to Canterbury, the great Archbishop here administered the rite of Confirmation. A cross was erected to commemorate this event, and there the pilgrims knelt to pray. But Newington in St Thomas's day was better known on account of a great scandal involving the name of the convent there. This convent was held of the king, of his manor of Middleton. We read that divers of the nuns, "being warped with a malicious desire of revenge, took advantage of the night and strangled the lady abbess, who was the object of their fury and passionate animosities, in her bed; and after, to conceal so execrable an assassination, threw her body into a pit, which afterwards contracted the traditional appellation of Nun-pit." [Footnote: Philipotts, "Villare Cantianum," quoted by Littlehales, _op. cit._ p. 27.] Now whether this tale be true or an invention to explain the queer name "Nun-pit" we shall never know, but as it happens we do know that the nuns were removed to the Isle of Sheppey and that St Thomas persuaded King Henry II. to establish at Newington a small house of seven secular canons to whom was given the whole manor. But curiously enough, one of these canons was presently found murdered at the hands of four of his brethren. Exactly where this convent was situated would seem to be doubtful. What evidence there is points to Nunfield Farm at Chesley, about a mile to the south of the high road. Newington itself in its cherry-orchards is a pretty place enough to- day, with an interesting, if restored, church of Our Lady in part of the thirteenth, but mainly of the fourteenth century. It is a fine building with charming carved details and at least four brasses, one of the end of the fifteenth century (1488) to William Monde, two of the sixteenth century (1510 and 1581) and one of the year 1600. There is nothing, however, in the place to delay anyone for long, and the modern pilgrim will soon find himself once more on the great road. On coming out of Newington such an one will find himself in about a mile at Key Street, where is the Fourwent Way, in other words the cross roads, where the highway from the Isle of Sheppey to Maidstone crosses the Pilgrims Way. Here of old stood a chapel of St Christopher or another, at which the pilgrims prayed, and remembering this, I too, at the cross roads, though there was no chapel, prayed in the words of the prayer which begins: St Christopher who bore Our Lord Across the flood--O precious Load.... So I prayed, "er I come to Sidingborne," as Chaucer says. The author of "Sittingbourne in the Middle Ages" tells us that, "Mediaeval Sittingbourne consisted of three distinct portions. The chief centre of population was near the church, but there was an important little hamlet called Schamel at the western extremity of the parish on the London Road ... as any traveller from London approached Sittingbourne in the Middle Ages, the first thing to attract his attention was a chapel and hermitage standing on the south side of the road, about three parts of the way up that little hill which rises from Waterlanehead towards the east; this was Schamel Hermitage and the Chapel of St Thomas Becket, to which were attached houses for the shelter of pilgrims and travellers. A small Inn called "The Volunteers" now stands upon or close to the site of this ancient chapel and this hermitage." The chapel and hermitage it seems were first built at Schamel in the time of King John, when they were occupied by a priest named Samuel. He said Mass daily in the chapel and gave such accommodation as he had to wayfarers, by whose alms he lived. After his death the chapel fell into disrepair, but in the time of Henry III. it was rebuilt on a larger scale. A hermit named Silvester, of the "Order of St Austin," was appointed to the house which had now attached to it four lodgings for pilgrims on the road to Canterbury. But on Silvester's death it was realised that the chapel interfered so much with the parish church that before the end of the thirteenth century it was suppressed. It re-arose, and in Chaucer's day would seem to have been in a flourishing condition; at any rate it continued till the spoliation. If indeed Chaucer and his pilgrims slept in Sittingbourne, as one may well believe, it is probable that they slept either at this chapel at Schamel or at the Lion Inn in the town. This Inn was certainly in existence in his time, and there in 1415 King Henry V. was entertained on his return from Agincourt by the Squire of Milton. There, too, in all likelihood, Cardinal Wolsey rested in the autumn of 1514, and there Henry VIII., who spoiled the face of England and changed her heart, "paied the wife of the Lyon in Sittingbourne by way of rewarde iiiis. viiid." for the accommodation given. This famous Inn stands in the centre of the town, the road passing to the south of it. Unhappily the church is less interesting, having been almost entirely rebuilt in 1762; but close by it were some old houses which apparently once formed part of another old Inn called the White Hart. Certainly much of the town must have been devoted to the entertainment of travellers. From Sittingbourne I wandered out to Borden, lovely in itself and in its situation upon the rising ground under the North Downs. It possesses a very fine church with a low Norman tower and western door of the same date. Within is a very nobly carved Norman arch under the belfry. If Schamel was, as it were, the western part of Sittingbourne with its chapel and hermitage, Swanstree was the eastern part, and it, too, had its chapel of St Cross and its hospital of St Leonard. There is, however, this difference, that, whereas the priest and people of Sittingbourne did all they could to suppress the chapel and hermitage of Schamel, they on the contrary did all they could to encourage the chapel and hospital of Swanstree. Why? Because pilgrims coming from London or the north with full pockets towards Canterbury, would reach Schamel _before_ passing through Sittingbourne, but Swanstree only _after_ passing through the town! Following the Pilgrim's Road out of Sittingbourne one soon comes to Bapchild, where at the exit from the village on the north side of the road of old stood an oratory, and a Leper's Hospital, of which nothing seems really to be known save that it was founded about the year 1200. According to Canon Scott-Robertson, it was dedicated in honour of St James, which is a curious dedication for a Leper House, but common enough in a Hospital for pilgrims. Oratory and Hospital have alike disappeared, but close by the place where they stood there still remains St Thomas's Well, now known as Spring Head or Spring. So I went on through Radfield, where of old was a wayside chapel, and Green Street to the Inn at Ospringe, passing, half a mile away to the north, Stone Farm, and, nearer the road, the ruins of Stone Chapel, another of those little wayside oratories still so common in Italy and France but which nowadays in England we lack altogether. Ospringe itself is an interesting place. To begin with, the very ancient inn by the roadside, together with the equally old house opposite were once, according to Hasted, the historian of Kent, a Hospital founded by Henry II., for the benefit especially of pilgrims. This hospital, he tells us, "was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and was under the management of a master, three brethren and two clerks existed till the time of Edward IV." Henry VIII., having seized by force all such property as this in England, gave this Hospital to St John's College in Cambridge, which still owns it to the loss of us poor travellers. No doubt what money comes to the college from this poor place goes to the support and bolstering up of the Great Tudor Myth upon the general acceptance of which most of the vested interests in England largely depend. But let us poor men lift up our hearts. The Great Tudor Myth is passing, and every day it is becoming more evident that it can be supported very little longer. Let us determine, however, that we will not be taken in again, and under the pretence of a reformation of religion fix upon our necks a new political despotism worse than the Whig and Protestant aristocracy that the sixteenth century brought into being, to the irreparable damage of the Crown and the unspeakable loss of us the commonalty. May St Thomas avert an evil only too likely to befall us. As for Ospringe, however, it was after all in some sort royal property, the Crown having anciently a Camera Regis there for the King's use when he was on his way to Canterbury or to France. At Ospringe I left the great road to visit Davington and to sleep at Faversham. The long spring day was already drawing in when I came into Davington, as delightful and charming a little place as is to be found anywhere along the great road. Upon a hill-top there perhaps the Romans had a temple or a villa, at any rate they called the place Durolevum, and so it stands in the Antonine _Itinerary_. There is evidence, too, that the site was not abandoned when with the failure of their administration and the final departure of the Legions, there went down the long roads, our youth and hope. Where the present church stands, in part a Norman building, there was probably a Saxon Chapel. Then in 1153 came Fulke de Newenham and founded here and built a Benedictine nunnery in honour of St Mary Magdalen. That the house was never richly endowed nor large at all, we may know from that name it had--the house of the poor nuns of Davington. We know, however, very little about them or it, but its poverty did not save it of course at the dissolution. The Priory was then turned into a manor house, and this in part remains so that we find there a part of the cloisters of the time of Edward I., and other remains of Edward III.'s time. Then in Elizabeth's day the house seems to have been practically rebuilt. As for the little church, it owes all it is to-day to its late owner and historian, Mr Willement, and though it is not in itself of very great interest it serves as a memorial of his enthusiasm and love. Davington is less than a mile out of the town of Faversham, and therefore it was not quite dark when I made my way into that famous place. Faversham must always have been an important place from its position with regard to the great road. We have seen how the source of the greatness of Rochester lay in its position upon the Watling Street where that great highway crossed the Medway. Faversham has half Rochester's fortune, for it stands where the road touches an arm or creek of the Swale, that important navigable waterway, an arm of the sea which separates Sheppey from the mainland. The Swale there served the road and made of Faversham a port, but the road did not cross it and therefore the Swale, unlike the Medway, was never an obstacle or a defence. Thus Faversham never became a great fortress like Rochester; it was a port, and as it happened a Royal Villa, where so long ago as 930 Athelstan held his witan. Its fate, however, after the Conquest, was to be more glorious. In 1147 Stephen and his wife, Matilda, founded an abbey of Benedictine monks here at Faversham in honour of Our Lord, and known as St Saviours, upon land she had obtained from William of Ypres, Stephen's favourite captain, in exchange for her manor of Littlechurch in this county. At the end of April 1152 she fell sick at Hedingham Castle in Essex, and dying there three days later, was buried in the abbey church at Faversham. In August of the following year her eldest son, Eustace, was laid beside her, and in 1154 Stephen, the King, was also buried here. The abbey was, as I have said, dedicated to Our Saviour, and this because it possessed a famous relic of the True Cross which had been the gift of Eustace of Boulogne; the abbey was thus founded "In worship of the Croys," and one might have expected some such dedication as "Holy Cross." As founder, the King, for he and his Queen had been equally concerned in the foundation, claimed after the death of the abbot certain toll such as the abbot's ring, drinking cup, horse and hound. The abbot was a very great noble, held his house "in chief" and sat in Parliament. At the Suppression Henry VIII. granted the place to Sir Thomas Cheynay. Now mark the almost inevitable end. The Cheynays were living on Church property obtained by theft; at the least they were receivers of stolen goods. Do you think they could endure? They presently sold to a certain Thomas Arden, sometime Mayor of Faversham. Upon Sunday, 15 February 1551, this man was foully murdered in the abbey house he called his own, by a certain Thomas Mosby, a London tailor, the lover of Alice Arden, Thomas Arden's wife. This tragic affair so touched the imagination of the time that not only did Holinshed relate it in detail, but some unknown writer who, by not a few, has been taken for Shakespeare himself, used the story as the plot for a play. Arden of Faversham, according to the dramatist, was a noble character, modest, forgiving, and affectionate. His wife Alecia in her sleep by chance reveals to him her adulterous love for Mosby; but Arden forgives her on her promising never again to see her seducer. From that moment she plots with her lover to murder her husband, and succeeds at last, after many failures, by killing him in the abbey house by the hands of two hired assassins, while he is playing a game of draughts with Mosby. All concerned in the affair were brought to justice, but the abbey of Faversham was no longer coveted as a place of abode. Almost every stone has disappeared of the abbey church in which lay Stephen, his Queen, and their son. It stood on the northern side of the town, where indeed the Abbey Farm still remains. It is to the parish church of Our Lady of Charity that we must turn for any memory of the conventual house where many a pilgrim must often have knelt to venerate the relic of the Holy Cross. The great church which remains to us is said to have been used by the monks, and if not part of the abbey itself which would seem to have stood at some distance from it, more than one thing that remains in it would seem to endorse such a theory. To begin with, the church is very spacious, and cruciform in plan, though the tower is at the west end. This, however, is a very ugly affair, dating from 1797. In the main the great church, which has been tampered with at very various times, if not rebuilt, must have been Early English in style. As we see it we have a building divided into three aisles, in nave, chancel and transepts. The nave as it is at present may be neglected, but in the north transept we have a curious hagioscope or other opening in the shape of a cross and there used to be some remains of paintings; the Nativity, the Virgin and Child, the Gloria in Excelsis, the Crucifixion and the holy women at the Sepulchre of Our Lord. In the chancel were other remains of paintings. There still remain the very noble stalls which seem to assure us of the monastic use of the church, and a fine altar tomb of the fifteenth century; this on the north side. On the south are very fine sedilia and piscina. Close by is a brass to William Thanbury, the vicar here, dating from 1448. The inscription considering the use of the church to-day, is pathetic; for there we read CREDO IN SANCT. ECCLES. CATH., a pleasing misreading of the true text which every one, though for different reasons, will rejoice to read. We are told by local tradition or gossip that the tomb at the end of the south aisle is that of King Stephen. This, however, could only be true if this were indeed the church of the monastery. The tomb is Decorated in style and has a canopy, but is without inscription. Our Lady of Charity was, however, chiefly famous for its chapel of St Thomas of Canterbury on the north side of the chancel, and for its altars of SS. Crispin and Crispian and of St Erasmus. Many pilgrims turned aside from the road to visit Faversham which was not a station on the pilgrimage, for the sake of these shrines and altars and especially to pray in the chapel of St Thomas. It is said, indeed, that "no one died who had anything to leave without giving something to St Erasmus light." As for SS. Crispin and Crispian they were the patrons of the town and leapt into great fame after the victory of Agincourt upon their feast day, October 25, when the King had invoked them upon the field. This day is called the feast of Crispian; He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named, And rouse him at the name of Crispian. And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by From this day to the ending of the world, But we on it shall be remembered. The two saints, Crispin and Crispian, are not less famous in France than in England. They were indeed Rome's missionaries in Gaul about the middle of the third century. They seem to have settled at Soissons, where now a great church stands in their honour. There they practiced the craft of cobblers and of all cobblers they are the patrons. After some years the Emperor Maximian Hercules coming into Gaul, a complaint concerning them was brought to him. They were tried by that most inhuman judge Rictius Varno, the Governor, whom, however, they contrived to escape by fleeing to England and to Faversham, where, as some say they lived, but as others assert they were shipwrecked. For us at any rate their names are secure from oblivion, not so much by reason of the famous victory won upon their day as because Shakespeare has gloriously recorded their names with those familiar in our mouths as household words: Harry the King, Bedford, and Exeter, Warwick, and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester.... CHAPTER V THE PILGRIMS' ROAD FAVERSHAM TO CANTERBURY From Faversham at least to the environs of Canterbury, the Pilgrim's Road seems to be unmistakable, for the Watling Street runs all the way straight as a ruled line. Yet so few are the remaining marks of the pilgrimage, so little is that great Roman and mediaeval England remembered by men or even by the fields or the road which runs between them with so changeless a purpose, that at first sight we might think it all a myth. And yet everything that is fundamental or really enduring and valuable in our lives we owe to that England which was surely one of the most glorious and strong, as well as one of the happiest, countries in Europe. Yet must the disheartened voyager take comfort, for in how many small and negligible things may we not see even to-day the very mark and standard of Rome, her sign manual after all, under the rubbish of the modern world. And if you desire an example, let me give you weathercocks. No man can walk for day after day along this tremendous road which leads us straight as a javelin thrust back through all the lies and excuses to the truth of our origins, without noticing, and especially since he must keep an eye on the wind and the weather, the astonishing number of weathercocks there be between London and Canterbury. Upon almost every steeple, chanticleer towers shining in the sun and wildly careering in the winds of spring. You think that nothing at all, the most ordinary sight in modern England? But for the seeing eye it reveals, how much! Everyone of these weathercocks crows there on the tip top of the steeple over each town or village because of an order of the Pope. They were to be the sign of the jurisdiction of St Peter, and that by a Bull of the ninth century. How entrancing it is to remember such a thing as that in the midst of modern England. In spite of the weathercocks and their watchfulness, however, the memories of the great pilgrimage between Faversham and Harbledown are dishearteningly few. One might surely expect to find something at Preston for instance, where, coming out of Faversham, one rejoins the Watling Street, but there is nothing at all to remind one of the great past of the Way. It is true that Preston church, dedicated in honour of St Catherine, is both ancient and beautiful, and once belonged to the monastery of Christ Church in Canterbury; but neither in its channel, which must once, before the eastern window was inserted in 1862, with its single lancets and sedilia, have been extraordinarily fine, nor in the nave, is there any memory at all of St Thomas or the Pilgrims. It is not indeed until we come to Boughton that we are reminded of them. The older part of the parish of Boughton is South Street, where, however, nothing now remains older than the sixteenth century at the earliest. Here, however, was anciently a wayside chapel to the south of the road where now Holy Lane turns out of it. About a mile, or rather less, to the south, and clean off the road, stands on the crest of a steep, though not a high hill, the lovely village of Boughton under Blee, which, curiously enough, if we consider what is omitted, is mentioned by Chaucer, When ended was the lyf of seint Cecyle, Er we had riden fully fyve myle, At Boghton under Blee us gan atake A man, that clothed was in clothes blake, And undernethe he hadde a whyt surplys.... It semed he had priked myles three. This man who, with his yeoman, overtakes the pilgrims, is the rich canon, the alchemist who could pave with gold "all the road to Canterbury town." He is said to have already ridden three miles, but whence he had come it is impossible to say. That the pilgrims who had ridden not quite five miles had come from Ospringe might seem certain, and since they were overtaken by the Canon it is possible that he was coming from Faversham. It is, however, more important to explain, if we can, what the pilgrims were doing more than a mile off the true Way at Boughton under Blean. The church of SS. Peter and Paul is of some interest and of considerable beauty it is true, but so far as we may know there was no shrine there of sufficient importance to draw the pilgrims from the road, as at Faversham, nor one might think would they be easily diverted from the goal of their journey almost within reach. All sorts of routes have been given here, one going so far as to lead the pilgrims south and east quite off the Watling Street and across the old green road, the Pilgrims Way from Winchester, to enter Canterbury at last by the South Gate. This is absurd. No good explanation has yet been offered, but perhaps we may be near the truth if we suggest that Chaucer and his pilgrims never visited Boughton under Blean and the church of SS. Peter and Paul at all. After all we have in Chaucer's text (Frag. G. Canon's Yeoman Prologue) merely the name, and that in the old form, Boghton under Blee. All this wild woodland and forest country which lies on a great piece of high ground stretching north-east and south-west across the Way parallel with the valley of the Great Stour, between Faversham and Canterbury, hiding the one from the other, was known as the Blean. It is equally certain that the village of Dunkirk was known as Boughton until the middle of the eighteenth century, when a set of squatters took possession of the ground, then extra parochial as of a "free- port" from which no one could dislodge them. The district including the greater part of the forest was afterwards erected into a separate villa called the "villa of Dunkirk." Now Boughton Hill rises abruptly beyond the village of Dunkirk, and it may well be that this and not the tiny hamlet nearly a mile to the south of the great Way, was Chaucer's Boghton under Blee, where the Canon and his yeoman overtook the "joly companye," and rode in with them to Canterbury. And it is there at Mad Tom's corner that we first catch sight of the glorious city of St Thomas. "Mad Tom's corner!" That name, it is needless to say I hope, has no reference to the great archbishop or the pilgrimage. Mad Tom's corner, whence we get our first view of Canterbury, is intimately connected with the gate close by, called Courtenay's gate, and refers to the exploits of a mad Cornishman who came to Kent and especially to Canterbury about 1832, and presently proclaimed himself to be the New Messiah and showed to his deluded disciples the sacred stigmata in his hands and feet. It was the custom of these unhappy people to meet in the woods of the Blean, and it is said one may still see their names cut upon the trees. Mad Tom, who, besides proclaiming himself to be the Messiah, claimed also to be the heir to the earldom of Devon, and called himself Sir William Percy Honeywood Courtenay, the Hon. Sydney Percy, Count Moses Rothschild and Squire Thompson, to say nothing of Knight of Malta and King of Jerusalem, was a madman, with a method in his madness and a certain reasonable truth behind his absurdities. His mission was, he said, to restore the land to the people, to take it away, that is to say, from the great rascal families of the sixteenth century, the Russells, Cavendishes and so forth, who had appeared like vermin to feed upon the dead body of the Church, to gorge themselves upon her lands and to lord it in her Abbeys and Priories. In the minds of these people Tom was not only mad but dangerous. Mad he certainly was, for all his dreams. Nevertheless he stood for Canterbury in the year of the Reform Bill and polled 275 votes, and in the following year he started a paper called the _Lion_ which ran to eighteen numbers. Five years later, however, he had become such a nuisance that a warrant was safely issued against him "on the charge of enticing away the labourers of a farmer." Tom shot one of the constables who served the warrant, and on the afternoon of the last morning of May in 1838, two companies of the 45th regiment were marched out of Canterbury to take him. They found him here in Blean Wood, surrounded by his followers. He, however, was a man of action, and he promptly shot the officer in command. The soldiers then began to fire, and next minute were charging with fixed bayonets. Tom and eight of his followers were killed, and three more died a few days later. One may well ask what can have induced the stolid Kentish folk to follow so wild a Celt as this. We shall probably find the answer in the fact that Tom was exceedingly handsome in an Italian way, having "an extraordinary resemblance to the usual Italian type of the Saviour." Also, without doubt, he voiced, though inanely, the innate resentment of the English peasant against the great sixteenth century robber families and their sycophants. These great families, now on their last legs and about to be torn in pieces by a host, financial and disgusting, without creed or nationality, seven times worse than they, laughed at Tom. They do not laugh at those who, about to compass their destruction, led by another Celt, have digged a pit into which they trample headlong, and astonishing as it might seem, to the regret of that very peasantry which has hated them for so long. At least, and let us remember this, if they were greedy and unscrupulous their vices were ours, something we could understand. They were of our blood, we took the same things for granted, had the same prejudices, and after all the same sense of justice. They with us were a part of Europe and looked to Rome as their ancestor and original. But those who are about to displace them! Alas, whence do they come who begat them, from what have they issued out? I cannot answer; but I know that with all their faults, their sacrilege, robbery, and treason, Russell, Cavendish, Cecil and Talbot are English names, and they who bear them men of our blood, European, too, and of our civilisation. But who are those that now begin to fill their places? Aliens, Orientals and worse now received without surprise into the peerage of England and the great offices of justice. And the names which recall Elizabeth and whose syllables are a part of our mother tongue, are obliterated by such jargon as these. These are miserable thoughts to come to a man on the road to Canterbury, but they are inevitable to-day in England of my heart. The new times belong to them. Let us then return to the old time before them and here for the first time in sight of Canterbury let us remember St Thomas, the greatest of English Saints, the noblest English name in the Roman calendar. All that wonder which greets you from Mad Tom's corner upon Boughton Hill is, rightly understood, the work of St Thomas, and we might say indeed that the great Angel Steeple was the last of his miracles for it is the last of the Gothic in England, and it rose above his tomb, while that tomb was still a shrine and a monument in the hearts of men. For "the church dedicated to St Thomas erects itself," as Erasmus says, "with such majesty towards Heaven that even from a distance it strikes religious awe into the beholders." So I went on my way in the mid-afternoon down hill to what in my heart I knew to be Bob-up-and-down on the far side of which lies and climbs Harbledown and the hospital of St Nicholas. Wite ye nat wher ther stant a litel town Which that y-cleped is Bop-up-and-down Under the Blee in Caunterbury weye? This "littel town" it might seem, has disappeared, unless indeed it be Harbledown itself, which certainly bears geographically much resemblance to that descriptive name, as Erasmus describes it in his strange book. "Know then," says he, "that those who journey to London, not long after leaving Canterbury, find themselves in a road at once very hollow and narrow and besides the banks on either side are so steep and abrupt that you cannot escape; nor can you possibly make your journey in any other direction. Upon the left hand of this road is a hospital of a few old men, one of whom runs out as soon as they perceive any horseman approaching; he sprinkles his holy water and presently offers the upper part of a shoe bound with an iron hoof on which is a piece of glass resembling a precious stone. Those that kiss it give some small coin.... Gratian rode on my left hand, next to the hospital, he was covered with water; however he endured that. When the shoe was stretched out, he asked the man what he wanted. He said that it was the shoe of St Thomas. On that my friend was angered and turning to me he said, 'What, do these brutes imagine that we must kiss every good man's shoe? Why, by the same rule, they would offer his spittle to be kissed or other bodily excrements.' I pitied the old man, and by the gift of a small coin I comforted his trouble." It is easy to see that we are there in the modern world on the very eve of the Reformation. The unmannerly Gratian was John Colet to be the Dean of St Paul's, hardly defended from the charge of heresy by old Archbishop Wareham. And like so many of his kidney he seems to have forgotten the scripture upon which, as he would have asserted, his whole philosophy and action was based,--the scripture I mean which speaks of One, "the lachet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose." We shall not have the opportunity of being so proud and impatient as Dean Colet of unhappy memory, for no shoe, alas, of St Thomas or any other saint will be offered for our veneration in the Hospital of St Nicholas at Harbledown to-day. Yet not for this should we pass it by, for of all places upon the road, it best of all conserves the memory of those far away days when Chaucer came by, and half-way up the hill rested awhile and prayed, e'er from the summit he looked down upon Canterbury. The Hospital of the Forest or Wood of Blean, dedicated in honour of St Nicholas, lies upon the southern and western side of the last hill before the western gate of the city. It was founded in 1084 by Archbishop Lanfranc, and no doubt for a time served as a hospital for Lepers, but it was soon appropriated for the use of the sick and wayfarers generally, and though nothing save the chapel remains to us from Lanfranc's day, the whole place is so full of interest that no one should pass it by. The chapel became in time the parish church of this little place on the hillside which grew up about the hospital which itself was probably placed here on account of the spring of water known as St Thomas's or the Black Prince's well, south and west of the building. Most of the chapel is of Norman building, the western doorway for instance, the pillars and round arches on the north of the nave dating from Lanfranc's time. But the south side is later, of the thirteenth century, and the font and choir are later still, being Perpendicular fifteenth century work. The hospital, however, as we see it, is a rebuilding of the seventeenth century, but it was fundamentally restored in the nineteenth. In the "Frater Hall," however, are some interesting remains of the old house, among them a fine collection of mazers and two bowls of maple wood, in one of which lies perhaps the very crystal which Erasmus saw, and which was set in the upper leather of the shoe of St Thomas. Below the hospital in the orchard is the old well known as St Thomas's. Above it grows an elder, surely a relic of the days of the Pilgrimage. For the elder was known as the wayfaring tree and was sacred to pilgrims and travellers. It is not strange then, that it should cool with its shade the spring of St Thomas; it is only strange that the vandal has spared it for us to bless. But why the elder was sacred to travellers I do not know. Wayfaring Tree! What ancient claim Hast thou to that right pleasant name? Was it that some faint pilgrim came Unhopedly to thee In the brown desert's weary way 'Midst thirst and toils consuming sway, And there, as 'neath thy shade he lay, Blessed the Wayfaring Tree? But doggerel never solved anything. In truth a very different story is told of the elder and on good authority too. For if we may not trust Sir John Maundeville who tells us that, "Fast by the Pool of Siloe is the elder tree on which Judas hanged himself ... when he sold and betrayed our Lord," Shakespeare says that, "Judas was hanged on an elder," and Piers Plowman records: Judas he japed With Jewish siller And sithen on an elder tree Hanged himsel. It is from the quietness and neglected beauty of this well of St Thomas that under the evening I turned back into the road and, climbing a little, looked down upon what was once the holiest city of fair England. Felix locus, felix ecclesia In qua Thomae vivit memoria: Felix terra quae dedit praesulem Felix ilia quae fovit exsulem. In that hour of twilight, when even the modern world is hushed and it is possible to believe in God, I looked with a long look towards that glory which had greeted so often and for so many centuries the eager gaze of my ancestors, but I could not see for my eyes like theirs were full of tears. CHAPTER VI THE CITY OF ST THOMAS When a man, alone or in a company, entered Canterbury at last by the long road from London, in the thirteenth, fourteenth or fifteenth century, he came into a city as famous as Jerusalem, as lovely as anything even in England, and as certainly alive and in possession of a soul as he was himself. When a man comes into Canterbury to-day he comes into a dead city. I say Canterbury is dead, for when the soul has departed from the body, that is death. Canterbury has lost its soul. Go into the Cathedral, it is like a tomb, but a tomb that has been rifled, a whited sepulchre so void and cold that even the last trump will make there no stir. It was once the altar, the shrine, and as it were the mother of England, one of the tremendous places of Europe into which every year flocked thousands upon thousands upon thousands of men. The altar is thrown down, the shrine is gone and forgotten, in all that vast church the martyred Saint who made it what it was is not so much as remembered even in an inscription or a stone; and the enthusiasm and devotion of centuries have given place to a silence so icy that nothing can break it. The place is dead. I remember very well the first time I came to Canterbury. I was a boy, and full of enthusiasm for St Thomas, I would have knelt where he fell, I would have prayed, yes with all my fathers, there where he was laid at last on high above the altar. But there was nothing. I was shown, as is the custom, all that the four centuries of ice have preserved of the work of my forefathers; the glorious tombs of King and Bishop, the storied glass of the thirteenth century, unique in England, the litter and the footsteps of thirteen hundred years. I was led up past the choir into that lofty and once famous place where for centuries the greatest and holiest shrine in England stood. All about were still grouped the tombs of Princes; Edward, the Black Prince, the hero of Crecy, Henry IV., the usurper, Cardinal Chatillon; but of the shrine itself, of the body it held up to love and honour and worship there was nothing, no word even, no sign at all to tell that ever such a thing had been, only an emptiness and a space and a silence that could be felt. Later I was led down into that north-west transept, once known as the Martyrdom, where St Thomas laid down his life; and left alone there, I remember I tried in all that dumbness and silence to recollect myself, to pray, at least to recall, something of that great sacrifice which had so moved Christendom that for centuries men flocked here to worship--where now no man kneels any more for ever. I remember very well how it came to me in that tingling and icy silence that St Thomas died for the liberty of the Church, that here in England she might not become the king's chattel or anyway at all the creature of the civil power. I was too young to smile when I remembered that in the very place where St Thomas laid down his life in that cause, there sits to-day in his usurped place one who eagerly acknowledges the king as the "Supreme Governor of the Church within these realms." Yet in my heart I heard again those tremendous words, "Were all the swords of England hanging over my head you could not terrify me from my obedience to God and my Lord the Pope." They who slew him fled away, and their title, shouted in the winter darkness that filled the church, was heard above the thunder and has echoed down the ages since: Reaux! Reaux! King's men! King's men! Is it not they who now sit in Becket's place? But to-day I am content with a judgment less bitter and less logical. Who may know what is in the heart of God? Perhaps after all, after this age of ice, Canterbury will rise again and my little son even may hear them singing in the streets, gay once more and alive with endless processions that noble old song: Laureata novo Thoma, Sicut suo Petro Roma, Gaude Cantuaria! [Illustration: CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL FROM CHRISTCHURCH GATE] For though St Thomas be forgot in Canterbury, he is on high and valiant, and one day maybe he will return from exile as before, to accomplish wonderful things. And indeed dead as she is and silent, Canterbury is worthy of resurrection if only because she is as it were a part of him and a part, too, of our origins, the well, though not the source from which the Faith was given us. For some thirteen hundred years when men have spoken of Canterbury, they have had in mind the metropolitan church of England, the great cathedral which still stands so finely there in the rather gloomy close behind Christ Church gate, rightly upon the foundations of its predecessors, Roman, Saxon, and Norman buildings. Ever since there was a civilisation in England, there has been a church in this place; it is our duty, then, as well as our pleasure to approach it to-day with reverence. Canterbury began as we began in the swamps and the forests, a little lake village in the marshes of the Stour, holding the lowest ford, not beyond the influence of the sea nor out of reach of fresh water. When great Rome broke into England lost in mist, here certainly she established a city that was as it were the focus of all the ports of the Straits whence most easily a man might come into England from the continent. Canterbury grew because she was almost equally near to the ports we know as Lympne, Dover, Richborough and Reculvers, so that a man setting out from the continent and doubtful in which port he would land, wholly at the mercy of wind and tide as he was, would name Canterbury to his correspondent in England as a place of meeting. Thus Canterbury increased. There in the Roman times doubtless a church arose which, doubtless, too, perished in the Diocletian persecution. That it re-arose we know, for Venerable Bede describes it as still existing when, nearly two hundred years after the departure of the Roman legions, St Augustine came into England, sent by St Gregory to make us Christians. He came, as we know, first into Kent to find Canterbury the royal capital of King Ethelbert, and when, says Bede, "an episcopal see had been given to Augustine in the king's own city he _regained possession (re_cuperavit) with the king's help, _of a church there which he was informed had been built in the city long before by Roman believers_. This he consecrated in the name of the Holy Saviour Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, and fixed there a home for himself and all his successors." [Footnote: Bede, _Hist. Eccl._, I. xxviii.] This church, rudely repaired, added to and rebuilt, stood until Lanfranc's day, when it was pulled down and destroyed to make way for the great Norman building out of which the church we have has grown. The little church which Lanfranc destroyed and which had seen so many vicissitudes, was probably a work of the end of the fourth century, at any rate in its foundations. Eadmer indeed who tells us all we know of it says that it was built on the plan of St Peter's in Rome. "This was that very church," he writes, "which had been built by Romans as Bede witnesses in his history, and which was duly arranged in some parts in imitation of the church of the blessed Prince of the Apostles, Peter, in which his holy relics are exalted by the veneration of the whole world." We shall never know much more than Eadmer tells us, for if the foundations still exist they lie within the present church. It is recorded, however, that in the time of St Elphege the church was badly damaged by the Danes, the archbishop himself being martyred at Greenwich. No doubt as often before, the church was patched up, only to perish by fire in 1067, the year after the Battle of Hastings. When Lanfranc then entered Canterbury, he found his Cathedral a mere ruin, but with his usual energy, though already a man of sixty-five, he set to work to re-establish not only his Cathedral but also the monastery attached to it. He did this on a great scale, providing accommodation for three times the number of monks that had served the Cathedral in the decadent days of the Saxon monarchy, and when this was done he first "destroyed utterly" the Romano-Saxon church and then "set about erecting a more noble one, and in the space of seven years, 1070- 1077, he raised this from the foundations and brought it near to perfection." That he worked in great haste and too quickly seems certain. In fact it must be confessed that Lanfranc's church in Canterbury was a more or less exact copy of his church of St Stephen at Caen, but, built much more quickly, was too mean for its purpose. It soon became necessary to rebuild the choir and sanctuary; the nave, however, was allowed to stand until the end of the fourteenth century; but even then its design so hampered the builders of the present nave, for it had been decided to preserve one of Lanfranc's western towers, that to this day the nave of Canterbury is too short, consisting of but eight bays. Lanfranc's choir was of but two bays and an apse. This was too obviously inadequate to be tolerated by the monks. In 1096 it was pulled down and a great apsidal choir of ten bays was built over a lofty crypt, with a tower on either side the apse and an eastern transept having four apsidal chapels in the eastern walls, two in the north arm and two in the south. All this was done in the time of St Anselm and finished in 1115, when Conrad was Prior of Christ Church. It was this church with Lanfranc's short Norman nave, western façade and towers, and Conrad's glorious great choir high up over the crypt, a choir broader than the nave and longer too, and with two transepts, the western of Lanfranc's time, the eastern of St Anselm's, that St Thomas knew and that saw his martyrdom in 1170. Materials for the life of St Thomas are so plentiful that his modern biographers are able to compose a life fuller perhaps in detail and fact than would be possible in the case of any other man of his time. But no account ever written of his martyrdom is at once so simple and so touching as that to be found in the Golden Legend. It was this account which the man of the Middle Age knew by heart, and which brought him in his thousands on pilgrimage to Canterbury, and therefore I give it here. "When the King of France had made accord between St Thomas and King Henry, the Archbishop," Voragine tells us, "came home to Canterbury, where he was received worshipfully, and sent for them that had trespassed against him, and by the authority of the Pope's Bull openly denounced them accursed, unto the time they came to amendment. And when they heard this they came to him and would have made him assoil them by force; and sent word over to the King how he had done, whereof the King was much wroth and said: If he had men in his land that loved him they would not suffer such a traitor in his land alive. "And forthwith four knights took their counsel together and thought they would do to the King a pleasure and emprised to slay St Thomas and suddenly departed and took their shipping toward England. And when the King knew of their departing he was sorry and sent after them, but they were in the sea and departed ere the messenger came, wherefore the King was heavy and sorry. "These be the names of the four knights: Sir Reginald Fitzurse, Sir Hugh de Morville, Sir William de Tracy and Sir Richard le Breton. "On Christmas Day St Thomas made a sermon at Canterbury in his own church and, weeping, prayed the people to pray for him, for he knew well his time was nigh, and there executed the sentence on them that were against the right of Holy Church. And that same day as the King sat at meat all the bread that he handled waxed anon mouldy and hoar that no man might eat of it, and the bread that they touched not was fair and good for to eat. "And these four knights aforesaid came to Canterbury on the Tuesday in Christmas week, about evensong time and came to St Thomas and said that the King commanded him to make amends for the wrongs he had done and also that he should assoil all them that he had accursed anon or else they should slay him. Then said Thomas: All that I ought to do by right, that will I with a good will do, but as to the sentence that is executed I may not undo, but that they will submit them to the correction of Holy Church, for it was done by our holy father the Pope and not by me. Then said Sir Reginald: But if thou assoil not the King and all other standing in the curse it shall cost thee thy life. And St Thomas said: Thou knowest well enough that the King and I were accorded on Mary Magdalene day and that this curse should go forth on them that had offended the Church. "Then one of the knights smote him as he kneeled before the altar, on the head. And one Sir Edward Grim, that was his crossier, put forth his arm with the cross to bear off the stroke, and the stroke smote the cross asunder and his arm almost off, wherefore he fled for fear and so did all the monks that were that time at Compline. And then each smote at him, that they smote off a great piece of the skull of his head, that his brain fell on the pavement. And so they slew and martyred him, and were so cruel that one of them brake the point of his sword against the pavement. And thus this holy and blessed archbishop St Thomas suffered death in his own church for the right of all Holy Church. And when he was dead they stirred his brain, and after went in to his chamber and took away his goods and his horse out of his stable, and took away his Bulls and writings and delivered them to Sir Robert Broke to bear into France to the King. And as they searched his chambers they found in a chest two shirts of hair made full of great knots, and then they said: Certainly he was a good man; and coming down into the churchyard they began to dread and fear that the ground would not have borne them, and were marvellously aghast, but they supposed that the earth would have swallowed them all quick. And then they knew that they had done amiss. And soon it was known all about, how that he was martyred, and anon after they took his holy body and unclothed him and found bishop's clothing above and the habit of a monk under. And next his flesh he wore hard hair, full of knots, which was his shirt, and his breech was of the same, and the knots sticked fast within his skin, and all his body full of worms; he suffered great pain. And he was thus martyred the year of Our Lord one thousand one hundred and seventy-one, and was fifty-three years old. And soon after tidings came to the King how he was slain, wherefore the King took great sorrow, and sent to Rome for his absolution...." Of the King's penance Voragine says nothing, but indeed it must have reverberated through Europe, though not perhaps with so enormous a rumour as the humiliation of the Emperor Henry IV. before Pope Gregory VII. at Canossa scarce a hundred years before had done. The first and the most famous of Canterbury pilgrims came to St Dunstan's church upon the Watling Street, outside the great West Gate of Canterbury, as we may believe in July 1174. There he stripped him of his robes and, barefoot in a woollen shirt, entered the city and walked barefoot through the streets to the door of the Cathedral. There he knelt, and being received into the great church, was led to the place of Martyrdom where he knelt again and kissed the stones where St Thomas had fallen. In the crypt where the body of the martyr was preserved, the King laid aside his cloak and received five strokes with a rod from every Bishop and Abbot there present, and three from every one of the eighty monks. In that place he remained through the whole night fasting and weeping to be absolved on the following day. [Illustration: WEST GATE, CANTERBURY] The martyrdom of St Thomas, the penance of the King, these world- shaking and amazing events might in themselves, we may think, have been enough to transform the church in which they took place, if as was thought at the time, heaven itself had not intervened and destroyed Conrad's glorious choir by fire. This disaster fell upon the city and the country like a final judgment, less than two months after the penance of the King in 1174, and within four years of St Thomas's murder. Something of the great masterpiece that then perished is left to us especially without, and it is perhaps the most charming work remaining in the city, the tower of St Anselm, for instance, and much of the transept beside it. For the rest the choir of Canterbury, as we know it, the choir began in 1174 by William of Sens, is as French as its predecessor, but in all else very different. In order perhaps to provide a great space for the shrine of the newly canonised St Thomas of Canterbury, to whose tomb already half Europe was flocking, the choir was built even longer than its predecessor. The great space provided for the shrine in the Trinity Chapel behind the choir and high altar opened on the east into a circular chapel known, perhaps on account of the relic it held, as Becket's Crown. Till 1220 when all was ready, the body of St Thomas lay in an iron coffin in the crypt, and the great feast and day of pilgrimage in his honour was the day of his martyrdom, December 29, so incredibly honourable as being within the octave of the Nativity of Our Lord. But in 1220 it was decided to translate the body from the crypt to the new shrine in the Trinity Chapel in July, for the winter pilgrimage was irksome. From that year a new feast was established, the feast of the Translation of St Thomas upon July 7th, and thus in England down to our own day, St Thomas has two feasts, that of his Martyrdom on December 29, when still his relics are exposed in the great Catholic Cathedral of Westminster, and in the little church of St Thomas, the Catholic sanctuary in Canterbury, and that of his Translation upon July 7th. Of that first summer pilgrimage to the new shrine of St Thomas we have very full accounts. It was the most glorious and the most extraordinary assemblage that had perhaps ever been seen in England. The Archbishop had given two years' notice of the event, and this had been circulated not only in all England, but throughout Europe. "Orders had been issued for maintenance to be provided for the vast multitude not only in the city of Canterbury itself, but on the various roads by which the pilgrims would approach. During the whole celebration along the whole way from London to Canterbury, hay and provender were given to all who asked, and at each gate of Canterbury in the four quarters of the city and in the four licensed cellars, were placed tuns of wine to be distributed gratis, and on the day of the festival, wine ran freely through the gutters of the streets." In the presence of the young Henry III., too young himself to bear a part, the coffin in which lay the relics of St Thomas was borne on the shoulders of the Papal Legate, the Archbishop Stephen Langton, the Grand Justiciary Hubert de Burgh, and the Archbishop of Rheims, from the crypt up to the Trinity Chapel in the presence of every Bishop and Abbot of England, of the great officials of the kingdom and of the special ambassadors of every state in Europe. Of bishops and abbots, prior and parsons, Of earls and of barons and of many knights thereto, Of sergeants and of squires and of his husbandmen enow, And of simple men eke of the land--so thick hither drew. So was St Thomas vindicated and God avenged. And St Thomas reigned as was thought for ever on high, in the new sanctuary of his Cathedral Church. I say he reigned on high. The choir and sanctuary of Canterbury had even in St Anselm's time as we have seen, been high above the nave. William of Sens designed the new choir, as high as the old, but very nobly raised still higher, the great altar, and higher yet the Chapel of the Trinity in which stood the shrine. St Thomas had an especial devotion to the Holy Trinity. It was in a former Trinity Chapel that he had said his first Mass, and whether on this account or another, his devotion was such that it was he who first established that Feast, till then merely the octave of Whitsunday. His shrine then was well placed in the Chapel of the Holy Trinity. In examining the church to-day one can well understand the beauty of William of Sens' idea, and see, too, where, and perhaps understand why, it really fails or at least comes short of perfection. William of Sens trained in Latin traditions had, and rightly, little respect, we may think, for the work of the past. He would have had all new. But by 1174, unlike Anselm in 1096, and still more unlike Lanfranc in 1070, he had in all probability a genuine English and national prejudice to meet, an English dislike of destruction and an English hatred of anything new. It has been said that the failure of William of Sens' design was due to the meanness of the monks of Christ Church. But meanness is not an English failing; on the contrary, our great fault is the very opposite, extravagance. It was surely not meanness and at such a time and in such a cause that forced the monastery to deny William of Sens the free hand he desired; it was prejudice and a fear, almost barbaric; of destruction. The monks forced their builder to accommodate the new choir to what remained of the old work. They refused to sacrifice St Anselm's tower on the south or the tower of St Andrew on the north, therefore the wide choir of Canterbury, already wider than the nave and growing wider still as it went eastward, had to be strangled between them, and to open again as well as it could into the Trinity Chapel and the Corona. All that was old, too, and that they loved they used; the old piers of the crypt were to remain and still to support the pillars of the choir, which were thus, no doubt to William's disgust, unequally placed so that here the arches are pointed but there round. In many ways William must have considered his employers barbarians, and in the true sense of that much abused term, he was right. No man brought up in the Greek and Latin traditions would have hesitated to destroy in order to build anew. The English cannot do that; they patch and make do, and what must be new they cannot love until it is old; their buildings are not so much works of art as growths, and there is much to be said for them. Only here at Canterbury their prejudice has been a misfortune. Not even the most convinced Englishman can look upon the twisted and constricted choir of Canterbury and rejoice. William of Sens, however, hampered though he was, is responsible for the work we see. It is true he died after some four years of work at Canterbury, falling one day from a scaffold, but William the Englishman who followed him only completed what was really already finished. The design, the idea, and the genius of Canterbury choir are French, spoiled by English prejudice, but undoubtedly French for all that. As it appeared when that great Transitional choir was finished, Canterbury Cathedral remained till 1379. It is true that the north wall of the cloister and the lovely doorway in the north-east corner were built in the Early English time. It is equally true that the lower part of the Chapter House and the screens north and south of the choir and a glorious window in St Anselm's Chapel are Decorated work, but the Cathedral itself knows nothing of the Early English or of the Decorated styles. It stood till 1379 with a low and short Norman nave and transept to the west, and a great Transitional choir and transept to the east. In 1379 Lanfranc's nave and transept were destroyed. It may be thought that at last a great and noble nave would be built north of the Frenchman's choir. Not at all. Again the English prejudice against destruction--a lack of intellectual daring in us perhaps-- prevented this. One of the western towers of Lanfranc was to remain, and therefore the new nave though loftier than the old, was no longer, and it remains a glory certainly without, but within a hopeless disappointment saved from utter ineffectiveness only by the noble height of the great choir above it. It remains without life or zest, not an experiment but a task honestly and thoroughly done in the Perpendicular style. To the same period belong the great western screen of the choir, the Chapel of St Michael and the Warrior's Chapel in the south transept, the Lady Chapel in the north transept, the Chantry and the tomb of Henry IV. in the Trinity Chapel, the Black Prince's Chantry and the screens of the Lady Chapel in the Crypt, the upper part of the Chapter House, now lost to us by restoration, and the south-west Tower. There remained at the end of the fifteenth century but one thing needed--the central Tower. This, as it happened, was to be the last great Gothic work undertaken in this country, and in every way it is one of the most impressive and successful. Begun in 1475 and finished in 1503, the Angel Steeple is the last of Catholicism in England, and I like to think of it towering as it does over that dead city, and the low hills of Kent, over all that was once so sacred and is now nothing, as a kind of beacon, a sign of hope until it shall ring the Angelus again and once more the sons of St Benedict shall chant the Mass of St Thomas before the shrine new made: _Gaudeamus omnes in Domino, diem festum celebrantes, sub honore beati Thomae Martyris, de cujus passione gaudent angeli et collaudant filium Dei_. For the great shrine, which for so long had been the loftiest beacon in England of the Christian Faith, was destroyed. It was the first work of the last Henry to avenge his namesake, and having made another Thomas martyr in the same cause, to wipe out for ever all memory of the first who had steadfastly withstood his predecessor. It is strange that the severed head of Blessed Thomas More should lie in the very church whence Henry II. set forth to do penance for the murder of the first Thomas. We have no authentic record of the final catastrophe, such deeds are usually done in darkness. All we really know is that in 1538 "the bones, by command of the Lord (Thomas) Cromwell, were there and then burnt ... the spoile of the shrine in golde and precious stones filled two greate chests such as six or seven strong men could doe no more than convey one of them out of the church." That the shrine was of unsurpassed magnificence we have many witnesses. "The tomb of St Thomas the Martyr," writes a Venetian traveller who had seen it, "surpasses all belief. Notwithstanding its great size it is wholly covered with plates of pure gold; yet the gold is scarce seen because it is covered with various precious stones as sapphires, balasses, diamonds, rubies and emeralds; and wherever the eye turns something more beautiful than the rest is observed; nor in addition to these natural beauties is the skill of art wanting, for in the midst of the gold are the most beautiful sculptured gems, both small and large as well as such as are in relief, as agates, onyxes, cornelians and cameos; and some cameos are of such size that I am afraid to name it; but everything is far surpassed by a ruby, not larger than a thumb-nail, which is fixed at the right of the altar. The church is somewhat dark and particularly in the spot where the shrine is placed, and when we went to see it the sun was near setting and the weather cloudy; nevertheless I saw the ruby as if I had it in my hand. They say it was given by a king of France." To carry out the theft with impunity it was first of all necessary to degrade the great national hero and saint and expose his memory to ridicule. In November 1538 St Thomas was declared a traitor, every representation of him was ordered to be destroyed, and his name was erased from all service books, antiphones, collects and prayers under pain of his Majesty's indignation, and imprisonment at his Grace's pleasure. The saint indeed is said to have been cited to appear at Westminster for treason, and there to have been tried and condemned. That seems, too superstitiously insolent even for such a thing as Henry. But we may believe Marillac, the French Ambassador, when he tells us "St Thomas is declared a traitor _because_ his relics and bones were adorned with gold and stones." So perished the shrine and memory of St Thomas, and with it the thousand year old religion of England to be replaced by one knows not what. With the destruction of religion went the destruction of the religious houses. Of these the chief was the Benedictine monastery of Christ Church which lay to the north of the Cathedral and whose monks from St Augustine's time had always served it. Almost nothing remains of this, save the Cloister and Chapter House and Treasury attached to the Cathedral, the Castellum Aquae, now called the Baptistery, the Prior's Chapel, now the Chapter Library, the Deanery, once part of the Prior's lodging, the Porter's gate, the Norman staircase of the King's school and the fragmentary ruins scattered about the precincts, including the remains of the Archbishop's Palace in Palace Street. Not less venerable than the Benedictine House of Christ Church was the other Benedictine monastery, also founded by St Augustine in honour of SS. Peter and Paul, to which dedication St Dunstan added the name of St Augustine himself. This stood outside the city to the east. It is said to have been founded by St Augustine outside the walls with a view to his own interment there since it was not the Roman custom, as we know, to bury the dead within the walls of a city. So honourable a place in the Order did this great house hold that we are told the abbot of St Augustine's Canterbury sat next to the abbot of Monte Cassino, the mother house, in the councils of the Order, and none but the archbishop himself consecrated the abbot of St Augustine's, and that in the Abbey Church. This also Henry stole away, seizing it for his own use. But by 1844 what was left of the place had become a brewery, and to-day there remains scarcely more than a great fourteenth century gateway and hall, the work of Abbot Fyndon in 1300. Of the church there is left a few fragments of walling, of St Augustine's tomb, nothing whatsoever. Less still remains to us of the smaller religious houses that abounded in Canterbury. Of the Austin Canons, the Priory of St Gregory founded by Lanfranc in 1084 near St John's Hospital, also a foundation of Lanfranc, in Northgate Street, really nothing, a fragment of old wall; of the Nunnery of St Sepulchre, a Benedictine house, nothing at all. As for the Friars' houses scarcely more remains. Of the earliest, the Dominican house, only the scantiest ruins of the convent, the refectory, however, once in the hands of the Anabaptists, is now a Unitarian chapel. Of the White Friars, nothing. Of the Franciscan house, the charming thirteenth century ruin that stands over the river to the south of St Peter's Street. That is all. The Canterbury of St Thomas is no more, it perished with his shrine and his religion. Even the hospital he is said to have founded, which at any rate was dedicated in his honour, was suppressed by Edward VI.; it is, however, still worth a visit, if only for the sake of the wall painting recovered in 1879, in which we see the Martyrdom, and the penance of the King. But in Canterbury to-day St Thomas is really a stranger, no relic, scarcely a remembrance of him remains; yet he was the soul of the city, he is named in the calendar of his Church St Thomas of Canterbury. No relic do I say? I am wrong. Let all the pilgrims of the past come in at the four gates in their thousands and their thousands; let the great processions form as though this were a year of jubilee, they shall not be disappointed. Yet it is not to the Cathedral they shall go, but to an ugly little church (alas!), in a back street, where over the last altar upon the Epistle side there is a shrine and in the shrine a relic--the Soutan of St Thomas. The place is humble and meek enough to escape the notice of all but the pilgrims who sought and seek Canterbury only for St Thomas. Musing there in the late spring sunshine, for the church is open and quiet, and within there is always a Guest, I fell asleep; and in my sleep that Guest came to me and I spoke with Him. It seemed to me that I was walking in early morning--all in the England of my heart--across meadows through which flowed a clear translucent stream, and the meadows were a mass of flowers, narcissus, jonquil, violet, for it was spring. And beyond the meadows was a fair wood all newly dressed, and out of the wood there came towards me a man, and I knew it was the Lord Christ. And I went on to meet Him. And when I was come to Him I said: "I shall never understand what You mean ... I shall never understand what You mean. For You say the meek shall inherit the earth.... I shall never understand what You mean." And He looked at me and smiled, and stretching forth His hands and looking all about He answered: "But I spoke of the flowers." CHAPTER VII THE VALLEY OF THE STOUR CAESAR IN KENT It was upon as fair a spring morning as ever was in England, that I set out from Canterbury through the West Gate, and climbing up the shoulder of Harbledown, some little way past St Dunstan's, turned out of the Watling Street, south and west into the old green path or trackway, which, had I followed it to the end, would have brought me right across Kent and Surrey and Hampshire to Winchester the old capital of England. This trackway, far older than history, would doubtless have perished utterly, as so many of its fellows have done, but for two very different events, the first of which was the Martyrdom of St Thomas, and the other the practice of demanding tolls upon the great new system of turnpike-roads we owe to the end of the eighteenth century. For this ancient British track leading half across England of my heart, a barbarous thing, older than any written word in England, was used and preserved, when, with the full blossoming of the Middle Age in the thirteenth century, it might have disappeared. It was preserved by the Pilgrims to St Thomas's Shrine. All those men who came out of the West to visit St Thomas, all those who came from Brittany, central and southern France and Spain, gathered at Winchester, the old capital of the Kingdom, and when they set out thence for Canterbury this was the way they followed across the counties; this most ancient way which enters Canterbury hand in hand with the Watling Street by the West Gate. To describe a thing so ancient is impossible. It casts a spell upon the traveller so that as he follows under its dark yews across the steep hop gardens of Kent from hillside to hillside, up this valley or that, along the mighty south wall of the North Downs to the great ford of the Medway, and beyond and beyond through more than a hundred miles to Winchester he loses himself; becomes indeed one with his forefathers and looks upon that dear and ancient landscape, his most enduring and most beautiful possession as a child looks upon his mother, really with unseeing eyes, unable to tell whether she be fair or no, understanding indeed but this that she is a part of himself, and that he loves her more than anything else in the world. But that glorious way in all its fulness was not for me. I had determined to follow the Pilgrims' Road but a little way, indeed but for one long day's journey, so far only as Boghton Aluph, where it turns that great corner westward and proceeds along the rampart of the Downs. But even in the ten miles twixt Canterbury and Boghton, that ancient way gives to him who follows it wonderful things. To begin with, the valley of the Stour. There can be few valleys in this part of England more lovely than this steep and wide vale, through the hop gardens, the woods and meadows of which, the Great Stour proceeds like a royal pilgrim, half in state to Canterbury, and on to the mystery of the marshes, and its death in the sea. Above Canterbury certainly, and all along my way, there is not a meadow nor a wood, nor indeed a single mile of that landscape, which has not been contrived and created by man, by the love and labour of our fathers through how many thousand years. And this is part of the virtue of England, that it is as it were a garden of our making, a pleasaunce we have built, a paradise and a home after our own hearts. And in that divine and tireless making we, without knowing it, have so moulded ourselves that we are one with it, it is a part of us, a part of our character and nature. There lie ever before us our beginnings, the earthworks we once defended, the graves we built, the defeats, the victories, the holy places. By these a man lives, out of these he draws slowly and with a sort of confidence the uncertain future, glad indeed of this divine assurance that there is nothing new under the sun. Such monuments of an antiquity so great that they have no history but what may be gathered from barrows and stones, accompany one upon any day's journey in southern England, but it is only in one place that a man can stand and say: Here began the history of my country. That place as it happens lies as it should upon the Pilgrims' Road. Beyond Harbledown, some two miles from Canterbury, he Pilgrims' Road along the hillside passes clean through earthwork of unknown antiquity. Well, it was here the Seventh Legion charged: here, indeed, we stand upon the very battlefield which saw the birth of civilisation in our island. Lying there in the early morning sunshine I considered it all over again. Caesar's first landing in Britain in B.C. 55 had been, as he himself tells us, merely a reconnaissance. In the following summer, however, he returned in force, indeed with a very considerable army, and with the intention of bringing us, too, within that great administration which he and his adoptive son Augustus were to do so much to make a final and in many ways an indestructible thing. It might seem that in spite of the lack of the means of rapid communication we possess, the admirable system of Roman roads enabled Caesar to administer his huge government--he was then in control of the two Gauls--with a thoroughness we might envy. After his first return from Britain in the early autumn of B.C. 55 he crossed the Alps, completed much business in Cisalpine Gaul, journeyed into Illyricum to see what damage the Pirustae had done, dealt with them effectively, returned to Cisalpine Gaul, held conventions, crossed the Alps again, rejoined his army, went round all their winter quarters, inspected all the many ships he was building at Portus Itius and other places, marched with four Legions and some cavalry against a tribe of Belgae known as the Treviri, settled matters with them, and before the summer of B.C. 54 was back at Portus Itius, making final preparations for the invasion of Britain. This invasion, glorious as it was to be, and full of the greatest results for us, was accompanied all through by a series of petty disasters. Caesar had purposed to set out certainly early in July, but delay followed upon delay, and when he was ready at last, the wind settled into the north-west and blew steadily from that quarter for twenty-five days. It had been a dry summer and all Gaul was suffering from drought. The great preparations which Caesar had been making for at least a year were at last complete, the specially built ships, wide and of shallow draft, of an intermediate size between his own swift- sailing vessels and those of burthen which he had gathered locally, were all ready to the number of six hundred, with twenty-eight _naves longae_ or war vessels, and some two hundred of the older boats. But the wind made a start impossible for twenty-five days. It was not till August that the south-west came to his assistance. As soon as might be he embarked five Legions, say twenty-thousand men, with two thousand cavalry and horses, an enormous transport, and doubtless a great number of camp followers, leaving behind on the continent three legions and two thousand horse to guard the harbours and provide corn, and to inform him what was going on in Gaul in his absence, and to act in case of necessity. He himself set sail from Portus Itius, which we may take to be Boulogne, at sunset, that is to say about half-past seven; but he must, it might seem, have devoted the whole day to getting so many ships out of harbour. The wind was blowing gently from the south-west, bearing him, his fortunes and ours. At midnight the second of those small disasters which met him at every turn upon this expedition fell upon him. The wind failed. In consequence his great fleet of transports was helpless, it drifted along with the tide, fortunately then running up the Straits, but this bore him beyond his landing-place of the year before, and daybreak found him apparently far to the east of the North Foreland. What can have been the thoughts of the greatest of men, helpless in the midst of this treacherous and unknown sea? To every Roman the sea was bitter, even the tideless Mediterranean, how much more this furious tide-whipt channel. Caesar cannot but have remembered how it had half broken him in the previous year. Very profoundly he must have mistrusted it. But his Gaulish sailors were doubtless less disturbed; they expected the ebb, and when it came, every man doing his utmost, the transports were brought as swiftly as the long ships to that "fair and open" beach where Caesar had landed in the previous summer, the long beach which Deal and Sandwich hold. Caesar himself, as it happens, does not tell us that he landed in the same place upon this his second invasion of Britain as he had done before; it is to Dion Cassius that we owe the knowledge that he did so. It is Caesar, however, who tells us that he landed about mid-day and that all his ships held together and reached shore about the same time. He adds that there was no enemy to be seen, though, as he afterwards learned from his prisoners, large bodies of British troops had been assembled, but, alarmed at the great number of the ships, more than eight hundred of which, including the ships of the previous year and the private vessels which some had built for their convenience, had appeared at one time, they had retreated from the coast and taken to the heights. The heights must have been the hills to the south of Canterbury, nearly a day's march from the sea. If Caesar landed, as we know from Dion Cassius that he did, in the same place as he had done in the previous year, he must have known all there was to know about the natural facilities there for camping, about the supply of fresh water for instance. But perhaps he had not considered the dryness of the summer. In any case it might seem to have been some pressing need, such as the necessity for a plentiful supply of fresh water, which forced him immediately to make a night march with his army. Leaving as he tells us, under Quintus Atrius, ten cohorts, that is, as we may suppose, two cohorts from each of his five legions, and three hundred horse to guard the ships at anchor, and to hold the camp, hastily made between midday and midnight, in the third watch, that is between midnight and three o'clock, he started with his five legions and seventeen hundred horse, as he asserts, to seek out the enemy. Something, we may be sure, more pressing than an attack upon a barbarian foe there was no hurry to meet, must have forced Caesar to march his army sleepless now for two nights, one of which had been spent upon an unusual and anxious adventure at sea, out of camp, in the small hours, into an unknown and roadless country in search of an enemy which had taken to its native hills. The necessity that forced Caesar to this dangerous course was probably a lack of fresh water. He was seeking a considerable river, for the smaller streams, as he probably found, could not suffice after a long drought for so great a force as he had landed. He himself asserts that he advanced "by night" across that roadless and unknown country a distance of twelve miles. We know of course of what the armies of Caesar were capable in the way of marching; there have never been troops carrying anything like their weight of equipment which have done better than they; but to march something like fifteen thousand men and seventeen hundred horse twelve miles in about three hours into the unknown and the dark, is an impossible proceeding. That march of "about twelve miles" cannot have occupied less than from six to eight hours, one would think, and the greater part of it must have been accomplished by daylight, which would break about half-past three o'clock. As we have good reason to think, Caesar's march, however long a time it may have occupied, was in search of fresh water, and it is significant that when the Britons were at last seen, they "were advancing to the river with their cavalry and chariots from the higher ground." In other words, Caesar's march had brought him into the valley of the Great Stour, where he not only found the water he sought, but also the enemy, who had probably followed his march from the great woods all the way. [Illustration: ON THE STOUR NEAR CANTERBURY] The spot at which Caesar struck the valley was, as we may be sure, that above which the great earthwork stands, opposite Thannington. Here upon the height was fought the first real battle of Rome upon our soil. It was opened by the Britons who "began to annoy the Romans and to give battle." But the Roman cavalry repulsed them so that they again sought refuge in the woods where was their camp, "a place admirably fortified by nature and by art ... all entrance to it being shut by a great number of felled trees." But like all barbarians, the Britons were undisciplined and preferred to fight in detached parties, and as seemed good to each. Every now and then some of them rushed out of the woods and fell upon the Romans, who continually were prevented from storming the fort and forcing an entry. Much time was thus wasted until the soldiers of the Seventh Legion, having formed a _testudo_ and thrown up a rampart against the British fort, took it, and drove the Britons out of the woods, receiving in return a few, though only a few, wounds. Thus the battle ended in the victory of our enemies and our saviours. Caesar tells us that he forbade his men to pursue the enemy for any great distance, because he was ignorant of the nature of the country, and because, the day being far spent, he wished to devote what remained of the daylight to the building of his camp. Caesar speaks of this camp and rightly of course, as a thing of importance. We know from his narrative, too, that it was occupied by some fifteen thousand foot and seventeen hundred horse, with their baggage and equipment for more than ten days. Where did it stand? It must have been within reach of the river, for without plentiful water no such army as Caesar encamped could have maintained itself for so long a period as ten days; exactly where it was, however, we shall in all probability never know. Wherever it was, there Caesar spent the night, both he and his army, sleeping soundly, we may be sure, after the sleepless and anxious nights, one spent in the peril of the sea, the other in a not less perilous night march in a roadless and unknown country. Yet did Caesar sleep? Towards sunset the wind arose, and all night a great gale blew. This was the fourth misfortune the expedition had experienced. It had first been delayed for twenty-four days in starting; it had then lost the wind and had been for hours at the mercy of the tide, only landing at last when the day was far spent after a whole night upon the waters; it had been compelled by lack of water to quit the camp at the landing-place without rest, and utterly weary and sleepless, to undertake a perilous night march in search of water. And now in the darkness, after the first encounter with the enemy, a great gale arose. How often during that night must Caesar have awakened and thought of the sea and his transports. It was, as he would remember, just such a storm which had ruined him in the previous summer. To avoid a like disaster he had had his boats built for this expedition, shallow of draft and with flat bottoms that they might be beached. But with the Mediterranean in his mind and the certain weather of the south, Caesar, seeing the August sky so soft and clear, had anchored and not beached the ships after all. Perhaps the late landing, the necessity of building a large camp, and finally the perilous lack of water had prevented him from calling upon his men for a task so enormous as the beaching of eight hundred ships. Whatever had prevented him, that task was not undertaken. The eight hundred ships were anchored in the shallows, when, upon that third night of the expedition, a great gale arose. Anxious though he must have been, very early in the morning of the following day, he sent out three skirmishing parties to reconnoitre and pursue the defeated Britons of the day before; but the last men were not out of sight when gallopers came in to Caesar from Quintus Atrius, at the camp by the shore, to report "almost all the ships dashed to pieces and cast upon the beach because neither the anchors and cables could resist the force of the gale, nor the sailors or pilots outride it, and thus the ships had dashed themselves to pieces one against another." The appalling seriousness of this disaster, as reported to Caesar, was at once understood by him. He recalled his three parties of skirmishers, and himself at once returned to Quintus Atrius and the ships. He tells us that "he saw before him almost the very things which he had heard from the messengers and by letters"; but he adds that only "about forty ships were lost, the remainder being able to be repaired with much labour." This he at once began with workmen from the Legions, and others he brought from the Continent, and at the same time he wrote to Labienus at Portus Itius "to build as many ships as he could." Then he proceeded to do what he had intended to do at first; with great difficulty and labour he dragged all the ships up on the shore and enclosed them in one fortification with the camp. In these matters about ten days were spent, the men labouring night and day. Then he returned to the main army upon the Stour. But that delay of ten days had given the Britons time to recover themselves and to gather all possible forces. Caesar returned to his army to find "very great forces of the Britons already assembled" to oppose him, and the chief command and management of the war entrusted to Cassivellaunus, who, though he had been at war with the men of Kent, was now placed, so great was the general alarm, in command of the whole war. Caesar, however, cannot have been in any way daunted save perhaps by the memory of the time already lost and the advancing season. He at once began his march into Britain. We may well ask by what route he went, and to that question we shall get no certain answer. But it would seem he must have marched by one of two ways for he had to cross the Stour, the Medway and the Thames. We may be sure then that his route lay either along the old trackway which, straightened and built up later by the Romans, we know as the Watling Street, which fords the Medway at Rochester, and the Thames at Lambeth and Westminster, or by the trackway we call the Pilgrims' Way along the southern slope of the North Downs, in which case he would have forded the Medway at Aylesford and the Thames at Brentford. The question is insoluble, Caesar himself giving no indications. Now, when I had well considered all this, I went on to that loveliness which is Chilham; passing as I went, that earthwork older than any history called Julaber's Grave, marked by a clump of fir trees. Here of old they thought to find the grave of that Quintus Laberius, who fell as Caesar relates, at the head of his men, on the march to the Thames; but it was probably already older when Caesar passed by, than it would have been now if he had built it. No one can ever have come, whether by the Pilgrims' Road or another, into the little hill-village of Chilham, into the piazza there, which is an acropolis, without delight. It is one of the surprises of England, a place at once so little, so charming and so unexpected that it is extraordinary it is not more famous. It stands at a point where more than one little valley breaks down into the steep valley of the Stour and every way to it is up hill, under what might seem to be old ramparts crowned now with cottages and houses, till suddenly you find yourself at the top in a large piazza or square closed at the end by the church, at the other by the castle, and on both sides by old lines of houses; really a walled _place_. The church dedicated in honour of Our Lady is of some antiquity in the main and older parts, a work of the fourteenth century replacing doubtless Roman, Saxon and Norman buildings, but with later additions, too, of the Perpendicular time in the clerestory, for instance, and with much modern work in the chancel. Of old the place belonged to the alien Priory of Throwley in this county, itself a cell of the Abbey of St Omer, in Artois; but when these alien houses were suppressed, Chilham like Throwley itself went to the new house of Syon, founded by the King. To-day, apart from the English beauty of the church, not a work of art but of history, its chief interest lies in its monuments, some strangely monstrous, of the Digges family--Sir Dudley Digges bought Chilham at the beginning of the seventeenth century--the Colebrooks, who followed the Digges in 1751 and a Fogg and a Woldman, the latter holding Chilham until 1860. There is little to be said of these monuments save that they are none of them in very good taste, the more interesting being those to Lady Digges, and a member of the Fogg family, both of the early seventeenth century, in which the Purbeck has been covered with a charming arabesque and diapered pattern in relief. [Illustration: CHILHAM] But it was not the church, beautiful though I found it on that afternoon of spring, that made me linger in Chilham, but rather the castle, which occupies the site of a Roman camp; and perhaps of what a camp? It may be that it was here Caesar lay on the first night of his resumed march after the disaster of the ships. It may be that it was here, after all, that Quintus Laberius fell, and that here he was buried so that the ancient earthwork known as Julaber's Grave, though certainly far older than Caesar, was in fact used as the tomb of the hero whose immortality Caesar insured by naming him in his Commentaries. Who knows? If Julaber is not a corruption of Laberius as the old antiquaries asserted, and as the people here about believe, one likes to think it might be, for no other explanation of this strange name is forthcoming. So I went on through King's wood, and as I came out of it southward I saw a wonderful thing. For I saw before me that division or part of the world which stands quite separate from any other and is not Europe, Asia, Africa nor America, but Romney Marsh. It lay there under the sunset half lost in its own mists, far off across the near meadows of the Weald, for I was now upon the southern escarpment of the North Downs and in the foreground rose the town of Ashford where I was to sleep. It was twilight and more, however, before I reached it, for in those woods I heard for the first time that year the nightingale, and my heart, which all day had been full of Rome, was suddenly changed, so that I went down through the dusk to Ashford, singing an English song: By a bank as I lay, I lay, Musing on things past, heigh ho! In the merry month of May O towards the close of day-- Methought I heard at last-- O the gentle nightingale, The lady and the mistress of all musick; She sits down ever in the dale Singing with her notès smale And quavering them wonderfully thick. O for joy my spirits were quick To hear the bird how merrily she could sing, And I said, good Lord, defend England with Thy most holy hand And save noble George our King. CHAPTER VIII THE WEALD AND THE MARSH Ashford as we see it to-day, a town of thirteen thousand inhabitants, is altogether a modern place and really in the worst sense, for it owes its importance and its ugliness to the railway; it is a big junction and the site of the engineering works of the South Eastern and Chatham Company. Lacking as it is in almost all material antiquity, it has little that is beautiful to show us, a fine church with a noble tower that has been rather absurdly compared with the Angel Steeple at Canterbury--nothing more--and its history is almost as meagre. It stands, the first town of the Kentish Weald, where the East Stour flows into the Great Stour, in the very mouth of the deep valley of the latter which there turns northward through the Downs. To the North, therefore, it is everywhere cut off by those great green uplands, save where the valley, at the other end of which stands Canterbury, breaks them suddenly in twain. To the south it is cut off by a perhaps greater barrier; between it and the sea, stands the impassable mystery of Romney Marsh. In such a situation, before the railways revolutionised travel in England, how could Ashford have had any importance? Even the old road westward from Dover into Britain, the Pilgrims' Way to Stonehenge or Winchester passed it by, leaving it in the Weald to follow the escarpment of the Downs north or west. No Roman road served it, and indeed it was but a small and isolated place till the Middle Age began to revive and recreate Europe. Even then Ashford was probably late in development. Its history, if one may call it history, is concerned with the owners of the manor of Ashford and not with any civil or municipal records. Indeed the earlier chroniclers, though they speak of Great Chart and Wye, know nothing of Ashford which in Domesday Book appears to have consisted of a few mills and a small church, the manor being in possession of Edward the Confessor, while St Augustine's at Canterbury and Earl Godwin held certain lands thereabout. Hugh de Montfort got what the King and Earl Godwin had possessed, after the Conquest, but the Monastery of St Augustine's seems to have continued to hold its land. We know nothing more of Ashford, which, as I have said, till late in the Middle Age consisted of a church and two mills and a dene for the pannage of hogs in the Weald. It is not one of the many owners of the Manor who is remembered to-day in Ashford as its benefactor, but the Lord of the Manor of Ripton during the Wars of the Roses, Sir John Fogge, who was Treasurer of the Royal Household and a Privy Councillor. In the fourteenth century the church had passed to Leeds Abbey, and with the abbey the church of Ashford remained until the suppression, when it passed to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury. It was not, however, the Abbey of Leeds that rebuilt it as we see it, a poor example it must be confessed in spite of the nobility of the tower, of the latest style of English Gothic architecture, the Perpendicular. It was Sir John Fogge, who for this and other reasons, is the father of the town. He lies in a great tomb in the chancel. As for the Smyths, who lie in the south transept, Thomas, and Alicia his wife held the manor of Ashford in the sixteenth century. Alicia was the daughter of Sir Andrew Judde to whom the manor of Ashford had been mortgaged in the time of Henry VII. Her son, Sir Michael Smyth, lies close by. The family were later ennobled and bore the title of Viscounts Strangford. For the outside world, however, Sir John Fogge is not Ashford's greatest son. This honour belongs surely to Jack Cade whom Shakespeare speaks of as the "headstrong Kentish man John Cade of Ashford," and who, according to the poet, if headstrong, proved in the end so feeble- minded that in Shakespeare's play we might seem to have a picture of one suffering from general paralysis of the insane. Jack Cade, however, was, as we are beginning to realise, a much greater and more significant figure than Shakespeare allows us to see. But Ashford is not made for lingering, it is all for departure, the roads, if not the trains, lead swiftly away north, south, east and west. As for me I went by the south-west road which said twelve miles to Tenterden. I went under a fine rain on a day of married white and blue, and even before I had forgot Ashford, which was long before I crossed the Stour, the rain had ceased, the sun shone forth and a great wind came out of the marsh and the sea full of good tidings, so that climbing up to Great Chart I laughed in my heart to be in England on such a day and on such a road. Great Chart, as I saw while still far off, is a village typical of this country that I love, if indeed a place so completely itself is typical of anything: a little English village, but it outfaces the whole world in its sureness of itself, its quietness and air of immemorial antiquity. Many a city older by far looks parvenu beside Great Chart. Let us consider, with tears if you will, what they are making of Rome and be thankful that our ways are not their ways. For what wins you at once in Great Chart is the obvious fact that it has always stood there on its hill over the Weald, and as far as one may see at a glance, much the same as it stands to-day. And what delights you is the church there on the highest ground, on the last hill overlooking the great Weald, a sign in the sky, a portent, a necessary thing natural to the landscape. What you see is a rectangular building with three eastern gables over three Decorated windows, a long nave roof over square Perpendicular windows and clerestory, flat outer roofs and tall western Tower, a noble thing significant of our civilisation and the Faith out of which it has come. Within, one finds a church like and yet unlike that at Ashford. Nave and chancel are of the same width, and the arcades run from end to end of the church really without a break, though half way a wall, borne by three arches, crosses the church separating the chancel and its chapels from the nave. The central arch of the three is of course the chancel arch, but the wall it bears does not reach to the roof so that the nave, clerestory and roof are seen running on beyond it. All this is curious rather than lovely, but like every other strangeness in England of my heart, it is to be explained by the long, long history of things still--Deo gratias--remaining to us, so that when I said that our buildings were growths rather than works of art I spoke truth. The church of St Mary of Great Chart is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but that a church existed here in the twelfth century is certain, for even in the present building we have evidences of Norman work, for instance in the walling of the south chapel, and in the vestry doorway. According to the Rev. G.M. Livett, [Footnote: K.A.S. 26.] the Norman nave was as long as that we have, which is built in all probability on its foundation. The aisleless Norman church, however, had a central tower to the east of the present chancel arch and transepts, as well as a chancel. This church appears to have stood till the fourteenth century, when it was entirely rebuilt and reclaimed, and all the lower part of the present church built, to be heightened and lengthened at the end of the fifteenth century when the clerestory and the chancel arcade were built, a new aisle wall set up on the north and the south aisle raised, the rood loft built or rebuilt. We are reminded of all this history by the fine altar tomb in the north chapel where lie William Goldwell and Alice his wife (d. 1485). Their son James was Vicar of Great Chart in 1458, and became Bishop of Norwich in 1472, when he obtained from the Pope "an indulgence in aid of the restoration of Great Chart church which had been damaged by fire." Here is the cause and the source of the fifteenth century alterations and the church we see. The brasses in the church are also interesting. Many of them commemorate the Tokes of Godinton, who founded the almshouse in the village, which, rebuilt more than once I think, we still see. All these things and more than these the great yew in the churchyard has seen as its shadow grew over the graves. From Great Chart I went on through the spring sunshine across the Weald to Bethersden, whose quarries have supplied so much of the grey marble one finds in Kentish churches, in the monuments and effigies and in the old manor houses in the carved chimney-pieces fair to see. These quarries are now all but deserted, but of old they were the most famous in Kent, which is poor in such things. Most of the stone for the cathedrals and greater religious houses in the county came from Caen, whence it was easily transported by water; but this stone not only weathered badly, but was too friable for monumental effigies or sculpture. For these harder stone was needed, resembling marble, and this Bethersden supplied, as we may see, in the Cathedrals of Canterbury and Rochester and especially at Hythe where the chancel arcade is entirely built of it. Something too we may learn at Bethersden of the true nature of the Weald. I shall have something to say of this later, but here at any rate the curiously difficult character of this country in regard to the going may be understood, though of course less easily now than of old. It is said that before, at the end of the eighteenth century, the excellent system of roads we still use was built up, the ways hereabouts were so bad--they are still far from good--that when spring came it was customary to plough them up in order that they might dry off. We hear of great ladies going to church in carriages drawn by teams of oxen. Hardly passable after rain, the roads, says Hasted, were "so miry that the traveller's horse frequently plunged through them up to the girths of the saddle; and the waggons sank so deep in the ruts as to slide along on the nave of the wheels and axle of them. In some few of the principal roads, as from Tenterden hither, there was a stone causeway, about three feet wide, for the accommodation of horse and foot passengers; but there was none further on till near Bethersden, to the great distress of travellers. When these roads became tolerably dry in summer, they were ploughed up, and laid in a half circle to dry, the only amendment they ever had. In extreme dry weather in summer, they became exceedingly hard, and, by traffic, so smooth as to seem glazed, like a potter's vessel, though a single hour's rain rendered them so slippery as to be very dangerous to travellers." The roads in fact were and are, little more than lanes between the isolated woods across the low scrub of the old Weald. The church of Bethersden is dedicated to St Margaret. It follows the local type having a nave with north and south aisles and a chancel with north and south chapels, vestry, south porch and western tower. The place is not mentioned in Domesday Book, but about 1194 we find Archbishop Herbert confirming the church of St Margaret of Beatrichesdenne, with the chapel of Hecchisdenne (Etchden) to the Priory of St Gregory in Canterbury. No sign of this Norman church remains, the building we see in Bethersden being mainly Perpendicular; but the double lighted windows at the west end of the north aisle are Early English and there is a Decorated niche under the entrance to the rood left. The tower is modern, but possesses a fourteenth century bell. It is curious that though the church is dedicated to St Margaret and the fair, according to Hasted, was held upon July 20th, St Margaret's day, the place should be spoken of as Beatrichesdenne as though there were some local St Beatrice; but of her we know nothing. Bethersden is connected with the Lovelaces for they owned it, Richard Lovelace, the poet, having sold Lovelace Place to Richard Hulse, soon after the death of Charles I. Three members of the Lovelace family lie in the church, their tombs marked by brasses; William Lovelace (1459) another William Lovelace, gentleman (1459), and Thomas Lovelace (1591). From Bethersden I went on to High Halden, which stands upon a ridge out of the Weald, a very characteristic and beautiful place, with a most interesting church dedicated to Our Lady. Indeed I do not know where one could match the strange wooden tower and belfry and the noble fourteenth century porch, masterpieces of carpentry, which close on the west the little stone church of the fifteenth century. Within the most interesting thing left to us is the glass in the east window of the south chancel where we see the Blessed Virgin with her lily, part of an Annunciation. There, too, in another window are the arms of Castile and of Leon, a strange blazon to find in the Weald of Kent. But characteristic as Great Chart, Bethersden and High Halden are of this strange wealden county, they do not express it, sum it up and dominate it as does Tenterden Town, some two or three miles to the south of High Halden. If we look at the ordnance map we shall see that the town of Tenterden is set upon a great headland thrust out by the higher land of the Kentish Weald, southward and east towards those low marshlands that are lost almost imperceptibly in the sea, and are known to us as Romney Marsh. This great headland, in shape something like a clenched fist, stands between the two branches of the Rother, the river which flows into the sea at Rye, and which was once navigable by ships so far up as Small Hythe just under the southern escarpment of the headland upon which Tenterden stands. Hither so late as 1509 the Rother was navigable, and we find Archbishop Warham on the petition of the people licensing a small chapel there of St John Baptist still in existence, for the use of the inhabitants and as a sanctuary or a graveyard for the burial of those wrecked on the "sea-shore" _infra predictum oppidum de Smallhyth_. Now in this lies all the greatness of Tenterden. Rye, which had early been added to the Cinque Ports, was a place of very considerable importance, but upon the east it was entirely cut off by Romney Marsh, upon the west, too, a considerable marshland closed by a great and desolate hill country closed it in, but to the north was a navigable river, a road that is, leading up into England, and at the head of it a town naturally sprang up. That town was Tenterden, and her true position was recognised by Henry VI., when he united her to Rye. Till then she was one of "the Seven Hundreds" belonging to the Crown. Domesday Book knows nothing of her; as a place of importance, as a town that is, she is a creation of Rye, and her development was thus necessarily late and endured but for a season. I suppose the great days of Rye to have been those of the thirteenth and fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; and it was therefore during this period that Tenterden began its career as a town. After the failure of the sea, Rye sank slowly back into what it is to-day, but Tenterden would appear to have stood up against that misfortune with some success, for we find Elizabeth incorporating it under a charter. There can be but few more charming towns in Kent than Tenterden as we see it to-day, looking out from its headland southward to the great uplifted Isle of Oxney beyond which lies the sea, and eastward over all the mystery of Romney Marsh. The church which should, one thinks, have borne the name of St Michael, is dedicated in honour of St Mildred. It is a large building of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the tower, its latest feature, being also its noblest. Indeed the tower of Tenterden church, if we may believe the local legend, is certainly the most important in Kent. For it is said, and, rightly understood, there may after all be something in it, to have been the cause of the Goodwin Sands. Fuller asserts "when the vicinage in Kent met to consult about the inundation of the Goodwin Sands (date not given) and what might be the cause thereof, an old man imputed it to the building of Tenterden steeple in this county; for these sands, said he, were firm sands before that steeple was built, which ever since were overflown with sea-water. Hereupon all heartily laughed at his unlogical reason, making that effect in Nature which was only the consequent on time; not flowing from, but following after the building of that steeple." According to Latimer, however, it was Sir Thomas More who drew this answer from the ancient, and if this be so, it certainly fixes the date. "Maister More," says Latimer, "was once sent in commission into Kent to help to trie out (if it might be) what was the cause of Goodwin Sands and the shelfs that stopped up Sandwich haven. Thither cometh Maister More and calleth the countye afore him, such as were thought to be men of experience, and men that could of likelihode best certify him of that matter, concerning the stopping of Sandwich haven. Among others came in before him an olde man with a white head, and one that was thought to be little lesse than an hundereth yeares olde. When Maister More saw this aged man he thought it expedient to heare him say his minde in this matter, for being so olde a man it was likely that he knew most of any man in that presence and company. So Maister More called this olde aged man unto him and sayd, 'Father,' sayd he, 'tell me if ye can what is the cause of this great arising of the sande and shelves here about this haven the which sop it up that no shippes can aride here? Ye are the oldest man that I can espie in all this companye, so that, if any man can tell any cause of it, ye of all likelihode can say most in it, or at least wise more than any other man here assembled.' 'Yea forsooth, good maister,' quod this olde man, 'for I am well nigh an hundred yeares olde and no man here in this company anything neare unto mine age.' 'Well, then,' quod Maister More, 'how say you in this matter? What thinke ye to be the cause of these shelves and flattes that stop up Sandwiche haven?' 'Forsooth syr,' quod he, 'I am an olde man. I think Tenterden steeple is the cause of Goodwin Sandes. For I am an old man syr' quod he, 'and I may remember the building of Tenterden Steeple and I may remember when there was no steeple at all there. And before that Tenterden Steeple was in building there was no manner of speaking of any flats or sands that stopped the haven; and therefore I thinke that Tenterden steeple is the cause of the destroying and decaying of Sandwich haven." Post hoc, propter hoc and this silly old man has been held up to all ensuing ages as an absurdly simple old fellow. But what after all if he should be right in part at least? Tenterden church, we are told, belonged to the Abbey of St Augustine in Canterbury, which also owned the Goodwin Sands, part, it is said, of the immense domain of Earl Godwin. Now it was in their hands that the money collected throughout Kent for the building and fencing of the coast against the sea had always been placed. We learn that "when the sea had been very quiet for many years without any encroachings," the abbot commuted that money to the building of a steeple and endowing of the church in Tenterden, so that the sea walls were neglected. If this be so, that oldest inhabitant was not such a fool as he seems to look. I slept under the shadow of Tenterden steeple and very early in the morning set out for Appledore, where I crossed the canal and came into the Marsh. I cannot hope to express my enthusiasm for this strange and mysterious country so full of the music of running water, with its winding roads, its immense pastures, its cattle and sheep and flowers, its far away great hills and at the end, though it has no end, the sea. It mixes with the sea indeed as the sky does, so that no man far off can say this is land or this is water. It is famous as a fifth part of the world different from its fellows. And indeed, if it resembles anything I know it is not with the wide moors of Somerset, Sedgemoor, or the valley of the Brue, nor with the great windy Fenland in the midst of which Ely rises like a shrine or a sanctuary, I would compare it, but with the Campagna of Rome, whose tragic mystery it seems to have borrowed, at least in part, whose beauty it seems to wear, a little provincially, it is true, and whose majesty it apes, but cannot quite command. It is the Campagna in little; the great and noble mountains, the loveliest in the world are sunk to hills pure and exquisite upon which, too, we may still see the cities, here little towns and villages, as Rye, Winchelsea, Appledore, Lympne or Hythe, dear places of England of my heart, and all between them this mysterious and lowly thing not quite of this world, a graveyard one might think, as the Campagna is, a battlefield as is the Trasimeno plain, a gate and certainly an exit not only out of England but from the world and life itself. As one wanders about England here and there, one comes to understand that if its landscape is unique in its various charm and soft beauty, it is also inhuman in this, that most often it is without the figure of man, the fields are always empty or nearly always, the hills are uniformly barren of cities or towns or villages, it is a landscape without the gesture of human toil and life, without meaning that is, and we can bear it so. But no man could live in the Marsh for a day without that gesture of human life that is there to be seen upon every side. Lonely as it is, difficult as it is to cross, because of its chains and twisting lines of runnels, man is more visibly our comrade there than anywhere else in England I think, and this though there be but few men through all the Marsh. He and his beasts, his work too, and his songs, redeem the Marsh for us from fear, a fear not quite explicable, perhaps, to the mere passenger, but that anyone who has lingered there during a month of spring will recognise as always at his elbow and only kept out of the soul by the humanity which has redeemed this mysterious country, the shepherd with his flock, the dairyman with his cows, the carter with his great team of oxen in the spring twilight returning from the fields. And then there are the churches, whose towers stand up so strong out of the waters and the mist so that their heads are among the stars, and whose bells are the best music because they tell not only of God and his Saints but of man, of the steading and of home. [Illustration: A CORNER OF ROMNEY MARSH] Take Appledore, for instance, with its fine old church, with its air of the fourteenth century and its beautiful old ivy grown tower, once a port they say, on the verge of the Marsh; what could be more nobly simple and homely? Within, you may, if you will, find, in spite of everything, all our past, the very altar at which of old was said the Holy Mass, the very altar tomb maybe where, upon Maunday Thursday Christ Himself was laid in the sepulchre, an old rood loft, too, certain ancient screens complete, a little ancient glass. What more can a man want or at least expect from England of my heart? And if he demand something more curious and more rare, at Horn's Place, not a mile away, is a perfect chapel of the fifteenth century which served of old some great steading, where, for a hundred years Mass was perhaps said every day and the Marsh blessed. Or take Snargate with its church of St Dunstan. It, too, has a fine western tower of the fifteenth century, but much of the church dates from the thirteenth, and upon the north chancel roof-beams are heraldic devices, among them an eagle and the initials W.R. And here is a piece of fine old glass in which we may see the Lord Christ. Or take Ivychurch; so noble and lovely a thing is the church that even without it catches the breath, while a whole afternoon is not enough to enjoy its inward beauty. Or take Brenzett, where, it is true, the church has been rebuilt, but where you will still find a noble seventeenth century tomb with its effigies in armour. It is, however, at Romney, Old Romney and New, that we shall find the best there is to be had I think in this strange country from which the waters have only been barred out by the continual energy of man. We are not surprised to find that New Romney is older than Old Romney, it is almost what might have been expected, but no one can ever have come to these places without wonder at the nobility of what he sees. At New Romney there were of old five churches, dedicated in honour of St John Baptist, St Laurence, St Martin, St Michael, and St Nicholas, for Romney was, in the time of Edward I., the greatest of the Cinque Ports. It fell when, as we are told, in a great storm the course of the Rother was changed so that it went thereafter to serve Rye, and New Romney fell slowly down so that to-day but one of those five churches remains, that of St Nicholas. But what a glorious church it is, and if the rest were like it, what idea must we have of the splendour of New Romney in the thirteenth century? This great Norman church of St Nicholas with its partly fourteenth century nave, its clerestory, its fine chancel with sedilia and Easter sepulchre, and noble pinnacled tower is perhaps the greatest building in the Marsh. It belonged to the Abbey of Pontigny and was served by its monks who had a cell here, and the town it adorns and ennobles, was the capital of all this district. Nothing so glorious and so old remains in Old Romney, where the church of St Clement has nothing I think, earlier than the thirteenth century, and little of that, being mainly a building of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and yet it is not to be despised, for where else in the Marsh will you find anything more picturesque or anything indeed more English? Not at Dymchurch for all its Norman fragments. But Dymchurch is to be visited and to be loved for other reasons than that of beauty. It is the sentinel and saviour of the Marsh, for it holds back the sea from all this country with its great wall, twenty feet high and twenty feet broad and three miles long. Also here we have certain evidence of the Roman occupation of the Marsh, and may perhaps believe that it was Rome which first drained it. I said that the church of St Nicholas at New Romney was the noblest building in the Marsh. When I said so had I forgotten the church of All Saints at Lydd, which is known as the Cathedral of the Marshes. No, glorious as All Saints is, it has not the antiquity of St Nicholas; it is altogether English and never knew the Norman. For all that, it is a very splendid building with a tower standing one hundred and thirty-two feet over the Marsh, a sign and a blessing. And yet before it I prefer the bell tower, built of mighty timber, aloof from the church, lonely, over the waters at Brookland. All Saints at Lydd belonged to Tintern Abbey, but All Saints at Brookland to St Augustine's at Canterbury, and as its font will tell us it dates from Norman times, for about it the Normans carved the signs of the Zodiac. Brookland, hard to get at, stands on the great road which runs south- westward out of the Marsh and brings you at last out of Kent into Sussex at Rye. It was there I lingered a little to say farewell. As one looks at evening across that vast loneliness, so desolate and yet so beautiful and infinitely subject to the sky, lying between the hills and sinking so imperceptibly into the sea, one continually asks oneself what is Romney Marsh, by whom was it reclaimed from the all-devouring sea, what forces built it up and gathered from barrenness the infinite riches we see? Was it the various forces of Nature, the racing tides of the straits, some sudden upheaval of the earth, or the tireless energy of men--and of what men? Those seventeen miles of richest pasture which lie in an infinite peace between Appledore and Dungeness, to whom do we owe them and their blessedness? That wall at Dymchurch which saves the marshes, Romney, Welland, Guildford and Denge, who contrived it and first took advantage of those great banks of shingle and of sand which everywhere bar out the great tides of the straits and have thus created and preserved this strange fifth part of the world? Was it the Romans? May we see in Romney Marsh the greatest material memorial of their gigantic energy and art to be found in the western provinces, a nobler and a greater work than the Wall as well as a more lasting? And if this be so, how well is the Marsh named after them, for of all they did materially in our island, this work of reclamation was surely the worthiest to bear their name. But to these questions there can perhaps never be an answer. Certainly the very aspect of the Marsh recalls nothing so much as the Campagna of Rome, in its nobility, loneliness and infinite subjection to the sun, the clouds, and the sky, so that at evening there we might almost think that Rome herself lay only just beyond that large horizon, and that with an effort we might reach the great gate of San Giovanni e'er darkness fell. It is as though in the Marsh our origins for once and unmistakably were laid bare for us and we had suddenly recognised our home. CHAPTER IX RYE AND WINCHELSEA Out of the vagueness and loneliness of the Marsh, with its strange level light and tingling silence, I climbed one spring evening at sunset into the ancient town of Rye, and at first I could not believe I was still in England. No one I think can wander for more than a few days about the Marsh, among those half deserted churches, far too big for any visible congregation, whose towers in a kind of despair still stand up before God against the sea, raging and plotting far off against the land, without wondering at last into what country he has strayed. In Rye all such doubt is resolved at once, for Rye is pure Italy, or at least it seems so in the evening dusk. When I came up into it in the spring twilight out of the Marsh, I was reminded of one of those Italian cities which stand up over the lean shore of the Adriatic to the south of Rimini, but it was not of them I thought when in the morning sunlight I saw those red roofs piled up one upon another from the plain: it was of Siena. And indeed Rye is in its smaller, less complete and of course less exquisite way very like the most beautiful city in Tuscany. Here, too, as in Siena, the red-roofed houses climb up a hill, one upon another, a hill crowned at last by a great church dedicated in honour of the Blessed Virgin. But here the likeness, too fanciful for reality, ceases altogether. It is true that Siena looks out beyond her own gardens and vineyards upon a desert, but it is a very different desolation upon which Rye gazes all day long, out of which she rises with all the confidence, grace, and gaiety of a flower, and over which she rules like a queen. From the Porta Romana of Siena or the outlook of the Servi, you gaze southward across the barren, scorched valleys to the far-away mountains, to Monte Amiata, the fairest mountain of Tuscany. From the Ypres Tower of Rye or the Gun Garden below it, you look only across the level and empty Marsh which sinks beyond Camber Castle imperceptibly into the greyness and barrenness of the sea. To the east, across the flat emptiness, the Rother crawls seaward; to the west across the Marsh, as once across the sea, Winchelsea rises against the woods, and beyond, far away, the darkness of Fairlight hangs like a cloud twixt sea and sky. Indeed, to liken Rye to any other place is to do her wrong, for both in herself and in that landscape over which she broods, there is enough beauty and enough character to give her a life and a meaning altogether her own. From afar off, from Winchelsea, for instance, in the sunlight, she seems like a town in a missal, crowned by that church which seems so much bigger than it is, gay and warm and yet with something of the greyness of the sea and the sea wind about her, a place that, as so few English places do, altogether makes a picture in the mind, and is at unity with itself. And from within she seems not less complete, a thing wholly ancient, delightful, with a picturesque and yet homely beauty that is the child of ancientness. Yet how much has Rye lost! The walls of Coeur de Lion have fallen, and only one of the gates remains; but so long as the church and the beautiful strong tower of William de Ypres stand, and the narrow cobbled streets full of old and humble houses climb up and down the steep hill, the whole place is involved in their beauty and sanctity, our hearts are satisfied and our eyes engaged on behalf of a place at once so old and picturesque and yet so neat and tidy and always ready to receive a guest. A place like Rye, naturally so strong, a steep island surrounded by sea or impassable marsh, must have been a stronghold from very early times; it is in fact obviously old when we first hear of it as a gift, with Winchelsea, of Edward the Confessor's to the Benedictine Abbey of Fécamp just across the grey channel in Normandy. Both Rye and Winchelsea remained within the keeping of the Abbey of Fécamp until, for reasons of State easy to be understood, Henry III. resumed the royal rights in the thirteenth century, compensating the monks of Fécamp with manors in Gloucestershire and Lincolnshire. For before the end of the twelfth century it would seem Rye with Winchelsea had become of so much importance as a port as to have been added to the famous Cinque Ports, Sandwich, Dover, Hythe, Romney and Hastings. From this time both play a considerable part in the trade and politics of the Channel and the Straits. It was to enable her to hold herself secure in this business and especially against raids from the sea that the Ypres Tower was built in the time of King Stephen, by William of Ypres, Earl of Kent. It was a watch tower and perhaps a stronghold, but it was never sufficient. Even in 1194 Coeur de Lion permitted the town to wall itself. Nevertheless Louis the Dauphin of France took Rye, and it may well have been this which determined Henry III. to take the town out of the hands of the monks of Fécamp and to hold it himself. Doubtless Rye's greatest moment was this thirteenth century, nor did she appear much less in the fourteenth and the first half of the fifteenth century. But often sacked and burned, the town was practically destroyed by the French in 1378 and 1448, when only the Ypres Tower, part of the church, the Landgate, the Strandgate and the so-called chapel of the Carmelite Friars escaped destruction. But from this blow Rye recovered to play a part, if a small one, in the defeat of the Armada, and though the retreat of the sea, which seems to have begun in the sixteenth century, undoubtedly damaged her, it did not kill her outright as it did Winchelsea, for she had the Rother to help her, and we find her prosperous not only in the time of the Commonwealth, but even to-day, when, with the help of a new harbour at the mouth of the river, she is still able to carry on her trade. [Illustration: RYE] Nothing in fact strikes the visitor to Rye more than the bustle and life of a place obviously so old. All the streets are steep and narrow and the chief of them, the High Street, seems always to be gay and full of business, and is as truly characteristic of Rye as those still and grass-grown ways cobbled and half deserted, which lead up to the noble great church in its curious _place_. It is of course to this great sanctuary dedicated in honour of the Blessed Virgin, that everyone will go first in Rye. It has been called the largest parish church in England, and though this claim cannot be made good, it is in all probability the largest in Sussex, is in fact known as the Cathedral of East Sussex, and if a church became a cathedral by reason of its beauty and size it might rightly claim the title. It is certainly worthy of the most loving attention. The church of Our Lady at Rye is a great cruciform building with clerestory, transepts, and central tower, but without western doors, the chief entrance being in the north transept. The church is of all dates from the Norman time onward, a very English patchwork, here due to the depredations, not so much of time, as of the French who have so often raided and burnt the town. The oldest part is the tower, which is Norman, as are, though somewhat later, the transepts, where certain details show the Transitional style. In this style again, but somewhat later, is the nave. The chancel and its two chapels are Early English, but with many important Decorated, Perpendicular and modern details, such as the arcade and the windows. The Early English chapel upon the north is that of St Clare, that upon the south is dedicated in honour of St Nicholas. In the south aisle of the nave is an Early English chantry, now used as a vestry. The communion table of carved mahogany is said to have been taken from a Spanish ship at the time of the Armada, but it would seem certainly not to be older than the end of the seventeenth century. The curious clock whose bells are struck by golden cherubs on the north side of the tower, is said to have been a gift of Queen Elizabeth and to be the oldest clock in England still in good order. It is probably of late Caroline construction, but even though it were of the sixteenth century its claim to be the oldest clock now at work in England could not be upheld for a moment, that in Wells Cathedral being far older. The pulpit is of the sixteenth century. In the north aisle is a curious collection of Bibles and cannon balls, and here, too, is a small window with glass by Burne Jones. To the south-west of the church is the so-called Carmelite Chapel, a late Decorated building. What exactly this was and to whom it belonged, is uncertain; it was not a chapel of Carmelite Friars. The only establishment belonging to that Order within the county of Susses was at Shoreham, founded in honour of the Blessed Virgin, by Sir John de Mowbray in 1316. So far as we know the only religious to be found in Rye at the time of the spoliation were the Austin Friars. Their house still stands--a building of the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century--on the Conduit Hill. It has passed through many strange uses, among others that of a Salvation Army barracks. It is now the Anglican Church House. This was the only settlement of the Austin Friars in Sussex, and of its origin nothing is known. In 1368 we hear that the prior and convent of the Friars Eremites of St Austin in Rye permitted one of their brethren, a priest, to say Mass daily, at the altar of St Nicholas, in the parish church for the welfare of William Taylour of Rye, and of Agnes his wife. In 1378 the town granted them a place called "le Haltone" near the town ditch. But apart from these two facts their history is altogether wanting. From the parish church one descends south-east to the Ypres Tower. This watch tower and stronghold was built in the time of King Stephen by William of Ypres, Earl of Kent, and is in many ways the most impressive building left to us in Rye. It is undoubtedly best seen from the river, but it and the garden below it afford a great view over the marshes on a clear day, eastward to the cliffs of Folkestone and westward to Fairlight. In itself it is a plain rectangular building with round towers at the angles, but with nothing of interest within. Yet what would Rye be without it. For many years it was the sole defence of the town. Most of those who come to Rye enter the town, and with a sudden surprise not to be found elsewhere, by the Landgate upon the north. There were, it is said of old, five gates about the town, but this is the only one left to us. Nothing, or almost nothing, of the walls remain. Doubtless the French destroyed anything in the nature of fortification so far as they could, only the Ypres Tower they failed to pull down or to burn, and this great round towered gateway upon the north--why we do not know? It is the Landgate which gives to Rye its power of surprise, so that a man coming up from the railway, at sight of it, is suddenly transported into the Middle Age, and in that dream enters and enjoys Rye town, which has never disappointed those who have come in the right spirit. For besides the monuments of which I have spoken there are others of lesser interest, it is true, but that altogether go to make up the charm and delight of this unique place. Among these I will name Mermaid Street where the grass grows among the cobbles and where stands the Mermaid Inn and the half timber house called the Hospital, Pocock's School and Queen Elizabeth's Well. Better still, for me at least, is the life of the river and the shipyards, where, though Rye is now two miles from the sea, ships are still built and the life of the place and its heart are adventured and set upon the great waters. So alluring indeed is this little town that one is always loath to leave it, one continually excuses oneself from departure. One day I delayed in order to see the famous poem in the old book in the town archives which I already knew from Mr Lucas's book. It is certainly of Henry VIII.'s time, and who could have written it but that unhappy Sir Thomas Wyatt who loved Anne Boleyn-- What greater gryffe may hape Trew lovers to anoye Then absente for to sepratte them From ther desiered joye? What comforte reste them then To ease them of ther smarte But for to thincke and myndful bee Of them they love in harte? And sicke that they assured bee Ehche toe another in harte That nothinge shall them seperate Untylle deathe doe them parte? And thoughe the dystance of the place Doe severe us in twayne, Yet shall my harte thy harte imbrace Tyll we doe meete agayne. Then one sunny afternoon I went out by the road past Camber Castle across Rye Foreign for Winchelsea on its hill some two miles from Rye to the west. There is surely nothing in the world quite like Winchelsea. Lovelier by far than Rye, not only in itself, but because of what it offers you, those views of hill and marsh and sea with Rye itself, like I know not what little masterpiece of Flemish art, in the middle distance eastward, Winchelsea is a place never to be left or at worst never to be forgotten. One comes to it from Rye on a still afternoon of spring when the faint shadows are beginning to lengthen, expecting little. In fact, if the traveller be acceptable, capable of appreciating anything so still and exquisite, Winchelsea will appear to him to be, as it is one of the loveliest things left to us in England, place, as Coventry Patmore so well said, in a trance, La Belle an Bois dormant. Nowhere else in England certainly have I found just that exquisite stillness, that air of enchantment, as of something not real, something in a picture or a poem, inexplicable and inexpressible. How spacious it is, and how quiet, full of the sweetness and the beauty of some motet by Byrd. History is little to us in such a place, which is to be enjoyed for its own sake, for its own unique beauty and delight. And yet the history of Winchelsea is almost as unique as is the place itself. Winchelsea when we first hear of it as given by King Edward Confessor to the monks of Fécamp, was not set upon this hill-top as we see it to-day, but upon an island, low and flat, now submerged some three miles south and east of the present town. Here William the Conqueror landed upon his return from Normandy when he set out to take Exeter and subdue the West; here again two of those knights who murdered St Thomas landed in their pride, hot from the court of Henry their master. Like Rye, its sister, to whom it looked across the sea, Winchelsea was added to the Cinque Ports and was presently taken from the monks of Fécamp by Henry III. It was now its disasters began. In 1236 it was inundated by the sea as again in 1250, when it was half destroyed. Eagerly upon the side of Montfort it was taken after Evesham by Prince Edward, and its inhabitants slain, so that when in 1288 it was again drowned by the sea it was decided to refound the town upon the hill above, then in the possession of Battle Abbey, which the King purchased for this purpose. At that time the hill upon which Winchelsea was built, and still stands, was washed by the sea, and the harbour soon became of very great importance, indeed until the sixteenth century, when the sea began to retire, Winchelsea was of much greater importance than Rye. The retreat of the sea, however, completely ruined it, for it was served by no river as Rye was by the Rother. The town of Edward I., as we may see to-day, by what time has left us of it, was built in squares, a truly Latin arrangement, the streets all remaining at right angles the one to the other. It had three gates and was defended upon the west, where it was not naturally strong, by a great ditch. It was attacked and sacked by the French as often as Rye, though not always at the same time. Thus in 1377, when Rye was half destroyed, Winchelsea was saved by the Abbot of Battle, only to be taken three years later by John de Vienne, when the town was burnt. No doubt these constant and mostly successful attacks deeply injured the place which, after the sea had begun to retreat in the sixteenth century, at the time of Elizabeth's visit in 1573, only mustered some sixty families. From that time Winchelsea slowly declined till there remains only the exquisite ghost we see to-day. One comes up out of the Marsh into Winchelsea to-day through the Strand Gate of the time of Edward I., and presently finds oneself in the beautiful and spacious square in which stands the lovely fragment of the church of St Thomas of Canterbury. This extraordinarily lovely building dates from the fourteenth century. As we see it, it is but a fragment, consisting of the chancel and two side chapels, but as originally planned it would seem to have been a cruciform building of chancel, choir with side chapels, a central tower, transept and nave. It is doubtful, however, whether the nave was ever built, the ruins of the transepts and of two piers of the tower only remain. I say it was doubtful whether this nave was ever built. It has been asserted, it is true, that it was burnt by the French either in 1380 or in 1449, but it seems more probable that it was never completed owing to the devastation of the Black Death of 1348-9, though certain discoveries made of late would seem to endorse the older theory. Certain it is that until the end of the eighteenth century, there stood to the south-west of the church a great bell tower, a detached campanile, now dismantled, whose stones are said to have been used to build Rye Harbour. The church, as we have it, is one of the loveliest Decorated buildings in the county; the Perpendicular porch, however, by which we enter does not belong to the church but possibly came here from one of the destroyed churches of Winchelsea, St Giles's or St Leonard's. Within we find ourselves in a great choir or chancel, with a chapel on either hand, that on the right dedicated in honour of St Nicholas and known as the Alard Chantry, that on the left the Lady Chapel known as the Farncombe Chantry. The arcades which divide these chapels from the choir are extraordinarily beautiful, as are the restored sedilia and piscina with their gables and pinnacles and lovely diaper work. The windows, too, are very noble and fine, and rich in their tracery, which might seem to be scarcely English. [Illustration: WINCHELSEA CHURCH] In the Chapel of St Nicholas, the Alard Chantry, on the south, are the glorious canopied tombs of Gervase Alard (1300) and Stephen Alard. The first is the finer; it is the tomb of the first Lord High Admiral of England. The sepulchral effigy lies cross-legged with a heart in its hands and a lion at its feet; and about its head two angels once knelt. The whole was doubtless once glorious with colour, traces of which still remain on the beautiful diaper work of the recess. The tomb of Stephen Alard is later, but similar though less rich. Stephen was Admiral of the Cinque Ports in the time of Edward II. Another of the family, Reginald, lies beneath the floor where of old a brass marked his tomb (1354). In the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin, the Farncombe Chantry, are three tombs all canopied with a Knight in chain armour, a Lady, and a young Squire. We are ignorant whose they may be. It is certain that these tombs are older than the church, and they are said to have been brought here from old Winchelsea. But Winchelsea has other ruins and other memories besides those to be found in the parish church. The Franciscans, the Grey Friars, were established in Winchelsea very early, certainly before 1253; and when old Winchelsea was destroyed and the new town built on the hill by the King it was agreed that no monastery or friary should be built there save only a house for the Friars Minor. This was erected where now the modern mansion called 'The Friars' stands, the old convent having been pulled down so lately as 1819. A part of the ruined Chapel of the Blessed Virgin remains, however, the choir and apse. Decorated work not much later than the parish church, and of great beauty. Unhappily we know absolutely nothing of the Friars in Winchelsea, except that when the house was suppressed in 1538 it was exceedingly poor. The Franciscans, however, were not the only Friars in Winchelsea in spite of the agreement made at the foundation of the new town. In 1318 Edward II. granted the Black Friars, the Dominicans, twelve acres on the southern side of the hill. This situation was found inconvenient, and in 1357 the Dominicans obtained six acres "near the town." Nothing, or almost nothing, remains of their house. Besides these two religious houses, Winchelsea possessed three hospitals, those of St John, St Bartholomew and Holy Cross. The Hospital of St Bartholomew was near the New Gate on the south-west of the town, and dated from the refounding of Edward. Nothing remains of it, or of the Hospital of Holy Cross, which had existed in old Winchelsea and was set up in the new town also near the New Gate. But the oldest and the most important of the three hospitals was that of St John. A fragment of this remains where the road turns towards Hastings to the north of the churchyard. Close by is the thirteenth- century Court House. It is always with regret I leave Winchelsea when I must, and even the beautiful road through Icklesham into Hastings will not reconcile one who has known how to love this place, to departure. And yet how fair that road is and how fair is the Norman church of St Nicholas at Icklesham upon the way! The road winds up over the low shore towards Fairlight, ever before one, and at last as one goes up Guestling Hill through a whole long afternoon and reaches the King's Head Inn at sunset, suddenly across the smoke of Hastings one sees Pevensey Level, and beyond, the hills where fell the great fight in which William Duke of Normandy disputed for England with Harold the King. At sunset, when all that country is half lost in the approaching darkness, one seems to feel again the tragedy of that day so fortunate after all, in which once more we were brought back into the full life of Europe and renewed with the energy Rome had stored in Gaul. CHAPTER X THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS It is not often on one's way, even in England of my heart, that one can come upon a place, a lonely hill-side or a city, and say: this is a spot upon which the history of the world was decided; yet I was able on that showery morning, as I went up out of Hastings towards Battle and saw all the level of Pevensey full of rain, to recall two such places in which I had stood already upon my pilgrimage. For I had lingered a whole morning upon the battlefield where the Romans first met and overthrew our forefathers and thus brought Britain within the Empire; while at Canterbury I had been in the very place where, after an incredible disaster, England was persuaded back again out of barbarism into the splendour of the Faith and of civilisation. These places are more than English, they are European sanctuaries, two of the greater sites of the history of Europe. Perhaps as much cannot rightly be said for the hill where the town of Battle stands, the landing-place at Pevensey and the port of Hastings. And yet I don't know. What a different England it would have been if William of Normandy had failed or had never landed here at all. And if such an England could have endured how changed would have been the whole destiny of Europe. I am not sure after all that we ought not to be as uplifted by the memory of Hastings as we are or should be by the memory of Caesar's advent. At any rate since Hastings was fought and won in the eleventh century any national prejudices that belong wholly to the modern world are quite as much out of place with regard to it as they are with regard to Caesar or St Augustine. And if we must be indignant and remember old injuries that as often as not were sheer blessings, scarcely in disguise, let us reserve our hatred, scorn and contempt for those damned pagan and pirate hordes that first from Schleswig-Holstein and later from Denmark descended upon our Christian country, and for a time overwhelmed us with their brutish barbarism. As for me I am for the Duke of Normandy; without him England were not the England of my heart. Now the great and beautiful road up out of Hastings, seven miles into Battle, is not only one of the loveliest in Britain, every yard of it is full of Duke William's army, and thence we may see how in its wonderful simplicity all that mighty business which was decided that October morning on the hill-top that for so long Battle Abbey guarded as a holy place, was accomplished. For looking southward over the often steep escarpment, always between three and five hundred feet over the sea plain, we may see Pevensey Castle, the landing, Hastings, the port, and at last come to Battle, the scene of the fight that gave England to the Norman for our enormous good and glory and honour. I say that the struggle for the English crown between Duke William of Normandy and Harold, King of England, was in no sense of the word a national struggle; on the contrary, it was a personal question fought and decided by the Duke of Normandy and his men, and Harold and his men. Indeed the society of that time was altogether innocent of any impulse which could be called national. That society, all of one piece as it was, both in England and in Gaul, was wholly Feudal, though somewhat less precisely so here than in Normandy. Men's allegiance was not given to any such vague unity as England, but to a feudal lord, in whose quarrel they were bound to fight, in whose victory they shared, and in whose defeat they suffered. The quarrel between King Harold and Duke William was in no sense of the word a national quarrel but a personal dispute in which the feudal adherents of both parties were necessarily involved, the gage being the crown and spoil of England. This is at once obvious when we remember that the ground of William's claim to the throne was a promise received from King Edward personally, unconfirmed by council or witan, but endorsed for his own part by Harold when shipwreck had placed him in Duke William's power. Such were the true elements of the dispute. It is true that the society of that time was, as I have said, all of one piece both in England and in Gaul, but it is certain that in England that society was less precisely organised, less conscious of itself, less logical in its structure, in a word less real and more barbarous than that of the Normans. The victory of Duke William meant that the sluggish English system would be replaced or at any rate reinvigorated by an energy and an intelligence foreign to it, without which it might seem certain that civilisation here would have fallen into utter decay or have perished altogether. The service of Duke William then, while not so great as that of Caesar and certainly far less than that of St Augustine, was of the same kind; he rescued England from barbarism and brought us back into the full light of Europe. The campaign in which that great service was achieved divides itself into two parts, the first of which comes to an end with the decisive action at Hastings which gave Duke William the crown; the second consists of three great fighting marches, the result of which was the conquest of England. I am only here concerned with the first part of that campaign, and more especially with the great engagement which was fought out upon the hill-top which the ruins of Battle Abbey still mark. Let us consider this. Harold, the second son of Earl Godwin, was crowned King of England at Westminster upon the feast of the Epiphany in the year 1066. When Duke William heard of it he was both angry and amazed, and at once began to call up his feudatories to lend him aid to enforce his claim to the Crown of England against King Harold. This was not an easy thing to do, nor could it be done at all quickly. It was necessary to gather a great host. Those lords who owed him allegiance had as often as not to be persuaded or bribed to fulfil their obligation; and they with their followers and dependents were not enough; it was necessary to engage as many as possible of those chiefs who did not own him as lord; these had to be bought by promises of gain and honour. Also a considerable fleet had to be built. All this took time, and Harold was therefore perfectly aware of what Duke William intended, and gathered his forces, both of ships and men, to meet him in the south of England. All through the spring and summer he waited, in vain. Meantime, soon after Easter, a strange portent appeared in the heavens "the comet star which some men call the hairy star," and no man could say what it might mean. It was not this, however, which delayed William; he was not ready. It is possible that had he been able to advance during the summer the whole history of England might have been different. As it was, when autumn was at hand with the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin, Harold's men were out of provisions and weary of waiting; they were allowed to disperse, Harold himself went to London and the fleet beat up into the Thames, not without damage and loss, against the wind, which, had he but known it, now alone delayed the Duke. But that wind which kept William in port brought another enemy of Harold's to England with some three hundred galleys, Hardrada of Norway, who came to support the claims of Tostig, now his man, King Harold's exiled brother, to Northumbria; for the Northumbrians had rebelled against him, and Harold had acquiesced in their choice of Morkere for lord. Neither Morkere nor his brother Edwin, with their local forces, was able to meet Hardrada with success. They attempted to enter York but at Fulford on the 20th September they were routed, and Hardrada held the great northern capital. Meanwhile Harold had not been idle. Gathering his scattered forces he marched north with amazing speed, covering the two hundred miles between London and Tadcaster in nine days, to meet this new foe; but this almost marvellous performance left the south undefended. He entered York on September 25th, and on the same day, seven miles from the city at Stamford Bridge, he engaged the enemy and broke them utterly. Three days later William landed at Pevensey. What could Harold do? He did all that a man could do. William had landed at Pevensey upon Thursday, September 28th. It is probable that Harold heard of it on the following Monday, October 2nd. Immediately he set out for London, which by hard riding he reached, though probably with but a few men, on Friday, October 6th, an amazing achievement, only made possible by the great Roman road between York and London. Upon the following Tuesday and Wednesday he was joined by his victorious forces from the north, who had thus repeated their unequalled feat and marched south again as they had north some two hundred miles in nine days. Upon Wednesday, October 11th, Harold marched out of London at the head of this force, and by the evening of October 13th--a day curiously enough to be kept later as the feast of St Edward the Confessor--this heroic force had marched in forty-eight hours some sixty miles across country, and was in position upon that famous hill some two hours from the coast, overlooking the landing- place of William at Pevensey and the port he had seized at Hastings. That great march has, I think, never been equalled by any British army before or since. It might seem strange that William, who had landed at Pevensey upon the 28th of September, had not advanced at all from the sea-coast when Harold and his men appeared upon that hill after their great march from York upon October 13th. But in fact William, Norman as he was, had a very clear idea of what he intended to do. He left little to chance. He landed his men at Pevensey, seized upon Hastings and beached his ships; then for a whole fortnight he awaited the hot and weary return of Harold. Harold appeared upon the evening of October 13th. Upon the following day, a Saturday, the battle William had expected was fought, Harold was slain and his heroic force destroyed. The story of that day is well known. Harold's forces were drawn up upon the ridge where the ruins of Battle Abbey now stand. William, upon the thirteenth, had marched out of Hastings and had occupied the hill to the east called Telham, where to-day stands Telham Court. In those days probably no village or habitation of any sort occupied either of these heights; one of the chroniclers calls the battlefield the place of "the Hoar Apple Tree." It is said that the night of October 13th was passed by Harold and his men in feasting and in jollity, while the Normans confessed their sins and received absolution. However that may be, in the full daylight, about nine o'clock of Saturday, October 14th, the battle was joined. This tremendous affair which was to have such enormous consequences was opened by the minstrel Taellefer, who had besought leave of Duke William to strike the first blow. Between the two armies he rode singing the Song of Roland, and high into the air he flung his lance and caught it three times e'er he hurled it at last into the amazed English, to fall at last, slain by a hundred javelins as he rode back into the Norman front. Thus was begun the most famous battle ever fought in England. It endured without advantage either way for some six hours till the Norman horse, flung back from the charge, fell into the Malfosse in utter confusion, and the day seemed lost to the Normans. But Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, retrieved it and from that time, about three o'clock, the Normans began to have the advantage. The battle seems to have been decided at last by two clever devices attributed to William himself. He determined to break Harold's line, and since he had not been able to do this by repeated charges, he determined to try a stratagem. Therefore he ordered his men to feign flight, and thus to draw the English after them in pursuit. This was successfully done, and when the English followed they were easily surrounded and slain. William's other device is said to have been that of shooting high into the air so that the arrows might turn and fall as from the sky upon the foe. This stratagem is said to have been the cause of Harold's death; for it was an arrow falling from on high and piercing him through the right eye that killed him or so grievously wounded him that he was left for dead, to be finally killed by Eustace of Boulogne and three other knights. With Harold down there can have been little hope of victory left to his men, and indeed before night William had planted the Pope's banner where Harold's had floated and held the battlefield. There he supped among the dead, and having spent Sunday, October 15th, in burying the fallen, he set out not for London, but for Dover, for his simple and precise plan was to secure all the entries into England from the continent before securing the capital. When he had done this he marched up into England by the Watling Street, burned Southwark, crossed the Thames at Wallingford, received there the submission of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and at Berkhampstead the submission of London and the offer of the Crown which he received at Westminster at Mass upon Christmas Day; twelve days less than a year after Harold had been crowned in the same place. One comes to Battle to-day along that great and beautiful road, high up over the sea plain, which still seems full with memories of the Norman advance from Hastings, thinking of all that great business. If one comes up on Tuesday, upon payment of sixpence, one is admitted to the gardens of the house in which lie the ruins of the abbey William founded in thankfulness to God for his victory, the high altar of which was set upon the very spot where Harold fell: "Hic Harold Rex interfectus est." It was while William was encamped upon Telham Hill, expecting the battle of the morrow, that he vowed an abbey to God if He gave him the victory. He was heard by a monk of Marmoutier, a certain William, called the Smith, who, when Duke William had received the crown at Westminster, reminded him of his promise. The King acknowledged his obligation and bade William of Marmoutier to see to its fulfilment. The monk thereupon returned to Marmoutier, and choosing four others, brought them to England; but finding the actual battlefield unsuited for a monastery, since there was no water there, he designed to build lower down towards the west. Now when the King heard of it he was angry and bade them build upon the field itself, nor would he hear them patiently when they asserted there was no water there, for, said he: "If God spare me I will so fully provide this place that wine shall be more abundant there than water is in any abbey in the land." Then said they that there was no stone. But he answered that he would bring them stone from Caen. This, however, was not done, for a quarry was found close by. Also the King richly endowed the house, giving it all the land within a radius of a league, and there the abbot was to be absolute lord free of bishop and royal officer, [Footnote: The unique privileges of the abbot of Battle included the right to "kill and take one or two beasts with dogs" in any of the King's forests.] and very many manors beside. Yet ten years elapsed before the Abbey of Battle was sufficiently completed to receive an abbot. In 1076, however, Robert Blancard, one of the four monks chosen by William of Marmoutier, was appointed, but he died e'er he came to Battle. Then one Gausbert was sent from Marmoutier, and he came with four of his brethren and was consecrated "Abbot of St Martin's of the place of Battle." Beside the extraordinary gifts and privileges which the Conqueror had bestowed upon the Abbey in his lifetime, upon his death he bequeathed to it his royal embroidered cloak, a splendid collection of relics and a portable altar containing relics, possibly the very one upon which Harold had sworn in his captivity in Normandy to support his claim to England. William is said to have intended the monastery to be filled with sixty monks. We do not know whether this number ever really served there. In 1393, but that was after the Black Death, there appear to have been some twenty-seven, and in 1404 but thirty. In 1535, on the eve of the Suppression, Battle Abbey was visited by the infamous Layton who reported to Thomas Cromwell that "all but two or three of the monks were guilty of unnatural crimes and were traitors," adding that the abbot was an arrant churl and that "this black sort of develish monks I am sorry to know are past amendment." Little more than two years later the abbot surrendered the abbey and received a pension of one hundred pounds. The furniture and so forth of the house was then very poor. "So beggary a house I never see, nor so filthy stuff," Layton writes to Wriothesley. "I will not 20s. for all the hangings in this house...." In August 1538 the place was granted to Sir Anthony Browne, who is said to have removed the cloak of the Conqueror and the famous Battle Abbey Roll to Cowdray. This rascal razed the church and cloisters to the ground, and made the abbot's lodging his dwelling. It is said that one night as he was feasting a monk appeared before him and solemnly cursed him, prophesying that his family should perish by fire. To the fulfilment of this curse Cowdray bears witness even to this day. [Illustration: BATTLE ABBEY] What spoliation, time and neglect have left of the Abbey is beautiful, especially the great fourteenth century gateway which faces the Market Green. Nothing save the foundations is left of the great church. From the terrace, doubtless, we look across the battlefield, but all is so changed, the bleak hill-top has become a superb garden, that it is impossible to realise still less to reconstruct the battle, and indeed since we can only visit the place amid a crowd of tourists, our present discomfort makes any remembrance of the fight or of the great and solemn abbey which for so long turned that battlefield into a sanctuary impossible. Nor indeed are we more fortunate in the parish church which was originally built by Abbot Ralph in the twelfth century. It has been so tampered with and restored that little remains that is unspoilt. There, and I think most fittingly, lies that Sir Anthony Browne who got Battle Abbey from the King who had stolen it. Now when I had seen all this I went on my way, and because I was unhappy on account of all that theft and destruction, and because where once there had been altar and monks to serve it, now there was none, and because what had once been common to us all was now become the pleasure of one man, I went up out of Battle into the hills by the great road through the woods and so on and up by Dallington and Heathfield and so down and down and down all a summer day across the Weald till at evening I came to Lewes where I slept. I remember nothing of that day but the wind and the hills and the great sun of May which went ever before me into the west so that I soon forgot to be sorry and rejoiced as I went. CHAPTER XI LEWES AND SIMON DE MONTFORT I do not know of a more beautiful town than Lewes in all the wide south country; it is beautiful not only in itself but in its situation, set there upon an isolated hill over the Ouse and surrounded, as though they were great natural bastions set there in her defence, by Malling Hill on the north, Mount Caburn on the west, the broken heights of the Downs to the south, through which the Ouse flows towards Newhaven and the sea, and on the east by Mount Harry under which was fought the very famous battle of Lewes in which Simon de Montfort took his king prisoner. The natural strength and beauty of this situation has been much increased by the labour of man, for Lewes is set as it were all in a garden out of which it rises, a pinnacle of old houses crowned by the castle upon its half precipitous hill. It is a curiously un-English vision you get from the High Street for instance, looking back upon the hill or from the little borgo of Southover or from Cliffe, and yet there can be few more solidly English places than Lewes. That the Romans had here some sort of settlement there can be no doubt, that Lewes was a place of habitation in the time of the Saxons is certain, indeed in Athelstan's day it boasted of two mints, but the town, as it appears to us in history, grew up about the Cluniac Priory of St Pancras under the protection of the Castle, and to these it owes everything except its genesis. Whatever Lewes may have been before the Conquest that revolution saw it pass into the power of one of the greatest of William's nobles, that William de Warenne who was his son-in-law. It was he and his wife Gundrada, generally supposed to be the Conqueror's daughter, who founded the Priory of St Pancras at Southover. It is probable, even certain, that a chapel, possibly with some sort of religious house attached to it, existed here before William de Warenne obtained from the Conqueror the rape and town of Lewes. In any case it can have been of small importance. But within ten years of the Conquest William de Warenne and his wife determined to found an important monastery at the gates of their town, and with this intention they set out on pilgrimage for Rome to consult, and to obtain the blessing of, the Pope. They got so far as Burgundy when they found that it was impossible to go on in safety on account of the war between the Pope and the Emperor. When they found themselves in this predicament they were not far from the great Abbey of SS. Peter and Paul at Cluny. Now the Cluniac Congregation, the first great reform of the Benedictine Order, had been founded there in the diocese of Macon in 910, and it was then at the height of its power and greatness. Cluny was the most completely feudal of the orders, for the Cluniac monks were governed by Priors each and all of whom were answerable only to the Abbot of Cluny himself, while every monk in the Order had to be professed by him, that mighty ecclesiastic at this time can have been master of not less than two thousand monks. Cluny's boast was its school and the splendour of its ceremonies and services; God was served with a marvellous dignity and luxury undreamed of before, and unequalled since Cluny declined. It was to this mother house of the greatest Congregation of the time that William de Warenne turned with his wife when war prevented them on the road to Rome, and we cannot wonder that they were so caught by all they saw that they determined to put the monastery they proposed to build under the Abbot of Cluny and to found a Cluniac Priory at the gates of their town of Lewes. They therefore approached the Abbot with the request that he would send three or four of his monks to start the monastery. They did not find him very willing; for the essence of Cluny was discipline, the discipline of an army, and doubtless the Abbot feared that, so far away as Sussex seemed, his monks would be out of his reach and might become but as other men. But at last the Conqueror himself joined his prayers to those of William de Warenne, and in 1076 the Abbot of Cluny sent the monk Lanzo and three other brethren to England, and to them William de Warenne gave the little church of St Pancras especially rebuilt for their use with the land about it, called the Island, and other lands sufficient to support twelve monks. But the Abbot of Cluny had no sooner agreed to establish his congregation in England than he seems to have repented. At any rate he recalled Prior Lanzo and kept him so long that William de Warenne, growing impatient, seriously thought of transferring his foundation to the Benedictines; but at length Prior Lanzo returned and all was arranged as was at first intended. The monastery flourished apace and grew not only in wealth but in piety. Prior Lanzo proved an excellent ruler, and the Priory of St Pancras at Lewes became famous for its sanctity through all England. To the same William de Warenne Lewes owes the foundation or the refoundation of its Castle the second centre about which the town grew. A glance at the map will assure us that Lewes could not but be a place of great importance, increasing with England in wealth and strength. The South Downs stand like a vast rampart back from the sea, guarding South England from surprise and invasion. But this great wall is broken at four different places, at Arundel in the west where the Arun breaks through the chalk to find the sea, at Bramber where the Adur passes seaward, at Lewes where the Ouse goes through, and at Wilmington where the Cuckmere winds through the hills to its haven. Each of these gaps was held and guarded by a castle while the level eastward of Beachy Head was held by Pevensey. Of these castles I suppose the most important to have been Lewes, for it not only held the gap of the Ouse but the pass by Falmer and in some sort the Cuckmere Valley also. [Illustration: LEWES CASTLE] But the great day of Lewes Castle was that of Simon de Montfort--I shall deal with that later. Here it will be enough to point out that only a fragment of the great building with its double keep, whose ruin we see to-day, dates from the time of the first De Warenne, the rest being a later work largely of Edward I's. time. Let me now return to the Priory which, in the development of the town, played a part at least as great as that of the Castle. The Priory had always been famous for its piety, and in 1199, Hugh, who had been Prior there till 1186, was raised to be Abbot of Cluny itself. This is interesting and important for we have thus an ex-Prior of Lewes as Abbot of Cluny during the great dispute between the Order and the Earl of Warenne. In 1200 Lewes was without a Prior, and Abbot Hugh appointed one Alexander. For some reason or other De Warenne refused to accept him and even went so far as to claim that the appointment lay with him, an impossible pretension. Yet even within the Priory he is said to have won support, certain of the monks claiming that, save for a tribute of one hundred shillings a year to Cluny, they were independent. The Pope was appealed to and he of course gave a clear decision, not in the English way of compromise, which is the way of a barbarian and a coward, but like an honest man deciding 'twixt right and wrong. His judgment was wholly in favour of the Abbot of Cluny. The Earl then began to bluster and to attempt to appeal beyond the Pope; he even dared to place armed men at the Priory gate and to stop all communications with Cluny. The Abbot replied by an interdict upon Lewes, and things were in this confusion when the Pope appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of Chichester and Ely to hear what De Warenne had to say in excuse for his violence. The Abbot of Cluny himself came over and was insulted in Lewes by De Warenne's men. In appointing English judges to hear the case the Pope must have known that all would end in a compromise. At any rate this is what happened, and it was decided that in future, when a vacancy occurred, the Abbot of Cluny should nominate two candidates of whom De Warenne should choose one for Prior. This ridiculous judgment decided nothing. Of two things, one; either the Abbot was right or he was wrong. If he were right why should he forego his claim, to satisfy De Warenne who was wrong? A decision was what was needed. In 1229 the Pope rightly declared the compromise null and void, and the Abbot of Cluny regained his rights. At once the moral condition of the house improved, and when it was visited in 1262 everything was reported to be satisfactory, and unlike any other Cluniac house in England this of Lewes was not in debt. The turning point in the history of the Priory would seem to have been the one great moment in the story of the town; the appalling affair in which it was involved by Simon de Montfort in 1264 when he took the town, then Henry III.'s headquarters, and captured the King and young Prince Edward. It would seem that De Montfort's soldiers had very little respect for holy places, for we read that not only were the altars defiled but the very church was fired and hardly saved from destruction. The quarrel between the King and his barons would seem, too, to have involved the monks, for we find the sub-prior and nine brethren were expelled from Lewes for conspiracy and faction and went to do penance in various houses of the Congregation. Indeed such was the general collapse here that before the end of the century the Priory was practically bankrupt. That Lewes suffered severely from the Black Death of 1348-49 is certain, but we know very little about it, and indeed the history of the house is negligible until, in the beginning of the fifteenth century the whole system of Cluny was called in question and it was claimed on behalf of Lewes that it should be raised to an abbacy with the power to profess monks. It will be remembered that the Abbot of Cluny--the only Abbot within the Congregation--alone could profess, and in times of war, such as the fourteenth century, this must have been very inconvenient. Indeed we read of men who had been monks their whole life long, but had never been professed at all. It is therefore not surprising that such a claim should at last have been put forward. It is equally not surprising that such a claim was not allowed. The Abbot of Cluny refused to raise Lewes to the rank of an abbey, but he granted the Prior the privilege of professing his monks; this in 1410. So things continued till in 1535, the infamous Layton was sent by Thomas Cromwell to inquire into the state of the Priory of Lewes, to nose out any scandal he could and to invent what he could not find. His methods as applied to Lewes are notorious for their insolence and brutality. He professes to have found the place full of corruption and rank with treason. And in this he was wise, for his master Cromwell wanted the house for himself. Upon November 16, 1537, the Priory of St Pancras at Lewes was surrendered. It was then served by a Prior and twenty-three monks and eighty servi; and it and its lands were granted by the King to Thomas Cromwell. Such was the end of the most famous Cluniac house in England, the sanctuary founded by that De Warenne who had built up Lewes between his Castle on the height and his monastery in the vale. Almost nothing remains to-day of that great and splendid building, but in 1845, in building the railway, the coffins of the founders De Warenne and his wife Gundrada were found. These now lie in St John's Church, here in Southover close by, which belonged to the Priory. It was originally a plain Norman building of which the nave remains, the rest of the church as we see it, being for the most part either Perpendicular or altogether modern. Of course the Priory of St Pancras was not alone in the fate that befell it at the hands of the Tudor in 1537. The only other religious house in Lewes suffered a like fate. This was the convent of the Franciscans, dedicated, as most authorities agree, in honour of Our Lady and St Margaret. The Friars Minor were established in Lewes before 1249, and their convent was one of the last to be surrendered, in 1538. From St John's Church, the visitor, not without a glance at the old half timber house close by said to have been the residence of Anne of Cleves, will pass up to the High Street where, under the Castle, stands the parish church of St Michael, the only ancient part of which is the round Norman tower, a rare thing. A fourteenth century brass to one of the De Warennes is to be seen within. Further west is the Transitional Norman church of St Anne, with curious capitals on the south side of the nave. Here is a fine basket-work Norman font, and in the south aisle at the east end a vaulted chapel. To the north of the chancel is a recessed tomb. But it is not in the churches we have in Lewes that we shall to-day find the symbol, as it were, of that old town, still so fair a thing, which held the passage of the Ouse through the Downs and in the thirteenth century witnessed the great battle in which Simon de Montfort, mystic and soldier, defeated and took captive his king. For that we must go to the Castle ruin that crowns Lewes as with a battlement. The Castle is reached from the High Street near St Michael's church by the Castlegate. It was founded, as I have said, by the first De Warenne, but the gate-house by which we enter is later, dating from King Edward's time, the original Norman gate being within. The Castle had two keeps, a rare feature. Only one of these remains, reached by a winding steep way, and of this only two of the fine octagonal towers are left to us. These two are thirteenth century works. From the principal tower, now used as a museum, we may get the best view of the famous battlefield under Mount Harry, one of the most famous sites of the thirteenth century in England, for the battle that was fought there seemed to have decided everything; in fact it decided nothing, for its result was entirely reversed at Evesham by the military genius of Prince Edward. The cause contested upon these noble hills to the north-west of Lewes is one which continually recurs all through English history; the cause of the Aristocracy against the Crown. The monarchies of western Europe, which slowly emerged from the anarchy of the Dark Ages and helped to make the Middle Age the glorious and noble thing it was, are, if we consider them spiritually at least, democratic weapons, or rather, politically, they seem to sum up the national energy and to express it. In them was vested, and this as of divine right, the executive. Without the Crown nothing could be done, no writ issued, no fortress garrisoned. In the Crown was gathered all the national ends, it was a symbol at once of unity and of power. Against this glorious thing in England we see a constant and unremitting rebellion on the part of the aristocracy. It was so in the time of King John when the rascal barons curbed and broke the central government; it was so in the time of Henry III. when Simon de Montfort led, and for a time successfully, the rebellion. It has been so always and not least in the Great Rebellion of the seventeenth century so falsely represented as a democratic movement, when the parvenu aristocracy founded upon the lands and wealth of the raped Church in the sixteenth century, broke the Crown up and finally established in England a puppet king, a mere Venetian Doge incapable, as we have seen in the last few years, of defending the people against an unscrupulous and treasonous plutocracy led by a lawyer as certainly on the make as Thomas Cromwell. The infamous works of such men as these have most often been done under the hypocritical and lying banner of the rights of the people as though to gain his ends the devil should bear the cross of Christ. It is so to-day; it was so in the time of Simon de Montfort. I have said that the King was the fountain of all power in the England of Simon; it was therefore his supreme object to get possession of the King's body that he might have control of the executive machinery of the country and thus in fact be king _de facto_. It was this which he achieved upon the battlefield of Lewes in 1264. For some ten years before that battle the Barons of England had been restless under the yoke of the central government, the Crown, which stood not for them but for us all. They had already wrung from Henry III. under compulsion, when he was within their power and not a free agent, certain concessions which now he refused to confirm to them. They called him liar and covered him with the same abuse that their successors hurled at Charles I.; but Henry stood firm, he refused what had been dragged from him by force, and Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, raised an army not from the people but from his own feudal adherents and his friends and took the field, striking into the valley of the Severn, where he seized Hereford, Gloucester, Worcester and Bridgnorth with their castles. Then he marched straight upon London where, among the Guilds, he had many adherents and friends. War seemed inevitable, but, as it happened, a truce was called, and the question which Simon had made an excuse for his rising, the question of the King's refusal to confirm the grant of privileges wrung from him by force, was submitted for decision to St Louis of France, undoubtedly the most reverent, famous, and splendid figure of that day. St Louis, unlike an Englishman, decided not with a view to peace as though justice were nothing and right an old wives' tale, but according to law and his conscience, honestly and cleanly before God like an intelligent being. Of two things one, either the King was right or he was wrong. St Louis decided that the King was right, and this upon January 23rd, 1264. Simon refused to abide by the decision. This man in his own conception was above law and honour and justice, he was the inspired and privileged servant of God. In this hallucination he deceived himself even as Oliver Cromwell did later and equally for his own ends. He, too, would break the Crown and himself govern England. He, too, was brutal beyond bearing, proud and insolent with his inferiors, imperious even to God, a great man, but one impossible to suffer in any state which is to endure, a dangerous tyrant. This great mystical soldier at once took the field, and when Henry returned from Amiens, where the court of St Louis had sat, he found all England up, the Cinque Ports all hot for Simon, London ponderous in his support, and in all south-eastern England but one principle fortress still in loyal hands, that of Rochester. North and west of London, however, things were less disastrous, and Henry's first move was to secure all this and to cut off London, the approach to which he held on the south-east in spite of everything, since he commanded Rochester, from the Midlands and the West. Simon's answer was the right one; he struck at Rochester and laid siege to it. Down upon him came King Henry to relieve it and was successful. Simon swept back upon London, there he gathered innumerable levies and again advanced into the south against the King. Henry having relieved Rochester, marched also into the south, doubtless intent upon the reduction of the Cinque ports; for this, however, Simon gave him no time. He came thundering down, half London weltering behind him, across the Weald, and Henry, wheeling to meet him, came upon the 12th of May up the vale of Glynde and occupied Lewes. On the following day Simon appeared at Fletching in the vale of the Weald, some nine miles north of Lewes; there he encamped. Very early in the morning of the 14th May, Simon arrayed his troops and began his march southward upon the royal army. Dawn was just breaking when his first troopers came over the high Down and saw Lewes in the morning mist, the royal banners floating from the Castle--all still asleep. Slowly and at his ease Simon ordered his men. Upon the north, conspicuously, he set his litter with his standard above it and about it massed the raw levies of London. Upon the south he gathered the knights and men-at-arms led by the young Earl of Gloucester. As for himself he remained with the reserve. Then when all was ready he gave the order and both wings, north and south, began to advance upon the town "hoping to find their enemies still abed." Simon's plan was a simple one, he hoped to surprise his foes and he intended in any case to throw his main strength southward upon the Priory of St Pancras, while pretending that his main attack was to be upon the Castle. He did not altogether succeed in surprising his foes, but in everything else he was successful. The royalists were aware of his approach only at the last moment, so that when they poured out of the Castle and Priory and town they were in some confusion. Then Prince Edward, observing the standard of Simon over the litter, flung himself upon the Londoners, who broke and fled while he pursued them, nor did he stay his hand till he was far away from Lewes. He returned at last victorious and triumphant to find Simon's banner floating from Lewes Castle, the King of the Romans and the King of England in Simon's hands and the day lost. Weary though he was, he attempted with all the impetuosity of youth to reverse that verdict. Through the streets of Lewes he fought, till at length he was forced to take refuge in the church of the Franciscans, where indeed Simon found him. Such was the battle of Lewes, which gave all England to De Montfort for more than a year; till indeed Lewes was reversed, by Prince Edward who, escaping from his hands at Hereford, gathered a new army about him and forced Simon to meet him upon the field of Evesham where, when the great soldier-mystic saw the royal banners upon the dawn, he cried out that last great word of his, "The Lord have mercy on our souls for our bodies are Prince Edward's": to be answered when he demanded mercy, "there is no treating with traitors." CHAPTER XII THE DOWNS LEWES TO BRAMBER Perhaps after all the most fundamental truth about Lewes is that she is the capital of the South Downs, and the South Downs are the glory of the South Country; from the noble antiquity of Winchester to the splendour of Beachy Head they run like an indestructible line of Latin verse beneath the blazon of England. They stand up between the land and the sea, the most Roman thing in England, and of all English land it is their white brows that the sun kisses first when it rises over the sea, of all English hills every morning they are the first to be blest. The most Roman thing in England I call them; and indeed this "noble range of mountains" has not the obvious antiquity of the Welsh mountains or the Mendip Hills, nor the tragic aspect as of something as old as time, as old as the world itself, of the dark and sea-torn cliffs of Cornwall, or the wild and desolate uplands of Somerset and Devon. The South Downs seem indeed not so much a work of Nature as of man; and of what men! In their regular and even line, in their continuity and orderly embankment, in their splendid monotony of contour they recall but one thing--Rome; they might be indeed only another work of that mighty government which conceived and built the great Wall that stretches from the Solway to the Firth of Forth which marked the limit of the Empire and barred out its enemies. And this wall of the South Downs, too, marked but another frontier of the same great government; beyond it lay the horizons unknown, and it barred out the sea. But how much older than Rome are the South Downs! Doubtless before the foundation of Rome, e'er Troy was besieged, these hills stood up against the south and served us as a habitation and a home. Nor indeed have we failed to leave signs of our life there so many thousand years ago, so that to-day a man wandering over that great uplifted plateau which slopes so gradually towards the sea, though he seem to be utterly alone, as far as possible from the ways and the habitations of men, immersed in an immemorial silence, in truth passes only from forgotten city to forgotten city, amid the strongholds and the burial places of a civilisation so old that it is only the earth itself which retains any record or memory of it. Here were our cities when we feared the beast, before we had knowledge of bronze or iron, when our tool and our weapon was the flint. The man, our ancestor, who chipped and prepared the flints for our use at Cissbury for instance, doubtless looked out upon a landscape different from that we see to-day and yet essentially the same after all. The South Downs in their whole extent slope, as I have said, very gradually seaward and south, and there of old were our cities chiefly set, but northward their escarpment is extraordinarily steep, rising from time to time into lofty headlands of which the noblest, the most typical and the most famous is Chanctonbury. Standing above that steep escarpment a man to-day looks all across the fruitful Weald till far off he sees the long line of the North Downs running as it were parallel with these southern hills, and ennobled and broken by similar heights as that of Leith Hill. Between, like an uneven river bed with its drifts and islands of soil, running from west to east, lies the Weald, opening at last as it were into the broad estuary of Romney Marsh, half lost in the sea. And what we see to-day our neolithic forefathers saw too--with a difference. Doubtless the Downs then were as smooth and bare as they are now, but the Weald, we may be sure, was different, wilder and certainly fuller of woodland, though never perhaps the vast and impenetrable forest of trees of which we have been told. I say that the Downs, now deserted save by the shepherd and his flock, were of old populous, and of this fact the evidence is plentiful. There is indeed not one of the five main stretches of the Downs that does not bear witness to the immemorial presence of man. To say nothing of the discoveries about Beachy Head, the earthworks there, and the neolithic implements and bronze weapons discovered about East Dean and Alfriston, we have in the Long Man of Wilmington, that gigantic figure cut out in the chalk of the hill-side, something comparable only with the Giant of Cerne Abbas in Dorset and the White Horses of Wiltshire. That figure is some two hundred and forty feet in height and holds in each hand a stave or club two hundred and thirty feet long. It would seem impossible to be certain either of its age or its purpose, but we may perhaps be sure that it lay there upon the Downs above Polegate before the landing of Caesar, and it may have been the foundation of one of those figures described by him as formed of osiers and filled with living men to be destroyed by fire as a sacrifice for our barbarian gods. Nor is this all. The whole range of the Downs as I say is scattered thick with the work of our pre-historic forefathers. In Burlough Castle and Mount Caburn we have fortresses so old that it is impossible to name the age in which they were contrived and built, nor can we assert with any confidence who they were that first occupied the camp upon Ditchling Beacon, the highest point of the South Downs, or who first defended Wolstanbury. And it is the same with those most famous places Cissbury Ring and Chanctonbury. But the flint mines upon Cissbury give us some idea of the neolithic men, our forefathers, which should and does astonish us. The Camp itself is less wonderful than the mines upon the western side of it. Here we have not only numerous pits from ten to seventy feet in diameter and from five to seven feet deep, but really vast excavations leading to galleries which tap a belt or band of flints. That these mines were worked by neolithic man it is impossible to doubt, but he may not have discovered or first used them. They may be older than he, though all record even upon that marvellous hill- side, has been lost of those who first exploited them. Nor is Chanctonbury, though it cannot boast of mines such as these, less astonishing or less ancient. The camp set there following the contour of the hill can only have been one of the most important in south- east England. It commands the camps at Cissbury, the Devil's Dyke, High Down and White Hawk, the whole breadth of the Weald lay beneath it and a signal displayed upon Leith Hill upon the North Downs could easily be answered from this noble mountain; Mount Caburn itself was not more essentially important. It has been thought that the Romans may have used Chanctonbury, but if so they have left but little mark of their occupation, and indeed, though the Downs as a whole far off are stamped with so Roman a character, there is but one spot in their whole length where we may say; here certainly the Legions have been. That spot lies upon the last division of the Downs towards the west, the line of hills which stands between Chichester and the Weald. It is certain that the Romans were, in Sussex, most at home on that great sea plain towards which the Downs slope so gradually southward. Here indeed they built their town of Regnum, and perhaps towards the end of their occupation of Britain they laid out the only purely military highway which they built here from Regnum to London Bridge. This great Roman road, known as the Stane Street, coming out of the eastern gate of Chichester, takes the Downs as an arrow flies, crossing them between Boxgrove and Bignor, nor is the work of Rome even to-day wholly destroyed, for there under Bignor Hill we may still see the pavement of their Way, while at Bignor itself we have perhaps the best remains of a Roman villa left to us in Sussex. [Illustration: THE DOWNS] But though all these marks and signs, the memory and the ruins not only of our forefathers, but of those our saviours who drew us within the government of the Empire so that we are to-day what we are and not as they who knew not the Romans, make the Downs sacred to us, it is not only or chiefly for this that we love them or that in any thought of Southern England, when far away, it is these great hills which first come back into the mind and bring the tears to our eyes. We love them for themselves, for their beauty and their persistence certainly, but really because we have always known them and they more than any other thing here in the south remind us and are a symbol of our home. A man of South England must always have them in his heart for every day of his childhood they have filled his eyes. And to-day more especially they stand as a sign and a symbol. For not only are they the first great hills which the Londoner sees, but they offer the nearest relief and repose from the modern torture and noise of that enormous place which has ceased to be a city and become a mere asylum of landless men. From the mean and crowded streets he seeks with an ever increasing eagerness the space of the Downs, from the noise and confusion and throng, this silence and this emptiness; from the breathless street, this free and nimble air, which is better than wine. And so to-day more than ever the Downs have come to stand as a symbol of an England half lost, which might seem to be passing away, but that is, as indeed these hills assure us, eternal and indestructible, the very England of our hearts, which cannot die. There are some doubtless who grumble at this invasion and are fearful lest even this last nobility should be destroyed by the multitude or this last sanctuary desecrated by the rapacity of the rich, or this last silence broken by the brutal noise of the motor car. But the Downs are too strong, they have seen too many civilisations pass away, and the men and the ages that built upon their hill-sides have become less than a dream in the morning. They remain. And is it nothing that in our day if a man hears a bird sing in a London street in spring it is of the Downs he thinks, if the wind comes over the gardens in some haggard suburb it is these hills which rise up in his mind, these hills, which stand there against the south, our very own from everlasting to everlasting. But to possess the Downs at least as a symbol, to dream of them as a refuge, it is not necessary to know them in all their secret places, to have seen all their little forgotten homesteads, or to be able to recognise all their thousand steep tracks one from another. For me indeed the Downs, long as I have known them, remain most dear as a spectacle, but this you will miss altogether if you are actually upon them, lost amid their rolling waves of green turf with only the sky and the wind and the sun for companions. Therefore when I set out from Lewes to go westward I did not take the way up past the race- course over the battlefield south of Mount Harry towards Ditchling Camp and Beacon. Let me confess it, I followed the road. And what a road! In all South England I know no other that offers the traveller such a spectacle, where above him, in full view, that great rampart stands up like a wall, peak speaks to peak, till presently with a majesty and a splendour, not to be matched I think in our island, Chanctonbury stands forth like a king crowned as with laurel towering upon the horizon. Now this road I followed passes westward out of Lewes and then turns swiftly north, climbing as it goes, under the Downs beyond Offham, turning west again under Mount Harry and so on past Courthouse Farm and Plumpton church, which stands lonely in a field to the north of the road, till suddenly by Westmaston church under Ditchling Beacon it turns north again towards the Weald and enters the very notable village of Ditchling. All that way is worth a king's ransom, for it gives you all the steepness of the Downs upon their steepest side, their sudden north escarpment, towering up over the Weald some seven hundred feet or more. On a spring morning early I know no way more joyful. Ditchling Beacon itself stands some eight hundred and fifty feet above the sea and is the highest point in all the range of the South Downs, though it lacks the nobility of Chanctonbury. The earthworks here are irregular and not very well defined, but there is a fine dewpound to the east of the camp though perhaps this has not much antiquity, a seemingly older depression now dry in the north-west corner is rather an old rainwater ditch than a dewpound. Altogether it might seem that Ditchling Camp was rather a refuge for cattle than a military fortress. Ditchling village is charming, with more than one old half-timber house, and the church of St Margaret's is not only interesting in itself, but, standing as it does upon rising ground and yet clear of the great hills, it offers you one of the finest views of the Downs anywhere to be had from the Weald. It consists of a cruciform building of which the north transept and the north wall of the nave were rebuilt in the thirteenth century. The chancel, however, has some beautiful Early English work to show and the nave is rather plain Transitional. The eastern window and most of the windows in the nave are of the early Decorated period, the window in the south chancel aisle being somewhat later. Something better than Ditchling church awaits the traveller at Clayton where the little church of St John the Baptist possesses a most interesting chancel arch, round and massive, that may well be Saxon. The chancel itself is of the thirteenth century with triple lancets at the western end with two heads, perhaps of a king and queen on the moulding. Here, too, on the south chancel wall is a fine brass of 1523 in which we see a priest holding chalice and wafer. In the nave are the remains of frescoes of the Last Judgment. Right above Clayton rises Wolstanbury, a hill-top camp or circular work some two hundred and fifty yards in diameter. It is interesting because it is curiously and cleverly fortified, the rampart being built up below and outside the fosse, owing to the steepness of the hill. To the left are certain pits which may have been the site of dwellings; certainly many neolithic implements have been found here. Below Wolstanbury which thrusts itself out into the Weald like a great headland nearly seven hundred feet in height, lies Pyecombe to the south-west. This little place which lies between the heights of Wolstanbury and Newtimber Hill is celebrated for two things, its shepherds' crooks and the Norman font of lead in the little church whose chancel arch is Norman too. You may see here even in so small a place, however, all the styles of England, for if the font and chancel arch are Norman, the lancets in the chancel are Early English, the double piscina is Decorated and the windows of the nave are Perpendicular while the pulpit is of the seventeenth century. Pyecombe is hard to reach from Clayton without a great climb over the Downs, but there is a way, though a muddy one, which turns due west out of the Brighton road where the railway crosses it. This leads one round the northern side of Wolstanbury (and this is the best way from which to visit the camp on the top) and so by a footpath past Newtimber Place, a moated Elizabethan house well hidden away among the trees west of the road to Hurstpierpoint. From Pyecombe there is a delightful road winding in and out under the Downs about Newtimber Hill to Poynings. Poynings is, or should I say was, one of the loveliest, loneliest and most unspoiled villages to be found here under the Downs, but of late it has been accessible by railway from the Devil's Dyke and Brighton. Nothing, however, can spoil the beauty and interest of its church which is, I suppose, one of the earliest Perpendicular works in the county, built before 1368 by the third Baron de Poynings, some remains of whose old manor-house may still be found east of the churchyard. The church is a Greek cross with central tower, and is dedicated in honour of the Holy Trinity. Everything in it is charming, especially the beautiful eastern window, the triple sedilia and the piscina; but the pulpit and altar rails are of the seventeenth century as is the great south window which once stood in Chichester Cathedral. The Poynings lie in the south transept, but their tombs have been defaced. The north transept is the Montagu Chapel; here in the window is some old glass in which we may see the Annunciation. The Devil's Dyke, which stands right above Poynings, is a great trench in the Downs, dug according to the legend by the devil, whose genial intention it was to drown holy Sussex by letting in the sea. He was allowed from sunset to sunrise to work his will, but owing to the vigilance of those above who had Sussex particularly in their keeping, the cocks all began to crow long before the dawn, and the devil, thinking his time was spent, went off in a rage before he had completed his work. This would seem to prove what I have often suspected that the devil is as great a fool as he looks. The camp above the Devil's Dyke is of the usual design of a hill-top fortress, the defence following the natural line of the hill, the look-out having been apparently upon the north-west, whence a remarkably extensive view is to be had both over the Weald and the Downs. But as no water would seem to have been conserved here it is difficult to believe that this camp was ever a permanent fortress which only a very large number of people could have defended. Nevertheless a great number of neolithic implements have been found there. From Poynings in full view of Chanctonbury the beautiful road runs all the way at the foot of the Downs to that great gap through which the Adur seeks the sea, and which of old was guarded by Bramber Castle. On the way it passes through the loveliest of villages, to wit, Edburton, where in the Early English church of St Andrew is the second of the three Norman fonts of lead within this county. The church is altogether interesting, for if it is for the most part of the thirteenth century, it has a charming Decorated eastern window and it is said that Archbishop Laud himself presented the pulpit and altar rails. What the two low side windows were for I know not, but the chapel on the north was dedicated in honour of St Catherine of Alexandria. It was already dusk when I came out of Edburton church, the late dusk of a day in early May; and so, liking the place passing well, I determined to sleep there and soon found a hospitable cottage. In the morning I liked the place better still, and remembering the "tarmac" and the sophistication (alas!) of Steyning, I decided to stay where I was two or three days and to visit thence a place in the Weald it had long been my desire to see. And so having made up my mind, before nine o'clock I set out on my way. CHAPTER XIII THE WEALD There can be no one who has stood upon one of the great heights of the Downs north and south, upon Ditchling Beacon, Chanctonbury or Leith Hill, who, looking across the Weald, has not wondered what this country, lying between the two great chalk ranges, might be, what is its nature and its history and what part it has played in the great story of England. For even to the superficial onlooker it seems to differ essentially not only from the great chalk Downs upon which he stands, but from any other part of England known to him. It lies, thickly sprinkled with scattered and isolated woodlands, a mighty trench between the heights, not a vast plain but an uneven lowland diversified by higher land but without true hills, and roughly divided west and east into two parts by a great ridge known by various names, but in its greater part called the Forest, St Leonard's Forest, Ashdown Forest, Dallington Forest, and so forth. This country which we know as the Weald is obviously bounded north and south by the Downs which enclose it, as they do, too, upon the west, where between Winchester and Petersfield and Selborne the two ranges narrow and meet. Thence, indeed, the Weald spreads eastward in an ever widening delta till it is lost in the marshes and the sea. Such is the aspect of this great country as we see it to-day from any of the heights north and south of it; but what is its true character and what is its history? We hear of it first under a Saxon name, Andredeswald, whence we get our name of the Weald, and we find it always spoken of not only by the Saxons, but by the Romans before them as an obstacle, though not, it would seem, an insurmountable one. It was, in fact, a wild forest country of clay containing much woodland, everywhere covered with scrub, and traversed by various sleepy and shallow streams. That it was difficult to cross we have Roman evidence; that it was a secure hiding- place we know from the Saxons; but as we look upon it to-day neither of these historic facts is self-evident, and therefore a curious myth has grown up with regard to the Weald; and the historian, seeking to explain what is not to be understood without time and trouble and experience, tells us that the Weald was once an impenetrable forest, a whole great woodland and undergrowth so thick that no man might cross it without danger. Such an assertion is merely an attempt on the part of men, who do not know the Weald, to explain the facts of which I have spoken, namely, that the Weald appears as an obstacle in our early history, though not insurmountable, and that it continually offered a secure hiding-place and refuge to the fugitive. The Weald as it appears to us first, is the secure home of those who first smelted the ironstone in which it abounds, and as such it remained during many ages. But the two main facts about it which help to explain everything in its history are first that it consisted for the most part of clay, and secondly that it was everywhere ill watered. Let us consider these things. The Weald, even as we see it to-day, tilled and cultivated and tended though it be, remains largely a country of scattered woodland, very thickly wooded, indeed, as seen in a glance from any height of the Downs, but revealing itself, as we traverse it, as a country of isolated woods, often of oak, and with here and there the remains of a wild and rough moorland country, of which, as we may think, in the Roman times, it, for the most part, consisted. It later possessed some six forests properly so called, but itself was never a legal forest nor in any sense of the words an impenetrable wood. It always possessed homesteads, farms and steadings, but almost nowhere within it was there a great or populous town; men lived there it is true, but always in a sort of isolation. And this was so not because the Weald was an impassable forest of woodland and undergrowth--it was never that; but because of its scarcity of water or more accurately its uncertainty of water and its soil, the Wealden clay. The state of affairs anciently obtaining in the Weald does not fundamentally differ from what obtains to-day, and in a word it was and is this: in dry weather there is no water, but the going is good; in wet weather there is plenty of water, but the going is impossible. Of course, these conditions have in modern times been modified by the building of roads and the sinking of wells and the better embankment and preservation of the rivers, but in Roman times, as later, the Weald was an obstacle because it was difficult, though never impossible, to cross on account of the badness of the going or the lack of water. It was a secure hiding-place for such a fugitive as a Saxon king because he could not be pursued by an army; he himself with a few followers could move from steading to steading and enjoy a certain amount of state, but a pursuing army would have perished. Evidence in support of this explanation of the secret and character of the Weald is not far to seek. The Weald lay between the Channel and its ports, that is to say, the entries into England from the continent, and the Thames valley; it was then an obstacle that had to be overcome. Had it been merely a great woodland forest, it would not have troubled the Romans who would merely have driven a great road through it. But the Romans had more to face than an impenetrable woodland or the roughness of the country; they had to overcome the lack of water, and therefore in the Weald their day's march of some twelve miles was pressed to double its normal length. The French armies, according to Mr Belloc, do exactly the same thing in the Plain of Chalons to-day. And indeed a man may see for himself, even yet, what exactly the Weald was if in summer he will cross it by any of the winding byways that often become good roads for a mile or so and then lapse again into lanes or footpaths. Let him follow one of these afoot and drink only by the wayside. And then in winter let him follow the same tracks if he can. He will find plenty of water, but his feet will be heavy with clay. For an army or even a regiment to go as he goes would be almost impossible, and this not because of the woodland or undergrowth, but because of the lack of water, the lack of towns or large villages and the clay underfoot. Such then was the nature of the barrier which lay between the ports of the Channel and the valley of the Thames. The Weald was indeed inhuman, and this helps to explain why it was not only a barrier but a refuge. We read in the rude chronicle of the Saxons of two men who sought refuge in the Weald, in the seventh and eighth centuries. The first of the three was Caedwalla, (659?-689) a young man of great energy, according to Bede, and probably a dangerous aspirant to the West-Saxon throne. At any rate he was exiled from Wessex and he took refuge with his followers in the forest of Anderida, that is to say in the Weald. There about 681 he met St Wilfrid who had fled, too, from the West Saxon kingdom. Wilfrid was busy converting the South Saxons, and Caedwalla, going from steading to steading with his followers, saved from any considerable pursuit by the nature of the country, became great friends with him. This, however, did not prevent him in 685 from ravaging Sussex, slaying the South Saxon king and at last succeeding his old enemy Centwine upon the West Saxon throne. Caedwalla, after conquering the Isle of Wight and putting to death the two sons of King Arvaldus, having allowed them first to be baptised, was himself converted, and to such purpose that he laid down his crown, went on pilgrimage to Rome, and was baptised under the name of Peter, by the Pope, on the vigil of Easter 689. He died, however, before Domenica in albis, and was buried in Old St Peter's, nor was he the only English king that lay there. All this came out of the Weald; but it is most significant for us because it allows us to understand the nature of this refuge and what it offered in the way of safety to an exile. This is confirmed by the experience of Sigebert, King of the West Saxons. He, too, first took refuge in the Weald when deposed by his witan. He fled away and was pursued, we read, by Cynewulf, so that he took refuge in the forest of Andred where he was safe from pursuit by many men, being killed at last at Privet near Petersfield in Hampshire by a swineherd in revenge for his master's death. Such then was the nature of the Weald and such fundamentally it remains, a stubborn and really untameable country, even to-day not truly humanised, still largely empty of towns and villages but scattered with isolated farms and steadings. And the essential inhumanity of the true heart of the Weald is borne out by the scarcity of religious houses there. Only the little Priory of Rusper, a small Benedictine nunnery perhaps founded by one of the De Braose family before the end of the twelfth century, and the small Benedictine nunnery of Easebourne founded in the thirteenth century may be said to belong to the true Weald; of the others, such as the Abbey of Robertsbridge, the Priories of Michelham and Shulbred, the Abbeys of Otham, Bayham, and Dureford not one is really old or stands really within the true Weald. Nor are they of very much importance. The greatest of these houses was the Cistercian Abbey of Robertsbridge founded in 1176 by Alfred de St Martin, Sheriff of the rape of Hastings, within which the abbey stood, really upon the last of the forest ridge towards the Level of Pevensey. It is true that this abbey played a considerable part in history during the first years of its existence; for it was the Abbot of Robertsbridge who set out with the Abbot of Boxley to search for Coeur de Lion in 1192 and who found him in Bavaria, and we find the Abbot of Robertsbridge employed more than once again as an ambassador; but its fame soon dwindled, and though it escaped the first suppression and indeed survived till 1538 it could boast then of but eight brethren. [Illustration: THE WEALD OF SUSSEX, NORTH OF LEWES] The only other houses as old as Robertsbridge are those of Otham and Dureford, houses of Premonstratensian Canons, neither in the heart of the Weald, and both dating from the twelfth century. The other religious houses, Michelham and Shulbred of the Augustinian Canons, Easebourne of Augustinian nuns and Bayham the successor of Otham, all date from the thirteenth century, and indeed no more belong to the true Weald than do the rest. It is, in fact, only to-day that a great monastery stands in the heart of the Weald, and of all wonderful things that is a Carthusian House of the like of which Pre-reformation England boasted but twelve, and Sussex none at all. It was one day as I came over the Adur by Moat Farm that I became aware of this great establishment, for there suddenly, as I turned a corner, by the Lord, the road was full of Carthusian monks all in their white habits, a sight as marvellous as delightful once more upon an English road. And so I found my way to the great house of St Hugh at Parkminster. One should learn to be astonished at nothing in England of my heart, for it will beggar one's admiration. But Carthusians! Was it not this Order which Henry II. had brought into England as part of his penance for the murder of St Thomas? Was it not this Order which had first been established in my own Somerset, and alone of all Orders in England by a Saint, and which there at Witham and at Hinton, still so fair and lovely, built its first two houses in England, of which all told there were but twelve? Was it not this Order that had faced and outfaced Henry Tudor to the last so that the monks of the London Charterhouse were burnt at the stake at Tyburn? Well is this monastery dedicated in honour of St Hugh. And if you do not know why let me write it here. It is well known that after the murder of St Thomas and Henry II.'s public repentance for his part in all that evil, Pope Alexander III. gave him for penance a crusade of three years in the Holy Land, but when that was found not to be convenient he commuted it for the building of three monasteries of which one was to be Carthusian, for the Carthusians at that time had no house in England. This Order had been founded at Grenoble in 1086 by St Bruno, who had been sent by St. Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, to a desert spot in the Alps 14,000 feet above the sea. There St Bruno founded his monastery known as the Grande Chartreuse. His monks were hermit monks, each had, as each has still, his own little dwelling. The Order, which has never been reformed--Cartusia nunquam reformata Quia nunquam deformata--and has uniformly followed the Rule approved by Pope Innocent XI., recognises three classes of brethren, the fathers, the conversi or lay brethren, and nuns. Each house is governed by a Prior and each monk lives, as I have said, in a separate dwelling of five little rooms and a tiny cloister, or rather ambulatory, facing a little garden. His food is given him through a hatch at the foot of the stairs leading to his rooms. He attends Mass in Choir, Matins and Vespers too, but the other Hours are said in his cell. As the Carthusians were when they first came into England so they are to-day. But it is not in honour of St Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, that the monastery at Parkminster is dedicated, but of quite another saint. When Henry II. set out to found a Carthusian house in England in obedience to the Pope, the place he chose for it was Witham in Selwood, a solitude, for the Rule of the Order demanded it, and that is also why we have this monastery in the Weald to-day. It bears witness as nothing else could do to-day, perhaps, to the true character of the Weald. Witham, it is true, was not so desolate as the Grande Chartreuse, but it was in the heart of the Forest, far from the abode of men. Even to- day Witham is not easy to reach by road. This house, thus founded did not flourish; whether the place was too hard for the monks, or whether there was some other cause we know not, but the first two priors, though both from the Grande Chartreuse, failed to establish it. Then King Henry was advised to beg of the mother-house her great and shining light, Hugh of Avalon, not of Avalon in England, but of Avalon in Burgundy. He was successful in his request. The Bishop of Bath and Wells, his ambassador, then in the Alps, was able to bring Hugh home with him, though the loss of that "most sweet presence," as the Prior declared, widowed his house; and Hugh came to England and to Witham and was received as "an angel of the Lord." It is in honour of this great and holy man, later Bishop of Lincoln and known as St Hugh of Avalon, that the Carthusian monastery of Parkminster is dedicated. I have here no room to speak of him, the true founder of the Order in England, of his holy, brave and laborious life in Selwood or of his rule there of ten years. He is forgotten even at Witham and his name no longer, alas, means anything to us whom he served. Only the Carthusians have not forgotten, and to the keeping of no other saint in the Calendar could they so honourably have entrusted their new house. This monastery, founded in the Weald, upon October 17, 1877, is a great, if not a beautiful, pile of buildings, and is, in fact, one of the largest houses of the Order in the world. The visitor rings at the gate, and is admitted by a lay-brother dressed in the beautiful white habit, caught about the waist by a leathern girdle from which a rosary hangs. Upon his feet are rough shoes and his head is shorn but he greets you with a smile of welcome and leads you into a large quadrangle, where before you is the great Romanesque church with a chapel upon one side and the refectory upon the other, and all about are cloisters. Here over the entrance to the church is a statue of St Hugh. Within, the church is divided by a screen into two parts, the choir for the Fathers, the nave for the lay-brothers. Over the screen is a rood, and beneath, two altars, dedicated in honour of St John the Baptist, who went into the desert, and St Bruno, the founder of the Order. From the church one is led to the Chapter House, in which there stands an altar and Crucifix, and there upon the walls are depicted scenes from the martyrdom of the London Carthusians in the time of Henry VIII. From the Chapter House one is led to the Chapel of the Relics, where there is a beautiful silver reliquary that belonged to the English Carthusians before the Reformation, and in it is a relic of St Thomas of Canterbury. Here, too, is the stole of St Hugh and a bone of St Bruno. The monastery proper lies behind the church, where a vast quadrangle, the Great Cloister, some three acres in extent, opens out, surrounded on three sides by the little houses of the monks, with the graveyard in the midst. Here the monks live, and are buried without coffin or shroud in their white habits, the hood drawn over the face. The cells are delightful to look upon, "a solitude within a solitude"; each consists of five rooms, two below and three above, reached by a staircase, the whole approached from a passage closed by a door giving on to the Great Cloister. Here live and pray some thirty-six monks, with a like number of conversi or lay-brothers. I do not know in all England a place more peaceful than this one, more solemn and salutary to visit in the confusion of our modern life. Here is one of the lightning conductors that preserves the modern world from the wrath of God. Let others think as they will, for me the monastery of St Hugh in the Weald is holy ground. And at any rate, even though you may not agree with me so far, in this at least I shall carry you with me, when I say that this monastery, and especially because it is Carthusian, bears out the old character of the Weald and endorses it. I have said the Weald was ever a wild and inhuman place where only few men could go together, without great towns and with only infrequent villages; not a thick or impenetrable woodland but a difficult and a lonely country sparsely scattered with steadings. Well, it is such places that the Carthusians have ever sought out for their houses, such was Witham and such was the Grande Chartreuse also. That a Carthusian monastery should have been founded to-day in the midst of the Weald proves, if anything can, that it has not yet wholly lost its character. CHAPTER XIV TO ARUNDEL AND CHICHESTER From my little quiet retreat at Edburton, I set out one May morning to follow the road under the Downs, through Steyning for Arundel and Chichester, because it is one of the fairest ways in all the world, and, rightly understood, one of the most interesting. And to begin with, I found myself crossing one of those gaps in the South Downs, each of which is held by a castle. The one I now crossed was that made by the Adur, and it was held by the Castle of Bramber. Now Bramber, merely beautiful to-day, must in the old times always have been of importance, for it holds an easy road through the rampart of the Downs, one of the great highways into Normandy, because of the harbour of Shoreham at the mouth of the Adur, one of the principal ports upon this coast. Of immemorial antiquity, the harbour of Shoreham, first of Old Shoreham, perhaps the Roman Portus Adurni, and then when that silted up of New, has played always a great part in the history of South England. That the Romans knew and used it is certain. It was probably here that the Saxon Ella and his three sons Cymne, Cissa, and Wlencing, landed in 477, and it is not likely that it was neglected by the Normans, who, in fact, built here a very noble cruciform church, dark and solemn, indeed, rather a fortress than a church. It was at Shoreham certainly that John landed when he returned to England to make himself king after the death of Coeur de Lion, and we may gather some idea of the real importance of the port from the fact that it furnished Edward III. with twenty-six ships for his fleet in 1346. Thereafter the place declined, but history repeated itself when Charles II., in flight in 1651 and anxious to reach the French coast, set out from Shoreham and landed at Fécamp. Shoreham thus was an important way in and out of England, but the road by which it lived was not in its keeping at all, but in the power of the Castle of Bramber which dominated and held it on the north side of the Downs, where it issued out of the pass or gap made by the Adur. Bramber Castle stands upon a headland thrust out into the valley and the Weald in the very mouth of the pass; and even in its ruin, only an old gateway tower and a fragment of the lofty barbican in which is a Norman window remain. It is easy to understand how important and how strong it must once have been. Indeed, Norman though these remains are, it was by no means the Normans who first fortified this promontory and held this pass. It is probable that the Castle of Bramber occupies the site of a Roman Castellum and a Saxon fortress, some say a palace of the Saxon kings. After the Conquest the castle came into the hands of the great William de Braose, lord of Braose, near Falaise in Normandy, who received such great estates in England from the Conqueror. He fixed his seat, however, here at Bramber, and built or rebuilt the Castle which became the greatest fortress in his possession. Later, by marriage, it passed to the Mowbrays, and from them descended to the Dukes of Norfolk, the present Duke, indeed, still holding it. It is, however, of William de Braose we think in Bramber; for he not only built the great Castle which gives its character to the place even to-day, but the church of St Nicholas also, under the Castle, of which the nave and tower of his time only remain. He built it indeed as a chapel to his Castle, and to serve it he founded there a small college of secular canons under a dean, and endowed it with the church of Beeding and many tithes, among them those of Shoreham. But about 1080 William de Braose seems to have repented of what he had done, for he then granted to the Abbey of St Florent in Saumur the reversion of the church of St Nicholas here, when the last of the canons then living in his college at Beeding should have died. It was thus that the Abbey of St Florent came to establish a Priory at Beeding, or Sele as the monks called it, and this about 1096; and William's son Philip confirmed them in his father's gifts, and before the end of the twelfth century this alien priory possessed the churches of Sele, Bramber, Washington, Old Shoreham and New, to say nothing of the little chapel of St Peter on the old bridge between Bramber and Beeding. This old bridge over the Adur is worth notice, for it is said to have been first established by the Romans upon a road of theirs that ran under the north escarpment of the Downs from Dover to Winchester. Certain Roman remains have indeed been found there, and the chapel of St Peter _de veteri ponte_ was doubtless founded in order to guard it and keep it open and in order. Evil days fell upon the Priory with the rise of nationalism and the wars of the fourteenth century. Like every other alien house it came under suspicion of spying, and being near the coast, indeed, at the very threshold of an important gate, it was seized by the Crown. At last, in 1396, Richard II. permitted it to naturalise itself, and its only connection thereafter with St Florent was the payment of a small annual tribute. But the misfortunes of the Priory were not over. For sixty years or more all went well, but in 1459 the Bishop of Winchester bought the patronage of the place from the Duke of Norfolk, and won leave from the Pope and the Bishop of Chichester to suppress it and appropriate it to his new College of St Mary Magdalen in Oxford. The suppression, however, was not to take effect till the last monk then living should die, and this came to pass in 1480. For thirteen years the Priory was unoccupied, and then in 1493 the Fellows of Magdalen allowed the Carmelite Friars of Shoreham to use the place, their own house in Shoreham having been engulfed by the sea. These White Friars were the poorest in all Sussex; so poor were they that they failed even to maintain themselves at Sele. In July 1538, when the Bishop of Dover came to visit the place, he found "neither friar nor secular, but the doors open ... and none to serve God." Such was the end of the house William de Braose had built in the first years of the Conquest. What remains of it will be found in the church of St Peter in Upper Beeding, an Early English building of no great interest save that it contains many carved stones from the Priory, a window and a door also from the same house, upon the site of which the vicarage now stands. William de Braose, who made Bramber his chief seat, must have had an enormous influence upon building in this neighbourhood, which abounds in Norman churches such as those of Botolphs and Coombes, to say nothing of those at Shoreham Old and New; but he was by no means the only renewer of life here. The most beautiful thing in the still beautiful village of Steyning is the great church of St Andrew, but with this the Lord of Bramber has nothing to do; the Benedictine Abbey of Fécamp rebuilt this noble sanctuary, but its foundation is said to be due to an English saint, St Cuthman, who, having been a shepherd boy, upon his father's death came out of the west into Sussex bearing his mother, who was crippled, in a kind of barrow which he dragged by a cord. A thousand queer stories are told of him as he went on his way, happily enough it seems, until he came to Steyning, where the cord of his barrow broke. There he built a hut for his mother, and constructed a little church of timber and wattles in which at last he was buried. In his life he had performed divers miracles so that his grave became a place of pilgrimage, and it is said to have been about this shrine that the village and church of Steyning grew up. It remained a holy place, and Ethelwolf, the father of Alfred, is said to have been buried there, his body later being removed to Winchester. That the place was of some sort of importance would seem to be evident, for we find Edward the Confessor, granting the manor and churches of Steyning to the Benedictines of Fécamp, Harold taking it from them, and the Conqueror restoring it. Two churches at Steyning are spoken of in the Domesday Survey, and it has been thought that the second of these is really that at Warminghurst. But we find a church in Steyning in the thirteenth century served by secular canons. This was, however, in all probability the church of St Andrew we know, which in 1290 was a royal free chapel answerable neither to the Archbishop nor to the Bishop of Chichester, but to the Abbot of Fécamp only. The College of Canons had by then, if indeed it ever served this church, been dissolved. At the suppression of the alien priories in the fifteenth century Steyning passed to the new Abbey of Sion. There can be no doubt that the church we have at Steyning is due to the Benedictines of Fécamp, and it is one of the noblest buildings in the county. Of the earlier church they built here much would seem to remain, the rudely carved arches at the eastern end of the aisles, the Norman window on the north, and much of the aisle walls. This church was probably cruciform and may have been larger than that we now see. It was rebuilt again by the monks in the middle of the twelfth century, when the great chancel arch we have, the beautiful nave arcades and clerestory were built, with the fine mouldings and capitals and dog-tooth ornament. The font, too, would seem to be of about this time. The tower only dates from the sixteenth century, and the chancel is modern. Now Steyning lies under Chanctonbury, but I resisted the temptation to spend the afternoon in the old camp there looking over the "blue goodness of the weald," for I wished especially to visit the church of Wiston, and to see, if I might, Wiston House, which Sir Thomas Shirley built about 1576, and where those three brothers were born who astonished not only Sussex and all England, but Rome itself and the Pope by their marvellous daring and adventures. The old manor house is delightfully situated in its beautiful park under the dark height of Chanctonbury, and though much altered, retains on the whole its fine Elizabethan character. The manor originally belonged to the De Braose, from whom it passed by marriage to the Shirleys. In the church, a small Decorated building, there is a fine brass of 1426 to Sir John de Braose, on which over and over again we read Jesu Mercy: this in the south chapel. His little son is buried under an arch on the north, where there is a curious effigy of him. The first Shirley, whose monument we find here, though only in part, is that of Sir Richard, who died in 1540; but it was Sir Thomas, who also has his monument, that built Wiston and was the father of those three remarkable sons. He was the great-grandson of Ralph Shirley of Wiston, and the son of William Shirley, who died in 1551. Till his time the family had of course been Catholic; it was he who first abandoned the Faith; perhaps it was this spirit of adventure so unfortunate in him which descended to that famous "leash of brethren" and drove them out upon their adventures. The least remarkable and the most unfortunate of these sons of his was the eldest, Thomas, whose life, however, as a soldier and freebooter, both on shore in the Low Countries and at sea, is sufficiently full of adventure to satisfy anyone. He came, however, to utter grief at last, and had to sell Wiston, retiring to the Isle of Wight, where he died in 1630. It was his brother Anthony who really made the Shirleys famous. He had graduated at Oxford in 1581, and having, as he said, "acquired those learnings which were fit for a gentleman's ornament," he went to the Low Countries with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and was present at the battle of Zutphen, where Sir Philip Sidney fell. In 1591 he was in Normandy with the Earl of Essex, whom he devotedly followed, in support of Henry of Navarre, who made him a knight of St Michael. For accepting a foreign knighthood without her leave, Elizabeth locked him up in the Fleet, and only let him out when he promised to retire from the Order. This he actually did, but his title stuck to him, and he was always known as Sir Anthony. He then married Elizabeth Devereux, a first cousin of his patron, the Earl of Essex; but the marriage was unfortunate; he could not abide his wife, and in order to "occupy his mind from thinking of her vainest words," in 1595 he fitted out with Essex's aid and his father's a buccaneering expedition to the Gulf of Guinea. But in something less than two years after the most amazing adventures he came home to Wiston under the Downs, "alive but poor," and with his passion for adventure in nowise abated. In 1597 he accompanied Essex on the "Islands voyage," but, seeking more paying adventure, in the winter of 1598 he consented at Essex's suggestion to lead a little company of English adventurers to assist Cesare D'Este to regain his Duchy of Ferrara, then in the hands of the Pope. He set forth, but upon reaching Venice found that Cesare had submitted. Again he was out of employment; but it was upon the quays of Venice that he conceived the most astonishing enterprise that even an Englishman has ever undertaken. He proposed to set out for Persia with the object of persuading the Shah to ally himself with Christendom against the Turk, and hoped also to establish commercial relations between England and Persia. Upon this astonishing Crusade he left Venice with his brother Robert and twenty-five Englishmen disappointed of a row in Ferrara, on May 29, 1599, for Constantinople. Thence he went on to Aleppo, and so down the Euphrates, to Babylon, to Isapahan and Kazveen, where he met the Shah Abbas the Great. There, thanks to the Shah's two Christian wives, he had a good reception; the rank of Prince was conferred upon him, and he won the concession, for all Christians, of the right, not only to trade freely, but to practise their religion in Persia. For five months he remained at the court of the Shah, and then returned to Europe as his ambassador to invite all Christian powers to ally themselves with Persia against the Turk. He went first to Moscow, where he was, however, treated with contempt, as was his mission. He went to Prague and was well received. At last, in 1601, after visiting Nuremberg, Augsburg, Munich, Innsbruck, and Trent, he arrived in Rome, and, professing enthusiasm for the Faith his father had repudiated, was well received. The truth was, he was in grave money difficulties, and indeed in 1603 was arrested by the Venetians and imprisoned "in a certain obscure island near unto Scio." The English Government, however, came to his aid and obtained his release, but refused him permission to return to England. He went to Prague, and thence on the business of the Emperor to Morocco. There he was received in great state and remained five months. Before leaving, however, he released certain Portuguese whom he found in slavery, and sailed with them for Lisbon, where he hoped to reimburse himself for their ransom. In this he was disappointed, so on he went to Madrid, where he was made very much of and promised the Order of Sant'Iago. In the service now of Spain, he went to Naples in 1607, after a visit to the Emperor at Prague where he was created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. He seems to have travelled considerably in Southern Italy, and after a brief visit, to obtain money, to Madrid, set out for Sicily in command of a fleet to attack the Moors and Turks. He achieved nothing and was dismissed. In 1611 he appeared again in Madrid in utter poverty, but the King took compassion upon him and gave him a pension, and in Madrid he remained writing an account of his adventures till he died in beggary. The English ambassador notes in 1619, "The poor man sometimes comes to my house and is as full of vanity as ever he was, making himself believe that he shall one day be a great prince." It might indeed seem a long road from Wiston under the Downs to the Gulf of Guinea, the Quays of Venice, Constantinople, the Euphrates, Babylon, Moscow, Prague, Rome, and Morocco, to die at last a beggar in purse, but in heart a great Prince in Madrid. Now, when I had been reminded of all this, I was directed to visit Buncton Chapel to the north of Wiston Park, where I found indeed some Norman work in the nave and chancel arch. And so I went on my way through the failing afternoon by that beautiful road within sight of the high Downs to the Washington Inn, where I slept, for it is a quiet place not to be passed by. And on the morrow I went on my way, still through as fair a country as is to be found in all South England, through Storrington, and so by way of Parham Park, with its noble Elizabethan house and little church with the last leaden font in Sussex, a work of the fourteenth century, to Amberley in the meads of the Arun, a dear and beautiful place. Amberley boasts a Castle and stands right in the mouth of one of those gaps in the Downs as Bramber does, the gap of the Arun, and it might well be thought that Amberley held this pass. As a fact she did not. That gap is held by Arundel; the Castle at Amberley was a palace of the Bishop of Chichester, granted to the Bishop of Selsey long before the Conquest; it was only castellated in the fourteenth century. It is none the less an interesting ruin, very picturesque, with remains of a chapel, while the beautiful house built within the castle walls early in the sixteenth century is altogether lovely. And as for the church, I can never hope to tell of all its interest and beauty. Certainly a Norman church once stood here, of which the nave of that we see was part, as was the very noble chancel arch; but the chancel itself, the south aisle, and the tower are of the thirteenth century, while the south door is very early Decorated, most beautifully carved. There is not surely in all Sussex a more delightful spot than this lying so quietly in the meads, with its beautiful church, its ruined castle, and fine old Elizabethan house, where Arun bends slowly and lazily towards the Downs and the sea. It was with real regret that on that May morning I left Amberley, turning often to look back at it, and last from the great seven-arched bridge over the Arun, whence one may look down stream upon the wooded slopes of Arundel Park. Then I went on up the road that winds through the steep village of Houghton swiftly up on to the Downs, wooded here very nobly, and so at the top of Rewell Hill I turned to the left and made my way through the noble park to the little town of Arundel. Now I cannot say why, but in spite of its seduction, which is full of splendour, of its noble history and great buildings, I have never been able to love Arundel. One is there always I feel too much in the shadow of that mighty Castle which for the most part is not old at all, too much in the power of that great new church that surely was never built by English hands, which has altogether blotted out the older sanctuary, and which, Catholic though it be, has never won my affection. Arundel itself is all in the shadow of these two things, each of which is too big for it, too heavy for free laughter and light- heartedness. So it seems to me. All I can find in Arundel that pleases me lies in the little town itself, and in the old church of which one half, the chancel, has been closed to all who do not hold the Duke's written permission to enter it--as though the house of God, even though it be the property of a Catholic duke, were not by nature as it were free to all. And so there is a kind of sorrowfulness about Arundel that spoils my pleasure in it, yes, even in the very noble remains of the old Castle that are hidden away within the sham Gothic affair of 1791. Even in the beautiful old church, of which one half is closed, even in the steep little town which might have been as gay as Rye, I felt, overwhelmed by the new Castle and the new church, neither of which has any antiquity, tradition, or beauty. [Illustration: ARUNDEL CASTLE] The old Castle, with its great circular Norman keep within the huge sham "fortress" of the eighteenth century, beneath which the town lies like one afraid to ask for mercy, should not be left unvisited, for it was probably built by that Roger de Montgomery, who led the Breton centre at Hastings, and has thus nearly a thousand years of history behind it, to say nothing of three sieges, that of 1102, when it was surrendered to Henry I., that of 1139, when Stephen there held Matilda prisoner and allowed her to pass out, and that of 1643, when Waller took it after seventeen days. Nor indeed should anyone fail to visit the beautiful parish church of St Nicholas, a glorious cruciform building, Perpendicular in style, built in 1380. It, too, has a long history. The church was originally served by secular canons, but in 1177 the then Earl of Arundel introduced in their place four or five monks under a Prior from St Martin of Seez. In the fourteenth century, however, these alien monks withdrew to their mother house, and in 1380 the Priory of St Nicholas in Arundel was reconverted into a collegiate church. This college consisted of a master and sub-master, ten chaplains, two deacons, two sub-deacons, and five choristers. The choir of the church was the chapel of the college, the remainder being parochial. The college survived the general suppression, but was eventually bought by the Earl of Arundel, who had previously offered a thousand pounds for it. And so it was that after a long law-suit in 1880 the chancel of the parish church of Arundel was given up to the Duke of Norfolk. I did not sleep in Arundel, but, though it was already afternoon, I set out westward once more through the great park, and just before sunset I came to the great church of Boxgrove, which stands between the road I had followed from Arundel and the Roman Stane Street, where they approach to enter the East Gate of Chichester together at last. This great and beautiful sanctuary, gives one, I think, a better idea of what the great monastic churches really were, than any other building left to us in Sussex. It is like a cathedral for solemnity, and for size too, though it is only a fragment, and its beauty cannot be forgotten. In its foundation the church is very ancient, a small college of secular canons serving it in Saxon times. But all was changed when Robert de Haza, to whom Henry I. had granted the honour of Halnaker, in 1105 bestowed the church upon the Abbey of Lessay, which sent hither its Benedictines and built for them a new sanctuary. Boxgrove was thus an alien priory from 1108 till in 1339. Richard II. affirmed its independence, and this was confirmed by the Pope in 1402. It seems then to have been in a bad way, but later recovered. In the thirteenth century it had boasted nineteen monks, but at the time of the suppression it only mustered eight priests, who seem to have kept a school for the children of the neighbourhood. What remains of the Priory, not much more than a gateway, for most of it was destroyed in 1780, stands to the north of the church. The original Norman church here was cruciform. Of this building we still see the tower, the transepts and the lower part of what remains of the nave, and the arcade to the south. This Norman church was greatly enlarged in the twelfth century, when the nave now destroyed was built, the tower piers were then cased in the Transitional style and the arches which carry the tower were altered. Later, about 1235, the chancel we see and its aisles, as lovely as anything in southern England, were added in the Early English style, that often reminds one of Chichester Cathedral. To the fourteenth century belong the south porch and more than one window in the aisles, while the font and other windows are Perpendicular. I had often read of the unique vaulting of the choir of Boxgrove Priory, but the twilight was so deep in the church, for it was already evening, that I could not see it. I saw, however, the empty tomb, very fine and splendid, of the Earl de la Warr, who begged Boxgrove of Thomas Cromwell unsuccessfully; and then I went out and marched on into Chichester, the East Gate of which I entered not long after dark. CHAPTER XV CHICHESTER The mere plan of Chichester proclaims its Roman origin. It is a little walled city lying out upon the sea plain of Sussex, cruciform by reason of its streets, North Street, South Street, East Street, and West Street, which divide it into four quarters, of which that upon the south became wholly ecclesiastical: the south-west quarter being occupied by the Cathedral and its subject buildings, while the south- east quarter was the Palatinate of the Archbishop. As for the quarter north-east it was appropriated to the Castle and its dependencies, of which however, nothing remains, while the quarter north-west was occupied by the townspeople, and to-day contains their parish church of St Peter Major. These four quarters meet at the Market Cross, whence the streets that divide the city set out for the four quarters of the world. To come into Chichester to-day even by the quiet red-brick street-- South Street--from the railway station, the least interesting entry into the city, is to understand at once what Chichester is; one of those country towns that is to say, cities in the good old sense, because they were the seat of the Bishop, which are not only the pride of England, but perhaps the best things left to her and certainly the most characteristic of all that she truly means and stands for. If such places are without the feverish and confused life of the great industrial centres of modern England, let us thank God for it, they have nevertheless a quiet vitality of their own, which in the long run will prove more persistent and strong than the futile excitement of places noisy with machinery and wretched with the enslaved poor. Such places as Chichester may indeed stand for England in a way that Manchester, for instance, with its cosmopolitan population and egotistical ambition, its greed, its helplessness, and appalling intellectual mongrelism and parvenu and international society, can never hope to do. England truly remains herself, the England of my heart, because of such places as Chichester, Winchester, Salisbury, Wells, and those dear market towns which still remember and maintain her great past and renew the ways of our forefathers. All are very old, co-eval with England, all have sturdy and unforgotten traditions, and in these, if we but knew it, lies our best hope for the future. Among these dear places Chichester is no exception, rather is she most typical; she has an immemorial past, and out of it she will contrive somehow or other to face and to outface whatever the future may bring. Like everything that is best in England, that is indeed most typical of ourselves, her origins are not barbarian, but Roman. Her ancient name was Regnum, the city, it is said, first of Cogidubnus, King of the Regni and Legate in Britain of Claudius Caesar. That the Romans built and maintained an important town here cannot be doubted; the very form of the city to-day would be enough to establish this, apart from the notable discoveries of buildings, pavements, urns, inscriptions, and I know not what else belonging to the whole of the Roman occupation of Britain. It is obvious that Chichester played a great part in the Roman administration of South Britain; its port was large, safe and accessible, while it was the first town upon the east of that great group of creeks and harbours which run up out of Spithead and Southampton Water. Throughout the Middle Ages, Bosham, the port of Chichester, maintained its position, while even in the eighteenth century Chichester harbour was sufficiently important to warrant the cutting of the canal which unites the Arun with Chichester Channel. There is, however, something else which must always place beyond doubt the importance of Chichester in Roman times. It was from Chichester, out of the East Gate, that the great Roman road set forth for London, the road we know as the Stane Street, chiefly, as we may suppose, a great military way. This was the only Roman road over the South Downs, the only road that connected London with the greater harbours of the South Coast. Its terminus was Chichester. [Illustration: THE MARKET CROSS, CHICHESTER] Of the early connection of the town with Christianity there is to say the least high probability. An inscription found in North Street, and now preserved at Goodwood, recording the dedication of a Temple by the College of Smiths to Neptune and Minerva, would seem to refer to that Claudia and that Pudens mentioned by St Paul, and thus to connect them with Regnum. However that may be, we know that it with the rest of Britain must have been a Christian city long before the failure of the Roman administration. With that failure and the final departure of the Legions, Regnum fell on evil days. Its position as the key to those harbours which had given it its importance now exposed it to the first raids of the pirates. These barbarians, according to legend, were Ella and his three sons, one of whom, Cissa, is said to have given Chichester her name--Cissa's camp, Cissa's Ceaster. Of Chichester's story during the Dark Ages we know as little as we know of most of the cities of England, but that it was destroyed utterly, as has been asserted, common sense refuses to allow us to believe. It certainly continued to exist, in barbarous fashion perhaps, but still to live, till with the conversion of the English it began to take on a new life, and with the Conquest was finally established as the seat of the Bishop. The apostle of the South Saxons, St Wilfrid, wrecked upon the flat and inhospitable shore of Selsey, was, as we know, their first bishop. He established his See, however, not at Chichester, but at Selsey where it remained until the Conqueror began to reorganise England upon a Roman plan, when more than one See was removed from the village in which it had long been established to the neighbouring great town. So it was with the Bishopric of Sussex, which in the first years of the Norman administration was removed from Selsey to Chichester. Thus Chichester was restored in 1075 to the great position it had held in the time of the Romans. Its lord was that Roger de Montgomery who received it from the Conqueror, together with more than eighty manors, and to him was due the castle which stood in the north-east quarter, and the rebuilding of the Roman walls, which continually renewed and rebuilt, still in some sort stand, upon Roman foundations, and mark the limits of the Roman town. Of the South Saxon cathedral church at Selsey we know almost nothing. It seems to have been established as a Benedictine house under an abbot who was also bishop, but later the monks were replaced by secular canons. Then when in 1075 the See was removed from Selsey to Chichester the old church dedicated in honour of St Peter, which stood upon the site of the present cathedral, was used as the cathedral church, and the Benedictine nuns, to whom it then belonged were dispossessed in favour of the canons. This, however, did not last long; by 1091 a new Norman church, the work of Bishop Ralph, whose great stone coffin stands in the Lady Chapel, had been built upon this site and dedicated in honour of the Blessed Trinity, the old church being commemorated in the nave, which still was used as the parochial church of St Peter Major. This new building, however, was soon so badly damaged by fire that it was necessary to rebuild it--this in 1114; but a like fate befell it in 1187, and again the church was restored, this time by Bishop Seffrid. Then in the thirteenth century came Bishop Richard. He was consecrated in 1245, and ruled the diocese for eight years. This man was a saint, and in 1261 he was canonised. Thus Chichester got a shrine of its own, which became exceedingly famous and attracted vast crowds of pilgrims, and thus indirectly brought so much money to the church that great works, such as the transformed Lady Chapel, and the many chapels which the Cathedral boasts, were able to be undertaken. St Richard of Chichester was not a Sussex man; he was born about 1197, at Droitwich in Worcestershire, and thus gets his name Richard de Wyche. His father, a man well-to-do, died, however, when Richard was very young, and he being only a younger son fell into poverty. We find him, according to his fifteenth-century biographer, labouring on his brother's land, and to such good purpose, it is said, that he quite re- established his family, and withal such love was there between the brothers that the elder would have resigned all his estates in favour of the younger. But Richard would not consent, preferring to go as a poor scholar to Oxford, where, we learn, that he lived in the utmost poverty sharing indeed a tunic and a hooded gown with two companions, so that the three could only attend lectures in turn. At Oxford he seems chiefly to have devoted himself to the study of Logic, and for this purpose he presently went to Paris, returning, however, to Oxford to take his degree. Thence once more he set out, this time to study Canon Law at Bologna, where he not only won a great reputation, but was appointed a public professor of that faculty. So beloved and respected was he in that great university, where there was always a considerable English contingent, that his tutor offered him his daughter in marriage, and gladly would he have taken her, but that marriage was not for him. So he set out for England and Oxford, where he was joyfully received and indeed such was his fame that he was made chancellor of the university. In truth, he was in such great demand that both Canterbury and Lincoln wished to secure him, and at last Archbishop Edmund Rich succeeded where Robert Grosseteste failed, and Richard became chancellor of Canterbury and the dear friend of the Archbishop. They were indeed two saints together, and even in their lifetime were greeted as "two cherubim in glory." Together they faced the king, when he continued to allow so many English bishoprics to remain vacant, and together they went into exile to Pontigny, and later to Soissy, where St Edmund died. Heart-broken by the loss of so dear a friend Richard retired into a Dominican house in Orleans and immersed himself in the study of Theology. There he was ordained priest, and there he founded a chapel in honour of St Edmund. But Boniface of Savoy, who had succeeded St Edmund in the archbishopric of Canterbury, besought him to return. He obeyed, and was appointed rector of Charing and vicar of Deal in 1243, becoming once more Chancellor of Canterbury. But still there remained the enmity of the King. Two good things Henry III. gave us, Westminster Abbey and Edward I.; but he was almost as difficult as Henry II., with regard to investitures. Fortunately he was not so obstinate, or we might have had a martyr instead of a confessor in Chichester, as we have in Canterbury. In the year 1244 the See of Chichester fell vacant by the death of Bishop Ralph Neville, and at the King's suggestion the canons elected their archdeacon, a keen supporter of his. Boniface at once held a synod, quashed the election, and recommended his chancellor Richard as Bishop, to which the chapter agreed. The king was, of course, furious. Richard, who was received by him, could do nothing with him, and so immediately appealed to the Pope, Innocent IV., it was, who consecrated him at Lyons upon March 5, 1245. Even this did not move the King. Richard returned to England, found the temporalities of his See disgracefully wasted by the King, sought and obtained an interview with Henry, but achieved nothing. For a time he lived at Tarring with a poor priest named Simon, for in his own diocese he was a beggar and a stranger as it were in a foreign land. In 1246, however, the Pope having threatened excommunication, the King gave way, and Richard at once began to reform his diocese, to discipline his priests, and to restore the ritual of his cathedral, and indeed of all the churches in his diocese. He lived a life of severe asceticism, and gave so much in alms that he was always a beggar. Usurers were punished by excommunication, and Jews were forbidden to build new synagogues. It was he, too, who first established the custom of the Easter offering contribution from the faithful to the Cathedral, known later as St Richard's pence. He loved the Friars, more especially the Dominicans, who had befriended him at Orleans, and to which Order his confessor belonged. He ardently preached the crusade and was eagerly loyal to St Peter. It was, indeed, as he was journeying through southern England, urging men to take the Cross, that at Dover he fell ill and died there during Mass in the Hospitium Dei. His body was buried in a humble grave, we read, near the altar he had built in honour of St Edmund, his friend, in the Cathedral of Chichester. And from the moment of his death he was accounted a saint. Miracles were performed at his tomb, which even Prince Edward visited, and in 1262, in the church of the Fransicans at Viterbo, Pope Urban IV. raised him to the altar. In June 1276 St Richard's body was taken from its grave in the nave of Chichester Cathedral, and in the presence of King Edward I. and a crowd of bishops, was translated to a silver gilt shrine. Later, this was removed to the tomb in the south transept. St Richard was not only a popular hero and saint both before and after his death, to him and his shrine is due very much that is most lovely in the Cathedral, and it was he who really reformed the chapter there. Chichester had always been served by a dean and chapter of secular canons. The canons were originally, of course, resident, but the chapter had always been poorly endowed, and as time went on residence was actually discouraged. Perhaps then arose the canon's vicars who represented the canons and chanted in choir. The vicars choral were, however, not incorporated until 1465; they were assisted by ten or twelve boy choristers, whose chief business it was, I suppose, to sing the Lady-Mass in prick-song. Beside this company of canons, vicars and choristers directly serving the cathedral, a number of chaplains served the various altars and chantries within it, which at the Dissolution numbered fifteen. St Richard not only reorganised the cathedral staff, but also established the "use" of Chichester, which he ordered to be followed throughout the diocese. This "use" was followed until 1444, when, by order of the archbishop, that of Sarum, was established. With the Reformation, of course, everything but the Cathedral itself and the form of its administration and government was swept away. Nor was it long before even what Henry and Elizabeth had spared was demolished. In 1643 Chichester was besieged by Waller and taken after ten days. His soldiers, we read, "pulled down the idolatrous images from the Market Cross; they brake down the organ in the Cathedral and dashed the pipes with their pole-axes, crying in scoff, "Harke! how the organs goe"; and after they ran up and down with their swords drawn, defacing the monuments of the dead and hacking the seats and stalls." Indeed, such was their malice that it is wonderful to see how much loveliness remains. No cathedral, I think, and certainly no lesser church in England is so completely representative of the whole history of our architecture as is Chichester. In Salisbury we have the most uniform building in our island, in Chichester the most various, for it possesses work in every style, from the time of the Saxons to that of Sir Gilbert Scott. It was Bishop Ralph who before 1108 built the church we know, and completed it save upon the west front, where only the lower parts of the south-western tower are Norman. But work earlier than his, Saxon work, may be seen in the south aisle of the choir, where there are two carved stones representing Christ with Martha and Mary and the Raising of Lazarus. Bishop Ralph's church was badly damaged by fire in 1114, and it would seem that the four western bays of the nave date from the following rebuilding and restoration. Then in 1187 the Cathedral was burnt again, and Bishop Seffrid vaulted it for the first time--till then only the aisles had been vaulted--building great buttresses to support this and re-erecting the inner arcade of the clerestory. Apparently the apse and ambulatory which till then had closed the great church, on the east had been destroyed in the fire. At any rate Bishop Seffrid replaced them with the exquisite retro-choir we have, and square eastern chapels. He did the same with the old apses of the transepts, and he recased the choir with Caen stone, using Purbeck very freely and with beautiful effect. All this work is very late Transitional, the very last of the Norman or Romanesque. Then in the thirteenth century, which was to see St Richard Bishop of Chichester, the beautiful south porch was built, a pure Early English work, the north porch almost as lovely and of the same date, and later the sacristy beside the south porch. In St Richard's own day the south- west tower was built as we see it. The Norman tower over the crossing was destroyed and a lighter one built in its place as we see, and the galilee was set up before the western doors. Then, too, the chapels were built out from the nave aisles, upon the north those of St Thomas, St Anna, and St Edmund, upon the south, those of St George and St Clement, things unique in England, and all largely works of the second half of the thirteenth century and the early Decorated style, which indeed give to the Cathedral, with its dark Norman nave, all its charm, its variety and delight. Not much later than this transformation of the nave, though the nave itself was not touched, was the rebuilding or rather the lengthening and transformation of the Lady Chapel. Fundamentally this beautiful Decorated chapel is a Norman work, transformed into a Transitional one, to be glorified and transfigured in the very end of the thirteenth century, and now spoilt as we see. All this was done either by St Richard himself, or with the money gathered at his shrine. In the first half of the fourteenth century little would appear to have been built, save that certain beautiful windows, as that in the end of the south aisle of the choir and that in the south transept, with Bishop Langton's tomb beneath it, were inserted, and the fine stalls were built in the choir. In the Perpendicular period the detached campanile was erected to the north-west and the Cathedral was crowned by the great spire, a noble work lost to us in our own time and replaced by the copy of Sir Gilbert Scott. Later still, in the sixteenth century, a great stone screen, now destroyed, was erected across the church, with chantries, and the cloister was built. There, over a doorway on the south, is a shield, with the arms of Henry VII., and two figures kneeling before the Blessed Virgin, attended by an angel holding a rose. A few tombs of interest or beauty, which the Puritans failed to destroy, remain to this great Catholic building. These are the tombs of St Richard, of which I have spoken, in the north transept against the choir, the restored Arundel Chantry and tomb of Richard Fitzalan in the north aisle of the nave, and the exquisite Decorated tomb in the chapel of St John Baptist at the eastern end of this aisle; little beside. It must indeed be confessed that when all is said and done, essentially romantic as the Cathedral of Chichester is with its so various styles of architecture, lovely as certain parts of it are still, it must always have been a building rather interesting than beautiful, and it has suffered so much from vandalism and restoration that it cannot be accounted a monument of the first order. Nevertheless, I always return to it with delight and am reluctant to go away, for in England certainly a cathedral, even of the second order, of restricted grandeur and spoilt beauty, may be a very charming and delightful and precious thing as indeed this church of Chichester is. At any rate it is by far the most interesting thing left to us in the city. The other churches, except perhaps St Olave's, are not worth a visit; even in St Olave's everything has been done to make it as little interesting as possible. The best thing left to us in Chichester, apart from the Cathedral and its subject buildings, is, I think, St Mary's Hospital, a foundation dating from the time of Henry II., which possesses a noble great hall, and a pretty Decorated chapel, with old stalls, which is still used as an almshouse. It stands upon the site of the first Franciscan house established in Chichester. In 1269 the Friars Minor left this place and moved to the site of the old Castle. There they built the church of which the choir still remains, a lovely work ruined at the dissolution and used as the Guildhall. It is now a store room. Nothing in Chichester is more beautiful than this Early English fragment, which seems to remind us of all we have lost by that disastrous revolution of the sixteenth century, whose latest results we still await with fear and dread. But let who will be disappointed in Chichester, I shall love it all my days; not so much for these its monuments, but for itself, its curiously sleepy air of disinterested quiet, its strong dislike of any sort of enthusiasm, its English boredom, even of itself, its complete surrender to what is, its indifference to what might be. May it ever remain secure within sight of the hills, within sight of the sea, steeped in the Tudor myth, certain in its English heart, that twice two is not four but anything one likes to make it, nor ever hear ribald voices calling upon it to decide what after all it stands for in the world, denying it any longer the consolation it loves best of finding in the conclusion what is not in the premises, or, as the vulgar might put it, of having its cake and eating it too. CHAPTER XVI SELSEY, BOSHAM AND PORCHESTER It was my good fortune, while I was in Chichester, to be tempted to explore the peninsula of Selsey, which most authorities declare to have no beauty and little interest for the traveller to-day. For St Wilfrid's sake, I put aside these admonishments, and one morning set out upon the lonely road to Pagham, across a country as flat as a fen, of old, as they say, a forest, the forest of Mainwood, and still in spite of drainage and cultivation very bleak and lonely with marshes here and there which are still the haunt of all kinds of wild-fowl. It is only to the man who finds pleasure in the Somerset moors, the fens of Cambridgeshire or the emptiness of Romney Marsh that this corner of England will appeal, but to such an one it is full of interest and certainly not without beauty. Pagham, however, of which I had read, with its creek and harbour, its curious Hushing Well, its golden sands, and extraordinary melancholy, as it were a ruin of the sea, sadly disappointed me. Only its melancholy remains. Its harbour, where of old we read the sea-fowl were to be seen in innumerable flocks, and the whole place was musical with the cry of the wild-swan, has been wholly reclaimed, and the famous Hushing Well no longer exists at all. This last was a curious natural phenomenon and must have been worth seeing. It consisted apparently of a great pool in the sea, one hundred and thirty feet long by thirty feet broad, boiling and bubbling and booming all day long. This was caused, it is said, by the air rushing through a bed of shingle beneath which was a vast cavern from which the sea continuously expelled the air as it rushed in. Nothing of the sort exists at Pagham to-day; it has disappeared with the reclamation of the harbour, which itself was formed, we are told, in the fourteenth century by a tidal wave, when nearly three thousand acres were inundated. The only thing which the continual fight of man against water in this peninsula has left us that is worth seeing in Pagham to-day is the church of St Thomas of Canterbury. This is an Early English building much spoiled by restoration, the best thing remaining being the beautiful arcade of the end of the twelfth century. But the eastern window which consists of three lancets is charming, as is the fourteenth-century chantry at the top of the north aisle, founded in 1383 by John Bowrere. In the chancel is a curious slab with an inscription in Lombardic characters, perhaps a memorial of a former rector. The font is Norman. The church was probably built by one of the early successors of St Thomas in the See of Canterbury; for Pagham belonged to the Archbishops until the Reformation, and certain ruins of their palace remain in a field to the south-east of the church. At Nyetimber, on the Chichester road, a mile out of Pagham, are the ruins of a thirteenth-century chapel. To reach Selsey and its old church of Our Lady, what remains of it, from Pagham is not an easy matter, the footpaths across the fields being sometimes a little vague. The walk, however, is worth the trouble it involves, for you may thus gather some idea of the history of this unfortunate coast, which the sea has been eating up for at least fifteen hundred years. Indeed, in the time of St Wilfrid the peninsula was probably nearly twice as big as it is to-day, and Selsey was undoubtedly a little island, probably of mud, divided from the mainland at least by the tide. It was here, St Wilfrid was shipwrecked in 666, and it is from his adventures in Sussex that we learn of the extraordinary barbarism of the South Saxons, two generations after the advent of St Augustine. St Wilfrid's ship, it seems, was stranded on the mud flats, and the quite pagan South Saxons attacked him and the crew, and it was only the rise of the tide which floated the ship that saved them, with a loss of five men. It was not till 681 that Wilfrid, really a fugitive, came again into Sussex, and this time as to a refuge, for Ethelwalch, king of the South Saxons, and his queen were then Christians, though their people were still pagan. There was a certain monk, however, probably an Irishman, who had a small monastery at Bosham encompassed by the sea and the woods, and in it were five or six brethren who served God in poverty and humility; but none of the natives cared either to follow their course of life or to hear their preaching. Of these heathen St Wilfrid at once became the Apostle. For, as Bede tells us, he "not only delivered them from the misery of perpetual damnation, but also from an inexpressible calamity of temporal death, for no rain had fallen in that province in three years before his arrival, whereupon a dreadful famine ensued which cruelly destroyed the people. In short, it is reported that very often forty or fifty men, being spent with want, would go together to some precipice, or to the sea-shore, and there hand in hand perish by the fall, or be swallowed up by the waves. But on the very day on which the nation received the baptism of faith there fell a soft but plentiful rain; the earth revived again, and, the verdure being restored to the fields, the season was pleasant and fruitful. Thus the former superstition being rejected, and idolatry exploded, the hearts and flesh of all rejoiced in the living God and became convinced that He who is the true God had, through His heavenly grace, enriched them with wealth, both temporal and spiritual. For the bishop, when he came into the province and found so great misery from famine, taught them to get their food by fishing; for their sea and rivers abounded in fish, but the people had no skill to take them except eels alone. The bishop's men having gathered eel-nets everywhere, cast them into the sea, and by the blessing of God took three hundred fishes of several sorts, which, being divided into three parts, they gave a hundred to the poor, a hundred to those of whom they had the nets, and kept a hundred for their own use. By this benefit the bishop gained the affections of them all, and they began more readily to hear his preaching and to hope for heavenly good, seeing that by his help they had received that good which is temporal. Now at this time King Ethelwalch gave to the most reverend prelate Wilfrid, land of eighty-seven families, which place is called Selsey, that is, the Island of the Sea-Calf. That place is encompassed by the sea on all sides, except the west, where is an entrance about the cast of a sling in width; which sort of place by the Latins is called a peninsula, by the Greeks a chersonesus. Bishop Wilfrid, having this place given him, founded therein a monastery, which his successors possess to this day, and established a regular course of life, chiefly of the brethren he had brought with him; for he, both in word and actions, performed the duties of a bishop in those parts during the space of five years, until the death of King Egfrid. And forasmuch as the aforesaid king, together with the said place, gave him all the goods that were therein, with the lands and men, he instructed them in the Faith of Christ and baptised them all. Among whom were two hundred and fifty men and women slaves, all of whom he by baptism, not only rescued from the servitude of the devil, but gave them their bodily liberty also and exempted them from the yoke of human servitude." The church and monastery which St Wilfrid thus founded at Selsey, thereby establishing the bishopric of Sussex, have long since disappeared beneath the sea. Camden, however, tells us that he saw the foundations at low water; they lay about a mile to the east of the little church of Our Lady, which remained complete until the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was all pulled down except the chancel which we see to-day in the graveyard which it serves as chapel. It is a work of the fourteenth century, and within is the fine sixteenth-century monument of John Lews and his wife. The old Norman font has been removed to the new church of St Peter at Selsey, built largely out of old materials. There, too, is an Elizabethan chalice and paten of the sixteenth century. Thus nothing at all remains at Selsey, not even the landscape as it was in St Wilfrid's day. Till yesterday, however, one might realise in the loneliness and desolation of this low, lean headland something of that far-off time in which the great bishop came here and had to teach that barbarous folk even to fish. Now even that is going, or gone, for the new light railway from Chichester is bringing a new life to Selsey, which, after all, it would ill become us to grudge her. By that railway indeed I returned to Chichester, and then at once set out westward for Bosham, where I slept. Bosham is perhaps the most interesting place in all this peninsula as well as probably the most ancient. That Bosham was a port of the Romans seems likely, but that it was the earliest seat of Christianity in Sussex after the advent of the pagans is certain. There, as Bede tells us, St Wilfrid, when he came into Sussex in 681, found a Scottish (most probably Irish) monk named Dicul, who had, in a little monastery encompassed by the sea and the woods, five or six brethren who served God in poverty and humility. With the conversion of the South Saxons that monastery flourished, the house grew rich, and Edward the Confessor bestowed it upon his Norman chaplain Osbern, Bishop of Exeter, whom, of course, the Conqueror did not dispossess. Indeed, the place became famous and appears in the Bayeaux tapestry, in the very first picture, where we see "Harold and his Knights riding towards Bosham" to embark for Normandy. Bosham, indeed, was one of Harold's manors, his father, according to the legend, having acquired it by a trick. _Da mihi basium_, says Earl Godwin to the Archbishop Aethelnoth, thus claiming to have received Bosham. That Earl Godwin held Bosham we are assured by the Domesday Survey, which also speaks of the church, presumably the successor of the old monastery of Dicul. This, as I have said, and as Domesday Book tells us, Bishop Osbern of Exeter "holds of King William as he had held it of King Edward." The Bishop of Exeter still held it, "a royal free chapel" in the time of Henry I. Then was established here, in place, as I suppose, of the monks, a college of six secular canons, the Bishop being the Dean. Exeter, indeed, only once lost the church of Bosham, and that in a most glorious cause, the cause of St Thomas. For when Henry II. quarrelled with Becket [Footnote: Herbert of Bosham, possibly a canon of Bosham, was St Thomas' secretary and devoted follower, and was certainly born in Bosham.] he deprived the Bishop of Exeter, who took his part, of this church and bestowed it upon the Abbot of Lisieux, who held it till 1177, when it came once more to the Bishop of Exeter, who held it, he and his successors till the Reformation. In 1548 the college was suppressed, only one priest being left to serve the church, with a curate to serve the dependent parish of Appledram. The church, as we have it to-day upon a little sloping green hill over the water, is of the very greatest interest. The foundations of a Roman building have been discovered beneath the chancel, and the foundation and basis of the chancel arch may be a part of this building. But the greater part of the building we have is undoubtedly Saxon; the great grey tower, the nave, the chancel arch, one of the most characteristic works of that period, and the chancel itself, though enlarged in later times, are without doubt buildings of Saxon England. Mr Baldwin Brown in his fine work upon "The Arts in Early England," thus speaks of it: "The plan, as will be seen at a glance, has been set out with more than mediaeval indifference to exactness of measurements and squareing, and the chancel diverges phenomenally from the axis of the nave. The elevations are gaunt in their plainness, and the now unplastered rubble-work is rough and uncomely, but the dimensions are ample, the walls lofty, and the chancel arch undeniably imposing." Of the bases here he says: "These slabs are commonly attributed to the Romans, but it is not easy to see what part of a Roman building they can ever have formed. The truth is that they bear no resemblance to known classical features, while they are on the other hand, characteristically Saxon. The nearest parallel to them is to be found in the imposts of the chancel arch at Worth in Sussex, a place far away from Roman sites. The Worth imposts, like the bases at Bosham, are huge and ungainly, testifying both to the general love of bigness in the Saxon builder and to his comparative ignorance of the normal features which in the eleventh century were everywhere else crystallising into Romanesque. Saxon England stood outside the general development of European architecture, but the fact gives it none the less of interest in our eyes." The church of Holy Trinity, Bosham, is thus the most important Saxon work left to us in Sussex, indeed save for the aisles and arcades and the Norman and Early English additions to the chancel, that glorious eastern window of five lancets, which in itself is worth a journey to see, the clerestory, and the furniture we have here really a complete Saxon work. The font is later Norman and not very interesting; but the exquisite recessed tomb with the effigy of a girl lying upon it is a noble work of the thirteenth century, said to mark the grave of Canute's daughter. The crypt dates also from that time. Near the south door is another fine canopied tomb, said to be that of Herbert of Bosham. The windows are Norman in the clerestory and Early English and Decorated elsewhere throughout the church. The stalls in the chancel are Perpendicular. But here if anywhere in south-eastern England we have a church dating from the Dark Age, in which happily we were persuaded back again within the influence of the Faith and of Rome. Bosham then for every Englishman is a holy place only second to Glastonbury and Canterbury: it is a monument of our conversion, of the re-entry of England into Christendom, of that Easter of ours which saw us rise from the dead. A few ruins, mere heaps of stones, mark the site of the college to the north of the church. Of Earl Godwin's manor-house only the moat remains near an ancient mill towards the sea; and there, upon the little green between the grey church and the grey sea, one may best recall the reverent past of this lovely spot. Little is here for pride, much to make us humble and exceeding thankful. God was worshipped here between the sea and the greenwood when our South Saxon forefathers were not only the merest pagans, but so barbarous that they knew not even how to fish, when they were so wretched that in companies they would cast themselves into the sea because there was no light in their hearts and nothing else to do. Out of that darkness St Wilfrid led them, but even before he came with the light of Christ and of Rome, in some half barbarous way in this little place men prayed and Mass was said, and there was the means of deliverance though men knew it not, being barbarians. It is as though at Bosham we were able to catch a glimpse, as it were, of all that darkness out of which we are come by the guiding of a star. [Illustration: BOSHAM] That Bosham was a harbour in Roman times, and that it had more than a little to do with the founding of Regnum, and the building perhaps of the Stane Street, I had long since convinced myself. All these creeks and harbours were probably known and used even then, and certainly all through the Middle Ages Bosham was of importance as a port; and the series of creeks, the most eastern of which it served, and the most western of which is Southampton Water, with Portsmouth Harbour between them, was still among the greatest ports in England, easily the greatest, I suppose, in the south country. In order to see something of this low and muddy coast, which has seen so much of the history of England, I set out from Bosham very early one morning, intending to make my way through Emsworth and Havant, by the Roman road which joins Chichester and Southampton and runs across the north of these creeks, which may perhaps be considered as one great port of which only the more western part is famous still. That way has little to recommend it, and indeed I learned little, for the modern world has obliterated with its terrible footsteps nearly all that might have remained of our humble and yet so glorious past, and it was still early morning when I crossed the Hampshire boundary and came into the little town of Emsworth, once famous for its trade in foreign wines, now, I suppose, best known as a yachting station. Emsworth was originally of far less importance than Warblington, of which it was a hamlet. There the fair was upon the morrow of the feast of the Translation of St Thomas of Canterbury, to which saint the parish church of Warblington is dedicated. This is a very beautiful and interesting building, but it is obvious at once that it cannot always have stood in the name of St Thomas, for part of its central tower--the church consists of chancel, and nave, with a tower between them, north chancel, vestry, north and south nave-aisles, and north porch--is of Saxon workmanship. Only one stage of this, however, now remains, the lower part having been altogether rebuilt. This tower was originally a western tower, the Saxon church standing to the east of it. There is no sign of Norman work here, and it seems probable that the Saxon church remained until in the first years of the thirteenth century a new nave and aisles were built to the west of the old tower, the lower part of which was then removed and the tower supported by arches in order to open a way into the nave of the old church, which thus became the chancel of the new. It was then in all probability that the church was newly dedicated in honour of St Thomas. The whole of the old church, nave and chancel together, however, was destroyed before the end of the thirteenth century, and a large new chancel built with a chapel or vestry at the eastern end upon the north; at the same time the aisles of the nave were rebuilt. Later in the fourteenth century the eastern arch bearing the tower was rebuilt, and thus appeared the church which in the main we still see. The difference in the north and south arcades of the nave is, though, very striking here, because of the great contrast between the exquisite and delicate beauty of the south with its clustered columns of Purbeck and the plain round stone columns of the north, common enough. Tradition has it that the church was built by two maiden ladies who lived in the old castle near the church, and that each built a side of the church according to her taste. One is said to lie in the chapel at the east end of the south aisle, where there is a tomb with effigy, the other in a tomb in the north aisle. The "castle" came in 1551 to Sir Richard Cotton, whose son George entertained Queen Elizabeth there for two days in 1586. In 1643 a Richard Cotton held the "strong house" of Warblington against the Parliament till it was taken by "sixty soldiers and a hundred muskets." All that remains of the place to-day is a beautiful octagonal tower of red brick and stone, once part of the main gateway. Now when I had seen all this I went on into Havant, and there at the cross-roads I found the church of St Faith close by an old sixteenth- century half-timbered house--the Old House at Home. Havant is, in spite of the modern world, a place of miracle; for it possesses a spring to the south-west of the church, called, I think, St Faith's, which never fails in summer for drought, nor in winter for frost. But for all that the most interesting thing in the town remains the church. This is a cruciform building with a tower over the crossing, and is as, we have it, of Norman foundation, though it seems to stand upon a Roman site, coins having been found when the old nave was destroyed in 1832 and Roman brick and cement and foundations. The church we see, however, dates absolutely from the late twelfth century, and is nowhere, it would appear, older. Unhappily much is far later, the nave being really a modern building and even the central tower has been entirely taken down and rebuilt, and indeed all periods of English architecture would seem to have left their mark upon the church between the end of the twelfth century and our own day. The manor of Havant belonged when Domesday Survey was made to the monks of Winchester. But it is not of them but of William of Wykeham we think here, for his secretary, Thomas Aylward, was rector of this parish and in 1413 was buried here in the north transept, where his brass still remains, showing his effigy vested in a cope. He was not the only notable rector of Havant, for in 1723 Bingham, the author of the "Antiquities of the Christian Church," was holding the living when he died. Three years before he had been wrecked in the South Sea Bubble, and this is supposed to have caused his death. His work was put into Latin, and was, I think, one of the last English works to be translated into the universal tongue. Out of Havant I went, nor did I stay now on my way until a little after noon I reached Porchester; but in Bedhampton I did not forget to pray for the soul of Elizabeth Juliers, who died there after a most unfortunate and most wretched life in 1411. This lady, daughter of the Marquis of Juliers and widow of John Plantagenet, Earl of Kent, took the veil in her widowhood at Waverley. Then appears Sir Eustace Dabrieschescourt, and she being young, in spite of her vow, marries him. And having repented and confessed she devoted her life to penance, being condemned daily to repeat the Gradual and the Penitential Psalms, and every year to go on pilgrimage to the shrine of St Thomas. This penance, with others, she performed during fifty-one years. She was married to Dabrieschescourt in the church of Wingham in Kent, and died here in Bedhampton, and was buried in the church of St Thomas, for the manor was her father's and part of her first dower. Porchester, where I found myself late in the afternoon, is a very interesting and curious place. What we really have that is ancient there is a great walled green about six hundred feet square. We enter this area to-day on the west, the outer gate being thus opposite to us in the eastern wall, the castle keep and bailey on our left in the north-west corner, and the church to the south-east. All this is mediaeval work, but the origins of Porchester are far older than that; the place was a fortress of the Romans. It is certain that a Roman road ran, as I have said, from Southampton to Chichester, which it entered by the West Gate, and met the Roman military highway, the Stane Street which entered Chichester by the East Gate, whither it had come from London' Bridge. This Roman road doubtless served many a little port upon these creeks and harbours that lie between Southampton Water and Chichester Harbour, but undoubtedly the most important port upon that road, apart from the two cities which it joined, was the Roman Porchester. It has been suggested, and not without reason, that the Stane Street itself dates only from the latter part of the Roman occupation of Britain, that it was, in fact, a purely military way built for the passage of troops, which until the fourth century were certainly not needed in any quantity in southern Britain. That they were needed then was due to the Saxon pirates. The same pagan robbers, who, when the Legions left us never to return in the first years of the fifth century, might seem to have overrun the whole country. Now it seems fairly certain that Roman Porchester was a military and perhaps a naval fortress, built not earlier than the fourth century here at the western extremity of what the Romans called the Litus Saxonicum, and for the purpose of defending southern Britain from the raids of these barbarous and pagan rogues. If so, it might seem to be of one piece with that presumably purely military Way the Stane Street, and to give it its meaning. At any rate, the mediaeval builder of Porchester Castle used, with the help of rebuildings and patchings, the Roman fortifications, which did not perhaps differ very much, and not at all in form, from those we see. Roman Porchester was just what mediaeval Porchester was, a great fortress, not a "city," nor a village, but a port similar to the others that lined the Saxon shore from the Wash to Beachey Head. Of what became of the place in Saxon times we are entirely ignorant. The Domesday Survey speaks of it as a "halla," but in the first half of the twelfth century the Normans built a castle in the north-west corner of the Roman enclosure, which in 1153 Henry II. granted to Henry Manduit, and from that time it appears as the military port, as it were, of the capital, Winchester; Henry II. Richard I. John and Henry III. not only frequently taking up their residence at Porchester, and there as in a strong place, transacting the most important business, but they all of them most frequently set out thence for the Continent in days when a king of England was as often abroad as at home. Except Edward I. there is scarcely an English king from Henry II. to Henry VIII. who did not use Porchester, and Elizabeth, the last royal visitor, held her court in the Castle. As we see it to-day the keep of Porchester Castle resembles that of Rochester, not only in its appearance, though there it comes short, but in its arrangement. It is, however, surrounded by some later ruins of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the use of which has, I think, never been ascertained. The whole place is extraordinarily impressive, and not less so on account of its containing a church within the Roman walls, possibly occupying the site of a Roman sanctuary. The church of Our Lady of Porchester, however, as we see it, was, of course, a Norman building, built not later than 1133 when Henry I. gave it to the Austin Canons as their priory church, but about 1145 the canons were removed to Southwick, where a house was built for them. They must, indeed, have been very much in the way within so important a fortress seeing how international the interests of their congregation were. The church, of course, remained. It was originally a cruciform building, with central tower, but the south transept has been destroyed as has the chapel east of the north transept where now the vestry stands. The eastern apse, too, has been replaced by a square end. Apart from these changes, however, the church remains largely as it was in the time of Henry I., the west front being especially fine, and the font with its relief of the Baptism of Our Lord, a very notable Romanesque work. I lingered long in Porchester, indeed till sundown. Nothing in all England rightly understood is more reverent than this great ruin, not even the Wall. It, too, like that great northern barrier, was built in our defence by our saviours against our worst foes the barbarians, the pagans. It, too, was an outpost of civilisation and of the Faith against the darkness. Wherever Rome has passed, there a flower will blow for ever, wherever Rome has been, there is light, wherever Rome has built, there is something which moves us as nothing else can do, and not least here in England of my heart upon the verge of the Saxon shore, while we recall the past at evening and question the future, the future which will not be known. CHAPTER XVII SOUTHAMPTON When I left Porchester I went on into Fareham to sleep, and next morning set out by train, for it was raining, to go to Clausentum. Before I left the railway, however, the weather began to clear, and presently the sun broke through the clouds, so that when I came into Clausentum the whole world was again full of joy. Clausentum, which even to-day, is not without charm was as I understand it, the mother of Southampton, a Roman, perhaps even a Celtic foundation, for its name Clausentum is certainly of Celtic origin. Of its high antiquity there can at least be no doubt, for there we may still see parts of the Roman walls near nine feet thick and innumerable Roman remains have been found within them. The situation of Clausentum, too, was rather Celtic than Roman. It stands upon a tongue of land thrust out into the Itchen from the left bank, between Northam and St Denys on the right bank; the river washed its walls upon three sides, north, south and west, but upon the landward side to the east it was protected by two lines of defence, an outer and an inner, the one nearly three hundred yards from the other. At first this arrangement might seem rather Celtic than Roman, and in fact, it may well be that the Romans occupied here earthworks far older than anything built by them in Britain, and yet it seems perhaps more probable that they are responsible for all we have here, un-Roman though it seems, and that the true explanation is that the outer defences, while their work, are the older of the two; that with the decline of their administration in the fourth century, with the building of the Stane Street and the general walling of the Roman towns this older and larger defence was abandoned, and the place, whatever it may have been, reduced to a mere fort to hold which upon the landward side the inner defence was there built. Of the fate of Clausentum in the Dark Age we know nothing; if it was a mere fort with no life of its own it may or may not have been abandoned; but it would seem certain that with the renewal of civilisation in southern England, by the return of Christianity, a town was established upon the right bank of the estuary opposite Clausentum. This town was the first Southampton, and there Athelstane is said to have established mints. This town, however, does not seem to have occupied the same site as the Southampton we know, but rather to have been gathered about St Mary's church to the north-east as Leland was told when he visited Southampton in 1546. The place was probably burnt by the Danes, and it is to one of them, to Canute, that we owe the foundation of the town we know. If Canute was the founder of Southampton, however, it was the Normans who really and finally established it, the greatness of the place as a port really dating from the Conquest. The Normans seem to have settled there early in considerable numbers, and their energy and enterprise began the development which continued throughout the Middle Age and the Renaissance. In the seventeenth century, however, Southampton rapidly declined, and this continued till in the time of our grandfathers it was arrested and Southampton rose again, to become the chief port of southern England. So extraordinary indeed has been her modern development that it has completely engulfed the great town of the Middle Age, which, for all that, still forms the nucleus as it were of the modern city, though no one, I suppose would suspect it at first sight. Of the greatness of Southampton in the Middle Age, however, there can be no doubt. It was the best exit out of that England into Normandy, the natural port of the capital Winchester, and its whole record is full of glory. It was in a very real sense the gate of England. Hither came the great ships from the South and the East, from the ports of Normandy and Anjou, from Bayonne and Venice, with wine and Eastern silks, leather from Cordova, swords and daggers from Toledo, spices from India, and coloured sugars from Egypt. Here the merchants disembarked to trade in the capital or to attend the great fair of St Giles; hither came the pilgrims, thousands upon thousands, to follow the old road from Winchester to the Shrine of St Thomas at Canterbury; while out of Southampton streamed the chivalry of the Crusades; hence "cheerly to sea" sailed the fleets of Coeur de Lion for Palestine, of Edward III. for France, the army that won at Crecy, the army that won at Agincourt. All the glory of mediaeval England Southampton has seen pass by. That the abandonment of Guienne and Aquitaine by the English was a severe blow to Southampton is certain, but still it had the Venice trade, the "Flanders Galleys" laden with the spoil of the East, the wines of the Levant, the "fashions of proud Italy"; and the real decline of Southampton dates from the moment when Venice too was wounded even to death by the discovery of the Cape route to the East and the rise of Portugal. As it happens we have at the time of her greatest prosperity a description of the town from the hand of Leland. "There be," he writes, "in the fair and right strong wall of New Hampton, eight gates. Over Barr Gate by north is the _Domus Civica_, and under it the town prison. There is a great suburb without it, and a great double dyke, well watered on each hand without it. The East Gate is strong, not so large as Barr Gate, and in its suburb stands St Mary's Church, to the South Gate joins a Castelet well ordinanced to beat that quarter of the haven. There is another mean gate a little more south called God's house gate, of an hospital founded by two merchants joined to it; and not far beyond it is the Water Gate, without which is a quay. There are two more gates. The glory of the Castle is in the dungeon, that is both fair and large and strong, both by work and the site of it. There be five parish churches in the town. Holy Rood Church standeth in the chief street, which is one of the fairest streets that is in any town in England, and it is well builded for timber building. There be many fair merchants' houses, and in the south-east part was a college of Grey Friars. Here was also an hospital called God's House, founded by two merchants, appropriated since to Queen's College, Oxford." Of all this what remains? Happily more than might seem possible considering the enormous modern development of the place. The town of Southampton stood looking south-west upon a tongue of land thrust out south into the water with the estuary of the Itchen upon the east, and Southampton Water upon the west, upon the south were the vast mud-flats swept by every tide which the great modern docks now occupy. The town was, as we have seen, enclosed by walls, perhaps by Canute, certainly by the Normans, and these seem to have been enlarged by King John, and rebuilt and repaired after the French raid of 1338. They formed a rude quadrilateral, roughly seven hundred yards from north to south, and three hundred from east to west, were from twenty-five to thirty feet high and of varying thickness. Something of them still remains, especially upon the west of the town over the quays. Here we have two great portions of the old wall which is practically continuous from the site of the Bugle Tower upon the south, to the site of the Bigglesgate about half-way up this western side. This portion includes two of the old gates, the West Gate and the Blue Anchor Postern. Beyond the site of the Bigglesgate the old wall has been destroyed as far as the Castle, but from there it still stands all the way to the Arundel Tower at the north-west corner of the town. So much for the western front. Upon the north the wall is broken down at the western end, the Bargate, which still stands, being isolated, but beyond two portions remain complete as far as the Polymond Tower at the north-east angle. Upon the east of the town there is very little standing until we come to the southern corner, where God's House Tower and the South-East Gate remain. Upon the south almost nothing is left. Southampton in its mediaeval greatness had eight gates, of which, as we see, four remain: two upon the west, the West Gate and the Blue Anchor Postern; one upon the north, the Bargate; upon the east, or rather at the south-eastern angle of the walls, God's House or South-East Gate; upon the south none at all. The West Gate is a plain but beautiful work of the fourteenth century, a great square tower over a pointed arch, under which is the entry. The tower within consists of three stages, the last being embattled and now roofed, while the first is reached by a picturesque outside stairway of stone, which served both it and the ramparts. Close by, against the wall, is a timber building upon a stone basement, called the guard-room, dating from the fifteenth century. The best portions of the old wall run northward from the West Gate over the western shore road. This is Norman work added to in the fourteenth century. Here is the Blue Anchor Postern, or as it is more properly called, simply the Postern, little more than a round archway within the great arcading and the wall itself. Just to the south of this gate is the twelfth-century building known as King John's Palace. We follow the grand old wall till it ends upon the site of the Bigglesgate, where we turn eastward a little into the town and come to the Castle, of which, unhappily, almost nothing remains. It consisted of a great Keep in the midst of an enclosure, entered by two gates, the Castle Gate upon the north-east where now is Castle Lane, and the Postern over the site of which we have entered the Castle Green. The decay of this fortress dates, at least, from the sixteenth century, and apparently before the Civil War it had been pulled down. The walls still enclose the Bailey of the Castle upon the west. There, in some sort, still stands the Castle Water Gate, a mere fragment, within which is a great vaulted chamber some fifty feet long and twenty-five feet high, with only one small window. From this fragmentary gate the wall sweeps away to the salient, for the most part Norman; but beyond the salient its character changes, two towers appear--the Catchcold Tower of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century, and the fine Arundel Tower, now only a curtain of fourteenth- century work in the Decorated style. It is in these western walls of the town that we shall get our best idea of what mediaeval Southampton was, and if we add to our impression by an examination of the two remaining gates, one upon the north and the other at the south-east angle, we may perhaps understand how formidable it must have appeared standing up out of the sea armed at all points. Mediaeval Southampton had eight gates, of these, as I have said, but four remain, the most notable of which is undoubtedly the Bargate, upon the north. This is a fine work of various periods in two stages, the lower consisting of a vaulted passage-way of fine proportions, a work of the fourteenth century and the upper of a great hall, the Guildhall now used as a court room. The original gate, of course, was Norman, and this seems to have endured until about 1330 two towers were built on either side, without the gate, and a new south front added. In the first years of the fifteenth century a new north front was contrived, and this remains more or less as we see it. Of old the gate was reached by a drawbridge across a wide moat. Beyond the Bargate we come to the Polymond Tower or the Tower of St Denys, beautiful with creepers. This would seem to be in some way connected with the Priory of St Denys which held all the churches in the town, as we shall see. As for its other name of Polymond, it would seem to get it from that John Polymond, who, in the fourteenth century, from which time the tower, as we see it, dates, was nine times mayor of Southampton. As for the God's House Gateway, to reach it we must cross the town. It is a plain but charming work of two periods, the gate proper being of the thirteenth century, while the tower with the two-storied building attached to it is of the fourteenth. From the beginning of the eighteenth century until 1855 it was used as the town gaol. The old town of Southampton, a town within a town, is a fascinating study, the interest of its gates and old walls is inexhaustible, but apart from these it has little architectural beauty to boast of. For all that it is amusing to linger there, if only to solve the problems that time has contrived for us. Among these not the least is that of the first site of the town. Not one of the churches in Southampton is of any great beauty or interest, but it is astonishing to find that the mother church is not in the town at all, but at least half a mile outside it upon the north. Leland, as I have already said, was told, when he was in Southampton in 1546, that the first town did not occupy the site of that we see but was further to the north, where St Mary's stands. The fact that St Mary's is the mother church would seen to confirm this. Moreover, there is no mention in the Domesday Survey of any church at all within the borough of "Hantune," and though we may think that the church of St John then existed, St John's was never the mother church; this was St Mary's which possessed all the tithes of the town. In the time of Henry II. we find the King granting to the Priory of St Denys, founded in 1124 by Henry I., a Priory of Austin Canons, his "chapels" of St Michael, the Holy Rood, St Laurence and All Saints, that is all the churches save St John's already granted to the Abbey of St Mary of Lire, in Southampton. But that these chapels had some relation to the mother church of St Mary might seem certain. Indeed the rector of St Mary's was continually in controversy with the canons as to his rights, and eventually, in the thirteenth century, he won the day. In any case the mother church of Southampton was St Mary's, outside the walls of the town. That a Saxon church stood upon this site is certain, and this was possibly represented in Leland's time by the chapel of St Nicholas, "a poor and small thing," which then stood to the East of "the great church of Our Lady," which he saw and which probably dated from the time of Henry I. This church was, alas, destroyed by the town only a few years later because its spire was said to guide the French cruisers into Southampton Water, and the stones were used to mend the roads. It may be that the chancel escaped, or it may be that a new and much smaller church was erected in 1579. This, whichever it was, was much neglected till in 1711 a nave was built on to it. Then in 1723 the chancel was destroyed, and a new one built. In 1833 this was rebuilt, and then in 1878 a new church was built, in place of the old which was pulled down, by Street. Thus in St Mary's church, the mother church of Southampton to-day, we have only a lifeless modern building. Much the same fate has befallen the churches within the walls of Southampton. The oldest, that of St John, was pulled down in the seventeenth century, that of Holy Rood, in the High Street, was rebuilt about fifty years ago, so was St Laurence, while All Saints was destroyed in the eighteenth century. The only ancient church remaining is that of St Michael, which, though not destroyed, was ruined in 1826. It remains, however, in part, a Norman building, with an interesting font of the twelfth century, a lectern of the fifteenth century, and a fine tomb with the effigy of a priest in mass vestments. The same fate which has so brutally overtaken the churches of Southampton has, with perhaps more excuse, fallen upon the old religious houses. The Priory of St Denys, founded by Henry I., upon which all these churches within the walls were in a sense dependent, has been totally destroyed, a piece of ruined wall alone remaining, the present church of St Denys dating from 1868. Nor does much remain of the Hospital of St Julian or God's House, founded for the poor in the town, by Gervase le Riche, in 1197. It was one of the most important hospitals in the diocese of Winchester, and in 1343 the King, its protector, gave it to Queen's College, Oxford, just founded by Queen Philippa. As the possession of this college it survived the suppression, and was still carrying on its good work in 1560. About 1567, however, certain Walloons, refugees from the Low Countries, settled in Southampton, and these were granted the use of St Julian's Chapel by Queen's College. The house should have remained to us, but that in 1861, by as black an act of vandalism as was ever perpetrated, this seat of learning swept away all the old domestic buildings of the hospital, which dated from its foundation, and in their place erected what we might expect, at the same time "restoring" the chapel of St Julian, of course, out of all recognition. May St Julian forget Queen's College, Oxford, for ever and ever. [Illustration: THE TUDOR HOUSE, OPPOSITE ST MICHAEL'S CHURCH, SOUTHAMPTON] Not far from this hospital for the poor the Grey Friars built their house in 1237, or rather the burgesses of Southampton built it for them, including a cloister of stone, but nothing remains at all of this house. For the most part, too, the great houses that of old filled Southampton, and helped to glorify it, are gone. "The chiefest house," writes Leland, "is the house that Huttoft, late customer of Southampton, builded on the west side of the town. The house that Master Lightster, chief baron of the King's exchequer, dwelleth in, is very fair; the house that Master Mylles, the recorder, dwelleth in, is fair, and so be the houses of Niccotine and Guidote, Italians." Of these, what remains? Nothing. The only noble dwelling is that called Tudor House, in St Michael's Square, a fine half-timbered building, and of this nothing is known. No, the only thing to be enjoyed in Southampton to-day is the old wall with its gateways, that upon the west still valiantly outfaces the modern world and recalls for us all that noble great past out of which we are come. And yet I suppose Southampton is fulfilling its purpose to-day more wonderfully than ever before. It was once the port of England for those dominions oversea we held in France. They are gone, but others we have since acquired, though less fair by far, remain. It is to these Southampton looks to-day, south and east, as of old over how many thousand miles of blue water. CHAPTER XVIII BEAULIEU AND CHRISTCHURCH While I was in Southampton, I made up my mind to visit a place which I had all my life desired to see, but which I had never yet set eyes upon, I mean Beaulieu Abbey in the New Forest. To this end I set out early one morning, by steamboat, across Southampton Water, and landed at Hythe, whence I had only to cross the eastern part of Beaulieu Heath, a walk of some five miles, to find myself where I would be. The day was fair, the tide at the flood; in the woods, across the water, I could see where Netley Abbey, another Cistercian house, younger than Beaulieu, once lifted up its voice in ceaseless praise of God, the Maker of all that beauty in which it stood, scarcely spoiled even now by the amazing energy of the modern world. It was then with a light heart that I set out by a byway under Furze Down, and so across the open heath, coming down at last through the woods to the ruins of the abbey and the river of Beaulieu. There can be no more delicious spot in the world. St Bernard loved the valleys as St Benedict the hills, and as St Bernard was the refounder of the Cistercian Order to which Beaulieu belonged, it, like Waverley, Tintern, Netley, and a hundred others in England, was set in one of those delicious vales in which I think England is richer than any other country, and which here, in England of my heart, seem to demand rather our worship than our praise. Beaulieu Abbey had always interested me. In the first place it was one of the greatest, though not the earliest, houses in England of the Cistercian Order, that reform of the Benedictines begun as William of Malmesbury bears witness by an Englishman, Stephen Harding, sometime a monk of Sherborne. And then it was the only religious house within the confines of the New Forest. It seems that in the year 1204, just a year after he had given the manor of Faringdon in Berkshire to St Mary of Citeaux, and established there a small house of Cistercian monks, King John founded this great monastery of St Mary of Beaulieu for the same Order, making provision for not less than thirty brethren, and giving it Faringdon for a cell. John endowed the house with some six manors and several churches, gave it a golden chalice, and many cattle, as well as corn and wine and money, and besought the aid of the abbots of the Order on behalf of the new house. To such good purpose, indeed, did he support Beaulieu, that Hugh, the first abbot, was alone his friend, when Innocent III., in the spring of 1208 placed England under an interdict. This Hugh went as the King's ambassador to Rome, and having received promises of submission from the King, who awaited his return in the mother house of the Order in England, at Waverley, was successful in reconciling him with the Pope. In return the King gave him a palfrey among other presents, and the interdict being lifted, contributed nine hundred marks towards the building of Beaulieu, to be followed by other even more generous offerings. Nor was Henry III. neglectful of the place, so that in 1227 upon the vigil of the Assumption, the monks were able to use their church, though it was not till nineteen years later that the monastery was completed, and dedicated in the presence of the King and Queen, Prince Edward and a vast concourse of bishops, nobles, and common folk, by the Bishop of Winchester. Upon that occasion, Prince Edward was seized with illness, and, strange as it may seem, we are told that the Queen remained in the abbey, to nurse him, for three weeks. But the house was always under the royal protection. Edward I. constantly stayed there, and the abbots were continually employed upon diplomatic business. From 1260 to 1341, when he asked to be freed from the duty, the abbot of Beaulieu sat in Parliament, and in 1368 Edward III. granted the monks a weekly market within the precincts. One other privilege, unique in southern England, Beaulieu had, the right to perpetual sanctuary granted by Innocent III., and this seems to have been used to the full in the Wars of the Roses, at least we find Richard III. inquiring into the matter in 1463. There it seems Perkin Warbeck had found safety, as had Lady Warwick after Barnet, and at the time of the Suppression there were thirty men in sanctuary in the "Great Close of Beaulieu," which seems to have included all the original grant of land made to the abbey by King John. Beaulieu evidently very greatly increased in honour, for in 1509 its abbot was made Bishop of Bangor but continued to hold the abbey, and when he died the abbot of Waverley, the oldest house of the Order in England, succeeded him, the post being greatly sought after. The Act of 1526 suppressing the lesser monasteries, in which so many Cistercian houses perished, did not touch Beaulieu, but Netley fell early in the following year, and the monks were sent to Beaulieu. Many then looked for the spoil of the great abbey, among them Lord Lisle who besought Thomas Cromwell for it, but he was denied. Indeed there seems to have been no idea of suppressing the house at that time. But the Abbot Stevens was a traitor. In 1538 he eagerly signed the surrender demanded by the infamous Layton and Petre, and the site was granted to Thomas Wriothesley, afterwards Earl of Southampton, from whose family it came in the time of William III. to Lord Montagu, and so to the Dukes of Buccleuch, who still hold it. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the remains of the house there by the river, in perhaps the loveliest corner of southern England. The great abbey church has gone, destroyed at the Suppression, but not a little of the monastery remains. The great Gate House called the abbot's lodging and now the Palace House, the seat of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, a fine Decorated building with a beautiful entrance hall, may sometimes be seen. From this one passes across the grass to the old Refectory, now fitted up as the parish church, a noble work of the Early English style of the thirteenth century, as is the fine pulpit with its arcade in the thickness of the wall. Here of old the monk read aloud while his brethren took their meagre repast. From the Refectory one comes into the ruined cloisters, lovely with all manner of flowers, and so to the site of the old Chapter House, of the sacristy and the monastic buildings. All that remains is in the early Decorated style of the end of the thirteenth century. Here, too, upon the north stood the great abbey church, three hundred and thirty-five feet long, a cruciform building consisting of nave with two aisles, central tower, transepts with aisles, chancel with circular apse and chapels, now marked out in chalk upon the grass. All about are the woods, meadows, fishponds and greens of the monks who are gone. I do not know how this strikes another who shall see it to-day, in all its useless beauty, in the midst of our restless and unhappy England; but what I felt has already been expressed and by so good an Englishman as William Cobbett. "Now ... I daresay," he writes, "that you are a very good Protestant; and I am a monstrous good Protestant too. We cannot bear the Pope, nor "they there priests that makes men confess there sins and go down upon their marrow-bones before them." But let us give the devil his due; and let us not act worse by these Roman Catholics (who by the by were our forefathers) than we are willing to act by the devil himself. Now then here were a set of monks. None of them could marry, of course none of them could have wives and families. They could possess no private property; they could bequeath nothing; they could own nothing but that which they owned in common with the rest of their body. They could hoard no money; they could save nothing. Whatever they received as rent for their lands, they must necessarily spend upon the spot, for they never could quit that spot. They did spend it all upon the spot; they kept all the poor. Beaulieu and all round about Beaulieu saw no misery, and had never heard the damned name of pauper pronounced as long as those Monks continued. "You and I are excellent Protestants; you and I have often assisted on the 5th of November to burn Guy Fawkes, the Pope and the Devil. But you and I would much rather be life holders under Monks than rackrenters...." St Thomas Aquinas has told us that there were three things for a sight of which he would have endured a year in Purgatory, not unwillingly: Christ in the flesh, Rome in her flower, and an Apostle disputing. Christ in the flesh, I would indeed I might have seen, and Rome in her flower were worth even such a price, but for me an Apostle disputing would, let me confess it, have little attraction. Instead I would that I might see England before the fall, England of the thirteenth, fourteenth or fifteenth century, England of my heart, with all her great cathedrals still alive, with all her great monasteries still in being, those more than six hundred houses destroyed by Henry, and not least this house of the Cistercians in Beaulieu. And if I might see that, I should have seen one of the fairest things and the noblest that ever were in the world. From Beaulieu I set out in the afternoon across the Forest, and at first over the western part of Beaulieu Heath for Brockenhurst. The road across the heath is not in itself of much beauty, but it affords some glorious views both of the Forest and the sea. As I drew nearer to Brockenhurst, however, I came into the woods, and the sylvan beauty of the vale, through which the Lymington River flows southward, was delicious. Brockenhurst itself is charmingly embowered and is surrounded by some of the loveliest of the woodlands. The church stands high, perhaps as a guide, over a woodland churchyard, and is the evident successor of a Norman building, as its south doorway and font of Purbeck bear witness and the chancel arch too, unless indeed this be earlier still. The chancel, however, dates from the fourteenth century, a good example in its littleness of the Decorated style, but it is half spoiled by the enormous pew which blocks the entrance. The tower and spire and a good part of the nave are completely modern. The great yew in the churchyard must date at least from Edward I.'s time, and perhaps may have seen the day on which Red William fell. From Brockenhurst, on the following morning, I set out again over the open heath for Boldre southward. Many a fine view over the woods I had, and once, as I came down Sandy Down, I caught sight of the Isle of Wight. Then the scene changed, and I came through meadows, and past coppices into Boldre. In the midst of a wood, as it were, I suddenly found the church, and this interested me more than I can well say, for here again I found what at one time must have been a complete Norman building. Surely if the history-books are right this is an astonishing thing; but then, as I have long since learned, the history one is taught at school is a mere falsehood from start to finish. There is probably no schoolboy in England who has not read of the awful cruelty and devastation that went with the formation of the New Forest, by the Conqueror in 1079. It is generally spoken of as only less appalling than the burning of Northumberland. It is said that more than fifty-two parish churches within the new bounds of the New Forest were destroyed, and a fertile district of a hundred square miles laid waste and depopulated to provide William with a hunting-ground. Now if this be true how does it come that upon my first day in the Forest I find a Norman church at Brockenhurst with something very like a Saxon chancel arch, and that upon my second day I walk right into another church in part Norman too? This is surely an astonishing thing. It is also, I find, a fact that much of the New Forest had been a royal hunting- ground in the Saxon times, and that the afforestation of William is not so much as mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle. The whole story of the devastation of this great country would seem to rest upon the writings of William of Jumièges or Ordericus Vitalis, neither of whom was alive at the time of the afforestation. This must have been known surely to our modern historians; but so is the history of England written. Our real grievance against William was not his afforestation, but his cruel Forest Law, which demanded the limb of a man for the life of a beast, a thing I think unknown in England before his advent. It was this harsh law, so bitterly resented, which at last, as we may think, cost William Rufus his life. But the old tale remains, and therefore I was greatly astonished in Boldre Church. Doubtless the original Norman church consisted of a nave, chancel and north and south aisles. The south aisle remains, as does the arcade which separates it from the nave. In the Early English time the north aisle was rebuilt or added, perhaps, for the first time, and the chancel rebuilt. Later the church was lengthened westward, and the tower built at the eastern end of the Norman aisle. In that aisle there is a tablet to William Gilpin, the author of "Forest Scenery," who was vicar of Boldre for a generation, dying in 1804 aged eighty years. He is buried in the churchyard. Boldre is certainly a place to linger in, a place that one is sorry to leave, but I could not stay, being intent on Lymington. Therefore I went down through the oak woods, over Boldre Bridge, to find the high road, which presently brought me past St Austin's once belonging to the Priory of Christchurch, under Buckland Rings to the very ancient borough of Lymington, with its charming old ivy-clad church tower at the end of the High Street. The church, in so far as it is old of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, has little to boast of, for it has been quite horribly restored. In the long street of Lymington I slept. There seemed to be nothing to keep me in Lymington, and therefore, early upon the following morning, I set out for Milford, five miles away by the sea, and there I wonderfully saw the Needles and the great Island and found another Norman church, Norman that is to say in its foundations. All Saints, Milford, consists to-day of chancel with north and south chapels west of it, transepts, nave with north and south aisles, and a western chapel on either side the western tower, and a south porch. It is a most beautiful and interesting building. Doubtless there originally stood here a twelfth-century Norman church, consisting of nave with aisles and chancel, of which two arches remain in the south arcade of the nave. Then in the thirteenth century the church was rebuilt, as we see it, and very beautiful it is, in its Early English dress, passing into Decorated, in the chancel and transepts. From Milford, through a whole spring day, I went on by the coast as far I could, westward to Christchurch. All the way, the sea, the sky, and the view of the island and of Christchurch bay closed by Hengistbury Head in the west, and the long bar on which Hurst Castle stands in the east were worth a king's ransom. They say all this coast has strong attractions for the geologist; but what of the poet and painter? Surely here, when the wind comes over the sea and the Island, showing his teeth, to possess the leaning coast, one may see and understand why England is the England of my heart. At least I thought so, and lingered there so long that twilight had fallen before I found myself under the darkness of the great Priory of Christchurch, the goal of my desire. It was not without due cause and reason that I wished to see, instead of an Apostle disputing, England before the fall. Indeed I am sure that I should not have been unwise to exchange "Rome in her flower" for such a sight as that; Christchurch proves it. We march up and down England and count up our treasures, of which this Priory of Christchurch is not the least; but we never pause perhaps to remember what, through the damnable act of Thomas Cromwell and Henry Tudor, we have lost. What we have lost! hundreds of churches, hundreds of monasteries as fine as Christchurch, and hundreds far more solemn and reverent. Reading, which now gives a title to an Isaacs, (God save us all!) was, before the fall, just a great monastery, a Norman pile as grand as Durham or Ely. What of Glastonbury and Amesbury, older far, and of those many hundred others which stood up strong before God for our souls--without avail? They are gone; Christchurch in some sort remains. Christchurch stands in the angle where the rivers Avon and Stour meet, and it is thus secured upon the north, east, and south; its great and perhaps its only attraction is the great Priory church in whose name that of the town, Twyneham, has long been lost; but there are beside a ruined Norman house, and a pretty mediaeval bridge over the Avon, from which a most noble view of the great church may be had. This, which dates in its foundation from long before the Conquest, is to-day a great cruciform building consisting roughly of Norman nave and transepts, the nave buttressed on the north in the thirteenth century, fifteenth-century chancel and western tower, and thirteenth-century north porch--altogether one of the most glorious churches left to us in England. Its history, as I say, goes back far beyond the Conquest, when it was served by secular canons, as it was at the time of the Domesday Survey, when we find that twenty-four were in residence. But in the time of William Rufus, Ranulph Flambard, the Bishop of Durham, his chief minister, obtained a grant of the church and town of Christchurch, and soon had suppressed all the canonries save five, and would have suppressed them all but for the timely death of the Red King, which involved the fall and imprisonment of his rascal minister. After an interval, in which the church was governed by Gilbert de Dousgunels, who set out for Rome to get the Pope's leave to refound the house, but died upon the journey, Henry I. gave manor, town and church to his cousin, Richard de Redvers, who proved a great benefactor to the Priory, and established a Dean over the canons, one Peter, who was succeeded by Dean Ralph. Then in 1150 came Dean Hilary, who as Bishop of Chichester, petitioned Richard de Redvers to establish Christchurch as a Priory of Canons Regular of St Austin. This was done; a certain Reginald was appointed first prior, and he ruled Christchurch for thirty-six years till, in 1186, he was succeeded by Ralph. It was not, however, till the time of the third Prior that the high altar of the new church begun by Gilbert and continued by Richard de Redvers and his priors was dedicated upon the feast of St Thomas of Canterbury, 1195. This would seem to prove that the Norman choir was not finished until then; similar consecration of other altars would lead us to believe that perhaps the vault and the clerestory of the nave were completed in 1234. At the same time the beautiful north porch was built and the north aisle was buttressed. To the fourteenth century we owe the fine rood screen restored in 1848, but the next great period of building was the fifteenth century, when the Lady Chapel, with the chapels north and south of it, were built, and later in the same century the great choir was entirely re-erected. Thus Christchurch Priory grew until the Reformation. It escaped the first raid of Cromwell in 1536, but in spite of the petition of John Draper, the last Prior, in 1539 the house was demanded of him and he surrendered it. The report of the vandals and sacrilegious persons who received it is worth copying, if only to show their character. "We found," they wrote, "the Prior a very honest, conformable person, and the house well furnished with jewels and plate, whereof some be meet for the king's majesty in use as a little chalice of gold, a goodly large cross, double gilt with the foot garnished, and with stone and pearl; two goodly basons double gilt. And there be other things of silver.... In thy church we find a chapel and monument curiously made of Caen stone, prepared by the late mother of Reginald Pole for her burial, which we have caused to be defaced, and all the arms and badges to be delete." It is consoling to note that one of the rascals that signed that report, Dr London, was shortly afterwards exposed in his true colours and openly put to penance for adultery before he died in prison, where he lay for perjury. The report stated that the church was superfluous. It was the only true word written there. When a religion is destroyed, its temples are certainly superfluous. However, there was a considerable influence brought to bear by the people of the neighbourhood, and the church itself was granted them for their use. The Priory, which stood to the south of the church, was, of course, destroyed. One might stand a whole month in that glorious building with this only regret, that it is in the hands of strangers. The use to which it is put is not that for which it was intended, and half the delight of the place is thus lost to us. But no one can pass down that great avenue of elms to the glorious north porch, a master-work of the thirteenth century, without rejoicing that when all is said the church was saved to us. The great Norman nave, with its thirteenth-century clerestory, and alas, modern stucco vaulting, the Norman aisles and north transept, are too reverent for destruction, the fifteenth-century choir and eastern chapels too lovely. A certain amount of the old furniture remains to the church in the restored screen of the fourteenth century, and the reredos over the communion table and another in the Lady Chapel; here, too, is the old altar stone of Purbeck. The chantry of the poor Countess of Salisbury, who was beheaded for high treason in 1541, so brutally defaced by Dr London and his infamous colleagues, stands there too upon the north; and close by in the north chapel is the tomb with fine alabaster effigies of Sir John and Lady Chydroke (d. 1455), removed from the nave, and in the Lady Chapel lie its founders, Sir Thomas and Lady West. Of the modern restorations and additions I have nothing to say, and more especially of the monument to Shelley; a parody of a Pietà merely blasphemous, beneath the tower. Now when I had seen all this, to say nothing of the old school-room over the Lady Chapel and the Norman house and castle mound of the De Redvers, somewhat sorrowful for many things, I began to think again of the Forest, and immediately set out where the road led to Lyndhurst, and this just before midday. CHAPTER XIX THE NEW FOREST AND ROMSEY ABBEY All day I went through the Forest, sometimes by green rides, enchanted still, such as those down which Lancelot rode with Guinevere, talking of love, sometimes over heaths wild and desolate such as that which knew the bitterness of Lear, sometimes through the greenwood, ancient British woodland, silent now, where the hart was once at home in the shade, and where at every turn one might expect to come upon Rosalind in her boy's dress, and think to hear from some glade the words of Amiens' song: Under the greenwood tree Who loves to lie with me, And turn his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat; Come hither, come hither, come hither.... There are days in life of which it can only be said, that they are blessed; golden days, upon which, looking back, the sun seems to shine; they dazzle in the memory. Such was the day I spent in the byways of Holmsley and Burley, in the upper valleys of Avon water, Ober water and Black water, forest streams; in the silent woods, where all day long the sun showered its gold, sprinkling the deep shade with flowers and blossoms of light, where there was no wind but only the sighing of the woods, no sound but the whisper of the leaves or the rare flutter of a bird's wings, no thoughts but joyful thoughts filling the heart with innocence. Who doth ambition shun, And loves to live i' the sun, Seeking the food he eats And pleased with what he gets; Come hither, come hither, come hither.... At evening I came to Lyndhurst. Lyndhurst is the capital of the Forest; as its name implies it was established in a wood of limes, a tree said to have been introduced into England only in the sixteenth century. It is already spoken of in the tenth century Anglo-Saxon ballad of the Battle of Brunanburh! Athelstan king, Lord among earls, Bracelet bestower and Baron of barons; He with his brother Edmund Atheling Gaining a lifelong Glory in battle. Slew with the sword-edge, There by Brunanburh, Brake the shield wall, _Hew'd the lindenwood_, Hack'd the battleshield, Sons of Edward with hammered brands. Oak, beech, and holly, which so largely make up the woodland of the New Forest we have always had in England, but the limes which named Lyndhurst it is said we owe to someone else, and if so it can only be to the Roman. What the Forest was when the Romans administered the land we know not; but in Anglo-Saxon times it was doubtless a royal hunting ground, _terra regis_ and _silva regis_, for spoiling which by fire as for killing the game therein fines must be paid. These royal hunting grounds, of which the great Forest in Hampshire was certainly not the least, only became legal "forests" with the Conquest, when they were placed under a new Forest law of extraordinary harshness, which even in the Conqueror's time indeed demanded an eye or a hand for the taking of game, and in the days of the Red King the life of a man for the life of a beast. The Conqueror, as we know, greatly enlarged the old "royal hunting ground" here in Hampshire when he made the New Forest, and that act of his which brought an immensely larger area than of old under a new and incredibly harsher forest law gradually produced a legend of devastation and depopulation here which, as I have already said, can no longer be accepted as true. Henry of Huntingdon (1084?-1155) asserts that "to form the hunting ground of the New Forest he (William) caused churches and villages to be destroyed, and, driving out the people, made it a habitation for deer." It is true that the Conqueror forged a charter purporting to date from Canute in which the king's sole right to take beasts of chase was asserted, and to this he appealed as justifying his harsh new laws; but it is untrue that he depopulated and destroyed a thriving district to make a wilderness for the red deer. "We shall find," says Warner, "that the lands comprised in this tract (the New Forest) appear from their low valuation in the time of the Confessor to have been always unproductive in comparison with other parts of the kingdom; and that notwithstanding this pretended devastation they sunk (in many instances) but little in their value after their afforestment. So that the fact seems to have been, William, finding this tract in a barren state and yielding but little profit, and being strongly attached to the pleasures of the chase, converted it into a royal forest, without being guilty of those violences to the inhabitants of which Henry of Huntingdon, Malmesbury, Walter Mapes, and others complain." Of this great New Forest, Lyndhurst was made the capital and the administrative centre, and such it is still. In Domesday Book we read: "The King himself holds Lyndhurst, which appertained to Amesbury, which is of the King's farm." The King granted a small part, namely, one virgate to "Herbert the Forester," before 1086, and this Herbert is generally supposed to have been the ancestor of those Lyndhursts who for so long held the wardenship of the Forest. The King's house, a fine building of Queen Anne's time, is the successor of the old royal lodge at least as old as the fourteenth century, and is now occupied by the Deputy Surveyor of the Forest. In the Verderers' Hall close by, the forest courts of the verderers are still held. There, too, may be seen the old dock, certain trophies of the chase and "the stirrup-iron of William Rufus," really the seventeenth century gauge "for the dogs allowed to be kept in the forest without expeditation, the 'lawing' being carried out on all 'great dogs' that could not pass through the stirrup." Lyndhurst itself, as we see it to-day, is devoid of interest; even the church dates but from 1863, and its greatest treasure is the wall- painting by Lord Leighton of the Wise and Foolish Virgins in the chancel. A church, a chapelry of Minstead, certainly stood here in the thirteenth century, but was destroyed, and a Georgian building erected --in its turn to give place to the church we see. Lyndhurst, though almost without interest itself, is undoubtedly the best centre for exploring the Forest, or, at any rate, perhaps the most beautiful and certainly the most interesting parts of it. So by many a byway I went northward to Minstead in Malwood, where I found a most curious church, rather indeed a house than a church, with dormer windows in the roof, an enormous three-decker pulpit within, galleries, and two great pews, one with a fireplace, and I know not what other quaint rubbish of the eighteenth century. All this I found enchanting, and more especially because the nave and chancel seemed to me to be originally of the thirteenth century, and certainly the font is Norman. But the church with its eighteenth-century tower is perhaps the most amazing conglomeration of the work of all periods since the twelfth century to be found in southern England. From Minstead I went on up the Bartley water to Stone Cross, nearly four hundred feet over the Forest, from which by good fortune I saw the mighty Abbey of Romsey in the valley of the Test, where I intended to sleep. Then I went down past Castle Malwood to where stands Rufus' Stone. There I read: "Here stood the oak-tree on which an arrow shot by Sir Walter Tyrrell at a stag glanced and struck King William II., surnamed Rufus, on the breast, of which stroke he instantly died on the 2nd August 1100. "King William II., surnamed Rufus, being slain as before related, was laid in a cart belonging to one Purkess and drawn from hence to Winchester and buried in the cathedral church of that city. "That where an event so memorable had happened might not hereafter be unknown this stone was set up by John Lord Delaware who had seen the tree growing in this place anno 1745. "This stone having been much mutilated and the inscriptions on the three sides defaced, this more durable memorial with the original inscription was erected in the year 1841 by him. Sturges Bourne, warden." The memorial and inscription are of iron. The most famous thing that ever befell in the New Forest was this strange murder or misfortune which cost the Red King his life. It haunts the whole forest, and rightly understood fills it with meaning and can never have been or be far from the thoughts of anyone who wanders there, even as I have done in the excellent days of Spring. [Illustration: IN THE NEW FOREST] No less than three members of the Conqueror's family were killed in the New Forest; first Richard, one of his sons, then another Richard, bastard son of Duke Robert of Normandy, this in May 1100; and in August of the same year, his son and successor William, surnamed Rufus. All these deaths are said to have been caused by accidents, all were caused by arrows; it is a strange thing. All we really know about the death of William Rufus may be found in the English "Chronicle." "On the morrow was the King William shot off with an arrow from his own men in hunting." Whether the arrow, as tradition has it, was shot by Walter Tyrrel or no, whether it was aimed at the King or no, can never now be known. The most graphic account of the affair is given to us by Ordericus Vitalis, who, however, was not only not present, but at best can have been but a child at the time, for he died in 1150. For all that he doubtless had access to sources of which we now know nothing, and the whole atmosphere of his story suggests that, as we might expect, the King was murdered because of his general harshness and oppression, perhaps especially exemplified in his Forest Law. It was he and not the Conqueror who demanded the life of a man for that of a beast; his father had been content with an eye or a limb. It would seem, according to Ordericus, that the whole country was full of stories of terrible visions concerning the end of the King long before his sudden death. Henry of Huntingdon, for instance, tells us that "blood had been seen to spring from the ground in Berkshire," and adds that "the King was rightly cut off in the midst of his injustice," for "England could not breathe under the burdens laid upon it." Ordericus himself says that "terrible visions respecting him were seen in the monasteries and cathedrals by the clergy of both classes, and becoming the talk of the vulgar in the market-places and churchyards, could not escape the notice of the King." He then gives a particular instance: "A certain monk of good repute and still better life, who belonged to the Abbey of St Peter at Gloucester, related that he had a dream in the visions of the night to this effect: 'I saw,' he said, 'the Lord Jesus seated on a lofty throne, and the glorious host of heaven, with the company of the saints, standing round. But while, in my ecstasy, I was lost in wonder, and my attention deeply fixed on such an extraordinary spectacle, I beheld a virgin resplendent with light cast herself at the feet of the Lord Jesus, and humbly address to Him this petition, "O Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, for which Thou didst shed Thy precious blood when hanging on the Cross, look with an eye of compassion on Thy people, which now groan under the yoke of William. Thou avenger of wickedness, and most just judge of all men, take vengeance I beseech Thee on my behalf of this William and deliver me out of his hands, for as far as lies in his power he hath polluted and grievously afflicted me." The Lord replied, "Be patient and wait awhile, and soon thou wilt be fully avenged of him." I trembled at hearing this and doubt not that the divine anger presently threatens the King; for I understood that the cries of the holy virgin, our mother the Church, had reached the ears of the Almighty by reason of the robberies, the foul adulteries and the heinous crimes of all sorts which the King and his courtiers cease not daily of committing against the divine law.'" On being informed of this, the venerable Abbot Serle wrote letters which he despatched in a friendly spirit from Gloucester informing the King very distinctly of all the monk had seen in his vision. William of Malmesbury also records that the King himself the day before he died, dreamed that he was let blood by a surgeon, and that the stream, reaching to heaven, clouded the light and intercepted the day. Calling on St Mary for protection he suddenly awoke, commanded a light to be brought and forbade his attendants to leave him. They then watched with him several hours until daylight. Shortly after, just as the day began to dawn, a certain foreign monk told Robert Fitz Haman one of the principal nobility that he had that night dreamed a strange and fearful dream about the King: "That he had come into a certain church, with menacing and insolent gesture as was his custom, looking contemptuously on the standers by. Then violently seizing the Crucifix he gnawed the arms and almost tore away the legs; that the image endured this for a long time, but at length struck the King with its foot, in such a manner that he fell backwards; from his mouth as he lay prostrate issued so copious a flame that the volumes of smoke touched the very stars. Robert, thinking that this dream ought not to be neglected as he was intimate with him, immediately related it to the King. William, repeatedly laughing, exclaimed, 'He is a monk and dreams for money like a monk; give him a hundred shillings.'" "Nevertheless," adds William of Malmesbury, "being greatly moved, the King hesitated a long while whether he should go out to hunt as he designed; his friends persuading him not to suffer the truth of the dreams to be tried at his personal risk. In consequence he abstained from the chase before dinner, dispelling the uneasiness of his unregulated mind by serious business. They relate that having plentifully regaled that day, he soothed his cares with a more than usual quantity of wine." All this, I suppose, befell in the Castle of Malwood. After dinner the King prepared to hunt. "Being in great spirits," says Ordericus, "he was joking with his attendants while his boots were being laced, when an armourer came and presented him six arrows. The King immediately took them with great satisfaction, praising the work, and unconscious of what was to happen, kept four of them himself and held out the other two to Walter Tyrrel. "It is but right," said he, "that the sharpest arrows should be given to him who knows best how to inflict mortal wounds with them." This Tyrrel was a French knight of good extraction, the wealthy lord of the castles of Poix and Pontoise, filling a high place among the nobles, and a gallant soldier; he was therefore admitted to familiar intimacy with the King and became his constant companion. Meanwhile as they were idly talking and the King's household attendants were assembled about him, a monk of Gloucester presented himself and delivered to the King a letter from his abbot. Having read it, the King burst out laughing and said merrily to the knight just mentioned, "Walter, do what I told you." The knight replied, "I will, my lord." Slighting then the warnings of the elders, and forgetting that the heart is lifted up before a fall, he said respecting the letter he had received, "I wonder what has induced my lord Serlo to write me in this strain, for I really believe he is a worthy abbot and respectable old man. In the simplicity of his heart he transmits to me, who have enough besides to attend to, the dreams of his snoring monks and even takes the trouble to commit them to writing and send them a long distance. Does he think that I follow the example of the English, who will defer their journey or their business on account of the dreams of a parcel of wheezing old women? "Thus speaking, he hastily rose and mounting his horse rode at full speed to the forest. His brother, Count Henry with William de Bretanel, and other distinguished persons, followed him, and having penetrated into the woods the hunters dispersed themselves in various directions according to custom. The King and Walter Tyrrel posted themselves with a few others in one part of the forest and stood with their weapons in their hands eagerly watching for the coming of the game, when a stag suddenly running between them the King quitted his station and Walter shot an arrow. It grazed the beast's grizzly back, but glancing from it mortally wounded the king, who stood within its range. He immediately fell to the ground, and, alas! suddenly expired." William of Malmesbury gives a somewhat different account of the King's death. "The sun was declining when the King, drawing his bow and letting fly an arrow; slightly wounded a stag which passed before him; and keenly gazing followed it still running a long time with his eyes, holding up his hand to keep off the power of the sun's rays. At this instant, Walter, conceiving a noble exploit, which was, while the King's attention was otherwise occupied, to transfix another stag which by chance came near him, unknowingly and without power to prevent it--oh gracious God!--pierced his breast with a fatal arrow. On receiving the wound the King uttered not a word; but breaking off the shaft of the weapon where it projected from his body, fell upon the wound by which he accelerated his death. Walter immediately ran up, but as he found him senseless and speechless he leaped swiftly upon his horse, and escaped by spurring him to his utmost speed. Indeed, there was none to pursue him; some consented in his flight, and others pitied him, and all were intent on other matters. Some began to fortify their dwellings; others to plunder, and the rest to look out for a new king. A few countrymen conveyed the body, placed on a cart, to the cathedral at Winchester, the blood dripping from it all the way. Here it was committed to the ground within the tower, attended by many of the nobility though lamented by few. Next year [really in 1107] the tower fell; though I forbear to mention the different opinions on this subject, lest I should seem to assent too readily to unsupported trifles, more especially as the building might have fallen through imperfect construction even though he had never been buried there. He died in the year of our Lord's Incarnation, 1100, of his reign the thirteenth, on the fourth before the nones of August, aged above forty years." So died the Red King. Whose arrow it was that slew him, whether it came aforethought from an English bow or by chance from that of Walter Tyrrel, we shall never know. The Red King fell in the New Forest and there was no one in all broad England to mourn him. William of Malmesbury says that a few countrymen carried his body to Winchester. We may well ask why not to Malwood Castle, which was close by? We may ask, but we shall get no answer. According to a local legend it was a charcoal burner of Minstead, Purkess by name, who found the King's body and bore it away, and ever after his descendants have remained in Minstead, neither richer nor poorer than their ancestor. As for Sir Walter, he is said to have sworn to the Prior of St Denys de Poix, a monastery of his foundation, that he knew nothing of the King's death. Leland tells us that in his day not only did the tree still exist against which, according to him, the arrow glanced off and struck the King, but a little chapel remained there then very old, in which Mass was wont to be offered for the repose of the King's soul. I wish that I might have seen it, for it would have pleased me. Now when I had well considered all this, not without an orison for that misguided King, I set off for Cadnam, and holding now only to the road, marching fast, for it was late, I came over the ridge beyond Black water into the valley of the Test, and so entered Romsey a little after it was dark. [Illustration: ROMSEY ABBEY] Romsey, as I soon found on the following morning, has nothing at all to offer the traveller except one of the most solemn and noble Norman churches in all England, monastic too, for it was the church of the great Benedictine Nunnery of Our Lady of Romsey. It is impossible to exaggerate the impression this astonishing Norman pile, of vast size and unsurpassed age and reverence, makes upon the traveller. One seems in looking upon it to see before his eyes the foundation of England. I cannot hope to describe it or to convey to another what it meant to me. It is at once grandiose and reverent, of enormous, almost incredible size and weight and strength larger than many a cathedral, heavy as a kingdom, stronger than a thousand years. It seems to have been hewn bodily out of the cliffs or the great hills. It is enormously old. The house was founded or perhaps refounded more than a millennium ago by Edward the Elder in 907; his daughter was abbess here, and here was buried. In 967 Edgar his grandson gave the house to the Benedictines. It remained English after the Conquest, for William seems not to have dealt with it and in 1086 the sister of Edgar Atheling became abbess. Out of it Henry I. chose his bride that Abbess's niece Maud a novice of Our Lady of Romsey. Said I not well that it was as the foundation of England? We know little of the Abbey for near a hundred years after that, and then in 1160 the daughter of King Stephen, Mary, whose uncle, Henry of Blois, was Bishop of Winchester, became abbess, and it was decided to rebuild the place. Thus the great Norman church we have, arose in the new England of the twelfth century. Mary, princess and abbess, was, however, false to her vows. How long she was abbess we do not know, perhaps only a few months or even days. At any rate, in the very year she became abbess, the year of her mother's death,[Footnote: See supra under Faversham.] she forsook her trust and married the son of the Earl of Flanders, and by him she had two daughters. Then came repentance; she separated from her husband and returned to Romsey as a penitent. The great religious house which had grown up thus with England, continued its great career right through the Middle Ages, about forty nuns serving there in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, though this number had dwindled to twenty-three at the time of the Surrender in 1539. How this surrender was made we do not know; but whether with or without trouble the result was the same, the great convent was utterly destroyed. Many of the lands passed to Sir Thomas Seymour, and the people of Romsey, who had always had a right to the north aisle of the church, which indeed they enlarged at their own expense in 1403, bought the whole from the Crown, for one hundred pounds, in 1554. I have said that there was undoubtedly a great Saxon church here, where the Norman Abbey of Romsey now stands, and part of the foundations of this great building were discovered in 1900. That building, founded by Edward the Elder, rebuilt by Edgar and restored by Canute, stood till the building of the present church in 1125. The older part of this building (1125-1150) is to the east of the nave, and consists of sanctuary and transepts: the nave was begun towards the end of the twelfth century, the church being finished in the beginning of the thirteenth. The church is cruciform, two hundred and sixty-three feet long and one hundred and thirty-one wide; it consists of a great sanctuary with aisles ending in chapels, square without, apsidal within, wide transepts each having an eastern apsidal chapel, nave with aisles, and over the crossing a low tower which was once higher, having now a seventeenth century polygonal belfry. To the east of the sanctuary stood two long chapels destroyed since the Suppression. We have here, as I have said, one of the most glorious Norman buildings in the world, Norman work which at the western end passes into the most delightful Early English. The cloister stood to the south of the nave, to the north stood of old the parish church, growing out of the north aisle as it were, built so in 1403. This has been destroyed and the north aisle wall has been rebuilt as in 1150. The church possesses more than one thing of great interest. The old high-altar stone is still in existence, and is now used as the communion table. In the south transept is a fine thirteenth century effigy of a lady, carved in purbeck. At the end of the south aisle of the choir is a remarkable stone Crucifix that evidently belonged to the old Saxon church; about the Cross stand Our Lady, St John and the Roman soldiers, above are angels. A later Rood is to be seen in the eastern wall of the old cloister which abutted on to the transept; this dates from the twelfth century. In the north aisle of the choir is a very fine painting which used to stand above the high altar in Catholic times. There we see still the Resurrection of Our Lord with two angels, above are ten saints, among them St Benedict and St Scholastica, St Gregory, St Augustine of Canterbury, St Francis and St Clare. This fine work, which of old showed, above, Christ in Glory, is of the end of the fourteenth century. Now when you have seen Romsey Abbey thus as it were with the head; then is the time to begin to get it by heart. In all South England you may find no greater glory than this, nor one more entirely our very own, at least our own as we were but yesterday. It may be that such a place as Romsey Abbey means nothing to us and can never mean anything again. But I'll not believe it. For to think so is to despair of England, to realise that England of my heart has really passed away. There are two ways by which a man may go from Romsey, in the valley of the Test to Winchester, in the valley of the Itchen. The more beautiful, for it gives you, if you will, not only Otterbourne, Shawford and Compton to the west of the stream, but Twyford to the east, the Queen of Hampshire villages, is that which makes for the Roman road between Winchester and Southampton, and following up the valley of the Itchen enters Winchester at last, by the South Gate, after passing St Cross in the meads. The shorter road, though far less lovely, is in some ways the more interesting; for it passes Merdon Castle and Hursley, where the son of Oliver Cromwell lies, and for this cause I preferred it. Merdon Castle, of which some few scanty ruins remain, was built by the Bishop Henry of Blois about 1138, and no doubt it served its purpose in the anarchy of Stephen's time, but thereafter it seems to have become rather a palace than a fortress. The manor of Merdon had always belonged to the See of Winchester, it is said, since 636, when it was granted to the Bishop by King Kinegils. It remained with the Bishopric until the Reformation, when it was granted to Sir Philip Hoby to be restored to the Church by Queen Mary, and then again regranted to the Hoby family about 1559. The manor had passed, however, by 1638 to Richard Major, a miser and a tyrant, who "usurped authority over his tentant" and more especially, for he was a fanatic Roundhead, "when King Charles was put to death and Oliver Cromwell was Protector of England and Richard Major of his Privy Council, and Noll's eldest son, Richard, was married to Mr Major's Doll." Thus Merdon came into the Cromwell family, another piece of Church property upon which that very typical sixteenth-century family had already grown exceedingly wealthy. Richard Cromwell (as he called himself) lived at Merdon a good deal, till he succeeded his father in the usurped governance of England. But when he was turned out in 1660 he found it safer to return to Merdon, but only for a little while, France offering him, as he wisely thought, a more secure asylum, not only from a charge of High Treason, but from his creditors. While he was abroad, we learn he went under another name; not a new experience for one of his family, which seems to have had no legitimate name of its own, its members, Oliver amongst them, signing in important personal matters such as getting hold of the dowries of their wives, "Williams _alias_ Cromwell." It would, therefore, be interesting to know under what alias this latest descendant of the infamous minister of Henry VIII. corresponded with the wife and family he had left at Merdon. He did not return to Merdon till 1705, upon the death of his son Oliver. His wife had died in 1676, and his time was soon to come. He died at Cheshunt in 1712, and was buried with considerable pomp in Hursley church, where we may still see his monument, moved from the old church and re-erected in that built by the efforts of John Keble, vicar of this parish for thirty years, from 1836 to 1866. And so considering all these strange things I went on to Winchester. CHAPTER XX WINCHESTER I do not know what it is that moves me so deeply in the old cities of Southern England, in Canterbury, Rochester, Chichester, most of all, perhaps, in Winchester, unless it be that they sum up in a way nothing else can do the England that is surely and irrevocably passing away. How reverently we approach them, with what hesitation and misgiving we try to express what we feel about them! They are indeed the sanctuaries of England, sanctuaries in which it is wiser to pray than to exult, since their beauty and antiquity, their repose and quietness, fill us with an extraordinary uneasiness and amazement, a kind of nostalgia which nothing really our own can satisfy. For if Winchester appeals to us as the symbol of England, it is not the England of our day for which she stands. Let Manchester or Sheffield stand for that, places so unquiet, so meanly wretched and hopeless, that no one has ever thought of them without a kind of fear and misery. Alas, they are the reality, while Winchester gradually fades year by year into a mere dream city, as it were Camelot indeed, too good to be true, established, if at all, rather in the clouds, or in our hearts, than upon the earth we tread. And if in truth she stands for something that was once our own, it is for something we are gradually leaving behind us, discarding and forgetting, something that after four centuries of disputation and anarchy no man any longer believes capable of realisation here and now. Yet Winchester endures in her beauty, her now so precarious loveliness, and while she endures it is still possible to refuse to despair of England. For she is co-eval with us; before we knew ourselves or were aware of our destiny she stood beside the Itchen within the shadow of her hills east and west, in the meads and the water meadows. She saw the advent of the Roman, she claims to be Arthur's chief city, as later she was the throne of the Saxon kings; in her council chamber England was first named England. Of what indeed she was before the Romans came and drew us within their great administration, we are largely ignorant; but we know that they established here a town of considerable importance, which they called Venta Belgarum, larger than Silchester, if we may believe that the mediaeval walls stand upon Roman foundations, and certainly a centre of Roman administrative life. Four Roman roads undoubtedly found in her their goal and terminus, coming into her Forum from Sorbiodunum (Old Sarum) upon the west, from Calleva (Silchester) upon the north, from Porchester upon the south, and from Clausentum upon the south-west. Her chief Temple in Roman times, before the advent of Christianity, was that of Apollo, which is said to have occupied the site of the Cathedral, close by was the Temple of Concord, while it is impossible to believe that a town so plentifully supplied by nature with water was without considerable baths. Legend has it indeed that Winchester was the capital of the King Lucius, who is said in the second century to have introduced Christianity into Britain. The first Christian church, which he erected, traditionally stood upon the site of the Cathedral. But alas, Lucius is a myth, his cathedral a church never built with hands. We know nothing of any Christian church in Roman Winchester, and though we may be sure that such a building certainly existed, no excavation has so far laid bare its foundations. Indeed we are almost as ignorant of Roman as we are of Celtic Winchester. Even the lines of its walls are conjectural, we suppose them to be the same as those of the Middle Age, yet such foundations of Roman buildings as have been discovered, lie not only within an area much more restricted than that which the mediaeval walls enclosed, but in certain instances outside them. No discoveries of Roman foundations have been made to the north of the High Street. This fact, however, formidable though it be, does not of itself prove that the Roman walls did not coincide with the mediaeval fortifications; it is even probable that they did, except at the south-west corner, where stood the mediaeval castle. In any case, the Roman walls, built we may think in the fourth century, enclosed an irregular quadrilateral, and possessed four gates out of which issued those four roads to Old Sarum, to Silchester, to Clausentum and to Porchester. In the beginning of the fifth century the Roman administration which had long been failing, to which one may think the building of those walls bears witness, collapsed altogether, and with the final departure of the Legions full of our youth and strength, Britain was left defenceless. What happened to Winchester in the appalling confusion which followed, we shall never know. It is said that in 495, three generations that is to say after the departure of the Legions for the defence of Rome, Cerdic and his son, Cymric, landed upon the southern coast, and presently seized Winchester within whose broken walls they established themselves. In the year 519, according to the "Saxon Chronicle," "Cerdic and Cymric obtained the kingdom of the West Saxons; and the same year they fought against the Britons where it is now named Cerdicsford. And from that time forth the royal offspring of the West Saxons reigned." That is all we know about it, and it is not enough upon which to build an historical narrative or from which to draw any clear idea even of what befell. All we can say with any sort of certainty is that the Saxons, through long years of probably spasmodic fighting, very gradually established themselves in southern England, and out of it carved a dominion, the kingdom of Wessex, whose capital was Winchester. Until the year 635 this kingdom, such as it was, was pagan. In that year St Birinus converted the West Saxons and their King Kynegils to Christianity. Though Kynegils seems immediately to have begun to build a church in Winchester in which he established monks and endowed it with the whole of the land for a space of seven miles round the city, Winchester did not become an episcopal See until the year 662. Till then, Dorchester in the Thames Valley had been the seat of the Bishop of Wessex, but in that year Kynewalch, the son and successor of Kynegils, completed the church of Winchester, in which he had been crowned, and his father buried, as for the most part were their successors, and there he established a bishop. It was now that Winchester began her great career. She rose with the fortunes of the Wessex kingdom until, in the time of Egbert, she appears as the capital of the new kingdom of England which is so named, and for the first time in her witan. The com kyng Egbryth Ant wyth batyle ant fyht Made al Englond yhol Falle to ys oune dol; Ant sethe he reignede her Ahte ant tuenti folle yer: At Wynchestre lyggeth ys bon, Buried in a marble-ston. Egbert triumphed and established England none too soon. As early as the year 787, according to the "Saxon Chronicle," "ships of the Northmen" had reached our southern coasts, and Egbert had scarcely named his new kingdom when they imperilled it. His son, Ethelwulf, who came to his throne in 836, was to see Winchester itself stormed before the invaders were beaten off; but beaten off they were, and it was in Winchester that Alfred was to reign, to give forth his laws and to plan his campaigns against the same enemy. He was victorious, as we know, and at Ethandune not only broke his pagan foes, but dragged Guthrum, their leader, to baptism. And in his capital he made and kept the only record we have of the Dark Ages in England, the "Saxon Chronicle," begun in Wolvesey Palace; founded the famous nunnery of St Mary to the north-east of the Cathedral in the meads; and provided for the foundation, by Edward his son, of the great New Minster close by, where his bones at last were to be laid. The three great churches with their attendant buildings must have been the noblest group to be seen in the England of that day. Thus Winchester flourished more than ever secure in its position as capital, so that Athelstan, we read, established there six mints, and Edgar, reigning there, made "Winchester measure" the standard for the whole kingdom: "and let one money pass throughout the king's dominions, and let no man refuse; and let one measure and one weight pass, such as is observed at London and Winchester." Such was Winchester at the beginning of the ninth century; before the end of that century she was to suffer violence from the Danes; and in the first years of the tenth century to fall with the rest of England into their absolute power, and to see a Danish king, Canute, crowned in her Cathedral. There, too, at last, that Danish king was buried. He was a generous conqueror, and a great benefactor to his capital, and with him passes much of the splendour of Winchester. Edward the Confessor, though hallowed at Winchester, looked upon London as his capital and there built the great abbey which was thenceforth to see the crowning of England's kings. For St Edward was at heart a Norman, and Winchester, beside summing up in itself all the splendour of pre-Norman England, had been given by Ethelred to the widow of Canute, Emma, the mother of St Edward. She allied herself with the great Earl Godwin to oppose the Norman influence which St Edward had brought into England, and it was only when she died that the king came again into Winchester for Easter, and to hold a solemn court. During that Easter week Earl Godwin died, and was buried in the Cathedral. He was the last champion of Saxon England to lie there. Nothing marks the change that England had passed through during the first half of the eleventh century more certainly than the fact that William Duke of Normandy was crowned King of England, not in the old Minster of Winchester but in that of St Peter, Westminster, which Pope Nicholas II. in King Edward's time had constituted as the place of the inauguration of the kings of England. It is true that William was later crowned again in Winchester, as were Stephen and Coeur de Lion, but the fact remains that from the time of William the Conqueror down to our own day, as the Papal Bull had ordered, Westminster and not Winchester has been the coronation church of our kings. This Bull marks, as it were, the beginning of the decline of Winchester. Little by little, in the following centuries, it was to cease to be the capital of England. Little by little London was to take its place, a thing finally achieved by Edward I., when he removed the royal residence from Winchester. Norman Winchester was, however, by no means less splendid than had been the old capital of the Saxon kings. There Domesday Book was compiled, and there it was kept in the Treasury of the Norman kings, and the only name which it gives itself is that of the "Book of Winchester." There the great Fair of St Giles was established by the Conqueror, which attracted merchants from every part of Europe, and there in 1079 Bishop Walkelin began, from the foundations, a new cathedral church completed in 1093, of which the mighty transepts still remain. In 1109 the monks of New Minster, which had suffered greatly from fire and mismanagement, removed to a great new house without the walls upon the north, and since this new site was called Hyde Meads, New Minster was thenceforth known as the Abbey of Hyde; and certainly after the fire in 1141, if not before, the great Benedictine Nunnery of St Mary was rebuilt. As for the Castle of Wolvesey, Bishop Henry of Blois rebuilt it in 1138. It was indeed in his time that Winchester suffered the most disastrous of all its sieges, as we may believe, and this at the hands of the Empress Matilda in 1141. The greater part of the city is then said to have been destroyed; the new Abbey of Hyde was burned down not to be rebuilt till 1182; the old Nunnery of St Mary was destroyed also by fire; and we are told of more than forty churches which then perished. "Combustibles were hurled from the Bishop's Castle," William of Malmesbury tells us, "in the houses of the townspeople, who, as I have said, rather wished success to the empress than to the bishop, which caught and burned the whole abbey of nuns within the city and the monastery which is called Hyde without the walls. Here was an image of Our Lord crucified, wrought with a profusion of gold and silver and precious stones, through the pious solicitude of Canute, who was formerly king and presented it. This being seized by the flames and thrown to the ground was afterwards stripped of its ornaments at the command of the Legate himself; more than five hundred marks of silver and thirty of gold, which were found in it, served for a largess to the soldiers." It would, perhaps, be untrue to say that Winchester never really recovered from the appalling sack and pillage which followed the flight of Matilda; but it is true to assert that time was fighting against her, and that the thirteenth century did not bring the splendid gifts to her that it brought to so many of our cities. One great ceremony, the last of its kind, however, took place in her Cathedral in 1194; the second coronation of Coeur de Lion. "Then King Richard," we read, "being clothed in his royal robes, with the crown upon his head, holding in his right hand a royal sceptre which terminated in a cross, and in his left hand a golden wand with the figure of a dove at the top of it, came forth from his apartment in the priory, being conducted on the right hand by the Bishop of Ely, his Chancellor, and on the left by the Bishop of London. ... The silken canopy was held on four lances over the King by four Earls. ... The King being thus conducted into the Cathedral and up to the High Altar, there fell upon his knees, and devoutly received the archbishop's solemn benediction. He was then led to the throne, which was prepared for him, on the south side of the choir. ... When Mass was finished the King was led back to his apartments with the solemnities aforesaid. He then laid aside his robes and crown, put on other robes and a crown that were much lighter, and so proceeded to dinner, which was served in the monks' refectory." Winchester's next glory was the birth of Henry III., known to the day of his death as Henry of Winchester--this in 1207. In 1213 the city was the scene of the reconciliation of King John and Archbishop Stephen, but in 1265 she was sacked by the younger de Montfort, and this seems finally to have achieved her overthrow. When Edward I. came to the throne in 1272 he abandoned Winchester. The city never regained its place, London was too strong for it both geographically and economically. Its trade, which remained very considerable until the latter part of the fourteenth century, chiefly owing to its wool and cloth, was, however, slowly declining, and politically the history of the city becomes a mere series of incidents, among the more splendid of which were the marriage of Henry IV. with Joan of Navarre in 1403; the reception of the French ambassadors by Henry V. before Agincourt in 1415; the rejoicings for the birth in Winchester of Arthur Tudor the son of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York in 1457; the meeting of the Emperor Charles V. and Henry VIII. in 1522; and the marriage of Mary Tudor to Philip of Spain in 1554. At that great ceremony, the last Catholic rite the old Cathedral was to witness, there were present, according to the Venetian Envoy, "the ambassadors from the Emperor, from the Kings of the Romans and Bohemia, from your Serenity, from Savoy, Florence, and Ferrara and many agents of sovereign princes. The proclamation was entitled thus: Philip and Mary, by the grace of God, King and Queen of England, France, Naples, Jerusalem, Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Prince of Spain, Archduke of Austria, etc." But when Queen Elizabeth visited the city in 1560 (she was there four times during her reign), she said to the mayor, "Yours Mr Mayor is a very ancient city"; and he answered, "It has abeen, your Majesty, it has abeen," and in spite of bad grammar he spoke but the truth, Winchester's great days were over. Yet it saw the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh in 1603, and the town having been taken by Waller in 1644 the Castle was besieged by Cromwell himself in 1645. "I came to Winchester," he writes, "on the Lord's Day the 28th of September. After some disputes with the Governour we entered the town. I summoned the Castle; was denied; whereupon we fell to prepare batteries, which we could not perfect until Friday following. Our battery was six guns; which being finished, after firing one round, I sent in a second summons for a treaty; which they refused, whereupon we went on with our work and made a breach in the wall near the Black Tower; which after about two hundred shot we thought stormable; and purposed on Monday morning to attempt it. On Sunday morning about ten of the clock the Governour beat a parley, desiring to treat, I agreed unto it, and sent Colonel Hammond and Major Harrison in to him, who agreed upon these enclosed articles." Cromwell presently departed and the city caught a glimpse of the Royal Martyr, the victim of the great families, as he passed from Hurst Castle to Windsor and the scaffold in Whitehall. With the Restoration, which was most gallantly welcomed in the old royal city, Charles II. came to Winchester, and having been burnt out at Newmarket was, according to Evelyn, "all the more earnest to render Winchester the seat of his autumnal diversions for the future, designing a palace there where the ancient castle stood.... The surveyor has already begun the foundation for a palace estimated to cost £35,000...." But Charles died too soon to finish this new house, which, it is said, Queen Anne wished to complete, liking Winton well, but again death intervened. In spite of these royal fancies, however, Winchester, which had suffered badly in the plague of 1667, continued to decline in importance and in population, and to depend more and more upon the two great establishments which remained to it, the Cathedral, founded by Kynegils in 635 and re-established under a new Protestant administration in the sixteenth century, and the College of St Mary of Winchester founded by William of Wykeham in connection with the College of St Mary, Winton, in Oxford, called New College, for the education of youth and the advancement of learning. Winchester is, of course, as it ever has been, the county-town of Hampshire, but it still maintains itself as it has done now these many years chiefly by reason of these two great establishments. Certainly to-day the traveller's earliest steps are turned towards these two buildings, and first to that which is in its foundation near eight hundred years the older--the Cathedral church once of St Swithin, the Bishop and Confessor (852-863) and now since the Reformation of the Holy Trinity. To come out of the sloping High Street past the ancient city Cross, through the narrow passage-way into the precincts, and to pass down that great avenue of secular limes across the Close to the great porch of the Cathedral, is to come by an incomparable approach to perhaps the most noble and most venerable church left to us in England. The most venerable--not I think the most beautiful. No one remembering the Abbey of Westminster can claim that for it, and then, though it possesses the noblest Norman work in England and the utmost splendour of the Perpendicular, it lacks almost entirely and certainly the best of the Early English. Its wonder lies in its size and its antiquity. It is now the longest mediaeval church not only in England, but in Europe, though once it was surpassed by old St Paul's. It is five hundred and twenty- six feet long, but it lacks height, and perhaps rightly, at least I would not have it other than it is, its greatness lying in its monotonous depressed length and weight, an enormous primeval thing lying there in the meads beside the river. Winchester itself might seem indeed to know nothing of it. The city does not rejoice in it as do Lincoln and York in their great churches; here is nothing of the sheer joy of Salisbury, a Magnificat by Palestrina; the church of Winchester is without delight, it has supremely the mystery and monotony of the plainsong, the true chant of the monks, the chorus of an army, with all the appeal of just that, its immense age and half plaintive glory, which yet never really becomes music. And Winchester, too, has all and more than all, the surprise of the plainsong; the better you know it the more you are impressed. No one certainly has ever come by the narrow way out of the High Street, down the avenue of limes to the West Front without being disappointed; but no one thus disappointed has ever entered into the church without astonishment, wonder and complete satisfaction. It was not always so. That long nave was once forty feet longer and was flanked upon either side by a Norman tower as at Ely. Must one regret their loss? No, the astonishment of the nave within makes up for everything; there is no grander interior in the world, nor anywhere anything at all like it. Up that vast Perpendicular nave one looks far and far away into the height, majesty and dominion of the glorious Norman transept, and beyond into the light of the sanctuary. It has not the beauty of Westminster Abbey, nor the exquisite charm of Wells, but it has a majesty and venerable nobility all its own that I think no other church in England can match. Of the old Saxon church, so far as we really know, the only predecessor of the present church, nothing really remains. This, as I have said, had been founded by King Kynegils upon his conversion, by St Birinus in 635. We know very little about it, except that it was enlarged or rebuilt in the middle of the tenth century by St Aethwold, and if we may believe the poetical description of Wolstan, we shall be inclined to believe the church was enlarged, for it appears to have been a very complex building with a lofty central tower, having a spire and weathercock, in accordance with the Bull of Pope Urban, and a crypt, both the work of St Elphege. This church, which, like its successor until the Reformation, was served by monks, stood till the year 1093, when it was destroyed as useless, for the new Norman church of Bishop Walkelin begun in 1079 was then far enough advanced to be used. It is thus practically certain that the two churches did not stand on the same site, the newer, it would seem, rising to the south of the older building. But the sacred spot which, it would seem, every church, that may ever have stood in this place, must have covered is the holy well, immediately beneath the present high altar in the crypt of the Norman building. This surely was within the Saxon building as it must have been within any church that may have stood here in Roman times? The two great shrines of the Saxon church were, however, those of St Birinus, the Apostle of Wessex, and of St Swithin, Bishop of Winchester in the ninth century, the day of whose translation, July 15th, was, till the Reformation, a universal festival throughout England. In his honour the Saxon church, till then known as the church of SS. Peter and Paul, was rededicated in 964. The great Norman church which Bishop Walkelin built to take the place of the Saxon minster cannot fundamentally have differed very much from the church we see, at any rate so far as its nave and transepts were concerned. The eastern arm was, however, different. It consisted of four bays, with north and south aisles at the end of which were rectangular chapels, an apse about which the aisles ran as an ambulatory, and beyond the apse an eastern apsidal chapel. Of this church all that really remains to us is the crypt and the transept. In the crypt we divine the old eastern limb of the church, and are doubtless in the presence of the earliest work in the Cathedral. It is, however, in the double aisled transepts that we can best appreciate how very glorious that first Norman church must have been; there is nothing in England more wonderful; and so far as I know there is nothing in Europe quite to put beside them. If only the whole mighty church could have remained to us! The first disaster that befell Bishop Walkelin's building was the fall of the central tower in 1107, which all England, at the time, attributed to the burial beneath it of William Rufus. The tower was rebuilt, though not to its original height, but in the reconstruction, the parts of the transept nearest to the tower were also rebuilt, and thus we have here two periods of Norman work; the main building of 1107 and the reconstruction after that date. Of the Transitional work of the second half of the twelfth century very little is to be seen at Winchester. It was for the most part the period of that great Bishop Henry of Blois, and he was probably too much immersed in the brutal politics of his time, too busy building and holding his castle to give much thought to the Cathedral. The font, however, dates from his time, and perhaps a door in the north-western bay of the south transept. The earliest Gothic work in the Cathedral is the chapel of St Sepulchre, which was built upon the northern wall of the choir before the north transept. There we may still see wall paintings of the Passion of Our Lord. Not much later is the retro-choir. This consists of three bays, and is the largest in England. It was begun in 1189 by Bishop Godfrey de Lucy, and we must admit at once that it is wholly without delight, and yet to build it the Norman apse was sacrificed. According to Mr Bond, this was probably a very popular destruction. The reversion, says he, "to the favourite square east end of English church architecture was popular in itself. Almost every Norman cathedral ended in an apse; and in the apse, high raised behind the high altar, sat the Norman bishop facing the congregation; the hateful symbol of Norman domination." This may have been so, but considering that the monastic choir of Winchester occupied not one, as the choir does to-day, but three bays of the nave from which it was separated by a vast rood screen, though the Bishop had been as high as Haman, he would have been scarcely visible to the populace in the western part of the nave. Popular or no, however, the apse was sacrificed and the low retro-choir built with the Lady Chapel in the Early English style. The next thing undertaken was to place in the old Norman choir the magically lovely choir stalls (1245-1315) which happily still remain to us. Perhaps it was their enthusiastic loveliness which led about 1320 to the rebuilding of the Presbytery and the lovely tabernacle in the back of the wall of the Feretory. When all this was done there remained of the old Norman church only the transepts and the nave. The transepts remain to us still, but the nave was transformed, in the very beginning of the Perpendicular time. It was transformed not rebuilt. Bishop William of Wykeham has obliterated Bishop Walkelin, but fundamentally the nave of Winchester remains Norman still. The Perpendicular work is only a lovely mask, or rather just the sunlight of the fourteenth century which has come into the dark old Norman building. The most notable change is the roof, in Norman times a flat ceiling, now a magnificent vault. But that century was not content with transforming the nave, it littered it with the first of its various delights, those chantries which are among the greatest splendours of this Cathedral, and which still, in some sort, commemorate Bishop Edingdon (1366), Bishop Wykeham (1404), Bishop Beaufort (1447), Bishop Waynflete (1416), Bishop Fox (1528) and Bishop Gardiner (1555) the last Catholic Bishop to fill the See. [Illustration: NORTH TRANSEPT, WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL] The transformation of the nave, which occupied full an hundred years, was not, however, the last work undertaken in the Cathedral before the change of religion. Bishop Courtenay, in the last years of the fifteenth century, lengthened the Lady Chapel, and finally Bishop Fox in the very beginning of the sixteenth century began the transformation of the early fourteenth century Presbytery, but got little further than the insertion of the Perpendicular windows. He did, however, transform the Norman aisles there, and screened them, and upon the screens in six fine Renaissance chests he gathered the dust of the old Saxon saints and kings. But apart from its architecture the church is full of interest. Where can we find anything to match the exquisite iron screen of the eleventh century which used to guard St Swithin's shrine but which, now that is gone, covers the north-west doorway of the nave? Is there another font in England more wonderful than that square black marble basin sculptured in the twelfth century with the story of St Nicholas? Is there any series of chantries in England more complete or more lovely than these at Winchester, or anywhere a finer fourteenth century monument than that of Bishop Wykeham? Nowhere in England certainly can the glorious choir stalls be matched, nor shall we easily find a pulpit to surpass that in the choir here dating from 1520. If the restored retablo over the high altar is disappointing in its sophistication, we have only to pass into the Feretory to discover certain marvellous fragments of the original reredos which are so beautiful that they take away our breath--that broken statue of the Madonna and Child, for instance, perhaps the loveliest piece of fourteenth century sculpture to be found in England. No, however we consider the great church of Winchester, it stands alone. As a mere building it is more tremendous and more venerable than anything now left to us upon English soil; as a burial place it possesses the dust not only of the Apostle of the heart of England but of the greatest of the Saxon kings, while beneath its mighty vault William Rufus sleeps, the only Norman king that lies in England. And as a shrine of art it still possesses incomparable things. It stands there as the Pyramids stand in the desert, a relic of a lost civilisation; but by it we may measure the modern world. It is, too, when you consider it, utterly lonely. The revolution we call the Reformation upon which the modern world turns and turns as upon a pivot, while it spared Winchester Cathedral, though reluctantly, swept away all the buildings which surrounded it. The great monastery is gone, scarcely a sign of it remains. Nothing at all is left of the famous nunnery of St Mary. Of Wolvesey Castle there are a few beautiful ruins, of Hyde Abbey, all has been swept away, even the stones, even the bones of Alfred. Nor have the other and later religious houses, with which Winchester was full, fared better. It is difficult to find even the sites of the houses of the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Austin Friars, the Carmelites. And what remains of the College of St Elizabeth, and, but for a Norman doorway, now in Catholic hands, of the Hospital of St Mary Magdalen? Only the Hospital of St John remains at the east end of the High Street, still in possession of its fine Hall and Chapel, and the great school founded by William of Wykeham in 1382, "for seventy poor and needy scholars and clerks living college-wise in the same, studying and becoming proficient in grammaticals or the art and science of grammar." It remains without compare, the oldest and the greatest school in England, whose daughter is Eton and whose late descendant is Harrow. To say that the Cathedral, the College and the Hospital of St John are all that remains of mediaeval Winchester would not, perhaps, be strictly true; but it is so near the truth that one might say it without fear of contradiction. Most of the old churches even have perished. There remain St John Baptist, which can boast of Transitional arcades, and fifteenth century screen and pulpit; St Maurice with a Norman doorway; St Peter with its twelfth and thirteenth century work; St Bartholomew with some Norman remains near the site of Hyde Abbey; and in the High Street there is more than one fine old house. The fact that so little remains cannot altogether be placed to the discredit of the Reformation and the Puritan fanatics. Until the eighteenth century something remained of Hyde Abbey, much of the Hospital of St Mary Magdalen; the city walls were then practically perfect, having all their five gates, north, south, east and west, and King's gate; now of all these only the Westgate of the thirteenth century remains to us with the King's gate over which is the little church of St Swithin. But in spite of vandalism, forgetfulness and barbarism, often of the worst description as in the mere indifference and ignorance that scattered Alfred's bones, no one has ever come to Winchester without loving it, no one has ever been glad to get away. Its innumerable visitors are all its lovers and the most opposite temperaments find here common ground at last. Walpole praises it, and so does Keats. "We removed here," writes the latter in 1819 to Bailey, "for the convenience of a library, and find it an exceedingly pleasant town, enriched with a beautiful cathedral and surrounded by fresh-looking country.... Within these two months I have written fifteen hundred lines, most of which, besides many more of prior composition, you will probably see next winter. I have written two tales, one from Boccaccio called the 'Pot of Basil' and another called 'St Agnes Eve' on a popular superstition, and a third called 'Lamia' (half-finished). I have also been writing parts of my 'Hyperion,' and completed four acts of a tragedy." "This Winchester," he writes again, "is a place tolerably well suited to me. There is a fine cathedral, a college, a Roman Catholic chapel ... and there is not one loom or anything like manufacturing beyond bread and butter in the whole city. There are a number of rich Catholics in the place. It is a respectable, ancient, aristocratic place, and moreover it contains a nunnery." "I take a walk," he writes to his family, "every day for an hour before dinner, and this is generally my walk; I go out the back gate, across one street into the cathedral yard, which is always interesting; there I pass under the trees along a paved path, pass the beautiful front of the cathedral, turn to the left under a stone doorway--then I am on the other side of the building--which, leaving behind me, I pass on through two college- like squares, seemingly built for the dwelling-place of dean and prebendaries, garnished with grass and shaded with trees; then I pass through one of the old city gates and then you are in College Street, through which I pass, and at the end thereof, crossing some meadows, and at last a country of alley gardens I arrive, that is my worship arrives, at the foundation of St Cross, which is a very interesting old place.... Then I pass across St Cross meadows till I come to the most beautiful clear river." That walk, or rather that over the meads to St Cross, is for every lover of Winchester that which he takes most often I think, that which comes to him first in every memory of the city. Its beauty makes it sacred and its reward is an hour or more in what, when all is said, is one of the loveliest relics of the Middle Age anywhere left to us in England, I mean the hospital and church of St Cross in the meads of the Itchen. Doubtless we are the heirs of the Ages, into our hearts and minds the Empire, the Middle Age and the Renaissance have poured their riches. Doubtless we are the flower of Time and our Age, the rose of all the Ages. That is why, in our wisdom, we have superseded such places as St Cross by our modern workhouses. St Cross was founded by the great Henry of Blois in 1133 for the reception, the clothing and the entertainment of thirteen poor men, decayed or past their strength, and the relief of an hundred others; it was a mediaeval workhouse, called a hospital in those days, and in its beauty and its humanity and its success it cannot, of course, compare with the institutions which, since we have not been able to abolish poverty altogether, we have everywhere established for the reception of our unfortunate brethren. It would be odd indeed if eight hundred years of Christian government, four hundred of them enjoying the infinite blessings bestowed by the Reformation and the Protestant religion, had not vastly improved these institutions for the reception of the very poor. It is, in fact, in such establishments as our workhouses that our "progress" is to be seen most clearly. [Illustration: ST CROSS, WINCHESTER] Well, it is something to be assured of that; and yet, let me confess it, St Cross has a curious fascination for me. I feel there, it is true, that I am in a world different from that in which we do so well to rejoice, but such is my perversity I cannot help preferring the old to the new. This is a mere prejudice, quite personal to myself, and comes perhaps of being a Christian. When I look at St Cross I am vividly reminded that this was once a Christian country with a Christian civilisation; when I look at one of our great workhouses I know that all that has passed away and that we have "progressed" so fast and so far that Christianity has been left some four hundred years behind us. St Cross is, as it were, a rock of the old Christian time still emerging from the grey sea of the modern world. Bishop Henry de Blois intended, as I have said, to provide, by the foundation of the Hospital of St Cross, for the maintenance of thirteen poor men and the relief of an hundred others. His design was perverted in the thirteenth century, but gloriously restored by the founder of Winchester College and his successor in the Bishopric, Cardinal Beaufort, who added to the original foundation the almshouse of Noble Poverty, in which he hoped to support thirty-five brethren with two priests and three nuns to minister to the inmates. The hospital, by the merest good fortune, escaped suppression at the Reformation, but during most of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and through many years of the nineteenth its revenues were enjoyed by men who, as often as not, had never seen the place, and so the poor were robbed. Perhaps the most insolent abuse of the kind occurred between 1808 and 1815. In the former year Bishop Brownlow North, of Winchester, appointed his son Francis, later Earl of Guildford, to be master. This man appropriated the revenues of the place to the tune of fourteen hundred pounds a year, and when at last the scandal was exposed, it was discovered that between 1818 and 1838 he had taken not less than fifty-three thousand pounds in fines on renewing leases, a manifest and probably wilful breach of trust, that ought, one may think, to have brought him to the Old Bailey. The exposure of this rascal led to a reformation of the administration, which is now in the hands of trustees who elect thirteen brethren provided for by Bishop Henry of Blois. These wear a black gown with a silver cross. St Cross also still maintains certain brethren of Noble Poverty, and these wear a red gown, and not less than fifty poor folk, who do not live within its walls, while a very meagre wayfarer's dole is still distributed to all who pass by so far as a horn of beer and two loaves of bread will go. Each of the Brethren of St Cross beside a little house and maintenance receives five shillings a week. All this sounds, if you be poor, too good to be true. It is too good to owe its origin to the modern world, but not extraordinary for the Middle Age, which was eagerly and even violently Christian. And just as the institution seems in itself wonderful to us in our day, so do the buildings, which, if one would really understand how gloriously strange they are, should be carefully compared with the county workhouse. One enters the Hospital by a gate, and, passing through a small court, comes to the great gatehouse of Cardinal Beaufort, consisting of gateway, porter's lodge and great square tower. Here and there we still see Cardinal Beaufort's arms and devices, while over the gate itself are three niches, in one of which a kneeling figure of the Cardinal remains. Within this gatehouse is a large quadrangle, about three sides of which the hospital is set with the church upon the south, between which and the gatehouse runs a sixteenth century cloister. The whole is wonderfully quiet and peaceful, a corner of that old England, England of my heart, which is so fast vanishing away. The noblest building of this most noble place, and the only one now left to us which dates from its foundation by Bishop Henry of Blois is the church. This is a great Transitional building, one of the finest examples of that style in England, and dates from about 1160 to 1292. It is a cruciform building with central tower, the nave and chancel being aisled, the transepts, aisles and all, vaulted in stone in the fourteenth century. The earliest part of the church is the chancel, which has a square eastern end, and the lower parts of the transepts probably date from the same time. These transepts were finished a little later, when the nave was begun and finished, and the north porch built in the thirteenth century. The clerestory of the nave dates from the first half of the fourteenth century, and so does the great western window. Much of the furniture of the church is interesting, such as the fourteenth century tiles, the curious Norman bowl that does duty as a font, the fourteenth century glass in the clerestory window of the nave, and that, little though it be, of the fifteenth century in the north transept, the fine fifteenth century screen between the north- choir aisle and the chancel, the foreign sixteenth century woodwork in the south-choir aisle, the curious wall painting of the Martyrdom of St Thomas in the south transept, and the old Purbeck altar stone that now serves as the communion table. Here, before the altar, lies John de Campeden, appointed Master of St Cross by Bishop William of Wykeham in 1383, his grave marked by a good brass. Much, too, within the hospital is interesting, and the old men who eagerly show one all these strange and beautiful things are most human and delightful. Nevertheless, though the church would anywhere else claim all our attention for a whole morning, and an afternoon is easily spent poking about the hospital, it is not of the mere architecture, beautiful though it be, that one thinks on the way back into Winchester, across the meads beside the river which has seen and known both the Middle Age and this sorrowful time of to-day, but of that wondrous institution where poverty was considered honourable and destitution not an offence or even perhaps a misfortune, where it was still remembered that we are all brethren, and that Christ, too, had not where to lay His head. All of which seems nothing less than marvellous to-day. CHAPTER XXI SELBORNE I set out from Winchester early one June morning by Jewry Street, as it were out of the old North Gate to follow, perhaps, the oldest road in old England towards Alton, intending to reach Selborne more than twenty miles away eastward on the tumble of hills where the North Downs meet the South, before night. I say the road by which I went out of Winchester and followed for so many miles, through King's Worthy and Martyr Worthy, Itchen Abbas, New Alresford and Bishops Sutton, is perhaps the oldest in England; in fact it is the old British trackway from the ports of the Straights and Canterbury to Winchester and Old Sarum, the western end, indeed, of the way I had already followed from Canterbury to Boughton Aluph up the valley of the Great Stour, known to us all as the Pilgrim's Way. For though it is older than any written history, it was preserved from neglect and death when the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were making all new, here as elsewhere, by the pilgrims, who, coming from Western England, from Brittany and Spain to visit St Thomas' shrine, used it as their road across Southern England from Winchester to Canterbury. Now, though for any man who follows that road to-day it is filled with these great companies of pilgrims, there are older memories, too, which it evokes and which, if the history of England is precious to him, he cannot ignore. To begin with the exit from Winchester: there in Jewry Street a Roman road overlies the older British way, not indeed exactly, but roughly, certainly as far as King's Worthy, whence it still shoots forth straight as an arrow's flight over hill over dale to Silchester. The very street by which he leaves the city, as it were, by the now destroyed North Gate, is Roman, one of the four roads which met in the Forum of Venta Belgarum and divided Roman Winchester into four quarters, though, perhaps because of the marshes of the Itchen, not into four equal parts as in Chichester. The present name of this road, Jewry Street, indicates its character all through the Middle Ages, when here by the North Gate, upon the road to London, the Jews had their booths, and the quarter of Winchester which this road served was doubtless their ghetto, the richest quarter of the city. It was not, however, of the Middle Age, but of the Dark Age I thought as I issued out of Winchester where, not much more than a hundred years ago, the old North Gate still held the way. In the year 1001, after the battle of Alton, in which the men of Hampshire were utterly broken by Sweyn and his Danes, this road was filled with the routed Saxons in flight pouring into the city of Winchester. The record of that appalling business is very brief in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," a few lines under the date 1001. "A. 1001. In this year was much fighting in the land of the English, and well nigh everywhere they (the Danes) ravaged and burned so that they advanced on one course until they came to the town of Alton; and then there came against them the men of Hampshire and fought against them. And there was Ethelward the King's high-steward slain, and Leofric at Whitchurch and Leofwin the King's high-steward and Wulfhere the bishop's thane, and Godwin at Worthy, Bishop Elfry's son, and of all men one hundred and eighty; and there were of the Danish men many more slain, though they had possession of the place of slaughter." A mere plundering expedition, we may think, but it foretold with certainty the rule of the Danes in England, which as we know came to pass, and was not the catastrophe it might have been, because of the victory of Alfred at Ethandune, a century and a half before, when he had made Guthrum and his host Christians. Till the year 1788 Alfred's bones lay beside this very gate through which the beaten Saxons poured into his city in 1001. For though Hyde Abbey was destroyed at the Reformation his bones seem to have been forgotten, to be discovered in the end of the eighteenth century in their great leaden coffin and sold, I know not to whom, for the sum of two pounds. I considered these unfortunate and shameful things as I went on along this British, Roman, Saxon and English way, the way of armies and of pilgrims into Headbourne Worthy, whose church stands by the roadside on the north. This little church dedicated in honour of St Swithin is all of a piece with the road, and illustrates it very well. Its beauty alone would recommend it to the wayfarer, but it also possesses an antiquity so great that nothing left to us in Winchester itself can match it. For in plan, and largely in masonry too, it is a Saxon sanctuary, though a late one, dating as it would seem from the early part of the eleventh century. What we see is a beautiful little building consisting of nave with curious western chamber, chancel, south-western tower and modern south porch. The original church probably did not differ very much in plan from that we have, but only the north and west walls of the nave of the original building remain to us; the latter having the original doorway of Binstead stone. The south wall of the nave and the tower were rebuilt in the thirteenth century, as was the chancel, which is now a modern building so far as its north and eastern walls are concerned. In the late fifteenth century the western chamber was added to the nave as in our own day the south porch. The best treasure of the church is, however, the great spoilt Rood, with figures of our Lady and St John, upon the outside of the west wall of the Saxon nave, to preserve which, in the fifteenth century, the western chamber was built. The western chamber was originally in two stages, the lower acting as a porch to the church, the upper as a chapel with an altar under the Saxon rood. It is needless to say that the Reformers, Bishop Horne of Winchester it is said, the accursed miscreant who ordered the destruction of all crucifixes in his diocese, defaced this glorious work of art and religion, cutting the relief away to the face of the wall so that only the outline remains. Nevertheless it is still one of the most imposing and notable things left to us in southern England. Headbourne Worthy, granted to Mortimer after the Conquest, was the most important of the three little places grouped here in a bunch which bear that name. King's Worthy, where the road first turns eastward and where the church, curiously enough, stands to the south of the way, [Footnote: According to Mr Belloc (_The Old Road_) this modern road does not exactly represent the route of the Pilgrim's Way which ran to the south of King's Worthy church] was but a hamlet and of Martyr Worthy, Domesday knows nothing. Little that is notable remains to us in either place, only the charming fifteenth century tower of King's Worthy church and a fourteenth century font therein. Much the same must be said of Itchen Abbas, Itchen A Bas, where the road falls to the river, the small Norman church there having been both rebuilt and enlarged in or about 1863, while an even worse fate has befallen the church of Itchen Stoke, two miles further on, for it has disappeared altogether. Nor I fear can much be said for the church of New Alresford or the town either, for apparently, owing to a series of fires, it has nothing to show us but a seventeenth century tower, a poor example of the building of that time, the base of which may be Saxon, while the windows seem to be of the thirteenth century. New Alresford would seem only to have come into existence as a town in the end of the twelfth century, when it was re-established by Bishop Godfrey de Lucy (1189-1204). The old road did not pass through it as the modern road does; for as Mr Belloc seems to have proved the Pilgrim's Way, which descended to the river at Itchen A Bas as we have seen, crossed the ford at Itchen Stoke, Itchen Stakes that is, and proceeded east by south where the workhouse now stands, coming into the modern road again at Bishop Sutton. But though the Pilgrim's Way knew it not, New Alresford is of high antiquity. Local tradition has it that it owes its existence, as distinct from Old Alresford, "to a defeat inflicted by the Saxons on a party of Danes near the village of West Tisted about five miles (south) east of Alresford. The Saxons granted quarter to the defeated enemy on condition that they went to the ford over the River Alre [Footnote: It is curious that Guthrum was baptised at Aller and then his Danes in the Alre] to be baptised. In commemoration of the victory a statue of the Virgin was then erected in the churchyard of Old Alresford." [Footnote: V.C.H., Hampshire, vol. 3, p. 350.] Local tradition cannot, at any time, be put lightly aside, and when as here it preserves for us one of the great truths of the early history of modern Europe we should rejoice indeed. For here we have the obvious reality of the eighth century when Europe, slowly recovering itself and beginning to realise itself as Christendom, was everywhere attacked by hordes of pagans. The work of Charlemagne, of Offa and of Alfred was not merely the conquest of the barbarians, but really since they could not be wholly destroyed, their conversion, and thus alone could Christendom be certainly preserved. So after Ethandune Guthrum must be christened at Aller, and after the fight here on the Alre the defeated heathen must be christened at the ford. Since New Alresford has preserved for us a memory of this fundamental act we can easily forgive her lack of material antiquity. The little village thus founded, certainly still existed in the time of the Conquest, and such it would always have remained but for Godfrey de Lucy, Bishop of Winchester, who, among his many achievements, numbers this chiefly that he made the Itchen navigable not only from Southampton to Winchester but here also in its headwaters, and this by means of the great reservoir, known as Alresford Pond, into which he gathered the waters of many streams to supply his navigation. In return, King John not only gave him the royalty of the river, but a weekly market here for which he rebuilt the place and called it New Market a name which was soon lost, the people preferring their old name New Alresford. So the market town of New Alresford came into existence, and, but for the unfortunate fires of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, would bear upon its face the marks it now lacks of antiquity. Bishop Godfrey de Lucy was constantly in residence at Bishop Sutton in the palace there. The road passes through this delightful village a mile or more to the east of New Alresford and something remains, the ruins of the kennels it is said, of the palace. This was doubtless "the manour-house ... a verie olde house somtyme walled round aboutte with stone now decaied well waterid with an olde ponde or moote adjoyning to it," of which we hear in the time of Edward VI. It seems to have been destroyed in the Civil war, but even in 1839 much remained of it. "Within the memory of many persons now living," writes Mr Duthy in 1839, "considerable vestiges of a strong and extensive building stood in the meadows to the north of the church, which were the dilapidated remains of an ancient palace of the Bishops of Winchester. The walls were of great thickness and composed of flints and mortar, but it was impossible to trace the disposition of the apartments or the form of the edifice." Bishop Sutton had belonged to the church of Winchester since King Ine's day, but in the early part of the eleventh century it was held by Harold, and after the Conquest by Eustace of Boulogne. Bishop Henry de Blois regained it for the church by exchange, in whose possession it has remained but for a few brief intervals in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in one of which John Evelyn bought it, until to-day. It is probably to this fact we owe the beauty and preservation of the church here, with its fine twelfth century nave, not fundamentally altered, and its chancel still largely of the thirteenth century. Especially notable are the two Norman doorways in the nave and curious supports of the belfry there, four naked and massive posts. [Illustration: SELBORNE FROM THE HANGER] Bishop Sutton was the last place I was to see upon the old road, for a mile beyond that village I left it where it turned northward, to go east into Ripley and so by the byways to climb into the hills, and crossing them to descend steeply at evening into the village of Selborne by the Oakhanger stream just before it enters that narrow brief pass into the Weald. There in the twilight I stayed for awhile under the yew tree in the churchyard to think of the writer, for love of whom I had made this journey all the way from Winchester. "In the churchyard of this village," writes Gilbert White in "The Antiquities of Selborne," "is a yew-tree whose aspect bespeaks it to be of great age; it seems to have seen several centuries and is probably co-eval with the church, and therefore may be deemed an antiquity; the body is squat, short and thick, and measures twenty-three feet in the girth, supporting a head of suitable extent to its bulk. This is a male tree, which in the spring sheds clouds of dust and fills the atmosphere around with its farina.... Antiquaries seem much at a loss to determine at what period this tree first obtained a place in churchyards. A statute was passed A.D. 1307 and 35 Edward I., the title of which is "Ne rector arbores in cemeterio prosternat." Now if it is recollected that we seldom see any other very large or ancient tree in a churchyard but yews, this statute must have principally related to this species of tree; and consequently their being planted in churchyards is of much more ancient date than the year 1307. As to the use of these trees, possibly the more respectable parishioners were buried under their shade before the improper custom was introduced of burying within the body of the church where the living are to assemble. Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, was buried under an oak--the most honourable place of interment --probably next to the cave of Machpelah, which seems to have been appropriated to the remains of the patriarchal family alone. The further use of yew trees might be as a screen to churches, by their thick foliage, from the violence of winds; perhaps also for the purpose of archery, the best long bows being made of that material, and we do not hear that they are planted in the churchyards of other parts of Europe, where long bows were not so much in use. They might also be placed as a shelter to the congregation assembling before the church doors were opened, and as an emblem of mortality by their funeral appearance. In the south of England every churchyard almost has its tree and some two; but in the north we understand few are to be found." Even in that passage, full as it is of all the quietness of the English countryside, something of the secret of Gilbert White, his ever living incommunicable charm may be found: his extraordinary and gentle gift of becoming, as it were, one with the things of which he writes, his wonderfully sympathetic approach to us, his so simple and so consummate manner. The man might stand in his writings for the countryside of England, incarnate and articulate. He not only leads you ever out of doors, but he is just that, the very spirit of the open air, the out- of-doors of a country where alone in Europe one can be in the lanes, in the meadows, on the hills under the low soft sky with delight every day of the year. He teaches, as Nature herself teaches; we seem to move in his books as though they were the fields and the woods, and there the flowers blow and the birds sing. It is not so much that his observation is extraordinarily wide and accurate, but that we see with his eyes, hear with his ears, and the phenomena, beautiful or wonderful, which he describes, we experience too, and because of him with something of his love, his interest and carefulness. What other book ever written upon Natural History can we read, who are not Naturalists, over and over and over again, and for its own sake, not for the myriad facts he gathered through a long lifetime, the acute observation and record of which have won him the homage of his fellow scientists, but for the pure human and literary pleasure we find there, a pleasure the like of which is to be found nowhere else in such books in the same satisfying quantity, and at all, only because of him. And so on the next morning the first place I went to see was The Wakes, the house where this great and dear lover of England of my heart lived, dying there in 1793, to lie in his own churchyard, his grave marked by a simple headstone bearing his initials "G.W." and the date. In the church is a tablet to him and his brother Benjamin, who has also placed there in memory of him the seventeenth century German triptych over the altar. But he needs no memorial from our hands; all he loved, Selborne itself in all its beauty, the exquisite country round it, the hills, the valleys, the woods and the streams are his monument, the very birds in their songs remind us of him, and there is not a walk that is not the lovelier because he has passed by. Do you climb up through the Hanger and admire the beeches there? It is he who has told us what to expect, loving the beech like a father, "the most lovely of all forest trees whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage or graceful pendulous boughs." Do you linger in the Plestor? It is he who tells you of the old oak that stood there, and was blown down in 1703 "to the infinite regret of the inhabitants and the vicar who bestowed several pounds in setting it in its place again; but all this care could not avail; the tree sprouted for a time then withered and died." Or who can pass by Long Lythe without remembering that it was a favourite with him too. For he loved this place so well, that as Jacob waited for Rachel so he for Selborne. He had been born there, where his grandfather being then vicar, aged seventy-two years and eleven months, he was to die in 1720. He went to school at Farnham and Basingstoke, and then in 1739 to Oriel College, Oxford, where in 1744 he was elected to a Fellowship. Presently benefice after benefice was offered him but he refused them all, having made up his mind to live and die at Selborne. Selborne must then have been a very secluded place, the nearest town, Alton, often inaccessible in winter one may think, judging from the description Gilbert White gives of the "rocky hollow lane" that led thither, but it is perhaps to this very fact that we owe more than a few of those immortal pages ever living and ever new. Since he was cut off from men he was able to give himself wholly to nature. He is less a part of the mere England of his day than any man of that time; he belonged only to England of my heart. Yet the events of his time, though they touched him so little, were neither few nor unimportant. The year of his birth was the year of the South Sea Bubble. When he was a year old the great Duke of Marlborough died. His eighth birthday fell in the year which closed the eyes of Sir Isaac Newton. He was twenty-five in the "forty-five," when Prince Charles Edward held Edinburgh after Preston Pans. He saw the change in the calendar, the conquest of India by Clive, the victory and death of Wolfe at Quebec the annexation of Canada, the death of Chatham, the loss of the American Colonies, the French Revolution. And how little all this meant to him! But anything connected with Selborne interested him, and he wrote of and studied its "antiquities" as well as its "natural history." Nor were these antiquities so negligible as one might think. In his day the church was still an interesting building, and he has left us an interesting account of it. But he does not forget to tell us, too, of the Augustinian Priory of Selborne, that was founded in 1233 and stood to the east of the village, the way to it lying through his beloved Long Lythe, and the site of which is now occupied by Priory Farm, a few ruins remaining. Nothing, indeed, that concerned his beloved village was to him ungrateful. It is, without doubt, this careful love of his for the things that were his own, at his door, common things if you will, common only in England of my heart, that has endeared him to innumerable readers, many of whom have never set foot upon our shores and would only not be utter strangers here if they did, because of him. Such at least is the only explanation I can give of his immortality, his constant appeal to all sorts and conditions of men. Day by day as I wandered through the lanes and the woods that he had loved with so wonderful and unconscious an affection, in a repose that we have lost and a quietness we can only envy him, I tried to discover, I tried to make clear to myself, what it really is that on a dull evening at home, in a sleepless night in London, or in the long winter evenings anywhere, draws me back again and again to that curious book. But even there in Selborne the secret was hidden from me. In truth one might as well inquire of the birds why they delight us, or of the flowers why we love them so; for in some way I cannot understand Gilbert White was gently at one with these and spoke of them sweetly like a lover and a friend having a gift from God by which he makes us partakers of his pleasure. And so spring drew to a close as I lingered in Selborne, for I could not drag myself away. And when, at last, I determined to set out, the Feast of St John was already at hand, so that I made haste once more across the hills for Winchester on my way to Old Sarum and Stonehenge, where I would see the sunrise on midsummer morning. 
22718	----	CATHEDRALS AND CLOISTERS OF THE SOUTH OF FRANCE [Illustration: _Rodez._ "Sheer and straight the pillars rise, ... and arch after arch is lost on the shadows of the narrow vaulting of the side-aisle."] CATHEDRALS _and_ CLOISTERS OF THE SOUTH OF FRANCE BY ELISE WHITLOCK ROSE WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS BY VIDA HUNT FRANCIS _IN TWO VOLUMES_ _VOLUME I._ G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON The Knickerbocker Press 1906 Copyright, 1906 by G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS PREFACE. For years the makers of this book have spent the summer time in wandering about the French country; led here by the fame of some old monument, or there by an incident of history. They have found the real, unspoiled France, often unexplored by any except the French themselves, and practically unknown to foreigners, even to the ubiquitous maker of guide-books. For weeks together they have travelled without meeting an English-speaking person. It is, therefore, not surprising that they were unable to find, in any convenient form in English, a book telling of the Cathedrals of the South which was at once accurate and complete. For the Cathedrals of that country are monuments not only of architecture and its history, but of the history of peoples, the psychology of the christianising and unifying of the barbarian and the Gallo-Roman, and many things besides, epitomised perhaps in the old words, "the struggle between the world, the flesh, and the devil." In French, works on Cathedrals are numerous and exhaustive; but either so voluminous as to be unpractical except for the specialist--as the volumes of Viollet-le-Duc,--or so technical as to make each Cathedral seem one in an endless, monotonous procession, differing from the others only in size, style, and age. This is distinctly unfair to these old churches which have personalities and idiosyncrasies as real as those of individuals. It has been the aim of the makers of this book to introduce, in photograph and in story,--not critically or exhaustively, but suggestively and accurately,--the Cathedral of the Mediterranean provinces as it exists to-day with its peculiar characteristics of architecture and history. They have described only churches which they have seen, they have verified every fact and date where such verification was possible, and have depended on local tradition only where that was all which remained to tell of the past; and they will feel abundantly repaid for travel, research, and patient exploration of towers, crypts, and archives if the leisurely traveller on pleasure bent shall find in these volumes but a hint of the interest and fascination which the glorious architecture, the history, and the unmatched climate of the Southland can awaken. For unfailing courtesy and untiring interest, for free access to private as well as to ecclesiastical libraries, for permission to photograph and copy, for unbounding hospitality and the retelling of many an old legend, their most grateful thanks are due to the Catholic clergy, from Archbishop to Curé and Vicar. For rare old bits of information, for historical verification, and for infinite pains in accuracy of printed matter, they owe warm thanks to Mrs. Wilbur Rose, to Miss Frances Kyle, and to Mrs. William H. Shelmire, Jr. For criticism and training in the art of photographing they owe no less grateful acknowledgment to Mr. John G. Bullock and Mr. Charles R. Pancoast. E. W. R. V. H. F. CONTENTS. PAGE THE SOUTH OF FRANCE I. THE SOUTH OF FRANCE 3 II. ARCHITECTURE IN PROVENCE, LANGUEDOC, AND GASCONY 29 PROVENCE I. THE CATHEDRALS OF THE SEA 55 Marseilles--Toulon--Fréjus--Antibes--Nice II. CATHEDRALS OF THE HILL-TOWNS 72 Carpentras--Digne--Forcalquier--Vence--Grasse III. RIVER-SIDE CATHEDRALS 101 Avignon--Vaison--Arles--Entrevaux--Sisteron IV. CATHEDRALS OF THE VALLEYS 178 Orange--Cavaillon--Apt--Riez--Senez--Aix LANGUEDOC I. CATHEDRALS OF THE CITIES 237 Nîmes--Montpellier--Béziers--Narbonne--Perpignan-- Carcassonne--Castres--Toulouse--Montauban Illustrations Page RODEZ _Frontispiece_ "Sheer and straight the pillars rise, ... and arch after arch is lost on the shadows of the narrow vaulting of the side-aisle." "CARCASSONNE, THE INVULNERABLE" 5 "THE TOWER OF AN EARLY MARITIME CATHEDRAL"--_Agde_ 10 "A NAVE OF THE EARLIER STYLE"--_Arles_ 15 "A NAVE OF THE LATER STYLE"--_Rodez_ 19 "THE DELICATE CHOIR OF SAINT-NAZAIRE"--_Carcassonne_ 23 "A CLOISTER OF THE SOUTH"--_Elne_ 27 "A ROMANESQUE AISLE"--_Arles_ 31 "THE SCULPTURED PORTALS OF SAINT-TROPHIME"--_Arles_ 33 "A GOTHIC AISLE"--_Mende_ 35 "CORRESPONDING DIFFERENCES IN STYLE"--_Carcassonne_ 39 "FORTIFIED GOTHIC BUILT IN BRICK"--_Albi_ 43 "A CHURCH FORTRESS"--_Maguelonne_ 45 "STATELY GOTHIC SPLENDOUR"--_Condom_ 47 ENTREVAUX 52 "People gather around the mail-coach as it makes its daily halt before the drawbridge." "THE NEW CATHEDRAL"--_Marseilles_ 57 "THE DESECRATION OF THE LITTLE CLOISTER"--_Fréjus_ 65 "THE MILITARY OMEN--THE TOWER"--_Antibes_ 70 "THE INTERIOR OF NOTRE-DAME-DU-BOURG"--_Digne_ 77 "THE INTERIOR HAS NEITHER CLERESTORY NOR TRIFORIUM"--_Digne_ 81 "A LARGE SQUARE TOWER SERVED AS A LOOKOUT"--_Forcalquier_ 86 "A SUGGESTIVE VIEW FROM THE SIDE-AISLE"--_Forcalquier_ 87 "THE OLD ROUND ARCH OF THE BISHOP'S PALACE"--_Vence_ 92 "THE LOW, BROAD ARCHES, AND THE GREAT SUPPORTING PILLARS"--_Vence_ 93 "HIGHER THAN THEM ALL STANDS THE CATHEDRAL"--_Grasse_ 97 "THE PONT D'AVIGNON" 99 "THE INTERIOR HAS A SHALLOW, GRACEFULLY BALUSTRADED BALCONY"--_Avignon_ 103 "THE PORCH, SO CLASSIC IN DETAIL"--AVIGNON 107 From an old print "NOTRE-DAME-DES-DOMS"--_Avignon_ 111 "THE TOWER OF PHILIP THE FAIR"--_Villeneuve-les-Avignon_ 114 "THE GREAT PALACE"--_Avignon_ 119 "ON THE BANKS OF A PLEASANT LITTLE RIVER IS VAISON" 123 "THE RUINED CASTLE OF THE COUNTS OF TOULOUSE"--_Vaison_ 125 "THE WHOLE APSE-END"--_Vaison_ 127 "THE SOUTH WALL, WHICH IS CLEARLY SEEN FROM THE ROAD"--_Vaison_ 129 "TWO BAYS OPEN TO THE GROUND"--_Vaison_ 131 "THE GREAT PIERS AND SMALL FIRM COLUMNS"--_Vaison_ 133 "IN THE MIDST OF THE WEALTH OF ANTIQUE RUINS"--_Arles_ 135 "THE FAÇADE OF SAINT-TROPHIME"--_Arles_ 137 "RIGHT DETAIL--THE PORTAL"--_Arles_ 141 "LEFT DETAIL--THE PORTAL"--_Arles_ 145 "THROUGH THE CLOISTER ARCHES"--_Arles_ 147 "A NAVE OF GREAT AND SLENDER HEIGHT"--_Arles_ 149 "THE BEAUTY OF THE WHOLE"--_Arles_ 151 "THE GOTHIC WALK"--Cloister--_Arles_ 153 "THIS INTERIOR"--_Entrevaux_ 156 "THE ROMANESQUE WALK"--Cloister--_Arles_ 157 "ONE OF THE THREE SMALL DRAWBRIDGES"--_Entrevaux_ 159 "THE PORTCULLIS"--_Entrevaux_ 160 "A FORT THAT PERCHES ON A SHARP PEAK"--_Entrevaux_ 161 "A TRUE 'PLACE D'ARMES'"--_Entrevaux_ 163 "THE LONG LINE OF WALLS THAT ZIGZAG DOWN THE HILLSIDE"--_Entrevaux_ 165 "THE CHURCH TOWER STOOD OUT AGAINST THE ROCKY PEAK"--_Entrevaux_ 169 "THE CATHEDRAL IS NEAR THE HEAVY ROUND TOWERS OF THE OUTER RAMPARTS"--_Sisteron_ 172 "THE BRIDGE ACROSS THE DURANCE"--_Sisteron_ 173 "ENTRANCES TO TWO NARROW STREETS"--_Sisteron_ 176 "IT WAS A LOW-VAULTED, SOMBRE LITTLE CLOISTER"--_Cavaillon_ 182 "THE CATHEDRAL'S TOWER AND TURRET"--_Cavaillon_ 187 "THE MAIN BODY OF THE CHURCH"--_Apt_ 191 "THE VIRGIN AND SAINT ANNE--BY BENZONI"--_Apt_ 194 "SAINT-MARTIN-DE-BRÔMES WITH ITS HIGH SLIM TOWER" 197 "THE FORTIFIED MONASTERY OF THE TEMPLARS"--_near Gréoux_ 199 "THE TOWER OF NOTRE-DAME-DU-SIÈGE"--_Riez_ 201 "NOTHING COULD BE MORE QUAINTLY OLD AND MODEST THAN THE BAPTISTERY"--_Riez_ 202 "BETWEEN THE COLUMNS AN ALTAR HAS BEEN PLACED"--Baptistery, _Riez_ 203 "THE BEAUTIFUL GRANITE COLUMNS"--_Riez_ 207 "THE MAIL-COACH OF SENEZ" 211 "THE OPEN SQUARE"--_Senez_ 213 "THE PALACE OF ITS PRELATES"--_Senez_ 214 "THE CATHEDRAL"--_Senez_ 215 "THE CATHEDRAL"--_Senez_ 218 "TAPESTRIES BEAUTIFY THE CHOIR-WALLS"--_Senez_ 219 "BETWEEN BRANCHES FULL OF APPLE-BLOSSOMS--THE CHURCH AS THE CURÉ SAW IT"--_Senez_ 221 "THE SOUTH AISLE"--_Aix_ 224 "THE ROMANESQUE PORTAL"--_Aix_ 225 "THE CLOISTER"--_Aix_ 227 "THE CATHEDRAL"--_Aix_ 231 "AN AMPHITHEATRE WHICH RIVALS THE ART OF THE COLISEUM"--_Nîmes_ 238 "THE GENERAL EFFECT IS SOMEWHAT THAT OF A PORT-COCHÈRE"--_Montpellier_ 244 "THE FINEST VIEW IS THAT OF THE APSE"--_Montpellier_ 245 "THE CLOCK TOWER IS VERY SQUARE AND THICK"--_Béziers_ 248 "THE QUAINT AND PRETTY FOUNTAIN"--_Béziers_ 250 "THE DOOR OF THE CLOISTER"--_Narbonne_ 255 "THIS IS A PLACE OF DESERTED SOLITUDE"--_Narbonne_ 257 "THESE FLYING-BUTTRESSES GIVE TO THE EXTERIOR ITS MOST CURIOUS AND BEAUTIFUL EFFECT"--_Narbonne_ 261 "ALL THE OLD BUILDINGS OF THE CITY ARE OF SPANISH ORIGIN"--_Perpignan_ 265 "THE UNFINISHED FAÇADE"--_Perpignan_ 267 "THE STONY STREET OF THE HILLSIDE"--_Carcassonne_ 269 "THE ANCIENT CROSS"--_Carcassonne_ 272 "OFTEN TOO LITTLE TIME IS SPENT UPON THE NAVE"--_Carcassonne_ 275 "THE CHOIR IS OF THE XIV CENTURY"--_Carcassonne_ 279 "THE FAÇADE, STRAIGHT AND MASSIVE"--_Carcassonne_ 281 "PERSPECTIVE OF THE ROMANESQUE"--_Carcassonne_ 283 "THE NAVE OF THE XIII CENTURY IS AN AISLE-LESS CHAMBER, LOW AND BROADLY ARCHED"--_Toulouse_ 291 "THE PRESENT CATHEDRAL IS A COMBINATION OF STYLES"--_Toulouse_ 294 LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED. BAYET. _Précis de l'Histoire de l'Art._ BODLEY. _France._ BOURG. _Viviers, ses Monuments et son Histoire._ CHOISY. _Histoire de l'Architecture._ COUGNY. _L'Art au Moyen Age._ COOK. _Old Provence._ CORROYER. _L'Architecture romane._ " _L'Architecture gothique._ COX. _The Crusades._ DARCEL. _Le Mouvement archéologique relatif au Moyen Age._ DE LAHONDÈS. _L'Église Saint-Etienne, Cathédrale de Toulouse._ DEMPSTER. _Maritime Alps._ DUCÉRÉ. _Bayonne historique et pittoresque._ DURUY. _Histoire de France._ FERREE. _Articles on French Cathedrals appearing in the "Architectural Record._" GARDÈRE. _Saint-Pierre de Condom et ses Constructeurs._ GOULD. _In Troubadour Land._ GUIZOT. _Histoire de France._ " _Histoire de la Civilisation en France._ HALLAM. _The Middle Ages._ HARE. _South-eastern France._ " _South-western France._ _History of Joanna of Naples, Queen of Sicily_ (_published_ 1824). HUNNEWELL. _Historical Monuments of France._ JAMES. _A Little Tour through France._ _Le Moyen Age_ (_avec notice par Roger-Milès_). LARNED. _Churches and Castles of Mediæval France._ LASSERRE, L'ABBÉ. _Recherches historiques sur la Ville d'Alet et son ancien Diocèse._ LECHEVALLIER CHEVIGNARD. _Les Styles français._ MACGIBBON. _The Architecture of Provence and the Riviera._ MARLAVAGNE. _Histoire de la Cathédrale de Rodez._ MARTIN. _Histoire de France._ MASSON. _Louis IX and the XIII Century._ " _Francis I and the XVI Century._ MÉRIMÉE. _Études sur les Arts au Moyen Age._ MICHELET. _Histoire de France._ MICHELET AND MASSON. _Mediævalism in France._ _Monographie de la Cathédrale d'Albi._ MONTALEMBERT. _Les Moines d'Occident._ MILMAN. _History of Latin Christianity._ PALUSTRE. _L'Architecture de la Renaissance._ PASTOR. _Lives of the Popes._ PENNELL. _Play in Provence._ QUICHERAT. _Mélanges d'Archéologie au Moyen Age._ RENAN. _Études sur la Politique religieuse du Règne de Philippe le Bel._ RÉVOIL. _Architecture romane du Midi de la France._ ROSIERES. _Histoire de l'Architecture._ SCHNASSE. _Geschichte der bildenden Künste._ (_Volume III, etc._) SENTETZ. _Sainte-Marie d'Auch._ SORBETS. _Histoire d'Aire-sur-l'Adour._ SOULIÉ. _Interesting old novels whose scenes are laid in the South of France_:-- " "_Le Comte de Toulouse._" " "_Le Vicomte de Béziers._" " "_Le Château des Pyrénées_," _etc._ STEVENSON. _Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes._ TAINE. _The Ancient Regime._ " _Journeys through France._ " _Origins of Contemporary France._ " _Tour through the Pyrénées._ _'Twixt France and Spain._ VIOLLET-LE-DUC. _Histoire d'une Cathédrale et d'un Hôtel-de-Ville._ _Entretiens sur l'Architecture._ _Dictionnaire raisonné de l'Architecture française du XI^e au XVI^e siècle._ The South of France. I. THE SOUTH OF FRANCE. If it is only by an effort that we appreciate the valour of Columbus in the XV century, his secret doubts, his temerity, how much fainter is our conception of the heroism of the early Mediterranean navigators. Steam has destroyed for us the awful majesty of distance, and we can never realise the immensity of this "great Sea" to the ancients. To Virgil the adventures of the "pious Æneas" were truly heroic. The western shores of the Mediterranean were then the "end of the earth," and even during the first centuries of our own era, he who ventured outside the Straits of Gibraltar tempted either Providence or the Devil and was very properly punished by falling over the edge of the earth into everlasting destruction. "Why," asks a mediæval text-book of science, "is the sun so red in the evening?" And this convincing answer follows, "Because he looks down upon Hell." For centuries before the Christian era the South of France, with Spain, lay in the unknown west end of the Sea. Along its eastern shores lay civilisations hoary with age; Carthage, to the South, was moribund; Greece was living on the prestige of her glorious past; while Rome was becoming all-powerful. Legend tells that adventurous Phoenicians and Greeks discovered the French coasts, that Nîmes was founded by a Tyrian Hercules, and Marseilles, about 600 B.C., by a Phoenician trader who married a chief's daughter and settled at the mouth of the Rhone. But these early settlements were merely isolated towns, which were not interdependent;--scarcely more than trading posts. It was Rome who took southern Gaul unto herself, and after Roman fashion, built cities and towns and co-ordinated them into well-regulated provinces; and it is with Roman rule that the connected history of Gaul begins. From the outset we meet one basic fact, so difficult to realise when France is considered as one country, the essential difference between the North and the South. Cæsar found in the South a partial Roman civilisation ready for his organisation; and old, flourishing cities, like Narbonne, Aix, and Marseilles. In the North he found the people advanced no further than the tribal stage, and Paris--not even Paris in name--was a collection of mud huts, which, from its strategic position, he elevated into a camp. The two following centuries, the height of Roman dominion in France, accentuated these differences. The North was governed by the Romans, never assimilated nor civilised by them. The South eagerly absorbed all the culture of the Imperial City; her religions and her pleasures, her beautiful Temples and great Amphitheatres, finally her morals and effeminacy, till in the II century of our era, anyone living a life of luxurious gaiety was popularly said to have "set sail for Marseilles." To this day the South boasts that it was a very part of Rome, and Rome was not slow to recognise the claim. Gallic poets celebrated the glory of Augustus, a Gaul was the master of Quintilian, and Antoninus Pius, although born in the Imperial City, was by parentage a native of Nîmes. [Illustration: "CARCASSONNE, THE INVULNERABLE."] Not to the rude North, but to this society, so pagan, so pleasure-loving, came the first missionaries of the new Christian faith, to meet in the arenas of Gaul the fate of their fellow-believers in Rome, to hide in subterranean caves and crypts, to endure, to persist, and finally to conquer. In the III and IV centuries many of the great Bishoprics were founded, Avignon, Narbonne, Lyons, Arles, and Saint-Paul-trois Châteaux among others; but these same years brought political changes which seemed to threaten both Church and State. Roman power was waning. Tribes from across the Rhine were gathering, massing in northern Gaul, and its spirit was antagonistic to the contentment of the rich Mediterranean provinces. The tribes were brave, ruthless, and barbarous. Peace was galling to their uncontrollable restlessness. The Gallo-Romans were artistic, literary, idle, and luxurious. They fell, first to milder but heretical foes; then to the fierce but orthodox Frank; and the story of succeeding years was a chronicle of wars. Like a great swarm of locusts, the Saracens--conquerors from India to Spain--came upon the South. They took Narbonne, Nîmes, and even Carcassonne, the Invulnerable. They besieged Toulouse, and almost destroyed Bordeaux. Other cities, perhaps as great as these, were razed to the very earth and even their names are now forgotten. Europe was menaced; the South of France was all but destroyed. Again the Frank descended; and like a great wind blowing clouds from a stormy sky, Charles Martel swept back the Arabs and saved Christianity. Before 740, he had returned a third time to the South, not as a deliverer, but for pure love of conquest; and by dismantling Nîmes, destroying the maritime cities of Maguelonne and Agde, and taking the powerful strongholds of Arles and Marseilles, he paved the way for his great descendant who nominally united "all France." But Charlemagne's empire fell in pieces; and as Carlovingian had succeeded Merovingian, so in 987 Capetian displaced the weak descendants of the mighty head of the "Holy Roman Empire." The map changed with bewildering frequency; and in these changes, the nobles--more stable than their kings--grew to be the real lords of their several domains. History speaks of France from Clovis to the Revolution as a kingdom; but even later than the First Crusade the kingdom lay somewhere between Paris and Lyons; the Royal Domain, not France as we know it now. The Duchy of Aquitaine, the Duchy of Brittany, Burgundy, the Counties of Toulouse, Provence, Champagne, Normandy, and many smaller possessions, were as proudly separate in spirit as Norway and Sweden, and often as politically distinct as they from Denmark. In the midst of these times of turmoil the Church had steadily grown. Every change, however fatal to North or South, brought to her new strength. Confronted with cultured paganism in the first centuries, the blood of her martyrs made truly fruitful seed for her victories; and later, facing paganism of another, wilder race, she triumphed more peacefully in the one supreme conversion of Clovis; and the devotion and interest which from that day grew between Church and King, gradually made her the greatest power of the country. After the decline of Roman culture the Church was the one intellectual, almost peaceful, and totally irresistible force. The great lords scorned learning. An Abbot, quaintly voicing the Church's belief, said that "every letter writ on paper is a sword thrust in the devil's side." When there was cessation of war, the occupation of men, from Clovis' time throughout Mediævalism, was gone. They could not read; they could not write; the joy of hunting was, in time, exhausted. They were restless, lost. The justice meted out by the great lords was, too often, the right of might. But at the Council of Orléans, in 511, a church was declared an inviolable refuge, where the weak should be safe until their case could be calmly and righteously judged. The beneficent care of the Church cannot be overestimated. Between 500 and 700 she had eighty-three councils in Gaul, and scarcely one but brought a reform,--a real amelioration of hardships. Something of the general organisation of her great power in those rude times deserves more than the usual investigation. Even in its small place in the "Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France," it is an interesting bit of Church politics and psychology. The ecclesiastical tradition of France goes back to the very first years of the Christian era. Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, Martha, and Mary the Mother of James, are only a few of those intimately connected with Christ Himself, who are believed to have come into Gaul; and in their efforts to systematically and surely establish Christianity, to have founded the first French Bishoprics. This is tradition. But even the history of the II century tells of a venerable, martyred Bishop of Lyons, a disciple of that Polycarp who knew Saint John; and in the III century Gaul added no less than fourteen to the Sees she already had. Enthusiastic tradition aside, it is evident that the missionary ardour of the Gallic priests was intense; and the glory of their early victories belongs entirely to a branch of the Church known as "the Secular Clergy." [Illustration: THE TOWER OF AN EARLY MARITIME CATHEDRAL.--AGDE.] The other great branch, "the Religious Orders," were of later institution. From the oriental deserts of the Thebaid, where Saint Anthony had early practised the austerities of monkish life, Saint Martin drew his inspiration for the monasticism of the West. But it was not until the last of the IV century that he founded, near Poitiers, the first great monastery in France. The success of this form of pious life, if not altogether edifying, was immediate. Devotional excesses were less common in the temperate climate of France than under the exciting oriental sun, yet that most bizarre of Eastern fanatics, the "Pillar Saint," had at least one disciple in Gaul. He--the good Brother Wulfailich--began the life of sanctity by climbing a column near Trèves, and prepared himself to stand on it, barefooted, through winter and summer, till, presumably, angels should bear him triumphantly to heaven. But the West is not the East. And the good Bishops of the neighbourhood drew off, instead of waiting at the pillar, as an exalted emperor had humbly stood beneath that of Saint Simeon Stylites. Far from being awe-struck, they were scandalised; and they forced Wulfailich to descend from his eminence, and destroyed it. This is one of the first Gallic instances of the antagonisms between the "secular" and the "regular" branches of the reverend clergy. Within the French Church from early times, these two great forces were arrayed, marching toward the same great end,--but never marching together. It is claimed they were, and are, inimical. In theory, in ideal, nothing could be further from truth. They were in fact sometimes unfriendly; and more often than not mutually suspicious. For the great Abbot inevitably lived in a Bishop's See; and with human tempers beneath their churchly garb, Abbot and Bishop could not always agree. Now the Bishop was lord of the clergy, supreme in his diocese; but should he call to account the lowest friar of any monastery, my Lord Abbot replied that he was "answerable only to the Pope," and retired to his vexatious "imperium in imperio." The beginning of the VI century saw much that was irregular in monastic life. The whole country was either in a state of war or of unrestful expectation of war. Many Abbeys were yet to be established; many merely in process of foundation. Wandering brothers were naturally beset by the dangers and temptations of an unsettled life; and if history may be believed, fell into many irregularities and even shamed their cloth by licentiousness. Into this disorder came the great and holy Benedict, the "learnedly ignorant, the wisely unlearned," the true organiser of Western Monachism. Under his wise "Rules" the Abbey of the VI century was transformed. It became "not only a place of prayer and meditation, but a refuge against barbarism in all its forms. And this home of books and knowledge had departments of all kinds, and its dependencies formed what we would call to-day a 'model farm.' There were to be found examples of activity and industry for the workman, the common tiller of the soil, or the land-owner himself. It was a school," continues Thierry, "not of religion, but of practical knowledge; and when it is considered that there were two hundred and thirty-eight of such schools in Clovis' day, the power of the Orders, though late in coming, will be seen to have grown as great as that of the Bishops." From these two branches sprang all that is greatest in the ecclesiastical architecture of France. As their strength grew, their respective churches were built, and to-day, as a sign of their dual power, we have the Abbey and the Cathedral. The Bishop's church had its prototype in the first Christian meeting places in Rome and was planned from two basic ideas,--the part of the Roman house which was devoted to early Christian service, and the growing exigencies of the ritual itself. At the very first of the Christian era, converts met in any room, but these little groups so soon grew to communities that a larger place was needed and the "basilica" of the house became the general and accepted place of worship. The "basilica" was composed of a long hall, sometimes galleried, and a hemicycle; and its general outline was that of a letter T. Into this purely secular building, Christian ceremonials were introduced. The hemicycle became the apse; the gallery, a clerestory; the hall, a central nave. Here the paraphernalia of the new Church were installed. The altar stood in the apse; and between it and the nave, on either side, a pulpit or reading-desk was placed. Bishop and priests sat around the altar, the people in the nave. This disposition of clergy, people, and the furniture of the sacred office is essentially that of the Cathedral of to-day. There were however many amplifications of the first type. The basilica form, T, was enlarged to that of a cross; and increasingly beautiful architectural forms were evolved. Among the first was the tower of the early Italian churches. This single tower was doubled in the French Romanesque, often multiplied again by Gothic builders, and in Byzantine churches, increased to seven and even nine domes. Transepts were added, and as, one by one, the arts came to the knowledge of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, each was pressed into the service of the Cathedral builders. The interior became so beautiful with carvings, windows of marvellously painted glass, rich tapestries and frescoes, that the ritual seemed yearly more impressive and awe-inspiring. The old, squat exterior of early days was forgotten in new height and majesty, and the Cathedral became the dominant building of the city. Although the country was early christianised, and on the map of Merovingian France nearly all the present Cathedral cities of the Mediterranean were seats of Bishoprics, we cannot now see all the successive steps of the church architecture of the South. The main era of the buildings which have come down to us, is the XI-XIV centuries. Of earlier types and stages little is known, little remains. [Illustration: A NAVE OF THE EARLIER STYLE.--ARLES.] In general, Gallic churches are supposed to have been basilican, with all the poverty of the older style. Charlemagne's architects, with San Vitale in mind, gave a slight impetus in the far-away chapel at Aix-la-Chapelle, and Gregory of Tours tells us that Bishop Perpetuus built a "glorious" church at Tours. But his description is meagre. After a few mathematical details, he returns to things closer to his heart,--the Church's atmosphere of holiness, the emblematic radiance of the candle's light, the ecstasy of worshippers who seemed "to breathe the air of Paradise." And Saint Gregory's is the religious, uncritical spirit of his day, whose interest was in ecclesiastical establishment rather than ecclesiastical architecture. Churches there were in numbers; but they were not architectural achievements. Their building was like the planting of the flag; they were new outposts, signs of an advance of the Faith. With this missionary spirit in the Church, with priests still engaged in christianising and monks in establishing themselves on their domains, with a very general ignorance of art, with the absorbing interest of the powerful and great in warfare, and the very great struggle among the poor for existence, architecture before the X century had few students or protectors. France had neither sufficient political peace nor ecclesiastical wealth for elaborate church structures. No head, either of Church or State, had taste and time enough to inaugurate such works. Many causes have combined to destroy such churches as then existed. If they escaped the rasings and fires of a siege, they were often destroyed by lightning, or decayed by years; and some of the fragments which endured to the XIII century were torn down to make room for more beautiful buildings. It was the XI and XII centuries which saw the important beginnings of the great Cathedrals of both North and South. These were the years when religion was the dominant idea of the western world,--when everything, even warfare, was pressed into its service. Instead of devastating their own and their neighbour's country, Christian armies were devastating the Holy Land; doing to the Infidel in the name of their religion what he, in the name of his, had formerly done to them. The capture of Jerusalem had triumphantly ended the First Crusade; the Church was everywhere victorious, and the Pope in actual fact the mightiest monarch of the earth. These were the days when Peter the Hermit's cry, "God wills it," aroused the world, and aroused it to the most diverse accomplishments. One form of this activity was church building; but there were other causes than religion for the general magnificence of the effort. Among these was communal pride, the interesting, half-forgotten motive of much that is great in mediæval building. The Mediævalism of the old writers seems an endless pageant, in which indefinitely gorgeous armies "march up the hill and then march down again;" in newer histories this has disappeared in the long struggle of one class with another; and in neither do we reach the individual, nor see the daily life of the people who are the backbone of a nation. Yet these are the people we must know if we are to have a right conception of the Cathedral's place in the living interest of the Middle Ages. For the Bishop's church was in every sense a popular church. The Abbey was built primarily for its monks, and the Abbey-church for their meditation and worship. The French Cathedral was the people's, it was built by their money, not money from an Abbey-coffer. It did not stand, as the Cathedral of England, majestic and apart, in a scholarly close; it was in the open square of the city; markets and fairs were held about it; the doors to its calm and rest opened directly on the busiest, every-day bustle. It is not a mere architectural relic, as its building was never a mere architectural feat. It is the symbol of a past stage of life, a majestic part of the picture we conjure before our mind's eye, when we consider Mediævalism. [Illustration: A NAVE OF THE LATER STYLE.--RODEZ.] Such a picture of a city of another country and of the late Middle Ages exists in the drama of Richard Wagner's Meistersinger; and his Nuremberg of the XVI century, with changes of local colour, is the type of all mediæval towns. General travel was unknown. The activity of the great roads was the march of armies, the roving of marauders, the journeys of venturesome merchants or well-armed knights. Not only roads, but even streets were unsafe at night; and after the sun had set he who had gone about freely and carelessly during the day, remained at home or ventured out with much caution. When armies camped about her walls, the city was doubtless much occupied with outside happenings. But when the camp broke up and war was far away, her shoemaker made his shoes, her goldsmith, fine chains and trinkets, her merchants traded in the market-place. Their interests were in street brawls, romancings, new "privileges," the work or the feast of the day--in a word town-topics. Yet being as other men, the burghers also were awakened by the energy of the age, and instead of wasting it in adventures and wars, their interest took the form of an intense local pride, narrow, but with elements of grandeur, seldom selfish, but civic. This absence of the personal element is nowhere better illustrated than in Cathedral building. Of all the really great men who planned the Cathedrals of France, almost nothing is known; and by searching, little can be found out. Who can give a dead date, much less a living fact, concerning the life of that Gervais who conceived the great Gothic height of Narbonne? Who can tell even the name of him who planned the sombre, battlemented walls of Agde, or of that great man who first saw in poetic vision the delicate choir of Saint-Nazaire in Carcassonne? Artists have a well-preserved personality,--cathedral-builders, none. Robert of Luzarches who conceived the "Parthenon of all Gothic architecture," and the man who planned stately Sens and the richness of Canterbury, are as unknown to us as the quarries from which the stones of their Cathedrals were cut. It is not the Cathedral built by Robert of Luzarches belonging to Amiens, as it is the Assumption by Rubens belonging to Antwerp. It is scarcely the Cathedral of its patron, Saint Firmin. It is the Cathedral of Amiens. [Illustration: "THE DELICATE CHOIR OF SAINT-NAZAIRE."--CARCASSONNE.] We hear many learned disquisitions on the decay of the art of church building. Lack of time in our rushing age, lack of patience, decline of religious zeal, or change in belief, these are some of the popular reasons for this architectural degeneracy. Strange as it may seem none of these have had so powerful an influence as the invention of printing. The first printing-press was made in the middle of the XV century,--after the conception of the great Cathedrals. In an earlier age, when the greatest could neither read nor write and manuscripts even in monasteries were rare, sculpture and carving were the layman's books, and Cathedrals were not only places of worship, they were the people's religious libraries where literature was cut in stone. In the North, the most unique form of this literature was the drama of the Breton Calvaries, which portrayed one subject and one only,--the "Life and Passion of Christ," taken from Prophecy, Tradition, and the Gospels. Cathedrals, both North and South, used the narrative form. They told story after story; and their makers showed an intimate knowledge of Biblical lore that would do credit to the most ardent theological student. At Nîmes, by no means the richest church in carvings, there are besides the Last Judgment and the reward of the Evil and the Righteous,--which even a superficial Christian should know,--many of the stories of the Book of Genesis. At Arles, there is the Dream of Jacob, the Dream of Joseph, the Annunciation, the Nativity, Purification, Massacre of the Innocents, the Flight into Egypt; almost a Bible in stone. In these days of books and haste few would take the trouble to study such sculptured tales. But their importance to the unlettered people of the Middle Ages cannot be overestimated; and the incentive to magnificence of artistic conception was correspondingly great. The main era of Cathedral building is the same all over France. But with the general date, all arbitrary parallel between North and South abruptly ends. The North began the evolution of the Gothic, a new form indigenous to its soil; the South continued the Romanesque, her evolution of a transplanted style, and long knew no other. She had grown accustomed to give northward,--not to receive; and it was the reign of Saint Louis before she began to assimilate the architectural ideas of the Isle de France and to build in the Gothic style, it was admiration for the newer ideals which led the builders of the South to change such of their plans as were not already carried out, and to try with these foreign and beautiful additions, to give to their churches the most perfect form they could conceive. And thus, from a web of Fate, in which, as in all destinies, is the spinning of many threads, came the Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South. Are they greater than those of the North? Are they inferior to them? It is best said, "Comparison is idle." Who shall decide between the fir-trees and the olives--between the beautiful order of a northern forest and the strange, astounding luxuriance of the southern tangle? Which is the better choice--the well-told tale of the Cathedrals of the North, with their procession of kingly visitors, or the almost untold story of the Cathedrals of the South, where history is still legend, tradition, romance--the story of fanatic fervour and still more fanatic hate? [Illustration: A CLOISTER OF THE SOUTH.--ELNE.] II. ARCHITECTURE IN PROVENCE, LANGUEDOC, AND GASCONY. No better place can be found than the Mediterranean provinces to consider the origins of the earliest southern style. Here Romanesque Cathedrals arose in the midst of the vast ruins of Imperial antiquity, here they developed strange similarities to foreign styles, domes suggesting the East, Greek motives recalling Byzantium, and details reminiscent of Syria. And here is the battle-field for that great army who decry or who defend Roman influences. Some would have us believe that the Romanesque dome is expatriated from the East; others, that it is naturalised; others, that it is native. The plan of the Romanesque dome differs very much from that of the Byzantine, yet the general conception seems Eastern. If conceivable in the Oriental mind, why not in that of the West? And yet, in spite of some native peculiarities of structure, why should not the general idea have been imported? Who shall decide? In a book such as this, mooted questions which involve such multitudinous detail and such unprovable argument cannot be discussed. It is unreasonable to doubt, however, that Roman influences dominated the South, herself a product of Roman civilisation; and as in the curious ineradicable tendency of the South toward heresy we more than suspect a subtle infiltration of Greek and Oriental perversions, so in architecture it is logical to infer that Mediterranean traders, Crusaders, and perhaps adventurous architects who may have travelled in their wake, brought rumours of the buildings of the East, which were adopted with original or necessary modifications. Viollet-le-Duc, in summing up this much discussed question, has written that "in the Romanesque art of the West, side by side with persistent Latin traditions, a Byzantine influence is almost always found, evidenced by the introduction of the cupola." In the lamentable absence of records of the majority of Cathedrals, reasonings of origin must be inductive, and more or less imaginative, and have no legitimate place in the scope of a book which aims to describe the existing conditions and proven history of southern Cathedrals. [Illustration: A ROMANESQUE AISLE.--ARLES.] Quicherat, who has had much to say upon architectural subjects, defines the Romanesque as an art "which has ceased to be Roman, although it has much that is Roman, and that is not yet Gothic, although it already presages the Gothic." This is not a very helpful interpretation. Romanesque, as it exists in France to-day, is generally of earlier building than the Gothic; it is an older and far simpler style. It was not a quick, brilliant outburst, like the Gothic, but a long and slow evolution; and it has therefore deliberation and dignity, not the spontaneity of northern creations; strength, and at times great vigour, but not munificence, not the lavishness of art and wealth and adornment, of which the younger style was prodigal. Few generalisations are flawless, but it may be truly said that Romanesque Cathedrals are lacking in splendour; and it will be found in a large majority of cases that they are also without the impressiveness of great size; that they are almost devoid of shapely windows or stained glass, of notable carvings or richness of decorative detail. Their art is a simple art, a sober art, and in its nearest approach to opulence--the sculptured portals of Saint-Trophime of Arles or Saint-Gilles-de-Languedoc--there is still a reserved rather than an exuberant and uncontrolled display of wealth. [Illustration: "THE SCULPTURED PORTALS OF SAINT-TROPHIME."--ARLES.] By what simple, superficial sign can this architecture be recognised by those who are to see it for the first time? It exists "everywhere and always" in southern France; but, side by side with the encroachments and additions of other styles, how can it be easily distinguished? Quicherat writes that the principal characteristic of the Romanesque is "la voûte," and the great, rounded tunnel of the roofing is a distinction which will be found in no other form. But the easiest of superficial distinctions is the arch-shape, which in portal, window, vaulting or tympanum is round; wherever the arcaded form is used,--always round. With this suggestion of outline, and the universal principles of the style, simplicity and dignity and absence of great ornamentation, the untechnical traveller may distinguish the Romanesque of the South, and if he be akin to the traveller who tells these Cathedral tales, the interest and fascination which the old architecture awakes, will lead him to discover for himself the many differences which are evident between the ascetic strength of the one, and the splendour and brilliance of the other. [Sidenote: Provence.] [Illustration: A GOTHIC AISLE.--MENDE.] The three provinces which compose the South of France are Provence, Languedoc, and Gascony, and of these Provence is, architecturally and historically, the first to claim our interest. During the era of colonisation it was the most thoroughly romanised, and in the early centuries of Christianity the first to fall completely under the systematic organisation of the Church. It has a large group of very old Cathedrals, and is the best study-ground for a general scrutiny and appreciation of that style which the builders of the South assimilated and developed until, as it were, they naturalised it and made it one of the two greatest forms of architectural expression. Provence does not contain the most impressive examples of Romanesque. Two Abbeys of the far Norman North are more finished and harmonious representations of the art, and Languedoc, in the basilica of Saint-Sernin of Toulouse, has a nobler interior than any in the Midi, and many other churches of Languedoc and Gascony are most interesting examples of a style which belonged to them as truly as to Provence. Yet it is in this province that the Romanesque is best studied. For here the great internecine struggles--both political and religious--of the Middle Ages were not as devastating as in Languedoc and Gascony; Provence was a sunny land, where Sonnets flourished more luxuriantly than did Holy Inquisition. Her churches have therefore been preserved in their original form in greater numbers than those of the two other provinces. They are of all types of Romanesque, all stages of its growth, from the small and simple Cathedrals which were built when ecclesiastical exchequers were not overflowing, to the greater ones which illustrate very advanced and dignified phases of architectural development; and as a whole they exhibit the normal proportion of failure and success in an effort toward an ideal. [Sidenote: Languedoc.] Léon Renier, the learned lecturer of the Collège de France, says: "It is remarkable that the changes, the elaborations, the modifications of the architecture given by Rome to all countries under her domination were conceived in the provinces long before they were reproduced in Italy. Rome gave no longer; she received ... a transfusion of a new blood, more vital and more rich." In Languedoc, the greater number of monuments of this ancient architecture have been destroyed; and those of their outgrowth, the later Romanesque, were so repeatedly mutilated that the Cathedrals of this province present even a greater confusion of originalities, restorations, and additions than those of Provence. To a multitude of dates must be added corresponding differences in style. Each school of architecture naturally considered that it had somewhat of a monopoly of good taste and beauty, or at least that it was an improvement on the manner which preceded it; and it would have been too much to expect, in ages when anachronisms were unrecognised, that churches should have been restored in their consonant, original style. Architects of the Gothic period were unable to resist the temptation of continuing a Romanesque nave with a choir of their own school, and builders of the XVIII century went still further and added a showy Louis XV façade to a modest Romanesque Cathedral. Some churches, built in times of religious storm and stress, show the preoccupation of their patrons or the lack of talent of their constructors; others belong to Bishoprics that were much more lately constituted than the Sees of Provence, and in these cases the new prelate chose a church already begun or completed, and compromised with the demands of episcopal pomp by an addition, usually of different style. The numerous changes, political and religious, of the Mediævalism of Languedoc, had such considerable and diverse influence on the architecture of the province that it is not possible, as in Provence, to trace an uninterrupted evolution of one style. The Languedocian is generally a later builder than the Provençal; he is bolder. Having the Romanesque and the Gothic as choice, he chose at will and seemingly at random. He had spontaneity, enthusiasm, verve; and when no accepted model pleased his taste, he re-created after his own liking. Languedoc has therefore a delightful quality that is wanting in Provence; and in her greater Cathedrals there is often an originality that is due to genius rather than to eccentricity. There is delicate Gothic at Carcassonne, lofty Gothic at Narbonne, Sainte-Cécile of Albi is fortified Gothic built in brick. The interior of Saint-Sernin of Toulouse is an apotheosis of the austere Romanesque, and Saint-Etienne of Agde is a gratifying type of the Maritime Church of the Midi. [Illustration: "CORRESPONDING DIFFERENCES IN STYLE."--CARCASSONNE.] This Cathedral of the Sea is a fitting example of a peculiar type of architecture which exists also in Provence,--a succession of fortress-churches that extend along the Mediterranean from Spain to Italy like the peaks of a mountain chain. Nothing can better illustrate the continuous warrings and raidings in the South of France than these strange churches, and their many fortified counterparts inland, in both Languedoc and Gascony. Castles and walled towns were not sufficient to protect the Southerner from invasions and incursions; his churches and Cathedrals, even to the XIV century, were strongholds, more suitable for men-at-arms than for priests, and seemingly dedicated to some war-god rather than to the gentle Virgin Mother and the Martyr-Saints under whose protection they nominally dwelt. Although most interesting, the military church of the interior is seldom the Bishop's church. The maritime church on the contrary is nearly always a Cathedral, with strangely curious legends and episodes. The French coast of the Mediterranean was the scene of continuous pillage. Huns, Normans, Moors, Saracens, unknown pirates and free-booters of all nationalities found it very lucrative and convenient to descend on a sea-board town, and escape as they had come, easily, their boats loaded with booty. "As late as the XII century," writes Barr Ferree, "buccaneers gained a livelihood by preying on the peaceful and unoffending inhabitants of the villages and cities. The Cathedrals, as the most important buildings and the most conspicuous, were strongly fortified, both to protect their contents and to serve as strongholds for the citizens in case of need. In these churches, therefore, architecture assumed its most utilitarian form and buildings are real fortifications, with battlemented walls, strong and heavy towers, and small windows, and are provided with the other devices of Romanesque architecture of a purely military type." [Illustration: "FORTIFIED GOTHIC BUILT IN BRICK."--ALBI.] "Time has dealt hardly with them. The kingly power, being entrenched in Paris, developed from the Isle de France. The wealth that once enriched the fertile lands of the South moved northwards, and the great commercial cities of the North became the most important centres of activity. Then the southern towns began to decline," and the buildings which remain to represent most perfectly the "Church-Fortress" are not those of Provence, which are "patched" and "restored," but those of Languedoc, Agde, and Maguelonne, and Elne of the near-by country of Rousillon. [Illustration: "A CHURCH FORTRESS."--MAGUELONNE.] [Sidenote: Gascony.] Gascony, the last of the southern provinces and the farthest from Rome, had great prosperity under Imperial dominion. Many patricians emigrated there, roads were built, commerce flourished, and as in Provence and Languedoc, towns grew into large and well-established cities. Christianity made a comparatively early conquest of the province; and at the beginning of the IV century, eleven suffragan Bishoprics had been established under the Archbishopric of Eauze. Gascony has many old Cathedral cities, and has had many ancient Cathedrals; but after the fall of the Roman Empire in the V century, a series of wars began which destroyed not only the Christian architecture, but almost every trace of Roman wealth and culture. Little towers remain, supposed shrines of Mercury, protector of commerce and travel; pieces of statues are found; but the Temples, the Amphitheatres, the Forums, have disappeared, and even more completely, the rude Christian churches of that early period. Although the province has no Mediterranean coast and could not be molested by the marauders of that busy sea, it lay directly upon the route of armies between France and Spain; and it is no "gasconading" to say that it was for centuries one of the greatest battle-fields of the South. Vandals, Visigoths, Franks, Saracens, Normans,--Gascons against Carlovingians, North against South, all had burned, raided, and destroyed Gascony before the XI century. It is not surprising, then, that there are found fewer traces of antiquity here than in Provence and Languedoc. Even the few names of decimated cities which survived, designated towns on new sites. Eauze, formerly on the Gélise, lay long in ruins, and was finally re-built a kilometre inland. Lectoure and Auch had long since retired from the river Gers and taken refuge on the hills of their present situations, while other cities fell into complete ruin and forgetfulness. [Illustration: STATELY GOTHIC SPLENDOUR.--CONDOM.] The year 1000, which followed these events, was that of the predicted and expected end of the world. The extravagances of Christians at that time are well known, the gifts of all property that were made to the Church, the abandonment of worldly pursuits, the terrors of many, the anxiety of the calmest, the emotional excesses which led people to live in trees that they might be near to heaven when the "great trump" should sound,--"Mundi fine appropinquante." But the trumpet did not sound, and Raoul Glaber, a monk of the XI century, writes that all over Italy and the Gaul of his day there was great haste to restore and re-build churches, a general rivalry between towns and between countries, as to which could build most remarkably. "This activity," says Quicherat, "may show a desire to renew alliance with the Creator." It certainly proves that the generation of the year 1000 had fresh and new architectural ideas. This was the period of recuperation and re-building for Gascony. The monks of the VIII, IX, and X centuries had devoted themselves with zeal and success to the cultivation of the soil. They had acquired fertile fields, and desiring peace, they had placed themselves in positions where their strength would defend them when their holy calling was not respected. These monasteries were places of refuge and soon gave their name and their protection to the towns and villages which began to cluster about them. Except the declining settlements of Roman days, Gascony had few towns in the X century; and many of her most important cities of to-day owe their foundation, their existence, and their prosperity to these Benedictine monasteries. Eauze regained its life after the establishment of a convent, and in the XI, XII, and XIII centuries, the Abbots of Cîteaux, Bishops, and even lords of the laity, occupied themselves in the creation of new cities. Many of the towns of mediæval creation possessed broad municipal and commercial privileges, they grew to the importance of "communes" and Bishoprics, and some even styled themselves "Republics." Although these were times of much re-building, restoring, and carrying out of older plans of ecclesiastical architecture, the XI and XII centuries were none the less filled with innumerable private wars, and in 1167 began the bloody and persistent struggle with England. The city of Aire was at one time reduced to twelve inhabitants, and the horrors of the mediæval siege were more than once repeated. In these wars, Cathedrals, as well as towns and their inhabitants, were scarred and wounded. Hardly had these dissensions ended in 1494, when the Wars of Religion commenced under Charles IX, and Gascony was again one of the most terrible fields of battle. Here the demoniac enthusiasm of both sides exceeded even the terrible exhibitions of Languedoc. The royal family of Navarre was openly Protestant and contributed more than any others to the military organisations of their Faith. Jeanne d'Albret, in 1566, wishing to repay intolerance with intolerance, forbade religious processions and church funerals in Navarre. The people rose, and the next year the Queen was forced to grant toleration to both religions. Later the King of France entered the field and sent an army against the Béarnaise Huguenots, Jeanne, in reprisal, called to her aid Montmorency; and with a thoroughness born of pious zeal and hatred, each army began to burn and kill. All monasteries, all churches, were looted by the Protestants; all cities taken by Montluc, head of the Catholics, were sacked. Tarbes was devastated by the one, Rabestans by the other, and the Cathedral of Pamiers was ruined. With the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, in 1572, the struggle began again, and the League flourished in all its malign enthusiasm. "Such disorder as was introduced," says a writer of the period, "such pillage, has never been seen since war began. Officers, soldiers, followers, and volunteers were so overburdened with booty as to be incommoded thereby. And after this brigandage, the peasants hereabouts [Bigorre] abandoned their very farms from lack of cattle, and the greater number went into Spain." During long centuries of such religious and political devastation the architectural energy of Gascony was expended in replacing churches which had been destroyed, and were again to be destroyed or injured. It would be unfair to expect of this province the great magnificence which its brave, cheerful, and extravagant little people believe it "once possessed," or to look, amid such unrest, for the calm growth of any architectural style. It is a country of few Cathedrals, of curious churches built for war and prayer, and of such occasional outbursts of magnificence as is seen in the Romanesque portal of Saint-Pierre of Moissac and in the stately Gothic splendour of the Cathedrals at Condom and at Bayonne. It is a country where Cathedrals are surrounded by the most beautiful of landscapes, and where each has some legend or story of the English, the League, of the Black Prince, or the Lion-hearted, of Henry IV, still adored, or of Simon de Montfort, still execrated, where the towns are truly historic and the mountains truly grand. Provence. I. THE CATHEDRALS OF THE SEA. [Sidenote: Marseilles.] Perhaps a Phoenician settlement, certainly a Carthaginian mart, later a Grecian city, and in the final years of the pagan era possessed by the Romans, no city of France has had more diverse influences of antique civilisation than Marseilles, none responded more proudly to its ancient opportunities; and not only was it commercially wealthy and renowned, but so rich in schools that it was called "another, a new Athens." It was also the port of an adventurous people, who founded Nice, Antibes, la Ciotat, and Agde, and explored a part of Africa and Northern Europe; and at the fall of the Roman Empire it became, by very virtue of its riches and safe harbour, the envy and the prey of a succession of barbaric and "infidel" invaders. In the Middle Ages it had all the vicissitudes of wars and sieges to which a great city could be subjected. It had a Viscount, and from very early days, a Bishop; it was at one time part of the Kingdom of Arles; and later it recognised the suzerainty of the Counts of Provence. When these lords were warring or crusading, it took advantage of their absence or their troubles and governed itself through its Consuls; became a Provençal Republic after the type of the Italian cities and other towns of the Mediterranean country; treated with the Italian Republics on terms of perfect equality; and although finally annexed to France by the wily Louis of the Madonnas, its people were continually haunted by memories of their former independence, and not only struggled for municipal rights and liberties, but took sides for or against the most powerful monarchs of continental history as if they had been a resourceful country rather than a city. It succored the League, defied Henry IV and Richelieu; and treating Kings in trouble as cavalierly as declining Counts, Marseilles tried at the death of Henry III to secede from France and recover its autonomy under a Consul, Charles de Cazaulx. Promptly defeated, it still continued to think independently, and struggle, as best it might, for freedom of administration; and although from the time of Pompey to that of Louis XIV it has had an ineradicable tendency to stand against the government, it has survived the results of all its contumacies, its plagues, wars, and sieges, and the destructiveness of its phase of the Revolution, when it had a Terror of its own. Notwithstanding modern rivals in the Mediterranean, Marseilles is to-day one of the largest and most prosperous of French cities. Built in amphitheatre around the bay, it is beautiful in general view, its streets bustle with commercial activity, and its vast docks swarm with workmen. The storms of the past have gone over Marseilles as the storms of nature over its sea, have been as passionate, and have left as little trace. Instead of Temples, Forum, and Arena, there are the Palais de Longchamps, the Palais de Justice, and the Christian Arch of Triumph. Instead of the muddy and unhealthy alley-ways of Mediævalism, there are broad streets and wide boulevards, and in spite of its antiquity Marseilles is a city of to-day, in monuments, aspect, spirit, and even in class distinction. "Here," writes Edmond About, "are only two categories of people, those who have made a fortune and those who are trying to make one, and the principal inhabitants are parvenus in the most honourable sense of the word." [Illustration: _Entrevaux._ People gather around the mail-coach as it makes its daily halt before the drawbridge.] [Illustration: THE NEW CATHEDRAL.--MARSEILLES.] "In the most honourable sense of the word," the Cathedral of Marseilles is also typical of the city, "parvenue." Its first stone was placed by Prince Louis Napoleon in 1852, and as the modern has overgrown the classic and mediæval greatness of Marseilles, so the new "Majeure" has eclipsed, if it has not yet entirely replaced, the old Cathedral; and except the stern Abbey-church of Saint-Victor, an almost solitary relic of true mediæval greatness, it is the finest church of the city. The new Cathedral and the old stand side by side; the one strong and whole, the other partly torn down, scarred and maimed as a veteran who has survived many wars. Even in its ruin, it is an interesting type of the maritime Provençal church, but so pitiably overshadowed by its successor that the charm of its situation is quite lost, and few will linger to study its three small naves, the defaced fresco of the dome, or even the little chapel of Saint-Lazare, all white marble and carving and small statues, scarcely more than a shallow niche in the wall, but daintily proportioned, and a charming creation of the Renaissance. Fewer still of those who pause to study what remains of the old "Majeure," will stay to reconstruct it as it used to be, and realise that it had its day of glory no less real than that of the new church which replaces it. In its stead, Saint-Martin's, and Saint-Cannat's sometimes called "the Preachers," have been temporarily used for the Bishop's services. But now that the greater church, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, has been practically completed, it has assumed, once and for all, the greater rank, and a Cathedral of Marseilles still stands on its terrace in full view of the sea. Tradition has it that a Temple of Baal once stood on this site and later, a Temple to Diana; that Lazarus came in the I century, converted the pagan Marseillais and built a Christian Cathedral here. A more critical tradition says that Saint Victor first came as missionary, Bishop, and builder. All these vague memories of conversion, more or less accurate, all the legends of an humble and struggling Christianity, seem buried by this huge modern mass. It is not a church struggling and militant, but the Church Established and Triumphant. It is a vast building over four hundred and fifty feet long, preceded by two domed towers. Its transepts are surmounted at the crossing by a huge dome whose circumference is nearly two hundred feet, a smaller one over each transept arm, and others above the apsidal chapels. The exterior is built with alternate layers of green Florentine stone and the white stone of Fontvieille; and the style of the church, variously called French Romanesque, Byzantine, and Neo-Byzantine, is very oriental in its general effect. An arcade between the two towers forms a porch, the entrance to the interior whose central nave stretches out in great spaciousness. The lateral naves, in contrast, are exceedingly narrow and have high galleries supported by large monolithic columns. These naves are prolonged into an ambulatory, each of whose chapels, in consonance with the Cathedral's colossal proportions, is as large as many a church. The building stone of the interior is grey and pink, with white marble used decoratively for capitals and bases; and these combinations of tints which would seem almost too delicate, too effeminate, for so large a building, are made rich and effective by their very mass, the gigantic sizes which the plan exacts. All that artistic conception could produce has been added to complete an interior that is entirely oriental in its luxury of ornamentation, half-oriental in style, and without that sober majesty which is an inherent characteristic of the most elaborate styles native to Western Christianity. Under the gilded dome is a rich baldaquined High Altar, and through the whole church there is a magnificence of mosaics, of mural paintings, and of stained glass that is sumptuous. Mosaics line the arches of the nave and the pendentives, and form the flooring; and in the midst of this richness of colour the grey pillars rise, one after the other in long, shadowy perspective, like the trees of a stately grove. In planning this new Provençal Cathedral its architects did not attempt to reproduce, either exactly or in greater perfection, any maritime type which its situation on the Mediterranean might have suggested, nor were they inspired by any of the models of the native style; and perhaps, to the captious mind, its most serious defect is that its building has destroyed not only an actual portion of the old Majeure, but an historic interest which might well have been preserved by a wise restoration or an harmonious re-building. And yet, with the large Palace of the Archbishop on the Port de la Joliette near-by, the statue of a devoted and loving Bishop in the open square, and the majestic Cathedral of Sainte-Marie-Majeure itself, the episcopacy of Marseilles has all the outward and visible signs of strength and glory and power. [Sidenote: Toulon.] Toulon, although a foundation of the Romans, owes its rank to-day to Henry IV, to Richelieu, and to Louis XIV's busy architect, Vauban. It is the "Gibraltar of France," a bright, bustling, modern city. Sainte-Marie-Majeure, one of its oldest ecclesiastical names, is a title which belonged to churches of both the XI and XII centuries; but in the feats of architectural gymnastics to which their remains have been subjected, and in the wars and vicissitudes of Provence, these buildings have long since disappeared. A few stones still exist of the XI century structure, void of form or architectural significance, and the ancient name of Sainte-Marie-Majeure now protects a Cathedral built in the most depressing style of the industrious Philistines of the XVII and XVIII centuries. It is not a Provençal nor a truly "maritime" church, it is not a fortress nor a defence, nor a work of any architectural beauty. It has blatancy, size, pretension,--a profusion of rich incongruities; and although religiously interesting from its chapels and shrines, it is architecturally obtrusive and monstrous. The vagaries of the architects who began in 1634 to construct the present edifice, are well illustrated in the changes of plan to which they subjected this unfortunate church. The length became the breadth, the isolated chapel of the Virgin, part of the main building; the choir, another chapel; and the High Altar was removed from the eastern to the northern end, where a new choir had been built for its reception. This confusion of plan was carried out with logical confusion of style and detail. The façade has Corinthian columns of the XVII century; the nave is said to be "transition Gothic," the choir is decorated with mural paintings, and the High Altar, a work of Révoil, adds to the banalities of the XVII and XVIII centuries a rich incongruity of which the XIX has no reason to be proud. The whole interior is so full of naves of unequal length, and radiating chapels, of arches of differing forms, tastes, and styles, that it defies concise description and is unworthy of serious consideration. Provence has modest Cathedrals of small architectural significance, but except Sainte-Réparate of Nice, it has none so chaotic and commonplace as Sainte-Marie-Majeure of Toulon. [Sidenote: Fréjus.] Fréjus, which claims to be "the oldest city in France," was one of the numerous trading ports of the Phoenician, and later, during the period of her civic grandeur, an arsenal of the Roman navy. Her most interesting ruins are the Coliseum, the Theatre, the old Citadel, and the Aqueduct, suggestions of a really great city of the long-gone past. Fréjus lost prestige with the decadence of the Empire, and after a destruction by the Saracens in the X century, Nature gave the blow which finally crushed her when the sea retreated a mile, and her old Roman light-house was left to overlook merely a long stretch of barren, sandy land. Owing to this stranded, inland position, she has escaped both the dignity of a modern sea-port and the prostitution of a Rivieran resort, and is a little dead city, the seat of an ancient Provençal "Cathedral of the Sea." This Cathedral is largely free from XVII and XVIII century disfigurements; and the pity is that having escaped this, a French church's imminent peril, it should have become so built around that the character of the exterior is almost lost. The façade is severely plain, an uninteresting re-building of 1823, but the carved wood of its portals is beautiful. The towers, as in other maritime Cathedrals of Provence, recall the perils and dangers of their days; and these towers of Fréjus, although none the less practically defensive, have a more churchly appearance than those of Antibes, Grasse, and Vence. Over the vestibuled entrance rises the western tower. Its heavy, rectangular base is the support of a super-structure which was replaced in the XVI century by one more in keeping with conventional ecclesiastical models. Then the windows of the base, whose rounded arches are still traceable, were walled in; and the new octagonal stage with high windows of its own was completed by a tile-covered spire. The more interesting tower is that which surmounts the apse. This was the lookout, facing the sea, the really vital defence of the church. Its upper room was a storage place for arms and ammunition, and on the side which faces the city was open, with a broad, pointed arch. Above, the tower ends in machiolated battlements and presents a very strong and stern front seaward, perhaps no stronger, but more artistic and grim than towers of other Provençal Cathedrals. The entrance of the church is curiously complicated. To the left is the little baptistery; directly before one, a narrow stairway which leads to the Cloister; and on the right, a low-arched vestibule which opens into the nave of the Cathedral. The interior of Saint-Etienne is dark and somewhat gloomy, but that is an inherent trait of a fortress-church, for every added inch of window-opening brought an ell of danger. The nave is unusually low and broad, and its buttressed piers are of immense weight, ending severely in a plain, moulded band. On these great piers rest the cross-vaults of the roof and the broad arches of the wall. The north aisle, disproportionately narrow, is a later addition. Behind the altar is a true Provençal apse, shallow and rectangular, and beyond its rounded roof opens the smaller half-dome. Architecturally, this is an interesting interior; but the traveller who has not time to spend in musings will fail to see it in its original intention;--cold, severely plain, heavy, with perhaps too many arch-lines, but sober and simple. A futile wooden wainscot now surrounds the church and breaks its wall space, liberal coats of whitewash conceal the building material, and taking from the church the severity of its stone, give it an appearance of poor deprecatory bareness. [Illustration: "THE DESECRATION OF THE LITTLE CLOISTER."--FRÉJUS.] Near the entrance of the Cathedral is its most ancient portion, the baptistery, formerly a building apart, but now an integral part of the church itself. It is perhaps the most interesting Christian monument in Fréjus, a reminder of those early centuries when, in France as in Italy, the little baptistery was the popular form of Christian architectural expression. Here it has the very usual octagonal shape; the arches are upheld by grayish columns of granite with capitals of white marble, and in the centre stands the font. Between the columns are small recesses, alternately rectangular and semi-domed, and above all, is a modern dome and lantern. Structurally interesting, and reminiscent of the stately baptistery of Aix, the effect of this little chamber, like the church's interior, is marred by the whitewashes from whose industrious brushes nothing but the grayish columns have escaped. And here again, the traveller who would see the builders' work, free from the disfigurements of time, must pause and imagine. Yet even imagination seems powerless before the desecration of the little Cloister. Charming it must have been to have entered its quiet walks, with their slender columns of white marble, to have seen the quaint old well in the little, sun-lit close. Now, between the slender columns, boards have been placed which shut out light and sun. The traveller sat down on an old wheel-barrow, waiting till he could see in the dim and misty light. All around him was forgetfulness of the Cloister's holy uses; signs of desecration and neglect. One end of the cloister-walk was a thoroughfare, where the wheel-barrow had worn its weary way; and even in the deserted corners there was the dust and dirt of a work-a-day world. The beautiful little capitals of the slender columns rose from among the boards, clipped and worn; above, he dimly saw the curious wooden ceiling which would seem to have taken the place of the usual stone vaulting; through chinks of the plank-wall he caught glimpses of a little close; and at length, having seen the most melancholy of "Cathedrals of the Sea," in its disguise of whitewash, decay, and misuse, he went his way. [Sidenote: Antibes.] That part of the southern coast of France called the Riviera seems now only to evoke visions of the most beautiful banality; of a life more artificial than the stage--which at least aims to present reality--transplanted to a scene of such incomparable loveliness that Nature herself adds a new and exquisite sumptuousness to the luxury of civilisation. The Riviera means a land of many follies and every vice;--each folly so delicious, each vice so regal, they seem to be sought and desired of all men. Where else can be seen in such careless magnificence Dukes of Russia with their polish of manner and their veiled insolence; Englishmen correct and blasé; Americans a bit vociferous and truly amused; great ladies of all ages and manners; adventurers high and low; and the beautiful, sparkling women of no name, bravely dressed and barbarously jewelled? Such is the Riviera of to-day; the life imposed upon it by hordes of foreign idlers in a land whose warmth and luxuriance may have lent itself but too easily to the vicious and frivolous pleasures for which they have made it notorious, but a land which has no native history that is effeminate, nor any so unworthy as its exotic present. "The Riviera" may be Nice, Beaulieu, and their like, but the Provençal Mediterranean and its neighbouring territory have been the fatherland of warriors in real mail and of princes of real power, of the Emperor Pertinax of pagan times, of those who fought successfully against Mahmoud and Tergament, and of many Knights of Malta, long the "Forlorn Hope" of Christendom. Discreetly hidden from vulgar eyes that delight in the architecture of the modern caravanserai, are the ruins of these older days--Amphitheatres, Fountains, Temples, and Aqueducts of the Romans; the Castles, Abbeys, and Cathedrals of mediæval times. Here are the larger number, if not the most interesting, of those curious churches of the sea, which protected the French townsman of the Mediterranean coast from the rapacity of sea-rovers and pirates, and many more orthodox enemies of the Middle Ages. From the great beauty of its situation, the small city of Antibes is at once a type of the old régime and of the new. Lying on the sea, with a background of snow-capped mountains, it has not entirely escaped the fate of Nice; neither has it yet lost all its old Provençal characteristics. It is a pathetic compromise between the quaint reality of the old and the blatancy of the new. The little parish church is of the very far past, having lost its Cathedral rank over six hundred years ago to Sainte-Marie in Grasse, a town scarcely younger than its own. It is the type of the church of this coast, with its unpretentious smallness, its strength, and its disfiguring restorations; and it is, especially in comparison with Vence and Grasse, of small architectural interest. The façade, and the double archway which connects the church and the tower, are of the unfortunate XVIII century, the older exterior is monotonous, and the interior, an unpleasing confusion of forms. [Illustration: "THE MILITARY OMEN--THE TOWER." ANTIBES.] The real interest of the little Cathedral is its ancient military strength, neither very grand nor very imposing, but very real to the enemy who hundreds of years ago hurled himself against the hard, plain stones. From this view-point, the mannered façade and the inharmonious interior matter but little. Toward the foe, whose sail might have arisen on the horizon at any moment, the protecting church presented the heavy rounded walls and safely narrowed windows of its three apses, and behind them the military omen of the severe, rectangular tower. High in every one of its four sides, seaward and landward, was a window, from which many a watcher must have looked and strained anxious eyes. This is the significance of the little sea-side Cathedral, this the story its tower suggests. And now when the sea is sailed by peaceful ships, and the Cathedral only a place of pious worship, the tower with its gaping windows is the only salient reminder of the ancient dignity of the church; the reminder to an indifferent generation of the days when Antibes fulfilled to Christians the promise of her old, pagan name, Antipolis, "sentinel" of the perilous sea. [Sidenote: Nice.] The situation of its Cathedral reveals a Nice of which but little is written, the city of a people who live in the service of those whose showy, new villas and hotels stretch along the promenades and lie dotted on the hills in the Nice of "all the world." Besides this exotic city, there is "the Nice of the Niçois," a small district of dark, crowded streets that are too full of the sordid struggles of competing work-people to be truly picturesque. Here, in the XVI century, when the Citadel of Nice was enlarged and the Cathedral of Sainte-Marie-de-l'Assomption destroyed, the Church of Sainte-Réparate was re-built, and succeeded to the episcopal rank. Standing on a little open square, surrounded by small shops and the poor homes of trades-folk, it seems in every sense a church of the people. Here the native Niçois, gay, industrious, mercurial, and dispossessed of his town, may feel truly at home. Finished in the most exuberant rococo style, it is an edifice from which all architectural or religious inspiration is conspicuously absent. It is a revel of luxurious bad taste; a Cathedral in Provence, a Cathedral by the Sea, but neither Provençal nor Maritime,--rather a product of that Italian taste which has so profoundly vitiated both the morals and the architecture of all the Riviera. II. CATHEDRALS OF THE HILL-TOWNS. [Sidenote: Carpentras.] Carpentras is a busy provincial town, the terminus of three diminutive railroads and of many little, lumbering, dust-covered stages. It stands high on a hill, and from the boulevards, dusty promenades under luxuriant shade-trees, which circle the town as its walls formerly did, there is an extended view over the pretty hills and valleys of the neighbouring country. At one end of the town the Hospital rises, an immense, bare, and imposing edifice of the XVIII century, built by a Trappist Bishop; and at the other is the Orange Gate, the last tower of the old fortifications. Between these historic buildings and the encircling boulevards are the narrow streets and irregular, uninteresting buildings of the city itself. It is strange indeed that so isolated a place, which seems only a big, bustling country-town, should have been of importance in the Middle Ages, and that bits of its stirring history must have caused all orthodox Europe to thrill with horror. Stranger still would be the forgetfulness of modern writers, by whom Carpentras is seldom mentioned, were it not that the city's real history is that of the Church political, a story of strange manners and happenings, rather than a step in the vital evolution towards our own time. In the Middle Ages Carpentras was an episcopal city, the capital of the County Venaissin, governed by wealthy, powerful, and ambitious Bishops, who took no small interest in worldly aggrandisement. Passing by gift to the Papacy, after the sudden death of Clement V it was selected as the place of the Conclave which was to elect his successor. The members were assembled in the great episcopal Palace, when Bertrand de Goth, a nephew of the dead Pope, claiming to be an ally of the French prelates against the Italians in the Conclave, arrived from a successful looting of the papal treasury at Montreux to pillage in Carpentras. He and his mercenaries massacred the citizens and burned the Cathedral. The episcopal Palace caught fire, and their Eminences--in danger of their lives--were forced to squeeze their sacred persons through a hole which their followers made in the Palace wall and fly northward. This unfortunate raid left Carpentras with many ruins and a demolished Cathedral, deserted by those in whose cause she had unwittingly suffered. The new Pontiff was safely elected in Lyons, and upon his return to the papal seat of Avignon he administered Carpentras by a "rector," and it continued as it had been before, the political capital of the County. During the reigns of succeeding Popes it was apparently undisturbed by dangerous honours, until the accession of the Anti-Pope, Benedict XIII. So great was this prelate's delight in the city that he reserved to himself the minor title of her Bishop, re-built her walls, and was the first patron of the present and very orthodox Cathedral, Saint-Siffrein. By a curious destiny, the church had this false prelate not only as its first patron, but as its first active supporter; and in 1404 he sent Artaud, Archbishop of Arles, in his name, to lay its first stone. Wars and rumours of wars soon possessed the province. Benedict fled, and through unrest and lack of money the work of Cathedral building was greatly hindered. In the meantime the ruins of the former Cathedral seem to have been gradually disintegrating, and in 1829 the last of its Cloister was destroyed, to be replaced by prison cells; and now only the choir dome and a suggestion of the nave exist, partly forming the present sacristy. From these meagre remains and from writings of the time, it may be fairly inferred that Saint-Pierre was a Cathedral of the type of Avignon and Cavaillon and the old Marseillaise Church of La Majeure, and that, architecturally considered, it was a far more important structure than Saint-Siffrein. With this depressing knowledge in mind the traveller was confronted with a sight as depressing--the present Cathedral itself. Fortunately, churches of a period antedating the XVII century are seldom so uninteresting. Nothing more meagre nor dreary can be conceived than the façade with its three, poor, characterless portals. They open on a large vaulted hall, with chapels in its six bays and a small and narrow choir. The principal charm of the interior is negative; its dim misty light, by concealing a mass of tasteless decorations and the poverty and bareness of the whole architectural scheme, gives to the generous height and size of the room an atmosphere of subdued and mysterious spaciousness. The south door is the one bit of this Gothic which passes the commonplace. Set in a poor, plain wall, the portal has a graceful symmetry of design; and its few carved details, probably limited by the artistic power of its builder, are so simple and chaste that they do not inevitably suggest poverty of conception. The tympanum holds an exotic detail, a defaced and insignificant fresco of the Coronation of the Virgin; and on the pier which divides the door-way stands a very charming statue of Our Lady of Snows, blessing those who enter beneath her outstretched hands. This simple portal, and indeed the whole church, is a significant example of Provençal Gothic, a style so foreign to the genius of the province that it could produce only feeble and attenuated examples of the art. Compared with its northern prototypes, it is surprisingly tentative; and awkward, unaccustomed hands seem to have built it after most primitive conceptions. [Sidenote: Digne.] Well outside the Alpine city of Digne, and almost surrounded by graves, stands a small and ancient church which is seldom opened except for the celebration of Masses for the Dead. Coffin-rests stand always before the altar, and enough chairs for the few that mourn. There are old candlesticks for the tapers of the church's poor, and hidden in the shadows of the doors, a few broken crosses that once marked graves, placed, tenderly perhaps, above those who were alive some years ago and who now rest forgotten; on battered wood, one can still read a baby's age, an old man's record, and the letters R. I. P. In this strange, melancholy destiny of Notre-Dame-du-Bourg there seems to be a peculiar fitness. The mutability of time, forgetfulness, and at length neglect, which death suggests, are brought to mind by this old church. Once the Cathedral of Digne, but no longer Cathedral, it stands almost alone in spite of its honours and its venerable age. After the desecration by the Huguenots, its episcopal birthright was given to a younger and a larger church; the city has moved away and clusters about its new Cathedral, Saint-Jérome; and Notre-Dame-du-Bourg is no longer on a busy street, but near the dusty high-road, amid the quiet of the country and the hills. Parts of its crypt and tower may antedate 900, but the church itself was re-built in the XII and XIII centuries. The course of time has brought none of the incongruities which have ruined many churches by the so-called restorations of the last three hundred years, and although its simple Romanesque is sadly unrepaired, it is a delight to come into the solitude and find an unspoiled example of this stanch old style. [Illustration: THE INTERIOR OF NOTRE-DAME-DU-BOURG.--DIGNE.] The Romanesque shows forth its great solidity in the exterior of its churches, and nowhere more than in Digne's deserted Cathedral. Flat buttresses line the walls, the transepts are square and plain, and on either side the façade wall is upheld by a formidable support. This severity of line is not greatly modified by the deep recesses of a few windows; nor is the tower--which lost its spire three hundred years ago--of less sober construction, less solidly built. Below the overhanging eaves of a miserable roof and the curious line of the nave vault which projects through the wall, is a round window with a frame of massive rolls and hollows; and below this again, under a narrow sloping covering, is the deep arch of the Cathedral's porch. This, in its prime, must have been the church's ornamental glory. Beneath the outer arch, which is continued to the buttresses by half-arches, are the great roll-mouldings that twist backward to a plain tympanum. Capitals still support these massive curves of stone, but the niches in which the columns formerly stood are empty, and grinning lions, lying on the ground, no longer support the larger columns of the plain arch. All stands in solemn decay. The traveller entered a battered, brass-nailed door and saw before him the stretch of a single, empty nave, a choir beneath whose lower vault are three small windows, and on either side the archways which he knew must lead to narrow transepts. In the south side, plain, rounded windows give a glimmering light, and over each projects an arch, the modest decoration of the walls. Far above rises the tunnel-vault, whose sheer height is grandly dignified; the arches rest on roughly carved capitals, and the outer rectangle of the piers is displaced for half a column. The rehearsal of these most simple details seems but the writing of "the letter which killeth," and not the portrayal of the spirit that seems to live within these walls. Details which seem so poorly few when read, are nobly so when seen. This small old church has a true religious stateliness, and it seemed as if a priest should bring the Sanctuary-light which says, "The Lord is in His holy temple." Saint-Jérome was built between 1490 and 1500, a hundred years before its episcopal elevation, and forms a most complete antithesis to Notre-Dame-du-Bourg which it supplanted in 1591. Where Notre-Dame is small, Saint-Jérome is large, where the old church is simple, the newer one is either pretentious or sumptuous, and where the one is Romanesque, the other is Gothic. The present Cathedral stands on the heights of the city; and from one side or another its clean, straight walls can be seen in all their large angularity and absence of architectural significance. Towers rise conventionally above the façade; and a big broad flight of white stone steps leads to three modern portals that have been built in an economical imitation of the sculptured richness of the XIII century. The interior, also Gothic, has neither clerestory nor triforium, and its naves are covered by a vaulting which springs broadly from the round, supporting piers. The conception is not noble, it has no simplicity, and no more of spiritual suggestion than a Madonna of Titian; but the space of the nave is so largely generous and the new polychrome so richly toned that the church has majesty of space and harmony, deep lights and subdued colourings; it is large and sumptuous with the munificence of a Veronese canvas, a singular and most curious contrast to the cold severity of its outer walls. [Illustration: "THE INTERIOR HAS NEITHER CLERESTORY NOR TRIFORIUM."--DIGNE.] Before the High Altar of this Church lies buried one whose spirit suggests the Christ, a Bishop, yet a simple priest, whose life deserves more words than does the whole of Saint-Jérome, once his Cathedral-church. He was a Curé of Brignoles, one of those keen, yet simple-hearted and hard-working priests who often bless Provençal towns. He had no great ambitions, no patronage, no ties except a far-off brother who was an upstart general of that most upstart Emperor, Napoleon. One day while the priest was pottering in his little garden,--as Provençal Curés love to dig and work,--a letter was handed him, marked "thirty sous of postage due." He was outraged. His shining old soutane fell from the folds in which he had prudently tucked it, he shrugged his shoulders and protested,--"A great expense indeed for a trivial purpose. Where should he find another thirty sous for his poor? He never wrote letters. Therefore by no argument of any school of logic could he be compelled to receive them. Obviously this was not for him." The unexpected letter was one for which his brother had asked and which Napoleon had signed, a decree which made him Bishop. Long afterwards this simple, saintly prelate saved a man from crime, and history relates that this same man died at Waterloo as a good and faithful soldier fighting for the fatherland. His benefactor, that loyal servant of Christ and His Church, soon followed him in death, and unlike many a Saint whom this earth forgets his memory lives on, not only in the little city of the snow-clad Alps, but in the hearts of those who read of his good deeds. For Monseigneur Miollis of Digne is truly Monseigneur Bienvenu of "Les Misérables," and only the soldier of Waterloo was glorified in Jean Valjean. [Sidenote: Forcalquier.] If it is difficult to picture sleepy, stately Aix as one of the most brilliant centres of mediæval Europe, and the garrisoned castle of Tarascon filled with the gay courtiers and fair ladies of King René's Court, it will be almost impossible to walk in the smaller Provençal "cities," and see in imagination the cavalcades of mailed soldiers who clattered through the streets on their way to the castle of some near-by hill-top, my lord proudly distinguishable by his mount or the length of his plume, a delicate Countess languishing between the curtains of her litter, or a more sprightly one who rode her palfrey and smiled on the staring townsfolk. It is almost impossible to conceive that the four daughters of Raymond Bérenger, a Queen of the Romans, of France, of Naples, and of England, were brought up in the castle of the little hillside hamlet of Saint-Maime Dauphin. Provence is quiet, rural, provincial; a land of markets, busy country inns, and farms; not of modern greatness nor of modern renown. Its children are a fine and busy race, no less strong and fine than in the land's more stirring times, but they live their years of greatness in other, "more progressive" parts of France, and the Provençal genius, which remains very native to the soil, is broadly known to fame as "French." Like some rich old wine hidden in the cellars of the few, Provence lies safely ensconced behind Avignon and Arles, and only the epicures of history penetrate her hills. Her mediæval ruins seem to belong to a past almost as dead and ghostly as her Roman days, and to realise her Middle Ages, one must leave the busy people in the town below, climb one of the hills, and sitting beside the crumbling walls of some great tower or castle, watch the hot sun setting behind the low mountains and lighting in a glow the bare walls of some other ruined stronghold on a neighbouring height. The shadows creep into the valleys, the rocks grow grey and cold, and the clusters of trees beside them become darkly mysterious. Then far beneath a white thread seems to appear, beginning at the valley's entrance and twisting along its length until it disappears behind another hill. This is the road; and by the time the eye has followed its long course, daylight has grown fainter. Then Provence takes on a long-lost splendour. To those who care to see, cavalcades of soldiers or of hunters come home along the road, castles become whole and frowning, the dying sun casts its light through their gaping window-holes, as light of nightly revels used to shine, and a phantom Mediævalism appears. One of the powerful families of the country, the Counts of Forcalquier, sprang from the House of Bérenger in the XI century, and a hundred and fifty years later, grown too great, were crushed by the haughty parent house. More than one hill of Eastern Provence has borne their tall watchtowers, more than one village owed them allegiance, and a large town in the hills was their capital and bore their name. And yet not a ruined tower that overlooks the Provençal mountains, not a village, gate, or castle--Manosque or old Saint-Maime,--but speaks more vividly of the old Counts than does Forcalquier, formerly their city, now a mere country town which has lost prestige with its increasing isolation, many of its inhabitants by plagues and wars, and almost all of its picturesque Mediævalism through the destructiveness of sieges. Long before this day of contented stagnancy, in 1061, when Forcalquier, fortified, growing, and important, claimed many honours, Bishop Gérard Caprérius of Sisteron had given the city a Provost and a Chapter, and created the Church of Saint-Mary, co-cathedral with that of Notre-Dame of Sisteron. Not contented with this honour, Forcalquier demanded and received a Bishopric of her own. Her hill was then crowned by a Citadel, her Cathedral stood near-by, her walls were intact. Now the Citadel is replaced by a peaceful pilgrims' chapel, the walls are gone, Saint-Mary, ruined in the siege of 1486, is recalled only by a few weed-covered stumps and bits of wall, and its title was given to Notre-Dame in the lower part of the town. No Cathedral is a sadder example of architectural failure than Notre-Dame of Forcalquier because it has so many of the beginnings of real beauty and dignity, so many parts of real worthiness that have been unfortunately combined in a confused and discordant whole. If, of all little cities of Provence, Forcalquier is one of the least unique and least holding, its Cathedral is also one of the least satisfying. It is not beautiful in situation nor in its own essential harmony, and the fine but tantalising perspectives of its interior may be found again in happier churches. The exterior shows to a superlative degree that general tendency of Provençal exteriors to be without definite or logical proportions. A large, square tower, heavier than that of Grasse, served as a lookout, a tall, thin little turret served as a belfry. In the façade there is a Gothic portal which notwithstanding its entire mediocrity is the chief adornment of the outer walls. They are irregular and uncouth to a degree and their only interesting features are at the eastern end. Here the smaller, older apses on either side betray the church's early origin. The central apse, evidently of the same dimensions as the Romanesque one originally designed, was re-built in severe, rudimentary Gothic. Looking at this shallow apse alone, and following its plain lines until they meet those of the big tower, there is a straight simplicity that is almost fine,--but this is one mere detail in a large and barren whole, and the Cathedral-seeker turns to the nearest entrance. [Illustration: "A LARGE, SQUARE TOWER SERVED AS A LOOKOUT."--FORCALQUIER.] [Illustration: "A SUGGESTIVE VIEW FROM THE SIDE AISLE."--FORCALQUIER.] The first glimpse of the interior is so relieving that one is not quick to notice its lack of architectural unity. The few windows give a soft light, and the brown of the stone has a mellowness that is both rich and reposeful. If the Cathedral could have been finished in the style of the first bays of the nave, it would have been a nobly dignified example of the Romanesque. Could it have been re-built in the slender Gothic of the last bay, it would have been an exquisite example of Provençal Gothic. Rather largely planned, its old form of tunnel vaulting and the fine curve of its nave arches and heavy piers are in violent contrast to the Gothic bay, with its pointed arch, its clustered columns and carved capitals, which, even with the shallow choir and its long, slim windows, is too slight a portion of the Cathedral to have independence or real beauty. From its ritualistic position, it is the culminating point of the church, and its discord with the Romanesque is unpleasantly insistent. The side aisles, which were built in the XVII century, are low, agreeable walks ending in the chapels of the smaller apses. They are neither very regular nor very significant; but they give the church pleasant size and perspectives, and by avoiding the unduly large and shining modern chandeliers which hang between the nave arches, one gets from these side aisles the suggestive views which show only too well what true and good architectural ideas were brought to confusion in the re-building, the additions, and the restorations of the centuries. In painting, anachronisms may be quaint or even amusing; but in architecture, they are either grotesque or tragic, and in a church of such fine suggestiveness as Notre-Dame at Forcalquier, one is haunted by lingering regrets for what might and should have been. [Sidenote: Vence.] A founder of the French Academy and one of its first immortal forty was Antoine Godeau, "the idol of the Hôtel Rambouillet." His mind was formed, as it were, by one of the most clever women of that brilliantly foolish coterie, he sang frivolous sonnets to a beautiful red-haired mistress whom he sincerely admired, and when he entered Holy Church, none of his charming friends believed that he would do more than modify the proper and agreeable conventionalities of his former life. They thought that he would add to the grace of his worldly manner the suavity of the ecclesiastic, that he would choose a pulpit of Paris, and that, sitting at his feet, they could enjoy the elegant phrases with which he would embellish a refined and delicately attenuated religion. But an aged prelate of the far South judged the new priest differently, he had sounded the heart of the man who, at the age of thirty, had quietly renounced a flattering, admiring world; and his dying prayer to Richelieu was that Godeau should succeed him in the See of Vence. The keen worldly wisdom of the Cardinal confirmed the old Bishop's more spiritual insight, and Godeau was named Bishop of the neighbouring Grasse. Far away in his mountain-city of flower gardens and sweet odours, the new Bishop wrote to his Parisian friends that, for his part, he "found more thorns than orange-blossoms." The Calvinists, from the rock of Antibes, openly defied him; in spite of the vehement opposition of their Chapters and against his will, the Bishoprics of Grasse and Vence were united, and he was made the Bishop of the two warring, discontented Sees. He was stoned at Vence; and even his colleague in temporal power, the Marquis of Villeneuve, showed himself as insolent as he dared. At length the King came to his aid, and being given his choice of the Sees, Godeau immediately left "the perfumed wench," as he called Grasse, and chose to live and work among his one-time enemies of Vence. This gentle and courageous prelate is typical of the long line of wise men who ruled the Church in the tight little city of the Provençal hills. From Saint Véran the wonder-worker, and Saint Lambert the tender nurse of lepers, to the end, they were men noted for bravery, goodness, and learning, and it was not till the Revolution that one was found--and fittingly the last--who, hating the "Oath" and fearing the guillotine, fled his See. This city of good Bishops was founded in the dim, pagan past of Gaul. From a rocky hill-top, its inhabitants had watched the burning of their first valley-town and they founded the second Vence on that height of safety to which they had escaped with their lives. Here, far above the Aurelian road, the Gallic tribes had a strong and isolated camp. Then the prying Romans found them out, and priests of Mars and Cybele replaced those of the cruder native gods, and they, in turn, gave way to the apostle of the Christians. Where a temple stood, a church was built; and unlike many early saints who looked upon old pagan images as homes of devils and broke them into a thousand pieces with holy wrath and words of exorcism, the prelate of Vence buried an image of a vanquished god under each and every pillar of his church, in sign of Christian triumph. These early days of the Faith were days of growth for the little city, and she prospered in her Mediævalism. High on her hill, she was too difficult of access to suffer greatly from marauding foes, and hidden from the sea, she did not excite the cupidity of the Mediterranean rovers. When Antibes and Nice were sacked, her little ledge of rock was safe; and people crowded thick and fast behind her walls, until no bee-hive swarmed so thick with bees as her few streets with citizens. Here were arts and occupations, burghers and charters, riches and liberties. Here came the Renaissance, and Vence had eager, if not famous sculptors, painters, and organ-builders, and a family of artists whom even the dilettante Francis I deigned to patronise. Such memories of a busy, energetic past seem fairy-tales to those who walk to-day about the dark and narrow streets of Vence. She scarcely has outgrown her ancient walls, her civic life is dead, and in her virtual isolation from the modern world she lives a dreary, quiet old age. The old Cathedral, Notre-Dame, lies in the heart of the town; and takes one back along the years, far past the Renaissance, to those grim mediæval days when even churches were places of defence. It is a low, unimpressive building, said to have been built on the site of the Roman Temple in the IV century. Enlarged or re-built in the X century, it was then long and narrow, a Latin cross. But in the XII century, deep, dark bays were added; in the XV, tribunes were built, the form of the apse was changed to an oval and it was decorated in an inharmonious style; and a hundred years ago the nave vault was re-built in an ellipse. [Illustration: "THE OLD ROUND ARCH OF THE BISHOP'S PALACE."--VENCE.] In the side wall there is a low portal of a late, decadent style, which opens on the little square, but there is no real façade; and to see the church, the traveller passed under the old round arch of the Bishop's Palace, through a small, damp street to another tinier square where the apse and tower stand. The little Cathedral-churches of Provence are always simply built, but here a rectangle, a low gabled roof, a small, round-headed window in the wall, would have been architectural bareness if a high, straight tower had not crowned it all. This crenellated tower is a true type of its time, square, yet slim and strong, and crudely graceful as some tall young poplar of the plains beneath. In the XI and XII centuries, its early days, it was the city's lookout. Families lived high up in its walls, and the traveller could imagine, in this little old, deserted square, the crowds who gathered round the tower's base, and called for news of enemies and battle as moderns gather about the more prosaic bulletin of printed news. He could see them surging, peering up; and from above he almost heard the watcher's cry, "They're coming on,"--with the great answering howl beneath, and the rush to arms. Or, "They pass us by," and then what breaking into little laughing groups, what joy, what dancing, and what praying, that lasted far into the evening hours. [Illustration: "THE LOW, BROAD ARCHES AND THE GREAT, SUPPORTING PILLARS."--VENCE.] The traveller came back in thought to modern times and went into the church, that church of five low naves and many restorations, that product of most diverse fancies. It is painted in lugubrious white, and its pillars have false bases in a palpable imitation of veined red marble. Its pure and early form, the Latin cross, is gone, its fine old stalls are hidden in a gallery, and at the altar Corinthian columns desecrate its ancient Romanesque. Yet in spite of the incongruities the atmosphere of the church is truly that of its dim past. There are the low broad arches, the great, supporting pillars that are massive buttresses; there is the simple practicality of a style that aimed at a protecting strength rather than at any art of beauty; there is the semi-darkness of the small, safe windows, and the little, guarded space where the praying few increased a thousand-fold in times of danger. This is, in spite of all defects, the small Provençal church where in days of peace cloudy incense slowly circled round the shadowy forms of chanting priests, and where in times of war a crowd of frightened women and their children prayed in safety for the men who sallied forth to fight in their defence. [Sidenote: Grasse.] He who is unloving of the past may well rush by its treasures in a puffing automobile, he who is bored by olden thoughts can hurry on by rail, but the man who wishes to know the old hill-towns of France, to see them as they seemed to their makers, and realise their one-time magnificence and strength, must walk from one town to the next, and climb their steep heights; must see great towers rise before him, great walls loom above him, and realise how grandly strong these places were when it was man to man and sword to sword, strength against strength. He must arrive, dust-covered, at the cities' gates or drive into their narrow streets on the small coach which still passes through,--for they are of the times when great men rode and peasants walked and steam was all unknown. Then he will realise how very large the world once was, how far from town to town; and once within those high, protecting walls, he will understand why the citizen of mediæval days found in his town a world sufficient to itself, and why he was so often well content to spend his life at home. The power and the force of an isolated, self-concentrated interest is well illustrated in the history of the free cities of the Middle Ages, and Grasse may be counted one of these. Counts she had in name; but the Bérengers and Queen Jeanne had granted her charters which she had the power to keep; she was once wealthy enough to declare war with Pisa, and in the XII century the leaders of her self-government were "Consuls by the grace of God alone." Therefore when Antibes continued to be greatly menaced by blasphemous pirates, the Bishopric was removed to Grasse, rich, strong, and safe behind the hills, where it endured from 1244, through all the perils of the centuries, until by a pen-stroke Napoleon wiped it out in 1801. [Illustration: "HIGHER THAN THEM ALL STANDS THE CATHEDRAL."--GRASSE.] To come to Grasse on foot or in the stage, will well repay the traveller of old-fashioned moods and fancies. Afar, her houses seem to crowd together, as they used to crowd within the walls, her red roofs rise fantastically one above the other, and higher than them all stands the Cathedral with its firm, square tower. Such must have been old Grasse, perched on the summit of her hill. But once inside the town, these illusions cease. Here are the hotels and the Casino of a thermal station, and the factories of a new world. The traveller finds that the broad upper boulevards are filled with tourists and smart English visitors; and in the narrow streets pert factory-hands come noisily from work. Still he climbs on toward the Cathedral, through tortuous streets and little alley-ways. And in the gloomiest of them all there is no odour of a stale antiquity, but the perfume of a garden-full of roses, of a thousand orange-blossoms, and of locusts, honey-sweet, and he begins to think himself enchanted. He feels the dark, old houses are unreal, as if, instead of cobble-stones beneath his feet, there must be the soft and tender grass of Araby the Blest. Such is the magic of a trade, the perfume industry of Grasse that for so many hundreds of years has made her meanest streets full of refreshing fragrance. Breathless from the climb, the traveller stepped at length into the little square, before a most ungainly Cathedral. "Chiefly built in the XII century," it may have been, but so bedizened by the Renaissance that its heavy old Provençal walls and massive pillars seem to exist merely as supports for additions or unreasonable decorations of a poor Italian style. A certain Monseigneur of the XVII century re-built the choir in a deep, rectangular form; another prelate enlarged the church proper and ruined it by constructing a tribune over the aisles, and desiring the revenues of a new burial-place, he ordered Vauban to accomplish the daring construction of a crypt. Still another Bishop with like architectural tastes built a large new chapel which opens from the south aisle; and with these additions and XVIII century changes in the façade, the original style of the church was obscured. In spite of the pitiful remains of dignity which its three aisles, its firm old pillars, and its height still give to the interior, it is as a whole so mean a building that it has fittingly lost the title of Cathedral. [Illustration: THE "PONT D'AVIGNON."] III. RIVER-SIDE CATHEDRALS. [Sidenote: Avignon.] Everything which surrounds the Cathedral of Avignon, its situation, its city, its history, is so full of romance and glamour that it is only after very sober second thought one realises that the church itself is the least of the papal buildings which majestically overtower the Rhone, or of those royal ruins which face them as proudly on the opposite bank of the river. Yet no church in Provence is richer in tradition, and in history more romantic than tradition. The foundation of this church goes back to the first Avignon, a small colony of river-fishermen which gave way before the Romans, who established a city, Avernio, on the great rocky hill two hundred feet above the Rhone. Some hundreds of years later the first Christian missionaries to Gaul landed near the mouth of this river,--Mary the mother of James, Saint Sara the patron of gypsies, Lazarus, his sister Martha, and Saint Maximin. Before these storm-tossed Saints lay the fair and pagan country of Provence, the scene of their future mission; and if tradition is to be further believed, each went his way, to work mightily for the sacred cause. Maximin lived in the town that bears his name, Lazarus became the first Bishop of Marseilles, and Saint Martha ascended the Rhone as far as Avignon and built near the site of the present Cathedral an oratory in honour of the Virgin "then living on the earth." Two early churches, of which this chapel was perhaps a part, were destroyed in the Saracenic sieges of the VIII century; an inscription in the porch of the present Cathedral records the very interesting mediæval account of its re-building and re-consecration nearly a hundred years later. It was, so runs the tale, the habit of a devout woman to pray in the church every night; and after the Cathedral had been finished by the generous aid of Charlemagne, she happened there at midnight, and witnessed the descent of Christ in wondrous, shining light. There at the High Altar, surrounded by ministering angels, he dedicated the Cathedral to His Mother, Our Lady of Cathedrals; and so it has been called to the present day. If it is an impossible and ungrateful task to disprove that the re-construction, or at least the re-founding of this Cathedral was the work of Charlemagne, so munificent a patron and dutiful a son of the Church, to prove it is equally impossible. A martyrology of the XI century speaks of a dedication in 1069, but as this ceremony had been preceded by another extensive re-building, and was followed by many other changes, the oldest portions of the present church are to be most accurately ascribed to the XI, XII, and XIV centuries. The additions of the centuries following the papal return to Rome have greatly changed the appearance of the church. A large chapel, built in 1506, gives almost a northern nave. In 1671, Archbishop Ariosto thought the interior would be gracefully improved by a Renaissance gallery which should encircle the entire nave from one end of the choir to the other. To accomplish this new work, the old main piers below the gallery were cut away, the wall arches were changed, and columns and piers, almost entirely new, arose to support a shallow, gracefully balustraded balcony and its bases of massive carving. Nine years later a new Archbishop added to the north side a square XVII century chapel, richly ornamental in itself, but entirely out of harmony with the fundamental style of the church. Other chapels, less distinguished, which have been added from time to time, line the nave both north and south, and all are excrescent to the original plan. Of the exterior, only the façade retains its primitive character. The side-walls, "entirely featureless," as has been well said, "reflect only the various periods of the chapels which have been added to the Cathedral," and the apse was re-built in 1671, in a heavy, uninteresting form. [Illustration: "THE INTERIOR HAS A SHALLOW, GRACEFULLY BALUSTRADED BALCONY."--AVIGNON.] These additions, superimposed ornamentations, and rebuildings, together with the very substantial substructure of the primitive Cathedral, form to-day a small church of unimpressive, conglomerate style, and except for its history, unnoteworthy. It is therefore a church whose interest is almost wholly of the past; and the traveller goes back in imagination, century after century, to the era of Papal residency, when the Cathedral was not only ecclesiastically important, but architecturally in its best and purest form. This church, which Clement V found on his removal to Avignon, and which may still be easily traced, was of the simple, primitive Provençal style. No dates of that period are sufficiently accurate to rely upon; but its interest lies not so much in chronology as in its portrayal of the general type. The interior is the usual little hall church of the XI century, with its aisle-less nave of five bays, and plain piers supporting a tunnelled roof, with double vault arches. Beyond the last bay, over the choir, is the Cathedral's octagonal dome, and from the rounded windows of its lantern comes much of the light of the interior, which is sombre and without other windows of importance. The façade is architecturally one of the most significant parts of the church. Above the portal the wall is supported on either side by plain heavy buttresses, and directly continued by the solid bulk of the tower. In 1431 this tower replaced the original one which fell in the earthquake of 1405. It is conjecturally similar, a heavy rectangle which quite overweighs the church; plain, with its stiff pilasters and two stories of rounded windows; without grace or proper proportion, but pleasing by the unblemished severity of its lines. Above the balustrade with which the tower may be properly said to terminate, the religious art of the XIX century has erected as its contribution to the Cathedral a series of steps, an octagon, and a colossal, mal-proportioned statue of the Virgin. These additions are inharmonious; and the finest part of the façade is the porch, so classic in detail that it was formerly supposed to be Roman, a work of the Emperor Constantine. Like the rest of the church, its general structure is plain and somewhat severe, with small, richly carved details, in this instance closely Corinthian. The rounded portal of entrance is an entablature, enclosed as it were by two supporting columns; and above, in the pointed pediment, is a circular opening curiously foreshadowing that magnificent development of the North--the rose-window. Passing through the vestibule, whose tunnel-vault supports the tower, the minor portal appears, almost a replica of the outer door, and the whole forms an unusual mode of entrance, graceful in detail, ponderous in general effect. Far behind the tower of the façade rises the last significant feature of the exterior, the little lantern. It is an octagon with Doric and Corinthian motifs, continuing the essential characteristics of the interior, and exceedingly typical of Provence. [Illustration: "THE PORCH SO CLASSIC IN DETAIL."--AVIGNON. _From an old print._] Into this church, with its few, unusually classic details, its Provençal simplicity, its very modest size and plainness, the munificence of papal pomp was introduced. This was in 1308, an era of papal storm and stress. Not ten years before, Boniface VIII, with the tradition of Canossa spurring his haughty ambitions, had launched a bull against Philip III, whom he knew to be a bad king and whom he was to find an equally bad, rebellious Christian. "God," said the Prelate, from Rome, "has constituted us, though unworthy, above kings and kingdoms, to seize, destroy, disperse, build, and plant in His name and by His doctrine. Therefore, do not persuade thyself that thou hast no superior, and that thou art not subject to the head of the ecclesiastical hierarchy; he who thinks thus is insensate, he who maintains it is infidel." Past indeed was the time of Henry of Germany, long past the proud day when a Pope received an Emperor who knelt and waited in the snow. Philip burned the Bull; and to prevent other like fulminations, sent an agent into Italy. Gathering a band, he found the aged Pontiff at Anagni, his birthplace, seated on a throne, crowned with the triple crown, the Cross in one hand and in the other Saint Peter's Keys, the terrible Keys of Heaven and Hell. They called on him to abdicate, but Boniface thought of Christ his Lord, and cried out in defiant answer, "Here is my neck, here is my head. Betrayed like Jesus Christ, if I must die like him, I will at least die Pope." For reply, Sciarra Colonna, one of his own Roman Counts, struck him in the face. Buffeted by a noble, and openly defied by a king, Boniface died "of shame and anger." A month later, this same king rejoiced, if nothing more, at the death of the Pope's successor; and in the dark forests of Saint-Jean-d'Angély, Philip bargained and sold the great Tiara to a Gascon Archbishop who, if Villani speaks truly, "threw himself at the royal feet, saying, 'It is for thee to command and for me to obey; such will ever be my disposition!'" As was not unnatural, the will of the French king was that the Pope should remain within the zone of royal influence. So Clement lived at Bordeaux and at Poitiers, and finally retired to the County of Venaissin which the Holy See possessed by right, and established the pontifical court at Avignon. This transfer of the papal residence to Avignon has left many and deep traces on the history of French Catholicism. The Holy See was no longer far remote; the French ecclesiastic desirous of promotion had no dangerous mountains to traverse, no strange city to enter, no foreign Pontiff to besiege, ignorant or indifferent to his claims. The next successor of Saint Peter would logically be a Frenchman, and there was not only a possibility, but a probability for every man of note, that he might be either the occupant of the Sacred Chair or its favoured supporter. So Avignon became a city of priests as Rome had been before her; and as France was the richest country in Europe and the Church regally wealthy, splendour, luxury, and constant religious spectacles rejoiced the city, and Bishop, Archbishop, and Abbot, brazenly neglecting the duties of their Sees, lived here and were seldom "in residence." Every one had a secret ambition. Of such a situation, the Popes were not slow to reap the benefits. Difference of wealth, which brought difference of position, counted much and was keenly felt. Abbots of smaller monasteries found themselves inferior to Bishops, especially in freedom from papal interference; while from the inherent wealth and power of their foundations, the heads of the great monasteries ranked sometimes with Archbishops, sometimes even with Cardinals. The Pope had the right to elevate an Abbey or a Priory into a Bishopric, and those who could offer the "gratification" or the "provocative," might reasonably hope for the desired elevation which at once increased their local importance, belittled a neighbouring diocese, and freed them to some extent from the direct intermeddling of the Pope. The applications for such an increase of power became numerous, and by 1320 a number of Benedictine Abbeys had been made Bishoprics. Their creation greatly decreased the direct and intimate power of the Papacy, but temporarily increased the papal treasury; and John XXII, who left ten million pieces of silver and fifteen million in gold with his Florentine bankers, seems to have thought philosophically, "After us, the deluge." [Illustration: NOTRE-DAME-DES-DOMS.--AVIGNON] Another favourite diplomatic and financial device, which was invented by these famous Popes of Avignon, was the system of the "Commende," which enabled relatives of nobles and all those whom it was desirable to placate, not alone ecclesiastics, but mere laymen and bloody barons, to become "Commendatory Abbots" or "Commendatory Priors," and to receive at least one-third of the monastery's revenues, without being in any way responsible for the monastery's welfare. This care was left to a Prior or a Sub-prior, a sort of clerical administrator who, crippled in means and in influence, was sometimes unable, sometimes unwilling, to carry out the duties and beneficences of past ages, and who was always the victim of a great injustice. The depths of uselessness to which this infamous practice reduced monastic establishments may be inferred, when it is remembered that before the XVIII century the famous Abbey of La Baume had had thirteen Commendatory Abbots, and that the bastards of Louis XIV were Commendatory Priors in their infancy. The Popes found the Commende useful, not only as a means of income, but as a method--at once secure and lucrative--of gaining to their cause the great feudal lords of France, and making the power of these lords an added buffer, as it were, between Avignon and the grasping might of the French Kings. For although the Popes were under "the special protection" of the Kings, it was as sheep under the special protection of a shearer, and they found that they must protect themselves against a too "special" and royal fleecing. For they did not always agree that-- "'Tis as goodly a match as match can be To marry the Church and the fleur-de-lis Should either mate a-straying go, Then each--too late--will own 'twas so.'" [Illustration: "THE TOWER OF PHILIP THE FAIR."--VILLENEUVE-LES-AVIGNON.] Haunted by the humiliation of their heaven-sent power, caged in "Babylonish captivity," it is conceivable that the Popes were too occupied or, perhaps too distracted, to object to the unsuitable modesty of Notre-Dame-des-Doms. When a Pope swept forth from his Cathedral, new-crowned, to give "urbis et orbi" his first pontifical benediction, his eye glanced, it is true, on the crowds prostrate before him, before the church, awed and breathless; but it fell lingeringly--it was irresistibly drawn--across the swift Rhone to the town of the kings who had defied his power, to the royal city of Villeneuve, and to the strong tower of Philip the Fair, standing proudly in the sunlight. Would it be thought strange if their thoughts wandered, or if the portraits of the "French Popes" which hang about the Cathedral walls at Avignon, show more worldly preoccupation than is becoming to the successors of Saint Peter and Vicars of Christ? Little indeed in the days of their residency did the Popes add to Notre-Dame-des-Doms. A fragile, slender marvel of Gothic architecture, the tomb of John XXII, was placed in the nave before the altar; and a monument to Benedict XII was raised in the church. But their Holinesses incited others in Avignon to good works so successfully that Rabelais laughingly called it the "Ringing city" of churches, convents, and monasteries. The bells of Saint-Pierre, Saint-Symphorien, Saint-Agricol, Sainte-Claire, and Saint-Didier chimed with those of chapels and religious foundations; the Grey Penitents, Black Penitents, and White Penitents, priests, and nuns walked the streets, and Avignon grew truly papal. Clement V and his successors proceeded to the safeguarding of their temporal welfare in truly noble fashion; and scarcely fifty years later they had become so well pleased with their new residence that the magnificent Clement VI refused to leave in spite of the supplications of Petrarch and Rienzi and a whole deputation of Romans. During the reign of this Pontiff, the Papal Court became one of the gayest in Christendom. Clement was frankly, joyously voluptuous; and his life seems one moving pageant in which luxurious banquets, beautiful women, and ecclesiastical pomps succeeded each other. The lovely Countess of Turenne sold his preferments and benefices, the immense treasure of John XXII was his, and he showered such benefits on a grateful family that of the five Cardinals who accompanied his corpse from Avignon, one was his brother, one his cousin, and three his nephews; and that the Huguenots who violated his tomb at La-Chaise-Dieu, should have used his skull as a wine-cup, seems an horrible, but not an unfitting mockery. It was in vain that Petrarch hotly wrote, "the Pope keeps the Church of Jesus Christ in shameful exile." The desire for return to Rome had passed. Avignon was not an original nor a plenary possession of the Holy Fathers, but "the fairest inheritance of the Bérengers," and it was from that family that half of the city had to be wrested--or obtained. Now the lords of Provence were Kings of Naples and Sicily, and therefore vassals of the Holy See. For when the Normans took these Southern states from the Greeks and thereby incurred the jealousy of all Italy, they had warily placed themselves under the protection of the Pope and agreed to hold their new possessions as a papal investiture. It happened at this time that the vassal of the Pope in Naples and in Sicily was the beauteous "Reino Joanno," the heiress of Provence. What she was no writer could describe in better words than these, "with extreme beauty, with youth that does not fade, red hair that holds the sunlight in its tangles, a sweet voice, poetic gifts, regal peremptoriness, a Gallic wit, genuine magnanimity, and rhapsodical piety, with strange indecorum and bluntness of feeling under the extremes of splendour and misery, just such a lovely, perverse, bewildering woman was she, great granddaughter of Raymond-Bérenger, fourth Count of Provence,--the pupil of Boccaccio, the friend of Petrarch, the enemy of Saint Catherine of Siena, the most dangerous and most dazzling woman of the XIV century. So typically Provençal was this Queen's nature, that had she lived some centuries later, she might have been Mirabeau's sister. The same 'terrible gift of familiarity,' the same talent of finding favour and swaying popular assemblages, the same sensuousness, bold courage, and great generosity were found in this early orphaned, thrice widowed heiress of Provence. To this day, the memory of the Reino Joanno lives in her native land, associated with numbers of towers and fortresses, the style of whose architecture attests their origin under her reign. It says much for her personal fascinations that far from being either cursed or blamed she is still remembered and praised. The ruins of Gremaud, Tour Drainmont, of Guillaumes, and a castle near Roccaspervera, all bear her name: at Draguignan and Flagose, they tell you her canal has supplied the town with water for generations: in the Esterels, the peasants who got free grants of land, still invoke their benefactress. At Saint-Vallier, she is blessed because she protected the hamlet near the Siagne from the oppression of the Chapters of Grasse and Lérins. At Aix and Avignon her fame is undying because she dispelled some robber-bands; at Marseilles she is popular because she modified and settled the jurisdiction of Viscounts and Bishops. Go up to Grasse and in the big square where the trees throw a flickering shadow over the street-traders, you will see built in a vaulted passage a flight of stone steps, steps which every barefoot child will tell you belong to the palace of 'La Reino Joanno.' Walls have been altered, gates have disappeared, but down those time-worn steps once paced the liege lady of Provence, the incomparable 'fair mischief' whose guilt ... must ever remain one of the enigmas of history." This "enigma" has strange analogies to one which has puzzled and impassioned the writers of many generations, the mystery of that other "fair mischief" of a later century, Mary Queen of Scots. Like Mary, Jeanne was accused of the murder of her young husband, and being pressed by the vengeance of his brother--no less a person than the King of Hungary,--she decided to retreat to her native Provence and appeal to the Pope, her gallant and not over-scrupulous suzerain. "Jeanne landed at Ponchettes," continues the writer who has so happily described her, "and the consuls came to assure her of their devotion. 'I come,' replied the heiress, whose wit always suggested a happy phrase, 'to ask for your hearts and nothing but your hearts.' As she did not allude to her debts, the populace threw up their caps; the Prince de Monaco, just cured of his wound at Crécy, placed his sword at her service; and the Baron de Bénil, red-handed from a cruel murder, besought her patronage which, perhaps from a fellow-feeling, she promised with great alacrity. At Grasse she won all hearts and made many more promises, and finally, arriving at Avignon, she found Clement covetous of the city and well-disposed to her. Yet morality obliged him to ask an explanation of her recent change of husbands, and before three Cardinals, whom he appointed to be her judges, the Queen pleaded her own cause. Not a blush tinged her cheek, no tremor altered her melodious voice as she stood before the red-robed Princes of the Church and narrated, in fluent Latin, the story of the assassination of Andrew, the death of her child, and her marriage with the murderer, Louis of Tarento, who stood by her side. The wily Pope noted behind her the proud Provençal nobles, the Villeneuves and d'Agoults, the de Baux and the Lescaris, who brought the fealty of the hill-country, and who did not know that, having already sold her jewels to the Jews, their fair Queen was covenanting with the Pope for Avignon. The formal trial ended, the Pontiff solemnly declared the Queen to be guiltless,--and she granted him the city for eighty thousand pieces of gold." [Illustration: "THE GREAT PALACE."--AVIGNON.] Clement enjoyed ownership in the same agreeable manner as his predecessors, "without the untying of purse-strings." Perhaps he used the purse's contents for the more pressing claim of the great Palace of which he built so large a part; perhaps he handed it, still filled, to Innocent VI who built the famous fortifications of Avignon and protected himself against the marauding "White Companies," perhaps it was still untouched when Bertrand du Guesclin and his Grand Company stood before the gate and demanded "benediction, absolution, and two hundred thousand pounds." "What!" the Pope is said to have cried, "must we give absolution, which here in Avignon is paid for, and then give money too--it is contrary to reason!" Du Guesclin replied to the bearer of these words, "Here are many who care little for absolution, and much for money,"--and Urban yielded. Gregory XI, the last of the "French Popes," returned to Rome, and at his death the "Great Schism" followed;--Clement VII, in Avignon, was recognised by France, Spain, Scotland, Sicily, and Cyprus; Urban VI, in Rome, by Italy, Austria, and England. The County Venaissin was ravaged by wars and the pests that come in their train. At length the Avignonnais, who had not enjoyed greater peace under their anointed rulers than under worldling Counts, rose against Pierre de Luna, the "Anti-pope" Benedict XIII, who fled. From that time no Pontiff entered the gates, and the city was administered by papal legates. In later days, in spite of the sacred character of its rulers and his own undoubted orthodoxy, Louis XIV seized Avignon several times; and Louis XV, in unfilial vengeance for the excommunication of the Duke of Parma, took possession of the city. But it was not until after the beginning of the French Revolution, in 1791, that the Avignonnais themselves arose, chased the Vice-Legate of the Pope from the city, and appealed for union with France; and it was at this period that the Chapel of Sainte-Marthe, the Cloister, and the Chapter House were swept away. Thus ended the temporal power of the Papacy in France, planned for worldly profit and carried out with many sordid compromises;--a residency unnoted for great deeds or noble intentions and whose close marked the "Great Schism." To-day papal Avignon is become French Avignon, a pleasant city where the Provençal sun is hot and where the Mistral whistles merrily. Above the banks of the Rhone the simple Cathedral stands, with its priests still garbed in papal red, its Host still carried under the white papal panoply. Here also is the great Palace of the Popes, "which is indeed," says Froissart, "the strongest and most magnificent house in the world." And yet its grim walls suggest neither peace nor rest; and to him who recalls, this great, impressive pile tells neither of glories nor of triumphs. Bands of unbelieving Pastoureaux marched toward it; soldiers of the "White Companies" and soldiers of du Guesclin gazed mockingly at it; it was the prison of Rienzi, and the home of the harassed Popes who had ever before them, just across the river, the menacing tower of that "fair king" who had led them into "Babylonish captivity." [Sidenote: Vaison.] On the banks of a pleasant little river among the Provençal hills is Vaison, one of the ancient Gallic towns which became entirely romanised; and many illustrious families of the Empire had summer villas there as at Arles and Orange. Barbarians of one epoch or another have devastated Vaison of all her antique treasures, except the remains of an Amphitheatre on the Puymin Hill. Germanic tribes who swooped down in early centuries destroyed her villas and her greater buildings; and vandals of a later day have scattered her sculptures and her tablets here and there. Some are in the galleries of Avignon; a Belus, the only one found in France, was sent to the Museum of Saint-Germain; and in the multitude of treasures in the British Museum, the most beautiful of all her statues, a Diadumenus, is artistically lost. In the days when it still adorned the city, during the reign of the Emperor Gallienus, Vaison was christianised by Saint Ruf, her Bishopric was founded, and in 337 the first General Council of the Church held in Gaul assembled here. Another Council in the V century, and still another in the VI, are proof of her continued importance. [Illustration: "ON THE BANKS OF A PLEASANT LITTLE RIVER IS VAISON."] [Illustration: "THE RUINED CASTLE OF THE COUNTS OF TOULOUSE."--VAISON.] Among the first of Gallo-Roman cities, she was also among the first to suffer. Chrocus and his horde who sacked Orange, seized her Bishop and murdered him; and Alains, Vandals, and Burgundians, following in their wake, brought disaster after disaster to the cities lying near the Rhone. Vaison, by miracle, did not lose her prestige. In the X and XI centuries she built her fine Cathedral with its Cloisters, and in 1179 she was still great enough to excite the covetousness of Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse. This magnificent and ambitious prince built a castle on a height above the city, and as he had before terrorised my Lord Bishop of Carpentras, so now he seized the anointed person of Bérenger de Reilhane, who was not only Vaison's Bishop, but her temporal prince as well. Bérenger was a sufficiently powerful personage to make an outcry which re-echoed throughout Christendom; the Pope and the Emperor came to his aid; and in the Abbey Church of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, Raymond VI did solemn penance, and, before receiving absolution, was publicly struck by the Papal Legate with a bundle of birch rods. Above the Bishop's Palace the great castle still loomed in menace, but on that day Bérenger de Reilhane triumphed and Vaison was at peace. It was a peace which presaged her quiet, uneventful downfall. For other interests were growing stronger in the country, other cities grew where she stood still, and in the XIV century, when Avignon became the seat of papal power, Vaison had passed from the world's history. Her Bishopric endured till 1801, but her doings are worthy only of provincial chronicles and to-day she is but a little country town, served by the stage-coach. She still lies on both banks of the river; the "high city," with long rows of deserted houses, climbs the side of the steep hill and is dominated by the ruins of the great castle, which Richelieu destroyed. The "lower city," which is the busier of the two, lies on the opposite bank; and on its outskirts, in a little garden-close, almost surrounded by the fields, is the Cathedral,--solitary, lonely, and old. [Illustration: "THE WHOLE APSE-END."--VAISON.] [Illustration: "THE SOUTH WALL WHICH IS CLEARLY SEEN FROM THE ROAD."--VAISON.] The decoration of the exterior is slight, a dentiled cornice and a graceful foliated frieze extend along the top of the side-walls, which although most plainly built, are far from being severely angular or gaunt and have a quaint and pleasing harmony of line. The west front is so featureless that it scarcely deserves the title of façade. The south wall, which is clearly seen from the road, has a small portal and plain buttresses that slope at the top. The central apse is rectangular and heavy, the little southern apse is short and round, and that of the north is tall and thin as a pepper-box. Behind them rise the pointed roof of the nave and the heavy tower. The whole apse-end is constructed in most picturesque irregularity, and the new red of the roof-tiles and sombre grey of the old stone add greatly to its charm. Unlike many churches of its period Notre-Dame of Vaison is three-aisled. Slender, narrow naves, whose tunnel vaults are not extremely lofty, end in small circular apses. The nave is a short one of three irregular bays, and over the last, which precedes the choir, is the little eight-sided dome, which instead of projecting above the roof is curiously placed a little lower than the tunnel vaulting of the other bays. The High Altar, which originally belonged to an older church, is well placed in the simple choir; for it belongs in style, if not in actual fact, to the first centuries of the Faith; and in the semi-darkness behind the altar, the old episcopal throne still stands against the apse's wall, in memory of the custom of the Church's early days. The low arches of the aisles, the dim lighting of the church, its simple ornaments of classic bands and little capitals, its slight irregularities of form and carvings, make an interior of fine and strong antique simplicity. A little door in the north wall leads to the Cloisters, which are happily in a state of complete restoration, and not as a modern writer has described them, "practically a ruin." The wall which overlooks them has an inscription that adjures the Canons to "bear with patience the north aspect of their cells." The short walks have tunnel vaults with cross-vaults in the corners and in parts of the north aisle. Great piers and small, firm columns support the outer arches; and on the exterior of the Cloister the little arches of the columns are enclosed in a large round arch. Many of the capitals are uncarved, some of the piers have applied columns, but many are ornamented in straight cut lines. On one side, two bays open to the ground, forming an entrance-way into the pretty close, where the bushy tops of a few tall trees cast flickering shadows on the surrounding walls and the little grassy square. [Illustration: "TWO BAYS OPEN TO THE GROUND."--VAISON.] [Illustration: "THE GREAT PIERS AND SMALL FIRM COLUMNS."--VAISON.] The Cloister is small and simple in its rather heavy grace. Noise and unrest seem far from it, and underneath its solid rounded vault is peace and shelter from the world. And in its firm solidity of architecture there is the spirit of a perfect quiet, a tranquil charm which must insensibly have calmed many a restless spirit that chafed beneath the churchly frock, and fled within its walls for refuge and for helpful meditation. Few Provençal Cathedrals have the interest of Vaison and its Cloister. Lying in the forgotten valley of the Ouvèze, in an old-fashioned town, all its surroundings speak of the past and its atmosphere is quite unspoiled. The church itself has been spared degenerating restorations; and although it has no sumptuousness as at Marseilles, no grandeur as at Arles, no stirring history as the churches that lay near the sea, although it is one of the smallest and most venerable of them all, no Cathedral of the Southland has so great an architectural dignity and merit with so ancient and so quaint a charm. [Sidenote: Arles.] In the midst of the wealth of antique ruins, near the Theatre, the Coliseum, and the Forum of this "little Rome of the Gauls," stands a noble monument of the ruder ages of Christianity, the Cathedral, Saint-Trophime. Here Saint Augustine, apostle to England, was consecrated; here three General Councils of the Church were held, here the Donatists were doomed to everlasting fire, and here the Emperor Constantine, from his summer palace on the Rhone, must have come to "assist" at Mass. The building in which these solemn scenes of the early Church were enacted soon disappeared and was replaced by the present one whose older walls Révoil attributes to the IX century. The present Cathedral's first documentary date is 1152, in the era of the Republic of Arles. The name of Saint-Etienne was changed, and the body of Saint-Trophime, carried in state from the ruined Church of the Aliscamps, was buried under a new altar and he was solemnly proclaimed the Patron of the richest and most majestic church in all Provence. [Illustration: "IN THE MIDST OF THE WEALTH OF ANTIQUE RUINS."--ARLES.] [Illustration: THE FAÇADE OF SAINT-TROPHIME.--ARLES.] Nearly eight hundred years later a traveller stood before the portal of this church. In the midst of his delighted study he suddenly felt the attraction of a pair of watchful eyes, and turned to find a peasant woman gazing fixedly at him. In her strange fascination she had placed beside her, on the ground, two huge melons and a mammoth cabbage, and her wizened hands were folded before her, Sunday-fashion. She was a little witch of a woman, old and bent and brown. "Yes, my good gentleman," she said, "I have been looking at you,--five whole minutes of the clock, and much good it has done me. In these days of books and such fine learning there is not enough time spent before our door; and I who pass by it every day, year in, year out, I have watched well, and only two except yourself have ever studied it. The foreigners come with red books and look at them more than at the door itself,--they stay perhaps three minutes, and go off, shaking their wise heads. Our people, passing every day, see but a door, a place for going in and coming out." She paused for breath. "And what do you see?" asked the traveller. "You ask me?" She smiled wisely. "But you know, since you are standing here and looking too. Listen!" And her old eyes began to gleam. "I'll tell you of a time before you were born. I was a child then; and we marched here every Sunday, other little girls and myself, and we stood before this door. And the nuns--it was often Sister Mary Dolorosa--told us the stories of these stones. See! Here is Our Lord Who loves all mankind, but has to judge us too;--and there is Saint-Trophime. But I cannot read, Monsieur. An old peasant woman has no time for such fine things, and you will laugh at me for telling you what you have in your books,--but I have them all here, here in my heart, and many a time I too come to refresh my old memory, and to pray. Those pictures tell great lessons to those that have eyes to see them. Well, well-a-day, I must pick up my melons and begone, for I have taken up your time and said too much. But you will excuse it in an old woman who is good for little else than talking now." They parted in true French fashion, with "expressions of mutual esteem," and the traveller turned to the portal which was still fulfilling its ancient mission of teaching and of making beautiful the House of God. Applied to a severe façade typical of the plainness of Provençal outer walls, this is one of the noblest works of Mediævalism, the richest and most beautiful portal of the South of France; and no others in the Midi, except those of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard and Moissac, are worthy of comparison with it. In boldness and intellectuality of conception it excels many of the northern works and equals the finest of them. For the builder of the northern portal seems to have held closely to one architectural form, the beautiful convention of the Gothic style; and within that door he placed, in a more or less usual way, the subjects which the Church had sanctioned. In nearly every case the treatment of the subject is subordinated to the general architectural plan and symmetry. At Saint-Trophime there was the limit of space, the axiom that a door must be a door, and doubtless many allowable subjects. But within these necessary bounds the unknown sculptor recognised few conventionalities. The usual place for the portrayal of the Last Judgment, the tympanum, was too small for his conception of the scene; the pier that divides his door-way was not built to support the statue of the church's patron saint; he had a multitude of fancies, and instead of curbing them in some beautiful conventionality of form, as one feels great northern builders often did, this artist made a frame within which his ideas found free play, and, forcing conventionality to its will, his genius justified itself. For not only is the portal as a whole, full of dignity and true symmetry, but its details are thoughtfully worked out. They show, with the old scholastic form of his Faith, the grasp of the unknown master's mind, the intellectuality of his symbolism, and few portals grow in fascination as this one, few have so interesting an originality. [Illustration: RIGHT DETAIL, PORTAL.--ARLES.] In design it is simple, in execution incomparably rich. The principal theme of the Last Judgment has Christ seated on a throne as the central figure, and about him are the symbols of the four Evangelists. This is the treatment of the tympanum. Underneath, Patriarchs, Saints, Just, and Condemned form the beautiful frieze. The Apostles are seated; and to their left is an angel guarding the gates of Paradise against two Bishops and a crowd of laymen who have yet to fully expiate their sins in Purgatory. Behind them, naked, with their feet in the flames, are those condemned to everlasting Hell; and still beyond is a lower depth where souls are already half-consumed in hideous fires. On the Apostles' extreme right is the beginning of our human history, the Temptation of Adam and Eve; and marching toward the holy men, on this same side, is the long procession of those Redeemed from Adam's fall, clothed in righteousness. An angel goes before them, and hands a small child--a ransomed soul--to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The end panels treat the last phases of the dominant theme;--a mammoth angel in the one weighs the souls of the dead; and an equally awe-inspiring devil in the other is preparing to cast two of the Lost into a sea of fire. The remainder of the portal tells of many subjects, and represents much of the theological symbolism of its time. Light, graceful columns, with delicately foliated capitals and bases rich with meaning sculptures, divide the lower spaces into niches, and in these niches stand statues of Apostles and of Saints, each having his story, each his peculiar attributes; and about these chief figures are carved rich designs, strange animals, and numberless short stories of the Bible. Above there is a small, subsidiary frieze; below, the pedestals which tell the tale of those who stand upon them. The figures have life and meaning, if not a true plasticity; and in this portal there is instruction, variety, and majesty, wealth of allegory and subtle symbols for those who love religious mysteries, and splendour of sculpture for those who come in search of Art. There are those to whom a simple beauty does not appeal. After the richness of the portal's carving, the interior of Saint-Trophime is to them "far too plain;" in futile comparison with the Cloister's grace, it is found "too severe;" and one author has written that only "when the refulgence of a Mediterranean sun glances through a series of long lances, ... then and then only does the Cathedral of Saint-Trophime offer any inducement to linger within its non-impressive walls." It may not be denied that, together with nearly all the Cathedrals of Provence, this interior has suffered from the addition of inharmonious styles. The most serious of these is its Gothic choir of the XV century, which a certain Cardinal Louis Allemand applied to the narrower Romanesque naves. With irregular ambulatory, chapels of various sizes, and a general incongruity of plan, this construction has no architectural importance except that of a prominent place in the church's worship. The remaining excrescences, Gothic chapels, Ionic pilasters, elliptical tribune, and the like, are happily hidden along the side aisles or in the transepts; and during the restoration of Révoil the naves were relieved of the disfiguring "improvements" of the XVII century, and stand to-day in much of their fine old simplicity. Beyond the fifth bay, and rising in the tower, is the dome of dignified Provençal form that rests on the lower arches of the crossing. Small clerestory windows cast sheets of pale light on the plain piers, rectangular and heavy, that rise to support a tunnel vault and divide the church into three naves of great and slender height. The stern, ascetic style of the XI and XII centuries has given the nave piers mere small, plain bands as capitals, and for churchly decoration has allowed only a moulding of acanthus leaves placed high and unnoticed at the vaulting's base. There is no pleasing detail and no charming fancy; but a fine, exquisite loftiness, a faultless balance of proportion, are in this severe interior, and its solemn and majestic beauty is not surpassed in the Southern Romanesque. [Illustration: LEFT DETAIL, PORTAL.--ARLES.] Beyond the south transept, a short passage and a few steps lead to the Cloisters, the most famous of Provence, perhaps of France. Large, graceful, and magnificent in wealth of carving, they have yet none of the poetic charms that linger around many a smaller Cloister. The vaultings are not more beautiful than other vaults less known; although they have the help of the great piers, the little, slender columns seem too light to support so much expanse of roof, and even the church's tower, square and high, looks dwarfed when seen across the close. The very spaciousness is solitary, and the long vista of the walks conduces to vague wonderings rather than to peaceful hours of thought. It has not the dreamy solitude of Vaison, nor the bright beauty of Elne's little close, nor any of the sunny cheerfulness that brightens the decaying walls of Cahors. [Illustration: THROUGH THE CLOISTER-ARCHES.--ARLES.] The marvel of these Cloisters is the sculptured decorations of their piers and columns. Those of the XII century are the richest, but each of the later builders seems to have vied as best he might, in wealth of conception and in lavishness of detail, with those who went before, and, even in enforced re-building, the addition of the Gothic to the Romanesque has not destroyed the harmony of the effect. In all the sculptors' schemes, the outer of the double columns were given foliated patterns or a few, simple symbols, and the outer of the piers were channelled and conventionally cut; and although the fancy of the sculptor is marvellously subtle and full of grace, his greatest art was reserved for the capitals of the inner columns and the inner faces of the piers, which meditating priests would see and study. The symbolism authorised by Holy Church, the history of precursors of Our Lord, the incidents of His life and the more dramatic doings of the Saints, all these are carved with greatest love of detail and of art; and in them the least arduous priest could find themes for a whole year of meditation, the least enthusiastic of travellers, a thousand quaint and interesting fancies and imaginations. It is not so much the beauty of the whole effect that is entrancing in these Cloisters, nor that most subtle influence, the good or evil spirit of a past which lingers round so many ancient spots, as that mediæval thought and mediæval genius that found expression in these myriad fine examples of the sculptor's art. [Illustration: "A NAVE OF GREAT AND SLENDER HEIGHT."--ARLES.] [Illustration: "THE BEAUTY OF THE WHOLE."--ARLES.] Alexandre Dumas has written of Arles: "Roman monuments form the soil; and about them, at their feet, in their shadow, in their crevasses, a second Gothic city has sprung--one knows not how--by the vegetative force of the religious civilisation of Saint Louis. Arles is the Mecca of archæologists." It is also the Mecca of those who love to study people and customs, for, in spite of the railroad, and the consequent influx of "foreign French," it has preserved the old græco-roman-saracenic type which has made its beautiful women so justly famous, and, underneath its Provençal gaieties, their classic origins may easily be traced. One should see the Roman Theatre, the solitary Aliscamps, by moonlight, the busy market in the early day, the Cathedral at a Mass, and a fête at any time,--for "When the fête-days come, farewell the swath and labour, And welcome revels underneath the trees, And orgies in the vaulted hostelries, Bull-baitings, never-ending dances, and sweet pleasures." [Sidenote: Entrevaux.] The most celebrated fortified town in France is the Cité of Carcassonne, yet, even in the days of its practical strength, it was scarcely a type. It was rather a marvel, a wonder,--the "fairest Maid of Languedoc," "the Invincible." And now the citadel is almost deserted. The inhabitants are so few that weeds grow in their streets, and one who walks there in the still mid-day feels that all this completion of architecture, these walls, perfect in every stone, may be an enchanted vision, a mirage; he more than half believes that the cool of the sunset will dispel the illusion, and he will find himself on a pleasant little hill of Languedoc, looking down upon the commonplace "Lower City" of Carcassonne. At Entrevaux there is no suggestion of illusion. This is not a show-place that once was real; it is one of a hundred little agglomerations of the French Middle Ages. They had no great name to uphold; no riches to expend in impregnable walls and towers. They clung fearfully together for self-preservation, built ramparts that were as strong as might be, and dared not laugh at the "fortunes of war." Except that there is safety outside the walls, and a tiny post and telegraph office within, they are now as they were in those dangerous days. The fortress of Carcassonne is dead; but in the back country of Provence, Entrevaux is living, and scarcely a jot or tittle of its Mediævalism is lost. Among high rocks that close around it on every side, where, according to the season, the Chalvagne trickles or plunges into the river Var, and dominated by a fort that perches on a sharp peak, is the strangest of old Provençal towns. [Illustration: THE GOTHIC WALK, CLOISTER.--ARLES.] The founding of the tiny episcopal city was after this wise. Toward the close of the XIV century, in a time of plagues, Jewish persecutions, the growth of heresies, and the uncurbed ravages of free-booters, the city of Glandèves, seat of an ancient Bishopric, was destroyed. The living remnant abandoned its desolate ruins. Searching for a stronger, safer home, they chose a site on the left bank of the Var, and commenced the building of Entrevaux. The Bishop accompanied his flock, and although he retained the old title of Glandèves, in memory of the antiquity of the See and its lost city, the Cathedral-church was established at Entrevaux. The first edifice, Saint-Martin's, built shortly after the founding of the town, has long been destroyed; and the second, begun in 1610, to the honour of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, held episcopal rank until the See was disestablished by the great Concordat. Although this Cathedral was built in the XVII century, a date perilously near that of decadence in French ecclesiastical architecture, it was situated in so obscure a corner of Provence that its plan was unaffected by innovating ideas; it is of the old native type, a building of stout walls and heavy buttresses, a single tower, square and straight, and a tunnel-vaulted room, the place of congregation. This interior, with no beautiful details that may not be found in other churches, has as many of the defects of the Italian school as the treasury could afford,--marble columns, frescoes, gilding, and other rococo decorations which show that the people of Entrevaux had no higher and no better tastes than those of Nice; and that the old, simple purity of the church's form was rather a matter of ignorance or necessity than of choice. The attraction of the episcopal church pales before the quaint delight of the episcopal city, and it is as part of the general civic defence that it shares in the interest of Entrevaux. [Illustration: "THIS INTERIOR."--ENTREVAUX.] [Illustration: THE ROMANESQUE WALK, CLOISTER.--ARLES.] [Illustration: "ONE OF THREE SMALL DRAWBRIDGES."--ENTREVAUX.] [Illustration: "THE PORTCULLIS."--ENTREVAUX.] Leaving the train at the nearest railroad station, the traveller followed the winding Var, and he had scarcely walked four miles when he saw, across the river, the sharp peak with its fort, and the long lines of walls that zigzag down the hillside till they reach the crowded roofs that are clustered closely, in charming irregularity, near the bank. Along the water's edge, the only part of the town that is not protected by rocks and hills, there is another line of stout walls and two heavy, jutting bastions. From a mediæval point of view Entrevaux looks strong indeed. The only means of entrance, now as in those olden days, is by one of three small drawbridges, and so narrow is every street of the town that no wagon is allowed to cross, for if it made the passage of the bridge it would be caught hard and fast between the houses. As the traveller put foot on the drawbridge he felt as though he were a petty trader or wandering minstrel, or some other figure of the Middle Ages, entering for a few hours' traffic or a noon-day's rest, and when he paused under the low arch of the portcullis-gate, people stared at him as they do at a stranger in little far-off towns. Once inside, he turned into a street, and was immediately obliged to step into a door-way, for a man leading a horse was approaching, and they needed all its breadth. Houses, several stories high, bordered these incredibly dark, narrow ways, and some of the upper windows had the diminutive balconies so dear to the South. It was a bright, hot day, but the sun seldom peeped into these streets; and in the shops the light was dull at mid-day. As he thought of the men and women of Mediævalism, who did not dare to wander in the fields beyond the town, because their safety lay within its ramparts, suddenly, the little public squares of walled towns appeared in all the real significance of their light and breadth and sunshine. Space is precious in Entrevaux, and open places are few. There is one where the hotels and cafés are found, another across the drawbridge behind the Cathedral-tower, and a tiny one before the church itself. This is the most curious of them all; for, far from being a "Place de la Cathédrale," it is a true "Place d'Armes." Near the portals, on whose wooden doors the mitre and insignia of papal favour are carved, a few steps lead to a narrow ledge where archers could stand and shoot from the loop-holes in the walls. As the traveller sat on this ledge and wondered what scenes had been enacted here, how many deadly shots had sped from out the holes, what crowds of excited townsfolk had gathered in the church, what grave words of exhortation and of blessing had been spoken from the altar or the threshold by anxious prelate, robed and mitred for the Mass of Supplication to a God of Battles, an humble funeral appeared,--a priest, a peasant bearing a black wooden Cross with the name of the deceased painted on it, a rope-bound coffin carried by hot and sorrowing women, and a little procession of friends. The pomps and vanities of the past disappeared as a mist from the traveller's mind, and he saw Entrevaux as it really is, without the comforts of this world's goods, without the greatness of a Bishopric, a small Provençal village whose perfection of quaintness--so charming to him who passes on--means hardship and discomfort to those who have been born and must live and die there. [Illustration: "A FORT THAT PERCHES ON A SHARP PEAK."--ENTREVAUX.] [Illustration: "A TRUE PLACE D'ARMES."--ENTREVAUX.] And yet so potent is that charm, when the traveller re-crossed the drawbridge and looked up at the sharp teeth of the portcullis that may still fall and bite, when he had passed out on the high-road and turned again and again to watch the fading sunlight on the tangled mass of roofs, the illusion had returned. The bastions stood out in bold relief, the church tower with its crenellated top stood out against the rocky peaks, the sun fell suddenly behind the hill, and the traveller felt himself again a minstrel wandering in a mediæval night. [Illustration: "THE LONG LINES OF WALLS THAT ZIGZAG DOWN THE HILLSIDE."--ENTREVAUX.] [Sidenote: Sisteron.] The traveller is curious,--frankly curious. Almost every time that he enters a Cathedral, his memory recalls the words of Renan, "these splendid marvels are almost always the blossoming of some little deceit," and after he has feasted his eye, he thinks of history and of details, and of Renan, prejudiced but well-informed, and wonders what was here the "little deceit." At Grasse, he had longed for the papers a certain lawyer has, which tell much of the city's life a hundred and fifty years ago, and at Sisteron, he sat by the Durance, wondering how he could induce a kind and good old lady of a remote corner of Provence to lend him an ancient manuscript, which even the gentle Curé said she "obstinately" refused to "impart." Blessed are they who can be satisfied with guide-books, as his friends who had visited Avignon and Arles, Tarascon and the Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, and had seen Provence to their entire edification while he was merely peering about Notre-Dame-des-Doms and the Fort Saint-André. Of a more indolent and leisurely turn of mind, he suffers--and perhaps justly--the penalty of his joyous idleness, for even lawyers and good ladies with hidden papers are rare. Revolutionary sieges, fires, and a wise discretion have led to the destroying of many a fine old page, and it is often in vain one goes to these decaying cities of Provence. "We see," he said, gesticulating dejectedly, "we see their towers and their walls, but if we say we know that place, how many times do we deceive ourselves. It is too often as though we claimed to know the life and thought and passions of a man from looking on his grave." But--to consider what we may know. Sisteron is an old Roman city, most strongly and picturesquely built in a narrow defile of the Durance. On one side the river is the high, bare rock of La Baume; on the other, a higher rock where houses, supporting each other by outstretched buttresses, seem to cling to the sheer hillside as shrubs in mountain crevasses, and are dominated and protected by a large and formidable fortress-castle that crowns the very top of the peak. The town walls are almost gone; the fortress is abandoned; since the Revolution there are no longer Bishops in Sisteron; but the old town has lost little of its war-like and romantic atmosphere of days when it commanded an important pass, and when the way across the Durance was guarded by a drawbridge, and a big portcullis that now stands in rusty idleness. [Illustration: "THE CHURCH TOWER STOOD OUT AGAINST THE ROCKY PEAKS."--ENTREVAUX.] It is claimed that the Bishopric of this stronghold was founded in the IV century, and grew and flourished mightily, until the Bishop dwelt securely on his rock, his Brother of Gap had a "box" on the opposite bank, the Convent of the little Dominican Sisters was further up the river, and, besides this busy ecclesiastical life, there was the world of burghers in the town and its Convent of Ursulines. Here came once upon a time a sprightly lady who added a thousand lively interests. This was Louise de Cabris, sister of the great Mirabeau, "who, when a mere girl, had been married to the Marquis de Cabris. Part knave, part fool, the vices of de Cabris sometimes ended in attacks of insanity. His marriage with one who united the violence of the Mirabeaus to the license of the Vassans was unfortunate; ... and after Louise began to reign in the big dark house of the Cours of Grasse, life never lacked for incidents." Matters were not mended by the arrival of her brother, twenty-four and wild, and supposed to be living under a "lettre de cachet" in the sleepy little town of Manosque. The two were soon embroiled in so outrageous a scandal that their father, who loved a quarrel for its own sake, sided with the prosecution; and declaring that "no children like his had ever been seen under the sun," took out a "lettre de cachet" for Louise, who was sent up to Sisteron, where he requested her to "repent of her sins at leisure in the Convent of the Ursulines." Inheriting a brilliant, restless wit and unbridled morals, her life with the stupid, vicious Marquis had not improved her natural disposition, and she soon set Sisteron agog. On pretence of business all the lawyers flocked to see her; and with no pretence at all the garrison flocked in their train. When the Ursulines ventured to remonstrate, she diverted them with such anecdotes of gay adventure as were never found between the pages of their prayer-books. Finally the whole town was divided into two camps; her foes called her "a viper," and many an eye peered into the dark streets, many a head was judiciously hidden behind bowed shutters, to see who went toward the Convent; till by wit and scheming and after some months of most surprising incident, Louise carried her point, left the good Ursulines to a well-merited repose, and returned to the Castle of Mirabeau,--to laugh at the townsfolk of Sisteron. [Illustration: "THE CATHEDRAL IS NEAR THE HEAVY, ROUND TOWERS OF THE OUTER RAMPARTS."--SISTERON.] [Illustration: "THE BRIDGE ACROSS THE DURANCE."--SISTERON.] When in the city, the prelates occupied their Castle of the Citadel with the high lookouts and defences, far from their Cathedral, which is in the lower town near the heavy, round towers of the ramparts. This church, which has been very slightly and very judiciously restored, is of unknown date, probably of the XII century, it is faithful to the native architectural tradition, and in some details more interesting than many of the Provençal Cathedrals. Its exterior is small and low. There are the familiar, friendly little apses of the Romanesque; near them, above the east end of the north aisle, the squat tower with a modest, modern spire; and at its side, above the roof-line, is the octagon that stands over the dome. All this structure is unaffectedly simple. The walls and buttresses which enclose the aisles are plain, and it is only by comparison with this architectural Puritanism that the façade may be considered ornate. Near the top of its wall, which is supported by sturdy piers, are three round windows, with deep, splayed frames. The largest of them is directly above the high, slender portal that is somewhat reminiscent of the Italian influence, so elaborately marked further up the valley, at Embrun. The rounded arch of the door-way and its pointed gable are repeated, on either side, in a half-arch and half-gable. An allegorical animal, in relief, stands above the central arch, and a few columns with delicate capitals complete the adornment of the entrance-way, which, in spite of being the most decorative part of the church, is most discreet. Nine steps lead down into an interior that is small, very usually planned, and much defaced by XVII century gilt--yet is essentially dignified and impressive. Eliminate the tawdry altars, take away the stucco Saints and painted Virgins, let the chapels be mere shadowy corners in the dark perspective, and the little church appears like the meeting-place of the Faithful of an early Christianity. Its nave and each of the narrow side aisles rise to round tunnel-vaults; there are but five bays, and the last is covered by a small, octagonal dome. The whole church is built of a dark stone that is almost black, its lighting is very dim, and centres in the little apses where the holiest statues stand and the most sacred rites are celebrated; and the worshippers, shrouded in twilight, have more of the atmosphere of mystery than is usual in the Cathedrals of Provence, the subtle influence of quiet shadowy darkness that is so potent in the churches of the Spanish borderland. [Illustration: "ENTRANCES TO TWO NARROW STREETS."--SISTERON.] Many will pass through Sisteron and enjoy its rugged strength, its sun-lit days, its narrow streets, and the peaks that stand out in solemn sternness against the dark blue sky at night. Notre-Dame-de-Pomeriis has none of the salient beauty of any of these, and to appreciate its ancient charm, it must not be forgotten that the Provençal Cathedral has not the distinction of size or the elaboration of the greater Cathedrals of Gascony, that it is far removed from the fine originalities of Languedoc, that it is conventional, and, as it were, clannish, and that its highest dignity is in a simple quiet that is never awe-full. There is, in truth, more than one church of this country that needs the embellishment of its history to make it truly interesting. But Notre-Dame of Sisteron is not of these. It is not the big, empty shell of Carpentras, nor the little rough Cathedral of Orange. It is the smaller, more perfect one, of finer inspiration, which the many will pass by, the few enjoy. IV. CATHEDRALS OF THE VALLEYS. [Sidenote: Orange.] Lying on the Rhone, and almost surrounded by the papal Venaissin, is a tiny principality of less than forty thousand acres. This small state has given title to more than one distinguished European who never entered its borders, and who was alien to it not only in birth, but in language and family. So great was the fame of its rulers that this small, isolated strip of land suffered for their principles, and probably owes to them much of its devastation in the terrible Wars of Religion. From the well-known convictions of the Princes of Orange, the country was always counted a refuge for heretics of all shades, and in 1338 they were in sufficient force to demolish the tower of the Cathedral. Later in history, Charles IX declared William of Nassau "an outlaw" and his principality "confiscate"; and in 1571, there was a three days' massacre of Protestants. In spite of this horrid orgy the Reformers rose again in might and soon prevented all celebration of Catholic rites. Refugees fleeing from the Dragonnades of Dauphiné and of the Cévennes poured into the principality; and when the Princes of Orange were strong enough to protect their state, its Catholics lived restricted lives; but when the Protestant power waned, Kings and Captains of France raided the land in the name of the Church. And at the death of William of Orange, King of England, Louis XIV seized the capital of the state, razed its great palace and its walls, and after the Treaty of Utrecht had awarded the principality to the French crown, treated the defenceless Huguenots with the same impartial cruelty he had meted to their fellow-believers in other parts of the kingdom. Orange's changes in religious fate are not unlike those of Nîmes, with this essential difference, that here Catholicism has conquered triumphantly. Where ten worship in the little Protestant temple, a thousand throng to the Mass. Both in history and its monumental Roman ruins, the capital of this province, Orange, is one of the richest cities of the Southland, but its Cathedral is very poor and mean. The plan is one of the simplest of the Provençal conceptions, a "hall basilica," archæologically interesting, but in its present state of patch and repair, architecturally commonplace and unbeautiful. In spite of Protestant attacks and Catholic restorations, the XI century type has been maintained, a rectangle whose plain double arches support a tunnel vault and divide the interior into four bays. The piers are heavy and severe; and between them are alcoves, used as chapels. The choir, narrower than the nave, is preceded by the usual dome, and beyond it is a little unused apse, concealed from the rest of the interior by a wall. Unimportant windows built with distinctly utilitarian purpose successfully light this small, simple room, and no kindly shadow hides its bareness or diminishes the unhappy effect of the paintings which disfigure the walls. The Cathedral's exterior is so surrounded by irregular old houses that the traveller had discovered it with some difficulty. It has little that is worthy of description, and after having entered by a conspicuously poor Renaissance portal only to go out under an uninteresting modern one, he found himself lost in wonder that the Cathedral-builders of Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth should have utterly failed in a town which offered them such inspiring suggestions as the great Arch of Triumph and the still greater Imperial Theatre, besides all the other remains of Roman antiquity which, long after the building of Notre-Dame, the practical Maurice of Orange demolished for the making of his mediæval castle. [Sidenote: Cavaillon.] It was growing dusk, of a spring evening, when the traveller arrived at Cavaillon and wandered about the narrow streets and came upon the Cathedral. Glimpses of an interesting dome and a turret-tower had appeared once or twice above the house-tops, leading him on with freshened interest, and there was still light enough for many first impressions when he arrived before the low cloister-door. But here was no place for peaceful meditation. An old woman, coiffed and bent, brushed past him as she entered, a chair in each hand; and as he effaced himself against the church wall, a younger woman went by, also chair-laden. Two or three others came, talking eagerly, little girls in all stages of excitement ran in and out, and little boys came and went, divided between assumed carelessness and a feeling of unusual responsibility. Then a priest appeared on the threshold, not in meditation, but on business. Another, old and heavy, and panting, hurried in; and through the cloister-door, Monsieur le Curé, breviary in hand, prayed watchfully. A little fellow, running, fell down, and the priest sprang to lift him; the child was too small not to wish to cry, but too much in haste to stop for tears. The priest watched him with a kindly shrug and a smile as he ran on;--there was no time for laughing or crying, there was time for nothing but the mysterious matter in hand. "What is it?" the traveller finally asked. "Ah, Monsieur, to-morrow is the day of the First Communion. We all have just prayed, just confessed, in the church; and our parents are arranging their places. For to-morrow there will be crowds--everybody. You too, Monsieur, are coming perhaps? The Mass is at half-past six." Such was the living interest of the place that the traveller moved away without any very clear architectural impression of the Cathedral, except of the curiously narrow bell-turret and of the height of the dome. He did not see the early Mass, but toward ten wandered again to the Cathedral and entered the cloister-door. It was a low-vaulted, sombre little Cloister which all the chattering, animated crowds could not brighten. Formerly two sides were gated off, and priests alone walked there. The other sides were public passage-ways to the church. Now only the iron grooves of the gates of separation remain, and the four walks were thronged with people. Little girls in the white dresses of their First Communion, veiled and crowned with roses, were hurrying to their places; an old grandmother, with her arm around one of the little communicants, knelt by a column, gazing up to the Virgin of the cloister-close; proud and anxious parents led their children into church, and friends met and kissed on both cheeks. In one corner, an old woman was driving a busy trade in penny-worths of barley candy. Diminutive altar-boys in white lace cassocks and red, fur-trimmed capes, offered religious papers for sale. It was a harvest day for beggars, and "for the love of the good God" many a sou was given into feeble dirty hands. [Illustration: "IT WAS A LOW-VAULTED, SOMBRE LITTLE CLOISTER." CAVAILLON.] For a time the traveller walked about the Cloister, so tiny and worn a Cloister that on any other day it must have seemed melancholy indeed. So low a vaulting is not often found, massive and rounded and seeming to press, lowering, above the head. The columns, which help to support its weight, are short and heavy and thick, so worn that their capitals are sometimes only suggestive and sometimes meaningless. On one side the carving is distinctly Corinthian; on another altogether lacking. Between the columns, one could glance into a close so small that ten paces would measure its length. It was a charming little spot, all filled with flowers and plants that told of some one's constant, tender care. From above the nodding flowers and leaves rose the statue of the Madonna and the Child. The tolling bell called laggards to Mass. With them, the traveller entered the church, and found it so crowded that it was only after receiving many knocks from incoming children, and sundry blows on the head and shoulders from ladies who carried their chairs too carelessly, after minutes of time and a store of patience, that he finally reached a haven, a corner of the Chapel of Saint-Véran. There, under the care of the Cathedral's Patron, he escaped further injuries and assisted at a long, interesting ceremony. Mass had already begun, but the voice of the priest and the answering organ were lost in the movement of excited friends, the murmur of questions, and the clatter of nailed shoes on the stone floor. A Suisse, halberd in hand, and gorgeous in tri-cornered hat and the red and gold of office, kept the aisle-ways open with firm but kind insistence; and the priests who were directing the children in the body of the church, were wise enough to overlook the disorder, which was not irreverence, but interest. For days, everybody had been thinking of this ceremony; everybody wanted "good places." But few found them. For the little nave of the church was chiefly given up to the communicants. They sat on long benches, facing each other. The boys, sixty or seventy of them, were nearest the Altar; the girls, even more numerous, nearest the door. A young priest walked between the rows of boys and the old, panting Father directed the girls. The whole interior of the church, at whose consecration no less a prelate than Pope Innocent IV had presided, is small and its plan is essentially of the Provençal type. The high tunnel vault rests, like that of Orange, on double arches; and as the nave is very narrow and its light very dim, the church seems lofty, sombre, and impressive, with a very serious dignity which its detail fails to carry out. The chapels, which lie between the heavy buttresses, are dim recesses which increase the darkened effect of the interior. Of the ten, only three differ essentially from the general plan; and although of the XVII century, their style is so severe and they are so ill-lighted that they do not greatly debase the church. The choir is entered from under a rounded archway, and its dome is loftier than the nave and much more beautiful than the semi-dome of the apse, whose roof, in these practical modern times, has been windowed. That which almost destroys the effect of the church's fine lines and would be intolerable in a stronger light, is the mass of gilt and polychrome with which the interior is covered. The altars are monstrously showy, the walls and buttresses are coloured, and even the interesting, sculptured figures beneath the corbels have been carefully tinted. The dead arise with appropriate mortuary pallor, the halo of Christ is pure gold, and all the draperies of God and His saints are in true, primary shadings. From the contemplation of this misuse of paint, and of a sadly misplaced inner porch of the XVII century, the traveller's attention was recalled to the old priest. His hand was raised, the eye of every little girl was fixed on him and instantly, in their soft, shrill voices, they began the verse of a hymn. The traveller glanced down the nave. Every boy was on his feet, white ribbons hanging bravely from the right arm, the Crown of Thorns correctly held in one white-gloved hand, a Crucifix fastened with a bow of ribbon to the coat lapel. Every eye was on the young priest, who also raised his hand. Then they sang, as the girls had sung, and with a right lusty will. And then, under the guiding hands, both boys and girls sang together. There was a silence when their voices died away, and from the altar a deep voice slowly chanted "Ite; missa est," and the High Mass of the First Communion Day was over. Outside, little country carts stood near the church, and fathers and brothers in blue blouses were waiting for the little communicants who had had so long and so exciting a morning. Walking about with the crowds, the traveller saw an exterior whose façade was plainly commonplace and whose bare lateral walls were patched, and crowded by other walls. Finally he came upon the apse, the most interesting part of the church's exterior; and he leaned against a café wall and looked across the little square. Externally, the apse of Saint-Véran has five sides, and each side seems supported by a channelled column. The capitals of these columns are carved with leaves or with leaves and grotesques; on them round arches rest; and above is a narrow foliated cornice. In relieving contrast to the artificial classicism of the Renaissance of the interior, the feeling of this apse is quite truly ancient and pagan, and it is not less unique nor less charming because it is placed against a plain, uninteresting wall. The eye travelling upward, above the choir-dome, meets the lantern with its rounded windows and pointed roof, and by its side the high little bell-turret which completes a curious exterior; an exterior which is interesting and even beautiful in detail, but irregular and heterogeneous as a whole. The Cathedral of Cavaillon is one of many possibilities. Although small like those of its Provençal kindred, it has more dignity than Orange, more simplicity of interior line than the present Avignon, and it is to be regretted that it should have suffered no less from restoration than from old age. [Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL'S TOWER AND TURRET.--CAVAILLON.] [Sidenote: Apt.] Few of the Cathedral-churches of the Midi are without holy relics, but none is more famous, more revered, and more authentic a place of pilgrimage than the Basilica of Apt. It came about in this way, says local history. When Martha, Lazarus, and the Holy Marys of the Gospels landed in France, they brought with them the venerated body of Saint Anne, the Virgin's Mother; and Lazarus, being a Bishop, kept the holy relic at his episcopal seat of Marseilles. Persecutions arose, and dangers innumerable; and for safety's sake the Bishop removed Saint Anne's body to Apt and sealed it secretly in the wall. For centuries, Christians met and prayed in the little church, unconscious of the wonder-working relic hidden so near them; and it was only through a miracle, in Charlemagne's time and some say in his presence, that the holy body was discovered. This is the history which a sacristan recites to curious pilgrims as he leads them to the sub-crypt. The sub-crypt of Sainte-Anne, one of the earliest of Gallo-Roman "churches," is not more than a narrow aisle; its low vault seems to press over the head; the air is damp and chill; and the one little candle which the patient sacristan moves to this side and to that, shows the plain, un-ornamented stone-work and the undoubted masonry of Roman times. It was part of the Aqueduct which carried water to the Theatre in Imperial days, and had become a chapel in the primitive Christian era. At the end which is curved as a choir is a heavy stone, used as an altar; and high in the wall is the niche where the body of the church's patron lay buried for those hundreds of years. It is a gloomy, cell-like place, most curious and most interesting; and as the traveller saw faith in the earnest gaze of some of his fellow-visitors, and doubt in the smiles of others, he wondered what ancient ceremonials, secret Masses, or secret prayers had been said in this tiny chamber, and what rows of phantom-like worshippers had filed in and out the dark corridor. Directly above is the higher upper crypt of the church, a diminutive but true choir, with its tiny altar and ambulatory,--a jewel of the Romanesque, heavy and plain and beautifully proportioned, with columns and vaulting in perfect miniature. This, from its absolute purity of style, is the most interesting part of the church; and being a crypt, it is also the most difficult to see. In vain the sacristan ran from side to side with his little candle, in vain the traveller gazed and peered,--the little church was full of shadows and mysteries, dark and lost under the weight of the great choir above. [Illustration: "THE MAIN BODY OF THE CHURCH."--APT.] Even the main body of the church, above ground, is dimly lighted by small, rounded windows above the arches of the nave, and from the dome of Saint Anne's Chapel. Doubtless, on Sundays after High Mass, when the great doors are opened, the merry sun of Provence casts its cheerful rays far up the nave. But this is a church which is the better for its shadows. A Romanesque aisle of the IX or X century, built by that same Bishop Alphant who had seen the construction of the little crypt church, a central nave of the XI century, Romanesque in conception, and a north aisle of poor Provençal Gothic make a large but inharmonious interior. Restoration following restoration, chapels of the XVIII century, new vaultings, debased and conglomerate Gothic, and spectacular decorations of gilded wood have destroyed the architectural value and real beauty of the Cathedral's interior. Yet in the dim light, which is the light of its every-day life, the great height of the church and its sombre massiveness are not without impressiveness. The exterior dominates the city, but it is so hopelessly confused and commonplace that its natural dignity is lost. The heavy arch which supports the clock tower forms an arcade across a narrow street and makes it picturesque without adding dignity to the church itself. The walls are unmeaning, often hidden by buildings, and there is not a portal worthy of description. There is the dome of Saint Anne's Chapel with a huge statue of the Patron, and the lantern of the central dome ending in a pointed roof; but each addition to the exterior seems only an ignorant or a spiteful accentuation of the general architectural confusion. To the faithful Catholic, the interest of Sainte-Anne of Apt lies in its wonderful and glorious relics. Here are the bodies of Saint Eléazer and Sainte Delphine his wife, a couple so pious that every morning they dressed a Statue of the Infant Jesus, and every night they undressed it and laid it to rest in a cradle. There is also the rosary of Sainte Delphine whose every bead contained a relic; and before the Revolution there were other treasures innumerable. During many years Apt has been the pilgrim-shrine of the Faithful, and great and small offerings of many centuries have been laid before the miracle-working body of the Virgin's sainted Mother. [Illustration: THE VIRGIN AND SAINT ANNE. _By Benzoni._] The most famous of those who came praying and bearing gifts was Anne of Austria, whose petition for the gift of a son, an heir for France, was granted in the birth of Louis XIV. In gratitude, the Queen enriched the church by vestments wrought in thread of gold and many sacred ornaments; and at length she commanded Mansart to replace the little chapel in which she had prayed, by a larger and more sumptuous one, a somewhat uninteresting structure in the showy style of the XVII century, which is now the resting-place of Saint Anne. In this chapel is the most beautiful of the church's treasures which, strange to say, is a piece of modern sculpture given by the present "Monseigneur of Avignon." It is small, and badly placed on a marble altar of discordant toning, with a draped curtain of red gilt-fringed velvet for its background. Yet in spite of these inartistic surroundings it has lost none of its tender charm. Seated, with a scroll on her knees, the aged mother is earnestly teaching the young Virgin who stands close by her side. The slender old hand with its raised forefinger emphasises the lesson, and the loving expression of the wrinkled, ascetic face, the attentiveness of the Virgin and her slim young figure, make a touching picture, and a beautiful example of the power of the modern chisel. Yet faith in shrines and miraculous power is not, in this XX century, as pure nor as universal as in the days of the past; and Faith, in Provençal Apt which possesses so large a part of the Saint's body, is not as simple, and therefore not as strong as in Breton Auray which has but a part of her finger. Republicanism in the south country is not too friendly to the Church, kings and queens no longer come with prodigal gifts, and Sainte-Anne of Apt has not the peasant strength of Sainte-Anne of Auray. And in spite of the great feast-day of July, in spite of Aptoisian pride, in spite of the devotion and prayers of faithful worshippers, the Cathedral of Apt is a church of past rather than of present glories. [Sidenote: Riez.] Just as the church-bells were chiming the morning Angelus, and the warm sun was rising on a day of the early fall, a traveller drove out of old Manosque. He had no gun,--therefore he had not come for the hunting; he had no brass-bound, black boxes, and therefore could not be a "Commis." What he might be, he well knew, was troubling the brain of the broad-backed man sitting before him, who, with many a long-drawn "Ou-ou-u-u-" was driving a fat little horse. But native courtesy conquered natural curiosity and they drove in silence to the long, fine bridge that spans the river of evil repute: "Parliament, Mistral, and Durance Are the three scourges of Provence." At that time of year, however, the Durance usually looks peaceable and harmless enough; half its great bed is dry and pebbly, and the water that rushes under the big arches of the bridge is not great in volume. But the size and strength of the bridge itself and certain huge rocks, placed for a long distance on either side of the road, are significant of floods and of the spring awakening of the monstrous river that, like Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, has two lives. [Illustration: "SAINT-MARTIN-DE-BRÔMES WITH ITS HIGH, SLIM TOWER."] [Illustration: "THE FORTIFIED MONASTERY OF THE TEMPLARS."--(NEAR GRÉOUX).] The road wound about the low hills of the Alps, past a massive, fortified monastery of the Templars whose windows gape in ruin; past Saint-Martin-de-Brômes with its high, slim, crenellated watch-tower; past many quiet little villages where in the old times, Taine says, "Good people lived as in an eagle's nest, happy as long as they were not slain--that was the luxury of the feudal times." Between these villages lay vast groves of the grey-green olive-trees, large flourishing farms, and, further still, the bleak mountains of the Lower Alps. It was toward them the driver was turning, for rising above a smiling little valley, surrounded by fields of ripened grain, lay Riez. A donjon stands above a broken wall, on the hillside houses cluster around a church's spire, and alone, on the top of the hill, stands the little Chapel of Saint-Maxime, the only relic of the Great Seminary that was destroyed by the Revolutionists of '89. Here, after the destruction of one of the several Cathedrals of Riez, the Bishop celebrated Masses, but the little chapel was never consecrated a Cathedral. It has been recently restored and re-built in an uninteresting style,--the exterior is bare to ugliness, the interior so painted that the six old Roman columns which support the choir are overwhelmed by the banality of their surroundings. The plateau on which the chapel is built is now almost bare; olive-trees grow to its edges and there is no trace of the Seminary that was once so full of active life. The traveller, sitting in the shade of the few pine-trees, looked over the broad view toward the peaks whose bare rocks rise with awful sternness, and the little hills that stand between them and the valley, till finally his eyes wandered to the town beneath, and the firm, broad roads which approach it from every direction. For Riez, although in the lost depths of Provence, far from railways and tourists, is a bee-hive of industry, largely supplying the necessities of these secluded little towns. Its hat-making, rope factories, and tanneries are quite important; the shops of its main streets are not without a tempting attractiveness, and there is all the provincial stateliness of Saint-Remy with much less stagnancy. Riez was the Albece Reiorum Apollinarium in the Colonia Julia Reiorum of the Romans, but there are very few traces of the city with this high-sounding name. The whole atmosphere of the little town is XII century. Two of its old gates, part of the wall, and the crenellated tower still stand, with ruined convents and monasteries of Capuchins, Cordeliers, and Ursulines; and it may be inferred from the remains of the Bishop's Palace and the broad promenade which was one of its avenues, and from the episcopal château at Montagnac, that ecclesiastical state was not less worthily upheld at Riez than in the other Sees of the South of France. Many difficulties, however, had beset the Cathedral-building prelates. Their first church, Notre-Dame-du-Siège, dating partly from the foundation of the See in the IV century, partly from the X and XII centuries, was destroyed by storm and flood, and its site near the treacherous little river being considered too perilous, a new Cathedral of Notre-Dame-du-Siège and Saint-Maxime was begun; and it was then that the Bishops celebrated temporarily at Saint-Maxime's on the hill. During the Revolution the See was suppressed; the church has been much re-built and changed; so that only a tower which is part of the present Notre-Dame-du-Siège, and the traces of the earliest foundation near the little Colostre, remain to tell of the different Cathedrals of Riez. [Illustration: "THE TOWER OF NOTRE-DAME-DU-SIÈGE."--RIEZ.] Near the site of the oldest church is one of the few monuments of a very early Christianity which have escaped the perils of time. It is of unknown date, and although it is said to have been part of the Cathedral which stood between it and the river, it appears to have been always an independent and separate building. The peasants say that in the memory of their forefathers it was used as a chapel, they call it indefinitely "the Pantheon," "the Temple," or "the Chapel of Saint-Clair," but it was almost certainly a baptistery of that curious and beautiful type which was abandoned so early in the evolution of Christian architecture. [Illustration: "NOTHING COULD BE MORE QUAINTLY OLD AND MODEST THAN THE BAPTISTERY."--RIEZ.] Following the road which his innkeeper pointed out, the traveller became so absorbed in the busy movement of the communal threshing-ground, the arrival of the yellow grain, the women who were wielding pitchforks, and the horses moving in circles, with solemn rhythm, that he nearly passed a low building, the object of his search. Nothing could be more quaintly old and modest than the baptistery of Riez. It is a small square building of rough cemented stone whose stucco has worn away. The roof is tiled, and from out a flattened dome, blades of grass sprout sparsely. A tiny bell-turret and an arch in the front wall complete the ornamentation of this humble, diminutive bit of architecture, and except that it is different from the usual Provençal manner of construction, one would pass many times without noticing it. [Illustration: "BETWEEN THE COLUMNS AN ALTAR HAS BEEN PLACED."--BAPTISTERY, RIEZ.] Walking down the steps which mark the differences that time has made in the levels of the ground and entering a small octagonal hall, one of the most interesting interiors of Provence meets the eye. "Each of its four sides," writes Jules de Laurière, "which correspond to the angles of the outer square, has a semicircular apse built in the walls themselves. The eight columns, placed in a circle about the centre of the edifice, divide it into a circular nave and a central rotunda, and support eight arches which, in turn, support an octagonal drum, and above this is the dome." This room is of simple and charming architectural conception, and even in melancholy ruin, it has much beauty. It gains in comparison with the re-constructed baptisteries of Provence, for something of a primitive character has been preserved to which such modern altars and XVII century trappings as those of Aix and Fréjus are fatal. Under the heavy dust there is visible an unhappy coating of whitewash, traces of a fire still blacken the walls, fragments of Roman sculpture are scattered about, and between the columns a pagan altar has been placed for safe-keeping. The columns themselves are of pagan construction, and as they differ somewhat in size and capitals, it is not improbable that they came from the ruins of several of the great public buildings of Riez. At the time of the baptistery's construction, the barbaric invasion had begun, and these Roman monuments may have been in ruins; but in any case, it was a pious and justifiable custom of Christians to take from pagan structures, standing or fallen, stones and pillars that would serve for building churches to the "one, true God." The pillars procured for this laudable purpose at Riez, with their beautiful, carved capitals, gave the little baptistery its one decoration, and far from disturbing the simplicity of its style, they add a slenderness and height and harmony to a room which, without them, would be too stiffly bare. In the rotunda which they form, excavations have brought to light a baptismal pool, and conduits which brought to it sufficient quantities of water for the immersion--whole or partial--that was part of the baptismal service of the early Church. But the archæological work has abruptly ceased, and it is to be deeply regretted that here, in this deserted place, where the Church desires no present restorations in accordance with particular rites or modern styles of architecture, there should not be a complete rehabilitation, a baptistery restored to the actual state of its own era. [Illustration: "THE BEAUTIFUL GRANITE COLUMNS."--RIEZ.] Wandering across the fields, with the re-constructive mania strong upon him, the traveller came across the beautiful granite columns which with their capitals, bases, and architraves of marble, are the last standing monument of Riez's Roman greatness. Fragments of sculpture, bits of stone set in her walls, exist in numbers; but they are too isolated, too vague, to suggest the lost beauty and grandeur which these lonely columns express. He gazed at them in wonder. Was he stepping where once had been a grand and busy Forum, was he looking at the Temple of some great Roman god? The voices of the threshers sounded cheerily, the Provençal sun shone bright and warm, but one of the greatest of mysteries was before him,--the silent mystery of a dead past that had once been a living present. He sat by the river, and tossed pebbles into its shallow waters; the slanting rays of the sun gave the columns delicate tints, old yellows and greys and violets, and at length, as evening fell, they seemed to grow higher and whiter in the paler light, until they looked like lonely funereal shafts, recalling to the memory of forgetful man, Riez's long-dead greatness. [Sidenote: Senez.] In the comfortable civilisation of France, the stage-coach usually begins where the railroad ends; and however remote a destination or tedious a journey, an ultimate and safe arrival is reasonably certain. This was the reflection which cheered the traveller when he began to search for Senez, an ancient city of the Romans which was christianised in the early centuries and enjoyed the rank of Bishopric until the Revolution of '89. In spite of this dignified rank and the tenacity of an ancient foundation, it lies so far from modern ken that even worthies who live fifty miles away could only say that "Senez is not much of a place, but it doubtless may be found ten--perhaps fifteen--or even twenty kilometres behind the railroad." "If Monsieur alighted at Barrême, probably the mail for Senez would be left there too. And where letters go, some man or beast must carry them, and one could always follow." With these vague directions, the traveller set gaily out for Barrême, where a greater than he had spent one bleak March night on the anxious journey from Elba to Paris. The town shows no trace of Napoleon's hurried visit. It looks a mere sleepy hamlet, and when the traveller left the train he had already decided to push his journey onward. "To Senez?" A man stepped up in answer to his inquiry. "Certainly there was a way to get there, the mail-coach started in an hour. And a hotel? A very good hotel--not Parisian perhaps, but hot food, a bottle of good wine, and a clean bed. Could one desire more on this earth?" The traveller thought not, and left the station--to stand transfixed before the most melancholy conveyance that ever bore the high-sounding name of "mail-coach." A little wagon in whose interior six thin persons might have crowded, old windows shaking in their frames, the remains of a coat of yellow paint, and in front a seat which a projecting bit of roof protected from the sun,--this was the mail-coach of Senez, drawn by a dejected, small brown mule, ragged with age, and a gaunt white horse who towered above him. To complete the equipage, this melancholy pair were hitched with ropes. In due course of time the driver came, hooked an ancient tin box marked "Lettres" to the dash-board, threw in a sacking-bag, and cap in hand, invited the traveller to mount with him "where there was air." The long whip cracked authoritatively, the postilion, a beautiful black dog, jumped to the roof, and the mail-coach of Senez, with rattle and creak, started on its scheduled run. "Houp-là, thou bag of lazy bones done up in a brown skin! Ho-là, thou whited sepulchre, thinkest thou I will get out and carry thee? Take this and that." [Illustration: "THE MAIL-COACH OF SENEZ."] On either side the whip hit the road ferociously, but the old beasts of burden shook their philosophic heads and slowly jogged on, knowing well they would not be touched. The hot sun of Provence, which "drinks a river as man drinks a glass of wine," shone on the long, white "route nationale" that stretched out in well-kept monotony through a valley which might well have been named "Desolation." On either hand rose mountains that were great masses of bare, seared rocks, showing the ravages of forgotten glaciers; the soil that once covered them lay at their feet. Scarcely a shrub pushed out from the crevices, and even along the road, the few thin poplars found the poorest of nourishment. Crossing a small bridge, there came into view an ancient village, a mere handful of clustered wooden roofs, irregular, broken, and decayed. "It was a city in the days when we were Romans," said the Courier, "and they say that there are treasures underneath our soil. But who can tell when people talk so much? And certainly two sous earned above ground buy hotter soup than one can gain in many a search for twenty francs below." He whipped up for a suitable and striking entry into town, turned into a lane, and with much show of difficulty in reining up, stood before the "hotel." The traveller, having descended, entered a room that might have been the subject of a quaint Dutch canvas. He saw a low ceiling, smoky walls, long rows of benches, a sanded floor, and pine-board tables that stretched back to an open door; and through the open door, the pot swinging above the embers of the kitchen fire. The mistress of the inn, a strong white-haired woman of seventy, came hurrying in to greet her guest. "It was late," she said, and quickly put a basin full of water, a new piece of soap, and a fresh towel on a chair near the kitchen door; and as the traveller prepared himself for dinner he heard the crackling of fresh boughs upon the fire and the cheerful singing of the pot. Little lamps were lighted, and when he came to his table's end, he found good country wine and a steaming cabbage-soup. Others came in to dine and smoke and talk, and later from his bed-room window, he saw their ghostly figures moving up and down the unlighted streets and heard them say good-night. The inn-door was noisily and safely barred, and when the retreating footsteps and the voices had died away, the quiet of the dark remained unbroken until a watchman, with flickering lantern, passed, and cried aloud "All's well." [Illustration: "THE OPEN SQUARE."--SENEZ.] Next morning the sun shone brightly on Senez, and the traveller hurried to the open square. A horse, carrying a farmer's boy, meandered slowly by, a chicken picked here and there, and water trickled slowly from the tiny faucet of the village fountain. [Illustration: "THE PALACE OF ITS PRELATES."--SENEZ.] In this quiet spot, near the lonely desolation of the hills, is the Cathedral. The Palace of its prelates, which is opposite, is now a farm-house where hay-ricks stand in the front yard, and windows have been walled up because Provençal winds are cold and glass is dear. [Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL.--SENEZ.] Looking at this residence, one would think that the last Bishops of Senez were insignificant priests, steeped in country wine and country stagnancy. But such a supposition is very far from true. For we know that in the XVIII century, Jean Soannen, Bishop of the city, was called before a Council at Embrun to answer a charge of resistance to the far-famed Bull "Unigenitus," and so strong were his convictions and so great his loyalty to his conscience, that he resisted the Council as well as the Bull, and was deprived of his See as a Jansenist and recalcitrant, and exiled to the Abbey of La-Chaise-Dieu. In quiet Senez there must always have been time for reflection, and one can imagine the bitter struggle of this brave man as he walked the rooms of the Palace, as he crossed and re-crossed the small square to the Cathedral. One can imagine his wrestling with God and his conscience every time that he celebrated a Mass for the people before the Cathedral's altar. One can understand the bitter fight between two high ideals, irreconcilable in his life,--that of work in God's vineyard or of doctrinal purity as he saw it. He had to choose between them, this Bishop of Senez, and when he left the town to answer the summons of the Council at Embrun, his heart must have been sore within him, he must have said farewell to many things. Few decisions can be more serious than the renunciation of family and home for the service of God, few more solemn than the struggles between the flesh and the spirit; but no more pathetic picture can exist than that sad figure of Jean Soannen; for he had renounced family and the world, and for the sake of "accepted truth" which was false to him, endured helpless, solitary insignificance under the espionage of suspicious and unfriendly monks. The traveller remembered his tomb, that tomb in a small chapel near the foot of the stair-case in the famous Abbey far-away, and sighing, hoped that in his mournful exile, the Bishop may have realised that "they also serve who only stand and wait." The Bull Unigenitus, which caused his downfall, is believed to have caused, during the last years of Louis XIV's bigotry, the persecution of thirty thousand respectable, intelligent, and orderly Frenchmen. De Noailles, several Bishops, and the Parliament of Paris refused to accept it, though they stopped short of open rebellion, and even Fénélon "submitted" rather than acceded to it. This famous and vexatious document was an unhappy emanation of Pope Clement XIII. Hard pressed by his faithful supporters, the Jesuits, he promulgated it in 1713, and it condemns with great explicitness one hundred and one propositions which are taken from Quesnel's Jansenistic "Réflexions morales sur le Nouveau Testament." The Jesuits held the Jansenists in a horror which the Jansenists reciprocated; the Pope owed almost too heavy a debt of gratitude to the order of Saint Ignatius and was constrained to repay. But the Bull, instead of procuring peace, brought the greatest affliction and desolation of mind to His Holiness, and when later, the French envoy asked him why he had condemned such an odd number of propositions, the Pope seizing his arm burst into tears. "Ah Monsieur Amelot! Monsieur Amelot! What would you have me do? I strove hard to curtail the list, but Père Le Tellier"--Louis XIV's last confessor and a devoted Jesuit--"had pledged his word to the King that the book contained more than one hundred errors, and with his foot on my neck, he compelled me to prove him right. I condemned only one more!" The Cathedral of Senez is an humble village church where frank and simple poverty exists with the remains of ancient splendour. It is small, as are all churches of its style, and although it does not lack a homely dignity, it is a modest work of XII century Romanesque, and the sonorous title of its consecration in 1242, "the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary," suggests an impressiveness which the Cathedral never had. Two heavy buttresses that support the façade wall are reminiscent of the more majestic Notre-Dame-du-Bourg of Digne, and on them rest the ends of a pointed gable-roof. Between these buttresses, the wall is pierced by a long and graceful round-arched window, and below the window is the single, pointed portal whose columns are gone and whose delicate foliated carvings and mouldings are sadly worn away. A sun-dial painted on the wall tells the time of day, and at the gable's sharpest point a saucy little angel with a trumpet in his mouth blows with the wind. [Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL.--SENEZ.] Entering the little portal, the traveller saw the poor wooden benches of the congregation massed together, and beyond them, the stalls of long-departed Canons. In front of these old stalls, stood the church's latest luxury, a melodeon, and above them hung the tapestries of its richer past. Tapestries also beautify the choir-walls, and on either side, are the narrow transepts and the apses of a good old style. There are also poor and tawdry altars which stand in strange, pitiable contrast with the old walls and the fine tunnel vaulting, the dignified architecture of the past. [Illustration: "TAPESTRIES BEAUTIFY THE CHOIR WALLS."--SENEZ.] Leaving the interior, where a solitary peasant knelt in prayer, the traveller saw side-walls bare as the mountains round about, the squat tower that rises just above the roof, and coming to the apse-end he found the presbytery garden. From the garden, beyond the fallen gate, he saw the church as the Curé saw it, the three round apses with their little columns, the smaller decorative arches of the cornices, the pointed roof, and between branches full of apple blossoms, the softened lines of the low square tower. Here, trespassing, the Curé found him. And after they had walked about the town, and talked the whole day long of the great world which lay so far beyond, they went into the little garden as the sun was going down, and fell to musing over coffee cups. The priest was first to speak. "Perhaps, buried under those old church walls, lie proofs of our early history, the stones of some old Temple, or statues of its gods; for we were once Sanitium, a Roman city in a country of six Roman roads. Perhaps all around us were great monuments of pagan wealth, a Mausoleum near these bare old rocks like that which stands in loneliness near Saint-Remy, Villas, Baths, or Triumphal Arches." The keen eyes softened, as he continued in gentle irony, "Down in this little valley of the Asse de Blieux, our town seems far away from any scene in which the great ones of earth took part. Although I know that it is true, it often seems to me a legend that the gay and gallant Francis I, rushing to a mad war, stopped on his way to injure us; and that four hundred years ago a band of Huguenots raved around our old Cathedral, and tried to pull it to the ground." "And do you think it can be true," the traveller asked, "that Bishops held mysterious prisoners in that tower for most dreary lengths of time?" [Illustration: "BETWEEN BRANCHES FULL OF APPLE-BLOSSOMS, THE CHURCH AS THE CURÉ SAW IT."--SENEZ.] The Curé smiled, and shook his white head. "That is a story which the peasants tell,--an old tradition of the land. It may be true, since priests are mortal men and doubtless dealt with sinners." He smiled indulgently. "Through the many years I have been here, I have often wondered about all these things, but it is seldom I can speak my thoughts. Sometimes when I am here alone, I lose the sense of present things and seem to see the phantoms of the past. Then the dusk comes on, as it is coming now; the night blots Senez from my sight as fate has blotted out its record from history,--and I realise that our human memory is in vain." [Sidenote: Aix.] The old Cathedral of Saint-Sauveur at Aix is not one of those rarely beautiful churches where a complete and restful homogeneity delights the eye, nor is it a church of crude and shocking transitions. It is rather a well-arranged museum of ecclesiastical architecture, where, in sufficient historical continuity and harmony, many Provençal conceptions are found, and the evolution of Provençal architecture may be very completely followed. As in all collections, the beauty of Saint-Sauveur is not in a general view or in any glance into a long perspective, but in a close and loving study of the details it encloses; and so charming, so really beautiful are many of the diverse little treasures of Aix, that such study is better repaid here than in any other Provençal Cathedral. For this is one of the largest Cathedrals of the province, and the buildings which form the ecclesiastical group are most complete. With its baptistery, Cloister, church, and arch-episcopal Palace, it is not only of many epochs and styles, but of many historical uncertainties, and the hypotheses of its construction are enough to daze the most hardened archæologist. [Illustration: "THE SOUTH AISLE."--AIX.] The oldest part of the Cathedral is the baptistery, and the date of its origin is unknown. Much of its character was lost in a restoration of the XVII century, but its old round form, the magnificent Roman columns of granite and green marble said to have been part of the Temple to Apollo, give it an atmosphere of dignity and an ancient charm that even the XVII century--so potent in architectural evil--was unable to destroy. [Illustration: THE ROMANESQUE PORTAL.] In 1060, after the destructive vicissitudes of the early centuries, Archbishop Rostaing d'Hyères issued a pastoral letter appealing to the Faithful to aid him in the re-building of a new Cathedral; and it may be reasonably supposed that the nave which is at present the south aisle, the baptistery, and the Cloisters were the buildings that were dedicated less than fifty years later. They are the only portions of the church which can be ascribed to so early a period, and with the low door of entrance, the single nave and the adjoining cloister-walk, they constitute the usual plan of XI century Romanesque. Considering this as the early church, in almost original form, it will be seen that the portal is a very interesting example of the Provençal use not only of Roman suggestion, but of the actual fragments of Roman art which had escaped the invader; that the south aisle, in itself a completed interior, bears a close resemblance to Avignon; and that the Cloister, although now very worn and even defaced, must have been one of the quaintest and most delicate, as it is one of the tiniest, in Provence. Three sides of its arcades support plain buildings of a later date; the fourth stands free, as if in ruin. Little coupled columns, some slenderly circular, some twisted, and some polygonal, rest on a low wall; piers, very finely and differently carved, are at each of the arcade angles; the little capitals of the columns were once beautifully cut, and even the surfaces of the arches have small foliated disks and rosettes and are finished in roll and hollow. Unfortunately, a very large part of this detail-work is so defaced that its subjects are barely suggested, some are so eaten away that they are as desolate of beauty as the barren little quadrangle; and the whole Cloister seems to have reached the brink of that pathetic old age which Shakespeare has described, and that another step in the march of time would leave it "sans everything." [Illustration: THE CLOISTER.--AIX.] About two hundred years later, in 1285, the Archbishop of Aix found the Cathedral too unpretending for the rank and dignity of the See, and he began the Gothic additions. Like many another prelate his ambitions were larger than his means; and the history of Saint-Sauveur from the XIII to the XIX century, is that oft-told tale of new indulgences offered for new contributions, halts and delays in construction, emptied treasuries, and again, appeals and fresh efforts. The beginnings of the enlarged Cathedral were architecturally abrupt. The old nave, becoming the south aisle, was connected with the new by two small openings; it retained much of its separateness and in spite of added chapels much actual isolation. The Gothic nave, the north aisle and its many chapels, the apse, and the transepts, whose building and re-construction stretched over the long period between the XIII and XVII centuries, are comparatively regular, uniform, and uninteresting. The most ambitious view is that of the central nave, whose whole length is so little broken by entrances to the side aisles, that it seems almost solidly enclosed by its massive walls. Here in Gothic bays, are found those rounded, longitudinal arches which belong to the Romanesque and to some structure whose identity is buried in the mysterious past. The choir, with its long, narrow windows, and clusters of columnettes, is very pleasing, and its seven sides, foreign to Provence, remind one of Italian and Spanish constructive forms and take one's memory on strange jaunts, to the far-away Frari in Venice and the colder Abbey of London. From the choir of Saint-Sauveur two chapels open; and one of them is a charming bit of architecture, a replica in miniature of the mother-apse itself. The paintings of this mother-apse are neutral, its glass has no claim to sumptuousness, and the stalls are very unpretending; but above them hang tapestries ascribed to Matsys, splendid hangings of the Flemish school that were once in old Saint Paul's. With these beautiful details the rich treasure-trove of the interior is exhausted, and one passes out to study the details of the exterior. The Cathedral's single tower, which rises behind the façade line, was one of the parts that was longest neglected,--perhaps because a tower is less essential to the ritual than any other portion of an ecclesiastical building. Begun in 1323, the work dragged along with many periods of absolute idleness, until 1880, when a balustrade with pinnacles at each angle was added to the upper octagonal stage, and the building of the tower was thus ended. The octagon with its narrow windows rests on a plain, square base that is massively buttressed. It is a pleasant, rather than a remarkable tower, and one's eye wanders to the more beautiful façade. Here, encased by severely plain supports, is one of the most charming portals of Provençal Gothic. Decorated buttresses stand on either side of a large, shallow recess which has a high and pointed arch, and in the centre, a slim pier divides the entrance-way into two parts, pre-figuring the final division of the Just and the Unjust. A multitude of finely sculptured statues were formerly hidden in niches, under graceful canopies, and in the hundred little nooks and corners which lurk about true Gothic portals. Standing Apostles and seated Patriarchs, baby cherubs peering out, and the more dramatic composition of the tympanum--the Transfiguration,--all lent a dignity and wealth to Saint-Sauveur. Unfortunately many of these sculptures were torn from their crannies in the great Revolution; and it is only a few of the heavenly hosts,--the gracious Madonna, Saint Michael, and the Prophets,--that remain as types of those that were so wantonly destroyed. The low, empty gables that sheltered lost statues, their slender, tapering turrets, and the delicate outer curve of the arch, are of admirable, if not imposing, composition. The portal's wooden doors, protected by plain casings, abound in carvings partly Renaissance, partly Gothic. The Sibyls and Prophets stand under canopies, surrounded by foliage, fruits, and flowers, or isolated from each other by little buttresses or pilasters. This Gothic portal quite outshines, in its graceful elaboration, the smaller door which stands near it, in the simpler and not less potent charm of the Romanesque. And side by side, these portals offer a curiously interesting comparison of the essential differences and qualities of their two great styles. If the Romanesque of Saint-Sauveur is far surpassed at Arles and Digne and Sisteron, nowhere in Provence has Gothic richer details; and if the noblest of Provençal creations must be sought in other little cities, the lover of architectural comparisons, of details, of the many lesser things rather than of the harmony of a single whole, will linger long in Aix. [Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL.--AIX.] The old city itself shows scarcely a trace of the many historic dramas of which it has been the scene,--the lowering tragedy of the Vaudois time,--the bright, gay comedy of good king René's Court,--the shorter scenes of Charles V's occupation,--the Parliament's struggle with Richelieu and Mazarin,--the day of the fiery Mirabeau,--the grim melodrama of the Revolution,--all have passed, and time has destroyed their monuments almost as completely as the Saracens destroyed those of the earlier Roman days. Only a few, unformed fragments of the great Temple of Apollo remain in the walls of Saint-Sauveur. The earliest Cathedral, Sainte-Marie-de-la-Seds, has entirely disappeared, the old thermal springs are enclosed by modern buildings, and only the statue of "the good King René" and the Church of the Knights of Malta give to Aix a faint atmosphere of its past distinction. Who would dream that here were the homes of the elegant and lettered courtiers of King René's brilliant capital, who would think that this town was the earliest Roman settlement in Gaul, the Aquæ Sextiæ of Baths, Temples, Theatres, and great wealth? Aix is a stately town, a provincial capital which Balzac might well have described--with old, quiet streets that are a little dreary, with a fine avenue shaded by great trees in whose shadows a few fountains trickle, with lines of little stages that come each day from the country,--a city whose life is as far in spirit from the near-by modernity of Marseilles as it is from that of Paris, as quaintly and delightfully provincial as that other little Provençal city, the Tarascon of King René and of Tartarin. Languedoc. I. CATHEDRALS OF THE CITIES. [Sidenote: Nîmes.] Entering Languedoc from the valley of the Rhone, the Cathedral-lover is doomed to disappointment in the city of Nîmes. All that intense, intra-mural life of the Middle Ages seems to have passed this city by, and its traces, which he is so eager to find, prove to be neither notable nor beautiful. [Illustration: "AN AMPHITHEATRE WHICH RIVALS THE ART OF THE COLISEUM."--NÎMES.] The great past of Nîmes is of a more remote antiquity than the Cathedral Building Ages. A small but exquisite Temple, a Nymphæum, Baths, parts of a fine Portal, Roman walls, and an Amphitheatre which rivals the art of the Coliseum,--these are the ruins of Nîmean greatness. She was essentially a city of the Romans, and that, even to-day, she has not lost the memory of her glorious antiquity was well illustrated in 1874, when the Nîmois, with much pomp and civic pride, unveiled a statue to "their fellow-countryman," the Emperor Antoninus Pius. These are the memories in which Nîmes delights. Yet her history of later times, if not glorious, is full of strange and curious interest. Like all the ancient cities of the South, she fell into the hands of many a wild and alien foe, and at length in 737, Charles Martel arrived at her gates. Grossly ignorant of art, no thing of beauty that stood in his path escaped fire and axe; and smoke-marks along the arena walls show to-day how narrowly they escaped the irreparable destruction which had wiped out the Forum, the Capitol, the Temple, the Baths, and all the magnificence of Roman Narbonne. To both the early and the later Middle Ages, Roman remains had scarcely more meaning than they had for the Franks. The delicate Temple of Trajan's wife, scorned for its pagan associations, was used as a stable, a store-house, and, purified by proper ceremonials, it even became a Christian church. The Amphitheatre has had a still stranger destiny. To a mediæval Viscount, it was naturally inconceivable as a place of amusement, and as naturally, he saw in its walls a stronghold where he could live as securely as ever lord in castle. As a fortress which successfully defied Charles Martel, it was a place of no mean strength, and in 1100 it had become "a veritable hornets' nest, buzzing with warriors." A few years before, Pope Urban II had landed at Maguelonne and ridden to Clermont to preach the First Crusade. On his return he stopped at Nîmes and held a Council for the same holy purpose. Raymond de Saint-Gilles, Count of Toulouse and overlord of Nîmes, travelled there to meet the Sovereign Pontiff, and amid the wonderful ferment of enthusiasm which the "Holy War" had aroused, the South was pledged anew to this romantic and war-like phase of the cause of Christ. Trencavel, Viscount of Nîmes, loyal to God and his Suzerain, followed Raymond to Palestine. Its natural protectors gone, the city formed a defensive association called the "Chevaliers of the Arena." As its name implies, this curious fraternity was composed of the soldiers of the ancient amphitheatre. Like many others of the time it was semi-military, semi-religious, its members bound by many solemn oaths and ceremonies, and thus, by the eccentricity of fate, this old pagan playground became a fortress consecrated to Christian defence, the scene of many a solemn Mass. The divisions in the Christian faith, which followed so closely the fervours of the Crusades, were most disastrous to Nîmes. From the XIII until the XVII centuries, wars of religion were interrupted by suspicious and unheeded truces, and these in turn were broken by fresh outbursts of embittered contest. An ally of the new "Crusaders" in Simon de Montfort's day, Nîmes became largely Protestant in the XVI century; and in 1567, as if to avenge the injuries their ancestors had formerly inflicted on the Albigenses, the Nîmois sacked their Bishop's Palace and threw all the Catholics they could find down the wells of the town. This celebration of Saint Michael's Day was repaid at the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. The wise Edict of Nantes brought a truce to these hostilities,--its revocation, new persecutions and flights. A hundred years later the Huguenots were again in force, and, aided by the unrest of the Revolution, successfully massacred the Catholics of the city; and during the "White Terror" of 1815 the Catholics arose and avenged themselves with equal vigour. When it is remembered that this savage and vindictive spirit has characterised the Nîmois of the last six hundred years, it is scarcely surprising that they should prefer to dwell on the remote antiquity of their city rather than on the unedifying episodes of her Christian history. Between the glories of her paganism and the disputes of Christians, the Faith has struggled and survived; but in the Cathedral-building era, religious enthusiasm was so often expended in mutual fury and reprisals that neither time nor thought was left for that common and gentle expression of mediæval fervour, ecclesiastical architecture. And the Church of Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Castor, which would seem to have suffered from the neglect and ignorance of both patrons and builders, is one of the least interesting Cathedrals in Languedoc. A graceful gallery of the nave, which also surrounds the choir, is the notable part of the interior, and the insignificance of the exterior is relieved only by a frieze of the XI and XII centuries. On this frieze is sculptured, in much interesting detail, the Biblical stories of the early years of mankind; but it is unfortunately placed so high on the front wall that it seems badly proportioned to the façade, and as a carved detail it is almost indistinguishable. As has been finely said the whole church is "gaunt" and unbeautiful; it is a depressing mixture of styles, Roman, Romano-Byzantine, and Gothic; and in studying its one fine detail, a photograph or a drawing is much more satisfactory than an hour's tantalising effort to see the original. [Sidenote: Montpellier.] Montpellier is "an agreeable city, clean, well-built, intersected by open squares with wide-spread horizons, and fine, broad boulevards, a city whose distinctive characteristics would appear to be wealth, and a taste for art, leisure, and study." The "taste" and the "art" are principally those of the pseudo-classic style, an imitation of "ancient Greece and imperial Rome," which the French of the XVIII century carried to such unpleasant excess. The general characteristics of the imitation, size and bombast, are well epitomised in the principal statue of Montpellier's fine Champ de Mars, which represents the high-heeled and luxurious Louis XIV in the unfitting armour of a Roman Imperator, mounted on a huge and restive charger. Such affectation in architectural subjects is the death-blow to all real beauty and originality, and Montpellier has gained little from its Bourbon patrons except a series of fine broad vistas. No city could offer greater contrast to the ancient and dignified classicism of Nîmes. If the mediæval origin of Montpellier were not well known, one would believe it the creation of the Renaissance, and the few narrow, tortuous streets of the older days recall little of its intense past, when the city grew as never before nor since, when scholars of the genius of Petrarch and the wit of Rabelais sought her out, when she belonged to Aragon or Navarre and not to the King of France. This is the interesting Montpellier. In the XIII century, she had a University which the Pope formally sanctioned, and a school of medicine founded by Arabian physicians which rivalled that of Paris. More significant still to Languedoc, her prosperity had begun to overshadow that of the neighbouring Bishopric of Maguelonne, and a bitter rivalry sprang up between the two cities. From the first Maguelonne was doomed. She had no schools that could rival those of Montpellier; she ceased to grow as the younger city increased in fame and size, till even history passed her by, and the stirring events of the times took place in the streets of her larger and more prosperous neighbour. Finally she was deserted by her Bishops, and no longer upheld by their episcopal dignity, her fall was so overwhelming that to-day her mediæval walls have crumbled to the last stone and only a lonely old Cathedral remains to mark her greatness. In 1536 my Lord Bishop, with much appropriate pomp and ceremony, rode out of her gates and entered those of Montpellier as titular Bishop for the first time. He did not find the townsmen so elated by the new dignity of the city as to have broken ground for a new Cathedral, nor did he himself seem ambitious, as his predecessors of Maguelonne had been, to build a church worthy of his rank. However, as a Bishop must have a Cathedral-church, the chapel of the Benedictine monastery was chosen for this honour and solemnly consecrated the Cathedral of Saint-Pierre of Montpellier. This chapel had been built in the XIV century, and at the time of these episcopal changes, only the nave was finished. It was, however, Gothic; and as this style had become much favoured by the South at this late period, the Bishop must have believed that he had the beginning of a very fine and admirable Cathedral. In the religious wars which followed 1536, succeeding prelates found much to distract them from any further building; the Cathedral itself was so injured that such attention as could be spared from heretics to mere architectural details was devoted to necessary restorations and reconstructions, and the finished Saint-Pierre of to-day is an edifice of surprising modernity. In the interior, the nave and aisles are partially of old construction, but the beautiful choir is the XIX century building of Révoil. Of the exterior, the entire apse is his also, and as the portal of the south wall was built in 1884 and the northern side of the Cathedral is incorporated in that of the Bishop's Palace, only the tower and the façade are mediæval. [Illustration: "ITS GENERAL EFFECT IS SOMEWHAT THAT OF A PORTE-COCHÉRE."--MONTPELLIER.] None of the towers have much architectural significance, either of beauty or originality. In comparison with the decoration of the façade they make but little impression. This decoration has more original incongruity than any detail ever applied to façade, Gothic or Romanesque, and is an extreme example of the license which southern builders allowed themselves in their adaptation of the northern style. It is a vagary, and has appealed to some Anglo-Saxon travellers, but French authorities, almost without dissent, allude to it apologetically as "unpardonable." Its general effect is somewhat that of a porte-cochère, whose roofing, directly attached to the front wall, is gothically pointed, and supported by two immense pillars. The pillars end in cones that resemble nothing in the world so much as sugar-loaves, and the whole structure is marvellously unique. Yet strange to say, the effect of the façade, with the smoothness and roundness of its pillars and the uncompromising squareness of its towers, while altogether bad, is not altogether unpleasing. Standing before it the traveller was both bewildered and fascinated as he saw that even in the extravagance of their combinations, the builders, with true southern finesse, had avoided both the grotesque and the monstrous. [Illustration: "THE FINEST VIEW IS THAT OF THE APSE."--MONTPELLIER.] As a whole, Saint-Pierre is a fine Cathedral; through many stages of building, enlarging, and re-constructing, its style has remained consonant; but the general impression is not altogether harmonious. The perspective of the western front, which should be imposing, is destroyed by a hill which slopes sharply up before the very portal. The façade is attached to the immense, unbroken wall of the old episcopal Palace, and the majesty, which is a Cathedral's by very virtue of its height alone, is entirely destroyed by a seemingly interminable breadth of wall. Reversing the natural order of things, the finest view is that of the apse. And this modern part is, in reality, the chief architectural glory of this comparatively new Cathedral and its comparatively modern town. [Sidenote: Béziers.] "You have only to look from a distance at any old-fashioned Cathedral-city and you will see in a moment the mediæval relations between Church and State. The Cathedral is the city. The first object you catch sight of as you approach is the spire tapering into the sky, or the huge towers holding possession of the centre of the landscape--majestically beautiful--imposing by mere size. As you go nearer, the pinnacles are glittering in the tints of the sunset, when down below among the streets and lanes twilight is darkening. And even now, when the towns are thrice their ancient size, ... the Cathedral is still the governing force in the picture, the one object which possesses the imagination, and refuses to be eclipsed." These words are the description of Béziers as it is best and most impressively seen. From the distance, the Cathedral and its ramparts rise in imposing mass, a fine example of the strength, pride, and supremacy of the Church. As we approach, the Cathedral grows much less imposing, and its façade gives the impression of an unpleasant conglomeration of styles. It is not a fortress church, yet it was evidently built for defence; it is Gothic, yet the lightness and grace of that art are sacrificed to the massiveness and resistive strength, imperatively required by southern Cathedrals in times of wars and bellicose heretics. The whole building seems a compromise between necessity and art. It is, however, a notable example of the Gothic of the South, and of the modifications which that style invariably underwent, through the artistic caprice of its builders, or the political fore-sight of their patrons, the Bishops. The façade of Saint-Nazaire of Béziers has a Gothic portal of good but not notable proportions, and a large and beautiful rose-window. As if to protect these weaker and decorative attempts, the builder flanked them with two square towers, whose crenellated tops and solid, heavy walls could serve as strongholds. Perhaps to reconcile the irreconcilable, crenellations joining the towers were placed over the rose-window, and at either end of the portal, a few inches of Gothic carving were cut in the tower-wall. The result is frank incongruity. And the traveller left without regret, to look at the apse. It cannot be denied that the clock-tower which comes into view is very square and thick; but in spite of that it has a simple dignity, and as the apse itself is not florid, this proved to be the really pleasing detailed view of the Cathedral. The open square behind the church is tiny, and there one can best see the curious grilled iron-work, which in the times of mediæval outbreaks protected the fine windows of the choir and preserved them for future generations of worshippers and admirers. It was after noon when the traveller finished his investigations of Saint-Nazaire; and as the southern churches close between twelve and two, he took déjeuner at a little café near-by and patiently waited for the hour of re-opening. Had there been nothing but the interior to explore, he could not have spent two hours in such contented waiting. But there was a Cloister,--and on the stroke of two he and the sacristan met before the portal. [Illustration: "THE CLOCK-TOWER IS VERY SQUARE AND THICK."--BÉZIERS.] In describing their "monuments," French guide-books confine themselves to facts, and the adjectives "fine" and "remarkable"; they are almost always strictly impersonal, and the traveller who uses them as a cicerone, has a sense of unexpected discovery, a peculiar elation, in finding a monument of rare beauty; but he is never subjected to that disappointed irritation which comes when one stands before the "monument" and feels that one's expectations have been unduly stimulated. The Cloister of Béziers is a "fine monument," but as he walked about it, the traveller felt no sense of elation. He found a small Cloister, Gothic like the Cathedral, with clustered columns and little ornamentation. It was not very completely restored, and had a sad, melancholy charm, like a solitary sprig of lavender in an old press, or a rose-leaf between the pages of a worn and forgotten Missal. In the Cloister-close, stands a Gothic fountain; but the days when its waters dropped and tinkled in the stillness, when their sound mingled with the murmured prayers and slow steps of the priests,--those days are long forgotten. The quaint and pretty fountain is now dry and dust-covered; while about it trees and plants and weeds grow as they may, and bits of the Cloister columns have fallen off, and niches are without their guarding Saints. [Illustration: "THE QUAINT AND PRETTY FOUNTAIN."--BÉZIERS.] By contrast, the Cathedral itself seems full of life. Its interior is an aisle-less Gothic room, whose fine height and emptiness of column or detail give it an appearance of vast and well-conceived proportions. Except the really beautiful windows of the choir, which are a study in themselves, there is very little in this interior to hold the mind; one is lost in a pleasant sense of general symmetry. As the traveller was sitting in the nave, a few priests filed into the choir, and began, in quavering voices, to intone their prayers, and in the peacefulness of the church, in the trembling monotony of the weak, old voices, his thoughts wandered to the stirring history which had been lived about the Cathedral, and within its very walls. For Béziers was and had always been a hot-bed of heretics. Here in the IV century, long before the building of the Cathedral, the Emperor Constantius II forced the unwilling Catholic Bishops of Gaul to join their heretical Aryan brethren in Council; here the equally heretical Visigoths gave new strength to the dissenters; and here, again, after centuries of orthodoxy which Clovis had imposed, a new centre of religious storm was formed. It was about this period, the XII and XIV centuries, that the Cathedral was built; and it is perhaps because of the strength of those French protestants against the Church of Rome, the Albigenses, that its essentially Gothic style was so confused by military additions. At the beginning of the troublous times of which these towers are reminders, Raymond-Roger of Trencavel, the gallant and romantic Lord of Carcassonne, was also Viscount of Béziers; and contrary to the fanatical enthusiasm of his day, was much disposed toward religious toleration; therefore in the early wars of Catholics and Protestants the city of Béziers became the refuge not only for the terrified Faithful of the surrounding country, but for many hunted Protestants. In the XIII century, the zeal of the Catholic party, reinforced by the political interests of its members, grew most hot and dangerous. Saint Dominic had come into the South; and in his fearful, fiery sermons, he not only prophesied that the Albigenses would swell the number of the damned at the Day of Judgment, but also advocated that, living, they should know the hell of Inquisition. Partisans of the Catholic Faith were solemnly consecrated "Crusaders" by Pope Innocent III, and wore the cross in these Wars of Extermination as they had worn it in the Holy Wars of Palestine. In 1209 their army advanced against Béziers, and from out their Councils the leaders sent the Bishop of the city to admonish his flock. All the inhabitants were summoned to meet him, and they gathered in the choir and transepts of the Cathedral,--the only parts which were finished at that time. One can imagine the anxious citizens crowding into the church, the coming of the angered prelate, whose state and frown were well calculated to intimidate the wavering, and the tense silence as he passed, with grave blessing, to the altar. In a few words, he advised them of their peril, spiritual and material; he told them he knew well who was true and who false to the Church, that he had, in written list, the very names of the heretics they seemed to harbour. Then he begged them to deliver those traitors into his hands, and their city to the Legate of the Holy Father. In fewer words came their answer; "Venerable Father, all that are here are Christians, and we see amongst us only our brethren." Such words were a refusal, a heinous sin, and dread must have been written on every face, as without a word or sign of blessing, the outraged Bishop swept from the church and returned to the camp of their enemy. The Crusaders' Councils were stormy; for some of the nobles wished to save the Catholics, others cried out for the extermination of the whole rebellious place, and finally the choleric Legate, Armand-Amaury, Abbot of Cîteaux, could stand it no longer, and cried out fiercely, "Kill them all! God will know His own." The words of their Legate were final, the army attacked the city, and--as Henri Martin finely writes,--"neither funeral tollings nor bell-ringings, nor Canons in all their priestly robes could avail, all were put to the sword; not one was saved, and it was the saddest pity ever seen or heard." The city was pillaged, was fired, was devastated and burned "till no living thing remained." "No living thing remained" to tell the awful tale, and yet with time and industry, a new and forgetful Béziers has risen to all its old prestige and many times its former size; the Cathedral alone was left, and its most memorable tale to our day is not that of the abiding peace of the Faith, but that of the terrible travesty of religion of the twenty-second of July, hundreds of years ago. [Sidenote: Narbonne.] "Narbonne is still mighty and healthful, if one is to judge from the activities of the present day; is picturesque and pleasing, and far more comfortably disposed than many cities with a more magnificently imposing situation." These words, which were running in the traveller's mind, grew more and more derisive, more and more ironical, as he walked about Narbonne. Not in all the South of France had he seen a city so depressing. Her decline has been continuous for the long five hundred years since the Roman dykes gave way and she was cut off from the sea. Agde, almost as old, displays the decline of a dignified, retired old age; Saint-Gilles-du-Gard was as dirty, but not a whit as pretentious; Nîmes was majestically antique; Narbonne, simply sordid. It is sad to think that over two thousand years ago she was a second Marseilles, that she was the first of Rome's transalpine colonies, and that under Tiberius her schools rivalled those of the Capital of the world. It is sadder to think that all the magnificence of Roman luxury, of sculptured marble--a Forum, Capitol, Temples, Baths, Triumphal Arches,--stood where dreary rows of semi-modern houses now stand. It is almost impossible to believe in the lost grandeur of this city, and that it was veritably under the tutelage of so great and superb a god as Mars. The eventful Christian period of Narbonne was very noted but not very long. Her melancholy decay began as early as the XIV century. Of her great antiquity nothing is left but a few hacked and mutilated carvings; of her ambitious Mediævalism, nothing but an unfinished group of ecclesiastical buildings. Long gone is the lordly "Narbo" dedicated to Mars, gone the city of the Latin poet, whose words repeated to-day in her streets are a bitter mockery, and gone the stronghold of mediæval times. There remains a rare phenomenon for cleanly France,--a dirty city, whose older sections are reminiscent of unbeautiful old age, decrepit and unwashed; and whose newly projected boulevards are distinguished by tawdry and pretentious youth. In the midst of this city, stands a group of mediæval churchly buildings, the Palace of the prelate, his Cathedral, and an adjoining Cloister. They are all either neglected, unfinished, or re-built; but are of so noble a plan that the traveller feels a "divine wrath" that they should never have reached their full grandeur of completion, that this great architectural work should have been begun so near the close of the city's prosperity, and that in spite of several efforts it has never been half completed. It is as if a fatality hung over the whole place, and as if all the greatness Narbonne had conceived was predestined to destruction or incompletion. [Illustration: "THE DOOR OF THE CLOISTER."--NARBONNE.] Of the three structures, the least interesting is the former Palace of the Archbishops. This is now the Hôtel-de-Ville, and as all the body of the structure between the towers of the XII century was built in our day by Viollet-le-Duc, very little of the old Palace can properly be said to exist. Besides its two principal towers, a smaller one, a gate, and a chapel remain. Viollet-le-Duc has constructed the Hôtel-de-Ville after the perfectly appropriate style of the XIII century, but its stone is so new and its atmosphere so modern and republican that the traveller left it without regret and made his way up the dark, steep, badly-paved alley-way which leads to the door of the Cloister. This Cloister, which separated the Palace from the Cathedral, is now dreary and desolate and neglected. Like the Cathedral, it is Gothic, with sadly decaying traces of graceful ornament. The little plot of enclosed ground, which should be planted in grass or with a few flowers, is a mere dirt court, tramped over by the few worshippers who enter the Cathedral this way. Two or three trees grow as they will, gnarled or straight. The sense of peaceful melancholy which the traveller had felt in the Cloister of Béziers is wanting here. This is a place of deserted solitude; and with a sigh for the beauty that might have been, the traveller crossed the enclosure and entered the church by the cloister-door. [Illustration: "THIS IS A PLACE OF DESERTED SOLITUDE."--NARBONNE.] Architecturally dissimilar, the fate of this Cathedral is not unlike that of Beauvais. Each was destined to have a completed choir, and each to remain without a nave. At Beauvais the addition of transepts adds very materially to the beauty of the Cathedral. At Narbonne no transepts exist. There is simply a choir, which makes a very singular disposition of the church both religious and architectural. Entering the gates which lead from the ambulatory to the choir, the traveller found that Benediction had just begun. On his immediate right, before the altar all aglow with lights, were the officiating priests and the altar-boys; on his left, in the choir, was the congregation in the Canons' stalls; and at the back, as at the end of a nave, rose the organ. The traveller walked about the ambulatory, and leaning against the farthest wall, tried to view the church, only to be baffled. There was no perspective. The ambulatory is very narrow and the choir-screen very high. The impressions he formed were partly imaginative, partly inductive; and the clearest one was that of sheer height, straight, superhuman height that is one of the unmatchable glories of French Gothic. Here the traveller thought again of Beauvais, and wished as he had so often wished in the northern Cathedral and with something of the same intensity, that this freedom and majesty of height might have been gloriously continued and completed in the nave. Such a church as his imagination pictured would have been worthy of a place with the best of northern Gothic. Now it is a suggestion, a beginning of greatness; and its chief glory lies in the simplicity and directness of its height. Clustered columns rise plainly to the pointed Gothic roof. There is so marked an absence of carving that it seems as if ornamentation would have been weakening and trammelling. It is not bareness, but beautiful firmness, which refreshes and uplifts the heart of man as the sight of some island mountain rising sheer from the sea. The exterior of the Cathedral, imposing from a distance, is rather complicated in its unfinished compromise of detail. In the XV century, two towers were built which flank the western end as towers usually flank a façade; and this gives the church a foreshortened effect. Of real façade there is none, and the front wall which protects the choir is plainly temporary. In front of this wall there are portions of the unfinished nave, stones and other building materials, a scaffolding, and a board fence; and the only pleasure the traveller could find in this confusion was the fancy that he had discovered the old-time appearance of a Cathedral in the making. The apse is practically completed, and one has the curious sensation that it is a building without portals. Having no façade, it has none of the great front entrances common to the Gothic style; neither has it the usual lateral door. The choir is entered by the temporary doors of the pseudo-façade; the ambulatory is entered through the Cloister, or a pretty little Gothic door-way which if it were not the chief entrance of the church, would properly seem to have been built for the clergy rather than for the people who now use it. If these portals are strangely unimportant, their insignificance does not detract materially from the stateliness of the apse, which is created by its great height--one hundred and thirty feet in the interior measurement--and the magnificent flying-buttresses. These flying-buttresses give to the exterior its most curious and beautiful effect. They are a form of Gothic seldom attempted in the South, and exist here in a rather exceptional construction. Over the chapels which surround the apse rise a series of double-arched supports, the outer ones ending in little turrets with surmounting crenellations. On these supports, after a splendid outward sweep, rest the abutments of the flying arches. These have a fine sure grace and withal a lightness that relieves the heaviness imposed on the church by the towers and the immense strength of the body of the apse. They are the chief as well as the most salient glory of the exterior, and give to the Cathedral its peculiar individuality. [Illustration: "THESE FLYING-BUTTRESSES GIVE TO THE EXTERIOR ITS MOST CURIOUS AND BEAUTIFUL EFFECT."--NARBONNE.] Apart from its buttresses, Saint-Just has little decorative style. Its crenellations and turrets are military and forceful, not ornate. For the church had its defensive as truly as its religious purpose, and formerly was united on the North with the fortifications of the Palace, and contributed to the protection of its prelates as well as to their arch-episcopal prestige. In spite of the fostering care of the French government, the Palace, the Cloister, and the Cathedral seem in the hands of strangers. The traveller who had longed to see them in their finished magnificence realised the futility of this wish, but he turned away with another as vain, that he might have known them even in incompletion, when they were in the hands of the Church, when the Archbishop still ruled in his Palace, when the Canons prayed in the Cloister, and the Cathedral was still a-building. [Sidenote: Perpignan.] Perpignan, like Elne, is in Rousillon. The period of her most brilliant prosperity was that of the Majorcan dominion in the XII century. Later she reverted to Aragon, and was still so fine a city that for two hundred years France coveted and sought her, until she finally yielded to the greedy astuteness of Richelieu and became formally annexed to the kingdom of Louis XIII. Perpignan is a gay little town, much affected by the genius and indolence of the Spanish race. Morning is work-time, noon-tide is siesta, but afternoon and evening were made for pleasure; and every bright day, when the sun begins to cast shadows, people fill the narrow, shady streets and walk along the promenade by the shallow river, under the beautiful plane-trees. The pavements in front of the cafés are filled with little round tables, and here and there small groups of men idle cheerfully over tiny glasses of liqueur and cups of cool, black coffee; perhaps they talk a little business, certainly they gossip a great deal. Noisy little teams filled with merry people run down from the Promenade to the sea-shore; and after an hour's dip, almost in the shadow of the tall Pyrénées, the same merry people return, laughing, to a cooler Perpignan. In the evening, they seek the bright cafés and the waiters run busily to and fro among the crowded little tables; the narrow streets, imperfectly lighted, are full of moving shadows, and through the open church-doors, candles waver in the fitful draught, and quiet worshippers pass from altar to altar in penance or in supplication. All the old buildings of the city are of Spanish origin. The prison is the brick, battlemented castle of a Majorcan Sancho, the Citadel is as old, and the Aragonese Bourse is divided between the town-hall and the city's most popular café. The Cathedral of Saint-Jean, which faces a desolate, little square, was also begun in Majorcan days and under that Sancho who ruled in 1324. At first it was merely a church; for Elne had always been the seat of the Bishopric of Rousillon, and although the town had suffered from many wars and had long been declining, it was not shorn of its episcopal glory until there was sufficient political reason for the act. This arose in 1692, and was based on the old-time French and Spanish claims to the same county to which these two cities belonged. [Illustration: "ALL OF THE OLD BUILDINGS OF THE CITY ARE OF SPANISH ORIGIN."--PERPIGNAN.] Over a hundred years before Charles VIII had plenarily ceded to Ferdinand and Isabella all power in Rousillon, even that shadowy feudal Suzerainty with which, in default of actual possession, many a former French king had consoled himself and irritated a royal Spanish brother. Ferdinand and Isabella promptly visited their new possessions, and made solemn entry into Perpignan. Unfortunately the Inquisition came in their train, and the unbounded zeal of the Holy Office brought the Spanish rule which protected it into ever-increasing disfavour. In vain Philip III again bestowed on Perpignan the title of "faithful city," which she had first received from John of Aragon for her loyal resistance to Louis XI; in vain he ennobled several of her inhabitants and transferred to her, from Elne, the episcopal power. The city was ready for new and kinder masters than the Most Catholic Kings, and in 1642 the French were received as liberators. During all these years the Cathedral had grown very slowly. Commenced in 1324, over a century elapsed before the choir was finished and the building of the nave was not begun until a hundred years later. The High Altar, a Porch, and the iron cage of the tower were added with equal deliberation, and even to-day it is still unfinished. The most beautiful part is the strongly buttressed apse; the poorest, the unfinished façade, which has been very fitly described as "plain and mean." Looking disconsolately at it from the deserted square, scarcely tempted to go nearer, the traveller was astounded at the thought that for several centuries this unsightly wall had stared on generations of worshippers without goading them into any frenzy of action,--either destructive or constructive. His only comfort lay in the scaffolding which was building around it, and which seemed to promise better things. [Illustration: "THE UNFINISHED FAÇADE."--PERPIGNAN.] The interior of the Cathedral is very large and lofty. It is without aisles and the chapels are discreetly hidden between the piers. Far above one's head curves the ribbed Gothic vaulting, and all around is unbroken space that ends in darkness or the vague outline of an altar, dimly lighted by a flickering candle. The walls are painted in rich, sombre colours, and the light comes very gently through the good old stained-glass windows. It is a southern church, dark, cool, and somewhat mysterious; quite foreign to the glare and heat of reality. People are lost in its solemn vastness, and even with many worshippers it is a solitude where most holy vigils could be kept, a mystic place where the southern imagination might well lose itself in such sacred ardours as Saint Theresa felt. The traveller liked to linger here; in the day-time when he peered vainly at the re-redos of Soler de Barcelona, at Mass-time, when the lighted altar-candles glimmered over its fine old marble, but best of all he liked to come at night. Those summer nights in Rousillon were hot and full of the murmur of voices. The Cathedral was the only silent place; more full than ever of the mysterious--the felt and the unseen. As one entered, the sanctuary light shone as a star out of a night of darkness; in a near-by chapel, a candle sputtered itself away, and a woman--whether old or young one could not see--lighted a fresh taper. Sometimes a man knelt and told his beads, sometimes two women entered and separated for their differing needs and prayers. Sometimes one sat in meditation, or knelt, unmoving, for a space of time; once a child brought a new candle to Saint Antony; always some one came or some one went, until the hour of closing. Then, the bell was rung, the door shut by a hand but dimly seen, and the last few watchers went out--across the little square, down this street or that, until they were lost in the darkness of the summer's night. [Illustration: "THE STONY STREET OF THE HILLSIDE."--CARCASSONNE.] [Sidenote: Carcassonne.] The train puffed into the station at Carcassonne, and the impatient traveller, throwing his bags into an hotel omnibus, asked for the Cathedral and walked eagerly on that he might the more quickly "see in line the city on the hill," "the castle walls as grand as those of Babylon," and "gaze at last on Carcassonne." His mind was full of the poem, and faithfully following directions, he hurried through clean, narrow streets until he came at length, not upon a poetic vision of battlemented walls and towers, but on the most prosaic of boulevards and the Church of Saint-Michel which has been the Cathedral since 1803, a large, uncouth building with a big, unfinished tower. There is no façade portal, and a small door-way in the north side leads into the great vaulted hall, one of the most usual and commonplace forms of the Gothic interior of the South. This room, which is painted, receives light from a beautiful rose-window at the West, and a series of small roses, like miniatures of the greater one, are cut in the upper walls of the nave; and little chapels, characterised by the same heavy monotony which hangs like a pall over the whole Cathedral, are lost in the church's capacious flanks. [Illustration: "THE ANCIENT CROSS."--CARCASSONNE.] Having lost much of his enthusiasm, the traveller asked for the old--he had almost said the "real"--Cathedral, and with new directions, he started afresh. Leaving the well-built, agreeable, commonplace "Lower city" of the plain, he came to the bridge, and there, sitting on its parapet, near the ancient Cross, he feasted his longing eyes on that perfect vision of Mediævalism. The high, arid, and almost isolated hill of the Cité stood before him, and at the top rose battlements and flanking towers in double range, bristling, war-like, and strong; yet beautiful in their mass of uneven, peaked tower-roofs and crenellations. He climbed wearily up the stony street of the hillside, and as he passed through the open gate, he realised that Hunnewell had written truly when he said "Carcassonne is a romance of travel." For he went into a town so quiet, into streets so still, so weed-grown, and lonely, and yet so well built, that he felt as a "fairy prince" who has penetrated into some enchanted castle, and it seemed as if the inhabitants were asleep in the upper rooms, behind those bowed windows, and as if, when the mysterious word of disenchantment should be uttered, all would come trooping forth, men-at-arms hurrying to clean their rusty swords, old women trudging along to fill their dusty pitchers at the well, and younger women staring from doors and windows to see the stranger within their streets. The Cadets de Gascogne knew the city before the evil spell of modern times was cast about it. They know and miss it now. And although they may no longer wear the plumed hat and clanking sword of their ancestors, the spirit beneath their more conventional garb is as gay and daring as that of Cadets more picturesque. They have conceived a plan as exciting as any old adventure, an idea which they present to the world, not as Cyrano, their most famous member, was wont to convey his thoughts at the end of a sword, but none the less dexterously and delightfully. This plan, like the magic word of the traveller's fancy, is to make the old Carcassonne live again, not as the traveller had timidly imagined, in time of peace, but in the stirring times of war and battle, and its magic word is "the siege of Carcassonne." Truly it is but a matter of bengal lights, blank cartridges, and fire-crackers, though for the matter of that, Cinderella's coach was but a pumpkin, yet the effect was none the less real. [Illustration: "OFTEN, TOO LITTLE TIME IS SPENT UPON THE NAVE."--CARCASSONNE.] On the evening of "the siege," a rare, great fête, the forces of the Cadets with their lights and ammunition are in the "upper town", and long before dark, their friends and every inhabitant of the country for miles around have gathered in the houses which face the Cité, on the bridges, and along the banks of the little Aude. As the sunlight fades and the shadows creep along, a strange feeling of expectancy comes over everybody, a hush, almost a dread of danger. The towers on the hill-top loom dark against the sky and the battlements bristle in the moonlight, no sound comes from the Cité, and it seems to lay in unconcerned security. Memories of besieging armies which have vainly encamped in this valley return to the traveller's mind, memories of the treacheries of Simon de Montfort, and he wonders if any "crusading" sentinel ever paced where he now stands watching along the Aude, if any spy or even the terrible Simon himself had ever crept so near the walls to reconnoitre. Suddenly every one is startled by the sound of distant shots, which are repeated nearer the walls. Every one peers into the darkness. There is no sign of life on wall or tower, the attacking force must still be climbing the hill, out of range of the stones and burning oil of the defenders. More shots are fired, and now there are answering shots from the besieged; and so naturally does the din increase, that one can follow, by listening, the progress of the attack and the slow, sure gain of the invader. Some of the illusion of the anxiety and mental tension which war brings, steals over the watching crowd, and they breathlessly await the outcome of the struggle. The attacking party is now seen under the walls--now on them--they throw wads of burning cotton, which are at first extinguished. They still gain--they fire the walls in several places; and the defenders, who can be seen in the flashes of light, run frantically to the danger spots; but they are gradually overcome, beaten back by the intensity of the heat. Flames now burst forth from a tower; there is an explosion, and the fire curls and creeps along the walls unchecked. Another explosion follows, another burst of flames which soar higher and higher. The men of the Cité seem still more frantic and powerless. All the towers now stand out in bold relief,--as if they were just about to crumble into the seething mass below. Roofs within the walls are on fire, and finally a red tongue licks the turret of the Cathedral. In a few seconds its walls are hideously aglow, and the people in the valley--although they know the truth--groan aloud, so real is the illusion. The nave lines of the Cathedral are silhouetted as it burns, the fires along the walls growing brighter, spread gradually at first,--then rapidly, and the whole Cité is the prey of great, waving clouds of flame and smoke. Men and women, as if fascinated by this lurid and magnificent destruction, press forward to get the last view of the Cathedral's lovely rose, or the peaked roof of some tower which is dear to them. But slowly the deep red flames are growing paler, less strong, and less high. Then the glare, too, begins to die away; the fire turns to smoke and the light becomes grey and misty. "It is all over," some one whispers, and with backward glances at the charred, smoldering hill-top, they turn silently towards home. A few, sitting on the stone parapet of the bridge, remain to talk of the evening's magic, of the inspiration of the Cadets de Gascogne, and other scenes which their memory suggests, of wars and rumours of other wars. And when at length they turn to go, they see the moonlight on the glimmering Aude, the peaceful lower city, and above, Carcassonne--the Invincible--rising from her ashes. [Illustration: "THE CHOIR IS OF THE XIV CENTURY."--CARCASSONNE.] [Illustration: "THE FAÇADE--STRAIGHT AND MASSIVE."--CARCASSONNE.] The Cathedral of the Cité is worthy of great protecting walls and there are few churches whose destruction would have been so sad a blow to the architecture of the Midi. Saint-Nazaire is typical at once of the originality of the southern builders, of their idealism, and their joyous freedom from conventional thrall. The façade, straight, and massive, has the frowning severity of an old donjon wall. Its towers are solid masses of heavy stone; instead of spires, there are crenellations; instead of graceful flying-buttresses at the sides, there are solid, upright supports on the firm, plain side-walls. This is the true old Romanesque. A few steps further, and the apse appears, as great a contrast to the body of the church as a bit of Mechlin lace to a coat-of-mail. A little tower with gargoyles, another with a fine-carved turret, windows whose delicate traceries could be broken by a blow, and an upper balustrade which would have been as easily crushed as an egg-shell in the hands of the lusty Huguenots,--these are the ornaments of its wall, as true XIV century Gothic as the nave is XII century Romanesque. It is sadly disappointing to find the Cloisters in uninteresting ruin, but the church within is so full of great beauty that all other things are unimportant. The windows glow in the glory of their glass, and the tombs, especially those of the lower Chapel of the Bishop, are wonderfully carved. The first burial place of de Montfort, terrible persecutor of his Church's foes, lies near the High Altar, and in the wall, there is a rude bas-relief representing his siege of Toulouse. All these admirable details are puny in comparison with the interior which contains them. It is to be feared that often, too little time is spent upon the nave. Even in mid-day, lighted by the southern sun, its beautiful, severe lines are mellowed but little, and one turns too instinctively to the Gothic, the greater lightness beyond. Yet it is a nave of exceedingly fine, rugged strength, and to pass on lightly, to belittle it in comparison with its brighter choir, is to wantonly miss in the great round columns, the heavy piers, and the dark tunnel vaulting, the conception of generations of men who had ever before their mind--and literally believed--"A mighty fortress is our God." The choir is of the XIV century, a day when the "beauty of holiness" seems to have been the Cathedral architect's ideal. Delicate, clustered columns from which Saints look down, long windows beautifully veined, a glorious rose at each transept's end, and high vault arches springing with a slender pointed grace, all these are of exquisite proportions; and the brilliant stained-glass adds a softening warmth of colour, but not too great a glow, to the cold fragility of the shafts of stone. Nothing in the Gothic art of the South, little of Gothic elsewhere, is more thoughtfully and lovingly wrought than this choir of Saint-Nazaire, and few churches in the Romanesque form are more finely constructed than its nave. On the exterior, the Gothic choir and the Romanesque nave are so different in style it seems they must be, perforce, antagonistic, that the grace of the Gothic must make Romanesque plainness appear dull, or that the noble simplicity of the rounded arch must cause the Gothic arches, here so particularly tall and slender, to seem almost fragile and undignified. In reality, this juxtaposition of the styles has justified itself; and passing from one to the other, the traveller is more impressed by the subtle analogies they suggest than by the differences of their architectural forms. On week-days, when the church is empty, they seem to prefigure the two ideals of the religion which they serve--the stern, self-conquering asceticism of a Saint Dominic, and the exquisite, radiant visions which Saint Cecelia saw when heavenly music was vouchsafed her. Or, if one has time to fancy further, the nave is the epic of its great religion; the choir, a song which is the expression of most delicate aspiration, most tender worship. On Sunday, when to this beauty of the godly habitation is added all the beauty of worship, the music of the oldest organs in France, slow-moving priests in gorgeous vestments, sweet smelling incense, chants, and prayers of a most majestic ritual, one is tempted to read into these stones symbolical meanings,--as if the heavy nave, where the dim praying figures kneel, were typical of their life of struggle--and their glances altarward, where all is light and beauty, presaged their final coming into the presence and glory of God. [Illustration: PERSPECTIVE OF THE ROMANESQUE.--CARCASSONNE.] Hunnewell has finely written, that "while the passions and the terrors of a fierce, rude age made unendurable the pleasant land where we may travel now so peacefully, ... and while Religion, grown political, forgot the mercy of its Lord and ruled supreme, ... an earnest faith and consecrated genius were creating some of the noblest tributes man has offered to his Creator," and it may be truly said that of these one of the noblest is the church begun in that most cruel age of Saint Dominic and de Montfort, in the very heart of the country they laid waste, in the city which one conquered by ruse and the other tortured by inquisition, the old Cathedral of Saint-Nazaire in Carcassonne. [Sidenote: Castres.] In the VII century Castres, which had been the site of a Roman camp, became that of a Benedictine Abbey; and around this foundation, as about so many others, a town grew through the Middle Ages, and came safely to prosperity and importance. Untrue to its early protectors and in opposition to the fervent orthodoxy of the neighbouring city of Albi, Castres became a Protestant stronghold, and its fortunes rose and fell with the chances of religious wars. It was, perhaps, one of the most intrepid and obstinate of all the centres of heresy, and the centuries of struggle seem only to have strengthened the fierceness of its faith. In 1525, when the Duke de Rohan was absent and a royal army again summoned it to submission and conversion, the Duchess had herself carried from a sick bed to the gate of the city which was threatened, and it is related that the inhabitants of all classes, men, women, and children, without distinction of sex or age, armed themselves and rushed victoriously to her aid. Thirty-five years later, their children sacked churches, destroyed altars and images, and drove out monks and nuns. Bellicose incidents make history a thrilling story, but they are accompanied by such material destruction that they too often rob a city of its greatest treasures, and leave it, as far as architectural interest is concerned, an arid waste. Such a place is Castres, prosperous, industrial, historically dramatic, but actually commonplace. Old houses, picturesque and mouldy, with irregular, overhanging eaves, lean along the banks of the little river as they are wont to line the banks of every old stream of the Midi, and they are nearly all the remains of Castres' Mediævalism. For her streets are well-paved, trolleys pass to and fro, department stores are frequent, and that most modern of vehicles, the automobile, does not seem anachronistic. No building could be more in harmony with the city's atmosphere of uninteresting prosperity than its Cathedral, and he who enters in search of beauty and repose, is doomed to miserable disappointment. Confronted in the XIV century by a growing heresy, John XXII devised, among other less Christian methods of combat, that of the creations of Sees, whose power and dignity of rank should check the progress of the enemies of the Church; and in 1317, that year which saw the beginning of so many of these new Sees, the old Benedictine Abbey of Castres, lying in the very centre of Protestantism, was created a Bishopric. The century, if unpropitious to Catholicism, was favourable to architecture, the Abbey was of ancient foundation, and from either of these facts, a fine Cathedral might reasonably be hoped for,--a dim Abbey-church whose rounded arches are lost in the gloom of its vaulting, or a bit of southern Gothic which the newly consecrated prelate might have ambitiously planned. But the Cathedral of Saint-Benoît is neither of these, for it was re-constructed in the XVII century, the XVII century in all its confusion of ideas, all its lack of taste, all its travesty of styles. There is the usual multitude of detail, the usual unworthiness. Portals which have no beauty, an expanse of unfinished façade, dark, ugly walls whose bareness is not sufficiently hidden by the surrounding houses, heavy buttresses, ridiculously topped off by globes of stone,--such are the salient features of the exterior of Saint-Benoît. The "spaciousness" of the interior has given room, if not for an impartial representation, at least for a reminder of all the styles of architecture to which the XVII century was heir. There is the Renaissance conception of the antique in the ornamental columns; in the rose-window, there is a tribute to the Gothic; the tradition of the South is maintained by a coat of colours--many, if subdued; and the ground plan of nave and side-chapels might be called Romanesque. Although the vaulting is high and the room large, there is no simplicity, no beauty, no artistic virtue in this interior. Opposite the church is the episcopal Palace which Mansart built, a large construction that serves admirably as a City Hall. Behind it, along the river, are the charming gardens designed by Le Nôtre, where Bishops walked and meditated, looking upon their not too faithful city of Castres. Upon this very ground was the ancient Abbey and close of the Benedictines; and as if in memory of these monkish predecessors, Bishop and builder of the XVII century left in an angle of the Palace the old Abbey-tower. This is the treasure of Castres' past, a Romanesque belfry with the pointed roofing of the campanile of Italy, heavy in comparison with their grace, and stout and strong. [Sidenote: Toulouse.] Toulouse is one of the most charming cities of the South of France. It is also one of the largest; but in spite of its size, it is neither noisy nor stupidly conventional; it is, on the contrary, an ideal provincial "capital," where everything, even the climate, corresponds to our preconceived and somewhat romantic ideal of the southern type. When the wind blows from the desert it comes with fierce and sudden passion, the sun shines hot, and under the awnings of the open square, men fan themselves lazily during a long lunch hour. Under this appearance of semi-tropical languor, there is the persistent energy of the great southern peoples, an energy none the less real because it is broken by the long siestas, the leisurely meal-times, and the day-time idling, which seem so shiftless and so strange to northern minds. This is the energy, however, which has made Toulouse a rich, opulent city,--a city with broad boulevards, open squares, and fine buildings, and a city of the gay Renaissance rather than of the stern Middle Ages. Yet for Toulouse the Middle Ages were a dark time. What could be gotten by the sword was taken by the sword, and even the mind of man, in that gross age, was forced and controlled by the agony of his body. It is a time whose most peaceful outward signs, the churches, have been preserved to Toulouse, and the war-signs, towers, walls, and fortifications, dungeons, and the torture-irons of inquisition, are now--and wisely--hidden or destroyed. Of the fierce tragedies which were played in Toulouse, even to the days of the great Revolution, few traces remain,--the stern, orthodox figure of Simon de Montfort, and of Count Raymond, his too politic foe, and the anguish of the Crusaders' siege, the bent form of Jean Calas and the shrewd, keen face of Voltaire, who vindicated him from afar, these memories seem dimmed; and those which live are of light-hearted troubadours and gaily dressed ladies of the city of the gay, insouciant Renaissance to whom an auto-da-fè was a gala between the blithesome robing of the morning and the serenade in the moonlight. Fierce and steadfast, sentimentally languishing, dying for a difference of faith, or dying as violently to avenge the insult of a frown or a lifted eye-brow, such are the Languedocians whom Toulouse evokes, near to the Gascons and akin to them. Here is the Académie des Jeux-Floreaux, the "College of Gay Wit" which was founded in the XIV century, and still distributes on the third of every May prizes of gold and silver flowers to poets, and writers of fine prose; and here are many "hôtels" of the Renaissance, rich and beautiful homes of the old Toulousan nobility whose courts are all too silent. Here is the Hôtel du Vieux-Raisin, the Maison de Pierre, and the Hôtel d'Assézat where Jeanne d'Albret lived; and near-by is a statue of her son, the strongest, sanest, and most debonnaire of all the great South-men, Henry of Navarre. Here in Toulouse is indeed material for a thousand fancies. [Illustration: "THE NAVE OF THE XIII CENTURY IS AN AISLE-LESS CHAMBER, LOW AND BROADLY ARCHED."--TOULOUSE.] And here the Cathedral-seeker, who had usually had the proud task of finding the finest building in every city he visited, was doomed to disappointment. In vain he tried to console himself with the fact that Toulouse had had two Cathedrals. Of one there was no trace; in the other, confusion; and he was met with the axiom, true in architecture as in other things, that two indifferent objects do not make one good one. The "Dalbade," formerly the place of worship of the Knights of Malta, has a more elegant tower; the Church of the Jacobins a more interesting one; the portal of the old Chartreuse is more beautiful; the Church of the Bull, more curious; and the Basilica of Saint-Sernin so interesting and truly glorious that the Cathedral pales in colourless insignificance. Some cities of mediæval France possessed, at the same time, two Cathedrals, two bodies of Canons, and two Chapters under one and the same Bishop. Such a city was Toulouse; and until the XII century, Saint-Jacques and Saint-Etienne were rival Cathedrals. Then, for some reason obscure to us, Saint-Jacques was degraded from its episcopal rank and remained a simple church until 1812 when it was destroyed. The present Cathedral of Saint-Etienne is a combination of styles and a violation of every sort of architectural unity, and realises a confusion which the most perverse imagination could scarcely have conceived. According to every convention of building, the Cathedral is not only artistically poor, but mathematically insupportable. The proportions are execrable; and the interior, the finest part of the church, reminds one irresistibly of a good puzzle badly put together. The weak tower is a sufficient excuse for the absence of the other; from the tower the roof slopes sharply and unreasonably, and the rose-window is perched, with inappropriate jauntiness, to the left of the main portal. The whole structure is not so much the vagary of an architect as the sport of Fate, the self-evident survival of two unfitting façades. Walking through narrow streets, one comes upon the apse as upon another church, so different is its style. It is disproportionately higher than the façade; instead of being conglomerate, it is homogeneous; instead of a squat appearance, uninterestingly grotesque, it has the dignity of height and unity. And although it is too closely surrounded by houses and narrow streets, and although a view of the whole apse is entirely prevented by the high wall of some churchly structure, it is the only worthy part of the exterior and, by comparison, even its rather timid flying-buttresses and insignificant stone traceries are impressive. [Illustration: "THE PRESENT CATHEDRAL IS A COMBINATION OF STYLES."--TOULOUSE.] The nave of the early XIII century is an aisle-less chamber, low and broadly arched. As the eye continues down its length, it is met by the south aisle of the choir,--opening directly into the centre of the nave. Except for this curiously bad juxtaposition, both are normally constructed, and each is of so differing a phase of Gothic that they give the effect of two adjoining churches. The choir was begun in the late XII century, on a new axis, and was evidently the commencement of an entire and improved re-construction. In spite of the poorly planned restoration in the XVII century, the worthy conception of this choir is still realised. It is severe, lofty Gothic, majestic by its own intrinsic virtue, and doubly so in comparison with the uncouth puzzle-box effect of the whole. Its unity came upon the traveller with a shock of surprise, relieving and beautiful, and after he had walked about its high, narrow aisles and refreshed his disappointed vision, he left the Cathedral quickly--looking neither to the right nor to the left, without a trace of the temptation of Lot's wife, to "glance backward." [Sidenote: Montauban.] Although Montauban was founded on the site of a Roman station, the Mons Albanus, it is really a city of the late Middle Ages, re-created, as it were, by Alphonse I., Count of Toulouse in 1144. And it was even a greater hot-bed of heretics than Béziers. Incited first by hatred of the neighbouring monks of Le Moustier, and then by the bitter agonies of the Inquisition, it became fervently Albigensian, and as fervently Huguenot; and even now it has many Protestant inhabitants and a Protestant Faculty teaching Theology. The Montauban of the present day is busy and prosperous, very prettily situated on the turbid little Tarn. In spite of her constant loyalty to the Huguenot cause, perhaps partly because of it, she has had three successive Cathedrals; Saint-Martin, burned in 1562; the Pro-cathedral of Saint-Jacques; and, finally, Notre-Dame, the present episcopal church, a heavy structure in the Italian style of the XVIII century. Large and light and bare, the nudeness of the interior is uncouth, and the stiff exterior, decorated with statues, impresses one as pleasantly as clothes upon crossed bean-poles. It is artificial and mannered; the last of the City Cathedrals of Languedoc and the least. If the notorious vices of the XVIII century were as bad as its style of ecclesiastical architecture, they must have been indeed monstrous. END OF VOLUME I. 
40356	----	CATHEDRAL CITIES OF SPAIN _UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME_ CATHEDRAL CITIES OF ENGLAND. By GEORGE GILBERT. With 60 reproductions from water-colours by W.W. COLLINS, R.I. Demy 8vo, 16s. net. CATHEDRAL CITIES OF FRANCE. By HERBERT and HESTER MARSHALL. With 60 reproductions from water-colours by HERBERT MARSHALL, R.W.S. Demy 8vo, 16s. net. Also large paper edition, £2 2s. net. _BOOKS ILLUSTRATED BY JOSEPH PENNELL_ ITALIAN HOURS. By HENRY JAMES. With 32 plates in colour and numerous illustrations in black and white by JOSEPH PENNELL. Large crown 4to. Price 20s. net. A LITTLE TOUR IN FRANCE. By HENRY JAMES. With 94 illustrations by JOSEPH PENNELL. Pott 4to. Price 10s. net. ENGLISH HOURS. By HENRY JAMES. With 94 illustrations by JOSEPH PENNELL. Pott 4to. Price 10s. net. ITALIAN JOURNEYS. By W.D. HOWELLS. With 103 illustrations by JOSEPH PENNELL. Pott 4to. Price 10s. net. CASTILIAN DAYS. By the Hon. JOHN HAY. With 111 illustrations by JOSEPH PENNELL. Pott 4to. Price 10s. net. London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 21 Bedford Street, W.C. [Illustration] [Illustration: BURGOS. THE CATHEDRAL] CATHEDRAL CITIES OF SPAIN WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY W. W. COLLINS, R.I. [Illustration: colophon] LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN NEW YORK: DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1909 _All rights reserved_ _Copyright, London, 1909, by William Heinemann and Washington, U.S.A., by Dodd, Mead & Co_ PREFACE Spain, the country of contrasts, of races differing from one another in habits, customs, and language, has one great thing that welds it into a homogeneous nation, and this is its Religion. Wherever one's footsteps wander, be it in the progressive provinces of the north, the mediævalism of the Great Plain, or in that still eastern portion of the south, Andalusia, this one thing is ever omnipresent and stamps itself on the memory as the great living force throughout the Peninsula. In her Cathedrals and Churches, her ruined Monasteries and Convents, there is more than abundant evidence of the vitality of her Faith; and we can see how, after the expulsion of the Moor, the wealth of the nation poured into the coffers of the Church and there centralised the life of the nation. In the mountain fastnesses of Asturias the churches of Santa Maria de Naranco and San Miguel de Lino, dating from the ninth century and contemporary with San Pablo and Santa Cristina, in Barcelona, are the earliest Christian buildings in Spain. As the Moor was pushed further south, a new style followed his retreating steps; and the Romanesque, introduced from over the Pyrenees, became the adopted form of architecture in the more or less settled parts of the country. Creeping south through Leon, where San Isidoro is well worth mention, we find the finest examples of the period in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, at Segovia, Avila, and the grand Catedral Vieja of Salamanca. Spain sought help from France to expel the Moor, and it is but natural that the more advanced nation should leave her mark somewhere and in some way in the country she pacifically invaded. Before the spread of this influence became general, we find at least one great monument of native genius rise up at Tarragona. The Transition Cathedral there can lay claim to be entirely Spanish. It is the epitome and outcome of a yearning for the display of Spain's own talent, and is one of the most interesting and beautiful in the whole country. Toledo, Leon, and Burgos are the three Cathedrals known as the "French" Cathedrals of Spain. They are Gothic and the first named is the finest of all. Spanish Gothic is best exemplified in the Cathedral of Barcelona. For late-Gothic, we must go to the huge structures of Salamanca, Segovia, and the Cathedral at Seville which almost overwhelms in the grandeur of its scale. After the close of the fifteenth century Italian or Renaissance influence began to be felt, and the decoration of the Plateresque style became the vogue. San Marcos at Leon, the University of Salamanca, and the Casa de Ayuntamiento at Seville are among the best examples of this. The influence of Churriguera, who evolved the Churrigueresque style, is to be met with in almost every Cathedral in the country. He it is who was responsible for those great gilded altars with their enormous twisted pillars so familiar to travellers in Spain; and which, though no doubt a tribute to the glory of God, one feels are more a vulgar display of wealth than a tasteful or artistic addition to her architecture. The finest of the Renaissance Cathedrals is that of Granada, and the most obtrusive piece of Churrigueresque is the Cartuja in the same city. Taking the Cathedrals as a whole the two most unfamiliar and notable features are the Coros or Choirs, and the Retablos. These latter--gorgeous backings to the High Altar, generally ill-lit, with a superabundance of carving sometimes coloured and gilded, sometimes of plain stone--are of Low-country or Flemish origin. The former, with one exception at Oviedo, are placed in the nave west of the crossing, and enclose, as a rule, two or more bays in this direction. Every Cathedral is a museum of art, and these two features are the most worth study. NOTE.--_Since the revolution in Catalonia of July-August 1909, the King has decreed that no one can secure exemption from military service by the payment of a sum of money._ CONTENTS PAGE CADIZ 1 SEVILLE 7 CORDOVA 23 GRANADA 31 MALAGA 57 VALENCIA 65 TORTOSA 77 TARRAGONA 83 BARCELONA 91 GERONA 101 TOLEDO 107 SALAMANCA 121 AVILA 137 SEGOVIA 145 SARAGOSSA 159 SANTIAGO 174 TUY 183 ORENSE 187 ASTORGA 193 ZAMORA 199 LEON 205 OVIEDO 217 VALLADOLID 225 BURGOS 233 INDEX 249 ILLUSTRATIONS _To face page_ Burgos. The Cathedral _Frontispiece_ Cadiz. The Cathedral 2 Cadiz. The Market Place 4 Seville. In the Cathedral 8 Seville. The Giralda Tower 12 Seville. In the Alcázar, the Patio de las Doncellas 14 Seville. View over the Town 18 Cordova. Interior of the Mesquita 24 Cordova. The Campanario Tower 26 Cordova. The Bridge 28 Cordova. Fountain in the Court of Oranges 30 Granada. Carrera de Darro 32 Granada. Exterior of the Cathedral 38 Granada. The Alhambra 46 Granada. The Alhambra, Court of Lions 50 Granada. Generalife 54 Malaga. View from the Harbour 58 Malaga. The Market 62 Valencia. San Pablo 66 Valencia. Door of the Cathedral 68 Valencia. Religious Procession 72 Tortosa 80 Tarragona 84 Tarragona. The Archbishop's Tower 86 Tarragona. The Cloisters 88 Barcelona. The Cathedral 92 Barcelona. The Rambla 96 Gerona. The Cattle Market 102 Gerona. The Cathedral 104 Toledo. The Cathedral 108 Toledo. The South Transept 110 Toledo. The Zócodover 114 Toledo. The Alcántara Bridge 116 Salamanca 122 Salamanca. The Old Cathedral 124 Salamanca. An Old Street 128 Avila 138 Avila. Puerta de San Vicente 142 Segovia at Sunset 146 Segovia. The Aqueduct 148 Segovia. Plaza Mayor 152 Saragossa. La Seo 160 Saragossa. In the Old Cathedral 164 Saragossa. Easter Procession 166 Santiago. The Cathedral 172 Santiago. South Door of the Cathedral 174 Santiago. Interior of the Cathedral 178 Tuy 184 Orense. In the Cathedral 188 Astorga 194 Zamora. The Cathedral 202 Leon. The Cathedral 208 Leon. The West Porch of the Cathedral 210 Leon. San Marcos 214 Oviedo. In the Cathedral 218 Oviedo. The Cloisters 222 Valladolid.Santa Maria la Antigua 226 Valladolid.San Pablo 228 Burgos. The Capilla Mayor 236 Burgos. Arch of Santa Maria 242 CADIZ At one time the greatest port in the world--"Where are thy glories now, oh, Cadiz?" She is still a White City lying embosomed on a sea of emerald and topaz. Her streets are still full of the colour of the East, but alas! Seville has robbed her of her trade, and in the hustle of modern life she is too far from the busy centre, too much on the outskirts of everything, to be anything more than a port of call for American tourists and a point from whence the emigrant leaves his native country. This isolation is one of her great charms, and the recollections I have carried away of her quiet clean streets, her white or pink washed houses with their flat roofs and _miradores_, her brilliant sun and blue sea, can never be effaced by Time's subtle hand. Landing from a coasting-boat from Gibraltar, I began my travels through Spain at Cadiz; and it was with intense regret, so pleasant was the change from the grey skies and cold winds of England, that I took my final stroll along the broad Alameda bordered with palms of all sorts, and lined with other exotic growth--that I bid good-bye to the Parque de Genoves where many a pleasant hour had been spent in the grateful shade of its trees. I shall probably never again lean idly over the sea-washed walls and watch the graceful barques with their cargoes of salt, spread their sails to the breeze and glide away on the long voyage to South America. Looking out eastwards over the marshes I was at first much puzzled to know what were the white pyramids that stood in rows like the tents of an invading host. Then I was told. Shallow pans are dug out in the marsh and the sea let in. After evaporation this is repeated again and again, until the saline deposit is thick enough to be scraped and by degrees grows into a pyramid. Every pan is named after a saint from whom good luck is implored. No, I doubt if ever my eyes will wander again over the blue waters to the marsh lands of San Fernando. [Illustration: CADIZ. THE CATHEDRAL] Life is short and I can hardly hope that Fate will carry me back to those sea walls and once more permit me as the sun goes down to speculate on the catch of the fishing-fleet as each boat makes for its haven in the short twilight of a southern clime. I cannot but regret that all this is of the past, but I shall never regret that at Cadiz, the most enchanting of Spain's seaports, began my acquaintance with her many glorious cities. In ancient times Cadiz was the chief mart for the tin of the Cassiterides and the amber of the Baltic. Founded by the Tyrians as far back as 1100 B.C., it was the Gadir (fortress) of the Phoenicians. Later on Hamilcar and Hannibal equipped their armies and built their fleets here. The Romans named the city Gades, and it became second only to Padua and Rome. After the discovery of America, Cadiz became once more a busy port, the great silver fleets discharged their precious cargoes in its harbour and from the estuary sailed many a man whose descendants have created the great Spain over the water. The loss of the Spanish colonies ruined Cadiz and it has never regained the place in the world it once held. Huge quays are about to be constructed and the present King has just laid the first stone of these, in the hopes that trade may once more be brought to a city that sleeps. There are two Cathedrals in Cadiz. The Catedral Nueva is a modern structure commenced in 1722 and finished in 1838 by the bishop whose statue faces the rather imposing west façade. Built of limestone and Jérez sandstone, it is white--dazzling white, and rich ochre brown. There is very little of interest in the interior. The _silleria del coro_ (choir stalls) were given by Queen Isabel, and came originally from a suppressed Carthusian Convent near Seville. The exterior can claim a certain grandeur, especially when seen from the sea. The drum of the _cimborio_ with the great yellow dome above, and the towers of the west façade give it from a distance somewhat the appearance of a mosque. The Catedral Vieja, built in the thirteenth century, was originally Gothic, but being almost entirely destroyed during Lord Essex's siege in 1596, was rebuilt in its present unpretentious Renaissance form. Cadiz possesses an Académia de Bellas Artes where Zurbaran, Murillo and Alfonso Cano are represented by second-rate paintings. To the suppressed convent of San Francisco is attached the melancholy interest of Murillo's fatal fall from the scaffolding while at work on the _Marriage of St. Catherine_. The picture was finished by his apt pupil Meneses Osorio. Another work by the master, a _San Francisco_, quite in his best style also hangs here. [Illustration: CADIZ. THE MARKET PLACE] The churches of Cadiz contain nothing to attract one, indeed if it were not for the fine setting of the city surrounded by water, and the semi-eastern atmosphere that pervades the place, there is but little to hold the ordinary tourist. The Mercado, or market-place, is a busy scene and full of colour; the Fish Market, too, abounds in varieties of finny inhabitants of the deep and compares favourably in this respect with that of Bergen in far away Norway. The sole attraction in this City of the Past--in fact, I might say in the Past of Spain as far as it concerns Cadiz--lies on the stretch of water into which the rivers Guadalete and San Pedro empty themselves. From the very earliest days down to the time when Columbus sailed on his voyage which altered the face of the then known globe, and so on to our own day, it is in the Bahia de Cadiz that her history has been written. SEVILLE Seville, the "Sephela" of the Phoenicians, "Hispalis" of the Romans, and "Ishbilyah" of the Moors, is by far the largest and most interesting city of Southern Spain. In Visigothic times Seville was the capital of the Silingi until Leovigild moved his court to Toledo. It was captured by Julius Cæsar in 45 B.C., but during the Roman occupation was overshadowed by Italica, the birthplace of the Emperors Trajan, Adrian, and Theodosius, and the greatest of Rome's cities in Hispania. This once magnificent place is now a desolate ruin, plundered of its glories and the haunt of gipsies. Under the Moors, who ruled it for five hundred and thirty-six years, Seville was second only to Cordova, to which city it became subject when Abdurrhaman established the Western Kalifate there in the year 756. San Ferdinand, King of Leon and Castile, pushed his conquests far south and Seville succumbed to the force of his arms in 1248. Seville is the most fascinating city in Spain. It is still Moorish in a way. Its houses are built on the Eastern plan with _patios_, their roofs are flat and many have that charming accessory, the _miradore_. Its streets are narrow and winding, pushed out from a common centre with no particular plan. It is Andalusian and behind the times. Triana, the gipsy suburb, is full of interest. The Cathedral, though of late and therefore not particularly good Gothic, is, on account of its great size, the most impressive in the whole country. The Alcázar, once more a royal residence, vies with Granada's Alhambra in beauty; and as a mercantile port, sixty miles from the estuary, Seville ranks second to none in Southern Spain. The Cathedral stands third in point of size if the ground space is alone considered, after St. Peter's at Rome and the Mesquita at Cordova. The proportions of the lofty nave, one hundred feet in height, are so good that it appears really much higher. The columns of the double aisles break up the two hundred and sixty feet of its width and add much to the solemn dignity of the vast interior, enhanced greatly by the height of the vaulting above the spectator. Standing anywhere in the Cathedral I felt that there was a roof above my head, but it seemed lost in space. And this is the great characteristic of Seville's Cathedral, _i.e._, space. [Illustration: SEVILLE. IN THE CATHEDRAL] The _coro_ is railed off from the crossing by a simple iron-gilt _reja_. The _silleria_, by Sanchez, Dancart, and Guillier are very fine and took seventy years to execute. Between the _coro_ and Capilla Mayor, in Holy Week the great bronze candlestick, twenty-five feet high, a fine specimen of sixteenth-century work, is placed alight. When the _Misere_ is chanted during service, twelve of its thirteen candles are put out, one by one, indicating the desertion of Christ by his apostles. The thirteenth left burning symbolises the Virgin, faithful to the end. From this single light all the other candles in the Cathedral are lit. The _reja_ of the Capilla Mayor is a grand example of an iron-gilt screen, and with those to the north and south, is due to the talent of the Dominican, Francisco de Salamanca. The fine Gothic _retablo_ of the High Altar surpasses all others in Spain in size and elaboration of detail. It was designed by Dancart and many artists were employed in its execution. When the sun finds his way through the magnificent coloured glass of the windows between noon and three o'clock, and glints across it, few "interior" subjects surpass the beautiful effect on this fine piece of work. In front of the High Altar at the feast of Corpus Christi and on three other occasions, the _Seises's_ dance takes place. This strange ceremony is performed by chorister boys who dance a sort of minuet with castanets. Their costume is of the time of Philip III., _i.e._, 1630, and they wear plumed hats. Of the numerous chapels the most interesting is the Capilla Real. It possesses a staff of clergy all to itself. Begun in 1514 by Martin de Gainza, it was finished fifty years later. Over the High Altar is the almost life-size figure of the Virgin de los Reyes, given by St. Louis of France to San Ferdinand. Its hair is of spun gold and its numerous vestments are marvellous examples of early embroidery. The throne on which the Virgin is seated is a thirteenth-century piece of silver work, with the arms of Castile and Leon, San Ferdinand's two kingdoms. Before it lies the King himself in a silver shrine. Three times a year, in May, August and November, a great military Mass takes place before this royal shrine, when the garrison of Seville marches through the chapel and colours are lowered in front of the altar. In the vault beneath are the coffins of Pedro the Cruel and Maria Padilla his mistress, the only living being who was humanly treated by this scourge of Spain. Their three sons rest close to them. On the north and south sides of this remarkable chapel, within arched recesses, are the sarcophagi of Beatrice of Swabia and Alfonso the Learned. They are covered with cloth of gold emblazoned with coats-of-arms. A crown and sceptre rest on the cushion which lies on each tomb. In the dim light, high above and beyond mortal reach rest these two--it is very impressive. Each of the remaining twenty-nine chapels contains something of interest. In the Capilla de Santiago is a beautiful painted window of the conversion of St. Paul. The _retablo_ in the Capilla de San Pedro contains pictures by Zurbaran. In the north transept in a small chapel is a good Virgin and Child by Alonso Cano; in the south is the Altar de la Gamba, over which hangs the celebrated _La Generacion_ of Louis de Vargas, known as _La Gamba_ from the well-drawn leg of Adam. On the other side of this transept is the Altar de la Santa Cruz and between these two altars is the monument to Christopher Columbus. Erected in Havana it was brought to Spain after the late war and put up here. Murillo's work outshines all other's in the Cathedral. The grand _San Antonio de Padua_, in the second chapel west of the north aisle, is difficult to see. The window which lights it is covered by a curtain, which, however, the silver key will pull aside. Over the Altar of Nuestra Señora del Consuelo is a beautiful Guardian Angel from the same brush. Close by is another, _Santa Dorotea_, a very choice little picture. In the Sacristy are two more, _S.S. Isidore_ and _Leander_. In the Sala Capitular a _Conception_ and a _Mater Dolorosa_ in the small sacristy attached to the Capilla Real complete the list. Besides these fine pictures there are others which one can include in the same category by Cano, Zurbaran, Morales, Vargas, Pedro Campaña and the Flemish painter Sturm, a veritable gallery! And when I went into the Treasury and saw the priceless relics which belong to Seville's Cathedral, priceless in value and interest, and priceless from my own art point of view, "Surely," thought I, "not only is it a picture gallery, it is a museum as well." The original mosque of Abu Yusuf Yakub was used as a Cathedral until 1401, when it was pulled down, the present building, which took its place, being finished in 1506. The dome of this collapsed five years later and was re-erected by Juan Gil de Hontañon. Earthquake shocks and "jerry-building" were responsible for a second collapse in the August of 1888. The restoration has since been completed in a most satisfactory manner--let us hope it will last. [Illustration: SEVILLE. THE GIRALDA TOWER] The exterior of the Cathedral is a very irregular mass of towers, domes, pinnacles and flying buttresses, which give no clue to the almost over-powering solemnity within the walls. Three doorways occupy the west façade, which is of modern construction, and there are three also on the north side of the Cathedral, one of which opens into the _Segrario_, another into the Patio de los Naranjos and the third into the arcade of the same patio. This last retains the horse-shoe arch of the old mosque. In the porch hangs the stuffed crocodile which was sent by the Sultan of Egypt to Alfonso el Sabio with a request for the hand of his daughter. On the south is one huge door seldom opened. On the east there are two more, that of La Puerta de los Palos being under the shadow of the great Giralda Tower. This magnificent relic of the Moslem's rule rears its height far above everything else in Seville. Erected at the close of the twelfth century by order of Abu Yusuf Yakub, it belongs to the second and best period of Moorish architecture. On its summit at the four corners rested four brazen balls of enormous size overthrown by one of the numerous earthquakes which have shaken Seville in days gone by. The belfry above the Moorish portion of the tower, which ends where the _solid_ walls stop, was put up in 1568, and has a second rectangular stage of smaller dimensions above. Both these are in keeping with the Moorish work below and in no way detract from its beauty. On top of the small cupola which caps the whole is the world-famed figure of Faith. Cast in bronze, with the banner of Constantine spread out to the winds of heaven, this, the _Giraldilla_, or weather-cock, moves to the slightest breeze. It is thirteen feet high, and weighs one and a quarter tons. Over three hundred feet above the ground, the wonder is--how did it get there? and how has it preserved its equipoise these last three hundred years? It is difficult to find a point from which one can see the Giralda Tower, in fact the only street from which it is visible from base to summit is the one in which I made my sketch. Even this view does not really convey its marvellous elegance and beauty. Next to the Cathedral the Alcázar is the most famous building in Seville. It is now a royal residence in the early part of the year, and when the King and Queen are there, no stranger under any pretext whatever is admitted. Its courtyards and gardens are its glory. The scent of orange blossom perfumes the air, the fountains splash and play, all is still within these fascinating courts save the tinkle of the water and cooing of doves. Of its orange trees, one was pointed out to me which Pedro the Cruel planted! and many others are known to be over two hundred years old. [Illustration: SEVILLE. IN THE ALCÁZAR, THE PATIO DE LAS DONCELLAS] Of all its courts, the Patio de las Doncellas is the most perfect. Fifty-two marble columns support the closed gallery and rooms above, and the walls of the arcade are rich with glazed tiles. Of all its chambers, the Hall of Ambassadors is the finest and is certainly the architectural gem of the Alcázar. Its dome is a marvel of Media Naranja form, and the frieze of window-shaped niches but adds to its beauty. Very little remains of the first Alcázar, which, by the way, is a derivation of Al-Kasr or house of Cæsar, and the present building as it now stands was due to Pedro the Cruel, Henry II., Charles V. and Philip V. The first named employed Moorish workmen from Granada, who emulated, under his directions, the newly finished Palace of the Alhambra. Many a treacherous deed has taken place within these walls, and none more loathsome than those credited to Pedro the Cruel. However, one thing can be put to his credit and that is this fairy Palace, this flower from the East, by the possession of which Seville is the gainer. To the east of the Alcázar is the old Jewish quarter, the most puzzling in plan, if plan it has, and the oldest part of Seville. The balconies of the houses opposite one another almost touch; there certainly, in some cases, would be no difficulty in getting across the street by using them as steps, and if a laden donkey essayed the passage below I doubt if he could get through. Poking about in these narrow alley-ways one day, I fell into conversation with a _guardia municipal_ who entertained me greatly with his own version of Seville's history, which ended, as he melodramatically pointed down the lane in which we were standing--"And here, señor, one man with a sword could keep an army at bay, and"--this in confidence, whispered--"I should not like to be the first man of the army"! In almost every quarter of the city fine old houses are to be found amidst most squalid and dirty surroundings. You may wander down some mean _calle_, where children in dozens are playing on the uneven pavement, their mothers sit about in the doorways shouting to one another across the street. Suddenly a wall, windowless save for a row of small openings under the roof, is met. A huge portal, above which is a sculptured coat-of-arms, with some old knight's helmet betokening a noble owner, is let into this, look inside, as you pass by--behind the iron grille is a deliciously cool _patio_, full of palms and shrubs. A Moorish arcade runs round supporting the glazed galleries of the first floor. A man in livery sits in a rocking chair dosing with the eternal cigarette between his lips. Beyond the first _patio_ you can see another, a bigger one, which the sun is lighting up. The life in this house is as different to the life of its next door neighbours as Park Lane is to Shoreditch. One of these great houses--owned by the Duke of Medinaceli--the Casa del Pilatos, has a large Moorish court, very similar to those of the Alcázar. They will tell you in Seville, that Pilate was a Spaniard, a lawyer, and failing to win the case for Christ, left the Holy Land, where he had a good practice, and returned to Spain to assist Ferdinand to drive out the Moors. "Yes, señor, he settled here and built this fine house about five hundred years ago." As a rule, in the better-class houses a porch opens into the street. On the inner side of this there is always a strong iron gate with a grille around to prevent any entry. These gates served a purpose in the days of the Inquisition, when none knew if the Holy Office might not suddenly descend upon and raid the house. Seville suffered terribly from the horrors of those dark times; even now--when a ring at the bell calls forth: "Who is there?" from the servant in the balcony above, before she pulls the handle which connects with the catch that releases the lock of the gate--the answer often is: "People of Peace." Some houses have interior walls six feet thick and more, which being hollow contain hiding-places with access from the roof by a rope. In the heat of summer--and Seville is called the "frying-pan of Europe"--when the temperature in the shade of the streets rises to over 115° Fahr. family life is spent below in the cool _patio_. A real house moving takes place as the heat comes on. The upper rooms, which are always inhabited in the winter, the kitchen, servants' rooms and all are deserted, every one migrates with the furniture to the lower floors. The upper windows are closed, shutters put up and a great awning drawn across the top of the courtyard. Despite the great heat, summer is a perfectly healthy period. No one dreams of going out in the daytime, and all Seville begins life towards five o'clock in the afternoon; 2 A.M. to 4 A.M. being the time to retire for the night! Seville can be very gay, and _Sevillanos_ worship the _Torrero_ or bull-fighter (_Toreador_ is a word unknown to the Spaniard). If a favourite _Torrero_, who has done well in the ring during the afternoon, enters the dining-room of a hotel or goes into a café it is not unusual for every one at table to rise and salute him. [Illustration: SEVILLE. VIEW OVER THE TOWN] There is another life in Seville, the life of the roofs. In early spring before the great heat comes, and in autumn before the cold winds arrive, the life of the roofs fascinated me. Up on the roofs in the dry atmosphere, Seville's washing hangs out to air, and up on the roofs, in the warm sun, with the hum of the streets far below, you will hear the quaint song--so Arabian in character--of the _lavandera_, as she pegs out the damp linen in rows. In the evening the click-a-click-click of the castanets and the sound of the guitar, broken by merry laughter, tells one that perhaps the _Sevillano_ has fathomed the mystery of knowing how best to live. And as sundown approaches what lovely colour effects creep o'er this city in the air! The light below fades from housetop and _miradore_, pinnacle and dome, until the last rays of the departing majesty touch the vane of the Giralda, that superb symbol of Faith,--and all is steely grey. Over the Guadalquiver lies Triana, and as I crossed the bridge for the first time the remains of an old tower were pointed out to me on the river bank. The subterranean passage through which the victims of the Inquisition found their exit to another world in the dark waters below is exposed to view, the walls having fallen away. It was therefore with something akin to relief I reached the gipsy quarter in this quaint, dirty suburb and feasted my eyes on the colours worn by its dark-skinned people. The potteries of Triana are world-renowned, and still bear traces in their output of Moorish tradition and design. Seville's quays are the busiest part of the city, and the constant dredging of the river permits of vessels of four thousand tons making this a port of call. Next to the Prado in Madrid, the Museum of Seville is more full of interest than any other. It is here that Murillo is seen at his best. The building was at one time the Convento de la Mercede founded by San Ferdinand. The exhibits in the archæological portion nearly all come from that ruin, the wonderful city of Italica. Among the best of Murillo's work are _St. Thomas de Villa Nueva Distributing Alms_, _Saint Felix of Cantalicio_ and a _Saint Anthony of Padua_. A large collection of Zurbaran's works also hangs in the gallery, but his big composition of the _Apotheosis of Saint Anthony_, is not so good as his single-figure subjects, and none of these approach in quality the fine _Monk_ in the possession of the Bankes family at Kingston Lacy in Dorset. Seville is the home of bull-fights. The first ever recorded took place in 1405, in the Plaza del Triunfo, in honour of the birth of a son to Henry II. of Castile. The world of Fashion takes the air every evening in the beautiful Paseo de las Delicias. The humbler members of society throng the walks watching their wealthier sisters drive down its fine avenues--this daily drive being the only exercise the ladies of Seville permit themselves to take. It is a pretty sight to watch the carriages coming home as twilight begins, and the last rays of the sun light up the Torre del Oro. Built by the Almohades this Moorish octagon stood at the river extremity of Moslem Seville. The golden yellow of the stone no doubt gave it the name of "Borju-d-dahab," "the tower of gold," which has stuck to it under Christian rule. But "how are the mighty fallen," and one of the glories of the Moor debased. It is now an office used by clerks of the Port, and, instead of the dignified tread of the sentinel, resounds to the scribble of pens. CORDOVA It is hard to realise that the Cordova of to-day was, under the rule of the Moor, a city famous all the world over and second only to the great Damascus. Long before the Moor's beneficent advent, in the far-off days of Carthage, Cordova was known as "the gem of the south." Its position on the mighty Guadalquiver, backed by mountains on the north, always seems to have attracted the best of those who conquered. In the time of the Romans, Marcellus peopled it with poor Patricians from Rome, and Cordova became Colonia Patricia, the capital of Hispania Ulterior. But it was left to the Infidel to make it what is now so difficult to realise--the first city in Western Europe. The zenith of its fame was reached during the tenth century, when the mighty Abderrhaman III., ruler of the Omayyades reigned, and did not begin to decrease until the death of Almanzor at the beginning of the next century. If we are to believe the historian Almakkari, Cordova contained at one time a million inhabitants, for whose worship were provided three hundred Mosques, and for whose ablutions nine hundred baths were no more than was necessary. (The arch-destroyer of all things Infidel, Philip II., demolished these.) It was the centre of art and literature, students from all parts flocked hither, its wealth increased and its fame spread, riches and their concomitant luxury made it the most famous place in Western Europe. Nothing could exceed the grace and elegance of its life, the courtly manners of its people, nor the magnificence of its buildings. From the years 711 to 1295, when Ferdinand drove him out, the cultivated Moslem reigned in this his second Mecca. And now?--under Christian rule it has dwindled down to what one finds it to-day--a quiet, partly ruinous town. Of all its great buildings nothing remains to remind one of the past but the ruins of the Alcázar--now a prison, a portion of its walls, and the much mutilated Mesquita--the Cathedral. [Illustration: CORDOVA. INTERIOR OF THE MESQUITA] I could not at first entry grasp the size of this the second largest church of any in existence. Coming suddenly into the cool shade of its many pillared avenues, I felt as if transplanted into the silent depths of a great forest. In every direction I looked the trunks of huge trees apparently rose upwards in ordered array. The light here and there filtered through gaps on to the red-tiled floor, which only made the deception greater by its resemblance to the needles of a pine-wood or the dead leaves of autumn. Then the organ boomed out a note and the deep bass of a priest in the _coro_ shattered the illusion. The first Mosque built on the site of Leovigild's Visigothic Cathedral, occupied one-fifth of the present Mesquita. It was "Ceca" or House of Purification, and a pilgrimage to it was equivalent to a visit to Mecca. It contained ten rows of columns, and is that portion which occupies the north-west corner ending at the south-east extremity where the present _coro_ begins. This space soon became insufficient for the population, and the Mosque was extended as far as the present Capilla de Nuestra Señora de Villavicosia. Subsequent additions were made by different rulers. The Caliph Al-Hakim II., who followed Abderrhaman III., expanded its size by building southwards as far as the inclination of the sloping ground would allow. To him is due the third Mihrâb, or Holy of Holies, the pavement of which is worn by the knees of the devout who went thus round the Mihrâb seven times. This Mihrâb is the most beautiful chamber I came across in all Spain. The Byzantine Mosaics which adorn it are among the most superb that exist, the domed ceiling of the recess is hewn out of a solid block of marble, and its walls, which Leo the Emperor of Constantinople sent a Greek artist and skilled workmen to put up, are chiselled in marble arabesques and moulded in stucco. The entrance archway to this gem of the East, an intricate and well-proportioned feature, rests on two green and two dark coloured columns. Close by is the private door of the Sultan which led from the Alcázar to the Mesquita. The last addition of all nearly doubled the size of the Mosque. Building to the south was impracticable on account of the fall in the land towards the river. Eastwards was the only way out of the difficulty unless the beautiful Court of the Oranges was to be enclosed. Eastwards, therefore, did Almanzor extend his building, and the whole space in this direction from the transepts or _Crucero_ of the present church, in a line north and south, was due to his initiative. [Illustration: CORDOVA. THE CAMPANARIO TOWER] The Mesquita at one time contained twelve hundred and ninety columns. Sixty eight were removed to make room for the _Coro_, _Crucero_ and _Capilla Major_, which is the portion reserved for service now. In the _coro_, the extremely fine _silleria_, are some of the best in Spain. The Lectern is very good Flemish work in brass of the sixteenth century. The choir books are beautifully illuminated missals, especially those of the "Crucifixion" and the "Calling of the Apostles." All this does not, however, compensate for the partial destruction of the Mosque. So thought the people of Cordova, who petitioned Charles V. in vain against the alterations which have destroyed the harmony of the wonderful building. When passing through the city at a later date and viewing the mischief that had been done, the King rebuked the chapter thus: "You have built here what you, or any one, might have built anywhere else; but you have destroyed what was unique in the world." Eight hundred and fifty columns now remain out of the above number. The odd four hundred and forty occupied the place where now stand the rows of orange trees in the courtyard, one time covered in, which is known as the Patio de los Naranjos, or Court of the Oranges. The fountain used for the ablutions of the Holy still runs with a crystal stream of pure water, and is to-day the meeting place of all the gossips in Cordova. Of the five gates to this enchanting court, that of the Puerta del Perdon, over which rises the great Tower, el Campanario, is the most important. It is only opened on state occasions. Erected in 1377 by Henry II. it is an imitation of Moorish design. The immense doors are plated with copper arabesques. The exterior of the Mesquita is still Moorish despite the great church which has been thrust through the centre and rises high above the flat roof of the remainder of the Mosque. A massive terraced wall with flame-shaped battlements encircles the whole, the view of which from the bridge over the river is more Eastern than anything else I saw in Spain. This fine bridge, erected by the Infidel on Roman foundations, is approached at the city end by a Doric gateway, built by Herrera in the reign of Philip II., that Philip who married Mary of England. It consists of sixteen arches and is guarded at its southern extremity by the _Calahorra_ or Moorish Tower, round which the road passes instead of through a gateway, thus giving additional security to the defence. The mills of the Moslem's day still work, both above and below bridge, and the patient angler sits in the sun with his bamboo rod, while the wheels of these relics groan and hum as they did in days gone by. More cunning is Isaac Walton's disciple who fishes from the bridge itself. A dozen rods with heavily weighted lines, for the Guadalquiver runs swift beneath the arches, and a small bell attached to the end of each rod is his armament. And when the unwary fish impales himself on the hook and the bell gives warning of a bite, the excitement is great. Greater still when a peal begins as three or four rods bend! [Illustration: CORDOVA. THE BRIDGE] The beggars of Cordova were the most importunate that fate sent across my path in the whole of Spain. I found it impossible to sit in the streets where I would gladly have planted my easel, and it was only by standing with my back to the wall that I was able to make my sketch of the Campanario. These streets are tortuous and narrow, and the houses, built on the Moorish plan with a beautiful _patio_ inside, are low. At many a corner I came across marble columns, some with Roman inscriptions, probably from Italica, placed against the house to prevent undue wear and tear. In the narrowest ways I noticed how the load borne by the patient ass had scooped out a regular track on either wall about three or four feet from the ground. Wherever I went, to the oldest quarters of the town in the south-east corner or the modern in the north-west, I could never rid myself of the feeling that Cordova was a city of the past. Her life is more Eastern than that of Seville, and her people bear more traces of the Moor. Decay and ruin are apparent at every turn, but how picturesque it all is!--the rags, the squalor, and the ruin. How I anathematised those beggars with no legs, or minus arms, when I tried to begin a street sketch! The patience of Job would not have helped me, it was the loathsomeness of these cripples that drove me away. Begging is prohibited in Seville and Madrid and in one or two other towns, would that it were so in Cordova. Away up in the southern slopes of the Sierra de Cordoba stands the Convento de San Jerónimo, now a lunatic asylum. Built out of the ruins of the once magnificent Medînat-az-zahrâ, the Palace that Abderrhaman III. erected, its situation is perfect. In the old days this palace surpassed all others in the wonders of its art and luxury. The plough still turns up ornaments of rare workmanship, but like so many things in Spain its glories have departed. Yes, Cordova has seen its grandest days, the birthplace of Seneca, Lucan, Averroes, Juan de Mena--the Spanish Chaucer--Morales, and many another who became famous, can now boast at best with regard to human celebrities as being the Government establishment for breaking in horses for the cavalry. Certainly the men employed in this are fine dashing specimens of humanity, and they wear a very picturesque dress. But Cordova like her world-famed sons, sleeps--and who can say that it would be better now if her sleep were broken? [Illustration: CORDOVA. FOUNTAIN IN THE COURT OF ORANGES] GRANADA Spread out on the edge of a fertile plain at the base of the Sierra Nevada, Granada basks in the sun; and though the wind blows cold with an icy nip from the snows of the highest peaks in Spain, I cannot but think that this, the last stronghold of the Moors, is the most ideal situation of any place I have been in. The city is divided into three distinct districts, each with its own peculiar characteristics. The Albaicin, Antequeruela, and Alhambra. The first named covers the low ground and the hills on the bank of the Darro, a gold-bearing stream which rushes below the Alhambra hill on the north. The second occupies the lower portion of the city which slopes on to the plain, and the Alhambra rises above both, a well-nigh demolished citadel, brooding over past glories of the civilised Moor, the most fascinating spot in all Spain. The Albaicin district is practically the rebuilt Moorish town, where the aristocrats of Seville and Cordova settled when driven out of those cities by St. Ferdinand in the thirteenth century. Many traces remain to remind one of their occupation in the tortuous streets which wind up the steep hill sides, and the wall which they built for greater security is still the boundary of the city on the north. The Albaicin is a grand place to wander in and lose oneself hunting for relics and little bits of architecture. At every turn of the intricate maze I came across something of interest, either Moorish or Mediæval. A mean looking house with a fine coat-of-arms over the door had evidently been built by a knight with the collector's craze. He had specialised in millstones; a round dozen or more were utilised in the lower portions of the wall and looked strange with stones set in the plaster between them. A delicious _patio_, now given over to pigs and fowls, with a broken-down fountain in the centre of its ruined arcaded court, recalled the luxuries of the Infidel. The terraced gardens standing behind and above many a blank wall carried me back to those days of old when the opulence of the East pervaded every dwelling in this Mayfair of Granada. Of all these the Casa del Chapiz, though degraded into a low-class dwelling, is with its beautiful garden the most perfect remnant of the exotic Moor. [Illustration: GRANADA. CARRERA DE DARRO] In the Carrera de Darro, just opposite the spot where once a handsome Moorish arch spanned the stream, stands a house wherein is a Moorish bath surrounded by horseshoe arcades. The bath is 18 ft. square, and in the vaulted recess beyond is one of smaller dimensions commanding more privacy for the cleanly Eastern whose day was never complete without many ablutions. Not far away up the hillside, in cave-dwellings amidst an almost impenetrable thicket of prickly pears, live the _gitanos_. I fear they now exist on the charity of the tourist, and make a peseta or two by fortune-telling or in the exercise of a more reprehensible cleverness, a light-fingered dexterity which is generally only discovered by those who "must go to the gipsy quarter" on their return to the hotel. These gipsies no longer wander in the summer months and lie up for the winter as they did of yore. They are not the Romanies of old times, and a nomadic life holds no charm for them now. They make enough out of the tourist to eke out a lazy existence throughout the year, and are fast losing all the character of a wandering tribe and the lively splendour of their race. Higher up, the banks of the Darro are lined with more cave-dwellings, a great many of which, to judge by their present inaccessibility, are undoubtedly of prehistoric origin. Those that I took to be of later date have a sort of level platform in front of the entrance, from which the approach of a stranger could be seen and due warning taken by those inside of any hostile intent. The Antequeruela quarter, called thus from the remnant of Moorish refugees who driven from Antequera found here a home, extends from the base of Monte Mauro to some distance below the confluence of the Darro and Genil, Granada's other river. It is the most modern quarter and busiest part of the city. The life of an ordinary Spanish town passes in front of me as I sit in the sun sharing a seat with an old man wrapped closely in a _capa_. It is April. We are in the Alameda, a broad promenade which leads to the gardens of the Paseo de Salòn and de la Bomba. On either side are many coloured houses with green shutters. They are very French, and to this day I try to recall the town in France where I had seen them before. How often this happens when we travel abroad!--a face, a scent, a sound. Memory racks the tortuous channels of half-forgotten things stored away somewhere in the brain, and for days with an irritating restlessness we wander fruitlessly amid the paths of long ago. I turned to my companion on the seat, he looked chilled despite the warmth of an April sun. "Tell me, sir, to whom does all the fine country of the Vega belong?" "Absent landlords, señor; they take their rents and they live in Madrid, and the poor man has no one to care for him." "But surely he begs and does not wish to work or to be cared for. The beggars in Granada are more numerous than in any place I know." "That is true, señor," and with a shake he relapsed into silence, drawing his _capa_ closer around him. The turn the conversation had taken was not worth pursuing. New buildings are superseding the old in Antequeruela, and poverty and squalor pushed further out of the sight of El Caballero, his Highness the tourist. Æsthetically we appreciate the picturesque side of poverty, the tumble-down houses, the rags, the graceful attitudes of the patient poor for ever shifting in the patches of sunlight as the great life-giver moves round. Dinner will be ready for us at 7 o'clock in the hotel, there would be no call to leave home if every town we came to was clean and its people prosperous. "But what about _Los Pobres_, the beggars?" you ask. "Are they really deserving of charity, or only lazy scoundrels?" I cannot answer you. I can only tell you that I have never seen such terrible emaciated bundles of rags as those I saw in Granada. In Seville, though it is forbidden to beg, it was the one-eyed that predominated; in Cordova he of no legs, who having marked down his prey, displayed great agility as he scuttled across the street with the help of little wooden hand-rests; but here not only were both combined, but various horrors of crippled and disfigured humanity with open sores and loathsome disease thrust themselves before me wherever I went. It was disgusting--but oh! how picturesque! If only, my good _Pobres_, you would not come so close to me! They say Spain is the one unspoilt country in Europe. Personally I think she is the one country that wants regenerating. Her girls are women at sixteen, old at thirty, and aged ten years later. Her men take life as it comes with very little initiative to better themselves. Very few display any energy. Their chief thoughts are woman, and how to pass the day at ease. Luckily for the country, at the age when good food and clean living helps to make men, her youth is invigorated by army service. True it is not popular. In the late war they died like flies through fever and ill-feeding, and many were the sad tales I heard of José and Pedro returning from the front with health ruined for life. It was a sad blow to Spain, that war. Her navy demolished and her colonies lost. It may be the regeneration of the nation, her well-wishers hope so, but it is a difficult thing to change the leopard's spots. The beggar being hungry begs, and well-nigh starves, his children follow his example and probably his great grandchildren will be in the same line of business a hundred years hence--_Quien sabe?_ who knows? I still sit in the sun rolling cigarettes; it is extraordinary how soon the custom becomes a habit, and think of all this. A string of donkeys passes with baskets stuffed tight with half a dozen large long-funnelled water cans. They have come in with fresh drinking water from the spring up the Darro under the Alhambra hill, and a little later the water-sellers will be offering glasses of the refreshingly cool contents of their cans. Granada is a city running with water, but the pollution from the drains and the never-ending ranks of women on their knees wrinsing clothes in its two streams, into which, by the way, all dead refuse is thrown, makes that which is fit to drink a purchasable quantity only. I watch the peasants from the Vega, who come in with empty panniers slung across their donkeys, scraping up the dirt of the streets which they take away to fertilise their cottage gardens. Herds of goats go by muzzled until milking is over. They make for that bit of blank wall opposite, and stand licking the saline moisture which oozes from the plaster in the shade. The goats of Granada are reckoned the finest in Spain, and, as is the custom throughout Andalusia, graze in the early spring on the tender shoots of the young corn. This not only keeps them in food, but improves the quality of that part of the crop which reaches maturity. I could sit all day here if only the sun stood still. My companion removed himself half an hour ago and it is getting chilly in the shade, so up and on to the Cathedral. What a huge Renaissance pile it is. Built on the Gothic plans of Diego de Siloe it is undoubtedly the most imposing edifice of this style in Spain. Fergusson considers its plan makes it one of the finest churches in Europe. The western façade was erected by Alonso Cano and José Granados, and does not follow Siloe's original design. The name of the sculptor-painter is writ in big letters throughout the building. To him are due the colossal heads of Adam and Eve, let into recesses above the High Altar, and the seven pictures of the _Annunciation_, _Conception_, _Presentation in the Temple_, _Visitation_, _Purification_ and _Assumption_ in the Capilla Mayor. The two very fine colossal figures, bronze gilt, which stand above the over-elaborated pulpits; a couple of beautiful miniatures on copper in the Capilla de la Trinidad; a fine Christ bearing the Cross and a head of S. Pedro over the altar of Jesus Nazareno, are also by Cano. Many other examples from his carving tools and brush are to be found in the Cathedral, of which he was made a "Racione" or minor Canon, after fleeing from Valladolid when accused of the murder of his wife. The little room he used as a workshop in the Great Tower may still be visited and his remains lie tranquilly beneath the floor of the _coro_. [Illustration: GRANADA. EXTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL] In the Capilla de la Antigua there is that curious little image which, found in a cave, served Ferdinand as a battle banner; and also contemporary (?) portraits of the King and his Queen. To me the thing of surpassing interest, which ought to be the most revered building in all Spain, was the Capilla Real and its contents. The _reja_, which separates the choir from the rest of the chapel, is a magnificent piece of work, coloured and gilded, by Bartolomé. As the verger unlocked the great gate he drew my attention to the box containing the lock with its three beautifully wrought little iron figures and intricate pattern. We passed in, the gate swung to with a click, the lock was as good as if it had but recently been placed there. These _rejas_ throughout the country are all in splendid condition. A dry climate no doubt preserves them as it has preserved everything else, and I very seldom detected rust on any iron work. The humidity of the winter atmosphere is insufficient, I suppose, to set up much decay in metal, and certainly the only decay in Spain is where inferior material has been used in construction, or the negligence of man has left things to rot. With the gate locked behind me I stood in front of the two marble monuments, the one of the recumbent figures of Ferdinand and Isabella, the other of Philip and Juana la Loca--crazy Jane. Beyond rose the steps up to the High Altar, close at my side those--a short flight--that led to the crypt where the coffins of these four rest. I felt surrounded by the Great of this Earth, and certainly a feeling of awe took hold of me as their deeds passed through my mind and I realised that here lay the remains of those who had turned out the Moor, bidden God-speed to Columbus, and instituted the Inquisition. They are wonderful tombs these two. Ferdinand wears the order of St. George, the ribbon of the Garter, Isabella that of the Cross of Santiago, Philip and his wife the Insignia of the order of the Golden Fleece. Four doctors of the church occupy the corners of the first tomb, with the twelve Apostles at the sides. The other has figures of SS. Michael, Andrew, and John the Baptist, and the Evangelist. Both tombs are elaborately carved, the medallions in _alto-relievo_ being of very delicate work. Next to that magnificent tomb in the Cartuja de Miraflores at Burgos, these are the finest monuments in all Spain. Above the High Altar is a florid _Retablo_ with not much artistic merit. My interest was entirely centred in the two portrait figures of Ferdinand and Isabella. They each kneel at a Prie-Dieu facing one another on either side of the altar--the King to the north, the Queen to the south. Below them in double sections are four wooden panels in bas-relief, to which I turned after a long examination of these authentic and contemporary portraits. These panels are unsurpassed as records of the costume of the day and a faithful representation of their subject. On the left is the mournful figure of Boabdil giving up the key of the Alhambra to Cardinal Mendoza, who seated on his mule between the King and Queen, alone wears gloves. Surrounding them are knights, courtiers and the victorious soldiery. In the background are the towers of the Alhambra. To the right is seen the wholesale conversion by Baptism of the Infidel, the principal figures being monks who are very busy over their work, inducing the reluctant Moor to enter an alien Faith. There is something very impressive about these panels, they render so well and in such a naïve manner the history they record. The surrender of the Moor after 750 years' rule, the end of his dreams, the final triumph of the King and Queen, who devoted the first portion of their reign to driving him out of the country, and the great church receiving the token of submission at the end of last act, they are all here.--The verger touched my arm, my reverie of those stirring times was broken, he had other things to show and noon was fast approaching. Pointing to three iron plates let into the floor of the chapel, he inquired if I would like to see the spot where rest the coffins of these great makers of history. Certainly; I could not leave the Cathedral without a silent homage to those who placed Spain first among the nations. He lifted the plates, and lighting a small taper which he thrust into the end of a long pole, disappeared down the steps, with a warning to mind my head for the entry was very low. I followed, stooping. At the bottom of the steps was a small opening heavily barred. The verger pushed his lighted taper and pole through the bars, and beckoned to me to look. I peered into the dark chamber, there resting on a marble slab were the rough iron-bound coffins of the "Catholic Kings." The taper flickered and cast long shadows in the gloom, discovering the coffins of Philip and Juana. It was all very eerie, a fitting climax in its simplicity to the magnificent monuments above and to the history writ on the walls of the Capilla Real. I shall never forget it. In the sacristy I was shown the identical banner which floated from the Torre de la Vela when the Alhambra had surrendered. Isabella herself had worked this for the very object to which it was put. Next to it hangs Ferdinand's sword, with a remarkably small handle. I had thought, from the kneeling effigy in the Capilla Real, that both he and Isabella must have been small-made and this verified my guess. Many other personal relics of the two were shown me. The Queen's own missal, a beautiful embroidered chasuble from her industrious fingers, an exquisitely enamelled viril, &c. Time was short, my verger wanted his dinner, and I had seen enough for one morning. He let me out through the closed door into the Placeta de la Lonja and in a sort of dream I carried away all I had seen. The next morning I returned to the Placeta and stood in the doorway of the old Royal Palace, now used as a drapery warehouse, and commenced the drawing figured in the illustration. The rich late Gothic ornament of the exterior of the Capilla Real is well balanced by the Lonja which backs on to the sacristy. Here Pradas's work has been much mutilated and the lower stage of the arcading built up. The twisted columns of the gallery and its original wooden roof remain to tell us what this fine façade once was. There is a great deal of interest in this huge Cathedral, which to the tourist is quite overshadowed by the Alhambra. In the north-west corner of the Segrario which adjoins the building on the south, is the Capilla de Pulgar. Herman Perez del Pulgar was a knight serving under Ferdinand's banner. Filled with holy zeal, he entered Granada one stormy night in December 1490 by the Darro conduit, and making his way to the Mosque which then stood where the Segrario now is, pinned a scroll bearing the words Ave Maria to its principal door with his dagger. This daring deed was not discovered until the next morning, by which time the intrepid knight was safe back in camp. His courage was rewarded by a seat in the _coro_ of the Cathedral, and at his death his body was interred in the chapel which bears his name. Nearly all the churches of Granada occupy the sites of Mosques. Santa Anna, like San Nicolás, has a most beautiful wooden roof. San Juan de los Reyes contains portraits of Ferdinand and Isabella; its tower is the minaret of what was once a Mosque. The Cathedral itself is so crowded in by other buildings, that no comprehensive view of the fabric is possible. Unfortunately this is the case, with one or two notable exceptions, throughout the country. Its fine proportions are thus lost, and it is only the interior with its great length and breath, its lofty arches and fine Corinthian pilasters that serve to dignify this House of God. Taking a morning off, I walked out to the Cartuja Convent. The Gran Capitan, Gonzalo de Cordoba, at one time granted an estate to the Carthusians and on it they erected the convent to which I turned my steps. The Order about this time was immensely wealthy and they spent money with reckless lavishness on the interior of their church. Mother-of-pearl, tortoiseshell, ebony and cedar-wood entered largely into their decorations, as well as ivory and silver. But perhaps the marbles in the church are the most remarkable part of their scheme. These were chosen for the wonderful patterns of the sections, and with a little stretch of the imagination I could trace well-composed landscapes, human and animal forms in a great many of the slabs. The overdone chirrugueresque work, to which add these fantastic wall decorations, makes this interior positively scream. It is nothing more nor less than a vulgar display of wealth. The cloisters of the convent also attest the bad taste of the Carthusians, they contain a series of pictures which represent the most repugnant and bloodthirsty scenes of persecutions and martyrdoms of the Order. In another convent, San Gerónimo, was buried the Gran Capitan. A slab marks the spot, but his poor bones were exhumed and carried off to Madrid in 1868 to form the nucleus of a Spanish Pantheon. Needless to say, like so many other great ideas in Spain, nothing further was done, and Gonzalo's remains still await a last resting-place. One more fact before I reach the Alhambra. In the church of San Juan de Dios you may see the cage in which the founder, Juan de Robles, was shut up as a lunatic. What do you think his lunacy was? Having the infirm and the poor always before him, this tender-hearted man went about preaching the necessity of hospitals to alleviate their distress. Aye, he was a hundred years and more before his time, so they shut him up in a cage and there let him rot and die. Those that came after in more enlightened days valued the good man's crusade at its proper price, and he was eventually canonised, and his supposed remains now rest in an _urna_. Up a toilsome approach, splashing through the mud, I drove on the night I reached Granada. As the horses slowed up, I put my head out of the carriage window, we were passing under an archway and I knew that at last one of the dreams of my life was realised. I was in the Alhambra. I became conscious of rows and rows of tall trees swaying in the wind. I smelt the delicious scent of damp earth, and could just distinguish, as the carriage crawled up the steep ascent, in the lulls of the storm, the sound of running water. It was fairyland, it was peace. After that long, tedious journey and the glare of the electric lit streets I had just passed through, I sank back on the cushions and felt my reward had come. [Illustration: GRANADA. THE ALHAMBRA] How is it possible to describe the Alhambra? It has been done so often and so well. Every one has read Washington Irving, and most of us know Victor Hugo's eulogy. I had better begin at the beginning, which is the gateway erected by Charles V. under which I passed with such a happy consciousness. Further up the hill, through which only pedestrians can go, is the Gate of Judgment, the first gateway into the Moorish fortress. Above it is the Torre de Justicia erected by Yusuf I. in 1348. On the external keystone is cut a hand, on the inner a key. Much controversy rages round these two signs and I leave it to others to find a solution. In old days the Kadi sat in this gateway dispensing justice. The massive doors still turn on their vertical pivots, the spear rests of the Moorish guard are still attached to the wall, and you must enter, as the Moors did, by the three turns in the dark passage beyond the gate. A narrow lane leads to the Plaza de las Algibes, under the level of which are the old Moorish cisterns. To the right is the Torre del Vino, and on the left the Acazaba. Come with me up the short flight of steps into the little strip of garden. Let us lean over the wall and look out on to the Vega. Is there anywhere so grand and varied an outline of plain and mountain? Do you wonder at the tears that suffused the eyes of Boabdil as he turned for a last look at this incomparable spot? The brown roofs of Granada lie at our feet. Far away through the levels of the green plain, the Vega, I can see the winding of many silver streams. Beyond those rugged peaks to the south lies the Alpujarras district, the last abiding place of the conquered Moor. Further on the mass of the Sierra Aburijara bounds the horizon, west of it is the town of Loja, thirty miles away, buried in the dip towards Antequerra. To the north is Mount Parapanda, the barometer of the Vega, always covered with mist when rain is at hand. Nearer in is the Sierra de Elvira, spread out below which are the dark woods of the Duke of Wellington's property--he is known in Spain as Duque de Ciudad Rodriguez. It is clear enough for us to see the blue haze of the mountains round Jaen, and the rocky defile of Mochin. The Torre de la Vela shuts out the rest of the view. There is a bell hanging in this tower which can be heard as far away as Loja. Now turn and look behind. Right up into the blue sky rise the snow peaks of the Sierra Nevada. Mulhacen, the highest point in all Spain, is not visible, but we can see Veleta which is but a few feet lower. The whole range glistens in the afternoon sun, but it is the evening hour that brings such wonderful changes of colour over these great snowfields, and, after the sun is down, such a pale mother-of-pearl grey silhouetted against the purple sky. The entrance into what we call the Alhambra is hidden away behind the unfinished Palace of Charles V. The low door admits us directly in the Patio de los Arrayanes, or court of the Myrtles. Running north and south it gets more sun than any other court of the Alhambra. What a revelation it is! In the centre is an oblong tank full of golden carp. The neatly kept myrtle hedges encircle this, reflected in the clear water they add refreshing charm to a first impression of the Moorish Palace. On the north rises the Torre de Comares, the approach to which is through a beautifully proportioned chamber, the roof of which was unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1890. The whole of the ground-floor of this tower is known as the Hall of the Ambassadors. The monarch's throne occupied a space opposite the entrance and it was here that the last meeting to consider the surrender was held by Boabdil. The elaborate domed roof of this magnificent chamber is of larch wood, but the semi-darkness prevents one realising to the full extent its beauties. From the windows, which almost form small rooms, so thick are the walls of the Tower of Comares, fine views over the roofs of the city and the Albaicin hill are obtained. The Court of the Lions, so called from the central fountain upheld by marble representations of the kingly beast, is surrounded by a beautiful arcade. At either end this is thrown out, forming a couple of extremely elegant pavilions. Fairy columns support a massive roof, the woodwork of which is carved with the pomegranate of Granada. Intricate fret-work is arranged to break the monotony of strong sunlight on a flat surface. Arabesques and inscriptions, stamped with an iron mould on the wet clay, repeat themselves all round the frieze. Orange trees at one time adorned the court and cast gracious shade on its surface. The fountain threw up jets of splashing water, the musical sound harmonising with the wonderful arrangement of light and shade. I tried to picture all this as I sat making my sketch, but even in April, though hot in the sun, I required an overcoat in the shadow, and I must own that the ever-present tourist with his kodak sadly disturbed all mental attempts at the reconstruction of Moorish life. [Illustration: GRANADA. THE ALHAMBRA, COURT OF LIONS] On the south side of the court is the hall of the Abencerrages, named after that noble family. The massive wooden doors, which shut it off from the arcade, are of most beautiful design. The hall is rectangular and has a fine star-shaped stalactite dome. The _azulejos_, or tiles, are the oldest that remain in the Alhambra. A passage leads to what was once the Royal Sepulchral Chamber. On the east side is the so-called Sala de la Justicia divided into several recesses and running the whole length of this portion of the court. The central recess was used by Ferdinand and Isabella when they held the first Mass after the surrender of the Moors. The chief interest of the Sala I found to be in a study of the paintings on the semicircular domed roofs. They portray the Moor of the period. The middle one, that in the chapel-recess, no doubt contains portraits of Granada's rulers in council. The other two represent hunting scenes and deeds of chivalry. It is supposed that the Koran forbids the delineation of any living thing. The Moor got over this difficulty by portraying animal life in as grotesque a manner as possible, or by employing foreign captives to do this for him. One theory of the origin of the Lion Fountain is that a captive Christian carved the lions and gave his best--or his worst--as the price of his liberation. Personally I think they are of Phoenician origin. Animals and birds in decoration reached the Moor from Persia, where from unknown ages they had always been employed in this way; and the Môsil style of hammered metal work is replete with this feature. On the north side of the court lies the Room of the Two Sisters, with others opening out from it, which seems to point to the probability that this was the suite occupied by the Sultana herself. Moorish art has here reached its highest phase. The honeycomb roof contains nearly five thousand cells, all are different, yet all combine to form a marvellously symmetrical whole. Fancy ran free with the architect who piled one tiny cell upon another and on these supported a third. Pendant pyramids cluster everywhere and hang suspended apparently from nothing. In the fertility of his imagination the designer surpassed anything of the kind that went before or has since been attempted. Truly the verses of a poem copied on to the _azulejos_ are well set. "Look well at my elegance, and reap the benefit of a commentary on decoration. Here are columns ornamented with every perfection, the beauty of which has become proverbial." Beyond this entrancing suite of rooms is the Miradoro de Daraxa with three tall windows overlooking that little gem of a garden the Patio de Daraxa. It was here that Washington Irving lodged when dreaming away those delicious days in the Alhambra. The old Council Chamber of the Moors, the Meshwâr, is reached through the Patio de Mexuar. Charles V. turned this chamber into a chapel, and the hideous decorations he put up are still extant. An underground passage, which leads to the baths, ran from the _patio_ and gave access to the battlements and galleries of the fortress as well as forming a connecting link between each tower. The baths are most interesting, but to me were pervaded by a deadly chill. I felt sorry for the guardian who spends his days down in such damp, icy quarters. A remark I made to him inquiring how long his duty kept him in so cold a spot, called forth so terrible a fit of coughing that I got no reply. I was told afterwards that he was only placed there as he was too ill for other duty, and it was expected he would not live much longer! There are two baths of full size and one for children. The _azulejos_ in them are very beautiful, as they also are in the disrobing room and chamber for rest. An open corridor leads from the Hall of the Ambassadors to the Torre del Peinador which Yusuf I. built. The small Tocador de la Reina, or Queen's dressing-room, with its quaint frescoes, was modernised by Charles V. Let into the floor is a marble slab drilled with holes, through which perfumes found their way from a room below while the Queen was dressing. The glamour of the East clings to every corner of the Alhambra, and the wonder of it all increased as I began to grow familiar with its courtyards and halls, the slender columns of its arcades, with their tracery and oft-repeated verses forming ornament and decoration, and the well thought-out balance of light and shade. What must it all have been like when the sedate Moor glided noiselessly through the cool corridors, or the clang of arms resounded through the now silent halls! It is difficult to imagine. The inner chambers were then lined with matchless carpets and rugs and the walls were covered with subtly coloured _azulejos_. Many are the changes since those days of the Infidel who cultivated the art of living as it has never been cultivated since. Restoration is judiciously but slowly going on, and every courtesy is shown to the visitor. A small charge might be levied, however, to assist the Government, even in a slight degree, with restoration, and I am sure no one would grudge paying for the privilege of sauntering through the most interesting remains of the Moorish days of Spain. The unfinished Palace of Charles V. occupies a large space, to clear which a great deal of the Moorish Palace was demolished. The interior is extremely graceful. The double arcades, the lower of which is Doric and the upper Ionic, run round a circular court which for good proportion it would be hard to beat. [Illustration: GRANADA. GENERALIFE] On the Corre de Sol, a little way out of the Alhambra and situated above it, is the Generalife. It belongs to the Pallavicini family of Genoa, but on the death of the present representative becomes the property of the Spanish Government. A stately cypress avenue leads to the entrance doorway, through which one enters an oblong court full of exotic growth and even in April a blaze of colour. Through a tank down the centre runs a delicious stream of clear water. At the further end of this captivating court are a series of rooms, one of which contains badly painted portraits of the Spanish Sovereigns since the days of Ferdinand and Isabella. Up some steps is another garden court with another tank, shaded by more cypress trees. One huge patriarch is over six hundred years old, and it is supposed that under it Boabdil's wife clandestinely met Hamet the Abencerrage. Space will not permit me to tell of the many entrancing excursions I made to the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada and up the two rivers. I can only add that the valleys disclosed to the pedestrian are a wealth of rare botanical specimens, and if time permits will well repay a lengthened sojourn in the last stronghold of the Moors in Spain. MALAGA Malaga disputes with Cadiz the honour of being the oldest seaport in the country. In early days the Phoenicians had a settlement here, and in after times both the Carthagenians and Romans utilised "Malacca" as their principal port on the Mediterranean littoral of Spain. In 571 the Goths under their redoubtable King, Leovigild, wrested the town from the Byzantines. Once more it was captured, by Tarik, in the year 710 and remained a Moorish stronghold until Ferdinand took it after a long siege in 1487. It is said that gunpowder was first used in Spain at this siege, when the "seven sisters of Ximenes," guns planted in the Gibralfaro, belched forth fire and smoke. In the year 709 the Berber Tarif entered into an alliance with Julian, Governor of Ceuta, who held that place for Witiza the Gothic King of Spain. With four ships and five hundred men he crossed the narrow and dangerous straits to reconnoitre the European coast, having secretly in view an independent kingdom for himself on the Iberian peninsula. He landed at Cape Tarifa. This expedition was so far successful that in two years' time another Berber, of a name almost similar, Tarík to wit, was sent over with twelve thousand men and landed near the rock which received the name of Jabal-Tarík, or mountain of Tarík, the present Gibraltar. Witiza in the meantime died and was succeeded by Roderic, who, hearing of the invasion of this Moorish host, hastened south from Toledo and met his death in the first decisive battle between Christian and Infidel on the banks of the Guadalete near Cadiz. Tarík then commenced his victorious march, which ended in less than three years with the subjugation of the whole country as far as the foot of the Pyrenees--Pelayo, in his cave at Covadonga near Oviedo, alone holding out with a mere remnant against the all-conquering Moor. [Illustration: MALAGA. VIEW FROM THE HARBOUR] If you ask me, "What is Malaga to-day?" I can reply with truth, "The noisiest town in Spain." Like all places in the south it is a babel of street-cries, only a little more so than any of the others. The _seranos_, or night-watchmen, disturb one's rest as they call out the hour of the night, or whistle at the street corners to their comrades. A breeze makes hideous the hours of darkness by the banging to and fro of unsecured shutters. The early arrival of herds of goats with tinkling bells heralds the dawn, which is soon followed by the discordant clatter of all those, cracked and otherwise, which hang in the church belfries. The noisiest town I visited, most certainly, but for all that a very enchanting place. In a way not unlike Naples, for the Malagueno is the Spanish prototype of the Neapolitan. Lazy, lighthearted, good-natured, but quick to take affront, he gets through the day doing nothing in a manner that won my sincere admiration. "Why work, señor, when you have the sun? I do not know why the English travellers are always in such a hurry. And the North American, he is far worse. I earned two pesetas yesterday. To-day I have no wants, I do not work. To-morrow? Yes, perhaps to-morrow I work, but to-day I sit here in the sun, I smoke my cigarette, I am content to watch others, that is life!"--and who can say that the Malagueno is far wrong? Not I. Malaga's Cathedral, an imposing building of a very mixed Corinthian character, occupies the site of a Moorish mosque which was converted into a church. Of this early church of the Incarnation, the Gothic portal of the _Segragrio_ is the only portion remaining. The present edifice was begun in 1538 from the plans of that great architect Diego de Siloe, but being partially destroyed by an earthquake in 1680, was not completed until 1719. It cannot be called complete even now, and the long period over which its construction has been spread accounts for the very many inconsistencies in a building which is full of architectural defects. The west façade is flanked by two Towers, only one of which has been finished; this is drawn out in three stages like the tower of La Seo at Saragossa, and has a dome with lantern above. The doors of the north and south Transepts are also flanked by towers, but they do not rise beyond the cornice line. The interior, reminding one of Granada's Cathedral, is seemingly immense. The proportions are massive and decidedly good. It was in his proportions that Siloe excelled. The length of this is three hundred and seventy-five feet, the width two hundred and forty, and the height one hundred and thirty feet. The columns which support the heavy roof consist of two rows of pillars one above the other. The vaulting is of round arches. A picture by Alonso Cano in the chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary, and one of a _Virgin and Child_, in that of San Francisco, by Morales, were the only two objects that I could say interested me, besides the magnificently carved _silleria del coro_, the work of many hands, but chiefly those of Pedro de Mena, a pupil of Cano. With all its architectural incongruities it is an impressive fabric, and rises high above the surrounding roofs, like a great Liner with a crowd of smaller boats lying around her. So it struck me as I sat on the quayside of the Malagueta making my sketch, sadly interfered with by an unpleasant throng of idling loafers. Beyond Malagueta lies Caleta, and on the hill above them is the Castilla de Gibralfaro, from which when the sky is clear the African mountains near Ceuta can be seen. Below the Gibralfaro and between it and the Cathedral, lies the most ancient part of the city, the Alcazába, the glorious castle and town of Moorish days. And now?--like so many of Spain's departed glories, it is not much more than a ruined conglomeration of huts and houses of a low and very insanitary order. At the other end of Malaga is the Mercado, and close by is the old Moorish sea gateway, the Puerta del Mar, washed by the waters of the blue Mediterranean in their day, but at the present time well away from the sea and surrounded by houses. The everyday market is held in the dry bed of the treacherous Guadelmedina, a stream which rose in the fatal October of 1907 and swept away all the bridges, swamping the lower quarters of the city. Many lives were lost in this disastrous flood and many bodies picked up by fishing-boats far out at sea. However, when I made my sketch there was no chance of such a visitation, and I found the market folk more polite than the loafers on the quay. The country lying at the back of the city and at the base of the sun-baked and scarred mountains by which it is surrounded, produces almost everything that grows. From this--the Vega--come grapes, raisins, figs, oranges, lemons, water and sweet melons, quinces, pomegranates, medlars, plantains, custard-apples, guava, olives and sugar-cane--a veritable paradise for the fruit grower. Up the hill slopes, where the olive luxuriates, fine woods of sweet acorn and cork trees are passed, and any day you may see large herds of swine feeding on the acorns that have fallen, and routing out other delicacies that their sensitive noses tell them lie hidden beneath the surface. The pork of Estremadura is reckoned the best in Spain, and that from these oak woods a good second. The pig in Spain is a clean feeder, and you can eat him with perfect safety anywhere. Such a thing as the offensive pig-sty, the disgrace of rural England, is absolutely unknown here. [Illustration: MALAGA. THE MARKET] Malaga's climate is delightful, despite the fierce winds and the dust they raise. Though rain seldom falls the cool sea breezes in summer bring a refreshing tonic to the dweller up country; and many Spaniards at this season come here for bathing, and obtain a maximum of sunshine without the intense heat of the interior. VALENCIA Valencia del Cid is inseparably connected with the hero of Spanish romance, Rodrigo Diaz of Bivar, to give him his real name, "Cid" being a corruption of the Moorish _Seyyid_, and first appearing in historical documents of the year 1064. Rising to great power, Alfonso of Leon appointed him to the command of his army, but through jealousy banished him in 1081. From that date the Cid became a true knight-errant. Barred from the kingdom of Leon, he was ever ready to sell his services to the highest bidder; and after many wanderings found himself with a goodly following of knights, only too eager in those days, when might was right, to be in the train of so redoubtable a champion, _en route_ to Saragossa. The Moorish ruler of that city being at logger-heads with the Count of Barcelona accepted the Cid's proffered services, and the result was a battle in which the Catalans were badly beaten. With no prospects of further service in Aragon, the Cid turned his face south and marched on Valencia, whose Moorish King Yahya was only too pleased to request his protection in advance, instead of succumbing to his conquering arm. Thus began Rodrigo's connection with the city, which with one or two intervals ended only at his death. It was from the top of the Miguelete Tower, which is pictured in my illustration of the Cathedral, that he showed his wife Ximena and their daughters the fair land he had conquered. This was in 1095, when after having rejoined Alfonso and left him again, he had returned and recaptured the city after a siege of twenty months. Four years later died the man whose name was a terror to the Infidel, and his widow Ximena, following the traditions of her warrior husband, held Valencia against overwhelming hordes of Moors. The story of the bitter end, how she placed his body on his favourite war-horse and drove it through the ranks of the enemy, has always been a theme for the balladmonger of Spain. It was in 140 B.C. that Junius Brutus founded a small Roman colony on the banks of the river Turia. Pompey destroyed this settlement and rebuilt it. In 413 the Goths took possession. The Emir of Cordova captured it in 714 and Valencia remained a vassal state until the fall of the Omayeh dynasty. Like other provinces, it became merged under the single banner that floated over the greater part of the Peninsula at the union of Aragon and Castile. Being a coast town and savouring of the south, it was not until the time of the bigoted Philip III. that the industrious and unfortunate Moriscoe was finally expelled from the shelter of Valencia's walls. [Illustration: VALENCIA. SAN PABLO] Souchet sacked the place in the Napoleonic wars and received the title of Duke of Albufera from his master. Rather an empty honour, Albufera being the large and malarious tract of marshland along the coast a few miles to the south of El Grao, and worth but very little. El Grao is Valencia's Port, and is three miles distant from the city. The road which connects the two is about the busiest high road I saw in Spain. From sunrise till long after sunset two streams of vehicles pass to and fro. Strings of laden donkeys, waggonettes crammed with good-humoured laughing fisher and country folk pass along, an electric tram carries those who can afford the extra _centimos_, and the carriages of Valencia's well-to-do citizens take them to the harbour for a breath of sea air out on the breakwaters. Everything seems alive, and though there is that balmy feeling in the air which one gets in Andalusia, there is none of the indolence and seductive _dolce far niente_ of that enchanting province. No! quite the other way in Valencia. The peasants are extremely industrious. The soil of the _Huerta_ bears them three crops during the year. The system of irrigation, the old Moorish system by-the-way, is perfect, and though the product of a soil which is forced to bear more than it naturally can, is reinforced at sowing time, in the case of corn, by Russian grain, it cannot be said that Valencia depends on any outside help for her prosperity. The swamps bordering the coast grow the finest rice in the world. The wines of the province are good and cheap, held in much esteem by French merchants to fortify the lighter produce of their own country. So cheap are they in fact, that in some parts of the province it costs more to get a drink of water than a glass of wine. Yet drunkenness is unknown. If a Valencian took a drop too much, he would be promptly boycotted by his neighbours, and for ever after looked upon as a disgusting and outlandish boor, a disgrace to his village and a man to be shunned. The peasant is very illiterate and scrupulously honest--the one follows the other. Like the Andalusian, he is absolutely trustworthy in all his dealings, which are conducted by word of mouth. In buying and selling no signatures to documents pass between the contracting parties. If any paper is ever signed, it is confirmed by certain scratches or marks known to belong to so and so--the signee. His word is his bond, it is generally all he can give, but it is enough and is worth more than signatures sometimes are. Further north, where modern ways of life are more in vogue, and where all is more "advanced," there are ten lawyers to the one in Valencia and the south. [Illustration: VALENCIA. DOOR OF THE CATHEDRAL] The Cathedral was originally a Gothic structure, but one fashion following another, has been at different times so altered and robbed of all architectural beauty that there remains but little of interest in the building. It was founded in 1262 and finished two hundred years later. El Miguelete, the celebrated Bell Tower, is so named because the bells were first hung on St. Michael's Day. Like the Torre de Vela of the Alhambra, a bell is here struck which regulates the irrigation of the _Huerta_. In this connection, and as an exemplification of the peasant's trustworthiness, once a month, on a Thursday, the Tribunal de Aguas sits in the Plaza de la Seo outside the Puerto de los Apóstoles or north door of the Cathedral. Its presiding members are chosen by their fellow peasants for their integrity and general standing in the community. They exercise absolute control over the seven different irrigation districts. The Government has once or twice interfered with this, but unsuccessfully. Plaintiffs and defendants appear before this primitive tribunal seated in a public square. The case is stated, _pros_ and _cons_ weighed, and judgment given fairly on its merits. Any one passing can stop and hear the arguments of both sides. As a proof of the shrewdness the peasants possess and the confidence they have in their dealings with one another, no appeal is ever made from the judgment of their elders. This north door has good sculptured figures in the jambs and archivolt. Above is a fine rose window. These are among the remains of the first building. Another relic of the early structure is the octagonal _cimborio_ erected about the same time as the doorway, _i.e._, 1350. The lancet windows over the Puerta del Paláu, which is surmounted by a round arch with carvings in the jambs, are all of the same period. The third doorway, the Puerta del Miguelete, is florid and overdone, and dates from the eighteenth century. Its bronze doors however are extremely fine. The best features of the much-spoilt interior are the octagon and the very beautiful Corinthian _silleria del coro_. The original _retablo_ over the High Altar was set on fire by the lighted cotton attached to a pigeon let loose at a religious ceremony in 1469. The side panels alone were saved from the results of the terrified bird's erratic flight. Close by on a pillar is hung the armour of James I. of Aragon. Over the sacristy door is a good painting by Ribalta of _Christ Bearing the Cross_, and in the ante-room an _Adoration_ by Ribera, besides five good examples of Juanes' brush. Among the treasures of the Cathedral is an extraordinary piece of goldsmith's work, a Calix, showing four different periods of this art, _i.e._, Roman, IXth, XVth and XVIth centuries. It figures in the picture of the _Last Supper_ by Juanes, which is now in the Prado at Madrid. An interesting trophy also belongs to the Cathedral in the shape of the chain which at one time closed the old Port of Marseilles. The many different varieties of marble used in the decoration of the building form a very pleasing series, and go some way towards compensating the disappointment one experiences with the much-altered style of what ought to be a grand interior. I saw a good procession one evening wending its way through the crowds which lined the narrow street near the church of Santa Catalina. The balconies were filled with occupants who showered rose leaves down as the effigy of St. John passed by. The light from the torches carried by some boys flickered upwards and caught the faces of those peering over from their vantage posts above. The crowd knelt as the saint passed, and once more the vitality of the Church, which I could not but feel wherever I went in Spain is _the_ thing that lives, was again in evidence. Over the door of the church of San Martin is a good equestrian group in bronze. San Domingo has some very beautiful cloisters of late Gothic date, and San Salvador possesses Valencia's miraculous image. Nicodemus is reputed to have made this, the Christ of Beyrout. The marvellous relic navigated itself from Syria across the waters of the Mediterranean and reached Valencia against the river's stream. A monument on the bank marks the spot where the wonderful voyage ended by the safe landing of the Christ. It is much visited by the devout. In the chapel attached to the Colegio del Patriarca hangs Ribalta's fine _Last Supper_. Every Friday morning at ten o'clock the _Miserere_ is celebrated here. The impressive ceremony commences with the slow lowering of this picture from its place above the High Altar. The void is filled by a dark cloth, which, as the service proceeds, is gently drawn aside disclosing a second cloth, this is again repeated, followed by another, and when this, the fourth cloth, is parted asunder a fine painting of _Christ Crucified_ is revealed. Meanwhile chants appropriate to the solemn service have been filling the church and increasing the tension of the congregation. The whole ceremony is a very good piece of stage management and certainly most thrilling and inspiring. The black _mantilla_ for ladies is _de rigeur_. [Illustration: VALENCIA. RELIGIOUS PROCESSION] Valencia's walls, erected in 1356, were demolished in 1871 to give work to the unemployed, and the spacious _Paseo_ made in their stead. The trees planted along this carriage drive have added materially to the health of the city. Of the two remaining gates, the Torres de Serranos is much the better. Built in the second half of the fourteenth century on Roman foundations, its massive construction and great height are very grand. It is one of the best gates I know. The archway itself is rather low. The double floors above have fine Gothic vaulting and are approached by a flight of steps. The gallery is supported on heavy corbels, and the cornice has deep machicolations. The whole rises in isolated grandeur and may perhaps gain, from the painter's point of view, by the absence of flanking walls. The Torre de Cuarto is another enormous gateway with two huge round towers on either side. It still bears the marks of Souchet's artillery--whose round shot did apparently no damage whatever. Not far from this gate lies the Mercado situated in the middle of the old quarters of the city. Valencia is quite a modern town, it is rapidly losing everything of any age, and changing its narrow insanitary streets for spacious well-built thoroughfares. The Mercado is by far the largest and most attractive market in Spain. Fruit and vegetables, wicker goods of all sorts, baskets, chairs, toys, leather-work and harness, brightly coloured mule trappings, every description of wood and metal-work, the usual assortment of old iron, lamps antique and modern, oleographs and chromos, saints and virgins jostling the latest cheap reproduction of a famous _Torrero_ or _Bailarina_, furniture, worn-out field implements and new cutlery, lace, everything, in fact, including smells, the variety of which I found unequalled anywhere. Strong garlic assaulted my nostrils--in three more steps I was in the midst of roses and carnations, half a dozen more and a horribly rank cheese made the air vibrate; and so it continued from one end to the other of this most fascinating kaleidoscopic throng, to study which I returned every day of my sojourn in Valencia. On one side of this wonderful market-place stands the Lonja de la Seda. It dates from 1482 and occupies the site of the Moorish Alcázar. Perhaps of all the examples of Gothic civil architecture in Europe, the Lonja de la Seda can claim the first place. The west façade, facing the Mercado, has a double row of square-topped Gothic windows, above which is a traceried gallery running round the entire building with gargoyles and a frieze of heads below the embattled parapet. In the centre is a Tower with a couple of Gothic windows. There are two separate buildings in this "Silk Exchange," one of which has a beautiful court. The whole of the other is occupied by the Exchange Hall. The rich star vaulting of the interior is borne by two rows of spiral columns without capitals; they branch out to the roof like the leaves of a palm tree and it is very evident that this beautiful treatment was suggested by the growth of the tree. Valencia has always been celebrated for a certain style or school of painting, and in the Museum, which occupies the buildings of the old Convento del Carmen, Ribalta, Espinosa and Juanes are seen at their best. The school is noted for the peculiar deep red undertone of the shadows, which is very markedly apparent in the works hanging on these walls. There are also some beautiful examples of native faience and pottery, for Valencia is still the home of Spanish lustre ware. The Valencians are great bird fanciers, and very keen pigeon shots. Numerous lofts built on the roofs for these birds cut the sky-line in the old quarters of the city. Sunday sees the dry bed of the Turia full of competitors in shooting matches, when toll is taken of the feathered inhabitants of these airy dwellings. If it were not for the rather bad drinking water and the malarious marshes, the breeding-ground of a most particularly venomous mosquito, Valencia would be as pleasant and lively a spot for residence as any in Spain. The climate is good and it is near the sea. It stands on the edge of a veritable fruit garden, and its people are pleasant and friendly. TORTOSA Journeying to Valencia from the north one is carried along a grand bit of coast with glimpses of the blue Mediterranean rolling in on stretches of yellow sand, and breaking into spray on the rocks above which the train runs. The _rapido_ stops for lunch at Tortosa, and I got out intending to stay if there was anything in the famous old city or its Cathedral which might bear illustrating in this book. I reached the best _fonda_ in the place, and was heartily welcomed by its lively little landlord, who immediately handed me one of his cards, whereon was set out, amongst many superlatives, the news that an interpreter was attached to the house. "Gone away for the day, señor," was the reply when I asked for an interview. He was always away I fear; however, I did not need his services and my host and I became fast friends. So friendly indeed that I only just avoided an embrace at parting on the day I left. He took great interest in my doings, and on his side gave me much information. He explained to me how the mighty Ebro, on which Tortosa is situated, and to which it owes its existence, had risen in flood during the disastrous October of 1907. "Right up to here, señor"--this while I was having lunch--and he pointed to a spot a couple of inches off the floor of the _comedor_, which was on the first floor of the house--"A terrible flood that?"--"Yes, señor, the streets were for weeks full of mud and all sorts of things. Hundreds of poor people lost everything and many were swept out to sea." Another day I remarked on the gas that lit the _fonda_ and asked my host why he had not put in electric light. "It is too expensive, señor; some people have it, and the Market Hall is lit by it; but you must understand that Tortosa long ago did away with oil lamps and was one of the first places in Spain to use gas. And now?--well it is enough for us, and the electric light is too expensive." Elsewhere in Spain I have been told with pride that the country is still in the foremost rank of civilisation--whatever the Progressive Press says--and the almost universal use of electricity has been pointed out to verify the boast. But Tortosa, which led the van when gas was a novelty, is the only place of any importance that I know which is still lit by this means. Local tradition has it, that the city dates back to the time of St. Paul who, I was told, settled here and built himself a nice little house. Whatever the saint did it is on record that before his day the town was an important Iberian port of the Ilercaones tribe, and in later years under the Romans, possessed a mint of its own, being then known as Julia Augusta Dertosa. Strategically the key of the great river, Tortosa was subject to repeated attempts at capture by those not in occupation. During the time when it was held by the Moors, Charlemagne's son Louis, after an unsuccessful attempt, gained possession, only to be driven out in the year 810. It was not until 1148 that the Infidel's reign was finally terminated by Ramon Bereuguer, Count of Barcelona. In the following year a desperate attempt was made by the Moors to retake their stronghold, and the inhabitants, reduced to the last stage of despair, contemplated the sacrifice of their women and children, and then a final sortie to end their own lives. The women, however, showed a true militant spirit, they courted death, but not in this mean manner. Mounting the hardly defensible walls with every and any weapon they could lay hands on, the men were directed to sally forth. The gates were opened, and cheered on by their wives and daughters, the sterner sex rushed out. So determined was the onslaught that the Moorish host was beaten back and fled leaving all the plunder in his camp behind. Ramon, to show his appreciation of the heroism displayed by the fair ones, invested them with the Order of the Axe (La Hacha) and decorated them with the red military scarf. Also decreeing that at their marriage they should precede mankind, and to this added the privilege of duty-free dress materials. What more could woman want? The Cathedral occupies the site of a mosque erected in 914 by Abderrhaman. A Cufic inscription in the wall at the back of the sacristy relates this with the date. Bishop Lanfredo dedicated the building to the Virgin in 1158, but the present structure dates from 1347. It is extremely good Gothic, with a heavy baroque west façade, ugly and ill-proportioned. Of the exterior but little is visible, and my sketch simply includes the upper part of the façade, visible over the roofs of the quaint old town, with the river flowing in front. The interior is very simple and dignified. The slender columns of the nave rise to a great height; the light that filters through the few clerestory windows that are not blocked subdues the garishness of a bad _trascoro_, and finds its way amongst the tracery of the arches of the double apse. In Avila Cathedral this same feature prevails. A double aisled apse with open-work tracery between the arches and below the vaulting of the aisles. [Illustration: TORTOSA] The _silleria_ of the _coro_ were carved by Cristóbal de Salamanca in 1588, and are really beautiful. The two pulpits are covered with interesting iron bas-reliefs, and the High Altar encased in a mass of plateresque silver work. The _retablo_ is a good specimen of early Gothic work, and I could not help thinking how much better such an one is than the many overdone chirrugueresque atrocities met with in more famous places. Tortosa is the centre of a district the mountains of which yield many different kinds of marble, and the Cathedral is especially rich in these. Perhaps the chapel of Cinta contains the best; the most used is the _broccatello di spagna_ a purple colour with tiny marine molluscs embedded in the hard clay. The Cathedral is adorned at certain festivals with a series of splendid tapestries, and amongst many relics overlooked and left by the French is a fine Moorish casket of ivory. Pope Adrian IV., the Englishman, was at one time Bishop of Tortosa, a fact which added interest to this beautiful little Cathedral. The cloisters are early pointed Gothic, now much dilapidated and uncared for. On the encircling walls are many highly interesting mural tablets, a few of which have recumbent figures cut in low relief with their backs to the wall, as is the case in the earliest Gothic effigies of this sort. TARRAGONA My recollections of Tarragona can be summed up in three words--blue sea, sunshine, and peace. Some fifteen or twenty years ago the quays of its fine harbour were full of life and bustle, ships entered the port and ships went out. The trade with France in light wines was good, and with England and America in those of heavier quality, better still. Nowadays it is cheaper to send wines by rail. Reus, a railway centre a few miles inland, has captured a great deal of Tarragona's trade, and modern history repeats itself once more. Cheap and quick delivery are the watchwords. Hurry and hustle are leaving the old trading towns behind. Barcelona is not far away. Centralisation is everything, and thus it happened that I found very few places in Spain so reposeful as Tarragona. And I might add so beautifully situated as this old city which climbs and crowns a hill that rises from the very edge of the blue Mediterranean. Very few cities in Spain can boast of prehistoric walls still extant. Tarragona can do so. The huge uneven blocks of granite, which may be seen in my sketch of the Archbishop's Tower, occupy the lower portion of the old Roman walls. On the north side of the city they are even more visible than in the sketch. Some of the blocks measure thirteen by seven by five feet. Three of the ancient portals, the stone of which is faced inside, still exist, but apparently no records do, to tell us who placed these Cyclopean defences where they stand to-day. Many remains of Roman days may be seen built into the houses of the old and higher town, tablets, mural inscriptions, bits of columns, &c. The Cathedral possesses numerous plinths and pillars of marble from the quarries at Tortosa, built into its walls, and the Font in the Baptistery is an old Roman basin. What a glorious city it must have been when the Emperor Augustus made it his capital! and the overland trade met the sea-going in the harbour below. Twenty miles away at Gayá the Romans tapped a continuous supply of fresh water, and their aqueduct, a good deal of which remains, ranks next to that of Segovia in size, and stands as an example of how the Romans built. Roman villas with incomparable views out to sea, dotted the hillsides; temples to every god and goddess rose in the city, which contained a million inhabitants. It possessed a mint of its own, and, favoured by nature and art, became known as "Colonia victrix togata turrita." [Illustration: TARRAGONA] The Moslem sacked Tarragona, and for four centuries one of the glories of Colonial Rome lay a heap of ruins. In 1089, at the commencement of the building of the Cathedral, the see, much to the disgust of Toledo, was raised to metropolitan dignity. Thenceforth, between the two cities, endless disputes have arisen as to the Primacy of Spain. Though begun at the above date, most of the Cathedral is of twelfth and early thirteenth-century work. It is not known who designed this magnificent church, the finest example of Transition in Spain. The interior is very simple and very dignified. The roof is borne by grand piers, thirty-five feet in circumference. Their bases are broken by four seats, one in each corner, placed thus to enhance the line of the composition, and break the otherwise too great severity of the foundations. There is no triforium; but an early pointed clerestory of large bays, and a superb rose window in the west, of date 1131, admit a flood of light. Nothing could well be simpler than the pairs of massive columns which carry the centre arches of the vaulting, nor finer than the delicate single attendant at their sides from which spring the transverse sections. All these are capped with square Romanesque capitals. The chancel is pure Romanesque and very beautiful. The semicircular end of the Capilla Mayor and the two small apses are the oldest part of this noble building. The _retablo_ of the High Altar is alabaster, and carved with reliefs of the martyrdom of Santa Tecla, Tarragona's patroness. The delicate tapering finials and the figures under canopies below, are carved in wood. Behind the High Altar is a very interesting urn which contains the ashes of Cyprian, a Gothic archbishop. The fine _cimborio_ which rises above the crossing has eight windows of three and four lights alternately, which contain fragments of very brilliant coloured glass. In the transepts are two magnificent wheel windows full of good glass, indeed I know of no better scheme of colour than that which adorns this window on the south side. The _silleria del coro_ are the work of Francisco Gomar and date from 1478. The body of James I. of Aragon lies in a tomb at the west end of the _trascoro_, having been brought here from the ruined Monastery of Poblet--the Escorial of Aragon. A ruin where still lie under their much despoiled and mutilated tombs some of the rulers of that kingdom. [Illustration: TARRAGONA. THE ARCHBISHOP'S TOWER] This grand Cathedral is not dependent on gloom or subdued light for its great impressiveness. On the contrary it is the best lit of any of Spain's Cathedrals, and it is on its excellent proportions and scale alone that its reputation for solemnity will always rest, and its majesty be ever remembered. The west façade, commenced in 1248, is constructed of a light-coloured stone, which time has improved into a very beautiful sienna brown. The upper portion is unfinished. In the centre is a fine and deeply recessed Gothic portal, flanked by two massive buttresses. Under Gothic canopies stand statues of the Apostles and Prophets, the lintel of the doorway is supported by a Virgin and Child, above which is the Saviour, and a row of figures rising out of their tombs on the Judgment Day. Above all is the already-mentioned rose window. So well does the mass of the building rise above the adjacent roofs that this window is visible from the breakwater of the harbour. The two doorways on either side of the façade are pure Romanesque. Each is surmounted by a small wheel window. The iron work which covers the doors is of a very intricate design; and the huge iron knockers with grotesque heads, the hinges of the doors, and the copper work as well, gave me many pleasant moments in marvelling at the skill of the smiths of days gone by. It was in the cloisters however that I found the greatest charm of the whole Cathedral. The court is a veritable garden, where date palms, fig trees and oleanders crowd one another in the neatly arranged beds behind box hedges. I spent many pleasant hours in this delightful spot, my solitude broken by occasional visits from the Sacristan, who, in his faded and patched purple cassock, came in at odd times for a chat. Very proud of his Cathedral was this quiet custodian, and I shall never forget his soft voice and winning smile, nor the great interest he evinced in my sketch. The swifts rushed screaming past, the bees hummed from flower to flower, the scent of the plants was delicious, the warm sun and the splash of the fountain--turned on for my benefit--all went to help the welcome repose and forgetfulness of the outer world that overcame me as long as I was at work in this little Paradise. The double doorway in the north transept through which one enters the cloisters from the Cathedral, is the finest of all. The capitals of its detached shafts are wonderfully carved. They represent the Awaking of the Three Kings by an Angel, the Nativity and the Journey of the Magi. The arcading of the cloisters consists of six bays on all four sides, these bays are subdivided into three round arches, with a couple of circular openings above and enclosed within the arch. Some of these openings contain very beautifully carved tracery. [Illustration: TARRAGONA. THE CLOISTERS] The capitals of the columns are a museum of quaint fancy and good carving. In one set, all the incidents of a sea voyage are cut, in another, mice are seen carrying a cat to his grave, who, shamming death, turns and devours some of them before his obsequies are complete. There is a Descent from the Cross, where one of the Faithful wields a pair of pincers much longer than his own arms, so determined is he to pull out the nails that cruelly wound Christ's hands. Many fragments of Roman sculpture are let into the walls; and a lovely little Moorish arch, with a Cufic inscription and date 960, reminds one of the Infidel's rule over the city. To reach times nearer our own, there are two inscriptions telling of the occupation by British troops, which run--_5th Company_ and further on _6th Company_--obviously pointing to the fact that these lovely cloisters sheltered some of our own troops during the Peninsular War. Like many other Cathedrals, Tarragona's possesses a grand series of tapestries, which are hung round the columns and walls during certain festivals. They are mostly Flemish and not in any way ecclesiastical. One indeed that I saw was anything but this. Cupid was leading a lady, who was in _déshabille_, into her chamber, wherein, by a four-post bed, stood a gentleman with a lighted taper in his hand! It was pleasant in the evening to stroll down to the harbour and out along the mole, to watch the deep-sea fishing fleet race home with the long sweeps out in every boat as the wind dropped and the sea became an oily calm. I must own it was with great regret I left this now peaceful spot--a city that once boasted of a million inhabitants, and prior to that was a great Phoenician port! Of all the Cathedral Cities of Spain I would rather return to Tarragona than any other, hold converse with my friend the Sacristan, who knows and loves his Cathedral so well, and end the day as the sun goes down watching the boats return from long hours of toil. BARCELONA Barcelona the Progressive, the finest port of Spain, with its large harbour, its wide boulevards, splendid suburbs, good hotels, huge factories and modern prosperity has well earned the title of first city of the New Spain. Amilcar Barca in 225 B.C. founded the Carthagenian city which occupied the Taber hill on which the Cathedral now stands, and twenty years later it became a colony of Rome. Remnants of the old walls can still be traced in the narrow streets which centre round the Holy Fabric. Under the Goths, Barcino, as it was then called, rose to some importance, money coined here bears the legend "Barcinona." The Moors were in possession of the sea-washed fortress for about one hundred years, and then the reign of the Counts of Barcelona, independent sovereigns, began. Count Ramon Berenguer I., who ruled from 1025 to 1077, instituted the famous "Códego de los Usatjes de Cataluña," an admirable code of laws, to which was added in the thirteenth century the "Consulado del mar de Barcelona." This latter code obtained in the commercial world of Europe the same authority as the old "Leges Rhodiæ" of the ancients. When at the height of its prosperity, Barcelona, the centre of commerce, received a severe blow by the union of Cataluña with Aragon, on the occasion of the marriage of Count Ramon Berenguer IV. to Petronila daughter of Ramiro II. King of Aragon. When Aragon and Castile were united Barcelona became subject to the "Catholic Kings," and ever since, in language, in habits and enterprise has shown her dislike for and her struggle against the ways of Castile. To-day Barcelona is far in advance of any other city of Spain. I felt I was once more in Europe when the comfortable hotel 'bus rattled along through the well-lit streets. Perhaps I was getting tired of life in the Middle Ages, and was obsessed with Mediæval Cities! At any rate, a clean bed in a modern hotel was a luxury I thoroughly appreciated, and I started the next morning to explore, with a mind at ease and a consciousness that there would be no irritating little pin-pricks, no _mañana_ for a couple of weeks at least. [Illustration: BARCELONA. IN THE CATHEDRAL] The Cathedral stands on the site of a Pagan Church converted by the Moors into a Mosque. The present edifice replaced the Christian Church which superseded this Mosque, and was begun in 1298. The crypt was finished in 1339 and the cloisters in 1388. The west façade was covered with scaffolding while I was there, and so may perhaps be completed in another thirty years. The interior of this splendid Gothic church is very dark. The pointed windows are all filled with magnificent fifteenth-century glass. At the sunset hour, when the rays of light strike low and filter through the many colours of these windows, the effect in the gloom of this solemn building is most beautiful. As the orb of day sinks lower and lower the light lingers on column after column right up the lofty nave to the High Altar until he suddenly disappears, and all within is wrapt in deep twilight. The nave is very narrow and very high. The clustered columns seem to disappear into space, and the vaulting is almost lost in the darkness. There are deep galleries over the side chapels in the aisles, which have a rather curious arrangement of vaulting. From the roof of the aisles at each bay depend massive circular lamps which catch the light and heighten the effect of mystery which is omnipresent throughout the Cathedral. A flight of steps in front of the High Altar--an almost unique feature--leads down to the crypt, where rests the body of Santa Eulalia, Barcelona's patron saint. Her alabaster shrine is adorned with reliefs of different incidents in her life. The _retablo_ of the High Altar is richly ornate with tapering Gothic finials of the fifteenth century; below it is a sarcophagus containing the remains of St. Severus. Above the Gothic _silleria del coro_ hang the coats-of-arms of the Knights of the Golden Fleece. Among them are those of Henry VIII. of England. The only installation of the Order was held here by Charles V. The side chapels contain very little of interest, but the cloisters are otherwise. Entered either from the street or the south door of the Cathedral their beauty is very striking. In the centre palms and orange trees rear their heads, and the splash of the fountains, in one of which the sacred geese are kept, is refreshingly cool after the bustle of streets outside. San Pablo del Campo, now a barrack, is the most interesting of Barcelona's ecclesiastical remains. This church, built by Wilfred II. in 913, is more like the ancient churches of Galicia than those of Catalonia. Very small and cruciform, a solid dome rises from the centre. Its cloisters are perfect, the arcading is composed of double shafts with well-cut figures on the capitals. The peculiarity of Catalonia's churches is well illustrated in the aisleless Santa Maria del Mar, San Just, and Santa Maria del Pi. The first named has some magnificent glass and four good pictures by Viladomát, and in the crypt beneath the High Altar a curious wooden figure of San Alajo. San Just has the belfry common to the churches of Catalonia, an open iron-work screen, from which depend the bells, and Santa Maria del Pi contains a fine wheel window and more magnificent glass. A relic of Loyola, the sword that he offered on the Altar of the Virgin at Montserrat, is still preserved in the old Jesuit Church of Nuestra Señora de Belen. Among the many notable buildings in Barcelona is the Casa Consistorial, or Town Hall. It was built in 1378, and has a very original Gothic front. A beautiful _patio_ with slender arches and twisted columns adds to the interest of the interior. The Casa de la Diputacion opposite contains the picture on which Fortuny was at work when he died. The _patio_ here is perhaps better than that in the Casa Consistorial. It is in three stages, from the topmost of which huge gargoyles of all sorts of devils and monsters rear their ugly heads. In the old quarters of the city, where the five-and six-storied houses almost touch, the streets are very tortuous and not considered safe at night. In this respect, however, Barcelona does not stand alone. Any one who ventures into the low parts of a Mediterranean seaport after dusk generally does so at his own risk. Very few brawls commence among the hot-blooded lower orders of the south without the finale of the knife. By far the most interesting suburb of the city is Barceloneta. This self-contained town is entirely given up to the fisherfolk and seafaring portion of Barcelona's inhabitants. Philip V., when planning his citadel, now demolished, turned out the people who dwelt where he afterwards erected it. To compensate them for loss of home and property, he built this well-planned and well-paved suburb out along the coast to the north-east. With the breeze coming in every afternoon off the sea my favourite walk was through the park to Barceloneta. Of all the seaports I know, Naples not excepted, though the Sta. Lucia of five-and-twenty years ago might have beaten it, the harbour front of Barceloneta is without an equal. Here one may watch the boat-builders at work under the oddest roofs imaginable, carpenters busy with the shaping of masts and oars, and ship's painters putting the finishing touches to boat accessories. I used to stand awhile admiring the inventive turn displayed on the exterior embellishments of the marine-dealers' stores. Wonderful pictures, of ships that could never float, from brushes wielded by very local talent in glaring vermilion and green. I watched the holiday-makers sitting in ramshackle booths, rapidly putting away all sorts of curiosities of the shell-fish order, and I wondered if they would survive the day. Perhaps the copious draughts of wine they took was an antidote, at any rate their laughter and good humour gave point to my unspoken thought--"let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." [Illustration: BARCELONA. THE RAMBLA] Going on, I often spent some time comparing the drill of artillery recruits, whose instructors marched them up and down on a quiet bit of the roadway, with those at home, and I generally finished my walk and sat me down on the glorious stretch of sand that runs away north as far as eye can follow. The evening would then draw in, and the twinkling lights on the ships in the harbour warn me it was time to return. While twilight lasted I retraced my steps homewards along the quay-side, invigorated by an afternoon of sea breeze and salt spray. The focus of Barcelona's life is the celebrated Rambla. The derivation of this word is Arabic--"Raml-sand"--a river bed, for a small stream at one time meandered down to the sea where now is the liveliest street in the north of Spain. On either side of the central promenade, under the shade of stately plane trees, are the carriage drives. The broad walk itself is thronged, especially in the morning when marketing is done, with an ever-changing crowd. Boys distribute hand-bills, dog-fanciers stroll about bargaining with dealers, itinerant merchants cry their wares. A family of father, mother, and children cross the stream of promenaders, followed by a pet lamb. Acquaintances meet and gossip away a good ten minutes. At the top end of the Rambla are situated the stalls of the bird-sellers, who also deal in mice, a great place this for mama and her small daughters. Lower down, the flower-sellers congregate under their red-striped umbrellas. It was here that I made my sketch, in which luckily, for a bit of colour, I was able to include the blue-bloused porters in their red caps who wait about for a job with the rope of their calling slung over their shoulders. Here too all the odd job men stand awaiting hire. House painters in white blouses with insignia of their trade--a whitewash brush on the end of a pole--held high, and others--an endless variety. Barcelona, being a business town, is democratic to the core, it is also to the core, Catalan. The names of streets are displayed in Catalan as well as Spanish. The animals in the Zoological Gardens also are known by their Catalan, and Castilian as well as Latin names! Barcelona will have no dealings with Castile, its people speak their own language and address the foreigner in French. Barcelona is go-ahead. In the houses of the new suburbs l'art nouveau screams at one, and everything is up-to-date! The Spaniard is well-known to be lazy, not so the Catalan. I have never seen a Spaniard running, but I have seen a Catalan walking fast! GERONA The siege of Gerona is as celebrated in the Spanish history of the Napoleonic wars as that of Saragossa. Both exemplify the bravery and tenacity of the Spaniard of the north. In the first siege in 1808, three hundred men of the Ulster Regiment, under their gallant leader O'Daly, helped to garrison the place against two ferocious attacks by Duchesne and his French soldiery. The first failed and the second ended in the utter rout of the besiegers with the loss of all the artillery and baggage train. In the following year three French generals with an army of thirty thousand men invested the city. Alvarez, the Spanish Governor, was almost without any means of defence, and the women of Gerona enrolled themselves under the banner of Santa Barbara, the patron saint of Spain's artillery, and took their places on the ramparts side by side with their husbands and sweethearts. Alvarez, ably seconded by a few English under Marshall, held out until he was struck down by disease and death. The city then, without a leader, its inhabitants starving, at length surrendered. So ancient is Gerona that its early history is lost in the mist of ages. Charlemagne drove the Moors out when they were in possession, but it soon passed back into their hands again. The Counts of Barcelona ruled over the place until the union of Catalonia and Aragon, an event which gave birth to the Crown Prince's title of Principe de Gerona. Hence we know that in the twelfth century it was a city of great importance. In consequence of its adhesion, at the end of the War of Succession, to the house of Hapsburg, Gerona was deprived of its privileges and university, since which time it has steadily gone down hill. Down hill it may have proceeded, but I found it a very pleasant, quaint old-world city set in the midst of verdant hills and running waters. Shady walks are taking the place of now useless fortifications; and have not I sat in one of the most delightful rose gardens you could wish to rest in, and heard the note of the nightingale trilling on the perfumed air? Most of Spain has gone down hill, and most of Spain is nothing but enchanting. [Illustration: GERONA. THE CATTLE MARKET] Gerona is bisected by the river Oñar, and from its waters which wash them, the houses rise tier above tier up the hill side. In the summer when the river is running low, and if it happens to be a Saturday, you will see one of the most remarkable sights that Spain can boast of. Under and around the arches of the old bridge are congregated hundreds of brown and fawn-coloured cattle. The background of ancient houses, yellow, grey, white, brown--every tone, rises up above this throng. Coloured garments, the week's washing, flutter in the breeze, green shutters and blinds hang from the creeper-clad balconies. It is market day. The lowing of oxen, mingled with the hum of bargaining humanity in red caps and Prussian-blue blouses, surges up like the sound of breakers on a distant shore. You who enter Spain by the east route, go to Gerona at the end of the week--you will never regret its Saturday market. The Cathedral stands well. The west façade, a Renaissance addition, is approached from the Plaza below by a grand flight of ninety steps in three tiers. In the unfinished jambs of the south door are a series of interesting terra-cotta figures dating from 1458. There is nothing else in the exterior worthy of note, but directly I entered I stopped in amazement at the daring of an architect who could build so enormous a span as that under which I found myself. This span is seventy-three feet, the clear width of the nave, and unsupported by any pillars. No flying buttresses outside give additional strength to the thrust of the roof. The stonework is perfect and the vaulting inside simple. So bold and hazardous were the plans of Guillermo Boffy that the chapter at first refused to sanction them. Being in doubts as to his sanity, they sought the opinion of twelve other architects, who were examined separately. As they all approved and passed Boffy's plans, the construction of this marvel was commenced, and the first stone laid in 1416. The apsidal chancel had been begun a century earlier and finished in 1346, pretty much on the same lines as this part of Barcelona's Cathedral. Unfortunately--how often does one have to acknowledge this!--the _coro_, with its hideous _respaldos_, painted to imitate Gothic arches in perspective, almost ruins this splendid and solemn interior. Among the seats of the _silleria del coro_ there are still preserved some that date from the fourteenth century. Early carved work of the same period is found in the elaborate _retablo_ over the High Altar, which is surmounted by three fine processional crosses. The _baldaquino_, also of wood, is covered like the _retablo_ with plates of silver. It is a mass of precious metal, enamelled coats-of-arms and gems, and is an extremely interesting relic of that century. [Illustration: GERONA. THE CATHEDRAL] Over the sacristy door are the tombs of Count Ramon Berenguer II. and his wife Ermensendis, who died in 1058, predeceasing her husband by twenty-four years. The sacristy itself contains a remarkable piece of twelfth-century crewel work, said to be the earliest known specimen in existence. It is covered with figures of a type similar to those of contemporary MSS. The Romanesque cloisters form an irregular trapezium. The columns are doubled and about a foot apart, not unlike those of Tarragona. The finest Romanesque example that Gerona possesses is the church of San Pedro de los Galligans. The apse, little damaged during the siege, forms a tower in the town wall. There is no doubt of the great antiquity of this building, which dates probably from the early part of the tenth century. The east end is mostly constructed of black volcanic scoriæ. The nave and aisles, the bays of which are very simply built, are almost prehistoric in their roughness. In the cloisters attached to the church is the Museo Provincial. Many relics of Gerona's heroic defence can here be seen, as well as some early Christian and Hebrew remains. TOLEDO Standing high above the yellow Tagus, which, confined in a deep gorge, rushes and swirls far below between precipitous granite cliffs, Toledo was always an ideal position for a fortress before modern firearms rendered Nature's defences of little avail. Its name is associated with the great Cardinals of the Rodrigo, Tenorio, and Foncesca families, as well as scions of the houses of Ximenes, Mendoza, Tavera, and Lorenzana. The wealth of these Prelates was immense, and their power, Ecclesiastical and Temporal, proportionate. They practically had no rivals, they certainly feared none, they ruled kings as well as countries, and their allegiance to Rome was purely nominal. They made wars and fought in them. For their patronage of art and literature future generations have had good cause to be grateful. They built schools and improved the means of communication throughout the land. Under their influence the Church was omnipotent, and they have written their names deep in the pages of Spanish history. In fact, so great was the power of Toledo's clergy that it grew to be the cause of the foundation of the Capital at Madrid. Philip II., who removed the Court from Valladolid to Toledo, found it better, after a short residence here, to take himself and his Court to a town where he no longer encountered the arrogance of Ecclesiastical rule. Under the Romans, who captured it in 193 B.C., "Toletum" became the capital of Hispania. Leovigild removed hither from Seville, and his successor, Reccared, who embraced the orthodox form of Christianity, made it the ecclesiastical as well as political capital of his dominions. For nearly four centuries, from 712, when the Moors took Toledo, it was under their rule; but divided counsels and the treachery of the down-trodden Hebrew enabled Alfonso VI. to enter in triumph with the Cid. The King then styled himself Emperor, and promoted the Archbishop to the Primacy of Spain. Under Alfonso's rule the city grew rapidly in every way. Churches and convents were built, defences strengthened, and Toledo knew no rival. With far-seeing wisdom, Moor and Christian were allowed to intermarry, and lived together in peace for wellnigh one hundred and fifty years. The advent in 1227 of that ecclesiastical firebrand, St. Ferdinand, however, altered this. One of his first acts was to pull down the Mosque, wherein the Moors of the city, by Alfonso's royal prerogative, had been allowed to worship, and commence the building on its site of the great Cathedral. [Illustration: TOLEDO. THE CATHEDRAL] For two hundred years and more did the architects who followed Pedro Perez add bit by bit, leaving their mark on its stones. Partly constructed of granite it is immensely strong. A softer stone has been used with great discretion in the decorative portions of the building. No comprehensive view of the Cathedral is obtainable, so closely do the houses surround it on the south and east, and creep up the hill on which it is built, on the north. The west front is best seen from the Plaza Ayuntamiento, a pleasant little garden which the Town Hall bounds on one side. I managed a sketch from the narrow street below this garden. Only one of the two towers of the west façade is finished as originally intended. The other is capped by a dome, designed by El Greco, that painter of the weird, and under which is the chapel wherein the Mozárabic ritual is celebrated daily at 9 A.M. The great west door, La Puerta del Perdon, is enriched with embossed bronze work. Flanking on it either side are the doors of Las Palmas, and de los Escribanos. The arches of all three have figures in the jambs, which are continued round each arch in the very best Gothic of the fifteenth century. Above the doors the façade is adorned with a sculptured Last Supper and colossal figures in niches. In the centre is a splendid rose window twenty-eight feet in diameter. The north transept is entered from the steep Calle de la Chapineria by La Puerta del Reloj, the oldest doorway of the Cathedral. Its bronze doors, of later date than the doorway, were cast to match those of La Puerta de los Leones in the south transept. This doorway's name is derived from the Lions, which holding shields, occupy positions on its pillars. Another entrance is through La Puerta de la Presentacion which opens on the cloisters. The effect produced by the magnificent interior is much enhanced by the beauty of the glass which fills most of the windows. The earliest are on the north side of the nave, and form a series which was commenced in 1418 and finished one hundred and fifty years later. The glass in the rose window over the west door is superb, and the same may be said for that in the north transept and the wheel window over La Puerta de los Leones. There is no triforium, and the transepts do not project beyond the nave. The arches of the very beautiful chancel serve as niches for figures. Here in each bay is a rose window forming a clerestory, and the colours in the glass of these shine like jewels in a crown. [Illustration: TOLEDO. THE SOUTH TRANSEPT] There are in all twenty chapels, every one of which contains something worth study. The lofty _retablo_ in the Capilla Mayor is of the richest Gothic. Above is a colossal Calvary of later workmanship. Cardinal Ximenes built this chapel, among the many monuments of which are the tombs of Spain's earliest kings. Separating it from the _crucero_ is a magnificent Plateresque _reja_, on either side of which stands a gilded pulpit. Behind the _retablo_ is the _transparente_, much admired by Toledans, but the one jarring note in the finest of Spain's Cathedrals. This theatrical mass of marble figures, in the midst of which the Archangel Rafael kicks his feet high in the air and squeezes a gold fish in one hand! is lit from a window let into the roof of the apse. The Capilla de Reyes Nuevos contains the tombs of the kings descended from Henry II. His tomb and that of his wife, as well as the spouse of Henry III., a daughter of John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster, are among the many that crowd the walls. The Capilla de San Ildefonso is an extremely beautiful example of early Gothic work. The much-mutilated tomb in the centre of Cardinal Albornoz is a masterpiece of the same style. Many other great Ecclesiastics rest in this elegant octagon, notably Inigo de Mendoza, Viceroy of Sardinia, who was killed at the siege of Granada. The Capilla de Santiago was erected in 1435 by Alvaro de Luna, the man who saved Spain for Juan II. by repressing the turbulent nobles, and who for his fidelity was rewarded by disgrace and execution in the Plaza Mayor at Valladolid. The scallop shells which decorate the walls represent de Luna's office of Grand Master of the Order of Santiago. Cardinal Ximenes re-established the Mozárabic Ritual, which is celebrated in the Capilla Mozárabe, as a reminder to the Pope that Spain did not owe implicit allegiance to Rome. The small detached Capilla de la Descension de Nuestra Señora stands against the second pier in the north aisle. It marks the spot where the Virgin came down and presented San Ildefonso with the _casulla_ or chausable. The Salle Capitular is a grand example of early sixteenth-century work, with a Plateresque frieze and gilt _artesonado_ ceiling by Francisco de Lara. It contains a series of portraits of the Cardinal Archbishops of Toledo, and frescoes by Juan de Borgoña. The work of this painter is to be met with throughout the Cathedral. The _coro_ occupies two bays of the nave and is a veritable museum of carving and sculpture. Its _silleria_ are in two rows. The lower is of walnut and enriched with scenes representing the campaigns of Ferdinand and Isabella. The upper of the same wood is a perfect classical contrast and is inlaid not carved. Berruguete, whose work may be best studied in Valladolid, executed the seats on the south side, and Vigarney those on the north. A small figure of the Virgin in blackened stone looks really ancient. It stands in the middle of the _coro_ on a pedestal. Nicolas de Vergara was responsible for the two reading desks, which are masterpieces of gilded metal work. The Gothic cloisters enclose a delightful garden, and have an upper cloister reached by a door in the Archbishop's Palace. From this pleasant _claustro alto_ a very good idea of the size of the Cathedral is obtained. Space does not permit me to enlarge on the manifold works of art which this noble building contains. The pictures, the iron work--though I must just mention a beautifully fanciful knocker of two nude nymphs hanging downwards from the head of a satyr whose hands clasped together form the handle, which adorns La Puerta de la Presentacion--the sculpture, notably that on the _respaldo_, or outer wall of the _coro_, and the many relics in the Treasury, would all occupy more than I can afford. Suffice it to say that nowhere in Spain is there a Gothic building of such well-proportioned dimensions, such simplicity in its leading features, such a fine idea in the interior of the spacing out of light and shade, as in this magnificent Cathedral--the grandest of the three due to French influence. And Toledo's churches? There are nearly sixty still remaining, every street seems to contain one! And Toledo's convents? There are almost as many. Of the former, San Juan de los Reyes, on the high ground above the bridge of Saint Martin, the last remnant left of a once wealthy Franciscan convent, was built by Cardinal Ximenes in commemoration of the "Catholic Kings" victory of Toro. On its outer walls still hang the manacles and chains of the captive Christians who were set free at the conquest of Granada, and the interior is embellished with the arms of Ferdinand and Isabella, and covered with sculptured heraldry. [Illustration: TOLEDO. THE ZÓCODOVER] Santa Maria la Blanca, originally a Jewish synagogue, is in the _Mudéjar_ style, and has some charming arabesques, with a fine cedar ceiling said to be of wood from the trees at Lebanon. Almost opposite--we are in the Juderia, or Jews' quarter, to the south-east of San Juan de los Reyes--is another synagogue, el Transito. Built in 1366 by Samuel Levi, Pedro the Cruel's treasurer, in the Moorish style, it is almost a better piece of architecture than Santa Maria la Blanca. Levi lived next door, in the house known now as La Casa del Greco, that painter having occupied it during his residence in Toledo. The house and synagogue are connected by a secret passage from the vaults of the former. These are of immense size and strength, and in Levi's day held an enormous amount of treasure--too much for the poor man's good. His royal master, when sufficient was accumulated, put him to death and appropriated all he could find. El Cristo de la Luz, one of the most interesting churches in Toledo, was originally a tiny mosque. It is divided into nine different compartments by four columns, from the capitals of which spring sixteen arches. It was here that Alfonso VI. attended the first Mass after the city was captured. Close by is the Convent of San Domingo el Real, where a glimpse may be had of picturesque nuns while at their devotions during early service. As the station 'bus rattled up the steep winding ascent to the Despacho Central we dashed through the Zocodovér, the square celebrated for numerous _auto de fés_ and other executions. All day long it is crowded with sauntering folk, who walk up and down, quietly enough now, on the scene of much former cruelty, bloodshed, and many bull-fights. On its eastern side a fine Moorish arch leads down the hill by a footpath to the Bridge of Alcántara. Immediately the arch is passed on the left lies the old Hospital de Santa Cruz. It is one of the best examples of the Transition to Renaissance in Spain. The portal is deeply undercut and elaborately carved in soft "white rose" stone and marble. The inner gate is plateresque and only surpassed by San Marcos at Leon and the gateway of the university at Salamanca. Cardinal Mendoza's arms adorn the beautiful _patio_, which has a double arcade of great elegance, and the stone work on the balustrade of the staircase leading out of this is very fine. Opposite, on the other side of this steep descent, are the Military Governor's quarters which are dominated by the huge Alcázar, now the Military Academy for Infantry Cadets. Destroyed by fire in 1886, the present edifice, rebuilt soon after, is seen in the illustration of the Alcántara Bridge rising a great square mass on the top of the hill. It was the fortress and palace of Moorish days. Alvaro de Luna had a share in its alteration and Herrera completed it to the present size by additions executed for Philip II. Many a time has it been sacked by the conquerors of Toledo and many a prisoner of note passed his last hours within its gloomy walls, before being led out to death in the Zocodovér. [Illustration: TOLEDO. THE ALCÁNTARA BRIDGE] Both Toledo's bridges are magnificent. The Alcántara, crossed on the way from the station, has but a couple of arches which span the mighty river at a great height. It is defended by a gateway at either end, that on the inner side being the Moorish Tower in my sketch. The Bridge of Saint Martin has one arch of enormous span with four smaller, which carry it over the rushing Tagus. Between these two bridges from the opposite bank of the river one gets the best idea of Toledo's strength. Nothing in Spain surpasses the grim majesty of the city, which rises above the sun-baked and wind-blistered crags that form the gorge below through which the river has cut its way. No spot could have been better chosen for defence than the hill enclosed in this "horseshoe" of mad waters. Small wonder that within its encircling walls grew up a race of Prelates whose rule spread far beyond the borders of Castile, and whose powerful hand was felt in countries of an alien tongue. Of the eight city gates the most interesting is the Puerta del Sol, a Moorish structure with two towers on either side of a horseshoe arch. It is close to the little church of el Cristo de la Luz, and from either of the towers a very good idea is obtained of Toledo's defences. Near the Puerta del Cambon, another of the gates, is the site of the old palace of the last of the Spanish Goths, Roderic, who lost his life on the banks of the Guadalete near Cadiz when giving battle to Tarik and his Berbers. My whole impression of Toledo was that of a city of gloom. Its larger houses were forbidding in the extreme. In these a huge portal, with armorial bearings and massive pillars, defended by a stout iron-bound door, opens into a dark porch, from which one enters the _patio_ through an equally strong entrance. The windows that look on to the street are heavily barred and none are within reach of the pedestrian. Its streets, too narrow and steep for vehicular traffic, are as silent as the grave (most Spaniards wear shoes made of esparto grass or soft leather), save when a young cadet from the Alcázar passes along rattling his sword, and attracts the attention of the señoritas who sit high up in those inaccessible balconies. Built on the Moorish plan, these tortuous thoroughfares twist and turn like a maze, and it seemed to me that the sun never entered them. Houses and streets, walls and towers, still remain as they were in the great Cardinal's days, and stand, even now, as symbols of the iron rule of the Church. The Cardinal's hat is to be found graved in stone over many a door, and the "Sheaf of Arrows," the arms of the "Catholic Kings," is still to be seen over the entrance of what was once the palace of Pedro the Cruel. Toledo blades are still made and proved in the ugly factory a mile outside the city. Toledo ware (made in Germany) is sold by most of the shops. The growing trade in liquorice is a modern industry, but if it were not for another recent innovation, the Military Academy, it would take no stretch of the imagination to carry one back again into the Middle Ages and to sink one's individuality and become a human atom under the rule of the great Church. SALAMANCA Before I ever thought that Fate would take me to Spain, I had formed in my mind, as one is apt to do, a Spain of my own, a Spain of glorious romance. I had been in many cities throughout the country, but it was not until I reached Salamanca that, "Surely," thought I, "the Spain of my imagination is now realised." Here in the middle of the plain, with which one's thoughts are somehow familiar, rises the great Cathedral, its towers are landmarks for miles round. Here is a beautiful river winding through valleys deep cut in the ochre-coloured soil, its banks are clad with verdure and it is spanned by an ancient bridge. Away over the plain, just visible in the haze, are the blue mountains of the south. In the midst of all, the dull mud and yellow walls of the city, the many-hued roofs of red and brown, with deep shadows under their eaves, rise tier above tier to the Cathedral above. And this, the prototype of Spain's greatness, her Church, the ever-present reminder that in days gone by its princes led her armies to victory and placed her in the van of nations. I am standing on the noble bridge, half of which is even now as it was in the days of the Roman occupation. Those massive walls up there of monasteries and convents always formed part of the picture of my imagination. They bake under a September sun, just as all Spain ought to do. A long string of heavily laden mules trots past, their bells jingling merrily, their drivers shouting and cracking their whips. A well set-up peasant with his head in a handkerchief and broad-brimmed hat, cut-away tunic, red sash and tight knee breeches, canters by seated on a high peaked saddle. His well-bred horse shows a good deal of the Arab strain, across its quarters are a couple of rugs and its rider carries an umbrella. A beggar stops before me, and prays that, for the love of the Holy Mary, I will give him a _perro chico_. Two wizened old cronies go by chattering about Manuelo's wife. One carries a couple of fowls tied together by their legs, the poor birds are doing their best to hold their heads in a natural position. Some little urchins are throwing stones at the washerwomen by the riverside below. An old man seated on a donkey's rump ambles past. Yes, this is what I imagined Spain to be. I turn my steps towards the city. I wander by the Cathedral and reach the great university of the middle ages. What would Salamanca have been without its university! I pass many fine houses, with coats-of-arms emblazoned over their portals. I gaze at their high walls and windows barred to keep the intruder from the fair sex. Most of them seem falling into decay, but this only adds to the romance. At length I reach an arcaded square. The columns of the arcades are wooden, they are at all sorts of angles, but the houses above still stand. The sun blazes down on scores of picturesque market folk, who sell almost everything from peaches and fowls to little tinsel images and double-pronged hoes. Dogs are sniffing about picking up stray scraps. Children run in and out, fall down and get up laughing. Every one is busy. The animation of this little square, as I suddenly come upon it out of a deeply shaded and aristocratic street, is just the Spain I had always thought of--a Spain of contrasts. Brilliant sun and grateful shade. Seclusion behind high walls, and a strange medley of noisy folk, for ever bargaining, buying and selling. Certainly in Salamanca it is all here. I hear the click of the castanets and the sound of the guitar in the evening, I see the ardent lover standing at those iron bars whispering soft raptures to his mistress, and the picture is complete. [Illustration: SALAMANCA] Salamanca is a sleepy old city which the world seems to have left behind. In the summer it is a veritable furnace, in the winter it is swept by icy blasts. Before the Christian era it was known as Salmantica. Hannibal came and captured it in B.C. 247 and under the Romans it was the ninth military station on the great road which they built connecting Cadiz and Merida with Astorga and Gijón. Alfonso IX. of Leon founded the university, which reached its zenith as a seat of learning during the sixteenth century. Philip II., having transferred his Court from Valladolid to Toledo, made Salamanca's bishop suffragan to that city's, since when it seems to have been left out in the cold and slowly but surely proceeded down hill. This is the reason, I think, why it attracted me so much. It is essentially a city with a Past and of the Past. The French under Thiébaut pulled it to pieces and used the material from its demolished buildings to fortify the place. This was in 1811. The following year saw Marmont's troops utterly routed by Wellington, three miles south of the fortifications. It was this victory that gained him his Marquisate and a grant from Parliament of £100,000. Like Saragossa, Salamanca possesses two Cathedrals. The older intensely interesting in every way, the later, a huge late Gothic pile begun in 1513 and finished in 1733. This immense structure affords a good study of the changes of architectural taste spread over the years which intervened between these two dates. [Illustration: SALAMANCA. THE OLD CATHEDRAL] The west façade is a marvel of intricate sculpture in the richly-coloured soft stone that has been used as if it were plaster or wax. Late Gothic predominates amidst a deal of Plateresque and Barroque ornament. Despite its incongruities it is extremely fine, but would look even better if some of the numerous niches had not lost their statues, and if little boys did not find a pastime in lodging stones amongst those that are left, greatly I fear to their detriment. Over the double doorway are high reliefs of the Nativity and Adoration of the Magi, a negro prince being an especially good figure in the latter subject. Above is a Crucifixion. The north porch is also very fine and gains in effect, as indeed does the whole of this side of the Cathedral, by the raised piazza on which it is built. The approach is up some dozen steps, the whole of the piazza being surrounded by pillars as at Leon and Seville. Juan Gil de Hontañon, who designed this and the sister Cathedral at Segovia, surpassed himself with the Great Tower and its finely-proportioned dome, the top of which is 360 feet high. The crocketed pinnacles, the flying buttresses, the dome over the crossing, and the wonderful deep yellow of this huge church, whatever may be one's opinion about the architecture, make it one of the most impressive of Spain's Cathedrals. I was disappointed with the interior on first acquaintance, but it has only to be known to be appreciated. The imposing proportions, it is 340 feet long, 158 feet wide and close on 100 feet high, gradually asserted themselves, and before I left Salamanca I was much in love with Hontañon's masterpiece. A pierced balustrade takes the place of a triforium, flamboyant Renaissance in the aisles and classical in nave. It runs round the whole church and in the transepts and choir these two occur together. Medallions in the spandrils of the arches add to the rich effect. Many details in this interior I found to be worth a second and third visit. The Chapel of Dorado, a veritable museum, contains the tomb of the builder, Fransico de Palenzuela. Its walls are covered with a profusion of coloured saints on gilt pedestals. There is a very curious old organ, standing at the back of an also curious old minstrel's gallery. A sad-looking skeleton, with "Memento Mori" cut on a slab at his feet, occupies a dark hole in one of the walls. Fine _azulejos_ decorate the chapel, and many other antiquities too, which I cannot enumerate. In the Capilla del Carmen rest the remains of Gerómino, the Cid's bishop and confessor. An ancient wooden crucifix stands over the altar, it is the identical one carried by the bishop in the wars of the Cid. Another relic of the great Campeador is to be seen in the Relicario. A small Byzantine bronze, "el Crucifijo de las Batallas," studded with chequer work--a fine specimen of early Limoges enamel. All this interested me muchly, but the "Catedral Vieja," a grand example of late Romanesque style, interested me more. Fortis Salmantica, as it was called, on account of the thickness of its walls, has not been used for service since its huge neighbour was erected. I made a drawing of the only view which can be obtained of the exterior from the Plazuela chica. The central lantern is surmounted by the emblem of nobility, a cock, and is formed by an octagonal tower with a stone dome. The tower is arcaded and has four domed turrets and dormers at the corners similar to those at Zamora. Street considers that he has "never seen any central lantern more thoroughly good and effective from every point of view than this is." To reach the interior one has to retrace one's steps to the "Catedral Nueva" and from its south aisle pass through a doorway into the other building. This was erected on a lower level than its big neighbour and with the attendant verger I descended ten steps and found myself in a very beautiful mellow-coloured church. The arches of the nave and aisles are pointed, but the windows and arcading are round. The capitals of the columns are a museum of carved fantasies, imps, animals, birds, &c. On the wall of the north aisle, which was partly demolished when the "Catedral Nueva" was built, are some very curious frescoes; the church has a clerestory of single lights but no triforium. There is a wonderful _retablo_ in the Capilla Mayor by an Italian, Nicolas Florentino. It is still in perfect preservation, and the fifty-five frescoes set in white and gold of which it is composed have a beautiful effect in the semi-gloom of the dark chapel. The Mozárabic Ritual is celebrated six times a year in another chapel, La Capilla de Talavera. The groining of its roof is the only one of the sort I have seen, it is composed of parallel ribs which cross one another. In the Capilla de San Bartolomé lies Bishop Diego de Anaya. His tomb is surrounded by one of the finest examples of wrought and hammered iron work in the whole of Spain. Some other members of this family are also interred in the chapel, which contains a mediæval organ covered by a screen of coloured Moorish arabesques. [Illustration: SALAMANCA. AN OLD STREET.] The cloisters were built in 1170, but have been partly modernised and totally disfigured by a coat of whitewash. An uncared-for garden filled with rubbish occupies the centre. Surely some one might be found to tend this little secluded patch of quietness and make it a place for delightful repose instead of the disgrace it now is! Before the French occupation Salamanca was a city of churches and monastic buildings. To build their fortifications they destroyed thirteen convents and twenty colleges besides many churches. The south-west corner of the city is still an empty desert full of rubble and stone strewn about everywhere, the remains of the now dismantled fortress which overlooked the valley of the Tormes. Among the churches left, that attached to the now suppressed Dominican Convent of San Estéban is by far the finest. It is a miniature Cathedral in itself. The Gothic exterior is extremely good. The great west façade is highly enriched with Plateresque ornament. An elliptical arch of great dimensions roofs the porch. Below it is a realistic group illustrating the martyrdom of St. Stephen, with the date 1610 cut upon a stone which one of the figures is picking up to hurl at the saint. The _coro_ is over the west end, and for once the whole of the interior is visible. This is very lofty, and the view up to the immense High Altar, executed by Chirriguera himself, superb. There are two more altars in the church by the same hand, and although his flamboyant style is not to my liking, I could not help admiring the way in which he had evidently allowed himself all the licence he was capable of in their sumptuous design. To the south of the little _plaza_ in which San Estéban stands are the cloisters of the convent, in the upper storey of which is Salamanca's museum. Unfortunately it contains nothing of interest. Columbus was lodged by the Dominicans in this convent, and propounded those schemes to the monks, which the learned members of the university had pronounced worthless and crack-brained. He found in Fray Diego de Deza and the other brothers warm supporters. The once magnificent Convent of las Agustinas Recoletas, founded by the Count of Monterey, has a beautiful church in the shape of a Latin Cross. Over the High Altar is one of Ribera's masterpieces--_The Immaculate Conception_. Monterey was known as "the good slow man" and was Viceroy of Naples in Philip IV.'s reign. He accumulated great wealth during his Viceroyalty and built himself the fine palace which stands close to the convent. There is an anecdote current in Salamanca that when a peasant woman craved an audience of the King, which he granted, she prayed "God might make him also Viceroy of Naples." The University which made Salamanca famous was united with that of Palencia by Ferdinand, and very soon took the foremost rank as a seat of learning in Europe, though at the Council of Constance in the year 1414, Oxford was given precedence, a ruling which much disgusted the patriotic Spaniard. The building was entirely altered by the "Catholic Kings," who erected the marvellous west façade, one of the best examples of Plateresque work in the country. Like that of the Cathedral and San Estèban, it is a wonderful example of what can be done with soft stone, and how well the most delicate modelling has survived in this dry climate. Some of the Moorish ceilings of the interior have been restored. The grand staircase leading to the upper floors and cloister is especially well carved with dancers and foliage. Over the door of each _aula_, or lecture room, is a tablet denoting the science taught within. The fine library is rich in theological lore and early editions of Aristotle, &c. The little square on to which the west façade opens also leads through a good doorway into the Grammar School, with a delicious cloister and shady garden. The four sides of the square and the walls of the Cathedral are covered with numerous hieroglyphics and names in Roman characters. They are the initials, signs, and names of the numerous scholars who have distinguished themselves in different walks of life. A custom now followed in all our own schools on boards of honour. The Collegio Mayor de Santiago Apostol is a seminary for Irish priests. The number in training is generally about twenty. This building, originally founded in 1592 by Philip II. and dedicated to St. Patrick, is a very good example of cinquecento architecture. Among the many fine houses still left after French depredations, that of La Casa de las Conchas is the most celebrated. It dates from 1512, and is so named on account of the scallop shells which decorate the exterior walls. The window grilles are exceptionally fine. The Spanish proverb "La mujer y el vidrio siempre estan en peligro"--"a woman and glass are always in danger," evidently held good when these intricate and beautiful guards were let into the stone. The house has a lovely _patio_ and a very fine staircase. La Casa de Sal is another house with a good court, the gallery above being supported by life-size figures. La Casa de las Duendes, or Ghosts, built by Archbishop Fonseca, was supposed to be haunted, hence the name. The Torre del Clavero is a good specimen of the Castilian keep. It was built in 1488 by a Sotomayer who was Clavero or Key-bearer to the Alcántara Order, and is still in the possession of this noble family. Throughout the churches, in these houses, and the convents which remain unsuppressed are many fine pictures, and except for Seville, I found here more of interest than in any other city of Spain. In the convents of course mortal man is forbidden entrance, and I could only look at their lofty walls and wish myself a nearer acquaintance with the artistic treasures which I was told lay buried behind them. Perhaps the best example of a square in the whole of the country is the Plaza Mayor. A lofty colonnade runs around the four sides and every evening the beauties and others of Salamanca make it their promenade. The men stroll round in one direction and the women in the opposite. The social life of a Spanish town passed in view before me, with all its fan and language of the eyes, as I sat at one of the small tables of a café and got this cheap and harmless entertainment for one _real_. The square dates from 1720; the houses are four storeys high and on the north and south sides bear medallions of kings and celebrated men. The Ayuntamiento, with its chirrigueresque façade, occupies the centre of the north side and adds greatly to the appearance of this fine Plaza where up to fifty years ago bull fights took place. My work over, I nearly always found myself wandering on to the desert created by the French at the south-west angle of the city, and with my pipe spending half an hour or so meditating on the Salamanca of the Past and its contrast with the Present. The rock stands high here over the road and river below, and there is a drop of 100 feet or more down on to the former. It is but a narrow lane hedged in by a high wall and this forbidding-looking rock. When walking along this lane one day I noticed many crosses cut in the wall and chalked red. On inquiry I was told that each cross represented a suicide. From the height above, those tired of life or disappointed in love hurl themselves down and it is the unwritten law or prerogative of him who finds the mutilated body to carve a little cross on the wall at the spot where the unhappy mortal has ended his days. But it was not to prevent suicides that I wandered there and sat smoking my afternoon pipe. No, I fear it was something inglorious, it was to get away from the stenches and filth of the town and breathe the fresh air of the plain. I do not think that anywhere, unless it be in Tarragona, were my olfactory nerves so insulted as in Salamanca. Flies in thousands settled on my colour box and paper wherever I sat sketching. I can now appreciate fully the torture of the Egyptians during the plague. Add to the flies beggars innumerable, with horrible sores, offal and filth in the streets and some of the romance vanishes. Yet Salamanca still remains the Spain of my imagination, for was not all this part and parcel of my dream? AVILA Avila is one of the most perfectly preserved towns in Spain. It gave me the impression of having been dropped from the sky,--complete as it is--so desolate and barren is the boulder-strewn waste that surrounds it. A sort of suburb pushes its mean houses straggling beyond the walls, but Avila itself lies snugly within them. They are perfect--these walls that entirely encircle the old portion of the town. Forty feet high, twelve thick, with eighty-six defensive towers and bastions, and ten gates, they are constructed of slabs of granite set end upwards, and were always a hard nut for invaders to crack. The Roman Avela afterwards fell into the hands of the Moors, who for long held it as a fortress of the first class. Alfonso VI., the conqueror of Toledo, drove them out after a lengthy siege, and Avila was rebuilt by his son Ramon of Burgundy. It was then that the present walls were built, being erected under the supervision of two foreigners, a Frenchman and an Italian, Florian de Pituenga and Cassandro. Since their day Avila has played an important _rôle_ in the history of the country and witnessed many strange events. In 1465 an extraordinary scene took place on the plain outside the city. That unpopular king, Enrique IV., was reigning at the time, and the hatred of the people towards him reached its height when his effigy was dragged from the city and set upon a throne which had been prepared for the ceremony of degradation. The Archbishop of Toledo having recounted the people's grievances, removed the crown from the effigy's head, others high in the land insulted it and at length pushed it off the throne, the people then kicked it about and a game of "socker" ensued. Prince Alfonso, a mere boy, was raised to the unoccupied seat, and hailed King by the Archbishop, nobles and people, amidst a blare of trumpets and general rejoicing. Avila is an intensely cold place, frosts often occur here in May, but the summer months are delightful. Every street, every house almost is of interest, and in the old days of its importance there could have been few strongholds in the country so safe as this. The Cathedral is almost a fort in itself. The east end forms part of the city walls, the apse abutting in line with the next two towers on either side forms part of the defensive works. [Illustration: AVILA] Commenced at the end of the eleventh century by Alva Garcia, a native of Navarre, this early Gothic building is still unfinished. Not much is, however, of this early date, for the general style of the building is of the end of the next century, and many alterations have followed this in later years. The west front has but one tower, the north--the other, the south, does not rise above the roof. The favourite ball decoration of late Gothic Spain is in evidence, and guarding the doorway are a couple of uncouth mace-bearers. Very terrible are these hairy granite men, but not so dangerous looking as the two lions which stand on pedestals and are chained to the Cathedral walls. Always on guard, these four strange figures have no doubt many a time struck a holy terror into the hearts of would-be evil-doers as they entered the church, and I daresay kept the thoughts of others in the straight line. The north door is early pointed and carries figures in each jamb, the tympanum is decorated with reliefs of the Betrayal and Last Supper, but all the figures are sadly mutilated. The third entrance is at the south-east corner of the Cathedral, and is a later addition, opening outside the walls of the city on to the Calle de S. Segundo. The interior of the Cathedral is very simple and massive, partaking more of strength than elegance. It is a fitting inside to the severity of the fortress-like exterior. The nave is narrow and lofty, and so are the aisles. The large clerestory windows have their tracery above blocked up, and the lower lights have been treated in the same way, thus giving a certain resemblance to a triforium, a feature the church does not possess. The aisles in the apse are double, like those at Tortosa, and although the single columns in the centre are very beautiful, these aisles have not the elegance of those in the other Cathedral. The apse is very dark, the stone work at one time was painted red and the little that remains of this colour adds to the religious gloom of its double aisles. The columns throughout the Cathedral were built to bear great weight, their capitals are simple and their bases the same. The little light that glimmers through the windows adds greatly to the sombre strength of this fine building, which, more than any other of its size, reflects the life of the Spain of those days in which it was erected. Street thinks it less influenced by outside art than any other building in the country, and instances the unique method of laying the stone of the root as supporting this opinion. The transepts contain some good glass, as also do the windows in the chancel. There are many good early tombs throughout the Cathedral. Judging from their style Avila was left alone when Chirriguera was erecting monstrosities elsewhere, and to me it is the most homogeneous of Spain's Cathedrals. The _retablo_ over the High Altar rises in three stages and contains pictures by Berruguete, Santos Cruz and Juan de Borgoña. On this account my last remark might be criticised, for the whole piece is a jumble of styles. The chancel is, however, too narrow for a view of this medley from the body of the church, and wherever one roams in the building nothing attracts the eye or disturbs the mind by being too flagrantly incongruous. So dark is the apse that the Renaissance _trassegrario_ does not obtrude in the early Gothic of its surroundings. The very fine tomb of Bishop Alfonso de Madrigal, the Solomon of his day, is fortunately illumined by a little light, and I could see the effigy of this wise Prelate seated at his desk busily engaged with his pen and scroll, while above him the Magi and Shepherds are adoring in a good relief. There are some early paintings in most of the chapels, the _retablo_ in that of San Pedro being perhaps the best. The work of Cornielis, a Flemish sculptor, _circa_ 1537-47, is admirably displayed in the very beautiful carving of the _silleria de coro_, and there is no better example of Spanish metal work of the fifteenth century to be found than in the two iron-gilt pulpits. The sacristy contains a splendid silver monstrance by Arfe, and an Italian enamelled chalice of the fourteenth century by Petrucci Orto of Siena. The cloisters are disappointing, having been much mutilated and the fourteenth-century tracery of the arches blocked up. Avila, like its neighbour Segovia, contains some of the best examples of Romanesque work, and its many churches are archæologically as interesting as the Cathedral. Sheltering from the keen north wind under the arcade of San Vicente I made a sketch of the gateway of that name. The church was founded in 1307 and dedicated to three martyrs who were put to death on the rock which may still be seen in the crypt below. The west façade has two incomplete towers, between which is a most elaborately carved Romanesque doorway, standing in a deeply recessed arch. [Illustration: AVILA. PUERTA DE SAN VICENTE] The pure Romanesque nave has both triforium and clerestory and the unusual feature of pointed vaulting. The proportions of this noble church are very fine, but the interest of the non-architectural visitor will be centred in the Tomb of San Vicente and his two sisters SS. Sabina and Cristeta. A metal work canopy resting on twisted columns surmounts the tomb which is a sarcophagus of the thirteenth century. The legend tells how, after the martyrdom of these three, the body of the first-named was cast out to the dogs, and that a serpent came out of the hole in the rock (still visible) and watched over it. A Jew who mocked was smitten unto death by the reptile and lies buried in the south transept. The transept choir and three semicircular apses are Transitional, and carry a barrel vaulting. Outside the city wall, a little way down the hillside and beyond the dirty suburb that intervenes, is the late Gothic church of San Tomás. It possesses a fine _retablo_ of the patron St. Thomas Aquinas. The High Altar is placed in a gallery above a low elliptical arch, this feature being repeated at the west end with the _coro_ above. At the crossing of the transepts is the beautiful but greatly mutilated tomb of Prince Juan, the only son of Ferdinand and Isabella, by whose untimely death the crown of Spain passed to Austria. Two other tombs of great interest are those of Juan de Avila and Juana Velasquez. Messer Dominco, the Florentine, executed them both. San Pedro, standing at the east side of the Mercado Grande, is another Romanesque church of great beauty. Over the west door is a fine wheel window. The interior is pure Romanesque and rich in ornament, and the north portal is replete with the same. Santa Teresa was born of noble parents in Avila. In her early youth her heart hungered for saintly adventures in the broiling sun of Africa and her mind was set upon martyrdom at the hands of the Moors. Fate, however, decreed otherwise. At twenty years of age she took the veil and within a few years had founded seventeen convents of bare-footed Carmelite nuns. A favourite saint of Spain, the date of her death, August 27, is kept all over the Peninsula and her festival celebrated with great honour in Avila on October 15. SEGOVIA Dirty, dilapidated and sleepy, but the most enchanting town in Spain. What a treat it was to find myself once more in the Middle Ages after the bustle and noise of Madrid! The springs of a Spanish 'bus are good. I never entered one without great misgivings as to how long I was fated to remain in this world. To drive into a town such as Segovia is a grand test for the nerves. Crack goes the whip, off start the sorry-looking horses with a jerk. I am flung violently against my neighbour. I hasten to apologise. A disconcerting jolt knocks the hat over my eyes, before it is adjusted I find myself in an attitude of prayer with my head buried in the lap of the stout lady who pants opposite, another bump and she is embracing me, we disentangle ourselves, we apologise, every one in the 'bus is doing the same. The Jehu on the box fears no obstacles, a rock or a rut, they are all the same to him, he takes them all with utter disregard to everything in his way. We fly along, and somehow we land safely. We always do. Yes, the steel of those spiderlike springs must be good, or the saints are watching our venture. Perhaps both. The scenery on the journey from Madrid is very fine after the train leaves the junction at Villalba. Slowly we crawled up the incline winding round and doubling on our course. Merry little snow-fed streams eager to join with their fellows below sped along in a race to the sea. The summer villas of the Madrileños dot the hill slopes on the ground above the withy beds. We went up and up until the highest point on the line was reached under the road along which, marching north, Napoleon's troops toiled in the face of a fearful blizzard. Before entering the tunnel at the top of the pass a glorious panorama is spread out to the south. Away in the distance are the mountains of Toledo and the spires of far-off Madrid. On leaving this point the descent became rapid, and we whirled through a magnificent valley amidst true Alpine scenery. The rugged tops of the Sierra rose above thick forests of pine, brawling torrents dashed headlong down through green pastures, grand cattle were browsing on every side, it was indeed more Swiss than Spanish. [Illustration: SEGOVIA AT SUNSET] One often hears the question asked--why are there no trees in Spain? A French writer answers, that the Moors are responsible for the lack of shade in a Spanish landscape. He tells us they cut down all the trees they found, because trees harbour birds, and birds destroy all fruit and grain!--a truly ingenious theory, quite worthy of the fertile brains of the French, but surely a most ridiculous solution. The Moor brought the orange and the lemon to Europe; he was a lover of shade, he was also a great gardener. No, the reason why Spain has apparently no trees, is that very few have been planted for hundreds of years. Wood is necessary for fires in a country where there is practically no coal. The peasant has always been poor, he has always taken anything that came to hand. He helped himself to the wood of the forests around him. His betters did the same. All the trees near Madrid are known to have been ruthlessly cut down and sold to defray the expenses of Philip II.'s Court; and it is only of recent years that any replanting has been taken in hand. When the present King was a boy of four years old, a ceremony, now repeated every year at the Fiesta del Arbol, was inaugurated. The Queen Mother took him to Guindebra outside Madrid, where he planted several trees. At every anniversary the day is devoted by school children all over the country to this same object. As many as 10,000 saplings have been put into the ground in a single day, thus laying by a store of wealth for future generations. Segovia is surrounded by trees. Hidden from the great plain in which the town lies, they cover the banks of the two streams which join issue below the city, thus forming the mass of rock on which it stands. These valleys, eaten out by the running water, are among the great charms of this romantic place. Nothing can exceed the beauty of early spring. Fruit trees in full blossom, tall poplars bending their graceful heads in the breeze and chestnuts bursting into leaf. The air is filled with the twitterings of nesting birds, the sloping banks covered with the tender green of young grass; all nature is alive, the sun is warm and the sound of rushing waters brings peace to the soul. Perched high up, hanging apparently on mighty rocks, the Alcázar broods grimly over the gorge below. Still further up and beyond, rises the mass of the Cathedral, towers, domes and pinnacles. Three hundred and thirty feet high, the great tower rears itself like a sentinel, a landmark for many miles. Round the base cluster the houses of the town like chickens seeking shelter under the wings of a mother hen. No place in all Spain appealed to me so much. No town was so replete with subjects for my brush, and nowhere else did I feel the romance of this marvellous country as in Segovia. [Illustration: SEGOVIA. THE AQUEDUCT] A town of Iberian origin and name, under the Roman rule it was of some importance. The great aqueduct, which spans the valley that divides Segovia in the Plaza del Azoquéjo, brought pure water from a mountain torrent, the Rio Frio, ten miles away. It does the same to-day. Constructed of granite blocks, laid Cyclopean fashion without mortar or cement, it commences near San Gabriel. To break the force of the rushing stream the conduit has many angles. Without doubt it is the most important Roman remain in Spain, for this alone Segovia would be famous. Once upon a time his Satanic Majesty fell desperately in love with a beautiful Segovian. To further his suit, an offer was made to do anything she might require. Her home was on a hill; her work, to fetch water from the stream below. Finding the continual tramp down and up rather irksome, this daughter of Eve bethought herself of a request to mitigate her toil. "Done," said the Evil One, and the aqueduct was built in one night! In terror she fled to the church, and the church discovered that one stone had been left out, also that the aqueduct was extremely useful. The contract was declared void and the maiden freed from the rash promise she had playfully given his majesty. The country folk still know it by the name of the Puento del Diabolo. During the siege of Segovia, the Moors destroyed thirty-five of the arches, but these were cleverly rebuilt in 1493 by Juan Escovedo, a monk of El Parral, who received the scaffolding in payment for his work. More recently, extensive repairs in the same way have been successfully carried out. The most imposing view is in the Plaza del Azoquéjo, from which it towers upwards in a double line of arches one above the other, and its length is best grasped from El Calvario, a hill to the south of the town. The Cathedral is a late Gothic pile, built of a warm yellow stone, and looks particularly impressive from the shady walk among the rocks on the left bank of the Clamores, the stream which cuts off Segovia from the southern plateau. It was begun in 1525 by the builder of Salamanca's Cathedral which it greatly resembles, Juan Gil de Hontañon, and continued at his death by his son. The weak point in the exterior, which masses very grandly, is the western façade. The interior is very striking. The wide span of the arches, the richness of the admirable vaulting, the splendid late Gothic windows and the feeling of light and space are fine examples of the last stage of Gothic work, just before the influence of the oncoming Renaissance took hold of the architects of that day. The floor is beautifully laid with red, blue and white diamond-shaped slabs of marble; and the very necessary notice--"No escupir, la religiosidad y higiene la prohibur"--keeps it clean and decent. In the _coro_, which occupies nearly the whole of the centre of the nave, there is a _retablo_ by Sabatini. The _silleria_ are very fine. They were rescued from the old Cathedral, which was destroyed in Charles V.'s time by the Comunéros, who started business by pulling down churches, appropriating all they could lay hands on, plundering the wealthy and generally behaving as a mob that has the upper hand always does. The outer walls of the _coro_ are stucco, painted to represent different species of marble; described, by the way, in a reputable guide book--"beautifully coloured marbles"! Most of the _rejas_ which shut off the side chapels are good gilded iron work. In that of la Piedad there is a good _retablo_ with life-sized figures by Juan de Juni, 1571; and in the chapel of the Segragrio a wooden figure of Christ by Alonso Cano. Through a fine Gothic portal in the Capilla del Cristo del Consuelo I entered the cloisters in company with a verger, who took great pride in his Cathedral. These cloisters are surpassingly beautiful; a very good example of flamboyant Gothic. In vain did I search for a corner from which to make a sketch. The courtyard was overgrown with shrubs, tall cypresses and vines climbing at random shut out everything. The garden itself was a mass of rubbish and old timber. The well in the centre, overgrown with creepers and weeds; while in the cloisters themselves preparations were afoot for the coming Easter processions, and all available space taken up by carpenters and painters at work on the Pasos. In the little dark chapel of Santa Catalina on the west side, is the tiny tomb of the unfortunate Infante Pedro, the three-year-old son of Henry II. The poor little child was dropped by his nurse from a window in the Alcazar, and ended his young life on the rocks below. 'Tis a pitiful object this pathetic tomb, alone, here in this damp spot where daylight only enters when the door is opened. In the sacristy there is a Custodia in the form of a temple, six feet high, silver and exquisitely chased. The vestments possessed by the clergy are most rarely worked and of great value. Segovia was once rich in churches. Like the rest of the city, a great many have alas! fallen into decay, and those not in this state are rapidly approaching it. They are mostly small and retain the apse. Several are cloistered and every one of them is architecturally of great interest. Here again is another charm of this romantic old city, evidence of past glories and ecclesiastical power, the history of Spain written in its stones. [Illustration: SEGOVIA. PLAZA MAYOR] San Millan, a Romanesque structure of the twelfth century, is the best preserved church in Segovia. The exquisite arcades on the north and south sides have coupled columns with elaborately carved capitals. Like most of the buildings of this period solidity rather than grace was the effect aimed at by their architects. It possesses a triple apse; the piers supporting the roof are very massive, the capitals to the columns are formed of semi-grotesque figures of man and beast. The two doorways are good. In the church of San Martin there is a carved wooden Passion. Four life-sized figures take the place of shafts in the great doorway, and again a cloister forms the exterior of the south and west walls. In the Dominican convent of Santa Cruz, founded by Ferdinand and Isabella, is still to be seen a sepulchral urn of one of the original companions of St. Dominic. "Tanto monta" the motto of the King and Queen is cut both inside and out on the walls. Over the west portal are good reliefs of the Crucifixion and the Pietà. La Vera Cruz, a church built by the Templars in 1204, is difficult of access. I procured the key after much trouble, and found the twelve-sided nave forming a sort of ambulatory round the central walled-in chamber. It is an imitation of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. The Templars were suppressed in 1312, so this gem had but a short existence as their house of prayer. Nestling amidst a grove of acacia trees, hidden away under the rock, is the Santuario de Fuencisla. Built to commemorate the miraculous rescue of Maria del Salto, a beautiful Jewess, this little sanctuary is much affected by pilgrims. The rock which overshadows it is known as La Peña Grajera, or "Crow's Cliff," taking this name from the multitude of carnivorous birds who always assembled here for a meal after a victim had been hurled down to expiate his crime in a death below. Maria, accused of adultery, was led to the top and pushed off the edge to find the fate of so many before her. With great presence of mind she called loudly on the Virgin, who hearing, came to her assistance; and so retarded her downward flight that she alighted gently, escaping unhurt. Here in days long gone by lived a hermit, whose good life and deeds are still a much-reverenced legend among Segovians. The monastery of El Parral, once a wealthy and powerful house of the brotherhood of San Gerónimo, contains a very good _retablo_ by Diego de Urbina. It was founded by a member of the great Pacheco family, who fought three antagonists one after another and came off successful. He vowed to build a church on the spot where his skill and prowess gave him so splendid a victory, and to endow it as well. It is now a convent of Franciscan nuns. Next in importance to the Cathedral is the comparatively new building of the Alcázar. Standing high up on the crags, below which the Eresma and Clamores meet, it occupies an unrivalled position. A fine view of this truly Castilian fortress is obtained from the beautiful walk which encircles the city on the further bank of each stream. Above the tall poplars and thick scrub rise its turrets and spires. The massive walls go sheer up from the rock on which their foundations rest. The huge embattled tower and drawbridge assist the feeling of strength; and it only requires the weathering of years, adding broken colour to the somewhat new-looking exterior, to make this a perfect specimen of mediæval architecture. The building was originally Moorish, but the many vicissitudes of troublous times saw it in a bad state when Henry IV., "el Impotente," repaired and made it his residence. Within its walls Isabella was proclaimed Queen of Castile in 1474. Cabrera, the husband of her greatest friend, Beatrice of Boabdilla, held the fortress and its treasure, and it was mainly through his valour that Isabella succeeded to the throne. During the Comunéros insurrection the Alcázar held out for Charles V. At the quelling of the revolt Charles did all in his power to thoroughly restore the building and furnish it with great splendour. His son Philip added much that the father's death had left unfinished. Our own King, Charles I., was here entertained, and Gil Blas confined a prisoner. The great fire, originated by some of the students of the military college, almost entirely destroyed the whole castle in 1862. The present edifice dates from shortly after that year and is now used as a storehouse for military archives and an academy for artillery officers. A very good gateway spans the road that leads out past the Santuario de Fuencisla along the right bank of the Eresma. The river here is an ideal looking trout stream, but alas! fish are not as plentiful now as when Charles I. was entertained and fed on "fatte troute" in the Alcázar. Follow the path over the bridge to the left, it soon narrows into a mere goat track as it skirts the rock; a few steps farther on and the wonderful position of the fortress-castle bursts into view. How fascinating it looked as I saw it one night in the moonlight with the silver beams glinting on its spires. All was very still as I entered the wood of stunted pines beyond. Across the ravine rose the mighty Cathedral silhouetted against a dark star-laden sky. A light here and there shone from a window in the houses beneath. I heard the distant cry of the watchman on his rounds. A faint scent from the heavy dew rose to my nostrils, a scent of mother earth. It was with unwilling steps I crossed the stream and sought my bed that night. Such moments are rare. On the left bank of the Eresma, almost hidden in the trees, stands a building which once was the mint of Spain. Up till the year 1730 all Spain's money was coined here, the proximity to the impregnable Alcázar, which was used as the Treasury, affording security against untimely raids. The old mint is now a flour mill, but still bears the royal arms over its gateway. At one time Segovia was the great Castilian mart for wool. The church, and monasteries of El Parral, El Paular, and the Escorial owning immense flocks. These were driven to the pure waters of the Eresma, to be cleansed before being shorn. After the sheep-washing, the animals were put into the sweating house, and their legs tied together. The shearer then commenced operations, and as each sheep passed out of his hands it was branded; the shepherds standing by made a selection of the older animals for the butcher, the remainder being taken away to their mountain pastures. Even now there are many flocks in the country around, particularly on the lower hills near La Granja, where I noticed a large number not at all unlike the Kentish breed of Romney Marsh. Seven miles from Segovia the summer Royal Palace of La Granja lies in the midst of beautiful woods and clear streams. At the foot of the Sierra, the highest peak of which, La Peñalara, raises its crest a few miles off, this elysium is a beautiful spot for those who have earned a holiday from the cares of State. The gardens are most charmingly arranged, and the fountains with a never ending supply of water, better than those at Versailles. Built by Philip V., whose tastes and inclinations were thoroughly French, La Granja has been the scene of important events in the history of the country. The treaty which handed Spain over to France in 1796 was here signed by Godoy. In 1832 Ferdinand VII. revoked the decree by which he had abolished the Salic law, and summoned Don Carlos to the palace as heir to the throne, a call which plunged his unhappy country into civil war. Four years later the Queen Regent was compelled within its walls, by the leader of the revolutionary soldiery, to accept the constitution of Cadiz. Every corner of Spain holds history, but none can compare with Segovia and its surroundings in romance and old-world charm. SARAGOSSA Saragossa lies midway on the railway between Madrid and Barcelona, and, having about it a touch of both these, can qualify as one of Spain's progressive cities. The unsightly factory chimney is beginning to sprout up in the suburbs; old and narrow streets are making way for broader and better; and insanitary quarters giving place to modern hygiene. Aragon is the poorest portion of this fair land, and Saragossa is its capital. In every age this little kingdom has been torn by war and has suffered heavily, but its people have never wavered in their faith, and are still among the most pious and superstitious of the many different races that people the Iberian Peninsula. They possess that strong attachment for their sterile plains and barren mountains so common to those who wring from Nature a bare existence. The Emperor Augustus, in the year 25 B.C., vastly improved "Salduba," and gave it the title of Cæsarea Augusta. When in the occupation of Rome it was a free city and had a coinage of its own. The first place in Spain to renounce Paganism, Saragossa has always been a city of great holiness. When besieged by the French under Childebert in 540, the inhabitants carried the stole of San Vicente round the walls--and the invader fled. The Infidel, however, proved less susceptible to a Christian relic, and the city fell to the weight of his arms in the eighth century. Being a Berber Infidel he recognised no Kalif of Cordova, and between the two there soon began one of those internecine conflicts that in the end led to the termination of Moorish rule. It was in this connection that Charlemagne was implored to assist the Northern Moor against the Andalusian and crossed the Pyrenees with an eye, no doubt, in the long run, to the acquisition of new territory. No sooner had he reached the plains of Aragon than he was recalled to quell a rising in his own dominions. His back turned, and he being presumably in retreat, the ungrateful people, eager for plunder, followed and inflicted on his rearguard a terrible defeat in the most famous Pyrenean Pass, the Pass of Roncesvalles, a disaster in which Roland, that hero of romance, lost his life. Thence onward, as the centuries went by, Saragossa was the scene of many a fight. Alfonso I. in 1118 recovered it from the Moor after a long siege, and Moslem rule was ended. [Illustration: SARAGOSSA. LA SEO] Saragossa is best known in the annals of its warfare for the heroic defence, immortalised by Byron, in the war with France. In the month of May 1808, the invader was close at hand, and the citizens organised themselves for defence. A young aristocrat, José Palafox, was chosen as the nominal leader, and had at his right hand the redoubtable peasant, Tio Jorge Ibort--Gaffer George. His two lieutenants were Mariano Cerezo and Tio Marin, while the courageous priest Santiago Sas assisted greatly, through his influence with the populace, to keep things together and prevent petty squabbles. One hundred _duros_ supplied the sinews of war! Sixteen cannon, a few old muskets and two hundred and twenty fighting men were all that the leaders could count upon to repel the army of Lefebvre. The siege began in June and was abandoned in August, in consequence of the disaster to Dupont at Bailén. In the following December four Marshals of France, Junot, Lannes, Mortier and Moncey, with eighteen thousand men, invested the city, but it was not until February of the next year that, having driven the defenders out of the Jesuit convent across the river, the French were able to establish a foothold in the outskirts of the city itself. Every one knows how the Maid of Saragossa took the place of her dead artillery lover who was killed at his gun; an episode that has since become a theme to instil the young with heroic ideals. Such was the spirit that gained for the city the proud title of _siempre heróica_. Her citizens fought from house to house, every street had barricades, and it was only that when decimated by pestilence and famine, with half the place a smoking ruin, one of the most celebrated sieges of history came to end. As in Cadiz and Salamanca, there are two Cathedrals in Saragossa, La Seo and El Pilar. The former occupies the site of a church which stood here before the Moors took possession of the place and turned it into a mosque. A year after the advent of Alfonso I., Bishop Pedro de Lebrana reconsecrated La Seo, and its walls have witnessed many historical events in the life of Aragon before the kingdom became merged into one with Castile. It was before the High Altar that her Kings were crowned, and at the font many a royal babe baptized. La Seo is constructed almost entirely of the dull brown brick with which the older part of the city is also built; the interior piers and vaulting alone being of stone. On the north-east wall, which faces the gloomy palace of the archbishop, there is still extant the most elaborate arrangement of brick work, inlaid with coloured glazed tiles, blue, green, red, white and yellow, forming a very harmonious and attractive scheme. From the centre of the north-west façade, which is extremely ugly, rises a well-proportioned tower arranged in four stages, with Corinthian columns, the top of which is surmounted by a red tiled cupola and spire. The colour of this took my fancy, it "sang out" so much against the blue of the sky--a contrast I thought worthy of an illustration. Entering the building by the door in the façade, I was immediately nonplussed as to the orientation of the Cathedral. To add to the puzzle, for the structure is almost square, four rows of columns seemed mixed up in endless confusion, and the dim light admitted from the few windows only accentuated the mystery. Very beautiful, however, is this Gothic interior which runs north-east and south-west, and I soon found a spot from whence to make a sketch. The columns rise from marble bases of a rich crimson; the vaulting above was lost in gloom, the light coming in from the south-west window struck vividly on portions of the Renaissance _respaldos_, the niches of which are filled with saints and archbishops, and the pattern of the marble floor served but to heighten the general effect. In the picture may be seen a tabernacle with twisted black marble columns, this marks the spot where the Virgin suddenly appeared and held converse with Canónigo Fuenes. Besides the archbishop's throne, the _coro_, which is not particularly interesting, contains a huge reading desk. There is a great deal of alabaster throughout the Cathedral, notably the very fine Gothic _retablo_ of the High Altar by Dalman de Mur, around which are many tombs of the Kings of Aragon. Close by, a black slab marks the place where rests the heart of Don Baltazar Carlos, the son of Philip IV., who was immortalised by the brush of Velasquez, and who died in Saragossa at the early age of seventeen. Among the chapels, that used as the _segrario_, or parish church, has a magnificent Moorish ceiling, and the fine alabaster tomb of Bernardo de Aragon. The Cathedral is rich in splendid tapestries and ecclesiastical vestments. Among the former is certainly the best I have ever set eyes upon. It is a very early piece and has a wonderful blue sky. In it are woven the Last Supper, Christ bearing the Cross, the Agony in the Garden and the Crucifixion, while in the lower right-hand corner our Saviour is assisting with a long pole to stir up devils who are roasting in Hades. Among the vestments is an extremely beautiful chasuble brought here at the time of the Reformation from Old St. Paul's in London. I wondered, when I looked at it, whether Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII.'s consort, had been instrumental in its removal from England. [Illustration: SARAGOSSA. IN THE OLD CATHEDRAL] The Cathedral of El Pilar is thus named as it possesses the identical pillar on which the Virgin descended from Heaven and appeared to St. James. At first a modest chapel, it has grown by the addition of cloisters and subsidiary chapels to the present stupendous building. The length is close on five hundred feet and the breadth two hundred. The possession of this miraculous pillar has brought untold wealth to the Cathedral. Votive offerings on the anniversary of the festival at the shrine often amount to many thousands of pounds. Jewelry, gems and costly objects of every description are given; these are now sold by auction, the large sum of £20,000 being realised a few years ago. To these sales we owe a fine rock crystal and gold medallion, given to the Virgin of El Pilar by Henry IV. of France, and now in South Kensington Museum. Many examples of old Spanish goldsmith's work have also been acquired for the same collection in this way. The towers and pinnacles of El Pilar pile up grandly, and are best seen from the fine bridge which spans the yellow flood of the river Ebro. Silhouetted against the evening sky, with the smooth running waters below, it seemed to me a worthy example in brick and stone of the church's magnificence. The interior is an immense temple, the frescoes of which are from the brush of that extraordinary genius, Goya, who turned his talent to any job that was productive of the cash he spent so freely. The _retablo_ of the High Altar is a fine piece of work from the alabaster quarries at Escatron. Composed of three good Gothic canopies with tapering finials, it has seven smaller divisions below. Damian Forment was the artist who designed and carried out this, one of the most beautiful _retablos_ in the country. The _reja_ which stands in front of _coro_ is superb, and considered to be Juan Celma's masterpiece. Behind the High Altar is the celebrated chapel of the Virgin. The figure itself is of very old blackened wood, evidently a specimen of early Christian work. On October 12, the anniversary of her descent, thousands of pilgrims flock hither to kiss her foot through a hole in the wall at the back of the chapel. The city is then full of visitors and it is next to impossible to find quarters or a room of any sort. [Illustration: SARAGOSSA. EASTER PROCESSION] I happened to be in Saragossa for _Semana Santa_. and watched the processions of groups of heavy wooden figures, illustrative of our Lord's life-history, proceed through crowded streets. My sketch shows the last _paso_ of the Crucifixion, with a figure of the Virgin bringing up the rear, as they passed the intensely devout throngs on Good Friday. Masked members of different religious brother and sisterhoods, walk along keeping the route clear. The whole procession was led by soldiery, and "Romans," men attired in the garb of ancient Rome, while an infantry band followed the Virgin. The _pasos_ are deposited in the Church of Santiago built on the spot where St. James passed a night. In the belfry of this church is an old Gothic bell of which the inhabitants are justly proud. San Pablo is a very interesting fabric, dating from the year 1259. The floor of the church is a dozen steps below the street. The _retablo_ is another fine example of Damian Forment's art. The aisles are cut off from the nave by a flat wall with square pillars and ill-proportioned pointed arches. The _coro_ is at the west end, from whence also issue the notes of a very beautifully toned organ. The extraordinary octagonal brick steeple might pass as of Russian or Tartar origin. Of all the gateways to the city, there remains but one, the Puerta del Carmen. It has been left as it stood after the French bombardment, and retains many marks of shot and soft-nosed bullets. The site of the historic Puerta del Portillo, where the Maid of Saragossa won immortal fame, is in the square of the same name. Outside it stands the Castillo de la Aljaferia, the Palace of the Sheikhs of Saragossa, and the residence of the Kings of Aragon. Ferdinand gave it to the Holy Office, and from out its portals issued many terrible orders for the suppression of the wretched heretic. There still remains a small octagonal mosque, and many of the rooms have their original _artesonado_ ceilings. In it also is the "Torreta," the dungeon in _Il Trovatore_; while from the tower can be seen the Castillo de Castlejar, mentioned in the drama by Garcia Gaturrio, from which the libretto of the opera was taken. This one-time fine palace is now a barrack, and I used to watch the recruits drilling and exercising outside. When the recruiting season commences, the numbers are drawn among those liable to serve--the lucky ones being those who are not compelled to take any part in the military service of their country. There exist societies in Spain to which a sum of 750 pesetas can be paid, that undertake to pay another 750 pesetas to the State, if the payee's name is drawn for service, 1500 pesetas being the sum which enables any one to forego his military career. If his number is not drawn, he loses his deposit, if it is, the society pays the full sum. In the old days the nobles of Aragon safe-guarded their privileges by the Fuéros de Sobrarbe, a code something like our Magna Charta, which reduced the King's authority to almost vanishing point. Pedro IV. got rid of the Fuéros by cutting to pieces the parchment incorporating the union or confederacy, whose members, if the King was thought to have exceeded his prerogative, were absolved from allegiance. They were a hard-headed race, these Aragonese, and are still like those of the other northern provinces, very independent and jealous of Castile's rule. Among other things handed down from time immemorial is a national dance, and the Jota Aragonesa, the national air, known beyond the limits of Spain. Very few of these old airs still exist. As a fact, the old songs of Spain and their music are better known in the Jewish colony of Salonika than in the country of their origin. The upper classes of this colony still speak the pure Castilian of Cervantes' time, and being the descendants of Spanish refugees hounded out of the country by the Inquisition, still observe the customs, songs and language of their immigrant forefathers. The Aragonese also have a national game, Tirando a la Barra, which consists in passing an iron bar from one hand to the other, thereby gaining impetus for the final swing which sends it hurtling through the air towards a mark on the ground, like a javelin. One or two good old houses still remain in Saragossa to testify to its former greatness, notably that of the great Luna family. Two gigantic uncouth figures with clubs stand on either side of the doorway which is the centre of a simple but good façade. The cornice above is very heavy and the eaves project far out, a feature that I noticed was very characteristic of the old quarters of the city. It was in this house that the besieged, during the French war, held their councils. The Casa Zaporta can boast of a very fine staircase and beautiful _patio_ with elegant fluted columns and reliefs and medallions breaking the spandrils. A few other good houses still exist, but as they are in the old quarters of the city, and as these are rapidly disappearing, I fear that Saragossa will not contain for long anything beyond her Cathedrals that is of tangible interest. SANTIAGO The evening train from Pontevedra deposited me sometime about midnight at Cernes, the hamlet outside Santiago where the line ends. The full moon during the latter portion of the journey had been a source of endless delight. My face was glued to the window watching the ever-changing hills and valleys through which the train crept, shrouded in that mystery which obliterates detail and suggests so much in great masses of subdued light and deep shade. I reached the hotel, procured a room, threw open the window, and stood on the balcony listening to the intense stillness of a wonderful night. Suddenly a dull rumbling down some side street disturbed my reverie of the Santiago of days gone by. The only thing to be expected at this time of night was the station 'bus, but I heard no clattering hoofs and was lost in surmise, when out of the dark shadow of a narrow lane into the moonlight swung a yoke of oxen drawing a long cart with slow majestic pace. But what a cart! a low sort of wooden box balanced between two solid wooden wheels. The rumbling was explained. It was primitive and the most mediæval thing I had yet seen in a country which is barely European. The peasant owner, a few steps in advance, never turned his head, but guided his beasts with a long stick which he waved from side to side over his back. There was no shout, no cry of command. The _mise en scène_ was beautifully arranged, it was complete. There was the background of ancient grey houses, beyond them, tapering into the starry sky, the slender pinnacles of the great Cathedral. A row of stunted trees occupied places down one side of the little square which filled my stage. The subdued colour and silence of the moonlit night, and the slow passage of the ox-cart as it passed out of sight, bettered Irving's best effects at the Lyceum. A clock in a neighbouring tower struck the quarters, the moment had arrived for the anti-climax! I expected every minute to see a door open, a light stream across the square, a cloaked figure steal furtively out, and disappear down into the shadow of the lane. It was perfect, nothing could have been arranged better as an introduction to Santiago de Compostela. [Illustration: SANTIAGO. THE CATHEDRAL] The body of St. James landed itself at Padron on the coast not far from Santiago, and his bones were brought to the spot where now stands the Cathedral. In the course of time their whereabouts was forgotten and it remained for Bishop Theodomir to rediscover the sacred spot in 829, guided thither by a star. Hence the Campus Stellæ--or Compostela. The shrine of the saint is still visited by innumerable pilgrims, and perhaps more arrive in Santiago than any other city of Spain. In olden days so great was the number that "El Camino de Santiago"--"The road to Santiago," gave rise to the Spanish term for the "milky way." I have watched them in the Cathedral, peasants, men and women, come from afar, to judge by their dress. They each carried a staff decorated with tufts of herbs and little star-shaped pieces of bread tied on with gay ribbons. I have seen women making the round of the altars in the different chapels with great bundles of clothes, through which were thrust umbrellas, balanced on their heads. They never lost the poise of their burden as they knelt and rose again. But of all the pilgrims I saw, one who might have stepped out of Chaucer's pages carried me back to the days of long ago. She wore a short skirt of thick brown material, sandals protected her stockinged feet, from her girdle hung rosary, scallop shells and a stoneware pilgrim's bottle, a hooked staff lent support to her bent, travelled-stained figure. Her leather wallet was stuffed with bread, and covering her short cropped hair was a grey felt hat, mushroom shaped. A little black dog entered the Cathedral with her, and squatted silently by his mistress's side as she knelt praying in the dim light of a grey day. Chaucer's "Wyt of Bath" had made a pilgrimage to "Seynt Jame," and my pilgrim with her little lame companion might very well have been with him too. The Cathedral, founded in 1078, was built on the site of one destroyed by Almanzor in 997. The legend of the destruction of the first church, which had been standing for just one hundred years, was thus--Almanzor, after sacking Leon and Astorga, swept all the country westwards with his Moorish hosts until he reached Santiago. So great was his fame and in such terror was his name held that no one had the courage to face him and fight for saint and city. Riding through its deserted streets he came to the church, and to his surprise at last espied a solitary Christian, a monk, praying alone at the shrine of the saint. "What dost thou here?" inquired the haughty Moor. "I am at my prayers," curtly answered the holy man, continuing his devotions. This reply and the courage of the single enemy so called forth the admiration of Almanzor, that his life was spared and an infidel guard set over the tomb. [Illustration: SANTIAGO. SOUTH DOOR OF THE CATHEDRAL] The west façade, a Renaissance outer covering, so to speak, of the older façade, would not look so imposing as it does if granite had not been used in its construction. The grey tones of the lichen-covered stone redeem the somewhat overdone florid design, and it stands well above a double flight of steps on the east side of the huge Plaza Mayor. The south door, or Puerta de las Platerias, takes this name from the silversmiths whose workshops are still under the arcades around the Plaza on to which it opens. It is the oldest portion of the Cathedral and dates from the foundation. The shafts contain tiers of figures in carved niches, and the tympanum has rows of smaller ones. The north door fronts on to the Plaza Fuente San Juan, and faces the convent of San Martin Pinario, which was founded in 912 by Ordoño II. In the days before this Plaza was officially given its present name, it was known as Azabacheria, _azabache_ is jet, and it was here that vast quantities of rosaries made of this were sold to pilgrims. In the south-east angle of the Cathedral is the Puerta Santa, bearing the inscription "Hace est domus Dei et porta coeli." It is only opened in the Jubilee year and then by the archbishop himself. The entrance to it is from the Plaza de los Literarios. It will be seen from this that the Cathedral is practically set in four great Plazas, el Mayor, de las Platerías, la Fuente San Juan, and de los Literarios, and for this reason, although the roof towers high above, it is one of the few Cathedrals the size of which can be appreciated by an exterior view. The early Romanesque interior is superb, and not unlike our own Ely Cathedral. The finest thing in it of archæological interest is the "Portico de la Gloria," which Street calls "one of the greatest glories of Christian Art." This Portico, situated at the west end of the nave, formed at one time the façade. The idea of the whole doorway is Christ at the Last Judgment. His figure, twice life-size, occupies the centre. Below Him is seated St. James, while around them are angels worshipping. Four and twenty elders are arranged in the circumference of the archivolt; each one holds a musical instrument, most of which are shaped like violas and guitars. A most beautifully sculptured marble column supports this in the centre, resting on a base of devils, with the portrait of Maestro Matio, who executed the whole from his own designs, facing the nave. An inscription under this doorway states that the work was finished in 1188. To the right and left are smaller arches, portraying in well-cut granite good souls on their way to Paradise and wicked ones in the clutches of devils on their way to Hell. Nothing can exceed the primitive religious feeling pervading this work. Mateo must have given his whole soul with fervour to his labours; and the almost obliterated traces of painting and gilding enhance their result by giving a touch of warmth to the cold colour of the stone. West of the portico, above which are the remains of a fine wheel window, has been built the present Renaissance façade known as El Obradorio, the two being connected by quadripartite vaulting. The nave itself has a walled-in triforium, but no clerestory and the vaulting of the roof is barrel. The saint's shrine is in the crypt beneath the Capilla Mayor. The extra extravagant _retablo_ above the High Altar is chirrigueresque, and hardly redeemed by the lavish employment of jasper, alabaster and silver with which it is decorated. A jewelled figure of St. James is seated in a niche above the mass of precious metal in which the altar is encased. It is all very gorgeous and must impress the pious pilgrim who has journeyed hither from afar, but I could not help wishing it were simpler. However, the one living vital thing in Spain is her religion, and her Church knows so well how to conduct its business that my feelings of regret are purely æsthetic. The _cimborio_ is a fine creation, under which swings on certain _fiestas_ the huge silver _incensario_, a lamp wellnigh six feet high. The two bronze pulpits are real masterpieces of cinquecento art and are adorned by subjects from the Old Testament by Juan Bantista Celma. In one of the side chapels, known as the Relicario, are recumbent figures on the tombs of Don Ramon, the husband of Urraca, Berenguela 1187, Fernando II. 1226, Alfonso XII. of Leon 1268, and that faithful, pitiable figure Juan de Castro, wife of Pedro the Cruel. Even now, after the spoliation by Soult, who carried away ten hundredweight of precious metal in sacred vessels, the Relicario is a perfect museum. All the other chapels contain good tombs, especially that of Espiritu Santo in the north transept; and among other beautiful objects with which the Cathedral is replete are two ancient _limosneras_ or alms-boxes, two very ancient gilt pyxes, a carved wooden cross, similar to the much-revered cross of los Angeles at Oviedo, given by Don Alfonso and Doña Jimena in 874. The large cloisters to the south-west of the Cathedral were built by Archbishop Fonseca in 1521. They are bad Gothic enriched with Renaissance details. The centre court is paved with granite and gives an impression of bareness which is not redeemed by the architecture. It was in this Cathedral that John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, was crowned King of Spain. [Illustration: SANTIAGO. INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL] Santiago possesses a much frequented university, which is extremely well provided with books. In the church of Santa Maria de la Sar may be seen relics of the Holy Office which held its sittings in the adjoining monastery. The president's chair, marked with a palm, a cross and a red sword is perhaps the most notable. This monastic church, at one time owned by Templars, is situated outside the city boundary on the Orense road. Like all the others, in fact like the whole of Santiago, it is built of granite. It possesses a triple apse; the nave is of five bays without a triforium or clerestory, and the interior, in consequence, is very dark, heavy and gloomy. In it is the tomb of Archbishop Bernardo, 1242. The cloister at one time must have been exceptionally fine, but alas! only nine arches now remain; and the whole edifice is of the fast-crumbling away type not uncommon in the country. The fine Plaza Mayor, or Plaza Alfonso Doce, is bounded on the north by the huge Hospice erected by Enrique de Egas for Ferdinand and Isabella for the use of poor pilgrims. The royal coat-of-arms is in evidence over the entrance portal, enriched, in addition, with figures of saints and pilgrims. The massive cornice has a course of heavy chain work and the ball decoration so common in Toledo. This huge pile of buildings is now used as a hospital. It is divided into four courts with fountains and is admirably adapted for its present use. The small chapel is one of the gems of Santiago. The roof springs from four arches with Gothic statues and niches clustered round a central column. On the west side of the Plaza stands the great Seminario founded in 1777 for the education of young priests. The ground floor is now occupied as the Ayuntamiento of Santiago. To the south is the Collegio de San Gerónimo, with a remarkable early doorway. The college was known as _Pan y Sardina_ from the poverty of its accommodation. Sardines, the staple industry of Vigo and other coast towns of the district, are the cheapest food obtainable, hence the appellation. Santiago is delightfully situated amidst heather-clad hills, the lower slopes of which are well wooded with oak, fir, and eucalyptus. Great boulders of granite stand out like the monoliths of prehistoric ages. Many a pleasant walk through the purple heather revealed to me a landscape such as one sees in parts of Cornwall and Scotland. The grey city with its red-tiled roofs, its huge deserted monastic buildings, the many spires and domes of the Cathedral and other churches, all set in patches of brilliant green meadows and maize fields look particularly beautiful from Monte Pedroso, a fine vantage point surmounted by a huge Calvary. The climate is comparatively moist, ferns of all sorts grow in the shade of garden walls, and bracken is thick in the oak woods. The Galician is well favoured by Nature, and being a patient, hard-working man of not much mental capacity, very pious and an ardent advocate of small holdings, gets through life with a contented spirit. He is very close and knows the value of a peseta. Unfortunately he is looked down upon by the Castilian, and the term "Gallego" is rather one of abuse than respect. Driven to emigration by the subdivision of land which cannot support more than those who own and work it now, he goes south in great numbers and is the trusted _concierge_ in many a large house and hotel in Madrid and elsewhere. The Panama Canal too attracts him from his native hills, in fact the Gallego is to be met with wherever Spanish is the spoken language. TUY The train deposited me one morning at this little frontier town. It was very hot, and it was Sunday. The only porter in the station volunteered to carry my bag to the Fonda, so we joined a long file of peasants and tramped up the dusty road to the old Gothic capital which stands splendidly situated above the river Minho. From a distance the Cathedral rises like a fort, capping the white houses and brown roofs which are terraced below. At one time in the far away past Tuy was a town of great importance. Greek remains have been dug up here, but history does not go further back than Ætolian Diomede, the son of Tydeus, who founded what became under King Witiza the Gothic capital. This was in the year 700. Ordoño I. rebuilt it two hundred years later, and I did not find it difficult to trace the massive granite walls which sheltered the inhabitants, and preserved it as the most important city of these parts. Truly a crown to the fortress, the castellated walls of the Cathedral give it a martial air. The nave of five bays is early pointed, with a blind triforium and blocked up clerestory. So narrow and dark are the aisles and so massive the columns which support the fine vaulting of the roof, that I could never get rid of the feeling that I was in some great hall of an ancient castle. It only wanted a few halberdiers or men-at-arms, instead of the black-garbed peasant women kneeling at the different altars, to make the illusion perfect. The transepts, which have aisles, are Romanesque with an early pointed triforium. After the great earthquake at Lisbon many strengthening additions were made to the interior, blocking out most of the light. In the case of the aisles arches were run up at different intervals with no sense of proportion, quite hap-hazard, and creating a very much askew appearance in this part of the building. Transoms were built across the nave to add to the disfigurement of one of the most perfect little Cathedrals in Spain. The west doorway is very fine, with four detached columns on either side, thus forming a narrow porch. The upper half of these columns each consists of a good figure of a saint whose feet rest on a devil. In the tympanum are good reliefs and a well-cut Adoration of the Magi. The archivolt is seven-fold and is an excellent piece of rich carving. All is granite, and all is solemn, quite in keeping with this hard material. [Illustration: TUY] The Cloister Court, round which runs a most beautiful arcade of early pointed work with detached shafts, has unfortunately fallen into decay. But the charming little garden in the centre somewhat compensates for this. When I strolled in the silence was only broken by the cooing of doves and the hum of bees. The sun seemed to find his way into every nook and cranny, and here, thought I, is peace. Away beyond the outer wall, a wall which is part of the old defence of Ordoño's day, is the road to Portugal. Passing through vineyards it reaches the river a mile distant and crosses the water by a very fine bridge. It was from this road that I made my sketch of the quaint old-world town. Down by the river at the end of the one broad street that Tuy possesses is the old Convent of Santo Domingo. Now a barrack, it still keeps its grand Transitional church. The chancel is extremely fine and among its many tombs a knight in armour with his lady at his side I thought the best. On the grassy platform in front of the church I spent one or two pleasant evenings. The river flows below and the mountains of Portugal rise sublimely from the opposite bank. I was decidedly pleased with my short sojourn in this typical Spanish town, the wonderful position of which, right on the frontier overlooking another land, makes it one of Spain's most unique Cathedral cities. ORENSE "In the gold district," such is the meaning of Orense. In Roman days it was the headquarters for working the gold in which the district abounded. Three warm springs, situated close to the road which leads out of the town to the south-west, also brought fame to Orense, though they possessed, apparently, no medicinal properties. Nowadays the poorer classes use the water for domestic purposes, thereby saving fires. In Visigothic times Orense was the capital of the Suevi, and was the scene of the renunciation of Paganism by this tribe. Besides its warm springs the town boasts of two other wonders, its bridge and its Cathedral. The former is certainly a grand piece of work. The centre arch rises one hundred and thirty-five feet above the river Minho, with a magnificent span of one hundred and forty feet. Of the six remaining arches some are pointed and some are round. The Cathedral is a most interesting structure, more's the pity it is so little known. Built on an artificial platform to throw it out from the hillside, it rises well above the neighbouring roofs. Silversmiths and metal workers ply their trades in the dark shops between the buttresses which hold up this platform on three sides. There is nothing much to attract one in the exterior of the Cathedral except the Gothic north and south doors. They both have rounded arches with good figures in the jambs and archivolts. The south is the better of the two, as the north bears traces of alteration, the case in the whole appearance of the exterior. A third door opens in the second bay west of the north aisle, and is approached from the street below by steps leading up between two shops. The massive north-west tower is adjoining and stands over perhaps half a dozen small rooms where all day long the musical tap of the metal workers' hammers are heard. The side chapels of the interior are all recessed, and standing in the south-west corner of the Cathedral I obtained an uninterrupted view for my sketch along the south aisle into the apse. There is no triforium in the nave, but a beautiful lancet clerestory enhances both this and the aisles. I thought the octagon at the crossing extremely good. Two rows of lights, one above the other, have an interior gallery with an unobtrusive balustrade round each. The supporting corbels are well-cut bosses. The spandrils between the arches are recessed with well-carved figures of angels and archangels playing on musical instruments. Of course this octagon bears no comparison with that at Burgos, it is much simpler and much smaller, but has a tentative beauty of its own. [Illustration: ORENSE. IN THE CATHEDRAL] The transepts are of earlier date, and have been altered, though not injudiciously. The _coro_ is small, very dark and solemn, and in this respect bears favourable comparison with many another which may be far finer. Its _reja_, like that of the Capilla Mayor, is a very good example of wrought and hammered iron-work, and does credit to the skill of those who no doubt sat in the little shops below giving their life-work to the adornment of the church above. The High Altar is a mass of silver with a background of glittering carving which forms the gilded _retablo_. The warm yellow of the Cathedral stone and the time-worn colour of the figures which decorate this _retablo_ have a very pleasing effect to the eye. The ashes of Santa Eufemia, Orense's patroness, rest beneath her effigy which stands to the south of the High Altar, and those of SS. Facundo and Primivo under theirs on the north side. Santa Eufemia's body was found by a poor shepherdess lying out on the mountain slopes of the Portuguese border, and was brought here to rest. The Cathedral is full of fine tombs, among which that of Cardinal Quintata in Carrara marble is the best. It is placed on the north side of the chancel facing a much earlier Gothic tomb with a well-carved canopy which stands on the south side. The present edifice was founded in 1220 by Bishop Lorenzo, displacing the older church erected in 550 and dedicated to Saint Martin. Wandering at random up the narrow streets which covered the hill I found myself outside the Convent of San Francisco. Like so many institutions of a kindred nature it is now a barrack, and difficult of access. However, I managed to get in and found the chief interest centred in the cloisters. They are beautiful relics of the thirteenth century. Sixty arches complete the arcade, with coupled shafts standing free. The capitals are well carved and the dog-tooth moulding above them has not suffered much from the ravages of time. Here, as in other towns where money in late mediæval days was scarce, it is pleasant to find untouched remains of an earlier past. The streets are mostly arcaded and very tortuous and quaint. The market is held on the Plaza of the Cathedral, and fruit vendors sit in the sun on the steps which lead into the Holy Fane. The _Alamedas_ are thronged at night with a crowd which, for Spain, seemed to take life seriously. I had finished my usual after-dinner stroll one evening, and returned to my hotel. It was a balmy night and I pulled my chair out on to the balcony. The lights in the cottages on the hill opposite went out one by one, and away down below, amongst the dark foliage of a vineyard, I heard the sound of a guitar. A voice breathed out a love song, and once more I felt the romance of the South--that indescribable feeling which comes over one when nerves are attune to enchanting surroundings. ASTORGA "No, you won't find much for your brush to do in Astorga, señor"--was the answer to a query addressed to a fellow passenger in the train. I fear he was not far wrong, though I knew with the Cathedral I should not be disappointed. It was a wet evening, and I landed at the station in the dark; gave my traps to a porter, and found myself after a tramp through the mud at the only Fonda in the place. My baggage was deposited in a sort of glorified cupboard containing a bed. The small window had no glass, and I discovered the next day that it opened on to the stables. I objected to these quarters, and later on in the evening my belongings were moved into a room just vacated by some one who had gone on to Madrid in _el rapido_. The next morning I made my way to the Cathedral. It stands well and quite isolated, except for the "New Art" Bishop's Palace which is in course of erection. The Cathedral is late Gothic, built in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries on the site of a former church. The interior is lofty and very beautiful, though spoilt by a bad _trascoro_ in execrable taste and quite out of keeping with the elegant columns of the nave. This consists of seven bays. The bases of the piers run up ten feet or more, and resemble the later additions to Leon Cathedral and those at Oviedo. The intersecting mouldings on them are the very last style of Gothic work and exemplify the beginning of a more florid taste. There is no triforium. The clerestory windows are of unusual height, as at Leon, and are filled with very fine glass. The aisles are also very lofty. The chapels attached to that on the north have their vaulting carried up to the height of the aisle, a very unusual feature. All the windows on this side, with one exception, are blocked. In the south aisle the vaulting of the lateral chapels is low. The windows are glazed and contain good glass; and in the first chapel from the west is a very fine early German _retablo_. The transepts are of one bay only. The south has perhaps the best glass in a Cathedral which is specially rich in this. [Illustration: ASTORGA] There is much good iron work in the different _rejas_, and the walnut _silleria_ in the _coro_ are exceptionally well carved. But the gem of the Cathedral is undoubtedly the magnificent _retablo_ over the High Altar. Its author, Gaspar Becerra, was a native of Baeza, and studied in Italy under Michael Angelo. It is his masterpiece, and well merits this title. Of the fourteen panels, _The Disputation_ and _Ascension_ are the best. The exterior of this lofty church is much enhanced by its flying buttresses. The west façade is good Renaissance work, with flanking towers, only one of which is, however, finished. A flying buttress connects them with the centre of the façade as at Leon, in fact I could not help drawing comparison, when I knew them both, between these two Cathedrals. The warm red stone of which this at Astorga is built has weathered most beautifully, and contrasts with the grey balustrade composed of figures holding hands--a very quaint device, by the way--which adorns the ridge above the clerestory. At the south-east corner, instead of the usual pinnacle, a huge weathercock stands. It is a wooden statue of Pedro Mato, a celebrated Maragato, in the dress of his tribe. La Maragateria is a territory of small extent in the middle of which Astorga is situated. The inhabitants, the Maragatos, mix with no one. They live exclusively to themselves, preserve their costume and their customs, and never marry out of their own clan. The men hire themselves out as carriers, the women stay at home and work. It is supposed that as they have many Arabic words still in use, they are a remnant of the Moorish occupation left behind when Christian armies finally swept the Infidel back into the south. This may be so, for the Moors are past masters at caravan work, and the Maragatos are the great carriers of Spain. When on the road their strings of mules take precedence, and everything clears out of their way. The men dress in loose baggy knickers and the women attire themselves in short red or canary-coloured skirts with green or light blue lining, one pleat remains open and shows either of these colours. They wear white stockings, black shoes, and very gaily-coloured handkerchiefs cover their heads. On a Sunday they swarm into the town, going off in the evening at sundown to their different villages in picturesque chattering throngs. Twice a year the whole tribe assembles at the feasts of Corpus Christi and the Ascension, when they dance for an hour, el Cañizo, a dance which if an outsider dare join in is immediately stopped. I had heard a great deal of the dignity of the Spaniard, before I went to Spain, and had failed to find that this reputation was at all justified, except in the case of the _Guardia Civil_, until I came across the Maragatos. I found them to be among the most self-respecting and courteous folk that one could meet anywhere; they certainly are amongst the most interesting of the many distinct tribes that people the Peninsula. Astorga, the Asturia Augusta of the Romans, is described by Pliny as a "magnificent city." It was once the capital of southern Asturia and was always an important outpost fortress. As indicative of its strength I may mention that Astorga bears for arms a branch of oak. Like Leon, the importance of its position as a base, both for those who lived in the mountains to the north and west, as well as for those who came from the plain, was always appreciated, and was for ever a bone of contention between the inhabitants of these districts. The Bishopric was founded in 747 by Alfonso el Catolico, but no man of note has ever been appointed to the See as far as I could discover. Indeed, Astorga is another of those old Spanish cities which are passed by in the train, with the remark--"How nice the old walls look, I do wish we had time to stop here." A saunter round the walls I must own is very disappointing. It is so evident that but little veneration is felt, or respect shown, for any antiquities or historical associations. In many places they have been pulled about for the sake of the building materials they yielded. They are the rubble heaps of Astorga and have fallen into sad decay. One portion is, however, preserved. In the south corner, where a pretty little _paseo_ garden affords shade and a pleasant promenade, a splendid view is obtained "over the hills and far away." Here, at any rate, restoration has been undertaken for the sake of the common ground where men and women walk, as custom dictates, every evening. At the spot where the Cathedral stands a great deal of demolition has taken place, and even to-day the huge new château-like palace of the bishop, now in process of erection, closes in a fine space and detracts from the little antiquity which is left in this corner of Astorga. Such is modern taste in Spain. Besides its walls, Astorga is celebrated for its _mantecadas_, small square sponge-cakes, neatly folded in pieces of greased paper, which find their way all over this part of the country; but the farther off you find them the less do they resemble the originals, and these are very good. ZAMORA Travelling through the great plain of Leon by train is apt to become intensely monotonous, especially when, as in the case of reaching Zamora, fate decreed that I should sit baking for hours in the slowest of all, the undesirable _mercantilo_. Very few villages enlivened the yellow landscape, which bare of vegetation lay blistering under the midday sun; those that were visible were all _tapia_ built with unglazed lights, and seemed to have grown outwards from the little brown-walled churches in their midst. On rising ground beyond the limits of these sad-looking hamlets, I could see the dwellings of the poorest of the poor. Dug out of the bank-sides, they resemble rabbit holes more than anything else. A door gives light, ventilation and access to the interior, a tiny chimney sticking out of the ground above carries off the extra fumes of smoke. Life inside must be nearer that of the beasts than that of any other race in Europe; and as the slow _mercantilo_ crawled along I had plenty of time to note the stunted growth and wearied mien of those whose day of toil ends in these burrows under the earth. In many places, the year's vintage is stored in these subterranean holes. At last the train crept into the station and I read the name of my destination on its wall. Zamora adds another to the list of those very interesting old cities of Spain which still have a remnant of their ancient walls left standing. Known at one time as Ocellum Duri, "The eye of the Douro," from its strategical position on that barrier river, it still bears many traces of a glorious past. Of old, an outpost for defence against the Infidel of the south, with its natural barrier, Zamora nevertheless changed hands many times. The veracious chronicler records how in 939 Ramiro II. came to the city's relief and slew forty thousand Moors--their whole force, in fact, to a man!--only to be revenged a few years later by the all-conquering Almanzor. Ferdinand I. in 1065 rebuilt the defences which this redoubtable warrior had levelled and presented the city to his daughter Urraca, whose son, Alfonso VI., was the first King of united Leon and Castile. Zamora figures, too, in the Cid's meteoric life. He appointed Geronimo, his confessor, who lies buried in Salamanca, to the Bishopric, and when Sancho besieged the place, it being then held by Urraca, the defence was so excellent that "no se tomó Zamora en una hora" (Zamora was not taken in one hour) became a proverb. It was at this siege that five Moorish sheiks brought the Cid tribute and saluted him as "Campeador." There are more tangible remains of the quaint old city's importance to be found in its Cathedral and streets than its proverbs and anecdotes. Here is the house of Urraca, with an almost obliterated inscription over the gateway--"Afuera! Afuera! Rodrigo el soberbio Castellano"--culled from the ballad of the Cid, and referring to his exclusion from the place. In the church of San Pedro y Ildefonso are a couple of fine bronze-gilt shrines containing the remains of SS. Ildefonso and Atilano. The Romanesque church of the Templars, La Magdalena, dates from the twelfth century. Its rose window is formed with small columns like the Temple Church in London; and within are some beautiful tombs. The Hospital is a good building with an overhanging porch, very effectively coloured and having the appearance of glazed tiles. Many old houses of the nobility now slumber tranquilly in slow decay, and Zamora, like so many other Spanish towns of its class, seems left behind in the modern hurry of life; and this is one of its greatest charms, the charm that is so typical of old Spain. The Cathedral abuts on to the city wall and is almost surrounded by a bare piece of ground, where the remains of dismantled fortifications give a deserted and forlorn air to the very unecclesiastical aspect of the exterior. I made a sketch among these ruins and could not help feeling the result looked more like an Eastern farm enclosure than a really fine Cathedral. There was the huge unfinished square tower, baked a brilliant yellow, the _cimborio_ and dome, with its eight curious little domes, all roofed in cement, and a copy of, if not contemporary with, the same in the old Cathedral of Salamanca; the low mud walls and almost flat roofs; a party of peasants in a sort of nomad encampment, innumerable fowls pecking at the dust--what more could you have to remind one of the East. The sun was broiling, and nothing disturbed this "bit" of the Spain of long ago. The exterior of the Cathedral has been much marred by the poor Renaissance north façade, not visible in my drawing, and a tower with a slate roof. The south porch is, however, intact, and from it, for the building stands high above the Douro, the view must have been grand before the Bishop's Palace was built and obliterated the whole prospect. A dozen steps, narrowing as they approach the portal, lead up to the door which is surrounded by four good round arches with scroll mouldings of simple design. Inside this I found myself in the south transept. [Illustration: ZAMORA. THE CATHEDRAL] The interior, with the exception of that portion east of the crossing, which is poor Renaissance with perpendicular vaulting, is exceedingly massive. The nave is but twenty-five feet in width, the columns which support the bays are ten feet through; the aisles are very narrow, but so good are the proportions of all these that this miniature Cathedral is one of the finest Romanesque churches in the country. The _cimborio_ is round in plan with sixteen windows from which the ribs of the vaulting spring. Unfortunately the columns have been decorated with a spiral pattern of a chocolate colour, quite destroying the beauty and simple grandeur of a feature which for simplicity ranks next to that of the Catedral Vieja at Salamanca. In the Capilla del Cardenal at the west end of the nave is a very fine _retablo_ divided into six panels painted by Gallegos, whose signature is on the central one. I was examining this one morning when an old priest passed through into the adjoining sacristy. He stopped and explained the subjects to me, taking particular interest in this when he learnt I was a painter and what my mission to Zamora was. I cannot forget his courtesy and pride while showing me some of the treasures the Cathedral possesses, and shared his regret that the wonderful tapestries were only on view at certain festivals. In this chapel are some good tombs of the great Romero family, others too of interest are in the Capilla de San Miguel, and the finest of all that of Canon Juan de Grado has the genealogy of the Virgin sculptured above the effigy of the Canon. I was very grateful for the seats which here are available for a rest and quiet examination of the church. In Burgos is the only other Cathedral where it is possible to sit and gaze. LEON Situated on the edge of the great plain which stretches away south to the Sierra de Gredos and beyond to Toledo, Leon served as a sort of buffer town between the Highlanders of the north and the dwellers on the Castilian uplands. The headquarters of the seventh Roman Legion, from which the name is derived, it may be described as a great fortress of bygone days. Astorga, some thirty miles westwards, being an outpost in that direction no doubt helped to preserve Leon from the ravages of the Galician Visigoths. The Romans held their fortress for five hundred years until Leovigild in 586 captured it after a long and strenuous siege. So highly was the position and strength of these two towns appreciated, that when Witiza, the King of the Goths, issued a decree levelling all defensive works to the ground, they were exempted and their fortifications preserved. The Moors held Leon for a very short spell, and then only as a defence against northern invasion. When Ordoño I. descended from his mountain fastnesses and drove them out, Leon changed front with its new occupants, and became a stronghold to be held at all costs against invaders from the south. The great Almanzor, in his victorious march north with the soldiery of Cordova, swept away all opposition and this buffer town was sacked. However, after his defeat at Calatanavor and subsequent death, the banner of Christ was once more unfurled to the breeze from what little was left of its walls. These were almost entirely rebuilt of _tapia_ and cob-stones by Alfonso V., since whose time they have remained or slowly fallen away. Leon stands in a verdant pasture valley intersected by many streams and shady roads lined with tall poplars. The fields on either side are divided from one another by hedges and willow trees, thick scrub follows the streams and grows down to the water edge, and walking in these pleasant places it was not difficult to imagine myself back in England. The city itself is really little better than a big village, and considering the important part it has played in the history Spain, seems sadly neglected and left out in the cold. This, too, despite the fact that it is an important junction and railway centre. There are no buildings of any present importance, and those that once could lay claim to this are in a state of decay. It is only on Sundays and market days, when the peasants in picturesque costume and gay colours come in, that Leon can boast of the smallest animation. I remember one Sabbath evening as I stood on my balcony, that vantage ground from which one sees all the life of the place pass by in the street below, watching the folk parade up and down. A military band discoursed "brassy" music, the crowd was packed as tight as sardines in a tin, when suddenly the "toot, toot" of a motor horn was heard above the clash of cymbals and boom of the drum. A large car came down a by-street opposite, turned sharply and charged the crowd. The Spaniard is of an excitable temperament, loud cries of disapproval, and screams from the gentler sex drowned all else. The chauffeur discovered his mistake none too soon and attempted to turn the car. At this the uproar grew louder and he brought it to a standstill. Youths climbed the steps, boys hung on behind, "Toot, toot" went the horn; the bandmaster, with an eye to the situation, waved his _bâton_ more energetically than ever, the big drum boomed, the trombones blurted out for all they were worth, but the hooting and whistling drowned everything. At last the car began to back and became disengaged, the chauffeur adroitly turned, and started down the street followed by the noisier elements of the crowd eventually pulling up at a café, just out of the parade zone. In Leon as elsewhere, fashion dictates a limit to the walk in either direction and the chauffeur had stopped beyond this. The two occupants of the car got out in a very unconcerned manner, sat down at a table and ordered a drink. For at least a quarter of an hour, while these two were taking their coffee, the crowd stood round booing, whistling and shouting. I do not think I have ever seen anything cooler than the way in which, their thirst satisfied, and the account settled, they got up and walked slowly after the car which long ago had disappeared out of danger. By this time, despite the presence of a couple of the _Guardia Civil_, the crowd was excited. A cart full of peasant folk next essayed the perils of the thoroughfare, they however got through safely after much badinage and fun. No sooner had they gone, the band meantime had vanished, when out from a wine shop came some peasants with castanets a little light-headed for once. There were four of them, two men and two women. They immediately began a dance on the pavement. A ring was formed and a storm of hand-clapping encouraged them, for ten minutes they footed it admirably. More castanets appeared from somewhere and soon half Leon was dancing in the middle of the Calle. The feeble-looking policemen, who had been terribly worried over the motor-car incident, thrust out their chests, or tried to, and beamed all over. The scene had changed from what had first looked very much like an ugly row, to one of pure enjoyment, they were safe, every one else was out of danger, and Leon too was saved. [Illustration: LEON. THE CATHEDRAL] The night I arrived in Leon, having finished dinner, I left the hotel and taking the first turn hap-hazard wandered up the street. The electric lights were soon behind me and I found myself in what seemed to be a huge deserted square. The dark night was lit by milliards of twinkling stars, and gazing upwards at them my eye followed the line of what appeared to be immensely tall poplar trees. I looked again, I had never seen trees that colour, then it slowly dawned on me that I was in front of the great Cathedral. Slowly, slowly as my eye became accustomed to the dark I made out tapering spires that met the very stars themselves embedded in the purple-blue sky, an infinitude of pinnacles, with a wonderful building beneath. The mystery of a beautiful night conjures up all that is best in this country. Squalor and dirt are hidden; one's thoughts take flight and wander back to the Spain of old, the glorious Spain of bygone days. At moments like this I certainly would never have been surprised to hear the clatter of hoofs and see a band of knights with pennons flying and armour glinting appear suddenly in the semi-darkness. Well, the days of chivalry have gone but the romance of a starry night will never die. The next morning I returned eager to discover what my impressions would unfold. Much to my delight I found the restoration of the Cathedral, which I knew was in progress, so far finished that not a single scaffold pole, nor any rubbish heaps of old stones were anywhere to be seen. Extremely well have the designs of Señor Don Juan Madrazo been carried out, and the Cathedral to-day stands a magnificent church and grand monument of Christianity. Santa Maria de Regla is the third Cathedral which has existed in Leon. The site of the first is supposed to have been outside the city walls. The second was built where once stood the Palace of Ordoño II., and this had been raised on ground occupied by Roman baths. The present edifice was founded in 1190 by Bishop Manrique de Lara, a scion of a great family which was always in revolt, but was not completed until the early part of the fourteenth century. With Toledo and Burgos, Leon's Cathedral forms the group of three great churches that are distinctly French, and closely resemble Amiens and Rheims. It would be difficult to find another building the interior of which exceeded the colour elegance and grace of this airy structure. [Illustration: LEON. THE WEST PORCH OF THE CATHEDRAL] The west porch is the finest Gothic specimen of its kind which exists in Spain and recalls those of Notre Dame de Paris and the Cathedral at Chartres. Three archways are supported by cloistered columns to which are attached figures under beautiful canopies. The archivolts and tympanum are covered with sculpture representing the Reward of the Just and Unjust, the Nativity, Adoration, Flight in Egypt, and Massacre of the Innocents. All are extremely interesting, many of the figures being in contemporary costume. Two grand towers flank the west façade, of which the north is the older and some thirty feet less in height than its neighbour. Both are surmounted by spires, that of the south being an excellent example of open filigree work, rivalling those at Burgos and very much better than that of Oviedo. Between these towers and above the porch is a pediment with spires and a glorious wheel window, underneath which is a row of windows that corresponds to the triforium. This portion is part of the late restoration. The south porch also has three arches, which have been well renovated. The centre one alone has a door to admit into the interior, it is double and surrounded by figures in the archivolt with reliefs in the tympanum. On the centre column is a figure of San Froilan, at one time Bishop of Leon. A beautiful balustrade follows the sky-line of the whole Cathedral. This is broken by many pinnacles, some of which are spiral, with others on the façades and finishing the supports of the flying buttresses, give the exterior a resemblance to a forest of small spires. The interior is a marvel of beauty and lightness. The nave and aisles consist of six bays, no lateral chapels disfigure the latter with chirrigueresque atrocities. The triforium runs round the whole Cathedral. So cleverly has the spacing here been arranged, that with the clerestory it makes one magnificent panel of gorgeous light. The windows of this, forty feet high, were at one time blocked up for safety. They now contain stained glass, and soar upwards to the vaulting of the roof. Every window in the Cathedral is coloured and the effect as the sun streams through can well be imagined. No flamboyant _retablo_ spoils the simplicity of the east end, the place of what might have been a jarring note amidst the Gothic work being taken by good paintings in flat gilded frames. It was Señor Madrazo's idea to remove the _coro_ from the centre of the nave, and had this been done Santa Maria de Regla would have gained immensely. The carved stalls are good, and the _trascoro_ sculptured in white marble, which age has toned, and picked out in gold, is decidedly a fine work. Among the chapels in the apse that of La Nuestra Señora del Dado contains a miraculous Virgin and Child. Tradition tells that a gambler who had lost heavily threw his dice at her and smote her on the nose. This forthwith bled copiously, hence the miracle and the name of "Dado" or "die." Another chapel contains the tomb of a great benefactress of the Cathedral, the Condesa Sancha. An expectant nephew, seeing her property slowly dwindling in the cause of the Faith, put an end to his aunt, and thereby met his own death by being pulled asunder by horses to which he was tied. However, the chapels are not very interesting, but the tombs in the Cathedral are. Of all these that of Ordoño II., behind the chancel, is certainly the finest. The king lies at full length with a herald at his head and a monk at his feet holding a scroll inscribed "aspice." He wears his crown and carries the royal emblems. This tomb was erected five hundred years after the king's death, and is guarded by a quaint iron grille. The cloisters, entered from a door in the north transept, are a jumble of Gothic and Renaissance, with a Romanesque arcade and a good deal of plateresque work as well. Some of the earliest frescoes in Spain are fast disappearing from the walls. They illustrate events in the Life of Christ, and are in an early Italian style that places their origin in doubt. From the western spires to the angular exterior of the chevet, a good idea is obtained of the beauty of the Cathedral as one stands in these cloisters, and when they, too, are restored the great work begun in 1860 will be finished. Next to the Cathedral, and perhaps in a way more interesting, is the convent of San Isidoro el Real. This, the Escorial of Leon and Castile, is a building which Soult's soldiers desecrated in a most abominable manner; next to the lower or Roman portion of the city walls it is the most ancient building in Leon. The body of San Isidoro was brought hither in the reign of Ferdinand I. who obtained it from the Emir of Seville, and the present church was erected to receive it. This was in 1063, the original convent being a hundred years older. San Isidoro was declared by the Council of Toledo to be the Egregious Doctor of Spain, and in his capacity of titular saint fought with cross and sword at the battle of Baeza against the Moors. The church is Romanesque and dark with a lofty clerestory but no triforium. The High Altar shares with that at Lugo in Galicia the privilege of having the host always _manifestado_. [Illustration: LEON. SAN MARCOS] In the Panteon, a small low chapel at the west end, lie buried the Kings and Queens and other royalties of Leon. The columns are very massive with heavy capitals; the ceiling is adorned with early frescoes which happily escaped the depredations of the French, they are crude, but the colour adds to the impressiveness of this gloomy abode of the Dead. Representing scenes from the Lives of our Lord and His Apostles, with signs of the Zodiac and months of the year, they date from 1180. The whole convent is replete with mural paintings, and before Soult sacked it contained many extremely interesting and rare missals of the seventh and eighth centuries. Unique is another convent, that of San Marcos, which stands on the river bank outside the city on the road to Astorga. Founded as a chapel in 1168 for the knights of Santiago, it was rebuilt in 1514-49 by Juan de Badajos, and is certainly his masterpiece. It would be difficult to find a façade of greater beauty than this marvel of plateresque work. The remarkable pink and golden colour of the stone, intensified against the background of a deep blue sky, the delicacy of the carving in which angels and cherubs, griffons and monsters intermingle with floral wreaths and branches of fruit in orderly confusion, the elegant pillars and pilasters, all so truly Spanish under the blazing sun, fascinated me immensely as time after time I returned to wonder and admire. Here again I could conjure up the past, the romance of Spain's greatest Order; well housed were those knights of old in their glorious Hospice, and now--the river still runs under the walls of what afterwards became a convent, its banks are lined with tall poplars, far away rise the mountains of the north in rugged outline just as they did of yore--and San Marcos? Alas! half is a museum and the rest a barrack. A forlorn air pervades the place, the old garden wants tending, and despite the life of the military, I could not help sighing once again, as I have so often sighed in Spain--"How are the mighty fallen!" OVIEDO Oviedo, seldom visited by the foreigner, lies well situated on rising ground in a fine open valley. Grand mountains surround and hem it in on the east, south and west, to the north the country undulates until it reaches the Biscay coast twenty odd miles away. These natural barriers gather the clouds and the climate is humid; on an average there are but sixty cloudless days in the year. While I was in Oviedo it rained almost incessantly, and the "clang of the wooden shoon" kept the streets lively with a clattering "click-clack." All the poorer classes wear sabots in wet weather, sabots that are pegged on the soles, difficult to walk in, but kept well out of the mud and puddles by these pegs. This particular make is common to Asturias, just as the ordinary French shape is to Galicia. Oviedo is one of Spain's university cities, and I happened to strike the week when the festivities in celebration of its tercentenary were in progress. Wet weather and pouring rain never damp the ardour of the Spaniard during a _fiesta_, and despite the rain, powder was kept dry somehow or other, and enthusiasm vented itself regularly up to eleven o'clock every night by terrific explosions. Functions of some sort seemed to be going on all day long. Societies from the country paraded the streets, led by music, in most cases bagpipes and a drum, and Oviedo was evidently "doing itself proud." I happened on a ceremony in the Cathedral one morning. The bishop was preaching to an immense crowd when I entered. Seated in the nave were the Professors of the University, Doctors of Law and Medicine, the Military Governor and his Staff, the Alcalde and Town Councillors, besides representatives from the universities of every European country, except, strangely enough, Germany, and one from Harvard, the first to attend a function of this sort since the war. It was a really wonderful sight, for the Cathedral is not marred by a _coro_ in the nave. The hues of the many-coloured robes, from canary yellow and scarlet to cerulean blue and black, the vast throng literally filling every available bit of space, even on to the pulpit steps, gave me a subject for my brush, and I surreptitiously made a hasty sketch, to be finished afterwards in my room. [Illustration: OVIEDO. IN THE CATHEDRAL] The Cathedral was founded by Fruela in 781, and enlarged in 802 by Alfonso the Chaste, who made Oviedo the capital of Asturias, and with his Court resided here. He created the See in 810. The present edifice was begun by Bishop Gutierrez of Toledo in 1388, and the tower added by Cardinal Mendoza in 1528. Hedged in, although fronting on to a little _plaza_, the grand west façade with its beautiful porch can hardly be said to be visible. This lofty portico of richly ornamented Gothic, under the shelter of which the gossips parade to and fro, leads into the Cathedral and stands thrust out and between the two towers. Only one of these towers is completed, and it is surmounted by a good open-work spire the top of which rises two hundred and seventy feet from the ground. I wandered about hopelessly trying to gain some idea of the exterior of the Cathedral and found that it was only by walking outside the city that anything at all can be seen of it, and then the towers and roof of the nave, with the flying buttresses attached, were the only features that came into view. The entrance by the south door leads through a dark passage, in which many votive offerings hang over a tiny shrine where burnt a little flickering lamp; going in I found myself at the spot from which I had made my sketch the previous day. What a relief it was to find no _coro_ blocking up the nave! The eye could wander over the whole of this lofty interior--could follow the beautiful open work of the triforium and rest on the stained glass of the clerestory windows. The aisles are very shadowy, all the light being concentrated in the nave and the crossing, and the vision, with a great sense of good effect, is led up to the white tabernacle on the High Altar and the immense _retablo_ beyond. A little theatrical if you like, but it is business, and the Church understands this so well. Among the chapels, good, bad and indifferent, is one containing a gorgeous silver-gilt shrine wherein rests the body of Santa Eulalia, Oviedo's patroness. In another, tucked away behind the north transept, the Capilla del Rey Casto, lies buried Alfonso the Chaste who did so much for the city. Six niches in the walls contain stone coffins, which are supposed to hold the remains of Fruela I., Urraca, wife of Ramiro I., Alfonso el Católico, Ramiro, and Ordoño I. The bodies of these royalties at one time lay here, and a modern inscription on a mural tablet relates how they were removed, but not how their tombs were destroyed. Many other kings and princes we are told by this tablet also lie here, and as there are but half a dozen coffins their bones must be _bien mélange_. There are the usual overdone chirrigueresque altars which do their best to mar this imposing church, though I am glad to say they hardly succeed. From them, however, it was a relief to be taken by a very intelligent verger up the winding stairs which led to the Cámara Santa. This is by far the most interesting portion of the Cathedral. Built by Alfonso in 802 to hold the sacred relics brought hither from Toledo at the time of the Moorish invasion, it stands above a vaulted basement; the reason for this arrangement evidently being the damp climate, and the wish to keep so holy a charge free from moisture. The chapel is divided into two parts. The inner, of very small dimensions, has a low barrel vaulting borne by arches with primitive twelfth-century figures. The _sanctum sanctorum_ is slightly raised, and from this inmost Holy of Holies the relics are shown to the devout who kneel in front of a low railing every day at 8.30 A.M. and 3.30 P.M. The cedar wood _arca_ in which they are kept is of Byzantine workmanship. The relics include some of Mary Magdalene's hair, and crumbs left over from the feeding of the five thousand. The outer chamber of the chapel has a finely-groined roof, attached to the columns supporting which are statues of the twelve apostles. The richly-tesselated pavement resembles the Norman-Byzantine work of Sicily, and was not uncommon in Spain prior to the thirteenth century. A bell tower, in which at one time hung "Wamba," the great bell of the church cast in 1219, stands partly on the roof and at the south-east corner of the Cámara Santa. It was erected by Alfonso VI., and to judge by its present state will not long survive, most decidedly "Wamba" could not swing there now. The Cathedral possesses three remarkable crosses, La Cruz de los Angeles, Maltese in shape, is studded with uncut gems. It dates from 808, and like the cross at Santiago is 1200 years old. La Cruz de la Victoria, the cross of Pelayo, is encased in beautiful filigree work, and is the identical one borne aloft before Pelayo at his glorious victory over the Moor at the Cave of Covadonga. The third is a crucifix on an ivory diptych, absolutely identical with the Cristo de las Batallas of the Cid at Salamanca. Many other relics of great archæological interest belong to the Cathedral, and make it well worth the journey to see. This journey from Leon is long and trying, but the line, which climbs to an altitude of 4110 feet, is one of the finest pieces of engineering skill in Spain. [Illustration: OVIEDO. THE CLOISTERS] The dark entry of the south door leads not only into the Cathedral and up to the Cámara Santa, but also through a side door opens on to the fourteenth-century cloisters. They are well kept and the little garden court a paradise in comparison with some of those I know. The capitals of the columns are well carved with prophets and saints under canopies, angels and angels' heads, grotesques and good floral cutting; while into the walls beneath them and round the arcades are let many tombs and gravestones brought here from different ruined or desecrated churches. I went off one morning to see the earliest Christian church in the country. Braving the rain I tramped through mud ankle-deep for an hour up the hill slopes westward. It was a case of two steps forward and one back, but the spirit of the tourist was on me. I could not leave Oviedo and acknowledge I had not been to Naranco. I was desperate and I got there. What a charming out-of-the-way spot it is! Hidden behind a grove of ancient chestnut trees, under the brow of the mountain, stands Santa Maria. A triple arched porch at the top of a dozen steps gives entrance on the north side to this minute and primitive place of worship. I entered and found myself in a barrel-vaulted parallelogram, with a curious arcade running round the walls. The west end is raised three steps above the nave, from which it is cut off by three arches ten feet high at the centre. The east end also has this feature, but the floor is level with the nave. All the columns in the church are of twisted cable design with shield capitals containing figures in low relief. The arcades, which are walled up, have depending from the plain groining bands slabs of cut stone with plaques below, something like a ribbon and medal in the way they hang. The interior is but thirty-five feet in length and fifteen feet across. Beneath the church is a semicircular stone crypt, similar to that beneath the Cámara Santa; it is entered from the cottage in which at one time lived the officiating priest. The caretaker inhabits this cottage, which is built on to the church, and I had come at her dinner hour. Alas! she could not leave me in peace, and I must own to a defeat. I was practically driven away, for the meal was spoiling and required her undivided attention, but I had seen Santa Maria de Naranco; I had grasped how in the early days, when the Infidel was overrunning the land, this little building on the lone hillside was a centre of the Faith, and how from the surrounding mountain fastnesses worshippers had gathered here and gone away strengthened by prayer, and how from this little seed of the Church sown on the forest-clad hill Spain's mightiness had grown. VALLADOLID For nearly one hundred and fifty years, from the reign of Juan II., 1454, to Philip II., 1598, Valladolid was a royal city and the capital of Castile. It lies on the plain through which the river Pisuerga meanders, just touching the outskirts of the city on the western side. In the Moorish days Valladolid was known as Belad al Wali, "The Town of the Governor," and flourished as a great agricultural centre. It is still the focus of the corn trade of Old Castile. It was here that Prince Ferdinand, despite attempts on the part of his father Juan II. to frustrate it, was introduced to Isabella the reigning Queen of Castile and Leon. Many suitors had proposed themselves and paid their addresses to this paragon among women, but possessing a will of her own she made her choice and selected the Prince whom she married on October 19, 1469. Valladolid suffered more severely at the hands of the French than any other city of Spain. They demolished most of the good houses and despoiled the churches; among those that are left, however, I found plenty to interest me and to make a stay, after I had discovered them, well worth the while. I made a sketch of Santa Maria la Antigua, which is the most interesting edifice in the place. The fine Romanesque tower is surmounted by a tiled steeple which recalls Lombardy, and although many additions have been made to the original fabric the whole building piles up very well, the early Gothic east end being particularly beautiful. This church dates from the twelfth century, but the greater part of it is pure Gothic. The roof is richly groined; there are three parallel apses, and the _coro_ is at the west end--an always welcome place to find it. The _retablo_ by Juan de Juni, whose work is scattered throughout the churches of Valladolid, is fine though over-elaborate. Another good church is San Pablo, partly rebuilt by the great Cardinal Torquemada, whose name will for ever be associated with the terrors of the Inquisition. I found another subject for my brush in its very intricate late Gothic west façade. The upper part of this contains the arms of the Catholic Kings, below which on either side are those of the Duque de Lerma. The niches are luckily all filled with their original figures, and the wonderful tracery of the round window is also in good preservation. The grey finials are weather-worn and contrast well with the rich yellow and pink of the rest of the front, a façade which is absolutely crammed with intricate design. Two hideous towers of later date and of the same stone as that with which the Cathedral is built, flank this and detract unfortunately from one of the best examples of late Gothic work in the country. [Illustration: VALLADOLID. SANTA MARIA LA ANTIGUA] Hard by, up the street pictured in my sketch, stands the Colegiata de San Gregorio, with an equally fine façade, though being an earlier Gothic it is more severe in type. The doorway of this is surmounted by a genealogical tree and the arms of Ferdinand and Isabella. Some of the figures of rough hairy men with cudgels are very primitive. San Gregorio was a foundation of Cardinal Ximenes, it is now used as municipal offices. Passing through the doorway I entered a beautiful little court, rather dark, but with sufficient light to enable me to appreciate the good artesonade ceiling of its cloisters. The second court is a blaze of light. Spiral fluted columns form the cloister, the ceiling of which is picked out in a cerulean blue and white; they support a recently restored gallery, a mixture of Moorish, Romanesque and plateresque work, into which the sheaves and yoke of the Catholic Kings is introduced as at Granada and Santiago, making a very effective whole. A fine old stone stairway leads from this court up to what in the old collegiate days was a library. Of the Cathedral I fear I can write but little. It is a huge gloomy edifice without a single redeeming feature, and of all those I saw the most incomplete and disappointing. The exterior north and south walls are still unfinished, the stone work is not even faced! The east are built of brick, and the west façade, altered by Chirriguera himself from the original plan of Herrara, is extremely bald and ugly. This enormous building is four hundred feet in length and over two hundred wide, yet these proportions give it no grandeur. The interior is absolutely devoid of ornament, and if it were not for the _silleria_ in the _coro_, which were originally intended for San Pablo and are good, there would be nothing to warrant a visit to this cold and depressing church. By the way, the sacristy contains a silver _custodia_ in the shape of an open temple, a good example of the work of Juan de Arfe. There is a third-rate French air about Valladolid, at least so it struck me, and it was only after a visit to the old Colegio de Santa Cruz, wherein is the museum, that my first disappointment wore off and I felt that I was still in Spain. [Illustration: VALLADOLID. SAN PABLO] The contents of the museum are mostly objects which the French plundered from the churches and monasteries of Castile, and were recovered after their disastrous defeat at Vitoria. The styles of Berruguete, Hernandez and Juan de Juni can be examined here at leisure. Some of the life-size carved wooden figures of the last named, formerly used on the processional cars which parade the streets at certain festivals, are remarkable more from the extravagant attitudes of the figures than from their artistic merit. The custodian who accompanied me was a pleasant fellow, and evinced surprise that a _pintor_ could not see the beauties he pointed out. I fear he thought little of my artistic discrimination; especially when in the Sala de Juntas he invited me to ascend a pulpit over which hung a large crucifix, and with fervour solicited my admiration of the face of Christ, on which was a most agonised look, "cheap" and quite according to academic rules. "No, no, it is bad." "But, señor, He suffers." I could not make him understand that acute suffering need not be so painfully apparent. In this Sala are placed the whole of the _silleria de coro_ from the church of San Benito. Arranged on either side of the room they give it a superb effect. At the far end are the red velvet-covered chairs of Spanish Chippendale used by the Council of the Academy of Arts at their meetings. Beyond them, on a raised platform, are the two bronze-gilt kneeling figures of the Duke and Duchess de Lerma. A few pictures hang on the walls and other treasures and relics help to make this fine Sala an ideal council chamber for the academicians. Of the hundreds of carved figures in other rooms those by Berruguete, very Greek in type, flat brow and straight nose, are artistically by far the best, though the "Death of our Lord," a life-size composition by Hernandez, follows not far behind. Just as Madrid contains the finest armoury in the world, I doubt if any other museum can compete with Valladolid's for figures and compositions of carved wood. The University holds at present a high rank, most of its professors being progressive. The building itself is a chirrigueresque concern of the seventeenth century with a very extravagant façade. It possesses a good library which is get-at-able, and not like others belonging to the church which are very difficult of access. À propos of this one of the professors here told me the following hardly credible experience of a friend of his, whom I will call A. There is a movement at present in Spain to catalogue some at least of the many thousands of priceless historical Arabic documents and MSS. which, hidden away in Cathedral and other libraries, would throw invaluable light on the history of early times if they could be examined. A. is engaged in trying to compile this catalogue, and, hearing that in a certain Cathedral city--not Valladolid--the Cathedral library contained some treasures of Arabic lore, procured an introduction to the bishop, and requested permission to search the archives of the diocese. Explaining that he was unable to help in the matter, the bishop sent A. to the chapter authorities. The basis of their refusal was that any MS. if taken down from its shelf might be injured, and if once taken down might not be replaced in the same position! "Yes, they certainly possessed many supposed Arabic documents, but as none had been disturbed in living memory, why take the trouble to make a catalogue? Surely this would be superfluous, the books were there no doubt, A. could see them in their shelves, the librarian would be happy to show them, but no, they could not be taken down." In the library of the Escorial the books are all placed with their titles against the wall and their edges turned towards the spectator, so that no vulgar touch could defame them by reading. Small wonder that the Progressists of Spain shrug their shoulders sometimes at the many petty obstacles encountered in their attempts to better their country, and regard it as an almost hopeless task. Two foreign colleges are situated in Valladolid, the Scotch and the English. The first named was founded by Colonel Semple in Madrid and removed hither in 1771, the second by Sir Francis Englefield, who came to Spain after the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. They are both seminaries for the education of young priests and with the Irish College in Salamanca complete the trio. The focus of the city's life is in the Plaza Mayor, a fine square where the first _auto da fé_, which Philip II. and his court witnessed, took place in October 1559. It was here also that Alvaro de Luna was executed, after faithfully serving his King, Juan II., for thirty years. Spain thereby lost the strong will and the arm which enforced it, and which out of chaos had brought the country into a semblance of order by quelling the turbulent nobles. Such has been in the past the fickleness of Spain's rulers that not one of the great men who have served their country, with perhaps the exception of General Prim, and he died a disappointed man, has ever ended his life in peace and quiet. They have nearly all died at the stake, on the scaffold, or been foully murdered. The much dilapidated house in a narrow street where Columbus died is fast falling into ruin, but that in the Calle de Rastro, where Cervantes lived and wrote the first part of Don Quixote, is in better condition. BURGOS Unlike most folk who enter the country from the north, I left Burgos for the end of my last visit to Spain, and found it in a way not unlike Cadiz, the first place I arrived at. They are both clean cities--for Spain; the streets in both are narrow, and the houses tall with double-glazed balconies. There is but little traffic in either, the squares in both are numerous, but the resemblance stops at this. The streets of Burgos run east and west in lines more or less parallel with the river Arlanzón. They are draughty and cold. The city stands 2785 feet above sea level and the winds sweep down from the distant sierra in bitter blasts. The life of Burgos is eminently ecclesiastical with a large sprinkling of the military element, for here all three branches of the service are quartered. It is a quiet place and I worked in peace unmolested. What a pity the builders of the great Cathedral could not find another site whereon to erect their wonderful church. How much better it would have looked if placed on the flat ground near the river than on the spot where a summer palace of Gonzalez once stood. However, one cannot move mountains and I was perforce obliged to plant my easel on the slope of the hill and paint the stock view from in front of the west façade. In 1075 Alfonso VI. moved the Archiepiscopal See from Oca to Burgos and gave the site of the royal palace for its erection. The present edifice was founded in 1221 by Ferdinand el Santo on the occasion of his marriage with Beatrice of Swabia, who in her train brought the Englishman, Bishop Maurice. Employing a French architect, Maurice was more or less responsible for the present building, though another foreigner, John of Cologne, added the beautiful open work spires with their parapets to the towers of the west end. It is curious that this, the most richly ornate Cathedral in the country, should be the outcome of patronage of the foreigner, though at the same time it is the most Spanish of the three "foreign" Cathedrals. So rich is this magnificent Church in every style of architectural decoration that it would take a lifetime to know it thoroughly. John of Cologne's beautiful spires are better than those at Leon and Oviedo, and rise with the towers that support them to a height close on 300 ft. The gorgeous central lantern, with its twelve traceried pinnacles, the grace of those that surmount the Constable's Chapel, the many, many others that break the skyline and adorn this glorious fabric, all go to make it a building that, despite the different styles employed, will be a wonder and a joy as long as man's handiwork lasts. The lower portion of the west front was renewed in 1790. The Puerta Principal in the centre is flanked by two small doors, with reliefs of the Conception and Crowning of the Virgin, while the chief door has four statues of Ferdinand el Santo, Alfonso VI., and Bishops Oca and Maurice. Large Gothic windows occupy the third stage of the front, their bases being filled with statues. The central stage, which has a single arch, contains a splendid rose window. The upper portion of the two towers is occupied by very beautiful perforated double windows in which crochet decoration is profusely used. It is altogether a wonderful façade which I greatly wished could be seen from the level. The chief entrance on the north is closed. It is on the street, and through it the descent into the north transept is by the well-known Escalada Dorada. The early Gothic portal--Puerta alta--is adorned by statues and with the whole of this façade is one of the earliest portions of the Cathedral. The door, which on this side leads into the Cathedral, is the Puerta de la Pellejeria and opens on to the north-east angle of the transept below the Golden Staircase. On the south the Puerta del Sarmental is approached from the street by three tiers of steps, it is also part of the original Gothic and is decorated with statues and coats-of-arms. Above it rises a similar façade to that of the north transept. The arcading in both these façades is most beautiful and from some points, where the roof-line can be seen cutting the sky, they look like two towers surmounted by an elegant balustrade. Very probably the pitch of the roofs was intended to be higher, and the building of the central lantern has interfered with the original design. The nave of pure early Gothic is lofty but sadly spoilt by the height of the _coro_. The aisles are low, but very beautiful. The _cimborio_ runs up in double stages with windows in each and balustrades, it is a perfect maze of intricate design and fine carving. The walls are covered with the royal arms of Charles V. and the City of Burgos; there are figures of patriarchs and prophets standing in the niches, seraphim and angels occupy the recesses of the spandrils, and the beautiful groining of this superb octagon is quite unmatched anywhere in Spain. It all looks as if just finished, the stone is white and in perfect preservation. How my neck used to ache when looking aloft, unweaving the intricacies of that splendid interior! To strengthen the Cathedral and support the weight of this addition, the original piers were altered at the crossing, and the huge cylindrical columns, which are richly chased with Renaissance decoration, substituted. One can hardly say that Juan de Vallejo has spoilt the church by this octagon, for his work here would grace any building, but all the same I think the Gothic of the interior has suffered by the introduction of his designs, and I would sooner have seen the crossing in its original state. [Illustration: BURGOS. THE CAPILLA MAYOR] The triforium is composed of wide bays with an uneven number of closed lights in each. A single arch, the mouldings of which are surmounted by carved heads, spans each group. The clerestory contains a little modern glass, most of the old having been destroyed by a powder explosion in the fort on the hill above. In the _coro_ the _silleria_ are exquisitely carved; the main panels represent subjects from the New Testament, the lower, which are divided by pilasters with arabesques, represent scenes of martyrdom. Philip Vigarni, who was responsible for this fine _coro_, surpassed himself in some of its decoration, which adds one more item to all that ought to be thoroughly studied in the great Cathedral. On the north side of the High Altar, in front or which hangs a magnificent silver lamp, are the tombs of three of the Infantes of Castile. Behind this, the _trassagrario_ is covered with well-executed reliefs in white stone, some of this is very soft and has crumbled away a good deal. Every morning a deposit of dust is swept up and it will soon be necessary to thoroughly restore these fine panels or the designs will be lost for ever. They represent the Agony in the Garden, our Lord bearing the Cross, the Crucifixion, the Descent, the Resurrection and the Ascension. The three centre are by Vigarni, and the others by Alfonso de los Rios. Nearly all the chapels are replete with interest, be it architecture, tombs, pictures or relics, but of them all the Capilla del Condestable is the grandest. Built in 1487 by John of Cologne for the Hereditary Constable of Castile, Don Pedro Fernandez de Velasco, it is the private property of the Duque de Frias. The _reja_, the masterpiece of Cristobal Andino, bears date MDXXIII. and is certainly the finest in the Cathedral. It is a worthy entrance to this magnificent octagon, which, viewed from outside, rises detached from the main building with eight elaborate pinnacles pointing heavenwards. The tracery of the pierced ceiling of the Lantern with its gilded bosses, vies in intricacy with that of the Cathedral itself. There is a double clerestory with sculptured knights at the bases of the columns holding coloured metal banners. The undercutting of the mouldings in the arches is very marvellous, the lowest course is formed of detached figures hanging downwards and from a little distance off looks like a piece of lacework. In front of the _retablo_ and High Altar are the superbly sculptured tombs of the Constable and his wife. He is in full armour, she lies by his side on a richly embroidered cushion with her little lap-dog nestling comfortably in the folds of her robe near her feet. The chapel teems with interest; the wealth of red marble from the quarries of Atapuerca and the very effective chequer arrangement of black and white steps leading to the High Altar give it just the note of colour its whiteness otherwise would lack. Attached to the chapel is a small vestry entered through a diminutive plateresque doorway of exquisite design. Amongst other priceless relics the vestry contains a fine gold chalice studded with precious stones and a good Madonna by Luini. Another fine picture, a _Virgin and Child_ by Sebastian del Piombo, hangs over the altar in the Capilla de La Presentacion. In the Capilla del Santissimo Cristo is a very ancient crucifix of life-sized proportions. Tradition and the vergers say that it came from the East and was carved by Nicodemus. The figure is flexible and very attenuated, it is covered with a buff-coloured leather to represent dried flesh and is very gruesome. In San Juan de Sahagun are six panels of the fifteenth century; good specimens of the early Spanish school, they represent the Nativity, Adoration and four scenes from the Passion. The great Bishop Alfonso de Cartagena lies interred in the Capilla de San Enrique, and his tomb is remarkably fine. Others in this chapel and in the cloisters are cut in slate and have been worked with great cleverness considering the way in which a blow splinters this material so easily. The Chapel of Santa Ana, unfortunately restored recently, belongs to the Duque de Abrantes, and contains the best _retablo_ in the Cathedral. On it are displayed incidents in the Life of Christ which spring from and are enclosed by the branches of a genealogical tree. It is a quaint idea very well carried out. It is a difficult task to try and give an idea of the contents and admirable style of all these chapels in the space of a short chapter, suffice it to say that they are, one and all, worthy pendants to the rest of the great church, and exemplify in their contents the glorious age of the ruling bishops and nobility of Old Castile. In the south transept is a wonderful low doorway in front of which I had often stood examining the well-carved wooden panels on the doors themselves. It leads into the cloisters, but it was not until I had become thoroughly acquainted with the groups representing the Entry into Jerusalem and the Descent into Hades which grace this portal, that I passed through. The door dates from the early fifteenth century and considering the many thousands of times it has swung open and shut is in most excellent preservation. The cloisters are fourteenth-century work and form an upper storey to a basement cloister of low arches surrounding a courtyard which at the time of my visit was undergoing extensive repair. In the centre is a huge cross; the flagstones of the court were all up, and the bones from many disturbed graves were being thrown into a pit. The beautiful cloisters proper are filled with modern opaque glass--"Muy frio" answered the verger to my question, "Por que?"--and no doubt it is in the winter months. But the charm about a cloister is the vista through the arches; this Burgos has lost for the sake of the well-being of her priests; the pity is that funds would not allow of better glass when the utilitarian aspect demanded the shutting out of the cold winds. The sacristy on the east side of the cloisters is a very beautiful early fifteenth-century room with a fine groined roof, the peculiarity of which is that it has no supporting columns. The half-piers end in corbels of hunting scenes and I daresay have often recalled to many a priest days of his early boyhood. The Chapter House, with an artesonade ceiling, contains some good pictures and is reached through the Capilla del Corpus Christi. High up on the wall of this chapel, and fixed to it with iron clamps, is the Cofre del Cid, a wooden coffer which the Campeador filled with sand, and telling the Jews it was full of gold, raised six hundred marks. He redeemed the pledge later on and paid up the sum he had borrowed. The tomb of Enrique III.'s head cook, who is lying in armour with a sword, occupies a space on the floor. He was not a bad-looking man and I daresay took his turn at the enemy and used his sword when occasion offered. Street writes of these cloisters--"I know none more interesting and more varied"--but I left them and the many fine tombs and statues they contain wishing that priests were not mortal nor liable to chills. [Illustration: BURGOS. ARCH OF SANTA MARIA] The capital of Old Castile is a quiet little place and I felt I was in a northern clime far away from the charm of Andalusia and the south. The name Burgos is of Iberian origin, "Briga" signifying "a fortified hill." Founded as long ago as 884 by Diego de Porcelos, it was for many generations the capital of Castile. At the marriage of Ferdinand I. in 1067 Castile and Leon became one and ten years later the seat of Government was removed by Alfonso VI. to Toledo. Serious troubles ensued between the inhabitants of the two cities. Old Castile could not brook the interference of the great archbishops of New Castile and the loss of prestige attached to royalty and its court. In Charles V.'s reign Burgos joined the Comunéros, the opponents of centralised government, but was wisely pardoned with other towns by the King, who held a court in state for this purpose in the Plaza Mayor at Valladolid. As a result of this forgiveness the inhabitants erected the fine entrance gateway of Santa Maria of which I made a sketch. Since that day, except for Wellington's futile sieges, Burgos has slept the sleep of the just and being an eminently ecclesiastical city will continue in this happy state. Much of interest lies tucked away in the narrow streets. There is the Casa del Cordon, at one time the palace of the Velasco family, and a royal residence. Within its walls the Catholic Kings received Columbus on his return from the New World, and here was signed the incorporation of Navarre with Castile. This fine example of a town house is flanked by two square towers, with a rope from which it takes its name carved over the portal. The Casa de Miranda, with a noble courtyard and well-proportioned fluted columns, near which is the Casa de Angulo a strong fortress-like building. The façade of the old Collegio de San Nicolas is replete with fine workmanship and the church of this name with tombs. The richly-carved stone _retablo_, illustrating events of the saint's life, is also a work of real art. Under the wall of the cemetery stood the house wherein the Cid was born, and in the Castle on the hill, now a ruin, he was married. The nuptials of Edward I. of England with Eleanor of Castile were celebrated in this fortress, which can also claim the birth of Pedro the Cruel. For a provincial town Burgos possesses a most interesting museum. Among the many relics I saw was a bronze altar font with coloured enamels of saints and a Moorish ivory casket, both from the monastery of San Domingo de Silos. The fine kneeling figure in alabaster of Juan de Padilla, who lost his life at an early age during one of the sieges of Granada, is almost as beautiful as that of the Infante Alfonso in the Cartuja. Roman and mediæval remains, found at different times and taken from disestablished convents, added to the interest of a short visit. There is so much to see in Burgos and its surroundings, and the seeing of it all is so pleasant, so undisturbed, and so different to the south, where for ever I was annoyed by touting loafers and irrepressible boys, that when I left it was with feelings of great regret. [Illustration] Across the river, about an hour's walk one morning brought me to the Convent of Las Huelgas, which is still inhabited by shy nuns. Founded in 1187 by Alfonso VIII. it has always loomed large in the history of Castile. Many of her kings have kept vigil before the High Altar, when receiving knighthood, our own Edward I. among them. Many royal pairs have been wedded within the church, and many sleep their long sleep within its quiet precincts. The Abbess was mitred, she possessed powers of life and death, she ranked as a Princess-palatine next to the Queen, and she was styled "Por la gracia de Dios." Her nuns were, and still are, daughters of noble houses, and some even of royal birth. In the chapel of Santiago hangs a copy of the embroidered banner captured at the great fight of Las Navas de Tolosa, a victory which crippled and drove out the Infidel from the north. The original hangs in the nun's choir, a fitting pendant to the splendid tapestries which cover the walls. I was told of other treasures invisible to the eye of man and once again wished I could have changed my sex for a short time. Being mere man, I heard the gate shut as I left the convent with a rather crestfallen feeling, so walked another half-mile on to the Hospital del Rey. Alfonso VIII. built this Hospice for pilgrims _en route_ to Santiago. But little remains of the original building, though the Renaissance façade and thirteenth-century doorway, with curious figures of Adam and Eve, repaid me for my extra trudge and I returned to my hotel with the imagined slight dissipated and my _amour propre_ restored. My last pilgrimage in Spain happened one cold afternoon when I went out to the Cartuja de Miraflores. The clouds hung low over the hills and the damp smell of autumn was in the air. The road thither passes through avenues of great poplars. The leaves had begun to fall and it was wet under foot. A slight drizzle was imperceptibly saturating everything and I thought the time of my departure from sunny Spain not ill-chosen. Despite all this, and the depressing day, I can always recall with pleasure the road that my companion and I traversed before we passed under the arch that marks the monastic boundary. Beggars accosted us at the door of the monastery, for once I gave them alms and received a blessing. We passed in, and found ourselves in a pretty little courtyard filled with dahlias and other autumnal flowers. The bright colours cheered us a bit, the church lay on our left, we entered it under a Gothic arch. A monk in the stalls was at prayer, he also kept an observant eye on the two visitors. Our footsteps seemed to sound intensely loud on the stone pavement, and we spoke in very low whispers. The cold white-washed walls and this solitary figure droning out his prayers were depressing. We furtively admired the finely-carved stalls, the grand _retablo_ over the High Altar with its terribly life-like crucifix, all the time with a feeling on my part of that vigilant eye boring a hole in my back like a gimlet. We next examined the alabaster tomb the masterpiece of Gil de Siloe, executed to the order of Isabella the Catholic, which stands in front of the altar. Juan II. and his wife Isabella of Portugal lie side by side clothed in their robes of state. At his feet are two Lions, at hers a Lion and a Dog. I forgot the solitary monk and the gimlet stopped its work as I became lost in admiration while following the intricacies of Gil de Siloe's greatest production. At the eight corners of this magnificent tomb, most undoubtedly the finest I have ever seen, and by some considered unsurpassed in Europe, sixteen lions support the royal arms, above them along the cornice beautiful little statuettes stand under canopies which are a marvel of delicate tracery. The embroidery on the robes of the royal pair is exquisite and the imitation of the lace work unsurpassed. For a long time we stood discussing and admiring the marvellous cleverness of the designer of a monument which is worthy of the great and pious woman who erected it to the memory of her parents. Hard by in the west wall of the church is the tomb of the Infante Alfonso, whose death at the early age of sixteen left the accession vacant for Isabella and so changed the history of Castile. It is likewise a wonderful piece of work by the same skilful hand. The young Prince kneels alone in an attitude of prayer which gains dignity from the half-shadow thrown by the recess in which the monument is placed. The arch above is decorated with a twining vine, while men-at-arms support the tomb. We turned from the contemplation of these two memorials and the monotone of the old monk's prayer filled the church. I think we both shared a feeling of relief when we found ourselves once more outside under the grey sky, though I shall ever remember the impression of that aisleless church with its magnificent tombs, that white robed monk with his droning voice, the chill of the autumn air and those long lines of stately poplars under which I passed in my last pilgrimage in Spain. INDEX Abderrhaman, mosque of, 80 Adrian IV., Pope, 81 Albornoz, Cardinal, tomb of, 111 Alfonso VI., 234, 235 Alfonso VIII., 245 Alfonso de Cartagena, Bishop, 240 Alfonso el Catolico, 197; coffin of, 220 Alfonso the Chaste, 218, 220 Alfonso the Learned, sarcophagus of, 10 Alfonso de los Rios, 238 Alhambra, 31, 46, _sqq._ Court of Lions, 50 Almakkari, historian, 23 Almanzor, 200 Alva Garcia, 138 Alvaro de Luna, 232 Antequerra, 48 Arabic documents, 230 Aragon, union of, with Castile, 67 Arfe, silver monstrance by, 142 Arfe, Juan de, 228 Arlanzón, river, 233 Astorga, 193-198 Cathedral, 193, _sqq._ Historical sketch, 197 Augustus, Emperor, 84 Averroes, 30 Avila, 137-144 Cathedral, 81, 138 Avila, Historical sketch, 137 Avila, tomb of, 143 Badajos, Juan de, 215 Baeza, 195 Barcelona, 83, 91-99 Cathedral, 92, _sqq._ Church of San Pablo del Campo, 94 Church of Santa Marica del Mar, 95 Church of Santa Marica del Pi, 95 Historical sketch, 91, _sqq._ Rambla, 97 Barceloneta, suburb of Barcelona, 96 Bartolomé, and the Capilla Real, Granada, 39 Beatrice of Swabia, sarcophagus of, 10 Becerra, Gaspar, 195 Beggars, at Cordova, 29, 30; at Seville, 30, 35; at Madrid, 30 Bernardo de Aragon, tomb of, 164 Berruguete, carvings by, 113, 141, 228 Boabdil, figure of, at Granada, 41 Brutus, Junius, founds colony on the Turia, 66 Bull-fights, at Seville, 20 Burgos, 233-248 Capilla del Condestable, 238 Capilla del Corpus Christi, 242 Capilla de la Presentacion, 239 Capilla de San Enrique, 240 Capilla del Santissimo Cristo, 239 Cathedral, 233, _sqq._ Chapel of Santa Anna, 240 Church of San Domingo de Silos, 244 Church of San Juan de Sahagun, 240 Convent of las Huelgas, 245 Collegio de San Nicolas, 244 Historical sketch, 234, _sqq._ Museum, 244 Cadiz, 1-5 Académia de Bellas Artes, 4 Cathedral, 3, 4 Historical sketch, 3 Mercado, 4 Cæsar, Julius, captures Seville, 7 Calix at Valencia, 71 Campaña, Pedro, pictures at Seville, 12 Cano, Alonso, pictures by, at Cadiz, 4; at Seville, 11, 12; builds façade of Cathedral at Granada, 38; pictures by, 38; pictures by, at Malaga, 60; figure by at Segovia, 151 Cartuja de Miraflores, 246 Casa Consistorial, Barcelona, 95 Casa del Cordon, Burgos, 243 Cataluña, union with Aragon, 92 Cervantes, house of, 232 Charles V., palace of, 54; arms of, 236 Chartres Cathedral, 211 Chirriguera, High Altar by, 129, 141, 228 Cid, the, 65, 201 Cofre del Cid, 242 Columbus, monument at Seville, 11; house of, 232 Comunéros, 243 Cordova, 23-30 Capilla de Nuestra Señorade Villavicosia, 25 Cathedral, 24, _sqq._ Convent de San Jeronimo, 30 Historical sketch, 23, 24 Mosques, 24, 25 Cornielis, work of, 141 Corre de Sol, Granada, 55 Cristóbal, carving by, at Tortosa, 81 Dalman de Mur, High Altar by, 164 Damian Forment, retablo, 166, 167 Darro, river at Granada, 31, 33, 34, 37 De Gainza, Martin, 10 Diego de Porcelos, 242 Diego de Siloe, plans Cathedral at Granada, 38; at Malaga, 59 Duque de Lerma, 226 Edward I., marriage of, 244, 245 El Calvario, 150 El Campanario, tower at Cordova, 27 El Cristo de la Luz, Toledo, 115 El Grao, port of Valencia, 67 El Parral, Segovia, 154 El Transito, Toledo, 114 Englefield, Sir Francis, 232 Escovedo, Juan, 150 Essex, siege of Cadiz by Lord, 4 Ferdinand I., 200, marriage of, 243 Ferdinand and Isabella, monument at Granada, 40; portraits, 41, 44, 225; arms of, 227 Ferdinand el Santos, 234, 235 Francisco de Lara, ceiling by, 112 Francisco de Palenzuela, tomb of, 126 Fruela I., coffin of, 220 Gallegos, panels by, 203 Gayá, 84 Genil, river at Granada, 34 Geromino, tomb of, 126 Geronimo, 200 Gerona, 101-10 Cathedral, 103, _sqq._ Church of San Pedro de los Gallegans, 105 Historical sketch, 101, _sqq._ Gibraltar, 58 Gil de Siloe, 247 Giralda Tower, Seville, 13, 14 Gomar, Francisco, work at Tarragona, 86 Gonzalo de Cordoba, 45 Grado, Canon Juan de, tomb of, 204 Granada, 31-35 Albaicin, 31 Alhambra, 31, _sqq._ Antequeruela, 31 Capilla de la Antigue, 39 Capilla de Pulgar, 44 Capilla Real, 42 Capilla de Trinidad, 38 Cathedral, 38, 44 Church of San Juan de los Reyes, 44 Church of San Nicólas, 44 Church of Santa Anna, 44 Convent of Cartuja, 45 Convent of San Geronimo, 45 Greek remains, Tuy, 183 Guadalete, river at Cadiz, 5; battle on banks of, 58 Guadalquiver, position of Cordova on, 23 Guadelmedina, the, 61 Guillermo Boffy, 104 Gutierrez, Bishop, 219 Hernandez, 229, 230 Hontañon, rebuilt dome of Seville Cathedral, 12; Salamanca Cathedral, 125; Segovia, 150 Hospital de Santa Cruz, Toledo, 116 Infante Alfonso, tomb of, 248 Inigo de Mendoz, tomb of, 112 James I., of Aragon, armour of at Valencia, 70; tomb of, 86 Jews at Seville, 15 John of Cologne, 234, 238 John of Gaunt, 178 José Granados, builds western facade of Cathedral, Granada, 38 Juan II., 24 Juan Bantista Celma, 178 Juan, Prince, tomb of, 142 Juan de Borgoña, frescoes by, 112, 141 Juan de Castro, 178 Juan de Juni, 228 Juan de Mena, 30 Juan de Padilla, figure of, 244 Juan de Vallejo, 237 Juanes, _Last Supper_ by, 71 La Magdena, Zamora, 201 Lanfredo, Bishop, 80 La Peña Gajera, 154 La Peñarala, 158 Las Navas de Tolosa, 245 Leon, 205-216 Cathedral, 209 Chapel of La Nuestra Señora del Dado, 213 Convent of San Isidoro el Real, 214 Convent of San Marcos, 215 Historical sketch, 205, _sqq._ Leovigild, 205 Loja, 48 Loyola, relic of, 95 Lucan, 30 Madrazo, designs by, 210 Maestro Matio, portrait of, 176 Malaga, 57-63 Alcazába, 61 Cathedral, 59 Historical sketch, 57, _sqq._ Mercado, 61 Malagueta, river, 61 Manrique de Lara, Bishop, 210 Maragatos, the, 195 Marcellus peoples Cordova, 23 Maria Padilla, mistress of Pedro the Cruel, coffin of, 10 Maurice, Bishop, 234, 235 Mena, Pedro de, pupil of Cano, 60 Mendoza, Cardinal, 219 Meshwâr, 53 Miguelete Tower, 66 Minho, river, 183 Monte Mauro, 34 Morales, 30 Mulhacen, 48 Murillo, pictures at Cadiz, 4; _San Antonio de Padua_ at Seville, 11; in Seville Museum, 20 Museum, Seville, 20 Napoleonic Wars, 67 Naranco, 223 Church of Santa Maria, 223, 224 Nicodemus, 239 Nicolas Florentino, retablo by, 128 Nicolas de Vergara, carving by, 113 Notre Dame de Paris, 211 Oca, Bishop, 235 Oñar, river, 102 Ordoño I., coffin of, 220 Ordoño II., 213 Orense, 187-191 Cathedral, 187, _sqq._ Convent of San Francisco, 190 Historical sketch, 187 Oviedo, 217-224 Capilla del Rey Casto, 220 Cathedral, 218 Historical sketch, 218, _sqq._ Panteon, Leon, 215 Parapanda, Mount, 48 Pedro the Cruel, coffin of, 10; trees planted by, 14 Pedro Mato, statue of, 195 Pelayo, 222 Petrucci Orto, chalice by, 142 Philip II. destroys mosques at Cordova, 24 Philip Vigarni, 237, 238 Philip and Juana la Loca, tomb of, at Granada, 40; coffins of, 42 Pisuerga, river, 225 Pliny quoted, 197 Pradas, work of, at Granada, 43 Quintata, Cardinal, tomb of, 190 Ramiro II., 200 Ramiro, coffin of, 220 Ramon Berenguer I., Count, 91 Ramon Berenguer II., and Emensendis, tombs of, 104 Reus, 83 Ribalta, painting by, at Valencia, 71 Ribera, _Adoration_ by, 71 Roman remains, at Tarragona, 84; at Segovia, 149 Roman Sculpture at Tarragona, 89 Salamanca, 121-135 Capilla del Carmen, 126 Capilla Mayor, 128 Capilla de San Bartolomé, 128 Capilla de Talavera, 128 Cathedrals, 121, 124, _sqq._, 127 Church of San Pedro, 143 Collegio Mayor de Santiago Apostol, 132 Convent of las Agustinas Recoletas, 130 Grammar School, 131 Historical sketch, 123, _sqq._ University, 131 San Pedro, river at Cadiz, 5 Santa Eulalia, body of, 93, 220 Santiago, 171-181 Cathedral, 173, _sqq._ Collegio de San Gerónimo, 180 Historical sketch, 172 Santos Cruz, pictures by, 141 Saragossa, 101, 159-170 Church of San Pablo, 167 Cathedrals, 162, _sqq._ El Pilar, 165 Historical sketch, 159, _sqq._ La Seo, 162, _sqq._ Sebastian del Piombo, 239 Segovia, 145-158 Capilla del Cristo del Consuelo, 152 Cathedral, 150, _sqq._ Chapel of Santa Cantalina, 152 Church of San Martin, 153 Church of San Millan, 153 Church of la Vera Cruz, 153 Convent of Santa Cruz, 153 Historical sketch, 149, _sqq._ Semple, Colonel, 232 Seneca, 30 Seville, 7-21 Capilla de San Pedro, 11 Capilla de Santiago, 11 Cathedral, 8, _sqq._ Historical sketch, 7 Jewish quarter, 15 Sierra de Elvira, 48 Sierra Nevada, 48, 55 Souchet, sacks Valencia, 67 Tarragona, 83-90 Cathedral, 84, _sqq._ Historical sketch, 83, _sqq._ Toledo, 107-119 Bridges, 116, 117 Cathedral, 109 Capilla de la Descension de Nuestra Señora, 112 Capilla de Reyes Nuevo, 111 Capilla de San Ildefonso, 111 Capilla de Santiago, 112 Church of San Juan de los Reyes, 114 Church of Santa Maria la Blanca, 114 Convent of San Domingo el Real, 115 Historical sketch, 107, _sqq._ Jews' quarter, 114 Torquemada, Cardinal, 226 Tortosa, 77-82 Carving at, by Cristobal, 81 Cathedral 80, _sqq._ Historical sketch, 78, _sqq._ Triana, 19 Tribunal de Aguas, 69 Tuy, 183-185 Cathedral, 183, _sqq._ Convent of Santa Domingo, 185 Historical sketch, 183, _sqq._ Urraca, 200; coffin of, 220 Valencia, 65-76 Cathedral, 69 Church of San Martin, 72 Church of Santa Catalina, 71 Convent del Carmen, 75 Convent Espinose, 75 Convent Juanes, 75 Convent Ribalta, 75 Historical sketch, 65, _sqq._ Mercado, 73, 74 Valladolid, 225-232 Church of Santa Maria la Antigua, 226 Colegiata de San Gregorio, 227 Collegio de Santa Cruz, 228 Historical sketch, 225 Scotch and English Colleges, 232 University, 230 Vargas, Louis de, _La Gamba_ at Seville, 11, 12 Vega, the, 62 Velasquez, tomb of, 142 Vigarney, carvings by, 113 Viladomát, pictures by, at Barcelona, 95 "Wamba," great bell, Oviedo, 222 Wellington, Duke of, 48 Ximenes, 112, 227 Yahya, Moorish King, 65 Zamora , 199-204 Capilla del Cardinal, 203 Capilla de San Miguel, 204 Cathedral, 201, _sqq._ Church of la Magdalena, 201 Church of San Pedro of Ildefonso, 201 Historical sketch, 200 Hospital, 201 Zurbaran, pictures at Cadiz, 4; at Seville, 11, 12 Printed by BALLANTYNE & CO. LIMITED Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London * * * * * Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber. matyrdoms of the Order=>martyrdoms of the Order Witiza in the meantime died and was suceeded=>Witiza in the meantime died and was succeeded The whole rises in isolated grandeur and and may perhaps gain=>The whole rises in isolated grandeur and may perhaps gain and if it happen to be a=>and if it happens to be a the arches of the the old bridge=>the arches of the old bridge so named on acount of the scallop shells=>so named on account of the scallop shells she is embracing me, we disentagle ourselves=>she is embracing me, we disentangle ourselves but a short exsistence as their house of prayer=>but a short existence as their house of prayer who fought three antagonists one ofter another and came off successful=>who fought three antagonists one after another and came off successful I was immediatley nonplussed=>I was immediately nonplussed Bernardo de Arragon, tomb of, 164=>Bernardo de Aragon, tomb of, 164 
29820	----	_The Cathedral Series_ _The following, each 1 vol., library 12mo, cloth, gilt top profusely illustrated. $2.50_ _The Cathedrals of Northern France BY FRANCIS MILTOUN_ _The Cathedrals of Southern France BY FRANCIS MILTOUN_ _The Cathedrals of England BY MARY J. TABER_ _The following, each 1 vol., library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, profusely illustrated. Net, $2.00_ _The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine BY FRANCIS MILTOUN_ _The Cathedrals of Northern Spain BY CHARLES RUDY_ _L. C. PAGE & COMPANY New England Building, Boston, Mass._ [Illustration: NOTRE DAME ... _de NOYON_] THE CATHEDRALS OF NORTHERN FRANCE By FRANCIS MILTOUN WITH EIGHTY ILLUSTRATIONS, PLANS, AND DIAGRAMS, By BLANCHE McMANUS [Illustration] BOSTON L. C. Page and Company MDCCCCIIII _Copyright, 1903_ BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) _All rights reserved_ Published October, 1903 Colonial Press Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, Mass., U. S. A. _THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR AND ARTIST TO THE GENIUS OF RACE WHICH MADE POSSIBLE THE EXISTENCE OF THESE ARCHITECTURAL "GLORIES OF FRANCE"_ APOLOGIA _"There are two ways of writing a book of travel: to recount the journey itself or the results of it." This is also the case with regard to any work which attempts to purvey topographical or historical information of a nature which is only to be gathered upon the spot; and, when an additional side-light is shown by reason of the inclusion, as in the present instance, of the artistic and religious element, it becomes more and more a question of judicious selection and arrangement of fact, rather than a mere hazarding of opinions, which, in many cases, can be naught but conjecture, and may, in spite of any good claim to authoritativeness, be misunderstood or perverted to an inutile end, or, what is worse, swallowed in that oblivion where lies so much excellent thought, which, lacking either balance or timeliness, has become stranded, wrecked, and practically lost to view because of its unappropriate and unattractive presentation._ _To-day, the purely technical writer may have little hope of immortality unless he is broad-minded enough to take a cultivated interest in many matters outside the ken of his own particular sphere. The best-equipped person living could not produce a new "Dictionary of Architecture," and expect it to fill any niche that may be waiting for such a work, unless he brought to bear, in addition to his own special knowledge, something of the statistician, something of the professed compiler, and, if possible, a little of the not unimportant knowledge possessed by the maker and seller of books, meaning--the publisher. Given these qualifications, it is likely that he will then produce an ensemble as far in advance of what otherwise might have been as is the modern printing machine, as a factor in the dissemination of literature, as compared with the ancient scribes working to the same end._ _The sentimentalist and rhapsodist in words and ideas is a dwindling factor at the present day, and a new presentation of fact is occasionally to be met with in the printed page. The best "book of travel" within the knowledge of the writer, and perhaps one of the slightest in bulk ever written in the English language, is Stevenson's "Inland Voyage"--here were imagination, appreciation, and a new way of seeing things, and, above all, enthusiasm; and this is the formula upon which doubtless many a future writer will build his reputation, though he may never reach the significant heights expressed by Stevenson in the picturesque wording of his wish to be made Bishop of Noyon._ _This apparent digression into a critical estimate of the making of books is but another expression of the justification of the writer in the attempt herein made to set forth in attractive and enduring form certain facts and realities with regard to the grand and glorious group of cathedrals of Northern France._ _They have appeared as demanding something more than the conventional guide-book, or even technical estimates as to their perfections, and the belief is that the gathering together, after this fashion, of the contemporary information not always to the hand of the general reader presents an attraction as appealing and deserving of a place on the book-shelf as would be an avowed reference work, or a volume made to sell on the strength of its bulk or ornateness, or, lacking these questionable attributes, presented in the guise of a whilom text-book, the sole province of which is to impart "knowledge" after a certain well recognized and set pattern._ _It is believed that, regardless of much that has been said and written anent the subject, the fact remains that some considerable numbers of persons may be supposed to exist who would be glad of a further suggestion which would make possible an acquaintance with the cathedrals of France as a part of their own personal experience. To all such, then, it is to be hoped this book will appeal._ F. M. CONTENTS PAGE Introduction 11 PART I. TRANSITION EXAMPLES I. Introductory 41 II. Notre Dame de Laon 43 III. Notre Dame de Noyon 49 IV. Notre Dame de Soissons 54 PART II. THE GRAND GROUP I. Introductory 61 II. Notre Dame d'Amiens 64 III. St. Pierre de Beauvais 70 IV. Notre Dame de Rouen 79 V. Basilique de St. Denis 93 VI. Notre Dame de Paris 101 VII. St. Julien; Le Mans 113 VIII. Notre Dame de Chartres 123 IX. Notre Dame de Reims 132 PART III. THE CATHEDRALS OF THE LOIRE I. Introductory 147 II. St. Croix d'Orleans 150 III. St. Louis de Blois 156 IV. St Gatien de Tours 163 V. St. Maurice d'Angers 173 VI. St. Pierre de Nantes 183 PART IV. CENTRAL FRANCE I. St. Etienne d'Auxerre 191 II. St. Etienne de Bourges 199 III. St. Cyr and St. Juliette de Nevers 209 IV. St. Mammes de Langres 218 V. Notre Dame d'Auxonne 220 PART V. EAST OF PARIS I. Introductory 223 II. Notre Dame de Boulogne-sur-Mer 231 III. Notre Dame de Cambrai 234 IV. Notre Dame de St. Omer 237 V. St. Vaast d'Arras 242 VI. St. Etienne de Toul 247 VII. St. Etienne, Chalons-sur-Marne 251 VIII. St. Dié 254 IX. St. Lazare d'Autun 257 X. St. Bénigne de Dijon 262 XI. Notre Dame de Senlis 266 XII. St. Etienne de Meaux 270 XIII. St. Pierre de Troyes 274 XIV. St. Etienne de Sens 279 PART VI. WESTERN NORMANDY AND BRITTANY I. Introductory 285 II. Notre Dame d'Evreux 288 III. Notre Dame d'Alençon 296 IV. St. Pierre de Lisieux 301 V. Notre Dame de Séez 305 VI. Notre Dame de Bayeux 310 VII. Notre Dame de St. Lo 315 VIII. Notre Dame de Coutances 321 IX. St. Pierre d'Avranches 326 X. St. Sol, Dol-de-Bretagne 329 XI. St. Malo and St. Servan 335 XII. Tréguier 339 XIII. St. Brieuc 342 XIV. St. Pol de Leon 345 XV. St. Corentin de Quimper 348 XVI. Vannes 351 APPENDICES I. The Architectural Divisions of France 353 II. A List of the Departments of France 356 III. The Church in France 359 IV. A List of the Larger French Churches Which Were at One Time Cathedrals 362 V. Chronology of the Chief Styles and Examples of Church Building 365 VI. Dimensions and Chronology 366 VII. The French Kings from Charlemagne Onward 383 VIII. Measurements of the Cathedrals at Amiens and Salisbury 384 IX. French Metres Reduced to English Feet 385 X. A Brief Glossary of Architectural Terms 386 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Notre Dame de Noyon _Frontispiece_ Notre Dame de Laon 43 Notre Dame de Noyon 47 Notre Dame d'Amiens 64 St. Pierre de Beauvais 70 Notre Dame de Rouen 77 Basilique de St. Denis 91 Oriflamme of St. Denis 100 Notre Dame de Paris 101 Notre Dame de Paris from the River 107 St. Julien; Le Mans 111 Notre Dame de Chartres 123 Notre Dame de Reims 132 St. Croix d'Orleans 150 St. Louis de Blois 156 St. Gatien de Tours 161 Flying Buttress, St. Gatien de Tours 170 St. Maurice d'Angers 171 St. Pierre de Nantes 183 St. Etienne d'Auxerre 191 St. Etienne de Bourges 197 St. Cyr and St. Juliette de Nevers 209 St. Mammes de Langres 218 Nancy 227 Boulogne, St. Omer, Arras 229 Notre Dame de Cambrai 236 St. Etienne de Toul 247 St. Etienne, Chalons-sur-Marne 251 St. Dié 254 St. Lazare d'Autun 257 St. Bénigne de Dijon 262 Notre Dame de Senlis 266 St. Etienne de Meaux 270 St. Pierre de Troyes 274 St. Etienne de Sens 279 Notre Dame d'Evreux 289 Window Framing--Evreux 295 Notre Dame d'Alençon 296 St. Pierre de Lisieux 299 Notre Dame de Séez 305 Notre Dame de Bayeux 310 Notre Dame de St. Lo 315 Notre Dame de Coutances 319 St. Pierre d'Avranches 326 Column of St. Pierre d'Avranches 328 St. Samson, Dol-de-Bretagne 329 St. Malo and St. Servan.--Tréguier 333 St. Brieuc 342 St. Corentin de Quimper 348 Notre Dame d'Amiens (diagram) 366 Map of Angers 367 St. Etienne de Bourges (diagram) 370 Notre Dame de Laon (diagram) 372 St. Julien, le Mans (diagram) 373 Map of Nantes 374 Notre Dame de Noyon (diagram) 375 Notre Dame de Paris (diagram) 376 Notre Dame de Reims (diagram) 377 Flying Buttresses, Reims 377 Notre Dame de Rouen (diagram) 378 Basilique de St. Denis (diagrams) 380 Map of Tours 381 Charles VII. 383 Ground Plan 386 Cross Section 387 Interior 388 Cross Section 389 _The Cathedrals of Northern France_ INTRODUCTION An attempt to enumerate the architectural monuments of France is not possible without due consideration being given to the topographical divisions of the country, which, so far as the early population and the expression of their arts and customs is concerned, naturally divides itself into two grand divisions of influences, widely dissimilar. Historians, generally, agree that the country which embraces the Frankish influences in the north, as distinct from that where are spoken the romance languages, finds its partition somewhere about a line drawn from the mouth of the Loire to the Swiss lakes. Territorially, this approaches an equal division, with the characteristics of architectural forms well nigh as equally divided. Indeed, Fergusson, who in his general estimates and valuations is seldom at fault, thus divides it:--"on a line which follows the valley of the Loire to a point between Tours and Orleans, then southwesterly to Lyons, and thence along the valley of the Rhône to Geneva." With such a justification, then, it is natural that some arbitrary division should be made in arranging the subject matter of a volume which treats, in part only, of a country or its memorials; even though the influences of one section may not only have lapped over into the other, but, as in certain instances, extended far beyond. As the peoples were divided in speech, so were they in their manner of building, and the most thoroughly consistent and individual types were in the main confined to the environment of their birth. A notable exception is found in Brittany, where is apparent a generous admixture of style which does not occur in the churches of the first rank; referring to the imposing structures of the Isle de France and its immediate vicinity. The "Grand Cathedrals" of this region are, perhaps, most strongly impressed upon the mind of whoever takes something more than a superficial interest in the subject as the type which embodies the loftiest principles of Gothic forms, and, as such, they are perhaps best remembered by that very considerable body of persons known as intelligent observers. The strongest influences at work in the north from the twelfth century onward have been in favour of the Gothic or pointed styles, whilst, in the south, civic and ecclesiastical architecture alike were of a manifest Byzantine or Romanesque tendency. No better illustration of this is possible than to recall the fact that, when the builders of the fifteenth century undertook to complete that astoundingly impressive choir at Beauvais, they sought to rival in size and magnificence its namesake at Rome, which, under the care of the Pontiff himself, was then being projected. Thus it was that this thoroughly Gothic structure of the north was to stand forth as the indicator of local influences, as contrasted with the Italian design and plans of the St. Peter's of the south. A discussion of the merits of any territorial claims as to the inception of what is commonly known as Gothic architecture, under which name, for the want of a more familiar term, it shall be referred to herein, is quite apart from the purport of this volume, and, as such, it were best ignored. The statement, however, may be made that it would seem clearly to be the development of a northern influence which first took shape after a definite form in a region safely comprehended as lying within the confines of northeastern France, the Netherlands, and the northern Rhine Provinces. Much has been written on this debatable subject and doubtless will continue to be, either as an arrow shot into the air by some wary pedant, or an equally unconvincing statement, without proof, of some mere follower in the footsteps of an illustrious, but behind the times, expert. It matters not, as a mere detail, whether it was brought from the East in imperfect form by the Crusaders, and only received its development at the hands of some ingenious northerner, or not. Its development was certainly rapid and sure in the great group which we know to-day in northern France, and, if proof were wanted, the existing records in stone ought to be sufficiently convincing to point out the fact that here Mediæval Gothic architecture received its first and most perfect development. The _Primaire_: the development of the style finding its best example at Paris. The _Secondaire_: the Perfectionnement at Reims, and its Apogee at Amiens. The _Tertiaire_: practically the beginning of the decadence, in St. Ouen at Rouen, only a shade removed from the debasement which soon followed. As to the merits or demerits of the contemporary structures of other nations, that also would be obviously of comparative unimportance herein except so far as a comparison might once and again be made to accentuate values. The earliest art triumphs of the French may well be said to have been in the development and _perfectionnement_ of Mediæval (Gothic) architecture. Its builders planned amply, wisely, and well, and in spite of the interruptions of wars, of invasions, and of revolutions, there is nowhere to be found upon the earth's surface so many characteristic attributes of Mediæval Gothic architecture as is to be observed in this land, extending from the Romanesque types of Fréjus, Périgueux and Angoulême to that classical degeneration commonly called the Renaissance, a more offensive example of which could hardly be found than in the conglomerate structure of St. Etienne du Mont at Paris, or the more modern and, if possible, even more ugly Cathedral Churches at Arras, Cambrai, or Rennes in the north. There may be attractive Italian types in existence out of Italy; but the fact is that, unless they are undoubted copies of a thoroughly consistent style to the very end, they impress one as being out of place in a land where the heights of its own native style are so exalted. Gothic, regardless of the fact as to whether it be the severe and unornamental varieties of the Low Countries or the exaggerations of the most ornately flamboyant style, appears not only to please the casual and average observer, but the thorough student of ecclesiastical architecture as well. It has come to be the accepted form throughout the world of what is best representative of the thought and purpose for which a great church should stand. With the Renaissance we have not a little to do, when considering the cathedrals of France. Seldom, if ever, in the sixteenth century did the builder or even the restorer add aught but Italian accessories where any considerable work was to be accomplished. Why, or how, the Renaissance ever came into being it is quite impossible for any one to say, _sans doubt_, as is the first rudimentary invention of Gothic itself. Perhaps it was but the outcome of a desire for something different, if not new; but in the process the taste of the people fell to a low degree. Architecture may be said to have been all but divorced from life, and, while the fabric is a dead thing of itself, it is a very living and human expression of the tendencies of an era. The Renaissance sought to revive painting and sculpture and to incorporate them into architectural forms. Whether after a satisfactory manner or not appears to have been no concern with the revivers of a style which was entirely unsuited in its original form to a northern latitude. That which answered for the needs and desires of a southern race could not be boldly transplanted into another environment and live without undergoing an evolution which takes time, a fact not disproven by later events. The Italians themselves were the undoubted cause of the debasement of the classical style, evidences having crept into that country nearly a hundred years before the least vestiges were known in either France or Germany, the Netherlands, or England, and which, though traceable, had left but slight impress in Spain. It is doubtless not far wrong to attribute its introduction into France as the outcome of the wanderings in Italy of Charles VIII., in the latter years of the XV. century. As a result of this it is popularly supposed that it was introduced into the domestic architecture of the nobles who had accompanied the king. Here it found perhaps its most satisfying expression; in those magnificent châteaux of the Loire, and the neighbourhood of Tours and Blois, ever a subject for sentimental praise. One would not seek to pass condemnation upon the application of revived classic features where they were but the expression of an individual taste, as in a chateau whose owner so chose to build and embellish it. Certainly no more splendid edifices of their kind are known than the magnificent establishments at Blois, Chenonceau, Chambord, or Chaumont. The style appears, however, out of place; an admixture meaningless in itself and in its application when, with a Gothic foundation bequeathed them, builders sought to incorporate into a cathedral such palpable inconsistencies as was frequently done. The building of the châteaux was perhaps the first anti-Gothic step in France and proved to be an influence which spread not slowly, as to decorative detail at least, and soon of itself established a decided non-Gothic type. It was but natural that the cathedral builders should have followed to some extent this new influence. The Church was ever seeking to strengthen its popularity, the bishops ensconced themselves in their cathedral cities as snugly as did a feudal lord in his castle, and their emulation of wealth outside of the Church was but an effort to keep their status on a plane with that of the other power which also demanded allegiance of the people. It is to be regretted that they did not pass this manifestation by, or at least not encumbered an otherwise consistent Gothic fabric with superimposed meaningless detail. Such decorative embellishments as are represented by the tomb of Louis XII. at St. Denis, and the tombs of the cardinals at Rouen, may be considered characteristic, though they bear earlier dates by some twenty years than the south portal of Beauvais, which is thoroughly the best of Gothic, or St. Maclou at Rouen, which, though highly florid, is without a trace of anti-Gothic. The extreme (though not a cathedral church) may be seen at St. Etienne du Mont, wherein the effort is made to incorporate large masses of pseudo-classical decoration with Gothic, and, alas, with sad effect. For the most part, the Gothic cathedrals of France, as such, while closely related to each other in their design and arrangements, have little to do with those which lie without the confines of the country, either in general features or in detail. The type is distinctively one which stands by its own perfections. In size, while in many instances not having the length of nave of several in England, they have nearly always an equal, if not a greater, width and an almost invariably greater height, though not equal in superficial area to St. Peter's in Italy, the Dom at Cologne, or even the cathedral at Seville in Spain. Such Romanesque types as are to be seen to the northward of the Loire are mostly found in the smaller churches of Brittany, while the early transition type, so familiar throughout the Netherlands, is, in France, usually seen in the neighbourhood of the frontiers of the Low Countries. "Les Grandes Cathédrales" of the north are distinctly those of Paris, Amiens, Reims, Rouen, Beauvais, and Chartres; and it is to them that reference must continually be made; while the severely plain transitory types of Noyon or Soissons, or the more effective development of Laon, and the flamboyant structures of Troyes and Nantes, at least lean toward the decadence. The difficulty of assigning ranks to these monumental cathedrals is made the greater by reason of the fact that to-day it is with but one people that we have to reckon, so far as their temperament and environment is concerned. Since feudal times the movement has ever been toward one nation, one people, and one view, different from that presented in the middle ages. For centuries after the break of Roman power it had been mostly one local influence against another which prevented perfect cohesion to any national spirit, and thus it was that the tendencies of the cathedral builders, though Roman as to their teaching and religion, and doubtless, in many instances, with regard to their birth as well, followed no special style until the era of Gothic development. Unconsciously, transitory types crept in, until suddenly throughout northern Europe there bloomed forth within less than a century of time the so-called Gothic in all its splendour, and with scarce a century between the commencement and the completion of some of the most notable of the group. The Romanesque types which still lingered in Brittany, though well worthy of special consideration to-day, are unimportant and in a way insignificant when compared with the grand group. To most of us it will be impossible to conjure up any more significant thought with regard to mediæval church architecture than that fostered by the memories of acquaintanceship with these examples of north France; an opinion which is further strengthened when it is also recalled that they are representative of the first really national artistic expression. For this reason alone, if for no other, the hasty critics who have so handily claimed precedence elsewhere, might profitably review the facts of the circumstance which led to so universal an adoption of the full-blown style in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Romanesque peoples were confined southwards of mid-France at the time of the withdrawal of the Roman legions, while, in the north, the conquering Franks sought to wipe out every vestige of their past influence; hence it may be considered that the new manner of building had everything in favour of its speedy growth. It was thus definitely assured of a warm welcome, and, following in the footsteps of Clovis himself, the rulers were more than willing to aid what they believed might be a strengthening influence, politically, as well as morally. The style may be justly said to be a natural and growthful expression of a race, and more significant than all else is the fact that nowhere, not even on the Rhine, which with northern France claims the origin of the style, is to be found any single example equalling in any like measure the perfections of "Les Grandes Cathédrales Françaises," though it be recalled that in many instances the German buildings were planned and often erected by French architects and artisans. Among the two thousand or more "Monuments Historiques" paternally cared for by the French government and under the direct control of the Ministry of Public Instruction and the Beaux Arts, none are of the relative importance, historically or artistically, of the Grand Cathedrals. Certain objects, classed as megalithic and antique remains, may be the connecting links between the past and the present by which the antiquarian weaves the threads of his historical lore; but neither these nor the _reliques_ which have been dug from the ground or untombed from later constructive elements, all of which are generously included in the general scheme by the Department of Beaux Arts, which has provided a fund for their preservation and care, have one tithe of the appealing interest which these great churches bespeak on behalf of the contemporary life of the times in which they were built, reflecting as they do many correlated events, and forming, in the interweaving of the history of their inception and construction, an epitome of well-nigh all the contemporary events of their environment, as well as the greater parts which they may have played in general affairs of state. The best example of a part so played is that of the cathedral at Reims, which saw the crowning within its walls of nearly every monarch of France from the time of Philippe Augustus (1173) to that of Charles X. (1823). The monarchs of France, a long and picturesque line, have ever sought to ally the Church on their side, and right well they have been served, not ignoring, of course, certain notable lapses. In the main, however, the rulers and the people alike, whatever may have been the periodical dissensions, combined the forces which made possible the projection and erection of these noble examples of an art which, in the Gothic forms at least, here came to its greatest and most interesting phase. Invasion, revolution, and the stress of weather and time, all played their part in the general desecrations which sooner or later followed; far the most serious of these visible damages reflected upon us to-day being the malpractices occurring at the Revolution, whether at the hands of a _sans culotte_ or of the most respectable of bourgeois, led away by the excitement of revolt. The depredations were irreparable; they razed, burned, or ruthlessly shattered shrines, statues, or even reliquaries, as at Reims, where the Sainted Ampulla, which contained the miraculous oil brought by a dove from heaven, now preserved in reconstructed fragments in the sacristy, was dashed to pieces in a fury of uncontrollable wrath. The paucity of sculptured decoration in certain places only too plainly designed for it is, too, frequently painfully apparent. Such sculptured decoration and glass as were easily to hand met with perhaps the most ready spoliation, while here and there, from some miraculous reason, a gem was left entire, though likely enough in a bruised and shattered setting. This is what befell most of the great churches, and, for this reason, any work treating of these architectural glories of France must make due allowance in hazarding opinions as to the merit or lack of merit of any particular example as it now exists, as compared with what it may have been as it once was, or had it been completed in accordance with the original design. In local and cathedral archives much valuable and interesting information exists, treating in this very manner such embellishments as may to-day be lacking; but unfortunately such facts are often buried in a mass of other irrelevant material which would make its discovery unusually difficult to any but a very learned local antiquarian. In this same connection, also, there is a dearth of illustrative material which can be depended upon as to minutiæ or accuracy of detail. Hence it is possible to deal only with such general facts as may be supported by the best contemporary information based upon the researches of others. It may be well to note here, however, a fact which is often overlooked, namely, that the written records of France are not only very complete and exhaustive, but, with respect to Paris itself, to cite an example, the documentary history, consecutive and exact, from the time of the decline of Roman power is preserved intact,--a record which is perhaps not so true of any other large city in Europe. In dealing with the cathedrals of the north, territorially, we have to consider those examples which are generally accepted as being all that a cathedral church should be. Of the first rank are those gathered not far from the confines of the mediæval Isle of France. They too, are best representative of the true Gothic spirit, while the southernmost examples, those of Dijon and Besançon, are of manifest Romanesque or Byzantine conception. Each, too, is somewhat reminiscent of the early German manner of building, the latter in respect to the double apse, which is often found across the Rhine, but seldom seen in France. The most northerly of all is at St. Omer, where are the somewhat battered remains of a satisfactory Gothic cathedral, although Amiens, not far to the south, is perhaps the ideal cathedral when considered from a general point merely. For the western representative, a line running due west from Paris almost into the Atlantic finds at Quimper, a small port fifteen miles from the sea, the Cathedral of St. Corentin, which, though not as lofty, is more of the manner of building of the Isle of France than one might suppose would be the case here in this outpost of Brittany, where are found so many evidences of Romanesque influences, retained long after they had been given over elsewhere. Such, then, are the extremes of latitude and of architectural style which combine to give variety to the interest which is always aroused by the contemplation of the masterworks of any of the arts, where outside and contiguous influences have something in common therewith. As a type to admire, there is no doubt but that the cathedral that possesses an apsidal termination of the easterly or choir end, as is nearly the universal custom in France, has charms and beauties which may be latent, but which are simply winning, when it comes to picturing the same structure with the squared-off ends so common in England. It was Stevenson, was it not, who wrote of the satisfaction with which one always looks upon the east end of a French cathedral, "flanging out as it often does in sweeping terraces, and settling down broadly upon the earth as though it were meant to stay." Certainly nothing of the sort is to be more admired than the rare view of the choir buttresses of Notre Dame at Paris, likened unto "kneeling angels with half-spread wings;" the delicate and symmetrical choir buttresses of Amiens; the sheer fall of Beauvais; or the triply effective termination of the one-time cathedral of Noyon, which falls away in three gracefully gentle slopes to the ground. Again Stevenson's power as a descriptive writer lingers in our memory. He says, of no cathedral in particular, "where else is to be found so many elegant proportions growing one out of the other, and all together in one?... Though I have heard a considerable variety of sermons, I have never yet heard one that was so expressive as a cathedral. 'Tis the best preacher itself, preaches day and night, not only telling you of man's art and aspirations in the past, but convicting your own soul of ardent sympathies; or rather, like all good preachers, it sets you preaching to yourself,--and every man is his own doctor of divinity in the last resort." To best estimate the charms and values of these architectural monuments one should consider; first, the history and topography of their environment,--_i. e._ as to why and when they may have been planned and built; secondly, their personality, as it were,--who were their founders, their patrons, their bishops; thirdly, the functions in which they may have partaken, any significant events which may have passed within their walls or centred within their sees; and fourthly, the artistic beauties of their fabric and its embellishments. In most cases all of these values are so interwoven and indissolubly linked with the growth of the structure itself from its very earliest foundations that it is hardly possible to detail this information in true chronological order. The picturesque and romantic elements, of which there is not a little; the sordid and baneful, of which we may wish there were less; and the splendid ceremonials of Church and State; all go to make up a chronicle which no account, of even a special nature, could afford to neglect. The picturesque elements of the conversion and baptism of Clovis by St. Remi at Reims in 496, where, on the site of the present cathedral, he was adjured to "revere that which thou didst burn and burn that which thou didst revere," and the crowning on the same spot of Charles VII. in 1429 through the efforts of the Maid, well represent these phases. The meanness and the unjustness of her later trial and condemnation in the Abbey Church of St. Ouen at Rouen is another. The affairs of state consist chiefly of the coronation ceremonies which mostly took place at Reims, and present a splendid record. Of the monarchs from 1173 onwards who were not here crowned, Henry IV. was crowned at Chartres; Napoleon I., at Paris; Louis Philippe, Louis XVIII., and Napoleon III. were not crowned at all. Throughout this continuity of state events these great churches were performing their natural functions of the dissemination of the Word. Jealousies and bickerings took place, to be sure, but in the main there was harmony, if rivalry did exist; else it were not possible that so many of these splendid monuments would have endured to remind us of their past as well as present existence. Certain of the sees were merged into greater ones, and others were abandoned altogether. In this connection there is a curious circumstance with regard to the one-time Bishop of Bethléem, who, driven from the Holy Land, was given a see at Clamecy, which see comprehended only the village in which he resided. What remains of the former cathedral is now an adjunct to a hotel. The rearrangement of political divisions of France after the Revolution was the further excuse for establishing but one diocese to a department, until to-day there are but eighty-four sees, administered by sixty-seven bishops and seventeen archbishops. The itinerary of the conventional tour of the Continent usually keeps well to the beaten track, and so does the conventional traveller. He does not always get over to Reims, and often does not stop _en route_ at Amiens; seldom visits Beauvais, and, unless he specially sets out to "tour" Brittany, a popular enough amusement of the lean of purse in these days, knows little of the unique charms of Tréguier, Quimper, or even of Le Mans, with its sublime choir, or of Evreux. As for even a nodding acquaintance with Noyon or Soissons, two of the most convincingly beautiful and impressive transitory types, they might as well be in the wilds of Kamchatka, though they are both situated in a region well travelled on all sides; while Laon, not far distant, is hardly known at all, except as a way station _en route_ to Switzerland. The cathedrals of mid-France are, it is to be feared, even less known than would on first thoughts seem probable. A certain amount of sentimentality attaches itself to the châteaux of the Loire, and some acquaintance with their undeniable pleasing attributes is the portion of most travellers; but, again, such cathedral cities as Besançon, Nantes, and Langres are off the well-worn road, and their cathedrals might be myths so far as a general acquaintance with them is concerned; while the splendid churches of Bourges, Nevers, and Autun are likewise practically unknown to the casual traveller. Tours, Orleans, and Chartres alone appear to be the only recognized representatives of this section of France which have hitherto attracted due attention. With the southland this volume does not deal; that is a subject to be considered quite by itself,--and significantly, more real interest has been shown with respect to the architectural monuments of Avignon, Arles, Nîmes, Le Puy, Périgueux, Carcassonne, and Poitiers than to those of the Midi. Is it that the days of cheap travel and specially conducted tours, when ten or fifteen guineas will take one to the Swiss or Italian lakes, or e'en to Rome and Florence, has caused this apparent neglect of the country lying between? Certainly our forefathers travelled more wisely, but then prices and means of locomotion were on quite a different scale in those days, and not infrequently they were obliged to confine their travels and observations to more restricted areas. Perhaps the most lucid arrangement of architectural species is that given by De Caumont's "Abécêdaire d'Architecture," which divides the country ethnologically into Brittany; Normandy; Flanders, including Artois and Picardy; Central France (the Isle of France, Champagne, Orleanois, Main, Anjou, Touraine, and Berri); and Burgundy, comprehending the former divisions of Franche Comté, Lorraine, Alsace (now Belfort), Nivernois, Bourbonnois, and Lyonnois. Of the above divisions, only that of the Isle of France with La Brie was originally held by the Crown. The political divisions throughout France now number eighty-seven departments, taking their names from the principal topographical features, and replacing in 1790 the thirty-two mediæval provinces, each of which had their own characteristics of social and political life, and of which each in turn progressed, stagnated, or fell backward according to local or periodical conditions. Both the arts of peace and of war have left an ineradicable impress. In the thirteenth century the various provinces became welded together into one perfect whole under Philippe Augustus and the sainted Louis, but retained to no small extent, even as they do unto to-day, their distinctive local characteristics. Because of its cathedrals alone, the Isle of France stands preëminent among the provinces for each of the thirteen provincial styles of architecture which are allocated by the Société des Monuments Historiques. A comparatively small and unified province, it comprehends within and contiguous to its borders more of the attributes and principles of a consistent Mediæval architectural style than is elsewhere to be observed. From Rouen on the west to Reims on the east, northward to Amiens and southwesterly to Chartres, are grouped the show pieces of the world's Gothic architecture. Not alone with the respect to the Grand Cathedrals is this region so richly endowed, but also because of the smaller and less important, but no less attractive or interesting examples of Noyon, Senlis, Laon, Soissons, with their one-time cathedral churches and other varied ecclesiastical and secular edifices. Beauvais, Gisors, Gourney, Cires-les-Mello, Creil, Royamont, Nogent-les-Vierges, Villers-St.-Pol, indeed nearly every village and town within the royal domain, present values and comparisons which place nearly all of its contemporary structures, be they large or small, at a grand height above those of other less prolific sections. Lest it be thought that this statement is drawn largely, and that fineness and balance of estimate are lacking, it suffices to state that it is not alone from study and research, but from frequent personal intimacies that the region has ever proved an inexhaustible store of architectural values, and one which most well-known authorities, with one accord, place in the very first rank. Arthur Young, than whom no more perspicuous observer has ever chronicled his impressions, wrote (1704) that to see the best of France, the part most varied in topography, and resourceful and attractive in its monuments, one should land at Havre and follow the sinuosity of the Seine to Paris, thence the highroad to Moulins and on to the Rhône at Valence, an outline which somewhat approaches the limitations of territory of which this book treats. To be sure, he wrote of economic and agricultural conditions, and he mostly made his pertinent observations on land holdings, stock keeping, and hedgerows, or rather that lack of them which is so apparent throughout France; but these details of themselves only suggest more complete evidences of the existing forces which indicate the growth of the wealth and power which has made this region so rich in its architectural memorials of the past, and which ought to more than compensate for any lack of scenic grandeur. It is to be regretted, of course, that none of these larger cathedrals are to be seen to-day in their completely perfected forms. To what extent would not the glories of Reims, of Amiens, of Beauvais, or of Rouen, be enhanced, were it possible for us to even imagine their splendour, were they possessed of the symmetry and well-favoured situation of the Dom at Cologne? And so it is that we can but feel regret when we mentally note the lack of nave at Beauvais, of spires at Bourges, and, yet again, regret even with more pain the monstrousness of the cast-iron _flêche_ which has been added to the central tower at Rouen. But these are after all minor imperfections--seldom, if ever, in aught but pleasurable anticipation, do we see in the masterpieces of art or nature a perfect unity; so why seek to negative their virtues by futile criticism? It would seem to be all-sufficient that such details, sins of omission or commission, should be noted merely, that we may pass on to other charms which must compel our allegiance. When we visit the cathedrals of the Isle of France, we are at once in the midst of the best examples of French Gothic architecture, or of French Mediæval architecture, if the phrase is to be preferred. _PART I_ _Transition Examples_ I INTRODUCTORY Soissons, with Noyon and Laon, all within perhaps thirty miles of one another, may be said to best represent the nurturing and development of the early Gothic of France. These simple and somewhat plain types exemplify the style which was in vogue at the same time in the Low Countries. It is good Gothic, to be sure,--at least, good as to its planning,--but without that ornateness or lightness known to-day as characteristic of the distinctive French type, which so early developed boldly and beautifully. One observes the resemblances in style between the notable cathedral at Tournai, in Belgium, the neighbouring types of French Flanders, and the cathedrals of this trinity of French towns lying contiguous thereto, Noyon itself being for long interdependent with the see of Tournai. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful type which was cradled here in the country called, by Cæsar, Suessiones; and difficult it would be to attempt to assign preëminence to any one edifice. Noyon, without a doubt, has the greatest charm of environment, and is of itself in every way a pleasing and satisfying example of what should most truly inspire and impress us in a cathedral. Stevenson describes it as being "the happiest inspiration of mankind, a thing as specious as a statue at the first glance, yet, on examination, as lively and interesting as a forest in detail. The height of its spires cannot be taken by trigonometry: they measure absurdly short, but how tall they are to the admiring eye.... I sat outside of my hotel and the sweet groaning thunder of the organ floated out of the church like a summons";--and much more of the same sort, all of which tells us that, once we find ourselves on a plane of intimacy with a great church, we continually receive new impressions and inspirations, and it is in this vein that one who has known this group of simple but fascinating churches on their own ground, so to put it, can but seek to convey the idea that it is good that we have such contrasting types as a relief and an antidote to an appetite which otherwise might become sated. [Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of NOTRE DAME LAON_] II NOTRE DAME DE LAON For over twelve hundred years, until the see was abolished at the Revolution, Laon was the seat of a bishop who in point of rank was second only to the primate at Reims. Crowning the apex of a long isolated hill, upon which the entire town, now a fortress of the third class, is situated, the cathedral of Notre Dame de Laon, still so called locally, has endured since the beginning of the twelfth century, and may be considered a thoroughly representative transition example. The present structure is on the site of one burned in 1112, and during comparatively recent years has been entirely restored. Its crowning glory is in the disposition and number of its fine group of towers: two flank the western façade, and are rectangular at the base, dwindling to a smaller polygon, which is flanked with corner belfries and pierced by a tall lancet in the central structure, showing a wonderful lightness and open effect. A curious and unique feature of these towers is the addition of four oxen in carven stone perched high aloft in the belfries. These sculptured animals may be merely another expression of symbols of superstition, and if so are far more pleasing than some of the hideous and monstrous gargoyles ofttimes seen. Two other towers, each 190 feet in height, adjoin the transepts, to each of which is attached a double-storied, apsidal, ancient chapel. Two similarly projected towers are lacking. The lantern is square, with a shallow, conical, modern roof. In the transition type Romanesque influences were evidently dying hard. The Gothic was seldom full blown, and at Laon shows but the merest trace of pointedness to the arches of the western façade, either in the portals or in the higher openings. The lack of a circular termination to the choir is but another indication of a link with a transitory past; an undeniably false note and one very unusual in France, the choir being of the squared-off variety so common in England. This may be coincident with the English custom of the time, or it may be directly due to a local English influence;--most probably the latter, inasmuch as an English prelate held the see for a time, and the city, in the early fifteenth century, was for a number of years in English hands. It is significant that in some of the smaller churches of the diocese is to be noted the same treatment. The rose windows of both the eastern and western façades are Gothic in inception and treatment, and are unusually acceptable specimens of these supreme efforts of the French mediæval builders, the glass therein being distinctly good, though perhaps not remarkable. The transepts are rectangular and, with the ensemble of the entire structure, were their towers completed, there would be produced, not only a unique example, but a towering effect only a degree less interesting than the perfectly proportioned pyramidal form so much admired in the perfectly developed Gothic. The interior is equally attractive with the exterior, and, though the church is not by any means of remarkable dimensions, it presents in its appropriate disposition of detail a far more roomy and pleasing arrangement than many a larger example. The transepts are divided into a nave and side aisles, the columns which partition them, like those of the nave proper, being cylindrical and of massive proportions, which, however, lighten as they rise to the vaulting. They are unusually symmetrical when viewed together, the capitals of the lower series being ornately carved, each of a varying design. Above the aisles are lofty galleries. The nave chapels were added in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The stained glass, like that of the rose windows, is in the nave distinctly good, particularly that of the lower range on the southerly side. The pulpit, of carved wood of the Renaissance period, is not of the importance and quality of this class of work to be seen across the Rhine border. The former Bishop's palace, adjoining the left of the choir, is now the Palais de Justice. A few remains of a former Gothic cloister are to be remarked, surrounded by the later construction. [Illustration: _Notre Dame de Noyon_] III NOTRE DAME DE NOYON In Notre Dame at Noyon, Notre Dame at Laon, and the cathedral at Tournai, is to be noted the very unusual division of the interior elevation into four ranges of openings, this effect being only seen at Paris and Rouen among the large cathedrals. Noyon and Laon borrowed, perhaps, from Tournai, where building was commenced at least a century before either of the French examples first took form. It is perhaps not essential that such an arrangement be made in order to give an effect of loftiness, which might not otherwise exist; indeed, it is a question if the reverse is not actually the case, though the effect is undeniably one of grandeur. Soissons, too, may rightly enough be included in the group, though the points of resemblance in this case are confined to the rising steps to either transept, coupled with the joint possession of circumambient aisles, and at least the suggested intent of circular apsidal terminations to the transepts; though it appears that here this plan was ultimately changed and one transept finished off with the usual rectangular ending. In this Noyon plainly excels, and there is found nowhere else in France the perfect trefoil effect produced by the apsidal terminations of both transepts and choir. So far as the transepts are concerned, they are of the manner affected by the builders on the Rhine, notably in the Minster at Bonn, at Cologne, and again at Neuss in the neighbourhood of Cologne. With Noyon apparently nothing is lacking either in the perfections of its former cathedral or in its immediate environment. The country round about is thoroughly agricultural, and free from the soot and grime of a manufacturing community. Amid a setting at once historic and romantic, it has for neighbours the châteaux of Coucy and Perrifonds, with Compiègne and Chantilly not far distant. The town is unprogressive enough, and the vast barge traffic of the Oise sidles by, not a mile away, as if it were all unconscious of the existence of any signs of modern civilization. As a matter of fact, it hardly is modern. The accommodation for the weary traveller is of a satisfying and gratifying quality, as the comparatively few visitors to the place well know. The city is an ancient foundation, having been known as the Noviodunum of the Romans. Here Charlemagne was crowned King of the Franks in 768, and Hugh Capet elected king in 987; and here, in an important stronghold of Catholicism, as it had long been, Calvin was born in 1509. Altogether there is much to be found here to charm and stimulate our imagination. As a type the cathedral stands preëminent. As to detail and state of preservation, they, too, leave little to be desired, though the appreciative author of a charming and valuable work treating of a good half hundred or more of the "architectural glories of France" bemoans the lack of a satisfying daily "Office." This may be a fault, possibly, if such be really the case. The fabric of the church has stood the wear and tear of time and stress exceeding well. Built in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, it is a thoroughly harmonious and pleasing whole, and we can well believe all that may have been said of it by the few able critics who have passed judgment upon its style, as well as the sentiment conveyed by the phrase that it is "one of the most graceful and lovable of all the cathedrals of France." The bishopric was suppressed after the Revolution, and the church is now a dependency of the Bishop of Beauvais. The elongated belfry towers are perhaps the first and most noticeable feature; secondly, the overhanging porch with its supporting frontal buttresses; thirdly, the before-mentioned tri-apsidal effect of the easterly end; and, last but not least, the general grouping of the whole structure in combination with the buildings which are gathered about its haunches, though with no suspicion of a detracting element as in some sordid and crowded cities, where, in spite of undeniable picturesqueness, is presented a squalor and poverty not creditable either to the city of its habitation or to the cathedral authorities themselves. From every point of vantage the steeples of Notre Dame de Noyon add the one ingredient which makes a unity of the entire ensemble,--a true old-world atmosphere, a town seen in not too apparent a state of unrepair and certainly not a degenerate. The interior presents no less striking or noble features. It is not stupendous or remarkably awesome; but it is grand, with a subtleness which is inexpressible. Round and pointed arches are intermixed, and there is a notable display of the round variety in the upper ranges of the quadrupled elevation of the nave, the lightness, which might otherwise have been marred, being preserved through the employment of a series of simple lancets in the clerestory of the choir. Rearward of the south transept are the chapter-house and the scanty remains of a Gothic cloister, where a somewhat careworn combination of the forces of nature and art have culminated in giving an unusually old-world charm to this apparently neglected gem, as well representative of early French Gothic as any in existence to-day. IV NOTRE DAME DE SOISSONS Soissons, the other primitive example, is at once a surprise and a disappointment. From the railway, on entering the town, one is highly impressed with the grouping of a sky-piercing, twin-spired structure of ample and symmetrical proportions; and at some distance therefrom is seen another building, possibly enough of less importance. Curiously, it is the cathedral which is the less imposing, and, until one is well up with the beautifully formed spires, he hardly realizes that they represent all that is left of the majestic Abbey of _St. Jean des Vignes_, where Becket spent nine long years. It is a mere bit of stage scenery, with height and breadth, but no thickness. It is a pity that such a charming structure as this noble building must once have been is now left to crumble. The magnificent rose window, or rather the circular opening which it once occupied, is now but a mere orifice, of great proportions, but destitute of glazing. The entire confines of the building, which crowns a slight eminence at the entrance of the town, are now given over to the use of the military authorities. A little to the right lies the one-time cathedral of Notre Dame, Soissons being another of the ci-devant bishoprics suppressed after the Revolution by the redistribution which gave but one diocese to a Department. Though not unpleasing, its façade is marred by its lack of symmetry, while the tower, which rises on the right 215 feet, is not sufficiently striking to redeem what otherwise is an ordinary enough ensemble. The tower to the left was never raised above where it now ends, and the façade, lacking the charm which the edifice might otherwise have had, were the towers as complete and well proportioned as are those of a later date which grace the remains of the old abbey, will be for ever wanting until this completion be carried out. Romanesque is plainly noticeable in mixture with the early Gothic. The three portals are not remarkable, or uniform, and are severely plain, and, though of a noticeable receding depth, are bare and unpeopled. A well-proportioned rose window, though not so large as many in the greater cathedrals, has graceful radiating spokes and good glass. This is flanked by two unpierced lancet-pointed window-frames which but accentuate the plainness of the entire façade. Above is an arcaded gallery which was intended to cross the entire front, but which now stops where the gable joins the northerly tower. Restoration has been carried on, not sparingly, but in good taste, with the result that, in spite of its newness at the present writing, it appears as a consistent and thoroughly conscientious piece of work, and not the mere patchwork that such repairs usually suggest. The guide-books tell one that Soissons is famous for its trade in haricot beans, and incidentally for the beans themselves, and for the great number of sieges which it has undergone, the last being that conducted by the Germans, who took possession in October, 1870, after a bombardment of three days. Fergusson makes the statement, which is well taken, that the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Soissons, while not in any sense meriting the term magnificent, presents, in its interior arrangements, at least, a most symmetrical and harmonious ensemble. A curious though not unpleasing effect is produced by the blackened pointing of the interior masonry, of piers, walls, and vaulting alike. An unusual feature is the circumambient aisles to the transepts and the suggestion that a trefoil apsidal termination was originally thought of, when the rebuilding was taken in hand in the twelfth century. The transept is so completed on the south side, which possesses also an ancient portal, and, with the two at Noyon so done, presents a feature which is as much a relief from the usual rectangle as are the rounded choirs of Continental churches a beauty in advance of the accepted English manner of treatment of this detail. The choir rises loftily above the transepts and nave, and, while the general proportions are not such as to suggest undue narrowness, the effect is of much greater height than really exists. This, too, is apparent when viewing the abside itself. The Chapel of the Rosary in the north transept is overtopped by an effective arrangement of perpendicular window-framing, supporting a beautiful rose window of the spoke variety. It is safe to say that, had the entire space provided been glazed, the effect of lighting would have been unique among the cathedrals of the world. The only other decorative embellishments are some tapestries, a few well-preserved tombs, and an "Adoration" supposed to be by Rubens, which is perhaps more likely to be genuine, because of the situation of the church near unto Flanders, than many other examples whose claims have even less to support them. _PART II_ _The Grand Group_ I INTRODUCTORY Expert opinion, so called, may possibly differ as to just what, or what not, cathedrals of France should be included in this term. The French proverb known of all guide-book makers should give a clue as to those which at least may not be left out. "Clocher de Chartres, Nef d'Amiens Choeur de Beauvais et Portale de Reims." Rouen, Paris, and Le Mans should be included, as well possibly as the smaller but no less convincing examples at Séez, Sens, Laon, and Troyes, as being of an analogous manner of building, and, by all that goes to make up the components of a really great church, Bourges might well be considered in the same group. For practical and divisional purposes it is perhaps well to compose an octette of the churches of the Isle of France and those lying contiguous thereto, Paris, Beauvais, St. Denis, Amiens, Reims, Rouen, Chartres, and Le Mans, which may be taken together as representative of the greatest art expression of the Gothic builders, as well as being those around which centred the most significant events of Church and State. To attempt to catalogue even briefly the charms and notable attributes of even the first four, would require more than the compass of several volumes the size of the present, whereas the attempt made herein is merely to lead with as little digression as possible up to the chief glories for which they are revered, and to suggest some of the many important and epoch-making events intimately associated therewith. More would be impossible, manifestly, unless the present work were to transcend the limitations which were originally planned for it, hence it is with no halting assertion that we enter boldly upon that chronology or résumé which, in a way, presents a marshalled array of correlated facts which the reader may care to follow in further detail in the list of bibliographical references included at the end of the volume. Certain facts relating to the history and the architectural features generally of these great cathedrals are known to all, and are chronicled with more or less completeness in many valuable and authoritative works, ranging from the humble though necessary guide-book to the extensive if not exhaustive architectural work of reference. The facts given herein are such, then, as are often overlooked in the before-mentioned classes of works, and as such are presented, not so much with the avowed object of imparting information, as to remind the reader of the wealth of interest that exists with relation to these shrines of religious art. This seems to be the only preamble possible to the chapters which attempt to even classify these magnificent buildings, wherein much is attempted and so little accomplished in recounting their varied attractions. Let this explanation stand, therefore, for any seeming paucity of description which may exist. [Illustration: _Le Bon Dieu d'Amiens_] II NOTRE DAME D'AMIENS The ever impressive Cathedral of Notre Dame d'Amiens is in most English minds the _beau ideal_ of a French cathedral. It is contemporary with Salisbury in period, at least, but it has little to remind one of the actual features of this edifice. Often associated therewith, as a similar type, it has little in reality in common, except that each is representative of a supreme style. Beyond this it is hard to see how any expert, archæologist, antiquary, or what not, would seek to discover relationship between two such distinct types. Salisbury is the ideal English cathedral as to situation, surroundings, and general charm and grace. This no one would attempt to deny; but, in another environment, how different might it not appear,--as for instance placed beside Amiens, where in one particular alone, the mere height of nave and choir, it immediately dwindles into insignificance. Under such conditions its graceful spire becomes dwarfed and attenuated. Need more be said?--The writer thinks not, since the present work does not deal with the comparative merits of any two cathedrals or of national types; but the suggestion should serve to demonstrate how impossible it is for any writer, however erudite he may be, to attempt to assign precedence, or even rank, among the really great architectural works of an era. This observation is true of many other examples of art expression. [Illustration: NOTRE DAME _d'AMIENS_ ...] The cathedral at Amiens is dedicated to the Virgin, and is built in the general form of a Latin cross. Over the principal doorway of the south portal, on one of the upper plinths, may be seen the inscription which places the date of the present edifice. [+] En l'an`[=q]ue l'Incarnati[=o] valait mcc et xx. Ro....rs, ifu: rimisit: le première piere: iasis,... le cors.... Robert... The work was undertaken by one Robert de Luzarche, in the episcopate of Evrard de Fouilloy, the forty-fifth Bishop of Amiens, whose tomb may be seen just within the western doorway, and occupies the site of other structures which had been variously devastated by fire or invasion in 850, 1019, 1137, and 1218. For fifty years the work went on expeditiously under various bishops and their architects. "Saint" Louis, Blanche of Castille, Philippe the Hardy, and the city fathers all aided the work substantially, and the fabric speedily took on its finished form. Through the later centuries it still preserved its entity, and even during the Revolution its walls escaped destruction and defilement through the devotion of its adherents. In later days important work and restoration has been carried out under the paternal care and at the expense of the state; and the city itself only recently contributed 45,000 francs for the clearing away of obstructing buildings. A French writer has said, "It is only with the aid of a Bible and a history of theology that it is possible to elucidate the vast iconographic display of the marvellous west front of the cathedral at Amiens." Like Reims, its three portals of great size are peopled with a throng of statues. The central portal, known as the Porche du Souvenir, contains the statue of the Good God of Amiens; that on the right is called after the Mère de Dieu, and that on the left for St. Fermin the Martyr. Above the gables is the "Gallery of Kings," just below the enormous rose windows. Above rise the two towers of unequal loftiness, and lacking, be it said, thickness in its due proportion. The carven figures in general are not considered the equal in workmanship of those at Reims, though the effect and arrangement is similar. For a complete list of them, numbering some hundreds on this façade alone, the reader must refer to some local guide-book, of which several are issued in the city. The south portal, the _Portal de la Vierge dorée_ or _Portal de Saint Honoré_, shares company with the west façade in its richness of sculpture and its rose window and its gable. Here also are to be seen the supporting buttresses which spring laterally from the wall of the transept and cross with those which come from the choir. The north portal, on the side of the Bishop's Palace, does not show the same richness as the others, though perhaps more than ordinarily ornate. The spire above the transept crossing is a work of the sixteenth century, and is perhaps more remarkable than its rather diminutive appearance, in contrast with the huge bulk of the edifice, would indicate. The extreme height of nave and choir (147 feet), adds immeasurably to the grand effect produced by the interior, a height in proportion to breadth nearly double that usual in the English cathedrals. The vaulting is borne aloft by over one hundred columns. The natural attribute of such great dimension is a superb series of windows, a promise more than fulfilled by the three great rose windows and the lofty clerestory of nave and choir. The sixteenth century glass is exceedingly profuse and brilliant. The lateral chapels of the nave were added subsequent to the work of the early builders, all being of the sixteenth century, while the eleven choir chapels are of the thirteenth century, all with very ornate iron grilles, which are a feature only second to a remarkable series of "choir stalls," numbering over one hundred, showing a wonderful variety of delicate carved figures of the sixteenth century, the work of one Jean Turpin, the subjects being mainly Biblical. A stone screen with elaborate sculptures in high relief surrounds the choir, that on the south representing the legend of St. Firmin, the patron of Picardy, and that on the north, scenes connected with the life of John the Baptist. In a side chapel dedicated to St. John reposes the alleged head of John the Baptist. Others have appeared elsewhere from time to time, but as they are not now recognized as being genuine, and the said apostle not being hydra-headed, it is possible that there will be those who will choose to throw the weight of their opinions in favour of the claim of Amiens. The flying buttresses at Amiens are not of the singular lightness associated with this notably French characteristic; they are in the main, however, none the less effective for that, and assuredly, so far as the work which they have to perform is concerned, it was doubtless necessary that they should be of more than ordinary strength. The view of the ensemble from the river shows the massiveness and general proportions in a unique and superb manner. Amiens is not otherwise an attractive city, a bustle of grand and cheap hotels, decidedly a place to be taken _en route_, not like Beauvais, where one may well remain as long as fancy wills and not feel the too strong hand of progress intruding upon his ruminations. III ST. PIERRE DE BEAUVAIS Beauvais is by no means an inaccessible place, though how often have we known one who could not tell in what part of France it was situated. Of course, being "off the line" is sufficient excuse for the majority of hurried travellers to pass it by, but, leaving this debatable point out of the question, let us admit, for the nonce, that it is admirably located if one only chooses to spend a half-day or more in visiting the charmingly interesting city and its cathedral, or what there is of it, for it exists only as a luminous height _sans_ nave, _sans_ tower, and _sans_ nearly everything, except a choir of such immensity that to see it is to marvel if not to admire. It is indeed as Hope has said, "a miracle of loftiness and lightness; appearing as if about to soar into the air." [Illustration: ST. PIERRE ... _de BEAUVAIS_] How many readers, who recognize the charms for which the cathedral is most revered, know that it was intended to rank as the St. Peter's of the north, and like its Roman prototype, was to surpass all other contemporary structures in size and magnificence. This was marked out for it when, in the middle sixteenth century, the builders of its central spire, which fell shortly after, sought to rival the Italian church in a vast Gothic fabric which should be the dominant northern type in contra-distinction to that of the south. This of itself, were there no other contributory interests, which there are to a very great degree, should be all-sufficient to awaken the desire on the part of every one who journeys Parisward to obtain a more intimate acquaintance with this great work. Here was an instance of ambition overleaping itself,--exceeding by far the needs and conditions of its environment and like many another ill-planned venture, it fell to ruin through a lack of logic and mental balance. To-day we see a restored fabric, lacking all the attributes of a great church except that which is encompassed by that portion lying eastward of the nave proper, its frail buttresses knitted together by iron rods, its piers latterly doubled in number, and many more visible signs of an attempt to hold its walls and roofs up to the work they have to perform. The present structure, in so far as certain of its components go, was commenced within five years of Amiens (1225), which calls to mind the guide-book comparison, which seems so appropriate that it must really have previously originated from some other source,--Amiens, "a giant in repose;" Beauvais, "a Colossus on tiptoe." Its designer built not wisely, nor in this case too well, for before the end of the century the roof had fallen, and this after repeated miscalculations and failures. At this time the intermediate piers of the choir were built and a general modified plan adopted. Ruskin's favourite simile, with respect to St. Pierre de Beauvais, was that no Alpine precipice had the sheer fall of the walls of this choir,--or words to that effect, which is about as far-fetched as many other of his dictums, which have since been exploded by writers of every degree of optimism and pessimism. Certainly it is a great height to which this choir rises, one hundred and fifty-three feet it has been called, which probably exceeds that of Amiens by a dozen or more feet, though authorities (_sic_) vary with regard to these dimensions, as might be supposed; but it is no more like unto a wall of rock than it is to a lighthouse. With the crumbling of the sixteenth-century spire on Ascension Day, 1573, restoration of the transepts was undertaken and work on the nave resumed, which only proceeded, however, to the extent of erecting one bay to the westward, which stands to this day, the open end filled in with scantling, weather proofing, and what not,--a bare, gaunt, ugly patch. Had it been possible to complete the work on its original magnificent lines, it would have been the most stupendous Gothic fabric the world has ever known. Not entirely without beauty, in spite of its great proportions, it is more with wonder than admiration that one views both its details and proportions. Though it is perhaps unfair to condemn its style as unworthy of the Augustan age of French architecture, surely the ambition with which the work was undertaken was a laudable one enough, and it is only from the fact that it spells failure in the eyes of many who lack initiative in their own make-up, that it only qualifiedly may be called a great work. The choir, which now dates from 1322, perforce looks unduly short, by reason of the absence of a nave to add to the effect of horizontal stability; and the great height of the adjoining transept; but the chevet and buttresses are certainly a marvel of grace and towering forms. The portals of the transept are of the period of Francis I., with flowing lines and ornate decorations--"having passed the severity and ethical standards of maturity, and progressed well along the path to senility," as a vigorous Frenchman has put it. True enough in its application is this livid sentiment,--perhaps,--but its jewel-like south portal, like the "_gemmed_" west front of Tours, forms an attractive enough presentment to please most observers who do not delve too deeply into cause and effect. The north portal is less ornate, but its beautifully carved doors are by the same hand as that which worked the opposite portal. The ornamental stonework here is unusual, suggesting an arrangement which may or may not have been intended as a representation of the "Tree of Jesse." In any case it is a remarkable work of flowing Gothic "branches," which, though mainly lacking its intended interspersed figures, is not only unique among exterior decorations, but appears as a singularly appropriate treatment of a grand doorway. Adjoining the choir on the right is a sacristy occupying a small structure, and to the westward is a fragmentary edifice known as the _Basse OEuvre_,--one of the oldest existing buildings in France; a Romano-Byzantine work, variously stated as of the sixth to eighth century and forming a portion of the original church which occupied the site of the present Cathedral. The general impressiveness of this great church--the memory which most of us will carry away--is caused by its immensity, its loftiness, and the general effect of lightness. These form an irresistible galaxy of features which can hardly fail to produce a new and startling sensation upon any observer. As to decorative embellishments, the church is by no means lacking. The coloured glass, typical of the best period of the art, is luxurious and extensive; that contained in the north and south transept rose windows being the exceedingly beautiful work of Le Prince, a celebrated sixteenth-century artist. Numerous side chapels surround the ambulatory of the choir, and on the west wall of the transept are hung the eight tapestries after the sixteenth-century Raphael cartoons now at South Kensington. These tapestries are, it is to be presumed, late copies, since, of the two early sets woven at Arras, one is preserved in the Vatican and the other at the Museum at Berlin. A modern fresco of Jeanne Hachette, a local Amazon, adorns one of the choir chapels. A modern astronomical clock, with numerous dials, striking figures, and crowing cocks, is placed near the north transept. It might naturally be supposed that in our day the canons of good taste would plead against such a mere "curio" being housed in a noble church. The former Bishop's Palace, dating from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, is now the Palace of Justice. The present episcopal residence is immediately to the north of the Cathedral and is modern. As a tapestry-making centre Beauvais ranks with the famous Gobelin Manufactory at Paris. [Illustration: _Notre Dame de Rouen_] IV NOTRE DAME DE ROUEN Rouen, of all the mediæval cities of France, is ever to the fore in the memories of the mere traveller for pleasure. In no sense are its charms of a negative quality, or few in number. Quite the reverse is the case; but the city's apparent attraction is its extreme accessibility, and the glamours that a metropolis of rank throws over itself; for it must not be denied that a countrified environment has not, for all, the appealing interest of a great city. It is to this, then, that Rouen must accredit the throngs of strangers which continually flock to its doors from the Easter time to late autumn. In addition there are its three great churches, so conveniently and accessibly placed that the veriest tyro in travel can but come upon them whichever way he strolls. Other monuments of equal rank there are, too, and altogether, whether it be the mere hurried pecking of a bird of passage, or the more leisurely attack of the studiously inclined, Rouen offers perhaps much greater attractions than are possessed by any other French city of equal rank. So closely, too, have certain events of English history been interwoven with scenes and incidents which have taken place here, that the wonder is that it is not known even more intimately by that huge number of persons who annually rush across France to Switzerland or Italy. Chroniclers of the city's history, its churches, and its institutions have not been wanting, in either French or English; and even the guide-books enlarge (not unduly) upon its varied charms. Once possessing thirty-two churches, sixteen yet remain; quite one-half of which may be numbered to-day as of appealing interest. _En passant_, it may be stated that here at Rouen, in both Notre Dame and the Abbey Church of St. Ouen, is found that gorgeous functionary, commonly called "the Suisse," who seeks your gold or a portion thereof, in return for which he will favour you by opening an iron wicket into the choir, an incumbrance unnoticed elsewhere, except at Paris and St. Denis. The late Gothic church of St. Ouen, where the Maid of Orleans received her fatal sentence, shows a wonderful unity of design even as to its modern western towers; a consistency not equally the possession of the neighbouring cathedral, or even of most great churches. Altogether, this grand building is regarded as an unparallelled example of the realization of much that is best of Gothic architecture at its greatest height. In its central tower alone--which may or may not be suggestive of a market-basket, accordingly as you will take Ruskin's opinion, or form one of your own--is the least evidence of the developed flamboyant found. Its interior is clean-cut and free of obstruction; the extreme length of its straight lines, both horizontal and perpendicular, entirely freed from chapel or choir screen, embrace and uphold its "walls of glass" in an unequalled manner. In strong contrast to this expressively graceful style is the ultraflorid type of St. Maclou, the other of that trinity of architectural splendours, which, with the Cathedral of Notre Dame, form the chief ecclesiastical monuments of the city. St. Maclou, which dates from the early fifteenth century, though not of the grand proportions of either of the other great churches, being rather of the type of the large parish church as it is known in England, holds one spellbound by the very daring of its ornaments and tracery, but contains no trace of non-Gothic. The French passion for the curved line is nowhere more manifest than here (and in the west front of Notre Dame), where flowing tracery of window, doorway, portal, and, in general, all exterior ornament, is startling in its audacity. To view these two contrasting types before making acquaintance with the Cathedral of Notre Dame itself, is to prepare oneself for a consideration in some measure of a combination of the charms of both, woven into one fabric. Nowhere, at least in no provincial town of France, are to be found such a categorical display of ecclesiastical architectural details as here. Rouen has from the second century been an important seat of Christianity. St. Nicaise, not to be confounded with him of the same name of Reims, first held a conversion here and was shortly followed by St. Mellor, who founded the city's first church, on the site of the present cathedral. In succeeding centuries this foundation gradually took shape and form until, with the occupation by the Norsemen under Rollo, was founded a dynasty which fostered the development of theology and the arts in a manner previously unknown. The cathedral was enlarged at this time, and upon his death in 930 Rollo was interred therein, as was also his son in 943. Richard the Fearless followed with further additions and enlargements, his son Richard being made its forty-third archbishop. From this time on, the great church-building era, Christian activities were notably at work, here as elsewhere, and during the prolific eleventh century great undertakings were in progress; so much so that what was practically a new church received its consecration, and dedication to Our Lady, in 1063, in the presence of him who later was to be known as the Conqueror. To-day it stands summed up thus--a grand building, rich, confused, and unequal in design and workmanship. The lower portion of the northwest tower, called the _Tour St. Romain_, is all that is left of the eleventh-century building, the remainder of which was destroyed by fire in 1200. Rebuilding followed in succeeding years and shows work of many styles. Additions, repairs, and interpolations were incorporated with the fragment of the tower, so that the structure as we now know it stood complete with the early thirteenth century. Viollet-le-Duc is the authority for the statement that the apse and transept, chapels, choir, and two doorways of the west façade were quite complete before the influence of the perfected Gothic of the Isle of France was even felt. One Enguerrand was the chief designer of the new church, assisted by Jean d'Andeli as master mason. The early century saw the nave chapels built, having been preceded by the _Portail aux Libraires_, a sort of cloistered north entrance, still so referred to, one of the most charming and quiet old-world retreats to be found to-day even within the hallowed precincts of a cathedral. The _Portail de la Calende_ did not follow until a century later, when the _Tour St. Romain_ was completed to its roof; at which time was also added the screen or arcade which separates the _Portail aux Libraires_ from the street. This century, too, saw the beginning of the famous _Tour de Beurre_, built mostly by the contributions of those who paid for the indulgence of being allowed to eat butter during Lent. Its foundation was laid in 1487 under Archbishop Robert de Croixmore, and it was completed under Cardinal d'Amboise in 1507. A chapel at the base of the tower is dedicated to St. Stephen. The ornate decorations of the west front, added by Georges d'Amboise, are mainly of the sixteenth century and form no part of the original plan or design. It borders upon the style we have since learned to decry, but it is, at least, marvellous as to the skill with which its foliaged and crocketed pinnacles and elaborate traceries are worked. Ruskin was probably right in this estimate at least,--"The central gable is the most exquisite piece of pure flamboyant style extant." At the present day this west front is undergoing such restoration and general repair that the entire gable, rose window, and part of the flanking towers are completely covered with a most hideous array of scaffolding. The central spire as it exists to-day, in reality an abomination of abominations, is naturally enough admired by all when first viewed from afar. It certainly looks not dwarfed, or even fragile, but simply delicate, and withal graceful, an opinion which ultimate association therewith speedily dispels. It must be one of the very first examples of modern iron or steel erection in the world, dating from 1827, following three former spires, each of which was burned. The architect responsible for this monstrosity sought to combine two fabrics in incoherent proportions. More than one authority decries the use of iron as a constructive element, and Chaucer's description of the Temple of Mars in the Knight's Tale reads significantly: "Wrought all of burned steel... Was long and straight and ghastly for to see." The great part of the exterior of this remarkable church is closely hidden by a rather squalid collection of buildings. Here and there they have been cleared away, but, like much of the process of restoration, where new fabric is let into the old, the incongruity is quite as objectionably apparent as the crumbling stones of another age. _Notre Dame de Rouen_ is singularly confined, but there seems no help for it, and it is but another characteristic of the age in which it was built,--that the people either sought the shelter of churchly environment, or that the church was only too willing to stretch forth its sheltering arms to all and sundry who would lie in its shadow. In an assignment of ranking beauty to its external features, the decorative west front must manifestly come first; next the _Portail aux Libraires_, with its arcaded gateway and the remains of the booksellers' stalls which still surround its miniature courtyard; then, perhaps, should follow the _Tour St. Romain_ and the _Portail de la Calende_, with its charmingly recessed doorway and flanking lancet arches. The sculptured decorations of all are for the most part intact and undisfigured. The gable of the southern doorway rises pointedly until its apex centres with the radiated circular window above, which, by the way, is not of the exceeding great beauty of the other two rose windows, which rank with those at Reims and Chartres as the _beaux ideals_ of these distinctly French achievements. The interior, viewed down the nave, and showing its great length and that of the choir, impresses one with a graver sense of unity in the manner of building than is possible to conceive with regard to the exterior. The height and length both approximate that of St. Ouen, and, though the nave rises only to ninety-eight feet, an effect of greater loftiness is produced by the unusual quadripartite range of openings from pavement to vaulting: two rows of arches opening into the aisles before the triforium itself is reached. The lantern at the crossing supports the ironwork spire, and admits light to the centre of the church, only to a small degree, however. The south transept, like that of the north, with its ample double aisles, is of great width, and, were the framing of the great rose window of less angularity, it would indeed produce a remarkable effect of grandeur. The other windows, and the arcading of the triforium, are singularly graceful; not lacking either strength or firmness, though having no glass of great rarity or excellence. In this transept is the altar of St. Romain, a seventeenth-century work of little pretensions. The north transept contains two features which give it immediate precedence over any other, when viewed from within: its gracefully traceried rose window and fine glass, and the delightful stone staircase leading to the chapter library. Mere description cannot do this stairway justice. Renaissance it certainly is, and where we might wish to find nothing but Gothic ornament, it may prove somewhat of a disappointment; but it is magnificent. Its white marble balustrading gleams in the strong light thrown from the western transept window and gives an unmistakable note of richness and sonority. It was built late in the fifteenth century under orders of Cardinal d'Estonteville. The upper doorway leads to the treasury, and that of the first landing to the chamber in which were formerly kept the bibliographical treasures, now housed in the special building which forms the western wall of the outside court. The north and south aisles of the nave are broken into by a series of chapels, the chief of which are the Chapel to St. Stephen in the base of the _Tour de Beurre_ and _du Petit St. Romain_, where an abbé or curé speaking the English tongue is often to be found. On the south side is a chapel containing the tomb of William Longsword, second Duke of Normandy, and son of Rollo. The great attraction of the choir, far more than its beauties of architectural forms, shown in its graceful columns and deep graven capitals, will be, for most visitors, its array of elaborate monuments, including those of Pierre and Louis de Breze, of whom the former, the Grand Seneschal of Normandy under Charles VII., fell at Monthery, and was buried here in 1465. More pretentious is the tomb of Louis, his grandson, erected by his wife Diane de Poitiers, with a significant inscription which the curious may be pleased to figure out for themselves. This noble monument is one of those examples hesitatingly attributed to Jean Goujon. The _pièce de résistance_ is the Renaissance tomb of the Cardinals d'Amboise. Georges I. was memorialized in 1556 by his nephew Georges II., who in turn came to share the same tomb. Both their kneeling figures are beautifully chiselled, and the whole erection is gorgeously representative of the late sixteenth-century monumental work, little in keeping with the Gothic fabric which houses it, but characteristic of the changing thought and influence of its time. Six symbolical figures of the virtues form a lower course, while the canopy is surmounted by nineteen figures of apostles, saints, etc. In 1793 the ashes of these great prelates were scattered to the winds, but the effigies and their setting fortunately remained uninjured. Other archbishops of the cathedral are buried in the choir, and the heart of Richard Coeur de Lion once rested here, as did also the bodies of his brother Henry, and John, Duke of Bedford. The choir stalls, mostly the work of Flemish wood-carvers, are notable examples. [Illustration] [Illustration: _Basilique de St. Denis_] V BASILIQUE DE ST. DENIS The Basilica of St. Denis, so-called to-day, built over the remains of the martyred St. Denis, is in a way the counterpart of the Cathedral of Reims, in that it also is intimately associated with the Kings of France. In the former they were, almost without exception, crowned; and here, at St. Denis, are the memorials of their greatness, and in many cases their actual tombs. Thus far and no farther may the similarity be said to exist. The old Abbey of St. Denis has little in common, architecturally, with the grand Cathedral of Notre Dame de Reims. Of the two, St. Denis is much the older foundation, and from the point of view of romance and sentiment holds perhaps the premier place, as well. The history of the city is one of the most interesting and diversified of all in the domain of the Kings of France. A Benedictine abbey was founded here in the reign of Dagobert I., and, under the Carlovingian dynasty, immediately took on political as well as devout significance. The Abbot of St. Denis journeyed to Rome in 751 A. D. and secured for Pepin the papal confirmation of his kingship. Pope Stephen took refuge here from the Lombards in 754 A. D., during which time he anointed the king's sons, Charles and Charlemagne; upon the consecration of which act Pepin handed over to his sons the right and title to his dominions. Upon the advice of the Abbot Suger, Louis VI. adopted the _Oriflamme_, or standard of St. Denis, as the banner of the Kings of France, and, for long after, its red and gold colourings hung above the altar,--only to be removed when the king should take the field in person. Abélard, of famed romance, was a monk of the abbey in the twelfth century; and, in the absence of the sovereign (Louis VII.) in the Holy Land during the mid-century, the Abbé Suger administered full well the affairs of the kingdom. This renowned abbot and true lover of art died in 1151 at St. Denis. In 1429 "the Maid of Orleans" here delivered up her arms; and a century and a half later that sturdy Protestant, Henry, abjured the faith to which he had hitherto so tenaciously clung. In this church, too, the great Napoleon married Marie Louise in 1810; and his later namesake, some fifty years after, erected a mausoleum in the crypt, known as the _Caveau Imperial_, the burial vault of his dynasty, which, however, has never been so used. Such in brief is the record of some of the more important affairs of church and state, which are identified with this fine old cathedral. The usual books of reference give lengthy lists of the various tombs and monuments which exist. It is a pity, however, that, in spite of the laudable ambition of preserving here, in a sort of kingly Valhalla, the memory of the rulers of a past age, it has degenerated, in turn, to a mere show-place, with little enough of the real sentiment remaining to satisfy the seriously inclined, who perforce would wish to be reminded in some more subtle way than by a mere "rush around the exhibits," which is about all the half-hourly, personally conducted excursions, with appropriate fees to be delivered up here and there, amounts to. But for this, there would still be some of the charm and reverence which such a noble memorial should inspire, in spite of the fact that revolution and desecration have played more than a usual share in the general derangement of the original plans. Up to the time of Henry IV., the monarchs were mostly interred in separate tombs, but, following him, his immediate successors were buried in a common vault. During the Revolution, the Convention decreed that the royal tombs should be destroyed, and so they mostly were,--the bodies dug up and interred, if so the process can be called, in a common grave. In 1817 Louis XVIII. caused the remains of his ancestors, as well as Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, to be transferred here from the Madeleine, and in turn he himself was buried here, as well as the Duc de Berry and several of his children. The preservation of such of the tombs as survived the many vicissitudes to which they were put, is due to the fact that many of them were at one time removed to the Musée des Petits-Augustines, now the Palace des Beaux Arts, at Paris; but in 1817 Louis XVIII. ordered them to be replaced in the crypt of St. Denis; not, however, on the sites which they formerly occupied, but in an arbitrary manner which only the great abilities of M. Viollet-le-Duc, who undertook their rearrangement and restoration, were able to present in some coherent manner for the marvel of future generations. There are now therein over fifty monuments and tombs, besides various statues, medallions, and other memorials. From an architectural point of view, we have to consider the _Basilique de St. Denis_ no longer a cathedral, as one of the earliest Gothic examples in France, though at first glance little enough of the true Gothic feeling is apparent. About the year 275 a chapel was built here above the grave of St. Dionysius, the first Bishop of Paris. This was followed by a large _basilica_, ultimately given over to the uses of monks of the Benedictine order. Evidences of this former construction are supposed by archæologists to still remain, but little, earlier than the structure of the Abbé Suger, meets the eye to-day. Strong is the trace of the development from the Romanesque façade, completed in 1140, to pure Gothic construction of a century later. In this church is commonly supposed to be exhibited for the first time, bearing in mind that the date of its consecration was 1144, a complete system of buttresses accompanying the pointed arch of the vaulting, though in conjunction with semicircular vaulting in the choir aisles. The west façade is the most notable part of Suger's building. It contains three deeply recessed round arched portals, decorated with sculpture, but so disfigured, or at least modified from their original forms in an attempt to replace the ravages of time and spoliation, that one can not well judge of their original merit. The south portal shows symbolical figures of the months and of "St. Dionysius in Prison;" the central doorway a "Last Judgment," and the "Wise and Foolish Virgins;" while the north portal depicts "St. Dionysius on His Way to Martyrdom," and "The Signs of the Zodiac." A curious and unusual effect of the upper portion of this grim façade, like a similar work at Dol-de-Bretagne, is a range of battlements which were erected for defensive purposes in the fourteenth century. The nave rises high above this, surmounted by a statue of St. Denis. Above the lateral portals of the façade are two towers, that on the right rising two stages above the embattled crest, while that on the left stops at that level. The spire with which it was formerly surmounted was ruined by lightning early in the nineteenth century. The choir, with its radiating chapels, is of a Romanesque order, with the Gothic attribute of the flying buttress in a high degree of development. A general restoration was carried out in the thirteenth century by the successors of Suger, the Abbés Eudes Clement and Matthieu de Vendôme, in the best Gothic of the time; and it is to their excellently planned work that the general fine effect of the present interior arrangements may properly enough be accredited, though for a fact it seldom is so. A later restoration, the removing of the ruin wrought by the Revolution, did not succeed so well. It was not until the really great work of Viollet-le-Duc, under Napoleon III., that this grand building finally took on again an acceptable form. The general interior arrangements, though to-day apparently subservient to the common attributes of a show-house with its innumerable guides, functionaries, and fees, are simple and impressive so far as structural elements are concerned. As for decorations, they are mostly to be found in that gorgeous array of monuments and tombs before mentioned. The entrance proper, or vestibule, is of Suger's era and is gloomy and dull, in strong contrast with the noble and impressive nave, which contains thirty-seven enormously high windows and a handsome triforium gallery. This portion dates from the thirteenth century, or immediately following Suger's régime. The excellent stained glass is modern. The transepts are mere rudimentary elements, suggested only by the interior arrangement of the piers, and are simple and impressive. [Illustration: _Oriflamme of St. Denis_] [Illustration: NOTRE DAME _de PARIS_...] VI NOTRE DAME DE PARIS Of all the cathedrals of France, Notre Dame de Paris is most firmly impressed on the minds of English speaking people. At least, it is more familiarly known by all who visit that delectable land, and perhaps rightly so. Poets have sung its praises, and writers of all ranks have used it in well-nigh every possible fashion as an accessory; indeed, books almost without number have been written about it, and around it. This is as it should be, for perhaps no great church is more worthy, or more prolific in material. For those who would probe deeply into its story, there is but one way to acquire an intimate knowledge thereof,--to undertake a course of reading and study in some such way as a lawyer sets about reading up on a great case. By no other method could be acquired a tithe of the commonly known facts regarding its past history; hence the impossibility of attempting to deal fully in a few pages with this great church, even in a perfunctory manner. The most that can be safely ventured upon, is to recount some of the facts. How many have really noticed that none of the diagrams, which show the ground-plan of this cathedral, indicate the existence of any transepts? Take, for instance, that which accompanies this volume, which, it may be said, is drawn correctly,--beyond the omission of a couple of pillars on either side of the nave, there is nothing to break into the long parallelogram-like structure, with an apsidal termination. As a matter of fact, there are a pair of very beautiful transepts, as most photographs of the exterior, and drawings of the interior, show. They are, too, in no way attenuated, and are only lost in the ground-plan by reason of the fact that they follow the very unusual arrangement of not extending laterally beyond the ample width of the nave and its chapelled aisles. The south transept façade, with the portal dedicated to St. Stephen, and two magnificent rose windows, is unquestionably more pleasing than the west façade itself as to design and arrangement. Begun in 1163 and consecrated in 1182, the church has undergone many vicissitudes, changes, and restorations. It has fared ill on many occasions; perhaps the greatest defilement being that which befell it during the Revolution, when it was not only foully desecrated, its statues and other imagery despoiled, but the edifice was actually doomed to destruction. This fortunately was spared to it, but in the same year (1793) it became a "Temple of Reason," one of those fanatical exploits of a set of madmen who are periodically let loose upon the world. Mysticism, palaverings, and orgies unspeakable took place between its walls, and it only became sanctified again when Napoleon caused it to be reopened as a place of divine worship. Again, three-quarters of a century later, it fell into evil times--when it was turned into a military rendezvous by the Communards of '71. In turn, they too retreated, leaving the church, as they supposed, to the mercy of the flames which they had kindled. Fortunately these were extinguished and the building again rescued from an untoward fate. The thirteenth-century façade is usually accredited the finest part of the church. It comes upon one as rather plain and bare after the luxuriance of Amiens, Reims, or Rouen. As a model and design, however, it has served its purpose well, if other examples, variously distributed throughout England and France, are considered. Its lines, in fact, are superb and vary little in proportion or extent from what must perforce be accepted as ideal. Its portals are of good design, and so also is such sculpture as survived the ravages of the past, though the outlines of the doorways are severely plain. A series of modern sculptured effigies of the kings, replacing those destroyed at the Revolution, forms a plain horizontal band across the entire front; a none too graceful or pleasing arrangement of itself. A rose window forty-two feet in width occupies the centre of the next stage, flanked by two blunt-pointed windows rather bare of glass. Above is an arcaded gallery of small pointed arches in pairs, also extending across the entire front. The balustrade, above, holds a number of grotesque creatures carved in stone. They may be gargoyles, but are not, however, in this case, of the spout variety, being some of those erections of a superstitious age which were so frequently added to a mediæval building; though whether as a mere decoration, or with greater significance, authorities do not seem to agree. The two uncompleted square towers overtop all, pierced by the two great lancets, which, with respect to mere proportions, are unusual if not unique. The spire above the crossing is a wooden structure covered with lead, and dates only from the middle of the nineteenth century. Both the north and south transepts contain magnificent rose windows of even larger dimensions than that of the west façade. The doorway of the south transept is ornamented with effective ironwork, but otherwise the exterior presents no remarkable features. To the artist's eye the gem of the building is undoubtedly the fine grouping and ensemble of the flying buttresses at the rear of the choir. Most persons, so gifted, have tried their prentice, or their master, hands at depicting this grand marshalled array of "folded wings," and, but for the gruesome morgue at its foot, which ever intrudes into the view, one might almost say it is the most idyllic and most specious view of a great cathedral that it were possible to have. Were it not for this charming view of these buttressed walls, with the river flowing at their feet, the Isle de la Cité would be indeed a gloomy spot, with its lurid historical past, and its present gruesome association with the "house of the dead." Indeed, it has been questioned as to whether the choir and chevet of Notre Dame de Paris is not the most beautiful extant. The Isle de la Cité was the ancient island village of the Parisii. A sixteenth-century Dutch writer (De Sauteuil) has delivered himself of these few lines concerning the Seine at this point: "When first it enters the metropolis it ambitiously stays its rapid course, and, being truly enamoured with the place, forgets its way, is uncertain whither to flow, and winds in sweet meanders through the town; thence filling the pipes with its waters. That which was once a river, joys to become a fountain." To carry the suggestion of contrast still farther one should read Hugo's "Notre Dame" on the spot. It will give a wonderful and whimsical conception of those weird gargoyles and devils, which have only to be seen to awaken a new interest in what this great writer has put forth. For another sensation, pleasant or otherwise, one might look up a copy of Méyron's wonderful etching of the same subject, or refer to a most excellent monograph, written not many years since, entitled "The Devils of Notre Dame." The interior shows the earliest example wherein the double aisles of the nave are continued around the choir, and the first introduction of the quadruple range of openings from the pavement to the vaulting. The aisles and nave are of almost equal height. The choir, besides being merely apsided, is, in fact, a true semicircle, a sufficiently unusual arrangement in an early Gothic church to be remarked; and, in addition, is exceedingly narrow and lofty. The glass of the rose windows is of old and gorgeous quality, it having escaped destruction in Revolutionary times, whereas that of the lower range of windows was mostly destroyed. The choir stalls are of excellent wooden carving, but the high altar is modern, dating only from 1874. The choir screen, of the fourteenth century, shows twenty-three reliefs in stone, once richly gilded, but now tarnished and dull. [Illustration: _Notre Dame de Paris from the River_] ST. LOUIS DE VERSAILLES Allied with the see whose jurisdiction includes the Diocese of the Department of the Seine, should be considered that of Seine and Oise, which has its bishop's throne esconced in the Cathedral of St. Louis at Versailles. To all intents and purposes the town is one of those conglomerate units which go to make up the "traveller's Paris." More can hardly be said with due regard to the magnificent edifices with which this cathedral must naturally be classed. The other attractions of this "court suburb" are so appealing to the sentimentally inclined that it is to be feared that such will have little eye for the very minor attractions of the cathedral. The Trianons, the "Grandes Eaux" and the "Petites Eaux" are all in all to the visitor to Versailles. As a matter of fact and record, the Cathedral of St. Louis must be mentioned, if only to be dismissed in a word. Bourasée refers to it as "a thing cold, unfeeling, and without life." Truthfully, it is a remarkably ugly building of the middle eighteenth century, with no details of note and no memorials worthy of even a passing regard, except a monument to the Duc de Berry, who died in 1820. What embellishment is given to the interior, is accounted for by the exceeding ruddy glow shed by the contemporary coloured glass of the none too numerous windows. [Illustration: _St. Julien; Le Mans_] VII ST. JULIEN; LE MANS Le Mans, like Chartres, sprang from an ancient Celtic hill fort, and, through successive stages, has since grown to a Roman, a mediæval, and finally a modern city. It crowns the top of a very considerable eminence, the like of which, says Professor Freeman, does not exist in England. Like Chartres, too, it has always retained the balance of power which has made it the local civil and ecclesiastical capital of its province. It is, too, more closely associated in English minds than is Chartres, forming as it did a part of the dominion of a common sovereign; also by reason of being the birthplace of Henry II., and the burial-place of Queen Berengaria, the wife of Richard Coeur-de-Lion. Le Mans stands, without doubt, in advance of Chartres in the importance and number of its secondary churches, as well as its ecclesiastical, civil, and military establishments in general. In spite of all this, the city has never ranked as of supreme importance as a European city; nor did it ever attain the rank in Gallic times, that the events which have been woven around it would seem to augur. To-day it is a truly characteristic, large, provincial town of little or no importance to the outside world. Self-sufficient as to its own importance, and the events around which its local life circles, it gives little indication of ever becoming more of a metropolis than it now is; indeed the census figures would indicate that the department, of which it is the capital, has remained stationary as to the numbers of its population, since the Revolution. Writers have endeavoured to carry the similarity to English interests and conditions still farther than the events of history really go to prove, and have declared that Maine and England should have united in repelling their common invader. Endeavour has also been made to trace similarity between the communistic principles of days gone by, which took form here and at Exeter across the Channel, and have even remarked the similarity of the topographical features of the surrounding landscape, wherein the country round about differs so from other parts of France, being here rolling, hilly, and wooded, as in certain parts of England; and even stretching a point to include the hedgerows, which, it must be admitted, are more in evidence in Maine than elsewhere in France. But these observations apparently prove nothing except that the majority of persons probably know very little of the real conditions which exist in the provinces of France, preferring rather that their journeyings afield should follow more the well-worn road of their compatriots. The Cathedral of St. Julien well represents the two distinct epochs in which church architecture, as it remains to us to-day, was practised here, and shows, to well-nigh the fullest expression possible, the two principal transformations of Christian architecture. As the Angevin style partakes so closely of northern and southern types intermixed, so the distinctive architectures of Maine, if such there be, may be said to favour the styles of both Normandy and Anjou; at least so far as the cathedral at Le Mans shows a combination of Angevin and Norman detail. The really distinctive southern influence is to be noted in the Romano-Byzantine nave, the exterior of which, so far as the western front is concerned, is far more notable in the rigidness and austerity of its lines, than by any richness of ornamentation or decoration. Nothing could be more simply plain than this portal, and the wall and gable which surmount it. A large bare window, of the variety of that at Angers, stands above the doorway, which, itself, lacks all attempt at embellishment. What decoration the façade bears is after the true Byzantine manner, of the nature of brickwork displayed and set into the wall in geometrically angular fashion. What sculpture there is, two grotesque animals on either of the buttresses which flank the façade, is of minor account. This, then, is the extent of the detail of this severe western façade, the grand portal of the usually accepted great church being entirely lacking and evidently not thought of as a desirable detail when this portion of the structure was erected. It has nothing of the prodigious art expression of the frontispieces of the grand Gothic churches of the north, or of the less poverty-stricken Byzantine decoration of its own Meridional portal, which, in so far as the style can be said to take on richness of form, shows the transition tendencies of the early twelfth century. This doorway is surmounted by a tympanum, ornamented by a figure of the Saviour surrounded by the four Evangelists, a subject which has always proved itself a highly successful and popular ecclesiastical symbol, and one which in this case, as in most others, is well made use of. All the figures have suffered considerably from the ravages of time, but retain much of their interest and charm in spite of such mutilation. A tower of Romanesque foundation, but of fifteenth and sixteenth century completion, flanks this south transept. The ranking portion of this interesting church is its choir, larger in superficial area than the entire cathedrals of Noyon or Soissons. Both from inside and out, it is all that one's imagination could possibly invent. Its great proportions are as harmonious and graceful as the lines of a willow-tree; in fact, as to general effect, it may be set down as a thing of extraordinary grandeur, worthy to rank with Beauvais or Amiens, and yet different from either, of a quality its very own. At the commencement of the thirteenth century the canons obtained, from Philip Augustus, permission to extend their church beyond the city walls in an easterly direction, and then it was that this wonderful choir took shape. The work was undertaken in 1217 and was completed soon after the middle of the same century, and the body of St. Julien, the first apostle to Le Mans, for whom the church was named, was placed therein by Geoffroy de Loudon, then bishop, who decorated the windows of the choir with the magnificent glass with which they are still set. From a certain distance to the eastward the cathedral at Le Mans presents a view of the choir, unique in all the world. Other greater ones there are, if mere height be concerned, and others with more perfect appendages; but none give the far-spreading effect of encircling chapels, or are possessed of high springing buttresses of more grace or beauty than are seen here. He was a rash man who ranked the flying buttresses as a sign of defective construction, indicating structural weakness, meaningless and undecorative ornament, and what not. Few have agreed with this dictum, and few ever will after they have seen Paris, Beauvais, and Le Mans. The interior is one of great interest; the nave, even in its early forms, is none the less attractive because of its austerity. It is, as a matter of fact, far more interesting here than in its exterior, the swarthy circular pillars holding aloft arches with just a suspicion of the ogival style, with narrow, low, and disproportionately small windows in the aisles, where are also a series of strengthening pillars of black and white stone, presenting again a reminiscence of the southern manner, or at least recalling the slate and stone of Angers. In the choir, with its girdling chapels and double ambulatory, we come upon the most impressive portion of all. Slightly orientated from the east and west, it presents by itself, like Beauvais, nearly all of the attributes of a great church. The columns, arcades, and windows throughout are all of an unusual elegance and grace, the vaulting rising with much daring to a remarkable height, which must approach one hundred and ten or more feet, and the equal of certain other "popularly notable" buildings. The rose window of the south of the transept is a remarkable example of these masterpieces of the French builder. The framing and the glass with which it is set is of the richest quality, though it dates only from the fifteenth century. The organ case is here found in the south transept, an unusual arrangement in a French church, where it is usually placed over the western doorway. The vaulting, too, is much loftier here than in the nave. The aisles of this remarkable choir have the further unusual attribute of three ranges of openings, while the clerestory, only, rises above, but with great and imposing beauty. There are a few funeral monuments of more than ordinary interest, including that of Queen Berengaria, wife of Richard, the Lion-Hearted, brought from the Abbey de l'Epau in 1821; a sarcophagus and statue in white marble of Charles of Anjou, Count of Maine, King of Jerusalem and Sicily (d. 1472), and the mausoleum of Langey du Bellay. In the north aisle are a number of fifteenth or sixteenth century tapestries. The former bishop's palace was burned by the Germans in 1871. [Illustration: _Notre Dame de Chartres._] VIII NOTRE DAME DE CHARTRES Aside from their wonderful, though non-similar, cathedrals, Chartres and Le Mans, its neighbour, have much in common. Both have been possessed of a brilliant array of counts and prelates, both grew from a Celtic village to their present grand proportions through a series of vicissitudes, wars, and conquests, until to-day each is preëminent within its own sphere, and has become not only a centre of ecclesiastical affairs, but of civil life as well. The Counts of Chartres and of Blois, in the middle ages, were a powerful race of men, and should ever be associated with profound respect in English minds by the fact that here was the birthplace of Adela, the mother of King Stephen of Blois, and of Henry, Bishop of Winchester. As for local conditions to-day, Chartres, while having grown to the state which it now occupies through events which have made it a city of mark, remains a somnolescent, sparsely built town, with little suggestion of the progress of modernity. More frequently mentioned in the note-books of the traveller than Le Mans, it offers perhaps no greater charms. To be sure, its cathedral, by reason of its open situation and the charming quality and effect produced by its spires and its one hundred and thirty windows of coloured glass, at once places it at the very head amongst the great "show pieces" of France; but it is in connection with Le Mans, scarcely eighty miles away and so little known, that it ought really to be studied and considered; which as a matter of fact it seldom is. The city is hardly in keeping with what we are wont to associate with the environment of a great cathedral, though this of itself in no way detracts from its charms. The weekly cattle-market takes place almost before its very doors, and the battery of hotels which flank the open square present the air of catering more to the need of the husbandman than to the tourist;--not a wholly objectionable feature, either. Beyond such evidences as an occasional sign-board announcing the fact that the hostelry possesses a _garage_, _fosse_, or what not for the necessitous requirements of the automobilist, the inns remain much as they always were, mere _bourgeoise_ caravansaries. The Cathedral of Notre Dame de Chartres jumps full into view immediately on leaving the railway station, though here it is to be noted that no delineation has ever been made by modern hand which shows its façade in its entirety. The roofs of the houses and shops around its base indicate no special squalor or poverty, as is the case with regard to some Continental churches, and there is a picturesque grouping of firs and poplars to the left which adds considerably to an already pleasing prospect. The whole grouping is, perhaps, none the less attractive than if the façade, with those extraordinarily beautiful non-contemporary spires, stood quite unobstructed. In fact, it is doubtful if many a monumental shrine might not lose considerably, were it taken from its environment and placed in another which might not suit its graces so well. These really fascinating spires, famed of all writers, archæologists, and painters alike, are the _clef_ by which the whole harmony is sounded. One cannot but echo, and reëcho, all that has been said of them, though in a quandary as to which of the two is the more beautiful: the plain, simple, symmetrical, older spire, or that wonderful work of Texier's, replacing another burned in 1506, which rises in gently sculptured and tapered ranges to a height which exceeds its companion by some twenty-five feet. No more appropriate or convincing wording could be given of it than by quoting Fergusson's estimate, which sums it up as being "the most beautifully designed spire in Europe, surpassing even Strasburg and Antwerp." It is rather a pity that from no suitably near-by point can one obtain a full view of the effect of the western façade. One poor little house seems ever to thrust itself into the ensemble, though it is to-day apparent that certain others, which must have cut into the front still more, have been cleared away. Clearly, with all its charm and beauty of detail, it is for its great and general excellencies that the cathedral at Chartres most impresses itself upon the memory. Visitors to-day will have no easy task in locating Lowell's "little pea-green inn," in which he indited the lines, "A Day in Chartres;" as appreciative and graceful an estimate of an inanimate thing as ever was made in verse: "The Grecian gluts me with its perfectness Unanswerable as Euclid, self-contained, The one thing finished in this hasty world. But ah! this other, this that never ends, Still climbing, luring fancy still to climb, As full of morals, half divined, as life, Graceful, grotesque, with ever new surprise Of hazardous caprices, sure to please, Heavy as nightmare, airy light as fern, Imagination's very self in stone." Among the other attractions of the west façade is the Porte Royale, so called, the central doorway which was only opened for the entrance of the sovereign. It is decorated with the "signs of the zodiac" and "symbols of the months." Next in point of richness are the grandly effective north and south porches, with their triple doorways or portals, setting back some twenty feet from their jambs, which, as at Noyon, and in the smaller church at Louviers, are pierced with a transverse passage. The north porch, with its range of three open-sided and deeply recessed doorways, has unmistakably debased tendencies, but is filled with sculptured statuary of more than ordinarily effective disposition, more remarkable for magnitude and ornateness than for finesse of skill and workmanship, or even as a detail of good taste. The life-size statues of all three recesses are held aloft by pedestals, on pillars of twisted and of spiralled trunks, a formation reviled by Ruskin, but producing an effect much more pleasing than some galleries of effigies we have seen, where the figures appear as if hung up by the hair of their heads, or are clinging to the walls by invisible spurs at their heels, or, as is not infrequently the case, are standing or hung on nothing, as though they were graven of some bewitched magnetic stone. Here for the first time is seen, in the sculptured figures of the three great portals, the plastic forms which were to add so greatly to the Gothic architecture: male and female saints, Evangelists, and Apostles in great array, all somewhat more than life-size. Only one adverse impression is cast: that of petrifaction. The figures, almost without exception, appear as integral parts of the architectural fabric, rather than as added ornament. They are most ungainly, tall, stiff, and column-like, much more so than similar works at Reims, or at Amiens, where the sculpture has something of the vigour and warmth of life. The south porch, erected in the reign of Henry I. by Jean Cormier, partly from donations of Matilda, queen of the Norman Conqueror, contains a series of _basso relievos_,--seen also in the arches of the choir,--manifestly not of good Gothic principle, and one which is the very antithesis of the northern spirit, as the name itself implies. The earliest portion of the existing church, the crypt, is that of a timber-roofed structure burned in 1020. It was erected early in the eleventh century by Fulbert, the famous Bishop of Chartres, also remembered--possibly revered--as being the prolific letter-writer of his time. John of Salisbury was bishop in the next century, and under him were built the lower stages of the western façade and towers. In this church Edward III. called for the help of Heaven to aid his plans, and here Henry of Navarre was crowned King of France, a change of venue from Reims, where so many previous and subsequent coronations were held. The interior gives a deal of the thrill for which one should always be prepared. The gloom, so apparent at first, slowly brightens as the eye becomes accustomed to the finely filtered light, which penetrates through the gorgeous coloured glass, a feature which ranks with the spires as a vivid impression to be carried away. Nearly all of this glass is of equal worth and attractiveness, being, with the exception of three windows of a late date, and a few uncoloured ones, all of the gorgeous thirteenth-century variety. The whole mass of the clerestory throughout gives the effect of windows heavily hung with tapestries through which the outside light pierces in minute rays. This comparison is made advisedly, inasmuch as, regardless of the quality and value of the glass, it is composed mainly of those minute and fragmentary particles often more rich in colour than design. There is little doubt but that the result of the deep rich blue, claret, and orange gives a first effect of insufficient lighting which would try an artist or photographer sorely, though not a detracting element in churches which would often appear cold and unconvincing were such an attribute lacking. There are also three magnificent rose windows of great size (thirty to forty feet), containing equally good glass. A double ambulatory surrounds the seven-chapeled choir, which is further enclosed by a magnificent sculptured stone screen begun in the sixteenth century by Texier, who designed the marvellous north spire. The _Vierge du Pilier_ of the north choir aisle, a fifteenth-century shrine, is the subject of great local veneration. The treasury contains a _relique_ in the form of the veil of the Virgin, supposed to have been presented by Charlemagne to Princess Irene. Other interior details of note are an eleventh-century font; the large crypt beneath the choir; the unequal level of the pavement of nave and choir; and the maze, which still exists in the nave. This last feature is a winding circular path some forty odd feet in diameter, and, in all, perhaps a thousand feet long. As a penance in place of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, "the journey of the maze" was performed by the penitent on his knees--taking perhaps an hour or more, according to the size and length of the path, which varied with different churches where they formerly existed. The other most notable example in France is at St. Quentin, northeast of Paris. IX NOTRE DAME DE REIMS The very ancient city of Reims, now the capital of the Department of the Marne, was a large centre of population when it first fell under the sway of the Romans. During Cæsar's occupation it was known as Duroctorum, in the Præfecture of the Gauls. A powerful metropolis and a faithful adherent of the Romans, the city early attained prominence as a centre of Christianity. St. Sixte preached the word here shortly after the first bishopric was founded, after capture by the Vandals in 406 A. D. The city was practically razed by Attila, who afterward met defeat at Chalons. During the Roman Empire it was the most important town of the Province of Belgica Secunda, later becoming known as the capital of the Remi, the name given to the people inhabiting the country round about. [Illustration: NOTRE DAME _de REIMS_ ...] In 508 A. D. the Franks under Childeric captured the city, and in 720 A. D. Charles Martel captured it from Bishop Rigobert. Here, too, Pope Stephen had his famous interview with Pepin, and attended the crowning of Louis le Débonnaire in 816 A. D. In 744 it was made an archbishop's see, with suffragans at Amiens, Beauvais, Chalons, and Soissons. It is to-day the ecclesiastical capital of France--the Archbishop of Reims being the metropolitan prelate. Clovis, son of Childeric, King of the Ripuarian Franks, in 496 A. D. conquered the last Roman stronghold at Soissons, and, having married a Burgundian princess, Clotilda, was induced to accept Christianity. He was accordingly baptized here by St. Remi on Christmas Day, 496 A. D. Leo III. met Charlemagne here; a council was held in 1119 A. D. by Calixtus II. in an attempt to reconcile Henry I. and Louis le Gros; and, later, another, to excommunicate another Henry. Succeeding years saw a continuity of archbishops, who achieved by their religious works a world-wide fame and glory. In these early days they held the temporal as well as spiritual power of the cities, and in some instances even coined their own specie. In spite of the changes of the times and conditions of life, the ancient capital of Belgica Secunda still remains the chief city of the Departments of the Marne, Ardennes, and Aisne. Its ecclesiastical and secular monuments, headed by the grand Cathedral of Notre Dame, form an array which is well worthy of such extended consideration as the traveller or student can give. The Benedictine Abbey, the Church of St. Remi, is likewise notable in all of its dimensions and details. Its construction dates from 1162-1506, though the remains of a former tenth-century structure are made use of therein. Its chief treasure is the tomb of St. Remi, a wonderful Renaissance funeral monument of imposing proportions. Another monumental feature of more than unusual note, is the magnificent Roman arch of the former fortress of Porte Mars. This truly majestic specimen of the work of the Roman builder is supposed to have been erected by Agrippa in 25 B. C., in honour of Augustus, although another authority puts it as late as the period of Julian, 361 A. D. At any rate, it has stood the rigours of a northern clime as well as any Roman memorial extant; indeed, has seen fall all its contemporaries of the city, for at one time Reims was possessed of no less than three other gateways, bearing the pagan nomenclature of Ceres, Mars, and Venus. The various other memorials of the city are on a no less grand scale, but the average person will hardly have eyes and ears for more than a contemplation of the wealth of splendour to be seen in its overpowering cathedral. Of the glorious group of monumental churches of northern France, the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Reims, if not admittedly the most beautiful and memorable Gothic edifice in all France, needs but little qualifying comment. It has a preëminence which has been generally conceded, and even elaborately endorsed, by most observers qualified to pass opinion hereon. Contemplation of the wealth of detail, and of the disposition of its wonderful west front, no less than of its general excellencies, can but compel the decision that in its exterior, at least, the Cathedral of Reims is the peer of any existing Gothic fabric. Though less huge than Strasburg or Cologne, and lacking the doubled tier of flying buttresses of the latter, it is altogether the most splendid and well-proportioned Gothic mass extant. The diminishing or pyramidal effect of the towers and gable of this west façade is an exemplification of the true symmetry of Gothic form. Lofty, and not closely hemmed in by surrounding structures, it looms, from any adjacent view-point, fully two-thirds of its decorated splendour above the general skyline round about. Aside from modern adulation we have the praise of an early historian, who delivers himself thus: _"Decor et majestes praeclarissime hugus structurae omnem scribendi peritiam longe superat, ob elegantum omnibus est admirationi, at que sibi similem non habet in tota Gallia."--Met. Rememsis Hist. Dom. Guliol. Marlot S. Nicasii Rem. Prioris, Tom ii. p. 470._ Following the preaching of St. Remi, and the murder of St. Nicaise, who founded a church on this site in 400 A. D., Ebo, bishop in 818 A. D., laid the foundations of a new church, Louis I. granting that such material as might be needed be taken from the city wall. To assist, the sovereign also sent his architect, Rumaldi. In 847 A. D. Archbishop Nicman secured a renewal of the privileges, and in the presence of the king the building was consecrated in 862 A. D. The western entrance was ornamented with graven statues of Louis I., the patron, Pope Stephen, and the archbishop himself. This entire fabric succumbed to fire on the 6th of May, 1210, and the present structure rests merely on the remains of the ancient crypt, which in a measure survived. Few visible remains of this ancient foundation are to-day visible. The new church reared itself rapidly under the immediate supervision of the Archbishop Alberic de Humbert. The choir, begun within two years of the fire, made such progress as to allow of the high altar being ceremoniously dedicated within three years; and, before the middle of the century, the records tell us that the main body of the church was entirely completed. The right tower was uncompleted at this time, but was finished by Cardinal Philastre in 1430, up to which time intermittent labour had evolved a superlative combination of constructive and decorative excellencies. The extreme lightness of the west front is brought more and more to impress itself upon one by reason of the consistent disposition of the excellency and delicacy of its sculptured ornament. This western front, from the grand portals upward, is the _apogee_ of French Gothic ornament,--at once the admiration and boast of all France. Here is no mixture or confusion of style, in design or decoration. The pointed arches of window and doorway are of the accepted "best manner," the heavy detail is placed low and rises gracefully to the "Gallery of Kings," a grand succession of stone effigies of royalties from Clovis to Charles VII., a decorative arrangement not made use of elsewhere to anything like a similar extent, a fact which of itself stamps the cathedral as the royal church of France. Conceived by one Gaucher, the portals are not only superior to all others in richness, depth, and quality of the sculpture shown in the hundreds of figures with which they are peopled, but are of exceedingly true and appropriate dimensions, taken in relation with the other parts of their setting. Immediately above the gable of the central portal is a wonderful rose window, of the spoke variety, containing thirty-four sections,--of immense size and nearly forty feet across. This "most perfect rose," designed by Bernard de Soissons, may well be credited as one of the masterworks of architectural decoration in all the world. Flanking this great window on either side are two open lancet arches, while above is the "Gallery of Kings" before mentioned. The twin mullioned towers on either side rise for two hundred and sixty-seven feet. Light and airy, they depend for their effect of grace and symmetry entirely upon structural design, lacking sculptured ornament of any kind. Formerly they possessed spires of a great height, which, however, were destroyed by fire in the fifteenth century. "Were all its original attributes complete," says Fergusson, "we should have the _beau ideal_, externally, of a cathedral." This is probably an adaptation of Viollet-le-Duc's estimate, which he expresses thus: "This west façade is the most splendid conception of the thirteenth century,--Paris, like Laon, being really a transition example, Amiens representative of different epochs, Chartres a mere reunion of fragments, and Bourges and Rouen a _mélange_ of three centuries." The south transept portal, which is of great breadth, contains statues of the Archbishops of Reims, and one of Clovis. A similar doorway on the north side, though now walled up, contains, in the tympanum, a fine sculptured "Last Judgment," while the transept itself houses one of those great clocks so frequently met with in Continental churches,--in this instance said to be the oldest running time-piece in existence. Seven flying buttresses, between the transept and the west front, flank the nave, each holding aloft an elegantly canopied niche containing a full-length winged figure, a further unique arrangement being a similar figure which caps or pinnacles the outer piers, from which the buttresses spring. Above the point of contact of the buttresses with the main body, runs an effective balustrade of small pointed arches, while the abside shows, again, a wonderful combination of the buttress as a decorative and utile feature, combined. The exterior may be summed up briefly as being the most gorgeously peopled and decorated structure of its age--as though it were expressly designed to show off this great throng of statues to the best possible advantage. Taken collectively, the series forms, says one writer, "the most complete and magnificent collection of mediæval iconography extant." The figures were originally perhaps as many as five thousand, representing nearly all the families of mankind. In size the Cathedral of Reims ranks third among the four largest in France, being exceeded only by Amiens and Chartres, while Paris is slightly smaller. The interior presents by no means the awe-inspiring grandeur of the exterior mass, and is possibly inferior to both Amiens and Chartres, and though well disposed, lacks the lightness of Cologne or Beauvais. A first impression rather indicates large proportions of length, breadth, and height in the nave, though these dimensions are not actually of the greatest. The transepts, including their aisles, are, however, of an extreme width, but very short; and the absence of side chapels, either here or in the nave, produces a regularity of outline unusually convincing. The nave piers, of which there are ten on either side, with two window piercings, are of a manifestly heavy order, the capitals unusually so, being very deep and weighty with carving in high relief. The triforium is severely plain, being a mere shallow gallery of small pointed arches. The nave itself is, moreover, somewhat gloomy, when contrasted with the brilliant lighting of the aisles, caused by the peculiar arrangement of plain and coloured glass, the former filling the windows of the clerestory and the latter those of the aisles, the reverse being the case with the opposite ranges. The aisles have no chapels between the rather low windows, but groups of clustered columns against the walls. The vaulting is deep, with simple ribs, coloured with a blue ground spangled with stars and _fleurs-de-lys_. The choir is surrounded by seven chapels. There are ten columns in the choir, all with beautifully wrought capitals. The pavement here is composed of marble taken from Libergier's abbey church of St. Nicaise, from which edifice, since destroyed, was transferred the tomb of Jovinus, the Roman prefect of Reims, who became converted in 366 A. D. The sarcophagus consists of a huge block of marble, nine feet by four, with a figure of Jovinus, "lion hunting on horseback," carved in high relief. The roof of the choir is curiously constructed of wood, of chestnut, say the authorities, as no spiders are found. The high altar, as reconstructed by Poncelet Paroissien in 1550, was a very beautiful affair if old prints, usually none too reliable as to detail, are regarded. It was, however, destroyed during the middle of the eighteenth century. The glass of the rose window dates in part from the period of the greatest richness (thirteenth century). The sepulchral monuments, aside from the sarcophagus of Jovinus, are to-day practically _nil_, having been swept away during the terrors of the Revolution. Two interesting effigies still remain, however, near the western doorway, a figure of a mailed knight and an abbess. Among the real riches of the Cathedral are the remarkable and unique tapestries; well preserved, and of the finest quality of design and texture. Fourteen, by Lenoncourt, date from 1530-70; those in the south aisle, the Pepersacks, the gift of Abbé Lorraine, from 1640; and the modern Gobelins of the nineteenth century, the gift of the government. The "Tresor," which includes the church plate, most of which appears to have endured the ravages of invasion and wars, is truly magnificent and intrinsically of great value. The chief of these are: the chalice of St. Remi, of the eleventh century; a reliquary containing a thorn from the Holy Crown; the marble font in which Clovis was baptized in 496 A. D.; the chasuble of Louis XIII., and the _Sainte Ampoule_, which contained the holy oil brought by a dove from heaven for use at the conversion of Clovis, now a mere fragment enclosed in a modern setting, after having been ruthlessly shattered by a _sans-culotte_ in 1793. Adjoining the Cathedral, on the right, is the Episcopal Palace, which, with its dependencies, occupies a hectare or more of ground. In the first courtyard is the modern library building, which houses the cathedral's rich bibliographical treasures. Further, through a gateway, is a structure, in itself a grand building, of the time of Louis XIV. The right wing was constructed by Le Tellier in 1690. This portion is now occupied as a dwelling by the archbishop. At the end of the furthest courtyard is "The House of the Kings," a truly grand establishment, so called in the official documents because it was the _logement_ of the monarchs who visited the city on affairs of state. This recalls to mind not the least notable of the functions performed by the great cathedral itself. With four exceptions all the Kings of France, from Clovis to Charles X., here first entered into their kingly state. The monarchs of France were a long and picturesque line, and the ceremonies attendant upon their coronations were accordingly imposing and magnificent. The culmination, for theatrical splendour and effect, was doubtless that of Charles VII., who, through the efforts of the "Maid," here came into his own. It was a splendid, if gaudy, pageant, and the most memorable event among that long series which only ended with the coronation of Charles X. in 1823. _PART III_ _The Cathedrals of the Loire_ I INTRODUCTORY The Loire Valley for its whole length may, in every sense, be well considered the dividing-line between northern and southern influences. The romance and sentiment which cradled itself here could only have emanated from the more languid south, and from vastly differing conditions to those of the colder north. The admiration usually bestowed upon the attractions of its domestic architectural forms is, no doubt, fully merited; albeit that the cathedrals of these wealthy and powerful communities are, no one can possibly deny, if not of a mongrel type, at least of a degenerate one. It is perhaps hardly fair to note such an expression without qualification where it is applied to St. Gatien at Tours, which is really a delightfully picturesque structure; or to St. Maurice, at Angers, which is unique as to its charm of situation, and one of the most interesting churches anywhere to be found. But the fact is that the general plan and design is not only open here to much just criticism, but is not of the order of consistency which alone entitles an architectural monument to rank as truly great. In no instance, from Orleans to Nantes, are the cathedrals of these cities possessed of the consistent array of charms which would entitle them to a proportionate share of the admiration which is usually accorded to the great domestic establishments, the Chateaux of Blois, Chenonceau, Chambord, Langeais, or Loches. The climatic conditions of this region hardly more than intimate the suggestion of the southland, but there is to be seen in the vineyards, and indeed in things that grow, generally, a notable tendency toward a luxuriance that is not found northward of this valley. Productive, prosperous, influential, and possessed of historical and sentimental associations as a touring ground far beyond any other section of France, the Valley of the Loire at once takes rank as the land _par excellence_ where the traveller can be sure of a maximum of pleasure and profit; and one worthy in every way of as prolonged study and sojourn as one's possibilities and circumstances will allow. The towns group themselves naturally _en suite_ in the following order: Orleans, Blois, Tours, Angers, and Nantes, and are so considered in the pages that follow. [Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of Ste CROIX ORLEANS_] II ST. CROIX D'ORLEANS The association of Orleans, in English minds, mostly rests upon the events connected with the siege. Its history in the past has been mainly that of bloody warfare and massacre. As the Genabum of Gallia, it was burned by Cæsar in 52 B. C. in revenge for a previous massacre of the Romans. By Aurelian it was rebuilt and named Aurelianum, the progenitor of its present nomenclature. St. Aignan in 451 secured the safety of the city to the cause of Christianity by warding off Attila's attack. Clovis captured it in 498, but at his death it became the capital of an independent kingdom which was afterward, in 613, united with that of Paris. Activities no less extensive or vivid followed, till the English besieged the city in 1429, only retiring before the conquering hosts led by the Maid of Orleans on the 7th of May; the Huguenots held it as a stronghold under Coligny; and latterly the Germans occupied it, were driven out, and again reoccupied it as a base in 1870-71. Such, in brief, is a partial record of its troubles and trials, with scarce a reference to a Christian or religious motive, if we except Attila's unsuccessful attack and Coligny's Protestant fervour. The almost legendary part played by Jeanne d'Arc should suffice to impress indelibly upon the mind the chief event in connection with any city with which her name and fame were associated. In the third century seven bishops were sent out from Rome, to extend the influence of the Church, to Tours, Orleans, Toulouse, Narbonne, Paris, Limoges, and Auvergne; though, in spite of the success with which they met, and the zeal with which they worked, their meetings were chiefly held in the houses of their more opulent converts, and church building at the time appears not to have been so much desired as the dissemination of the Word itself. Since its occupation by the Germans in "'71," great contrasting elements have sprung up. Nowhere, not even in the "up-to-date" Rhine cities of Germany, is better exemplified the trend of the age in which we live. There are notable indications of its modernity in the architecture of public and private buildings, many streets and boulevards of the city being laid out anew and bisecting the older portions. The Cathedral of St. Croix, of widely contrasting styles and eras, forms a pleasing enough key-note to it all, in spite of its garish crudities. At its best, when viewed from the bridge which spans the well-nigh dry bed of the Loire, it composes well with what is at all times a pleasing prospect, and is set off to great advantage by the fringe of green boulevard along the river bank,--a fine enough setting for an architectural monument of whatever rank, be it new or old, consistent or conglomerate. As for the classification of the architectural style of the cathedral itself, it is an unprincipled mixture of components, but little related to each other. The southern influence is apparent, alike in the scanty remains of the Romanesque, and the restored Renaissance portions, while Gothic peeps out here and there, in no mean proportions, as though it were misplaced and out of its true environment. The cathedral, which was destroyed in 1567 by the Huguenots, in spite of the admonitions of the Condés, is still visible in the fragments of the choir aisles, the fourteenth-century chapels appearing to have been uninjured. This much remains of the Gothic of Henry IV.'s time. The late seventeenth-century work is a manifest expression of the debasement of Gothic, and such other additions as were made in the reigns of the Louis carry the vulgarities still further, the acme being reached in the pseudo-classical north and south porches, which are sepulchral-looking of themselves, and not even of the most admired variety of the species. The most that can be remarked, considering all the distinctive features, is the fact that this cathedral is the only Gothic church, so ranking, that is not of Mediæval growth, a fact which may well account for its unsatisfactory style. The façade follows the usual enough arrangement of three portals, though very ugly ones, flanked by rising towers on either side. In this case these doorways are of the nondescript variety commonly accepted as base Gothic, but hardly warranting even such a term of endearment. They are in fact flamboyant as to their lines, though of a remarkable poverty as to further embellishment, if we bar a series of misplaced armorial blazonings. Topping the gables of the portals are a series of circular apertures, with framing of a sort, but without glass,--a poor imitation of what a rose window might be at its worst. Above is an arcaded gallery of nine graceful arches, the first really attractive ornament of this debased façade. The towers, finished so late as 1789 by M. Paris, the king's architect, rise loftily some two hundred and eighty feet, with ranges of slight columns and perpendicular lines, which give the grand and imposing effect of height of which the cathedral is undeniably possessed, and which, when viewed from down the Rue Jeanne d'Arc, is without doubt impressive,--far more so than greater intimacy will sustain. The nave, of a height of one hundred feet, is flanked by double aisles, and in appearance is every way superior to the exterior. No remarkable art treasures are to be seen, if we except a series of sculptured Stations of the Cross beneath the windows, and the Gothic altars of the transepts. [Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of S. LOUIS BLOIS_] III ST. LOUIS DE BLOIS Regardless of the sentiment which attaches itself to Blois by reason of its magnificent chateau, and in spite of its undeniably picturesque and interesting environment, it hardly takes sufficient rank as a cathedral city to warrant more than a passing consideration. As it is, one cannot get from under the shadow of its overpowering attraction, and, in spite of the poverty and depressing qualities of the Cathedral of St. Louis, perhaps no place in the Loire valley has more claim upon the attention of the enthusiastic tourist. The wonderful chateau is all that has been said of it, and more. The picturesqueness of the city's streets of stairs, and its general up and down hill situation, offering charming vistas, unique in a city of the north, are, except for its size, really more suggestive of Genoa or Naples. In the general ensemble of the city, the Loire is an attraction of itself, when viewed from across that wonderful stone bridge, the first public work endowed by Louis XV. But even then, the awkward and uninteresting cathedral does not enter into the view with that liveliness and impressiveness which we are wont to associate with such an environment. In short, it must be set down that in the lack of pleasing qualities in its cathedral, is found Blois' greatest disappointment. The tourist _pur sang_ will care little about this. He usually rushes in and out during the daylight, and recalls but little except the fascinating staircase of the chateau attributed, as to its spiral formation, to Da Vinci; the ornamental chimney-pieces; and the fact that historical events of the past have intermingled inextricably the gruesome stories of the royal houses which bore respectively the arms of hedgehog and salamander. This only, with perhaps the memory that at one time or another a certain event took place involving the use of some forty odd daggers. Perhaps, after all, it would be an embarrassment of riches did the town possess a cathedral, or even other monuments, to vie with this spectacular attraction which, from every view-point realizes the ideal of our imagination, as to just what a chateau and its history might be. From near or far the cathedral shows no charm of outline. Its ridgepole is marred by three unusually obtrusive "lightning conductors," which could hardly have been more offensive had they been turned into those lath-like crosses which are seen elsewhere. Its tower is a monstrosity, with an egg-shaped protuberance which is neither shapely nor impressive, while the southern range of the nave and aisle, when viewed laterally, shows a bareness and poverty of design unusual and painful. The ensemble, from this point, is one of a certain impressiveness. It could hardly be otherwise, with the situation which it commands, even were it the grossest thing that ever took shape in architecture. Its irregularities and inconsistencies, and the great variety of outline shown by the roof-tops of the town, perhaps, make up in a measure for the lack of individual beauties in the church itself. There is this much to be said, however, for the functions which this church performs. If all were as much made use of by the market-day peasants, streaming in from the surrounding country, who, with their jugs, market-baskets, and what not, in their hands, enter the building, say a short prayer or two, and toddle out again, there would doubtless be fewer churches with a poverty-stricken air and more of a better and more prosperous class. The greater part of the cathedral which originally stood on this site was destroyed during the Revolution, and that which was afterward reared here was merely a restoration by Mansard, who, it is to be presumed, made such use as was possible of what remained. The interior, most will agree, is no more remarkable than the exterior adornments; in fact the same paucity of plan and of detail appears from one end to the other, inside and out. The aisles are astonishingly low; the choir and nave, each unusually short. There are no transepts, and there is no triforium whatever, no chapels of any remarkable beauty, and little glass that is even passable. On the walls of the nave, beneath the low clerestory windows, are a series of four carven Renaissance marble panels, with other blanks suggesting the ultimate addition of similar sepulchral-looking ornaments. Such, in brief, is a résumé of the attractions, or rather the lack of them, as it will strike the average person. It is perhaps no small wonder that the traveller who desires to study architectural forms, or to sketch them, should prefer the less holy precincts of the chateau, where every facility is offered for the pursuance thereof, to that more "blessed ground," covered by the cathedral, which offers little enough in itself, and that little under a surveillance which makes one regret that the feudal times are not still with us,--when we might vent our spleen and anger upon any who offend us. [Illustration: _St. Gatien de Tours_] IV ST. GATIEN DE TOURS The _soi-disant_ provincial metropolis of Mr. James' appreciative favour, the capital of old Touraine, is possessed of great and many charms for the seeker after new things. He may be passionately fond of churches; if so, the trinity here to be seen, and the history of their founders and prelates, and the important part which they played in church affairs, will edify him greatly. If romance fills his or her mind, there is no more convenient centre than Tours from which to "_do_" the châteaux of the Loire. If it be French history, or the study of modern economic or commercial conditions, the past activities and present prosperity of the city will give much food for thought. If to literature one's mind turns, there is the association with Balzac's birth in the Rue Royale, and his delightful picturings of the city's environment in the "Curé de Tours," "Le Lys dans la Vallée," and "La Grenadière." Says Balzac of the habitant: "...He is a listless and unobliging individual." But the sojourner for a day will probably not notice this, and, if he should, must simply make allowance, and think with Henry James of the other memories of "this land of Rabelais, Descartes, and Balzac; of good dinners, good company, and good houses." To link the city still closer with letters, the first printing-press in Touraine was set up here in 1496. Nicolas Jensen, famed as the foremost Venetian printer of his time, was born in the neighbourhood and was at one time "Master of the Mint" at Tours. Christopher Plantin, the head of the famous Antwerp family of printers, likewise was born in the near-by suburb of St. Avertin près Tours. Climatically, Touraine appears to linger between the rigours of the north and the mildness of the southland; at least we are conscious of another atmosphere, made apparent by such evidences as palms and prunes growing in the open. Tours, says her historian, has ever employed the pure French in her spoken and written word; "patois and provincialisms have no place here." St. Martin of Tours erected a church here, in honour of St. Peter and Paul, as a sort of antidote to the many pagan temples which he had caused to be destroyed. His successors built several others round about the city, but they appear to have been all of small size until, in the fifth century, Perpetus, Bishop of Tours in the reign of Childeric, caused to be built a more splendid church to replace that which Briceius had erected over the tomb of St. Martin. This, in turn, was rebuilt by the celebrated Gregory of Tours, or so ordered by him; until finally in the seventh century the abbey church of St. Martin of Tours became a place of pilgrimage for all the Turones. To-day, nought remains of this great church but the two towers, which have been bisected by the running of a street throughout the old nave of the church; and thus they stand as silent sentinels of the means through which Tours arose to its ecclesiastical dignity. The Tour St. Martin or "de l'Horloge" is of the twelfth century, and the other, called the Tour de Charlemagne, being the burial-place of his wife Luitgarde, is, in its lower portions, of the eleventh century. The Cathedral of St. Gatien, which should be greatly endeared to the English people, was commenced by Henry II. in 1170, the choir being the earliest portion. The transepts followed in the next century, and the façade as late as the fifteenth, or the beginning of the sixteenth, century. Of manifestly Renaissance tendency, this façade for sheer charm and picturesqueness must rank with the best, with the qualifying statement added that it offends against many consistent artistic and architectural principles. It is certainly an effective type, although perhaps not warranting the statement of a certain monarch, whose art training may to some degree have been wanting, that it was a "jewel in a gemmed setting." An exceedingly picturesque and attractive pair of towers rise, through no less than three different styles, to the inverted egg-cups, which in a purer example might perhaps prove less pleasing, but which in the present case seem at least to be imbued with something of the Oriental or Mediterranean influence, not yet fallen before the actual decadence. Another peculiarity of this charmingly toned west front is that the rose window is of a peculiar lozenge shape, "neither square nor round," as one authority puts it. This, of itself, is decidedly not a graceful arrangement; but the proportions are ample and the glass is good, so its deficiencies may in a measure be said to be overbalanced by its merits; and, for that matter, as it is only seen in its minutia of detail from the inside, where the excellent coloured glass is seen at its best, it hardly detracts from the general fine effect of the exterior façade. The western doorways are thoroughly Renaissance, both inside and out, while the portals themselves offer a livid suggestion as to what they might have been, were all the bare niches and blocks filled and mounted with worthy statues. The effect would have been an undeniable approach to the best matured Gothic, and would have enhanced greatly this already highly interesting façade. The buttresses of the choir follow the accepted forms of grace and effectiveness, and, while not numerous or remarkable as to size, each springs to a supporting pier gracefully pinnacled and gargoyled. One instance of the functions of this valuable adjunct to the towering forms taken by most Gothic structures, is a buttress which springs, unsymmetrically enough, from the north transept. This rather ungainly limb flies out like the tentacles of an octopus, grasps a small building on the opposite side of a narrow roadway, and forms a support to the irregular construction of the north transept. This was perhaps necessary as a means of bracing the transept wall, which it might not have been possible to accomplish otherwise. The interior presents the unusual feature of the omission of the organ case from over the western doorway, the organ being in this instance in the south transept, as at Le Mans. The wall space centered upon the nave proper is entirely given over to the lozenge-shaped "rose," which, in spite of its rather heavy framing and kaleidoscopic and patchworky glass, is withal effective beyond many more gracefully formed openings, where the glass is either too severely plain, or worked into a supposed design, which, by reason of its minute particles, is undecipherable. The design and arrangement of a series of lancets supporting the lozenge would be remarkable, were it in company with the best glass of the middle ages. It depicts an "Adoration" in which kings, saints, and bishops are modelled brilliantly, and with evidence of much good drawing, a detail often wanting in old, or, for that matter, modern glass. The glass of the choir, on the other hand, is far better in arrangement, and shows deep, rich particles which are only at their best in the work of the early period here shown. In this glass are depicted the arms of St. Louis, Blanche of Castile, and of the City of Tours. The choir itself widens out from the crossing of the transept, causing that deviation between the piers of nave and choir which made necessary the ungainly flying buttress of the north wall. The aisles of the nave are of no great width and are fringed with a series of chapels of which only one, that of the Sacred Heart, is in any way remarkable. The radiating chapels of the choir are more interesting, notably the lady-chapel, which contains old glass removed thither from the church of St. Julien, the subject of one of Turner's rhapsodies in his "Seine and Loire." The clerestory of the nave consists of plain glass only; and on the triforium alone, of exceedingly graceful arcaded columns, depends the beauty of the upper ranges. The chief treasure of artistic value and moment is unquestionably the tomb of the children of Charles VIII. and Anne of Brittany, by whose early deaths the throne passed to the Valois branch of the Orleans family. This remarkable monument is of the early sixteenth century and, according to the report of the _Commission des Monuments Historiques_, is the work of Guillaume Regnault, a statement which is much more likely to be correct than the usual guide-book information, which in some instances credits it to Goujon, and in others to a local apprentice of his, named Juste. On a Renaissance sarcophagus lie the two tiny effigies, in white marble, surrounded by guardian angels and other symbolical figures. The base bears escutcheons of the Dauphins of France, the arms and two inscriptions referring to the princes and their birth. [Illustration: _Flying Buttress, St. Gatien de Tours_] [Illustration: _St. Maurice d'Angers_] V ST. MAURICE D'ANGERS Historically and romantically, Angers, the former capital of Anjou, is possessed of a past (which may be said to have actively commenced in 989) that cannot fail to arrest and hold one's attention. Capital of the Dukes of Anjou, and the home of Margaret of Anjou, daughter of René, who married Henry VI. of England; likewise the cradle of the first Plantagenets; and immortalized by Shakespeare's King John, who soliloquizes anent "The flinty ribs of this contemptuous town." With all this, Angers has perhaps a supreme claim for English consideration. In spite of all this, and the added attraction of a "real castle," such as is seldom found outside the children's fairy-tale books, not to mention the Cathedral of St. Maurice,--of which more anon,--Angers leaves one with the impression that very much is wanting in order to merit preëminence in the classification of those memories which a traveller is wont to store up as a result of his travels and observations. Perhaps it is the city's pitiful attempt to be gay, to be modern, to undertake pretentious improvements,--all of which appear to fail utterly in their purpose. These things cannot be unless they are of a spontaneous growth, which here they apparently are not. Not that the city still merits the opprobrious (_sic_) term of "Black Angers" with which most writers and all makers of guide-books are pleased to refer to it,--it hardly does. In fact it is doubtful as to just what the term originally meant. Perhaps it was merely a reference to the gloom caused by the extensive use in the construction of its buildings of the black slate in which the neighbourhood abounds;--at any rate the expression is one of undoubted antiquity. The two chief attractions are the cathedral and the castle, both "historical monuments." The latter, as before noted, is the ideal military stronghold of our early imagination; and if age, magnitude, and the general air of good preservation, count for anything, it must be one of the most impressive monuments of its class still to be seen. Originally its wall, now minus battlements, fronted close upon the river. It is surrounded by a dry yawning _fosse_, formerly a moat, and possesses no less than seventeen enormous and perfectly formed towers, each perhaps eighty feet in height, banded near the top in white and black stripes. Hardly more than a circling wall to-day, it has stood well the test of time since it was erected by Philip Augustus and completed under St. Louis in 1180. Little remains of the Renaissance portion originally occupied by the Counts of Anjou. Its charm lies rather in its exterior, the interior confines resembling more a lumber-yard than anything else,--not worth spending one's time upon, under the present facilities which are offered for its inspection. One small structure within the walls is notable as being that in which King René was born. It is recorded that Wellington received a part of his military education in Angers. If so, it is probable that he studied this military defence with some care and minuteness. To us, at least, who have not been educated with respect to military fortification, it seems to fill all demands that are likely to be made upon a building of its class. Doubtless it could have been besieged successfully, and even battered through to the extent of allowing the outside foe to enter, but it would probably have been at a fearful cost, and it is possible that the attempt would be given up before any surrender took place. Such would appear to an outsider to be the lines on which these magnificent works of feudal times were built. One should not speak slightingly of the Cathedral of St. Maurice, though it comes upon one who journeys from the north, as a thing apart from anything he has met before; so much so that he is hardly likely to be able to judge it dispassionately until he has turned his impressions of it many times over in his mind. The Angevine style, seen here, is representative of but a very restricted area. The _Société des Monuments Historiques_ defined it as "a small district on both sides of the Loire between Normandy and Acquitaine." It is suggestive of the Roman manner, far more than the Gothic; though the primitiveness shown in the long, upright lines of the west front of this cathedral marks it at once as something different from either Romanesque or Transition,--though Transition it must be, unless we delimit the confines of that useful term. In any case, it points unto heaven in a truly devout manner, is not debased in any particular, and, if not a consistent style, has many of the good qualities of both. The Cathedral of St. Maurice is best seen from a point of view which will exaggerate its height, its slimness, and its straight and upright lines; but even this does not appear to work out to its disadvantage, in spite of the new note it strikes. It is an interesting work when viewed from any distance sufficient to throw its outline well into the air. From across the Maine, it is charming; from the foot of the stairwayed street which runs downwards from its western portal, it is picturesque and irresistible, while from any other view-point in the town, it is grand. The easterly end is dwarfed by close-lying houses, picturesque enough in themselves; but the gracefulness of the buttress is wanting. The south side is, here and there, broken into by additions and interpolations, none apparently of a contemporary era. It offers a grand effect for an artist who would study gray walls and crumbling roofs, but the lack of uniformity will offend most people. The façade of the west is the most effective feature, so far as genuineness is concerned. It towers to the sky, its needle-pointed spires overtopping a crooked street which rises sharply from the river. There is but one portal, and that is centred with a curious Romanesque arch half-way across its height, above which is a bas-relief of great size. The sculpture of this portal, while not as excellent as that seen in the Isle of France, is of an unusual richness and execution. The next range is unique among west fronts, being a large central window, but slightly pointed and little removed from the Romanesque. It is bare of coloured glass, and is decidedly not an attractive feature. On each side of this great window are a series of blunt pointed lancets, which form a sort of arcade which otherwise relieves the bareness which would exist. Immediately above is a row of niches which hold eight armour-clad knights of the fifteenth century, inferior perhaps, in execution, to the sculpture of the portal, but producing an effect, when viewed from the ground, undeniably fine. It is a detail as interesting, in its way, as the long "Gallery of the Kings" at Reims. Above rise the slim spires, with an octagonal cupola superimposed over a central structure, which looks to this day as though it were originally intended as one of a battery of three uniform spires. The general plan of this façade is the masterpiece of design of the building, and, except for the ludicrously diminutive clock-face, could withstand nobly the cavil of the most exacting pedant who ever read or studied architectural forms, solely out of books. In the immediate foreground falls the before mentioned street of steps. Many old tumble-down houses have recently been cleared away, and, at the present writing, the view from this point is one which has apparently not previously existed, and one which it is to be hoped will not be marred by the erection of any so-called modern improvements. The interior fills no accepted formula of architectural expression, save that it is of the manner common to Anjou, the borderland between the Gothic aisled and the great and aisle-less southern naves, but it holds one's interest none the less. Perhaps, after all, it is the quality to interest, quite as much as that to please, which is the standard by which one makes estimates and forms opinions. There is a not very long nor very wide nave and choir, neither with aisles, and both with a vaulting which gives the appearance of being much lower than it really is, quite the contrary impression to that received from contemplation of the exterior. The bishop's throne sets midway on the right of the nave. Each bay of the side walls of the nave is composed of a wide pointed arch resting immediately upon the ground and filled with stone instead of glass; reminiscent of a similar effect in the Church of Notre Dame de la Cloture at Le Mans. The true windows of the nave rise in pairs above this arch, and contain rich, though somewhat fragmentary, glass of the thirteenth century. As characteristic of the Angevine style, there is no triforium or clerestory, and hence, it is claimed, no necessity for flying buttresses, the support being accomplished by less graceful, if as effective, heavy square piers built into the outer wall. The transepts are not pronounced as to length or breadth, their chief beauty being their rose windows. The choir, of the twelfth century, shows an interpolated and elaborately flamboyant doorway of a much later period. An ornate oaken pulpit of none too good Renaissance carving is in the nave, and the organ case over the western doorway is supported on the shoulders of a series of huge, grotesque, but monstrously human, wooden caryatides. This, with the gigantic, high canopied carven wood pulpit, one of the most extraordinary in the country, forms a relief to coldly chiselled stone, certainly;--but few will consider their charms such as would warrant counting them amongst ecclesiastical treasures. The fourteenth-century tapestries from Arras (or Paris) were made for King René and by him given to the cathedral. They represent scenes from the Apocalypse, and, though having suffered somewhat from the depredations of the Revolution, still exhibit evidences of rare qualities of workmanship in their design and colouring. The _bénitier_ of _verd-antico_ marble supported by figures of lions is a Byzantine work of the eastern empire, given to the cathedral by King René. The Dukes of Anjou and Margaret of Anjou were buried here, but the tomb of the latter was desecrated and destroyed during the Revolution. Aside from these, no other monuments of note are to be seen. The Bishop's Palace, of the twelfth century, standing high beside the cathedral, was restored by Viollet-le-Duc and reflects a mediæval splendour unseen elsewhere in the city, with respect to any great or small domestic establishment. The Maison Barrault in the Logis Barrault, built by a former mayor of the city, one time Chancellor of Brittany, was the scene of the magnificent entertainment offered Cæsar Borgia in 1497. Afterwards it became the residence of Marie de Medicis; later, a monastic establishment, then a seminary, and lately simply an ordinary private school. Says one writer, "No wonder its remains should be so scanty and ill preserved." [Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of St. PIERRE NANTES_] VI ST. PIERRE DE NANTES As a city of commercial and strategic importance, no one will deny that Nantes is supreme in the Loire valley; that its relations with the affairs of Church and State are equally important, is a debatable point. True, the edict in favour of Protestant worship, fathered by Henry IV., was a momentous and significant event; but the revocation, and the subsequent massacres of the rascally Carrier, well-nigh wiped that out. The history of the city is one long record of warfare and bloodshed. Though holding the command of the Loire, the city has ever been more closely identified with Brittany. Here, in its frowning tenth-century castle, which fronts upon the river immediately in the foreground of the Cathedral of St. Pierre, with which it forms an unusual grouping of ecclesiastical and military architecture (M. H.), lived at one time or another, most of the Kings of France, from Charles VIII. downward. Here, too, Anne of Brittany was born, and here she married Charles VIII., thus uniting the Duchy of Brittany with the crown of France. Her subsequent marriage, in the chapel of the castle, with Louis XII., made for ever impossible the future independence of the city. Following the edict came the Revolution; and, as if the preliminary horrors of massacres and atrocities, which spread to Orange in Vaucluse and to Arras in Picardy, were not of sufficient stringency, the "Noyades," or drownings, carried off the poor unfortunates, a boatload at a time, until it is estimated that perhaps nine thousand were thus cruelly murdered,--women, children, royalty, and the clergy alike. The wrath which spent itself seemed to know no rank. The guillotine, disease, and famine finished the work, so that the population of the city was, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, immeasurably inferior in numbers to what it had been a decade before. The details of these significant events are recounted quite fully enough by historians generally; but, in reality, it has little to do with the aspect of the city as it exists to-day, which, if not one of great splendour, partakes in no small measure of the attributes of a large metropolis, amply planned, beautifully laid out, and possessing, in addition to the characteristics of Brittany with which it has been so long identified, not a little of the influences and attributes of the south. Immediately to the rear of the chateau is the Cathedral of St. Pierre, ancient as to its foundation, and grand as to its general effect, both inside and out, though its exterior is marred by its uncompleted towers. Lofty, but of heavy proportions, St. Pierre de Nantes would, at first sight, appear to offer much that goes to make a satisfying ecclesiastical building. As a matter of fact, it fails in many particulars to realize any ideal which we have come to admire. The western façade is more indebted to the rich and reasonably ornate portals for its undeniable impressiveness, than to the gable of towers, which have crumbled exceedingly from the effects of wind and weather, rather than of great age, since they date only from the fifteenth century. The choir rests on the remains of an older church, hardly to be seen to-day in any appreciable evidence, in that restoration and rebuilding have been so extensively carried on. The windows throughout are but weak decorative elements, and lack tracery and glass of a decorative quality, an obvious detraction in any great architectural work. The south transept shows indications of four successive periods of construction, and contains the best glass in the church; otherwise it is severely plain. The interior is by no means as incoherent as the exterior, the height of the nave, one hundred and thirty feet, giving an otherwise unapproachable grandeur; though this admirable dimension is qualified to no small degree by a triforium of a luxurious florid growth, little in keeping with the other attributes of firmness and strength. The chapels throughout are bare and uninteresting so far as their altars or decorative embellishments are concerned,--what they may be at some future time, if the _Art Nouveau_ gets a foothold in church decoration, is fearful to contemplate. Paintings, none too common in French churches, are here somewhat in excess of customary numbers, though, as to quality or interest, in no church in France can they vie with those of the great churches of Italy or Flanders. Like the neighbouring city of Tours, Nantes has in its cathedral, for its _pièce de résistance_, a magnificent sepulchral monument, the tomb of François II., the last Duc de Bretagne, and Marguerite de Foix, his second wife, erected to their memory by their daughter Anne. This remarkable mausoleum was executed in 1502-07, after designs of Jehan Perréal, by Michel Colomb and his pupils, Regnault and Jean de Chartres, with the assistance of Jérôme de Fiesole, who contributed the ornamental portion. It fortunately escaped demolition at the Revolution, and was brought hither and placed in the south transept from the Eglise des Carmes in 1817. It is a wonderful exemplification of the very best quality of Renaissance. The main portion of the tomb is of marble, with black mouldings somewhat shattered in places, but not so much so as to affect the contour or design. The effigies lie recumbent upon a slab, their feet resting on a lion and a greyhound, upheld by a series of miniature figures of the twelve apostles in niches of red marble. At the corners are four nearly life-size figures, depicting Justice, with sword and scales, said to be a portrait of the Duchess Anne; Power, strangling the dragon of Heresy; Prudence, a double face, showing also Wisdom, with mirror and compass; and Temperance, bearing a curb-bit and a lantern. A tablet at the head bears the figures of St. Louis and Charlemagne, and one at the foot, those of St. Francis of Assisi and Ste. Marguerite, the patrons of the duke and duchess. _PART IV Central France_ [Illustration: ST. ETIENNE _d'AUXERRE_] I ST. ETIENNE D'AUXERRE The entrance to the Burgundian city of Auxerre is more or less confused if one would, at the first glance, attempt to recognize its cathedral from among the three fine churches which in true mediæval fashion loom up over the river Yonne; not that the entrance is not pleasing: the reverse is actually the case, though one's way into the town lies through newly made roads. However, upon contemplation of the pleasant prospect of town and river, he would be an uninspired person indeed who would not be able to pick out the Cathedral of St. Etienne, with its singular reddish brown roof, from among its less imposing neighbours. It is the central building of the three, and it rises majestically above all, enhanced by the fine grouping of its one lone tower. As a type to admire, the cathedral, be it said, is not of a superlative quality; but as a thing of beauty in many of its details and because of its aforesaid commanding situation, it is one not to be ignored when the really fine gems of mediæval treasures are catalogued. It is another of those types, so far as its choir is concerned, which rise to a loftiness of soaring height, which, in later days, degenerated, or were lost altogether in the fabric of the transepts and nave. The height of the choir is perhaps not so great as it really appears, when gauged by its sheer rise from the river level; but such is the suggestion, at least, which, after all, is what the eye and certain other of our senses admire, quite as much as a professed expert classification. The western front is of unusual appearance in that the southern tower glances off into the angle of the gable in most curious fashion; not beautiful, nor as originally intended to remain, but so it is, and offers at least a comparison of how a lofty gable looks when it lacks towers of an appropriate height. At the right of this low tower of the façade, hidden behind a wall, is a thoroughly Pagan doorway, which might well pass unobserved, did one not actually stumble upon it unawares. It is a curious reminder of other days and other ways, and how it became an adjunct of this mediæval church the local records fail to state. The three main portals of the façade, as that of the transept, are somewhat bare of ornament, though the main tympanum and the spring of the arch are fairly filled. These portals are of the late thirteenth century, and exhibit no traces of the debasement which subsequently entered into the upper ranges of the tower and lateral portals. Both the transepts and the west front contain rose windows of good, though not remarkable design, and each is exceedingly generous in size. The interior, generally, does not give the effect of the great height suggested from the rear view of the choir overhanging the river front; but both nave and choir are of unusual width, and so also is the clerestory, which is lofty, and set with rare old glass of the most splendid and valuable quality, in the main the gift of Bishop de Villeneuve in 1220. The choir terminates with the usual apse, which is further elongated by the far-reaching lady-chapel, which adjoins the main fabric in a graceful and unusual manner. The north tower was completed as late as the sixteenth century, and that of the south was left unfinished,--as it is to-day. The gable and its portals are highly decorated with statues, niches, and crockets. Around the aisles of nave and choir is a curiously suggested arcade with an overhanging balustrade ornamented with a series of indifferently sculptured heads. The bosses of many of the intersecting groins of the vaults are coloured with questionable effect. There are also many visible evidences of coloured wall decorations, which might perhaps as well have been left covered, inasmuch as they have suffered exceedingly in the attempted restoration; so much so, that it is impossible to say whether they ever approached acceptable perfection; possibly not, as they are supposed to date only from the period when much of this class of work was of none too good a quality. The triforium of the nave is gracefully balustraded, and the choir stands apart from the nave, separated by an elaborate eighteenth century iron _grille_. The ambulatory of the choir sets three steps lower than the nave, though the platform is on the same level. The crypt beneath the choir, so often the only existing remains of an earlier church, is here grandly in evidence, and dates from the eleventh century at least. There are a few interesting tombs of former Bishops of Auxerre and others of local celebrity. On the whole the charm of Auxerre and its cathedral must be admitted to lie in its general surroundings and immediate environment, quite as much as because of any remarkably distinctive features of a superlative quality in the cathedral itself, though an undeniable wealth of picturesque detail exists. The conventional guides speak of it as "highly interesting," and so it is, with its Romanesque remains, its ungainly façade, its three fine but weather-worn doorways, and its charming river view. Beside the cathedral stands the old-time Episcopal Palace with its fine arcaded Romanesque gallery overlooking the river, where the prelates took their "constitutionals," safely guarded from wind and weather. To-day this grand building represents the officialdom of the local Préfecture. Two other noble ecclesiastical monuments are to be seen here, the Church of St. Germain, or rather, the fragment which was spared by the Huguenots, now being used as an adjunct to a hospital; and the Church of St. Pierre. The latter is the most appalling example of a Renaissance building which one is likely to meet with, and shows in its remarkable façade, in sheer perversion of misdirected labour, the grossness of pseudo-classicism, which quite entitles it to rank with that other equally abominable example in Paris, St. Eustache. The _portail_ of this remarkable church, locally so called, though in reality it is only a detached gateway, far from the church building itself, is a wonderful Italian suggestion, now mellowed and weathered and undeniably charming in colour in spite of its being so manifestly out of its environment. [Illustration: _St. Etienne de Bourges_] II ST. ETIENNE DE BOURGES The Cathedral of St. Etienne de Bourges partakes of the same honours which are accorded to the premier quartette of the Isle of France. Nearly contemporary with Paris and Laon, this cathedral steps into its rank with a grandeur and firmness that in a less stolid or more ornate edifice is often wanting. It retains certain of its Romanesque features, perhaps unduly pronounced; likewise it has certain attributes of Burgundian luxuriance; but withal it presents the highly developed Gothic tendency to a far greater degree than either. Although not far to the south of Paris, Bourges is thoroughly of another climatic environment, which not only shows itself in the changed conditions of life, but in the manner of building as well. The great transeptless church of St. Etienne is another of those soaring monuments which rise skyward and hold the eye whenever one is in its vicinity. Standing on an eminence of not very great height, it dominates, from every point of view, the plain which surrounds the city and reminds one of Noyon or Laon in its comparative isolation. Not because its domicile is not a place of some magnitude, but rather because the neighbouring houses lie so huddled in a valley or plain, does the city give the impression of being of less size than it really is. The view from the railway on entering the town is, as it has been called by some imaginative Frenchman, "but the _hors d'oeuvre_ of the architectural feast to follow," and on drawing still closer, it composes grandly with the swift-flowing little river lined with the tall slim trees which are so distinguished a feature of a French landscape. Like Beauvais, Amiens, and, in only a slightly lesser degree, Le Mans, the sheer fall of the nave and choir from ridge to ground startles one by its exaggeration of perpendicular lines. Though by no means of the great height of these other examples, its great size first impresses one as its distinguishing feature. It sits, too, on the edge of a beautiful wooded park which, in conjunction with the modern Episcopal Palace, forms an ensemble of stone and verdure not often to be seen as the environment of a French cathedral. The gardens are quite open to the public and are set forth with clipped hedges, trees, and monumental stone work of no mean order. Bourges is another of those ancient foundations of mid-France where Romish influences died hard, and Gothic, as a perfected type, never, as it were, attained its majority. Here, the mixture of style is notable; pointed and rounded arches intermingled, apparently indiscriminately, with thoroughly Gothic supports, mullions, and piers. These, with the characteristically Renaissance north and south porches, with their carven doorways, all go to complete a series of typically fashioned details, each true to its own age. Such a combination of varying virtues should give the student, or the seeker after new sensations, something more to think about than a mere catalogue of consistent charms; for it cannot be denied that this church, standing aloof from any other single type, is a marvel of grandeur and impressiveness, whatever may be its failings when dessicated by the theorist or the archæologist. It is unlikely that Saracen or even Moorish influences were ever at work so far north as this; but there is an unquestionable tendency in much of the debased decoration of this church to more than suggest a similarity to both. It is, of course, not Gothic, as we know it, nor Byzantine, _pur sang_, and it is certainly not Italian, but something quite different. It is, perhaps, worthy of record that the inverted horseshoe arch more nearly approximates what is commonly considered the Moorish form; or, to give it a wider _locale_, Mediterranean, at least. The polygonal turrets which flank the towers and the chapels of the abside look, too, not unlike a sub-tropical feature, possibly Saracen. Such details are markedly noticeable here, and it is because of features such as these that one is minded to consider the church as something quite different from anything seen elsewhere. To carry the argument still farther, if these details are to be considered in any sense Gothic, or any outgrowth thereof, it certainly augurs much for the possibility of this style having come originally from the East, or at least the Mediterranean countries. It has been claimed before now by English and French writers alike, that it may have developed from the arts of the Moors of Spain, or that it may have grown up from a primitive style in vogue in the Far East. The comment is given without further elaboration; but here, at least, we see some basis for the claim that Gothic is but a transplanted flower after all, and that it developed so boldly only from the seed's having been blown hither from some other land, and finding a favourable soil in which to take root and flourish. Without transepts, the long flank of the nave and choir is singularly beautiful, broken into at regular intervals by buttresses which, if not remarkable examples, are at least graceful, though so light that they have been visibly stayed by iron rods, as is frequently the case elsewhere, at Beauvais particularly, where the whole fabric appears to be hung together by wires. The actual inception of the cathedral is attributed to Rudolphe de Turenne, forty-sixth Archbishop of Bourges. Of his known work only the round-arched crypt remains, upon which foundation the present grand pile was reared. The west front possesses a quintette of portals, deeply recessed, but of a decidedly mixed Gothic and Renaissance treatment as to decoration. Such a range of elaborated doorways is hardly to be found in such luxuriance elsewhere, though the fact that there are five in all, standing grandly in a row, is perhaps not unique of itself. They are profusely decorated with sculptured forms of angels, saints, and kings. The tympanum of the central portal contains a "Last Judgment," remarkable alike for its magnitude and workmanship. Throughout, these portals vary in date of their construction, their treatment, and their excellencies, but in general they are homogeneous and convincing. In the gables of three are circular piercings which open into a sort of vestibule or porch; but these are entirely without glass. Another unique feature of this western front is a curious lofty double-storied structure, a chapel-like building, of whose functions most will remain in ignorance. It is connected with the main body of the church by a long tentacle-like ligature through which, says Henry James, "the groaning of the organ or the pealing of bells must be transmitted with distressing clearness." The hybrid tower on the extreme left, with many round-arched windows and much florid ornament, is familiarly called the "Tour de Beurre," and, as its compeer at Rouen, was built from the contributions of those who were willing to forego themselves the luxury of butter. To the right is a much less imposing tower, but one that is much more true as to its style. It rises scarcely above the central gable, and helps to exaggerate the lack of uniformity of the façade, a condition much deplored by the true Gothic builder, though whether such varying detail does not after all make a more interesting, and perhaps as edifying a work for pleasurable contemplation, is an open question. There is, in any event, a marvellous power in this massive west front to confirm one's opinion that it is a comprehensive and yet varied thing. Another curious feature of this front is a pair of overlying buttresses of no apparent purpose as to staying power, since the wall space which they flank is of no inordinate height. The window space, though, is ample; and, though mostly in blank to-day, at a future time those blanks might be broken out; hence the necessity for these extra props. The interior gives, likewise, a grand impression, one of vaster magnitude than in reality exists. The length is probably exaggerated by reason of the lack of transepts; but its breadth, including nave and aisle, is unusually great, and the height is further magnified by the fact that the aisles themselves have three ranges of openings, above which, in the nave, rise the triforium and clerestory,--surely alone a sufficiently unusual arrangement to account the church as of remarkable planning. Its great beauty may be said to be the magnificent proportions throughout, rather than the preëminent intrinsic value of any specific detail. The rose window of the west end, though of grand proportions, appears to fail utterly as a supreme effort because of the flatness and depression given to its circumferential outline. Like that of St. Gatien at Tours it is of an uncertain lozenge shape, while the effect is further lessened by the mediocrity of its glass and framing. The general appearance of the interior is one of symmetrical grandeur, wherein the effect of each dimension is probably enlarged, but with a fine and consistent proportion. Its conventional embellishments are not unduly ornate; though, for that matter, they do not give the impression of being wanting to any great degree either in quality or quantity. In no particular, however, is the sculptured form of figure or foliage of that excellence and magnitude of that of the cathedral at Reims or at Amiens. The magnificent proportions of the choir well merit the term of "Burgundian opulence." Its termination opens with an amplitude often wanting in even a larger building, the piers being wide apart, without screening, which heightens still more its generous proportions. The two picturesque cardinal's hats, with cord and tassels, have long been pendant from the vault of the choir, and are now dimmed in colour and thick deep with dust, seemingly destined to fall of sheer old age and decrepitude. Further particulars concerning this picturesque detail are wanting only from the lack of any one in attendance from whom one might get this information,--perhaps some reader of these lines may be more fortunate. On the pavement of the nave is a brass rule, inlaid diagonally from the north to the south wall. Its original use appears to be clothed in some obscurity, one informative person stating that it is the line of departmental division, and another that it marks the meridian of Paris, which is shown on all French navigation charts. Its real purpose is evidently topographical rather than of religious or symbolical significance. An ardent French writer deplores the fact that there is no monument here to show respect for Louis XI., who was born at Bourges and baptized in the cathedral; a pity, perhaps, and certainly a subject worthy of the consideration of "the powers that be." [Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of S. CYR & Ste. JULIETTE NEVERS_] III ST. CYR AND ST. JULIETTE DE NEVERS A unique experience is one's first contemplation of the "gay little city of Nevers" from the Pont du Loire, with the none too large Cathedral of St. Cyr and St. Juliette crowning, as it were, the apex of a series of steep rises from the Loire, which, even at this distance from the sea, still retains its ample breadth. Said Arthur Young in his plain and bald phraseology, "Nevers makes a fine appearance." Here, on the very threshold of the southland, it is something of a shock to be brought at once into intimate association with Italian influences and types of architecture; for, be it recalled, Nevers has been truly "an Italian stronghold in the midst of France," with little to remind one, but its speech, that it is merely a provincial French market-town. Nevers was the seat of the Italian Dukes and Counts of Nièvre, who built the ducal palace, the _ci-devant_ chateau, now the Palace of Justice. Here, later, dwelt the nephew of the great Mazarin, who said his king "had a heart more French than his speech." Through his efforts the Nivernais was incorporated with the French crown in 1669. This fine turreted, towered, and decorated building, with its sculpture attributed to Goujon, is to-day, in appearance at least, what it was in the past,--the typical urban domestic establishment of grand proportions and splendid appointments; though it may hardly be said to vie with such masterpieces as Chambord, Chenonceau, or Blois. Nor, for that matter, is the town itself entitled to rank, as to its events of historical importance or the fame or personality of its bishops or counts, with either Chartres or Le Mans, both of which it somewhat approaches in point of size. Aside from its many and varied charms, which have been duly set forth by most writers on the French provinces who have had anything whatever to say about it, Nevers should be doubly endeared to all makers of guide-books and students of ecclesiastical architecture, from the fact that the Abbé Bourassé, Honorary Canon of Nevers, here wrote and dedicated to his bishop, Mgr. Dufêtre, a work treating of the French cathedrals which will ever rank as one of the most delightfully written and useful books of its class. This fact perhaps is hardly to be reckoned as of historical moment, but pertinent to the plan of the present work nevertheless. Nowhere, not even in Provence or Acquitaine, are to be noted more significant tendencies toward a southern influence in the matter of civil and ecclesiastical building. True, many of the minor structures have to-day descended unto base uses, and many of their perfections and beauties are therefore sunk below the surface. For instance, where a palace has become a warehouse, or a church been turned into a stable, or been given over to the uses of a wine factor. Before even considering the cathedral itself,--dedicated to the hero of the legendary tale concerning St. Cyrus, who, depicted as a naked child riding astride a wild boar, was able to turn the infuriated beast from a certain King Charles (further designation not given) and preserve him from danger,--it is well to know that most authorities agree in giving habitation here to one of the most perfect Romanesque churches in all northern Europe, that of St. Etienne, built in 1063-96, and consecrated in the latter year by Ivor, Bishop of Chartres. Of the century contemporary with this fine work, as yet hardly spoiled by any offensive restorations, are two columns, in the easterly portion of the Cathedral of St. Cyr, which bear the date of 1024. From this foundation the lover of churches will rear for himself an exceedingly interesting and uncommon type. Not of the first rank, St. Cyr has the power to hold one's attention far more closely and interestingly than many of greater worth and magnitude; and its environment, from every point of view, composes itself into a picture which it would be hard to duplicate. The grouping of the chevet of the choir with the low roofs of the town lying at its base, and the gardens of the ducal chateau in the immediate foreground, forms an unusually varied combination of the picturesque. The wealth of Nevers in architectural monuments would be notable in a town many times its size. The Port de Paris, a not especially attractive Renaissance gateway, guards the northerly, and the Port du Croux the westerly, end of the town. This latter groups nobly with the west end and tower of the cathedral, and is of itself a monument of the first rank, being so designated by the _Commission des Monumentes Historiques_. A feudal defence, square, broad-based, turreted, flanked with circular watch-towers, and still further strengthened by a barbican which once held a portcullis, this wonderfully effective barrier more than suggests the mediæval stronghold. Two other towers of the ancient _enceinte_ still remain, the Tour Gougin, and the Tour St. Eloi. Intimate acquaintance with the cathedral shows a blending, not offensive, but in no slight manner, of the Romanesque, early and late Gothic, and finally Renaissance styles. Nevertheless there is an apparent cohesiveness often lacking in a larger work, or in one built within a shorter period of time. One distinctly northern feature there is; namely, the singular effect given by the double apse of the nave and choir, reminiscent mainly of the Rhine builders, that of the eastern end being much the older. The half-obliterated frescoes of the domed vaulting of the western apse indicate that it was completed after the pure Italian manner at a considerably later time than the opposite end. It is hardly a beautiful or even a necessary feature to either the exterior or interior of a great church, and, fortunately, is unusual in France, though common enough in Germany, notably at Mainz, Worms, and Treves. The most remarkable interior effect, aside from this western apse, is that of the lofty Gothic arches, springing high above the Romanesque arches of the nave, and naturally of a much later date. Certainly this must be, so far as the respective proportions of each are concerned, an entirely unique feature. Notable evidences are to be seen of frescoes, probably the work of some Italian hand, both on the screen and in the domed apse. They have apparently been whitewashed over many times, but remorse, if tardily, has evidently come lately, and such restoration or renovation as has been possible, has been undertaken. A dainty and diminutive spiral stairway, suggestive of having been modelled on the lines of the grand spirals at Chambord or Blois, and half enclosed in the surrounding wall, leads to the Chapter Room above. The eastern apse, and the crypt beneath, are the earliest parts readily to be observed and are probably the remains of the Romanesque structure built by Hugh II. early in the eleventh century, after the common type of the Auvergnat and Angevine churches. Perhaps the best workmanship to be noted is that of the thirteenth-century chapels surrounding the choir. Reclus, a French authority, has declared that the ornamental foliage here is not only really admirable as to itself, but is the "perfection of imitation," and extends this commendation also to the work on the pillars and capitals of the north doorway by which the church is usually entered. The interior generally is brilliant and pleasing, though good glass is mostly wanting, and the uninterrupted flood of light detracts measurably from the warmth and geniality suggested by the memory of Bourges, Chartres, or Auxerre. The rose window over the western apse is pitifully weak and quite lacking in effectiveness. A canopied _baldacchino_ rises above the altar and, being of stone treated in a graceful Gothic manner, is an ornament much more in good taste than the hideous mahogany or oaken serpentine atrocities which are often erected. It is impossible to come into close contact with the exterior of this cathedral except by approaching it from the eastern end. West front there is none. As one has said, "It possesses merely a western end." The western tower, of two non-contemporary orders of Gothic (fourteenth and fifteenth centuries), whether viewed from near or far, is far more pleasing than any other general exterior feature. The chevet of the choir extends, as it were, well into the nave, there being no transepts. This is evidently a local custom, recalling the neighbouring cathedrals at Bourges and Auxerre. The sculptured decoration of the later portion is exceedingly well disposed, and of such magnitude and numbers as to lack that poverty in the ensemble often apparent in a more pretentious work. The Church of St. Etienne in Nevers, so thoroughly Roman in inception of design and execution of detail, indicates more vividly than any other example that might possibly be taken, the shortness of time in which the Gothic development actually took place. With Notre Dame at Paris full in mind, it is well to recall that these accepted perfect examples of two contrasting types are scarce a hundred and fifty miles apart, and, in point of time, but sixty years. What an exemplification this surely is of the transition which came to the art of church building in the twelfth century; what extraordinary rapidity of conception and development, and how narrow were the confines of the true Gothic spirit, indigenous only to the royal domain, which alone produced the churches which fully merit the concisely expressed definition of Gothic: "A manner of building maintained (sustained) by a system of thrust and counter thrust." [Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of S. MAMMÈS LANGRES_] IV ST. MAMMES DE LANGRES Langres is reminiscent of but one other cathedral city in the north of France; like Laon, it occupies and fortifies the crest of a long drawn out hill, or, to give it dignity, it had perhaps best be called in the language of the native "de la montagne de Langres," since from its apex, it is truly dominant of a wide expanse of horizon. Of the Burgundian transition type, the Cathedral at Langres, dedicated to St. Jean the Evangel and St. Mammes, is in many ways a remarkable architectural work, but contaminated beyond cure by two overbearing Greco-Roman towers and a portal of the mid-eighteenth century. As a relief, there adjoins the main body of the church, on the southeast, one of those masterworks of the supreme Gothic era,--a canon's cloister of an exceeding thirteenth-century beauty. In other respects, the exterior is of little note except as to its wonderful degree of prominence in the general grouping of the roofs of the town, when the city is viewed from below. The interior spreads itself out in severe and imposing lines with hardly a remarkable feature in either transepts or nave. The organ-loft, a Calvary, and a marble statue of the Virgin, by Lescornel, a sculptor of Langres, and a few modern sculptured monuments, are the only decorative attributes to be seen, if we except the Renaissance Chapelle des Fonts Baptismaux with its sculptured vaulting on the left. The symmetrical choir is in itself the true charm of St. Mammes. It has a fine ambulatory, and a range of eight monolithic columns, removed, says tradition, from an ancient Pagan temple. Their capitals are ornamented with carven foliage, grimacing heads, and fantastic animals. A sixteenth-century screen surrounds the choir, but is more like unto a triumphal arch than a churchly accessory. The high altar is a comparatively modern work, as may be supposed, and dates only from 1810. On the right of the choir is an elaborate Roman doorway, and preserved in the Chapter Room are five paintings depicting the "Chaste Susanne." A remarkable collection of reliques is shown by the sacristan, in the Chapelle des Reliques. V NOTRE DAME D'AUXONNE The small town of Auxonne, lying between Dijon and Besançon, is seldom thought of in connection with a cathedral church. There is little there to compel one's attention beyond the fact that the Church of Notre Dame, of the fourteenth-sixteenth century, is an interesting enough example of a minor edifice which at one time was classed as a cathedral. The church is mainly Gothic and has the unusual arrangement of a Romanesque tower rising above the transept. _PART V East of Paris_ I INTRODUCTORY No arbitrary territorial arrangement can be made to include with exactness each and every ecclesiastical division, but, since the Royal Domain and the immediately adjacent territory includes the major portion of what are commonly accepted as the Grand Cathedrals, it has been thought permissible, in the present case, to make a further subdivision which shall include Boulogne and St. Omer, north of Paris; eastward to the Rhine and southward to include Dijon and Besançon. A topographer might not make such a division or arrangement of territory; but no other seems possible which shall include the region lying between the extremes of Besançon and Boulogne. The local characteristics or architectural types differ widely within these limits, both as to style and excellence. In one way, only, have they advanced under conditions of unity, that of the establishment of a Christian church, but, otherwise, now favouring the northern influence and now the southern. The frontier provinces have, as a natural course, been subject to many retarding influences which have been wanting elsewhere; for invasion from without may be depended upon to be as baneful for the preservation of a nation's art treasures as a revolution from within. The Christian element early forced its way among the Franks, and Clovis, at the solicitation of his Christian queen and her bishop, was not averse to adopting what he might otherwise have regarded as a superstition. His conversion at Reims not only fostered and propagated Christianity, but gave an impetus to the foundation and building of churches in a most generous fashion. The region to the eastward of Paris, which has played no unimportant part in the history of France, while prolific as to varied types of church building, possesses but one example of the very first rank,--and that, as a style which typifies Gothic art, may be said to rank supreme over all others,--Notre Dame de Reims. As the seat of the Metropolitain, and the City of Coronations, it was allied closely with early affairs of Church and State. The principles and manner adopted by Guillaume of Sens in his great works early affected the style here, as seen by the many transition examples, just as the influence of the Monk of St. Bénigne of Dijon caused the round-arched species of the west of France. At all events the primitive Gothic influences were early at work and in a measure absorbed the Romanesque tendencies which had flourished previously. The most notable exception, an example of the distinctly southern type, is at Besançon, which has a remarkable array of contrasting style, with the Romanesque, though not of the best, predominating. With the cathedrals in the extreme northerly section we have little to do,--in fact there is little that can be said. St. Omer is possessed of a wonderful old church which at one time ranked as a cathedral, and which has glimpses here and there of very good Gothic. There are also, in this otherwise not very interesting city, two other church buildings worthy of more than an ordinary amount of attention, the ruins of the Abbey of St. Bertin and the Church of St. Denis. Boulogne-sur-Mer has a modern pseudo-classical structure built well into the nineteenth century. It is more notable as a monument to the industry of the man who brought about its erection, taking the place of a former structure burnt during the Revolution, than as a satisfactory example of a great church. The same may be said with equal truth of the atrocious Renaissance and Pagan structures to be seen at Cambrai and Arras, though the conditions under which they were built differ. At Cambrai, however, the present building replaces a former structure levelled by fire. Chalons-sur-Marne,--dear to every French patriot as being renowned for the manufacture of flags, a suffragan of Reims, has a remarkable cathedral of Romanesque foundation of the fifth to the seventh centuries. Its warlike record, from 273 A. D., when Aurelian vanquished Tetricus, to the occupation by the Germans in 1871, is one long succession of military affairs. To-day the city is the domicile of the most important army corps of France. These towns, with Nancy, Toul, and St. Dié in the valley of the Moselle, complete the list of those cities which by any stretch of territorial boundaries could be classed under the head of "East of Paris." It may be a debatable point as to whether Strasbourg and Metz might not have been included; the writer is inclined to think that they might have been, though their interests and influences have always been more Teutonic than Gallic,--still, they are thoroughly Germanized to-day, and, as we cannot interrupt the march of time, and the present volume will otherwise approach the limits originally set out for it, they must perforce be omitted. [Illustration: _CATHEDRAL NANCY_] [Illustration: _BOULOGNE_] [Illustration: _St. OMER_] [Illustration: _ARRAS_] II NOTRE DAME DE BOULOGNE-SUR-MER Boulogne-sur-Mer is one of those neglected tourist points through which the much travelled person usually rushes en route to some other place. It perhaps hardly warrants further consideration except for the history of its past, and its intimate association with certain events which might seriously have affected the history of England. It is, however, an interesting enough place to-day, if one cares for the bustle and rush of a seaport and fishing town,--not very cleanly, and overrun with tea-shops and various establishments which cater only to the cockney abroad, who gathers here in shoals during the summer months. There is, too, a large colony of resident English, probably attracted by its nearness to London, and possibly for purposes of retrenchment, for there is no question but that the franc, of twenty per cent. less value than the shilling, accomplishes quite as much as a purchasing power. This must be quite a consideration with _pater-familias_ with a limited income derived from Consols or some other traditionally "excellent investment." Most travellers are familiar with what attractions Boulogne really does offer, but few if any would consider its very modern and ugly cathedral one of them. Perched in the centre of the _Haute-Ville_, overlooking the city and port, the Cathedral of Notre Dame exists to-day more as a monument to the energy and devotion of its founder than as a notable architectural work. It follows no particular style, except that it is Italian of the most debased general type, though no doubt parts of it meet the dimensions and formulas laid down by accepted good examples in its native land. There is no doubt but that its domed cupola is manifestly out of place, though this detail is the only feature which gives the cathedral any distinction. A Gothic church stood here up to the Revolution, and the building of the present structure was devotedly undertaken to replace its loss by a doubtless earnest man, who, in his zeal, sought to build after what he considered a newer if not a better style. Parts of the crypt are of the ancient twelfth century church; but the structure above dates from 1827-66. Its façade, of a poor classical order, is flanked by two slight cupola towers equally meaningless and insignificant. Surmounting the central dome is a colossal statue of the Virgin. The interior is in no way remarkable or interesting. There are a few monuments and a gorgeous high altar of precious marbles, mosaic, and bronze, the gift of Prince Alex Torlonia. The lady-chapel is still resorted to as a place of pilgrimage by the seafaring and fisher folk of the neighbourhood. A modern reproduction of a sarcophagus from the catacombs at Rome forms the tomb of Mgr. Haffreingue (1871). III NOTRE DAME DE CAMBRAI Cambrai is one of that quartette of cathedral cities of northern France which in no sense take rank as ecclesiastical shrines of even ordinarily interesting, much less beautiful, attributes. Of the other three, Arras, St. Omer, and Boulogne, St. Omer alone is possessed to-day of anything approaching the great Gothic churches which were spread broadcast throughout France during the five centuries of church building in the middle ages. In manners and customs, and indeed in speech to some extent, these cities all partake somewhat of the _locale_ of those of the Low Countries. These attributes, which have retained their original identities across the borders, were for many centuries, and even so late as the seventeenth century, existent in French Flanders. Curiously enough, in none of these cities are any of the primitive Gothic types to be noted in the cathedral churches, though many possess their olden-time belfries and watch towers, preserved to-day with something of the local pride which evinces itself elsewhere with respect to cathedrals. It is possible that this is due to the fact that this great industrial centre of northern France is more given to the arts of manufacture than to the devotion of church-going or even of church building. Another notable and almost universal feature of these cities are the Renaissance or Romanesque gateways,--silent reminders to-day of the mediæval communities which they once protected, and of the warlike invasions of the past. The Cathedral of Notre Dame de Cambrai is on the site of an older abbey church, which was of the same ugly style as the present edifice itself, but which dated, however, only from the early eighteenth century. The present building is said to furnish a replica, of the vintage of 1859, of the tasteless and crude style of the earlier building. There are statues therein of Fenelon, Bishop Belmas, by David d'Angers, and of Cardinal Regnier; and a series of grisaille windows, after originals by Rubens, by Geeraerts of Anvers. The chimes of Cambrai rank among the most noted in Europe. They are composed of thirty-nine bells and produce a carillon, "very agreeable," says a French authority. They certainly do,--the author can endorse this from a personal knowledge,--and they have not as yet descended to such banalities as popular military marches. The largest bell, given by Fenelon in 1786, weighs 7,500 kilos. [Illustration: Notre Dame de Cambrai] IV NOTRE DAME DE ST. OMER Under Baldwin of Hainault, Artois, including St. Omer, was ceded to the kingdom of France as late as the mid-seventeenth century. Few minor churches are possessed of the galaxy of charms and attractions of the _ci-devant_ Cathedral of Notre Dame at St. Omer. Hardly in the accepted forms of good taste are the Byzantine slabs of marble stuck upon the walls here and there, as in a museum; the Renaissance screens; the overpowering organ case; the votive offerings and tablets without number; and the alleged wonderful astronomical clock, with its colossal wooden figures of the sixteenth century,--all of which go to compose a heterogeneous mass more interesting as to occasional detail than as a thorough expression of saintly temperament. The decorative scheme is carried still further by the large number of paintings with which the church is hung; a tribute none too common in France, and more usually associated with the Flemish churches of nearly every rank. A reflection of their preëminence in this respect is naturally enough visible in French Flanders. "The Descent from the Cross," attributed to Rubens, appears likely enough to be a genuine master, but it has been so roughly restored by overpainting, that it is to-day of impaired value. St. Omer, among all the group of northeast France, presents a true Gothic example in its great Basilique de Notre Dame, and it is a pity that its further development was along lines which indicate a trend, at least, toward debasement. This is plainly to be noted in the tracery of the lower and clerestory windows of nave and aisles. Its enormous tower covers nearly the entire western end of nave and aisles, in much the same way as those of some of the fortified churches of the south. Its Gothic is of the true perpendicular style, however, and, with the general grand proportions of the building, gives that immensity and massiveness which is associated only with a church of the first rank. The _arcs-boutant_ of the nave are hardly deserving of mention as such, though they are manifestly sturdy props which perform their functions in perhaps as efficacious a manner as many more graceful and delicate specimens elsewhere. There is just a suggestion of a central tower, which, as is often the case in France, has dwindled to a mere cupola, if it had ever previously grown to a greater height. The transepts are of imposing dimensions, that on the south having an enormous rose of perhaps thirty-five feet in diameter, with an elaborately carved portal below, which contains a "Last Judgment" in the tympanum. The choir, chevet, and chapels, while existent to a visible and very beautiful degree, are somewhat overshadowed by the great size of the transepts. There is this to be said, however: that the choir, a restoration of our own day, presents, as to style, the type of Gothic purity at its height. It has five radiating chapels, not including that of Notre Dame des Miracles, which adjoins the south transept and contains innumerable votive tablets. For the rest, except for the fact that the interior partakes of a mere collection of curios and relics, it is in general no less imposing in its proportions than the exterior. The clerestory windows, however, are of ill proportions for so grand a structure, being short and squat; and here, as elsewhere throughout the building, is to be found only modern glass. The great bell of the western tower weighs 8,500 kilos. Chief among the notable accessories and reliques is the monolithic tomb of St. Erkembode, bishop of the one-time see of Thérouanne, period 725-37. The sarcophagus itself, dating from the same century, was brought here from the original site. The tomb of St. Omer was restored in the thirteenth century and shows a remarkable sculptured group of Christ, the Virgin, and St. John, called the "Great God of Thérouanne." It was saved from the ruin of the church at Thérouanne, which was destroyed with the greater part of the town in 1533 by Charles V., in revenge for the "loss of three bishoprics," as history states. At this time the sees of St. Omer and Boulogne were founded. The near-by Palace of Justice, built by Mansart in 1680 and enlarged for its present use in 1840, was the former Episcopal Palace. St. Omer has also two other grand churches, St. Sepulchre, of the fourteenth century, and the ruins of St. Bertin (1326-1520), which, before the Revolution, with St. Ouen at Rouen, and the collegiate church at San Quentin, was reckoned as one of the most beautiful Gothic abbeys in France. To-day it is a magnificent ruin, its huge tower (built in 1431) and portions of the nave and crossing being all that remain. It was considered the finest church in the Low Countries, and for size, purity, and uniformity of style it ranked with the best of its contemporaries. 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 mediæval 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 principal 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 passable 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 Musée, and Bibliotheque; and are situated immediately to the right of the façade of the cathedral. The grisaille glass 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 Borromée. 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 Abbé Bourassé, 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 classed 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 Hôtel 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 façade 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 assign 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 _basse 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. [Illustration: _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 façade 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 fashion. A comparison has been made by Professor Freeman between the western façade 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 assured 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 façade, 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 clustered columns. A fine sculptured altarpiece, "The Adoration of the Shepherds," is in the Chapelle de la Creche, entered from the cloister. The present Hôtel-de-Ville was formerly the bishop's palace. [Illustration: _North Portal Cathedral Chalons-sur-Marne_] VII ST. ETIENNE, CHÂLONS-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 classical 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 massive order made familiar in the Rhine churches. A reasonable share of twelfth to sixteenth century glass 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 curé will hear confessions in German, and that services are held in that tongue on "Saturdays in St. Joseph's Chapel." The Episcopal Palace, behind the cathedral, contains a collection of some sixty paintings, the gift, in 1864, of the Abbé Joannes. [Illustration: _S. DIÉ_] VIII ST. DIÉ St. Dié gets its name, by the corruption of Dieudonné, 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 Tréguier in Brittany, neither of which is on a railway, whereas St. Dié 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 workmanship, with statues of Faith and Charity on either side. The façade 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. Dié_." [Illustration: ST. LAZARE _d'AUTUN_] IX ST. LAZARE D'AUTUN This ancient episcopal city has ever been devoted to the cause of Christianity. "Nowhere," says a French historian, "has the Church enjoyed more repute than here." The Dukes of Burgundy, its bishops and people alike, joined in a fervour of labour and zeal to assure its permanence and progress. In addition, the Gallo-Roman remains point to a former city of proud attainments. The fine Roman walls, beautifully jointed, _sans_ cement, are distinctly traceable for a circuit of perhaps three miles around the city. Other interesting remains are two fine gateways, commonly referred to as triumphal arches, which they probably were not, the Porte d'Arroux and the Porte St. Andre; the ruins of an amphitheatre; and a tower assigned to a former temple of Minerva. All these, and more, are found inside the old walls; while, without, are remains of an aqueduct, of a tower dedicated to Janus, and a Roman bridge crossing the river Torenai. It may be interesting for an Englishman to recall that the Bishop of Autun, who often presided over the National Assembly, pleaded in vain with George III. for the adoption, in England, of the French metric system. During the destruction of a former building, St. Nazaire, which at one time performed the functions of a cathedral, the bishops held their offices in the chapel of the chateau of the Dukes of Burgundy; but, upon the removal of the residence of the house of Burgundy to Dijon, transferred their services to the present edifice, which had by that time been completed. The Cathedral of St. Lazare is a charmingly graceful, though not great, structure, mainly of the style "_ogivale premier_," its early Lombard work of the nave and west front being of the foundation of Robert I., Duke of Burgundy. This vast western portal is encased in a great projective porch, a feature indigenous apparently to Burgundy, and commonly referred to as the "Burgundian narthex." Following come the chapels and spires, of exceeding grace and beauty, of the third _ogivale_ style. The interior enrichments, like the western doorway, with its Romanesque sculptures, take rank with the best in Burgundy. The delicately carved rood-loft, or jube, the small sculptures of the choir and nave, and the flamboyant chapels of the fifteenth to seventeenth century, challenge minute attention from those who would study decorative detail _in extenso_. The capitals of certain columns in the nave have fluted pilasters in imitation of the antique, but are most curiously ornamented with grotesque and fantastic human figures on a background of foliage. The choir, of early pointed style, in its actual disposition and arrangement, may be included in that classification which comprehends some of its more important northern compeers, though, as a matter of fact, it lacks their magnitude. Indeed, the building is one of the smallest cathedrals in all France. The exterior offers an imposing and picturesque ensemble, with its crocketed spire rising some two hundred and fifty or more feet above the roof-tops of the ancient city. Nearer inspection shows a certain incoherence of construction, particularly in reference to the evidences of garish crudities in the work done under Robert I. in 1031-76, in contrast to the later pointed work. The doorway of the lateral southern wing is ornamented with a series of grossly exaggerated columns, in imitation of the antique, with the addition of an apse, which contrastingly shows work of a late flamboyant order. The spire itself is the masterwork of the entire structure, and, unlike those which surmount many another church, appears not to have suffered the dangers of fire. As a fifteenth-century work, it merits special mention. Rising abruptly from a heavy square base, the pyramid is very acute, and is ornamented at the angles with foliaged crockets, basely called stone cauliflowers by unimaginative persons. One might say, with the gentle Abbé Bourassé, that the "ornamentation breaks into sky and cloud with an exceedingly agreeable effect, far beyond that of a straight line." The inconsistency lies only in the juxtaposition of the two western transition towers, which have hardly enough of the Gothic in them to merit the name. The lower windows of the nave are of good flamboyant style, with a sort of Romanesque triforium, and a simple round-headed window in each bay of the clerestory, which is the more poor in treatment and effect in that it holds no notable glass. There are none of those distinctly northern accessories, the great rose windows, and the whole reeks of distinctly a milder atmosphere. There is a luxuriance of decoration in the many chapels of different epochs. The exterior, in general, is of excessive simplicity; but, if it is not to be placed among those cathedrals and churches accredited the most notable and most beautiful, it will, at least, take rank as one of the most ancient to be seen to-day, and has the further benefit of a glorious environment and association with the past. [Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of S. BÉNIGNE DIJON_] X ST. BÉNIGNE DE DIJON The power and wealth of the Dukes of Burgundy, whose influence extended northward to the Netherlands, where they often held court at Ghent and Bruges, were, in a way, responsible for the opulence and splendour of the life of the day. So, too, Burgundian architecture became a term synonymous for the amplitude and grandeur with which many of its institutions were endowed. The reign of Philippe le Bon, with that of Charles the Bold, the most ambitious prince who ever graced his line, was the Augustan age of Burgundian art. It was the dream of the latter to reincarnate the old Burgundian kingdom by annexing Lorraine and subduing the advancing Swiss Confederacy, an ambition which failed, like many others as, or more, worthy. The conquered duke was killed at Nancy, and was finally buried in Notre Dame at Bruges. The Cathedral of St. Bénigne is an outgrowth from the old abbey church, from which the Italian monk, Guillaume, set forth to found that remarkable series of monasteries in Normandy and Brittany. It is said, too, that he crossed the Channel, and had a large share in the works which were erected at that period in the south of England. The bishop's throne has been established in this church only since the Revolution, caused by the destruction of his former cathedral. The early foundations of the old abbey date far back into antiquity, but the present cathedral dates only from the thirteenth century. Commonly considered as of Gothic style, it is in every way more suggestive of the late Romano-Byzantine type, or at least of the early transition. There is, to be sure, no poverty of style; but there is an air of stability and firmness of purpose on the part of its builders, rather than any attempt to either launch off into something new or untried, or even to consistently remain in an old groove. As a fact, it is not a very grand building. Its choir is small, and its transepts short. In its plan, at least, it resembles the Byzantine form much more than the elongated Gothic, where every proportion seems to reach out to its utmost extent. The west façade is truly fine in the disposition of its parts and arrangements. It suggests, more than anything, a traditional local style, favouring nothing else to any remarkable degree except the German solidity so often to be noted in eastern France. The towers are firmly set with unfrequent pointed openings. The central portal and vestibule are deep, and rich with a sculptured "Martyrdom of St. Peter" and a delightfully graceful arcade just above the portal arch, and another crossing the gable and joining the towers in a singularly effective manner. A somewhat heavy but rich pointed window of three lights, surmounted by a quatrefoil rose, with a slight needle-like spire which rises just above the gable, completes the ensemble. The earlier work, seen at its best in the interior, is that of the choir and transepts, where again the distinguishing features are local. In the transepts the arches open directly on the side chapels, the southern arm being gorgeous with brilliant glass. The windows of choir and transepts throughout are richly traceried and set. The choir itself is destitute of either ambulatory or chapels. A lantern is placed at the crossing, supported by gracefully foliaged shafts. The nave is of a much later period, and is not of the richness of the portion lying to the eastward. The windows of the clerestory, in particular, will not be considered of the excellence of those of either transept or choir. The south tower encloses the tombs of Jean sans Peur and Philippe le Hardi. The crypt contains the tomb of St. Bénignus. [Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of NOTRE DAME SENLIS_] XI NOTRE DAME DE SENLIS "Truly rural" is a term which may well be applied to the situation of Senlis, the ancient Civitas Sylvanectensium of the Romans. Quaint and attractive to the eye is the entrance to the town from the railway, with its low-lying roofs, over which tower the spires of the ancient Cathedral of Notre Dame and the Church of St. Pierre. It forms a heterogeneous mass of stone, to be sure, and one which looks little enough, at first glance, like the delicate and graceful cathedral which makes up the mass in part. It is, in reality, a confused jumble of towers and turrets which meets the eye, and it takes some little acquaintance with the details thereof to separate the cathedral from the adjacent church. The proximity of the sees of Beauvais, Amiens, and Paris perhaps accounts for the lack of importance attached to this cathedral. As for the structure itself, among the minor cathedrals of France, Senlis, with Séez and Coutances, must ever rank as the peers of that order, with respect to the grace and beauty of their spires. It may be doubted if even the spires of Chartres are to be considered as more beautiful than the diminutive single example to be seen here, particularly when grouped with its surrounding environment. Individually, as well, its grace and beauty might even take that rank. The demarcation between the base of the tower and the gently dwindling spire is almost entirely eliminated, without the slightest tendency toward debasement in the steeple, which too often is merely a series of superimposed, meaningless, and unbeautiful details. Latter-day builders, who want a model for the spire of a moderate-sized Gothic church, could, it would seem, hardly do better than to make a replica of this graceful example. In its façade, the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Senlis partakes largely of the characteristics of the primitive lowland types, reminiscent, at least, of Noyon or Soissons, and, as such, it may properly be considered and compared with them. The transepts of the north and south are not grand members, but they are compact and graceful, and the façade of the southern arm is of a highly ornate character, bespeaking a wealth of ambition, if not of ability, on the part of the architect. The interior, in spite of the lack of sculptured ornament, shows no paucity of style, and, except that it is of the bijou variety, might take rank at once as representative of Gothic style at its best. Under these conditions, the nave is naturally confined, and lacks a certain grandeur both as to width and height. The choir is of true, though not lofty, proportions, the aisles appearing perhaps too low, if anything, for the height of the nave, which otherwise appears exceedingly generous with respect to the extent of its triforium and clerestory. The transepts, though shallow, are possessed of unusually amplified aisles, there being, as a matter of fact, two in that portion which adjoins the nave on the west, a sufficiently unusual arrangement to warrant comment. The rose windows of the transepts have graceful design and good framing, though the glass is not of the splendour which we associate with the most pleasing examples seen elsewhere. XII ST. ETIENNE DE MEAUX To the eastward of Paris, one first finds the true country atmosphere at Meaux, famous for its bishops, its grist-mills, and its generally charming environment. The picturesque little city is situated on the Marne, some thirty miles from Paris, amid a verdure which, if not luxuriant, is, at least, a "fringe of green" that is appealing alike to local pride, and to the artist or stranger within the gates. It is an ancient bishopric (now suffragan of Paris), founded in 375 A. D. [Illustration: ST. ETIENNE _de MEAUX_] The Cathedral of Saint Etienne de Meaux is called by the French the "Child of Amiens," and it would have all the dignity of its mother had but the nave received the same development as the choir. Its general dimensions are restrained, and it shows in no way any remarkable architectural ensemble; but, for all that, its power to please is none the less great. Lacking a certain symmetry, in itself no great fault, the exterior gives the impression of being to-day much less grand and imposing than was really planned. Battled by wind and weather, its outer walls have that scarred and aged look which is a beauty in itself. There are two towers, one of which is unfinished and capped with an ugly and angular slate roof, so low that it hardly exists at all, so far as forming a distinct feature of the façade is concerned. Its companion, however, rises boldly and in graceful lines to a generous height above the gable. The interior plan is regular and simple, with a nave of five bays, the first two from the west being divided into the infrequent quadruple range of openings, while the remainder consist of the usual triforium and clerestory only. The double aisles of the nave are of unusual height, in order to admit of this double range of openings. The transepts, if transepts they can be considered, are very shallow, being merely the depth of the double aisles of the nave and choir, and are bare and unadorned so far as any notable sculpture or glass is concerned, though the arched windows which hold the plain glass are of grand proportions and excellent design as to their framing. The triforium, throughout, is an arcaded cloister-like effect of slight arches, supported by slender columns, with a series of glazed windows behind. It would be a notable and wholly charming arrangement were the glass of these windows rich in colour, or even old in design. There is an air of singular lightness, if not actually of grace, throughout the entire nave and choir, superinduced, perhaps, by the recent whitening and pointing of the masonry; but the not infrequent bulging piers, particularly those nearest to the transept crossing, give a suggestion of ungainliness if not of actual insecurity. The columns of the choir, supporting a series of firm and gracefully poised arches, are of unusual height, something over forty feet, it would appear,--producing a harmony of form and elegance which again reminds one of Amiens. There are here copies of the nine Raphael tapestry cartoons, the originals of which are preserved at South Kensington, also of frescoes by Guido Reni and Domenichino. The chief artistic, if not architectural, charm to be seen within the purlieus of the cathedral is that of the ancient chapter-house, across a narrow way, to the right of the church itself. This gem of mediæval building is perhaps not remarkable as to any of the principles which it sets forth in its manner of construction, but it takes one back some hundreds of years, a sheer plunge far beyond the age of the most prominent features of the main church, and gives a thrill somewhat akin to the emotion which one feels when he comes across a single leaf torn from an old illuminated manuscript. This charming ruin, for it is hardly more than that, being a mere lumber-room, shows in the weathered look of its covered stairway nearly all of the qualities which the painter loves to depict,--colour, texture, and, above all, that indescribable charm which artistic folk, and others who can see as they do, call life. Clearly, the Cathedral of St. Etienne de Meaux, as an interesting shrine, may be classed well at the head of the secondary cathedrals of the third Gothic period. [Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF SAINT PIERRE TROYES] XIII ST. PIERRE DE TROYES To the thorough student of English history, Troyes is perhaps first recalled as being the birthplace of the treaty "_decreeing for ever a common sovereign for England and France_," a treaty which, it is minded, "stood no while." Again, some dubious antiquary has put it forward as the home of that variety of weights "which are not avoirdupois." The Counts of Champagne had, in the once well-walled city, both a castle and a palace. Olden-time houses, good Gothic woodwork and Renaissance stonework, are here in abundance; also, according to the authority of Fergusson, a well-nigh perfect Gothic church in St. Urbain; likewise a great cathedral,--rather ugly as to its general outline. All these are possessed by Troyes, and to-day the reminders and remains of each and all are exceedingly vivid and substantial. Certain cathedrals of France show plainly the different phases and developments of the art of building through which they have passed; others indicate little, if any, deviation from a certain accepted style. St. Pierre de Troyes is of the first category. Here is Gothic in all its variations. Its environment, too, is characteristic of the many varying moods through which its constituency has passed. A truly mediæval city in the picturesqueness of its older portions, Troyes is famed alike in affairs of Church and State. The dimensions of the Cathedral at Troyes, which approach those of the grand group, and the general majesty of its interior only further this opinion. The main body covers the none too frequent arrangement of five aisles, which, following through the transept, continue, with the double pair on each side, to likewise girdle the choir. The splendour of immensity is further enhanced by its large windows, including two rose openings set with old glass, and the general richness of its sculptured decorations. The abside of the choir is ranked among the best Gothic works of the time. The choir, begun in 1206, is composed of thirteen arcades, symbolical of Christ and the twelve apostles, from the chief of whom the cathedral takes its name. The windows of the triforium are large and divided into four compartments. The general disposition of the choir, with its radiating chapels, is superb; and it is exactly this satisfying, though perhaps undefinable, quality that is ofttimes lacking in an originally well-planned work which fails to inspire one. The choir contains an iron _grille_ of the thirteenth century, of very beautiful workmanship, and is surrounded by five hexagonally sided chapels. The principal portion of the nave, erected in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, interrupted now and again by war and civil distractions, bears indelible impress of its continued centuries of growth. The principal façade of the fifteenth century--accredited to one Martin Chambige and erected just after the nave took form--is of the richness of Gothic only just previous to its decline. There are three portals, which are bare of sculptured figures, as indeed is the whole west front. In arrangement, it resembles the frontispieces of certain of the grand cathedrals, and, though lacking their sculptured ornateness, is thoroughly satisfying as a decorative frontage. Had it been executed fifty years later, it would be hard to imagine to what depths its lines might not have fallen. As it is, the upper ranges of the tower suggest the thought. The windows of the aisle and of the clerestory of the nave, when viewed from the exterior, are grandly traceried and gracefully coupled by a series of light, firm buttresses, which rise, only from the gables of the lower set, over the low-lying roof to the spring of the arch of the upper range. St. Pierre de Troyes suggests, in a mild way, the "sheer glass walls" so frequently referred to by adulous French critics when chanting the praises of the highly developed lightness of their indigenous style. This is further accentuated when one notes the glazed triforium, a decorative feature reminiscent of that at Séez, Nevers, Tours, and St. Ouen at Rouen. Troyes is one of those prominent cathedral cities of Catholic France whereof the churchman deplores the fact that its men are not of the church-going class, and that its congregations are mostly of the fair sex. Be this as it may, except in Brittany, where the whole population appears unusually devout, the stricture is probably true in a great measure of all of the north of France; and, be it here said, recent political edicts will doubtless not tend to increase the propaganda of piety. The north gable, with its portal and rose window, is of the fifteenth century, and, with the "lustrous rose" of the south transept, forms a pair of brilliant jewels which are hardly excelled elsewhere, not even by the encircled splendour of the forty-foot openings at Reims and Amiens, the equally extensive one of the north transept at Rouen, or, most splendid of all, the galaxy at Chartres. These marvels of French ingenuity and invention are nowhere more splendidly proportioned or embellished than at Troyes, and are equally attractive viewed from either within or without. The chief "_tresor_" consists of a series of wonderful mediæval enamels. [Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF SAINT ETIENNE SENS] XIV ST. ETIENNE DE SENS Says the Abbé Bourassé, "One of the most beautiful titles to glory in a church is the antiquity of its foundation," hence, most French antiquaries who have written upon the subject of the celebrated Cathedral of St. Etienne of Sens have enlarged upon its "glorious antiquity." To prove or verify the fact as to whether St. Savinien or St. Potentien was the first to preach Christian religion here would be a laborious undertaking. Evidences and knowledge of Roman works are not wanting, and early Christian edifices of the Romanesque order must naturally have followed. One learns that an early church on this site was entirely destroyed by fire in 970, and that a new edifice had progressed so far that it was dedicated in 997. This, in turn, was mostly rebuilt, and, two hundred years later (1168), took the form of the present cathedral. It was completed, in a rather plain and heavy ogival style, under the capable direction of the William who came to Canterbury, in response to a call, to rebuild the choir of that English church in 1174. It is this link, and possibly a sight of the vestments of À Becket, now preserved among the "_tresor_" of Sens, that binds its memory with English contemporary life. Whatever may be the contentions waged as to the claims of English Gothic, it is universally and unimpeachably admitted that Guillaume de Sens rebuilt that famous choir of Canterbury, and built it well, and of a newer order of design than any previous work in England. So let it stand. Taken by itself, the Cathedral at Sens is a high example of Christian art. When, however, it is compared with the grand group, it is relegated immediately to the second rank. The interior, far more than the exterior, shows a visible disparity of unified style. Romano-Byzantine, transition, and ogival are all found in the nave and choir, with the flamboyant, of the fifteenth century, in the ornamental tracery of the windows of the transepts. Some visible remains of the earlier structure are shown, built into the eleventh century walls. Of the same period are other evidences of a former erection, to be noted in the aisles. The transept and the greater part of the nave are of the century following, and of the early thirteenth, and finally the three arcades, by which the nave is entered, are something very akin to the full-blown Renaissance of the fifteenth century. The general plan is symmetrical, and severe, only the twenty chapels being ungracefully disposed. Ten of these are in the choir and ten in the nave. For the antiquary, versed in religious archæology, the Cathedral of Sens would appear, from the very inconsistencies and exuberance of its style, to be of great interest. The fragments that remain of its former magnificent glass, the sculptured monuments, and the tombs and curiosities of the "_tresor_," which escaped Revolutionary spoliation, all combine in a glorious attraction for one who has the time and inclination to delve into the reminiscence of history and association of a past age. The glass of the choir, and of the chapel of St. Savinien, is of the thirteenth century. The colour is exceedingly brilliant, lively, and harmonious, with the iridescence of a mosaic of precious stones. The sixteenth-century glass, none the less than the framing itself, of the grand rose windows of the north and south transepts, is equally remarkable as to design and colour. The former represents the "Glorification of Jesus Christ," and the latter "Events in the Life of St. Etienne." The "_tresor_" of the cathedral is very numerous and is considered the richest in all France. The most notable are a reliquary of gold, set with sapphires and pearls, containing a fragment of the True Cross, given by Charlemagne in the year 800; four magnificent tapestries of the time of Charles V., representing the "Adoration of the Magi;" and the pontifical robes of St. Thomas (à Becket), chasuble, aube, stole, manipule, cordon, two mitres, and two collars. This courageous archbishop, persecuted by Henry II., took refuge in Sens in 1162. An elaborate tomb (of the eighteenth century), by Constant, is the mausoleum of the Dauphin, father of Louis XVI. _PART VI_ _Western Normandy and Brittany_ I INTRODUCTORY Most people who have read Ruskin, and most people have done so--in the past, will undoubtedly concur with his dictum that Rouen's "associated Norman cities," Bayeux, Caen, Coutances, St. Lo, Lisieux, and Dieppe, run the entire gamut of mediæval architectural notes; or, as Ruskin himself has put it, "from the Romanesque to the flamboyant." He might well have added, the Renaissance and the pseudo-classicism of a later day. Beauties there are in this region, galore; and the examples which no longer exist, but of which the records tell, point to a still larger aggregate. Who thinks to-day of Coutances as of being a "cathedral town?" And yet, there is within it, as to the general effect of situation and the magnitude of its towering pinnacles, an edifice which perhaps outranks all but the very greatest. Most likely no thought is given it at all, except that Coutances is somewhere on the railway line between Cherbourg and Paris, or that it is near unto Bayeux; also possessed of a magnificent cathedral, but whose greatest fame lies in a certain false sentiment associated with its famous tapestry. Not that this great work is to be decried,--far from it, but the spirit with which it is so often viewed should be a matter of scorn for every broad-minded traveller. Lisieux, too, has a wealth of attraction for those who fondly admire reeking picturesqueness and old timbered houses, though its cathedral will not please. Pugin could not resist depicting many of these delightful old houses of Lisieux in his book on Normandy, though, unlike Ruskin, he had no eye for its cathedral; most of us will not have. So much, then, as a plea for a more sincere and thorough appreciation of the charms of western Normandy. It is cheap; accessible, and has a practically inexhaustible store of treasure for the traveller or student of limited time or money, but who will not make of it the usual mere "bank-holiday" scamper. The same applies also to Brittany, which is treated elsewhere, with this proviso, that the tourist afoot or awheel is far better equipped than he who has to depend upon steam and the rail, two at least of Brittany's cathedrals being "off the line." II NOTRE DAME D'EVREUX The Cathedral at Evreux is another of those edifices which gives one its best impression when first seen upon entering the city. Charmingly, possibly romantically, situated, it lies in a shallow valley with all the picturesqueness of its varied style limned against the sky in truly impressionistic fashion. This impression, when viewed from the slight eminence by which the railway enters the town, is a vista of rambling roofs and a long, sloping street running gently down to the very foot of the structure, which, set about and interspersed with verdure, as it is in the spring and summer months, warrants one in counting his introduction to this charmingly attractive, though non-consistent, type of church, as one of the events which will live in memory for years. [Illustration: _Notre Dame d'Evreux_] If towering spires and pinnacles were a _sine qua non_ for a great and imposing architectural style, this church would at once rank as one of the most delightful examples extant; for these very features, albeit they are mostly of what we have come to accept as a debased form of art, are nevertheless possessed of a grandeur and magnificence which in many worthy examples are entirely lacking. The pair of western towers, of Romanesque foundation, were developed, not in what one knows as Gothic, but of the manifest and offensive pseudo-classic order. They are capped, however, with something more akin to Moorish or an Eastern termination than Italian. The spire which surmounts the central crossing is, without question, a reminiscence of much that has been accepted as good Gothic form in the great central-towered English churches. Up to a certain point this can hardly be denied; but this rather weak, effeminate spire, which forms such an unusual attribute of a French cathedral, more than qualifies its right to a place in the first rank of spires. As for the rest of the exterior, it is a _mélange_ of nearly every known architectural style. Undeniably fine in parts, like "the curate's egg," if a time-worn simile may be permitted, it forms an ensemble which would preclude its ever being accorded unqualified praise from even the most liberal-minded and optimistic enthusiast. By far the most coherent view to be had near by is that from the gardens of the Archbishop's Palace immediately to the rearward of the choir. Here the clipped trees, the warm coloured wall, along which the vines are trained, and what was once a canal, or moat, in the foreground, combine to present a singularly artistic and pleasing composition. The north transept, of Bishop le Veneur, is of the superlative degree of its era (early sixteenth century), bordering upon the profusion of splayed ornament which so soon after turned to dross, but standing, as it does, of itself, clearly defined. The gulf was finally crossed when, less than a half-century later, the incongruous west front with its ill-mannered towers was built,--in itself a subject worth a deal of study from the artist who would picture graven stone, but contrasting unfavourably enough with the heights to which French ecclesiastical architecture had just previously soared. Here is offered the one unified Renaissance façade of a French cathedral, welded, as it were, in unworthy fashion, to a fabric with which it has nothing in common. The stone-mason here superseded the craftsman; and, with the termination of the reign of François I., and following with that of Henry II., came the flowering rankness of a degenerate weed, leaving, as evidence of its contaminating influence in this one example alone, traces of nearly every classical order, from the simple Doric column to a hybrid which shall be unnamed. The interior presents a general array of incongruities quite as remarkable as those of the exterior. The nave is very narrow; but the choir widens out perhaps a dozen feet on either side, adding immeasurably to an effect which is far more impressive than might otherwise be supposed. The nave itself shows many varieties of building, ranging from the Gothic of the early twelfth to the late fifteenth centuries; the lower part and the easterly bays are Romanesque, or what perhaps has been popularly accepted as Norman, and date from 1125; the remainder and the triforium are of a century later. The choir is of the decorated species of the early fourteenth century, with its arcaded triforium glazed, whereas in the nave it is without glass. The lady-chapel, of the time of Louis XI., shows that inevitable mark of degeneracy, the "_fleur-de-lys_," in the elaborated tracery of the window framing. The glass here is, however, excellent, in effect at any rate, with its gorgeous figures of knights, angels, and peers of France, drawn with a masterly skill which is often lacking in even more precious glass. The chapel screens, some twenty in all, are wondrously turned and carved of wood. This leads one to venture the thought that the similar decorative embellishments of the Renaissance châteaux of the Loire country were slowly creeping northward, and leaving their impress upon the work of the ecclesiastical builder and decorator. Certainly, the numerous fine examples of the art of the wood-carver, to be seen in this cathedral, bespeak much for the decorative quality of wood, when used considerately in conjunction with stone. There are two rose windows, of the petal species, unquestionably fine as to framing, but leaving little space for the effect of the glass, which they hold only in small proportion. The "treasury," alone, is enclosed with iron bars, and a _grille_ of graceful late flowing ironwork forms the screen of the choir. Altogether the Cathedral at Evreux will be remembered quite as much for its wonderful array of wooden and iron _grilles_ as for any other of the specific details among its mass of general attributes. [Illustration: _Window Framing--Evreux_] [Illustration: _Notre Dame d'Alençon_] III NOTRE DAME D'ALENÇON This former capital of the duchy of the same name is a sleepy, countrified French town, with little but its reputedly valuable and beautiful lace to commend it to the average observer. As a cathedral town, of even secondary rank, it will fall far short of any preconceived ideas which one may be possessed of concerning it, though its Cathedral of Notre Dame is in many ways one of those irresistible shrines, which at least promise, and often fulfil, a great deal more than their lack of magnitude indicates. Its façade, lacking the conventional towers, advances well into the roadway, as a sort of forward porch; as at Louviers near by. This porch is very ornate, with decorations of the late Gothic period of flowing tracery. After all, it is an incongruous sort of a building, in that only this porch and its squat central tower, which is nought but a mere cupola, are in the least decorative. The nave, the choir and chevet, and chapels, are all of a bareness which only exaggerates the floridness of these other appendages. The nave itself is but one hundred and ten feet long, and perhaps a scant thirty wide, and dates from the fourteenth century. It contains good glass of the same period, which luckily escaped the spoliation of the Revolution. The choir is more modern, and much plainer in treatment, and is but fifty-five feet in length and of the same width as the nave. There are no transepts; in short, the chief and most interesting features of the church are the before mentioned details, which, unquestionably bordering upon the debasement of Gothic art, are in every way attractive, with lightness and colour, if such an expression may be applied to gray stone. Certainly the play of sunlight on gracefully carven stone is indicative of a brilliancy which might be termed an effect of colour; and it is with respect to that quality that the west façade of Notre Dame d'Alençon appeals; more than as an otherwise grand or even highly interesting structure. [Illustration: _St. Pierre de Lisieux_] IV ST. PIERRE DE LISIEUX Lisieux, the city of the Lexavii, taken by Cæsar and besieged by Geoffrey Plantagenet; its old houses; its crooked streets and picturesque decay; with its former Cathedral of St. Pierre (M. H.), memorable as the marriage place of Henry III. and Eleanor of Guienne; all go to make up the formula of one of the stock sights of Normandy. It is scarcely an attractive town, in spite of its picturesque sordidness, made the more so by the smoke arising from many belching factory chimneys. In fact, one has difficulty in thinking of it as a cathedral town at all; and, as such, it hardly claims more than a brief résumé of its important features. A much more interesting, impressive, and commanding church is that of St. Jacques, which at least has the stamp of a personality, which in the cathedral itself is entirely wanting, so far as one's latent sympathies are concerned. In spite of the purity of that which is Gothic in its fabric, it has little of that quality which arouses admiration, and which, regardless of the edict of a certain seer and prophet, is mostly that for which we revere a great monument,--its power to sway us impressively. Mr. Ruskin has taken great pains to commend the southern portal as being "one of the most quaint and pleasing doors in all Normandy,"--a non-committal enough statement, most will admit, and one with which we are not obliged to agree. A broader-minded observer would have said that the main body of the church presents a unity of design, very unusual in a mediæval work,--excelled by no other example in France. The greater part of the nave, choir, and transepts is the work of one epoch only; and, as some writers have it, of one man, Bishop Odericus Vitalis, who died shortly after its completion, in the latter part of the eleventh century. As a style, it may be said to be either the last of the transition or of the very earliest Gothic. Certainly this is something in its favour; but the general charm of its immediate surroundings is lacking, and the effect of its interior, with the diminutive windows of the nave and clerestory, does not tend to satisfy, or even gratify, one with the sense of pleasure which perhaps its more creditable features deserve. These are not wholly wanting; for, of course, one must not forget that doorway of Ruskin's nor the quite idyllic proportions of the nave with its uniform massive pillars. The lady-chapel was founded in the fifteenth century by the rascally Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, who, with his brother, prelate of Winchester, so gleefully burned Joan of Arc. This much he did in expiation of "_his false judgment_," though, except as a memorial of his significant remorse, the chapel itself would hardly be remarkable. The clerestory of nave and choir is considerably later. The transepts vary as to their windows, and the triforium arches are here at a different level from those in the nave. The general exterior view of the cathedral is hardly satisfactory from any point. On three sides it is almost entirely hemmed in by surrounding structures, and the frontage, on the great open Place Thiers, is the first and the last opportunity of an unobstructed view. As the Abbé Bourassé wrote of the Cathedral at Arras, it is best seen from a distance, about that, we should say, from which the accompanying drawing was made. The gardens of the Sous-Prefecture, formerly the Bishop's Palace, should form in a way a cool green setting for the church; but, as a matter of fact, they do nothing of the sort, since the enormous mass of a none too good Renaissance façade extends along quite two-thirds of the length of the cathedral on the north, and blankets it thoroughly, scarcely more than the rather stubby tower of the west front being visible above the roof of the other structure. Lisieux apparently never ranked as an important see, but depended for the prominence which it attained previous to the Revolution, when the see was abolished, on its association with Rouen, to which it was attached. The neighbouring Cathedrals of Séez, Bayeux, and Coutances far outrank St. Pierre de Lisieux in size, beauty, and importance. [Illustration: NOTRE DAME _de SÉEZ_ ...] V NOTRE DAME DE SÉEZ The ancient Civitas Sagiorum of the Romans is now a bishopric, suffragan of Rouen. This ancient Gallic stronghold, which fared hardly in the Anglo-Norman wars, presents to-day the impression of being a town somewhat smaller than the usual small town of France. It also has this advantage,--it is comparatively unknown to tourists, and likewise to some map-makers; all of which is decidedly in its favour. Seldom is Séez included in the itinerary of the tourist, even though it is situated in the heart of the "popular province." Except for the fact that its charming cathedral is not of the generous proportions first impressed upon one, it is difficult to realize that such a noble architectural memorial should so often be overlooked and apparently neglected by those who might find a great deal of pleasure, and incidental profit, from a contemplation thereof. As a town of celebrated history, Séez is of far more relative rank than its cathedral, which, in spite of its many beauties and charm of detail, has suffered perhaps more than any other in France, and yet kept a fairly pure early Gothic style; referring to the many additions and repairs made necessary by crumbling walls and sinking foundations. The worst that has arisen from this unhappy state of affairs is, not that there has been any serious admixture of style, but rather that one gross interpolation has been foisted upon an otherwise symmetrical whole,--the enormous advancing buttresses which flank the portal of the western façade; an addition of the fourteenth century, neither graceful nor decorative, and only made necessary by a tottering wall. A pity it is that some other equally effective method was not adopted. The cathedral is, in a way, a satisfying representation of the cathedral of our imagination. From a distance, at least, and in comparison with the low-lying structures round about, it certainly appears as of great proportions, uniform and complete in itself. Immediate contact with it somewhat dispels these charms. All things considered, one finds here, in this idyllic, countrified setting, a very attractive and fairly consistent Mediæval Gothic church of the epoch contemporary with that of the best work of the northern builders, showing unmistakable evidence of having been laid down on good lines, and after a good design, in spite of the structural defects of its foundations. From any direction it may be viewed across a quarter of a mile of ploughed fields. The great national highroad, from the Channel to Bordeaux, passes straight as a die through the town, and the cross-country line of the _Chemin de-Fer de Ouest_ ambles slowly northward or southward; with little occurring to break the quietude of local ease. The native is for the most part engaged in garnering from his truck farm, or in carrying its product to the railway, to be transported to market, and pays little attention to the stray traveller who occasionally wanders in to study the architectural offering of the town. A completed church was here in 1050, having been erected by a monk, Azon by name. This was burned to the ground in an attempt to drive out a robber band which had taken shelter therein. Leo IX. engaged Yves, Count of Bellêne and the Bishop of Alençon, to rebuild it, and restore its former splendour. This was in the twelfth century, but, later, owing to the insecure foundations, it was pulled down and rebuilt again. Now nothing remains of the former twelfth and thirteenth century work but the lady-chapel of the choir. The interior of the nave is, at present, entirely filled with scaffolding, which looks as though it might not be removed for years. As a restorative policy this is commendable and was necessary, but it detracts from one's intimate acquaintance with details. About the only lasting impression of the nave that can now be obtained is that its proportions are superb, and that its cylindrical pillars, with their foliaged capitals, would be notable anywhere. In general effect the choir is charming, having gone through the restorative process and apparently suffered little thereby. It presents the unusual basilica form of setting the altar forward on a platform raised a few steps. The transepts are of quite idyllic proportions, each possessing an ample rose window which makes up in design and framing what it may lack in the quality of glass with which it is set. These transepts, too, have undergone the usual restoration, and have come safely through with little sad effect. It is to be hoped that these continued restorations will be carried out with the same good taste, and in a like consistent manner. If so, there will be presented for the delectation of generations of the near future one of the most pleasing of the smaller cathedrals in all France. The triforium of the choir, and of the nave so far as it can be observed through the obstructing scaffolding, is singularly light and graceful, and the window framing throughout, though entirely lacking notable glass, is of manifest good design. In fine, then, the general effect of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Séez is one of lightness and grace, and it may be considered as an extraordinarily fine architectural monument, in spite of the anomalies of its west front. The twin spires rise gracefully for perhaps two hundred and fifty feet, and are after the best manner of the great Gothic builders; of true proportions, and of the dwindling pyramidal form so much approved. The façade, between the towers and the extraordinary buttresses, is completely filled with an ample Gothic portal, which, though entirely destitute of sculpture, or indeed carving of any sort, offers a significant opportunity for some future efforts in this direction. [Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of NOTRE DAME BAYEUX_] VI NOTRE DAME DE BAYEUX The magnificently impressive Cathedral of Notre Dame is perhaps less intimately associated with Bayeux in the average mind than is the wonderful story-telling tapestry which is domiciled in the same city. As for this treasure of the past, it is a subject so vast, and of such great significance, in both history and art, that it has many times been made the subject of weighty consideration. A well-known English amateur, the Honourable E. J. Lowell, has stated that popular tradition has credited it as the handiwork of Matilda, Queen of William the Conqueror, who worked it to commemorate his glorious achievements. If this be really so, the queen was probably assisted largely by the ladies of her court, as the extensive work, measuring some hundred and sixty odd feet, could hardly have been accomplished single-handed. Professor Freeman assigns it to a similar period, but worked, as he thinks, by English workmen, for Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, the Conqueror's half-brother. A previous acquaintance with the great cathedrals of the Isle of France will tend somewhat to nullify the effect which is produced by Notre Dame de Bayeux, although, in point of size and general arrangements, at least, it fulfils its functions perhaps more acceptably than many a more renowned edifice. Its situation, on the side of a steep slope, produces a curious effect, first, with respect to the choir chevet, which is thus shown as rather gaunt and bare in its lower elongated stages, though undeniably a fine work in itself; secondly, in the general interior view where, from the western entrance, one comes upon the nave pavement a dozen or more steps below the portal, and again meets with the same effect further on at the transept crossing. There would appear to have been no other way but this of placing above ground what might otherwise have been the crypt; adding immeasurably to the fine appearance of the interior, the nave and choir appearing to lengthen out interminably by reason of the western elevation from which they are viewed. A portion of the western towers, and the crypt which is beneath the choir, are thought to date from as early as the eleventh century, having been built by Odo, the half-brother of William the Norman. The splendidly proportioned Norman nave, with its decorated spandrels and archivolts, a worthy decorative embellishment developed before the days of coloured glass, possesses that bright and fresh appearance which is usually associated with a recent work, whereas, as a matter of fact, it can hardly be, in its five circular arches at least, later than the late eleventh or early twelfth century. If it were true that modern restorative processes commonly disfigured no more than this, it is a pity that the dust and cobwebs, and a little of the grime of ages, were not more often removed. Here is the very excess of dog-tooth, arabesque, and grotesque carving, never found in connection with a building which is constructively decorative. Here also is an ornate frieze of no great depth and possessing none of the beauties of the two other distinct elements. As there is no triforium in the nave proper, this decoration is, of course, intended merely as a relief to a bareness which, on account of the generous height, would otherwise exist. In the choir, the triforium, which is omitted in the nave, springs into being in beautiful and ornate form. The lower arches, with the supports, the attributed work of an English architect, are of the usual Gothic form, in contra-distinction to the rounded heads of those of the nave. The clerestory, though delicate and graceful, is somewhat curtailed from the dimensions of that of the west end of the church. The transepts are unusually bright and cheerful, with a series of windows more beautifully designed than those of either the choir or nave. The choir stalls are of oak, carved in the best manner of the Renaissance. The charming tower group of this cathedral is as effective, perhaps, as any among all the northern churches. The central belfry, albeit of a base, though pretentious, rococo design, follows no accepted style, but adds imposingly to the general outline. (Its height is over three hundred feet.) In this tower, as in the window tracery, the _fleur-de-lys_, always a sign of the decadent in Gothic style, is to be seen. The western towers, with their spires, follow the truest pyramidal form, and, though carrying both pointed and round-arched openings, are in every way representative of the best work of their period. The northwesterly tower has an elongated turret, extending from the lower ranges, which, when seen from a distance over the roof of the nave, appears as a protuberance not unlike a dove-cote. This contains the spiral staircase up which visitors are earnestly implored, by the caretaker, to wend their way and participate in the view from the heights above. This view, though undeniably wider in range than are most elevated view-points, is hardly of interest to one who seeks the beauties of the structure itself. There are three porches on the west façade, all fairly well filled with foliaged ornament and bas-reliefs. They are of the thirteenth century, and of a thoroughly florid order. Included in the "_tresor_" are two gifts from St. Louis, the chasuble of St. Regnobert, and an ivory and enamel casket. [Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of NOTRE DAME SAINT LO_] VII NOTRE DAME DE ST. LO This picturesquely situated city of the Cotentin, St. Lo, is so named from the Bishop St. Laud, who lived in the neighbourhood in the sixth century. Later, it became a Huguenot stronghold, and was ably, though unsuccessfully, defended by Colombiers. It forms, with its former Cathedral of Notre Dame crowning its height, another of those ensembles which will always linger in the memory of the traveller who first comes upon it clad in spring and summer verdure. The rippling Vire at its very feet gives at once the note; it not only binds and enwraps it like the setting of a precious stone, but adds that one feature which, lacking, would be a chord misplaced. Perhaps no other cathedral in all France, with regard to its bijou setting, certainly no other so accessible to the English tourist, has more dainty charm than this not very grand, but graceful, church at St. Lo. Its towers, though not uniform as to size, are of apparently the same gradual proportions, and, if not the most impressive, are at least the most beautiful in Normandy. They rise high above the wooded crest which encircles their base in true picture-book fashion. The attraction of the river, here, is unusual, in that it presents no accustomed "slummy" picturesqueness, but winds slowly, amid its green, to the very base of the cliff which upholds the chief portion of the town and its cathedral. The façade presents a _mélange_ of the work of at least three epochs, a not unusual feature in some of the smaller cathedrals. It has a mean little house built into its northwest corner, a crude and ugly clock-face stuck unmeaningly on its façade, and a general air of dilapidation, with respect to the statues originally contained in its archivolts and niches, which, to say the least, is not creditable to those who have been responsible for its care. It would seem that so lively and important a centre of local activity might have devoted a little more thought and care to the maintenance of this charming building. Built up from a foundation of which but little, if any portion, visibly remains, Notre Dame shows a debasement of design and decoration of its façade which is not only not admirable, but is, in addition, sadly disfigured. The one detail, for the most part good in style, is a not unduly florid arcade, which plainly indicates its superiority over the rest of the building. On the north side is an open-air pulpit of stone overhung with a canopy, a highly interesting detail, though, of course, not a unique one. Unable to command admiration as an absolute novelty, it is assuredly a charming feature, and is delicately and profusely sculptured. It suggests much in conjunction with the busy life of the rather squalid neighbouring market-place, whose only picturesque attribute is when it is crowded with the gaiety of a market or a fête day. By far the most compelling interest in the building, after an inspection of its interior, is the view to be had from a distance. The nave is late Gothic, and widens out in curious fashion toward the east; otherwise the interior arrangements are not remarkable. One bulbous chapel on the south side supplants the usual transept. There is no triforium either in choir or nave, the lighting principally being effected by the large windows of the aisles. It is pertinent to recall here that one of Charlemagne's own foundations of the ninth century, destroyed by the barbarians, was situated near by, the famous Abbey of St. Croix. [Illustration: _Notre Dame de Coutances_] VIII NOTRE DAME DE COUTANCES Like many another town of western Normandy, like Falise, Domfront, St. Lo, Granville, Avranches, and Mont St. Michel itself, Coutances rises high above the surrounding plain and stands dominant in the landscape for miles on either hand. Of perhaps more magnitude, as to area, than any of the other examples, the city has the added attribute of three towered ecclesiastical edifices, which rise nobly in varying stages far over the neighbouring roof-tops of the town itself and the tree-clad slopes which embank it. The oldest of the Norman Gothic cathedrals, and that which partakes the most of local character, is Notre Dame de Coutances. Certain French archæologists have said that the main body of the church is actually that of the eleventh century. It is more likely, however, that none of the building at present in view is earlier than the thirteenth century, the epoch during which contemporaneous Gothic first grew to its maturity. In any event, such building and construction was going on from 1208 to 1233 as would indicate that it was the entire present edifice which was being planned at that time. In this case it is quite possible that the rebuilding was going on slowly, foot by foot, in a manner which not only encompassed and absorbed the older building, but in reality eradicated every vestige of it. Says a French writer of enthusiasm, "The Cathedral of Coutances, as it now stands, is one of the most noble and grand religious edifices in France, with all the qualities of a monument of the first order, of perfect dimension, beauty of plan, unity of workmanship, and distinction of form." Any one of these attributes, were it literally so, might well turn a commonplace structure into an unapproachable masterpiece. In a measure, all of his eulogy is quite true, and the pity is that more do not know of its fascination and charm. The façade of the Cathedral of Notre Dame is of the indigenous Norman-Gothic type. The fine towers, in addition to combining the symmetrical elements of Gothic, have, each, as well, a flanking towerlet, attached to their outer sides, enclosing a spiral stairway. These extend to quite the full height of the tower proper; and, though by no means a wholly attractive feature, are not as offensive as might at first be supposed. It is doubtful, in fact, if the general strength and impressiveness of the entire structure would not be impaired were the arrangements otherwise. The present ogival structure is built on the remains of a Romanesque church erected by a famous Bishop of Coutances, Geoffroy de Montbray, with funds supplied by Guillaume Bras-de-Fer, Odon, Roger, Onfroy, and Robert, sons of Tancrede-de-Hauteville, the Norman conquerors of Sicily and Calabria, whose names have been given fabled prominence in more than one epic poem. The early structure was consecrated in 1056, in the presence of William, then Duke of Normandy, a few years before he became the Conqueror. Supposedly none of this former church remains; in fact, what fragments, if any, exist, are doubtless covered in the present foundations. Mainly, the present structure is thirteenth-century work, with a lady-chapel of the fourteenth century. An unusual, and exceedingly beautiful, effect is given by the Gothic window mullions, between the chapels, in reality a series of geometrical window-frames, without glass. No florid ornament either inside or out is to be found to offend against accepted ideals. In short, "the whole is of a piece complete." The parapets of triforium and clerestory, with foliaged carvings, are about the only ornate decorations to be seen. The central tower, of great proportions, but incomplete as to the addition of a spire, is a marvel of strength and power. Its interior, elaborately decorated, forms a lantern at the crossing. Here, as at Bayeux, the choir is raised a few steps above its aisles, giving a certain impressiveness beyond what might otherwise exist. The interior, generally, is admirable. Clustered columns, as they are commonly called,--in reality they are clustered pillars, if word derivations are to be considered,--separate both nave and choir from the aisles; and, in case of the choir, a series of elongated circular pillars are coupled, one behind the other, an unquestionably unique arrangement. The transepts are practically non-existent, as the widening does not extend beyond the extent of the nave chapels. This leaves the ground-plan, at least, a mere parallelogram with a rounded eastern end. Notre Dame de Coutances is one of the few really great Gothic churches not possessing an example of those French masterworks, the rose window. Again referring to the fine tower group, it is probably true that, were the huge central tower properly spired, the ensemble would rival Laon in regard to its impressive situation and elaborate pinnacles. St. Pierre, of the fifteenth century, and St. Nicolas, of the fourteenth, complete the trinity of fine churches which Coutances possesses. The latter contains the unusual arrangement in a Continental church of pews in place of chairs, although formerly, it is said, this feature was not uncommon in Normandy. The somewhat considerable remains of a Roman acqueduct, near by, are sufficiently remarkable to warrant passing consideration, even by the "mere lover of churches." [Illustration] IX ST. PIERRE D'AVRANCHES There is little to recount concerning the See of Avranches. Its bishopric and its cathedral were alike destroyed during the parlous times of the bickerings and ravages of Royalists and Republicans of the Revolutionary period. All that remains to-day is a trifling heap of stones which would hardly fill a row-boat,--a fragment of a shaft on which is a tablet reading: "ON THIS STONE, HERE AT THE DOOR OF THE CATHEDRAL OF AVRANCHES, AFTER THE MURDER OF THOMAS À BECKET, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, HENRY II., KING OF ENGLAND AND DUKE OF NORMANDY, RECEIVED ON HIS KNEES, FROM THE LEGATES OF THE POPE, THE APOSTOLIC ABSOLUTION, ON SUNDAY, 22D MAY 1172." At its feet is another slab, the aforementioned door-step, on which, before the papal legate, the remorseful monarch did penance before his later expiation at Canterbury. A little farther on is a small heap consisting of shafts and capitals of columns, a stone sarcophagus and a brass plate stating that they are the "Derniers restes de la cathédrale d'Avranches; commencée vers 1090 et consacrée par l'eveque Turgis en 1121." The nave having fallen in, the rest of the edifice had to be taken down in 1799. Because of its picturesque environment and situation, Avranches is perhaps a more than ordinarily attractive setting for a shrine, and it is well worthy of the attention of the passing traveller, in spite of its ancient cathedral being now but a heap of stones. Apart from this it is of little interest, and hence, to most, it will probably remain, in the words of a French traveller, a mere "silhouette in the distance." [Illustration] [Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of S. SAMSON DOL_] X ST. SAMSON, DOL-DE-BRETAGNE The one-time Cathedral of St. Samson, at Dol, is, says an unusually expressive Frenchman, "a grand, noble, and severe church, now widowed of its bishops. Its aspect is desolate and abandoned, as if it were but a ruin _en face sur la grande place_, of itself, but a mere desert of scrub." This is certainly a vivid and forceful description of even a wholly unprepossessing shrine. This St. Samson is not, and due allowance should be made for verbal modelling which, in many cases, is but the mere expression of a mood _pro tempo_. There is, however, somewhat of truth in the description. About the granite walls there is a grimness and gauntness of decay; of changed plans and projects; of devastation; of restoration; and, finally, of what is, apparently, submission to the inevitableness of time. The enormous northwesterly tower is stopped suddenly, with the daylight creeping through its very framework. Its façade is certainly bare of ornament, and gives a thorough illustration of paucity of design as well as of detail. There is, indeed, nothing in the west façade to compel admiration, and yet there is a fascination about it that to some will be irresistible. A sixteenth-century porch, of suggested Burgundian style, forms the main entrance to the church, and is situated midway along the south side. Almost directly opposite, on the north, is the curiously contrasting feature of a crenelated battlement, a reminder of the time when the church was doubtless a temporal as well as a spiritual stronghold. The interior, as the exterior, is gloomy and melancholy. One has only to contemplate the collection of ludicrously slender clustered columns of the nave, bound together with markedly visible iron strands, to realize the real weakness of the means by which the fabric has been kept alive. The nave itself is of true proportions, and, regardless of the severity of its lines, and the ludicrous pillars, is undeniably fine in effect. A curiously squared choir-end, but with the small apsed lady-chapel extending beyond, is another of those curious details which stand out in a way to be remarked in a French church. In this squared end, and above the arch made by the pillars of the choir aisle, is a large pointed window filled with ancient glass which must have been inserted soon after the church was reconstructed after the fire in the twelfth century. The general effect of the nave and aisles is one of extreme narrowness, which perhaps is not so much really the case when actual measurements are taken. In general, the church is supposed by many to resemble the distinct type of Gothic as it is known across the Channel; and, admitting for the nonce that possibly many of the Brittany structures were the work of English builders, this church, in the absence of any records as to who were its architects, may well be counted as of that number. The stalls of the choir are of delicately carved wood, before which is placed a monumental bishop's throne, with elaborate armorial embellishments. A Renaissance tomb of the sixteenth century, by a pupil of Michel Colomb, now much injured in its sculptured details of angels and allegorical figures, is locally considered the "show-piece" of the church. [Illustration: _S. MALO & S. SERVAN_] [Illustration: _TRÉGUIER_] XI ST. MALO AND ST. SERVAN Welshmen throughout the world rejoice that it was one of their countrymen, a monk of the sixth century, who gave his name as founder to the "walled city of St. Malo by the sea." With its outlying and contiguous towns of St. Servan, Dinan, and Paramé, St. Malo is a paradise for the mere lover of pleasure resorts. Further, with respect to the first three places mentioned, there is present not a little of the romance and history of the past, reflected as it were in a modern mirror. Not but that the old town of St. Malo, within the walls, is ancient and picturesque enough, and dirty, too, if one be speciously critical; but the fact is that the modern Pont Roulant, and the omnific toot of the steam-tram, ever present in one's sight and hearing, are forcible reminders of the march of time. St. Servan, so far as its cathedral is concerned, may be dismissed in a word. The ancient see of St. Pierre d'Aleth had, at one time, its dignity vested in a bishop who enthroned himself in a cathedral, the remains of which exist to-day only as a fragment built into the fortifications. The bishopric was removed in 1142 to St. Malo. With St. Malo a difference exists. Its cathedral, now degenerated to a parish church, is a Gothic work mainly of the fifteenth century, and, regardless of its unimposing qualities, is one of those fascinating old buildings which, in its environment and surroundings, appeals perhaps more largely to us as a component of a whole than as a feature to be admired by itself. The church, safely sheltered from the ravage of gale and storm, sits amid narrow winding streets, whose buildings are so compressed as to rise to heights unusual in the smaller Continental towns. The edifice is mainly of the fifteenth century, but has been variously renovated and restored. Gothic, Renaissance, and the transition between the two are plainly discernible throughout. Perhaps the best art to be noted is that found in the interior of the choir, with its fine triforium and clerestory windows above. Here, again, is to be observed the squared east end of the English contemporary church, a further reminder, if it be needed, of the influences which were bound to be more or less exchanged with regard to the arts and customs of the time, on both shores of _La Manche_. A few features of passing interest are here, an ivory crucifix, a few tombs, and some indifferent paintings. The spire is modern, but gives a suggestion, at least, in viewing the city from a distance, of something of what a mediæval walled seaport, with its population huddled close beneath the shadow of the church, and within the city walls, must have been like. The best example of this which ever existed in mediæval France, and which exists to-day in a more than ordinary remarkable state of preservation, is the famous Mount St. Michel, a few miles only to the eastward, and famed of all, historian, ecclesiast, artist, and mere pleasure-seeker, alike. Most writers are pleased to refer to the confiding attitude of mine host, who conducts the principal hostelry on the Mount, and who guilelessly asks the wary traveller (ofttimes they _are_ wary) what he has partaken of during his stay, and makes up the account accordingly. This is, perhaps, not the least of attributive charms, though it should be a minor one where this wonderful and real Mount, which takes its name from legendary St. Michel, is concerned. Indeed, leaving the cathedrals at Rouen, Chartres, and Le Mans out of the question, it is doubtful if the Abbey of Mont St. Michel is not the chief remaining architectural glory of the middle ages, west of Paris. It is but a short distance from St. Malo to St. Servan, but what a difference! It is called by the French themselves the daughter of St. Malo,--the "faubourg grown into a city." Rabida's "Bretagne" states that there are "nombreux des Anglais à St. Servan, des jeunes gens vivant dans les pensions brittaniques--des familles venant l'été faire en Bretagne une cure d'economies pour l'hiver." Continuing, this discerning author says: "Bathers, bicyclists, golfists, promenaders, and excursionists abound." Better then let them hold forth here to their hearts' content; there is little that the lover of churches will gain from what remains to-day of the town's former Cathedral of St. Pierre. XII TRÉGUIER This old cathedral city, at the junction of two small streamlets, a short distance from the sea, lies perhaps a dozen miles away from the nearest railway. With St. Pol de Leon and St. Brieuc it is, in local characteristics and customs alike, a something apart from any other community in northern France. The Bretons are commonly accredited as being a most devout race, and certainly devotion could take no more marked turn than the many evidences here to be seen in this "land of Calvaries." St. Brieuc is a bishopric, suffragan of Rennes, whose cathedral is a hideous modern structure of the early nineteenth century quite unworthy as a shrine; but Tréguier's power waned with the Revolution. Its fourteenth-century church, however, is sufficiently remarkable by reason of its situation and surroundings, none the less than in its fabric, to warrant a deviation from well-worn roads in order to visit it. Chiefly of a late period, it possesses in the Tour de Hasting, named after the Danish pirate (though why seems obscure), which enfolds the north transept, a work of the best eleventh-century class. This should place the church, at once, within the scope of the designation of a "transition" type. In this tower the windows and pilasters are of the characteristic round variety of the period. The south porch is the most highly developed feature as to Mediæval style, but the attraction lies mainly in its ensembled massiveness, with its two sturdy towers and a ridiculously spired south _clocher_. Beyond a certain grimness of fabric the church fails, not a little, to impress one with even simple grandeur, even when one takes into consideration the charms of its florid but firmly designed cloister, which, with the church itself, is classed by the _Département des Beaux Arts_ as one of the twenty-three hundred "_Monumentes Historiques_." Nevertheless, the building proves more than ordinarily gratifying, though by no stretch of the imagination could it be classed as grand. Loftiness and grandeur are equally lacking in the interior, and there is great variation of style with respect to the pillars of nave and choir. This is also the case with the windows, which play the gamut from the severe round-headed Romanesque to the latest flamboyant development, a feature which not only disregards most conventions, but, as every one will admit, most flagrantly offends, with sad results, against the general constructive elements. A plain triforium, in the nave, blossoms out, in the south transept and choir, in no hesitating manner, into exceeding richness. The choir has an apsidal termination and contains carved wooden stalls which are classed as work of the mid-seventeenth century, though appearing much more time-worn. The really popular attribute of the church lies in the reconstructed monument to St. Yves, the patron saint of advocates, and commonly considered the most popular in all the Brittany calendar. Born near Tréguier in 1253, St. Yves' "unheard-of probity and consideration for the sick and the poor" gained such general respect that, with his death on the nineteenth of May, 1303, there was inaugurated a great feast which to-day is yearly celebrated, and all grieving against a real or fancied wrong have recourse promptly to the supposedly just favour of this universal patron of the law. [Illustration: S. BRIEUC] XIII ST. BRIEUC Unlike many of the smaller towns which contain cathedral churches, St. Brieuc is a present day bishopric; hence the Cathedral takes on, perhaps, more significance than it would, were it but an example of a Mediæval church. In reality it is not a very wonderful structure, and the guide-books will tell one practically nothing about it. The town itself is a dull place, a tidal port, at some little distance from the sea, which flushes in upon it twice during the round of the clock. A monastery was founded here in the fifth century by St. Brieuc, from whom the town itself and the present cathedral take their name. He was a Celtic monk from Wales, who, upon being expelled from his native land, located his establishment here, on the site of a former Gallo-Roman town. The patronal feast of St. Brieuc is held each year on the first of May and is a curious survival of a mediæval custom. Some remains of an early church are built into the choir walls, but in the main this not very grand edifice is of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The tower, with its loopholes, would supposedly indicate that the church was likewise intended as somewhat of a fortification. The apse is rounded in the usual form, and on either side extend transepts to the width of two bays. Within, the Cathedral is more attractive than without. The elements of construction and embellishment, while perhaps not ranking with those of the really great churches, are sufficiently vivid and lively to indicate that the work was consciously and enthusiastically undertaken. The lady-chapel is of the thirteenth century, and the transept rose is of the fifteenth, as is also the Chapel of St. Guillaume, named for the monk of Dijon who built so many of the monasteries throughout Brittany and who, it is to be presumed, planned or built the original structure, the remains of which are found in the present choir. The windows throughout are either of not very good modern glass, or of plain leaded lights, which, in the majority of cases, may be considered as no less an attraction. An elaborate rose is in the western gable. There are, in the church, various monuments and tombs to former bishops. XIV ST. POL DE LEON In the midst of that land which furnishes the south of England with most of its cauliflowers, artichokes, onions, and asparagus, truly off the beaten track, in that it is actually off the line of railway, is the strange and melancholy city of St. Pol de Leon, its _clochers_ dominating, by day at least, both land and sea. It contains the famous "Kreisker," a name which sounds as though it were Dutch or North German, which it probably is along with other place names on the near-by coast, such as Grouin, St. Vaast, Roscoff, and La Hougue. The tower and spire of this wonderful "Kreisker" rise boldly, from the transept crossing, in remarkable fashion, and as a marvel of construction may be said to far outrank the cathedral structure itself. "Curious and clever" well describes it. As for the former cathedral over which the Kreisker throws its shadow, it is one of those majestic twin-towered structures not usually associated with what, when compared with the larger French towns, must perforce rank as a mere village. There is much to be said in favour of these little-known near-by places, namely, that the charm of their attractions amply repays one for any special labour involved in getting to them, with the additional advantage, regardless of the fact that a stranger appears somewhat to the native as a curiosity, that they are "good value for the money paid." Perhaps the cheapest Continental tour, of say three weeks, that could be taken, amid a constantly changing environment, if one so choose, would comprehend this land of Calvaries. The two cathedral towers of early Gothic flank a generous porch. There is good glass throughout the church, the circular "rose" of the transept being a magnificent composition in a granite framing. The nave is of thirteenth-century Gothic, from the south aisle of which projects a large chapel dedicated to St. Michael. The double-aisled choir is garnished with sculptured stalls of the fifteenth century, and, separated from its aisles by a stone screen, is of much larger proportions than the nave, and likewise of a later epoch of building. The apse is flamboyant, as are also the windows of the south transept. In the chapels are various vaults and tombs, remarkably well preserved, but of no special moment. In one of these chapels, however, is a curious painting in the vaulting, representing a "Trinity" possessing three faces, disposed in the form of a trefoil with three eyes only. A ribbon or "_banderalle_" bears an inscription in Gothic characters; in the Breton tongue, "_Ma Donez_" (Mon Dieu). XV ST. CORENTIN DE QUIMPER "C'est Quimper, ce mélange du passé et du présent." A true enough description of most mediæval cities when viewed to-day; but with no centre of habitation is it more true than of this city by the sea,--though in reality it is not by the sea, but rather of it, with a port always calm and tranquil. It takes rank with Brest as the western outpost of modern France. For centuries unconquered, and possessing an individuality of its very own, this now important prefecture has much to remind us of its past. History, archæology, and "mere antiquarian lore" abound, and, in its grandiose Cathedral of St. Corentin, one finds a large subject for his appreciative consideration. [Illustration: ST. CORENTIN _de QUIMPER_ ...] It is of the robust and matured type that familiarity has come to regard as representative of a bishopric; nothing is impoverished or curtailed. Its fine towers with modern spires, erected from the proceeds of a "butter tax," are broad of base and delicately and truly proportioned. Its ground-plan is equally worthy, though the choir is not truly orientated. Its general detail and ensemble, one part with another, is all that fancy has told us a great church should contain, and one can but be prepared to appreciate it when it is endorsed, and commented on, by such ardent admirers as De Caumont, Viollet-le-Duc, Corroyer, and Gonsé, those four accomplished Frenchmen, who probably knew more concerning Mediæval (Gothic) architecture than all the rest of the world put together. From the thirteenth to the fifteenth century there grew up here a work embracing the ogival and the flamboyant, neither in an undue proportion, but as well as in any other single structure known. This well shows the rise, development, and apogee of the style which we commonly call Gothic, but which the French prefer to call "ogival," and which should really, if one is to fairly apportion credit where it is due, be best known as French Mediæval architecture. Its west façade, with its generous lines, is strongly original. The two towers, pierced with enormously heightened lancets, are indubitably graceful and impressive, while a flanking pair of flying buttresses, with their intermediate piers, form an unusual arrangement in the west front of a French cathedral. Above the western gable is a curiously graven effigy of King Grollo in stone. Considered as a whole, the exterior is representative of the best contemporary features of the time, but contains few if any which are so distinctly born of its environment as to be otherwise notable. The interior vies with the outer portion of the fabric in the general effect of majesty and good design. The triforium is remarkably beautiful and is overtopped by a range of clerestory windows which to an appreciable extent contain good early glass. The easterly end is the usual semicircular apse. Among the relics of the Cathedral is a crucifix which is supposed to emit drops of blood when one perjures himself before it. It is, perhaps, significant that the people of Finistère, the department which claims Quimper as its capital, have the repute of being honest folk. The Bishops of Quimper were, by virtue of the gift of _le roi Grodlon le Grave_, the only seigneurs of the city during the middle ages. XVI VANNES Vannes was the ancient capital of the Celtic tribe of the Veneti, its inhabitants being put to rout by Cæsar in 57 B. C. Afterward it became the Roman town of Duriorigum, and later reverted back to a corruption of its former name. Christianity having made some progress, a council was held, and a bishop appointed to the city, and from that time onward its position in the Christian world appears to have been assured. For centuries afterward, however, it was the centre of a maelstrom of internal strife, in which Armoricans, Britons, Franks, and Romans appear to have been inextricably involved. Then came the Northmen, who burned the former Cathedral of St. Peter. This was rebuilt in the eleventh century, and in no small measure forms the foundation of the present structure, which to-day is the seat of a bishop, suffragan of Rennes. From this early architectural foundation, to the most florid and flamboyant of late Gothic, is pretty much the whole range of Mediæval architectural style. By no means has a grand or even fine structure resulted. The old choir, suffering from the stress of time, was pulled down and rebuilt as late as 1770. Thus, this usually excellently appointed and constructed detail is here of no worthy rank whatever. The nave and transepts were completed within the hundred years following 1452, and show the last flights of Gothic toward the heights from which it afterward fell. Transformation and restoration have frequently been undertaken, with the result that nowhere is to be seen perhaps greater inconsistencies. The latest of these examples of a perverted industry is seen in the nineteenth-century additions to the tower and the west façade. The result is not, be it said, to the credit of its projectors. THE END. _Appendices_ I _The Architectural Divisions of France_ It is quite possible to construct an ethnographic map of a country from its architectural remains,--but there must always be diverse and varying opinions as to the delimitation of one school, as compared with another lying contiguous thereto. One may wander from province to province, and continually find reminders, of another manner of building, from that which is recognized as the characteristic local species. This could hardly be otherwise. In the past, as in the present, imitators were not few, and if the adoption of new, or foreign, ideas was then less rapid, it was no less sure. Still, in the main, there is a cohesiveness and limitation of architectural style in France; which, as is but natural to suppose, is in no way more clearly defined than by the churches which were built during the middle ages, the earliest types retaining the influence of massive forms, and the later again debasing itself to a heavy classical order, neither a copy of anything of a pre-Gothic era, or a happy development therefrom. Between the two, in a period of scarcely more than three hundred years, there grew up and developed the ingenious and graceful pointed style, in all its fearlessness and unconvention. Political causes had, perhaps, somewhat to do with the confining of a particular style well within the land of its birth, but on the other hand, warfare carried with it invasion and conquest of new sections, and its followers, in a measure, may be said to have carried with them certain of their former arts, accomplishments, and desires; and so grew up the composite and mixed types which are frequently met with. There are a dozen or more architectural styles in what is known as the France of to-day. The Provençal (more properly, says Fergusson, it should be called "Gallia Narbonese,") one of the most beautiful and clearly defined of all; the Burgundian, with its suggestion of luxuriance and, if not massiveness, at least grandeur; the Auvergnian, lying contiguous to both the above, with a style peculiarly its own, though of an uncompromising southern aspect; Acquitanian, defining the style which lies between Provence, the Auvergnat and the Pyrénées, and a type quite different from either. The Angevinian, which extends northward from Limoges to Normandy and Brittany, and northeasterly nearly to Orleans, is a species difficult to place--it partakes largely of southern influence, but is usually thought to merit a nomenclature of its own, as distinct from the type found at Anjou. Turning now to the northern or Frankish influence, as distinct from the Romance countries; Brittany joins to no slight degree influences of each region; Normandy partakes largely of the characteristics of the type of Central France, which is thoroughly dominated by that indigenous to the Isle of France, which species properly might include the Bourbonnais and Nivernoise variants, as being something of a distinct type, though resembling, in occasional details, southern features. This list, with the addition of French Flanders, with its Lowland types, completes the arrangement, if we except Alsace and Lorraine, which favour the German manner of building rather more than any of the native French types. II _A List of the Departments of France, and of the Ancient Provinces from which they have been evolved._ _Provinces and date of _Départements_ _Chefs-Lieux_ union with France_ Ile de France, with La Seine Paris Brie, etc. Always held Seine-et-Oise Versailles by the Crown Seine-et-Marne Melun Oise Beauvais Aisne Laon Picardie. Louis XIV, 1667 Somme Amiens Artois and Boulonnais. Pas-de-Calais Arras 1640 Flandre and Hainault Nord Lille Français. Louis XIV. 1667-1669 Normandie. Philippe Seine-Inférieure Rouen Auguste, 1204 Eure Evreux Calvados Caen Orne Alençon Manche Saint-Lo Bretagne. François I. Ille-et-Vilaine Rennes 1532 Côtes-du-Nord Saint-Brieux Finisterre Quimper Morbihan Vannes Loire-Inférieure Nantes Orléanais. Louis XII. Loiret Orleans 1498 Loir-et-Cher Blois Beauce and Pays Chartrain Eure-et-Loire Chartres Maine. Louis XI. 1481 Sarthe Le Mans Mayenne Laval Anjou. Louis XI. 1481 Maine-et-Loire Angers Touraine. Henri III. 1584 Indre-et-Loire Tours Poitou. Charles VI. 1416 Vendée Bourbon-Vendée Deux-Sèvres Niort Vienne Poitiers Berri. Philippe I. 1100 Indre Châteauroux Cher Bourges Marche. François I. 1531 Creuse Guéret Limousin. Charles V. Haute-Vienne Limoges 1370 Corrèze Tulle Angoumois. Charles V. Charente Angoulême 1370 Saintonge and Aunis. Charente-Inférieure La Rochelle 1370 Guienne and Gascogne. Dordogne Périgueux Charles VII. 1451 Gironde Bordeaux Lot-et-Garonne Agen Lot Cahors Tarn-et-Garonne Montauban Aveyron Rodez Gers Auch Hautes-Pyrénées Tarbes Landes Mont-de-Marsan Béarn and French Navarre. Basses-Pyrénées Pau Louis XIII. Comté de Foix. Louis XIII. Ariège Foix Roussillon. 1659 Pyrénées-Orientales Perpignan Languedoc. John, 1361 Haute-Garonne Toulouse Tarn Albi Aude Carcassonne Hérault Montpellier Gard Nîmes Vivarais Ardèche Privas Gévaudan Lozère Mende Velay Haute-Loire Le Puy Comtat Venaissin, Orange, Vaucluse Avignon etc. Louis XIV. 1713 Provence. Louis XI. 1481 Bouches-du-Rhône Marseille Var Draguignan Basses-Alpes Digne Dauphiné. Philippe de Isère Grenoble Valois, 1343 Drôme Valence Hautes-Alpes Gap Lyonnais and Beaujolais Rhône Lyon Forez Loire St. Etienne Auvergne. Philippe Auguste, Puy-de-Dôme Clermont 1210 Cantal Aurillac Bourbonnais. Louis XII. Allier Moulins 1505 Nivernais. Charles VII. Nièvre Nevers 1457 Bresse, Bugey, etc. Ain Bourg Bourgogne (duché). Louis Saône-et-Loire Mâcon XI. 1477 Côte-d'Or Dijon Yonne Auxerre Comté de Bourgogne, or Doubs Besançon Franche-Comté. Peace Jura Lons-le-Saulnier of Nimeguen, 1678 Haute-Saône Vesoul Champagne. Philippe le Aube Troyes. Bel, 1284 Marne Chalons-sur-Marne Haute-Marne Chaumont Ardennes Mézières Lorraine.[*] On the death Meurthe and Moselle Nancy of Stanislas Leczinsky, Meuse Bar-le-Duc 1766 Vosges Epinal Alsace.[*] Louis XIV. 1648 Territory of Belfort Belfort Haut-Rhin Colmar Corsica. 1794. Corse Ajaccio Comté de Nice. 1861 Alpes Maritimes Nice Savoy Savoie Chambéry Haute-Savoie Annecy [*] The greater part of these provinces as they formerly stood were ceded to Germany, May 10, 1871. III _The Church in France_ _La France Catholique_ is to-day divided into eighty-four dioceses, administered, as to spiritual affairs, by seventeen archbishops and sixty-seven bishops. To each diocese is attached a seminary for the instruction of those who aspire to the priesthood. Each chief town of a canton has its _curé_, each parish its _desservant_. _Archbishops and Bishops_ _Dioceses_ PARIS Seine Chartres Eure-et-Loire Meaux Seine-et-Marne Orleans Loiret Blois Loir-et-Cher Versailles Seine-et-Oise CAMBRAI Nord Arras Pas-de-Calais LYON-ET-VIENNE Rhône, Loire Autun Saône-et-Loire Langres Haute-Marne Dijon Côte-d'Or Sainte Claude Jura Grenoble Isère BOURGES Cher-et-Indre Clermont Puy-de-Dôme Limoges Haute-Vienne et Creuse Le Puy Haute-Loire Tulle Corrèze Saint Flour Cantal ALBI Tarn Rodez Aveyron Cahors Lot Meude Lozère Perpignan Pyrénées-Orientales BORDEAUX[*] Gironde Agen Lot-et-Garonne Angoulême Charente Poitiers Vienne-et-Deux Sèvres Périgueux Dordogne La Rochelle Charente-Inférieure Luçon Vendée AUCH Gers Aire Landes Tarbes Hautes-Pyrénées Bayonne Basses-Pyrénées TOULOUSE-NARBONNE Haute-Garonne Montauban Tarnè-et-Garonne Pamiers Ariège Carcassonne Aude ROUEN Seine-Inférieure Bayeux Calvados Evreux Eure Séez Orne Coutances Manche SENS ET AUXERRE Yonne Troyes Aube Nevers Nièvre Moulins Allier REIMS Arr. de Reims-et-Ardennes Soissons Aisne Chalons-sur-Marne Marne except Arrond. de Reims Beauvais Oise Amiens Somme TOURS Indre-et-Loire Le Mans Sarthe Angers Maine-et-Loire Nantes Loire-Inférieure Laval Mayenne AIX, ARLES, AND EMBRUN Bouches-du-Rhône except Marseilles Marseilles Arr. de Marseilles Fréjus and Toulon Var Digne Basses-Alpes Gap Hautes-Alpes Nice Alpes-Maritimes Ajaccio Corse BESANÇON Doubs et Haute-Saône Verdun Meuse Belley Ain St. Dié Vosges Nancy Meurthe AVIGNON Vaucluse Nîmes Gard Valence Drôme Viviers Ardèche Montpellier Hérault RENNES Ille-et-Vilaine Quimper Finisterre Vannes Morbihan St. Brieuc Côtes-du-Nord CHAMBÉRY Annecy Haute-Savoie Tarentaise Val-de-Tarentaise (Savoie) Maurienne Val-de-Maurienne (Savoie) [*] The Archbishop of Bordeaux has three suffragans outside France: St. Denis and La Reunion, St. Pierre and Fort de France (Martinique), Basseterre (Guadaloupe). IV _A List of the Larger French Churches which were at one time Cathedrals and usually referred to as such._ NOTE.--Those marked H. M. are classed as Les Monuments Historiques by La Commission de la Conservation des Monuments Historiques. Agde _Hérault_ H. M. Alais _Garde_ Alençon _Orne_ Notre Dame H. M. Alet _Aude_ Notre Dame H. M. Apt _Vaucluse_ H. M. Arles _Bouches-du-Rhône_ St. Trophimus H. M. Arras St. Vaast Auxerre _Yonne_ St. Etienne H. M. Auxonne _Côte-d'Or_ Notre Dame Avranches _Manche_ (remains only) H. M. Bazas _Gironde_ St. Jean H. M. Bethléem (There was once a Bishop of Bethléem whose see was the village of Clamecy only, but no cathedral.) Béziers _Hérault_ St. Nazaire H. M. Boulogne _Pas-de-Calais_ Notre Dame Bourg _Ain_ Notre Dame Brioud _Haute-Loire_ H. M. Cambrai Notre Dame Carcassonne _Aude_ St. Nazaire H. M. Carpentras _Vaucluse_ St. Siffrein H. M. Castres _Tarn_ St. Benonit Cavaillon _Vaucluse_ St. Véran H. M. Condom _Gers_ H. M. Conserons _Ariège_ (See St. Lizier) Die _Drôme_ H. M. Dinan _Côtes-du-Nord_ St. Saveur H. M. Dol _Ille-et-Vilaine_ St. Samson H. M. Elne _Pyrénées-Orientales_ H. M. Embrun _Hautes-Alpes_ H. M. Glandèves _Basses-Alpes_ (Bishopric transferred to Entrevaux) Grasse _Alpes-Maritimes_ (Bishopric in XIVth century) Laon _Aisne_ Notre Dame H. M. Lavaur _Tarn_ (Bishopric in XIVth century) Lectours _Gers_ (Bishopric in Xth century) Lescar _Basses-Pyrénées_ H. M. Lisieux _Calvados_ St. Pierre Lodeve _Hérault_ St. Fulcran H. M. Lombez _Gers_ H. M. Mâcon _Saône-et-Loire_ St. Vincent H. M. Mallezais _Vendée_ Mirepoix _Ariège_ (Bishopric in XIVth century) Noyon _Oise_ Notre Dame H. M. Oloron _Basses-Pyrénées_ H. M. Orange _Vaucluse_ Notre Dame Périgueux _Dordogne_ St. Etienne St. Bertrand _Haute-Garonne_ H. M. de Comminges St. Dié _Vosges_ St. Lizier _Ariège_ H. M. St. Lo _Manche_ Notre Dame H. M. St. Malo _Ille-et-Vilaine_ Ste. Marie _Basses-Pyrénées_ St. Omer _Pas-de-Calais_ Notre Dame H. M. St. Papoul _Aude_ H. M. St. Paul Trois _Drôme_ H. M. Chateaux St. Pol de Leon _Finisterre_ H. M. St. Servan _Ille-et-Vilaine_ St. Pierre d'Aleth Sarlat _Dordogne_ H. M. Séez _Orne_ Notre Dame H. M. Senez _Basses-Alpes_ H. M. Senlis _Oise_ Notre Dame H. M. Sisteron _Basses-Alpes_ Soissons _Aisne_ Notre Dame H. M. St. Gervais St. Protais Tarbes _Hautes-Pyrénées_ Eglise de la Séde H. M. Toul _Meurthe_ St. Etienne H. M. Toulon _Var_ Ste. Marie-Majeur Tréguier _Côtes-du-Nord_ H. M. Uzès _Gard_ St. Thierry Vabres _Aveyron_ Vaiso _Vaucluse_ H. M. Versailles _Seine-et-Oise_ St. Louis Vence _Alpes-Maritimes_ H. M. Vienne _Isère_ St. Maurice H. M. V _Chronology of the chief styles and examples of church building in the north of France from the Romano-Byzantine period to that of the Renaissance_ 1050-1075 Nevers St. Etienne Distinct round-arch 1075-1100 Bayeux Notre Dame style Caen St. Etienne 1125-1150 Autun St. Lazare Pointed arch in St. Denis (choir) vaulting and 1150-1175 Angers St. Maurice larger works, with Paris Notre Dame the retaining of Sens St. Etienne the round in the smaller 1200-1225 Reims Notre Dame General adoption Auxerre St. Etienne of the ogival Troyes Sts. Peter and Paul style 1225-1250 Amiens Notre Dame The completed Dijon St. Bénigne ogival style Bourges St. Etienne 1250-1275 Noyon Notre Dame (cloisters) 1300-1325 Rouen Notre Dame (lady-chapel) 1350-1375 Chartres Notre Dame 1425-1450 Auxerre St. Etienne (N. transept) Introduction of Renaissance detail 1450-1475 Evreux Notre Dame (transepts in Italy and and tower) elaboration of Gothic in France 1475-1500 Rouen Notre Dame (S. W. Renaissance firmly tower) grafted in Italy Nevers St. Etienne (S. porch) and gradually 1500-1525 Beauvais St. Pierre (S. transept) appearing in the Chartres Notre Dame (N. W. Gothic of France spire) 1525-1550 Beauvais St. Pierre (N. transept) Amiens Notre Dame (flêche) 1550-1575 Beauvais St. Pierre (central tower Renaissance firmly since destroyed) established 1600-1625 Orleans Ste. Croix VI _Dimensions and Chronology_ NOTRE DAME D'AMIENS [Illustration: _Notre Dame d'Amiens_] _Dimensions_ Length of nave and choir, 469 feet Width including transepts, 214 feet Width of nave, 59 feet Width of aisles, 33-1/2 feet Height of nave, 141 or 147 feet, estimated variously Height of aisles, 65 feet Length of choir, 135 feet Width of nave including aisles, 150 feet Length of transepts, 194 feet Width of transepts, 36 feet, 6 inches Height of spire, 422 feet Superficial area, 70,000 square feet (approx.) _Chronology_ Nave and choir, 1220-1288 Choir stalls, 1520 Western towers completed, 1533 Lateral chapels of nave, XVIth century Choir chapels, XIIIth century ST. MAURICE D'ANGERS [Illustration] _Dimensions_ Length of nave and choir, 300 feet Width of transepts, 40 feet Height of transepts, 80 feet Height of nave, 110 feet Width of nave, 53 feet Height of spires, 225 feet _Chronology_ Lower walls, Romano-Byzantine Main body completed, 1240 Choir, XIIth century Bishop's Palace, XIIth century Arras tapestries, XIVth century Choir doorway, XIIIth century (Recently restored by Viollet-le-Duc) ST. VAAST D'ARRAS _Dimensions_ Length of nave and choir, 302 feet Height of nave, 66-1/2 feet Width of nave, 49 feet Height of tower, 154 feet _Chronology_ Former Cathedral of Notre Dame begun, end of XIIth century Former Cathedral of Notre Dame completed, 1499 Present Cathedral of St. Vaast, 1755-1833 Triptych of Bellegambe in present Cathedral, 1528 Former Abbey of St. Vaast, now Episcopal Palace since 1754 ST. LAZARE D'AUTUN _Dimensions_ Height of spire, 325 feet _Chronology_ Transition portion constructed by Robert I., Duke of Burgundy, 1031-1076 Spire, XVth century Sculpture of choir, XVIth century Flamboyant chapels, XVIth century AUXERRE _Chronology_ Crypt (remains of early work), XIth century Choir and glass, 1215-1234 Western portals, XIIIth century Nave, 1334-1373 North transept, 1415-1513 N. W. tower, 1525-1530 Iron _grille_ of choir, XVIIIth century NOTRE DAME DE BAYEUX _Dimensions_ Central belfry, 300 feet Length interior, 335 feet Height interior, 74 feet, 9 inches Height of western towers, 252 feet _Chronology_ Odo's crypt, XIth century Circular arches of nave, late XIth or early XIIth century Portals of west façade, XIIIth century Chasuble of St. Regnobert, gift of St. Louis, 1226 Date of tapestry (in inventory of church property), 1476 ST. PIERRE DE BEAUVAIS _Dimensions_ Height of nave, 150 feet Height of original spire, which fell in 1573, 486 feet Area of choir, about 28,000 square feet _Chronology_ The Basse OEuvre, VIth to VIIIth centuries Present building begun, 1225 Dedicated, 1272 Roof fell, 1284 South transept begun, 1500 North transept begun, 1530 North transept finished, 1537 Central spire fell, 1573 Ancient Bishop's Palace, now Palais de Justice, XIVth to XVIth centuries ST. ETIENNE DE BOURGES [Illustration: _St. Etienne de Bourges_] _Dimensions_ Length, 405 feet Width, 135-1/2 feet Height of nave, 124-1/2 feet Height of inner aisle, 66 feet Height of outer aisle, 28 feet Height north tower, 217-1/2 feet Height south tower, 176 feet Superficial area, 73,170 square feet (approx.) _Chronology_ Dedicated, 1324 Sepulchre, 1336 Crypts, XIIth century North tower, 1508-1538 Tower St. Etienne completed, 1490 Tower St. Etienne fell, 1506 Choir stalls, 1760 ST. ETIENNE DE CHÂLONS-SUR-MARNE _Chronology_ Tower next north door, Romano-Byzantine Part of nave and choir, Ogival primaire Aisle and chapels of apse, XIVth century Apse restored, after fire, in 1672 NOTRE DAME DE CHARTRES _Dimensions_ Length nave and choir, 430 feet Width, 110 feet Length nave only, 121 feet Width nave, 46 feet Width nave aisles, 19 feet Height nave, 106 feet Length transepts, 202 feet Width transepts, 70 feet Height of north spire, 403 feet Height of south spire, 365 feet Rose window, diameter, 40 to 43 feet Area, 65,000 square feet (approx.) _Chronology_ Wooden church burned, 1020 Crypt under chevet of choir, 1029 (only remains of original church) Work of rebuilding stopped, 1048 South portal erected, 1060 Work aided by Matilda, queen of William I., 1083 Lower portion of main body built, 1100-1150 Western towers, 1145 Fire damaged greater part, 1194 Vaulting completed, 1220 Porches of transepts added, 1250 Building consecrated, October 17, 1260 Sacristy and screen in crypt, XIIIth century North spire burned, 1506 Texier's spire erected, 1507-1515 Texier's spire repaired, 1629 South spire repaired, 1754 Belfry and roof burned (vaulting unharmed), 1836 NOTRE DAME D'EVREUX _Dimensions_ Length, 368 feet, 6 inches Transept, length, 112 feet Transept, width, 23 feet _Chronology_ Church consecrated, 1076 Church burnt, 1119 Northwest tower foundations laid, 1352 Northwest tower completed, 1417 North transept, XVIth century Nave, early XIIth to late XVth century Choir, XIVth century Lady-chapel, XIIIth century NOTRE DAME DE LAON [Illustration: _Laon_] _Dimensions_ Length of nave and choir, 351 feet Height of nave, 80 feet Width of nave, 67 feet, 7 inches Length of transepts, 174 feet Width of transepts, 35 feet, 9 inches Height of western towers, 173 feet Height of southwest tower and spire (formerly), 328 feet Western circular window, 26 feet Superficial area, 44,000 square feet (approx.) _Chronology_ Original church burned, 1112 New edifice begun, 1114 Entirely rebuilt, 1190 General restoration, 1851 ST. JULIEN, LE MANS [Illustration: _LE MANS_] _Dimensions_ Length of nave and choir, 369 feet Width of nave and aisles, 78 feet Width of choir, 123 feet Height of choir, 108 feet Area of choir, 30,000 square feet (approx.) Length of transept, 178 feet Width of transept, 32 feet _Chronology_ West façade, XIth century Transition, south portal, XIIth century Nave and transepts reconstructed, XIIth century Church extended beyond city walls, XIIIth century Choir rebuilt, 1200 Choir restored, 1858 Coloured glass, XIIIth, XIVth, XVth centuries Rose window, south transept, XVth century Former Bishop's Palace destroyed by Germans, 1871 ST. ETIENNE DE MEAUX _Dimensions_ Height of nave, 109 feet Length of nave, 275 feet Length of transepts, 120 feet _Chronology_ Bishopric founded, 375 A.D. Choir in part, XIIth century Restored, 1852 ST. PIERRE DE NANTES [Illustration] _Dimensions_ Height of western towers, 270 feet Height of nave, 130 feet _Chronology_ Remains of choir contains, XIIth century Romanesque church rebuilt, XVth century West front, 1434-1500 North transept and choir only completed in XIXth century Tomb of François II. and Marguerite de Foix, 1507 Later restoration, 1852 NOTRE DAME DE NOYON [Illustration: _Noyon_] _Dimensions_ Length, 338 feet Width of nave and aisles, 64 feet, 10 inches Height of nave, 74 feet, 6 inches Height of aisles, 28 feet, 9 inches Height of choir, 26 feet, 3 inches Height of towers, 200 feet Superficial area, 30,000 square feet (approx.) _Chronology_ First constructed, 989 Burnt, 1131 Rebuilding undertaken, 1137-1150 Choir, transepts, and nave completed, 1167-1200 Timber work burnt, 1293 Chapter-house built, XIIIth century Five bays of cloister built, XIVth century Restored under governmental supervision, 1840 ST. CROIX D'ORLEANS _Dimensions_ Height of towers, 280 feet Height of nave, 100 feet _Chronology_ First bishops sent from Rome, IIIrd century Cathedral destroyed by Huguenots, 1567 Chapels of nave which still remain, XIVth century Late Gothic mainly of XVIIth century Western towers completed, 1789 NOTRE DAME DE PARIS [Illustration: _Paris_] _Dimensions_ Length, 390 feet Width, 144 feet Height of nave, 102 feet Diameter of rose windows in transept, 36 feet Superficial area, 64,100 square feet _Chronology_ Founded by Bishop de Sully, 1160-1170 High altar dedicated, 1182 Interior completed (approx.), 1208 West front, 1223-1230 Western towers, 1235 Transept portals, 1257 NOTRE DAME DE REIMS [Illustration: _Reims_] [Illustration: _Flying Buttresses, Reims_] _Dimensions_ Western towers, 267 feet Area, 65,000 feet (approx.) _Chronology_ First stone laid, 1212 First portion dedicated, 1215 Chapter takes possession of choir, 1244 Nave commenced, 1250 Transept and abside ornamented, 1295 South tower begun and completed, 1380-1391 Coronation of Charles VII., 1427 Southwest tower completed by Philastre, 1430 Tapestries added to choir, 1444 Belfry of the Angel built, 1497 Gable of the Assumption and Zodiac, 1408 Reëstablishment of grand altar, 1547 Repairs to portals and vaulting, 1610 Cathedral becomes national property, 1790 Exterior repairs and restoration, 1811 General restorations, 1840 2,083,411 francs voted by Chamber for restorations, 1875 Gifts of Gobelin tapestries, 1848 NOTRE DAME DE ROUEN [Illustration: _Notre Dame Rouen_] _Dimensions_ Length of nave and choir, 450 feet Width, including transepts, 177 feet Width of nave and aisles, 105 feet Length of choir only, 118 feet Height of nave, 92 feet Height of central spire, 480 feet Height of Tour de Beurre, 252 feet Height of Tour St. Romain, 246 feet Area (originally), 53,000 square feet _Chronology_ First church founded on site of cathedral by St. Mellar, VIIth century Cathedral enlarged under Rollo, who was buried therein in 930 Consecrated and dedicated, 1063 Tour St. Romain, remains of, XIth century Destroyed by fire, 1200 New building completed, XIIIth century Portail de la Calende, XIVth century Tour de Beurre laid, 1487 Tour de Beurre completed, 1507 Flamboyant west front, XVIth century Altar of St. Romain, XVIIth century Tomb of the Cardinals, 1556 Central spire, 1823 Restoration of west front, 1897 ST. ETIENNE DE SENS _Dimensions_ Length, 384 feet Width, 124 feet Height, 98 feet Area, 44,000 square feet _Chronology_ Relique of True Cross given by Charlemagne, 800 A. D. Early church destroyed by fire, 970 New church dedicated, 997 Present building completed, 1168 Choir rebuilt, 1174 Present transept and nave, XIIth and XIIIth centuries Glass in chapel of St. Savinien, XIIIth century Glass of rose windows, XVIth century Mausoleum of the Dauphin, XVIIIth century BASILIQUE DE ST. DENIS _Dimensions_ Length of nave and choir, 354 feet Width, 133 feet Clerestory windows (height), 33 feet _Chronology_ Chapel first built above grave of St. Dionysius the martyr, 275 A. D. Benedictine abbey first founded here in reign of Dagobert, 628 Pope Stephen took refuge here, 754 Romanesque façade, 1140 Consecration of the building, 1144 Nave, XIIIth century Abbot Suger died, 1151 General restoration by Suger's successors, XIIIth century Crenelated battlement added to façade, XIVth century Spire burned by lightning, XIXth century General restoration by Viollet-le-Duc, 1860 Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette reinterred here (removed from the Madeleine), 1817 [Illustration: CRYPT S. DENIS] [Illustration: S DENIS] NOTRE DAME DE ST. OMER _Dimensions_ The great bell of tower weighs 8,500 kilos. _Chronology_ Bishopric founded, 1533 Astronomical clock, XVIth century Tomb of St. Erkembode, VIIIth century Tomb of St. Omer restored, XIIIth century Former Episcopal Palace, now Palais de Justice, 1680 ST. GATIEN DE TOURS [Illustration] _Dimensions_ Length of nave and choir, 256 feet Width, 95 feet _Chronology_ Choir begun, 1170 Tour Charlemagne, XIth century Tour St. Martin, XIIth century Transepts, 1316 West façade, 1430-1500 Southwest tower, 1507 Tomb of children of Charles VIII., 1483 ST. PIERRE DE TROYES _Dimensions_ Length, 394 feet Width, 168 feet Height, 96 feet Height northwest tower, 202 feet _Chronology_ Apse and chapels, 1206-1223 Choir and transepts, 1314-1315 Iron _grille_ of choir, XIIIth century Church consecrated, 1430 West façade, XVth century Nave constructed during XIVth, XVth, XVIth centuries North gable, XVth century Tower St. Pierre, 1559-1568 Northwest tower demolished by lightning, 1700 Vaulting of transepts fell, 1840 Restoration of choir and transepts, 1840 VII _The French Kings from Charlemagne Onward_ A. D. Charlemagne 768 Louis le Débonnaire 814 Charles le Chauve 840 Louis II., le Bègue 877 Louis III. 879 Carloman 879 Charles le Gros 884 Eudes 887 Charles III., the Simple 893 Robert I. 922 Rodolf of Burgundy 923 Louis IV., the Stranger 936 Lothaire 954 Louis V., le Fainéant 986 Hugh Capet 987 Robert II., the Wise 996 Henry I. 1031 Philip I., l'Amoureux 1060 Louis VI., le Gros 1108 Louis VII., le Jeune 1137 Philip Augustus 1180 Louis VIII., the Lion 1223 Louis IX., the Saint 1226 Philip III., the Hardy 1270 Philip IV., the Fair 1285 Louis X., Hutin 1314 John I. 1316 Philip V. 1316 Charles IV., le Bel 1322 Philip VI., de Valois 1328 John II., the Good 1350 Charles V., le Sage 1364 Charles VI., the Beloved 1380 Charles VII., the Victorious 1422 Louis XI. 1461 Charles VIII. 1483 Louis XII., of Orleans 1498 Francis I. 1515 Henry II. 1547 Francis II. 1559 Charles IX. 1560 Henry III. 1574 Henry IV., the Great 1589 Louis XIII., the Just 1610 Louis XIV., le Grand 1643 Louis XV. 1715 Louis XVI. 1774 Revolutionary Tribunal 1793 Directory 1795 Napoleon, Consul 1799 Napoleon I., Emperor 1804 Louis XVIII. 1814 Charles X. 1824 Louis Philippe 1830 Republic 1848 Napoleon III., Emperor 1852 Republic 1870 [Illustration: CHARLES VII] VIII _Measurements of the Cathedrals at Amiens and Salisbury_ (_Whittington_) _Amiens_ _Salisbury_ _French feet_ _English feet_ Length east to west 415 452 Length west door to choir 220 246 Length behind choir, including lady-chapel 63 65 Length transepts north to south 182 210 Width nave 42.9 34.5 Width transept 42.9 Width side aisles 18 17.5 Width windows 41 48 Width nave and side aisles 78.9 102 Width west front 150 115 Height vault, nave 132 84 Height vault, choir 129 Height west towers 210 Height chapels 60 Height side aisles, nave 60.8 Height side aisles, choir 57.8 38 Distance between pillars 16 Height grand arches 78 78 Number of pillars 46 Number of chapels 25 Length of choir 130 140 (The old French foot is the equal of 1.06576 English feet.) The above comparative measurements are given as being of the contemporary types of English and French cathedrals, being nearly approximate to each other as to the date of their erection and measurements. The figures themselves are transcribed from a little-known but thoroughly conscientious work by G. D. Whittington, entitled "Contributions to an Ecclesiastical Survey of France." IX _French Metres Reduced to English Feet_ Metres English feet and Metres English feet and Metres English feet and decimal parts decimal parts decimal parts 1 3.281 20 65.618 300 984.270 2 6.562 30 98.427 400 1312.360 3 9.843 40 131.236 500 1640.450 4 13.123 50 164.045 600 1968.539 5 16.404 60 196.854 700 2296.629 6 19.685 70 229.663 800 2624.719 7 22.966 80 262.472 900 2952.809 8 26.247 90 295.281 1000 3280.899 9 29.528 100 328.090 10 32.809 200 656.180 X _A Brief Glossary of architectural terms, with popular definitions, as applied to the components which compose the principal features of a cathedral church_ [Illustration: NO. 1. GROUND PLAN] A Lady-chapel The principal chapel, usually behind the high altar, at the extremity or eastern end of choir, dedicated to Our Lady (Notre Dame) B Transept The middle portion of a church, which projects at right angles with the main body of nave and choir C Porch Usually the vestibule or receding doorway D Lantern or crossing Where the transept crosses and joins choir and nave, usually with windows, if a lantern proper E Choir That portion of the edifice in which are stalls for the choristers, and chapter, also containing the _Maître d'Autel_ F Ambulatory The aisles or colonnade which surround the choir G Chapels Literally a small place of worship containing an altar. In a great church, which may contain several, they are usually dedicated to male and female saints H Nave The main body of a church, extending from the choir to the principal façade; _i. e._ that part between the outer aisles I Aisles The lateral passage on either side of the nave and separated therefrom by piers or pillars J Portal Literally, the framework of a doorway K Abside The domed easterly end of a church L Sacristy The apartment in which is kept the church plate and vestments [Illustration: NO. 2. CROSS SECTION] A Nave aisle vaulting The arched roof of stone B Nave vaulting The arched roof of stone C Flying buttress A supporting outside prop of the thrust variety. Notably a distinguishing feature of mediæval Gothic architecture D Side aisle The passage which flanks the nave E Buttress pier The outer support of a flying buttress F Pinnacle On towers, buttress piers, gables, etc. G Gargoyle A projecting water-spout carved grotesquely H Niche A recess in a wall, or surmounting a pier; primarily to hold a statue [Illustration: NO. 3. INTERIOR] A Clerestory The upper range of windows of the nave; rising above the adjoining portions B Triforium Literally, a blind window--a range of openings, or possibly an arcade-effect only, coming below the clerestory and above the lower arches of the nave C Arch (between nave and ai Joining the piers or pillars which separate nave from aisles D Pillars (of nave) Commonly called pillars, columns, and piers, but more often are literally pillars, being made up of blocks of stone one upon another E Vaulting The stone arched roof F West wall Here, in the true Gothic church, is usually found a rose window, though often obscured by the organ case G Arcaded gallery A feature frequently seen in the interior of great churches, as distinct from the triforium. Either decorative or of practical value H Pavement The floor, always of stone, and often of marble or mosaic [Illustration: NO. 4. CROSS SECTION] A Flying buttresses A thrust support, or prop, extending from the main fabric to an outer pier B Timber roof The timber or scantling above the nave, which supports the outer tiled or leaden roofing C Nave The main body of a church D Aisle The passage which flanks the nave E Outer aisle A second or outer passage flanking the nave F Stairway to roof of aisle Stairways from the interior pavement, leading to triforium, belfry, or roof G Crypt In reality a lower or subterranean church or chapel; from _crypta_, to hide H Buttress pier The outer support of a flying buttress, or one lying directly against the wall which it strengthens INDEX Abélard, 94. Acquitaine, 176, 211. Adela, mother of King Stephen of Blois, 121. Agrippa, 134. Aisne, Department of the, 134. Alençon, Bishop of, 307. Alençon, Notre Dame d', 296-298. Amboise, Cardinal d', 84, 90. Amboise, Georges d', 85, 90. Amiens, 32, 35, 37, 61, 62, 117, 129, 133, 200, 267, 272, 278. Amiens, Bishop of, 65. Amiens, Cathedral at, 140, 141, 384. Amiens, Flying buttresses at, 67. Amiens, Notre Dame d', 64, 69, 72, 366, 367. "Ampoule, Sainte," The, 25, 143. Angers, 119, 149. Angers, Bishop's Palace at, 181. Angers, Castle at, 175. Angers, David d', 235. Angers, St. Maurice d', 147, 173-182, 367, 368. Angevine Churches, The, 215. Angevine details at Le Mans, 115. Angevine style of architecture, The, 176, 180. Angoulême, 15. Anjou, 115. Anjou, Counts of, 175. Anjou, Dukes of, 173, 181. Anjou, Margaret of, 173. Anne of Brittany, 169, 184. Anne, Duchess (_see also_ Anne of Brittany), 188. Antwerp, 126. Architectural divisions of France, 34. Ardennes, Department of the, 134. Arles, 33. Arras, 15, 184, 226. Arras, Belfry at, 245; Citadel of, 244; Hôtel de Ville, 245. Arras, St. Vaast d', 242-246, 368. Artois, 237, 242. Assisi, St. Francis of, 188. Attila, 132. Attila, Attack on Aurelianum, 150. Attila, Defeat at Chalons, 251. Augustus, 134. Aurelian, 150, 226. Autun, 33, 257, 258. Autun, St. Lazare d', 257-261, 368. Auvergne, 151. Auvergnat Churches, The, 215. Auxerre, 215. Auxerre, Bishops of, 194. Auxerre, Episcopal Palace at, 195. Auxerre, St. Etienne d', 191-196, 369. Auxonne, Notre Dame d', 220. Avignon, 33. Avranches, 321. Avranches, Notre Dame de, 326-328. Azon, 307. Baldwin of Hainault, 237. Balzac, 164. Bayeux, 285. Bayeux, Odo, Bishop of, 311, 312. Bayeux, Notre Dame de, 310-314, 369. Bayeux, Tapestry of, 310, 311. Beauvais, 13, 19, 20, 32, 35, 37, 61, 69, 117-119, 133, 200, 267. Beauvais, Bishop of, 52, 303. Beauvais, Romano-Byzantine work at, 75. Beauvais, Cathedral of St. Pierre, 28, 70-76, 140, 369. Beaux Arts, Département de, 23, 340. Beaux Arts, Palais des, 96. Becket, St. Thomas à, 54, 280, 282, 327. Bedford, Duke of, 90. Belgica, Secunda, 132. Bellegambe, 244. Bellêne, Count of, 307. Belmas, Bishop, 235. Benedictine Abbey at St. Denis, 93. Berengaria, Queen, 113, 120. Bernard de Soissons, 138. Berry, Duc de, 96, 108. Besançon, 27, 32, 223, 225. Bethléem, Bishop of, 31. Bishop's Palace, The (Amiens), 67. Bishop's Palace, The, at Beauvais, 76. "Black Angers," 174 (_see_ Shakespeare on Angers). Blanche of Castile, 66, 169. Blois, 18, 149, 210, 215. Blois, Chateau of, 157. Blois, Counts of, 121. Blois, King Stephen of, 121. Blois, St. Louis de, 156. Bonn, Minster at, 50. Borgia, Cæsar, 182. Borromée, 244. Boulogne-sur-Mer, 223, 225. Boulogne-sur-Mer, Notre Dame de, 231-233. Bourassé, Abbé, 108, 211, 260, 279, 303. Bourges, 33, 37, 61, 215. Bourges, St. Etienne de, 139, 199-208, 370. Brest, 348. Bretagne, Duc de, 187. Briceius, 165. Brittany, 12, 20, 27, 32. Brittany, Chancellor of, 182. Brittany, Duchy of, 184. Bruges, 262. Burgundy, 258, 259, 262. Byzantine influences at Bourges, 202. Byzantine tendencies, 13; conception, 27. Caen, 285. Cæsar, burned Orleans, 150. Calixtus II., 133. Calvin (John), 51. Cambrai, 15, 226. Cambrai, Notre Dame de, 234-236. Capet, Hugh, 51. Carcassonne, 33. Carlovingian Dynasty, The, 94. Carrier, 183. Cathedrals, The Grand, 23. Cathedrals of the North, 26. "Caveau Imperial," The, at St. Denis, 95. Chalons (sur Marne), 132, 133, 226. Chalons-sur-Marne, St. Etienne de, 251-253, 371. Chambidge, Martin, 276. Chambord, 18, 210, 214. Champagne, Counts of, 274. Chancellor of Brittany, 182. Chantilly, Chateau of, 50. Charlemagne, 51, 133, 282. Charlemagne, Tour de, 165. Charles of Anjou, 120. Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, 262-263. Charles (King), 212. Charles V., 240, 282. Charles VII., 30, 138, 144. Charles VIII., 17, 169, 184. Charles X., 24, 144. Chartres, 20, 30, 33, 35, 61, 62, 113, 210, 215, 278, 338. Chartres, Celtic foundation of, 124. Chartres, Counts of, 121. Chartres, Details at, 87. Chartres, Jean de, 187. Chartres, Notre Dame de, 121, 139, 140, 141, 371. Chartres, Spires of Cathedral at, 125, 267. Chaste Susanne, Painting of, 220. Chateau of the Italian Dukes (at Nevers), 210. Chateaux of the Loire, 18, 32, 148. Chaucer's "Temple of Mars," 86. Chaumont, 18. Chenonceau, 18, 210. Childeric, 132, 133. Cires-les-Mello, 35. Clamecy, 31. Clement, Eudes, 99. Clotilda, wife of Clovis, 133. Clovis, 22, 30, 138, 139, 143, 144, 224. Clovis, Baptism of, 133. Coligny, 151. Cologne, Apse-sided transepts at, 50. Cologne, Cathedral at, 20, 37, 135, 141. Colomb, Michel, 187, 332. Colombiers, 315. Commercy, Jacquemin de, 250. Commission des Monuments Historiques, 35, 170, 176, 213. Compiègne, Chateau of, 50. Condés, The, 153. Constant, 282. Cormier, Jean, 129. Corroyer, 349. Coucy, Chateau of, 50. Coutances, 267, 285, 286, 321. Coutances, Notre Dame de, 321-325. Creil, 35. Croixmore, Abp. Robert de, 84. Crusaders, The, 14. Dagobert I., 93. D'Arc, Jeanne, 151, 303. Dauphins of France, The, 170. Da Vinci, 157. De Breze, Louis, 89. De Breze, Pierre, 89. De Caumont, "Abécêdaire'd Architecture," 33, 349. De Sauteuil, 106. Descartes, 164. Descent from the Cross, The (by Rubens), 239. Devils of Notre Dame, The, 106. Dieppe, 285. Dijon, 27, 223, 258. Dijon, St. Bénigne of, 225, 262-265. Dinan, 335. Dol-de-Bretagne, Façade at, 98. Dol-de-Bretagne, St. Samson de, 329-332. Domenichino, 272. Domfront, 321. Douai, 244. Du Bellay Langey, 120. Dufêtre, Mgr., 211. Duroctorum, 132. East of Paris, 221. Eastern influences at Bourges, 202. Ebo, Bishop of Reims, 136. Edict of Nantes, The, 183. Edward III., 129. English characteristics of Gothic, 45, 68. Estonteville, Cardinal d', 88. Evreux, 32. Evreux, Notre Dame d', 288-295, 372. Exeter, 114. Falise, 321. Fenelon, 235, 236. Fergusson, quoted, 12, 56, 126, 139. Fiesole, Jérôme de, 187. Flemish school of painting, 244. Flemish wood-carving, 90. Florence, 33. Flying buttresses, Notre Dame de Paris, 28; Notre Dame d'Amiens, 28; Tours, 167. Foix, Marguerite de, 187. Fouilloy, Evrard de, 65. France, Architectural divisions of, 34. France, Ecclesiastical capital of, 133. France, Kings of, 24, 93, 383. Francis I., 74. Francis II., Tomb of, 187. Franks, The, 22. Franks, The Ripuarian, 133. Franks, Invasion of, 132, 133, 224. Frankish influence, 11. Freeman, Prof. Aug., 113, 248, 311. Fréjus, 15. French Flanders, 41. French Gothic Architecture, 38. French Mediæval Architecture, 38. French Revolution, The, 31, 43, 44, 52, 55, 96, 99, 103, 142, 184, 226. Fulbert, Bishop of Chartres, 129. "Gallery of Kings," at Amiens, 67. Gallery of Kings, The (at Reims), 138, 178. Gaucher, 138. Geeraerts (of Antwerp), 235. Genabum (of Gallia), 150. Genoa, 157. German manner of building, 27. Ghent, 242, 262. Gisors, 35. Gobelin Tapestries, 76, 143. Gonsé, 349. Good God of Amiens, The, 66. Gothic, Development of, 14, 24; Rudimentary, 16; Anti, 18; Non, 18. Goujon, Jean, 89, 170. Gourney, 35. Grand Cathedrals, The, 12, 20, 35, 61-63. Granville, 321. Grouin, 345. Guillaume of Sens, 225. Guillaume Bras-de-Fer, 323. Hachette, Jeanne, 76. Haffreingue, Mgr., 233. Henry I., 129, 133. Henry II. (of France), 113, 166, 249. Henry II. (of England), 282, 301, 325. Henry IV., 30, 96, 133, 153, 183. Henry of Navarre, 129. House of the Kings, The, 144. Hugh II., 215. Hugo's "Notre Dame," 106. Huguenots, The, 153, 195. Humbert, Alberic de, 137. Irene, Princess, 130. Isle de la Cité, 105, 106. Isle of France, 12, 27, 61. Italian influences, 17. Ivor (Bishop of Chartres), 212. James (Henry), 163, 204. Jean sans Peur, 265. Jensen, Nicolas, 164. Joannes, Abbé, 253. John, Duke of Bedford, 90. John the Baptist, 69. Jovinus, Tomb of, 142. Juste, 170. "Kreisker," The (at St. Pol de Leon), 345. La Hougue, 345. Langres, 32. Langres, La Montagne de, 218. Langres, St. Mammes de, 218-220. Laon, 20, 32, 41, 61, 325. Laon, Notre Dame de, 43-46, 49, 139, 372-373. Laon, Palais de Justice, 46. Last Judgment, The (at Bourges), 204. Le Mans, 32, 61, 62, 120, 121, 124, 168, 200, 210, 338. Le Mans, German invasion of, 120. Le Mans, Notre Dame de la Cloture, 180. Le Mans, St. Julien, 113-120, 373, 374. Leo III., 133. Leo IX., 307. Le Puy, 33. Lescornel, 219. Le Tellier, 144. Le Veneur, Bishop, 292. Libergier, 142. Limoges, 151. Lisieux, 285, 286, 301. Lisieux, St. Pierre de, 301-304. Loire, Cathedrals of the, 145. Loire, Valley of the, 147, 148. Loire, Chateaux of, 18, 32, 147. Longsword, William, 89. Lorraine, Abbé, 143. Loudon, Geoffroy de, 118. Louis le Débonnaire, 133. Louis le Gros, 133. Louis I., 136. Louis VI., 94. Louis XI., 208, 246. Louis XII., 184. Louis XII., Tomb of, at St. Denis, 19. Louis XIV., 144. Louis XVI., 96, 282. Louis XVIII., 31, 96, 143. Louis Philippe, 31. Louviers, 127, 297. Low Countries, The, 16, 20. Lowell (James Russell), "A Day in Chartres," 126. Lowell, Hon. E. J., 310. Luitgarde, 165. Luzarche, Robert de, 65. Madeleine, The, 96. Maid of Orleans, The, 81, 94, 144, 151. Maine, 114. Maine, Count of, 120. Mainz, 214. Mansard, 159, 240. Margaret of Anjou, 173, 181. Marie Antoinette, 96. Marie de Medicis, 182. Marie Louise, 95. Marne, Department of, 132, 134. Marne, River, 270. Martel, Charles, 133. Matilda, queen of William the Conqueror, 129, 310, 311. Mazarin (Cardinal), 210. Meaux, 270. Meaux, St. Etienne de, 270-273, 374. Medicis, Marie de, 182. Mère de Dieu, 66. Metz, 227, 248, 249. Méyron, Etchings of, 106. Montbray, Geoffroy de, 323. Monthery, 89. Mont St. Michel, 321, 337, 338; Abbey of, 338. Monuments, Historical, 23, 340. Moorish type of architecture at Bourges, 201. Moors of Spain, The, 202. Moselle, Valley of the, 226. Moulins, 36. Musée des Petits Augustines, 96. Nancy, 226. Nancy, Cathedral at, 227. Nantes, 20, 32, 148, 149. Nantes, Edict of, 183. Nantes, St. Pierre de, 183, 374, 375. Naples, 157. Napoleon I., 31, 103; Marriage of, 95. Napoleon III., 31, 99. Narbonne, 151. "Narthex, Burgundian," 258. Netherlands, The, 14. Neuss, Apse-sided transepts at, 50. Nevers, 33, 277. Nevers, St. Cyr and St. Juliette de, 209. Nevers, St. Etienne de, 212, 216. Nevers, The Pont du Loire, 209. Nevers, Tour Gougin, 213; Tour St. Eloi, 213. Nicman, Archbishop, 136. Nièvre, Counts of, 210. Nîmes, 33. Nivernais, The, 210. Nogent-les-Vierges, 35. Normandy, 115, 176. Normandy, Duke of, 89. Norsemen, The, 82. Notre Dame d'Alençon, 296-298. Notre Dame d'Amiens, 64-69, 72, 366, 367. Notre Dame d'Auxonne, 220. Notre Dame de Bayeux, 310-314, 369. Notre Dame de Boulogne-sur-Mer, 231-233. Notre Dame de Cambrai, 234-236. Notre Dame de Chartres, 121, 139-141, 371. Notre Dame de Coutances, 321-325. Notre Dame d'Evreux, 288-295, 372. Notre Dame de la Cloture (Le Mans), 180. Notre Dame de Laon, 43-46, 372. Notre Dame de l'Epine, 251. Notre Dame de Noyon, 29, 49-53, 199, 375, 376. Notre Dame de Paris, 28, 49, 101-107, 139, 140, 199, 376, 377. Notre Dame de Reims, 132-144, 248, 249. Notre Dame de Rouen, 37, 49, 79-90, 139, 338, 378, 379. Notre Dame de St. Lo, 315-318. Notre Dame de St. Omer, 237-241, 380. Notre Dame de Senlis, 266-269. Noviodunum, 51. Noyades, The, 184. Noyon, 20, 32, 41, 117, 127, 268. Noyon, Notre Dame de, 29, 49-53, 199, 375, 376. Odericus Vitalis, Bishop, 302. Odon, 323. Oise, The River, 50. Onfroy, 323. Orange, 184. Oriflamme, The, 94. Orleans, 33, 148, 149. Orleans, Captured by Clovis, 151, 152. Orleans Family, The, 169. Orleans, German occupation of, 151. Orleans, St. Croix d', 150-155, 376. Orleans, The Maid of, 81, 94, 144, 151. Palais de Justice, Beauvais, 76. Paramé, 335. Paris, 20, 61, 267. Paris, Documentary history of, 26. Paris, East of, 221. Paris, Notre Dame de, 28, 49, 101-107, 139, 140, 199, 217, 376, 377. Paroissien, Poncelet, 142. Pepersack Tapestries at Reims, The, 143. Pepin, 94, 133. Périgueux, 15, 33. Perpetus, Bishop of Tours, 165. Perréal, Jehan, 187. Perrifonds, Chateau of, 50. Philastre, Cardinal, 137. Philippe Augustus, 24, 34, 117. Philippe le Bon, 262. Philippe le Hardi, 66, 265. Picardy, 184. Picardy, Patron Saint of, 69. Plantagenets, Cradle of the, 173. Poitiers, 33. Poitiers, Diane de, 89. Pont du Loire, Nevers, 209. Pope Stephen, 94. Portal de St. Honoré (Amiens), 67. Portal de la Vierge Dorée (Amiens), 67. Porte d'Arroux, Autun, 257. Porte St. Andre, Autun, 257. Provence, 211. Quimper, 27, 32, 348. Quimper, St. Corentin de, 348-350. Rabelais, 164. Rabida, "Bretagne" of, 338. Raphael, Tapestry cartoons at S. Kensington, 76. Reclus, 215. Regnault, 187. Regnier, Cardinal, 235. Reims, 32, 35, 37, 128, 129, 224, 226, 278. Reims, Baptism of Clovis at, 30. Reims, Capture of, by Vandals, 132. Reims, Cathedral at, 24. Reims, Details at, 87. Reims, Devastation at, 25. Reims, Notre Dame de, 93, 132-144, 248, 249. Reims, Portals of Cathedral, 66. Reims, Roman remains at, 134. Reims, St. Nicaise of, 82. Remi, Capital of the, 132. Renaissance, The, 16. Renaissance Architecture at Bourges, 201. Renaissance façade at Tours, 166, 167. Renaissance wood-carving, 46. René, King, 173, 175, 181. Reni, Guido, 272. Rennes, 15. Revolution, The French, 31, 43, 44, 52, 55, 96, 99, 103, 142, 184, 226. Rhine, The, 23, 27, 223. Rhine Provinces, The, 14. Rhône, The, 36. Richard Coeur-de-Lion, 90, 113, 120. Richard the Fearless, 83. Rigobert, Bishop, 133. Robert I., Duke of Burgundy, 258, 260. Robert, son of Tancrede-de-Hauteville, 323. Roger, son of Tancrede-de-Hauteville, 323. Rohan, Cardinal de, 243. Rollo, 82, 89. Romanesque tendencies, 13, 27, 44; types, 20, 21. Roman power, Decline of, 26. Roman remains at Reims, 134. Romans, The, at Genabum (Orleans), 150. Romano-Byzantine work at Beauvais, 75. Romano-Byzantine nave at Le Mans, 115. Rome, 33. Rosary, Chapel of the (Soissons), 57. Roscoff, 345. Rouen, 19, 35, 37, 61, 62. Rouen, Cathedral at, 37, 49, 79-90, 139, 338, 378, 379. Rouen, Notre Dame de, 37, 49, 79-90, 139, 338, 378, 379. Rouen, Tour de Beurre, 204. Royal Domain, The, 223. Royale, Rue (Tours), 163. Royamont, 35. Rubens, 235, 238. Rubens, "Adoration" by (Soissons), 58. Rumaldi, 136. Ruskin on Rouen Cathedral, 85. Ruskin, quoted, 72, 81, 128, 285, 302. St. Aignan, 150. St. Bénigne (Monk of Dijon), 225. St. Bénigne (Cathedral), 262-265. St. Bertin, Abbey of (St. Omer), 225, 240. St. Brieuc, 339, 342. St. Brieuc, Cathedral of, 342-344. St. Corentin, Cathedral of, 27. St. Corentin de Quimper, 348-350. St. Croix, Abbey of, 318. St. Croix d'Orleans, 150-155, 376. St. Cyr and St. Juliette de Nevers, 209. St. Denis, 19, 61. St. Denis, Abbey of, 93. St. Denis, Abbot of, 94. St. Denis, Basilique de, 93-100, 379. St. Denis, Church of (at St. Omer), 225. St. Denis, Crypt of, 96. St. Deodatus, 254. St. Dié, 226, 254-256. St. Dié (Cathedral), 255, 256. St. Dionysius, 97, 98. St. Etienne d'Auxerre, 191-196, 369. St. Etienne de Bourges, 199-208, 370. St. Etienne (Chalons-sur-Marne), 251-253, 371. St. Etienne de Meaux, 270-273, 374. St. Etienne du Mont (Paris), 15, 19. St. Etienne de Nevers, 212, 216. St. Etienne de Sens, 279-282, 379. St. Etienne de Toul, 247-250. St. Eustache, Church of, Paris, 196. St. Fermin the Martyr, 67, 68. St. Francis of Assisi, 188. St. Gatien de Tours, 147, 163, 206, 381. St. Gengoult, Church of (Toul), 248. St. Germain, Church of (at Auxerre), 195. St. Jean the Evangel, 218. St. Jean des Vignes, Abbey of, 54. St. John, 69. St. Julien, Church of (at Tours), 169. St. Julien, Le Mans, 113-120, 373, 374. St. Laud, Bishop, 315. St. Lazare d'Autun, 257-261, 368. St. Lo, 285, 321. St. Lo, Notre Dame de, 315-318. St. Louis, 34, 66, 188, 314. St. Louis, Arms of, 169. St. Louis de Blois, 156. St. Louis de Versailles, Cathedral of, 108. St. Maclou, Church of (Rouen), 19, 81. St. Malo, 335, 338. St. Malo, Cathedral of, 336-338. St. Mammes de Langres, 218-220. Ste. Marguerite, 188. St. Martin (of Tours), 165. St. Martin, Tour de (at Tours), 165. St. Maurice d'Angers, 147, 173-182, 367, 368. St. Nazaire (Autun), 258. St. Nicaise, 82, 136, 142. St. Nicolas de Coutances, 325. St. Mellor, 82. St. Omer, 27, 223, 225. St. Omer, Notre Dame de, 237 241, 380. St. Ouen, Church of (Rouen), 15, 30, 80, 87, 241, 277. St. Peter's, at Rome, 20. "St. Peter's of the North," 71. "St. Peter's of the South," 13. St. Peter and Paul, Church of (at Tours), 165. St. Pierre d'Aleth, 336. St. Pierre de Beauvais, 28, 70-76, 140, 369. St. Pierre de Coutances, 325. St. Pierre de Lisieux, 301-304. St. Pierre de Nantes, 183, 374, 375. St. Pierre de Troyes, 274-278, 381, 382. St. Pol de Leon, 255, 339, 345. St. Pol de Leon, Cathedral of, 345-347. St. Potentien, 279. St. Quentin, Maze at, 131. St. Remi, 31, 133, 134, 136. St. Samson, 329-332. St. Savinien, 279, 282. St. Sepulchre, Church of (at St. Omer), 240. St. Servan, 335, 338. St. Sixte, 132. St. Urbain, 275. St. Vaast d'Arras, 242-246, 345, 368. St. Yves, 341. "Sainte Ampoule," The, 25, 143. Salisbury, Cathedral at, 64, 384. Salisbury, John of, 129. Saracen type of architecture at Bourges, 201. Séez, 61, 267, 277, 305. Séez, Notre Dame de, 305-309. Seine, The, 36, 106. Seine and Loire (by J. M. W. Turner), 169. Seine, Department of, 108. Senlis, 266. Senlis, Notre Dame de, 266-269. Sens, 61, 279. Sens, Guillaume of, 225, 280. Sens, St. Etienne de, 279-282, 379. Seville, Cathedral at, 20. Shakespeare on Angers (in "King John"), 173. Societé des Monuments Historiques, 35, 170, 176. Soissons, 20, 32, 41, 117, 133, 268. Soissons, Bombardment of, by the Germans, 56. Soissons, Notre Dame de, 54-58. South Kensington, 272. Stephen, Pope, 136. Stevenson (Robert Louis), 28, 42. Strasbourg, 248. Strasburg, Cathedral at, 126, 135, 227. Suger, Abbot, The, 94, 97. "Suisse, The," 80. Tancrede-de-Hauteville, 323. Tapestries at Angers, 181. Tapestries at Bayeux, 310-311. Tapestries at Le Mans, 120. Tapestries at Reims, 142, 143. Tapestries at Soissons, 58. Tapestries from Raphael's cartoons (at Beauvais), 76. Tapestry-making at Beauvais, 76; at Paris; at Arras, 76, 242, 245, 246. Tetricus, 226. Texier, 126, 131. "Thérouanne, The Great God of," 240. Torenai River, 258. Torlonia, Prince Alex, 233. Toul, 226, 247-250. Toul, St. Etienne de, 247-250. Toulouse, 151. Tour d'Auvergne, Cardinal de la, 244. Tour de Beurre (Rouen), 84, 89. Tour de Charlemagne (at Tours), 165. Tour de Hasting (at Tréguier), 340. Tour Gougin (at Nevers), 213. Tour de l'Horloge (at Tours), 165. Tour St. Eloi (at Nevers), 213. Tour de St. Martin (at Tours), 165. Touraine, Old, 163. Tournai, 41. Tours, 18, 33, 277. Tours, Church of St. Peter and Paul, 165. Tours, St. Gatien de, 147, 163, 206, 381. Tours (St. Martin of), 165. Tours, West front of St. Gatien, 74. Transition examples, 39. Transition Style of Architecture, The, 176. Tréguier, 32, 255, 339. Tréguier, Cathedral of, 339-341. "Tresor," The, at Reims, 143. "Tresor," The, at Troyes, 278. "Tresor," The, at Sens, 282. "Tresor," The, at Bayeux, 314. Treves, 214. Trianons, The, 108. Troyes, 20, 61, 274, 275. Troyes, St. Pierre de, 274-278, 381, 382. Turner (J. M. W.), "Seine and Loire," 169. Valence, 36. Valois Branch of the Orleans Family, 169. Vannes, 351. Vannes, Cathedral of, 351, 352. Vauban, 244. Vaucluse, 184. Vendôme, Matthieu de, 99. Versailles, Fountains at, 108. Versailles, St. Louis de, 108. Villeneuve, Bishop de, 193. Villers-St.-Pol, 35. Viollet-le-Duc, 83, 96, 99, 139, 181, 349. Vire, River, 315. Wellington, Duke of, 175. Westphalia, Treaty of, 249. William, Duke of Normandy, 323. Winchester, Henry, Bishop of, 121. Winchester, Prelate of, 303. Wood-carving (at Amiens), 68. Worms, 214. Yonne, The River, 191. Young, Arthur, 36, 209. 
35212	----	produced from scanned images at the Internet Archive.) Transcriber's note: All efforts have been made to reproduce this book as printed. Besides the obvious typographical errors, no attempt has been made to correct or equalize the punctuation or spelling of the English or the French of the original book. [Illustration] [Illustration] THE CATHEDRALS OF SOUTHERN FRANCE _The Cathedral Series_ _The following, each 1 vol., library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, profusely illustrated. $2.50_ _The Cathedrals of Northern France BY FRANCIS MILTOUN_ _The Cathedrals of Southern France BY FRANCIS MILTOUN_ _The Cathedrals of England BY MARY J. TABER_ _The following, each 1 vol., library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, profusely illustrated. Net, $2.00_ _The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine BY FRANCIS MILTOUN_ _The Cathedrals of Northern Spain BY CHARLES RUDY_ _L. C. PAGE & COMPANY New England Building, Boston, Mass._ [Illustration: ST. ANDRÉ ... _de BORDEAUX_] THE CATHEDRALS OF SOUTHERN FRANCE By FRANCIS MILTOUN AUTHOR OF "THE CATHEDRALS OF NORTHERN FRANCE," "DICKENS' LONDON," ETC., WITH NINETY ILLUSTRATIONS, PLANS, AND DIAGRAMS, By BLANCHE McMANUS [Illustration] BOSTON L. C. Page and Company MDCCCCV _Copyright, 1904_ BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) _All rights reserved_ Published August, 1904 _Third Impression_ Colonial Press Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, Mass., U. S. A. CONTENTS PAGE Introduction 11 PART I. SOUTHERN FRANCE IN GENERAL I. The Charm of Southern France 23 II. The Church in Gaul 34 III. The Church Architecture of Southern France 50 PART II. SOUTH OF THE LOIRE I. Introductory 71 II. L'Abbaye de Maillezais 81 III. St. Louis de la Rochelle 82 IV. Cathédrale de Luçon 85 V. St. Front de Périgueux 87 VI. St. Pierre de Poitiers 92 VII. St. Etienne de Limoges 104 VIII. St. Odilon de St. Flour 112 IX. St. Pierre de Saintes 115 X. Cathédrale de Tulle 118 XI. St. Pierre d'Angoulême 120 XII. Notre Dame de Moulins 126 XIII. Notre Dame de le Puy 134 XIV. Notre Dame de Clermont-Ferrand 144 XV. St. Fulcran de Lodève 152 PART III. THE RHONE VALLEY I. Introductory 159 II. St. Etienne de Chalons-sur-Saône 170 III. St. Vincent de Macon 174 IV. St. Jean de Lyon 177 V. St. Maurice de Vienne 186 VI. St. Apollinaire de Valence 190 VII. Cathédrale de Viviers 195 VIII. Notre Dame d'Orange 197 IX. St. Véran de Cavaillon 200 X. Notre Dame des Doms d'Avignon 204 XI. St. Siffrein de Carpentras 221 XII. Cathédrale de Vaison 226 XIII. St. Trophime d'Arles 228 XIV. St. Castor de Nîmes 236 XV. St. Théodorit d'Uzès 245 XVI. St. Jean d'Alais 249 XVII. St. Pierre d'Annecy 252 XVIII. Cathédrale de Chambéry 255 XIX. Notre Dame de Grenoble 258 XX. Belley and Aoste 267 XXI. St. Jean de Maurienne 269 XXII. St. Pierre de St. Claude 272 XXIII. Notre Dame de Bourg 277 XXIV. Glandève, Senez, Riez, Sisteron 280 XXV. St. Jerome de Digne 283 XXVI. Notre Dame de Die 287 XXVII. Notre Dame et St. Castor d'Apt 289 XXVIII. Notre Dame d'Embrun 292 XXIX. Notre Dame de l'Assomption de Gap 296 XXX. Notre Dame de Vence 300 XXXI. Cathédrale de Sion 302 XXII. St. Paul Troix Château 305 PART IV. THE MEDITERRANEAN COAST I. Introductory 313 II. St. Sauveur d'Aix 323 III. St. Reparata de Nice 328 IV. Ste. Marie Majeure de Toulon 332 V. St. Etienne de Fréjus 335 VI. Église de Grasse 339 VII. Antibes 341 VIII. Ste. Marie Majeure de Marseilles 342 IX. St. Pierre d'Alet 350 X. St. Pierre de Montpellier 352 XI. Cathédrale d'Agde 358 XII. St. Nazaire de Béziers 363 XIII. St. Jean de Perpignan 368 XIV. Ste. Eulalia d'Elne 372 XV. St. Just de Narbonne 375 PART V. THE VALLEY OF THE GARONNE I. Introductory 383 II. St. André de Bordeaux 396 III. Cathédrale de Lectoure 402 IV. Notre Dame de Bayonne 405 V. St. Jean de Bazas 411 VI. Notre Dame de Lescar 413 VII. L'Eglise de la Sède: Tarbes 417 VIII. Cathédrale de Condom 420 IX. Cathédrale de Montauban 422 X. St. Etienne de Cahors 425 XI. St. Caprias d'Agen 429 XII. Ste. Marie d'Auch 432 XIII. St. Etienne de Toulouse 439 XIV. St. Nazaire de Carcassone 449 XV. Cathédrale de Pamiers 461 XVI. St. Bertrand de Comminges 464 XVII. St. Jean-Baptiste d'Aire 469 XVIII. Sts. Benoit et Vincent de Castres 471 XIX. Notre Dame de Rodez 474 XX. Ste. Cécile d'Albi 482 XXI. St. Pierre de Mende 490 XXII. Other Old-Time Cathedrals in and about the Basin of the Garonne 495 APPENDICES I. Sketch Map Showing the Usual Geographical Divisions of France 503 II. A Historical Table of the Dioceses of the South of France up to the beginning of the nineteenth century 504 III. The Classification of Architectural Styles in France according to De Caumont's "Abécédaire d'Architecture Religieuse" 510 IV. A Chronology of Architectural Styles in France 511 V. Leading Forms of Early Cathedral Constructions 513 VI. The Disposition of the Parts of a Tenth-Century Church as defined by Violet-le-Duc 514 VII. A Brief Definitive Gazetteer of the Natural and Geological Divisions Included in the Ancient Provinces and Present-Day Departments of Southern France, together with the local names by which the _pays et pagi_ are commonly known 516 VIII. Sketch Map of the Bishoprics and Archbishoprics of the South of France at the Present Day 519 IX. Dimensions and Chronology 520 Index 545 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE St. André de Bordeaux _Frontispiece_ The Concordat (From Napoleon's Tomb) 43 St. Louis de La Rochelle 82 Cathédrale de Luçon 85 St. Front de Périgueux 87 Detail of the Interior of St. Front de Périgueux 90 Poitiers 93 St. Etienne de Limoges 105 Reliquary of Thomas à Becket 111 Cathédrale de Tulle facing 118 St. Pierre d'Angoulême facing 120 Notre Dame de Moulins facing 126 Notre Dame de Le Puy facing 134 Le Puy 138 The Black Virgin, Le Puy 143 Notre Dame de Clermont-Ferrand facing 144 St. Vincent de Macon facing 174 St. Jean de Lyon facing 176 St. Apollinaire de Valence 190 St. Véran de Cavaillon 200 Notre Dame des Doms d'Avignon 205 Villeneuve-les-Avignon facing 212 Notre Dame des Doms d'Avignon facing 218 St. Trophime d'Arles 228 St. Trophime d'Arles facing 228 Cloisters, St. Trophime d'Arles 233 St. Castor de Nîmes 236 St. Castor de Nîmes 237 St. Théodorit d'Uzès 245 Cathédrale de Chambéry 255 Notre Dame de Grenoble 258 St. Bruno 261 Belley 265 St. Jean de Maurienne 269 St. Pierre de St. Claude facing 272 Notre Dame de Bourg 275 Notre Dame de Sisteron facing 280 St. Jerome de Digne 283 Notre Dame d'Embrun 292 The Ramparts of Aigues-Mortes 320 St. Sauveur d'Aix 321 Detail of Doorway of the Archbishop's Palace, Fréjus 338 Eglise de Grasse 339 Marseilles 343 The Old Cathedral, Marseilles 345 St. Pierre de Montpellier facing 352 Cathédrale d'Agde 358 St. Nazaire de Béziers 361 St. Jean de Perpignan 368 Ste. Eulalia d'Elne 372 St. Just de Narbonne facing 374 Cloister of St. Just de Narbonne facing 378 Notre Dame de Bayonne facing 404 Eglise de la Sède, Tarbes 417 St. Etienne de Cahors facing 424 Ste. Marie d'Auch facing 432 St. Etienne de Toulouse facing 438 Nave of St. Etienne de Toulouse 445 St. Nazaire de Carcassonne facing 448 The Old Cité de Carcassonne before and after the Restoration 451 Two Capitals of Pillars in St. Nazaire de Carcassonne; and the Rude Stone Carving of Carcas 454 St. Nazaire de Carcassonne facing 454 Cathédrale de Pamiers 461 St. Bertrand de Comminges facing 464 St. Jean-Baptiste d'Aire 469 Sts. Benoit et Vincent de Castres facing 470 Notre Dame de Rodez facing 474 Choir-Stalls, Rodez 480 Ste. Cécile d'Albi facing 482 St. Pierre de Mende facing 490 Sketch Map of France 503 Medallion 510 Leading Forms of Early Cathedral Constructions 513 Plan of a Tenth Century Church 514 Sketch Map of the Bishoprics and Archbishoprics of the South of France at the Present Day 519 St. Caprias d'Agen (diagram) 520 Baptistery of St. Sauveur d'Aix (diagram) 521 Ste. Cécile d'Albi (diagram) 522 St. Pierre d'Angoulême (diagram) 523 St. Trophime d'Arles (diagram) 524 Notre Dame des Doms d'Avignon (diagram) 525 St. Etienne de Cahors (diagram) 527 St. Veran de Cavaillon (diagram) 528 Cathédrale de Chambéry (diagram) 529 Notre Dame de Clermont-Ferrand (diagram) 530 St. Bertrand de Comminges (diagram) 530 Notre Dame de Le Puy (diagram) 532 St. Etienne de Limoges (diagram) 532 St. Jean de Lyon (diagram) 533 St. Just de Narbonne (diagram) 535 Notre Dame d'Orange (diagram) 536 St. Front de Périgueux (diagram) 537 St. Jean de Perpignan (diagram) 537 St. Pierre de Poitiers (diagrams) 538 Notre Dame de Rodez (diagram) 539 St. Etienne de Toulouse (diagram) 541 St. Paul Trois Châteaux (diagram) 542 Cathédrale de Vaison (diagram) 543 [Illustration] _The Cathedrals of Southern France_ INTRODUCTION Too often--it is a half-acknowledged delusion, however--one meets with what appears to be a theory: that a book of travel must necessarily be a series of dull, discursive, and entirely uncorroborated opinions of one who may not be even an intelligent observer. This is mere intellectual pretence. Even a humble author--so long as he be an honest one--may well be allowed to claim with Mr. Howells the right to be serious, or the reverse, "with his material as he finds it;" and that "something personally experienced can only be realized on the spot where it was lived." This, says he, is "the prime use of travel, and the attempt to create the reader a partner in the enterprise" ... must be the excuse, then, for putting one's observations on paper. He rightly says, too, that nothing of perilous adventure is to-day any more like to happen "in Florence than in Fitchburg." A "literary tour," a "cathedral tour," or an "architectural tour," requires a formula wherein the author must be wary of making questionable estimates; but he may, with regard to generalities,--or details, for that matter,--state his opinion plainly; but he should state also his reasons. With respect to church architecture no average reader, any more than the average observer, willingly enters the arena of intellectual combat, but rather is satisfied--as he should be, unless he is a Freeman, a Gonse, or a Corroyer--with an ampler radius which shall command even a juster, though no less truthful, view. Not from one book or from ten, in one year or a score can this be had. The field is vast and the immensity of it all only dawns upon one the deeper he gets into his subject. A dictionary of architecture, a compendium or gazetteer of geography, or even the unwieldy mass of fact tightly held in the fastnesses of the Encyclopædia Britannica will not tell one--in either a long or a short while--all the facts concerning the cathedrals of France. Some will consider that in this book are made many apparently trifling assertions; but it is claimed that they are pertinent and again are expressive of an emotion which mayhap always arises of the same mood. Notre Dame at Rodez is a "warm, mouse-coloured cathedral;" St. Cécile d'Albi is at once "a fortress and a church," and the once royal city of Aigues-Mortes is to-day but "a shelter for a few hundred pallid, shaking mortals." Such expressions are figurative, but, so far as words can put it, they are the concentrated result of observation. These observations do not aspire to be considered "improving," though it is asserted that they are informative. Description of all kinds is an art which requires considerable forethought in order to be even readable. And of all subjects, art and architecture are perhaps the most difficult to treat in a manner which shall not arouse an intolerant criticism. Perhaps some credit will be attained for the attempts herein made to present in a pleasing manner many of the charms of the ecclesiastical architecture of southern France, where a more elaborate and erudite work would fail of its object. As Lady Montagu has said in her "Letters,"--"We travellers are in very hard circumstances. If we say nothing new, we are dull, and have observed nothing. If we tell any new thing, we are laughed at as fabulous and romantic." This book is intended as a contribution to travel literature--or, if the reader like, to that special class of book which appeals largely to the traveller. Most lovers of art and literature are lovers of churches; indeed, the world is yearly containing more and more of this class. The art expression of a people, of France in particular, has most often first found its outlet in church-building and decoration. Some other countries have degenerated sadly from the idea. In recent times the Anglo-Saxon has mostly built his churches,--on what he is pleased to think are "improved lines,"--that, more than anything else, resemble, in their interiors, playhouses, and in their exteriors, cotton factories and breweries. This seemingly bitter view is advanced simply because the writer believes that it is the church-members, using the term in its broad sense, who are responsible for the many outrageously unseemly church-buildings which are yearly being erected; not the architects--who have failings enough of their own to answer for. It is said that a certain great architect of recent times was responsible for more bad architecture than any man who had lived before or since. Not because he produced such himself, but because his feeble imitators, without his knowledge, his training, or his ambition, not only sought to follow in his footsteps, but remained a long way in the rear, and stumbled by the way. This man built churches. He built one, Trinity Church, in Boston, U. S. A., which will remain, as long as its stones endure, an entirely successful transplantation of an exotic from another land. In London a new Roman Catholic cathedral has recently been erected after the Byzantine manner, and so unexpectedly successful was it in plan and execution that its author was "medalled" by the Royal Academy; whatever that dubious honour may be worth. Both these great men are dead, and aside from these two great examples, and possibly the Roman Catholic cathedral, and the yet unachieved cathedral of St. John the Divine, in New York City, where, in an English-speaking land, has there been built, in recent times, a religious edifice of the first rank worthy to be classed with these two old-world and new-world examples? They do these things better in France: Viollet-le-Duc completed St. Ouen at Rouen and the cathedral at Clermont-Ferrand, in most acceptable manner. So, too, was the treatment of the cathedral at Moulins-sur-Allier--although none of these examples are among the noblest or the most magnificent in France. They have, however, been completed successfully, and in the true spirit of the original. To know the shops and boulevards of Paris does not necessarily presume a knowledge of France. This point is mentioned here from the fact that many have claimed a familiarity with the cathedrals of France; when to all practical purposes, they might as well have begun and ended with the observation that Notre Dame de Paris stands on an island in the middle of the Seine. The author would not carp at the critics of the first volume of this series, which appeared last season. Far from it. They were, almost without exception, most generous. At least they granted, _unqualifiedly_, the reason for being for the volume which was put forth bearing the title: "Cathedrals of Northern France." The seeming magnitude of the undertaking first came upon the author and artist while preparing the first volume for the press. This was made the more apparent when, on a certain occasion, just previous to the appearance of the book, the author made mention thereof to a friend who _did_ know Paris--better perhaps than most English or American writers; at least he ought to have known it better. When this friend heard of the inception of this book on French cathedrals, he marvelled at the fact that there should be a demand for such; said that the subject had already been overdone; and much more of the same sort; and that only yesterday a certain Miss---- had sent him an "author's copy" of a book which recounted the results of a journey which she and her mother had recently made in what she sentimentally called "Romantic Touraine." Therein were treated at least a good half-dozen cathedrals; which, supplementing the always useful Baedeker or Joanne, and a handbook of Notre Dame at Paris and another of Rouen, covered--thought the author's friend at least--quite a representative share of the cathedrals of France. This only substantiates the contention made in the foreword to the first volume: that there were doubtless many with a true appreciation and love for great churches who would be glad to know more of them, and have the ways--if not the means--smoothed in order to make a visit thereto the more simplified and agreeable. Too often--the preface continued--the tourist, alone or personally conducted in droves, was whirled rapidly onward by express-train to some more popularly or fashionably famous spot, where, for a previously stipulated sum, he might partake of a more lurid series of amusements than a mere dull round of churches. "Cities, like individuals, have," says Arthur Symons, "a personality and individuality quite like human beings." This is undoubtedly true of churches as well, and the sympathetic observer--the enthusiastic lover of churches for their peculiarities, none the less than their general excellencies--is the only person who will derive the maximum amount of pleasure and profit from an intimacy therewith. Whether a great church is interesting because of its antiquity, its history, or its artistic beauties matters little to the enthusiast. He will drink his fill of what offers. Occasionally, he will find a combination of two--or possibly all--of these ingredients; when his joy will be great. Herein are catalogued as many of the attributes of the cathedrals of the south of France--and the records of religious or civil life which have surrounded them in the past--as space and opportunity for observation have permitted. More the most sanguine and capable of authors could not promise, and while in no sense does the volume presume to supply exhaustive information, it is claimed that all of the churches included within the classification of cathedrals--those of the present and those of a past day--are to be found mentioned herein, the chief facts of their history recorded, and their notable features catalogued. _PART I_ _Southern France in General_ I THE CHARM OF SOUTHERN FRANCE The charm of southern France is such as to compel most writers thereon to become discursive. It could not well be otherwise. Many things go to make up pictures of travel, which the most polished writer could not ignore unless he confined himself to narrative pure and simple; as did Sterne. One who seeks knowledge of the architecture of southern France should perforce know something of the life of town and country in addition to a specific knowledge of, or an immeasurable enthusiasm for, the subject. Few have given Robert Louis Stevenson any great preëminence as a writer of topographical description; perhaps not all have admitted his ability as an unassailable critic; but the fact is, there is no writer to whom the lover of France can turn with more pleasure and profit than Stevenson. There is a wealth of description of the country-side of France in the account of his romantic travels on donkey-back, or, as he whimsically puts it, "beside a donkey," and his venturesome though not dangerous "Inland Voyage." These early volumes of Stevenson, while doubtless well known to lovers of his works, are closed books to most casual travellers. The author and artist of this book here humbly acknowledge an indebtedness which might not otherwise be possible to repay. Stevenson was devout, he wrote sympathetically of churches, of cathedrals, of monasteries, and of religion. What his predilections were as to creed is not so certain. Sterne was more worldly, but he wrote equally attractive prose concerning many things which English-speaking people have come to know more of since his time. Arthur Young, "an agriculturist," as he has been rather contemptuously called, a century or more ago wrote of rural France after a manner, and with a profuseness, which few have since equalled. His creed, likewise, appears to be unknown; in that, seldom, if ever, did he mention churches, and not at any time did he discuss religion. In a later day Miss M. E. B. Edwards, an English lady who knows France as few of her countrywomen do, wrote of many things more or less allied with religion, which the ordinary "travel books" ignored--much to their loss--altogether. Still more recently another English lady, Madam Marie Duclaux,--though her name would not appear to indicate her nationality,--has written a most charming series of observations on her adopted land; wherein the peasant, his religion, and his aims in life are dealt with more understandingly than were perhaps possible, had the author not been possessed of a long residence among them. Henry James, of all latter-day writers, has given us perhaps the most illuminating accounts of the architectural joy of great churches, châteaux and cathedrals. Certainly his work is marvellously appreciative, and his "Little Tour in France," with the two books of Stevenson before mentioned, Sterne's "Sentimental Journey,"--and Mr. Tristram Shandy, too, if the reader likes,--form a quintette of voices which will tell more of the glories of France and her peoples than any other five books in the English language. When considering the literature of place, one must not overlook the fair land of Provence or the "Midi of France"--that little-known land lying immediately to the westward of Marseilles, which is seldom or never even tasted by the hungry tourist. To know what he would of these two delightful regions one should read Thomas Janvier, Félix Gras, and Mêrimêe. He will then have far more of an insight into the places and the peoples than if he perused whole shelves of histories, geographies, or technical works on archæology and fossil remains. If he can supplement all this with travel, or, better yet, take them hand-in-hand, he will be all the more fortunate. At all events here is a vast subject for the sated traveller to grasp, and _en passant_ he will absorb not a little of the spirit of other days and of past history, and something of the attitude of reverence for church architecture which is apparently born in every Frenchman,--at least to a far greater degree than in any other nationality,--whatever may be his present-day attitude of mind toward the subject of religion in the abstract. France, be it remembered, is not to-day as it was a century and a half ago, when it was the fashion of English writers to condemn and revile it as a nation of degraded serfs, a degenerate aristocracy, a corrupt clergy, or as an enfeebled monarchy. Since then there has arisen a Napoleon, who, whatever his faulty morals may have been, undoubtedly welded into a united whole those widely divergent tendencies and sentiments of the past, which otherwise would not have survived. This was prophetic and far-seeing, no matter what the average historian may say to the contrary; and it has in no small way worked itself toward an ideal successfully, if not always by the most practical and direct path. One thing is certain, the lover of churches will make the round of the southern cathedrals under considerably more novel and entrancing conditions than in those cities of the north or mid-France. Many of the places which shelter a great cathedral church in the south are of little rank as centres of population; as, for instance, at Mende in Lozère, where one suddenly finds oneself set down in the midst of a green basin surrounded by mountains on all sides, with little to distract his attention from its remarkably picturesque cathedral; or at Albi, where a Sunday-like stillness always seems to reign, and its fortress-church, which seems to regulate the very life of the town, stands, as it has since its foundation, a majestic guardian of well-being. There is but one uncomfortable feature to guard against, and that is the _mistral_, a wind which blows down the Rhône valley at certain seasons of the year, and, in the words of the habitant, "blows all before it." It is not really as bad as this, but its breath is uncomfortably cold, and it does require a firm purpose to stand against its blast. Then, too, from October until March, south of Lyons, the nights, which draw in so early at this season of the year, are contrastingly and uncomfortably cold, as compared with the days, which seem always to be blessed with bright and sunshiny weather. It may be argued that this is not the season which appeals to most people as being suitable for travelling. But why not? Certainly it is the fashion to travel toward the Mediterranean during the winter months, and the attractions, not omitting the allurements of dress clothes, gambling-houses, and _bals masqués_ are surely not more appealing than the chain of cities which extend from Chambéry and Grenoble in the Alps, through Orange, Nîmes, Arles, Perpignan, Carcassonne, and the slopes of the Pyrenees, to Bayonne. In the departments of Lozère, Puy de Dôme, Gard and Auvergne and Dordogne, the true, unspoiled Gallic flavour abides in all its intensity. As Touraine, or at least Tours, claims to speak the purest French tongue, so this region of streams and mountains, of volcanic remains, of Protestantism, and of an--as yet--unspoiled old-worldliness, possesses more than any other somewhat of the old-time social independence and disregard of latter-day innovations. Particularly is this so--though perhaps it has been remarked before--in that territory which lies between Clermont-Ferrand and Valence in one direction, and Vienne and Rodez in another, to extend its confines to extreme limits. Here life goes on gaily and in animated fashion, in a hundred dignified and picturesque old towns, and the wise traveller will go a-hunting after those which the guide-books complain of--not without a sneer--as being dull and desultory. French, and for that matter the new régime of English, historical novelists are too obstinately bent on the study of Paris, "At all events," says Edmund Gosse, "since the days of Balzac and George Sand, and have neglected the provincial boroughs." They should study mid-France on the spot; and read Stevenson and Mérimée while they are doing it. It will save them a deal of worrying out of things--with possibly wrong deductions--for themselves. The climatic conditions of France vary greatly. From the gray, wind-blown shores of Brittany, where for quite three months of the autumn one is in a perpetual drizzle, and the equally chilly and bare country of the Pas de Calais, and the more or less sodden French Flanders, to the brisk, sunny climate of the Loire valley, the Cevennes, Dauphiné, and Savoie, is a wide range of contrast. Each is possessed of its own peculiar characteristics, which the habitant alone seems to understand in all its vagaries. At all events, there is no part of France which actually merits the opprobrious deprecations which are occasionally launched forth by the residents of the "garden spot of England," who see no topographical beauties save in their own wealds and downs. France is distinctly a self-contained land. Its tillers of the soil, be they mere agriculturists or workers in the vineyards, are of a race as devoted and capable at their avocations as any alive. They do not, to be sure, eat meat three times a day--and often not once a week--but they thrive and gain strength on what many an English-speaking labourer would consider but a mere snack. Again, the French peasant is not, like the English labourer, perpetually reminded, by the independence of the wealth surrounding him, of his own privations and dependence. On the contrary, he enjoys contentment with a consciousness that no human intervention embitters his condition, and that its limits are only fixed by the bounds of nature, and somewhat by his own industry. Thus it is easy to inculcate in such a people somewhat more of that spirit of "_l'amour de la patrie_," or love of the land, which in England, at the present time, appears to be growing beautifully less. So, too, with love and honour for their famous citizens, the French are enthusiastic, beyond any other peoples, for their monuments, their institutions, and above all for their own province and department. With regard to their architectural monuments, still more are they proud and well-informed, even the labouring classes. Seldom, if ever, has the writer made an inquiry but what it was answered with interest, if not with a superlative intelligence, and the Frenchman of the lower classes--be he a labourer of the towns or cities, or a peasant of the country-side--is a remarkably obliging person. In what may strictly be called the south of France, that region bordering along the Mediterranean, Provence, and the southerly portion of Languedoc, one is manifestly environed with a mellowness and brilliance of sky and atmosphere only to be noted in a sub-tropical land, a feature which finds further expression in most of the attributes of local life. The climate and topographical features take on a contrastingly different aspect, as does the church architecture and the mode of life of the inhabitants here in the southland. Here is the true romance country of all the world. Here the Provençal tongue and its literature have preserved that which is fast fleeting from us in these days when a nation's greatest struggle is for commercial or political supremacy. It was different in the days of Petrarch and of Rabelais. But there are reminders of this glorious past yet to be seen, more tangible than a memory alone, and more satisfying than mere written history. At Orange, Nîmes, and Arles are Roman remains of theatres, arenas, and temples, often perfectly preserved, and as magnificent as in Rome itself. At Avignon is a splendid papal palace, to which the Holy See was transferred by Clement V. at the time of the Italian partition, in the early fourteenth century, while Laura's tomb, or the site of it, is also close at hand. At Clermont-Ferrand, in Auvergne, Pope Urban, whose monument is on the spot, urged and instigated the Crusades. The Christian activities of this land were as strenuous as any, and their remains are even more numerous and interesting. Southern Gaul, however, became modernized but slowly, and the influences of the Christian spirit were not perhaps as rapid as in the north, where Roman sway was more speedily annulled. Still, not even in the churches of Lombardy or Tuscany are there more strong evidences of the inception and growth of this great power, which sought at one time to rule the world, and may yet. II THE CHURCH IN GAUL Guizot's notable dictum, "If you are fond of romance and history," may well be paraphrased in this wise: "If you are fond of history, read the life histories of great churches." Leaving dogmatic theory aside, much, if not quite all, of the life of the times in France--up to the end of the sixteenth century--centred more or less upon the Church, using the word in its fullest sense. Aside from its religious significance, the influence of the Church, as is well known and recognized by all, was variously political, social, and perhaps economic. So crowded and varied were the events of Church history in Gaul, it would be impossible to include even the most important of them in a brief chronological arrangement which should form a part of a book such as this. It is imperative, however, that such as are mentioned should be brought together in some consecutive manner in a way that should indicate the mighty ebb and flow of religious events of Church and State. These passed rapidly and consecutively throughout Southern Gaul, which became a part of the kingdom of the French but slowly. Many bishoprics have been suppressed or merged into others, and again united with these sees from which they had been separated. Whatever may be the influences of the Church, monastic establishments, or more particularly, the bishops and their clergy, to-day, there is no question but that from the evangelization of Gaul to the end of the nineteenth century, the parts played by them were factors as great as any other in coagulating and welding together the kingdom of France. The very large number of bishops which France has had approximates eight thousand eminent and virtuous names; and it is to the memory of their works in a practical way, none the less than their devotion to preaching the Word itself, that the large number of magnificent ecclesiastical monuments have been left as their heritage. There is a large share of veneration and respect due these pioneers of Christianity; far more, perhaps, than obtains for those of any other land. Here their activities were so very great, their woes and troubles so very oppressive, and their final achievement so splendid, that the record is one which stands alone. It is a glorious fact--in spite of certain lapses and influx of fanaticism--that France has ever recognized the sterling worth to the nation of the devotion and wise counsel of her churchmen; from the indefatigable apostles of Gaul to her cardinals, wise and powerful in councils of state. The evangelization of Gaul was not an easy or a speedy process. On the authority of Abbé Morin of Moulins, who, in _La France Pontificale_, has undertaken to "chronologize all the bishops and archbishops of France from the first century to our day," Christianity came first to Aix and Marseilles with Lazare de Béthanie in 35 or 36 A. D.; followed shortly after by Lin de Besançon, Clement de Metz, Demêtre de Gap, and Ruf d'Avignon. Toward the end of the reign of Claudian, and the commencement of that of Nero (54-55 A. D.), there arrived in Gaul the seven Apostle-bishops, the founders of the Church at Arles (St. Trophime), Narbonne (St. Paul), Limoges (St. Martial), Clermont (St. Austremoine), Tours (St. Gatien), Toulouse (St. Saturnin), and Trèves (St. Valère). It was some years later that Paris received within its walls St. Denis, its first Apostle of Christianity, its first bishop, and its first martyr. Others as famous were Taurin d'Evreux, Lucien de Beauvais, Eutrope de Saintes, Aventin de Chartres, Nicaise de Rouen, Sixte de Reims, Savinien de Sens, and St. Crescent--the disciple of St. Paul--of Vienne. From these early labours, through the three centuries following, and down through fifteen hundred years, have passed many traditions of these early fathers which are well-nigh legendary and fabulous. The Abbé Morin says further: "We have not, it is true, an entirely complete chronology of the bishops who governed the Church in Gaul, but the names of the great and noble army of bishops and clergy, who for eighteen hundred years have succeeded closely one upon another, are assuredly the most beautiful jewels in the crown of France. Their virtues were many and great,--eloquence, love of _la patrie_, indomitable courage in time of trial, mastery of difficult situation, prudence, energy, patience, and charity." All these grand virtues were practised incessantly, with some regrettable eclipses, attributable not only to misfortune, but occasionally to fault. A churchman even is but human. With the accession of the third dynasty of kings,--the Capetians, in 987,--the history of the French really began, and that of the Franks, with their Germanic tendencies and elements, became absorbed by those of the Romanic language and character, with the attendant habits and customs. Only the Aquitanians, south of the Loire, and the Burgundians on the Rhône, still preserved their distinct nationalities. The feudal ties which bound Aquitaine to France were indeed so slight that, when Hugh Capet, in 990, asked of Count Adelbert of Périgueux, before the walls of the besieged city of Tours: "Who made thee count?" he was met with the prompt and significant rejoinder, "Who made thee king?" At the close of the tenth century, France was ruled by close upon sixty princes, virtually independent, and yet a still greater number of prelates,--as powerful as any feudal lord,--who considered Hugh Capet of Paris only as one who was first among his peers. Yet he was able to extend his territory to such a degree that his hereditary dynasty ultimately assured the unification of the French nation. Less than a century later Duke William of Normandy conquered England (1066); when began that protracted struggle between France and England which lasted for three hundred years. Immediately after the return of the pious Louis VII. from his disastrous crusade, his queen, Eleanor, the heiress of Poitou and Guienne, married the young count Henry Plantagenet of Maine and Anjou; who, when he came to the English throne in 1153, "inherited and acquired by marriage"--as historians subtly put it--" the better half of all France." Until 1322 the Church in France was divided into the following dioceses: Provincia Remensis (Reims) Provincia Rotomagensis (All Normandy) Provincia Turonensis (Touraine, Maine, Anjou, and Brittany) Provincia Burdegalensis (Poitou, Saintonge, Angumois, Périgord, and Bordelais) Provincia Auxitana (In Gascoigne) Provincia Bituricensis (Berri, Bourbonnais, Limosin, and Auvergne) Provincia Senonensis (Sens) Provincia Lugdunensis (Bourgogne and Lyonnais) Provincia Viennensis (Vienne on the Rhône) Provincia Narbonensis (Septimania) Provincia Arelatensis (Arles) Provincia Aquensis (Aix-en-Provence) Provincia Ebredunensis (The Alpine Valleys) The stormy days of the reign of Charles V. (late fourteenth century) throughout France were no less stringent in Languedoc than elsewhere. Here the people rose against the asserted domination of the Duke of Anjou, who, "proud and greedy," was for both qualities abhorred by the Languedocians. He sought to restrain civic liberty with a permanent military force, and at Nîmes levied heavy taxes, which were promptly resented by rebellion. At Montpellier the people no less actively protested, and slew the chancellor and seneschal. By the end of the thirteenth century, social, political, and ecclesiastical changes had wrought a wonderful magic with the map of France. John Lackland (_sans terre_) had been compelled by Philippe-Auguste to relinquish his feudal possessions in France, with the exception of Guienne. At this time also the internal crusades against the Waldenses and Albigenses in southern France had powerfully extended the royal flag. Again, history tells us that it was from the impulse and after influences of the crusading armies to the East that France was welded, under Philippe-le-Bel, into a united whole. The shifting fortunes of France under English rule were, however, such as to put little stop to the progress of church-building in the provinces; though it is to be feared that matters in that line, as most others of the time, went rather by favour than by right of sword. Territorial changes brought about, in due course, modified plans of the ecclesiastical control and government, which in the first years of the fourteenth century caused certain administrative regulations to be put into effect by Pope John XXII. (who lies buried beneath a gorgeous Gothic monument at Avignon) regarding the Church in the southern provinces. So well planned were these details that the Church remained practically under the same administrative laws until the Revolution. Albi was separated from Bourges (1317), and raised to the rank of a metropolitan see; to which were added as suffragans Cahors, Rodez, and Mende, with the newly founded bishoprics of Castres and Vabres added. Toulouse was formed into an archbishopric in 1327; while St. Pons and Alet, as newly founded bishoprics, were given to the ancient see of Narbonne in indemnification for its having been robbed of Toulouse. The ancient diocese of Poitiers was divided into three, and that of Agen into two by the erection of suffragans at Maillezais, Luçon, Sarlat, and Condom. By a later papal bull, issued shortly after their establishment, these bishoprics appear to have been abolished, as no record shows that they entered into the general scheme of the revolutionary suppression. On August 4, 1790, all chapters of cathedral churches, other than those of the metropoles (the mother sees), their bishops, and in turn their respective curés, were suppressed. This ruling applied as well to all collegiate churches, secular bodies, and abbeys and priories generally. Many were, of course, reëstablished at a subsequent time, or, at least, were permitted to resume their beneficent work. But it was this general suppression, in the latter years of the eighteenth century, which led up to the general reapportioning of dioceses in that composition of Church and State thereafter known as the Concordat. [Illustration: _The Concordat_ (_From Napoleon's Tomb_)] Many causes deflected the growth of the Church from its natural progressive pathway. The Protestant fury went nearly to fanaticism, as did the equally fervent attempts to suppress it. The "Temples of Reason" of the Terrorists were of short endurance, but they indicated an unrest that has only in a measure moderated, if one is to take later political events as an indication of anything more than a mere uncontrolled emotion. Whether a great future awaits Protestantism in France, or not, the power of the Roman Church is undoubtedly waning, in attracting congregations, at least. Should a Wesley or a Whitfield arise, he might gain followers, as strong men do, and they would draw unto them others, until congregations might abound. But the faith could hardly become the avowed religion of or for the French people. It has, however, a great champion in the powerful newspaper, _Le Temps_, which has done, and will do, much to popularize the movement. The Protestantism of Lot and Lot et Garonne is considerable, and it is of very long standing. It is recorded, too, that as late as October, 1901, the Commune of Murat went over _en masse_ to Protestantism because the Catholic bishop at Cahors desired his communicants to rise from their beds at what they considered an inconveniently early hour, in order to hear mass. This movement in Languedoc was not wholly due to the tyranny of the Duke of Anjou; it was caused in part by the confiscation or assumption of the papal authority by France. This caused not only an internal unrest in Italy, but a turbulence which spread throughout all the western Mediterranean, and even unto the Rhine and Flanders. The danger which threatened the establishment of the Church, by making the papacy a dependence of France, aroused the Italian prelates and people alike, and gave rise to the simultaneous existence of both a French and an Italian Pope. Charles V. supported the French pontiff, as was but natural, thus fermenting a great schism; with its attendant controversies and horrors. French and Italian politics became for a time inexplicably mingled, and the kingdom of Naples came to be transferred to the house of Anjou. The Revolution, following close upon the Jansenist movement at Port Royal, and the bull Unigenitus of the Pope, resulted in such riot and disregard for all established institutions, monarchical, political, and religious, that the latter--quite as much as the others--suffered undue severity. The Church itself was at this time divided, and rascally intrigue, as well as betrayal, was the order of the day on all sides. Bishops were politicians, and priests were but the tools of their masters; this to no small degree, if we are to accept the written records. Talleyrand-Périgord, Bishop of Autun, was a member of the National Assembly, and often presided over the sittings of that none too deliberate body. In the innovations of the Revolution, the Church and the clergy took, for what was believed to be the national good, their full and abiding share in the surrender of past privileges. At Paris, at the instance of Mirabeau, they even acknowledged, in some measure, the principle of religious liberty, in its widest application. The appalling massacres of September 2, 1792, fell heavily upon the clergy throughout France; of whom one hundred and forty were murdered at the _Carmes_ alone. The Archbishop of Arles on that eventful day gave utterance to the following devoted plea: "_Give thanks to God, gentlemen, that He calls us to seal with our blood the faith we profess. Let us ask of Him the grace of final perseverance, which by our own merit we could not obtain._" The Restoration found the Church in a miserable and impoverished condition. There was already a long list of dioceses without bishops; of cardinals, prelates, and priests without charges, many of them in prison. Congregations innumerable had been suppressed and many sees had been abolished. The new dioceses, under the Concordat of 1801, one for each department only, were of vast size as compared with those which had existed more numerously before the Revolution. In 1822 thirty new sees were added to the prelature. To-day there are sixty-seven bishoprics and seventeen archbishoprics, not including the colonial suffragans, but including the diocese of Corsica, whose seat is at Ajaccio. Church and State are thus seen to have been, from the earliest times, indissolubly linked throughout French dominion. The king--while there was a king--was the eldest son of the Church, and, it is said, the Church in France remains to-day that part of the Roman communion which possesses the greatest importance for the governing body of that faith. This, in spite of the tendency toward what might be called, for the want of a more expressive word, irreligion. This is a condition, or a state, which is unquestionably making headway in the France of to-day--as well, presumably, as in other countries--of its own sheer weight of numbers. One by one, since the establishment of the Church in Gaul, all who placed any limits to their ecclesiastical allegiance have been turned out, and so turned into enemies,--the Protestants, the Jansenists, followers of the Bishop of Ypres, and the Constitutionalists. Reconciliation on either side is, and ever has been, apparently, an impossibility. Freedom of thought and action is undoubtedly increasing its license, and the clergy in politics, while a thing to be desired by many, is, after all, a thing to be feared by the greater number,--for whom a popular government is made. Hence the curtailment of the power of the monks--the real secular propagandists--was perhaps a wise thing. We are not to-day living under the conditions which will permit of a new Richelieu to come upon the scene, and the recent act (1902) which suppressed so many monastic establishments, convents, and religious houses of all ranks, including the Alpine retreat of "La Grande Chartreuse," may be taken rather as a natural process of curtailment than a mere vindictive desire on the part of the State to concern itself with "things that do not matter." On the other hand, it is hard to see just what immediate gain is to result to the nation. III THE CHURCH ARCHITECTURE OF SOUTHERN FRANCE The best history of the Middle Ages is that suggested by their architectural remains. That is, if we want tangible or ocular demonstration, which many of us do. Many of these remains are but indications of a grandeur that is past and a valour and a heroism that are gone; but with the Church alone are suggested the piety and devotion which still live, at least to a far greater degree than many other sentiments and emotions; which in their struggle to keep pace with progress have suffered, or become effete by the way. To the Church, then, or rather religion--if the word be preferred--we are chiefly indebted for the preservation of these ancient records in stone. Ecclesiastical architecture led the way--there is no disputing that, whatever opinions may otherwise be held by astute archæologists, historians, and the antiquarians, whose food is anything and everything so long as it reeks of antiquity. The planning and building of a great church was no menial work. Chief dignitaries themselves frequently engaged in it: the Abbot Suger, the foremost architect of his time--prime minister and regent of the kingdom as he was--at St. Denis; Archbishop Werner at Strasbourg; and William of Wykeham in England, to apportion such honours impartially. Gothic style appears to have turned its back on Italy, where, in Lombardy at all events, were made exceedingly early attempts in this style. This, perhaps, because of satisfying and enduring classical works which allowed no rivalry; a state of affairs to some extent equally true of the south of France. The route of expansion, therefore, was northward, along the Rhine, into the Isle of France, to Belgium, and finally into England. No more true or imaginative description of Gothic forms has been put into literature than those lines of Sir Walter Scott, which define its characteristics thus: "... Whose pillars with clustered shafts so trim, With base and capital flourished 'round, Seemed bundles of lances which garlands had bound." In modern times, even in France, church-building neither aspired to, nor achieved, any great distinction. Since the Concordat what have we had? A few restorations, which in so far as they were carried out in the spirit of the original were excellent; a few added members, as the west front and spires of St. Ouen at Rouen; the towers and western portal at Clermont-Ferrand; and a few other works of like magnitude and worth. For the rest, where anything of bulk was undertaken, it was almost invariably a copy of a Renaissance model, and often a bad one at that; or a descent to some hybrid thing worse even than in their own line were the frank mediocrities of the era of the "Citizen-King," or the plush and horsehair horrors of the Second Empire. Most characteristic, and truly the most important of all, are the remains of the Gallo-Roman period. These are the most notable and forceful reminders of the relative prominence obtained by mediæval pontiffs, prelates, and peoples. These relations are further borne out by the frequent juxtaposition of ecclesiastical and civic institutions of the cities themselves,--fortifications, palaces, châteaux, cathedrals, and churches, the former indicating no more a predominance of power than the latter. A consideration of one, without something more than mere mention of the other, is not possible, and incidentally--even for the church-lover--nothing can be more interesting than the great works of fortification--strong, frowning, and massive--as are yet to be seen at Béziers, Carcassonne, or Avignon. It was this latter city which sheltered within its outer walls that monumental reminder of the papal power which existed in this French capital of the "Church of Rome"--as it must still be called--in the fourteenth century. To the stranger within the gates the unconscious resemblance between a castellated and battlemented feudal stronghold and the many churches,--and even certain cathedrals, as at Albi, Béziers, or Agde,--which were not unlike in their outline, will present some confusion of ideas. Between a crenelated battlement or the machicolations of a city wall, as at Avignon; or of a hôtel de ville, as at Narbonne; or the same detail surmounting an episcopal residence, as at Albi, which is a veritable _donjon_; or the Palais des Papes, is not a difference even of degree. It is the same thing in each case. In one instance, however, it may have been purely for defence, and in the other used as a decorative accessory; in the latter case it was no less useful when occasion required. This feature throughout the south of France is far more common than in the north, and is bound to be strongly remarked. Two great groups or divisions of architectural style are discernible throughout the south, even by the most casual of observers. One is the Provençal variety, which clings somewhat closely to the lower valley of the Rhône; and the other, the Aquitanian (with possibly the more restricted Auvergnian). These types possess in common the one distinctive trait, in some form or other, of the round-arched vaulting of Roman tradition. It is hardly more than a reminiscence, however, and while not in any way resembling the northern Gothic, at least in the Aquitanian species, hovers on the borderland between the sunny south and the more frigid north. The Provençal type more nearly approximates the older Roman, and, significantly, it has--with less interpolation of modern ideas--endured the longest. The Aquitanian style of the cathedrals at Périgueux and Angoulême, to specialize but two, is supposed to--and it does truly--bridge the gulf between the round-arched style which is _not_ Roman and the more brilliant and graceful type of Gothic. With this manner of construction goes, of course, a somewhat different interior arrangement than that seen in the north. A profound acquaintance with the subject will show that it bears a certain resemblance to the disposition of parts in an Eastern mosque, and to the earlier form of Christian church--the basilica. In this regard Fergusson makes the statement without reservation that the Eglise de Souillac more nearly resembles the Cairène type of Mohammedan mosque than it does a Christian church--of any era. A distinct feature of this type is the massive pointed arch, upon which so many have built their definition of Gothic. In truth, though, it differs somewhat from the northern Gothic arch, but is nevertheless very ancient. It is used in early Christian churches,--at Acre and Jaffa,--and was adopted, too, by the architects of the Eastern Empire long before its introduction into Gaul. The history of its transportation might be made interesting, and surely instructive, were one able to follow its orbit with any definite assurance that one was not wandering from the path. This does not seem possible; most experts, real or otherwise, who have tried it seem to flounder and finally fall in the effort to trace its history in consecutive and logical, or even plausible, fashion. In illustration this is well shown by that wonderful and unique church of St. Front at Périgueux, where, in a design simple to severity, it shows its great unsimilarity to anything in other parts of France; if we except La Trinité at Anjou, with respect to its roofing and piers of nave. It has been compared in general plan and outline to St. Marc's at Venice, "but a St. Marc's stripped of its marbles and mosaics." In the Italian building its founders gathered their inspiration for many of its structural details from the old Byzantine East. At this time the Venetians were pushing their commercial enterprises to all parts. North-western France, and ultimately the British Isles, was the end sought. We know, too, that a colony of Venetians had established itself as far northward as Limoges, and another at Périgueux, when, in 984, this edifice, which might justly be called Venetian in its plan, was begun. No such decoration or ornamentation was presumed as in its Adriatic prototype, but it had much beautiful carving in the capitals of its pillars and yet other embellishments, such as pavements, monuments, and precious altars, which once, it is said, existed more numerously than now. Here, then, was the foundation of a new western style, differing in every respect from the Provençal or the Angevinian. Examples of the northern pointed or Gothic are, in a large way, found as far south as Bayonne in its cathedral; in the spires of the cathedral at Bordeaux; and less grandly, though elegantly, disposed in St. Nazaire in the old _Cité de Carcassonne_; and farther north at Clermont-Ferrand, where its northern-pointed cathedral is in strong contrast to the neighbouring Notre Dame du Port, a remarkable type distinctly local in its plan and details. From this point onward, it becomes not so much a question of defining and placing types, as of a chronological arrangement of fact with regard to the activities of the art of church-building. It is doubtless true that many of the works of the ninth and tenth centuries were but feeble imitations of the buildings of Charlemagne, but it is also true that the period was that which was bringing about the development of a more or less distinct style, and if the Romanesque churches of France were not wholly Roman in spirit they were at least not a debasement therefrom. Sir Walter Scott has also described the Romanesque manner of church-building most poetically, as witness the following quatrain: "Built ere the art was known By pointed aisle and shafted stalk The arcades of an alleyed walk To emulate in stone." However, little remains in church architecture of the pre-tenth century to compare with the grand theatres, arenas, monuments, arches, towers, and bridges which are still left to us. Hence comparison were futile. Furthermore, there is this patent fact to be reckoned with, that the petty followers of the magnificent Charlemagne were not endowed with as luxurious a taste, as large a share of riches, or so great a power; and naturally they fell before the idea they would have emulated. As a whole France was at this period amid great consternation and bloodshed, and traces of advancing civilization were fast falling before wars and cruelties unspeakable. There came a period when the intellect, instead of pursuing its rise, was, in reality, degenerating into the darkness of superstition. The church architecture of this period--so hostile to the arts and general enlightenment--was undergoing a process even more fatal to its development than the terrors of war or devastation. It is a commonplace perhaps to repeat that it was the superstition aroused by the Apocalypse that the end of all things would come with the commencement of the eleventh century. It was this, however, that produced the stagnation in church-building which even the ardour of a few believing churchmen could not allay. The only great religious foundation of the time was the Abbey of Cluny in the early years of the tenth century. When the eleventh century actually arrived, Christians again bestirred themselves, and the various cities and provinces vied with each other in their enthusiastic devotion to church-building, as if to make up for lost time. From this time onward the art of church-building gave rise to that higher skill and handicraft, the practice of architecture as an art, of which ecclesiastical art, as was but natural, rose to the greatest height. The next century was productive of but little change in style, and, though in the north the transition and the most primitive of Gothic were slowly creeping in, the well-defined transition did not come until well forward in the twelfth century, when, so soon after, the new style bloomed forth in all its perfected glory. The cathedrals of southern France are manifestly not as lively and vigorous as those at Reims, Amiens, or Rouen; none have the splendour and vast extent of old glass as at Chartres, and none of the smaller examples equal the symmetry and delicacy of those at Noyon or Senlis. Some there be, however, which for magnificence and impressiveness take rank with the most notable of any land. This is true of those of Albi, Le Puy, Périgueux, and Angoulême. Avignon, too, in the _ensemble_ of its cathedral and the papal palace, forms an architectural grouping that is hardly rivalled by St. Peter's and the Vatican itself. In many of the cities of the south of France the memory of the past, with respect to their cathedrals, is overshadowed by that of their secular and civic monuments, the Roman arenas, theatres, and temples. At Nîmes, Arles, Orange, and Vienne these far exceed in importance and beauty the religious establishments. The monasteries, abbeys, and priories of the south of France are perhaps not more numerous, nor yet more grand, than elsewhere, but they bring one to-day into more intimate association with their past. The "Gallia-Monasticum" enumerates many score of these establishments as having been situated in these parts. Many have passed away, but many still exist. Among the first of their kind were those founded by St. Hilaire at Poitiers and St. Martin at Tours. The great Burgundian pride was the Abbey of Cluny; much the largest and perhaps as grand as any erected in any land. Its church covered over seventy thousand square feet of area, nearly equalling in size the cathedrals at Amiens and at Bourges, and larger than either those at Chartres, Paris, or Reims. This great church was begun in 1089, was dedicated in 1131, and endured for more than seven centuries. To-day but a few small fragments remain, but note should be made of the influences which spread from this great monastic establishment throughout all Europe; and were second only to those of Rome itself. The lovely cloistered remains of Provence, Auvergne, and Aquitaine, the comparatively modern Charterhouse--called reminiscently the Escurial of Dauphiné--near Grenoble, the communistic church of St. Bertrand de Comminges, La Chaise Dieu, Clairvaux, and innumerable other abbeys and monasteries will recall to mind more forcibly than aught else what their power must once have been. Between the seventh and tenth centuries these institutions flourished and developed in all of the provinces which go to make up modern France. But the eleventh and twelfth centuries were the golden days of these institutions. They rendered unto the land and the people immense service, and their monks studied not only the arts and sciences, but worked with profound intelligence at all manner of utile labour. Their architecture exerted a considerable influence on this growing art of the nation, and many of their grand churches were but the forerunners of cathedrals yet to be. After the twelfth century, when the arts in France had reached the greatest heights yet attained, these religious establishments were--to give them historical justice--the greatest strength in the land. In most cases where the great cathedrals were not the works of bishops, who may at one time have been members of monastic communities themselves, they were the results of the efforts of laymen who were direct disciples of the architect monks. The most prolific monastic architect was undoubtedly St. Bénigne of Dijon, the Italian monk whose work was spread not only throughout Brittany and Normandy, but even across the Channel to England. One is reminded in France that the nation's first art expression was made through church-building and decoration. This proves Ruskin's somewhat involved dicta, that, "architecture is the art which disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man ... a building raised to the honour of God has surely a use to which its architectural adornment fits it." From whatever remote period the visible history of France has sprung, it is surely from its architectural remains--of which religious edifices have endured the most abundantly--that its chronicles since Gallo-Roman times are built up. In the south of France, from the Gallic and Roman wars and invasions, we have a basis of tangibility, inasmuch as the remains are more numerous and definite than the mere pillars of stone and slabs of rock to be found in Bretagne, which apocryphally are supposed to indicate an earlier civilization. The _menhirs_ and _dolmens_ may mean much or little; the subject is too vague to follow here, but they are not found east of the Rhône, so the religion of fanaticism, of whatever species of fervour they may have resulted from, has left very little impress on France as a nation. After the rudest early monuments were erected in the south, became ruined, and fell, there followed gateways, arches, aqueducts, arenas, theatres, temples, and, finally, churches; and from these, however minute the stones, the later civilizing and Christianizing history of this fair land is built up. It is not possible to ignore these secular and worldly contemporaries of the great churches. It would be fatal to simulate blindness, and they could not otherwise be overlooked. After the church-building era was begun, the development of the various styles was rapid: Gothic came, bloomed, flourished, and withered away. Then came the Renaissance, not all of it bad, but in the main entirely unsuitable as a type of Christian architecture. Charles VIII. is commonly supposed to have been the introducer of the Italian Renaissance into France, but it was to Francois I.--that great artistic monarch and glorifier of the style in its domestic forms at least--that its popularization was due, who shall not say far beyond its deserts? Only in the magnificent châteaux, variously classed as Feudal, Renaissance, and Bourbon, did it partake of details and plans which proved glorious in their application. All had distinctly inconsistent details grafted upon them; how could it have been otherwise with the various fortunes of their houses? There is little or nothing of Gothic in the château architecture of France to distinguish it from the more pronounced type which can hardly be expressed otherwise than as "the architecture of the French châteaux." No single word will express it, and no one type will cover them all, so far as defining their architectural style. The castle at Tarascon has a machicolated battlement; Coucy and Pierrefonds are towered and turreted as only a French château can be; the ruined and black-belted château of Angers is aught but a fortress; and Blois is an indescribable mixture of style which varies from the magnificent to the sordid. This last has ever been surrounded by a sentiment which is perhaps readily enough explained, but its architecture is of that decidedly mixed type which classes it as a mere hybrid thing, and in spite of the splendour of the additions by the houses of the Salamander and the Hedgehog, it is a species which is as indescribable (though more effective) in domestic architecture as is the Tudor of England. With the churches the sentiments aroused are somewhat different. The Romanesque, Provençal, Auvergnian, or Aquitanian, all bespeak the real expression of the life of the time, regardless of whether individual examples fall below or rise above their contemporaries elsewhere. The assertion is here confidently made, that a great cathedral church is, next to being a symbol of the faith, more great as a monument to its age and environment than as the product of its individual builders; crystallizing in stone the regard with which the mission of the Church was held in the community. Church-building was never a fanaticism, though it was often an enthusiasm. There is no question but that church history in general, and church architecture in particular, are becoming less and less the sole pursuit of the professional. One does not need to adopt a transcendent doctrine by merely taking an interest, or an intelligent survey, in the social and political aspects of the Church as an institution, nor is he becoming biassed or prejudiced by a true appreciation of the symbolism and artistic attributes which have ever surrounded the art of church-building of the Roman Catholic Church. All will admit that the æsthetic aspect of the church edifice has always been the superlative art expression of its era, race, and locality. _PART II_ _South of the Loire_ I INTRODUCTORY The region immediately to the southward of the Loire valley is generally accounted the most fertile, abundant, and prosperous section of France. Certainly the food, drink, and shelter of all classes appear to be arranged on a more liberal scale than elsewhere; and this, be it understood, is a very good indication of the prosperity of a country. Touraine, with its luxurious sentiment of châteaux, counts, and bishops, is manifestly of the north, as also is the border province of Maine and Anjou, which marks the progress and development of church-building from the manifest Romanesque types of the south to the arched vaults of the northern variety. Immediately to the southward--if one journeys but a few leagues--in Poitou, Saintonge, and Angoumois, or in the east, in Berri, Marche, and Limousin, one comes upon a very different sentiment indeed. There is an abundance for all, but without the opulence of Burgundy or the splendour of Touraine. Of the three regions dealt with in this section, Poitou is the most prosperous, Auvergne the most picturesque,--though the Cevennes are stern and sterile,--and Limousin the least appealing. Limousin and, in some measure, Berri and Marche are purely pastoral; and, though greatly diversified as to topography, lack, in abundance, architectural monuments of the first rank. Poitou, in the west, borders upon the ocean and is to a great extent wild, rugged, and romantic. The forest region of the Bocage has ever been a theme for poets and painters. In the extreme west of the province is the Vendée, now the department of the same name. The struggles of its inhabitants on behalf of the monarchical cause, in the early years of the Revolution, is a lurid page of blood-red history that recalls one of the most gallant struggles in the life of the monarchy. The people here were hardy and vigorous,--a race of landlords who lived largely upon their own estates but still retained an attachment for the feudatories round about, a feeling which was unknown elsewhere in France. Poitiers, on the river Clain, a tributary of the Vienne, is the chief city of Poitou. Its eight magnificent churches are greater, in the number and extent of their charms, than any similar octette elsewhere. The valley of the Charente waters a considerable region to the southward of Poitiers. "_Le bon Roi_" Henri IV. called the stream the most charming in all his kingdom. The chief cities on its banks are La Rochelle, the Huguenot stronghold; Rochefort, famed in worldly fashion for its cheeses; and Angoulême, famed for its "_Duchesse_," who was also worldly, and more particularly for its great domed cathedral of St. Pierre. With Auvergne one comes upon a topographical aspect quite different from anything seen elsewhere. Most things of this world are but comparative, and so with Auvergne. It is picturesque, certainly. Le Puy has indeed been called "by one who knows," "the most picturesque place in the world." Clermont-Ferrand is almost equally attractive as to situation; while Puy de Dôme, Riom, and St. Nectaire form a trio of naturally picturesque topographical features which it would be hard to equal within so small a radius elsewhere. The country round about is volcanic, and the face of the landscape shows it plainly. Clermont-Ferrand, the capital, was a populous city in Roman times, and was the centre from which the spirit of the Church survived and went forth anew after five consecutive centuries of devastation and bloodshed of Vandals, Visigoths, Franks, Saracens, Carlovingians and Capetians. Puy de Dôme, near Clermont-Ferrand, is a massive rocky mount which rises nearly five thousand feet above the sea-level, and presents one of those uncommon and curious sights which one can hardly realize until he comes immediately beneath their spell. Throughout this region are many broken volcanic craters and lava streams. At Mont Doré-le-Bains are a few remains of a Roman thermal establishment; an indication that these early settlers found--if they did not seek--these warm springs of a unique quality, famous yet throughout the world. An alleged "Druid's altar," more probably merely a _dolmen_, is situated near St. Nectaire, a small watering-place which is also possessed of an impressively simple, though massive, Romanesque church. At Issiore is the _Eglise de St. Pol_, a large and important church, built in the eleventh century, in the Romanesque manner. Another most interesting great church is _La Chaise Dieu_ near Le Puy, a remarkable construction of the fourteenth century. It was originally the monastery of the _Casa Dei_. It has been popularly supposed heretofore that its floor was on a level with the summit of Puy de Dôme, hence its appropriate nomenclature; latterly the assertion has been refuted, as it may be by any one who takes the trouble to compare the respective elevations in figures. This imposing church ranks, however, unreservedly among the greatest of the mediæval monastic establishments of France. The powerful feudal system of the Middle Ages, which extended from the Atlantic and German Oceans nearly to the Neapolitan and Spanish borders--afterward carried still farther into Naples and Britain--finds its most important and striking monument of central France in the Château of Polignac, only a few miles from Le Puy. This to-day is but a ruin, but it rises boldly from a depressed valley, and suggests in every way--ruin though it be--the mediæval stronghold that it once was. Originally it was the seat of the distinguished family whose name it bears. The Revolution practically destroyed it, but such as is left shows completely the great extent of its functions both as a fortress and a palace. These elements were made necessary by long ages of warfare and discord,--local in many cases, but none the less bloodthirsty for that,--and while such institutions naturally promulgated the growth of Feudalism which left these massive and generous memorials, it is hard to see, even to-day, how else the end might have been obtained. Auvergne, according to Fergusson, who in his fact has seldom been found wanting, "has one of the most beautiful and numerous of the 'round-Gothic' styles in France ... classed among the perfected styles of Europe." Immediately to the southward of Le Puy is that marvellous country known as the Cevennes. It has been commonly called sterile, bare, unproductive, and much that is less charitable as criticism. It is not very productive, to be sure, but a native of the land once delivered himself of this remark: "_Le mûrier a été pendant longtemps l'arbre d'or du Cevenol._" This is prima-facie evidence that the first statement was a libel. In the latter years of the eighteenth century the Protestants of the Cevennes were a large and powerful body of dissenters. A curious work _in English_, written by a native of Languedoc in 1703, states "that they were at least ten to one Papist. And 'twas observed, in many Places, the Priest said mass only for his Clerk, Himself, and the Walls." These people were not only valiant but industrious, and at that time held the most considerable trade in wool of all France. To quote again this eighteenth-century Languedocian, who aspired to be a writer of English, we learn: "God vouchsafed to Illuminate this People with the Truths of the Gospel, several Ages before the Reformation.... The _Waldenses_ and _Albigenses_ fled into the Mountains to escape the violence of the Crusades against them.... Cruel persecution did not so wholly extinguish the Sacred Light in the _Cevennes_, but that some parts of it were preserved among its Ashes." As early as 1683 the Protestants in many parts of southern France drew up a _Project_ of non-compliance with the Edicts and Declarations against them. The inhabitants in general, however, of the wealthy cities of Montpellier, Nîmes and Uzès were divided much as factions are to-day, and the Papist preference prevailing, the scheme was not put into execution. Because of this, attempted resistance was made only in some parts of the Cevennes and Dauphiné. Here the dissenters met with comfort and assurance by the preachings of several ministers, and finally sought to go out proselytizing among their outside brethren in affliction. This brought martyrdom, oppression, and bloodshed; and finally culminated in a long series of massacres. Children in large numbers were taken from their parents, and put under the Romish faith, as a precaution, presumably, that future generations should be more tractable and faithful. It is told of the Bishop of Alais that upon visiting the curé at Vigan, he desired that forty children should be so put away, forthwith. The curé could find but sixteen who were not dutiful toward the Church, but the bishop would have none of it. Forty was his quota from that village, and forty must be found. Forty _were_ found, the rest being made up from those who presumably stood in no great need of the care of the Church, beyond such as already came into their daily lives. It seems outrageous and unfair at this late day, leaving all question of Church and creed outside the pale, but most machination of arbitrary law and ruling works the same way, and pity 'tis that the Church should not have been the first to recognize this tendency. However, these predilections on the part of the people are scarcely more than a memory to-day, in spite of the fact that Protestantism still holds forth in many parts. Taine was undoubtedly right when he said that it was improbable that such a religion would ever satisfy the French temperament. Limousin partakes of many of the characteristics of Auvergne and Poitou. Its architectural types favour the latter, and its topographical features the former. The resemblance is not so very great in either case, but it is to be remarked. Its chief city, Limoges, lies to the northward of the _Montagnes du Limousin_, on the banks of the Vienne, which, through the Loire, enters the Atlantic at St. Nazaire. In a way, its topographical situation, as above noted, accounts far more for its tendencies of life, the art expression of its churches, and its ancient enamels and pottery of to-day, than does its climatic situation. It is climatically of the southland, but its industry and its influences have been greatly northern. With the surrounding country this is not true, but with its one centre of population--Limoges--it is. II L'ABBAYE DE MAILLEZAIS Maillezais is but a memory, so far as its people and power are concerned. It is not even a Vendean town, as many suppose, though it was the seat of a thirteenth-century bishopric, which in the time of Louis Quatorze was transferred to La Rochelle. Its abbey church, the oldest portion of which dates from the tenth to the twelfth centuries, is now but a ruin. In the fourteenth century the establishment was greatly enlarged and extensive buildings added. To-day it is classed, by the Commission des Monuments Historiques, among those treasures for which it stands sponsor as to their antiquity, artistic worth, and future preservation. Aside from this and the record of the fact that it became, in the fourteenth century, the seat of a bishop's throne,--with Geoffroy I. as its first occupant,--it must be dismissed without further comment. [Illustration] III ST. LOUIS DE LA ROCHELLE The city of La Rochelle will have more interest for the lover of history than for the lover of churches. Its past has been lurid, and the momentous question of the future rights of the Protestants of France made this natural stronghold the battle-ground where the most stubborn resistance against Church and State was made. The siege of 1573 was unsuccessful. But a little more than half a century later the city, after a siege of fourteen months, gave way before the powerful force brought against it by Cardinal Richelieu in person, supported by Louis XIII. For this reason, if for no other, he who would know from personal acquaintance the ground upon which the mighty battles of the faith were fought will not pass the Huguenot city quickly by. The Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle naturally might not be supposed to possess a very magnificent Roman cathedral. As a matter of fact it does not, and it has only ranked as a cathedral city since 1665, when the bishopric was transferred from Maillezais. The city was in the hands of the Huguenots from 1557 until the siege of 1628-1629; and was, during all this time, the bulwark of the Protestant cause in France. The present cathedral of St. Louis dates only from 1735. Its pseudo-classic features classify it as one of those structures designated by the discerning Abbé Bourassé as being "cold-blooded and lacking in lustre." It surely is all of that, and the pity is that it offers no charm whatever of either shape or feature. It is of course more than likely that Huguenot influence was here so great as to have strangled any ambition on the part of the mediæval builders to have erected previously anything more imposing. And when that time was past came also the demise of Gothic splendour. The transition from the pointed to the superimposed classical details, which was the distinctive Renaissance manner of church-building, was not as sudden as many suppose, though it came into being simultaneously throughout the land. There is no trace, however, in the cathedral of St. Louis, of anything but a base descent to features only too well recognized as having little of churchly mien about them; and truly this structure is no better or worse as an art object than many others of its class. The significant aspect being that, though it resembles Gothic not at all, neither does it bear any close relationship to the Romanesque. The former parish church of St. Barthèlemy, long since destroyed, has left behind, as a memory of its former greatness, a single lone tower, the work of a Cluniac monk, Mognon by name. It is worth hours of contemplation and study as compared with the minutes which could profitably be devoted to the cathedral of St. Louis. [Illustration] IV CATHÉDRALE DE LUÇON When the see of Luçon was established in the fourteenth century it comprehended a territory over which Poitiers had previously had jurisdiction. A powerful abbey was here in the seventh century, but the first bishop, Pierre de la Veyrie, did not come to the diocese until 1317. The real fame of the diocese, in modern minds, lies in the fact that Cardinal Richelieu was made bishop of Luçon in the seventeenth century (1606 to 1624). The cathedral at Luçon is a remarkable structure in appearance. A hybrid conglomerate thing, picturesque enough to the untrained eye, but ill-proportioned, weak, effeminate, and base. Its graceful Gothic spire, crocketed, and of true dwindling dimensions, is superimposed on a tower which looks as though it might have been modelled with a series of children's building-blocks. This in its turn crowns a classical portal and colonnade in most uncanny fashion. In the first stage of this tower, as it rises above the portal, is what, at a distance, appears to be a diminutive _rosace_. In reality it is an enormous clock-face, to which one's attention is invariably directed by the native, a species of local admiration which is universal throughout the known world wherever an ungainly clock exists. The workmanship of the building as a whole is of every century from the twelfth to the seventeenth, with a complete "restoration" in 1853. In the episcopal palace is a cloistered arcade, the remains of a fifteenth-century work. A rather pleasing situation sets off this pretentious but unworthy cathedral in a manner superior to that which it deserves. [Illustration] V ST. FRONT DE PÉRIGUEUX The grandest and most notable tenth-century church yet remaining in France is unquestionably that of St. Front at Périgueux. From the records of its history and a study of its distinctive constructive elements has been traced the development of the transition period which ultimately produced the Gothic splendours of the Isle of France. It is more than reminiscent of St. Marc's at Venice, and is the most notable exponent of that type of roofing which employed the cupola in groups, to sustain the thrust and counterthrust, which was afterward accomplished by the ogival arch in conjunction with the flying buttress. Here are comparatively slight sustaining walls, and accordingly no great roofed-over chambers such as we get in the later Gothic, but the whole mass is, in spite of this, suggestive of a massiveness which many more heavily walled churches do not possess. Paradoxically, too, a view over its roof-top, with its ranges of egg-like domes, suggests a frailty which but for its scientifically disposed strains would doubtless have collapsed ere now. This ancient abbatial church succeeded an earlier _basilique_ on the same site. Viollet-le-Duc says of it: "It is an importation from a foreign country; the most remarkable example of church-building in Gaul since the barbaric invasion." The plan of the cathedral follows not only the form of St. Marc's, but also approximates its dimensions. The remains of the ancient basilica are only to be remarked in the portion which precedes the foremost cupola. St. Front has the unusual attribute of an _avant-porch_,--a sort of primitive narthen, as was a feature of tenth-century buildings (see plan and descriptions of a tenth-century church in appendix), behind which is a second porch,--a vestibule beneath the tower,--and finally the first of the group, of five central cupolas. The _clocher_ or belfry of St. Front is accredited as being one of the most remarkable eleventh-century erections of its kind in any land. It is made up of square stages, each smaller than the other, and crowned finally by a conic cupola. Its early inception and erection here are supposed to account for the similarity of others--not so magnificent, but like to a marked degree--in the neighbouring provinces. Here is no trace of the piled-up tabouret style of later centuries, and it is far removed from the mosque-like minarets which were the undoubted prototypes of the mediæval clochers. So, too, it is different, quite, from the Italian _campanile_ or the _beffroi_ which crept into civic architecture in the north; but whose sole example in the south of France is believed to be that curious structure which still holds forth in the papal city of Avignon. Says Bourassé: "The cathedral of St. Front at Périgueux is unique." Its foundation dates with certitude from between 1010 and 1047, and is therefore contemporary with that of St. Marc's at Venice--which it so greatly resembles--which was rebuilt after a fire between 977 and 1071. [Illustration: _Detail of the Interior of St. Front de Périgueux_] The general effect of the interior is as impressive as it is unusual, with its lofty cupolas, its weighty and gross pillars, and its massive arches between the cupolas; all of which are purely constructive elements. There are few really ornamental details, and such as exist are of a severe and unprogressive type, being merely reminiscent of the antique. In its general plan, St. Front follows that of a Grecian cross, its twelve wall-faces crowned by continuous pediments. Eight massive pillars, whose functions are those of the later developed buttress, flank the extremities of the cross, and are crowned by pyramidal cupolas which, with the main roofing, combine to give that distinctive character to this unusual and "foreign" cathedral of mid-France. St. Front, from whom the cathedral takes its name, became the first bishop of Périgueux when the see was founded in the second century. VI ST. PIERRE DE POITIERS IN 1317 the diocese of Poitiers was divided, and parts apportioned to the newly founded bishoprics of Maillezais and Luçon. The first bishop of Poitiers was St. Nectaire, in the third century. By virtue of the Concordat of 1801 the diocese now comprehends the Departments of Vienne and Deux-Sèvres. The cathedral of St. Pierre de Poitiers has been baldly and tersely described as a "mere Lombard shell with a Gothic porch." This hardly does it justice, even as to preciseness. The easterly portion is Lombard, without question, and the nave is of the northern pointed variety; a not unusual admixture of feature, but one which can but suggest that still more, much more, is behind it. The pointed nave is of great beauty, and, in the westerly end, contains an elaborate _rosace_--an infrequent attribute in these parts. [Illustration: Poitiers] The aisles are of great breadth, and are quite as lofty in proportion. This produces an effect of great amplitude, nearly as much so as of the great halled churches at Albi or the aisleless St. André at Bordeaux, and contrasts forcibly in majesty with the usual Gothic conception of great height, as against extreme width. Of Poitiers Professor Freeman says: "It is no less a city of counts than Angers; and if Counts of Anjou grew into Kings of England, one Countess of Poitiers grew no less into a Queen of England; and when the young Henry took her to wife, he took all Poitou with her, and Aquitaine and Gascogne, too, so great was his desire for lands and power." Leaving that aspect apart--to the historians and apologists--it is the churches of Poitiers which have for the traveller the greatest and all-pervading interest. Poitiers is justly famed for its noble and numerous mediæval church edifices. Five of them rank as a unique series of Romanesque types--the most precious in all France. In importance they are perhaps best ranked as follows: St. Hilaire, of the tenth and eleventh centuries; the Baptistère, or the Temple St. Jean, of the fourth to twelfth centuries; Notre Dame de la Grande and St. Radegonde, of the eleventh and twelfth centuries; and La Cathédrale, dating from the end of the Romanesque period. Together they present a unique series of magnificent churches, as is truly claimed. When one crosses the Loire, he crosses the boundary not only into southern Gaul but into southern Europe as well; where the very aspects of life, as well as climatic and topographical conditions and features, are far different from those of the northern French provinces. Looking backward from the Middle Ages--from the fourteenth century to the fourth--one finds the city less a city of counts than of bishops. Another aspect which places Poitiers at the very head of ecclesiastical foundations is that it sustained, and still sustains, a separate religious edifice known as the Baptistère. It is here a structure of Christian-Roman times, and is a feature seldom seen north of the Alps, or even out of Italy. There is, however, another example at Le Puy and another at Aix-en-Provence. This Baptistère de St. Jean was founded during the reign of St. Hilaire as bishop of Poitiers, a prelate whose name still lives in the Église St. Hilaire-le-Grand. The cathedral of St. Pierre is commonly classed under the generic style of Romanesque; more particularly it is of the Lombard variety, if such a distinction can be made between the two species with surety. At all events it marks the dividing-line--or period, when the process of evolution becomes most marked--between the almost pagan plan of many early Christian churches and the coming of Gothic. In spite of its prominence and its beauty with regard to its accessories, St. Pierre de Poitiers does not immediately take rank as the most beautiful, nor yet the most interesting, among the churches of the city: neither has it the commanding situation of certain other cathedrals of the neighbouring provinces, such as Notre Dame at Le Puy, St. Maurice at Angers, or St. Front at Périgueux. In short, as to situation, it just misses what otherwise might have been a commanding location. St. Radegonde overhangs the river Clain, but is yet far below the cathedral, which stands upon the eastern flank of an eminence, and from many points is lost entirely to view. From certain distant vantage-ground, the composition is, however, as complete and imposing an ensemble as might be desired, but decidedly the nearer view is not so pleasing, and somewhat mitigates the former estimate. There is a certain uncouthness in the outlines of this church that does not bring it into competition with that class of the great churches of France known as _les grandes cathédrales_. The general outline of the roof--omitting of course the scanty transepts--is very reminiscent of Bourges; and again of Albi. The ridge-pole is broken, however, by a slight differentiation of height between the choir and the nave, and the westerly towers scarcely rise above the roof itself. The easterly termination is decidedly unusual, even unto peculiarity. It is not, after the English manner, of the squared east-end variety, nor yet does it possess an apse of conventional form, but rather is a combination of the two widely differing styles, with considerably more than a suggested apse when viewed from the interior, and merely a flat bare wall when seen from the outside. In addition three diminutive separate apses are attached thereto, and present in the completed arrangement a variation or species which is distinctly local. The present edifice dates from 1162, its construction being largely due to the Countess Eleanor, queen to the young Earl Henry. The high altar was dedicated in 1199, but the choir itself was not finished until a half-century later. There is no triforium or clerestory, and, but for the aisles, the cathedral would approximate the dimensions and interior outlines of that great chambered church at Albi; as it is, it comes well within the classification called by the Germans _hallenkirche_. Professor Freeman has said that a church that has aisles can hardly be called a typical Angevin church; but St. Pierre de Poitiers is distinctly Angevin in spite of the loftiness of its walls and pillars. The west front is the most elaborate constructive element and is an addition of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with flanking towers of the same period which stand well forward and to one side, as at Rouen, and at Wells, in England. The western doorway is decorated with sculptures of the fifteenth century, in a manner which somewhat suggests the work of the northern builders; who, says Fergusson, "were aiding the bishops of the southern dioceses to emulate in some degree the ambitious works of the Isle of France." The ground-plan of this cathedral is curious, and shows, in its interior arrangements, a narrowing or drawing in of parts toward the east. This is caused mostly by the decreasing effect of height between the nave and choir, and the fact that the attenuated transepts are hardly more than suggestions--occupying but the width of one bay. The nave of eight bays and the aisles are of nearly equal height, which again tends to produce an effect of length. There is painted glass of the thirteenth century in small quantity, and a much larger amount of an eighteenth-century product, which shows--as always--the decadence of the art. Of this glass, that of the _rosace_ at the westerly end is perhaps the best, judging from the minute portions which can be seen peeping out from behind the organ-case. The present high altar is a modern work, as also--comparatively--are the tombs of various churchmen which are scattered throughout the nave and choir. In the sacristy, access to which is gained by some mystic rite not always made clear to the visitor, are supposed to be a series of painted portraits of all the former bishops of Poitiers, from the fourteenth century onward. It must be an interesting collection if the outsider could but judge for himself; as things now are, it has to be taken on faith. A detail of distinct value, and a feature which shows a due regard for the abilities of the master workman who built the cathedral, though his name is unknown, is to be seen in the tympana of the canopies which overhang the stalls of the choir. Here is an acknowledgment--in a tangible if not a specific form--of the architectural genius who was responsible for the construction of this church. It consists of a sculptured figure in stone, which bears in its arms a compass and a T square. This suggests the possible connection between the Masonic craft and church-building of the Middle Ages; a subject which has ever been a vexed question among antiquaries, and one which doubtless ever will be. The episcopal residence adjoins the cathedral on the right, and the charming Baptistère St. Jean is also close to the walls of, but quite separate from, the main building of the cathedral. The other architectural attractions of Poitiers are nearly as great as its array of churches. The Musée is exceedingly rich in archæological treasures. The present-day Palais de Justice was the former palace of the Counts of Poitou. It has a grand chamber in its _Salle des Pas-perdus_, which dates from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries as to its decorations. The ramparts of the city are exceedingly interesting and extensive. In the modern hôtel de ville are a series of wall decorations by Puvis de Chavannes. The Hôtel d'Aquitaine (sixteenth century), in the Grand Rue, was the former residence of the Priors of St. John of Jerusalem. The _Chronique de Maillezais_ tells of a former bishop of Poitiers who, about the year 1114, sought to excommunicate that gay prince and poet, William, the ninth Count of Poitiers, the earliest of that race of poets known as the troubadours. Coming into the count's presence to repeat the formula of excommunication, he was threatened with the sword of that gay prince. Thinking better, however, the count admonished him thus: "No, I will not. I do not love you well enough to send you to paradise." He took upon himself, though, to exercise his royal prerogative; and henceforth, for his rash edict, the bishop of Poitiers was banished for ever, and the see descended unto other hands. The generally recognized reputation of William being that of a "_grand trompeur des dames_," this action was but a duty which the honest prelate was bound to perform, disastrous though the consequences might be. Still he thought not of that, and was not willing to accept palliation for the count's venial sins in the shape of that nobleman's capacities as the first chanter of his time,--poetic measures of doubtful morality. VII ST. ETIENNE DE LIMOGES "_Les Limosinats_ leave their cities poor, and they return poor, after long years of labour." --DE LA BÉDOLLIERE. Limoges was the capital around which centred the life and activities of the _pays du Limousin_ when that land marked the limits of the domain of the Kings of France. (Guienne then being under other domination.) The most ancient inhabitants of the province were known as _Lemovices_, but the transition and evolution of the vocable are easily followed to that borne by the present city of Limoges, perhaps best known of art lovers as the home of that school of fifteenth century artists who produced the beautiful works called _Emaux de Limoges_. [Illustration: _St. Etienne de Limoges_] The earliest specimens of what has come to be popularly known as Limoges enamel date from the twelfth century; and the last of the great masters in the splendid art died in 1765. The real history of this truly great art, which may be said to have taken its highest forms in ecclesiology,--of which examples are frequently met with in the sacristies of the cathedral churches of France and elsewhere--is vague to the point of obscurity. A study of the subject, deep and profound, is the only process by which one can acquire even a nodding acquaintance with all its various aspects. It reached its greatest heights in the reign of that artistic monarch, François I. To-day the memory and suggestion of the art of the enamelists of Limoges are perpetuated by, and, through those cursory mentors, the guide-books and popular histories, often confounded with, the production of porcelain. This industry not only flourishes here, but the famous porcelain earth of the country round about is supplied even to the one-time royal factory of Sèvres. St. Martial was the first prelate at Limoges, in the third century. The diocese is to-day a suffragan of Bourges, and its cathedral of St. Etienne, while not a very ancient structure, is most interesting as to its storied past and varied and lively composition. Beneath the western tower are the remains of a Romanesque portal which must have belonged to an older church; but to all intents and purposes St. Etienne is to-day a Gothic church after the true northern manner. It was begun in 1273 under the direct influence of the impetus given to the Gothic development by the erection of Notre Dame d'Amiens, and in all its parts,--choir, transept, and nave,--its development and growth have been most pleasing. From the point of view of situation this cathedral is more attractively placed than many another which is located in a city which perforce must be ranked as a purely commercial and manufacturing town. From the Pont Neuf, which crosses the Vienne, the view over the gardens of the bishop's palace and the Quai de l'Evêché is indeed grand and imposing. Chronologically the parts of this imposing church run nearly the gamut of the Gothic note--from the choir of the thirteenth, the transepts of the fourteenth and fifteenth, to the nave of the early sixteenth centuries. This nave has only latterly been completed, and is preceded by the elegant octagonal tower before mentioned. This _clocher_ is a thirteenth-century work, and rises something over two hundred and four feet above the pavement. In the north transept is a grand rose window after the true French mediæval excellence and magnitude, showing once again the northern spirit under which the cathedral-builders of Limoges worked. In reality the façade of this north transept might be called the true front of the cathedral. The design of its portal is elaborate and elegant. A series of carved figures in stone are set against the wall of the choir just beyond the transept. They depict the martyrdom of St. Etienne. The interior will first of all be remarked for its abundant and splendidly coloured glass. This glass is indeed of the quality which in a later day has often been lacking. It dates from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, except a part, readily discernible, which is of the nineteenth. The remains of a precious choir-screen are yet very beautiful. It has been removed from its original position and its stones arranged in much disorder. Still it is a manifestly satisfying example of the art of the stone-carver of the Renaissance period. It dates from 1543. Bishop Langeac (d. 1541), who caused it to be originally erected, is buried close by, beneath a contemporary monument. Bishops Bernard Brun (d. 1349) and Raynaud de la Porte (d. 1325) have also Renaissance monuments which will be remarked for their excess of ornament and elaboration. In the crypt of the eleventh century, presumably the remains of the Romanesque church whose portal is beneath the western tower, are some remarkable wall paintings thought to be of a contemporary era. If so, they must rank among the very earliest works of their class. The chief treasures of the cathedral are a series of enamels which are set into a reredos (the canon's altar in the sacristy). They are the work of the master, Noel Loudin, in the seventeenth century. In the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville is a monumental fountain in bronze and porcelain, further enriched after the manner of the mediæval enamel workers. The _collection de ceramique_ in the Musée is unique in France, or for that matter in all the world. The _ateliers de Limoges_ were first established in the thirteenth century by the monks of the Abbey of Solignac. A remarkable example of the work of the _émailleurs limousins_ is the twelfth-century reliquary of Thomas à Becket, one-time Archbishop of Canterbury. [Illustration: _Reliquary of Thomas à Becket_] At the rear of the cathedral the Vienne is crossed by the thirteenth-century bridge of St. Etienne. Like the cathedrals, châteaux, and city walls, the old bridges of France, where they still remain, are masterworks of their kind. To connect them more closely with the cause of religion, it is significant that they mostly bore the name of, and were dedicated to, some local saint. VIII ST. ODILON DE ST. FLOUR Though an ancient Christianizing centre, St. Flour is not possessed of a cathedral which gives it any great rank as a "cathedral town." The bishopric was founded in 1318, by Raimond de Vehens, and the present cathedral of St. Odilon is on the site of an ancient basilica. It was begun in 1375, dedicated in 1496, and finished--so far as a great church ever comes to its completion--in 1556. Its exterior is strong and massive, but harmonious throughout. Its façade has three portals, flanked by two square towers, which are capped with modern _couronnes_. The interior shows five small naves; that is, the nave proper, with two aisles on either side. Beside the western doorway are somewhat scanty traces of mediæval mural paintings depicting Purgatory, while above is the conventionally disposed organ _buffet_. A fine painting of the late French school is in one of the side chapels, and represents an incident from the life of St. Vincent de Paul. In another chapel is a bas-relief in stone of "The Last Judgment," reproduced from that which is yet to be seen in the north portal of Notre Dame de Reims. In the chapel of St. Anthony of Padua is a painting of the "Holy Family," and in another--that of Ste. Anne--a remarkable work depicting the "Martyred St. Symphorien at Autun." In the lower ranges of the choir is some fine modern glass by Thévenot, while high above the second range is a venerated statue of _Le Christ Noir_. From this catalogue it will be inferred that the great attractions of the cathedral at St. Flour are mainly the artistic accessories with which it has been embellished. There are no remarkably beautiful or striking constructive elements, though the plan is hardy and not unbeautiful. It ranks among cathedrals well down in the second class, but it is a highly interesting church nevertheless. A chapel in the nave gives entrance to the eighteenth-century episcopal palace, which is in no way notable except for its beautifully laid-out gardens and terraces. The sacristy was built in 1382 of the remains of the ancient Château de St. Flour, called De Brezons, which was itself originally built in the year 1000. IX ST. PIERRE DE SAINTES The chief architectural feature of this ancient town--the _Mediolanum Santonum_, chief town of the Santoni--is not its rather uninspiring cathedral (rebuilt in 1585), nor yet the church of St. Eutrope (1081--96) with its underground crypt--the largest in France. As a historical monument of rank far more interest centres around the Arc de Triomphe of Germanicus, which originally formed a part of the bridge which spans the Charente at this point. It was erected in the reign of Nero by Caius Julius Rufus, a priest of Roma and Augustus, in memory of Germanicus, Tiberius, his uncle, and his father, Drusus. The bridge itself, or what was left of it, was razed in the nineteenth century, which is of course to be regretted. A monument which could have endured a matter of eighteen hundred years might well have been left alone to takes its further chances with Father Time. Since then the bridge has been rebuilt on its former site, a procedure which makes the hiatus and the false position of the arch the more apparent. The cloister of the cathedral, in spite of the anachronism, is in the early Gothic manner, and the campanile is of the fifteenth century. Saintes became a bishopric, in the province of Bordeaux, in the third century. St. Eutrope--whose name is perpetuated in a fine Romanesque church of the city--was the first bishop. The year 1793 saw the suppression of the diocesan seat here, in favour of Angoulême. In the main, the edifice is of a late date, in that it was entirely rebuilt in the latter years of the sixteenth century, after having suffered practical devastation in the religious wars of that time. The first mention of a cathedral church here is of a structure which took form in 1117--the progenitor of the present edifice. Such considerable repairs as were necessary were undertaken in the fifteenth century, but the church seen to-day is almost entirely of the century following. The most remarkable feature of note, in connection with this _ci-devant_ cathedral, is unquestionably the luxurious flamboyant tower of the fifteenth century. This really fine tower is detached from the main structure and occupies the site of the church erected by Charlemagne in fulfilment of his vow to Pepin, his father, after defeating Gaiffre, Duc d'Aquitaine. In the interior two of the bays of the transepts--which will be readily noted--date from the twelfth century, while the nave is of the fifteenth, and the vaulting of nave and choir--hardy and strong in every detail--is, in part, as late as the mid-eighteenth century. The Église de St. Eutrope, before mentioned, is chiefly of the twelfth century, though its crypt, reputedly the largest in all France, is of a century earlier. Saintes is renowned to lovers of ceramics as being the birthplace of Bernard Pallisy, the inventor of the pottery glaze; and is the scene of many of his early experiments. A statue to his memory adorns the Place Bassompierre near the Arc de Triomphe. X CATHÉDRALE DE TULLE The charm of Tulle's cathedral is in its imposing and dominant character, rather than in any inherent grace or beauty which it possesses. It is not a beautiful structure; it is not even picturesquely disposed; it is grim and gaunt, and consists merely of a nave in the severe Romanesque-Transition manner, surmounted by a later and non-contemporary tower and spire. In spite of this it looms large from every view-point in the town, and is so lively a component of the busy life which surrounds it that it is--in spite of its severity of outline--a very appealing church edifice in more senses than one. [Illustration: CATHÉDRALE _de TULLE...._] Its tall, finely-proportioned tower and spire, which indeed is the chief attribute of grace and symmetry, is of the fourteenth century, and, though plain and primitive in its outlines, is far more pleasing than the crocketed and rococo details which in a later day were composed into something which was thought to be a spire. In the earliest days of its history, this rather bare and cold church was a Benedictine monastery whose primitive church dated as far back as the seventh century. There are yet remains of a cloister which may have belonged to the early church of this monastic house, and as such is highly interesting, and withal pleasing. The bishopric was founded in 1317 by Arnaud de St. Astier. The Revolution caused much devastation here in the precincts of this cathedral, which was first stripped of its _trésor_, and finally of its dignity, when the see was abolished. XI ST. PIERRE D'ANGOULÊME Angoulême is often first called to mind by its famous or notorious Duchesse, whose fame is locally perpetuated by a not very suitable column, erected in the Promenade Beaulieu in 1815. There is certainly a wealth of romance to be conjured up from the recollection of the famous Counts of Angoulême and their adherents, who made their residence in the ancient château which to-day forms in part the Hôtel de Ville, and in part the prison. Here in this château was born Marguerite de Valois, the Marguerite of Marguerites, as François I. called her; here took welcome shelter, Marie de Medici after her husband's assassination; and here, too, much more of which history tells. [Illustration: ST. PIERRE ... _a' ANGOULÊME_] What most histories do not tell is that the cathedral of St. Pierre d'Angoulême, with the cathedral of St. Front at Périgueux and Notre Dame de Poitiers, ranks at the very head of that magnificent architectural style known as Aquitanian. St. Ansone was the first bishop of the diocese--in the third century. The see was then, as now, a suffragan of Bordeaux. Religious wars, here as throughout Aquitaine, were responsible for a great unrest among the people, as well as the sacrilege and desecration of church property. The most marked spoliation was at the hands of the Protestant Coligny, the effects of whose sixteenth-century ravages are yet visible in the cathedral. A monk--Michel Grillet--was hung to a mulberry-tree,--which stood where now is the Place du Murier (mulberry),--by Coligny, who was reviled thus in the angry dying words of the monk: "You shall be thrown out of the window like Jezebel, and shall be ignominiously dragged through the streets." This prophecy did not come true, but Coligny died an inglorious death in 1572, at the instigation of the Duc de Guise. This cathedral ranks as one of the most curious in France, and, with its alien plan and details, has ever been the object of the profound admiration of all who have studied its varied aspects. Mainly it is a twelfth-century edifice throughout, in spite of the extensive restorations of the nineteenth century, which have eradicated many crudities that might better have been allowed to remain. It is ranked by the Ministère des Beaux Arts as a _Monument Historique_. The west front, in spite of the depredations before, during, and after the Revolution, is notable for its rising tiers of round-headed arches seated firmly on proportionate though not gross columns, its statued niches, the rich bas-reliefs of the tympanum of its portal, the exquisite arabesques, of lintel, frieze, and archivolt, and, above all, its large central arch with _Vesica piscis_, and the added decorations of emblems of the evangels and angels. In addition to all this, which forms a gallery of artistic details in itself, the general disposition of parts is luxurious and remarkable. As a whole, St. Pierre is commonly credited as possessing the finest Lombard detail to be found in the north; some say outside of Italy. Certainly it is prodigious in its splendour, whatever may be one's predilections for or against the expression of its art. The church follows in general plan the same distinctive style. Its tower, too, is Lombard, likewise the rounded apside, and--though the church is of the elongated Latin or cruciform ground-plan--its possession of a great central dome (with three others above the nave--and withal aisleless) points certainly to the great domed churches of the Lombard plain for its ancestry. The western dome is of the eleventh century, the others of the twelfth. Its primitiveness has been more or less distorted by later additions, made necessary by devastation in the sixteenth century, but it ranks to-day, with St. Front at Périgueux, as the leading example of the style known as Aquitanian. Above the western portal is a great window, very tall and showing in its glass a "Last Judgment." A superb tower ends off the _croisillon_ on the north and rises to the height of one hundred and ninety-seven feet. "Next to the west front and the domed roofing of the interior, this tower ranks as the third most curious and remarkable feature of this unusual church." This tower, in spite of its appealing properties, is curiously enough not the original to which the previous descriptive lines applied; but their echo may be heard to-day with respect to the present tower, which is a reconstruction, of the same materials, and after the same manner, so far as possible, as the original. As the most notable and peculiar details of the interior, will be remarked the cupolas of the roof, and the lantern at the crossing, which is pierced by twelve windows. For sheer beauty, and its utile purpose as well, this great _lanthorn_ is further noted as being most unusual in either the Romanesque or Gothic churches of France. The choir is apse-ended and is surrounded by four chapels of no great prominence or beauty. The south transept has a _tour_ in embryo, which, had it been completed, would doubtless have been the twin of that which terminates the transept on the north. The foundations of the episcopal residence, which is immediately beside the cathedral (restored in the nineteenth century), are very ancient. In its garden stands a colossal statue to Comte Jean, the father of François I. Angoulême was the residence of the Black Prince after the battle of Poitiers, though no record remains as to where he may have lodged. A house in the Rue de Genève has been singled out in the past as being where John Calvin lived in 1533, but it is not recognizable to-day. XII NOTRE DAME DE MOULINS "_Les Bourbonnais sont aimables, mais vains, légers et facilement oublieux, avec rien d'excessif, rien d'exubérance dans leur nature._" --ANDRÉ ROLLAND. Until he had travelled through Bourbonnais, "the sweetest part of France--in the hey-day of the vintage," said Sterne, "I never felt the distress of plenty." This is an appropriate enough observation to have been promulgated by a latter-day traveller. Here the abundance which apparently pours forth for every one's benefit knows no diminution one season from another. One should not allow his pen to ramble to too great an extent in this vein, or he will soon say with Sterne: "Just Heaven! it will fill up twenty volumes,--and alas, there are but a few small pages!" [Illustration: NOTRE DAME _de MOULINS_] It suffices, then, to reiterate, that in this plenteous land of mid-France there is, for all classes of man and beast, an abundance and excellence of the harvest of the soil which makes for a fondness to linger long within the confines of this region. Thus did the far-seeing Bourbons, who, throughout the country which yet is called of them, set up many magnificent establishments and ensconced themselves and their retainers among the comforts of this world to a far greater degree than many other ruling houses of mediæval times. Perhaps none of the great names, among the long lists of lords, dukes, and kings, whose lands afterward came to make the solidarity of the all-embracing monarchy, could be accused of curtailing the wealth of power and goods which conquest or bloodshed could secure or save for them. The power of the Bourbons endured, like the English Tudors, but a century and a half beyond the period of its supremacy; whence, from its maturity onward, it rotted and was outrooted bodily. The literature of Moulins, for the English reading and speaking world, appears to be an inconsiderable quantity. Certain romances have been woven about the ducal château, and yet others concerning the all-powerful Montmorencies, besides much history, which partakes generously of the components of literary expression. In the country round about--if the traveller has come by road, or for that matter by "_train omnibus_"--if he will but keep his eyes open, he will have no difficulty in recognizing this picture: "A little farmhouse, surrounded with about twenty acres of vineyard, and about as much corn--and close to the house, on one side, a _potagerie_ of an acre and a half, full of everything which could make plenty in a French peasant's house--and on the other side a little wood, which furnished wherewithal to dress it." To continue, could one but see into that house, the picture would in no small degree differ from this: "A family consisting of an old, gray-headed man and his wife, with five or six sons and sons-in-law, and their several wives, and a joyous genealogy out of them ... all sitting down together to their lentil soup; a large wheaten loaf in the middle of the table; and a flagon of wine at each end of it, and promised joy throughout the various stages of the repast." Where in any other than this land of plenty, for the peasant and prosperous alike, could such a picture be drawn of the plenitude which surrounds the home life of a son of the soil and his nearest kin? Such an equipment of comfort and joy not only makes for a continuous and placid contentment, but for character and ambition; in spite of all that harum-scarum Jeremiahs may proclaim out of their little knowledge and less sympathy with other affairs than their own. No individualism is proclaimed, but it is intimated, and the reader may apply the observation wherever he may think it belongs. Moulins is the capital of the Bourbonnais--the name given to the province and the people alike. The derivation of the word Bourbon is more legendary than historical, if one is to give any weight to the discovery of a tablet at _Bourbonne-les-Bains,_ in 1830, which bore the following dedication: DEO, APOL LINI BORVONI ET DAMONAE C DAMINIUS FEROX CIVIS LINGONUS EX VOTO Its later application to the land which sheltered the race is elucidated by a French writer, thus: "Considering that the names of all the cities and towns known as _des sources d'eaux thermales_ commence with either the prefix _Bour_ or _Bor_, indicates a common origin of the word ... from the name of the divinity which protects the waters." This is so plausible and picturesque a conjecture that it would seem to be true. Archæologists have singled out from among the most beautiful _chapelles seigneuriales_ the one formerly contained in the ducal palace of the Bourbons at Moulins. This formed, of course, a part of that gaunt, time-worn fabric which faces the westerly end of the cathedral. Little there is to-day to suggest this splendour, and for such one has to look to those examples yet to be seen at Chambord or Chenonceaux, or that of the Maison de Jacques Coeur at Bourges, with which, in its former state, this private chapel of the Bourbons was a contemporary. The other chief attraction of Moulins is the theatrical Mausolée de Henri de Montmorency, a seventeenth-century work which is certainly gorgeous and splendid in its magnificence, if not in its æsthetic value as an art treasure. The fresh, modern-looking cathedral of Notre Dame de Moulins is a more ancient work than it really looks, though in its completed form it dates only from the late nineteenth century, when the indefatigable Viollet-le-Duc erected the fine twin towers and completed the western front. The whole effect of this fresh-looking edifice is of a certain elegance, though in reality of no great luxuriousness. The portal is deep but unornamented, and the rose window above is of generous design, though not actually so great in size as at first appears. Taken _tout ensemble_ this west front--of modern design and workmanship--is far more expressive of the excellent and true proportions of the mediæval workers than is usually the case. The spires are lofty (312 feet) and are decidedly the most beautiful feature of the entire design. The choir, the more ancient portion (1465-1507), expands into a more ample width than the nave and has a curiously squared-off termination which would hardly be described as an apside, though the effect is circular when viewed from within. The choir, too, rises to a greater height than the nave, and, though there is no very great discrepancy in style between the easterly and westerly ends, the line of demarcation is readily placed. The square flanking chapels of the choir serve to give an ampleness to the ambulatory which is unusual, and in the exterior present again a most interesting arrangement and effect. The cathedral gives on the west on the Place du Château, with the bare, broken wall of the ducal château immediately _en face_, and the Gendarmerie, which occupies a most interestingly picturesque Renaissance building, is immediately to the right. The interior arrangements of this brilliant cathedral church are quite as pleasing and true as the exterior. There is no poverty in design or decoration, and no overdeveloped luxuriance, except for the accidence of the Renaissance tendencies of its time. There is no flagrant offence committed, however, and the ambulatory of the choir and its queer overhanging gallery at the rear of the altar are the only unusual features from the conventional decorated Gothic plan; if we except the _baldachino_ which covers the altar-table, and which is actually hideous in its enormity. The bishop's throne, curiously enough,--though the custom is, it appears, very, very old,--is placed _behind_ the high-altar. The triforium and clerestory of the choir have gracefully heightened arches supported by graceful pillars, which give an effect of exceeding lightness. In the nave the triforium is omitted, and the clerestory only overtops the pillars of nave and aisles. The transepts are not of great proportions, but are not in any way attenuated. Under the high-altar is a "Holy Sepulchre" of the sixteenth century, which is penetrated by an opening which gives on the ambulatory of the choir. There is a bountiful display of coloured glass of the Renaissance period, and, in the sacristy, a _triptych_ attributed to Ghirlandajo. There are no other artistic accessories of note, and the cathedral depends, in the main, for its satisfying qualities in its general completeness and consistency. XIII NOTRE DAME DE LE PUY "Under the sun of the _Midi_ I have seen the Pyrenees and the Alps, crowned in rose and silver, but I best love Auvergne and its bed of gorse." --PIERRE DE NOLHAC. Le Puy has been called--by a discerning traveller--and rightly enough, too, in the opinion of most persons--"_the most picturesque spot in the world_." Whether every visitor thereto will endorse this unqualifiedly depends somewhat on his view-point, and still more on his ability to discriminate. Le Puy certainly possesses an unparalleled array of what may as well be called rare attractions. These are primarily the topographical, architectural, and, first, last, and all times, picturesque elements which only a blind man could fail to diagnose as something unique and not to be seen elsewhere. [Illustration: NOTRE DAME _de LE PUY_.] In the first category are the extraordinary pinnacles of volcanic rock with which the whole surrounding landscape is peopled; in the second, the city's grand architectural monuments, cathedrals, churches, monastery and the château of Polignac; while thirdly, the whole aspect is irritatingly picturesque to the lover of topographical charm and feature. Here the situation of the city itself, in a basin of surrounding peaks, its sky-piercing, turreted rocks, and the general effect produced by its architectural features all combine to present emotions which a large catalogue were necessary to define. Moreover, Le Puy is the gateway to a hitherto almost unknown region to the English-speaking tourist. At least it would have been unknown but for the eulogy given it by the wandering Robert Louis Stevenson, who, in his "Travels with a Donkey," (not "On a Donkey,"--mark the distinction), has made the Cevennes known, at least as a nodding acquaintance, to--well, a great many who would never have consciously realized that there was such a place. Le Puy is furthermore as yet unspoiled by the "conducted tourist," and lives the same life that it has for many generations. Electric trams have come to be sure, and certain improvements in the way of boulevards and squares have been laid out, but, in the main, the narrow, tortuous streets which ascend to its cathedral-crowned height are much as they always were; and the native pays little heed to the visitor, of which class not many ever come to the city--perhaps for the reason that Le Puy is not so very accessible by rail. Both by the line which descends the Rhône valley and its parallel line from Paris to Nîmes, one has to branch off, and is bound to lose from three to six hours--or more, at some point or other, making connections. This is as it should be--in spite of the apparent retrogression. When one really does get to Le Puy nothing should satisfy him but to follow the trail of Stevenson's donkey into the heart of the Cevennes, that wonderful country which lies to the southward, and see and know for himself some of the things which that delectable author set forth in the record of his travels. Monastier, Le Cheylard, La Bastide, Notre Dame des Neiges, Mont Mézenac, and many more delightful places are, so far as personal knowledge goes, a sealed book to most folk; and after one has visited them for himself, he may rest assured they will still remain a sealed book to the mass. The ecclesiastical treasures of Le Puy are first and foremost centred around its wonderful, though bizarre, Romanesque cathedral of Notre Dame. Some have said that this cathedral church dates from the fifth century. Possibly this is so, but assuredly there is no authority which makes a statement which is at all convincing concerning any work earlier than the tenth century. Le Puy's first bishop was St. Georges,--in the third century,--at which time, as now, the diocese was a suffragan of Bourges. The cathedral itself is perched on a hilltop behind which rises an astonishing crag or pinnacle,--the _rocher Corneille_, which, in turn, is surmounted by a modern colossal bronze figure, commonly called _Notre Dame de France_. The native will tell you that it is called "the Virgin of Le Puy." Due allowance for local pride doubtless accounts for this. Its height is fifty feet, and while astonishingly impressive in many ways, is, as a work of art, without beauty in itself. [Illustration: _Le Puy_] There is a sort of subterranean or crypt-like structure, beneath the westerly end of the cathedral, caused by the extreme slope of the rock upon which the choir end is placed. One enters by a stairway of sixty steps, which is beneath the parti-coloured façade of the twelfth century. It is very striking and must be a unique approach to a cathedral; the entrance here being two stories below that of the pavement of nave and choir. This porch of three round-arched naves is wholly unusual. Entrance to the main body of the church is finally gained through the transept. The whole structure is curiously kaleidoscopic, with blackish and dark brown tints predominating, but alternating--in the west façade, which has been restored in recent times--with bands of a lighter and again a darker stone. It has been called by a certain red-robed mentor of travel-lore an ungainly, venerable, but singular edifice: quite a non-committal estimate, and one which, like most of its fellows, is worse than a slander. It is most usually conceded by French authorities--_who might naturally be supposed to know their subject_--that it is very nearly the most genuinely interesting exposition of a local manner of church-building extant; and as such the cathedral at Le Puy merits great consideration. The choir is the oldest portion, and is probably not of later date than the tenth century. The glass therein is modern. It has a possession, a "miraculous virgin,"--whose predecessor was destroyed in the fury of the Revolution,--which is supposed to work wonders upon those who bestow an appropriate votive offering. To the former shrine came many pilgrims, numbering among them, it is said rather indefinitely and doubtfully, "several popes and the following kings: Louis VII., Philippe-Auguste, Philippe-le-Hardi, Charles VI., Charles VII., Louis XI., and Charles VIII." To-day, as if doubtful of the shrine's efficacy, the pilgrims are few in number and mostly of the peasant class. The bays of the nave are divided by round-headed arches, but connected with the opposing bay by the ogival variety. The transepts have apsidal terminations, as is much more frequent south of the Loire than in the north of France, but still of sufficient novelty to be remarked here. The east end is rectangular--which is really a very unusual attribute in any part of France, only two examples elsewhere standing out prominently--the cathedrals at Laon and Dol-de-Bretagne. The cloister of Notre Dame, small and simple though it be, is of a singular charm and tranquillity. With the tower or cupola of this cathedral the architects of Auvergne achieved a result very near the _perfectionnement_ of its style. Like all of the old-time _clochers_ erected in this province--anterior to Gothic--it presents a great analogy to Byzantine origin, though, in a way, not quite like it either. Still the effect of columns and pillars, in both the interior construction and exterior decoration of these fine towers, forms something which suggests, at least, a development of an ideal which bears little, or no, relation to the many varieties of _campanile_, _beffroi_, _tour_ or _clocher_ seen elsewhere in France. The spire, as we know it elsewhere, a dominant pyramidal termination, the love of which Mistral has said is the foundation of patriotism, is in this region almost entirely wanting; showing that the influence, from whatever it may have sprung, was no copy of anything which had gone before, nor even the suggestion of a tendency or influence toward the pointed Gothic, or northern style. Therefore the towers, like most other features of this style, are distinctly of the land of its environment--Auvergnian. This will call to mind, to the American, the fact that Trinity Church in Boston is manifestly the most distinctive application, in foreign lands, of the form and features of the manner of church-building of the Auvergne. Particularly is this to be noted by viewing the choir exterior with its inlaid or geometrically planned stonework: a feature which is Romanesque if we go back far enough, but which is distinctly Auvergnian in its mediæval use. For sheer novelty, before even the towering bronze statue of the Virgin, which overtops the cathedral, must be placed that other needle-like basaltic eminence which is crowned by a tiny chapel dedicated to St. Michel. This "_aiguille_," as it is locally known, rises something over two hundred and fifty feet from the river-bed at its base; like a sharp cone, dwindling from a diameter of perhaps five hundred feet at its base to a scant fifty at its apex. St. Michel has always had a sort of vested proprietorship in such pinnacles as this, and this tiny chapel in his honour was the erection of a prelate of the diocese of Le Puy in the tenth century. The chapel is Romanesque, octagonal, and most curious; with its isolated situation,--only reached by a flight of many steps cut in the rock,--and its tesselated stone pavements, its mosaic in basalt of the portal, and its few curious sculptures in stone. As a place of pilgrimage for a twentieth-century tourist it is much more appealing than the Virgin-crowned _rocher Corneille_; each will anticipate no inconsiderable amount of physical labour, which, however, is the true pilgrim spirit. The château of Polignac _compels_ attention, and it is not so very foreign to church affairs after all; the house of the name gave to the court of Louis XIV. a cardinal. To-day this one-time feudal stronghold is but a mere ruin. The Revolution finished it, as did that fury many another architectural glory of France. [Illustration: _The Black Virgin, Le Puy_] XIV NOTRE DAME DE CLERMONT-FERRAND Clermont-Ferrand is the hub from which radiates in the season,--from April to October,--and in all directions, the genuine French _touriste_. He is a remarkable species of traveller, and he apportions to himself the best places in the _char-à bancs_ and the most convenient seats at _table d'hôte_ with a discrimination that is perfection. He is not much interested in cathedrals, or indeed in the twin city of Clermont-Ferrand itself, but rather his choice lies in favour of Mont Doré, Puy de Dôme, Royat, St. Nectaire, or a dozen other alluring tourist resorts in which the neighbouring volcanic region abounds. By reason of this--except for its hotels and cafés--Clermont-Ferrand is justly entitled to rank as one of the most ancient and important centres of Christianity in France. [Illustration: NOTRE DAME _de CLERMONT-FERRAND_] Its cathedral is not of the local manner of building: it is of manifest Norman example. But the Église Notre Dame du Port is Auvergnian of the most profound type, and withal, perhaps more appealing than the cathedral itself. Furthermore the impulse of the famous crusades first took form here under the fervent appeal of Urban II., who was in the city at the Council of the Church held in 1095. Altogether the part played by this city of mid-France in the affairs of the Christian faith was not only great, but most important and far-reaching in its effect. In its cathedral are found to a very considerable extent those essentials to the realization of the pure Gothic style, which even Sir Christopher Wren confessed his inability to fully comprehend. It is a pleasant relief, and a likewise pleasant reminder of the somewhat elaborate glories of the Isle of France, to come upon an edifice which at least presents a semblance to the symmetrical pointed Gothic of the north. The more so in that it is surrounded by Romanesque and local types which are peers among their class. Truly enough it is that such churches as Notre Dame du Port, the cathedral at Le Puy, and the splendid series of Romanesque churches at Poitiers are as interesting and as worthy of study as the resplendent modern Gothic. On the other hand, the transition to the baseness of the Renaissance,--without the intervention of the pointed style,--while not so marked here as elsewhere, is yet even more painfully impressed upon one. The contrast between the Romanesque style, which was manifestly a good style, and the Renaissance, which was palpably bad, suggests, as forcibly as any event of history, the change of temperament which came upon the people, from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. This cathedral is possessed of two fine western towers (340 feet in height), graceful in every proportion, hardy without being clumsy, symmetrical without weakness, and dwindling into crowning spires after a manner which approaches similar works at Bordeaux and Quimper. These examples are not of first rank, but, if not of masterful design, are at least acceptable exponents of the form they represent. These towers, as well as the western portal, are, however, of a very late date. They are the work of Viollet-le-Duc in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and indicate--if nothing more--that, where a good model is used, a modern Gothic work may still betray the spirit of antiquity. This gifted architect was not so successful with the western towers of the abbey church of St. Ouen at Rouen. Externally the cathedral at Clermont-Ferrand shows a certain lack of uniformity. Its main fabric, of a black volcanic stone, dates from 1248 to 1265. At this time the work was in charge of one Jean Deschamps. The church was not, however, consecrated until nearly a century later, and until the completion of the west front remained always an unfinished work which received but scant consideration from lovers of church architecture. The whole structure was sorely treated at the Revolution, was entirely stripped of its ornaments and what monuments it possessed, and was only saved from total destruction by a subterfuge advanced by a local magistrate, who suggested that the edifice might be put to other than its original use. The first two bays of the nave are also of nineteenth-century construction. This must account for the frequent references of a former day to the general effect of incompleteness. To-day it is a coherent if not a perfect whole, though works of considerable magnitude are still under way. The general effect of the interior is harmonious, though gloomy as to its lighting, and bare as to its walls. The vault rises something over a hundred feet above the pavement, and the choir platform is considerably elevated. The aisles of the nave are doubled, and very wide. The joints of pier and wall have been newly "pointed," giving an impression of a more modern work than the edifice really is. The glass of the nave and choir is of a rare quality and unusually abundant. How it escaped the fury of the Revolution is a mystery. There are two fifteenth-century rose windows in the transepts, and a more modern example in the west front, the latter being decidedly inferior to the others. The glass of the choir is the most beautiful of all, and is of the time of Louis IX., whose arms, quartered with those of Spain, are shown therein. The general effect of this coloured glass is not of the supreme excellence of that at Chartres, but the effect of mellowness, on first entering, is in every way more impressive than that of any other cathedral south of the Loire. The organ _buffet_ has, in this instance, been cut away to allow of the display of the modern _rosace_. This is a most thoughtful consideration of the attributes of a grand window; which is obviously that of giving a pleasing effect to an interior, rather than its inclusion in the exterior scheme of decoration. In the choir is a _retable_ of gilded and painted wood, representing the life of St. Crépinien, a few tombs, and in the chapels some frescoes of the thirteenth century. There is the much-appreciated astronomical clock--a curiosity of doubtful artistic work and symbolism--in one of the transepts. A statue of Pope Urban II. is _en face_ to the right of the cathedral. At the Council of 1095 Urban II. preached for the first crusade to avenge the slaughter "of pilgrims, princes, and bishops," which had taken place at Romola in Palestine, and to regain possession of Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre from the Turkish Sultan, Ortock. The enthusiasm of the pontiff was so great that the masses forthwith entered fully into the spirit of the act, the nobles tearing their red robes into shreds to form the badge of the crusader's cross, which was given to all who took the vow. By command of the Pope, every serf who took the cross was to obtain his liberty from his overlord. This fact, perhaps, more than any other led to the swelled ranks of the first crusade under Peter the Hermit. The rest is history, though really much of its written chronicle is really romance. Clermont was a bishopric in the third century, with St. Austremoine as its first bishop. The diocese is to-day a suffragan of Bourges. At the head of the Cours Sablon is a fifteenth-century fountain, executed to the order of a former bishop, Jacques d'Amboise. The bibliothèque still preserves, among fifty thousand volumes and eleven hundred MSS., an illuminated folio Bible of the twelfth century, a missal which formerly belonged to Pope Clement VI., and a ninth-century manuscript of the monk, Gregory of Tours. Near the cathedral in the Rue de Petit Gras is the birthplace of the precocious Blaise Pascal, who next to Urban II.--if not even before him--is perhaps Clermont's most famous personage. A bust of the celebrated writer is let into the wall which faces the Passage Vernines, and yet another adorns the entrance to the bibliothèque; and again another--a full-length figure this time--is set about with growing plants, in the Square Blaise Pascal. Altogether one will judge that Pascal is indeed the most notable figure in the secular history of the city. This most original intellect of his time died in 1662, at the early age of thirty-nine. XV ST. FULCRAN DE LODÈVE Lodève, seated tightly among the mountains, near the confluence of the rivers Solondre and Lergue, not far from the Cevennes and the borders of the Gévaudan, was a bishopric, suffragan of Narbonne, as early as the beginning of the fourth century. It had been the capital of the Gallic tribe of the Volsques, then a pagan Roman city, and finally was converted to Christianity in the year 323 by the apostle St. Flour, who founded the bishopric, which, with so many others, was suppressed at the Revolution. The city suffered greatly from the wars of the Goths, the Albigenses, and later the civil wars of the Protestants and Catholics. The bishops of Lodève were lords by virtue of the fact that the title was bought from the viscounts whose honour it had previously held. _St. Guillem Ley Desert_ (O. F.), a famous abbey of the Benedictines, founded by an ancestor of the Prince of Orange, is near by. The ancient cathedral of St. Fulcran is situated in the _haute-ville_ and dates, as to its foundation walls, from the middle of the tenth century. The reconstructed present-day edifice is mainly of the thirteenth century, and as an extensive work of its time is entitled to rank with many of the cathedral churches which survived the Revolution. By the end of the sixteenth century, the last remaining work and alterations were completed, and one sees therefore a fairly consistent mediæval church. The west façade is surmounted by _tourelles_ which are capped with a defending _mâchicoulis_, presumably for defence from attack from the west, as this battlement could hardly have been intended for mere ornament, decorative though it really is. The interior height rises to something approximating eighty feet, and is imposing to a far greater degree than many more magnificent and wealthy churches. The choir is truly elegant in its proportions and decorations, its chief ornament being that of the high-altar, and the white marble lions which flank the stalls. From the choir one enters the ruined cloister of the fifteenth century; which, if not remarkable in any way, is at least distinctive and a sufficiently uncommon appendage of a cathedral church to be remarked. A marble tomb of a former bishop,--Plantavit de la Pause,--a distinguished prelate and bibliophile, is also in the choir. This monument is a most worthy artistic effort, and shows two lions lying at the foot of a full-length figure of the churchman. It dates from 1651, and, though of Renaissance workmanship, its design and sculpture--like most monumental work of its era--are far ahead of the quality of craftsmanship displayed by the builders and architects of the same period. The one-time episcopal residence is now occupied by the _hôtel de ville_, the _tribunal_, and the _caserne de gendarmerie_. As a shelter for civic dignity this is perhaps not a descent from its former glory, but as a _caserne_ it is a shameful debasement; not, however, as mean as the level to which the papal palace at Avignon has fallen. The guide-book information--which, be it said, is not disputed or reviled here--states that the city's manufactories supply _surtout des draps_ for the army; but the church-lover will get little sustenance for his refined appetite from this kernel of matter-of-fact information. Lodève is, however, a charming provincial town, with two ancient bridges crossing its rivers, a ruined château, _Montbrun_, and a fine promenade which overlooks the river valleys round about. _PART III The Rhône Valley_ I INTRODUCTORY The knowledge of the geographer Ptolemy, who wrote in the second century with regard to the Rhône, was not so greatly at fault as with respect to other topographical features, such as coasts and boundaries. Perhaps the fact that Gaul had for so long been under Roman dominion had somewhat to do with this. He gives, therefore, a tolerably correct account as to this mighty river, placing its sources in the Alps, and tracing its flow through the lake _Lemannus_ (Leman) to _Lugdunum_ (Lyon); whence, turning sharply to the southward, it enters the Mediterranean south of Arles. Likewise, he correctly adds that the upper river is joined with the combined flow of the Doubs and Saône, but commits the error of describing their source to be also in the Alps. Philip Gilbert Hamerton, who knew these parts well,--his home was near Autun,--has described the confluence of the Saône and Rhône thus: "The width and depth of the two rivers are equal, but the swift-flowing Rhône discharges twice the volume of water of the slow-running Saône. They also differ remarkably in colour. The Saône is emerald-green and the Rhône blue-green. Here the minor river loses its name and character, and, by an unusual process, the slowest and most navigable stream in Europe joins the swiftest and least navigable. The _Flumen Araris_ ceases and becomes the _Rhodanus_." The volume of water which yearly courses down the Rhône is perhaps greater than would first appear, when, at certain seasons of the year, one sees a somewhat thin film of water gliding over a wide expanse of yellow sand and shingle. Throughout, however, it is of generous width and at times rises in a true torrential manner: this when the spring freshets and melting Alpine snows are directed thither toward their natural outlet to the sea. "Rivers," said Blaise Pascal, "are the roads that move." Along the great river valleys of the Rhône, the Loire, the Seine, and the Rhine were made the first Roman roads, the prototypes of the present-day means of communication. The development of civilization and the arts along these great pathways was rapid and extensive. Two of them, at least, gave birth to architectural styles quite differing from other neighbouring types: the _Romain-Germanique_--bordering along the Rhine and extending to Alsace and the Vosges; and the _Romain-Bourguignon_, which followed the valley of the Rhône from Bourgogne to the Mediterranean and the Italian frontier, including all Provence. The true source of the Rhône is in the Pennine Alps, where, in consort with three other streams, the Aar, the Reuss, and the Ticino, it rises in a cloven valley close to the lake of Brienz, amid that huge jumble of mountain-tops, which differs so greatly from the popular conception of a mountain range. Dauphiné and Savoie are to-day comparatively unknown by parlour-car travellers. Dauphiné, with its great historical associations, the wealth and beauty of its architecture, the magnificence of its scenery, has always had great attractions for the historian, the archæologist, and the scholar; to the tourist, however, even to the French tourist, it remained for many years a _terra incognita_. Yet no country could present the traveller with a more wonderful succession of ever-changing scenery, such a rich variety of landscape, ranging from verdant plain to mountain glacier, from the gay and picturesque to the sublime and terrible. Planted in the very heart of the French Alps, rising terrace above terrace from the lowlands of the Rhône to the most stupendous heights, Dauphiné may with reason claim to be the worthy rival of Switzerland. The romantic associations of "La Grande Chartreuse"; of the charming valley towns of Sion and Aoste, famed alike in the history of Church and State; and of the more splendidly appointed cities of Grenoble and Chambéry, will make a new leaf in the books of most peoples' experiences. The rivers Durance, Isère, and Drôme drain the region into the more ample basin of the Rhône, and the first of the three--for sheer beauty and romantic picturesqueness--will perhaps rank first in all the world. The chief associations of the Rhône valley with the Church are centred around Lyon, Vienne, Avignon, and Arles. The associations of history--a splendid and a varied past--stand foremost at Orange, Nîmes, Aix, and Marseilles. It is not possible to deal here with the many _pays et pagi_ of the basin of the Rhône. Of all, Provence--that golden land--stands foremost and compels attention. One might praise it _ad infinitum_ in all its splendid attributes and its glorious past, but one could not then do it justice; better far that one should sum it up in two words--"Mistral's world." The popes and the troubadours combined to cast a glamour over the "fair land of Provence" which is irresistible. Here were architectural monuments, arches, bridges, aqueducts, and arenas as great and as splendid as the world has ever known. Aix-en-Provence, in King René's time, was the gayest capital of Europe, and the influence of its arts and literature spread to all parts. To the south came first the Visigoths, then the conflicting and repelling Ostrogoths; between them soon to supplant the Gallo-Roman cultivation which had here grown so vigorously. It was as late as the sixth century when the Ostrogoths held the brilliant sunlit city of Arles; when follows a history--applicable as well to most of all southern France--of many dreary centuries of discordant races, of varying religious faiths, and adherence now to one lord and master, and then to another. Monuments of various eras remain; so numerously that one can rebuild for themselves much that has disappeared for ever: palaces as at Avignon, castles as at Tarascon and Beaucaire, and walled cities as at Aigues-Morte. What limitless suggestion is in the thought of the assembled throngs who peopled the tiers of the arenas and theatres of Arles and Nîmes in days gone by. The sensation is mostly to be derived, however, from thought and conjecture. The painful and nullifying "_spectacles_" and "_courses des taureaux_," which periodically hold forth to-day in these noble arenas, are mere travesties on their splendid functions of the past. Much more satisfying--and withal more artistic--are the theatrical representations in that magnificent outdoor theatre at Orange; where so recently as the autumn of 1903 was given a grand representation of dramatic art, with Madame Bernhardt, Coquelin, and others of the galaxy which grace the French stage to-day, taking part therein. Provençal literature is a vast and varied subject, and the women of Arles--the true Arlesians of the poet and romancer--are astonishingly beautiful. Each of these subjects--to do them justice--would require much ink and paper. Daudet, in "_Tartarin_," has these opening words, as if no others were necessary in order to lead the way into a new world: "IT WAS SEPTEMBER AND IT WAS PROVENCE." Frederic Mistral, in "Mirèio," has written the great modern epic of Provence, which depicts the life as well as the literature of the ancient troubadours. The "Fountain of Vaucluse" will carry one back still further in the ancient Provençal atmosphere; to the days of Petrarch and Laura, and the "little fish of Sorgues." What the Romance language really was, authorities--if they be authorities--differ. Hence it were perhaps well that no attempt should be made here to define what others have failed to place, beyond this observation, which is gathered from a source now lost to recollection, but dating from a century ago at least: "The southern or Romance language, the tongue of all the people who obeyed Charlemagne in the south of Europe, proceeded from the parent-vitiated Latin. "The Provençaux assert, and the Spaniards deny, that the Spanish tongue is derived from the original Romance, though neither the Italians nor the French are willing to owe much to it as a parent, in spite of the fact that Petrarch eulogized it, and the troubadours as well. "The Toulousans roundly assert that the Provençal is the root of all other dialects whatever (_vide Cazeneuve_). Most Spanish writers on the other hand insist that the Provençal is derived from the Spanish (_vide Coleccion de Poesias Castellanas; Madrid, 1779_)." At all events the idiom, from whatever it may have sprung, took root, propagated and flourished in the land of the Provençal troubadours. Whatever may have been the real extent of the influences which went out from Provence, it is certain that the marriage of Robert with Constance--daughter of the first Count of Provence, about the year 1000--was the period of a great change in manners and customs throughout the kingdom. Some even have asserted that this princess brought in her train the troubadours who spread the taste for poetry and its accompaniments throughout the north of France. The "Provence rose," so celebrated in legend and literature, can hardly be dismissed without a word; though, in truth, the casual traveller will hardly know of its existence, unless he may have a sweet recollection of some rural maid, who, with sleeves carefully rolled up, stood before her favourite rose-tree, tenderly examining it, and driving away a buzzing fly or a droning wasp. These firstlings of the season are tended with great pride. The distinctive "rose of Provence" is smaller, redder, and more elastic and concentric than the _centifoliæ_ of the north, and for this reason, likely, it appears the more charming to the eye of the native of the north, who, if we are to believe the romanticists, is made a child again by the mere contemplation of this lovely flower. The glory of this rich red "Provence rose" is in dispute between Provence and Provins, the ancient capital of La Brie; but the weight of the argument appears to favour the former. Below Arles and Nîmes the Rhône broadens out into a many-fingered estuary, and mingles its Alpine flood with the blue waters of the Mediterranean. The delta has been formed by the activity and energy of the river itself, from the fourth century--when it is known that Arles lay sixteen miles from the sea--till to-day, when it is something like thirty. This ceaseless carrying and filling has resulted in a new coast-line, which not only has changed the topography of the region considerably, but may be supposed to have actually worked to the commercial disadvantage of the country round about. The annual prolongation of the shores--the reclaimed water-front--is about one hundred and sixty-four feet, hence some considerable gain is accounted for, but whether to the nation or the "squatter" statistics do not say. The delta of the Rhône has been described by an expansive French writer as: "Something quite separate from the rest of France. It is a wedge of Greece and of the East thrust into Gaul. It came north a hundred (or more) years ago and killed the Monarchy. It caught the value in, and created the great war-song of the Republic." There is a deal of subtlety in these few lines, and they are given here because of their truth and applicability. II ST. ETIENNE DE CHALONS-SUR-SAÔNE "The cathedral at Chalons," says Philip Gilbert Hamerton,--who knew the entire region of the Saône better perhaps than any other Anglo-Saxon,--"has twin towers, which, in the evening, at a distance, recall Notre Dame (at Paris), and there are domes, too, as in the capital." An imaginative description surely, and one that is doubtless not without truth were one able to first come upon this riverside city of mid-France in the twilight, and by boat from the upper river. Chalons is an ideally situated city, with a placidness which the slow current of the Saône does not disturb. But its cathedral! It is no more like its Parisian compeer than it is like the Pyramids of Egypt. In the first place, the cathedral towers are a weak, effeminate imitation of a prototype which itself must have been far removed from Notre Dame, and they have been bolstered and battened in a shameful fashion. The cathedral at Chalons is about the most ancient-looking possession of the city, which in other respects is quite modern, and, aside from its charming situation and general attractiveness, takes no rank whatever as a centre of ancient or mediæval art. Its examples of Gallic architecture are not traceable to-day, and of Roman remains it possesses none. As a Gallic stronghold,--it was never more than that,--it appealed to Cæsar merely as a base from which to advance or retreat, and its history at this time is not great or abundant. A Roman wall is supposed to have existed, but its remains are not traceable to-day, though tradition has it that a quantity of its stones were transported by the monk Bénigne for the rotunda which he built at Dijon. The city's era of great prosperity was the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when its fortifications were built up anew, its cathedral finished, and fourteen churches held forth. From this high estate it has sadly fallen, and there is only its decrepit cathedral, rebuilt after a seventeenth-century fire, and two churches--one of them modern--to uphold its ecclesiastical dignity. The towers of the cathedral are of the seventeenth century, but the so-called "Deanery Tower" is more ancient, and suggestive of much that is militant and very little that is churchly. The interior has been restored, not wholly with success, but yet not wholly spoiled. In plan and arrangement it is a simple and severe church, but acceptable enough when one contemplates changes made elsewhere. Here are to be seen no debased copies of Greek or Roman orders; which is something to be thankful for. The arches of the nave and choir are strong and bold, but not of great spread. The height of the nave, part of which has come down from the thirteenth century, is ninety feet at least. There are well-carved capitals to the pillars of the nave, and the coloured glass of the windows of triforium and clerestory is rich without rising to great beauty. In general the style is decidedly a _mélange_, though the cathedral is entitled to rank as a Gothic example. Its length is 350 feet. The _maître-autel_ is one of the most elegant in France. Modern improvement has cleared away much that was picturesque, but around the cathedral are still left a few gabled houses, which serve to preserve something of the mediæval setting which once held it. The courtyard and its dependencies at the base of the "Deanery Tower" are the chief artistic features. They appeal far more strongly than any general accessory of the cathedral itself, and suggest that they once must have been the components of a cloister. The see was founded in the fifth century as a suffragan of Lyon. III ST. VINCENT DE MACON The _Mastieo_ of the Romans was not the Macon of to-day, though, by evolution, or corruption, or whatever the process may have been, the name has come down to us as referring to the same place. The former city did not border the river, but was seated on a height overlooking the Saône, which flows by the doors of the present city of Macon. Its site is endowed with most of the attributes included in the definition of "commanding," and, though not grandly situated, is, from any riverside view-point, attractive and pleasing. When it comes to the polygonal towers of its olden cathedral, this charming and pleasing view changes to that of one which is curious and interesting. The cathedral of St. Vincent is a battered old ruin, and no amount of restoration and rebuilding will ever endow it with any more deserving qualities. [Illustration: ST. VINCENT _de MACON_.] The Revolution was responsible for its having withered away, as it was also for the abolishment of the see of Macon. The towers stand to-day--lowered somewhat from their former proportions--gaunt and grim, and the rich Burgundian narthen, which lay between, has been converted--not restored, mark you--into an inferior sort of chapel. The destruction that fell upon various parts of this old church might as well have been more sweeping and razed it to the ground entirely. The effect could not have been more disheartening. Macon formerly had twelve churches. Now it has three--if we include this poor fragment of its one-time cathedral. Between the Revolution and the coronation of Napoleon I. the city was possessed of no place of worship. Macon became an episcopal see, with Placide as its first bishop, in the sixth century. It was suppressed in 1790. The bridge which crosses the river to the suburb of St. Laurent is credited as being the finest work of its kind crossing the Saône. Hamerton has said that "its massive arches and piers, wedge-shaped to meet the wind, are pleasant to contemplate after numerous festoons of wire carrying a roadway of planks." This bridge was formerly surmounted, at either end, with a castellated gateway, but, like many of these accessories elsewhere, they have disappeared. The famous bridge at Cahors (shown elsewhere in this book) is the best example of such a bridge still existing in France. As a "cathedral city," Macon will not take a high rank. The "great man" of Macon was Lamartine. His birthplace is shown to visitors, but its present appearance does not suggest the splendid appointments of its description in that worthy's memoirs. Macon is the _entrepôt_ of the abundant and excellent _vin du Bourgogne_, and the strictly popular repute of the city rests entirely on this fact. [Illustration: ST. JEAN _de LYON_.] IV ST. JEAN DE LYON The Lyonnais is the name given to that region lying somewhat to the westward of the city of Lyon. It is divided into three distinct parts, _le Lyonnais_ proper, _le Forez_, and _le Beaujolais_. Its chief appellation comes from that of its chief city, which in turn is more than vague as to its etymology: _Lugdunum_ we know, of course, and we can trace its evolution even unto the Anglicized Lyons, but when philologists, antiquarians, and "pedants of mere pretence" ask us to choose between _le corbeau_--_lougon_, _un eminence_--_dounon_, _lone_--an arm of a river, and _dun_ the Celtic word for height, we are amazed, and are willing enough to leave the solving of the problem to those who will find a greater pleasure therein. Lyon is a widely-spread city, of magnificent proportions and pleasing aspect, situated as it is on the banks of two majestic, though characteristically different rivers, the Rhône and the Saône. In many respects it is an ideally laid-out city, and the scene from the heights of Fourvière at night, when the city is brilliant with many-lighted workshops, is a wonderfully near approach to fairy-land. Whether the remarkable symmetry of the city's streets and plan is the result of the genius of a past day, or of the modern progressive spirit, is in some doubt. Certainly it must originally have been a delightfully planned city, and the spirit of modernity--though great--has not by any means wholly eradicated its whilom charm of another day. It may be remarked here that about the only navigable portion of the none too placid Rhône is found from here to Avignon and Arles, to which points, in summer at least, steam-craft--of sorts--carry passengers with expedition and economy--down-stream; the journey up-river will amaze one by the potency of the flood of this torrential stream--so different from the slow-going Saône. The present diocese, of which the see of Lyon is the head, comprehends the Department of the Rhône et Loire. It is known under the double vocable of Lyon et Vienne, and is the outgrowth of the more ancient ecclesiastical province of Vienne, whose archiepiscopal dignity was domiciled in St. Maurice. It was in the second century that St. Pothin, an Asiatic Greek, came to the ancient province of Lyon as archbishop. The title carried with it that of primate of all Gaul: hence the importance of the see, from the earliest times, may be inferred. The architectural remains upon which is built the flamboyant Gothic church of St. Nizier are supposed to be those of the primitive cathedral in which St. Pothin and St. Irenæus celebrated the holy rites. The claim is made, of course, not without a show of justification therefor, but it is a far cry from the second century of our era to this late day; and the sacristan's words are not convincing, in view of the doubts which many non-local experts have cast upon the assertion. The present _Église St. Nizier_ is furthermore dedicated to a churchman who lived as late as the sixth century. The present cathedral of St. Jean dates from the early years of the twelfth century, but there remains to-day another work closely allied with episcopal affairs--the stone bridge which spans the Saône, and which was built some two hundred years before the present cathedral by Archbishop Humbert. Though a bridge across a river is an essentially practical and utile thing, it is, perhaps, in a way, as worthy a work for a generous and masterful prelate as church-building itself. Certainly this was the case with Humbert's bridge, he having designed the structure, superintended its erection, and assumed the expense thereof. It is recorded that this worthy churchman gained many adherents for the faith, so it may be assumed that he builded as well as he knew. St. Jean de Lyon dates from 1180, and presents many architectural anomalies in its constructive elements, though the all-pervading Gothic is in the ascendant. From this height downward, through various interpolations, are seen suggestions of many varieties and styles of church-building. There is, too, an intimation of a motif essentially pagan if one attempts to explain the vagaries of some of the ornamentation of the unusual septagonal Lombard choir. This is further inferred when it is known that a former temple to Augustus stood on the same site. If this be so, the reasoning is complete, and the classical ornament here is of a very early date. The fabric of the cathedral is, in the main, of a warm-coloured freestone, not unlike dark marble, but without its brilliancy and surface. It comes from the heights of Fourvière,--on whose haunches the cathedral sits,--and by virtue of the act of foundation it may be quarried at any time, free of all cost, for use by the Church. The situation of this cathedral is most attractive; indeed its greatest charm may be said to be its situation, so very picturesquely disposed is it, with the Quai de l'Archevêché between it and the river Saône. The choir itself--after allowing for the interpolation of the early non-Christian fragments--is the most consistently pleasing portion. It presents in general a fairly pure, early Gothic design. Curiously enough, this choir sits below the level of the nave and presents, in the interior view, an unusual effect of amplitude. With the nave of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the style becomes more mixed--localized, one may say--if only consistent details might be traced. At any rate, the style grows perceptibly heavier and more involved, without the simplicity of pre-Gothic work. Finally, as one comes to the heavily capped towers, there is little of grace and beauty left. In detail, at least, if not in general, St. Jean runs quite the whole scale of mediæval architectural style--from the pure Romanesque to the definite, if rather mixed, Gothic. Of the later elements, the most remarkable is the fifteenth-century Bourbon chapel, built by Cardinal Charles and his brother Pierre. This chapel presents the usual richness and luxuriance of its time. If all things are considered, it is the chief feature of interest within the walls. The west front has triple portals, reminiscent, as to dimensions, of Amiens, though by no means so grandly peopled with statues; the heavy, stunted towers, too, are not unlike those of Amiens. These twin towers are of a decidedly heavy order, and are not beautiful, either as distinct features or as a component of the ensemble. Quite in keeping also are the chief decorations of the façade, which are principally a series of superimposed medallions, depicting, variously, the signs of the zodiac, scenes from the life of St. Jean, and yet others suggesting scenes and incidents from Genesis, with an admixture of heraldic symbolism which is here quite meaningless and singularly inappropriate, while still other entablatures present scenes illustrating the "Legend of St. Nicholas" and "The Law of Aristotle." The general effect of the exterior, the façade in particular, is very dark, and except in a bright sunlight--which is usual--is indeed gloomy. In all probability, this is due to the discolouring of the soft stone of which the cathedral is built, as the same effect is scarcely to be remarked in the interior. In a tower on the south side--much lower, and not so clumsily built up as the twin towers--hangs one of the greatest _bourdons_ in France. It was cast in 1662, and weighs ten thousand kilos. Another curiosity of a like nature is to be seen in the interior, an astronomical clock--known to Mr. Tristram as "that great clock of Lippius of Basle." Possessed of a crowing cock and the usual toy-book attributes, this great clock is a source of perennial pride to the native and the makers of guide-books. Sterne, too, it would appear, waxed unduly enthusiastic over this really ingenious thing of wheels and cogs. He said: "I never understood the least of mechanism. I declare I was never able yet to comprehend the principles of a squirrel-cage or a knife-grinder's wheel, yet I will go see this wonderful clock the first thing I do." When he did see it, he quaintly observed that "it was all out of joint." The rather crude coloured glass--though it is precious glass, for it dates from the thirteenth century, in part--sets off bountifully an interior which would otherwise appear somewhat austere. In the nave is a marble pulpit which has been carved with more than usual skill. It ranks with that in St. Maurice, at Vienne, as one of the most beautiful in France. The cathedral possesses two _reliques_ of real importance in the crosses which are placed to the left and right of the high-altar. These are conserved by a unique custom, in memory of an attempt made by a _concile génêral_ of the church, held in Lyon in 1274, to reconcile the Latin and Greek forms of religion. The sacristy, in which the bountiful, though not historic, _trésor_ is kept, is in the south transept. Among the archives of the cathedral there are, says a local antiquary, documents of a testamentary nature, which provided the means for the up-keep of the fabric without expense to the church, until well into the eighteenth century. On the apex of the height which rises above the cathedral is the Basilique de Notre Dame de Fourvière--"one of those places of pilgrimage, the most venerated in all the world," says a confident French writer. This may be so; it overlooks ground which has long been hallowed by the Church, to a far greater degree than many other parts, but, like so many places of pilgrimage of a modern day, its nondescript religious edifice is enough to make the church-lover willingly pass it by. The site is that of the ancient _Forum Vetus_ of the Romans, and as such is more appealing to most than as a place of pilgrimage. V ST. MAURICE DE VIENNE "At the feet of seven mountains; on the banks of a large river; an antique city and a _cité neuve_." --FRANÇOIS PONSARD. Though widowed to-day of its bishop's throne, Vienne enjoys with Lyon the distinction of having its name attached to an episcopal see. The ancient archbishopric ruled over what was known as the Province of Vienne, which, if not more ancient than that of Lyon, dates from the same century--the second of our Christian era--and probably from a few years anterior, as it is known that St. Crescent, the first prelate of the diocese, was firmly established here as early as 118 A. D. In any event, it was one of the earliest centres of Christianity north of the Alps. To-day, being merged with the diocese of Lyon, Vienne is seldom credited as being a cathedral city. Locally the claim is very strongly made, but the Mediterranean tourist never finds this out, unless, perchance, he "drops off" from the railway in order to make acquaintance with that remarkable Roman temple to Augustus, of which he may have heard. Then he will learn from the _habitants_ that by far their greatest respect and pride are for their _ancienne Cathédrale de St. Maurice_, which sits boldly upon a terrace dominating the course of the river Rhône. In many respects St. Maurice de Vienne will strike the student and lover of architecture as being one of the most lively and appealing edifices of its kind. The Lombard origin of many of its features is without question; notably the delightful gallery on the north side, with its supporting columns of many grotesque shapes. Again the parapet and terrace which precede this church, the ground-plan, and some of the elevations are pure Lombard in motive. There are no transepts and no ancient chapels at the eastern termination; the windows running down to the pavement. This, however, does not make for an appearance at all _outré_--quite the reverse is the case. The general effect of the entire internal distribution of parts, with its fine approach from the nave to the sanctuary and choir, is exceedingly notable. Of the remains of the edifice, which was erected on the foundations of a still earlier church, in 1052 (reconstructed in 1515), we have those of the primitive, but rich, ornamentation of the façade as the most interesting and appealing. The north doorway, too, indicates in its curious _bas-reliefs_, of the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, a luxuriance which in the north--in the Romanesque churches at least--came only with later centuries. There are few accessories of note to be seen in the choir or chapels: a painting of St. Maurice by Desgoffés, a small quantity of fourteenth-century glass, the mausoleum of Cardinal de Montmorin, a sixteenth-century tomb, and, in one of the chapels, some modern glass of more than usual brilliance. The pulpit is notable, and, with that in St. Jean de Lyon, ranks as one of the most elaborate in France. For the rest, one's admiration for St. Maurice de Vienne must rest on the glorious antiquity of the city, as a centre of civilizing and Christianizing influence. When Pope Paschal II. (1099-1118) confirmed the metropolitan privileges of Vienne, and sent the _pallium_ to its archbishop, he assigned to him as suffragans the bishops of Grenoble, Valence, Dié, Viviers, Geneva, and St. Jean de Maurienne, and conferred upon him the honorary office of primate over Monstiers in Tarentaise. Still later, Calixtus II. (1119-24) favoured the archbishopric still further by not only confirming the privileges which had gone before, but investing the archbishop with the still higher dignity of the office of primate over the seven ecclesiastical Provinces of Vienne, Bourges, Bordeaux, Auch, Narbonne, Aix, and Embrun. [Illustration] VI ST. APOLLINAIRE DE VALENCE Valence, the Valentia of the Romans, is variously supposed to be situated in southeastern France, Provence, and the Cevennes. For this reason it will be difficult for the traveller to locate his guide-book reference thereto. It is, however, located in the Rhône valley on the very banks of that turgid river, and it seems inexplicable that the makers of the red-covered couriers do not place it more definitely; particularly in that it is historically so important a centre. The most that can usually be garnered by the curious is that it is "well built in parts, and that those parts only are of interest to the traveller." As a matter of fact, they are nothing of the sort; and the boulevards, of which so much is made, are really very insignificant; so, too, are the cafés and restaurants, to which far more space is usually given than to the claim of Valence as an early centre of Christianity. Valence is not a great centre of population, and is appealing by reason of its charming situation, in a sort of amphitheatre, before which runs the swift-flowing Rhône. There is no great squalor, but there is a picturesqueness and charm which is wholly dispelled in the newer quarters, of which the guide-books speak. There is, moreover, in the cathedral of St. Apollinaire, a small but highly interesting "Romanesque-Auvergnian" cathedral; rebuilt and reconsecrated by Urban II., in the eleventh century, and again reconstructed, on an entirely new plan, in 1604. Besides this curious church there is a "Protestant temple," which occupies the former chapel of the ancient Abbey of St. Rufus, that should have a singularly appealing interest for English-speaking folk. The préfecture occupies another portion of the abbey, which in its various disintegrated parts is worthy of more than passing consideration. The bishopric was founded here at Valence in the fourth century--when Emelien became the first bishop. The see endures to-day as a suffragan of Avignon; whereas formerly it owed obedience to Vienne (now Lyon et Vienne). The ancient cathedral of St. Apollinaire is almost wholly conceived and executed in what has come to be known as the Lombard style. The main body of the church is preceded on the west by an extravagant rectangular tower, beneath which is the portal or entrance; if, as in the present instance, the comprehensive meaning of the word suggests something more splendid than a mere doorway. There has been remarked before now that there is a suggestion of the Corinthian order in the columns of both the inside and outside of the church. This is a true enough detail of Lombard forms as it was of the Roman style, which in turn was borrowed from the Greeks. In later times the neo-classical details of the late Renaissance period produced quite a different effect, and were in no way comparable to the use of this detail in the Lombard and Romanesque churches. In St. Apollinaire, too, are to be remarked the unusual arch formed of a rounded trefoil. This is found in both the towers, and is also seen in St. Maurice at Vienne, but not again until the country far to the northward and eastward is reached, where they are more frequent, therefore their use here may be considered simply as an interpolation brought from some other soil, rather than an original conception of the local builder. Here also is seen the unusual combination of an angular pointed arch in conjunction with the round-headed Lombard variety. This, in alternation for a considerable space, on the south side of the cathedral. It is a feature perhaps not worth mentioning, except from the fact that both the trefoil and wedge-pointed arch are singularly unbeautiful and little in keeping with an otherwise purely southern structure. The aisles of St. Apollinaire, like those of Notre Dame de la Grande at Poitiers, and many other Lombardic churches, are singularly narrow, which of course appears to lengthen them out interminably. If any distinctive style can be given this small but interesting cathedral, it may well be called the style of Lyonnaise. It dates from the twelfth century as to its foundations, but was rebuilt on practically a new ground-plan in 1604. To-day it is cruciform after the late elongated style, with lengthy transepts and lofty aisles. The chief feature to be observed of its exterior is its heavy square tower (187 feet) of four stories. It is not beautiful, and was rebuilt in the middle nineteenth century, but it is imposing and groups satisfactorily enough with the _ensemble_ round about. Beneath this tower is a fine porch worked in Crussol marble. There is no triforium or clerestory. In the choir is a cenotaph in white marble to Pius VI., who was exiled in Valence, and who died here in 1799. It is surmounted by a bust by Canova, whose work it has become the fashion to admire sedulously. VII CATHÉDRALE DE VIVIERS The bishopric of Viviers is a suffragan of Avignon, and is possessed of a tiny cathedral church, which, in spite of its diminutive proportions, overtops quite all the other buildings of this ancient capital of the Vivarais. The city is a most picturesque setting for any shrine, with the narrow, tortuous streets--though slummy ones--winding to the cliff-top on which the city sits high above the waters of the Rhône. The choir of this cathedral is the only portion which warrants remark. It is of the fourteenth century, and has no aisles. It is in the accepted Gothic style, but this again is coerced by the Romanesque flanking tower, which, to all intents and purposes, when viewed from afar, might well be taken for a later Renaissance work. A nearer view dissects this tower into really beautiful parts. The base is square, but above--in an addition of the fifteenth century--it blooms forth into an octagon of quite original proportions. In the choir are some Gobelin tapestries and paintings by Mignard; otherwise there are no artistic attributes to be remarked. VIII NOTRE DAME D'ORANGE The independent principality of Orange (which had existed since the eleventh century), with the papal State of Avignon, the tiny Comté Venaissin, and a small part of Provence were welded into the Department of Vaucluse in the redistribution of political divisions under Napoleon I. The house of Nassau retains to-day the honorary title of Princes of Orange, borne by the heir apparent to the throne of Holland. More anciently the city was known as the Roman _Arausio_, and is yet famous for its remarkable Roman remains, the chief of which are its triumphal arch and theatre--one of the largest and most magnificent, if not actually the largest, of its era. The history of the church at Orange is far more interesting and notable than that of its rather lame apology for a cathedral of rank. The see succumbed in 1790 in favour of Avignon, an archbishopric, and Valence, one of its suffragans. The persecution and oppression of the Protestants of Orange and Dauphiné are well-recorded facts of history. A supposedly liberal and tolerant maker of guide-books (in English) has given inhabitants of Orange a hard reputation by classing them as a "ferocious people." This rather unfair method of estimating their latter-day characteristics is based upon the fact that over three hundred perished here by the guillotine during the first three months of the Revolution. It were better had he told us something of the architectural treasures of this _ville de l'art célèbre_. He does mention the chief, also that "the town has many mosquitoes," but, as for churches, he says not a word. The first bishop was St. Luce, who was settled here in the fourth century, at the same time that St. Ruff came to Avignon. As a bishopric, Orange was under the control of St. Trophime's successors at Arles. Notre Dame d'Orange is a work of little architectural pretence, though its antiquity is great as to certain portions of its walls. The oldest portion dates from 1085, though there is little to distinguish it from the more modern additions and reparations, and is in no way suggestive of the splendour with which the ancient Roman theatre and arch were endowed. The chief attribute to be remarked is the extreme width of nave, which dates from 1085 to 1126. The cathedral itself, however, is not an architectural example of any appealing interest whatever, and pales utterly before the magnificent and splendid preservations of secular Roman times. Since, however, Orange is a city reminiscent of so early a period of Christianity as the fourth century, it is to be presumed that other Christian edifices of note may have at one time existed: if so, no very vivid history of them appears to have been left behind, and certainly no such tangible expressions of the art of church-building as are seen in the neighbouring cities of the Rhône valley. [Illustration] IX ST. VÉRAN DE CAVAILLON "It is the plain of Cavaillon which is the market-garden of Avignon; from whence come the panniers of vegetables and fruits, the _buissons d'artichauts_, and the melons of 'high reputation.'" Such is the rather free paraphrase of a most charmingly expressed observation on this Provençal land of plenty, written by an eighteenth-century Frenchman. If it was true in those days, it is no less true to-day, and, though this book is more concerned with churches than with _potagerie_, the observation is made that this fact may have had not a little to do with the early foundation of the church, here in a plenteous region, where it was more likely to prosper than in an impoverished land. The bishopric was founded in the fifth century by St. Genialis, and it endured constantly until the suppression in 1790. All interest in Cavaillon, in spite of its other not inconsiderable claims, will be centred around its ancient cathedral of St. Véran, immediately one comes into contact therewith. The present structure is built upon a very ancient foundation; some have said that the primitive church was of the seventh century. This present cathedral was consecrated by Pope Innocent IV. in person, in 1259, and for that reason possesses a considerable interest which it would otherwise lack. Externally the most remarkable feature is the arrangement and decoration of the apside--there is hardly enough of it to come within the classification of the chevet. Here the quintuple flanks, or sustaining walls, are framed each with a pair of columns, of graceful enough proportions in themselves, but possessed of inordinately heavy capitals. An octagonal cupola, an unusual, and in this case a not very beautiful feature, crowns the centre of the nave. In reality it serves the purpose of a lantern, and allows a dubious light to trickle through into the interior, which is singularly gloomy. To the right of the nave is a curiously attenuated _clocher_, which bears a clock-face of minute proportions, and holds a clanging _bourdon_, which, judging from its voice, must be as proportionately large as the clock-face is small. Beneath this tower is a doorway leading from the nave to the cloister, a beautiful work dating from a much earlier period than the church itself. This cloister is not unlike that of St. Trophime at Arles, and, while plain and simple in its general plan of rounded arches and vaulting, is beautifully worked in stone, and admirably preserved. In spite of its severity, there is no suggestion of crudity, and there is an elegance and richness in its sculptured columns and capitals which is unusual in ecclesiastical work of the time. The interior of this church is quite as interesting as the exterior. There is an ample, though aisleless, nave, which, though singularly dark and gloomy, suggests a vastness which is perhaps really not justified by the actual state of affairs. A very curious arrangement is that the supporting wall-pillars--in this case a sort of buttress, like those of the apside--serve to frame or enclose a series of deep-vaulted side chapels. The effect of this is that all of the flow of light, which might enter by the lower range of windows, is practically cut off from the nave. What refulgence there is--and it is not by any means of the dazzling variety--comes in through the before-mentioned octagon and the upper windows of the nave. In a chapel--the gift of Philippe de Cabassole, a friend of Petrarch's--is a funeral monument which will even more forcibly recall the name and association of the poet. It is a seventeenth-century tomb of Bishop Jean de Sade, a descendant of the famous Laura, whose ashes formerly lay in the Église des Cordeliers at Avignon, but which were, it is to be feared, scattered to the winds by the Revolutionary fury. At the summit of Mont St. Jacques, which rises high above the town, is the ancient _Ermitage de St. Véran_; a place of local pilgrimage, but not otherwise greatly celebrated. X NOTRE DAME DES DOMS D'AVIGNON It would be difficult to say with precision whether Avignon were more closely connected in the average mind with the former papal splendour, with Petrarch and his Laura, or with the famous Félibrage. Avignon literally reeks with sentimental associations of a most healthy kind. No probable line of thought suggested by Avignon's historied and romantic past will intimate even the mawkish, the sordid, or the banal. It is, in almost limitless suggestion, the city of France above all others in which to linger and drink in the life of its past and present to one's fullest capacities. For the "literary pilgrim," first and foremost will be Avignon's association with Petrarch, or rather he with it. For this reason it shall be disposed of immediately, though not in one word, or ten; that would be impossible. [Illustration: _Notre Dame des Doms d'Avignon_] "'The grave of Laura!' said I. 'Indeed, my dear sir, I am obliged to you for having mentioned it,'" were the words with which the local bookseller was addressed by an eighteenth-century traveller. "'Otherwise one might have gone away, to their everlasting sorrow and shame, without having seen this curiosity of your city.'" The same record of travel describes the guardian of this shrine as "a converted Jew, who, from one year's end to another, has but two duties to perform, which he most punctually attends to. The one to take care of the grave of Laura, and to show it to strangers, the other to give them information respecting all the curiosities. Before his conversion, he stood at the corner by the Hôtel de Ville offering lottery tickets to passers-by, and asking, till he was hoarse, if they had anything to sell. Not a soul took the least notice of him. His beard proved a detriment in all his speculations. Now that he has become a Christian, it is wonderful how everything thrives with him." At the very end of the Rue des Lices will be found the last remains of the Église des Cordeliers--reduced at the Revolution to a mere tower and its walls. Here may be seen the spot where was the tomb of Laura de Sade. Arthur Young, writing just before the Revolution, described it as below; though since that time still other changes have taken place, with the result that "Laura's Grave" is little more than a memory to-day, and a vague one at that. "The grave is nothing but a stone in the pavement, with a figure engraved on it already partly effaced, surrounded by an inscription in Gothic letters, and another on the wall adjoining, with the armorial bearings of the De Sade family." To-day nothing but the site--the location--of the tomb is still there, the before-mentioned details having entirely disappeared. The vault was apparently broken open at the Revolution, and its ashes scattered. It was here at Avignon, in the Église de St. Claire, as Petrarch himself has recorded, that he first met Laura de Sade. The present mood is an appropriate one in which to continue the Petrarchian pilgrimage countryward--to the famous Vaucluse. Here Petrarch came as a boy, in 1313, and, if one chooses, he may have his _déjeuner_ at the _Hôtel Pétrarque et Laure_; not the same, of course, of which Petrarch wrote in praise of its fish of Sorgues; but you will have them as a course at lunch nevertheless. Here, too, the famed _Fontaine_ first comes to light and air; and above it hangs "Petrarch's Castle," which is not Petrarch's castle, nor ever was. It belonged originally to the bishops of Cavaillon, but it is possible that Petrarch was a guest there at various times, as we know he was at the more magnificent _Palais des Papes_ at Avignon. This château of the bishops hangs perilously on a brow which rises high above the torrential _Fontaine_, and, if sentiment will not allow of its being otherwise ignored, it is permissible to visit it, if one is so inclined. No special hardship is involved, and no great adventure is likely to result from this journey countryward. Tourists have been known to do the thing before "just to get a few snapshots of the fountain." As to why the palace of the popes came into being at Avignon is a question which suggests the possibilities of the making of a big book. The popes came to Avignon at the time of the Italian partition, on the strength of having acquired a grant of the city from Joanna of Naples, for which they were supposed to give eighty thousand golden crowns. They never paid the bill, however; from which fact it would appear that financial juggling was born at a much earlier period than has hitherto been supposed. Seven popes reigned here, from 1305 to 1370; when, on the termination of the Schism, it became the residence of a papal legate. Subsequently Louis XIV. seized the city, in revenge for an alleged affront to his ambassador, and Louis XV. also held it for ten years. The curious fact is here recalled that, by the treaty of Tolentino (12th February, 1797), the papal power at Rome conceded formally for the first time--to Napoleon I.--their ancient territory of Avignon. On the terms of this treaty alone was Pope Pius allowed to remain nominal master of even shreds of the patrimony of St. Peter. The significant events of Avignon's history are too great in purport and number to be even catalogued here, but the magnificent papal residence, from its very magnitude and luxuriance, compels attention as one of the great architectural glories, not only of France, but of all Europe as well. Here sat, for the major portion of the fourteenth century, the papal court of Avignon; which the uncharitable have called a synonym for profligacy, veniality, and luxurious degeneracy. Here, of course, were held the conclaves by which the popes of that century were elected; significantly they were all Frenchmen, which would seem to point to the fact of corruption of some sort, if nothing more. Rienzi, the last of the tribunes, was a prisoner within the walls of this great papal stronghold, and Simone Memmi of Sienna was brought therefrom to decorate the walls of the popes' private chapel; Petrarch was _persona grata_ here, and many other notables were frequenters of its hospitality. The palace walls rise to a height of nearly ninety feet, and its battlemented towers add another fifty; from which one may infer that its stability was great; an effect which is still further sustained when the great thickness of its sustaining walls is remarked, and the infrequent piercings of windows and doorways. This vast edifice was commenced by Pope Clement V. in the early years of the thirteenth century, but nothing more than the foundations of his work were left, when Benedict XII., thirty years later, gave the work into the hands of Peter Obreri--who must have been the Viollet-le-Duc of his time. Revolution's destroying power played its part here, as generally throughout France, in defacing shrines, monuments, and edifices, civil and ecclesiastical, with little regard for sentiment and absolutely none for reason. The mob attacked the papal palace with results more disastrous than the accumulated debasement of preceding centuries. The later régime, which turned the magnificent halls of this fortress-like palace into a mere barracks--as it is to-day--was quite as iconoclastic in its temperament. One may realize here, to the full, just how far a great and noble achievement of the art and devotion of a past age may sink. The ancient papal palace at Avignon--the former seat of the power of the Roman Catholic religion--has become a mere barracks! To contemplate it is more sad even than to see a great church turned into a stable or an abattoir--as can yet be seen in France. In its plan this magnificent building preserves its outlines, but its splendour of embellishment has very nearly been eradicated, as may be observed if one will crave entrance of the military incumbent. [Illustration: VILLENEUVE-. _les-AVIGNON_] In 1376 Pope Gregory XI. left Avignon for Rome,--after him came the two anti-popes,--and thus ended what Petrarch has called "_L'Empia Babilonia_." The cathedral of Notre Dame des Doms pales perceptibly before the splendid dimensions of the papal palace, which formerly encompassed a church of its own of much more artistic worth. In one respect only does the cathedral lend a desirable note to the _ensemble_. This, by reason of its commanding situation--at the apex of the Rocher des Doms--and by the gilded statue of the Virgin which surmounts the tower, and supplies just the right quality of colour and life to a structure which would be otherwise far from brilliant. From the opposite bank of the Rhône--from Villeneuve-les-Avignon--the view of the parent city, the papal residence, the cathedral, and that unusual southern attribute, the _beffroi_, all combine in a most glorious picture of a superb beauty; quite rivalling--though in a far different manner--that "plague spot of immorality,"--Monte Carlo, which is mostly thought to hold the palm for the sheer beauty of natural situation. The cathedral is chiefly of the twelfth century, though even a near-by exterior view does not suggest any of the Gothic tendencies of that era. It is more like the heavy bungling style which came in with the Renaissance; but it is not that either, hence it must be classed as a unique variety, though of the period when the transition from the Romanesque to Gothic was making inroads elsewhere. It has been said that the structure dates in part from the time of Charlemagne, but, if so, the usual splendid appointments of the true Charlemagnian manner are sadly lacking. There may be constructive foundations of the eleventh century, but they are in no way distinctive, and certainly lend no liveliness to a building which must ever be ranked as unworthy of the splendid environment. As a church of cathedral rank, it is a tiny edifice when compared with the glorious northern ground-plans: it is not much more than two hundred feet in length, and has a width which must be considerably less than fifty feet. The entrance, at the top of a long, winding stair which rises from the street-level of the Place du Palais to the platform of the rock, is essentially pagan in its aspect; indeed it is said to have previously formed the portal of a pagan temple which at one time stood upon the site. If this be so, this great doorway--for it is far larger in its proportions than any other detail--is the most ancient of all the interior or exterior features. The high pediment and roof may be pointed Gothic, or it may not; at any rate, it is in but the very rudimentary stage. Authorities do not agree; which carries the suggestion still further that the cathedral at Avignon is of itself a queer, hybrid thing in its style, and with not a tithe of the interest possessed by its more magnificent neighbour. The western tower, while not of great proportions, is rather more massive than the proportions of the church body can well carry. What decoration it possesses carries the pagan suggestion still further, with its superimposed fluted pillars and Corinthian columns. The gloomy interior is depressing in the extreme, and whatever attributes of interest that it has are largely discounted by their unattractive setting. There are a number of old paintings, which, though they are not the work of artists of fame, might possibly prove to be of creditable workmanship, could one but see them through the gloom. In the before-mentioned porch are some frescoes by Simone Memmi, executed by him in the fourteenth century, when he came from Sienna to do the decorations in the palace. The side chapels are all of the fourteenth century; that of St. Joseph, now forming the antechamber of the sacristy, contains a noteworthy Gothic tomb and monument of Pope John XXII. It is much mutilated to-day, and is only interesting because of the personality connected therewith. The custodian or caretaker is in this case a most persistently voluble person, who will give the visitor little peace unless he stands by and hears her story through, or flees the place,--which is preferable. The niches of this highly florid Gothic tomb were despoiled of their statues at the Revolution, and the recumbent effigy of the Pope has been greatly disfigured. A much simpler monument, and one quite as interesting, to another Pope, Benedict XII.,--he who was responsible for the magnificence of the papal palace,--is in a chapel in the north aisle of the nave, but the _cicerone_ has apparently no pride in this particular shrine. An ancient (pagan?) altar is preserved in the nave. It is not beautiful, but it is undoubtedly very ancient and likewise very curious. The chief accessory of interest for all will doubtless prove to be the twelfth-century papal throne. It is of a pure white marble, rather cold to contemplate, but livened here and there with superimposed gold ornament. What decoration there is, chiefly figures representing the bull of St. Luke and the lion of St. Mark, is simple and severe, as befitted papal dignity. To-day it serves the archbishop of the diocese as his throne of dignity, and must inspire that worthy with ambitious hopes. The chapter of the cathedral at Avignon--as we learn from history--wears purple, in company with cardinals and kings, at all celebrations of the High Mass of Clara de Falkenstein. From a well-worn vellum quarto in the library at Avignon one may read the legend which recounts the connection of Ste. Clara de Mont Falcone with the mystery of the Holy Trinity; from which circumstance the honour and dignity of the purple has been granted to the prelates of the cathedral. No mention of Avignon, or of Arles, or of Nîmes could well be made without a reference to the revival of Provençal literature brought about by the famous "Félibrage," that brotherhood founded by seven poets, of whom Frederic Mistral is the most popularly known. The subject is too vast, and too vastly interesting to be slighted here, so perforce mere mention must suffice. The word Félibre was suggested by Mistral, who found it in an old hymn. Its etymology is uncertain, but possibly it is from the Greek, meaning "a lover of the beautiful." The original number of the Félibres was seven, and they first met on the fête-day of Ste. Estelle; in whose honour they adopted the seven-pointed star as their emblem. Significantly, the number seven has much to do with the Félibres and Avignon alike. The enthusiastic Félibre tells of Avignon's seven churches, its seven gates, seven colleges, seven hospitals, and seven popes--who reigned at Avignon for seven decades; and further that the word Félibre has seven letters, as, also, has the name of Mistral, one of its seven founders--who took seven years in writing his epics. [Illustration: NOTRE DAME _des DOMS d'AVIGNON_] The machicolated walls, towers, and gateways of Avignon, which protected the city in mediæval times, and--history tells us--sheltered twice as many souls as now, are in a remarkable state of preservation and completeness, and rank foremost among the masterworks of fortification of their time. This outer wall, or _enceinte_, was built at the instigation of Clement VI., in 1349, and was the work of but fourteen years. A hideously decorated building opposite the papal palace--now the _Conservatoire de Musique_--was formerly the papal mint. The ruined bridge of St. Bénezet, built in the twelfth century, is a remarkable example of the engineering skill of the time. Surmounting the four remaining arches--still perfect as to their configuration--is a tiny chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas, which formerly contained _reliques_ of St. Bénezet. The extraordinary circumstance which led up to the building of this bridge seems legendary, to say the least. It is recorded that St. Bénezet, its founder, who was a mere shepherd, became inspired by God to undertake this great work. The inspiration must likewise have brought with it not a little of the uncommon skill of the bridge-builder, and, considering the extent and scope of the projected work, something of the spirit of benefaction as well. The foundation was laid in 1171, and it was completed, after seventeen years of labour, in 1188. On this bridge, near the entrance to the city, was erected a hospital of religious persons, who were denominated _Les Frères du Pont_, their offices being to preserve the fabric, and to afford succour to all manner of travellers. The boldness and utility of this undertaking,--it being the only means of communication between Avignon and the French territory beyond the Rhône,--as well as the permanency assured to it by the annexing of a religious foundation, cannot fail to grant to the memory of its holy founder something more than a due share of veneration on behalf of his genius and perspicacity. XI ST. SIFFREIN DE CARPENTRAS The tiny city of Carpentras, most picturesquely situated on the equally diminutive river Auzon which enters the Rhône between Orange and Avignon, was a Roman colony under Augustus, and a bishopric under St. Valentin in the third century. A suffragan of Avignon, the papal city, the see was suppressed in 1790. The Bishops of Carpentras, it would appear, were a romantic and luxury-loving line of prelates, though this perhaps is aught against their more devout virtues. They had a magnificent palace overhanging the famous "Fountain of Vaucluse," and repaired thither in mediæval times for the relaxation which they evidently much appreciated. They must have been veritable patrons of literature and the arts, as Petrarch and his fellows-in-art were frequently of their household. The ancient cathedral of St. Siffrein is dedicated to a former bishop of Carpentras, who died in the sixth century. As this church now stands, its stones are mainly of the early sixteenth century. The west façade is entirely without character, and is pierced at the pavement with a gross central doorway flanked by two others; poor copies of the _Greco-Romain_ style, which, in many of its original forms, was certainly more pleasing than here. Each of these smaller doorways have for their jambs two beautifully toned columns of red jasper, from a baptistère of which there are still extensive remains at Venasque near by. This baptistère, by the way, and its neighbouring Romanesque and Gothic church, is quite worth the energy of making the journey countryward, eleven kilometres from Carpentras, to see. It is nominally of the tenth century, but is built up from fragments of a former Temple to Venus, and its situation amid the rocks and tree-clad hilltops of the Nesque valley is most agreeable. The portal on the south side--though, for a fact, it hardly merits the dignity of such a classification--is most ornately sculptured. A figure of the Virgin, in the doorway, it locally known as Notre Dame des Neiges. Much iconographic symbolism is to be found in this doorway, capable of various plausible explanations which shall not be attempted here. It must suffice to say that nowhere in this neighbourhood, indeed possibly not south of the Loire, is so varied and elaborate a collection of symbolical stone-carving to be seen. There is no regularly completed tower to St. Siffrein, but a still unachieved tenth-century _clocher_ in embryo attaches itself on the south. The interior presents the general effect of Gothic, and, though of late construction, is rather of the primitive order. There are no aisles, but one single nave, very wide and very high, while the apse is very narrow, with lateral chapels. Against the western wall are placed four paintings; not worthy of remark, perhaps, except for their great size. They are of the seventeenth or eighteenth century. A private corridor, or gallery, leads from this end of the church to the episcopal palace, presumably for the sole use of the bishops and their guests. The third chapel on the right is profusely decorated and contains a valuable painting by Dominique de Carton. Another contains a statue of the Virgin, of the time of Louis XIV., and is very beautiful. A tomb of Bishop Laurent Buti (d. 1710) is set against the wall, where the apse adjoins the nave. Rearward on the high-altar is a fine painting by an unknown artist of the Italian school. The old-time cathedral of St. Siffrein was plainly not of the poverty-stricken class, as evinced by the various accessories and details of ornamentation mentioned above. It had, moreover, in conjunction with it, a most magnificent and truly palatial episcopal residence, built by a former cardinal-bishop, Alexandri Bichi, in 1640. To-day it serves the functions of the _Palais de Justice_ and a prison; in the latter instance certainly a fall from its hitherto high estate. Built about by this ancient residence of the prelates of the Church is also yet to be seen, in much if not quite all of its pristine glory, a _Gallo-Romain arc de Triomphe_ of considerable proportions and much beauty of outline and ornament. As to period, Prosper Mérimée, to whom the preservation of the ancient monuments of France is largely due, has said that it is contemporary with its compeer at Orange (first or second century). The Porte d'Orange, in the Grande Rue, is the only _relique_ left at Carpentras of the ancient city ramparts built in the fourteenth century by Pope Innocent VI. XII CATHÉDRALE DE VAISON The Provençal town of Vaison, like Carpentras and Cavaillon, is really of the basin of the Rhône, rather than of the region of the snow-crowned Alps which form its background. It is of little interest to-day as a cathedral city, though the see dates from a foundation of the fourth century, by St. Aubin, until the suppression of 1790. Its former cathedral is hardly the equal of many others which have supported episcopal dignity, but it has a few accessories and attributes which make it notable. Its nave is finely vaulted, and there is an eleventh-century cloister, which flanks the main body of the church on the left, which would be remarked under any circumstances. The cloister, though practically a ruin,--but a well preserved one,--shows in its construction many beautiful Gallo-Romain and early Gothic columns which are exceedingly beautiful in their proportions. In this cloister, also, are some fragments of early Christian tombs, which will offer unlimited suggestion to the archæologist, but which to the lover of art and architecture are quite unappealing. The _Église St. Quinin_ is a conglomerate edifice which has been built up, in part, from a former church which stood on the same site in the seventh century. It is by no means a great architectural achievement as it stands to-day, but is highly interesting because of its antiquity. In the cathedral the chief article of real artistic value is a _bénitier_, made from the capital of a luxurious Corinthian column. One has seen sun-dials and drinking-fountains made from pedestals and sarcophagi before--and the effect has not been pleasing, and smacks not only of vandalism, but of a debased ideal of art, but this column-top, which has been transformed into a _bénitier_, cannot be despised. The _bête-noir_ of all this region, and of Vaison in particular,--if one is to believe local sentiment,--is the high sweeping wind, which at certain seasons blows in a tempestuous manner. The habitant used to say that "_le mistral, le Parlement, et Durance sont les trois fléaux de Provence_." [Illustration] XIII ST. TROPHIME D'ARLES "In all the world that which interests me most is _La Fleur des 'Glais'_ ... It is a fine plant.... It is the same as the _Fleurs des Lis d'Or_ of the arms of France and of Provence." --FREDERIC MISTRAL. [Illustration: ST. TROPHIME _d'ARLES_ ...] Two French writers of repute have recently expressed their admiration of the marvellous country, and the contiguous cities, lying about the mouth of the Rhône; among which are Nîmes, Aigues-Mortes, and--of far greater interest and charm--Arles. Their opinions, perhaps, do not differ very greatly from those of most travellers, but both Madame Duclaux, in "The Fields of France," and René Bazin, in his _Récits de la Plaine et de la Montagne_, give no palm, one to the other, with respect to their feeling for "the mysterious charm of Arles." It is significant that in this region, from Vienne on the north to Arles and Nîmes in the south, are found such a remarkable series of Roman remains as to warrant the statement by a French antiquarian that "in Rome itself are no such temples as at Vienne and Nîmes, no theatres so splendidly preserved as that at Orange,--nor so large as that of Arles,--and that the magnificent ruined colosseum on the Tiber in no wise has the perfections of its compeer at Nîmes, nor has any triumphal arch the splendid decorations of that at Reims in the champagne country." With these facts in view it is well to recall that many non-Christian influences asserted themselves from time to time, and overshadowed for a temporary period those which were more closely identified with the growth of the Church. The Commission des Monuments Historiques catalogue sixteen notable monuments in Arles which are cared for by them: the Amphitheatre, the remains of the Forum,--now built into the façade of the Hôtel du Nord,--the remains of the Palais de Constantin, the Abbey of Montmajour, and the one-time cathedral of St. Trophime, and its cloister--to particularize but a few. To-day, as anciently, the ecclesiastical province is known as that of Aix, Arles, and Embrun. Arles, however, for a time took its place as an archbishopric, though to-day it joins hands again with Aix and Embrun; thus, while enjoying the distinction of being ranked as an archbishopric, its episcopal residence is at Aix. It was at Arles that the first, and only, English pope--Adrian Breakspeare--first entered a monastic community, after having been refused admission to the great establishment at St. Albans in Hertfordshire, his native place. Here, by the utmost diligence, he acquired the foundation of that great learning which resulted in his being so suddenly proclaimed the wearer of the tiara, in 1154. St. Trophime came to Arles in the first century, and became the first bishop of the diocese. The first church edifice on this site was consecrated in 606 by St. Virgil, under the vocable of St. Etienne. In 1152 the present church was built over the remains of St. Trophime, which were brought thither from St. Honorat des Alyscamps. So far as the main body of the church is concerned, it was completed by the end of the twelfth century, and only in its interior is shown the development of the early ogival style. The structure was added to in 1430, when the Gothic choir was extended eastward. The aisles are diminutively narrow, and the window piercings throughout are exceedingly small; all of which makes for a lack of brilliancy and gloom, which may be likened to the average crypt. The only radiance which ever penetrates this gloomy interior comes at high noon, when the refulgence of a Mediterranean sun glances through a series of long lancets, and casts those purple shadows which artists love. Then, and then only, does the cathedral of St. Trophime offer any inducement to linger within its non-impressive walls. The exterior view is, too, dull and gloomy--what there is of it to be seen from the Place Royale. By far the most lively view is that obtained from across the ruins of the magnificent Roman theatre just at the rear. Here the time-resisting qualities of secular Roman buildings combine with the cathedral to present a bright, sunny, and appealing picture indeed. St. Trophime is in no sense an unworthy architectural expression. As a Provençal type of the Romanesque,--which it is mostly,--it must be judged as quite apart from the Gothic which has crept in to but a slight extent. The western portal is very beautiful, and, with cloister, as interesting and elaborate as one could wish. It is the generality of an unimposing plan, a none too graceful tower and its uninteresting interior, that qualifies the richness of its more luxurious details. The portal of the west façade greatly resembles another at St. Gilles, near by. It is a profusely ornamented doorway with richly foliaged stone carving and elaborate _bas-reliefs_. The tympanum of the doorway contains the figure of a bishop in sacerdotal costume, doubtless St. Trophime, flanked by winged angels and lions. The sculptures here date perhaps from the period contemporary with the best work at Paris and Chartres,--well on into the Middle Ages,--when sculpture had not developed or perfected its style, but was rather a bad copy of the antique. This will be notably apparent when the stiffness and crudeness of the proportions of the figures are taken into consideration. [Illustration: _Cloisters, St. Trophime d'Arles_] The wonderful cloister of St. Trophime is, on the east side, of Romanesque workmanship, with barrel vaulting, and dates from 1120. On the west it is of the transition style of a century later, while on the north the vaulting springs boldly into the Gothic of that period--well on toward 1400. The capitals of the pillars of this cloistered courtyard are most diverse, and picture in delicately carved stone such scenes of Bible history and legend as the unbelief of St. Thomas, Ste. Marthe and the Tarasque, etc. It is a curious _mélange_ of the vagaries of the stone carver of the Middle Ages,--these curiously and elaborately carved capitals,--but on the whole the _ensemble_ is one of rare beauty, in spite of non-Christian and pagan accessories. These show at least how far superior the classical work of that time was to the later Renaissance. The cemetery of Arles, locally known as Les Alyscamps, literally teems with mediæval and ancient funeral monuments; though many, of course, have been removed, and many have suffered the ravages of time, to say nothing of the Revolutionary period. One portion was the old pagan burial-ground, and another--marked off with crosses--was reserved for Christian burial. It must have been accounted most holy ground, as the dead were brought thither for burial from many distant cities. Danté mentions it in the "Inferno," Canto IX.: "Just as at Arles where the Rhône is stagnant The sepulchres make all the ground unequal." Ariosto, in "Orlando Furioso," remarks it thus: "Many sepulchres are in this land." St. Rémy, a few leagues to the northeast of Arles, is described by all writers as wonderfully impressive and appealing to all who come within its spell;--though the guide-books all say that it is a place without importance. René Bazin has this to say: "_St. Rémy, ce n'est pas beau, ce St. Rémy_." Madame Duclaux apostrophizes thus: "We fall at once in love with St. Rémy." With this preponderance of modern opinion we throw in our lot as to the charms of St. Rémy; and so it will be with most, whether with regard to its charming environment or its historical monuments, its arch, or its funeral memorials. One will only come away from this charming _petite ville_ with the idea that, in spite of its five thousand present-day inhabitants, it is something more than a modern shrine which has been erected over a collection of ancient relics. The little city breathes the very atmosphere of mediævalism. [Illustration] XIV ST. CASTOR DE NÎMES Like its neighbouring Roman cities, Nîmes lives mostly in the glorious past. In attempting to realize--if only in imagination--the civilization of a past age, one is bound to bear always in mind the _motif_ which caused any great art expression to take place. Here at Nîmes the church builder had much that was magnificent to emulate, leaving style apart from the question. [Illustration: _St. Castor de Nîmes_] He might, when he planned the cathedral of St. Castor, have avowed his intention of reaching, if possible, the grace and symmetry of the _Maison Carée_; the splendour of the temple of Diana; the majesty of the _Tour Magna_; the grandeur of the arena; or possibly in some measure a blend of all these ambitious results. Instead, he built meanly and sordidly, though mainly by cause of poverty. The Church of the Middle Ages, though come to great power and influence, was not possessed of the fabulous wealth of the vainglorious Roman, who gratified his senses and beautified his surroundings by a lavish expenditure of means, acquired often in a none too honest fashion. The imperative need of the soul was for a house of worship of some sort, and in some measure relative to the rank of the prelate who was to guard their religious life. This took shape in the early part of the eleventh century, when the cathedral of St. Castor was built. Of the varied and superlative attractions of the city one is attempted to enlarge unduly; until the thought comes that there is the making of a book itself to be fashioned out of a reconsideration of the splendid monuments which still exist in this city of celebrated art. To enumerate them all even would be an impossibility here. The tiny building known as the _Maison Carée_ is of that greatness which is not excelled by the "Divine Comedy" in literature, the "Venus of Milo" in sculpture, or the "Transfiguration" in painting. The delicacy and beauty of its Corinthian columns are the more apparent when viewed in conjunction with the pseudo-classical portico of mathematical clumsiness of the modern theatre opposite. This theatre is a dreadful caricature of the deathless work of the Greeks, while the perfect example of _Greco-Romain_ architecture--the _Maison Carée_--will endure as long as its walls stand as the fullest expression of that sense of divine proportion and _magique harmonie_ which the Romans inherited from the Greeks. Cardinal Alberoni called it "a gem which should be set in gold," and both Louis Quatorze and Napoleon had schemes for lifting it bodily from the ground and reëstablishing it at Paris. _Les Arènes_ of Nîmes is an unparalleled work of its class, and in far better preservation than any other extant. It stands, welcoming the stranger, at the very gateway of the city, its _grand axe_ extending off, in arcaded perspective, over four hundred and twenty feet, with room inside for thirty thousand souls. These Romans wrought on a magnificent scale, and here, as elsewhere, they have left evidences of their skill which are manifestly of the non-decaying order. * * * * * The Commission des Monuments Historiques lists in all at Nîmes nine of these historical monuments over which the paternal care of the Ministère de l'Instruction Publique et des Beaux Arts ever hangs. As if the only really fine element in the Cathedral of St. Castor were the façade, with its remarkable frieze of events of Bible history, the Commission has singled it out for especial care, which in truth it deserves, far and away above any other specific feature of this church. Christianity came early to Nîmes; or, at least, the bishopric was founded here, with St. Felix as its first bishop, in the fourth century. At this time the diocese was a suffragan of Narbonne, whilst to-day its allegiance is to the archiepiscopal throne at Avignon. The cathedral of St. Castor was erected in 1030, restored in the thirteenth century, and suffered greatly in the wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These depredations have been--in part--made good, but in the main it is a rather gaunt and painful fabric, and one which is unlooked for amid so magnificent neighbours. It has been said by Roger Peyer--who has written a most enticing monograph on Nîmes--"that without prejudice we can say that the churches constructed in the city _dans nos jours_ are far in advance of the cathedral." This is unquestionably true; for, if we except the very ancient façade, with its interesting sculptured frieze, there is little to impress the cathedral upon the mind except its contrast with its surrounding architectural peers. The main plan, with its flanking north-westerly square tower, is reminiscent of hundreds of parish churches yet to be seen in Italy; while its portal is but a mere classical doorway, too mean even to be classed as a detail of any rank whatever. The façade has undergone some breaking-out and stopping-up of windows during the past decade; for what purpose it is hard to realize, as the effect is neither enhanced nor the reverse. A gaunt supporting buttress, or what not, flanks the tower on the south and adds, yet further, to the incongruity of the _ensemble_. In fine, its decorations are a curious mixture of a more or less pure round-headed Roman style of window and doorway, with later Renaissance and pseudo-classical interpolations. With the interior the edifice takes on more of an interesting character, though even here it is not remarkable as to beauty or grace. The nave is broad, aisleless, and bare, but presents an air of grandeur which is perhaps not otherwise justified; an effect which is doubtless wholly produced by a certain cheerfulness of aspect, which comes from the fact that it has been restored--or at least thoroughly furbished up--in recent times. The large Roman nave, erected, it has been said, from the remains of a former temple of Augustus, has small chapels, without windows, beyond its pillars in place of the usual side aisles. Above is a fine gallery or _tribune_, which also surrounds the choir. The modern mural paintings--the product of the Restoration period--give an air of splendour and elegance, after the manner of the Italian churches, to an appreciably greater extent than is commonly seen in France. In the third chapel on the left is an altar-table made of an early Christian sarcophagus; a questionable practice perhaps, but forming an otherwise beautiful, though crude, accessory. [Illustration] XV ST. THÉODORIT D'UZÈS The ancient diocese of Uzès formerly included that region lying between the Ardèche, the Rhône, and the Gardon, its length and breadth being perhaps equal--fourteen ancient leagues. As a bishopric, it endured from the middle of the fifth century nearly to the beginning of the nineteenth. In ancient Gallic records its cathedral was reckoned as some miles from the present site of the town, but as no other remains than those of St. Théodorit are known to-day, it is improbable that any references in mediæval history refer to another structure. This church is now no longer a cathedral, the see having been suppressed in 1790. The bishop here, as at Lodève and Mende, was the count of the town, and the bishop and duke each possessed their castles and had their respective spheres of jurisdiction, which, says an old-time chronicler, "often occasioned many disputes." Obviously! In the sixteenth century most of the inhabitants embraced the Reformation after the example of their bishop, who, with all his chapter, publicly turned Protestant and "sent for a minister to Geneva." What remains of the cathedral to-day is reminiscent of a highly interesting mediæval foundation, though its general aspect is distinctly modern. Such rebuilding and restoration as it underwent, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, made of it practically a new edifice. The one feature of mark, which stands alone as the representative of mediæval times, is the charming tower which flanks the main body of the church on the right. It is known as the "Tour Fenestrelle" and is of the thirteenth century. It would be a notable accessory to any great church, and is of seven stories in height, each dwindling in size from the one below, forming a veritable campanile. Its height is 130 feet. The interior attractions of this minor church are greater than might be supposed. There is a low gallery with a superb series of wrought-iron _grilles_, a fine tomb in marble--to Bishop Boyan--and in the transept two paintings by Simon de Chalons--a "Resurrection" and a "Raising of Lazarus." The inevitable obtrusive organ-case is of the seventeenth century, and like all of its kind is a parasitical abomination, clinging precariously to the western wall. The sacristy is an extensive suite of rooms which contain throughout a deep-toned and mellow oaken wainscot. For the rest, the lines of this church follow the conventionality of its time. Its proportions, while not great, are good, and there is no marked luxuriance of ornament or any exceeding grace in the entire structure, if we except the detached tower before mentioned. The situation of the town is most picturesque; not daintily pretty, but of a certain dignified order, which is the more satisfying. The ancient château, called Le Duché, is the real architectural treat of the place. XVI ST. JEAN D'ALAIS Alais is an ancient city, but greatly modernized; moreover it does not take a supreme rank as a cathedral city, from the fact that it held a bishop's throne for but a hundred years. Alais was a bishopric only from 1694 to 1790. The cathedral of St. Jean is an imposing structure of that obtrusive variety of architectural art known as "Louis Quinze," and is unworthy of the distinction once bestowed upon it. Perhaps it is due to the fact that the Cevenole country was so largely and aggressively Protestant that the see of Alais did not endure. Robert Louis Stevenson tells of a stranger he met in these mountain parts--that he was a Catholic, "and made no shame of it. No shame of it! The phrase is a piece of natural statistics; for it is the language of one of a minority.... Ireland is still Catholic; the Cevennes still Protestant. Outdoor rustics have not many ideas, but such as they have are hardy plants and thrive flourishingly in persecution." Built about in the façade of this unfeeling structure are some remains of a twelfth-century church, but they are not of sufficient bulk or excellence to warrant remark. An advancing porch stands before this west façade and is surmounted by a massive tower in a poor Gothic style. The vast interior, like the exterior, is entirely without distinction, though gaudily decorated. There are some good pictures, which, as works of art, are a decided advance over any other attributes of this church--an "Assumption," attributed to Mignard, in the chapel of the Virgin; in the left transept, a "Virgin" by Deveria; and in the right transept an "Annunciation" by Jalabert. Alais is by no means a dull place. It is busy with industry, is prosperous, and possesses on a minute scale all the distractions of a great city. It is modern to the very core, so far as appearances go. It has its Boulevard Victor Hugo, its Boulevard Gambetta, and its Lycée Dumas. The Hôpital St. Louis--which has a curious doubly twisted staircase--is of the eighteenth century; a bust of the Marquis de la Fère-Alais, the Cevenole poet, is of the nineteenth; a monument of bronze, to the glory of Pasteur, dates from 1896; and various other bronze and stone memorials about the city all date and perpetuate the name and fame of eighteenth and nineteenth-century notables. The Musée--another recent creation--occupies the former episcopal residence, of eighteenth-century construction. The Hôtel de Ville is quite the most charming building of the city. It has fine halls and corridors, and an ample bibliothèque. Its present-day Salle du Conseil was the ancient chamber of the _États du Languedoc_. XVII ST. PIERRE D'ANNECY The Savoian city of Annecy was formerly the ancient capital of the Genevois. Its past history is more closely allied with other political events than those which emanated from within the kingdom of France; and its ecclesiastical allegiance was intimately related with Geneva, from whence the episcopal seat was removed in 1535. In reality the Christian activities of Annecy had but little to do with the Church in France, Savoie only having been ceded to France in 1860. Formerly it belonged to the ducs de Savoie and the kings of Sardinia. Annecy is a most interesting city, and possesses many, if not quite all, of the attractions of Geneva itself, including the Lake of Annecy, which is quite as romantically picturesque as Lac Leman, though its proportions are not nearly so great. The city's interest for the lover of religious associations is perhaps greater than for the lover of church architecture alone, but, as the two must perforce go hand in hand the greater part of the way, Annecy will be found to rank high in the annals of the history and art of the religious life of the past. In the chapel of the Visitation, belonging to the convent of the same name, are buried St. François de Sales (d. 1622) and Ste. Jeanne de Chantal (d. 1641). The chapel is architecturally of no importance, but the marble ornament and sculptures and the rich paintings are interesting. The ancient chapel of the Visitation--the convent of the first monastery founded by St. Francis and Ste. Jeanne--immediately adjoins the cathedral. Christianity first came to Annecy in the fourth century, with St. Emilien. For long after its foundation the see was a suffragan of the ancient ecclesiastical province of Vienne. To-day it is a suffragan of Chambéry. The rather ordinary cathedral of St. Pierre has no great interest as an architectural type, and is possessed of no embellishments of a rank sufficiently high to warrant remark. It dates only from the sixteenth century, and is quite unconvincing as to any art expression which its builders may have possessed. The episcopal palace (1784) adjoins the cathedral on the south. [Illustration] XVIII CATHÉDRALE DE CHAMBÉRY The city of Chambéry in the eighteenth century must have been a veritable hotbed of aristocracy. A French writer of that day has indeed stated that it is "the winter residence of all the aristocracy of Savoie; ... with twenty thousand francs one could live _en grand seigneur_; ... a country gentleman, with an income of a hundred and twenty louis d'or a year, would as a matter of course take up his abode in the town for the winter." To-day such a basis upon which to make an estimate of the value of Chambéry as a place of residence would be, it is to be feared, misleading. Arthur Young closes his observations upon the agricultural prospects of Savoie with the bold statement that: "On this day, left Chambéry much dissatisfied,--for the want of knowing more of it." Rousseau knew it better, much better. "_S'il est une petite ville au monde où l'on goûte la douceur de la vie dans un commerce agréable et sûr, c'est Chambéry._" Savoie and the Comté de Nice were annexed to France only as late as 1860, and from them were formed the departments of Savoie, Haute-Savoie, and the Alpes-Maritimes. Chambéry is to-day an archbishopric, with suffragans at Annecy, Tarentaise, and St. Jean de Maurienne. Formerly conditions were reversed, and Chambéry was merely a bishopric in the province de Tarentaise. Its first bishop, Michel Conseil, came in office, however, only in 1780. The cathedral is of the fourteenth century, in the pointed style, and as a work of art is distinctly of a minor class. The principal detail of note is a western portal which somewhat approaches good Gothic, but in the main, both inside and out, the church has no remarkable features, if we except some modern glass, which is better in colour than most late work of its kind. As if to counteract any additional charm which this glass might otherwise lend to the interior, we find a series of flamboyant traceries over the major portion of the side walls and vaulting. These are garish and in every way unpleasing, and the interior effect, like that of the exterior, places the cathedral at Chambéry far down the scale among great churches. Decidedly the architectural embellishments of Chambéry lie not in its cathedral. The chapel of the ancient château, dating in part from the thirteenth century, but mainly of the Gothic-Renaissance period, is far and away the most splendid architectural monument of its class to be seen here. _La Grande Chartreuse_ is equally accessible from either Chambéry or Grenoble, and should not be neglected when one is attempting to familiarize himself with these parts. [Illustration] XIX NOTRE DAME DE GRENOBLE It is an open question as to whether Grenoble is not possessed of the most admirable and impressive situation of any cathedral city of France. At all events it has the attribute of a unique background in the _massif de la Chartreuse_, and the range of snow-clad Alps, which rise so abruptly as to directly screen and shelter the city from all other parts lying north and east. Furthermore this natural windbreak, coupled with the altitude of the city itself, makes for a bright and sunny, and withal bracing, atmosphere which many professed tourist and health resorts lack. Grenoble is in all respects "a most pleasant city," and one which contains much of interest for all sorts and conditions of pilgrims. Anciently Grenoble was a bishopric in the diocese of the Province of Vienne, to whose archbishop the see was at that time subordinate. Its foundation was during the third century, and its first prelate was one Domninus. In the redistribution of dioceses Grenoble became a suffragan of Lyon et Vienne, which is its status to-day. As might naturally be inferred, in the case of so old a foundation, its present-day cathedral of Notre Dame partakes also of early origin. This it does, to a small degree only, with respect to certain of the foundations of the choir. These date from the eleventh century, while succeeding eras, of a mixed and none too pure an architectural style, culminate in presenting a singularly unconvincing and cold church edifice. The "pointed" tabernacle, which is the chief interior feature, is of the middle fifteenth century, and indeed the general effect is that of the late Middle Ages, if not actually suggestive of still later modernity. The tomb of Archbishop Chissé, dating from 1407, is the cathedral's chief monumental shrine. To the left of the cathedral is the ancient bishop's palace; still used as such. It occupies the site of an eleventh-century episcopal residence, but the structure itself is probably not earlier than the fifteenth century. In the _Église de St. André_, a thirteenth-century structure, is a tomb of more than usual sentimental and historical interest: that of Bayard. It will be found in the transept. No mention of Grenoble could well ignore the famous monastery of _La Grande Chartreuse_. Mostly, it is to be feared, the monastery is associated in mundane minds with that subtle and luxurious _liqueur_ which has been brewed by the white-robed monks of St. Bruno for ages past; and was until quite recently, when the establishment was broken up by government decree and the real formula of this sparkling _liqueur_ departed with the migrating monks. The opinion is ventured, however, that up to the time of their expulsion (in 1902), the monks of St. Bruno combined solitude, austerity, devotion, and charity of a most practical kind with a lucrative commerce in their distilled product after a successful manner not equalled by any religious community before or since. [Illustration: S. Bruno] The Order of St. Bruno has weathered many storms, and, during the Terror, was driven from its home and dispersed by brutal and riotous soldiery. In 1816 a remnant returned, escorted, it is said, by a throng of fifty thousand people. The cardinal rule of the Carthusians is abstemiousness from all meat-eating; which, however, in consideration of their calm, regular life, and a diet in which fish plays an important part, is apparently conducive to that longevity which most of us desire. It is related that a certain Dominican pope wished to diminish the severity of St. Bruno's regulations, but was met by a delegation of Carthusians, whose _doyen_ owned to one hundred and twenty years, and whose youngest member was of the ripe age of ninety. The amiable pontiff, not having, apparently, an argument left, accordingly withdrew his edict. Of all these great Charterhouses spread throughout France, _La Grande Chartreuse_ was the most inspiring and interesting; not only from the structure itself, but by reason of its commanding and romantic situation amid the forest-clad heights of the Savoyan Alps. The first establishment here was the foundation of St. Bruno (in 1084), which consisted merely of a modest chapel and a number of isolated cubicles. This foundation only gave way--as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--to an enlarged structure more in accord with the demands and usage of this period. The most distinctive feature of its architecture is the grand cloister, with its hundred and fifteen Gothic arches, out of which open the sixty cells of the sandalled and hooded white-robed monks, who, continuing St. Bruno's regulation, live still in isolation. In these cells they spent all of their time outside the hours of work and worship, but were allowed the privilege of receiving one colleague at a time. Here, too, they ate their meals, with the exception of the principal meal on Sundays, when they all met together in the refectory. The _Église de la Grande Chartreuse_ itself is very simple, about the only distinctive or notable feature being the sixteenth-century choir-stalls. At the midnight service, or at _matins_, when the simple church is lit only by flaming torches, and the stalls filled with white-robed _Chartreux_, is presented a picture which for solemnity and impressiveness is as vivid as any which has come down from mediæval times. The chanting of the chorals, too, is unlike anything heard before; it has indeed been called, before now, angelic. Petrarch, whose brother was a member of the order, has put himself on record as having been enchanted by it. As many as ten thousand visitors have passed through the portals of _La Grande Chartreuse_ during the year, but now in the absence of the monks--temporary or permanent as is yet to be determined--conditions obtain which will not allow of entrance to the conventual buildings. No one, however, who visits either Grenoble or Chambéry should fail to journey to St. Laurent du Pont--the gateway of the fastness which enfolds _La Grande Chartreuse_, and thence to beneath the shadow of the walls which for so long sheltered the parent house of this ancient and powerful order. [Illustration: _Belley_] XX BELLEY AND AOSTE En route to Chambéry, from Lyon, one passes the little town of Belley. It is an ancient place, most charmingly situated, and is a suffragan bishopric, strangely enough, of Besançon, which is not only Teutonic in its tendencies, but is actually of the north. At all events, Belley, in spite of its clear and crisp mountain air, is not of the same climatic zone as the other dioceses in the archbishopric of Besançon. Its cathedral is distinctly minor as to style, and is mainly Gothic of the fifteenth century; though not unmixed, nor even consistent, in its various parts. No inconsiderable portion is modern, as will be plainly seen. One distinctly notable feature is a series of Romanesque columns in the nave, possibly taken from some pagan Roman structure. They are sufficiently of importance and value to be classed as "_Monuments Historiques_," and as such are interesting. Aoste (Aoste-St.-Genix) is on the site of the Roman colony of Augustum, of which to-day there are but a few fragmentary remains. It is perhaps a little more than a mile from the village of St. Genix, with which to-day its name is invariably coupled. As an ancient bishopric in the province of Tarentaise, it took form in the fourth century, with St. Eustache as its first bishop. To-day the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of all this region--the Val-de-Tarentaise--is held by Tarentaise. [Illustration] XXI ST. JEAN DE MAURIENNE St. Jean de Maurienne is a tiny mountain city well within the advance-guard of the Alpine range. Of itself it savours no more of the picturesque than do the immediate surroundings. One can well understand that vegetation round about has grown scant merely because of the dearth of fructifying soil. The valleys and the ravines flourish, but the enfolding walls of rock are bare and sterile. This is the somewhat abbreviated description of the _pagi_ garnered from an ancient source, and is, in the main, true enough to-day. Not many casual travellers ever get to this mountain city of the Alps; they are mostly rushed through to Italy, and do not stop short of the frontier station of Modane, some thirty odd kilometres onward; from which point onward only do they know the "lie of the land" between Paris and Piedmont. St. Jean de Maurienne is to-day, though a suffragan of Chambéry, a bishopric in the old ecclesiastical province of Tarentaise. The first archbishop--as the dignity was then--was St. Jacques, in the fifth century. The cathedral of St. Jean is of a peculiar architectural style, locally known as "Chartreusian." It is by no means beautiful, but it is not unpleasing. It dates, as to the epoch of its distinctive style, from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, though it has been so fully restored in our day that it may as well be considered as a rebuilt structure, in spite of the consistent devotion to the original plan. The chief features of note are to be seen in its interior, and, while they are perhaps not of extraordinary value or beauty, in any single instance, they form, as a whole, a highly interesting disposition of devout symbols. Immediately within the portico, by which one enters from the west, is a plaster model of the tomb of Count Humbert, the head of the house of Savoie. In the nave is an altar and mausoleum in marble, gold, and mosaic, erected by the Carthusians to St. Ayrald, a former bishop of the diocese and a member of their order. In the left aisle of the nave is a tomb to Oger de Conflans, and another to two former bishops. Through the sacristy, which is behind the chapel of the Sacred Heart, is the entrance to the cloister. This cloister, while not of ranking greatness or beauty, is carried out, in the most part, in the true pointed style of its era (1452), and is, on the whole, the most charming attribute of the cathedral. The choir has a series of carved stalls in wood, which are unusually acceptable. In the choir, also, is a _ciborium_, in alabaster, with a _reliquaire_ which is said to contain three fingers of John the Baptist, brought to Savoie in the sixth century by Ste. Thècle. The crypt, beneath the choir, is, as is most frequently the case, the remains of a still earlier church, which occupied the same site, but of which there is little record extant. XXII ST. PIERRE DE ST. CLAUDE St. Claude is charmingly situated in a romantic valley of the Jura. The sound of mill-wheels and the sight of factory chimneys mingle inextricably with the roaring of mountain torrents and the solitude of the pine forest. The majority of the inhabitants of these valleys lead a simple and pastoral life, with cheese-making apparently the predominant industry. Manufacturing of all kinds is carried on, in a small way, in nearly every hamlet--in tiny cottage _ateliers_--wood-carving, gem-polishing, spectacle and clock-making, besides turnery and wood-working of all sorts. [Illustration: ST. PIERRE _de ST. CLAUDE_] St. Claude, with its ancient cathedral of St. Pierre, is the centre of all these activities; which must suggest to all publicists of time-worn and _ennuied_ lands a deal of possibilities in the further application of such industrial energies as lie close at hand. In 1789, when Arthur Young, in his third journey through France, passed through St. Claude, the count-bishop of the diocese, the sole inheritor of its wealthy abbey foundation and all its seigneurial dependencies, had only just enfranchised his forty thousand serfs. Voltaire, the atheist, pleaded in vain the cause of this Christian prelate, and for him to be allowed to sustain his right to bond-men; but opposition was too great, and they became free to enjoy property rights, could they but once acquire them. Previously, if childless, they had no power to bequeath their property; it reverted simply to the seigneur by custom of tradition. In the fifth century, St. Claude was the site of a powerful abbey. It did not become an episcopal see, however, until 1742, when its first bishop was Joseph de Madet. At the Revolution the see was suppressed, but it rose again, phoenix-like, in 1821, and endures to-day as a suffragan of Lyon et Vienne. The cathedral of St. Pierre is a fourteenth-century edifice, with later work (seventeenth century) equally to be remarked. As a work of restoration it appears poorly done, but the entire structure is of more than ordinary interest; nevertheless it still remains an uncompleted work. The church is of exceedingly moderate dimensions, and is in no sense a great achievement. Its length cannot be much over two hundred feet, and its width and height are approximately equal (85 feet), producing a symmetry which is too conventional to be really lovable. Still, considering its environment and the association as the old abbey church, to which St. Claude, the bishop of Besançon, retired in the twelfth century, it has far more to offer in the way of a pleasing prospect than many cathedrals of greater architectural worth. There are, in its interior, a series of fine choir-stalls in wood, of the fifteenth century--comparable only with those at Rodez and Albi for their excellence and the luxuriance of their carving--a sculptured _Renaissance retable_ depicting the life of St. Pierre, and a modern high-altar. This last accessory is not as worthy an art work as the two others. [Illustration: _Notre Dame de Bourg_] XXIII NOTRE DAME DE BOURG The chief ecclesiastical attraction of Bourg-en-Bresse is not its one-time cathedral of Notre Dame, which is but a poor Renaissance affair of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. The famous Église de Brou, which Matthew Arnold described so justly and fully in his verses, is a florid Gothic monument which ranks among the most celebrated in France. It is situated something less than a mile from the town, and is a show-piece which will not be neglected. Its charms are too many and varied to be even suggested here. There are a series of sculptured figures of the prophets and apostles, from a fifteenth or sixteenth-century _atelier_, that may or may not have given the latter-day Sargent his suggestion for his celebrated "frieze of the prophets." They are wonderfully like, at all events, and the observation is advisedly included here, though it is not intended as a sneer at Sargent's masterwork. This wonderful sixteenth-century Église de Brou, in a highly decorated Gothic style, its monuments, altars, and admirable glass, is not elsewhere equalled, as to elaborateness, in any church of its size or rank. Notre Dame de Bourg--the cathedral--though manifestly a Renaissance structure, has not a little of the Gothic spirit in its interior arrangements and details. It is as if a Renaissance shell--and not a handsome one--were enclosing a Gothic treasure. There is the unusual polygonal apside, which dates from the fifteenth or sixteenth century, and is the most curious part of the entire edifice. The octagonal tower of the west has, in its higher story, been replaced by an ugly dome-shaped excrescence surmounted by an enormous gilded cross which is by no means beautiful. The west façade in general, in whose portal are shown some evidences of the Gothic spirit, which at the time of its erection had not wholly died, is uninteresting and all out of proportion to a church of its rank. The interior effect somewhat redeems the unpromising exterior. There is a magnificent marble high-altar, jewel-wrought and of much splendour. The two chapels have modern glass. A fine head of Christ, carved in ivory, is to be seen in the sacristy. Previous to 1789 it was kept in the great council-chamber of the _États de la Bresse_. In the sacristy also there are two pictures, of the German school of the sixteenth century. There are sixty-eight stalls, of the sixteenth century, carved in wood. Curiously enough, these stalls--of most excellent workmanship--are not placed within the regulation confines of the choir, but are ranged in two rows along the wall of the apside. XXIV GLANDÈVE, SENEZ, RIEZ, SISTERON The diocese of Digne now includes four _ci-devant_ bishoprics, each of which was suppressed at the Revolution. The ruins of the ancient bishopric of Glandève are to-day replaced by the small town of D'Entrevaux, whose former cathedral of St. Just has now disappeared. The see of Glandève had in all fifty-three bishops, the first--St. Fraterne--in the year 459. Senez was composed of but thirty-two parishes. It was, however, a very ancient foundation, dating from 445 A. D. Its cathedral was known as Notre Dame, and its chapter was composed of five canons and three dignitaries. At various times forty-three bishops occupied the episcopal throne at Senez. [Illustration: NOTRE DAME _de SISTERON_] The suppression likewise made way with the bishopric at Riez, a charming little city of Provence. The see was formerly composed of fifty-four parishes, and its cathedral of Notre Dame had a chapter of eight canons and four dignitaries. The first bishop was St. Prosper, in the early part of the fifth century. Ultimately he was followed by seventy-four others. Two "councils of the church" were held at Riez, the first in 439, and the second in 1285. The diocese of Sisteron was situated in the charming mountain town of the Basses-Alps. This brisk little fortress-city still offers to the traveller many of the attractions of yore, though its former cathedral of Notre Dame no longer shelters a bishop's throne. Four dignitaries and eight canons performed the functions of the cathedral, and served the fifty parishes allied with it. The first bishop was Chrysaphius, in 452, and the last, François Bovet, in 1789. This prelate in 1801 refused the oath of allegiance demanded by the new régime, and forthwith resigned, when the see was combined with that of Digne. The ancient cathedral of Notre Dame de Sisteron of the eleventh and twelfth centuries is now ranked as a "_Monument Historique_." It dates, in the main, from the twelfth century, and is of itself no more remarkable than many of the other minor cathedrals of this part of France. Its chief distinction lies in its grand _retable_, which is decorated with a series of superb paintings by Mignard. The city lies picturesquely posed at the foot of a commanding height, which in turn is surmounted by the ancient citadel. Across the defile, which is deeply cut by the river Durance, rises the precipitous Mont de la Baume, which, with the not very grand or splendid buildings of the city itself, composes the ensemble at once into a distinctively "old-world" spot, which the march of progress has done little to temper. It looks not a little like a piece of stage-scenery, to be sure, but it is a wonderful grouping of the works of nature and of the hand of man, and one which it will be difficult to duplicate elsewhere in France; in fact, it will not be possible to do so. [Illustration] XXV ST. JEROME DE DIGNE The diocese of Digne, among all of its neighbours, has survived until to-day. It is a suffragan of Aix, Arles, and Embrun, and has jurisdiction over the whole of the Department of the Basses-Alps. St. Domnin became its first bishop, in the fourth century. The ancient Romanesque cathedral of Notre Dame--from which the bishop's seat has been removed to the more modern St. Jerome--is an unusually interesting old church, though bare and unpretentious to-day. It dates from the twelfth century, and has all the distinguishing marks of its era. Its nave is, moreover, a really fine work, and worthy to rank with many more important. There are, in this nave, some traces of a series of curious wall-paintings dating from the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries. St. Jerome de Digne--called _la cathédrale fort magnifiante_--is a restored Gothic church of the early ages of the style, though it has been placed--in some doubt--as of the fifteenth century. The apse is semicircular, without chapels, and the general effect of the interior as a whole is curiously marred by reason of the lack of transepts, clerestory, and triforium. This notable poverty of feature is perhaps made up for by the amplified side aisles, which are doubled throughout. The western portal, which is of an acceptable modern Gothic, is of more than usual interest as to its decorations. In the tympanum of the arch is a figure of the Saviour giving his blessing, with the emblems of the Evangelists below, and an angel and the pelican--the emblem of the sacrament--above. Beneath the figure of the Saviour is another of St. Jerome, the patron, to whom the cathedral is dedicated. A square, ungainly tower holds a noisy peal of bells, which, though a great source of local pride, can but prove annoying to the stranger, with their importunate and unseemly clanging. The chief accessories, in the interior, are an elaborate organ-case,--of the usual doubtful taste,--a marble statue of St. Vincent de Paul (by Daumas, 1869), and a sixteenth or seventeenth-century statue of a former bishop of the diocese. Digne has perhaps a more than ordinary share of picturesque environment, seated, as it is, luxuriously in the lap of the surrounding mountains. St. Domnin, the first bishop, came, it is said, from Africa at a period variously stated as from 330 to 340 A. D., but, at any rate, well on into the fourth century. His enthronement appears to have been undertaken amid much heretical strife, and was only accomplished with the aid of St. Marcellin, the archbishop of Embrun, of which the diocese of Digne was formerly a suffragan. The good St. Domnin does not appear to have made great headway in putting out the flame of heresy, though his zeal was great and his miracles many. He departed this world before the dawn of the fifth century, and his memory is still brought to the minds of the communicants of the cathedral each year on the 13th of February--his fête-day--by the display of a reliquary, which is said to contain--somewhat unemphatically--the remains of his head and arm. Wonderful cures are supposed to result to the infirm who view this _relique_ in a proper spirit of veneration, and devils are warranted to be cast out from the true believer under like conditions. A council of the Church was held at Digne in 1414. XXVI NOTRE DAME DE DIE The _Augusta Dia_ of the Romans is to-day a diminutive French town lying at the foot of the _colline_ whose apex was formerly surmounted by the more ancient city. It takes but little ecclesiastical rank, and is not even a tourist resort of renown. It is, however, a shrine which encloses and surrounds many monuments of the days which are gone, and is possessed of an ancient Arc de Triomphe which would attract many of the genus "_touriste_", did they but realize its charm. The cathedral, dedicated to the Virgin, sheltered a bishop's throne from the foundation of the bishopric until 1285, when a hiatus ensued--apparently from some inexplicable reason--until 1672, when its episcopal dignity again came into being. Finally, in 1801, the diocese came to an end. St. Mars was the first bishop, the see having been founded in the third century. The porch of this cathedral is truly remarkable, having been taken from a former temple to Cybele, and dates at least from some years previous to the eleventh century. Another portal of more than usual remark--known as the _porte rouge_--is fashioned from contemporary fragments of the same period. While to all intents and purposes the cathedral is an early architectural work, its rank to-day is that of a restored or rebuilt church of the seventeenth century. The nave is one of the largest in this part of France, being 270 feet in length and seventy-six feet in width. It has no side aisles and is entirely without pillars to break its area, which of course appears more vast than it really is. What indications there are which would place the cathedral among any of the distinct architectural styles are of the pointed variety. Aside from its magnificent dimensions, there are no interior features of remark except a gorgeous Renaissance pulpit and a curious _cène_. XXVII NOTRE DAME ET ST. CASTOR D'APT Apt is doubtfully claimed to have been a bishopric under St. Auspice in the first century, but the ancient _Apta Julia_ of Roman times is to-day little more than an interesting by-point, with but little importance in either ecclesiological or art matters. Its cathedral--as a cathedral--ceased to exist in 1790. It is of the species which would be generally accepted as Gothic, so far as exterior appearances go, but it is bare and poor in ornament and design, and as a type ranks far down the scale. In its interior arrangements the style becomes more florid, and takes on something of the elaborateness which in a more thoroughly worthy structure would be unremarked. The chief decoration lies in the rather elaborate _jubé_, or choir-screen, which stands out far more prominently than any other interior feature, and is without doubt an admirable example of this not too frequent attribute of a French church. Throughout there are indications of the work of many epochs and eras, from the crypt of the primitive church to the Chapelle de Ste. Anne, constructed by Mansard in the seventeenth century. This chapel contains some creditable paintings by Parrocel, and yet others, in a still better style, by Mignard. The crypt, which formed a part of the earlier church on this site, is the truly picturesque feature of the cathedral at Apt, and, like many of its kind, is now given over to a series of subterranean chapels. Among the other attributes of the interior are a tomb of the Ducs de Sabron, a marble altar of the twelfth century, a precious enamel of the same era, and a Gallo-Romain sarcophagus of the fifth century. As to the exterior effect and ensemble, the cathedral is hardly to be remarked, either in size or splendour, from the usual parish church of the average small town of France. It does not rise to a very ambitious height, neither does its ground-plan suggest magnificent proportions. Altogether it proves to be a cathedral which is neither very interesting nor even picturesque. The little city itself is charmingly situated on the banks of the Coulon, a small stream which runs gaily on its way to the Durance, at times torrential, which in turn goes to swell the flood of the Rhône below Avignon. The former bishop's palace is now the préfecture and Mairie. [Illustration] XXVIII NOTRE DAME D'EMBRUN Embrun, not unlike its neighbouring towns in the valley of the Durance, is possessed of the same picturesque environment as Sisteron and Digne. It is perched high on that species of eminence known in France as a _colline_, though in this case it does not rise to a very magnificent height; what there is of it, however, serves to accentuate the picturesque element as nothing else would. The episcopal dignity of the town is only partial; it shares the distinction with Aix and Arles. The Église Notre Dame, though it is still locally known as "_la cathédrale_," is of the twelfth century, and has a wonderful old Romanesque north porch and peristyle set about with gracefully proportioned columns, the two foremost of which are supported upon the backs of a pair of weird-looking animals, which are supposed to represent the twelfth-century stone-cutter's conception of the king of beasts. In the tympanum of this portal are sculptured figures of Christ and the Evangelists, in no wise of remarkable quality, but indicating, with the other decorative features, a certain luxuriance which is not otherwise suggested in the edifice. The Romanesque tower which belongs to the church proper is, as to its foundations, of very early date, though, as a finished detail, it is merely a rebuilt fourteenth-century structure carried out on the old lines. There is another tower, commonly called "_la tour brune_," which adjoins the ancient bishop's palace, and dates from at least a century before the main body of the church. The entire edifice presents an architectural _mélange_ that makes it impossible to classify it as of any one specific style, but the opinion is hazarded that it is all the more interesting a shrine because of this incongruity. The choir, too, indicates that it has been built up from fragments of a former fabric, while the west front is equally unconvincing, and has the added curious effect of presenting a variegated façade, which is, to say the least and the most, very unusual. A similar suggestion is found occasionally in the Auvergne, but the interweaving of party-coloured stone, in an attempt to produce variety, has too often not been taken advantage of. In this case it is not so very pleasing, but one has a sort of sympathetic regard for it nevertheless. In the interior there are no constructive features of remark; indeed there is little embellishment of any sort. There is an eighteenth-century altar, in precious marbles, worked after the old manner, and in the sacristy some altar-fittings of elaborately worked Cordovan leather, a triptych which is dated 1518, some brilliant glass of the fifteenth century, and in the nave a Renaissance organ-case which encloses an organ of the early sixteenth century. Near by is Mont St. Guillaume (2,686 metres), on whose heights is a _sanctuaire_ frequented by pilgrims from round about the whole valley of the Durance. From "Quentin Durward," one recalls the great devotion of the Dauphin of France--Louis XI.--for the statue of Notre Dame d'Embrun. XXIX NOTRE DAME DE L'ASSOMPTION DE GAP Gap is an ancient and most attractive little city of the Maritime Alps, of something less than ten thousand inhabitants. Its cathedral is also the parish church, which suggests that the city is not especially devout. The chapter of the cathedral consists of eight canons, who, considering that the spiritual life of the entire Department of the Hautes-Alpes--some hundred and fifty thousand souls--is in their care, must have a very busy time of it. St. Demetrius, the friend of St. John the Evangelist, has always been regarded as the first apostle and bishop of the diocese. He came from Rome to Gaul in the reign of Claudian, and began his work of evangelization in the environs of Vienne under St. Crescent, the disciple of St. Paul. From Vienne Demetrius came immediately to Gap and established the diocese here. Numerous conversions were made and the Church quickly gained adherents, but persecution was yet rife, as likewise was superstition, and the priests were denounced to the governors of the province, who forthwith put them to death in true barbaric fashion. Amid these inflictions, however, and the later Protestant persecutions in Dauphiné, the diocese grew to great importance, and endures to-day as a suffragan of Aix, Arles, and Embrun. The Église de Gap has even yet the good fortune to possess personal _reliques_ of her first bishop, and accordingly displays them with due pride and ceremony on his _jour de fête_, the 26th October of each year. Says a willing but unknowing French writer: "Had Demetrius--who came to Gap in the first century--any immediate successors? That we cannot say. It is a period of three hundred years which separates his tenure from that of St. Constantine, the next prelate of whom the records tell." Three other dioceses of the former ecclesiastical province have been suppressed, and Gap alone has lived to exert its tiny sphere of influence upon the religious life of the present day. The history of Gap has been largely identified with the Protestant cause in Dauphiné. There is, in the Prefecture, a monument to the Due de Lesdiguières--Françoise de Bonne--who, from the leadership of the Protestants went over to the Roman faith, in consideration of his being given the rank of _Connétable de France_. Why the mere fact of his apostasy should have been a sufficient and good reason for this aggrandizement, it is difficult to realize in this late day; though we know of a former telegraph messenger who became a count. Another reformer, Guillaume Farel, was born and lived at Gap. "He preached his first sermon," says History, "at the mill of Burée, and his followers soon drove the Catholics from the place; when he himself took possession of the pulpits of the town." From all this dissension from the Roman faith--though it came comparatively late in point of time--rose the apparent apathy for church-building which resulted in the rather inferior cathedral at Gap. No account of this unimportant church edifice could possibly be justly coloured with enthusiasm. It is not wholly a mean structure, but it is unworthy of the great activities of the religious devotion of the past, and has no pretence to architectural worth, nor has it any of the splendid appointments which are usually associated with the seat of a bishop's throne. Notre Dame de l'Assomption is a modern edifice in the style _Romano-Gothique_, and its construction, though elaborate both inside and out, is quite unappealing. This is the more to be marvelled at, in that the history of the diocese is so full of incident; so far, in fact, in advance of what the tangible evidences would indicate. XXX NOTRE DAME DE VENCE Vence,--the ancient Roman city of Ventium,--with five other dioceses of the ecclesiastical province of Embrun, was suppressed--as the seat of a bishop--in 1790. It had been a suffragan bishopric of Embrun since its foundation by Eusèbe in the fourth century. The ancient cathedral of Notre Dame is supposed to show traces of workmanship of the sixth, tenth, twelfth, and fifteenth centuries, but, excepting that of the latter era, it will be difficult for the casual observer to place the distinctions of style. The whole ensemble is of grim appearance; so much so that one need not hesitate to place it well down in the ranks of the church-builder's art, and, either from poverty of purse or purpose, it is quite undistinguished. In its interior there are a few features of unusual remark: an ancient sarcophagus, called that of St. Véran; a _retable_ of the sixteenth century; some rather good paintings, by artists apparently unknown; and a series of fifty-one fifteenth-century choir-stalls of quite notable excellence, and worth more as an expression of artistic feeling than all the other features combined. The only distinction as to constructive features is the fact that there are no transepts, and that the aisles which surround the nave are doubled. XXXI CATHÉDRALE DE SION The small city of Sion, the capital of the Valais, looks not unlike the pictures one sees in sixteenth-century historical works. It is brief, confined, and unobtrusive. It was so in feudal times, when most of its architecture partook of the nature of a stronghold. It is so to-day, because little of modernity has come into its life. The city, town, or finally village--for it is hardly more, from its great lack of activity--lies at the foot of three lofty, isolated eminences. A great conflagration came to Sion early in the nineteenth century which resulted in a new lay-out of the town and one really fine modern thoroughfare, though be it still remarked its life is yet mediæval. Upon one of these overshadowing heights is the present episcopal residence, and on another the remains of a fortress--formerly the stronghold of the bishops of Sion. On this height of La Valère stands the very ancient church of Ste. Catherine (with a tenth or eleventh-century choir), occupying, it is said, the site of a Roman temple. In the mid-nineteenth century the Jesuits gained a considerable influence here and congregated in large numbers. The city was the ancient Sedanum, and in olden time the bishop bore also the title of "Prince of the Holy Empire." The power of this prelate was practically unlimited, and ordinances of state were, as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century, made in his name, and his arms formed the embellishments of the public buildings and boundary posts. Rudolf III., king of Burgundy, from the year 1000, made them counts of Valais. St. Théodule was the first bishop of Sion,--in the fourth century,--and is the patron of the diocese. In 1070 the bishop of Sion came to England as papal legate to consecrate Walkelin to the see of Winchester. In 1516 Bishop Schinner came to England to procure financial aid from Henry VIII. to carry on war against France. The cathedral in the lower town is a fifteenth-century work which ought--had the manner of church-building here in this isolated region kept pace with the outside world--to be Renaissance in style. In reality, it suggests nothing but the earliest of Gothic, and, in parts, even Romanesque; therefore it is to be remarked, if not admired. Near by is the modern episcopal residence. The records tell of the extraordinary beauty and value of the _trésor_, which formerly belonged to the cathedral: an ivory pyx, a reliquary, and a magnificent manuscript of the Gospels--given by Charles the Great to St. Maurice, and acquired by the town in the fourteenth century. This must at some former time have been dispersed, as no trace of it is known to-day. Sion was formerly a suffragan bishopric of Tarantaise, which in turn has become to-day a suffragan of Chambéry. XXXII ST. PAUL TROIS CHÂTEAUX St. Paul Trois Châteaux is a very old settlement. As a bishopric it was known anciently as Tricastin, and dates from the second century. St. Restuit was its first bishop. It was formerly the seat of the ancient Roman colony of _Augusta Tricastinorum_. Tradition is responsible for the assertion that St. Paul was the first prelate of the diocese, and being born blind was cured by Jesus Christ. This holy man, after having recovered his sight, took the name of Restuit, under which name he is still locally honoured. One of his successors erected to his honour, in the fourth century, a chapel and an altar. These, of course have disappeared--hence we have only tradition, which, to say the least, and the most, is, in this case, quite legendary. The city was devastated in the fifth century by the Vandals; in 1736 by the Saracens; and taken and retaken by the Protestants and Catholics in the fourteenth century. As a bishopric the "Tricastin city" comprised but thirty-six parishes, and in the rearrangement attendant upon the Revolution was suppressed altogether. Ninety-five bishops in all had their seats here up to the time of suppression. Certainly the religious history of this tiny city has been most vigorous and active. The city conserves to-day somewhat of its ancient birthright, and is a picturesque and romantic spot, in which all may tarry awhile amid its tortuous streets and the splendid remains of its old-time builders. Few do drop off, even, in their annual rush southward, in season or out, and the result is that St. Paul Trois Châteaux is to-day a delightfully "old world" spot in the most significant meaning of the phrase. Of course the habitant still refers to the seat of the former bishop's throne as a cathedral, and it is with pardonable pride that he does so. This precious old eleventh and twelfth-century church is possessed of as endearing and interesting an aspect as the city itself. It has been restored in recent times, but is much hidden by the houses which hover around its walls. It has a unique portal which opens between two jutting columns whose shafts uphold nothing--not even capitals. In fact, the general plan of the cathedral follows that of the Latin cross, though in this instance it is of rather robust proportions. The transepts, which are neither deep nor wide, are terminated with an apse, as is also the choir, which depends, for its embellishments, upon the decorative effect produced by eight Corinthian columns. The interior, the nave in particular, is of unusual height for a not very grand structure; perhaps eighty feet. Its length is hardly greater. The orders of columns rise vaultwards, surmounted by a simple entablature. These are perhaps not of the species that has come to be regarded as good form in Christian architecture, but which, for many reasons, have found their way into church-building, both before and since the rise of Gothic. Under a triforium, in blind, is a sculptured drapery; again a feature more pagan than Christian, but which is here more pleasing than when usually found in such a false relation. Both these details are in imitation of the antique, and, since they date from long before the simulating of pseudo-classical details became a mere fad, are the more interesting and valuable as an art-expression of the time. For the rest, this one-time cathedral is uncommon and most singular in all its parts, though nowhere of very great inherent beauty. An ancient gateway bears a statue of the Virgin. It was the gift of a former Archbishop of Paris to the town of his birth. An ancient Dominican convent is now the _École Normale des Petits Frères de Marie_. Within its wall have recently been discovered a valuable mosaic work, and a table or altar of carved stone. In the suburbs of the town have also recently been found much beautiful Roman work of a decorative nature; a geometric parchment in mosaic; a superb lamp, in worked bronze; a head of Mercury (now in the Louvre), and much treasure which would make any antiquarian literally leap for joy, were he but present when they were unearthed. Altogether the brief résumé should make for a desire to know more of this ancient city whose name, even, is scarcely known to those much-travelled persons who cross and recross France in pursuit of the pleasures of convention alone. _PART IV_ _The Mediterranean Coast_ I INTRODUCTORY The Mediterranean shore of the south of France, that delectable land which fringes the great tideless sea, bespeaks the very spirit of history and romance, of Christian fervour, and of profane riot and bloodshed. Its ancient provinces,--Lower Languedoc, the Narbonensis of Gaul; Provence, the most glorious and golden of all that went to make up modern France,--the mediæval capital of King René, Aix-en-Provence, and the commercial capital of the Phoceans (559 B. C.), Massilia, all combine in a wealth of storied lore which is inexhaustible. The tide of latter-day travel descends the Rhône to Marseilles, turns eastward to the conventional pleasures of the Riviera, and utterly neglects the charms of La Crau, St. Rémy, Martiques, and Aigues-Mortes; or the more progressive, though still ancient cathedral cities of Montpellier, Béziers, Narbonne, or Perpignan. There is no question but that the French Riviera is, in winter, a land of sunshiny days, cool nights, and the more or the less rapid life of fashion. Which of these attractions induces the droves of personally-, semi-, and non-conducted tourists to journey thither, with the first advent of northern rigour, is doubtful; it is probably, however, a combination of all three. It is a beautiful strip of coast-line from Marseilles to Mentone, and its towns and cities are most attractively placed. But a sojourn there "in the season," amid the luxury of a "palace-hotel," or the bareness of a mediocre _pension_, is a thing to be dreaded. Seekers after health and pleasure are supposed to be wonderfully recouped by the process; but this is more than doubtful. Vice is rarely attractive, but it is always made attractive, and weak tea and _pain de ménage_ in a Riviera boarding-house are no more stimulating than elsewhere; hence the many virtues of this sunlit land are greatly nullified. "A peculiarity of the Riviera is that each of the prominent watering-places possesses a tutelary deity of our own. (Modest this!) Thus, for instance, no visitor to Cannes is allowed to forget the name of Lord Brougham, while the interest at Beaulieu and Cap Martin centres around another great English statesman, Lord Salisbury. Cap d'Antibes has (or had) for its _genius loci_ Grant Allen, and Valescure is chiefly concerned with Mrs. Humphry Ward and Mrs. Oliphant." This quotation is, perhaps, enough to make the writer's point here: Why go to the Riviera to think of Lord Brougham, long since dead and gone, any more than to Monte Carlo to be reminded of the unfortunate end which happened to the great system for "breaking the bank" of Lord----, a nineteenth-century nobleman of notoriety--if not of fame? The charm of situation of the Riviera is great, and the interest awakened by its many reminders of the historied past is equally so; but, with regard to its architectural remains, the most ready and willing temperament will be doomed to disappointment. The cathedral cities of the Riviera are not of irresistible attraction as shrines of the Christian faith; but they have much else, either within their confines or in the immediate neighbourhood, which will go far to make up for the deficiency of their religious monuments. It is not that the architectural remains of churches of another day, and secular establishments, are wholly wanting. Far from it; Fréjus, Toulon, Grasse, and Cannes are possessed of delightful old churches, though they are not of ranking greatness, or splendour. Still the fact remains that, of themselves, the natural beauties of the region and the heritage of a historic past are not enough to attract the throngs which, for any one of a dozen suspected reasons, annually, from November to March, flock hither to this range of towns, which extends from Hyères and St. Raphael, on the west, to Bordighera and Ospadeletti, just over the Italian border, on the east. It is truly historic ground, this; perhaps more visibly impressed upon the mind and imagination than any other in the world, if we except the Holy Land itself. Along this boundary were the two main routes, by land and by water, through which the warlike and civil institutions of Rome first made their way into Gaul, conquered it, and impressed thereon indelibly for five hundred years the mighty power which their ambition urged forward. At Cimiez, a suburb of Nice, they have left a well-preserved amphitheatre; at Antibes the remains of Roman towers; Villefranche--the port of Nice--was formerly a Roman port; Fréjus, the former _Forum Julii_, has remains of its ancient harbour, its city walls, an amphitheatre, a gateway, and an arch, and, at some distance from the city, the chief of all neighbouring remains, an aqueduct, the crumbling stones of which can be traced for many miles. Above the promontory of Monaco, where the Alps abruptly meet the sea, stands the tiny village of _La Turbie_, some nineteen hundred feet above the waters of the sparklingly brilliant Mediterranean. Here stands that venerable ruined tower, the great _Trophoea Augusti_ of the Romans, now stayed and strutted by modern masonry. It commemorates the Alpine victories of the first of the emperors, and overlooks both Italy and France. Stripped to-day of the decorations and sculptures which once graced its walls, it stands as a reminder of the first splendid introduction of the luxuriant architecture of Rome into the precincts of the Western Empire. Here it may be recalled that sketching, even from the hilltops, is a somewhat risky proceeding for the artist. The surrounding eminences--as would be likely so near the Italian border--are frequently capped with a fortress, and occupied by a small garrison, the sole duty of whose commandant appears to be "heading off," or worse, those who would make a picturesque note of the environment of this _ci-devant_ Roman stronghold. The process of transcribing "literary notes" is looked upon with equal suspicion, or even greater disapproval, in that--in English--they are not so readily translated as is even a bad drawing. So the admonition is here advisedly given for "whom it may concern." From the Rhône eastward, Marseilles alone has any church of a class worthy to rank with those truly great. Its present cathedral of Ste. Marie-Majeure assuredly takes, both as to its plan and the magnitude on which it has been carried out, the rank of a masterwork of architecture. It is a modern cathedral, but it is a grand and imposing basilica, after the Byzantine manner. Westward, if we except Béziers, where there is a commanding cathedral; Narbonne, where the true sky-pointing Gothic is to be found; and Perpignan, where there is a very ancient though peculiarly disposed cathedral, there are no really grand cathedral churches of this or any other day. On the whole, however, all these cities are possessed of a subtle charm of manner and environment which tell a story peculiarly their own. Foremost among these cities of Southern Gaul, which have perhaps the greatest and most appealing interest for the traveller, are Carcassonne and Aigues-Mortes. Each of these remarkable reminders of days that are gone is unlike anything elsewhere. Their very decay and practical desertion make for an interest which would otherwise be unattainable. Aigues-Mortes has no cathedral, nor ever had; but Carcassonne has a very beautiful, though small, example in St. Nazaire, treated elsewhere in this book. Both Aigues-Mortes and Carcassonne are the last, and the greatest, examples of the famous walled and fortified cities of the Middle Ages. Aigues-Mortes itself is a mere dead thing of the marshes, which once held ten thousand souls, and witnessed all the pomp and glitter which attended upon the embarking of Louis IX. on his chivalrous, but ill-starred, ventures to the African coasts. "Here was a city built by the whim of a king--the last of the Royal Crusaders." To-day it is a coffin-like city with perhaps a couple of thousand pallid, shaking mortals, striving against the marsh-fever, among the ruined houses, and within the mouldering walls of an ancient Gothic burgh. [Illustration: _The Ramparts of Aigues-Mortes_] [Illustration: _St. Sauveur d'Aix_] II ST. SAUVEUR D'AIX Aix, the former capital of Provence, one of the most famous ancient provinces, the early seat of wealth and civilization, and the native land of the poetry and romance of mediævalism, was the still more ancient _Aquæ Sextiæ_ of the Romans--so named for the hot springs of the neighbourhood. It was their oldest colony in Gaul, and was founded by Sextius Calvinus in B. C. 123. In King René's time,--"_le bon roi_" died at Aix in 1480,--_Aix-en-Provence_ was more famous than ever as a "gay capital," where "mirth and song and much good wine" reigned, if not to a degenerate extent, at least to the full expression of liberty. In 1481, just subsequent to René's death, the province was annexed to the Crown, and fifty years later fell into the hands of Charles V., who was proclaimed King of Arles and Provence. This monarch's reign here was of short duration, and he evacuated the city after two months' tenure. During all this time the church of Aix, from the foundation of the archbishopric by St. Maxine in the first century (as stated rather doubtfully in the "_Gallia Christiania_"), ever advanced hand in hand with the mediæval gaiety and splendour that is now past. Who ever goes to Aix now? Not many Riviera tourists even, and not many, unless they are on a mission bent, will cross the Rhône and the Durance when such appealingly attractive cities as Arles, Avignon, and Nîmes lie on the direct pathway from north to south. Formerly the see was known as the Province of Aix. To-day it is known as Aix, Arles, and Embrun, and covers the Department of Bouches-du-Rhône, with the exception of Marseilles, which is a suffragan bishopric of itself. The chief ecclesiastical monuments of Aix are the cathedral of St. Sauveur, with its most unusual _baptistère_; the church of St. Jean-de-Malte of the fourteenth century; and the comparatively modern early eighteenth-century church of La Madeleine, with a fine "Annunciation" confidently attributed by local experts to Albrecht Dürer. The cathedral of St. Sauveur is, in part, an eleventh-century church. The portions remaining of this era are not very extensive, but they do exist, and the choir, which was added in the thirteenth century, made the first approach to a completed structure. In the next century the choir was still more elaborated, and the tower and the southern aisle of the nave added. This nave is, therefore, the original nave, as the northern aisle was not added until well into the seventeenth century. The west façade contains a wonderful, though non-contemporary, door and doorway in wood and stone of the early sixteenth century. This doorway is in two bays, divided by a pier, on which is superimposed a statue of the Virgin and Child, framed by a light garland of foliage and fruits. Above are twelve tiny statuettes of _Sibylles_ or the theological virtues placed in two rows. The lower range of the archivolt is divided by pilasters bearing the symbols of the Evangelists, deeply cut arabesques of the Genii, and the four greater prophets--Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. Taken together, these late sculptures of the early sixteenth century form an unusually mixed lot; but their workmanship and disposition are pleasing and of an excellence which in many carvings of an earlier date is often lacking. The interior shows early "pointed" and simple round arches, with pilasters and pediment which bear little relation to Gothic, and are yet not Romanesque of the conventional variety. These features are mainly not suggestive of the Renaissance either, though work of this style crops out, as might be expected, in the added north aisle of the nave. The transepts, too, which are hardly to be remarked from the outside,--being much hemmed about by the surrounding buildings,--also indicate their Renaissance origin. The real embellishments of the interior are: a triptych--"The Burning Bush," with portraits of King René, Queen Jeanne de Laval, and others; another of "The Annunciation;" a painting of St. Thomas, by a sixteenth-century Flemish artist; and some sixteenth-century tapestries. None of these features, while acceptable enough as works of art, compare in worth or novelty with the tiny _baptistère_, which is claimed as of the sixth century. This is an unusual work in Gaul, the only other examples being at Poitiers and Le Puy. It resembles in plan and outline its more famous contemporary at Ravenna, and shows eight antique columns, from a former temple to Apollo, with dark shafts and lighter capitals. The dome has a modern stucco finish, little in keeping with the general tone and purport of this accessory. The cloister of St Sauveur, in the Lombard style, is very curious, with its assorted twisted and plain columns, some even knotted. The origin of its style is again bespoke in certain of the round-headed arches. Altogether, as an accessory to the cathedral, if to no other extent, this Lombard detail is forceful and interesting. III ST. REPARATA DE NICE "What would you, then? I say it is most engaging, in winter when the strangers are here, and all work day and night; but it is a much better place in summer, when one can take their ease." --PAUL ARÈNE. Whatever may be the attractions of Nice for the travelled person, they certainly do not lie in or about its cathedral. The guide-books call it simply "the principal ecclesiastical edifice ... of no great interest," which is an apt enough qualification. In a book which professes to treat of the special subject of cathedral churches, something more is expected, if only to define the reason of the lack of appealing interest. One might say with the Abbé Bourassé,--who wrote of St. Louis de Versailles,--"It is cold, unfeeling, and without life;" or he might dismiss it with a few words of lukewarm praise, which would be even less satisfying. More specifically the observation might be passed that the lover of churches will hardly find enough to warrant even passing consideration _on the entire Riviera_. This last is in a great measure true, though much of the incident of history and romance is woven about what--so far as the church-lover is concerned--may be termed mere "tourist points." At all events, he who makes the round, from Marseilles to San Remo in Italy, must to no small extent subordinate his love of ecclesiastical art and--as do the majority of visitors--plunge into a whirl of gaiety (_sic_) as conventional and unsatisfying as are most fulsome, fleeting pleasures. The sensation is agreeable enough to most of us, for a time at least, but the forced and artificial gaiety soon palls, and he who puts it all behind him, and strikes inland to Aix and Embrun and the romantically disposed little cathedral towns of the valley of the Durance, will come once again into an architectural zone more in comport with the subject suggested by the title of this book. It is curious to note that, with the exception of Marseilles and Aix, scarce one of the suffragan dioceses of the ancient ecclesiastical province of Aix, Arles, and Embrun is possessed of a cathedral of the magnitude which we are wont to associate with the churchly dignity of a bishop. St. Reparata de Nice is dismissed as above; that of Antibes was early transferred or combined with that of Grasse; Grasse itself endured for a time--from 1245 onward--but was suppressed in 1790; Glandève, Senez, and Riez were combined with Digne; while Fréjus has become subordinate to Toulon, though it shares episcopal dignity with that city. In spite of these changes and the apparently inexplicable tangle of the limits of jurisdiction which has spread over this entire region, religion has, as might be inferred from a study of the movement of early Christianity in Gaul, ever been prominent in the life of the people, and furthermore is of very long standing. The first bishop of Nice was Amantius, who came in the fourth century. With what effect he laboured and with what real effect his labours resulted, history does not state with minutiæ. The name first given to the diocese was _Cemenelium_. In 1802 the diocese of Nice was allied with that of Aix, but in the final readjustment its individuality became its own possession once more, and it is now a bishopric, a suffragan of Marseilles. As to architectural splendour, or even worth, St. Reparata de Nice has none. It is a poor, mean fabric in the Italian style; quite unsuitable in its dimensions to even the proper exploitation of any beauties that the style of the Renaissance may otherwise possess. The general impression that it makes upon one is that it is but a makeshift or substitute for something more pretentious which is to come. The church dates from 1650 only, and is entirely unworthy as an expression of religious art or architecture. The structure itself is bare throughout, and what decorative embellishments there are--though numerous--are gaudy, after the manner of stage tinsel. IV STE. MARIE MAJEURE DE TOULON The episcopal dignity of Toulon is to-day shared with Fréjus, whereas, at the founding of the diocese, Toulon stood alone as a bishopric in the ecclesiastical province of Arles. This was in the fifth century. When the readjustment came, after the Revolution, the honour was divided with the neighbouring coast town of Fréjus. In spite of the fact that the cathedral here is of exceeding interest, Toulon is most often thought of as the chief naval station of France in the Mediterranean. From this fact signs of the workaday world are for ever thrusting themselves before one. As a seaport, Toulon is admirably situated and planned, but the contrast between the new and old quarters of the town and the frowning fortifications, docks, and storehouses is a jumble of utilitarian accessories which does not make for the slightest artistic or æsthetic interest. Ste. Marie Majeure is a Romanesque edifice of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Its façade is an added member of the seventeenth century, and the belfry of the century following. The church to-day is of some considerable magnitude, as the work of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries comprehended extensive enlargements. As to its specific style, it has been called Provençal as well as Romanesque. It is hardly one or the other, as the pure types known elsewhere are considered, but rather a blend or transition between the two. The edifice underwent a twelfth-century restoration, which doubtless was the opportunity for incorporating with the Romanesque fabric certain details which we have come since to know as Provençal. During the Revolution the cathedral suffered much despoliation, as was usual, and only came through the trial in a somewhat imperfect and poverty-stricken condition. Still, it presents to-day some considerable splendour, if not actual magnificence. Its nave is for more reasons than one quite remarkable. It has a length of perhaps a hundred and sixty feet, and a width scarcely thirty-five, which gives an astonishing effect of narrowness, but one which bespeaks a certain grace and lightness nevertheless--or would, were its constructive elements of a little lighter order. In a chapel to the right of the choir is a fine modern _reredos_, and throughout there are many paintings of acceptable, if not great, worth. The pulpit, by a native of Toulon, is usually admired, but is a modern work which in no way compares with others of its kind seen along the Rhine, and indeed throughout Germany. One of the principal features which decorate the interior is a tabernacle by Puget; while an admirable sculptured "Jehovah and the Angels" by Veyrier, and a "Virgin" by Canova--which truly is not a great work--complete the list of artistic accessories. The first bishop of Toulon, in the fifth century, was one Honoré. V ST. ETIENNE DE FRÉJUS The ancient episcopal city of Fréjus has perhaps more than a due share of the attractions for the student and lover of the historic past. It is one of the most ancient cities of Provence. Its charm of environment, people, and much else that it offers, on the surface or below, are as irresistible a galaxy as one can find in a small town of scarce three thousand inhabitants. And Fréjus is right on the beaten track, too, though it is not apparent that the usual run of pleasure-loving, tennis-playing, and dancing-party species of tourist--at a small sum per head, all included--ever stop here _en route_ to the town's more fashionable Riviera neighbours--at least they do not _en masse_--as they wing their way to the more delectable pleasures of naughty Nice or precise and proper Mentone. The establishment of a bishopric here is somewhat doubtfully given by "_La Gallia Christiania_" as having been in the fourth century. Coupled with this statement is the assertion that the cathedral at Fréjus is very ancient, and its foundation very obscure; but that it was probably built up from the remains of a "primitive temple consecrated to an idol." Such, at least, is the information gleaned from a French source, which does not in any way suggest room for doubt. Formerly the religious administration was divided amongst a provost, an archdeacon, a sacristan, and twelve canons. The diocese was suppressed in 1801 and united with that of Aix, but was reëstablished in 1823 by virtue of the Concordat of 1817. To-day the diocese divides the honour of archiepiscopal dignity with that of Toulon. The foundations of St. Etienne are admittedly those of a pagan temple, but the bulk of the main body of the church is of the eleventh century. The tower and its spire--not wholly beautiful, nor yet in any way unbeautiful--are of the period of the _ogivale primaire_. As to style, in so far as St. Etienne differs greatly from the early Gothic of convention, it is generally designated as Provençal-Romanesque. It is, however, strangely akin to what we know elsewhere as primitive Gothic, and as such it is worthy of remark, situated, as it is, here in the land where the pure round-arched style is indigenous. The portal has a doorway ornamented with some indifferent Renaissance sculptures. To the left of this doorway is a _baptistère_ containing a number of granite columns, which, judging from their crudeness, must be of genuine antiquity. There is an ancient Gothic cloister, hardly embryotic, but still very rudimentary, because of the lack of piercings of the arches; possibly, though, this is the result of an afterthought, as the arched openings appear likely enough to have been filled up at some time subsequent to the first erection of this feature. The bishop's palace is of extraordinary magnitude and impressiveness, though of no very great splendour. In its fabric are incorporated a series of Gallo-Roman pilasters, and it has the further added embellishment of a pair of graceful twin _tourelles_. The Roman remains throughout the city are numerous and splendid, and, as a former seaport, founded by Cæsar and enlarged by Augustus, the city was at a former time even more splendid than its fragments might indicate. To-day, owing to the building up of the foreshore, and the alluvial deposits washed down by the river Argens, the town is perhaps a mile from the open sea. [Illustration: _Detail of Doorway of the Archibishop's Palace, Fréjus_] [Illustration] VI ÉGLISE DE GRASSE Grasse is more famed for its picturesque situation and the manufacture of perfumery than it is for its one-time cathedral, which is but a simple and uninteresting twelfth-century church, whose only feature of note is a graceful doorway in the pointed style. The diocese of Grasse formerly had jurisdiction over Antibes, whose bishop--St. Armentaire--ruled in the fourth century. The diocese of Grasse--in the province of Embrun--did not come into being, however, until 1245, when Raimond de Villeneuve was made its first bishop. The see was suppressed in 1790. There are, as before said, no accessories of great artistic worth in the Église de Grasse, and the lover of art and architecture will perforce look elsewhere. In the Hôpital 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 æsthetic. One must not deny it any reputation of this nature which it may possess, and indeed, with St. Raphael and Hyères, 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 Grasse, and the ruling dignity transferred to that place. VIII STE. MARIE MAJEURE DE MARSEILLES "These brown men of Marseilles, who sing as they bend at their oars, are Greeks." --CLOVIS HUGHES. Marseilles is modern and commercial; but Marseilles 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. [Illustration: _Marseilles_] 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 _Cannebière_ is one of those few great business thoroughfares which are truly imposing; while the docks, shipping, and hotels, are all of that preëminent magnitude which we are wont to associate only with a great capital. As to its churches, its old twelfth-century cathedral remains to-day a mere relic of its former dignity. [Illustration: _The Old Cathedral, Marseilles_] 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 passed comment upon it, by some special _nomenclature of his own_, the cathedral at Marseilles 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 fashioned modern "sailors' church" of Notre Dame de la Gard, which is perched in unstable fashion 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 principally to be conducted for the delectation of those winter birds of passage 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, glass, 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 Léon Vaudoyer, who was succeeded by one Espérandieu, and again by Henri Rêvoil. 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 class 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. Marseilles 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 Église St. André of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. X ST. PIERRE DE MONTPELLIER _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." [Illustration: ST. PIERRE _de MONTPELLIER_] From a passage 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 institution 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 Abbé Bourassé: "In the eleventh century another cathedral was dedicated by Bishop Arnaud, and the day was made the occasion of a fête, 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 passed by in favour of its descendant at Montpellier. Having obtained the consent of François 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 élancés_--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 finishing off a west façade. 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 principal 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. [Illustration] XI CATHÉDRALE 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 Nîmes; but in 1187, Bernard Atton, son of a Viscount of Nîmes, presented to the Bishop of Agde the viscounty of the city. Thus, it is seen, a certain good-fellowship 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 _Ministère 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 massive square tower which, one hundred and twenty feet in height, forms a beacon by sea and a landmark on shore which no wayfarer by ship, 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 _mâchicoulis_ 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 æsthetic beauty. [Illustration: _St. Nazaire de Béziers_] XII ST. NAZAIRE DE BÉZIERS St. Nazaire de Béziers is, in its strongly fortified attributes of frowning ramparts and well-nigh invulnerable situation, a continuation of the suggestion that the mediæval 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. Cécile 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 mediæval 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 constituency; 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-Rhône_--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. 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 Béziers took place the crowning massacres 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 Béziers, who has been called--and justly as it would seem--"the blackest-souled bigot who ever deformed the face of God's earth." The cathedral at Béziers 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 classed 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 Béziers 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 glass of curious, though hardly beautiful, design. To a great extent this ancient glass is hidden from view by a massive 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 Canal 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. [Illustration] 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 Départment des Pyrénêes-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 cafés, 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 massive 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. [Illustration] 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. The chief artistic treasures of this ancient cathedral, aside from its elegant cloister, are a _bénitier_ in white marble; a portal of some pretensions, leading from the cathedral to its cloister; a fourteen-century tomb, of some considerable artistic worth; and a _bas-relief_, called the "Tomb of Constans." There is little else of note, either in or about the cathedral, and the town itself has the general air of a glory long past. [Illustration: ST. JUST _de NARBONNE_] XV ST. JUST DE NARBONNE The ancient province of Narbonenses--afterward comprising Languedoc--had for its capital what is still the city of Narbonne. One may judge of the former magnificence of Narbonne by the following lines of _Sidonius Apollinaris_: "Salve Narbo potens Salubritate, Qui Urbè et Rure simul bonus Videris, Muris, Civibus, ambitu, Tabernis, Portis, Porticibus, Foro, Theatro, Delubris, Capitoliis, Monetis, Thermis, Arcubus, Harreis, Macellis, Pratis, Fontibus, Insulus, Salinis, Stagnis, Flumine, Merce, Ponte, Ponto, Unus qui jure venere divos Lenoeum, Cererum, Palem, Minervam, Spicis, Palmite, Poscius, Tapetis." Narbonne is still mighty and healthful, if one is to judge from the activities of the present day; is picturesque and pleasing, and far more comfortably disposed than many cities with a more magnificently imposing situation. The city remained faithful to the Romans until the utmost decay of the western empire, at which time (462) it was delivered to the Goths. It was first the head of a kingdom, and later, when it came to the Romans, it was made the capital of a province which comprised the fourth part of Gaul. This in turn was subdivided into the provinces of _Narbonenses_, _Viennensis_, the _Greek Alps_, and the _Maritime Alps_, that is, all of the later _Savoie_, _Dauphiné_, _Provence_, _Lower Languedoc_, _Rousillon_, _Toulousan_, and the _Comté de Foix_. Under the second race of kings, the Dukes of _Septimannia_ took the title of _Ducs de Narbonne_, but the lords of the city contented themselves with the name of viscount, which they bore from 1134 to 1507, when Gaston de Foix--the last Viscount of Narbonne--exchanged it for other lands, with his uncle, the French king, Louis XII. The most credulous affirm that the Proconsul Sergius Paulus--converted by St. Paul--was the first preacher of Christianity at Narbonne. The Church is here, therefore, of great antiquity, and there are plausible proofs which demonstrate the claim. The episcopal palace at Narbonne, closely built up with the Hôtel de Ville (rebuilt by Viollet-le-Duc), is a realization of the progress of the art of domestic fortified architecture of the time. Like its contemporary at Laon in the north, and more particularly after the manner of the papal palace at Avignon and the archbishop's palace at Albi, this structure combined the functions of a domestic and official establishment with those of a stronghold or a fortified place of no mean pretence. Dating from 1272, the cathedral of St. Just de Narbonne suggests comparison with, or at least the influence of, Amiens. It is strong, hardy, and rich, with a directness of purpose with respect to its various attributes that in a less lofty structure is wanting. The height of the choir-vault is perhaps a hundred and twenty odd feet, as against one hundred and forty-seven at Amiens, and accordingly it does not suffer in comparison. It may be remarked that these northern attributes of lofty vaulting and the high development of the _arc-boutant_ were not general throughout the south, or indeed in any other region than the north of France. Only at Bazas, Bordeaux, Bayonne, Auch, Toulouse, and Narbonne do we find these features in any acceptable degree of perfection. The architects of the Midi had, by resistance and defiance, conserved antique traditions with much greater vigour than they had endorsed the new style, with the result that many of their structures, of a period contemporary with the early development of the Gothic elsewhere, here favoured it little if at all. Only from the thirteenth century onward did they make general use of ogival vaulting, maintaining with great conservatism the basilica plan of Roman tradition. In many other respects than constructive excellence does St. Just show a pleasing aspect. It has, between the main body of the church and the present Hôtel de Ville and the remains of the ancient _archevêché_, a fragmentary cloister which is grand to the point of being scenic. It dates from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and is decidedly the most appealing feature of the entire cathedral precincts. [Illustration: CLOISTER OF ST. JUST _de NARBONNE_....] The cathedral itself still remains unachieved as to completeness, but its _tourelles_, its vaulting, its buttresses, and its crenelated walls are most impressive. There are some elaborate tombs in the interior, in general of the time of Henri IV. The _trésor_ is rich in missals, manuscripts, ivories, and various altar ornaments and decorations. The choir is enclosed with a series of arena-like _loges_, outside which runs a double aisle. There are fragmentary evidences of the one-time possession of good glass, but what paintings are shown appear ordinary and are doubtless of little worth. Decidedly the cathedral is an unusually splendid, if not a truly magnificent, work. _PART V_ _The Valley of the Garonne_ I INTRODUCTORY The basin of the Garonne includes all of the lower Aquitanian province, Lower Languedoc,--still a debatable and undefinable land,--and much of that region known of lovers of France, none the less than the native himself, as the _Midi_. Literally the term _Midi_ refers to the south of France, but more particularly that part which lies between the mouth of the Rhône and the western termination of the Pyrenean mountain boundary between France and Spain. The term is stamped indelibly in the popular mind by the events which emanated from that wonderful march of the legion, known as "_Les Rouges du Midi_," in Revolutionary times. We have heard much of the excesses of the Revolution, but certainly the vivid history of "_Les Rouges_" as recounted so well in that admirable book of Félix Gras (none the less truthful because it is a novel), which bears the same name, gives every justification to those valiant souls who made up that remarkable phalanx; of whose acts most historians and humanitarians are generally pleased to revile as cruelty and sacrilege unspeakable. Félix Gras himself has told of the ignoble subjection in which his own great-grandfather, a poor peasant, was held; and Frederic Mistral tells of a like incident--of lashing and beating--which was thrust upon a relative of his. If more reason were wanted, a perusal of the written records of the Marseilles Battalion will point the way. Written history presents many stubborn facts, difficult to digest and hard to swallow; but the historical novel in the hands of a master will prove much that is otherwise unacceptable. A previous acquaintance with this fascinating and lurid story is absolutely necessary for a proper realization of the spirit which endowed the inhabitants of this section of the _pays du Midi_. To-day the same spirit lives to a notable degree. The atmosphere and the native character alike are both full of sunshine and shadow; grown men and women are yet children, and gaiety, humour, and passion abound where, in the more austere North, would be seen nought but indifference and indolence. It is the fashion to call the South languid, but nowhere more than at Bordeaux--where the Garonne joins La Gironde--will you find so great and ceaseless an activity. The people are not, to be sure, of the peasant class, still they are not such town-dwellers as in many other parts, and seem to combine, as do most of the people of southern France, a languor and keenness which are intoxicating if not stimulating. Between Bordeaux and Toulouse are not many great towns, but, in the words of Taine, one well realizes that "it is a fine country." The Garonne valley, with a fine alluvial soil, grows, productively and profitably, corn, tobacco, and hemp; and by the utmost industry and intelligence the workers are able to prosper exceedingly. The traveller from the Mediterranean across to the Atlantic--or the reverse--by rail, will get glimpses now and then of this wonderfully productive river-bottom, as it flows yellow-brown through its osier-bedded banks; and again, an intermittent view of the Canal du Midi, upon whose non-raging bosom is carried a vast water-borne traffic by barge and canal-boat, which even the development of the railway has not been able to appreciably curtail. Here, too, the peasant proprietor is largely in evidence, which is an undoubted factor in the general prosperity. His blockings, hedgings, and fencings have spoiled the expanse of hillside and vale in much the same manner as in Albion. This may be a pleasing feature to the uninitiated, but it is not a picturesque one. However, the proprietorship of small plots of land, worked by their non-luxury demanding owners, is accountable for a great deal of the peace and plenty with which all provincial France, if we except certain mountainous regions, seems to abound. It may not provide a superabundance of this world's wealth and luxury, but the French farmer--in a small way--has few likes of that nature, and the existing conditions make for a contentment which the dull, brutal, and lethargic farm labourer of some parts of England might well be forced to emulate, if even by ball and chain. Flat-roofed houses, reminiscent of Spain or Italy--born of a mild climate--add a pleasing variety of architectural feature, while the curiously hung bells--with their flattened belfries, like the headstones in a cemetery--suggest something quite different from the motives which inspired the northern builders, who enclosed their chimes in a roofed-over, open-sided cubicle. The bells here hang merely in apertures open to the air on each side, and ring out sharp and true to the last dying note. It is a most picturesque and unusual arrangement, hardly to be seen elsewhere as a characteristic feature outside Spain itself, and in some of the old Missions, which the Spanish Fathers built in the early days of California. Between Bayonne and Bordeaux, and bordered by the sea, the Garonne, and the Adour, is a nondescript land which may be likened to the deserts of Africa or Asia, except that its barrenness is of the sea salty. It is by no means unpeopled, though uncultivated and possessed of little architectural splendour of either a past or the present day. Including the half of the department of the Gironde, a corner of Lot et Garonne, and all of that which bears its name, the Landes forms of itself a great seaboard plain or morass. It is said by a geographical authority that the surface so very nearly approaches the rectilinear that for a distance of twenty-eight miles between the dismal villages of Lamothe and Labonheyre the railway is "a visible meridian." The early eighteenth-century writers--in English--used to revile all France, so far as its topographical charms were concerned, with panegyrics upon its unloveliness and lack of variety, and of being anything more than a flat, arid land, which was not sufficient even unto itself. What induced this extraordinary reasoning it is hard to realize at the present day. Its beauties are by no means as thinly sown as is thought by those who know them slightly--from a window of a railway carriage, or a sojourn of a month in Brittany, a week in Provence, or a fortnight in Touraine. The _ennui_ of a journey through France is the result of individual incapacity for observation, not of the country. Above all, it is certainly not true of Guienne or Gascony, nor of Provence, nor of Dauphiné, nor Auvergne, nor Savoie. As great rivers go, the Garonne is not of very great size, nor so very magnificent in its reaches, nor so very picturesque,--with that minutiæ associated with English rivers of a like rank,--but it is suggestive of far more than most streams of its size and length, wherever found. Its source is well within the Spanish frontier, in the picturesque Val d'Aran, where the boundary between the two countries makes a curious détour, and leaves the crest of the Pyrenees, which it follows throughout--with this exception--from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. The Garonne becomes navigable at Cazères, some distance above Toulouse, and continues its course, enhanced by the confluence of the Tarn, the Lot, the Arriège, and the Dordogne, beyond the junction of which, two hundred and seventy odd miles from the head of navigation, the estuary takes on the nomenclature of _La Gironde_. Of the ancient provinces of these parts, the most famous is Guienne, that "fair duchy" once attached--by a subtle process of reasoning--to the English crown. It is distinguished, as to its economic aspect, by its vast vineyards, which have given the wines, so commonly esteemed, the name of claret. These and the other products of the country have found their way into all markets of the world through the Atlantic coast metropolis of Bordeaux. The Gascogne of old was a large province to the southward of Guienne. A romantic land, say the chroniclers and _mere litterateurs_ alike. "Peopled by a race fiery, ardent, and impetuous ... with a peculiar tendency to boasting, hence the term _gasconade_." The peculiar and characteristic feature of Gascogne, as distinct from that which holds in the main throughout these parts, is that strange and wild section called the _Landes_, which is spoken of elsewhere. The ancient province of Languedoc, which in its lower portion is included in this section, is generally reputed to be the pride of France with regard to climate, soil, and scenery. Again, this has been ruled otherwise, but a more or less intimate acquaintance with the region does not fail to endorse the first claim. This wide, strange land has not vastly changed its aspect since the inhabitants first learned to fly instead of fight. This statement is derived to a great extent from legend, but, in addition, is supported by much literary and historical opinion, which has recorded its past. It is not contemptuous criticism any more than Froissart's own words; therefore let it stand. When the French had expelled the Goths beyond the Pyrenees, Charlemagne established his governors in Languedoc with the title of Counts of Toulouse. The first was Corson, in 778; the second St. W. du Courtnez or Aux-Cornets, from whence the princes of Orange derive their pedigree, as may be inferred from the hunting-horns in their arms. Up to the eighteenth century these states retained a certain independence and exercise of home rule, and had an Assembly made up of "the three orders of the kingdom," the clergy, the nobility, and the people. The Archbishop of Narbonne was president of the body, though he was seldom called upon but to give the king money. This he acquired by the laying on of an extraordinary imposition under the name of "_Don-Gratuit_." The wide, rolling country of Lower Languedoc has no very grand topographical features, but it is watered by frequent and ample streams, and peopled with row upon row of sturdy trees, with occasional groves of mulberries, olives, and other citrus fruits. Over all glows the luxuriant southern sun with a tropical brilliance, but without its fierce burning rays. Mention of the olive suggests the regard which most of us have for this tree of romantic and sentimental association. As a religious emblem, it is one of the most favoured relics which has descended to us from Biblical times. A writer on southern France has questioned the beauty of the growing tree. It does, truly, look somewhat mop-headed, and it does spread somewhat like a mushroom, but, with all that, it is a picturesque and prolific adjunct to a southern landscape, and has been in times past a source of inspiration to poets and painters, and of immeasurable profit to the thrifty grower. The worst feature which can possibly be called up with respect to Lower Languedoc is the "skyey influences" of the Mistral, dry and piercingly cold wind which blows southward through all the Rhône valley with a surprising strength. Madame de Sévigné paints it thus in words: "_Le tourbillon, l'ouragan, tous les diables dechainés qui veulent bien emporter votre château._" Foremost among the cities of the region are Toulouse, Carcassonne, Montpellier, Narbonne, and Béziers, of which Carcassonne is preëminent as to its picturesque interest, and perhaps, as well, as to its storied past. The Pyrenees have of late attracted more and more attention from the tourist, who has become sated with the conventionality of the "trippers' tour" to Switzerland. The many attractive resorts which the Pyrenean region has will doubtless go the way of others elsewhere--if they are given time, but for the present this entire mountain region is possessed of much that will appeal to the less conventional traveller. Of all the mountain ranges of Europe, the Pyrenees stand unique as to their regularity of configuration and strategic importance. They bind and bound Spain and France with a bony ligature which is indented like the edge of a saw. From the Atlantic at Bayonne to the Mediterranean at Port Bou, the mountain chain divides its valleys and ridges with the regularity of a wall-trained shrub or pear-tree, and sinks on both sides to the level plains of France and Spain. In the midst of this rises the river Garonne. Its true source is in the Piedrafitta group of peaks, whence its waters flow on through Toulouse, various tributaries combining to give finally to Bordeaux its commanding situation and importance. Around its source, which is the true centre of the Pyrenees, is the parting line between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. On one side the waters flow down through the fields of France to the Biscayan Bay, and on the other southward and westward through the Iberian peninsula. Few of the summits exceed the height of the ridge by more than two thousand feet; whereas in the Alps many rise from six to eight thousand feet above the _massif_, while scenic Mont Blanc elevates its head over fifteen thousand feet. As a barrier, the Pyrenees chain is unique. For over one hundred and eighty miles, from the Col de la Perche to Maya--practically a suburb of Bayonne--not a carriage road nor a railway crosses the range. The etymology of the name of this mountain chain is in dispute. Many suppose it to be from the Greek _pur_ (fire), alluding to the volcanic origin of the peaks. This is endorsed by many, while others consider that it comes from the Celtic word _byren_, meaning a mountain. Both derivations are certainly apropos, but the weight of favour must always lie with the former rather than the latter. The ancient province of Béarn is essentially mediæval to-day. Its local tongue is a pure Romance language; something quite distinct from mere _patois_. It is principally thought to be a compound of Latin and Teutonic with an admixture of Arabic. This seems involved, but, as it is unlike modern French, or Castilian, and modern everything else, it would seem difficult for any but an expert student of tongues to place it definitely. To most of us it appears to be but a jarring jumble of words, which may have been left behind by the followers of the various conquerors which at one time or another swept over the land. II ST. ANDRÉ DE BORDEAUX "One finds here reminders of the Visigoths, the Franks, the Saracens, and the English; and the temples, theatres, arenas, and monuments by which each made his mark of possession yet remain." --AURELIAN SCHOLL. Taine in his _Carnets de Voyage_ says of Bordeaux: "It is a sort of second Paris, gay and magnificent ... amusement is the main business." Bordeaux does not change. It has ever been advanced, and always a centre of gaiety. Its fêtes and functions quite rival those of the capital itself,--at times,--and its opera-house is the most famed and magnificent in France, outside of Paris. It is a city of enthusiastic demonstrations. It was so in 1814 for the Bourbons, and again a year later for the emperor on his return from Elba. In 1857 it again surpassed itself in its enthusiasm for Louis Napoleon, when he was received in the cathedral, under a lofty dais, and led to the altar with the cry of "_Vive l'empereur_;" while during the bloody Franco-Prussian war it was the seat of the provisional government of Thiers. Here the Gothic wave of the North has produced in the cathedral of St. André a remarkably impressive and unexpected example of the style. In the general effect of size alone it will rank with many more important and more beautiful churches elsewhere. Its total length of over four hundred and fifty feet ranks it among the longest in France, and its vast nave, with a span of sixty feet, aisleless though it be, gives a still further expression of grandeur and magnificence. It is known that three former cathedrals were successfully destroyed by invading Goths, Saracens, and warlike Normans. Yet another structure was built in the eleventh century, which, with the advent of the English in Guienne, in the century following, was enlarged and magnified into somewhat of an approach to the present magnificent dimensions, though no English influence prevailed toward erecting a central tower, as might have been anticipated. Instead we have two exceedingly graceful and lofty spired towers flanking the north transept, and yet another single tower, lacking its spire, on the south. The portal of the north transept--of the fourteenth century--is an elaborate work of itself. It is divided into two bays that join beneath a dais, on which is a statue of Bertrand de Goth, who was Pope in 1305, under the name of Clement V. He is here clothed in sacerdotal habits, and stands upright in the attitude of benediction. At the lower right-hand side are statues of six bishops, but, like that of Pope Clement, they do not form a part of the constructive elements of the portal, as did most work of a like nature in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but are made use of singly as a decorative motive. The spring of the arch which surrounds the tympanum is composed of a cordon of foliaged stone separating the six angels of the _première archivolte_ from the twelve apostles of the second, and the fourteen patriarchs and prophets of the third. In the tympanum are three _bas-reliefs_ superimposed one upon the other, the upper being naturally the smaller. They represent the Christ triumphant, seated on a dais between two angels, one bearing a staff and the other a veil, while above hover two other angelic figures holding respectively the moon and sun. The arrangement is not so elaborate or gracefully executed as many, but in its simple and expressive symbolism, in spite of the fact that the whole added ornament appears an afterthought, is far more convincing than many more pretentious works of a similar nature. Another exterior feature of note is seen at the third pillar at the right of the choir. It is a curious double (back-to-back) statue of Ste. Anne and the Virgin. It is of stone and of the late sixteenth century, when sculpture--if it had not actually debased itself by superfluity of detail--was of an excellence of symmetry which was often lacking entirely from work of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The choir-chevet is a magnificent pyramidal mass of piers, pinnacles, and buttresses of much elegance. The towers which flank the north transept are adorned with an excellent disposition of ornament. The greater part of this cathedral was constructed during the period of English domination; the choir would doubtless never have been achieved in its present form had it not been for the liberality of Edward I. and Pope Clement V., who had been the archbishop of the diocese. The cathedral of St. André dates practically from 1252, and is, in inception and execution, a very complete Gothic church. Over its aisleless nave is carried one of the boldest and most magnificent vaults known. The nave is more remarkable, however, for this gigantic attribute than for any other excellencies which it possesses. In the choir, which rises much higher than the nave, there comes into being a double aisle on either side, as if to make up for the deficiencies of the nave in this respect. The choir arrangement and accessories are remarkably elaborate, though many of them are not of great artistic worth. Under the organ are two sculptured Renaissance _bas-reliefs_, taken from the ancient _jube_, and representing a "Descent from the Cross" and "Christ Bearing the Cross." There are two religious paintings of some value, one by Jordaens, and the other by Alex. Veronese. Before the left transept is a monument to Cardinal de Cheverus, with his statue. Surrounding the stonework of a monument to d'Ant de Noailles (1662) is a fine work of wood-carving. The high-altar is of the period contemporary with the main body of the cathedral, and was brought thither from the Église de la Réole. The Province of Bordeaux, as the early ecclesiastical division was known, had its archiepiscopal seat at Bordeaux in the fourth century, though it had previously (in the third century) been made a bishopric. III CATHÉDRALE DE LECTOURE Lectoure, though defunct as a bishopric to-day, had endured from the advent of Heuterius, in the sixth century, until 1790. In spite of the lack of ecclesiastical remains of a very great rank, there is in its one-time cathedral a work which can hardly be contemplated except with affectionate admiration. The affairs of a past day, either with respect to Church or State, appear not to have been very vivid or highly coloured; in fact, the reverse appears to be the case. In pre-mediæval times--when the city was known as the Roman village of _Lactora_--it was strongly fortified, like most hilltop towns of Gaul. The cathedral dates for the most part from the thirteenth century, and in the massive tower which enwraps its façade shows strong indications of the workmanship of an alien hand, which was neither French nor Italian. This tower is thought to resemble the Norman work of England and the north of France, and in some measure it does, though it may be questioned as to whether this is the correct classification. This tower, whatever may have been its origin, is, however, one of those features which is to be admired for itself alone; and it amply endorses and sustains the claim of this church to a consideration more lasting than a mere passing fancy. The entire plan is unusually light and graceful, and though, by no stretch of opinion could it be thought of as Gothic, it has not a little of the suggestion of the style, which at a former time must have been even more pronounced in that its western tower once possessed a spire which rose to a sky-piercing height. The lower tower still remains, but the spire, having suffered from lightning and the winds at various times, was, a century or more ago, removed. The nave has a series of lateral chapels, each surmounted by a sort of gallery or tribune, which would be notable in any church edifice, and there is fine traceried vaulting in the apsidal chapels, which also contain some effective, though modern coloured glass. The former episcopal residence is now the local Mairie. On a clear day, it is said, the towers of the cathedral at Auch may be seen to the northward, while in the opposite direction the serrated ridge of the Pyrenees is likewise visible. [Illustration: NOTRE DAME _de BAYONNE_] IV NOTRE DAME DE BAYONNE "Distant are the violet Pyrenees, wonderful and regal in their grandeur. The sun is bright, and laughs joyously at the Béarnais peasant." --JEAN RAMEAU. Bayonne is an ancient town, and was known by the Romans as _Lapurdum_. As a centre of Christianity, it was behind its neighbours, as no bishopric was founded here until Arsias Rocha held the see in the ninth century. No church-building of remark followed for at least two centuries, when the foundations were laid upon which the present cathedral was built up. Like the cities and towns of Rousillon, at the opposite end of the Pyrenean chain, Bayonne has for ever been of mixed race and characteristics. Basques, Spaniards, Béarnese, and "alien French"--as the native calls them--went to make up its conglomerate population in the past, and does even yet in considerable proportions. To the reader of history, the mediæval Béarn and Navarre, which to-day forms the Department of the Basses-Pyrénées in the southwest corner of France, will have the most lively interest, from the fact of its having been the principality of _Henri Quatre_, the "good king" whose name was so justly dear. The history of the Béarnese is a wonderful record of a people of which too little is even yet known. Bayonne itself has had many and varied historical associations, though it is not steeped in that antiquity which is the birthright of many another favoured spot. Guide-books and the "notes-and-queries columns" of antiquarian journals have unduly enlarged upon the fact that the bayonet--to-day a well-nigh useless appendage as a weapon of war--was first invented here. It is interesting as a fact, perhaps, but it is not of æsthetic moment. The most gorgeous event of history connected with Bayonne and its immediate vicinity--among all that catalogue, from the minor Spanish invasions to Wellington's stupendous activities--was undoubtedly that which led up to the famous Pyrenean Treaty made on the Isle du Faisan, close beside the bridge, in the river Bidassoa, on the Spanish frontier. The memory of the parts played therein by Mazarin and De Haro, and not less the gorgeous pavilion in which the function was held, form a setting which the writers of "poetical plays" and "historical romances" seem to have neglected. This magnificent apartment was decorated by Velasquez, who, it is said, died of his inglorious transformation into an upholsterer. The cathedral at Bayonne is contemporary with those at Troyes, Meaux, and Auxerre, in the north of France. It resembles greatly the latter as to general proportions and situation, though it possesses two completed spires, whereas St. Etienne, at Auxerre, has but one. In size and beauty the cathedral at Bayonne is far above the lower rank of the cathedrals of France, and in spite of extensive restorations, it yet stands forth as a mediæval work of great importance. From a foundation of the date of 1140, a structure was in part completed by 1213, at which time the whole existing fabric suffered the ravages of fire. Work was immediately undertaken again, commencing with the choir; and, except for the grand portal of the west front, the whole church was finished by the mid-sixteenth century. Restoration of a late date, induced by the generosity of a native of the city, has resulted in the completion of the cathedral, which, if not a really grand church to-day, is an exceedingly near approach thereto. The fine western towers are modern, but they form the one note which produces the effect of _ensemble_, which otherwise would be entirely wanting. The view from the Quai Bergemet, just across the Adour, for picturesqueness of the quality which artists--tyros and masters alike--love to sketch, is reminiscent only of St. Lo in Normandy. Aside from the charm of its general picturesqueness of situation and grouping, Notre Dame de Bayonne will appeal mostly by its interior arrangements and embellishments. The western portal is still lacking the greatness which future ages may yet bestow upon it, and that of the north transept, by which one enters, is, though somewhat more ornate, not otherwise remarkable. A florid cloister of considerable size attaches itself on the south, but access is had only from the sacristy. The choir and apse are of the thirteenth century, and immediately followed the fire of 1213. Neither the transepts nor choir are of great length; indeed, they are attenuated as compared with those of the more magnificent churches of the Gothic type, of which this is, in a way, an otherwise satisfying example. The patriotic Englishman will take pride in the fact that the English arms are graven somewhere in the vaulting of the nave. He may not be able to spy them out,--probably will not be,--but they likely enough existed, as a mid-Victorian writer describes them minutely, though no modern guides or works of local repute make mention of the feature in any way. The triforium is elegantly traceried, and is the most worthy and artistic detail to be seen in the whole structure. The clerestory windows contain glass of the fifteenth century; much broken to-day, but of the same excellent quality of its century, and that immediately preceding. The remainder of the glass, in the clerestory and choir, is modern. In the sacristy is a remarkable series of perfectly preserved thirteenth-century sculptures in stone which truthfully--with the before-mentioned triforum--are the real "art treasures" of the cathedral. The three naves; the nave proper and its flanking aisles; the transepts, attenuated though they be; and the equally shallow choir, all in some way present a really grand effect, at once harmonious and pleasing. The pavement of the sanctuary is modern, as also the high-altar, but both are generously good in design. These furnishings are mainly of Italian marbles, hung about with tapestries, which, if not of superlative excellence, are at least effective. Modern mural paintings with backgrounds in gold decorate the _abside_ chapels. There are many attributes of picturesque quality scattered throughout the city: its unique trade customs, its shipping, its donkeys, and, above any of these, its women themselves picturesque and beautiful. All these will give the artist many lively suggestions. Not many of the class, however, frequent this Biscayan city; which is a loss to art and to themselves. A plea is herein made that its attractions be better known by those who have become _ennuied_ by the "resorts." V ST. JEAN DE BAZAS At the time the grand cathedrals of the north of France were taking on their completed form, a reflex was making itself felt here in the South. Both at Bayonne and Bazas were growing into being two beautiful churches which partook of many of the attributes of Gothic art in its most approved form. St. Jean de Bazas is supposedly of a tenth-century foundation, but its real beginnings, so far as its later approved form is concerned, came only in 1233. From which time onward it came quickly to its completion, or at least to its dedication. It was three centuries before its west front was completed, and when so done--in the sixteenth century--it stood out, as it does to-day, a splendid example of a façade, completely covered with statues of such proportions and excellence that it is justly accounted the richest in the south of France. It quite equals, in general effect, such well-peopled fronts as Amiens or Reims; though here the numbers are not so great, and, manifestly, not of as great an excellence. This small but well-proportioned church has no transepts, but the columnar supports of its vaulting presume an effect of length which only Gothic in its purest forms suggests. The Huguenot rising somewhat depleted and greatly damaged the sculptured decorations of its façade, and likewise much of the interior ornament, but later repairs have done much to preserve the effect of the original scheme, and the church remains to-day an exceedingly gratifying and pleasing example of transplanted Gothic forms. The diocese dates from the foundation of Sextilius, in the sixth century. VI NOTRE DAME DE LESCAR The bishopric here was founded in the fifth century by St. Julian, and lasted till the suppression of 1790; but of all of its importance of past ages, which was great, little is left to-day of ecclesiastical dignity. Lescar itself is an attractive enough small town of France,--it contains but a scant two thousand inhabitants,--but has no great distinction to important rank in any of the walks of life; indeed, its very aspect is of a glory that has departed. It has, however, like so many of the small towns of the ancient Béarn, a notably fine situation: on a high _coteau_ which rises loftily above the _route nationale_ which runs from Toulouse to Bayonne. From the terrace of the former cathedral of Notre Dame can be seen the snow-clad ridge of the Pyrenees and the umbrageous valley and plain which lie between. In this verdant land there is no suggestion of what used--in ignorance or prejudice--to be called "an aspect austere and sterile." The cathedral itself is bare, unto poverty, of tombs and monuments, but a mosaic-worked pavement indicates, by its inscriptions and symbols, that many faithful and devout souls lie buried within the walls. The edifice is of imposing proportions, though it is not to be classed as truly great. From the indications suggested by the heavy pillars and grotesquely carved capitals of its nave, it is manifest that it has been built up, at least in part, from remains of a very early date. It mostly dates from the twelfth century, but in that it was rebuilt during the period of the Renaissance, it is to the latter classification that it really belongs. The curiously carved capitals of the columns of the nave share, with the frescoes of the apse, the chief distinction among the accessory details. They depict, in their ornate and deeply cut heads, dragons and other weird beasts of the land and fowls of the air, in conjunction with unshapely human figures, and while all are intensely grotesque, they are in no degree offensive. There is no exceeding grace or symmetry of outline in any of the parts of this church, but, nevertheless, it has the inexplicable power to please, which counts for a great deal among such inanimate things as architectural forms. It would perhaps be beyond the powers of any one to explain why this is so frequently true of a really unassuming church edifice; more so, perhaps, with regard to churches than to most other things--possibly it is because of the local glamour or sentiment which so envelops a religious monument, and hovers unconsciously and ineradicably over some shrines far more than others. At any rate, the former cathedral of Notre Dame at Lescar has this indefinable quality to a far greater degree than many a more ambitiously conceived fabric. The round-arched window and doorway most prevail, and the portal in particular is of that deeply recessed variety which allows a mellow interior to unfold slowly to the gaze, rather than jump at once into being, immediately one has passed the outer lintel or jamb. The entire suggestion of this church, both inside and out, is of a structure far more massive and weighty than were really needed for a church of its size, but for all that its very stable dimensions were well advised in an edifice which was expected to endure for ages. The entire apse is covered, inside, with a series of frescoes of a very acceptable sort, which, though much defaced to-day, are the principal art attribute of the church. Their author is unknown, but they are probably the work of some Italian hand, and have even been credited to Giotto. The choir-stalls are quaintly carved, with a luxuriance which, in some manner, approaches the Spanish style. They are at least representative of that branch of Renaissance art which was more representative of the highest expression than any other. In form, this old cathedral follows the basilica plan, and is perhaps two hundred feet in length, and some seventy-five in width. The grandfather of Henri IV. and his wife--_la Marguerites des Marguerites_--were formerly buried in this cathedral, but their remains were scattered by either the Huguenots or the Revolutionists. Curiously enough, too, Lescar was the former habitation of a Jesuit College, founded by Henri IV. after his conversion to the Roman faith, but no remains of this institution exist to-day. [Illustration] VII L'ÉGLISE DE LA SÈDE: TARBES Froissart describes Tarbes as "a fine large town, situated in a plain country; there is a city and a town and a castle ... the beautiful river Lisse which runs throughout all Tharbes, and divides it, the which river is as clear as a fountain." Froissart himself nods occasionally, and on this particular occasion has misnamed the river which flows through the city, which is the Adour. The rest of his description might well apply to-day, and the city is most charmingly and romantically environed. Its cathedral will not receive the same adulation which is bestowed upon the charms of the city itself. It is a poor thing, not unlike, in appearance, a market-house or a third-rate town hall of some mean municipality. Once the Black Prince and his "fair maid of Kent" came to this town of the Bigorre, to see the Count of Armagnac, under rather doleful circumstances for the count, who was in prison and in debt to Gaston Phoebus for the amount of his ransom. The "fair maid," however, appears to have played the part of a good fairy, and prevailed upon the magnificent Phoebus to reduce the ransom to the extent of fifty thousand francs. In this incident alone there lies a story, of which all may read in history, and which is especially recommended to those writers of swash-buckler romances who may feel in need of a new plot. There is little in Tarbes but the memory of a fair past to compel attention from the lover of antiquity, of churches, or of art; and there are no remains of any note--even of the time when the Black Prince held his court here. The bishopric is very ancient, and dates from the sixth century, when St. Justin first filled the office. In spite of this, however, there is very little inspiration to be derived from a study of this quite unconvincing cathedral, locally known as the Église de la Sède. This Romanesque-Transition church, though dating from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, has neither the strength and character of the older style, nor the vigour of the new. The nave is wide, but short, and has no aisles. At the transept is a superimposed octagonal cupola, which is quite unbeautiful and unnecessary. It is a fourteenth-century addition which finally oppresses this ungainly heavy edifice beyond the hope of redemption. Built upon the façade is a Renaissance portal which of itself would be a disfigurement anywhere, but which here gives the final blow to a structure which is unappealing from every point. The present-day prefecture was the former episcopal residence. The bishopric, which to-day has jurisdiction over the Department of the Hautes-Pyrénées, is a suffragan of the mother-see of Auch. VIII CATHÉDRALE DE CONDOM The history of Condom as an ecclesiastical see is very brief. It was established only in 1317, on an ancient abbey foundation, whose inception is unknown. For three centuries only was it endowed with diocesan dignity. Its last _titulaire_ was Bishop Bossuet. The fine Gothic church, which was so short-lived as a cathedral, is more worthy of admiration than many grander and more ancient. It dates from the early sixteenth century, and shows all the distinct marks of its era; but it is a most interesting church nevertheless, and is possessed of a fine unworldly cloister, which as much as many another--more famous or more magnificent--must have been conducive to inspired meditation. The portal rises to a considerable height of elegance, but the façade is otherwise austere. In the interior, a choir-screen in cut stone is the chief artistic treasure. The sacristy is a finely decorated and beautifully proportioned room. In the choir is a series of red brick or terra-cotta stalls of poor design and of no artistic value whatever. The ancient residence of the bishops is now the Hôtel de Ville, and is a good example of late Gothic domestic architecture. It is decidedly the architectural _pièce de resistance_ of the town. IX CATHÉDRALE DE MONTAUBAN Montauban, the location of an ancient abbey, was created a bishopric, in the Province of Toulouse, in 1317, under Bertrand du Puy. It was a suffragan of the see of Toulouse after that city had been made an archbishopric in the same year, a rank it virtually holds to-day, though the mother-see is now known by the double vocable of Toulouse-Narbonne. Montauban is in many ways a remarkable little city; remarkable for its tidy picturesqueness, for its admirable situation, for the added attraction of the river Tarn, which rushes tumblingly past its _quais_ on its way from the Gorges to the Garonne; in short, Montauban is a most fascinating centre of a life and activity, not so modern that it jars, nor yet so mediæval that it is uncomfortably squalid. The lover of architecture will interest himself far more in the thirteenth-century bridge of bricks which crosses the Tarn on seven ogival arches, than he will in the painfully ordinary and unworthy cathedral, which is a combination of most of the undesirable features of Renaissance church-building. The façade is, moreover, set about with a series of enormous sculptured effigies perched indiscriminately wherever it would appear that a foothold presented itself. There are still a few unoccupied niches and cornices, which some day may yet be peopled with other figures as gaunt. Two ungraceful towers flank a classical portico, one of which is possessed of the usual ludicrous clock-face. The interior, with its unusual flood of light from the windows of the clerestory, is cold and bare. Its imposed pilasters and heavy cornices are little in keeping with the true conception of Christian architecture, and its great height of nave--some eighty odd feet--lends a further chilliness to one's already lukewarm appreciation. The one artistic detail of Montauban's cathedral is the fine painting by Ingres (1781-1867) to be seen in the sacristy, if by any chance you can find the sacristan--which is doubtful. It is one of this artist's most celebrated paintings, and is commonly referred to as "The Vow of Louis XIII." [Illustration: ST. ETIENNE _de CAHORS_.] X ST. ETIENNE DE CAHORS St. Genulphe was the first bishop of Cahors, in the fourth century. The diocese was then, as now, a suffragan of Albi. The cathedral of St. Etienne was consecrated in 1119, but has since--and many times--been rebuilt and restored. This church is but one of the many of its class, built in Aquitaine at this period, which employed the cupola as a distinct feature. It shares this attribute in common with the cathedrals at Poitiers, Périgueux, and Angoulême, and the great churches of Solignac, Fontevrault, and Souillac, and is commonly supposed to be an importation or adaptation of the domes of St. Marc's at Venice. A distinct feature of this development is that, while transepts may or may not be wanting, the structures are nearly always without side aisles. What manner of architecture this style may presume to be is impossible to discuss here, but it is manifestly not Byzantine _pur-sang_, as most guide-books would have the tourist believe. Although much mutilated in many of its accessories and details, the cathedral at Cahors fairly illustrates its original plan. There are no transepts, and the nave is wide and short, its area being entirely roofed by the two circular cupolas, each perhaps fifty feet in diameter. In height these two details depart from the true hemisphere, as has always been usual in dome construction. There were discovered, as late as 1890, in this church, many mural paintings of great interest. Of the greatest importance was that in the westerly cupola, which presents an entire composition, drawn in black and colour. The cupola is perhaps forty feet in diameter, and is divided by the decorations into eight sectors. The principal features of this remarkable decoration are the figures of eight of the prophets, David, Daniel, Jeremiah, Jonah, Ezra, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Habakkuk, each a dozen or more feet in height. Taken as a whole, in spite of their recent discovery, these elaborate decorations are supposed to have been undertaken by or under the direction of the bishops who held the see from 1280 to 1324; most likely under Hugo Geraldi (1312-16), the friend of Pope Clement V. and of the King of France. This churchman was burned to death at Avignon, and the see was afterward administered by procuration by Guillaume de Labroa (1316-1324), who lived at Avignon. It is then permissible to think that these wall-paintings of the cathedral at Cahors are perhaps unique in France. Including its sustaining wall, one of the cupolas rises to a height of eighty-two feet, and the other to one hundred and five feet. The north portal is richly sculptured; and the choir, with its fifteenth-century ogival chapels, has been rebuilt from the original work of 1285. The interior, since the recently discovered frescoes of the cupolas, presents an exceedingly rich appearance, though there are actually few decorative constructive elements. The apse of the choir is naturally pointed, as its era would indicate, and its chapels are ornamented with frescoes of the time of Louis XII.; neither very good nor very bad, but in no way comparable to the decorations of the cupolas. 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 title of Count of Cahors, and was entitled 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, Périgueux, Angoulême, and Poitiers, are, in a way, in a class 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 Cité de Carcassonne. 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, Carcassonne, and Narbonne succumbed 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. Phérade. 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 Bézard, 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 façade 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 pass 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. [Illustration: 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 Abbé Bourassé, "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 glass added. Soon after this time, the glass 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 debasement. This quality is to be remarked in the choir-screen, the porch and towers, and in the balustrades of the chapels, to say nothing of the organ supports. The west front is, in part, as late as the seventeenth century. In this façade there is an elaborately traceried rose window, indicating in its painted glass a "Glory of Angels." It is not a great work, as these chief decorative features of French mediæval 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 glass 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 Classical" manner in vogue during the reign of Louis XIV. They are not beautiful of themselves, and quite unexpressive of the sanctity 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 glass (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 glass,--but the design is coarse and crude, a distinction that most modern glass 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. Under the reign of St. Louis many of the grand cathedrals and the larger monastic churches were grandly favoured with this accessory, notably at Amiens and Beauvais, at Burgos in Spain, and at Canterbury. Here the elaborate screen was designed to protect the ranges of stalls and their canopied _dossiers_, and give a certain seclusion to the chapter and officiants. Elsewhere--out of regard for the people it is to be presumed--this feature was in many known instances done away with, and the material of which it was constructed--often of great richness--made use of in chapels subsequently erected in the walls of the apside or in the side aisles of the nave. This is to be remarked at Rodez particularly, where the reërected _clôture_ is still the show-piece of the cathedral. The organ _buffet_ is, as usual (in the minds of the local resident), a remarkably fine piece of cabinet-work and nothing more. One always qualifies this by venturing the opinion that no one ever really does admire these overpowering and ungainly accessories. What triforium there is is squat and ugly, with ungraceful openings, and the high-altar is a modern work in the pseudo-classic style, quite unworthy as a work of art. The five apsidal chapels are brilliant with coloured glass, but otherwise are not remarkable. In spite of all incongruity, Ste. Marie d'Auch is one of those fascinating churches in and about which one loves to linger. It is hard to explain the reason for this, except that its environment provides the atmosphere which is the one necessary ingredient to a full realization of the appealing qualities of a stately church. The archiepiscopal palace adjoins the cathedral in the rear, and has a noble _donjon_ of the fourteenth century. Its career of the past must have been quite uneventful, as history records no very bloody or riotous events which have taken place within or before its walls. Fénelon was a student at the College of Auch, and his statue adorns the Promenade du Fossé. [Illustration: ST. ETIENNE _de TOULOUSE_] XIII ST. ETIENNE DE TOULOUSE The provincialism of Toulouse has been the theme of many a French writer of ability,--offensively provincial, it would seem from a consensus of these written opinions. "Life and movement in abundance, but what a life!" ... "The native is saved from coarseness by his birth, but after a quarter of an hour the substratum shows itself." ... "The working girl is graceful and has the vivacity of a bird, but there is nothing in her cackle." ... "How much more beautiful are the stars that mirror themselves in the gutter of the Rue du Bac." ... "There is a yelp in the accents of the people of the town." Contrariwise we may learn also that "the water is fine," "the quays are fine," and "fine large buildings glow in the setting sun in bright and softened hues," and "in the far distance lies the chain of the Pyrenees, like a white bed of watery clouds," and "the river, dressed always in smiling verdure, gracefully skirts the city." These pessimistic and optimistic views of others found the contributors to this book in somewhat of a quandary as to the manner of mood and spirit in which they should approach this provincial capital. They had heard marvels of its Romanesque church of St. Saturnin, perhaps the most perfect and elaborate of any of its kind in all France; of the curious amalgamated edifice, now the cathedral of St. Etienne, wherein two distinct church bodies are joined by an unseemly ligature; of the church of the Jacobins; and of the "seventy-seven religious establishments" enumerated by Taine. All these, or less, were enough to induce one to cast suspicion aside and descend upon the city with an open mind. Two things one must admit: Toulouse does somewhat approach the gaiety of a capital, and it _is_ provincial. Its list of attractions for the visitor is great, and its churches numerous and splendid, so why carp at the "ape-like manners" of the corner loafers, who, when all is said, are vastly less in number here than in many a northern centre of population. The Musée is charming, both as to the disposition of its parts and its contents. It was once a convent, and has a square courtyard or promenade surrounded by an arcade. The courtyard is set about with green shrubs, and a lofty brick tower, pierced with little arched windows and mullioned with tiny columns, rises skyward in true conventual fashion. Altogether the Musée, in the attractiveness of its fabric and the size and importance of its collections, must rank, for interest to the tourist, at the very head of those outside Paris itself. As for the churches, there are many, the three greatest of which are the cathedral of St. Etienne, St. Saturnin, and the Église des Jacobins; in all is to be observed the universal application or adoption of _des matériaux du pays_--bricks. In the cathedral tower, and in that of the Église des Jacobins, a Gothic scheme is worked out in these warm-toned bricks, and forms, in contrast with the usual execution of a Gothic design, a most extraordinary effect; not wholly to the detriment of the style, but certainly not in keeping with the original conception and development of "pointed" architecture. In 1863 Viollet-le-Duc thoroughly and creditably restored St. Saturnin at great expense, and by this treatment it remains to-day as the most perfectly preserved work extant of its class. It is vast, curious, and in a rather mixed style, though thoroughly Latin in motive. It is on the border-line of two styles; of the Italian, with respect to the full semicircular arches and vaulting of the nave and aisles; the square pillars destitute of all ornament, except another column standing out in flat relief--an intimation of the quiet and placid force of their functions. With the transition comes a change in the flowered capitals, from the acanthus to tracery and grotesque animals. There are five domes covering the five aisles, each with a semicircular vault. The walls, with their infrequent windows, are very thick. The delightful belfry--of five octagonal stages--which rises from the crossing of the transepts, presents, from the outside, a fine and imposing arrangement. So, too, the chapelled choir, with its apse of rounded vaults rising in imposing tiers. This fine church is in direct descent from the Roman manner; built and developed as a simple idea, and, like all antique and classical work,--approaching purity,--is a living thing, in spite of the fact that it depicts the sentiment of a dead and gone past. It might not be so successfully duplicated to-day, but, considering that St. Saturnin dates from the eleventh century, its commencement was sufficiently in the remote past to allow of its having been promulgated under a direct and vigorous Roman influence. The brick construction of St. Saturnin and of the cathedral is not of that justly admired quality seen in the ancient Convent of the Jacobins, which dates from the thirteenth century. Here is made perhaps the most beautiful use of this style of mediæval building. It is earlier than the Pont de Montauban, the churches at Moissac or Lombez, and even the cathedral at Albi, but much later than the true Romanesque brickwork, which alternated rows of brick with other materials. The builders of Gallo-Romain and Merovingian times favoured this earlier method, but work in this style is seldom met with of a later date than the ninth century. The Église of St. Saturnin shows, in parts, brickwork of a century earlier than the Église des Jacobins, but, as before said, it is not so beautiful. When the Renaissance came to deal with _brique_, it did not do so badly. Certainly the domestic and civil establishments of Touraine in this style--to particularize only one section--are very beautiful. Why the revival was productive of so much thorough badness when it dealt with stone is one of the things which the expert has not as yet attempted to explain; at least, not convincingly. The contrasting blend of the northern and southern motive in the hybrid cathedral at Toulouse will not remain unnoticed for long after the first sensation of surprise at its curious ground-plan passes off. Here are seen a flamboyant northern choir and aisles in strange juxtaposition with a thirteenth-century single vaulted nave, after the purely indigenous southern manner. This nave nearly equals in immensity those in the cathedrals of Albi and Bordeaux. It has the great span of sixty-two feet, necessitating the employment of huge buttresses, which would be remarkable anywhere, in order to take the thrust. The unobstructed flooring of this splendid nave lends an added dignity of vastness. Near the vaulted roof are the only apertures in the walls. Windows, as one knows them elsewhere, are practically absent. [Illustration: _Nave of St. Etienne de Toulouse_] The congregations which assemble in this great aisleless nave present a curiously animated effect by reason of the fact that they scatter themselves about in knots or groups rather than crowding against either the altar-rail or pulpit, occasionally even overflowing into the adjoining choir. The nave is entirely unobstructed by decorations, such as screens, pillars, or tombs. It is a mere shell, _sans_ gallery, _sans_ aisles, and _sans_ triforium. The development of the structure from the individual members of nave and choir is readily traced, and though these parts show not the slightest kind of relationship one to the other, it is from these two fragmentary churches that the completed, if imperfect, whole has been made. The west front, to-day more than ever, shows how badly the cathedral has been put together; the uncovered bricks creep out here and there, and buildings to the left, which formerly covered the incongruous joint between the nave and choir, are now razed, making the patchwork even more apparent. The square tower which flanks the portal to the north is not unpleasing, and dates from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The portal is not particularly beautiful, and is bare of decorations of note. It appears to have been remodelled at some past time with a view to conserving the western rose window. There are no transepts or collateral chapels, which tends to make the ground-plan the more unusual and lacking in symmetry. The choir (1275-1502) is really very beautiful, taken by itself, far more so than the nave, from which it is extended on a different axis. It was restored after a seventeenth-century fire, and is supposed to be less beautiful to-day than formerly. There are seventeen chapels in this choir, with much coloured glass of the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, all with weird polychromatic decorations in decidedly bad taste. Toulouse became a bishopric in the third century, with St. Saturnin as its first bishop. It was raised to the rank of archiepiscopal dignity in 1327, a distinction which it enjoys to-day in company with Narbonne. Six former suffragan bishoprics, Pamiers, Rieux, Mirepoix, Saint-Papoul, Lombez, and Lavaur were suppressed at the Revolution. In the magnificent Musée of the city is _un petit monument_, without an inscription, but bearing a cross _gammée_ or _Swastika_, and a palm-leaf, symbols of the divine Apollo and Artemis. It seems curious that this tiny record in stone should have been found, as it was, in the mountains which separate the sources of the Garonne and the Adour, as the _Swastika_ is a symbol supposedly indigenous to the fire and sun-worshippers of the East, where it figures in a great number of their monuments. It is called, by the local antiquary, a Pyrenean altar. If this is so, it is of course of pagan origin, and is in no way connected with Christian art. [Illustration: St. NAZAIRE _de CARCASSONNE_] XIV ST. NAZAIRE DE CARCASSONNE With old and new Carcassonne one finds a contrast, if not as great as between the hyphenated Hungarian cities of Buda and Pest, at least as marked in detail. In most European settlements, where an old municipality adjoins a modern one, walls have been razed, moats filled, and much general modernization has been undertaken. With Carcassonne this is not so; its winding ways, its _culs-de-sacs_, narrow alleys, and towering walls remain much as they always were, and the great stronghold of the Middle Ages, vulnerable--as history tells--from but one point, remains to-day, after its admirable restoration of roof and capstone, much as it was in the days when modern Carcassonne was but a scattering hamlet beneath the walls of the older fortification. One thing will always be recalled, and that is that a part of the _enceinte_ of the ancient _Cité_ was a construction of the sixth century--the days of the Visigoths--and that its subsequent development into an almost invulnerable fortress was but the endorsement which later centuries gave to the work and forethought of a people who were supposed to possess no arts, and very little of ingenuity. This should suggest a line of investigation to one so minded; while for us, who regard the ancient walls merely as a boundary which sheltered and protected a charming Gothic church, it is perhaps sufficient to recall the inconsistency in many previous estimates as to what great abilities, if any, the Goths possessed. If it is true that the Visigoths merely followed Roman tradition, so much the more creditable to them that they preserved these ancient walls to the glory of those who came after, and but added to the general plan. Old and new Carcassonne, as one might call them, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had each their own magistrates and a separate government. The _Cité_, elevated above the _ville_, held also the garrison, the _presidial_ seat, and the first seneschalship of the province. The bishopric of the _Cité_ is not so ancient as the _ville_ itself; for the first prelate there whose name is found upon record was one Sergius, "who subscribed to a 'Council' held at Narbonne in 590." [Illustration: _The Old Cité de Carcassonne before and after the Restoration_] St. Hilaire, who founded the abbey at Poitiers, came perhaps before Sergius, but his tenure is obscure as to its exact date. The cathedral of St. Michel, in the lower town, has been, since 1803, the seat of the bishop's throne. It is a work unique, perhaps, in its design, but entirely unfeeling and preposterous in its overelaborate decorations. It has a long parallelogram-like nave, "_entièrement peinte_," as the custodian refers to it. It has, to be sure, a grand vault, strong and broad, but there are no aisles, and the chapels which flank this gross nave are mere painted boxes. Episcopal dignity demanded that some show of importance should be given to the cathedral, and it was placed in the hands of Viollet-le-Duc in 1849 for restoration. Whatever his labours may have been, he doubtless was not much in sympathy with this clumsy fabric, and merely "restored" it in some measure approaching its twelfth-century form. It is with St. Nazaire de Carcassonne, the tiny _église_ of the old _Cité_ and the _ci-devant_ cathedral that we have to do. This most fascinating church, fascinating for itself none the less than its unique environment, is, in spite of the extended centuries of its growth, almost the equal in the purity of its Gothic to that of St. Urbain at Troyes. And this, in spite of evidences of rather bad joining up of certain warring constructive elements. The structure readily composes itself into two distinct parts: that of the Romanesque (round arch and barrel vault) era and that of the Gothic of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. No consideration of St. Nazaire de Carcassonne is possible without first coming to a realization of the construction and the functions of the splendidly picturesque and effective ramparts which enclosed the ancient _Cité_, its cathedral, châteaux, and various civil and domestic establishments. In brief, its history and chronology commences with the Visigoth foundation, extending from the fifth to the eighth centuries to the time (1356) when it successfully resisted the Black Prince in his bloody ravage, by sword and fire, of all of Languedoc. Legend has it that in Charlemagne's time, after that monarch had besieged the town for many years and was about to raise the siege in despair, a certain tower,--which flanked the château,--defended only by a _Gauloise_ known as _Carcaso_, suddenly gave way and opened a breach by which the army was at last able to enter. A rude figure perpetuating the fame of this _Madame Carcaso_--a veritable Amazon, it would seem--is still seen, rudely carved, over the Porte Narbonnaise. [Illustration: _Two Capitals of Pillars in St. Nazaire de Carcassonne; and the Rude Stone Carving of Carcas_] It is the inner line of ramparts which dates from the earliest period. The château, the postern-gate, and most of the interior construction are of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, while the outer fortification is of the time of St. Louis, the latter part of the thirteenth century. [Illustration: ST. NAZAIRE ... _de CARCASSONNE_] The Saracens successfully attacked and occupied the city from 713 to 759, but were routed by Pepin-le-Bref. In 1090 was first founded the strong _vicomtale_ dynasty of the Trencavels. In 1210 the Crusaders, under Simon de Montfort and the implacable Abbot of Citeaux, laid siege to the _Cité_, an act which resulted in the final massacre, fifty of the besieged--who surrendered--being hanged, and four hundred burned alive. In addition to the walls and ramparts were fifty circular protecting towers. The extreme length of the inner enclosure is perhaps three-quarters of a mile, and of the outer nearly a full mile. It is impossible to describe the magnitude and splendour of these city walls, which, up to the time of their restoration by Viollet-le-Duc, had scarcely crumbled at all. The upper ranges of the towers, roof-tops, ramparts, etc., had become broken, of course, and the sky-line had become serrated, but the walls, their foundations, and their outline plan had endured as few works of such magnitude have before or since. Carcassonne, its history, its romance, and its picturesque qualities, has ever appealed to the poet, painter, and historian alike. Something of the halo of sentiment which surrounds this marvellous fortified city will be gathered from the following praiseful admiration by Gustave Nadaud: CARCASSONNE "'I'm growing old, I've sixty years; I've laboured all my life in vain; In all that time of hopes and fears I've failed my dearest wish to gain; I see full well that here below Bliss unalloyed there is for none. My prayer will ne'er fulfilment know; I never have seen Carcassonne, I never have seen Carcassonne! "'You see the city from the hill-- It lies beyond the mountains blue, And yet to reach it one must still Five long and weary leagues pursue, And, to return, as many more! Ah! had the vintage plenteous grown, The grape withheld its yellow store! I shall not look on Carcassonne, I shall not look on Carcassonne! "'They tell me every day is there Not more nor less than Sunday gay; In shining robes and garments fair The people walk upon their way. One gazes there on castle walls As grand as those of Babylon, A bishop and two generals! I do not know fair Carcassonne, I do not know fair Carcassonne! "'The curé's right; he says that we Are ever wayward, weak, and blind; He tells us in his homily Ambition ruins all mankind; Yet could I there two days have spent, While the autumn sweetly shone, Ah, me! I might have died content When I had looked on Carcassonne, When I had looked on Carcassonne! "'Thy pardon, Father, I beseech, In this my prayer if I offend; One something sees beyond his reach From childhood to his journey's end. My wife, our little boy, Aignan, Have travelled even to Narbonne, My grandchild has seen Perpignan, And I have not seen Carcassonne, And I have not seen Carcassonne!' "So crooned one day, close by Limoux, A peasant double bent with age, 'Rise up, my friend,' said I, 'with you I'll go upon this pilgrimage.' We left next morning his abode, But (Heaven forgive him) half way on The old man died upon the road; He never gazed on Carcassonne, Each mortal has his Carcassonne!" St. Nazaire is possessed of a Romanesque nave which dates from 1096, but the choir and transepts are of the most acceptable Gothic forms of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This choir is readily accounted as a masterwork of elegance, is purely northern in style and treatment, and possesses also those other attributes of the _perfectionnement_ of the style--fine glass, delicate fenestration, and superlative grace throughout, as contrasted with the heavier and more cold details of the Romanesque variety. The nave was dedicated by Urbain II., and was doubtless intended for defence, if its square, firmly bedded towers and piers are suggestive of that quality. The principal _porte_--it does not rise to the grandeur of a _portail_--is a thorough Roman example. The interior, with its great piers, its rough barrel-vault, and its general lack of grace and elegance, bespeaks its functions as a stronghold. A Romanesque tower in its original form stands on the side which adjoins the ramparts. With the choir comes the contrast, both inside and out. The apside, the transepts, the eleven gorgeous windows, and the extreme grace of its piers and vaulting, all combine in the fullest expression of the architectural art of its time. This admirable Gothic addition was the work of Bishop Pierre de Rochefort in 1321. The transept chapels and the apse are framed with light soaring arches, and the great easterly windows are set with brilliant glass. In a side chapel is the former tomb of Simon de Montfort, whose remains were buried here in 1218. At a subsequent time they were removed to Montfort l'Amaury in the Isle of France. Another remarkable tomb is that of Bishop Radulph (1266). It shows an unusually elaborate sculptured treatment for its time, and is most ornate and beautiful. In the choir are many fine fourteenth-century statues; a tomb with a sleeping figure, thought to be that of Bishop du Puy of Carcassonne; statues of the Virgin, St. Nazaire, and the twelve apostles; an elaborate high-altar; and a pair of magnificent candlesticks, bearing the arms of Bishop Martin (1522). An eleventh-century crypt lies beneath the choir. The sacristy, as it is to-day, was formerly a thirteenth-century chapel. The organ is commonly supposed to be the most ancient in France. It is not of ranking greatness as a work of art, but it is interesting to know that it has some redeeming quality, aside from its conventional ugliness. The _tour carrée_, which is set in the inner rampart just in front of the cathedral, is known as the Bishop's Tower. It is a tower of many stages, and contains some beautifully vaulted chambers. The celebrated _tour des Visigoths_, which is near by, is the most ancient of all. The entrance to the old _Cité_ is _via_ the Pont Vieux, which is itself a mediæval twelfth or thirteenth century architectural monument of rare beauty. In the middle of this old bridge is a very ancient iron cross. [Illustration] XV CATHÉDRALE DE PAMIERS "Une _petite ville sur la rive droite de l'Ariège, siege d'un évêche_." These few words, with perhaps seven accompanying lines, usually dismiss this charming little Pyrenean city, so far as information for the traveller is concerned. It is, however, one of these neglected tourist points which the traveller has ever passed by in his wild rush "across country." To be sure, it is considerably off the beaten track; so too are its neighbouring ancient bishoprics of Mirepoix and St. Bertrand de Comminges, and for that reason they are comparatively unspoiled. The great and charming attraction of Pamiers is its view of the serrated ridge of the Pyrenees from the _promenade de Castellat_, just beyond the cathedral. For the rest, the cathedral, the fortified _Église de Notre Dame du Camp_, the ancient _Église de Cordeliers_, the many old houses, and the general sub-tropical aspect of the country round about, all combine to present attractions far more edifying and gratifying than the allurements of certain of the Pyrenean "watering-places." The cathedral itself is not a great work; its charm, as before said, lies in its environments. Its chief feature--and one of real distinction--is its octagonal _clocher_, in brick, dating from the fourteenth century. It is a singularly graceful tower, built after the local manner of the _Midi_ of France, of which St. Saturnin and the Église des Jacobins at Toulouse are the most notable. Its base is a broad square machicolated foundation with no openings, and suggests, as truly as does the tower at Albi, a churchly stronghold unlikely to give way before any ordinary attack. In the main, the church is a rebuilt, rather than a restored edifice. The nave, and indeed nearly all of the structure, except its dominant octagonal tower, is of the seventeenth century. This work was undertaken and consummated by Mansart after the manner of that period, and is far more acceptable than the effect produced by most "restored churches." The eleventh-century abbey of St. Antoine formed originally the seat of the throne of the first bishop of Pamiers, Bernard Saisset, in 1297. XVI ST. BERTRAND DE COMMINGES To-day St. Bertrand de Comminges, the ancient _Lugdunum Convenarum_ (through which one traces its communistic foundation), is possessed of something less than six hundred inhabitants. Remains of the Roman ramparts are yet to be seen, and its _ci-devant_ cathedral,--of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries--suppressed in 1790, still dominates the town from its heights. Arthur Young, writing in the eighteenth century, describes its situation thus: "The mountains rise proudly around and give their rough frame to this exquisite little picture." The diocese grew out of the monkish community which had settled here in the sixth century, when the prelate Suavis became its first bishop. To-day the nearest bishop's seat is at Tarbes, in the archbishopric of Auch. [Illustration: ST. BERTRAND _de COMMINGES_] As to architectural style, the cathedral presents what might ordinarily be called an undesirable mixture, though it is in no way uninteresting or even unpleasing. The west front has a curious Romanesque doorway, and there is a massiveness of wall and buttress which the rather diminutive proportions of the general plan of the church make notably apparent. Otherwise the effect, from a not too near view-point, is one of a solidity and firmness of building only to be seen in some of the neighbouring fortress-churches. A tower of rather heavy proportions is to-day capped with a pyramidal slate or timbered apex after the manner of the western towers at Rodez. From a distance, this feature has the suggestion of the development of what may perhaps be a local type of _clocher_. Closer inspections, when its temporary nature is made plain, disabuses this idea entirely. It is inside the walls that the great charm of this church lies. It is elaborately planned, profuse in ornament,--without being in any degree redundant,--and has a warmth and brilliancy which in most Romanesque interiors is wanting. This interior is representative, on a small scale, of that class of structure whose distinctive feature is what the French architect calls a _nef unique_, meaning, in this instance, one of those great single-chambered churches without aisles, such as are found at Perpignan, new Carcassonne, Lodève, and in a still more amplified form at Albi. There are of course no aisles; and for a length of something over two hundred feet, and a breadth of fifty-five, the bold vault--in the early pointed style--roofs one of the most attractive and pleasing church interiors it is possible to conceive. Of the artistic accessories it is impossible to be too enthusiastic. There are sixty-six choir-stalls, most elaborately carved in wood--perhaps mahogany--of a deep rich colouring seldom seen. Numerous other sculptured details in wood and stone set off with unusual effect the great and well-nigh windowless side walls. The organ _buffet_ of Renaissance workmanship--as will naturally be inferred--is a remarkably elaborate work, much more to be admired than many of its contemporaries. Among the other decorative features are an elaborately conceived "tree of Jesse," an unusually massive rood-loft or _jube_, and a high-altar of much magnificence. The choir is surrounded by eleven chapels, showing in some instances the pure pointed style, and in the latter ones that of the Renaissance. A fourteenth-century funeral monument of Bishop Hugh de Castillione is an elaborate work in white marble; while a series of paintings on the choir walls,--illustrating the miracles of St. Bertrand,--though of a certain crudity, tend to heighten the interest without giving that effect of the over-elaboration of irrelative details not unfrequently seen in some larger churches. At St. Bertrand de Comminges and the cathedrals at Arles, Cavaillon, and Aix-en-Provence, Elne-en-Roussillon, and Le Puy-en-Velay are conserved--in a more or less perfect state of preservation--a series of delightful twelfth-century cloisters. These churches possess this feature in common with the purely monastic houses, whose builders so frequently lavished much thought and care on these enclosed and cloistered courtyards. As a mere detail--or accessory, if you will,--an ample cloister is expressive of much that is wanting in a great church which lacks this contributory feature. Frequently this part was the first to succumb to the destroying influence of time, and leave a void for which no amount of latter-day improvement could make up. Even here, while the cloister ranks as one of the most beautiful yet to be seen, it is part in a ruinous condition. [Illustration] XVII ST. JEAN-BAPTISTE D'AIRE This city of the Landes, that wild, bleak region of sand-dunes and shepherds, abuts upon the more prosperous and fertile territory of the valley of the Adour. By reason of this juxtaposition, its daily life presents a series of contrasting elements as quaint and as interesting as those of the bordering Franco-Spanish cities of Perpignan and Bayonne. From travellers in general, and lovers of architecture in particular, it has ever received but scant consideration, though it is by no means the desert place that early Victorian writers would have us believe. It is in reality a well-built mediæval town, with no very lurid events of the past to its discredit, and, truthfully, with no very marvellous attributes beyond a certain subtle charm and quaintness which is perhaps the more interesting because of its unobtrusiveness. It has been a centre of Christian activity since the days of the fifth century, when its first bishop, Marcel, was appointed to the diocese by the mother-see of Auch. The cathedral of St. Jean-Baptiste belongs to the minor class of present-day cathedrals, and is of a decidedly conglomerate architectural style, with no imposing dimensions, and no really vivid or lively details of ornamentation. It was begun in the thirteenth century, and the work of rebuilding and restoration has been carried on well up to the present time. [Illustration: STS. BENOIT et VINCENT _de CASTRES_] XVIII STS. BENOIT ET VINCENT DE CASTRES Castres will ever rank in the mind of the wayfarer along the byways of the south of France as a marvellous bit of stage scenery, rather than as a collection of profound, or even highly interesting, architectural types. It is one of those spots into which a traveller drops quite unconsciously _en route_ to somewhere else; and lingers a much longer time than circumstances would seem to justify. This is perhaps inexplicable, but it is a fact, which is only in a measure accounted for by reason of the "local colour"--whatever that vague term of the popular novelist may mean--and customs which weave an entanglement about one which is difficult to resist. The river Agout is as weird a stream as its name implies, and divides this haphazard little city of the Tarn into two distinct, and quite characteristically different, parts. Intercourse between Castres and its faubourg, Villegondom, is carried on by two stone bridges; and from either bank of the river, or from either of the bridges, there is always in a view a ravishingly picturesque _ensemble_ of decrepit walls and billowy roof-tops, that will make the artist of brush and pencil angry with fleeting time. The former cathedral is not an entrancingly beautiful structure; indeed, it is not after the accepted "good form" of any distinct architectural style. It is a poor battered thing which has suffered hardly in the past; notably at the hands of the Huguenots in 1567. As it stands to-day, it is practically a seventeenth-century construction, though it is yet unfinished and lacks its western façade. The vaulting of the choir, and the chapels are the only constructive elements which warrant remark. There are a few paintings in the choir, four rather attractive life-size statues, and a series of severe but elegant choir-stalls. The former _évêché_ is to-day the Hôtel de Ville, but was built by Mansart in 1666, and has a fine _escalier_ in sculptured stone. As a centre of Christianity, Castres is very ancient. In 647 there was a Benedictine abbey here. The bishopric, however, did not come into being until 1317, and was suppressed in 1790. XIX NOTRE DAME DE RODEZ The cathedral at Rodez, whose diocese dates from the fifth century and whose first bishop was St. Amand, is, in a way, reminiscent--in its majesty of outline and dominant situation--of that at Albi. It is not, however, after the same manner, but resembles it more particularly with respect to its west façade, which is unpierced in its lower stages by either doorway or window. Here, too, the entrance is midway in its length, and its front presents that sheer flank of walled barrier which is suggestive of nothing but a fortification. [Illustration: NOTRE DAME _de RODEZ_ ...] This great church--for it is truly great, pure and simple--makes up in width what it lacks in length. Its nave and aisles are just covered by a span of one hundred and twenty feet,--a greater dimension than is possessed by Chartres or Rouen, and nearly as great as Paris or Amiens. Altogether Notre Dame de Rodez is a most pleasing church, though conglomerate as to its architecture, and as bad, with respect to the Renaissance gable of its façade, as any contemporary work in the same style. Rodez lacks, however, the great enfolding tower central of Albi. This mellow and warm-toned cathedral, from its beginnings in the latter years of the thirteenth century to the time when the Renaissance cast its dastardly spell over the genius who inspired its original plan, was the result of the persevering though intermittent work of three centuries, and even then the two western towers were left incomplete. This perhaps was fortunate; otherwise they might have been topped with such an excrescence as looms up over the doorless west façade. The Gascon compares the pyramidal roofs which cap either tower--and with some justness, too--to the pyramids of Egypt, and for that reason the towers are, to him, the most wonderful in the universe. Subtle humour this, and the observer will have little difficulty in tracing the analogy. Still, they really are preferable, as a decorative feature, to the tomb-like headboard which surmounts the central gable which they flank. The ground-plan is singularly uniform, with transepts scarcely defined--except in the interior arrangements--and yet not wholly absent. The elaborate tower, called often and with some justification the _beffroi_, which flanks, or rather indicates, the northerly transept, is hardly pure as to its Gothic details, but it is a magnificent work nevertheless. It dates from 1510, is two hundred and sixty-five feet high, and is typical of most of the late pointed work of its era. The final stage is octagonal and is surmounted by a statue of the Virgin surrounded by the Evangelists. This statue may or may not be a worthy work of art; it is too elevated, however, for one to decide. The decorations of the west front, except for the tombstone-like Renaissance gable, are mainly of the same period as the north transept tower, and while perhaps ultra-florid, certainly make a fine appearance when viewed across the _Place d'Armes_. This west front, moreover, possesses that unusual attribute of a southern church, an elaborate Gothic rose window; and, though it does not equal in size or design such magnificent examples as are seen in the north, at Reims, Amiens, or Chartres, is, after all, a notable detail of its kind. The choir, chevet, and apside are of massive building, though not lacking grace, in spite of the absence of the _arcs-boutants_ of the best Gothic. Numerous grotesque gargoyles dot the eaves and gables, though whether of the spout variety or mere symbols of superstition one can hardly tell with accuracy when viewed from the ground level. The north and south portals of the transepts are of a florid nature, after the manner of most of the decorations throughout the structure, and are acceptable evidence of the ingenious craft of the stone-carver, if nothing more. The workmanship of these details, however, does not rise to the heights achieved by the architect who outlined the plan and foundation upon which they were latterly imposed. They are, too, sadly disfigured, the tympanum in the north portal having been disgracefully ravished. The interior arrangements are doubly impressive, not only from the effect of great size, but from the novel colour effect--a sort of dull, glowing pink which seems to pervade the very atmosphere, an effect which contrasts strangely with the colder atmosphere of the Gothic churches of the north. A curious feature to be noted here is that the sustaining walls of the vault rest directly on piers _sans_ capitals; as effective, no doubt, as the conventional manner, but in this case hardly as pleasing. Two altars, one at either end of nave and choir, duplicate the arrangement seen at Albi. The organ _buffet_, too, is of the same massiveness and elaborateness, and is consequently an object of supreme pride to the local authorities. It seems difficult to make these useful and necessary adjuncts to a church interior of the quality of beauty shared by most other accessories, such as screens, altars, and choir-stalls, which, though often of the contemporary Renaissance period, are generally beautiful in themselves. The organ-case, however, seems to run either to size, heaviness, or grotesqueness, or a combination of all. This is true in this case, where its great size, and plentifully besprinkled _rococo_ ornament, and unpleasantly dull and dingy "pipes" are of no æsthetic value whatever. The organ, moreover, occupies the unusual position--in a French church--of being over the western doorway. The nave is of extreme height, one hundred and ten feet, and is of unusual width, as are also the aisles. The rose window, before remarked, shows well from the inside, though its glass is not notable. A series of badly arched lancets in the choir are ungraceful and not in keeping with the other constructive details. The delicately sculptured and foliaged screen or _jubé_ at the crossing is a late fifteenth-century work. In one of the chapels is now to be seen, in mutilated fragments, the ancient sixteenth-century _clôture du choeur_. It was a remarkable and elaborate work of _bizarre_ stone-carving, which to-day has been reconstructed in some measure approaching its former completeness by the use of still other fragments taken from the episcopal palace. The chief feature as to completeness and perfection is the doorway, which bears two lengthy inscriptions in Latin. The facing of the _clôture_ throughout is covered with a range of pilasters in Arabesque, but the niches between are to-day bare of their statues, if they ever really possessed them. [Illustration: _Choir-stalls, Rodez_] The choir-stalls and bishop's throne in carved wood are excellent, as also an elaborately carved wooden _grille_ of a mixed Arabesque and Gothic design. There are four other chapel or alcove screens very nearly as elaborate; all of which features, taken in conjunction one with the other, form an extensive series of embellishments such as is seldom met with. Two fourteenth-century monuments to former prelates are situated in adjoining chapels, and a still more luxurious work of the same period--the tomb of Gilbert de Cantobre--is beneath an extensive altar which has supposedly Byzantine ornament of the tenth century. Rodez was the seat of a bishop (St. Amand) as early as the fifth century. Then, as now, the diocese was a suffragan of Albi, whose first bishop, St. Clair, came to the mother-see in the century previous. XX STE. CÉCILE D'ALBI The cathedral of Ste. Cécile d'Albi is one of the most interesting, as well as one of the most curious, in all France. It possesses a quality, rare among churches, which gives it at once the aspect of both a church and a fortress. As the representative of a type, it stands at the very head of the splendid fortress-churches of feudal times. The remarkable disposition of its plan is somewhat reflected in the neighbouring cathedral at Rodez and in the church at Esnades, in the Department of the Charente-Inférieure. In the severe and aggressive lines of the easterly, or choir, end, it also resembles the famous church of St. Francis at Assisi, and the ruined church of Sainte Sophie at Famagousta in the Island of Cyprus. [Illustration: ST. CÉCILE _d'ALBI_ ...] It has been likened by the imaginative French--and it needs not so very great a stretch of the imagination, either--to an immense vessel. Certainly its lines and proportions somewhat approach such a form; as much so as those of Notre Dame de Noyon, which Stevenson likened to an old-time craft with a high poop. A less æsthetic comparison has been made with a locomotive of gigantic size, and, truth to tell, it is not unlike that, either, with its advancing tower. The extreme width of the great nave of this church is nearly ninety feet, and its body is constructed, after an unusual manner, of a warm, rosy-coloured brick. In fact the only considerable portions of the structure not so done are the _clôture_ of the choir, the window-mullions, and the flamboyant Gothic porch of the south side. By reason of its uncommon constructive elements,--though by no means is it the sole representative of its kind in the south of France,--Ste. Cécile stands forth as the most considerable edifice of its kind among those which were constructed after this manner of Roman antiquity. Brickwork of this nature, as is well known, is very enduring, and it therefore makes much for the lasting qualities of a structure so built; much more so, in fact, than the crumbling soft stone which is often used, and which crumbles before the march of time like lead in a furnace. Ste. Cécile was begun in 1282, on the ruins of the ancient church of St. Croix. It came to its completion during the latter years of the fourteenth century, when it stood much as it does to-day, grim and strong, but very beautiful. The only exterior addition of a later time is the before-remarked florid south porch. This _baldaquin_ is very charmingly worked in a light brown stone, and, while flamboyant to an ultra degree, is more graceful in design and execution than most works of a contemporary era which are welded to a stone fabric whose constructive and decorative details are of quite a distinctly different species. In other words, it composes and adds a graceful beauty to the brick fabric of this great church; but likely enough it would offend exceedingly were it brought into juxtaposition with the more slim lines of early Gothic. Its detail here is the very culmination of the height to which Gothic rose before its final debasement, and, in its spirited non-contemporaneous admixture with the firmly planted brick walls which form its background, may be reckoned as a _baroque_ in art rather than as a thing _outré_ or misplaced. In further explanation of the peculiar fortress-like qualities possessed by Ste. Cécile, it may be mentioned here that it was the outcome of a desire for the safety of the church and its adherents which caused it to take this form. It was the direct result of the terrible wars of the Albigenses, and the political and social conditions of the age in which it was built,--the days when the Church was truly militant. Here, too, to a more impressive extent than elsewhere, if we except the papal palace at Avignon, the episcopal residence as well takes on an aspect which is not far different from that possessed by some of the secular châteaux of feudal times. It closely adjoins the cathedral, which should perhaps dispute this. In reality, however, it does not, and its walls and foundations look far more worldly than they do devout. As to impressiveness, this stronghold of a bishop's palace is thoroughly in keeping with the cathedral itself, and the frowning battlement of its veritable _donjon_ and walls and ramparts suggests a deal more than the mere name by which it is known would justify. Such use as it was previously put to was well served, and the history of the troublous times of the mediæval ages, when the wars of the Protestants, "the cursed Albigenses," and the natural political and social dissensions, form a chapter around which one could weave much of the history of this majestic cathedral and its walled and fortified environment. The interior of the cathedral will appeal first of all by its very grand proportions, and next by the curious ill-mannered decorations with which the walls are entirely covered. There is a certain gloom in this interior, induced by the fact that the windows are mere elongated slits in the walls. There are no aisles, no triforium, and no clerestory; nothing but a vast expanse of wall with bizarre decorations and these unusual window piercings. The arrangement of the openings in the tower are even more remarkable--what there are of them, for in truth it is here that the greatest likeness to a fortification is seen. In the lower stages of the tower there are no openings whatever, while above they are practically nothing but loopholes. The fine choir-screen, in stone, is considered one of the most beautiful and magnificent in France, and to see it is to believe the statement. The entire _clôture_ of the choir is a wonderful piece of stonework, and the hundred and twenty stalls, which are within its walls, form of themselves an excess of elaboration which perhaps in a more garish light would be oppressive. The wall-paintings or frescoes are decidedly not beautiful, being for the most part crudely coloured geometrical designs scattered about with no relation one to another. They date from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and are doubtless Italian as to their workmanship, but they betray no great skill on the part of those unknowns who are responsible for them. The pulpit is an unusually ornate work for a French church, but is hardly beautiful as a work of art. No more is the organ-case, which, as if in keeping with the vast interior, spreads itself over a great extent of wall space. Taken all in all, the accessories of the cathedral at Albi, none the less than the unique plan and execution thereof, the south porch, the massive tower, the _jube_ and _clôture_ of the choir, the vast unobstructed interior, and the _outré_ wall decorations, place it as one of the most consistently and thoroughly completed edifices of its rank in France. Nothing apparently is wanting, and though possessed of no great wealth of accessory--if one excepts the choir enclosure alone--it is one of those shrines which, by reason of its very individuality, will live long in the memory. It has been said, moreover, to stand alone as to the extensive and complete exemplification of "_l'art decoratif_" in France; that is, as being distinctively French throughout. The evolution of these component elements took but the comparatively small space of time covered by two centuries--from the fourteenth to the sixteenth. The culmination resulted in what is still to be seen in all its pristine glory to-day, for Ste. Cécile has not suffered the depredation of many another shrine. The general plan is distinctly and indigenously French; French to the very core--born of the soil of the _Midi_, and bears no resemblance whatever to any exotic from another land. With the decorative elements the case may be somewhat qualified. The _baldaquin_--like the choir-screen--more than equals in delicacy and grace the portals of such masterworks as Notre Dame de Rouen, St. Maclou, or even the cathedral at Troyes, though of less magnitude than any of these examples. On the other hand, it was undoubtedly inspired by northern precept, as also were the ornamental sculptures in wood and stone which are to be seen in the interior. Albi was a bishopric as early as the fourth century, with St. Clair as its first bishop. At the time the present cathedral was begun it became an archbishopric, and as such it has endured until to-day, with suffragans at Rodez, Cahors, Mende, and Perpignan. XXI ST. PIERRE DE MENDE In the heart of the Gévaudan, Mende is the most picturesque, mountain-locked little city imaginable, with no very remarkable features surrounding it, nor any very grand artificial ones contained within it. The mountains here, unlike the more fruitful plains of the lower Gévaudan, are covered with snow all of the winter. It is said that the inhabitants of the mountainous upper Gévaudan used to "go into Spain every winter to get a livelihood." Why, it is difficult to understand. The mountain and valley towns around Mende look no less prosperous than those of Switzerland, though to be sure the inhabitants have never here had, and perhaps never will have, the influx of tourists "to live off of," as in the latter region. [Illustration: ST. PIERRE _de MENDE_] During an invasion of the _Alemanni_ into Gaul, in the third century, the principal city of Gévaudan was plundered and ruined. The bishop, St. Privat, fled into the Cavern of Memate or Mende, whither the Germans followed and killed him. The holy man was interred in the neighbouring village of Mende, and the veneration which people had for his memory caused them to develop it into a considerable place. Such is the popular legend, at any rate. The city had no bishop of its own, however, until the middle of the tenth century. Previously the bishops were known as Bishops of Gévaudan. At last, however, the prelates fixed their seat at Mende, and "great numbers of people resorted thither by reason of the sepulchre of St. Privat." By virtue of an agreement with Philippe-le-Bel, in 1306, the bishop became Count of Gévaudan. He claimed also the right of administering the laws and the coining of specie. Mende is worth visiting for itself alone and for its cathedral. It is difficult to say which will interest the absolute stranger the more. The spired St. Pierre de Mende is but a fourteenth-century church, with restorations of the seventeenth, but there is a certain grimness and primitiveness about its fabric which would otherwise seem to place it as of a much earlier date. The seventeenth-century restorations amounted practically to a reconstruction, as the Calvinists had partly destroyed the fabric. The two fine towers of the century before were left standing, but without their spires. The city itself lies at a height of over seven hundred kilometres, and the _pic_ rises another three hundred kilometres above. The surrounding "green basin of hillsides" encloses the city in a circular depression, which, with its cathedral as the hub, radiates in long, straight roadways to the bases of these verdure-clad hills. It is not possible to have a general view of the cathedral without its imposing background of mountain or hilltops, and for this reason, while the entire city may appear dwarfed, and its cathedral likewise diminished in size, they both show in reality the strong contrasting effect of nature and art. The cathedral towers, built by Bishop de la Rovère, are of sturdy though not great proportions, and the half-suggested spires rise skyward in as piercing a manner as if they were continued another hundred feet. As a matter of fact one rises to a height of two hundred and three feet, and the other to two hundred and seventy-six feet, so at least, they are not diminutive. The taller of these pleasing towers is really a remarkable work. The general plan of the cathedral is the conventional Gothic conception, which was not changed in the seventeenth-century reconstruction. The nave is flanked with the usual aisles, which in turn are abutted with ten chapels on either side. Just within the left portal is preserved the old _bourdon_ called _la Non-Pareille_, a curiosity which seems in questionable taste for inclusion within a cathedral. The rose window of the portal shows in the interior with considerable effect, though it is of not great elegance or magnificence of itself. In the _Chapelle des Catechismes_, immediately beneath the tower, is an unusual "Assumption." As a work of art its rank is not high, and its artist is unknown, but in its conception it is unique and wonderful. There are some excellent wood-carvings in the _Chapelle du Baptistère_, a description which applies as well to the stalls of the choir. Around the sanctuary hang seven tapestries, ancient, it is said, but of no great beauty in themselves. In a chapel on the north side of the choir is a "miraculous statue" of _la Vierge Noir_. The organ _buffet_ dates from 1640, and is of the ridiculous overpowering bulk of most works of its class. The bishopric, founded by St. Sévérein in the third century at Civitas Gabalorum, was reëstablished at Mende in the year 1000. The Ermitage de St. Privat, the holy shrine of the former habitation of the holy man whose name it bears, is situated a few kilometres away on the side of Mont Mimat. It is a favourite place of pilgrimage, and from the platform of the chapel is to be had a fine view of the city and its cathedral. XXII OTHER OLD-TIME CATHEDRALS IN AND ABOUT THE BASIN OF THE GARONNE _Dax_ At Dax, an ancient thermal station of the Romans, is a small cathedral, mainly modern, with a portal of the thirteenth century. It was reconstructed from these thirteenth-century remains in the seventeenth century, and exhibits no marks of beauty which would have established its ranking greatness even at that time. Dax was a bishopric in the province of Auch in the third century, but the see was suppressed in 1802. _Eauze_ Eauze was an archbishopric in the third century, when St. Paterne was its first dignitary. Subsequently--in the following century--the archbishopric was transferred to Auch. As _Elusa_ it was an important place in the time of Cæsar, but was completely destroyed in the early part of the tenth century. Eauze, therefore, has no church edifice which ever ranked as a cathedral, but there is a fine Gothic church of the late fifteenth century which is, in every way, an architectural monument worthy of remark. _Lombez_ The bishopric of Lombez, in the ancient ecclesiastical province of Toulouse, endured from 1328 (a tenth-century Benedictine abbey foundation). Its first bishop was one Roger de Comminges, a monk who came from the monastic community of St. Bertrand de Comminges. The see was suppressed in 1790. _St. Papoul_ St. Papoul was a bishopric from 1317 until 1790. Its cathedral is in many respects a really fine work. It was an ancient abbatial church in the Romanesque style, and has an attractive cloister built after the same manner. _Rieux_ Rieux is perhaps the tiniest _ville_ of France which has ever possessed episcopal dignity. It is situated on a mere rivulet--a branch of the Arize, which itself is not much more, but which in turn goes to swell the flood of La Garonne. Its one-time cathedral is perhaps not remarkable in any way, though it has a fine fifteenth-century tower in _brique_. The bishopric was founded in 1370 under Guillaumé de Brutia, and was suppressed in 1790. _Lavaur_ Lavaur was a bishopric, in the ecclesiastical province of Toulouse, from 1317 to 1790. Its cathedral of brick is of the fourteenth century, with a _clocher_ dating from 1515, and a smaller tower, embracing a _jacquemart_, of the sixteenth century. In the interior is a fine sixteenth-century painting, but there are no other artistic treasures or details of note. _Oloron_ Oloron was a bishopric under St. Gratus in the sixth century; it ceased its functions as the head of a diocese at the suppression of 1790. The former cathedral of Ste. Marie is a fine Romanic-Ogivale edifice of the eleventh century, though its constructive era may be said to extend well toward the fifteenth before it reached completion. There is a remarkably beautiful Romanesque sculptured portal. The nave is doubled, as to its aisles, and is one hundred and fifty feet or more in length and one hundred and six wide, an astonishing breadth when one comes to think of it, and a dimension which is not equalled by any minor cathedral. There are no other notable features beyond the general attractiveness of its charming environment. The ancient _évêche_ has a fine Romanesque tower, and the cathedral itself is reckoned, by a paternal government, as a "_monument historique_," and as such is cared for at public expense. _Vabres_ Vabres was a bishopric which came into being as an aftergrowth of a Benedictine foundation of the ninth century, though its episcopal functions only began in 1318, and ceased with the Revolutionary suppression. It was a suffragan in the archiepiscopal diocese of Albi. Its former cathedral, while little to be remarked to-day as a really grand church edifice, was by no means an unworthy fane. It dates from the fourteenth century, and in part is thoroughly representative of the Gothic of that era. It was rebuilt in the eighteenth century, and a fine _clocher_ added. _St. Lizier or Couserans_ The present-day St. Lizier--a tiny Pyrenean city--was the former Gallo-Romain city of Couserans. It retained this name when it was first made a bishopric by St. Valère in the fifth century. The see was suppressed in 1790. The Église de St. Lizier, of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, consists of a choir and a nave, but no aisles. It shows some traces of fine Roman sculpture, and a mere suggestion of a cloister. The former bishop's palace dates only from the seventeenth century. _Sarlat_ A Benedictine abbey was founded here in the eighth century, and from this grew up the bishopric which took form in 1317 under Raimond de Roquecarne, which in due course was finally abolished and the town stripped of its episcopal rank. The former cathedral dates from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and in part from the fifteenth. Connected therewith is a sepulchral chapel, called the _tour des Maures_. It is of two _étages_, and dates from the twelfth century. _St. Pons de Tomiers_ St. Pons is the seat of an ancient bishopric now suppressed. It is a charming village--it can hardly be named more ambitiously--situated at the source of the river Jaur, which rises in the Montagnes Noir in Lower Languedoc. Its former cathedral is not of great interest as an architectural type, though it dates from the twelfth century. The façade is of the eighteenth century, but one of its side chapels dates from the fourteenth. _St. Maurice de Mirepoix_ Mirepoix is a charming little city of the slopes of the Pyrenees. Its ancient cathedral of St. Maurice dates from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and has no very splendid features or appointments,--not even of the Renaissance order,--as might be expected from its magnitude. Its sole possession of note is the _clocher_, which rises to an approximate height of two hundred feet. The bishopric was founded in 1318 by Raimond Athone, but was suppressed in 1790. [Illustration: THE END.] _Appendices_ I [Illustration: _Sketch map showing the usual geographical divisions of France. I., north; II., northwest; III., east; IV., southwest; V., southeast: also the present departments into which the government is divided, with their names; and the mediæval provinces which were gradually absorbed into the kingdom of France._ _There is in general one bishopric to a department._ _The subject-matter of this book treats of all of southwestern and southeastern France; with, in addition, the departments of Saône-et-Loire, Jura, Rhône, Loire, Ain, and Allier._] II _A Historical Table of the Dioceses of the South of France up to the beginning of the nineteenth century._ _Province d'Aix_ _Name_ _Diocese founded_ _First bishop_ _Date of suppression_ Aix _Nice, Avignon, Ajaccio, and Digne were allied therewith in 1802, and Marseilles and Alger in 1822._ (Archbishopric) First century (?) St. Maxim (?) Antibes Transferred to Grasse Apt First century (?) St. Auspice 1790 Grasse (Jurisdiction over Antibes.) Gap Fifth century St. Démétrius Riez Fifth century St. Prosper 1790 Fréjus Fourth century Acceptus Sisteron Fifth century Chrysaphius _Province d'Albi_ Albi Fourth century St. Clair Bishopric (Archbishopric) 1317 (?) Anthime Castres 647 as a Benedictine Robert, the first 1790 Abbey. Abbot 1317 as a Bishopric Mende Third century at St. Sévérein Civitas Gabalorum. and Genialis Reëstablished here in the year 1000 Cahors Fourth century St. Genulphe Rodez Fifth century St. Amand Arisitum Sixth century detached Déothaire Rejoined from the diocese of to Rodez Rodez 670 Vabres Benedictine 1790 Abbey, 862. Bishopric, 1317 _Province d'Arles_ Arles First century St. Trophime 1790 (Archbishopric) Marseilles First century St. Lazare St. Paul-Trois Second century St. Restuit 1790 Châteaux, or Tricastin Toulon Fifth century Honoré 1790 Orange Fifth century St. Luce 1790 _Province d'Auch_ Eauze Third century St. Paterne 720 (Archbishopric) Auch Fourth century Citerius (Bishopric then Archbishopric) Dax Third century St. Vincent 1802 Lectoure Sixth century Heuterius 1790 Comminges Sixth century Suavis 1790 Conserans Fifth century St. Valère 1790 Aire Fifth century Marcel Bazas Sixth century Sextilius (?) Tarbes Sixth century St. Justin Oloron Sixth century Gratus 1790 Lescar Fifth century St. Julien 1790 Bayonne Ninth century Arsias Rocha _Province d'Avignon_ Avignon Fourth century St. Ruf (Bishopric, becoming Archbishopric in fifteenth century) Carpentras Third century St. Valentin 1790 Vaison Fourth century St. Aubin 1790 Cavaillon Fifth century St. Genialis 1790 _Province de Bordeaux_ Bordeaux (Bishopric) Third century (Archbishopric) Fourth century Oriental Agen Fourth century St. Phérade Condom Raimond de (Ancient Galard abbey--foundation date unknown) Bishopric) Fourteenth century Angoulême Third century St. Ansome Saintes Third century St. Eutrope 1793 Poitiers Third century St. Nectaire Maillezais Fourteenth century Geoffrey I. (afterward at La Rochelle) Luçon 1317 Pierre de La (Seventh-century Veyrie abbey) Périgueux Second century St. Front Sarlat 1317 Raimond de (Eighth-century Roquecorne Benedictine abbey) _Province de Bourges_ Bourges Third century St. Ursin (Archbishopric) Clermont-Ferrand Third century St. Austremoine St. Flour 1318 Raimond de (Ancient priory) Vehens Limoges Third century St. Martial Tulle 1317 Arnaud de (Seventh-century Saint-Astier Benedictine abbey) Le Puy Third century St. Georges _Province d'Embrun_ Embrun (Archbishopric) Fourth century St. Marcellin 1793 Digne Fourth century St. Domnin Antibes Fourth century St. Armentaire (afterward at Grasse) Grasse Raimond de 1790 Villeneuve (1245) Vence Fourth century Eusèbe 1790 Glandève Fifth century Fraterne 1790 Senez Fifth century Ursus 1790 Nice Fourth century Amantius (formerly at Cemenelium) _Province de Lyon_ Lyon _The Archbishop of Lyon was Primate of Gaul._ (Archbishopric) Second century St. Pothin Autun Third century St. Amateur Mâcon Sixth century Placide 1790 Chalon-sur-Saône Fifth century Paul 1790 Langres Third century St. Just Dijon Bishopric in 1731 Jean Bonhier (Fourth-century abbey) Saint Claude Bishopric in 1742 Joseph de (Fifth-century Madet abbey) _Province de Narbonne_ Narbonne Third century St. Paul 1802 (Archbishopric) Saint-Pons-de- 1318 Pierre Roger 1790 Tomières(Tenth- century abbey) Alet 1318 Barthélmy 1790 (Ninth-century abbey) Béziers Fourth century St. Aphrodise 1702 Nîmes Fourth century St. Felix Alais 1694 Chevalier de 1790 Saulx Lodève Fourth century (?) St. Flour 1790 Uzès Fifth century Constance 1790 Agde Fifth century St. Vénuste 1790 Maguelonne Sixth century Beotius (afterward at Montpellier) Carcassonne Sixth century St. Hilaire Elne Sixth century Domnus (afterward at Perpignan) _Province de Tarentaise_ Tarentaise Fifth century St. Jacques (Archbishopric) Sion Fourth century St. Théodule Aoste Fourth century St. Eustache Chambéry 1780 Michel Conseil _Province de Toulouse_ Toulouse (Bishopric) Third century St. Saturnin (Archbishopric) 1327 Pamiers 1297 Bernard Saisset (Eleventh-century abbey) Rieux 1317 Guillaume de Brutia Montauban 1317 Bertrand du Puy (Ancient abbey) Mirepoix 1318 Raimond 1790 Athone Saint-Papoul 1317 Bernard de la 1790 Tour Lombès 1328 Roger de 1790 (Tenth-century Commminges abbey) Lavaur 1317 Roger d'Armagnac 1790 _Province de Vienne_ Vienne Second century St. Crescent 1790 (Archbishopric) Grenoble Third century Domninus Genève (Switz.) Fourth century Diogène 1801 Annency 1822 Claude de Thiollaz Valence Fourth century Emelien Dié Third century Saint Mars Viviers Fifth century Saint Janvier 1790 St. Jean de Fifth century Lucien Maurienne III _The Classification of Architectural Styles in France according to De Caumont's "Abécédaire d'Architecture Religieuse."_ Architecture Primordiale From the Vth to the Xth centuries. Romaine Secondaire From the end of the Xth century to the beginning of the XIIth Tertiaire or transition XIIth century Architecture Primitive XIIIth century Ogivale Secondaire XIVth century Tertiaire XVth and the first part of the XVIth century [Illustration] IV _A Chronology of Architectural Styles in France_ Following more or less upon the lines of De Caumont's territorial and chronological divisions of architectural style in France, the various species and periods are thus further described and defined: The Merovingian period, commencing about 480; Carlovingian, 751; Romanesque or Capetian period, 987; Transitional, 1100 (extending in the south of France and on the Rhine till 1300); early French Gothic or Pointed (_Gothique à lancettes_), mid-twelfth to mid-thirteenth centuries; decorated French Gothic (_Gothique rayonnant_), from the mid-thirteenth to mid-fifteenth centuries, and even in some districts as late as the last decade of the fifteenth century; Flamboyant (_Gothique flamboyant_), early fifteenth to early sixteenth; Renaissance, dating at least from 1495, which gave rise subsequently to the _style Louis XII. and style François I_. With the reign of Henri II., the change to the Italian style was complete, and its place, such as it was, definitely assured. French writers, it may be observed, at least those of a former generation and before, often carry the reference to the _style de la Renaissance_ to a much later period, even including the neo-classical atrocities of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. _Bizarre_ or _baroque_ details, or the _style perruque_, had little place on French soil, and the later exaggerations of the _rococo_, the styles _Pompadour_ and _Dubarri_, had little if anything to do with church-building, and are relevant merely insomuch as they indicate the mannerisms of a period when great churches, if they were built at all, were constructed with somewhat of a leaning toward their baseness, if not actually favouring their eccentricities. V [Illustration: _Neo-Basilica-IX Cent._ _Lombard Cruciform XI Century_ _The Romanesque Of Southern France in the XI Century_ _Norman Cruciform Plan XI Century_ _Leading forms of early cathedral constructions_] VI _The disposition of the parts of a tenth-century church, as defined by Viollet-le-Duc_ Of this class are many monastic churches, as will be evinced by the inclusion of a cloister in the diagram plan. Many of these were subsequently made use of, as the church and the cloisters, where they had not suffered the stress of time, were of course retained. St. Bertrand de Comminges is a notable example among the smaller structures. In the basilica form of ground-plan, which obtained to a modified extent, the transepts were often lacking, or at least only suggested. Subsequently they were added in many cases, but the tenth-century church _pur sang_ was mainly a parallelogram-like structure, with, of course, an apsidal termination. [Illustration: _Plan X Century Church_] A The choir B The _exedra_, meaning literally a niche or throne--in this instance for the occupancy of the bishop, abbot, or prior--apart from the main edifice C The high-altar D Secondary or specially dedicated altars E The transepts, which in later centuries expanded and lengthened G The nave proper, down which was reserved a free passage separating the men from the women H The aisles I The portico or porch which precedes the nave (_i. e._, the narthen of the primitive basilica), where the pilgrims who were temporarily forbidden to enter were allowed to wait K A separate portal or doorway to cloisters L The cloister M The towers; often placed at the junction of transept and nave, instead of the later position, flanking the west façade N The baptismal font; usually in the central nave, but often in the aisle O Entrance to the crypt or confessional, where were usually preserved the _reliques_ of the saint to whom the church was erected P The tribune, in a later day often surrounded by a screen or _jubé_ VII _A brief definitive gazetteer of the natural and geological divisions included in the ancient provinces and present-day departments of southern France, together with the local names by which the pays et pagi are commonly known_ Gévaudan In the Cevennes, a region of forests and mountains Velay A region of plateaux with visible lava tracks Lyonnais-Beaujolais The mountain ranges which rise to the westward of Lyons Morvan An isolated group of porphyrous and granite elevations Haute-Auvergne The mountain range of Cantal Basse-Auvergne The mountain chains of Mont Dore and _des Dômes_ Limousin A land of plateaux, ravines, and granite Agenais Rocky and mountainous, but with its valleys among the richest in all France Haut-Quercy A rolling plain, but with little fertility Bas-Quercy The plains of the Garonne, the Tarn, and the Avéyron Armagnac An extensive range of _petites montagnes_ running in various directions Landes A desert of sand, forests, and inlets of the sea Béarn A country furrowed by the ramifications of the range of the Pyrenees Basse-Navarre A Basque country situated on the northern slope of the Pyrenees Bigorre The plain of Tortes and its neighbouring valleys Savoie A region comprising a great number of valleys made by the ramifying ranges of the Alps. The principal valleys being those of Faucigny, the Tarentaise, and the Maurienne Bourbonnais A country of hills and valleys which, as to general limits, corresponds with the Department of the Allier Nivernais An undulating region between the Loire and the Morvan Berry A fertile plain, slightly elevated, to the northward of Limousin Sologne An arid plain separated by the valleys of the Cher and the Indre Gatinais A barren country northeast of Sologne Saintonge Slightly mountainous and covered with vineyards--also in parts partaking of the characteristics of the _Landes_ Angoumois A hilly country covered with a growth of vines Périgord An _ensemble_ of diverse regions, often hilly, but covered with a luxuriant forest growth Bordelais (Comprising Blayais, Fronsadais, Libournais, Entre-deux-mers, Médoc, and Bazadais.) The vine-lands of the Garonne, La Gironde, and La Dordogne Dauphiné Another land of mountains and valleys. It is crossed by numbers of ranges and distinct peaks. The principal subdivisions are Viennois, Royonnais Vercors, Trièves, Dévoluy, Oisons, Graisivaudan, Chartreuse, Queyras Valgodemar, Champsaur. Provence A region of fertile plains dominated by volcanic rocks and mountains. It contains also the great pebbly plain in the extreme southwest known as the Crau Camargue The region of the Rhône delta Languedoc Properly the belt of plains situated between the foot of the Cevennes and the borders of the Mediterranean Rousillon The region between the peaks of the Corbière and the Albère mountain chain. The population was originally pure Catalan Lauragais A stony plateau with red earth deposited in former times by the glaciers of the Pyrenees Albigeois A rolling and fertile country Toulousain A plain well watered by the Garonne and the Ariège Comminges The lofty Pyrenean valleys of the Garonne basin VIII [Illustration: _Sketch map of the bishoprics and archbishoprics of the south of France at the present day_] IX _Dimensions and Chronology_ CATHEDRALE D'AGDE Bishopric founded, Vth century Bishopric suppressed, 1790 Primitive church consecrated, VIIth century Main body of present cathedral, XIth to XIIth centuries ST. CAPRIAS D'AGEN [Illustration] Former cathedral of St. Etienne, destroyed at the Revolution, 1790 Apse and transepts of St. Caprias, XIth century Width of nave, 55 feet ST. JEAN BAPTISTE D'AIRE Cathedral begun, XIIIth century ST. SAVEUR D'AIX [Illustration] Eglise St. Jean de Malte, XIVth century Remains of a former St. Saveur's, XIth century Choir, XIIIth century Choir elaborated, XIVth century South aisle of nave, XIVth century Tower, XIVth century Carved doors, 1503 Episcopal palace, 1512 North aisle of nave, XVIIth century Baptistère, VIth century ST. JEAN D'ALAIS A bishopric only from 1694 to 1790 Remains of a XIIth century church STE. CECILE D'ALBI [Illustration] Begun, 1277 Finished, 1512 South porch, 1380-1400 Tower completed, 1475 Choir-screen, 1475-1512 Wall paintings, XVth to XVIth centuries Organ, XVIIIth century Choir stalls, 120 in number Height of tower, 256 feet Length, 300 (320?) feet Width of nave, 88 feet Height of nave, 98 feet ST. PIERRE D'ALET Primitive cathedral, IXth century (?) Rebuilt, XIth century Eglise St. André, XIVth to XVth centuries ST. PIERRE D'ANGOULEME [Illustration] City ravaged by Coligny, XVIth century Cathedral rebuilt from foundations of primitive church, 1120 Western dome, XIIth century Central and other domes, latter part of XIIth century Episcopal palace restored, XIXth century General restoration of cathedral, after the depredations of Coligny, 1628 Height of tower, 197 feet ST. PIERRE D'ANNECY Christianity first founded here, IVth century Cathedral dates from XIVth century Tomb of St. François de Sales, 1622 Tomb of Jeanne de Chantal, 1641 Episcopal palace, 1784 ST. CASTOR D'APT Gallo-Romain sarcophagus, Vth century Tomb of Ducs de Sabron, XIIth century Chapelle de Ste. Anne, XVIIth century ST. TROPHIME D'ARLES [Illustration] Primitive church on same site, 606 Foundations of present cathedral laid, 1152 Nave completed, 1200 Choir and chapels, 1423-1430 Cloisters, east side, 1221 Cloisters, west side, 1250 Cloisters, north side, 1380 Length, 240 feet Width, 90 feet Height, 60 feet Height of clocher, 137 feet STE. MARIE D'AUCH Ancient altar, IVth century First cathedral built by Taurin II., 845 Another (larger) by St. Austinde, 1048 Present cathedral consecrated, 1548 Additions made and coloured glass added, 1597 West front, in part, XVIIth century Towers, 1650-1700 Episcopal palace, XIVth century Length, 347 feet Height to vaulting, 74 feet NOTRE DAME DES DOMS D'AVIGNON [Illustration] Territory of Avignon acquired by the Popes from Joanna of Naples, 1300 Popes reigned at Avignon, 1305-1370 Avignon formally ceded to France by Treaty of Tolentino, 1797 Palais des Papes begun, XIIIth century Pope Gregory left Avignon for Rome, 1376 Cathedral dates chiefly from XIIth century Nave chapels, XIVth century Frescoes in portal, XIVth century Height of walls of papal palace, 90 feet " " tower " " " 150 feet Length of cathedral, 200 (?) feet Width of cathedral, 50 (?) feet NOTRE DAME DE BAYONNE Foundations, 1140 Choir and apse, XIIth century Destroyed by fire, 1213 Choir rebuilt, 1215 Completed and restored, XVIth century ST. JEAN DE BAZAS Foundations date from Xth century Walls, etc., 1233 West front, XVIth century CATHEDRALE DE BELLEY Gothic portion of cathedral, XVth century ST. NAZAIRE DE BEZIERS Primitive church damaged by fire, 1209 Transepts, XIIIth century Towers, XIVth century Apside and nave, XIVth century Glass and grilles, XIVth century Cloister, XIVth century Height of clocher, 151 feet ST. ANDRE DE BORDEAUX Three cathedral churches here before the XIth century Romanesque structure, XIth century Present cathedral dates from 1252 North transept portal, XIVth century Noailles monument, 1662 Length, 450 feet Width of nave, 65 feet NOTRE DAME DE BOURG Main body dates from XVth to XVIIth centuries Choir and apse, XVth to XVIth centuries Choir stalls, XVIth century ST. ETIENNE DE CAHORS [Illustration] Bishopric founded, IVth century Cathedral consecrated, 1119 Cupola decorations, 1280-1324 Choir chapels, XVth century Choir, 1285 Tomb of Bishop Solminiac, XVIIth century Choir paintings, 1315 Cloister, XIIth to XVth century Cupolas of nave, 50 feet in diameter Cupolas of choir, 49 feet in height Height from pavement to cupolas of choir, 82 feet Height from pavement to cupolas of nave, 195 feet Portal and western towers, XIVth century ST. NAZAIRE DE CARCASSONNE Present-day cathedral, St. Michel, in lower town, 1083 Restored by Viollet-le-Duc, 1849 Visigoth foundation walls of old Cité, Vth to VIIIth centuries Cité besieged by the Black Prince, 1536 Château of Cité and postern gate, XIth and XIIth centuries Outer fortifications with circular towers of the time of St. Louis, XIIIth century Length inside the inner walls, 1/4 mile Length inside the outer walls, 1 mile Saracens occupied the Cité, 783 Routed by Pepin le Bref, 759 Viscountal dynasty of Trencavels, 1090 Besieged by Simon de Montfort, 1210 Romanesque nave of St. Nazaire, 1096 Choir and transepts, XIIIth and XIVth centuries Remains of Simon de Montfort buried here (since removed), 1218 Tomb of Bishop Radulph, 1266 Statues in choir, XIVth century High-altar, 1522 Crypt, XIth century Sacristy, XIIIth century The "Pont Vieux," XIIth and XIIIth centuries ST. SIFFREIN DE CARPENTRAS A Roman colony under Augustus, Ist century St. Siffrein, patron of the cathedral, died, XVIth century Edifice mainly of the XVIth century Paintings in nave, XVIIIth and XIXth centuries Tomb of Bishop Buti, 1710 Episcopal palace built, 1640 Arc de Triomphe, Ist or IId century Porte d'Orange, XIVth century ST. BENOIT DE CASTRES Cathedral dates mainly from XVIIth century ST. VERAN DE CAVAILLON [Illustration] Cathedral consecrated by St. Veran, in person, 1259 Tomb of Bishop Jean de Sade, XVIIth century ST. ETIENNE DE CHALONS-SUR-SAONE Cathedral completed, XVIth century Rebuilt, after a disastrous fire, XVIIth century Remains of early nave, dating from XIIIth century Bishopric founded, Vth century Height of nave, 90 feet Length of nave, 350 feet CATHEDRALE DE CHAMBERY [Illustration] First bishop, Michel Conseil, 1780 Main body of cathedral dates from XIVth century NOTRE DAME DE CLERMONT-FERRAND [Illustration] Choir and nave, 1248-1265 Urban II. preached the Crusades here, 1095 Sanctuary completed, XIIIth century Nave completed, except façade, XIVth century Rose windows, XVth century Western towers and portal, XIXth century Height of towers, 340 feet Height of nave, 100 feet ST. BERTRAND DE COMMINGES [Illustration] First monastery here, VIth century Present cathedral mainly XIIth to XIVth centuries First bishop, Suavis, VIth century Monument to Bishop Hugh de Castellane, XIVth century Length, 210 feet (?) Width, 55 feet (?) CATHEDRALE DE DAX Main fabric, XIIIth century Reconstructed, XVIIIth century NOTRE DAME DE DIE A bishopric in 1285, and from 1672 until 1801 Porch, XIth century Romanesque fragments in "Porte Rouge," XIth century Restored and rebuilt, XVIIth century Length of nave, 270 feet Width of nave, 76 feet CATHEDRALE D'EAUZE Town destroyed, Xth century Gothic church (not, however, the former cathedral), XVth century STE. EULALIE D'ELNE Cathedral rebuilt from a former structure, XVth century Cloister, XVth century NOTRE DAME D'EMBRUN North porch and peristyle, XIIth century Romanesque tower rebuilt, XIVth century The "Tour Brune" XIth century High-altar, XVIIIth century Painted triptych, 1518 Coloured glass, XVth century Organ and gallery, XVIth century NOTRE DAME DE GRENOBLE Foundations of choir, XIth century Tabernacle, XVth century Tomb of Abbé Chissé, 1407 Former episcopal palace, XIth century Present episcopal palace, on same site, XVth century Eglise St André, XIIIth century "La Grande Chartreuse," founded by St. Bruno, 1084 "La Grande Chartreuse," enlarged, XVIth to XVIIth centuries Monks expelled, 1816 and 1902 ST. LOUIS DE LA ROCHELLE City besieged unsuccessfully, 1573 City besieged and fell, XVIIth century Huguenots held the city from 1557 to 1629 Present cathedral dates from 1735 NOTRE DAME DE LE PUY [Illustration] First bishop, St. Georges, IIId century Primitive cathedral, Vth century West façade of present edifice, XIIth century Choir, Xth century Virgin of Le Puy, 50 feet in height Aguille de St. Michel, 250 feet in height, 50 feet in circumference at top, 500 feet at base ST. ETIENNE DE LIMOGES [Illustration] Nave, XVth and XVIth centuries Romanesque portion of nave, XIth century Lower portion of tower, XIth century Clocher, XIIIth century Choir, XIIIth century Transepts, XIVth and XVth centuries Choir-screen, 1543 Coloured glass, XVth and XIXth centuries Tomb of Bishop Brun, 1349; de la Porte, 1325; Langeac, 1541 Crypt, XIth century Height of clocher, 240 feet Enamels of reredos, XVIIth century ST. FULCRAN DE LODEVE City converted to Christianity, 323 Earliest portion of cathedral, Xth century Main portion of fabric, XIIth century Cathedral completed, XVIth century Tomb of Bishop de la Panse, 1658 Height of nave, 80 feet CATHEDRALE DE LUCON Ancient abbey, VIIth century First bishop appointed, 1317 Richelieu bishop here, 1616-1624 Main fabric of cathedral dates from XIIth to XVIIth centuries Fabric restored, 1853 Cloister of episcopal palace, XVth century ST. JEAN DE LYON [Illustration] Bridge across Saône, Xth century Earliest portions of cathedral, 1180 _Concile générale_ of the Church held at Lyons, 1245 and 1274 Portail, XVth century Glass of choir, XIIIth and XIVth centuries Great bourdon, 1662 Weight of great bourdon, 10,000 kilos Chapelle des Bourbons, XVth century Astronomical clock, XVIth and XVIIth centuries STE. MARIE MAJEURE DE MARSEILLES First bishop, St. Lasare, Ist century Ancient cathedral built upon the ruins of a temple to Diana, XIth century New cathedral begun, 1852 Practically completed, 1893 Length, 460 feet Height of central dome, 197 feet ST. JEAN DE MAURIENNE Relique of St. Jean Baptiste, first brought here in VIth century Cloister, 1452 ST. PIERRE DE MENDE First bishop, Xth century Main fabric of cathedral, XIVth century Restoration, XVIIth century Towers, XVIth century Organ-case, 1640 Height of western towers, 203 and 276 feet ST. PIERRE DE MONTPELLIER Bishopric removed here from Maguelonne, 1536 Pope Urban V. consecrated present cathedral in a former Benedictine abbey, 1364 Length of nave, 181 feet Width of nave, 49 feet Length of choir, 43 feet Width of choir, 39 feet NOTRE DAME DE MOULINS Towers and west front, XIXth century Choir and nave, 1465-1507 Coloured glass, XVth and XVIth centuries Choir restoration completed, 1885 Sepulchre, XVIth century Height of western spires, 312 feet Château of Ducs de Bourbon (facing the cathedral) XIVth century ST. JUST DE NARBONNE [Illustration] Choir begun, 1272-1330 Choir rebuilt, XVIIIth century Remains of cloister, XIVth and XVth century Towers, XVth century Tombs of bishops, XIVth to XVIth centuries Organ buffet, 1741 Height of choir vault, 120 (127?) feet ST. CASTOR DE NIMES St. Felix the first bishop, IVth century St. Castor as bishop, 1030 Cathedral damaged by wars of XVIth and XVIIth centuries Length of grande axe of Arena, 420 feet Capacity of Arena, 80,000 persons STE. MARIE D'OLORON Earliest portions, XIth century Completed, XVth century Length of nave, 150 feet Width of nave, 106 feet NOTRE DAME D'ORANGE [Illustration] Oldest portions, 1085 Nave, 1085-1126 CATHEDRALE DE PAMIERS Clocher, XIVth century Nave rebuilt, XVIIth century Ancient Abbey of St. Antoine, XIth century First bishop, Bernard Saisset, 1297 ST. FRONT DE PERIGUEUX [Illustration] Primitive monastery founded, VIth century Cathedral dates from 984-1047 Cathedral rebuilt, XIIth century Cathedral restored, XIXth century Pulpit in carved wood, XVIIth Confessionals, Xth or XIth century Paintings in vaulting, XIth century Length of nave, 197 feet Height of pillars of nave, 44 feet Height of cupola of clocher, 217 feet Height of great arches in interior, 65 feet ST. JEAN DE PERPIGNAN [Illustration] Tower, XIVth century Rétable, XIV century Altar-screen, XIVth century Bishop's tomb, 1695 ST. PIERRE DE POITIERS [Illustration] Eglise St. Hilaire, Xth and XIth centuries Baptistère, IVth to XIIth centuries St. Radegonde, XIth and XIIth centuries Cathedral begun, 1162 High-altar dedicated, 1199 Choir completed, 1250 Western doorway, XVth century Coloured glass, XIIIth and XVIIIth centuries [Illustration] NOTRE DAME DE RODEZ [Illustration] Dates chiefly from 1275 Choir, XIVth century Nave, XVth century Cross-vaults, tribune, sacristy door, and façade, from about 1535 Clôture of choir designed by Cusset Terrace to episcopal palace designed by Philandrier, 1550 Episcopal palace itself dates, in the main, from XVIIth century Rose window of façade is the most notable in France south of the Loire, excepting Poitiers ST. PIERRE DE SAINTES Eglise St. Eutrope, 1081-1096 Primitive cathedral, 1117 Cathedral rebuilt, 1585 First two bays of transept, XIIth century Nave completed, XVth century Vaulting of choir and nave, XVth to XVIIth centuries Height of flamboyant tower (XIVth century), 236 feet CATHEDRALE DE SARLAT Benedictine abbey dates from VIIIth century Cathedral mainly of XIth and XIIth centuries Sepulchral chapel, XIIth century CATHEDRALE DE SION First bishop, St. Théodule, IVth century Choir of Eglise Ste. Catherine, Xth or XIth century Bishop of Sion sent as papal legate to Winchester, 1070 Main body of cathedral, XVth century ST. PIERRE DE ST. CLAUDE Abbey founded by St. Claude, Vth century Bishopric founded by Jos. de Madet, 1742 Bishopric suppressed, 1790 Bishopric revived again, 1821 Main fabric of cathedral, XIVth century Cathedral restored, XVIIIth century Length, 200 feet (approx.) Width, 85 feet " Height, 85 feet " ST. ODILON DE ST. FLOUR Bishopric founded, 1318 Present cathedral begun, 1375 " " dedicated, 1496 " " completed, 1556 Episcopal palace, 1800 Château de St. Flour, 1000 ST. LISIER OR COUSERANS Former cathedral, XIIth and XIIIth centuries Bishop's palace, XVIIth century STE. MARIE MAJEURE DE TOULON Main body of fabric, XIth and XIIth centuries Façade, XVIIth century Length of nave, 160 feet Width of nave, 35 feet ST. ETIENNE DE TOULOUSE [Illustration] Nave, XIIIth century Tower, XVth and XVIth century Choir, 1275-1502 Bishopric founded, IIId century Archbishopric founded, 1327 Width of nave, 62 feet ST PAUL TROIS CHATEAUX [Illustration] Chapel to St. Restuit first erected here, IVth century Town devastated by the Vandals, Vth century " " " " Saracens, 736 " " " " Protestants, XIVth century " " " " Catholics, XIVth century Former cathedral, XIth and XIIth centuries CATHEDRALE DE TULLE Benedictine foundation, VIIth century Cloister, VIIth century (?) Bishopric founded, 1317 Romanesque and transition nave, XIIth century ST. THEODORIT D'UZES Inhabitants of the town, including the bishop, mostly became Protestant, XVIth century Cathedral rebuilt and restored, XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries Tour Fénestrelle, XIIIth century Organ-case, XVIIth century Height of the "Tour Fénestrelle," 130 feet CATHEDRALE DE VAISON Cloister, XIth century Eglise de St. Quinin, VIIth century [Illustration] ST. APOLLINAIRE DE VALENCE Cathedral rebuilt and reconsecrated by Urban II., XIth century Reconstructed, 1604 Bishopric founded, IVth century Foundations laid, XIIth century Cenotaph to Pius VI., 1799 Height of tower, 187 feet CATHEDRALE DE VABRES Principally, XIVth century Rebuilt and reconstructed, and clocher added, XVIIIth century NOTRE DAME DE VENCE Fabric of various eras, VIth, Xth, XIIth, and XVth centuries Rétable, XVIth century Choir-stalls, XVth century ST. MAURICE DE VIENNE Bishopric dates from IId century St. Crescent, first bishop, 118 Cathedral begun, 1052 Reconstructed, 1515 Coloured glass, in part, XIVth century Tomb of Cardinal de Montmorin, XVIth century Metropolitan privileges of Vienne confirmed by Pope Paschal II., 1099 CATHEDRALE DE VIVIERS Choir, XIVth century Tower, XIVth and XVth centuries INDEX Abbey of Cluny, 59, 61. Abbey of Montmajour, 230. Acre, 56. Adelbert, Count of Périgueux, 38. Adour, River, 417. Agde, 53, 358, 359. Agde, Cathédrale de, 358-360, 520. Agen, 42, 429. Agen, St. Caprais de, 429, 431, 520. Agout, River, 471. Aigues-Mortes, 228, 319, 320. Aire, St. Jean Baptiste de, 469, 470, 521. Aix, 36, 230, 283, 293, 323, 324. Aix St. Jean de Malte, 324. Aix, St. Sauveur de, 323-327, 521. Ajaccio, 47. Alais, 249-251. Alais, St. Jean de, 249-251, 521. Alberoni, Cardinal, 240. Albi, 27, 41, 53, 54, 61, 95, 98, 274. Albi, Ste. Cécile de, 363, 482-489, 522. Albigenses, The, 365, 485, 486. Alet, 42. Alet, St. Pierre de, 350, 351, 522. Amantius, 330. Amiens, 60, 62. Andorra, Republic of, 373. Angers, Château at, 66. Angers, St Maurice d', 97. Angoulême, 55, 61, 73, 120, 124. Angoulême, St. Pierre de, 73, 120-125, 523. Anjou, 45, 71. Anjou, Duke of, 40, 44. Anjou, Henry Plantagenet of, 39. Anjou (La Trinité), 56. Annecy, 252-254, 256. Annecy, St. Pierre de, 252-254, 523. Antibes, 330, 339, 341. Aosti, 268. Apt, 289-291. Apt, St. Castor de, 523. Aquitaine, 38, 62. Aquitanians, The, 38. Aquitanian architecture, 54, 55, 66. Arc de Triomphe (Saintes), 115. Architecture, Church, 50-56. Ariosto, 235. Arles, 28, 33, 61, 217, 228-235, 283, 293. Arles, Archbishop of, 46. Arles, St. Trophime de, 37, 202, 228-235, 524. Arnaud, Bishop, 354. Auch, St. Marie de, 432-438, 524. Auch, College of, 438. Augustus, 221. Autun, Bishop of (Talleyrand-Périgord), 46. Auvergne, 29, 62, 72-74. Auzon, 221. Avignon, 33, 41, 53, 54, 241. Avignon, Papal Palace at, 377, 485. Avignon, Notre Dame des Doms, 204-220, 525. Avignon, Ruf d', 36. Baptistère of St. Siffrein de Carpentras, 222. Baptistère, The (Poitiers), 95, 96, 101. Basilique de Notre Dame de Fourvière, 185. Bayonne, 28, 57, 373, 387, 405-407, 410, 411. Bayonne, Notre Dame de, 405-410, 525. Bazas, St. Jean de, 411, 412, 526. Bazin, René, 229, 235. Bearn, Province of, 395, 406. Beauvais, Lucien de, 37. Becket, Thomas à, 111. Belley, 267. Belley, Cathédrale de, 526. Benedict XII., Pope, 211, 216. Bénigne, 171. Berengarius II., 371. Berri, 71, 72. Besançon, 267, 274. Besançon, Lin de, 36. Béthanie, Lazare de, 36. Bézard, 431. Béziers, 53, 363-365. Béziers, Bishop of, 365. Béziers, St. Nazaire de, 363-367, 526. Bichi, Alexandri, 224. Bishops of Carpentras, 221. Bishop of Ypres, 48. "Black Prince," The, 418, 453. Blois, Château at, 66. Breakspeare, 230. Bretagne, Slabs in, 64. Bridge of St. Bénezet, 219. Bordeaux, 57, 384, 387, 396, 397, 401. Bordeaux, St. André de, 94, 396-401, 526. Bossuet, Bishop, 420. Bourassé, Abbé, 83, 89, 328, 354, 433. Bourbons, The, 126, 127. 130. Bourg, 277-279. Bourg, Notre Dame de, 277-279, 526. Bourges, 41, 62. Bovet, François, 281. Boyan, Bishop, 247. Buti, Bishop Laurent, 224. Cæsar, 171. Cahors, 42, 44, 425, 428. Cahors, St. Etienne de, 425-428, 527. Cairène type of mosque, 55. Calixtus II., 189. Canal du Midi, 367. Canova, 194, 334. Capet, Hugh, 38, 39. Carcassonne, 28, 53, 319, 449-457. Carcassonne, St. Nazaire de, 57, 319, 449-460, 527. Carpentras, 221-226. Carpentras, St. Siffrein de, 221-225, 528. Carton, Dominique de, 224. Castres, 42, 471. Castres, Sts. Benoit et Vincent de, 471-473, 528. Cathédrale d'Agde, 358-360, 520. Cathédrale de Belley, 526. Cathédrale de Chambéry, 255-257, 529. Cathédrale de Condom, 420, 421. Cathédrale de Dax, 530. Cathédrale d'Eauze, 531. Cathédrale de Lectoure, 402-404. Cathédrale de Luçon, 85, 86, 533. Cathédrale de Montauban, 422-424. Cathédrale de Pamiers, 461-463, 536. Cathédrale de Sarlat, 540. Cathédrale de Sion, 302-304, 540. Cathedral of St. Michel, Carcassonne, 451, 452. Cathédrale de Tulle, 118, 119, 542. Cathédrale de Vabres, 543. Cathédrale de Vaison, 226, 227, 543. Cathedrale de Viviers, 195, 196, 544. Cavaillon, 226. Cavaillon, St. Veran de, 200-203, 528. Cevennes, 30, 72, 76-79, 136. Chalons, Simon de, 247. Chalons-sur-Saône, St. Etienne de, 170-173, 529. Chambéry, 28, 253, 255-257, 264, 267, 270. Chambéry, Cathédrale de, 529. Chapelle des Innocents, Agen, 431. Charente, River, 115. Charlemagne, 58, 59, 214. Charles V., 40, 45, 323. Charles VIII., 65. Charles the Great, 304. Charterhouse, near Grenoble, 62. Chartres, 60, 62, 232. Chartres, Aventin de, 37. Chartreuse, La Grande, 48, 162, 531. Chavannes, Puvis de, 102, 342. Chissé, Archbishop, 260. Chrysaphius, Bishop, 281. Church of St. Saturnin (Toulouse), 440-444. Church of the Jacobins (Toulouse), 440, 441, 443, 444. Clairvaux, 62. Clement V., Pope, 33, 211, 398, 400. Clement VI., 219, Clermont-Ferrand, 29, 33, 52, 57, 73, 74. Clermont-Ferrand, Notre Dame de, 144-151, 530. Clermont (St. Austremoine), 37. Cluny, Abbey of, 51, 59. Coligny, 121. Comminges, 464. Comminges, Roger de, 496. Comminges, St. Bertrande, 62, 464-468, 530. Comté de Nice, 256. Condom, 42. Condom, Cathédrale de, 420, 421. Conflans, Oger de, 271. Conseil, Michel, 256. Constantin, Palais de, 230. Corsica, Diocese of, 47. Coucy, Chateau at, 66. Coulon, 291. Danté, 134. Daudet, 165. Dauphiné, 30, 161, 162, 297, 298. Dax, 495. Dax, Cathédrale de, 530. Delta of Rhône, 168. D'Entrevaux, 280. De Sade, Laura, 204, 207, 208. Deveria, 250. Dié, Notre Dame de, 287, 288, 531. Digne, 281, 283-286. Dijon, 171. Dijon, St. Bénigne of, 63. Dioceses of Church in France, 39, 40. Diocese of Corsica, 47. Domninus, 259. Dordogne, 29. Duclaux, Madame, 25, 229, 235. Ducs de Sabron, Tomb of, 290. Duke of Anjou, 40, 44. Dumas, Jean, 433. Durance, River, 162, 292. Dürer, Albrecht, 325. Eauze, 495, 496. Eauze, Cathédrale de, 531. Edward I., 400. Edwards, Miss M. E. B., 24. Eglise de Brou, 277. Eglise des Cordeliers, 207. Eglise de Grasse, 339, 340. Eglise de la Grande Chartreuse, 263. Eglise de St André, 260, 351. Eglise de St. Claire, 208. Eglise de St. Pol, 75. Eglise de Souillac, 55. Eglise Notre Dame du Port, 145. Eglise St Nizier, 179. Eglise St. Quinin, 227. Eleanor of Poitou and Guienne, 39. Elne, 369, 372, 373. Elne, Ste. Eulalia de, 372-374, 532. _Emaux_ de Limoges, 104-107. Embrun, 230, 283, 285, 292-295, 300. Embrun, Notre Dame de, 292-295, 531. Escurial of Dauphiné, 62. Espérandieu, 348. Etats du Languedoc, 251. Eusèbe, 300. Evreaux, Taurin d', 37. Farel, Guillaume, 298. "Félibrage," The, 204, 218. Fénelon, 438. Fère-Alais, Marquis de la, 251. Fergusson, 99. Flanders, 30. "Fountain of Vauclause," 221. François I., 65, 120, 124, 354. Freeman, Professor, 95, 99. Fréjus, 330, 335, 336. Fréjus, St. Etienne de, 335-338. Froissart, 417. Gap, 296-299. Gap, Demêtre de, 36. Gap, Notre Dame de l'Assomption de, 296, 299. Gard, 29. Gard, Notre Dame de la, 346, 347. Garonne, River, 44, 388, 389. Gascogne, 390. Geneva, 252. Geraldi, Hugo, 427. Gervais, 365. Ghirlandajo, 133. Glandève, 280. Gosse, Edmund, 29. Gothic architecture, 60-65. Grasse, 330, 339. Grasse, Eglise de, 339, 340. Grasse, Felix, 24, 384. Gregory XI., Pope, 213. Grenoble, 28, 258-264. Grenoble, Notre Dame de, 258-264, 531. Guienne, 41, 389, 390. Guienne, Eleanor of, 39. Hamerton, Philip Gilbert, 159, 160, 170. Henri IV., 353, 406, 416. Honoré, 334. Hôtel d'Aquitaine (Poitiers), 102. Humbert, Archbishop, 180. Humbert, Count, 271. Ingres, 423, 424. Innocent IV., 201. Innocent VI., 225. Issiore, 75. Jaffa, 56. Jalabert, 250. James, Henry, 25. Janvier, Thomas, 26. Joanna of Naples, 209. John XXII., Pope, 41, 216, 428. Jordaens, 401. L'Abbaye de Maillezais, 81. Lackland, John, 40. La Cathédrale (Poitiers), 96. La Chaise Dieu, 62, 75. Lac Leman, 252. L'Eglise de la Sède Tarbes, 417-419. "La Grande Chartreuse," 48, 162, 531. Lake of Annecy, 252. La Madeleine, Aix, 324. Lamartine, 176. Languedoc, 32, 40, 44, 390, 391. La Rochelle, 73, 82, 83. La Rochelle, St. Louis de, 82-84, 532. La Trinité at Anjou, 56. Laura, Tomb of, 33. Lavaur, 497, 498. Lectoure, 402. Lectoure, Cathédrale de, 402-404. Les Arènes, 240. Lescar, 413. Lescar, Notre Dame de, 413-416. Lesdiguières, Duc de, 298. Les Frères du Pont, 220. Le Puy, 61, 134-136, 327. Le Puy, Notre Dame de, 97, 134-143, 532. Limoges, 57, 79, 80, 104, 105. Limoges (St. Martial), 37. Limoges, St. Etienne de, 104-111, 532. Limousin, 71, 72. Lodève, 246. Lodève, St. Fulcran de, 152-155, 533. Loire valley, 30. Lombardy, 33. Lombez, 496. Lot, 44. Loudin, Noel, 110. Louis IV., 240. Louis VII., 39. Louis XI., 295. Louis XIII., 353. Louis XIV., 210, 224. Louis XV., 210. Louis Napoleon, 397. Lozère, 28. Luçon, 42. Luçon, Cathédrale de, 85, 86, 533. Lyon, 28, 177, 178, 259, 267, 273. Lyon, St. Jean de, 177-185, 533. Macon, St. Vincent de, 174-176. Madet, Joseph de, 273. Maguelonne, 353, 354. Maillezais, 42. Maillezais, L'Abbaye de, 81. Maine, Henry Plantagenet of, 39. Maison Carée, The, 240. Mansard, 290. Marseilles, 36, 314, 318, 342. Marseilles, Ste. Marie-Majeure de, 318, 342-349, 534. Maurienne, 269-271. Maurienne, St. Jean de, 256, 269-271, 534. Memmi, Simone (of Sienna), 211, 216. Mende, 42, 246, 490, 492. Mende in Lozère, 27. Mende, St. Pierre de, 490-494, 534. Mérimée, Prosper, 26, 30, 224. Metz, Clement de, 36. Midi, The, 383-395. Midi, Canal du, 386. Mignard, 250, 282, 290. Mimat, Mont, 494. Mirabeau, 46. Mirepoix, 501. Mirepoix, St. Maurice de, 501. Mistral, Frederic, 163, 165, 218, 228. Modane, 270. Mognon, 84. Moles, Arnaud de, 436. Monastery of La Grande Chartreuse, 260. Montauban, 422. Montauban, Cathédrale de, 422-424. Mont de la Baume, 282. Mont Doré-le-Bains, 74. Monte Carlo, 213. Montfort, Simon de, 455, 459. Montmajour, Abbey of, 230. Montpellier, 40, 352-354. Montpellier, St. Pierre de, 352-357, 534. Mont St. Guillaume, 295. Morin, Abbé, 36, 37. Moulins, Notre Dame de, 126-133, 534. Nadaud, Gustave, 455-457. Naples, Joanna of, 209. Naples, Kingdom of, 45. Napoleon, 27, 210, 240. Narbonne, 42, 53, 54, 241, 375, 376. Narbonne, St. Just de, 375-379, 535. Narbonne (St. Paul), 37. Nero, Reign of, 36. Neiges, Notre Dame des, 223. Nice, St. Reparata de, 328-331. Nîmes, 28, 33, 40, 61, 218, 228, 229, 236-242. Nîmes, St. Castor de, 236-244, 535. Notre Dame de l'Assomption de Gap, 296-299. Notre Dame de Bayonne, 405-410, 525. Notre Dame de Bourg, 277-279, 526. Notre Dame de Clermont-Ferrand, 144-151, 530. Notre Dame de Dié, 287, 288, 531. Notre Dame de Doms d'Avignon, 204-220, 525. Notre Dame d'Embrun, 292-295, 531. Notre Dame de la Gard, 346, 347. Notre Dame de la Grande (Poitiers), 95. Notre Dame de Grenoble, 258-264, 531. Notre Dame de Le Puy, 97, 134-143, 532. Notre Dame de Lescar, 413-416. Notre Dame de Moulins, 126-133, 534. Notre Dame des Neiges, 223. Notre Dame d'Orange, 197-199, 536. Notre Dame de Rodez, 363, 474-481, 539. Notre Dame et St. Castor d'Apt, 289-291. Notre Dame de Vence, 300, 301, 544. Notre Dame du Port, 57. Noyon, 60. Obreri, Peter, 212. Oloron, 498, 536. Oloron, Ste. Marie d', 498, 536. Orange, 28, 33, 61, 225, 229. Orange, Notre Dame d', 197-199, 536. Orb, River, 366, 367. Order of St. Bruno, 260, 261, 263. Palais de Justice (Poitiers), 102. Palais des Papes, 54, 209. Palais du Constantin, 230. Palissy, Bernard, 117. Pamiers, 461. Pamiers, Cathédrale de, 461-463, 536. Paris, 29, 37, 46, 62, 232, 270. Parrocel, 290. Pascal, Blaise, 150, 151, 160. Paschal II., 189. Pas de Calais, 30. Pause, Plantavit de la, 154. Périgueux, 55-57, 61. Périgueux, St. Front de, 56, 87-91, 97, 537. Perpignan, 28, 368, 369, 373. Perpignan, St. Jean de, 368-371, 537. Petrarch, 204, 207-209, 211, 213, 221, 264. Peyer, Roger, 242. Philippe-Auguste, 40. Philippe-le-Bel, 41. Piedmont, 270. Pierrefonds, Château at, 66. Pius VI., 194. Pius, Pope, 210. Plantagenet, Henry (of Maine and Anjou), 39. Poitiers, 42, 73, 95-97, 327. Poitiers, Notre Dame de la Grande, 95. Poitiers (St. Hilaire), 61. Poitiers, St. Pierre de, 92-101, 538. Poitou, 71-73. Poitou, Eleanor of, 39. Polignac, Château de, 75, 76, 135, 143. Port Royal, 45. Provence, 32, 62, 163-167, 313. Provençal architecture, 54, 55, 57, 66. Ptolemy, 159. Puy, Bertrand du, 422. Puy de Dôme, 29, 73, 74. Puy, Notre Dame de la, 97, 134-143, 532. Pyrenees, The, 393-395. Religious movements in France, 23-48. René, King, 323, 326. Révoil, Henri, 348. Rheims, 60, 62, 229. Rheims, Sixte de, 37. Rhône valley, 28. Richelieu, Cardinal, 85. Rienzi, 211. Rieux, 497. Riez, 280, 281. Riom, 73. Riviera, The, 313-320. Rochefort, 73. Rocher des Doms, 213. Rodez, 29, 42, 274. Rodez, Notre Dame de, 363, 474-481, 539. Rouen, 60. Rouen, Nicaise de, 37. Rouen (St. Ouen), 52. Rousillon, 368, 369, 372. Rousseau, 256. Rovère, Bishop de la, 492. Rubens, 340. Ruskin, 63. St. Albans in Hertfordshire, 230. St. André de Bordeaux, 94, 396-401, 526. St. Ansone, 121. St. Apollinaire de Valence, 190-194, 543. St. Armand, 474, 481. St. Armentaire, 339, 341. St. Astier, Armand de, 119. St. Aubin, 226. St. Auspice, 289. St. Austinde, 433, 435. St. Austremoine, 37, 150. St. Ayrald, 271. St. Bénezet, 219. St. Bénigne of Dijon, 63. St. Benoit de Castres, 471-473, 528. St. Bertrand de Comminges, 62, 464-468, 530. St. Bruno, Monks of, 260-263. St. Caprais d'Agen, 429, 431, 520. St. Castor d'Apt, 523. St. Castor de Nîmes, 236-244, 535. Ste. Catherine, Church of, 303. St. Cécile d'Albi, 363, 482-489, 522. St. Clair, 489. Ste. Clara de Mont Falcone, 217. St. Claude, 272-274. St. Claude, St. Pierre de, 272-274, 540. St. Crescent, 37, 186, 296. St. Demetrius, 296. St. Denis, The bishop of, 37. St. Denis, 51. St. Domnin, 285. St. Emilien, 253. Ste. Estelle, 218. St. Etienne, 230. St. Etienne d'Auxerre, 407. St. Etienne de Cahors, 425-428, 527. St. Etienne de Chalons-sur-Saône, 170-173, 529. St. Etienne de Fréjus, 335-338. St. Etienne de Limoges, 104-111, 532. St. Etienne de Toulouse, 439-448, 541. St. Eulalie d'Elne, 372-374, 531. St. Eustache, 268. St. Eutrope (Saintes), 115-117. St. Felix, 241. St. Flour, St. Odilon de, 112-114, 540. St. François de Sales, 253. St. Fraterne, 280. St. Front de Périgueux, 56, 87-91, 97, 537. St. Fulcran de Lodève, 152-155, 533. St. Gatien (Tours), 37. St. Genialis, 201. St. Georges, 137. St. Gilles, 232. St. Hilaire, 61, 95, 96. St. Honorat des Alyscamps, 231. St. Jean d'Alais, 249-251, 521. St. Jean-Baptiste d'Aire, 469, 470, 521. St. Jean de Bazas, 411, 412, 526. St. Jean de Lyon, 177-185, 533. St. Jean-de-Malte, Aix, 324. St. Jean de Maurienne, 256, 269-271, 534. St. Jean de Perpignan, 368-371, 537. Ste. Jeanne de Chantal, 253. St. Jerome de Digne, 281, 283-286. St. Julian, 413. St. Juste de Narbonne, 375-379, 535. St. Lizier, 499, 540. St. Lizier, Eglise de, 499, 500, 540. St. Louis de La Rochelle, 82-84, 532. St. Marcellin, 285. St. Marc's at Venice, 56, 87-89, 346, 425. Ste. Marie d'Auch, 432-438, 524. Ste. Marie d'Oloron, 498, 536. Ste. Marie Majeure de Marseilles, 318, 342-349, 534. Ste. Marie Majeure de Toulon, 332-334, 541. St. Mars, 287. Ste. Marthe, 134. St. Martial, 37, 107. St. Martin (Tours), 61. St. Maurice, 304. St. Maurice d'Angers, 97. St. Maurice de Mirepoix, 501. St. Maurice de Vienne, 179, 184, 186-189, 193, 544. St. Maxine, 324. St. Michel, 142. St. Nazaire de Beziers, 363-367, 526. St. Nazaire de Carcassonne, 57, 319, 449-460, 527. St. Nectaire, 73, 74, 92. St. Odilon de St. Flour, 112-114, 540. St. Ouen de Rouen, 52. St. Papoul, 496, 497. St. Paul (Narbonne), 37. St. Paul Trois Châteaux, 305-309, 542. St. Phérade, 430. St. Pierre d'Alet, 350, 351, 522. St. Pierre d'Angoulême, 73, 120-125, 523. St. Pierre d'Annecy, 252-254, 523. St. Pierre de Mende, 490-494, 534. St. Pierre de Montpellier, 352-357, 534. St. Pierre de Poitiers, 92-101, 538. St. Pierre de Saintes, 115-117, 539. St. Pierre de St. Claude, 272-274, 540. St. Pons, 42. St. Pons de Tomiers, 500, 501. St. Pothin, 179. St. Privat, 491, 494. St. Prosper, 281. St. Radegonde (Poitiers), 95-98. St. Rémy, 235. St. Reparata de Nice, 328-331. St. Restuit, 305. St. Saturnin (Toulouse), 37. St. Sauveur d'Aix, 323-327, 521. St. Siffrein de Carpentras, 221-225, 528. St. Taurin, 433. St. Théodorit d'Uzès, 245-248, 542. St. Théodule, 303. St. Thomas, 134. St. Trophime, 230, 232. St. Trophime d'Arles, 37, 202, 228-235, 524. St. Valentin, 221. St. Valère (Trèves), 37. St. Venuste, 359. St. Véran, 301. St. Véran de Cavaillon, 200-203, 528. St. Vincent de Macon, 174-176. St. Vincent de Paul, Statue of, 285. St. Virgil, 230. Saintes, Eutrope de, 37. Saisset, Bernard, 463. Saône, River, 170, 174, 181. Sarlat, 42, 500. Sarlat, Cathédrale de, 540. Savoie, 30, 252, 256, 271. Scott, Sir Walter, 51, 58. Senez, 280. Senlis, 60. Sens, Savinien de, 37. Sévigné, Madame de, 392. Sion, Cathédrale de, 302-304, 540. Sisteron, 281. Sterne, 126, 184. Stevenson, R. L., 23, 30, 135, 249. Strasbourg, 51. Suavis, 464. Suger, Abbot, 51. Talleyrand-Périgord (Bishop of Autun), 46. Tarascon, Castle at, 66. Tarasque, The, 134. Tarbes, 417. 418. Tarbes, L'Eglise de la Sède, 417-419. Tarentaise, 256, 268, 270. Tarn, River, 422. Thevenot, 113. Toulon, 330, 332. Toulon, St. Marie Majeure de, 332-334, 541. Toulouse, 42, 439-441. Toulouse, Musée of, 441, 447. Toulouse, St. Etienne de, 439-448, 541. Toulouse, St. Saturnin, 37. "Tour Fenestrelle," 247. Touraine, 29, 71, 72. Tours, 29. Tours (St. Gatien), 37. Tours (St. Martin), 61. Treaty of Tolentino, 210. Trèves (St. Valère), 37. Tricastin, 305, 306. Trinity Church, Boston, 141, 346. Tulle, Cathédrale de, 118, 119, 542. Tuscany, 33. Unigenitus, Bull, 45. Urban, Pope, 33. Urban II., 145, 149, 150, 191, 458. Urban V., 354. Uzès, 245-248. Uzès, St. Theodorit de, 245-248, 542. Vabres, 42, 499. Vabres, Cathédrale de, 543. Vaison, 226, 227. Vaison, Cathédrale de, 226, 227, 543. Valence, 29. Valence, St. Apollinaire de, 190-194, 543. Vaucluse, 208. Vaudoyer, Léon, 348. Vehens, Raimond de, 112. Venasque, 222. Vence, 300, 301. Vence, Notre Dame de, 300, 301, 544. Vendée, La, 72. Veronese, Alex., 401. Veyrie, Réne de la, 85. Veyrier, 334. Vic, Dominique de, 434. Vienne, 29, 61, 229, 253, 259, 273, 296. Vienne, St. Maurice, 179, 184, 186-189, 193, 544. Villeneuve-les-Avignon, 213. Villeneuve, Raimond de, 339. Viollet-le-Duc, 88, 131, 146, 377, 442, 452, 455. Viviers, Cathédrale de, 195, 196, 544. Voltaire, 273. Werner, Archbishop, 51. Westminster Cathedral, London, 345. William of Wykeham (England), 51. William, Duke of Normandy, 39. Wykeham, William of, 51. Young, Arthur, 24, 208, 256, 273, 464. Ypres, Bishop of, 48. 
46069	----	provided by the Internet Archive VANISHED HALLS AND CATHEDRALS OF FRANCE By George Warton Edwards Illustrated with 32 Plates in full Color and Monotone. 1917 [Illustration: 0001] [Illustration: 0010] [Illustration: 0013] VANISHED HALLS AND CATHEDRALS OF FRANCE FOREWORD Quis funera faudo Explicet, aut possit lacrymis aequare Labores? Urbs antiqua ruit, fnultos dominât a per annos; Plurima perque vias sternuntur inertia passim. Corpora, perque domos, et religiosa deorum Limina! (Virgil, Æneid, II. v. 361.) Surviving the ancient wars and revolutions in this, "the Cockpit of Europe," the great examples of architecture of the early days of France remained for our delight. The corroding fingers of time, it is true, were much more merciful to them, but certainly the destroyers of old never ventured to commit the crimes upon them now charged against the legions of the present invader. These fair towns of Picardy and Champagne are sacked, pillaged and burned even as were the beautiful Flemish towns of Ypres, Malines, Termonde, Dixmude, and Dinant on the Meuse.... Never again shall we enjoy them: the chalices are broken and the perfume forever vanished.... The catastrophe is so unbelievable that one cannot realize it. The Seven Churches of Soissons, Senlis, Noyon, Laon, Meaux, Rheims, St. Remi; these such as man probably never again can match, are either razed to the foundations, or so shattered that it will be impossible to restore them. It is said that the Imperial Government has promised to rebuild these Gothic masterpieces.... One cannot trust one's self to comment upon this announcement. Imagine these sacred ruins.... Rheims!... Rheims can never be restored to what it was before the bombardment. Let it rest thus.... A sacred ruin--the scarred, pierced heart of France! Likewise "these fair sweet towns" of the middle ages; these wonderful little streets and byways, filled with the gray old timbered houses, "old in Shakespeare's day." Up to the outbreak of the war there were many of these throughout France, in spite of the wave of modernity which resulted in so much so called town improvement. In Arras the two old Squares, the Grand Place and the Petit Place, survived until destroyed by bombs in 1914. Those double rows of Ancient Flemish gables, and the beautiful lace like tower of the Town Hall cannot be forgotten, although they are now but calcined beams and ashes. Between the Seine and the Flemish frontier lay a veritable storehouse of incomparable architectural monuments. Of these Rouen, with its famous Cathedral, is happily out of reach of the guns of the invader, and one hopes out of danger. Beauvais likewise has not yet suffered, nor Chalons, with its great church of St. Loup and St. Jean, but the Cathedral and the town of Noyon have been leveled, and the gray walls of incomparable coucy-le-Château, "that greatest of the castles of the Middle Ages," whose lords arrogantly proclaimed "Roi ne suys, ne prince, ne duc, ne conte aussi; je suys le Sire de Coucy," have vanished forever from the heights under the wanton fire of the invaders' shells, and twenty thousand pounds of powder placed in the walls and exploded in revenge on the day of the retreat (April 1917). Amiens, for some reason, has been spared, but it too may yet receive its baptism of fire, even as Rheims. Amiens and Rheims! Never were there such miracles of art as shown in these temples! Rheims is now a ragged ruin of roofless leaning walls. So Amiens, miraculously preserved, is now the greatest existing example of Christian architecture in the world. In the following chapters I have quoted extracts from accounts written by eyewitnesses of acts committed by the invader in the devastated towns of France. I am not responsible for these statements, nor can I vouch absolutely for their truth, or correctness. I give them for what they are worth as part of the setting--the frame work of the pictures I have made of the noble, now vanished monuments which can never be replaced.... If I have betrayed bitter feeling it is because of their destruction by whomsoever accomplished. "Woe be unto him from whom offense cometh." The Author. Greenwich, Conn. May 1917. [Illustration: 0027] ARRAS |It was half-past six o'clock on a summer's morning, and a deep-toned bell in the cathedral sounded over the quaint gables of this really Flemish city of Arras. Although we were in France, little difference either in the people, costumes or architecture could be noted, so mingled here were the characteristics of the French and the Belgians. The sun was well up and gleamed hotly upon the old roof tops of the town, old many of them in Shakespeare's day, and flooded with golden light the quaint market place, now filled with swarming peasants. There were great heaps of flowers here and there, among the booths containing varied merchandise, and some of the market people were taking their morning bowls of hot _café au lait_, made fresh in green and yellow earthenware "biggins," over small iron braziers containing burning charcoal. The odor was inviting, and as the people are always kindly disposed towards the traveler who has _savoir faire_, one may enjoy a fragrant and nourishing bowl with them in profitable and friendly commune, for almost whatever he chooses to offer, and not rarely free of any fee whatever save a "thank you," which is always received with a gracious smile and a murmured "_N'pas d'quoi, M'sieu_," or an "_Au plaisir_." It was perchance a market morning in Arras, and the long open square lined on either hand with strangely gabled Flemish houses, and closed at the upper end by the admirable lofty towered Town Hall, was filling fast with arrivals from the country round about. Town Hall Arras [Illustration: 0031] Everything was fresh and clean from the late rains, and the air was laden with the mingled perfume of flowers; with butter and cheese. Country carts of extravagant design and painted green were unloading, and the farmer's boys were fitting together the booths for the sale of their varied commodities. Here and there were active dark complexioned Hebraic looking men and women, hard faced and sinister, who presided over stalls for the sale of cloth, shoes and the trinkets of small value calculated to tempt the peasantry. A cinematograph booth, resplendent with gilding, mirrors, and red and white paint, towered over the canvas covered booths, and a "merry go round," somewhat shabby by contrast, stood near it, its motive power, a small fat horse, contentedly eating his breakfast out of a brass hooped pail. The shops were opening one by one, displaying agricultural tools, and useful articles desired by the peasants. One heard bargaining going on, sometimes in the Flemish tongue, proving how near we were to Flanders, and sometimes in Walloon. Both tongues are used here, and the costumes partake of their characteristics, the women in neat if coarse stuffs, and the men in stiff blue blouses, usually in wooden shoes, too. This was remarkable, for the wooden shoe was fast vanishing from the towns. We noted too, that women were abandoning the snowy white lace trimmed caps once forming such a quaint feature of market day gatherings. Now various hideous forms of black and purple bonnets, decked out with beads and upstanding feathers disfigured them, but with what pride they were worn! This market place at Arras was a sight worth a long journey to witness, if but to see the display of animals, chickens, and flowers on a bright sunny morning in the square beneath the tower of the Town Hall. The fowls squawked and flapped their wings; dogs barked; horses neighed; and hoarse voiced vendors called out their bargains. Here and there the fowl were killed on the spot for the buyer, and carried off by rosy cheeked unsentimental housewives, carried off, too, often hidden in bunches of bright flowers. Did I write unsentimental?--An error. Nowhere were the common people more given to sentiment. Does not one remember the large room that la belle madame at the 'Couronne d'or provided for the traveling painter, who occupied it for two weeks, and during the season too, and when he discovered on the morning of departure that it was not included in the bill, on pointing out the omission to madame, did she not, and with the most charming smile imaginable say, with a wave of her shapely brown hands--"One could not charge for a room used as M'sieur's studio. The honor is sufficient to the 'Couronne d'or." And how to repay such kindness? In an hour the noise and chattering of a market morning was in full sway. And over all sounded the great bell of the Cathedral: other church bells joined in the clamor, and at once began an accompaniment of clattering wooden shoes over the rough cobbles towards the church doors. Following these people up the street, we entered the dim pillared nave of the old church. On Sundays and market days the interior formed a picture not to be forgotten, and one especially full of human interest. The nave was freer of modern "improvements" than most of the churches, and there was much quiet dignity in the service. A large number of confessional cabinets, some of very quaint and others of most exquisitely carved details, were set against the walls. Some of these had heavy green baize curtains to screen them instead of doors, and some of the cabinets were in use, for the skirt of a dress was visible below one of the curtains. The women before the altar knelt on the rush seats of small chairs, resting their clasped hands, holding rosaries, on the back, furnished with a narrow shelf between the uprights. They wore dark blue or brown stuff dresses, and small plaid shawls. We noted that not one of these wore wooden shoes or sabots. All on the contrary wore neat leather shoes. The women, especially the older ones, all turned their heads and curiously examined us as we tip-toed about, without, however, interrupting their incessant prayers for an instant. And they did not seem to resent our presence in the church, or regard it as an intrusion. In the subdued colored light from the painted windows, with the clouds of incense rising, the proportions of the columns and the lancet arches and windows were most impressive, and together with the kneeling peasants made a very fine effect. While there was little to be found in Arras that was really remarkable, for the town was given over to the traffic in grain and the townspeople were all very commercial, there were bits of the town corners and side streets worthy of recording. Near the dominating Town Hall were many types of ancient Flemish gabled houses, of which we shall not find better examples even in Flanders itself. Arras was as noisy as any Belgian market town where soldiers are stationed. There was the passing of heavy military carts through the ill-paved streets; the clatter of feet; the sounds of bugle and rolling of drum at sundown. The closing of the cafés at midnight ended the day, while at dawn in the morning the din of arriving and passing market wagons commenced again, followed by the workmen and women going to their daily tasks at the factories. "Do these people never rest?" asked Lady Anne, whose morning nap was thus rudely interrupted. Ma-dame's answer came: "Ah, indeed, yes. But not in the summer. Mark you, in the dark short days of winter, there is little going on in Arras. Then we are very quiet." Urselines Tower: Arras [Illustration: 0039] The old town was old, very old. There were of course some modern looking white houses of stucco in which we were told some rich people live, and there were large blank walled factories with tall chimneys, from which heavy black smoke poured the livelong day. There were plate glass windows here and there, too, in some of the shops, with _articles de Paris_ exposed for sale, and there were occasionally smooth pavements to be found, but mainly there were quaint old corners, high old yellow fronted, narrow windowed houses, and old, old men and older women passing to and fro in the narrow by streets. In one corner of the market place sat an ancient dame in a wonderful lace cap, who presided over a huge pile of pale green earthenware pots of various sizes and fine shapes, who all unconsciously made for me a picture in sunlight and shadow; brown wrinkled hands busy with knitting; brown wrinkled face and bright shrewd greeny blue eyes, twinkling below the flaps of her lace cap; all against a worn, old, rusty-hinged green door! I could not resist the opportunity. So in a convenient doorway I paused to make a note of it without attracting much attention from the passers-by. Entering the wide "place" (there were two of these) one was confronted by an astonishing vista of quaintly gabled Flemish houses on either hand, all built mainly after one model but presenting some variations of minor detail. These led to the Hotel de Ville. The houses were furnished with arcades below supported by monolithic sandstone columns. The Hotel de Ville, built in the sixteenth century (not a vestige of which remains at this writing, April, 1917), was one of the most ornate in France. Its fine Gothic façade rose upon seven quaintly different arcades, in the elaborate Renaissance style, pierced by ornate windows with Gothic tracery in the best of taste and workmanship. Overhead rose the graceful Belfry, terminating in a gilded ducal crown at the height of some two hundred and fifty feet. The weekly market fair was in full progress, and the old Grand' Place was swarming with carts, animals, booths, and chattering peasants. Before the Revolution, the Chapelle des Ardents and the spire of La Sainte-Chapelle on the Petit' Place commemorated the deliverance of Arras in the twelfth century from the plague called the "_mal des ardents_," when the Virgin is believed to have given a candle to two fiddlers, declaring that "water into which a drop of its holy wax had fallen would save all who drank it." * Behind the dominating tower of the Hotel de Ville was the modern Cathedral, formerly the abbey church of St. Vaast, with an unfinished tower of 1735. We found in the Chapel of the Virgin the tomb of Cardinal de la Tour d' Auvergne-Lauraguais, and the twelfth century tombs of an abbot, of Philippe de Torcy, a governor of Arras, and his wife. The treasury is said to have contained the blood-stained "_rochet_" worn by Thomas à Becket when he was murdered, but the sacristan refused to show it unless he was first paid a fee of two francs, which we thought exorbitant. * Hare's "Northeastern France." Arras was the capital of the Gallic tribe "Atrebates," and even in the dim fourth century was famous for the manufacture of woolen cloth, dyed with the madder which grows luxuriously in the neighborhood. The wearing of tapestry hangings gave Arras a high reputation, and examples are preserved in the museums of France and England, where the name of the town is used to identify them. The art has long since ceased to exist, needless to say. Briefly, the town followed the fortunes of the Pays d' Artois, of which it was the capital, passing by marriage from the house of France to Burgundy, Flanders, Burgundy again, Germany and Spain. After the battle of Agincourt, the English and French signed the treaty of peace at Arras. The town was finally incorporated with France in 1640. According to legend one of the ancient gates, of which no trace now remains, bore the proud distich= ```"Quand les souris prendront les chats, ```Le roi sera seigneur d'Arras."= which is said to have so enraged Louis of France that he expelled the whole population, abolishing even the name of Arras, which he changed to that of Franchise. Here was born the great Robespierre, but we were unable to find the house, or even the street in which it was situated, nor could any of the ecclesiastics to whom we applied for information enlighten us in regard to the matter. The Cathedral, a romanesque structure, at an angle of the abbey buildings, and approached by high stone steps broken by a platform, was built in 1755. Perhaps if we had not seen it after having feasted our eyes upon the exquisite details of the Hotel de Ville, it might have seemed more impressive and interesting. It contained some good pictures, including a "Descent from the Cross," and "The Entombment," attributed to Rubens and Van Dyck respectively. The high altar enshrined a notable bas-relief in gilt bronze. The Abbatial buildings were occupied by the 'Evéche, Seminary, Library, and the Musée, the latter containing a lot of modern paintings, badly hung, and seemingly indifferent in quality. In the cloisters, however, were rooms containing an archaeological collection of sculptures and architectural fragments, and a small collection of Flemish pictures by "Velvet" Breughel, Heemskerk, N. Maes and others, and upstairs, a fine model of an antique ship, "offered" by the States of Artois to the American Colonies in the War of Independence. One wonders why it was never sent. At the end of a quiet street which crossed the busy and crowded Rue St. Aubert, we came upon the remains of a remarkable old town gate, and the remains, too, of the ancient fortified walls, and farther on, the dismantled citadel constructed by the great Vauban in 1670, and called "La Belle Inutile." Here in this region, called the "cockpit of Europe," for ages incessant wars have been waged, covering the land with such a network of evidences of bitterly fought rivalries as no other portion of the earth can show, and when no foreign foe had to be baffled or beaten off, then the internecine wars of clan against clan have flooded the fair land with gore and ruin. But all was peaceful here about this old town this bright morning in July, 1910. There was no evidence of the red waves of the wars which had rolled over and eddied about this very spot, save the old dismantled Vauban tower and the remains of the ancient wall, in which we were only mildly interested. It was the present day's wanderings which interested us more; the lives of the peasants, their customs and their daily occupations. Time seemed to stand still here without any consciousness of backwardness. Nothing hurried at Arras, and change for the sake of change had no attraction for it. The ways of the fathers were good enough for the children. There was a newspaper here, of course, but yet the town crier held his own,--a strange looking old man in a long crinkly blue blouse, balloon like trousers of velveteen corduroy, wooden shoes and a broad brimmed felt hat. A drum hung suspended from his shoulder by a leather strap. He was followed by a small procession of boys and girls. He stopped and beat a vigorous tattoo on the drum; windows above and doors below were filled with heads as if by magic. He produced a folded paper from his pocket, glanced about him proudly conscious of the importance of the occasion, and read in a loud voice some local news of interest, and then announced the loss of something or other, with notice to hand whatever it was to the commissaire de Police, and then marched off down the street to repeat the performance at the next corner. The heads vanished from the windows like the cuckoos of German clocks, and the street was quiet again. Who could have believed that such a custom could have survived in the days of telegraph and telephone, and in a city of, say, thirty thousand inhabitants? The old streets and highways about the town were indescribably attractive, and beyond in the country, the shaded ways beneath large trees offered charming vistas, and shelter from the sun. The people seemed to have an intuitive feeling for harmony, and little or nothing in or about the cottages, save an occasional odoriferous pig sty, offended one. Colors melted into half tones in the most seductive fashion, and there was, too, an insistent harmony in the costumes of the peasants, the stain of time on the buildings or the grayish greens of the landscape. But of all this the peasant was most certainly unconscious. The glories of nature and her marvelous harmonies were no more to him than to the beast of the field. He was hard of heart, brutal of tongue and mean of habit. Balzac has well described him in his "Sons of the Soil." Money was his god, and greed his pursuit. Yet all about him nature bloomed and fructified, while he toiled and schemed, his eyes ever bent earthwards. The peasant had no sentiment. It was best therefore to view him superficially, and as part of the picturesqueness of the country, like the roofs and gables of the old town, say, without seeking out secrets of the "menage" behind the walls. We were interested in the various occupations of these semi-Flemish peasants, and the cries of the vendors in the streets in the early morning. Most of these cries were unintelligible to us because of the mixed patois, but it amused us to identify the cry of the vendor of eels, which was most lugubrious--a veritable wail of distress, seemingly. And when we saw her in the street below our windows, laden with two heavy baskets containing her commodity, her fat rosy face lifted to the sky, her appearance so belied the agonizing wail that we laughed aloud--and then--she heard us! What vituperation did she not address to us? Such a vocabulary, too! although we did not understand more than a few words she made it very plain that she regarded us as most contemptible beings. "_Miserable espece de Mathieux_" she called up to us again and again. Whatever that meant, whatever depths of infamy it denoted, we did not know, nor did we ever find out. We were much more careful thereafter, and kept away from the window, for setting down her baskets she planted herself on the curb opposite and there presiding over the curious group of market people whom she had collected about her, she raged and stormed with uplifted fat red arms gesticulating at our windows, until the crowd, wearying of her eloquence, gradually melted away. We never saw her again. There was also the seller of snails, whose cry was a series of ludicrous barks and cackles. I don't know how else to describe the extraordinary sounds he made. They quite fascinated us, for he varied them from time to time, taking seemingly much enjoyment in the ingenuity of his performance. His baskets, which hung by brass chains from a green painted yoke on his shoulders, contained a collection of very large snails, all, as he said, freshly boiled, and each shell being closed by a seal of fresh yellow butter, sprinkled, I think, with parsley (I never tasted them), and prettily reposing upon a bed of crisp pale green lettuce leaves. These seem to be highly esteemed by the people. Our chief search in Arras, after valuing the ancient halls and the limited treasures of the museum, was for some examples of the wonderful tapestries known far and near by the name of "Arras." In vain we sought a specimen; there was none in the museum, nor in the town hall either. Those whom we thought might be able to assist us in our search professed ignorance of any such article, and the priest whom we met in the cathedral, directed us to the local furniture shop for what he called "_belle tapis_" So we gave it up, most reluctantly, however. It is strange that not one example could be found in the town of this most renowned tapestry, for this ancient town enjoyed a reputation second to none in the low countries for art work of the loom. Cloth and all manner of woolen stuffs were the principal articles of Flemish production, but it was chiefly from England that Flanders drew her supply of wool, the raw material of her industry, and England was her great market as early as the middle of the twelfth century. There was a great guild established in London called the Flemish "Hanse," to which the merchants sent their manufacture. It was governed by a burgher of Bruges who was styled "Count of the Hanse." "The merchants of Arras became so prosperous and powerful, that (says a chronicler), Marguerite II, called The Black, countess of Flanders and Hainault, 1244 to 1280, was extremely rich, not only in lands but furniture, jewels, and money; and, as is not customary with women, she was right liberal and right sumptuous, not alone in her largesses, but in her entertainments and whole manner of living; insomuch that she kept up the state of a queen rather than a countess." (Kervyn de Lettenhove, Histoire d' Flandre, t, ii. p. 300.) To Arras, in common with the neighboring towns, came for exchange the produce of the North and the South, the riches collected in the pilgrimages to Novogorod, and those brought over by caravans from Samarcand and Bagdad,--the pitch of Norway and oils of Andalusia, the furs of Russia and dates from the Atlas, the metals from Hungary and Bohemia, the figs of Granada, the honey of Portugal, the wax of Morocco and the spices from Egypt: "Whereby" says the ancient manuscript, "no land is to be compared in merchandise to this land." And so, even if the guide books do dismiss Arras at the end of a few curt details with the words "The Town is now given over to various manufactures, and its few attractions may be exhausted between trains," Arras certainly did offer to the curious tourist many quaint vistas, a Town Hall of great architectural individuality, and in her two picturesque squares, the "Grand' Place" and the "Petit' Place," a picture of antiquity not surpassed by any other town in Northern France. Saint Jean Baptiste: Arras [Illustration: 0053] Quoting that eminent architect, Mr. Ralph Adams Cram, "We may pause in spirit in Arras (it would not be well to be there now in body, unless one were a soldier in the army of the Allies, when it would be perilous, but touched with glory), for sight of an old, old city that gave a vision, better than almost any other in France, of what cities were in this region at the high-tide of the Renaissance. It is gone now, utterly, irremediably, and the ill work begun in the revolution and continued under the empire, when the great and splendid Gothic Cathedral was sold and destroyed, has been finished by Prussian shells. "Capital of Artois, it had a vivid and eventful history, continuing under Baldwin of the Iron Arm, who became the first Count of Arras; then being halved between the Count of Flanders and the King of France; given by St. Louis to his brother Robert, passing to the Counts of Burgundy, reverting to Louis de Male, of Flemish fame, abandoned to the Emperor, won back by France;... coming now to its end at the hands of the German hosts. "What Arras must have been before the Revolution we can only guess, but its glorious Cathedral, its Chappelle des Ardents, and its 'Pyramid of the Holy Candle' added to its surviving Town Hall, with its fantastically beautiful spire, and its miraculously preserved streets and squares lined with fancifully gabled and arcaded houses, it must have been a sanctuary of old delights. The Cathedral was of all styles from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, while the Chapel and the Pyramid were models of medieval art in its richest state. Both were destroyed by one Lebon, a human demon and an apostate priest, who organised a 'terror' of his own in his city, and has gone down to infamy for his pestilential crime. Both the destroyed monuments were votive offerings in gratitude to Our Lady for her miraculous intervention in the case of the fearful plague in the twelfth century, the instrument of preservation being a certain holy candle, the melted wax from which was effective in preserving the life of all it touched. The Pyramid was a slender Gothic tabernacle and spire, ninety feet high, standing in the 'Petit' Place,' a masterpiece of carved and gilded sculpture, unique of its kind. Every vestige has vanished,--Berlin has just announced that it has been completely and intentionally destroyed by gun-fire. "The fine vigor of the Renaissance and its life were gone with the color and gold of the carved and painted shrines and houses, the fanciful costumes, the alert civic life.--Wantonly destroyed!" Madeline Wartelle, a voluntary nurse, who was in Arras during the great bombardment in July, 1915, wrote in the volume "Les Cites Meurtries" the following account of her experiences during the destruction of the Cathedral and the other noble buildings. "On July 2d, about six o'clock in the evening several shells fell upon the Cathedral. Then followed a calm for two hours. At half past eight, a bomb dropped from above, set fire to the house of M. Daquin in the rue de' l'Arsenal, and in a few moments the flames were mounting to a great height. When the firemen (_pompiers_) arrived, the fire had already spread to the house of Mme. Cornnan, and could not be confined even to the neighboring ones. During and following this catastrophe, at one o'clock in the morning, an avalanche of great bombs, those called 'Marmites,' fell all over this quarter of the town. This time, alas, we had no trouble in getting all the details of the happening, for our house collapsed, being struck by the second bomb dropped by the 'Taube,' which went through the roof to the cellar. Luckily, we had gone to R--s when the fire broke out, and thus we all escaped. "Forced to leave (Arras) we did not see the demolishment of the Cathedral and the Palace of St. Vaast on Monday, July 5th, but I set down here what I have learned from the lips of a witness of the deplorable 'aneantisment.' "From six o'clock on that date, the gun-fire of the 'Huns' was especially directed at the Cathedral, and the fire which ensued spread to the end of the Palace of St. Vaast, which contained the archives of the town, and which was entirely consumed, and spreading further likewise destroyed the Library and the Museum of the Seminary. The fire department did what it could to save the books and sacred objects, but their efforts were in vain, such was the rain of projectiles from the 'Taubes' above, and the shells from the great guns miles away. So the order to evacuate was given by the authorities. "At one o'clock the following morning the smouldering fire in the Cathedral was fanned by a high wind which sprang up, and soon enveloped the whole interior; the two great organs, the large pulpit, and the Bishop's stalls were entirely consumed. The fire in the Cathedral burned two whole days, watched by a mourning throng of the townspeople, who thus braved death by the falling bombs. All was consumed but the great door on the rue des Charriottes, which did not fall until the week following. On the twelfth day, at five in the morning, the fire demolished the Bishopric, and the Chapel of the great Seminary. Nothing is now left but a heap of smoking cinders and ashes, from which some charred beams protrude. The treasured Chateau d'Eau is gone!" Château, d'Eau: Arras [Illustration: 0061] "Happily, the 'Descent from the Cross' by Rubens, which decorated the Cathedral was removed from its place some hours before the fire, when the first of the great shells fell upon the town, and secreted by the priests. Also two 'triptychs' by Jean Bellegambe were saved by M. Levoy, who buried them in the cellar of the Chateau of the Counte de Hauteclocque. Curiously enough, some little time after they were thus secreted, a shell penetrated this cellar, but it is said that the damage to the pictures is small and may easily be repaired. "The Abbe Miseron, Vicar of the Cathedral, himself, at the peril of his life saved some of the most precious objects in the Treasury. He says (happily) that the great tombs of the Bishops, though buried beneath the ashes of the Cathedral, have suffered small damage. "Of the four colossal statues of the Evangelists, not a trace remains; they are entirely pulverized by the great shells exploding before them. "Of the Library, too, not a trace remains! Some of the archives have, I hear, been saved, together with a number of paintings, and M. Dalimeir, under secretary of Beaux Arts has decided to send them to Paris. All the rest has vanished. A fragment of the plan in relief of the old town of Arras, formerly in the Invalides was saved, but nothing remains of the Roman antiquities which were discovered in the caves beneath the town, nor of the old tapestries, nor the faience, nor of the objects which filled the galleries of Natural History in the museum.--All is gone! "In eleven months since the bombardment began, one hundred and seventy-five of our citizens have been killed in the streets and in their houses, and the number of wounded is more than double that number. After the demolition of our charming home, we found shelter for three nights in the cellar of a kind neighbor, but on the fifth of July, in the early morning, we had to take in our turn 'le chemin d' 'Exil.' For nine months now we have had to retreat from place to place, each filled with possible dangers, and certain discomfort, but with hearts filled too with profound emotion, and the hope that we may soon return to our beloved town and to our charming old home, our house so beloved--so peaceful once in those happy days, when the pigeons cooed on the eaves in the warm sunlight, the swallows darting to their nests on the chimney--all the cherished souvenirs of those past days--my tears--"... Our poor town"--(_ville Meurtrie_). "Around about Arras, the villages, once so smiling and prosperous, are now all in ruins.--Later on when glorious peace breaks upon the land of France, each hamlet shall be starred upon the pages of the golden book of history. And this black page of war once closed, that Arras-la-Morte shall rise from her ruins and ashes, more beautiful than ever, is my prayer." (Signed) Madeline Wartelle. July, 1915. In the _Journal Officiel_, of Paris, is the following:= ````Ministère de la Guerre. ```Citation à l' ordre de l' Armée.= Wartelle (Madeleine), Infirmière volontaire à l' ambulance 1/10 du Saint Sacrement: N'a cessé de prodiguer des Soins aux blessés et de fournir aux médicins la plus précieuse collaboration; a contribué par une action personnelle, lors du bombardment du 25 Juin, à sauver les blessés en les mettant hors d'atteinte des projectiles ennemis (27 Septembre 1915).= ````Ministère de l'Intérieur.= Le Gouvernement porte la connaissance du pays la belle conduite de Mlle. Wartelle (Madeleine): a fait preuve, dans des circonstances tragiques, du plus grand courage. Alors que l'ambulance du Saint-Sacrement à Arras, où elle était infirmière voluntaire, venait d' etre violemment bombardée, que des soldats et des religieuses etaient tués, elle est demeurée résolument à son poste, ardent à descendre à la cave les blessés, prodignant à tous ses soins empressés. (28 Novembre 1915.) LILLE |OUR fruitless search in Arras for some examples of the ancient tapestries somewhat dampened the ardor of our tour at the very beginning. But in the train on our way to Lille we Had a charming view of suburban Arras lying basking in the sun, all girt by its verdant belt of dense dark green trees. From the window of the railway carriage we saw the horizon expand, and hill after hill unroll, covered with waving corn, and realized that France s great northern granary lay spread before our eyes, the fields like cabochon emeralds set royally in virgin gold. Approaching Lille one got the impression of a region in which the commonweal formed the keynote, so to speak, and after the beauties surrounding quaint Arras, it seemed somewhat sordid. The embossed fair green hills were replaced by level plains; the smiling cornfields vanished before barren brown moors. The wealth of the earth here lay far below the plains, and man was busied in bringing it to the surface. Ceres gave way to Vulcan: Prosperous picturesque farmsteads were displaced by high black and ugly furnaces from which tremendous volumes of pitch black smoke issued the live-long day, and maybe the night as well. The stacks of grimy chimneys were seemingly as high as the spires of churches, and ashes and dust covered all. Lille is in the coal region. Somehow as we approached it we thought of our own Pittsburgh. The latter is no whit dirtier, but it is not so picturesque as was Lille. Roubaix, on the horizon, is even dirtier, so a traveling companion informed us, and gave us other information which kept us away from that Flemish town. Lille was said to be the administrative factor of northern France, in point of industry. The town had upwards of one hundred and thirty thousand inhabitants, among whom there were some possessed of great fortunes. These built for themselves houses of magnificent proportions on both sides of boulevards leading nowhere. In this region we found a café restaurant of princely aspect "as good as any in Paris," the townspeople proudly said, with a huge mansard roof, and a tower which did not fit it. On the river bank, lined with barges, were two fine promenades, brand new, and at the end of one was an artificial waterfall with plenty of water falling over artificial rocks in doubtful taste, of which the Lilleois were so pathetically proud that we could only smilingly agree to their extravagant joy in it as a work of art. Here we found American made tram cars running through the rather commonplace streets, which however were teeming with life and "business." In response to a question, a "cabby" urged as the greatest attraction a ride out to the hydraulic works situated on a plain, where a great engine pumped drinking water from a deep well inclosed in brick work. The whole atmosphere of the place was like unto that of one of our own Yankee towns. But there were, of course, some notable and picturesque buildings in Lille. There was the Exchange, the chief architectural ornament of the city, and really it was impossible to see it without pausing in admiration of its characteristics. Occupying, as it did, the great Market Place, I know of no other building like it save perhaps the Exchange in Antwerp, that lovely semi-Moorish hall with its shield-emblazoned frieze, and its lofty glass ceiling. This one at Lille was, of course, smaller, but it had the great advantage of being free from encroaching buildings, and standing quite alone, being visible from all four sides. Then, too, it was a genuine example of its order of architecture, a beautifully preserved specimen of the ancient Spanish style, with an added touch here and there of Italian Renaissance which blended charmingly. The walls were of Flemish red brick, while the Atrium, open to the sky, and serving as an inner court, was pure Italian. Here was a fine bronze statue of Napoléon I, all clad in imperial robes, about which the busy, bustling merchants of Lille transacted some of their business in the afternoons. In the mornings we found most delightful solitude here in this court, which then by contrast seemed liker unto the cloisters of some abbey than the busy commercial center it was later in the day. Emblazoned here upon marble slabs one could read of the records of famous citizens of the town whose deeds were esteemed as precious and noteworthy. It is said that it was at either Lille or Tournai that Napoleon found the golden bees which he adopted for the Imperial insignia, these being taken from the tomb of a Frankish king. We were further reminded of the Palais Royal in Paris, in the small shops, most brilliantly lighted at night, which formed the outer ring of the building. Here were displayed _bijoux-or-et-argent_, and also more or less exquisitely made robes for Madame de Lille. The upper part of the building, which was two-storied, had dormer windows, and a quadrant of beautifully designed and executed interlaced stonework with a profusion of caryatides, pilasters, and bands of carved stone fruit and garlands of flowers, all of the greatest richness, within an astonishingly small space. Nowhere could we find the name of the architect, but it is said that the foundation was laid in 1652 by the Spanish. Workmen were busy cleaning a small turret of most graceful design which rose from above the walls of this quaint old Hispano-Flemish monument, and I noted the care with which the work was being done, a pleasing testimonial to the love of the people of Lille for their ancient work of art. The Rihour Palace was far greater in size than the Exchange, but it did not match it in importance. The greater part of it was modern, for it was almost destroyed in the eighteenth century. Used as a town hall in the time of Louis Philippe, it became a sort of academy of art, wherein was displayed, and very well, too, a princely collection of paintings of Flemish and Dutch schools, and also the great collection of drawings known as the "Wicar Legacy," representing the Italian school, and containing a piece of sculpture of which all the museums of Europe envied that of Lille. This in the catalogue was described as, "A waxen head of Raphael's time, titled thus by the hand of Wicar himself when in 1834 he drew up in Rome the inventory of the old Italian art collection." * Huet regards this as a marvel that one should not miss seeing. He says, "In truth, one fancies himself to be looking at the transparent, softly tinted face of one of Raphael's Madonnas. Innocence and gentleness dispute each other the palm in the expression of the features, they have settled on the pure brow, they play tranquilly and somewhat sadly around the mouth, they are crowned by the plaits of the fair tresses." We admired the head and treasured Wicar's description of it. * "The Land of Rubens," C. B. Huet. Enumeration of the treasures contained in the Palais des Beaux Arts would take a volume in itself. Suffice it to say here that the collection contained in this edifice was among the most important in all France. Rumors have appeared in print during the last two years, that this whole collection has been carefully packed and sent to Berlin. At this date of writing (May, 1917) Lille has not yet been evacuated by the Germans, and we are told that none of the buildings has been destroyed save some unimportant ones near the railway station. Just what will be the fate of the town may be conjectured when one reflects upon what happened to Noyon, to Rheims, to Soissons, and to St. Quentin, when the invaders were no longer able to hold them. Let us pray that the Musée Wicar may be spared, by some happy chance. Wicar was an artist who died in 1834, who made a great deal of money by his work, and whose real hobby was the collection of the drawings by great masters, including nearly two hundred and fifty drawings by Michelangelo, sixty-eight by Raphael, and a large number by Francia, Titian and others, besides endless examples of the Renaissance. Statue of Jeanne d'Arc: Rheims [Illustration: 0077] Wandering about in Lille one came upon some handsome buildings behind the Hôtel de Ville in the Rue du Palais, which proved to be those of the Military Hospital, formerly a Jewish college. Here was an ancient chapel of the seventeenth century, containing a remarkable altar, and some huge dark paintings which may have been good, but the light was so dim, and they were hung so high that it was impossible to examine them. Continuing the wandering one reached the fine old town gate, the ancient Porte de la Barre, in a good state of preservation. There were a number of these gates. The old Porte de Paris was part of the fortifications, and built in the form of a sort of triumphal arch to the honor of Louis XVI. Some quaint streets as yet untouched by the march of commercialism, led from here into busy thoroughfares teeming with life and activity. One, running eastwards from the Porte de Paris, passed between a square and the old Hôtel du Génie, and this led one to the Gothic church of St. Sauveur, noteworthy for its double aisles, and most elaborate white marble high altar, carved in the Gothic style and with a bewildering detail and accompaniment of statues and alto-reliefs. There was also the great church of St. Maurice in the Flamboyant style, with a most notable west portal, most carefully restored in very good taste. An open-work spire of stone rose above it, all of admirable character. The interior proved to be distinguished by the width of the nave and the double aisles all of the same height, and by the richness of the effect lent by the remarkable lightness of the columns. The handsomest streets of the old town were the Rue Esquermoise and the Rue Royale. Near the entrance to the latter was the ancient church of St. Catherine, founded in the twelfth century, and rebuilt in its present style in the sixteenth, and restored again in the eighteenth century. Here above the altar was a fine "Martyrdom of St. Catherine," by Rubens. In common with the other Flemish cities of Douai, Cambrai, and Valenciennes, Lille suffered regularly from sieges and sackings, invasions and conquests from its very beginnings. "In June, 1297, Philip the Handsome, in person, laid siege to Lille, and on the 13th of August, Robert, Count of Artois, at the head of the French chivalry, gained at Furnes, over the Flemish army a victory which decided the campaign. Lille capitulated." "The English reinforcements arrived too late and served no other purpose but that of inducing Philip to grant the Flemings a truce for two years. A fruitless attempt was made with the help of Pope Boniface VIII, to change the truce into a lasting peace. The very day on which it expired, Charles, Count of Valois, and brother of Philip the Handsome, entered Flanders with a powerful army, surprised Douai,... gave a reception to its magistrates who came and offered him the keys. 'The burghers of the towns of Flanders,' says a chronicler of the age, 'were all bribed by gifts or promises from the King of France, who would never have dared to invade their frontier had they been faithful to their Count.' The Flemish communes desired the peace necessary for the prosperity of their commerce; but patriotic anxieties wrested with material interests.... "In the spring of 1304 the cry of war resounded everywhere. Philip had laid an import extraordinary upon all real property in his kingdom; regulars and reserves had been summoned to Arras to attack the Flemings by land and sea. He had taken into his pay a Genoese fleet commanded by Regnier de Grimaldi, a celebrated Italian admiral; and it arrived in the North Sea, blockaded Zierickzee, a maritime town of Zealand.... The Flemish fleet was beaten. A great battle took place on the 17th of August between the two great land armies at Mons-en-Puelle, or Mont-en-Pévèle, according to the true local spelling, near Lille. The action was for some time indecisive, and even after it was over both sides hesitated about claiming a victory; but when the Flemings saw their camp swept off and rifled, and when they no longer found in it 'their fine stuffs of Bruges and Ypres, their wines of Rochelle, their beers of Cambrai, and their cheeses of Bethune,' they declared that they would return to their hearths; and their leaders, unable to restrain them, were obliged to shut themselves up in Lille, whither Philip, who had himself retired to Arras, came to besiege them. When the first days of downheartedness were over, and the danger which threatened Lille, and the remains of the Flemish army became evident, all Flanders rushed to arms. "The labors of the workshop and the field were everywhere suspended; the women kept guard in the towns; you might traverse the country without meeting a single man, for they were all in the camp at Courtrai, to the number of twelve hundred thousand (!) according to popular exaggeration, swearing to one another that they would rather die fighting than live in slavery. Philip was astounded. "'I thought the Flemings were destroyed,' said he, 'but they seem to rain from heaven.' "The burghers of Bruges had made themselves a new seal whereon the old symbol of the bridge of their city on the river Reye was replaced by the Lion of Flanders, wearing the crown and armed with the cross, with this inscription: 'The Lion hath roared and burst his fetters' (Rugiit leo, Vincula fregit). "During ten years, from 1305 to 1314, there was between France and Flanders a continual alternation of reciprocal concessions and retractions, of treaties concluded and of renewed insurrections without decisive and ascertained results. It was neither peace nor war; and after the death of Philip the Handsome, his successors were destined for a long time to come to find again and again amongst the Flemish communes deadly enmities and grievous perils." * * Guizot's "History of France." What wonder then that Lille retains so few remarkable public monuments. Perhaps of all the Flemish towns she suffered most from pillage and fire. Farther on in the Rue Royale, beyond the statue of General Négrier, was the eighteenth century church of St. André, once belonging to the "Carmes déchaussés," where there were some good paintings by a native artist, Arnould de Vuez, who enjoyed considerable celebrity. Following the attractive quays along the river front, which was teeming with life and movement, one reached the small square of St. Martin, where was the church of "Notre Dame de la Trielle," which is said to have occupied the site of the ancient moated Chateau du Buc, which formed the origin of the city of Lille, and which the Flemish to this day call Ryssel. A fortress of the first class, Lille's citadel is said to have been Vauban's masterpiece, and perhaps this is one of the reasons why the invaders of 1914 surrounded it with the network of concrete trenches and galleries which formed the angle of the famous Hinden-burg line after the disastrous retreat from Arras in April, 1917. So far Lille has not suffered very much from the bombardment of this present year, but it is safe to say now that the invader will not spare it in retreat. AMIENS |THERE was no better way of realizing the great bulk and height of the Cathedral than by proceeding to the banks of the river Somme northward, and from this point appraising its architectural wonder rising above the large and small old gray houses, tier above tier, misted in the soft clouds of gray smoke from their myriad chimneys, capped with red dots of chimney pots, "a giant in repose." In approaching Amiens the traveler was offered no "coup d'oeil" like that of other cathedral towns; here "this largest church in the world except St. Peter's, at Rome," was hidden from view as one entered the town, and followed the Rue des Trois Cailloux, along what was formerly the boundaries of the ancient walls. It was difficult to obtain a good view of the façade, that of the west point was seen from a parvis, which qualified the difference in level between the east and west ends, and here was the central porch which took its name, "Porche de le Beau Dieu d'Amiens," from the figure of the Savior on its central pillar, and of which Ruskin wrote, "at the time of its erection, it was beyond all that had then been reached of sculptured tenderness." It is not known at this time of writing (May, 1917) whether Amiens has suffered greatly at the hands of the Germans. Perhaps without its destruction there have been sufficient crimes committed against the church in the name of military necessity, and it thus has been spared. For some reason or other Ruskin was not overenthusiastic over Amiens. He described the beautiful "flèche," which rose so gracefully from the great bulk against the sky, as "merely the caprice of a village carpenter," and he further declared that the Cathedral of Amiens is "in dignity inferior to Chartres, in sublimity to Beauvais, in decorative splendor to Rheims, and in loveliness of figure sculpture to Bourges." On the other hand, the great Viollet-le-Duc called it the "Parthenon of Gothic Architecture." Of the two authorities, one may safely pin one's faith to the opinion of the eminent Frenchman, who spent his life in restoring great works rather than in abusing them. Whewell says: "The mind is filled and elevated by the enormous height of the building (140 feet), its lofty and many colored clerestory, its grand proportions, its noble simplicity. The proportion of height to breadth is almost double that to which we are accustomed in English cathedrals; the lofty solid piers, which bear up this height, are far more massive in their plan than the light and graceful clusters of our English churches, each of them being a cylinder with four engaged columns. The polygonal E apse is a feature which we seldom see, and nowhere so exhibited, and on such a scale; and the peculiar French arrangement which puts the walls at the outside edge of the buttresses, and thus forms interior chapels all around, in addition to the aisles, gives a vast multiplicity of perspective below, which fills out the idea produced by the gigantic height of the center. Such terms will not be extravagant when it is recollected that the roof is half as high again as Westminster Abbey." Indeed this great height is only surpassed by that of one cathedral in all of France--Beauvais. The vast arches here rose to nearly half the height of the structure, and then above these the architect placed a lovely band or frieze of carved foliage; then the triforium, and above this the glorious windows, separated from each other only by tall slender pillars springing gracefully from heavier ones. Nearly all the original painted glass was destroyed in the thirteenth century, but that which replaced it was of a certainty entirely satisfying. Between two immense pillars at the entrance to the nave were the heavily ornamented gilded brass tombs of the Bishops who founded the Cathedral. That on the left was Geoffroi d'Eu, who died in 1236, and on the right was that of Evrard de Fouilloy, who died in 1223. Each shows a recumbent figure in full robes inclosed in Gothic canopies with pointed arches, and sustained by lions. The great organ loft was beneath the magnificent "rose de mer" window which was filled with the arms of the house of Firmin de Coquerel. In the choir were one hundred and ten carved stalls, said to have been designed and made by local artists of Amiens, and these alone would have made any cathedral noteworthy. According to that eminent authority, Mr. Francis Bond, the height of the nave and the aisles is three times their span, and this feature gave the effect for which the architect worked, that is, a splendid blaze of luminosity shining down into gloomy and most mysterious shadow. This blaze of light and color came not only from the clerestory, but also from the triforium, in which the superb blue glass shone with celestial splendor. The meaning of the word "triforium" is perhaps somewhat obscure to all save architects. Herbert Marshall * defines the word as "Applied to the ambulatory or passage, screened by an arcade, which runs between the pier arches and clerestory windows and is considered to refer to the three openings, or spaces, 'trinae fores,' into which the arcading was sometimes divided. It probably has nothing to do with openings in multiples of three, nor with a Latinised form of 'thoroughfare' as suggested by Parker's Glossary, although the main idea is a passage running round the inside of a church, either as at Westminster, in the form of an ambulatory chamber, or of a gallery pierced through the main walls, from whence the structure may be inspected without the trouble of using ladders. M. Enlart in his 'Manuel d'Archéologie Française' derives the word from a French adjective, 'trifore,' or 'trifoire,' through the Latin 'transforatus,' a passage pierced through the thickness of the wall; and this idea of a passageway is certainly suggested by an old writer, Gervase, who, in his description of the new cathedral of Canterbury, rebuilt after the fire, alludes to the increased number of passages round the church under the word 'triforia.' 'Ibi triforium unum, hie duo in Choro, et in alâ ecclesiae tercium.'" * "Gothic Architecture in England." Ruskin wrote in his diary under date of May 11th, 1857: "I had a happy walk here (Amiens) this afternoon, down among the branching currents of the Somme: it divides into five or six, shallow, green and not over-wholesome; some quite narrow and foul, running beneath clusters of fearful houses, reeling masses of rotten timber; and a few mere stumps of pollard willow sticking out of the banks of soft mud, only retained in shape of bank by being shored up with timbers; and boats like paper boats, nearly as thin at least, for costermongers to paddle about in among the weeds, the water soaking through the lath bottoms, and floating the dead leaves from the vegetable baskets with which they were loaded. Miserable little back yards, opening to the water, with steep stone steps down to it, and little platforms for the ducks; and separate duck staircases, composed of a sloping board with cross bits of wood leading to the ducks' doors; and sometimes a flower pot or two on them, or even a flower--one group of wall flowers and geraniums curiously vivid, being seen against the darkness of a dyer's backyard, who had been dyeing black, and all was black in his yard but the flowers, and they fiery and pure; the water by no means so, but still working its way steadily over the weeds, until it narrowed into a current strong enough to turn two or three 'wind mills,' (!) one working against the side of an old Flamboyant Gothic church, whose richly traceried buttresses sloped down into the filthy stream; all exquisitely picturesque, and no less miserable. (! ) We delight in seeing the figures in these boats, pushing them about the bits of blue water, in Prout's drawings; but as I looked to-day at the unhealthy face and melancholy mien of the man in the boat pushing his load of peat along the ditch, and of the people, men as well as women, who sat spinning gloomily at cottage doors, I could not help feeling how many persons must pay for my picturesque subject and happy walk." The reader will probably exclaim: "Well, if this is Ruskin's idea of a 'happy walk,' what then would be his description of a gloomy one?" We did not find the view of the town so squalid as this. Rising against the golden glow of the evening sky, the great bulk of the Cathedral massed itself in purple mist, its slender needle-like center tower and spire piercing the sky. Below lay the dull reds and slaty grays of the houses, concealed here and there by the massive foliage of the trees that lined the river bank. Barges of picturesque shape were tied up to the banks here and there, with lines of pink, white and blue freshly washed clothes strung along the decks, where children played, and there were brightly painted cabin deck houses, all white and green, from the chimney pipes of which ascended long pale lines of smoke from the galley stoves, showing that the evening meal was being cooked. On the decks of these barges nervous shaggy dogs ran up and down barking furiously at one thing or another; over all seemed to rest the air of well being and sweet content. If there were stagnant pools of filthy water, as Ruskin claimed, we saw them not, nor did the peasants seem unhealthy or miserable to our eyes. Amiens was delightful to look upon, and we drove back to the hotel quite satisfied with our first view of it. Day by day afterwards we haunted the great Cathedral, studying it from every viewpoint. Again and again we returned to the choir to gloat over the one hundred and ten magnificent stalls, carved as fluently as if modeled in clay, the forms so flowing and graceful as to suggest living branches, pinnacle crowning pinnacle, and detail of grace of design so exquisite as to be almost painful to follow--"Imperishable, fuller of leafage than any forest, and fuller of story than any book." (Ruskin.) The outside wall of the choir was quite concealed by the most richly Flamboyant Gothic archwork. In these arches were quantities of figures of saints, all emblazoned with gold and crimson and blue. These groups have been described by Lubke so well that I can do no better than quote him: "St. John is shown when he sees Christ and points him out to the multitude; then St. John preaching in the wilderness, and the Baptism of Christ, which is arranged with peculiar beauty and simplicity; lastly St. John as a preacher of repentance when the listening multitude is depicted with life. Then there are four scenes: the Apprehension of St. John; the Banquet, at which Herodias asks for the head of the Preacher of Repentance--a scene executed with genre-like style, the figures appearing in the costume of the period; the 'Beheading of St. John'; and, lastly, another banquet scene, in which the severed head appears on the table, and Herodias puts out the eyes, at which her daughter sinks in a swoon, and is caught up by a young man, while a page in horror runs away with the dish. Below these larger representations, in the one case in ten, in the other in five medallions, scenes from the youth of St. John are depicted. The relief is more shallow, and with simple arrangement is very attractive in expression." The great blazing rose windows of the transept were named "Fire" and "Water," but which was which we never quite discovered, because of a difference of opinion held by those whom we questioned, but this did not in the least affect our opinion of their great artistic value, or interfere with our admiration. In the south transept we readily found the gravestone in memory of the Spanish Captain Hernando Tiello, who captured Amiens in 1597, and just opposite, the great stone sarcophagus of the Canon Claude Pierre, who must have been a canon of great importance, to have been so favored and placed. In the Chapel of Notre Dame de Puy were a great number of marble tablets emblazoned with the names of the Fraternity of Puy, and bore reliefs in marble, showing scenes in the life of the Virgin Mary. Here there was much intricate Flamboyant tracery framing some scenes in the life of St. James the Great, of the sixteenth century style, presented by Canon Guillaume Aucouteaux. The north transept contained the fine monument of the Canon Jehan Wyts, who died in 1523. This showed the temple at Jerusalem, in four scenes depicting the "Sanctum," the "Atrium," the "Tabernaculum," and "Sanctum-Sanctorum." In this transept was buried the remains of the comic poet "Gresset," who flourished in the eighteenth century, and a great shrine for the head of John the Baptist, said to be incased here, and to have been brought from the Holy Land and presented with imposing ceremonies, by the Crusader Wallon de Sarton, who was likewise Canon of Picquigny. Singularly enough there were several other heads incased in magnificent jeweled reliquaries which were to be seen in other churches, notably in the south of France, and in Genoa, each one claiming, with much documentary proof, to be the sole and only authentic head of the Great Preacher of Repentance. In one of the chapels in the left aisle of the nave, that of St. Saulve, was a remarkable crucifix, which enjoyed great repute, for it was gravely alleged to have bowed its head upon the occasion of the installment of the sacred relics of St. Honoré. Inside the great open porches the whole space was filled with the most delicate fourteenth century lacework in stone. The principal one showed on its frontal a statue of St. Michael conquering the dragon. The fine ironwork of the doors was made in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by natives of Amiens, whose names are forgotten. Walter Pater ("Miscellaneous Studies") says: "The builders of the church seem to have projected no very noticeable towers; though it is conventional to regret their absence, especially with visitors from England, where indeed cathedral and other towers are apt to be good and really make their mark.... The great western towers are lost in the west front, the grandest, perhaps the earliest, of its species--three profound sculptured portals; a double gallery above, the upper gallery carrying colossal images of twenty-two kings of the house of Judah, ancestors of our Lady; then the great rose; above it the Singers' Gallery, half marking the gable of the nave, and uniting at their topmost stories the twin, but not exactly equal or similar towers, oddly oblong in plan as if meant to carry pyramids or spires. In most cases these early Pointed churches are entangled, here and there, by the construction of the old round-arched style, the heavy Norman or other, Romanesque chapel or aisle, side by side, though in strange contrast, with the soaring new Gothic nave or transept. But of the older manner of the round arch, the 'plein-cintre,' Amiens has nowhere, or almost nowhere, a trace. The Pointed style, fully pronounced, but in all the purity of its first period, found here its completest expression." Amiens, the ancient capital of Picardy, was one of the greatest of the manufacturing towns of France. There were many large factories engaged in the production of cashmere, velvet, linen, and woolens, and in the early morning, and again at night, thousands of the employees filled the streets of the town on their way to and from work. It was called by the Ambiani, before it was captured by Cæsar, Samarobriva, and was their chief town. Christianity was introduced by St. Firmin in the year 301, which perhaps is as far back as any one cares to go in the matter. And history farther cautions the reader not to confound this St. Firmin with that other St. Firmin, who was only a "Confessor" or something of the sort. The Normans seem to have had a strong desire to put an end to the town, for they regularly pillaged and burned it. The place was ceded to the Duke of Burgundy in 1435, but was recovered in 1463 by Louis XI. The Spaniards conquered it in 1597, but Henry IV retook it from them. The Peace of Amiens between France, Great Britain, Spain and Holland was signed here in 1802. The battle of Amiens, in the Franco-Prussian War, resulted in the entry of the Germans in November, 1870. Its present fate is problematical, but it would seem, in view of the retirement of the invader northward of Arras and Lens, that the great and noble monuments of the ancient town are now safe. Heinrich Heine long ago wrote the following prophetic words: "Christianity--and this is its highest merit--has in some degree softened, but it could not destroy, the brutal German joy of battle. When once the taming talisman, the Cross, breaks in two, the savagery of the old fighters, the senseless Berserker fury, of which the Northern poets sing and say so much, will gush up anew. That talisman is decayed, and the day will come when it will piteously collapse. Then the old stone gods will rise from the silent ruins, and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes. Thor, with his giant's hammer, will at last spring up, and shatter to bits the Gothic Cathedrals." PÉRONNE |THE delightful banks of the river Somme are imprinted on one's memory among those "sweet places" where it would seem as though man could not but choose to be happy, so liberally had nature decked them with her gifts. Yet all of this region formerly known as Flanders, has from time immemorial been war's favorite playground, "the Cockpit of Europe." Even in the intervals of wars, strife equally bitter, if less bloody, has raged here,--the struggle of industry against adequate reward. One could never forget the sight of women laboring early and late in the fields, or harnessed together at the end of long tow lines, painfully dragging barges against the current of the river, or in the factory yards, trampling with bare feet a mixture of coal dust and clay which, molded into briquettes, was used as fuel. Strangely enough, these women and girls, some of them of tender age, seemed happy and content with their work. The sound of their singing as they labored could be heard for a long distance. As the barges passed on the river bank, with these women bending forward, straining at the yoked ends of the tow rope, moving slowly step by step, we noted that not seldom they were quite handsome of face, and of good figure. Invariably they saluted us good humoredly with smiles, but when I removed my hat in response, I could see that this courtesy struck them as unusual, and did not leave the impression I desired. Thereafter I modified the salutation. At the inn in Péronne a young "commis-voyageur" with whom I made conversation, and related this incident, told me that I had better beware of offering such civilities in future, since these Amazons had been known to seize strangers for fancied offenses, and after giving them rough treatment, cast them into the river. He called upon the proprietor of the inn to substantiate his warning, and the latter satisfied me as to its truth, giving details which need not be set down here, and which quite decided the matter. Péronne as an historic and notable town was second to none in all Picardy. Here the early kings had a great palace given to them by Clovis II. Hotel de Ville: Péroinne [Illustration: 0107] Erchinold, the Mayor, erected a monastery near by for Scotch monks, presided over by St. Fursy. Not a trace of this now remains. It is said to have contained the tomb of Charles the Simple, who died of famine at the hands of Hubert in a dungeon. When Philip d'Alsace, Count of Vermandois, was killed in the Crusades (1199) the towns of Péronne and St. Quentin were united to the crown of France, and so remained. Charles V, in 1536 unsuccessfully besieged Péronne, and during this siege a young woman named Marie Fourré performed prodigious deeds of heroism which history records. The great Ligue of 1577 was proclaimed here, following its announcement at Paris. Until the Duke of Wellington captured it on his way to Paris' after the battle of Waterloo, Péronne-la-Pucelle had never been taken by an enemy. In the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-71, Péronne was sacked and burned after a most memorable siege, in which many of the remarkable old buildings were destroyed, but in 1910 the town, when I last saw it, was one of the quaintest in all Picardy. There was a remarkable old church here, that of St. Jean, which dated from the sixteenth century, which had a portal of three Gothic arches and arcades surmounted by a great flamboyant rose-window, the glass of which, though modern, was of fine quality and workmanship. It had a tower flanked by a "tourelle" of beautiful proportions, and in the interior the vaulting, pulpit, and the stained glass windows were pronounced by experts to be well-nigh faultless. This church, and the most singular and picturesque Hôtel de Ville (sixteenth century), a sketch of which I made in 1910, the invaders took great pains entirely to destroy in April, 1917, when they made their celebrated "victorious retreat." The latest accounts say that not a trace of these two remarkable monuments now exists, that for a week or more before the retreat, the German engineers used tons of explosives to destroy them. The gray old square before the Hôtel de Ville is now a yawning pit, bordered by shapeless piles of stone and ashes. At this time we know not what other mischief the invader has committed in this neighborhood. There are endless opportunities for destruction and pillage, and we may be fully prepared for irreparable damage and losses in all of this region before the Iconoclasts are driven back to their last line of defenses. All of Champagne, of Picardy,--all of Flanders were filled with exquisite villages, towns, and cities, each of which was unique in works of art and antiquity. These have shriveled like a garden of flowers before a heavy frost. This great catastrophe has so stunned humanity, that we are only beginning to realize what it means. The invader says contemptuously that no cathedral is worth the life of one German soldier. So Rheims has been destroyed; so St. Peter's of Louvain; so--but why enumerate here?--The list is recorded in letters of fire. CAMBRAI, and the SMALL TOWNS |THE "Cameracum" of ancient days of Roman occupation, holding this name up to the twelfth century, Cambrai, at the outbreak of the war in 1914, was entirely satisfying to the seeker of the charms of picturesqueness, as well as the historian. After what is known as the period of the Antonine Itinerary, it became the capital of a petty episcopal arrondisement, under the protection of the Dukes of Burgundy who, unable to hold it, gave it over "for privileges" to the German emperors, who thereafter retained it under the title of "Châtelains," as it was a fortified stronghold. Situated on a hillside on the right bank of the river Scheldt, it was a busy and prosperous commercial town, with a semi-Flemish population of about twenty-five thousand. Its history in thumbnail form is as follows: In 1508 the Emperor Maximilian, Pope Julius II, Ferdinand of Aragon, and Louis XII of France formed here the celebrated League of Cambrai, which was directed against Venice. In 1529 the so-called Paix de Dames was signed by Louise of Savoy and Margaret of Austria, who negotiated its provisions in the castle on the hill, for Francis I and Charles V. However, by the treaty of Nimwegen, Louis XV recovered it, and it was thus held by France until captured by the Duke of Wellington in 1815. Many celebrated men were born at Cambrai, or became identified with the town, such as the chronicler, Enguer-rand de Monstrelet, who died in 1453. The great Fénelon was Archbishop of Cambrai, as was also Cardinal Dubois, who served as minister for Louis XV, and then follows an array of names that lent glory to the annals of Flanders. Perhaps few know that the town gave name to that fine linen which was produced here in the fifteenth century, the invention of a native named Baptiste. The English named the cloth "Cambric," but to the Flemish and French it was known, and is still for that matter, as "Ba'tiste" after the inventor. At the outbreak of the war this linen cloth was the chief product of the town. Entrance to the town was through the gate called "Porte Robert," near which was the citadel. There was a large and impressive square called the "Esplanade," where statues had been raised to "Batiste" and the historian "Enguerrand de Monstrelet." Then followed the "Place aux Bois," lined with handsome trees, and large "Place d'Arms," on which was the "Hôtel de Ville," which, while of comparatively modern construction and rebuilt in the last century, was sufficiently interesting even to a student of ancient Flemish architecture. Its most elaborate façade was sculptured by one Hiolle of Valenciennes. The tower bore two gigantic statues, much venerated by the townspeople, named respectively "Martin" and "Martine," but curiously enough there was a wide difference of opinion as to which was which, some saying that the left hand giant was Martin, and others protesting the contrary. The figures dated from the time of Charles V, and were presented by him to the town in 1510. On the square at the opening of the Rue St. Martin was a fine Gothic belfry dated 1447, and attached to the church of that name. This contained a notable chime of bells, a carillon, the work of the Hemonys. * In the Rue de Noyon was the Cathedral of "Notre Dame," part of which had been rebuilt since a fire which consumed it about sixty years ago. The interior contained notably the fine marble and bronze monument of Fénelon, and a statue to this celebrity, the work of David d'Angers, all worth a considerable journey to see. The body of the church was of the eighteenth century and while of purity in detail, offered no very striking features. There were eight very large mural paintings "en grisaille" after the works of Rubens, by Geeraerts, a modern artist of Antwerp, but these, despite the obvious merit of the work, seemed somehow out of key with the interior. * See "Vanished Towers and Chimes of Flanders," for chapter on bell founding. Wandering about, we came upon a small street in which we found a remarkable collection of paintings of the Netherlands School owned by a private collector, who was pleased to show them, and delighted by our enthusiasm over their qualities. This gentleman insisted upon becoming our guide about the town, and showed us so many attentions that my Lady Anne became bored with him, and this led to our leaving Cambrai before the time we had set--but we left a letter of appreciation and thanks addressed to him. He it was who brought us to the church of St. Géry in the Place Fénelon, on the site of one founded by St. Vaast in 520. This had a remarkable dome which was upheld by four very slender columns, of very unusual character, and there was also a magnificent renaissance "jube," or altar screen, of colored marble, and a transept containing a large painting of the "Entombment," attributed to Rubens. The "Episcopal Palace of Fénelon" was just across the street, or at least a fragment of the original building, with a very richly decorated triple portal in the Renaissance style. It was this palace that Fénelon opened to the fugitives of the battle of Malplaquet, who thronged the town of Cambrai for protection and food. History states that every corner of the building was filled with the hapless people, and their small belongings hastily gathered together in the flight. The gardens and courts were crowded with cows, calves, and pigs, and the scene is said to have been indescribable. Emanuel de Broglie, who wrote the account ("Fénelon a Cambrai," de Broglie), says, "Officers to the number of one hundred and fifty, both French and prisoners of war, were received by Fénelon at his house, and seated at his table at one time." "God will help us," said the Archbishop; "Providence hath infinite resources on which I can confidently rely. Only let us give all we have: it is my duty and my pleasure." Over the side doors were inscriptions on "banderoles"--"A Clare Justitia" on one, and on the other "A gladio pax." The fine "Chateau de Selles," on the banks of the Scheldt River, was built in the fifteenth century. The beautiful reliefs of its gables, its statues, and the wrought iron grills of its balconies were still perfect, and the view from its green terrace was most enjoyable. There was a curious sort of penthouse shown to us, near a building called "Vieux Château" of which pillars with rudely sculptured capitals remained. Near this was a well with some ancient rusty ironwork, and a stone which our quondam guide said had served in ages long ago as a block in executions. Somehow we thought that he lied, and with considerable skill withal, but we dismissed him with payment of a franc for his pains. He did not go, however, but followed us about at a distance muttering to himself and occasionally waving his hands in a most absurd manner, until at length we happily lost him. There was a curious small building called the Grange aux Dimes, divided into two parts, one subterranean, the other on the level of the soil. Two staircases, one inside, the other outside, led to a hall on the first floor. This was divided by two ranges of pillars, with ornate capitals of foliage. The door to the subterranean passage was unfastened and we ventured down into the darkness and must for a short distance. I am convinced that we might have had some adventures below had we explored the tunnel. Near this was "Le Puits," supposed to be the entrance to other vast vaults, a subterranean town extending beneath the hill for miles, and formerly used for many purposes in the Middle Ages. These vaults were to be found in many of the towns hereabouts, and during the occupancy of the country by the Germans since the invasion of 1914, the soldiers have used them to store away ammunition and supplies. Over these small towns for three years now have raged battles the like of which for fierceness and bloody loss the world has never seen. The small town of Marcoing, about five miles from Cambrai, had one of these wonderful caverns of refuge dating from the Middle Ages, and there were others at Villers-Guizlain and at Honnecourt, where there were the ruins of a Roman town, and an immense church with a porch of the eleventh century. This was said to have been a famous place of pilgrimage in the twelfth century. Tradition has it that in that century three brothers of the family of Courcy le Marchais were taken prisoners during the crusades. In the power of the Sultan they languished, until at length he bethought him to send his young daughter to their dungeon, where they lay in chains, thinking that she might by the power of her beauty and eloquence bring them to the faith of the Mussulmans. But strange to relate, she it was who succumbed to the arguments of the three fair-haired brothers, and finally promised to become a Christian provided that they show her an image of the Holy Virgin of whom they had so eloquently told her. Now the three brothers had no image of the Virgin, everything having been taken from them when they were cast into the dungeon. But all at once, says the Chronicle, the image of the Virgin bathed in golden Celestial light appeared miraculously before them in a niche on the wall, so the Sultan's daughter, thus convinced, not only set the three fair-haired brothers free, but accompanied them, bearing in her bosom the sacred image, which henceforth was enshrined here on the altar and venerated. The three brothers then built a church in the twelfth century, on the site of which this present one of the fourteenth century was erected. Its portal was fifteenth century, and at the cross was a spire with quaintly formed pinnacles. Inside, a remarkably rich "jube," or altar screen, divided the nave from the choir, almost hiding the sanctuary containing a singular coal black doll-like sort of image, and a large collection of "Ex-votos," with some other offerings most tawdry in character. North of Valenciennes and very near the Flemish border was the old town of St. Amand-les-Eaux, famous for its mud baths for the cure of rheumatism and gout since the time of the Romans. The town was situated at the confluence of the rivers Elnon and Scarpe, and is said to have grown up around an abbey built by St. Amand in the seventh century. Save for the portal and the façade of the church nothing remained of the original structure. A tower containing a fine carillon of bells by Flemmish founders, perhaps the Van den Gheyns of Malines, is said to have been designed by Peter Paul Rubens. From the summit of the tower a wonderful view of the surrounding country was had, and for this reason the Germans blew it up in April, 1917, before their retreat. Maison du Provost: Valenciennes [Illustration: 0123] There was here a quaint Hôtel de Ville in the Flemish-Renaissance style, much floriated in parts. Let us hope that this has been spared. The site of the ancient abbey had been most charmingly covered with a blooming garden of brilliant flowers, and here children and nurses played, while "invalides" dozed on the benches in the sunlight. From the baths a very wild and beautiful park stretched across the country to the forest of Raismes through the forest of St. Amand. Epehy is another small town now held by the Germans because of its strategical value. It is on the ancient Roman road, or "Chaussée Brunehaut," which runs from Arras to Rheims. Under the great church are subterranean galleries, which, it is said, stretch for unknown distances in every direction; indeed, it seems as if the whole country hereabouts were undermined by these ancient galleries, many of which were unexplored, and in some instances shunned by the peasants as haunted by evil spirits, and many and fantastic were the tales told of some of these caverns, during the summer days when wanderings about the countryside held us here in happy durance. It was delightful to watch the grave old men of the village playing bowls or skittles, and their pride over the skill which enabled one of them, a patriarch, to account for six pins at one shot. His cannoning was the very poetry of statics. As a foil the unskillful efforts of the present writer were not altogether unsuccessful, for they brought to the stolid faces of the players smiles not unkindly, but of considerable latitude. In the little "estaminet" (Spanish estamento) at the foot of the hill, cutlets, broiled young chicken, and a rough and cheap but good sparkling wine, all graced by the good humor of the proprietor, raised our content to enthusiasm, so we saw and studied the locality, socially and mythologically, to the end of its possibilities. We found that these peasants, seemingly so phlegmatic and commonplace, were really chimerical, and their tales and conversation skirted the borderland of fact and fancy. The two were so melted down and run into one mold as to be impossible of separation. I have listened to some of these tales with interest, until the splashes of golden light were gone from the valleys and a vast canopy of rose-shot lilac emblazoned the setting of the sun. In the woods hereabouts, as in other parts of this region of caverns, thin mysterious sounds were often audible at night to those who had ears to hear: the noise of a distant hunt, the sound of winding horns, the confused shouts of a troop of hunters, and the chime of hounds in full cry. Pious and superstitious peasants, listening indoors, crossed themselves, those who were abroad in the lanes hastened their steps, not glancing in the direction from which the sounds came. It was the Wild Chasseur. This is the story: St. Amand, Count of the Palatinate, lived hereabouts in the tenth century, in a great castle of which even the foundations have long since disappeared. He was known as a mighty hunter, but was a profane prince, caring naught for the worship of the Lord, nor the chant of the priest, but following ever the wild creatures, rather than the ways of truth and righteousness. There came one day in the autumn, and it was Sunday, long before the coming dawn disclosed the distant dome of the Cathedral. When this reckless count mounted his great horse, and at the head of an equally reckless band of merry hunters, started out on the chase, the great dim forests rang with the loud blasts of the horn, and the loud shouts of the young men broke the calm stillness of the holy day and scandalized the good priests, and the pious people of the neighborhood. Out came the noisy cavalcade into the open where four roads met. To them, one from the North and one from the South, and galloping furiously, came two horsemen; the one from the North was young, blonde and handsome, with an air of distinction, all clad in bright new cloak and bonnet of golden yellow. The cavalier from the South seemed a man of temper, and was of sinister visage, bestriding a great horse of a temper to match that of its rider. His costume was of black velveteen save for his headpiece of scarlet cloth, which flowed scalloped down his back. The Count at the head of his troop saluted these two strangers courteously and invited them bear him company in the chase. "My lord," answered the rider from the North, removing his bonnet, and showing his fair hair in a golden mass about his shoulders, "the Sabbath bells are ringing in your church for the service in praise of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, for'tis the hour in which the voices of men in holy canticle are sent on high asking forgiveness of our sins and iniquities. This day is sanctified to Him above. I do bid you now accompany me unto the throne of Grace, on bended knee, in all humility.--For upon the offender shall descend the vengeance of the Most High, forever and ever." "In Satan's name, Sir Golden Locks!" answered St. Amand scornfully, "thou hast a tongue like a ranting priest. What right hast thou to wear a sword, pray?--I have no mind for canticles to-day!" Loud laughed the troop of cavaliers at this, and then was heard the voice of the rider in black from the South, whose great horse champed the bit and tossed its head restlessly. "Come, let us away, St. Amand! What care have we for monastery bells and sniveling priests!--Let us to the noble chase for mass, with sound of the winding horn for organ note!" "Well said, Sir Red Crest," replied St. Amand, with a loud laugh and a wave of his gauntleted hand. "_Ventre son gris!_ Let us away then!" The whole troop sprang forward at the word. Over the hills, through the ravines and deep ditches, and into the dark woods, ever rode the strangers, one at the right and one at the left of St. Amand. On the right, the fair young golden haired knight, and on the left, the black clad sinister man with the crimson hood. All at once appeared among the great trunks of the beech trees an antlered deer white as the driven snow, which after one startled look at the furiously riding troop of men, sped away like the wind. With winding horn the hunters pursued it over the green meadows and up and down the hills, trampling corn fields and peasant gardens under foot all unmindful of what ill they did. Naught counted for these men but the chase, and ever St. Amand headed the band, and on his right rode the fair young blonde rider from the North and on his left the swarthy knight from the South. Finally, with trembling limbs the antlered deer slackened its speed before the open door of a chapel in the midst of the wildwood. Here stood the frightened animal, its fur flicked with bloody foam, unable to stir a step further. From the open door of the chapel stepped a holy friar, who placed a sheltering arm about the panting animal's neck, and stood with uplifted arm warning back the band of hunters. In vain did the fairhaired stranger plead with Amand to spare the deer, for the jeering voice of the knight of the scarlet hood urged him on, and dismounting from his horse Count St. Amand pushed aside the monk and was about to run the animal through with his hunting knife, when there came a burst of thunder sound that shook the earth as though the heavens had fallen. The Count was stunned: When he came to himself he was alone in a clear space in the forest; the chapel, the deer, the monk, all his band, including the two strangers, had vanished as though they had never been. Over all was a terrible silence. When St. Amand attempted to call, no sound came from his parched lips. Then came a blinding flash of lightning, which split the darkness, and on the wings of the rushing wind he heard a terrible voice in judgment.--"Even as thou hast flouted and mocked at the Lord thy God, and have had no compassion upon man nor beast, so shalt thou fly before the wrath of the Most High! Pass on then, thou accursed Knight, forever be thou the hunted by evil spirits until the end of the world!" "And so," continues the legend, "since that day the wraith of that sinful Count St. Amand has haunted these hills and dales by night, and these great caverns underneath by day, the fiends of hell at his heels. After him fly these hideous fiends, driving him ever on towards the judgment that waits him on the last day." As may be surmised, with such tales as this to hold over the youth of the valleys, the people hereabouts were most devout and God fearing. Here in this region have raged battles innumerable from the earliest days of history, with fire, famine and pestilence. It was all prosperous, when I last saw it, and charming to look upon. But now the beautiful orchards have been cut down by the invader, the homesteads have been burned, and the once happy peasants transported to hard labor in another country. ST. QUENTIN |UGLY and down at the heel," were the uncomplimentary terms used by an æsthetic fellow traveler to describe this prosperous manufacturing town situated rather picturesquely on a hill rising above the banks of the river Somme. And while it may be admitted that St. Quentin is not very clean looking when viewed from the railway station, certainly a later and more intimate inspection revealed charms which repaid leisurely investigation on our part, and even our first view of the gray walls and gables of the houses, and the quaint pinnacles of the town hall, and the tower of the church rising against the golden glow of the sunset sky was quite satisfying. The road to the town on the hill was by way of the Rue de l'lsle, which brought us to the small square on which was the flamboyant Gothic Hôtel de Ville. It had a most charming and unusual pent roof, over which rose a slender tower with large clock face shining in the sunlight. On the ground floor of the façade was an open arcaded gallery above which were richly ornamented flamboyant Gothic windows divided by niches. The upper story had a quaint and ornate balustrade and three gables. From the central gable the campanile rose gracefully. This much we were able to see on our way to the Hôtel du Cygne, the landlady of which gave us more comfort than our quondam traveling companion had led us to expect. This individual quite abandoned us to our fate thereafter, as impossible Yankees who gloated over picturesqueness and gables, and meekly ate whatever was set before them--even of an omelette which he scorned, and fussed about at the table d'hôte. He listened with a sarcastic grin to our admiring comment on the furnishings of the dining-room, with its paneled walls in the Flemish fashion, on which hung brass placques and some good old china plates, and after lighting a cigarette, noisily kicked back his chair, shrugged his shoulders, and vanished from our ken forever. Madame told us that he was a "commis-voyageur" in the woolen trade, from Brussels, and "bien difficile." St. Quentin was the ancient capital of the Gaulish Veromanduens, and took its present name from Caius Quintinus, a priest who came here to preach Christianity in the third century, and for his pains was martyred by the Prefect Rictius Varus. Honor to his remains was encouraged by St. Eloi in the time of Dagobert. Whilst here we may recall that the building of the Escurial was due to a vow which Philip II of Spain made in case of success, when he was besieging St. Quentin in 1557. The town was given back to France in 1589, and in the following year was bestowed as a dowry upon Mary Stuart, who possessed its revenues till her death. On January 19, 1871, a great victory was gained near St. Quentin by the Prussian General Goeben over the French army of the north, * under Faidherbe. * Hare's "Northeastern France." In the "Place du Huit Octobre" was a very good monument by Barrias, symbolizing the successful defense of the town against the first attack by the Germans on October 8, 1870. We found that the Hôtel de Ville contained a most unusual "Salle du conseil," a large well proportioned room, the roof of which rested upon two circular wooden vaults. This was furnished with a most elaborate mantel or chimney piece in the mixed Gothic and Renaissance styles, and of remarkable workmanship. In the great German retreat of April, 1917, this noble building was blown up with bombs. Perhaps they placed upon it, as they did upon other shattered structures, a sign bearing the inscription: "Nicht Argern, nur Wundern." There was a noble "Collegiate Church of St. Quentin" near this Hôtel de Ville, considered by architects to be a splendid example of French Gothic of the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. This was unfortunately so shut in by small buildings as to make a study of it difficult. Its choir, nave, and portal, and its really vast height, formed unusual features, and added to these wonders were the beautiful triforium and terminal windows of the principal transept (there were two of these, "very rare in a Gothic church," says Hare). The oldest part of the church was easily discovered between these transepts. There were seven absidal chapels; in that of St. Roch was the incised tombstone of "Mahaus Patrelatte," dated 1272. Under the choir were crypts said to have been of the ninth century, and in one of these was a stone sarcophagus of St. Quentin and SS. Victorious and Gentianus, who were St. Quentin's companions in martyrdom. The west portal of the church was formerly adorned with a large number of statues, vestiges of which were plainly visible. A statue of Quentin Delatour, a famous draftsman in crayon of the eighteenth century, a native of the town, stood before the church; it was by Lauglet the sculptor, and of considerable merit. A collection of Delatour's crayon drawings were in the small museum in the rue du Petit-Origny.... Unfortunate St. Quentin, now once more in ashes, and this time so completely obliterated that nothing remains on the hill but some blackened ragged piles of masonry, was besieged by Philip II in 1558, when war broke out between Picardy and Flanders. "Philip II had landed there with an army of forty-seven thousand men, of whom seven thousand were English. Never did any great sovereign and great politician provoke and maintain for long such important wars without conducting them in some other fashion than from the recesses of his cabinet and without ever having exposed his life on the field of battle. The Spanish army was under the orders of Emmanuel-Philibert, Duke of Savoy, a young warrior of thirty, who had won the confidence of Charles V. He led it to the siege of St. Quentin, a place considered one of the bulwarks of the kingdom. "Philip II remained at some leagues' distance in the environs. Henry II was ill prepared for so serious an attack; his army, which was scarcely 20,000 strong, mustered near Laon under orders of the Duke of Nevers, Governor of Champagne; at the end of July, 1557, it hurried into Picardy, under the command of the Constable de Montmorency, who was supported by Admiral de Coligny, his nephew, by the Duke of Enghien, by the Prince of Condé, by the Duke of Montpensier, and by nearly all the great lords and the valiant warriors of France. They soon saw that St. Quentin was in a deplorable state of defense; the fortifications were old and badly kept up; soldiers and munitions of war, as well as victuals were all equally deficient. Coligny did not hesitate, however; he threw himself into the place on the 2nd of August during the night with a small corps of 700 men and Saint Remy, a skillful engineer, who had already distinguished himself in the defense of Metz. The Admiral packed off the useless mouths, repaired the walls at the points principally threatened, and reanimated the failing courage of the inhabitants. "The Constable and his army came within hail of the place; and d'Andelot, Coligny's brother, managed with great difficulty to get 450 men into it. "On the 10th of August the battle was begun between the two armies. The Constable affected to despise the Duke of Savoy's youth: 'I will soon show him,' said he, 'a move of an old soldier.' "The French army, being very inferior in numbers, was for a moment on the point of being surrounded. The Prince of Condë sent the Constable warning. 'I was serving in the field,' answered Montmorency, 'before the Prince of Condé came into the world; I have good hopes of still giving him lessons in the art of war for some years to come.' "The valor of the Constable and his comrades-in-arms could not save them from the consequences of their stubborn recklessness, and their numerical inferiority; the battalions of Gascon infantry closed their ranks, with pikes to the front, and made a heroic resistance, but all in vain, against repeated charges of the Spanish cavalry; and the defeat was total. "More than 3,000 men were killed; the number of prisoners amounted to double this figure; and the Constable, left upon the field with his thigh shattered by a cannon ball, fell into the hands of the Spaniards, as was also the case with the Dukes of Longueville and Montpensier, la Rochefoucauld, d'Aubigné, etc.... The Duke of Enghien, Viscount de Turenne and a multitude of others, many great names amidst a host of obscure, fell in the fight. The Duke of Nevers and the Prince of Condé, sword in hand, reached La Fère with the remnants of their army. Coligny remained alone at St. Quentin with those who survived of his little garrison, and a hundred and twenty arquebusiers whom the Duke of Nevers threw into the place at a loss of three times as many. Coligny held out for a fortnight longer, behind walls that were in ruins and were assailed by a victorious army. At length, on the 27th of August, the enemy entered St. Quentin in shoals. "The Admiral, who was still going about the streets with a few men to make head against them, found himself hemmed in on all sides, and did what he could to fall into the hands of a Spaniard, preferring rather to await on the spot the common fate than to incur by flight any shame or reproach. They took him prisoner, after having set him to rest a while at the foot of the ramparts, and took him away to their camp, where as he entered, he met Captain Alonzo de Cazieres, commandant of the old bands of Spanish infantry; when up came the Duke of Savoy, who ordered the said Cazieres to take the Admiral to his tent." * * Commentaire de François de Rabutin sur les Guerres entre Henri II., roi de France, et Charles Quint, empereur. Vol. I, p. 95, in the Petitot Collection. "D'Andelot, the Admiral's brother, succeeded in escaping across the marshes. Being thus master of St. Quentin, Philip II, after having attempted to put a stop to the carnage and plunder, expelled from the town, which was half in ashes, the inhabitants who had survived, and the small adjacent fortresses of Ham and Catalet did not hesitate long before surrendering. Five years later, in 1557, after the battle and capture of St. Quentin, France was in a fit of stupor; Paris believed the enemy to be already beneath her walls; many of the burgesses were packing up and flying--some to Orleans, some to Bourges, some still further." * And now once more history repeats itself in the sacking and burning of this quaint town, in the retreat of the invader of 1914-5 after three years of agony endured by its people. "God makes no account of centuries, and a great deal is required before the most certain and most salutary truths get their place and their rights in the minds and communities of men," says Guizot, quaintly, and thus dismisses the record of Henry II: "On the 29th of June, 1559, a brilliant tournament was celebrated in lists erected at the end of the street of Saint Antoine, almost at the foot of the Bastile. Henry II, the Queen, and the whole court had been present at it for three days." * Guizot's "Histoire de France." Vol. Ill, p. 204. "The entertainment was drawing to a close. The King, who had run several tilts 'like a sturdy and skillful Cavalier,' wished to break yet another lance, and bade the Count de Montgomery, captain of the guards, to run against him. Montgomery excused himself; but the King insisted. The tilt took place. The two jousters, on meeting, broke their lances skilfully; but Montgomery forgot to drop at once, according to usage, the fragment remaining in his hand; he unintentionally struck the King's helmet and raised the visor, and a splinter of wood entered Henry's eye; he fell forward upon his horse's neck." All the appliances of art were useless; the brain had been pierced. Henry II languished for eleven days and expired on the tenth of July, 1559, aged forty years and some months. "An insignificant man and a reign without splendor, though fraught with facts pregnant of grave consequences," concludes the historian. The fame of Henry Martin, noted as an historian, who died in 1883, was commemorated by a bronze statue "such as the chimes and the great bell of the Collegiate erected before the Lycée," a rather handsome building in the Rue du Palais de Justice. Before leaving St. Quentin in April, 1917, the invaders shipped this statue to Germany, it is announced in the German press, and melted it up at the gun works with other scrap metal, "such as the chimes and the great bell of the Collegiate Church of St. Quentin." A few miles to the northeast on the river Oise was the small town of Guise, most picturesquely situated, and commanded by an ancient castle, or chateau, as these ruins are sometimes styled, which dated from the sixteenth century, and was occupied by a few soldiers as a sort of garrison. In this château in troublous times the nuns of the Guise, and those of the neighboring nunneries as well, took refuge. There was here, too, a most famous chapter of monks, but the nuns were of greater renown. These threw off the severe rules of St. Benedict in the twelfth century, and becoming "chanoinesses," lived apart with the utmost comfort, their abbess bearing a scepter rather than a cross. Endowed by successive ducal rulers, this chapter became one of the most illustrious of the province. "Its abbess, always chosen from a family of the most exalted rank, exercised almost sovereign authority over the domain, and furthermore in virtue of a document from the Emperor Rudolph (1290), bore the title of Princess of the Holy Empire. She was elected only by the united voice of the chapter, and went to Rome to receive consecration from the Pope himself in the Lateran. To him she is said to have offered in sign of homage, every three years, a white horse and a piece of purple velvet; and when after many years the Pope remitted this tax, she bore, in all solemn processions, a red silk banner sprinkled with gold and silver buds in remembrance of it. A double handed sword was carried before her in processions. She had the right of granting liberty to prisoners. In the choir of the cathedral she sat upon a throne placed upon a carpet of crimson velvet ornamented with gold leaves, and upon fête days she held 'grand-couvert,' as was the custom with sovereigns. The chapter counted sixty-four abbesses, of whom the last in line was Louise-Adelaide de Bourbon-Condé." * * Brantôme, Paris, 1822. Vol. I. Considering its part in history, it is surprising how little interest was taken in Guise of late years. In 1339 the English, under John of Hainault, burned the town, but were unable to conquer the castle, owing to the courageous resistance of the small body of warriors who were commanded by the noble lady of its absent lord, the daughter of John of Hainault himself. In the curious old crypt were the tombs of several abbesses, and the shrine contained the relics of SS. Romaric, Arnat, and Idulphe, which the nuns brought with them in the tenth century from the old church on the hill. On one of the streets were ancient houses with stone arcades. Guise was the birthplace of Camille Desmoulins, the revolutionary. Near the town, which was busy and prosperous, with a population of eight thousand or so, there was a sort of workmen's colony upon the communistic plan, and included a "phalanstère," or common dwelling place for the members, upon the Fourier plan, founded by some philanthropist. As far as we could judge superficially it was successful, and it is said the chance visitor was always welcomed most cordially by the members who happened to be present. These inoffensive people have been shipped away, no one now seems to be able to say just where, and the little town, gutted by fire, has ceased to exist save in the memory of those who once knew its charm. A few miles southwest of St. Quentin, on the river Somme, was a small town named Ham, which had, however, nothing in common with that excellent viand. Here was a famous château of the tenth century, of the Comtes de Vermondais. In 1374 it passed to the Coucy family, and then to the Comtes of St. Pol, from whom it came by marriage to the house of Bourbon-Vendôme. This great stronghold had a donjon, the walls of which were thirty-five feet thick, and the room inside it was one hundred and ten feet broad, and the same number of feet high. In shape it was a rectangle, flanked at each corner by a round tower, and with square towers on the north and west. Rising from a canal on the northeast angle was a huge round tower, named the Tour de Connétable, built by Louis de Luxembourg in 1490. Emblazoned on the stone over the portal was the motto of the founder: "Mon Myeulx" (My Best). The walls of this tower were said to have been of enormous thickness. The figures varied so much that I omit all of them, but from the appearance of the tower one might believe even the most exaggerated statements. Its lower apartment was a vast hall of hexagonal shape, the vaulting of which was Gothic in style, and we were shown some curious arched spaces, said to be intended for furnaces or magazines to be blown up and thus destroy the castle in case of its capture. There was a great "Salle de Gardes," where the soldiers slept and ate in time of siege, and this contained an enormous fireplace, a well of considerable depth, and an oven where bread had been baked. Above this vast room was the "Chambre de Conseil," lighted by a single large window, and furnished with stone benches below it. Here Jeanne d'Arc was imprisoned by Jean of Luxembourg, and many other notables languished in the dungeons from the time of the Revolution down to the time of the capture of Prince Louis Napoléon, in August, 1840, at Boulogne, and from which he escaped disguised as a workman on the morning of May 22, 1846. He took refuge at St. Quentin, went thence to Belgium, and finally reached England. Like all of the other great castles in the region occupied by the invaders, Ham was blown up before the German army "victoriously" retreated to the now celebrated "Hindenburg" line, in April, 1917. VALLENCIENNES |THE town of lace," wrote William of Orange to the Estates on the 13th of April, 1677, "is lost to us. We are very sorry to be obliged to tell your High Mightinesses that it has not pleased God to bless on this occasion the arms of the State under our guidance." And then fell also to the troops of Louis XIV the towns of Cambrai, St. Omer, and the defense of Lorraine. But there is now no lace made in Valenciennes. The larger part of the population of twenty-eight thousand worked in the iron foundries and the great machine shops surrounding the town, from which clouds of soft coal smoke rose, reminding one of our own Pittsburgh, but with the addition of much quaint antiquity, which was now (1910) unhappily rapidly disappearing through lack of interest on the part of not only the inhabitants but the authorities, whom one would think alive to their value as an attraction to the town. Formerly strongly fortified and most powerful, this quaint semi-Flemish town, which was now given over thus to prosaic manufacture, was situated at the junction of the rivers Scheldt and Rhondelle. There were huge, ugly sugar factories as well as iron mills, indeed,'tis said that nearly all the sugar used in France was produced here. Like all Flemish towns, Valenciennes had a good deal of drunkenness to contend with on the part of its working people, but I must confess I saw little of it. It is said that Valentinian I, Roman Emperor, gave name to the town, which was at first the capital of a small independent principality. Later it passed into the hands of the Counts of Hainault; suffered and resisted sieges by Margaret of Hainault in 1254; by Louis XI, in 1477; by Turenne, in 1656; and by the Spaniards in the seventeenth century; and by Scherer in 1794. Since the treaty of Nymegen in 1678 it has belonged to France. A great many celebrated men were born at Valenciennes, and all about the statue of Froissart their effigies are arranged in a series of medallions. Among these are Antoine, Louis and François Watteau, Pujol, the painters, Lemaire and Carpeaux, the sculptors, and Charles, Sire de Lannoy and Viceroy of Naples--all natives of the little town. Madame d'Epinay, the author, also was born here. Valenciennes had a most attractive and picturesque square, which occupied the former glacis of the ancient fortifications demolished about twenty years ago, and there was a handsome street, called the Rue de Ferrand, upon which was the "Lycée," formerly a Jesuit college, and the Ecole des Beaux Arts, in which was a museum of natural history, containing a fine collection of minerals of which the townspeople were inordinately proud. They quite ignored the value of a splendid collection of MSS., numbering nearly a thousand examples of mediaeval workmanship, contained in the Municipal Library, occupying part of the old Jesuit college. The custode wrung his hands in despair at the indifference of the authorities to its importance, and became positively and alarmingly affectionate over me when I showed enthusiasm for some of the specimens, so that I had to place myself behind one of the cases where he could not well reach me while I examined the illuminations. There was a fine statue of Antoine Watteau, the painter, by the sculptor Carpeaux, with four figures grouped about it representing Italian comedy. (This statue, I am informed, was shipped to Germany by the invaders in 1916, to be melted up and cast into cannon. An irreparable loss, as it was considered one of the finest examples of the work of Carpeaux.) In the Square was the ancient Church of St. Géry, a remarkable example of Gothic workmanship dating from the thirteenth century, and much studied and valued by architects. In its choir were fine wood carvings illustrating events in the life of St. Norbert, who was the founder of the Præmonstratensian order. The handsome and noteworthy Place d'Armes contained some most quaint and ancient timber dwellings, which were dated variously during the seventeenth century, and in an astonishingly fine state of preservation. But by far the most interesting building in Valenciennes was the Hôtel de Ville, which though lately restored (1868), dated from the seventeenth century, the period of the Spanish occupation. The façade was quite imposing, consisting of a row of Doric columns, upholding a row of Ionic columns, which supported a number of caryatides and a sort of open gallery above. Carpeaux designed the sculptures ornamenting the pediment, which represented the Defense of Valenciennes. Corner of Grand' Place: Valenciennes [Illustration: 0157] This building was occupied by the Musée of Paintings and Sculpture, which was really one of the most important and extensive collections in France of examples of the Flemish school of painting. Here I saw in 1910 a large number of beautiful original drawings, and a collection of Flemish tapestries of incalculable value. There were nine or ten rooms devoted to the Flemish masters, and to mention only a few of the treasures they contained, I note here: "Hell-fire"; Breughel, Toil Devoured by Usury; Jordaens, Twelfth Night; Van Balen, Rope of Europa; P. A. da Cortona, Herodias; Seghers, St. Eloi and the Virgin; Neets, the younger, Church Interior; Vinckboons, Forest; Van Aelst, Still Life; Van Mieris, Pan and Syrinx; Al. Adriensis, Fish Merchant; Van Goyen, Landscape; "Velvet" Breughel, Landscape; Van de Velde, Sea Piece; Van Oost, Adoration of the Shepherds; Pourbus (younger), Marie de Medicis; Brouwer, Tavern Scene; Wouverman, Hunters; Teniers, Interior of Grotto; Rubens, Descent from the Cross; Guido (?), St. Peter; Metsys, Banker and His Wife. The fate of this remarkable collection of Flemish and Spanish paintings is at present shrouded in mystery. It is said, and denied variously, that they were removed to Paris before the German army arrived. I understand from reports in the newspapers, which may or may not be authentic, that this old Hôtel de Ville was entirely destroyed by British shells early in the war, and that the venerable Maison du Prévost, built during the Spanish invasion, and the old timbered and slated houses at the corner of the Grand' Place, one of them occupied by the "Café Modeste," have been entirely destroyed. But at present (May, 1917) Valenciennes is behind the curtain of mystery drawn over its miseries by the Germans. This little town played a small part in the peace of Cambrai, called the "Ladies' peace," in honor of the Princesses who while at Valenciennes had negotiated it there between Charles V and Francis I. "Two women, Francis I's mother and Charles V's aunt, Louise of Savoy, and Margaret of Austria, had the real negotiation of it; they had both of them acquired the good sense and the moderation which come from experience of affairs and from the difficulties in life; they did not seek to give one another mutual surprises and to play off one another reciprocally. They resided in two contiguous houses, between which they caused a communication to be made from the inside, and they conducted the negotiation with so much discretion that the petty Italian princes who were interested in it did not know the results of it until peace was concluded on the 5th of August, 1529.... These women, though morally different and of very unequal social status, both had minds of a rare order, trained to recognize political necessities and not to attempt any but possible successes. They did not long survive their work; Margaret of Austria died on the 1st of December, 1530, and Louise of Savoy on the 22nd of September, 1531." * * Guizot's "France," Vol. Ill, p. 94. This peace lasted until 1536; incessantly troubled, however, by far from pacific symptoms, proceedings and preparations, but it was certainly a monument to the skill of these two princesses. Charles V, on his way through the kingdom, after passing a week at Paris, pushed on to Valenciennes, the first town in his Flemish dominions, where he rested in state. When his eyes rested upon all the wealth and cheerful industry that surrounded him here, he said (according to Brantôme), "There is not in this world any greatness such as that of a King of France." Valenciennes, when I saw it before the outbreak of the great war in 1914, was a rather sleepy little town given over to most prosaic manufactures. There was little evident picturesqueness; most of the ancient buildings had given way to stupid looking stucco covered houses. In vain did my Lady Anne seek the lace makers; they were not to be found--if they existed. There were no bric-a-brac or antique shops, either, wherein one might browse, but there was a quaint and most comfortable hotel, presided over by a garrulous landlord whose (artful) innocence and unworldliness quite took us in, and whose bill, when presented, proved to be fifty per cent more than we had reckoned upon. Valenciennes should have been an economical town to live in, but it was not so; at least in the delightful hotel, which was so well kept and apparently so clean. The day following our arrival two charwomen started at the top of the house with buckets of water and scrubbing brushes. The buckets, by the way, were not the ordinary iron ones, but immense affairs of rough earthenware of a rich buff color outside, and a most delicious bright green enamel inside. The women scrubbed the floors from attic to back door--except the parquet floors--ignoring the corners, for cleanliness comes evidently very near to godliness in these semi-Flemish towns of Northern France; they are not very thorough. Following these bare-armed amazons came the housemaid with a great cake of beeswax, which was fixed into a fork of wood at the end of the handle as long and thick as a broomstick. With this beeswax she rubbed the floor most energetically until the grain of the old oak floor came out clearly. Then followed the polisher with a large, thick, flat brush made in the form of a sort of sandal which was fastened to one foot by a wide strap of leather, the brushless foot was kept stationary; the other with deft slides backwards and forwards produced a most beautiful polish like varnish. There were few carpets to be found anywhere, and in the summer one did not miss them, but I should imagine that the houses would be very damp and cold in the winter, when there is little provision made for heating these old drafty rooms, and (if one might consider expense) wood for the grate fires is charged for at the rate of "F. 1.25 per basket of nine sticks." (Per published tariff.) We were told that the proper way to study this part of the country is to take a small house for the summer. One could furnish cheaply here, it was urged, in the country style, no carpets, and with the furniture made hereabouts. My Lady Anne was quite taken with the idea. The furniture was in good taste, stained a dark brown; it made a charming foil for the bright yellows and pale greens of the crockery. The bedrooms had alcoves for the beds, with a curious little door cut out of the wooden partition wall at the back of the bed: this was for the convenience of the housemaid, as it saved the necessity of pulling out the bed to get behind it. These walls were almost always made of boards, and thus the doors were easily cut, so that covered with wall paper one scarcely ever noticed them. My Lady Anne discovered that the clothing sent to be washed was, unless otherwise ordered, sent home rough dried! Ironing is special. Following the custom here there was no weekly washing day, but washing was done once a month or even two months, and this is the reason why there were so many of the really fine oak or chestnut armoirs to be found. Some of these were most beautiful, made of polished wood, and had often unique brass hinges and locks. Every household had one or more, in spite of the fact that the dealers were on the quest for them. The peasants who lived off the beaten track of travel willingly parted with them for comparatively small prices. We thought it rather extraordinary to find in a poor laborer's cottage a specimen of these fine chests fit for the hall of a millionaire collector. There were also fine wardrobes to be found, with handsomely carved chestnut or applewood panels polished like glass, and with brass knobs and locks worn bright with the use of many generations. Occasionally one could find the old fashioned double decked bed made of dark oak, and the long heavy Norman table, which was the household larder, for in its long and deep drawer were generally stored the household provisions of ham, bacon, or dried fish; never the bread, though, for this was kept overhead upon a well polished board, in the older houses, hung from the ceiling, well out of the way of the rats, the torment of the peasant. In these houses the clothes were hung on ropes high up against the sloping roofs to prevent these pests from gnawing them. The broken necks of bottles were fastened at the ends of these cords or ropes, and on these the rats jumped from the rafters and went spinning over onto the floor far beneath. In all the villages there were public washing pools, a feature of the country. No washing was done in the cottages. Hundreds of peasant women washed the clothes, kneeling in long lines at the sides of the streams, keeping up all the time a chattering and laughing that could be heard from a distance. Sometimes there were shelters overhead for their protection from sun and rain, sometimes not. They washed the clothes on flat boards, and beat them when lathered with a flat wooden sort of paddle. The washing was well done too, surprising to tell, but although they say not, one would think that the process was rather hard upon the clothes. These quaint customs quite charmed us, and we were inclined to shut our eyes to certain evidences of drunkenness and its accompanying sins among the lower classes which could not be concealed, and which perhaps need not be entered into here. Valenciennes was a manufacturing town, and the condition of the artisan classes was said to be even worse than that in Belgium just over the border. The hours of labor were long--unquestionably too long--and said to be as a rule fixed by the employer. Children of tender age were employed in factory and warehouse, and this perhaps explains the stunted appearance of the poor people. The law says that no child under sixteen can be kept at work for more than twelve hours a day, but it is understood that this law was easily evaded. The result was inevitable. If the child could be kept at work for twelve hours a day, then it will be understood that an adult was assumed to be able to do more. Of course the man did not really work as hard as our own men do, and that he did piece work, and also that a considerable portion of his time must be deducted for shirking, for gossip and for rest. Still, at the foundries the hours and the labor were both excessive. The thought had not occurred to these manufacturers and proprietors that a man might do more in sixty hours a week than he will do in seventy. The terrible "Borinage" district of the mines of Belgium, which extends as far west as Quevrain on the border, really runs over the line, and some of its conditions existed at Blanc Misseron, Fresnes, and at Bruay. The name "Borinage" signifies the place of boring. Here was to be found a state of society that does not exist in any other part of the country, and the miners and their wretched families were a type quite distinct from all the rest of their countrymen. By the character of their work and by the deficiencies or lack of education, supplemented by the poisonous effects of the fiery and deleterious potato brandy and other decoctions which they freely imbibe, they had sunk into a state of both physical and mental decay. "A visit to these places is not a pleasant experience, and the closer the acquaintance made with the life of the mining population the less attractive does it appear. The employment of children of tender years lies at the root of the ignorance of the people of the province.... To the proprietors, with rare exceptions, the miners are mere beasts of burden, in whom they do not feel the least interest. No steps whatever are taken to improve the lot of the miners, to elevate their ideas, or even to provide them with amusement or recreations.... The only places of resort are the 'Estaminets' and cabarets that are to be found in every third or fourth house.... It is scarcely going too far to say that morality does not exist in the Borinage; but the great curse in this community is the large number of immature mothers, and the consequent inseparable deterioration of the whole race.... Ignorance and immorality explain the low condition to which the mining population has sunk, but even these causes would not have produced such an appalling result if they had not been supplemented by the prevalence of drunkenness. As there is no restriction upon the sale of drink, every house may retail intoxicating liquors, and in many places where it is procurable there is no external appearance of the place being a drinking shop. The room of the cottage will contain a few chairs and benches, besides a table, and the liquor comes from a cupboard or an inner room. In warm weather the table and chairs are placed outside, and on Sundays and feast days there is not one of these houses which will not be crowded with visitors. The only amusement known to these people is to drink and to get drunk.... The beer drinkers are the more reasonable drunkards of the two. Having soaked themselves with 'faro' (a thin sour beer) they sleep it off. Not so the spirit drinkers, for when they have finished their orgies they are half mad with the poisonous alcohol which they have imbibed. "The true explanation of the evils that follow this spirit drinking is to be found in the character of the spirit itself. In name it is gin or 'genievre,' but it bears little or no trace of that origin. What it is, no one outside the place of manufacture--which appears to be unknown--can correctly declare, but by the smell it would seem to be mainly composed of paraffin oil. This beverage is called 'Schnick' and is the favorite spirit of the miners. It is sold for ten centimes (1 penny) for a large wine glass, and five centimes (1/2 penny) for a small, and official statistics show that a large majority of the miners drink a pint of this stuff every day of their lives, while it is computed that there are no fewer than fifty thousand who drink a quart.... Lest the reader should imagine that there is some exaggeration in the figures just given, it may be mentioned that the total consumption of spirits per head of the population (of Belgium) exceeds fifty quarts." * * "Belgian Life in Town and Country." Demetrius C. Boulger, p. 76. This is, of course, written of Belgium, but as this mining country extends beyond the border into France, as I have said, these conditions exist in the neighboring villages to the north and east of Valenciennes. It is a relief to turn from this terrible picture to the vistas southwards, but it is only just to add that the Belgian Government was doing its best to cleanse this region when the war broke out and put a stop to the work. How could the people who dwell in this terrible spot be other than debased? Conditions were all against them. World welfare demands the product of the mines; so workers are automatically produced to supply it, and thus across this fair land stretches this great black belt, like a vast unhealed wound, that extends from the western boundaries of Picardy, far beyond the German Westphalian province, and digs deep into the bowels of the earth, its presence being detected from afar by the heavy clouds of pungent, evil smelling black and brown smoke of the furnaces, as one approaches, and by the great heaps of clay and ashes along the railway lines. This is the territory coveted by the "war lord." This is the road to the Channel, and over this strip by day and by night fall the shells of the invaders and defenders alike. Gone now are the peaceful farmsteads; the quaint old villages clustered about the gray towers of the churches and monasteries, and the many towered, white walled châteaux in the vine clad gardens. The quiet towns and villages which we explored in those memorable summer days of 1910 are swept from the face of the earth, and there are now long level wide roads stretching towards and into the horizon, upon which the whole day and night, two mighty lines of silent armed men linking together heavy wagons and immense shapeless masses of heavy guns and tractors, to and from the fighting lines, form endless processions. The God of Efficiency in destruction now reigns where once peaceful thrift was enthroned. SOISSONS |BOTH Abelard and Thomas à Becket are identified with this venerable fortress town, which was lately noted for its haricot-beans, and whose people, steeped in trade with Paris, were entirely oblivious to the value and beauty of the great cathedral of Notre Dame, SS. Gervais and Protais, the equal of which was perhaps not in all France. Here Abelard was imprisoned in a tower which was shown, to those who sought it out, by a lame old priest. This tower was surmounted by a small chapel; it contained nothing, however, which was identified with the prisoner. There was also to be seen the ancient Abbey of St. Jean des Vignes, in which Thomas à Becket "spent nine years." The chief and most interesting part of this was the west façade or "portail," in the style of the thirteenth century, and flanked by a great tower more than 200 feet high, some say 225 feet, which could be seen from a great distance. The approach to the town by way of the river bank was all that could be desired for picturesqueness, and above the trees and the quaint red tiled roofs of the many gabled houses, the great tower of the venerable cathedral lifted its heavy gray mass against a fleecy sky. The river was full of quaintly fashioned barges, and heavily built boats with huge rudders painted with stripes of vivid green and red, something like those on the Maas in Holland. Here and there a small black steamer belched forth pungent sooty smoke, and there seemed to be a great deal of business going on all about, and an air of prosperity and alertness, entirely out of keeping in so venerable a town, and which one could not decide to be quite as it should be or not. There were modern shops also with windows dressed quite _à la Paris_, and a good hostelry, the _Lion Rouge_, where one was made extraordinarily comfortable for a rather small sum. The streets were filled with quaint and unusual characters, and now and again we saw costumes and some headdresses on the peasant women that we had not seen elsewhere. An old traveler writing of Soissons said: "At a small inn, 'Des Trois Pucelles,' I had a noble salmon, that still excites emotions in me when I think of it. I have never met with its like since--and there was also venison, a whole haunch brought to table, and claret the like of which would grace the king's table." I looked for "Des Trois Pucelles," but alas, it had been pulled down long since. Cathedral: Soissons [Illustration: 0177] In this pleasant town, one might have lingered indefinitely and not lacked entertainment. Soissons was called Augusta Suessionum under the early Empire. The town has great notoriety among historians for the great number of sieges it has undergone, down to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, when for three days it resisted all attempts to take it. Here Pépin le Bref was proclaimed King, and Louis le Débonnaire's undutiful sons imprisoned him in the Abbey of S. Medard. From the beginning of the eleventh century to the middle of the fourteenth century, Soissons was ruled by its hereditary counts, but one of these, Louis de Chatil-lon, who fell at the battle of Crécy, being imprisoned in England, to pay his ransom, sold his countship to En-guerrand VII de Coucy in 1367, and with all the rest of the appanage of Coucy, it was taken by the crown of Louis XII. From Cæsar to Napoleon its importance from a military point of view has been of the greatest value from its splendid position on the banks of the river Aisne. For centuries it had to defend itself from continued attacks, and in these, although many times successful, the stronghold seems to have worn down to its walls and towers. It has been called by historians "The City of Sieges," and certainly few towns seem to have suffered more. Doubtless its magnificent strategic position on the river Aisne has been the reason for the successive attacks upon it. It was also a favorite seat of royalty, and the capital of a Roman king, Syagrius. Architects have pronounced the Cathedral's interior even more impressive than that of Rheims, and say that "the beautiful proportions of the nave, the simplicity and purity of the carved capitals, the splendid glass, rendered it one of the most beautiful cathedrals of France." ("Cathedral Cities of France," Herbert Marshall.) It was a splendid example of mixed Romanesque and Gothic of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The west façade had three beautiful doors, and a great rose window of Gothic design containing glass, the equal of which cannot, in the writer's opinion, be found in all France. There is a great square tower on the south side, terminating in an apse. Inside, I saw some tapestry of the fifteenth century in good condition, and the sacristan showed an "Adoration of the Shepherds," which he attributed to Rubens, but it was so badly lighted that little of the detail could be seen. Soissons suffered much at the hands of the Germans during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, when it was besieged by a force under the command of the Duke of Mecklenburg, whose soldiers burned and destroyed to their hearts' content. Even as late as 1910, when I visited the town, the sacristan of the Cathedral, in response to a question as to his knowledge of the siege, became quite incoherent in his denunciations of the enemy. One wonders what has become of this cultured and delightful old man, who was at once priest and patriot. The south transept is said to have been the oldest part of the Cathedral, and here was the sacristy (dated the end of the twelfth century). The sacristan showed us the choir (1212) which was surrounded by eight square, and the apse by five chapels of polygonal form. Of these "Fergusson" says, "Nothing can exceed the justness of the proportions of the center and side aisles, both in themselves and to one another." Kneeling statues of the abbesses, Marie de la Rochefoucauld and Henriette de Lorraine d'Elbeuf were placed at either side of the west portal. These were from the royal abbey of Notre Dame, but the sacristan could not, or at any rate did not, give me any other information concerning them. In the west end was a lovely little chapel, in what is called the "Salle capit-ulaire," entrance to which is through an early Gothic cloister with graceful vaulting supported by two beautiful columns. Very little remained of the once magnificent Abbey of St. Jean des Vignes, except two spires, and a ruined façade, and this is on an eminence near the station. In the bombardment of the town during the Franco-Prus-sian War these were greatly damaged, but not destroyed. Here Thomas à Becket lived in 1170. Some of the remaining buildings were being used as a military prison in 1910. The beautiful remains of the royal abbey of Notre Dame were given over to the authorities as a soldiers' barracks, and admission to the premises was refused us at the gate by a sentry. Behind the Cathedral was the Hôtel de Ville, which contained the Library and the Museum, neither of which was impressive. Near the royal abbey of Notre Dame was the old Tour Lardier, in which, according to legend, Satan was put in chains and confined by St. Vaast. Outside the town, to the north, was the ruined church of St. Crepin-en-Chaye, where in an abbey built in the eleventh century, the Saints Crepinien were burned at the stake as martyrs. The abbots of old were certainly militant personages, and their castles were strongholds. We saw the remains of the abbey of St. Medard, which is said to have been founded in 560 by Clotaire I. Here the Kings Clotaire and Sigebert were buried, and here Childeric III was deposed; Pépin of Heristal received his crown, and Louis le Débonnaire imprisoned by his heartless sons in 833. Abelard, condemned at the Council of Soissons, was confined here for years. Cathedral: Noyon [Illustration: 0185] The monastery was one of the richest in France, holding an appanage of two hundred and fifty villages, including manor houses and farmsteads. A warrior abbot headed one hundred and fifty armed vassals at the Battle of Bouvines. Of the seven churches of St. Medard nothing remained, and the site was occupied by some nondescript buildings used as some sort of charitable institution. In a crypt under the chapel of the abbey church we were shown a large stone coffin, alleged to be that of Clotaire, and a small vault contains a cell in which the unfortunate Louis le Débonnaire languished. There is an inscription supporting this as follows:= ```"Hélas, je suys bons prins des douleurs `````que j'endure! ````Mourir mieux me vaudrait: `````la peine me tient dure." `````(Fourteenth Century.)= Of the genuineness of this inscription some authorities are doubtful, but I include it here, nevertheless. This whole region is now hidden behind the mask of smoke and mystery of the present infernal war. Just what ruin lies behind this dropped curtain is uncertain. It has been reported that Soissons is in ashes, burned and sacked in revenge for the failure of the Verdun attack. At any rate its inhabitants are confined within the limits of the town, and it is understood that they are compelled to toil unceasingly for the invaders. The vast farmsteads and fields are understood to be worked to the utmost by the townspeople in regular "gangs" under the eyes of German officers, and that the crops have been regularly gathered and distributed under the remarkable system for which the Germans are noted. Other than these no details have been allowed to creep forth from this unfortunate town. That this sanctuary of architecture may perchance escape entire destruction at the hands of these barbarians is not too much to hope for, but that the Cathedral should be spared is inconceivable, when one remembers the fate of Rheims, Ypres, Louvain, Arras, Malines and Noyon, to mention but a few of the incomparable treasures that have vanished before their onslaught. Soissons' magnificent monuments are now probably heaps of calcined stone and charred beams. Those marvels of painted glass will live henceforth only in the memory of those whose good fortune it was to have seen and valued them. As I write this the Cathedral of Lâon is reported to be a wreck, and is thus added to the list. Words fail me. These "murdered cities" are glorified forever more.... How one's imagination responds to their very names: Verdun, Amiens, Soissons, Rheims, Arras, Valenciennes!--and those others of Flanders: Bruges, Ghent, Louvain, Malines, Lille and Ypres--how full are these of grace and fancy. What ring of shield!--What clang of arms! For forty years these towns have enjoyed peace and fancied security, while that once great power, with hypocritical words of good will towards all men, even while sending delegates to the conferences at The Hague, was deliberately planning the destruction of sleeping nations whose lands are now invaded; whose young manhood is disappearing in a storm of blood and iron; whose architectural treasures are now but smoldering heaps of ashes! Rheims Cathedral, it is urged, was a landmark; a menace to the invader;--and this is true. It was a landmark, most certainly, and therefore it was a menace to the army of the invader, and was destroyed. This fact established, there followed the destruction of the other cathedrals, and it may be that before the invader is beaten off and pushed back over his own boundary line, those other great works of art still untouched will vanish under the rain of fire and shell--and none remain. Such a catastrophe is appalling, and it may be realized before the war is over, for there is small reason why all should not suffer the fate of great St. Martin's at Ypres, and Rheims, at the hands of the descendants of the Huns and the Allemanni. As it is now six great cathedral towns lie inclosed within their iron clad battle lines--Soissons, Lâon, Senlis, Amiens, Noyon and Rheims; of these Rheims, Soissons, Noyon and Senlis have been ruined; Amiens remains (so we are told) intact. No such assurance is given of Lâon, with its wonderful square ended choir, the only one in France, and the remarkable effigies of oxen, carved in stone, on the tops of the twin towers. NOYON |NOYON is really a most beautiful little town asleep amid surrounding heavy verdure and, with its dominating cathedral towers of Notre Dame, half Romanesque, half Gothic, which architects pronounce one of the best specimens of the transition period in France, is a veritable storehouse of interest." (I find this in my notebook, dated July, 1910.) It was named by the Romans "Noviodunam Veroman-duorum" and was notable as the residence of the great Bishops SS. Medard and Eloi. Here Charlemagne was crowned King of the Franks in 768. Jacques Sarrazin was born here in 1592, and a monument to him by the sculptor Mohlknecht was placed on the promenade in 1851. Just what the invaders have done to this sleepy, peaceful, little town, can not at this writing be ascertained, but it is reported that the great towers of the cathedral have been shot away, and that most of the town is a mass of shapeless debris. Mr. Ralph Adams Cram, the eminent architect who has made a study of the cathedral, says in his scholarly and informing book ("The Heart of Europe," p. 99), "The ancient cathedral was burned in 1131, and the present work begun shortly after, though it is hard to believe that much of the existing structure antedates the year 1150. The crossing and transepts date from about 1170, and the nave ten years later, while the west front and towers are of the early part of the next century. The certainty and calm assurance of the work is remarkable. Paris, which is later, is full of tentative experiments, but there is no halting here, rather a severe certainty of touch that is perfectly convincing.... In 1293 the whole town was destroyed by fire, and the cathedral wrecked; but it was immediately reconstructed, however; and at this time the sexpartite gave place to the quadripartite vaulting, while the west front with its great towers, very noble in their proportions and their powerful buttressing, was completed." From the earliest days Noyon in common with its neighboring towns seems to have had a hard time of it, whether in war or peace. The communes constantly fought with each other, the ancient burghers of Noyon being at daily loggerheads with the established metropolitan clergy. A certain Baudri de Larchainville, a native of Artois who had the title of chaplain of the bishopric, "a man of wise and reflecting mind" who did not share the violent aversion felt by most of his order for the existing institutions of communes, realized that sooner or later all would have to bow to authority, and that it was better to surrender to the wishes of the citizens than to shed blood in order to postpone an unavoidable revolution. Elected Bishop of Noyon in 1098, he found this town in the same state of unrest and insurrection as Cambrai. The registers of the church contained a host of documents entitled "Peace Made between Us and the Burghers of Noyon." But no reconciliation was lasting. "The truce was soon broken either by the clergy or by the citizens, who were the more touchy in that they had less security for their persons and their property." The new bishop believed that the establishment of a commune sworn to by both the rival parties might become a sort of compact of alliance between them, and he set about realizing this noble idea before the word commune had served at Noyon as the rallying cry of popular insurrection. "Of his own mere motion he convoked in assembly all the inhabitants of the town, clergy, knights, traders, and craftsmen. He presented them with a charter which constituted the body of burghers, an association forever under magistrates called _Jurymen_, like those of Cambrai. 'Whosoever,' said the charter, 'shall desire to enter this commune shall not be able to be received as a member of it by a single individual, but only in the presence of the Jurymen. The sum of money he shall then give shall be employed for the benefit of the town, and not for the private advantage of any one whatsoever. If the commune be outraged, all those who have sworn to it shall be bound to march to its defense, and none shall be empowered to remain at home unless he be infirm or sick, or so poor that he must needs be himself the watcher of his own wife and children lying sick. If any one have wounded or slain any one on the territory of the commune, the Jurymen shall take vengeance therefor.'" The other articles guarantee to the members of the commune of Noyon the complete ownership of their property, and the right of not being handed over to justice save before their own municipal magistrates. The bishop first swore to this charter, and the inhabitants of every condition took the same oath after him. In virtue of his pontifical authority he pronounced the anathema, and all the curses of the Old and New Testament, against whoever should in time to come try to dissolve the commune or infringe its regulations. Furthermore, in order to give this new pact a stronger warranty, Baudri requested the King of France, Louis the Fat, to corroborate it, as they used to say at the time, by his approbation and by the great seal of the Crown. The King consented to this request of the bishop, and that was all the part taken by Louis the Fat in the establishment of the Commune of Noyon. Fifteenth Century House: Noyon [Illustration: 0199] The King's Charter is not preserved but, under the date of 1108, there is extant one of the bishop's own, which may serve to substantiate the account given. "Baudri, by the grace of God, bishop of Noyon, to all those who do persevere and go on in the faith: "Most dear brethren, we learn by the example and words of the holy Fathers, that all good things ought to be committed to writing for fear lest hereafter they come to be forgotten. "Know then all Christians present and to come, that I have formed at Noyon a commune, constituted by the council and in an assembly of clergy, knights and burghers; that I have confirmed it by oath, by pontifical authority and by the bond of anathema, and that I have prevailed upon our lord King Louis to grant this commune and corroborate it with the King's Seal. This establishment formed by me, sworn to by a great number of persons, and granted by the King, let none be so bold as to destroy or alter; I give warning thereof, on behalf of God and myself, and I forbid it in the name of Pontifical Authority. "Whosoever shall transgress and violate the present law, be subjected to excommunication; and whosoever, on the contrary, shall faithfully keep it, be preserved forever amongst those who dwell in the house of the Lord." Thus was formed the Commune of Noyon in the year of our Lord 1108. At the end of the eleventh century the town had become one of the most important in the kingdom, filled with rich and industrious inhabitants; thither came, as to Lâon, the neighboring people for provisions or diversion; and such concourse led to many disturbances. Thierry says, "The nobles and their servitors, sword in hand, committed robbery upon the burghers; the streets of the town were not safe by night or even by day, and none could go out without running a risk of being stopped and robbed or killed." "Let me give as example," says Guibert of Nogent, "a single fact, which had it taken place amongst the Barbarians or Scythians, would assuredly have been considered the height of wickedness, in the judgment even of those who recognize no law. On Saturday the inhabitants of the country places used to leave their fields, and come from all sides to get provisions at the market. The townsfolk used then to go round the place carrying in baskets or bowls or otherwise, samples of vegetables or grain or any other article, as if they wished to sell. They would offer them to the first peasant who was in search of such things to buy; he would promise to pay the price agreed upon; then the seller would say to the buyer, 'Come with me to my house to see and examine the whole of the articles I am selling you.' The other would go; and then when they came to the bin containing the goods, the _honest_ seller would take off and hold up the lid, saying to the buyer, 'Step hither and put your head or arms into the bin to make quite sure that it is exactly the same goods as I showed you outside.' And then when the other unsuspecting, jumping on to the edge of the bin, remained leaning on his belly, with his head and shoulders hanging down, the worthy seller, who kept in the rear, would hoist up the thoughtless rustic by the feet, push him suddenly into the bin, and clapping down the lid as he fell, keep him shut up in this safe prison until he _bought_ himself out." This story, told of the Commune of Lâon, formed in imitation of that at Noyon, was typical of all such communities. Lâon elected one Gaudri, a Norman by birth, referendary of Henry I, King of England, and one of those churchmen who according to Thierry's expression, "had gone in the train of William the Bastard to seek their fortunes amongst the English by seizing the property of the vanquished." Of scarcely edifying life, he had the tastes and habits of a soldier; was hasty and arrogant; a fighter and also something of a glutton. He met at Langres Pope Pascal II, come to France to keep the festival of Christmas at the Abbey of Cluny. The Pope had heard of his reputation, for afterwards he asked the ecclesiastics who accompanied Gaudri, "why they had chosen a man unknown to them." "The question being asked in Latin, none of the priests knew even the rudiments of the tongue, so they could not answer," (says Guibert de Nogent, who records the matter). Gaudri certainly was scantily fitted for the bishopric, as the town soon discovered. "Scarcely had he been installed when he committed strange outrages. He had a man's eyes put out on suspicion of connivance with his enemies; and he tolerated the murder of another in the metropolitan church. In imitation of rich crusaders on their return from the East, he kept a black slave, whom he employed upon his deeds of vengeance. The burghers began to be disquieted and to wax wroth. So a commune was resolved upon like that at Noyon, and was speedily set up and proclaimed, to the manifest wrath of Gaudri, who for days abstained from entering the town. But the burghers, craftily acting upon his cupidity and avariciousness, 'offered him so large a sum of money as to appease the tempest of his words,' so he accepted the commune and swore to respect it. "For the space of three years all went well, and the burghers were happy and proud of the liberty they enjoyed, but when in 1112 the Bishop had spent the money thus received, he meditated over and keenly regretted the power thus bartered away, and resolved to return the townspeople to the old condition of serfdom. Consulting with King Louis the Fat, he won his consent to the plan he had in mind, by promising him untold sums of money." The Charter, sealed with the King's Seal, was annulled; and on the part of the King and the Bishop an order was issued to all the magistrates of the commune to cease from their functions, to give up the seal and the banner of the town, to ring no longer the belfry chimes which rang out the opening and closing of their audiences. But at this proclamation, so violent was the uproar in the town, that the King, who had hitherto lodged in a private hotel, thought it prudent to leave, and go to pass the night in the Episcopal Palace, which was surrounded by high walls. Not content with this precaution, and probably a little ashamed of what he had done, he left the next morning at daybreak with all his train, without waiting for the celebration of the festival of Easter for which he had undertaken the journey. Such troubles and disorders marked the rise and fall of all the communes. Those who are interested in such history of the struggles of the people for liberty of person and action may read further the accounts of the communes in Guizot's admirable History of France, from which these are extracts. Suffice it to say here that all the towns of Cambrai, Beauvais, Amiens, Soissons, Rheims and several others displayed at this period a vast deal of energy and perseverance in bringing their lords to recognize the most natural and the most necessary rights of every human creature and community. From this brief account some idea may be had of the ancient conditions. Let us now turn to the terrible state of affairs under which the unfortunate inhabitants of these quaint towns of Northern France are suffering. In the book of Octave Beauchamp, "Le Tour de France aux Cités Meurtries," is the following letter (which I translate roughly) of Leonie Godfroy, a nurse, known as "Schwester" God-froy: "During the night of the 28th to the 29th of August, the Mayor of Noyon advised the people, that as the situation had become critical because of the approach of the German army, all those who could do so should leave the town to escape the terrors of the invasion." L' Ancien Eveche: Noyon [Illustration: 0209] "In one of my school books, I remember a picture which, when I first saw it, filled me with horror. It represented the Exodus of the Gauls at the approach of the Huns, and was drawn, I think, by Gustav Doré,--the women half naked, dragged away by the savage soldiers; the terrified and crying children; the old men and women hurrying away, some empty-handed, others laden with all manner of objects which at any other time, or under different conditions would have seemed ridiculous, but which coupled with their terror, became pathetic. This picture now was enacted by my unfortunate fellow townspeople in their attempt to escape from the dangers of the bombardment and acts of the invaders. Crowds were running towards the railway depot, not realizing that the cars were already crowded to suffocation with half fainting women and terrified children. Others sat beside the ways, wailing and wringing their hands; here and there sat groups silent, staring as if they had lost their senses! "The forests outside the town were filled with hiding, terrified women, and here the Uhlans gathered on the morning of the 30th, after the invasion and occupation of Noyon. During this flight from town many women became mothers by the roadside, and lay there helpless until attended to by the German Ambulance Corps. The Germans arrived on the 30th of August. They entered Noyon after having fired three great shells into the city, which met with no response. The silence of death was over the town, save for the howling here and there of an abandoned dog, shut indoors. "We, the staff at the hospital, gathered about the president of our committee, with clasped hands, vowed solemnly that come what would, we should remain at our post, to do our duty to the end. With us stayed some courageous young women nurses, and several of the attendants. "Some hours before we had received at the hospital some dozen or so wounded English soldiers from the front. We were in the midst of our work with these, when there came the sound of violent banging on the front door. Two Uhlans burst in past the attendant and entered the court. "Catching sight of us ranged about the cot of a wounded soldier, these pushed us aside, examined the condition of the wounded men in the room and without saying one word to any of us, hurriedly took their departure. "From this instant our wounded were prisoners of war, and must resign themselves to all the circumstances of such state. The smallest resistance (of course there could be no resistance whatever on their part, wounded unto death as they were) would be visited upon us all; we would be shot in groups, and the hospital burned. Shortly after this a 'section' (so-called) entered the hospital without any formality, pistols in hand. The officers at once commandeered the autos in the court, and demanded our entire supply of gasolene. "Behind these advance soldiers, the German troops began to defile past the windows in plain sight. Then came weary men covered with dust and grime of the march, demanding food and drink. Some of these threw themselves upon the cots beside the lesser wounded, and seemed instantly to fall asleep. "We were soon unable to reply satisfactorily to the questions of the officers. They asked us, Frenchmen, how we found the French; if the English were numerous; if they had burned the bridges. We answered as well as we could, and as briefly as possible without giving them offense. The rooms being full, we placed foot tubs in the court, and attended to them. For the most part they impressed us filled with a great anxiety, even fear...." (Here follow allegations that are untranslatable--ignoble--they are omitted.) "We saw from the windows regiments of men in gray passing in great disorder, the men covered with dust and grime, and not always keeping step. Great army wagons passed, the drivers of which slept nodding on the seats. Some we saw fall as the wagons lurched. The horses seemed spent, and only kept going because of heavy blows and prods from bayonets. "This army of invasion resembles more an army in retreat. Imagine the state of affairs in this little city of Noyon, once so happy and peaceful, now resounding with the noise of the great guns of the Germans both day and night--nights of terror! "All the grocery shops are pillaged and gutted, so also the pharmacies and the bazaars. "Many of the houses are turned into something like shops for the barter of objects stolen by the soldiers in the town. In these furniture, silver, objects of art and linen are exchanged and packed up to be sent to Germany. The inhabitants are commanded to deposit with the 'Kommandantur' not only all firearms, but also all photographic cameras and telephone instruments in their possession. All pigeons in the town have been killed to prevent their being employed as messengers by the people. In occupying Noyon, the Germans have attempted to strip the place thoroughly of everything of value. Their hospital ambulances, called 'lazarets,' are used to gather in the proceeds of their thefts. "There is one at the theater, and others in the most important establishments. Here all that is collected by the soldiers each day is taken. The wine cellars have been emptied, it is said, and large quantities shipped to Germany. It has for days now been impossible for us to get a bottle of wine for our patients." Retable in the Cathedral: Noyon [Illustration: 0217] "In the great bombardment now going on of Noyon by the French endeavoring to drive out the enemy, the _faubourgs_ have suffered greatly; that of d'Amiens, the boulevards and the Rue d'Oroire particularly. The gas works and the depot are both destroyed, as well as the military casernes. I have heard the officers say how much they admire the French cannon, and the artillery corps. They frequently repeat in our hearing the ancient 'blague'--the Germans and the French should be friends--they will be sooner or later--they should unite for the good of humanity and for the downfall of England!--From officer to soldier this is the shibboleth. It does not ring true! Now and then there are visits from princes and dignitaries, accompanied by tremendous excitement and troops blazing with color, bands of music, and all intended to impress and encourage the dusty, dirty troops of soldiers who are continually coming from and going to the front, and lend a factitious animation to the town. Each day the German 'Etat Major' sends out the 'communiqués,' which are placarded all over town. The people of Noyon who remain pay little attention to them. "They do, however, study and commit to memory the rules of circulation. For instance, it is dangerous for one to pass twice on any given day in the same street; to stand talking with a friend without plausible reason, or to go to the railway station or walk upon a public promenade without permission. In the evening all are ordered to be in the house by four o'clock. The town is plunged in inky darkness at night, for the gas house and works are destroyed. Those who must have light use candles, but the price of these has risen beyond all belief. All lights at night are carefully hidden by blinds and heavy curtains, for at the least ray of light seen by the German patrol, suspicion is cast upon the inmates, and a 'crime' of this sort invariably brings arrest and a night in confinement under guard at the 'post' or even the risk of being sent to Germany. I have seen young and old, a priest and a sacristan thus sent away. "Often even a gesture misunderstood by a patrol results in the banishment of the offender over the border into Germany. "The Mayor of Noyon has carried on the difficult tasks entrusted to him with great skill and remarkable courage. Many times his administrations have placed him in grave danger, but so far he has not suffered for his demands for justice towards his unfortunate fellow townsmen. "Every Sunday mass is celebrated in the untouched part of the Cathedral. A Protestant service also is given following it. The troops attend in two detachments, and the sight of these two bodies at once in the Cathedral is sufficiently curious, and certainly most unusual. "In the afternoon the officers arrange a sort of concert, at which artists who are unlucky enough to be here are expected to perform. These are usually melancholy affairs. "When the town was first occupied by the Germans, in September, 1914, it was to the Cathedral that they sent their prisoners for confinement. The inhabitants were ordered to bring provisions for them, but were not allowed access to them. It was necessary to intrust the food they brought to the sentinels, and no one knows whether the food reached the poor prisoners or not. "As for the Cathedral, I can say truly that the two great towers were constantly used by the German soldiers as posts of observation. Our glorious dead have been laid at rest at the foot of an immense cross erected outside the town. "The Germans have prepared for their dead a large 'fosse' in the middle of a field. An armed picket guard assists at the interments of both French and Germans, at which military honors are scrupulously observed and given. These ceremonies, often under the heavy fire of the great guns of the French, have made an impression upon me that I shall never forget. "The morning of the 17th of October, as I was engaged in renewing the dressing of a lieutenant s wounds, two German policemen brusquely entered, and called out 'Schwester Godfroy!' "Hearing my name I turned and prepared to follow the two men, but these rough men, deeming my movements not quick enough, seized me by the arms and pushed me towards the stairs leading to my chamber. In the hallway I perceived my companions, each grasped by a 'gendarme.' An officer and five men pushed me with them into my chamber and locked the door; then these men, with a brutality impossible here to describe, ransacked my bed, ripped open the mattress and pillows, after which they turned the contents of my valise out on the floor, threw my clothing about; even breaking off the legs of my '_table de nuit_' to see if I had not letters or papers hidden therein. I kept my temper, remaining quiet. "Seeing me so calm seemed to render them furious at finding nothing to incriminate me. My trunk in a corner of the room attracted their attention, and they roughly ordered me to open it. I made them understand that there was no key to it. One of them wrenched off the lid with his saber, to discover that the trunk was empty. They then questioned me minutely, after eyeing suspiciously several German newspapers lying on the table. "'You speak German, and you refuse to admit it; but do not mistake--you and the others--we know you to be Belgians, and if you can get to Paris, it is not for the purpose of caring for the wounded...' "This seemed so foolish to me that I refused to answer. "For at least ten minutes they bent over my poor papers, my little souvenirs, and a piece of paper money which they examined minutely, thinking to find state secrets, I suppose. "Afterwards, when they returned my money, they kept five or six letters which I had preserved and kept by me as dear relics, precious letters from my mother and sisters... Their gross impoliteness made no outward impression upon me, but the instant their attention was attracted from me, and they turned their heads in another direction, I threw adroitly in a corner of my valise, which remained open beside me, a small packet which I carried in the waist of my dress. In this I had written a sort of diary of my experiences since the beginning of the war, together with accounts given me by wounded Frenchmen of their personal impressions of the combats in which they had been wounded; a few sketches and such matters, all innocent of any military value, but which, if found upon me, would have but one quick result... I pushed the valise farther under the table with a stealthy movement of my foot. The men then left the room, shutting the door behind them. Almost instantly two horrible 'Schwestern' entered without knocking, and proceeded to undress me, examining even the lining of my clothes for concealed papers--Of course they found none. My companions suffered the same indignities at the hands of these horrible creatures, who seemed to us more brutes than women. When they had gone, and I was sure that no one observed, I again concealed the packet of papers in the waist of my dress as before." Of her further adventures I can give no more here. She was taken away from Noyon shortly after the experience just related and sent to a detention camp of Holzminden in Germany with her companion nurses. Her experiences there were remarkable, and after serving with faithfulness until the following April, she was sent to Rastadt, the fortress, from which she obtained permission to leave, and return to Noyon by way of Switzerland. She finishes by writing: "Now, after more than a year has passed, I am once more in our dear little cottage, among those whom I had thought and feared never to see again. Alas--the war continues. Certainly I dreamed that war was very different from what I found it to be, and if my health returns to me, as I hope, I shall resume my work. I have seen the soldiers in the midst of battle at the front; I have attended them in the ambulances with undreamed of wounds; I have listened to and received their agonized confidences, and attended them to the end. They are all heroes to me... I have known them in captivity, famished for food, insulted, brutalized by their captors. Our brave boys! "Their courage, the grandeur of their souls, their indifference to pain in the face of duty, imparts to me something of their courage which inspires me. "A country defended by such an army has no right to doubt final victory. "(Signed) Leonie Godfroy." Hotel de Ville: Noyon [Illustration: 0227] One revolts at these terrible pictures and accounts of the ravages of war in this former peaceful town, now so ravaged by the German army. Its picturesque town hall with the emblazoned coat of arms below the turret, where those flocks of white pigeons paraded the coping, cooing in the sunshine--now a mass of blackened ruin, behind a vast hole in the ground in what was once the town square, marking where one of the great shells fell and burst; and the shattered towers of the gray old Cathedral, the roof of which is gone, leaving the debris filled interior open to the rainy gray cloudy sky. Where now are the throngs of happy, apparently care-free peasants who thronged the "place" before the flag-hung old Town Hall that morning we last saw it in September, 1910?... The Patron Saints' day--a day dear to the peasants. This festival which takes place but once a year, is an event in the peasant's life. On this day he invites his friends and his relatives to his house, each in turn. In such communities throughout France, where the church still preserves authority, the priest earnestly endeavors to protect the peasants from the wiles and temptations of sin--this is one of the few days when dancing is allowed. Thus in each section of the country or province the occasion is given a different name, although the circumstances of its celebration do not differ greatly. In the North of France the day is known under the name of "La Dricasse," in the East as "La Rapport," in Savoy as the "Vogue"; in Touraine as the "Assemblée"; as the "Ballade" in Poitou; as the "Frairie" in Angoumois; and as the "Pardon" in Brittany. The day before the fête, long lines of wagons with peddlers and mountebanks arrived in the "place" and each took up its station upon a position marked out with white stones, according to whatever license has been allotted to the showman at the Town Hall. There was no disorder whatever, no dispute with the _Sergeant de Ville_, whose word is law. The wagons were unpacked in the light of flaring naphtha torches under the excited eyes of the gamins who formed a wondering, pushing ring about the workmen until driven away by the police. One may believe that during that night the peasants slept lightly for thinking of the joys of the feasting and dancing of the morrow. At dawn of day the chimes in the cathedral awakened them. Soon they thronged the streets, the men dressed in new blouses, or treasured wedding coats, the girls all in unaccustomed finery of stiff skirts and Sunday headdress. All go to mass on a day of this sort as a sacred duty. The old Cathedral was crowded to the doors with the people; sitting and standing. Late comers fared badly and remained at the porch. Even there, they knelt piously at their devotions. But it seemed to us that the whole congregation was nervously excited and impatient to be gone. We could not hear the words of the priest's sermon, but undoubtedly he counseled them to keep sober and to beware of the attractiveness of sin. When the Amen was chanted how quickly the peasants left the old church! How they hastened to the square, where already flags were flying all about, and where the mountebanks were shouting out the attractions of their tented shows; where the booths displayed their attractive collections of brassy jewelry; and the firemen were gathered bravely in their brazen horsehair-plumed helmets, all ranged about the absurd diminutive fire pump, two feet in height and mounted on four twelve-inch scarlet wheels. How innocent, even pathetically ludicrous it seemed, yet what a charm it all had for us. Everything was calculated to attract and excite the desires of these simple people, who know nothing of the luxuries to which free born Americans are so accustomed. Here in the open square sharp-eyed Semitic merchants from Paris unpacked their paniers and heavy cases of cheap clothing, gaudy ribbons and flimsy varnished furniture, over which the women and girls crowded and pushed excitedly, fingering their lean purses, containing their hard earned "francs," and eagerly bargaining for the usually worthless articles. The "barkers" called out loudly the merits of the shows, before which, on elevated board platforms, hard faced girls in tights and motley clad buffoons paraded. Tinsel and glitter never failed to attract the peasant, and the clashing cymbal and the loudly beaten drum gives him delight. Here, before the old Town Hall, built three centuries ago, a modern moving picture tent was set up, with a large sign over it reading thus: "Cinema--Américain. Phonograph--Edison. Entree f. 1.50"--but the peasants did not yet know what this meant and they seemed dubious about it. The fortune teller, however, was highly successful, and his long green canvas covered wagon was surrounded by an eager waiting crowd of women; the men did not seem to care for it. An itinerant quack dentist, in a magnificently varnished open carriage hung with flags and diplomas from the "Crowned Heads of Europe," was extracting "an aching tooth," from the mouth of a frightened boy, who leaped away from the carriage, as the quack held up the offending tooth in a glittering forceps before the astonished eyes of the peasants. Spitting out blood, the boy, holding his jaw in his hands, and surrounded by other admiring "gamins," went away behind the back of a cart; following him I was just in time to see him display a bright new one franc piece to the others who were grouped about him. They all jumped away at my approach. "Did your teeth ache badly?" I asked him. "No, M'sieur, not at all, but he offered me one good silver franc for it, and _Mère de Dieu_, what would you?--a franc is a franc--and I have plenty of teeth left!" In the gorgeous carriage stood the loud mouthed "quack" flourishing the teeth in the silver plated forceps, and calling for "amateurs" to come forward and have their teeth out. There were booths filled with sweets about which the children lingered most longingly, and others where "fritters" were cooked in evil smelling grease, which were eagerly bought and consumed in large quantities by the young fellows and their girls. The various small inns and drinking-places were filled to suffocation the whole day long. From the open windows and doors came the sounds of loud singing, mingled with the raucous tones of barrel organs, and the jingling of glasses and bottles. There was much shouting and laughing on the part of the peasants, who on ordinary occasions are serious enough, if not morose. That night the festival was in full swing. The two large "merry-go-rounds" with their gaudily painted wooden lions, tigers, and horses, were whirling about in blazing circles laden with excited boys and screaming girls, to the groaning strains of large barrel organs, filling the air with noise. These merry-go-rounds were ornamented thickly with squares and diamonds of mirror glass, and these made a magnificent whirling show in the square. There was, too, the town orchestra vainly endeavoring to play the popular music, and finally there were some sputtering fireworks, followed by a speech by the Mayor, and a "retraite aux Flambeaux," consisting of a dozen firemen with oil lamps, which, preceded by a drum corps, made the round of the adjacent streets. After seeing this we returned to our little Hôtel du Nord, for it was near to midnight, but all night long the festivities went on in the square, and in the small dancing halls. We thought it all most quaint, even somewhat pathetic then. But the act of the aggressor which has swept away this pretty little town, leaving nothing but blackened, fire-eaten walls, and driving a simple innocent people into exile is nothing short of a crime against humanity. Of the ruin wrought in the neighborhood of Noyon and Lassigny by the Teutons before they abandoned this part of their line a correspondent (_Le Matin_, Paris) states that it is difficult to speak without entering into details of the most sordid character. What were once charming streets in Lassigny are now covered with masses of rubbish discarded by the Germans when they plundered the city. The beautiful old fifteenth century church, which was the Mecca for thousands of sightseers in times before the war, has been reduced to a heap of stones. Along the road from Lassigny to Noyon the spectacle of ruin is the same. Suzoy and many small villages were too far from the French lines to be damaged by the heavy artillery fire, but they bear, nevertheless, many traces of the barbarian rage. All furniture that could not be carried off by the Germans was battered and broken to prevent its use even for firewood. Much of it was piled in heaps along the road and burned to ashes. In some parts of the road the French found carts loaded with household furniture which the Germans in their haste were unable to move or burn. Farm implements, curtains, carpets and most of the household goods of the villages were smashed and in some cases covered with offal. At Noyon the houses have suffered comparatively little damage. The most noticeable wreckage was done in the vicinity of the bridges which had been blown up to prevent and delay pursuit. At some places the Germans exploded bombs and mines in the middle of the roadway, causing immense holes and ridges. The Cathedral is ruined; likewise the notable and remarkable old Town Hall, but the quaint old fountain in the Square has by some good fortune escaped damage. In March, 1917, on their departure from Noyon, the Germans delegated a staff of officers to visit the different banks in the town. Several prominent citizens were brought along to accelerate the work of pillage, and the officers compelled the opening of all safes. Even the minute objects whose chief value lay in sentimental attachment were taken by the Germans. Securities, jewelry and silver in the banks, amounting to $500,000 approximately, were taken before the town was evacuated. M. Poiret, mayor of the village of Pimpres, who was separated from his family two years ago, and compelled to remain at Noyon, says of his treatment by the Germans: "The humiliations we had to put up with are indescribable. During the last few weeks our physical discomforts became unbearable. There was neither meat, nor coal, nor vegetables, nor fat. In addition the Germans cut all the mains, so that we had no gas. They were constantly requisitioning what little we had. They took even the bells from the ruins of the Cathedral, and the old Town Hall, and last week the great organ in the church (Sainte Chapelle of the old Bishop's Palace) was removed. "We were joyous when we heard that the Germans were preparing to leave on Friday night. We were told to remain indoors on penalty of being shot if we stirred outdoors. "During the night the Germans blew up mines in the streets and dammed up the river Verse so as to flood the town. The evacuation began the following night (Saturday) and was finished by daybreak. "On Sunday at 11 o'clock the sight of French cavalry coming up the street toward my house was the most 'gorgeous' spectacle I have seen for more than two years." During the nights of March 16 and 17, two companies of German infantry arrived at the village of Ham, where there was a famous château (tenth century) of the Counts of Vermandois and later of the family of Coucy. The infantry remained until the following day, pillaging systematically, under orders of their officers, everything in the neighborhood. The ancient Château of Coucy furnished them with considerable valuable booty, and here four officers burned and broke up all the furniture they could not carry away. The château was in the form of a rectangle flanked at each corner by a round tower, and with great square towers on the north and east. The round tower at the northeast angle which rose from the canal was the work of Louis de Luxembourg in 1490. and was called the "Tour du Connetable," and bore above the portal the motto of its founder, "Mon Myeul." Its walls were of tremendous thickness and strength. The whole lower story was an immense hall of hexagonal form, and it had a number of strange pits, called furnaces, which were to be used to blow up the castle in case of capture. In this château many notable personages had been confined; for instance, Jeanne d'Arc; Condé, the Huguenot leader; Jacques Cassard of Nantes; and Prince Napoleon, after his failure and capture at Boulogne in 1840. This great and historical château they wantonly destroyed; after sacking it they blew it up with cases of explosives placed in the walls. The officers took away from their sleeping quarters in the town all chairs, bed clothing and even the smallest toilet articles. Some of the soldiers excused their acts to the townspeople by informing them that all this was done "by order of the Emperor." General von Fleck, commanding officer of the army corps stationed at Ham, took everything in the house he occupied from the cellar to the roof, using a wagon to carry away the objects. "After the wagon had gone with the last chair in the house, the general found himself in need of one on which to write a letter, so an orderly was dispatched to get one at the Mairie." MEAUX |THE little town of Meaux on the banks of the Marne is only thirty miles or so from Paris, and was remarkable for its old mills on the bridge over the river bed, behind the Hôtel de Ville, as well as for the beautiful cathedral of St. Etienne. The beauties of the town could best be appreciated from the shady walk along the river side. Here were great shade trees overhanging the roadway, through the branches of which one got glimpses of the cream colored tower of the old cathedral, above the red tiled roofs of the town, all against a summer sky of pale blue. Upon reaching the town, there were the two bridges over the Marne, both of them covered with some old mills with high wooden walls and quaint buttresses; almost theatrical and unbelievable in these practical days. The town had about twelve or thirteen thousand inhabitants, and was busied with a trade in grain. Some rather handsome boulevards seemed entirely out of key with the rest of the town, but there were the remains of an ancient chateau of the Counts of Flanders, built during the thirteenth, or maybe the twelfth century, accounts differ, which seemed much more in keeping with the place, and a most delightful little hotel called the "_Trois Rois_" from which it was hard to get away, so ideal were its comforts, and so moderate its charges. Meaux, says history, was the refuge of the noble ladies of France in the Jacquerie revolts of the thirteenth century, when the horrors of the rebel persecutions at Beauvais commenced. Once having reached the shelter of its walls, they dared not leave, and remained prisoners until the terror ended. Here remained the Duchesses of Orléans and Normandy among others no less famous and prominent, so that intrepid warrior, the Captai de Buch, accompanied by the Earl of Foix, gathered together a force of armed men for their rescue. All the roads leading to the town, from Paris, from Beauvoisie, from Valois, were filled with bands of peasantry, all bound for the town, which they had heard contained great treasure. Arriving at Meaux, de Buch and Foix were welcomed with great joy, for the peasants had begun to pillage wherever they could. Then ensued a great slaughter in which the marauding peasants were rounded up and killed like rats by the armed warriors. "They flung them in great heaps into the river. In short, they killed upwards of seven thousand; not one would have escaped if they had chosen to pursue them." Meaux, too, is famous for a great siege during the wars of Henry V, when he camped before the town walls in 1421. Monstrelet says, "The King of England was indefatigable in the siege of Meaux, and having destroyed many parts of the walls of the market place, he summoned the garrison to surrender themselves to the King of France and himself, or he would storm the place. To this summons they replied that it was not yet time to surrender, on which the King ordered the place to be stormed. The assault continued for seven or eight hours, in the most bloody manner; nevertheless, the besieged made a most obstinate defense, in spite of the great numbers that were attacking them. Their lances had been almost all broken, but in their stead they made use of spits, and fought back with such courage that the English were driven back from the ditches, which encouraged them much." Eventually, however, not receiving help from the Dauphin, upon which they had counted, they capitulated to Henry's soldiers. Under the treaty which followed, they agreed: "On the 11th day May, the market place, and all Meaux was to be surrendered into the hands of the Kings of France and England." As a warning to the people against further insurrection the leader, one Vauras, "the bastard," who had in his career killed many English and Burgundians, was hanged, drawn, and quartered before the walls of the town. After this, King Henry, who was very proud of his victory, entered the town in great pomp and splendor, remaining for some days with his princes and attendants, and left after giving orders that the town walls should be rebuilt and all other damages repaired. The ancient building called the "Evêché" near the cathedral was the residence of Bossuet, the famous preacher, in 1681. He was nicknamed the "Aigle de Meaux," and renowned for his eloquence, even at a time when France was rich in such genius. Bossuet stood head and shoulders even above such contemporaries as Mas-silon and Bourdaloue, Arnauld, Fleury, and Fénelon. It was really he who established the privileges and liberty of the Gallican church. Here in the little green garden behind the gray walls of the "Evêché," he sat, mused, and wrote his essays upon the encroachments of Papacy, which destroyed the remnants of Pope Innocent's power in France. In his later years he remained in seclusion here at Meaux, leading the life of a simple parish priest, and here he died "full of honors and beloved by all," and was buried in the church in 1704. A handsome statue by Ruxtiel was erected in his honor on the south side of the choir. Old Mills: Meaux [Illustration: 0249] Here, too, was a fine kneeling statue of Philip of Castile, dated 1627. But the great point of attraction for the stranger at Meaux was the bridge and the old timbered mills which overhung it, and the curious greeny water of the river Marne. I could not ascertain what gave the water its green color; it did not seem natural, yet there were apparently no dye works near at hand--none of the inhabitants whom I questioned seemed able to answer my question; they had never noticed it, they said. The morning upon which I made my sketches of the ancient mills and the old bridges, there were two of them over the river, the sky suddenly darkened, and a heavy shower of rain fell. I took refuge in the open doorway of one of the old mills, and sat on the lower step of a ruinous dusty steep stairway leading upwards into mysterious deep shadows. Somewhere in the interior sounded the rhythmic beating of heavy machinery, but save for this, the "drumming fingers of the rain," and an occasional tinkle of a bell high up in the tower of the cathedral, there were no signs or sounds of life. Meaux is not a large town, neither is it a very lively one, but it is charmingly situated. Were it farther away from Paris, I doubt not that it might attract the tourist, for it has a most delightful public promenade along the river Marne which is entered immediately before the railway station. But up to the time of the outbreak of the great world war, Meaux was comparatively unknown to the foreigner tourist, and were it not for the old mills of which I had heard, I should not have stopped there. The cathedral treasury possessed copies of nine of Raphaël's cartoons, and included two of the three "lost" ones, described as "Martyrdom of St. Stephen and Conversion of St. Paul." There were also copies of frescoes by Guido Reni and Dominichino, an "Adoration of the Magi" after Champaigne and an "Annunciation" after Stella. I had made notes concerning these in my pocket diary and as I sat on the step in the old doorway of the dusty mill, I mused over the pages while the raindrops fell outside. All at once the door swung to slowly, and when I tried to open it, I found that it was fast and would not yield. There was no sort of knob visible in the gloom, nor was there any aperture in the door through which light could come. There seemed to be light somewhere above, so I mounted the steps, which stopped abruptly before another closed door which, however, was not fastened, for it yielded at once to my touch. There was a small window here of four panes thick with dust, through which some feeble light came. More steep steps led upward, and I continued to mount, judging that I should soon come to some sort of room where there were men at work. But at the top of these stairs was a similar door and more steps, and still another flight brought me into an immense empty room with an uneven floor, the planks of which were loose here and there and gave alarmingly to my weight. Overhead huge beams crossed and recrossed the dimness, and on these beams perched countless numbers of rooks, who uneasily regarded my intrusion. The windows--there were five of them--I could not reach from the floor, nor could I by jumping up, try as I might, reach the sills, so that I might see out. Backwards and forwards I passed, and then along the blank wall which I judged adjoined the neighboring mill, seeking a doorway. I could find none. Finally I found a small door, not more than three feet from the floor in the blank wall. This was fastened by a hasp and opened readily. I got down on my hands and knees in the dust which lay thickly, and crept through it into a second large dim room, almost the counterpart of that which I had just left, save that it was lighted by only one window and this without glass. It, too, was high up in the wall like the others. In the very middle of the uneven floor was an unguarded opening through which the heavy ropes of a pulley hung. I lost no time in feeling my way carefully down the steps at one side which were without any rail to hold on to. I found that there was a ladder here by which I might descend, which I did at once, but with some misgivings as to where it might land me. Now I heard voices from below and, reassured, I put foot to the ladder. In a few moments I was on the floor below, but as I was about to walk away from the ladder in the darkness towards an opening on the farther end, I bethought me to put out a foot carefully to try the floor. To my horror there was no floor there, and retreating I lighted a match and threw it before me. The feeble flame was enough to show a great black chasm where I had thought to step a moment before, and the hair on my scalp rose in fright at my escape. I shouted aloud for help--I heard running footsteps--and right beside me a door opened letting in a flood of daylight and the figure of one of the millers, who regarded me with openmouthed astonishment, as well he might. When I had explained my predicament, he and the other men who gathered about were loud in their expressions of wonder at my escape from a terrible death, for had I but stepped a foot farther, I had fallen forty or fifty feet into a sluiceway from which they vowed I never could have escaped alive. I invited all hands over to the café, and there I gave offerings to Bacchus in honor of my escape which were eagerly consumed by the millers of Meaux. Cathedral: Meaux [Illustration: 0257] M. Georges Montorgueil, writing in "La Cités Meurtries, 1916," his account of the early days of terror in Meaux, gives a picture of the old priest who so devotedly and courageously shepherded his little flock of women and children, helpless before the invasion and destruction of the town by the Germans: "Where, meanwhile, was the venerable priest, an old man of seventy-five years, the Abbé Fossin, whose age and gray hairs was no protection, to him, nor the eighteen unfortunates who were seized with him by the Germans and thrown into jail, under the most atrocious circumstances, not matched by any of its most ancient barbarities when the Germans were known as 'Huns.' "The Abbé Fossin kept a Journal of events during the tragic hours preceding his arrest: "'5th of September, 1914. Saturday. "'I read my breviary. An aéroplane passed above my head. The bodies of two pilots killed by a bomb were taken to the cemetery. A group of captured French soldiers are passing. "L'église en ambulance." The prisoners of Guerard have gone. All the electric lights in the town are out. "'6th September. Sunday. "'A bad night. Impossible to say Mass or hold funeral of the two aviators in the cemetery because of the falling shells. The cannonade began at nine o'clock and lasted until five o'clock without interruption. We are under a very rain of fire! The batteries of the Germans, placed behind the presbytery, have been located by the English. I believe my last hour has arrived. The din is frightful! I have thanked God that I am protected. "'7th September. Monday. "'The battle has recommenced. Still impossible to say the Holy Mass. I paid a visit to the Germans in the Church. These are the most terribly wounded. They gave me their hands. They are badly off. I cannot give them bread; all I had, all the fruits of my garden have disappeared! I have nothing left!--' "The diary ends here. Here was a holy man of venerable years of known truth and great charity, visiting his enemies to give them what he had, his prayers. He had nothing else to give. He was fatigued for lack of sleep. He was hungry, but he had nothing to eat. All he had in his meager house and small garden had been either taken away or destroyed. Witness now his recompense: less than an hour after he had written those last notes in his diary, the Germans had seized and dragged him before a wrathful German officer. "He was charged with having climbed the tower of the cathedral to signal to the British lines. He who so suffered from rheumatism that he could hardly walk from his doorway to the church, a few paces away, by the aid of a cane. He was insulted by the officer, the soldiers who held him up before his questioner spat in his face. At length his shoes and clothes were stripped from him, and with great brutality he was thrown into a cellar, where he spent the night, with some potato bags to cover him. In the morning the door above was flung open, and a number of captives were thrown down the steep steps of the cellar way. These were Milliardet, Jourdin, Vapaille, Therré, Croix, Eugene Leriche, Lacour, Jules Denis, Berthelemy Denis, Merillon, Combes, Mesnil, Liévin, Faure and his son, aged fifteen, who was baker's boy in the village of Vareddes, and known under the nickname of 'Marmiton.' "To this group the Germans added later in the day Paul Lebel and Vincent Denis, arrested because the latter called out to a German soldier, 'Eh, well, old man, you are not yet at Paris!' "On Saturday, without feeding them or allowing any one to visit them, all these unfortunates were divided into several groups, and surrounded by soldiers, hustled along the road to Lizy-sur-Ourcy, where they were halted. "They numbered now fifteen in all, not counting the old priest, the Abbé Fossin. "Père Leriche, who was himself seventy-four years old, relates that the Abbé, who lay prostrate on the ground beside him, said to him in a low voice, 'I believe that they are going to shoot me--take my watch and breviary, and try and get them to my family.' When the march was resumed the Abbé could not walk fast enough to suit the soldiers. He was pushed and struck by them, his soutane was torn to ribbons. Finally they threw him into a wagon which they seized on the road. In this he lay groaning. He died a short time later, and was left beside the road. The heat was atrocious; thus they marched, the younger ones sustaining the elders, through the long hours to the rear, without water or food, insulted and beaten constantly by their captors. "At Coulomb, Père Jourdain fell in the road, unable to continue the march. He was immediately dispatched by a revolver shot. "At Chézy-en-Orxois, another old man, Milliardet, eighty years old, was similarly disposed of. Any complaint was the signal of death. Both Terry and Croix were shot for whistling. "Old Eugene Menie, who halted on the edge of a deep ditch, was struck by the butt of a gun in the hands of one of the soldiers, and his neck broken--they threw him into the ditch and went on. "Père Liévin, aged sixty-one, who had heart disease, could not keep step with the others; he was purple in the face, and his eyes stuck out so comically that it amused the soldiers, who finally shot him and left his body at the cemetery gate in Chauny." These are only haphazard extracts from the records of that terrible month of September, 1914, when unfortunate Meaux was the very center of affairs. Elsewhere we read of the aspects of the streets after each successive bombardment, the telegraph hanging in festoons on the footways, the trunks of huge trees felled by cannon barring the way; the carcasses of animals lying about amid strange débris, such as heavy leather shoes, broken guns, sticks and barrels, empty tin cans, torn and ragged clothing clotted with blood, strange piles of still smoking ashes containing small bones, and over all the odor of burning petroleum. The houses with wide open doors and sashless window frames; gardens uprooted and despoiled; walls thrown down, and strewn about an immense quantity of broken glass bottles. These were the streets of Meaux, which I had explored on that peaceful morning in August, 1910, and made the sketches of the old bridge with its clustered mills, the fire blackened beams now hanging in grotesque ruins over the water of the little green river. The bombardment began on Monday, the 7th of September, 1914. The first of the German shells fell upon the town at eleven in the morning, in the direction of the fauburg St.-Nicholas, then in the fauburg St.-Faron. The bombardment followed the line of the railway. In the cemetery the ancient tombs were scattered in all directions; ten shells destroyed the hospital. The Grand Seminary fell next. Of the one hundred and twenty shells which on this Monday fell in the town, the first five did the greatest damage. Whole lines of houses were thrown down and set on fire. This lasted until six in the afternoon. The next day shells began to fall again in the early morning. The cathedral was encircled by shells, which did great damage, but by a special Providence with the exception of an enormous hole in the roof, and the destruction of the venerable cloisters, the ancient cathedral escaped the fate of its neighbors. This is the chronology: Wednesday, September 2, the exodus; Thursday, the town lay deserted and helpless; Friday, the organization of all the available defensive forces; Saturday and Sunday, the battle; Monday, the bombardment; Tuesday, the enemy driven off, and the town saved. SENLIS |FROM the railway station one could see the towers of the cathedral and the old church of St. Pierre, above the heavy trees of a short avenue which led to that part of the town, where formerly stood the old ramparts--and to the Porte Royale. The best and most picturesque part of the town, of interest to the antiquary, was the western end, and here were tortuous and delightful crooked narrow streets, quaint little gabled houses, old mossy walls surrounding luxuriant gardens, and some remains of the remarkable chateaux of a bygone period. Ancient stronghold in past centuries, it had become a little old sleepy town given over to churches and the priesthood. Of the ancient Gallo-Roman fortifications there were still to be seen, up to the outbreak of the war in 1914, sixteen of the Roman towers in a fair state of preservation. A small river, the Nonette, passes through it, winding most exquisitely. Situated some thirty-five miles from Paris, and on the edge of the Champagne district, its character could be best appraised from the charming public promenade along the river's bank, lined with fine trees and offering vistas of great picturesqueness. The old cathedral dates back to the early days of the thirteenth century; its lace-like gray tower, covered with exquisite Gothic ornamentation, was a source of delight to artists and antiquarians. Usually covered with scaffolding, the tower was in a constant state of repair, but the spidery scaffolding seemed not at all to detract from the charm of its lines. One of the architects in charge explained that the vaulting and the first stage of the choir, the "triform ambulatory" had been removed because of cracks developing in the masonry, but this alteration did not seem to have resulted in any loss to the interior artistically. Indeed, as it stood in 1910, the choir elevation was a most exquisite example of thirteenth century construction and design. Ancient Ramparts: Senlis [Illustration: 0271] Lying in the midst of the great forest lands of Chantilly and Hallette, Senlis, until the dissolution of the Carlo-vingian Empire, was the place of royal residence, and even thereafter, to the time of Henry of Navarre, the kings of France preferred it to all others. The Castle was built upon the site of the Roman Prætorium, the ruins of which were pointed out to tourists. The ancient Roman ramparts which still in part surrounded the town were also shown, and the walls were said to be thirteen feet thick. "They enclosed an area, oval in form, one thousand and twenty feet long from east to west and seven hundred and ninety-four feet wide from north to south. At each of the angles formed by the broken lines of which the circuit of two thousand seven hundred and fifty-six feet is composed, stands or stood a tower; numbering twenty-eight and now only sixteen, they are semicircular in plan, and up to the height of the wall are unpierced. The Roman city had only two gates; the present number is five." The old cathedral was both curious and fascinating, as well as of great beauty. Begun in 1154 on really enormous lines, its original plan was never carried out for want of funds. Century after century it had been rebuilt, altered, extended and replanned, until it had become, as an American architect of renown styled it, "an epitome of French architecture from the middle of the twelfth to the middle of the fifteenth century." Its companion unfinished, the great southwest tower is of the thirteenth century, and is said to be "unsurpassed by no other spire in France for subtlety of composition and perfection of detail." One of its beautiful "crocketed" pinnacles was shot away in the bombardment by the Germans in 1915, and the loss left the world poor indeed. It is certainly a strange sensation for us to watch from a distance the continuous destruction of the great works of art of the world, powerless to prevent it. For us all this loss is personal, poignant, unexampled; a horror that nothing can palliate nor time soften. The ancient Renaissance tower of St. Pierre had been used as a public market, and also as a cavalry barrack because of its ruinous state. In form it was most curious, being very short and too wide for proportion. While the prevailing style was flamboyant, it contained a certain amount of early Gothic work of considerable interest and value. I regret that I did not make a sketch of it when I was there, for the scene at early morning with the crowds of market people, and the vegetable stalls all about, and rising above them the bare gray walls of the nave and the choir, formed a picture of much quaintness. The glory of the old cathedral of "Notre Dame" was the beautiful spire upon the southwest tower. Of infinite grace and lightness with its detached pillars, it rose from an octagonal base which supported a sort of canopy in pyramidal form, the whole adorned with a wealth of delicate carving and tracery, and pierced by high dormer lancet shaped windows, about which flew clouds of ravens or starlings. The great door in the west front reminded one of that at Chartres, and was adorned with figures of Our Lord and the Virgin, some of the figures of the angels being of remarkable character and grace. Inside in the ambulatory, behind the altar, are some of the twelfth century Romanesque capitals, and elsewhere are found other evidences of Roman influence. All accounts agree that this beautiful edifice has now been entirely destroyed by the invader (1917). Former wars have swept the little town from time to time in the past, but the cathedral remained practically untouched until the present day. Whatever the former causes, or however violent the onslaught of the opposing forces, these priceless records of art were spared by common consent, save perhaps when the Revolution swept over the cloisters, and even then the havoc wrought was reparable, but now comes one calling himself the anointed representative of God, and annihilates an innocent people and destroys the treasures of a land which he cannot conquer. Just what remains at this time of Senlis cannot be ascertained, but all accounts agree that the huge gray Romanesque tower can no longer be seen upon the horizon, and that the bombardment of the ruins continues. Baron André de Maricourt has written a most complete monograph of Senlis. (Senlis. Baron André de Maricourt, ancien élève de l'école des Chartes. "Les Cités Meurtries." Paris. Librarie de l'Eclair.) "Hidden away among the heavy trees which surround it upon all sides, lies the little town of Senlis, almost a suburb of Paris." According to the old proverb, "To live happily is to remain hidden." So Senlis remained comparatively forgotten. The very names of its streets were strange to modern ears and evoked smiles from the stranger, and its old houses, dating from the days of "la reine Berthe," enchanted the antiquary. This little town of seven thousand inhabitants was indeed one of the capitals of ancient France during the times of the Capets, and in the royal château which sheltered the chiefs of the Merovingians, and royalties down to the days of Henry IV, were written many pages of the history of France. One recalls the days of Charles le Chauve, of d'Hugues Capet and St. Louis, the quarrel of the Armagnaces and the Bourguignons, recalled by the strange picture by Melingue, "Les Otages de Senlis," which was in the Hôtel de Ville up to the time of the bombardment by the Germans. Also may be recalled the passage of Jeanne d'Arc through the town, and then the wars of the "Ligue,"--all proving the importance of Senlis of the past. In the eighteenth century, Louis XV, in order to render the town more accessible, constructed a fine roadway from Paris to the royal residence, and Senlis emerged from its quietude, amazed at the lines of gilded equipages and the prancing horses urged on the gallop by gorgeously dressed lackeys which daily thronged the way. Cathedral: Senlis [Illustration: 0279] This roadway, called formerly the "Rue Neuve de Paris," was the principal artery of the little old city, under the twenty-year-old name of "Rue de la République." Sung by poets, such as Gérard de Nerval, and Maurice Barrés, M. André Haileys described Senlis as "tortueuse, taciturne et charmante," and dwelt lovingly upon its "mossy terraces," its ancient walls bathed in sunlight, and its grand old tower whose perfect bells sounded over the golden green fields. In the early summer days of 1914, the Society of Amateurs held their celebration at Senlis, says Baron de Maricourt, "a few months ago, months which seem years now. The ceremony was to celebrate the Victory of Bouvignes. In the St. Rieul Hall, Madame la duchesse de Vendôme sat beside M. Odent, the mayor of the town, who spoke feelingly of ancient France, and of Flanders.... "One month later the Hall was occupied by cavalry; our own cavalry of France.... On the horizon lay the German army.... "Three weeks later M. Odent, the mayor, was killed in the bombardment; the Hall of Saint-Rieul was a hospital; the brother of the princess had become 'Albert le Brave,' the plain of Bouvignes was bathed in blood; Senlis was burning; the inhabitants had fled." It would appear that Senlis was burned and sacked to inspire Paris with terror, and as an example of the fate that awaited her. Nearly all the inhabitants fled when the news came that the Germans had crossed the border. A few of the citizens resolved to remain to support the mayor and magistrates in keeping the peace, to patrol the town to prevent looting, and to watch for fires. Some pieces of heavy artillery had been arranged before the Hôtel de Ville and under the towers of the Cathedral, but there was neither ammunition for these nor soldiers in the town to use them. The town was silent, the factories empty, the streets almost deserted. In the town hall, the few faithful ones remained on watch day and night grouped about the mayor. In some of the rooms were refugees from neighboring towns, old men and women with young children who had nowhere else to go. In the hospitals the nuns and nurses cared for the wounded who had been brought to the town in large numbers. There were no soldiers hereabouts. This is the truth (affirms the Baron de Maricourt). The Germans understood and saw a different picture, so they say. They heard the movement of vast bodies of armed men; they saw the "franc tireurs" in the trees firing upon them, they saw cannon protruding from the windows of the towers of the old cathedral.... So the knell of Louvain sounded for Senlis.... So wrote the Baron de Maricourt of Senlis, who remained in the town during the occupation by the Germans, who suffered at their hands all the indignities they could devise; who remained calm and heroic through all the terrors of the bombardment and destruction of his beloved town. "The first German body of troops which entered the town carried with them a corps of incendiaries in regular formation upon bicycles, armed with tubes of metal containing, as was afterwards ascertained, picric acid, and others a kind of wick of cotton charged with gasoline or petroleum. Some of the men carried hand grenades strung around their waists or over their shoulders, and these they threw into open windows and doorways of designated houses. By midnight the sky was illuminated by fires in every quarter of the town." It commenced in the faubourg St.-Martin. It is said that the soldiers warned the occupants of houses designated to leave before they set fire to them. "Let us be just to the German soldiers," says M. de Maricourt. "In the evening of the day of occupation, the Archdeacon was brought to the Hôtel du Grand-Cerf, by the concierge Boullay. He was paraded before the officers, but was not mistreated, except that he was compelled to stand, and no one addressed him. Finally he was ordered to return to his quarters, but hardly had he arrived there, before another order came for him to return at once to the Grand-Cerf. Already towards the south end of the town the houses were in flames, and he saw the soldiers carrying lighted torches. He was brought before an officer who spoke French and whose manner was not discourteous:-- "'Monsieur,' said he, 'attend to me,'--and he read from a paper charges that the priest had allowed citizens to fire upon the entering German troops. "'It is not true,' replied the Archdeacon, 'I was alone in the church, and the keys were in my pocket.' "The officer read upon the face of the priest the evident sincerity of his words. "'Poor priest! Poor town!' he said pityingly, 'I believe you, but I must obey orders.' "'How so?' "'Because I am ordered to treat Senlis as was Louvain; by to-morrow there will remain not one stone upon another.' "M. Douvlent pleaded eloquently for his parishioners, whose innocence he vouched for. The officer seemed impressed. "'You are a Catholic priest, but alas, war is cruel, and orders are not to be ignored. This town merits chastisement.' "'Take me before the General,' urged the priest, 'I am your prisoner, and I have the right to plead the cause of my innocent parishioners.' "'No, sir,' retorted the officer frowningly, 'nothing of the sort; do you not realize that you are in great danger?' "'Danger?' ejaculated the priest, 'I fear no danger, I have made my sacrifice; I have faced it all this morning.' "'Very well,' said the officer, somewhat more gently, 'but I think it will be best for you to return to your house. If necessary I will call you.' "A short time after this conversation, I saw the priest, with the few who remained of his household, standing in the Square. I saw them again at about one in the morning; they were still standing in the Square beneath the lamp which shone upon their anxious faces. A dozen or so German soldiers stood about. Two sentries paced up and down, one at each crossing. No one returned to their houses. The curtain had risen upon the drama of Senlis.... "At the end of this day, Thursday, M. Odent (the mayor of Senlis), left the Hôtel de Grand-Cerf accompanied by an officer, and entering a covered automobile was driven rapidly away, followed by five cavalrymen. "They stopped at a place called 'le Poteari,' situated between Senlis and Chamont; there they found six captives whom the Germans had taken at hazard on the route. "One of these, named Delacroix, had been arrested in company with two workmen named Quentin and Reck, the latter a mason by trade, at the corner of the Rue de Bordeaux and la République, at the moment when the firing was the hottest in that quarter. Reck had been hit in the jaw and in the arm. The German soldiers entering the town found him bleeding in the road and with the singular, the unexplainable attitude of the German, at one moment cruel to the last degree, at the next of lamblike gentleness, these soldiers conducted the wounded man Reck to the 'prefecture,' _where his wounds were tenderly dressed by a German Major!_ "Quentin and Delacroix were taken at Chamont with revolvers in their hands, together with a stranger who was visiting the house of his sister, and two others, Benoit Decrens, a domestic servant, and Boullet, a laborer. "Up to eleven o'clock in the evening these unhappy captives were marched up and down the various streets and alleys of the village by their captors, until at length near the Bon Secours woods in a secluded spot, an officer ordered the mayor and the six captives to lie down on the grass. When this was done, he ordered the mayor, M. Odent, to rise and advance three paces. "The soldiers presented arms. "'You are the Mayor Odent?' called out the officer brusquely. "'Yes.' "'You have fired on our men?' "'No.' "'You have fired on our men,' insisted the ferocious voice, 'you are to be shot!' "M. Odent handed his papers to Benoit and shook hands with his companions. He then clasped his hands in prayer, after which he stood with eyes calmly fixed upon the officer. The officer raised his hands, motioning to the soldiers. "They shot the mayor with their revolvers.... "Afterwards, the officer made a little speech to the terrified men. "'War is as sad for us as it is for you. It is France and your Poincaré that you must blame--they would have it. We Germans do not make war upon civilians, but those who fire upon us will be promptly shot.' "These men were then used as guides by the officers, during their occupancy of the town. When no longer of use, _they disappeared._ "There were others, too; I do not know how many. There was little Gabanel, the son of the butcher, a merry little chap, known throughout the neighborhood, he disappeared with his father's old white horse and the red, two-wheeled wagon. He was never heard of again... and there was the baker's boy Jaudin, whose mutilated body was found in a field at Villers-St. Frambourg.... There was the hunchback Cottreau, aged seventeen, a harmless cripple who was found hanging in the attic of an inn.... "Arthur Rigault, the stone cutter, Elisée Pommier, aged 67 years.... "Jean Barbier, wagon driver.... "Pierre Dewart, chauffeur. "None of these can ever relate their terrible stories. We shall never know what happened to them." THE CHATEAU OF GÈRBÉVILLER |THE château and the Chapel Palatine of Gèrbéviller were unique in many respects. Dating from the thirteenth century, the chateau served as appanage to the Cadets of Lorraine, to whom they were given by Charles the Bold, and transmitted in 1486 to Huet du Châtelet, whose illustrious family founded the _Maison des Cannes_. In 1641 it came into the hands of Charles-Emmanuel de la Tornielle, step-brother of Christian du Châtelet of the powerful Tornielle family, thence it descended successively to the Lombartyes, in whose possession it remained until it was seized and sold by the state in the troublous times of 1796. The chapel was restored, almost reconstructed and consecrated on the nineteenth of July, 1865, by Monsignor Lavigerie with great splendor and pomp in the presence of the Lombartye family and a score of dignitaries of the state. The château itself, constructed in the eighteenth century, was possessed of what the French call "grand air," and was certainly imposing in size from a distance, shining among the dark green of the heavy foliage which surrounded it. Its façade on the road was somewhat marred by the narrowness of the approach. But the façade on the parkway, through which a small brook called the "Montagne" meandered most delightfully, was most impressive. The sketch which I made of it will serve to show the character of the great house better than many pages of written description. The reputation enjoyed by this great typical château of France was not by any means confined to the country. It was known throughout Europe, and for this reason, I suppose, was a shining mark for the Teutons. At the side of the château was the grand entrance, used only upon state occasions. This entrance was flanked by two immense "vasques" or vases of dark gray marble, a little too monumental, perhaps architects might think, but taken together with the "grand air" of the château entirely in keeping, to my mind. These it is claimed still stand unharmed amid the ruins all about. Chapel of the Château: Gèrbéviller [Illustration: 0295] The Chapel Palatine architecturally, perhaps, does not merit extended eulogy. Its towers are shot away, and some blackened calcined walls are all that remain. But the treasures which it contained, now either destroyed or carried off to Berlin, who shall say if they can ever be replaced? I am told that the family of Lombartye, and notably its last representative, who restored it in 1865, was long a resident of Rome, and being very wealthy had collected a vast store of most valuable objects of art of all kinds, including statuary and paintings, and these he had installed not only in the château, but had so enriched the chapel that it was a veritable storehouse of precious objects--even more than a museum, because most of them related to the history of the ancient families who had occupied Gèrbéviller. Here then in this small chapel was a collection of marvels of decorative art, tapestries of Arras, examples of the jeweler's craft, illuminations upon vellum, a hundred or more priceless volumes, and notably a collection of funerary urns, containing the ashes of most illustrious personages, including some of the Saints. Among the treasures in this small chapel was a series of the tapestries of Gobelin, another of Beauvais, and a third complete pictorial set made in Antwerp after the cartoons of Nicolas Memling. These last, just before the destruction of Gèrbéviller, were presented to the Cathedral of Nancy. The others are among the ashes of the ruins. The Master altar of the chapel was covered by a magnificent "ciborium," raised upon three columns of black marble, ornamented by "tears" of silver of twelfth century workmanship. The great candelabra, called "Flambeaux," were of Flemish work, and had twenty-four lusters; these were destroyed. There were splendid tombs on all sides; one was a reproduction of that of Henry I, Count of Champagne, and of St. Etienne of Troyes; the tomb of Lombartye, of de la Vieufville, of Rochechourt-la-Rochefoucauld, of du Caylar, of Vieuville, of Gouy d'Arsy, and that of Père Jandel the Dominican. All these are mutilated and broken. Of the funeral urns, one contained the ashes of St. Auguste, the martyr; another of what is called "cipollin," the ashes of Ste Victoire; a red marble one those of St. Vital; a "chasse" held a portion of the petrified bones of Candide, presented by the Bishop of Nancy. Another one contained the bones of St. Felix Romain. A great tall "ciborium" contained the "relique" of Tarcisius, the young martyr of the Eucharist. These, contained in a wonderful chest covered with vermilion enamel, bore an epitaph composed by Pope Damase, and were brought from Rome by the Dominicans. Overjoyed in the possession of such a treasure, the Marquis of Lombartye, sought an artist of renown who could make a fitting monument to contain it. His choice fell upon Fal-guière the sculptor. He it was who fashioned the exquisite statue in the Luxembourg. But it is not generally known that this is a replica of the original which was in the Chapel of Gèrbéviller, and which is now entirely destroyed. I understand that in searching the ruins, certain fragments of precious objects have been found and removed to Paris. M. Pigot in his report claims that the head of Fal-guière's statue of St. Tarcisius was found among the ashes, and, placed in a strong oaken box, has been given into the hands of M. le Sous-Préfet of Lunéville. But the remarkable paintings which the chapel contained are of course entirely consumed in the fire caused by the bombs and shells which fell upon the chapel for days at a time. There was the painting by Lippo Lippi; a portrait of Prosper Lambartini (Pope Benoit XIV); a triptych by Fra Angelico; one by Sandro Botticelli; The Virgin, the infant and two angels; a copy of the "_Femme Adultéré_" by Titian; a Benozzo Gozzoli; a canvas by a pupil of Ferrare, and various others. There was a splendid statue of the Virgin in terra cotta of the sixteenth century; a life size St. Joseph by Lizier-Richie; and two statues of Christ and John the Baptist in bronze by Dubois. Of these the statue of Christ remains (says M. Pigot in his report) "unharmed." The little town of Gèrbéviller itself is entirely destroyed, and the wretched inhabitants are scattered to the four winds. And for what good was all this, one asks? M. Georges Goyan, writing in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, of the heroic work performed by the nuns of France, relates a touching story of a Sister Julia of Gèrbéviller, who, when the village was in flames and a German officer was about to give the order to burn the Red Cross pavilion, stepped before the lieutenant and with the most superb courage defied him to commit the sacrilege. The officer, a Bavarian, taken aback for the moment, bowed his head, and the pavilion was spared. Sister Gabriela of the little town of Clermont-en-Ar-gonne was no less courageous. She advanced to meet the army of the Crown Prince when it arrived, saying, "We will care for your wounded, if you will spare the town." She received a promise, which was not kept, however. Again, she sought the Colonel, and bravely said, "I see now that the word of a German officer is not to be relied on." Ashamed, he ordered the work of destruction stopped, and thus the town was spared. Twenty-five wounded French prisoners owed their lives to this devoted nun, who in April, 1916, received the decoration of the war medal. Goyan quotes verbatim from the report of the nun, "The Major made his congratulatory speech while I was completing the bandage of my poor 'poilu,' whose head rested on my lap." Château: Gèrbéviller [Illustration: 0303] Waldeck-Rousseau, the former Premier of France, in a speech before the French senate in 1903 stated that "Catholicism survives in France, if not as a religious law, faithfully observed by everybody, at least as a social statute respected by the vast majority." M. Goyan declares that the French church is indeed a moral power to be reckoned with, "and when the war-tocsin had rung throughout the land, when the hour of death had been welcomed as an old dear friend, all misunderstandings of the past melted away, and now for fully twenty-eight months the church could again place itself at the disposal of France." With emotion and gratitude he relates the patriotic sacrifices made by the Protestant churches and the synagogues of France. Out of four hundred and ninety pastors of the Lutheran and Reformed churches, "one hundred and eighty are in the trenches: all students of the Paris Rabbinical Seminary and more than three-fifths of the officiating rabbis of the Republic left for the front; two of them were killed, one was missing. "When after this war is over, our sister churches will write their own martyrology, Catholic witnesses will rise to glorify their dead. The whole Catholic press rendered a well deserved homage to Chief Rabbi Bloch of Lyons, who was mortally wounded by a German bullet while he attended a dying Catholic soldier, holding the cross to his livid lips." After these prefatory remarks the author traces in his inimitable style a picture of the life and activity of the Catholic church from the unforgettable July days of 1914, to date. One-third of its priesthood followed the call of their country. * * The Literary Digest, Feb. 17, 1917. The Paris diocese alone has already buried forty-five of its members. The Cardinal-Archbishop of Lyons had to enlist laymen to fill the gaps in his decimated clergy. Bishops have become again parish priests. "Eleven young French monks, surprised by the German invasion in their monastery in the grand duchy of Luxembourg, disguised themselves, walking stealthily into Belgium, and from there to France, immediately joining their barracks. Dominicans and Jesuits vie with each other in patriotic devotion. The Church, cheerfully accepting the abrogation of its time honored immunities, with a noble gesture commanded the young priests to shoulder their rifles: 'Your parish,' explained the Cardinal Archbishop of Rheims, Monseigneur Luçon, to his priests, is henceforth your regiment, your trench, your hospital. Love it as you have loved your church. Perhaps you will be buried on the battlefield. What of it? Why should we priests not give our blood?' Thus, the priest is no longer isolated from the people; he has become an integral part of it. The Dominican sergeants and Jesuit lieutenants have built the bridge. And who, on the other hand, would have believed, a short three years ago, that a company of French soldiers, educated in the godless school of the Republic, should, before preparing for assault, receive absolution on their knees? "A parallel case to this kneeling company receiving absolution is the scene in the Bois d'Argonne, of March 7, 1916, when 'the successive waves of a regiment, marching to the attack, bowed themselves before the representative of God, de Chabrol, Chaplain of the division, whose hand, while the guns were thundering, made the sign of the redemption.'" (Quoted textually from an order of the day, by the commanding general.) Fifty-nine priests and seminarists of the Paris diocese received crosses while practically under fire. "The natural love of the soil and the love of the church combined, produce heroic souls of a peculiarly noble blending. The olden days when bishops were the supreme lords of towns and countries were revived, if only for a short time, at Meaux, and elsewhere, shortly before the battle of the Marne. On September 3, 1914, the armies of von Kluck were expected any moment and the civil authorities fled. Bishop Marbeaux took possession of the City Hall, and with a rare skill organized the various municipal services. Generals Joffre and Galliéni had stopped the triumphal onslaught of the German troops. On September 9, the civil authorities returned to Meaux and Mayor Mar-beaux gave in his resignation. Similar was the situation in Soissons and Chalons-sur-Marne; the cathedrals again became civic centers. "But our priests (continues M. Goyan) in the midst of the brutal butchery, are not unmindful of the Saviour's advice to love even our enemies--above all, if the latter are in great stress themselves. Thus Rev. Landrieux of the cathedral of Rheims, while the church was burning, saved from its ruins at the risk of his life a group of wounded German soldiers. The enraged population was about to lynch them. 'You will have to kill me first,' said the courageous priest. Words fail to describe as they deserve the deeds of Bishop Lobbedeye of Arras and his clergy. "The tradition of the catacombs revived; a cellar was transformed into a church (while the town was under bombardment) and here the Bishop read his mass. The priests threw off their 'soutanes' to become police and firemen, moving men and grave diggers. One of them, de Bonnieres, of noble birth, went every morning, braving the bullets which whistled about his ears, into the suburbs begging the soldiers for the scraps, left over from their meals, to distribute these pittances among the starving poor of Arras." Church: Gèrbéviller [Illustration: 0311] "Thus, before the enemy the old union of church and state had been effected. The same population, the same government, which before had adopted the slogan, The priest's place is in the church,' requested the cooperation of the clergy. And the church obeyed the call. Everything was forgotten. 'Who cares now,' exclaimed Cardinal Savin, 'for the religious misunderstandings, political quarrels, and personal rivalries of the past! France first! United by the common danger, we learned to know and respect one the other, and after the war we will solve the grave problems which had separated us before the war. Our victory will be our main ally in this future work of pacification.' "Forever memorable will remain that great religious manifestation at Paris during the week of the Battle of the Marne, in honor of St. Geneviève, the patron of the French capital. She and Joan of Arc became again the divine protectors of France. "The people of Paris fell on their knees on the famous heights of Montmartre, the mountains of the Saint-Martyrs of the past, a place historical in the annals of France. Even the skeptics thanked the church for its resuscitation of the religious spirit. France again remembered that she had once been 'the eldest daughter of the Church.'" (Georges Goyan.) A HEROINE |WHEN the history of the war is written at least three names of women will be enshrined forever in the annals: Sister Julie, the fearless nun of Gèrbéviller; that heroic woman who took the place of and acted as mayor of Soissons when von Kluck's legions occupied and ravaged that unfortunate little city; and Marcelle Semmer, a young girl of eighteen, who showed such bravery and extraordinary fortitude in aid of France as to win encomiums from both the British and French officers, who recommended that she be decorated. She has just received both the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, and the War Cross as reward. M. L. L. Klotz, Deputy from the war-ravaged department of the Somme, has told in glowing words the story of how at the outbreak of the war, these noble women, left defenseless and at the mercy of the invaders, proudly faced these savages and really defied them. He told of Marcelle Semmer, a young orphan girl of eighteen, living in the little village of Eclusier, near Frise on the river Somme, at the beginning of the war. This young girl who showed the most extraordinary bravery and fortitude in the service of France, is perhaps but one of many others whose stories may never be known to the world. She was acting as bookkeeper and clerk in a factory, producing phosphates, which had been founded by her father, an Alsatian refugee. The invaders, driving back the Allies at Charleroi, captured the town, taking many prisoners. The French fell back across a canal, near the home of Marcelle Sem-mer, where there was a drawbridge. The heroic girl, unmindful of her danger, succeeded in raising the drawbridge before the enemy came up, and threw the lever into, the canal. Without this lever the bridge could not be lowered again. The canal at this point was so deep that the invading army could not ford it, and seeing the fleeing figure of the girl, the soldiers fired volley after volley after her, without once hitting her. By this audacious act, Marcelle Semmer held back the advance of an entire German army corps until the following day, for the Germans had to await the arrival of their engineers before they were able to put a temporary bridge in place, and this they made of boats, and pontoons hastily constructed, thus consuming hours which were of great value in enabling the hard-pressed French to escape from the hordes which far outnumbered them. In spite of the danger of detection, the young girl insisted upon remaining in the village during its occupation by the Germans; happily they did not recognize her as the girl who raised the drawbridge against them or she would have been shot at once. Near the factory where she worked was a shed covering a subterranean passage leading to the phosphate mine. She succeeded in concealing the entrance trap to this passage by means of some large tuns and bagging. During the night she managed to conceal in this passage no less than seventeen French soldiers who had been somehow left in the retreat from the towns of Mons and Charleroi. Not only did she succeed in keeping these men hidden, but she managed to secure for them both food and peasant clothing, and aided them to get away to the French lines to the south. Sixteen of these men succeeded in getting away, but one dark night in a furious rainstorm while she was piloting the seventeenth to a cross-country lane, she was detected by a sentry, who dragged both of them before the German lieutenant. In the examination before the Commandant at headquarters she defiantly confessed to having aided the French soldiers to escape, crying out, "Yes, I did it for France, and I shall do it again and again, if I am able. Do with me what you will. I am an orphan, I have but one mother, France! For her, my life!" The Commandant promptly sentenced her to be shot. She was taken out of the room into the courtyard, where they placed her against the wall facing the firing squad, her arms tied behind her. Suddenly French artillery opened upon the German lines at Eclusier. Before the officer could give the word to fire upon the brave girl, a shell fell in the courtyard, and in the confusion, wonderful to relate, she escaped. While she had been assisting her fellow countrymen to escape the French had crept up, and routed the invaders from their position in the little town. So Marcelle once more fled to the subterranean passage, and there took up her quarters, rendering great service to the army, through her knowledge of the surrounding country. Between the lines of the opposing armies lay the river Somme, which here in the vicinity of Eclusier and Frise spreads out into a pond with marshy banks, and innumerable pitfalls and bogs. In these the soldiers frequently lost their way, and here Marcelle found a way to help France by her knowledge of the safe paths. Again and again she faced death; finally she was captured while leading a squad of men across the bogs to a trench at Frise. She was brought by the Germans to the village of Frise, and there confined in the parish church, now, alas, a mass of ruin. Once more her never departing good fortune was her salvation. Almost before the door of her prison was fastened upon her, the French artillery began a lively bombardment of Frise. One of the shells blew a great hole in the wall of the little church, and out of this hole, unperceived by her captors, Marcelle escaped, over the marshes and through the tangled roads into the French lines. Enabled to give most valuable information as to the numbers and guns of the enemy, Marcelle's fame soon spread through the ranks. She was mentioned in the dispatches, and received the Cross of the Legion of Honor, and later, before the drawn up soldiers of the corps, she received the War Cross. She was so useful in this region of the Somme that she asked to be allowed to remain at Frise to work for France, and so for a year and a half, despite the turn of the war, she stayed on, taking care of the wounded men, and protecting as far as possible women and children. So beloved did she become that an English general ordered his soldiers to salute her on passing, and to refrain from addressing her unless she required it. Everywhere she went the soldiers both admired and honored this young girl. The loss of her brothers, who died fighting for France, and the strain of her work told upon her health, and the doctors ordered her to Paris. Here she asked to be allowed to work at the nurses' school and to aid the wounded soldiers. To this the authorities assented, as she was thus enabled to earn a livelihood, for all that she had was lost at Eclusier when the mill was destroyed. In the great hall of the Sorbonne at Paris, a short time ago Deputy Klotz (of the Somme) eulogizing this young girl, suddenly stretched out his arms in dramatic gesture, electrifying the great audience with these words: "This little heroine of Picardy, this admirable girl; this incarnation of the qualities of the women of France; this girl of simple origin, flawless dignity, of serious mind and gentle ways; this girl of indomitable will power is here, ladies and gentlemen, here among you, in this room! "And I feel that I am the spokesman for every one of you when I now extend to her the expression of our respect, our gratitude, our admiration!" The vast audience, every man and woman of them, leaped to their feet, in enthusiasm, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the heroine. Through the great Hall of the Sorbonne, where the most famous men of the world had been honored by France, swept a storm of cheers; a reward more splendid than the Cross of the Legion of Honor, than the War Cross, than the salutes of the soldiers at the front, had come to Marcelle Semmer, of Eclusier. LÂON |MOST travelers from Paris to Geneva will recall the brief stop of the train at the station, and a glimpse perhaps of the gaunt gray towers on the top of the great hill against the evening sky, looking much more like a fortress than a cathedral from the viewpoint below. Called the "Rock of Lâon," it was in ancient days the Celtic Laudunam, and was known to the Romans as Lug-dunam Clavatum. "Lâon is the very pride of that class of town which out of Gaulish hill forts grew into Roman and Mediaeval cities. None stands so proudly on its height; none has kept its ancient character so little changed to our own day" (says Marshall). It was here that Louis, or Lodo-wig, who was the famous son of Count Eudes, established an illustrious court, presided over by the "brave" Duchess Gerberga, and here afterwards Charles, their son, maintained a successfully defended siege against the onslaught by Hugues Capet on this stronghold. The treachery of Asceline the Bishop resulted in the capture of the town, and as a reward, Capet made him "the second Ecclesiastical Peer of France." Henceforth the city was famed as the seat of the Capetian dynasty, whose bishops ruled it until it was captured by the Prussians in 1814, when it served as the headquarters of Blucher, in his operations against Napoleon I. After the Battle of Waterloo the French troops attempted to reform their shattered lines under its walls. Lâon was the birthplace of the mother of Charlemagne, Lothaire, Louis IV, and Louis V. Crowning royally the great hill which dominated the town and the plain, the remarkable Cathedral of Notre Dame with its many beautiful towers formed a picturesque feature that once seen could not be forgotten. One can only compare it to the towers of Mont St. Michel of La Manche, with its encircling battlemented walls, but Lâon in point of architecture was infinitely the finer of the two. It is said to have been the work of Bishop Gauthier II (de Montagne) of the twelfth century, and built upon the site of a previous structure which had been burnt during an uprising in the early part of that century. Originally there were four great towers, one at each of the angles. Of these two remained lacking the spires. The façade was most remarkable for its extremely deep portals. The two towers, which were square at the base, terminated in octagonal belfries, and the angle buttresses supported light two-storied open-work turrets of most graceful design. The cathedral was remarkable for the square apse, and there was a tall lanthorn tower in the center of the church, which had two windows separated by buttresses. In the "chevet" a rose window was placed above three long openings, over which was a gallery between the turrets. The pulpit was from the Abbey of Val-St.-Pierre. From below, the cathedral, as I have already said, looked more like a fortress surmounted by a great chateau. Strange celebrations, seemingly lacking in religious character, were enacted in the cathedral, particularly those celebrated during the month of December. "This, the fête des Innocents, took place in the choir, when the children, wearing strange costumes with copes occupied the high carved stalls and chanted the £ offices' of the mass with every sort of buffoonery, to the great delight of the people. "Eight days after this comes the 'day of Fools,' during which the chaplain and choristers meet to elect a 'pope,' who is styled the Patriarch of Fools. Those who neglect to participate in this election are expected to pay a fine. After a procession the Patriarch is offered a repast of wine and bread with great solemnity, and he in turn gives to each chorister a present of corn in payment. The whole troop wear the most fantastic ornaments, and during the two following days the entire cathedral is given over to their buffoonery. After many cavalcades by the townspeople the fête terminates in a great procession of the 'rabardiaux.'" (Viollet le Duc.) This celebration degenerated into a simple custom of the giving wreaths of flowers following the celebration of mass on the Day of Epiphany. It is strange that these towns, explored by the present writer, should have been so neglected by the tourist. Of course, it is chiefly to the artist that they seemed so quaint, entrancing and profitable. No such exquisite arrangements of composition were found in other countries as here in France, and really at the doorway of Paris. Of course now and then there was trouble for me, because I made sketches of these charming localities; and even as late as 1910, when the sketches reproduced in this book were made, forty years after the Franco-Prussian War, when there seemed to be no possible danger of war in France, I was many times in danger of arrest for drawing a church or an old wall. Several times my portfolio had been seized by officers at the frontier towns, and I had been "detained" with more or less brusqueness until the superior officer could be summoned, but I must say that these occasions usually ended by profuse apologies on the part of M. le Commissaire, who deplored the activity of his men and offered his cigarette case most graciously, begging that I should forget the incident and wishing me "good luck." But it is perhaps now unnecessary to warn the artist abroad to keep away from fortifications, or to carry his passports with him. Lâon to-day is hidden behind a heavy black curtain of smoke from the great guns of the Germans. What has been the fate of that old gray town is problematical. It is said that the Germans have shot away the two great towers of the beloved old cathedral, and that the walls of the picturesque plateau upon which it rested have been razed. Beyond this nothing has been disclosed for the two years during which the invader has occupied it. Northeast of the cathedral was the thirteenth century Bishopric, used for a long time as the Hall of Justice. It was erected by Bishop Garnier in 1242. It was a rather dismal looking structure, and altogether lacking in architectural distinction. Whatever it may have been in former days, I ventured to say as much to an advocate with whom I chanced to converse at the table d'hôte, and I shall not soon forget the reproof my criticism called down upon me. I learned thereafter to govern my tongue, whatever my convictions. The Lâonaise bitterly resented adverse criticism of any one of their beloved monuments. Along the edge of the hill below there were unusually delightful promenades, shaded here and there by thick heavy foliage, through which charming vistas appeared. The long street on the ridge of the embattlemented hill wound along most delightfully, bringing the wanderer to the old church of St. Martin at the edge of the town. This, it is said, was once the appanage of a Premonstratensian Abbey of the twelfth century. It had two bays and a transept, and six small chapels of unique character. According to legend, the first bay was built to enclose the tomb of a Sire de Coucy, its benefactor. This Sire de Coucy had been excommunicated by the clergy, and being thus outside the pale of religion, he had been buried without ceremony outside the west door. This caused such remonstrance upon the part of the people, who loved him well for his great charities, if not for his sins, that the clergy relented, and it was necessary to enlarge the bay to accommodate his grave. The twin towers from the last bay are of the thirteenth century. Near the entrance were a number of tombs, some of them of remarkable richness of design, notably that of Jeanne de Flandre, widow of Enguerrand IV, Sire de Coucy, Abbess of Saviour-sous-Lâon in the fourteenth century, and said to have been the work of the Flemish sculptor, Pierre de Puez. If this work of art has been destroyed as reported, another unnecessary crime is added to the list. There was also the low relief figure of a knight in armor, evidently of the greatest antiquity, although it was dated twelve hundred and something, the first two figures being barely discernible. The ancient suburb of Vaux has been under bombardment for more than two years. Little is known to us of the extent of the damage it has suffered, but I remember a lovely old church of the eleventh century, with a most beautiful old choir of a little later period, where the old priest, who was considerable of an antiquary, by the way, showed me a fragment of tapestry, done in silk and wool, and of considerable value, as a specimen of workmanship. He plainly was anxious that I should admire it, and to oblige him I did so. He showed me also his books, some with good bindings, others worn by use. He seemed an innocent sort of man and lonely for companionship, telling me with simple dignity of his daily life in the quiet parish and the details of his office. The highest pay of a parish priest, he said, was fifteen hundred francs a year ($300); the lowest, eight hundred, of course in addition to his living quarters. He eked out his scanty income by the fees paid him at weddings, christenings, and burials. When I told him of the sums paid in America to ministers, his eyes bulged and his under lip bulged comically. Then he wagged his head, lifted his arms, shoulders and eyebrows, sighed heavily, and changed the subject. Poor old fellow, I wonder what has become of him in these terrible days. When I left him I gave him a pencil sketch of his church which I had made, embowered in heavy trees, as a souvenir. I neglected to make another, so I cannot picture it here, in this chapter, to my great regret. Château: Couey [Illustration: 0335] Perhaps the greatest, or at any rate the most indefensible piece of vandalism perpetrated by the retiring armies of the invader, was the total annihilation of the great castle of Coucy-le-Château in March of this year. Coucy castle, legend says, was built upon the site given to St. Remi by Clovis, in the fulfillment of a condition that the former should walk around it while the King enjoyed his noonday siesta. Afterwards it was part of the property of the Chapter of Rheims for upwards of two hundred years. In the year nine hundred and twenty-nine King Charles the Simple was imprisoned in its donjon by Herbert, Count of Vermandois. Enguerrand I, founder of the house of Coucy, received the castle in fief from the Archbishop of Rheims, and from it departed with his knights in quest of the Holy Grail and was distinguished in the Crusades. His descendant, Enguerrand III, who was surnamed the Great, rebuilt the castle, and when he flouted the authority of the Chapter of Rheims, and they laid the matter before the king, he answered with the words: "Je ne puis faire autre chose pour vous que de priere le Sire de Coucy de ne point vous inquiéter." In the subsequent quarrel with the Chapter of Lâon, Enguer-rand at the head of his cohort stormed the Cathedral and carried off the dean a prisoner to Coucy, where he languished at the pleasure of the fiery knight. The laws he promulgated and forced upon the barony were called "Le Coutume de Coucy." The battle of Bouvignes, in which he performed many acts of prowess and valor, and also his successes during the Albigensian war of 1209 added to his great fame as a warrior and caused the league of nobles to propose the dethronement of Louis IX, then a child, whose crown they offered to Enguerrand. So proud were his descendants that they abandoned their other titles and called themselves simple "de Coucy" and adopted the motto "Roi ne suys--ne prince, ne duc, ne compte aussi--je suys le Sire de Coucy." Descendants sold the Château, as it was called, and Jie Seigneurie de Coucy to Louis d'Orléans in 1400, who made it a duchy, and so amplified and decorated it that it became noteworthy throughout the realm. In 1411 it was besieged and captured by the royal army, and retained until 1419, when it was taken by the troops of the Duke of Orleans. In 1423 it was captured by the English, and again in 1652 by the royal army and dismantled by order of Mazarin. At the outbreak it was an "historical monument" kept up by the state as a museum. Coucy-le-Chateau was one of the greatest and most splendid relics of the thirteenth century. Nothing remains of it now. It has been utterly blasted away from the foundations. On the heights is only a series of great piles of crumpled masonry and pulverized rock. The oldest, the strongest, the largest and most historic of the castles of Europe is now only a memory. So enraged were the French at this piece of wanton destruction, that they refused to bombard the ruins, even though they knew that the invader had intrenched machine gunners behind and beneath it. Instead the infantry, unsupported by artillery, charged across a plain swept by gun fire and wrested the sacred ruin from the enemy. So terrific was the assault that the Germans could make no counter attack. Before they left the Germans boasted to the French villagers that more than thirty tons of explosives were used to destroy the castle. So great was the explosion, the peasants who witnessed it from a distance report that the great round tower, visible for miles around, seemed to rise in its vast bulk from the foundations, and slowly vanish in a cloud of whitish smoke. So fell Coucy. Another crime added to the already long list against the invader. The official explanation for its destruction coming from Berlin, is that "the Castle was not worth more than the life of one German soldier, and there are plenty of other such castles in southern Germany." The best view of the great chateau was that from the approach from the town of Lâon. My sketch shows the ruin in springtime, its battlements rising from the trees at its base, its magnificent pinkish gray mass against a sky of heavy white cumulous cloud just after a gentle rain. The small town nestled below it, and still had some vestiges of the old walls that formerly protected it. There was a small inn bearing the grandiose title: "Hotel des Trois Empereurs," whose landlady cooked for us the best omelette we ever tasted, and begged us to take her daughter to America with us as "maid for Madame." The daughter we never saw, by the way. She had gone to Lâon for the day and we left on the afternoon train before she returned, to the great chagrin of Madame. My sketch shows the château on the end of a promontory. This was approached by a steep and narrow roadway. The great outer court was of irregular form, with what is styled a "curtain wall," of remarkable thickness; more than twenty feet, authorities claim. Beneath it was a subterranean passageway, "so arranged as to be mine proof" (Viollet le Duc). The wall was supported by ten remarkable towers, three of them circular in form. There was a great dry moat between this wall and the keep proper, paved with rounded stones, and there was a drawbridge lifted by heavy chains which completely shut off the inner court of the castle when lifted. On the arch of the great portal over this drawbridge was a rude sculptured scene depicting a combat between one of the "Sires of Coucy" and a lion which, according to legend, took place in the nearby wood of Prémontré. Near it was a sort of stone table supported by three couchant lions upon which stood a lion passant. Here each year, according to a pretty custom, a young girl of the peasant class gave cakes and flowers to the townspeople, after which there was a parade by the local fire company, and in the evening a "retraite aux flambeaux," in which the young men carried lighted torches through the town, headed by a drum and fife. The tower of the chateau was more than one hundred and fifty feet high and three hundred feet in circumference. In the drawing by Viollet le Duc it is shown surmounted by a conical roof, and this must have made it quite two hundred feet in height. "The interior was divided into three floors, once covered by ribbed vaulting, which has now perished. The upper floors and the platform at the top were reached by a winding staircase in the thickness of the wall. In the center of each vault was an opening through which men in armor could be let down quickly. The two lower floors were apparently used for the arms and provisions of the garrison." (Hare's "Northeastern France.") The donjon, according to Viollet le Duc, was the finest specimen in Europe of mediaeval military architecture. "Compared with this giant," he says, "the largest towers known appear mere spindles." So vanished from the face of the earth a great architectural treasure destroyed simply for revenge. RHEIMS |INSTEAD of being in appearance "a most venerable and aged town," as one might be led to expect from the accounts in the various guides, Rheims, or Reims (so variously spelled) was (1910) nothing of the sort. Situated on the right bank of the river Vesle in the midst of a vast plain encompassed by vine-clad hills, a most ideal setting, it was the busy and chief center of the champagne trade, and also otherwise occupied in the manufacture of both woolen and other fabrics. Until recently one of the most picturesque towns in France, it was intersected by wide and handsome streets reminding one of the Parisian boulevards, which although convenient gave it quite another character. And this "Haussmanization" (if one may so style it) did away with its former quaint mediævalness. Formerly there was an ideally artistic approach to the great cathedral of "Notre Dame," in a quaint narrow street lined with strangely gabled houses and small shops shown in my sketch, but these have been demolished, and a wide straight street, lined with characterless buildings, now forms a very commonplace frame to hold one's first view of this noble and magnificent structure, the master work of the architects Rob. de Coucy and J. d'Orbais, which Fergusson justly names and qualifies as "perhaps the most beautiful structure produced in the middle ages." Far down this commonplace street one could see the exquisite recessed portals (there are three), with its rows of saints, surmounted by the great rose window, nearly forty feet in circumference, and above the forty-two exquisite lancets, each containing a colossal figure representing the Baptism of Clovis, and the Kings of France. All detail softened by distance, like unto carved tracery upon a jewel casket. The three portals, so exquisitely recessed, were adorned with some five hundred and fifty statues of various sizes, some of them of great antiquity, and many of them on close inspection proving to be much worn by the action of the elements, or having suffered mutilation in the wars. Without entering into a tiresome architectural description, which would be out of place in these pages, one may call attention to some of the remarkable details of the façade above the three portals pierced by large windows, which was so lavishly decorated with sculpture; to the left, Christ in the garb of a pilgrim; to the right, the Virgin, and the Apostles, David and Saul; and Goliath. Place du Marché: Rheims [Illustration: 0349] The twin towers, more than two hundred and fifty feet high, which were without spires, were none the less impressive. The north portal contained statues of the Bishops of Rheims from Clovis down, and there was here a doorway walled up containing a Gothic tympanum of the Last Judgment, the figures of which, however, with the exception of the Christ, were greatly mutilated. History states that Rheims was known at the time of the Roman invasion as _Durocortorum_. Briefly, about the year 352 a. d. the worthy SS. Sixte and Sinice came here to preach Christianity, and converted the consul Jovinus, whose cenotaph is in the archevêché. The Vandals arrived forty years later, and captured the town, murdering St. Nicaise on the very steps of the cathedral which he had founded. The See of Rheims was occupied for seventy-five years after the Conquest of Champagne, by Clovis, by St. Remi, or Remigius, who was already a bishop at the age of twenty-two. He it was who baptised Clovis in the cathedral, which act gave such renown to the place that thereafter the kings came to be consecrated with the oil, which according to tradition was brought by a snow white dove in a holy phial (ampoule) for the baptism of the first Christian king, and was thereafter preserved in the Abbey of St. Remi. Rheims was taken in 563 by Chilperic, and in 720 by Charles Martel, despite the great courage and resistance by the Bishop, St. Rigobert, who was exiled. Here took place, too, the interview of Pope Stephen III and Pepin, and Charlemagne and Leo III. Also the coronation of Louis le Debonnaire by Stephen IV in 816. In the following years the Archbishops of Rheims became world famous, for instance the Scholar Hincmar, and Gerbert, who was afterwards Pope Sylvester II, and who as a simple monk under the great Adalbéron attained great celebrity for his lectures. Until the fourteenth century Archbishops had temporal power over Rheims, coining their money and ruling as sovereigns. Calixtus II in 1119 held here a council to excommunicate the Emperor, Henry V. In 1429 Rheims was delivered from the English yoke by Jeanne d'Arc, who personally gave the keys of the town to Charles VII and assisted at his coronation in the Cathedral. Lubke, writing of the sculptural details of the Cathedral, says, "All the dignity and grace of the style here reaches a truly classical expression. Nevertheless, even here, in one of the master works of the time, we find a great variety in the mode of treatment. There are heavy stunted statues with clumsy heads and vacant expression, like the earlier works of Chartres; others are of the most refined beauty, full of nobility and tenderness, graceful in proportion, and with drapery which falls in stately folds, free in movement and with a gentle loveliness or sublime dignity of expression; others again are exaggerated in height, awkward in proportion, caricatured in expression, and affected in attitude." North Door of Cathedral: Rheims [Illustration: 0355] Strange that Lubke could not realize that the sculptor produced these contrasts with design, so that the ugly and grotesque of some might make the grace and beauty of the others the more telling; but such is the quality of the Teutonic mind. But he has written so appreciatively of the beauties of the figures, that we can overlook his shortcomings. He further says, "That different hands were employed on the same portal (the North Transept) may be seen in the forty-two small seated figures of bishops, saints and kings, which in three rows fill the hollows of the archi-volts. They are one and all of enchanting beauty, grace, and dignity; the little heads delightful; the attitudes most varied; the drapery nobly arranged, and so varied in conception that it would be impossible to conceive more ingenious variations." Of the smaller portal which contained the beautiful figure of Christ in benediction, known as the "_Beau Dieu_," he says: "This is a work of such beauty that it may be considered _the most solemn plastic creation of its time_. It shows perfect understanding and admirable execution of the whole form in its faultless proportions, and moreover there is such majesty in the mild, calm expression of the head, over which the hair falls in soft waves, that the divine seriousness of the sublime Teacher seems glorified by the truest grace. The right hand is uplifted, and the three forefingers stretched out; the left hand holds the orb, and, at the same time the mantle, which is drawn across the figure, and the noble folds of which are produced by the advancing position of the right foot. The following of nature in this masterly figure is in all its details so perfect that not merely the nails of the fingers, but the structure of the joints is characterized in the finest manner." Two years ago it was ablaze with all this sculptural splendor. Now the picture is replaced by a gray monotone of fire-swept portals empty of tracery; of gaping, blackened lancet window-panes destitute of glass; its perfectly designed Gothic arches laced with fantastically bent iron bars, and its nave buried in pulverized calcined heaps of ashes from which protrude here and there blackened, charred beams, while scattered about are the broken fragments of the great bronze bells which once pealed out pæons of sound in celebration of imperial coronations. Although many have attempted the task, it is difficult if not impossible to analyze Rheims, or even adequately to describe its vital exquisite quality, its stimulating originality, or to explain clearly the well nigh incredible competence, beauty and delicacy of even its minor details. One may dwell upon the glory of its sculpture in pages of description, which fail to picture it. Rheims Cathedral was what may be styled a great consistency, that placed it quite in a category by itself. It was quite completely without a fault. All other cathedrals of France form a chronicle of splendor. They record changing epochs, times, and architectural impulse. The varying personalities of their great designers were wrought out in their details; they present the thoughts of many men, each expressing his highest thought and ideals, and the result is magnificent agglomeration, covering many years of work. With Rheims however, which was begun in 1211, the case is different. For it was finished within the same century, to be exact, in fifty years, and in perfect accordance with the original plan and conception. To say that its sculpture ranked with that of ancient Greece does not magnify its importance. To urge that the splendor and artistry of its painteld glass was unrivaled, means little now, for its disappearance is too recent, too grievous and painful. Its eulogy must be written by an abler pen than mine--and in a day far hence, when time has softened the blow. (Paris, Jan. 10, 1917.) "Albert Dalimier, Under Secretary of Fine Arts, made a statement to-day regarding Rheims Cathedral, which, it has been reported, the Pope is anxious to have restored, having asked permission to this end from the German authorities." "Orders were given by the French Government for provisional repairs to the roofs of the Cathedral in autumn of 1914," said M. Dalimier, "but we were unable to begin work without an agreement with the military authorities, and they begged us to do nothing. They pointed out that the Cathedral was _still under German fire_, that from Nogent to La Bassée, where the batteries firing on the town were installed, everything that passed could be distinctly seen by the Germans, and that workmen on the Cathedral would therefore be sure to be observed and fired upon." The great interior was four hundred and sixty-six feet long and one hundred and twenty-one feet high. Both nave and transepts have aisles. Eight bays were in the nave, and each transept projected to the depth of a single bay. A triforium was above the aisles, and eight exquisite chapels radiated from the choir. Apse of Cathedral: Rheims [Illustration: 0363] The great capitals were covered with beautiful sculpture, beggaring description. Over the large west portal was shown the Martyrdom of St. Nicaise, and over the whole west wall was a multitude of small statues in niches ending in a display of the Massacre of the Innocents. A myriad of these statues filled the whole church. Adoring angels too adorned the buttresses of the choir chapels. Rich tapestries, fourteen in number, the gift of Robert de Lénoncourt in 1530, hung on the chapel walls, and there were two magnificent pieces given by Cardinal Lorraine in 1570, called the "Tapisseries du fort roi Clovis," and others from Archbishop Henri de Lorraine in 1633, called the "Perpersack." Some Gobelins, also, designed in 1848 by Raffaelle, were hung here. The large organ was dated 1481, and designed by Oudin Hestre, and in the chapel of St. Jean was the thirteenth century monument of Hugues Libergier, the architect of St. Nicaise.. (This is buried in the ashes, and is said to be uninjured.) The Treasury included many reliquaries and holy objects of priceless value, such as the reliquary of Sanson (twelfth century); that of SS. Peter and Paul (fourteenth century); of the Holy Sepulcher (sixteenth century) which was given by the King, Henry II, at his coronation; the vessel of St. Ursula, given by Henry III; the Chasuble of Thomas à Becket; the Chalice of St. Remi; the Reliquary of St. Ampoule, and an immense quantity of gold and silver objects given by Charles X. It is said that this treasure was removed to Paris when Rheims was first threatened with destruction, and that it is therefore intact, for which we may be thankful, but what of the incomparable shrine which held it? More than a year and a half (1915) ago the roof was consumed by fire, and was held by authorities to be irreparable, but since then, perhaps daily the bombardment has continued mercilessly, simply to destroy what remains. Even the latest news from the front in France does not claim that the invader and iconoclast has been driven back fast enough to ensure safety to Rheims. In one day (April, 1917) the Germans are said to have poured seventy-five hundred shells into the city. Just how much of the incomparable fabric of the Cathedral, from which all the statuary, all the wonderful glass and framework have been pulverized by the blasts from the great shells, survives, is not known outside of the town, or is concealed by the authorities; but for one thing we pray fervently, and that is, that no so-called restoration may be attempted or allowed. Let no imitations of stone, glass or marble caricature its vanished glories.... Let it remain, we pray, the living, standing record of an infamous crime. Consumed by fire, soaked in blood, Rheims, which crowned and sheltered a hundred kings, has passed; _deleta est Carthago_. ST. MIHIEL |AT the foot of a group of tall pointed limestone rocks, which seemed to be much higher than the seventy-five feet ascribed to them, nestled this most theatrical looking little town on the river Meuse, which winds in and out most charmingly through a district once covered with dense forests. All about were beautiful gorges between which the river rushed noisily, now following the base of a precipice of solid limestone, and again laving the roots of large trees growing luxuriantly on the slaty banks. Each of these valleys, each breach in the limestone wall, was overgrown with lush verdure, contrasting most strikingly with the dark brown or gray tones of the cliffs. Hereabouts small towns and hamlets, with scant room for the old houses and mills clinging to the steeps, thickly occupied the spaces between the rocks and the rushing stream. This small town of St. Mihiel, with its population of about eight thousand inhabitants, is said to have grown up around an ancient abbey dedicated to St. Michael, established here by some pious monks in the eighth century, but the landlord of the Hôtel du Cygne told me, with a shrug of the shoulders, that the abbey was not so old as all that; that M. le Père had informed him that the abbey had been built in the seventeenth century; the same year as the church; that he wished to set M. le Voyageur (myself) right in the matter; not that he cared how old or how new it was, but that he, the proprietor of the Hôtel du Cygne, was a truthful man, and no one, least of all, a gentleman who had made such a long journey as Monsieur the American from New York--"bien intendu," should receive any but the most truthful information from him, proprietor as he was of the Hôtel du Cygne. Which long speech he delivered with appropriate shrugs, gesticulations, and uplifted eyebrows. Mine host turned out to be an interesting personality. There were many such in these small towns on the banks of the Meuse. He was named Camille Robert Joseph Laroche, and not only was he a genial and valuable "raconteur," but he had a saint for a forebear. According to his tale, which I have no reason to discredit, more than three hundred years ago his ancestor bequeathed the entire family patrimony to the church, which in gratitude therefor promptly canonized him, insomuch that he now adorns the galaxy at St. Matthias Roche. For this great honor and distinction, said mine host, all the descendants had ever since been paying, for, deprived of their estates, they became "hoteliers" and "négociants," their only wealth being the good will and esteem of the countryside. Thus I had the high honor at St. Mihiel of lodging at an inn kept by the scion of a saint. It was pleasant to arrive at this pretty hill-embosomed town when evening was drawing on and the stars, like unto glimmering altar tapers in a vast cathedral space, were shining forth one by one. I sat before the inn door upon a bench with mine host» who had lapsed into silence, and watched the crystal disk of the moon over the "Falaise," shining, with that peculiar tint which has no name nor likeness on earth; that large mystic peace, the charm of a village at eventime, brooded in the air: Truly God is known in the breath of the still woods; a very frankincense. Some passing girls in groups who had come to see the arrivals by train, that puffing, cautiously moving train that had come from Verdun, with the mail, the writer, and a few "commis-voyageurs," several soldiers on leave, and three shovel-hatted priests lent some animation to the street. Each girl, chattering and laughing, was knitting industriously. Their eyes were bright and blue; their hair, gathered with gay ribbons into knots, was sunny: they seemed care-free. The great gray limestone pointed rocks stand sentry over St. Mihiel. Upon one stands a Calvary. There were fragmented castles round about. Each dominated a ridge, stretching away like a line of bulwarks for the nestling towns between. I found, in the days of exploration that followed my arrival, that facing beyond the thread of the river, an amphitheater of great beeches, tier upon tier, ensconced all. One might fancy a couchant lion on guard here, the old town lying snug between its outstretched paws, or to use another simile as if it had been cast down by giant hands and caught in the cleft. The town lay in somewhat the shape of a T, the head-stroke turned downwards on both sides; the upright formed by the long nestling town of the valley, the cross bar by the bowed overspread of habitations at the valley's mouth, one thronged crescent of river, road, and terraced verdancy. Just at the point of junction in the nailhead was a small convent garden, all scarlet, pink, white and dazzling emerald green. One would think this quiet, rident town, looking down upon it by morning light from the Calvary on the limestone pinnacle, a very sanctuary home of dreams. On the contrary, it was only a more or less prosaic manufacturing town to the inhabitants who lived among all this picturesqueness without realizing it. Listening from my perch at the foot of the Calvary on the "Falaise," I could hear the hum of looms. At the clang of the midday Angelus they stopped short for the brief hour of rest and repast. For a thousand years some of the old walls had lain much as I saw them, for St. Mihiel figures in territorial documents of a. d. 950. It is said that there was a time when the outstretched paws of the lion were joined by huge stone-turreted walls. These closed in the town and made a sanctuary. The Barons of St. Mihiel were greatly distinguished personages; they played a noble part in the Crusades. I found their records quaintly set forth upon tombs in archaic words, the meaning of which was often entirely puzzling and obscure. I made notes of these names and dates, but they were carelessly mislaid. Should one be curious about them, I doubt not that Froissart has recorded them in all their state and glory. St. Mihiel claimed the usual list of heroes and warriors, and her claim was granted without question. The old market place was graced by lime trees, and the ruined walls were overgrown with ivy and vine of luxuriant leafage, hiding crack and gap cunningly. The aged towers still cleaved to the rock by leave of the roots of beech and fir tree, whose spreading roots are more lenient foes to masonry, perhaps, than German mines. Imagine the great empty shell of the donjon, with a rugged façade, ivy grown and rook-haunted, a ruined chapel-apse with its suspended "piscina and aumbry," (thus named for me correctly by a scholarly architect friend, else I should not have known how to call them), its Gothic columns and arches; this sheer wall overhung the town perilously. There was a story told of the old bell's tolling at the death of a child. Within the donjon is the remains of the well, fifty feet deep. In olden days a young chatelaine threw herself down this well, her child in her arms, to escape the brutality of the besiegers, in the fourteenth--or was it the thirteenth?--century. There were twin brothers who did the same, in some remote period, after refusing to open the gates to Wenceslaus, or was it Baldwin of the Iron Arm*? There was a cavern at the bottom where the knights-proprietors hid their gains during the sieges. All these and many other tales of fear, blood and bravery were told at St. Mihiel. Some years ago, they said, a young maid drawing water from the well, discovered a golden bracelet at the bottom of the bucket; but beyond a few fragments of bone and some pieces of rusty iron that is all that has been discovered of treasure. It was said that the great hidden treasure is guarded by an immense serpent, which, when any one was so foolhardy as to attempt its recovery, blew out his candles and then devoured him at leisure. On the night before Maundy Thursday, at the hour of twelve, the master knight, clad all in his Templar's armor regalia, and bearing the scarlet cross upon his breast, rides the ruins with his cohort: but to no one save a true and devout Catholic was this vision vouchsafed, so it was said. St. Mihiel was unusually quaint in many ways. One did not find sheep grazing anywhere. When by some rare chance they were brought to town by a drover, the sensation produced was equal to that which might be caused by the appearance of an elephant or a camel. Children ran after the poor frightened dusty things, tugging at their wool, some trying to climb upon their backs, and the whole square was in an uproar. There were plenty of pigs about, and these, curiously, were in charge of a professional pig handler, who took them to pasture, and cared for them for a weekly wage. It was not uncommon on a morning ramble to come upon a drove of them occupying the whole road to the limit of space: a symphony in pink amid a cloud of dust. The little town was the residence of the great Cardinal de Retz, who is said to have written his memoirs here. The Rue Notre Dame, which led to the ancient abbey, and the church of St. Michael, had some very fine old fifteenth century houses, which were still (in 1910) in an excellent state of preservation. The great church dated in part from the seventeenth century, and contained a remarkable statue of the Madonna, attributed to Ligier Richier, a pupil of Michelangelo, who also carved the noted sepulchral monument of René de Châlons, Prince of Orange, in the church of St. Pierre at Bar-le-Duc. There was here too, a figure of a child surrounded by skulls, with two of which she was playing. Said to be by Jean Richier, this was a most beautiful piece of seventeenth century miniature work. The Madonna mentioned above was depicted as fainting in the arms of St. John, the pose being most remarkable. One of the curiosities of the old church was the remains of a stone rood loft, a structure said by architects to be very rarely met with. The ruined remains of the abbey at the east end of the church were found near some sort of public offices, which should have been cleared away so that they might be seen the better. In the Rue des Ingénieurs was the house of the sculptor, Ligier Richier, dated 1538. And in the church of St. Sepulcré was the famous tomb by this master, consisting of thirteen figures, showing the Virgin, Mary Cleopas and John, and some dice players, all of great realism and character. This whole region is filled with legend, related with such great circumstantial detail that one might not venture, on pain of giving offense, to show disbelief, no matter how fantastic the story. There was one curious old house which I saw in the Rue de la Vaux, which had a rude frieze of great animals below its roof, the effect being so singular as to be well nigh unbelievable. What its history or origin I was unable to discover. Indeed much mystery was made of it, when I inquired; much as if I had asked an indiscreet question. So I desisted. In the neighborhood were the most delightful walks and rambles, overgrown with verdure, leading past small farmsteads embosomed in thick forests, in a region filled with myth and legend. Following the course of the Meuse, dotted with small mills taking toll of her one by one, whose splashing mossy wheels she cheerfully spins; eddying here and there, bright gardens, one was led to a certain gushing fountain, under a shelving bay of ferny rock, and this was named "the Easter fountain." It would be strange indeed if a fountain in this region had not a story connected with it. This one was no exception, and here follows this story of the Easter fountain, as told by Brother Antoine of St. Mihiel. In the thirteenth century of our redemption Count Reni, in the castle on the heights, governed this region; at Commercy reigned Count Alan. A common sorrow bound the two to friendship: their young wives had faded in their first bloom. The châtelaine of Reni had left a boy of four years, and the Lady Elsa a girl baby at the cost of her life. This babe, sweet souvenir, was also named Elsa by her mourning, inconsolable father. All fêtes and celebrations were thenceforth banished from the two castles, the lords of which sought comfort only in the high and holy offices of the Church, and in mutual companionship. Pope Honoré, at the call of John of Brienne, King of Jerusalem, summoned all knights to the Holy Crusade. In this call the two bereft counts found the command of the Most High. Burying their grief in the forests of St. Mihiel, they set their affairs in order, gave over their domains to the care of overseers, and taking down shield and great cross hiked sword, ranged themselves "cap à pie" beneath the banner of their high and knightly leader, the Emperor Frederic. Count Reni leaves his little Elsa to the care of her godmother and the abbess under the protection of his faithful aged squire, Père Carol. So passes by the period of ten or more years, young boy and girl grow up even as brother and sister, ranging the paths of the scented wood, hand in hand; learning together the lore of God's wisdom of flower and bird, and with the pious help of the abbess, the wondrous stories of the lives of the saints in those great vellum bound, brass clasped office books of the altar. Occasionally to the castle comes a wandering singer, who teaches them in song the doughty deeds of the absent soldiers of the Cross, naming their fathers gloriously. To these songs the children, now grown tall in stature, listened with shining eyes and panting breath. Thus they dreamed of the brave fathers they had hardly known. Now that the young Count had come almost to man's estate, the old esquire thought of presenting him at the Court of Rheims. It was summertime, and the time had come for the parting. Elsa wandered alone through the wooded paths of the forest. But the once loved scenes of nature had lost half their charm for her. To pass the time she set about acts of devotion and mercy; visiting the poor huts of the woodsmen, dispensing tender charities to their families and teaching the children to pray to the saints and the Holy Fathers. So passed the long months of summer and then came autumn in a blaze of red and golden leaves. Now the young Count, learning at the Court of Rheims that the two Counts were shortly expected to return from the Crusades in the East, returned to the castle with his retinue, and passing a small cottage by the roadside on the river bank, caught a glimpse of his former playmate and companion, on her knees, binding up the wounds of a poor charcoal burner, who had been injured by the fall of a tree trunk. But, lo: there was something in the expression of her face that was all new to him. Dismounting from his horse, he knelt before her, as to a saint. She was to him, all at once, an aureoled angel; a burning reverence overcame him, surging from head to foot, and he knew in that instant that for him time had brought its fullness to him, and that henceforth they were to be inseparable. Entranced, he studied her face, so different to him from those which he had seen at court at Rheims, exquisite as those faces were. But this one! Ah, now it was clear to him that he had all his life never had a soul. Elsa had gazed into his eyes unable to speak, her hands clasped upon her bosom. Now she gave a cry of gladness, but stopped all at once, for a new and strange quickening in her heart: Young Alan is transfigured in her sight, like unto St. Michael. Alan seizes her hand, he calls her his sweet flower of innocence, and so swears to be her loyal knight even unto death; thus they remained hand in hand in ecstasy, while she prayed that the blessed mother watch over them forever more. At the castle the pair knelt before the good abbot, and then the old Esquire and the Abbess joined their hands and blessed them. When the news of the Count's arrival at the coast, and young Alan's home coming went forth, the whole region rejoiced, the bells rang in the churches, and the vassals assembled to greet the young seigneur. From her bower in the lofty tower of the castle Elsa watched the road along the river. It was eventide when the sounds of approaching cavalry broke the stillness. Soon the great drawbridge of the castle fell with a clang of chains, and young Alan was clasped in the arms of the returned Crusader. In the great banquet hall, hung with flags and trophies of the chase, the retainers thronged to welcome and acclaim their returned lord and master. Great flagons and cups of wine were passed, and the vaulted stone roof rang with the loyal shouts of "Long live Count Alan!" But, strange to say, all was not well with Alan the Crusader. A dark cloud sat upon his knitted brow, and his worn thin hand bent upon the knob of the great chair upon which he sat. Elsa, in a very heaven between the joys, plied him with questions which he answered vaguely, and finally bade the churls to bring the torches from the walls, and gave the word of dismissal to the throng. Much troubled, Elsa gave her white brow to her father's kiss, bade him good night; and very shortly the castle was in darkness, and silent save for the measured tread of the sentinels on the parapet. On the following day the Abbess told Elsa that the two counts, once so inseparable, had for certain reasons become enemies, that the young Count of Bré must never more be named within the hearing of her father; and that henceforth she must forget her love for Alan, which now was quite hopeless. Broken hearted but obedient, the young girl, bathed in tears, spent hours before the altar upon her knees, but devoted herself to her father whenever he would see her. Autumn came, and brought winter in its train. Young Alan she had not seen since the day of his return when they met at the charcoal burner's cottage in the wood. The fête of Noël came in with a great snow storm. The Count no more went forth, nor did he attend at chapel. The abbot had admonished him upon one occasion--"If ye from your hearts forgive not those who--" whereupon the Count had struck the rail with his hand, arose, and left the chapel. Affairs at the other castle were quite similar, and the lord had refused to offer his hand in friendship to his old friend Count Alan, swearing a terrible oath that he would wither away unshriven ere he did such a thing. Thus matters stood at the two castles, and two fond hearts were breaking, while pride held out. As to the young Alan, he had well-nigh lost his reason but for the kindly and wise advice of the old Abbot. Then one day the aged châtelaine lay upon her death bed, with Elsa bathed in tears beside her. "Call thee thy father, child," she said, "I have much to say to him before I go." Of the conversation between them nothing was ever known, but a marked change came over the old knight, after the chatelaine had been laid at rest beneath the altar in the chapel. He passed the whole night before the Stations of the Cross, and cried aloud for mercy, striking his breast with both hands. In the morning he called Elsa and told her that he was to set out upon a long journey, and she begging that he allow her to accompany him he at length consented, and so together, with an escort, the old knight and the tender maiden set out through the forest. It was the Holy Week of the Passion, and there were bands of pious pilgrims met upon the road, nearly all afoot, for that was the custom. Seeing this the old knight dismounted, and bidding the escort take the horses and return to the castle, they joined one of the processions, and continued on foot as far as the Calvary which was at the bend in the road toward St. Mihiel. Here they paused and let the procession proceed without them. It was fair spring time; the fairest flowers bloomed all about them, and wild birds in the trees hymned the Resurrection of God. Elsa's heart sang in unison with the birds. She suspected the object of the old knight's pilgrimage. When they were near the castle of Count Alan, all at once she saw on the road the Count and his son, arm in arm, approaching them. When they met there was an instant's silence, then cried out the old knight, "Alan! I come to thee!" "And I was coming to thee to ask thy forgiveness," replied Count Alan with shining eyes; and they embraced, retiring arm and arm beneath the great beech trees, leaving Elsa and young Alan face to face. Elsa's hands were clasped upon her heaving bosom, her brimming eyes raised to the sky; then she knelt down beside the cliff in the moss, and young Alan knelt beside her. All at once Elsa's voice burst forth in the holy canticle, "Benedicite, opera Domini, Domino--fontes benedicite," and as she uttered the last words of the canticle, there burst forth from the limestone rock, just where their united tears had dropped, a tiny stream of crystal clear water. Soon this grew larger, bubbling forth like pearls into the sunlight, and making a channel for itself, flowed onward, dancing and leaping as for joy. And thus kneeling there at the fountain of their united tears the knights found them.... And this is the story of the fountain of the lovers' tears at St. Mihiel, where broken friendships were said to be healed by one draft of the waters, partaken of by both be it understood. One wonders now as to the fate of St. Mihiel-on-the-Meuse; is that gray old church entirely destroyed by the rain of shells that has beaten upon it for more than two years? And what remains of the little town clustering against the two tall limestone peaks all clad with green verdure, where all was so prosperous and peaceful before the onslaught of the destroying legions? Chatel Gate: Verdun [Illustration: 0379] VERDUN |UPON well nigh every headland of any considerable size on the banks of the winding river Meuse, there glowered a vine clad castle in a more or less ruinous state, and usually at its foot slept a farmstead, a village, or a town. Over each stream-laved promontory and every high hill there have been fought great and small battles year in, year out, through the ages since the time of Charlemagne. One could not wander far here in any direction without lighting upon some shattered monument of human passion and pride. "Here might reigned supreme with fantastic honor as its handmaid; at ambition's footstool religion and right were vassals." One stands before one of these shattered, time-battered castle walls, and tries perchance to picture the siege of old, with the crowds of iron-armed men busily sapping the walls. Through the ragged breaches made by the great stone-hung rams, they discharged into the interior by quaint cumbrous machines large stones, blazing bundles of fagots, and even carrion, while from the besieged warriors on the battlemented walls above came streams of molten lead, and showers of heavy iron barbed bolts. The country about during these battles was considerably damaged, and there must have been an appalling noise over it all, but somehow one cannot picture any very great carnage as a result, at least nothing like that which took place here at Verdun in the great battle of 1916, nor any such destruction of property. This town of Verdun, now upon every one's lips, was the ancient Roman "Verodunam" and ever has held a most important place in European affairs and history. Captured by Charlemagne, in the dim days of a. d. 843, it was divided among his three grandsons, Charles the Bald, Lothaire, and Lewis the German. Thus divided, the members of the Empire, Teutonic and Gallic, were never again united. Until the year 1552 the town, once the seat of a powerful bishop, remained free, and in 1648 it was formally united to France after the peace of Westphalia, when Austria relinquished the three great bishoprics of Verdun, Toul, and Metz. Verdun fell to the Prussians after a fierce bombardment lasting only five hours, and a story is told of how a bevy of fair young girls appeared in the public square before the Hôtel de Ville, where the conquerors were drawn up, and made peace-offering to them of the "bon-bons" for which, even up to the outbreak of the great world war, and invasion of 1914, Verdun was famous. These bon-bons were known locally as "Dragées." Old House on the Meuse: Verdun [Illustration: 0397] After the battle of Valmy, the revolutionists recaptured the town and, it is said, sought out these same young maidens and put them to death. The town, which was rather attractive and picturesque, stood in a sort of plain, on the river Meuse, which divides here into several streams. It was surrounded by fortifications, considered impregnable, which were planted with large trees, and there was a very satisfying Mediaeval gateway flanked by two great towers, while an attractive street called the "Promenade de la Digne" followed the banks of the river. The sights of the town, however, were very soon exhausted. If one followed the Avenue de la Gare, one came to the Porte St. Paul, and just beyond it the Palais de Justice and a large new college building. Then there was the Porte Chaussée, which was very old and had two fine crenelated towers. There were several bridges crossing the river Meuse, and along its banks a collection of ancient many colored houses, all so battered, bewindowed, and balconied, as to be quite fascinating pictorially but certainly very dirty and "smelly." Ranged along the water washed walls of these quaint houses, were many barges and washing boats, painted in charming tones of green and brown, and these, reflected in the water, made delightful pictures for the painter and snap shots for tourists. A very good regimental band played in the square once a week, and this formed an excuse for a promenade of the townspeople, and a social gathering at the small cafés, for the post prandial "bock." There was a Hôtel de Ville of the seventeenth century, lacking however in character, in the courtyard of which were displayed some bronze cannon, given to Verdun by the government in recognition of its heroic resistance in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. Near the cathedral were the remains of an ancient gate called the Porte Châtel. The Cathedral, the towers of which were high above the town, though lacking spires, was not unimpressive, but it had been so often rebuilt and changed, as to have few vestiges of the structure begun in the twelfth century. The two towers were square and topped by balustrades of little or no character. The buttresses of the apse were, however, of architectural value, and the apse had some curious and remarkable sculptures, while the triple nave was of noble proportions and had some Gothic vaulting. A curious bas relief representing the Assumption was shown in the transept; but beyond these features the Cathedral had little or nothing to offer, save a very beautiful fifteenth century cloister, which we nearly missed seeing, connecting die Cathedral with the grand séminaire. The great Citadel, renowned throughout Europe, upon which such high hopes centered in the beginning of the present war, and which resisted the efforts of the army of the Crown Prince, occupied the ancient site of the Abbey of St. Vannes, of the tenth century. It was so rigidly guarded that no one was permitted to enter it. From a roadway called the Promenade de la Roche one might idle away the hours appraising the picturesque valley of the Meuse. Alost of those who visited Verdun, and stopped at "des trois Maures or du Cog Hardi," which were the rival hostelries, usually started to explore the town after "dejeuner," and brought up at the Cathedral as a finish. But to him who stayed awhile, and rambled about aimlessly outside the town, there was no end of curious beauties, of small scenic and antique discoveries, of quaint nooks, and groupings and surprises! all about were flowers and vines, and long white winding roads, past small mills embosomed in verdure, and wayside shrines where old women seemed rooted telling their beads. And night beyond the town brought her own peculiar graces, when the mazy ravines lay hidden in the glimmering dusk, and the lights of Verdun twinkled across the valley, or answered to their images in the stream. In towns of this region one was impressed with the prevalence of Colonels and Generals. Each hotel seemed to be provided with an officer, looking, too, much like all the others. They were invariably somewhat red faced and "puffy," bored in manner, and while slow of speech, were not mentally active or entertaining. Invariably, too, they were anglers, displaying in sporting knee breeches stockinged calves of the shape of "ten pins." They seemed mysterious as to their families, but were undisguisedly gallant in their attentions to the fair sex, and invariably headed the "table d'hôte" at which universal deference was accorded them. Once, in a small town, I fancied that the spell was broken, and that no General or Colonel was in the hotel, but on the third day I learned that "M. le General was confined to his room with the gout." This room was on the floor above, and although the proprietor often assured us that "M. le General" would, in all probability, be able to come down on the morrow, and occupy his wonted seat at the head of the table, he did not come, and so we never saw him. All about Verdun were charming small villages, particularly along the river Meuse, and if one liked one could take a slow moving train, which went through a long black tunnel, and at length entered the valley of the Moselle--but that was another adventure which is not to be set down in this volume. Cathedral: Verdun [Illustration: 0405] For this summer end of 1910, the valley of the Meuse was to us all sufficient. Here, while dozing among these small towns and villages, bordering on the vine clad river's splash and sparkle, resting by night in quaint clean and generally well kept inns, the world beyond became a figment. Curious fortresses still were to be found among these old rocks; and on the plateau the antiquarian, the geologist, the botanist may find much food for wonder and study, if they searched. But if they did, at least I never met them there. Should tourist by chance pass that way, it was by train, or swiftly speeding automobile all begoggled of eyes, and mummied by greatcoat, mindful only of the smoothness of the winding road, or the consumption of gasoline. But from all such doth Dame Nature hide her soul. Then, tiring of this aloofness, one could always return to the bustle of Verdun, and find entertainment in the tortuous streets between the amorphous houses, with their aged carven doors surmounted by strange old trade-emblems, their overhanging gables; across the rough cobbled market place with the old town hall of pepperbox turret, its arcade, and its dusty hall where the "Échevins" held their courts of justice, and where the peasants chaffered their wares on market days, through the ancient gateways, and over the old bridges reflected in the eddying river. I like to think of Verdun, as we saw it "en fête" that late summer morning. The town was gay with wreaths and flags and streamers, the windows aflame with flowers. In the Cathedral since five o'clock there had been scarce space to kneel for the toll of masses unbroken at the altar. White clad priests came and went through the aisles. The air was tense and restless with murmured prayer and the incessancy of "sacring-bells." When the last "housel" had been taken, the last "Ite" said, thousands of people filled the streets, lining the narrow ways in thick serried ranks, crowding the doors and windows, and stretching in a double row across the bridge. Over all is a sense of waiting, as for a solemn thing about to happen, and this thrills the multitude. At the bridge end I could see the figure of a priest gesticulating, raised somewhat above the crowd, clad in a cope of gold and white, but I was too far away to hear his voice. Soon came a procession headed by a banner bearer, and I caught a glimpse of the scarlet of my lord the Archbishop, amid a cloud of filmy laced priestly cottas, and the violet surplices of chanting men, set in a great splash of white robes. Here and there a banner shone all red and gold, and at the end of the bridge was a great golden Crucifix. Here a short sermon was preached, and this being over there came a stir and a heave in the crowd, which fell back along the ways. Forward moved the cross, twelve banners escorting it; tapers of wax tall and thick blazed, and from upcast censers sprang misty spirals of fragrance, blue as the hills beyond the town. From a murmur which sweeps through the throng of people, a chant grows in volume until it is like the sound of a vast organ. All at once the gay burners, the smoking censers, and the gorgeously clad priests vanish around a turning in the street; the spell is broken; the crowd, before so orderly, swarms like bees in the hive, and here and there are couples dancing and jostling all unmindful of each other's proximity, but performing with stolid good humor. The spirit of the dance takes hold of the crowd, it spreads across the bridge, and sets of four, six and eight form in rows, holding one another at handkerchief length, eyes dancing with eyes to limbs' measure. There was little of passion but much of poetry in this dance, a sort of polka with three steps forward and two back, a serpentine swinging unison. Words are poor painters of the scene: like unto a moving wheatfield swept by two winds, or the sea surge whose oscillant ebb and flow is so fascinating. And so throughout the day, and far into the night the celebration continued, with meetings--rejoicings--and mild potations sacramental of reunited friendships; but not until long after the celebration ended and common events regained dominion over the streets and square, did one cease to see mentally the swinging sway of that dance, or hear the pounding, insistent, snarling drone on the barrel organs of that reiterated tune.... And this is how one likes to recall old, old Verdun, now so pathetically battered and shell torn, its cathedral towers ragged against the sky, and its Citadel dismantled. DOMREMY AND THE MAID |ALIGHTING from the ordinary train (none other stops here apparently) at the dismal little stucco station at Domremy-Maxey-sur-Meuse, in a downpour of rain, we asked the little roly-poly _chef de la Gare_, who wore a tall red cap ornamented with a band of gold lace, all a size too large for his round bullet head:--First, could we have a conveyance to Domremy?--Secondly, was there an inn there?--Thirdly, did he think that we could be accommodated there? To the first question he returned explosively,--"No, there was no conveyance; there had never been a conveyance there of any sort." To the second: "No, there was no inn there--but there was one at Domremy-la-Pucelle, 'toute en face,' near the church; no great thing, you understand--M'sieur and Madame--but not so bad, and clean of a surety." To the third: "Yes, possibly; stay, as it rains torrents, I shall go over there and enquire for M'sieur and Madame.'Tis but a short walk for me, and I have the paletot which resists the rain." And go he did, in the driving rain, too; in spite of our remonstrances he trudged out into the rain-soaked road, and we watched him out of sight down the footpath leading from the station towards the river. And this is but one of the instances of consideration and kindness that one received in this charming countryside. Briefly, we were well housed at Domremy among the poplars, and though the sheets were damp from the rainy weather, a huge wood fire lighted for us by Madame at the inn soon dried them, and a good supper revived our spirits. Here charming days may be spent among the scenes filled with memories of la Pucelle. There are two villages here, besides Vaucouleurs, which equipped Jeanne for her campaign, and whence she set forth aided by Baudricourt, the Governor. The larger is Gréoulx, perhaps half a mile away. The hamlet is probably much as it was during the time of Jeanne; a collection of small low white houses on either side of the roadway, squalid and odorous from the dung-hill before each doorway. Here sit Madame and the children, who play with the chickens and droves of small pink pigs running up and down in every direction, and in and out of the open doors. The street now widens into a sort of "place" before the church with a square, pinnacled tower in which is a clock. The interior with low vaulting is rich with festoons of drapery, wreaths and some very ornate silk banners, all displayed with much taste in honor of la Pucelle, the sainted Jeanne. To right is a fine monument, dated fifteenth century, embellished with figures of Jacob and Didier Tierselin, who were the sons of her godmother, who, it will be remembered, was a witness in her behalf at the trial. Here at Domremy the maid Jeanne is regarded and honored as a saint, and over the altar are large paintings of her representing her mission, and the events. One of them is of the appearance of the Archangel to the young girl. Outside the door is a bronze statue of the Maid of Orleans by E. Paul (1855) and farther on is a very ill-kept little square in which is a most absurd monument erected by some one who is nameless, in 1820. Just opposite a sort of court guarded from the droves of little pink pigs by an iron railing, is the quaint "lean to" sort of cottage in which Jeanne la Pucelle, called by the English Joan of Arc, was born in 1411. Above the arched door is displayed the emblazoned royal arms of France, together with those assigned to Jeanne and her family by the King, Louis XI. Above is a Gothic canopied niche in which is a kneeling figure of la Pucelle, reproduced, it is said, from the one inside the cottage, bearing the date of 1456. Here the principal room is the kitchen, in which, however, only the middle beam of the ceiling is original. It is said that the kneeling statue in armor was posed for by a niece of Jeanne. Behind the kitchen is a dark little closet, in which Jeanne is said to have slept. It is lighted by a tiny window high up in the wall, and here against the wall is a chest said to have been used by Jeanne. Domremy, in her honor, was, up to the time of the Revolution, exempted from any taxation. The hill where Jeanne heard the mysterious voices is about a mile farther on, and a sort of basilica was being built here to mark the spot, to be further enriched by a statue of the Maid by Allard. The house of Jeanne was cared for by the sisters of charity who conducted a school and a small shop where the pilgrims bought medals and souvenirs. On the other side of the railway line was a small chapel, to which it is said Jeanne made a pilgrimage once a week on Saturday, placing a lighted wax taper before the altar. House of Jeanne d'Arc: Domremy [Illustration: 0419] On the 6th of January, 1428, this young girl, the daughter of simple peasants, humble tillers of the soil, of good life and repute, she herself a good, simple, gentle girl, no idler, occupied in sewing and spinning with her mother, or driving afield her father's sheep, and sometimes even, when her father's turn came round, keeping for him the whole flock of the commune, was fulfilling her sixteenth year. ("Jeanne d'Arc," by M. Wallon, Vol. I, p. 32.) It was Joan of Arc, whom all the neighbors called Joannette. She was no recluse; she often went with her companions to sing and eat cakes beside the fountain by the gooseberry bush, under an old beech, which was called the fairy-tree; but dancing she did not like. She was constant at church, she delighted in the sound of the bells, she often went to confession and communion, and she blushed when her friends taxed her with being too religious. In 1421, when Joan was hardly nine, a band of Anglo-Burgundians penetrated into her country and transferred thither the ravages of war. The village of Domremy and the little town of Vaucouleurs were French and faithful to the French kingship; and Joan wept to see the lads of her parish returning bruised and bleeding from encounters with the enemy. Her relatives and neighbors were one day obliged to take flight, and at their return they found their houses burnt or devastated. Joan wondered whether it could possibly be that God permitted such excesses and disasters. In 1425, on a summer's day, at noon, she was in her father's little garden. She heard a voice calling her, at her father's right side, in the direction of the church, and a great brightness shone upon her at the same time in the same spot. At first she was frightened, but she recovered herself on finding that "it was a worthy voice"; and at the second call she perceived that it was the voice of angels. "I saw them with my bodily eyes," she said six years later to her judges at Rouen, "as plainly as I see you; when they departed from me I wept and would fain have had them take me with them." The apparitions came again, and exhorted her "to go to France for to deliver the kingdom." She became dreamy, wrapt in constant meditation. "I could endure no longer," said she at a later period, "and the time went heavily with me as with a woman in travail." She ended with telling everything to her father, who listened to her words anxiously at first, and afterwards wrathfully. He himself one night dreamed that his daughter had followed the King's men-at-arms to France, and from that moment he kept her under strict superintendence. "If I knew of your sister's going," he said to his sons, "I would bid you drown her; and, if you did not do it, I would drown her myself." Joan submitted: there was no leaven of pride in her sublimation, and she did not suppose that her intercourse with celestial voices relieved her from the duty of obeying her parents.. Attempts were made to distract her mind. A young man who courted her was induced to say that he had a promise of marriage from her and claim the fulfillment of it. Joan went before the ecclesiastical judge, made affirmation that she had given no promise and without difficulty gained her cause. Everybody believed her and respected her. In a village hard by Domremy she had an uncle whose wife was near her confinement; she got herself invited to go and nurse her aunt, and thereupon she opened her heart to her uncle, repeating a popular saying which had spread indeed throughout the country: "Is it not said that a woman shall ruin France and a young maid restore it?" She pressed him to take her to Vaucouleurs to Sire Robert de Baudricourt, captain of the bailiwick, for she wished to go to the dauphin and carry assistance to him. Her uncle gave way, and on the 13th of May, 1428, he did take her to Vaucouleurs. "I come on behalf of my Lord," she said to Sire de Baudricourt, "to bid you send word to the dauphin to keep himself well in hand and not to give battle to his foes, for my Lord will presently give him succor." "Who is thy Lord?" asked Baudricourt. "The King of Heaven," answered Joan. Baudricourt set her down and urged her uncle to take her back to her parents "with a good slap o' the face." In July, 1428, a fresh invasion of Burgundians occurred at Domremy, and redoubled the popular excitement there. Shortly afterwards the report touching the siege of Orleans arrived there. Joan, more and more passionately possessed with her idea, returned to Vau-couleurs. "I must go," said she to Sire de Baudricourt, "for to raise the siege of Orleans. I will go should I have to wear, off my legs to the knee." She returned to Vaucouleurs without taking leave of her parents. "Had I possessed," said she to her judges at Rouen, "a hundred fathers and a hundred mothers and had I been a king's daughter, I should have gone." Baudricourt, impressed without being convinced, did not oppose her remaining at Vaucouleurs, and sent an account of this singular young girl to Charles, Duke of Lorraine, at Nancy, and perhaps even, according to some chronicles, to the King's court. Joan lodged at Vaucouleurs in the house of a wheelwright, and passed three weeks there, spinning with her hostess and dividing her time between work and church. There was much talk in Vaucouleurs of her "visions" and her purpose. John of Metz (also called John of Novelomport), a knight serving with de Baudricourt, desired to see her, and went to the wheelwright's. "What do you here, my dear?" he said. "Must the King be driven from his kingdom and we become English?" "I am come hither," answered Joan, "to speak to Robert de Baudricourt, that he may be pleased to take me or have me taken to the King; but he pays no heed to me or my words. However, I must be with the King before the middle of Lent, for none in the world, nor kings, nor dukes, nor daughter of Scottish king can recover the Kingdom of France; there is no help but in me. Assuredly I would far rather be spinning beside my poor mother, for this other is not my condition; but I must go and do the work because my Lord wills that I should do it." "Who is your Lord?" "The Lord God." "By my faith," said the Knight, seizing Joan's hands, "I will take you to the King, God helping. When will you set out?" "Rather now than to-morrow; rather to-morrow than later." Vaucouleurs was full of the fame and sayings of Joan. Another knight, Bertrand de Poulengy, offered, as John of Metz had, to be her escort. Duke Charles of Lorraine wished to see her, and sent for her to Nancy. Old and ill as he was, he had deserted his duchess, a virtuous lady, and was leading anything but a regular life. He asked Joan's advice about his health. "I have no power to cure you," she said, "but go back to your wife and help me in that for which God ordains me." The Duke ordered her the sum of four golden crowns, and she returned to Vaucouleurs, thinking of nothing but her departure. There was no want of confidence and good will on the part of the inhabitants of Vaucouleurs in forwarding her preparations. John of Metz, the knight charged to accompany her, asked her if she intended to make the journey in her poor red rustic petticoats. "I should like to don man's clothes," answered Joan. Subscriptions were made to give her a suitable costume. She was supplied with a horse, a coat of mail, a lance, a sword, the complete equipment indeed of a man-at-arms; and a king's messenger and an archer formed her train. Baudricourt made them swear to escort her safely, and on the 25th of February, 1429, he bade her farewell, and all he said was: "Away then, Joan, and come what may." Charles VII was at that time at Chinon, in Touraine. In order to reach him Joan had nearly a hundred and fifty leagues to go, in a country occupied here and there by English and Burgundians and everywhere a theater of war. She took eleven days to do this journey, often marching by night, and never giving up man's dress, disquieted by no difficulty and no danger, and testifying no desire for a halt save to worship God. "Could we hear mass daily," said she to her companions, "we should do well." They consented only twice, first at the Abbey of St. Urban, and again in the principal church of Auxerre. As they were full of respect though at the same time also of doubt toward Joan, she never had to defend herself against familiarities, but she had constantly to dissipate their disquietude touching the reality or the character of her mission. "Fear nothing," she said to them; "God shows me the way I should go; for thereto I was born." On arriving at the village of St. Catherine-de-Fierbois, near Chinon, she heard three masses on the same day and had a letter written thence to the King to announce her coming and to ask to see him; she had gone, she said, a hundred and fifty leagues to come and tell him things which would be most useful to him. Charles VII and his councilors hesitated. The men of war did not like to believe that a little peasant girl of Lorraine was coming to bring the King a more effectual support than their own. Nevertheless, some, and the most heroic amongst them, Dunuois, La Hire, and Xaintrailles, were moved by what was told of this young girl. The letters of Sire de Bau-dricourt, though full of doubt, suffered a gleam of something like a serious impression to peep out; and why should not the King receive this young girl whom the Captain of Vaucouleurs had thought it a duty to send? It would soon be seen what she was and what she would do. The politicians and courtiers, especially the most trusted of them, George de la Tremoille, the King's favorite, shrugged their shoulders. What could be expected from the dreams of a young peasant girl of nineteen? Influences of a more private character and more disposed toward sympathy--Yolande of Arragon, for instance, Queen of Sicily, and mother-in-law of Charles VII, and perhaps also her daughter, the young queen, Mary of Anjou, were urgent for the King to reply to Joan that she might go to Chinon. She was authorized to do so, and on 6th March, 1429, she, with her comrades, arrived at the royal residence. At the very first moment two incidents occurred (says M. Wallon) still further to increase the curiosity of which she was the object. Quite close to Chinon some vagabonds had prepared an ambuscade for the purpose of despoiling her and her train. She passed close by them without the least obstacle. The rumor went that at her approach they were struck motionless, and had been unable to attempt their wicked purpose. Joan was rather tall, well shaped, dark, with a look of composure, animation and gentleness. A man-at-arms, who met her on the way, thought her pretty, and with an impious oath, expressed a coarse compliment. "Alas," said Joan, "thou blasphemest thy God, and thou art so near thy death!" He drowned himself, it is said, shortly after. Already popular feeling was surrounding her marvelous mission with the halo of instantaneous miracles. On her arrival at Chinon she first lodged with an honest family near the castle. For three days longer there was a deliberation in the council as to whether the King ought to receive her. But there was bad news from Orleans. There were no more troops to send thither, and there was no money forthcoming; the King's treasurer, it is said, had but four crowns in the chest. If Orleans was taken, the King would be perhaps reduced to seeking refuge in Spain or in Scotland. Joan promised to set Orleans free. The Orleanese themselves were clamorous for her; Dunois kept up their spirits with the expectation of this marvelous assistance. It was decided that the King should receive her. She had assigned to her for residence an apartment in the tower of the "Coudray," a block of quarters adjoining the royal mansion, and she was committed to the charge of William Bellier, an officer of the King's household, whose wife was a woman of great piety and excellent fame. On the 9th of March, 1429, Joan was at last introduced into the King's presence by the Count of Vendôme, high steward, in the great hall on the first story, a portion of the wall and fireplace being still visible in the present day. It was evening, candle light; and nearly three hundred knights were present. Charles kept himself a little aloof amidst a group of warriors and courtiers more richly dressed than he. According to some chroniclers, Joan demanded that "she should not be deceived, and should have pointed out to her him to whom she was to speak." Others affirm that she went straight to the King, whom she had never seen, "accosting him humbly and simply, like a poor shepherdess," says an eye-witness, and according to another account, "making the usual bends and reverences, as if she had been brought up at court." Whatever may have been her outward behavior, "Gentle dauphin," she said to the King (for she did not think it right to call him king, so long as he had not been crowned), "my name is Joan the maid; the King of Heaven sendeth you word by me that you shall be anointed and crowned in the city of Rheims, and shall be lieutenant of the King of Heaven, who is King of France. It is God's pleasure that our enemies, the English, should depart to their own country; if they depart not, evil will come to them, and the kingdom is sure to continue yours." Charles was impressed without being convinced, as so many others had been before, or were as he was on that very day. He saw Joan again several times. She did not delude herself as to the doubts he still entertained. Gentle dauphin, she said one day, "why do you not believe me? I say unto you that God hath compassion on you, your kingdom and your people; St. Louis and Charlemagne are kneeling before Him making prayer for you, a thing which will give you to understand that you ought to believe me." Charles gave her audience on this occasion in the presence of four witnesses, the most trusted of his intimates, who swore to reveal nothing, and according to others, completely alone. "What she said to him there is none who knows," wrote Allan Chartier a short time after (in July, 1429) "but it is quite certain that he was all radiant with joy thereat, as at a revelation from the Holy Spirit." M. Wallon continues this fascinating and intimate account of the Maid's mission with most minute detail through her early triumphs and ordeal, down to the days of her capture, confinement at Rouen, the capital of the English in France, and her trial and execution in that town. She arrived (in Rouen) on the 23rd of December, 1430. On the 3rd of January the following year, an order from Henry VI, King of England, placed her in the hands of the bishop of Beauvais, Peter Cauchon. Some days afterwards, Count John of Luxembourg accompanied by his brother, the English Chancellor, and his Esquire, the Earl of Warwick, and Humphrey, Earl of Stafford, the King of England's constable in France, entered the prison where Joan was confined. Had John of Luxembourg come out of sheer curiosity, or to relieve himself of certain scruples by offering Joan a chance for her life? "Joan," said he, "I am come hither to put you to ransom, and treat for the price of your deliverance; only give us your promise here no more to bear arms against us." "In God's name," answered Joan, "are you making a mock of me, Captain? Ransom me? You have neither the will nor the power; no, you have neither." The Count persisted. "I know well," said Joan, "that these English will put me to death; but, were they a hundred thousand more 'Goddams' than have already been in France, they shall never have the kingdom." "What is to be thought of her? What is to be thought of the poor shepherd girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine, that like the Hebrew shepherd boy from the hills and forests of Judea--rose suddenly out of the quiet, out of the safety, out of the religious inspiration, rooted in deep pastoral solitudes, to a station in the van of armies, and to the more perilous station at the right hand of kings? "The Hebrew boy inaugurated his patriotic mission by an _act_, by a victorious _act_, such as no man could deny. But so did the girl of Lorraine, if we read her story as it was read by those who saw her nearest. Adverse armies bore witness to the boy as no pretender; but so they did to the gentle girl. Judged by the voices of all who saw them _from a station of good will_, both were found true and loyal to any promises involved in their first acts. "Enemies it was that made the difference between their subsequent fortunes. The boy rose to a splendor and a noon-day prosperity, both personal and public, that rang through the records of his people, and became a byword amongst his posterity for a thousand years, until the scepter was departing from Judah. "The poor forsaken girl, on the contrary, drank not herself from that cup of rest which she had secured for France. She never sang together with the songs that rose in her native Domremy, as echoes to the departing steps of the invaders. She mingled not in the festal dances at Vaucouleurs which celebrated in rapture the redemption of France. No! for her voice was then silent; no! for her feet were dust. Pure, innocent, noble-hearted girl! Whom, from earliest youth, ever I believed in as full of truth and self-sacrifice, this was amongst the strongest pledges of thy truth, that never once--no, not for a moment of weakness--didst thou revel in the vision of coronets and honor from man. Coronets for thee! Oh, no! Honors if they come when all is over, are for those that share thy blood. Daughter of Domremy, when the gratitude of thy king shall awaken, thou wilt be sleeping the sleep of the dead. Call her, King of France, but she will not hear thee. Cite her by the apparitors to come and receive a robe of honor, but she will be found '_en Contumace_.' When the thunders of universal France, as even yet may happen, shall proclaim the grandeur of the poor shepherd girl that gave up all for her country, thy ear, young shepherd girl, will have been deaf for centuries. To suffer and to do, that was thy portion in this life; that was thy destiny; and not for a moment was it hidden from thyself. Life, thou saidst, is short; and the sleep which is in the grave is long; let me use that life, so transitory, for the glory of those heavenly dreams destined to comfort the sleep which is long! "This pure creature--pure from every suspicion of even a visionary self interest; even as she was pure in senses more obvious--never once did this holy child, as she regarded herself, relax from her belief in the darkness that was traveling to meet her. She might not prefigure the very manner of her death; she saw not in vision the aerial altitude of the fiery scaffold, the spectators without end on every road pouring into Rouen as to a coronation, the surging smoke, the volleying flames, the hostile faces all around her, the pitying eye that lurked here and there until nature and imperishable truth broke loose from artificial restraints--these might not be apparent through the mists of the hurrying future. But the voice that called her to death, that she heard forever. "Great was the throne of France even in those days, and great was he that sat upon it; but well Joanna knew that not the throne nor he that sat upon it was for her; but on the contrary, that she was for them; not she by them, but they by her, should rise from the dust. "Gorgeous were the lilies of France, and for centuries had they privilege to spread their beauty over land and sea, until in another century the wrath of God and man combined to wither them; but well Joanna knew, early at Domremy she had read that bitter truth, that the lilies of France would decorate no garland for her. Flower nor bud, bell nor blossom, would ever bloom for her." (Thomas De Quincey.) And now comes in this, which is perhaps the final year of the great war, a strange story from a small town in the Loire region near Cholet, of another illiterate peasant girl named Clotilde Perchaud, seemingly the reincarnation of Jeanne, who likewise sees visions and hears voices. Brought up on one of the small farms on the edge of the hamlet of Puy-Saint-Bonnet, this girl, now about twenty years old, since the age of fourteen has been of a strange personality. Instead of following the fairs and dancing at the village festivals like the other young girls of the neighborhood, Clotilde has always kept aloof, avoiding the young men who would offer her attentions, and devoting herself to devotions at church, and prayers in her squalid room in the farmhouse granary, where she had constructed an altar. So strange were her actions at the village school that the good priest advised her parents to keep her at home, as she would not study her lessons, but preferred to sit with clasped hands, and her eyes fixed in a wrapt gaze at the ceiling, to the demoralization of the scholars, who at length came to believe her half witted, and ceased to consider her. Not so, however, the elders. Soon it became known that this strange girl was a clairvoyant, and the more credulous consulted her as to future events, but these became dissatisfied because all of the girl's prophecies had to do with events beyond the ken of the simple folk of the neighborhood; with kings and heavenly hosts, with saints in armor waving banners and leading armies on to victory. Thus passed the life of this young peasant girl during the peaceful years between fourteen and twenty, until the great war broke out and armed hosts led by princes indeed invaded her unhappy land. So in the field below the red tiled roofs of her village of Puy-St.-Bonnet, Clotilde Perchaud erected to the Virgin a rude altar of field stones, which she trimmed with green boughs, and here she passed all her spare time, praying and seeing visions in the sky, while upon the horizon mighty guns boomed, and at night the flashes could plainly be seen. Soon this altar became a rendezvous for the neighbors, and even for those of the more remote villages from which the young men had gone forth to fight for France, and to this young girl were brought pictures of the absent soldiers at the front in the trenches and written prayers for their safety. That she possessed some strange power was admitted by even the most skeptical, for her responses to those who had loved ones missing led to their being found in distant camps as prisoners, or wounded in hospitals in distant parts of the country. In some instances, it is reported, this strange girl was able to give the names in full of those long missing, and information so detailed and circumstantial as to be marvelous. These matters were brought to the attention of the priests, and were in turn reported by them to the heads of the church, finally reaching the ears of the Bishop of Angers, who had her brought to his palace. Here she confronted unabashed a conclave of priests. The Bishop is said to have dressed himself in the ordinary black cassock of a priest, in order to test the young girl's power of divination; an ordinary priest wearing the Bishop's robes, and being seated on the throne; but to the amazement of all in the room, the girl turned from him, and kneeling before the real Bishop, asked his blessing upon her and her mission. To him she announced, then, that a white robed angel had appeared to her above her altar in the fields, and to the strains of heavenly music charged that she had, as a pure and blameless maid, been selected to deliver their beloved France from the hands of the invader. She presented to the Bishop the book in which she had written the words spoken to her on many occasions by the "shining angel in white." This book, says the account from which this is taken, "is partly illegible and almost entirely illiterate; rudely illustrated in a sort of futurist style." Its contents are said to be most perplexing and wonderful. "Savants and students of religion who have examined the book assert that it shows a knowledge of the primal principles of theology, which indicates that the author has the clearest insight into the fundamentals of Roman Catholicism, but is apparently not gifted with the power to translate those ideas into fluent French. Throughout the work are passages in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, yet she apparently had less than the usual schooling of a French child." The Bishop of Angers was so impressed with her attitude and her evident earnestness that he sent her under escort by nuns, to the Archbishop-Cardinal Amette at Paris. To him she demanded that she be at once taken to the heights of Montmartre, so that she might see the sun rise there over Paris. In this she was humored, and standing with the nuns and priests before the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Montmartre, at sunrise, as the first beam shone upon the great gilded cross on the tower, she recited in a loud voice the vow which she had taken to deliver France from the invader. Since this, it is said no one has been allowed to talk to Clotilde, and she is said to be at the convent in the Avenue Victor Hugo. Here she is under observation of the nuns, who each send reports of her prayers and prophecies to the Cardinal. A correspondent who was permitted to see her from a distance in the convent garden, where she walked, followed at a distance of several paces by the nuns, describes her as a rather tall girl, clad in somber baggy black robes, very light of step and walking with her head thrown back and her eyes directed heavenward. Her carriage reminded him of "Genee, Pavlowa, or some other dancer," and he speaks of her as having "a wealth of filmy hair, which because of its fineness, seemed to float about her like a cloud, and only partly covered by a religious headgear," and he could see, too, "her hands, which are lily white and tiny, and tender, as those of the most pampered lady, despite the fact that the girl has done chores which in peace times would belong to men even on the French farms where the women are accustomed to labor long and hard." A strange story; but then these are strange times, and who shall say that this is unworthy of credence? CONCLUSION |AESCITIS quâ horâ fur veniet" (Ye know not in what hour the despoiler cometh) were the words of an inscription carved on the capstone of a church porch in the fifteenth century by a monkish stonecutter, overlooking a smiling valley in Picardy. That valley is now a waste place; its once populous and peaceful villages are in ruins; its fruitful orchards are gone; its murmuring streams have overflown their banks, choked with the debris of war. No church towers are visible, nor are there any forests left in the blasted expanse of shell-torn earth. The joy felt by the people of this ravaged land over the retreat of the invader, is turned to bitterness by the sight of so much wanton destruction, for they realize that this once peaceful smiling land, the richest region of France, is now a great desert waste strewn with ruins of the priceless records of her glorious achievements in the world of art. And this loss of these irreplaceable monuments is especially bitter to a people so attuned to beauty. With a contemptuous disregard for the accumulated animosity of the whole world, the Imperial high command seems bent upon leaving its hall mark upon the evacuated country. Acknowledging its inability to hold Rheims any longer, it retires its great guns to a locality from which it sends hundreds of shells crashing into that hapless town, and these are mainly aimed at the ruins of the great Cathedral. "The ruin even of ruins," cries a correspondent of the _Tribune_; adding, "In so many of the military transactions of the Hun you may perceive the hatred of humanity that actuates him, his longing to glut upon some personal victim the passion for destruction that is in his soul." Philip Gibbs, perhaps the fairest and most moderate of war correspondents, in describing the retreat of March, 1917, deals with the aspect of the country beyond the tract of shell craters, the smashed barns and country houses and churches, the tattered tree trunks, and great belts of barbed wire: "Behind the trenches are two towns and villages in which they had their 'rest billets,' and it is in these places that one sees the spirit and temper of the men whom the British are fighting. "All through this war I have tried to be fair and just to the Germans, to give them credit for their courage and to pity them because the terror of war has branded them as it has branded the British. "But during these last days I have been sickened and saddened by the things I have seen, because they reveal cruelty which is beyond the inevitable villainy of war. They have spared nothing on the way of their retreat. They have destroyed every village in their abandonment with systematic and detailed destruction. Not only in (the towns of) Bapaume and Péronne have they blown up or burned all the houses which were untouched by shell-fire, but in scores of villages they laid waste the cottages of poor peasants, and all their little farms, and all their orchards. At Bethonvillers, to name only one village out of many, I saw how each house was marked with a white cross before it was gutted with fire. The Cross of Christ was used to mark the work of the devil, for truly this has been the devil's work. "Even if we grant that the destruction of houses in the wake of retreat is the recognized cruelty of war, there are other things which I have seen which are not pardonable, even of that damnable code of morality. In Baupaume and Péronne, in Roye and Neslé and Lian-court, and all these places over a wide area the German soldiers not only blew out the fronts of houses, but with picks and axes smashed mirrors and furniture and even picture frames.... There is nothing left in these towns. Family portraits have been kicked into the débris of the gutters. The black bonnets of old women who lived in these houses lie in the rubbish heaps, and by some strange pitiful freak these are almost the only signs left of the inhabitants who lived here before the soldiers wrecked their houses. "The ruins of houses are pitiful to see when done deliberately even when shell-fire spared them in the war-zone, but worse than that is the ruin of women and children and living flesh. "I saw that ruin to-day in Roye and Neslé. At first I was rejoiced to see how the inhabitants were liberated after being so long in hostile lines.... The women's faces were dead faces, shallow and mask-like and branded with the memories of great agonies. The children were white and thin, so thin that the cheek bones protruded, and many of them seemed to be idiot children. Hunger and fear had been with them too long." This is the reverse of the pictures I found, during those calm and beautiful summer days of 1910, in that sunny and prosperous land. Pictures framed with quaint customs; the simple pleasures of fête days enjoyed by a happy and prosperous peasantry, all unmindful of the terrible days so soon to come upon them. "Nescitis qua horâ fur veniet." How prophetic the warning words of that old monk inscribed upon the capstone of that little church overlooking the green plains of Picardy! And now what is left in place of the gray old churches, the quiet monasteries, the fruitful farms and flocks and the dense forests? Where now shall we look for the gleaming white walls of the turreted châteaux, the precious mossy towers of mediaeval ruined castles; the somnolent quaint towns with wandering streets filled with timbered, carved and strangely gabled houses of half forgotten periods; the sleepy deserted market places over which towered architectural treasures of town halls famed throughout the world. Where shall the artist seek the matchless châteaux gardens, which took centuries in the making? Where seek the still reaches of silent canals crossed here and there by arched stone bridges, all shaded by great trees casting cool shadows in midday, or the vast dim interiors of cathedrals marked with the skill of many ages,--filled with the aroma of incense, and the inspiration of centuries of prayer? "The old order changeth, giving place to new." But at least one may be thankful now to have been privileged to know and to have seen these wonderful and beautiful remains of that "old order." And this feeling of gratitude tempers somewhat one's fury at the result of this invasion and destruction. But one would not have these sacred remains disturbed; there must be no attempt at restoration of these matchless monuments, at the hands of well-meaning municipalities. Rheims, Arras, Soissons, Lâon, must be left mainly as they now lie prostrate, lasting memorials for future ages. Leave to Dame Nature the task of draping them with green clinging vines, and embossings of velvet moss. So let them remain in their solemn majesty, monuments to the failure of an imperial order unhampered by the love of mankind or the fear of God. THE END 
43170	----	Prentice Hugh By FM Peard Illustrations by FB Published by National Society's Depository, London. This edition dated 1887. Prentice Hugh, by FM Peard. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ PRENTICE HUGH, BY FM PEARD. PREFACE. There are differences of opinion as to Bishop Bitton's share in the transforming of Exeter Cathedral, and I have followed that expressed by Archdeacon Freeman, who, after speaking of the prevalent idea that the present choir was the work of Stapledon, states that, from the evidence of the Fabric Rolls, it was done by Bitton, whose episcopate lasted from 1292 to 1307. After noticing the facts which point to this conclusion, Archdeacon Freeman adds: "We thus establish, as I conceive, with absolute certainty, the date of the completion of the _eastern half of the choir_, a point entirely misconceived hitherto. To Bitton and not to Stapledon it must be ascribed. And we shall see reason presently for ascribing to him all the substantial features of the remainder, and the vaulting of the whole." With regard to the story itself, no one can be more conscious than I am myself of the dangers inseparable from attempting to place it at so early a date, when the author is at once plunged into a very quagmire of possible anachronisms. I can only ask the indulgence of those who, happening to cast their eyes upon these pages, detect there the errors in manners and customs which I am too conscious may exist. It may be convenient, for the unlearned, to notice that the value of coins was about fifteen times as much as in the present day. Thus one pound equalled fifteen pounds, and one mark (or shilling) fifteen shillings. A groat contained four silver pennies, and there were two hundred and forty pennies in a silver pound. CHAPTER ONE. AT STOURBRIDGE FAIR. "Have at him, Peter!" "Roll him in the mud!" "Nay, now, 'twere rarer sport to duck the lubber in the river!" These and a hundred other taunts were hurled with entire freedom at the head of a sturdy boy, to judge from his round and rosy face not more than eleven years old, by six or eight urchins, who were dancing round him with many unfriendly demonstrations. Apparently there had already been an exchange of hostilities. One of the half-dozen had received a blow in the eye which had half closed that organ and another showed signs of having suffered on the nose, much to the damage of his clothing; these injuries had evidently enraged and excited the sufferers. Prudence, however, was not forgotten. They egged each other to the attack, but at the same time showed signs of hesitation, perhaps for want of a leader who might organise a simultaneous rush. The boy, meanwhile, though he too bore marks of the fray, for his clothes were torn, and a streak of blood on his cheek showed where he had been hit by a stone or a stick, kept a valiant front. He stood with his back against a fine oak, and flourished a short stout cudgel. "Come on, come on, all of you!" he shouted. "A broken crown the first shall have, I promise you!" "He's threatening thee, Jack Turner. Hit him over the pate!" "Look at his jerkin--he's one of the Flemish hogs." "Flemish!" cried the boy indignantly. "Better English than all of you put together. No English that I know are cowards!" The dreadfulness of such a charge overcame all fears of broken heads. With a yell of rage the urchins rushed pell-mell upon their foe, and battle, indeed, arose! He defended himself with a courage and vigour worthy of all praise, hitting at weak points, and bestowing at least two of his promised broken heads. But numbers will prevail over the most determined bravery, and here were at least a dozen kicking legs and encumbering arms. Do what he would he could not shake them off, blows rained upon him under which he turned dizzy, and his evil case would soon have been exchanged for a worse, if an unexpected ally had not rushed upon the group. A splendid deer-hound crashed in upon them, upsetting two or three of the boys, though more as if he were amusing himself with a rough frolic than with thought of harm. The urchins, however, did not stay to consider this, for, picking themselves up with cries of terror, they fled as fast as their legs could carry them, leaving sundry spoils behind them in the shape of apples and a spice-cake, which latter the dog, doubtless considering himself entitled to his share of the booty, gobbled up without a moment's hesitation. The boy who had been the object of attack was the only one who showed no sign of fear. He stood, breathless and panting, his cheeks crimson, his clothes torn, but with so resolute a determination in his face as proved that he was ready for another fight. Seeing, however, that the hound had no ill intentions, he straightened and shook himself, picked up the cap which had fallen off in the fray, and looked round to see who was near. He saw for the first time that two persons were watching him with some amusement. One was a boy of about fourteen, the other an elderly man in the grey dress of a Franciscan friar. "Thou art a sturdy little varlet," said the friar, coming forward with a smile, "and held thine own right well. But I doubt me how it would have gone, had Wolf not borne in to the rescue. No shame to thee either, for thou wast sorely overmatched. What had brought such a force of rascaille upon thee?" The boy had grown rather redder, if that were possible, but he spoke out bravely. "Holy friar, they were angry because this morning I saved a monkey out of their hands. Its master, an Italian, had died, and they called the poor beast a devil's imp, and were going to stone it to death." "I would Wolf had served them worse! But why did they not fight with thee at the time?" "They were but three then," said the boy with a laugh. "Hum. And who are the little varlets? Give me their names, and they shall have a goodly thrashing." The boy for the first time hung his head. The other lad, who had been listening impatiently, broke in in French. "Set Wolf at them in another sort of fashion. I see them still skulking about, and peeping at us from behind the trees--the unmannerly loons! They need to be taught a lesson." "Gently, Edgar," said the friar, laying his hand on his young companion's arm, "Wolf might prove a somewhat dangerous chastiser. Come, boy, let us have their names," he added, turning to the other. "Holy friar," said the boy eagerly, "I know the French." The friar lifted his eyebrows. "I thought thy tongue had a strange trick about it, but I could have sworn it was Flemish that it resembled." "We have just come from Flanders." "Not English," cried Edgar angrily. "If I had known he was one of those blood-sucking foreigners, who fasten like leeches upon our poor country, Wolf should never have bestirred himself to the rescue." "Peace," said the friar more sharply, but before he could say more the younger boy broke in indignantly-- "We are English, good English! My father has but been in Flanders perfecting himself in his trade of wood-carving." "And 'twas there you learnt the French?" "Ay, sir, from the monks." "Perhaps also thou hast learnt to read?" pursued the friar, with the smile with which in these days we might ask a ploughboy whether he knew Hebrew. "A little," said the boy modestly. So unexpected was the answer, that the friar started back. "Why this is amazing!" he said. "Edgar, dost thou hear?" "Ay. He is training, no doubt, for the monastery," said the lad carelessly, though looking at the other with amazement. "Nay," said the boy sturdily; "no monk's hood for me. I would be a soldier and fight for King Edward." "And what knowest thou of King Edward?" inquired the friar, who evidently found amusement in questioning. "What all the world knows," the boy answered sturdily, "that never was a nobler king or truer Englishman." "Ay? Learnt you that in Flanders?" said the friar, lifting his eyebrows in some astonishment. "Well, wherever you had it, 'tis good teaching and true, such as men by-and-by will look back and own. And so nothing will serve thee but hard blows? What is thy name?" "Hugh Bassett, holy friar." "Come to the great Stourbridge fair with thy father and mother?" "My mother is dead. My father has brought some of his carvings here to sell, and we lodge in the sacristan's house because 'tis too cold in the fields." Wolf, at a call from the young lad, had come back from an investigation among the oaks, and was now slobbering affectionately over his young master's hand; Hugh watching him with deepest interest. "There is one thing thou hast all but forgotten," said the friar; "the names of thy tormentors? See, they are still watching and peeping." The boy again hung his head. "What now? Hast lost thy tongue?" "Nay, father, but--" "But what?" Then as Hugh muttered something, "What, I am not to know? Yet they were for serving thee badly enough!" "I would fight them again," said the boy, looking up boldly. "I warrant thou wouldst," said the friar, laughing heartily. "And without a mother, who will mend thy clothes? They have suffered more damage than thy tough head, which looks as if 'twere made to bear blows." Hugh glanced with some dismay at his torn jerkin. It was not the first time that the question had presented itself, though the friar's questions had driven it out of his head. And the elder lad now showed symptoms of impatience. "May we not be going back, sir?" he said to his companion. "The jongleurs were to be at their play by now, and we are not like to see much out in this green tangle." "As thou wilt," said the good-tempered friar; "I will but make one more proffer to our valiant friend. See here, Hugh, I have a fancy to know the name of the biggest of thine enemies, the one who set the others on thee. Will a groat buy the knowledge? There it is before thine eyes, true English coin, and no base counterfeit pollard. Only the name, and it is thine." "Not I!" cried the boy. "I'll have nothing to do with getting him flogged." "Yet I'll answer for it thy pocket does not see many groats, and what brave things there be to be bought at the fair! Sweets and comfits and spices." "They would choke me!" The friar laughed long, with a fat, noiseless chuckle full of merriment. "Well," he said, "I keep my groat, and thou thine honour, and I see that Wolf hath shown himself, as ever, a dog of discretion. Shall we take the boy back to thy father's lodgings, Edgar, and persuade Mistress Judith to bestow some of her fair mending upon his garments?" "So as we waste no more time here, I care not," said the lad impatiently. Bidding the boy follow, Friar Nicholas and his companion walked away, leaving the wood with its undergrowth of bracken, already looking rather brown and ragged with the past heat of the summer, and first touch of frost sharpening the nights in the low-lying Eastern counties, as is often the case by Michaelmas. At that time, towards the end of the thirteenth century, it need hardly be said that the country presented a very different appearance from that which we see now. Parts were densely wooded, and everywhere trees made a large feature in the landscape, which was little broken by human habitations. The chief clearings were effected in order to provide sheep walks, wool being at that time a large, if not the largest, export; although matters had not as yet arrived at the condition of some fifty years later, when, after England was devastated by the Black Death, and agricultural labour became ruinously dear, serfs were evicted from their huts, and even towns destroyed, in order to gain pasturage for sheep. Under Edward the First things were tending the other way; marshes were drained, waste land was brought into cultivation, and towns were increasing in size and importance. Wheat was dear, animal food cheap. Some of the greater barons lived in almost royal state, but the smaller gentry in a simplicity which in these days would be considered absolute hardship. With an absence of shops, and with markets bringing in no more than the local produce of a few miles round, it will be easily understood how fairs became a need of the times. They began by people flocking to some Church festival, camping out round the church, and requiring a supply of provisions. The town guilds, setting themselves to supply this want, found here such an opening for trade that the yearly fairs became the chief centres of commerce, and had a complete code of laws and regulations. Privileges were even granted to attract comers, for at a fair no arrest could be made for debts, saving such as were contracted at the fair itself. And it was a fruitful source of revenue, because upon everything bought a small toll was paid by the buyer. Gradually these fairs increased in importance. English traders travelled to those across the seas, to Leipsic, to Frankfort, even to Russia. Foreigners in their turn brought their wares to England, where the principal yearly fair was held at Stourbridge, near Cambridge, another of scarcely less importance at Bristol, and somewhat lesser ones at Exeter and other towns. The scene at these fairs, when the weather was favourable, was one of extreme gaiety and stir. As the friar and his young companion, followed by Hugh, walked back towards the town a soft autumnal sun was shining on the fields, where were all sorts of quaint and fantastic erections, and where the business of the fair was at its height. Such people as could find house-room were lodged in the town, but these only bore a moderate proportion to the entire throng, and the less fortunate or poorer ones were forced to be content with tents, rude sheds, and even slighter protection. These formed the background, or were tacked on to the booths on which the varied collection of wares were set forth, and which with their bright colourings gave the whole that gay effect which we now only see in the markets of the more mediaeval of foreign towns. To this must be added a large number of motley costumes: here not only were seen the different orders of English life--the great baron with his wife and children, his retinue, squires, men-at-arms, pages; the abbot riding in little less state; friars, grey, black, and white; pilgrims--but foreigners, men of Flanders with richly dyed woollen stuffs, woven from English wool; merchants from the Hans towns displaying costly furs; eastern vendors of frankincense, and spices, and sugar; Lombard usurers; even the Chinaman from Cathay, as China was then called, with his stores of delicate porcelain--each and all calling attention to their wares, and inviting the passers-by, whether nobles or churls, to buy. The fair originated in a grant to the hospital of lepers at Cambridge, bestowed by King John. It opened on the nineteenth of September, continued for two or three weeks, and was under the control of the master of the leper-house, no slight undertaking when the great concourse of people is considered, for not only had they to be housed and fed, but at a time when carriages and carts were unknown, and men and merchandise were alike carried on horses and mules, there must necessarily have been a vast number of beasts to keep. Protection had to be afforded against possible attacks of robbers or outlaws, and-- almost the most difficult task of all--it was necessary to check as far as possible quarrels which frequently arose between the haughty barons or their retainers, as also to protect the foreigners from the rough treatment which it was not unlikely they would receive should anything excite the people against them. Particularly, and it must be owned justly, was this at times the case with the usurers. But though the nominal business of the fair consisted in trading, money-getting, and money-lending, there were plenty of shows and amusements to attract those who loved laughter. In one part a number of lads were throwing the bar, in another they were playing at what seemed a rough kind of tennis. Merry Andrews tumbled on the green, rope dancers performed prodigies of activity; here men played at single-stick, wrestled, or shot at a mark; at another place were the jongleurs or conjurers, and in yet another a bespangled company of dancing dogs, which excited the lordly contempt of Wolf. "These fellows have rare skill," said Edgar, watching a conjurer effect a neat multiplication of balls. "Stay and watch them," said the friar. "Thy father will not yet have ridden back from Cambridge, and thou art not wanted in the house. I will go and do my best to gain Mistress Judith's good aid for this urchin, and after that, if he will, he may show me where he lodges." Sir Thomas de Trafford, knight of the shire, and father of the lad Edgar, had found accommodation for his family in a house which we should now consider very inadequate for such a purpose, though it was then held to have made a considerable stride towards absolute luxury from being able to boast a small parlour, or talking room. Neither glass nor chimneys, however, were yet in use, although the latter were not unknown, and had crept into some of the greater castles. Fires were made in the centre of the rooms, and the pungent wood smoke made its escape as best it could through door or windows, which in rough weather or at night were protected by a lattice of laths. The friar, however, went no further than the passage, where he called for Mistress Judith, and was presently answered in person by a somewhat crabbed-looking personage, who listened sourly to his entreaty that she would do something towards stitching together Hugh's unfortunate jerkin. "The poor varlet has no mother," he ended. But Mistress Judith pursed her mouth. "The more need he should be careful of his clothing," she was beginning, when suddenly with a rush two little golden-haired girls of not more than four or five came running along the passage, calling joyfully upon Friar Nicholas, and clinging to his grey cloak. "Thou wilt take us to the fair, wilt thou not?" "And let us see the monkey that runs up the ladder, and the dancing bear, and--we have some nuts for the monkey." Mistress Judith's face relaxed. "Nay, now, children, ye must not be troublesome. The good friar has doubtless other business on hand--" "I'll take them, I'll take them," said the friar, hastily, "if you will put the boy in order by a few touches of your skilful handiwork. As soon as I have bestowed him in safety I will return for them." "To see the monkey," persisted little Eleanor. "Ay, if thou wilt--" He was interrupted by a pull of the sleeve from Hugh. "So please you, holy friar," said the boy shyly, "the monkey is at our lodging." "What, is that the poor beast which those young villains would have stoned? Nay, then, hearken, little maidens. The monkey has been in evil case, and was like to be in worse but for this boy, Hugh Bassett. And the cruel varlets who would have killed it set upon him for delivering it, and though he fought right sturdily he would have been in evil case but for Wolf." "Our Wolf?" "Even so. What say you now?" "He is a good boy," said the little Anne gravely. Eleanor went nearer, and looked steadfastly at Hugh. "Is the poor monkey at your house?" "Ay, little mistress." "Shall we come and see him?" Hugh looked uncertainly at the friar, and the friar at Mistress Judith. Mistress Judith threaded her needle afresh. "If my lady--" began the friar. "My lady does not permit my young mistresses to run about the fair like churls' children," interrupted the nurse sourly. "Marry, come up! I marvel your reverence should have thought of such a thing." She was interrupted in her turn. Eleanor had clambered on a chair and flung her arms round her neck, laying hold of her chin and turning it so as to look in her face, and press her rosy lips to her cheek. "Nay, nay, mother said we should see the monkey! Thou wilt come with us, and Friar Nicholas, and this good boy. Say yea, say yea, good nurse!" Mistress Judith, rock with all others, was but soft clay in the hands of her nurslings. She remonstrated feebly, it is true, but Eleanor had her way, and it was not long before the little party set forth, the children indulging in many skips and jumps, and chattering freely in their graceful _langue de Provence_. There was so much to see, and so many remarks to be made on many things, such wonderful and undreamt of crowds, such enchanting goods, such popinjays, such booths of cakes, such possibilities of spending a silver penny, that it seemed as if the sacristan's house would never be reached, and 'twas easy to see it cost the children something to turn from the fair towards the church. Perhaps Anne would have consented to put their object aside and remain in this busy scene of enchantment. But nothing to Eleanor could balance her desire to see the monkey, and they went their way with no further misadventure than arose from the bag of nuts slipping from her little fingers, and the nuts scattering in all directions. The sacristan's house consisted of but one room, with the fire as usual in the centre. The sacristan himself was in the church; over the fire sat a thin pale-faced man, engaged in putting the last strokes to a carved oaken box of most delicate workmanship. The monkey, which had been sitting with him, directly the little party appeared, uttered a cry of fear, sprang on the high back of a bench, and from thence to the uncovered rafters of the roof, where it sat jabbering indignantly, and glancing at the visitors with its bright eyes. The man, who was Stephen Bassett, Hugh's father, rose and greeted them respectfully, though with some amazement at seeing his boy in unknown company. "Welcome, holy friar," he said. "If you seek John the sacristan, Hugh shall run and fetch him from the church." "Nay," said the friar, with his easy smile, "I fear me we are on a lighter quest. These little maidens had a longing to behold the monkey, and thy boy offered to bring them here for that purpose." Mistress Judith looked unutterable disgust at the poor room and her surroundings, though she condescended to sit down on a rough stool, from which she first blew the dust. The friar entered into conversation with Stephen Bassett, and the little golden-haired girls pressed up to Hugh. "Make him come down," said Eleanor pointing. "He is frightened--I know not," said Hugh, shaking his head. He was, however, almost as anxious as the other children could be to show off his new possession, and, thanks either to an offered nut, or to the trust which the monkey instinctively felt towards his deliverer, the little creature came swiftly down, hanging by hand and tail from the rafters, to intensest delight of both Anne and Eleanor, and finally leaping upon Hugh's shoulder, where it cracked its nut with all the confidence possible. It was small and rather pretty, and it wore much such a little coat as monkeys wear now. Eleanor could not contain her delight. She wanted to have it in her own arms, but her first attempt to remove it from its perch brought such a storm of angry chattering that Anne in terror plucked her sister's little gown and implored her to come away. Eleanor drew back unwillingly. "Why doesn't he like me?" she demanded. "I love him. What is his name?" "Agrippa." "Agrippa! And can he do tricks? Yesterday he did tricks." "He knows me not yet, mistress," explained Hugh. "His master died suddenly, and he had no other friend." "But thou wilt be his friend," said Eleanor, looking earnestly at the boy, "and so will I. I will leave him all these nuts. Anne, I would my father would give us a monkey!" "I like him not," said Anne, fearfully withdrawing yet closer to Mistress Judith. Eleanor knew no fear. She would have taken the little creature in her arms, regardless of its sharp teeth, or of the waiting woman's remonstrances, but that Hugh would not suffer her to make the attempt. He looked at the two little girls with an eager pride and admiration, felt as if he were responsible for all that happened, and had he been twice his age could not have treated them with more careful respect. CHAPTER TWO. STOLEN AWAY. Meanwhile the friar and Stephen Bassett conversed together, seated on a rude bench at the other side of the dimly-lit room. The friar was a man of kindly curiosity, who let his interests run freely after his neighbours' affairs, and, attracted by the boy, whose education had far overpast that of the knight's son, Edgar, he made searching inquiries, which Stephen answered frankly, relating more fully than Hugh how in Flanders, where he had travelled in order to perfect himself in an art not yet brought to a high pitch of excellence in England, his wife had died, and he having been left with the boy on his hands, the child had excited the interest of the monks, who, finding him teachable, had instructed him in the then rare accomplishments of reading and writing. "He is like to forget them, though," he added with a sigh, "unless in our wanderings we fall upon other brothers as good as those, which is scarce likely." "Have you thought of his taking the habit?" "Nay, his bent lies not that way," said Bassett, smiling. The other smiled also. "Truly, it seemed not so by the lusty manner in which he laid about him but now. And I mind me he spoke of his wish to be a soldier." "That I will not consent to," Bassett replied hastily; "he shall follow my trade. It would break my heart if I thought that all my labours died with me." He was interrupted by a fit of coughing. "And where," inquired the Franciscan, "where dost thou purpose going when the fair is ended?" "In good sooth, holy friar, that is what troubles me. I had thought of London, but I wot not--" The other leaned forward, resting his elbow on his knee, and his chin in the palm of his hand. "I wot not either," he said at last, "but in these days there is much noble work akin to thine going on in the great churches and minsters of the kingdom. There is St Peter's at Exeter, now. One of our order was telling me but lately how gloriously the bishop of that see is bringing it to perfection. The air in those western shires is soft and healing, better for thy cough than London, which has many fens giving out their vapours, to say nothing of the smoke arising from that vile coal the citizens are now trying to burn, and which pours out its choking fumes upon the poor air. Were I thee I would not bestow myself in London." "Exeter," said Bassett reflectively; "I thank thee for the suggestion. My wife came from those shires, and a bishop with a zeal for decoration might well give me employment." "The journey is long," put in the friar, with a desire that prudence should have her share in this advice of his which the wood-carver seemed so ready to adopt. "We are used to journeys and I dread them not." "Nor fear robbers?" "I am too poor to tempt them. Besides, our great king has done much for the security of the country, by what I hear. Is it not so, holy friar?" "Truly it is. But Scotland has taken more of his thought lately, and when the lion is in combat, the smaller beasts slink out to fall on their prey. But if you make your way to Exeter and would go first through London, our house in Newgate Street will give you hospitable lodging.--How now, Mistress Eleanor?" "It is the monkey, Friar Nicholas--might he not bring it for madam, our mother, to see? He says that Wolf would eat him." "And in good sooth that were not unlikely. Better be content to come here again and see the little pagan beast, if Mistress Judith does not mislike it. Fare thee well, Master Bassett. I will meet thee again, and hear whether Exeter still has attraction." Mistress Judith rose and shook her skirts before folding them round her, an operation which the monkey, happening to be close to her on Hugh's shoulder, resented greatly, chattering at and scolding her with all his might. Eleanor screamed with delight, while Anne hid her face; and Hugh, somewhat abashed at Mistress Judith's displeasure, retired with Agrippa to the back of the room, while his father escorted his guests a few paces beyond the door. He came back and found Hugh enthusiastic over his new friends. "The dog, father, a noble beast! I would you had seen him! I warrant me Peter the smith's son has had enough of fighting to last him a while. He ran like a deer!" "And how fell it out?" Thus questioned a long story had to be told of the ill deeds of Peter, who had been the chief offender; and the damage to Hugh's garments, which Mistress Judith had but hastily caught together, was ruefully exhibited. Stephen shook his head. "Another time keep thy fighting till a woman is near to back up thy prowess with her needle. Yet--I'll not blame thee. 'Twould have been a cowardly deed to have suffered that poor beast to be stoned. And at least I can mother thee for these bruises and scratches." He fetched some water as he spoke, took out a few dried herbs from a bag, set them in the water on the fire, and as soon as the decoction was ready bathed the boy's many hurts with a hand as gentle indeed as his mother's could have been. While this was going on he talked to the child with a freedom which showed them to be more than usually companions in the fullest sense of the word. "What thinkest thou the good friar hit upon? He thought I might find work at one of the great churches which are rising to perfection in the land. And, Hugh, thou hast heard thy mother speak of Exeter? At Exeter there is much of this going on, and if we could get there, I might obtain the freedom of one of the craft guilds, and apprentice thee." "Ay"--doubtfully. "Well, why that doleful tone?" "I would be a soldier, father." "Serve thy 'prenticeship first and talk of fighting afterwards. Dost thou think King Edward takes little varlets of eleven years old to make his army? Besides--speak not of it, Hugh. My heart is set upon thy carrying on my work. Life has not been sweet for me, and 'tis likely to be short; let me see some fruit before I die." The boy flung his arms round Bassett's neck. "Father, talk not like that! I will be what thou wilt!" "Thou wilt? Promise me, then," said his father eagerly. "I promise." Stephen Bassett's breath came short and fast. "See here, Hugh. Thou art young in years but quick of understanding, and hast been my close companion of late. Thou art ready to engage, as far as thou canst--I would not bind thee too closely," he added, reluctantly--"to renounce those blood-letting dreams of thine, and follow my trade, and, as I well believe thou wilt, make our name famous?" "Ay," said the little lad gravely, "that will I do. Only--" "What?" "If I must needs be cutting something, I would sooner 'twere stone than wood." "Sayest thou so?" said the carver, rising and walking backwards and forwards in the room. He was evidently disappointed, and was undergoing a struggle with himself. But at last he stopped, and laid his hand kindly upon the boy's shoulder. "As thou wilt, Hugh," he said; "I would not be unreasonable; and truly I believe thy hand finds more delight in that cold unfriendly surface than in the fine responsive grain of the wood. So thou art a carver, choose thine own material. Stone and wood are both needed in the churches. We will go to Exeter. I mind me thy mother had cousins there. We will but wait for the end of the fair, and there will be folk going to London with whom we may journey safely." The man's sanguine nature as usual overleapt all difficulties. His cough and his breathing were so bad, that others might have well dreaded the effects of a long and toilsome journey, but he would hear of no possible drawbacks, and Hugh was too young to be alarmed, and took the over-bright eyes and occasional flush of the cheek as glad signs that his father was getting well again. Thanks to Hugh's new friends, moreover, Bassett sold his work, and sold it well. Dame Edith de Trafford sent for him, desiring he would bring his boy and some specimens of his carving. Hugh begged sore to be allowed to take Agrippa, for the joy it would give to the little Eleanor, but his father would not have it. The monkey, though it had attached itself devotedly to Hugh, was capricious with others, variable in temper, and at times a very imp of mischief, and Stephen feared its pranks might offend their new patroness. Agrippa was, therefore, consigned to the rafters, where he chattered with displeasure at seeing his master go out without him. "If he is to journey with us, we must get him a cord," said Bassett. "As it is, we shall pass for a party of mountebanks. See that the door is safely closed, for John the sacristan will not be back yet awhile." The night had been wet, and the gaiety of the fair much bedraggled in consequence. Under foot, indeed, the mud and mire of the trampled grass made so sticky a compound that it was difficult for one foot to follow the other. The poor folk who had been obliged--as numbers were--to sleep on rough boards, raised on four legs from the ground, and but slightly protected from the weather, were in sad plight. Happily the sun had come out, and though there was not much heat in his rays, they served to lessen some of the discomfort, and to bring back a touch of cheerfulness. Peter the smith's son, with one or two others, pointed and grimaced at Hugh as he passed on, without venturing to approach nearer. The goldsmiths were hanging up costly chains and sets of pearls with which to tempt the noble ladies who approached, while a Hans trader called attention to the fact that winter was coming and his furs would protect from cramps and rheumatism. Presently down through the booths rode a party of knights and javelin men, none other than the high sheriff with the four coroners and others, on their way to the shire court, which was to be held that day under the shire-oak a few miles distant. A number of countrymen had already gone off to this meeting, and in a few minutes Hugh saw Wolf bounding along by the side of a smaller group of knights; Edgar was behind with a younger party, and evidently Sir Thomas de Trafford as one of the knights of the shire was proceeding to join the assembly. Many remarks were made by the bystanders, to which Bassett, who had been long out of England, listened attentively. He found that much satisfaction was in general expressed, though one or two malcontents declared that each assembly was but the herald for a demand for money. "Parliament or no parliament, 'tis ever the same," grumbled one small cobbler, drest in the usual coarse garment reaching just below the knees, and headed by a square cape, too large for his shrunk shoulders: "wars to be waged, and money to be squeezed from our bodies." "Thine would not furnish the realm with the weight of a silver penny," said a burly countryman, glancing with much contempt at the cobbler. "And when does the king ask for aid except in case of need? If thou hadst, as I friends in Cumberland, I reckon you would be the first to cry out that a stop should be put to these Scotch outlaws harrying the borders." "And hast thou friends in Gascony, too, Dick-o'-the-Hill?" demanded the little cobbler spitefully. "Nay, it's been a scurvy trick of the French king, that getting hold of Gascony," put in a baker who had joined the group; "I'm all for fighting for Gascony." "Well, I'll warrant that our burgesses, Master Dennis and Master Small, will speak their minds against any wicked waste," persisted the cobbler. "'Tis time the king were checked." "And who has given you burgesses to speak for you, ay, and passed laws putting the ay and the nay into your own hands?" broke in Stephen Bassett indignantly. "I have been out of England for many a long year, but I mind the time, my masters, if you have forgotten, when the parliament was called, not to vote whether or no the money should be raised, but to raise it. Few laws had you in old days, and little voice in them!" "He speaks the truth," said a grave franklin standing by. "When, since the days of Alfred, has there been an English king like our King Edward?" added Dick-o'-the-Hill. "One that ever keeps his word." "And makes laws for the poor." "I say that none speak against him except traitors and false loons," said the baker, squaring up towards the cobbler in a threatening manner. "Nay, my masters, I meant no harm," urged the cobbler, alarmed. "The saints forbid that I should say a word against King Edward! Doubtless, we shall pay our twelfth, such of us as can--and be as much better as we are like to be." He added these words under his breath, but Stephen Bassett caught them. "Ay," he said, "so long as we are saved from sinking into a nation of curs such as thee." The cobbler cast an infuriated look at him as he walked on, the flush which Hugh loved to see on his cheek. "That was an evil man, father," said the boy. Bassett was silent for a space. "There are many such discontented knaves," he returned at last, "eating like a canker into the very heart of our nation. Self, self, that is the limit to which their thoughts rise. And they measure all others by their own petty standard--even the king. It makes one sick at heart to think what he has done for his country, and how--to hear some of these mean-spirited loons talk--it is turned against him, and besmirched, till fairest deeds are made to look black, and nothing is left to him but his faults." If Hugh could not understand all, he took in much, and remembered it afterwards. But the delights of the fair drove all else out of his head for the moment, and he could scarce be torn away from the dancing bear. "Hearken," said his father at last with a laugh, "whatever happens, I'll have none of the bear! His masters may die, and he be baited by all the dogs in the town, but he shall never be my travelling fellow. Come, 'tis time we were at the lady's." This time they were passed through the passage to the talking room, where Dame Edith was sitting on a bench or low settle. The walls were unplastered, its rough floor uncarpeted, its windows unglazed, to modern notions it would have seemed little better than a cell, but Dame Edith herself created about her an air of refinement and delicacy. After the new fashion, instead of the plaits which had been worn, her fair hair was turned up and enclosed in a network caul of gold thread, over which was placed a veil. She wore a kirtle of pale blue silk, and a fawn-coloured velvet mantle, with an extravagantly long train embroidered in blue. She looked too young to be the mother of Edgar, and indeed was Sir Thomas's second wife, and the very darling of his heart. The twins, especially Anne, strongly resembled her; Eleanor had more of her father's and her step-brother's eager impetuosity, but Anne bade fair to be as sweet-mannered and dainty as her mother. Bassett and his son had hardly made their greeting, before the little maidens were in the room, Eleanor so brimming over with questions about the monkey that she could scarce keep her tongue in check. Dame Edith smiled very kindly on the boy. "I have heard all the tale from Friar Nicholas," she said, "and of how discreetly Wolf came to the rescue. And so thou wouldst be a soldier?" Hugh coloured, and his father broke in-- "Nay, lady, he hath laid by that foolish fancy. He will be a carver, like myself." She lifted her pretty eyebrows. "In good sooth? Now we had settled matters quite otherwise. I had won my good husband to consenting that he should be taken into our meine, and there he might have risen. Is the subject quite decided?" "Quite, lady," Bassett said firmly. "I thank you very humbly for your goodness, but Hugh and I must hold together while I live, and I have set my heart upon his carving a name for himself with a lowlier but a more lasting weapon than the sword." His cough shook him again as he spoke, and Dame Edith, though unused to opposition, was too kindly natured to show displeasure. She asked to see what he had brought, and was soon wrapt in admiration at the free and delicate work which was displayed. Meanwhile, Eleanor could whisper to Hugh-- "Hath Agrippa eaten all the nuts? Doth he like spice-bread or figs? I'll give thee some. But oh, I wish, I wish thou hadst brought him! Wolf is gone to the shire-oak. And see now, bend down thy head, and hearken to a secret. Madam, our mother, has a silken cord for thee to hold him with. When may we come again and see him? I should like it to be to-day." Dame Edith was a liberal purchaser. Her last choice was a beautiful little reliquary box, minutely carved, yet with a freedom of design which enchanted her. She would scarcely allow them to leave her, and the afternoon had advanced before father and son found themselves on their way back to the sacristan's house. He met them at the door--a little, withered old man--in an indignant temper. "Folk should shut the door behind them, and not leave the house to be pillaged," he said, crossly. "Here I come back and find all in disorder, and the door wide open to invite all the ill loons in the place to come in and work their will." "We left the door safely shut," said Bassett, in surprise. "Father--Agrippa!" cried Hugh, bolting into the house. His fears were too true. No Agrippa chattered his welcome to them from the rafters, and as he always remained in that place of refuge during their absence, and was too timid to come down to any stranger, it was evident that some dire abduction had taken place. Hugh, who had grown very fond of the monkey, was like one distracted. John, the sacristan, who loved it less, was disposed to be philosophical. "Well, well, well," he said, "if the varlets have taken nought else I wish them joy of their bargain, and 'tis well it's no worse. By 'r Lady, 'tis a foul thing to break into a man's house, and we shall see what the Master of the College will say to the watch." "I'll find the poor beast, if he be still alive," said Hugh, with a choke in his voice, "wherever they've bestowed him. 'Tis Peter's work!" He was rushing out when Bassett checked him. "Softly, softly," he said, "prudence may do more than valour in this case. Let us ask a few questions to begin with. Master John, at what time came you back?" "At four o' the clock, and found the door open--thus, and the tankard of ale I had left emptied. The scurvy knaves! But there's no virtue left in the watch since Master Simpkins got the upper hand, and hath upset all the ancient customs." Scarce restraining Hugh's impatience, his father made inquiries at some of the houses round, and ended at last in gaining information. Goody Jones was sick of a fever, and her little grandchild, playing at bob-apple before the door with another, had seen Peter, the smith's son, and two other boys, whom she named, go into the sacristan's house. Pressed to say whether she saw them come out again, she said nay. Her grandam had called her, and she had run in. Link the first was therefore established. Hugh was for rushing at once to Peter, and forcing the rest out of him, but Bassett counselled more wary walking. "'Tis a deep-laid plot," he said, "and it were best to meet craft by craft. Besides, if they are accused, they may kill the poor beast to save themselves and spite thee. Let us go out to the fair, and maybe we shall pick up some tidings." It was dreadful to Hugh to behold Peter in the distance, and to be restrained from falling upon him, and the fair had quite lost its charm, though the noise and stir had increased. Costard-mongers were bawling apples--red, white, and grey costards--at the top of their voices; pig-women inviting the passers-by to partake of the roast pig which smoked on their tables; tooth-drawers and barbers, each proclaiming his calling more loudly than the other. The abbot of a neighbouring monastery had his palfrey surrounded by a group of clothiers, while a fool in motley was the centre of another group. Among these the wood-carver spied a sturdy yeoman, the same Dick-o'-the-Hill who had opposed the cobbler earlier in the day. It struck him that here was a man for his purpose, and he managed to extract him from the others, and to tell him what they were seeking. Honest Dick-o'-the-Hill scratched his head. "If you knew where they had disposed the beast," he said, "and breaking of heads could do it, I'm your man. But as for finding where 'tis hid, my wife would tell you I was the veriest numskull!" The next moment he brightened. "I have it! There's my cousin before us, carrying that fardel of hay. He's the wisest head for miles round, and I'll warrant he'll clap some sense on the matter. Hi, Mat! Ancient Mat!" Thus adjured, a small, dried-up, pippin-faced man paused on his way, and waited till his cousin overtook him and explained what was amiss. He listened testily, showing profound contempt for honest Dick's straightforward, though somewhat heavy-handed, suggestions, but more deference towards Stephen Bassett. "More likely that the knaves have sold than harmed the creature," he pronounced at the end of the story. "Find out where it is, and I'll do what cracking of crowns is needed," said Dick. "Mend thine own, which is cracked past recovery," growled the other. "Hearken, master,"--to Bassett--"who is likely to buy such a beast?" "Some noble household." "Rather some puppet-show or party of mountebanks; those who have dancing dogs or a bear." "Right!" cried Stephen, joyfully. "What a fool was I not to think of it!" "I said he had the best head in the shire," said Dick, with triumph. "And," continued Matthew, unheeding, "thou wottest that the licence to all foreigners expires to-day, and that they must leave the fair? See there, those Flemish traders are putting their wares together, and the abbot has made a good bargain for his silken hangings. My counsel is to go to the watch, and, when the bear and his masters are on the march, search for the monkey. If I mistake not they will not be able to hide him." "Well thought of, friend," said Bassett, heartily. "No need of the watch, though," put in Dick-o'-the-Hill; "I'll bring a stout fellow or two who'll do what is necessary." "Ay, and get us trounced up as the trailbastons the king hates, numskull," said his cousin. "But 'tis nothing to me. Go thine own way for an obstinate loggerhead!" Dick, who seemed to regard Mat's railing as something rather honourable than otherwise entered into the proposal with extreme zest. He produced a quarterstaff, which he flourished with formidable ease, declaring himself ready with its aid to encounter the bear himself. Stephen Bassett hoped to carry the matter through peaceably, but he felt that his efforts might go more smoothly backed up by a display of force, and welcomed Dick's assistance, as well as that of a neighbour whom he offered to fetch. There was not much time to lose, and they agreed to meet at a certain spot within half an hour, a time which to Hugh's impatience seemed interminable. His father had enough to do in keeping him quiet, and in finding out where the watch, whose business it was to keep order at the fair, were bestowed. Matthew, having disposed of his hay, rejoined Bassett, really desirous to know whether his surmises turned out to be correct; but, as he declared, solely that he might help to check his cousin Dick's ignorant zeal. Four of them, therefore, to say nothing of Hugh, took up their position in the field just on the outskirts of the fair, and waited patiently or impatiently, after their natures, for the event. Soon a motley crowd began to emerge from the booths. The most picturesque features of the show, indeed, were departing, for foreigners were not allowed to compete with the English traders beyond a certain number of days; and Flemish, Italians, Chinese, streamed forth, to find a night's lodging as best they might beyond the forbidden limits. This expulsion was accompanied by a good deal of coarse jesting and railing from the other sellers, who rejoiced at the departure. It was not long before the bear appeared, led by two men. "Father, father!" cried Hugh, in a tumult of excitement. "Speak the word, master, when thou desirest an appeal to my quarterstaff," put in Dick-o'-the-Hill, "or even give me a nod, and I'll warrant I'll not be backward. I'll answer for the bear." "Ay, I verily believe thy head to be as thick as its own," said Matthew. "When wilt thou learn that brains are better than fists? Peace, and keep back." Stephen Bassett had stepped out, and civilly informed the men that a monkey had been taken from his house, and that he had reason to think it might be in their possession. "Going beyond known facts," muttered Matthew, "yet one must sometimes make a leap in the dark. They shake their heads and deny. What next? Friend Stephen presses his demand, and all four knaves wax violent in vowing lies; and Dick is puffing and blowing with desire to break heads. They have the beast, but where?" His quick eyes, darting hither and thither, had soon answered this question. One or two of the men had bundles on their backs, and a boy carried something of the same sort, though smaller. Matthew noticed that, at a word from one of the men, this boy slipped out of the group, and, avoiding the side where Dick and his neighbour Hob were mounting guard, passed round near Matthew himself. In an absolutely unexpected moment he found himself caught by the arm, and though he fought and kicked he was held in a vice. The men turned upon Matthew with threatening gestures, and Dick, in high delight, flourished his quarterstaff, and pressed up to the defence with one eye on the bear, who in a free fight might be held to represent an unknown quantity. Finding they had fallen into powerful hands the Italians confined themselves to pouring out violent ejaculations, while Hugh flung himself upon the bundle. His fingers trembled so much with excitement that he could hardly drag out the wooden skewers which served to keep it together, but in a minute or two it was unrolled, and the terrified monkey sprang out. He had made one frightened leap already when Hugh's call checked him, and the next moment, with a cry of delight, almost human in its intensity, he ran to the boy, and clambering on his shoulder gave the most unmistakable signs of pleasure. "The monkey is his own jury," said Matthew, sententiously. "Tried and found guilty, my masters." The Italians, however, had no intention of giving up their booty without a struggle, and they called upon several jongleurs, who had crowded round, to assist them. One went so far as to seize the monkey, whereupon Dick's cudgel, describing a circle in the air, came down upon the head of the assailant with such force that he dropped like a stone, and Hob following up with another blow scarcely less formidable, it seemed likely that here would be a battle royal. Two men fell upon Matthew, who would have been in evil case had not Dick done as much for him as he had for the monkey; and Stephen Bassett was set upon with a vigour which soon left him breathless, although Hugh, clasping Agrippa with one hand, with the other arm laid about him to such excellent purpose that he hoped to save his father from hurt till Dick could come to the rescue. But might has been often found to get the upper hand of right, and both Stephen and Dick had fallen into the common English error of underrating their opponents. A good many of the foreigners had closed round with the desire to help their own body, and without knowing anything of the quarrel; and the English, who would have stoutly taken the opposite side, could only see that some quarrel was going on, and supposed the strangers to be fighting among themselves. Dick had done prodigies of valour, and dealt furious blows with his quarterstaff, but he was hampered by numbers who clung to his arm, and by the charge of protecting his cousin, and he was reluctantly framing a call for rescue when a party of horsemen rode into the very thick of the struggling mass, and scattered it in all directions. CHAPTER THREE. RESCUED. It was time. Stephen Bassett was all but spent, and Hugh, trying his best to shield him, was pressed backwards until, to his terror, he found himself close to the hairy form of the bear. But the instant the knights appeared the throng opened and fled, except the bear-leaders, who, hampered by their unwieldy animal, prepared to put the best face they could on the matter. For the first few minutes, indeed, there was nothing but trying to quiet the horses, frightened out of their senses by finding themselves in close neighbourhood with the bear, and this gave time for Hugh to look, and to cry out joyfully-- "Father, it is Sir Thomas de Trafford! He will see justice done." "How now, my masters?" cried the knight, a dark-haired, bright-eyed man with a red face. "What means this brawling?" "Your worship," said Dick-o'-the-Hill, wiping his face with the back of his hand, "these knaves have been taken in the very act of stealing." "Is that you, Dick Simpkins?" said Sir Thomas, with a laugh. "I might have guessed that heads could not be broken without your having a hand in the breaking. But the King will have none of this violence, and the Master of the Hospital will have thee up for it, neck and crop." Dick, looking somewhat sheep-faced at this view of his conduct, was yet going to reply, when his cousin Matthew pushed forward. "Hearken not to him, your worship," he began; "he is an ignorant though a well-meaning knave. But I humbly bid your worship take notice that these men be the culprits who have stolen our property, and, when we would have reclaimed it, set upon us, and were like to have killed us." "Killed us forsooth!" muttered Dick, stirred to anger at last. "--Had your worship not come to our rescue. And as witness, knowing all the circumstances--none better--I claim, if they are put upon their trial, to take my place as one of the twelve jurors. It is a case of flagrant delict." The culprits, conscious of their guilt, but not understanding the conversation, stood as pale as death, glancing from one to the other. "Let us hear in plain words what hath been stolen," said Sir Thomas, impatiently. "Please your worship," said Hugh, stepping forward and holding out the monkey, "it is Agrippa." "A monkey! Why, thou must be the urchin my little maidens are for ever chattering about. And Edgar--where is Edgar? Not here? The youngster is stopping in the fair. And did these fellows steal thy monkey?" Bassett, who had recovered his breath, put in his word. "Ay, your worship; when we were away at your lady's, showing her the carved work of mine she would see. We left the door of John the sacristan's--where we are lodging--shut, and came back to find it open and the monkey gone." "Might he not have escaped?" "He was too timid unless he had been driven forth. Besides, we have evidence that the boy, who hath shown much ill-will already in the matter, was seen to go in at the door with two others. If these men are questioned I believe they will tell us that they bought the beast from these boys, and your worship may hold their fault the less." The knight growled something in his beard which was not flattering to foreign traders; but his sense of justice led him to take the course which Bassett suggested, and he put his questions in French to the Italians, who, watching the faces of those around (of whom a considerable number had now collected), were in mortal terror of short shrift. By all the saints in the calendar they vowed that no thought of stealing had crossed their minds. A boy had brought the monkey; they could understand no more than that he wanted to sell it, and, as they were glad of the opportunity, they gave him ten silver pennies for their bargain. Matthew was greatly vexed not to understand this defence, in which he would have been ready enough to pick holes; but Bassett, knowing that, though true in the main, their story said nothing to explain their denial of having seen the monkey or of its concealment in the bag, kept merciful silence. The men, at any rate, had been punished by fright, and when Sir Thomas de Trafford asked if he demanded that they should be haled back and given over to the college authorities he shook his head. "E'en let them go, so we have the monkey," he said. The knight administered a sharp rating, and bade them tie up their comrade's broken head and be off; a permission of which they were only too glad to avail themselves, the bear shuffling after them and causing a fresh panic among the horses. "Quiet, Saladin!" said Sir Thomas, irritably. "Master Carver, somebody must suffer for this, and the boy who stole and sold the beast is the worst offender. Thou--what is thy name--Hugo? Hugh?--what sayest thou should be done to him?" "Your worship," said Hugh, tingling all over with eager thrill of hope, "your worship, I should like to fight him." "Trial by combat," said the knight, laughing. "Nay, nay, he's a false loon, and that were too honourable a punishment. Here, Dick-o'-the-Hill, thou knowest every knave for miles round, go to the watch, and bid them take the thievish young varlet to the whipping-post, and let him remember it. Tell them I will answer for them to their masters." "Tell them," Matthew called after him, "that it is a case of flagrant delict." "Here, Master Carver," said Sir Thomas, moving his horse a few paces off and beckoning to Bassett, "that boy of thine is a gallant little urchin, and my babies have taken a fancy to him. Wilt thou spare him to us? He shall be well eared for; my lady has but too soft a heart, as I tell her, for the youngsters of the household." "I am deeply beholden to your worship," returned Stephen, hastily. "It sounds ungracious to refuse so good an offer, but I cannot part with him while I live. You may guess from my face that that will not be for long." At the first part of this speech Sir Thomas had frowned heavily, but he could not be wroth with the end. "The more reason," he said, "that the boy should have a protector." "True," Bassett answered. "I have thought much of that. But I hope to have time yet to place him somewhere where he can follow my craft and build his own fortunes." "And you would throw away his advancement for a dream?" "Is it a dream?" said the carver. "Believe me, your worship, that, although you may find it hard to believe, we men of art have our ambitions as strong in us as in the proudest knight of King Edward's court. Hugh has that in him which I have fostered and cherished, and which I believe will bear fruit hereafter and bring him, or his art, fame." "Small profits, I fear me," said Sir Thomas. "That is like enough. It may be not even a name. But something will he have done, as I believe, for the glory of God and the honour of his art." "Well," said the knight, half vexed, "I have made thee a fair offer, and the rest lies with thyself. Where go you after the fair?" "By Friar Nicholas's advice, gentle sir, as far as to Exeter. He thinks I may meet with work there and a softer air." "Since thy father will have nought better, I must find a gift for thee, boy," said the knight, reining back his horse. He drew a richly-chased silver whistle from his breast and threw it to the boy. "Take good care of Agrippa; my little Nell would have broken her heart if she had heard he was gone. Good day, friend Matthew; good day, Master Carver." The next moment the little party had clattered away, leaving Hugh with thanks faltering on his tongue, and Matthew on tip-toe with pride at his own discernment. "Never would you have seen your monkey again if I had not collared the knave," he said. "Now, there is my cousin Dick, an honest fellow as ever swung a flail, but with no thought beyond what he can do with fists and staff; no use of his eyes, no putting two and two together. I'll warrant me by the time he reaches the watch he will have forgotten the words I put into his mouth; and yet they are the very pith of the matter. I'll e'en go after him." He started off, while Bassett and his boy made their way back towards the church, Hugh ill at ease because, while the pommelling of Peter seemed a fine thing, his doom to the whipping-post, though no more than justice, gave him an uneasy feeling. But his father would hear of no going to beg him off, and, indeed, it would have been bootless. Peter's offence was one for which whipping might be held a merciful punishment-- "And may save him from turning into a cut-purse later on," added Bassett. So Agrippa went back to his rafters and met with no more adventures. The fair ran its usual busy course; the friar came often to talk with Stephen Bassett and to give Hugh exercises in reading and writing; while, more rarely, Eleanor and Anne appeared with Mistress Judith--in great excitement the last time because the next day they were to set forth for their home. September was drawing to an end, the weather was rainy, and Bassett began to make inquiries as to parties who would be travelling the same road as himself. Dick-o'-the-Hill was certain that his cousin Mat would find the right people. He had implicit faith in his sagacity, and came with him in triumph one day to announce success. It seemed that a mercer, his wife, and son were going back to London and would be glad of company. And then it came out that Matthew himself was strongly drawn in the same direction. "A man," he explained, "is like to have all his wits dulled who sees and hears none but clodhoppers. I feel at times as if I were no sharper than Dickon here. Now in London the citizens are well to the front. There is the Alderman-burgh, with the Law Courts and the King's Bench, there is the Lord Mayor, there is the King's Palace at Westminster and the great church of St Paul's; much for a man of understanding to see and meditate upon, Master Bassett, and I have half a mind--" "Have a whole one, man," cried the carver, heartily; "and I would Dick would come too." "Nay, in London I should be no better than an ass between two bundles of hay," said honest Dick, shaking his head. "But if Mat goes he will bring us back a pack of news, and maybe might see the king himself." It did not take much to give a final push to Matthew's inclination. He had neither wife nor child, and, as he confided to Bassett, his bag of marks would bear a little dipping into. He bought a horse--or rather Dick bought it for him--the carver agreeing to pay him a certain sum for its partial use during their journey to London, and they set out at last, leaving the fair shorn of its glory. Folk were travelling in all directions; but London was the goal of the greater number, and the little knots of traders with one consent, for fear of cut-purses, kept well within sight of each other. The road was not bad, although a course of wet weather might quickly convert it into a quagmire; and it was easy enough to follow, for one of the king's precautions against footpads was the clearing away of all brushwood and undergrowth for a space of two hundred feet on each side of the highway as well as round the gates of towns. A great deal of talk passed between the different groups, for fairs were the very centre of news, foreign and English, political and commercial, with a strong under-current of local gossip. The Hansards, Easterlings, and Lombards had brought the latest information about the French claims to Gascony, as well as much trading information from Bruges, which was then the great seat of commerce; the English merchants discussed the king's wise and politic measures to promote the unity of the kingdom, a cause which Edward had much at heart, as necessary not only for the greatness but the safety of that England for whose good never king toiled more unselfishly. It was all deeply interesting to Stephen Bassett, who had left his own country many years before, and was amazed at the strides civil liberties had made since that time. Before this the making and the keeping of laws had depended upon the fancies of the reigning king, checked or enlarged as they might be by the barons. It was Edward the First who called his Commons to assist in the making of these laws, who summoned burgesses from the principal towns throughout the kingdom, who required the consent of the people for Acts proposed in Parliament, and enforced the keeping of these laws so powerfully that his greatest lords could no more break them with impunity than the meanest churl. He set up a fixed standard of weights and measures. Up to this time all attempts in this direction had been failures, and the inconvenience must have been great. He tried to encourage the growth of towns, freeing them from petty local restrictions and introducing staples or fixed markets. Under him taxation became more general and more even. He made a survey of the country yet more important than that of Domesday. And if that honourable hold of plighted word was--at any rate until late years--the proud characteristic of an Englishman, this national virtue, which does not come by chance any more than does a personal virtue, is owing in no small degree to the steady and strong example of the great king, who on his tomb left that bidding to his people--"Pactum serva"--keep covenant. Hugh, for love of his father, listened as well as he could to the talk; but he had good play-times as well, for there were many boys and girls on the road, and, indeed, the mercer with whom they travelled had his lad of thirteen with him. Agrippa, held by Dame Edith's silken cord, was an immense object of interest; the mercer's wife made him a new little coat of scarlet cloth, and, besides the black rye bread which he shared with his masters, the children were never tired of bringing him nuts, costard apples, and spice-nuts, so that he fared well. He showed great affection for Hugh, and was never so happy as when on his shoulder; tolerating Stephen and detesting Matthew. The hostels were crowded, and the accommodation of the roughest; but it was always a matter of rejoicing to have got through the day's journey without encounter of outlaws. Highway robbery was one of the evils with which the king had vigorously to contend, and at their last halting-place the host's wife had such a number of terrible stories at her fingers' ends as made the more timorous shake in their shoes. She discoursed volubly as she brought in an excellent supper, which they ate with knives, forks being as yet a great luxury. "Alack-a-day, my masters!" she said. "I wot that shameful things have happened on this very road not so long ago. My lord Abbot from the neighbouring house, having but one brother with him, was seized and robbed, and left bound in the ditch. The thief made off with his palfrey, and that led to his being taken and hung; but the abbot, holy man! has scarce recovered from the shock." One story brings another, and Matthew was seldom behindhand when anything had to be said. "Things be better, however, than they were ten years ago. Then was a time of riot. I mind me I had a cousin, living in Boston, when there came to the gates one night a party of monks wanting room in the monastery. Fine monks were these, for, when all honest citizens were in bed, out they slipped, stripped off their gowns, appeared in doublet and hose of green, and never trust me, my masters, if these merry men did not take the town so completely by surprise that they sacked and set fire to it before they left." "There, see now!" cried the hostess, lifting up her hands; "and they might do the same by us now, and we sleeping in our beds like babes!" "I warrant that was what caused the king to ordain that town gates should be closed between sunset and sunrise, and makes him so strict in the matter," said a monk who was seated at table, with a good helping of a fish called cropling on his trencher. "Nay, good mistress, look not mistrustfully on me. I wear no cassock of green, only that which belongs to the habit of St Austin, of which I am an unworthy brother." "There be land pirates and sea pirates," said the little red-faced mercer, pompously; "both be enemies to an honest man's trade." "Alack, I know not how any can venture on the seas!" added his wife, putting her head as much on one side as her stiff gorget would allow. "There's terrible venturesome folk nowadays," put in the hostess, pouring out a tankard of ale. "They do say that ships be going so far as Spain; never will they come back again, that's certain." Bassett listened, smiling, to these doleful conjectures; at the same time, hearing more of the dangers of the highways made him think with some anxiety of the long journey to Exeter which lay before them. His strength had been tried by that now going on, and he wished it had been earlier in the year, when the days had been longer and roads better. But he was naturally hopeful, and, comforting himself with the thought that on the next day, if all was well, they would reach London, he listened patiently to much which Hugh had to tell about his comrades on the road and Agrippa's cleverness before stretching themselves on the hard pallet which fell to their share in the common room. CHAPTER FOUR. GOD SAVE THE KING! The last day's journey was a heavy one, owing to the rain which fell persistently. All the travellers wore their long pointed hoods, and carried tall, stout sticks, but their legs were not very well protected except by thick hose, and Bassett's cough was none the better for the journey. He was glad enough when they came near the clusters of houses or villages which marked the outskirts of London, and saw the mist hanging over the city which, helped by the moisture from the marshes, the new use of coal was already beginning to produce. Matthew was in a high state of delight. "Truly something of a city!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands, "sheltering within its walls something like forty thousand souls. A noble city! I'll warrant a man of parts might make a name here. There are the walls." The carver was almost too weary to bear Hugh's questionings as to the Franciscan monastery in Newgate Street where they were to lodge, and whether the prior might object to the presence of Agrippa. When they reached the monastery, indeed, he was so sorely spent that the good friars at once called one of their number who had studied physic and consigned Bassett to his care, giving him, moreover, the best room in the guests' quarters. It must be said that the monkey was very doubtfully received, indeed he might probably have been altogether refused, for some of the brethren looked upon him as an actual imp of Satan, or perhaps Satan himself. But the prior was of a larger nature, so that Hugh was suffered to take Agrippa with him into the room he shared with his father. And here, in spite of his impatience, Bassett was forced to spend a week, Friar Luke altogether refusing to allow his patient to leave the room until the cough and pain in his side were subdued. Had it not been for his strong longing to reach Exeter and see Hugh started as an apprentice this would have been a time of peace for the carver. His quarters were sunny and cheerful; Friar Luke was a herbalist, and in his search for healing plants would bring him back what autumn flowers yet lingered, and talking of them would draw out stores of simple learning. Agrippa, moreover, somewhat to Friar Luke's discomfiture, had shown a strong attraction for his master's physician, and would come flying down from all manner of unexpected places to greet him. Sometimes the prior would visit his guest, and, being a man of thought, his presence was a real delight to Stephen, while the prior was glad to hear the experiences of a man who had travelled largely and seen something of the world. As Stephen grew stronger Friar Luke allowed him to attend the services in the chapel. Then Hugh would come in, rosy and excited with his walks with Matthew, who would see everything, even to the hangings on the Tyburn elms. They went to mass at St Paul's, then surrounded by its own walls; they walked down the grassy spaces of Strand; they looked with some dread at the round church of the New Temple, and heard tales of the Templars fit to make the hair stand on end; they passed another day to the village of Westminster, where was the king's palace and the beautiful abbey, together with the great hall where Parliament, when it met in London, assembled. It amused Hugh very well at first to see the crowds of suitors who poured up the stairs--those who had some complaints to make, grievances to be redressed, or petitions to be laid before the Triers. No hindrance was put in their way; everyone was free to come, each had a fair hearing. Outlaws came to beg for pardon, when, if the Triers thought fit, they were recommended to the king's grace; men and women sought redress from wrongs inflicted perhaps by the lord of the manor; jurors who had perverted their office were brought up to receive judgment--all these lesser matters were as much the business of Parliament as granting aids to the king for carrying on the wars, and so fascinated was Matthew with the scene that Hugh was wearied to death of it before he could drag him away. He got him out at last, muttering to himself that had he but known how easy matters were made he would have looked up a case of his own against the University of Cambridge. Hugh, stirred by ambition to have to do with an actual suitor, which was much more exciting than looking on and listening to matters he did not understand, was for his going back again at once. Great was Matthew's indignation at the idea. "Thou silly oaf!" he said, angrily. "To go without preparation!" "They but told a plain story," returned Hugh, sturdily. "Anyone could do as much." "Seest thou not the difference? They were ignorant men with whom the Council was wondrous patient, overlooking all their clipped words, and mercifully stooping to their simpleness. But for a man of understanding to put a case matters must be very different. Fit words must he use, and just pleadings must he make, and be ready to give good reason. Their worships know well with whom they have to do. I will take thee to the Guildhall one day, and there thou shalt see the lawyers in their white coifs. They are no longer monks, as once they were." "I would liefer go down the river and see the ships," said Hugh wearily. Matthew, who was really good-natured, yielded to this desire, and they picked their way along the swampy ground as best they could, and past the Tower. The great trade of London, even at this time when commerce was ever made secondary to politics, was so large that a number of vessels were in the river. Strange craft they were and of all shapes and sizes, the largest resembling nothing so much as a swollen half-circle, broadening at one end, and coming round so as to form a sort of shelter, and curving sharply to a point at the bow. No such thing as sea charts as yet existed, so that a voyage was a perilous matter, and, in spite of the Crusades and of the trade with the Mediterranean, few vessels ventured through the Straits of Gibraltar. Edward was turning his attention to the navy, and was the first to appoint admirals, but, so far, England's strength lay altogether in her army and her famous bowmen, and the sea was no source of power, nor her sailors famous. Still, though Matthew professed the greatest contempt for his taste, Hugh found the river more delightful than the Council Hall, and was for lingering there as late as he could. Some of the vessels were unloading, others embarking corn from the eastern counties, so that there was much stir and turmoil, and more vessels were in than was usual, because the time of the autumn equinox was dangerous for sailing. Children, too, were, as ever, playing about, and one group attracted Hugh, because in it was a little maid much about the size of little Eleanor, and with something of her spirited ways. The boys, her companions, were rough, and at last one pushed her with such force that she fell, striking her head violently against a projecting plank. Hugh flew to avenge her, but the boys, frightened at seeing her lie motionless, fled, and Matthew stood growling at the manners of the age. Hugh, used to sickness, ran to the water's brink, and scooped up a little water in his two hands. By the time he had poured it on her face and raised her head on his knee she opened her brown eyes with a cry of "Mother!" and the next moment a man in a sailor's dress had leaped ashore from one of the vessels which were lading close by, had run to the group and taken her in his arms. "Art thou hurt, my Moll, and where?" "Father, 'twas Robin Bolton pushed me." "Ay, and I wot Robin Bolton shall have a clout on his head when he comes within my reach. But there, thou wilt soon be well again. Thank thee for thy help," he added, more roughly, to Hugh. "If you stand in need of a witness," began Matthew, but the sailor interrupted him-- "Witnesses? No! What she stood in need of was water, which thy boy fetched. He is quick enough to be a sailor," he added, with a laugh. "Wilt thou come on a voyage to Dartmouth?" "I should be frighted on the sea," said Hugh sturdily. "Nay, it's not so bad, so you fall not in with pirates, which are the pest of our coasts. I've been lucky enough to escape them so far. But then," he added with a wink, "they know me at Dartmouth, and folk sometimes tell evil tales of Dartmouth." He was of a talkative nature, or perhaps thought it well to keep his Moll quiet on his knee, for he went on to tell them that his wife and child lived near the spot where they were, while he went on trading voyages, bringing up Cornish ore from Dartmouth and carrying back other ladings. He was very proud of his vessel, and yet prouder of his little maid, whom it was plain he did his best to spoil; and when he saw that she had taken a fancy to Hugh, he told him he might come on board his vessel one day before he sailed. "Which will be in a week," he said, confidently. "The storms will be over by then." Hugh was glad enough of the bidding, for Matthew, with his love for the law courts and for all that concerned the State, was but a dry companion to an eager boy. He went back to the monastery in high glee, to tell his father all that he had heard. Friar Luke was with Stephen, having brought his patient a decoction of coltsfoot, and also a little bunch of flowers which he was examining with enthusiastic patience. "See here," he said, with a sigh, "though in good sooth one needs eyes of more than human power to examine so minute a structure. There is a talk that one of our order, Friar Bacon, who died not many years ago, could by means of a strange instrument so enlarge distant objects as to bring them into the range of a man's vision. I know not. Many strange things are told of him, and many of our brethren believe that he had dealings with the black art. It might be he was only in advance of us all. But while he was about it I would he had taught us how to enlarge what is near. And, indeed, there is talk of a magic beryl--" "Father, father!" cried Hugh, rushing in breathless; "we have been to the river, and there was a ship, and a little maiden called Moll, and the master has bid me on board the ship before he sails for Dartmouth." He poured out the history of the day, standing by his father's knee, with Agrippa nestling in his arms. Bassett heard him so thoughtfully that Hugh began to think he was displeased. "Mayn't I go?" he asked, tremulously. "Ay, ay," said his father, absently. "Friar Luke, tell me truly, do you still dread for me this journey to Exeter?" "Rather more than less," answered the friar. "The fatigue?" "Ay, fatigue and exposure, but chiefly the fatigue." "Yet I must go." "Ay, ay, there is ever a must in the mouth of a wilful man," said the friar, testily. "And then you fall sick, and it is the fault of the leech." "That it can never be in my case," said the carver, gratefully, "for never had man a kinder or more skilful. But I will tell you why I ask. Hugh's encounter has put into my mind the thought that we might go to Dartmouth by ship." "The saints forbid!" said the friar, rapidly crossing himself. "You must be mad to think of it, Master Bassett." "Nay, but why?" "The dangers, the discomforts!--shoals, rocks, pirates!" "Dangers there are in all journeys. The discomforts will no doubt be great, but put on the other side the fatigue you warn me against." "You should not go at all," said Friar Luke. "Remain here where you can be cared for. Hugh shall be a serving-boy, and take the habit when he is old enough." "Wilt thou, Hugh?" demanded his father. A vehement shake of the head was his answer. "Nay, holy friar," said Bassett, with a smile; "I am bending the twig so far that the strain is great, but your proposal, I fear, would snap it altogether. But about our voyage. I am greatly inclined to Hugh's new friend. When does he sail?" "In a week," said the boy, with some reluctance. He had not liked the voyage from Flanders, and this promised to be worse. Still he felt it incumbent upon him to show no fear. "That would do well. I tell thee what, Hugh, thou shalt ask the master to come and see me here if he has a mind for another kind of cargo." With his usual hopefulness, the idea had taken hold of the wood-carver so strongly that he turned aside all remonstrances, though the prior himself came up to beg him not to be so foolhardy. But it was true, as Bassett maintained, that each kind of travelling had its dangers, and, if the sea offered the most, he felt a sick man's longing to be spared trouble, and a feverish desire for the salt breezes. Matthew, too, thought it philosophical to be above listening to the tales of sea-perils which the brethren related, it need hardly be said, at second-hand; but it must be owned that he showed no desire to extend his own travels so far as Exeter. Hugh went down the next day and talked to the master, who at first shook his head. "Two landsmen on board? Where could we stow ye? And if we met with rough weather we should have you crying upon all the saints in the calendar. A sick man, too! How could he put up with our rough fare?" "My father does not get frighted," said Hugh, indignantly, though pleased to be counted a landsman. "Thou art a sturdy little varlet," said the master, looking at him approvingly. "If my Moll had been a boy, I should have been content had he likened thee. But I would not have her other than she is, and thou wast good to her the other day. I'll come and see thy father, and if he is a good, honest man, and none of your dandy long-toed fops, he and thou shalt have a passage to Dartmouth." The next day was Sunday, and, to the scandal of the grey friars, Matthew insisted upon taking Hugh to St Bartholomew in Smithfield, the noble Norman church of the Augustinian friars. There was a good deal of jealousy between the orders, and each was ready enough to listen to or to repeat tales which told to the discredit of the others; so that, as Matthew said, black, white, and grey, each held their colour to be the only one in which a friar might travel to heaven. Mass being over at St Bartholomew's they went to great St Paul's. This was in that day a splendid Gothic church, twice as big as the present building, and with a dazzling high altar. But, in spite of its magnificence, and perhaps partly on account of its size, it was a notorious haunt of cut-purses and brawlers, and all manner of crimes were committed in the church; so that a few years before the king had given the Chapter leave to surround it with walls and gates, treating it indeed as a town, and keeping out suspicious characters. By this means matters had mended a little, but there was still a great deal of unseemly conduct which caused scandal to the more devout. Hugh came back to the monastery bursting with all he had to tell, and he was beyond measure delighted when his father said he would himself go out the next day. Before the sun had mounted high enough for Friar Luke to allow this the master of the _Queen Maud_ arrived, and Stephen saw a sturdy, sunburnt man, with an open countenance, blue-eyed, light-haired, wearing a garment of coarse cloth which reached to his knees, who looked as uneasy at finding himself in a monastery as a freshly-trapped pony from his own wilds of Dartmoor might have looked in a walled town. His discomfort made him surly, so that he gave the carver no encouragement for the voyage. "Hard living and a perilous life, my master." "That does not affright me." "Because you know it not," said the other, impatiently. "Here you sit in a drone's hive and hear the winds blow outside, and have no fear. With a plank for your wall you would tell a different tale." "I have tried the plank," said Bassett, with a smile. "Though, as you say, Master Shipman, we know not other's lives till we try them, and maybe you, if you lived here, would think more kindly of what you call a drone's hive." "The Church and the Pope swallow up all a poor man's savings," said the sailor, less gruffly. "'Tis nothing but fresh taxes, and these Lombard usurers are every whit as bad as the Jews. I would the king could make as clean a sweep of them. To make money without working for it is a sin and a shame." "The king does what he can." "Ay, does he," said the other, heartily. "He is the poor man's friend." "Truly." The sailor looked at him. "Why, then," he said, "if thou lovest King Edward--" "No question of that." "E'en come along with us. I am but taking down some bales of cloth and of silk, and as thou mindest not a rough life, and I have a fancy for thy boy, we may perchance rub along together." So it was settled, and, in spite of the friar's forebodings, Stephen Bassett thought of his venture with an excellent heart. Hugh was naturally fearless, and, though the sea was a great object of dread in those times, he believed his father knew best, and began to look forward also. But first he would have Bassett come forth for his promised walk, and without Matthew. "He has been very good to thee," said the carver reproachfully. "Ay, but he has always something to say against everything. This might be better, or that couldn't be worse. I believe he would find fault with King Edward himself." "Poor Matthew! He has the critical spirit," said Stephen, smiling. "Is that what makes him so thin?" demanded Hugh, innocently. "Ay. It often works that way, and is bad for the owner. Nevertheless, it has its advantages. Look at that bowl. If I listened to the good brothers I should deem it perfect; but when Matthew says, `Hum--I know not--is there not something lacking?' I begin to search for a way of bettering it, and presently find that he was right. So his fault-finding does me a better service than all their praise. Keep that in mind, Hugh. Now we will forth. I will buy some cloth and take it to one of the tailors' guild, that you may have a cloak for rough weather like mine." This was a delightful errand, and when it was ended Stephen had not the heart to refuse Hugh when he begged that he would try to go towards St Paul's and see the noble church. The boy was very happy in acting as showman, pointing out the beautiful spire while they were yet at some distance. He had begged to bring Agrippa, promising to keep him covered by a piece of cloth, and the monkey was sufficiently alarmed by the strange noises and cries in the street to keep quiet. Hugh found it a rare opportunity to ask questions which Matthew had been either unable or unwilling to answer. "Look, father, look quickly! There is a woman with bread in her panniers! What is she doing?" "I have heard of her," said Stephen, stopping. "Friar Luke told me that, instead of folk being forced to fetch the daily bread from the bakers, there was now a woman who had got leave to take it round from house to house. She has the thirteenth loaf for her pains. Truly there's no knowing to what a pitch of luxury we may come! Are we nearly at our journey's end, Hugh? My legs have fallen out of the way of walking, and are true sluggards." He was in truth standing somewhat exhausted in the road under one of the black-timbered houses in Ludgate Hill, when a small cavalcade of knights and squires, some in armour, some in the scarlet cloaks of the Hospitallers, came sharply round the corner, so sharply, indeed, that in the narrow road one of the squires' horses struck Stephen and sent him staggering against the wall. The party reined up at once. Hugh had uttered a cry and sprung to his father's side, dropping the monkey as he stretched out his arms. Half a dozen men-at-arms crowded round; one of the red-cloaked knights leaped from his horse, but they all drew back before one who seemed the principal knight, a man of great stature, with brown hair and thick beard, and gravely searching blue eyes. "Is he hurt?" he demanded. "That is your squire's rough riding, Sir John de Lacy." "My liege, 'twas but a touch," urged an older knight. "I saw it all. He can scarce be hurt." Stephen, indeed, had well-nigh recovered himself, though dizzy with the shock, and scarcely knowing what had happened or why he was surrounded by horsemen. Hugh, seeing him revived, stared at the group with all his might, while the monkey, frightened to death at the horses, had run up a projection of the house and perched himself upon a carved wooden balcony, from which he scolded and chattered. "It is nothing, I am not hurt," faltered Stephen; and then the colour rushed back to his white face, and he bent his knee hastily. "My Lord the King," he stammered, "is it not?" "Ay," said Edward, with one of his rare kindly smiles; "but it was not I who rode over thee. Art thou not hurt?" "Nay, my liege, it is but that I have been ill. It was no more than a touch." It had all passed quickly, but a knot of bystanders had by this time collected, kept off by the men-at-arms. "He speaks truly, my lord," said one of the Hospitallers who had dismounted. "He has not been hurt by the horse, but--" He paused significantly, and Edward glanced at Hugh. "Come hither, boy." So Hugh, crimson with wonder and delight, stood by the king's horse, and answered his questions as firmly as he could. His father was a wood-carver. They were going to Exeter to seek work--by ship, as he took care to state; and meanwhile, because father had been so ill, they were lodging at the Franciscan monastery in Newgate Street. "And is that thy beast?" asked the king, whose quick eye had caught sight of the monkey between the carved work of the balcony. "How wilt thou catch him? Let us see." Hugh promptly stood under the balcony, opened his arms, and uttered a call, to which Agrippa responded, though fearfully, by swinging down by tail and hands and dropping into his master's arms. "Well climbed indeed," said Edward; and seeing that Stephen was in some degree recovered, he bade one of the men-at-arms lend him his horse and go with him to the convent. "And here is a gold piece for thee, boy-- for remembrance," he added, tossing him the coin as he moved off. "And a silver one for the monkey," said a young knight, with a merry laugh, stooping to offer the mark to Agrippa, who cleverly clutched it, and then trotting after the king. All had passed so quickly that Hugh scarcely knew where he was or what had happened. He stood staring at the gold noble in his hand, while the bystanders closed up curiously, and one rough fellow, who looked as if he had been drinking, made as though he would have snatched it from his hand. A fat monk, with a red good-natured face, hit the fellow a sound buffet; the crowd laughed, and the man-at-arms made haste to get Bassett on his horse, and to hurry his charges away, the king being always roused to anger by any brawling in the streets. "Keep close to me," he said to Hugh; "and give thy money to thy father. Now, where are we bound? The Grey Friars? I warrant me they brew good ale there, and supper-time is nigh enough to make a tankard right welcome." "And that was the king," said Hugh, drawing a deep breath. "Ay, the king. What thinkest thou of him?" "I would I could fight for him," burst out the boy. "Why, so thou shalt!" said Hob Trueman, with a laugh. "Eat good beef, and drink good ale, and grow up a lusty yeoman. The king's a good master, I have nought to say against him--saving that he is somewhat over strict," he added, with qualifying remembrance. "We should be near by this time--" That night, before lying down in the wooden crib which served for bed, Stephen Bassett called his boy. "Hugh, thou hast not forgotten thy promise," he said anxiously. "No, father;" in a low voice. "Fight for the king thou must, or be ready to fight. That is the law for all Englishmen. Does not that content thee?" Silence. Then--"I should like to be near him, to be one of the men-at-arms." Bassett sighed. "I cannot yield to thee, Hugh." "No, father." "And I have no breath for talking to-night. We will speak of it again." CHAPTER FIVE. THE VOYAGE, AND WHAT CAME OF IT. Stephen Bassett was not the better for that day's work, though the accident was too slight to have harmed a man in fair health, and it made a sound reason for Friar Luke to urge upon him that he should give up his wild project of going west in the _Queen Maud_. But the carver was, if possible, only the more bent upon the scheme. He wanted to get Hugh out of London, where was more stir of arms and rumour of wars than in the shires, and have him safely bound apprentice where there should be no withdrawing. "He will not fail me, poor little lad," he said; "but were I to be taken from him here his task would be ten times harder. Besides, I see no opening for him except what the good brothers offer, which he would hate worst of all." So he kept the tales of his aches and weakness to himself as much as he could, though it cost him not a little to avoid Friar Luke's reproachful eye when he came in from the garden with his herbs; and, armed with a letter from the prior--written in Latin on a strip of vellum--to the head of the Franciscans in Exeter, and accompanied to the water's edge by several of the brethren, and a hospitable store of provisions with which they insisted on supplying them, the little party and their gear got safely on board the vessel, and would go down the river by the next tide. Little Moll and her mother were there, which made it seem more friendly to poor Hugh, who looked about him with dismay, and had had all possible mischances put before him by the friars, who thought Bassett's action nothing less than flying in the face of Providence. Still, when the farewells had all been spoken, the cumbersome anchor dragged out of the mud, and the great square sail with its sprawling centre device rigged up, they went merrily down the river. It was getting towards the middle of October, and the great buildings of London, the Abbey of Westminster, the Church of the Templars, the Gothic spire of St Paul's, the Tower, and various beautiful conventual buildings, stood, mostly surrounded by fine trees, in all the glory of autumnal gold and red. The lesser buildings--the very hovels--were picturesque, the river ran clear and strong, the vessels flaunted bright sails, colour was everywhere, and the soft blue mists but made a fair background for the scene. Stephen Bassett stood watching, with a feeling that it was for the last time, when Andrew the ship-master joined him. "A fair prospect," said the carver. "Ay, though I love my red Devon hills better. But, tell me, master, is it true, as thy boy relates, that you met King Edward yesterday and spoke with him?" "I said not much, I had no breath left in my body," said Stephen, smiling; "but it is true that the king spoke to us, chiefly to Hugh, and was very gracious." "To think of that!" said the sailor, staring. He walked away, but after this it was evident that his respect for his passengers was mightily increased, and he seldom came near Stephen without putting some question as to how the king looked and spoke, while Hugh had the same to answer from them all--more, indeed, since he never tired of the subject, and his pride in it was immense. His father had sewn his gold piece into the lining of his vest; Hugh never intended to spend it, it was for "remembrance," as he was never tired of telling his father; and Stephen used laughingly to inquire whether Hugh had begun to persuade himself that he had been the hero of some courageous adventure, for reward of which the king had bestowed the token upon him? The boy used to redden at this, for there was a certain truth in the jest, and finding himself listened to with such interest by the sailors was like to turn his head. Fortunately, as usual, there was a depreciating element. The youngest on board was a round-shouldered somewhat misshapen lad of seventeen, ill-favoured in temper as well as face, unpopular among his mates, except for one gift, that of storytelling. He could relate or invent tales with amazing ease, and on days when there was an idle calm the men, who at other times knocked him about roughly, would listen spell-bound for hours. This was his moment of glory. But on this voyage his power seemed gone. The real explanation was very simple: the wind had shifted so as to follow them favourably, they had got safely round the dangerous Goodwins, and swept down the Channel past Dover, its castle and old British church standing out sharply above the white cliffs, while the setting sun shone like fire on the great sail of the vessel. They cast anchor in the first convenient creek; this required care and labour with the oars to avoid shoals, and the men were too sleepy afterwards to listen to stories. So it went on; the breeze blew freshly from the east, Stephen, crouched under what shelter the stern could afford, shivered, but Andrew the master rubbed his hands, and there was no slackening sail or delay. This was really the reason why the sailors would not listen to the boy Jakes, but he chose to lay it to Hugh's charge. "Young fool," he muttered, "always boasting, and telling about the king, I wonder they hearken!" Such spite as he could work he was not slow to show. Many rough practical jokes he played, which Stephen counselled his boy to receive good-humouredly. But Hugh was set up with his Ludgate Hill adventure and the notice it had brought him, so that it made him mad to be jeered at for feeling sea-sick, or tripped up over ropes, or brought to the ground when he imagined himself to be sitting on something solid. Jakes was afraid of Agrippa, never having seen a monkey before, and fully sharing the idea that here was something uncanny, which was quite able to revenge itself if any harm was attempted. Jakes, therefore, let him alone, and even preferred to play his malicious jokes upon Hugh when the monkey had climbed the ropes and was out of reach and sight. The voyage had on the whole been a success, and the _Queen Maud_ was at length coasting along under the white cliffs of Dorsetshire, with the red ones of Devon lying rich and soft against a blue grey sky before them, and the sea leaping and whitening under the easterly wind. "Strange that it should blow so long at this season," said the master, standing by Bassett and looking forwards. "If it goes on, we may get in to-morrow night?" "Ay, if it doesn't freshen into a gale, which the saints forbid! I mind not a gale in my teeth, but rocks before and the wind driving behind is what I mislike. Methinks, master," he added, abruptly, "it will be well for you to get to your journey's end." "I have a longer before me," said Stephen, with a smile. "Ay, to Exeter," answered Andrew, misunderstanding, "and I have been thinking I would put you ashore at Teignmouth, and save you a piece of your journey. I might try Exmouth, but--there are ill tales of Exmouth, as I told you there were of Dartmouth," he added, with a laugh; "at Dartmouth they know me, but at Exmouth--there might by chance be a mistake." Stephen thanked him heartily, saying, and truly, that the shortening of the road would be a great gain. They put in that night at a small harbour formed for the convenience of coasting vessels, but though their start was made with the first glimmer of dawn, Jakes, who generally had to be aroused by a rope's end or a kick, had been on shore, and came back carrying a bag and grinning from ear to ear, so that Hugh was forced to ask him what he had got. "Apples," he said, still grinning; "rare fine apples. Bide a bit, and shalt have one." Hugh, who loved apples as well as any boy with a wholesome appetite should do, kept an eye on Jakes and his promise without suspecting that there might be anything unfriendly in this sudden change of disposition. The wind had freshened, of that there could be no doubt, and the sailors were busy with the lumbering sail, when Jakes beckoned Hugh forward to the bow, where was the bag. "Put in thy hand and pull'm out, quick!" he said, running back to his work; and, thinking no harm, Hugh thrust in boldly, to have his fingers instantly seized in a nip which made him feel as if by the next moment they would be all left behind in the bag. He cried out lustily, and dragged out his hand, to which a fine blue-black lobster was hanging, a creature at least as strange to Hugh as the monkey was to Jakes. The more he shook the tighter the lobster pinched, and when one of the sailors looked round the sail he could do nothing but split his sides with laughing. Hugh, crimson with pain and fright, was dancing about, vainly trying to disengage his hand. Jakes, the next to appear, broke into uproarious merriment. "Ha, ha, ha!" he yelled, "told him there were apples in the bag, and he went for to steal 'em! Serve him right, serve him right! How like you your apples, my master?" The buffeting of the wind in the sail and the rising noise of the sea had kept much of this from Stephen, but he at last became conscious that something unusual was going on, and made his way to the bows. "Father!" cried poor Hugh, flying to him. "Why, my little lad!" said Bassett, unable himself to avoid a smile, "what coil have you got into?" "What is it?" demanded the boy, in a shamefaced whisper, as his father proceeded quietly to loosen the great claws. "A lobster. Didst never see his like? He will be a dainty morsel for supper, and will change his blue coat for a scarlet. There," he added, as he finished his task, "I counsel Agrippa not to let his curiosity jeopardise his tail. But how did he fasten on you?" "It was that wicked Jakes!" cried Hugh, with flashing eyes. "Were a stealing my apples," Jakes retorted, defiantly. "Told him there was apples in the bag, and he put in his hand and the lobster caught un." And clapping his unshapely hands on his knees, he roared with laughter once more, until he bent himself double. Hugh flew at him like a tiger, but the other sailor pulled him off. "Never heed the great lozel," he said. "It was but an apple." "He told me--he told me to put in my hand and take one out," panted Hugh, struggling with his captor. "He's a false liar!" "Softly, Hugh, softly," said his father gravely. Jakes was for telling his story again with fresh detail, when the master's voice was heard calling angrily. Stephen got Hugh back into shelter, and Agrippa, frightened by the creaking of the mast and the straining of ropes, clambered down to take refuge in his master's arms. Hugh's face was like a thunder-cloud. He burst out presently-- "To call me a thief!" Stephen was silent. "If Dickon had left me alone, I would have made him own it was a false lie. I would I were a man!" "Why?" "I should be strong and could fight," the boy said, surprised at the question. "I often think of that time," returned Bassett thoughtfully. "I may not be here to see it, and I would fain know--" He paused. "What?" asked Hugh. "Who thou wilt fight?" "Who? Mine enemies," said Hugh, lifting his head. "If you know them." "I shall know them, because they will try to do me a mischief. Jakes-- he is an enemy," fiercely. "Thou hast worse than Jakes, my poor little lad," Stephen said, tenderly, "and nearer at hand. Thine own passions will truly do thee a mischief, except thou keep them under. There's fighting ground for thee. And, see here, I have long meant to say something to thee about King Edward, only I have an ill-trick of putting off. Thou thinkest the only way of serving him is by hard blows. He himself would tell thee that there be better ways. Serve the State faithfully as a peaceful citizen, keep the laws, and work for the glory of God and the honour of England. He would tell thee more. That his hardest work of government has been the task of governing himself. That is what has made him a great king. It seems small to thee just now, but one day, my Hugh, my words may come back." A fit of coughing stopped him. Hugh's ill-temper had had a little cooling time, but it had not by any means left him. It was not the pain, perhaps it was not even so much the being called a thief, for no one on board was like to listen much to Jakes, and as for his father he had not even cared to allude to the absurd accusation. What Hugh really so much hated was the being laughed at. He had heard the men roaring with merriment after Dickon joined them, even his father had laughed; it would be for ever a sort of standing joke. What turned his thoughts more than anything was the weather. Anyone could see how much the wind had strengthened since they put out to sea. The colours, which had been clear and distinct, now had become blurred; a wet mist, not yet rain, but near it, was driving up from the southeast; the waves had grown larger and rushed past them in wild hurly-burly; the air was full of noisy tumult; the clumsy vessel groaned and laboured on her way, and Stephen and Hugh could not find shelter enough to protect them from the clouds of spray which swept across the vessel. Andrew, the master, was too closely occupied with his work to come near them; he shouted directions to the man who was steering, but kept by the sail, and Bassett knew enough of the sea to suspect that they were in a position of some peril. For himself he thought it mattered little. He knew that he was even more ill than he outwardly appeared, and the wetting under which he was shivering was likely to quicken matters. But for Hugh? He could resign himself, it was a far harder matter to resign this young life, so full of vigorous promise--to give up with him all the hopes in which he had indulged of fame to come to his name, though not in his life. He had dreamt of late much of this; had pictured Hugh leaping to eminence, leaving his mark as a stone-carver in some beautiful cathedral, where age after age his work should stand, and when men asked who had done this great thing, the answer would be--Hugh Bassett. Was it all to end in an unknown grave under the grey waters which leaped so wildly round their prey? Every half-hour the storm seemed to increase in fury. The shores on either side were now blotted out, and the steering was a matter of great difficulty. Andrew took it himself for a time, but his quick eye and steady courage were needed for the look-out, and he went forward again until he gave orders to strike sail. Then he once more came back and stood near Bassett and Hugh, looking as undaunted as ever. But when he spoke they could scarce hear his voice for the turmoil of the sea. "Rough weather, goodman!" "Ay! Will the boat hold?" Andrew, who had stooped down to catch the carver's words, straightened himself with a laugh. "Ay, ay, the boat will hold. No fear of her failing. But where she will carry us I would I could say so certainly. Thou wouldst fain be back in the drones' hive hearkening to book and bell, eh?" "I am right glad to be remembered in the good brothers' prayers," said Stephen, quietly. "Well, it may be as you say. Those I have known--I would not have given a base pollard for the pardon-mongers' prayers; but there are false loons in every craft." They were silent again, for their voices were pretty well stormed down, and the sea broke so fiercely over the vessel that two or three of the men had to be constantly baling it out. Still she held her way gallantly. The shipmen of that day were not without an imperfect form of compass, in which the needle was laid upon a couple of straws in a vessel of water, but these contrivances were apt to get out of gear at the very time when they were most needed, such as a storm like that now raging round the _Queen Maud_, and hardy sailors trusted rather to their own skill and courage or their knowledge of the coast. Nothing was, therefore, so dangerous as fog or mist. To Hugh, however, what seemed most terrible was the wild driving storm and the rush of the waves against the boat, which shivered under each stroke as if she had received a mortal blow. Agrippa, wet and miserable, cowered in his master's arms, and turned up a piteous little wrinkled face full of inquiry. Hugh crept closer to his father, and at last put his question-- "Shall we be drowned?" Stephen turned and caught his hands in his. "Nay, my little lad, I know not, I know not! I should not have brought thee!" The boy looked in his face gallantly. "I am not frightened," he said, "only I wish poor Agrippa were safe." They were silent again after this. Andrew was evidently uneasy; he shouted orders to the sailors, and strained his eyes through the baffling mist as if he feared what might be in advance of him. His hope, and it was a feeble one, consisted in the chance that he might strike the estuary of the Teign, avoiding the bar, and, as the tide would be full, getting into the shelter of the river. He was one of the most skilful of the sailors of the west, knowing all the currents and dangers thoroughly; but navigation was then in its infancy, and vessels were clumsy, lumbering things, suited but to calm weather, when they would coast along from creek to creek. The bolder craft chiefly belonged to pirates. Still, England was beginning to awake to her sea powers, and Henry the Third had taken the title of Ruler of the Seas in honour of a victory gained over the Spaniards. Andrew himself had been down as far as Spain, and was held to be over-daring; moreover, he wanted to hasten his voyage and get back to his wife and to Moll, otherwise he would hardly have put out that morning in the teeth of a possible gale. And now, although nothing was to be seen except perhaps what seemed like a thickening of the mist, Stephen knew from the master's face that the danger was worse. He was so numb and cold himself as to feel indifferent to his own fate--besides, as he reflected, at the most it was but shortening his life by a month or two--but his love for Hugh went up in a yearning cry that he might be saved. He touched him, and made the boy put his ear close to his mouth. "See here, Hugh," he said, with labouring breath, "if you are spared out of this coil thou must make thy way to Exeter. The Franciscans will take thee in at first, but thou must seek out James Alwyn. I mind me that was the name of thy mother's cousin. Get him to apprentice thee where thou canst learn thy trade. Thou hast it in thee--do not forget." "No, father," said poor little Hugh, glancing fearfully round. It was but a minute after that, or so it seemed, that they heard a cry from one of the sailors. The wall of mist had suddenly become solid; it loomed before them in unmistakable cliffs, so near that the man who was steering dropped the rudder and fell upon his knees. With a cry of rage Andrew leaped back from the bows, seized the rudder, and using all his strength forced her head somewhat round. It was a strange sight, this struggle of the man with the elements. The man standing undaunted in the midst of a hurly-burly which threatened quick death, facing his danger without flinching, resolute, bent upon snatching every advantage which skill could give him. That the vessel was drifting against the wall of red rock before them was plain; Stephen, clutching Hugh in his arms, wondered that the master should hope to avert it. Suddenly he saw Andrew's face change. He set his teeth, and slackening the rudder drove straight for the cliffs. There was a breathless pause; the next minute the vessel struck a small sandy beach, driven up it and wedged there by the uplifting force of the waves. The master's keen eye had noted the one comparative chance of safety, and had tried for it. Almost as the ship touched the sailors sprang forward and leaped into the sea. Only Andrew, Bassett, Hugh and Agrippa remained on board. CHAPTER SIX. A WEARY JOURNEY. The first sensation had been one of deliverance. The second was more like despair. The waves breaking against rocks and shore looked more terrible than out in the open sea, and this sudden rush for safety on the part of the men had something about it so cowardly that it produced in Stephen a wretched sense of desolation. He supposed that in another moment Andrew would have followed his fellow sailors, and they would be left alone. Andrew had in fact rushed to the bows as the men leaped over, and Stephen, bitter in spirit at such a cruel desertion, strained his boy in his arms so that, if he could do no more, he might at least hide death from him. He almost started when he heard a voice. The master was standing over him with a face full of rage. "The cowardly loons!" he cried; "I would the waves had choked them! No Devon man would have played such a trick. I knew they were helpless oafs, but to save their skins like that! If they had stopped it would have been easy enough, but now we must think how to get thee on shore." Stephen sprang up. "Think not on me. My life is nothing. Save Hugh, and I ask no more." Andrew stared at him and began to laugh. "Prithee, dost thou suppose I should leave thee here to drown? Why one of thy precious drones' hive would scarce be so unmanly, though, in truth, I can say nought against them after those base knaves of mine. But now, see here, if I fasten a rope round the mast--which will hold yet awhile--and go ashore with the other end, canst thou find thy way?" "The boy first." "Ay, the boy first, and the monkey with him, if the beast has the sense to hold on. Thou wilt want both hands for thyself, Hugh." "I will tie him to me," cried the boy, hopefully. His hopes had risen with Andrew's cheerfulness, and as for Bassett, with the revulsion of feeling, a new and extraordinary strength seemed to have come to him; he helped the master to fasten the rope securely, and stood, unheeding the buffet of wind and waves, watching the sailor when he had cast himself into the sea, and was fighting his way towards the shore. Once or twice he was sucked back by the retreating water and nigh overwhelmed, and the time seemed endless before they made out that he had gained a footing, and was with the other men on the beach. His shout only faintly touched their ears. "Now, Hugh," said Bassett firmly. They had bound poor Agrippa as closely to him as they could, while round his own neck the carver had disposed a bag with money and such small specimens of his workmanship as were portable. His tools he was reluctantly obliged to leave behind him; his breathing could bear no further weight. "Thou wilt be sorely scratched by Agrippa," he said. He was so hopeful he could smile. But the monkey was so cowed that he only clung closely, turning his head piteously from side to side, and realising that something terrible was about to happen. Hugh bore himself manfully. One or two of the sailors who had escaped, finding themselves safe, were ready to help Andrew with the rope, and though the boy was half choked and sorely beaten by the waves, he held on, reaching the shore after a tremendous tussle, by the end of which he was so spent that he fancied he must drop, when he felt himself clutched by Andrew and drawn through the remaining waves. He lay for a time exhausted on the beach; but life was young and strong in him, and he staggered to his feet, tried to comfort and warm the poor monkey, and to watch for his father's coming. Andrew had scarcely thought that Bassett would have the strength to bear the passage through the surf. It relieved him greatly to find that the carver was slowly nearing the shore. Now and then he disappeared under the crest of a great wave, but he always reappeared, holding on with a tenacity which was little less than miraculous. Andrew, though even his strength was pretty well spent, again cast himself into the sea to help him in his last struggle, and the carver by his aid managed to reach the shore, but in so terrible a plight that Hugh cried out and flung himself by his side. And now a very dreadful thing happened, for, as Stephen lay there like a log and Hugh knelt calling on him to look up, the waves, which had but just had their prey snatched from them, as if they meant to show that in another case they had had their way, brought up something large and dark and motionless, and flung it at their very feet; and while Hugh, scarcely recognising what it was, yet shrank from it as from some fearful thing, two of the men ran hastily down and seized and dragged it beyond the water's reach. Hugh caught the face then, and gave a cry of horror; it was the boy Jakes--dead. He must have swooned after this, for when he came to himself again he was lying higher up, at the mouth of a small natural cave formed in the sandstone rock. His father sat by him, and in the cave a fire of brushwood had been lit, close to which crouched Agrippa, munching black rye bread soaked in sea water, and jabbering with satisfaction. "Father," said the boy, sitting up and rubbing his eyes, "are we safe?" "Saved by a miracle, my little lad." "But Jakes--his face--what was it!" "He was drowned," said Bassett, gravely; "he never got to land with the others. Eat some of this bread; I had it in my pocket." "Is anyone else drowned?" asked Hugh, shuddering. "No, thank Heaven! And the master has gone off to see if perchance there might be some hut or cottage near where we can get lodging for the night and means of reaching Exeter." "Father, you must be spent. Think no more of me. Sit by the fire, and take off your clothes to dry." Hugh was almost himself again, although evidently deeply shocked at the death of Jakes, and with the burden on him of remorse for unkind thoughts which is hard to bear. But fire and food comforted them all in some measure, and Andrew came back before long to tell them that he had been lucky enough to reach a serf's hut not far away, where they could at least find shelter, with hope of a horse. "You have done everything for us, and have lost more than any," said Bassett, gratefully. "Nay, I know not what I have lost yet," returned the sailor. "The bales of silk and woollen are spoiled; no hope for them. But maybe, if the gale goes down, I may have my boat again. I can put up with the rest." When they had rested awhile they made their way up through a sort of gully piercing the red cliffs. This same redstone amazed Hugh, for the pools of rain were crimson to look at, and he had never seen anything like it before. But glad enough he was to turn his back on the wild sea. "I hate it! I would I might never see it again." "Thou wouldst be a poor crusader," panted Stephen, whose breath was sorely tried by the ascent. They stumbled on through tussocks of grass until they reached the top, where trees grew thickly, though somewhat one-sided and windblown with south-west gales. Andrew was not with them, but he had directed them fully, and they soon came upon a rough hovel, built of a mixture of mud and straw called cob, and coarsely thatched. A wild-looking herd and a wilder-looking woman stared at them from the doorway; but though uncouth they were not unkindly, and had got a fire of logs burning, together with bread and bacon and a large tankard of cider on the table. As usual, the monkey caused the greatest astonishment, and Hugh dared not loosen his hold of him because of a sheep-dog, who growled angrily at the strange party. The other sailors were already there, eating and drinking and drying their clothes, and presently Andrew came in. He was very short and surly with the men, though, as he told Stephen afterwards, unable to cast them off altogether, as he would willingly have done, because, if there were a chance of saving the boat, he would need their help in getting her off and in sailing her. All depended upon the abatement of the gale. If the wind went down with the tide there was a chance of floating her in calmer weather and of repairing damages. She was strongly built, and, so far, showed no signs of breaking up. To Hugh's eyes his father seemed scarcely worse or more feeble than he had often been before. He was very pale it is true, his breathing was laboured, and he had a short, sharp cough, which scarcely ceased; but he was keen to push on, and would not rest until he had urged the herd to go that evening to the sheep-farm where he worked, and where he thought a horse might be bought. They were, as Stephen ascertained, not more than fifteen or sixteen miles from Exeter, the spot where they were wrecked being a little north of the mouth of the Teign; and this he was feverishly anxious to declare they could ride in a day. A strong horse could easily carry two; it was madness for him to think of remaining where he was for rest, since if he became worse there was no means of procuring a leech. "E'en go thy way," said Andrew, half angrily, half sadly, for he had done enough for his passengers to feel a sincere liking for them. The hut, as usual, consisted of but one smoky room, in which they all bestowed themselves for the night. Andrew saw that Stephen had the best of the miserable accommodation; but little rest came to him owing to the constant torment of his cough, and he was up as soon as the sailor and out in the air, though not strong enough to go down to the cove. But what a change was there since the former night! The wind had shifted to the south-west, and blew as softly as if it had never known violence. The sun, though not yet showing much face through misty grey clouds, filled the air with delightful promise. All the land colouring was rich and varied, for the trees, though shaken by the past storm, were in their fullest and most gorgeous autumnal colouring, and the deep red of the soil, the vivid green of the grass, and the brown of the bracken made a splendid harmony of tint. The sailors followed the master to the cove; the herd went off to his work, promising that the horse should come when the morning was a little advanced, after the nine o'clock dinner; the wife made much of Hugh; and Stephen, looking and feeling wretchedly ill, tried to wear off his restlessness by wandering towards the edge of the cliff, but his strength giving out he was forced to crawl back and sit quiet. The horse arrived, and proved a strong, serviceable beast. Stephen could scarce touch the coarse food, being too feverish. Andrew came up quite hopeful, and laden with the carver's tools and other possessions, which, though somewhat marred by the salt water, he was thankful to see again. The woman of the house dried the clothes; all the gear was securely strapped on the horse, and then came the farewells. The master would not consent to receive a penny for the cost of the voyage. "Nay," he said, "we feasted on the grey brothers' good cheer, and, by my troth, I shall never have the heart to call it a drones' hive again. One of these days Moll and I will go and have speech with Friar Luke, and let him know what befell. Nay, I tell you, I can be obstinate too, though with no hope of evening thy powers in that matter. Wonderful it is that so little mischief has been done with all that turmoil; if the poor fool Jakes had but stayed on board he would have saved his skin." "Have a mass said for his soul," said Stephen, pressing a little money into his hand. "Nay, thou must not refuse, it is conscience money." "Well, it shall go to the grey brothers," said Andrew, who seemed to limit his new-born tolerance to the one monastery. "Hearken, Hugh, if thy father is spent, get him to stop for a night on the road. Some day I shall come to see thee at Exeter." The kind-hearted sailor stood watching the pair when they had started, Stephen riding, Hugh stepping manfully through the bracken, and both turning back and waving their hands until they were lost in the thicket of underwood through which they had to pass before reaching the road. Road, indeed, it could scarce be called, for at this season the best were in some places nigh impassable, and Devonshire mud when it is left to follow its own will cannot easily be beaten. In sortie parts the road was little more than a channel worn by constant running of water, and leaving banks on either side; and, owing to the rain of the day before, the water flowed down these banks in little runnels, and rushed cheerfully along the course at the foot. Hugh, however, found it amusing enough to splash through these streams, or to leap from bank to bank, and clamber along through ivy and long grasses and briars and nut-bushes; such a thicket of greenery as he had never seen before. When he was tired he would scramble up behind his father, the stout grey making light of his double burden; and he was untroubled by Stephen's anxiety lest these narrow lanes should offer opportunity for thieves and outlaws. They met no such dangerous folk. A ploughman passed and looked curiously at them, and a priest carrying a staff, and on his way to a sick parishioner, stopped and inquired whither they were bound. Bassett's evident illness made the good man uneasy, and he would have had him rest at his house until better able to go on; indeed, pressed it on him. The carver shook his head. "I thank you heartily, sir priest, but I must push on, having, as you may judge, but little time before me. If, of your courtesy, you will point out the shortest and safest road, you will be doing us a kindness." The old man, who had a very pleasant and earnest face, assured him that, so far as he could tell, the country for some miles round was tolerably free from rogues, though he could not answer for the neighbourhood of Exeter. He himself went a little way with them, and directed them the shortest path along the rocks, where the sea stretched on one side, softly grey, and only a little stirred with remembrance of yesterday's gale, and pointed out Exmouth, which he said had an ill character for pirates, and then showed them the Exe stretching away, and told them how they should leave it on their right and take the inland road, and so left them with his blessing. It was all that Stephen could do to hide his increasing weakness from Hugh. There were times when he felt that he must give it all up, drop from the horse, and let himself die by the road-side. Only a will strong for his boy's sake could have given him strength to sit upright. When they paused at a little hostelry for some food he did not dare get off his horse, fearing that he might lack the resolution to mount again. His suffering became so acute that he could not hide it from Hugh, and though the boy dreaded nothing worse than one of those sharp fits of illness which his father had weathered before, he did his best to induce him to seek a night's lodging on the road. But Stephen refused almost irritably. Nor could he bear to follow where Hugh's remorse would have led him-- into talk of Jakes. It seemed as if he would put aside all that was harsh and painful, and he was either silent or--as the boy afterwards remembered--let fall words which showed that his thoughts were with the wife he had lost, or dwelling upon some of the talks he had had with Friar Luke. Once or twice Hugh was sorely perplexed by what he said, fancying that he could not have heard rightly; but Stephen seemed unable or unwilling to repeat the sentence, and murmured something else. Once they fell in with a gay party going to a neighbouring castle; there was a minstrel, and two or three glee maidens were of the company. When they overtook Stephen and Hugh they were making a great noise and merriment, and the boy wondered why, on seeing them, all their jests died away and they looked almost frightened. They made haste, too, to part company, saying they had no time to spare; and Hugh saw them looking back and pointing as at some strange sight. He was beginning to be alarmed himself, though not knowing why, perhaps chiefly because his father seemed to heed him so little, no longer asking if he were not tired, or noticing Agrippa's merry pranks, but riding bent upon the horse's neck, and seeming only to keep his seat with difficulty. Hugh called gladly to him when he saw before him a town which he guessed to be Exeter, lying on a hill above the river, with the fair cathedral standing in a very beautiful position about half-way up, and Stephen so far roused himself as to clasp his hands and to murmur, "God be thanked!" but with that fell back into silence. It was well that the road was plain enough to need no consultation; and poor little Hugh, wearied out, for he had ridden but little of late, thinking it oppressed his father, struggled manfully on, hoping to get in before sunset. It was well, too, that the last mile or two was of a tolerable flatness, and the road wider and less heavy, though always bad; for Stephen grew more and more bowed, and Hugh became so fearful lest he should fall that he had to steady him as he walked by his side. Thankful he felt when he came upon a few scattered hovels while the sun was yet some quarter of an hour from setting, at which time the town gates would be shut, and presently he saw the river running swiftly, swelled by the autumn rains, and spanning it a brave new bridge of stone, with houses and a chapel upon it. "Father, father, here is Exeter!" cried Hugh, with anxious longing for some reassuring word. But he got no answer, and not daring to pause lest the gates might be shut, he joined the throng of citizens who were pressing in for the same good reason, and passed through the gate before setting himself to ask any questions. The first person he addressed gave him a shove and told him to get out of his way; but the second, who by his dress and bearing might have been some kind of trader, stopped at once, and having satisfied his own curiosity as to who they were and where they came from, showed himself of a most friendly nature. "We are in the Western or High Street," he said; "we have come through the West Gate, and the Franciscans have their house between this and the North Gate. But thou art a little varlet to have so much on thy hands, and thy father looks in a sore plight. A monkey, too! How far have you come?" "Some sixteen miles, noble sir." "Nay, I am no noble; only plain Elyas Gervase. Sixteen miles, and a dy--a sick man who can scarce keep on his horse! What doth he work at?" "He is a wood-carver, sir." "Why, that is somewhat my own craft, since I am a stone-cutter. Have you friends in this fair town?" "Father has a letter to the prior, and I am to seek out a cousin of my mother's, Master James Alwyn," said poor Hugh wearily. "The child himself is almost spent," muttered the good citizen to himself. "Prothasy would make them welcome, and we are surely bidden to entertain strangers. Thou and thy father shall come home with me," he added aloud, laying his hand kindly on Hugh's shoulder. "My house is nigher than the monastery, and I will speak to a learned leech as we pass. Both of ye need a woman's care." If the boy was a little bewildered at this change of plan he could not oppose it, nor had he any desire to do so. There was something in Master Gervase's honest face which instinctively inspired confidence. He was a man of about forty-five, somewhat light as to complexion and hair, his beard was forked, his eyebrows were straight, marking a kindly temper, and his eye was clear and open. He wore an under tunic of blue cloth, with buttons closely set from the wrist to the elbow of the tight sleeve, tight pantaloons, and low boots with long pointed toes. His hair hung a little below his ears, and was covered by a cap. He walked up the steep Western Street by the side of the horse, passing his strong arm round poor Stephen's bowed form so as in some measure to support him, and he paused presently before a door, and sent in a boy to say that Master Gervase prayed Master Miles to come without delay. A few minutes after this they stopped again before a timbered house projecting far into the narrow street. Without a moment's delay Gervase had lifted Stephen from the horse, and rather carried than led him in. "Prothasy!" he called, the moment he was in the passage. "I am coming!" answered a voice, and, following the sound, a young woman ran in, small, dark, bright-eyed, and scarcely more than a girl in appearance. "How late thou art, Elyas! And whom have we here?" starting back. "A sick man for thee to nurse. Nay, thou shalt hear more later, when we have got him to bed. Wat! Where's Wat? Wat," as a lad hastily appeared, "go out to the door and take the horse, and see that he has good food and litter. Send the boy that is there in here." It was evident that Prothasy Gervase was a capable woman. She asked no questions, made no difficulties, but ran to see that all was right, and Stephen, too much exhausted to be aware of what was happening, was got into his crib-like bed in a little room overlooking the street, and Mistress Gervase had brought up some hot spiced wine and bidden Hugh take a drink of it before the doctor came. Then Elyas took the boy down to the common room, and asked him a number of questions. He was one of the burgesses who, by a recent law, was responsible for the good conduct of twelve--some say ten--citizens, and would have to furnish an account of the strangers, so that besides the call of natural curiosity, to which he was not insensible, it was necessary that he should know something of their history. He listened attentively to the story of the shipwreck. "And what brought thy father here?" he asked at last. "He thought," faltered Hugh, for his spirits had sunk low, never having seen his father in such sore plight before, "that our cousin, Master Alwyn, might help him to get work in the great church of St Peter's." "James Alwyn is dead," said Gervase, gravely. Hugh's face quivered. He seemed more lonely than ever. "He died a year ago, come Martinmas. What was thy mother's name?" "Alice Alwyn." "I mind me there was one of that name lived out by Clyst. And--but I warrant me thou wilt say, ay--is thy father a good craftsman?" "There is no better work," said Hugh, proudly. "He will show it you, gentle sir, and you will see." "Ay," said Gervase, hesitatingly, "and thou wilt follow his craft?" "I would carve in stone," muttered Hugh, turning away that his questioner might not see the tears which sprang into his eyes. He was tired, and his heart seemed strangely heavy. "Sayest thou so!" eagerly. "Thou art right, there is nought like it. We must see what can be done for thee, perchance--" he checked himself. "I must talk with Prothasy," he added, under his breath. He was very good to the boy, leaving him to make a good meal while he went out to meet the doctor, a gaunt, melancholy man, dressed in bluish grey lined with thin silk, who spoke with bent head and joined finger-tips. "By virtue of the drugs I administered," he began, "my patient hath revived a little, but Is in evil case." "How long will he live, sir leech?" demanded Elyas bluntly. "Scarce more than a few days. I am going home to prepare a cordial, and I shall cast his horoscope to-night, when I doubt not to find evil influences in the ascendent." "You may take that for granted without seeking to find out whether it is so," said the other, with a short laugh. "However, let him want no care. Will you be back before curfew?" The doctor promised and kept his word. By eight o'clock all lights were out; Hugh was stretched on a rough pallet in his father's room with Agrippa, at whom Mistress Prothasy looked askance, by his side, and all was silent, indoors and out, save for the quick laboured breathing of the sick man. CHAPTER SEVEN. IN THE WARDEN'S HOUSEHOLD. It was doubtless a satisfaction to the leech's astrological mind to ascertain that, beyond a question, malignant conjunctions were threatening Stephen Bassett. But without this profound knowledge it was evident to the watchers that Master Gervase had brought home a dying man, who would not long be spared. He rallied a little, it is true, and though at times light-headed, and always taking young Mistress Prothasy to be his lost Alice, could understand and be grateful for the kindness shown him, and speak feebly to Hugh about his work. The prior's letter had been taken to the Franciscan monastery, but no sign was given by that house of the kindly hospitality shown in London. "I knew it," said Elyas, with some triumph to his wife. "When the boy told me whither they were bound, I could not bear they should have no more comfort than they would get from that fat prior. Now, the poor man shall want nothing." "Truly, no," said Prothasy, quite as heartily. "But it were best that our little Joan remained away a little longer with thy mother." "I suppose so," answered her husband, with a sigh. "The house seems strangely silent without Joan." "We must have sent her away had she been here," she said decidedly. He went to the door and came back. "Prothasy," he said, with something like appeal in his voice, "that is a comely little lad." "Ay, Elyas." "What will become of him when his father is dead?" "Thou hadst best seek out some of his kin." It was not the answer he wished for, yet, as always, it carried sense with it; he hesitated before he spoke again. "If he would be a stone-cutter?" "Thou hast two apprentices already." "Ay, but a fatherless child--" "Elyas, thou wilt never learn prudence. All would come upon thee." "The guild would help in case of need." "So thou sayest, but never wouldst thou apply." He made no answer, only seemed to be reflecting as he left the room. She walked quickly up and down, once or twice dropping her long dress and stumbling in it. "Was ever anyone so good as he, or so provoking!" she exclaimed, half crying. "A fine dowry will come to Joan, when her father spends his all upon strangers! And yet he makes me cry shame upon myself for close-fistedness, and wonder at the sweetness with which he bears my sourness. If he will, he shall have the boy as prentice, I'll e'en put up with the monkey; but, do what I will, it is certain I shall season any kindness with sharp words, and Elyas will feel that all the while I am grudging. I would I had a better heart, or he a worse!" Elyas, meanwhile, all unknowing of these stormy signs of relenting, went slowly up to the little bare room where the carver lay, while Hugh, looking out of the small unglazed window, was telling him as much as he could see to be going on in the street. Stephen, however, was paying little attention, and when Gervase came in his eyes brightened at once. "Leave Agrippa here," he said to Hugh, "and do thou run out and look at the Cathedral, and bring me back word what it is like." His interview with his host was long, the more so as he could speak but slowly, and at times had to stop altogether from exhaustion. Then it was necessary that Elyas should see the carving, which took him altogether by surprise. "Truly," he said, "this will make our good bishop's mouth water! He is ever seeking for beautiful work for St Peter's, and thou mightest have made thy fortune with misereres and stalls. Perchance--" he said, looking hesitatingly at the carver. Stephen shook his head. "Never again," he said. "But Hugh, young as he is, has it in him. If-- if he could be thy apprentice?" Elyas almost started at having his thought so quickly presented to him from the other side, but he did not answer at once, and Stephen went on, his words broken by painful breathing-- "There is a little money put by for him--in yonder bag--I meant it for this purpose--the horse may be sold--if I thought he could be with thee I should--die happy." Gervase was not the man to resist such an appeal. He stooped down and clasped the sick man's wasted hand in his. "The boy shall remain with me," he said. "Rest content. I am warden of my guild. He shall learn his craft honestly and truly, shall be brought up in the holy Faith, and shall be to me as a son. There is my hand." With one look of unutterable thankfulness the carver closed his eyes, and murmured something, which Elyas, bending over him, recognised as the thanksgiving of the _Nunc Dimittis_. He said no more, but lay peacefully content until he roused himself to ask that a priest might be sent for; and when Hugh came in Elyas left him in charge, while he went to seek the parish priest, "and no monk," as he muttered. Hugh was full of the glories of the Cathedral, to which he had made his way. It had remained unfinished longer than most of the others in the kingdom, but the last bishop, Quivil, and the present, Bitton, had pushed on the work with most earnest zeal, and Hugh described the rising roof and the beautiful clustered pillars of soft grey Purbeck marble with an enthusiasm which brought a smile of content upon the face of the dying man. "Would I could work there!" said the boy, with a sigh. "One day," whispered his father, "Master Gervase will take thee as apprentice; thou wilt serve faithfully, my Hugh?" The boy pressed against him, and laid his cheek on the pillow. "Ay, to make thy name famous." "No, no," gasped Stephen, eagerly. "That dream is past--not mine nor thine--not for thyself but for the glory of God. Say that." "For the glory of God," Hugh repeated, gravely. "Father?" "Ay." "Where wilt thou live?" There was a silence. Then the carver turned his eyes on the boy. "I am going on--a journey--a long journey." Hugh shrank away a little. He began to understand and to tremble; and he dared not ask more questions. The priest came and he was sent from the room, and wandered miserably into a sort of yard with sheds at the back of the house, where the stone-cutting was going on, and journeymen and two apprentices were at work. One of these latter--the younger--was the boy called Wat, whom Hugh had already seen. He was a large-limbed, untidy-looking, moon-faced lad, the butt of many jibes and jests from the others, careless in his work, and yet so good-natured that his master had not the heart to rate him as he deserved. The other apprentice, Roger Brewer, was sixteen, and had been for six years with Gervase, who was very proud of his talents, and foretold great things for his future. He was a grave sallow youth, noticing everything and saying little, and with a perseverance which absolutely never failed. The journeymen, of whom there were three, were stone-workers who had been Gervase's apprentices; their seven or eight years ended, they now worked by the day, and hoped in time to become masters. They wore the dress and hood of their guild, and one, William Franklyn, had the principal direction of the apprentices. Much of the stonework of the cathedral was being executed under Gervase's orders. When Hugh appeared in the yard, Agrippa produced an immediate sensation, Wat and the men crowding round him, Roger alone going on with his work of carving the crockets of a delicate pinnacle. The boy's eyes glistened as he glanced about at the fragments which were scattered here and there, while the others, on their part, were curiously examining the monkey. "Saw you ever the like!" cried Wat, planting himself before him, all agape, with legs outspread and hands on his knees. "Why, he hath a face like a man!" "Ay, Wat, now we know thy kin," said one of the men, winking to the others, who answered by a loud laugh. "Where got ye the beast?" asked William, laying his hand on Hugh's shoulder. "At Stourbridge fair," answered the boy. He had to give an account of their adventures after this, and they stared at him the more to hear of London and the shipwreck. "And so thy father is sick to death in there?" said another man, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. The tears rushed into Hugh's eyes, and Franklyn interposed. "His craft is wood-carving, they say. Hast thou learnt aught of the trick of it?" "Nay, I shall be a stone-carver," faltered the boy. "I am to be prenticed here." "With Master Gervase?" "Ay." William Franklyn looked black. He had a nephew of his own whom he had long tried to persuade the master to take into his house. That hope was now altogether at an end. He turned away angrily and went back to his work. "What wilt thou do with thy monkey?" cried Wat, hopping round in high delight. "No foreigners may work in the yard. That were against the guild laws," said one of the men. "Down with all Easterlings!" They were a jesting, light-hearted set, who laughed loudly, lived rudely, had plenty of holidays, yet did excellent work. At another time the boy would have had his answer ready, but now was sick at heart, and wanting nothing so much as a woman's comforting, and the men thought him sullen. He got back to his father as quickly as he could, leaving many remarks behind him. "An ungracious little varlet!" said one. "Tut, man, he could scarce keep back his tears," said another who saw further. "What makes the master take another prentice? I thought Mistress Prothasy would never abide more than two. And there was thy nephew, William, if a third must be." "The master will do what pleases him," said Franklyn stiffly. "Or what pleases Mistress Prothasy, and most likely this is her fancy. She would have another Wat in the house." This was followed by a loud laugh, for Wat's awkwardnesses were well-known to bring him into sore disfavour with the mistress of the house. The day went by, and the night came on again. Elyas proposed sitting up himself, but Stephen refused, saying that he wanted no one but Hugh. "And I think I shall sleep well," he added, with a feeble smile. Afterwards, Gervase thought he meant more than his words conveyed. Before Hugh lay down his father made him put back the shutter from the little window, and look out upon the night. All was quiet, lights were extinguished, every now and then the watchmen came up and down the street, but no other noises were abroad; the opposite houses rose up so closely that from the balconies it looked as if it were possible to touch hands, and over head, though it was late autumn, the moon shone in a serene sky, sending her silver rays into the narrow street and intensifying all the shadows. Stephen listened, while Hugh told him just what he could see. The boy closed the shutter and would have lain down, but Stephen called him feebly to his side. "Remember," he whispered, with difficulty. "For the glory of God." "Ay, father." "And the--enemies. Fight the right enemies." "Ay, father." Something the carver murmured, it might have been a blessing, but Hugh caught only the word, "Alice." "Shall I get thee aught, father?" "Nay. Lie down--I will call if I need aught." It was his last self-denial for his child. The boy was soon asleep, but through the long hours, Stephen lay, fighting for breath, until the struggle ended in unconsciousness, and that, too, passed into death. When Elyas came in the early morning, and saw what had happened, he lifted Hugh in his strong arms and carried him into the room where the other boys slept. Wat was snoring peacefully with open mouth, but Roger was awake, and the master hastily whispered how it was to him. "Keep the boy here. Tell him his father must not be disturbed," he said. It was Prothasy who, after all, broke the tidings. She shrank from it at first, saying that Elyas was tenderer in words and less strange to Hugh, but her husband looked so grieved that, as usual, she repented, and did his bidding. And she was really kind, leading him in herself to look upon the peaceful face of the dead, and soothing his burst of tears with great patience and gentleness. The days that followed were strange and miserable to poor Hugh. He had never been without his father, who had been father and mother both to him, and had made him so close a companion that in many ways he was much older than his years. And, in spite of all kindness, the sense of solitude and loneliness that swept over him when the funeral--which the guild of which Elyas was warden attended--was over, and he was back in the house, with a new life before him, to be lived among those who were, in good truth, strangers, was something which all his life long he could not forget. The good master had him rightly enrolled as his apprentice, and then judged it well to leave him alone for a day or two, telling him he might go where he liked until his work began. No place seemed so comforting to Hugh as the Cathedral. He would go and watch the workers, and feed his keen sense of beauty with gazing on the fair upspringing lines and the noble sheaves of pillars, and wonder whether the day would come when work of his should find a place there, and his father's dream be fulfilled. CHAPTER EIGHT. DIFFICULTIES. It was about a week after this that Master Gervase in working dress went out into his yard. Dinner was over at an early hour, and the two meals of the day were long and plentiful as to cheer; so long and so plentiful, indeed, that there is a record in the preceding reign of thirty thousand dishes being served at one feast, and the sumptuary laws which regulated excesses in dress and food do not seem to have been uncalled for. In Master Gervase's household there was no excess, but abundance in every kind, and hearty partaking of beef and cider, Mistress Prothasy being famous for her housekeeping and capable ways, so that Elyas went into his yard with all the contentment of a well-fed man. Men and prentices were hard at work in their different ways. Franklyn and Roger had the finest cutting, and Elyas paused before Roger's crocket to examine his progress. "It is excellent," he said, heartily, so that the lad's sallow face flushed; "the cutting deep and clean--naught can be much better in good sooth than the workmanship. Thy design is not so good." "No," said Roger, quickly. "No. It wants freedom, boldness, it smacks too much of the yard and too little of the artist. There is thy stumbling-block, Roger. I can give thee the means of execution, but I cannot put this into thee. See!" He seized a piece of burnt stick which lay by, and on a rough plank hastily sketched a crocket similar in form to that on which Roger was working. But what a difference! What strength in the up-curved lines! What possibilities seemed to blossom out of the rapid outline! As Roger watched a look of bitter mortification gathered in his face; the ease and vigour of the drawing were, as he recognised, quite beyond his grasp. When the master moved on he drew the board close to him, yet so that it was concealed from other eyes, and tried with all his skill to bring his carving into better harmony with its spirit. Gervase glanced at all the work in the yard, giving a word to each, and special praise to a canopy which Franklyn and another man were engaged upon, and which was an order from a neighbouring abbey. To a fourth worker, Peter Sim, he pointed out that his moulding was thin and wanted richness. "Ay," muttered his neighbour, "he is so thin himself he can see no beauty save in leanness." "That will scarce be thy failing, Hal," said Gervase, good-humouredly. "Now, Wat, what tool is that thou art using?" "It is broken, but it cuts well enough, sir," said Wat, regarding his half chisel with affection. "Cuts well enough," repeated the master, angrily, throwing the tool on one side; "and what thinkest thou, prithee, the guild would say if I suffered such a tool to be used in my yard? And how came it broken?" "There never was such a one for breaking his tools," grumbled Franklyn, who had picked up the chisel and was examining it; "it is my belief he uses them to dig the ground with." "Nay," said Wat, scratching his head, "but the stone is hard." "Thou shalt spend thy next holiday in finding out whether it be hard or not," said Elyas, angrily, "an thou be not more careful. How now, Hugh, what work have they set thee to?" The good man's heart melted as he looked at the boy, who seemed a sad little figure among the others. He had got into a far corner, and Agrippa peered down from a rafter in the shed. "Why art thou in this dark corner by thyself?" demanded Elyas. "They like not Agrippa, sir," said Hugh, listlessly. Elyas looked vexed. His wife was also sorely set against the monkey, and he would gladly have had it away, yet he could not find it in his heart to deprive the boy of his only friend. He stood awhile watching Hugh work, and presently went across to Franklyn. "See that no harm comes to the monkey," he said in a tone which all might hear; then, in a much lower voice, "that is hard work thou hast set him to do." "He must learn his craft," said Franklyn, gruffly. "But he is a little urchin." "The more need he should begin at the beginning." "His father told me he had a wonderful talent for his age." "Fathers ever think their children wonders. Is it your pleasure, Master Gervase, that I treat him differently from any other prentice?" "Nay, nay," said Elyas, hastily, and, knowing that the idea of favouritism would make Hugh very unpopular, he pushed the matter no further. The time that followed was full of bitterness to Hugh. Franklyn, though not a bad-hearted man, was sore and disappointed to have his nephew, as he thought, supplanted, and, since he could not visit it upon the master himself, he visited it upon Hugh. The other men sided with Franklyn, and Hugh made no efforts to gain their good-will; pride grows quickly, and he had been a good deal set-up on board the ship, although Jakes's death had shocked him into a temporary shame. His self-importance was sorely wounded by finding himself treated as absolutely of no consequence, he, who had spoken, as he reflected with swelling heart, with King Edward himself. Mistress Prothasy was sincerely desirous to pleasure her husband, but she loved not boys, classing them all as untidy and unmannerly. It had been by her wish that Elyas had hitherto abstained from taking more than two apprentices, and, as she was proud of her influence over him, she had made it a matter of boasting when talking to gossips whose husbands were more wilful. She hated having to put up with what she now took to be their pitying smiles, and, without meaning to be unjust, her feelings towards Hugh were not friendly. It provoked her, moreover, to have the monkey, which she both feared and disliked, in the house, and she was constantly urging Elyas to send it away. But what Hugh felt sharply was Franklyn's treatment of him as of one who must be taught the very beginning of his craft. He had learned much from his father, and had been made to use his tools when he was scarce six years old, so that in point of fact he was advanced already beyond Wat, who had gone through three years' apprenticeship. But of all this, and in spite of the master's hints, Franklyn was doggedly unheeding. He allowed the boy nothing but the roughest and simplest work. He explained with provoking carefulness each morning how this was to be carried out, and if, as frequently happened, the boy was inattentive, he rated him sharply. The discipline might have been good, but injustice is never wholesome, and feeling himself to be unfairly treated, Hugh set up his back more and more, took no pains to please, and moped in solitary corners. Elyas saw that things were moving wrongly, and was vexed, but he never willingly interfered with Franklyn's rule, and having an easy-going genial nature was disposed to believe that with time and patience things would right themselves. He had ever a kindly word for Hugh, though not realising how the boy clung to him as to a link with that past which already seemed so far away and so happy. The weeks passed and November was well advanced. There was no lack of holidays and feastings, which Hugh in his present mood found almost more irksome than work. Agrippa was his chief companion, and yet his greatest care, as the monkey, if he took it with him, was ever likely to call a crowd together, and perhaps get pelted, until one day Elyas, coming upon him in one of these frays, advised him to have a basket and carry him thus, by which means he was able to take him to the cathedral itself. Wat was not unfriendly. He was awkward and ungainly, and ever falling into disgrace himself, but this afflicted him scarcely at all. He had a huge appetite, and stores of apples, nuts, and cakes, which he was ready enough to share, and could not understand that anything more was wanted for happiness. Hugh, caring little for these joys, despised Wat's advances, and would not be beguiled into friendship. He was very miserable, poor boy, and inclined to wish that he had stayed with the Franciscans in London, as Friar Luke counselled, or to long--oh, how earnestly!--that his father had suffered him to accept Sir Thomas de Trafford's offer and be brought up in the good knight's household. As for learning his craft, that, he said bitterly to himself, was hopeless; he was more like to forget what his father had taught, and to sink into such coarse work as Wat's. In fact he made up his mind to the worst, and would scarce have been contented with easier measure. Towards the end of November a new personage came into the family, small in size but of immense importance, Mistress Joan Gervase, aged five, who had been for some time staying with her grandmother, and had remained so long, owing to an attack of measles, or some such childish complaint. Great preparations were made for her home coming; Mistress Prothasy had the rooms furbished, and made all manner of spice-cakes, and Elyas rode off one day in high spirits, to sleep at his mothers and to bring back his little daughter on the morrow. It was a bad day for Hugh. He was sick of his work, and, instead of setting himself to do it as well as he could, all went the other way; careless chippings brought down Franklyn's wrath upon him; he would take no pains, idled and played with Agrippa, and was altogether unsatisfactory. Franklyn had good reason for anger, though rather too ready to jump at it, and he was rating the boy loudly when Mistress Prothasy came into the yard to deliver some message with which she was charged from her husband. It was an expressed wish of his that she should never interfere with the conduct of the prentices at their work. Indoors she might say what she liked, and nothing displeased him more than a sign of disrespect on their part, but in the yard it was understood that she was silent. Nevertheless, on this occasion she asked Franklyn what Hugh had done, and hearing that Agrippa was in the matter burst out with her own grievances. "The hateful little beast, I would he were strangled! I am frighted out of my life to think of what he may do to Joan! But I will not bear it. Hark ye, Hugh, thou wilt have to dispose of him. I have threatened it before, and now I mean it, and I shall tell thy master that it makes thee idle over thy work. He or I go out of the house!" She swept away, leaving Hugh in a whirlwind of grief, bewilderment, and anger. Part with Agrippa, his one friend? Never! And yet--he knew from experience, and the men often spoke of it--Master Gervase never gainsaid his wife. He dashed down his tools, caught Agrippa in his arms, and faced Franklyn in a fury. "You have done nothing but spite me, and I hate you!" he cried. "You may kill me if you like, but I will never part with my monkey!" In his heart of hearts Franklyn was sorry that things had gone so far, but such rebellion could not be overlooked, and he fetched Hugh a sound buffet which made him tingle all over, told him the master should hear of it, and that he should have no supper but bread and water. Hugh sullenly picked up his chisel and went on with his work, paying no heed to Wat's uncouth attempts at comfort. Work was to be put away some hours earlier than usual, and a feast provided for supper in honour of Mistress Joan's return; but Hugh would go no farther than the balcony which ran outside the prentices' room, supported by wooden posts, and here he crouched in a corner, hugging Agrippa, weeping hot tears of rage and turning over in his mind possible means of escape. He had heard tales of prentices running away from harsh masters, although he had an idea that dreadful penalties were due for such an offence; but he thought he might manage to avoid being re-taken, and cared not what risks he ran. Where should he go? If he could get to Dartmouth someone might keep him till Andrew the shipman came again and took him back to London, and the boundless hope of childhood made the wild plan seem possible as soon as it came into his mind. He had the king's gold noble sewn into his clothes, and though he never intended to spend it, the feeling that it was about him gave him a sensation of riches. He had received his first month's pay, as apprentice; this amounted, it is true, to no more than threepence, but Elyas had given him two groats from his father's store, and he hoped that people would be willing to pay something when he had got far enough to let the monkey display his tricks without fear of detection. All these plans he made hastily, for the more he thought over the matter the more determined he was to run away at once. He must slip out of the gates before sunset, and while Elyas was absent; there would be so much excitement in the house with Joan's return that he would not be missed until it was too late to follow him. Wat had gone off to see some men in the pillory; Hugh hastily rolled his father's things in a bundle, slipped Agrippa into his basket, and was out of the house without meeting a soul. He could not help pausing at Broad Gate to look through it once more at the Cathedral, but something in the beautiful building, some memories of his father's hopes, brought such a choking lump into his throat that he turned hastily away, hurrying down the Western Street and out at the West Gate, and flattering himself that he had passed unnoticed by the keeper of the gate. From one cause or another he had not gone that way since the evening they entered a month ago. Here was the new stone bridge; there in its midst stood the fair chapel where lay the good citizen who had given the bridge to the town, a little light burning ever before the altar. How well Hugh remembered touching his father's arm to show it to him, and how he got no sign in return, and was frightened. And then but a minute or two later Master Gervase had come to their help like a good Samaritan, and he no longer felt so lonely. It was an inconvenient recollection, because he could not help recalling with a rush how thankful his father had seemed when he came to himself, and knew in whose house they were. Also with what earnestness he had prayed Master Gervase to take Hugh, telling him that he was a good boy and would be a credit to him. "But father never knew!" cried Hugh, stifling uneasy thoughts; "he never thought I should be set to fool's work, and flouted at, and Agrippa taken away." He pushed on with the thought. He fancied that he remembered a house some five or six miles away, where the woman had been kind, and would have had them come in and rest. This was the place where he meant to spend the night. But travelling in November was harder work than a month earlier. The road soon became a quagmire, lain began to fall, darkness set in, and there was no moon. He trudged on as bravely as he could, but he began to be very much frightened with the loneliness and the darkness, and the uneasy sense that, unlike the time when he passed before, he was not going the way in which he could expect the overshadowing Care in which his father had rested so confidently. Then more than once side roads branched off; he was not sure that he was keeping to that which was right, and little as he seemed to have to steal, there was the king's gold noble which would be excellent booty for any cut-purse. The house seemed so long in coming that he began to think he must have passed it in the dark, and when at last he made it out, his heart sank to think that after all his efforts he had got no further; besides, there was not a light or sign of life about it, it looked so gloomy and forbidding that he was scarcely less terrified at it than at the lonely road. He ventured at last, however, to knock timidly at the door, but was answered by such a fierce growling that he clasped Agrippa the closer and fled. Fled--but where to flee? Wet to the skin, hungry, miserable, before he had got six miles on his way, what could he do? Creeping back to the house to see if there were no outside shelter under which he might crawl, he at last found a small stack of fuel piled close to the mud walls, and by pulling this out a little formed a small hole where he made shift to lie, shivering, and in a miserable plight. He slept, however, and forgot his misery until he awoke, cramped, aching all over, and hungrier than ever. He was too much afraid of the dog to venture to wait till the people were up and about, and set off again on his weary tramp, hoping he might reach some other hut where he could get food for himself and the monkey. Rain still fell, though not so heavily, and he could not understand why he got on so slowly, and found himself scarcely able to drag one leg after the other. Agrippa, too, also wet, cold, and hungry, shivered and chattered piteously. At last he reached a hut where the man had gone to work, and the woman gave him black bread and cider. But she had an evil face, and took more from him than the food was worth, casting greedy looks at the remainder, and the children ran after him and pelted him and Agrippa with stones; so that Hugh was forced to hurry on as fast as his aching limbs could carry him, and by the time he had gone up a little hill, felt as if all the breath were out of his body, and he must drop by the road-side. He knew now that he must be ill, it seemed to him, indeed, that he was dying, and it was horrible to picture himself lying unheeded among the piles of dead leaves, the dank and rotting vegetation, the deep red mud--no one would know, and his only friend, poor Agrippa, would die of cold and hunger by his side. It was no wonder that his thoughts went back with longing to Master Gervase's house in Exeter, where food and shelter were never lacking. After this he still struggled on, but in a dazed, mechanical sort of way, until he was quite sure that he had been walking all day, and that night must be near at hand. And with this conviction, and all the horror of coming darkness sweeping over him, he felt he could go no farther, and flung himself down upon the wet bank, under a thick growth of nut-bushes. There Master Gervase found him. When Elyas reached home close on sunset the day before, there was so much welcoming and hugging of Joan, so many messages to give, so many things to be spoken about, that he did not at first miss Hugh, especially as Wat was also absent. By-and-by when Wat returned, open-mouthed with sights at the pillory, Elyas asked for the little boy, and Prothasy poured out her grievances. The monkey made him idle, and she had said it should not stay in the house, and then he had flown into a rage with William, and had been told he should have nought but bread and water. "And that is better than he deserves," she ended. "Look you, husband, I am resolved. That evil beast shall not remain here with Joan. Thou knowest that my nay is ever nay." Elyas looked very grave, but made no answer. Hugh was idle, and no rebellion against Franklyn could be permitted, yet his kind heart ached for the fatherless little fellow who had taken his fancy from the first. He would not interfere with the punishment, but he resolved that when supper was over, he would go upstairs and see whether he could not mend matters. And he was a little distraught throughout the long supper, whereat Joan reigned like a veritable queen, and, it must be owned, tyrannised in some degree over her subjects. She rather vexed her mother by demanding the new boy. Father had talked to her of him, and had told her of a wonderful little beast with a face like an old man's, and hands to hold things by; she would love to see him--where was he, why didn't he come to supper? "Think not of him, Joan," said her mother quickly at last. "He is no playfellow for thee. He would bite and terrify thee." This caused an interval of pondering, and Prothasy fondly hoped of impression, but presently Mistress Joan lifted her little golden head. "I want him," she said. "I would kiss him." Prothasy looked reproachfully at her husband, who was smiling. The supper, as has been said, was long, and before it was finished Joan, tired out with excitement, was leaning against her father's arm, asleep. He lifted her tenderly and carried her to their room, where she slept, and where she was soon lying in her little crib, looking fairer than ever. Husband and wife stood gazing at her with overfull hearts, and Elyas, ever large in sympathies, let his thoughts go out to the wood-carver who had cared so much for his boy, and wished he could have taken Hugh with him that day, or that he could talk him into readier obedience to Franklyn. He was very desirous to temper justice with mercy when he left Joan and went to seek Hugh. It surprised him exceedingly to get no answer to his call. He lifted the light and looked round the room in vain, nor was Agrippa to be seen overhead among the rafters. It was possible that Hugh had slipped out and stayed thus late, but he had never done it before, and it was seven o'clock, dark and raining. Elyas began to feel very uneasy. He sought his wife, called Franklyn, who had not left the house, and questioned the other apprentices. Roger never paid any attention to Hugh, treating him as a little boy, whom it would be waste of time to notice; Wat reported that he had invited him to go out with him, but got no answer. "He had never seen a man in the pillory, either, and here were three," added Wat cheerfully. Quick compunction seized Prothasy, though rather for her husband's sake than Hugh's; she said little, but ran hastily about the house, and even out into the wet yard, where, however, Franklyn had been before her, and then she stood in the doorway, looking up and down the street. Her husband's voice behind startled her. "He hath run away," he said gravely. "Thinkest thou so?" she said turning quickly. "Elyas, it was not much that I said, and it was not he but the monkey which provoked me." "Nay, I am not blaming thee, I blame myself. He is but a little lad to be left friendless in the world, and I might have been more tender with him, and kept him more by mine own side. Then this would not have happened." "Where will he go?" "That I must find out at the gates, which I will do presently, though it is too late to pass out to-night. Most likely he has taken the road he knew best." He came back before long, saying it was as he thought, for the keeper of the West Gate had seen the boy go out. At sunrise Elyas said he would mount his good grey and follow. There was nothing else to be done, and he made as light of it as he could to Prothasy, saying the dreariness of the night might give a useful lesson. And so it was that early the next day, when poor Hugh had got no further than a bare two miles from the place where he had slept, although he felt as if he had been walking all day, Master Gervase came upon a little figure lying under a clump of nut-bushes, and with a pang in his heart, sprang off his horse, and gathering Hugh and Agrippa into his arms, mounted again, and rode back as quickly as he could to Exeter. CHAPTER NINE. BISHOP BITTON IN HIS CATHEDRAL. Hugh's illness was severe and painful, for he was racked with feverish rheumatism, and could scarcely bear to be touched or even looked at. Often he was light-headed and talked persistently of his father, imploring him not to leave him, and at other times would cry so bitterly that it was impossible to soothe him. Prothasy had been terribly shocked when her husband rode up to the door, carrying his unconscious burden, and had spared neither care nor attendance upon him, rigidly carrying out the directions of the leech, which to us would sound hopelessly fantastical, and listening patiently to his long disquisitions upon Aesculapius and Galen. But her presence seemed to disturb the boy, and she often drew back wounded. Strange to say, he endured Wat's awkward though good-hearted ministrations, but the only person to whom he clung, to please whom he would take his medicine, and who seemed to have the power of causing him to sleep, was Elyas. One possible reason was that Master Gervase had a strange quickness in finding out what troubled him. Once or twice he had soothed him by putting before him his father's carvings, and more often by placing Agrippa on the bed. The monkey had been ill himself after the exposure of that night, and it was Prothasy who--mightily it must be owned against her inclination--wrapped him in woollen, and though she could never be brought to take him on her lap, saw that he was not neglected. But one day, when Hugh was really better and less feverish, though still in pain which made him fretful and peevish, he opened his eyes upon a new sight. A little girl, with golden hair and brown eyes, stood about a yard away from the crib, gazing with deep interest and her finger in her mouth, from him to Agrippa, who sat on the bed in his scarlet coat, and stared back at her. For a short time all three were silent, contemplating each other curiously. It was Joan who broke the silence, pointing to Agrippa. "Doth he bite?" Hitherto everyone who came near Hugh had asked how he felt or what they could do. Here was a change indeed! "No." Then with an effort--"You may stroke him, mistress." Upon this invitation Joan advanced, stretching out two rosy fingers. But they hesitated so long on the way that Hugh put forth his own wasted little hand, and conducted them to Agrippa's head. Joan coloured crimson but would not show fear. When she had got over the wonder of this courageous deed, she began to smile, bringing two dimples into her cheeks, and dancing a little up and down for joy. "Art thou the new boy? Why doesn't thou get up?" This was too much; besides, the pain of stretching his hand had hold of him. Hugh shut his eyes and groaned. The next thing he felt was a dreadful shake of the crib, and a soft kiss planted upon his closed eye. "Poor boy! Make haste and get well!" She trotted away, but the next day appeared again, and her mother, arriving in haste, found to her horror Joan sitting upon the edge of the crib, with Agrippa in her arms. Prothasy would have snatched him from her, but Joan put up her small hand lest she should come too near. She was actually trembling with ecstasy. "He doesn't bite, and he likes me. Isn't he beautiful?" Agrippa had conquered. After this Hugh began to improve more rapidly Joan's visits brought something into his life which had been wanting before, and he could not but be conscious of the kindness with which he had been nursed and cared for, when he might have expected very different treatment. He still watched Mistress Prothasy with anxiety, but his eyes followed Gervase with devotion which touched the good warden's heart. Nothing had been said about Hugh's flight during the worst part of his illness, but one afternoon in December, when Elyas had come in from consultation with the bishop at the Cathedral, he sat down on the boy's bed. "We shall have thee up and about by Christmas," he said, cheerfully; "out by the New Year, and at work by Twelfth Day." "Ay, master," said Hugh faintly. Elyas turned and looked at him. "It were best for thee," he said, "to tell me what ailed thee that day. I have heard nothing from thee." In a faltering voice Hugh would have murmured something scarce distinguishable, but Gervase made him put all into words. It is often hard so to describe one's wrongs; things which had seemed of infinite importance lose dignity in the process, and there is an uncomfortable conviction that our hearers are not so greatly impressed as we desired. After all, except the threat about Agrippa, it looked trifling seen from a distance, and even for Agrippa-- "Hadst thou met with so much unkindness here, that thou couldst not trust us to do what was best?" asked Gervase gravely. "I thought--" began Hugh, and stopped. "And how came you idle?" Elyas demanded more sternly. "He ever gave me such foolish work! He would not hearken when I said I could do better!" burst out Hugh. "Master, only let me try, and you will see." "Perhaps," returned Elyas. "But there are things that I value more, ay, and thy father would have valued more, than fair carving. Thou hast got thy life to shape, Hugh, rough stone to hew and carve into such a temple as the Master loves. All the best work that we can do with our tools is but a type of this. And what sort of carving was this rebellion of thine?" He would say no more, being one of those who leave their words to sink in. But after, when he came up to see the boy, he would choose for his talk tales of men who had become great through mastery of themselves. And when he found how Hugh's thoughts ran upon King Edward, he spoke of him, and how he had tamed that strong nature of his which might have led him into tyrannical acts, so that at whatever cost to himself he followed faithfully that which was right and just. And he told the story of how once, when he had been unjust towards an attendant, he punished his own hasty temper by fining himself twenty marks. "This it is which makes him great," added Elyas. "And thou hast seen and spoken with him? The more need to follow him." "Saw you ever the king, goodman?" "Ay, truly; ten or eleven years ago he and the queen held Parliament here at Christmas. Great doings were there, and it was then the bishop got leave to fence the close with walls. I like them not myself, they shut out the fair view of the western front; but after the precentors murder the chapter sought greater security. There is talk of the king coming again next month. If he does I warrant he will bring a sore heart, remembering who was with him last time." "And the queen was fair, goodman?" "Fair and sweet beyond telling. All that looked at her loved her." Hugh never got worse reproach for his conduct, but by listening to these tales of Master Gervase's with talk of men who took not their own wild wills, but a high ideal of duty for their standard, he grew to be ashamed of it, and to have a longing for the time when he might go to work again in a different spirit. And he changed in his conduct to Wat, who was ever full of awkward good-will. It was much as Elyas had foretold. By Christmas time Hugh was up, though too feeble to enter into all the merry-making and holiday-keeping of the time; nor, indeed, could he so much as go out with the others when, at two of the morning, the moonlight shining, the rime hanging to the elms and just whitening the roof of the Cathedral, they all set forth for the parish church of St Martin's. Wat came back blowing his blue fingers and stamping on the ground, but radiant with the promise that next year in the mumming he should be St George himself. "Rob the ostler says so, and he knows." "Thou wast the hobby-horse last night," said Hugh with a laugh. "Ay, and I am weary of the hobby-horse, of prancing up and down, and being hit with no chance of hitting back again. But, St George! what wouldst thou give, Hugh, to be a knight all in shining armour, and to slay the Dragon?" New Year's Eve was the great day for gifts; Joan had a number of toys and sweetmeats, and Hugh gave her a kind of cup and ball, which he had managed to carve for her, though with trembling fingers, after the recollection of one which had been shown to his father by a merchant travelling from China, or Cathay, as it was then called. It was a dainty little toy, and Gervase examined it closely, feeling that Hugh had some reason for fretting against the monotonous work to which Franklyn condemned him. But Elyas had no thought of interfering. He believed it would be wholesome discipline for the boy to have to work his way upward by force of perseverance and obedience, each step so taken would be a double gain; he had time enough before him, and should prove his powers to Franklyn by his own efforts. Meanwhile he kept him with him a good deal, and took him one day to the Cathedral to see the progress which had been made. Hugh could not rest without going everywhere, and then was so tired that, while Gervase went off to inspect some of the masons' work, he curled himself up upon one of the misereres and fell asleep. He awoke with a start to find himself looked down upon by a kindly-faced man in an ecclesiastical dress, though this last was not of the sumptuous character at that time worn. Other ecclesiastics were moving about the building. Hugh started to his feet, but the priest, whoever he was, seemed in no way displeased at his presence. "Thou art a pale-faced urchin," he said good-humouredly; "have thy friends left thee behind and forgotten thee?" "Nay, reverend sir," said Hugh, "I am Master Gervase's apprentice." "I always heard he was an easy man, and so he suffers his apprentices to sleep in working hours? But it is he for whom we were searching, and if thou wilt go forth and find him for me, thou mayest earn a silver penny." Hugh had some little difficulty in discovering Elyas, who had climbed a scaffolding to examine the work close at hand. He hurried down when he had heard Hugh's report, saying that it was doubtless the bishop, and bidding the boy follow him. The three bishops who succeeded each other in the see of Exeter, Quivil, Bitton, and Stapledon, have each left their mark upon the Cathedral. Quivil's share was the most important; it was he who by the insertion of large windows formed the transepts, and to whom we owe the beautiful and unbroken line of vaulting. Bitton was only fifteen years at Exeter, but he carried on the designs of his predecessor with enthusiastic loyalty, and completed the eastern end of the choir. It was this on which he constantly desired to consult Gervase. "The work goes on well," he said cheerfully, rubbing his hands. "You have caught the true spirit. We shall never see our glorious Church finished, goodman, yet it is something to feel that we shall have left behind us something towards it. _Quam dilecta tabernacula tua, Domine virtutum_! I like the lightness of that stonework, and mine eye is never weary of following the noble lines of vaulting. Only I shall not rest until something has been designed to unite it with the pillars. There is a blank look which offends me." "I see it, too, my lord. Is it not the very place for a richly carved _surs_ (corbel)?" "Ay, that is it, that is it! A corbel which should spring from the pillar, and follow the line of the arch. We must reflect on this, Master Gervase, and they shall be of finest cutting, and each varying from the other. But we may not think of this yet awhile, for truly there is enough on hand to call for all thy skill and industry. How fair it looks, with the winter sunshine striking on the fair stonework! _Non nobis, Domine_!" One or two of the canons had by this time closed up, and began to speak of what had been done. "When the western end is brought to equal the eastern," said one of them, William Pontington by name, "there will be no church in our land more fair. What will the king say?" "The king is not in the best of humours with his clergy," said the chaunter or precentor, a little dried-up man, with a sour face. "What think you, my lord, of the archbishop's mandate?" The good bishop looked uneasy. Winchilsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, was a turbulent and ambitious prelate, and the king, though sincerely religious, was forced to be ever on the watch against encroachments made by Pope Boniface, and supported by the archbishop, which threatened the royal supremacy. The strongest attempt of all had just been put forth in a bull from the pope, "forbidding the clergy to grant to laymen any part of the revenues of their benefices without the permission of the Holy See." Now as the kings of England had ever the right of taxing the clergy with the rest of their subjects, as the possessions of the Church were enormous, and papal taxation of the whole kingdom far exceeded the taxation by the State, so that in a few years the pope is said to have received money from England equal to nine millions of our present money, Edward promptly resisted this fresh and unheard-of claim. He did so by a simple and effectual counter-stroke. It was announced at Westminster that whatever complaint was brought to the court by the archbishops, bishops, or clergy, "no justice should be done them," and this withdrawal of State protection speedily led the clergy to offer their submission to the king, in spite of the anger of pope and archbishop. But the dissension had placed them on the horns of a dilemma, and Bishop Bitton had no liking for speech on the subject. He muttered something in answer to the precentor's injudicious question, and turned to Hugh, who was standing a short way from the group. "There is thy penny for thee," said the bishop, beckoning to him, "and now tell me, sir apprentice, whether thou art a good lad, and learning thy craft fairly and truly, so that in time thou mayest have thy share in this great work of ours?" Hugh coloured crimson, and looked down, and Elyas came to his rescue. "He hath not been with me yet three months, my lord, so please you, and half that time hath been ill; but he is the child of the wood-carver of whom I spoke, and, if he is industrious, I have good hope he will credit his father." "And what part wilt thou choose for thy share?" asked the bishop, with a wave of his gloved hand towards roof and walls. "The corbels, my lord," answered Hugh, boldly. Bitton looked delighted. "So thou hast caught our words, and wilt bespeak the work thyself? Well, I shall not forget. Learn with all thy might, and, who knows, some day thy carving may help to decorate this our Church of St Peter's?" After this, when the bishop caught sight of Hugh, he never failed to speak to him and ask how his learning fared. And hearing from Elyas that the boy could read and write, he arranged that on Sundays he should come to the Kalendarhay, where one of the Kalendar brothers instructed him. When Twelfth-Night was over, Hugh went back to the yard, where work was expected to go on vigorously after the feasting and mirth of that season, which was loud and boisterous. On the eve the town was full of minstrels, who carried huge bowls of wassail--ale, sugar, nutmegs, and roasted apples--to the houses of the well-to-do inhabitants, and Wat, as it may be conceived, had his full share in these doings. In the country there was a curious pagan ceremony kept up in Devonshire on this night, for at the farms the farmer and his men would carry a great pitcher of cider into the orchard, and choosing the best bearing tree, walk solemnly round it, and drink its health three times. Master Gervase grew somewhat red and shamefaced when his wife reminded him that he had often been the pitcher-bearer on his father's farm. "It was there I first saw thee," she said, "and my mother pointed thee out, and said thou wast as strong as Edulf." "Who was Edulf?" asked Hugh of Wat, under his breath. "The strongest man that ever lived. He came to Exeter in a rage, and broke the iron gate with his two hands," expounded Wat, stuffing a large piece of pasty into his mouth. "The strongest man that ever lived was Samson," said Hugh, dogmatically. "Samson! Nobody ever heard of him, and I tell thee Edulf was the strongest." The quarrel might have grown, but that Franklyn growled at them to hush their unmannerly prating; and Joan announced in her clear, decided voice that Agrippa should have his special Twelfth-night spice-cake. For in spite of her mother's loud remonstrances, the monkey had been taken into Joan's heart of hearts, and, it was certain, was secure from any sentence of banishment. Franklyn had been a good deal shocked by Hugh's flight and illness, but, as was natural, the impression passed away as the little apprentice regained his health, and Elyas saw that he was not inclined to change his treatment. For the reasons already given, the master had no thought of interfering, it was for the boy now to prove what stuff he had in him. It was a sort of ordeal through which he had to pass; an ordeal which might develop patience, resolution, and the humility of a true artist, and though Gervase told himself that he would be on the watch, ready with words of encouragement when they were needed, he held back from more. Hugh had the same rough, uninteresting work to toil upon-- indeed the stone had been set aside for his return; the same careful explanations of how to handle his tools and make his strokes, which he took to be a reflection on his father's teaching; the same lack of praise. But now he brought to it a more cheerful spirit, hope was astir; he felt sure that the master was watching his efforts, and that it rested with himself and his own perseverance to make his way. It was not easy. Often he grew hot and angry; often he was tempted into careless work; but he would not give up trying, and upon the whole held on very fairly. Then, in spite of his awkwardnesses and a dense stupidity about his work, Wat was a good-natured companion, ready to take any trouble and to carry any blame. He had been so often told by Franklyn that he would never rise to more than a mason, that he had grown to accept the verdict against which Hugh was always trying to make him rebel. "He knows best," he would say, hammering loosely at the stone. "What an oaf thou art, Wat! It all rests with thyself. Franklyn should never make me a mason." "Because--there, I have chipped it!" scratching his head in dismay. "And small wonder! Give me thy tool, which thou holdest as the goodwife holds her knife--so!" "If I thought it were any use--" began the disconsolate Wat. "Try and see." "And thou thinkest I might catch the trick of it?" "Try. There, now go on. Thou knowest as well as any how to hold the tools." So far as impatience and calling of names went Hugh was a harder taskmaster than Franklyn, but he put more energy into his teaching, and dragged the reluctant Wat along by sheer force of will, the result being that, though he got no praise for himself, some fell to his pupil, which really pleased him as much as if it had been the other way. Wat was the great purveyor of news; no one knew how he picked up his information, but nothing happened in the city but it somehow reached his ears before it was half an hour old. He knew of all the quarrels between the bishop and chapter and the mayor and his twenty-four councillors or aldermen, and how two of the canons fell upon two of the bailiffs and pommelled them vigorously, before even the mayor's wife had been informed of the scandal. He it was who reported the falling out between Sir Baldwin de Fulford and his wife, because she wanted an extravagantly fine chaplet of gold, the cost of which displeased him. It seemed that there were great expenses she led him into, for they had glass over from France for their windows, and forks for dinner, and many such luxuries, and each one Wat knew quite well--though how, no one ever knew. And at last, one day in January, when there had been a fall of snow which whitened all the roofs, and gave great joy to the prentice lads, Wat rushed in, powdered over with snow, so full of news that he could scarce keep from shouting it out as he ran, and so intent upon that and nothing else that he rushed up against Mistress Prothasy, and sent the dish of roasted apples she was carrying out of her hand. She gave him a sound box in his ear, and told him he should have no apples for supper. But even this threat could not compose Wat, well as he loved roasted apples. "Truly, good wife," he said, breathlessly, as he picked them up, "thou must forgive me this time for my news." "What news?" said Prothasy crossly. "Thou hast ever some foolish tale in thy idle head." "This is no foolish news," cried Wat, triumphantly. "King Edward is on his way!" "Nay!" "Ay, mistress, it is true. He is at Bristol, and comes here in four days' time, and the mayor is almost out of his wits, and there will be a banquet at the Guildhall, and the Baron of Dartington and Lord Montacute and Sir Richard de Alwis and my Lord of Devon are making ready to ride to meet the king, and all the saddlers and armourers are rushing from one end of the city to the other, and there will be feasting and bonfires, and we prentices are to stand in the Crollditch to shout when he comes in at the East Gate, and I warrant you none will shout lustier than I!" "Mercy on us, thou wilt deafen me with thy chatter!" said Prothasy, clapping her hands on her ears; "but there is an apple for thee, since thy head had some reason for its turning to-day. The king so near! I must go and pull out my green kirtle." CHAPTER TEN. SWORD OR CHISEL? Wat's enthusiasm found hearty echo in the house. Roger, indeed, ever self-absorbed and eagerly bent upon his own advancement, muttered something that such shows were fit only for fools and jackanapes, but he dared say nothing of the sort aloud, when even Master Gervase himself was like a boy in his delight over the occasion. Great consultations took place between the different guilds. These guilds had flourished in Exeter from a very early period, and were founded and preserved on strong religious lines. Chief and earliest among them were the merchant guilds. Craft guilds grew up later, not, as in other countries, opposed to the merchants, but under their authority, formed merely to promote and regulate matters belonging to their own crafts. Master and wardens met regularly in the common hall, and every full craftsman worth twenty shillings might be a brother. Generally there was a distinctive dress, or, at any rate, hood. The guilds took care that their members bore good characters, and there were heavy penalties for bad words, or what was called "misquoting." No one might work without leave of the wardens. No one might undersell a craft brother. The guilds arranged that all goods received a fair price, and that they were of the best quality. An excellent technical education was provided, and the tools that were used were closely inspected. Women might have part in the guilds, widows being allowed to carry on their business under their protection. There were also craft courts to which all complaints were brought, and it will be easily understood how much guilds had to do with the local government of a town. It was now necessary to organise a banquet to be given to the king, and a day of feasting and rejoicing for the poor, and Gervase was very busy over the arrangements. Frost and snow still continued, but flags and gay hangings were profusely used, and nothing could have been more picturesque than the narrow streets with their beautiful black-timbered houses, snow on the steep roofs, and all manner of bright colours hanging from windows and carved balconies. The only thing there was doubt about was the sun, but after an hour or two of hesitation in the morning, it broke out in full brilliancy, giving the final touch to a gay pageant of moving colour, of which we in England now have little conception. Rougemont Castle, of course, put on its gayest face, but the chief preparations were at the East Gate, to which the road from Bristol led direct, passing by St Sidwell's Church. Here the king would enter, and here in Crollditch, the present Southernhay, where the Lammas fair was annually held, the apprentices intended to muster, and to see as much as they could, the greater number of the burgesses being within the gate, so as to welcome the king to the city. If it had not been for Wat, Hugh's chance of seeing would have been small, for as the king and his knights rode up, the bigger apprentices closed tumultuously nearer, shouting with all the force of their lungs, and the lesser boys were pushed back without mercy. But Wat was a faithful friend. He held fast by Hugh, and used his own strong limbs to good effect. Opposite to them was a crowd of the poorest of the city. "Keep thy legs, gammer--good folk, press not so closely! Here they come!" "Alack, alack, I can see nothing!" "There is the king on a black horse!" "Nay, that is my Lord of Albemarle." "Ay, there's the king!" "Where? Where?" "He rides a white horse, with the bishop by his side." "The saints preserve him! How he towers above them all! A proper man, indeed!" The sight was very striking as the gallant cavalcade swept slowly into the grim shadows of the East Gate, with its walls stretching away on either side, and out into the keen sunshine beyond, where representatives from the guilds, the mayor, bailiffs, and councilmen were drawn up with every mark of pageantry. Loud shouts broke from the crowd, many cries of blessing were raised, and some appeals for "Justice, my Lord King!" were heard. All the way down the High Street the narrow way was so thronged with citizens that Edward and his train could scarcely make way, and there was time enough for Wat and Hugh to rush down a side way and get round to their master's house before the king reached it. Joan was in the balcony with her mother craning her little neck to see the show, and beckoning to Hugh, but the boy had a design in his head; rushing up to catch Agrippa, and, when he had got him, determinedly squeezing his way to the front. In this he might not have succeeded but for the good nature of my Lord of Devon's jester, who was a favourite in the town, and now in his motley suit had taken up his position before Master Gervase's house. He pathetically implored the crowd to make room for his grandfather, and the roar of laughter which followed when this turned out to be the monkey secured Agrippa's position. Hugh's heart beat fast as he saw the men-at-arms clearing the way with no little difficulty. "Hold thou on to my sleeve," whispered the good-humoured jester, "and we'll not budge." He was as good as his word, and as the king passed with a smile on his grave face, for he was touched by the fervour of his welcome, Hugh and his monkey were so close that Edward's eye fell upon him. He was certain that he was recognised, for the king's smile deepened, and he said something to the bishop, who raised himself in his stirrups to get sight of the boy. Nor was this all. The monkey attracted the attention of the _suite_, and a knight suddenly reined up his horse and bent down. "Why, thou art the little varlet that was at Stourbridge Fair! I mind me now thy father spoke of Exeter. How goes it with him? Has he a choice bit of his work that I can take back to my lady? What, dead! Nay, that is sad, but he looked scarce like to live. Thou mayest come to the bishop's palace, where we lie, and ask for my squire, John Wakefield, if thou wilt." He nodded and rode on, and Hugh was besieged by inquiries of who he was, and what had led him to speak. "Sir Thomas de Trafford," repeated the jester. "A fair name and an honourable. Prithee forget not a poor cousin, if there be preferment to be had. I would almost renounce my cap and bells to be dubbed a knight." But Joan overhead was clamouring for Hugh, and Prothasy's curiosity was getting past bearing. She had never quite believed the boy's story of the gold noble, but all had seen the king's amused smile of recognition, and now she questioned Hugh sharply, while he was longing to be off with Wat, who was in the thick of the crowd which had closed up on the heels of the men-at-arms, and was following the king down the High Street, for to pleasure them he rode as far as the Carfax or conduit, the central point of the city, which stood at the junction of North and South Street, where much business was transacted, before going to the quarters prepared for him in the bishop's palace. Hugh got away at last, but he was in the rear of things, and could get no nearer than the tail of the procession, every now and then catching the gleam of armour in the distance as some corner was turned, while the people were cheering and pushing with all their might, and gathering the largesse freely distributed. Gervase came home in high good humour, for the king had received the guild officers very cordially, and promised a hearing for the next day, the townspeople having certain matters to plead against the clergy with reference to the walls of the close--a very fruitful source of dispute. "'Tis a pity though, goodman, that the king is lodged in the palace where the bishop will have his ear," said Franklyn. "Pish!" answered Elyas. "Little thou knowest of Edward if thou thinkest him to be so easily turned! He will look into the affair and judge according to right. No favour beyond that need bishop nor mayor look for. But there is no doubt that the ecclesiastics are pushing their privileges as to right of way too far, and I wish there were as good a chance of getting Countess Weir removed, and restoring the navigation of the river." "Father," said Joan solemnly, "I saw the king, and I kissed him my hand." "Didst thou so, my popinjay? And I warrant that pleased him. He hath a Joan of his own, what thinkest thou of that?" "Little, like me? Father, there was a beautiful shining knight that spoke to Hugh and Agrippa, and Hugh is to go to the palace to-morrow." So Gervase had to hear this story. He looked grave over it, for he knew what were the boy's secret longings, and Stephen had told him of Sir Thomas de Trafford's offer, and how it had fallen in with them. And though Hugh was his sworn apprentice, and could not be removed, yet the king, who had a high respect and liking for Sir Thomas, might ask for his release as a personal favour which the stone-cutter could not refuse. Elyas felt, moreover, that the boy's first days of apprenticeship had not been of a kind to lead him to care overmuch for his craft. Franklyn had succeeded in making them full of discouragement, and though of late Hugh had worked steadily and well, he had been given no opportunity of getting on, and might well be out of heart. Elyas felt very doubtful as to the result of this visit, and was grieved not only because his promise to Stephen had been to do his utmost to teach him his craft, but because he really loved the boy. In those days apprentices were not treated as "hands," they were actual members of the family. Roger was too self-absorbed to have won his master's affection, and Wat, though he had excellent qualities, was for ever vexing Prothasy, and committing some clumsy awkwardness. Elyas was sure that Hugh had that in him which by-and-by would make his work excellent, and had set his heart upon bringing it out. Was all this hope to end? Hugh himself was not without thoughts on the subject. The sight of the king, the half smile with which he had been recognised, had stirred up his old desires into ardent longing. Once again nothing in the world seemed so grand as to have the power of fighting, and, if needs were, dying for him. The grave earnest face, saddened by troubles which would have overwhelmed a weaker soul, fired the boy's enthusiasm, where others complained of want of geniality. Then Sir Thomas de Trafford's notice had crimsoned him with pleasure and brought back Dame Edith's sweet face, with which it must be owned Prothasy's could not compare. He was sick of mouldings and ratings, and though the Cathedral always raised a longing in him to be one of the great brotherhood of workers who were making it glorious, he felt at times a dreary conviction that the day would never come, and then the old longing to fling down hammer and chisel grew strong, and he thought that had his father but been there he would surely have yielded to his longing. Wat was even more excited than he on the matter of this visit, begging hard to be allowed to go with him as far as the palace, and quite content with the prospect of a chance of seeing a squire, or a man-at-arms, or perhaps one of the pages who swaggered about with much contempt for sober citizens. With this hope he stayed outside the palace gate, where a crowd was collected to see the king. Hugh's heart beat fast, but he went boldly in and asked for John Wakefield. A sturdy, fatherly-looking squire came out, who smiled when he saw so young a visitor, and reported that the knight was in the garden where he had gone to look at the towers of the Cathedral. In parts of the garden the snow lay deep, and the pages had been amusing themselves this morning with building a snow man in one corner, but now were gone off to attend the king, and only Sir Thomas and a chaplain paced the walks. Hugh waited until they turned towards him. "Who's this?" said the knight stopping. "Beshrew me, but it is the monkey boy, as my little Nell persists in calling him! Knowest thou aught of him, holy father?" "Naught, gentle sir, more than that by his dress he should be apprenticed to the Masons' Guild--yes, and I have seen him in the Cathedral with Master Gervase." Beckoned to come nearer, Hugh made his reverence and stood bare-headed, while Sir Thomas questioned him upon what had befallen them: the shipwreck, his father's death, and his present position. "And thou wouldst sooner chip stones than be in my household? By my faith it seems a strange choice!" Poor Hugh! It was all he could do to keep the tears back from his eyes. "I would rather be in your household, sir, than anywhere in the world," he said in a choked voice. "Sayest thou so?" returned Sir Thomas loudly. "Then, wherefore not? Thy master would do me a favour, I make no doubt, and cancel thy bond, and it would pleasure my little Nell if I took thee and the monkey back with me, though I know not how Wolf would behave. Speak up, without fear, and tell me if thou art willing." Willing! Every longing in his heart leapt up and cried out to be satisfied. Willing! What would he not give for such a life! It danced up and down before him decked in brightest colours, while on the other side he seemed to hear Franklyn's ceaseless rebukes, and to feel all the weariness of unsuccessful toil. Willing! But then at that moment his eye fell upon the towers of the Cathedral, and from the building, faint but sweet, there came the sound of young voices chanting the praises of the Lord. And with the sound rushed upon him the remembrance of his father's words, of the promise he had made, of all the wood-carver's hopes, and fears, and longings! Could he disappoint him? He covered his face with his hands and sobbed out, "Noble sir, I would, I would, but I can not!" "Wherefore?" "My father--he would have me a carver." Sir Thomas was silent, but perhaps thinking to pleasure him, the chaplain pushed the matter. "But thou mayest choose for thyself now that thy father is dead." "Nay, holy sir," said Hugh, keeping his head down, "but I promised." "Nevertheless--" began the chaplain, when the knight interrupted. "Prithee no more, father; a promise is a sacred thing, and the urchin is in the right. Keep covenant is ever the king's word. What was thy promise, boy?" "That I would learn the craft, and he hoped that in time I might work there," pointing to the Cathedral. "But William Franklyn says I never shall." "Pay no heed to his croaking," said Sir Thomas heartily. "Work there, ay, that shalt thou, and when I ride here again with the king, thou shalt show me what thou hast done." He kept the boy longer, speaking kindly, and sending him away at length with the gift of a mark, as he said, to buy a remembrance of Mistress Nell. And when he had gone he turned to the chaplain. "That was a struggle gallantly got through," he said. "I would I could be sure mine own Edgar would keep as loyally to my words when I am gone. But the boy prince's example and influence are of the worst." And Hugh? He had done what was right, but right doing does not always bring immediate satisfaction--very often it is the other way, and we think with regret upon what we have given up, and something within us suggests that we have been too hasty, and that there were ways by which we might have done what was almost right and yet had what we wanted. If Master Gervase could have been brought to consent, knowing all Stephen Bassett's wishes, why, then, surely Hugh might have gone his way, feeling that he had tried to follow his father's road, and only given up when he found he could not get on. And yet twist it as he would, this reasoning would not come fair and smooth, and there was always something which he had to pass over in a hurry. Sir Thomas, too, had said he was right. Wat pounced upon him before he had gone far, evidently expecting that he would have a great deal to tell--perhaps have seen the king in his crown. At any other time Hugh might have held his peace, but just now there was a hungry longing in his heart, so that he poured all out to Wat--Sir Thomas's offer and his own refusal. It must be owned that he was disappointed that Wat took it as a matter of course, while agreeing that it would have been very fine to have ridden away from Exeter in the king's train. "Then with Agrippa in thy arms thou might'st have passed for the jester." "Gramercy for thy fancy," said Hugh offended. "That would become thee better." "Ay, it would be rare," answered Wat with a sigh. "I am such an oaf at this stone-cutting that sometimes I could wish myself at the bottom of the sea." "What made thee take to the craft?" "To pleasure my old mother. She is a cousin of Franklyn's, and thought I was a made man when she had stinted herself sufficiently to pay the premium. But I shall never be more than a mason," added Wat dolefully. "Now thou hast it in thee." "I know not. Franklyn has never a good word for aught I do." "Never heed old Franklyn. He is as sour as a crab, because he wanted the master to take his little jackanapes of a nephew as prentice. He would like to keep thee back, but do thou hold on and all will come right. Why, even I can see what thy work is like, and so does he, and so does the master, only the master will do nothing to touch Franklyn's authority, and so he holds his peace." "But you think he knows?" asked Hugh eagerly. "Think? How should he not know? He can measure us all better than Franklyn, and he knows, too, that I am more fitted for a life in the greenwood than to be chopping away with mallet and chisel." It was very unusual for Wat to talk with so much shrewdness and common sense. Usually he was addle-pated enough, caring little for ratings, and plunging into trouble with the most good-natured tactlessness, so that friends and foes alike showered abuse upon him. Hugh had taken it for granted that he would be the same wherever he was, never realising that his present life was especially distasteful to him, and yet that he accepted it without gainsaying. It gave his words now a weight which was quite unusual, for he seemed never to suppose it possible that Hugh could go against his promise to his father, while he quite acknowledged that the other life would have been delightful. All seemed to arrange itself simply into two sides, right and wrong, so that Hugh began to wonder how he could ever have doubted when it was so clear to Wat. In the house he found Joan shrieking because her father could not take her forth, and he was glad enough to make her over to Hugh, telling him that the king was to ride down the High Street to see the new bridge before returning to the banquet at the Guildhall, and warning him to take care not to allow Joan to be over-much entangled in the crowd. Then he put his hands on the boy's shoulders and looked into his face. "What said the knight to thee?" "He offered, if thou wouldst consent, sir, to take me back with him, and to bring me up in his household." "As I expected," said Elyas, gravely. "And that would content thee?" "It is what I ever longed for," said poor Hugh. There was a pause. Gervase seemed to find it difficult to put the next question. "Does the knight come here then to see me?" "Nay," said the boy wearily, "it were no use, goodman. I told him that I was bound by my promise to my father." "Ay, didst thou so? And what said he?" "There was a holy father there who would have urged me, but the knight stopped him, and said a promise was binding, and that the king's word was ever `Keep covenant.'" Gervase's eyes glistened. "It was well, it was well. Hadst thou been set upon it, Hugh, I had not withstood thee, but I should have grieved. No blessing comes from self-seeking. And hast thou," he added more cheerily, "hast thou forgotten the corbels thou hast to do for the bishop?" His words put fresh heart into the boy, and he felt that even had he followed his own longings it would have cost him much to leave Master Gervase. Then Joan ran in, warmly and daintily dressed, gathering up her little skirts to show Hugh her new long pointed shoes, all her tears forgotten, and her mind running upon the king and his knights. Her mother, though sharp with Hugh, would trust her little maid anywhere with him, and the two set forth down the narrow streets where was a throng of villeins, of country people who had poured in for miles round, of guild-brothers in their distinctive dresses, of monks from the monasteries of Saint Nicholas and Saint James, grey and black friars, Kalendar sisters, while mingling with these graver dresses were the more brilliantly clad retainers of the nobles who had accompanied or come to meet the king, most gorgeous among whom were those of the household of Dame Alicia de Mohun, who had journeyed in great state from Tor Mohun, near Torbay, and the trappings of whose palfrey caused the citizens much amazement. As many minstrels, dancing girls, and jongleurs had collected as if it had been fair time, and the bakers who sold bread by the Carfax were so pressed upon that they were forced to gather up their goods and remove them hastily. Joan did not find it as delightful as she expected. Not all Hugh's efforts could keep the crowd from pressing upon her, and he looked anxiously about for some safer means of letting her see the show. He spied at last a projection from one of the houses where he thought she might stand, and from whence she could look over the shoulders of the crowd, and there with much difficulty and pushing he managed to place her, standing himself so that he could both shield and hold her. There was no chance of seeing anything himself, for he was hedged in by a moving crowd, and more than one looked rather angrily upon him for having secured this standing-point before they had discovered its advantages. But Joan was mightily pleased. She was out of the press, and could see all that was to be seen, upon which she chattered volubly to her faithful guard below. They had long to wait, but there was enough amusement for her not to weary, and when at last she became a little silent and Hugh wondered whether she would be content much longer, a cry of "The king!" was raised, and heads were eagerly stretched to see him turn out from Broad Gate. Down came the gay train, larger than that of the day before, owing to the many nobles and knights, Champernownes, Chudleighs, Fulfords, Pomeroys, Courtenays, and others, who had come into the city, and very noble they looked turning down the steep hill between the old houses. But Hugh could neither see nor think of them, he was in so much dread that Joan would be swept or dragged off her standing place. The people were wild to have sight of the king, and those who were behind looked covetously at the projection. One or two pressed violently by Hugh, muttering that children were best left at home, and at last, as the cavalcade drew nearer and the excitement heightened, a wizened little man pushed the girl off and would have clambered into the place if a stronger fellow had not collared him and climbed there himself. Joan meanwhile was in danger of being trampled under foot, though Hugh fought and kicked with all the vigour in the world, shielding her at the cost of many hard blows on himself from those who were bent only upon pushing forward without heeding what was in their way. Joan, however, was not one to be maltreated without protest, and the instant she realised what had happened, she uttered a series of piercing shrieks, which caused the king and his train to look in her direction. Edward pulled up, and two or three of the men-at-arms, hastily parting the crowd, disclosed Joan clinging to Hugh, uttering woeful cries and prayers to be taken home. One of them would have raised her in his arms, but this was fresh terror, and whispering to Hugh, "Bring her thyself," he pushed them gently along towards the royal party. "Is the child hurt?" asked Edward hastily, and then recognising Hugh, who was red with shame at his own plight, and to have Joan hanging round his neck, the king smiled, and beckoned to him. Hugh bent on his knee as well as he could for Joan, and answered the king's brief questions clearly. Someone had pulled the little maid down, and she was afraid of being trampled upon, and Joan, convinced now that she was in safety, relaxed her hold and gazed from one to the other with eyes full of innocent awe. "She is a fair little maiden," said Edward, kindly, "and thou art a brave prentice. Ever keep on the side of the weak. Now, my lords," he added, "as the matter is not serious, we will ride to the bridge." The people cheered lustily as he passed on, and Hugh and Joan were the hero and heroine of the hour. "What said he? What said he?" "Blessings on him, he hath a kindly heart! There's many a proud baron would have paid no heed to a babe's cries, but I warrant me he thinks of his lady." "Where's the churl that pushed her off? A good ducking should he have." But, fearing this turn of the tide, the man had slunk away, and Joan, pleased as she was with the admiring epithets bestowed upon her, desired to be taken home, and made a discovery which moved her to tears, in the fact that the long toes of her new shoes, subjects of much pride, were hopelessly-ruined. She reached the house weeping, and her mother, flying out, rated Hugh soundly before hearing anything of what had happened, whereupon Joan flung her arms round his neck, said that Hugh was good, the king had said so, and the people were naughty. Prothasy listening in amazement could scarce believe her ears, making Hugh tell his story over and over again, and pouring it out to Elyas when he came back from the banquet. "The king called her a fair maiden, what thinkest thou of that, goodman?" she asked proudly. "And Hugh a brave prentice, what thinkest thou of that, goodwife?" returned her husband, with a smile. CHAPTER ELEVEN. AGRIPPA BRINGS PROMOTION. The king's visit was short, for the next day he departed, and Hugh with a swelling heart saw Sir Thomas ride away, and with him all chance of changing his condition. Still, he had got over the first pangs, was more content, and resolved that, whatever Franklyn might do, he would not be discouraged. He made another resolve. As has been said, the apprentices had plenty of holidays, and Hugh cared nothing for the cock-fighting, which was a favourite amusement. He liked football better, but he made up his mind that some of his holiday time should be spent in a stone carving of Agrippa. If it pleased Master Gervase,-- why, then, his hopes flew high. He worked hard at his design, keeping it jealously hid from all but Wat, whom he would have found it difficult to shut out, and who was profoundly impressed by his ambition. Agrippa was not the easiest of models, since to keep still was an impossibility, but Hugh managed to get him into clay very fairly, and in a good position. He was dreadfully disheartened when he tried to reproduce it in stone; it fell far short of his conception, and appeared to him to be lifeless. Indeed, had it not been for Wat, he might have given up his attempt in despair; but Wat's interest was intense, and he was never weary of foretelling what Master Gervase would say of it, and how even Franklyn might be compelled to admire in spite of grudging. How this might have been, it is impossible to say; Hugh was spared from making the trial, for, as it happened, just when Lent began Franklyn was seized with severe rheumatic pains, which made it impossible for him to work, or even come to the yard. Generally one of the other journeymen on such an emergency stepped into his place, but this time, for some reason or other, Master Gervase overlooked things himself. He made a very careful examination, and, for almost the first time in his life, Wat received actual praise. "Thou hast got a notion into thy head at last." Wat could not resist making a face expressive of his amazement. "'Twas thou hammered it there," he whispered to Hugh. "If I tell the gammer she will think all her prophecies are coming true. Now where's thy work? Hast stuck it where he must needs see?" "Ay, see a failure," said Hugh, dolefully. But Wat was too intent upon watching Elyas to have an ear for these misgivings of the artist. He fidgeted about instead of working, and got a sharp rebuke from the master for wasting his time; indeed, Gervase was so much taken up with seeing that the right vein of the Purbeck quarry was being used for carrying on the delicate arcades of the triforium, that it was long before he left the men engaged upon it and came to Hugh. His eye fell immediately upon the little figure. "When didst thou this?" he demanded, taking it up. "In holiday time, goodman." Long and silently the master examined it, and every moment Hugh's fluttering hopes sank lower. He was sure it had never looked so ill before. At last Elyas raised his head. "It doth credit to thine age," he said, warmly. "Faults there are, no doubt: the head a little larger than it should be except in fashioning the grotesque; the space across the forehead too broad. But what pleases me is that thou heist caught the character of the creature, thine eye having reported it to thee faithfully. If Franklyn saw it he would own," he added, raising his voice so that all might hear, "that thou hadst earned advancement. Finish this moulding, and I will set thee on some small bosses which Dame Alicia de Mohun hath commanded for her private chapel, and if thou wilt thou mayest work Agrippa into one of them." If Hugh were pleased, Elyas was hardly less so. He had been greatly desirous to find some excuse by which, without seeming to set aside Franklyn's rule, he might give the boy a chance which he considered he well deserved. He had understood something of Hugh's feelings when the hopes he had given up were once more dangled before his longing eyes, and the kindly master longed for an opportunity of encouraging him in his present work. The carving of the monkey was clever enough to have really surprised him. Franklyn's illness came at an excellent time, and no one could complain of favouritism. So he thought Oddly enough, the only one who did was Roger, the elder prentice, who had hitherto seemed quite indifferent. He was manifestly out of temper, muttering that it was enough to have the beast jabbering at you in life, without having him stuck up in stone, and for the first time doing his best in the small room the three apprentices shared to make things bad for Hugh. But Hugh was much too proud and happy to care for this, and he had Wat on his side, so that Roger's enmity could not do much. Wat's great desire was to be himself perpetuated as a grinning mask in the centre of a boss. He was for ever making horrible faces in order that Hugh might judge whether they were not grotesque enough, and poor little Joan, coming upon him one day with a mouth as it seemed to her stretching from ear to ear, and goggle saucer eyes, was so frightened that it was all the boys could do to quiet her. "If only I could round my eyes and yet frown fearfully!" cried Wat, making ineffectual struggles to carry out his aspiration. "There, is that better? What do I look like now?" "Like a grinning cat," said Hugh, bursting into a laugh. "Not a demon? Perchance if I squinted?" "Hearken, Wat, I will not spoil my bosses by such an ill-favoured countenance, but the very first gargoyle the master sets me to make, thou shalt be my model. That is a pact." "I shall?" "Ay, truly." "I will practise the most fearsome faces," cried Wat, joyfully. "There shall be no such gargoyle for miles around! Where do you think it will be placed? There is a talk of a new Guildhall in the High Street, and it would be fine to stare down and grin at the citizens. Then, whenever he saw it, it would remind the master of Prentice Wat. Art thou coming out on Refreshment Sunday?" "Where?" "I never saw such a boy as thou, thou knowest naught! Why, we make a figure of straw--Hugh, you could make it finely!" "What to represent?" "Nay, I know not--oh, ay, I remember me, it is Winter, only the country people will have it 'tis Death, 'tis so gruesome and grisly, and they hate to have us bring it to their houses, and give us cakes to keep it away. A party of us are going as far as Topsham and Clyst this time. Wilt come?" "'Tis naught but mumming!" Nevertheless Hugh consented to shape the figure, which represented Winter in the last stage of decrepitude, and Wat begged an old tattered cloak and hood, so that it really gave not a bad idea of a tottering old man, when about twenty apprentices, sinking their constant rivalries, set out in high glee to visit the neighbouring hamlets, and, when all was done, burn Winter in the meadows outside the walls, Agrippa, by common consent, of the party. They had great merriment, though not by any means universal welcome, for some of the country folk were so frightened that they closed the doors of their huts, and stuffed up the window lest the hateful thing should be thrust in that way. Others, seeing them in the distance, ran out with cakes and spiced ale, and even pennies, begging them to come no nearer. The boys were very scornful of such fears. "What harm could it bring thee, goody?" "Alack, alack, young sirs, I know not, but this I know, that come last March Snell the smith would have it into his house, and before the year was out, the goodwife, who had been ailing for years, and never died before, was a corpse. Here's as good a simnel cake as you will find for miles round, and welcome, but, prithee, bring the thing no nearer." Others there were, however, who made the boys welcome, and feasted them so bountifully that Hugh vowed he had never eaten so much in his life, and Agrippa grew to treat his dainties with scorn. They took their way at length back to the meadows, bestowed the cloak and hood upon a blind beggar, who, guessing what was going on, besought the charity of a few rags, and built a grand bonfire, on the top of which Winter was seated, in order, as they said, that he might be warm for once. There were other groups of the same sort scattered about the fields, and many elders had ridden out to see the fun, which reminded them of their own boyish days. Joan was perched in front of her father on the broad-backed grey, insisting upon keeping as near to Hugh's bonfire as the grey could be induced to go, and crying out with delight as the tongues of fire leapt up, and the brushwood crackled, and at last, old Winter's straw being reached, a tall and glorious pyramid of fire rushed upwards; the lads shouted, and the reign of Winter was held to be ended. Before Lent finished, Franklyn hobbled back to the yard. Hugh expected that he would have been very angry at finding him put to really advanced work, but it is possible that Franklyn was himself not sorry that things had changed without his having had to give way. He muttered gruffly that the boy was no wonder, but had improved with teaching; and he showed no spite, for though always strict with Hugh, he took pains to correct his faults carefully, so that his training was thoroughly good, and Gervase was well satisfied with the two bosses which were Hugh's share of Dame Alicia's work. Agrippa peeped from one, half concealed by foliage, and the other was formed of ivy and holly. When summer came he was resolved to follow the master's advice and study different plants and leaves, so as to catch the beautiful free natural curves. He had grown to love his work dearly, and to have high hopes about it, but perhaps it was the recollection of his father's last words, at a time when visions of earthly fame seemed dim and worthless, which kept him from thinking only, as Roger thought, of his own advancement and glory, and ever held before him, as the crown of his work, the hope some day to give of his best for the House of the Lord. The bishop had not forgotten him, often asking Master Gervase for the little prentice who meant to carve one of the corbels. "_Ay_, my lord, and it would not greatly surprise me if he carried out his thought," said Elyas, with a smile. And he told the bishop of his work for Dame Alicia's chantry. "He hath a marvellous fancy for his age," he added. "Brother Ambrose at the Kalendarhay complains that he is idle, but says he can do anything with his fingers," remarked the bishop. "He would fain he were a monk, that he might paint in the missals, but thou and I would have him do nobler work. Not that I would say aught against the good brothers," he added, rapidly crossing himself. "Everyone to his calling, and the boy's lies not between their walls. Keep him to it, keep him to it, goodman; give him a thorough training, for which none is better fitted than thyself. It is my earnest desire that proper workers may be trained to give their best in this building, as of old the best was given for the Temple. Thou and I may never see the fruit of our labours--what of that? One soweth and another reapeth, and so it is for the glory of God, let that suffice. The walls of the choir go on well, methinks, and in another year or two we shall have reached the Lady Chapel." "Ay, my lord." "And then there must be no more work done by thee for town or country. I claim it all. So thou hadst best finish off Dame Alicia's chantry." "No fear, my lord. The lady is impatient, and will not tarry till then. I shall have to go down in the summer to see after the fixing of these bosses, and of some other work which she hath confided to me, and that will end it." The good bishop, indeed, was inclined to be jealous over anything which took away Gervase's time and attention, and the stone mason had some difficulty in keeping his own hands free, his skill being of great repute among all the gentlemen round, and some of them being of fiery dispositions, ill-disposed to brook waiting. There was plenty doing in the yard, and often visitors to see how the work got on or to give orders, and, as Hugh was the only one in the house who could write or read, his master frequently called him to his aid when a scroll was brought from some neighbouring abbot or prior. At Easter they had, as usual, the gammon of bacon, to show widespread hatred of the Jews, and the tansy pudding in remembrance of the bitter herbs. Also another old custom there was, the expectation of which kept Gervase on the watch with a comical look on his face, and set Joan quivering with excitement for, as she confided to Hugh in a very loud whisper, mother had promised that she should be by "to see father heaved." She was terribly disappointed when he went out, and scarcely consoled by his taking her with him, and when at last he brought her home, clasping a great bunch of primroses in her little hot hands, she was not to be separated from him. "Why dost thou not go and look for thy friend Hugh?" "They might come and do it." "Perhaps I shall slip away and not let them find me at all." But the bare idea of this produced so much dismay, that Elyas was obliged to hasten to assure her that he would not resort to any such underhand proceeding. He turned to Prothasy with a smile. "An I am to endure it, I would the silly play were over." "Thou wilt not escape, goodman. Master Allen, the new warden of the Tuckers' Guild, has had such a lifting that he was fain to give twelve pennies to be set down again." "They'll not get twelve pennies from me. Richard Allen is an atomy of a man." "Ay, thy broad shoulders will make it a different matter," said Prothasy, looking proudly at him; "but be not over-confident, goodman, for King Edward is a bigger man than thou, and they heaved him one Easter till he cried for mercy and offered ransom." Nothing more was heard till supper-time, when, as Elyas sat at the head of his table, four stout girls rushed into the room, and, amid loud laughter from everyone and ecstatic shrieks and clappings from Joan, lifted the rough stool on which he was seated into the air, and swung him backwards and forwards. "There, there, ye foolish wenches! I'm too heavy a load. Put me down, and the goodwife shall give ye your cakes." "Twelve pennies, goodman! Thou, a new warden, wouldst not pay less than Richard Allen of the Tuckers?" "Ay, would I though." Whereupon he was screamed at and rocked as unmercifully as any boat in a storm, until between laughter and vexation he promised all that they asked, and the four girls went away declaring their arms would ache for a week. "Ye will not be able to make the dumb cake on Saint Mark's Eve," Gervase called after them, "and then, no chance for you to see your sweethearts at midnight." "No need for that, goodman," answered the eldest and prettiest, "we know who they are already." So many holidays fell at that fair time of the year that the master grumbled his work would ne'er be done. "May Day come and gone, ye shall have no more." But May Day itself could not be slighted, for long before sunrise the lads and lasses were out to gather May, or any greenery that might be got, and the prentices tramped through mud and mire, and charged the thickets of dense brushwood valiantly. Wat was covered with scratches, and a sorry object as they trudged home by sunrise, in order to decorate the house door with branches, and all the other boys and girls were at the same work, so that in a short time the street looked a very bower of May. And now the days growing longer and the country drier, there was less danger from travelling, and a general desire in everyone's heart to be doing something or going somewhere, or otherwise proving themselves to have some part in this world, which never looks so fair or so hopeful as at the beautiful spring season. Many of the neighbouring gentry rode into the city, and the ladies were glad to wear their whimsically scalloped garments, and their fine mantles, and to display their tight lacing in the streets instead of country lanes, as well as to visit the clothiers and drapers for a fresh supply; while their lords took the opportunity of looking at horses, playing at tennis, and some times, when much in want of ready money, disposing of a charter of liberties, to gain which the citizens were ready to pay a heavy fine. Master Gervase had many visits from these lords and knights, and more work pressed upon him than he would undertake. My Lord of Devon had pretty well insisted upon his carrying out some change in his house at Exminster, where some forty years later was born William Courtenay, the future Archbishop of Canterbury, and Gervase was one day cutting the notches in a wooden tally, made of a slip of willow--which was the manner of giving a receipt--and handing it to the bailiff, when a tall man holding a little girl by the hand strode into the yard. "It is Sir Hereward Hamlin," Wat whispered to Hugh. Sir Hereward Hamlin, it appeared, had a commission which he would entrust to none but Elyas, and very wroth he became when he found it could not be undertaken. It was evident that he was not used to be gainsaid, for he stormed and tried to browbeat the stonemason, who showed no signs of disturbance. The little girl also listened quite unmoved. "They say she is as proud as he is," Wat the gossip commented under his breath, "for all her name is Dulcia; and the poor lady her mother scarce can call her soul her own between them." "I hope the master will not yield," muttered Hugh indignantly. There was small fear of that. Sir Hereward's fiery temper and passionate outbreaks had caused him to be much disliked in the city, and Gervase would at no time have been disposed to work for him even had time been at his disposal. "It is impossible, your worship," he said coldly, nor could anything turn his resolution, so that Sir Hereward had to leave, muttering angry maledictions upon upstart knaves who know not how to order themselves to their betters. "I would he knew how to order himself to his own," said Gervase to Franklyn, "but he has never been friendly to the king since he was forced to restore the crown lands and divers of our rights which his fathers had illegally seized. If I had yielded and done his work he would have thought the honour sufficient payment." When the week of rogations was at an end, with its processions and singing of litanies all about the streets from gate to gate, Gervase told Hugh of a plan which mightily delighted him, for it was none other but to take him with him on his journey to Tor Brewer, or Tor Mohun, where he had to go on this business of the Dame Alicia's chantry. She had already sent serfs and horses to fetch the carved work, and with them an urgent message for Master Gervase to come; and as Hugh had done his work well--marvellously well, Elyas privately thought--he determined to give him the delight of seeing it fixed in its place, and the two set off together one morning in early June, with Joan kissing her hand from the balcony. The only pang to Hugh was the leaving Agrippa, but Wat was his devoted slave, and solemnly vowed not to neglect him, and, moreover, to protect him from Roger, who had developed a keen dislike for the creature, while Mistress Prothasy had quite forgotten hers. It was a fair morning, and the country, then far more thickly wooded than now, was in its loveliest dress of dainty green. The brushwood was full of birds, thrushes and blackbirds drowning the smaller notes by the jubilance of their whistling, while, high up, the larks were pouring out a rapturous flood of song. It was the same road along which Hugh had journeyed twice before, but how different it looked now, and how strange it seemed to him that he should ever have run away from the home where he was so happy! Something of the same thought may have been in Gervase's mind, for when they were not very far from Exminster, riding between banks, and under oaks, of which the yellow leaf was not yet fully out, he pointed to a spot in the hedge, and said with a smile: "'Twas there I found thee, Hugh, and a woe begone object thou wast!" Then, as he saw the boy redden, he went on kindly, "But that is all over and done with long ago, and now thou art content, if I mistake not." "More than content, good sir." "That is well, that is well. A little patience will often carry us through the darkest days. By-and-by show me about where thou wast wrecked. Ay, the sea is a terrible place for mischances, and for myself I cannot think how men can be found willing to encounter such risks. There is talk of building larger vessels and adventuring longer voyages, but 'tis a rash idea. What know we of the awful regions that they might light upon, or whether the vessels might not be carried too close to the edge of the world? Nay, nay, keep to land, say I. Those who must explore may travel there as Marco Polo hath done, and indeed there are many tales going about the wonders of the Court of the great Khan of Tartary." The road, as they journeyed on, became very beautiful, so wooded was it and broken, and with ever-widening views of water to the left, while on the right after a time they saw the ridges of Dartmoor, a very bleak and barren country, as Elyas told the boy, but now looking softly grey and delicate in colour. By this time they had reached the Teign, and here at Kingsteignton stopped to rest their horses, at a house belonging to the Burdons of that place, Elyas having done some work for them, and requiring to see it in its finished condition. Plain country people they were, and awkward and uncouth in manners, two or three boys on bare-backed colts riding up as Gervase and Hugh arrived, and pointing at them with bursts of laughter. The girls, Hugh thought, were little better, and the fashion of their garments curiously odd and slatternly. When supper--which was very plentifully provided--was over, they set forth again on their journey, getting into a most vile road, which lasted for some miles, but took them without adventure to Tor Mohun, although it led them through an extraordinary number of rocks and tors, and also between exceedingly thick woods. Gervase had never been there before, and was no more prepared than Hugh for the view which met their eyes when they came out of the circle of these woods. For there lay a very noble bay, well shut in, and with very beautiful and thickly wooded cliffs rising up on the eastern side. In a hollow of these cliffs and hills there clustered a few miserable hovels, otherwise it was a wild solitude, only so tempered by a kindly climate and the softness of the sea breezes that there was nothing rough or savage about it; and just now, towards sunset, with the sea like opal glass, and the colours all most bright and yet delicate, and the thorns yet in blossom, it was exceedingly pleasant to the eye, and Dame Alicia's house, though standing back, had it well in view. It was plain that she was a great lady by the size of the building and the number of retainers about, but they heard afterwards that these were not all hers, Sir William de Sandridge from Stoke Gabriel, and Sir Robert le Denys of Blagdon in the moor, having ridden over to spend two or three nights. An elderly squire took charge of Gervase and his apprentice, showing them the little room that was to be theirs, and telling the warden that his lady had been eagerly expecting his coming, and would see him the next day. Elyas asked whether he should find workmen in the chapel early in the morning. "No fear, goodman," said the squire with a laugh; "Dame Alicia is not one to let the grass grow under her feet, and I would not answer but what she may keep them there all night. Go as early as thou wilt; follow this passage, turn down another to the right, and thou wilt come to a door with steps, which will take thee there." The next few days were days of both wonder and amusement to Hugh. Dame Alicia was a fiery and impetuous little lady, using such strong language as would have brought her a heavy fine had she been an apprentice; ruling her household and serfs with much sharpness, disposed to domineer, yet with a kind heart which prevented any serious tyranny, and sometimes moved her to shame for too hasty acts. She was at times very impatient with Elyas, expecting her wishes to be carried out in an unreasonably short time, and that all other work should give way to hers; but the stonemason had a dignity of his own, which never failed him, and kept him quietly resolute in spite of sudden storms. He would not consent to undertake the carving of the pulpit, or ambo, which she wanted set about, declaring that he had too much already on hand, nor would he yield to Sir Robert le Denys and go to Blagdon to advise on alterations there. All, however, that he had to do at Tor Mohun he did admirably. It was a proud day to Hugh when he saw the bosses he had carved fixed in the vaulted roof. He worked all day in the chantry with delight, and would scarcely have left it had not Gervase insisted on his going forth into the air. Then sometimes he would go out in one of the rude fishing-boats, and was delighted to find a man who knew Andrew of Dartmouth, and promised to convey tidings of Hugh to him. At the end of a week, in spite of Dame Alicia's reluctance, Elyas and Hugh went back to Exeter again, and to the old life, which had become so familiar. CHAPTER TWELVE. WITH THE PRENTICES IN THE MEADOWS. Time passed on, weeks, months, years: slowly, though happily, for the children; ever faster and faster for the elders. Joan was still the only child, the darling of the house, but with a sweet, frank nature which was proof against spoiling. Roger had long finished his seven years' apprenticeship, and now worked by the day as journeyman; even Wat was close on the end of his term, but nobody seemed to think he could ever be anything except Prentice Wat, whom everybody laughed at and everybody liked, even better than they knew. Nevertheless, by dint of hard belabouring of brains, and a most impatient patience, for he was ever rating him for his dulness, and yet never giving up the teaching, Hugh had managed to hammer more out of Wat than had been supposed possible in the beginning of things. It was very hard to get him to take in an idea, but once in his head, he sometimes showed an aptitude for working it out which surprised the others, and caused Hugh delightful moments of triumph. As for Hugh himself, his progress was astonishing. If he still lacked something of the technical skill of Franklyn, there was no one, except Gervase himself, who could come near his power of design. The boy had an intense love of nature, nothing was lost upon him. When he was in the fields or woods, he would note the exquisite curve of branches, the uncurling of ferns, the spring of grass or rushes, and was for ever trying to reproduce them. By this means his eye and hand were trained in the very best school, and his designs had an extraordinary beauty and freedom of line, devoid of all stiffness and conventionality. He could never be induced to delight in the grinning masks and monsters which were the joy of Wat's soul, but when any delicate and dainty work was called for, it was always Hugh who was set to do it. His pride and delight in the Cathedral was scarcely less than the bishop's. Bishop Bitton was steadily carrying out his work in the choir, so as to complete the design of his predecessors. The choir was now entirely rebuilt, and united to the Lady Chapel, left standing at the end. The beautiful vaulting of the roof was in course of construction, and pushed on with all the speed that good work would allow. For one characteristic of the work of those days was that it was of the best. There was no competition, which we are accustomed to look upon as an actual necessity, but in place of this the guilds, which controlled labour and held it in their own hands, exercised a very strict oversight upon materials and execution, so that nothing which was bad or indifferent was allowed to pass; there was no possibility of underselling, nor of the workman being underpaid. The bishop had by no means forgotten his idea about the corbels. As the beautiful clustered shafts of the columns--of soft grey unpolished Purbeck marble--were raised to support the arches, above each one was built in the long shapeless block, waiting to be some day carved into shape. Gervase, also, was fired into enthusiasm when he spoke of them, and if Gervase, then yet more Hugh. Much of his handiwork was already to be found in the Cathedral, but this was of more importance, and there was even talk of the guild admitting into their number a skilled workman from France, famous for his skill in stone carving. One day, in the June of 1302, master and apprentice were standing in the choir, Hugh having just come down from work on the triforium. "I find my eye ever running over those blocks," said Elyas with a smile, "and picturing them as they might look, finished. To-day, at any rate, I have brought one question to an end." "What, goodman?" "I shall be offered my choice of which to work upon myself." "Ay?" said Hugh eagerly. "I shall choose that," he said, pointing to one about half-way between the entrance of the choir and the spot where it was designed that the bishop's seat should be. "There is something friendly and inviting in that pillar, it fits in with my design. Thou, Hugh, must take whichever they offer thee." "If they will accept me at all!" "I think so," said Elyas gravely. "'Tis true thy lack of years is against thee, but there is no other hindrance, and I believe they will trust me in the matter. How old art thou now, Hugh?" "Just seventeen, sir." "Already? But, yes, it must be so. It is all but six years since I stumbled upon thee in the street, a little fellow, no older than our Joan is now. Much has happened in the kingdom since then, but here the time has flown peacefully." Much, indeed, had happened to weight the last years of the reign of the great king. The second war in Scotland was over; Edward had married again, the Princess Margaret of France being his chosen wife. Parliaments had by his efforts become more frequent and more important, and the parliament of Lincoln, in 1301, marked an era in representative government, when one hundred and thirty seven cities and boroughs sent up representatives. Archbishop Winchelsey was still trying to enforce the papal supremacy, which Edward ever resisted, and certain disaffected nobles joined the archbishop. The king dealt with the two principal conspirators, Norfolk and Hereford, both firmly and leniently. Winchelsey he would not himself judge, but his ambassador placed the matter in the hands of the pontiff, who immediately cited the archbishop to Rome, to answer for his conduct. William Thorn, a monk of Canterbury, thus describes the next scene: "When the archbishop knew that he was thus cited, he went to the king to ask for permission to cross the sea. And when the king heard of his coming, he ordered the doors of his presence chamber to be thrown open, that all who wished might enter, and hear the words which he should address to him. And having heard the archbishop, he thus replied to him:--`The permission to cross the sea which you ask of us we willingly grant you--but permission to return grant we none:--bearing in mind your treachery, and the treason which at our parliament at Lincoln you plotted against us;-- whereof a letter under your seal is witness, and plainly testifies against you. We leave it to the pope to avenge our wrongs; and as you have deserved, so shall he recompense you. But from our favour and mercy, which you ask, we utterly exclude you; because merciless you have yourself been, and therefore deserve not to obtain mercy.' And so we part with Winchelsey." [_The Greatest of all the Plantagenets_.] At Exeter, however, as Gervase said, the time had passed peaceably. Two burgesses had indeed with much pain and trouble journeyed all the way to Lincoln, and came back with marvellous stories of the magnificence of the barons, the crowds of retainers, the quantity of provisions supplied, and the deliciousness of sea-wolves, now tasted for the first time. And, greatly to Hugh's delight, it appeared that Sir Thomas de Trafford, being there with his lady and children, applied to one of the Exeter burgesses for news of Hugh, and sent word he was glad to hear that he was a good lad, and doing credit to his craft. And Dame Edith despatched him a token, a rosary from the Holy Land, and the two sisters a gift of a mark to Agrippa, to buy him cakes. On poor Agrippa the years had, perhaps, told the most hardly. He suffered much from the cold winters, and had lost a good deal of his activity. But on the whole he had a very happy life, with no fear of ill-usage from boy or man, for he was as well-known to all the citizens as any other dweller in the High Street, and was held to be under the special protection of the guild of which Elyas was warden. That June in which Gervase and Hugh talked in the Cathedral found Wat in low spirits. He had been out of his apprenticeship for nearly a year, but this was the first midsummer that had fallen since he had been promoted to what might be called man's estate, which promised to require more sacrifices to its dignity than he was at all willing to make. On one point he had besought Master Gervase so piteously that the master had yielded, and allowed him to remain in the house. Another apprentice, one Hal Crocker, had been admitted, and of him Wat was absurdly jealous, so that Hugh sometimes had to interfere, though Hal was a malapert boy, very well able to take care of himself. But Midsummer Eve had ever been a time of high revel for the prentices. "And this year the bonfires will be bigger than ever," cried Wat in a tragic voice. "Alack, why couldn't the master keep me on as a prentice?" "What an oaf thou art!" "I care not for being an oaf, but I hate to be a journeyman, and have no merriment." Poor Wat! He did not so much mind giving up what Hugh liked best in all the day, the wreathing the doorways with fennel, green birch, and lilies, but to lose the joy of collecting the brushwood and piling it in great heaps, with much rivalry among the lads as to which was the highest and best built--this was indeed doleful. The meadows were thronged with crowds, among which he wandered disconsolate, giving sly help when he could do so without loss of dignity, until to his great joy he espied Gervase himself dragging a great bush to one of the heaps, upon which, with a shout of delight, Wat flung himself into a thorny thicket, and emerged with as much as his arms could clasp. Meanwhile other things besides fuel were being brought into the field by goodwives and serving maids. Round each bonfire were placed tables on which supper was bountifully spread, and when it grew dusk and the fires were lighted, all passers-by were invited to eat, besides the friends of the providers. The whole scene was extremely gay and brilliant, and between crackling of green things and chatter of many voices, the noise was prodigious. Wat was by this time as happy as a king, running here and there as freely as ever in prentice days, helping the smaller boys, seeing that there was no lack of provisions, and inexhaustible in his good humour. Several of Master Gervase's friends were seated at his tables, and among them one Master Tirell, a member of the Goldsmiths' Guild, with his wife and daughters. Hugh had noticed one of these as a very fair and dainty little damsel in a pale blue kirtle, who seemed somewhat shy and frightened, and kept very close to her mother's side. The merriment, indeed, grew somewhat boisterous as the darkness crept on, and the bonfires were constantly fed with fresh fuel, and certain of the younger of the prentices amused themselves by dragging out burning brands, and pursuing each other with shrieks of excitement about the meadows. Foremost among these was Hal Crocker, who managed more than once to slip by Wat before the elder lad could seize him, and whose wild spirits led him to fling about the burning sticks which he pulled out, to the danger of the bystanders. Suddenly, after one of these wild rushes there was a cry of terror. Thomasin Tirell, the fair-haired girl already mentioned, started up and ran wildly forwards, stretching out her hands, and screaming for help. Almost before the others could realise what had happened, Wat had sprung towards her, thrown her on the grass, and pressed out the fire with his hands. She was scarcely hurt at all, though sorely frightened, bursting into sobs and hiding her face on her mother's shoulder as soon as she was on her feet again, and trembling like a terrified bird. Her mother soothed her, while Master Tirell heartily thanked Wat, and Gervase looked angrily round in search of the culprit. "Beshrew me, but it was bravely done, and thou art a gallant lad," said Master Tirell, a portly, red-faced man; "St Loys shall have a silver chain for this, for the poor silly maid might have been in a sorry plight had she run much farther, and the fire been fanned into flame. Shake hands--what, are thy hands so burned? See here, goodwife, here is room for thy leechcraft." It was in vain that Wat protested, he was forced to display his hands, at which Thomasin gazed, horror-struck, with tears running over her blue eyes, and hands clasped on her breast. In fact, Wat was suddenly elevated into quite a new position, that of a hero, for the citizens pressed to the spot from all sides and heaped praises upon him. "'Twas nothing!" he kept saying awkwardly, turning redder and redder at each congratulation, and looking from side to side for a loophole of escape. Then, as Hugh came rushing up with an eager "What is it?"--"That mischievous loon Hal! If I can but lay hands on him!" "Hath he set anyone on fire?" "Ay, young Mistress Tirell. Nay, mistress, prithee think not of it--my hands will be well to-morrow--'tis nothing, Mistress Thomasin--Hugh," (aside), "get me out of this, for I never felt such a fool!" But there was no escape for Wat. Hal, having been caught, and received summary punishment from his master, was sent home, and the party sat down again, some to go on with Prothasy's good things, and Thomasin to recover a little from her condition. Nothing would serve but that Wat must sit down, too, between Thomasin and her elder sister, Alice, and there he was more confused than ever by faltered thanks, and grateful glances of the blue eyes. "How was it?" asked Alice, whispering across him. "Alack, I know not!" said the other girl, shuddering. "I felt something hot under my elbow, and looked down, and there was a line of flame darting up, and then I screamed, and then--" to Wat--"you came." "I was too rough," stammered Wat, "but then I always am a bear." "A bear! Nay, it was to save my life." "It was all past in a minute," said Alice. "But thy hands. I hope mother has bound them up skilfully. Is the pain great?" "Prithee speak not of it again!" cried Wat in desperation. It was curious, however, how content he was to remain in his present position, which Hugh fancied must be terribly irksome to him, Wat always finding it most difficult to sit still when anything active was going on. It made him fear that he might be more hurt than they knew. But the bonfires were in full blaze, and every great crackle and leap of flame caused Thomasin to tremble, so that Wat's presence and protection were very grateful to her. And to him it was a new experience to be appealed to and looked up to as if he were a man; he found it exceedingly pleasant, he had never believed it could be so pleasant before. Mistress Tirell would have him go home with them, having an ointment which she thought excellent for burns, and though Thomasin could not endure to look upon the dressing, Wat thought her interest and sympathy showed the kindest heart in the world. In fact, it seemed to him that no one ever had been so sweet, and when he got back late, he was very angry that Hugh should be too sleepy to listen to his outpourings of admiration. As for Hal, he had to keep out of his way all day, Wat scarce being able to withhold his hands from him, while to Hugh he talked perpetually of what had happened, and put numberless questions as to what he thought about it all. "She was a silly maiden," said Hugh, bluntly, "to shriek and run like a frightened hare." "Much thou knowest!" cried the indignant Wat. "Thou wouldst have had her sit and be burned, forsooth!" "Well, 'tis no matter of mine. Thou hast thy hands burned so thou canst not work, and had to sit up like the master himself--poor Wat! I was sorry for thee!" "It was not so bad," said Wat, meditatively. "When thou art a grown man, thou wilt not care so much for all that foolish boy's play. I shall have no more of it." Hugh burst into a laugh, as he shaped the graceful curve of a vine tendril. "What has come to thee? Who was mad yesterday at having to play Master Sobersides?" "I shall play the fool no more, I tell thee. What age, think you, might Mistress Thomasin be?" "Nay, I scarce looked at her." "I am going soon to the house to have my hands dressed." "What need for that when the goodwife here could do it?" "I could scarce be such a churl as to refuse when I was bidden," said Wat, hotly. Hugh stared at him, not understanding the change from the Wat who fled the company of his elders, caring for none but hare-brained prentices; and as the days went by he grew more and more puzzled. Wat's hands seemed long in getting well, at any rate they required to be frequently inspected by Mistress Tirell, and it was remarkable that he could talk of naught but his new friends. He had always preferred the carving of curious and grotesque creatures, leaving all finer and more graceful work to Hugh. But now he implored Hugh to let him have the fashioning of a small kneeling angel. "Thou!" cried the other, amazed. "What has put that into thy head? It is not the work that thou carest for." "I have a mind for it when my hands are well. Prithee, Hugh!" "Nay, thou wilt stick some grinning face on the poor angel's shoulders." "Not I. I am going to try to shape something like Mistress Thomasin-- well, why dost thou laugh?" "What has come to thee, Wat? Since that day in the meadows it has been naught but Thomasin, Thomasin! Now I think of it, perhaps the fairies bewitched thee, since it was Midsummer Eve!" Perhaps Master Gervase guessed more clearly than Hugh what was the magic that had wrought this change, for though he laughed a good deal, he kept Wat occupied after the first three or four days were past, and Prothasy undertook to do all that was now necessary for the hurt hands. It was remarkable that under her care they seemed to improve more rapidly than at one time appeared probable, so that it was not very long before Wat was able to handle his chisel again, though from the great sighs he emitted Hugh was afraid the pain might be more than he allowed. But now were no more pranks or junketings for Wat, no more liberties permitted from the prentices whose merry company he had hitherto preferred. He had suddenly awakened to a dignified sense of his position as journeyman, and Roger himself did not maintain it more gravely. Most remarkable, however, was the change in his appearance. It had always been an affront to Prothasy that Wat would never keep his clothes tidy or clean, she vowed he was a disgrace to their house, and that no others in the town made such a poor appearance. But now--now times indeed were changed! Now was Wat going off to the draper's to purchase fine cloth, and taking it himself to the Tailors' Guild, and most mighty particular was he about the cut of his sleeves. And as for his shoes, he ran to outrageous lengths in the toes--he who had always inveighed against the oafs who were not content with modest points! On the first Sunday on which Wat, thus attired, set forth, carrying a posy of lilies in his hand, and walking with such an air of conscious manliness as quite impressed those who met him, Hugh and Joan, with Agrippa, watching from the balcony, saw him turn up to St Martin's Gate, and both burst out laughing. "What has come to Wat?" cried Hugh. "Didst see his posy?" "That is for Thomasin," Joan answered, nodding her pretty little head, "for I heard him ask mother what flowers maidens loved, and mother laughed, and said 'twas so long since she was a girl, she had forgotten, but if it was meant for Thomasin he had best ask Mistress Tirell. And I know Thomasin loves lilies. I wonder why Wat likes Thomasin so much? I like Alice better. But he is for ever talking about her yellow hair and her blue eyes, and wanting to hear if I have seen her pass. Look, Hugh, what a fierce-looking man!" "That is he they call Henry of Doune, and Sir Adam Fortescue is stopping his horse to speak with him. And here comes Peter the shereman, and Nat the cordwainer. They say that. Earl Hugh has been quarrelling with the mayor again, and threatening to stop all the fishing in the Exe. Thy father is very wroth; he says the city bears it too tamely, and should complain to the king." "Hugh, tell me about thy corbel. Hast thou thought it out?" "I am always thinking. I see such beautiful lines and curves in my dreams that I am quite happy--till I wake." "Father says in two or three months there will be a beginning, and I don't know what to wish," continued Joan. "I want both of you to do the best." "There is no fear. I cannot match with the master." "There is no other that can match with thee then!" cried Joan, fondling Agrippa. "He first and thou second--that is what it must be." Hugh shook his head. "Franklyn and Roger." "They can work but they cannot design like thee," returned Joan, eagerly. "Roger will be mad to be the best, but--unless he steals a design--there is no chance of that. Oh, thou foolish Hugh, to make me tell thee this over and over again when thou knowest it better than I do!" CHAPTER THIRTEEN. BY PROXY. All through the autumn and early winter Hugh's thoughts were busy about the corbel work. He might have been impatient that it was not begun before, but that he knew the delay to have been gained for himself by Elyas, who had met with some opposition from certain canons of the Cathedral. They objected that it was unwise to put a work of such importance into the hands of a young apprentice. Every month gained, therefore, was in his favour, and the bishop remained his friend. The rough blocks were already in their places, ready for ordinary workmen to "boss them out," and by the end of February, which had been a wet and cheerless month, this was done. Gervase was very much in the Cathedral superintending; Prothasy complained that she never saw him, and even Joan failed to coax him out. He was like a boy in his longing to begin, saying, and justly, that he was for ever over-seeing and correcting, and got little opportunity of letting his own powers have play. To Hugh, more freely than to any, he talked of his design, discussing its details with him; but one day Wat, looking uncomfortable, pulled Hugh after him as he went down the street. "Talk a little less loudly with the master of what his _surs_ is to be like," he said. "Why?" "Because there are those who would give their ears to have some notions in their thick brains, and would filch other folks' without scruple." "Roger?" "Ay, Roger is ever conveniently near when there is aught to be heard, and he is mad because the men say thy work is sure to be the best--after the master's. So beware, for the master thinks all as honourable as himself. What's this?" For by this time they had got near the conduit and the market, and a crowd of people were coming along hooting and jeering some object, which, as they approached, turned out to be a man seated on a horse with his face to the tail, and a loaf hanging round his neck. "Why, 'tis Edmund the baker!" cried Wat in great excitement. "Look how white he is--as white as his own meal! This comes of adulterating his bread, and now he will be put in the pillory, and his oven destroyed. Which wilt thou go to see, Hugh?" "Neither. And what will Mistress Thomasin say of thy caring to see a man pilloried?" "Oh, Mistress Thomasin, she is too dainty and fine! Her sister is more to my mind. Come!" But Hugh would not. He left Wat, and walked down the High Street, and across the bridge with its houses and its chapel, and out into the country. A high wind was driving grey clouds swiftly across the sky, and now and then a dash of rain came in his face. The year was forward, and already buds were swelling, and the country showing the first signs of spring. Though so many years had passed Hugh could never walk in this direction without remembering his first coming to Exeter. How glad his father would be to know how it was with him! He was in the last year of his apprenticeship, and receiving wages of ten shillings a month, no small sum in those days. That he had got on in his craft and satisfied his master Hugh was aware, and now before him opened such an honourable task as a lad of his age could not have hoped for; what Stephen had longed for was about to come to pass, and Hugh knew that it was possible for him to bring fame and honour to his father's name. With such thoughts, too, necessarily was joined very deep gratitude to Master Gervase. He had never faltered in his kindness; had Hugh been his own son he could not have trained him more carefully, or taught him more freely, with no grudging thoughts of possible rivalship. He had given the boy of his best, and Hugh's heart swelled as he recognised it, wondering whether it would ever be in his power to do something by way of return. Poor Hugh! He little thought how soon the occasion would come! Then, as ever, he fell to studying the beautiful spring of branch and twig, and shaped and twisted them in his own mind, and saw them fair and perfect in the corbel, as artists see their works before they begin to carry them out, as yet unmarred by failure. Some of these models he bore home to study at leisure, and in the doorway met Elyas. "I was looking for thee. John Hamlyn and I have had our commission to begin, and we are to hear about thee in two or three days. Have no fear. The bishop and I are strong enough to carry the matter; beshrew me, am I not the one to judge who is the best workman?" "I may get the block ready for you, sir?" said Hugh eagerly. "That may'st thou not, for I have already spoken to Ned Parsons, and he is there at this moment. Why, thou silly lad, disappointed? Thinkest thou that seeing thee set to do the rough labour will dispose them to choose thee for the better? Nay, nay, leave it to me, and do thou perfect thy design, remembering that it is a great and holy work to which thou art admitted. And hark ye, Hugh, spare no time in the design, and be not over-bold. Take something simple, such as ivy with the berries. Do that well, and it may be a second will fall to thy share." No need to bid him be industrious. Hugh flung himself into it with such intensity of purpose that for the next day or two he could hardly eat or sleep. Wat, whose fate was also in the balance, took it with the utmost philosophy, said he should do his best, hoped that would turn out better than he expected, and snored peacefully the moment he was in his bed. Roger, who was certain to have the work, was as absorbed as Hugh, but silent withal. His nature was moody and suspicious, he gave no confidence, and Wat was not far wrong when he said that he was on the watch for what he could gather as to the designs of the others. Hugh generally drew his fancies on a bit of board with a stick sharpened and burnt. Usually he rubbed them out as soon as he had them to his fancy, but once or twice he had left them about, and was little aware how Roger had made them his own, or what exact copies were stowed away in a box. It was a week after Hugh's walk outside the walls that he saw Elyas come into the yard with Master William Pontington, the canon of St Peter's, who a few years before had bought Poltimore of Lord Montacute. Hugh's heart beat so fast that his hand was scarcely so firm as usual, and he chipped the feather of a bird's wing. For something in Gervase's face told him that he brought news. Wat was working in the Cathedral. Presently the master and the canon came and stood behind Hugh. Hugh's hand trembled no more; he cut with astonishing freedom and power, feeling himself to be in a manner on his trial. Yet the silence seemed to him to last almost beyond endurance. He could not see the proud look on his master's face, nor watch the change of expression from cold indifference to eager interest on that of the canon. His own work never reached his hopes or his intentions, and he was far more quick to see its faults than its beauties. Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Enough, goodman," said a voice, "I give in. Since I have seen this young springald of thine at work, I own thou hadst a right to praise him as thou hast done. Give him a corbel and let him fall to at it as if it were this capital he is carving now, for the bird and her nest are as cunning a piece of workmanship as I have ever beheld." "Thank his reverence, Hugh," said Gervase gleefully. But Hugh turned red and then white, and could scarce stammer out the words. "Ay, ay," said the canon good-humouredly, "no need for more; and I am glad thy heart is so set upon it, because now thy heart will go into thy hand, and, to tell thee the truth, that is what I feared might be wanting in such a young worker. Is that truly all thine own design?" "The other men would be more like to come to Hugh than Hugh to go to them, holy sir," put in Elyas. The canon, indeed, could scarcely believe his eyes. He made the young man show more of his carving, heard something of his father's skill, to all of which he had hitherto turned a deaf ear, and departed, ready to do battle for Hugh against any who spoke a disparaging word. "There goes thy most persistent opponent," said Elyas, coming back and rubbing his hands in glee; "'twas all I could do to bring him here, and he grumbled the whole way about putting work into inexperienced hands, and I know not what! Now to-morrow, Hugh, Ned Parsons will have finished his blocking out for me, and I will set him to thine. I shall give thee the first pillar in the choir on the opposite side to mine own. It is not so well in view as some of the others, but that should make no difference in its fairness. And here is Joan to be told the news." Joan shook her wise little head over it, and opined that now Hugh would be worse than ever in neither eating nor sleeping. But it was not so. He was very quiet all that day, and when work was over he and Joan set off for the Cathedral that he might look upon his pillar--with what longing eyes!--and picture it again and again to himself as it should be. "And there is father's--shaped," said Joan; "how long and slender it looks! I do hope that his will be the most beautiful of all, because he is older, and because you have all learnt from him, and because--he is father and there is no one like him!" "No fear!" said Hugh. "I have seen his designs. Not one of us can overpass him." "Mother is not easy about him, either," said Joan, who had sat down and clasped her hands round her knees. "He has pains in his head and dizziness, and he will not have the leech because he says he talks so foolishly about Mars and Venus, and father says he does not believe the planets have aught to do with us. Dost thou think they have?" "I know not," said Hugh unheeding. "Joan, hast thou heard where Roger's is to be?" "On the same side with father's, and Wat opposite, and Franklyn between thee and Wat. Tell me once again how thine ivy is to curl." From one cause or another there was a slight delay in the preparation of Hugh's block. Something hindered Ned Parsons, or he was slower in his work, or kept Mid-Lent too jovially; at any rate there was a check which seemed very terrible to Hugh, and Roger and Wat were both at work before him. Wat intended to carry out a bold design of leaf and fruit, but he vowed that something grotesque there must be, and if he might not put Agrippa there, he should have a neighbour's dog which had shown a great liking for him. It must be owned that Wat was of a somewhat fickle disposition, his fancy for angels and lily-bearing maidens was over, and Mistress Thomasin was betrothed to a rich burgess. It seemed likely that he would lose his heart and find it again many a time before the final losing took place. Meanwhile it was evident to more than the wife that something was amiss with Elyas. He was at work on his corbel, but heavy-headed and depressed, finding the carving for which he had longed a labour, and not really making good progress. Of this he was fully conscious, so conscious indeed, that a fear evidently oppressed him that his hand might have lost its power, and he spoke of it anxiously to Hugh. "I wot not why it is," he said, wearily passing his hand across his face, "but though I know what I have to do, I fail in the doing. Come with me to-day, Hugh, and see for thyself." And, indeed, Hugh, when he had mounted the ladder and raised the cloth concealing the carving, was fain to acknowledge that it was as Gervase said. Instead of the firm and powerful strokes which marked his work in all stages, there was a manifest feebleness, hesitation, and blurring which filled Hugh with dismay. It was only the beginning; nothing was there which might not be set right, but what if indeed his skill was failing? He could hardly bear to meet the questioning in Gervase's eyes. "Master--it--it--" "Speak out--speak freely," said Elyas hoarsely. "It is bad work?" "It is not as thy work. Thou art ill, and thy hand feeble; wait a little, and let the sickness pass." The other shook his head. "Nay, I dread to wait. Something, some fear of the morrow drives me on. Hugh, this on which I have set my heart--is it to be snatched from me? I see it before me, fair and beautiful, a joy for generations to come. I can do it. I have never failed before, how can I fail now? And yet, and yet--" He covered his face with his hands. Hugh, inexpressibly moved, laid his hand on his arm. "Sir, dear sir, it is only a passing malady. In a few days you will look back and smile at your fears. Come home and let Mistress Prothasy make you a cooling drink." But Elyas was obstinately determined to work while he could. Haunted by a fear of disabling sickness, unable to believe that the next stroke he made would not show all his old vigour, he toiled, struggled, and went home more disheartened than ever. Yet there were no absolute marks of illness about him, and Prothasy was neither fanciful nor over-anxious, and the next day thought him better. Work over, Hugh went up to his room to perfect his designs, for presently he was to begin. With his board and burnt stick he traced in full the ivy clusters upon which he had decided, carrying out all the smallest details, so that he might have it well in his mind before he put his tool to the stone. Satisfied he was not, but yet it seemed to him that the lines were fairly good, and it was broad and simple, such as Gervase had suggested. He had finished and was holding it at arm's length to search for shortcomings when he was startled by a cry, and the next moment heard Joan's voice calling wildly, "Hugh, Hugh!" Hugh dashed the board on the ground, and rushed towards the cry. He found Prothasy kneeling on the ground, holding her husband's head in her lap, while Joan, with a terror-struck face, was unfastening his vest as well as her trembling little hands would allow. "The leech!" was all Prothasy could say, and Hugh was out of the door the same moment, flying down the street in pursuit of the first apothecary he could find, so that they were back before Prothasy had dared to hope. It appeared that Elyas had but just come in from the Cathedral, when, without warning, he dropped on the ground, cutting his head against a sharp projection. He remained unconscious for many hours, and the leech looked grave, the more so when it was found that all one side was affected, so that his arm and leg were useless. A heavy sadness hung over the house, even Hal hushing his malapert tongue. The warden was greatly beloved by all; they were, moreover, extremely proud of his genius, and now--was that strong right hand to lie helpless! As the news spread some of the families near sent their serfs to ask tidings; the good bishop came himself, full of grief. "Truly, goodwife," he said to Prothasy, "this blow falls heavy on us all. I know not what we can do without him, he has been the very spring of our work, ever cheerful, ever ready, seeing to everything; in good sooth we have had in him a support on which we have leaned more heavily than we knew." Prothasy stood up, white and cold, and apparently unmoved. Very few were aware of the tempest which raged in her heart; bitter remorse for many sharp words, passionate love, sickening anxiety. She had often been jealous of the work which seemed to absorb Elyas, and many a time had flouted him for some kind action of which she was secretly proud, and against which she would not have said a word had she not known well that he would not be shaken from it. And the worst was, that so strong had grown the habit, that she was conscious now, in the midst of what was little short of torture, that were he to recover from his sickness it would be the same thing again. Joan little knew with what a weary longing her mother looked at her--to be a child again, to have no chain of habit binding her round and round, to be free! For a few days the works in the Cathedral were stopped. The bishop ordered this as a mark of respect to Gervase, the most self-denying mark he could pay. There were many things to carry out in the yard, and Franklyn, looking wretched, and perhaps, like Prothasy, bearing a burden of self-reproach, kept strict rule, and would permit no idling. Hugh, however, could be little there. After Gervase recovered his consciousness it was plain enough that he liked Hugh to be with him. They sometimes thought, from the wistful look in his eyes, that he wanted to say something, but as yet his speech was unintelligible. Wat was of no use in the sick-room; it was always impossible for him not to make more noise than two or three others put together, even when he was walking on tip-toe, and painfully holding his breath. But in the house he was invaluable, thought nothing a trouble, would run here and there, fetch the apothecary or the leech, or walk miles on any errands they could devise. When three or four days had passed, and hope had strengthened, Hugh found him one day belabouring Hal Crocker for having ventured to tease Agrippa. Hal took advantage of the newcomer to wriggle himself off and escape, making a face at Wat as he did so. "That is the most incorrigible varlet in the town," said Wat, looking after him wrathfully. "Now, is aught wanted?" "No. He is sleeping." "He will soon be himself again," said the other, joyfully, "and thou wilt set to work." They were both young and both hopeful. "Ay, so I think," returned Hugh. "And thou, too?" "Mine will not do the master much credit, though I have got a fancy for my dog. When we are all gone and forgotten, there will Spot be, gazing down on a fresh generation of citizens. Think of that, Hugh! What will they be like, I wonder? New faces and new fashions. Come up the street with me. The itinerant justices came this morning, and I want to know what they have done to the forestaller whom they caught half-way to Brampford Speke, meeting the people on their way to market Roger said he was to have two years in gaol." "Wat?" "Ay." "I wanted to ask thee. Thou rememberest the day the master was taken?" "Ay." "I was in our room, and had just drawn out my design on the board." "Ay, thy head was full of thy old _surs_. Well?" "When I heard them cry I ran down and flung it on the ground, and it is gone." "Gone! Oh, that thief Roger!" "Thou thinkest so?" "Thinkest? Who else? It was not I--nor Agrippa. Hast thou asked?" "Ay, and he was very wroth." Wat doubled his fists and made several significant movements. "That is what he has been trying for--to get at thy designs, thine or the master's. How couldst thou be such an oaf?" "Who could think of it then?" "He could, at any rate. He would think how to push himself to the front if he had to do it over all our dead bodies. Say good-bye to thy design, friend Hugh!" "Nay, I'll not bear it," cried the young man, angrily; "if he use my design I'll proclaim it through the town. And he works fast, and will get the advantage of me, because the master will not spare me while he is so ill. Out on him, what can I do?" "Change thy design," advised Wat, sagely. "To whom canst thou complain with the goodman ill? Franklyn ever favours Roger." There was truth enough in the words to make Hugh very angry with the feeling of having been treacherously dealt with, and of having no means of righting himself. When, the next day, Roger went off to the Cathedral, rightly or wrongly Wat and Hugh fancied there was an air of triumph about him, which was infuriating. Hugh could not be spared, but Wat vowed he would make out by one means or another what he was intending to carve. He began by coming up to him as he stood at the foot of the ladder choosing his chisel, and asking what was his subject. It took Wat rather aback when Roger stared full in his face and answered, "Ivy." "Ivy! What, the same as Hugh?" "I know naught of Hugh." "That thou didst then. Thou hast heard him speak of it a dozen times." "I have better things to do than to listen to idle prentice talk." "The master can witness that thou heardest." "Let him--when he can!" said Roger, with a hard laugh. "Now, out on thee for a false loon!" cried Wat. He might have said more but that two of the chapter were close at hand, and he flung himself away with a heart full of rage, and betook himself to his own corbel, on which he vented a good deal of force which he would gladly have employed in pommelling Roger. And this having a calming effect, he came to the conclusion that it would be best for Hugh to take no notice of the older man's perfidy. There was no proof that Roger had stolen the design, there was nothing except honour to prevent his using the same foliage, and with Gervase ill, an accusation might meet with little attention, and perhaps harm Hugh more than Roger. Wat groaned, and dug in his tool with a violence which it cost him no little trouble to repair. Perhaps Hugh was helped to patience by the circumstances of Gervase's illness. There was something so infinitely sad in this sudden check at the time when all the master's hopes seemed to be on the point of touching fulfilment, that such a disappointment as Hugh's must be comparatively trifling. He was young, he could wait. Besides, he would not count it as a disappointment, it was only a delay. Elyas was already better, and probably in another week he would be free. And meanwhile, if his design had been filched, he would work out another-- that he could do while in Gervase's room, and his hopes rose high. He had chosen the ivy because the master had counselled simple forms, but he felt as if now, with this taken from him, he was free to try a higher flight, and he fell hopefully to work with all the glad consciousness of power. Elyas was better, but his speech remained much affected, and as his strength returned, there were an evident restlessness and anxiety which were alarming. It became, indeed, clear that something weighed on his mind, and the leech showed more common sense than was usual with him when he pronounced that, unless the trouble could be removed, it might go hardly with his patient. Everybody, frightened out of their wits by this prediction, tried their best to find out what was amiss. Prothasy tried--with a patience which no one had seen in her before. Joan tried--laying her pretty head fondly upon the poor useless right hand. Hugh tried--and sometimes they fancied that his efforts came nearest to the hidden trouble, though never quite reaching it. Hugh spoke of the Cathedral works, of how Franklyn, Roger, Wat, and two other men had begun, of how glad all would be when Elyas himself was able to be there again. And then, fancying that perhaps he feared lest another should touch his corbel, he told him that the bishop himself had said it should wait for him even were all the others finished. A feeble--so feeble as to be almost imperceptible--shake of the head made Hugh impress this the more strongly, and then followed a painful effort to make them understand something, of which they could not gather the right meaning. It was terrible to Prothasy--almost more, indeed, than she could bear. The bishop heard of this drawback, for the warden's anxiety and distress had the worst effect upon his strength, and they began very much to fear that if they were not removed they might lead to another attack more serious than the last. He came himself to see Gervase with the hope of fathoming the trouble; and at any rate his visit gave pleasure, for the sick man's eyes brightened as the bishop stood in the doorway and uttered the words of peace. They could even make out a murmur of "This is kind." Bishop Bitton sat on the stool which Prothasy put for him, and set himself to chat about all that was going on in the Cathedral. Then he said-- "We think there is something on thy mind, goodman, which thou canst not explain, and which retards thy recovery. It may be that I can arrive at it, but do not try to speak. Here lies thy left hand. When thou wouldst say Ay, lift thy forefinger so, and for Nay, keep thy hand still. Now, first, is there something thou wouldst say?" The finger was raised. The good bishop nodded, proud of his ingenuity. "Hath it aught to do with thy spiritual condition?" No sign. "Or thy worldly matters? Nay. Thy wife? Thy child? Any of thy relations? Nay, to all. Then we will come to municipal matters. Doth anything there weigh on thee? Still nay. Thy guild?" The bishop persisted in a string of questions which brought no response, before arriving at the subject of the Cathedral, which in his own mind he doubted not was where the trouble lay. Indeed, his first question as to whether it were not so, brought the lifted finger, and a hopeful gleam in the eyes. Only Prothasy was in the room, Hugh having gone down to the yard. But, try as he might, the bishop found his task very difficult. They narrowed the matter at last to the corbel, but Elyas got restless and irritable with making efforts to speak and explain himself, and the bishop laid his hand finally upon his arm, saying kindly-- "Have patience. We shall reach it in time. Thou dost but fever thyself with vain struggles. Hearken. I have assured thee that we will wait months, ay, years if thou wilt, till God gives back thy strength. Is that what thou desirest?" No sign. "Nay?" repeated the bishop, in some surprise. He paused, and then bent forward. "Wouldst thou then have another take the work? Ay? And carry out thy designs? Ay, again. Goodman, were that not a pity? A little patience and thy strength may come back, the leech says--" But his words died away before the look which the sick man turned on him. He looked away to collect himself. "If it must be so," he said at length, hesitatingly. "Goodwife, you understand it as I do? It is no doing of ours." "Nay, my lord, it is clearly his wish," said Prothasy firmly. "And now," Bishop Bitton continued, "we must know to whom thou wouldst confide it. The other warden, John Hamlyn, ranks next to thee." But it was evident that Gervase would have none of John Hamlyn. "Walter Bennet?" No. "Well, it is natural thou wouldst keep it in thine own yard. William Franklyn, thy head man?" Still no. The bishop pondered; named two other skilled workmen, and received no assent. "Thou thinkest well of thy Roger? Nay, again!--Wat?--who remains, goodman? Thy prentice Hugh is too young." But to the good bishop's amazement Elyas, looking eagerly at him, raised, not the finger only, but the whole hand. "Hugh! Thou wouldst choose Hugh! Bethink thee that he is but a prentice, and when we gave him the work it was thought that thou wouldst advise and help him." Still there could be no doubt that this was the master's desire; Hugh and none but Hugh was to carry out his design, and carve his corbel. The bishop shook his head doubtfully, but he could not gainsay Elyas; there was so much relief apparent in his face, and his lips moved as if in thankfulness. "It shall be as thou wilt," he said gravely. He told Prothasy that she must use her judgment and send Hugh to his work when Elyas could spare him, and went away, doubtful, it must be owned, of his own wisdom in handing over one of the most prominent of the corbels to the youngest of the carvers. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. WILL ROGER SUCCEED? Hugh's first feeling was one of bitter and intense disappointment. He cared not one jot about the position of the corbel, what he did care for was the working out his own design, seeing that, as it were, spring into life under his hand. It was a very different thing to carry out another man's, for, however good the execution might be, that could not equal the joy of creation. He turned quite white when Prothasy told him, thinking the news should give him proud delight, but, curiously enough, Joan, who was in the room, child as she was, understood his feelings better, and the moment her mother left slipped her hand in his. "Alack, alack, poor Hugh!" "There go all my hopes," he groaned. "But it is for father," she urged. "Bethink you how grievous it is for him to have no hand in what he longed for." "I think of my father, too. I wanted to credit his name." "Nay," said Joan softly, "if he could speak he would say there were nobler things than fame." Was not that really what he had said, and was it not strange that she should repeat it? But then Joan ever had strange thoughts for her age, and Hugh's better nature came to his aid. "In good sooth, thou art right, Joan," he said after a pause. "Whatever it cost me, I will remember that I might not be working in the Cathedral at all were it not for the master. I will put aside thought of my own fancies, and carry his out with my might." There was something solemn about this promise, and both felt it so, Joan looking up admiringly into Hugh's face, and more certain than ever that--her father always excepted--there was no one like him in the world. Gervase gave better signs of mending after the bishop's visit, and his speech began slowly to clear itself, but they soon found that he was anxious for Hugh to begin work, and that the latter might now leave him to the care of Prothasy and Joan. He made Hugh bring his design to his side, and evidently wished him to go through it there and to show that he fully understood it. It was a conventional design, mixed with foliage, long, slender, and sharply cut, not unlike the lower leaves of the shepherd's purse greatly magnified, and depending for its beauty upon certain strongly marked curves. It had never seemed to Hugh quite equal to the master's other designs. There was much wonder and some jealousy of Hugh when Gervase's choice became known; but also general satisfaction, there being much competition in the matter, and no one being willing to give up his own chance of distinguishing himself by producing and carrying out a design which should surpass all the others. No one, that is to say, but Wat. He had the lowest opinion of his own powers, and thought it sheer folly to have been chosen for such a task, and he would very gladly have made over his pillar to Hugh, and faithfully carried out the master's drawings. As, however, this was impossible, he set himself to perpetuate Spot, and at the same time to keep a watchful eye upon Roger. Roger was the best pleased of all, for, since Hugh could no longer use his own design, it was pretty sure that no one would interfere with him. He was a first-rate workman, only wanting in imagination and invention; he had no fear but that now he had provided himself with the design, his corbel would hold its own with, perhaps surpass, all others. He even managed to smooth certain ruffles in his conscience by assuring it that since Hugh could not have undertaken any independent labour, no harm was done to him; ivy had always been in his mind, and he had but assisted his fancy by a means which had fallen in his way. Nevertheless, it was remarkable that he took the utmost pains to prevent Wat from getting a sight of his work. The carvings were always covered when left for the night, and there was a sort of tacit understanding that no one need openly display his work, although often one called another to give advice upon some doubtful point. But Roger used unusual precautions to arrange his materials and himself as he worked, so as completely to hide the carving from view. Wat pondered long upon this, and at last, coming home with Hugh one evening, he asked-- "The design which Roger filched, is it yet in thy head?" "Ay," briefly answered Hugh. "Draw it out then again." "Where is the use? I shall never have the chance of using it, and if I had, I could not now when that false loon has had all this time to push on with his." "Still--do as I bid thee," returned Wat obstinately. Nor would he rest until he had the design safely in his keeping. Then he carried it to Prothasy. "Prithee, goodwife, hast thou any place where thou canst bestow this safely?" "What for?" "It is Hugh's design for the corbel which he was to have carved: one he did before, and has never seen since the day the master was taken ill." "There are places in the yard without lumbering the house." "Ay, mistress, but I would have thee keep it where none of us, not even Hugh himself, should ever see it. He hath marked the day of the month upon it--see." She looked questioningly at him, then took the board without a word, and carried it away with her, while Wat rubbed his hands and pushed back the lathes of the window to whistle to Spot, who, as usual, was basking lazily in the sun on the opposite side of the street. Hugh worked with all his might. His chief difficulty consisted in the extreme anxiety of bishop and chapter, who were really terror-struck at the idea of so young a workman having so great a responsibility thrust upon him, particularly without the master being there to oversee. Constantly one or another was coming, desiring to speak with him, and urging him if he were in any doubt to seek counsel from the older men. When he answered modestly enough that he would do so if he felt he needed help, but that at present he found no difficulty, they looked the more anxious and uncomfortable, shook their heads, and said it was impossible that he could have the necessary experience. All this was sufficiently depressing, but Hugh found comfort in Gervase's evident faith in him. He was so far recovered that his speech had come back, and a certain amount of power in the disabled arm; he could get about the house and even listen to Franklyn's account of the work done; but his supreme pleasure lay in hearing Hugh's report of his work at what Elyas ever called _his_ corbel, and his chief longing was for the time when he should get down and see it with his own eyes, though that day they feared was far away. He laughed over Hugh's description of the fears of the canons, and managed to see the bishop and to assure him so confidently of his prentice's power to carry through the task entrusted to him, that Bishop Bitton, who had hitherto doubted whether it had not been the fancy of a sick man, was completely reassured, and tried Hugh no more with advice to seek counsel. The chaunter or precentor, however, was not to be persuaded. He was a sour little man, who liked to be in opposition, and one day came bustling up to the foot of the ladder on which Hugh was at work, intimating that he wished to speak to him. Hugh accordingly came down, though not with the best grace in the world, for he knew very well what he was likely to hear. "Young lad," said the precentor, pursing his mouth and throwing out his chest, "it appears to me that this task is beyond thy years." Hugh was silent, standing gazing down at the precentor. His face was much the same as it had been when he was a child, fair and ruddy, with light hair and honest grey eyes, which looked full in the face of those who talked with him. He was tall and very powerfully made; with promise indeed, in a few years' time, of unusual strength and size. "As it has been rashly, over-rashly to my thinking, committed to thee, I say nothing," the precentor continued; "we must bear the risk. But that should not prevent precaution. I desire, therefore, that thou wilt call upon the older men to counsel thee, and correct thy mistakes. From what I learn, thou hast done naught of this; thou art too self-satisfied, too presumptuous, and we, forsooth, must suffer for thine overweening confidence. See that thou act as I desire." Hugh did not immediately answer, perhaps finding some difficulty in keeping back hasty words. When he did speak it was to ask a question. "Reverend sir," he said, "who of all our guild would know best what I can or cannot do?" The precentor hesitated. "Thy master--in health," he added, with emphasis on the last word. "Before aught ailed him, he was set upon my carving a corbel." "Ay, but not a forward one, such as this, and not without his being here to overlook thee. This is another matter." "It may be so, reverend sir. In good sooth, I found it hard to give up my own work and take his, but since it pleasured him, and since he can trust it in my hands, I must work, if I work at all, without such let or hindrance as you would put on me. You say truly that it is a great task. I cannot carry it out fettered and cramped. If the Lord Bishop and his chapter hold that I have forfeited the trust they committed to me, I would humbly pray to be allowed to resign it. If it is left in my hands, then I must be as the other men, free to work undisturbed." Hugh spoke with great modesty, yet so firmly as to amaze the little precentor, who had thought he might meet with a boy's petulance, which he was determined to put down. He would have liked to take Hugh at his word and dismiss him, but this he could not venture to do, since the bishop, though he had had his fears, thought highly of the lad's genius, and would have strongly resented any such high-handed act. He found himself in a position for which he was quite unprepared, obliged to withdraw his commands, but he was not the man to do this frankly or fully. "Thou art a malapert springald to bandy words with me," he said angrily. "Thou, a mere prentice, to put thyself on a level with other men! This comes of being cockered and made much of, out of thy fit place. But I shall speak with the bishop, and I wot we shall see whether thine insolence is to go unchastised." He spoke loud enough for some of the other men to hear, and marched off, leaving Hugh very angry, though he had been able to control all outward signs of wrath. He went up his ladder again, hearing a chuckle of laughter among the others, and feeling sore and bitter with all the world. "As if it were not enough to have given up what I had thought of so long," he muttered, looking round at the corbel on the other side, which, somewhat to his surprise, no one had yet been set upon, "but I must be flouted at for failing when I have scarce begun, and set to ask counsel from--whom? Roger, maybe, Roger, who could not do his own task without stealing from my wits! Well, I have finely angered the precentor, and it will be no wonder if it is all stopped, and I am sent off, though I said naught that was unbecoming, or that I should not be forced to say again. I will tell the master, and he shall judge." The precentor was indeed very angry, and the first person he met, and to whom he poured out his indignation, was Master William Pontington, the canon, who had been one of the last to admit the possibility of the prentice being allowed to undertake the carving of a corbel. "This," said the precentor solemnly, "this comes of the bishop's weak-- hem--over-easiness. If he permitted such a thing, it should have been under control and direction, instead whereof we have a young jackanapes perched up there, and left to amuse himself as he likes, and telling me--telling me to my very face--that he is as good as any other!" It was well-known among the chapter that the precentor never omitted a chance of saying a word against the bishop, and the canon smiled. "The dean thinks as well of the lad as doth the bishop," he said. "My counsel is to leave him alone. If he be trusted with a man's work, we must trust him as to the manner in which he carries it out, and not fret him with constant restrictions. Beshrew me, but were I in his place I should feel the same!" So supported, Hugh was left very fairly at peace to toil at his carving, although even his friends among the chapter felt deep anxiety for the result, and tried hard to get peeps at what he had already done. But Hugh, having once suffered, was almost as careful as Roger to keep his work concealed, and as for Wat, he made a complete watch-dog of himself, staying the last of the workmen, and being one of the earliest to arrive. He cared far more for Hugh's success than for his own, and he was the only one who had seen the corbel. Somehow or other, however, perhaps from words he let drop, perhaps from glimpses caught of its progress, the report went about that it was very beautiful. Every day Gervase eagerly questioned Hugh as to what progress he had made. Once or twice Hugh told him of changes he had made in the design--told him with some doubt lest it should displease him that his apprentice should dream of bettering his work. But Gervase was of a rarely generous nature, frankly acknowledging the improvement. "I would I could get to see it; thou art right, thou art right, Hugh, that change takes off a certain stiffness. Do what thou wilt, I trust thee ungrudgingly, in spite of precentor or any of them. And they will have to own that we are in the right when they see it finished. Now, art ready for our game at chess?" Slowly, but surely, the doubts and anxieties as to the lad's work died away, and instead of them grew up an impression that when the day came for its uncovering, something of great merit would be displayed. The one most affected by all these rumours was Roger. His own was progressing well, and he was the more eager not to be outdone; moreover, he had injured Hugh, and this very fact made his jealousy and dislike more bitter. If, after all, Hugh should surpass him! Roger gnawed his lip, and meditated day and night upon some possible means of preventing such a catastrophe. He would have given a great deal to see the carving and judge for himself, and he made several attempts in this direction, always baffled by Wat's vigilance. One day he got hold of Franklyn, and asked him what he heard of Hugh and his work. Franklyn was a narrow-minded man, but honest, and he answered openly, that from a glimpse he had caught, and from what the master had repeated, he doubted whether the lad had ever done anything so good before. "He hath great power," added Franklyn musingly. "Ay, to work at another man's design!" said Roger, with a sneer. "I call that another matter from working one's own." "Marry amen! and so do I," said a voice, emphatically. Roger started as if he had been stung. He had not known that Wat was just behind, and he knew too well the meaning of the words. But it made him the more bitter against Hugh. Through those summer days work went on briskly in the Cathedral. All were fired with enthusiasm, partly from the bishop's example, partly from personal longing to distinguish themselves. The choir with its noble vaulting was completed, a splendid monument of Bitton's episcopate; but the corbels would be a prominent and beautiful feature in the work, and perhaps, with some prevision that his life would not be long, the bishop desired very greatly to see them finished. Hugh worked incessantly; he hoped before the summer was over to have brought his carving to an end. Gervase had been out several times, indeed his recovery was amazing, but now that matters had gone so far, he said that he should keep away from the Cathedral until Hugh's corbel was a finished work. Hugh had been so much absorbed that he had thought little of Roger, although he did not relax any of his precautions as to keeping his work hidden, and Wat and Joan were far more watchful guardians than he dreamt of. He had a great surprise one Sunday when they came in from St Mary Arches, and he saw a big man standing in the doorway, which was still wreathed with the midsummer greenery, and looked at him at first as if he were a stranger. The man, in his turn, stared from one to the other as if in search of someone; something struck Hugh as familiar, and the next moment he sprang to his side and seized his hand. "Master Andrew!" he cried in delight, "where have you come from? How long have you been here? Are you well? How is Moll?" The sailor put his hands on his shoulders, held him at arm's length, and looked him up and down in amazement, which soon broadened into a laugh. "I never thought to have found thee grown to this size!" he said; "thou art a man, and a proper one! Where have I come from? From Exmouth, and I would have sailed up in the _Queen Maud_ if your burgesses of Exeter had not been fools enough to let a woman ruin their river for them with her weir. I have had a wish many a time to know how thou fared, and Friar Luke--we are good friends, what thinkest thou of that? I never thought to be friends with a grey friar--gives me no peace because I bring him no tidings. Thy father? Ay, anyone could see it was that way with him, honest man! And Agrippa?" There was much to hear and tell. The warden took a great fancy to Andrew and would not listen to his going to a hostelry for the night, and Prothasy was pleased to see her husband interested. But the one who took most to Andrew, and who in his turn was greatly liked by the sailor, was Wat. Andrew vowed that Wat should have been a sailor, and Wat was almost ready to renounce everything in favour of the sea. Wat told him all about Hugh, and his work and his genius, and what great things were entrusted to him at the Cathedral, and promised to take him there the next morning as early as the doors were opened, and Joan, Hugh, and Wat must all go forth after the five o'clock supper, and show him the castle and St Nicolas' Priory, which he looked at with disfavour in spite of his friendship with Friar Luke, and the alms-houses of Saint Alexius, which pleased him better. All these, but more especially the bridge, made him own that Exeter was a very noble city. Hugh could not go to the Cathedral as early as the others the next morning, because the master wanted some measurements taken, but he was to follow almost immediately, and there could not have been a prouder showman than Wat. He scarcely let Andrew glance round at the fair beauty of the building before he was off to fetch Hugh's ladder and to set it up against the pillar. They were, as he intended to be, the first there, and the covering might be safely taken off, but he was so prudent that he darted off to watch, calling to Andrew to go up and unwrap the covering for himself. As he stood in the nave, it struck him that he heard a cry, but he set it down to someone outside, and when some minutes had passed, and he thought time enough had been given, he hurried back, expecting to find the sailor full of admiration. Instead of this he met him coming towards him, looking, as even Wat could not fail to see, rather strangely disturbed. He said at once and roughly-- "Fine traps you set for strangers!" "How, master?" "How? In placing a ladder which has been cut through. Nay, I like not such jests." "Cut through!" cried Wat, with such genuine amazement that Andrew looked keenly at him. "Beshrew me, yes! Didst thou not know it? The ladder gave way, and I might have made a fool of myself on the stones below, but that I have been long enough on shipboard to hold on by the very hair of my head. I gave thee a halloo." "I never thought it was thou, sir. Cut through! Then that is Roger's work again; he would have done Hugh a mischief, the false traitor! If only I could wring his neck! Let me see the place." He strode off, boiling over with excitement, and Andrew, with a whistle of some amusement, sauntered slowly after him. It was quite true. One of the rungs of the ladder about half-way up had been so cut where it ran into the upright that it must necessarily have given way under an ordinary weight, and Hugh, who would have gone up encumbered with his tools, could scarcely have avoided a bad fall. He arrived very soon, and the other men dropped in, Wat questioning them all closely, not, it must be owned, with any thought that they could have done such a dastardly deed, but with a hope of getting evidence that Roger had been seen near the ladder. In this he failed. No one had noticed anything, all the ladders lay near each other, and whoever had done it had undoubtedly exercised much caution and ingenuity. The men were angry. Many of them were jealous of Hugh, but not to the extent of committing a crime in order to incapacitate him; such an act, if proved, would be visited by the most severe punishment the guild could inflict. Roger himself came late, he cast a swift glance at the groups of men standing about in unusual idleness, and another, which Wat noted, towards Hugh's pillar. When he saw Hugh there, engaged on his work as on every other day, the colour left his face, and he glanced uneasily from one to the other, finally pausing before Wat, who had planted himself aggressively in his way. "Is aught the matter?" he demanded. "Murder or maiming might have been the matter," returned Wat grimly. "Now, maybe, there will be naught but the hanging." "Hanging?" "Of the villain who tried this wickedness. Canst thou give a guess who that might be?" "Thou talkest riddles," said Roger impatiently. "Let me pass to my work." "Ay," returned Wat, "pass. We others mean to find out who it is among us who filches designs, and cuts through ladders, and brings shame on all our body." Flinging a glance of rage at him, Roger pushed by, and Wat went off to meet the other warden, John Hamlyn, and to lay the complaint before him. Andrew's presence and what he had himself experienced in the matter helped to make it serious, and the crime was sufficiently grave for the warden to promise that there should be a guild meeting to consider it. "What evidence hast thou against Roger?" "He hath done Hugh other harm, sir," answered Wat after a pause. "He hath stolen his designs." "Take care, take care," said the warden warningly, "these be grave charges. How knowest thou? Hast thou seen his work?" "Nay, sir. Nevertheless I can prove it, if you will." "How then?" "When the master was taken ill, Hugh's designs were stolen, but I made Hugh draw them out again, and Mistress Prothasy hath them in her keeping." "But thou knowest not that there thou hast what Roger is working upon. Tush, man, these are but idle tales. Thou must bring better proofs." Wat was far more grave and sober than usual. "I wot not if we shall get proofs of this last villainy," he said. "Someone hath done it, and no other bears Hugh a grudge. But the other, thou, sir, may'st prove for thyself if thou wilt." "Prithee, how?" "Come with me, sir, and get the board with the design from the goodwife. Thou wilt see by the date--Saint George's Day--that the carving was not far enough advanced for Hugh to have drawn his from that. Keep it by thee, Master Hamlyn, and when Roger's work is uncovered, judge for thyself." "Thou hast not seen the corbel, thou sayest, and this is no more than thy fancy." "No more. Yet I will stake my fair fame upon it," said Wat, boldly. The warden hesitated, finally said the test was a fair one, and promised to come that evening and receive the board from Prothasy. This little arrangement partly compensated Wat for the failure to bring home any evidence connecting Roger with the ladder. At the same time a feeling had risen up against him among the other workmen, who felt that they were in a measure compromised until the offender was discovered, and Roger found himself treated to cold and doubtful looks, while even Franklyn appeared to have his confidence shaken. Hugh was the one who made least of the affair; he was so persuaded of Roger's ill-will that this fresh proof scarcely affected him, and it was he who induced Andrew--though more, it must be owned, for the credit of the guild than from any charitable feelings--to give up his plan of taking summary vengeance by administering a sound thrashing. They were all sorry when Andrew departed, carrying not only messages for Moll and Friar Luke, but a scroll for this latter, written in Hugh's fairest penmanship, and a marvel to the whole household. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. "HERE'S A COIL!" "Hugh, when will it be finished--truly? I am so weary of to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, and it never gets any nearer! Father is longing, too, for all he pretends to be patient." "It is finished now," answered Hugh, gloomily, "only I cannot keep my hands from it." "In good sooth! And art not glad?" "Nay. It is not what I would have it. I had such brave ideas, and they have all come to naught, as ever. Joan, will one ever be satisfied?" "I have heard father say something about `a noble discontent.' I did not understand it, but maybe this was in his mind. And I don't think he is ever satisfied with his own work. But thine is sure to be beautiful," cried Joan, brightening. "Is it really then to be to-morrow?" "Nay; the bishop has decided that as four or five are nearly ready, they shall wait to be uncovered together on Lammas Day. The best is to have the choice of the other corbels." "And which shalt thou choose?" demanded Joan securely. "There will be no choosing for me. Master Hamlyn has a beautiful design of pears and apples, they say, and Franklyn of vine leaves, and there is that traitor Roger, he can work. I shall grudge it to him, but not to old Wat. Joan, I verily believe that Wat's will be one of the best." "Hath he really stuck Spot up there?" "Hath he not?" said Hugh, with a laugh. "There he is, to the life, at the base, but 'tis so cleverly done, and he thinks so little of it!" "Lammas Day!" sighed Joan, "a whole three weeks! I shall get one of your tally sticks, and cut a notch for every day. I shall stitch a new coat for Agrippa, and take him with me under my arm. Where art thou going? To the Cathedral?" "Nay, I had best keep away from the Cathedral. I am going to speak with the bridge warden, for a mischievous loon has knocked away a bit of the monument to Master Gervase, in his chapel on the bridge, and they have sent up here for some one to repair it." Elyas had recovered so marvellously that scarcely any trace of his severe attack was noticeable except to those who knew him best. He did not mount on ladders, but in other respects had resumed work, and had been frequently at the Cathedral in consultation with the bishop, who was delighted to have his right-hand adviser again. Of course he might, had he so pleased, have seen the corbels, finished or unfinished, which were being executed by his own men, but he had determined to wait for the general view, and to give his voice as to the best with the other judges. Meanwhile, his interest was intense, and he could talk of little, so that Prothasy, between husband, child, journeymen, and prentice, had some reason for vowing that she could not get a sensible word on any subject from a creature in the house. And this excitement increased as Lammas Day drew nearer. Roger said little, but his pale face grew paler, his lips more tightly set, and there was a feverish light in his eyes which spoke of a fire within. Franklyn, who was one of the last, worked stolidly on, very much as he had been used to work in the yard, taking it as a matter of business to be got through fairly and conscientiously, and knowing the value of his work so well that he was not troubled with fear of failure. Wat was wild with conjectures, thinking most of all about Hugh, but also devoured by a wish that he had given more care to the beginning of his work, and ready, if other justice failed, to break Roger's head sooner than allow him to enjoy the fruit of his wickedness. The last of Joan's notches was made at last, and Lammas Day dawned, fair, and hot, and tranquil. Joan was up with the lark, looking very sweet and maidenly in her new blue kirtle, and seeing that the green branches were ready which she had brought in the day before in order to deck the house as soon as either of their own workers was declared to be first. "Saving Roger," she announced. "There shall be no decking for Roger." Her father rebuked her for her lack of charity, but he himself looked uneasy, for he could not forget that Roger had been one of his family, and treated as a son, and it pained him to the heart to suppose that he could be guilty of such baseness as that of which he was suspected. He hoped with all his heart that his work would prove him innocent. On all Sundays and holy days the officers of the city, the mayor, the sheriff, the aldermen, the wardens of Exe bridge, and at times the members of the guilds, were bound to attend the bishop to St Peter's Church. But this day had in it the promise of an especial ceremony, one in which the bishop took deep interest. The office of nones being ended in the Lady Chapel, the procession was to enter the choir, where six corbels, for the first time uncovered, were to meet the eyes of the spectators. And this being so, the usual number was greatly increased, and presented a splendour of colour which at this time can hardly be realised. The ecclesiastical dress was extremely gorgeous, and here were bishop, dean, and chapter in full robes, the mayor and aldermen not far behind in magnificence, with a great preponderance of blue in the civil dresses, and robes lined with fur (or vair). The guilds added their brilliancy of colour, the craftsmen wearing their distinctive dress, and as the procession swept round into the choir, the sunlight falling brilliantly through the stained glass windows, in themselves one of the wonders of the time, and as all the beauty of the choir revealed itself, the grey Purbeck stone contrasting delicately with the somewhat yellowish tinge of the walls, the scene was one of amazing splendour, and the burst of song which broke forth as the singers raised the psalms of degrees, told that it had touched an answering chord in the hearts of the people. Most of the great families of the county had sent some representative. There were Grenvils and Fitz-Ralffes, Greenways of Brixham, Bartholomew and Joan Giffard of Halsberry, Sir Roger Hale, and numbers of ladies wearing long trains, and gold-embroidered mantles, and on their heads veils; while the black or grey frocks of the friars from the neighbouring priories gave the necessary relief to colour which might otherwise have been too dazzling. Lammas Day, moreover, was the day of Exeter fair, which added to the concourse. But Joan had no eyes for any of this great assemblage. She could just catch sight of Hugh moving on in his place among the guild apprentices, and she could see that his head was bent, and knew that his hands would be knotted together, as was ever the way with him when he was feeling strong emotion. But even Joan, clasping her mother's hand, and sending her heart out to him in sympathy, little knew what a storm of feeling was surging up in the young man's heart. His father had never seemed so near. He understood, as he had never understood before, the wood-carver's longing to see his name famous; he understood, too, that higher longing which had moved him before his death. In this work of his Hugh had resigned the ambition for his own honour and glory, for he honestly believed that all he had done had been to carry out his master's design, and was unaware of what his own power had added. Nor was he going in with hope that even this execution would surpass that of the others. He knew his own shortcomings, they often seemed to him to be absolutely destructive, and he imagined all the excellences he had dreamed of distributed among the others. But at this moment it scarcely troubled him; what he felt was the solemnity and beauty of the scene, the glory of the building, the greatness of having been permitted to help in making it beautiful; he raised his head and a light shone in his eyes, for he knew that his father's deepest yearnings would have been satisfied. There were the six corbels, fair and fresh from the carvers' hands, the rich stone with its almost golden tints adding the charm of colour to the nobility of the work; there were the clustered columns, massive, yet light, and high up the glorious lines of vaulting. Right on one of the corbels--it was Wat's--struck a shaft of sunlight, and as the long procession crossed this gleam, all the brilliant colours were intensified, and the upturned faces of the little acolytes looked like those of child-angels. The procession did not pause. It swept through the choir and out of the side gate, still chanting the psalms of degrees, till the voices died away, and the choir was filled by those who had come to see Bishop Bitton's work thus nobly carried out. Hugh did not return--he could not, though Franklyn had almost dragged him by force, and told him that Gervase had asked for him. He shook off Wat, who begged him at least to come outside and see the horses and trappings of the Lord of Pomeroy who had come in from his castle of Biry, a castle much renowned in the county, and who was famous for his success in the jousts. Here was his coal-black horse Paladin, whose sire he had brought back from the Crusades, and the noblest mastiff Wat had ever beheld, and such a jester as-- But Hugh was gone. His heart was too full for speech with anyone. He had always been a self-restrained boy who, when deeply moved, liked to be alone, and sometimes vexed faithful Joan by escaping even her sympathy. And now he felt as if only the woods could shelter him. He loved them deeply, he went to them for inspiration for his work; he went now when he wanted he knew not what, for it was neither comfort nor rejoicing, only an over-fulness of heart. He could not have told whether he had failed or succeeded, for the perception of something higher than success had touched him, and it was this which drove him forth into the solitudes of the woods. When an hour had passed the throng had left the choir, and the bishop and chapter, together with all the officers of the Guild of Stonemasons, came in once more to pronounce upon the work. Bishop Bitton was strangely moved. He saw before him a work, not yet, it is true, complete, yet, for the length of his episcopate, marvellous; a work in which he had loyally carried out the lines laid down by his predecessor. His health was failing, and the conviction was strong upon him that not many years of life remained to him. He, too, like Hugh, would have thankfully passed these hours alone, but for him it was not possible; he must listen to the kindly congratulations of the dean, the half-veiled spite of the precentor, the unintelligent praise of others. But all the while his heart was sending up its thankful _Nunc dimittis_. And Gervase? His thoughts were perhaps the most mingled of any, and the most unselfish. To him the desire of his soul had not been granted. He had been forced to relinquish it to others, yet he could rejoice ungrudgingly, giving full meed of praise and admiration. And, indeed, the corbels were of noble beauty. From one to another the groups passed, pausing to note each characteristic, and so fair was each that it was hard to gather judgment. With one exception. Unanimously Hugh's corbel, or, as it was rather called, Gervase's, was declared the best both in design and execution. It varied from the others, in which the whole mass was formed of leafage, while this was broken by curved lines round which the foliage grouped itself, and nothing could have been more admirable than the freedom of the lines, and the grace and spontaneousness of the design. The bishop, after standing long to gaze at it, turned and stretched out his hand to Elyas. "This is a proud day for thee, friend," he said heartily, "for by common consent thy design is held so far to surpass all the others that there is not one can come near it. And thy prentice hath ably carried out thy views." "He hath done more, my lord," said Elyas, quickly; "the parts of the design which delight you all are his, not mine. Never saw I aught more enriched than my thoughts in his hands. There is none other to equal it, that I allow, but the credit belongs to Hugh Bassett, not to Elyas Gervase." The bishop looked incredulously at him, and others who had gathered round shook their heads. "'Tis impossible," said the bishop. "Bethink thee, goodman, the lad, though clever in his craft, is youngest of all the workmen. Thou hast ever favoured him, and maybe art scarcely aware how much thy skill hath aided him." "My lord, no one knows better than myself how much and how little." But Gervase, to his great distress, found that his protestations were disregarded. Some, like the bishop, believed that in his zeal for his apprentice, in whom it was known that he took more than usual interest, he did not remember all the advice he had given; others were perhaps willing to yield the first place to one who as a leading burgess was greatly respected in the city, and whose illness had raised the ready sympathy of all, while 'twould have been another matter to put a lad-- younger than any--there. Hardly one was there who would give the credit of more than an excellent execution to Hugh, though Elyas grew hot and fevered with his efforts to persuade them of the truth, and could scarcely keep his usually even temper under the congratulations which poured upon him, and which made him feel like a traitor, though a most unwilling traitor, to Hugh. The master of the guild, who was an old man and deaf, especially pooh-poohed his remonstrances. "I mind me, goodman, that when thou wast a prentice, and an idle one, I ever maintained that the day would come when thou wouldst do us credit, and thy father, honest man, he cast up his hands, and `Alack, Master Garland,' quoth he, `the day is long in coming!' `The day is long in coming,' those were his very words. What dost thou say? My hearing is not so sharp as it was--thy prentice? Ay, ay, the lad hath done well, very well, but anyone can see whose was the band that directed his." "Beshrew me if they will not soon persuade me that I am an old dotard, knowing neither what I say nor what I do!" cried Elyas angrily to his fellow-warden. "I shall hear next that I have carved the _surs_ myself! Hugh shall show them what he can do when he has his next corbel to carry out alone. I will not even look at it." "It is said that that he will not have," replied John Hamlyn drily. "Not? And wherefore?" "The judges maintain it should be given to one whose corbel has been solely his own work. I have withdrawn from the competition, having much to execute for my Lord of Pomeroy, and some say it should fall to thy man Wat, whose scratching dog is marvellously well managed, but, unless I am mistaken, the greater part hold to another man of thine--Roger. His design is most delicately intricate." Gervase was greatly disturbed. "I would have had naught to do with the matter had I believed in such unfairness," he said, with heat. "I would I had never asked the poor lad to give up his own work to do mine, nor hampered him with my design!" "Take it not so much to heart, goodman." "Nay, but I must, I must. 'Tis the injustice that weighs on me, and shame that Hugh should be served so scurvily. Roger! I shall speak presently with the bishop." He redoubled his earnestness, speaking, indeed, with so much decision, that the bishop was impressed. But, as he said, the feeling among the judges was very strong, and he did not himself believe that anything could be advanced that would turn them. There was, moreover, a conviction that Hugh was young enough to wait, and therefore, though a doubt might exist, they were opposed to giving him the benefit of the doubt. Nor could anything which Elyas advanced shake their determination. Something, it was true, was whispered as to an ugly story of a ladder, but the thing had never been proved against Roger, and except among the workmen had been forgotten. And the workmen were not the judges. Ladders were now procured, and the corbels were minutely examined. Nothing, it was freely owned, approached the beauty of Hugh's, and no other exceeded it in admirable workmanship. If both design and execution had been his, there could have been no question; as it was-- "The obstinate fools!" growled Gervase, under his breath. Finally the workers were themselves admitted, Wat coming in eager and triumphant, with the certainty that Hugh's success was assured, and Roger pale, nervous, glancing furtively from side to side, as if trying to read his fate in the faces round. Wat strode joyously to Gervase. "Where is Hugh?" asked his master. "Gone off, sir, in one of his solitary moods. But Mistress Prothasy is preparing a rare feast in his honour." Then, as he noticed Gervase's grave face, he stopped and stared at him. "Ay, Wat, it is even so," said Elyas, bitterly. "These wise men will have it that the _surs_ is my designing, and that Hugh hath but carved it. Heardest thou ever such injustice? I may talk, and they pay no more heed than if I were--thy dog whom thou hast set up there. And, by the mass," he added kindly, "thou hast done him marvellous well, and there has been a talk of thy having the other corbel." "I would not have taken it," said Wat hotly. "I had rather it had been in thy hands than in Roger's." "Roger, goodman!" cried Wat, starting forward. "Not that traitor?" "Peace, peace! I am as grieved as thou, but we know not that he is a traitor." "Ay, by my troth, but I do!" Wat persisted, "and so shall they all. Where is Warden Hamlyn?" "Nay, I know not. It is not long since he was here," answered Elyas, surprised. "What hast thou in thy mad head? Bethink thee, Wat, we do Hugh but harm to bring charges which we cannot prove, and though it was a foul act to cut that ladder--" "It is not the ladder, goodman," cried Wat, earnestly. "Thou wast ill, and we did not tell thee of the other villainy. Hast thou looked at Roger's corbel?" "Ay," with surprise. "Is it new to thee?" "Nay, I seemed to know every twist of the ivy. But I thought--my memory plays me scurvy tricks since my illness--I thought, though I could not call it to mind, that Roger must have brought it to me to ask my counsel. Surely it was so?" "Nay, goodman, when did Roger ask thy counsel? It was Hugh who brought it to thee, and, knowing Roger's evil disposition, we were ever on the watch against eavesdropping and prying. But the day thou wast taken with thy sickness Hugh forgot it, and Roger stole the design. And now! But he shall not gain his end," cried Wat, fiercely. "Goodman, where shall I be most likely to find Master Hamlyn?" "Go and ask his head man there. But what good can he do thee?" Wat, however, was already off, blaming himself bitterly that in the excitement of the morning, and his undoubted certainty that Hugh was secure of being first, he had omitted to remind the warden of what he held in trust. To add to his dismay, he could get no tidings of John Hamlyn. Each person he asked said he had been there but now, and must be somewhere close at hand, but he never arrived nearer, though he scoured the Cathedral from end to end, and brought upon himself a severe rating from the precentor. Then in despair he rushed off to Hamlyn's house, where he met the warden's wife and daughter setting forth to find out what was going on at the Cathedral. Even in the midst of his anxiety, Wat was suddenly seized with the conviction that Margaret Hamlyn, with her dark eyes and her primrose kirtle, was the sweetest maiden he had ever beheld, and she showed so much desire to help him, and was so very hopeful as to their finding her father, that before ten minutes were over he had not the smallest doubt on the matter. Nevertheless, nothing could be heard of Hamlyn. Wat met Joan, who had been waiting and watching for Hugh until she could keep away no longer, and was come to seek Elyas with a little bundle tucked under her arm, from which she allowed a quaint wizened face to peep at Wat. Her confidence that all was well for Hugh, and her pretty pleasure in bringing Agrippa to join in his triumph, were so great that Wat had not the heart to damp them by telling her of the untoward turn events had taken; he only said impatiently that things were not yet settled, and that Hugh was an ass to go and bury himself in the green woods instead of coming forward with the others. "Do they want him?" asked Joan stopping. "Nay, I know not that they want him," returned Wat, "but he should be there." "Then I shall go back and watch for him," she said resolutely. "Mother is busy with the supper and might not see him. I know where he is gone, and he must come in by the North Gate, and I will get the keeper to let me sit there and wait. I will bring him, Wat, never fear." But as the minutes flew and nothing was seen of John Hamlyn, Wat began to wish that he had done nothing to draw Hugh to a place where he would only find his own just meeds passed over, and evil-doing triumphant. Gervase stood apart from his friends; he was sick at heart, feeling as if he had been the cause of all that had happened to Hugh, from his desire to see his own designs carried out. Perhaps he had not yet regained his usual healthy buoyancy, for all looked black; he felt strangely unable to influence those with whom his word had always carried weight, but most of all he grieved for Roger's treachery. Presently there was a little stir among the knot of judges, and Franklyn, who was near them, came over to Elyas, and whispered-- "It is all decided, goodman." "For Roger?" "Ay. It should have been Hugh's to my thinking, for the lad hath surpassed us all. But they vow it is thy design." "Ay, they know better than I do," said Elyas bitterly. "See they are calling him up." Roger, indeed, was moving towards the group with an air which had gained assurance since he first came into the choir. The old master of the guild spoke in his quavering voice. "Of these carvings which have been placed here to the honour of God and His holy Apostle, it is held that thine, Roger Brewer, is the most complete. Thou art therefore permitted to undertake the carving of another corbel, and to make choice of which thou wilt for thyself." Somebody started forward. "Sir, it is no design of his; he is a false braggart, and stole it from Hugh Bassett." A great confusion arose, angry looks were turned on Wat, and the bishop moved forward and raised his hands. "Methinks, masters, you forget in whose house we be. That is a grave accusation. Hast thou answer to make, Roger Brewer?" "Ay, my lord," said Roger, standing boldly forward. "I say it is a foul lie, and that he is ever seeking to do me a mischief, and I demand his proofs." "That hast thou a right to require. Where are the proofs?" "My lord, I have them not, but--" Roger broke in with a scornful smile. "Said I not so? You see, my lord." In his turn he was interrupted by a grave voice, "My lord, the proofs are here. I but waited to see whether he would have the grace to withdraw his claim;" and John Hamlyn, stepping forward, raised a broad board so that it might be seen of all. "Will the judges say whether this design is the same as that carved by Roger Brewer?" There was a close examination and comparison, at the end of which the master, after consultation with the others, raised his head. "It is undoubtedly the same." "Now," continued Hamlyn, turning the board, "there is writing here, which you and I, my masters, cannot fathom. Maybe my lord bishop will have the grace to construe it for us." The bishop advanced, and in a clear voice read, "Hugh Bassett, Saint George's Day, A.D. 1303." "Wat, repeat thy story," said Hamlyn quietly. "I have kept thy proof safely, though truly until this day I knew not what it was worth." Thus adjured Wat, though finding it hard to keep down his excitement, told what he had to tell straightforwardly and well. He related how, having his suspicions raised, he had warned Hugh to beware of Roger, and how on the day of Gervase's illness the design had disappeared. That then it had come into his mind to advise Hugh to draw it again, to place a date upon it and give it into Mistress Prothasy's keeping. That she had held it safely until Master John Hamlyn took it from her, and that from the day of the date Hugh had never had it in his hands nor so much as seen it. This was all, but with the board before them, it was evidence which could hardly be strengthened, and if more were needed, Roger's white, fear-stricken face supplied it. There was a significant silence, broken at last by the bishop's voice. "Where is Hugh Bassett?" he asked. "Now, in good sooth, was ever anything so foolish as that he should have hidden himself as he hath done?" whispered the provoked Wat to his neighbour. But at that moment the circle of interested citizens opened, and Hugh, looking flushed and disturbed, came forward, while behind him were Elyas and Joan. "Hugh Bassett," said the bishop, pointing to the board, "is that thy work?" "Ay, my lord," he answered in a low voice. Again a pause. "Thou hast heard the relation of its keeping?" "Nay, my lord, I have but this moment come into the church." "Let us hear what thou hast to say." Hugh told his story, which agreed in every respect with that already related. While it was telling the miserable Roger tried to slip away, but at a sign from Hamlyn two members of the guild silently placed themselves on either side. Then Elyas stepped forward. "I speak with pain, my lord," he said, "for Roger Brewer is my journeyman and hath been my apprentice, but to keep silence were to sin against this holy place. My sickness hath made me oblivious, but the ivy is strangely familiar to me, and I mind me that Hugh ever brought his designs to show me, while Roger had no such habit. Moreover, although you have refused to listen to what I said as to the corbel carved by Hugh Bassett, I would urge upon you to consider it viewed in the light of what has now passed." He was listened to in absolute silence, and presently bishop, chapter, and judges retired to consult, while the others waited, and Elyas, whose kind heart was deeply grieved for Roger, drew off and knelt in prayer. The consultation was not long, the judges came back, and once again the old master delivered their judgment. "It having been proved that Hugh Bassett rather than Roger Brewer designed the ivy corbel, it is declared that his work standeth first in merit, and he is granted the carving of another corbel, and the choice of pillar." Had it not been church Wat would have leapt high in the air. No more was said, for it was not the fitting place in which to deal with Roger's misdoing, which would be the work of the guild, but he was removed by the two men who had him in charge, and those who were left pressed round Hugh to seize his hand. He had known nothing of the first acts of the drama, but his day in the quiet woods was no ill preparation for this moment of success. Elyas came up and laid a broad hand on his shoulder, and Joan slipped hers into Hugh's. "Come home and tell mother," she whispered. But when they at length got outside the Cathedral door a strange and unexpected sight met them, for Wat, who was a great favourite with the apprentices, had rushed out, and in an incredibly short time had gathered a large number together, and marshalled them at the door to greet Hugh when he came. There was no need to bid them cheer; the tidings that one of their number had gained so great an honour raised them to wild enthusiasm, and made them forget their usual rivalries; they pressed round the Cathedral door, and when he came out, literally flung themselves upon him, shouting at the top of their voices, and waving sticks or anything which came to hand; finally, in spite of all he could do, seizing and bearing him off in their arms, carrying him in triumph through Broad Gate out into the High Street, and joined by fresh boys at every turn of the road. Citizens ran out on hearing the tumult, the watchmen caught up their staves and hurried forth, the Pomeroy and Ralegh retainers cheered them on, all the windows and balconies were quickly filled with women who laughed and waved their hands, and the mayor himself, so far from showing any anger, stood in a balcony and flung down largesse upon the shouting lads. Nothing would suffice, but to carry Hugh all down the steep street to Exe bridge, where, near seven years before, he had come in under such different circumstances, and, hot and shamefaced as he was, he could not but think of this, and scarce knew where he was for the thinking. Hot he might be, but there was no persuading them, to put him down, and up the street they went again, cheering still, and between the old houses, until they stopped at Gervase's door, where Elyas himself stood with Prothasy, and Joan clapping her hands with all her might. And there was more shouting and rejoicing when Elyas bid all the prentices to a feast in the meadows on St Bartholomew's Day, his own house not having space for such a number. They separated at last, and reluctantly, after such a shrill burst of cheering as rang through the old city, and Hugh, who felt as if it were all some strange exciting dream, was thankful to find himself alone with those good friends to whom he owed his present fortune. Elyas put his hands on his shoulders, and looked into the clear eyes, now on a level with his own. "Thy father could not have been more glad than I," he said simply. "I would I could thank thee, goodman," said Hugh, in an unsteady voice, "for all comes from thee." "Nay, neither me nor thee, but from One Who gave the gift. And thou-- thou hast kept covenant." "I looked not for anything like this." "Doubtless it hath been a little upsetting," said Elyas, with a smile, "but it hath made Wat as happy as a king. Never was a more faithful friend, or that had less thought for himself. I verily believe he never cared for his own work; he did his best simply, and there left it. 'Tis a rare nature. Alack, alack, I would poor Roger had been as free from self-seeking!" "Goodman," said Hugh, hesitatingly, "hast thou heard aught of Roger?" "I went to the Guildhall from the Cathedral and saw him. I might have been a stranger and an enemy," Elyas added, sighing, "for all I could get from him." "Might I speak for him? Would they hearken? I love him not, in good sooth," said Hugh frankly, "and I know not what I might have felt if he had succeeded; but 'tis easy to forgive when he hath done no one harm but himself. Maybe, sir, he might do better if he had another chance?" "That may not be here," said the warden, gravely. "Some were for flinging him into gaol, but they hearkened to me so far that he will be but heavily fined, and sent from the city, never to return. Speak not of him. I would rather not grieve on this day. But first, before I hand thee over to Joan, who doth not yet feel she hath had her share, first tell me which corbel thou wilt choose? I counsel the one opposite to that thou hast finished. There is no fairer position for showing the beauty of thy work." But Hugh shook his head. "Nay, I have set my heart upon another." "And which is that?" "It is the first which was allotted to me, that on the left as you enter the choir, where the rood-screen is to stand." "That!" said Gervase, disappointed. "Bethink thee, Hugh, it is not so well seen as any of the others." "Thou hast ever taught us, goodman, that we should give as good work to the parts which are not seen as to the rest," said Hugh, mischievously. "But, in truth, I have thought so much of that corbel, and let my fancies play about it so long, that it seems more mine own than any. Let me have it." "Nay, thou must choose for thyself, for none of us can gainsay thee." "And the other should be kept for thee. I know the guild would have thy work before any man's." Gervase's eyes brightened. "With our Lady and the Blessed Babe--I know not, I know not, I would liefer have it in thy hands." "I hold to my own." "Father, father," cried Joan, running in, "mother bids me ask whether thou hast told Nicholas Harding to come and help her with the tables? And she saith Hal will drive her demented unless thou find some errand for him to do." Such a feast as Prothasy had prepared! And to it came John Hamlyn, his wife, and daughter, and Wat, contriving to sit next to Mistress Margaret, was able to tell her the whole tale, which seemed to her most marvellously interesting. Also she questioned him much about his own corbel, and was amazed to think that it should have been a neighbour's dog which he had set up, and would fain see for herself the unconscious Spot who had been thus immortalised. And afterwards she spoke very prettily to Wat's mother, who had come in from her farm, a proud woman to think what her son had done, and gazing at him as if no mother had ever another such. But the happiest perhaps was Joan. With Agrippa in her arms, she sat next to Hugh, and could whisper to him from time to time, and listen to what was said, and rejoice with all her faithful little heart. Never apprentice had won such honour, and never, said Elyas strongly to John Hamlyn, could one deserve it better. And in the midst of the feast came a messenger bringing Hugh a gift from the bishop, a reliquary of goodly workmanship. Such a day, as Joan said that evening with a sigh of happiness, had never been before! CHAPTER SIXTEEN. THE SECOND CORBEL. There is little more to tell. My story is like a web of knitting, and now the point is reached where the stitches have to be cast off, and the work left. It has been no more than a tale of apprenticeship, and Hugh's man's life was but just beginning. Yet those years are enough to tell us what the rest was likely to be. For months he toiled at the second corbel, and in these months passed out of his apprenticeship and became journeyman. Master Gervase was wont to say that the lad was in a fair way to be spoilt, for the story of that Lammas Day got abroad, as stories did in those days, carried back by the Pomeroy retainers to Biry, and by the Raleghs to Street Ralegh, and caught at by the wandering minstrels and story-tellers, who were the great bearers of news about the country, and ever on the watch for some gossip which they might retail at fair or castle, where it travelled from the buttery hatch to my lady's closet, and lost naught in the telling. The town had been crowded by these strangers at the time of the corbel incident, the annual fair being held on Lammas Day, so that there was fine opportunity for spreading of news; and when the families from the great houses in the county came into the city, they must needs go to the Cathedral to see the carving which had caused so much stir, and those who had work of their own going on would have had Hugh Bassett to carry it out. But nothing would draw him from the corbel. "I marvel at the lad," said John Hamlyn one day to his fellow-warden; "he seems to care little for the over-praise he gets. 'Twould turn my Ralph's head." "His father's training has borne fruit," answered Elyas. "Hugh gave up his own fancies, and held by what he had learnt to be duty; now he yet thinks of the duty, and not of the glory to himself. He is as good to me as any son could be." "And may be thy son in good earnest?" "With all my heart," said Gervase cheerfully. "But that must bide awhile." Hamlyn looked him up and down. "Thou art as hale, goodman, as ever thou wert before thy sickness." "Ay, thank God! When the spring comes and the cold of winter is over I shall fall to work upon the _surs_." "Best make speed, for the old master can hardly last much longer, and it will not become thy dignity to be seen on a ladder when thou art in his place." "Tut, tut, man! were I King of England it would become me to work for the King of kings. But this is idle telling. Wilt come into the yard? That malapert Hal is like to drive William Franklyn out of his wits with his idle pranks, and I am ever needed to keep the peace." "And yet in sooth, goodman, thy prentices do thee credit--I would mine were of the same value," said Hamlyn, with a sigh and a thought of his son Ralph. "I really believe their thick pates can hold naught but the desire to break those of others. Now there is that man of thine, Wat-- he," Hamlyn paused, "he is a likely fellow?" "As good a lad as ever breathed," returned Gervase heartily. Then he looked at the other warden and smiled. "Thou didst fling out something just now of my having a son in Hugh. Maybe thou hast a thought of finding a son thyself and more quickly?" "I'd as lief know what like the lad is," said Hamlyn gruffly. "He greatly favours our house, and on Holy Cross Day brought nuts enough to Madge to feed a wood full of squirrels." "He is a boy in his play yet," answered Elyas, "but I have marked him closely, and he hath in him the making of a true man. I tell thee, neighbour, thou wouldst do well for thy daughter's happiness to give her Wat for a husband." Hamlyn protested that it had not come to this yet, but it was easy to see that he was well inclined to the young stonemason, and that if Wat's fancy lasted, which at this time appeared probable, he might win pretty Margaret for his wife. There was a squire in my Lord of Devon's meine who was desirous to marry her, but Hamlyn had no liking for what he called a roystering cut-throat trade, much preferring one of his own craft, even though his daughter might have aspired to a richer suitor. Wat's simple loyalty to his friend and total absence of self-seeking had struck them all, and his corbel was greatly admired, so that the Prideaux family in seeking someone to carve a rich monument had expressed a hope that he would be chosen for the work. Of Roger nothing had been heard. He had gone forth, forbidden to return, and though Gervase's kind heart had yearned for a word which might show repentance, and give him an excuse for helping him, the word never came. The winter was a sharp one, so sharp that Hugh's carving was somewhat hindered by the extreme cold. And just at the New Year Agrippa died. He had grown old and feeble, no longer able to swing about from rafter to beam as in old days, most content to lie near the fire, wrapped in a piece of warm scarlet Flemish wool which they provided for him, and in his old age showing yet more markedly his likes and dislikes. Never had he done more than tolerate Prothasy, and now, when she came near him, he chattered and scolded with all his weak might. Franklyn, one or two of the men, and prentice Hal he detested equally, but there was a new prentice, Gilbert, whom he permitted to stroke him. Joan he loved, saving always when Hugh was near. For him he had a passionate devotion which was pathetic. When he was in the room he was never content unless Hugh took him up, and he was jealous even of Joan if she withdrew Hugh's attention. Yet in spite of his spoilt and irritable ways all the household cared for the quaint little creature, and it was Gervase himself who came down to the Cathedral, when they were singing nones in the Lady Chapel, to fetch Hugh, who, his fingers having grown stiff over his corbel with the bitter cold, had given it up for the day, and was working under Franklyn's directions at some of the larger work which yet remained to be finished in the choir. "Joan would have thee home to see Agrippa," said the warden, laying his hand as he loved to do on Hugh's shoulder; "the poor beast is sorely sick--unto death, if I mistake not." It did not take Hugh many minutes to dash through St Martin's Gate into the High Street and his master's house. Joan called to him the moment she heard his voice, and he found her in much distress, kneeling close to the fire on which she had piled as many logs as she could. There under his scarlet covering lay poor Agrippa at the last gasp, but still able to recognise his master with the old look of love, and the stretching forth his poor little shrunk paw. Hugh flung himself down by his side, heaping endearments upon him, while Joan held back lest her presence by Hugh should stir the little creature's anger. It was over the next moment. One loving piteous look, one movement as though to raise himself towards his master, and the eyes glazed and the limbs stiffened, and Hugh's faithful little companion for more than seven years was gone. Joan sobbed bitterly, and Hugh was more moved than he would have cared to let anyone but her see. They both knelt on by his side, till Hugh rose and drew her to her feet. "Poor Agrippa! He has had a happy home, thanks to thee. Thou wert his first protector, Joan." She looked up and smiled through her tears. "When thou wast so frighted at mother that thou must needs break thy indentures and run away! Father hath often told me of it. 'Twas well it was father, and that he was able to keep it from coming to the guild. But to think thou didst not know mother better." She was a wise little maiden, capable as was Prothasy, and with as warm affections, but a gentler manner of showing them. And from her father she had inherited his gift of imagination and love of beauty, so that in the greenwood not Hugh himself had a quicker eye for the loveliness of interlacing trees, or the fancies of the foliage, and as he sometimes told her, she should have been a boy and a stone-carver. The art of painting, save in missals, can scarcely be said to have existed in those days, when all beautiful materials, glow of colour, and picturesqueness of line, were at its disposal, and art was forced to take refuge in architecture, which it carried to its noblest height, or, with women, in exquisite embroideries. Joan had smiled, but she was very sad for Agrippa, and nothing would comfort her but hearing of Hugh's progress with his _surs_, when 'twould be finished and she might see it. "It should have been done by now," said Hugh, "but this biting cold stiffens my fingers so that I cannot venture on the delicate parts. Come, now, Joan, what sayest thou to thy birthday--Candlemas Day?" She clapped her hands. "In good sooth. And if father is still better--which Our Lady grant!-- he will begin his work that month." Elyas, indeed, showed no signs of his past sickness, and as the leech, when Prothasy spoke to him, assured her that malignant influences no longer threatened, she was greatly comforted. He said himself that his memory failed, but no one else saw any unusual signs of this not uncommon complaint, and there was little doubt that he would be elected its master by the guild, which some two hundred years later was to stretch itself so far as to incorporate together "Carpenters, Masons, Joiners, and Glaziers and Painters." There was no such excitement on Candlemas Day as there had been five months before, for nothing hung on the uncovering of Hugh's carving beyond learning whether his second work would equal the promise of his first, and this to the outer world meant little. To his own little world, and to the bishop, it meant much. The fame of his first work had come through difficulties and by a roundabout fashion; in this that he had now completed no one could either rightly or wrongly claim a part. When therefore, after the Hours, the bishop and a few of his clergy entered the choir, they found a knot of guild officers there, and all Gervase's household, together with Hamlyn's wife and daughters, and a few workmen who had not cared to keep holiday. "No greenwood for thee, Hugh, to-day," Elyas had said, and the young man was there himself, looking gravely content, and not, as Mistress Hamlyn expressed it, in the least puffed with pride. At a sign from the bishop, he mounted the ladder and drew off the wrapping cloths. Much had been seen during the carving, but now for the first time the work was beheld in its full beauty, and from the group there went up an irrepressible murmur of admiration. It was a group of figures. At the top Our Lord and His Mother in glory; below, a single figure of Saint Cecilia drawing music from an instrument shaped something like a lute, but played with a bow; over her head, inclined gently to the left, a little angel hovered. The grace and sweetness of her attitude, the fall of the draperies, the delicacy of the workmanship, raised the beholders into enthusiasm, and though the corbel was not so prominent as the others, something in the angle in which it was seen, and the manner in which it stood out against the outer nave, added to the effect of beauty. Hugh had modestly stood aside while the examination went on, but Joan had stolen to him and slipped her hand in his, and now Elyas turned and embraced him. "Hugh," he said, "I am proud to count thee as my son." Wat was there, too, absolutely beaming with delight, and seizing Hugh's hand as if he would wring it off. "Said I not, said I not,"--he began, and then, "no one can say aught against thy work now; but, Hugh--" "Ay?" "Couldst not carve a Saint Margaret as well as a Saint Cecilia? Prithee--" But here his request was broken off by a message that the Lord Bishop would speak with Hugh Bassett. Bishop Bitton, who had aged fast of late, was leaning on the arm of one of his priests, but his face was lit with that fire of enthusiasm which could always be stirred in him by aught that was good or great. As Hugh came up, he raised his hand, and the young man dropped on his knee to receive the blessing. And as, deeply moved, he rose and stood on one side, it seemed to him that his father's dying voice stole softly upon his ears-- "Not for thyself, but for the glory of God." 
43402	----	THE CATHEDRALS OF GREAT BRITAIN [Illustration York Minster.] THE CATHEDRALS OF GREAT BRITAIN _THEIR HISTORY AND ARCHITECTURE_ BY P.H. DITCHFIELD, M.A., F.S.A. _Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Rector of Barkham_ WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY HERBERT RAILTON, J.A. SYMINGTON, H.M. JAMES, H. CRICKMORE, ETC. 1902 LONDON: J.M. DENT & COMPANY PHILADELPHIA: J.B. LIPPINCOTT COY. _All Rights Reserved_ PREFACE In this volume I have attempted to give an architectural description of all the cathedral churches of England, Wales, and Scotland, together with a brief history of each see. In order to include any adequate account of each church and bishopric in one volume of portable size, which may be of use to visitors in their travels, much compression has been necessary, but it is hoped that nothing of importance has been omitted which might be useful to those who would read aright the architectural history of our great churches. On account of their immense importance in the history of Gothic art, it has been thought well to include in this volume some account of the churches of Westminster and Beverley. At the close of each history of a cathedral will be found a record of the principal building dates and dimensions, and also a brief account of the chief places and churches of interest in the city or neighbourhood which it is advisable to visit. I desire to express my grateful thanks to all who have kindly assisted in the preparation of this work, to the deans and canons-in-residence who have often guided me by their counsel during my study of their cathedrals, and also to the vergers who have readily afforded me much valuable help. More especially do I wish to thank the Deans of Lincoln, Ely, Chester and Gloucester, Canon Tristram of Durham, Bishop Anson of Lichfield, and Archdeacon Richardson of Southwell, for their courtesy and kindly interest. I have also to record my obligations to the work of many previous writers. The works of Freeman, Rickman, Britton, Willis, Winkle, and the Diocesan histories published by S.P.C.K. have been consulted, as well as the special monographs on each cathedral, which are too numerous to mention. Prior's _Gothic Art_ has been of the greatest possible assistance, Addis's _Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys_, and also the very valuable and indispensable handbooks published by the late Mr. John Murray. I have found the volumes of Bell's Cathedral Series most useful when visiting the buildings of which they treat, and Messrs. Isbister's volumes written by the deans of our cathedrals contain picturesque and attractive accounts of the historic buildings. To all these works I desire to acknowledge my great indebtedness. And lastly I have to record my grateful thanks to the artists who have enriched these pages with their charming drawings, and to Mr. Dent, the publisher of this work, for much encouragement, valuable advice, and able direction, without which this volume would have lacked whatever of merit it may possess. P.H. DITCHFIELD. BARKHAM RECTORY, _September 8, 1902_. CONTENTS PAGE THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE CATHEDRALS OF GREAT BRITAIN 1 ST. PAUL'S 8 WESTMINSTER 35 ROCHESTER 57 CANTERBURY 68 WINCHESTER 85 CHICHESTER 96 SALISBURY 108 OXFORD 125 BRISTOL 138 WELLS 149 BATH 161 EXETER 164 TRURO 177 GLOUCESTER 178 HEREFORD 204 WORCESTER 216 LICHFIELD 230 CHESTER 248 LIVERPOOL 263 MANCHESTER 264 CARLISLE 272 NEWCASTLE 282 DURHAM 283 RIPON 297 YORK 309 BEVERLEY 327 WAKEFIELD 333 LINCOLN 337 SOUTHWELL 351 PETERBOROUGH 360 ELY 377 NORWICH 393 ST. ALBAN'S 409 ST. ASAPH'S 423 BANGOR 426 LLANDAFF 429 ST. DAVID'S 432 GLASGOW 439 IONA 441 BRECHIN 442 ABERDEEN 443 DUNBLANE 444 DUNKELD 445 ST. ANDREW'S 446 ST. GILES', EDINBURGH 447 KIRKWALL 448 GLOSSARY OF ARCHITECTURAL TERMS 450 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE York Minster _Frontispiece_ St. Paul's from Cheapside 11 The West Front 23 The Nave from the Choir 28 Woodwork, South Choir Aisle 29 Johnson's Statue 31 Dean's Yard, Westminster, in 1730 37 The North Front 40 Poets' Corner 43 Henry V.'s Chantry 47 Interior from Chapel of St. John 51 Rochester Cathedral 59 Canterbury Cathedral 71 Tomb of the Black Prince 78 The Crypt 80 Winchester Cathedral 89 West Front 93 Chichester Cathedral 99 The Presbytery 105 Salisbury Cathedral 111 Strengthening Arches, East Transepts 116 Oxford Cathedral 129 The Interior 133 Bristol Cathedral, the Central Tower 143 Wells Cathedral 153 Entrance to Crypt 159 Exeter Cathedral 165 Detail of Minstrels' Gallery 170 Gloucester Cathedral, The Deanery 179 From S.E. 183 Nave Pillars from the West 187 The Choir, looking East 191 The Lady Chapel 195 Carrel in South Cloister 199 Hereford Cathedral from the Wye 207 The Cantelupe Shrine 211 Worcester Cathedral from the Severn 219 Lichfield Cathedral, Distant View of Exterior 235 St. Oswald's Gate, Chester Cathedral 249 Chester Cathedral 253 The Choir 257 Shrine of St. Werburgh 261 Carlisle Cathedral from S.E. 275 Durham Cathedral 285 The Galilee Chapel 290 The Bishop's Throne 293 Ripon Cathedral from North 299 The Great Buttresses 302 The Apse 303 York Cathedral--Tomb of Archbishop Walter de Grey 311 Chapter House 313 North Aisle of Choir 317 The Ladye Chapel 321 The Crypt 323 Beverley Minster, the West Front 328 Beverley Minster 329 Percy Shrine 332 Wakefield Cathedral 334 Chantry Chapel on Wakefield Bridge 335 Lincoln Cathedral Towers and Potter Gate 338 Lincoln Cathedral and Exchequer Gate 342 The Angel Choir 347 Southwell Central Tower and N. Transept 355 Peterborough Cathedral 365 North-west Transept 370 Ely Cathedral--Arm of Abbot's Chair 378 West Tower from Deanery Gardens 379 The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Lady Chapel 381 Ely Cathedral from South-east 383 The Octagon and Lantern from North-west 384 St. Catherine's Chapel 386 In South Aisle of Nave looking to North Transept 387 Carrel in Cloister 388 Norwich Cathedral 397 A Bay, North Side of Nave 401 Ancient Bishop's Throne 403 Bridge, North Aisle of Presbytery 404 St. Alban's Cathedral 411 LIST OF PLANS PAGE St. Paul's Cathedral 34 Westminster Abbey 56 Canterbury Cathedral 83 Winchester Cathedral 95 Salisbury Cathedral 124 Wells Cathedral 163 Gloucester Cathedral 203 Worcester Cathedral 229 Durham Cathedral 296 York Cathedral 326 Lincoln Cathedral 350 Peterborough Cathedral 376 Ely Cathedral 392 Norwich Cathedral 408 Cathedrals of Great Britain THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE CATHEDRALS OF GREAT BRITAIN We are endeavouring to follow the traces of the handiwork of the great master-builders who have filled the English Isle with so many noble shrines, to mark the growth and development of the various styles and modes of building, and to endeavour to interpret their meaning. The story of the rise and fall of English Gothic art has a fascination that is all its own; and with the intention of endeavouring to realise its high aims, its strength and beauty, and to understand its true spirit, we will start on our pilgrimage to those fanes which it has reared to the honour and glory of the Most High. And as we watch the rise and progress of English Gothic art, we shall note that it is no exotic, no alien welcomed to our shores; but a true English native art, born in the brains and faith of our English forefathers, and nourished here with a nation's whole-hearted affection. French writers on architecture are accustomed to state that our English Gothic came from France, and that each stage and change were wrought by the influence of foreign masons and were borrowed from them. There could not be a greater error. The Anglo-Norman style was developed quite as much in this country as in Normandy, which was then a province of England. We shall see that English Gothic sprang into being in the choir of Lincoln. No foreign mason taught our English masons the secret of their art. Even Westminster, most French of all our buildings, and designed by a foreigner, is, in the language of Sir Gilbert Scott, "a great French thought expressed in excellent English." And while we have a style peculiarly our own, the Perpendicular of the fifteenth century, at that period the French with their Flamboyant tracery were only imitating the flowing lines of our fourteenth-century Decorated. And as we study more carefully these examples of English Gothic art, we shall admire the great unknown toilers who built so surely and so well, who put their hearts and lives, affections and religion into their work; we shall reverence the relics of their handiwork which time has spared and love them exceedingly. For the convenience of classification, mediæval architecture has been divided into four distinct styles or periods, and we must again chronicle the oft-told story of their varied peculiarities. I. The Norman style commenced in the reign of Edward the Confessor, whose work at Westminster (the sub-structure of the dormitory and the lower part of the walls of the refectory with the ornamental arcade) is declared to be the earliest example of the Norman style in England. This style prevailed to the time of Henry II., when a period of transition set in, and the style began to approximate to that of the succeeding century. The main characteristics of the Norman style are--cylindrical massive piers, round-headed arches, a great variety of mouldings such as zigzag, billet, double-cone, pellet, lozenge, beak-head, etc., small and narrow windows splayed only on the inside, buttresses slightly projecting from the wall. Some of the best examples of this style are the naves of Ely, Gloucester, Durham, and much Norman work is seen at Winchester, Exeter, Canterbury, Chester, Peterborough, Norwich, Rochester, Chichester, Oxford, Worcester, Wells and Hereford. II. The Early English style began with the thirteenth century, in the reign of King John, the choir of Lincoln being the earliest example. Wearied with the Romanesque uncouth details of Norman art, the English masons were feeling after and finding a more excellent way, and discovered the beauties of Gothic architecture. This style flourished until the time of Edward I.; during his reign another period of transition set in, and this style gradually developed into the Decorated. Its main characteristics are lighter and more elegant forms of construction and decoration, pointed arches, often shaped like a surgeon's lancet, whence they derive their name, deeply undercut mouldings, dog-tooth ornament, piers formed of columns with detached shafts united under one capital, and bound together by a band, bell-shaped capitals, stiff-leaved foliage, trefoiled arches, plate-tracery. Early English work is seen in the choir of Lincoln, Worcester, Chichester, Salisbury, Exeter, Wells, Rochester, York (south transept), Southwell, Ripon, Ely, Peterborough, Durham ("nine altars"), Glasgow. III. The Decorated style commenced in the fourteenth century, or a few years earlier, reached its zenith before the middle of the century, and ended with the reign of the third Edward. The period of transition between this style and the last is perhaps the era of the greatest beauty of English art. The characteristics of the style are, more elaborateness of detail and ornament, much larger windows with beautiful and complex tracery, heavier buttresses, piers with closely-joined shafts, not detached as before, sculpture closely imitating natural foliage, mouldings less deeply cut, the ball-flower ornament. Decorated work is very plentiful, and may be seen in the chapter-houses of Wells, Norwich, Winchester, Canterbury, also at York, Lichfield, Exeter, Carlisle, Lincoln, Southwell, and elsewhere. A period of transition again followed during the last half of the fourteenth century, during which the style developed into the Perpendicular. IV. The Perpendicular style prevailed during the fifteenth century and continued until the reign of Henry VIII., when the mediæval period ceased. This style is, as we have said, peculiar to England. In Scotland, where French influence was great, there are many examples of the Flamboyant style, which prevailed in France, and was scarcely known in England. This style is characterised by more elaborate and richer work, increased use of ornament and panelled decoration, peculiar window tracery (the mullions being carried straight up through the head of the window, while smaller mullions spring from the heads of the principal lights), much larger windows, depressed arches (Tudor arch), much heavier buttresses, mouldings carried up the piers and arches without any break or capital, cavetto (a wide and rather shallow variety), ogee, bowtell mouldings, the rose ornament, Tudor flower. The extensive use of panelling is always the hall-mark of the Perpendicular period. The choir of Gloucester is the earliest known example of this style, and King's College, Cambridge, St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster, are the most perfect specimens of Perpendicular art. Then followed the Renaissance period, when classical and Roman features were mingled with the latest English style. There was an attempt to revive the Gothic style in the time of James I., but the foreign influence was too strong, and not till the close of the eighteenth century did this revival take place. The love of Gothic art had never been quite extinguished in this country, and to the English people belongs the honour of restoring to its rightful place that style which has created so many superb and magnificent buildings instinctive of the faith and reverence which first called them into being. In our cathedrals we have endless varieties of plan, construction, style and adornment, as well as in the associations connected with their histories. They derive their name from the Latin word _Cathedra_ (Greek, [Greek: Kathedra]), signifying a seat, a cathedral church being that particular church of the diocese where the bishop's seat or throne is placed. If this church belonged to a monastery it was served by the monks, but many of our cathedrals were in the hands of secular canons, who were not monks, and should not be confused with the "regular" clergy. Monastic churches had always a complete series of monastic buildings--the cloister-court, the centre of a monk's life, around which were grouped the chapter-house, dormitory, refectory, infirmary, hospitium or guest-hall. Churches served by secular canons sometimes have a cloister, but this was added more as an ornament, and was not a necessity. The Reformation wrought many changes in our cathedrals. Out of the spoil of the monasteries Henry VIII. undertook to endow five new sees, and thus created the sees of Oxford, Peterborough, Chester, Gloucester and Bristol. These are called the cathedrals of the New Foundation, and with these are classed the monastic cathedrals which survived the shock of the Reformation, viz.: Canterbury, Winchester, Worcester, Rochester, Norwich, Ely, Durham, Carlisle. The cathedrals of the Old Foundation which survived, with some changes in their constitution, were York, London, Salisbury, Wells, Chichester, Hereford, Exeter, Lichfield and Lincoln, and the Welsh dioceses of St. David's, Llandaff, Bangor and St. Asaph. Episcopacy was finally banished from the Church of Scotland on the advent of William III.; hence the cathedrals in the northern country are so only in name. The Episcopal Church of Scotland has, of course, cathedrals, but most of these are modern. Since the Reformation in England, and especially in modern times, many new sees have been formed; these are Manchester, Liverpool, Ripon, St. Alban's, Southwell, Truro, Wakefield and Newcastle. The plan of our cathedrals is usually cruciform, formed by a nave with aisles, north and south transepts, central tower, choir and presbytery. Sometimes the plan is that of a double cross, there being a second or eastern transept towards the eastern end of the choir. Our inspection of the exterior begins first by trying to obtain a good general view of the building. We notice the remains of the walls and gates which guarded the close, or precincts of the cathedral. Within these walls the bishop's power was supreme. If sanctuary was claimed by a fugitive from justice, here he was safe; and the clergy and the serving-men were free from the ordinary law, and could be tried only by the ecclesiastics. Then we notice the west front, usually a fine screen of stone-work, wherein are enshrined in niches weather-worn statues telling of the men of old who had done well in their days for their Church and realm. Passing to the north we see the central tower, possibly Norman as high as the roof, with a superstructure of later times. The pitch of the roof may have been altered in later times from a high pitch to a flat one, and the marks of the old roof may often be seen on the tower walls. Just below the eaves is the range of clerestory windows. Flying buttresses connecting the buttresses of the outer wall with those of the inner are frequent and produce a very graceful effect. Niches for statues are often carved upon the buttresses. Curious grotesquely-carved heads, called gargoyles, look down upon us from the gutters of the roof. The tracery of the windows is no indication of the age of the walls, as they have frequently been inserted in place of others of an older period. The porch is a large structure, and sometimes has a chamber, called a parvise, over it. The object of this chamber cannot always be determined. Sometimes it was the abode of the sacristan, and occasionally it was set apart for the use of an anchorite or recluse. The monastic buildings are usually on the south side in Benedictine monasteries, but sometimes on account of the nature of the ground they are on the north. On entering the church we view the nave, which is usually in three storeys--the main arcade, the triforium, which opens into a gallery or passage, and the clerestory. Sometimes the choir occupies two bays of the nave, but usually begins with the screen placed on the east side of the central tower. This screen was formerly the rood-screen, and a large crucifix stood on it; but at the Reformation all roods were destroyed, and sometimes the organ stands in its place. Entering the choir we see before us the high altar with a fine reredos behind it, so called from the French _L'arrière-dos_, meaning "embroidered hangings." On the south of this is the piscina, consisting of a hollow basin with a stone-drain, wherein the priest cleansed the sacred vessels after using them in the Holy Eucharist. On the same side are the sedilia, or stone seats for the clergy, frequently with richly-carved canopies. Then there are the beautifully-carved stalls with fine tabernacle work, and the _sub-sellæ_ or misereres (French, _miséricorde_) with their quaint carvings. It is a popular error, gravely perpetrated by some cathedral vergers and others, to suppose these misereres were a kind of ingenious trap for sleepy monks, who, when the heavy seat fell down with a loud bang, were detected in slumber and forced to do penance. They were so placed as a concession to human weakness in order that the monks or canons might lean against them during the long mediæval services, when sitting was not allowed. The eastern portion of the choir is called the presbytery. We pass to the north aisle of the choir and proceed to the ambulatory, processional path, or retro-choir. Here, at the back of the altar, was the chief shrine, where the relics of some great saint were preserved under a gorgeous cover decorated with gold and silver and precious jewels, to which crowds of pilgrims flocked, and there prayed and gazed upon the wondrous shrine, and made their offerings. The steps and pavement leading to the shrine often still show by their worn condition the evidence of the tread of countless numbers of pilgrims. Near the shrine was a watching chamber, where a monk stayed to guard the shrine and its treasures. Eastward of the ambulatory is usually the Lady Chapel, where the altar of the Virgin stood; and here, and in other parts of the church, are numerous chantry chapels, sometimes built on to the church, or in the church itself, containing effigies of the founders and altar tombs, where masses were said by specially-endowed chantry priests for the repose of the souls of the deceased and their families. Some effigies of knights and warriors have their legs crossed. It is another popular error to suppose that this fashion of representing the deceased had anything to do with the Crusades. Beneath some portion of the church we find a crypt with the remains of numerous altars, where masses were said for the souls of those who lie buried here. A door on the south side of the church leads to the cloister court; immediately on the left as we traverse the east walk we see the slype or passage leading to the monks' cemetery. Another door from this walk leads to the chapter-house, where the monks assembled daily to arrange the affairs of the monastery, enforce its discipline, assign the duties of the day and transact other business. On the same side of the cloister was the dormitory; the refectory was on the south; the uses of the buildings on the west side varied in different houses. As we see our cathedrals now, the view that meets us differs much from that which would have greeted us in mediæval times. Then all was ablaze with colours. Through the beautiful ancient glass the light gleamed on tints of gorgeous hues, on rich tapestries and hangings, on walls bedight with paintings, and every monument, pier and capital were aglow with coloured decorations. We have lost much, but still much remains. At the Reformation the avaricious courtiers of Henry VIII. plundered our sacred shrines, and carried off under the plea of banishing superstition vast stores of costly plate and jewels, tapestry and hangings. In the Civil War time riotous fanatical soldiery wrought havoc everywhere, hacking beautifully-carved tombs and canopies, destroying brasses, and mutilating all that they could find. Ages of neglect have also left their marks upon our churches; and above all, the hand of the ignorant and injudicious "restorer" has fallen heavily on these legacies of Gothic art, destroying much that was of singular beauty, and replacing it by the miserable productions of early nineteenth-century fabrication. But in spite of all the evils that have been wrought, in spite of Puritan iconoclasm and Reformation violence, in spite of natural decay, eighteenth-century lethargy, and the intemperate zeal of unwise and tasteless modern restorers, our cathedrals still preserve much of their ancient beauty and attractiveness. They are standing witnesses to the greatness of the masons and builders who fashioned and perfected our English Gothic art, "an art that was created here in this land according to our native instincts, and in accord with the sober dress of our skies and the simple pleasantness of our scenery."[1] A man cannot fail to love that English art, whether he has been born amongst it like ourselves, or has come wonderingly on its simplicity from all the grandeur over seas. FOOTNOTE: [1] _History of Gothic Art in England_, by E.S. Prior. ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL The great Cathedral of St. Paul has abundant claims to the love and veneration of every Englishman. Situated in the heart of the city of London, it has ever been associated with the religious, social and civic life of the people; and as the great national Cathedral of England all the principal events in our country's annals have been connected with St. Paul's. Without doubt it is the finest and grandest building in London, if not in the world. Comparing it with St. Peter's at Rome, we find that its dimensions are, of course, much smaller, though its grace and beauty are in no way inferior to the magnificent conception of Michael Angelo. It is the shrine of our national heroes, the _chef d'oeuvre_ of a great genius; its massive dome surmounted by a golden cross greets the traveller returning from beyond seas; its walls have echoed with the strains of high thanksgiving on the occasion of national victories and blessings, when kings and queens have come in solemn state to render thanks to Him who is the King of kings and Lord of lords. Just as Westminster was ever the church of the king and the government, so St. Paul's was the church of the citizens. The prominent place which St. Paul's takes in the national and social life of England, in the great functions of Church and State, and in promoting the religious life of the people, is worthy of its best traditions, and at no time during its long history has it taken a higher place in the affections of the nation. THE OLDER CATHEDRALS OF ST. PAUL'S The present Cathedral, erected by the skill and genius of Sir Christopher Wren, is the third sacred edifice built upon this site. Indeed, Camden and certain early fanciful historians tell us of a Roman temple dedicated to Diana which they assert once stood here, erected during the time of the Diocletian persecution upon the site of an early Christian church. It is, however, certain that when Sir Christopher sank his foundations for the present building, he found beneath the interred bodies of mediæval times several Saxon stone coffins, and at a still lower depth Celtic and Roman remains, showing that the site had been set apart as a cemetery from very early times. The earliest church of which we have sure records was erected in Saxon times by good King Ethelbert of Kent in the year 610. St. Mellitus, the companion of St. Augustine, was the first English Bishop of London,[2] who came there in order to convert the East Saxons. Siebert, their king, joined with his uncle, Ethelbert, in building the Cathedral church, and the former probably founded the monastery of St. Peter called Westminster on Thorney Island, a place then "terrible from its desolate aspect--a mass of marsh and brushwood." But the Londoners loved their Paganism, and took not kindly to the new faith. The men of the "emporium of many nations" clung to their worship of Wodin and Thor, and not even the wise words of Mellitus in the new Cathedral could win them. It was the original design of Pope Gregory, who sent Augustine to our shores, to make the Cathedral of London the Metropolitan Church of England--a design which Augustine could not carry out on account of the violent opposition of the Pagan-loving people. Hence Canterbury was elevated to the position of the Metropolitan Church. Thirty-eight years passed away. At length the fiery spirit of the Londoners was subdued after three great missionary efforts, and they gradually learned the story of the cross. The Cathedral was beautified by Bishop Cedd, brother of St. Cedd or Chad of Lichfield, and Sebbe, King of Essex, and was fortunate in having St. Erkenwald as the fourth Bishop of London, who wrought great wonders and attracted many converts, restoring wealth and honour to his Cathedral. To his memory a golden shrine was erected which was much frequented by pilgrims. Saxon kings gave of their wealth to the endowment of the Cathedral, and many rich lands were granted to it, as the ancient charters bear witness. Fire has always been a great foe to St. Paul's. A very destructive conflagration raged in 961 A.D., and again in 1086 the Cathedral was wholly destroyed. We have no means of knowing what kind of architecture characterised this earliest fane, but probably it possessed round arches of stone, massive piers, and the usual characteristics of the Saxon style. The energy of the English people is evident to all who study our national annals. When any alarming catastrophe occurs, immediately they arise to repair the disaster. As it was in the seventeenth century when the Great Fire swept over London and laid the city low, so it was in the eleventh. The Saxon church had no sooner been reduced to a heap of ruins than the Norman builders began to rear another noble pile. Bishop Maurice was the designer of this great edifice, which existed until the time of the Great Fire, though it was greatly injured by a fire in 1136. A very noble church it must have been, with its walls ablaze with colour, richly-canopied tombs, pictures and frescoes, books, and vestments glittering with gold, silver and precious stones. It was the largest Cathedral in England. Old pictures tell us that it was cruciform, with a high tower and spire in the centre. The nave was long and noble, built in Norman style, having twelve bays. William of Malmesbury describes it as being "so stately and beautiful that it was worthily numbered amongst the most famous buildings." At the west end were two towers for bells, and sometimes used as prisons. The central tower had flying buttresses. Besides the high altar there were seventy or eighty chantries, with their own altars all ablaze with rich draperies. St. Paul's was also very rich in relics, among the number of which were two arms of St. Mellitus, a knife of our Lord, some hair of Mary Magdalene, blood of St. Paul, milk of the Virgin, the hand of St. John, the skull of Thomas à Becket, the head of King Ethelbert. But "the pride, glory and fountain of wealth" to St. Paul's was the body of St. Erkenwald, covered with a golden shrine, behind the high altar. Dean Milman states that in the year 1344 the offerings made by pilgrims alone amounted to £9000. The choir was rebuilt in 1221, and the Lady Chapel added in 1225. There was a very large east window, and a rose window over it. Buttresses crowned with pinnacles and adorned with niches supported the walls. The interior view, judging from Hollar's engraving, must have been very fine. The pillars and arches were Late Norman. The choir consisted of twelve bays and was finished about the end of the thirteenth century. We have few records to tell us about the details of the building of this old St. Paul's. In 1312 the nave was paved with marble, and two years later a spire of wood was raised to the height of 460 feet, then the highest in the world. This was damaged and ultimately destroyed by lightning. [Illustration ST. PAUL'S FROM CHEAPSIDE] FOOTNOTE: [2] There were some British Bishops of London. One of these, Restitutus, was present at the Council of Arles in A.D. 314, and Geoffrey mentions Theon, Bishop of London, amongst those who fled into Wales during the Saxon invasion. THE PRECINCTS We will now examine the precincts of the Cathedral. A wall surrounded the vast space which extended from Carter Lane on the south to Creed Lane and included Paternoster Row. This wall had six gates, the site of two of which is marked by St. Paul's Alley and Paul's Chain. The Bishop's Palace occupied the north-west corner of this space, and on the north were some cloisters decorated with mural paintings representing the Dance of Death, a favourite subject of mediæval painters, of which Holbein's conceptions are best known. This cloister was on the site of Pardon Churchyard, where a chapel was founded by Gilbert à Becket, the father of St. Thomas of noted memory. The chapter-house stood on the south side of the Cathedral, and was a very beautiful structure, so beautiful that Protector Somerset coveted the materials for his palace in the Strand, and took down and removed them. At the north-east corner of the precincts stood the famous Paul's Cross, the scene of so many famous preachings and strange events, where folk-motes were held, Papal bulls promulgated, Royal proclamations made, excommunications and public penances declared, and sometimes riots and tumults excited. Paul's Cross played a very prominent part in the history of old London. Near the Pardon Churchyard once stood the Parish Church of St. Faith, called the Chapel of Jesus; but this was destroyed, and the parishioners received in lieu of it a church in the crypt of the Cathedral. Fuller, remarking on this and on the existence of the Parish Church of St. Gregory on the Thames side of the Cathedral, quaintly observed, "St. Paul's may be called the Mother Church indeed, having one babe in her body and another in her arms." St. Paul's was the centre of the life of London. Its great bell summoned the London citizens to their three annual folk-motes at Paul's Cross, where all the municipal business of the city was transacted, disputes settled, grievances stated and rights vindicated. Very turbulent and jealous of their liberties were these good citizens, and even the sovereign will of kings and queens must bow before the noisy clamours of the burghers of London. The bell of St. Paul's, like that of its famous brother "Roland" at Ghent, seemed endowed with a human voice when it summoned the multitudes to their meeting-place at the Cross, and declared in loud tones the will of the people. HISTORICAL EVENTS The citizens might well love to have their church in their midst, for the ecclesiastical power was very strong, and often enabled them to defy the will of tyrannical kings or troublesome barons. In the time of the Conqueror, Bishop William of London obtained from the king a renewal of their privileges of which the monarch had deprived them. In gratitude for this benefit, the mayor, aldermen and livery companies of London used to visit the tomb of the good bishop in grand procession, in order to pray for his soul, and to commemorate his great services. In the reign of Stephen civil war raged, and the country was divided into hostile camps, one siding with the king and the other with the Empress Maud. The citizens of London were not doubtful in their opinions. They rang the great bell of St. Paul's, summoned their folk-mote, and loudly declared that it was the privilege of the citizens of their great city to elect a sovereign for England, and with one voice supported Stephen. Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was a favourite of the citizens, though hated by his sovereign. Gilbert à Becket, his father, had a shop in Cheapside on the site of Mercers' Hall, whither the fair Saracen is said to have followed him from the Holy Land, where he had gone on a Crusade. He built a chapel in the churchyard of St. Paul, and his son, the famous archbishop, was well known to the citizens. Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, however, had taken the side of the king, Henry II., in the fatal quarrel, and aroused the anger of the prelate. A curious scene took place in consequence in old St. Paul's. A priest was celebrating mass, when a man approached, thrust a paper into his hand, and cried aloud, "Know all men that Gilbert, Bishop of London, is excommunicated by Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury." The news spread fast among the citizens. Foliot at first attempted to defy the dread sentence; but he knew something of the nature of the citizens of London, and wisely bowed before the decree, which the people were quite willing to enforce. St. Paul's was the scene of a memorable council in the reign of Richard Coeur de Lion, who was crusading in Palestine. The bishops, together with the king's brother John, met in the nave and condemned Longchamp to resign the office of justiciary, and to surrender the castles which he held in the name of the king. During this reign a factious demagogue, William Fitz-Osbert, equally distinguished by the length of his beard and the vehemence of his eloquence, called the people together at Paul's Cross, and excited them to rebel against their oppressors. Bishop Hubert, however, calmed the multitude on the eve of a formidable rising. The people deserted their leader, who took refuge in St. Mary-le-Bow Church, which was set on fire, and Fitz-Osbert suffered death at the hands of the hangman. Thus from the tyranny of a Royal favourite, and from that of a mob orator, the people were saved by the influence of the Church in St. Paul's Cathedral. A still greater service did St. Paul's render to England. Here was assembled a grand concourse of bishops, abbots, deans, priors and barons, to withstand the oppressive lawlessness of King John. Here Magna Charta was first devised. Here, at the instigation of Archbishop Langton, the barons and chief men swore to maintain the principles of the Charta, and to protect the liberties of Englishmen. St. Paul's also set itself in opposition to the authority of the Pope; and when a Papal legate sought to enthrone himself in St. Paul's, he was openly resisted by Cantelupe, Bishop of Worcester. Boniface of Savoy, "the handsome Archbishop," brought with him fashions strange enough to English folk. His armed retainers pillaged the markets, and he felled to the ground, with his own fist, the prior of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield, who presumed to oppose his visitation. He came to St. Paul's to demand first-fruits from the Bishop of London, but deemed it advisable to wear armour beneath his robes. He found the gates of the Cathedral closed against him; but he fared better than two canons of the Papal party, who were killed by the citizens a few years later when they attempted to enter St. Paul's. London was aroused by these Italian priests, and the citizens at length besieged Lambeth Palace and drove the obnoxious archbishop beyond seas. Again and again the tocsin sounded, as St. Paul's bell rang clear and loud, and the citizens seized their weapons and formed their battalions beneath the shadow of the great church. Now it was to help Simon de Montfort against the king; now to seize the person of the obnoxious Queen Eleanor, who was trying to escape by water from the Tower to Windsor, and who was rescued from their hands by the Bishop of London, and found refuge in his palace. Now the favourites of Edward II. excited their rage, especially the Bishop of Exeter, the king's regent, who dared to ask the Lord Mayor for the keys of the city, and paid for his temerity with his life. An incident which shows the attachment of the people to their church and bishop occurred in the reign of the third Edward. Wycliffe was summoned by Bishop Courtenay to appear before a great council at St. Paul's. But the reformer did not come alone; to the surprise of his accusers he arrived attended by a large following of friends, among whom were John of Gaunt and Lord Percy. These powerful supporters of Wycliffe attacked the bishop with angry words. News was flashed among the citizens that John of Gaunt had threatened their bishop and vowed to drag him out of the church by the hair. They gathered together in angry crowds, and would have slain the duke and sacked his palace, the Savoy, in the Strand, if the bishop had not interfered on behalf of his enemy. Wycliffe and Lollardism did not then find much favour with the people of London. There were reformers within the Church who were quite as eager to correct abuses as those outside the fold. Among these was Bishop Braybroke of London, who lived in the time of Edward IV. He contended for the sanctity of the sacred building, inveighed against the practice of using it as an exchange, of playing at ball within the precincts or within the church, and of shooting the pigeons which then as now found sanctuary at St. Paul's. The chronicles of the Cathedral tell the story of the troublous times of the Wars of the Roses. We see Henry IV. pretending bitter sorrow for the death of the murdered Richard, and covering with cloths of gold the body, which had been exhibited to the people in St. Paul's. We see Henry V. returning in triumph from the French wars, riding in state to the Cathedral, attended by "the mayor and brethren of the city companies, wearing red gowns with hoods of red and white, well-mounted and gorgeously horsed, with rich collars and great chains, rejoicing at his victorious returne." Then came Henry VI., attended by the bishops, the dean and canons, to make his offering at the altar. Here the false Duke of York took his oath on the Blessed Sacrament to be loyal to the king. Here the rival houses swore to lay aside their differences, and to live at peace. But a few years later saw the new king, Edward IV., at St. Paul's, attended by great Warwick, the king-maker, with his bodyguard of 800 men-at-arms. Strange were the changes of fortune in those days. Soon St. Paul's saw the exhibition of the dead body of the king-maker, and not long afterwards that of the poor dethroned Henry, and Richard came in state here amid the shouts of the populace. After the defeat of the conspiracy of Lambert Simnel, Henry VII. celebrated a joyous thanksgiving in the Cathedral, and here, amid much rejoicing, the youthful marriage of Prince Arthur with Catherine of Arragon took place, when the conduits at Cheapside and on the west of the Cathedral ran with wine, and the bells rang joyfully, and all wished happiness to the Royal children whose wedded life was destined to be so brief. THE REFORMATION AND AFTER At the dawn of the Reformation period we will pause in order to try and realise what kind of scenes took place daily in the great Cathedral, and what vast numbers were employed on the staff. The members of the Cathedral body in the year 1450 included the following:--The Bishop, the Dean, the four Archdeacons, the Treasurer, the Precentor, the Chancellor, thirty greater Canons, twelve lesser Canons, about fifty Chaplains or Chantry-Priests and thirty Vicars. Of inferior rank to these were the Sacrist, the three Vergers, the Succentor, the Master of the Singing School, the Master of the Grammar School, the Almoner and his four Vergers, the Servitors, the Surveyor, the twelve Scribes, the Book Transcriber, the Bookbinder, the Chamberlain, the Rent-collector, the Baker, the Brewer, the Singing-men and Choir Boys, of whom priests were made, the Bedesmen and the poor folk. In addition to these must be added the servants of all these officers--the brewer, who brewed in the year 1286, 67,814 gallons, must have employed a good many; the baker, who ovened every year 40,000 loaves, or every day a 100, large and small; the sextons, grave-diggers, gardeners, bell-ringers, makers and menders of the ecclesiastical robes, cleaners and sweepers, carpenters, masons, painters, carvers and gilders. One can very well understand that the Church of St. Paul alone found a livelihood for thousands. The inventory of church goods belonging to the Cathedral in 1245 exists, and is worth studying. It enumerates sixteen chalices, five of gold and the rest of silver-gilt. A chalice of Greek work had lost its paten, but retained its reed (_calamus_), a relic of the time when the deacon carried the chalice to the people, and each one drank of its hallowed contents through a long narrow pipe, which was usually fastened on a pivot to the bottom of the cup of the chalice. Amongst other curiosities of the inventory are three _poma_, or hollow balls of silver, so contrived as to hold hot water or charcoal embers for the warming of the hands of the celebrant during mass. Of shrines and relics we have already spoken. There were three episcopal staves, and also a precentor staff of ivory with silver-gilt and jewelled enrichments, and a _baculus stultorum_ for use at the profane travesty called the feast of fools. Among the mitres were two for the boy-bishop's use on St. Nicholas Day. There were thirty-seven magnificent copes, and forty-four others, and thirty-four specially fine chasubles. The inventory of 1402 supplies some curious information as to the manner in which the numerous and costly vestments were arranged when not in use. In the treasury, on the west, stood a wardrobe, _armariolum_, in which were twenty-four _perticæ_, pegs, or rods, or frames, from which the copes and chasubles could be suspended, one _pertica_ holding from three to six copes. The vestments were arranged according to colour. Three other wardrobes were also stored with goodly vestments, and there were twenty-six in daily use. The total is 179 copes, fifty-one chasubles and ninety-two tunicles, and the colours were red, purple, black, white, green, yellow, blue, red mixed with blue. We have remarked that St. Paul's was the centre of the social life of the people in olden days, which led to some abuses. Francis Osborn says, "It was the fashion in those days, and did so continue until these, for the principal gentry, lords and courtiers, and men of all professions, to meet in St. Paul's by eleven of the clock, and walk in the middle aisle till twelve, and after dinner from three to six, during which time they discoursed of business, others of news." Shakespeare represents Falstaff in _Henry V._ as having "bought Bardolph in Paul's"; and Dekker thus speaks of the desecration of the sanctuary, "At one time in one and the same rank, yea, foot by foot, elbow by elbow, shall you see walking the knight, the gull, the gallant, the upstart, the gentleman, the clown, the captain, the apple-squire, the lawyer, the usurer, the citizen, the bankrout, the scholar, the beggar, the doctor, the idiot, the ruffian, the cheat, the Puritan, the cut-throat, highman, lowman and thief; of all trades and professions some; of all countries some. Thus while Devotion kneels at her prayers, doth Profanation walk under her nose in contempt of Religion." Here lawyers received their clients; here men sought service; here usurers met their victims, and the tombs and font were mightily convenient for counters for the exchanges of money and the transaction of bargains, and the rattle of gold and silver was constantly heard amidst the loud talking of the crowd. Gallants enter the Cathedral wearing spurs, having just left their steeds at "The Bell and Savage," and are immediately besieged by the choristers, who have the right of demanding spur-money from anyone entering the building wearing spurs. Nor are the fair sex absent, and Paul's Walk was used as a convenient place for assignations. Old plays are full of references to this practice. Later on the nave was nothing but a public thoroughfare, where men tramped carrying baskets of bread and fish, flesh and fruit, vessels of ale, sacks of coal, and even dead mules and horses and other beasts. Hucksters and pedlars sold their wares. Duke Humphrey's tomb was the great meeting-place of all beggars and low rascals, and they euphemistically called their gathering "a dining with Duke Humphrey." Much more could be written of this assembly of all sorts and conditions of men, but we have said enough to show that the Cathedral had suffered greatly from desecration and abuse. Indeed, an old writer in 1561 declared that the burning of the steeple in that year was a judgment for the scenes of profanation which were daily witnessed in old St. Paul's. He writes, "No place has been more abused than Paul's has been, nor more against the receiving of Christ's Gospel; wherefore it is more marvel that God spared it so long, rather than He overthrew it now. From the top of the spire at coronations, or at other solemn triumphs, some for vain glory used to throw themselves down by a rope, and so killed themselves vainly to please other men's eyes," and much more to the same effect. But the strictness of the worthy divine did not altogether cure the evils against which he railed. Eight years later the first great lottery was drawn before the west doors. There were 10,000 lots at ten shillings each, and day and night from January 11 to May 6 the drawing went on. The prizes were pieces of plate, and the profits were devoted to the repair of the havens of England. So profitable was the lottery that another took place here in 1586, the prizes being some valuable armour. At the dawn of the Reformation we see Henry VIII. in all the pomp and glory of mediæval pageantry riding in state to the Cathedral to be adorned with a cap of maintenance and a sword presented to him by the Pope. There was no sign yet of any breach of alliance between the Roman Pontiff and him whom he honoured with the title of "Defender of the Faith." Lollardism in spite of some burnings spread, and the western tower of the Cathedral earned the name of the Lollards' Tower, as several were imprisoned there. Wolsey, the great cardinal, in the height of his prosperity often came to St. Paul's, and very gorgeous were the scenes which took place there, when thanksgiving for the peace between England, France and Spain was celebrated, when Princess Mary was betrothed to the Dauphin of France, and Charles V. proclaimed emperor. But signs of trouble were evident. Bishop Fisher thundered forth invectives against the works of Luther, which were publicly burnt in St. Paul's Churchyard. A few years later there was a burning in the Cathedral of heretical books in the presence of the cardinal, who caused some of Luther's followers to march round the blaze, throw in faggots, and thus to contemplate what a burning of heretics would be like, and be thankful that only their books and not their bodies were condemned to the flames. During this troubled time and in Mary's reign, St. Paul's was often used as a place of trial for heretics, but Paul's Cross was a fruitful breeding place for the principles of the Reformation. Here Latimer, Ridley, Coverdale, Lever, and a host of others used to inveigh against the errors of Rome and deny the authority of the Pope. Here they exhibited the Boxley Rood, with all the tricks whereby it was made to open its eyes and lips, and seem to speak. The crowd looked on, and roared with laughter, seized the miraculous Rood, and broke it in pieces. And then a strange thing happened in the Cathedral. One night all the images, crucifixes and emblems of Popery were pulled down. Terrible havoc was wrought, chalices and chasubles, altars and rich hangings, books and costly vestments, were all seized and sold, and helped to increase that vast heap of spoil which the greedy ministers of Edward VI. gathered from the wasting of the Church's goods. Tombs were pulled down, chantries and chapels devastated, cloisters and chapter-houses removed bodily to Somerset House by Protector Somerset for the building of his new palace, and all was wreckage, spoliation and robbery. Then came the fitful restoration of the "old religion," and many riots ensued, many ears were nailed to the pillory nigh Paul's Cross; many Protestants condemned in the Cathedral to the fires at Smithfield, and many horrors enacted which Englishmen like not to remember. With the coming of Elizabeth more peaceful times ensued, but the Cathedral was in a sorry condition. Desecration reigned within. Then in 1561 the spire caught fire, blazed and fell, destroying parts of the roof. The clergy and citizens soon set to work to repair the damage, but the glory of "old St. Paul's" had departed, and its ruinous condition was the distress of rulers and the despair of the citizens and clergy. Elizabeth often visited the Cathedral, and troubled Dean Nowell by her plainly-spoken criticisms. Felton was hung at the bishop's gates for nailing a Papal bull to the palace doors, which declared the queen to be a heretic and released her subjects from their allegiance. This attempt of the Pope to dethrone the Virgin Queen was not very successful. Some other conspirators suffered for their crimes in the following reign in the precincts, four of the gunpowder conspirators being hung, drawn and quartered before the west doors. Here also Garnet, the Jesuit, shared a like fate. King James attempted to restore the Cathedral, but his efforts came to nothing. Charles I. did something, and from the designs of Inigo Jones built a portico at the west end, and made some other improvements, but the troubles of the Civil War intervened, and the money which had been collected by Archbishop Laud and the generosity of the citizens of London was seized by the Parliament and converted to other and baser uses. THE CIVIL WARS Desolation reigned supreme in the once glorious church when Puritan rage had vented itself on its once hallowed shrines and sacred things. Cromwell's troopers "did after their kind." Whatever beautiful relics of ancient worship reforming zeal had left were doomed to speedy destruction. In the western portico built in the last reign shops were set up for sempstresses and hucksters; Dr. Burgess, a Puritan divine, thundered forth in his conventicle set up in the east of the building; and the rest of the Cathedral was turned into a cavalry barracks. The conduct of the rough soldiers created great scandal. They played games, brawled and drank in the church, prevented people from going through the nave, and caused such grievous complaints, that an order was passed forbidding them to play at ninepins from six o'clock in the morning to nine in the evening. The _Mercurius Eleneticus_ of 1648 waxes scornful over the misdeeds of these rough riders, and scoffs sarcastically: "The saints in Paul's were last week teaching their horses to ride up the great steps that lead to the Quire, where (as they derided) they might perhaps learn to chant an anthem; but one of them fell and broke his leg, and the neck of his rider, which hath spoilt his chanting, for he was buried on Saturday night last, a just judgment of God on such a profane and sacrilegious wretch." The famous Cross in the churchyard, which according to Dugdale, "had been for many ages the most noted and solemn place in this nation for the greatest divines and greatest scholars to preach at, was, with the rest of the crosses about London and Westminster, by further order of the Parliament, pulled down to the ground." AFTER THE GREAT FIRE With the restoration of the monarchy came the restoration of the Cathedral. Dr. Wren, the great architect, was consulted, plans were discussed, Wren prepared himself for the great work, and all was in readiness, when the Great Fire broke out, and completed the ruin which had already begun. It, however, paved the way for the erection of the grand church which will ever be associated with the genius of its great architect. Both the diarists, Pepys and Evelyn, speak of the melancholy spectacle of the great ruin. Pepys laments over the "miserable sight of Paul's church, with all the roof falling, and the body of the nave fallen into St. Faith." And Dryden sings:-- "The daring flames press'd in and saw from far The awful beauties of the sacred quire: But since it was profaned by civil war Heaven thought it fit to have it purged by fire." [Illustration THE WEST FRONT] Evelyn, in his diary, describes his visit to the church before the fire with Dr. Wren, the bishop, dean and several expert workmen. "We went about to survey the general decay of that ancient and venerable church, and to set down in writing the particulars of what was fit to be done. Finding the main building to recede outwards, it was the opinion of Mr. Chickley and Mr. Prat that it had been so built _ab origine_ for an effect in perspective, in regard of the height; but I was, with Dr. Wren, quite of another judgment, and so we entered it: we plumbed the uprights in several places. When we came to the steeple, it was deliberated whether it were not well enough to repair it only on its old foundation, with reservation to the four pillars; ... we persisted that it required a new foundation not only in regard of the necessity, but that the shape of what stood was very mean, and we had a mind to build it with a noble cupola, a form of church-building not as yet known in England, but of wonderful grace...." Then came the Great Fire, so graphically described by Evelyn. He writes: "The stones of Paul's flew like granados, the melting lead running down the streets in a stream, and the very pavements glowing with fiery redness, so as no horse or man was able to tread on them, and the demolition had stopped all the passages, so that no help could be applied." This Great Fire roused again the energy and indomitable spirit of Englishmen. They beheld without alarm the ashes of their houses, and the destruction of their great city. They felt that the eyes of Europe were upon them. A new city was to be built worthy of their nation, worthy of the great centre of the commerce of the world. But to restore St. Paul's was a stupendous work. Some were for rebuilding on the old walls. Pepys describes the ruins: "I stopped at St. Paul's, and then did go into St. Faith's Chapel, and also into the body of the west part of the church; and do see a hideous sight of the walls of the church ready to fall, that I was in fear as long as I was in it; and here I saw the great vaults underneath the body of the church." And again: "Up betimes, and walked to the Temple, and stopped, viewing the Exchange, and Paul's, and St. Faith's, where strange how the very sight of the stones falling from the top of the steeple do make me sea-sick." They began to repair the west end for service against the advice of Wren, and Dean Sancroft was obliged to confess to the architect,-- "What you whispered in my ear at your last coming here is come to pass. Our work at the west end of St. Paul's is fallen about our ears." At last the order was given to take down the walls, clear the ground, and proceed according to the plans of Wren. He was thwarted and distressed by the interference of many. His original design was to build it in the form of a Greek cross, but to this the clergy objected, and a Latin cross was decided upon. In 1674 the workmen began to clear away the old ruins, no light task, but in the end it was accomplished, the first stone of the new Cathedral being laid on June 21, 1675. In October 1694 the choir was finished, and on December 2, 1697, Divine service was performed for the first time in the new edifice. It was a special thanksgiving for the Peace of Ryswick, a peace which settled our Dutch William more securely on the throne of England. His Majesty wished to attend the service, but it was feared that amongst the vast crowds there might be too many Jacobites, and he was persuaded to remain at his palace. Bishop Compton preached a great sermon on the occasion from the text, "I was glad when they said unto me, we will go into the House of the Lord." Thirteen years elapsed before the highest stone of the lantern on the cupola was laid by Wren's son, and the magnificent building was completed by the skill, genius and determination of one man, whose memory deserves to be ever honoured by all Englishmen. The men of his own day did not treat him worthily. During the building of the Cathedral he was beset by all the annoyances jealousy and spite could suggest, and at the end of his long and useful career, by the intrigues of certain German adventurers, he was deprived of his post of Surveyor-General after the death of Queen Anne. He retired to the country, and spent the few remaining years of his life in peaceful seclusion, occasionally giving himself the treat of a journey to London, in order that he might feast his eyes on that great and beautiful church which his skill had raised. His was the first grave sunk in the Cathedral, and it bears the well-known inscription, than which none could be more fitting:-- LECTOR, SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS CIRCUMSPICE. THE EXISTING CATHEDRAL--EXTERIOR The new St. Paul's is without doubt the grandest building in London. Perhaps the finest view is obtained from the approach by Ludgate Hill, and the grandeur of its majestic dome is most impressive. The style is English Renaissance. We will begin our survey with the _West Front_, which was erected last, and therefore bears the stamp of Wren's matured genius. There are two storeys. In the lower there is a row of Corinthian columns arranged in pairs, and in the second storey a similar series. On the triangular pediment above is a carving of the Conversion of St. Paul, while a statue of the saint crowns the apex, the other statues representing SS. Peter and James and the four Evangelists. Two towers stand, one on each side of the front, and complete a superb effect. These contain a grand peal of twelve bells, one of which, called Great Paul, fashioned twenty years ago, is one of the largest in the world. Rich marbles, brought from Italy and Greece, adorn the pavement. Proceeding to the _north side_ we note the two-storied construction, the graceful Corinthian pilasters,[3] arranged in pairs, with round-headed windows between them; the entablature; and then, in the second storey, another row of beautiful pilasters of the Composite order. Between these are niches where one would have expected windows; but this storey is simply a screen to hide the flying buttresses supporting the clerestory, as Wren thought them a disfigurement. The walls are finished with a cornice, which Wren was compelled by hostile critics to add, much against his own judgment. There are some excellently-carved festoons of foliage and birds and cherubs, which are well worthy of close observation. The _North_ and _South Fronts_ have Corinthian pillars, which support a semi-circular entablature. Figures of the Apostles adorn the triangular-shaped head and balustrade. The Royal arms appear on the north side, and a Phoenix is the suitable ornament on the south, signifying the resurrection of the building from its ashes. The south side is almost exactly similar to the north. The east end has an apse. The magnificent _Dome_ is composed of an outward and inward shell, and between these there rises a cone-shaped structure which supports the lantern, crowned with its golden ball and cross. The arrangement of this is most complex, and is a witness to the marvellous skill of the architect. Above the row of Composite columns is a gallery, which affords a good view to those who are anxious to climb. Above the actual dome is the Golden Gallery, and then the lantern, roofed with a dome bearing the ball and cross. The whole height is 365 feet. INTERIOR OF THE BUILDING The view on entering the Cathedral at the west is most impressive. The magnitude of the design, the sense of strength and stability, as well as the beauty of the majestic proportions, are very striking. Over the doors we see carvings of St. Paul at Berea. A gallery is over the central doorway, and here is a good modern window. [Illustration The Nave from the Choir] The nave has a large western bay with chapels, three other bays, and a large space beneath the west wall of the dome. It has three storeys, the lofty arches, a storey which in a Gothic church would be termed the triforium, and a clerestory. Grand Corinthian pilasters are attached to the massive piers, with wonderfully-wrought capitals, which support the entablature. The arches spring from smaller pilasters joined to the larger ones. Great arches springing from the triforium piers span the nave, and between these arches are dome-shaped roofs. High up there are festoons of carving. The aisles have three large windows, and Composite pilasters adorn the walls and support the vault. The north chapel at the west end is the Morning Chapel, and is adorned with mosaics and modern glass, in memory of Dean Mansell (1871). The south chapel is called the Consistory, and once held Wellington's monument, to which the marble sculptures refer. Here is an unusual _Font_ of Carrara marble. The _Dome_ is supported by immense and massive masonry. Above the arches a cornice runs round, supporting the _Whispering Gallery_. Then the dome begins to curve inward. Above is a row of windows, set in groups of three, separated by niches recently filled with statues of the Fathers, and then the dome is completed and painted by Sir James Thornhill with scenes from the life of St. Paul. These are too faint and too far distant to be easily observed. The painter nearly lost his life through stepping backward in order to see the effect of his brush, and nearly fell from the scaffold. His companion just saved his life by flinging a brush at the painting, and Thornhill rushed forward to rescue his work, and thus his life was saved. The _Pulpit_ is made of rich marble, and the lectern was made in 1720. The modern _mosaics_ are of unique interest, and add much to the beauty of the Cathedral. To Sir William Richmond the credit of this work is mainly due, and for some of earlier portions to Mr. G.F. Watts, R.A. The _Transepts_ have good windows, representing (north) the twelve founders of English Christianity, and south, the first twelve Christian Saxon kings, and also a window in memory of the recovery from illness of His Majesty Edward VII. when Prince of Wales. [Illustration Woodwork South Choir Aisle] The _Choir_ has some wonderfully-carved stalls by the famous Grinling Gibbons, and these bear the names of the prebendaries attached to the Cathedral, with the parts of the Psalter which each one had to say each day, an arrangement similar to that at Lincoln. The _Reredos_ is a noble example of modern work, and is worthy of close examination. Behind it is the Jesus Chapel, containing a monument of Canon Liddon. The mosaic decorations of the choir are the work of Sir William Richmond, and are worthy of the highest praise. MONUMENTS One feature of St. Paul's especially endears it to us, and that is that there lie all that is mortal of many of our national heroes. Westminster is richer in its many monuments of great poets and writers; but the makers of the Empire and most of our distinguished painters are entombed in the "citizens' church." We can only point out the tombs of the most illustrious. _Nave_ (North Aisle)-- Wellington (d. 1852), the hero of Waterloo. Gordon (d. 1890), slain at Khartoum. Stewart, General (d. 1880), who tried to rescue Gordon. Melbourne, Viscount (1848), Queen Victoria's first Prime Minister. _North Transept_-- Sir Joshua Reynolds (1792), by Flaxman. Rodney, Admiral (1790), the hero of Martinique. Picton (1815), slain at Waterloo. Napier, General (1860), author of _Peninsular War_. Ponsonby, General (1815), killed at Waterloo. Hallam, the historian (1859). Johnson, Samuel (1784). _South Transept_-- Nelson, Admiral. Sir John Moore (1806), killed at Corunna. Turner, Joseph, R.A. (1851), painter. Collingwood, Admiral (1810), Colleague of Nelson. Howe, Admiral (1799), Colleague of Nelson. Howard, John (1790), the prison reformer, the first monument erected. Lawrence, General (1857), killed in Indian Mutiny. Cornwallis, General (1805), fought in American War and in India. _South Choir Aisle_-- Dean Milman (1868). Bloomfield, Bishop (1856). Jackson, Bishop (1885). Heber, Bishop (1826), of Calcutta. Liddon, Canon (1890). [Illustration Johnson's Statue in St. Paul's Cathedral] The _Crypt_ contains the Parish Church of St. Faith, Wellington's funeral car fashioned from captured cannon, and his tomb, Nelson's tomb (the coffin is made from the wood of one of his ships--the tomb is sixteenth-century work and was made for Cardinal Wolsey), the grave of Wren with its famous inscription, and many illustrious painters sleep in the _Painters' Corner_, amongst whom our modern artists Leighton and Millais rest with Reynolds, Lawrence, Landseer and Turner. DIMENSIONS Total length 460 ft. Length of nave 200 ft. Width of nave 100 ft. Height of nave 89 ft. Length of choir 160 ft. Height of cross on dome 363 ft. Height of west towers 222 ft. Area 59,700 sq. ft. Style--English Renaissance. BUILDING DATES Begun June 21, 1675. Cathedral finished 1710. [Illustration PLAN OF ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL] FOOTNOTE: [3] A pilaster is a column attached to a wall. WESTMINSTER ABBEY The famous Abbey Church of Westminster, though not a cathedral, must be included in our chronicle of the chief ecclesiastical buildings in this country. It is the coronation church of the sovereigns of England, the final resting-place of many, the national tomb-house of our heroes and great men, as well as a triumph of Gothic architecture of singular beauty and attractiveness. For one brief space at the time of the Reformation there was a Bishop of Westminster, but the see did not long continue, and it is for other reasons that Westminster must find a place in this volume. In early Saxon times a chapel dedicated to St. Peter was built by Siebert in the seventh century on an island rising from the marshy ground bordering the Thames. It was called Thorney, and the eastern portion of the water in St. James's Park is a part of the arm of the Thames which encircled the sanctuary of the monks and the palace of the Anglo-Saxon kings. Here was established by Dunstan a colony of Benedictine monks. In the charters of Edgar (951) the original boundary of Westminster is clearly defined, though this charter is esteemed doubtful by Kemble, and the importance of Westminster gradually increased. Edward the Confessor took a particular interest in the place, and began his building of the Abbey in 1050. On Childermas Day (the Feast of the Holy Innocents) 1065 the choir was finished and consecrated, and on "Twelfth Mass Eve" the king died and was buried here. The Bayeux tapestry depicts the scene of this Royal funeral, and gives a representation of the church. The earlier church still remained as the nave of the new choir. A few fragments of Edward's work remain beneath the pavement of the present choir. The work progressed while William Rufus was building his Royal palace, and at the time of his death the transepts and first bay of the nave were completed, the first conspicuous example of a great Benedictine church in England. Henry I. and Matilda were crowned here with much pomp, and all the monarchs since the time of the Conqueror. Early in the days of Henry III. a new lady chapel was built, and this inspired the artistic soul of the young king, who determined to build an abbey worthy of the honour of God in the best and newest style of architecture. He was a Frenchman in feeling, and had passed many days at the Court of St. Louis. So his new monastic church must be fashioned in the French style; his monks must speak French, and he chose a French model for his architecture, for the plan of his church with its French _chevet_, and for the radiating chapels of the choir. But in spite of this French design our Westminster remains "a great French thought expressed in excellent English"; it is like "one of Chaucer's lays, a sweetly English poem inspired by a French romance," and is the most finished product of the Early English of the first half of the thirteenth century. Its French peculiarities may be seen in the narrowness and height of the bays of the choir, its plan with regard to the radiating chapels, and in the tracery of the windows. The work began in 1245 with the east end, and all the building as far as the fourth bay of the nave was finished in 1269. The noble re-founder was buried in his glorious minster. Edward I. brought here the coronation stone of the Scottish kings, and had it placed in the new throne which he fashioned to enclose it. In the fourteenth century much building was done to perfect the monastery. In the time of Richard II. the reconstruction of the old nave was in progress, and Henry V. took much interest in it. His father died in the Jerusalem Chamber. The building of the nave continued, and the well-known Whittington, "thrice Lord Mayor of London," in 1413 helped forward the work by liberal contributions. The Tudor badges in the vaulting of the last bays show the later character of that portion of the building. Henry VII. built the beautiful and famous chapel at the east end in place of the Lady Chapel built in 1220, which is such a perfect example of the best Perpendicular work. It was finished about 1520. [Illustration DEAN'S YARD, WESTMINSTER, IN 1730] At the dissolution of monasteries Westminster shared the fates of the rest, and the last abbot, Benson, became the first dean, and for a brief space there was a bishop. Protector Somerset turned his greedy eyes upon the noble minster, and was with difficulty induced to refrain from plundering it overmuch. Indeed, he had thoughts of pulling it down, but was propitiated by bribes of some manors and many loads of Caen stone for the building of his new palace, Somerset House. The services were of course changed, and many goodly treasures sold; during the brief reign of Mary the Roman Catholic ritual was restored, and the Confessor's shrine re-erected; but Elizabeth turned out Abbot Ferkenham, and constituted Westminster a collegiate church with a dean and twelve prebendaries. The remains of poor Mary Queen of Scots were brought here by James I. and laid side by side with Queen Elizabeth. Here in the gatehouse Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned. Soon the tumults of the Civil War arose, but Westminster happily escaped the fury of the Puritans. The noted Westminster Assembly was called together in Henry VII.'s Chapel in 1643, for the purpose of "settling the government and liturgy of the Church of England and clearing of the doctrine from false aspersions and interpretations." This Assembly took upon itself to denounce the Book of Common Prayer and to substitute the Directory for Public Worship. Many restorations of the fabric have taken place since the Restoration of the monarchy. Sir Christopher Wren was a wonderful architect, but he was scarcely the man to tamper with an ancient and beautiful Gothic building. He set to work to rebuild the western towers, which were finished after his death in 1739. New stone-work has been erected in place of the old in most of the exterior of the Abbey, and Sir Gilbert Scott and Mr. Pearson were responsible for the restoration of the north front of the north transept. The complete story of the Abbey of Westminster would tell of all the pageants and coronation festivals which have taken place therein, to which another has just been added when King Edward VII. and his queen were crowned; it would tell of the last solemn rites of monarchs and great men, poets, sages and generals who sleep within the hallowed precincts. But the story must be left to others, and we will now examine the details of this ancient pile which is so closely connected with all the chief events in English history. THE EXTERIOR The _West Front_ is flanked by two towers 225 feet high, built by Wren, and finished by his pupil, Hawksmoor, about 1740. In the centre of the front is the great Perpendicular window, beneath which is a row of niches. The entrance porch has a groined roof. The nave is remarkable for its length and height. On the north side we notice that there is a wealth of buttresses. Strong buttresses support the aisle walls, and from these flying buttresses stretch across to the walls built on the central arcade. The four eastern buttresses comprise the part of the church finished by Henry III.; the rest of the nave, with the exception of Wren's towers, was built during the last half of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth. The figures in the niches are modern. [Illustration THE NORTH FRONT] The _North Front_ is new, designed by Sir G. Scott and Mr. Pearson. It is very elaborate work, and much of it is beautiful, but it does not seem to harmonise with the rest of the building. There is a large rose window; on each side tall buttresses crowned with turrets and covered with niches. There is an arcade of open work below, and then some deeply-recessed Early English windows, and below three doorways under one string-course, the centre one having a high gable. This door is divided by a pier having a finely-carved figure of the Virgin and Child. The tympanum is divided into three panels. In the highest is Our Lord in glory surrounded by angels, and below Him are the Twelve Apostles, while in the lowest tier are figures representing Art, History, Philosophy, War, Legislation and Science, with the builders of the Abbey, Edward the Confessor, Henry III. and Richard II. The niches are filled with figures of persons in some way connected with the Abbey. The _Choir_ is in the form of an apse, with radiating chapels, planned on the model of the French _chevet_, according to the taste of Henry III., which he had cultivated during his sojourn in France. The _Lady Chapel_ at the east end, commonly called Henry VII.'s Chapel, is one of the noblest examples of the best Perpendicular work in the kingdom, and ranks with St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and King's College, Cambridge. The monastic buildings are on the south side of the Abbey, and will be approached from the interior. THE INTERIOR The view of the interior is very impressive. Standing at the west end of the nave we cannot fail to admire the magnificent beauty of this noble shrine. This _Nave_ of twelve bays, with its clustered columns, its beautiful triforium, and its lofty and firmly-proportioned roof, soaring to the height of 101 feet, is very striking. A close inspection will show the difference between the piers of the portion finished by Henry III. and the newer work of the fourteenth century. The tracery of the triforium openings is very fine. The _Choir-Screen_, which crosses the nave at the eighth pier, is modern, and also the pulpit. The west window is Perpendicular, and has some Georgian glass containing figures of the Patriarchs. Much architectural beauty has been sacrificed for the sake of ponderous monuments, but many of these have much interest, and for many visitors will prove the most attractive features of the Abbey. A list of the most important monuments will be found at the close of our account of the Abbey. The north-west tower contains the monuments of distinguished members of the Whig party, and has in the window some ancient glass. The south-west tower was formerly the Baptistery. The architecture of the aisles has suffered much from the erection of stupendous monuments. The gallery at the west of the south aisle was erected at the same time as Henry VII.'s Chapel by Abbot Islip, and is known as the _Abbot's Pew_. The door at the east end is Late Early English. The _South Transept_ is known as the _Poets' Corner_, on account of the memorials of the votaries of the muses which stand here. The architecture is of very beautiful design in the style of Early English, when it was merging into Early Decorated. In the south wall is the entrance to the Chapel of St. Faith, the door of which was once covered with the skins of Danes. Two tiers of trefoiled arches are above this, and higher still the triforium, the spandrels of the arches being enriched with sculpture. There is no west aisle. Chaucer's tomb will attract most visitors. In the chapel are some ancient paintings of the Crucifixion, St. Faith, and a kneeling monk. The _Choir_, which has been the scene of so many solemn and memorable services, has no ancient woodwork. The stalls were erected about the middle of the last century. The altar and reredos are modern. There are some large figures, and a mosaic of the Last Supper. Here the coronations of our monarchs take place. The pavement is interesting, as it was brought from Rome by Abbot Ware in 1268, and beneath it he rests with other abbots of Westminster. The sedilia are thirteenth-century work, and were decorated with paintings. The figures of King Siebert, the first founder, and of Henry III., the munificent re-founder, remain. Above the base of the tomb of Anne of Cleves, one of Henry VIII.'s many wives, is a remarkable painting of Richard II., and behind it some ancient tapestry. A record of the interesting tombs here will be found later. _Edward the Confessor's Chapel_ is a mausoleum of Royal personages, wherein our monarchs have been laid to rest, a portion of the building which always possesses a solemn and pathetic interest. Here is the shrine of the "miracle worker," the pious but weak last Saxon king, St. Edward. It was fashioned in 1269 by order of Henry III., the artificer being one Peter, a Roman citizen. The style of the oldest part, the base of the shrine, is of a Byzantine character. The upper part was probably made by Abbot Feckenham in Mary's reign, in imitation of that which was destroyed in Reformation times. It is difficult to imagine what must have been the splendour of this wondrous shrine when it was adorned with gold and gems, ere the greedy commissioners of Henry VIII. despoiled it of its treasures. Henry III., Eleanor of Castile, in whose honour her loving husband, Edward I., raised the Eleanor crosses wherever her body rested on its last journey to the Abbey, Edward I., and other monarchs rest here. _Henry V.'s Chantry_ is a splendid piece of ornate Perpendicular work, with elaborate sculptured figures representing St. George, St. Denys, and the story of the hero's life, his fights, his coronation, his court. The effigy has been much mutilated. Above the tomb is the monarch's achievement, his shield, saddle and helmet, which were borne in his funeral procession. The coronation chairs have especial interest at this time, especially the famous throne of Edward I., which has under the seat the coronation stone of Scone, brought by him from Scotland. Legends tell us that this stone was the veritable stone used by Jacob as a pillow when he dreamt that wondrous dream at Bethel. There is also the throne of William and Mary, and Edward III.'s sword and shield. [Illustration Poets' Corner Westminster Abbey] In the _South Ambulatory_ are three chapels, dedicated to SS. Benedict, Edmund and Nicholas, all of which have interesting monuments which will be noticed later. We now enter _Henry VII.'s Chapel_, the most perfect example of the Perpendicular style at its best in the country. At the entrance are beautiful bronze doors covered with designs symbolical of the titles of the Royal founder. It is impossible to describe in words the richness and beauty of the interior of this noble chapel. Washington Irving wrote: "The very walls are wrought into universal ornament, encrusted with tracery and scooped into niches, crowded with statues of saints and martyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning labour of the chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and density, suspended aloft as if by magic, and the fretted roof achieved with the wonderful minuteness and airy security of a cobweb." The vault is very beautiful with fan-tracery. The banners of the Knights of the Order of the Bath hang over their stalls. The misereres are wonderfully carved, and are worthy of close examination. The black marble tomb of the founder is considered to be the best example of the Renaissance style in England. It was fashioned by Torregiano. Very numerous monuments are found here, which will be described later. The tombs of Mary Queen of Scots and of Queen Elizabeth have especial interest. Oliver Cromwell's body once lay in the most eastern chapel, but the Royalists at the Restoration wrought vengeance on his corpse, and on that of other regicides, and did not suffer them to remain in these hallowed precincts. Returning we traverse the _North Ambulatory_, from which open the Chapels of SS. Paul, John Baptist, Erasmus and Abbot Islip. St. Erasmus was a Bishop of Campania, martyred in the time of the Diocletian persecution. His chapel has a fine, Late Decorated doorway. Abbot Islip died in 1532, and had previously adorned this chapel for his tomb, of which only the base remains. A curious eye will discern his rebus. In the upper chapel are preserved some remarkable wax effigies of deceased monarchs and others, which were used in ancient times in funeral processions. Charles II., Elizabeth, William and Mary, Anne, Duchess of Richmond, General Monk, and a few others have survived the wreck of time. The _North Transept_ resembles the south and is remarkable for its noble architecture. It is part of Henry III.'s construction. The carving is rich and beautiful, especially the famous sculptures of the _censing angels_, which are best seen from the triforium. On the east are the three Chapels of SS. John the Evangelist, Michael and Andrew, which are now filled with monuments. We will now visit the _monastic buildings_, which may be entered from the south aisle of the nave. The east walk of the cloisters was finished in 1345, and the south and west walks a few years later under the rule of Abbot Litlington. The north walk is a century earlier. From the east walk we enter the _Chapter-House_. The doorway is remarkably fine, with its sculptured figures in the mouldings. This is one of the finest and largest chapter-houses in England, and was built by Henry III. in 1250. Its plan is octagonal. There is a central, slender, clustered shaft from which the vaulting springs. This vault is a restoration. The windows have beautiful tracery, and are filled with modern glass. The old paintings representing the Second Advent are very interesting. This room has been devoted to many uses. Here the House of Lords used to meet, and here the Records were once kept. The Chapel of the Pyx, a fine Early Norman structure, where "the trial of the Pyx" took place, is not open to the public. Above this and the vestibule was the dormitory, now the library and schoolroom of the famous Westminster School founded by Henry VIII. The cloisters have many monuments. On the south-east lies the little cloister formerly the infirmary, approached by a passage from the east cloister. The refectory was on the south side of the cloister-court, and on the west was the abbot's house, now the Deanery. Permission should be obtained to see the famous _Jerusalem Chamber_, probably so called from the tapestry which once hung here. Here Henry IV. died, which fact Shakespeare mentions in his play, _Henry IV._, and many other historical scenes have these walls witnessed. [Illustration HENRY V.'S CHANTRY] KINGS BURIED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY Siebert, King of the East Saxons. Edward the Confessor. Henry III. Edward I. Edward III. Richard II. Henry V. Edward V. Henry VII. Edward VI. James I. Charles II. William III. George II. LIST OF MONUMENTS _St. Edward's Chapel, or the Chapel of the Kings_-- Edward the Confessor. Henry III. Henry V. Edward III. Edward I. Eleanor of Castile. Queen Philippa. Richard II. and Queen. Queen Editha and Queen Matilda (good Queen Maud) are buried here. _Henry VII.'s Chapel_-- Mary Queen of Scots. Queens Elizabeth and Mary. Henry VII. and his Queen. James I. No monument. In the "Stuart Vault" are buried-- Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, and Prince Rupert. Lady Arabella Stuart, Anne Hyde, and several Royal children. In the "Royal Vault" are buried-- Charles II. Queen Mary II. William III. Queen Anne. Prince George of Denmark. Under the Nave of the Chapel are buried-- George II. and Caroline of Anspach. Edward VI. The old altar by Torregiano under which he was laid has been of late years restored. In "Oliver's Vault" were originally buried-- _Cromwell_, and other leaders of the Commonwealth; the only body that has remained undisturbed is that of the Protector's daughter, Elizabeth Claypole. A small sarcophagus contains the bones supposed to be those of Edward V. and the Duke of York. In this Chapel are also buried-- Addison, to whom a statue was raised in 1809 in the _Poets' Corner_. George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, an immense tomb. _Nave and Choir_-- Charles James Fox. Henry Fox, Lord Holland. Major-General Charles George Gordon, bronze bust. William Pitt. William Wordsworth, seated statue. } John Keble, bust. } Frederick D. Maurice, bust. } Baptistery. Charles Kingsley, bust. } Matthew Arnold, bust. } Dr. T. Arnold, bust. } William Congreve. Major John André. Charles Robert Darwin, medallion portrait. (Sir John Herschell, buried next to Darwin). Ben Jonson (buried here--monument in Poets' Corner). Sir Charles Lyell, bust. Sir Isaac Newton. Buried here are-- David Livingstone, } Robert Stephenson, } without monument. Dean Trench, } Sir George Gilbert Scott, } Lord Lawrence, bust. Sir James Outram (a bas-relief of Relief of Lucknow). Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde. Dr. Isaac Watts. John and Charles Wesley (buried elsewhere). Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovel. Sir Godfrey Kneller, the only painter commemorated in the Abbey. William Wilberforce, seated figure. Henry Purcell, tablet. (Sir William Sterndale Bennett buried here.) [Illustration INTERIOR FROM CHAPEL OF ST. JOHN] _North Transept_-- William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. Viscount Palmerston, statue. Sir Robert Peel, statue. Lord Beaconsfield, statue. Gladstone (no monument yet erected). Warren Hastings (buried elsewhere). Richard Cobden, bust (buried elsewhere). _Poets' Corner_-- John Dryden, bust. H. Wadsworth Longfellow, bust. Abraham Cowley. Geoffrey Chaucer. Lord Tennyson, bust. Robert Browning (no monument). Michael Drayton. Ben Jonson, monument bears same inscription as stone above grave. Edmund Spenser. Samuel Butler (buried elsewhere). John Milton. Thomas Gray (buried elsewhere). Matthew Prior. Thomas Campbell. Robert Southey (buried elsewhere), bust. S. Taylor Coleridge (buried elsewhere), bust. William Shakespeare. Robert Burns (buried elsewhere), bust. James Thomson (buried elsewhere). John Gay (buried?). Oliver Goldsmith, medallion (buried elsewhere). Sir W. Scott, replica of bust at Abbotsford. John Ruskin, medallion. George Frederick Handel, statue. Jenny Lind Goldschmidt, portrait head. W. Makepeace Thackeray (buried elsewhere), bust. Joseph Addison (buried in Henry VII.'s Chapel). Lord Macaulay, bust. William Camden. David Garrick, full-length figure. Among those buried here without monuments are-- Sir John and Francis Beaumont. Sir John Denham. Dr. Samuel Johnson (monument at St. Paul's). Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Charles Dickens. Sir William Davenant. Richard Hakluyt. Thomas Parr. Queen Anne, Richard III.'s wife, is believed to be lying here. Monuments to Dr. Busby and Dr. Robert South. Portion of tomb of Anne of Cleves. Within the rails of the Choir are three old tombs-- Aveline, Countess of Lancaster, married to Henry III.'s son, Edmund Crouchback. Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, cousin to Edward I., employed as general in wars in Scotland. Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster. _South Ambulatory_-- Supposed tomb of King Siebert. _Chapel of St. Edmund_-- William de Valence, Earl of Pembroke (father of above), half-brother to Henry III. This is the only existing example in England of an effigy in Limoges enamel work. Lord Lytton, black marble slab. _North Ambulatory_-- General James Wolfe. _Chapel of St. Paul_-- James Watt, statue. _Islip Chapel_-- Remains of Islip's tomb form a table by the window. _St. John's Chapel_-- Sir John Franklin. _St. Andrew's Chapel_-- Sir Humphrey Davy (buried elsewhere), tablet. Mrs. Siddons, statue. John Kemble, statue. Among those who are buried in the Cloisters are-- Thomas Betterton, actor. Mrs. Bracegirdle, actress. Aphra Behu. Samuel Foote. A tablet in the Cloisters has been put up in memory of seven of the Queen's Westminster Volunteers killed in South Africa, 1900. Monument to Dean Stanley (Henry VII.'s Chapel). Archbishop Tait, bust (Poets' Corner). Window commemorative of-- George Herbert. William Cowper. DIMENSIONS Length of nave 166 ft. Breadth of nave 38 ft. Breadth of nave and aisles 71 ft. Height of nave and choir 101 ft. Length of choir 155 ft. Breadth of choir 38 ft. Length of whole church 511 ft. Height of central tower 151 ft. Height of west towers 225 ft. Area 46,000 sq. ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES 1050-1100--Fragments beneath pavement of choir, Chapel of the Pyx. 1245-1269--Choir and four eastern bays of nave, transepts, chapter-house, and north and part of east walk of cloister. 1330-1350--Cloisters, south and west walks. 1350-1512--West parts of nave, Henry VII.'s Chapel, abbot's pew, Henry V.'s Chantry, Jerusalem Chamber. 1739-1741--West front. Modern--North front of north transept. [Illustration PLAN OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY] ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL The city of Rochester has a distinguished past. It lies on the great high road to London, the Old Watling Street. Hence, all the great and Royal visitors passed through Rochester, and few events of historical importance which occurred in the Kentish corner of England were unconnected with this city. It was a Roman station. The Saxons called it _Hvof-Cæstre_. Ethelbert founded the Cathedral here in 604, and this first raised it to importance. Athelstan established a mint here, and at the beginning of the tenth century it was one of the principal ports of the kingdom. This was the cause of its undoing, as the Danes found it a convenient landing-place, and pillaged and ravaged the city. A Norman castle was built by Bishop Gundulf, of whom we shall hear more later. This fortress, of which there are extensive remains, has been frequently besieged. It was granted by the Conqueror to Odo, Bishop of Bayeaux, who was faithless to William and was besieged in this castle. Again, King John and Simon de Montfort, and Wat Tyler, all tried the strength of this mighty fortress. Many scenes of mediæval pageantry took place here. In the time of Henry III. a grand tournament was held here, and gay was the city with the presence of contending knights and squires and all the pomp of ancient chivalry. It were vain to name all the Royal visitors who have sojourned here. Here at the Restoration came the "Merry Monarch," and here, when the fortunes of the Stuarts were very low, came James II. in his secret flight, and embarked from Rochester on his fatal journey to France. The story of the city is full of interest; but its Cathedral was the primary cause of its greatness, and thither we must wend our way, and try to read its history. The see was founded by Ethelbert at the instigation of Augustine in 604, Justus, one of the followers of the Apostle of the English, being its first bishop. He was the builder of the earliest church, some foundations of which have been recently discovered. Here the great missionary of the north, Paulinus, came, the Apostle of the North of England, having been driven away from Northumbria, and was bishop here till 644, when Ithamar succeeded, the first native bishop of the English Church. The church was dedicated to St. Andrew. Danish invasions caused much destruction. Siward, formerly Abbot of Abingdon, was the last Saxon prelate who preserved his see when the Conqueror came. But the chroniclers tell of the miserable condition of the church, "wretched and empty, destitute of all things within and without." In 1076 came Gundulf of Bec to preside over the fortunes of the harassed see, and he wrought vast changes. He introduced Benedictine monks, who replaced the secular canons, rebuilt the Cathedral, and, not content with that, erected a castle here, and built parts of Dover Castle and the Tower of London. Soon after his death Ernulf, whose work at Canterbury we shall see, became bishop here, and carried on his great building operations, erecting the dormitory, chapter-house and refectory. In 1130, in a grand assembly of bishops, nobles, and in the presence of the king, Henry I., the Cathedral was consecrated. As with many other cathedrals, fire wrought havoc in the sacred fane, especially in 1138 and 1177. The later Norman builders added much to the perfection of the church, carving the capitals of piers of the nave, recasing them, and building the west front, which Gundulf does not seem to have accomplished. After the fires the building was renewed, especially in the monks' quarters, which had suffered much. Another great misfortune was the plundering and devastation of the church by King John after his capture of the castle; but happily an event occurred which helped to fill the treasury of the monks, and enabled them to adorn their minster. One William of Perth, a baker by trade, who was of a pious mind, undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but was killed by robbers near Chatham, and buried here. Miracles were said to have been wrought at his tomb; the fame thereof spread; and crowds of pilgrims began to frequent St. William's shrine, and bring costly offerings. William de Hoo was sacrist and prior at the beginning of the thirteenth century, a most active builder, who rebuilt the choir and aisles, using much of the old Norman work. This choir was used for the first time in 1227. Another great builder was Richard de Eastgate, sacrist, who constructed a new west transept, and began the construction of the central tower. His work was continued, and before the century was completed there was a new south transept, and the piers finished for bearing the tower. [Illustration Rochester Cathedral] Bishop Glanville (1185-1214) was much hated by the monks, and continuous disputing arose. "He came from Northumbria," says a monk, "and is a proof of the saying that out of the north proceedeth all evil." In 1264 Simon de Montfort and the barons besieged Rochester, and on Good Friday "the satellites of the devil entered the Church of St. Andrew with their drawn swords, and, striking fear and horror into its children and those also who had taken refuge in it, crucified them together with the Lord, Who suffereth in His elect. Moreover, they plundered the gold and silver and precious things. Some of the monks they imprisoned all the night, and armed men on their horses rode about the altars, and dragged thence with impious hands certain persons who had fled to them. The holy places--the chapels, cloisters, chapter-house, infirmary--were made stalls for their horses, and filled with filth and uncleanness." Walter de Merton was bishop here in 1274-1278. He was the noble founder of Merton College, Oxford, and from his rules which he framed for his institution it is evident that he liked not monks. At one time it seems to have been the intention of the builders to pull down the nave and rebuild it in Gothic style, but in the fourteenth century the monks seem to have given up the idea, and joined the new work with the Norman. The affairs of the monastery did not always go very smoothly. We have noticed some disputes between the bishop and the monks, and in the fourteenth century there were endless quarrels between the monks and the citizens. The latter had the altar of St. Nicholas in the body of the nave near the screen for their use. Their access to it the monks tried to control, and scenes of violence resulted. So the monks encircled the precincts with a wall, and enclosed the choir with strong gates and screens, and subsequently built a church for the parishioners. Bishop Haymo de Hythe (1319-1352) contributed large sums to the restoration of his Cathedral. He built the central tower and raised a campanile, in which he placed four bells, named Dunstan, Paulinus, Ithamar and Lanfranc. He also built the door leading to the chapter-house. Several alterations were made in Perpendicular times, new windows inserted, and the Lady Chapel built in the unusual position on south of the nave, and the fabric of the Cathedral finished. At the dissolution of monasteries the monks were turned adrift, and the New Foundation called into being, consisting of a dean, prebendaries, minor canons, choristers, together with a grammar school. At the Civil War the Cathedral fared better than many. The soldiers changed the position of the altar and broke the rails, and profaned the church by using it as a stable and a tippling place, while saw-pits were made here, and carpenters plied their trade. At the Restoration all churchmen set about repairing their cathedrals, and the citizens of Rochester lagged not behind. Much money was spent on the fabric, and many repairs effected. In the eighteenth century Sloane was the architect who rebuilt the steeple. Very extensive alterations were made at the beginning of the nineteenth century, under the direction of Cottingham, which were drastic, and Sir G. Scott and Mr. Pearson have both been at work on the Cathedral, whose restorations we will examine when we inspect the Cathedral. The Bishopric of Rochester since the Reformation has been occupied by several remarkable men. Bishop Fisher, a learned, brave and saintly man, was doomed to death on the scaffold by Henry VIII. (1535), and Barlow, Buckeridge, Warner and Atterbury were all men who achieved fame in their times. THE EXTERIOR The best view can be obtained from the castle. The _West Front_ is a fine example of Norman work, with the exception of the large Perpendicular window, and the modern imitation of Norman work. It is a mistake for architects to destroy the accretions of centuries, and to substitute a reproduction of what they imagine to have been the original design. Mr. Pearson had the audacity to take down the fifteenth-century north turret, and to erect a bran-new Norman turret in its place. The front, as we see it, consists of a centre flanked by turrets, and two wings, which form the ends of the aisles. First we notice the beautiful west door, which is one of the finest Norman doorways in the kingdom. It has five orders, and is of elaborate design and profusely adorned with mouldings, the capitals being richly carved. On the fourth shaft on each side are two curious figures, supposed to represent Henry I. and his queen. In the tympanum is the Saviour, with angels and the evangelistic emblems, and below small mutilated figures of the Apostles. The old doors were said to have been covered with the skins of Danes, but these have disappeared, and the new ones have no trace of the epidermis of our destructive visitors. The great west window was inserted about 1470. Rows of Norman arcading adorn the front. Two modern statues of Bishops Gundulf and John have been placed in the niches on each side of the doorway. The turrets are octagonal, that on the west being modern, and built by Mr. Pearson on the model of that on the south, in place of a Perpendicular one erected at the same time as the window. The north tower has been quite recently erected in imitation of the ancient design, and the south tower raised to its original height. The _Nave_ is for the most part Norman. The clerestory is Perpendicular, also the windows in the north aisle. The _North Transept_ is Early English, but has been re-roofed at a much higher pitch by Sir G. Scott, who added the pinnacles and circular windows. On the east of this is _Gundulf's Tower_, built by the founder of the Norman church and probably intended for purposes of defence, and as a treasury. It seems that the only entrance to it was from the top, a bridge connecting it with a staircase in the neighbouring transept. It was afterwards used as a belfry. The north side of the choir shows its Early English character, and the presence of the dog-tooth ornament bespeaks its style. There is, however, much modern work. The high gables that call loudly for corresponding roofs were built by Scott, and perhaps some generous visitor will be willing to grant their silent appeal. The south side of the presbytery adjoins the chapter-house and library, built in the eighteenth century in place of the noble Norman chapter-house, the ruins of which still remain. The monastic buildings stood in an unusual position on the south side of the choir, and were mainly constructed by Ernulf. Gundulf's cloisters were on the south of the nave in the usual place for a Benedictine abbey, but these have entirely disappeared. In the ruins of Ernulf's monastic buildings there is much fine Norman work, zigzag and billet mouldings, his favourite diaper which is found at Canterbury, and a curious carving of the sacrifice of Isaac. Parts of the wall of the dormitory and the refectory, with a lavatory, remain. The south side of the choir and the choir transept were much restored by Cottingham in 1825. A fine Decorated window has been inserted in the south wall of the choir transept aisle. The _South Transept_ is Late Early English work. On its west side is the Lady Chapel, erected in the Perpendicular style about 1500. The lower part of the central tower, which is hardly worthy of the Cathedral, was built by Bishop Haymo de Hythe (1319-1352); all above the roof was erected by Cottingham in the restoration of 1825. The remains of the old wall which surrounded the precincts are still in existence. The Prior's Gate was built about the middle of the fourteenth century; and the other remaining gates are College Gate, and the Deanery Gate, both of which belong to the time of Edward IV. THE INTERIOR We enter the _Nave_ by the beautiful west doorway and are at once impressed by the fine Norman character of the building. Much of it is the work of Gundulf, the first Norman bishop, the companion of Lanfranc, who fashioned his rising church after the model of Canterbury, and has thus left us a copy of the appearance of that church ere it was refashioned by later builders. The two eastern bays are Early Decorated. The clerestory is Perpendicular work, and the flat timber roof was erected at the same time. The later Norman builders, Bishops Ernulf and John (1115-1137), greatly improved the appearance of Gundulf's nave. They finished the west end, recased the piers, and carved the zigzag mouldings and the capitals, and seem to have added a new triforium or enriched the old arcade with diaper work. There is no triforium gallery, as it opens both into the aisles as well as into the nave. The fine interior of the west doorway will be noticed, and also another Norman doorway in the south-west corner. The windows in the north aisle are Perpendicular. The font is modern, and also the pulpit, stalls and lectern. On the south of the south aisle is the Late Perpendicular Chapel of St. Mary, usually called the Lady Chapel. It was restored in 1852. Here the consistory court used to meet. It is now used as a chapel for the grammar school. The _South Transept_ is of later date than the corresponding north transept; its style is Late Early English, when the style was merging into Early Decorated. The architect was Richard de Waldene, sacrist. Above in the south wall there are five single-light windows, and below three double windows, and the extensive use of Purbeck marble in the shafts will be noticed. Banded shafts of marble cluster around the great tower-piers. Cottingham erected the present ceiling in 1840. It will be noticed that the Purbeck marble shafts on the two western tower-piers stop some distance from the ground, and a block of intrusive masonry obtrudes itself on the west of the northern one. Various conjectures have been made concerning the object of this. Possibly it formed part of a stone rood loft, or served as a buttress to the arch. The _North Transept_ is Early English, the work of Richard de Eastgate, sacrist. The dog-tooth ornament is seen in the clerestory. The carved corbels, representing monastic heads, are finely executed. In the recess on the east side there is a piscina which marks the site of an altar. The _Monuments_ in the nave and transepts are not important. That of Richard Watts in the south transept is worthy of notice. He entertained Queen Elizabeth at his house called Satis,[4] and erected a hostel for six poor travellers, "not being rogues or proctors," which in later times has been immortalised by Charles Dickens, as a tablet sets forth. Near it is the monument of Sir Richard Head, who sheltered the fugitive monarch James II. when he fled from his kingdom. The glass is all modern. The _Choir Screen_ has been restored in memory of Dean Scott, who, with Dean Liddell of Christ Church, Oxford, compiled the well-known Greek Lexicon. The doorway is ancient Decorated work; the figures are (beginning on the north side) St. Andrew, Ethelbert, St. Justus, St. Paulinus, Gundulf, William de Hoo, Walter de Merton, Bishop Fisher, all of whom were connected with the See of Rochester. As at Canterbury, we ascend several steps to gain the choir, rendered necessary by the height of the crypt below. All the work before us in the choir is Early English, but fashioned on the old Norman walls. It was finished sufficiently for use in 1227, in the year of the accession of Henry de Sandford to the bishopric, and is the work of William de Hoo. The choir aisles are separated from the choir by stone walls. Shafts of Purbeck marble support the vault. Some of the brackets of Early English foliage which support the shafts are beautifully carved. Some of the windows in the presbytery and south choir transept are later insertions, and are Decorated. Sir G. Scott wrought drastic changes here, and substituted two tiers of lancets instead of a large east window, brought the altar away from the extreme east end and designed a new reredos. He made new stalls, using much of the old woodwork. Some fine old fourteenth-century painting he discovered behind the old stalls, which he carefully reproduced, and designed a new throne, pulpit and reredos. Amidst so much that is new and beautiful in its way, it is pleasant to discover some ancient work. The sedilia are Perpendicular, and an Early English piscina and aumbry are observable behind the altar. There is a curious and interesting mural painting on the north wall representing the _Wheel of Fortune_, which is probably a thirteenth-century production. The _North Choir Transept_ (Early English) contains the tomb of St. William, to whom we have already referred, and whose shrine brought much gain to the treasury. The tomb is of Purbeck marble, with a floriated cross. A flat stone marked with six crosses in the centre of the transept is said to be the site of the shrine. The steps leading to this transept from the north choir aisle are much worn by the feet of pilgrims. Here is also the tomb of Walter de Merton (1274-1277) of Early Decorated design, the founder of Merton College, Oxford. The slab is modern; an alabaster effigy made in 1598 now is placed in the adjoining recess. Here is also the tomb of Bishop Lowe (1467). In the aisle (St. John Baptist's Chapel), are tombs of Bishop Warner (1666), the founder of the college for widows at Bromley, who occupied the see during the Commonwealth period; of Bishop John de Sheppey (1360), the sculpture of which is worthy of the highest praise. It was long hidden away in the wall, and remained so for centuries, until the restorations of 1825 brought it to light.[5] Here also is a very ancient statue said to be the figure of Gundulf. In the chancel or sacrarium are the tombs of Bishop Gilbert de Glanville (1214), a shrine-shaped monument with medallions containing mitred heads; Bishop Lawrence de St. Martin (1274), of Early Decorated design; at extreme east, Sir W. Arundel (1400) and his lady; and on the south side the supposed coffin of Bishop Gundulf; Bishop Inglethorp (1291), a thirteenth-century coffin, and another in the south choir transept (name unknown). The glass in this part of the church is all modern. The _doorway into the Chapter-House_ is one of the great glories of the Cathedral. It is Late Decorated work, and was probably erected during the episcopate of Haymo de Hythe (1319-1352). Cottingham restored it in 1830, and made the left-hand figure into a grave and reverend bishop holding a model of a cathedral and a crozier. It is probably correct that in a more recent restoration the figure should have been made into that of a female. It is meant to signify the Christian Church, just as the right-hand figure represents the Jewish Church, blindfolded, and leaning on a broken reed and holding a reversed table of the Law. The two seated figures on the right and left sides represent the four doctors--SS. Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose and Gregory, while above appear angels who have rescued a pure soul from purgatorial fires. The crocketed ogee arch and the diaper work above are worthy of attention; the door is modern. The _Chapter-House and Library_ occupy a room which is a modern addition. The library has some treasures, amongst which may be mentioned _Textus Roffensis_, a collection of records, gifts and privileges of the Cathedral, compiled under the direction of Bishop Ernulf (1115-1124). It has passed through many perils, having been stolen, restored, borrowed, lost in the Thames, recovered, and we trust its dangers are now over. _Custumale Roffense_, another valuable MS. of the thirteenth century, a great collection of _Bibles_, including Coverdale's, Cranmer's or the Great Bible, and the Bishops' Bible. Above the choir transepts are two chambers called the Treasury, where the church plate is kept, and the Indulgence Chamber. Following the course of the pilgrims, we proceed down the flight of steps to the south choir aisle, or Chapel of St. Edmund. There is the mutilated tomb of Bishop John de Bradfield (1278-1283). Following the second flight of steps we come to the _Crypt_, which extends under the whole choir and is one of the most perfect in the kingdom. The western part is Early Norman, and has massive piers and cushion capitals. The rest is Early English. The altars in the crypt were numerous, and traces of them remain, as shown by the piscinas. The crypt was extensively decorated with mural paintings, and some traces of them may still be seen. DIMENSIONS Total length, 306 ft.; length of nave, 126 ft.; width of nave, 65 ft.; length of choir, 147 ft.; length of west transept, 120 ft.; length of east transept, 88 ft.; height of tower, 156 ft.; height of vault, 55 ft.; area, 23,300 sq. ft. DESCRIPTION OF ARCHITECTURE Norman--Most of the nave and part of crypt and old chapter-house. Early English--The choir and transepts. Decorated--Chapter door and some windows at east end. Perpendicular--Clerestory of the nave, west window, Lady Chapel. Modern--Tower, chapter-house and library, roof of west transept and north-west tower. FOOTNOTES: [4] When the queen was departing he apologised for his poor entertainment, but she replied "_Satis_" ("sufficient"), from which august reply Watts named his house. [5] Authorities differ as to whether the colouring is ancient or modern. Mr. Palmer, in his recent and valuable history of the Cathedral, pronounces in favour of the latter; but Mr. St. John Hope considers it to be ancient. CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL In the minds of readers of English history Canterbury must always rank first amongst our cathedrals on account of the wealth of historical associations connected with it. The story of Canterbury is the story of England, and every record of our annals abounds with allusions to it, or to the distinguished prelates connected with it. It is the metropolitan church of the southern province, and is regarded with veneration as the Mother Church not only of England, but of all the churches in America and the colonies of the British Empire. There was probably a Roman or Romano-British church here; when Augustine converted King Ethelbert to Christianity the monarch gave him his palace together with an old church which stood near it. This was on part of the site of the present Cathedral. We need not record again the tangled story of the conversion of the English, or the names of all the successors of Augustine. The first seven were buried in the Monastery of St. Augustine, now St. Augustine's College, Archbishop Cuthbert (d. 758) being the first to be interred in his own Cathedral. Archbishop Odo (942-959) known as "the Severe" on account of his endeavour to restore discipline among the clergy, although born a heathen Dane, was a zealous prelate, and set himself to restore the ruinous condition of his Cathedral. For three years the work of building progressed. The eleventh century brought the Danish ravages, and with fire and sword the Pagan hosts attacked Canterbury and murdered the archbishop, Alphege. His successor, Living or Leofing, was held captive by the Danes for some time, but sought safety beyond seas, and lived to crown Canute. The Cathedral was restored by the next prelate, Egelnorth, but a fire destroyed it in 1067, and it was not till Norman times that a complete restoration was attempted. Lanfranc, the first Norman archbishop, finding the church utterly dilapidated, destroyed the old fabric and built a noble minster. We have a description of the old Saxon church in the writings of Eadmer, a monk of Canterbury: "At the east end of the church stood the high altar, which enclosed the body of St. Winifred. This was of rough stone cemented together. A little before that was an altar where Mass was said daily; in which altar St. Alphege enclosed the head of St. Swithun, and many other relics which he brought with him from Winchester. Descending hence by several steps was the crypt. At the foot of these steps was a descent into a vault which went under the east part of the church; and at the east end of it was an altar, wherein was enclosed the head of St. Fursius. From hence by a winding passage, at the west end, was the tomb of St. Dunstan, separated from it by a wall. His body was buried deep in the ground before those stairs, and over him was a tomb erected in the form of a lofty pyramid. The hall or body of the church was separated from the choir. About the middle of the hall were two towers jutting out beyond the walls--that on the south had an altar dedicated to St. Gregory; and from this tower was a passage, the principal porch of the church, anciently called Stuthdore, a large and capacious portico. The tower on the north side was erected to the honour of St. Martin, having a passage to it from the cloisters. The end of the church was adorned with the oratory of the Blessed Virgin. In the eastern part of it was an altar, consecrated to her, which enclosed the head of a saint." Lanfranc also built the monastic buildings. The saintly Archbishop Anselm, who succeeded Lanfranc, took down the east end and rebuilt it with great magnificence. His chief architect was Ernulf, the prior, afterwards Bishop of Rochester. Prior Conrad succeeded, who finished the choir, which was hereafter known as "the glorious choir of Conrad." Gervase, a monk of Canterbury, describes this church, which had a central tower, a nave supported on each side by eight pillars, two western towers with gilt pinnacles, a rood-screen, surmounted by a great cross with figures of SS. Mary and John. He concludes that the dedication of this church was "the most famous that had ever been heard of on the earth since that of the Temple of Solomon." This church was the scene of the murder of Thomas à Becket, which convulsed the land, and here Henry II. did penance before the tomb of the archbishop slain at his instigation. In 1174 a fierce conflagration raged and destroyed the beautiful choir, and at the sight of the ruins, Gervase tells us, the people were mad with grief, and beat the walls and tore their hair, blaspheming the Lord and His saints. The task of rebuilding was at once commenced, and William of Sens was appointed architect. He laboured for four years, and then falling from a scaffold was so much injured that he was obliged to return to France. An English William then took over the superintendence of the work. It is not stated that he was a pupil of William of Sens, or was in any way influenced by French models. In 1184 the choir was finished, and soon new cloisters were added. In 1304 the choir was beautified and a new pulpit erected by Prior d'Estria, who added the great bell called Thomas. In 1376 Archbishop Sudbury took down the western transepts and the nave, and began the rebuilding of the former in the Perpendicular style, the work being continued by Prior Chillenden during the rule of Archbishop Courtenay, the oppressor of Lollardism. The cloisters and chapter-house were finished at this time. Archbishop Arundel (1396-1414), who was addicted to burning heretics, also added greatly to the beauty of the church, and his successor, Chichele, spent vast sums on the church, founded a library, and began the spire on the west tower. In 1449 Prior Goldstone built the beautiful chapel of the Virgin called the Dean's Chapel, and another prior of the same name in 1495 began the great central tower, or Angel Steeple, when Archbishop Morton ruled, whose rebus is inscribed upon it. The same prior also built the Christ Church Gate in 1517. The troublous times of the Reformation followed, and we find Cranmer occupying the archiepiscopal throne, who was ultimately doomed to the stake at Oxford. Fanatical reformers wrought terrible havoc in the Cathedral. The magnificent shrine of Becket, to which millions had flocked to pay their devotions, was entirely destroyed, and numerous other costly shrines shared its fate. Archbishop Laud attempted to restore the beauty of the sanctuary, and erected a fine altar with reredos; but soon the pikes of the Puritans and their wild savagery reduced the interior of the Cathedral to a ruinous desolation. The usual scenes of mad iconoclasm were enacted, windows broken, altars thrown down, lead stripped off the roof, brasses and effigies defaced and broken. A creature nicknamed "Blue Dick" was the wild leader of this savage crew of spoliators, who left little but the bare walls and a mass of broken fragments strewing the pavement. [Illustration Canterbury Cathedral] Since then numerous alterations and restorations have taken place. At the Restoration of the monarchy Bishop Juxon of London, who attended Charles I. on the scaffold at Whitehall, was made Archbishop of Canterbury, and he and Archbishop Sheldon, his successor, did much to restore the fabric and remove the traces of Puritan fanaticism. Archbishop Tenison (1694-1716) removed the old stalls and substituted pews. He covered Prior d'Estria's screen with wainscotting, and erected a fine throne with carving by Grinling Gibbons. Queen Mary also added to the beauty of the Cathedral by sundry costly gifts. In 1834 a new north-west tower was built. In 1872 a fire broke out in the roof, but happily no very extensive damage was done, and five years later Sir G. Scott began his restorations, which have removed some of the faults committed in the early eighteenth-century alterations. THE EXTERIOR The best views are obtained from the mound in the Dane John (or Donjon--probably a fortified earthwork of Norman times) approached by St. George's Terrace, adjoining the Cattle Market, from the green or outer court of the monastery, and from the village of Harbledown. The _West Front_ is flanked by two towers. That on the north was built in 1840, as the former one, called the Arundel, was in a dangerous condition; that on the south, called the Dunstan, was finished by Prior Goldstone (1449-1468), and is in the Perpendicular style, with characteristic panelling. A large window is in the centre of the front, and two smaller windows for the aisles, and above, in the gable, another window with elaborate tracery. The _South Porch_ was built by Prior Chillenden about 1400. Erasmus tells us that he saw figures of Becket's murderers here, but these have disappeared. The niches have been filled with modern figures. Proceeding along the south side of the church, we notice the Perpendicular style of the nave and aisles, the work of Prior Chillenden, which replaced the old Norman nave. There is a close resemblance between this and Winchester, which was being constructed at the same time. All that remains here of Lanfranc's nave is the lowest base of the aisle walls. The south-west transept is of the same date as the nave and has a large window on the south front with three tiers of panels over it, and an elaborate turret at the south-west corner. The south-east transept is Late Norman, the work of William of Sens and William the Englishman. Here we have Norman round-headed windows with arcades, also a circular window, and on the west a Norman turret capped with a short spire. Proceeding eastwards we see Anselm's Tower, and on the extreme east the corona, the work of English William. On the west Henry IV.'s Chantry, St. Andrew's Chapel, corresponding to that of St. Anselm, the treasury, and the range of monastic buildings, consisting of library, chapter-house and cloisters, which we will examine later. A wall surrounded the precincts, the principal gate being that called _Christ Church_ Gate, erected by Goldstone in Perpendicular style in 1517. THE INTERIOR We enter the _Nave_ by the south porch. Lanfranc's nave was entirely removed in 1380 on account of its ruinous state, and the present nave erected by Prior Chillenden, who was employed and supported by Archbishops Sudbury, Courtenay and Arundel. As we have said, it resembled Winchester, built at the same time, but it is lighter in character, as here the piers were built anew, and not cased with Perpendicular work as at Winchester. The height of the floor of the choir necessitated a lofty flight of steps leading to it from the nave; and this is a peculiar feature of this Cathedral and of much beauty. The nave is very lofty, being 80 feet high. The great west window contains the fragments of old glass which have been brought together here. The rest of the stained glass is modern and hideous. In the north aisle are monuments of Adrian Saravia, the friend of Hooker (1612), Orlando Gibbons, organist to Charles I., Sir John Boys (1614), founder of a hospital, Archbishop Sumner (1862), who crowned Queen Victoria, and memorials of military men who died for their country. In the south aisle are monuments of Dr. Broughton, Bishop of Sydney, and Dean Lyall (1858). The central tower is supported by original Norman piers, cased with Perpendicular work at the time when the nave was built. The vault and all the upper part of the tower above the roof were erected by Prior Goldstone (1495-1517), and also the arches, which act as buttresses and bear the Prior's rebus, three golden bars. The screen is fifteenth-century work and is remarkable for its beauty; formerly the figures of our Lord and the Twelve Apostles occupied the upper niches, but these fell victims to Puritan iconoclasm. The devastators spared, however, the figures of the kings in the lower tier. The _North-West Transept_, or Chapel of the _Martyrdom of Becket_, claims our close attention, as the event which occurred here filled Christendom with amaze. The martyrdom of Thomas à Becket took place on Tuesday, 29th December 1170. Early in the morning the four barons had an interview with him, pretending to come on a peaceful visit with messages from the king. They were shown into the room in the palace where the archbishop usually remained. Some high words passed between them and they departed; in the evening they entered the Cathedral, armed. While the archbishop was ascending the steps, Sir Reginald Fitzurse entered the door of the church, clad in complete armour, and, waving his sword, cried, "Come hither, servants of the king!" The other conspirators, Sir Hugh Morvill, Sir William Tracey and Sir Richard le Breton, immediately followed him, armed to the teeth, and brandishing their swords. It was already twilight, which within the walls of the dimly-lighted church had deepened into the blackest obscurity. Becket's attendants entreated him to fly to the winding staircase which led to the roof of the building, or to seek refuge in the vaults underground. He rejected both of these expedients and still stood to meet his assailants. "Where is the traitor?" cried a voice. There was no answer. "Where is the archbishop?" "Here I am," replied Becket; "but here is no traitor. What do ye in the House of God in warlike equipment?" One of the knights seized him by the sleeve; he pulled back his arm violently. They then advised him to go with them, as though they repented of the evil design. They called upon him to absolve the bishops. He refused; and Fitzurse, drawing his sword, struck at his head. The blow was intercepted by the arm of one of the monks who stepped forward to protect him, but in vain. A second blow descended, and while the blood was streaming from his face some one of his assailants whispered to him to fly and save himself. Becket paid no heed to the speaker, but clasped his hands and bowed his head, commending his soul to God and the saints. The conspirators now fell upon him with their swords and quickly despatched him. One of them is said to have kicked the prostrate body, saying, "So perishes a traitor." The deed thus accomplished, the conspirators passed out of the town without hindrance, but no sooner had they done so than the news spread throughout the city and the inhabitants, in the utmost excitement and indignation, assembled in crowds in the streets and ran towards the Cathedral. Seeing the body of their archbishop stretched before the altar, men and women began to weep, and while some kissed his hands and feet others dipped linen in the blood with which the pavement was covered. It was declared by the people that Becket was a martyr, and although a Royal edict was published forbidding anyone to express such an opinion, the popular feeling still manifested itself. Some soldiers attempted to seize the corpse, but the monks, who had received an intimation of the design, buried it hastily in the crypt of the Cathedral. Since that eventful scene the transept has been rebuilt. The stones around us, except it be the pavement, did not witness that bloody deed. When the nave was rebuilt by Chillenden this part of the church was much transformed. Portions of the old Norman walls built by Lanfranc remain, but the main character of the building is Perpendicular. The door is the same by which the murderers entered, part of the wall, and probably the pavement, wherein is a small square piece which marks the actual spot where Becket fell. The great window was given by Edward IV., and has figures of his queen, his daughters, and the two princes who were murdered in the Tower. The west window is modern, and represents scenes from the life of Becket. There are monuments here of Archbishop Peckham (1292), the oldest in the Cathedral, and Archbishop Warham (1532), who crowned Henry VIII., and was the opponent of Wolsey and the friend of Erasmus. A door at the east end of this transept leads to the _Dean's Chapel_, formerly the Lady Chapel, built by Goldstone in Perpendicular style. The monuments here are to Dean Fotherby, Dr. Bargrave, Dean Boys with his books, and Dean Turner, a favourite of Charles I. The daily crowd of pilgrims who visited the scene of the martyrdom in mediæval times used to pass on to the shrine of St. Thomas by the north choir aisle, on their way to his shrine, and we will follow in their steps. In this aisle we see much of the original Norman work of Archbishop Anselm's choir, erected under the supervision of Prior Ernulf. William of Sens added many architectural details and made some alterations, but he seems to have intended to preserve the special features of the earlier work. The roof was, however, raised, and the clerestory of Ernulf's building converted into the triforium windows of William of Sens. The latter brought with him the use of the chisel, the former carving his ruder ornamentation by means of an axe. William also introduced the pointed arch. Here is the monument of Archbishop Tait. Three "squints" will be observed in the west wall. Two apsidal chapels are at the east end, dedicated to SS. Stephen and Martin. In the aisle there is some ancient glass of thirteenth-century work, which is of extreme beauty, also an old desk with ancient Bible. An ancient mural painting should be noticed, representing the conversion of St. Hubert. Next we visit the _Chapel of St. Andrew_, now the vestry, which has some traces of colour decoration. It was built by Prior Ernulf, and was formerly the sacristy, where relics of Becket were preserved in a chest, together with a quantity of vestments. Beyond this, to the north, was the treasury, which was well protected by a massive door. The treasures of costly plate and jewels at Canterbury were of enormous value. In the aisle on the south side there is the splendid tomb of Archbishop Chichele (1443), whom Shakespeare represents in _Henry V._ as instigating the war with France, and who was the founder of All Souls', Oxford. Also there are monuments of Archbishop Howley (1848) and Archbishop Bourchier (1486). Up lofty steps, climbed by pilgrims on their knees, we ascend to the _Retro-Choir_, the work of William the Englishman, the successor of William of Sens. _Holy Trinity Chapel_ occupies the centre, where stood the wondrous shrine of Becket. Architecturally it is interesting as showing the triumph of English achievement over the foreign influence, and the gradual development of the English Gothic style; and historically it is fascinating as being the goal of pilgrims from all quarters of the land. The famous shrine has entirely disappeared, owing to the cupidity of Henry VIII. and his commissioners. Some idea of what it was like is given by a representation of it in one of the windows of the chapel. There was a stone base with marble arches, and above the shrine covered with a wooden canopy, "which at a given signal was drawn up, and the shrine then appeared, blazing with gold and damasked with gold wire, and embossed with innumerable pearls and jewels and rings, cramped together on this gold ground." One great diamond or carbuncle was as large as a hen's egg, called the _Regale of France_, and presented by Louis VII. All the monarchs and nobles in mediæval times came here to worship, and crowds flocked from all quarters "the holy blissful martyr for to seek"; the pavement is worn by their knees; cripples begged to rub their limbs against the pillars of the holy shrine, and perchance were healed--faith plays a wondrous part in many a cure--and Chaucer sings of the tales and doings of the not always very austere Canterbury pilgrims. The windows of this chapel contain some of the best thirteenth-century glass in existence. They record miracles wrought by Becket. Above the shrine is a gilded crescent, concerning which many theories have been suggested, none wholly satisfactory. [Illustration Tomb of the Black Prince] In this chapel is the monument of _Edward, the Black Prince_ (1376), who fought at Creçy and Poictiers, one of the bravest of our national heroes. The effigy is of brass and was once gilded, and represents the prince in full armour. The head rests on a casque, and the features of the Plantagenets are distinctly traceable. Above the tomb is a canopy, having on it a representation of the Trinity, and above that are the remains of dress and armour actually worn by the prince--his helmet, a shield, a velvet surcoat, gauntlets, and the scabbard of the sword. On the tomb is an inscription in Norman French which, translated, tells: "Here lies the most noble Prince Edward, eldest son of the most noble King Edward III., Prince of Aquitaine and Wales, Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Chester, who died on Trinity Sunday, the 8th of June 1376. To the soul of whom God grant mercy.--Amen." Then follow some verses written by the prince, which begin:-- "Tu que passez ove bouche close pur la ou c'est corps repose, Entent ce qe te dirray, sicome te dire la say," and proceed to contrast the riches and glory of this present life with the mouldering and decay of death. Below are seen shields of arms which bear those of France and England, and the ostrich or Prince of Wales's feathers, with the motto _Houmont Ich diene_. Both Welsh and German origin is claimed for the motto. Dean Stanley preferred the latter, and stated that _Houmont_ meant _high-spirited_, while the latter words signify _I serve_. Another interesting tomb is that of Henry IV. (1413), and his second wife, Joan of Navarre (1437). The tomb was opened in 1832, and the body of the dead king discovered in wonderful preservation. He founded the chantry near his tomb. Some vestments taken from a tomb are preserved in this chapel. Other memorials are those of Dean Wotton, by Bernini; Cardinal Coligny, whose brother fell in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and who was poisoned by his servant; Archbishop Courtenay, the oppressor of the Lollards, who is represented in archiepiscopal robes, with his mitre and crosier. The _Corona_ at the extreme east end is a beautiful piece of work, accomplished by English William. It is in the form of a circular apse, and has a triforium and clerestory. For some obscure reason it has been popularly called "Becket's crown," possibly from the presence here of some relic of the martyr. Here were the shrines of Archbishop Odo and St. Wilfrid of York, and here is the tomb of Cardinal Pole, archbishop in the time of Mary, a plain brick monument, plastered over with the inscription: "The body of Cardinal Pole." Turning to the _South Choir_ aisle, which resembles the north, we see the _Chapel of St. Anselm_, formerly that of SS. Peter and Paul. It resembles that of St. Andrew, and was built by Ernulf, and probably restored after the great fire. Behind the altar was buried the great Anselm, one of the most saintly and renowned prelates who ever occupied the see of Augustine. The south window is Decorated, inserted by Prior d'Estria in 1336. There is a monument here of Archbishop Simon de Mepham (1333), whom we shall hear of again at Exeter, when his visitation was resisted by the arrogant Bishop Grandisson; and also of Archbishop Bradwardine (1349). Above this chapel is the _Watching Chamber_, where a monk was stationed to guard the shrines. Proceeding along the aisle on the right are monuments of Archbishop Sudbury (1381), beheaded in the Wat Tyler rebellion; Archbishop Stratford (1348) and Archbishop Kemp (1454). The _South-East Transept_ is similar to the northern one. The walls are the work of Ernulf. It is to William of Sens, however, that we have to attribute the architectural details. There are apsidal chapels dedicated to SS. John and Gregory, the remains of Archbishop Winchelsey's tomb (1313); and the "patriarchal chair," erroneously called "St. Augustine's." In the aisle on the left are two tombs said to be those of Archbishop Hubert Walter, who accompanied Richard I. on a Crusade, and Archbishop Reynolds (1327), the friend of Edward II. The _South-West Transept_ was rebuilt at the same time as the nave by Chillenden. On the east of this is the _Warrior Chapel_, dedicated to St. Michael. Its style is Perpendicular, _circa_ 1370, and was probably erected by Chillenden. Here is the monument of Stephen Langton (1228), who wrested from King John the Magna Charta. The position is curious, only the head of the tomb appearing through the wall. Other monuments are those of John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, half brother of Henry IV. (1409), and Thomas of Clarence, second son of the same king, killed in battle in 1421, erected by the widow of both; Lady Thornhurst (1609) and Sir Thomas, Sir John Rooke, one of the heroes of the capture of Gibraltar, and some military trophies and memorials. [Illustration The Crypt.] The _Crypt_ is one of the finest in England, built before 1085. There is here some very fine Norman work, the western portion was constructed mainly by Ernulf, though there is some of the work of Lanfranc also here. The carving was executed after the stones were set in their places, and we can see that some of the carving was left unfinished, the designs having been roughly traced out. The portion of the crypt east of the Trinity Chapel is the work of English William (1178-1184). The Chapel of Our Lady Undercroft is enclosed by some Late Perpendicular open stone-work, and was very magnificent. Only privileged pilgrims were allowed to see the wealth of precious stones and costly ornaments with which this wondrous shrine was adorned. In the crypt is the monument of Lady Mohun of Dunstar (1395), the chantry founded by the Black Prince, St. John's Chapel, the tomb of Isabel, Countess of Athole (1229). Here Becket's body was hastily buried by the monks after his murder; it remained here for fifty years, and was resorted to by the crowds of pilgrims, and here Henry II. endured his penance, receiving five strokes of a rod from each bishop and abbot present, and three from each of the eighty monks, and remaining all the night fasting, resting against one of the pillars. Queen Elizabeth gave the Flemish refugees the use of the crypt both as a place of worship and as a home for their industry. Here they plied their busy looms, and in their moments of leisure wrote inscriptions on the walls. The descendants of these settlers still live in Canterbury, and use part of the crypt as their chapel. THE MONASTIC BUILDINGS Canterbury was a Benedictine monastery. We enter the _Cloisters_ from the north transept, which are mainly Perpendicular in style, though occupying the site of the old Norman buildings, and containing remains of earlier work. Chillenden, the builder of the nave, is responsible for all the Perpendicular work. The _Chapter-House_ was rebuilt on Norman lines late in the thirteenth century, and re-ceiled and re-windowed in the fourteenth by Chillenden. The ceiling is composed of panels of Irish oak. Unfortunately a severe restoration in 1897 has somewhat vulgarised its former beautiful features. At the east end there is the beautiful priors' sedilia, with glass mosaics on the spandrels of the throne. After the Reformation the chapter-house was used for preachings, and acquired the name of the sermon-house. On the north of the garth was the refectory, the entrance to which may be seen, and also the remains of the monks' lavatory. Passing along we see the Priors', now known as the Green Court, a large open space surrounded with the remains of the domestic buildings of the monastery. The Deanery, previously part of the priors' lodgings, is on the east, and the south was also occupied by the dormitory and refectory, with kitchens. On the west is the Porter's Gate, a Norman structure, with curious ornamentation. The very interesting late _Norman Staircase_ leading to the hall of the Grammar School should be examined. Returning, we traverse the passage north of the chapter-house, and come to the _Lavatory Tower_--erroneously called the baptistry--of Late Norman construction, built by Prior Wibert for supplying the various buildings with water, and adjoining this is the _Library_, which possesses a fine collection of books. A very interesting MS. is the charter of Eadred (949 A.D.), written by Dunstan; there is an ancient portrait of Queen Edgiva (late fourteenth century). The remains of the infirmary and the garden of the monastery may also be seen; and an arched doorway in Palace Street is all that remains of the once famous Archbishop's Palace, which was inhabited by so many distinguished prelates, and the scene of so many events in English history. It was destroyed during the Commonwealth period. DIMENSIONS Total length 522 ft. (inside, 514 ft.) Length of nave 178 ft. Width of nave 71 ft. Length of choir 180 ft. Height of nave 80 ft. Height of central tower 235 ft. Height of west tower 130 ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES Nave (1378-1411), Prior Chillenden. Choir (1174-1184), William of Sens and English William. Choir-screen (1304-1305), Prior d'Estria. Towers of St. Andrew and Anselm, Prior Ernulf. Retro-choir and corona (1178-1184), English William. Crypt, west part (1070-1109), Lanfranc and Ernulf. Crypt, east part (1178-1184), English William. Central tower (1495), Prior Goldstone. [Illustration PLAN OF CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL] OTHER CHURCHES AND OBJECTS OF INTEREST _St. Martin's Church_, traditionally said to be the oldest church in the kingdom, is certainly of great antiquity. A large number of Roman bricks are built up in the walls. It contains a stone coffin, in which it is said that Queen Bertha lies, the wife of King Ethelbert, converted by Augustine, but this is improbable. The font is Saxon, and it is, according to tradition, which is not very reliable, the font in which Ethelbert was baptised. _St. Augustine's College_ for Missionaries was formerly the Monastery of St. Augustine. The earliest house was dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, said to have been founded by Augustine. Dunstan enlarged it, and added the founder's name to the dedication. It became very rich and important. The buildings were destroyed by the Danes, but they arose again in greater glory, and at the dissolution of monasteries the house became a Royal palace. The buildings are well worthy of a visit. _St. Dunstan's Church._ The _West Gate_, built by Archbishop Sudbury, _temp._ Richard II. _Holy Cross Church._ _St. Peter's Church._ _St. Thomas's Hospital_ for Entertainment of Pilgrims. The remains of the old _Chequers Inn_ at the south-west corner of Mercery Lane, can be traced, and a portion of it is incorporated in the house known as Grafton House. There are some fine old houses in this street, anciently called _La Merceri_, each stone projecting outwards, so as almost to meet at the top, typical of an old English city street. WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL The city of Winchester, the ancient capital of England, the Caer Gwent of the Britons, the Venta Belgarum of the Romans, the Royal city of Alfred the Great and of William the Conqueror, was a place of vast importance in the annals of England. Under Cnut it was the capital of a kingdom stretching across the seas to Scandinavia, and under the Normans a large part of France was in subjection to it. Here kings were born and Royal weddings celebrated with great pomp in its grand Cathedral. If Royal patronage could have preserved the glories of ancient Winchester, it would have remained the capital of England; but London was the centre of the commercial activity of the country, and in the end Winchester was forced to yield supremacy to its more powerful rival. Its ecclesiastical history is no less important. A British church here is said to have been destroyed during the Diocletian persecution (A.D. 266) and restored subsequently and dedicated to St. Amphibalus, the martyr. Heathendom returned with the Saxons, until they were converted by St. Berinus, and by the baptism of King Kynegils the triumph of Christianity was assured. He built a new Cathedral, which was again rebuilt by Bishop Ethelbold (980) and consecrated by Dunstan, and this church remained until the Norman builders came with the Conqueror, and began, under his kinsman, Walkelin, to erect that stately fane which we are now about to visit. Winchester is unlike Salisbury, which was, for the most part, completed in one period of architecture; the former was the work of several builders at different eras. A large part of the Early Norman Cathedral remains; the crypt and transepts and the core of the walls being all Norman work. The eastern aisles and chapels are the work of Bishop de Lucy (1189-1204), built in the Early English style, during the troubled reigns of Richard I. and John; the noble nave was begun by Bishop Edingdon in 1345, and not finished until the time of Waynflete, in 1496, while the dawn of the Reformation saw the building of the side aisles of the presbytery and the east part of the Lady Chapel. The celebrated William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, Chancellor of Edward III., the founder of the Colleges of Winchester and New (Oxford), was the chief architect of the nave. We approach the Cathedral by an avenue of stately elms, and reach the west door. The best exterior view is obtained from the north side of the close. The tower is low massive Norman work, built in the time of the first Henry, the first tower having fallen, as some said, because William Rufus, the bad king, was buried beneath it. The west front has been recently restored. It is evidently Perpendicular work, and was probably constructed by Bishop Edingdon. On entering we are struck by the grandeur and impressiveness of this noble nave: Winchester is the largest Cathedral in England. The whole church is 556 feet in length, and nearly 400 feet of magnificent stone-vault is visible from the west doorway. This nave presents some architectural problems. The style is evidently Perpendicular work of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but the builders of that period transformed much of the original Norman work, which still remains in the piers and walls, into that of the later style. They did not rebuild, but transformed, adding new mouldings, casing, and concealing, though not obliterating, the ancient Norman features. We can trace the work of the successive builders. Bishop Edingdon entirely rebuilt the west front and extreme west portion. Examine the two west windows of the north aisle, and compare them with the third, the work of William of Wykeham, and notice their heavy and less graceful appearance. Wykeham was responsible for the complete transformation of the nave, but lived only long enough to complete the south side. Notice the thickness of the piers. This was caused by casing the Norman piers with Perpendicular stone-work, and the balcony above the arches was necessitated by the work of reconstruction. Wykeham's successor, Cardinal Beaufort (uncle of Henry V., the "rich Cardinal," as men called him, one of Joan of Arc's judges, but withal not so base a man as Shakespeare depicts), continued, and Bishop Waynflete, the founder of Magdalen College, Oxford, completed that magnificent structure which we now see. On each side of the west door are bronze statues of Charles I. and James I. by Le Sueur. On the bosses of the roof we see some armorial bearings; the lily (the arms of Magdalen College) is the device of Waynflete, and the arms of Wykeham, Beaufort, John of Gaunt and Richard II. (white hart chained) are there represented. The Minstrels' Gallery or tribune, erected by Edingdon, is at the west end of the north aisle, and the oldest piece of iron grill-work in England of very good design is seen in a neighbouring door. The font is Norman work, the sculptures representing scenes from the life of St. Nicholas of Myra, together with doves and the salamander. The chantry chapels on the south side of the nave are extremely interesting: (1) Bishop Edingdon's Chantry (1345-1366), (2) William of Wykeham's Chantry, which is very beautifully designed. We see the effigy of the distinguished prelate with two angels holding the pillow under his head, and three monks at his feet praying for his soul. Some modern statues have been added at the east end and an ingenious chronogram. In the south aisle there are two monuments by Flaxman (Henrietta North and Dr. Warton), and one to the once famous Bishop Hoadley, the founder of the Bangorian controversy, which shows the Magna Charta by the side of the Bible and the cap of liberty contending with the pastoral staff. Some heroes of the Crimean War are also commemorated. There are memorials of Mrs. Montagu, the founder of the "Blue Stockings," and of Jane Austen. The pulpit is Jacobean, and was brought here from New College, Oxford. The screen separating the nave from the choir is modern. The bronze figures of James I. and Charles I. formed part of an older screen erected by Inigo Jones. Cromwell's soldiers wrought havoc here as in many other churches and cathedrals. They broke the windows and woodwork, desecrated shrines, and paid much attention to this statue of their king. On entering the choir we find ourselves immediately beneath the tower, which, as we have observed, is Late Norman work, and notice the immense piers which support it. The former tower having fallen, the builders were determined not to have a similar misfortune, and therefore built these piers abnormally strong and massive. The ceiling was erected in the time of Charles I. (1634), and bears medallions of that ill-fated monarch and his queen. Beyond the tower we see the piers and arches and clerestory of the presbytery, which belong to the Late Decorated period. The noble reredos belongs to the fifteenth century, and has been recently restored, the vacant niches being again filled with statuary. In the centre is the figure of our Lord upon the Cross, with the Virgin and St. John. On each side of the altar are SS. Hedda and Ethelwolf, and in the spandrels of the two doorways some ancient sculptures of the life of the Virgin. Above are figures of SS. Swithun and Berinus, and above the doors SS. Benedict and Giles, and SS. Stephen and Lawrence. In the highest row are SS. Peter and Paul and the four Latin doctors. There are numerous smaller statues of kings and prelates. The whole appearance of the screen is very magnificent. The woodwork of the stalls is the most perfect in the kingdom, and was constructed in the closing years of the thirteenth century. The carved foliage is remarkable for its grace and elegance. Notice the carved heads and the monkeys and other animals playing amidst the branches. The _Misereres_ are interesting, and are earlier than the canopies. The pulpit was presented by one "Thomas Silkstede, prior," whose name it bears. In the centre of the presbytery we see the supposed tomb of William Rufus, who was accidentally killed by an arrow when hunting in the New Forest. His ashes, however, do not rest beneath this stone, but are preserved in the chests above the screen, together with the bones of Canute and some Saxon prelates. Cromwell's soldiers rifled the tomb and found therein a chalice, which sacred vessel was usually placed in the coffins of bishops and therefore could not have belonged to the grave of the red-haired monarch. Bishop Fox (1500-1520) did much for this part of the Cathedral. He placed the glass in the east window, which has been much modified. Glass painting at this period had attained its highest perfection as an art, and in its original condition this window must have been unrivalled. The stone screens on each side of the presbytery were also erected by Fox, and six mortuary chests containing the bones of Saxon kings and bishops are placed upon them. Amongst the bones of other illustrious men are deposited in a mingled state the mortal remains of Kynegils, Ethelwolf, the father of Alfred the Great, Egbert, Canute, and many others. The soldiers of Cromwell played havoc with these bones of kings, and scattered them about the Cathedral, hence it is impossible to be certain that these chests actually contain the mortal remains of those whose names they bear. The vault of the presbytery is wooden, and the bosses are interesting. Behind the reredos is the feretory or place for the shrines of patron saints, with a stone platform at its east end on which formerly stood the shrines of St. Swithun[6] and St. Berinus. [Illustration WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL] Pilgrims used to pass in procession before these shrines along the stone passage. A collection of fragments of carved work is shown here. We now visit the north transept and find ourselves in the earliest portion of the Cathedral, built by Bishop Walkelin in the old Norman style. The windows were inserted in the Decorated period, and the ceiling belongs to the last century. The transepts have aisles on the east and west sides and also at each end, over which is a gallery. This is not common in England. At St. Alban's there is a similar arrangement, and in several Normandy churches. The Norman work of the transepts is of two periods. The earlier part by Walkelin (1070-1098) is distinguished by the smaller piers and plain groined vaulting; the later (1107) by the ribbed vaulting and larger piers. When we visit Ely Cathedral we shall notice the similarity of design, the transepts of that building having been erected by Simeon, Walkelin's brother. Under the organ-loft is the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre. Notice the curious mural paintings representing the Passion of our Lord which date from the thirteenth century, and the Decorated canopies built against the Norman piers. We now enter the north aisle of the presbytery and proceed to the extreme eastern portion of the Cathedral. Here seven chantries and chapels are seen which record the memory of illustrious prelates. "How much power and ambition under half-a-dozen stones! I own I grow to look on tombs as lasting mansions, instead of observing them for curious pieces of architecture," wrote Walpole. Almost all the east end was built by Bishop Godfrey de Lucy (1189-1204) at the beginning of the Early English period and is of exquisite design. The north chapel is called that of the Guardian Angels, and is so named from figures of angels in the vaulting. There is a bronze figure of the Earl of Portland here, the treasurer of Charles I. Notice the figure holding a heart. It represents Bishop Ethelmar, half-brother of Henry III., who died in Paris but directed that his heart should be conveyed to this Cathedral. The Lady Chapel has work of divers periods--north and south walls Early English (De Lucy), east wall and window with small eastern parts of north and south walls Perpendicular (Prior Hunton, 1470-1498, and Prior Silkstede, 1498-1524). The rebuses of these two priors on the vault are curious: T. _Hun_ and a ton (Thomas Hunton), and 1 and _Por_ for Prior; T. _Silk_ and a horse (Thomas Silkstede). Mural paintings by the latter prior representing the legends of the Virgin adorn the walls. The panelling is the work of Bishop Fox. The south chapel (Early English) is the Chantry of Bishop Langton, who died of the plague in 1500, just before he was translated to the Archbishopric of Canterbury. The woodwork of the stalls is very beautiful. The pikes of Cromwell's soldiers wrought havoc here, and we notice that just above the height they could reach with their weapons the woodwork is uninjured. Mediæval artists were fond of puns and rebuses, and here we have Langton's name represented by a _long_ (or musical) note with a _ton_, and a _vine_ and _ton_ for Winton or Winchester. Winton is also represented by a dragon coming from a ton, referring to Solomon's warning against the wine that is red which biteth like a serpent, etc. An object of much interest is preserved here--Queen Mary's chair upon which she sat when she was married to Philip of Spain in the Lady Chapel. On that occasion there was much feasting and rejoicing in Winchester, though the nation liked not the Spanish marriage, and much ill came to England through that ill-starred connection. De Lucy's tomb in the centre of the retro-choir looks upon the noble work which he built for his beloved Cathedral. On the north of the central aisle is the Chantry of Waynflete, the founder of Magdalen College, Oxford; on the south that of Cardinal Beaufort. Both were much injured by the soldiers. Between these is the effigy of a knight in armour, Sir A. de Gavaston, the father of the favourite of Edward II. Notice the wall at the back of the feretory, with its beautiful tabernacle work of Decorated period, under which images once stood. The names of the worthies appear below. "The Holy Hole" formerly led to the crypt but has now been closed. On the north side of this wall is Bishop Gardiner's Chantry, who was the leader of the Roman Catholic party at the Reformation and was styled the "Hammer of Heretics." He took a leading part in the Marian persecutions. On the south side is the Chantry of Bishop Fox (1500-1528), the founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, who bore the pelican as a device. The south wall of the south aisle of the presbytery is Late Perpendicular work. Another instance of heart burial is recorded on the wall opposite, that of Bishop Nicholas of Ely (1280), and an inscription tells of the burial of Richard, son of William the Conqueror, who was killed while hunting in the New Forest. We now enter the south transept, the architectural features of which are similar to those of the north transept. Silkstede's Chantry should be visited. This worthy prior loved a rebus, and here carved a skein of _silk_ to represent his name, also the letters THOMAS appear on the screen, the MA being formed differently from the rest to represent his patroness, MARY the Virgin. Isaac Walton's tomb is here, the author of the _Angler_. There are some good mural paintings. The monument of Bishop Wilberforce forms a conspicuous object in the transept. Adjoining Silkstede's Chapel is the Venerable Chapel, with a fine screen. On the west side are the chapter-room and the old treasury. Passing through the chamber on the south we enter the slype. [Illustration The Cathedral West Front.] The library has some treasures, notably a Vulgate of the twelfth century and some valuable MSS. The crypt is entirely Norman work, except the east part, which is Early English. The cloisters and old chapter-house were destroyed in 1563. The Deanery was formerly the home of the prior; its entrance belongs to the time of Henry III., and the hall within the house to the fifteenth century. Over the dean's stables is a long room which was probably the guest-house for pilgrims; rude carvings can be seen on the beams of the roof probably made by the pilgrims. DIMENSIONS Total length, 556 ft.; length of nave, 262 ft.; width of nave and aisles, 88 ft.; height of vault, 78 ft.; area, 53,480 sq. ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES 1079-1093--Transepts, crypt and cores of piers and wall; 1120--central tower rebuilt; 1202--retro-choir and eastern chapels; 1320--presbytery rebuilt; 1360--west front and two bays of nave; 1394-1486--nave reconstructed; 1487--east end of Lady Chapel; 1520--alterations in presbytery by Bishop Fox. Other objects of interest in Winchester-- The _School_, founded by William of Wykeham; the _Hospital of St. Cross_, founded by Henry de Blois in 1136; _Hyde Abbey_, the resting-place of the body of Alfred the Great; the _County Hall_, with the so-called Round Table of King Arthur; _Wolvesey Castle_, the ancient episcopal palace. [Illustration PLAN OF WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL] FOOTNOTE: [6] St. Swithun became bishop in 837; he was "a diligent builder of churches in places where there were none before, and a repairer of those that had been destroyed before." In modern times his name is best known as a weather prophet; according to the tradition that if it is fine or wet on St. Swithun's day (July 15th) the same weather will last for the next forty days. The legend arose from the moving of his body from the lowly grave in the churchyard to its golden shrine in the Cathedral being delayed on account of continued rain. CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL Chichester, like most of our cathedral cities, has a long history dating back to the time of the Romans. The Roman town stood on the line of the road now known as Stane Street, and seems to have been a populous place where trade was carried on, and not merely a military station. A marble slab discovered in 1713 (preserved at Goodwood) bears an inscription which tells us much of the Roman city and runs as follows: _Neptuni et Minervæ templum pro salute domus divinæ ex auctoritate Tih. Claud. Cogidubni r. leg. aug. in Brit. collegium fabror. et qui in eo a sacris sunt d. s. d. donante aream Pudente Pudentini fil_. Much has been made of this inscription, that there was a temple here dedicated to Neptune and Minerva, that there was a large body of craftsmen who built this temple, and that Chichester was the seat of King Cogidubnus mentioned by Tacitus as possessing independent authority in Britain. When the Pagan Saxons under Ælla came they destroyed the place. "Ælle and Cissa," says the chronicle, "beset Anderida[7] and slew all that were therein, nor was there afterwards one Briton left," and overran the coast, establishing the kingdom of the South Saxons, or Sussex. Then Cissa, having captured the old Roman city, made it the capital of his kingdom, calling the place _Cissan-caestre_, or the fortress of Cissa, now corrupted to Chichester. This was at the close of the fifth century. Shut in by the great forest of Anderida, these South Saxons retained their Paganism long after the advent of Augustine and the conversion of other parts of the country. St. Wilfrid was shipwrecked on their coast, but they fiercely attacked the crew of the vessel, which escaped with difficulty from the perilous coast owing to the prayers of the saint. Thirty years later he returned and converted them to Christianity. A famine raged owing to long draught. He taught them to fish in the sea, and so won their confidence, and on the day when their chiefs came to be baptised rain fell and the famine ceased. The Island of Selsey or Seal's Island was given to the saint, where he founded a monastery and became the first bishop of the South Saxons. Until the conquest Selsey remained the seat of the bishopric. The last Saxon prelate, Ethelric, though he was a learned, and moreover a very aged man, received harsh treatment from William I. He was deprived of his bishopric and imprisoned. Then came Stigand, who moved the bishop's throne to Chichester, and made the minster Church of St. Peter's Monastery his Cathedral. The waves of the sea now roll over the site of the Early Saxon church. Ralph de Luffa, the third Norman prelate (1091-1123), began the building of the present Cathedral. Fire played havoc with the newly-erected church in 1114, four years after its completion, but Ralph again set to work to restore it. It was consecrated in 1148, twenty-five years after his death. He was a noble bishop, and accomplished much for his diocese and for the Church of England in the time of the tyranny of Norman kings. Fire again raged in 1186, which prepared the way for the alterations and improvements of the transitional builders who were developing the beauties of English Gothic. Bishop Seffrid, the second who bore that name, was the director of the work, which shows the purist style of the twelfth century. The triforium, the upper storey of the western towers (the present north-west tower is a modern imitation of the south-west tower) and the lower storey of the central tower are mainly his work. This bishop had the doubtful honour of crowning King John. Bishop Neville (1224-1244) designed and began to build the spire, and the Lady Chapel was partly constructed by Bishop Gilbert de St. Leofard (1288-1304). John de Langton, bishop (1305-1336), who was a skilful architect, finished the retro-choir and the south wing of the transept. By this time the Cathedral had assumed much of its present form. The apsidal chapels in the choir had been made to assume the more English form of square-ended buildings. The thirteenth-century bishops who accomplished all this excellent work were remarkable men. Bishop Simon Fitz Robert (1204-1207) obtained many benefactions for his see, and grants of stone from the Isle of Purbeck for the beautifying of his church. Richard Poore, the noble builder of Salisbury, was here for two years, and Bishop Neville worked hard during his episcopacy for his church, and built a palace for his see in London which stood on the site of Lincoln's Inn. St. Richard de Wych was an excellent bishop (1245-1253), who reformed his diocese with some severity, and ordered his flock to contribute liberally to the building fund of his Cathedral. "St. Richard's Pence" afterwards became a fruitful source of income. Bishop Gilbert de St. Leofard followed in his steps, and, as we have said, built the main parts of the Lady Chapel, which is of Decorated style. The work of the fourteenth century was rather that of adornment than of construction. We find Bishop Langton (1305-1337), the suppressor of the Templars, inserting a beautiful window in the south transept, and building the chapter-house. A little later a noble reredos was erected behind the altar, the choir stalls added, and some changes made in the window tracery. The founder of Merton College Library, William Read, was bishop here in 1369-1385. Lollardism was rampant in the diocese, and Bishop Robert Rede (1397-1415) took strong steps to uproot the obnoxious teaching. The beginning of the fifteenth century saw arising the detached bell tower, called Raymond's Tower, the only existing detached belfry in the kingdom. Some of the Bishops of Chichester at this time fared ill. Bishop Moleyns (1446-1450), who helped Henry VI. to marry Margaret of Anjou, was murdered by some sailors at Portsmouth, and his successor, Peacocke (1450-1459), was tried on account of his supposed heretical opinions and deprived. Bishop Storey (1478-1503) was the builder of the famous Market Cross and the Grammar School. Bishop Sherbourne (1508-1536) who favoured not the "new Religion," employed the Bernardi, an Italian family who had previously settled in Flanders, to decorate his church, and we shall see some of their work in the Cathedral. Then came the trouble of the Reformation period, when altars were destroyed, shrines pillaged of their gold and ornaments, and the whole church ransacked of its treasures. Further spoliation and destruction were wrought by the Parliamentary soldiers under Waller, who "plundered the Cathedral, seized upon the vestments and ornaments of the church, together with the consecrated plate serving for the altar; they left not so much as a cushion for the pulpit, nor a chalice for the Blessed Sacraments; the common soldiers broke down the organs, and dashing the pipes with their poleaxes, scoffingly said, 'Hark, how the organs go!' ... On the Tuesday following, after the sermon, possessed and transported by a Bacchanalian fury, they ran up and down the church with their swords drawn, defacing the monuments of the dead, hacking and hewing the seats and stalls, and scraping the painted walls. Sir William Waller and the rest of the commanders standing by as spectators and approvers of their barbarous impieties." Bishop King was prelate at this time; his palace and goods were destroyed, and he was treated with cruel indignity. In the seventeenth-century the north-west tower fell, and the central tower was so insecure that the upper part of the spire was removed and rebuilt by Wren. Since then several attempts at reparation have been made. At length in 1860 a terrible disaster befell, and the central tower and spire collapsed. It was rebuilt by Sir G. Scott with much care, and may be said to be an exact copy of the old, and in addition to other improvements the north-west tower has been rebuilt. [Illustration Chichester] THE EXTERIOR The best views may be obtained from the city wall to the north, also from West Street and East Street, and a fine distant prospect is observed from the Goodwood Downs. We will begin our inspection as usual with the _West Front_, which consists of a gable with windows and porch, flanked by two towers. The upper part of the north-west tower is a recent construction, made in imitation of the south-west tower, and built on the ruins of the former tower. The south tower is of Norman workmanship, the upper part being Early English, and also the plain and heavy buttresses at the south-west corner. The basement and next storey are part of the original work of Bishop Ralph, and the rest of Bishop Seffrid II. The west porch is plain and deep, with double buttresses at the corners. The doorway consists of a wide arch, under which are two smaller ones divided by a single clustered column. These have been restored in imitation of the ancient design. The interior of the porch is very beautiful Early English work, the arcading of quatrefoils being very effective. The monuments have evidently been placed there in later times. Above the porch are three Early English windows, and above these a large modern window, and in the gable are two small Early English windows. The cross above is modern. The _Bell Tower_, the only instance in England of a detached belfry, though not unusual abroad, is a massive and plain building, 120 feet high. The upper storey is octagonal and low, and resembles the great west tower of Ely, but is much inferior. Both these towers were built about the same time, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and are in the Perpendicular style. The north side of the nave exhibits in the clerestory the round-headed windows of the original Norman church. The parapet is fourteenth-century work. Flying buttresses connect the clerestory with the outer wall. The windows of the chapels are Early Decorated, and were erected during the reign of Edward III. One of them is modern. The _North Porch_ is Early English work, and the dog-tooth ornament is observable in the arches. It has a parvise. The _North Transept_ on the west side has some of the original Norman wall and Norman windows, and on the north end there are thirteenth-century buttresses with octagonal turrets, a large window and a rose window over it. On the east side there are some Early English windows. Proceeding eastward we pass the Chapels of St. Edmund and St. John Baptist, of Early English design, with some Perpendicular windows, the same style prevailing in the presbytery. Flying buttresses support the main walls. The old Norman church ended in an apse, and traces of the curve can still be observed, and other remains of twelfth-century work can be seen. Two of the windows are Perpendicular in style, but have been much restored. The low Lady Chapel projects at the east end. Two western bays are twelfth-century work, the two eastern bays being added by Bishop Gilbert de St. Leofard at the end of the thirteenth century, and are Late Decorated. Much restoration has been found necessary here. Early English work prevails in the chapel on the south side. The south wall of the choir aisle has several points of interest and several styles of architecture are shown here. A consecration cross can be seen in one of the bays. The south transept is very similar to the north, and on the west of it is the sacristy. Norman walls are on the north and east, and Early English on south and west. On the south side of the Cathedral are the _Cloisters_, which are curiously shaped. The Paradise is not square, the east walk being longer than the west. These cloisters are fifteenth-century work, having Perpendicular windows and flat roof. The south side of the nave is interesting, and resembles somewhat the north side. The arches of the windows in the aisles are Early Decorated, the tracery is modern. In the fourteenth century the buttresses were strengthened and enlarged, the parapet added. The Norman wall and windows remain in the clerestory, though later tracery has been inserted in two of these. The south porch leading to the west cloister has been much restored. The doorway in the south-west tower is Norman, and is adorned with chevron moulding, and beautifully designed. The window over it is also of the same date. THE INTERIOR The interior is more imposing than the exterior. The best view is perhaps obtained from north-east corner of the nave. The width of the nave is the first peculiarity which we notice. It has double aisles on each side of the nave, a peculiarity shared only with Manchester, and some parish churches, such as Abingdon, Taunton and Coventry. There are some grand effects of light and shade, and the nave is well proportioned, and has a quiet dignity which is all its own. There are eight circular arches, supported by seven flat piers, isolated and flanked by half columns of cylindrical character with plain capitals and cable moulding. Purbeck marble is extensively used in the string-courses and capitals of the vaulting shafts. The triforium preserves its Norman character. Here are the Norman circular arches, containing two smaller arches resting on single shafts. The surface of the stone in the head is hatched as at Rochester. There is a striking analogy between Chichester and Peterborough, both in the nave and choir. Both were destroyed by fire, and both rebuilt about the same time. The main arcade and triforium are the work of Bishop Ralph de Luffa (1091-1124). Bishop Seffrid II. (1180-1204) rebuilt the clerestory, and made it loftier than the triforium. The style is Early English. It will be noticed that the middle arch of the windows is round and higher than the side arches, which are pointed. The windows are separated by small shafts of Petworth marble, and the capitals are carved with leaves of palm trees. The Cathedral is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, and the builders seem to have wished to express symbolically the threefold nature of the Deity by the triplicity of the work. Triple clustered shafts appear everywhere. The vaulting is of stone, and is a little later than Seffrid's work. Alarmed by the fires, the architect determined to build a stone and chalk roof instead of wood. In the sixteenth century this vaulting was painted in gaudy colours by Bishop Sherbourne. Two storeys of the south-west tower are original Norman work, with rude cushion capitals, and formed part of the first church finished by Bishop Ralph. This is used as a baptistry, and has a modern font, an imitation of that at Shoreham. In the _South Aisle_ are the Chapels of St. George and St. Clement. The latter has been restored in memory of the last good bishop, Durnford. The figures placed in the old wall arcade are SS. Anselm, Clement and Alphege. The old piscina and aumbrey remain, as also in the other chapel. The chapels were added in the second half of the thirteenth century. The _North Aisle_ resembles the south. Here were the Chapels of St. Anne, St. Theobald or the Four Virgins, and SS. Thomas and Edmund. The screen, pulpit and lectern are all modern, and also the glass. The _monuments_ here are:--in the south aisle, Bishop Durnford (1895), and Captain Cromwell (Flaxman); and in the north aisle, Poet Collins, Richard Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel and his wife [the earl was a supporter of the Duke of Gloucester, uncle of Richard II., and was beheaded in 1397], an unknown lady, supposed to be Countess of Arundel (1270). This tomb is of Decorated design, and is beautifully executed. [Illustration The Presbytery.] The _North Transept_ was once the Parish Church of St. Peter the Great. The main walls are part of Bishop Ralph's Norman church, and there are Norman windows on the west and arches of the same style on the east. These open into the old Chapel of St. John Baptist and St. Edmund, which has now been converted into the _Library_. The north and east walls are Early English, the vaulting is very beautiful, the ribs being ornamented with zigzag. The library has some early MSS., but is not particularly rich in its treasures. Entering the north choir aisle we see the monuments of Bishop Storey (1503), the builder of the Market Cross; Bishop King (1670), who suffered much from the Parliamentary soldiers; Carleton (1685); Grove (1691); Otter (1840), and an early slab of thirteenth century representing a heart burial. Formerly an inscription could be deciphered which told in Norman French: "Here lies the heart of Maud." At the end of this aisle is the Chapel of St. Katherine. This eastern end of the aisle is all Early English work. Here are preserved the paintings of the Bishops of Chichester and Kings of England made by Bernardi, which were much injured by the soldiers and restored by an indifferent artist. The _Retro-Choir_ is early thirteenth century, and has a fine vault which in style resembles that of some French churches. The piers are curious, and the shafts are further detached from the main piers than in any other known example. The capitals are most beautifully carved. The triforium is ornamented with rich tracery and carving and clustered shafts of Purbeck. It somewhat resembles Ely, the work of Bishop Hotham in 1235. The clerestory is later. Here stood the magnificent shrine of St. Richard, the glory of Chichester, and the resort of pilgrims. This St. Richard de la Wyche, who was the friend of Becket, died in 1245. He was remarkable for his zeal and charity. On his death his body was found wrapped in a shirt of horse hair and bound with rings of iron. Miracles being reported to have taken place at his tomb, he was canonised. The _Lady Chapel_ in Norman times extended two bays eastward, and was extended by two bays by Bishop Gilbert de St. Leofard at the end of the thirteenth century (1288-1305). It was formerly used as the library, and Willis speaks of it as "having nothing to recommend it except a good collection of books." The east window has five lights, and all the windows have been restored. The vaulting is good and the fittings are modern. In the vault is a beautifully-painted design by Bernardi (1519). The _South Choir Aisle_ resembles the north. The Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene is at the east end, which has been restored. St. Richard's head was preserved here as a precious relic. Some modern paintings here represent scenes from the life of St. Richard and our Lord. Passing by the door into the cloisters we see on the north the tombs of Dean Hook (1875), and Bishop Daye (1552); and on the south, Bishop Sherbourne (1536). Here are two carved panels of very early character, which legendary lore tells were brought from Selsey when the bishop's stool was transferred to Chichester. It is quite possible that they are Saxon, and the style of art has a Byzantine appearance. The subjects are the Raising of Lazarus and Our Lord at Bethany with Mary and Martha. A door on the left leads to the vicar's vestry, and then we come to the _South Transept_, which resembles the north. The walls on both west and east are Norman. On the south is a very beautiful window inserted by Bishop Langton (1305-1337), one of the finest Early Decorated windows in England. The glass is modern and hideous. The paintings here on the back of the choir stalls are interesting. They are the work of Theodore Bernardi, an Italian artist, who settled in Flanders and afterwards came to England, and with his son lived at Chichester. Bishop Sherbourne employed him to decorate his Cathedral. The paintings here represent the foundation of the see at Selsey by Caedwalla, and the foundation of four prebends by the bishop and Henry VIII. The soldiers much injured the paintings, which were restored by Bishop Mawson, who employed an inferior artist and thus destroyed much of their merit. The saintly Bishop Richard has a monument here. On the east is the Chapel of St. Pantaleon, a Nicomedian martyr, which retains its piscina. It is now used as the canons' vestry. On the west is the entrance to the _Sacristy_, a large room, now used as a music room, with a vaulted ceiling. Above this is the old consistory court where heretics were tried. Lollards were often examined and condemned here, and behind the seats there is a sliding door leading to what is commonly known as the Lollards' prison. It was probably either a treasury or evidence chamber. Langton's tomb, the builder of the beautiful window, is below that fine structure. He died in 1336. The _Choir_ is long and narrow and has been much restored. The design is Early English, though much of the old Norman piers was retained. The carving in the triforium is very beautiful. The screen is modern. The stalls were erected in Bishop Sherbourne's time, and are of carved oak and inferior to many. The dean's and precentor's stalls are new. The old throne was much defaced by the soldiers under Waller. A new one was given by Bishop Mawson (1740-1754) and this has given place to a modern one. The reredos and altar are modern. DIMENSIONS Total length 393 ft. Length of nave 155 ft. Width of nave 90 ft. Height of nave 61 ft. Length of choir 115 ft. Length of transept 131 ft. Height of spire 277 ft. Area 28,000 sq. ft. BUILDING DATES Norman (Twelfth Century)--South-west tower and part of west front, piers of nave and triforium, part of transepts, parts of walls of choir aisles and piers of choir, and parts of Lady Chapel. The upper part of south-west tower late twelfth century. Early English (Thirteenth Century)--Remodelling of the nave and choir, chapels, porches, and Lady Chapel begun. Decorated (Fourteenth Century)--Retro-choir and south window in south transept. Lady Chapel finished. Perpendicular (Fifteenth Century)--Bell tower, choir walls, paintings, cloisters. Modern--Tower and spire and north-west tower. FOOTNOTE: [7] The modern Pevensey. SALISBURY CATHEDRAL Salisbury is one of the finest examples of Early English architecture in England. It was built for the most part in one style and at one period, and therefore does not present to us that varied conglomeration of the art of different ages which we see in most of our ecclesiastical edifices. The story of its building is full of interest, and we must look for the original home of the Salisbury diocese on the wind-swept fortified heights of Old Sarum, where Bishop Herman fixed his episcopal seat in Early Norman times. The early history of the sees of Southern England is somewhat complicated. When the Story of the Cross was first proclaimed here, and the savage Saxons became Christianised, the whole of Wessex and Sussex were comprised in the see of Dorchester, a small village in Oxfordshire. This huge bishopric was then divided into the two sees of Winchester and Sherborne. Then Selsey (afterwards Chichester) was taken out of Winchester, which diocese was again divided, and Ramsbury formed. Out of the diocese of Sherborne, Wells and Crediton were constituted, and then Bishop Herman in 1058 united the sees of Ramsbury and Sherborne, and formed the diocese of Salisbury, fixing his seat at Old Sarum, the Saxon town of Searobyrig. On this hill fortress seven prelates ruled, amongst whom were the saintly Osmund (1078-1099), who completed the first Cathedral, of which no stone remains, and compiled the famous "Use of Sarum," the model of all service-books in the South of England; Bishop Roger (1102-1107), a most powerful prelate and castle-builder; Jocelyn de Bohun (1142-1184), the opponent of Becket; Hubert Walter (1188-1193), a crusading bishop, the companion of Richard Coeur de Lion; Herbert le Poer or Poore (1194-1216), and then his brother or kinsman, Richard Poore (1217-1228), the founder of the present Cathedral. Various reasons are assigned for the transference of the see. Old Sarum lacked water. It was a lofty, barren height, swept by every wind of heaven, and "when the wind did blow they could not hear the priest say Mass." But the real reason was the quarrel between the clergy and the soldiers who guarded the castle of the king. On one occasion, when during Rogationtide the ecclesiastics went in solemn procession to the Church of St. Martin, on their return they found the gates closed against them, and had to remain without shelter during a long winter's night. Similar insults frequently being offered them, the bishop and his clergy determined to seek a new home. Whither should they go? Legends tell us of the arrow shot at random from the heights of Old Sarum, of the bishop's mysterious dream, wherein the Virgin appeared and told him to seek for the spot Moerfield, of his talking with the Abbess of Wilton, and her reply that he had plenty of land of his own without seeking to spoil her. At any rate the bishop gave the land for his new Cathedral out of his own domain, and he began to build the stately edifice which we now see. The first stones were laid on the feast of St. Vitalis, April 28, 1220; one Elias of Dereham was the master-mason, and the work progressed rapidly until Bishop Poore was translated to Durham in 1228. There his "Chapel of the Nine Altars" attests to the love of building which he acquired at Salisbury, and the similarity of the styles of architecture. His successors continued to build with much zeal, and in the time of Bishop Giles de Bridport (1257-1262) the church was consecrated by Archbishop Boniface, of Savoy, in the presence of Henry III. and his court. The church was now complete. Only forty-six years were spent in its building--a marvellous achievement. The monastic buildings were begun by Bishop Walter Delawyle (1262-1270). As yet the tower was not so high as it is now, and there was no spire; but the fourteenth century had scarcely begun before the two upper storeys were added, and the lofty spire, which forms such a glorious crown of this beautiful structure. It was the work of the mason, Richard of Farleigh, who was at the same time engaged on work at Bath and Reading. In the time of Bishop Wyvil (1329-1375) Edward III. granted permission to fortify the close, and to use the stones from the Cathedral of Old Sarum for this purpose. Hence in the walls which surround the close we see Norman carvings which once adorned the ancient edifice. Of this Bishop Fuller says that "it is hard to say whether he was more dunce than dwarf, more unlearned or unhandsome, insomuch that Walsingham tells us that had the Pope ever _seen_ him (as he no doubt _felt_ him in his large fees) he would never have conferred the place upon him." His curious brass tells of his recovering for his see the Castle of Sherborne and the Chase of Bere, of which the bishopric had been wrongfully despoiled. Prominent among its bishops was Robert Hallam (1408-1417), who was present at the Council of Constance, which saw the burning of Huss and Jerome of Prague, and strove hard to avert their fate. Bishop Ayscough (1438-1450) was murdered by the rebel followers of Jack Cade at Edingdon. Bishop Beauchamp (1450-1481) built the great hall of the palace, and his chantry (destroyed by Wyatt). Here one of the unhappy Woodvilles, brother of Edward IV.'s queen, was bishop (1482-1485), and he had the unhappiness of seeing his brother-in-law, the Duke of Buckingham, beheaded at Salisbury, just before the battle of Bosworth (_cf._ Shakespeare's _Richard III._). Cardinal Campeggio was bishop just before the Reformation, and after Wolsey's disgrace was deprived of his see. There are no records to show what damage was done during that stormy period, but probably the niches of the west front were deprived of many of their images at this time, the windows broken, and the treasury shorn of its plate and relics. One of the best of the Salisbury bishops was Jewel, the author of the _Apology of the Church of England_ (1560-1571), who built the library over the cloisters. During the Civil War Ludlow's soldiers were quartered here, and garrisoned the belfry, but they seem to have behaved with extraordinary mildness. The Cathedral had powerful protectors, and when some of Waller's men carried off some church goods, the Parliament ordered that these should be restored. Bishop Seth Ward (1667-1688), one of the founders of the Royal Society, did much to repair his Cathedral, and restored the palace, which was ruinous, having been bought by one Van Ling from the Parliament, and partly converted into cottages. Unhappily the arch-destroyer, Wyatt, was turned loose on the building at the end of the eighteenth century, who wrought vast and irreparable destruction, which it is pitiable to see. Since his day there have been many efforts to obliterate his work; vast sums have been spent, and the Cathedral restored to much of its ancient glory and beauty. THE EXTERIOR [Illustration Salisbury Cathedral] As we enter the Cathedral precincts we are at once struck with the wondrous beauty and charm of this peaceful close, which surrounds, with its circling green sward, the magnificent Gothic pile. All writers have vied with each other in singing the praises of this grand achievement of Gothic art, and nowhere can we gain a better view of the grand proportions of this church, with its noble spire, than from the south-east or north-east corner of the close. Around us are the venerable walls of the fortifications, erected in the time of Edward III., who granted a license for this purpose, and gave leave to the bishop to pull down the walls of Old Sarum, in order to provide the stone. Embedded in the wall we find some stones with Norman carving, which bespeak their former location in the Norman buildings on the old stronghold of Sarum. The grand _Spire_ is the highest in England (400 feet). The tower on which it stands is Early English as far as the first storey; the two higher storeys were added in the early part of the fourteenth century, and are Early Decorated. The whole structure is magnificent. On each side there is an arcade, richly canopied, and having double windows. At each angle there is a turret, with a small crocketed spire, and from a mass of richly-decorated pinnacles the great spire rises. In the capstone still remains a small leaden box containing a fragment of decayed silk or fine linen, doubtless a relic of the Virgin. The spire has sometimes caused anxiety, and has been strengthened by metal bands, but the Early English sub-structure has sustained with wonderful constancy the weight of the two higher storeys and the spire which the somewhat venturesome builders of the time of Edward III. forced them to bear. The _West Front_ it is the fashion to abuse. It has been censured for its "parcellings" and "raggedness." Professor Freeman denies the honesty of such fronts, because they extend beyond the walls of the aisles and nave, and are what the professors of "true principles" call "shams." Such criticisms fail to recognise the real object of such screens, which was to set forth a chronicle in stone of the history of the church, and people the niches with figures of the great men and benefactors, the saints and heroes, whose memories are here enshrined. It is no "sham," and we must try to imagine it as it really was, not shorn of half its beauties, bereft of its images, or supplied with the works of modern art which do not always harmonise with their surroundings. Inferior it may be to the fronts of Wells or Lincoln, but it still possesses many merits, and is certainly impressive. It was the last completed portion of the Cathedral, as in the mouldings we see the ball-flower which is the sign-manual of the Decorated period. There is a central portion with a gable and buttresses, and a compartment on each side flanked by small towers with small spires. There are five storeys. In the lowest there is a triple porch, deeply recessed with canopies. The west window is large, and is a triplet divided by slender clustered shafts. There are about 100 niches which have been filled with some of the best examples of modern art by Mr. Redfern. Above all we see our Lord in glory, to whom all the others are offering their praise. Mr. Armfield in his _Legend of Christian Art_ gives us the following detailed account of the various figures in the west front and the meaning of their several emblems:-- _The Tier of Angels._--The celestial hierarchy have been divided into three classes, each class containing three grades. The first class consists of Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones; the second of Dominions, Powers and Authorities; the third of Principalities, Archangels and Angels, Angels being thus the lowest order of celestial creation. _The Tier of Old Testament Worthies._--David, with the harp; Moses, carrying the Tables of the Law; Abraham, with the knife in his hand; Noah, with the ark in his left hand; Samuel; Solomon, with the sceptre in his right hand and the Church in his left hand. _The Tier of Apostles._--St. Jude, with the halberd; St. Simon Zelotes, with the saw; St. Andrew, with the cross; St. Thomas, with the builder's square; St. Peter, with the keys in his right hand; St. Paul, with the sword in his right hand; St. Luke and St. John. The figures of St. Peter and St. Paul are restorations of ancient figures which had been mutilated. St. James the Less, with the fuller's club; St. James the Greater, with the pilgrim's staff; St. Bartholomew, with the knife; St. Matthias, with the lance. _The Tier of the Doctors, Virgins and Martyrs._--St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan; St. Jerome, in a Cardinal's hat; St. Gregory the Great, with the tiara of the Papacy; St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, in Africa; St. Augustine, of Canterbury; St. Mary the Virgin, St. Barbara, St. Catherine, St. Roch, St. Nicholas, St. George, the patron Saint of England; St. Christopher, St. Sebastian, St. Cosmo, St. Damian, St. Margaret, St. Ursula, St. John the Baptist; St. Stephen, the proto-martyr; and the four virgins--St. Lucy, St. Agatha, St. Agnes and St. Cecilia. _The Tier of Worthies distinctively belonging to the English Church._--Bishop Giles de Bridport, bishop of the diocese at the time of the consecration of the Cathedral; Bishop Richard Poore, founder of the present Cathedral; King Henry III., the monarch who granted the Charter for the building of the Cathedral; Bishop Odo; Bishop Osmund, who built the first Cathedral of Sarum; Bishop Brithwold; St. Alban, holding sword and cross; St. Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury; St. Edmund, king and martyr; St. Thomas of Canterbury. A mutilated figure on the west side of north turret is probably that of St. Berinus. We notice several consecration crosses on the walls of the church. The _North Porch_ is large and massive, and has a parvise in the upper storey. On the inside there is a double arcade with foliated arches, and the pinnacles on each side of the gable are very fine. The _Nave_ presents a perfect example of Early English workmanship. Notice the regularity of the masonry, which is one of its great peculiarities. The stones run in even bands throughout. The aisle windows have two lights; the clerestory has triple lancets, and each pair is flanked by flying buttresses. The fronts of the transepts are graced by beautifully-designed windows and are divided into four storeys. The porch on the north side was removed by Wyatt. The east front of the choir is a fine arrangement of lancets. There is great similarity between the north and south sides of the Cathedral. On the north side of the Lady Chapel formerly stood the Hungerford Chapel, ruthlessly destroyed by Wyatt; the Beauchamp Chapel on the south side shared the same fate. Bishop Beauchamp erected the flying buttresses on the south of the choir in 1450. The gates of the close are:--High Street Gate, built at the same time as the walls; St. Anne's Gate, and Harnham Gate, of which little remains. On the south of the nave is the cloister-court, which we will visit after seeing the interior. Salisbury possessed at one time a separate belfry at the north-west corner of the close. It was entirely destroyed and removed by Wyatt. The _Palace_ is on the south-east. It was commenced by Poore. The hall was built by Bishop Beauchamp in the fifteenth century. THE INTERIOR Entering the building by the west door we obtain a grand view of the interior. The beautiful clustered columns of the fine arches, wrought of Purbeck marble, the fine triforium and clerestory, the distant view of the choir, all combine to make a very impressive scene. The oft-quoted lines tell us that "As many days as in one year there be, So many windows in this church we see; As many marble pillars here appear As there are hours throughout the fleeting year; As many gates as moons one year does view-- Strange tale to tell! yet not more strange than true." [Illustration Strengthening Arches. East Transepts.] The uniformity of the architecture in the first beauty of Gothic conception, the long rows of sepulchral monuments of warriors and bishops, and the noble proportions of the building, add greatly to the charm of this building; and yet it lacks much of the beauty which once shone here. Little of its stained glass, which once shed wondrous light on all we see, has been saved from the wreck caused by Reformation zeal and the wanton destruction of Wyatt. The triforium with its flat-pointed arches, sub-divided into four smaller ones, ornamented with trefoils and quatrefoils, alternating with cinquefoils and octofoils, greatly resembles that at Westminster. The clerestory windows are triple lancets. The vaulting is plain, the arches rising from clustered shafts with foliated capitals, and resting on corbel-heads. The west wall has a triple-lancet window, and beneath this is an arcade of four arches, each of which contains two sub-arches. In the west window has been collected fragments of old glass saved from the wreck. It is possible to discover the figure of our Lord in Majesty, the Virgin, Zacharias in the Temple, the Adoration of the Magi. There is some Flemish glass also here. The glass in the west windows of the aisles is ancient (1240-1270), and we see here the arms of Bishop Jewell (1562) and John Aprice (1558). The aisles have double-lancet windows. There is a curious stone bench on each side of the nave, upon which the piers stand. This was so placed in order to distribute the great weight of the building resting on these piers, as the foundations were not laid upon any very firm ground, the nature of the soil being formerly marshy, and the situation liable to floods. This ingenious plan has evidently had the desired effect, as the building has stood for nigh 700 years. The nave contains a fine series of monuments which were arranged here by Wyatt in a barbarous fashion. This vandal was guilty of every enormity. Not only did he remove the monuments from their original positions, but he seems to have mixed up the effigies and put them on tombs to which they did not belong. Beginning at west end of south side, leaving the figure of Hibernia, which graces Lord Wyndham's monument (1745), we see the monuments of the following:-- 1. Bishop Herman (1078), which was brought from Old Sarum. 2. Bishop Jocelyn (1184), which was brought from Old Sarum (the head is later than the rest). 3. Bishop Roger (1139), which was brought from Old Sarum. (There is some uncertainty about the identity of these.) 4. Incised slab to an unknown personage. 5. Bishop Beauchamp (1481), whose chantry was destroyed by Wyatt. 6. Robert, Lord Hungerford (1459), whose chantry was destroyed by Wyatt. Notice the plate armour and collar of saints, also sword and dagger. 7. Lord Stourton, hung in the market-place in 1556 for the murder of the Hartgills, accomplished in a brutal fashion. He was hung, as a concession to his noble birth, with a silken cord. The "wells" on each side allude to the six heads of the Stour river, which rise near the Stourton mansion. 8. Bishop de la Wyle (1271), mutilated. The base is made up of fragments of much later date. 9. William Longespée, first Earl of Salisbury of that name, son of Henry II. by Fair Rosamond (1226). Notice the chain-armour and surcoat, shield with arms of Anjou, and the decoration of the tomb--silver diaper work. He fought in the Crusades and in France, and was present at the signing of Magna Charta. Crossing to the north side we see the monuments of-- 10. Sir John Cheyney (1509), standard-bearer of Henry of Richmond at battle of Bosworth, unhorsed by Richard III. 11.} Walter, Lord Hungerford, and his wife. 12.} 13. Sir John de Montacute (1389), fought at Creçy and in Scotland under Richard II. Notice armour, especially gauntlets. 14. Chancellor Geoffrey. 15. Person unknown. 16. Longespée, Earl of Salisbury (1250), son of the above-mentioned earl, a Crusader killed by the Saracens. The fact that this is a cross-legged effigy does not prove that all cross-legged effigies represent Crusaders. 17. "Boy Bishop," the great attraction of the ordinary visitor and tourist. The ceremony of the boy bishop is well known. One of the choir boys was elected on St. Nicholas Day, and presided until Innocents' Day, and a special service and procession took place during his rule. The old idea was that this boy died during his brief episcopacy, and was thus honoured with an effigy. It is now generally believed that such small figures represent heart burials. In bygone times the body was usually buried at the place where the person died, and not infrequently the heart was conveyed to the special church associated with the family or life of the deceased. The library, however, contains the order of service of boy bishop, and the ceremony lingered on until the time of Elizabeth. 18. Person unknown. Near the entrance is a monument to Dr. Turburville, an oculist of Salisbury (1696). The _North Transept_ is entered by a Perpendicular arch, by Bishop Beauchamp (1450-1481). It was designed to support the tower. The style of this transept resembles that of the nave. The two-light windows, which take the place of the triforium on the north side, and the beautiful clerestory windows, with their slender pilasters, should be noticed. There is an eastern aisle, divided into chapels, which Wyatt robbed of their screens. The monuments here are:--Brass to John Britton, the eminent antiquary; James Harris, author of _Hermes_, by Bacon; Earl of Malmesbury, by Chantrey; W.B. Earle, by Flaxman; Bishop John Blythe (?) (1499); Sir R. Hoare, the Wilts historian, by Lucas; Richard Jefferies, the charming modern writer on country life; Walter and William Long, by Flaxman; Bishop Woodville (1484). The _South Transept_ resembles the north. Here are monuments of:--Bishop Mitford (1407), a fine tomb of white marble; Bishop Fisher (1825); Edward Poore (1780). The _Choir-Screen_ is good modern work, and replaced a patchwork structure of Wyatt's handiwork, made up of spoil taken from his destroyed chantries. The organ is modern. The _Choir and Presbytery_ differ in no way from the architecture of the nave. The east end is beautifully designed. At the base of the reredos are three arches, and above five arches, with cinquefoil headings, and above these a triplet window. The roof is painted with an interesting series of designs, which are modern reproductions of thirteenth-century work. First there are series of Old Testament saints, the Forerunner of our Lord being ranked with the prophets. Then come the Apostles, with the figures of our Lord and the Evangelists; and further east are representations of the months, which are curious and interesting. January is represented by a man warming his hands; February, a man drinking wine; March, digging; April, sowing; May, hawking; June, flowers; July, reaping; August, threshing; September, gathering fruit; October, brewing; November, timber-felling; December, killing a pig. The _Choir Stalls_ are a patchwork composition. There is some old Perpendicular work; some of the work is by Wren. Happily Wyatt's productions have been removed. The reredos is modern, is a very elaborate piece of work. All the other fittings of the choir are new. In the choir are the chantries of Bishop Audley (1524), a fine piece of Late Perpendicular work, which has a fan-vault and some traces of colour, and of Walter, Lord Hungerford (1429), removed here from the nave, and made into a family pew by Lord Radnor. The iron-work is good, and such chapels are rare, the Chantry of Edward IV. at Windsor being the finest of its kind. In the _North Choir Aisle_ and _Transept_ there are two monuments of the _memento mori_ type, the large tomb of a thirteenth-century bishop, either Bingham or Scammel, Bishop Wyvill (1375), Gheast (1576), and Jewell (1571), and the curious brass of Bishop Wyvill, who recovered for the see Sherborne Castle and the Bere Chase, seized by Stephen, and granted by Edward III. to the Earl of Salisbury. To decide the right the wager of battle was resorted to, and both bishop and earl chose a champion. The king, however, caused the matter to be settled amicably. The bishop is here shown in his castle, praying for his champion, and below are the hares and rabbits representing the chase. In this north-east transept is a fine Early Perpendicular lavatory, which is evidently not in its original position, part of an Early English screen, removed by Wyatt, and a curious aumbrey. In the aisle toward the east we see an effigy, said to be that of Bishop Poore, the founder of the Cathedral, and at the east end is the monument of Sir Thomas Gorges and his lady, who was a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth. It is a cumbrous piece of work. The _Retro-Choir_ or processional path has beautiful clustered shafts and fine vault, and forms a graceful entrance to the _Lady Chapel_, a most perfect piece of Early English building, and the oldest part of the church. At the east end is a triple lancet, with another lancet on each side, filled with modern glass. There is a new altar here, and modern colouring adorns the walls and ceiling. The canopies of the niches under the windows on the north and south were brought here from the Beauchamp Chapel destroyed by Wyatt. Here in former days stood the shrine of St. Osmund, the second Norman bishop, the saintly man to whom the diocese and the English Church owe much. His tomb remains here, but his shrine was plundered and destroyed at the Reformation. At the east end of the south choir aisle is the stately tomb of the unhappy Earl of Hertford (1621), who married Catherine, the sister of Lady Jane Grey, and thus incurred Queen Elizabeth's resentment, and was imprisoned. The poor lady, when released from the Tower, was separated from her husband, and died of grief. He survived her sixty years. Near here are the modern tombs of Bishops Moberly and Hamilton, and the Perpendicular tomb of William Wilton, Chancellor of Sarum (1506-1523). The old sacristy, now the vestry, is on the south of this transept; above this is the muniment room, the ancient treasury. In the transept is the remarkable monument of Bishop Giles de Bridport (1262), under whose rule the church was finished. It is the most interesting tomb in the church. The carvings in the spandrels record the chief events in the bishop's life--his birth, confirmation, education, and possibly his first preferment, his homage, a procession (probably referring to the dedication of this church), his death, and the presentation of his soul for judgment. Here are monuments also of Canon Bowles (1850); Bishop Burgess (1837); Bishop Seth Ward (1689), Hooker, the famous divine; Young, the father of the poet; Isaak Walton, the son of the angler; Bishop Davenant (1641); Mrs. Wordsworth, the wife of the bishop; and a brass to Canon Liddon's memory. Further on are the monuments of Bishop Salcot (1557), and Sir Richard Mompesson and his wife (1627). Notice the inverted strengthening arches in both choir transepts. Passing through the south transept we enter the _Cloisters_, which are considered to be "among the finest in England," and without doubt they can lay claim to be a great and beautiful architectural triumph. They are a little later than the Cathedral, having been begun directly after its completion, and finished during the rule of Bishop Wyvill, about 1340. The windows are finely constructed, and consist of double-arched openings, each arch having two sub-arches, while in the head is a large six-foiled opening. On the wall side is a blind arcade of graceful arches. An unfortunate restoration in 1854 did not improve the appearance of the cloisters. On the north side, between the cloister and the church, is the plumbery. The monuments here do not possess much interest. The _Library_, over part of the east walk, was built by Bishop Jewell, and contains about 5000 volumes, and a valuable collection of MSS. One of the most interesting is a Gallican version of the Psalter (969 A.D.), Geoffrey of Monmouth's Chronicles (twelfth century), a copy of Magna Charter (now in muniment room), and many others of much value and importance. The _Chapter-House_ was built early in the reign of Edward I. It is a noble octagonal building, and can scarcely be surpassed by any other. The roof is modern. There is a central pillar, from which the vaulting springs. On each side there is a large window, resembling in tracery those in the cloisters. Below the windows is an arcade, and beneath this a stone bench, and at the east end a raised seat for the bishop and his officials. There is a remarkable series of sculptures above the arcade, which are extremely interesting and merit close study. The following are the subjects represented:-- WEST BAY 1. Description of Chaos. 2. Creation of the Firmament. NORTH-WEST BAY 3. Creation of the Earth. 4. Creation of the Sun and Moon. 5. Creation of the Birds and Fishes. 6. Creation of Adam and Eve. 7. The Sabbath. 8. The Institution of Marriage. 9. The Temptation. 10. The Hiding in the Garden. NORTH BAY 11. The Expulsion. 12. Adam tilling the Ground. 13. Cain and Abel's Offering. 14. Murder of Abel. 15. God sentencing Cain. 16. God commanding Noah to build the Ark. 17. The Ark. 18. Noah's Vineyard. NORTH-EAST BAY 19. The Drunkenness of Noah. 20. Building of the Tower of Babel. 21. The Angels appearing to Abraham. 22. Abraham entertaining Angels. 23. Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. 24. The Escape of Lot. 25. Abraham and Isaac journeying to the Mount. 26. The Sacrifice of Isaac. EAST BAY 27. Isaac blessing Jacob. 28. Blessing of Esau. 29. Rebecca sending Jacob to Padanaram. 30. Meeting of Jacob and Rachel. 31. Rachel introducing Jacob to Laban. 32. Jacob wrestling with the Angel, and Jacob's Dream. 33. The Angel touching Jacob's Thigh. 34. Meeting of Jacob and Esau. SOUTH-EAST BAY 35. Joseph's Dream. 36. Joseph relating his Dream. 37. Joseph being placed in a Well. 38. Joseph sold into Egypt. 39. Joseph's Coat brought to Jacob. 40. Joseph brought to Potiphar. 41. Joseph tempted by Potiphar's Wife. 42. Joseph accused before Potiphar. SOUTH BAY 43. Joseph placed in Prison. 44. The fate of Pharaoh's Baker and Butler. 45. Pharaoh's Dream. 46. Pharaoh's Perplexity. 47. Joseph taken from Prison, and interpreting the Dream. 48. Joseph ruling in Egypt. 49. The Brethren journeying into Egypt. 50. The Cup placed in Benjamin's Sack. SOUTH-WEST BAY 51. The Discovery of the Cup. 52. The Brethren pleading before Joseph. 53. Jacob and Family journeying to Egypt. 54. The Brethren pleading before Joseph after the Death of Jacob. 55. Joseph assuring his Brethren of his Protection. 56. Moses in the Presence of God. 57. The Passage of the Red Sea. 58. Destruction of the Egyptians. WEST BAY 59. Moses striking the Rock. 60. The Declaring of the Law. In the vestibule the doorway is remarkable for its great beauty. In the voussoirs of the arch is another series of sculptures representing moralities, the triumph of virtue over vice. We see Concordia trampling on Discordia, Temperantia pouring liquor down the throat of Drunkenness, Bravery trampling on Cowardice, Faith on Infidelity, Virtue covering Vice with a cloak, while Vice embraces her knee with one hand and stabs her with the other. Truth pulls out the tongue of Falsehood, Modesty scourges Lust, and Charity pours coin into the throat of Avarice. These sculptures are of the very highest class of art, and are among the most interesting remains of Early Gothic carving in the world. All the glass in the chapter-house is modern, and also the tiling. A fine old specimen of fourteenth-century furniture is seen in the ancient table preserved here. DIMENSIONS Total length 473 ft. Length of nave 229 ft. Width 82 ft. Height 84 ft. Height of spire 404 ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES Early English (1220-1260)--The main buildings of the church were completed at this time. (1262-1270)--Monastic buildings. Decorated (1330-1350)--Two upper storeys of tower and spire. Perpendicular (1460)--Arches supporting tower in north and south transepts. Flying buttresses on south side of choir. Other buildings of interest in Salisbury-- The Guild Hall. Market Cross, called the Poultry. Churches of St. Martin, St. Edmund, St. Thomas à Becket. In the neighbourhood are-- Old Sarum. Stonehenge. [Illustration PLAN OF SALISBURY CATHEDRAL] OXFORD CATHEDRAL Oxford is so full of varied interest that we must leave our readers to gain knowledge of its history from other sources, and confine ourselves to its Cathedral records. This see was one of those founded by Henry VIII. out of the proceeds of his spoliation of the monasteries. The Cathedral was originally the Church of the Priory of St. Frideswide. This lady was the daughter of Didan, the chief man of the town. At an early age she took the veil, and her father built for her a convent; but Algar, King of Mercia, wished to marry her, and swore that he would carry her off. She fled for refuge, and on her return to Oxford was gallantly defended by the men of her city against Algar, who was struck blind. She was buried in her convent, and many miracles were wrought at her shrine. Such was the beginning of what ultimately became the Cathedral of Oxford. Terrible was the scene which took place in this little church. The Danes were in Oxford. There was peace between the Saxon king, Ethelred, and their foes; but on St. Brice's Day, 1002, the folk of Wessex were excited to slaughter the Danes, who fled for sanctuary to the little church. The Saxons respected no more the sacredness of the building than the laws of hospitality, and set fire to the place and massacred the helpless Danes. The remains of this Early Saxon church are said to have been discovered, which we shall examine later.[8] Ethelred, repenting of his crime, determined to rebuild the church, which he accomplished, and recent authorities assure us that the present church is in plan and main substance the Saxon church of Ethelred, erected in 1004, and not the later Norman church about which the older writers tell us. He seems to have established a community of secular canons. The work was interrupted by the later Danish invasions, and perhaps never finished. At any rate it was ruinous in the time of the Early Normans kings. In 1111 A.D., it was granted by either Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, or by Henry I., to Prior Guimond and his fellow canons. This prior began to restore the ruined church and monastery, but his successor, Robert de Cricklade (1141-1180), did most of the work, and restored the nave, choir, central tower and transepts. All the later Norman work is due to him. In 1180, in the presence of Henry II., his nobles and a goodly company of bishops, the relics of St. Frideswide were translated to a place of honour in the restored building on the north side of the choir, to which there was great resort of pilgrims on account of the miraculous healings which took place there. Fire played havoc with the city of Oxford in 1190, but the church escaped without much injury. The monastic buildings suffered, and the traces of fire can still be seen on the old Norman doorway in the cloisters. In the thirteenth century the Lady Chapel was built adjoining the north side of the choir, some of the old walls being used, the spire raised above the tower, the chapter-house and part of the Latin Chapel added, which was completed in the fourteenth century. A few Decorated details were added at this period, and windows in this style inserted. The fifteenth century witnessed sundry alterations in the cloisters, the building of St. Frideswide's latest shrine, the insertion of some Perpendicular windows, and the erection of the fine vaulting of the choir. Then a mighty change dawned on the old monastery. Cardinal Wolsey obtained a bull from Pope Clement VII. for its suppression and determined to convert it into a college, which was designed to be the largest in Oxford. He played sad havoc with the fabric of the church. A great part of the nave he destroyed altogether in order to make room for his great "Tom Quad," so named after the famous bell which still rings each night at five minutes past nine, and is the signal for the closing of the gates of all Oxford colleges. Part of the old cloisters disappeared also. Wolsey contemplated the building of another church for his college, and indeed began its construction; but his fall in 1529 put an end to the carrying out of his great conception, and the college fell into the hands of King Henry VIII. Here the monarch established one of his newly-formed sees (the bishop's seat was first fixed at Oseney Abbey, just outside Oxford), and with characteristic parsimony applied the revenues of the college to the support of the see. The dean of the Cathedral is still the head of the college, and the canons are university professors. As was usual at this time, the Cathedral was shorn of all its costly ornaments, vestments, plate and other treasures, but the fabric remained intact. Dean Brian Duppa in 1630 wrought much evil in the way of restoring his Cathedral, destroying the old glass and woodwork, tearing up the brasses, and "improving" the windows by cutting away the old tracery. He was rewarded for his zeal by being made Bishop of Salisbury. His loyalty to the fallen fortunes of his sovereign, Charles I., somewhat atones for his wanton destruction of much that was beautiful in Christ Church Cathedral. In the Civil War, Oxford was the great centre of the Royalists. Here King Charles held his court. Students flocked to his standard, and the Cathedral was the scene of several thanksgiving services on the occasion of victories. Cromwell's soldiers at length captured Oxford, and did some damage in the Cathedral, breaking much of the glass. Bishop Fell (1676-1686) was a munificent benefactor of the college. His father when dean had built the fine staircase to the hall with its fan-tracery vault, and commenced the buildings on north and west of the quadrangle. This Bishop Fell finished the buildings of the college together with the west belfry, designed by Sir C. Wren, but he does not appear to have done much for the Cathedral. Neglect and the hard hand of time wrought much mischief, and it seems to have been in a deplorable state when the restorations of the last half of the nineteenth century were inaugurated. To rescue it from its wretched condition Dean Liddell, whose name is familiar to every student of Greek, set himself with much energy, and the work was entrusted to Sir G. Scott. His restoration was carried out with much wisdom and careful regard for antiquity. The author of _Alice in Wonderland_, a fellow of the college, published a satirical pamphlet on _The Three T's_, the tunnel, the tower (the third we forget), and compared the new entrance with a railway tunnel, representing a railway train emerging from the portal, and scoffing at the new tower, which arose above the grand staircase to the hall. But it is easy to criticise, and Sir G. Scott's work at Oxford compares favourably with most restorations, and for this posterity will thank him. THE EXTERIOR Oxford Cathedral is so hidden away behind the obtrusive walls of Wolsey's college that it is difficult to obtain any good exterior views. The best is that seen from the garden of one of the canons, to enter which permission may be obtained. The view from the cloister is also satisfactory. The principal entrance is from "Tom Quad" by the "tunnel," as Lewis Carroll termed the passage or porch situated a little to the north of the entrance to the hall. As we have said, the west front and the greater part of the nave were destroyed by Wolsey when he erected the college buildings. He also destroyed the west walk of the cloister, which we enter by a passage leading from the entrance to the hall. The cloisters are Perpendicular work of the latter part of the fifteenth century. The north walk was at one time converted into a muniment room, but has recently been restored to its original form, and has a modern imitation of the old vaulting. The old refectory stood on the south side, but has been converted into college rooms. Its large Perpendicular windows still remain looking on to the cloister. The entrance to the chapter-house is in the east walk, and a fine Norman doorway it is. It belongs to the later Norman period. It has four orders, richly ornamented with zigzag. A round-headed window is on each side of the door. The chapter-house is one of the best examples of the Early English style in the kingdom, and may be compared with those of Lincoln, Salisbury and Chester. The east end is very fine, and consists of an arcade of five arches which are double. Slender clustered shafts with capitals adorned with foliage support the inner arches. The three central arches are pierced for windows. Similar arcades are at the east end of north and south sides. The sculpture in this chamber is extremely fine. Grotesque corbels, carved capitals and the bosses in the vault, are all beautiful and interesting. One of the bosses represents the Virgin giving an apple to the infant Christ. There is also some old glass and interesting mural paintings. Diocesan meetings are held in this delightful room. The foundation stone of Wolsey's college at Ipswich is preserved here. In the room on the south are some fine paintings, an Elizabethan table and an old chest. Another door in this cloister leads to the old slype, a passage to the monastic burial-ground. On the left is St. Lucy's Chapel, mainly of Norman construction, the east window being much later. It is of Decorated character, and the tracery is flamboyant and of very beautiful design. The south choir aisle adjoins, and is part of the original church. The windows are modern imitations of Norman work. The windows in the clerestory of the choir are Perpendicular. The east end is modern, having been reconstructed by Scott. On the north side of the Cathedral, viewed from the canon's garden, we see the north transept with its large Perpendicular window, erected at the beginning of the sixteenth century, flanked by two turrets crowned with pinnacles; the Latin Chapel of beautiful Decorated design, erected in the fourteenth century, and the Lady Chapel, the east wall of which is part of the old Saxon church, and Mr. Park Harrison has discovered the remains of three Saxon apses which are perhaps the remains of the earliest Saxon church, the Church of St. Frideswide, built by Didan early in the eighth century.[9] A Decorated window has been inserted here. We must now notice the _Tower_ and _Spire_, a beautiful feature of the Cathedral. The lower storey is Late Norman, similar to the style of the nave; the belfry and the spire are Early English. This spire ranks with that of Barnock, Northants, and New Romsey, Surrey, as being one of the earliest in the kingdom. It was restored by Scott. The pinnacles at the angles of the tower are modern but accurate copies of the ancient ones. The spire is octagonal, and is what is termed a broach spire, _i.e._, it rises from the exterior of the tower walls and not from the interior of a parapet as in the later spires. [Illustration Oxford Cathedral] THE INTERIOR Entering by the new porch from the quadrangle and passing under the organ-screen we see a Cathedral, small, indeed, but possessing features of peculiar interest. In its main plan it is possibly the church of Ethelred begun in 1004, but finished in Late Norman times when Robert de Cricklade or Canutus was prior (1141-1180).[10] The piers of the _Nave_ are alternatively circular and octagonal. There is a very unusual triforium. Arches spring from the capitals of the piers, and in the tympana are set the triforium arcade. From half capitals set against the piers spring another series of arches at a lower level than the others we have mentioned, and above the curve of these is the triforium arcade. Very few examples of this curious construction are found in this country. The carving of the capitals is graceful, and though it differs somewhat from the stiff-leaved foliage of Early English style, it somewhat resembles that character. The clerestory belongs to the period of transition between Norman and Early English. The central arch of the triple windows is pointed, and the others, which are blocked up, round. The corbels and shafts which support the roof are Norman, but the brackets are Perpendicular, erected by Wolsey, who intended to build a stone vault. The present fine timber roof belongs to his time, or a little later. The stalls and seats are modern. The screen is Jacobean, above which is the organ, a fine instrument enclosed in a Jacobean case. The pulpit belongs to the same period and is very interesting, especially its grotesque carving. The central tower has fine and lofty arches, and its appearance has been improved by the removal of the ceiling which formerly existed here. A curious subterranean chamber was discovered here in 1856. It contained two aumbries, and was evidently intended for the keeping of some treasure, possibly of the monastery, or of the university. It is known that the university chest during the thirteenth century was deposited in a secret place within the Church of St. Frideswide, and this, doubtless, was the spot. The _Choir_ is of the same character as the nave. The piers are more massive, and the style of the carving of the capitals differs. We are told that we have distinct evidence here that this is part of Ethelred's church, that the sculpture is Saxon, copied from Saxon MSS., that it has been worn by weather which could only have been done during the ruinous condition of the church prior to its Late Norman restoration. Possibly this may be true, and the carving is certainly peculiar, but at present we cannot quite agree to accept this view. The triforium is Late Norman, and the roof is a fine example of fan-tracery begun in the fifteenth century. Wolsey changed the appearance of the clerestory, and introduced Perpendicular details. [Illustration Oxford Cathedral (Herbert Railton)] The _East End_ is modern, and is a fine conception of Sir G. Scott based upon early models. The _Reredos_ is a fine modern work, and the altar, lectern and throne are also new. Turning to the north we enter the _North Choir Aisle_, where we stand upon debatable ground. Perhaps we are in the Early Saxon church built for St. Frideswide, or the later Saxon church of Ethelred. Authorities differ, and it is impossible to decide. At any rate, there in the east wall are the remains of the three Saxon arches which lead to the apses discovered on the outside. And here, too, is the noted _Shrine of St. Frideswide_, of which Mr. Ruskin said that every stone was worth its weight in silver, if not in gold. It has been gradually collected from odd corners of the precincts, as the shrine was destroyed by Henry VIII. The carved foliage is very beautiful, and when this base of the shrine was complete and crowned with the jewelled cover, beneath which reposed the relics of the saints, it must have been very imposing. There is a curious story in connection with these relics. When the tomb was destroyed these were carefully preserved in secret by "the faithful," and in the meantime the body of the wife of Peter Martyr, a Protestant professor, was laid near the saint's shrine. As this poor lady was an ex-nun, in the time of Mary and Cardinal Pole her body was cast out into a cesspool, and the relics of the saint restored to their place of honour. In Elizabeth's time the saint's bones were again removed. The queen ordered the decent re-burial of the remains of Peter Martyr's wife, and while this was being done the sacred box containing the relics was produced, and "the married nun and the virgin saint were buried together, and the dust of the two still remains under the pavement beneath our feet inextricably blended."[11] The exact spot is conjecturable, but a brass has been placed where the mingled remains are supposed to lie. The _Lady Chapel_ is on the west of the choir aisle, and is of Early English construction. It was added about 1250, when the present piers and vault were built. The east wall, as we have said, is manifestly earlier, and is part of one of the earlier Saxon churches. The east window is restored Decorated. The west arch is round-headed, and shows that this part of the chapel was the east aisle of the north transept. There are extensive remains of colouring. Here is the remarkable "Watching Chamber," supposed by some to be a later shrine of St. Frideswide, and by Professor Willis and others to be the chamber where watch was kept for guarding the gold and jewels which adorned the actual shrine. It has three stages, and is very beautiful Perpendicular work. In this chapel there are some interesting monuments--Sir George Nowers (1425) (with good example of armour); Prior Guymond (?) (1149), or Prior Alexander de Sutton (1316), with Decorated canopy and effigy; Lady Montacute (1353), the supposed founder of the Latin Chapel; Robert Burton, author of _Anatomy of Melancholy_ (1639). Some "Morris" windows have been inserted here designed by Burne-Jones, very beautiful in themselves, but perhaps scarcely in keeping with their surroundings. The St. Cecilia window is extremely fine. The _Latin Chapel_ is mainly Decorated work of the time of Edward III., the western parts being earlier. The vault has some richly-foliated bosses, on which appear the waterlily and the roses, and heads surmounted with crown and mitre. The east window has strange Venetian tracery, but some excellent modern glass designed by Burne-Jones and representing incidents in the life of St. Frideswide. The other windows have some fine old fourteenth-century glass; the north-east window is modern. The woodwork is very fine; it is later than the chapel, and was not designed for it. The cardinal's hat, supported by angels on one of the carved poppy-heads, shows that this was prepared for Wolsey's choir. Some of the work is much older. In this chapel the writer used to listen to the lectures of the divinity professor, and was often distracted from the discourse by the architectural beauties around him. Beautiful vistas may be obtained here of "long-drawn aisles and fretted vault," and he became very conversant with the history of St. Frideswide as depicted in the fine east window. The _North Transept_ is similar to the nave in style. The north window is a modern restoration, and the glass is not very pleasing modern work. Here is the Perpendicular tomb of a monk, Zouch (1503), and some good brasses in the aisle. The north aisle has Norman vaulting. The windows are restored Perpendicular, and the glass is modern. The window at the west end of the aisle was refashioned by Dean Brian Duppa in his usual barbarous manner, but it has some good Flemish glass by Van Ling representing Jonah and the Gourd, with Nineveh in the background. Crossing to the south side of the church we pass several monuments in the vestibule at the west end and reach the _South Aisle_, which is later in style than the north. At the west end is a Burne-Jones window, representing "Faith, Hope and Charity." The south transept preserves its Late Norman character, but has been shorn of its length. On the east side is the Chapel of St. Lucy. At the back of the wall on the south is the slype, and above this the vestry. One of the windows here is said to be Saxon. _St. Lucy's Chapel_ is Norman, and is now used as a baptistry. The east window has flamboyant tracery and some fine old glass. Several monuments of distinguished Cavaliers who died for the Royal cause in the Civil War are in this part of the church. The _South Choir Aisle_ resembles that on the north. The south windows are in the Norman style, but are modern imitations. The glass of the east window was designed by Burne-Jones and portrays St. Catherine. It was erected in memory of a daughter of Dean Liddell. The monument of Prince Leopold, brother of the king, formerly a student of Christ Church, has a pathetic interest, and the tomb of Bishop King, Oxford's first bishop (1557), is a fine piece of Perpendicular work. The window to his memory is on the south and shows a representation of the Abbey of Oseney, where his episcopal throne was first established, before it migrated to the Church of St. Frideswide. DIMENSIONS Extreme length 175 ft. Length from screen to reredos 132 ft. Extreme breadth 108 ft. Height of spire 144 ft. DATES OF BUILDING Saxon--East wall of Lady Chapel and north choir aisle, and possibly window in south transept. Norman--Nave, choir, transept, aisles, door of chapter-house St. Lucy's Chapel. Early English--Lady Chapel. Decorated--Latin Chapel and several windows. Perpendicular--Cloisters, windows and vault of choir. FOOTNOTES: [8] Mr. Micklethwaite considers these remains to have belonged to Ethelred's church. [9] Mr. Micklethwaite believes these apses to have been part of Ethelred's church. [10] Although Mr. Park Harrison's theory is attractive, we are unable to accept all his conclusions as to the pre-Norman character of the details of the church. [11] Froude, _Hist. Engl._, vi. 468. BRISTOL CATHEDRAL Bristol, the great western port of England, has a history which tells of the ancient glories of English seamanship. From this port sailed the first Englishman who landed in America, Sebastian Cabot, who was born in Bristol, and was the first to discover that which is now known as the United States. A Bristol chronicle states, "this year 1497, on St. John the Baptist's day, the land of America was found by the merchants of Bristowe, in a ship of Bristol, called _The Matthew_, the which said ship departed from the port of Bristowe the 2nd of May, and came home again 6th August following." It was a Bristol ship which brought home the real Robinson Crusoe (Juan Fernandez) from his island home. Very famous were the great merchants of Bristol, such as William Cannynge, who founded the noble Church of St. Mary Redcliffe, whom his king, Henry VI., delighted to honour, and styled "his beloved and honourable merchant." Vast was his fleet--his shipping, amounting to 2470 tons, was seized by the victorious Yorkist monarch--and vast were his commercial enterprises, whereby he made Bristol a large and flourishing port. But we must go back to earlier days. In Saxon times the port was famous, or infamous, for its slave-dealing, which the coming of the Conqueror scarcely suppressed. Here Harold's three sons made a vain attempt to rescue the kingdom from his iron grasp. A famous Norman castle destroyed in the Civil War was built here, where Stephen was kept a prisoner. Pleasanter visits were frequently paid by other monarchs. The city was besieged and taken by Henry Bolingbroke, and Shakespeare in _Richard II._ tells of the beheading of four supporters of the luckless king in the city market-place. Here, too, five martyrs were burnt, and in the first year of Elizabeth's reign a mass of roods and images shared the same fate. The imposition of the ship-money tax was so distasteful that the Royal cause was not very popular at Bristol. The citizens opened their gates to the troopers of Cromwell, who held it from 1642 to the following year. Prince Rupert stormed the place, and held it till it was wrested from him in 1645. The "Bloody Assize" of Judge Jefferies left its mark on this western port; six prisoners were executed, and hundreds sent across the sea to serve in the plantations. The darkest spot in the history of Bristol is the story of the Reform riots of 1831, sometimes called "the Bristol Revolution," when the dregs of the population pillaged and plundered, burnt the bishop's palace, and were guilty of much vandalism. Of the old churches we shall write subsequently. The old quaint houses are very attractive, especially the old Norman hall and Tudor windows of the house of Edward Colston, one of Bristol's merchant princes, Cannynge's house, with its fine Perpendicular roof, and the old Hospital of St. Peter. THE HISTORY OF THE SEE Bristol was one of the sees founded by Henry VIII. in 1542, after the destruction of the monasteries. There is, however, in the British Museum, a MS. copy of a Papal Bull of 1551, for the refounding of the see, directed by Pope Paul IV. to Cardinal Pole. In 1836 the Sees of Bristol and Gloucester were united, and remained so until 1897, when they were again separated. The church has a history long before it became a Cathedral. It was the church of the monastery of Augustinian canons, founded in 1142 by Robert Fitzhardinge, afterwards Lord of Berkeley, on the site of Augustine's oak (so tradition says), where Augustine met the British bishops in conference and offended them by his haughty demeanour. The consecration of probably the chancel took place six years later. In 1155 Fitzhardinge received from the king the forfeited estates of Roger de Berkeley, and was thus enabled to extend his building operations, which were continued until the time of his death in 1170. The church consisted of a nave with north and south aisles, a central tower with north and south transepts, a presbytery with north and south aisles, and a processional path. The choir had a square ending, and consisted of three bays, the altar being at the east of the second bay, the last bay forming a _via processionum_. The chapter-house and vestibule are also Norman. The Early English builders erected the Elder Lady Chapel, Bristol Cathedral being rich in Lady Chapels, and possessing two. Abbot John (1196-1215) or his successor, David, was doubtless the builder. Later Early English work is evident in portions of the north and south transepts and in the Berkeley Chapel, but much of the work of this period has been destroyed. Serious complaints were made at this time concerning the conduct of the monks, and sundry visitations were made and orders issued for the reform of the monastery. During the Early Decorated period the roof and east window of the Elder Lady Chapel were added, and a little later (1306-1332) Abbot Knowle reconstructed the choir and choir aisles. With his work came the beginning of Perpendicular aspiration, and it is an earnest of the course of the later English Gothic which first manifested itself in the choir of Gloucester. Bristol nearly had the lucrative honour of receiving the body of the murdered King Edward II., slain at Berkeley Castle. But for fear of offending his patrons Abbot Knowle declined to have the burial here; hence the corpse was taken to Gloucester, where it caused a great concourse of pilgrims, and brought many offerings. Knowle's successor, Abbot Snow (1332-1341), was made a mitred abbot, and had a seat in Parliament. He continued the work of his predecessor, erected a chantry, and built the Newton Chapel. Soon after his death terrible misfortunes happened to the city and monastery. The Black Death invaded the land, and so great were its ravages that in Bristol the living were hardly able to bury the dead, and few monks survived the awful malady. The effects were disastrous. For over a hundred years no building was attempted, and the monastery was in a deplorable condition. In the time of Abbot Newbury (1428-1473) the great tower was begun, and finished by his successor, Hunt (1473-1481), who re-roofed the church. Abbot Newland (1481-1515) rebuilt the upper part of the abbey gateway in Perpendicular style, and began to rebuild the ruinous nave. As the power of the town increased the citizens often had disputes with the monks over rights of fairs and markets and other matters, and the burghers of Bristol were not more submissive than those of other places. Hence the usual quarrels arose and disturbed the peace of the city. Some of the succeeding abbots wrought some minor improvements, but in 1543 a most drastic remedy was applied to the ruinous nave. It was entirely pulled down, and not rebuilt until recent times. The monastery was dissolved like other similar institutions, and Paul Bush became the first bishop of the new see founded by Henry VIII. For a brief space during Mary's reign the old worship was restored, and Her Majesty and Philip bestowed costly gifts of copes and altar frontals and vestments. But in Elizabeth's reign all "relics of Popery" were ordered to be destroyed, such as the rood-lofts, tabernacles for images, and scripture texts and the table of the commandments to be painted in large characters on the wall. Beyond purloining the lead from the roof neither the besiegers nor the besieged did much damage to the church during the Civil War. On the site of the destroyed nave some houses were erected, but after the great riots these were taken down. The building seems to have been kept in fairly good order. Edward Colston, the benefactor of Bristol, repaired the pavement. Sundry restorations were taken in hand during the last century, and finally in 1865 it was decided to undertake the stupendous task of rebuilding the nave. The work was begun in 1868 and finished in 1888. Since then the Elder Lady Chapel and the tower have been restored, and the church is now complete. It contains much of unusual value and interest, and the completion of the nave is a triumph of nineteenth-century achievement. THE EXTERIOR As we have said, the whole nave is new work, and therefore need not be examined very closely. The _West Front_ is flanked by two towers, which bear the honoured names of Bishop Butler and Edward Colston. The style is an imitation of fourteenth-century work. There is a crocketed gable above the door, a rose window of good design, and some delicately-carved work surmounted by a cross. The face of the towers has three storeys; on the first a large window; on the second some lancets; and above two windows with louvres, the heads of which have crockets and finials. There are pinnacles at the four corners. On the _South Side_ we see the remains of the monastic buildings. The north and east walks of the cloisters alone remain, except a few traces of the western walk, and the north is a restoration. We will visit the east walk from the Cathedral. Passing round to the _North Side_ we notice the _North Porch_ built in 1873. We have often noticed the figures of the four great doctors of the church--SS. Gregory, Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine. They appear in the sculptures of many of our cathedrals. A great storm of indignation arose at Bristol when it was proposed to place these figures here, and the four Evangelists were substituted. We can pass over the modern work, which is not wholly satisfactory, and notice the interesting character of the eastern portion. The north transept has some remains of Norman work in the north wall. The north window is modern in memory of Colston, and replaces an Early English window. The building adjoining is the Elder Lady Chapel, which is Early English work of the early thirteenth century. The east window is Decorated and is rather earlier than the choir built by Abbot Knowle (1306-1332). The battlemented parapet is, of course, a later addition. The buttresses of the chapel are Decorated, and there are curious little flying buttresses connecting the two pinnacles. The Lady Chapel at the east end of the Cathedral is of the same date as the choir, and has a large, noble and graceful window. Passing round to the south we see the outside of the Berkeley Chapel, of Decorated design, and adjoining it the sacristy and external walls of the Newton Chapel, chapter-house and modern vestry. Here, too, is the old churchyard. The _Central Tower_ is Perpendicular and was constructed by Abbot Newland (1481-1515) or his successor, Abbot Elliot (1515-1526). THE INTERIOR Retracing our steps, we enter the Cathedral by the north porch and view the new _Nave_ from the west end. The slender piers and fine vaulting are striking, and the work is in many ways very beautiful. The surface of the walls in the aisles is broken by canopied recesses for tombs, one only being occupied by a marble figure of Dean Elliot. The baptistry is in the south-west or Colston Tower, and is decorated in memory of Bishop Monk. Already there are many memorial windows of good modern glass. The _North Transept_ has some original Norman work in the core of the buttresses and in the wall below the north window. Some alterations were made during the Decorated period, probably by Abbot Snow (1332-1341), and the arch leading to north choir aisle is Perpendicular work constructed by Abbot Newland (1481-1515), called "the good abbot." Either he or his successor, Elliot, constructed the groined roof, which has on the bosses sculptured representations of the instruments of the Passion. The north window is modern, in memory of Colston. The well-known writer, "Hugh Conway" (F. Fargus), has a memorial here, and also Jane Porter of literary fame, Sterne's "Maria" (Mrs. Draper), and the parents of Macready, the actor. [Illustration Bristol The Central Tower from S E] The _South Transept_ has much Norman work in the lower part of the walls. Part was rebuilt in Early English times. Abbot Snow (1332-1341) continued the work and constructed the arch leading to the south choir aisle. The vault is Perpendicular work by Abbot Elliot (1515-1526). On the south is a staircase now leading to the consistory court, but which formerly echoed with the tread of the monks as they came here to their midnight services from the dormitory. In this transept there are monuments to Lady Hesketh (1807), the friend of Cowper; William Phillips, the sub-sacrist or verger who prevented the rioters from profaning the Cathedral in 1831; Chantrey's monument of Mrs. Crawford; and most famous of all, _Bishop Butler_ (1752), one of the most honoured of English divines, the author of _The Analogy of Religion_. The inscription was written by Southey. It is deplorable that a beautiful stone screen of Tudor architecture, which separated the choir from the transept, was ruthlessly destroyed in 1860, and another one erected. This also has been removed, and the view of the east end, with its Decorated piers and arches and the rich glass of the windows, is extremely fine. All the work before us was constructed by Abbot Knowle (1306-1332) and is Decorated. The Norman choir had two bays with a third for a processional path. Knowle added two bays to the choir and built the Lady Chapel. The clustered piers have triple shafts which support the vaulting. The capitals on these shafts have very graceful foliage. The piers have no capitals, but the mouldings run round the arches continuously, as is not unusual in Decorated work. The vaulting is what is known as lierne. Iron screen work divides the aisles from the choir. The reredos is modern, erected in 1899, and has some fine carving. The _Stalls_ were originally Decorated, but "restoration" has destroyed much, and little of the old work remains. There are some curious _Misereres_: a fox preaching to geese, a tilting with brooms between a man and a woman, one mounted on a pig, the other on a turkey-cock, the story of Reynard the Fox. The pavement is new, and not altogether successful. The organ is a noble instrument placed on the west side, and has been often reconstructed. The _Throne_ is modern and has some fine carving. Passing into the north aisle we notice the peculiar vaulting. It will be seen that the roof of the choir and aisles is the same height, and in order to support the weight of the choir-vault transoms are thrown across the aisles supported on arches, and above a vaulting shaft springs from the centre of the transom. This ingenious plan produces the same effect as a flying buttress and is most ingeniously arranged. The windows have beautiful Decorated tracery and the ball-flower is extensively used in the string-course beneath them. The east window has seventeenth-century glass, said to have been given by Nell Gwynne, more probably by Dean Glemham (1661-1667). It treats of the Resurrection, with Jonah and Abraham's sacrifice as types of the same, the Ascension with Elijah as a type. There are monuments here of Robert Codrington (1618); Harriet Middleton (1826); Paul Bush (1558), the first bishop; Robert Southey, the poet; Bishop Westfield (1644); Bishop Howell (1649); and Mary Mason, wife of the poet, with some touching lines (1767). Between the aisle and the Elder Lady Chapel are the effigies of Maurice, Lord Berkeley (1368), and his wife, Elizabeth. There is a tablet to the memory of Robert Fitzhardinge, the founder of the Cathedral and also of the house of Berkeley. Some Norman corbels will be noticed in the door leading to a staircase in the third bay. The _Elder Lady Chapel_ is Early English and therefore earlier than the choir, and was probably built by Abbot John (1196-1215); it is therefore, as the architectural details testify, very early work. The east window is Decorated. There are some curious grotesques in the spandrels of the arcade--a hunter-goat blowing a horn and carrying a hare on his back, a ram and an ape playing musical instruments, St. Michael with the dragon, and a fox carrying off a goose. The foliage is what is known as stiff leaved, and opposed to the more natural foliage of the Decorated period. The roof is Early Decorated. The eastern _Lady Chapel_, formerly the chancel of the choir, was built by Abbot Knowle and is Decorated like the rest of the eastern part of the Cathedral. It has a magnificent east window with beautiful tracery. This is a Jesse window, showing the descent of our Lord from Jesse, the father of David, and the glass is in the upper parts of the same date as the stone-work. Above we see the arms of many distinguished families--the Berkeleys, Mowbrays, Beauchamps and others. The glass in the other windows is also of the same period and is of much interest. The parapet under the windows is modern. The reredos is ancient, of the same date as the chapel, and designed by Knowle, but it has been much altered in Perpendicular times. The _Sedilia_ have been much restored. A characteristic feature of this Cathedral is the star-shaped recesses designed by Knowle, which are very beautiful. In one of these is Abbot Newbury's tomb with ball-flower ornament; in another Abbot Hunt (1473). Here, too, is Abbot Newland's tomb, and a modern brass to the memory of Bishop Butler, and at the back of the reredos a brass to Bishop Ellicott. The _South Choir Aisle_ resembles the north. It has a very similar east window, and the same curious vaulting. Two very interesting chapels adjoin this aisle. The _Berkeley Chapel_ is entered by a richly-ornamented doorway which leads into the old sacristy, with its chests for relics and plate, and a hearth for baking sacramental bread. Abbot Knowle was a student of nature and loved to reproduce in stone the fruits and flowers which he saw growing around him. In the ornaments of the doorway we see the ammonite and medlar. The chapel had two altars, as we see the remains of two piscinæ, beneath the two east windows, separated by a screen. There is an altar tomb of Thomas, Lord Berkeley (1321). The lower part of the tomb is Early English. The other chapel is the _Newton Chapel_, which is Late Decorated and almost Perpendicular in some of its details. The ball-flower has ceased to be used as an ornament. There are many memorials of the Newton family here, and one to Bishop Gray (1834). Returning to the south choir aisle we notice another of the curious recesses adorned with oak leaves, acorns and mistletoe. There are some more Berkeley tombs which furnish interesting studies of the armour of the period. We now enter the _Cloisters_. As we have said, only the north and east walks remain; the north is entirely new, and the east has been much restored. The vestibule and chapter-house are, however, part of the original Norman building, and the work is of Transitional character. It is oblong in shape. The east wall is modern and has three windows. The north and south walls have beautiful arcades, and above lattice work and zigzag mouldings. The west wall has three rows of arcading. Twelve stone coffins were found here and a curious piece of ancient sculpture representing our Lord wounding the head of Satan and rescuing a child by means of the Cross. Adjoining the chapter-house was the dormitory. The refectory was on the south side of the cloister garth. It still exists after many transformations and is the house of the master of the Cathedral School. The _Great Gateway_ should be visited. The lower part is of Norman character, and was part of the founder's work; the upper is Perpendicular and was the work of Abbot Elliot. He probably renewed the rich Norman ornamentation, so much so that in the opinion of Mr. Godwin, the great authority on Bristol architecture, "the so-called Norman gateway of College Green is no Norman gateway, but a Perpendicular restoration of the old work." Another gateway, which formerly led to the palace destroyed in 1831, exists, which is part of the original Norman work of the Cathedral. At the south-west corner of the cloister is an Early English doorway, which formerly led to the refectory. It is a sad pity that so much of the old monastery has been destroyed. DIMENSIONS Total length 300 ft. Length of nave 125 ft. Width of nave 69 ft. Height 52 ft. Area 22,500 sq. ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES Norman (1142-1170)--Part of transepts, chapter-house, lower part of gateway. Early English (1196-1215)--Elder Lady Chapel, parts of transepts and Berkeley Chapel. Decorated (1306-1332)--Choir, Lady Chapel and stalls. (1332-1341)--Newton Chapel. Perpendicular (1428-1481)--Great Tower, upper part of gateway, roof. Modern--The nave. The city has a large number of interesting churches. The noble Church of St. Mary, Redcliffe, one of the finest in England, chiefly fourteenth century; All Hallows' (Norman and Perpendicular); Temple Church (Decorated and Perpendicular); St. Philip's, St. Stephen's, St. John's, are the most important. WELLS CATHEDRAL The beautiful city of Wells entirely owes its origin to the noble church and palace built here in early times, around which the houses and population grew. It is one of the most picturesque in England, situated in the most delightful country, and possessing the most perfect ecclesiastical buildings which can be conceived. History tells us that Ina in 704 built a church here, near a spring dedicated to St. Andrew and known as "The Wells," and Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great, formed a bishopric for Somerset and set the bishop's throne here. Three Abbots of Glastonbury became Bishops of Wells, which was richly endowed. The first Norman prelate was Giso, who built some dwellings for the secular canons which were destroyed by his successor, John de Villula, a native of Tours, who erected a palace in their stead. Moreover, he moved the seat of the see to Bath, where he had formerly practised medicine, and Wells was allowed to become ruinous. Bath minster we shall visit presently. There was much ancient rivalry between the two places and sore disputings, which were only partially settled by the conjoining of the title "Bath and Wells." Bishop Robert (1135-1166) had pity on the ruinous state of Wells and rebuilt the church. This took place while Stephen and Matilda were fighting for the crown, and Bishop Robert scorned not to take up arms on behalf of Stephen, and was moreover imprisoned by the adherents of his rival. Almost all of Robert's work has disappeared in subsequent alterations. Jocelyn de Wells (1206-1239) has for many years had the credit of building the main part of this beautiful House of God. It is hard to have one's beliefs and early traditions upset, but modern authorities with much reason tell us that we are wrong, and that another Jocelyn--one Reginald Fitz-Jocelyn (1171-1191)--was the main builder of Wells. Old documents recently discovered decide the question, and moreover the style of the architecture is certainly earlier than the fully-developed Early English of Jocelyn de Wells. The latter, and also Bishop Savaricus (1192-1205) carried out the work, but the whole design and a considerable part of the building are due to Bishop Reginald. Savarac or Savaricus was concerned with the release of Richard I. from his prison in Germany, and was one of the hostages for the payment of his ransom. He styled himself Bishop of Bath and Glastonbury, and when the monks objected he stormed the abbey and beat and imprisoned them. Jocelyn de Wells found his church unfinished and dilapidated. His was a grand era for church-building; moreover, he was a friend of Hugh of Lincoln and Bishop Poore of Salisbury, both consummate architects. So he set to work to finish and repair Reginald's rising church, completed the nave and added that wonderful west front which is one of the glories of this Cathedral. Bishop Burnell (1275-1292) erected in later Early English style the crypt of the chapter-house, which was itself partly built some time late in the Decorated period, probably by Bishop William de la March, a favourite of Edward I., who is said to have advised the plundering of the monasteries. During the episcopate of Drokensford (1309-1329) the central tower was raised, the choir was begun and the Lady Chapel and chapter-house finished. Dean Godelee at this time was a great builder and seems to have devised these additions. Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury (1329-1363) continued to perfect the Cathedral, enlarging the presbytery and building the fine east end. He did much work outside his church, founding the college, restoring his palaces and fortifying his palace at Wells. The upper part of the Harewell Tower was built by the bishop of that name (1366-1386). This is the south-west tower. The north-west tower was built later still by Bishop Bubwith (1407-1424). This prelate built the east walk of the cloister, the west and south walks being finished by Bishop Beckington (1443-1464) in the Perpendicular style. Wells was then in its full glory. The church, the out-buildings, the episcopal palace, the deanery all combined to form a wonderful architectural triumph, a group of buildings which represented the best achievement of English Gothic art. It was shorn of some of its glory at the Reformation. The church was plundered of the treasures which the piety of many generations had heaped together; the beautiful Lady Chapel in the cloisters was pulled down, and the infamous Duke of Somerset robbed it of its wealth and meditated further sacrilege. Amongst these despoilers and desecrators of churches there was a mighty hunger for lead ("I would that they had found it scalding," exclaims an old chaplain of Wells). Once the richest of sees, it would probably have been suppressed altogether, but for the advent of Queen Mary to the throne, who appointed Bishop Bourn and restored the palace. In the Civil War it escaped. Some damage was done, the palace was despoiled, and at the Restoration much repair was found needful. Monmouth's rebellion wrought havoc here. The rebels came here in no amiable temper, defaced the statues on the west front, and did much wanton mischief, and would have caroused about the altar had not Lord Grey stood before it with his sword drawn and thus preserved it from the insults of ruffians. Then came the evils of "restoration." A terrible renewing was begun in 1848, when the old stalls were destroyed and much damage done. Better things were accomplished in 1868, save that the grandeur of the west front was belittled by a pipy restoration, when Irish limestone with its harsh hue was used to embellish it. In the palace, too, modern ideas have effaced much of the refinement of its thirteenth-century beauty. THE EXTERIOR Fergusson declares that though Wells is one of the smallest it is perhaps, taken altogether, the most beautiful of English cathedrals. Some of the distant prospects are perhaps the best. There is a fine view from the Shepton-Mallett Road. We enter the precincts by Browne's Gate at the end of Sadler Street, and see before us the magnificent _West Front_, a masterpiece of art superior to any in this country or abroad. It is 150 feet in width and 70 feet high. Six deep buttresses project from its face. There are six tiers of sculpture. The doors are small. Not for the living throng, but to the dead was this front dedicated who lie in the cemetery at its feet.[12] Here is the history of God's Church on earth expressing its faith and pointing to the hope of the Resurrection. Its style is Early English and is intermediate between the west front of Lincoln and Salisbury. The upper part of the towers is Perpendicular, that on the north being finished by Bishop Bubwith (1407-1424), that on the south by Harewell (1366-1386). In the lowest tier the sculptures have nearly all gone. In the second are angels in small quatrefoils. In the third subjects from the Old and New Testaments. In the fourth and fifth there are 120 statues of kings and bishops and heroes of English history from Egbert to Henry II. The sixth is called the Resurrection tier. And above are the angels and Apostles, and finally the Lord in glory. It is difficult to identify the statues with any feeling of certainty, though many lists have been published which may, or may not, be correct. There can be no doubt about the excellence of the sculpture, and all authorities unite in praising them as being the perfection of design and execution. Flaxman said of them that in them there is a beautiful simplicity, an irresistible sentiment, and sometimes a grace excelling more modern productions. The _North Porch_ is earlier than the west front and possesses transitional features. The zigzag ornament is used, and shows that Norman traditions have not yet passed away; though Early English foliage appears on the weather moulding. On the capitals on the east side are representations of the martyrdom of St. Edmund, who shared the fate of St. Sebastian and was afterwards beheaded. Mystic animals appear in the panels on either side of the arch--one is a cockatrice. Above, three lancets light the parvise. The _Central Tower_ is 182 feet high, and is Early English as far as the height of the roof. In the Decorated period the upper part was added, which caused much disaster, as the foundations were unable to bear the additional weight. Very skilful treatment was required, as we shall see when we enter the church. The _Nave_ is Early English, but Perpendicular tracery has been inserted in the windows, and the walls of both the aisles and clerestory have been crowned with a parapet of Decorated work. The _North Transept_ is rather earlier than the nave, and retains much of the Transitional character. It has two aisles, and is not so richly ornamented as the nave. The windows are pointed and have Perpendicular tracery. Passing on we come to the _Chain Gate_, a very beautiful structure erected by Bishop Beckington (1443-1465) in Perpendicular style. Figures of St. Andrew and other saints appear in the niches. The gallery over the Chain Gate connects the Cathedral with the Vicar's College. After passing under the gate we see the beautiful _Chapter-House_, which is octagonal, we are surprised to find the chapter-house in this position and far removed from the cloisters, but this is accounted for by the fact that secular canons served this Cathedral, and not monks; hence the cloisters were an ornamental appendant rather than the centre of the monastic life. The chapter-house was finished in 1319 in Decorated style under the guidance of Dean John de Godilee, who employed one William Joy as the master-mason. There are some curious gargoyles here. The _Choir_ and _Lady Chapel_ form a beautiful composition. The western portion of the choir was until recently attributed to Jocelyn. [Illustration Wells Cathedral] It is now generally believed to have been the work of Bishop Reginald, Jocelyn's predecessor. The eastern portion is the work of Bishop Ralph (1329-1363), the Lady Chapel was finished in 1326. All this is therefore Decorated, and windows of the same style have been inserted in the earlier western portion. There were two Lady Chapels adjoining the cloisters, but these were ruthlessly destroyed by Bishop Barlow in 1552. The _Cloister_ does not possess the usual features of a monastic church. It is unusually large, and there are only three walks, the north being absent. The wall of the east walk is Early English, built by Jocelyn, but the rest was rebuilt by Bishop Bubwith; the west and south walks by Bishop Beckington and finished soon after his death. The style is Perpendicular. The grotesque bosses are interesting. An Early English doorway leads to the palace. Over the west walk is the singing-school, and over the east the library. Beckington's rebus (a _beacon_ and a _tun_) occurs in the bosses. The garth is known as "Palm Churchyard" from the yew tree in the centre. Branches of yews were carried in processions on Palm Sunday, and this probably accounts for the prevalence of yew trees in churchyards. The cloisters have been made the receptacle of many monuments removed from the Cathedral. The _Library_ over the east walk, built by Bubwith, has about 3000 volumes, and contains the books belonging to Bishop Ken. An Aldine edition of Aristotle has the autograph and notes of Erasmus, and there are several important MSS., the chains which formerly attached the books to the desks, a thirteenth-century pyx-cover, and a crozier of the same period. The _Bishop's Palace_, unfortunately much restored in 1846, is one of the finest examples of a thirteenth-century house existing in England. It was begun by Jocelyn. The great hall, now in ruins, built by Bishop Burnell (1275-1292) for the purpose of great entertainments, was destroyed by Barlow. The chapel is Decorated. The gatehouse, moat and fortifications were constructed by Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury. The _Deanery_ was built by Dean Gunthorpe in 1475, chaplain to Edward IV. On the north is the famous _Vicar's Close_, which has forty-two houses, constructed mainly by Bishop Beckington (1443-1464), with a common hall erected by Bishop Ralph (1340), and chapel by Bubwith, but altered a century later for the use of the Vicars-Choral. We notice the old fireplace, the pulpit from which one of the brethren read aloud during meals, and an ancient painting representing Bishop Ralph making his grant to the kneeling vicars, and some additional figures painted in the time of Elizabeth. THE INTERIOR Few will fail to be impressed by the many beauties of this glorious _Nave_, which we will gaze at from the west end. It is rather narrow, but the proportions are good, and the magnificent clustered columns and enriched capitals, the groups of bearing shafts, grotesque carvings, and the fine vault, all combine to form a noble structure. The curious inverted arches at the east end of the nave are remarkable. These were added early in the fourteenth century to save the collapsing central tower; and so skilfully was the work done that the object of the builders was completely accomplished. The nave has generally been assigned to Jocelyn, but architects have noticed that it is only a little removed from the Norman style, and recent investigators have shown that the greater part is the work of Bishop Reginald (1171-1191). The four eastern bays are assigned to him, and the rest to Jocelyn. A close inspection will reveal several points of difference between the earlier and later work. The heads of a king and bishop between the fourth and fifth piers (counting from the west) mark the change. The difference may be thus tabulated[13]-- EAST | WEST | Masonry in small courses of | The blocks are larger. stone. | | Small human heads at angles | No heads. of piers. | | Grotesque animals in tympana | Foliage and larger heads. of triforium. | | Medallions above triforium | Flush with the wall. sunk in the wall. | | Capitals plainer. | More ornamented and richer. The piers are octagonal with clustered shafts. The capitals are enriched with foliage. Birds, animals and monsters twine and perch among the foliage. The triforium arcade is continuous, and composed of lancet openings. The clerestory windows have Perpendicular tracery inserted by Beckington. The roof is vaulted, with bosses of foliage. The _Music Gallery_ stands in the central bay on the south side erected in Perpendicular style, and near it formerly was another gallery supported by two brackets, on which are carved the heads of a king and bishop. The curious and grotesque carvings should be carefully studied. The west end has an arcade of five arches. Above are three lancets with dog-tooth moulding and Perpendicular tracery. The glass was collected by Dean Creyghton on the Continent during his exile with Charles II., and represents the life of St. John Baptist. Its date is 1507. The other windows have the figures of King Ina and Bishop Ralph. The north and south aisles correspond with the nave in their architecture. Perpendicular tracery has been inserted in the windows. Under the north-west tower is the Chapel of the Holy Cross, now used as a vestry, and the opposite Chapel is now used by the ringers. There are two beautiful chantries in the nave--one is Bishop Bubwith's Chapel (1421), with much mutilated east end; the other is Sugar's Chantry, formerly dedicated to St. Edmund. Hugh Sugar, dean of Wells, died in 1489. The fan-tracery of the roof, the niches and the cornice of angels are worthy of notice. The _Pulpit_ was erected by Bishop Knight (1541-1547). The lectern is by Bishop Creyghton, who erected the west window, and shared Charles II.'s exile. The _Transepts_ are rather earlier than the nave, and are part of Reginald's work. They have aisles, and the capitals of the piers are richly sculptured. In the _South Transept_ we see on the west Elias, a woman extracting a thorn from her foot, a man with toothache, the grape-stealers and their fate. On the east there is only foliage and no figures. The Chapel of St. Calixtus is on the east, containing the beautiful monument of Dean Husse (1305), with its finely-carved panels. The subjects are the Annunciation, God the Father, and some ecclesiastics. The other Chapel is that of St. Martin, now a vestry, and has the tomb of a Chancellor of Wells (1454). In the transept are the monuments of Lady Lisle (1464), wife of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and of Bishop William de la Marchia (1302). The _Font_ is Norman, and probably the only remaining link with the early church built by Bishop Robert (1136-1166). The cover is Jacobean. The _North Transept_ resembles the south. Here we see again a series of strange carvings, amongst which are Moses and Aaron, man with goose, woman with toothache. The reason why so many representations of this distressing malady occur is that the shrine of St. William Bytton (1274) was famous for its cures of persons so suffering. On the east are the Chapels of St. David, with tomb of Bishop Still (1607), and Holy Cross with tomb of Bishop Kidder (1703). Another tomb is that of Bishop Cornish (1513). The famous _Clock_ is here with its tilting knights and human-shaped striker, who perform wondrous things when the expiration of each hour summons them to action. We will not dispel the curiosity of the visitor by any description of the performance, which is popular, and should not be missed. The _Tower_ is of Early English date as far as the roofs, and has a fine fan-tracery vault. As we have said, it was raised in the Decorated period, and the superstructure caused a dangerous settlement, which was counteracted by the inverted arches, and some flying buttresses. The _Choir-Screen_ is Decorated, and has not been improved by modern restorers. Above it is the organ, a modern instrument, which replaces the old organ erected by Dean Creyghton. The _Choir_ is very beautiful, but it is only a shadow of what it was before the evil hand of the restorer rested heavily upon it. It is terrible to contemplate the mischief which has been accomplished here in the fatal restoration of 1848. However, it would have been difficult to efface all its beauties, and some of these happily remain. The three west bays are probably Reginald's work, and were formerly attributed to Jocelyn; the rest is Decorated, and two of the west piers have been converted into this style. There is no triforium, its place being taken by rich tabernacle work. At the east end there are three graceful arches; and above these rich tabernacle work, and a large window of seven lights with Late Decorated tracery. There is a lierne vault. The vandals of the nineteenth century destroyed nearly all of the old woodwork, and substituted canopies of Doulting stone. The pulpit is modern; the throne was erected by Beckington, but has unfortunately been much restored. The _Misereres_ have happily been saved, and are very remarkable. They are Early Decorated, and can scarcely be surpassed. Amongst the many curious subjects are a mermaid, griffin and various monsters, two goats butting, cats, peacock, cock, fox and geese, lions, rabbits, etc. [Illustration Entrance to Crypt.] The glass of the east window, and of those on each side of it, is fourteenth-century work (_circa_ 1330). The east window is very fine, and is a Jesse window, showing the genealogy of our Lord from the "Stem of Jesse," with figures of kings and prophets, the Virgin, and finally the Crucifixion and the Judgment. In the north-east window is a figure of St. George. The _South Choir Aisle_ is of the same character as the choir; the windows are Decorated. Here is the famous monument of Bishop Bytton (1274), who was canonised, and whose tomb was much resorted to by pilgrims, especially by those who suffered from toothache. This is the most ancient example of an incised slab in England. Near the saint lie Bishop Beckington (1464), (who did so much for this Cathedral), and Bishop Hervey (1894). Below the effigy is a skeleton-like figure, which was intended to proclaim the moral maxim, _memento mori_. The iron-work should be noticed. Here also are the tombs of Bishop Harewell (1386), Bishop Hooper (1727), and Bishop Lake (1626). In the Chapel of St. John the Evangelist are buried Dean Gunthorpe (1498), the builder of the Deanery, and Dean Jenkyns (1854), who was responsible for the "restoration" of the choir. There is a fine Decorated piscina here. The _Retro-Choir_ is very beautiful. Slender piers of Purbeck marble support the fine vault. The carving of the capitals and bosses is very excellent. All is in the Decorated style. The _Lady Chapel_ is of the same date and style, finished in 1326. Its shape is pentagonal, and it is of rare beauty. The glass is of the same date as that of the choir, but has been restored. Angels bearing the instruments of the Passion appear in the east window, and in the tracery of the other windows are the Evangelistic emblems and heads of patriarchs and saints. At the south-east corner of the retro-choir was St. Catherine's Chapel. The glass is old and rich. There is a monument by Chantrey of John Phelips, and that of Bishop Drokensford (1329), who was bishop during the building of the Lady Chapel, and part of the choir is a graceful structure. At the opposite corner is St. Stephen's Chapel, and then we enter the north-east transept or Chapel of St. John Baptist, which contains Bishop Creyghton's tomb (1672), also monuments of John de Myddleton (1337), Bishop Berkeley (1581), Dean Forrest (1446). The _North Choir Aisle_ has the tomb of Bishop Ralph (1363), and an effigy, attributed to Bishop Giso (1088). Bishop Jocelyn caused several of these effigies to be executed, in memory of his predecessors. On the north is a door leading to a vaulted passage, which conducts us to the crypt of the chapter-house. Notice the curious carved heads in this passage. There is a curious stone lantern in the wall near the inner door. This crypt or undercroft is on the same level as the floor of the church, and was used as a treasury. It was finished about 1286, and is Late Early English. There is a massive octagonal pier in the centre, and eight other round piers, which support the vaulting. A piscina in the doorway has a curious sculptured dog gnawing a bone. Here are preserved a cope chest, some stone coffins, and other treasures. Retracing our steps to the aisle, we enter the noble _Staircase_ leading to the chapter-house. It is Early Decorated, the door at the upper end being added in the Perpendicular period, when the Chain Gate was erected. Two Decorated windows light the staircase. The _Chapter-House_, octagonal in plan, is entered by a fine doorway composed of double arches. There is a curious boss here, composed of four bearded heads. There is a central pillar, with clustered shafts of Purbeck marble, from which the beautiful ribs of the vaulted roof spring. There are eight windows, the mouldings of the arches being ornamented with ball-flower, and retaining some old glass. An arcade runs round the wall under the windows, with ornamented canopies, and beneath this are the stone benches. Sculptured heads and grotesques appear in the ornamentation of the arches. This chapter-house is later than the staircase, and was probably built by Bishop William de la Marchia (1293-1302), the vault being added after his time, and finished in 1319. DIMENSIONS Total length 383 ft. Length of nave 161 ft. Breadth of nave 82 ft. Height of nave 67 ft. Length of choir 103 ft. Length of transepts 135 ft. Height of towers 160 ft. Area 29,070 sq. ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES Early Norman--Font. Transition (1174-1191)--Eastern bays of nave, transepts, north porch, and west bays of choir. Early English (1218-1286)--West front, western part of nave, undercroft of chapter-house, palace. Early Decorated--Staircase to chapter-house. Decorated (1293-1363)--Chapter-house, Lady Chapel, central tower, inverted arches, east part of choir. Perpendicular (1386-1400)--Western towers, gateways, Chain Gate, Deanery. BATH ABBEY For some time Bath was the rival of Wells, and hot and fierce was the contention between the monks of St. Peter and the canons of St. Andrew at Wells. The monastery was founded here in Saxon times by Offa in 775. In Early Norman times, John de Villula of Tours, who is said to have practised medicine at Bath, became Bishop of Wells, and, by grant from William II., removed the seat of the bishopric to Bath, and rebuilt the Abbey Church, which now became a Cathedral. But the monks liked not this arrangement. In the time of Bishop Robert (1135-1166), in order to settle their disputes, it was decided that the bishop should be styled "of Bath and Wells." But even this did not produce peace. When Jocelyn died the monks of Bath elected Roger without the consent of the canons of Wells, and both chapters nearly ruined themselves by appeals to the Pope and costly litigation. The church at Bath fell much into decay, and was entirely rebuilt by Bishop Oliver King of Wells (1495-1503). He is said to have seen a vision somewhat resembling Jacob's dream, a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, and a voice saying, "Let an Oliver stablish the Crown and a King build the church." A representation of this dream appears on the west front of Bath minster, and an inscription referring to the Parable of the Trees (Judges ix. 8):-- "Trees going to choose their king Said, Be to us the Olive(r) King." The style of the church is Late Perpendicular, and was scarcely completed before the monastery was seized and dissolved. It was left in a sorry condition, roofless and ruinous, until it was restored by Bishop Montague in the seventeenth century. It has been restored in modern times, and has lost that dilapidated appearance which long distinguished it. It is a small and not very interesting building, though it lacks not some striking features, and certainly contains some fine tombs and interesting memorials of the fashionable folk who flocked to Bath in the days of its splendour. [Illustration PLAN OF WELLS CATHEDRAL] FOOTNOTES: [12] Prior's _Gothic Art_. [13] Murray's _Cathedrals_. EXETER CATHEDRAL Exeter, the noble city of the west, which proudly bears the motto granted to it by Queen Elizabeth, _Semper Fidelis_--"Always Faithful," has a venerable Cathedral, which was commenced in Norman times on the site of a Saxon church, entirely removed. The principal feature of Exeter is its Decorated work. A large portion of the Cathedral was erected during that period; and as Salisbury is the most perfect example of Early English architecture, Exeter represents the most beautiful specimen of the Decorated style. Southey's judgment on the Cathedral was that "it looked finest when you could only see half of it." Indeed, it is difficult to obtain a good view, and the north side is the only one which presents a favourable prospect. The historian of Exeter Cathedral, Mr. Hewett, wrote: "As we walk round this, we cannot but consider that the Cathedral, though far from lofty, and presenting none of the majestic features of several of its sister churches, is nevertheless a fine composition. The aisles of the choir and nave, intercepted by the stately Norman towers, further broken by the prominence of their chantries, and spanned by flying buttresses richly pinnacled; the large, pure windows, which pierce both aisles and clerestory; the roof, highly pitched, and finished with crest-tiles, form a decidedly graceful and pleasing whole." With this excellent description all visitors will agree. Glancing back at the early history of the see, we find that Crediton was the ancient seat of the bishop, where was born in 680 St. Winfrid, called Boniface, the apostle of the Germans. There was a monastery at Exeter in the time of Athelstan, which was much plundered by the Danes. In 1050 Bishop Leofric, the favourite of Edward the Confessor, removed his episcopal seat to Exeter, and continued to hold it when William the Conqueror came. Osbern was appointed in 1072, but he contented himself with the old Saxon church, and it was not until William Warelwast (1107-1136), nephew of William the Conqueror, became bishop that the present Cathedral was begun. The Norman work was continued by Bishop Marshall (1194-1206), who is said to have "finished the building according to the plot and foundation which his predecessors laid." [Illustration Exeter Cathedral] Exeter has suffered many sieges, and during that of Stephen, in 1136, the Cathedral was much injured by fire. The two towers at the end of the transepts are all the portions that remain of Warelwast's building, and one of these (that on the north) has been much altered, until it has assumed the features of Perpendicular style. This was done by Bishop Courtenay (1478-1487), when he transferred here a great bell from Llandaff. In 1258 a poor man's son, one Walter Bronescombe, though not in priests' orders, was elected bishop, and set to work to rebuild his Cathedral, his labours being continued by his successor. The Lady Chapel with adjoining chapels was partly built by this bishop. His successor, Bishop Quivil, the foe of the Franciscans (1280-1291), finished it, and erected the north and south transepts. The choir, nave, porches and west front were built by Bishops Stapledon (1308-1326) and Grandisson (1327-1369). Stapledon was a great statesman, and in the troubles of the second Edward's reign took the side of the king against the queen and Mortimer, and was murdered by the citizens of London in Cheapside. Grandisson was also a mighty prelate who refused to allow the Archbishop of Canterbury to visit his Cathedral as his ecclesiastical superior. He, with a band of armed men, met the intruding archbishop at the west door and forbade him to enter, and an armed conflict was with difficulty averted. These mediæval bishops were very powerful. They usually built a strong wall with gates around the precincts of the Cathedral, and ruled their clergy, their servants and dependants quite independently of any external control. The conflicts between the clergy and the townsfolk were very numerous, and the struggle severe in nearly all our cities and monastic towns. When Queen Elizabeth came to the throne, "visitors" were appointed to examine churches and to remove all that savoured of "superstition." Their zeal outran their discretion, and much mischief was wrought in Exeter and elsewhere by their iconoclastic violence. Strange events took place during the Commonwealth period. The Cathedral was divided into two portions by a brick wall, and in one called "West Peter's" an independent preacher thundered forth his declamation, while in the other, "East Peter's," a Presbyterian divine conducted his form of service. Happily the Restoration put an end to these curious proceedings, and the wall was taken down, and the Church of England service renewed. We will now examine the west front erected at the close of the fourteenth century. The screen is very remarkable and beautiful, and has three rows of figures of saints and kings and warriors. In the first row appear angels; the second has figures of kings and knights, and the third saints, and figures of Athelstan and Edward the Confessor stand above them. Some of the ancient figures have crumbled away and been replaced by modern sculptures. Bishop Brantyngham was the builder of this screen, who lived in the time of Richard II., and the crowns and armour represented on the figures belong to that period. The figures in the lower row, beginning on the left, are:-- 1. Canute. 2. Edgar. 3. Ethelred. 4. Justice, } small figures 5. Fortitude, } above north 6. Discipline,} door. 7. Edward II. 8. Henry III. 9. } Unknown bishops. 10. } 11. Richard I. 12. Henry II. 13. Stephen. 14. Henry I. 15. William I.,{ a modern { imitation. 16. Robert of Normandy. 17. William II. 18. A king unknown. 19. } Bishops. 20. } 21. John. 22. Edward I. 23. Edward III., { over 24. The Black Prince,{ south { door. 25. Godfrey de Bouillon. 26. Stephen, Count of Blois. 27. Guy de Lusignan. 28. Ethelwold. 29. Alfred. 30. Edward the Elder. In the upper row, beginning at the left hand, are:-- 1. Samuel. 2. Samson. 3. Jephtha. 4. Gideon. 5. Barak. 6. Deborah. 7. Noah. 8. St. Matthew. 9. St. John. 10. St. Jude. 11. St. Bartholomew. 12. St. Matthias. 13. St. Philip. 14. St. Andrew. 15. St. Peter. 16. King Richard II. 17. King Athelstan. 18. St. Paul. 19. St. John. 20. St. James the Greater. 21. St. Thomas. { a 22. St. James the Less,{ modern { statue. 23. St. Simon. 24. St. Luke. 25. St. Mark. 26. St. Augustine. 27. King Ethelbert. 28. St. Berinus. 29. St. Boniface. 30. Kynigils, } 31. Cwichelm, } 32. Kenwalch, } Kings of 33. Kentwald, } Wessex. 34. Caedwalla,} 35. Ina, } The sculpture has been pronounced "remarkable, characteristic and beautiful," but that at Wells and Lincoln is earlier and perhaps better. Above the screen is a platform on which the bishop used to stand when he blessed the people, and also the choristers and minstrels when they hailed with song the advent of distinguished persons. The three doorways should be noticed. The central one has a moulding of carved foliage, and on the central boss of the groined roof is a representation of the Crucifixion. The south doorway has two sculptures, the appearance of an angel to Joseph in a dream, and the Adoration of the Shepherds. Between the south and central doorways is the Chantry of St. Radegunde, which we will examine on entering the Cathedral. The north porch was built by Grandisson, and is very beautiful with its triple canopy. The Puritan soldiers have mutilated the Crucifixion scene on the east wall. On the central boss is a well-carved Agnus Dei. Notice the cresting of the roof in a _fleur-de-lis_ pattern, which somewhat relieves the long, unbroken stretch of leaden roofing. We now enter the Cathedral. Though the nave is less lofty than many, it is most beautiful, and the richness of the architectural details abundantly atones for the lack of height, which is 70 feet. The roof springs from slender vaulting shafts and is studded with beautifully-carved bosses, representing foliage, animals, strange figures and heraldic shields. The murder of Thomas à Becket occurs in one of these bosses. Clustered pillars of Purbeck marble support the roof and separate the nave from the aisles. Notice the sculptured corbels between the arches, which are peculiar, and the exquisite carving of the leaves and figures. In the triforium on the north side is the _Minstrels' Gallery_, the most perfect in England, where the musicians played on high festivals, or on the occasion of some Royal visitor. The figures are represented as playing on various instruments--cittern, bagpipes, flageolet, violin, harp, trumpet, organ, guitar, some unknown wind instrument, tambour and cymbals. The heads of Edward III. and his queen, Philippa, support two niches. This gallery is a very beautiful example of mediæval art. Instead of the usual triforium we have a blind arcade, the height of which is much less than in most cathedrals, but above this there is a very lofty clerestory. The windows of the nave are Decorated, and have a great variety of most beautiful and elaborate tracery. They are arranged in pairs, one window corresponding to its opposite. The glass of the west window, erected in 1766, is a great eyesore, and spoils the beauty of the stone tracery. [Illustration Detail of Minstrels' Gallery] We have abundant evidence that this noble nave was constructed almost entirely in Norman times, and subsequently transformed into the Decorated style, just as Winchester was changed from Norman to Perpendicular work. Disturbances of masonry in both north and south walls indicate the position of Norman pilasters, and outside flat buttresses of Norman type are observed which correspond to the position of these. We gather that the nave was finished in Norman times by Bishop Marshall, and that Stapledon (1308-1326) began the transformation, which was carried on and completed by Grandisson (1327-1369). Nor must the work of our modern men be disregarded. The nave was in a very dilapidated state. The Purbeck marble columns were fallen into decay, and hideous high pews disfigured the view. Sir Gilbert Scott in recent times most judiciously restored the Cathedral, and made it again one of the finest in the land. We will now examine the chapels and monuments in the nave. On the left of the west door is the _Chapel of St. Radegunde_, which contained formerly the body of Bishop Grandisson; but in the time of Queen Bess the tomb was plundered and his remains scattered no one knows whither. St. Radegunde was a Frankish princess, the wife of Chlotar, the son of King Clovis. Notice the carved figure of our Lord on the roof, His hand outstretched to bless, and the holes in the stone for suspending lamps. On the north side is the Chapel of St. Edmund, which is earlier than the nave itself, and was connected with it by Bishop Grandisson. The following monuments in the nave should be examined:-- _North Aisle_-- Tablet memorial of Lieutenant Allen, and window to memory of one of the Earls of Devon. Brass memorial of men of North Devon Regiment slain in Afghan war (1880-1881), with regimental flags. Memorial of 9th Lancers who died in India. Tablet to the musician Samuel Wesley. _South Side of Nave_-- High tomb of Hugh Courtenay (d. 1377), second Earl of Devon, and of his Countess, Margaret (d. 1391), a connection of Edward I. The effigies have been much mutilated. Brass to memory of General Elphinstone, V.C. (d. 1890). Brass to Hugh, second Earl of Devon. Window to Thomas Latimer. Window to Dean Cowie. We now pass into the north transept. The Norman towers at each end of the transepts were originally separated from the church. Bishop Quivil, however, wishing to enlarge the building, took down the massive walls which divided the interior of the towers from the body of nave, and constructed arches to sustain the sides of the tower. The original Norman walls remain, and in the north transept one Norman window and two narrow, circular-headed doorways. Quivil also erected the two galleries. On the east of north transept is _St. Paul's Chapel_, used as a vestry for lay choral vicars; there are here some interesting old tiles with heraldic devices, and amongst them the arms of Richard, Duke of Cornwall, brother of Henry III. Near this is the _Sylke Chantry_, founded in 1485 by William Sylke, sub-chanter, whose skeleton effigy proclaims the message--_Sum quod eris, fueram quod es, pro me, precor, ora_. An interesting mural painting has been discovered representing the Resurrection. The old clock is very remarkable, which is about 700 years old. The historian of the Cathedral thus describes it:-- "On the face or dial, which is about 7 feet in diameter, are two circles: one marked from one to thirty for the moon's age; the other figured from one to twelve twice over for the hours. In the centre is fixed a semi-globe representing the earth, round which a smaller ball, the moon, painted half white and half black, revolves monthly, and by turning on its axis shows the varying phases of the luminary which it represents. Between the two circles is a third ball, representing the sun, with a _fleur-de-lis_, which points to the hours as it daily revolves round the earth." The maker of the clock was a believer in the old-fashioned astronomy which recognised the earth, and not the sun, as the centre of the solar system. Below the clock is a door leading to the tower, which contains the great bell called "Peter," which is only exceeded in weight by the Great Tom of Oxford. It was brought from Llandaff by Bishop Courtenay at the end of the fifteenth century, and weighs 12,500 tons. It was cracked on 5th November 1611, "from a too violent ringing in commemoration of the Gunpowder Plot." We now enter the south transept, which is similar to the north. The monuments here are interesting. There is the supposed tomb of Bishop John the Chaunter (1185-1191), but is of later date; a sixteenth century monument of Leofric, the first Bishop of Exeter; a mural tablet to the memory of Sir Peter Carew, who played an important part in the rebellion of the Devon men, caused by the changes introduced into the Prayer-Book at the Reformation, when they besieged Exeter and well-nigh gained an entrance. Sir John Gilbert has a monument, a relative of Sir Walter Raleigh, one of the brave discoverers of the Elizabethan age and founders of our maritime supremacy. The colours of the Cornwall Light Infantry hang here, which were carried at Waterloo and in the Indian Mutiny. The Chantry of the Holy Ghost in the south-west corner of this transept is a Norman structure. It has a font which was first used at the baptism of Henrietta, daughter of Charles I., who was born in Exeter in 1644. The Chapel of St. John the Baptist, on the east side, is similar to that of St. Paul in the north transept. Bishop Oldham, whose chantry is in the south choir aisle, erected the screen of this chapel. Beyond the Chapel of the Holy Ghost is the chapter-house. The cloisters were destroyed by the Puritans. The chapter-house has been recently restored. Notice the Early English character of the arcade (thirteenth century) in the lower part; the upper part has Perpendicular niches. The Chapter Library has about 8000 volumes. Retracing our steps we approach the choir, entered by a door in the beautiful screen supporting the organ. This was the old rood-screen, on which formerly stood the rood or figure of our Lord on the Cross. It was erected in the fourteenth century. The rose and thistle in the carvings were inserted later, in the time of James I., to mark the Union of England and Scotland under one monarch, but these have happily been removed, and probably the worthless paintings belong to the same period. The organ was built by Loosemore in 1665 (one of the oldest in England), rebuilt in 1819, and has been so much renovated that very little of the old work remains. The choir is remarkably fine. The style is now Decorated. The original Norman choir extended to the third arch. Bishop Marshall completed this by adding four more bays. Then came the builders of the early fourteenth century who transformed the Norman pillars and other details, and converted the choir into Decorated work. The bishops who accomplished all this were De Bytton (1292-1306) and Walter de Stapledon (1306-1329) and Bishop Grandisson (1327-1369). The last dedicated the high altar in 1328. The bosses of the vaulted roof are worthy of especial examination, so remarkable are they for the delicacy of the carved foliage. The choir has been carefully restored in recent years, and the stalls, pulpit and reredos are modern, and were designed by Sir Gilbert Scott. Notice the interesting old misereres, which are very remarkable, and probably the oldest and most curious in England. The foliage denotes the Early English period, and they were probably designed by Bishop Bruere (1224-1244). Notice the mermaid and merman on the south side, the elephant, knight slaying a leopard, a minstrel, etc. The lofty bishop's throne was erected by Stapledon, and is said to have been taken down and hidden away during the civil war period. The painted figures represent the four great building bishops--Warelwast, Quivil, Stapledon and Grandisson. The sedilia by Stapledon are very fine. Notice the carved lions' heads, and the heads of Leofric, Edward the Confessor and his wife Editha. The east window is Early Perpendicular, inserted by Bishop Brantyngham in 1390, and contains much old glass. The tombs in the choir are:-- _On North Side_-- Bishop Stapledon (holding a crozier and a book). Bishop Marshall (d. 1206). Bishop Lacey (d. 1455), to which tomb pilgrimages used to be made on account of the reported miracles wrought there. Bishop Bradbridge (d. 1578). _On South Side_-- Bishop Chichester (d. 1155). Bishop Wolton (1594). Entering the north choir aisle we see the Chapel of St. Andrew, renovated by Stapledon, having an upper chamber containing the archives, the Fabric Rolls, MSS. of Roger Bacon, Leofric's book of Saxon poetry, and many other valuable treasures. Next in order we see the Chantry of St. George, or Speke's Chantry (Perpendicular style), containing the monument of Sir John Speke, who endowed this chantry for the good of his soul. When the Cathedral was divided into two portions in the days of the Puritans, a doorway was made through the east window as an entrance to "East Peter's." At the east end of this aisle is the Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, erected originally by Bronescombe, transformed by Quivil, but has Perpendicular screen. The east window has good fifteenth-century glass. Notice the noble monuments of Sir Gawain Carew (1589, restored in 1857), his wife and nephew, Sir Peter Carew (_see_ p. 172). The latter is remarkable as a very late example of cross-legged effigy. The monuments in this north choir are--a cross-legged effigy of Sir Richard de Stapledon, brother of the bishop (d. 1330). [It need not be stated that this fashion of crossing the legs has nothing to do with the Crusades]; effigy of Bishop Carey (d. 1626); a tablet to Robert Hall, son of the bishop; tablet to Canon Rogers (d. 1856); an emaciated sepulchral figure; Elizabethan tomb of Anthony Harvey (1564), who gained great wealth from the dissolution of monasteries. Passing behind the high altar we come to the ambulatory, or "procession path." The style is Early Decorated. Notice the ancient Bible-boxes and the two Jacobean tablets. The windows contain good modern glass. The Lady Chapel was entirely transformed by Bishop Quivil (1280-1291) into the Decorated style. The bosses in the east bay show the Saviour's head and the emblems of the Evangelists. The reredos was erected by Grandisson, but only the central portion is ancient, the rest has been severely "restored." This chapel contains the tombs of:-- 1. Bishop Peter Quivil (d. 1291), a slab with the inscription--_Petra tegit Petrum nihil officiat sibi tetrum_. 2. Bishop Bartholomaus Iscanus (d. 1184), a bearded figure, of military type. 3. Bishop Simon of Apulia (d. 1223). This effigy, when compared with the last, shows the advance of art made in a century. 4. Bishop Bronescombe (d. 1280). The canopy is older than the monument, and is Perpendicular. 5. Bishop Stafford (d. 1419). A fine monument, much defaced. 6. Sir John and Lady Doddridge. Sir John (d. 1628) was one of the judges of James I., called by Fuller the "sleepy judge, because he would sit on the bench with his eyes shut to sequester his sight from distracting objects." The dress of Lady Doddridge is remarkable. In the south choir aisle we see first the Chapel of St. Gabriel, similar to that of St. Mary Magdalene on the north. This was built by Bishop Bronescombe, whose patron saint was St. Gabriel. The colouring of the roof has been carefully restored. Some early glass is in the windows. Then we enter Bishop Oldham's Chantry, or the Chapel of St. Saviour. This bishop died in 1519. His chantry resembles the Speke Chantry in the opposite aisle. Notice the effigy of the bishop, with the owls in the panels, referring to the first syllable of his name, "old," or "owld." The bishop was a Lancashire man, and in that county _old_ is usually pronounced _owld_. The third chapel in the south choir aisle is that of St. James, built by Bishop Marshall, and renovated by Bishop Bronescombe in very Early Decorated style. It contains a beautiful monument, raised in the fifteenth century to the memory of Leofric, first Bishop of Exeter. There are two cross-legged effigies in this aisle, which are usually said to represent Crusaders. With this chapel our tour of the Cathedral closes. Of some of the great men who have been Bishops of Exeter we have already spoken. The names Warelwast, Marshall, Bronescombe, Quivil, Stapledon, Grandisson, have often been mentioned, and of others whose tombs still adorn their mighty resting-place. Others there are whose memory remains. Miles Coverdale, the well-known reformer; Joseph Hall, the famous theologian; John Gauden, the supposed author of the _Eikon Basilike_ (though modern scholars have come round to the belief that the book was really written by Charles I.); the learned Seth Ward; Trelawny, one of the seven bishops committed to the Tower by James II.; Phillpots and Temple, have all added lustre to the See of Exeter. * * * * * The city of Exeter is full of interest. The old Guild Hall and scanty remains of Rougemont Castle should be visited, and fifteen miles away is the noble collegiate Church of Ottery St. Mary, which well repays a minute examination. In construction it somewhat resembles the Cathedral of Exeter, and the main part of the building belongs to the fourteenth century. DIMENSIONS Total length, 383 ft.; length of nave, 140 ft.; breadth of nave, 72 ft.; height of nave, 66 ft.; area, 29,000 sq. ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES 1107-1200--Part of towers in transept and core of walls of nave; 1224-1244--stalls; 1258-1291--Lady Chapel and transepts; 1308-1369--choir, nave, porches and west front; 1390-1519--east window, part of chapter-house, Oldham's Chantry, Speke's Chantry. TRURO CATHEDRAL Truro is one of the oldest towns in England. The courts of the Duchy of Cornwall are held here, and it once enjoyed the privilege of a mint. In the time of Elizabeth it had jurisdiction over the port of Falmouth. Norden, in his survey of England, in 1574, wrote of Truro:--"There is not a towne in the west part of the shire more commendable for neatness of buyldinges, nor discommendable for the pride of the people." It showed its loyalty by furnishing a large body of soldiers for the king in 1642, commanded by Sir Ralph Hopton. In 1876 the See of Truro was formed, and a new Cathedral was built, Mr. Pearson being the architect. It is one of the most important modern ecclesiastical buildings in England, and is a fine imitation of the Early English style at its best period. The south wall of the old Church of St. Mary, which formerly stood on this site, has been incorporated in the new Cathedral. The newness of this Cathedral and the entire absence of any historical traditions and associations will perhaps hardly tempt travellers to journey so far west to see the creation of modern architects and builders. The whole plan of the Cathedral has not yet been completely carried out, and the church still lacks its towers. Whether our modern architects can build so surely and so well as our ancient monks and priors time will show; but reports speak none too well of the substantial nature of all that has been done at Truro. GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL Gloucester is a very venerable city. It was a Roman station, and was known as Glevum. Remains of the old Roman wall of the city exist in various places, under the house, 36 Westgate Street, under a furniture shop (Messrs. Lea) in Northgate Street, at "Symond's Arms," in Hare Lane. Roman pavements and pottery, coins and altars have also been found, and the four straight streets crossing in the centre are the modern forms of the old Roman roads which intersected the city, forming _insulæ_, as the sections were called. It was an important place in Saxon times, and Bede called it one of the noblest cities in the land. The first monastery was founded by Osric in 681 for monks and nuns. Of the history of this we shall treat presently. The Danes, of course, ravaged and burnt the city. Saxon and Norman kings loved the fair city of the west. We seem to see a procession of monarchs who held their courts here--Alfred, Athelstan, Edgar, Hardicanute, Edward the Confessor, and then the stark Conqueror, who here ordered the compilation of that important survey, the _Domesday Book_. "In the reign of Rufus," wrote a great historian, "everything that happened at all somehow contrived to happen at Gloucester." Here Anselm was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. It is famous for lampreys, for which Henry I., when feasting here, acquired a liking, which unhappily proved fatal to him, as he died of a surfeit of them. Here Henry II. held a great council, and Henry III. was crowned, "who loved Gloucester better than London." The Statutes of Gloucester were passed here in an Edwardian Parliament, and the murdered king, Edward II., found here his last resting-place. Numerous Parliaments were held here, and monarchs visited the city. In the Civil War period Gloucester was held by the Parliamentarians, and subjected to a protracted siege, which was eventually raised by the advent of Earl of Essex. The city retains many of its old houses. The house of Robert Raikes, the founder of Sunday Schools, is a fine old building. The Deanery, formerly the prior's lodging, has many interesting associations. Here Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn sojourned. The inns are famous, especially "New Inn," which was used by the pilgrims to the shrine of Edward II., and "The Old Raven." Colonel Massey, the governor during the siege, sojourned at 154 Westgate Street. Before the dissolution of monasteries there were many religious houses, and the friars were numerous; there were colleges of Grey, White and Black Friars, some remains of which still exist. There are several interesting churches--St. Mary de Crypt, a cruciform building of twelfth century, with some Decorated and Perpendicular work; St. Mary de Lode, built on the site of a Roman temple, with an old chancel and tower; St. Michael, from the tower of which the curfew sounds each night; St. Nicholas, of Norman construction. [Illustration The Deanery Herbert Railton] HISTORY OF THE CATHEDRAL Gloucester was one of the sees founded by Henry VIII.; its episcopal life, therefore, does not extend further back than 1541, when the last Abbot of Tewkesbury became the first Bishop of Gloucester. The story of the minster, however, carries us back to very early times. The first Abbey, as we have said, was founded by Osric, nephew of King Ethelred, in 689, and was designed for both monks and nuns. It was not long-lived, and in a century was deserted and fell into decay. The Mercian kingdom was much distracted, and confusion reigned until Beornwulph restored the ruined walls of St. Peter's Abbey, and introduced secular canons, who seem to have lived as they pleased, and loved not discipline. So Canute in 1022 turned them out and established Benedictine monks. These did no better. Their abbot, Eadric, was a waster of the goods of the Abbey, and the pious chronicler saw in the destruction of the monastery by fire the vengeance of God for their sins. Then Bishop Ealdred of Worcester, who brought back the Black monks of St. Benedict, began to build a new church. Then came Abbot Wulfstan from the Worcester Monastery in 1072, and Abbot Serlo, a worthy monk of Mont St. Michel, who found desolation, an almost empty monastery, a poor, mean building, and began to raise that glorious pile which we see now. It was dedicated in 1100, when there was a mighty concourse of bishops and great men. A remarkable sermon was preached here by Abbot Fulcher of Shrewsbury, prophetic of the death of the cruel king, Rufus. Abbot Serlo sent to warn him, but in vain, and soon the news of his death in the New Forest rang throughout the country. Fire frequently played havoc with the minster. In 1102 it suffered much, and again in 1122, when "in Lent-tide the town was burnt while the monks were singing their Mass, and the deacon had begun the Gospel _Præteriens Jesus_," and the fire came in the upper part of the steeple, and burnt all the monastery and the treasures except a few books and three Mass robes. Again in 1179 and 1190 fires raged. The Early English builders set to work to repair the damage, and the church was re-dedicated by Walter de Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester, in 1239. The monks were now very busy building, and in 1242 they had finished the stone vaulting of the nave, which replaced the old Norman wood vault; in 1246 the south-west tower was completed, and they had begun to rear for themselves a new refectory. Yet another fire in 1300 wrought havoc in the cloisters, and deprived the monks of their dormitory. Abbot Thokey was a noble prelate who did much building, erected some of the beautiful Decorated windows in the aisles and choir triforium, and was the means of enriching his Abbey "beyond the dreams of avarice." When Edward II. lay dead, foully murdered at Berkeley Castle, unlike the time-serving Abbot of Bristol, who feared the anger of Queen Isabella and her party, he boldly demanded the body of the dead king and gave it honoured burial in his minster. Then arose that strange cult, the worship at the dead king's shrine. Thousands came from far and near, and their offerings so enriched the monastic treasury that the monks were able to adorn and beautify their church and monastery, and make it one of the glories of English architectural achievement. The fearless abbot felt himself too old to carry on the work; so he resigned in favour of his friend, Abbot Wygmore (1331-1337), who began to erect that "veil of stone" which covers the old Norman work, and is such a characteristic feature of Gloucester. The south transept was the first recased, a noble screen erected, and the work was carried on by succeeding abbots. Abbot de Stanton (1337-1351) constructed the vaulting of the choir and the stalls on the prior's side, which Abbot Horton completed on the abbot's side, together with the altar and choir and north transept, and also began the great cloister, which Abbot Froucester finished. The west front, south porch and two western bays of the nave are Abbot Morwent's work (1420-1437). The tower was built by Abbot Seabrooke (1450-1457), and Abbots Hanley (1457-1472) and Farley (1472-1498) built the Lady Chapel. [Illustration Cathedral from S E Herbert Railton GLOUCESTER] At length the day of dissolution came. Abbot Malvern, the last abbot, was offered the bishopric which Henry VIII. had just founded; but he declined, and died of a broken heart. The continued progress of adornment was checked by the appropriation of much of the wealth of the monastery by the king, and the building began to fall into decay. It did not suffer much during the Civil War, in spite of the long siege. The Lady Chapel was mutilated and defaced, and some other damage done, but the burghers seem to have acted well, took a pride in their church, and suffered it not to be destroyed. There have since been frequent "restorations," and some damage done by destructive architects; but, on the whole, Gloucester has escaped with less scars than many of our cathedrals, and retains much of its original beauty and delicate attractiveness. THE EXTERIOR The plan is cruciform, and consists of a nave with two aisles; north and south transepts, with apsidal chapels on the east side of each; a tower rises at the crossing. The eastern portion consists of choir with aisles, forming a processional path, with four apsidal chapels opening from them, and a Lady Chapel. With the exception of the Lady Chapel this plan is exactly the same as that of the original Norman church built by Abbot Serlo. We approach the Cathedral from the south-east and obtain a good view of its beauties across the close. The _West Front_, built by Abbot Morwent (1420-1437), is not very rich or striking when compared with many others. There is a large Perpendicular window, and another on each side, and a rather small doorway. The flanking buttresses are crowned with pinnacles, and a cross crowns the centre of the embattled parapet. The pierced buttresses, designed so as not to darken the west window, and the parapets of open-work below and above, are distinguishing features. The south aisle is Abbot Thokey's work, and is very beautiful with its fine Decorated work. The buttresses are very massive, and are surmounted by figures, and the windows deeply recessed. The _South Porch_ is rich Perpendicular work, built by Abbot Morwent. The figures are modern, and represent SS. Peter and Paul, and the four Evangelists, Osric and Abbot Serlo, the founders of the earlier and Norman Church--SS. Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine and Gregory--against whose figures the fanatics of Bristol manifested such unreasonable hate. There is an upper chamber or parvise. The doors are contemporary with the building. The _South Transept_ shows the remodelling of the Perpendicular period. Norman work may be seen in the arcading, the turrets, and traces of an original window; while the capping of the turrets, the windows and battlement belong to the Perpendicular style. Passing on to the east we notice the beautiful lofty choir. The main part of the walls are Norman, and we notice the unusual polygonal radiating chapels, which are part of the original Norman plan. The windows are Decorated and Perpendicular, inserted in Norman openings. The great east window is the largest and finest in England. The _Lady Chapel_ was originally Early English work, built in 1225, but it was rebuilt in 1457-1499, during the rule of Abbots Hanley and Farley. It has four bays, each bay being filled with a lofty Perpendicular window. There is a passage beneath the chapel, which was necessary in order to reach the northern side. The chapel is one of the most beautiful in England. The central _Tower_ is remarkable for its grace and grandeur. The present one is the work of Abbot Seabrooke (1450-1457), and belongs to the Perpendicular period. The bells are ancient, and happily were saved, when the monastery was dissolved, from the greedy hands of the commissioners of Henry VIII. The monastic buildings are on the north side, which we shall examine later. There is a fine view of the Cathedral from the north-west. On the north-west is the Deanery, formerly the prior's lodging, a very interesting house; and between it and the north aisle is a passage, the old Norman slype communicating between the cloisters and the close. THE INTERIOR [Illustration NAVE PILLARS FROM THE WEST] Entering by the south porch we note its Norman character. The old Norman wooden roof has been replaced by a stone vault, and Decorated windows of the time of the second Edward have been inserted, but otherwise there has been little change. The west end, with two bays of the nave, is Abbot Morwent's work (1420-1437). He destroyed two western towers or turrets, which were built in 1222-1243 in place of two similar Norman structures. The height of the Norman piers is unusual, leaving a small space for the triforium and clerestory. The zigzag and double cable moulding appear on the main arches. Abbot Serlo was the builder of the original nave. The stone vault was erected by the monks in the thirteenth century (1242), when the clerestory was altered in the Early English style by Abbot Foliot (1228-1243). Morwent inserted Perpendicular tracery in these windows. The remains of coloured decoration were discovered during the restoration. We have mentioned the numerous fires which wrought havoc here. Traces of the fire may still be seen in the reddened surface of the piers. The contrast between the Norman piers and the Perpendicular piers at the west end is noticeable, also the disappearance of the triforium in the last bay and the lierne vault. The west window contains some modern glass inserted in memory of Bishop Monk (1856). There is a curious series of grotesque heads on the arches of the nave showing the mummeries of gleemen. The story of the _North Aisle_ is similar to that of the nave. We have the same Norman work and the Perpendicular western bays of Abbot Morwent. Perpendicular tracery fills the Norman windows which have zigzag mouldings, and the vault is Norman. The monks' entrance to the cloisters is at the west end of the north wall, and is richly ornamented in Perpendicular style. Another Perpendicular doorway, called the Abbot's Door, is at the east end of the wall. The history of the mythical King Lucius is the subject of the west window. There are memorials of Bishop Warburton (1779), the friend of Pope, a learned divine; Flaxman's monument of Sarah Morley and Thomas Machen (1614). The _South Aisle_ retains some of its Norman style, but was remodelled by Abbot Thokey (1306-1329) in the Decorated style. The ball-flower ornament is much used on the windows. The vault is Decorated work erected by Thokey, and the windows have been more effectually transformed than in the north aisle. There are monuments to John Jones, M.P. for Gloucester at the time of the Gunpowder Plot, with his deeds and documents; Sir G.O. Paul (1820), a prison reformer; Dr. Jenner, the discoverer of vaccination. The Chantry of Abbot Seabrooke (1457), the builder of the tower, is at the east of this aisle, much mutilated. The chantry has been restored. The effigy is a good study of ecclesiastical dress of the period. Near at hand are the effigies of a knight and his lady, supposed at one time to represent one of the Bohun Earls of Hereford, but they are now declared to be members of the Brydges family, perhaps Sir John Brydges, who fought at Agincourt, more probably a descendant of his. We notice the SS. on the collar, and the study of the armour shows that at that time chain armour was being supplanted by plate armour. On north side of entrance to transept we see a canopied bracket with remains of blue colouring. Entering the _South Transept_ we see the first part of the Cathedral which was recased, and may be said with truth to be the birthplace of the Perpendicular style. This example is quite the earliest which can be traced, and was finished in 1337 when the treasury of the Abbey was being filled by the offerings of pilgrims at the shrine of Edward II. This part of the church has therefore peculiar interest. The designer was Abbot Wygmore (1329-1337). All the walls are covered with the panel work, which is the "sign-manual" of the Perpendicular style. The clustered shafts form very beautiful groups. On the south is a large Perpendicular window, and below it a passage behind an open arcade. Two doorways should be noticed, one called the _Confessional_, with figures on each side said to represent angels, and the other, now blocked up, with a grotesque monster over it. The angel-guarded door is sometimes called the Pilgrims' Door, by which they entered to worship at the shrine of King Edward. Another story is that penitents entered beneath the monster emblematical of sin, and returned by the other door protected by the guardianship of angels. The curious _Prentice's Bracket_, said to be the memorial of a master-builder and his 'prentice, was probably intended as bracket for a lamp. The roof is a lierne vault without bosses. The flying arches or buttresses which support the tower are very graceful. The effigies of Alderman Blackleech and his wife (1639) are remarkable as studies of the costume of the period. Other monuments are to the memory of Richard Pates (1588) and Canon Evan Evans (1891). The _Chapel of St. Andrew_ is on the east side, adorned with paintings by Gambier Parry. Above this is the east window, which has some beautiful old glass contemporary with the remodelling of the building. On the north is the curious Chantry of Abbot John Browne (1510-1514), dedicated to St. John Baptist because of the similarity of the initials. The floor has some interesting tiles and the reredos has been painted. [Illustration THE CHOIR, LOOKING EAST] In the _North Transept_ we see the further development of the Perpendicular style in the recasing by Abbot Horton (1351-1377). Here is the remarkably interesting _Reliquary_, of Early Decorated work, said by some to be a lavatory. The carved foliage is very beautiful and also the figures, though mutilated. A chapel is at the east side of this transept, similar to that in the south transept, dedicated to St. Paul. A door opens to the north choir aisle. At the entrance from the transept there is a curious desk which was used by a monk appointed to check the pilgrims as they went to the shrine of Edward. The chapel was repaired in 1870, and the niches supplied with figures of SS. Peter, Paul and Luke. A good Perpendicular doorway is on the north side, with carved angels in the moulding. The _Chapel of St. Anthony_ is on the south of this transept, now used as a vestry. There is a curious painting here of St. Anthony rescuing a female from the mouth of hell. The transept has a monument of John Bower (1615), which bears the words: "Vayne, Vanytie. All is Vayne. Witnesse Solomon." The _Screen_ supporting the organ was erected in 1823 and replaced an earlier one. The story of the screens is a long one which Mr. St. John Hope has told so well that we need not repeat it. It appears there were two screens, one called the _Pulpitum_ and the other a stone screen supporting the rood-loft. But these have disappeared, and we have instead an early nineteenth-century structure which need not be described. The original organ was built at the time of the Restoration, and some of the pipes bear the monogram of the Merry Monarch. The _Choir_ is remarkable for its extreme beauty. From the lofty traceried roof down to the elaborately-tiled floor the walls are covered with richly-carved panelled work, broken here and there with delicate screens of stone. Behind this veiled work of stone stand the old Norman walls and piers. This casing was done by Abbots Staunton (1337-1351) and Horton (1351-1377). The lierne vault is one of the finest in England, with its multitudinous ribs, and ranks with King's College Chapel, Cambridge, and Westminster. The vaults of the tower and choir both belong to the same period. The _Stalls_ were erected by the builders of the choir and have fine canopies. The _Misereres_ are curious and well carved. Some of them represent hunting scenes, St. George slaying a giant, etc. Before us is the grand _East Window_, the finest in Christendom. Its date is 1345-1350, and is part of Abbot Horton's work. The Coronation of the Virgin is the subject, and the figures consist of angels, apostles, saints, kings and abbots. The arms of Edward III., the Black Prince, and the lords of Berkeley, Arundel, Warwick, Talbot and others appear, who took part in the campaign against France when Creçy was fought. It is thought by some that the window is a memorial of that famous victory. The clerestory windows retain some of their old glass, which is of the same date as that of the east window, but has been restored. The _Reredos_ is modern, designed by Sir G. Scott. The Birth, Burial and Ascension of Our Lord are represented. The floor of the presbytery is paved with some remarkable old _Tiles_, which record the names of some of the abbots, the arms of knights, and other interesting devices. The sedilia are adorned with modern sculptured figures, and the restoration has been accomplished with much care and taste. There are five principal historic _Monuments_ in the choir. Near the altar is the canopied tomb of Osric, the founder of the first Abbey, said to have been erected by Abbot Parker (1515-1539). Guided by the description of the tomb told by Leland, Dean Spence opened the cenotaph and found the grey dust and bones of this ancient benefactor. Near at hand is the beautiful _Tomb of King Edward II._, murdered at Berkeley Castle. It was erected by Edward III. The effigy is of alabaster, and the features are thought to have been reproduced from a waxen mask taken after death. The tomb is a forest of pinnacles and rich tabernacle work. It has been much restored at various times, but the extreme beauty of the work has in no way been impaired. The white hart, chained and collared, the badge of Richard II., is painted on the pillars. The Chantry of Abbot Parker, or Malverne (1515-1539), has a much mutilated effigy of this, the last Abbot of Gloucester. Vine leaves and grapes adorn the screen, and the base has some heraldic devices and the emblems of the Passion. On the south side is a projecting bracket which Leland tells us marks the grave of Abbot Serlo, the founder of the Norman Church. The bracket is Perpendicular, the effigy Early English, both much mutilated. The figure has a model of a church in his hand, and therefore denotes that the abbot was a founder, but the Early English character of the effigy points to it representing a later abbot than Serlo, and possibly Abbot Foliot (1243). The _North Choir Aisle_, or ambulatory, is original Norman, the windows being filled with Perpendicular tracery. At the north-east corner is Abbot Boteler's Chantry (1433-1450). The old tiles are interesting, amongst which we see some representing the arms of the Boteler or Butler family (three cups). The decoration of the chapel is all Perpendicular work, screens, windows and reredos. This last is very fine, and has some well-carved figures of the Apostles. Here is the effigy of Robert, Duke of Normandy, eldest son of William I., whose wild youth was atoned for by his prowess in the Crusades. He, however, had to endure twenty years' imprisonment, inflicted by his father. The effigy was probably made not long after his death. The chest on which it rests is fifteenth-century work. The effigy was hacked to pieces by Cromwell's soldiers, but the fragments were put together by Sir Humphrey Tracy, and replaced in the Cathedral. [Illustration THE LADY CHAPEL] The _Ante-Chapel_, or vestibule, leading to the Lady Chapel, is the meeting-place of the old and new work, and is ingeniously contrived. The Norman apse is pierced by a doorway and two Perpendicular windows. It is separated from the Lady Chapel by an open-work screen, which is very beautiful, and has a fine lierne vault. This, and the _Lady Chapel_, are the work of Abbots Hanley and Farley, who presided over the Abbey during the last half of the fifteenth century. The Lady Chapel ranks with Ely as the largest in England, and certainly it is a triumph of Perpendicular architecture. It has lofty Perpendicular windows, which seem to produce the effect of a wall of glass with panelled tracery. The head of each panel is much ornamented, and panel work, with niches, covers the walls. The lierne vault is very fine, and the bosses carved with beautiful foliage. At one time the walls were painted, and traces of colour remain. The east window has much old glass, which is also visible in the heads of the other windows. There is a very poor modern reredos, which might be removed without much regret, as it hides a very interesting, though much mutilated, mass of rich tabernacle work. The altar rails belong to the time of Laud, who was dean here, and are said to be the first introduced into churches. Many of the original tiles remain, and bear inscriptions: _Ave Maria grâ plê, Dñe Jhû Miserere_. There are two side chapels, with fan-tracery vaulting. In the north chapel is the monument of Bishop Goldsbrough (1604). There is an upper chapel, or oratory, and the same arrangement obtains on the south side. This chapel has a monument of Th. Fitz-williams (1579). The marks on the walls of these upper oratories show that the love of recording names by visitors in historic places is not confined to modern times, and dates as far back as the sixteenth century. Returning to the entrance, we follow the ambulatory to the south, which retains its northern features. _St. Philip's Chapel_ is at the south-east corner, and has been restored in memory of Sir C. Codrington, Bart. (1864). There are Norman arches, and fourteenth century tracery inserted in the windows. The spacious chests for copes are interesting records of the rich ecclesiastical vestments in use in former times. The _Triforium_ is unusually fine, and now extends over the north and south choir aisles, but not over the east end. That part was removed when the choir was reconstructed, and in order to connect the severed portions of the triforium together, the Whispering Gallery was constructed. This part of the church retains its Norman features, and is full of interest. The first chapel on the south has Decorated windows, with ball-flower ornament. There is a double piscina. A very ancient painting of a Doom or Last Judgment, discovered in 1718, is a very remarkable example of early art. It was probably painted towards the end of the reign of Henry VIII. The view of the choir is very beautiful, and the way in which the later builders cased the Norman work with a veil of stone can best be observed from the triforium. The next chapel (south-east) is Norman, with later windows inserted. There are some fragments of an old choir-screen stored here. The _Whispering Gallery_ is built out at the back of the great east window, and in its construction old Norman stone-work has been re-used. It happens to possess the curious acoustic property of the famous gallery of St. Paul's, London. The next chapel is over the ante-chapel of the choir, and has a stone altar, with the usual five crosses carved on it. The north-east chapel has a Decorated window, and the north-west a double piscina of the same period. We will now descend to the _Crypt_ (entrance in south-east transept), which is very Early Norman, founded before 1085. The walls and piers are very strong and massive, the former being 10 feet thick. There is a central apse, an ambulatory, out of which radiate five chapels. The half columns in the ambulatory have been strengthened and recased in later Norman times. The chapels have little of interest except their own intrinsic architectural merits. There are some good piscinæ, and some memorial slabs. [Illustration CARREL IN SOUTH CLOISTER] The _Monastic Buildings_ are some of the finest in England, especially the cloisters, which are remarkable for their excellent preservation and for the beauty of the fan-traceried vault. It is thought that this kind of vaulting, peculiar to this country, originated here. The outer walls are Norman, and have been recased with Perpendicular panelling. This work was begun by Abbot Horton (1351-1377), and finished by his successors, Abbot Boyfield (1377-1381) and Abbot Froucester (1381-1412). The south walk possesses a very interesting feature in the _Carrels_ or studies of the monks. The glass of the windows is modern. The passage or slype, of Norman date, at the west end, was the main entrance to the cloister from the outer court. At the north end was the door to the refectory. A window has been placed there instead, but Mr. Hope points out "the iron hooks on which the doors were hung." Little of the refectory, which was on the north of the garth, remains, except the south wall, preserved by the cloister, and part of the east end. The action of the fire of 1540, which destroyed this noble hall, is observed on the walls. In the north walk are the monks' lavatories, the most perfect in England; opposite is the _Manutergia_, or recess for towels. This walk was reserved for novices, and Mr. Hope shows us the tables for games which they played scratched on the stone bench, the "Nine Men's Morris" and "Fox and Geese" being their favourite pastimes. The east walk gives entrance to the chapter-house. The doorway is Norman, with zigzag ornament. The chapter-house is Norman, with a Perpendicular east end. At the west end is a Norman doorway and an unglazed window (the corresponding one being covered up when the south-east staircase was added), and three Norman windows. Traces of fire may be seen here. The seats of the monks under the arcading may be traced. The vault of the Perpendicular part is finely groined, and there is a large Perpendicular window at the east end. The names of several illustrious leaders under William I. appear on the walls. The _Locutorium_, or monks' parlour, lies between the chapter-house and the north transept of the church. This passage is often erroneously called the "Abbot's Cloister." Here the monks met to converse when talking was prohibited in the cloister. Above is the vestry and library. The latter is a long room, of Perpendicular character. The library at Gloucester has had many migrations and vicissitudes; the books of the old monastic library were dispersed. A new collection was begun in 1624 by Bishop Goodman. The books have been stored in the chapter-house, and elsewhere, and have now found a permanent resting-place. Its principal treasure is Abbot Froucester's _Lives of the Abbots of Gloucester to 1381_. This copy was lost at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and discovered again at Berlin, and restored to the library. The dormitory has been destroyed. It probably stood on the north of the chapter-house. The remains of the infirmary and little cloisters are on the north of the cloister. The Cathedral close was surrounded by a wall. Some of the gateways remain. St. Mary's Gate, on the west, is a fine thirteenth-century structure; the Inner Gate, of fourteenth-century work, leading to Miller's Green, the site of the old Abbey Mill and outhouses; the south, or King Edward's Gate, built by Edward I., of which only fragments remain; and the Westgate Street Gate. The Deanery, as we have said, has many interesting features, and remains of the work of eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Bishop's Palace is modern, built on the site of the abbot's house, erected in the early part of the fourteenth century. Previous to that period the abbot lived at the present Deanery. DIMENSIONS Nave, length 174 ft. Nave, width 34 ft. Nave, height 68 ft. Transepts, length 46 ft. Transepts, width 34 ft. Choir, length 140 ft. Choir, width 33 ft. Lady Chapel, length 90 ft. Lady Chapel, width 25 ft. Tower, height 225 ft. Total length 407 ft. Area 30,600 sq. ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES Norman (1089-1100)--Piers, arches, triforium of the nave, walls and vault of north aisle and pilasters of south aisle, walls of choir and presbytery, chapels and ambulatory, north transept, west end of chapter-house and abbot's cloister. Early English (1242)--Vault of nave. Decorated (1307-1329)--Windows and vault of south aisle, south transept, windows of ambulatory and chapels. Perpendicular (1337-1500)--Windows of nave and north aisle, casing north transept, choir and presbytery, Lady Chapel, cloisters, tower, west end, south porch, and east end of chapter-house. [Illustration PLAN OF GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL] HEREFORD CATHEDRAL The story of the See of Hereford takes us back to very early times, to the days of the British, and shows the connection and identity of the Church of England of the twentieth century with that which existed even prior to the landing of Augustine. The see was in existence in the sixth century, and was subject to the Archbishop of Caerleon. Legends tell us of Dubricius, who crowned King Arthur at Cirencester. One Bishop of Hereford represented the old British bishops at the famous conference with Augustine, when, by his want of tact and haughty demeanour, the Roman missionary alienated the native British Church. A very tragic event enhanced the glories of the see. King Offa slew Ethelbert, King of the East Angles, who was a suitor for his daughter's hand, and buried him at Hereford. On the night of the funeral, "a column of light, brighter than the sun, arose towards heaven," according to the monkish chronicler, and miracles were wrought at the tomb of the martyred monarch. This distressed Offa, who tried to expiate his crime by erecting a noble monument, founding the monastery at St. Alban's, and devoting costly gifts to the church of Hereford. One Mildred, Offa's viceroy, built "an admirable stone church," dedicated to the martyr Ethelbert. This was rebuilt by Bishop Ethelstan in 1012. Then followed sad times when the Welsh tribes invaded the land and destroyed the city and church by fire. When the Normans came Bishop de Losinga (1079-1095) began to rebuild the ruined church, and the work was continued by his successor, Raynhelm (1107-1115). During the troubles of Stephen's reign Hereford suffered much. The Cathedral was deserted and desecrated, and Bishop Robert de Bethune, a worthy prelate, was forced to seek safety in flight. Stephen entered the Castle of Hereford with great pomp, and occupied during service the episcopal chair, which still remains. On his return he cleansed and repaired the building. Then we see Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of Hereford, the stern opponent of Becket, who preached the sermon at Canterbury, when Henry II. did penance for the murder of the archbishop. Bishop William de Vere (1189-1199) is said to have built much, removed the apsidal terminations at the east end, and made other alterations. His work was continued by the erection of the Early English Lady Chapel. Probably he built the Palace. Bishop Giles de Bruce (1200-1215) took part with the barons against King John, and was a very warlike prelate, who allied himself with Prince Llewellyn, and destroyed the castle of Earl Mortimer, an adherent of the king. He was driven from his see, but afterwards made peace with John, and died at Gloucester when he was returning to his see. Writers commonly assign to him the building of the tower, on the ground that his effigy has a model of the church in its hand. But this effigy was erected long after his death, and cannot be taken as any evidence of the truth of the statement. The profusion of ball-flower ornament certainly points out that the tower belongs to the fourteenth and not to the thirteenth century. Peter d'Acquablanca in Savoy (1240-1268) was one of the foreign favourites of Henry III., who fought in the Crusades. He was a simoniacal prelate who tried to gain the See of Bordeaux, and was much ridiculed when, after paying the money, the Archbishop of Bordeaux was found to be alive. He was expelled from England, but returned, and then went off to Ireland to collect tithes. Unfortunately King Henry visited Hereford during his absence, and found that no clergy were there, and the church in ruin and decay. He therefore wrote a strongly-worded remonstrance to the absent bishop, who returned in time to be seized by Simon de Montfort and put into prison, while his hoards of wealth were divided amongst his captors. He died soon after this. His tomb remains, but his heart is buried in Savoy, his native land. He is said to have rebuilt the north transept. Thomas de Cantilupe (1275-1282) was a noted bishop, who attained to the honour of canonisation, and was, moreover, Chancellor of England. He was by no means a meek-spirited saint, excommunicated an earl for capturing his game, and made another lord walk barefoot to the altar of the Cathedral, after chastising him for interfering with his tenants. On his death in Italy his flesh was buried at Florence, his heart at Ashridge, Bucks, and his bones at Hereford. Various miracles were said to have been wrought at his tomb. His successor Swinfield (1283-1317), built, or began, the eastern transept, the clerestory of the choir, the central tower above the roof, and probably the nave aisles. Adam de Orleton (1316-1327) espoused the cause of the queen against Edward II., and involved Hereford in the troubles of that disastrous time. He is said to have instigated the murder of the king; at any rate he captured the fugitive monarch, and Hugh Despenser, the king's favourite, was brought here and hanged. He obtained from the Pope a grant of the tithes of two Berkshire parishes, Shinfield and Swallowfield, for the repair of his Cathedral. The fifteenth century saw several additions to the fabric, the cloisters in 1418-1448, the great west window by W. Lochard, the precentor, some chantry chapels which we shall notice later, and the enlargement of the north porch. At the Reformation an ardent reformer, Edward Fox, was appointed bishop, and Hereford, like other cathedrals, was despoiled of its valuables and treasures. Fox's successor, Skip, was a liturgical scholar, and helped in compiling our liturgies. Another learned prelate was Francis Godwin (1617-1633), the author of the Lives of English Bishops (_de Præsulibus Anglicæ_). At the Civil War period Hereford suffered the usual misfortunes. Both bishop and people espoused the cause of the king. The city was taken and retaken without much damage being done, until Lord Leven with the Scottish army besieged it in 1645, when the church suffered considerably; and when, by the treachery of the governor, Colonel Birch, the city was again taken, it was plundered and the Cathedral ransacked. Brasses were torn up, monuments defaced, old windows broken, the library pillaged, and when the dean courageously preached to the riotous soldiers on their sacrilege, they levelled their muskets at him, and were scarcely restrained from firing. Injudicious "restorers" have worked their wicked will on the fabric; amongst these was Bishop Bisse (1713-1721) who spent much money, erected several monstrosities, which have happily been removed, and destroyed the half-ruined chapter-house in order to restore the Palace. In 1786 the western tower fell, and carried with it the west front. Then Wyatt, of evil memory, was let loose on the Cathedral. He made a new west front, shortened the nave, and took down the Norman work in triforium and clerestory, substituting his own designing. Plaster was used unsparingly. The old spire was removed, the roofs lowered, and much other vandalism perpetrated. From 1837 to 1863 continued restoration took place, and in spite of the havoc which has been wrought the church retains much of its ancient and interesting character, and is well worthy of accurate study. [Illustration HEREFORD CATHEDRAL FROM THE WYE] THE EXTERIOR A good view is obtained from the close on the south side. On the banks of the Wye is the Palace and College of Vicars Choral; on the east was the old castle, one of the strongest on the Welsh marches. The _West Front_ is an erection of Wyatt's, and need not be noticed. Formerly there was a great tower here, which fell in 1786 and destroyed the old west front. The _Central Tower_ is very fine. The abundance of ball-flower ornament proclaims its Decorated style. The date is about 1300. It has two stages. The pinnacles are modern. As we have said, a wooden spire which once capped it has been removed. On the west side there is a noble _Porch_ of Perpendicular style, built by Bishop Booth in 1530. There is a parvise in the second storey with Perpendicular windows. This porch joins on to an inner one of the Decorated period. Octagonal turrets containing staircases stand at the angles. The iron-work of the doors is excellent modern work. The walls and windows of the aisles are Late Decorated, about 1360. The clerestory is Wyatt's construction, who destroyed the original Norman work. The _North Transept_ is worthy of attention. The buttresses are very massive. It was built about 1285 for the reception of the shrine of Bishop Cantilupe. The windows are very lofty, of three lights under triangular-headed arches. The window on the north is similar, but double. On the east side there is an aisle, with triforium windows of three lancets, and above the clerestory windows are triangular. The Lady Chapel is fine Early English work, and belongs to the first half of the thirteenth century. We notice especially the tall and graceful lancets and elegant arcades of interesting arches. The east end was rebuilt in 1850. On the south is the Audley Chapel. It is difficult to approach the south side, as walls and gardens prevent easy access. The _Vicar's Cloister_, connecting the Cathedral with the College of the Vicars Choral (incorporated in 1396), is Perpendicular work. The oak beams are finely carved. The quadrangle of the college is well worthy of notice. The _Bishop's Cloister_ is on the south of the nave. Two walks remain, and the west walk is partially restored and contains the library. Their style is Perpendicular. The chapter-house was pulled down by Bishop Bisse; only the double doorway remains. We notice the grotesque heads over the windows, the richly-groined roof, and the Lady's Arbour, a small room in the tower at the south-east angle, which may possibly have obtained its name from the Virgin, our Lady. The Chapels of SS. Katherine and Mary Magdalene, of Norman construction, formerly stood against south wall, and some remains are evident. THE INTERIOR We enter the nave by the north porch, and proceeding to the west end we notice the grand Norman piers and arches. Wyatt's hand was heavily laid upon this structure, and the triforium, clerestory and vault are all his handiwork. Moreover, he took away one bay entirely. The view eastward is very impressive. The arches are adorned with the billet and other Norman mouldings, and are remarkable for their richness. The _Font_ is curious and of Late Norman design. It has figures of the Apostles, and at the base projecting lions. The aisles are Late Decorated, except the lower part of the walls, which is original Norman. The chief monuments in the nave and aisle are, on the south:--Sir Richard Pembridge (1375), who fought at Poictiers. The effigy is a good study of the armour of the period. The right leg is a restoration. Two unknown figures of ecclesiastics. On the north--Bishop Booth (1535), the builder of the porch; a fine tomb, protected by original iron-work. The _Screen_ is a magnificent work, designed by Sir G. Scott. The lectern is modern. The _Central Tower_ has passed through many vicissitudes. The original Norman piers being unable to support the heavy Early English shaft, they were cased with new stone-work, and the Norman arches were blocked up. In Dean Mereweather's time extensive restoration was found necessary. All the parts above the arches is fourteenth-century work. The vaulting has been removed, and the tower is now open to the belfry floor. The _North Transept_ is particularly fine and remarkable, and is Late Early English or Early Decorated (1282-1287). It was built for the shrine of Bishop Cantilupe. The arches are sharply-pointed and unusual. On the west are two windows of two narrow lights under sharply-pointed arches, the tracery of the heads being in the form of three circles enclosing trefoils. On the north is a double window of the same character. On the east is an aisle with clerestory and triforium. Dog-tooth ornament appears in the mouldings. The arches of the triforium are very beautiful, and the diaper of leaf-ornament in the spandrels is effective. The windows above are octofoils. [Illustration The Cantilupe Shrine] This aisle contains the remains of the Cantilupe shrine, which was a source of much revenue to the church, derived from the pilgrims who flocked hither. The date of the tomb is 1287, and the details are worthy of study. It is made of Purbeck marble. The lower part has fifteen figures of Knights Templar, of which order the bishop was Provincial Grand Master. The details of the armour are very exact. Curious monsters appear at the feet of the knights. The foliage is excellent Early Decorated, retaining some of Early English features. Other monuments are Bishop Westfayling (1602), John Philips, author of _The Splendid Shilling_ (1708), Bishop Charlton (1329), Bishop Field (1639), Dean D'Acquablanca (1320), and brasses to Dean Frowcester (1529) and Richard Delamare and his wife (1435). Near at hand is the beautiful monument of Bishop D'Acquablanca (1240-1268), the finest in the Cathedral. (Concerning the unenviable repute of this bishop, _see_ the history of the see). The tomb was originally elaborately coloured. _The South Transept_ has much Norman work. The east wall is entirely Norman, and has five ranges of arcades. Perpendicular windows have been inserted in south and west walls, and the lierne vaulting belongs to the same period. Bishop Trevenant (1389-1404) is said to have been responsible for this later work. The monuments in this transept are:--Sir Alexander Denton and his wife (1566), an altar tomb with alabaster effigies. The latter died with her infant, who is represented as a "chrysome" child, i.e., one who dies within a month of its baptism, and wears its white baptismal robe. Bishop Trevenant, who was responsible for the Perpendicular alterations, is buried here; his effigy has been much mutilated. Masons' marks are observable, and the Norman fireplace is said to be unique. The _Choir_ is full of interest. The main arches and triforium are Norman, the clerestory and vaulting Early English (_circa_ 1250). The carving of the capitals exhibits foliage and grotesque heads, and the lozenge ornament appears round the arches. The headings of the pilasters between the piers are Early English. The clerestory windows consist of one lofty pointed window and a small trefoiled one on each side. The reredos was designed by Cottingham, the architect at the restoration in 1850, and represents the Passion of Christ. A curious effect is produced by the central pillar and arches in the retro-choir appearing through the arch at the east of the choir, and presenting a broad spandrel, on which are carved some modern figures of our Lord and St. Ethelbert. The stalls are good Decorated work with rich canopies and some curious misereres, with carvings representing a pair of wrestlers with ropes round their necks, an irate cook throwing a dish at a troublesome guest, etc. Some are modern. The _Throne_ is also Decorated, and there is the remarkable old chair already mentioned, on which Stephen is said to have sat on the occasion of his visit here. The _Organ_ has some parts of the instrument presented by Charles II. The monuments in the choir are those of-- Bishop Trilleck (1360), an excellent brass; Bishop Stanbery (1474), whose chantry we shall see in the west choir aisle; Bishop Giles de Bruce (1215), with model of church in his hand; Bishop Bennett (1617). We notice the small figure of St. Ethelbert on a bracket on east pier on south side, of fourteenth century. In the _North Choir Aisle_ the wall has Decorated arched recesses, which contain the effigies of Bishop Godfred de Clive (1120) (executed in Perpendicular period); Bishop Hugh de Mapenore (1219); Bishop Richard de Capella (1127). Bishop Stanbery's Chantry (1453-1474) is entered from this aisle, and is Late Perpendicular. It is very richly ornamented with tracery and panelling and shields and has a groined roof. It is a good example of the over-elaborateness of Late Perpendicular work. The _North-East Transept_ is Early Decorated, the original apsidal termination being altered in the latter part of the thirteenth century. Traces of Norman work are still evident. There is a central octagonal pier which supports the vaulting. There are monuments here of Dean Dawes (1867); Bishop Godwin? (1633) (the tomb is certainly earlier and cannot be his); and the altar tomb of Bishop Swinfield (1316), though the effigy upon it is not his. The ball-flower moulding is plentifully used. Proceeding onwards we come to the _Retro-Choir_ or ambulatory, which is Transitional Norman. The chevron and diamond moulding on the ribs of the vaulting point to its Late Norman date. There was evidently an ambulatory and Lady Chapel in Norman times, and the windows on each side of the vestibule show that formerly these walls were outside walls, and the windows were glazed. Here is a monument of Dean Beaurieu (1462), which is of some interest on account of the accurate carving of the dress, and the rebus _boar_ and _rue_ leaves; and there are some late brasses. The _Lady Chapel_ is remarkably fine, being very rich Early English. Its story is difficult to read, as the architect Cottingham redressed the old stone-work and made complications in 1840-1850. He rebuilt the east gable. Five narrow lancets form the east window, and above are five quatrefoil openings. The glass was erected to the memory of Dean Mereweather, to whom the Cathedral owes so much. The subject is the life of the Virgin. The aumbrey and piscina are reproductions. On the north there is an interesting but somewhat conglomerate tomb. The effigy is supposed to be Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, in the reign of Edward III., but the canopy is Perpendicular, and the figures in the arches were discovered elsewhere and placed here, except the two mutilated central ones, our Lord and the Virgin. The others are SS. John Baptist, Cantilupe and Thomas of Canterbury. The Countess of Hereford, Johanna de Bohun (1327), lies here, a great benefactress, whose effigy and tomb are worthy of study. On the south is the _Audley Chantry_, erected by Bishop Audley (1492-1502), who constructed another chantry at Salisbury, whither he was translated, and where he was buried. It has two storeys, and a curious and interesting screen separates it from the Lady Chapel. There are traces of considerable colour decoration. The chapel has five sides, with two windows in the lower and five in the upper storey. The central boss of the vaulting in the upper chamber or oratory has a figure of the Virgin crowned. The window west of this chapel has some good fourteenth-century glass. Beneath the choir is the crypt, of Early English date, and is the only example of a crypt constructed later than the end of the eleventh century. It is called "Golgotha," on account of its being used as a charnel-house. The _South-East Transept_ is similar to its opposite. It has monuments of Bishop Charlton (1369); Bishop Coke (1646); Bishop Ironside, who died in London, 1701, and was buried in a city church, which was destroyed in 1863, and the body brought here. This was the bishop who, as Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, resisted the action of James II. in regard to the expulsion of the Fellows of Magdalen College. In the _South Choir Aisle_ are four Perpendicular tombs under Decorated arched recesses, supposed to represent Bishop William de Vere (1199); Bishop Hugh Foliot (d. 1234); Bishop Robert de Betun (1148); and Bishop Robert de Melun (1167). There is a brass of Dean Frowsetown (1529), an effigy of Bishop Mayew (1516), who conducted Catherine of Arragon to England from Spain; and an effigy of Bishop de Losinga (1096), erected in Perpendicular period. The vestries are of Norman construction; the vaulting is the only example of Norman vaulting in the Cathedral. Here in this south choir aisle is preserved the famous _Map of the World_, as known in 1300. It was designed by Richard de Haldingham, Prebendary of Hereford. This was generally supposed to be the most ancient of its size in the world; but another map has been discovered at Ebstorp, near Hanover, which is larger, more highly coloured, and about the same age. The library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, has an earlier map of Henry of Mainz, and there is a small Psalter map in the British Museum. The world is shown to be round; at the top is Paradise, with its rivers and trees, Eve's transgression, etc. Above is the last Judgment with the Virgin interceding for mankind. Jerusalem is in the centre. Rome proclaims itself the head of the world, and Troy the most warlike city. The British Isles have much space, and most of the cathedrals are mentioned. Monstrous animals, birds and fish abound. The monkey appears to live in Norway, the scorpion on the Rhine. There is very much that is strange and curious to be seen in this wonderful map. _The Library_ has a splendid collection of chained books. The building is modern, having been opened in 1897, and built on the site of the old west cloister. There is an ancient copy of the Gospels at least 1000 years old, written in Anglo-Saxon characters, a beautiful twelfth-century MS., a copy of the "Hereford Use" of thirteenth century, Wycliffe's Bible (1420), "Bangor Use" (1400), with a curious charm for toothache inserted in the book, _Decreta Gratiani_, of twelfth century. There are many _Incunabula_, Nicholas de Lyra's Bible and Commentary (1485), _Polychronycon_, by R. Higden, with additions by Caxton (1495); Caxton's _Golden Legend_, a very fine copy. Here is an ancient _Reliquary_, with representation of the martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury, a pre-Reformation chalice and paten, taken from the coffin of Bishop Swinfield (1316), and some episcopal rings. This collection of chained books is the finest in England. DIMENSIONS Total length (exterior) 342 ft. Length of nave to screen 158 ft. Breadth of nave 31 ft. Breadth of nave and aisles 73 ft. Height of nave 64 ft. Height of lantern 96 ft. Height of tower with pinnacles 165 ft. Length of choir to reredos 75 ft. Length of Lady Chapel and retro-choir 93 ft. Width of central transepts 146 ft. Width of eastern transepts 110 ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES Norman (1079-1115)--Main arcade of nave, arcade and triforium of choir, font, east wall of south transept, vestry. (1189-1199)--Retro-choir. Early English (1200-1250)--Lady Chapel, crypt. (1282-1287)--North transept. Decorated (1300-1360)--Walls and windows of aisles, choir transepts, upper part of tower, stalls and throne. Perpendicular (1400-1530)--Cloisters, windows in south transept, north porch, Audley and Stanbery Chantries. Modern--West front, triforium and clerestory of nave, east front, library. WORCESTER CATHEDRAL Worcester has many points of interest outside its Cathedral. All round the city is historic ground. It was the battlefield of Briton, Roman, Saxon, Dane and Norman. It heard the sounds of fighting in the wars of the barons and in the wars of the Roses, and in the great Civil War Worcester repeatedly suffered, and within its boundaries the great battle of Worcester was fought, the last effort of a dying cause. The half-timbered houses of the Elizabethan and early Stuart times, the interesting churches, and streets that by their names record many a curious custom and phase of old English life, all remind us of ancient times and the manners of our forefathers. We will walk round the town and note its chief points of interest. We notice the old houses in New Street, the remains of the old city wall, "the Cross," the old centre of civic life, the Guild Hall, designed by a pupil of Wren in 1721; St. Helen's Church, from the tower of which still nightly sounds the curfew. Along Sidbury the tide of battle rolled in 1651, when Charles II. was making his last gallant struggle against the army of the Protector. The old Edgar Gate is near at hand, which leads to the castle and Monastery of St. Mary. The Commandery in Sidbury was a hospital founded by St. Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester about 1085, for a Master, Priests and Brethren under the rule of St. Augustine. The house is a wonderful example of mediæval architecture, and is kept in its ancient state by the present occupier, Mr. Littlebury, who allows it to be inspected. Here in 1300 Hugh le de Spencer held a court. The great hall is of Tudor architecture. King Charles I. stayed a night here, and the Duke of Hamilton died here, after wounds received in the fatal battle. "Fort Royal," fortified by Charles I., is seen from the garden, and cannon were placed here at the battle of Worcester; but Cromwell captured the stronghold. Charles II. withdrew with difficulty, and the house in the old Corn Market is shewn where he took refuge, and effected his escape at the back door as Colonel Cobbett, his pursuer, entered at the front. Over the entrance is the inscription: "Love God. Honour the Kinge." HISTORY OF THE CATHEDRAL The See of Worcester was first formed in 680, when the unwieldy Diocese of Mercia was divided, and Bosel was its first bishop. The successive Kings of Mercia poured wealth into the episcopal treasury, and endowed the see with many a rich manor. St. Dunstan was bishop here (957-961), and then came Oswald, subsequently Archbishop of York, the reformer of monasteries, who is said to have replaced the secular priests by a community of monks, and built the Church and Monastery of St. Mary on the site of the present Cathedral. This sacred fane was destroyed by the Danes, under Hardicanute, in 1041. Bishop Wulfstan, the second prelate of that name who held the see, was appointed in 1062, a holy, simple and earnest prelate, who, though a Saxon, held his see in spite of Norman opposition and prejudice. He laid the foundations of the existing Cathedral, and some of his work remains in the crypt and monastic buildings. When he saw the workmen pulling down the ruins of the old Church of St. Oswald he wept, saying, "We destroy the works of our forefathers only to get praise.... We neglect the care of souls and labour only to heap up stones." He was canonised, and many miracles were reported to have taken place at his tomb, to which there was great resort. In 1113 fire destroyed part of the Cathedral, as well as the city and castle. In the troublous times of Stephen, Florence, a monk of Worcester, tells us that when a raid was made on the city the people took their chests and sacks of goods and deposited them in the great church, while all the church goods, the curtains and palls, albs and copes were hidden away in recesses in the walls. The west bays of the nave were built about 1160. In 1175 the "new tower" fell, a misfortune common to so many cathedrals; in 1189 another great fire raged, and the troubles of John's evil reign were felt heavily here, when the city was taken by the king's forces, the church pillaged and the monks compelled to pay a heavy fine, to defray which they even melted down the shrine of the saint. Soon John was buried here, and could do no further mischief. In 1218 the church was dedicated, when Henry III. and a goodly number of bishops and nobles were present. In a storm is 1221 the two "lesser towers" fell. Happily the offerings at the shrine of St. Wulfstan, which was soon repaired, were very numerous, and in 1224 the present choir and Lady Chapel were begun by Bishop William de Blois in the Early English style, and doubtless continued by Bishop Walter Cantilupe, uncle of the sainted Bishop of Hereford. He was a sturdy Englishman who upheld the rights of the English Church against the Pope, and was excommunicated by the Roman Pontiff. The work of rebuilding the church gradually progressed. The nave was built in the Decorated style on the north side (1317-1327), and Bishop Thomas Cobham, styled "the good clerk," made the vault of the north aisle; so Leland informs us. The south side of the nave is a little later, about 1360, when traces of Perpendicular work are evident, blended with the Decorated. In this century also was built the Guesten Hall, now, alas! destroyed, the roof of which is now seen in Holy Trinity Church. Henry de Wakefield was a vigorous builder (1376-1394). During his time the refectory and cloister, the tower, the stone vault over the choir, under the belfry, over the nave, library, treasury and dormitory, the water-gate, infirmary, the stalls in the choir, the west window and the north porch were erected. At the Reformation Worcester had a very zealous reforming bishop in the person of Hugh Latimer, who was subsequently burnt at Oxford. Under his rule the costly shrines of St. Oswald and St. Wulfstan were destroyed, and the relics buried near the high altar. During the Civil War Worcester fared badly, and terrible scenes took place in the sacred building. In 1642 Cromwell's soldiers under the Earl of Essex entered the town and did after their kind. They pulled down altars, destroyed vestments and furniture, and carried off stores of treasure concealed in the crypt and deposited there for safety. The bishop at this time, John Prideaux, was a vigorous Royalist, who excommunicated freely all who fought against the king. In return the soldiers pillaged his palace, and the poor bishop was reduced to selling his books in order to gain a livelihood. But this was not all the evil that befell the "faithful city." It was besieged four years later from March 26 to July 23, but when the Roundheads gained the day and entered the city they behaved in most becoming manner, and did less damage than the soldiers of the Royalist garrison. But even this was not all. In 1651 was fought the battle of Worcester. We can see Charles II. watching the issues of the fight from the top of the tower, and then the divers fortunes of the fight (to which allusion has already been made), the final victory of Cromwell, the capture of 6000 prisoners, who were confined in this sacred building. Then followed one of the most terrible scenes in the war, when the soldiers of Cromwell were let loose on the helpless citizens, and ravaged and plundered without mercy in the streets and lanes and houses of this unhappy city. [Illustration WORCESTER CATHEDRAL FROM THE SEVERN] At the Restoration of the Monarchy it does not seem that any extensive repairs were immediately undertaken. In the eighteenth century some unfortunate "restoration" was carried out which disfigured the building, and did not materially contribute to its strength. As most of these disfigurements have been removed, we need not record them. A great restoration was begun in 1857 by Mr. Perkins, the architect, and continued by Sir Gilbert Scott, and the church was re-opened in 1874. Opinions differ with regard to the severity of this restoration. Certainly it has destroyed all appearance of antiquity in the exterior of the choir and Lady Chapel, but Professor Willis thinks that we have now a reproduction of its original aspect, as far as that can be determined. However, the attempt to reproduce the original should not be the entire aim of restoration. We want to have the whole story of the building before us, and not its opening chapters interpreted for us, and often mangled and distorted by the modern restorer. THE EXTERIOR We approach the Cathedral from the west and obtain a good view. At the foot of the west end the river flows. The _West Front_ need not detain us; it is plain and unpretentious. There is a large modern window in Decorated style, and above three lancets, and a cross crowns the gable. The doorway is Norman much restored, and has figures of our Lord in glory, angels and the Virgin and Holy Child. The _North Porch_ was built by Bishop Wakefield (1375-1394), and belongs to the period when the Decorated style was merging into the Perpendicular. There is a parvise over it with Perpendicular battlements, and figures of our Lord and the twelve Apostles in niches. Above is a row of small figures. Between the porch and the west front was formerly the charnel-house, built by Bishop William de Blois in the thirteenth century and demolished in the seventeenth. The crypt still exists. The two west bays are Transition Norman. The rest is Decorated work. A small Decorated chapel, called _Jesus Chapel_, juts out from the aisle on this side. The lower part of the walls of the north transept is Norman work, but the transept was much repaired in the fourteenth century and the windows are Perpendicular, and that in the north wall is a modern antique. Strong flying buttresses support the main walls on the east of this transept. There is a choir transept. The east end is plain. The east window is of Early English design but modern workmanship. The south side is very similar to the north, but enclosures and buildings prevent us from a close inspection. The cloisters are as usual in Benedictine monasteries on the south side, and these we shall enter from the church. The _Tower_ dates from 1374, but the details are modern, as the tower was very much restored. It is of good proportion, has two storeys with crocketed pinnacles, a parapet adorned with lesser spires, and the whole effect is not unpleasing. THE INTERIOR We enter by the north porch. The _Nave_ covers the same ground as the original Norman Cathedral, and some remains of the old building are left. At the west end the door entering into the north aisle, at the north-east angle of the north aisle, and the great Norman shafts running up the centre of the second piers from the west, are pure Norman. The two _Western Bays_ are Transition Norman, and are an interesting study. We see here almost the earliest advance of Gothic art and the earliest traces of the Early English feeling which manifested itself for the first time in its developed form in the choir of Lincoln. It will be observed that the arches are pointed, but the capitals are Late Norman. The triforium is peculiar, and has a series of pointed arches over three round-headed openings, the centre one being much higher than the rest, and the ornaments are the zigzag, lozenge and curious knots of carved leafage. The clerestory consists of groups of three windows under round arches, the tracery at the back being Perpendicular insertions. The date of this portion is about 1160. The vault was fashioned by Bishop Wakefield (1375-1394). There are seven remaining bays. Those on the south are later than those on the north, and the earlier work is the richer and more beautiful. On the north the five eastern bays and the pier arches of the other two are Decorated (1317-1327), while the rest of these two bays and all the south side are Early Perpendicular. The great west window is modern, erected in 1865 in Early Decorated style. Sculptured figures of characters from the Old Testament appear in the tympana of the triforium. The _South Aisle_ has two west bays of Transition Norman work like the nave, quadripartite vaulting, Late Decorated windows, high in the wall on account of the cloister on the other side, and two doorways called the monks' and the prior's. The wall is original Norman. Here is a large modern font. The _North Aisle_ has also the two west bays of Transition Norman. The vaulting is Decorated, the work of Bishop Cobham (1317-1321), and the rest of the aisle belongs to the same period. The _Jesus Chapel_ opens from this aisle, separated by a modern screen in Perpendicular style. This chapel has been recently restored by the Hon. Percy Alsop, and the scheme of decoration is very elaborate and beautiful. The _Pulpit_ is a very handsome and elaborate structure made of marble and alabaster, with some excellent carving. The principal monuments in the nave and aisles are:--Sir John Beauchamp (1388), much defaced, in alabaster, and his lady, whose head rests on a swan, the Beauchamp crest; Robert Wylde (1608) and his lady--the sides of the tomb are adorned with sunflowers rising from vases; Dean Eedes (1608); Bishop Thornborough (1641). In the south aisle--an ecclesiastic (late fourteenth century); Bishop Parry (1616); altar tomb unknown; Thomas Littleton, judge (1481), learned law writer; Bishop Freke (1591); Sir Henry Ellis, who fell at Waterloo; Richard Solly (1804); Bishop Gauden (1662), the supposed writer of _Eikon Basilike_, a work usually attributed to Charles I. In the north aisle--Earl of Strafford and soldiers of the Worcestershire regiment who fell in India; Bishop Goldsborough of Gloucester (1613); the Moore family (1613); and curious effigy of Bishop Bullingham (1576). Very little ancient glass is left; the windows of the south aisle have a few fragments, but all the rest is modern. The _North Transept_ is Norman as high as the clerestory and is without aisles. A Norman staircase turret is in the north-west corner. The different coloured stones used in the building is remarkable and gives a pleasing effect. Perpendicular work is evident. In the east wall is a Norman arch recently discovered. Traces of colour are evident above the arch leading to the north aisle of the choir. The north window is a modern insertion. The monuments here are Bishop Fleetwood (1683), Bishop Hough (1743), the Magdalen President who withstood James II., Bishop Stillingfleet and others. The _South Transept_ is somewhat similar to the north. There are some fine Norman window arches now blocked up, and a beautiful Norman arch opening to the Chapel of St. John. The builders of the fifteenth century cased the Norman walls with a screen of Perpendicular tracery somewhat similar to the work at Gloucester. The great organ is placed here. Here is a monument of Bishop Philpott (1892). We now enter the _Choir_ and eastern portion of the Cathedral. The screen is of oak and open metal work designed by Sir Gilbert Scott. A figure of the Saviour is over the centre and a figure of the Virgin looks eastward. This part of the building is certainly the most interesting. It is of Early English design and was begun in 1224, that is four years after Salisbury, and some twenty-four years after Lincoln. Worcester was one of the earliest churches in England in which English Gothic was developed, and therefore has a peculiar interest for us. We notice that the span of the arches is wider than in the nave, and that in consequence the arches rise to a higher level. The triforium is, however, less in height than that of the nave. The piers are composed of clustered shafts of Purbeck marble, and these have curious brass rings which were placed there by Bishop Gifford. The dog-tooth ornament is much used. The whole choir was restored by Mr. Perkins and Sir G. Scott. The _Stalls_, which contain some finely-carved _Misereres_, have seen many vicissitudes. Puritan soldiers destroyed the ancient canopies. The carvings were placed on a hideous screen, at the beginning of the last century, which separated the nave from the choir. The subjects are curious--an old man stirring a pot over a fire, knights tilting, huntsmen, hawking scene, and many others. The _Stone Pulpit_ was brought here from the nave; the upper part is Late Perpendicular. The sculpture represents Evangelistic emblems--Heavenly Jerusalem with Tree of Life, Tables of the Law, etc. The _Throne_ is modern and is elaborately carved with figures, foliage, animals, birds and Scriptural subjects. It was presented by Bishop Philpott. The modern _Reredos_ is of alabaster enriched with gold, mosaic, lapis-lazuli and malachite. Over the altar are statues of our Lord and the Evangelists, and there are figures of Apostles, prophets, David and Solomon and angels. The organ is divided into three separate parts connected by electricity. There are two Royal tombs; in the centre of the choir is that of King John, who died at Newark in 1216, whence his body was conveyed here for burial. The effigy is the earliest of an English king in this country. The Royal garments are the tunic reaching to the ankles, and over this the dalmatic with wide sleeves and a girdle buckled in front. On the feet are sandals with spurs; on the hands are jewelled gloves, and there is part of a sceptre. The head has a crown, and the face has moustache and beard. The figures on each side are SS. Oswald and Wulstan. Recently the figure has unfortunately been covered with gilt. The tomb on which the effigy rests is sixteenth-century work. The other Royal tomb is that of Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII., who died at Ludlow Castle in 1502. His death was fraught with great consequence to English history. The tomb is a very fine example of Late Perpendicular work, in which the Tudor emblems, the rose and portcullis, are evident. The exterior consists of open tracery, niches and panelled work, crowned with a battlement and pinnacles. Within there is a flat groined roof, a rich mass of tabernacle work at the east end with figures in niches, in the centre a plain altar tomb, and at the west end a small figure of the mourning father, Henry VII. The _South Choir Aisle_ is Early English similar to the choir, as is the rest of this portion of the Cathedral, and therefore this need not be again mentioned. The _Chapel of St. John_, restored by Earl Beauchamp, is very fine. The glass is all modern. Passing into the eastern transept we notice a piscina and aumbries and some remarkable sculptures in the spandrels of the arcade which are reproductions of ancient work. They are supposed to represent the present and future life. The subjects are: Knights fighting with lions and centaurs (the world and its temptations); St. Michael weighing souls, and the devil pulling down the scale; demons torturing souls over flames (purgatory); hell's mouth; a burial (of Adam?); expulsion from Paradise; an angel leading soul to heaven; the Resurrection; angels sounding a trumpet and bearing the Cross and Christ enthroned. Other subjects are monks building, Annunciation, Nativity, Crucifixion, etc. In this transept is the effigy of a knight in full armour of the fourteenth century of ringed mail. The shield has Harcourt arms, and below is the inscription--_Ici gist sur Guilliamme de Harcourt_. Guide books usually point him out as a Crusader because he has his legs crossed. As we have already stated, there is no special signification in crossed-legged effigies. There is a tomb of Sir Gryffyth Ryce (1523), "a noble knight," and his wife, daughter of Sir John St. John, and near Prince Arthur's Chantry the tomb of Bishop Gifford (1302), and Maude de Clifford, wife of Earl of Salisbury, beautifully executed. It is a wonderful study of the dress of the period (1301). Here is a fine statue of Mrs. Digby by Chantrey; this lady was maid of honour to Queen Charlotte (1820). The _Lady Chapel_, which has two aisles, is earlier than the west end of the choir. The wall arcade is very rich and beautiful. We notice the brass rings supposed to have been placed round the columns by Bishop Gifford. The east wall is entirely new, and the tracery of the windows is a modern restoration of ancient work. There are some curious grotesque carvings. The _North Choir Aisle_ has some beautiful capitals and bosses; a small oval window of Perpendicular date looks on to this aisle, and was formerly the window of the sacrist's chamber, through which he could watch the great shrines. There is a curious carving under one of the windows. The principal _Monuments_ in the Lady Chapel are:-- A mural slab to the memory of Anne, wife of _Isaac Walton_, the prince of anglers, who probably wrote the inscription: "_Ex-terris._--M.S. Here lyeth buried so much as could die of Anne, the wife of Isaac Walton, who was a woman of remarkable prudence, and of Primitive Piety. Her great and generale knowledge being adorned with such true humility, and blest with so much Christian meeknesse as made her worthy of a more memorable monument. She died (alas that she is dead!) the 17th of April 1662, aged 52. Study to be like her." Bishop John Jenkinson (1840) of St. David's. Prebendary Davison (1834), who wrote his famous work on _Prophecy_. An unknown lady of the fourteenth century, one of the most beautiful mediæval relics in the Cathedral. William, first Earl of Dudley (1885). George William, fourth Baron Lyttelton (1886). Bishop William de Blois (1236). Bishop Walter de Cantelupe (1265). Mutilated effigy of Bishop Brian (1361) or Lynn (1373). Bishop Cobham (1327). Bishop Walter de Bransford (1349). An unknown lady of the thirteenth century. An unknown knight, _temp._ Henry III. Last Abbot of Evesham. The _Crypt_ is a very interesting part of the Cathedral, the work of St. Wulstan, begun in 1084. We notice the fine Norman piers with cushion capitals and square abaci. It is apsidal with aisles, and is remarkable for the numerous pillars. Here in this crypt Wulstan assembled a synod in 1092, when were assembled all the wisest men from the counties of Worcester, Gloucester and Warwick. Here used to be preserved the old fourteenth-century doors of the Cathedral, which were said to be covered with human skin, which tradition says was flayed from the body of a man who stole the sanctus bell. The _Cloisters_ are Perpendicular in decoration, though the outer walls are Norman. We pass through the Prior's Door, and notice how perfect the monastic arrangements remain. The vaulting is good lierne, and the bosses are beautifully carved with foliage and other devices. We see the ancient slype or arched passage of Norman character and the _Chapter-House_, with its beautiful central pillar and vaulted roof. It is one of the few Norman ones left, though much altered in the early fifteenth century. Its vault is Perpendicular. A Norman arcade runs round the wall, and the central pillar is Transition Norman. The windows and doorway are Perpendicular and the exterior was coated with masonry of that period. Here are preserved some fragments of ancient vestments, a paten of Bishop Blois', some good bindings and other treasures. On the south is the _Refectory_ with Norman crypt. The room is Decorated, _temp._ Edward III., and is now part of the school called the King's School, founded by Henry VIII. A sculptured reredos of great beauty, with traces of coloured decoration, has recently been discovered here. In the west is an interesting lavatory and entrance to the dormitory, both Perpendicular. The dormitory has disappeared, but its foundations have been traced. We return to the Cathedral by the Monks' Door, or go by a vaulted Norman passage to the west front. In the north-west cloister is a stone inscribed MISERRIMUS, which is said to mark the grave of a non-juror, the Rev. Thomas Morris, or Maurice. Wordsworth wrote the following lines on this subject:-- "'Miserrimus!' and neither name nor date, Prayer, text, or symbol, graven upon the stone; Nought but that word assigned to the unknown, That solitary word--to separate From all, and cast a cloud around the fate Of him who lies beneath. Most wretched one! _Who_ chose his epitaph? Himself alone Could thus have dared the grave to agitate, And claim, among the dead, this awful crown; Nor doubt that he marked also for his own Close to these cloistral steps a burial-place, That every foot might fall with heavier tread, Tramping upon his vileness. Stranger, pass Softly! To save the contrite, Jesus bled." DIMENSIONS Length (exterior) 425 ft. Length (interior) 387 ft. Nave, length 170 ft. Nave, height 68 ft. Nave, width 78 ft. Choir, length 180 ft. Tower, height 196 ft. Area 33,200 sq. ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES Norman (1084-1160)--Crypt, chapter-house, and parts of other monastic buildings, west bays of nave with aisles, parts of north and south transepts. Early English (1224)--Choir with aisles and Lady Chapel. Decorated (1317-1327)--North side of nave, vault of north aisle. (1360)--South side of nave. (1376-1394)--Refectory, cloisters recased, tower, nave and choir vault, library, treasury, stalls and north porch. Perpendicular--Windows in north transept, Prince Arthur's tomb. Modern--West window in nave, north window in north transept, east window in nave, reredos, etc. [Illustration PLAN OF WORCESTER CATHEDRAL] LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL Lichfield has been the victim of Puritan rage and of the over-zeal of modern restorers, but in spite of this it retains much of its ancient beauty and its picturesqueness is evident to all. It is one of the smallest of our cathedrals, but when one sees the three graceful spires of Lichfield, known as the "Ladies of the Vale," the glories of its west front and the richness of the carving, one cannot but retain a warm place in one's heart for this wonderful building which has passed through such strange vicissitudes of fortune. It has been be-pinnacled by our modern Gothic confectioners, who have produced much unnatural "naturalism" in their sculpture; but if we can forget that much that we see is new, we shall perhaps form some conception of what the Cathedral was like ere innovators and destroyers laid their hands upon it. The history of the Cathedral is full of interest, and carries us back to the early days of Christianity in England. The heathen King of Mercia, Penda, long withstood the teachers of the Gospel, but when his son, Peada, was about to marry the daughter of the Christian King Oswi of Northumbria, the latter made it a condition that Peada should be baptised. Forthwith four priests were introduced into Mercia, Diuma became the first bishop (656), and on the death of Bishop Jaruman, the fourth bishop, the famous St. Chad was appointed to the vacant see, who fixed his seat at Lichfield. He was a very holy and humble man, and became the patron saint of the church. Beautiful tales are told of him. Near the Church of St. Mary he built a dwelling for himself and seven brethren. He was deeply affected by the convulsions of nature, and when the wind blew strongly and the thunder rolled he would always retire into the church and pray to God to spare His people; and when a pestilence broke out and his end was near, angel voices were heard which called him to his heavenly reward. The little Church of St. Chad was near the well that bears his name. Another Saxon church was built by Bishop Hedda (691-721) near the present Cathedral, but this has passed away. The diocese was sub-divided at the close of the seventh century, and Hereford, Worcester, Lincoln and Leicester were all separated from the Lichfield See. In the time of Offa, King of Mercia, Lichfield became an archbishopric, when Higbert was bishop, but this distinction did not last long. At the Conquest William made his chaplain, Peter, Bishop of Lichfield, who removed his seat to Chester. Then Coventry was made the city of the diocese by Bishop Robert de Lymesey (1087-1117). History is silent concerning the church at Lichfield, nor does it tell us with any degree of certainty who built the Norman church which certainly existed here, as its remains were discovered by Professor Willis. It had an apse, of which the foundations lie below the present choir, and also a long, square-ended chapel of twelfth century, destroyed when the Early English choir was built in the thirteenth. Professor Willis compares the building of York and Lichfield, and points out the close parallelism. Unfortunately the soldiers in the Civil War destroyed all the records; hence we have little to guide us except the history written in the stones of the Cathedral. A Norman prelate, Roger de Clinton, did much for the church, but all his work has perished. The diocese was then called that of Lichfield and Coventry. He died in one of the Crusades. The Early English builders began to build a new choir about 1200 A.D., of which only the lower part of the three westernmost bays and the sacristy on the south side remain. About 1220 they began to replace the Norman transepts with Early English work, beginning with the south transept and ending with the north. The nave was constructed about the middle of this century and central tower added, and the chapter-house belongs to the same period of architectural activity. In the last quarter of the century the west front was begun. At the end of the century a notable bishop was appointed, one Walter de Langton, Keeper of the Great Seal and Treasurer of England in the reign of Edward I., who incurred the hatred of Prince Edward, afterwards Edward II., and was several times imprisoned by him. He led a very stormy life, but found time to begin the building of the beautiful Lady Chapel at Lichfield, surrounded the close with a wall and a fosse, thus making it a fortress, erected a grand shrine for the relics of St. Chad and built the Palace. This chapel was finished by Bishop Northburgh, who had fought at Bannockburn and been taken prisoner by the Scots, and at the same time the presbytery and clerestory of the choir were rebuilt in the Decorated style. The church was now complete, and very perfect must it have been, glorious with the best achievements of true English Gothic art when that art was at its best. Quaint Thomas Fuller describes it as "the neatest pile in England," and tells us that Bishop Heyworth "deserved not ill of his Cathedral Church of Lichfield, which was in the vertical heights thereof, being, though not augmented in the essentials, beautified in the ornamentals thereof. Indeed the west front thereof is a stately fabric, adorned with exquisite imagery, of which I suspect our age is so far from being able to imitate the workmanship, that it understandeth not the history thereof." Quoting a saying of Charles V. of Florence, "that it was fit that so fair a city should have a case and cover for it to keep it from wind and weather," he adds, "so in some sort this fabric may seem to deserve a shelter to secure it." It was also a church rich in relics and costly ornaments, and kings and nobles loved to adorn it with bounteous offerings, while the shrine of St. Chad brought many a pilgrim to fill its treasury when they paid their vows. The fifteenth century made few alterations to the fabric. Dean Heywood built a library, which has now disappeared. Some Perpendicular windows were inserted. At the Reformation Henry's commissioners carried off a vast store of plate and jewels for "the king's use," and during the Civil War the Cathedral actually endured a siege, the results of which were most disastrous. We have recorded how Bishop Langton surrounded the close with fortifications. The sacred precincts were garrisoned by the Royalists, who awaited the attack of the Parliamentarians, led by Lord Brooke, a fierce fanatic, who longed to pull down all cathedrals as relics of Popery, and extirpate Episcopacy. On St. Chad's day they began the siege, and Brooke prayed in the presence of his men that "God would by some special token manifest unto them His approbation of their design." The "special token" was manifested, but not in favour of the Roundheads; on the second day of the siege a bullet fired by "Dumb Dyott," the son of Sir Richard, one of the leaders of the Royalists, struck Brooke in the eye, and caused his death. This signal act did not save the Cathedral. The spire was struck by cannon balls, and fell, and after three days the garrison made terms of surrender. Desecration and spoliation raged in the once beautiful church. Carved stalls, organ, stained glass windows--all shared the same fate. Images were torn from their niches and broken; tombs were rifled, and the ashes of holy men scattered about with barbarous indecency. Bishop Scrope's tomb yielded a silver chalice and crozier of much value, and a pandemonium of ruthless rage filled the church. Prince Rupert came to Lichfield, and laid siege to the Cathedral, and after ten days turned out the Roundheads. Here the luckless King Charles came, after the disastrous fight of Naseby, and again, when the Royal cause was well-nigh lost, the Parliamentarians besieged the place, and the king's troops were forced to yield. The Restoration of the monarchy brought about the restoration of the Cathedral, which, according to Fuller, "was now in a pitiful case, indeed almost beaten down to the ground in our civil dissensions." Bishop Hacket, a worthy and zealous man, was appointed to the see, who immediately began the stupendous work, and in eight years completed it, when the church was reconsecrated with much solemnity. King Charles II. gave "100 fair timber trees" for the restoration, and a poor statue of the monarch was placed at the west end, and the Duke of York gave the large window beneath it. Both have now been removed. Too soon the ruthless hand of the arch-destroyer, Wyatt, was laid on the luckless Cathedral, who wrought mischief second only to that of the Puritan fanatics. As the canons felt cold, he walled up the pier arches of the choir and closed the eastern tower arch with a glass screen, removed the altar to east end of the Lady Chapel, patched the piers with Roman cement, hacked away the old stone-work, in order to make this cement stick, and fixed up a large organ screen between the nave and the choir. Roman cement became the passion of the hour. Statues were made of it, old stone-work repaired with it; arches, mouldings, niches and pinnacles were coated with it. Happily its reign is over. Sir Gilbert Scott began his restoration in 1856. The difficulty of the work was enormous. He endeavoured to imitate the ancient sculpture and stone-work, and restore the Cathedral to the condition of its Early Gothic purity. Though some of the work has been severely criticised, we must take into consideration the difficulties caused by Wyatt and Roman cement which he had to encounter; we must remember that Gothic revival had not reached its highest development in 1856, and be thankful that so much has been spared to us of this once magnificent Cathedral. EXTERIOR When we enter the _Close_ we notice that little is left of the fortifications that once made Lichfield into a fortress. Here and there a few traces of the walls remain. Lichfield was never a monastery, so there are no cloisters. The view of the Cathedral upon entering the close is very striking and beautiful. The colour of the stone is remarkable, as it is built of red sandstone. The three spires are extremely graceful. A fine view of them is obtained from the south side across the lake. The two west spires were built by Bishop Northbury (1322-1359), and are Decorated. The upper part of the north-western one was rebuilt, and there has been some renovation of the other. The old central tower fell during the siege, and was rebuilt by Bishop Hacket at the Restoration. The style is Perpendicular, having been built in the fashion of the west tower. The _West Front_ must have been one of the most beautiful in England, and has passed through many vicissitudes. It was commenced in 1275, and completed by degrees, the work being protracted for more than a century. The ball-flower ornament in the upper stages points to the later date of the highest part. There are three principal stages. In the lowest are three doorways, the wall being covered with a rich arcade of brackets and canopies and statues. The next stage has three rows of arcading, the lowest extending completely across the front. The west window divides the two upper arcades. There are windows in the tower fronts in the third stage, and the wall is covered with rich canopied arcade. The Puritan soldiers did much injury to the statues which filled these niches. In 1820 the broken figures were restored with Roman cement in a barbarous fashion. Sir Gilbert Scott in 1877 began to reconstruct the west front, and placed new statues in the niches, and endeavoured to reproduce an exact copy of its appearance in the days of its early beauty. A study of the figures will not be without interest. Small figures in central west doorway--on north side--genealogy of Christ according to St. Matthew from Abraham to the Virgin; on the south, according to St. Luke from Adam to Joseph. Notice fourteenth-century carving of Our Lord in Glory inside the porch. NORTH-WEST DOORWAY _On North_-- 1. Ethelbert, angel, with emblem of the Passion. 2. Edwin, orb. 3. Oswald, dove, with letter, and cross in his left hand. 4. Oswy, casket, with key and cross. [Illustration Lichfield Cathedral Herbert Railton Distant view of exterior] 5. Peada, embracing a cross. 6. Wulphere, model of a Saxon church, and a shield. _On South_-- 1. Bertha, cross in her hand, and her daughter kneeling at an altar. 2. Ethelburga, glass and comb. 3. Hilda, angel hovering over her, and pastoral staff in her hand. 4. Eanfled, priest with letter. 5. Ermenilda, laying down crown. 6. Werburga, pastoral staff, and crown at her feet. SOUTH-WEST DOORWAY The figures represent the two sources of English Christianity, the Celtic and Roman missionaries. _North Side_-- 1. St. Aidan, pastoral staff, and St. Chad as a boy in St. Aidan's School at Lindisfarne. 2. Finan, pastoral staff. 3. Diuma, pastoral staff and banner. 4. Ceollach, pastoral staff, and mitre at his feet, indicating that he resigned his bishopric. 5. Trumhere, pastoral staff. 6. Jaruman, pastoral staff, and model of a Saxon church. _South Side_-- 1. Gregory, young Saxon slaves at his feet, in the Market Place at Rome. 2. Augustine, crozier and model of Canterbury Monastery. 3. Paulinus, crozier. 4. Theodore, crozier and scroll. 5. Cuthbert, pastoral staff, and head of St. Oswald in his hand. 6. Wilfrid, pastoral staff, and treading on an idol. CENTRAL GABLE 1. Our Lord in Glory, in the act of benediction. 2. Moses, the two tables of stone. 3. Elijah, a book. 4. St. Gabriel, holding a lily, the emblem of purity. 5. St. Uriel, open book. 6. St. Michael, in armour, with spear and shield. 7. St. Raphael, pilgrim's staff. _Highest Stage--South Side_-- 8. Adam, clothed with skins, and with a lion at his feet. 9. Abel, shepherd's crook and a lamb. 10. Abraham, fire and knife. 11. Isaac. 12. Jacob. 13. Melchisedec, royal and priestly robes and censer. 14. Enoch, prophesying, with uplifted hand. 15. Methuselah, old man's staff. 16. Noah, ark and olive branch. 17. Daniel. 18. Job, staff, and prophesying the Resurrection. 19. Shem. _Middle Stage--Upper Tier_-- 20. Isaiah, a saw. 21. Hosea, skull at his feet, and scroll, "O death, I will be thy plagues." 22. Jonah, a fish at his feet, and scroll in his hand, "Salvation is of the Lord." 23. Zephaniah, holding a torch and scroll, "The great day of the Lord is near." 24. St. Michael, in armour, with spear and shield. 25. Bishop Hacket, holding the open Bible. 26. Bishop Lonsdale, model of Eton College Chapel at his feet. 27. Bishop Selwyn, his hand resting on the head of a Melanesian boy. Bishop of New Zealand, 1841 to 1867. Bishop of Lichfield, 1868 to 1878. 28. Vacant. _Middle Stage--Lower Tier_-- 29. Ezekiel, wheel, with Evangelistic emblems. 30. Joel, locust at his feet, and scroll in his hand, "Jehovah is God." 31. Micah, with foot upon an idol; and the words, "Who is God like unto Thee," in a scroll. 32. Haggai, unfinished temple at his feet, and pointing upwards, and scroll, "Go up to the mountain." 33. St. Raphael, a pilgrim's staff, as a messenger of God. 34. Bishop Clinton, A.D. 1129, model of a Norman church. 35. Bishop Patteshull, A.D. 1240, wearing a chasuble, as shown on his effigy in the Cathedral. 36. Bishop Langton, A.D. 1296, model of the Lady Chapel at his feet. 37. Vacant. _Lower Stage of Kings_-- 38. St. Chad, A.D. 669, pastoral staff, first Bishop of Lichfield. 39. Peada, A.D. 665, embracing the cross. 40. Wulphere, A.D. 657, shield, and model of Peterborough Monastery. 41. Ethelred, A.D. 657, four scrolls, indicating the four sub-divisions of the great Mercian Diocese, Lichfield, Worcester, Hereford and Chester. 42. Offa, A.D. 755, archiepiscopal mitre. 43. Egbert, A.D. 827, orb and sceptre. First sole monarch of Saxon Britain. 44. Ethelwolf, A.D. 836. 45. Ethelbert, A.D. 860, crown and sword. 46. Ethelred, A.D. 866, holding a book to his breast. 47. Alfred, A.D. 871, a harp. 48. Edgar, A.D. 958, wolf's head; alluding to tribute of wolves' heads in lieu of money. 49. Canute, A.D. 1017, orb, and looking to the sea; in reference to his rebuke of his courtiers. 50. Edward the Confessor, A.D. 1042, a dove, and a ring in his left hand. 51. William the Conqueror, A.D. 1066, _Doomsday Book_ and sword. 52. William Rufus, A.D. 1087, bow and arrow, and hunting horn; alluding to his death. 53. Henry I., A.D. 1100, holding a book. 54. Stephen, A.D. 1135, orb, dove and sword. 55. Henry II., A.D. 1154, sceptre and sword. 56. Richard I., A.D. 1189, with banneret and battle axe. 57. John, A.D. 1199, signing Magna Charta. 58. Henry III., A.D. 1216, model of Westminster Abbey. 59. Edward I., A.D. 1272, the poisoned arrow. 60. Edward II., A.D. 1307, reversed sceptre; alluding to his deposition and murder. 61. Edward III., A.D. 1327, the Garter and sceptre. 62. Richard II., A.D. 1377, orb, cross and sceptre. _Lowest Stage--North to South_-- 63. St. Cyprian, sword and book. Archbishop of Carthage. 64. St. Bartholomew, knife. 65. St. Simon, saw. 66. St. James the Less, club and book. 67. St. Thomas, the carpenter's square. 68. St. Philip, cross. 69. St. Andrew, a transverse cross. 70. St. John, pen and book. 71. Vacant. 72. Mary Magdalene, the alabaster box of ointment. 73. The Virgin and Child. 74. Mary, wife of Cleophas. 75. Vacant. 76. St. Peter, keys. 77. St. Paul, sword and book. 78. St. Matthew, wallet. 79. St. James the Greater, staff, book and scallop shell. 80. St. Jude, scroll. 81. St. Stephen, stones and the martyr's palm. 82. St. Clement, anchor and open book. 83. St. Werburga, pastoral staff, clasped book and crown at her feet. NORTH-WEST TOWER _Middle Stage--Lower Tier_-- 84. Daniel, scroll and flames of fire at his feet. 85. Obadiah, hands lifted up and scroll, "The kingdom shall be the Lord's." 86. Habakkuk, writing the vision. 87. Malachi, fiery oven at his feet and scroll. 88. St. Uriel, a spear. 89. St. Luke, staff with serpent entwined. 90. Queen Victoria. 91. St. Mark, lion at his feet. 92. Dean Bickersteth. 93. Jeremiah, lamenting destruction of Jerusalem. 94. Amos. 95. Nahum, scroll and an Assyrian idol. 96. Zechariah, candlestick and scroll. 97. St. Gabriel, shield and sceptre. 98. Solomon, sceptre and model of the Temple. 99. St. Helena, the cross, and a model of a Basilica. 100. David, harp. 101. St. Editha, foot upon a crown. _North-West Tower--Upper Tier_-- 102. Eve, a distaff in her hand. 103. Old Figure. This and four others are the only remaining fourteenth-century figures which have survived the wear of time and the violence of the Civil War. 104. Sarah, three cakes in her hand. 105. Old Figure. Fourteenth century. 106. Rachel, crook. 107. Deborah, scroll. 108. Old Figure. Fourteenth century. 109. Hannah, with the boy Samuel at her side. 110. Samuel, anointing horn and scroll. 111. Aaron, scroll. 112. Old Figure. Fourteenth century. 113. Old Figure. Fourteenth century. St. Anthony over the belfry window on south side of south-west tower. The west window presented by James II. when Duke of York has been removed and a Decorated window inserted. Passing round to the north side we see the interesting north doorway, which is a double one, with five orders, and of Early English style (1240 A.D.). The dog-tooth ornament is evident. Carved figures appear in the mouldings. The genealogy of our Lord, beginning with Jesse, is on the east side; on the west St. Chad and the Apostles. Kings and prophets appear on the middle moulding, and angels on the inner. These are good specimens of Early English carving, and are original, though somewhat restored. A modern figure of St. Anne is in the central niche, and above a figure of our Lord. The figures of SS. James and Jude are examples of the hideous Roman cement work which once was so plentiful here. Continuing our pilgrimage round the church we see the chapter-house and the Lady Chapel, which has been too much restored with new niches and statues of holy women mentioned in the Bible. The lower row (New Testament) has figures of Priscilla, Anna, Dorcas, Mary of Bethany with box of ointment, Martha with a dish and cloth, Lydia, Phebe and Elizabeth; above Esther, Ruth with corn, Naomi, Rizpah, Deborah, Miriam, Rachel and Rebecca. Passing the so-called mortuary chapels, probably vestries, we notice a noble figure of the Madonna on south side, and though the head has been defaced, and the child knocked away, it remains a beautiful study of fourteenth-century pose and drapery. On the corners of the sacristy are figures of Godefroi de Bouillon and St. Chad. The south portal has been much restored. It is similar to the north doorway, but not so rich in architectural details. On the tympanum are shields with arms of the diocese, and on the west the arms of Lady Catherine Leveson, a benefactress of the time of Bishop Hacket, and an inscription recording her munificence on the east. A row of niches is over the door, formerly filled with figures of Roman cement. Happily they have disappeared. The rose window is very fine. INTERIOR We enter the church by the west door, and are struck with the richness and beauty of the view of the nave and choir, the clustered columns with richly-carved capitals, the elaborate reredos of marble and alabaster, and the stained glass of the Lady Chapel. It will be noticed that the choir inclines considerably to the north. This difference in orientation is observable in many churches, and has been interpreted as a figurative representation of the bending of our Lord's head upon the Cross. We believe that this beautiful fancy has no authority, and most probably the inclination was accidental. No records tell us when this nave was built. It is earlier than the west front, and was begun about 1250, at the time when the Early English style was being merged in that of the Decorated. There are eight bays. The piers are octagonal, with many shafts, the capitals enriched with foliage of Early English type. The triforium has two arches in each bay, each arch has two sub-arches, with cusped heads, and a quatrefoil in the tympanum. Dog-tooth ornament is used copiously. The clerestory windows are triangular, with three circles in each, and a trefoil in each circle. Mr. Petit stated, "Nothing can exceed this nave in beauty and gracefulness." The roof was originally of stone. This the besiegers damaged, and after its restoration the stone vaulting was found too heavy for the walls and piers; hence it was removed, except the portions at the immediate east and west end. Wyatt covered the rest with plaster to imitate the original work. The roof has now been coloured, so that it is impossible to discover any difference between the stone and plaster ceiling. The _Aisles_ are similar in style to the nave, and are very narrow. The wall arcading is very fine Early Decorated work. The windows have three lights, with three foliated circles in their heads. In the north aisle are tablets to the memory of Gilbert Walmesley, the friend of Dr. Johnson and David Garrick; to Lady Mary Montagu, the introducer of the inoculation for small-pox; to Ann Seward, the "Swan of Lichfield" (1809), a window; brass to the memory of officers of the Staffordshire regiment, and its colours. In the _South Aisle_ are two curious semi-effigies of ancient date--the heads and the feet are carved, the rest of the body is left a blank in the stone; a good brass of the Earl of Lichfield (d. 1854); and the monument of Dean Addison (1703), the father of a more famous son--the essayist. We now pass to the _South Transept_, which is earlier than the north, and was begun about 1220. The north transept and chapter-house were built twenty years later. Doubtless for the building of the transepts Henry III. in 1235 and 1238 granted licence to the dean and chapter to take stone from the Royal Forest of Hopwas, south of Lichfield.[14] Both transepts have east aisles. All is Early English work, except the windows. The large south window is Perpendicular, probably inserted by Bishop Blyth (1503-1533). The stone vault is also Perpendicular, erected in place of a wooden one, which served as a model of that at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, according to the order of Henry III. There is some Flemish glass in the south window of the aisle, similar to that in the Lady Chapel. It was brought from Herckenrode. We notice the memorial of one of Nelson's men--Admiral Sir W. Parker. The south window is fitted with good modern glass. In the _North Transept_ we see that the style has advanced since the construction of the south transept, twenty years earlier. The arcading here has trefoiled arches. The windows have Perpendicular tracery, and a large north window was inserted in Perpendicular times, but it has recently been removed and the Early English window restored. The curious monument is of Dean Heywood, representing his skeleton. The organ occupies the aisle. Standing beneath the _Tower_, at the entrance of the choir, we notice the conjunction of styles--the large piers with banded shafts of the Early English of the choir blended with later work of the transept and the Early Decorated of the nave. A modern metal screen of graceful design separates the transept from the choir, and was designed by Sir G. Scott. Above are bronze angels playing instruments of music. The _Choir_, which succeeded the Norman apsidal choir, was begun in 1200, and the Lady Chapel about 1300, when the choir was lengthened by one bay. Then the Early English choir was removed as far as the third pier east of the tower, and the present choir built in the Decorated style; the upper part of the three western bays was also removed, and a Decorated clerestory added. Thus we have the arches and piers of the first three bays Early English, clerestory Decorated, and three other bays Decorated. Wyatt wrought havoc here, but his plans have now been altered, and the arrangements been made to conform to the original design. It will be observed that the tracery of the clerestory windows is Perpendicular, inserted at the restoration after the siege; only one original being left. There is no triforium, there being only two storeys. The spandrels have cusped circles, and in the older part niches with statues: on south, SS. Christopher, James and Philip; and on north, SS. Peter, Mary Magdelene and the Virgin. The stalls and bishop's throne are modern. The _Reredos_ is very magnificent, designed by Sir G. Scott. The pavement contains a veritable history of the Cathedral, while the space before the altar contains Old Testament types of the sacrifice of our Lord. The canopies of the _Sedilia_ are ancient and Late Decorated. The _Choir Aisles_ resemble in style the parts of the choir to which they are adjacent. In the north there is Chantrey's monument of Bishop Ryder, and G.F. Watts's effigy of Bishop Lonsdale (d. 1867). The _Lady Chapel_ is full of interest, and especially noticeable is the stained glass of sixteenth century, brought from the destroyed Abbey of Herckenrode, having been concealed from the destructive zeal of French revolutionists. The subjects are scenes from the life of our Lord and figures of the benefactors of the Abbey, and are the work of Lambert Lombard, the first, and by far the best, of the Italianised Flemish School of the sixteenth century. The architecture of the chapel was begun by Bishop Langton (1296-1321), and finished by Northburg; the style is Decorated. It has an octagonal apse--an unique arrangement. Beneath the windows is an arcade, resting on a stone bench, and between the windows are niches, which have recently been filled with statues of excellent execution. These are:--St. Werburgh, St. Cecilia, St. Prisca, St. Faith, St. Catherine, St. Margaret, St. Lucy, St. Agnes, St. Ethelreda. The triptych which forms the reredos was carved at Ober Ammergau. The altar rails are of alabaster. Looking back we have a good view of the Cathedral, and note the considerable inclination of the choir. On the south side are the so-called mortuary chapels, which have been restored in memory of Bishop Selwyn, and contain his effigy and some mural paintings recording scenes from the adventurous life of this great missionary-bishop, who did so much to plant the Church in Melanesia. The shrine of St. Chad formerly stood in the retro-choir behind the high altar. In the south choir aisle is the consistory court, formerly the sacristy. The walls are the oldest part of the Cathedral, being of the same date as the Early English portion of the choir. We notice the old tile and coal pavement, and the old Jacobean choir stalls. Above is the minstrels' gallery, so-called, of Perpendicular work, opening into St. Chad's Chapel, chiefly intended for the exhibition of relics to the pilgrims in the aisle below, and amongst these those of St. Chad. This chapel, formerly used as a muniment room, has been beautifully restored by Dean Luckock, and has good lancet windows, noble reredos of alabaster, old piscina and aumbrey which probably once held the skull of St. Chad. Carved figures in bosses and corbels tell the story of the saint. The old treasury has been beautifully restored, and we see the old aumbreys which once contained such a store of treasures and relics, and some of the cannon balls which wrought such havoc during the siege. There are many interesting monuments in this aisle--notably the famous "Sleeping Children," by Chantrey (1817), daughters of Prebendary Robinson; the monuments of Archdeacon Hodson and his son of "Hodson's Horse" fame, who distinguished himself so much in the Indian Mutiny; Erasmus Darwin (1802), grandfather of Charles Darwin, a writer of botanical poems; Bishop Langton (1296), much mutilated; Bishop Patteshull (1241), of Purbeck marble; Sir John Stanley (1515), a curious effigy of a knight naked to the waist as if prepared for scourging. It is supposed that he was excommunicated for some offence, and was not ashamed to have his penance recorded on his tomb. Other monuments are those of Archdeacon Moon (1876); Dean Howard (1868); Bishop Hacket, the restorer of the Cathedral after the siege; one of the semi-effigies mentioned above, and at the east end is a curious fourteenth-century mural painting. We now visit the _Chapter-House_, passing through the vestibule which is of Late Early English design. We notice the beautiful arcading in the latter; on the west side there are seats where, it is said, that the feet of beggars were washed on Maundy Thursday. The dog-tooth ornament is extensively used in the arcading. The doorway to the chapter-house is very fine and is a double one with a figure of our Lord in the tympanum. Clustered shafts are at the sides with capitals carved with foliage. The chapter-house is octagonal, having the north and south sides longer than the others. The central pillar is surrounded by banded shafts with richly-carved capitals. The windows are Early English, with two lights. An arcade of forty-nine arches with rich canopies surrounds the chamber. Traces of mural painting may be seen over the door. All the ancient glass was destroyed, and modern artists are depicting in glass the history of the see. Over the chapter-house is the _Library_. It contains many treasures, in spite of the Puritan destruction, the most valuable being the Gospels of St. Chad (preserved in a glass case in the retro-choir), containing the Gospels of SS. Matthew and Mark and part of St. Luke. It has 700 miniatures. Other treasures are Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_, which has all except that of the _Ploughman's_, supposed by some to be spurious; Caxton's _Life of King Arthur_, the MS. Household-book of Prince Henry, eldest son of James I., and many rare Bibles. The copy of South's Sermons is interesting, as it belonged to Dr. Johnson, and contains MS. notes for his Dictionary. DIMENSIONS Total length 371 ft. Length of nave 140 ft. Width of the nave and its aisles 67 ft. Width of the choir and aisles 66 ft. Width of the Lady Chapel 29 ft. Length of the transepts from north to south 149 ft. Height of the vaulting 57 ft. Height of the central spire 258 ft. Height of the two western spires 198 ft. Area 27,720 sq. ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES Early English (1220-1250)--Lower part of three west bays of choir and sacristy, south transept. (1250-1275)--Nave and aisles, central tower, chapter house, north and south doorways of transepts. Decorated (1275-1357)--Lady Chapel, west front, and west spires. Perpendicular--South window of south transept and vault, north window of west transept, some other windows, minstrels' gallery. (1661-1671)--Central tower, spire rebuilt. FOOTNOTE: [14] _Rot. Lit. Clans._, 19, Henry III.; quoted by Britton and Murray. CHESTER CATHEDRAL Royal Chester is one of the most ancient and interesting cities in the kingdom. It was an important Roman station. It was called the "City of Legions," and the twentieth Legion of the Roman army was stationed here, and left behind it many traces of its occupation. Saxons and Danes also held the place. The warlike daughter of Alfred the Great, and wife of Ethelred of Mercia, drove out the Danes and rebuilt the walls, but the Welsh again gained the mastery until the first Saxon Edward reconquered it, and later Edgar subdued the Britons, and in 973 was rowed in his victorious vessel on the Dee by eight British chieftains. William the Conqueror made his nephew Earl of Chester, and for years he and his successors ruled as kings in this corner of England, until Henry III. bestowed the title on his eldest son, and since that time the earldom has always been held by the king's first-born. Edward I. often came here when he was waging war against Llewellyn and the Welsh, and worshipped in the great church. Here Henry IV. brought as a captive the luckless King Richard II. and imprisoned him in the castle. Of Royal visits old Chester had abundance. The city was famous for its "miracle plays," which were performed in the streets. Frequently the dread visitor plague made its presence felt, and grass grew in the neglected streets. Tradition states that the name "God's Providence House" was given to a house in Watergate Street, because that was the only dwelling which the plague passed over. Chester played an important part in the Civil War, and bravely resisted a siege and frequently repelled formidable attacks, and the inhabitants were reduced to great straits and much ruin wrought. The walls of the city are quite complete, and on one of the towers called the Phoenix is the inscription: "King Charles stood on this tower September 24th" (27th it should be) "1645, and saw his army defeated at Rowton Moor." Chester retains many of its historical associations, its extensive Roman remains, its walls and ancient houses, its wonderful Rows, "like which there is nothing else in the world," the quaint street names, the interesting churches, all contribute to make Chester one of the most delightful cities in England. Although the great church is ancient, the present see is not. Chester was one of the dioceses founded by Henry VIII. in return for some of the great stores of treasure which he and his courtiers filched from the church. It appears, however, that just after the Norman Conquest there were Bishops of Chester. In 1075 the Bishop of Lichfield removed the seat of the bishopric to Chester, and the Church of St. John the Baptist was his Cathedral. Then Coventry became the centre of the diocese, but the title of Bishop of Chester was frequently used, but fell into disuse in later time, until Henry VIII. constituted the new see. [Illustration ST. OSWALD'S GATE] The church has, however, a very interesting history. Possibly there may have been a Christian church here in Roman times. An old chronicler tells us of an early church dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, and that in the time of the Saxons it was re-dedicated to St. Werburgh and St. Oswald. St. Oswald we have met before at Durham and elsewhere. St. Werburgh was the daughter of Walphur, King of Mercia, A.D. 660, who, perceiving that his daughter was much disposed to a religious life, caused her to take the veil. Her aunt, St. Ethelreda of Ely, was her spiritual mother, and when St. Werburgh died her body was conveyed to Chester, where a monastic house was built, dedicated to her. The early history of this house is somewhat uncertain. Ormerod, the historian of Chester, states that it continued a nunnery until the time of the Norman Conquest, when secular canons were installed in their stead, but this change took place in the time of King Athelstan (925). Leofric, the husband of Lady Godiva, is also recorded as a great benefactor of the church and monastery. When Hugh Lupus, the nephew of the Conqueror, became Earl of Chester, in the time of William Rufus he founded a new monastery of Benedictine monks, and endowed it with rich possessions. He introduced the famous Anselm, Abbot of Bec, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, who made his chaplain, Richard, the first abbot. The Norman church was begun in his time, and some of the features of the Norman Abbey of Bec were introduced at Chester, especially the stone roof of the apse in the south-east of the Cathedral. Some fragments of this church remain in spite of the changes which time has wrought, notably the small arches in the east wall of north transept, and an arch in the canons' vestry, the north wall of the nave, the doorway between the east cloister and the nave, the lower part of the north-west tower and the crypt. Fire played havoc here as elsewhere, and we find Abbot Geoffrey lamenting over the intolerable ruin of his church. This was at the close of the twelfth century, and some reparation was affected, while, during the time of his successor, Hugh Grylle, prosperity dawned upon the Abbey, and the number of monks was soon after increased. Increased wealth tempted the rapacious, and the abbey had to withstand a siege. A noted abbot was Simon de Albo Monasterio, or Whitchurch, who did much for his monastery. He rebuilt the Lady Chapel, enlarged the chapter-house, and began the present choir. The refectory, with its beautiful pulpit, must have been constructed about this time, the close of the thirteenth century, when the king, Edward I., gave grants of venison from his forests for the support of the monks, "who were engaged on the work of building the church." No records tell of any work being done by succeeding abbots until the time of Simon Ripley (1472-1493); but where records are silent the stone-work tells us that in the fourteenth century some beautiful work was accomplished, notably the shrine of St. Werburgh, the sedilia and choir stalls. Simon Ripley was an energetic abbot, and rebuilt the nave, tower and south transept. This south transept was claimed as the Parish Church of the parishioners of St. Oswald, and there were much disputings, but the people had their way, and retained their rights until 1881. We also find that the usual quarrels took place between the monks and citizens about the rights to hold fairs and markets. Abbot Birkenshawe continued Ripley's work, and completed the west front and part of the west tower. An unfortunate alteration was made at this time. The vault of the cloisters was raised, tradition says, by Cardinal Wolsey, and mars the beauty of the earlier work. Then came the dissolution of monasteries, and the Abbey of St. Werburgh shared the fate of the rest. The See of Chester was created in 1541, the last abbot becoming the first dean, and John Byrde the first bishop. Most of the lands and wealth of the church were seized by the king and his courtiers. But, shorn of its wealth, the Cathedral itself was at this time one of the most beautiful in England. Dire troubles were, however, in store. The waves of the Civil War beat fiercely on Royal Chester; and when, after the protracted siege, the victorious Puritan soldiers entered the city, they defaced the Cathedral choir, injured the organ, and demolished the font, broke all the painted windows, and used the church as a stable. Randle Holme, the historian of Chester, utters a sad lament over the condition of the city which he loved so well, and compares it with Jerusalem, "the beloved citie of God, with not a stone left upon another." Since then the story of the Cathedral has been one of continual reparation and restoration. The exterior of the choir was recased by Bishop Stratford (1689-1707). Bishop Law, in 1818, effected some considerable repairs, and other efforts were made, until at length Sir G. Scott was engaged in 1868, when Dean Howson ruled, and a very "thorough" restoration was made. A modern authority on Gothic architecture states that Sir G. Scott's was "a rebuilding of every external feature of this Cathedral in the style of his own Victorian Gothic." Perhaps this criticism is a little too severe. It must be remembered that the stone of Chester Cathedral was very soft and perishable, that the state of the fabric was so bad that it was almost dangerous, and that the difficulties of the architect were great. However, in spite of what has been done, there is still much to admire, and we will proceed to examine the details of this ancient church. THE EXTERIOR To examine the exterior we must avoid the narrow streets in its vicinity, and ascend the old walls of the city, from which we can obtain an excellent view. Starting at the east gate, we get a good view of the south-east of the Cathedral, including the tower, the east side of the south transept, choir and Lady Chapel. We notice the colour of the stone--red sandstone. The plan of the church is cruciform. The _Tower_ is Perpendicular in style, and was probably built by Abbot Ripley. Two windows of Perpendicular character look out from each side. It has been much restored, and was only just saved from destruction by this process. Sir G. Scott devised the turrets and pinnacles out of his inner consciousness, and also the parapet; but the effect, though differing, doubtless, from the original design, is not unpleasing. The _Lady Chapel_ is a simple and beautiful construction of Early English design. On the south side there are three triple lancets under a pointed arch, separated by buttresses crowned with pinnacles, and a parapet above. The south aisle of the choir is Early Decorated, and there is a modern apsidal termination, with a curious steep roof, almost resembling the spire of a church, which Sir G. Scott constructed, and for which he found justification in the remains of the earlier roof. This example is unique in England, but not unusual in France. The south transept is unusually large, which is accounted for by its being the Church of St. Oswald. There are some curious modern sculptures in a corbel here, representing modern statesmen, and the features of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Beaconsfield are not difficult to discover. Passing along the wall of the city, at the east of Abbey Street we see the north-east view. Near at hand, on the right, is the refectory, and on the left the chapter-house, which is Early English. The north transept is Norman work. The north choir aisle, which extends along the side of the Lady Chapel, is, in its eastern part, Perpendicular; further west it is Early Decorated, while by the canons' vestry we see unmistakable Norman work. In this wall much of the old stone remains, as it has not suffered so much from the weather as on the south side. We see the long expanse of the nave roof, and then pass along Abbey Street, and have a fine view of this north side. Then houses interfere with the prospect. Then we see the old Abbey gateway, a fourteenth-century structure, and the new buildings of the King's School, which occupies the site of the old Palace, and soon stand opposite the _West Front_, which lacks the grandeur of this feature of many cathedrals. It has a large Perpendicular window of good design and rich tracery; beneath it is a Tudor doorway, and canopied niches, and on the south the base of a tower which was never completed. Passing along we have a grand view of the south side. [Illustration Chester Cathedral] There is a porch, with a parvise over it, of Late Perpendicular design, with Tudor doorway, and battlements and pinnacles. The vault is modern; the windows of the aisle are Decorated, and those of the clerestory Perpendicular. This concludes our survey of the exterior, and we now enter the Cathedral and examine the principal features of the interior. THE INTERIOR Entering by the south porch or the west door, we examine first the _Nave_, which is small and not very striking in appearance. There are six bays, but the southern arcade is much earlier than the north. The piers consist of groups of attached shafts, with capitals of foliage. The southern arcade is Decorated, while the northern is later. The initials S.R. appear on the capital of the first northern pier. These letters stand for Simon Ripley, abbot (1485-1492). He probably built the upper part of the northern arcade, but the lower part is earlier. The clerestory was finished by Abbot Birkenshawe. The last bay eastward is more ornamented than the rest, and has cusped windows in the clerestory and tracery in the triforium opening. This is earlier, and is perhaps more ornate, because the choir included this bay. The roof is modern, and has a good specimen of fan-tracery vault. Some of the bosses are noticeable, and record the benefactors--the Prince of Wales, Duke of Westminster, and others. Under the south tower is the _Consistory Court_, which is separated from the nave by some curious Jacobean stone-work, and contains some good woodwork of the same period. The south aisle has Decorated windows; the north aisle contains some interesting remains of the old Norman church. The north wall is entirely Norman. A Norman doorway leads to the cloisters at the east end, and at the west there are some remains of the Norman tower built by the nephew of the Conqueror. This is now the baptistry, which has a curious _font_, presented by Earl Egerton in 1885. The dean states that "it came from a ruined church in the Romagna, but it is not known whence it was brought to Venice. It is of a rectangular form, of white marble; and in all probability it was originally a village well-head in early Roman times, and afterwards taken by the Christians and carved with symbols for a font. The work is of the Ravenna type, of the sixth or seventh century." Near here is hung an ancient piece of tapestry, which has been in the Cathedral since 1668. The subject is Raphael's cartoon of Elymas the Sorcerer. The vault of this aisle is modern. The old wall is covered with rich mosaics, representing Abraham, Sarah, Moses, David, Elijah, and other Old Testament characters. The _North Transept_ is small, and is of the same size as the original church, there being no room for expansion on this side because of the monastic buildings. The lower walls are original Norman, the upper Late Norman. A Norman arch, now blocked up, leads to the canons' vestry on the east. The arches of the triforium are very early, and are rude and massive. On the west there are three Norman windows blocked up. Perpendicular tracery has been inserted in some of the windows. That of the north window is modern. The roof is Perpendicular, and on one of the bosses are the arms of Cardinal Wolsey. A conspicuous monument here is that of Bishop Pearson (1686), the author of the famous work on _the Creed_. The initiation of the erection of this magnificent memorial of one of the greatest of English divines was due to an American bishop, Dr. Whittingham of Maryland. The organ-loft is very rich, and the instrument itself is a very noble one, and replete with every modern contrivance. Crossing to the _South Transept_, which until 1881 was the Parish Church of St. Oswald, we notice its great size when compared with that on the north. It was undergoing restoration when we last visited the Cathedral. It has Decorated windows, and Perpendicular in the west aisle. The monuments in the naves and transepts do not possess many features of interest, and may be passed over. [Illustration THE CHOIR] We now enter the _Choir_, and can admire the modern screen, designed by Sir G. Scott, and beautifully executed. The choir is remarkable for the great beauty of the woodwork which it contains, as well as for its architectural merits. The style is that of the transition between the Early English and Decorated. The north side differs from the south, especially in regard to the mouldings. The north side is earlier than the south, the building having been commenced at the east end of that side. The mouldings on the north are bold rounds, while those on the south are shallow and small hollows. The triforium has a series of elaborately-carved cusped arches, and the clerestory windows are light and graceful, with geometrical tracery. The vault is modern, constructed of good English oak. At the east there are figures of the sixteen prophets, and at the west are angels playing musical instruments. There are some curious grotesque corbels, from which the vaulting shafts spring. The carving of the _Choir Stalls_ is equal, if not superior, to anything in England. These are fourteenth-century work, and rival the noble stalls of Amiens. They have been restored with much accuracy and taste. The carving of the dean's stall should be noticed, as it represents the Jesse tree, surmounted by the Coronation of the Virgin. That representing Jacob's dream is modern. The _Misereres_ are extremely interesting and curious, and full of religious instruction, though often conveyed in the way of sarcastic reproof. There are forty-eight, of which three are modern. Some of the most curious are: a pelican feeding her young; St. Werburgh and the stolen goose; a wife beating her husband; the strategy of the fox; stag hunt; Richard I. pulling out the heart of a lion; a fox in the garb of a monk presenting a gift to a nun; various wild men; wrestlers; unicorn resting its head on a virgin's knee, and numerous grotesques. The _Throne_ is a handsome modern work, and also the _Pulpit_, presented by the Freemasons of Cheshire, who restored also the ancient sedilia, which, tradition states, came from the old Church of St. John without the city walls. The altar is made of wood grown in Palestine. The oak of Bashan, olive wood from the Mount of Olives, and the cedar of Lebanon, are all used, and the carvings represent palm, vine, wheat, olive, thorn, bulrush, hyssop, myrrh and flax, all of which are included in the _flora_ of Palestine. The reredos is a mosaic of the Last Supper. The magnificent candelabra of Italian _cinque cento_ work are the gift of the late Duke of Westminster. Over the altar is an arch, through which the window of the Early English Lady Chapel can be seen, and above is a window with Decorated tracery. The _North Aisle_ of the choir is interesting. Traces of Norman work are seen in the base of a massive round pillar at the west entrance, in the inverted capital of a Norman pier, with an Early Decorated pier constructed on it, and the Norman apse is marked on the pavement by a line of dark marble. The canons' vestry is architecturally a very important building, as it contains work of the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The arch in east wall of the transept is Early Norman; the Norman apsidal termination can be traced. It was rebuilt in the Early English period, and made to terminate in a square form, and the doorway from the north aisle is fourteenth-century work. There is an old chest or reliquary here with very good iron-work and lock of the thirteenth century. Re-entering the aisle we can trace the abandonment of the apse and the extension eastward in the Early English period, as shown in the character of the vaulting and in the piscina, which belongs to this period. In Perpendicular times a further extension took place, in order to gain an entrance to the Lady Chapel. The gates of both aisles are old Spanish work of 1558, presented by the late Duke of Westminster. The _South Aisle_ has passed through somewhat similar vicissitudes, but "restoration" has removed some of their traces, and it is now terminated by the apse, the erection of which we recorded when examining the exterior, and which is conjectured to be an exact reproduction of the appearance of this end of the Cathedral in the time of Edward I. The apse has been fitted up as a memorial to Thomas Brassey, the great contractor. The _Lady Chapel_ is of Early English design, and was built about 1266, previous to the present choir. Many alterations were made subsequently, including the removal of the ancient steep and lofty roof and the substitution of a flat roof, and the insertion of Perpendicular windows. Most of these additions have been removed and the Early English character restored. The east window of five lights was designed by Scott, and the original form of the roof has been restored. The vault, which is original Early English, has a boss representing the murder of Thomas à Becket. The mosaics were designed by Sir A. Blomfield. Here the consistory court was held at the time of the Reformation, and George Marsh, the Chester martyr, was condemned to be burnt. The _Monuments_ in the choir and Lady Chapel are to the memory of Dean Howson, Bishop Graham (1865), Dean Arderne, an altar tomb to an unknown person, and the famous shrine of St. Werburgh, of fourteenth-century work, which is of exquisite design and construction. It was richly ornamented by figures. There was a great resort of pilgrims to this shrine in mediæval times. The pavement of the choir is worthy of attention. It is modern; around the lectern are the heads of the twelve Apostles, and of the four doctors of the Church--SS. Ambrose, Augustine, Athanasius and Chrysostom. On the east end are representations of the Passover, and some fragments of tesselated pavement are inserted here which came from the Temple at Jerusalem. The stained glass is all modern. The Cathedral has a rare treasure of the seventeenth century, a carved narwhal tusk, beautifully carved by a Flemish artist. It is thus described by the dean: "The leading subject is the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, passing on to the exaltation of the Cross.... A Jesse tree occupies about 3 feet, and above is seated the Blessed Virgin with the Holy Child. Higher up is the Cross with the figure of our Saviour, whose countenance is full of compassion.... St. Michael thrusting down Lucifer with a cross; the figures of SS. Peter and Paul and the four Evangelists; St. Anthony of Padua and another monk holding up a cross, and figures of angels, each holding in uplifted hands a cross." [Illustration SHRINE OF ST. WERBURGH] We will now proceed to the _Monastic Buildings_, which are of great importance. They are situated on the north side of the Cathedral, and are approached through a Norman doorway in the north aisle. Turning to the left we see some good Norman arcading. The tombstones of some of the earlier abbots are seen here. The south walk is entirely new, having been restored by Scott. The west walk adjoins a fine Early Norman chamber, probably the great cellar of the abbot's house. The cloisters are Perpendicular work. In the south and west walks there is a double arcade on the cloister-garth side, which contained the _Carrels_ or enclosed studies of wainscot, where the monks read or wrote, and on the opposite side are recesses which are not tombs, but _Armaria_ or cupboards, where their books and materials for illuminations were stored. In the Perpendicular period the roof of the cloisters was raised, which was not an advantage, as it caused the aisle windows and those of the refectory to be partly blocked up, and the vaulting cuts into the earlier work. The _Lavatorium_ is near the entrance to the _Refectory_, an Early English building with Perpendicular windows. It is a noble structure, shorn of some of its length, and now used as a music room. The stone pulpit is remarkably fine, of Early English design, which rivals the famous pulpit of Beaulieu Abbey. In the east walk we see the doorway leading to the _Vestibule_ of the chapter-house. It consists of a cusped arch, and three small windows are above it; on the centre one the dog-tooth ornament is used. Both the vestibule and the chapter-house are fine examples of Early English. In the former light, graceful piers support the vaulting without capitals, the mouldings being continued along the piers and vaulting in a very beautiful manner. The _Chapter-House_ is a noble chamber. Its shape is oblong, and it was built about 1240. There is a fine east window of five lights; and windows of three lights are on the north and south sides, and have detached shafts. The glass is modern, and represents the chief persons associated with the history of the Cathedral. Here is stored the library, which is not rich in treasures of bibliography. There is a fair collection of the Fathers and liturgical works, a book which belonged to Bishop Pearson and Higden's _Polyolbion_. DIMENSIONS Length, 355 ft.; length of nave, 145 ft.; width of nave, 75 ft.; height, 78 ft.; height of tower, 127 ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES Norman (1093-1140)--north wall of north aisle and doorways, part of north-west tower, north transept, part of canons' vestry, cellar in monastic buildings; Early English (1266-1300)--Lady Chapel, choir, part of north choir aisle, chapter-house, refectory; Decorated (1300-1400)--Abbey Gate, south and lower part of north nave, windows of south aisle, part of south transept; Perpendicular (1472-1500)-- tower, upper part of north of nave, east of north choir aisle, west front, south porch, part of south transept and some windows; Choir recased (1689-1707). * * * * * St. John's Church is well worthy of a visit. It has an important history, and was once the Cathedral of the first Norman bishop. It is mainly of Norman construction. The massive piers are very early (1067-1105), the triforium and clerestory are Transitional. A good history of the church has been written by the Rev. Cooper Scott. LIVERPOOL CATHEDRAL Liverpool is a very modern see, the bishopric having been formed in 1880. It has at length been possible to take steps to found a Cathedral, and many architectural problems have to be solved by the citizens with regard to the site and the style of the new church. We trust that these will be solved satisfactorily, and that the Cathedral of Liverpool will be made worthy of the city. If wealth can accomplish this great achievement, there should be no difficulty in this place. The Church of St. Peter is at present used as the Cathedral, but it has no feature of either architectural or historical interest. MANCHESTER CATHEDRAL Other objects of interest rather than those of history or architecture usually attract the stranger to Manchester. The great centre of modern industry, the city that brings the sea to its walls, that finds employment for tens of thousands, where the pulse of life beats fast--that is the Manchester we all know. But there is another Manchester of quiet and sedate ways, which is not devoid of history, which we will endeavour to read amidst the din and turmoil of this hive of industry. It is difficult to imagine that the parish "was originally a wild, unfrequented tract of woodland, inhabited merely by the boar, the bull, and the wolf, and traversed only by the hunters of the neighbouring country." Under Agricola, Manchester became a Roman station. Camden tells of Roman inscriptions, and many other Roman remains have been found. Edwin of Northumbria came here, and Paulinus brought Christianity and thousands were baptised by him. Two Saxon churches were built, St. Michael's and St. Mary's. Ina and his queen, Ethelburga, sojourned here. The Danes ravaged it, and Edward the Elder re-edified the town in 924. We find that Canute came here, and the historian of the town derives Knot, or Knut, Mill from his name. The Conqueror gave the manor to Roger de Poictiers, but it appears to have been regranted to the Greslie family. It is unnecessary to follow the history of the manor and barony. In 1235 Manchester is said to have had a Deanery, and Peter de Greleigh (Greslie) held the Rectory in 1261. Hugh de Manchester, a favourite of Edward I., went on an embassage to Philip of France to recover certain lands for his king. Other distinguished rectors were William de Marchia (1284), afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells, and William de Langton, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield, the builder of the beautiful Lady Chapel of that Cathedral; Otto de Grandisson, Geoffrey de Stoke, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, London. In 1373 Thomas de la Warre was presented to the living, and he obtained Royal licence in 1422 to found a collegiate church, consisting of one warden, eight fellows, four clerks and six choristers. The parishioners cheerfully agreed to build the new church. John Huntingdon, the first warden, built the choir, and several leading families, the Radcliffes, Stanleys, Traffords, Byrons and Strangeways erected chantries. The college was founded at the same time as the residence of the warden and fellows. The right of sanctuary was granted to the collegiate church, the sanctuary men bearing a cross on their hand. The college has a chequered career. In the reign of Edward VI. it was dissolved and its possessions seized. Under Mary it was re-established, together with the chantries in the church. In the time of Elizabeth the college had prolonged disputes with the town, the clergy were beaten by the populace, and one of them stabbed, and the plate and ornaments stolen. In 1578 the charter was renewed. A famous warden was Dr. Dee, who is well known as a dealer in magical arts, and his successor, Murray, was not a very learned divine; when preaching before James I. from the text, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ," the monarch said the Gospel of Christ might well be ashamed of him. In 1617 a gallery was erected in the church, which was much dilapidated and the income impoverished. In the time of the Civil War, Richard Heyrick was warden and sided with the Parliament, the Independents setting up a meeting-house at the college. Manchester underwent a siege during the war, and in 1649 the chapter-house and chest were broken into by soldiers and the deeds carried off to London, where it is thought that they perished in the great fire. The college was dissolved. Heyrick was a veritable "Vicar of Bray," and embraced all the opinions in turn of all the parties in that troublous period. The collegiate buildings were in much decay during the Commonwealth period, when Humphrey Chetham, one of the worthiest of benefactors, conceived the idea of converting them into a school and library, and left a large sum of money for this purpose. Chetham's Hospital is quite the most interesting building in the city, which has retained few of its ancient edifices. Lancashire folk were very faithful to the House of Stuart, and in both the rebellions of 1715 and 1745 Manchester took part. The young Pretender was proclaimed here King James III., and the "Manchester Regiment" was formed to fight in the prince's cause, and subsequently many lost their heads, some being stuck upon the Exchange. The Diocese of Manchester was formed in 1847, and has only had three bishops--James Prince Lee, Fraser, and the present Bishop Moorhouse, formerly Bishop of Melbourne. THE EXTERIOR Manchester smoke soon causes stone-work to assume a venerable appearance, and although much of the Cathedral is new, its first appearance is one of an ancient edifice. Manchester is a modern see, founded in 1847, but its church, as we have seen, dates back to a very respectable antiquity and has many features of special interest. It stands out well amidst the surrounding mass of modern buildings, of shops and railway stations, and seems to raise the thoughts of all who behold its beauties above the buying and selling in this busy mart of human enterprise. The present generation of merchants of Manchester and the Cathedral authorities have done much for their Cathedral, and striven to make it worthy of its name and position as the Mother Church of the diocese, and all the resources of modern art have been lavished on the building. We shall see this better in the interior. The exterior also shows that very much has been done in building and decoration. There is first the new _West Porch_, which has just been finished with a statue of Queen Victoria in the niche over the doorway. Just as the burghers of the Middle Ages loved to enrich their churches with the triumphs of architectural art, so do the modern merchants of Manchester strive to adorn their Cathedral with elaborate handiwork. This new piece of work is richly carved. The style follows that of the Cathedral and is mainly Perpendicular. There is rich panel work, an open-work battlemented parapet, and a richly-crocketed pinnacle crowns a turret on the south side. The door itself is a very handsome piece of work. On each side of the main porch there are rooms. The _Tower_ stands at the west end above the porch. There is a good west window in the lowest stage with an ogee label richly crocketed. Above is the clock. In former days this clock was not noted for keeping correct time. An old gentleman was observed each morning setting his watch by it. "Excuse me," said a bystander, "that clock is five minutes late." "Sir," he replied, "I have set my watch by that clock for forty years, and right or wrong, I shall go by it for the rest of my life." At each corner of the tower there are three pinnacles. The windows of the church, we observe, as we pass to the south, are all Perpendicular, but there is a pleasing variety in the tracery. The _South Porch_ has a parvise, and was built by Mr. James Jardine, a distinguished citizen of Manchester, in 1891. On this side there are several chapels--the Brown Chapel, St. George's, St. Nicholas or Trafford Chapel, Jesus Chapel, the chapter-house with its pyramidal roof, the Fraser Chapel, a new building erected in memory of Bishop Fraser. The battlemented parapet on this side of the church is modern. On the east side is a tiny Lady Chapel with a Decorated east window, which has been reproduced from the earlier design. Proceeding onwards we notice the Ely Chapel, the Derby or John the Baptist's Chapel, the St. James's Chapel, and that dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The _North Porch_ is similar in character to that on the south, and was erected in memory of James Craven in 1888. THE INTERIOR The interior of the Cathedral is full of interest. We enter by the south porch, and we are at once struck by the extraordinary width of the church. On each side of the nave there are two aisles. The outer aisles both on the north and south sides were formerly separated from the rest of the church by screens, and were occupied by chapels or chantries. By a somewhat drastic restoration at the beginning of the nineteenth century these screens were removed, and the outer aisles thrown open. This procedure rendered the church more useful for congregational purposes, though we may regret the disappearance of the historic chapels, a few piscinæ being the only remains. We will commence our pilgrimage at the west end, and from this point view the length of the church, which is shrouded in "a divine religious light," perhaps a little too dim. Most of the windows are filled with modern glass which is generally of beautiful design; but modern glass lacks that transparency which ancient glass has. The sunlight streams through the old glass, and it is quite possible, as at Fairford, to read the smallest print; while modern glass effectually shuts out the light, and at the best too much sunlight is not usually observable in this region of smoky chimneys and polluted atmosphere. The piers of the nave are modern imitations of the original Perpendicular ones, and are lofty and graceful. There is no triforium, and the clerestory is somewhat contracted. The windows have five lights of Perpendicular tracery, and most of them are filled with modern glass. The roof is ancient, but has been much restored. In the distance we see the handsome choir-screen with the organ over it. The spandrels of the chancel arch are richly carved with shields in quatrefoils, and above is the Tudor rose. Shields adorn the spandrels of the main arches. Above us is the ceiling of the tower, which is a good example of fan-tracery. The modern baptistry is on our right. Passing the south porch, erected in memory of Mr. James Jardine, we see the extreme south aisle, formerly consisting of chantries separated from the rest of the church by screens. In a recess east of the porch was the Brown Chapel, and north of this St. George's Chantry (to which saint, together with St. Mary and St. Denis, the church was formerly dedicated) founded by W. Galley in 1508. At the dissolution of the collegiate institution John Barlow and Edward Smyth, priests of this chantry, received pensions of £6 and £4, 12s. 6d. respectively. Then comes the Trafford or St. Nicholas Chantry, the priest of which received a pension of £5. The Traffords of Trafford are an ancient Lancastrian family who have held the manor, near Manchester, since the Conquest, and the name of Edmund Trafford appears upon the list of parishioners given in the licence to erect the collegiate church. A piscina shows the position of the altar of this chantry. Next follows the Jesus Chapel which has a fine sixteenth-century screen. It was founded by Richard Bexwick in 1506, being granted to him "to enjoy its privileges by James Stanley, warden, and the fellows." His daughter Isabel gave it to Francis Pendleton and Cicely his wife, daughter of Isabel. In 1652 it was in a ruinous condition. It is now used as the library and vestry. From this chapel another chapel founded by Ralph Hulme in 1507 opened, but it has been destroyed. One of this family of Hulme founded in 1691 the Hulmeian scholarships at Oxford. Next we see the entrance to the chapter-house built by James Stanley (1485-1509), which is good Perpendicular work. Under the arch, which has panelled work in the soffit, there are two doors having four-centred arches, and above panelling. The Fraser Chapel, erected in memory of Bishop Fraser of Manchester (1870-1885), "a man of singular gifts both of nature and the spirit," who won all hearts and whose memory will ever be venerated in the Manchester Diocese, stands on the south at the extreme east end of this aisle. It contains an admirable effigy of the bishop, who was buried in the little Parish Church of Ufton Nervet, Berks, where he passed the early years of his clerical life, and for which he had tender memories. This was a college living to which he was presented by Oriel College. Turning to the north we enter the retro-choir and the Lady Chapel, originally founded by George West, youngest brother of Lord Delaware, who was warden of the college in 1518-1535. The last historian of the Cathedral, Mr. Perkins, considers that West reconstructed a more ancient building, and that the style of the windows inserted in the eighteenth century in imitation of earlier ones point to an earlier date than 1518. This chapel was once known as the Byron Chapel, and then the Chetham Chapel, as it contains several memorials of that family. There is a modern statue of Humphrey Chetham, the founder of Chetham's Hospital (which we shall presently visit), who was born in 1580, and by trade "acquired opulence, while his strict integrity, his piety, his works of charity and benevolence secured him the respect and esteem of those around him."[15] He founded the school, and clothed, fed and instructed twenty-two boys, and, though never married, thus became a father of the fatherless and destitute. At the base of his statue is seated a figure of one of these youths. Near this statue is the tomb of Hugh Birley, a member of a distinguished Manchester family and a representative of the city in Parliament. An ancient organ, more than two centuries old, also is in this aisle. On the north is the St. John the Baptist or Derby Chapel, formerly called the Stanley Chapel, separated by an old screen from the aisle. The Stanleys belong to the same family as the Earls of Derby. The office of warden was held by two members of the Stanley family, both having the Christian name of James. The second James Stanley became Bishop of Ely, and by virtue of his will (he died 1515) this chapel and the Ely Chapel were built. His tomb remains, of grey marble, with a small brass figure of the bishop in his robes, with the inscription:--"Off yur charite pray for the soul of James Stanley, sutyme Bushype of Ely and Warden of this College of Manchestir, which decessed out of this transitore world the xxxi. daye of March, the yer of our Lord MCCCCC. and XV., on whos soul and all Christian souls Jhesu have mercy." Westward of this Derby Chapel stands the Ducie Chapel, dedicated to St. James, founded in 1507, and next comes the Radcliffe Chantry, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, founded by W. Radcliffe in 1498. The Radcliffes of Radcliffe, near Manchester, were an ancient race, and the ballad of "Fair Ellen," the daughter of one member of this family, who was slain by a cruel stepmother and her body cooked in a pie, is a gruesome legend of old Lancashire. The east end of the nave is used for services, and there is a fine modern pulpit. Manchester Cathedral possesses some very fine carved woodwork, of which the ancient rood-screen is a good example. The organ is placed above it. On entering the _Choir_ we notice the magnificently-carved stalls with rich tabernacle work, and quaint _misereres_. This is the work of James Stanley (1485-1509) afterwards Bishop of Ely, assisted by a Manchester merchant named Beck. The bishop's throne is modern, and also the reredos. The three Patron Saints-SS. Mary, George and Denys--appear in the niches. In accounting for this triple dedication Randle Holme states that to St. Mary was the earlier church dedicated, and that Thomas Delaware, "being partly a Frenchman, and partly an Englishman," selected St. Dionysee, ye Patron Saint of France, and St. George, the Patron Saint of England, as patrons of his new Cathedral. This does not seem probable, and it is more likely that the claim of Henry V. to the crown of France at the time of the founding of the college suggested the additional dedication. The windows have all modern glass. Formerly there was some curious ancient glass; in the east window of the south aisle, Michael and his angels fighting with the dragon; in the east window of the north aisle, SS. Augustine and Ambrose chanting the _Te Deum Laudamus_; in the clerestory were pictures of the Virgin; and then there were some curious representations of the Trinity. These have all disappeared. Of the modern ones, the most interesting, perhaps, is the Gordon window in the north aisle. John Huntingdon, the builder of the present choir (1422-1459), lies buried in it, and formerly his tomb was inscribed with the words: _Domine, dilexi decorem domus tuæ_, and there was a brass with this inscription: _Hic jacet Johan Huntingdon Bacc in Decr. Prim. Magister sive custos istius collegii qui de novo construxit istam cancellam, qui obiit ix. mo die xi. bris MCCCCLVIII., cujus animæ proprietur Deus_. We could not discover this brass, but on each side of the Lady Chapel entrance is the rebus of the founder, on one side a man hunting, on the other a tun, which "hieroglyphical quiddity" makes Hunting-ton. * * * * * Crossing the street to the north is a profoundly interesting building, known as the _Chetham Library and Hospital_, of which Manchester may be justly proud. Its chequered history has already been partially told, and carries us back to the days when the college of warden and fellows, chaplain and choir-boys, lived here. Now, as we have seen, it is the school, with a noble library attached, founded by that worthy merchant, Humphrey Chetham. As a baron's hall, an ecclesiastical establishment, and a remarkable school, the building presents many features of unique interest, and the grand library is worthy of minute inspection. DIMENSIONS Length of nave and choir 172 ft. Width of nave and aisles 114 ft. Length of choir and Lady Chapel 88 ft. Height of roof 50 ft. Height of tower 140 ft. Area 18,000 sq. ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES (1422-1458)--Choir. (1465-1509)--Nave rebuilt, stalls and canopies, chapter-house, chantries of St. George, St. Nicholas, Jesus, Ducie and Radcliffe. (1518-1535)--Lady Chapel, Ely Chapel. Modern--Baptistry, north and south and west porches, Fraser Chapel, throne, reredos and glass. FOOTNOTE: [15] Baine's _Lancashire_, Vol. II., p. 365. CARLISLE CATHEDRAL This northern city has had a noted history. It was a town of considerable importance under the Romans, and on their departure was captured by the furious Picts. It has been a city of sieges. Egfrid of Northumbria rebuilt it in the seventh century, and granted it to St. Cuthbert, but the Danes sacked and plundered it. William Rufus again rebuilt and fortified it, but David, King of Scotland, captured the place, and died within its walls in 1153. Two more sieges it again endured, and was at length taken in 1217. Here came Edward I. frequently on his marches to conquer the Scots, and held Parliaments here, and near here he died. A goodly company of nobles hastened here to do homage to his son. After the disaster of Bannockburn Robert Bruce besieged Carlisle, and had his quarters in the Cathedral, which is outside the city walls, but he failed to gain the city. The Bishops of Carlisle were sometimes warlike men, and took the field against the dread invaders from the north. The old castle has seen much of fighting, and it had a notable prisoner in the person of ill-fated Mary Queen of Scots. A long siege, lasting eight months, took place in the Civil War time, and in that time terrible damage was done to the Cathedral, as we shall see. Again, in the rebellion of 1745, "Bonnie Prince Charlie" captured the place, and there was a great flourish of trumpets, or rather bagpipes, until the king's forces came and put an end to the poor campaign. The Cathedral was again used as military quarters, and the prisons of the castle tell the sad story of the fate of the rebels. The ecclesiastical history of Carlisle reflects its civil history. As we have said, St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne and his successors ruled over this city and district for many years. When William II. restored the city and raised the castle, one Walter, a noble and wealthy priest, who was left as governor by the king, set to work to build a church and priory. But death stayed his hand, and Henry I. completed the task, and established here a monastery of Augustinian canons in 1121. In 1133, on the advice of Thurstan, Archbishop of York, he established a see here, and Udelulf became the first bishop. The Cathedral, begun by Walter and finished by Henry I., was of the usual Norman character. Its plan was cruciform, and it had a nave with aisles, transepts with a low tower at the crossing. The architect was Hugh, Bishop (1218-1223), formerly Abbot of Beaulieu, Hants, who brought with him to Carlisle the traditions of a splendid style of architecture. In the early part of the thirteenth century the Norman choir was taken down, and rebuilt in the Early English style. Two fires did much damage, especially the one that raged in 1292. The work of rebuilding was at once commenced, and a more imposing plan was projected, but a long time elapsed before it was completely carried out. At length, about the middle of the fourteenth century, the choir was completed in the Decorated style, a new triforium, clerestory roof and east end being erected. The Late Decorated east window, which was finished at this time, is one of the most beautiful in the world. Fire again injured the Cathedral in 1392, especially the north transept, which was restored by Bishop Strickland (1400-1419), who also rebuilt the tower above the roof, and crowned it with a wooden spire. The monastery was dissolved at the Reformation, and a Cathedral establishment formed, consisting of a dean and canons. In Mary's reign Owen Oglethorpe was made bishop, who, "being a good-natured man and pliable," according to Fuller, crowned Queen Elizabeth, "which the rest of his order refused to do." He was, however, deprived on account of "certain principles of stubbornness instilled into him." The Civil War did terrible damage to the Cathedral. During the siege Puritan soldiers were quartered in the sacred building, "who did after their kind," and, moreover, after the capture of the city, in order to repair the fortifications, they pulled down a great portion of the nave, and used the stones for that purpose. In the rising of 1745 Charles Edward, the Pretender, as we have said, occupied Carlisle, and installed in the Cathedral, as bishop of the see, a Romanist named James Cappoch. When the Duke of Cumberland arrived and recaptured the city, Cappoch allowed himself to be taken prisoner, and was hanged. The church was again used as a barracks, and many of the poor Jacobite prisoners were confined here. Since then there have been sundry restorations, some very deplorable, one about the middle of the eighteenth century, which were happily effaced, as far as possible, by the work of the middle of the nineteenth. But the hand of the restorers has fallen rather heavily upon the beautiful work of the choir, and destroyed much of its delicate beauty. The architects of 1850 had not yet learned to respect the antiquity of the buildings which fell into their hands to restore, and Carlisle and many other churches have suffered much from their drastic treatment. THE EXTERIOR A good view is obtained from the castle. The usual approach is from the east end, whence we observed the grand east window with its beautiful Late Decorated tracery. It is flanked by buttresses, with niches and crocketed pinnacles. In the niches are statues of SS. Peter, Paul, James and John. A floriated cross crowns the gable, and on each side are four similar crosses. In the gable is a triangular window, having three trefoils, and below is a niche with figure of the Virgin. The _Central Tower_, built by Bishop Strickland (1400-1419) on the old Norman piers, is too small for the huge choir, and lacks dignity. Formerly it was crowned with a wooden spire, but this has been removed. There is a turret set at the north-east angle, and in the north side is a niche with the figure of an angel. The lower part of the _Choir_ is Early English, with the exception of a Perpendicular window at the west, and a Decorated one in the east bay. The _Clerestory_ is Late Decorated, and the windows have flowing tracery. The ball-flower ornament is extensively used in the cornice. The sculpture at Carlisle is worthy of notice. Carved heads and curious gargoyles abound. The _North Transept_ is nearly all modern. It was rebuilt by Strickland in the fifteenth century, and again rebuilt when the church was restored. There is, however, an Early English window in the west wall. On the east side there was formerly a chapel, which has not survived the repeated alterations. The greater part of the _Nave_ was taken down by Cromwell's soldiers. What is left is of unmistakable Norman character. There is some modern imitation work, and late architectural detail. Most of the windows are modern, and also the doorway. The west end is the result of modern restoration. The south side is similar to the north. The _South Transept_ preserves the old Norman walls. On the south is a modern doorway with a window over it. On the east is _St. Catherine's Chapel_, a Late Early English or Early Decorated building. The south side of the choir is similar to the north, and presents Early English details of construction. The monastic buildings once stood on the south side of the church, but they have been pulled down with the exception of the fratry and gatehouse, the stone being used for repairing the fortifications of the city by Puritan soldiery. The refectory, or fratry, was rebuilt in the fifteenth century, and is now used as a chapter-house. There is a fine reader's pulpit here. The gateway was erected by Prior Slee in 1527. The Deanery is a fine old house, and was formerly the prior's lodging. It was rebuilt in 1507. [Illustration Carlisle from S E] THE INTERIOR The _Nave_ was formerly used as the Parish Church of St. Mary, and was filled with high pews and galleries. These have all been cleared away, and it is possible to admire the plain and massive Norman building, which now, alas! consists of only two bays, the rest having been destroyed in the Civil War period. Before that act of vandalism there were eight bays. The work before us, for the most part, belongs to the earliest church, begun by Walter, finished by Henry I. about 1130. Formerly a low ceiling shut out the triforium and clerestory from our view, but this, too, has happily been removed. The piers are low (14 feet high, 17 feet in girth), the arches being semi-circular, some of the capitals having evidently been carved later with some Early English foliage. The triforium consists of plain, open, round-headed arches, and is a little later than the main arcade. The clerestory has in each bay three arches, resting on shafts with carved capitals. The west end is modern. The tattered colours of the Cumberland Regiment tell of the Indian Mutiny, and there is a window in the south aisle to the memory of the men who died in that melancholy time. Sir Walter Scott was married in this nave, when it was a church, in 1797, to Miss Margaret Charlotte Carpenter. The font is modern and also the organ. The _North Transept_ was rebuilt by Bishop Strickland in the fifteenth century, and its north end was again rebuilt in modern times. Here a large modern window of Decorated design has been erected in memory of five children of Archbishop Tait, who died here of scarlet fever when Dr. Tait was dean. In the west wall is an Early English window, which is a good example of plate-tracery. The arch of the choir aisle is Decorated; the roof is modern. Crossing over to the south transept we notice the piers which support the _Tower_. These are Norman, and have additional columns erected by Bishop Strickland when he rebuilt the tower. The latter have foliated capitals, and are in the Perpendicular style. On the capitals of the eastern arch are the badges of the Percy family--the crescent and fetterlock. The most famous scion of this house--Hotspur--was governor of Carlisle. On the western side are the rose and escallop shell, badges of the Dacres and Nevilles. The _South Transept_ is both narrow and shallow, being only one bay in length. The east side is Norman work; there is an arch with zigzag ornament and cushion capitals, opening into the choir aisle. A second Norman arch opens to St. Catherine's Chapel. The window and door on the south are both modern, and have much elaborate decoration, which is scarcely in keeping with the Norman work surrounding it. The triforium and clerestory resemble those of the nave. _St. Catherine's Chapel_ stands on the site of a Norman chapel, and is in the Early Decorated style or Late Early English. It was founded by John de Capella, a wealthy citizen, and is now used as a vestry. The screen is Late Decorated, and is of great beauty. The doorway between the aisle and chapel formerly led to a well, now closed. "A similar well exists in the north transept, but has been long covered. Besides supplying water for the use of the church, such wells may have been of special service in border churches, which, like this of Carlisle, served as places of refuge for the inhabitants in cases of sudden alarm or foray" (Murray's Handbooks). The following monuments are in the transepts:-- Robert Anderson, "the Cumberland Bard" (1833); Bishop Fleming (1747): Prior Senhouse (_temp._ Henry VII.); and there is a curious Runic inscription, written in Norse, which, being translated, is: "Tolfihn wrote these runes on this stone." We now enter the _Choir_ by the door in organ-screen. This is one of the finest in England--spacious, lofty, well-proportioned and rich in all its details. The arches of the main arcade are Early English, as the mouldings and dog-tooth ornament testify. These remained after the fire of 1292, and were retained. The piers are Early Decorated, and were evidently built to support the arches after the fire. The capitals were carved later in the Late Decorated period, when the upper parts of the choir, triforium, clerestory, roof and east end were rebuilt. The builders were probably Bishops Welton and Appleby (1353-1395). When the choir was rebuilt in Early English times, the architect determined to enlarge it, and as the monastic buildings on the south prevented any expansion in that direction, the south piers of the choir retained their old position, while the north were moved further northward, and a new north aisle added. Thus the choir and the tower and nave are not quite symmetrical, and there is a blank wall at the north-west end of the choir which is thus accounted for. The details of the architecture of the choir merit close attention, especially the sculpture. Small figures of men, animals and monsters are mingled with the foliage. There are some admirable representations of the seasons, beginning with the second capital on the south, counting from the east end. There is a very fine timber roof, constructed about the middle of the fourteenth century. The scheme of colour decoration is, unfortunately, not original. The _East Window_ is one of the finest Decorated windows in the kingdom. The stone-work is new, but it is believed to be an exact reproduction of the original. It has nine lights. The glass of the upper portion is ancient, dating from the reign of Richard II. It represents the Resurrection, Final Judgment and the New Jerusalem. Hell is depicted with the usual mediæval realism. Below is modern glass, representing scenes from the life of our Lord. The _Stalls_ are Late Perpendicular, erected by Bishop Strickland, and are excellently carved. The tabernacle work is generally attributed to Prior Haithwaite (_circa_ 1433). There are some quaint and curious _misereres_, the carvings representing grotesque monsters, such as dragons and griffins, fables such as the Fox and the Goose, and a great variety of subjects. A Renaissance screen, erected by Salkeld, the last prior, divides the west bay of the presbytery from the north choir aisle. The altar, throne, lectern and pulpit are modern. There is a fine brass to the memory of Bishop Bell (1495) on the floor of the choir. Passing to the _North Choir Aisle_ we notice the Early English character of the arcade and windows. The latter have two lights, and have deep mouldings and dog-tooth ornament. The wall arcade is particularly graceful. The last bay eastward was built when the east window was erected, and is Late Decorated, and in the last bay west-ward there is a Perpendicular window. The vault was constructed after the fire of 1292. The two sepulchral recesses in the north wall are remarkable. They are of Early English character, and have a chevron moulding which is said to be unique. It is conjectured that the effigy in one of these recesses is that of Silvester of Everdon (1254), and that the other was intended for Bishop Hugh of Beaulieu, who died in Burgundy. In another bay is an aumbrey wherein treasures of plate and other valuables were stored. There is a late brass to the memory of Bishop Robinson (1416), formerly Provost of Queen's College, Oxford. Archdeacon Paley (1791), the learned divine whose _Evidences of Christianity_ is still a divinity text-book at Cambridge, lies buried here. The curious paintings on the back of the stalls, of late fifteenth-century execution, always interest visitors to the Cathedral. They illustrate the lives of St. Anthony and St. Cuthbert, with descriptive verses under each scene, and there is a set of figures of the Apostles with the words of the Apostles' creed traditionally assigned to each. The _Retro-Choir_ is very narrow and is of the same date as the window. Bishop Law's monument is here (1787), carved by T. Banks, R.A. The _South Choir Aisle_ resembles that on the north. The two western windows are later than the Early English ones in the opposite aisle. There are monuments here of Bishop Waldegrave (1869), Bishop Barrow (1429) (or Welton, 1362), Bishop Goodwin (1891), Dean Close (1882). The screen here is like that opposite by Prior Gondibour, who did so much to decorate his Cathedral, and to whom the paintings are assigned. The back of the stalls on this side has a representation of scenes from the life of St. Augustine, or, as curious descriptive verses call him, the "gret doctor Austyne." DIMENSIONS Length of nave 39 ft. Breadth of nave 60 ft. Height of nave 65 ft. Length of choir 134 ft. Breadth of choir 72 ft. Height of choir 72 ft. Height of tower 112 ft. Area 15,270 sq. ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES Norman (1092-1130)--South transept, piers of central tower, part of nave. Early English (1219-1260)--Walls and windows of choir aisles, part of main arcade of choir, St. Catherine's Chapel. Early Decorated (1292)--Part of main arcade of choir. Late Decorated (1353-1395)--Upper part of choir, east end and roof. Perpendicular (1400-1419)--Upper part of tower. NEWCASTLE CATHEDRAL The See of Newcastle was created in 1882, as the result of the spiritual expansion of the Church of England which caused the formation of so many new sees. In the days when England and Scotland were separate kingdoms, and when wars between the two countries were not infrequent, Newcastle occupied a position of great strategic importance. Here was a strong castle--the "new castle"--founded by Henry II. on the site of an older structure built in 1080 by the son of the Conqueror. It was the mightiest castle in the north of England, and its keep is one of the finest specimens of Norman military architecture remaining in the country. In this fortress Baliol was brought to do homage for the crown of Scotland to Edward I. The keep is still standing, and also the chapel, a fine specimen of Late Norman architecture. Many Roman remains have been found here. The Cathedral was formerly the old Parish Church of St. Nicholas. The style is principally Late Decorated. An older church was burned down in 1216. It consists of nave, aisles, chancel and transept. The total length is 245 feet, and the width 128 feet. The transept is Perpendicular in style, and so is the fine tower with spire built in 1474, which is the principal feature of the church. Frequent restorations have taken place and a very extensive renovation was effected in 1876 at a cost of £30,000. Admiral Collingwood, the comrade of Nelson, is buried here. The Norman Church of St. Andrew and the Church of St. John of the fourteenth century, with an ancient font, are the principal old churches in the town, and also the chapel of 1491 attached to Trinity House. The old Saxon churches of Jarrow and Monk Wearmouth are in the neighbourhood. DURHAM CATHEDRAL Durham Cathedral is one of the grandest buildings in the world. Standing upon the summit of a lofty hill, which rises abruptly from the River Wear, its position is one of surpassing beauty, and the dignity of the building, its massive walls and towers, and the interesting associations which cluster round the venerable pile, make it one of the most superb edifices in this or any other country. The story of Durham carries us back to the very early days of Christianity. In spite of the efforts of Paulinus the Saxons of Northumbria were still heathen until Oswald became king in 634, who was converted to Christianity by the monks of Iona, where a monastery had been founded by Columba, an Irish saint. Desiring to benefit his people, Oswald sent to Iona, and under St. Aidan a colony of monks was founded at Lindisfarne, or Holy Island. St. Cuthbert, the Patron Saint of Durham, succeeded, who died in 687. After the lapse of nearly two centuries the coast was harassed by the attacks of the Danes, and the monks fled from Lindisfarne, bearing with them their most precious relics and with these the body of St. Cuthbert. They wandered far and wide with their holy burden; a hundred years elapsed; generations of monks passed away; but the bones of the saint knew no rest. For a long time they tarried at Chester-le-Street, which became the seat of the Northumbrian bishopric; but still the savage Northmen threatened them with danger, and at last in 995 the wearied monks found a shelter on the lofty and impregnable rock where the Cathedral now stands, the abiding resting-place of St. Cuthbert's bones. On the outside of the church there is the figure of the Dun Cow, which is associated with their wanderings. It was revealed to one of the monks that Dunholme was to be their final home; but not knowing where this place was, they were in much distress. However, they heard a woman inquiring about her lost cow, to whom her companion replied that it was at Dunholme. "That was a happy and heavenly sound to the distressed monks," says the chronicler, "and thereupon with great joy they arrived with the saint's body at Dunholme in the year 997." Here they raised a church of boughs to cover their precious treasure and then a stone building, and then Bishop Aldwin "raised no small building of stone-work for his Cathedral church, when all the people between the Coquet and Tees three years were at work, and were paid for their pains with treasure in heaven, than which there was never a dearer or cheaper way to build churches." Around this holy house the city began to grow, which owes its importance and very existence to the monastery. Troublous times followed the advent of the Conqueror. Exasperated by the tyranny of the favourites of Walcher, the first Norman prelate, the people set fire to the church and slew the bishop. Then followed William de St. Carileph, who founded the present church. He expelled the secular clergy, and introduced the Benedictine rule. For the part he took in the rebellion against William Rufus he was exiled for three years, and lived in Normandy. Animated by the sight of the beautiful churches which there abounded he resolved to erect a more glorious edifice on the rugged hill of Durham, and on his return commenced the work. The foundation stone was laid in 1093. He began to build the east end of the choir, and continued the walls as far as the first arch of the nave. After his death in 1096, the prior and convent continued the building until the advent of Bishop Flambard (1099-1128), who carried on the work and nearly finished the nave, aisles, western towers and doorway. The chapter-house was erected by the next bishop, Galfrid Rufus (1133-1140). Bishop Hugh Pudsey (1153-1195) built the Galilee Chapel. In 1229 Bishop Poore, the builder of Salisbury, was translated to Durham; he discovered the unsafe condition of the eastern apsidal walls of his church, and determined to erect the beautiful Chapel of the Nine Altars, which is such a charming specimen of Early English architecture. He did not live to carry out his design, which was continued after his death under the rule of Prior Melsanby. The priors of Durham rivalled the bishops in their zeal for perfecting their noble Cathedral. Prior Darlington erected a belfry, and Prior Fossor part of the monastic buildings and the west windows of the nave in 1342. Bishop Skirlaw (1388-1405) was the chief builder of the present cloisters. In 1429 the tower was struck by lightning, and was rebuilt under the direction of Prior Bell. [Illustration Durham Cathedral] The church was now complete, but like most of our cathedrals it has suffered from the evils of "restoration," and Wyatt, the destructive architect of the eighteenth century, was allowed to do much damage. We shall notice his handiwork as we examine the details of the building. There seem to have been great disputes between the bishop and the monks, and the peace of this solemn sanctuary was often disturbed by angry quarrels and open violence. Sometimes the Scots made incursions, and on one occasion William Cumin seized the castle and committed great ravages. In the time of Bishop Hatfield was fought the great battle of Neville's Cross, when, by the aid of St. Cuthbert and his banner, the English won the day, and a hymn of thanksgiving is still sung every year on the top of the tower. The choir used to sing on all the four sides, but on one occasion a choir-boy fell, and ever since they only chant the hymn from three sides. The Bishops of Durham were great men, holding the rank of temporal princes or Counts Palatine. Their courts were independent of the king, and they could coin money and live as they listed. Moreover, many of them were mighty warriors. Bishop Anthony Bek took part in the Scottish wars, and had a vast army of knights and men-at-arms. It was not until the year 1836 that the dignity of Count Palatine was removed from the holders of the Durham See. Cardinal Wolsey was bishop here for six years, but never set foot in his diocese. The monastery was suppressed by Henry VIII., and a dean and chapter appointed. Many learned and good men have held the See of Durham, and the names of the last two bishops--Lightfoot and Westcott--will always be held in esteem. THE EXTERIOR As we approach the church from the Palace Green we notice the grand Norman building, which is much the same as when Bishop Carileph left it. At the east end there is the Early English Nine Altar Chapel, at the west the Galilee; the upper portions of the towers, the north porch and a few windows are the only additions, and the whole appearance of the church is at once bold, stern and commanding. The _Central Tower_, the work of Prior Bell, was built in 1471. The Bell Ringer's Gallery divides it into two portions, with two windows in each, the lower ones being glazed and the upper louvred. The panelled work, the ogee-shaped labels and the surmounting parapet proclaim their Perpendicular style. Two _Octagonal Towers_ of Norman character rise at the north corners of the north transept. The _Western Towers_ are Norman as far as the level of the nave roof, the upper portion being added in the thirteenth century, and the pinnacles and parapets at the end of the eighteenth. We have already alluded to the construction of the east end, which replaced the apsidal termination of the original building. The famous rose window is in the gable of the east end, and beneath are nine lofty lancet windows. Notice the sculpture of the Dun Cow in the north angle of the Nine Altars, placed there in 1775. The _Porch_ was built by Wyatt, and we can endorse the decision of Canon Greenwell, Durham's great historian, that "in its present condition it is a most unworthy and discreditable portal for so magnificent a temple as that into which it ushers the worshipper." The woodwork is ancient, and here we see the famous sanctuary knocker, which criminals used when they wished to gain an entrance and secure the rights of sanctuary from mob violence or secular law. Two porters were employed in watching for fugitives, and directly the refugee knocked he was admitted, clad in a black cloth gown, with a yellow cross on his left shoulder, conducted to a chamber near the south door of the Galilee Chapel, and given shelter for thirty-seven days. At the west end there is the _Galilee Chapel_, of Late Norman work, which covers the west door, over the main entrance. This door, walled up by Cardinal Langley in the fifteenth century, and re-opened in 1845, was made by Flambard (1099-1128). It has thirteen detached cartouches, each having an animal or flower within it, and is adorned with chevron ornament. The window was inserted by Prior Fossor (1342-1374), and contained coloured glass, represented "the Stem of Jesse," which was destroyed at the Reformation. In 1867 Dean Waddington restored the glass, reproducing the old design. The arch-destroyer, Wyatt, actually proposed to remove the Galilee Chapel, and make a carriage drive to the west door; but happily his nefarious design was frustrated. There are two south doorways; the one opposite the north door, known as the Monks' Door, was erected by Bishop Pudsey, and has fine carvings of floral and other designs upon the arches and columns. The mouldings and sculptures are most profuse, the zigzag and double chevron and diaper being extensively employed. The leaf pattern is observed on the arch, and the iron-work of the door is a fine specimen of Norman workmanship. The other doorway, known as the Prior's Door, is of the same date, but the carving is much decayed. We will now examine the _Cloisters_, enclosed on the north by the walls of the Cathedral, on the south by the refectory, on the east by the chapter-house, deanery and south transept, and on the west by the dormitory, now, together with the refectory, used as the library, and beneath it the so-called crypt, which was the common hall of the monks. The present buildings were erected by Bishop Skirlaw in the early years of the fifteenth century, the refectory being restored at the Restoration. A stone laver or conduit stood in the centre of the cloister erected in 1432, the basin only remaining. The _Chapter-House_ was a victim to Wyatt's misdoings, and the greater part was pulled down by him. It has, however, been recently restored in memory of Bishop Lightfoot, and is a noble chamber, having an apsidal termination at the east end, an arcade of interlacing arches running round the wall, and round-headed windows. The library and museum contains many objects of great interest, including a number of Roman altars and tablets, Saxon crosses and carved stones, remarkable for their beautiful scroll-work. There is the famous Ruthwell cross, memorial crosses of the four last Saxon bishops, Hadrian stone from the Roman wall, the monastic dining-table, a remarkable treasure-chest, with five different locks and keys, and--most interesting of all--the remains of St. Cuthbert's coffin, his robes, and other relics taken from his tomb. Amongst these we notice his stole and maniple and pectoral cross. In another case we see three rings of the first Norman bishops, and the crozier of Bishop Flambard. Durham has many interesting MSS., amongst others the Book of the Landisfarne Gospels, brought away by the monks when they fled from Holy Island, which fell into the waves and still retains the stains of sea water; a MS. of the seventh century, which once belonged to the Venerable Bede, and the Bede Roll (1456 and 1468), containing a list of all the religious houses in England and abroad which were asked for prayers for the souls of Priors Ebchester and Burnaby. The roof is remarkably fine. THE INTERIOR As we stand at the west door we get a magnificent view of this noble edifice, with its grand Norman cylindrical pillars, 23 feet in circumference, some adorned with zigzag furrows, others lozenge-shaped, with narrow ribs, or spiral, and arches round and carved, with rolls and chevron moulding. The capitals are cushioned, and cut octagonally. Above is the triforium, composed of large arches, enclosing two smaller ones, with cushioned capitals; and higher still the clerestory, composed of single round-headed windows, surmounted by the vaulting ribs, adorned with chevrons. This nave and aisles were built by Bishop Flambard (1099-1128). The roof of stone vaulting was finished in 1133, and Durham is said to be the only Cathedral in England which retains the original stone Norman vaulting over the nave. [Illustration The Galilee Chapel] The _Sanctuary Chamber_, wherein the hunted fugitives from justice found a shelter, formerly stood near the south door of the Galilee Chapel, but all traces have been removed. The font is modern, the subjects carved on it representing scenes from the life of St. Cuthbert. The canopy was erected by Bishop Cosin in 1663. The internal north doorway should be examined, especially the beautiful foliage-work. In the lozenges and mouldings there are some strange creatures represented--a centaur shooting with bow and arrow, a boy being whipped, a man riding a lion, and other curious subjects. Before proceeding eastward we will see the Galilee Chapel, which was the Lady Chapel, a beautiful specimen of Late Norman work, erected by Bishop Pudsey in 1175. Lady chapels usually stand at the east end, but no women were allowed to enter churches dedicated to St. Cuthbert, who has been accused of misogyny. We notice in the nave a boundary stone, beyond which no female foot might go in the direction of the high altar. We mark a change in the style of architecture from that used in the nave. The arches and columns are lighter, with graceful capitals, on which the volute appears. The style is approaching that of the graceful period of Early English. Cardinal Langley (1406-1437) made extensive alterations in this chapel, heightening the walls, erecting a new roof, inserting Perpendicular windows, closing the west door of the church, and making two other entrances. All visitors will approach with reverence and interest the tomb of the Venerable Bede, the great Anglo-Saxon scholar, and the father of English history. His bones were once covered with a splendid shrine, which the iniquitous commissioners of Henry VIII. destroyed. Now a plain marble slab, with the inscription: "_Hac sunt in fossa Bædæ Venerabilis ossa,_" alone marks the grave of this illustrious man. The altar of the Virgin stood in the great western doorway, which was then walled up, of which the stone slab carved with the five crosses, the aumbrey and some colouring alone remain. The builder of this chapel, Cardinal Langley, lies buried here, and his monument remains. Some much-damaged mural paintings mark the site of the Altar of Our Lady of Pity. The paintings are supposed to represent St. Oswald and St. Cuthbert. There is some uncertainty about the origin of the name "Galilee." Most probably it arose from the custom of the monks to go in procession at certain times around the church, and to halt at certain stations in memory of our Lord's appearance after His Resurrection. His last appearance was on a mountain in Galilee; it is therefore not improbable that the place where the procession made its final halt should receive that name. Here in ancient times the consistory court held its sittings, and here the commissioners of Henry VIII. met and destroyed, or appropriated, the rich store of treasures, the vestments, plate and ornaments which had been given to the Cathedral by countless generations of pious benefactors. Again entering the nave in the south aisle, we see the Neville monuments, which have been much mutilated by the Scottish prisoners, or during the Reformation period. Between the fifth and sixth pillars is an altar tomb to the memory of Lord John Neville and his wife Matilda (1386), daughter of Hotspur. The matrix of the brass of Bishop Robert Neville (1438-1457) is in front of this. In the next bay is the altar tomb of Lord Ralph Neville and his wife, Lady Alice (1374), who founded the Neville Chapel. Holes in the pillar show where the iron grating stood which divided the chapel from the rest of the church, and in this enclosure there was "an altar with a fair alabaster table above it, where Mass was daily celebrated." Traces of the colouring which once adorned this beautiful chapel can still be seen. Leaving the nave, we enter the _Transepts_, which were part of Carileph's work. The large window in the north transept was inserted by Prior Fossor (1341-1374), and is in the Decorated style. Prior Castell in 1512 restored the window, and filled it with coloured glass representing the four doctors--SS. Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory and Jerome. Hence it is known as the Window of the Four Doctors. In the south transept is the large Perpendicular _Te Deum_ window, erected about 1450. Some of the glass is ancient, but the greater part was inserted in 1869 in memory of Archdeacon Thorp. Altars stood formerly in the aisles at the north and south extremities of the transepts. Traces of colour may still be seen, and the remains of some brackets which contained sculptured figures. Chantrey's fine monument of Bishop Barrington (1791-1826) stands in the south transept. The whole of the lantern _Tower_ is of the Perpendicular style, and was probably built by Prior Bell (1464-1478). A gallery surrounds the lower stage, supported by grotesque heads. The Tudor flower ornament may be observed on the string-course over the panelling. The screen is modern, and was designed by Sir Gilbert Scott. Passing into the choir, the earliest part of the building, we see the Norman work of Carileph blended with the later Early English style. As we have already noticed, the east end of the Norman church terminated with apses. These were subsequently removed. The whole choir comprehends four pillars on each side, two of them clustered and two round, the latter of which are cut in a spiral form. The roof was new vaulted by Prior Horton, who succeeded in 1289, the ribs of the vaulting being decorated with the dog-tooth mouldings. The work around the altar is all Early English. Clustered pillars divide the nine altars from the choir, decorated with foliage. In the year 1650 a large number of Scottish prisoners were confined in the Cathedral, who did much damage to the internal fittings. In order to gain fresh air, or for love of mischief, they broke most of the windows, and the holes in the floor in the south transept show where they made their fires for cooking their meals. Another mark of their presence was the destruction of the woodwork of the choir, which they doubtless used for firewood. At the Restoration Bishop Cosin erected the present stalls. The _misereres_ are worthy of remark--lions, mermaids, monsters, apes, peacocks and dolphins being the most striking subjects. The modern lectern and pulpit are both very beautiful, the former being designed after the ancient lectern described in the _Rites of Durham_. The altar-screen is very graceful and beautiful, and was originally erected by Lord Neville of Raby in 1380, and much restored in 1876. It was originally painted, and the 107 niches were filled with images. The matrix of an immense brass to the memory of Bishop Beaumont (1318-1333) is seen near the altar steps. It must have been one of the largest brasses in England, and resembles the immense one at Lynn, Norfolk. The choir is paved with mosaics similar to those of the Confessor's Chapel at Westminster. [Illustration The Bishop's Throne] The magnificent tomb of Bishop Hatfield (d. 1381) is on the south side of the choir. He is habited in his episcopal dress. The outer garment is the chasuble, and beneath it the linen alb or surplice. His hands are covered with episcopal gloves, embroidered on the back; on his left arm is the maniple. The tomb was originally gilded and coloured. Above is the throne erected by him, the highest in England. The monument of Bishop Lightfoot stands opposite. The _North and South Aisles of the Choir_ are similar in their architectural features to the choir itself, showing the blending of the stately Norman with the graceful Early English work. The monks used frequently to resort to the north aisle, where was a porch having an altar, with a rood and pictures of St. Mary and St. John, where they sang Mass daily. Certain holes in the stone mark the place of the porch, sometimes called the anchorage. Bishop Skirlaw's tomb stood between the third and fourth piers, before the old altar of St. Blaze. His monument has disappeared, but the stone bench remains, erected by him for his almsmen to sit upon. In the _South Aisle_ the doorway of the great vestry remains, though the building was destroyed in 1802. The grave cover of the Prior of Lytham, a cell belonging to Durham, is preserved here. Here also stood the famous Black Rood of Scotland, captured from King David Bruce of Scotland at Neville's Cross (1346). And now we will enter the _Chapel of the Nine Altars_, at the extreme east of the building. It was commenced in 1242, and the architect was Richard de Farnham, probably a relation of Nicholas de Farnham, then bishop. Prior Melsanby (1233-1244) presided over the erection of the building, and the name of the master-mason is preserved on an inscription: _Thomas Moises_. We notice the nine-lancet windows (under each of which stood an altar separated from its neighbour by screens and partitions of wainscot); the large rose window, "restored" by Wyatt; the beautiful arcade, with its trefoiled arches and deeply-cut mouldings, raised on slender shafts of marble, and surmounted by capitals. The altars were dedicated (beginning on the south side) to St. Andrew and St. Mary Magdalene; St. John the Baptist and St. Margaret; St. Thomas à Becket and St. Catherine; St. Oswald and St. Lawrence; St. Cuthbert and St. Bede; St. Martin and St. Edmund; St. Peter and St. Paul; St. Aidan and St. Helen; St. Michael, the Archangel. Forty years were consumed in building this chapel, and the style developed as the work progressed. The north end was finished last, as we see from the noble double-traceried window, one of the finest in existence. The south windows are Perpendicular. Among the monuments are those of Bishop Bury, tutor of Edward III. (1345), and Bishop Bek (1310), and Bishop Van Mildert (1836), the last of the prince bishops. Behind the high altar is all that remains of the famous shrine of St. Cuthbert, once the glory of Durham, where countless pilgrims came to pay their devotions and offerings, and seek the protection of the saint. The cavities in the floor are said to have been worn by their feet. The grave of the saint was opened in 1827, and the vestments and other relics taken from it are kept in the library, and have already been described. On the south of the church is _the College_, containing the Deanery and prebendal houses. The gate is an interesting structure, built by Prior Castell in 1515. THE CASTLE William the Conqueror in 1072, when Walcher was bishop, on his return from Scotland, ordered the castle to be built, which was continued by Carileph and Flambard. Bishop Pudsey erected a new wall and a hall which bears his name, and Bishop Bek built the hall on the west of the courtyard. Bishop Hatfield rebuilt the keep. Tunstall's Gallery (1530-1558) connects the great hall and clock tower, and his chapel is remarkable for its beautifully-carved stalls. At the Restoration the castle was in a ruinous condition. It had been sold to the Lord Mayor of London. The Scots had plundered it; and Bishop Cosin set to work to rebuild and repair the home of his predecessors. In 1840 the keep was rebuilt, and the castle is now the seat of the University of Durham. The most interesting _Churches_ in the city are St. Mary le Bow (rebuilt 1685); St. Mary the Less (Norman, but much "restored"); St. Oswald (1190, with many subsequent rebuildings); St. Margaret (1154); St. Giles (1112). About four miles from Durham are the beautiful ruins of Finchale Priory, which was commenced in 1240 and finished about a century later. The Priory was suppressed at the Reformation. DIMENSIONS OF THE CATHEDRAL Total length, 470 ft.; length of nave, 201 ft.; width of nave with aisles, 60 ft.; height of nave, 72 ft.; length of choir, 133 ft.; length of Nine Altars Chapel, 131 ft.; height of west towers, 144 ft.; height of central tower, 218 ft.; area, 44,400 sq. ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES Norman (1093-1140)--nave, choir, aisles, west towers, doorways, chapter-house; (1153-1195)--Galilee Chapel. Early English (1238-1275)--Nine Altars Chapel, choir vault. Decorated (1342-1346)--window in north transept and west windows of nave. Perpendicular (1386-1500)--cloisters, dormitory, central tower; (1661-1684)--library. [Illustration PLAN OF DURHAM CATHEDRAL] RIPON CATHEDRAL The historical associations of Ripon carry us back to very early times. Alcfrid, Prince of Deira, was lord of the soil in the seventh century, and in 660 bestowed on Eata, Abbot of Melrose, a portion of the ground at Ripon whereon to erect a monastic foundation. After the expulsion of the Scottish monks the same prince gave the monastery to St. Wilfrid, who, after he became archbishop, erected a church. This was of the basilican type, with which St. Wilfrid had made himself familiar during his sojourn in Italy. With the earlier monastery was associated the holy Cuthbert, who was the Hostillar. Wilfrid was ordained at Ripon, and here he resided when his episcopal seat was usurped by Ceadda (or Chad). The site of the old monastery was on the north-east side of the present Cathedral, bounded by Stammer Gate and Priest Lane. Wilfrid built his new monastery about 200 yards west of the old buildings. There is some doubt about the position of his church. It is the pronounced opinion of the learned that the famous Saxon crypt under the present church is really his work. Did he build an earlier church, and that which stood over this crypt later? Possibly so--but, in all probability, we may conclude that the monastic buildings only occupied the site on the west of Stammer Lane, and that his church stood over his crypt. This church was a very famous one. It is recorded that he brought workmen from Italy, who wrought in the Roman manner. It was fashioned after the model of a basilica, and constructed with wrought stones from the foundation, and had divers pillars and porticoes. It was dedicated to St. Peter, and splendid was the feast of the dedication. Here St. Wilfrid, after all the trials of his wandering life, was buried. For a brief space Ripon enjoyed the rank of an episcopal city, being so raised by Archbishop Theodore, and then for a thousand years the see was in abeyance, until in 1836 another Bishop of Ripon was appointed. But much happened during this long interval. When the Danes terrified the land, in 995, came Bishop Aldune, bearing the body of St. Cuthbert, and stayed here three months until they set out and found peace at Durham. Before this Odo of Canterbury, coming into these northern parts, had pity on the desolation of Ripon Church, wrought by the "harrying" of Eadred of Northumbria in 948, and caused a new work to be edified where the minster now is. After the Conquest hard was the hand of William pressed upon his northern subjects, who liked not his yoke, and all this land was devastated by the Norman conquerors. But with the Conquest came peace, and soon some building was evidently set on foot here, though the chroniclers are silent. In later Norman times Archbishop Roger de Pont l'Evêque (1154-1181) began the building of the existing church, incorporating some portion of the older structure. His work is Transitional, and furnishes a good example of the gradual development of Early English style. Archbishop Walter de Grey (1216-1255) carried on the good work and built the west front with its flanking towers, adorned with lofty spires of timber and lead. The next alteration was carried out at the end of the thirteenth century, when Archbishop John Romanus determined to rebuild the eastern part of the choir, and for this purpose granted an indulgence of forty days to those who should help forward the work. This work was in all the glory of the Decorated style. The Scots made a ferocious raid in 1319, when the people of Ripon took refuge in the church, which suffered much from the attacks of the enemy. Archbishop de Melton repaired some of this damage, which was chiefly confined to the roofs, screens, stalls, and other woodwork, and Archbishop Thoresby (1352-1373) was very eager to continue this restoration and beautify the minster. He probably built the Lady Chapel. A century elapsed, during which the clergy do not seem to have been remarkable for zeal or earnestness, and then the lantern tower was so much shaken and broken that the greatest part thereof had already fallen, and the rest expected to follow, and speedy remedy was found immediately necessary. Archbishop Booth in 1459 adopted the usual and efficacious plan of granting an indulgence of forty days to all who should assist in re-edifying the steeple. The work was immediately begun, and a great era of church building was inaugurated. The canons awoke from their lethargy and worked vigorously. They rebuilt much of the tower, and then set themselves to entirely rebuild the Norman nave, which was in great decay and ruin. It was a great work, and nobly done. The fall of the tower had broken much of the woodwork of the stalls; so these indefatigable canons made new ones. It was only the dissolution of the Establishment which checked their progress, and prevented them from finishing their work. The church was despoiled of all its wealth, and in Elizabeth's time, when Archbishop Sandys applied for an endowment, he could obtain "nothing but fair and unperformed promises." Elizabeth loved not this northern town, the people of which clung to the "old Religion," and took an active part in the rising of 1569. Many of them were hung for their pains. James I., however, restored the constitution of the collegiate chapter, and granted to it many of its old privileges and an assured income. During the Civil War Ripon escaped fairly well, save that the Puritan soldiers broke much of the beautiful glass in the east window, and perhaps were guilty of causing other damage, of which history telleth not. In 1660 the wooden spire, which had suffered by lightning in 1593, fell, and damaged the roof of the choir. This was repaired, and the other wooden spires on the west towers removed lest they, too, should fall. Since then there have been several restorations. In 1861 the church was placed in the hands of Mr. Scott, afterwards Sir Gilbert, who made a very complete renovation of the building, the details of which we will examine when we inspect the Cathedral. [Illustration Ripon Cathedral from North Evening] In 1836 an episcopal see was erected at Ripon, and Charles Langley, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, became its first bishop. THE EXTERIOR Although Ripon is not a Cathedral of the first magnitude or splendour, yet it is a stately structure, and greatly superior to many of our ecclesiastical buildings. It possesses also some features of profound interest, and the story of its building is attractive. Approaching the church from the market-place by Kirkgate we see the beautiful _West Front_, which compares favourably with most others, except perhaps York, Lincoln, Peterborough and Wells. It has much dignity and beauty. It consists of a gable between two square towers. The nave, built by Archbishop Roger, was Late Norman or Transitional, and to this Archbishop Grey added this façade in the best and purest period of the Early English style. In the lowest storey are three deeply-recessed doorways, with detached shafts. Round and hollow mouldings are used, and the dog-tooth ornament, the hall-mark of the Early English style, is plentiful. The doors are old. Above are five-lancet windows, and above them another row of five lancets of unequal height. The dog-tooth is used in the mouldings. The towers have four stages. In the lowest is an arcade of trefoiled arches, and above lancets. Nail-head moulding is used in the string-courses. When the spires were pulled down in 1660, battlemented parapets were added, and later the pinnacles. The whole front has been much restored. There is a fine peal of ten bells in the south tower. There were formerly some old bells, one of which is said to have been brought from Fountains Abbey, but these have all been recast, and their interest has vanished. The nave has six bays, and was built in Perpendicular style in 1503. The south side is earlier than and superior to the north. The arches of the windows are less acutely pointed, and the buttresses have three stages, are crocketed, and have large finials. The pitch of the roof has been lowered since the nave was built. [Illustration The Great Buttresses Ripon] The _Central Tower_ was rebuilt on the south and east sides in Perpendicular times, while the north and west retain Roger's work. It was formerly capped by a spire. Returning to the north side we see the north side of the nave, which is later than the south. There are six buttresses, which project widely and have two stages with crockets and finials, and grotesques. The arches of the windows both in the aisles and clerestory are very acute, and those of the latter have five lights. From this point we see the original faces of the central tower, built by Roger (1154-1181), which has round-headed windows. The presence of dog-tooth shows the approach of the Early English style. The _North Transept_ is also part of Roger's church and the best example of his work; it has round-headed windows. The parapet is later. We notice two sculptured stones in the north-west buttress, with rich scroll-work, evidently Saxon, and probably taken from Wilfrid's church. The doorway in the north side is remarkable, having a plain trefoil head rising from a corbel-like projection, and is flanked by three receding detached shafts with foliated capitals. The _Choir_ has three bays of Transitional Norman work, but the windows are Decorated. The remainder of this side was built late in the thirteenth century and is Decorated. The east end, with its grand window, is very fine. Massive buttresses stand on each side of the front with octagonal turrets. In the north turret there is a small chamber which was probably a reclusorium. The east window is flanked by heavy buttresses. The gable was rebuilt by Scott. The window (51 feet by 25 feet) is a magnificent specimen of Early Decorated work, one of the finest in England. On the south side we see the three eastern windows are Decorated as on the north, but the rest are Perpendicular. On this side is a building which retains some of the earliest Norman work in the Cathedral, probably built by Thomas of Bayeaux, archbishop (1069-1100). This building has three storeys--a crypt, the chapter-house and the Lady Chapel (erected in the fourteenth century), which we shall examine later. The _South Transept_ retains much of Roger's Transitional work, but the east side was altered and rebuilt in Perpendicular times. On the south side is a fine doorway contemporary with the transept and resembling somewhat that on the north. [Illustration The Apse Ripon Cathedral] THE INTERIOR Entering by the west door we see a fine and imposing _Nave_, with tall and graceful piers that support without any intermediate triforium a range of lofty windows of elaborate tracery. This nave was constructed in the Perpendicular period, as we have said, and the main arcades stand on the foundation of Roger's earlier church. The latter had no aisles. These the sixteenth-century builders added, taking as their western starting-point the northern and southern extremities of the west tower. Hence the nave is unusually wide (87 feet), and exceeds all other cathedrals except York, Chichester, Winchester and St. Paul's. There are many points of architectural interest. The west bays opening into the tower are Early English. On either side is a lofty thirteenth-century arch, with plain mouldings, and capitals deeply undercut. Above is a blind arcade of four arches enclosed in a circular arch--this occupies the triforium stage; and the clerestory has a triple window, the centre round-headed, the side ones pointed. The west end, with its ranges of lancets, is most effective. The glass is modern. The next bay shows us clearly the character of Roger's church, and eastward we come to the Perpendicular work of the early sixteenth century, which appears to be earlier than it really is. The traditions of the earlier style lingered on amid the hills and dales of Yorkshire, while the architects and townsfolk of less remote places had developed the more familiar details of the Perpendicular period. The roof is modern. The arch of the tower facing us is part of Roger's church, but there is a curious mass of masonry on the south pier which was erected by the Perpendicular builders, when want of funds or the dissolution of the chapter prevented the completion of the design. The contrast between the materials of the old building and the new in the nave will be noticed. The former is fashioned of yellow gritstone, the latter of white limestone. The aisles are Perpendicular work erected about 1503. The vaulting is modern. In the south aisle is the font, or rather there are two fonts. The earlier one reposes in the corner, and is Roger's work; the later is Perpendicular. Ripon is not very rich in monuments. In this same aisle there is a curious altar tomb with a slab of grey marble, upon which is carved the figure of a lion and near it that of a man kneeling. Tradition states that it covered the body of an Irish prince, who died here on his return from Palestine, whence he had brought a lion that followed him like a dog. There is some old glass, fragments of which have been collected in the window near the font. In the _North Aisle_ at the west end is the consistory court. The old _Saxon Crypt_ deserves close attention and has occasioned many conjectures and much antiquarian disputing. It is undoubtedly very early, and may with safety be assumed to have been part of St. Wilfrid's church. After descending several steps and passing along passages, which have two niches in the wall, we arrive at a cylindrically vaulted chamber (7 feet by 11 feet), and on the north side is the famous "St. Wilfrid's Needle." Formerly the superstition attached to it was that no unchaste woman could with safety pass through it; now we are told that if a virgin "threads the needle" she will be married within a year. This needle is only an enlargement of one of the niches which were doubtless used for lights. Recent excavations have been made here, which revealed the remains of an altar, a passage round the chamber, and a quantity of bones which were probably relics. It is conjectured that this was a relic chamber, and was built under the church of Wilfrid. It is impossible to touch upon all the interesting problems which this curious chamber suggests, especially as affecting the position and form of Wilfrid's early Saxon church. The _Transepts_ retain, with the exception of the east wall of the southern member, Archbishop Roger's Transitional work, when Norman architecture was slowly developing into Early English. There is a niche on the east side of each transept. A Perpendicular arch forms an entrance to the _North Transept_ from the north aisle, and on the north of this is a round-headed window. The triforium has two broad arches in each bay with a central detached shaft, while the clerestory has three arches, the centre round, the others pointed. In the north wall there are three round-headed windows in the highest stage. The mullions in the windows in the second stage are later insertions. On the east is the Chantry of St. Andrew, the Markenfields' Chapel. Outside the aisle is the effigy of Sir Thomas (1497), with that of his lady, and another Sir Thomas lies in the chapel (notice the armour and collar). This family lost its estates in the rising in the time of Elizabeth. Also there is the monument of Sir Edward Blackett of Newby (1718). The _South Transept_ resembles the north, except that its east side is Perpendicular. The aisle is called the Mallorie Chapel, and there is a tablet to the memory of Sir John Mallorie of Studley, who defended Skipton Castle for Charles I. There are some ancient mural paintings, which may be seen when going to the library. The _Choir-Screen_ is Perpendicular, and has beautiful enriched tabernacle work. Above the door is a representation of God the Father with angels. Above the screen is the organ. The _Choir_ is a delightful architectural study, as the work of three periods are blended here--Transition Norman, Decorated and Perpendicular. The three western bays on the north are Roger's work, Transitional Norman. The three bays opposite were injured by the fall of the tower and renewed in Perpendicular style. The rest of the choir was renewed in the Decorated style of the fourteenth century. The three bays on the north resemble the work in the transept. The group of vaulting shafts is very fine. The triforium openings are glazed like the clerestory. A change was made in Perpendicular times. Before the triforium arches opened into the aisles, but the roof of these was lowered in 1459, and the openings filled with glass. There is some of Roger's work in the other bays, the earlier work being altered and converted into that of the Decorated style. In the clerestory there is tracery on the inner side of the opening as well as the outer. The foliage of the carving is very beautiful. The roof is modern, but some very interesting ancient bosses have been re-inserted. Some of the subjects are:--the Good Samaritan, the expulsion from Paradise, the Virgin with lilies, the crucifixion (modern), a bishop, a king, an angel. The east window is remarkably fine, one of the best Decorated windows in England. All the old glass was destroyed by Cromwell's soldiers, and the modern glass is but a sorry substitute. The woodwork of the _Stalls_ is for the most part of excellent fifteenth-century execution. Rich tabernacle work rises at the back of the stalls. Several of the eastern canopies are modern. The finials are curious; some represent an elephant and castle with figures of men fighting, and a monkey. The _misereres_ are interesting; the carvings represent many curious grotesques, fables and Scripture subjects. We notice Samson carrying the gates, Jonah and the whale, fox and geese, lion and dogs, griffins and rabbits, etc. The _sedilia_ should be noticed. They have been restored, but much old work remains of Late Decorated style. A close examination of the grotesques should not be omitted. The pulpit and lectern are modern. The _North Choir Aisle_ follows the architecture of the choir. Here once stood the famous shrine of St. Wilfrid. The _South Choir Aisle_ is very similar to the opposite one. Here is a lavatory, and a piscina at the east end marks the site of a former altar. Above the west bay was a chantry chapel, now used for part of the organ. There is a monument in this aisle to Dean Fowler (1608). On the south is the _Chapter-House_ and _Vestry_. The _Crypt_ below formed part of the Early Norman church existing here before the rebuilding by Archbishop Roger. It is generally attributed to Thomas of Bayeaux (1070-1100). The vault is supported by square pillars with plain capitals. The windows have a double splay, which is a sign of almost Saxon work. The east end is apsidal. This crypt was formerly filled with bones. There are some interesting stone coffins preserved here. Returning to the _Chapter-House_ we notice the stone benches where the canons once sat in conclave. The vaulting is very fine, of Late Transitional work, almost Early English. This chamber was built by Roger. An arcade runs along the north wall. The windows are circular, the piers round, and have circular bosses and capitals. Some curious fifteenth-century alabaster carvings are preserved here, the subjects being St. Wilfrid, the Coronation of the Virgin and the Resurrection. The _Vestry_ is evidently of the same date as the chapter-house, and once formed part of the same building, the partition wall being much later. It has an apse with the remains of an altar and the treasury occupied the apse on the south. Above these chambers is the _Lady Loft_, the date of which is uncertain; it was probably built about 1330, and is Decorated in style. It is strange to find a Lady Chapel in this position. The room is now the library. It possesses some interesting incunabula and a few MSS. Dimensions Total length 270 ft. Length of nave 133 ft. Breadth of nave 87 ft. Height of nave 88 ft. Length of choir 95 ft. Height of tower 110 ft. Length of transept 130 ft. Area 25,280 sq. ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES Saxon--Wilfrid's crypt. Norman (1070-1100)--Portions of chapter-house, vestry and crypt below. Transition (1154-1181)--Three bays of north side of choir, portions of nave, piers adjoining west and central towers, transepts. Early English (1215-1255)--West front and west tower, vaulting of chapter-house and windows. Early Decorated--Two eastern bays of choir and east window. Perpendicular--South and east sides of central tower, east side of wall of south transept, two bays south side of choir, nave. Ripon has some other important and interesting ancient buildings. There is the _Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene_, rebuilt in 1674, with an old chapel of the twelfth century. The Hospital of St. Anne, founded in the fifteenth century, though rebuilt in 1869, has its old chapel, with piscina and altar stone, and there are many other old houses in this city. Near here is the famous Fountains Abbey. YORK CATHEDRAL Few cities can rival York in interest, dignity and importance. The ancient city of Roman Cæsars, the centre of Saxon Christianity, of Danish supremacy, of mercantile enterprise, the abode of kings, the seat of an archbishopric that long contended for supremacy with Canterbury, York may well claim a foremost place in English history, and possesses features of peculiar interest. Professor Freeman stated that "Eboracum (York) holds a place which is unique in the history of Britain, which is shared only by one other city in the lands north of the Alps (Treves)." Here the Emperor Constantius died, here Constantine the Great was crowned. Bishops of York were present at the Councils of Arles (314), Nicæa and Sardica, and when the Christian faith died out, killed by Pagan Saxons, Paulinus taught again the lessons of the holy Cross, and baptised Edwin, the king, in a little wooden church which stood on the site of the present Cathedral. Then Christianity died down, killed by the onslaughts of fierce Paganism, until at length, under the influence of Oswald and the monks of Iona and Lindisfarne, the Cross again triumphed. There was much contention between the Roman faction, led by Wilfrid, and the upholders of the native church, as regards customs and observances, and the influence of Wilfrid predominated. Wilfrid was a great builder, restored the Cathedral at York and erected large churches at Ripon and Hexham. The Danes overran Northumbria, and under their rule York increased its importance and became a large and flourishing city. Then came the Norman Conquest, and we find Ældred, Archbishop of York, crowning William at Westminster, but his people liked not the change of rulers and rebelled. The Conqueror came and ruthlessly crushed the revolt, and after his wont erected a castle to overawe his subjects. Again they rebelled; the king swore deep vengeance, and terrible was the punishment inflicted on the northern kingdom. He appointed Thomas of Bayeaux archbishop, who set about repairing the ruined church, and built a new nave with side aisles and transepts, using the old church as a choir for the new. For years the question of the supremacy of York or Canterbury disturbed the ecclesiastical affairs of England, and on one occasion at a council the Metropolitan of York, finding his brother of Canterbury occupying the seat of honour at the right of the Papal legate, gravely sat down on the latter's lap. In the reign of Henry II. came Roger de Pont l'Evêque, who built the new choir and crypt, removing the remains of the old Saxon church. The people of York have ever been eager for fighting, revolt and riot. Sometimes we find them killing Jews; now disputing with the monks of St. Mary's Abbey, because some offending citizen had escaped their vengeance by claiming the right of sanctuary; now fighting against the Scots, and even rebelling against rulers who were obnoxious to them. Kings of the House of Lancaster were especially hateful, and nowhere in the kingdom did reformers of religion find more bitter opponents. During the rule of Walter de Grey, archbishop (1216-1255), the Norman transepts were removed and the present ones built, and in the reign of the Edwards the old Norman nave was replaced by the present one, and the chapter-house built. At this period York enjoyed much prosperity. The Scottish wars brought kings here who made it the military and civil capital of the whole country. Parliaments were held here. York Minster saw the marriage of Edward III., and the burial of his infant son. But rebellions against the kings of the House of Lancaster, the famous Pilgrimage of Grace against the reformed doctrines, and other risings, diminished its influence and deprived it of many privileges. York was besieged for six weeks during the Civil War, and suffered much; but happily General Fairfax exercised a restraining influence on his soldiers and prevented them from damaging the Cathedral. Although the citizens at the Reformation rebelled against the "new Religion," at the Restoration they rebelled against the overthrow of Puritanism; and again, when James II. endeavoured to restore Roman Catholicism, they rebelled again, attacked the Roman Catholic prelate whom the king sent to them, wrested from him his silver-gilt crozier, and took it in triumph to the minster, where it remains until this day. We will now briefly trace the history of the building, which has been rightly called "the King of Cathedrals." In 627 Paulinus built his little wooden church for the baptism of King Edwin. A year later a stone church was begun, which was finished by Oswald and repaired by Wilfrid. In the crypt are some of the walls of this early church, which show the "herring-bone" work of Saxon builders. When the Conqueror besieged York much destruction was wrought on this church. [Illustration Tomb of Archbishop Walter de Grey] In 1070 Archbishop Thomas of Bayeaux built the Norman nave and transepts, and used the old church as the choir. The apse in the crypt and the core of the tower piers are the remains of this work. In 1154-1181 choir and crypt were rebuilt by Roger in Late Norman style. In 1230-1260 the present transepts were built. In 1291-1324 Norman nave was taken down and the new nave built, and also the chapter-house, vestibule, sacristy and treasury. In 1338 the west front of nave was erected. In 1361-1400 choir rebuilt and Lady Chapel. In 1400-1423 central tower built in place of Early English lantern. In 1433-1474 north and south-western towers built. The Cathedral was now complete. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the organ-screen was erected, and two disastrous fires in 1829 and 1840 necessitated considerable repairs, and in 1875 some needful restoration of the south transept was carried out. THE EXTERIOR The _West Front_ is "more architecturally perfect as a composition and in its details than that of any other English cathedral," and is unquestionably the best cathedral façade in this country. The lower part, with the entrances and lower windows, belongs to the Early Decorated period. Above the windows the work is Late Decorated, and the towers above the roof Perpendicular. Numerous niches cover the surface. It is doubtful whether they ever contained statues. The principal entrance is divided by a clustered pier, and above it is a circle filled with cusped tracery. Over the whole doorway is a deeply-recessed arch, and over that a gable with niches, one of which contains the statue of an archbishop, supposed to be John le Romeyn, who began the nave in 1291, and other niches have figures of a Percy and a Vavasour, who gave the wood and stone for the building. The favourite ball-flower ornament of the Decorated style is seen on the gable, and the mouldings in the arches have figures representing the history of Adam and Eve. Above the entrance is a large eight-light window, pronounced by many to be too large even for York Minster, containing very elaborate and beautiful tracery, and over it is a pointed gable. On each side of the west window are buttresses covered with panelling and niches. The noble towers, rising on each side of the west front, have buttresses similarly adorned, and each three windows, and over the second an open battlement forms a walk along the whole front. The towers have battlements and pinnacles. The south-west tower (1433-1457) was injured by fire in 1840; and the north tower (1470-1474) has the largest bell in the kingdom. [Illustration Chapter House Herbert Railton] The _Nave_ is divided into seven bays by high buttresses, on the south side crowned with pinnacles. It was evidently originally intended to connect them with the clerestory wall by flying buttresses to support a stone vaulted roof. But the builders were alarmed by the great span of the roof and substituted a wooden vault. Hence the flying buttresses were not needed. There are some curious gargoyles. The north side is plainer, as formerly the Palace would conceal any elaborate carving. The style is Decorated. The _South Transept_ (1216-1241) is of Early English design. The central porch is not remarkable, though the clustered shafts are very fine, ornamented with dog-tooth ornament. On each side are lancet windows, and above similar windows; higher still a large rose window, and in the gable a cusped triangular light. Arcaded buttresses with octagonal turrets rise on each side. Extensive restoration took place in 1871, when the old clock was removed. The _Choir_ and _Lady Chapel_ are Perpendicular work. The four eastern bays, constituting the Lady Chapel, are earlier than the later ones of the choir, and vary in detail. The triforium passage in the former is outside the building, and the windows are recessed. Strange gargoyles, with figures of apes and demons, adorn the buttresses. The east end is mainly filled with the huge window, the largest in England, which does not leave much space for architectural detail. Above it is the figure of Archbishop Thoresby, the builder of this part of the Cathedral. Panelling covers the surface of the stone, and below the window is a row of seventeen busts, representing our Lord and His Apostles, Edward III. and Archbishop Thoresby. There are two aisle windows; buttresses adorned with niches separate the aisles from the central portion, and others, capped with spires, stand on the north and south of this front. The _Chapter-House_ (Early Decorated) is octagonal, and connected with the north transept by a vestibule, which shows by its architectural details that it was built after the completion of the chapter-house. These constitute the finest examples of Decorated Gothic in England. Buttresses project at each angle, crowned with pinnacles. Curious grotesque gargoyles are seen, and amongst them some strange-looking bears. The roof is in the form of a pyramid, and there is a battlement surrounding it. The _North Transept_ (1241-1260) is a beautiful specimen of Early English work. The five long lancet windows, called the "Five Sisters," surmounted by the seven lancets in the gable, are most effective. The _Central Tower_ is the largest in England, and is in the Perpendicular style (1410-1433). It is 200 feet high. It has windows ornamented with ogee gables, and its surface is covered with niches and panelling. A pair of narrow buttresses support each angle of the tower, decorated with panelling. This tower is one of the greatest achievements of the fifteenth-century builders, and is one of the finest in the world. THE INTERIOR _The Nave._--The first impression on viewing this nave is a sense of its magnitude. Archbishop Romeyn and his builders determined to build a vast church which would eclipse all other rivals. They would have large windows, high, towering piers, a huge, vaulted roof, and everything that was grand and impressive. Edward I. was then fighting with the Scots, and made York his chief city. It was immensely prosperous, and the ecclesiastical treasury was replete with the offerings of knights and nobles, kings and pilgrims. Nowhere should there be so mighty a church as York Minster. In order to have space for large windows they made the triforium unusually small, which is formed only by a continuation of the arches of the clerestory windows. The design for the stone vaulted roof was never carried out. The builders feared that the great weight of a roof with so large a span would be too much for the walls, so a wooden vault was substituted. The piers have octagonal bases, and consist of various sized shafts closely connected. The capitals are beautifully enriched with foliage of oak and thorn, and sometimes a figure is seen amidst the foliage. We notice thirty-two sculptured busts at the intersection of the hood moulding with the vaulting shafts. Coats of arms of the benefactors of York appear on each side of the main arches. The clerestory windows have each five lights. The old roof was destroyed by fire in 1840. The present one has a vast number of bosses representing the Annunciation, Nativity, Magi, Resurrection, besides a quantity of smaller ones. The whole scheme of decoration is most elaborate. [Illustration North Aisle of Choir Herbert Railton] The west window is a noble specimen of Decorated work, with its curvilinear tracery, one of the finest in the kingdom. It has been entirely restored. There are eight lights. It was glazed by Archbishop Melton (1317-1340). Niches and arcading cover the west wall. The pinnacles are carved with figures of men and animals, and also the brackets of the niches. The aisles have stone vaulting, windows Decorated like the west window, carved panels and arcading work. Over the north doorway are some sculptured figures of doubtful signification. The walled-up door which led to the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre has a headless figure of the Virgin. Here is a tomb of an archbishop of Late Perpendicular work, with Tudor flower cornice. All the other monuments have been destroyed. Over the south aisle door are three sculptured representations of David killing the lion, Samson and the lion with Delilah cutting his hair, and a man and woman fighting. The glass of the windows should be especially noticed. Most of it is either Decorated or Early English. The _South Transept_ is the earliest part of the present Cathedral (1230-1241). The finest view is obtained on entering by the south door. The extraordinary magnitude of the transepts, the five lancets with their old glass, and the beauty of the Early English architecture, are most striking. The triforium is not dwarfed as in the nave, but assumes large proportions, whereas the clerestory is small. The former consists of semi-circular moulded arches, with dog-tooth ornament, each enclosing two pointed arches, and sub-divided into two similar arches. Five pointed arches in each bay constitute the clerestory, with sculptured heads. Clustered shafts of stone and Purbeck marble form the piers. The vaulting is of wood of the fifteenth century, and the bosses are curious. A mermaid and merman, a monk and a nun, look down upon us; an arcade of pointed arches lines the walls. Chantry chapels were formerly in the east aisle. On the south was Ludham's Chantry, archbishop (1258-1265). It contains the large modern monument of Dean Duncombe. Next we see the Chapel of St. Michael with the tomb of its founder, Archbishop Grey (1216-1255), the builder of this transept, and near it the monument of Archbishop Sewal de Bovill (1256-1258). The _North Transept_ resembles the south, but differs in details. Especially noticeable is the profusion of dog-tooth ornament, the magnificent lancet windows, called the "Five Sisters," with the five smaller ones over it. These are the largest ancient lancets in England.[16] Curious grotesques are seen in the triforium moulding. The monuments here are:--(1) a brass to the memory of soldiers slain in India; (2) Archbishop Harcourt's tomb (1808-1843); (3) a skeleton memorial of Thomas Huxby, treasurer (1418-1424); (4) Archbishop Greenfield's tomb (d. 1315), which lies before the place where the altar of St. Nicholas stood; (5) effigy of Dr. Beckwith (d. 1847). In 1829 a disastrous fire occurred in the Cathedral, caused by a lunatic incendiary named Martin. He hid himself on the night of the fire behind the tomb of Archbishop Greenfield. There is a curious doorway leading to the vestibule of the chapter-house of Decorated style. Entering the _Vestibule_ we notice the exact place where the Early English builders finished their work, and the Decorated style begins. The difference between the styles in the chapter-house and vestibule shows that the former was erected first. It has a wall arcade, and above are windows of curious tracery, filled with beautiful old glass. The shafts of the arcade support trefoiled arches, with a cinquefoil ornamented with a sculptured boss. Each boss and capital is beautifully carved with foliage, amidst which the heads of men and dragons appear. The glass is Early Decorated, and contains representations of Royal personages. The _Chapter-House_ is one of the most beautiful in England. The entrance is an arch, divided into two arches by a canopied pier, which bears a mutilated statue of the Virgin and Child. Clustered shafts, with capitals, are on each side of the doors, which have remarkably good scrolled iron-work. The chamber itself is very magnificent. It is octagonal, and in each bay there are six canopied stalls under a five-light window. The window tracery is superb. Clustered shafts support the vaulted roof. Everywhere we see richly-carved stone-work, the finest in any cathedral, the foliage of maple, oak, vine, and other trees. Here are pigs and squirrels feeding on acorns, men gathering grapes, birds, and coiled dragons and reptiles. The grotesques are most curious and interesting. In 1845, unfortunately, the building was restored, and the painted figures of kings and bishops were destroyed, a poor tiled floor laid down; but, in spite of all, it can still maintain its proud boast:-- "_Ut Rosa flos florum, Sic est Domus ista Domorum._" ["As the Rose is the flower of flowers, so is this House the chief of Houses."] [Illustration The Ladye Chapel Herbert Railton 1899] The _Choir-Screen_, erected in 1500, is good Perpendicular work, and has figures of kings from William I. to Henry VI. The rebus of the master-mason, Hyndeley (a hind lying) occurs in the capitals. The canopies are richly carved. There is an ogee pediment, and a niche with angels on each side, with censers. The Tudor flower is used as an ornament, and plaster angels by Bernasconi were added in 1810. The organ was erected in 1632. [Illustration THE CRYPT] _The Choir and Lady Chapel._--The Lady Chapel, occupying the four east bays, was built in 1361-1405, the choir in 1407-1420. The style is Perpendicular, though it follows the design of the nave; yet the builders endeavoured to improve upon the earlier work and remedy its defects. They were eminently successful, and produced one of the most stately and magnificent choirs in England. The roof is made of wood, like the nave, and has a large number of foliated bosses. A disastrous fire in 1829 destroyed all the old carved stalls and _misereres_, and the modern substitutes are fairly successful. The altar-screen is a good reproduction of the ancient one, and the reredos was designed by Street, with reliefs by Tinworth. The lectern was given by T. Cracroft in 1686. The differences in the style of the clerestory windows in the east and west portions will be readily noticed. Only in the western part is the Perpendicular style fully developed. The east window is the largest window in England, retaining its original glazing, but in actual size it is surpassed by that at Gloucester. Its height is 75 feet, and breadth 32 feet, and each compartment is a yard square. The artist of the glass was one Thornton, of Coventry. The Altar of the Virgin stood under this window, and here was a chantry, founded by the Percys. There is a curious ancient carving, much mutilated, of the Virgin and Child. Archbishop Bowet's Chantry (1407-1423) was at the east of the south aisle, and his tomb is here, the finest in the Cathedral, though much mutilated. There are many monuments in the choir, which are too numerous to mention--the second son of Edward III. (d. 1344), Archbishop Savage (d. 1507), Archbishop Sterne (1689), Archbishop Scrope, beheaded by Henry IV., to whose tomb there was great resort by pilgrims. The _Crypt_ was mainly discovered after the fire of 1829. It has fine Norman piers, part of Roger's Cathedral (d. 1181), and contains some "herring-bone" work of Saxon architecture, the remains of Edwin's church. The vestry has some very interesting antiquities: an old Installation Chair, used at the consecration and enthronement of the archbishops; an old treasury-chest; Prayer-Book and Bible, presented by Charles I.; an old chained Bible; two _misereres_, left after the fire; a pastoral staff of 1686; the famous Horn of Alphus, presented before the Conquest, the title-deed to several acres of land held by horn tenure; chalices and patens of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; episcopal rings, and the bowl of the Cordwainers' Company, formerly belonging to Archbishop Scrope. The vastness of York Minster, with its forest of clustered pillars, its unrivalled ancient stained glass, its importance as the metropolitan church of Northern England, combine to make this splendid Cathedral one of the most interesting in the kingdom. OTHER OBJECTS OF INTEREST IN THE CITY _St. Mary's Abbey_, in the Museum Gardens, founded by Earl Sward in 1050. The present buildings were erected, after a fire in 1137, in 1270, and the Abbey grew to become one of great wealth and importance. The style is Decorated. On the site of the abbot's house is the _King's Manor_, or _Royal Palace_, now used as a Blind School. Near at hand is the _Multangular Tower_, which formed part of the old Roman wall, and _St. Leonard's Hospital_, founded by King Athelstan in 936 A.D., and rebuilt by Stephen. The Museum is worthy of a visit, and the _Hospitium_ of the old Abbey, which now contains a good collection of Roman antiquities and carved stones from the Abbey. _St. William's College_ (College Street), the famous abode of the chantry priests of the Cathedral, founded in 1460, is now a series of cottages. The city walls should be visited, and the old gates--Mickelgate, Walmgate, Monkgate, and Bootham Bar. The hall of the Merchant Adventurers' Company is interesting, and Clifford's Tower, the keep of the Conqueror's castle, celebrated for the Massacre of the Jews in 1190. Many of the churches are ancient, and have beautifully-carved doors and interesting old glass. The Church of St. Mary the Younger has a Saxon tower. DIMENSIONS Total length 486 ft. Length of nave 262 ft. Breadth of nave and aisles 104 ft. Height of nave 99 ft. Length of choir 224 ft. Length of transept 223 ft. Height of central tower 198 ft. Height of western towers 196 ft. Area 63,800 sq. ft. For Building Dates _see_ page 312. [Illustration PLAN OF YORK CATHEDRAL] FOOTNOTE: [16] We must except Lord Grimthorpe's modern innovations at St. Albans. BEVERLEY MINSTER [Illustration Beverley Minster, the West Front] Although Beverley is not a cathedral, its Minster is certainly worthy of being ranked as such, and perhaps some day, when our dioceses are again divided, it may have a bishop of its own. Of John of Beverley's foundation want of space forbids us to write, or of the great Æthelstan, who conferred great privileges on the place. Ælfric and Archbishop Aldred were great builders, and did much for the Minster; but in 1188 a great part of the church was destroyed by fire. The nave seems to have escaped without much serious injury, and the monks set about repairing the east end and building a central tower; but, after the manner of towers, this one fell, and reduced the eastern arm of the church to ruins. Then came the era of the great Gothic builders, and early in the thirteenth century the monks began to rebuild the east end of the church, the tower, and one bay of the nave, and nobly did they accomplish their undertaking. They accomplished a work which caused their Minster to rank with the best achievements of Early English Gothic art, and we must look to Salisbury or the choir of Lincoln to find anything equal to it. For many years the old Norman nave remained. Nearly 100 years passed away, and then a new era of building dawned. At the end of the first quarter of the fourteenth century the monks set to work to rebuild the nave. Quickly the work progressed, until the Black Death, which seems to have been especially virulent in monasteries, laid low many of the builders. The noise of the chisel ceased, until at length the monks resumed their work, and built that crowning glory of their Minster, the noble west front. Such was the history of the building of Beverley Minster. Since that time little has been done, except to preserve the exquisite workmanship of these early builders. The church suffered from neglect, and from the evil genius and vile taste of the Georgian architects; but happily all their monstrosities have been removed by Sir Gilbert Scott, who restored the Minster to its ancient beauty. [Illustration BEVERLEY MINSTER] The _West Front_ is one of the finest examples of the Perpendicular style in England. It consists of two towers, flanking a large window, above which is a high gable, and below a deeply-recessed door. The window has nine lights. The whole front is panelled, and the buttresses are ornamented with various tiers of niche-work of excellent composition and most delicate execution. These niches are about to be filled with figures. We enter the Minster by the north porch, which is a fine piece of Perpendicular work, with a parvise over it. On entering the building we are struck with its great loftiness and the consummate beauty of its architectural details. As we have said, the _Nave_ is later than the choir, with the exception of the first bay adjoining the tower. That one bay is Early English; the rest is superb Decorated work. The ball-flower moulding is conspicuous in the latter, the dog-tooth in the former; but there seems to have been some attempt to assimilate the later work with the earlier. The west end is Perpendicular, and the west window is a fine example of the work of that period. The glass is modern. There is some beautiful arcading in the aisles, that in the north aisle being more developed Decorated than that in the south. The tomb of the "Sisters of Beverley" in the south aisle should be noticed. It belongs to the Decorated period, and possesses many features of interest. History is silent as to the names of these sisters, who are supposed to have been benefactors to the townsfolk. The tracery of the windows in the aisles should be noticed, as it is remarkable for its gracefulness and variety. The only relic of Norman work in the church is the font, near the south door, which is of a somewhat late character. The _Transepts_ are of noble Early English construction. Tall lancets shed light upon the exquisite architectural details displayed here. Each transept has double aisles. The arcading of the triforium is curious, but effective. In the tympanum of each trefoil arch there is a quatrefoil and two semi-arches, which are completed by similar ones under the next arch. The effigy and monument of a priest in the north transept (fourteenth century) have some exquisite carving, and afford an excellent study of ecclesiastical vestments. The _East End_ of the church is entirely composed of Early English work, and without doubt contains some of the best and most perfect architectural achievements of the thirteenth century. The piers are composed of eight massive columns. There is no triforium gallery, a very exquisite arcade taking its place, similar to that in the transepts, consisting of trefoil arches, ornamented with dog-tooth. Purbeck marble is extensively used throughout the choir. The screen is modern. The choir stalls and _misereres_ are scarcely surpassed by any in England. They belong to the sixteenth century, and the designs represented on the latter are extremely quaint and curious. Few churches have such a superb _Altar-Screen_ as Beverley. It is Early English, but has been much mutilated and robbed of its images, which now have been replaced by good modern sculpture. It has also been decorated with glass mosaic work. Near it, on the north, is the famous _Percy Tomb_, which is well known to all students of architecture. It is very beautiful Decorated work, and is generally considered to have no equal. It was erected about 1338, and is to the memory of Lady Eleanor Percy, the wife of the first Lord Percy. The carving is quite superb, the details of the figure-sculpture being worthy of the closest attention. In the gable is a figure of the Almighty receiving the soul of the deceased, who is represented as being held up by a sheet supported by two angels. The east transepts and retro-choir possess also some fine Early English work, and is similar to that which has been described. In this retro-choir stood the shrine of St. John of Beverley, which was watched by a monk stationed in the watching chamber over the altar-screen. Notice the frith-stool, seated in which the person who sought sanctuary could defy the approach of his enemies and escape the justice which doubtless he deserved. Beverley was a noted place for sanctuary, and the records relating to this privilege are full of curious interest. The _Staircase_ leading to the chapter-house, now destroyed, is remarkably fine, and is certainly a very beautiful feature of this wonderful church. The great east window is Perpendicular, and has some ancient glass. On the north is the Percy Chapel, founded in the fifteenth century; in it lies the body of one of the Earls of Percy, who was cruelly murdered at the close of that century. [Illustration Percy Shrine Beverley Minster] WAKEFIELD CATHEDRAL The See of Wakefield was created in 1888. The enormous increase of the population of England and the growth of the Church's work have necessitated the multiplication of bishoprics and the division of many of the ancient enormous dioceses. This is one of the sees which it was found necessary to form. The old Parish Church of All Saints was converted into the Cathedral, but it possesses few of the associations and architectural beauties of our ancient minsters. It is, however, a fine parish church. It was consecrated by Archbishop William de Melton of York in 1329, but almost wholly rebuilt in the fifteenth century. Its main features are, therefore, Perpendicular. It consists of a chancel and large nave, with aisles. There is a clerestory, but no triforium. At the west end there is a tower, surmounted by a fine spire, rebuilt in 1860, the total height being 247 feet. A heavy screen separated the nave from the chancel of Jacobean style, and the organ and font belong to the seventeenth century. The whole building was restored by Sir G. Scott at a cost of £30,000. On the bridge across the Calder there is a beautiful little chapel or chantry, dedicated to St. Mary (30 feet by 24 feet). This was built and endowed by Edward IV. in memory of his father, Richard, Duke of York, killed at the battle of Wakefield in 1460. It was restored in 1847. Near here was fought the famous battle between Queen Margaret, wife of Henry VI., and the Duke of York, whom this chantry commemorates. Wakefield was an ancient seat of manufacture, foreign weavers being established here by Henry VII. [Illustration Wakefield Cathedral Herbert Railton] [Illustration Chantry Chapel on Wakefield Bridge Herbert Railton] LINCOLN CATHEDRAL The city of Lincoln has a history of profound interest. The first view of its mighty minster rising above the lower houses of the city is most impressive, and the whole place teems with historical association. Professor Freeman states that Lincoln has "kept up its continuous being through Roman, English, Danish and Norman conquests." Before the advent of the Romans it was a British stronghold, and bore a Celtic name--Lindum; and when the conquering legions came they made it one of the chief towns of the empire, and honoured it with the rank of a "colony"--hence Lin_coln_, "the colony of Lindum," thus preserving its ancient name, and adding the title of its dignity. The only existing Roman gateway in England is here, and the remains of a basilica, mosaic pavements, altars, sepulchral monuments, testify to the greatness of Roman Lincoln. The Anglo-Saxons wrought much havoc, and devastated the city. Here came St. Paulinus in 627 A.D., and converted the Pagan Saxons to Christianity. The fierce Danes attacked Lincoln and made it their chief town, the principal member of their League of the Five Towns (Leicester, Stamford, Derby, Nottingham and Lincoln). Before the Norman Conquest it ranked fourth among the cities of England. Then came William the Conqueror, who raised a castle and made it the base of his operations against the northern counties. Lincoln soon was raised to a position of great ecclesiastical pre-eminence, when Remigius of Fécamp became the first Norman bishop, and ruled the vastest diocese in England, extending from the Humber to the Thames. The city was in the eleventh and twelfth centuries one of the greatest trading towns in the country, the resort of traders both of land and sea. Here King Stephen was vanquished and carried off a prisoner to Bristol. Here King John received the homage of William the Lion of Scotland. The din of wars and battles has often been heard in the streets of Lincoln; in the Wars of the Barons against the young King Henry III., the Wars of the Roses, and above all in the great Civil War, when the city was stormed and sacked by the Roundheads. Here Edward I. summoned his first Parliament. Here kings have held their court and worshipped in the minster, and here a most formidable insurrection arose in consequence of the arbitrary acts of Henry VIII. and the destruction of the monasteries. The Bishops of Lincoln have been men of great power and influence, and have played prominent parts in the history of England. Such prelates as St. Hugh, Robert Grosseteste, and many others have conferred honour on the see over which they presided. [Illustration The Potter Gate & Towers of Lincoln Cathedral] HISTORY OF THE CATHEDRAL The first Cathedral of Lincoln was built by Remigius, the earliest Norman bishop, on the removal of the see from Dorchesteron-the-Thames about 1074. Previous to this Paulinus had preached here, and converted its prefect, Blaecca, who built a church of stone, which was probably on the site of St. Paul's Church, the name being corrupted from Paulinus. Stow village was the seat of the Lindsay Diocese until the Danish invasion. Then Dorchester was the bishop's residence until Remigius transferred his throne to Lincoln, and built a church "strong as the place was strong and fair as the place was fair, dedicated to the Virgin of Virgins." This church was ready for consecration on the founder's death in 1092 A.D. It was cruciform, with a semi-circular apse at the east end. The parts remaining are the central portion of the west front with its three recesses, a fragment of the first bay of the nave, and the foundations of the apse beneath the floor of the choir. It was a massive stern Norman building. The third Norman bishop, Alexander, called "the magnificent," after a disastrous fire in 1141, restored the Cathedral "to more than its former beauty." This Alexander was a nephew of Bishop Roger of Salisbury, and during his time raged the war between Stephen and the Empress Maud. The adherents of the latter held the Castle of Lincoln; so Stephen seized the Cathedral and used it as a fortress. The chroniclers tell us that Alexander "remodelled the church by his subtle artifice," and made it the most beautiful in England. All that remains of his work are the three western doorways inserted in the arches built by Remigius, the intersecting arcade above the two side recesses of the west front, and the three lower storeys of the west tower, with their elaborately-ornamented gables facing north and south. These were all in the Late Norman or Transition style. A terrible earthquake wrought much damage in 1185, and grievous was the condition of the church after this deplorable visitation. But happily in the following year the famous St. Hugh of Avalon, near Grenoble, was made Bishop of Lincoln by Henry II. He determined to restore the ruined House of God, and began to build in 1192. Freeman states that "St. Hugh was strictly the first to design a building in which the pointed arch should be allowed full play, and should be accomplished by an appropriate system of detail." Before his death in 1200 he built the choir and aisles and east (or smaller) transept, with a portion of the east wall of the great transept. All architects praise this beautiful work, the first development of the Early English style, the earliest building of that style in the world. The great transept was completed and the nave gradually carried west-wards in the Early English style during the successive episcopates of William de Blois, Hugh de Wells and Robert Grosseteste (1203-1253). Of the nave, Freeman wrote: "There are few grander works in the style of the thirteenth century than Lincoln nave, few that show greater boldness of construction and greater elegance of detail." To the same period we may assign the two western chapels, the arcaded screen wall of the west front and its flanking turrets, the Galilee Porch and the vestry, the two lower storeys of the tower, and chapter-house. During the rule of Grosseteste, the two lower storeys of the tower were built. This Grosseteste was a remarkable man, of great learning and ability, defended the rights of the English Church against the claims of the Papacy, and reformed many abuses in his diocese. Great sanctity was attached to the body of St. Hugh, which caused many miracles. It was buried according to the wishes of this holy and humble-minded man in an obscure corner of the Cathedral. In such honour were his remains held that it was resolved to transport them to a more distinguished place; hence it was decided to erect a large and costly shrine, and the beautiful "Angel Choir" was erected for its accommodation. This magnificent structure was built in 1255-1280, and belongs to the period of Transition between the Early English and Decorated styles, just when Gothic architecture was touching its point of highest development. It is simply perfect in its proportion and details. The translation of the body of St. Hugh was performed with much pomp, and the ceremony was attended by the highest in the land, King Edward I. himself being one of the bearers of the revered saint's remains. The cloisters and vestibule belong to the Decorated period, 1296 A.D., of which they present a small but beautiful example. The "Bishop's Eye," the large circular window of the south transept, was erected in 1350. About the same period much was done to adorn the interior. John de Welbourn, treasurer of the Cathedral, 1350-1380, set up the beautiful choir stalls, erected the vaulting of the central and west towers, with the internal panelling of the latter, and the row of niches and regal statues over the great west door. The three western windows and the upper stages of the west towers belong to a closely subsequent period. In these works we see the transition from the Decorated to Perpendicular style. Some of the chantry chapels are purely Perpendicular. At the Reformation great spoils of treasure were carried off by the infamous Commissioners of Henry VIII., who purloined a goodly store of jewels and nearly 9000 oz. of precious metals. They plundered the gold shrine of St. Hugh and the silver shrine of Bishop Dalderby, and left the Cathedral bare of all the treasures which the piety of centuries had accumulated. The people of Lincoln liked not these proceedings, and there was a formidable insurrection, during which the church was used as a garrison. The advent of the Royal troops and the execution of some of the leaders and several abbots suppressed the revolt. A reforming bishop of evil memory, Henry Holbech, further desecrated the church, destroying images and monuments, so that in 1548 there was scarcely a whole figure or tomb remaining. Further terrible destruction took place in the Civil War, when the soldiers broke the beautiful glass windows, tore up the brass memorials of the dead, wrecked the Palace, and even threatened to pull down the Cathedral, but were happily stayed from their mad enterprise by the intercession of the Mayor, Mr. Original Peart, with Cromwell. After the Restoration Bishop Fuller set to work to repair the destruction which vandalism had caused, and although the hand of the "restorer" has been felt on the fabric of this noble building, Lincoln still maintains most of its ancient features, and remains one of the most interesting cathedrals in the kingdom. THE EXTERIOR We will now walk round the building and note its chief architectural features. Standing at the west end we will examine first the imposing _West Front_. The central portion with its three recesses are parts of the earliest Norman church of Remigius. It will be noticed that the middle arch has been subsequently raised and pointed. A band of curious sculpture runs across the front, representing scenes from Bible history. They are of Norman character. Noah and the ark, the Deluge, the expulsion from Paradise, scenes from the life of our Lord and Hades are the most curious. The doorways are later than the recesses, and were inserted by Bishop Alexander, "the magnificent," who also built the arcade of intersecting arches above the two side recesses, and the three lower storeys of the towers, in the style of Late Norman. The rest of the screen is Early English work, erected 1200-1250. Bishop St. Hugh had sketched the outline of the new church, and his successors carried it out. Amongst them Bishop Grosseteste did much good work, and his portion is distinguished by the lattice-work ornament which appears in the gable of this front, proclaiming its author. There is a row of Royal statues (William I. to Edward III.) above the central door, which were erected by the treasurer, John de Welbourn (1350-1380). The statue of St. Hugh surmounts the south turret, and the Swineherd of Stow[17] the north turret. The three large windows belong to the time of Henry VI., and at this time the towers were completed, which are Perpendicular work, above the Norman three storeys. [Illustration Lincoln Cathedral Exchequer Gate.] Turning to the south side of the church we see the unique chapel and consistory court, and the curious grotesque popularly known as "the Devil looking over Lincoln." Heavy buttresses support the nave, and flying buttresses connect these with the clerestory. The _Galilee Porch_ was built in 1230, and is cruciform. The name Galilee is attached to chapels at Durham and Ely, and we have already referred to the most probable conjecture with regard to its origin.[18] A profusion of dog-tooth ornament appears here, the characteristic moulding of Early English period. The muniment room is above the porch. The _Central Tower_ is the finest in England, as it is the highest (271 feet), though the spires of Salisbury and Norwich exceed this altitude. Formerly it was capped by an immense timber spire, blown down in the first year of the sixth Edward's reign. Lincoln has suffered from falling towers as have other cathedrals. The two lower storeys were built by Grosseteste in Early English style on the fall of its predecessor in 1237. The lattice-work ornament so freely employed in the work of this bishop is observable here. The upper storey was begun by Bishop Dalderby in 1307 and finished in 1311 in the Decorated style. The timber spire covered with lead rose to a height of 524 feet, and was destroyed by a tempest. Storms and tempests have beat upon this tower for centuries, and occasionally have wrought mischief, but this has been from time to time remedied, and it remains the grandest and most majestic in the world. It is the abode of the famous "Great Tom of Lincoln," the fourth largest bell in the kingdom, recast in 1835. It weighs over five tons, and is 21 feet 6 inches in circumference. The _Choir_ is the work of St. Hugh, the earliest example of Early English. In the _Presbytery_ we see the style developed to his most perfect form, and merging into the Decorated period. The south doorway is especially worthy of notice, with its fine sculpture and splendid tympanum representing the Last Judgment. The Russell and Longland Chapels (Perpendicular) are on each side of this doorway. We notice the magnificent Decorated window of the Angel Choir, on the north side the Chapel of Bishop Fleming (Perpendicular), a doorway of good design; and then we see the chapter-house with its flying buttresses and pyramidal roof. On the north side is the cloister garth and Deanery. The cloisters are usually on the south side, and this position is uncommon. Lincoln was not a monastic church, being served by secular canons, and therefore had no necessity for a cloister court. However, this was built in the thirteenth century, the colonnade on the north side being erected in 1674 by Sir Christopher Wren, together with the library over it, which we shall visit presently. By an act of vandalism the old Deanery was pulled down in 1847 and the present house built, which is devoid of many of the interesting associations of its predecessor. The Cathedral close was surrounded by a wall and protected by strong gateways. Two of these remain, the "Exchequer Gate," opposite the west end, and the "Potter Gate." The old Bishop's Palace on the south of the close was destroyed during the Civil War, and quite recently a new episcopal residence has been erected near the ruins of the ancient house. THE INTERIOR. As we have already stated, the nave of Lincoln was designed by Bishop Hugh in the Early English style, gradually carried west-ward by his successors, and completed before the death of Grosseteste in 1253. It consists of seven bays. Eight circular shafts of Purbeck marble surround each pier. The mouldings of the arches are deeply cut. Above is the triforium, consisting of two arches, each divided into three sub-arches. Clustered shafts with capitals carved with foliage support the arches. Above each main triforium arch in the clerestory are three lancet windows, and the roof is a fine specimen of English vaulting. Sir Gilbert Scott says that this nave "exhibits an Early English style in its highest stage of development: massive without heaviness, rich in detail without exuberance, its parts symmetrically proportioned and carefully studied throughout, the foliated carving bold and effective, there seems no deficiency in any way to deteriorate from its merits"--an opinion with which few visitors to Lincoln will be inclined to differ. Under the towers will be noticed the Norman character of the first bay, which is part of the original church of Remigius. The west window, in its present form, is Perpendicular, and was inserted in the place of an earlier one. The _Font_ also belongs to the time of Remigius, and is a fine example of the Norman period. It is of black basalt, square in shape, and has been recently placed upon three steps of Derbyshire marble. Grotesque monsters are carved on the sides of the font. The aisles have lancet windows, and below a beautiful arcade of trefoiled arches, the south side being more elaborate than the north. The bosses have figures carved on them. On the north-west corner is the Morning Chapel, having a central column of Purbeck marble supporting a stone vaulted roof. Here is the pastoral staff of Archbishop Benson of Canterbury, who, when Chancellor of Lincoln, restored this chapel. Opposite to this chapel, in the south-west, is the consistory court. None of the old glass has survived in the nave, and most of the shrines and tombs have been destroyed. The fanatics of the Reformation and Cromwell's soldiers left little of the sepulchral brasses and gorgeous tombs and effigies which once were here. A marble slab, carved with Scriptural subjects, is supposed to represent the tomb of the founder, Remigius. The memory of Dean Hoywood (d. 1681), the founder of the library, is recorded on a tablet, and three slabs preserve the names of Bishops Smyth (d. 1514), Alnwick (d. 1449), and Atwater (d. 1521). The _Pulpit_ is seventeenth-century work, and the lectern is a memorial of Dean Butler (d. 1894). The great transept contains some of St. Hugh's work. He devised a beautiful double arcade, and his work ends half-way on the east wall in north transept, and half-way the east wall in south transept, measuring from the centre of the building. The rest was built by his successors in the Early English style. The magnificent circular windows at the north and south ends are very striking, and extremely beautiful. The former is known as the _Dean's Eye_, the latter as the _Bishop's Eye_, which, with the gable and window above, is in the curvilinear style, and was erected about 1350. The Dean's Eye was placed there about 1220, and has some exquisite ancient glass of that period representing our Saviour in Glory. In the east of this transept are six chapels, dedicated to SS. Nicholas, Denis, James, Edward the Martyr, John the Evangelist and Giles. The stone screen before the Chapel of St. Edward should be examined, with its curious sculpture. Before the Reformation there seems to have been some laxity of conduct among the chaplains and choristers, who were accused of playing games in the church, and here in one of these chapels we see nine holes, which were probably used for the favourite pastime of "Nine Men's Morris." In the south transept there are the slender remains of the once famous tomb of Bishop Dalderby (d. 1320), to which there was great resort of pilgrims in mediæval times. His shrine was destroyed at the Reformation. This bishop built the upper part of the tower. The _Screen_ is good Decorated work, and consists of arches ornamented with figures of ecclesiastics and grotesques. It has been somewhat severely handled by fanatical destroyers, but, in spite of mutilation and restoration, it remains a noble example of the workmanship of the period. The organ stands above this screen. The doorways on each side of the screen are Early English, and are very beautiful. Entering the _Choir_, we see the earliest known example of pure Lancet Gothic or Early English, free from the trace of Norman influence. It was built by Bishop St. Hugh. The first stone was laid in 1192. The perfection of the ornament is wonderful. This part of the church suffered severely from the fall of the tower in 1237, and many traces of the disaster may still be seen. Screens divide the choir from the aisles, and were erected to strengthen the building. The _Choir Stalls_ are very fine, and were erected by Treasurer Welbourn in 1370. The carving is most elaborate and beautiful, and the _misereres_ are extremely curious and interesting. Behind each stall is a list of the Psalms which, according to the constitution of Lincoln, each prebendary is bound to repeat daily. The pulpit and bishop's throne are fairly modern. The brass lectern bears the date 1667. The _Reredos_ was restored about the middle of the eighteenth century, but contains some thirteenth-century work. A very interesting feature of the north side is the _Easter Sepulchre_, fashioned for the deposition of the consecrated elements of the Eucharist from the evening of Good Friday until the morning of Easter day; during which time it was watched by a quasi-guard. Three figures of sleeping soldiers appear in the carving. The style is Decorated. This tomb has been very doubtfully assigned to Remigius. There are the monuments of Katherine Swinford, third wife of John of Gaunt (d. 1403), from whom King Edward is descended in a direct line, and of her daughter, the Countess of Westmoreland (d. 1440), much mutilated by the soldiers. In the _North Aisle_ of the choir the beautiful double arcade work of Bishop Hugh is seen on the wall. In the _South Aisle_ are the remains of the _Shrine of Little St. Hugh_, the Christian boy with whose crucifixion the Jews were charged in 1255. The style is Decorated, but the shrine was mutilated by the soldiers in the Civil War. The great chronicler, Henry of Huntingdon, also lies buried here. The eastern transept is part of Bishop Hugh's church. In each arm, on the east side, there are two apsidal chapels, with arcading round the walls. The style of the construction resembles that of the choir. On the south of the north arm is the so-called _Dean's Chapel_, the use of which can only be conjectured. The iron-work of the door is worthy of notice, and also the faded paintings of some Lincoln prelates, by Vincenzo Damini (1728). It is sad to see the fragments of the tomb of Grosseteste, to whom the Cathedral of Lincoln and the whole Church of England owe so much, stored away in one of the chapels. Respect for his memory and gratitude for his work might suggest the restoration of this tomb. The southern arm of this east transept has been much altered, and most of the present work is later than the choir. In one of the chapels the sub-dean was murdered by one of the vicars in 1205. Here is the tomb of Bishop Kaye (d. 1853). The screen and lavatory of the choristers' vestry are beautiful examples of Decorated work. [Illustration The Angel Choir] We now enter the _Angel Choir_ (1256-1280), pronounced by Sir Gilbert Scott to be "the most splendid work of that period which we possess, and did it not lack internal height, I do not think it could be exceeded in beauty by any existing church." It is the latest portion of the main fabric, and was built when the Early English style was developing into the Decorated. The piers are beautiful clustered shafts, with carved capitals of Purbeck marble. The east window of eight lights is very fine (the glass is modern), and is said to be the noblest example of Geometrical Decorated in the kingdom. The choir takes its name from the carved angels in the spandrels of the triforium, which exhibit combined grace and dignity. The famous _Lincoln Imp_ can with difficulty be distinguished on the north side, above the most eastern pier. Early English glass fills the east windows of the north and south aisles. On the north of the Angel Choir is the _Fleming Chantry_, which contains the double effigy of the bishop (d. 1431), the founder of Lincoln College, Oxford, first in his episcopal robes, and then of his corpse in a state of decay. Bishop Fleming exhumed and burnt the bones of Wyclif. Opposite this chantry is the _Russell Chantry_, founded by Bishop Russell (d. 1494), Chancellor of Richard III., and near this the Chantry of Bishop Longland (d. 1547). Here in the Angel Choir stood, in former days, the rich shrine of St. Hugh, plundered at the Reformation, and a monument of Queen Eleanor, the beloved wife of Edward I., who caused to be erected the famous Eleanor crosses at every place where her body rested, as it was borne to its final resting-place at Westminster. This monument was destroyed by Cromwell's soldiers, and recently a modern copy of the original has been erected. The Burghersh monuments are worthy of careful study. The family played an important part in history, and held high honours. Also we notice the tombs of Nicholas de Cantelupe (much mutilated), the artists Peter De Wint (d. 1849) and W. Hilton (d. 1839); Bishop Fuller's memorial of St. Hugh, Bishop Fuller (d. 1675), Bishop Gardiner (d. 1705) and Sub-Dean Gardiner (d. 1732), Bishop Wordsworth (d. 1885), Dean Butler (d. 1894), Bishop Sutton (d. 1299) and Robert Dymoke (d. 1735), whose family held the office of King's Champion. The _Cloisters_ were erected in the thirteenth century, with the exception of the north colonnade, which was built by Sir Christopher Wren. Over this is the _Library_, which contains many treasures: an original copy of Magna Charta, a letter of Edward I.; a chalice of Bishop Grosseteste (1254) and his ring; Bishop Sutton's ring and chalice and paten (1299); a Roman mile-stone (260 A.D.). Of books there is a large collection, including a MS. copy of the Vulgate (1106), other valuable MSS., and many versions of the Bible in English. The old desks are curious and interesting. The beautiful _Chapter-House_ is of Early English design, and was completed about 1230. It is ten-sided, and has a central pillar girt with Purbeck marble shafts, and a stone vaulted roof; lancet windows, filled with good modern glass enlighten the chamber, two in each side. An arcade runs round the walls beneath the windows, and in the carving we see the tooth ornament. There is a very ancient Chair of State here, which is said to have been the throne of Edward I. when he held his Parliament in this room. * * * * * [My grateful thanks are due to the Very Reverend the Dean of Lincoln for the great assistance which he has kindly rendered me in investigating the history of his Cathedral.] DIMENSIONS Total length 482 ft. Length of nave 252 ft. Breadth of nave with aisles 80 ft. Height of nave 82 ft. Length of choir 158 ft. Length of presbytery 72 ft. Height of central tower 271 ft. Height of west towers 200 ft. Area 44,400 sq. ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES Norman (1074-1092)--Central part of west front, fragments of first bay of nave. (1123-1183)--West doors, arcade of west front, three lower storeys of west towers. Early English (1192-1253)--Choir and presbytery, nave, transept to west chapels, turrets and screen of west front, Galilee, vestries, two lower stages of tower and chapter-house. (1255-1296)--Angel Choir, cloisters. Decorated (1307-1380)--Upper storeys of tower, "Bishop's Eye," stalls, statues over west door, upper stages of west towers. (1450-1500)--Chapels. (1674)--North colonnade of cloister and library. [Illustration PLAN OF LINCOLN CATHEDRAL] FOOTNOTES: [17] This swineherd is said to have given a peck of silver pennies to the building of the Cathedral. [18] Page 291. SOUTHWELL CATHEDRAL The ancient and interesting Church of St. Mary, Southwell, became a Cathedral in 1884, when the bishopric was founded, and the building is worthy of its high honour. In the time of Henry VIII. it nearly attained that rank, Southwell being one of the sees which that monarch proposed to found out of the spoils of the monasteries, but his good intentions were not fulfilled. For centuries it was in the large Diocese of York, and was esteemed as the Mother Church of the district, and enjoyed many rights and privileges. With the exception of a few fragments, no part of the present church dates further back than the twelfth century. There was an early Saxon church here, which was probably founded by Paulinus when he converted the wild folk of Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire to the Christian faith. Then came the savage Danes, who swept away all traces of Christianity. The next church is said to have been built by the Saxon King Edgar, in 960 A.D., which was one of much importance before the Conquest; and in 1061 Aldred, Archbishop of York, founded prebends here, and built refectories for the canons. In the time of Henry I. it was raised to the dignity of Mother Church of the district, and the church was entirely rebuilt in the Norman style. When Walter de Grey was Archbishop of York (1216-1255), he was very energetic in improving the condition of his diocese and in erecting churches. He rebuilt the nave of Southwell, granting an indulgence of thirty days' pardon to all who should assist the work. John de Romeyn, sub-dean, whose son was afterwards Archbishop of York, assisted him in the work. There is a close resemblance between the nave of York Cathedral and the earlier choir of Southwell, and it is not improbable that the latter served as a model for the former. There is also a very close resemblance between the chapter-house of the two Cathedrals, which are evidences of the same designer and workmanship. Archbishop John de Romeyn was doubtless the architect of both buildings. The community of clergy at Southwell consisted of the prebendaries, who formed the chapter, the vicars-choral and chantry priests and choristers. The prebendaries had much power and many privileges. They held property, and each had a large house, hunted in neighbouring forests, and lived as country gentlemen as well as canons of Southwell. At the Reformation they surrendered their goods to Henry VIII., who contemplated making Southwell a Cathedral. He despoiled the church of vast quantities of plate and other valuables. In 1574, however, the college, like other similar institutions, was seized by the unscrupulous advisers of Edward VI. In Mary's reign it reverted to the Crown, and she restored the college to its former owners and uses, and this arrangement was happily left undisturbed by her successors. During the Civil War Cromwell's soldiers stabled their horses in the nave of the church. Charles I. stayed in the town at the "Saracen's Head," and here he delivered himself up to the Scotch commissioners, who stayed at the Palace. Cromwell wished to destroy the nave, but was stayed in his fanatical design by the intercession of one of his officers. The story is told of the wife of a hunted Royalist, named William Clay, registrar of the minster, hiding herself in the parvise, or room over the porch, and there giving birth to a child, while the soldiers lived in the church. A general pillage took place in the church at this time; the font was destroyed, lead torn from the roofs, brasses from the tombs, and every vestige of an image swept away. The College of Southwell has suffered in many other ways, sometimes from the carelessness of the prebendaries and their lack of zeal, sometimes from the effects of unwise and revolutionary legislation. In 1846 its position as a peculiar ceased to exist. Southwell is now a Cathedral with a diocese of its own, and if the ecclesiastical commissioners and the friends of the Church could see their way to granting an adequate endowment and means for carrying on its great work, Southwell would be able to maintain the dignity of an important see, and fulfil its mission to the Church and nation. EXTERIOR The finest view of this noble minster is obtained from the north-west corner of the churchyard. We notice the general Norman character of the building. The massive western towers, capped with spires, the lantern tower, the north transept and beautiful chapter-house, the noble roof, all combine to form a magnificent example of dignified and noble building. The _West Front_ has been altered in character from its original Norman work. We see a huge Perpendicular window with an embattled parapet over it, an alteration made in the fifteenth century. The windows in the lower stages of the towers are modern imitation of Norman work. The towers have seven stages, and the sixth is enriched with fine arcading composed of intersecting arches. The present spires are modern imitations of the originals destroyed by fire in 1711. These were immediately restored, but removed in 1802, and have now again been replaced. The old Norman doorway is remarkably fine. It has five orders, the zigzag and filleted edge roll being the chief mouldings. Passing to the south side we see the wall of the nave pierced by apparent Norman windows, but these are modern imitations. The most western window in the north side is the only original Norman window; the rest are copied from it, and were erected in 1847. Four Perpendicular windows were inserted in the fifteenth century. There is a row of small square windows above which light the triforium, and the clerestory has a curious series of circular windows which are unique in this country. The roof is high pitched, having been erected in modern times by the architect Christian, and the parapets are Perpendicular in style. The south doorway should be noticed, of Norman workmanship with zigzag string-course over it. Near here are the remains of the old Palace. The banqueting hall has been recently restored. The kitchens belong to the time of Henry VI. On the east of the transepts there were formerly apsidal chapels, which were removed when the present choir was built in the Early English period. The _Choir_ is a noble specimen of Early English work and "seems to be an emanation from Lincoln," wrote Sir Gilbert Scott, which it much resembles. We notice the extensive use of the dog-tooth ornament. Lancet windows give light to the interior. Two flying buttresses support the walls on the south side, and were added subsequently in the Decorated period to help them to bear the weight of the vaulted roof. The _Chapter-House_ is on the north side, and was built in the Decorated period during the reign of Edward I., when York was extremely prosperous and profited by the presence of the court. The resemblance between the chapter-houses of York and Southwell is very striking, and both were evidently designed by the same architect. This one is octagonal, and has windows of three lights with trefoil and circular ones in the heads. The roof is modern. A vestibule connects it with the church. An Early English wall with an arcade of lancets connects the vestibule with the north transept. The _North Porch_ is good Norman work, and has a parvise which is very unusual in a porch of this date. This parvise was the scene of the story of the hiding of Mistress Clay in the troublous times of the Civil War. The inner doorway is very fine with its zigzag and beak-head moulding. THE INTERIOR We now enter the church by the west door, and looking down the nave (1110-1150) we are impressed by the massive appearance of the interior. The piers are rather short, only 19 feet high, six on each side, with square bases and round capitals. The triforium is large, and above is the clerestory with its unique plain circular windows. The Norman mouldings, zigzag, billet, hatchet, etc., are easily recognised. The present roof was erected in 1881. The _Font_, erected in 1661, is a poor substitute for the one destroyed by the soldiers of Cromwell. The _Pulpit_ is modern; the figures represent the Virgin and Child, King Edwin and his queen, Augustine and Paulinus. The second pillar from the east on the south side is called Pike's Pillar, and retains faint traces of a mural painting of the Annunciation; the nave aisles have some good vaulting. A plain stone bench runs along the walls. This was common in old churches, and was the origin of the saying, "let the weakest go to the wall," where they could sit and rest, as the days of pews were not yet. The only original Norman window which remains is at the west end of the north aisle. Formerly there were several chantry chapels in the aisles, but all have been destroyed. The marble slab in the north aisle marks the site of one. The _Tower_ is a lantern, and also has a peal of bells. The chimes were given by Wymondesole in 1693. This tower is part of the original Norman church, and was built in 1150. The cable moulding round the four large arches should be noticed. It is composed of a series of double cones. [Illustration Southwell Central Tower & N Transept] The _Transepts_ are beautiful specimens of the work of Norman builders, and are full of interest. Originally there were apsidal chapels on the east side of both transepts. One has been destroyed, but the arch which connected it with the church can be seen in the wall, with its zigzag and cable mouldings. The Norman chapel on the east of the north transept has been replaced by a Late Early English building which will repay careful study. There were formerly two altars here, as the piscinæ and aumbreys show. The old Norman arch is replaced by two pointed arches of unequal width. The windows are later insertions, and belong to the Decorated period. There is an upper storey, formerly the treasury, now the library. The chapel has been recently restored, and is a most interesting architectural study. Returning to the north transept we see a curious tympanum over the belfry doorway, with strange carving representing the teaching of Psalm xci. 13: "The lion and the dragon shalt Thou tread under Thy feet." Other interpretations are given of this subject, but this is the one usually accepted by scholars. It is also said by some to be Saxon, but this is incorrect. There is a very similar sculpture in the church of Charney Bassett, Berks. Here is the fine alabaster tomb of Archbishop Sandys (d. 1588). He is represented in his episcopal robes, and the details of his dress are important, as they show what the vestments of a bishop really were in the time of Elizabeth, a point often disputed by English Churchmen of to-day. The east arch of the central tower has some curious sculptured capitals hidden by the organ which belong to the twelfth century. Beginning on the south side, the subjects are lamb and dove, Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, Nativity or Resurrection, Last Supper, bishop saying Mass, the Blessed Trinity, and the Virgin and Child. A stone _Screen_ of rich Decorated work separates the transept from the choir, over which is now the organ (a modern instrument). The screen is richly ornamented, and a noble specimen of the work of the period. There are three arches opening to the space beneath the tower, separated by slight piers of clustered shafts, the capitals carved with foliage of a Late Decorated character. The walls of the screen support the old rood-loft, access to which is gained by two staircases. Entering the _Choir_ we see on each side of the doorway three prebendal stalls with _misereres_, on which are carved some foliage. The bishop's stall was once occupied by Cardinal Wolsey. The choir, as we have said, was built by Archbishop Grey in Early English style (1230-1250). There are six arches, with piers of eight clustered shafts. The dog-tooth moulding is conspicuous in the arches, and on the vaulting of the roof. It will be noticed that the triforium and clerestory are blended together. The east window consists of two rows of lancets, the lower ones containing old glass brought from Paris in 1815, where it was formerly in the Chapel of the Knights Templar. The Baptism of our Lord; Raising of Lazarus (Francis I. is to be seen in a crimson cap); Christ entering Jerusalem (Luther is near our Lord, Louis XI. and the Duke of Orleans); the Mocking of our Lord (the figure of Dante appears). The _Sedilia_ were erected in 1350, and are good Decorated work. They have the unusual number of five seats on the same level. The arches are ogee-shaped, and are richly carved. The sculptured figures are remarkable, and represent the Creation and the Redemption. Beginning at the east we see the Father holding the world (two groups uncertain), Joseph's Dream, the Nativity and Flight into Egypt. The _Lectern_ belonged to the monks of Newstead Abbey, who threw it into the lake to hide it from the commissioners of Henry VIII. Its date is about 1500. The choir aisles had several altars, as we see from the piscinæ and aumbreys which are left. We will now visit the _Chapter-House_, and pass through the vestibule which leads to it, entering by a beautiful doorway in the north aisle. The transition between the Early English work of the choir and the Decorated style of the chapter-house is very gradual. The doorway, with its two arches and shafts of Purbeck marble, is remarkably fine. There is a small cloister court, with a stone-covered well. In the vestibule we see the walls covered with beautiful arcading of lancet arches of an Early English character. The capitals are beautifully carved with foliage. There is a curious boss of sculpture representing a secular priest shaking the regular monk by his hair, which figuratively depicts the supremacy of the former in the church of Southwell. The _Chapter-House_ (1285-1300) is described by Ruskin as "the gem of English architecture," and all architects agree in singing the praises of this noble building. It much resembles that of York, but is smaller and perhaps more beautiful. It is octagonal, has no central pillar, and is remarkable for its fine sculpture. The historian of Southwell says: "The foliage everywhere is most beautiful: the oak, the vine, the maple, the white-thorn, the rose, with a vast variety of other plants, are sculptured with exquisite freedom and delicacy; and no two capitals or bosses or spandrels are found alike. Everywhere we meet, in ever-changing and ever-charming variety, with some fresh object of interest and admiration. Figures are introduced amid the foliage, heads with branches issuing out of their mouths, birds and lizard-like monsters. In the capitals a man reclines beneath a tree, puffing lustily at a horn, or a goat is gnawing the leaves, or a bird pecking the berries, or a pair of pigs are grunting up the acorns, or a brace of hounds just grabbing a hare. All this is the work of no mere chiseller of stone, but of a consummate artist; than whom it may be doubted whether any sculptor, of any age or country, ever produced anything more life-like and exquisitely graceful." The entrance doorway is remarkably fine and is worthy of close study. The main arch is divided into two by a slender shaft, and over them is a quatrefoiled circle, of beautiful design. The leaf ornament is largely used, both in the smaller arches and in the main arch. Filleted rounds and hollows are the other mouldings used. Southwell once contained the shrine of a Saxon saint--St. Eadburgh, Abbess of Repton (d. 714). "The Pilgrim's guide to the Saints of England" (a MS. in the British Museum, written in 1013) states that "the shrine of St. Eadburgh is still at Southwell," but no trace of it can now be found. There are several incised monumental slabs in the minster which have been cut and set in the floor. There is a Latin inscription to the memory of William Thorton, a chorister of the church, and the humble epitaph of William Talbot, who was a shining light in his day and died 1497, is of pathetic interest:-- "Here lies William Talbot, wretched and unworthy priest, awaiting the resurrection of the dead under the sign of the Cross." [My thanks are due to the kindness of Archdeacon Richardson, Rector of Southwell Minster, for his kindness in explaining to me the interesting features of his church. I am also indebted to the works of Mr. Dimock, Mr. Livett and Mrs. Trebeck for much valuable information.] DIMENSIONS Length, 306 ft.; breadth, 61 ft.; length of transept, 123 ft.; height of central tower, 105 ft.; height of west towers and spires, 150 ft. PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL The towns and cities of England owe their origin to various causes. Some arose around the walls of great castles, some as trading centres or harbours, some clustered around the palace of a bishop, and others sheltered themselves beneath the shadow of a monastery. Peterborough, or Medeshamstede, is of this last class. It is a monastic town, and owes its existence to the great fenland Monastery of St. Peter, the minster church of which is now this beautiful Cathedral. Peada, the son of Panda, King of Mercia, first founded a monastery here in 654, of which Saxulph was the first abbot. The Pagan Danes came in 870 with fire and sword, and wrought fearful havoc in all this region, burning the holy house of Medeshamstede, and slaughtering the monks. For a hundred years the monastery lay in ruins; then came the religious revival under the rule of Dunstan and King Edgar. Monastic houses increased in number greatly, and Bishop Ethelwold of Winchester began to rebuild the waste places of the ruined Saxon Medeshamstede, and constructed a minster, some foundations of which still remain. The Abbey flourished for nearly a century, but sad misfortunes befell. Hereward the Wake, the hero of Kingsley's story, the gallant "last of the English," was making his last brave stand against William the Norman, and in conjunction with the Danes attacked the Abbey, and wrought much destruction. Fires and robbers were also occasionally dread visitants, and at last, in the time of Henry I., a great fire destroyed the whole buildings. The then abbot was John de Sais, who set to work immediately to erect a new monastery. This was in 1117. Then was begun the glorious minster which is the pride and glory of the fenlands. Subsequent abbots continued the work. Abbots Martin de Vecti and William de Waterville completed the transepts and tower and part of the nave, which was finished by Abbot Benedict (1177-1193). There is a striking uniformity of design throughout all this Norman work, which shows that the builders followed one plan, and imitated the work of their predecessors. The western transept, however, shows evidences of the coming change, and when we come to the beautiful west front we find unmistakable Early English work. This part was probably finished in 1238, in the time of Abbot Walter of St. Edmunds, when the church was dedicated by Bishop Grosseteste of Lincoln. Abbot Robert de Lindsay, who liked not the windows of his monastery "stuffed with straw" to keep out wind and rain, filled many of them with glass, and built the lavatory in the cloister. Gradually the erection of the monastic buildings was being completed, and refectory and infirmary added, and Prior Parys built the Lady Chapel and one of the steeples at the close of the thirteenth century, which also saw the removal of the Norman windows from the aisles and the substitution of Early Decorated ones. This was a time of much splendour and magnificence for the Abbey, when Godfrey was abbot, and King Edward often visited it and received aid for his Scottish wars. This Godfrey built the large gateway. A century later the abbot was endowed with the privilege of a mitre, and thus took his seat in the House of Peers; and during this fourteenth century the lantern tower was erected with an octagon framed of wood, the triforium windows changed into the Decorated style, and the west front improved by the erection of the spire and the central porch. During the fifteenth century we hear sad complaints of the relaxation of the discipline of the monks, who too often frequented taverns and "the vulgar company of dancers and ballad singers." Abbot Kirton was a notable man, who built, or rather finished, "that goodly building at the east end of the church, now commonly known by the name of the new building," begun by his predecessor Ashton; and his rebus--a _kirk_ and a _tun_--appears on the grand gate, now leading to the Deanery. At this time several Norman windows were filled with Perpendicular tracery. We see Cardinal Wolsey visiting the Abbey, and on Maundy Thursday washing the feet of poor persons, and the luckless Catherine of Arragon being buried here in 1535. Then came the dissolution of monasteries, and Peterborough shared the fate of the rest. Whether it was on account of the subservience of the abbot, or because it contained the ashes of his queen, Henry VIII. spared the church, and made it a Cathedral, the last abbot being the first bishop. The burial of Mary Queen of Scots in 1587 is the next historical event which was here witnessed. We can imagine the scene of the torchlight procession bearing the executed body of the frail but fair queen into the church, and the last solemn obsequies of that sad and stormy life. Cromwell's soldiers "did after their kind," and Dean Patrick tells us of "the rifling and defacing" that ensued:-- "The next day after their arrival, early in the morning, they break open the church doors, pull down the organs, of which there were two pair. "Then the souldiers enter the quire, and their first business was to tear in pieces all the common-prayer books that could be found. The great bible indeed, that lay upon a brass eagle for reading the lessons, had the good hap to escape with the loss only of the apocrypha. "Next they break down all the seats, stalls and wainscot that was behind them, being adorned with several historical passages out of the old testament. "When they had thus defaced and spoilt the quire, they march up next to the east end of the church, and there break and cut in pieces, and afterwards burn the rails that were about the communion table. The table itself was thrown down, the table-cloth taken away, with two fair books in velvet covers; the one a bible, the other a common-prayer book, with a silver bason gilt, and a pair of silver candlesticks beside. But upon request made to Colonel Hubbert, the books, bason and all else, save the candlesticks, were restored again. "Now behind the communion table there stood a curious piece of stone-work, admired much by strangers and travellers: a stately skreen it was, well wrought, painted and gilt, which rose up as high almost as the roof of the church, in a row of three lofty spires, with other lesser spires growing out of each of them. This now had no imagery work upon it, or anything else that might justly give offence, and yet because it bore the name of the high altar, was pulled all down with ropes, lay'd low and level with the ground. "Over this place, in the roof of the church, in a large oval yet to be seen, was the picture of Our Saviour seated on a throne; one hand erected, and holding a globe in the other, attended with the four evangelists and saints on each side, with crowns in their hands, intended, I suppose, for a representation of Our Saviour's coming to judgment. This was defaced and spoilt by the discharge of muskets. "Then they rob and rifle the tombs, and violate the monuments of the dead. First then they demolish Queen Katherin's tomb: they break down the rails that enclosed the place, and take away the black velvet pall which covered the herse: overthrow the herse itself, displace the gravestone that lay over her body, and have left nothing now remaining of that tomb, but only a monument of their own shame and villany. What did remain [of the herse of Mary Queen of Scots] that is, her royal arms and escutcheons which hung upon a pillar near the place where she had been interr'd, were most rudely pulled down, defaced and torn. "In the north isle of the church there was a stately tomb in memory of Bishop Dove, who had been thirty years bishop of the place. He lay there in portraicture in his episcopal robes, on a large bed under a fair table of black marble, with a library of books about him. These men soon destroy'd all the tomb. "The like they do to two other monuments standing in that isle. "In a place then called the new building, and since converted to a library, there was a fair monument, which Sir Humphrey Orm (to save his heir that charge and trouble), thought fit to erect in his own life time, where he and his lady, his son and wife and all their children were lively represented in statues, under which were certain English verses written:-- "_Mistake not, Reader, I thee crave, This is an Altar not a Grave, Where fire raked up in Ashes lyes, And hearts are made the Sacrifice, &c._ "Which two words, altar and sacrifice, 'tis said, did so provoke and kindle the zealots' indignation, that they resolve to make the tomb itself a sacrifice: and with axes, poleaxes, and hammers, destroy and break down all that curious monument, save only two pilasters still remaining, which shew and testifie the elegancy of the rest of the work. "When they had thus demolished the chief monuments, at length the very gravestones and marbles on the floor did not escape their sacrilegious hands. For where there was any thing on them of sculptures or inscriptions in brass, these they force and tear off. "Having thus done their work on the floor below, they are now at leisure to look up to the windows above. "Now the windows of this church were very fair, being adorned and beautified with several historical passages out of scripture and ecclesiastical story; such were those in the body of the church, in the isles, in the new building, and elsewhere. But the cloister windows were most famed of all, for their great art and pleasing variety. One side of the quadrangle containing the history of the Old Testament; another, that of the new; a third, the founding and founders of the church; a fourth, all the kings of England downwards from the first Saxon king. All which notwithstanding were most shamefully broken and destroyed. Yea, to encourage them the more in this trade of breaking and battering windows down, Cromwell himself, (as 'twas reported,) espying a little crucifix in a window aloft, which none perhaps before had scarce observed, gets a ladder, and breaks it down zealously with his own hand. "But before I conclude the narrative, I must not forget to tell, how they likewise broke open the chapter-house, ransack'd the records, broke the seals, tore the writings in pieces, specially such as had great seals annexed unto them, which they took or mistook rather for the popes' bulls. "Thus, in a short time, a fair and goodly structure was quite stript of all its ornamental beauty, and made a ruthful spectacle, a very chaos of desolation and confusion, nothing scarce remaining but only bare walls, broken seats, and shatter'd windows on every side. "Many fair buildings adjoyning to the minster, were likewise pulled down and sold by publick order and authority, such were the cloysters, the old chapter-house, the library, the bishop's hall and chapel at the end of it: the hall was as fair a room as most in England; and another call'd the green-chamber, not much inferior to it. These all were then pull'd down and destroyed; and the materials, lead, timber and stone exposed to sale, for any that would buy them. But some of the bargains proved not very prosperous; the lead especially that came off the palace was as fatal as the gold of Tholouse; for to my knowledge, the merchant that bought it, lost it all, and the ship which carried it, in her voyage to Holland." [Illustration Peterborough Cathedral] And thus the church continued for some time ruined and desolate. A relative of Cromwell, Oliver St. John, was granted the possession of it, and converted it into a parish church. The Lady Chapel was pulled down in order to obtain material for repairing the main building; the painted boards of the ceiling they found useful for making the backs for the choir. At the Restoration Dean Cosin was recalled, and since that time many alterations and much reparation have been undertaken, though often with more zeal than good taste. Dean Tarrant (1764-1791) collected the fragments of stained glass, and placed them together in two windows at the east end. Dean Kipling removed the octagon, and erected four hideous turrets, which no longer disfigure the tower. Dean Monk (1822-1830) did much for the Cathedral, though little of his work remains. Since then the tower has been rebuilt (finished in 1886), much internal decoration added, and the west front rendered secure. Much controversy has raged about the restoration of this west front. Experts on both sides have expressed divers opinions, the relative merits of which it is difficult to decide. Certainly to take down a building stone by stone and rebuild it again is not legitimate restoration. But whether it was possible to make the north gable secure without this drastic treatment it is for experts to decide, and it is presumptuous for others to express an opinion or attempt to arbitrate when these experts puzzle us with the variety of their judgments. THE EXTERIOR We enter the precincts by the western gateway, built by Abbot Benedict in Norman style, but subsequently altered at the end of the fourteenth century. There is a Late Decorated arch, and two arcades of the same date built over the Norman wall; but the Norman arcades proclaim its ancient origin. The upper room was the home of the Peterborough branch of the Spalding "Society of Gentlemen," who advanced learning and published papers at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Previously it was the Chapel of St. Nicholas. On the left of the close is an old building, also erected by Benedict, the remains of the Chapel of St. Thomas of Canterbury. The old Grammar School, founded by Henry VIII., utilised the building until recent years. The style of the present building is Decorated. Immediately before us we see the noble _West Front_, "the pride and glory of Peterborough," the finest portico in Europe. With the exception of the porch, the style is pure Early English. On the north and south are two lofty turrets, flanked at the angles with clustered shafts and crowned with spires. Between these are three pointed arches, supported by clustered shafts, six on each side, with floriated capitals. The central arch is narrower than the rest, but its mouldings are ornamented with crockets and dog-tooth. A string-course runs along the top of the arches, and the spandrels have trefoils, quatrefoils and niches with statues. Above the string-course is a series of trefoiled arches, some of which have statues. Between the three gables are pinnacles much ornamented. The gables have circular windows of beautiful design and a cross at the apex; they are ornamented with dog-tooth and have niches with statues--St. Peter in the centre, with SS. John and Andrew on either side. The turrets on the north and south have six stages panelled with arches. The spires are good examples of the difference between those of the Early Decorated and Perpendicular periods. The south spire is connected with the pinnacles of the tower by clustered pinnacles springing from an arch; these are decorated with crockets, and the spire belongs to the early fourteenth century; whereas the spire on the north has no such connection, and is Early Perpendicular. We now notice the _Porch_ with parvise over it. This was built late in the fourteenth century in order to give additional strength to the west front and act as a kind of buttress to the piers of the central arch. The design is very beautiful. The entrance has an obtuse arch, and above a Perpendicular window with elliptical arch. Buttresses empanelled with niches stand on each side. It has a stone vault of good design. One boss is curious, representing the Trinity. The attitude of the Saviour shows that the figure was designed by a freemason, and bears witness to the antiquity of that fraternity. The parvise is now a library. A Late Perpendicular gateway at the north-east, erected by Abbot Kirton, whose rebus appears over the side door, leads to the Deanery. It has a Tudor arch, with the arms of the see in spandrels, and is ornamented with Tudor rose and portcullis, and Prince of Wales's feathers. Here is the old burial-ground, and a fine view of the Cathedral is obtained from the north-east. The Norman character of the building is evident, though there have been many changes. The Norman windows in the clerestory have been filled with Perpendicular tracery. The low Norman aisles have been raised, the windows taken out and replaced by thirteenth-century substitutes in the lowest range and by Decorated ones in the triforium. Below this the old Norman arcade remains. A good Norman door, called the Dean's Door, is in the centre of this north wall. An Early English parapet crowns the aisle walls, and a Decorated one surmounts the clerestory, which is continued in the _North Transept_, where similar alterations have taken place, and Perpendicular tracery inserted in Norman windows. The central _Tower_ was rebuilt in 1884. The necessity for continued rebuilding and restoration at Peterborough is much to be deplored. Probably the cause is the draining of the fens, which makes the clay to contract and thus produces insecure foundations. It has some good windows. We have already recorded the history of the previous structures. As much of the old work as possible was preserved in the rebuilding of the present tower. Walking around the church we come to the east of transept, where formerly stood the Lady Chapel, pulled down at the Restoration by the townspeople, and its materials sold in order to provide funds for restoring the church after Puritan destruction. Notice the marks of the gable of Lady Chapel in the transept wall. The thirteenth-century builders pierced the Norman wall with lancets. The east end of Peterborough is rather peculiar. There remains the old Norman apse, with Decorated windows inserted, and this is surrounded by what is called the _New Building_, though it is 400 years old, formed by extending the walls of the choir and building a square end to the Cathedral. This was erected by Abbot Kirton. His work possesses the best features of Perpendicular style. It is richly ornamented, and when we examine his work we cannot say that the glories of Gothic achievement had quite departed. We see the twelve buttresses, each terminated with a seated figure, usually said to be one of the Apostles. On the south-east of the Cathedral are the ruins of the infirmary of the monks, always a pleasant place in a monastery. It is a thirteenth-century building, and consisted of a hall, with aisles and a chancel. The aisles were used as cells or couches for the sick monks, and the religious services of the infirmary were performed in the chancel. On the south are the remains of the monastery. Only the south and west walls of the cloister court remain. There is a good thirteenth-century doorway and Perpendicular lavatory. The south view of the Cathedral is very fine. Passing through the cloisters, which once echoed with the tread of the monks, or saw them poring over their tomes and writing their beautiful MSS., we retrace our steps to the west front and so enter the Cathedral. THE INTERIOR As we enter we notice the distinctive character of the Norman work of which this Cathedral is a notable and excellent example. In the extreme west there is a blending of the two styles of Norman and Early English, but the monks of Peterborough clung tenaciously to their old ideas and to Norman and Romanesque models, and right up to the end of the twelfth century built in this style, not from any desire to imitate the work of their predecessors (as some writers assert) but from an obstinate adherence to conservative tradition. Even when the glorious tide of English Gothic was rising, and they could no longer resist the flood, they clung to the old zigzag mouldings. It is evident from the construction of the third column that they intended to end their church there; but happily the thirteenth-century brethren decided to rear the noble twin-towered front and the perfect portico. Some of the later columns show Transition work; on one side we see a Norman base or capital, on the other an Early English. There is a grand uninterrupted view of the whole length of the Cathedral from west to east. It will be observed that the tower arch is Decorated, and this adds to the beauty of this view. Before leaving the west we notice some dog-tooth carved in wood, which is somewhat rare. The south end of this west transept is the baptistry, the font of which has a thirteenth-century bowl. The north end is now used as a vestry. The west window has Perpendicular tracery. [Illustration NORTH-WEST TRANSEPT] The nave has ten bays with Norman arches; the triforium has likewise Norman arches, but each of these has two sub-arches. The windows of the clerestory have Perpendicular tracery. The _Ceiling_ is intensely interesting, and is original Norman work. It has various figures within lozenge-shaped medallions, viz.:--Agnus Dei, SS. Peter, Paul, Edward the Martyr, Edward the Confessor, Moses, and other kings, archbishops, bishops and allegorical and grotesque figures. As we have seen from the exterior, the walls of the aisles have been raised, and later windows inserted. The roofs of the aisles were vaulted by Norman builders. The visitor may discover for himself some mason marks in the south aisle. As at Norwich the _Choir_ begins with the two east bays of the nave, which was the original arrangement, and not unusual in Benedictine minsters, and extends over the space under the tower, and besides the apse occupies four bays east of the tower. The gates are good modern iron-work. The erection of a screen is in contemplation. Two pillars have been placed in position; but the scheme presents difficulties which have not yet been solved. The piers are alternately round or polygonal. This portion was the earliest part of the Cathedral, and was constructed by Abbot de Sais (1114-1125). The hatchet moulding is conspicuous. The triforium arches are double, like the nave, and the clerestory has triple arches, the centre one being the highest. The apse is particularly fine. The Decorated style is evident in the windows, which were inserted in the fourteenth century instead of the old Norman ones, and the hanging tracery of graceful design was then added. The roof of the choir is late fourteenth-century work except at the east end where the roof is flat. Here Cromwell's soldiers discharged their muskets at the figure of our Lord in glory, which they deemed to be an idol. This ceiling was decorated in 1884 by Sir Gilbert Scott. The bosses of the rest of the roof are curious. Nearly all the old glass was destroyed in the Puritan desecration; the remaining fragments have been placed in the two highest east windows. The fittings of the choir are modern, except an ancient lectern of fifteenth-century date given by Abbot Ramsay and Prior Malden, as the inscription testifies, though it is now scarcely legible. The choir stalls are remarkably fine, and as the carved figures contain a history of the Cathedral written in wood, it may be well to record their names. We will begin with the dean's stall and proceed eastward:-- 1. St. Peter, the Patron Saint. 2. Saxulph (656), first Abbot, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield. 3. Adulph (971), Abbot Chancellor to King Edgar, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, and Archbishop of York. 4. Kenulph (992), Abbot, afterwards Bishop of Winchester. 5. Leofric (1057), Abbot. 6. Turold (1069), Abbot, appointed by William the Conqueror. 7. Ernulph (1107), Abbot, afterwards Bishop of Rochester. 8. Martin de Vecti or Bec (1133), Abbot. During his time the choir and transept aisles were finished, and solemnly dedicated. 9. Benedict (1175), Abbot, Keeper of the Great Seal for Richard I. He built the greater part, if not all, of the nave. 10. Martin de Ramsey (1226), Abbot. 11. John de Caleto or Calais (1249), Abbot, one of the King's Justices. He built the infirmary, and probably the refectory and part of the cloisters. 12. Richard de London (1274), Abbot. He built the north-western tower. 13. Adam de Boothby (1321), Abbot. 14. William Genge (1296), first mitred Abbot. 15. Richard Ashton (1438), Abbot. 16. Robert Kirton (1496), Abbot. He built the Deanery Gateway, and the new building; his rebus, a church on a tun, carved in stone, is to be seen on most of his work. 17. John Towers (1638), Bishop, previously Dean. 18. Thomas White (1685), Bishop. He was one of the seven bishops committed by James II.; and also one of the seven non-juring bishops. 19. William Connor Magee (1868), Bishop, afterwards Archbishop of York. 20. Simon Patrick (1679), Dean, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, and finally of Ely. 21. Augustus Page Saunders (1853), Dean. 22. John James Stewart Perowne (1878), Dean, afterwards Bishop of Worcester. The upper figures on the north side represent the following:-- 1. Peada (655), King of Mercia, founder of the monastery. 2. Cuthbald (675), second Abbot. 3. King Edgar and his Queen. 4. Ethelfleda. 5. Brando (1066), Abbot. 6. Hereward, the Saxon Patriot (1070), nephew of Abbot Brando, and knighted by him. 7. John de Sais (1114), Abbot. He commenced the building of the existing choir. 8. Hedda (d. 870), Abbot murdered by Danes. 9. Robert de Lindsay (1214), Abbot, with model of west front. 10. Godfrey of Crowland (1299), Abbot. Gateway. 11. William Ramsay (1471), Abbot. 12. William Parys (1286), Prior, builder of Lady Chapel. 13. St. Giles, with hart. 14. Hugo Candidus, historian of Abbey. 15. Henry de Overton (1361), Abbot. 16. Queen Catherine of Arragon. 17. Dean Cosin, afterwards Bishop of Durham. 18. Simon Gunton (1546), historian of the church. 19. Herbert March (1819), Bishop. 20. George Davys (1839), Bishop. 21. Dean Monk, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. 22. Dean Argles (1891). Much history is also contained in the carvings of the pulpit and bishop's throne. The altar has a marble canopy over it, which is a magnificent piece of work, but perhaps hardly suitable for its position. The mosaic pavement is remarkably fine. We now pass into the _Choir Aisles_, which have Norman vaulted roofs, and formerly had apsidal ends, but these were removed when Abbots Ashton and Kirton built the _New Building_ or square end to the church, or perhaps earlier, as there are some aumbreys and double piscinæ of the thirteenth century, and also on the south wall some painted shields and a scroll border of the same date. The windows are later insertions as in the nave. Traces of the old entrance to the destroyed Lady Chapel may be seen in the north wall. We have noticed the building of the ambulatory called the New Building from the exterior of excellent Perpendicular work. Perhaps the most striking features of the interior is the fan-tracery of the roof, the curious bosses, the rebuses of the two Abbots Ashton and Kirton, and the monuments. The principal ones in the choir and aisles are a modern memorial stone of Catherine of Arragon (the old tomb was destroyed by the Puritans, of which fragments have been discovered); the tablet in memory of Mary Queen of Scots; Archbishop Magee's marble monument; Sir Humprey Orme's mutilated tomb; several abbots' tombs and tablets to bishops; Late Saxon tombs of two Archbishops of York, and the famous Monks' Stone which popular tradition associates with the massacre of the Peterborough monks by the Danes in 870. Recent investigators have assigned a later date, and attribute it to Norman work, but we are inclined to favour the Saxon theory. We will now visit the _Transepts_, which are of Norman character. Norman fish-scale ornament and cable and saw-tooth mouldings are plentiful. In both north and south transepts there is an eastern aisle separated by pillars and forming several chapels, which are divided off by Perpendicular screens. The Morning Chapel occupies the aisle of the north transept, formerly the Chapels of SS. John and James, and here is preserved two pieces of old Flemish tapestry, and portions of the old nave screen, and ancient tiles. In this transept are some interesting Saxon coffin lids. In the south transept are the Chapels of SS. Oswald and Benedict. In the former the relics were kept. Here Abbot Sutton's heart was buried. The window is modern. A pre-Reformation inscription is carved round the edge of a stone much worn by time. The old chapter-house, now a music-room, is on the west of this transept. It is Late Norman. A Perpendicular doorway has been inserted here instead of the old Norman door. A very interesting discovery was made here during the alterations a few years ago, and that is the remains of the actual original Saxon church which was sacked by the Danes, rebuilt by Bishop Ethelwold and visited by King Edgar and Dunstan, and then destroyed by fire. Evidences of this destruction were not wanting when the discovery was made. The east wall of the chancel stood just where the piers of the aisle of the transept stand. The church was cruciform. This discovery is of great interest and importance. Old Scarlett's memory must not be forgotten, the aged sexton, who lived ninety-eight years, and buried two queens in the Cathedral, dying in 1594. The painting is a copy of the original made in 1747. The well-known rhymes beneath are:-- "You see old Scarlett's picture stand on hie, But at your feet there doth his body lye; His gravestone doth his age and death-time show, His office by these tokens you may know. Second to none for strength and sturdye limm, A scarbabe mighty voice, with visage grim, He had inter'd two queens within this place And this towne's householders in his live's space Twice over; but at length his own turne came, What he for others did for him the same Was done; no doubt his soul doth live for aye In heaven: though here his body clad in clay." DIMENSIONS Total length of interior 426 ft. Nave, length 228 ft. Nave, width 35 ft. Transept, length 185 ft. Transept, width 58 ft. Height of interior 78 ft. Area 41,090 sq. ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES Norman (1117-1193)--Choir, transepts, central tower (rebuilt in 1886), nave, ceiling of nave, chapter-house. Early English (1214-1295)--West front, font, infirmary, refectory and part of cloisters, north-west tower, windows and parapet in aisles of nave. Decorated (1299-1400)--Large gateway, west porch, roof of choir, south-west choir, parapet of clerestory, inserted windows. Perpendicular (1400-1528)--New building, north-west spire, north-east gateway, Perpendicular tracery in windows, and west window. [Illustration PLAN OF PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL] ELY CATHEDRAL Ely is one of the monastic towns of England, and owes its existence to the famous church and monastery which were built here in Early Saxon days. The patriotic monkish chronicler of Ely, who compiled the _Liber Eliensis_, wishing to add glory to his church, states that in 607 St. Augustine founded a church at Cratendune, a mile south of the present site. The first monastery on the Isle of Ely was founded by St. Etheldreda, daughter of Anna, King of the East Angles. She received the Isle of Ely as her dowry from her first husband, an Earldorman of the South Girvii or Fenmen, and when she married Egfrid, afterwards King of Northumbria, feeling the call to a religious life, she left her court and retired to the lonely isle, and there founded a monastery, of which she was the abbess. As was not unusual at that time, the house was a double one, for both monks and nuns. St. Wilfrid assisted her considerably in carrying out her plans, but no fragment of this early church and monastery remains. The saintly queen died in 679, and was buried in the nuns' resting-place. Some years later her body, placed in a marble sarcophagus, was translated to the Saxon church. In 870 the isle was ravaged by the Danes, who destroyed the church and monastery, slaying both monks and nuns, plundering the town, and returned loaded with the spoils of the pillaged island. Some of the monks who escaped returned to their ruined house, and King Alfred is said to have confirmed them in their possessions. King Edgar, by the advice of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, reorganised the monastery under the Benedictine rule, restored to it all its lands, and made Brihtnoth the first abbot. The Norman Conquest brought many troubles to the Isle of Ely. The monks espoused the cause of Hereward, "the last of the English," the hero of Charles Kingsley's romance, and here he made his last great stand against the Norman invaders; but the monks "did after their kind," and surrendered to the Conqueror in 1071. Little harm was done to the monastic buildings by the warriors of either side, and twelve years later the building of the present Cathedral was begun by Abbot Simeon, brother of Walkelin, Bishop of Winchester. He commenced with the transepts, some parts of which still declare themselves to be his work. Abbot Richard (1100-1107) continued the building, and finished the east end, where the body of St. Etheldreda was conveyed and reburied before the high altar. Ely was now raised to the dignity of a bishopric, the revenues of the abbot being used for the endowment of the see, and henceforth the prior was the head of the monastery. The building of the church proceeded gradually. The nave was growing by degrees during the twelfth century, and Bishop Riddell (1174-1189), by his energy, did much towards its completion and that of the great west tower. The isle was much disturbed during the troublous time of Stephen's reign, and the bishop took the part of the enemies of the king, who exacted heavy fines from the prelate and his monks. Bishop Eustace (1198-1215) accomplished much, and erected the beautiful Galilee Porch. In 1235 the building of the noble presbytery was begun by Bishop Northwold (1229-1254), and here, in the presence of King Henry III. and his court, the shrines of the founders and of three other abbesses were removed, and the whole church in ground plan completed as we see it to-day. [Illustration ARM OF ABBOT'S CHAIR] Having finished their church, the monks turned their attention to their domestic buildings, and to the Lady Chapel, which stands here in an unusual position. It was erected by Alan de Walsingham (the sub-prior) in 1321, and finished in 1349. In 1322 a sad calamity happened--the central tower fell, and caused much destruction. But the catastrophe called forth the constructive genius of Alan de Walsingham, a prince among architects, who built the beautiful octagon and lantern tower, which add so much grace and beauty to the building. The superb Lady Chapel, with its marvellous sculptured work, the sub-structure of St. Etheldreda's shrine, and Prior Crauden's Chapel--a perfect gem of beauty and originality--are all Alan de Walsingham's work. The monks elected this great builder Bishop of Ely, but the Pope refused to ratify the election. He is admirably described on his tomb as the _Flos Operatorum_, or "flower of craftsmen." [Illustration WEST TOWER FROM DEANERY GARDENS] In this period Decorated windows were inserted in the triforium of the presbytery, the outside walls being raised for this purpose, and flying buttresses added. The Cathedral then appeared externally much as we see it to-day. The Perpendicular style finds few examples in Ely except in some of the smaller chapels and one or two windows. [Illustration The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Lady Chapel.] At the Reformation the monastery shared the fate of similar institutions, and a dean and chapter were appointed. The fact that the bishop occupied the place of the abbot of the monastery is observable in the position of the bishop's seat, which is south of the entrance to the choir. He has not a throne, which most bishops have in their cathedrals. Ely was spared much destruction in the Civil War. The Parliamentarians pulled down some of the cloisters, and broke a few windows, but the Cathedral fared better than most others at the hands of Cromwell. It has suffered, however, from the fancies of "restorers." In 1770 the ritual choir, with the stalls, was moved from under the octagon to the extreme east end, to be again moved to its present position in 1847. About the same time the massive Norman stone screen, which for eight centuries had stood across the nave, was ruthlessly destroyed, and the roof of the upper hall of the Galilee Porch removed, and the western opening of the tower arch filled with a modern window. Wyatt's destructive hand was only just restrained from working further mischief, though some authorities make him responsible for the removal of the screen and the destruction of the roof of the Galilee. A vast amount of money has during the last century been spent upon the fabric, and happily the restorers have been, in the main, governed by good taste and sounder architectural knowledge than that of their destructive predecessors. THE EXTERIOR As you ascend the hill from the station you will undoubtedly be struck by the external appearance of this magnificent pile. Professor Freeman remarked that the first glimpse of Ely overwhelmed us, not only by its stateliness and variety of outline, but by its utter strangeness and unlikeness to anything else. Its huge western tower, its beautiful but curious central octagon, are quite peculiar, and the general view, especially from the north-west, is extremely fine, and can never be forgotten. We will begin our survey, as usual, with the _West Front_, which has been much altered, but remains a very imposing structure. It will be noticed that the north side differs from the south, and either was never completed or fell into decay. They both belong to the Late Norman or Transitional period. The _Galilee Porch_ is a perfect gem of exquisite architecture. It has been pronounced "the most gorgeous porch of this style in existence, combining the most elegant general forms with the richest detail." The style is Early English, and is the work of Bishop Eustace (1198-1215), who was ordered by the Pope to excommunicate King John, and had to fly from England in consequence. It will be seen that this porch is one of the earliest examples of good Early English work, and for its excellence and perfection rivals the choir at Lincoln. There is a profusion of dog-tooth ornament. The doorways are most graceful. The main arch is divided into two cinquefoiled sub-arches, separated by a slender shaft, and in the head there is very beautiful tracery. The walls are covered with arcading, of lancet-shaped arches cinquefoiled. In the interior there is a beautiful double arcading, similar to that which we have seen at Lincoln. [Illustration ELY CATHEDRAL FROM SOUTH-EAST] The _West Tower_ is earlier than the porch, and its lower stages are Transition Norman. The upper stages are Early English, except the highest octagonal stage, which is Decorated. Bishops Riddell and Northwold were the builders of earlier stages, and the octagonal summit was built during the bishopric of John Fordham (1388-1425). This magnificent tower has been a source of continual anxiety to the monks and masons of Ely, on account of the great weight of the superstructure, and continual repairs and strengthening operations have been needed. [Illustration THE OCTAGON AND LANTERN FROM NORTH-WEST] The _North Side_ of the nave preserves its Norman character, but Perpendicular windows with ogee arches have been inserted. Formerly the Church of St. Cross stood on this side, erected by Walsingham, but it fell into decay and was pulled down in 1566. We can still see the walled-up door in the north wall of the Cathedral which led to this parish church. Norman mouldings (such as the billet) may be seen round the arches of the windows in the clerestory. The curious and beautiful _Octagon_ is a striking feature of Ely. It consists of an eight-sided tower crowned with an octagonal lantern, the dimensions of which are much smaller than those of the tower which supports it. Decorated windows of large size occupy the sides facing north-west, north-east, south-west and south-east, which are narrower than the other sides. Turrets crowned with pinnacles stand at each corner of the lower tower, and quadrangular turrets at each corner of the lantern, which is made of wood. The whole has been recently restored with the greatest possible success. The _North Transept_ is Norman. Some Perpendicular and Decorated windows have been inserted, and the north-west corner, which fell in 1699, was rebuilt by the builder of St. Paul's, London, Sir Christopher Wren, who inserted the Renaissance door in the north side. The _Lady Chapel_ has been pronounced to be one of the finest specimens of Decorated architecture in the kingdom. It is the work of Walsingham, and was finished in 1349. The east and west windows are later insertions, but belong to the same century. The building is oblong, and is enriched with much beautiful carving; niches destitute of figures appear in the buttresses, and at the east and west ends. The tracery of the side windows should be noticed. The _Presbytery_ is fine Early English work, built by Bishop Northwold (1229-1254), and has been scarcely altered by succeeding builders. The windows are double lancets in each bay, and in the clerestory three lancets under an arch, the centre one higher than the others. The arrangement of the east end is as follows:--In the lower stage three tall lancets with dog-tooth moulding, above them five lancets of unequal height, and in the gable three lancets of the same height. Buttresses carved with niches stand on each side, and flying buttresses springing from the side buttresses support the roof. Alterations have been made in the triforium in order to increase the light in the church. The _South Transept_ is Norman, with some later windows inserted. Notice the curious Perpendicular window on the south side. The _Cloister Court_ was on the south side of the church, but was destroyed by the Commissioners of Cromwell. Two doorways are remarkable, named the _Monks' Door_ and _Prior's Door_, both Late Norman work, and enriched with much carving. The tympanum over the Prior's Door contains a representation of our Lord in glory. THE INTERIOR We now enter the church at the west end, and are struck by the noble character of this magnificent Norman work. It consists of twelve bays (there were thirteen before the central tower fell). The two eastern bays were finished by Abbot Richard (1100-1107), and the rest completed by Bishop Riddell (1147-1189). The earlier character of the five bays nearer the central tower is discoverable. The ceiling was painted forty years ago by Mr. le Strange and Mr. Gambier Parry, whose artistic work can also be seen at Gloucester. The subjects are the Creation, the Fall, Noah Sacrificing, the Sacrifice of Isaac, Jacob's Dream, Marriage of Ruth, Jesse, David, Annunciation, Nativity, Adoration of the Shepherds and Magi, the Lord in Glory. We see also representations of the patriarchs and prophets, and in the medallions at the sides the heads of the human ancestors of our Lord. The west window was inserted at the close of the eighteenth century and filled with modern glass (when the roof of the upper hall of the porch was removed), thus effectively blocking the view of the three great lancets, 40 feet further west, through which, up to that time, the setting sun must day by day, through so many centuries, have flooded the nave with its evening light. [Illustration ST. CATHERINE'S CHAPEL] At the west end, under the tower, we notice the strengthening of the original pillars with additional Perpendicular work. The arches of the tower, though Norman, are pointed, showing that they were erected at the end of that period, and the richness of ornament and detail of the southern portion of the west transept bears out the same conclusion. _St. Catherine's Chapel_ is in the south corner, rebuilt in the old style, and the font is modern. The _Nave Aisles_ have arcades of Norman arches, and the chevron moulding appears about them in several parts where it has not been cut away. In the south aisle is an interesting memorial of Ovin, the steward of St. Etheldreda, which has been recovered from a neighbouring village. It is part of a cross, with the inscription on the base--"_Lucem tuam Ovino da Deus et requiem. Amen._" (O God, give light and rest to Ovin. Amen). The _Octagon_ would require a volume adequately to record its many beauties and perfections. We have already described its construction. It is pronounced by all architects as the gem of the Cathedral, and one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. The vault is of wood, and a remarkable series of paintings appears on the boarding. The Crucifixion and the Apostles are here represented. Large corbels have sculptured scenes of the life of St. Etheldreda. The vault has been painted by Mr. Gambier Parry. [Illustration IN SOUTH AISLE OF NAVE LOOKING TO NORTH TRANSEPT] The _Transepts_ were the portions of the church first begun by Abbot Simeon when he first commenced the present Norman Cathedral. The lower part of the walls and part of the triforium were built by him and finished by Abbot Richard (1100-1107). The arcading in the south transept is Transitional, and the upper windows Late Decorated. [Illustration CARROL IN CLOISTER] Perpendicular windows have been inserted in the north transept. There are three chapels at the east of the north transept, one of which bears the name of St. Edmund, and is divided off by a wooden screen of the middle of the fourteenth century. The east aisle of the south transept is walled off and used as the library, and the west as the vestry. A modern oak screen of graceful design, replacing a massive Norman screen ruthlessly destroyed in 1760, separates the octagon from the _Choir_, which we now enter. It will be remembered that the central tower fell and carried away three bays of the choir. Hence the work of these bays is later than the more eastern portion forming the presbytery, which was built by Bishop Northwold (1229-1254) in Early English style. The choir was erected by Bishop Hotham (1316-1337), and is a noble specimen of Decorated work. Between the choir and presbytery are fine Norman piers of the earlier choir. On the bosses of the roof we see figures of St. Etheldreda and the Virgin. The east wall is pierced by lancet windows, which are grouped in a most perfect manner. The stalls are splendid examples of Decorated work, and the _misereres_ have some curious grotesques. The fifty carved panels of scenes from the Old and New Testament are by Abeloos of Louvain, a modern wood-carver. The lectern is modern, and also the reredos. Of this eastern part Freeman says:--"Nowhere can we better study the boldly clustered marble pier with its detached shafts, the richly foliated capitals with their round abaci, the yet richer corbels which bear up the marble vaulting shafts, the bold and deeply cut mouldings of every arch great and small. Lovelier detail was surely never wrought by the hand of man." On each side of the presbytery are some ancient monuments of especial interest. On the south side, beginning at the west, we see Bishop William de Louth (1298), a fine tomb of Early Decorated character; Bishop Barnet (1373), translated from Bath and Wells (the effigy has been lost); Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, with his two wives, one of whom was the sister of "the King-maker," Earl of Warwick (this earl was one of the victims of Edward IV., and lost his head in 1470. He was a great patron of learning and art, and Fuller exclaims, "The axe did at one blow cut off more learning than was left in the heads of all the surviving nobility"); Bishop Hotham (1337), much mutilated. On the opposite side are the monuments of--Bishop Northwold (1254), which affords a good illustration of the ecclesiastical dress of the period (at the foot of the tomb is an interesting representation of the martyrdom of King Edmund, who shared the fate of St. Sebastian. Northwold was abbot of St. Edmundsbury before he came to Ely, hence the origin of the carving); a shrine, believed to be that of St. Etheldreda, of Decorated design, probably constructed by Walsingham about 1340; Bishop Kilkenny (1286), who died in Spain, his heart being buried here; Bishop Redman (1505), a fine Perpendicular structure. At the end of the north aisle is the chantry of Bishop Alcock (1500), a fine Perpendicular work in good preservation, though the figures which once adorned it were destroyed at the Reformation. He founded Jesus College, Cambridge, and built Ely Palace. On the east is the inscription, "_Johannes Alkoc Epus Eliensis hanc fabriciam fieri fecit 1488_." In this aisle are the supposed arm of Northwold's chair, which he brought from his abbey (the sculpture represents the wolf with St. Edmund's head in his paws), and the tombs of Bishop Marson (1771), Bishop Patrick (1707), and Basevi, architect of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. In the retro-choir are the monuments of Bishop Allen (1845), Canon Fardell (1819), Cardinal Louis de Luxembourg, Bishop, 1444, and an early muniment chest. At the east end of the south aisle is Bishop West's chantry (1534), a beautiful chapel in the Late Perpendicular and Renaissance style. The carving is very elaborate, with delicate tracery. This Bishop was the champion and chaplain of Catherine of Arragon, Henry VIII.'s queen. Above his tomb, in seven small niches, are deposited the bones of six Saxon bishops and of Earl Bryhtnoth, killed by the Danes in 991, who exclaimed when he died, "God of Nations, I thank Thee for all the joy I have had in life." Here are the tombs of Bishops Woodford (1885), Sparke (1836), Keene (1781). In the south aisle are--an ancient gravestone of Norman date, representing Michael carrying to heaven the soul of a bishop, with the inscription, "_St. Michael oret pro me_"; Bishop Hotham (1337), Canon Selwyn (1875), Dean Steward (1557), last prior and first dean of Ely; Bishop Gunning (1684), author of _The Prayer for All Conditions of Men_; Bishop Goodrich (1554), a zealous reformer, destroyer of images and shrines, compiler of "Duties to God and Neighbour," in the _Catechism_; Bishop Heton (1609), Dean Tyndall (1614), and other monuments. The _Lady Chapel_ is a superb structure, with its beautiful sculptured work, one of the finest specimens of Decorated architecture in the kingdom in spite of the cruel mutilation to which it was subjected at the Reformation. It was completed in 1349, but the east window is a little later and shows evidence of the approach of the Perpendicular period. An arcade of sculptured canopies runs round the walls, of extremely delicate carving. The mythical history of the Virgin and of Julian the Apostate appear in the spandrels, and the bosses of the roof have some sculptured figures representing the Crucifixion, Ascension, Annunciation, the Virgin crowned, the Virgin and Elizabeth, and some which cannot be distinguished. * * * * * [My thanks are due to the Dean of Ely for his kind assistance in interpreting the history of the Cathedral which he knows and loves so well.] DIMENSIONS Total length 517 ft. Length of nave 230 ft. Breadth of nave 78 ft. Height of vault 70 ft. Length of transept 190 ft. Diameter of octagon 65 ft. Height of west tower 215 ft. Area 46,000 sq. ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES 1083-1189--Transepts, nave, lower stages of tower, monks' and prior's doorways. 1189-1254--Galilee porch, presbytery, upper stages of tower. 1316-1349--Lady chapel, octagon, choir, windows of triforium of presbytery, buttresses, Prior Crauden's Chapel, stalls. 1388-1534--Highest stage of tower, chapel and some windows. 1699--North-west corner of north transept and doorway. [Illustration PLAN OF ELY CATHEDRAL] NORWICH CATHEDRAL Norwich, the capital of East Anglia, is a delightful city, beautifully situated on the winding Wensum and full of the charm of the associations of mediæval times. The hill on which the castle stands carries our thoughts back to Saxon days, to King Uffa in the sixth century. Saxon, Dane and Norman held sway here. It was also the city of the Dutch. The cruelties of Alva sent Flemings and Walloons, who came with their silks and threads and worsteds and implements, and made the textile manufactures the glory and fortune of the county. Here kings kept their Christmas feasts, and in no less royal fashion did the old Dukes of Norfolk, when Norwich was the gayest of episcopal cities. Very independent were the turbulent burghers, who often contended with the monks and bishops for rights and privileges, as when in 1272 they quarrelled over the tolls of a fair, and sacked the Cathedral, and in 1549 when Kett the tanner raised his formidable rebellion, which was with difficulty subdued. Few cities can rival Norwich in the interest of its associations and the treasures of antiquity which here abound. THE CATHEDRAL--ITS HISTORY The See of Norwich was created in Norman times, Dunwich, Elmham and Thetford having previously been the episcopal seats. In the time of Rufus there was a general transference of bishoprics to the larger towns, in accordance with a decree of a church synod, hence in 1094 Norwich had the honour conferred on it by Bishop Herbert de Losinga, who two years later commenced his Cathedral. This bishop obtained his preferment by simony, and it is said built the church in expiation of his crime. Beginning at the east end "he finished the church as far as the altar of St. William,"[19] which was on the north side of the present screen. This included the choir and transepts with the two chapels and two bays of the nave. His successor, Bishop Eborard, finished the nave. Herbert built also a Bishop's Palace, and a monastery of Benedictine monks was attached to the Cathedral. A curious scene was witnessed here in 1144 when a number of Jews were tried for the ritual murder of the boy saint, St. William of Norwich, in Thorpe Wood, whom they cruelly tortured. The houses of the Jews were plundered, and in memory of the miracle-working boy a chapel was built on the scene of his murder, and a shrine erected in the Cathedral. Fire played its usual destructive part here, as elsewhere, in 1171, and the church was repaired and perfected by Bishop John of Oxford in 1197. In the Early English period there seems to have been little progress, except the building of the Lady Chapel at the east end by Walter de Suffield (1244-1257), which was destroyed in the time of Queen Elizabeth. The entrance only remains. Very stormy times befell the Cathedral at the end of the thirteenth century. The city was sacked by the revolting barons in 1266, and a few years later a dispute arose between the citizens and the prior about the right of tolls to a fair held in the Tombland at Whitsuntide, which were of much profit to the monastery. It was the same story which is told of many towns, the quarrels of the burghers and the ecclesiastics. In 1272 the disputants fell to blows, and some of the citizens were slain. They arrested some of the men of the monastery for murder, and an interdict was hurled by the prior against them. Moreover, he imported three barges-full of mercenaries who plundered the burghers' houses and killed and wounded many. Reprisals followed. The citizens stormed the Priory and Cathedral, routed and slew the monks and their mercenaries, set fire to the buildings, and pillaged the church. Such violence against the Church was then unheard of, and dire punishment was inflicted on the citizens of Norwich. The Pope excommunicated them, Henry III. deprived them of their liberties, and ordered 3000 marks to be paid towards the restoration of the Cathedral. New gates and gatehouses were erected by order of the Pope in order to prevent the renewal of such sacrilege, and St. Ethelbert's Gate was built at the close of the thirteenth century to guard the precincts. History concludes that the violence of the fierce prior was the main cause of the trouble, and not the obstinacy of the people. The work of restoration was immediately begun and the church reconsecrated in 1278 in the presence of King Edward I. and his queen and a grand assembly of bishops, knights and nobles, when Bishop Middleton was raised to the see. His successor, Bishop Ralph de Walpole, began to rebuild the cloisters, which were continued by Bishop Salmon, and form some of the largest and most beautiful in the country. Their style is mainly Decorated, but there is some Perpendicular work constructed in Bishop Wakering's time, who was a great persecutor of the Lollards (1416-1425). The chapter-house was erected by Walpole. In the time of Edward IV. troubles sore oppressed the diocese. Bishop Anthony, who was of a violent and imperious spirit, rendered himself very obnoxious to the monks, and was poisoned by his servants, and six years later the Black Death is said to have carried off 50,000 inhabitants. This was in the time of Bishop Bateman, buried at Avignon, a mighty prelate who compelled the powerful Lord Morley to do penance in the Cathedral for killing the bishop's deer. The lofty spire was blown down by a fierce hurricane in 1361, and rebuilt by Bishop Percy, who rebuilt also the clerestory. His successor, Henry de Despencer, was a very warlike prelate, who ruled with an iron hand. He crushed the revolting peasants in 1381, and fought in the Netherlands for Pope Urban VI. against the adherents of his rival, Clement. The vicissitudes of prelates were great in those days; both he and his successor, Totington, were imprisoned by the king. Bishop Alnwick (1426-1449) began to alter the west front, and Bishop Lyhart put in the large west window and built the rood-screen and vaulted the nave. During the rule of Bishop Browne (1436-1445) the quarrel between the burghers and the monks again broke out, and the former besieged the monastery, for which conduct the king deprived them of their rights and liberties. A fire occurred in 1463, caused by lightning striking the spire, and did much damage to the presbytery, which was restored by Bishop Goldwell (1472-1499), who also finished the spire. Fire again did much damage in 1509 during the rule of Bishop Nykke or Nix (1501-1536), whose reputation was not so unblemished as his name (_snow_). The transept roof was destroyed, which Nykke rebuilt in stone. The dissolution of monasteries soon followed in 1538, and Norwich shared the fate of the rest. The Cathedral foundation was renewed, the last prior being made the first dean. The church suffered from the usual acts of spoliation and desecration at the hands of the Commissioners of Edward VI. and the Puritans. Dean Gardiner (1573-1589) destroyed the chapter-house and the beautiful Lady Chapel. Bishop Hall (1641-1656) thus alludes to the misdeeds of the Puritans:-- "It is tragical to relate the furious sacrilege committed under the authority of Lindsey, Tofts the sheriff, and Greenwood; what clattering of glasses, what beating down of walls, what tearing down of monuments, what pulling down of seats, and wresting out of irons and brass from the windows and graves; what defacing of arms, what demolishing of curious stone-work, that had not any representation in the world but the cost of the founder and the skill of the mason; what piping on the destroyed organ pipes; vestments, both copes and surplices, together with the leaden cross, which had been newly sawn down from over the green yard pulpit, and the singing books and service books were carried to the fire in the public market place; a lewd wretch walking before the train, in his cope, trailing in the dirt, with a service book in his hand, imitating in an impious scorn the tune, and usurping the words of the Litany; the ordnance being discharged on the guild day, the cathedral was filled with musketeers, drinking and tobaccoing, as freely as if it had turned ale-house." The citizens joined eagerly in the work of spoliation and burned in the open market, by order of the court of assembly, "Moses and Aaron, and four Evangelists that came from the Cathedral, and some other superstitious pictures." The Restoration of the Monarchy caused the restoration of the Cathedral. A new organ and church plate were presented, and since that time much restoration has taken place, which has greatly enhanced the glory and beauty of this ancient House of God. THE EXTERIOR We enter the Cathedral precincts by the Erpingham Gate, built by Sir Thomas Erpingham, a knight who fought at Agincourt, and is mentioned by Shakespeare (_Henry V._, Act IV). The style is Early Perpendicular. Notice the figures of saints in the arch moulding, the donor's kneeling figure in the niche above the arch, his arms and those of his two wives on the buttresses, and the word _Yenk_ (think) on the shafts. The other gates are that of St. Ethelbert, Early Decorated, much restored, built by the citizens in expiation of their sacrilege in 1272, and the Bishop's Gate leading to the Palace, built by Bishop Alnwyck in Early Perpendicular style. [Illustration EXTERIOR VIEW OF NORWICH CATHEDRAL] Entering by the Erpingham Gate, on the left is the Grammar School, formerly the Chapel of St. John the Evangelist, founded by Bishop Salmon in 1315. Below was a charnel-house, now used as a gymnasium. The porch was added by Lyhart at the end of the fifteenth century. Here Nelson was educated, and George Borrow and many other distinguished men. The _West Front_, in spite of its noble window, is far from being a satisfactory compilation. The injudicious restoration of 1875 has had much to do with this. Portions of the original Norman work remain in a great part of the wall, two side doors, arcades and windows above. The main doorway was erected by Bishop Alnwyck, who seems to have cased the old Norman with Perpendicular work--an arch of the old work was uncovered by Dean Goulburn. The same bishop left money for the great Perpendicular window of nine lights, which was erected by Bishop Lyhart. We can see the result of perverse modern restoration by comparing the present front with those shown in earlier illustrations, and discover that the towers flanking the great window have been cut down and shorn of their cupolas, and also the turrets at the extreme north and south have suffered a like deprivation, and some inelegant pinnacles erected instead, while the battlemented parapet has been removed, and some ridiculous little round windows inserted. Certainly the efforts of modern architects have not been crowned with success. The best view of the long nave is obtained from the upper close, or from the cloister garth. The wall is divided into three storeys. Behind the cloisters some late windows have been inserted in the aisle. Above the cloisters we see a Norman arcade with Norman windows over it, which have been blocked up; above them a row of Perpendicular windows, with a battlemented parapet, and above this a row of Norman windows, and parapet added later. Two Perpendicular windows were inserted at the west end by Bishop Nykke. Norman buttresses divide the windows. The north side resembles the south, and is enclosed by the bishop's garden. The south transept is Norman, but it has been recased with new stone, and pyramid caps set on the turrets in imitation of Norman work, instead of some Perpendicular turrets which these replaced. Why will architects and restorers thus destroy the history of a building written in stone by trying to imitate what they imagine to have been the original form? On the east is the dean's vestry, formerly a chapel. The chapter-house and ancient slype have been destroyed, also an apse-shaped chapel on the east side of the south transept. The _Choir_ in its lower storeys resembles the nave, with its Norman arcade, windows, and inserted Perpendicular windows, but it has a lofty clerestory of Late Decorated style supported by flying buttresses, erected by Bishop Percy, when the fall of the spire destroyed the old Norman clerestory. Carved figures surmount the summits of the exterior buttresses. There are projecting Chapels of St. Mary-the-Less (Decorated), St. Luke and the Jesus Chapel (Norman).[20] The Lady Chapel was destroyed by iconoclastic Dean Gardiner, as we have mentioned, who regarded Lady Chapels as relics of Popery. The north front is very similar to the south, and needs no separate description. The chief glory of Norwich is its _Tower_ and _Spire_. The tower is a very fine example of Norman work. At the four corners are noble Norman buttresses, crowned with crocketed pinnacles, added in Early Perpendicular times, when the fall of the old wooden spire had carried away the original Norman ones. On the surface of each wall are three Norman arcades, and in the upper and lower three of the arches have been pierced with windows, and above are two rows of small circular windows. The spire is Perpendicular work, erected by Bishops Lyhart and Goldwell towards the end of the fifteenth century. May it long escape the fate of its predecessors, one of which was blown down in 1361, and the other struck by lightning, on each occasion causing considerable damage to the church. The _Bishop's Palace_ is on the north, founded by Bishop Herbert, but subsequent alterations have left little of the original structure. Some of the original vaulting is in the basement, and the ruin in the garden is the remains of the great hall built by Bishop Salmon in 1318. In the chapel are monuments to Bishop Reynolds (1661-1676) and Bishop Sparrow, a learned divine, who assisted in the revision of the Prayer Book in 1661. There was a curious open-air pulpit, with a cross over it, somewhat similar to Paul's Cross in London, on the north, in what was known as Green Yard. Galleries were erected around it, and good accommodation provided for the mayor and his officers, with their ladies, who came in summer time to hear the sermons. THE INTERIOR The view of the nave from the west end is magnificent. A long vista of Norman arches, and beautiful expanse of vaulted lierne roofing, is most impressive. A fine screen, with organ above it, prevents a full view of the whole interior, but this detracts nothing from the grandeur of the view. The nave has fourteen piers on each side, divided into seven bays, two arches to each bay. The lower arches, and those in the triforium, are about equal. Each pier has several shafts attached. A lofty shaft runs up the face of the main arch to support the roof. The zigzag and billet mouldings will be observed on the arches. The clerestory is Norman, and has triple arches. The first Norman prelate, Herbert, built the nave as far as the two most eastern bays, and his successor, Eborard, finished it. The old Norman roof was destroyed by fire in 1463, when Bishop Lyhart, who loved to display his punning rebus, a stag lying in water, erected the lierne stone vaulted roof, which is a noble specimen of its kind. The bosses are very interesting, and contain a full epitome of Bible history from the Creation to the Descent of the Holy Spirit, and include the terrors of Hades and the Final Judgment. One boss is absent, and through the hole in the roof it is conjectured that on Whitsunday a white pigeon was released and a burning censer swung, as an eyewitness testifies to a similar representation in old St. Paul's. There is a somewhat similar custom in Florence at the present time. [Illustration A Bay N side of Nave.] We notice in the west the large window erected by Lyhart, with modern glass, and the Norman arch over the door. The north aisle has Decorated windows inserted in the Norman walls. A reconstruction of the roof was made in the fifteenth century, when the walls were raised and Perpendicular windows added, and the slope of the roof changed into one much less steep. The _South Aisle_ differs little from the north. In the centre was Bishop Nykke's Chapel, which he devised for himself, to perpetuate a not very desirable memory. Here we have Late Perpendicular work in the vaulting and windows. Few monuments or brasses escaped the destructive hands of the Puritans. In the aisles there are a few--the altar tomb of Sir T. Wyndham and four wives; Dean Prideaux (d. 1724), a distinguished divine, the author of _The Connection between the Old and New Testament_, Sir John Hobart, Attorney-General to Henry VII. (1507); Bishop Parkhurst (1574). The _Choir_ occupies the space between the two last arches of the nave, being shut off from it by an interesting stone _Screen_. The lower part of this structure is ancient, having been erected by Bishop Lyhart in Perpendicular style. The upper portion was added about 1830. Two altars stood near the central door, one dedicated to the boy saint of Norwich, St. William, slain by the Jews. The scanty remains of these altars mark the site of two chapels, over which were the rood-loft and organ, destroyed by the iconoclastic Puritans, whose sacrilege and abominable riotings have been already mentioned in the records left us by Bishop Hall. At the Restoration Dean Croft endeavoured to remedy the result of their evil deeds, and fashioned a new organ which, with additions and improvements, remains and stands over the screen. Modern taste has removed some of the obstructions erected in times when the ideas of beauty and fitness were defective, and the alterations and improvements of the east end were not concluded till a few years ago. The stalls are very good Perpendicular work, fashioned at the time when the art of wood-carving had attained its highest development. The _misereres_ are specially worthy of examination. The old popular legend is often repeated concerning them, that if one of the monks fell asleep during service, and caused the bench to fall, he was condemned to severe penance. This idea has no foundation in fact, as the raised seat was designed, as its name implies, out of _pity_ for the infirmities of the brethren, and not for any idea of punishment. The bishop's throne and pulpit are modern, and the lectern is good Decorated work. The presbytery was damaged on two occasions by the fall of the tower, and these accidents obliged subsequent repairs and alterations, which were constructed in the style then in use. Hence we have blended with the old Norman work the Decorated clerestory of Bishop Percy (1355-1369), and the Perpendicular roof of Bishop Goldwell, erected a century later. The lower arches were altered by the same bishop into the Perpendicular style, and his name is preserved in the canting rebus--gold and a well. The old Norman triforium remains. The vaulting of the roof is curious. Between each pair of clerestory windows is a niche, and from the heads of these spring the ribs, which form a beautiful example of lierne vaulting. The eastern termination is the original Norman apse, built by Bishop Herbert. The old bishop's throne is particularly interesting, chiefly from its position in the centre of the apse, with the presbyters' seats on each side. This idea was probably derived from Rome, where this position was not uncommon, though unusual in this country. The bishop's throne at Torcelli is a well-known example of this use. The present altar is modern, and also the present floor, designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield. [Illustration Ancient Bishop's Throne] The following are the principal _Monuments_:-- A slab marks the resting place of Bishop Herbert, the founder; Goldwell's Chantry and tomb; Bishop Wakering's tomb (d. 1425); Bishop Overall (d. 1619); Sir W. Boleyn (d. 1505). The _North Transept_, built by Herbert, has good Norman arcading, and a vault erected by Nykke. The clerestory resembles the nave. There was at the east an apsidal chapel dedicated to St. Anne, but it is now closed and used for baser purposes. A processional path runs round the presbytery. On the north side is a curious bridge, which was connected with the Reliquary Chapel, now destroyed, situated on the exterior of the church. This bridge was an ante-chapel to that in which the relics were stored, and is adorned with mural paintings. Probably relics were exhibited here for the worship of the pilgrims, who went in procession along the path below. [Illustration Bridge North Aisle of Presbytery.] The curiously-shaped _Chapels_--the _Jesus_ and _St. Luke's_--with their Norman arcading are next seen. In the former there is some mural painting much restored--a facsimile of the ancient picture--and over the chapel is a museum. The latter is a parish church for the precincts. The windows are sham Norman, having been inserted in the last century. There is a mutilated font of fifteenth century, carved with Crucifixion and Seven Sacraments. Above it is the treasury. Here is a curious oil painting accidentally discovered by Professor Willis, which was part of a reredos, converted into a table after the Puritan outbreak. It is sometimes attributed to an Italian artist of 1370, but there is no reason to suppose that it was not the production of genuine English art of that period. Even Dean Stanley attributes the Eleanor bronze to an Italian, Torel, and Professor Freeman calls De Noyer of Lincoln a "crazy Frenchman," and others ascribe the Exeter chancel-screen to French workmen. This error of attributing pure English work to foreign artists has caused a very unjust depreciation of the skill and genius of our native craftsmen. The subjects of these paintings are the last scenes of our Lord's life. Other mural paintings are:--On ceiling of sacrist's room of late thirteenth century--subjects: Virgin, SS. Catherine, Margaret, Andrew, Peter, Paul, and Richard of Chichester. On south wall of south aisle--SS. Wulstan, Edward the Confessor, and others. The Lady Chapel has been destroyed, as we have said, by Dean Gardiner in Elizabeth's reign, but happily the doorway remains, the only part of the Cathedral of Early English workmanship. The profusion of the dog-tooth ornament is evident. The doorway is formed of a double arch, with clustered shafts, and was built, together with the Lady Chapel, about the middle of the thirteenth century by Bishop Walter de Suffield. Stone was brought from Caen and Barnack for the purpose. The destruction of these Lady Chapels was a sign of the decay in the worship of the Virgin, which was so extensively followed in mediæval times. There is another chapel on the south; that of St. Mary-the-Less, now used as the consistory court, built by one Bauchun in the fourteenth century. An ecclesiastical lawyer, Seckington, added the groined roof in the fifteenth century. The altar has been displaced by a doorway. The sculptured bosses represent the legendary history of the Virgin. We enter the _South Transept_ by a Tudor doorway, over which is some rich open screen work of fifteenth-century design, under the original Norman arch. This transept, built by Herbert, is fine Norman work, with good arcading, the vault being added by Bishop Nykke. This transept has the oldest coloured glass in the Cathedral, a copy of Raphael's Ascension, erected by Dean Lloyd in 1790. Here we see the following _Monuments_:-- Bishop Bathurst (d. 1837), by Chantrey; and memorial tablets to East Anglian heroes who fell in China and Afghanistan. The _Cloisters_ are extremely interesting and beautiful. We enter them by the Prior's Door, a fine Decorated work, having four columns on each side, with archivolt mouldings, in front of which are seven canopied niches, with richly-sculptured crockets, containing figures. The Norman cloisters, probably constructed of wood, were destroyed in 1272, at the time of the citizens' revolt. The east walk was rebuilt by Bishop Walpole (1289-1299) in Early Decorated style. His successor, Bishop Salmon, built the south walk, the windows of which show a great advance in the same style, the windows having flowing tracery. The west walk has also Late Decorated work, and the north walk has at the east end an Early Decorated window, at the west end two Late Decorated, while the other five are Perpendicular in their tracery. This part was finished by Bishop Alnwyck (1426-1436). The slype and chapter-house have both been destroyed. The usual plan of Benedictine monasteries was followed here. The dormitory was on the east side, the refectory on the south, with entrance at south-west corner, and near to this is the monks' lavatory, the kitchen being further west. Carved figures representing the Temptation of Adam and Eve are above this door leading to the refectory. The locutory or parlour of the monks was on the west side of the cloisters and the hospitium, and from this walk the _Monks' Door_ leads us back to the Cathedral. The bosses are extremely interesting. In the east walk the subjects are foliage, the four Evangelists, the Scourging, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ, and Nebuchadnezzar eating grass. In the south and west, scenes from the Book of the Revelation of St. John; and in the north, legends of the saints--Christopher, Laurence (being burnt on a gridiron); the dancing of Herodias's daughter before Herod, which represents her as tumbling rather than dancing, in accordance with the usual conceptions of mediæval artists. DIMENSIONS Length of church 407 ft. Nave length 252 ft. Nave to choir-screen 204 ft. Width of nave 72 ft. Height of roof 95 ft. Height of spire (from ground) 315 ft. Height of tower 140 ft. Height of spire from tower 174 ft. Area 34,800 sq. ft. OBJECTS OF INTEREST IN NORWICH The _Castle_, of which I have already written. _Guild Hall_, parts of which were built in 1407, and contains much that is interesting--portraits of Norwich worthies, regalia, etc. _St. Andrew's Hall_, once the Church of the Dominicans, in Perpendicular style, which has passed through many vicissitudes, and has some good pictures. Norwich abounds in interesting churches-- St. John of Timberhill--Norman font, squint; parvise, principally Decorated. All Saints--fine Perpendicular font. St. Michael-at-Thorn--Norman doorway, curious registers. St. Peter, Mancroft; St. Gregory, Pottergate; St. Giles, St. Helen's, St. John the Baptist, St. Michael-at-Plea. The Stranger's Hall is well worthy of a visit, and Norwich abounds in objects of the greatest interest. The old "Maid's Head" hotel is one of the most ancient and interesting hostels in the kingdom. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES Norman (1091-1145)--Choir, transept with chapels, nave and tower. Early English (1244-1257)--Door of Lady Chapel. (1278-1299)--Ethelbert's gate, east walk of cloisters. Decorated (1299-1369)--Chapter-house and cloisters, clerestory of presbytery, Chapel of St. Mary-the-Less, some windows. Perpendicular (1420-1538)--West front altered, Erpingham Gate, presbytery restored, vault of nave and transepts, spire, screen, stalls, some windows, Bishop's Gate. (1573-1859)--Chapter-house and Lady Chapel destroyed. [Illustration PLAN OF NORWICH CATHEDRAL] FOOTNOTES: [19] _Registrum Primum._ [20] The restorers have been very busy here, and most of the windows are imitations of Norman work. ST. ALBAN'S CATHEDRAL St. Albans, the ancient Verulam, is one of the most ancient towns in England, and is replete with historical associations. It was the home of the British chieftain Cassivellaunus before the Romans came. Boadicea killed many of the people for loving the Romans; and soon came Christianity, and then the record of the slaying of St. Alban, Britain's proto-martyr. It was during the Diocletian persecution that Alban sheltered a deacon named Amphibalus from the fury of the oppressors, and was himself converted to the Christian faith. Alban enabled his guest to escape, and was himself seized and slain, many miracles taking place at his execution. Offa founded a monastery here in 793, near his manor-house--of which the earthworks remain--and dedicated it to the saint, finding the remains of the martyr, which he placed in a reliquary and deposited in the church. The monks introduced here were Benedictine, of which order this was the chief house in the kingdom. The town increased, and Ulsi, the sixth abbot, founded the three churches of SS. Peter, Michael, and Stephen. We need not dwell on the records of Saxon abbots, many of whom were of Royal descent. When the Normans came, Paul of Caen, a relative of Lanfranc, was made abbot in 1077, and rebuilt the church, using the Roman town of Verulam as a quarry. He found much material collected by the last two Saxon abbots, who intended to build a new church, but were prevented by the troubles of the time. The large amount of Roman tiles used in the construction of the building is apparent. Much of his work remains in the eastern portion of the nave and in the tower and transepts. The church was dedicated during the rule of Abbot Richard D'Aubeny, in the presence of the king, Henry I., his court, and a goodly number of bishops, in 1115, and a little later we read of the relics of the saint being deposited in a beautiful shrine and conveyed to a place of honour in the minster. One Ralph de Gobion, seventeenth abbot, plundered the shrine in order to increase the territorial possessions of the Abbey, but his successor, Robert de Gorham (1151-1167), restored the shrine, and built anew some of the monastic buildings. This monastery had the high honour of producing the only English Pope, Nicholas Breakspeare, who was a monk here, and who, in the time of his prosperity, forgot not his early monastic home. The noble west front that once adorned this church, ruined by modern "restoration," was begun by Abbot John de Cella (1195-1214), but the troubles of John's reign prevented him from finishing it. His work was continued by William de Trumpington (1214-1235), who placed a lantern on the tower and rebuilt the west end of the nave. St. Alban's was fortunate in having a historian among its monks. Matthew Paris lived here, and died in 1259. He tells us much in his chronicles about the Abbey he loved so well, of royal visits, of dread plagues, and of the abbots who ruled here. Here came Edward I. on his way to Scotland, here his queen's body lay on its last sad journey, and here one of the Eleanor crosses was raised--alas! now destroyed. There was here a famous school of chroniclers, who did much for the history of England, and amongst them were Roger of Wendover, Matthew of Westminster, Thomas of Walsingham, and many others. A great work was begun in 1256 by Abbot John de Hertford (1235-1260), the successor of Trumpington, and this was the rebuilding and extension of the eastern arm. The apsidal termination was removed, the aisles lengthened two bays, a square-ended central chapel placed at the end, and the Lady Chapel begun. The work lasted until almost the end of the century, and is pronounced to be the most perfect example of the art of the age. A terrible disaster befell the Abbey in the rule of Hugh de Eversden (1308-1326). A great part of the south aisle gave way, two piers, with triforium and clerestory roof and south wall, being involved in a mighty ruin. The abbot set to work to restore the church; he built in the Decorated style, and finished also the Lady Chapel. The usual disputes between the monks and townsfolk raged at St. Albans, as in most places where there was a powerful abbot and a growing town. In Eversden's time the lordly abbot was compelled by the king to give way, but his successor regained all his power over the town. He was a wonderful man, this Richard de Wallingford (1326-1335), who made a marvellous astronomical clock, and could manage to tell the ways of the stars and the course of the sun as easily as he could manage the people of St. Albans. But all disputes did not cease for many a long year, and frequently the abbot's servants and the townsfolk came to blows. The work of restoring the south aisle progressed, and was finished by Abbot Mentmore (1335-1349), who also repaired the north walk of the cloister, damaged by the fall of the adjoining aisle. Abbot Thomas de la Mare (1349-1396) was the son of a noble house, and a favourite of Edward III. After Poictiers the French King John was brought here, and kept as an honourable prisoner, and afterwards expressed his gratitude to the courtly abbot for his care. Edward III. granted leave to the abbot to fortify his monastery, and walls and gates were much needed a few years later when Wat Tyler and his rebels besieged it and frightened the abbot and caused much damage. The rebels suffered here later when the king came, and some he hanged. Then was the Great Gate, with its prisons and vaults, constructed, which still stands, mightily convincing of the power of the abbot. Nor did he forget his church. He paved all the west part at great cost, and spent large sums on the services. The abbot, John de la Moote (1396-1401), took some part in dethroning Richard II., and it is said that the conspiracy was hatched at the abbot's dinner-table. Here they brought as a prisoner the Bishop of Carlisle, who stoutly defended Richard at Westminster. The rivalry of the Houses of York and Lancaster brought trouble to St. Albans. Here was fought the first battle, and here, in the house of a tanner, Henry VI. was found and conveyed to London. The second battle of St. Albans was fought here in 1461, when the king's party were victorious, and the Abbey was the scene of a great thanksgiving service. Great privileges were granted to the Abbey by Edward IV. Several alterations were made in Perpendicular times. The walls of the nave aisles were lowered and their roofs flattened, so that the backs of the Norman triforia were exposed, and their openings made into windows. Several Perpendicular windows were also inserted. St. Albans played a great part in the introduction of printing, and a press was set up in the Abbey. The earliest book printed here was in 1480, and many other incunabula came from this renowned press. The era of the Reformation is at hand. Cardinal Wolsey was abbot here in 1521. The fate of the monastery was doomed. In 1539 it was surrendered to the king by his creature Abbot Boreman, and the manors, goods and possessions were soon seized by the courtiers. Much damage was done in the church; of course, the beautiful shrines were destroyed. The Abbey church and buildings were granted to Sir Richard Lee, who soon began to uproot and destroy. The cloisters were levelled to the ground. Abbot Boreman did good service in buying the site of the monastery from Sir R. Lee. Then the townsfolk did nobly. They bought the church from the Crown, and made it the Parish Church of St. Andrew, and moreover established a Grammar School in the Lady Chapel. The eastern ante-chapel was walled up, and a public passage made across the church west of the Lady Chapel. The knives of the schoolboys improved not the ancient stone-work of this once beautiful building. Various attempts have been made in successive ages to keep this Abbey in repair. In 1832 and 1856 much was accomplished, and the story of the reparation of 1870 under Sir G. Scott tells of the triumphs of the skill of modern builders, and their bravery and resolution in saving the fall of the great tower. This mighty mass began to give way, and the architect discovered that some dastard attempt had been made to destroy it, after the dissolution of the monastery, by digging a great hole under one of the piers. The greatest credit is due to all concerned in the hazardous and most difficult task of saving the falling tower. The Grammar School was removed from the Lady Chapel, and much done to restore the building to its ancient beauty. In 1871 it was raised to the dignity of a Cathedral; and surely no church more worthily deserved this honour. In quite recent times injudicious "restoration" has wrought terrible mischief. The west front has been entirely modernised, and much else has been "restored" beyond all knowledge of English Gothic art; but, in spite of all this, St. Albans remains one of the most interesting buildings in the kingdom, and one can only regret that time has dealt so hardly with this venerable pile. [Illustration S^t Albans from the N W] THE EXTERIOR As we approach the Cathedral from the south we get a fine view and notice the great length of the building, its great central tower, and large amount of Roman tiles used in the construction. These tiles are 1-1/2 inches thick and measure 16 inches by 12. In addition much flint is used. The piers, arches, towers and staircases are mainly composed of tiles. Originally the building was covered with cement, which has almost entirely disappeared. Its plan is that of a Latin Cross, and originally there were no less than seven parallel apses, all of which have disappeared. The grand _Tower_ is Norman. Formerly there were turrets at the four angles, and in the thirteenth century an octagonal lantern was added; but these have disappeared, and the tower is very much the same as it was in Norman times. The embattled parapet is recent. The _West Front_ creates sad reflections, and words are powerless to convey a sufficiently strong protest against the evils which have been wrought by the injudicious though well-meaning efforts of modern restorers. The original Norman west front was removed by Abbot John de Cella (1195-1214), who began to erect a new one. It was a magnificent intention, but it was too ambitious for the resources of the monastery, and the levies of Richard I. for his crusading exploits, and the confiscations of John, were too much for the abbot, and put a stop to his enterprise. He intended to build two western towers, but got no further than the foundations. The front would have been 160 feet in width, 40 feet wider than Salisbury. Abbot William de Trumpington proceeded to finish the work, and rebuilt five bays on the south side of the nave and four on the north. John de Cella's three deep porches are left to us in some small fragments; the rest is modern, and owes its erection to Lord Grimthorpe. The _Nave_ shows three periods of architecture. The eastern portion is the work of Paul de Caen (1077-1097). On the south side the three easternmost bays are Norman and were constructed by him. The next five bays are Decorated. These were begun by Abbot Hugh de Eversden (1308-1326), in whose time during Divine service two great piers on the south fell, and all the roof and beams of the south part were ruined. The rebuilding was finished by Abbot Michael de Mentmore (1335-1349). The four remaining bays are the Early English work of William de Trumpington (1214-1235). In Perpendicular times the roof of the aisle was lowered and made flat, disclosing the triforium openings, but in the recent restoration the original pitch has been renewed. On this side stood the cloister court, and against the south wall of the church are seen the remains of the arches of the north cloister walk. Part of the east walk cloister left its marks on the west wall of the south transept, but recent restoration has obliterated them. The south transept is Norman, the work of Paul de Caen, except the south wall, which has been entirely rebuilt by Lord Grimthorpe. The tall lancets are an imitation of "the Five Sisters" of York Minster. Turrets crowned with small caps stand at each angle of the transept. Below the window are the remains of the slype, or passage from the cloister to the monks' burial-ground. The south wall is all that remains of the chapter-house. On the east side of the transept were formerly two apsidal chapels, but all traces of these have been removed. They were destroyed in the time of Edward II. to make room for a sacristy. On the south of the south chancel aisle is a fine Norman arch leading to these apsidal chapels. When they were removed the arch was contracted by the insertion of a pointed arch. A vestry was constructed here in 1846. This eastern part of the church beyond the third bay from the tower was built in the latter half of the thirteenth century under the rule of Abbot John de Hertford, and completed by Abbot Roger Norton (1260-1290). The Lady Chapel was mainly built under the rule of Abbot Hugh de Eversden (1308-1326), one Reginald of St. Albans being the master-mason. It is in the Decorated style, and was begun as early as 1280. Abbot Wheathampstead (1420-1464) embellished it with much decoration in the Perpendicular style. It was with the ambulatory long separated from the church by a wall, and used as a Grammar School. A public path passed through the building here. The north side of the chapel and presbytery resembles the south. The north door is much later. The most western part of the wall is Norman. The north transept is entirely Norman, the work of Abbot Paul. On the east side were two apsidal chapels, removed in the fifteenth century. The upper part of the north front was rebuilt by Lord Grimthorpe. The north side of the nave preserves its Norman character, both in the clerestory and aisle, except at the west end, where it has been reconstructed in the Early English style. On the west of the Abbey is the _Great Gateway_, which is an unusually important building. The greater part of the present structure was built by Abbot Thomas de la Mare (1349-1396), but there seems to be some thirteenth century incorporated with it. Here the abbot held his court, and dealt out justice to the townsfolk and received his rents, and transacted other business; and here there were prisons for rebellious clerks and others. The gateway was stormed by Wat Tyler's rebels in 1381, who broke into the Abbey and terribly frightened the abbot and his monks. But vengeance was in store for the rioters, several of whom were imprisoned here and afterward hanged. After the dissolution it was used as the Assize Court, and subsequently as a prison. Then the Grammar School, evicted from the Lady Chapel, found a home here. All the other monastic buildings have been destroyed. THE INTERIOR We enter the church by the west door, and are at once struck by its immense length. It is the longest in England, and consists of thirteen bays. Originally the Norman style prevailed throughout the building, but in the course of ages numerous alterations have been made, and its architectural history is somewhat complicated. The five bays on the north and the three bays on the south are the work of Trumpington, who left the great piers standing, removed the Norman arches, triforium and clerestory, and began his reconstruction with all the gracefulness of the Early English style. He cased the piers with stone-work, which are octagonal and have attached shafts. The triforium has in each bay an arch enclosing two sub-arches with a quatrefoil in the head. The dog-tooth appears in the string-courses. The clerestory windows have two lights. The roof is modern. It was evidently intended to have a stone vault, but this was abandoned apparently for want of means. The work in the aisles corresponds to that in the nave as far as Trumpington's building extends. There is a remarkable juncture of this Early English work with the Norman on the north side of the nave. This Norman work is that of Paul de Caen. It is simple and plain, and not dissimilar from that at Caen, whence the abbot came. On the south side the five bays next to Trumpington's work were rebuilt by Abbots Hugh de Eversden (1308-1326) and Michael de Montmore (1335-1349), owing to the fall already alluded to. Here we see rich Decorated work, and though it differs in detail, it follows the lines of the earlier work on the west. Instead of dog-tooth, we have the ball-flower alternating with lilies. There is more sculpture, some of the heads being beautifully carved. The aisle here is similar in character to the nave. The cloister court having been on the south side of this wall, the windows here are high up. The next three bays on the south side are Norman, and also the nine eastern bays on the north side. The piers are very massive and are square-edged. The arches have three orders. The triforium arches are plain, but less lofty than those of the nave, and the clerestory arches are of the same character. We will now examine the mural paintings in the nave, which are of Norman date. Upon the west side of the six Norman piers are examples of the same subject, the Crucifixion, with St. John and the Virgin. Beginning with westernmost Norman pier we notice a representation of our Lord, and below is the Annunciation. On the south is St. Christopher, on the next pier is the same subject, and on the south the figure of St. Thomas of Canterbury. The figures of St. Syth, Edward the Confessor, Coronation of the Virgin, and the Virgin and Child also appear. The nave has been shorn of most of its monuments, but on the second pier on the north side is the monument of Sir John Mandeville, the great traveller, with this inscription:-- "_Siste gradum propcrans, requiescit Mandevil urnâ Hic humili; norunt et monumenta mori._ "'Lo, in this Inn of Travellers doth lie One rich in nothing but in memory; His name was Sir John Mandeville; content, Having seen much, with a final continent, Toward which he travelled ever since his birth And at last pawned his body for y^e earth, Which by a statute must in morgage be Till a Redeemer come to set it free.'" There is another monument which records the undying fame of one John Jones, who wrote a poem on "the Shrine of St. Albans." But time has been unkind to the poet, and his poem no longer exists. The massive stone pulpit was designed by Lord Grimthorpe. An inscription at the west end informs us that in the time of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, on account of the Plague in London, the Courts of Justice were held in this nave. Dividing the choir from the nave is the fine Decorated screen commonly but erroneously called that of St. Cuthbert, erected about 1350 by Abbot de la Mare. It is not the rood-screen as it is commonly described. That with its great, high, towering rood stood a little further east. This is excellent Decorated work. It has suffered from iconoclastic reformers. Over the screen is the modern organ. The extensions of the screen over the aisles are the work of Lord Grimthorpe. Notice the rich tabernacle work of the screen. The _South Aisle of the Choir_ beyond the screen is all Norman, except the modern vault. Here on the south is the tomb of two famous hermits--Roger and Sigar--who lived in the time of King Stephen, though the tomb is later. Roger lived near Dunstable, and Sigar in the wood of Northaw, of whom it is said that he banished all nightingales from his retreat, as their sweet song prevented him from saying his prayers. Next we notice the Abbot's Door, which is rich Decorated work, built by the fashioner of the screen, Abbot de la Mare (1349-1396). The _Transepts_ and _Central Tower_ are plain Norman, the work of Paul de Caen. The south wall of the south transept, however, with its Five Sisters' Window, copied from York Minster, was entirely rebuilt by Lord Grimthorpe. The eastern triforium arches are extremely interesting, as they have curious baluster shafts which are recognised as Saxon work. These doubtless are the sole remaining relics of the ancient church built by Offa in 793, and were inserted here by Abbot Paul. The capitals are, however, Norman. The small window on the opposite side was an opening into a watching chamber, whence a monk could keep guard over the treasures in the transept. This chamber was not a reclusorium as the legends tell. On the east side were two apsidal chapels, destroyed in order to make room for a sacristy, which has now shared their fate. The altars of SS. Stephen and John the Evangelist stood here. On the west side are three ancient Jacobean cupboards, fashioned for the distribution of bread to the poor on Sundays. On the south is a fine Norman doorway, brought here from the slype, which is now entered through it. The south wall of this passage is all that remains of the old chapter-house. Here are some Norman arcading, and as the modern verses tell us, "fragments brought together from all sides." We enter the _Choir_, which occupies the three eastern bays of the nave and the space under the tower. The stalls are modern. The ceiling is extremely interesting and dates from the time of Edward III., the painted panels being adorned with the sacred monogram, numerous shields with royal arms supported by angels, the _Te Deum_, and invocations to the Virgin. The Roses of York and Lancaster appear on the lofty ceiling of the tower. The choir pulpit here was given by the English Freemasons. The _North Transept_ resembles the south, and is mainly Norman. Here is another Saxon baluster-shafted arch in the triforium, a relic of Offa's church. The old painted ceiling has been replaced by a modern roof. The upper part of the north wall was rebuilt by Lord Grimthorpe, who inserted here a huge rose window which has received some very severe criticism. He has also placed beneath it an inscription which records the fact that he ("Edmund") has built anew the work of Abbot "John" Wheathampstead which had perished while that of Abbot Paul remains. On the east were formerly apsidal chapels, which have been removed, and altars dedicated to the Holy Trinity, St. Osyth, and the Holy Cross of Pity. Near the last is a painting on the wall, the subject being the Incredulity of St. Thomas. On the floor are some remarkable ancient tiles. On the splay of one of the Norman windows a vine is represented, and there is a small Norman door. Bishop Claughton's fine monument is here (1892) and Bishop Blomfield of Colchester (1894). The presbytery occupies the space between the tower and the Wallingford screen, and retains its Norman walls as far as the third bay. The rest is the work of Abbot John de Hertford (1235-1260). The style is Early English. Before us is the famous Wallingford screen or reredos, erected by Abbot William Wallingford (1476-1484), which resembles that at Winchester. It was much mutilated, and has very recently been thoroughly restored, and the niches filled with statuary. There is a fine figure of our Lord in the centre, with the Virgin and St. John on either side, surrounded by angels. Below are the twelve Apostles with our Lord in the midst. On either side are figures of saints and kings connected with the history of the Abbey. On the north is the Chantry of Abbot Ramryge (1521), which has some rich Perpendicular work; the abbot's rebus--_rams_ with _ryge_ on the necks--may be discovered. Notice the representation of the martyrdom of St. Alban over the door. On the south is the Chantry of Abbot Wheathampstead (1464), which has a fine brass (that of Abbot Thomas de la Mare), and bears his arms (three ears of corn with the motto _Valles habundabunt_). Some attribute this tomb to Abbot Wallingford, but the details seem to point to Wheathampstead. This abbot caused the ceiling to be painted whereon are depicted the _Agnus Dei_ and the Eagle of St. John. There are numerous tombs and brasses of other abbots here. The south door has some fine Early English tabernacle work. The architecture of the adjoining _North Aisle_ corresponds with that of the presbytery, and through it we pass to the _Saints' Chapel_, which is the work of Abbot John de Hertford and his successors, and may well be described by Sir G. Scott as being "among the finest productions of that period." On the east side of the reredos are some fine modern statues of the Virgin and other saints. Here is the famous _Shrine of St. Alban_, broken and destroyed at the Reformation, and now happily built up again, the fragments having been collected by careful hands from many parts of the building. It was first erected by Abbot John de Marynis (1302-1308), and is of Decorated style. Gorgeous must have been its original appearance; but though shorn of all its jewels, gold and silver, it remains a noble piece of work. The holes in the panels of the base were intended for the insertion of diseased limbs, in order that they might be healed by the merits of the saint. The carved leafage in the tympana of the canopied niches is admirable. Only two carved figures remain, those of Offa and St. Oswin. On the west we see a representation of the martyrdom of the saint, and at the east his scourging. On the north side of the chapel is the _Watching Tower_, a wooden structure, probably erected by Abbot John de Wheathampstead. This and a similar one at Christ Church, Oxford, are the only watching towers remaining. A monk was stationed here to guard the treasures of the shrine. There are some curious carvings on the frieze. Treasures were preserved in aumbreys which now contain some curios. The famous Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, son of Henry IV., murdered by order of Queen Margaret (1446), lies buried here in a tomb on the south. The sculpture of the numerous figures is very bold and vigorous. Some painting is observed on the piers, and there is a figure of St. William of York. In the _North Aisle_ is part of the _Shrine of St. Amphibalus_, which shares the history of its neighbour, and has been now partially recovered. It belongs to the last half of the fourteenth century. On the sides are the initials of Ralph Whitechurch, sacrist of the Abbey. The _Ante-Chapel_ and _Lady Chapel_ have been extensively restored. Indeed, their condition was deplorable. A public path ran through the former, and the latter was used as a Grammar School, and suffered in consequence. The story of the architecture is rather complex. The ante-chapel was begun by De Hertford and finished by his successor, Roger Norton (1260-1290), who continued to build the Lady Chapel, which was finished by Hugh de Eversden (1308-1326). The style is Decorated. The whole of the chapel has been most completely restored by Lord Grimthorpe. The modern carving is exquisite. We now pass to the _South Aisle_, which follows the architecture of the rest of the east end. Here we see an iron trellis screen of thirteenth-century work. There is here some good arcading, and an interesting panel taken from the old ceiling of the north transept representing the martyrdom of St. Alban. At the east end of this aisle was the Altar of St. Mary of the Four Tapers, and numerous other altars existed in the aisles and ante-chapel. In the wall above the old poor box is a curious figure of a pensioner carved by a sexton about 100 years ago. An ascent of the tower reveals many interesting features of that ancient structure, and helps one to realise the formidable nature of the task which the skilful architect and builders of 1870 accomplished when they saved this massive pile from destruction. DIMENSIONS Total length 550 ft. Length of nave to tower 284 ft. Length of nave to screen 215 ft. Width of transepts 189 ft. Width of tower 144 ft. Total area 40,000 sq. ft. PRINCIPAL BUILDING DATES Saxon--Baluster shafts of windows in triforium of transepts. Norman (1077-1115)--Nine bays on north of nave, and three bays on south, transept, and three bays of presbytery. Early English (1195-1260)--Western end of nave, presbytery, Saints' Chapel with aisles. Transition (1260-1290)--Foundations of Lady Chapel and ante-chapel. Decorated--Lady Chapel and five bays of nave. Perpendicular--South buttresses of choir; windows inserted which have since been removed. The city possesses many objects of interest:-- The Roman city of Verulamium. The Churches of St. Michael, St. Peter, St. Stephen. Sopwell Nunnery. The old Moot Hall. And the old inn called the "Fighting Cocks," said to be one of the oldest inns, and the oldest inhabited house in England, but this reputation is somewhat legendary. NOTE The Welsh Cathedrals of Llandaff and St. David's should be approached from Gloucester; and Chester is the most convenient starting-point for St. Asaph and Bangor. ST. ASAPH'S CATHEDRAL This Cathedral, like that of Bangor, is small, but its history is not unimportant. It owed its origin to Kentigern, otherwise called St. Mungo, the founder and Bishop of Glasgow, who, being driven from his northern see in the sixth century, found a refuge here, and enjoyed the protection of Prince Cadwallon. This prince aided him in building a church and founding a monastery here, and fabulous records tell of the amazing number of the monks. His biographer assures us that there was no less than 965 dwellers in this monastery, which number must be an extraordinary exaggeration. When Kentigern returned to Scotland, he left one of his followers, St. Asaph, to act as bishop of the diocese. The chroniclers are silent about the names of the subsequent bishops, until they record the doings of Norman times. In 1143 one Gilbert was consecrated bishop. The church in existence during his rule was burnt down in 1283, during the fierce wars between Edward I. and the Welsh. Anian II. was bishop during that time, and contemplated the transferring of the seat of the bishopric to Rhuddlan; but, on the advice of the Archbishop of Canterbury, he determined to rebuild the ruined church, and most of the present building is his work, or that of his two successors, Leoline and David. The work extended from 1284 to 1350. Owen Glendower, after his fashion, set fire to the church and burned the roof in 1404, and for a century the church remained in a roofless ruined state. Bishop Redman, in 1490, began to rebuild and restore the ruined church. He raised walls, erected a new roof, added the east window, and placed in the choir the stalls and a throne. Bishop Owen Jones, in 1631, made some further alterations, and repaired the steeple and belfry. Then came the disasters of the Civil War, when terrible desecration ensued, principally caused by a wretch named Miller, who turned the Palace into a wine-shop, and the church into a stable and cow-house, and the font into a hog-trough. Since the Restoration there have been several learned and devout prelates, amongst others, Isaac Barrow, William Beveridge, Thomas Tanner, author of _Notitia Monastica_; Samuel Horsley; but they were more learned in theology and their books than in the study of the correct principles of architecture. Hence they disfigured the church, and destroyed many of its most interesting features. In 1780 the choir was remodelled, a plaster ceiling erected, and much further damage done. "Oh, _Restoration!_ what evils have been wrought in your name." The church is cruciform. At the west end is a large Decorated window, and a deeply-recessed doorway of six orders, with buttresses on either side, which have crocketed pinnacles; a wooden cross surmounts the gable. It will be noticed that the shafts supporting the arch of the doorway have no capitals, the wave moulding making a complete sweep round the arch, with no capitals intervening. This arrangement we shall notice in the church. The great central tower was the latest addition to the mediæval church, and was constructed late in the fourteenth century. The embattled parapets were added in 1714. It is 93 feet high. The nave consists of five bays, and at once we notice the same peculiarity observable in the west doorway. The mouldings are carried up the piers and round the arches without any break. They are very plain, and of two orders, and are of the Early Decorated style, the work of Bishop Anian. Formerly there was a clerestory, but during one of the tasteless restorations a ceiling was erected, which shuts it out from view. The windows of the clerestory were in the Perpendicular style, and exist still in the south. Grotesque carvings appear on the brackets supporting the roof. The windows of the aisles have been much restored, and are in the style of the Early Decorated. The south transept was once the Lady Chapel, the consistory court and chapter-house. The windows are of five lights, and were finished about 1336. Here is a much mutilated effigy of a bishop, which is of great beauty, especially the figures of censing angels. It is supposed to represent Bishop Anian. The north transept has the monument of Bishop Luxmore (1830). In the south aisle are some monuments of the relatives of Mrs. Hemans, the poetess, and a tablet has been erected to the memory of that lady, who died in 1835. Under the central tower stand the old finely-canopied stalls. The throne is modern. The style of the old choir was almost entirely changed at the eighteenth-century "restoration." It was of Early English design, and Sir G. Scott wisely resolved to restore it to its primitive form. This proceeding was somewhat drastic, but such was the condition of the choir, and so severe was the treatment it received in 1780, that perhaps no other course could with advantage have been taken. He discovered the old sedilia, and the door leading to the old chapter-house. The east window has entirely modern tracery, and the reredos is modern. Bishop Barrow's tomb outside the west door is worthy of notice. The Bishop's Palace is a large modern building. At the foot of the hill is the parish church. From the summit of the tower of the Cathedral a fine view can be obtained of the Vale of Clwyd, with the Castles of Denbigh and Rhuddlan, and a long line of sea coast. Robert Montgomery sang sweetly of this wondrous view:-- "Thy heart might beat In thrilling answer to the strain I sing, Hadst thou beside me, from the sacred tower, Beheld this beauteous vale." BANGOR CATHEDRAL The early Bishops of Bangor are shadowy beings. We read of Bishop Daniel in the sixth century, concerning whom the records are misty, although he was canonised. Godwin says that there were no bishops here before the Norman Conquest. At any rate Hervey, or Harvé, was consecrated bishop in 1092, but he was so rigid in his discipline, and so severe upon the Welsh, that they rebelled, murdered his brother, and threatened him with a like fate. So he fled for refuge to the court of Henry I., and was ultimately appointed to the See of Ely. The early Celtic church was destroyed by the Normans in 1071. A second church was at once built, and here, in 1188, Archbishop Baldwin preached the Crusades, and so moved the heart of the Bishop of Bangor that he joined the army of Crusaders to rescue the Holy City from the Saracens. This church was destroyed in 1211 by a great fire. It was, however, partly restored, and again fell a prey to destruction in the wars of Edward I. and the Welsh. Bishop Anian, however, seemed to have been a favourite of the king, who helped him to rebuild his church. This bishop baptised the first Prince of Wales, born at Carnarvon Castle. He also drew up the Bangor Use, or Service Book, which ranked highly among the Cathedral uses of the mediæval church. During the wars of Owen Glendower in 1402 the church was completely gutted, and for nearly a century it lay in ruins. A new church was begun by Henry Deane in 1496, who finished the choir, and the Cathedral was completed by Bishop Skeffington, Abbot of Beaulieu, Hants, who was appointed to the See of Bangor in 1509. The style of the architecture was therefore entirely Perpendicular. Though the body of this benefactor was buried in his Hampshire Abbey, his heart was conveyed for sepulchre to the church he loved so well. The church suffered at the Reformation, when the see was held by Bishop Bulkely, who cared not for his church, and sold its store of vestments, plate, ornaments, and the bells given by his predecessor. Bishop Rowlands, in 1598, put a new roof on the church, and gave four new bells. In the Civil War it suffered much; the soldiers destroyed all the woodwork and broke the glass. At the Restoration the church was renovated and beautified, and Brown Willis gives a good account of "its lightsome" appearance. In the early nineteenth century some terrible "restorations" took place, and the church was divided into two portions, one for the Welsh and the other for the English service. The general appearance of the church was stunted and low, and was much inferior to many parish churches, possessing neither dignity nor beauty. In 1866 a very thorough restoration was undertaken by Sir G. Scott, which practically amounted to a rebuilding. He, however, carefully collected all the old materials found built up in the wall, and from these he endeavoured to reconstruct the church as it originally stood. The plan of the church consists of a west tower, a nave with aisles, a central tower, transepts and choir, and on the north a muniment room, and above it the chapter-house. The _West Tower_ was built by Bishop Skeffington (1509-1533), and is a good example of Late Perpendicular work. It has three stages, and is 60 feet high. The door is of the usual character of the style, and above it is the inscription:-- "_Thomas Skevynton, episcopus Bangorie hoc campanele et ecclesiam fieri fecit, A^o Partus Virginei, 1532._" In each of the other stages there is a window of three lights. The _Nave_ has six bays, and the Perpendicular style is evident in the arches, octagonal piers and characteristic bases. The windows in the south aisle are Decorated, and those in the north Perpendicular. The masonry of the walls seems to have survived the various fires and other accidents which befell this ill-fated Cathedral, and probably are the remains of Bishop Anian's work. The font was probably erected by Skeffington, and is good Perpendicular. The _Transepts_ have been almost entirely rebuilt, and the Perpendicular work, which was much decayed, was replaced by Decorated, authority for which was discovered by Sir G. Scott in the fragments of old stone-work built up in the walls. Some very fine thirteenth-century piers stood at the crossing until an unfortunate restoration in 1824, when they were replaced by imitation Perpendicular. These have now been removed, and new piers and arches constructed in accordance with the conjectured design of the originals. There was no central tower in the Perpendicular church, but the relics of earlier work prove that the original church had such a tower. Hence Scott added this to his design, and when completed it will enhance the dignity of the building. The _Choir_ has had a chequered history, which, as Sir G. Scott states, is of a threefold nature. The Norman choir had an apsidal termination. This apse was removed, and the length of the choir or presbytery greatly increased in Early Decorated times. After the destruction wrought by Owen Glendower, Bishop Deane (1496-1500) restored it, and the main object of Scott's restoration was to make the present choir conform to the condition in which Bishop Deane left it. The Civil War brought much destruction to this excellent work of the Perpendicular period, and decay had also left its marks upon it; but during the recent restorations all has been again renewed, and all that we see conforms as nearly as possible to that produced in the days of Henry VII. Cromwell's soldiers left none of the fittings untouched. The stalls were destroyed. Now all has been restored, and most of the fittings are new. The modern tiles of the floor are worthy of notice. Some mural paintings have been added at the east end. The tombs on either side are probably those of Bishop Anian (1328), the rebuilder of the church, and one Tudor ap Tudor (1365). In the south transept is recorded the burial of Owen Gwynedh (1169), the son of the last King of Wales, Gryffydh ap Gynan, who also was buried here. A rude representation of our Lord upon the Cross appears over the supposed Royal tomb. In the north transept is a memorial to a Welsh bard, Gronovil Owen (1722). Sir G. Scott entirely rebuilt the old chapter-house and muniment room on the north side of the choir in the Early Decorated style. The Bishop's Palace is a large mansion, but has no great architectural merits. The Deanery and some old almshouses and an Elizabethan school are all near the Cathedral. LLANDAFF CATHEDRAL The history of the Welsh sees carries us back to the early days of British Christianity. When the Saxon tribes swept over the land they destroyed the churches and monasteries, and drove the British west-ward, who found a refuge in the hills of Wales, in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset, and in the regions north of the Mersey, and there the British Church continued to exist and flourish, though the rest of England was submerged in the flood of Paganism. When Augustine came he found in these parts of England a church governed by its bishops, who did not recognise the authority of the Pope, and whose customs differed somewhat from those of Rome. He summoned them to a conference, which was held at a place called "Augustine's oak," where by his haughty demeanour he offended the representatives of the ancient native church, who refused to abandon their accustomed usages, especially in the matter of the time for observing Easter and the forms of the tonsure. In Roman times Caerleon was a see, which seems to have embraced the whole of Wales. Then there were five principalities, each of which had a bishop. These were Bangor, Llanelwy (St. Asaph's), St. David's, Llandaff and Llanbadarn, afterwards incorporated with St. David's. Judging from the number of the names of saints which occur in Welsh nomenclature, we may conclude that the Welsh Church was famous for its zeal and activity and for the holiness of its members. It sent preachers and missionaries to Ireland, to Brittany, and Cornwall and Devon. It founded colleges and schools, and the great Celtic Church assisted in the conversion of the Northern Saxons of England, and even sent missionaries to the Continent. By degrees the British Church became merged in the English, founded by Augustine, and with the appointment of Norman prelates in the time of the Conqueror, any lingering survivals of ancient customs and usages were lost, and the unity of the church fully established. The earliest bishop of the See of Llandaff whose name is recorded was St. Dubricius. He is reputed to have founded the see in 612 A.D., but his successor, St. Teilo, seems to have had the chief credit of accomplishing the work. Of course the mythical King Lucius is dragged in as the earliest founder, but we have always neglected the legends connected with him. Of the early Welsh bishops we have no sure information, though there is the famous _Book of Llandaff_, which does not afford much certain knowledge, and is full of inaccuracies. Bishop Urban was consecrated in 1107, conveyed here the relics of Dubricius, and began to rebuild his Cathedral, for which an indulgence was granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to all who should assist him in the work. Possibly it was finished in his time, but we have no certain information, and the stones of the church can alone tell the story of its building. During the thirteenth century the western part of the nave was erected, and also the chapter-house, which is of Early English design. During the Decorated period the Lady Chapel was added and the presbytery rebuilt, and the walls of the aisles also renewed. The north-west tower was erected in the Perpendicular period by the Earl of Pembroke, uncle of Henry VII. Thus the church was completed. It was not a very beautiful structure, and time has dealt hardly with it. The spoilers at the Reformation plundered it; decay and desolation reigned in the deserted "long-drawn aisle." Some bishops seem to have attempted to do something, but the whole condition of the church was deplorable. Then the troubles of the Civil War period fell upon this Job-like structure, and in spite of some attempts to improve its condition at the Restoration, and at subsequent periods, it still remained in a ruinous state. Then in 1723, when the taste for Italian models was rampant, the authorities erected an Italian temple-like building at the east end. This happily has been entirely removed during the restorations, which commenced in the middle of the last century, when the church was completely renovated, and all the old portions which had escaped the action of time, or the barbarous efforts of the followers of Christopher Wren, restored to their original state. The work was finished in 1869. Although much of the church is new, on close inspection we can discover some ancient work that lacks not interest. The _West Front_ is very beautiful. The doorway is a fine example of Early English work. It consists of a round arch, with two sub-arches, and in the tympanum there is an episcopal figure, probably that of St. Dubricius. The shafts at the sides of the doorway are Early English. Above them are lancet windows, and in the gable a figure of our Lord in glory. The cross above the gable is modern. The front is flanked on each side by two towers. The north-west tower is Perpendicular, the work of Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, uncle of Henry VII.; the south-west tower is modern. The _Nave_ consists of five bays, and is of Early English design. There is no triforium. The clerestory windows are lancets, and a passage runs in front of them. We notice the graceful foliage on the pier capitals, of Late Early English design, when the stiff-leaved foliage was giving way to the more natural foliage of the Decorated period. The aisles were rebuilt in the Late Decorated period, but two Norman doorways on the north and south sides were preserved. The choir is of the same character as the nave, but in the presbytery we see some of the Norman work of Urban's church, mixed with that of the Decorated period. Here stood the Italian temple, until happily this monstrosity was removed. The clerestory was destroyed when the temple was erected, but in the restoration of Sir Gilbert Scott it was rebuilt. On the south side we notice the curious blending of the Norman with the Decorated work. One of the most striking features of this Cathedral is the Late Norman arch at the east end. It is very richly ornamented, and has four orders, being adorned with zigzag, roll, and a curious row of flower-like circles. The reredos is modern, and has some fine paintings by Rosetti. The sedilia are modern. The _Lady Chapel_ has a stone vault, the ribs rising from Purbeck marble shafts. The windows are of good design, having two lights with a circle in the head. The east window is modern. The chapter-house is Early English, and is almost unique in having a square plan with a central pier. Few of the monuments possess much interest. We notice that of St. Dubricius; a brass memorial of Bishop Copleston (1849); Bishop William de Bruce (1287); Bishop St. Teilo; Bishop Bromfield (1393); Bishop Marshall (1496), a skeleton figure of the _memento mori_ type; Sir David Matthew, standard-bearer to Edward IV. (1461); Sir William Matthew; Lady Audley. The old reredos discovered during the restoration has been placed in the north aisle of the choir. ST. DAVID'S CATHEDRAL Far away on the most western point of Southern Wales stands the ancient Cathedral of St. David's, the most inaccessible, but the most interesting of the four Welsh Episcopal churches. The see was founded in the sixth century, and was known by the name Menevia. St. David was the reputed founder of the see, concerning whom there are many legends. He founded a monastery at Glyn Rhosyn, which became a fruitful school of saints and Celtic worthies, wrought divers miracles, and through him the Welsh Church extended its influence to Ireland, and also to Scotland and Northumbria. After his death troubles befell the monastery. It was plundered in 645, but recovered from the disaster. Here Asser, the biographer of Alfred the Great, acquired his wisdom. Then the Norse pirates frequently attacked the place, and on one occasion, in 1011, Eadric of Mercia wrought havoc here. But the see survived all these misfortunes, and here came William the Conqueror, who made an offering at St. David's shrine. For a time Welsh prelates continued to hold the see, but in 1115 Bernard, the first Norman prelate, chaplain of the queen of Henry I., was appointed to the see. Although he altered the constitution of the chapter, he made no alterations in the old church. The rebuilding was begun by Bishop Peter de Leia (1177-1198), but it is doubtful whether he personally did much to forward the work, as on account of his unpopularity he spent most of his time in England. However, the work progressed rapidly during his episcopacy, and was finished in the early years of the thirteenth century. After the fashion of cathedral towers, the tower of St. David's fell in 1220, and was immediately rebuilt. But it showed signs of again collapsing, and for centuries was a cause of anxiety, until it was made secure by Sir G. Scott in the restoration of 1866. The greater part of the present building is Transitional Norman, but there was much architectural activity in later periods. Owing to the fall of the tower and the action of an earthquake in 1248, much rebuilding was found necessary. The thirteenth century witnessed the reconstruction of the north transept, together with the building of the east chapels, which incline at so great an angle, much reparation of the choir, and the commencement of the Lady Chapel and eastern portion of the presbytery. During the Decorated period much work was accomplished. Bishop Martyn (1290-1328) finished the Lady Chapel, and Bishop Gower (1328-1347) did much for the fabric of the Cathedral, and built the noble Palace, which is still beautiful in decay. His work is seen in the upper portion of the walls of the nave and eastern part of the choir and presbytery, the inserted Decorated windows, the eastern chapel of the south transept, the alterations in the corresponding chapel of the north transept, the south porch, the second stage of the tower, and the famous rood-screen. During the fifteenth century and the latter years of the fourteenth century, new roofs were added, the south window in the south transept constructed, heavy buttresses placed against the north wall of the nave, which had shown signs of giving way, and during the early years of the sixteenth century the tower was raised, and a stone vault erected over the Lady Chapel and the chapels behind the high altar. During the Civil War sad havoc was wrought; lead was torn from the roof, and this caused the eastern chapels and the Lady Chapel to fall into decay. The once noble Cathedral, in consequence of the treatment which it received during the strife of King and Parliament, and of subsequent neglect, was shorn of its ancient glory, and ruin and desolation reigned. At the beginning of the nineteenth century some efforts were made to improve this state of things, and the west front was rebuilt in a debased and miserable style, and during the course of the century sundry alterations were made, and at length, in 1862, Sir G. Scott commenced a thorough restoration. Vast sums have been expended upon the fabric of the Cathedral, and though the eastern chapels remain in their ruined state, the rest of the building has been repaired and renewed, and preserved from destruction. "It remains," wrote Sir G. Scott, "a wonderfully interesting and valuable landmark in architectural history, taking in the extreme west a position parallel to that held by Canterbury in the extreme east of the island." THE EXTERIOR The _West Front_ is entirely modern, the work of Sir G. Scott, but it is designed after the fashion of the ancient front which existed before the hideous construction of the early eighteenth-century architect. As we walk around the Cathedral we must remember that nearly all the work is Transitional Norman, although its character is much disguised by later alterations and the insertion of Decorated windows. The _North Doorway_, with its curious ornamentation, is Transitional Norman, but time and weather have destroyed much of its beauty. The walls of the aisles were raised in the time of Bishop Gower (1328-1347), who inserted Decorated windows. The massive flying buttresses were added about 1500 A.D. On this side was the cloister court of the College of St. Mary, the ruined walls of which appear on the north. This college was founded by John of Gaunt in 1377 for the maintenance of a master and seven priests. The _North Transept_ has been much altered. During the recent restoration the low Perpendicular roof has been removed, and one with a high pitch erected. The north window was inserted by Butterfield in 1846 in place of one which had been blocked up. A curious building is seen on the east side of this transept, which has three storeys, and is higher than the roof of the main building. It contains the Chapel of St. Thomas the Martyr, built mainly by Sir Richard Symonds in 1329, and above it the old chapter-house, and in the highest storey the treasury. The east end of the church was extensively restored by Scott. The Perpendicular roof was retained, but finding amongst the _débris_ the evidence of lancet windows at the east end, Scott reproduced these with excellent effect. The _Lady Chapel_, built by Bishop Martyn (1296-1328), is still in ruins. The south transept has a Transitional Norman west wall, and the rest was built about 1220, after the fall of the tower. Large Perpendicular windows were inserted in the south wall. The old vestry is on the east side. On the south side is the beautiful _Porch_, built by Bishop Gower (1328-1347) in the Decorated style. There is a parvise chamber above. The doorway is remarkable; the sculptures represent the Root of Jesse, with Adam and Eve on the west side and the Patriarch Jesse on the other; above it a representation of the Holy Trinity, with censing angels. The _Tower_ was erected originally by Bishop de Leia, and fell in 1220. It was then rebuilt. Bishop Gower added a second storey in the Decorated style, and above this a Perpendicular storey was raised in Perpendicular times. The wonder is that all this extra weight did not cause the tower to collapse again. It certainly caused continual anxiety, and produced bulges in the neighbouring walls. However, the restoration of Sir G. Scott has secured safety and removed anxiety. The Perpendicular parapet is curious and not very beautiful. Only one gateway remains, though there were four in the great wall which surrounded the precincts. The _Tower Gate_ is a fine structure, flanked by two towers, one of which is octagonal and the other semi-circular. The ruins of the _Bishop's Palace_, a magnificent structure, should be visited. It was built by Bishop Gower, and must have been one of the finest residences in the whole kingdom. THE INTERIOR The _Nave_ is the work of Peter de Leia (1176-1198), and is Transitional Norman. The elaborate carving and the richness of the ornamentation are remarkable, and the colour of the stone adds a wonderful effect. St. David's has many peculiar features, and is unlike any other church in the kingdom. The arches are round, the triforium and clerestory are blended together under one arch. The piers are round and octagonal, with attached shafts. It was evidently intended to vault the nave, but this was abandoned. A Perpendicular roof of intricate and unusual design was constructed about 1500. The capitals afford an interesting study. The west end is modern, the work of Scott. Traces of coloured decoration may be seen on some of the piers of the nave; among the designs are figures of the Virgin, our Lord, and some monarch. The font in the south aisle is, with the exception of the shaft, of the same date as the nave. It is octagonal, and is carved with an arcade of pointed arches. The aisles do not possess any special features of interest. The architectural changes which have taken place there have already been mentioned. In the north aisle is the Transitional Norman doorway, and in the south the Decorated door of Bishop Gower. The _Rood-Screen_ is very remarkable, the work of Bishop Gower in the Decorated style. It is very massive and elaborate, and contains several tombs and monuments, has a groined roof, and is a very unusual and noble structure. The organ, which is modern, stands above this screen. The iron gates leading to the choir are also modern. Before entering the choir we will visit the _Transepts_, which are entered through Late Norman doorways from the nave. The western walls are Late Norman, built by De Leia, the rest were erected after the fall of the tower in 1220. In the _North Transept_ the large north window was erected in 1846 in the Decorated style. This transept was dedicated to St. Andrew. On the east side is the Chapel of St. Thomas the Martyr, begun in 1220, refounded by Sir R. Symonds in 1329, and used for a variety of purposes. We notice a fine Early English piscina in the south wall. Above is the library and the old treasury. The _South Transept_, formerly known as the "Chanter's Chapel," had altars dedicated to the Holy Innocents and St. David, and was once used as a parish church. The east side of this transept has passed through several vicissitudes, and has now been restored to its original form. The _Choir_ is entered through the gates of the rood-screen, and occupies the space beneath the tower and half a bay beyond. The presbytery occupies the rest of the space beyond the parclose screen to the east wall behind the altar. All this is the work of Bishop de Leia, or that of his immediate successors, who rebuilt the tower after its fall in 1220. First, we examine the tower itself, and wonder at the marvellous skill of our modern architects and masons who could rebuild from their foundation two out of the four piers, each sustaining a weight of 1150 tons. Rich ornamentation is observed on the east and west arches, one of which is round, the rest pointed. Scott raised the wooden ceiling, and greatly improved the appearance of the interior of the tower. The _Stalls_ were erected at the end of the fifteenth century, and are the work of Bishop Tully. There are a number of curious _misereres_ with strange grotesques, amongst others--three men in a boat with a fourth rowing, one of the passengers being very sea-sick; a cowled fox offering a wafer to a goose with a human head; a carpenter building a boat, etc. The fox is doubtless a satire on the monks, and possibly also the sea-sick passenger. The _Bishop's Throne_ is an elaborate structure erected by Bishop Morgan (1496-1505), and is of great height. It is a blend of the Perpendicular and Decorated styles; probably Bishop Morgan used some older materials in its construction. The _Parclose Screen_, separating the choir from the presbytery, is a peculiar feature of this Cathedral. It is of Decorated design. Passing through it we enter the _Presbytery_. At the east end above the altar are two rows of lancets, the lower lights being blocked, and filled with rich mosaics. The glass in the upper lights is modern, of good design and execution, erected by the Rev. John Lucy in memory of his ancestor, Bishop Lucy (1660-1677). The subjects of the mosaics are the Crucifixion, and figures representing the Christian and Jewish Churches. The type of our Lord upon the Cross, the brazen serpent, appears below the central figure. Scenes from the life of St. David also are represented. The roof of the presbytery dates from about 1500, and on the bosses and in the panels are heraldic shields. The altar is modern. The floor is paved with old tiles, and the five crosses cut on some of the slabs in the sanctuary show that these stones were formerly altars. On the north of the presbytery is the famous _Shrine of St. David_, to which pilgrims flocked from all parts of Great Britain and Ireland. Kings and queens, nobles and princes came to pay their devotions at this shrine of the great Welsh saint, and bestowed many offerings on St. David's Church. Only the base of the shrine remains, and above this once stood the _feretrum_, which was doubtless covered with gold and jewels. The base is of Late Early English design, and was probably constructed in 1275 by Bishop Richard de Carew. The lowest part consists of three pointed arches with quatrefoils in the spandrels. The two inner quatrefoils communicate with lockers at the back, and were evidently intended for offerings. The upper portion consists of three arches with Early English capitals to the shafts, and under the arches were paintings of SS. David, Patrick, and probably Denis, but these have disappeared. Another shrine is in the Cathedral, that of _St. Caradoc_, on the south side of the north transept. He was a Welsh saint, who was ordained and ministered in the Cathedral of St. David, and dying in 1124 was canonised by Innocent III. Here too are seen two quatrefoil openings for the reception of offerings. We need not linger in the choir aisles except to observe the monuments, and will at once pass to the part of the east end behind the altar. This part consists of Bishop Vaughan's Chantry on the east of the presbytery, the ante-chapel, with two chapel aisles, and the Lady Chapel. This part of the church awaits restoration, for which funds are needed. With the exception of Vaughan's Chantry and the ante-chapel, all the building is roofless, exposed to the storms and rains of this exposed headland, and pitifully beseeches a new roof and shelter. Several architectural puzzles are presented by this portion of the Cathedral, which have not yet been entirely satisfactorily solved. Examining first Vaughan's Chantry or Trinity Chapel, we find a very beautiful example of Perpendicular work. The roof is a fine example of fan-tracery, and the whole structure rivals King's College Chapel, Cambridge, or Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster. Before the construction of this chapel the space occupied by it was left waste, and was described by Vaughan as _Vilissimus sive sordidissimus locus in totâ ecclesiâ_. A curious recess of Late Norman work has been discovered behind the high altar with beautifully-carved crosses. Above the recess is the figure of an angel, and some relics were found in the cill embedded in mortar, where they had doubtless been placed for the purpose of preservation at the Reformation. Recent discovery has revealed at the east end a beautifully-carved niche and two fine windows. Here are preserved some interesting Celtic crosses. On the south is the Chapel of King Edward the Conqueror, and on the north the Chapel of St. Nicholas. The _Ante-Chapel_ has Early English arches with a Perpendicular roof. The _Lady Chapel_ in its present form belongs to the transition from Early English to Decorated. Bishop Gower added the sedilia, founded a chantry here, and made sundry other alterations of a Decorated character. The Cathedral is rich in monuments. The most important are:-- Bishop Gower, south of rood-screen. Bishop Morgan (1564), south of nave. Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, father of Henry VII. (1456), presbytery. Bishop Anselm le Gras (1247), presbytery. Two tombs of Knights, on each side of presbytery. A Priest (Decorated period), in presbytery. Two ancient Celtic slabs, one of which records the name of Bishop Abraham (1078), and is in memory of his two sons. In the ruined eastern chapels are the monuments of Bishop Vaughan, Sir J. Wogan (_temp._ Edward I.), Archdeacon Hoit (1319), an unknown knight, Bishop Martyn, and the fine tomb of a priest under a beautifully-carved canopy. SCOTTISH CATHEDRALS Although the Church of Scotland is Presbyterian, it was not until the stirring events of the Revolution of 1688 that this form of church government was adopted. From that day forward the Church of Scotland knew no bishops, and hence the application of the term cathedral to a church belonging to that communion is a misnomer. The Episcopal Church of Scotland has its cathedrals, but these for the most part are modern. But Scotland still possesses many of its ancient fanes, which are usually preserved with much care and solicitude, and retain much of the splendour of their Gothic architecture, and are rich with historical associations and tradition. GLASGOW CATHEDRAL The Cathedral of St. Mungo in this city has vast treasures of architectural beauty. Its Patron Saint was the contemporary of St. Columba, a devout, miracle-working apostle, who converted the King of the Strathclyde Britons to Christianity and gained a victory for the Cross of Christ over the wild people who inhabited these parts. A cathedral was built here in Norman times. It was begun in 1124 and consecrated in 1192 in the presence of King David of Scotland. Before the century had closed fire destroyed this ancient church. But a new one was immediately begun, and five years later a portion of the building was so far finished that it was fit for consecration. About 1258 the fine Early English choir was completed. It is one of the best works of the thirteenth century in Scotland. The style of architecture followed closely the Early English of the northern type. The windows are deeply moulded on both sides, and the piers are strong and massive without clustering shafts. But Scotland at an early date developed peculiarities in her architecture which differed from English art. We see this in the use of the double lancet and simple tracery, whereas in England the lancets were widened. The influence of French architecture was not yet felt, though there was a distinct difference from the English usage. We see also that the choir has two storeys, the lower or crypt being entirely above the ground. Mr. Watson has recently published a learned work on this double choir, and gives excellent reasons for assuming that the vault of the "lower church" was built at five different periods, extending over half a century. His first period (_circa_ 1220) includes only the south-east compartment. Then followed the north and south aisles with the springers of the south middle portion. The lower church was then left unfinished until the upper church had been built. The central portion of the lower church was then vaulted (_circa_ 1260), and later still the eastern aisle and chapel. Mr. Watson's conclusions have not been universally accepted, but they are certainly worthy of credence. A few years later the tower and transepts were finished. Bishop Wishart took the part of Bruce as a loyal Scot against Edward I. and his attempted conquest, and suffered a long imprisonment. A disaster happened to the steeple in 1400, when it was struck by lightning. Bishop Lauder erected a stone one. The chapter-house was built by Bishop Cameron in the Perpendicular style. The rood-screen, with its curious sculpture, was the work of Bishop Blackadder, and also the great staircase leading to the crypt or lower church. At the close of the fifteenth century Glasgow became the seat of an archbishopric. Beaton, the nephew of the more famous Cardinal, finding that he lived in times dangerous for prelates, fortified his Palace and stored therein all the plate and precious things he could find, and then carried them off to Paris. The Cathedral happily was spared when the storm of contending forces at the Reformation raged, though it was long disused. The archbishop was in France, and Episcopacy was not in favour. With the advent of James VI. of Scotland to the throne of England Episcopacy was restored, and Spottiswood became Bishop of Glasgow. Then during the civil war Cromwell came here during the Presbyterian rule, but Episcopacy was restored with the monarchy, until it vanished again with the coming of Dutch William. Much has been done during the past century in the way of "restoration." Two western towers have been bodily removed. The glass is modern and is almost entirely the work of foreign artists. The great east window was the gift of Queen Victoria. From the close we gain a fine view of the necropolis, which abounds in the sculptured tombs and monuments so dear to Scotland's sons. IONA CATHEDRAL We must now journey to the ruined shrine of Iona, the cradle of Western Christianity, the place whence flowed the stream of missionary enterprise which watered the dry furrows of northern England as well as Scotland, and caused Christianity to flourish throughout the country. We owe much to this lonely isle where St. Columba landed in 563 and built his rude monastery, the forerunner of the ruined buildings which now greet us. This isle could tell us of many a scene of carnage when the wild Norse pirates came. The Cathedral was begun in the Early English period, and is cruciform. The tower, 75 feet high, has two fine windows. The capitals are beautifully carved, though they are much weather-worn owing to the roofless condition of the church. On the north side are the remains of the monastery; a Norman arcade shows that it is older than the present Cathedral; and on the south is the Chapel of St. Oran, the companion of St. Columba. It is of early date, probably founded in the eleventh century by Queen Margaret when the isles were wrested by Scotland from the Norsemen. Its western doorway is Norman with beak-head ornament. In the _Reilig Oiran_, or cemetery of kings, lie buried forty-eight Scottish, four Irish, and eight Scandinavian monarchs, together with many abbots and monks and chieftains, a veritable Valhalla of the great. The carved sepulchral stones and crosses of Iona are noble examples of early art, the interlacing work sculptured upon them being wonderfully intricate and beautiful. The two most perfect crosses are Maclean's cross and St. Martin's, one of the most beautiful and perfect in Christendom. A nunnery was founded here in Norman times, and traces of Norman architecture are evident in the ruins. In 1208 a colony of Benedictine monks was established here by one Reginald, the heir of the Abbot of Derry, who handed over the nunnery to the guidance of his sister Beatrice. There was a close connection between Iona and Norway, and for a long time the bishopric of the Isles was united with that of the Isle of Man. At the present time the bishop of that island is known as the Bishop of Sodor and Man, Sodor being a corruption of Sud Ja, or southern island, so called by the Norwegian Vikings, who long held rule here. The monastery was destroyed in 1561. Iona was a much-esteemed seat of learning, and was much frequented by pilgrims. It was long regarded as the isle of special sanctity, and kings and warriors from far and near were brought here to be laid in their last resting-place near the sacred tomb of Columba. Few places have so great a fascination as this sacred isle. BRECHIN CATHEDRAL Brechin has many interesting features, notably its half-finished Cathedral, the famous round tower which was undoubtedly connected with it, or an earlier shrine, and the ruins of the _Maison Dieu_ or hospitium founded by William of Brechin in 1256. The old Cathedral was founded by King David of Scotland in 1150. It is a plain and unpretentious building, now used as a parish church, and it has suffered much from restorers and renovators. Its plan was originally cruciform, but some vandals at the beginning of the eighteenth century entirely destroyed the transepts. The west window and doorway are thirteenth-century work. Most drastic treatment did this church receive in 1806, when besides the destruction of the transepts, the aisles were removed, and new and larger ones erected. The renovators were not satisfied with the old arches of the nave; so they built new and wider ones, and raised the walls, so that one roof could span the whole, and thus eclipsing the clerestory windows. The south side of the nave seems later than the north. Its piers are lighter than those on the opposite side. At the north side of the choir are three lancet windows. The church is disfigured by galleries and pews. The ruins of the chapel of the _Maison Dieu_ are small but interesting. An Early English doorway and a few lancet windows remain. The _Round Tower_ is the principal architectural feature of Brechin. Ireland possesses many of these curious structures, and besides this one Scotland has only one other, the tower at Abernethy. Its date is about 980. The object of such towers is mainly to provide a place of refuge in times of attack, where the monks could store their treasures and protect themselves. They may also have been used as belfries, and their origin is certainly ecclesiastical. There is no staircase, access to the top being gained by ladders resting on wooden floors. The height is 86 feet, the thickness of the wall near the base 4 feet, and the inner diameter 8 feet. An octagonal spire crowns the summit. There is a doorway on the west which is adorned with rude carvings. Over the doorway is a carved representation of the Crucifixion, and on either side of the door are ecclesiastics, and below are strange creatures realistically carved. These figures are interesting memorials of Celtic art. ABERDEEN CATHEDRAL One mile north of the large and flourishing city is the quiet, ancient town of Old Aberdeen. Here is the Cathedral of St. Machar, built entirely of granite. It is not remarkable for its sculptured elegance or vast dimensions, but it has an interesting history, and its flat panelled ceiling, adorned with numerous heraldic shields, is a distinguishing feature. The church is small, and is only 200 feet in length. Its Patron Saint was a companion of St. Columba, who journeyed here on his missionary work, and founded a church about the year 597. A second church was begun in 1183, but this was not equal to the ambition of Bishop Cheyne, and was destroyed by him in order to make way for a better. This again was superseded by a church begun by Bishop Kinnimond, in 1357, but the work progressed slowly, and not until the rule of Bishop Leighton (1422-1440) was the nave finished with the north transept and west towers. The roof was added by his successor, Bishop Lindsay, and the central tower and spire by Bishop Elphinstone, who began the ill-fated choir. Bishop Stewart built the chapter-house. The troubles of the Reformation and of the Civil War wrought much havoc. The lead was torn from the roof; the bells were shipped off to Holland and lost at sea. The stones of the choir were used for fortifications by Cromwell's troops; the great tower fell and destroyed the transepts, and all that remains of this church is the nave. The west front is an imposing piece of work. The west window consists of seven lofty narrow openings, with cusped arches at the head. The towers, capped with spires, are very massive in their granite ruggedness. There are five bays in the nave, with round piers, Decorated arches, no triforium, and small clerestory windows. On the ceiling are forty-eight heraldic shields of princes, nobles and bishops who aided in the erection of the church. King's College, founded by Bishop Elphinstone in 1498, should be visited. The original oak canopied stalls, _misereres_, and lofty open screen in the chapel, are some of the finest work of the period. The influence of the French Flamboyant style is evident in their execution. These beautiful works of art were saved from destruction by the bravery of the Principal, who summoned his people, and protected his treasures from the fury of the barons of Mearns, after they had sacked the Cathedral. DUNBLANE CATHEDRAL This Cathedral is one of the few specimens of Gothic art in Scotland which escaped destruction at the Reformation. Nearly all the building is Early English, except the tower, which is Early Norman. Ruskin wrote his praise of this edifice:-- "He was no uncommon man who designed the Cathedral of Dunblane. I know nothing so perfect in its simplicity, and so beautiful, so far as it reaches, in all the Gothic with which I am acquainted. And just in proportion to his power of mind, that man was content to work under Nature's teaching, and instead of putting merely formal dog-tooth, as everybody else did at that time, he went down to the woody banks of the sweet river, beneath the rocks of which he was building, and took up a few of the fallen leaves that lay by it, and he set them on his arch, side by side for ever." There was an early church on this site founded by St. Blane. This early church was superseded in 1150 by one erected by King David of Scotland. All that remains of this church is the fine Norman tower. The rest of the church fell into ruin and neglect, until the time of Bishop Clement, who, about 1240, began to build this beautiful church in Early English style. At the Reformation great damage was done, when over-zealous Protestants pulled down the roof and carried off much plate and treasure. For centuries the nave remained in this condition; the choir and chapter-house were roofed over, in order to form a parish church; and now a great restoration of the church has recently taken place. A new roof has been erected, after the fashion of the Cathedral church of Aberdeen, with its heraldic devices, and the whole church repaired and beautified. The west front is Early English in design, with lancet windows, a deeply-recessed doorway, and in the gable a window with the leaf decoration praised by Ruskin. The nave has eight bays, and is Late Early English. The pulpit is modern, and also the screen. The choir has no aisles, and has six lancet windows, with a large east window. The stall-work of sixteenth-century is beautifully carved, and there are some interesting grotesques. On the west side of the choir is the chapter-house, which is the earliest part of the present church, with the exception of the tower, and has an upper room, possibly used as a treasury or _Reclusorium_. The tower is an important structure, of Early Norman character, and doubtless served the same purpose as the round towers of Ireland and Brechin, affording shelter in case of attack. There are good reasons for believing that originally it was separate from the church. The upper portion was added later. A fine view can be obtained from the summit. There are some interesting monuments in the Cathedral, and in the churchyard is the tomb of the heroine of the song, "Charming young Jessie, the flower of Dunblane." DUNKELD CATHEDRAL The first church was founded by Constantin, King of the Picts, about 800 A.D., and the Culdees were established in a monastery here. In 1107 it became the seat of a bishopric, and a colony of Augustinian canons replaced the former dwellers. A new choir was built in 1220-1250, in the Early English style. During the wars with England, in 1380, it was burnt, but almost immediately restored. The nave was finished by Bishop Lauder in 1465. He was a most munificent prelate, who did much for his Cathedral, began the tower and chapter-house, and furnished the Cathedral with gifts of much valuable church plate. There is a curious story[21] of a Highlanders' raid, and of their entry to the church, and of the bishop's perilous escape to the rafters of his church, in order to escape their hands. On another occasion the church was besieged in the time of the famous Bishop Gavin Douglas, the translator of the _Æneid_ (1576). His election to the see was opposed by the Stewarts, the inveterate enemies of his house; and Andrew Stewart barred the door against him, and fought against him from his stronghold in the tower. Douglas soon gathered his friendly clans together, and forced an entrance. It is uncertain when the nave lost its roof, probably when certain lairds at the Reformation went on their base crusade, plundering and destroying churches, and seizing their goods and valuables. After the battle of Killiecrankie there was a great fight here, and an asylum of refuge was found here by the people, who fortified their position with the seats, and did much damage. The roof was destroyed, and the nave has been ever since exposed to the storms of wind and rain. The choir is now used as the parish church, having been rebuilt. The nave has seven bays, and measures 120 feet by 60 feet. The piers are of massive Norman character, and there is a somewhat poor triforium and clerestory. The original choir was built by Bishop Sinclair in 1350. The tower, 96 feet high, is Perpendicular, the work of Bishop Lauder (1469), and finished by Bishop Brown in 1501, and is a very good example of the style. The south porch was built by Lauder, but it is now in ruins. The chapter-house is the work of the same bishop. It contains the vault of the Dukes of Athol. Here, near the porch, is buried Alexander Stuart, Earl of Buchan, better known as the "Wolf of Badenoch" (1394), who burned down Elgin Cathedral and devastated the place. Few churches have passed through such stormy scenes as Dunkeld, and its ruined state is a melancholy testimony to the lawlessness of the tumultuous times, which have left their mark upon its desecrated walls. FOOTNOTE: [21] _Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys_, by M.E. Leicester Addis. ST. ANDREW'S CATHEDRAL Of the once great Cathedral of St. Andrew, the Primatical See of Scotland, few traces are left. Its consecration in the time of Robert Bruce was marked by unparalleled pomp and circumstance. All the most distinguished in Church and State were present, no less than seven bishops and fifteen abbots, the king and well-nigh all the flower of his nobility. It was originally founded by Bishop Arnold (1159-1162). Its plan was cruciform, and was 355 feet in length, and the nave 200 feet, and there was a Lady Chapel at the east end. It had a grand central tower, and six turrets, of which three remain. A fire partly destroyed it in 1378, but it was restored and embellished, and finished in 1440. In 1559 John Knox preached a fiery sermon in the town church, which led the magistrates and inhabitants of the city to plunder the Cathedral and strip it of its altars and ornaments. The whole church was ransacked and left to fall into ruin. Soon the central tower fell, and carried with it the north wall; and since then the church has been used as a quarry. The ruins are picturesque in their decay. All that remain are the east and west gables, part of the south wall of the nave and the west wall of the south transept. The style of these ruins is partly Norman and partly Early English. Under the east window, built up in the wall, is a curious Runic inscription. The Castle at St. Andrews is closely connected with the Cathedral, as it was built by Bishop Roger in the thirteenth century as an episcopal residence. The old Castle was destroyed in the fourteenth century, and soon afterwards rebuilt. Here Cardinal Beaton was murdered, who had witnessed the burning of Wishart in front of his Castle. The Bottle Dungeon is a curious place of incarceration, and, besides the towers and walls, there is an interesting subterranean passage which enabled persons to escape from the Castle in time of siege. ST. GILES' CATHEDRAL, EDINBURGH Edinburgh was not raised to episcopal rank until the time of Charles I. The church has a great history, though it is popularly remembered as the place where Jenny Geddes threw her stool at the dean, when the English service book was introduced in the time of Charles I. The first Church of St. Giles was consecrated in 1243, but it was burnt down during the English wars, when most of the city shared the same fate. Indeed, signs of fire may still be detected on the piers of the choir and elsewhere. The church is remarkable for its numerous chapels. On the south of the nave two were built in 1387, but these have been destroyed by drastic "restoration." There are the Chambers's Memorial Chapel, the Preston Aisle, named after one William Preston, who brought from France a relic of the Patron Saint; the Chapman Aisle, named after Chapman, the "Scottish Caxton," who introduced printing into Scotland, and the Moray Aisle. During the fifteenth century much building was in progress. The choir was lengthened, a clerestory added and the roof raised, and ere the century had elapsed it was raised to the dignity of a collegiate church. The choir is a fine example of fifteenth-century work, and the Gothic crown which surmounts the central tower forms a very distinguishing feature. It is unlike anything else we know. Few scenes and events in Scottish history have not in some way been connected with this church. We see John Knox preaching violently here against the iniquities of the court, and especially of the unfortunate Queen Mary. Knox was appointed minister of the church. It was divided into three portions--the Great and Little Kirk and the Tolbooth. Then in the time of James I. Episcopacy was restored, and in 1633 Charles I. made St. Giles into a Cathedral. Here Jenny Geddes, as we have said, expressed her displeasure at the new English liturgy by throwing her stool at the clergyman, and commenced the famous riot which had lamentable results. Later on we see the struggle between the Covenanters and the Royal Party, and the head of the Duke of Argyll stuck on a spike on a gable of the Cathedral, the advent of "Bonny Prince Charlie," and all the events of Scottish history seem to be associated in some way with St. Giles'. Its war-worn banners, its monuments of national heroes, all combine to add a peculiar interest to the building. The church owes much of its present beauty to the munificence of Dr. William Chambers, who rescued the building from neglect, and renewed and beautified it. He was one of the firm of the great Edinburgh publishers. Amongst other memorials of recent worthies we find a window to R.L. Stevenson, and in the Moray Chapel a monument to General Wauchope, who was killed gallantly leading his troops in the recent war in South Africa. Although the choir is fifteenth-century work, it differs much from that of the same period in England. In Scotland French influence was much felt in the development of architecture, and the builders inclined more to the French Flamboyant rather than to the English Perpendicular. The new Cathedral of the Episcopal Church of Scotland at Edinburgh, designed by Sir G. Scott, is one of the finest and largest of our modern Gothic buildings. KIRKWALL CATHEDRAL If we journey to the remote Orkneys we shall see a noble Cathedral at Kirkwall, which is of peculiar interest. Until the year 1472 these islands belonged to Norway, and were under the episcopal supervision of the Archbishop of Drontheim in that kingdom. The Cathedral is therefore connected with the rule of Norwegian earls and bishops, and has many features differing from those types which are more familiar to us. It was founded by the Norwegian Earl Ronald in 1137, and was designed and constructed by the Norwegian Kol. Here were buried many Scandinavian jarls and bishops, but their tombs have disappeared. There is a fine nave of eight bays, which is of the Norman character, and a choir of six bays, screened off so as to form a parish church. The piers are all round and massive, and the arches round-headed, both in the main arcade and in the triforium and clerestory. There is some fine Norman arcading, with intersecting arches on the side walls. The church is dedicated to St. Magnus, and is 226 feet long by 56 feet wide. The original choir ended in an apse, but it was lengthened by Bishop Stewart in 1511, and the west end of the nave was finished by Bishop Reid in 1540. Different coloured stone is used extensively in the building, principally the red and yellow sandstone, and these varied hues add greatly to the architectural effect. The three west doors are particularly fine. The tower has fifteenth-century windows, and the bells were given by Bishop Maxwell at the end of the fifteenth century. Near the church are the ruins of the Bishop's Palace, where King Haco died in 1263, and also the Earl's Palace, which, after the incorporation of the islands with Scotland, was assigned to the bishops for a residence. The church has been much restored during the last century. GLOSSARY OF ARCHITECTURAL TERMS _Abacus._--The uppermost division of the capital, or head of a column, originally square and plain, in later styles more or less decorated with moulding, and in the Early English and Decorated periods generally circular or polygonal. In classic architecture it supported the horizontal superstructure of the entablature, but in Gothic architecture the arch rises directly from it. _Apse._--The round or polygonal end of a chancel. _Architrave._--The lowest division of the entablature in classic architecture; ornamental moulding round the exterior curve of an arch or round the openings of doors and windows, etc. _Ashlar._--Hewn stone. _Aumbrey or Almery._--A cupboard for containing the sacred vessels. _Ball-Flower Moulding._--Ornament resembling a ball enclosed in a globular flower of three petals. _Baluster._--A small turned wooden pillar, generally circular. _Bay._--The compartment of a church formed by the buttresses or pilasters on the walls, the main arches or pillars, the ribs of the vaulting, or other features which separate the building into corresponding portions. _Campanile._--A bell tower. _Cavetto._--A concave moulding of a quarter of a circle, used in classical and other styles of architecture. _Chamfer._--To cut off angles. _Clerestory or Clear-Story._--An upper storey, or row of windows in a Gothic church; so called to distinguish it from the blind-storey, or triforium. _Corbel._--A projecting stone or piece of timber supporting a weight. _Corbel-Table._--A row of corbels. _Credence._--A small table or shelf near the altar on which the bread and wine were placed before they were consecrated. _Crocket._--A bunch of projecting flowers or foliage decorating pinnacles, arches, etc. _Cusps._--The projecting points in Gothic tracery, or inside an arch; sometimes worked at the ends with leaves, flowers, or heads. _Dog-Tooth Moulding._--Ornaments usually consisting of four plain leaves, arranged so as to form a point. _Dripstone._--Projecting tablet or moulding over heads of archways, windows, doorways, etc. _Fan-Vaulting._--Vaulting in which the ribs rise with the same curve and diverge equally in every direction from the springing of the vault. _Finial._--A foliated ornament ending a pinnacle or gable, etc. _Flamboyant._--A name given to Late Decorated style of architecture from the flame-like wavings of its tracery. _Gargoyle._--A projecting spout, often carved in a grotesque form. _Groin._--The angle formed by the intersection of vaults. _Herring-Bone Work._--Masonry in which the stones are placed aslant, forming a fish-bone pattern. _Jamb._--The side of a window or door, etc. _Miserere._--A projecting bracket on the under side of the seats of stalls, which were made to turn up; the monks were allowed to lean on these brackets during the long services, which were performed standing. _Mullion._--Perpendicular bar between the lights of windows in Gothic architecture. _Nail-headed Moulding._--Moulding in imitation of ornamental nail-heads. _Newell._--The column round which a spiral staircase winds. _Ogee._--A moulding partly concave and partly convex, forming a round and a hollow. Term also applied to an arch formed of contrasted curves. _Orders._--The recesses of a divided arch. _Parvise._--A small room over the porch. _Pilaster._--A pillar, sometimes disengaged but generally attached to a wall. _Piscina._--A basin attached to the wall near the altar of a church, where the priest washed his hands and rinsed the chalice. _Plate-Tracery._--Tracery which appears as if formed by piercing a flat surface with ornamental patterns. _Plinth._--The lowest division of the base of a column, or projecting face at the bottom of a wall. _Presbytery._--The part of a church where the high altar stands. _Reredos._--A screen at the back of an altar. _Rood-Loft._--A gallery over the screen separating the nave from the chancel, on which the great cross or _rood_ was fixed. _Sedilia._--The seats for the officiating clergy. _Soffit._--The under side of an arch, cornice, etc. _Spandrel._--The triangular space between arches. _Splay._--The expansion given to windows and other openings by slanting the sides. _Springing._--The point at which an arch unites with its support. _Squint._--An oblique opening in the wall of a church. _Stoup._--A vessel or stone basin formed in the wall, serving as a receptacle for holy water. _String-Course._--A horizontal moulding running along a wall. _Transom._--A horizontal cross-bar in a window. _Triforium._--A gallery in the wall over the arches which separates the body of the church from the aisles. _Tympanum._--The space above the horizontal opening of a doorway and the arch above; the space between an arch and the triangular drip-stone or hood-mould which surmounts it. INDEX Aberdeen, 443 Bangor, 426 Bath, 161 Beverley, 327 Brechin, 442 Bristol, 138 Canterbury, 68 Carlisle, 272 Chester, 248 Chichester, 96 Dunblane, 444 Dunkeld, 445 Durham, 283 Ely, 377 Exeter, 164 Glasgow, 439 Glossary of Architectural Terms, 450 Gloucester, 178 Hereford, 204 Iona, 441 Kirkwall, 448 Lichfield, 230 Lincoln, 337 Liverpool, 263 Llandaff, 429 Manchester, 264 Newcastle, 282 Norwich, 393 Oxford, 125 Peterborough, 360 Ripon, 297 Rochester, 57 Salisbury, 108 Southwell, 351 St. Alban's, 409 St. Andrew's, 446 St. Asaph's, 423 St. David's, 432 St. Giles', Edinburgh, 447 St. Paul's, 8 The Architecture of the Cathedrals of Great Britain, 1 Truro, 177 Wakefield, 333 Wells, 149 Westminster, 35 Winchester, 85 Worcester, 216 York, 309 * * * * * Transcriber's Notes Punctuation and spelling errors and inconsistent hyphenation have been corrected. Italic text is denoted by _underscore_ and bold text by =equal signs=. In the inscriptions described on page 197, the letters a, e and u which have macrons in the original text, have been represented in this version using circumflexes, i.e. grâ, plê and Jhû. In this version of the text, superscripts are represented using the caret character, e.g. y^e. The oe ligatures in the text are shown as separate oe characters. In ambiguous cases, the text has been left as it appears in the original book. 
41687	----	How France Built Her Cathedrals [Illustration] [Illustration: _Soissons Cathedral. The Transept's Southern Arm_ (_c. 1180_)] How France Built Her Cathedrals A Study in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries _By_ ELIZABETH BOYLE O'REILLY Honorary Member of the _Société Française d'Archéologie_ _Author of_ "Heroic Spain" Etc. _Illustrated With Drawings By_ A. PAUL DE LESLIE [Illustration: colophon] HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON HOW FRANCE BUILT HER CATHEDRALS Copyright, 1921, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America A-W Contents CHAP. PAGE INTRODUCTION 1 I. WHAT IS GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE? 16 Gothic architecture the logical fulfillment of Romanesque--Origin of Romanesque architecture--Romanesque basilicas modified by the liturgy--Horrors of the IX and X centuries in France--Rebirth of the builders' energy after the year 1000--Cluny, the civilizing force of the X and XI centuries--Various regional Romanesque schools of France--Normandy, Burgundy, Auvergne, Poitou, Languedoc, Provence, and the Franco-Picard school--Birth of Gothic art--An undecided question where the first diagonal-crossing ribs were used--Germany's and Italy's claims--Claim of England--The Ile-de-France Picard region, the classic land of Gothic--Gothic architecture not a layman's revolt against monkish Romanesque--The architects of the Gothic cathedrals--No heretical tendencies in Gothic sculpture--Origin of the term Gothic--XVII- and XVIII-century scorn for Gothic architecture--Modern French school of mediæval archæology. II. ABBOT SUGER AND ST. DENIS-EN-FRANCE 43 Evolution from Romanesque to Gothic--St. Denis' abbatial, the first important Gothic monument--Some early-Gothic churches in the Ile-de-France--Morienval, the first Gothic-vaulted ambulatory extant (c. 1122)--Church of St. Étienne, at Beauvais (c. 1120)--St. Germer-en-Flay built from 1150 to 1175, yet less advanced than St. Denis--Poissy's church of St. Louis (c. 1135)--How Abbot Suger built his abbey church at St. Denis--St. Denis' school of glassmaking, the leader for fifty years--Dedication of St. Denis on June 11, 1144, consecrated the national art--Who Suger was and how St. Bernard converted him--What is left of the abbey church which Suger built--Reconstruction of St. Denis by St. Louis, 1231 to 1280--Pierre de Montereau, its architect--Tombs in St. Denis' abbatial--Deviation of the axis not symbolic--Some happenings in St. Denis during the XII and XIII centuries--Charles Péguy's verses, linking St. Denis, St. Geneviève, and Jeanne d'Arc. III. PRIMARY GOTHIC CATHEDRALS 74 Cathedral of Noyon, first built of Gothic cathedrals (c. 1150)--Noyon's communal charter, the first of known date, 1109--Cathedral's nave, a vessel of most perfect proportion--Exceptional among French cathedrals, its transept's rounded ends--Noyon has retained its annexes--Its chapter house, built about 1240--Noyon city destroyed, 1918--Cathedral still stands. Cathedral of Senlis, second of the Gothic cathedrals, begun about 1153--Sculpture at Senlis' west portal (c. 1180) marks a date in imagery--Cathedral tower, the "pride of the Valois land"--Transept's façades of the best Flamboyant Gothic art--What the World War did to Senlis. Cathedral of Sens, begun about 1160--Sens' ancient see, governed by notable men in the XII and XIII centuries--How they found out who was the architect of the cathedral--St. Thomas Becket in Sens, 1164, and again from 1166 to 1170--St. Louis married in Sens Cathedral, 1234--Glory of Sens' stained glass. Cathedral of Laon, begun about 1160--Fallacy of the "town-hall" theory--Cathedral of springtime foliage--Oxen on Laon's towers--Origin of the square east end of Laon Cathedral--Laon's communal struggle--Famous XII-century school of Anselm de Laon--Laon city shelled by the French, but its cathedral unhurt. Cathedral of Soissons almost a ruin--Desolation of Soissons in World War--Soissons' southern arm of transept ends in a hemicycle (c. 1180)--Is the most exquisite thing in France--The crusading bishop-builder, Nivelon de Chérisy. Some important Primary Gothic churches: Abbatial of St. Remi at Rheims (c. 1170)--Its superb XII-century glass wrecked in the World War--Abbatial of Notre Dame at Châlons-sur-Marne (c. 1160)--Pioneer in fenestration--First to use pillars between chapels and ambulatory--Church of St. Quiriace at Provins (c. 1160)--Provins, residence of the counts of Champagne--Its international fairs frequented by mediæval Europe--Collegiate of St. Yved, at Braine (c. 1200), between Primary Gothic and the Era of Great Cathedrals--Individual plan of its choir-chapels--St. Leu d'Esserent, on the Oise, the best type of the small churches in the classic Ile-de-France--Its forechurch shows transition work (c. 1150)--Primary Gothic work to be found at Étampes, Vendôme, Fécamp, Rouen, Lisieux, Angers, Mantes, Paris. IV. NOTRE DAME OF PARIS AND OTHER CHURCHES OF THE CAPITAL 126 Notre Dame, begun in 1163--Its exterior unsurpassed, the west façade a classic--Scholastic training of its bishop-builders--_Summa_ of the supreme scholastic, Aquinas, like a Gothic cathedral--Thirty thousand students then in Paris University--Bishop Maurice de Sully (1160-96) built Notre Dame--Bishop Eudes de Sully made the portals of the west façade--Bishop Pierre de Nemours died a crusader, before Damietta, 1219--Bishop Guillaume d'Auvergne finished the north tower (1228-49)--All the prelates building Paris Cathedral good and able men--Their sincerity lives in its stones--First architect unknown--Jean and Pierre de Chelles made the transept and apse chapels--Sculpture of Notre Dame masterly--Sainte-Chapelle built by St. Louis, 1246 to 1248--St. Julien-le-Pauvre a contemporary of Notre Dame's choir (c. 1180)--Same noble sculptured capitals--Three Benedictine abbey churches of Paris show early trials of Gothic vaulting--St. Germain-des-Prés, St. Martin-des-Champs, St. Pierre-de-Montmartre--St. Louis and his friend, Joinville--Louis IX illuminated his kingdom with fair churches--On his first crusade spent five years in the East, 1248 to 1259--From 1254 to 1270 worked for his people--Death of St. Louis on the crusade of 1270--His characteristics: justice, pity, other-worldliness--Inimitable charm of Joinville's _Histoire de St. Louis_--Describes his friendship with the king in Palestine--Joinville's old age and death in 1319. Mantes' collegiate of Notre Dame is Primary Gothic--A contemporary of Paris Cathedral--Perhaps by the same architect--Its chapel of Navarre one of the best works of Rayonnant Gothic. Meaux Cathedral, a difficult architectural page to decipher, owing to reconstruction--Begun in 1170, but rebuilt radically after 1270--Bossuet, its greatest bishop (1681 to 1704)--Meaux, the cathedral for the _Te Deum_ of victory--Battle of the Marne, 1914, waged at the city gates. V. ERA OF THE GREAT CATHEDRALS: CHARTRES, RHEIMS, AMIENS 169 Cathedral of Chartres--Bishop Fulbert's Romanesque Notre Dame burned in 1194--His vast crypt, of 1020, still exists--Bishop Geoffrey de Lèves built the tower of Chartres, called the most beautiful in the world (1145)--Making of the three western portals (c. 1155)--Gothic cathedral begun after the fire of 1194--Primary Gothic west façade escaped the fire--Jehan de Beauce crowned the northwest tower, 1506 to 1513--Sculpture of the transept portals and porches, 1220 to 1260--Chartres excels all cathedrals in the wealth of its stained glass, chiefly of the XII and XIII centuries. Cathedral of Rheims, begun by the crusader, Bishop Albéric de Humbert, 1211--Its architects recorded in the pavement labyrinth--Its west façade the culmination of Gothic art--Coronation of Charles VII in 1429, Jeanne d'Arc present--Astounding sculptural wealth of this "Cathedral of the Angels"--Martyrdom of Rheims in the World War. Cathedral of Amiens, the Parthenon of Gothic art--Bishop Evrard de Fouilloy began it, 1220--Designed by Robert de Lusarches--Its sculpture the peer of Rheims and Chartres--Its portal of the _Vierge Dorée_ (c. 1280). VI. SIX OF THE LESSER GREAT CATHEDRALS: BOURGES, BEAUVAIS, TROYES, TOURS, LYONS, LE MANS 211 Cathedral of Bourges--Only XIII-century cathedral without a transept--Inner aisle has its own triforium and clearstory--Chevet built by St. Guillaume, 1200 to 1209--Over main portal is best Last Judgment (c. 1275)--Bourges famous for its stained glass--Jean, duc de Berry, and Jacques Coeur, the late-Gothic art patrons of Bourges--Their gifts to the cathedral--Orléans Cathedral destroyed by Calvinists (note). Cathedral of Beauvais--A mighty fragment: only a choir and transept--Begun in 1247, derived directly from Amiens--Transept façades masterpieces of late-Gothic--Is Flamboyant Gothic of English origin?--Le Prince family of glassmakers. Cathedral of Troyes--Its choir built by Bishop Hervé, 1206 to 1226--Martin Chambiges designed the Flamboyant west façade--Magnificent XIII- and XIV-century windows of Troyes Cathedral--St. Urbain's church begun by Pope Urban IV in 1262--Carried the Gothic principle of equilibrium to its limit--Churches of Troyes treasure-houses of stained glass and sculpture--Cultivated court of Champagne's rulers--To the Gothic school of Champagne belongs the Cathedral of Châlons-sur-Marne--Châlons another center for stained glass. Cathedral of Tours--Choir begun about 1210--Has the classic note of the Touraine landscape--Cathedral windows set up between 1260 and 1270--Venerable ecclesiastical souvenirs of Tours--Tours, the center for the Region-of-the-Loire school of sculpture--Michel Colombe, last of the great Gothic artists, worked here--Environs of the city rich in Flamboyant Gothic. Cathedral of Lyons--Lyons boasts an apostolic succession for its bishops--Early Christian martyrs of Rome's chief city in Gaul--St. Martin d'Ainay's abbatial dedicated in 1107--Cathedral choir late XII century--With Vienne Cathedral (note) it alone in France used incrustations--Nave of Lyons Cathedral building through the XIII century--Stained glass of Lyons of exceptional quality--All Christendom was represented at the Ecumenical Council held in Lyons Cathedral in 1274--Church of Brou built by Marguerite of Austria (note)--Moulins Cathedral and Souvigny's abbatial and tombs (notes). Cathedral of Le Mans--XII-century nave built by notable prelates--Bishop Hildebert de Lavardin (1097 to 1125) a poet and scholar--Guillaume de Passavent made the Angevin vaults (c. 1150)--Geoffrey the Handsome, nicknamed Plantagenet, and his son, Henry II of England, born in Le Mans--Trinité church at Vendôme (note)--Le Mans' Gothic choir built from 1218 to 1254 by Bishop Geoffrey de Loudon--Le Mans ranks next to Chartres and Bourges for its wealth of stained glass--Rayonnant-Flamboyant transept of the XIV and XV centuries--The groups at Solesmes a final expression of Gothic sculpture (1495 to 1550)--Collegiate church at St. Quentin, in size a cathedral, XIII-century choir--Villard de Honnecourt, probably the architect of St. Quentin. VII. PLANTAGENET GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE 285 Plantagenet Gothic fused the cupola of Aquitaine and the diagonals of north--Lasted a hundred years, from 1150 to 1250--For clearness divided into three periods: I. Heavy diagonals, II. Eight slight branches, III. Multiple ribs--English fan tracery a derivation of Angevin Gothic. Cupola churches of Aquitaine: St. Front at Périgieux, begun after a fire, 1120, and finished by 1180--Cahors Cathedral has Romanesque portal of beauty (note)--Cathedral of Angoulême, begun 1109--Its façade a notable page of French decoration--Rich façades distinguish Poitou's Romanesque school--Fontevrault abbey church, built in the first half of the XII century--Plantagenet tombs at Fontevrault--Aliénor of Aquitaine buried there in 1204 beside her husband, Henry II, and her son, Richard Coeur-de-Lion--Aliénor's descendants notable builders of churches. Cathedral of Angers--Its nave vaulted with First-Period diagonals, about 1150--Anjou rulers a remarkable race--Fulk Nerra, the great builder, died 1040--Choir of Angers Cathedral extended after 1274--In the nave is XII-century glass of St. Denis derivation--Cathedral's Apocalypse tapestries--Fortress of Angers, built by St. Louis, 1228 to 1238--Church of Toussaint had a ramified vault of the Third Period--St. Jean's hospital hall, endowed by Henry II, a gem of Plantagenet art--Choir of St. Serge, 1220 to 1225, a masterpiece of lightness. Saumur--Another center for the study of Plantagenet Gothic--Historical fête called the _Non-Pareille_ took place in its castle in 1241--St. Pierre's church shows different kinds of Angevin vaults--Church of St. Martin at Candes, a Plantagenet masterpiece--St. Florent-les-Saumur shows one of the first eight-branch vaults--Puy-Notre-Dame and Asnières beautiful examples of Plantagenet art (note)--Plantagenet vaults at Le Mans, Vendôme, Chinon, and Tours. Cathedral of Poitiers, begun by Henry Plantagenet and Aliénor of Aquitaine, 1160--In adopting the gracious Plantagenet vaulting it remained true to Poitou's Romanesque traditions--XII-century Crucifixion window the most glorious in the world--Spirit of Poitiers' bishops, St. Hilary and Fortunatus, inspired it--Church of Ste. Radégonde is Plantagenet vaulted--St. Hilaire's abbatial has curious octagonal cupolas--St. Jean's baptistry, the oldest building in France, dating from the IV century--Clement V at Poitiers in 1307 carried on the Templars' process--Hall of the count's palace rebuilt by Duke Jean de Berry--Jeanne d'Arc examined there in 1429, found to be sent of God. VIII. GOTHIC IN THE MIDI 329 Cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand, begun in 1248--Gothic of the north, translated with a Midi accent--True character of Auvergne shown in its Romanesque churches--Notre Dame-du-Port, the classic type of Auvergne's Romanesque school--Abbey church of La Chaise Dieu, begun by Clement VI, 1344--Contains incomparable tapestries (note)--First Crusade proclaimed at Clermont by Urban II, 1095--Riom's Sainte-Chapelle, of the XIV century--Madonna of the Bird a masterpiece of late-Gothic imagery--Romanesque Cathedral of Le Puy (XII century) one of the most venerable shrines in France. Cathedral of Bordeaux, like the city itself, is of the north and the south--Nave is composite and difficult to read--Clement V (d. 1314) built the Rayonnant Gothic choir--In the Romanesque church of Ste. Croix appeared the first diagonals of the region--Charlemagne laid Roland's olifant on the altar of St. Seurin--St. Bertrand-de-Comminges Cathedral built by Clement V--Cathedral of Bayonne (note). Cathedral of Toulouse consists of two inharmonious parts--Unaisled nave with Angevin vaults building while Simon de Montfort besieged city--Gothic choir begun in 1275--Chief monument of Toulouse is the abbey church of St. Sernin (begun 1075)--Languedoc then excelled in sculpture: Moissac's portal and cloister (note)--Toulouse a center for brick architecture--Its Jacobins' church begun in 1229--St. Dominic's mission in Languedoc--Albigensian Crusade. Albi Cathedral, the incarnation of the Midi wars: meridional Gothic--Aggressive Bernard de Castanets began it in 1282--Flamboyant and Renaissance riches were added to St. Cecilia's cathedral--Frescoes of its vault have never been surpassed (1509 to 1512)--Its choir screen equally noted--Auch Cathedral has famous XVI-century windows (note)--Cathedral of Rodez possesses a notable Flamboyant tower (1510 to 1526) (note)--Carcassonne Cité has been too much restored--Its ci-devant cathedral of St. Nazaire the best of XIV-century Gothic--Like a reliquary of colored glass--Carcassonne town has typical Midi Gothic churches. Narbonne Cathedral, consisting of a vast Gothic choir, begun in 1272--Its mechanical skill cold, but still Gothic of the grand style--Lovely XIV-century glass--Sack of Béziers, 1209--Perpignan Cathedral and Elne's cloister (note)--Abbey church of Fontfroide allied with Poblet in Catalonia (note). Montpellier Cathedral, formerly an abbey church, built by Urban V, XIV century--Jaime el Conquistador, mighty builder of churches, born in Montpellier, 1208--Mende Cathedral and St. Victor's abbatial at Marseilles built by Urban V (note)--Maguelonne, former cathedral of diocese, now the most aloof spot in Europe--Aigues-Mortes, begun by St. Louis, completed by his son--Fortress unspoiled by restorations--Both crusades of Louis IX sailed thence--St. Gilles' abbey church, partly a ruin, interesting to archæologists; building from 1116--Noted portal of St. Gilles inspired Trinity Church, Boston--Loyalty of Provence to its Saintes-Maries traditions--Les Saintes-Maries church a pilgrim shrine (note)--St. Martha's church at Tarascon (note). St. Trophime Cathedral at Arles--Portal influenced by Gallo-Roman sculpture--Its cloister the fairest Christian monument in the city--Ruins of Montmajour near Arles--Frédéric Mistral should be one's companion in Provence--Expresses the regional soul--St. Maximin church the best Gothic monument in Provence--Begun by Charles II d'Anjou in 1295--Cathedral of St. Sauveur at Aix-en-Provence is composite--Its south aisle originally a separate Romanesque church, XII century--Good King René gave the triptych by a French _primitif_--Avignon's great day was the XIV century under seven meridional popes, 1309 to 1377--Palace of the Popes built from 1335 to 1358--Grandest fortress-palace in the world. IX. THE GOTHIC ART OF BURGUNDY 410 Burgundy excelled in monastic architecture--The cradle of three great cloistral centers--Luxeuil, Cluny, Cîteaux--Luxeuil, founded by St. Columbanus (610), reorganized the VII century--Cluny, Christendom's supremest monastic congregation, founded 910--St. Hugues of Cluny (1049 to 1109) trained the leaders who remade Europe's civilization--Peter the Venerable, abbot from 1120 to 1156, continued building Cluny's vast church--Abélard died in a Cluny house, 1142--Revolution destroyed the glorious abbatial church--Paray-le-Monial, the favorite priory of Abbot Odilo (d. 1049) of Cluny, initiator of the Truce of God--Its Romanesque church has fluted pilasters (XII century)--Autun Cathedral's Romanesque portal the ancestor of the sculptured doors of Gothic cathedrals--Abbey church at Saulieu (note)--Beaune's collegiate of Notre Dame has lovely tapestries--Hôtel Dieu at Beaune (1444 to 1457), founded by Nicolas Rolin, contains Roger van der Weyden's best work--Hospital hall at Tonnerre (founded 1293) the prototype for Beaune's hospice--Fontenay, the oldest Romanesque Cistercian church extant--Dedicated by Eugene III in 1147--Avallon's church of St. Lazare blessed by Paschal II in 1107--Has a well-known Romanesque entranceway. Some Primary Gothic churches in Burgundy--Montréal's collegiate can be visited from Avallon--Built by a returned crusader late in the XII century--Pontigny's abbatial the oldest Gothic in Burgundy--Its nave (1160 to 1180), with _bombé_ vaults, was begun as Romanesque--Its choir used structural features as decorations--Three archbishops of Canterbury, St. Thomas Becket, Stephen Langton, and St. Edmund Rich, found refuge at Pontigny--Vézelay's abbatial of the Madeleine the stateliest church in Burgundy--Its Romanesque nave and Gothic choir belong both to the XII century--Its imaged portico (c. 1132) a supreme work of French sculpture--Second Crusade preached by St. Bernard at Vézelay, 1146--Philippe-Auguste and Richard Coeur-de-Lion rallied here for the Third Crusade, 1191. Burgundy's best Gothic monuments--Collegiate of Notre Dame at Semur a gem of the Burgundian school, begun about 1225--Its sculpture exceptional--Auxerre Cathedral begun in 1215, the model of Gothic churches in the province--Auxerre's sculpture and its opaline glass rank with the first--Bishop Jacques Amyot (d. 1593) restored the cathedral after the Calvinists sacked it--Cathedral of Nevers has an apse at both west and east ends (note)--Dijon, the capital of Burgundy, led in art, under its four great dukes, 1364 to 1477--Flemish-Burgundian school began modern imagery--Dijon's cathedral of St. Bénigne, formerly an abbatial, is mediocre late-XIII century--Crypt of St. Bénigne begun 1001--Oldest monument of the Romanesque renaissance--William of Volpiano, abbot of St. Bénigne, initiated the revival of architecture after the year 1000--Rebuilt Tournus abbey church (note)--Church of Notre Dame, Dijon, is a gem of Burgundian Gothic (1220-1240)--Its subtleties of construction have never been excelled. St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux (d. 1153), born near Dijon, the greatest son of Burgundy--His reform laid the spiritual foundations of Gothic cathedrals--His puritanic taste in architecture made Cistercian churches bare and simple--Cistercian Order, founded 1099, instrumental in spreading Gothic over Europe--St. Stephen Harding, its practical founder, welcomed St. Bernard at Citeaux in 1113--Five hundred Cistercian monasteries founded in Europe before the middle of XIII century--Spirit of St. Bernard, greatest of Cistercians, lives in the _Imitation of Christ_. X. GOTHIC ART IN NORMANDY 472 Monastic architecture best expression of Norman character--Normandy, like Burgundy, was a land of monasteries--Bernay's abbey church an ancestress of Norman Romanesque (note)--Bec Abbey, the Cluny of Normandy--Lanfranc made the school of Bec world-noted--At Bec, St. Anselm began the philosophical movement of the Middle Ages--William of Volpiano pioneer in the rebirth of architecture in the duchy--Jumièges, the first Norman church of architectural pretension, begun 1040--Only vestiges remain of St. Wandrille abbey--Caen, the Mecca of Norman Romanesque and the queen city for towers--Three good towers at St. Pierre-sur-Dives--St. Georges de Boscherville the best type of Norman Romanesque--Fécamp's Primary Gothic abbatial rose after the fire of 1169--Gothic abbatial at Eu built after the death of St. Laurence O'Toole, 1180--Mont-Saint-Michel the greatest of Norman abbeys--Its Merveille (Gothic halls), building from 1203 to 1228--Choir of Mont-Saint-Michel, the best work of Flamboyant Gothic, begun 1450. Rouen Cathedral, not local in character--Its tower of St. Romain begun in 1145--Its transept façades and Lady chapel XIV-century Rayonnant work--Abbatial of St. Ouen a gem of Rayonnant Gothic--No city richer than Rouen in Flamboyant Gothic monuments--Trial of Jeanne d'Arc at Rouen in 1431 and her Rehabilitation in 1456. Lisieux Cathedral the earliest Gothic cathedral in Normandy--Begun after 1160 as Ile-de-France Gothic--Its Lady chapel built by Bishop Pierre Cauchon, Jeanne d'Arc's venal judge. Évreux Cathedral not homogeneous, but has much charm--Its choir (1298-1310) a gem of Rayonnant Gothic--XIV century's best array of glass in its choir. Séez Cathedral modest in size--Norman in style--Its choir a forerunner of Rayonnant Gothic--Has XIV-century windows. Bayeux Cathedral the Gothic of the duchy at its best--Romanesque part of its nave remarkable--Bishop Odo, brother of the Conqueror, built the crypt, and of his time is the Bayeux Tapestry--Choir of Bayeux a masterpiece of Normandy's elaborate Gothic. Coutances Cathedral loveliest in Normandy, begun after the fire of 1218--Its three towers notable--Aisles of choir are of different height. Gothic art of Brittany--Brittany more a land of shrines than cathedrals--Her religious soul best expressed by her Calvarys--XIII-century cathedral at Dol has fine eastern window--Cathedral at Nantes possesses the last great work of Gothic sculpture--Cathedral of Quimper very Breton in spirit--St. Pol-de-Léon Cathedral entirely complete--The Kreisker is Brittany's grandest tower--St. Yves of Brittany helped build Tréguier Cathedral. Summing up--Gothic art gave way before the pagan Renaissance and the contempt for legends roused by the Reformation. In the World War France again displayed the spirit that had built cathedrals. Unquenchable idealism of the French race. INDEX 583 BIBLIOGRAPHY 605 Illustrations SOISSONS CATHEDRAL. THE TRANSEPT'S SOUTHERN ARM (C. 1180) _Frontispiece_ POISSY. AN EARLY EXAMPLE OF GOTHIC VAULTING (C. 1135) _Facing p._ 54 ST. DENIS-EN-FRANCE AND ITS ROYAL MAUSOLEUMS " 68 NOYON'S CHAPTER HOUSE (1240-1250) _Page_ 83 SENLIS' TOWER (C. 1230-1250) _Facing p._ 90 THE INTERIOR OF LAON CATHEDRAL (XII CENTURY). VIEW FROM THE TRIBUNE GALLERY " 98 THE OXEN ON LAON'S TOWERS " 106 NOTRE DAME OF PARIS. VIEW FROM THE SOUTH _Page_ 127 NOTRE DAME OF MANTES (1160-1200). THE CONTEMPORARY OF PARIS CATHEDRAL _Facing p._ 162 THE CATHEDRAL OF MEAUX, VIEWED FROM THE NAVE'S AISLE " 168 THE CATHEDRAL OF CHARTRES (1194-1240). THE SOUTHERN ASPECT _Page_ 178 THE ANGEL APSE OF RHEIMS (C. 1220) " 196 THE TRANSEPT OF AMIENS CATHEDRAL (1220-1280) _Facing p._ 204 THE APSE OF BOURGES (1200-1225) " 214 ST. URBAIN AT TROYES (1264-1276) " 236 LE MANS CHOIR (1217-1254). THE DOUBLE AISLES " 270 ANGOULÊME CATHEDRAL. A XII-CENTURY CUPOLA CHURCH OF AQUITAINE WITH A TYPICAL FAÇADE OF POITOU'S ROMANESQUE SCHOOL " 290 THE PLANTAGENET TOMBS AT FONTEVRAULT " 298 THE PLANTAGENET GOTHIC CHOIR OF ST. SERGE AT ANGERS (1220-1225) " 312 NOTRE DAME DU PORT AT CLERMONT-FERRAND. TYPICAL XII-CENTURY CHURCH OF AUVERGNE'S ROMANESQUE SCHOOL " 338 LE PUY IN OLD AUVERGNE " 344 THE JACOBINS', OR DOMINICANS', CHURCH AT TOULOUSE (XIII CENTURY) " 358 ALBI CATHEDRAL (1282-1399). A MIDI FORTRESS CHURCH " 370 THE MEDIÆVAL CLOISTER OF ARLES " 398 THE XI-CENTURY SANCTUARY OF CLUNY AS IT WAS UNTIL THE REVOLUTION _Facing p._ 414 VEZELAY'S XII-CENTURY ABBEY CHURCH OF THE MADELEINE " 436 NOTRE DAME AT DIJON (1220-1245). BURGUNDIAN GOTHIC " 452 THE CRYPT OF THE ABBAYE-AUX-DAMES AT CAEN (1059-1066) " 484 BELFRY OF ST. PIERRE AT CAEN (1308-1317). PROTOTYPE FOR THE GOTHIC TOWERS OF NORMANDY AND BRITTANY " 490 THE HALL OF THE KNIGHTS AT MONT-SAINT-MICHEL (1203-1228). SECOND STORY OF THE MERVEILLE " 500 THE CHOIR OF BAYEAUX CATHEDRAL (1210-1260). TYPICAL OF NORMANDY'S ELABORATE GOTHIC " 546 How France Built Her Cathedrals [Illustration] How France Built Her Cathedrals INTRODUCTION "We may live without architecture, and worship without her, but _we cannot remember without her_. How cold is all history, how lifeless all imagery, compared to that which the living nation writes and the uncorrupted marble bears. There are but two strong conquerors of the forgetfulness of men, Poetry and Architecture, and the latter in some sort includes the former, and is mightier in its reality; it is well to have, not only what men have thought and felt, but what their hands have handled and their strength wrought and their eyes beheld, all the days of their life."[1] So wrote John Ruskin in one of his flashes of genius, and never was word truer. Architecture is the living voice of the past. Architecture is history. By architecture the forefathers from whom we come relate to us their progress in knowledge, their prowess in handicrafts, their economic conditions, their sorrows, their rejoicings, their aspirations. They wrote it down, those men and women whose blood is our blood, on great stone pages of perennial beauty for us to read--_if only we would_. By architecture we are linked in a grand solidarity with all that has gone before, with the proud periods of history that thrill us as we read, and with the tragic outbreaks of the oppressed that sadden our spirit. Whenever men have set themselves to forget this solidarity, their first act has been to fling themselves in frenzy on cathedral and city hall. In 1914 they forgot it, and mighty Rheims fell. They forgot that Bamburg had learned its imagery from Rheims, that German Norbert, revered of St. Bernard, had helped France in the days when Gothic art was in formation, that he died bishop of Magdeburg, and Magdeburg is a Primary Gothic cathedral in the land which frankly called the new architecture _opus francigenum_. Would the civic halls of Noyon, Arras, St. Quentin, and Ypres lie in ruins if Frankfort and Lübeck had remembered? In 1793, man again thought to set up a barrier between himself and his past, and he shattered the art treasures of a thousand years and tore down the cathedrals of Cambrai, Arras, and Avranches; he tore down Cluny, the greatest Romanesque church in the world, Cluny the civilizer, that had removed from agriculture its stigma as serfs' work. Man fancied that to shatter and demolish was to build. Again in 1562, a date most tragic in the annals of Gothic architecture, men tried again to rear a wall of hate between themselves and the generations gone before, and the cathedral of Orléans met the fate of Cluny and Cambrai, and from end to end of France images were decapitated, and ancestors' tombs wrecked impiously--even the tombs of spiritual ancestors who with painful journeyings afoot had brought the gospel light. Whether you go to chapel or to temple to-day, to meetinghouse or to cathedral, whether you worship under the open sky, be you a reader of Marx or of Aquinas, you were robbed most piteously of your patrimony in 1562, in 1793, in 1914. How is it to be prevented again? By trying to make the monuments of the past loved, by relating the tale of their building, by telling the life story of the builders. If we know them we must surely revere them, and when we have learned to know and to love, we have learned to be liberal. Archæology is _to teach us to remember_. Those who have gone before have passed on to us cathedral and town hall; it is our obligation to transmit them intact to those who come after. They are not ours to destroy. Art is the high-water mark reached by civilization; art does not speak in English, or in German, or in the Latin tongue, but in a language understood of all peoples and all times. To destroy a great monument of the past is to betray civilization. It was proved in 1914 that erudition is not safeguard enough, nor is enthusiasm, sighs 1793, nor purpose to reform, admits 1562. We must comprehend intelligently our own personal solidarity with the past. We must never look at a noble building without proudly realizing that we had a hand in its making. Battles then can rage around cathedrals without danger of their destruction. As in golden amber, the past will preserve them, the past which is yours and mine and everyone's heritage. It is a right instinct which makes a man treasure the home he has had transmitted to him through several generations. How much more--when loyalty is roused by an XVIII-century or a XVII-century habitation--should emotion be felt for what was reared from 1140 to 1270 by the very generations who began for us of to-day most of the big things we value: our universities, our literature, our political freedom, our prosperous trade. Now in the making of these infinitely precious things, France played the leading role. Put partisan feeling aside and acknowledge it honestly. "I believe," said Ruskin, in a lecture at Edinburgh, in 1853, even before the new science of mediæval archæology was formulated, "that the French nation in the XII and XIII centuries was the greatest nation in the world, and that the French not only invented Gothic architecture, but carried it to its noblest developments." French Gothic churches are a fountainhead, and should rank first. Because of them we have Westminster, Ely, and Lincoln, we had Tintern, Melrose, Mellifont, Holycross. They built the Burgos, Toledo, León, Seville, and Belem, which have given wings to the soul of the Peninsula. Because of the French cathedrals we have Cologne, Magdeburg, and Halberstadt, Vienna, Prague, Upsala, Siena, Florence, and Milan. By her lyrics, her epics, and her architecture, France was the inspiration of Europe in the XII and XIII centuries. With his sword, the crusader carried compass and rule. Those indefatigable wanderers, Cluny, Cîteaux, and the men of Prémontré and Chartreuse carried with them the chisel and the Book. Then as now the commercial traveler was a valiant propagandist; in 1181 a cloth merchant of Assisi, returned from trading in France, where he had seen the cathedral of Lyons rising, or perhaps that of Paris, or that of Poitiers, and he had passed under wonderful new-imaged portals in the Midi and in Burgundy; so, in memory of beautiful things, he chose to call the son born to him, Francis, and the boy grew up to love and to chant the lyrics of France and named himself "God's little troubadour." Backward and forward has moved the ebb and flow of races and their arts. When Celts from conquered Britain passed over to Armorica they carried with them the Arthurian cycle; Teutonic tribes, strong in bone and tissue, poured into Gaul a very avalanche; masterful Norsemen populated the seacoasts; and before the recording of time the Oriental and the Latin had made their home in the land between the northern seas and the big inland water of commerce. Does such history seem too remote to be of emotional value? Are personalities lacking? Not so in the missionary days of Columbanus and Benedict, first hewers of the cathedrals' foundation blocks, for never came a great movement of building activity that did not tread in the steps of spiritual regeneration. Your forefathers and my forefathers came into France to help her, to bring her art and letters in her dark hour. They came to teach and they came to learn, to succor and to find refuge. They came in the persons of Celtic Columbanus, Brieuc, Malo, Fiacre, Malachy, and holy Laurence buried at Eu, as English Alcuin, Stephen Harding, John of Salisbury, and Saint Edmund Rich buried at Pontigny. They came as German Radegund and the saintly Bruno and Norbert, as Italian Benedict, Fortunatus, Hildebrand, William of Volpiano, Lanfranc, Anselm, Aquinas, and Bonaventure, as Spanish Dominic, and Portuguese Anthony. They came from Egypt with Maurice and his Thebans, from the Levant with Irenæus and Giles, from Hungary with Martin the soldier. And the story of each one of them is recorded in the churches that stand in France to-day. Without architecture we would have forgotten them. With the ebbing and flowing of the tide in the affairs of men, a day arrived when the big people and the little people of Normandy, Poitou, Anjou, and Flanders passed in large numbers into Great Britain and Ireland in the wake of the Conqueror and of Henry Plantagenet, so that the very names we bear are those of the cathedral builders. Who has not watched the widening ripples of water spread from a center? Even so is each one of us a center whence in ever-widening circles stretch out our progenitors, embracing more and more men, more and more women, rippling over the pitiful barricades of 1793, sweeping over the factions of 1562, till by the time the widening ripple has reached the age of St. Louis, the age of Suger, it is scientifically impossible that we, in our very own forefathers, were not building some of the eighty cathedrals and three hundred great minsters with which France was then clothing herself as with a white mantle of churches. We were chatelaine, and burgher's wife, we were villein's daughter and knight's son, and side by side we harnessed ourselves to carts and dragged in the blocks for the tower at Chartres and the belfry at Rouen, and the canticles we sang during our voluntary servitude passed into the stones and are still chanting there--_if only we would listen_. No visionary notion this, but science and history. By architecture we remember. Of our kin was the bishop who sacrificed his revenue to rear God's house. Of our kin were the architects, masters of the living stone, who with inspiration conceived their shrines of Notre Dame and were trained soundly enough in mason craft to achieve their dreams; of our kin were the artisans who put up the serene images at cathedral doors for the edification of the people, and chiseled with warm, loving touches the running bramble of the roadside. Even botany is to be learned in mediæval cathedrals. Not a leaf that grows in Champagne to-day but was carved on the walls of Rheims seven hundred years ago. Against the big capitals of Paris Cathedral they laid the broad plantain leaf of the marshy Oise, then, seeing around them that indigenous acanthus, the uncurling fern, they carved it, too, and as they grew adept with chisel they wrought ivy and vine leaf, parsley and holly, and in time, intoxicated with their skill, they undercut the rich foliage and serrated the lobes and curled the leaf edges, till summer ran riot in stone and the architectural line was well-nigh lost sight of in sheer joy of nature's glad livery. The cathedrals of France are an enduring appeal to man's high faculty of imagination. In them we go crusading again. We scale the walls of Constantinople with doughty Bishop Nivelon, builder of Soissons Cathedral, we are ransomed from Saracen captivity with Bishop Albéric, builder of Rheims. We repent of our black feudal deeds with Fulk Nerra, and when we have finished our footsore penances in Holy Land, we punish ourselves in our purses, raising costly abbeys in Anjou and Touraine. On our Eastern pilgrimage we have seen visions of Oriental color, and, remembering them, we lighten our sober churches of the north with translucent mosaic tapestries. We dot our Western land with circular Holy Sepulcher temples. It is said that Suger, builder of the first great Gothic church in the world, maker of jeweled windows over which science sighs in despair of emulation, used eagerly to inquire of travelers returned from the East had they seen aught, even in St. Sophia itself, to surpass his St. Denis'. We are rightly sure that our new art surpasses all others. We may borrow, but our borrowings are creations. By architecture in happy promiscuity we crowd to the international fairs of Champagne. We elbow and we jostle to see what our diligent brothers, the art-loving Flemish burghers, have brought for exchange, or what things beautiful the merchants from south of the Alps have to barter. To-day, at Troyes, we are astounded by the gathering of art treasures in that lesser-known city, and we wonder at the mighty rampart walls at Provins. _Then we remember._ It is architecture that will not let us forget what efficient traders we were in the XIII century. By architecture we are Benedictines at Cluny, white monks at Fontenay, of Prémontré at Braine. Again we pace in meditative cloisters, we tuck up our robes to delve in mother earth to make the desert bloom, we illumine parchment pages, we teach the plain-chant to children, we cast bells, each with its own entity, each a living voice for the people, named with its own name. By architecture we are one of the thousands athirst for knowledge, who gather at the feet of abstruse debaters in the schools of Bec, Auxerre, Rheims, Orléans, Laon, Chartres and Paris, king's son seated on the rush-strewn pavements next to peasant's son, both equally convinced that the most thrilling of all sciences are philosophy and theology. Books are scarce; as yet no printing press; we must wander far to gather crumbs of learning; our strong young brains are intact, prepared for service by long ages of active bone and muscle; with avidity we seize on problems so knotty that the learned ones of 1920 fear to touch them. "The time of big theories is the time of big results." It is we, in the person of the Scholastics who built Paris Cathedral, and Laon, the intellectual,--churches disciplined, sober and strong. It is we the multitudinous scholars of the Middle Ages who built Chartres, the wise mystic, and opalescent Auxerre, and Châlons on the Marne of Victory. And lest the hungry generations tread us down, we inscribed our loved subtleties on their walls, and at their portals placed images of the Liberal Arts. By architecture we join one side or the other in the eternal struggle of Might and Right. Sometimes in atonement we spend the revenues secured by heedless Might on minster or cathedral. By pain and struggle we have won our city charter, and we are proud to record in God's sight and man's what thrifty burgesses we are, what trained journeymen. To work is to pray, say the cathedral windows set up by furriers, butchers, vintagers, and farm laborers. To work is as fine a thing as to fight at Roncevaux and Mansurah, as did our next-door donor neighbor here. The little people of the Lord are as grateful in his sight as the noble _prud'hommes_. _Le bon Dieu_ likes to be shown how a tailor cuts his cloth and a baker bakes his bread just as well as to be entertained with pilgrimage adventures or the story of a canonized saint. Are we not saints in the making if only we can get the better of that prowling felon, the devil, whom we have set up over our church door with pitchfork and caldron as a warning to the unwary? "O men and women of to-day"--appeal the windows at Chartres and Bourges and Tours--"you whose blood is our blood, who without our struggle would have no ordered government, no self-ruling cities, no trade to bind land with land in the sanity of peace, no arts and crafts, why not learn to read our story? There are those unable to decipher a line of our illumined pages who will assure you that we were sunk in gross superstition, that our sole religion was the worship of bits of cloth and bone. Yes, even from the halls founded by good Robert de Sorbon (in order that youth with its lean purse might get a free education) the erudites marshal against us every human frailty of our hardy, enterprising times. And yet, in unparalleled marvels of stone and glass we have recorded the deepest sentiments of mankind. But having eyes, they see not. Come then, you, and interpret us. Come, and through us, _remember_." Each great cathedral is pleading to us by the alluring half-smile of its angels, by the dignified images of reverent personages at its entrances, by each gargoyle, each faithful guardian that has craned his neck for ages to keep rain water from the precious walls. Cease to be so superior to the legends and dreams we set forth, they seem to be saying. We know just as well as you that the apostle St. Thomas did not have all the adventures raising fairy palaces in India which we put to his credit in our windows and tympanums, even though good Bishop James of Voragine, in his cycle of church feasts, our iconographic chart--_Legenda Aurea_--relates it. The holy Jerome, close to the desert and the origin of things, real and apocryphal, warned us not to be too credulous. But symbols and legends are the breath of art, as art alone realizes through expression, the supersensual visions of mankind. Are there not millions of good Christian folk in India to-day? Her first evangelist builded better than ever we can relate by our imagery. We are not at all dull, plead the waiting cathedrals. Encyclopædias they call us. Yes, we had our little weakness for symmetry, for the mystic beauty of numbers, for gathering into "Mirrors" all the knowledge of the world. But how admirable is our Mirror of Morals, with virtues and vices contrasted; how interesting our Mirrors of Nature and of History that tell the story from Genesis to Revelations, and that set the marvels of the skies and man's dumb fellow creatures, the beasts, side by side on the walls of the house of worship, with David and Isaias, St. Peter and St. Paul, Charlemagne and Louis. And our Mirror of Knowledge--how profound it is: not as enemies but as allies would it show forth science and religion. We are no more dull than the Bible is dull, than the _Divina Commedia_ is dull. We satisfy the subtlest intellects; alike the lettered and the unlettered enjoy us. Each French cathedral and each minster makes its own special plea. Lyons reminds us, in windows of apocalyptic radiance, that her first bishops came from John the Apostle, that Christian blood flowed in her forum as generously as in Rome's Coliseum. Of the very stones of the Amphitheater, hallowed by her martyrs, is her cathedral built, and the architectural methods of the north and the south are welded here in the ancient central city of Gaul whence rayed out the linking highroads of Rome. At Tours, the charity of Martin to a beggar is recorded many a time, for it civilized middle Europe. Slow, steady, and deep were the accumulations of culture by the Loire of measured horizons and classic restraint. A tower named of Charlemagne recalls that Saxon Alcuin filled the schoolrooms of St. Martin's Abbey. A chiseled tomb reminds us that here worked the last sculptor of the Middle Ages (loyal to its humble and profound Christian traditions), as well as the first artists of the imported pagan Renaissance. At Le Mans and Angers, at Fontevrault, with its tomb of Henry Plantagenet, who gave us our jury system, speak those fighting progressives, the Angevin rulers; and all their love of the arts and of adventure endures in the exotically beautiful development which we call Plantagenet Gothic. An unlettered king is an uncrowned ass, said a X-century count of Anjou. At Poitiers, city of St. Hilaire who fought the Arians, is the most glorious window in the world--Christ triumphant on the Cross, and again we walk in procession to the strain of Bishop Fortunatus' hymn, and we read the Church Fathers in Greek and Hebrew in Queen Radegund's cloister. Aquitaine's line of troubadour dukes, passionate sinners, and prodigious repenters lives in every church in the old hill city, from the cathedral wherein Aliénor blended the indigenous art of her own Poitou with the Plantagenet suppleness of her Angevin husband, to the cupola-covered abbatial of St. Hilaire, where her son, Richard the Lion-hearted, was installed as duke. At Caen we live with the Conqueror and Matilda in their penitential abbey-churches, full of thought and purpose, the architecture of hieratic pre-eminence which Normandy passed on to England. At Coutances, the cathedral walls record the Tancreds, so the people say; close by was the eyrie of that eagle brood who set up kingdoms in Italy and the Orient. At Rouen we mutter with the crowd in the market place that a grievous shame it is to burn a saint as a witch, and in reaction, soon we are to rear monuments whose every line is jubilant freedom. At Rheims we are crowned kings in a cathedral so sumptuous that on coronation days it needed no tapestries to adorn its walls. At Clermont and at Vézelay we don the crusaders' insignia with cries of enthusiasm. The lavish art of Bourges tells of Jacques Coeur's largess, the princely merchant who financed the army that rid France of her invaders, just as clearly as the ducal tombs and imagery at Dijon relate the pageantry of the XV-century Burgundian life. The stones of Pontigny tell of Becket the martyr, whose cause impassioned all Christendom, as many a sculptured group and storied window in France relate, and of another great Englishman, Stephen Langton, who passed from this cloistral peace--dividing the Bible into chapters for us--to the Magna Charta struggle in England. _By architecture we remember._ Until we have seen Albi's aggressive fortress-church what do we really know of the Albigensian heresy, of the disease un-European, antichristian, antisocial, that bred in the precocious civilization of Languedoc? What do we know of that terrible struggle called a crusade, when the greedy barons of the north descended on the Midi (ever brutal and refined), thinking to cure its soul by the sword and with the same blows to carve out for themselves rich principalities? Forever is the story told in the Jacobins' church at Toulouse, in the red cathedral fortress above the Tarn. All the isolating pride of feudalism is resumed in the ramparts of Carcassonne and Aigues-Mortes, all the frustrated destiny of Narbonne in its vast fragment of a cathedral, all the unbroken links with the Latin are in the sculpture at Arles and St. Gilles, all the immemorial story of _la grande bleu_ in Maguelonne's solitary church. _By architecture we remember._ The Celtic remnant, that in the volcanic-torn uplands of middle France inflicted on Cæsar his sole defeat, lives always in the churches of Auvergne, so stubbornly indigenous, planted so sturdily, contriving decorative beauty from the regional varicolored lava stones. In the granite churches of Brittany endures all the aloof individuality, the sensitive independence, the tenacious traditionalism of the dwellers by the sea in the far-north outpost of France. We have our souls to keep, say the lowly Breton shrines, we have always been too busy doing that to find time to erect great churches. But once our neighbors, the Normans, taught us tower-building, our Celtic imagination leaped _au delà_ by their spires, so we raised our royal Kreisker which far out to sea welcomes home our Breton sailors. Architecture is history. Architecture is what the old Greeks said of history, "philosophy teaching by examples." The cathedrals of France prove that there is no supreme architecture where there is not liberty or the will to attain it. In 1109 the bishop-baron of Noyon granted his city a charter, the first communal written laws on record. In 1145 Noyon began to build the first Gothic cathedral of France. In the Ile-de-France, where from the nation's birth were lived its intensest hours, sprang up the churches which are the most national, the most racially French in character, Noyon, Senlis, Soissons, Laon, Paris. The history of architecture proves that without a right-minded national pride, ready to make sacrifices in order that it may transmit its high deeds to the future, no mighty monuments rise. In 1214 Bouvines' victory was won and French unity demonstrated. In 1220, not far away, was laid the foundation stone of Amiens Cathedral, the crowning achievement of the national art. A hazard, such juxtaposition? Ah, no. Nothing happens by chance in this science of the builder whose basic forces are long at work in silence. Architecture is the truthteller of history. The history of France, which in the XII and XIII centuries meant universal history, is written on the walls of the cathedrals built under Philippe-Auguste and his grandson St. Louis, during the full flowering of the new national art. And in the days when France was neither happy nor good nor great, when faith flagged, when a minority's blind greed of gold ended the international fairs, drove out the Jews, overtaxed the clerical church builders, when the crusading enthusiasm ended in a Templars' process, then the structural logic of Gothic architecture turned to pitiless geometry. So proclaim the cold, uninspired XIV-century churches, and few of them ever were built. It seemed almost as if the Gothic cycle had run its course. The XII century had seen its rise; the XIII century its apotheosis; the XIV century its decline. Was the last word said? Churches are not built by generations that live in ceaseless war, in misrule, or under a foreign yoke. There was to be another chapter for the Gothic tale. Aspiration was born again, national pride lifted its head and art flowered. Not from beyond the mountains or the sea came the needed missionary this time, nor from a Carolingian palace, nor out of Norman and Burgundian cloister. No saint-king was to lead now, but only a young girl from a peasant hamlet. When Jeanne d'Arc broke the spell of foreign invasion, when she gave France a new soul, then all over the land rose that pæan of rejoicing which we call Flamboyant Gothic art, for verily it flamed up with joy. Never will you see an arch of double curvature, accoladed, soaring to its triumphal finial, never will you gaze at radiant belfries rising richer and richer with each story, never will you pray beneath a late-Gothic pageantry picture window with its mullions swaying in exaltation, but the thought of the Maid of Orleans and her mission will come to you. This Flamboyant art may run riot in details like any modern, but it remains true in its essentials to the Middle Ages. Forever will it tell of the freeing of France from foreign rule, even as the academic Rayonnant phase sets forth the lowered ideals of Philippe le Bel, or the ampleness of XIII-century Gothic, the creative age of Louis IX and his augmenting grandfather. No regional schools were there in the last manifestations of the national art; they built the same at Albi as at Rouen, at Bordeaux as at Lyons, for an entire people shared the same feeling of recovered self-respect. You can learn to read it by yourself, learn to _remember_, if only you are not repelled by that stiff word "archæology." Just what generation made Dijon's crypt and Morienval's ambulatory, put the masonry roofs on the Caen abbatials, chiseled the column statues at the doors of Angers, Le Mans, and Chartres, made of Bourges' procession path a heavenly way of ruby, sapphire, emerald, and topaz, raised the tower at Senlis, paid tribute to St. Cecilia's gentleness in the white imagery of Albi's grim fortress--that is archæology. Archæology tells how Cluny lifted up a prostrate Christendom, how the Normans conquered England, how Abbot Suger reformed himself, how Bernard of Clairvaux exhorted Europe, how the Lion-hearted went crusading as had his fascinating mother before him, how Simon de Montfort won the Midi, how the wily Philippe-Auguste enlarged his domain, province by province--and all the while most of the Gothic cathedrals of France laid their foundations--and how the _bon-saint-homme-roy_, truest lover of the builders' art, sat under an oak tree, dispensing justice at first hand, with his loyal Joinville seated close beside him. That is archæology. It is written down clearly on great stone pages of perennial beauty for us to read--_if only we will_. A little knowledge of construction's laws is needed to show us how to see. A little more of history to guide us when to feel. If to love we must know, to know we must set ourselves to learn. Even in these days of easy motor travel one cannot go about book-laden. But there are open libraries in French cities where an inquirer is courteously lent the monographs on the town's monuments, or the big folios that picture the storied windows. It has, therefore, appeared advisable to give, with each cathedral, a list of its biographies, for they may be of use some rainy afternoon in France. It seems almost unnecessary to remind ourselves that in the XII and XIII centuries the Church of Europe--barring the Greek schism--was one and united, save for the quarrels inseparable from all manifestations of mankind's history, and that the Protestant of to-day descends from the same mediæval forefathers as does the Catholic, from the same builders of cathedrals, crusaders, feudal proprietors, and commune winners. To refuse sympathy to the two best centuries of the Middle Ages because, three hundred years later, occurred a break in western Christendom is as illogical as the attitude of those historians who would liken the religious movement of the XVI century to the antisocial outcrop of Oriental dualism called the Albigensian heresy. Let us then, with open minds, turn to this art of the builder, "the strongest, proudest, most orderly, most enduring of the arts of men that if once well done will stand more strongly than the unbalanced rocks, more prevalently than the crumbling hills; the art which is associated with all civic pride and sacred principle; with which men record their power, satisfy their enthusiasm, make sure their defense, define and make dear their habitation."[2] CHAPTER I What Is Gothic Architecture?[3] _Le temps Où tous nos monuments, et toutes nos croyances Portaient le manteau blanc de leur virginité Où sous la main de Christ, tout venait de renaître._ --ALFRED DE MUSSET. About the year 1000 a new spirit animated the art of the builder in France. That rebirth, to which has been given the name Romanesque, held sway for a hundred and fifty years, and had reached its apogee when, in mid-XII century, it was superseded by the architecture we call Gothic. Gothic architecture did not spring up like a mushroom. Like all manifestations of art, it was the logical fulfillment of its predecessor. Romanesque and Gothic were phases of the same art. The dethronement of Romanesque was a voluntary abdication in favor of younger, more efficient leadership: "What is called the birth of Gothic is but the coming of age of Romanesque." The XI-century monks who built monastic churches cleared the path for the laymen builders of the Gothic cathedrals. With persistency, with courage, the monk architects went forward, seeking a way. And the way sought, the problem on which they concentrated their energies, was how to protect their churches by masonry vaulting without sacrificing amplitude or lighting.[4] Out of their trials to solve that problem there emerged a new principle of construction, and Gothic architecture was then born. Thrust and counterthrust was the law of its being. Instead of the Romanesque idea of equilibrium by dead load, by sheer mass, which may be called a continuous counterbutting of the vault's thrust, there now was substituted equilibrium by intermittent abutment. By means of diagonal-crossing ribs the vertical and lateral thrusts of the stone roof were collected at fixed points, which points alone had to be counterbutted. Thick walls were a necessity in a Romanesque edifice, if it were to be stable, but in a Gothic building the walls could be made a mere shell, since all the work was done by an active skeleton, a bone structure of stone, consisting of piers, arches, and buttresses. To define shortly, Gothic architecture is the art of erecting buildings with vaults whose ribs intersect (concentration of load) and whose thrusts are stopped by buttresses (the grounding of the thrusts). The never-ceasing downward and outward thrust of the vaulting is met by an equivalent resistance in pier and buttress and solid earth. Equilibrium results from that well-adjusted opposition of forces. Since the starting point in the development of Gothic was the vaulting, and how to substitute a stone vault for a wooden roof was the germinal idea of the Romanesque builder, it is no digression to turn to the earlier school, the chrysalis of Gothic. The name "Romanesque" is an affair of yesterday, employed by a French archæologist about 1825. Various local designations had hitherto been used, such as Lombard, or Norman, or Romano-Byzantine, but the term Romanesque for this architecture is as suitable as the name Romance is for the popular languages which, in that same period, were forming out of the corruption of Latin. A definition given by M. Camille Enlart is excellent: "Romanesque art was a product of Rome, animated by a new spirit, and combined with a certain number of elements of barbarian or Oriental origin." Rome gave the basilica plan to western Europe, which for centuries continued to build its churches as oblong halls with a small apse at one end. The hall, or nave, consisted of a central vessel with side aisles that were divided from it by piers. In the treatment of vaulting and the method of stone laying Romanesque architecture also derived from Rome. Byzantine influences certainly were important, but they affected the decoration more than the plan or the structure; the use of the Byzantine cupola was merely occasional. The Romanesque masters copied the ivories and miniatures of the Eastern Greeks till, in time, they turned to nature for their models, and then their work took on new life and evolved into the glory which is Gothic sculpture. While some have laid stress on the Oriental influences, rather than those of Rome, in the formation of Romanesque art, others have overemphasized the personality and fantasy introduced into French architecture by the Barbarian invasions. No doubt the influx of new blood added new elements, but since knowledge of the invaders' art is fragmentary, there can be no scientific base for the theory. Composite, certainly, were the causes for the new spirit which animated architecture after the Carolingian day, but it is safe to say that the influence of Rome predominated. In the course of the centuries the Roman basilica was modified by the Catholic liturgy. For catechumens, or penitents, was made the porch, or narthex, before the western end. Tribunes were built over the side aisles.[5] Increased church ceremonial brought about a development of the choir. The custom of burying the dead in crypts under the main altar originated the raised chancel. Between the choir and the nave the builders began to insert a transverse nave called a transept.[6] Such an enlargement enabled the congregation to approach closer to the altar ceremonies; only the bigger churches built transepts in the XI century. Then the liturgical writers saw in a transept the extended arms of the Cross, and it was in that spirit the XIII-century transepts were made--their symbolism was posterior. The first ambulatories were no doubt built in churches which possessed some revered relic, to facilitate the passage of the pilgrim crowd. (The term ambulatory will be used to designate the continuation of the choir aisle round the apse.) Before long that curving processional path, with radiating apsidal chapels opening from it, was taken to represent the crown of thorns about the Sacred Head. "All things as pertain to offices and matters ecclesiastical be full of divine signification and mysteries, and overflow with a celestial sweetness: if so be that a man be diligent in his study of them, and know how to draw honey from the rock and oil from the hardest stone." So wrote William Durandus, the XIII-century French bishop whose _Rationale_, or treatise on church symbolism, was an inspiration for centuries and, next to the Bible, the most frequently printed book of the older times.[7] Despite a host of additions to the basilica of Rome--transept, ambulatory, a long choir, apse chapels, towers--despite the discarding of the classic orders and of antiquity's use of a veneer of finer stone (the Romanesque builder used the unadorned stone of his own region) the church of western Europe remained, in general plan, a Roman basilica. Like Rome, they covered their main vessel by a flat wooden roof, although they knew how to build barrel and groin vaulting.[8] Now a wooden roof is an easy prey for fire. Such roofs, a succession of long-continued invasions, and the faulty construction of Merovingian and Carolingian churches are accountable for the fact that in France to-day is no church that predates the year 1000. Some portions of ancient wall are embedded in later work, and some few early crypts are intact. But to speak with certainty of Merovingian and Carolingian architecture is impossible, though they formed the incubating phase of Romanesque art. In France the IX and X centuries were periods of overwhelming disaster. In the Midi were Saracen incursions. In northern and central France Norman pirates wiped out Charlemagne's revival of art. As far as Poitiers and Clermont the Northmen's path of destruction extended. "Look where you will," wrote Flodoard, the chronicler, "the sky is red with fires." To the litany was added a new invocation--_A furore Normannorum, libera nos, Domine_. The falling to pieces of Charlemagne's civilization and the general return of social disorders have led to an overdramatic contrasting of the year 1000, when mankind, in terror, anticipated the ending of the world, with the rebirth of hope and of building energy, when the dread day had passed. Whenever the gaunt horses--famine, pest, war, and death--are afoot, humanity is prone to look for the fulfillment of the apocalyptic prophecy. Previous to the X century the final day had been awaited, and the same superstition was to seize on the world's imagination in following centuries. The X century was certainly a desperate age. Fifty years of it were famine, and on the highroads people were killed for food. But the evils did not cease precisely with the year 1000; also it should be noted that a certain number of churches were begun before the XI century opened. However, to mark the start of a new art life the year 1000 is a convenient date if we bear in mind that it was not a sharp division between Carolingian and Romanesque architecture, since a gradual evolution took place. All through the XI century the vital renewal of architecture went on, and churches were built which, to this day, are unrivaled for their profound religious spirit. They exist to tell us that in the harsh life whence they emerged there were enlightened cases. They vindicate, by their grand simplicity and detachment of soul, the men who built them. Never was an art less one of routine than this of the so-called hidebound monks, an art of a people reborn, full of youth's daring, an art that was never to have an old age, eager, untiring, experimental, an art that fitly generated the most scientifically sound of architectures--Gothic. The heterogeneous races, Celtic and Gallo-Roman, Germanic, and Norse, whose conflicts long had held France in anarchy, were at last welding into one people. The advent of a vigorous third dynasty, under whose leadership social conditions improved, was another cause of art's rebirth. Not long after 1000 the bishops formulated the _Trève de Dieu_, by which peace was enforced on the turbulent lords from Wednesday night to Monday morning. With interval of peace came commerce and wealth and the security necessary for works of the imagination. The rebuilding of churches was inevitable. Invasions and wholesale conflagrations had impressed on the mediæval mind the necessity of a church roof more durable than wood, but a masonry vault over a wide space was a constructive feat too difficult to be achieved immediately. In fact, up to the very end of the XI century, though the builders had succeeded in vaulting with stone the crypt, the apse, and the side aisles, they continued generally to cover the wide central vessel in wood. However, the fecund idea was at work. From the time that it took possession of their imagination, to the day when Gothic, its fulfillment, was clearly enunciated, there was over a century of continuous effort--roughly speaking, from the year 1000 to the memorable day in 1144 when was dedicated the first truly Gothic monument of considerable size--the abbey church of St. Denis. Within that energetic span of years is embraced the Romanesque architecture of France.[9] The monk, Raoul Glaber, wrote an account of the rebirth of architecture after the year 1000. It has been quoted to weariness, but is none the less a valuable contemporary record. The whole earth, he says, as of one accord seemed to throw off its tatters of old age and to reclothe itself in a white mantle of churches. The monastery in which lived monk Raoul, St. Bénigne, at Dijon, was one of the first to inaugurate the new century, and its present crypt dates from the year 1001. Soon after 1017 the monks of Mont-Saint-Michel, in the far corner of Normandy, began a new church, to which belonged part of the present nave. At Chartres, Bishop Fulbert undertook to rebuild his cathedral after the fire of 1020, and the vast crypt which to-day astonishes every beholder was his work. The chronicler, Raoul Glaber, lived under the rule of the most powerful monastic brotherhood ever organized, Benedictine Cluny, embracing several thousand houses scattered over Europe. Founded in 910, during the darkest years of the Middle Ages, Cluny kept alive the light of learning and art, "the solitary torchbearer that passed on the flame from the spent glow of Charlemagne to the Gothic rekindling." Her monks were the pioneers of civilization. Cluny beat back barbarism with a pertinacity that should make hers an honored name in history. So established was her reputation as a civilizer that William the Conqueror wrote to the great Abbot Hugues, to beg from him Cluny monks for England, saying that he would pay their weight in bullion. Cluny formed the savants who made the XII century memorable. Her fertile seed provided Europe with doctors, ambassadors, bishops, and popes. Gregory VII had passed through her discipline, and in his giant task of reform, it was from Abbot Hugues that he solicited monks of Cluny. Urban II, who set in motion the First Crusade, had been a monk in the great Burgundian house. It is interesting to note that a generation of reforming pontiffs accompanied the expansion of the Romanesque movement. This would seem to contradict the notion, which many hold, that the clergy profits by keeping the people in superstitious ignorance. It is when religion is purified of its dross that man's respiritualized faith out-flows in generous donations to the Church. St. Benedict had taught his sons that work as well as prayer was a part of salvation. The monks of Cluny fostered agriculture, thus taking away its stigma as serf's work. Thierry speaks of the mediæval monastery as a model farm. In Cluny craftsmen of every kind were trained; its school of music was noted, and along the roads, as they traveled, the monks from Burgundy sang canticles. But the art of arts for Cluny was that of the builder, the supreme art that takes into its service all the others, to lead them to the glorification of God's house. When, in bands of twelve, the monks of Cluny set out to colonize in Spain, in Germany, in Italy, in Poland, everywhere they carried with them the tool as well as the Book. As a rule they conformed in each province to the local building traditions. There was never a distinct Cluny school of Romanesque architecture. By the end of the XI century the main provincial centers of France had each evolved its own special building characteristics. French Romanesque architecture has been divided into some six or seven regional schools--those of Normandy, Burgundy, Auvergne, Poitou, Languedoc, Provence, and a minor school, the Franco-Picard.[10] In their efforts to protect their churches by masonry roofs, these various regional schools made use of the barrel vault or the groin vault. The latter was found too insecure to span a wide space. Now, the thrust of a barrel vault was exerted along the whole length of the wall, which necessitated a continuous abutment--in other words, an enormously thick wall. Only small windows could be opened. Since the Romanesque architect had the ambition to light his church well, and not to encumber his floor surface by clumsy piers, a barrel vaulting could be but a temporary solution of the main problem. The struggle for a satisfactory stone roof was pursued tenaciously. Many a clearstory wall was thrust apart by the vaulting's pressure. Thus the abbey church of Bec, finished in the 'forties of the XI century, was reconstructed in the 'fifties, and three times, again, had to be rebuilt. No failure could daunt the courage of those old monastic builders. Already inherent in the newly amalgamated race was the creative genius of France. Perseverance and courage were to have their reward. The theory long taught in the École des Chartes was that in the first part of the XI century, among a number of rural churches in the royal domain, there gradually came into use the member which was to revolutionize the science of building. The idea did not spring from one brain; it was a collective, not an individual, triumph. When, under some groin vault, no doubt at first to reinforce it, some obscure mason constructed the earliest intersecting stone ribs, the first step in Gothic architecture had been taken.[11] From that essential organ, the other characteristics of Gothic art were deduced: flying buttress, slender piers, expanse of windows. In a Gothic vault the infilling, or web, rested elastically on the diagonal ribs. As the load of the stone roof was thus concentrated at fixed junctures, it was necessary to reinforce only those given points. Buttresses became intermittent. All the disintegrating force of the heavy vaulting was gathered on the diagonally crossing arches. An arch never sleeps, said the old Arab proverb. Let us then, said the mediæval architect, set a guard on it that also never sleeps; and from that idea he proceeded to develop the greatest architecture of all times. The force of expansion was counteracted by a proportionate force of compression. By means of a framework made up of vault ribs, of piers, of buttresses, and flying buttresses, the edifice became a living skeleton. The walls between the active members, when relieved of their load, served merely as screen inclosures and could be carved into fragile beauty and hung with transparent tapestries of colored glass. Because the flying buttress transmitted a large part of the vault's pressure to the exterior buttress piles, the piers within the church could be lessened in diameter, and greater capacity be given to the interior. Each new trial was a lesson learned. It was only with time that they adjusted precisely the sufficient counterpoise to the thrust of the vaults; it was only by degrees that the pier's diameter was lessened, only with practice that was learned the placing of flying buttresses neither too high nor too low. At first many a flying buttress was made needlessly heavy. The solid wall in between the buttresses was not discarded all at once. In the first Gothic churches windows continued to be single lights, then two or three lancets were placed side by side, subsequently each light was subdivided by mullions, and gradually an elaborate fenestration developed. For a time, too, the round arch continued in use, and the earliest vault ribs were semicircular. With the fusion of the equilateral arch and the counterbutted intersecting ribs, the essence of Gothic architecture was achieved. Lesser consequences of the new form of vaulting followed in logical succession. Obeying the law that it is the thing borne which commands the form of the thing that bears, the ribs may be said to have drawn out of the sturdy pier of Romanesque art the clustered columns of Gothic gracefulness. Not a single beauty in a Gothic church but has a structural explanation. The soaring pinnacles that crown the buttresses are apparently mere ornaments, but in reality those gallant little bits of decoration are of sound engineering usefulness. By weighting the buttresses, they hasten to channel the transmitted lateral thrust of the vaulting into a vertical pressure, and they increase, too, the counterthrust of the flying buttress against the side walls. A clear comprehension of Gothic is impossible unless the fact be grasped that architecture is nothing if not structural, and that no decoration can veil a faulty skeleton. Ornamentation is the spontaneous blossoming of the structure, else it is meaningless--a principle many a modern architect might well digest. Too long has the most scientifically exact of architectures been judged by its embellishments, which often enough, in the hands of the copyist, do become a florid veneer without reason. The Gothic master-of-works was right when he said that nothing which was inherently needed could be ugly. No longer were flying buttresses hidden under the cover of wooden roofs. Proudly ranged about the church, those essential practical members became one of the distinctive beauties of the new science of building. Renan, with his treacherous half praise, has called the flying buttress a crutch needed by an architecture which, from its start, nourished the seeds of decay, since it was based on no sound constructive formula. Its success was a prestidigitator's trick, he said. Such criticism misunderstands the A B C of Gothic lore. Can a living limb be called a crutch? it has been aptly asked. The Gothic cathedral is not only the most complicated, but is also the most complete, organism ever conceived by man. Where the first diagonal-crossing ribs are to be found will probably never be known. Various have been the claimants. The Rhenish claim is no longer taken seriously. Gothic made its first appearance in Germany as a fully developed French art, and its XIII-century name, there, was _opus francigenum_. In his Gothic work the Teuton showed a fondness for the _tour-de-force_ and his manual dexterity surprises more than it satisfies. The best German works in architecture are the sober Romanesque churches. Germany's school was developed a century before the Romanesque of France; across the Rhine occurred no Norman invasion to sever art traditions from Charlemagne's renaissance. The pre-Gothic art suited her ethnical temperament, and was long adhered to. While France was building Gothic, Germany was still erecting Romanesque cathedrals. Not till the end of the XII century were churches along that "_rue des moines_," the Rhine, vaulted in the new manner. The claim of Italy to be the first to use the diagonal ribs is denied by most French archæologists, but is put forward by the Italian scholar Rivoira and by Mr. Arthur Kingsley Porter.[12] The latter cites the church of Sannazzaro Sesia as showing proofs that its high nave was Gothic vaulted by 1040. For a century, he says, the Lombard churches used diagonals, especially in Milan, where wood was scarce and it was easier to build permanent brick ribs under the groin vault than to mold the groin on a temporary substructure. Diagonal ribs were invented, he thinks, as a device to economize wood. That may be true of the Lombard churches, of which he has made an elaborate study. And it may be true that the use of such diagonals filtered into Provence and Languedoc, where appeared some early Gothic vaults sporadically before 1150, at Fréjus, Marseilles, Maguelonne, and Moissac, all with the rectangular profile of the Lombard type. The theory he advocates does not prove why the Ile-de-France masons could not themselves, without hint from Lombardy, have stumbled on the new feature which was to revolutionize the builder's art. Why should we prefer his explanation for the first use of diagonals--the desire to economize wood--to that advanced by the French scholars--the effort to brace a falling groin vault? Mr. Porter acknowledges that not a single Lombard church was rib-vaulted throughout, that the Lombard architects never counterbutted their diagonals properly, that their vaults proved unsatisfactory, so that after 1120 they returned to their groin and barrel vaulting, or used timber roofs, in those regions where wood abounded. The destruction of Milan through the German invasion, in 1162, was a fatal blow to Lombard architecture. We can only conjecture how northern Italy might have worked out the problem of stone roofs. The best definition of Gothic, thinks Mr. Porter, is Professor Moore's, which concludes thus: "Wherever is wanting a framework maintained on the principle of thrust and counterthrust, there we have not Gothic." The Lombard churches never met the vault thrust with counterthrust of buttress. Surely not in Lombardy was conceived the new system of construction? S. Ambrogio at Milan was cited as l'oeuvre initiale, till it was proved that it was built not in the IX century, but after 1067; and as later disasters necessitated reconstructions, none of the present diagonals was extant before 1198. S. Abondio at Como, consecrated by Urban II, in 1095, has some very early intersecting ribs, but they are more a step toward the new system than a true Gothic vault, since the ribs merely reinforce and do not carry the cells. M. Camille Enlart contends that the systematic use of Gothic in Italy was not earlier than the second quarter of the XIII century, and was brought across the Alps by French Cistercian monks. Though for centuries Italy used it, she apprehended its constructive principle imperfectly. Because she possessed a Niccola Pisano, a Giotto, a family of Cosmati to veil the poverty of her Gothic skeleton with details of consummate beauty, criticism is silenced. Her best Gothic monument, the cathedral of Siena, was insecure because of technical errors. Always was Italy adverse to showing the mechanism by which an edifice stood; few flying buttresses were ever built south of the Alps. She preferred the classic wide spacing of piers, an unencumbered interior, and small windows against her hot sun. Who remembers that he is in a Gothic church when in the somber cathedral of Florence? Its long nave is divided into four bays where a northern church would have used eight. For Italy the Renaissance was a whole-hearted return to a national art which she could fully understand. No people outside of France better understood and developed Gothic art than the English. Their claim to priority is based on the date of the cathedral of Durham, whose choir-aisle diagonals Mr. John Bilson says are as early as 1093. Since those diagonals show no hesitation, they must have been preceded by others. Where in England are there to be found the earlier trials? The English claim is practically a Norman one, and Normandy's experimental work in Gothic vaultings remains to be traced. Rivoira claims that Lombard influences predominated in the formation of Normandy's Romanesque school. Can the Norman be said to have discerned in diagonals their immense possibilities any clearer than had the Lombard? Those among the French archæologists who have disputed the Norman claim to priority say that the principal span of Norman and English churches was covered with timber roofs far into the XII century. We know that the Gothic vaulting of the two abbey churches of Caen were XII-century additions, and M. de Lasteyrie thought the same was true of Durham, though Mr. Bilson has convinced MM. Enlart and Lefèvre-Pontalis that Durham's choir-aisle vaults are an original part of the cathedral begun in 1093. Not till 1174, when Guillaume de Sens began Canterbury Cathedral, did French Gothic architecture, in its plenitude, appear in England. The question of priority remains an open one. It might almost be said that vaulting with intersecting ribs began to appear here and there simultaneously, that if it had not cropped out in the Ile-de-France, it would have appeared in Normandy, or vice versa. And not long after them, the builders in Burgundy and Anjou began to use it. Before 1150, isolated samples of the Gothic rib vault appeared at Vézelay, Poitiers, Bordeaux, Quimperlé, Moissac, St. Gilles, Marseilles. The hour was ripe for the solution. Gothic architecture was the spontaneous invention of French builders at the dawn of the XII century, at a time when the poetry of France was imposing itself on the whole of Europe. _L'oeuvre initiale_ will never be known. However, there was a region where the early use of the ogival vault was not accidental, but systematic, one spot in the heart of France where it immediately made a school, since there it found no strong earlier traditions to overcome, where it became a living organism and went through a succession of logical developments until it had taken on the main characteristics of the new art. There is one center from which Gothic architecture spread out with slow, sure march into the neighboring regions. In the Ile-de-France, all the trials were summed up and developed by Abbot Suger at St. Denis. From 1140 to 1144 he wedded definitely the pointed arch with the diagonal rib. The French masters, who have contended that the Ile-de-France is the cradle of Gothic architecture, have had lesser controversies among themselves as to which special portion of the royal domain led in the evolution. M. Woillez, a pioneer, considered the environs of Beauvais the favored spot; M. Saint-Paul looked to the districts between Normandy and Paris; M. Enlart sought the nucleus in Amiens diocese in Picardy; and M. Lefèvre-Pontalis chose the classic diocese of Soissons. The two latter masters have modified their views since studying Durham's vaults, and they may modify them further in regard to Lombardy's early use of diagonals. The controversy is not closed. The France of that day was more a feudal confederation than a united kingdom, and some of the king's vassals ruled territories larger than his own. If the feeling of nationality is created as much by great achievements in common, as by political boundaries and the ties of blood, if, as all now agree, the enthusiasm of the Crusades, those holy wars against a common foe, helped to weld the rival sections of France into one nation, surely that other enthusiasm of the day, those other _Gesta Dei_ per Francos, the building of the Gothic cathedrals, played an important part in forming the national soul. From end to end of France they were building when at the battle of Bouvines a French king united with the jealous barons, with clergy and with burgess and with villein in a common defense of their native land. King, clergy, lords, and people fought at Bouvines, and king, clergy, lords, and people built the big national churches. All the energies of the times went to their making, all the primitive strong purposes, all the newly stirred intellect of the schools. Science was as needed for them as inspiration, for without the long manual training of the guilds, the mystic glow had not sufficed. There has crept into various architectural manuals, since first M. Viollet-le-Duc voiced it, a theory which scarcely needs refuting, so disproved is it by modern research.[13] Gothic art is considered as the layman's expression of revolt against the Romanesque art of the monks, an idea that denies the structural sequence of the two phases of the same art, and would present Gothic as a reaction against its predecessor, instead of its supreme development. We read that a cathedral was built as a sort of assembly hall for the rising communes, and not _pour loger le bon Dieu_. Now in every known case it was the bishop who started the rebuilding of each cathedral, and the works usually began with the choir, the part of a church suitable only for the cult. Even when a bishop, in his character of proprietor of a city (as in the case of Rheims and Laon), opposed the communal claims, he and the people went on building their cathedral together. We have precious documents to assure us in what spirit of piety the work was done. All classes and all ages, women as well as men, gave their voluntary labor to the new works, after having confessed and communicated in pious confraternities; sometimes it was for an abbot that they dragged in the stones from the quarry, as at St. Denis and St. Pierre-sur-Dives; sometimes it was to aid a bishop, as at Chartres and Rouen. To offset such irrefutable evidence there is not one contemporary reference to a laic, or communal purpose. Also, when it is asserted that the bishop helped the cathedrals because they were jealous of the monastic orders, there is not one historical record to confront a host of documents which disprove the idea. Large numbers of the bishop-builders issued from monasteries, founded monasteries, and returned to monasteries to die. While Maurice de Sully was erecting Notre Dame, at Paris, he built four monasteries, in one of which he requested to be buried. The bishop who began Auxerre Cathedral chose Cistercian Pontigny for his tomb. The bishop-builders of Noyon, Laon, Senlis, Soissons, Rheims, Bourges, and Rouen were buried among the monks. That there should occasionally be friction between a bishop and an abbot over legal privileges is only characteristic of human nature in all times. As a class the bishops were not opposed to the monks, nor the Orders to the secular clergy. The monks of St. Remi honored the archbishop of Rheims in their choir windows. The cloister welcomed the new architecture. Transition Gothic churches were built by the monks of St. Germain-des-Prés and St. Martin-des-Champs at Paris, and one could prolong the list into pages. Where in Burgundy is found the earliest Gothic? In the Cistercian church of Pontigny, and in Benedictine Vézelay. Where in Champagne?--the abbatials of Notre Dame at Châlons-sur-Marne and St. Remi at Rheims. In Normandy? In the Midi?--again the answer is, in abbey churches. Indeed, monastic building energy seemed inexhaustible, for where the prime of Gothic arrived, it was still the monks who produced that masterpiece of the new art, the Merveille of Mont-Saint-Michel. In the XII century the spread of monastic life took on a phenomenal aspect. Benedictine houses and those of the newly founded Orders of Cîteaux and Prémontré increased, not by hundreds, but by thousands. The monks were in absolute accord with the spirit of their time. Sons of the cloister had inspired the entire XI century: Gregory VII, Abbot William of Dijon, St. Anselm, Lanfranc, St. Hugues of Cluny. A bevy of remarkable men of the cloister led the XII century, the chief being Suger of St. Denis, protector of the serfs, the man of genius who stimulated the bishops of France to remake their cathedrals in emulation of his Gothic abbey church, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, on whose words all Europe hung. Architecture passed to laic control when the protection of monastic life was no longer needed for artists, and when the science of building required the specialist, the man occupied with it alone. The schools of Cluny had trained the first guildsmen, and many of the names of Gothic architects--Orbais, Honnecourt, Corbic--indicate that they were born in places where monastic building industries flourished. It was in the natural course of events that the art should pass out of the possession of the few into the general national life. Another natural happening has been distorted by partisans. The burning of monastery archives during the XVI-century religious wars and by the Revolution is accountable for the few names of architects that have come down to us. The scarcity of such names has been cited as an instance of the jealous suppression of the laymen by the clergy forced to employ them. Now precisely the contrary is the truth. What modern architect was ever accorded such prominence as was allowed by the bishops of Amiens and Rheims to their masters-of-works when they inscribe those laymen names in the labyrinth designs of the cathedral pavements? The monks of Marmoutier and of St. Germain-des-Prés were proud to bury in their abbey-churches their architects Étienne de Mortagne and Pierre de Montereau. In Rheims, the architects Hugues Libergier and Robert de Coucy were likewise honored. By digging in old archives, the modern student is ever adding new names to the nation's honor roll. Many a gap still remains, but the very anonymousness of such masters of the living stone is stuff for the imagination. One likes to picture the old-time craftsman-artist rejoicing in his insignificance as he chiseled his leaf and vine just as he saw them by the roadside. He served a Master who gave like wages to all who worked in spirit and in truth, to him who, in the hidden corners where no human eye could penetrate, carved his leaf and flower with the same love as did the greater artist working on the stately imaged portals. The "heretical Gothic-sculpture bogey" has led certain imaginations astray. There are those who find latent heresy in the old carvers' work; they point, with suggestive smile, to the bishop and monk placed among the damned in the Last Judgments at the cathedral doors. Let them turn to the sermons of the day and they will find precisely the same Christian doctrine of the equality of all men before sin and punishment, preached from the pulpit within the church. Not in all the myriad scenes from Old and New Testaments is a single doctrinal error to be found, says M. Émile Mâle, who is master of the iconography of French churches. The sculptor layman merely carried out the scheme of the trained theologian. Many a sharp word does M. Viollet-le-Duc give as critic to those who enjoy in a cathedral the superficial beauties of decoration, but are blind to the efficient structure, to the scientific upholding skeleton. Surely it is a still more radical ignorance which perceives in a Gothic church its mechanical perfection, but denies the aspiration to immortality which was its inceptive spirit. To ascribe the origin of cathedrals to the need by the nascent commune of a town hall is to make of those soaring monuments veritable follies of human pride. Restore to them their religious soul, have eyes to see what may be called their spiritual framework, and as up-leaps toward the infinite they are sublimities. Can churches be the creation of rebellion and hate when into their very stones passed the clamorous vibrant faith of those crusading generations? Like hovering prayers their vaults seem to shut one in. The heart, weary of modern sophistry, draws strength from their eternal affirmation. He must have little music in his soul who is deaf to such a _Credo_. When men built Gothic cathedrals they knelt on both knees to pray, and never have they soared more supremely above themselves. "Deeds of God through the French" are these temples. A word in regard to the term "Gothic." It is as unreasonable a misnomer as could have been chosen, but since usage has sanctioned it, it must pass. Primarily put into currency by the Italians of the Renaissance, in the injurious sense of barbarous, the term was adopted by the French neo-classics of the XVII century. Molière's scathing line on Gothic sculpture is well known--"_Ces monstres odieux des siècles ignorants_." He complained that Gothic art "_fit à la politesse une mortelle guerre_." When Racine spoke of Chartres Cathedral he made use of the term _barbare_; even to the churchman Fénelon the cathedrals of the Middle Ages appeared unreasoned and faulty. The opprobrious term was fixed by the Encyclopædists of the next century, when prejudice against the Middle Ages became militant and organized. With exclusive pedantism they dismissed the most national and civilized of arts as worthy of those rough invaders, the Goths. Voltaire, who, says Guizot, garnered only what was mean and criminal in the Middle Ages, saw in the study of Gothic architecture "a coarse curiosity, lacking good taste." As late as 1800, a project was abroad to disencumber the soil of France of "these overcharged façades with their multitude of indecent and ridiculous figures." And still later, the students in the national school of architecture were taught to despise the most reasoned, the most robust, the most logical of arts as a style of confusion and caprice. The rehabilitation of Gothic architecture in France, if tardy, has been ample. No branch of modern science presents a more able corps of workers. While true to the Latin genius, which unites clarity of style with an exact erudition, they have obeyed a yet deeper race instinct which knows that matter must be vivified by spirit, else learning sinks to a dry-as-dust recording, incapable of its highest flight. The telling of the monumental story of France has been touched by the sacred flame of patriotism. Like paladins, these modern knights are abroad on all the by-paths eager to rescue some hidden treasure of the national art. Future scholarship will look back at the brilliant achievements of the French archæologists of to-day with the same pride that is felt for the Benedictine savants of the XVII century. The aim of archæology is to date a monument correctly. How to do this by scientific method has been taught the last two generations at the École des Chartes, the national school par excellence, so M. de Vögué called it. Archives are pored over to trace each link with history, and those monuments which have no authenticated pedigree are compared with those of certain date. Each manuscript date is verified by the analysis of the edifice itself, whose successive campaigns of building are deciphered, since few and far between are the homogeneous churches. Each restoration also is verified. One of the solid bases for archæological exactness is the knowledge of profiles, which are called by the English textbook rib molds, arch molds, pier molds, or base molds. By a comparative analysis of profiles, a monument can now be accurately dated. As keystones were of different types in the various earlier decades of Gothic, they too help to substantiate an edifice.[14] Churches of one region are contrasted with those of another. The material employed is considered, since the stone of a province causes richness or poverty of sculpture: thus, Brittany's granite and Auvergne's lava mean an undeveloped sculpture compared with the fine white limestone districts of the Oise, or in Normandy and Poitou. When practicable, excavations under an edifice can give data concerning previous churches on the site. M. Jules Quicherat was the first to teach that the history of the Middle Ages architecture was the history of the architect's fight against the weight and push of the vaulting.[15] Once the right path was blazed, many an able pioneer helped clear the new road--such students as Viollet-le-Duc, de Caumont, Woillez, Prosper Merimée, de Dion, Coutan, de Beaurepaire, Grandmaison, Révoil, Rupricht-Robert, Félix de Verneilh, Anthyme Saint-Paul, Louis Courajod, Buhot de Kersers. At the École des Chartes, Robert de Lasteyrie occupied with distinction the chair held by Quicherat for thirty years, and his pupils, Camille Enlart and Eugène Lefèvre-Pontalis, in their turn, are passing on the high tradition to a younger school. M. Enlart, the director of the museum of comparative sculpture at the Trocadéro, is an authority on Romanesque architecture, and has initiated the study of the spread of Gothic architecture in mediæval Italy, Spain, the North, and the Levant.[16] M. Lefèvre-Pontalis has written a host of erudite monographs; one learns to accept his decisions as final, in so far as the ever-expanding realm of knowledge can be final. He directs the invaluable publications called the _Congrès Archéologique de France_ and the _Bulletin Monumental_, and he edits those excellent short studies known as the _Petites Monographies des grands édifices de la France_, which are convenient pocket guides for the serious tourist.[17] Each year is producing final monographs on the chief churches of France. M. Georges Durand has rendered fitting tribute to Amiens. M. de Farcy has identified himself with Angers, René Merlet with Chartres, Lucien Broche with Laon, and Lucien Bégule with Lyons. MM. Brutails has specialized on Gascony, the Thollier and H. du Ranquet on Auvergne, Labande on Provence, Berthelé on Plantagenet Gothic, André Rhein on Poitou and Anjou, Émile Bonnet on Hérault, Charles Porée on Burgundy, and Louis Demaison on Champagne. Other able students are MM. Bouet, Louis Serbat, Marcel Aubert, Ernest Rupin, Jules de Lahondès, René Fage, Amédée Boinet, Jean Virey, Robert Triger, and Louis Régnier. Precious texts have been unearthed from the archives by Victor Mortet, Henri Stein, and Eugène Müntz. The sculpture of France has been studied by MM. Robert de Lasteyrie, Émile Lambin, Léon Palustre, Eugène Müntz, Gabriel Fleury, Raymond Koechlin, J. M. de Vasselot, Paul Vitry, Gaston Brière, André Michel, Louis Gonse, and Émile Mâle. The latter three have brought out monumental general works. _L'art gothique_ of Gonse gives the most exact and extended account of the beginning of Gothic, says Anthyme Saint-Paul, who is himself one of the most inspiring masters of mediæval archæology. M. Michel, who is conservator of the national museums, has edited the superb _Histoire de l'art_, to which leading French scholars have contributed.[18] And the iconography of French cathedrals has received no more magistral treatment than from M. Mâle, to whom is due the credit of establishing the scholastic character of Gothic imagery.[19] His path was cleared by pioneers such as Didron, Crosnier, Martin, and Duchesne. Happily for the local schools, a bevy of intelligent churchmen have devoted themselves to their regional monuments. I hope I may be pardoned if I do not name each with his ecclesiastical designation, but cite them here simply as savants: the Abbés Eugène Müller (Senlis); Bourassé and Bosseboeuf (Touraine); Ledru (Le Mans); Auber, De la Croix, and Mgr. Barbier de Montault (Poitiers); Chomton (Dijon); Bulteau (Chartres); Abgrall (Brittany); Maurin (Aix-en-Provence); Bouvier (Sens); Cerf (Rheims); Bouxin (Laon); and for the Norman churches, the Abbés Fossey, Porée, Loisel, and Pigéon. The list might be greatly extended. One can cite only a few. From the pages of such students have been written these chapters, by one who has felt that there must be many travelers who love the old cathedrals of Europe and have wandered among them puzzled by half-understood things, longing to know with exactitude how and when they were built. So it has not seemed a useless task to gather into these ten chapters what the French scholars are relating of their churches. So swiftly do archæological discoveries follow one another to-day, that statements accepted now may be obsolete to-morrow. The makers of history and art books can hope to serve only their hour. The new school of Christian archæology is redeeming the misrepresented centuries after the year 1000. It is undoing the systematic falsification of history, and is teaching us to read the past other than by the printed page. Not hate, but love, opens new windows in the soul. The study of the churches of France adds flesh and blood to many a mere name in history. One gains a very special liking for little Abbot Suger, most dependable of men, whose life was a succession of big undertakings. One feels reverent affection for that sentinel of the Church and its guide, Bernard of Clairvaux, who said some harsh things of fine churches, all the while that he was feeding the mystic life that made them inevitable. And very real become the bishop builders when one knows their cathedrals. One pores over the old volumes of the _Histoire Littéraire de la France_, begun by XVII-century Benedictines, and still being continued by the Institute of France, to gather details of good Bishop Fulbert and doughty St. Ives, who built at Chartres; of that distinguished literary man, Bishop Hildebert de Lavardin, who worked at Le Mans; of the well-poised Bishop Maurice de Sully, who raised Notre Dame at Paris; of crusading prelates such as Albéric de Humbert, who began Rheims; and of Nivelon de Chérisy, who built Soissons, and who, on the Fourth Crusade, played a foremost role. One grows to love, above all, the saint-king, Louis, truest hero of _la douce France_, who illuminated his kingdom with fair churches. And no one can admire St. Louis and not keep a warm corner in his heart for Joinville, his comrade-in-arms, the irresistible seneschal of Champagne. Crusades and chivalry and all the multicolored aspects of the XII and XIII centuries become clearer to the imagination as one traces the story of the cathedrals of France; scholasticism and the early days of the schools, when Abélard sparred with Guillaume de Champeaux. Very real they all become: Peter the Venerable, good Stephen Harding, St. Thomas Becket, John of Salisbury, St. Edmund Rich, Stephen Langton, St. Dominic, St. Malachy O'Morgair, Innocent III, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas Aquinas. France welcomed them all during the two vital centuries when she imposed her literature as well as her architecture on western Europe, when the Paris schools were the intellectual center of the world. To paint a rose-colored picture of the two best centuries of the Middle Ages would be absurd. They were full of very evil things. There were horrifying episodes in them. "Barbarism tempered by religion; religion disfigured by barbarism," is the definition of Balmes, the theologian. The inconsistencies were gigantic. The same men who sacked Constantinople in 1204, dealing art a staggering blow, were the very men who in western Europe were building cathedrals. Then, as now, there were many for whom religion served as a convenient cloak for the lower instincts; then, as now, there were many who never lost sight of the higher ideals. Side by side with the evil and the self-seeking should be set the sublime impulses which checked those untutored generations. Do not hide the merciless laying waste of Languedoc by the north, but do not forget that, in the same hour, men had reached an abnegation of self that led them to the African coast as voluntary substitutes for their brother Christians in bondage there. In the midst of its human infirmities it was an age that aspired: its poets sang of the Holy Grail, its kings and its serfs were saints, there were saint scholars and barons and merchants, there was even a saint lawyer. It is precisely the restored balance between good and evil which the study of Gothic art is bringing about. The partisan may go on compiling a police gazette and call it history.[20] While the towers of Gothic churches point upward, he is refuted. The modern mind has once for all grasped that it is psychologically impossible for an age to have been sunk in blind superstition when it could build, not merely one or two, but hundreds of churches whose every line is an aspiration toward sanctity. The cathedrals are the true apologetics of the Middle Ages. Archæology is again proving its claim to be the soul of history. CHAPTER II Abbot Suger and St. Denis-en-France Under the impulse of this monk, truly great in all things, Gothic architecture was born.--FÉLIX DE VERNEILH (of Abbot Suger). The churches built during the evolution from Romanesque to Gothic have been called transitional, a classification which would be most convenient for the amateur, had not archæologists decided it was an equivocal term. They say that, during the short period when "Romanesque and Gothic inhabited under the same roof," the Romanesque parts of the edifice were placed side by side with the simultaneously built Gothic parts, that there was juxtaposition, but no fusion. Vaults were either barrel, groin, or of the diagonal-rib type; there was no such thing as a transition form of vault. Arches were either round or pointed; there was no such thing as a transition or intermediary form of arch. And since the radical distinction between Romanesque and Gothic is caused by the vaulting, it is correct to call that part of a church where was groin or barrel vault Romanesque, and that part where were used the intersecting ribs Gothic. The sequence of the passing from Romanesque to Gothic is obscure, because there is a lack of definite dates. From 1110 to 1140, while the intersecting ribs were coming into use in northern France, such a vault was practically the only sign in an edifice of the new movement. The walls still were massive, the windows still were small and round-arched, the sculpture still was coarse and heavy. Then, as the transition advanced, the supports grew lighter, the profiles (those cross-section outlines of ribs, arches, capitals, and bases) grew purer, and the sculpture discarded Byzantine traditions and took nature as its model. French archæologists have thought that the use of diagonals came about first through the desire to hold up some groin vault, on the point of collapsing, which would seem a very sensible explanation, since the creative genius of the Ile-de-France seems dimly to have apprehended even in the first hour the stupendous possibility to be drawn from a member whose purpose was to concentrate force in order that other parts of the edifice might be relieved. From the initial hour began the evolution of the cardinal organ in the Ile-de-France. Whereas the Lombard architects looked on the diagonals as a mere contrivance, stubbornly keeping their eyes shut to the structural possibilities latent therein. The masons of the Ile-de-France at once began to profile their diagonals graciously, and even before the genius of Suger had coordinated, at St. Denis, all the foregoing progress of the nascent art, craftsmen had occasionally symbolized, as it were, the importance of the intersecting ribs by carving little caryatids for them to rest upon above the capitals; such figurines are to be seen in the Oise region at Bury and at Cambronne.[21] Mr. Arthur Kingsley Porter's idea is that the transitional period resolves itself into a series of experiments on the part of the builders to erect a vault with a minimum of centering, and he cites the hollow spires at Loches as an experiment to put up a stone roof without the use of any temporary substructure of wood, which apparently was costly.[22] He thinks that the earlier Gothic vaults were _bombé_ because that form facilitated construction without centering, and that the Lombards dropped their precocious diagonals after 1120, as soon as they had learned how to build domed groin vaults which required no temporary wooden substructures. What is of value in Mr. Porter's thesis is sure, in time, to pass into French currency; until a majority of French archæologists find his explanation better than their own it is permissible for us to agree with those who are telling the tale of their own national art. Probably the earliest extant Gothic vaults in the Ile-de-France are those at Acy-en-Multien (Oise) and at Crouy-sur-Ourcq (Seine-et-Marne). Their outline is rectangular. Some intersecting ribs at Rhuis (Oise) are cited by M. Lefèvre-Pontalis as the oldest in the Soissonnais. Diagonals were put up, about 1115, at St. Vaast-de-Longmont (Oise), Orgeval (Seine-et-Oise), Viffort (Aisne), Airaines (Somme), and in other rural churches. The famous ambulatory vaults at Morienval were probably built about 1122. A year or two earlier, perhaps, are the side-aisle vaults of St. Étienne at Beauvais. Bury (Oise) shows the first extant half dome with ribs. Of the same time, about 1125, are the diagonals at Marolles, St. Vaast-les-Mello, Béthisy-St.-Pierre, Bonneuil-en-Valois, and Bellefontaine, all in the Oise department. Bellefontaine, whose date of 1125 is certain, has helped to place other churches of the transition by comparing their diagonals with its pointed intersecting ribs. Bruyères (Aisne) is about 1130, Poissy (Seine-et-Oise) and Villetertre (Oise) are about 1135, and so are the ribs of St. Martin-des-Champs at Paris. In the Aisne region are Berzy-le-Sec and Laffaux (c. 1140) and in the Oise region is Chelles, building at the hour when Suger undertook St. Denis (Seine), 1140 to 1144. Cambronne (Oise) and Foy-St.-Quentin (Somme) are about 1145. Such churches as Glennes (Aisne), St. Leu d'Esserent (Oise), and, close to the latter, Creuil's church of St. Évremont were building in 1150; so were Chars (Seine-et-Oise) and, near it, Pontoise,[23] whose ambulatory vaults some claim are prior to those of the procession path of St. Denis, and therefore a link between Morienval and Suger's abbatial. The big church at St. Germer (Oise) was begun about 1150, though certain of its features are more archaic than St. Denis, built before it. Some of these churches, called transitional, used wall ribs for their diagonals, others omitted them; in some the intersecting ribs were pointed, in others, semicircular. Mr. John Bilson, who contends that diagonals were used in Normandy some twenty-five years earlier than in the Ile-de-France, considers the early dates for these rural churches improbable, that scarcely any were anterior to St. Denis, that it was a case of little churches following the great churches, not vice versa. The earliest, he thinks, was St. Étienne at Beauvais (c. 1120), significantly close to Normandy. But Normandy did not suspect the value and fecundity of diagonals. That feat of creative genius none can deny to the Ile-de-France. The traveler can do nothing more enlightening and delightful as a prelude to his journey among French cathedrals than to spend some early spring days exploring the rural churches of the privileged land of the national art which the old geographers chose to picture as an island inclosed by the Seine, the Marne, the Aisne, and the Oise. Numerous churches of the transition lie between Soissons, Senlis, and Beauvais, and once, around Amiens was another such center, but few of the monuments there have survived.[24] Go to Creuil and see, in the ruins of St. Évremont, a rudimentary flying buttress--a quarter arch once hidden under the lean-to roof. No doubt the architect built it with the intention of bracing the upper walls, but since he omitted to brace the flying buttress itself it failed of its purpose. Four miles away, at St. Leu d'Esserent, is an awkward early trial of a Gothic vault in the tribune above the porch, but as the ribs are embedded in the cells, no proper elasticity is achieved. Go to Morienval and study its remarkable essay in spanning a curving section with diagonals. Trace these early steps of the national art, and the meaning of the Gothic bone structure grows plainer. MORIENVAL[25] I approve the life of those for whom the city is a prison, who find paradise in solitude, who live by the works of their hands, or who seek to remake their spirit by the sweetness of their contemplative life, who drink of the fountain of life by the lips of their heart, and forget what is behind them to regard only what lies ahead. But neither the most hidden forest nor the highest mountains will give happiness to man, if he has not in himself solitude of the spirit, peace of conscience, upliftings of the heart to God.--Letter of ST. IVES, Bishop of Chartres, 1091-1115. Of the experimental steps which led to Gothic art, the most appealing is the nunnery church of Morienval, a humble forerunner of Amiens Cathedral that has made as much stir in archæological controversy as Périgueux's cathedral of St. Front itself. Morienval may not be the passionately sought _oeuvre-initiale_, since its vaults, while they betray inexperience, certainly were preceded by still cruder attempts, but it can boast that it is the first Gothic ambulatory extant, and as the curving aisle around the chancel is the most exquisite feature of the great cathedrals, Morienval's humble first essay of it merits a pilgrimage. As one approaches the abbey church it does not appear till one is directly over it, so snugly hidden away is the village in a fold of the rolling country that skirts the forest of Compiègne. Perhaps the IX-century nuns who chose the site may have hoped that the marauders of that troublous time might ride by, unconscious of booty so close at hand. With gratitude one learns that the invasion of 1914 has left Morienval unscathed, as well as those other memorials of tentative Gothic, Acy-en-Multien and Crouy-sur-Ourcq. Because of excellent proportions, the church appears larger than in reality. The exterior is Romanesque. Two time-stained towers of the XI century mark the angles between transept and choir, an arrangement derived from Rhenish churches. At the west façade is a beautiful XII-century tower. It was building while the nuns were proceeding to tear down a decrepit apse in order to erect the present east end of the church. In that new apse appeared the much-discussed early ribs. A record tells that relics were installed in the church in 1122, and it was probably then that the new works were finished. Ambulatories had come into favor during the first third of the XII century, when need was felt for a suitable corridor for pilgrims to encircle the altar whereon relics were exposed. Now to vault a curving aisle was no easy task, owing to the trapeze shape of each section. Morienval's ambulatory must have been designed to hold extra altars, since entrance to the aisle is blocked at both ends by the towers, and the passage is so narrow that only one at a time can walk in it. There are no apse chapels. The sculpture is archaic. Some of the capitals show interlacings, and some are of the pleated type popular in Normandy. The diminutive corridor has four small bays whose clumsy intersecting vault ribs are of the size of the average stovepipe. They curve strangely, and two of the keystones are not in the axis of the passageway, nor has elasticity yet been wholly achieved, since the ends of the ribs plunge into the web of the vault. Over the choir, consisting of one large bay, are intersecting ribs that appear to be posterior to those of the ambulatory. They, too, are rude and large, but are wholly detached from the cells. M. Lefèvre-Pontalis thinks that the ambulatory diagonals are contemporary, and owe their more archaic character to the difficulty of vaulting a curved passage. So swiftly did the early architects acquire skill in the new system of building, that when a chapel was erected on the northern arm of Morienval's transept, at the end of the XII century, each diagonal had become a single slender torus, virile and graceful. Of less architectural importance is the Romanesque nave of Morienval, whose meager vault ribs are of the XVII century. The western tower was the prototype of the Romanesque belfries of the region and should be preserved. It is in a deplorable state, propped by beams, which are gayly scaled by the lads who ring the Angelus. Little Morienval has the human touch which the traveler craves. Set in the wall above the XIII-century lord of Viri's tomb are tablets that commemorate two pastors of this isolated Valois village who were heroes as valiant as any crusader. Their combined ministry covered a hundred and one years. The first died in 1840, after fifty-seven years of service here, "faithful to his duty in times most difficult," and difficult indeed was a priest's life during the Revolution. "Pray for his soul," begs his grateful commune, to which he had bequeathed the presbytery and all his savings. His successor came to Morienval in his 'twenties, fresh from Paris, his birthplace, and on this dwindling village he expended his energies for forty-five years. Abbé Riaux loved his parishioners like a father, and was, says the memorial tablet, "physician for body as well as soul." During the cholera of 1849 his self-denial elicited a gold medal from Morienval and the village of Bonneuil, where is another primitive essay of a Gothic vault. "The state of decay of his beautiful church made him suffer," runs the inscription, so he willed his modest fortune toward its restoration. Happily, he lived long enough to see the church he loved become a savant's shrine. It was in 1880 that M. Robert de Lasteyrie first drew attention to Morienval as an early step in the tardily understood national art, and MM. Anthyme Saint-Paul, Eugène Lefèvre-Pontalis, and Camille Enlart joined in the debate. The archæologists' war horse they have called our little Morienval. Such widespread discussion and the good priest's bequest fortunately brought about a thorough restoration of the choir. ST. ÉTIENNE AT BEAUVAIS, AND ST. GERMER[26] Sous le porche de l'église, chacun laisse le fardeau que la vie lui impose. Ici le plus pauvre homme s'élève au rang des grands intellectuels, des poètes, que dis-je? au rang des esprits: il s'installe dans le domaine de la pensée pure et du rêve. Le gémissement d'une vieille femme agenouillée dans l'église de son village est du même accent, traduit la même ignorance, le même pressentiment que la méditation du savant.... De ces parties profondes de l'être, de ce domaine obscur surgissent toutes les puissances créatrices de l'homme. --MAURICE BARRÈS.[27] Close in date to Morienval are the aisle vaults of St. Étienne's nave at Beauvais, the old city that lies on a tributary of the Oise. The intersecting ribs are not quite so stout as those of Morienval, but their ends still plunge into the massive, and they, too, are round-arched; their date is approximately 1120. That they planned at the same time to throw similar diagonals over the principal span is proved by the existent lower structures, but the actual vaults there were not erected till after a fire in 1180. The transverse arches of the aisles are noticeably stilted. This device was to lead to a solution of the problem how to raise the arches framing each vault section to the level of the diagonals' crown, and thus avoid the excessive doming which is found in the earlier Gothic vaults. In the XII-century north façade of the transept is an oculus big enough to be called the first rose window; a wheel of fortune it is called, because the images around its circle are an allegory of the fleet passing of man's greatness. This is one of the very early approaches to pure sculpture. The nave's two westernmost bays and its façade are of the XI century. Had the original choir of St. Étienne survived, it is thought that its ambulatory would be one of the missing steps connecting the cramped corridor of Morienval with the double procession path of St. Denis. The present choir, a Flamboyant Gothic structure, is famous for its gloriously colored windows, some of which were made by that notable family of local artists who designed the big rose windows of Beauvais Cathedral, Engrand Le Prince and his sons Jean and Nicolas, and his son-in-law Nicolas Le Pot. The latter carved the cathedral's wooden doors, for versatility was characteristic of the artisan-artists of those days. Ten miles from Beauvais, a crawling train sets one down in a field whence a two-mile walk leads to the sleepy bourg of St. Germer-en-Flay. The abbey was founded in 655 by Germer, a noble of Dagobert's court, nephew of St. Ouen the great bishop of Normandy's capital. To St. Germer's abbey came William the Conqueror to beg the French king to join him in his proposed descent on England. But Philip I gathered his counselors, and it was decided not to support the Norman duke, since, if he gained England, he would be richer than his own suzerain, the king of France, and if he failed, France would have antagonized the English. The large abbatial church of St. Germer, if not beautiful, is of archæological interest. Formerly it was thought to be a monument of 1130, but closer study has shown that it was erected during one bout of work from 1150 to 1180. Hard though it was to believe it the contemporary of the cathedrals at Senlis and Noyon, its sculpture is too excellent to have been done earlier. The crocketed capitals of its westernmost bays were never made earlier than 1175. That the church was continued without pause from apse to façade is proved by the unity of profiles and details. Its anachronisms are to be explained because it derived from a side current of Gothic art, out of touch with the swift-moving main stream, which was channeled by Abbot Suger. The architect of St. Germer showed in the main parts of his church a thorough understanding of the new Gothic vaulting, and at the same time he covered his tribune gallery with Romanesque groins. He made heavy Romanesque piers, and simultaneously he essayed to disencumber the pavement by employing the corbel, or side bracket. The Norman zigzag or chevron design decorates the heavy molding of the pier arches. Over the sanctuary he attempted the inartistic experiment of having his ribs converge, not on a keystone, but directly on a transverse rib. The ribs of the upper vaulting are heavy and ornamented. The pointed arches of the pier arcade are surmounted by round arches, in the tribunes. And between tribune and clearstory are square apertures neither Romanesque nor Gothic. To meet the thrust of the upper vaulting, some rudimentary flying buttresses were built under the lean-to roof of the tribune galleries, but as they themselves were not braced, they remained ineffectual. The collapse of some of the high vaults caused the addition, later, of the present flying buttresses. The exterior of the church is gaunt, with windows that are small and round-arched. The west façade was wrecked during the Hundred Years' War, and never restored. Walled-up arches mar the spacious interior. Thick coats of whitewash cover it, and when dust gathers on that make-shift of cleanliness the effect is tawdry. Directly behind the apse of the big abbatial stands a masterpiece of Rayonnant Gothic, a diminutive church whose west façade faces, with awkward closeness, the back of the larger church. As it is connected with the latter's ambulatory by a glazed passage, it may be regarded as a sort of Lady chapel. Many such imitations of the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris arose, after St. Louis had made his shrine for the crown of thorns. The abbot who put up St. Germer's glass reliquary was Pierre Wesencourt, who ruled from 1254 to 1272, and it is thought that the king's own architect designed it. That Louis IX contributed toward it is shown by the fleur-de-lis and the donjons of Castile in the storied windows. Over the altar once stood the alabaster retablo, depicting St. Germain's life, now in the Musée Cluny, at Paris. POISSY[28] Christianity is still for 400,000,000 of human beings the great pair of wings that are indispensable if man is to rise above himself, above humdrum living and shut-in horizons, it is still the spiritual guide to lead him by patience, resignation, and hope to serenity, to lift him by purity, temperance, and goodness to the heights of devotion and self-sacrifice. Always and everywhere for nineteen hundred years as soon as these wings flag or break, public and private manners degenerate. Neither philosophy, reason, nor artistic and literary culture, nor even feudal honor, military and chivalrous, no code, no administration, no government can serve as substitute for it.--H. TAINE (1892). The church of St. Louis, at Poissy, is a link in the normal development of Gothic, and not like St. Germain, a disconcerting anachronism. About 1135 both systems of vaults were here built at one and the same time. Poissy lies on the Seine slightly above its junction with the classic Oise. A pleasant way to approach it is to walk from St. Germain-en-Laye through the forest, when it is carpeted with anemones. St. Germain's palace chapel is thought to be the work of Pierre de Montereau. One goes to Poissy in a spirit of pilgrimage, for at its font, in 1215, St. Louis of France was baptized.[29] He held the gift of Christian citizenship he here received above all that the world could bestow. To his intimates he often signed himself Louis of Poissy. His grandfather, Philippe-Auguste, had given the manor of Poissy to his son, on his marriage to Blanche of Castile. Living then in retirement at Poissy was the gentle Agnes of Méran, that aunt of St. Elizabeth of Hungary whom Philippe-Auguste had been forced by Rome's decree to set aside. When St. Louis was born, on St. Mark's Day of 1215, in order to spare the young mother, the church bells were silent. The Spanish princess asked the cause, and ordered--gallant woman that she was--that every bell in the town should ring out a joyous carillon because God had given her _un beau fils_. Shakespeare would inevitably admire Blanche; she was a Shakespearian character: That daughter there of Spain, the hardy Blanche, Is near to England; look upon the years Of Louis the Dauphin and that lovely maid. If lusty love should go in search of beauty, Where shall he find it fairer than in Blanche? If jealous love should go in search of virtue, Where shall he find it purer than in Blanche? If love ambitious sought a match of birth, Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanche?[30] The wide ambulatory of Poissy is groin-vaulted, but diagonals cover the two oriented apsidioles that open on a false transept, which arrangement of pseudo-transept with chapels was copied soon after at Sens. The three easternmost bays of the nave have retained their primitive intersecting ribs, which are round-arched, decorated, and very broad, as are the transverse arches that separate the vault into sections. Poissy's sculpture is of an advanced type. Owing to later changes, there is much patchwork in the church. ST. DENIS-EN-FRANCE[31] Give all thou canst: high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely calculated less or more: So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense These lofty pillars, spread this branching roof Self-poised. --WORDSWORTH. [Illustration: _Poissy. An Early Example of Gothic Vaulting (c. 1135)_] Finally came the hour of the new architecture's clear achievement. After all the trial efforts, there now was built, midway in the XII century, a monument which was to wield momentous influence. With the erection of St. Denis, the center of Gothic art may be said to have shifted slightly south, to Paris. From the capital the new movement spread out in systematic progression--each church comprehending better than had its predecessor the principle of thrust and counterthrust, each drawing from it further consequences. St. Denis did not put a stop abruptly to the coexistence in the same edifice of both systems of vaulting any more than it began immediately the usage of all the consequences of diagonals. Yet none the less the Royal Abbey is rightly called the first Gothic monument, since here first was demonstrated stout-heartedly the advantages of the new system. Abbot Suger was the first to employ the generating member with the full intelligence of its results. "From the moment of St. Denis' conception, Amiens had become inevitable." It was Suger who wedded definitely the pointed arch and the intersecting ribs. He dared to make piers so slender that the beholders were astonished they could carry the weight of a stone roof; he dared to open his walls by windows so large that his choir was called by the people the lantern of St. Denis. The mastery by Suger's craftsmen of the art of stained glass was to have profound consequences in Gothic structure, since it hastened the suppression of the wall screen between the active members: "Behold I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and thy foundations with sapphires; and I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones." Suger has himself told us how the house of God, many-colored as the radiance of precious stones, lifted his soul from the cares of this world to divine meditation, for this Gothic art, whose spiritual appeal he had apprehended as profoundly as he had its structural laws, was most aptly fashioned to be a foretaste of the Beyond, neither touching the baseness of earth nor wholly the serenity of heaven. Doubtless Suger understood the importance of the dedication day in 1144. He made of it a national ceremony. He started the Gothic movement intrepidly. Before a historic gathering of bishops and barons he demonstrated that a Gothic vault was lighter, more easily built, more economical, and more enduring than any other, and the important men of France went back to their own cities to spread far and wide the lesson they had learned. In the course of the story of French architecture, fate has most graciously allied certain monuments of prime archæological interest with people or events of historic importance. Gothic art made its debut in a unique setting. St. Denis was the patron of France, the missionary who first preached Christianity by the Seine, and who there had been martyred in the III century. On Montmartre is the crypt said to have been the burial place of the first Christian martyrs of Paris. In time there rose on the road outside the city a monastery dedicated to St. Denis, and thither were his relics transferred. Each of the three royal lines that have ruled France, Merovingian, Carolingian, and Capetian, chose the abbey of St. Denis as their final resting place and loaded it with favors. The first milestone on the highroad of Gothic art was the famous center of the nation's life, and the initiator of the new system of building was the maker of the nation's unity, Abbot Suger. To Suger may be applied the mediæval term for an architect, Master of Works, _maître de l'oeuvre_. He wrote an account of how he reconstructed his abbey, building it, he says, with the aid of his companions in the community and his brothers in the cloister. The people gave voluntarily of their labor. When a quarry with suitable stone was discovered at Pontoise, the whole countryside--men, women, and children being harnessed to the carts--dragged the blocks in pious enthusiasm to St. Denis. The tomb of the martyred patron of Paris was a pilgrim shrine from earliest days. The same trait in human nature that, in 1915, sent Americans to gaze reverently at a relic of their national history, the Liberty Bell, when on a two weeks' journey from the San Francisco Fair to Philadelphia, it was exhibited in different cities, made the early Christians of Gaul flock to revere the relics of the holy man who had brought them the light and liberty of the gospel. Religion then and all through the Middle Ages was fraught with patriotism. For St. Denis' abbey a Merovingian church had been built by Dagobert. Pépin and Charlemagne replaced it by a Carolingian church. By the XII century the abbatial had become inadequate for the pilgrim crowds; people were crushed to death on festival days, and Abbot Suger decided to rebuild. He began by demolishing a heavy vestibule which Charlemagne had put up as a kind of tomb over his father's grave, for Pépin had begged to be buried face downward in penance, before the abbey church. Suger replaced that encumbering porch by what is to-day a narthex, or forechurch, formed by the two westernmost bays of the edifice. In the thirties of the XI century he started the new works. Romanesque feeling lingered in the sculpture, and the stout vault ribs crossed each other in round arches. By 1140 the west façade was finished and ceremoniously consecrated. A month later, a still greater gathering met at St. Denis for the laying of the corner stone of the choir. To the sound of trumpets, Louis VII descended into the trench prepared for the foundation, and placed the first stone, and as the choir chanted of the jeweled walls of the heavenly city, _Lapides pretiosi omnes muri tui_, the king, profoundly moved, took from his finger a costly ring and threw it into the mortar, which had been mixed with holy water. Each baron and bishop, as he laid down a stone, did the same. Their vehement faith would turn to literal meaning the Psalmist's dream of the celestial city. In his choir, Suger united definitely the pointed arch with the intersecting ribs, and the ribs, now, were not the heavy ones used in his forechurch. All the arches at their crown were brought to the same height by a combination of stilting, pointing, or depressing them. In the outer aisle of his ambulatory, Suger introduced a fifth rib in each vault section, which welded the apse chapels with the procession path. For his inner aisle he employed what is called the broken-rib vault. First, the keystone was planted in the center and from it branched the four ribs, each regardless of making a straight diagonal. This became the generally accepted method for vaulting an ambulatory. Every part of his edifice Suger supervised with untiring energy. Owing to the waste of forest trees for machines of war, none of sufficient girth could be found for the outer roof covering. Suger lay brooding over this one night, then started up impetuously before dawn, took the measurements of the beams needed, and himself went into the dense forest. Before nine that morning he had found a giant tree; by noon ten others, and the timber was hauled in triumph to the abbey. All France was talking of the new works at St. Denis. Never before had been such a gathering of skilled masons and sculptors, of goldsmiths and glassmakers. St. Denis' school was to direct the glassmakers' art through the second half of the XII century. Little is known of the origin of that art; the early basilicas of Christian Gaul had made use of pieces of colored glass framed together, and in the X century figures were represented. No work, however, previous to the XII century has survived. For the earlier fenestration the term "painted glass" is a misnomer, since each piece was colored in the mass, and only a few black lines were applied to denote the features, or the folds of the draperies. The artists of St. Denis obtained their relief effects by a skilled juxtaposition of tones; intensity of hue was increased by the employment of thick rough leaves of glass. Scarcely any white was used; in the ancient windows no spots spring out unpleasantly. To St. Denis' school succeeded that of Chartres, which predominated during the first part of the XIII century, while its second half was ruled by the school of Paris, when windows of the Sainte-Chapelle type were the rule. Gradually the craftsmen gave up their sound tradition that a window should be a transparent mosaic, subordinate to its architectural setting. They began to treat a window as an isolated picture and the art declined. Abbot Suger's school of glassmakers carried their art to its zenith. Not all the wonders of XIII-century fenestration equaled the unfathomable vibrant blue in the background of XII-century windows--a fugitive mystery whose secret has been entirely lost. The popular fancy was that Suger ground down sapphires to obtain his magic color. All over the land the church builders desired windows like those of St. Denis. Suger's own craftsmen went to Chartres to make the three big lancets in that cathedral's western front. The St. Denis school influenced the superb Crucifixion window in Poitiers Cathedral, and others in the cathedrals of Angers and Le Mans and in the Trinité at Vendôme, also the Tree of Jesse window in York Cathedral. And, had the choir glass of Notre Dame at Paris survived, it would have been of the school of St. Denis. Suger wrote inscriptions for his abbey windows to make their symbolism clearer. Owing to the vicissitudes of seven hundred years, few of the St. Denis lights have survived. Four are now reset in the central apse chapel and in that to its north. In a medallion at the base of one of these windows Suger himself is represented holding a scroll bearing his name. The medallion figures are of the hieratic Byzantine type. Every window has a closely woven pattern; each losenge has its own border, and a rich jeweled border surrounds the whole lancet. Bracing bars of iron run straight across the pictured story. Slowly, with infinite patience, worked those old XII-century artists, and never has their handicraft been surpassed as sheer splendor of ornamentation. After three years and three months of passionate work, the choir of St. Denis was finished, and on June 11, 1144, the dedication day, the relics were installed. That date, forever memorable in the annals of architecture, may be called the consecration of the national art. At the ceremony assisted Louis VII with his queen, Aliénor of Aquitaine, whose strange destiny was to make her patroness of that entirely different phase of Gothic called the Plantagenet school. The chief barons were present at the dedication, as well as five archbishops and some fourteen bishops. They looked and wondered, and not a few of them returned home to imitate. The bishops of Noyon and Senlis hastened to rebuild their cathedrals in the new way, and some of Suger's masons passed into the service of the former prelate. Bishop Geoffrey de Lèves went back to Chartres to build the most beautiful tower in the world, and the sculptors who had made Suger's western portals (now no longer extant) worked on the three west doors of Chartres. On the day of St. Denis' dedication, Abbot Suger, small and frail in person, but towering in personality, was honored on every side. When the abbot of great Cluny, Peter the Venerable, passed from the marvels of the new church to Suger's narrow cell, he cried out in honest distress: "This man condemns us all. He builds, not for himself, but for God alone!" Though the last half of Suger's life was an example of monastic simplicity, not always had he been content with a monk's cell. Perhaps because of his conversion midway in life, he appeals to us in a more human way. Not that he was converted from evil doings; his purpose always was high. But in his position as St. Denis' abbot, as a powerful feudal lord, he lived sumptuously, according to the accepted standards of the time. He mixed freely in the world; he directed state affairs for the king to whom he was devoted; he went on embassies; he even led armies. In 1124, when an irate German emperor was marching on Rheims, which he had vowed to destroy, Suger in person led against him some ten thousand of his abbey's retainers. That was the first time the oriflamme of St. Denis was carried as the national emblem.[32] Suger had grown up in the secular atmosphere of the Royal Abbey, and took its worldliness as a matter of course. Of peasant parentage himself, he had been brought, a child of ten, to live with the monks, because he already showed exceptional qualities. Among his fellow students in the abbey school was the king's son, the future Louis VI, and an intimacy began between the two lads destined to continue till death. When Suger became a monk he was sent on notable missions, for he was gifted with tact and good manners, vivacity and charm. Sweetness of disposition, mental energy, courage, and absolute integrity won for him general esteem. Early and often this born lover of things beautiful made the journey into Italy. It was while returning from one of his missions there, in 1122, that he learned of his election as abbot by his fellow monks in St. Denis. Louis VI had come to the throne; henceforth Suger was to lead in all state affairs. The genius of this son of field workers had pierced to the vital need of the age--unity of government. Only a strong, central administration could cope with the disintegration which was feudalism. For its very existence the feudal system depended on the absence of well-enforced general laws. It was Suger's strong hand that guided the early steps toward national unity, and king and people worked for it together. Under the king whom Suger served France began her great role of redresser of wrongs. Louis VI was the first to use the title, king of France, not king of the Franks. The ideal of this XII-century statesman was a strong central monarchy, coexistent with a national assembly. His high conception of solidarity was to fructify, within a hundred years, under Philippe-Auguste, the grandson of Suger's master. Suger was one of the first in Europe to understand political economy. He laid the base of a sound financial administration. His confirmation of a charter for the townsmen of St. Denis gave security to trade; he relieved the abbey serfs of _mainmorte_, built a Villeneuve for homeless nomads, and found time to study agriculture scientifically. In his writings we feel the first breath of a national patriotism. A new note in that age of unfettered personal impulse when might meant right, was Suger's constant reference to "the poor weighed down with taxations," to "that which has been too long neglected, the care of the surety of laborers, of artisans, and of the poor." Many a modern politician could well ponder Suger's censure of the spoils system. "The officers dismissed carry off what they can lay their hands on," he said, "and those who replace them, fearing to be likewise treated, hasten to steal, to secure their fortune." Suger's pre-eminence in public affairs continued during two reigns. Louis VII, after stumbling some years without guidance, turned to his father's counselor and, during his absence on the Second Crusade, appointed him regent of France. So masterly was the abbot's rule that king and people publicly proclaimed him _Père de la Patrie_. Suger studied the causes of the crusade's lamentable failure; he felt that forethought and prudence might win success, and, though he was seventy years of age, he began preparations to carry out a crusade at his own expense. Time was not given him again to prove his genius for leadership. When news of his death (1151) reached the court, the king and the Grand Master of the Templars, who was with him, burst into tears. On his grave in the abbey church which he had built they cut the simple inscription, "Here lies Abbot Suger." No need of panegyric. "The single names are the noblest epitaphs." The commanding place held by this monk in the estimation of Europe is vouched for by letters from pope, kings, and many a dignitary. The king of Sicily wrote to beg a line from him; the king of Scotland sent gifts; the bishop of Salisbury made the journey to France expressly to know Suger. By one clear stroke after another--and above all by his own writings--every line of which is of historical value--the picture is filled in of this admirable churchman who was as soundly honest and forceful as the architecture he fostered, and whose delicate, ardent soul accomplished remarkable things with the reasoned orderliness of the art he loved. Suger's sudden but thorough conversion is attributed to St. Bernard. Up to middle life he had been a type of those who soar as high as human abilities can reach without super natural aid. Entangled in the mesh of various employments, his soul could not rise to heavenly things. Then the trumpet of Bernard's reform sounded in Europe. Men's hearts were set on fire with repentance and aspiration toward the highest. Bernard's clear eyes read beneath the outer circumstance of Abbot Suger's life. He saw that here was a good man, capable of becoming a holy one. He wrote fearless words of disapproval. "One would think it was a governor of a province, not of souls," he wrote, when he saw the abbot of St. Denis ride by with sixty horsemen. Suger began to scrutinize his manner of life. Grace touched his soul, pomp was laid aside, and he set about his conversion with the same thoroughness that he displayed in all his acts. Before reforming his monastery, he completely reformed himself. With St. Bernard, who was ten years his junior, he was linked in ennobling friendship to the end. "I know profoundly this man," Bernard wrote of Suger to the pope, "and I know that he is faithful and prudent in temporal things, that he is fervent and humble in things spiritual. If there is any precious vase adorning the palace of the King of Kings, it is the soul of the venerable Suger." When Suger lay dying, he wrote to St. Bernard: "Could I but see your angelic face before I die, I should go with more confidence." And Bernard, who was to follow in a year, begged that when Suger reached Paradise he would "think of him before God." Yet, if the overwhelming saint could change the whole tenor of Suger's life, the cultivated little abbot of St. Denis offered a gentle, stubborn opposition to the puritanic ideas of Bernard in the domain of art. "Vanity of vanities," cried the ascetic, in the well-known open letter in which he denounced the new luxury in church building. Churches were made too long, he complained, too high, and needlessly wide; the capitals were carved with monsters more apt to distract than to lead to pious recollection. The art lover in St. Denis' abbey smiled at such iconoclastic vehemence. Suger thought that nothing was too precious for the house of God. He proceeded to erect an abbey church as imposing as a cathedral, and to enrich its treasury with goldsmith work. Over the three gilt-bronze entrance doors of his church he inscribed, "The soul on its earthly pilgrimage rises by material things to contemplate the Divine." To this day both men have vigorous partisans, and those who set out on a cathedral tour in France are more likely to be on Suger's side in the controversy. Suger's subtle mind reached beyond the ascetic's maxim. Well he knew that both saint and art patron were needed, well he knew that Bernard of Clairvaux was as instrumental as himself in the formation of the cathedral builders. A living example of Christian perfection, Bernard fortified the faith of all Europe. He might advocate church simplicity, but it was not without cause that his apostolate preceded the most fecund creative period of mankind's art. His impassioned love of God warmed the imaginations of the men who began the big Gothic churches. What remains to-day of the XII-century abbatial built by Suger of St. Denis? Comparatively little. The lower parts of the west façade and the two first bays of the nave which form a narthex, or vestibule, are his work. In the choir, his beautiful ambulatory begins at the third bay of the double aisles. There are nine bays of Suger's processional path, and from them radiate seven apse chapels. The pillars that divide the lovely curving double passage are the very ones which the generous enthusiasm of the people dragged from Pontoise, and, in memory of the little abbot, some will touch those slender columns with reverential gesture. It was Suger who created the disposition of the _rond point_ found in its perfection at St. Denis and copied in the great cathedrals. The crypt also is his work, though its nucleus belonged to an underground shrine built by Abbot Hilduin in the XI century. When Abbot Suger had finished his choir, he proceeded to make a new Gothic transept and nave; but of them scarcely a vestige remains. Some sculpture at the north door of the transept is of the XII century. Whether the construction was faulty, or whether the monks desired a more ample church, there was a total reconstruction of St. Denis' abbatial, a hundred years after Suger's day. THE ST. DENIS OF ST. LOUIS Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense, With ill-matched aims, the architect who planned (Albeit laboring for a scanty band Of white-robbed scholars only) this immense And glorious work of fine intelligence. --WORDSWORTH. From 1231 to 1280, at St. Louis' own expense, the present nave and transept of St. Denis were built, and the first bay of the choir as well as the upper parts of the chevet were reconstructed. Inasmuch as the new nave was wider than the choir, a canted bay of the latter joined it to the transept. St. Denis, as it now appears, presents the noble elegance of Gothic art in its golden hour. The new transept was made of exceptional width; its aisles and stately piers compose picturesque vistas. The triforium of the reconstructed church was glazed, one of the first essays of a feature which was to be in general use in the XIV century. To unite triforium and clearstory in a brilliant sparkle of color added to the magnificence of a church, but it marked a decline in the sound structural laws of Gothic. The purpose of a triforium arcade was to beautify the plain wall surface necessitated by the lean-to roof over the side aisles. When that blind arcade was opened, the lean-to roof of the aisles had to be changed to a conical one, which signified an inner channel for rain water and the ultimate deterioration of the masonry. Suger's St. Denis had started the delight in stained glass, and the St. Denis of St. Louis merely carried out its consequences--the suppression of wall inclosures. The present upper windows of the abbatial are poor examples of Louis-Philippe's day. The architect of Louis IX, Pierre de Montereau, designed St. Denis as we have it to-day, so says a record recently unearthed by M. Henri Stein.[33] He was an innovator who here first accentuated the upward sweep of Gothic lines. To that XIII-century master they attributed for a time the Sainte-Chapelle of the king's palace in the Cité, but now that it is certain that he planned St. Denis, it is doubted if he made the Sainte-Chapelle, as there is little kinship between the two. There is a decided likeness between St. Denis and the chapel of the palace at St. Germain-en-Laye, and also with the Lady chapel of St. Germer-en-Flay. Pierre de Montereau was buried in 1267 in a now-destroyed Sainte-Chapelle which he had erected within the monastery inclosure of St. Germain-des-Prés, at Paris. Both Montereau and Montreuil claim this distinguished master. Probably he was born in the former town on the border of Champagne, as his church at St. Denis shows a trait of that region, the gallery of circulation under the windows of the side aisles. Moreover, two of his abbot patrons came from Montereau. The architect Eudes de Montreuil, whom St. Louis took with him on his first crusade, and who worked on the fortresses of Aigues-Mortes and Jaffa, was a son of Pierre de Montereau, it is supposed, and his name should be spelled in the same way. No tomb in St. Denis' abbey church predates the XIII century. To honor King Dagobert, founder of the abbey, St. Louis put up an elaborate monument and ordered the effigies that distinguish his royal predecessors' graves. With the tombstone of St. Louis' son, Philip the Bold, began portrait work. An exact likeness of Charles V, the good Valois king, was made by his Flemish sculptor, André Beauneveu, and of almost too great realism is that of his general Bertran Duguesclin, whom King Charles ordered buried with royal honors in the national necropolis. It was the XVI century that added to St. Denis' the three tombs of most architectural pretensions, those of Louis XII, Francis I, and Henry II. The monument of Louis XII and Anne of Brittany was undertaken (1516-32) by Jean Juste, who with his brothers had come north from Florence, being among the first to bring into France the ideals of the Renaissance.[34] It has been suggested that the king's and queen's kneeling images are from the studio at Tours of Guillaume Regnault, who for forty years was co-worker with Michel Colombe, last of the great Gothic artists. The priants are still quite French in treatment. Jean Juste made the gisants and his brother and nephew aided with the lesser sculpture. It was Louis XII who ordered artists at Genoa to make, in 1502, the Carrara marble tomb of his father, the poet-duke, Charles d'Orléans, and of his grandfather, the murdered duke of Orléans, builder of Pierrefonds Castle, and son of the art-loving Valois king, Charles V. The tomb of Francis I (1549-59) was designed by Philibert de Lorme. Pierre Bontemps fashioned the bas-reliefs that celebrate the wars in Italy; he and other masters made the _priants_ and _gisants_. The tomb of Henry II and Catherine de Medici (1570) of less artistic value, has a complicated history. The Italian, Primatici, directed the works; Domenico Florentino made the king's kneeling figure, and Germain Pilon his _gisant_; Jerome della Robbia chiseled the queen's death image. To sum up: there are in St. Denis' abbatial three totally different parts, built in different periods. There is Suger's forechurch, in which linger Romanesque echoes; there is the ambulatory of purest Primary Gothic built a little later by the same great abbot; and finally there are nave, transept, and the main parts of the choir erected during the reign of St. Louis in the zenith of Gothic art. As one stands in the center of the church, gazing along its vaulting, it is easy to perceive that the axis is broken three times, and each divergence from the straight line conforms to one of the different stages of work. The deviation of the axis line once was called poetically _inclinato capite_ (_et inclinato capite, emisit spiritum_--St. John xix:30). It was thought to symbolize the inclining of Christ's head on the Cross. When M. Robert de Lasteyrie proved that a constructive miscalculation was the cause of the irregular line, the beautiful idea had to be renounced.[35] In each successive addition to a church it was difficult for the architect to start the new part exactly on the same axis as the old, since usually a temporary wall shut off the portion of the church already finished and in use. The slightest miscalculation at the start led to a very apparent deflection of alignment. Those churches which show irregular alignment are known to have been built in successive stages. A number of church choirs slant to the south, whereas were the figure on the crucifix taken as model they would deviate to the north. In churches without a transept, or, in other words, churches that lack the extended arms of the cross, is sometimes found a decided slant to the north. Moreover, the crucifix of that epoch represented a triumphant Christ with erect head, for the art of the XIII century was serene; the pathetic in religious iconography was a later development. No writer of the period mentions a symbolic interpretation of the deviated axis, not even Bishop Guillaume Durandus, in his noted _Rationale_, or _Signification of the Divine Offices_. There is, instead, a text of the XIV century which says that a certain architect was so chagrined at having built a tortuous axial line that he never returned to be paid by the cathedral chapter. Mr. Arthur Kingsley Porter thinks that the deviation of the axis was intentionally done, in order to overcome that tendency of perspective which lessens the apparent length of a church by foreshortening its far bays. By slanting the east end, the distant bays could be brought into view, and thus the edifice would seem longer. [Illustration: _St. Denis-en-France and Its Royal Mausoleums_] The Royal Abbey of St. Denis suffered during the Hundred Years' War, from which period dates the crenelated wall at the birth of the towers. In those checkered times the silver tombs of St. Louis, of his father Louis VIII, and of his grandfather Philippe-Auguste, disappeared. In the XVI-century religious wars the abbey was pillaged, and its library, a national treasure, was burned. The Calvinists carried off Suger's altar vessels of silver and gold, on which the learned little abbot had inscribed Latin verses. The Revolution completed the havoc; of the monks' quarters nothing remains to-day. The Committee of Public Safety voted to destroy the tombs of "our ancient tyrants" on the first anniversary of the August 10th that had unseated the monarchy. So the mob sallied forth to St. Denis and scattered the dust of the patriot Suger, whose life work had been the public weal, and the dust of St. Louis, the most conscientious man who ever ruled a nation and the first to give France her written laws. The gruesome account of the wrecking of the royal tombs was written by an eyewitness.[36] In the opening years of the XVIII century, the abbey church was described by Chateaubriand as in a ruinous state, with the rain falling through its roof and grass growing on the broken altars: "The birds use its nave as a passageway; little children play with the bones of mighty monarchs. St. Denis is a desert." Napoleon began its restoration, and many of the scattered tombs were brought back. During the first half of the XIX century some deplorably bad work was carried on, and the robust primitive profiles were chiseled away. No sooner was the spire on the north tower finished than cracks showed, and the tower was dismantled to the level of the roof. Later changes have repaired some of the stupidity of those tasteless renovators. The very history which had been enacted within the walls of the great abbatial would suffice to make it a national relic. To the Primary-Gothic church which Suger was building came Louis VII for the oriflamme, the banner carried before the army in momentous wars. He shared bed and board with the monks the night before he set forth on the Second Crusade. To the same early-Gothic church, in 1190, came his son Philippe-Auguste, to receive the oriflamme for the Third Crusade. The flame-colored abbey gonfalon on its gold lance flouted the German emperor when Bouvines' great victory was won in 1214. At the funeral of Philippe-Auguste, in 1223, a little lad of eight marched to St. Denis' behind his grandfather's bier. It was the first time that the populace had beheld their future saint-king, and an old record tells how his noble bearing gladdened their hearts. At his side walked Jean de Brienne, king of Jerusalem, leader of the recent Fifth Crusade. When St. Louis came to St. Denis for the oriflamme in 1247, it was to find a totally reconstructed church, for Pierre de Montereau had been many years at work. Joinville in his memoirs described the landing in Egypt of the Royal Abbey's banner, how for miles the sea was dotted with the gleaming ships of the crusaders, how the king, standing head and shoulders above the rest, on perceiving that the leading vessel which bore the oriflamme had touched shore, leaped into the sea, sword in hand, with the cry, "Montjoye St. Denis!" And uttering the same battle cry of France, princes and knights followed. Five years later, tested by defeat and imprisonment, as fine gold is by fire, Louis IX brought back the oriflamme to St. Denis. Again he returned for it in 1270 for his last crusade. Within a year, the whole nation, in mourning, came out to the abbey. In a reliquary, the king's bones, embalmed with fragrant spices, had been brought from Tunis, and the new king bore the _châsse_ solemnly, and wherever he paused, on the way from Notre Dame to St. Denis, a memorial cross was erected. But, to give the annals of the abbey church would be to tell the history of the French monarchy. The first time that the gonfalon of St. Denis was carried against Frenchmen was in 1413, two years before the defeat at Agincourt, in the black days of the Hundred Years' War, days as fatal to the builders' art as to the civic life of France. What those dire times were that rent France to shreds, and how _la fille de Lorraine à nulle autre pareille_ came to the rescue, have been sung by a poet whose high destiny it was to fall in recent battle. Charles Péguy, in his poem, linked the momentous epochs of the capital: St. Denis, who brought the Light; Ste. Geneviève, the sentinel patroness of Paris, who guarded it, and Jeanne d'Arc, who lifted up the torch from the mire--the torch which the fallen heroes of the World War have passed on refulgent. In the V century it was at Geneviève's instigation that a basilica was raised to honor St. Denis. In the XV century Jeanne d'Arc paid tribute to the first martyr of Paris. Her troops lodged in the town of St. Denis, then moved in closer to Paris, and in a shrine dedicated to St. Denis, in the village of La Chapelle, Jeanne heard Mass, the morning that she led the assault on the walls of Paris, September 8, 1429. When wounded she was carried back to La Chapelle (to-day a dense industrial faubourg of the city), and on St. Denis' altar she offered tribute. During her trial at Rouen they asked her what arms she had offered to St. Denis.[37] "A complete knight's outfit in white, with a sword that I had won before Paris," was Jeanne's reply. "And why did you make that offering?" asked the judge, bent on twisting her every act to sorcery. Jeanne answered hardily: "For devotion, and because it is the custom for all men-of-arms when they are merely wounded thus to give thanks. Having been wounded before Paris, I offered my arms to St. Denis because his is the cry of France." But let Charles Péguy speak, he who fell between Belgium and Paris in August, 1914:[38] Comme Dieu ne fait rien que par miséricordes, Il fallut qu'elle [Ste. Geneviève] vît le royaume en lambeaux, Et sa filleule ville embrasée aux flambeaux, Et ravagée aux mains des plus sinistres hordes; Et les coeurs dévorés des plus basses discordes, Et les morts poursuivis jusque dans les tombeaux, Et cent mille innocents exposés aux corbeaux, Et les pendus tiront la langue au bout des cordes; Pour qu'elle vît fleurir la plus grande merveille Que jamais Dieu le père en sa simplicité Aux jardins de sa grâce et de sa volonté Ait fait jaillir par force et par necessité; Après neuf cent vingt ans de prière et de veille, Quand elle vit venir vers l'antique cité ... La fille de Lorraine à nulle autre pareille ... Gardant son coeur intact en pleine adversité, Masquant sous sa visière une efficacité, Tenant tout un royaume en sa ténacité, Vivant en pleine mystère avec sagacité, Mourant en plein martyre avec vivacité ... Jetânt toute une armée aux pieds de la prière.[39] CHAPTER III Some of the Primary Gothic Cathedrals: Noyon, Senlis, Sens, Laon, Soissons _C'est vers le Moyen Âge énorme et délicat,_ _Qu'il faudrait que mon coeur en panne naviguât._ _ ... Roi, politicien, moine, artisan, chimiste,_ _Architecte, soldat, médecin, avocat,_ _Quel temps! Oui, que mon coeur naufragé rembarquât._ _Pour toute cette force ardente, souple, artiste!..._ _Guidé par la folie unique de la Croix_ _Sur tes ailes de pierre, ô folle Cathédrale!_ --PAUL VERLAINE, _Sagesse_, IV.[40] St. Denis' abbatial was an object lesson in the new art, and the bishops returned to their dioceses to emulate it. Two of Suger's personal friends, the bishops of Noyon and Senlis, were the first to rebuild their cathedrals. Already during the Romanesque stage the cathedral of Sens had been initiated; it now was to be carried on according to the new system of building. At Laon was begun a splendid Gothic edifice. At Soissons, a new cathedral was started by that masterpiece of Primary Gothic, the transept's southern arm. And many a lesser church now rose: the collegiate at Braine, the abbey church of St. Leu d'Esserent, and two abbatials in Champagne as imposing as cathedrals, St. Remi at Rheims, and Notre Dame at Châlons-sur-Marne. Also in Champagne is the Primary Gothic church of St. Quiriace at Provins. The cathedral of Paris was also begun in the primary stage of the national art. But Notre Dame of Paris must have a chapter to itself. Before its main parts were completed, Gothic architecture had reached its culminating point. With it ended the primary group and opened what we shall call the Era of the Great Cathedrals, though let it be remembered that all such divisions are arbitrary and made use of merely for clearness. From its first assured steps to its apogee, from the middle of the XII century to the middle of the XIII, the sequence of Gothic architecture is welded too logically to be defined by cut-and-dried nomenclature. During the XII century, the Gothic cathedrals retained Romanesque features, such as deep tribunes over the side aisles, which gave them a wall elevation in four stories--pier arcade, tribune, triforium (to veil the lean-to roof over the tribune), and clearstory. At first it was common usage to encircle the clustered shafts at intervals with stone rings, but by the XIII century the desire for an unbroken ascending line had grown stronger, and the employment of such horizontal bands died out. The simultaneous use of both round and pointed arch is found in all five of these Primary cathedrals; but after the opening of the XIII century, semicircular and equilateral arches rarely were used at the same time in a church. Slowly, as if with reluctance, the new architecture dropped favorite traits of the old school. Sculpture continued longest faithful to Romanesque traditions. Noyon, Senlis, Sens, Laon, and Soissons--it seems rash to treat of such a bevy of churches in one chapter, when students have made a single cathedral their life work. The passing traveler is encouraged by one fact: each big French church, once seen, remains a clear-cut memory, for each possesses a distinct personality. To confuse one cathedral with another is impossible. It is an instinct deeper than mere fancy to choose a season æsthetically right for a first visit to such sanctuaries. For these Primary cathedrals the fitting occasion is that fugitive hour when the leaves are multiple yet half transparent still, only partly veiling the virile framework of the tree. In them is the evanescence of spring, the slenderness of adolescence and its virginal restraint, that something of youth's severity, that something of youth's radiance which is joy, but not abandonment to joy. There is something sacred in the modest sobriety of the earlier Gothic churches.... But what words can express their unimaginable charm! If all true art is but a symbol, a prefiguring of the mystery, these churches veil and reveal the coming harmonies of the Beyond as it never before was revealed and veiled. We speak of Chartres as a recollected holiness; the stones of Rheims were made majestic for royal pageants; Amiens is a _sursum corda_. And yet there is something in the first fugitive hour when Romanesque and Gothic met that makes a deeper appeal to the soul. No Greek, in portico or sepulchral tablet, conceived beauty of lovelier proportion, of more heart-piercing simplicity, than some of the earlier churches of the national genius. When in the French towns the word passed from mouth to mouth, on a tragic day of September, 1914, that Rheims Cathedral was in flames, there were many who asked breathlessly: "And St. Remi? What of St. Remi?" And when the invaders burst upon Senlis, many who knew the lovely springtime Gothic church of St. Leu d'Esserent trembled for its fate. Over the birthplace of the nation's unity of language and architecture has poured a pitiless rain of iron and fire, a destruction akin to desecration.[41] Cradle and necropolis! The iron grip has held cloistral Noyon that was only too content to be forgotten in its distinguished retirement. The proudest mediæval thing in France, Laon set with feudal arrogance on its high hill, has been long years in chained captivity. For seven centuries the faithful bulls on Laon's towers have looked out, like sentinels, over the city. With dread forebodings they stood in their captivity, aware that the angel guard set about Rheims Cathedral had pleaded in vain, that the tower of Senlis, pride of all the Valois country, had been selected as a target by the invaders' guns. And Bamburg and Limburg, Halberstadt and Magdeburg, had copied Laon Cathedral in the old days when the _opus francigenum_ aroused emulation, not hate, across the Rhine. Month after month, year after year, the shells rained on Soissons; town and cathedral lie in ruins. The fair cities of this inmost heart of France have been desolated, the loyal places that hastened to open their gates to Jeanne d'Arc when she rode by with her king from the coronation in Rheims--Senlis and Laon, Soissons and Compiègne,[42] and Crespy-en-Valois, the countryside that greeted her with such love that she said she hoped to be buried among such good folk, among these _chiers et bons amis les loyaulx Franxois habitons les bonnes villes_.[43] Always in the vanguard of battle were these ancient cities of France, always the boulevard of the capital, yet the wars of centuries had respected their churches. Future ages will read of the glorification of brute force by the invaders who refused to take pity on Soissons, Noyon, and Rheims, when they stand before the giant amorphous 1913 memorial at Leipzig. Therein speaks the Prussian purpose as distinctly as, in Gothic cathedrals, speaks the idealism that sent the old and young crusading, and spurred man on to "the bravest effort he ever made to save his soul." Tragic irreparable early churches of France! Like martyrs in the arena, you have been laid low, one after the other.... But martyrs leave undying memories. If loved before with an almost unfair preference, you are sacred now. Rheims, Soissons, Noyon, and Senlis--your names have become sacramental. NOYON CATHEDRAL[44] Vous entendrez rugir une de ces batailles Où les peuples entiers se mordent aux entrailles, Un combat formidable aux cris désespérés, Dont parleront longtemps les hommes effarés; Car nous saurons de moins, si notre France expire, Lui creuser un tombeau plus large qu'un empire. --LOUIS BOUILHET. Most of the cathedrals of France have an early history following the same general lines. Each may be said to have passed through a Merovingian stage, and to have rebuilt itself larger and finer in Carolingian times.[45] The inroads of the Northmen pirates and the conflagration of timber roofs wrecked most of the cathedrals, so that a third and often a fourth reconstruction went on during the Romanesque era--the century and a half that followed the year 1000. When the evolution of Gothic art was accomplished, there were few churches that were not renewed. It has been said that never before had such a noble frenzy of building seized on mankind. In the short biography traced here of each cathedral, seldom will an account be given of former edifices, but rather the story of each church as it now stands. While some portion may be Romanesque, it is uncommon to find any Carolingian vestige remaining. The bishop of Noyon took the initiative set by Abbot Suger at St. Denis. He was the first to start a cathedral in the new way just as Noyon can boast that hers was the first communal charter of which there is record. In 1109 the liberal Bishop Baudry granted the town its franchise, without the turbulent scenes by which other cities were to wrench theirs from their feudal proprietors. "Know then, all Christians, present and future, that by advice of priests, knights, and townsman I have established a commune in Noyon," begins the bishop's parchment. Many a neighboring city modeled its charter on that of Noyon. The quiet towns on the Oise played a precocious part in what Gratry calls "the big historic effort at justice which occurred in the XII century, the strong will to get out of barbaric chaos which began our era, and which, eight hundred years ago, started the impulses of modern progress." From city to city the communal movement quickened. France began to be covered by associations for mutual aid, and the winning of city charters and the creation of guilds went hand in hand with the intellectual ferment in the schools and the creation of a national architecture. A second Carolingian cathedral of Noyon was replaced in the XI century by a Romanesque one which was burned in 1131, when the city was laid in ashes. At that time, Pope Innocent II was visiting a lord of the region, a cousin of Louis VII, and the brother of the bishop of Noyon, Simon de Vermandois. The pope wrote to various French prelates enjoining on them to help Noyon in its disaster. Bishop Simon must have built part of the walls of the present choir, but as he accompanied Louis VII on the Second Crusade, and died in the East, it was his successor, Bishop Baudouin II (1148-67), friend of Suger, friend, too, of St. Bernard, who really inaugurated the present cathedral about 1150. He sacrificed in large part what was already done of Bishop Simon's choir in order to put it into character with the newly expounded principles of architecture. The choir of St. Denis was his direct model, and he obtained from Abbot Suger some of his masons; the profiles and ornamentation at Noyon are identical with those of St. Denis. In 1157, the relics of St. Eloi, Noyon's noted VII-century bishop, a skilled goldsmith and prime minister for King Dagobert, were transferred to the new sanctuary, probably because it was then completed. In the time of Bishop Baudouin III, who died in 1174, the transept was finished, as well as the bays of the nave near it. Noyon's western limb rose during three campaigns of work, as is indicated by differences in its details, but in main part the nave is a work of the final quarter of the XII century. The cathedral was finished by the westernmost bay of its nave, its capacious porch, and the southwest tower, under Bishop Étienne de Nemours (1188-1222), who had three brothers, also bishops and builders, at Paris, at Meaux, and at Châlons, the sons, all four of them, of a lord chancellor of France. In Noyon, Bishop Étienne was a sound administrator; he was favorable to the municipality, regulated the town's moneys, and built a hospital. Philippe-Auguste sent him to Denmark to escort to France the unfortunate Princess Ingeborg, who was to be his second wife. The bishop was buried as a benefactor in the abbey of Ourscamp, four miles from Noyon, farther down the Oise, which house was a foundation of Bishop Simon de Vermandois, though only vestiges of its XII-century parts remain.[46] During the last decade of the XIII century a terrible fire raged for two days in Noyon Cathedral. The vaulting throughout the church, save in the choir aisle, had to be reconstructed. For the sexpartite system, which embraces two bays, and has six branches from the keystone of each vault section, was now substituted the barlong plan, where diagonals cover one bay. The early-Gothic architects took up with enthusiasm the Normans' sexpartite plan, but after using it for half a century they most sensibly returned to the quadripartite system as better suited to their needs. The sexpartite vault calls for piers of alternating strength, since on the heavier pier fall diagonals and transverse arch, and only a transverse arch on the intermediate pier. Noyon Cathedral had from its start planned for a sexpartite vault by building its ground supports of alternating strength. Its piers, therefore, became illogical when a barlong vaulting was erected after the fire of 1193. And one regrets that it has not its original stone roof, since the correlations in this hardy first cathedral are elsewhere very perfect. Throughout the church are details of subtle charm. There is a slight bending out, like a horseshoe, of the archivolts of the pier arcade, which archivolts are severely plain. Usually from the abacus of a main pier rise five clustered shafts to the level of the vault-springing, two to catch the diagonals, two for the longitudinal or wall arches, and one for the transverse arch. Noyon showed constructive agility in concentrating its wall ribs and diagonals on a single shaft, which meant only three clustered colonnettes from main piers to vault-springing. Each cathedral in France possesses a few traits peculiar to itself. Noyon is unique in having both ends of its transept terminate in hemicycles, like a Rhenish church.[47] The Romanesque school of the Rhine had derived the feature from the early chapels of Rome. Probably Noyon's transept apses came from retaining the foundations of the previous cathedral. A church which was long in the jurisdiction of Noyon--the cathedral at Tournai--still possesses its Romanesque transept with semicircular ends. Cambrai Cathedral, destroyed by the Revolution, once had a similar pre-Gothic transept; its choir, built from 1220 to 1237 in the golden day of the national art, was an irreparable loss. Noyon Cathedral showed another Germanic trait in what may be called a western transept, made by the lower stories of the façade towers and the middle section of the first bay. The nave of Noyon is a noble vessel, with an interior four-story elevation of happier proportions than was achieved in the transept. No longer do annulets bind the clustered shafts, thus breaking the ascending line as in the choir. Throughout the church is to be found the simultaneous use of round and pointed arches, and, curiously enough, it is the lower stories, pier arcade, and tribune, that used the pointed arch; in the triforium and clearstory the arches are semicircular. Everywhere the sculptured capitals are of rare beauty. The Romanesque acanthus leaf is found in juxtaposition with the Gothic crocket. Noyon is exceptional in having retained its annexes: the treasure hall built by Bishop Baudouin II, the chapel of the episcopal palace, a half-timber library, and a beautiful chapter house (c. 1240). This latter, opening on a fragment of the cathedral cloister, is a hall divided into two aisles by a row of slender pillars, the type preferred by the French, whereas in England the circular hall whose vault ribs were gathered on a central pier was more popular. Noyon's chapter house was built by Bishop Pierre Chalot, who died at sea, off Cyprus, on St. Louis' crusade of 1248. When in late-Gothic times Noyon was adding chapels and side aisles, her master-of-works was Jean Turpin, who at Péronne--pitiful Péronne la Pucelle entirely a ruin to-day--erected a Flamboyant Gothic church which was a veritable gem. The battle of giants, foreseen in the poet's dream, twice engulfed Noyon during the World War. From the first occupation by the enemy the city escaped without serious injury. Then in March, 1918, began the Germans' desperate advance on Paris. At the end of the month the mayor of Noyon quitted the city, the last to leave. And in September he was the first to re-enter Noyon after the second battle of the Marne had driven back the invaders. He found his town a ruin. Not a single building had escaped injury, and only ten days earlier a photograph taken from a French airship had shown that the Renaissance Town Hall and Noyon's chief square were intact; few monuments had suffered from the occasional bombardments by the Allies. The Hôtel de Ville had been built in the dawn of the classic Renaissance, and its fine façades retained much of the Gothic spirit. Before their departure the invaders blew up the town; not even Calvin's birthplace was spared. Hardly 10 per cent of the houses of this amiable little city that asked only to be left unmolested by the fever and fret of new things are to-day worth reconstruction. [Illustration: _Noyon's Chapter House (1240-1250)_] As if by a miracle, the cathedral and a side street named for the old goldsmith bishop, St. Eloi, were preserved. The cathedral roof is pierced by shells in a dozen places and the northern tower and the porch between the towers are smashed, but the interior is but slightly damaged. In one of the side chapels a vandal fired his pistol many times at a picture of the Saviour. Perhaps it was the memory that Noyon's rounded transept ends and forechurch were Germanic which saved the cathedral. Better is it to remember by a Radegund, by a Charlemagne, than by Odin and Thor. THE CATHEDRAL OF SENLIS[48] To-day analysis has seized on all things, and it is leading us to death. Man, we must not forget, lives intellectually by synthesis.... If archæology is to make known the monuments of the past, it ought, before all else, to try to make them loved, for, given the uncertitude of the future, it is in that love that they will find their only chance of safety. --ÉMILE LAMBIN.[49] Senlis was the second begun of the Gothic cathedrals. The most fecund region for early essays in the nascent national art lay between Senlis and Noyon. Thibaut, bishop of Senlis, was present at Abbot Suger's deathbed in 1151. Filled with the ambition to replace his half-ruined church by a Gothic one, he began, about 1152, the new works, and once more the abbey church of St. Denis was the model. Some of Senlis' original vaults remain over side aisles, tribune, and apse chapels. Their intersecting ribs show a certain inexperience, and in places semicircular diagonals still are used. The framing arches of each section are lower than the keystone of the diagonals, which imparts a _bombé_ shape to the vault. As the masons acquired skill in the making of Gothic stone roofs, this domical form died out; by stilting, by depressing, and by pointing the arches was the difficulty solved. Like Noyon, Senlis played a part in the early history of France. The Merovingian and Carolingian kings and those of the House of Capet frequented the little city in order to hunt in the forests of the Oise. Louis VII made Senlis his favorite residence, and when the new cathedral was undertaken he allowed donations to be collected over the entire kingdom. When Bishop Thibaut died, the succeeding prelates, Henri and Geoffrey, continued to give largely of their revenues to the new works, but the progress was slow. Senlis was a small diocese for so big a monument. About the time that the choir was finished, 1180, the sculpture of the central-western portal was set up, a gem of Primary Gothic, though sadly damaged by time. It marks a date in French mediæval sculpture. On the lintel is related the Death of the Virgin and her Assumption, in the tympanum her Coronation. Senlis was the first to use this ordinance which the XIII century frequently repeated; we find it at Chartres' north portal, and at the entrance under the northwest tower of Notre Dame at Paris. M. Émile Mâle with his usual happy phrasing speaks of the lyric beauty of the lintel stone at Senlis.[50] It was partly inspired by the _Golden Legend_ of the good Bishop James of Genoa, which in its turn had used the apocryphal gospels freely.[51] The legend relates that at the deathbed of Our Lady, the Apostles gathered, and St. John cautioned them: "Be careful when she is dead that no one weeps, lest the people, seeing our tears, be troubled, and say, 'They fear death, who preach the Resurrection.'" For three days Our Lady rested in her tomb in the valley of Jehoshaphat, then came her Divine Son, with angels, singing the Canticle of Canticles, to escort her to Paradise. The old sculptor of Senlis has depicted the touching reverence with which the angels bend, to lift from the tomb their future Queen of Heaven. Their gesture of eager love is one of the exquisitely delicate conceptions of mediæval sculpture. While they were carving the west portal there came to Senlis a touching figure, the young mother of the future Louis VIII, Isabelle, daughter of Baudouin V of Flanders, who claimed direct descent from Charlemagne; through her the blood of the Carolingian line passed into the third dynasty of France. She was to die, at nineteen, almost repudiated by Philippe-Auguste, because her people declined to support one of his projects. In Senlis Cathedral this gentle grandmother of St. Louis walked barefooted, candle in hand, beseeching assistance from the Mother of God with such humility that the beholders wept. She founded a chapel in the cathedral. A few years later, in 1191, the cathedral of Senlis was consecrated by that archbishop of Sens who was Philippe-Auguste's uncle, Guillaume of Champagne, William of the White Hands, the prelate who had completed the cathedral at Sens. And there came to the dedication Bishop Nivelon de Chérisy, just starting Soissons' Cathedral; Bishop Étienne de Nemours, at work on Noyon's; the prelate of Meaux, who was raising that cathedral; and many another expert in the new art. Sometime later, Bishop Geoffrey resigned his see, and in his place was elected Pierre Guérin, chancellor of France under three kings, a figure worthy to stand beside those Gallo-Roman bishops who remained as bulwarks of society when the Roman Empire fell in pieces around them. Bishop Guérin was a man possessed by a passion for the public weal. His prudence and firmness caused Philippe-Auguste and Louis VIII to name him executor of their testaments. One of his enterprises was the organizing of the royal archives. It was he who came to Blanche of Castile to break the news of her husband's death as she rode out from Paris to meet Louis VIII returning from the southern war. For Louis IX during his minority he showed a father's affection. "He governed marvelously well the kingdom's needs," says the old chronicler, and when he died, on his grave they inscribed, "Here lies Guérin, whose life was an untiring work." In early life Guérin had, in Palestine, become a Knight Hospitalier of St. John of Jerusalem, and, as bishop, continued to wear the white habit of that military order. At the battle of Bouvines, though not an actual combatant, he exhorted the troops and directed maneuvers, for he was skilled in the strategy of war. A survey of the enemy's position made him urge Philippe-Auguste to attack at once, and the king, who knew Guérin to be _sages homs et de parfont conseil_, obeyed, thus winning the greatest victory of the century. "On that day French unity received its baptism." The king had vowed, were his arms successful, to endow an abbey. Bishop Guérin laid for him the first stone of the Abbaye de la Victoire, near his episcopal city.[52] Before this greatest of the bishops of Senlis died, his cathedral had begun to crown its southwest tower by the octagon and spire which are the boast of all the Valois country. St. Louis must have contributed to Senlis' famous tower, which places in foremost rank, this, the smallest cathedral in France. The unknown architect gathered features from many a beacon to unite them here in a masterpiece. He may be said to have created a new type, since his belfry at Senlis made a school in the region.[53] The graduation of the upright shaft into the inclined plane, which in every tower is the crucial point, has here been accomplished with such address, such rhythm, that precisely at what instant the fusion takes place is not to be determined. It has been said that the shaft of the tower is too high in proportion to its spire; at a distance perhaps the criticism may seem justified, but not on closer view. Some have thought that Senlis' belfry was a trifle too conscious of its charms, that it had not the calm poise of Chartres' tower. So it may be; there is more of the woman than the archangel in it. Its personal graciousness has become so wedded with the lives of Senlis' townspeople that they wish it good morning as they pass. The voyager will not find himself many hours in Senlis without pausing at every coign of vantage to gain some new silhouette effect of the slender beacon. It is charming when viewed in the same group as the Gallo-Roman ramparts. And from the open door of the church of St. Frambourg,[54] it can be studied at leisure. In the original plan of Senlis' Cathedral there was only an indication of a transept--two small lateral chapels that open, to-day, from the choir aisle. When, about 1240, the radiant tower was finished they undertook to make a real transept. To insert one they had to do away with four bays of the nave; some ancient columns in the west piers of the transept witness to this change. In its present form the transept of Senlis belongs to the XIII century only in its lower walls. In 1504 a conflagration lasting several days destroyed the cathedral's upper vaulting and necessitated the total reconstruction of the clearstory. In consequence, the exterior appearance of this very early Gothic church is most decidedly Flamboyant. Only the apse and the west façade have retained their Primary Gothic aspect. Chapels with complicated pendant vaults were built, aisles were added, and balustrades put before the tribune opening. Thick coats of whitewash coarsened the lines; in fact, restorations have been so radical, and many of them so over-ornate, that this cathedral has been called the Gothic of bad taste. An extreme criticism, for if some of the changes are distressing, Senlis' transept façades, which also are later additions, are to be reckoned among the best work of the final phase of the national art. After the fire of 1504 the cathedral chapter sought assistance from the king: "_Plaise au Roy d'avoir pitié et compassion de la paoure église de Senlis ... laquelle, par fortune et inconvénient de feu a été bruslée, les cloches fondues, et le clocher qui est grant, magnifique et l'un des singuliers du royaume, au moyen du dit feu tellement endommagé qu'il est en danger de tomber_." Royalty responded generously as the sculpture shows; at the transept's portals are to be seen the porcupine of Louis XII, the ermine of Anne of Brittany, and the salamander of Francis I. Under the learned Bishop Guillaume Parvi, confessor to Francis I, was laid the first stone of the transept's elaborate south façade in 1521. On it worked Pierre de Chambiges, son of the noted maker of late-Gothic frontispieces, and Jean Dixieult. And when it was nearing completion in 1560 the north façade was begun, and finished by the latter master. Effective, vivid, alertly handsome are Senlis' transept fronts. The wise traveler, even if he infinitely prefers the purer lines of early Gothic, will learn to value this florid final expansion of the national art. The renewal of builders' energy in the XV and XVI centuries was a sumptuous phase worthy of admiration. Those who are partial to English Gothic do not need to be warned against depreciating French Flamboyant work. The advice to be eclectic in travel, so as not to lose any source of artistic pleasure, is for those whose ideal of the builders' art is that of the Ile-de-France, comprised between 1150 and 1250. For such the chief interest of Senlis will be the cathedral's apse, its main façade, and the splendid tower. Let them widen their sympathies and take in the effective transept-fronts of the Flamboyant rebirth. Senlis of the towers, of the silent squares, of the quaint names--rue des Fromages, rue du Puits-Tiphane, rue des Pigeons Blancs--a charming aristocratic little city, set in an undulating Corot-like landscape, dotted with country houses, was the very epitome of well-conditioned provincial life. Before the summer of 1914 no spot on earth seemed farther removed from violence and crime. Then came the invading hordes over the Valois land. On September 2, 1914, the Germans surrounded Senlis, which, _ville ouverte_ though it was, they proceeded to bombard. One third of the obus that fell hit the cathedral. That the guns, three miles away, were pointed on the famous tower would seem to be proved by the fact that only those houses were damaged which lay in the direct line between the German battery and Notre Dame. When the enemy entered the city the mayor (shot later in reprisal) met them at the Hôtel de Ville. He had scarcely assured them that no troops remained in Senlis when shots rang out: by ill luck some colonial colored troops, on retiring, fired a salute. Thereupon followed the usual accusation that civilians were the combatants, and the usual tragic scenes of reprisal. Down the main street of the little city passed the trained wreckers of peaceful homes, prying open the doors to throw in incendiary bombs. Before night a whole section of Senlis lay an unsightly blackened ruin.... Then came the victory of the Marne and the invaders retreated. The havoc done to the cathedral can be repaired, though, in the process, must be lost the exquisite golden lichen stain which long ages had achieved. The preservation of Senlis' tower was due to a curé of the cathedral who fearlessly pleaded for his church before the German commandant. THE CATHEDRAL OF SENS[55] What were Rheims and Soissons before their martyrdom but the transfiguring of stone and metal and wood; dead matter delved from the ground or hewn out of the forest, through the labor of man exalted into forms of absolute beauty, and, because of this loving labor, transformed ... into a mysterious creation that, in the words of Suger of St. Denis, was neither wholly of earth nor wholly of Heaven, but a mysterious blending of both. --RALPH ADAMS CRAM.[56] [Illustration: _Senlis' Tower (c. 1230-1250)_] Sens was a chief Celtic city at the intersecting of the Roman roads from Lyons to Paris, from Orléans to Troyes. Long did it dispute the title of primate of Gaul with Lyons and Rheims; even down to the XVI century Paris was within its jurisdiction. To-day as the express trains rush by from Paris to Marseilles, many a traveler looks out on a cathedral that seems to over-tower and overpower a flat, sleepy little town whose name he scarcely knows. When the cathedral was building in the XII century Sens was a center of the nation's life, and under a succession of noteworthy archbishops reached its zenith. Here at the Council of Sens, in 1140, was scheduled to take place a final contest between St. Bernard and Abélard, and in that hour of enthusiasm over abstract controversy, the king with his court and people of every degree flocked to Sens for the schoolmen's debate on the Trinity. At the last moment Abélard, the inexhaustible arguer who had himself called for the test, quitted the combat. Some twenty years later Pope Alexander III spent a year and a half in Sens, and hither came Thomas Becket to seek papal indorsement for his opposition to Henry II's interference in church affairs. Between these two events, 1140 to 1164, lies the building of Sens Cathedral. At the time of Abélard's and St. Bernard's visit the present edifice had been started. During the residence here of Alexander III and the archbishop of Canterbury it was nearing completion. The pope is recorded as dedicating an altar. For a time Sens usurped the claim to be the oldest of the Gothic cathedrals. Its choir was started as Romanesque, but the walls rose slowly, and before a stone roof crowned the ambulatory the new system of building had conquered public opinion. The choir-aisle walls, intended to carry a groin vault, were rearranged to bear one with diagonals. On the outer wall the diagonals were caught on corbels placed above the capitals, and though such an arrangement shows maladroitness, the ribs themselves were made by no novice hand. Sens was a pioneer in the use of the broken rib to avoid the curving of diagonals: from each keystone, set precisely in the center of each section, branched the four ribs. The walls of the procession path and an apsidal chapel opening on the transept's north arm, are the oldest parts of Sens Cathedral. It is true that they antedate the dedication of St. Denis, but not by a few Romanesque vestiges can Sens substantiate its claim to be the first built of Gothic cathedrals. In its main parts it belongs to the third quarter of the XII century. It was a distinct advance on Noyon and Senlis, because it eliminated the deep tribunes over the side aisles. One of the striking characteristics of Sens is the way that light floods it from the aisle windows, which are on a noble scale. Because the church was built during a tentative hour its deficiency lies in the height of the central nave. For right proportion, when flanked by such lofty aisles, the nave should have been made considerably higher. Sens Cathedral was begun by Archbishop Henri-le-Sanglier (1122-43) to replace a church dedicated at the end of the X century. Such strides has mediæval archaeology taken in France during the last generations, it is hard to believe that serious students, during the Congrès Archéologique held at Sens in 1840, could have considered the present edifice to be the one dedicated before 1000. Henri-le-Sanglier had been appointed by Louis VI to the see of Sens before he had received holy orders, and in the lax spiritual standards of the day, he saw no harm in living like the feudal lord he was by birth. He had not Thomas of Canterbury's unbending consistency. When his worldliness was censured by St. Bernard he changed his way of life, and ultimately proved himself a loyal and humane pastor. Of the six archbishops who were to follow him as builders of Sens' metropolitan church, all of them were national figures. Under the long rule of Hugues de Toucy (1143-68) the church was mainly erected. He was the friend of Abbot Suger the pioneer, the friend, too, of Bernard the regenerator, who came as his guest to Sens, after preaching the Second Crusade at Vézelay. The same hospitable bishop welcomed on two occasions the exiled archbishop of Canterbury. The second visit of St. Thomas Becket was when he had been forced to quit the abbey of Pontigny, situated close by over the Burgundian border, because Henry Plantagenet swore to close every Cistercian house in his English and French domains if further refuge were offered the prelate. Moved by the welcome given him in his distress by the archbishop of Sens, the famous Englishman cried out--so his secretary, Herbert of Bosham, records: "Ah, we have proved the truth of the old saying--'_douce France! ô douce encore, ô très douce France! Oui, elle est douce, vraiment douce, la France!_'" By a series of logical inferences the name of the architect of this Primary Gothic cathedral has been added to the roll call of honor. It is known that Guillaume de Sens, a French master, was chosen in 1174 by the chapter of Canterbury to rebuild their cathedral, destroyed by fire. He drew the plan of Canterbury and had put up its apse, its Lady chapel, and two bays of the choir, when one day he fell fifty feet from a scaffold, and returned, in 1180, to his native land to die. An English architect, also named William, continued the works at Canterbury, always on the plan of French William. Now the chevet of Canterbury has strong analogies with that of Sens. There is the same single chapel in its axis; at Sens other apse chapels were added in the XVI and XVIII centuries. The profiles were alike in both cathedrals, and so were the sexpartite vaulting and the embryo transept. In both Canterbury and Sens is an exceptional feature, of Champagne origin, which could hardly have been used accidentally by two men in the same generation. Each alternate pier, at Sens, consists of twin columns, placed side by side according to the width, not the length, of the church. At Canterbury, despite subsequent rebuildings, the same arrangement is still to be found in the bay before the sanctuary. Guillaume de Sens was too prominent to have copied another man's work, and since it is certain that the plan of Canterbury is his, it is now accepted that he built the cathedral of his native town before he proceeded to England. The homogeneous choir and nave of Sens show that they are the work of the years preceding 1175. And Guillaume's claim to be Sens' architect is further strengthened by a historic link. Not only did Thomas Becket spend three weeks with Archbishop Hugues de Toucy on his first arrival in the city during the pope's stay there, but, after quitting Pontigny, he passed some years in St. Colombe monastery by the town. Without a doubt he knew the master-of-works who was erecting the cathedral, and it may have been he who, on his return to his own see, made the French architect's skill known to his cathedral chapter. Guillaume was not called to Canterbury, however, till after the martyrdom of its great archbishop. Sens Cathedral was completed by a prince of the reigning house of Champagne, a son of Thibaut the Great, Archbishop Guillaume-of-the-White-Hands (1168-76). He, too, was Becket's stanch supporter, and denounced his murder to the pope, though by blood he was Henry II's cousin. In 1178 he crossed to England to pray by the tomb of the newly canonized saint--one of the first of the Canterbury Pilgrims who for over three hundred years were to wend their way to the shrine in Kent. Through his influence, Becket's friend and adviser, John of Salisbury, the ablest scholar of his generation, was raised to the see of Chartres. Both William of Champagne and John of Salisbury received episcopal consecration from the hands of good Maurice de Sully, the builder of Paris Cathedral. In his later life Archbishop Guillaume was transferred to the see of Rheims, and in that cathedral he anointed as king his own nephew, Philippe-Auguste, whose prime minister he was; when Philippe II went on the Third Crusade he left as regents his uncle and his mother, Alix of Champagne. The archbishop's affection for his nephew led him to sanction the king's divorce from Ingeborg of Denmark and his marriage to Agnes of Méran, which drew on France the papal interdict, and on William of Champagne the censures of Innocent III. The house occupied by Thomas Becket, in the cloister of Sens Cathedral, was decorated by a statue of him, which disappeared during the Revolution. During excavations in the cloister, in 1899, they came upon an image representing a bishop, and marked with the seal of Archbishop Guillaume-of-the-White-Hands. The statue is now set up in the choir aisle on the site where once stood an altar dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury. The tutelary of Sens Cathedral is St. Stephen, the first martyr. A XII-century statue at the trumeau, or central shaft, of the west door presents him as the beautiful youthful servant of the Lord. Gazing at it one thinks of St. Augustine's words: "The Church would never have had St. Paul but for St. Stephen's prayer." Paul, holding the robes of those who stoned Stephen, heard the martyr pray for his executioners. The trumeau statue of St. Etienne with its parallel feet marks the transition from the column image, such as those at Chartres' western portal, to the XIII-century type of saintly personages at the doors of Rheims and Amiens. It escaped mutilation during the Revolution because some one had the wit to write on the stone tablet in the saint's hand, _The Book of the Law_. The foliage relief on the shaft is exquisite. As the XII century closed the archbishop of Sens was Michel de Corbeil (1194-99), a well-known scholastic writer. Under him and Pierre de Corbeil (d. 1222), his successor and also a learned teacher from the Paris schools, the axis chapel at Sens was rebuilt, and the upper vaulting of choir and nave reconstructed in order to enlarge the windows. As the longitudinal or wall arches were now raised to the level of the keystone, the bombé shape of the vault disappeared; in the chevet the wall ribs show as many as three sets of capitals. The vault sections of the side aisles, however, remained domical, as originally built. Two other distinguished brothers, men of great lineage and intellectual attainment, ruled the see of Sens during many years, Gautier de Cornut from 1222 to 1241 and Gilles de Cornut, who died in 1254; and they had a brother who busied himself with the new cathedral at Beauvais. Gautier de Cornut, who while doctor of law in Paris University served as chaplain to Philippe-Auguste and Louis VIII, was the envoy sent in 1234 to fetch Marguerite of Provence to be married to Louis IX in Sens Cathedral, the king then being in his twentieth year. The young princess of the art-loving Midi came north accompanied by a troop of minstrels. Again in 1239 St. Louis returned to Sens for the Crown of Thorns, on its transit from Venice to Paris, and he walked out some miles from the city to meet it. Barefooted, he and his brother, Robert of Artois, bore back the previous relics to the cathedral, through streets hung with tapestries and lighted by candles. The relic rested in St. Étienne's church all night and then in a solemn, eight-day procession was carried to Paris. The king had the archbishop write the formal account of it all. Gautier de Cornut erected the synodal hall which touches the cathedral's façade, and his own statue and that of the young king decorated its buttresses. The best civic monument of St. Louis' reign many think it to be, and as perfect in its own way as the hospital hall at Ourscamp, its contemporary. In 1267 the cathedral's southwest tower fell; it may have been one built in Carolingian times from the proceeds of a gold retable, or it may have been a XII-century tower of Archbishop Hugues de Toucy's time, as are the two lower stories of the present northwest tower. Its fall necessitated the remaking of the last two bays of the nave and of the damaged western doors during the early XIV century. The side chapels were built then, too, but they have been rehandled in the present day, and are now dissimulated behind an arcaded wall. A record of 1319 speaks of the able Nicholas de Chaumes as architect here before he proceeded to Meaux Cathedral. He demolished the ancient chapel on the transept's southern arm, but its corresponding chapel, on the transept's northern arm, still exists and is, with the ambulatory walls, the oldest part of the church. Not till after the Hundred Years' War, however, was the plan to erect a new transept carried through. Sens then possessed as its archbishop, during forty years, the energetic Tristan de Salazar (d. 1519) who had fought, sword in hand, with Louis XII in the Italian wars. Like Bishop Jacques d'Amboise, who was then finishing at Paris the present Musée Cluny as town house for his abbey of Cluny, Archbishop de Salazar built the Hôtel Sens in Paris for his diocesan house. To his own cathedral he added the southwest tower's upper story (to which later a Renaissance lantern was attached) and he connected the synodal hall with the episcopal palace by a rich gallery. Some sculptured panels now attached to a pier in the nave of Sens Cathedral originally formed part of a tomb he had made for his parents. It was this munificent art patron who began the late-Gothic transept. In 1490 the most notable architect of the day, Martin Chambiges, was invited to direct the work, and for four years he gave it his personal supervision until called to Troyes to make the Flamboyant Gothic façade of that cathedral. Sens Cathedral contains some ancient windows, four of which are among the best in France and allied with Suger's school, though probably executed as the XIII century opened, since the saddle bars follow the outline of the medallion pictures. Those four exceptional windows of the choir aisle sparkle with the jeweled intensity of the golden age of the vitrine art. In one of them is told the story of St. Eustace, often to be met with in French iconography, since he figured in the _Golden Legend_. Another describes the return to England of Thomas Becket and his immediate martyrdom. Originally next to it hung a companion lancet, giving Becket's early life, but this was done away with to make room for a chapel. The other two lancets are of the _Biblia Pauperum_ type. In one, the parable of the Prodigal Son is given. In the other is the story of the Good Samaritan, and the half medallions on either side of each central scene interpret it symbolically. Such correlation of the Old and the New Testament was most popular in the Middle Ages. Beside a medallion which shows the traveler fallen among thieves stands the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden; and the scene of the charitable Samaritan is accompanied by pictures of the Saviour's death and resurrection. They might not be able to write and read, the ordinary men and women of that day, they had no daily journal to crowd their minds with half-digested facts, but their souls were fed by sound ethical truths set forth clearly in their one great book, the cathedral. The artisan donors of such windows we may be sure knew the symbolic meaning of every panel. In the clearstory windows at the curve of Sens' choir is more XIII-century glass, but it is later work, lacking the marvelous glow of the choir-aisle lancets. The two big roses of the transept are splendid. A celestial concert was then a favorite theme. The south rose (1500) was made by the same Champagne artists, Lyénin, Varin, Verrat, and Godon who filled the nave of Troyes Cathedral with its high-colored translucent woodcuts. The north rose of the transept finished in 1504, was the work of native masters, influenced by the noted school of Troyes. The side windows in Sens' Flamboyant transept are equally good.[57] Jean Cousin, born in Sens, 1501, made two of the cathedral's windows, the rich one of St. Eutropius, in the nave, and the Tiburtine sibyl of amplest design, in the shrine to the south of the axis chapel. Nothing could be more resplendent as picture windows, but Gothic-Renaissance work, whose tendency was to treat each light as an isolated picture, is not equal to the close-woven patterns of XII-and XIII-century mosaic glass, which kept itself in subordination to its architectural setting. The immense superiority of the earlier windows is demonstrated in Sens Cathedral, which offers us both types at their best. [Illustration: _The Interior of Laon Cathedral (XII Century). View from the Tribune Gallery_] THE CATHEDRAL OF LAON[58] And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.--Apoc. xxi:2, used in the office for the dedication of a church. While Sens, Noyon, and Senlis were building, the splendid cathedral of Laon was begun, about 1160. The usual transition features of Primary Gothic showed in its retention of tribunes over the side aisles, in the simultaneous use of round and pointed arches, the beringed colonnettes, and the salient transept arms. The chapel, in two stories, that opened on each arm of the transept, was another Romanesque tradition. The interior of Laon, "the cathedral of Purity, Silence, and Power," is indeed most impressive. One bay follows another with a regularity that is accentuated by the interior elevation being in four stories--pier arcade, tribune arches, triforium wall arcade, and clearstory. It is not a lofty church, but, like English cathedrals, what it lacks in height is compensated for in length. There are eleven bays in the nave, and ten in the choir. Moreover, because it was comparatively low it could build a square transept-crossing tower, and the average French cathedral was too high for such a tower to be artistic. Laon and Braine were exceptions among Ile-de-France churches in having central lanterns; they were derived from Normandy, since the Rhenish lantern usually was octagonal. Strange as it may seem to say of the most prominent, most open, and best-lighted part of a church, there is a blessed seclusion beneath the wide white tower of Laon that "shuts the heart up in tranquillity." Down the long church, the stout monolithic piers make two virile lines. Only during a short period were such sturdy cylinders used, here and in Notre Dame at Paris are the chief examples, and both cathedrals were artistically right in preferring their uniform columns, even though both of them used the sexpartite vaulting that called for alternating ground supports. The coming cathedrals were to adopt once for all the barlong system of vaulting, where the concentration of loads fell equally on every bay, and to evolve a classic type of pier, consisting of a central cylinder flanked by four semi-attached columns. At Laon a few piers in the nave experimented with free-standing colonnettes, three of which were placed in front of the pillar to enlarge, there, the abacus of the capital on which stood the shafts that mounted to the vault-springing. The elliptical piers of Beauvais, longer from north to south, were to be the most perfect solution of the problem of ground supports. There is no denying that Laon's interior is to-day too white, but we must remember that originally color was used on the stones, so that any effect of a hall would have been impossible in the olden times. Viollet-le-Duc called Laon the laic cathedral _par excellence_. He considered it a great civic hall wherein the populace "could unite and enjoy spectacles more or less profane." And even in the flat eastern wall he found something occultly heretical. The towers, he said, were more those of a château than a church. He shut his mind to the fact that Laon was erected largely by its bishops, that it was begun by the choir end, which is suitable only for divine service, and that if its seven towers had been crowned with the sky-pointing spires of the architect's plan, and if its sky-dreaming windows were still intact, there would be little of the aspect of a town hall about this stately church. Critics like Huysmans have exaggerated its present iciness: no one can pray in Laon, he exclaimed; its soul is fled forever. But what would be Chartres, his spot of election for prayer, were it unsoftened by its "storied windows richly dight"? Only a slight amount of ancient glass has survived in Laon. The north rose of the transept shows pictures of the sciences. Beneath the rose window in the flat eastern wall are three handsome lancets made by the school of Chartres early in the XIII century. They show the passing away of the hieratic Byzantine gesture: in the Annunciation and Visitation medallions the robes float naturally; in the Nativity scene the natural gesture of a woman who tests the warmth of the water before bathing the Holy Child has been well rendered. If a lack of accessories makes the interior of Laon Cathedral seem to-day more philosophic than religious, there are certain lovable individual touches in it that warm both heart and imagination. In the first place it is a church fairly garlanded with springtime foliage. The wonder of eternal youth is in its half-curled leaves which the sculptors conventionalized just enough to make them architectural. Not one sprig, not one leaf is like another. Never was nature more profoundly loved or more convincingly interpreted. Then there are the stone bulls of Laon. They stand high on the western towers, those sixteen massive oxen, stretching their necks, as if watching the people climb the steep hill below. Each stands under a columned canopy. The popular fancy is that they commemorate the patient beasts who dragged the stones for the cathedral up Laon's precipitous crags, and there is nothing improbable in the idea. It was a day when St. Francis was telling man to love his dumb fellow creatures. The towers of Laon Cathedral are worthy of the magistral setting of the church on the edge of the abrupt hill where had grown the ancient city. For miles Laon's towers command the plain, "an assembly without rival among Gothic monuments." Incomplete though they are, Laon's five towers come nearer to the ideal plan of seven spires than does any other cathedral. The corner tourelles pass from one form to another, as they rise, converting themselves into octagons. "Ponder it well," wrote the XIII-century architect, Villard de Honnecourt, in his famous sketchbook. "I have been in many lands, as you can see by this book, but never in any place is to be found a tower equal to Laon." Four of the towers are alike, each with the same long lancet openings, the same free-standing pillars at the corners. Rows of crockets mark the main lines, for the old-time masters were adepts in every device whereby to fix the eye on the essential. There are aspects when the fretwork designs made by Laon's towers against the sky are superb. The date of the cathedral long gave rise to discussion in the days when mediæval archaeology was still hazy. No one now contends that the present Notre Dame is the church which was patched up hastily by Bishop Bartholomew de Vir after the fire of 1112. That conflagration was a semi-lawless act. Laon's bishop was also its feudal proprietor, hence a greedy baronage contended to hold the see. One Gaudry, a knight adventurer who had served under William the Conqueror in England and there grown rich, obtained the bishopric of Laon by simony. All his talk was of hawks, hounds, and hunting. During one of his absences in England the townspeople set up a commune, and Gaudry bent his energies to frustrate it. In an uprising in 1112 the infuriated populace murdered him. The fire, started during the riots, spread to the cathedral, which was practically consumed. The burghers, being unskilled in arms, were forced to call to their aid a fierce robber-baron of the house of Coucy, Thomas of Marle, who, according as he found it profitable, fought, now against, now for, the communes.[59] It took the king of France half a lifetime to destroy that "raging wolf," as Abbot Suger called him. Guizot has brought out that the XII-century uprisings against feudal exactions on the part of the burgesses were often favored by king and clergy. Such was the unformed state of society that no liberal general views could be adhered to; the king is to be found granting charters to some towns and marching against the rebellious citizens in others. The bishops of Noyon, Beauvais, and Soissons favored the people's claims. The prelates of Rheims and Laon opposed them. Such feudalism as that of Thomas of Marle meant permanent anarchy; for the royal power to centralize authority then meant law and order. It is sad to relate that no sooner did the burgess gain his civic rights than he began to oppress the peasantry. Before the XIII century closed there were outbreaks of the peasants against the prosperous townspeople. In our own day has the cry of the underman, voiced by the old Norman poet, been silenced? "We are men as they. The same in stature, the same in limb, and the same in strength--_for suffering_. Are we not men even as they?" At Laon the antagonism between bishop and citizens continued for a century; several times the charter was won, only to be abrogated later. There is food for thought that all through the embittered struggle the building of the cathedral was carried forward, and it was an enterprise that required the collaboration of bishop and people. The people might fight their baron bishop to wrench from him certain civic rights, but they were aware of the difference between his temporal claims and his spiritual authority. Their robust faith was not disconcerted by a discrepancy between "Peter's key" and "Peter's sword." To the end of time Peter will show his weak human side. Had he not denied thrice? Had not another of the selected twelve betrayed for paltry lucre? Had not everyone of them run away in the hour of need? While Bishop Gaudri's ill-gotten gains were buying him a bishopric there was in Laon's cathedral chapter a famous scholar who had stoutly opposed his election. Anselm of Laon, son of a laborer, "the grave, the sweet, the prudent," was a pupil of St. Anselm of Bec and Canterbury. For over forty years he taught in Paris and in Laon, and from the nucleus of his pupils, among whom were Guillaume de Champeaux and Abélard, was to emerge Paris University, which was not, however, to appear by name in history till 1215. Anselm of Laon (d. 1117), like his greater namesake, was a pioneer in scholasticism, which brought to the study of Christian doctrine not only the aid of tradition, the Old and New Testaments and the Church Fathers, but also the use of metaphysics and dialectics. The school of this master at Laon became a veritable university to which flocked students from Italy, Spain, Germany, and England. Laon Cathedral is justly entitled to carve the Liberal Arts on its façade. A score of the coming notable men of the XII century were Anselm's pupils; one of them was that bishop who began the Primary Gothic tower of the cathedral at Rouen. Anselm and his brother trained the youths who, having heard St. Norbert of Cologne preach in Laon Cathedral, in 1120, followed him to Prémontré, in the forest of Coucy, which estate gave its name to the new order Norbert there founded. Like the Cistercians, so swift an increase had the white canons of Prémontré that they soon counted a thousand houses over Europe and were an evangelizing force for their century even as Cluny had been earlier and as the Franciscans and Dominicans were to be in the XIII century. The citizens of Laon clamored for Anselm as their bishop when the miserable Gaudri was killed in 1112, but he declined the honor and directed the choice to the worthy Bartholomew de Vir, who restored temporarily the cathedral. It is not known exactly when was laid the foundation stone of Laon's Gothic cathedral. By its sculpture, the profiles, and the noticeable keystones, the archæologists say that it belongs to the last third of the XII century and that it kept to its original plans, though its building continued into the first third of the XIII century. The bishop-founder was a pupil of Anselm's and himself had taught rhetoric in Paris. Gautier de Mortagne (1155-71) gave generously of his own revenues to the new works. The choir he built ended in a semicircle and consisted of the present three bays next the transept. There, and in the west wall of the transept, the profiles are different from those elsewhere in the church. In a second spell of work they finished the transept, the nave, the towers, and the west façade just before 1200. Laon's façade ranks among the great western frontispieces of Gothic architecture, a model for that of Rheims. What chiefly characterizes it are the profound shadows made by cavernous porches, projecting gables, and other varied surfaces. It has been called a supreme composition in light and shade. In accentuating the upward surge of lines it was a pioneer. When the façade was finished the choir was lengthened by seven bays, and now was terminated by a flat wall whose prototype is to be found in Laon town in the church of St. Martin, an early-Gothic edifice, building about 1165. Various regional churches used the square chevet. As the custom died out in France, it struck root in England, where the Cistercians made it popular. Those accustomed to the rectagonal chevet of the English cathedral may prefer that type, but to a lover of the apse of the French cathedral, of the curving procession path with its radiating chapels that mystically suggests the thorn crown around the Sacred Head, it will ever seem a dull way to end a sanctuary precisely like a transept arm. The cathedral of Laon was consecrated in 1237. That same century built the treasure hall and the large chapel beside the west façade. The XIV century added side chapels between the buttresses, and in those chapels at Laon appears the academic precision of that skilled but dry period. About the same time was made a new southern portal for the transept, and the wheel window over it was replaced by a big Rayonnant Gothic light. The hill citadel called by Charlemagne in the _Chanson de Roland_ "my good town of Laon" was held by the invader from August, 1914, to October, 1918. Though the city was shelled by the French, not a piece of glass in the cathedral was broken. St. Martin's abbatial, too, is intact, and the XII-century Templar's church, the only well-preserved monument in France built by the great military Order. The Prussians' horses were stabled at first in the cathedral till a general public protest stopped such a desecration. When the Allies, under General Foch, drove back the German lines in the final weeks of the war, the retreat was too swift for much havoc to be wrought. On October 13, 1918, General Mangin made his triumphal entry into Laon, whose much-enduring citizens flocked around him in the cathedral to chant a solemn _Te Deum_. THE CATHEDRAL OF SOISSONS[60] The other evening before the ruins of a Cistercian abbey, that once harbored St. Louis and his mother, Blanche of Castile, a group of Alpine chasseurs and Zouaves fell to recounting their daily feats of heroism just as in the times of chivalry the strong, swift strophes of the _chanson de geste_ celebrated knightly prowess. To the north, the cannon thundered.... And the next morning, a Sunday, I assisted at Mass in a Gothic-vaulted hall that had served as _promenoir_ for the monks of Cîteaux. Soldiers filled all the wooden seats, others thronged the threshold, bareheaded in the shadow of the ruins.... Then when the sacrifice of the body and blood of our Lord was celebrated, a song rose in the dawn: "_Kyrie Eleison! God be praised!_" And the soldiers within the chapel and without sang before returning to battle as in the ancient _Chanson de Saucourt: "Kyrie Eleison!"_ Even those harnessing the great cart horses, those saddling their own restive mounts, those extinguishing the fires of the night's bivouac, and those charging the six-wheeled camions, all took up the canticle: "_God be praised! Kyrie Eleison!_".... And the implacable cannonading to the north echoed in the deep quarries, whence had come the stones builded here for God's glory. --A war picture of Longpont abbey,[61] by GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO, who visited the battle-front in 1914. [Illustration: _The Oxen on Laon's Towers_] To-day the fair white city of Soissons lies a scene of desolation, only to be likened to a wrecked town of old-time barbarism. They say that Soissons Cathedral is more damaged than if a geological convulsion had wrecked it. Deliberately was it taken as a target, though, as French troops held the highlands round the flat town, there can be no excuse that the towers were used as posts of observation. The westernmost bays are ruined; the north side of the big church has been riddled with projectiles; flying buttresses have been cut off; great rents show in roof and sides; the vaulting hangs in air; a pier lies prone, its stones scattered like a pack of cards; the aisles are dismantled, and the windows, some of which Blanche of Castile gave in 1225, have been reduced to powdered dust. In one week of January, 1916, over three hundred projectiles fell on the church, said the old priest, who lived in the midst of the wreckage, to a visitor to whom he spoke gently of God's mercy. In the once "sweet and tranquil provincial city, whose soul was the daughter of honorable simplicity, grass grows in the street. Soissons is a dead city. Its casementless windows fix you like the eye of the blind." Always has it lain in the path of war, this ancient capital of Clovis that has ever been part of the very heart of France, but never war such as this! Here, in 486, Clovis won the battle of Soissons that annihilated the last remnant of Rome's empire in Gaul, and conquered the land to the Loire. In the evil days of the Hundred Years' War, Soissons suffered. So depopulated was it by the XVI-century religious wars that it took over a century to recover. Nor did the Revolution spare the seat of the ancient monarchies of France. In 1814 occurred an explosion of gunpowder that wrecked precious windows in the cathedral, some of them the gifts of Philippe-Auguste. In 1870 the Prussian bombardment of Soissons devastated what remained of the abbey church of St. Jean-des-Vignes, whose Flamboyant Gothic spires have been mutilated again in the World War.[62] Under the southern flank of the shattered cathedral nestles the diamond of Primary Gothic art in France, the transept arm built by the crusading bishop, Nivelon de Chérisy. As by a miracle it has escaped. The most exquisite thing in France, many of us hold it to be. It has drawn its devotees back to Soissons time and time again, this perfect thing so little heralded. They would test a second and a third time the overpowering first impression it had made. Perhaps it had been some happy mood, some subtle lingering shadows of the late afternoon, that had touched it momentarily to an ethereal grace. And then standing face to face again with its small and stately beauty, those who love this early-Gothic monument of France know that its power is not a chance or borrowed comeliness. Sit before it for hours; study the mystery and play of its lights and shadows; try to seize in what lies its young poesy of grace, its maturity of dignity, "its invincible impression of virginity." In vain to analyze it. Can that intangible quality which is sheer inevitable beauty be dissected? Those who fall under the spell of its supernal loveliness lose all false shame that would prune adjectives, lest their praise be excessive. No glow of words can convey the something celestial here. The nave and the choir of Soissons Cathedral are XIII-century Gothic at its prime, and yet they seem merely to be the setting for a jewel, for the small apse preceded by one bay, which is the transept's southern arm. That apse and bay are the culmination of the Romanesque ideals, and at the same time, indissolubly part of the new and richer art, they crown the Primary Gothic hour. Soissons' chief church is better documented than Laon's. Bishop Nivelon I de Chérisy (a Chérisy fell on the field of honor in 1914) occupied the see from 1176 to 1207. The Romanesque cathedral which he inherited had become inadequate, so the bishop gave land from his episcopal garden, and about 1180 the foundation of the south arm of the transept was laid. Like Noyon's transept, it terminated in a hemicycle, and its interior elevation was also in four stories, but here was attained a consummate symmetry not achieved at Noyon. Soissons' curving transept arm is exceptional in having an ambulatory. The apsidal chapel which opens in its eastern wall has over it a similar chapel that gives on the tribune gallery. Slender columns with stilted arches are planted at the entrance of each of these chapels in the gracious fashion originated by the Champagne school of Gothic. It was born of a necessity, in order that a more regular vaulting might be built over the curving aisle. St. Remi at Rheims had used the same arrangement. So many are the points of resemblance between Soissons' transept arm and the choir of St. Remi's abbey church that it is thought the architect of the Champagne abbatial proceeded to Soissons later; there are the same profiles, the same plan, the same encircling frieze of sculpture. At Soissons, the architect had grown bolder and dared to diminish his supports. To have made Soissons' curving wall of arches and colonnettes proves him to have been, not only well practiced in mason-craft, but a man of genius who had visions. He here created a thing apart. The exterior of the transept's arm is unimpressive and plain; the lower windows are round-arched. Inside, the pointed arch reigns, however. "The king's daughter is all glorious within." The prelate who built Soissons Cathedral was a remarkable personage and played a foremost part on the Fourth Crusade. Villehardouin tells us that it was Bishop Nivelon de Chérisy who was sent as an envoy to Innocent III, when against papal commands the Crusaders had turned aside to capture the Christian city of Zara on the Dalmatian coast. The bishop-ambassador found the pope at Viterbo and obtained from him the raising of the excommunication on condition that the knights should proceed direct to Palestine. We all know how, a second time, they went filibustering. Among the first to scale the walls of Constantinople was Nivelon de Chérisy; with him was the bishop of Troyes. When the chief barons met to elect the first Latin emperor of Constantinople, it was Bishop Nivelon who passed out to the waiting crowd to announce that Baldwin of Flanders had been chosen--Baldwin who began the Cloth Hall at Ypres--and it was he who crowned Baldwin in St. Sophia. When that new emperor was captured by the Bulgars the bishop of Soissons returned to Europe for aid. All the time that he was absent in the Holy Land Nivelon had devoted the revenues of his see toward the renewal of the cathedral. Strangely enough, it was this same prelate who also built Soissons' choir, which in scale and plan differs so radically from the transept arm. The fleeting hour of Primary Gothic was over. The new art was moving forward swiftly; irresistible the development of its principles and impossible at such a time that the work of one decade could be similar to the decade preceding it unless, as at Laon, the primitive plan was insistently adhered to. Whoever the master that designed Soissons' choir and nave, he incorporated the perfect transept into his bigger church with reverence. Not to dwarf it was his main care, for he bowed before the touch of perfection in his predecessor's work, and sought to give to his own monument, different though it was, a like clarity and noble simplicity. Examine the skill with which choir and nave are joined to the small transept arm. It is lower than they, it has four vertical stories to their three, and yet no discrepancy is felt. It was as if the new builder said: "Here is a miracle of force and grace, done in a fugitive hour never to be recaptured. Let us enshrine it fittingly." In 1212 services were held in the finished choir. The nave proceeded without interruption and was in use in the first years of St. Louis' reign. Probably the final touches were given to it by that bishop of Soissons of whom Joinville tells, Mgr. Jacques de Castel, _fort et vaillant homme_, who started with the king on the crusade of 1248. After Mansourah's battle and the disastrous retreat toward Damietta good Bishop Jacques felt such a desire "to go to God" that he rushed alone to attack the infidels, whose swords soon "dispatched him to God's company with the martyrs." Singular good taste has at all times guided the builders of Soissons. The XIV century decided to make a northern arm to the transept; and as if to avoid all hint of rivalry with its peerless neighbor, the new structure was finished by a flat end wall without a portal. The cylinder piers of Soissons choir and nave are a distinguishing trait of the church interior, neither too high nor too short. Before each is engaged a slender shaft which rises to the level of the springing and causes the edifice to appear more lofty than its reality. Everywhere, in the church, the fitting of the stones was done with peculiar nicety, though the picking out of the mortar lines in black, a recent innovation, was a sad mistake. In the choir and nave the clearstory windows were an advance on those of Chartres, their model, for the lights were made longer, and the oculus, above the twin lancets, smaller, which gave greater compactness to the whole composition. St. Gereon at Cologne copied these windows. Marburg's church also was aided by Soissons. The talc of this desolate city during the World War is heartrending. The Germans first entered Soissons on September 1, 1914. The mayor had fled. But an admirable woman, Madame Macherez, the widow of a senator, went to the _état-major_ of the Prussians and assumed the responsibility to keep order among the civilians: "_Le maire c'est moi_." Already the poets of France have enshrined the memory of this heroine of sixty winters who saved her city from pillage: Le regard bleu comme strié de lave De Jeanne Macherez qui nous sauva Soissons. Ah! la vieille brave! For ten days the Germans occupied the town. The first battle of the Marne caused their departure on September 12th. Then a French reverse in January, 1915, let them draw near enough to the city to bring it within the range of fire, and such was its tragic fate till the Germans' strategic retreat in the spring of 1917. The enemy had intrenched himself solidly in the vast quarries on the left bank of the Aisne, and month after month poured his fire on desolated Soissons. Then came the final grand act of the war. Rolling forward in overwhelming numbers in March, 1918, the invaders drove the French troops from Soissons after a desperate resistance in the streets. There they encamped until the first days of the following August, when the French army re-entered the smoking ruins of a dead city over which stood a phantom cathedral. Noyon, Senlis, Sens, Laon, and Soisson, are with Notre Dame of Paris the first cathedrals of the national art. They are far from being the complete list of Primary Gothic monuments, which includes such churches as the Trinité at Vendôme, two churches at Étampes,[63] the collegiate of Notre Dame at Mantes, the Trinité at Fécamp, and Lisieux Cathedral. There are the two towers built in an hour of religious enthusiasm: the _clocher vieux_ at Chartres and the belfry of St. Romain at Rouen. The nave of Angers Cathedral is the Primary Gothic of the Plantagenet school. The Attica of Gothic art is the Ile-de-France, and where Picardy touches it on the north, and Champagne on the south. In that land filled with never-to-be-forgotten churches speaks the clarity of French genius in its classic simplicity. The beauty of such churches comes from their rightness of proportion, that quality which gives the most enduring joy in architecture, beyond all richness of detail or startling effect. From such churches one learns the difference between the architect born and the architect made. The supreme quality of proportion must be innate; it is never acquired. The artist blessed with it may only produce a small masterpiece, such a church as that of St. Yved of Braine or a St. Leu-d'Esserent, but one is sure that he would not exchange the glow which his work gave him for the fame of building even a Strasbourg. It is in the early-Gothic churches of the Ile-de-France that the taste is best purified and trained. There the sense of beauty is spiritualized. In them art gives an entity to what is ethereal, art seems to make tangible what is impalpable. In them the heart feels the loveliness of the space inclosed as the eye rejoices in the inclosing walls. There is something of poignancy in such churches. Standing in all the promise of their youth, of the youth of the greatest architecture the world ever produced, they gravely admonish us that beauty even as theirs is but a momentary lifting of the veil. To such churches the memory returns with nostalgic regret amid the magnificence of the Gothic expansion, when the leaves opened wide to show the golden pollen. But the sadness which the early-Gothic churches of France rouse in the soul, is it not the stumbling name we give to an eternal Hope? "There are no hours in this cathedral," wrote Rodin of Soissons; "there is Eternity."[64] THE ABBATIALS OF ST. REMI AT RHEIMS, AND NOTRE DAME AT CHÂLONS-SUR-MARNE[65] There are two things for which all the Faithful ought to resist unto blood, Justice and Liberty.--PIERRE DE CELLE, Abbot of St. Remi (1162-81). Before closing our crowded chapter on Primary Gothic cathedrals, let us add a few notes on a few early-Gothic churches. Those of chief interest, in the story of the national art, are the big abbey churches at Rheims and at Châlons, sister monuments, equal in size to cathedrals. So closely do they resemble each other in plan and ornamentation that it is thought one architect planned both. They are the earliest Gothic edifices in Champagne. Notre Dame at Châlons-sur-Marne was reconstructed soon after 1157. Three periods of work appear in it. The transept and the four towers--which give an imposing air to the church--belong to the Romanesque rebuilding of 1130. The towers which stand between choir and transept are not set symmetrically, since, in that to the south, use was made of the foundations of an earlier tower, a boundary mark between the lands of the big abbey and those of the bishop of Châlons. In 1157, the Romanesque choir of Notre Dame collapsed, and when rebuilt the citizens of the ancient city on the Marne displayed the same pious enthusiasm as had the men and the women of Chartres in 1145. In 1165, Guy de Bazoches, then a canon of Châlons Cathedral, wrote to his sister to describe how all ages and conditions brought material to the new church of Notre Dame-en-Vaux, and how the people, harnessed to carts, sang canticles as they labored. When the new Gothic choir was under way the nave of 1130 was remodeled. The pier arches and the tribune arches were made pointed, and the upper walls were raised in order that a Gothic vaulting might be added. Notre Dame's choir is very beautiful. Its three apse chapels open on the ambulatory, by columns and stilted arches, perhaps the first time this disposition of Champagne Gothic was used. Soon it was repeated in St. Remi at Rheims. Auxerre and St. Quentin also used it, and it reached its apotheosis in the ethereal charm of Soissons' transept. Notre Dame at Châlons was in other ways a precursor; here first were set in each bay of the clearstory three windows side by side, a triplet of lancets that started the complex fenestration of the new art. In its first plan were no flying buttresses, but they were soon added when it was found that the thrust of the upper vaulting was not sufficiently counterbutted. In the XV century the Flamboyant south porch was built. Of the XVI century are some rich windows of the school of Troyes, now set in the nave's aisles. One of them represents the victory of Spain's crusaders over Islam at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, and is the best battle scene depicted in colored glass. With its beautiful Gothic cathedral, its immense abbatial, and all of its churches rich with storied windows, one is profoundly grateful that Châlons-sur-Marne only for a short hour early in the World War formed part of that "_ligne doulereuse et triomphale, ce ruban de pourpre et de lumière qui s'étend de Belfort au rivage des Flandres, la Voie Sacrée_." Tragic the fate of its sister abbatial, St. Remi, in martyred Rheims. That grand ancestral church lies well-nigh mortally wounded on the field of honor. It stood up above the city as prominently as the cathedral itself, and has been mercilessly wrecked. The vaulting has fallen, and great rents have been torn in the walls of the precious Primary Gothic choir. A recent traveler found that its devastated nave recalled gaunt Jumièges. Some ten years after the reconstruction of Notre Dame at Châlons, the monks of St. Remi began to make over their abbey church under the inspiration of Abbot Pierre de Celle, of the same lineage as the heiress of Braine who, with her husband, a brother of Louis VII, built the church of St. Yved. While John of Salisbury was a young student in France, Pierre de Celle entered into a friendship with him which continued to deepen till their death, both of them being men of the highest culture, strong literary abilities, and solid character. Pierre de Celle succeeded the English scholar as bishop of Chartres in 1181; _summi et incomparabilis viri_, so his epitaph sums him up. It was this distinguished churchman who built, about 1170, the superb choir of St. Remi, and who remodeled as Gothic the ancient Romanesque nave. The choir had five radiating chapels, each of which opened on the ambulatory in the beautiful Champagne way, by slender columns bearing stilted arches. As tribunes were built over the aisles, the wall elevation was in four stories, and below two of them ran friezes of sculptured foliage. As if the architect felt that he had thus over-accentuated the horizontal line, he bound his triforium and clearstory into one composition by continuous moldings, a precocious first step toward the glazed triforia of Rayonnant Gothic. Originally no flying buttresses braced this early-Gothic choir; those that were added, about 1180, are probably the first ever made. Nothing could better show the swift development of Gothic structure than to compare the plain old flying buttresses of St. Remi with the luxuriant counterbutting members of Rheims Cathedral built fifty years later. Between St. Remi's choir and the hemicycle transept of Soissons Cathedral there is such similitude of profile, detail, and plan that it is thought the same architect designed both. The able Pierre de Celle built the two westernmost bays of St. Remi's nave, and opened the tribune on the middle vessel with Gothic arches. He also built the west façade, which to-day is ancient only in its lower stories, as it was reconstructed in 1840. The north tower was re-done in the XII century; the south one is of the XI century, Abbot Herimar's time. With book in hand should be read the complicated story of St. Remi's nave and transept, the ancient Romanesque edifice re-dressed as Gothic in 1170. Nothing remains of the church built in the IX century under Bishop Hincmar of Rheims. The oldest parts extant are the piers of the nave, which belonged to the reconstruction of the abbatial by Abbot Airard (1005-33). His successor, Thierry (d. 1041), decided that the works then under way were on too elaborate a scale to be within his means, so he simplified the plan. The outer side aisles were suppressed, the archivolts were doubled, the bays widened, and the old columns replaced by compound piers. In the transept his work still exists in the west wall (north arm) where are two stories of arcades supported by thick, short, cylinder piers whose capitals are coarsely carved acanthus leaves. The rest of the transept (save what was added in 1170 to connect it with the Gothic choir and the re-dressed nave) is the work of Abbot Herimar who raised the west towers. Under him occurred the notable dedication of St. Remi's new Romanesque church, in 1049, by Leo IX, the reformer, with whom the Benedictine Order took possession of the papacy for some vital years of needed regeneration. St. Bruno of Cologne, the future founder of the Carthusian Order, was a student in the episcopal school of Rheims while Romanesque St. Remi was building. And later he returned from Germany to direct the school from 1057 to 1075 with great prestige. His most notable pupil, Eudes de Châtillon, became the pope of the First Crusade, Urban II. Feeling the call for a life of prayer and retirement, Bruno thought of joining the group of earnest men about to commence the Cistercian Order, but his destiny led him to Grenoble, near which in the mountains he began the Grande Chartreuse (1084) where they say reform never was needed.[66] In St. Remi's abbatial the last phase of Gothic art was to be represented. The transept's south façade is Flamboyant, and over its sculptured portal is a highly colored XV-century window. The façade was finished by Abbot Robert de Lenoncourt (d. 1531), who later became archbishop of Rheims. To his abbey church he presented ten rich tapestries relating the life of the first bishop of the city, St. Remigius, who baptized Clovis in 496, and whose rule of seventy years is the longest spiritual reign on record. Clovis and Clotilda founded the abbey. At its church altar St. Louis was knighted. On the day of Charles VII's coronation the barons rode their steeds into the basilica, dismounting at the sanctuary to ask for the sacred ampulla needed for the king's anointing in the cathedral. In the clearstory windows of St. Remi's choir were thirty-three lancets in which were portrayed the archbishops of Rheims from holy Remigius to Robert of France, brother of Louis VII, who was ruling here from 1162 to 1175, while Abbot Pierre was building his choir. The windows were probably set up in the time of Archbishop Robert's successor, Archbishop Guillaume of Champagne, who had finished the cathedral at Sens. They were memorable for their lovely browns and greens, and were allied, undoubtedly, with St. Denis' glass, though executed by local workers. Deep borders surrounded each lancet. Similar ornate borders and a magnificent deep blue color distinguished still older XII-century windows in the tribune gallery. The central lancet was an extraordinary Crucifixion, somewhat like that at Poitiers. An irreparable loss to art is the destruction of St. Remi's windows, though it is said that some of them were dismounted in time and carried to a place of safety. ST. QUIRIACE CHURCH[67] AT PROVINS Provins, une des plus charmantes villes de France, rivalise avec la vallée de Cachemire.... Des croisés rapportèrent les roses de Jéricho dans cette délicieuse vallée, où, par hasard, elles prirent des qualités nouvelles, sans rien perdre de leur couleurs.--BALZAC, _Pierrette_ (whose scene is Provins). Another Primary Gothic church in Champagne is St. Quiriace at Provins, which one goes out of one's way to see because Provins is one of the most individual little towns in France, still in part surrounded by massive XII-and XIII-century ramparts. Thibaut IV the Singer added to the great walls of the lower town about 1230. They say that when crusaders drew near to Jerusalem on its hill encircled by its walls and towers they often cried out, "Provins!" Once the population of this shrunken little city rivaled that of Paris. Here were held annual fairs to which flocked the merchants of Europe, and the sensible counts of Champagne encouraged their visitors by wise regulations and strictest justice. The money of Provins was accepted in Florence and Rome. The valley of roses was the favorite residence of the reigning counts. Here Thibaut IV, the most celebrated lyric poet of the Middle Ages, wrote his songs that wedded the art of the Midi troubadour with the salt of the northern trouvère. His son, Thibaut V, married the daughter of St. Louis and brought her in state to Provins, "_où ils firent leur entrée accompagnés d'une grande foison de barons_," wrote Joinville, who had helped to arrange the match. Thibaut V's heart is contained in a XIII-century monument now in the chapel of the Hôtel Dieu, which hospital was originally the ancient palace of the countesses of Champagne. Thibaut V and his wife died returning from the tragic last crusade of Louis IX. Their niece Jeanne married the king of France, and the prosperous days of Champagne ended when it merged its independence in the royal domain, for new regulations soon impaired the popularity of its famous fairs. It was Countess Jeanne of Navarre who persuaded her seneschal, Joinville, to write his reminiscences. In the days when Provins was a world center St. Quiriace church was begun about 1160 by Henry the Liberal, the reigning count who was warmest patron of John of Salisbury when the latter, forced to quit England, lived in Provins. Little more than the choir of St. Quiriace now remains. In the tympanum of a late-Gothic portal is a XIII-century image of Christ. The semicircular chevet is boxed in a square ambulatory on which open square eastern chapels. The shafts are banded with annulets. There is Romanesque feeling in the zigzag ornamentation on the heavy ribs; the round arch reigns in the triforium, although the pier arcades below are pointed. The choir shows a curious experiment in vaulting hardly to be called successful: three bays are embraced by the vault section of eight branches. St. Quiriace crowns the hilltop; in the lower town is St. Ayoul, whose portal sculpture (c. 1160) is of the same type as the three western doors at Chartres, as is the portal of St. Loup-de-Naud (Seine-et-Marne), close by.[68] Those who have fallen under the spell of Chartres' fascinating column statues will always study their sister images with interest. Epitaphs on the walls of St. Quiriace recall two true shepherds of this church, one, who went daily into the hills to teach children and to tend on the sick poor in their homes, and the other, who opened up the forgotten crypt and left a school and presbytery to his parish. There is a quaintly worded tablet of the XVI century telling of the _haute et puissante dame_, the Marquise de Chenoise, who had "for God a tender solid piety; for her husband a submissive, respectful love; for her children a Christian and reasonable tenderness; for her friends a sincere and generous affection; for the poor charity without limit; and for the rest of the world _une bonté, une douceur, une honestété charmante_." One would not mind being the rest of the world for this gracious person. Both her sons were killed in one week, fighting under Turenne, so she passed the last years of her life in a retirement, which "she sanctified by prayer, and her prayer she nourished and sustained by good works." The robust piety of Bossuet's preaching breathes in such records. In St. Remi's abbatial at Rheims is the eulogy of another good lady of Champagne who was "Rachel in beauty, Rebecca in fidelity, Suzanna in purity, Tabitha in piety of heart, Ruth in sentiment, and Anna by good works." Paragons those old-time ladies seemed to be! ST. YVED AT BRAINE[69] I am just back from the battle line in that Royal Domain of Soissons, where the soul of ancient France seems more itself than in any other region, country of martyrs, and of kings, of Merovingian crypts, of the donjon of Coucy, of the five apses of St. Yved--realm of the first race of rulers bearing vestiges of the greatest history of France.--GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO, 1914. Strictly speaking, St. Yved at Braine is not so much a Primary Gothic monument as it is a link between that first tentative hour and the fuller development of the national art represented by Rheims and Amiens. In the same group as Braine, between Primary Gothic and the Era of the Great Cathedrals, are St. Leu d'Esserent, Montréal, Vézelay's choir, and the church of St. Laumer at Blois. Braine, on the ancient Roman highroad between Rheims and Soissons, had been a farm of the Frankish kings. In the VII century it belonged to the father of St. Ouen, and it was here that the future bishop of Rouen, as a child, was blessed by a passing guest, the Irish missionary St. Columbanus, whose Celtic rule of Luxeuil dominated, in Gaul, the century called of saints. Lady Agnes of Braine espoused a son of Louis VI, the turbulent Count of Dreux (d. 1188), and, from them came the funds for St. Yved, the second foundation of the new Order of Prémontré. The recorded date of the enterprise is from 1180 to 1216, but as the church is perfectly homogeneous, it must have been built in one campaign, probably in main part before the dedication of 1216. As a composition, the plan of the collegiate is original. The apse chapels on each side of the choir chapel are placed on the bias so that the sanctuary opens out like a fan, with five altars visible at the same time. The arrangement was copied in far-off Hungary in St. Martin's church at Kassovie, built for the king by the wandering Picard artist Villard de Honnecourt. In Cologne the church of St. Gereon, and in Marburg that of St. Elizabeth, show the influence of Braine. St. Léger's abbatial at Soissons copied it. St. Yved has a square transept-crossing tower that opens still farther the central part of the edifice. Carved about the interior is a cordon of free springtime foliage. There is youth in every line of this beautiful white church. The superb monocylindrical columns and their capitals are robust virility itself. Everywhere is firmness of touch, and never has the unity been marred by patchwork reconstructions. Like its neighbor, Soissons, the same nicety of stonework is shown. Before the Revolution the collegiate at Braine harbored an unparalleled collection of tombs, since here for centuries were laid to rest the barons and bishops of the proud family of Dreux, warriors at Bouvines, crusaders, and donors of storied windows at Chartres and Rheims. The four west bays of the church of Braine were stupidly demolished after the Revolution, because funds for repairs were at that time lacking. From the destroyed portal were saved the two statues now set in the choir's wall. They represent the Coronation of Our Lady; the robes flow easily and there is scarcely a touch of Byzantine rigidity left in them. Twice during the late World War was Braine's collegiate in the direct path of invasion. The first battle of the Marne freed it, but in May, 1918, the Germans again entered the little town. Then swept forward the second battle of the Marne, and Braine was liberated in September. One can only pray that, in such hasty retreats, St. Yved escaped mutilation. ST. LEU D'ESSERENT[70] I think that that style which is called Gothic is endowed with a profound and a commanding beauty, such as no other style possesses ... and which probably the Church will not see surpassed till it attain to the Celestial City.... The Gothic style is as harmonious and as intellectual as it is graceful.--CARDINAL NEWMAN. St. Leu d'Esserent is one of the small but perfect churches of the classic Ile-de-France that satisfy both eye and soul by the exquisite justness of their proportions. Its serene white charm is unobtrusive. Only a master of the inmost heart of France could have produced the assured rightness of its proportions. Unforgettable are the moments spent in this Benedictine abbatial on the Oise; sometimes up and down its lovely white avenue flits some happy lost bird, rejoicing in the paradise of quietude he has found. The quarries round St. Leu d'Esserent were noted, and many a church of France has been made of their firm white stones. The origin of Gothic art is comprised, thinks M. Lefèvre-Pontalis, in this region where good quarries abounded, with Senlis taken as a center. A line from Senlis to Laon, if carried round, would pass through Rheims, Provins, Montereau, Étampes, Vernon, Amiens, Péronne, St. Quentin. Well within that circumference lies St. Leu d'Esserent. The Benedictine church stands on prominent foundations overlooking the river loved of Corot and Daubigny. The priory was founded and presented to great Cluny by a knight of Esserent as thank-offering for his ransom from the Saracens by monks of St. Benedict. Of the church built in that XI century, there remain only the two stout columns, with archaic capitals, which now are embedded in the westernmost bay of the nave. About 1150 the present church was begun, and for a century continued building, in three distinct bouts of work. First was made the west façade, only one of whose Romanesque towers was ever finished with a spire, the octagonal faces of which were relieved by curious lancelike ridges not repeated elsewhere. In the narthex, or porch between the towers, was tried an experiment to eliminate the so-called domical shape of the first Gothic vaults. The transverse arches were loaded with masonry to raise them to the vault's apex. Experimental also are the ungainly diagonals, in part ornamented with Norman chevrons, that span the tribune over the forechurch (c. 1150). The ribs are not free of the vault web, so elasticity is missing. During the last quarter of the XII century, the chevet was built, as were the two towers placed beside the apse, an arrangement derived from Rhenish churches. Of that time, too (c. 1180), is the double bay, surmounted by a sexpartite vault which precedes the apse. There is no transept. The recently finished choir of Senlis Cathedral influenced the ambulatory and apse chapels of St. Leu. At Senlis and here occur the earliest examples of double flying buttresses. The six bays of the nave were added about 1220, after a pause in the works. Previously, each bay of the church had been lighted by a single lancet; now two lancets surmounted by an oculus were used, which added much dignity to the exterior aspect of the edifice. Over the axis chapel was built a second story. The unvaulted tribunes, above the side aisles, were transformed into a sort of triforium by building a wall slightly behind their arcaded openings. As that wall was pierced by some odd little square windows, this may be regarded as one of the first essays of a glazed triforium, the feature which was soon to develop into the decorative richness of St. Denis, Troyes, Le Mans, Tours, and Beauvais. CHAPTER IV Notre Dame of Paris and Other Churches of the Capital[71] It is important to meditate often and with ardor and respect on the documents which the ancestors have left us.--ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. The Era of the Great Cathedrals was inaugurated by Notre Dame of Paris, the most imposing Gothic church hitherto attempted. The popular voice has chosen to group it among the chief four, with Chartres, Rheims, and Amiens--all four of them dedicated to Our Lady, though in a special way Notre Dame of the capital seems to have appropriated the name. Of the four, the cathedral of Paris was the first built, and traits of the Romanesque epoch lingered in it, such as the tribune galleries over the side aisles, the division of its interior wall into four vertical stories, and the Byzantine feeling of its earlier sculpture. The piers were massive single columns of true majesty. In the sixth pier of the nave, counting from the east, an experiment was tried when an engaged shaft was added to its front. The seventh pier (c. 1192) marks a date in the development of Gothic structure since with it was made the type of ground support which was to predominate in the XIII century--four engaged shafts around a central pillar. When the middle core was made elliptical, as at Beauvais, the type pier was achieved. [Illustration: _Notre Dame of Paris. View from the South_] Notre Dame of Paris used the sexpartite system which calls for alternating ground supports. Either the uniform piers here were laid before a sexpartite vault was thought of, or else the architect preferred them for æsthetic reasons, and in this case he certainly was right. Double aisles about both nave and choir differentiate the interior of Notre Dame of Paris from that of the average cathedral. The far-stretching aisles of this church compose vistas of unsurpassed picturesqueness and variety of perspective. Some have said that the central nave is not sufficiently wide for such a stretch of lateral aisles, and have found a certain monotony in the clearstory, tribune, and pier arcade being of equal height. Originally, beneath the clearstory were small circular unglassed apertures giving on the rafters over the tribune. Those oculi were done away with during the XIII century, when the clearstory windows were lengthened for the better lighting of the church. During his able restoration of Notre Dame, M. Viollet-le-Duc found hidden under the pavement some of the discarded window frames, and he took the liberty (which many regret) of replacing a few in the bays near the transept, thus marring the uniformity of the interior. Despite the enlargement of the upper windows and the changes made to give more light to the tribunes, none can deny that, in gloomy weather, Notre Dame can be somber and even cavernous. Yet who, of its devotees, would have it different? Supreme cathedral it is for that supremest of hymns, the _Dies Iræ_--sound and sense and vision welded. To exchange its severe majesty for an expanse of brilliant glass--save Suger's glass--is unthinkable. In Notre Dame you comprehend the spectacular repentances of the Middle Ages. Here, when pestilence stalked the city or the enemy was at the gate, have echoed the _Miserere_ and the _Libera nos, Domine_.[72] There is an individuality in the cathedral of Paris that overrides every criticism. Perpetually does the worshiper find in it new aspects, in the dim, low aisles full of mystery, in the gleam of transept windows as seen through the tribune arches while one listens, perhaps, to a lenten friar preacher discoursing of sin, justice, and the judgment to come; here on the very spot where Dominic himself taught the same sobering lessons; here where, six hundred years later, his son, Lacordaire, held the manhood of Paris spellbound. Or, again, one gazes down the length of the church, with its incomparable perspective, while around one rise the voices of strong men fresh from the battle of Verdun, fresh from their firm "They shall not pass," and their _Magnificat_ of thanksgiving to Notre Dame swells in a volume of sound like the eternal sea. The crusaders of St. Louis' time prayed, too, for strength in Notre Dame of Paris.[73] The curve of the sanctuary as seen from the west end of the nave is one of the splendors of the monument, and no chevet ever built surpassed it. The cause of the magic is practical--a structural problem solved, as is the case with the best aspects of Gothic art. At that eastern curve extra piers were inserted between the double aisles in order to obviate the difficulty of vaulting such irregular trapeze-shaped sections. The enthusiast maintains that the exterior of Notre Dame surpasses that of all other cathedrals. Certainly better transept façades were never made nor was apse more romantic than that of the chief church of Paris, as it rises in three grandiose steps, with flying buttresses of wide span leaping with an audacity that fairly catches the breath; and again the success is a case of sound science solving a problem. The west façade is an accepted classic, "an architectural glory of France," irreproachable. Once the intelligence has grasped its pre-eminence, allegiance to it will never waver. The frontispieces of Rheims and of Rouen are richer and may appeal more to the imagination. It is possible that the severe dignity of Paris may even chill at first. But what clarity of plan! Four strong buttresses accentuate the big square parallelogram. Excess of ornamentation has been avoided in order that the whole may stand forth. Lest the two towers might appear to rise abruptly from the massive, some master hand made there the graceful open colonnade.[74] The façade of Notre Dame is true to its epoch in its appeal to the intellect rather than to the emotions. It was built in the golden age of scholasticism, when religion and philosophy went hand in hand, when the teachers in the schools of Paris, the _cité lettré_, the _oeil du monde_, thought that Faith and Reason could give mutual aid one to the other, that the truths of Revelations could coincide with the natural judgment. Scholasticism has been belittled by the modern sophists from the time of the XVIII-century Encyclopædist to the XIX-century superman. Yet scholasticism was an important factor in the formation of the French intellect, which, in its virile youth, it put through a course of useful mental gymnastics. Precisely the race, whose ancestors sharpened their wits in the _Sic-et-Non_ debates of the mediæval schools of Paris, is to-day pre-eminent in precision of language and freedom from fogginess of thought. Easy enough for the modern mind to ridicule the quarrel of generations over nominalism and realism, pursued with the personal heat of a modern political campaign.[75] Certainly the abuse of the scholastic system led to hair-splitting disputes, for the deductive method, when carried to excess, ends in thin subtlety. But why judge a system by its extremes? Because XIV-century architecture grew rigid with set formulas and the abuse of its own laws, does that discredit the virile period to which it succeeded? The bishops who built Notre Dame were notable scholastics. The generations who built cathedrals were impregnated with the certainty that what was Christian was rational. Scholasticism produced St. Thomas Aquinas, whose philosophy has outlived a dozen systems, whose _Summa_ was placed on the assembly table of the Council of Trent, the sole companion of the Scriptures, Aquinas, whose sanity of ethics and doctrine was held up by Leo XIII as the best guide amid current errors. With Aquinas, who taught the inextricable union of Faith and Reason, Christian philosophy reached its zenith.[76] Too long has it been the fashion to look on orthodoxy as a sign of mental inferiority. Professors still dismiss the _Summa_ with a scathing line. They have never opened its pages, perhaps, but second-hand knowledge to vast regions of human thought is no impediment to a chair in the modern university. "Abstractions as repulsive as they are frivolous," is the dictum of a group of present-day French scholars who seem to think that to belittle things mediæval is proof of patriotism. We have looked on at the rehabilitation of certain mediæval saints. It was not so long ago that the poor man of Assisi was patronized as an ignorant fanatic. The appeal of St. Francis is to the emotions, while that of St. Thomas Aquinas is to the intellect, so, perhaps, it is expecting too much to hope that some day the average man may appreciate this thinker who set sane boundaries round the human mind. Too long have the prime sanities of reason been flouted by hazy abstract thinking in the void; too long has man shut his eyes to the fact that a crime of the intellect is of more consequence to mankind than a crime against the civil law; too long has applause been given to philosophers who obliterated the distinctions between right and wrong--like Hegel, teaching the identity of Being and non-Being--so that the very soul of the peoples grew perverted and appalling cataclysms threatened civilization. What the older centuries thought of Aquinas, the painter as well as the poet tells us. In the Louvre hangs Benozzo Gozzoli's picture of the _doctor angelicus_ sitting in luminous repose amid pope, doctors, saints, and the sages of antiquity, and the inscription runs: "_Vere hic est lumen ecclesiæ_." And in Milan hangs Piero della Francesca's profound study of the saint. "I place Plato high," wrote a sound French thinker, "but as I see Aquinas he is as superior to Plato, and even more, than is our knowledge of the physical world to that of the Greeks.... He embraces St. Augustine, Aristotle, and Plato." Often has it been said that a Gothic cathedral is the _Summa_ translated into stone, logical, ordered, interlinked, leaving nothing to chance, a sound skeleton on a sound base, so securely balanced that great windows could be opened on the sky, like flashes of intuitive genius lifting the soul to the infinite. Many were the points by which St. Thomas touched Gothic art in its heyday. He was a student in Cologne when its mighty cathedral was begun. He was in Paris during the years when the transept of Notre Dame was building, and the Sainte-Chapelle and St. Denis' abbatial. By blood he was related to St. Louis, and often was his guest at table, where talk must have turned on that keen interest of the hour--the making of Gothic churches.[77] He was to die (1274) in Cistercian Fossanuova, the first Gothic monument of Italy. And his great work, like many a cathedral, was left unfinished. Never was aspiration toward the infinite more passionate than in that scholastic disputing, commune-winning, cathedral-building, crusading age. The absorbing interest for old and young, for bishop and layman, for king and poor student, was to know God, to know their own souls, to learn how to make life more worthy of God. "In the entire length of France," wrote the archbishop of Sens to the pope, in 1140, "in towns and even in villages, in the schools and outside them, all, even simple people and children, are disputing on the Holy Trinity." Paris became the center of the seething new interest in theology and philosophy. In 1109 Guillaume de Champeaux opened a school of logic on the slopes of St. Geneviève's hill (where to this day reigns Paris University), and soon all Christendom frequented it.[78] His pupil, and later his opponent, was Abélard, brilliant, restless knight-errant of dialectics, whom the modern orthodox student finds to be a forerunner of the new method of biblical criticism rather than a rationalist. In the abbey of St. Victor, whose free classes were founded by Guillaume de Champeaux when harried by Abélard, there gathered a group of mystic scholars and poets: Hugues de St. Victor, the Augustine of his day (d. 1141), whose work on the sacraments was an interlinked system of theology. Lucid in intellect, tender in sentiment, was this friend of St. Bernard, whom Dante places in Paradise with St. Anselm and St. Bonaventure (_Par._, xii: 30); and Hugues' disciple, Richard de St. Victor (d. 1173), ranked in Paradise as the companion of the Venerable Bede and St. Isidore of Seville, "Richard, who in contemplation was more than man" (_Par._, x: 132); and Adam de St. Victor, one of the best poets of the XII century, whose sequences and rimed proses fill the liturgy. Another pupil of the learned Hugues was Pierre Lombard, who died bishop of Paris in 1160; his _Book of Sentences_ became a textbook in European universities for centuries to come. From the cathedral school and the mount of St. Geneviève and St. Victor's cloister[79] evolved the University of Paris, "elder daughter of France," whose title first appears in 1215, the oldest university in Europe with that of Bologna--one the high priestess of theology, the other the leader in canon and civil law. In the XII-century schools of Paris, John of Salisbury met Thomas Becket and Nicholas Breakspear (the English pope, Adrian IV), and there the future Innocent III became the friend of Stephen Langton. By the XIII century over thirty thousand students thronged the colleges in Paris. Aquinas taught in the Dominicans' branch of the university, in which same convent, called the Jacobins, lived the reader of Louis IX, Vincent de Beauvais, whose four _Mirrors_ were depicted in the imagery of the great cathedrals. No age was ever more enamored of encyclopædias. To overclassify was a characteristic of the times which even the great Aquinas could not escape. They say that over five hundred monks, under the guidance of the Dominican cardinal, Hugues de Saint-Cher, were busy in the rue St. Jacques preparing the first concordance of Scriptures. The entire Bible was translated into French in the XIII century. In the Franciscans' branch of the University St. Bonaventure taught. The king's chaplain, Robert de Sorbon, founded a house where poor students could live in common. Canterbury's archbishop, St. Edmund Rich, was a pupil in Paris, then a teacher. Roger Bacon, first to grasp the importance of experimental science, studied there, and so did Robert Grosseteste, builder of Lincoln Cathedral, whom Bacon said excelled all other masters in his range of useful knowledge. The smelting pot of modern society those fecund formative years of the XII and XIII centuries have been called. A life-time's study it would be to draw adequately the picture of the one city of Paris then, when Philippe-Auguste and his grandson, St. Louis, were busy raising their Louvre and their Cité palaces, their Notre Dame, and their Sainte-Chapelle, busy cleaning the city streets and the city laws; when one scholarly bishop succeeded another as slowly rose the capital's cathedral, when lovely Latin hymns poured from St. Victor's abbey, while in the street the students sang the new lays of trouvère and troubadour, telling of "love that is a thing so high," of Roland and the _gestes_ of paladins, of the Celtic heroes, Tristan, Lancelot, and Percival; when all the newly awakened intellectual and art life was astir welding old blood and new, making Frenchmen, at last, of Celt and Latin and Frank, making a kind of commonwealth of the nations that met in universities whose common speech still was Latin.[80] That there were black shadows in the picture, none deny. There were pillages and massacres. It was an agitated day full of tumults and heresies and terrible reprisals. One has only to read the censures of St. Bernard and of Innocent III to learn of the cupidity and the lust. Joinville has told of a sink of corruption lying within a stone's throw of the saint-king's crusading camp. But, above all the lawlessness, the men of those ages of faith aspired. Their acts might fall short; their principles remained sound. "No easy-going doctrines, then, to legitimize vice," says Ozanam. Man knew how to beat his breast in humble repentance. He lifted his eyes toward an ideal so far above himself that it was given his human weakness to build cathedrals such as Notre Dame of the capital. Not so does he build when as superman he sits on a self-raised altar. The virtuous bishop, who had most to do with the erection of the cathedral of Paris, had been a student and later a teacher of scholasticism. Maurice de Sully was born of simple parentage in the village of Sully-sur-Loire, and he came as a poor scholar to the great city. His abilities and the integrity of his conduct won him recognition, and after teaching belles-lettres, he was elected to the see of Paris as the seventy-second successor of St. Denis. From 1160 to 1196 he directed his diocese, a true shepherd whose special care was the training of young priests. Crowds flocked to his sermons, wrote a contemporary. He took an active part on the side of Thomas Becket during the English archbishop's struggle with Henry II, and it was he who consecrated as bishop of Chartres Becket's friend, the intellectual John of Salisbury. To Bishop Maurice, who had baptized him, Philippe-Auguste left the care of the Royal Treasury when he went on the Third Crusade. So wisely did this churchman administer his revenues that he was able to build hospitals and abbeys, as well as erect, in larger part by his personal donations, his own cathedral. The first stone of Notre Dame was laid in 1163, and tradition says that Alexander III officiated in the same month that he dedicated for the Benedictines the new choir of St. Germain-des-Prés; the exiled pontiff resided in France for four years. Though the name of the architect of Notre Dame has not survived, his design was adhered to during a century and a half. A transept was not in his plan; however, a short one was inserted before the nave was laid down. That nave was nearly finished when Bishop Maurice de Sully died, in 1196, leaving large sums, in his testament, for the completion of his beloved church. The two westernmost bays of the nave are not of the bishop-founder's time. Notre Dame, because of interruptions in its construction, presents an irregular alignment, and it is easy to perceive, as one gazes along its vaulting, that its choir slopes toward the north. Archæologists have given up the poetic explanation that the slanting choir was symbolic of the droop of Christ's head on the cross. Nor can the symbol seeker now call the Porte Rouge (an extra door in the north wall of the choir) a souvenir of the spear wound of the Saviour, since if made with such intention it would have been placed below the extended arms of the transept. Three campaigns of work built Notre Dame, and each time that the work was resumed the axis deviated slightly. First rose the choir and a short transept. Then was done the nave, save its westernmost bays. And finally, at the beginning of the XIII century, they undertook the west façade and the two bays behind it. The carving on the pier's capitals shows the gradual advance in sculpture: in the choir they cut the large leaves of water plants which were the first nature models copied when the conventional Byzantine models were discarded. Then, in the nave, the foliage grew richer, and oak and vine and curled-up ferns appeared. Capital by capital should be studied, for their sculpture is masterly. The capitals of the nave's triforium are said to mark the culmination of Gothic art in foliate design. While unity was kept throughout the entire arcade, there was unceasing variation in details. When Bishop Maurice de Sully, the peasant, died, he was succeeded by Bishop Eudes de Sully, the feudal baron, descended from the reigning counts of Champagne, from Louis VII and Aliénor of Aquitaine, and in whose veins ran the blood of William the Conqueror through his daughter Adela. The ability to build was his by inheritance. He began the west façade, and probably at his death all three of the portals were in place. To him we owe that fairest of sculptured entrances, the Virgin's door, under the northwest tower, called "the most beautiful page of stone that the Middle Ages have left us." _Visibile palare_ are Dante's words for such art as this. In the carved tympanum, "Gothic art reached the simple perfection of Phidias." The draperies flow easily; only in the abrupt turning up of the edges of the robes lingers an archaic touch. Below are represented kings and prophets, the ancestors of Mary. Above them is a moving version of the Assumption; and in the upper triangle is the Coronation of the Queen of Heaven by her Divine Son--she, the mortal, turned toward Him, the divinity, with a gesture of adoration. The Christ is the Nazarene, a noble Oriental. No haziness then in their knowledge that the patroness in whose care they placed their cathedrals was a fellow creature. To the common sense of the Middle Ages, it would have seemed a muddle-headed way of thinking to have called Jesus, God, and at the same time to have refused homage to His Mother, the one whom God chose to honor above all mortals, "she who didst so ennoble human nature that its own Maker scorned not to become its making."[81] It was only logical, they thought, that the best advocate with the son should be the mother. "All of us who fear the wrath of the Judge, fly to the Judge's mother," wrote Abélard. "_Que Dieu nous l'octroie par la prière de sa douce mère_," wrote the crusader Joinville. So, without worrying over future carpers who might murmur "Mariolatry," the Middle Ages chanted "_Laus Deo et Beatæ Mariæ laudum_." And the cathedral of Paris dared to dedicate four of its six doors to the Queen of Heaven. The door under the southwest tower commemorates St. Anne, the Blessed Virgin's mother. It is a composite work, carved in Bishop Maurice's time, between 1160 and 1170, but not set up here till Bishop Eudes de Sully had undertaken the façade; in its tympanum are representations both of Louis VII and of Maurice de Sully. St. Anne's door was a link between the still archaic western doors of Chartres and the clearly enunciated Gothic portal under the northwest tower of Paris Cathedral. In the multitudinous folds of the draperies is Byzantine feeling, and sacerdotal is the Madonna who gravely presents her son to be adored. By the middle of the XIII century, the Madonna had become a natural mother, and so she is sculptured at the north entrance to Notre Dame's transept. Bishop Eudes de Sully, like his predecessor, had many a link with scholasticism and with other bishop-builders. He had been fellow student in Paris with the future Innocent III, and that expert in men when pope called on his aid to find capable occupants for the French sees. Eudes' own brother Henry was the archbishop of Bourges who initiated the new cathedral there; and when his brother died, Eudes assisted in placing in his see the saintly Guillaume, who built the chevet of Bourges. Through Eudes de Sully, the bishop-builder of Rheims Cathedral, Albéric de Humbert, was elected, and he also helped to elect Bishop Hervé, who began the cathedral of Troyes. Able men ever found a protector in the capable bishop of Paris, whose strict sense of duty was incorruptible. When Philippe-Auguste, his near kinsman, broke the marriage law, Bishop Eudes went into exile rather than sanction the scandal. To him Innocent III sent St. Jean de Matha, that the prelate might draw up a Rule for the new Order of Trinitarians, established to redeem captives from Islam. It was Eudes de Sully who founded, in 1204, the abbey of Port Royal, a name to become of note in French letters. The bishop of Paris from 1208 to 1219 was Pierre de Nemours, one of four brothers who were bishop-builders, at Paris, at Noyon, at Châlons, and at Meaux. He died a crusader under the walls of Damietta. Scarcely a cathedral but has its crusade memory. The façade of Notre Dame had almost reached the crowning open arcade when the scholarly Guillaume de Seignelay was transferred to the see of Paris from Auxerre where he had begun the Gothic cathedral. The _galerie des rois_, whose date is about 1223, was no doubt his work. Such galleries are found only in cathedrals in the royal domain, and it is just as likely that they honor the kings of France as the kings of Judea as some maintain. The majority of the larger statues of Paris Cathedral are restitutions. Viollet-le-Duc had an English sculptor, George Frampton, make the gargoyles and grotesques of Notre Dame, since the Revolution wrecked most of the exterior sculpture. Still another noted scholastic, Guillaume d'Auvergne (1228-29), was to rule the see of Paris while its chief church was building. He finished the northwest tower, which differed slightly in size and details from that to the south; across the face of the former are ten statues, whereas nine only are set before its companion tower. Perhaps a change of architects caused the disparity, or it may be that when the houses were cleared away for the erection of the north tower, more space was available. Bishop Guillaume d'Auvergne's writings show him to have been one of the most original thinkers in the XIII century, a theologian, a philosopher, a mathematician, and one versed in Arab and in Greek literature. He became for St. Louis a kind of prime minister in ecclesiastical business, and, like the king, he founded hospitals and houses of charity. There is a charming page in Joinville's reminiscences concerning this able man. A priest expressed his doubts to him on the Eucharist. Bishop Guillaume asked if he tried to resist the temptations, and he replied that he did so with all his force. "Now I," said the good bishop, "have not a single doubt about the Real Presence. I am like the fortress of Montleheri, safe in the heart of France, far from the danger line; but you, who fight unceasingly, are like the king's fortress of Rochelle in Poitou, on the frontier. Now, of us two, whom will the king most honor for guarding his fortresses?" Peasant and prince, crusader and scholar, humanist and mathematician, men of exemplary lives, born rulers and guides, such were the builders of Notre Dame of Paris, and their ability and sincerity live eternally in their work.[82] They gave free wing to the soul in raising their great church, while they cheerfully accepted the human law of working within limits. No cathedral in France shows more clearly the relation between builders and building, more clearly vindicates the ideals of its age. The partisan historian may cite his instances to prove that the religion of that age was superstitious. While Notre Dame stands, such charges are refuted. It is a historical document as potent for the vindication of the truth as the _Divina Commedia_ itself. When Bishop Guillaume d'Auvergne had finished the towers of Notre Dame he caused to be made the open arcade from which they emerge, as from a royal peristyle. About the same time side chapels were inserted between the buttresses, and the line of small rose windows, which had hitherto marked the triforium story, was done away with, in order that the clearstory windows might be lengthened. Only step by step were the builders learning that they might open the entire space between the active members of a Gothic structure; the upper windows of Chartres had passed on the lesson to Paris. The plan of the first architect was adhered to throughout, and since the later masters-of-works were likewise natives of the Ile-de-France and innate in them a classic restraint and a hardy daring (the hall-mark of the best Parisian art to this day), the cathedral of Paris was homogeneous. Midway in the XIII century Jean de Chelles, a precursor of Rayonnant Gothic, lengthened the transept arms by a bay and finished them with admirable façades. His name, and the date 1257, are cut on the foundation stone of the south façade. The sculpture of that southern entrance honors St. Stephen, since on the site had once stood a church dedicated to the first martyr; the tympanum of the door is another _chef-d'oeuvre_ of Notre Dame. Jean de Chelles was the first to use perforated gables. It is thought that on the north façade worked Pierre de Montereau, the architect of St. Denis. As the XIII century merged in the XIV Pierre de Chelles, probably a son of Jean, directed the making of the apse chapels and the superb flying buttresses which leap unhesitatingly over chapels and aisle and tribune gallery. He added the big tribune windows with gables. The classic restraint which is the leading quality of Notre Dame was never poverty. Sculpture was lavish where it should be. At the portals the Scriptures were set forth in detail and saints were held up for the edification of the people. The signs of the zodiac were carved, as well as the personification of the seasons and the months. Pinnacle and parapet were weighted with winged beast or demon, and the useful water spouts, or gargoyles, were chiseled as crabbed images. However, one should always remember, in climbing the towers of Notre Dame, that most of the present stone monsters are modern, and it is one of the weaknesses of the restorer to overemphasize the grotesque in the art of the Middle Ages. A strange world of fabulous creatures dwell on the roof of Our Lady's church--conceptions that are half terrible and half fantastic, imaginations that are survivals of the old pagan superstitions which Christianity could not wholly extirpate. The XII and XIII centuries were not so far removed in time from the invasions of the northern Barbarians, and the Church made concessions to primitive inheritances. Artists were allowed to carve on roof or pinnacle the chimeras and vampires which through long centuries had haunted the imagination of their ancestors, provided that they expounded the truths of Christian doctrine in such principal places as portals, façades, and choir screens. Might not a mocking grotesque beside an angel be taken as emblem of the external antagonism of the animal and the spirit in man? The choir screen of Notre Dame of Paris is sculptured with the apparitions of the risen Lord, from Easter Day to the Ascension. "If Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain."[83] The cathedral of Paris during the first centuries of its existence was the setting of many national scenes. Here the kings of France deposited their crown and renewed their vow to be just fathers of their people. Before its altar their newborn heir was blessed. In 1182 the main altar of Notre Dame was consecrated, and three years later the patriarch of Jerusalem preached from it the Third Crusade. On the eve of both his crusades St. Louis prayed here, and in 1270, when his remains were brought back from Tunis, they rested in Notre Dame for a solemn night of chanted mourning. In Notre Dame the Duke of Bedford had his nephew, Henry VI of England, crowned as king of France. Factional hate and a foreign enemy in control caused a _Te Deum_ of rejoicing to be sung in this, the most national of French cathedrals, when the news came that Jeanne the Maid had been taken prisoner before Compiègne, in 1429, but solemn reparation was made in 1456, when, in the presence of Jeanne's mother and brothers, the bishop of Paris (a Norman, and brother of the poet Alain Chartier) opened in Notre Dame the inquest that was to lead to the Rehabilitation of the heroine of Orleans. To the hidden places over the vaults of Notre Dame fled the illustrious chancellor of Paris University, Gerson, to whom during two centuries was attributed the _Imitation of Christ_. In 1407 he had reprobated the murder of the Duke of Orléans (builder of Pierrefonds) by the Duke of Burgundy (of the regal Dijon tomb), and the mob rose and sacked his house. It is said that for months Gerson lay concealed in Notre Dame, alone with his books, and given over to prayer and meditation. The present stained glass in Notre Dame is modern, save for the north, south, and west rose windows, the trilogy of light usually found in big cathedrals. The roses of the transept belong to the Paris school which led in the art of glassmaking during the second half of the XIII century. So large were the spaces then to be filled that the scrupulous patience of the St. Denis craftsmen was no longer possible. Backgrounds had to be made quickly by bold, simple trellis designs, and as the most frequent background was a red trellis on a blue field, and the juxtaposition of red and blue makes violet, in too many of the windows of that period prevails a melancholy purplish hue. Originally the choir of Notre Dame boasted some glass given by Abbot Suger himself to the preceding Romanesque cathedral. In the XVIII century, those over-confident _gens de goût_, the cathedral canons, whose taste admitted only the neo-classic, substituted uncolored glass for the ancient windows. They say that when the workmen were removing Suger's priceless glass, they were dumfounded by its deep, ineffable blue.[84] Many a treasure of Notre Dame was destroyed by the Revolution, and the church itself was put up for sale and escaped demolition by merest chance. It served as Temple of Reason, as warehouse, as fête hall. Again, during the Commune, in 1871, for the purpose of destroying it, chairs were piled high in the choir and set on fire, but brave men broke in the doors and extinguished the flames. Early in the World War, in 1914, a German airship dropped a bomb on Notre Dame which pierced the roof of the transept's northern arm. THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE[85] Li cuers doit estre semblans à l'encensier, Tous clos envers la terre et overs vers le ciel. --(Old song of the Middle Ages). On the same isle in the Seine with Notre Dame stands the Sainte-Chapelle, the reliquary of stone and jeweled glass which the saint-king had made to enshrine the Crown of Thorns redeemed from Constantinople. To-day it is a body without a soul, as the revered crown is kept in the treasury of Notre Dame, and until a memorial service during the World War, Mass had not been said in the _reliquaire de souvenirs_ for fifteen years. The chapel, which was connected with the king's palace, was begun in 1246 and dedicated in 1248. "It was," said one who knew St. Louis well, "the king's citadel against the adverses of the world." He would rise at midnight to pass into the chapel for the singing of matins. "Into this shrine Louis IX put all the memories of his crusading ancestors, all the hues of the Orient. It was his vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem." The walls were rich with gold and color. The present polychromatic decorations of the walls are a deplorable modern experiment. Fifteen splendid windows told the Bible story in a thousand small medallions; ninety-one scenes related Genesis; one hundred and twenty-one gave Exodus. A window on the south side told the True Cross story, and the three central windows were devoted to the lives of the Saviour and John the Baptist. The western rose was added during the Flamboyant Gothic revival following the expulsion of the English invaders. The making of the vast windows of the Sainte-Chapelle raised Paris to the leadership of the vitrine industry during the second half of the XIII century. Of that school are windows in the cathedrals of Angers and Clermont, and Soissons' western rose. Though of splendid effect, such windows do not equal those of the preceding hundred years, when Chartres and St. Denis led. The borders round each medallion had now become mere zigzags, since expedition was required for the glazing of enormous spaces. The Sainte-Chapelle, as Gothic science, could be carried no farther without violating its own laws and becoming what an English critic said of the late-Gothic of France, "all muscle and glass." Everywhere was the ascending line accentuated; over the windows are some of the earliest gables extant. They break the horizontal band of the balustrade above, and serve structurally as weights on the longitudinal wall arches. Perhaps it was because the architect felt he was overemphasizing the ascending line that he interrupted the soar of the columns marking the chapel walls, by placing against each shaft the amply draped statue of an apostle--the twelve pillars of the Church. To-day only the forth and fifth statues on the north side are originals; there are merely ancient fragments in the other images. For some time it was thought that the Sainte-Chapelle was the work of Pierre de Montereau, the king's own architect. A newly discovered record proves that he designed St. Denis' abbatial, which shows, however, no family likeness with the chapel of the Cité palace. Now, that chapel does display a certain likeness to the façades of Notre Dame's transept, and it has been suggested that Jean de Chelles, who designed the transept, was the architect of the Sainte-Chapelle. ST. JULIEN-LE-PAUVRE[86] La France est l'homme, Paris est le coeur. --HENRY IV. Close to the Seine, under the hill of St. Geneviève, stands a small contemporary of the choir of Notre Dame, St. Julien-le-Pauvre, built by the Cistercians of Longpont, about 1180, and claiming as its patrons three saints of the same name, St. Julian, martyr, St. Julian, bishop of Le Mans, and a humble St. Julian who had founded a hospice for pilgrims by the Seine and used to help the poor across the river. It is said that a leper whom he was piloting over vanished in midstream, whereupon the people said it had been the Lord himself come to test the holy man's charity. The western bays of St. Julien-le-Pauvre have been demolished and all that remains intact of the Primary Gothic church are the choir, with three apsidal chapels, the side aisles' vaulting, and the columns against the side walls. The same sculptor who worked at Notre Dame made the virile capitals of this little church. St. Julien to-day is used by the Greek-Melchite rite of Roman Catholics. It long was the patron church of letters and science, and every year from its altar started the procession of the University of Paris to the fair at St. Denis called Lendit, for the solemn purchase of a twelve months' supply of parchment. The rector of the university led the throng, and so vast was the concourse of students that the head of the procession was in St. Denis' abbatial before the rear ranks had quitted St. Julien-le-Pauvre. For four hundred years Paris University elected its rector in this little church, and tradition says that Dante prayed here when he crossed the Alps in 1304. In his imagination was then surging his mighty poem, and the men of France have pictured him pausing to muse over the images of Hell at their own cathedral doors. The great exile of Florence was himself the purest product of scholasticism, as impassioned as were the cathedral builders for theology and philosophy, for symmetry and rhythm and the mysterious beauty of numbers. The _Divina Commedia_ was a poetic _Summa_. ST. GERMAIN-DES-PRÉS, ST. MARTIN-DES-CHAMPS, AND ST. PIERRE-DE-MONTMARTRE[87] Ces vénérables bénédictines dont la science n'était égalée que par leur modestie--F. BRUNETIÈRE. There are in Paris three abbey churches that show steps in the transition to Gothic art: St. Germain of the meadows, St. Martin in the fields, and St. Peter's church on the martyr's hill, names that keep alive early Christian traditions--the first bishop and martyr of Paris, St. Peter whom always "the eldest daughter of the Church" was glad to honor; St. Martin, first beloved of the apostles of Gaul, and Bishop Germain (d. 576) who founded outside the city walls the abbey called later by his name, and who helped to Christianize the new Frankish conquerors. So disinterested was he that, to feed the poor, he sold a horse given him by the king; whether riding or walking, the saint-bishop ever went in prayer. The present church of St. Germain-des-Prés has a tower that in part predates the year 1000; it was erected by an abbot who ruled from 990 to 1014, and shows the small stones used at that period. The nave and transept, finished before the XI century closed, under a bishop of Paris who was uncle of Godfrey de Bouillon, comprise the only remaining Romanesque work in the capital. Twice in the XII century the choir was reconstructed by the monks, first about 1125, and at the same time the ancient tower's upper story was built; and again, after Suger, in 1144, had demonstrated the superiority of Gothic vaulting. St. Germain's abbot wrote, in 1163, that he had repaired his church in a new fashion. In the ambulatory the round and the pointed arch appeared side by side, and the groin vault was used simultaneously with the diagonals. The capitals were altogether Romanesque, since sculpture changed less swiftly than construction in those transitional years. Perhaps the new choir of St. Germain was not wholly finished when Pope Alexander III dedicated it in 1163, the year that the foundation stone of Notre Dame was laid. The choir's triforium arches were cut off, later, to lengthen the clearstory windows, and the nave has been revaulted. In the abbey inclosure a Sainte-Chapelle, a cloister, and a refectory were built by Pierre de Montereau; he and his wife, Agnes, were buried in the chapel. Fragments of his work have been collected in the small garden beneath the Carolingian tower of the abbatial, as well as in the gardens of the Musée Cluny.[88] The Revolution entirely wrecked the monk's quarters. St. Germain-des-Prés, in popular speech, was _The Abbey_. Here gathered the learned men of Paris for mental stimulus. In its priceless library, destroyed by the Revolution, worked those famous scholars Dom Luc d'Achery (d. 1685), Dom Mabillon (d. 1707), and Dom Rivet (d. 1749), whose tireless patience and scrupulous respect for historical truth made the name Benedictine a synonym for "savant." Three monumental works were begun by the XVII-century reformers who renewed the love of letters in the leading monastic houses of France: the _Acta Sanctorum_; the annals of the Benedictine Order; and that pride of French letters, the _Histoire Littéraire de la France_, which to-day the Institute of France is continuing. "_Gros livres inutiles_," Voltaire glibly called the invaluable books which for the modern school of mediæval archæology have made flesh-and-blood men of the old prelate-builders of cathedrals. The parts which have survived of that other notable Benedictine establishment in Paris, St. Martin-des-Champs, are now comprised in the _Arts et Métiers_ establishment. Affiliated with great Cluny, St. Martin's priory was as like it, said Peter the Venerable, as seal is like signet. To-day in the ancient church is installed an exhibit of machinery. The beautiful hall, once the monks' refectory, and now a technical library, is thought to be the work of Pierre de Montereau. The slender pillars dividing it into two aisles, the well-carved capitals, the elaborate keystones, and the portal's foliage all belong to the golden hour of the national art. For the student it is the choir of the church (c. 1135), built by the prior who surrounded the monastery lands with walls (1130-40), which is of chief interest, for in it were taken marked strides in the advance of Gothic structure. Here first was attempted a double ambulatory, an idea which Suger within a few years was to carry out in its fulfillment at St. Denis. The Lady chapel, a lobed half dome--the sacred trefoil--developed further the ribbed apse first found at Bury (c. 1125); here the ribs are structural, not merely decorative. Like other monuments of the transitional hour, St. Martin used simultaneously intersecting ribs and groins, round and pointed arches. Its XIII-century nave was never vaulted. The third monument of the capital which shows other stumbling first steps of the national art is the little church of St. Pierre under the towering new basilica of the Sacred Heart on Montmartre.[89] Till the XII century there stood on the site of St. Pierre a church dedicated to St. Denis, for tradition said that the first martyr of Paris had here been interred until his relics were removed to the new abbey of St. Denis on the Roman road outside Paris. In the crypt, by St. Peter's, on Montmartre, it is said that the earliest Christians of the region held their rites. And to that hallowed spot has come many a soul to beseech enlightenment on the eve of some projected good work. Here, in 1534, St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Francis Xavier, and the first Jesuits passed a night in prayer and vowed themselves to God's service. Here came St. Francis de Sales before founding the Visitation Order, St. Vincent de Paul before founding the Lazarists, and M. Olier before he organized St. Sulpice. Ursulines and Carmelites also have memories with St. Pierre-de-Montmartre. A Benedictine priory was installed here by Louis VI and his queen, Adelaide, niece of Pope Calixtus II of the Capetian house of Burgundy. They began the present church as Romanesque, but soon the new system of vaulting was employed. Slowly but consecutively throughout the XII century St. Peter's church was built. Its oldest Gothic vault is the one over the section of the choir preceding the apse; the stout ribs have profiles like those which Abbot Suger was making about that same time in the forechurch of his abbatial. The solemn dedication of St. Pierre-de-Montmartre took place in 1147 with Pope Eugene III officiating and St. Bernard and Peter the Venerable acting as deacon and subdeacon. Since the rebuilding of the apse, at the end of the XII century, numerous reconstructions have gone on in order to preserve the revered church.[90] ST. LOUIS AND JOINVILLE[91] Je dis que droit est mort et loyauté éteinte Quand le bon roi est mort, la créature sainte, A qui se pourront désormais les pauvres gens clamer Quand le bon roy est mort qui tant les sut aimer? --REGRES DU ROY LOEYS. The greatest glory of the Middle Ages was the saint-king himself. He was essentially of his epoch both in his love of theology and his enthusiasm for building. Under his grandfather, Philippe-Auguste, most of the Gothic cathedrals of France were begun. The majority of them continued building under Louis IX. In his reign Beauvais Cathedral was started, that of Meaux rebuilt, as was also St. Denis' cathedral-like abbatial. There rose now a host of lesser Gothic edifices, such as the Sainte-Chapelle at Paris, the synodal hall at Sens, and the hospital hall at Ourscamp. "And as a writer who has made his book, illuminating it with gold and azure, so our king illuminated his kingdom with the beautiful abbeys he built," wrote his friend Joinville. All too many of his abbatials have been swept away--Royaumont,[92] built with the proceeds from his father's jewels, where Louis IX had worked side by side with the masons, where he had passed his saddest hours, for in its church was laid to rest his promising eldest son, whose beautiful tomb now is harbored at St. Denis. Gone, too, is Maubuisson Abbey, where was buried his mother, Blanche of Castile. Her bronze tomb was melted up and made into cannon during the Revolution, but one knows that the something high and Spanish in Blanche (whom her contemporaries compared to stag and eagle) would have preferred a cannon to the copper pennies into which were transmuted all too many of the ancient tombs. The mother of St. Louis was a woman cast in a heroic mold, daughter of that Spanish king who at Las Navas de Toloso saved Europe from an avalanche of 400,000 Mussulmans and granddaughter of art-loving Aliénor of Aquitaine and Henry II, Plantagenet. The prudence of Blanche of Castile saved the kingdom for her son against the insurgent barons of France. She hastened to have him crowned at Rheims, in 1226, in the same year that St. Francis died, in Italy. It is said that the lad of twelve held up firmly the sword of the Emperor Charlemagne, whose blood ran in his veins. The barons tried to kidnap the young king from his mother, and when he escaped the snare and rode back to Paris all the countryside poured out to bless him. Years later he told Joinville it was from that hour he dedicated himself to the welfare of his people. In 1234, at twenty, he was married in Sens Cathedral to a princess of the cultivated house of Provence; Dante has a line for the daughters of Raymond Berenger IV, patron of the troubadours: "Four daughters had he and each a queen."[93] Marguerite of Provence was somewhat overridden by the stronger personality of Blanche, her mother-in-law. For his valiant mother, Louis IX retained always a passionate admiration. On his first crusade he left his kingdom in her charge, which, however, he did not do for his queen, when he last went crusading. He had seen her sister, on the throne of England, tamper with that country's interests for the advancement of her own family, and he recognized in his Marguerite a strain of the same intriguing. She could rise to her lord's level, however, and was his faithful lifelong companion. A sublime word of hers has come down to us: they were sailing back to France after four years' sojourn in Palestine; off Cyprus the ship was well-nigh wrecked, and an attendant rushed to ask if he should awaken the royal children. "No," cried the queen, "let them go to God in their sleep." That a king whose forebears had fought in all the crusades should, in his turn, strike a blow for Christendom, was inevitable. Jerusalem had fallen in 1244, and the instinct of Europe felt the menace of the Mongol advance from the East. Was not the fate of Spain close at hand to prove the possibility of Oriental invasion? So St. Louis took the crusader's vow, and with him went the turbulent lords whose departure gave France some needed years of peace. He had in vain tried to negotiate peace between Papacy and Empire, in whose protracted duel he remained neutral. In Cyprus, in 1248, the crusaders paused before descending on Egypt, and there St. Louis and Joinville drew together. The hereditary seneschal of Champagne was a very great lord, his mother being of Burgundy's Capetian line, and his Joinville forebears notable crusaders.[94] The contingent which he provided for the holy wars consisted of nine knights and seven hundred men, but because of the long winter's halt in Cyprus he found himself in straits to meet their expenses. Louis IX, ten years his senior, came to his aid, although the ruler of Champagne and not the king of France was Joinville's suzerain. Side by side the two friends went through the disastrous campaign in Egypt--the delayed march on Cairo, which ended in Mansourah's defeat. Together they shared imprisonment, and the king's elevation of soul won the Mussulmans' respect. Then, their ransom paid, they sailed together for Palestine, and there, in the daily intimacy of years, the affection of these two loyal knights struck deep root. To Joinville the king intrusted his wife and children in the perilous overland journey in Syria, before they embarked for France. When, in 1254, Louis IX came back from the East, he gave himself up for fifteen years to his country's welfare, "the most conscientious man who ever sat on a throne," touched to the core by that divine unrest which is man's highest faculty and does lasting work for God, revered by the "little people of the Lord" as their champion for justice and social progress. "_Il est en doulce France un bon roy Loeys_," sang the minstrels then. Never did king love more _la doulce France_ and prove it more conclusively. Justice was inherent in him. A most sensitive feeling of duty ruled his every act. Yet he knew how to mete out deserved punishment unflinchingly. From his shrewd and capable grandfather, so little of a saint, he had learned that no one could govern well who could not refuse as well as grant. That Louis IX understood his age is shown in his dealings with the feudal system. He made no attempt to destroy it, which would then have been impossible, and, moreover, his respect for the rights of others always kept him from extreme measures; but he regulated its excesses, knowing that organized anarchy could be broken only by organized laws. One of the best laws he passed was that of the _quarantaine-le-roy_, which forbade any baron to wage war on his fellows without a notice of forty days. The king favored the written law to offset the law of custom, on which feudal abuses were based. During a generation he had his agents all over France collect old laws and customs--Roman law, canon law, feudal privileges, and from their composite mass was created the great code called the _Établissements de St. Louis_. He substituted jurisprudence by inquest, and witnesses for that by force, and he made a supreme court by instituting the right of appeal. Admirable were some of his treaties such as that which made the Pyrenees the natural boundary between Spain and France. His reform of the coinage was another link of unity for France. In Paris he organized a police, protected commerce by regulations, put an end to the selling of magistratures, and he began, there, the library which to-day is the richest in Europe. In the garden of the Cité and under the oaks of Vincennes, the king held open courts of justice, and when his youngest brother, Charles d'Anjou,[95] tried to browbeat one of lesser rank, the king gave a legal councilor to the poor knight who won the case against the prince. Louis IX's very enemies chose him as arbiter. Little wonder that the people of France have sung of him: Ha! le bon Roy! Simples, ignorans supportait Pauvres, mendians confortait, Observant de Jhusys la foi, Redoutant Dieu-- Ha! le bon Roy! Joinville has drawn for all time the picture of the years between the saint-king's two crusades, a golden age, if ever there was one. The friendship begun during their years of Syrian comradeship continued, and the seneschal often came up to Paris. It was he who arranged the marriage of the king's daughter with his own suzerain, the son of Thibaut IV, the song maker, in whose court of Champagne Joinville had acquired his delightful mode of speech. Then, again, came the call of the East. Jaffa and Antioch had fallen to Islam, and the condition of the Oriental Christians was heartrending. Louis IX could not resist their cry for aid. In 1270, twenty-two years after his first departure from Aigues-Mortes, the king sailed again from that half-finished fort by the dead waters. Joinville was not with him, for he was needed by his "little people," an excuse which his friend acknowledged. The crusaders had scarcely landed on the coast of Africa when plague struck them down. First died Tristan, the son born to St. Louis in the sorrowful, earlier days in Egypt. Then the saint-king himself passed away; and on his lips was the prayer that his race might learn to despise the prosperity of this world and not to fear adversity, and that France might never deny the name of Christ. The night before he died they heard him singing, "_Nous irons en Jerusalem_," the holy city he had never seen, the aspiration, the magic name that stirred those strong generations.[96] Before the century closed the Church canonized him. "House of France," announced the pope, "rejoice to have given the world so great a prince, and to heaven so great a saint. People of France, rejoice to have had so great a king." "If ever the golden age of the good old times existed," wrote Sainte-Beuve, "it certainly was under St. Louis, and it is by the pen of Joinville that it exists for us. They believed then in their king, they believed above all in their God, as if God were present in the smallest occurrences of daily life." In the _Histoire de St. Louis_ by Jean, sire de Joinville, there is not a mawkish note, and considering what happens to too many saints in their biographies, it must be acknowledged that the seneschal accomplished a feat. As depicted by his contemporaries, Louis IX is so convincingly himself that later efforts to stereotype him as the sacristan's ideal of piety have failed. His "pleasant manner of speech seasoned with wit" had nothing of the prig in it. From his childhood to his deathbed of ashes in ancient Carthage (birthplace of his favorite Augustine), St. Louis possessed a direct personal touch with God. "_Beau Sire Dieu, garde-moi mes gens!_" he rose at night to petition with insistent outstretched arms when, in Egypt, the "Greek fire" was hurled into the Christian camp. And Joinville, who had a wholesome dread of the Saracens' projectiles, turned to rest, feeling secure while such prayers were beseeching Heaven. Louis IX was a tireless student of the Bible and works of the Church Fathers. He had a passion for the liturgy. The number of hours which he spent in prayer has roused the sarcasm of our indifferent generation. His hours before the Tabernacle bore fruit in deeds. His temper was naturally quick, and he had a keen sense of irony, but his friend, the seneschal, was able to bear witness, at his canonization process, that in an intimacy of over twenty years never had he heard a word of disparagement of others fall from the king's lips. "There was something in the mere sight of him that found a way to the heart and affections," wrote one who knew him; "the eyes of a dove," said another. "He seemed pierced to the heart with pity for the unfortunate," wrote Queen Marguerite's chaplain who had daily intercourse with him. An observant Italian who saw the king on his way to his first crusade described the something of rare refinement and grace in his bearing. Not a touch of self-consciousness was in Louis; barefooted, in a white tunic, he carried the Crown of Thorns through the streets of Paris. In his sublime other-worldliness, he bathed the feet of beggars, dressed the sores of lepers, and when he felt that his soul needed it he scourged himself. And at the same time he was a model of knightly prowess, who many a time had fought For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field, Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens.[97] At the battle of Mansourah, Joinville saw the king, "the most beautiful of men," to his eyes, fair, gallant, in stature head and shoulders above those around him, defend himself alone with great slashing sword cuts from the onslaught of six paynims. He was a true _prud'homme_, a name for which he had a weakness, for to be a _prud'homme_ meant to be a knight, not only bodily, but in one's soul. Side by side with his other-worldliness went a sound practical sense. When his son-in-law, Thibaut V of Champagne, gave overgenerously to a monastery in Provins, all the while that he was in debt, St. Louis asked him was it fair to bestow alms with other people's money. His personal tastes were unostentatious, but he held court sumptuously when the occasion required, and he advised his lords to dress well so that their wives would love them better. He was ever human; when word came to him in Palestine that the mother he adored had died in France, he shut himself away from sympathy for two days, then sent for the friend he loved best. As Joinville approached, the king opened his arms to him with the cry, "Ah, seneschal, I have lost my mother!" Joinville has recounted a scene which took place between him and his friend, that is one of the fairest things in literature, slight episode though it is. In council, in Palestine, the barons urged the king to return to France. Almost alone, Joinville held out against such a course while their retainers were still unredeemed from captivity. For he remembered how a knight of his family had admonished him: "You are going beyond the seas. Be careful how you come back. For no knight, rich or poor, can return an honored man if he leaves in Saracen hands the humble folk of Our Lord with whom he started forth." The king listened in silence at the council, and in silence sat through the banquet that followed, paying no heed to Joinville, who was placed by his side. The seneschal, saddened by what he thought to be his friend's displeasure, was standing alone, leaning against a casement, thinking that when the others returned to France, he would join the Prince of Antioch, his cousin, till another crusade came to deliver the "little people of the Lord" unransomed still in Egypt. As he leaned against the window bars he felt friendly arms laid about his shoulders: "Have done, Monseigneur," he cried, thinking it was one of the barons come to mock him, "leave me in peace." Then the loving hands slipped over his face and he recognized the emerald ring worn by the king. The dear words of mock reproach: "What you, the youngest, dare advise me against all the great and the wise men of France? Tell me, you think I would do wrong in leaving?" Then sturdy Joinville, who paints his friend, too, by the confession, "Never did I lie to him," made answer, "Yes, Sire, as God is my aid." "And if I stay, will you stay?" asked the king. The bloom of the exquisite moment has come to us across the dividing centuries because Joinville was not thinking of making a book when he wrote his reminiscences. His object was to have others understand the gracious distinction, the tender familiarity with him of this king-crusader whom he loved and who loved him. Written artlessly, and in entire good faith, his book is full of that indefinable quality called charm. The seneschal's honest heart is in its infinitely precious pages. In that other early monument of French prose, the grave Villehardouin rises to the historian's plane in depicting the Fourth Crusade. Joinville cannot be said to have taken in the Sixth Crusade as a whole; he muddles the battle scenes; he digresses to right and to left in idle details, then catches himself up with happy ease, as if saying, "Dear me! I forgot to mention," imparting to his chronicle an inimitable quality all its own. No one would have Joinville different. Amiable, jocund, unaffected, the soul of honor, candor itself, he does not fear to acknowledge that he could tremble with fright in battle despite his stalwart six feet and over. He beguiled his captivity by trying to convert a Mohammedan by highly colored descriptions of hell. He whiled away the long hours in Syria in composing a treatise of theology, a _Credo_, wherein he warns every _prud'homme_ to hold on to God with both arms lest that felon, the devil, come between. And the two arms by which a man was to hold on to God were Faith and Good Works. "You must have both, if you wish to keep God: one without the other is worthless," warns the young seneschal. No quibbling then! Joinville had also that quality which the French term _enjouement_, hard to translate, a playful, most lovable frankness, a mocking vivacity which was for St. Louis a source of relaxation. The king loved conversation; he thought there was no book so good as _quolibet_, or say what you please. Some Armenian pilgrims besought of the seneschal a glimpse of the saint-king. Joinville came merrily to tell his friend, warning him that he, the seneschal, was not yet prepared to kiss his bones. And the king laughed, too, but because he knew it would give the devout Armenians pleasure, he accorded them an interview. Stroke by stroke, Joinville filled in the picture of Louis IX, and all the while he unconsciously paints himself as well. He is so eager to make you love his hero that you learn to love himself. A tear is always close to the eye in reading Joinville, not that what he relates is sad, but because this story of a high soul, written by his loyal friend, touches things that lie deep in all true hearts. Joinville was to survive his friend for half a century. He died in 1317. With a character ripened by six years of intimacy with the _bon saint-homme roy_, he came back from the East and set himself to work for his people's welfare, the "little people of the Lord" by whom he had stood in their hour of need. He was then but thirty. In his old age he was the accepted arbiter of good taste, admired as the last of a generation of courtesy. When over ninety, this vigorous old crusader rode into Flanders on a military expedition for the crown. He had seen the reigns of six French kings and the passing away of the crusader's spirit. He had seen his own Champagne become a part of the royal domain, when the heiress Jeanne was married to the grandson of St. Louis. And it was at the bidding of that queen of Philippe-le-Bel that Joinville wrote down his memories of Louis IX. France has high advocates to plead for her before the Throne in hours of national peril. Jeanne d'Arc said that she saw St. Louis petitioning God in the dire hour of foreign invasion. "May they never deny Thy name," prayed the saint-king at Tunis, as he rendered "his pure soul unto his captain, Christ, under whose colors he had fought so long." And in the men of 1914-18, true _prud'hommes_ after the heart of St. Louis and his dear friend Joinville, stirred the crusader blood of their ancestors. THE COLLEGIATE OF MANTES[98] The king was very well built, of easy bearing and smiling countenance, bald, high-colored, a great eater and drinker. Toward his friends he was most generous; toward those who displeased him he was very firm; in his designs he was foresighted and tenacious, very catholic in his beliefs, and he judged rapidly and with great perspicacity. Easy to arouse, he was also easy to appease. Upon the great who disobeyed him he was hard, and he enjoyed sowing discord among them, and to make use of the little people in his purposes.--Portrait of Philippe-Auguste by a canon of St. Martin, Tours. [Illustration: _Notre Dame of Mantes (1160-1200). The Contemporary of Paris Cathedral_] From Paris can best be visited the cathedral-like collegiate at Mantes on the Seine to the east, and the cathedral of Meaux on the Marne to the west. Mantes-la-Jolie, the "well-beloved" city of Philippe-Auguste, and where he died in 1223, is set picturesquely above the Seine, in whose widened course are wooded islands. From the bridge crossing the river[99] may be had the best view of the town. The collegiate church of Notre Dame stands above the houses of the pleasant little city, in the high-shouldered way of many a French church. Happily, it has never been reconstructed. It has various traits in common with Notre Dame of Paris, and some think that the same architect planned both. Mantes' Primary Gothic church was begun about 1160, at the same time as the cathedral in the capital, but, being on a lesser scale, it was finished sooner, and thus appears more archaic. Normandy's Romanesque zigzag ornamentation was still retained, and the cells of certain vault sections show the hesitating rough work of masons as yet unpracticed. While the transverse arches are pointed, those of the diagonal-crossing ribs are round. Too wide an expanse of plain wall space was left between tribune and clearstory, for it was to take half a century longer before architects dared fill their entire upper wall with windows. Like Notre Dame of Paris, the tribunes open on the middle church by wide, graceful arches. And this smaller Notre Dame also has western towers that are connected by an open colonnade. The collegiate has no transept, and one recalls that neither had Paris Cathedral in its first plan. The flying buttresses here are among the first ever made. A striking feature of the exterior of the church is the row of little oculi that light the tribunes over the aisles, some of which have been changed to windows of Rayonnant tracery. The deep galleries once were entirely vaulted by transverse half cradles borne on low lintels, an experiment in masonry roofing first tried at Tournus, but which never became popular; at Caen the tribunes of the Abbaye-aux-Hommes had been vaulted by similar half cylinders whose axial lines were at right angles to that of the nave. The first Gothic rose window of big dimensions adorns the west façade of Mantes collegiate. It is what they call plate tracery--that is, the pattern is formed of voids, the window being a group of variously shaped openings, and not, as in bar tracery, a single opening with the pattern made by solids, or stone mullions. The western rose at Laon stands halfway between plate and bar tracery. Mantes' rose was the prototype for that at Chartres. Like most of the larger XII-century churches, the sexpartite system of vaulting was used. Mantes also followed Noyon and Senlis in having alternating piers and, like Noyon, it showed the Rhenish trait of a western transept, formed by the two lower stories of the towers and the westernmost bay of the middle vessel. Two of the portals are of the XII century, but the largest--the one under the south tower--was made by Raymond du Temple. And probably that same XIV-century architect of Charles V added the gracious chapel of Navarre which is among the best works of Rayonnant Gothic. In it are four charming statuettes of the donors, the princesses of Navarre, portrait work showing personal mannerisms. When the sister of the art-loving Valois king, Charles V, married Charles the Wicked (a scion of Capetian stock who was count in Évreux and king in Navarre) she brought the town of Mantes in her dowry, and it was probably her daughters who are sculptured in this chapel of Navarre--their gift to Mantes collegiate. On the site of the present church once stood a Romanesque edifice built by funds donated by William the Conqueror on his deathbed, to atone for his having set fire to the ancient church (1087). Angered by a coarse joke of the French king's, he had sworn his usual oath, "by the splendor and resurrection of God," that he would light a hundred thousand candles when he went to his churching Mass; so he marched against his tormentor and set fire to Mantes that lay in his path. For, as Mr. Henry Adams has picturesquely expressed it, "Mantes barred the path of Norman conquest in arms, as in architecture." As the corpulent Conqueror rode around the place, his horse stumbled, and from the injury then received he died in Rouen in a few weeks. That burning of Mantes by the Duke of Normandy and King of England has been called the prelude to the Hundred Years' War between France and England, whose actual span was from 1337 to 1453. And in a way Waterloo was its epilogue. The shoulder-to-shoulder fight of the ancient rivals, from 1914 to 1918, let us hope, has put the seal on their pact of peace. THE CATHEDRAL OF MEAUX[100] Ah, see the fair chivalry come, the companions of Christ! White Horsemen who ride on white horses, the Knights of God! They, for their Lord and their Lover have sacrificed All, save the sweetness of treading where He first trod! These through the darkness of death, the dominion of night, Swept, and they wake in white places at morningtide.... Now, whithersoever He goeth, with Him they go; White Horsemen who ride on white horses, oh, fair to see! They ride, where the Rivers of Paradise flash and flow, White Horsemen, with Christ their Captain: forever He! --LIONEL JOHNSON, _Te Martyrum Candidatus_.[101] To decipher Meaux Cathedral has been a student's _tour-de-force_, so early and unceasing have been its rebuildings. With Troyes and Séez, it was the only Gothic cathedral that had a flaw in its structure. Begun with the choir, in the last decades of the XII century, it still retained the Romanesque idea of deep galleries over the side aisles. Whether poor foundations were laid or whether the tribune vaults were made too cumbersome, the edifice gave signals of insecurity from the start. As the XIII century opened, the transept and that part of the nave near it were building with the tribunes still, although by that time such galleries had fallen into disuse. Repeated restorations delayed the works. Cracks continued to show until, about 1270, when the collapse of the whole church was threatened, a complete reconstruction was undertaken by Bishop Jean de Poincy. Already, in 1220, the choir had been redone and two more chapels added, making five apsidioles in all. In 1270 they demolished throughout the church the tribunes over the side aisles, and thus the aisles became twice their intended height. In the first three bays of the choir were retained the arches of the tribune, so that now certain bays of the choir aisles open on the central vessel by pier arcades surmounted by false-tribune arches. Striking effect is made in the nave by some giant cylinder piers whose height is double what was originally planned and whose capitals are gems of interpretative sculpture, vine leaf and fern. Much mechanical dexterity was shown in the recutting of piers and the elimination of the tribunes, but even now a few of the shorter columns are to be found embedded in the newer parts, and a few sections of the triforium show their primitive plan. By the time Meaux Cathedral was completed it was practically an edifice of the end of the XIII century. Its chief patroness was the queen of Philippe-le-Bel (St. Louis' grandson), the Jeanne of Champagne who brought that rich province to the Crown, as well as the kingdom of Navarre, the same princess who encouraged Joinville to write his reminiscences. The city of Meaux was in her dowry, and they say that her portrait was carved on a keystone of the choir. When she died, in 1305, she named the bishop of Meaux as her executor and donated a legacy to his church. A well-known XIV-century architect, Nicolas de Chaumes, worked on the west façade, two of whose portals are of that period, and one of the XV century. Unfortunately, use was made of a soft stone which time has sadly eroded. Flamboyant Gothic sculpture, with foliage in gracious disorder, appears in the western bays: the undulating flora of the XIV century, and the nervous, deeply indented, pointed leaves of the XV century when such complicated forms as the curly cabbage were taken as models. Wiser were the earlier sculptors who had interpreted and arranged their leaves with architectural fitness. The south portal of Meaux's transept must have had in mind St. Stephen's door of the cathedral at Paris. At Meaux the sculptured figures show certain mannerisms, such as the throwing out of one hip, a trait soon to be exaggerated. The carvings throughout the church were mutilated by the Huguenots in 1562, and from that date no further work was done on the edifice. One tower of the façade remains painfully stunted. The church of Meaux would stand well in the front rank of Gothic cathedrals were it not for certain flaws of proportion. Such exceptionally high side aisles call for a nave twice as long, and the clearstory appears dwarfed by the lofty pier arcades of the chevet. Yet though made piecemeal, and without uniformity of style in its main parts, Meaux possesses a unity of its own, and its effect as a whole is one of elegance and even radiance. The tomb of its greatest bishop is an immense slab of marble in the pavement of the choir. Bossuet devoted himself to his diocese for over twenty years (1681-1704). Frequently he preached in the cathedral built by the generosity of Jeanne of Champagne, the founder of the College of Navarre, where he had studied in his youth. There is something akin in Meaux Cathedral to the high soul and courtliness of Bossuet. The two most religious and national epochs in French history were the XIII and XVII centuries. Few churches in France present a better setting for a festival of solemn joy than the cathedral of Meaux. It is the church for _Noël_, for the white radiance of First Communion gatherings, for the _Te Deum_ of victory. Fitting is it that the victory of the Marne should here have become a personal heritage. At the very gates of Meaux came the turning of the tide on September 5, 1914, when the thunderous advance on Paris was suddenly arrested. The password for that day of miracle was "Jeanne d'Arc." Near by, on the Oureq, Jeanne's troubadour, Péguy,[102] fell on that same September 5th, he who had chanted prophetically: _Heureux ceux qui sont mort pour une juste guerre ..._ _Heureux les épis murs et les blés moissonnés,_ _Heureux ceux qui sont mort dans les grandes batailles,_ _Couchés dessus le sol à la face de Dieu._ Close to Meaux the battle raged outside, and the wounded, in bewildering numbers, were carried into the desolated town which lacked a civic head. The bishop of Meaux, Monseigneur Marbeau, stepped forth as the accepted leader, as in the time of those earlier invasions when the bishops of Gaul saved Latin civilization. Again, in 1918, the invader drew perilously near, and a second victory of the Marne swept back the avalanche. From the fields around the city forever will an invisible white army of martyrs swell this cathedral's _Te Deum_. In Meaux on the Marne, God will always be the omnipotent Lord God of Battles, the _Dominus Deus Sabaoth_ of the great hymn of thanksgiving.[103] [Illustration: _The Cathedral of Meaux, Viewed from the Nave's Aisle_] CHAPTER V Era of the Great Cathedrals, Chartres, Rheims, Amiens _I stood before the triple northern porch_ _Where dedicated shapes of saints and kings,_ _Stern faces bleared with immemorial watch,_ _Looked down benignly grave, and seemed to say:_ _"Ye come and go incessant, we remain_ _Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past._ _Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot_ _Of faith so nobly realized as this."_ --JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, _The Cathedral_. Of the four master cathedrals of France, that of Paris was begun first. Thirty years later, in 1194, the cornerstone of Chartres was laid, that of Rheims in 1211, and that of Amiens in 1220. In the case of Chartres, Rheims, and Amiens, rebuilding was undertaken when fire had destroyed their Romanesque cathedrals. All four of these great churches have the same patroness, Our Lady, "the glorious mother of God, our advocate against our enemy of hell"--thus those generations spoke of her of whom Dante chanted: "Lady, thou art so great, and hast such worth that if there be who would have grace, yet betaketh not himself to thee, his longing seeketh to fly without wings."[104] It is difficult for many a modern mind to understand the passion of spiritual chivalry felt by the generations that built cathedrals for her whom they called their sovereign lady, but unless some comprehension of that mystic ideal is grasped no complete sympathy for mediæval art is possible. Mr. George Santayana, who would renew our sense of the moral identity of all the ages, may see in the mediæval devotion to Our Lady a development of Platonic love, which he calls the transformation of the love of beauty into the worship of an ideal beauty, the transformation of the love of a creature into the love of God. All love is to lead to God. All true beauty leads to the idea of perfection, said Michael Angelo, who practiced Platonism, even as had Dante, who was of the very essence of the great scholastic century that built Chartres, Rheims, and Amiens. THE CATHEDRAL OF CHARTRES[105] Discipline is indispensable to art.--GEORGE SANTAYANA.[106] Chartres was Our Lady's shrine in a peculiar way, her "special chamber." A local tradition, so old that it reached back to the dimmest past, told of a prophecy concerning a virgin mother, pronounced by the Druids, a hundred years before the Christian era on the site where Chartres now stands, and in the cathedral first built on the revered spot the bishop retained a pagan well which from time immemorial had been honored by the populace. That Puits des Saints-Forts has been included in the crypt of each succeeding cathedral of Chartres. Finally some priggish XVII-century prelates looked with disfavor on the policy, advocated by the apostle of the gentiles, to make use of the ancient superstition for the spread of the true faith. So the pagan well was filled in, and trace of it was lost till M. René Merlet discovered it in 1900 and had it excavated. That Chartres was a meeting place of the Druids, we know from Cæsar, and the XIII-century sons of the Gauls, as if in souvenir, carved the druidical oak leaf freely upon the present cathedral. Is it fanciful to feel that in the grave forest stillness of Chartres' interior lingers much of the theocratic nostalgia that forever haunts the Celt? In druidic times priest, teacher, and lawmaker were honored above brute force of arms. The present crypt of Chartres includes part of the Gallo-Roman walls. The V-century Merovingian cathedral abutted on the city ramparts. Then came wars which in part demolished the town walls, so that the reconstructed church was able to extend itself beyond the ramparts. It was doubtless after the Norman inroads that was built, in the IX century, the chapel of St. Lupus which forms the core of the present crypt. The Carolingian cathedral of Chartres was destroyed by a terrible fire in 1020. Now, in 1020, the see of Chartres was occupied by one of the notable bishops of French history, Fulbert (1007-29), revered of the people, a scholar enamored of the life of study, though the events of that agitated age forced him to play an active part in the national life. Like Abbot Suger, he was of lowly extraction. He had studied in the cathedral school of Rheims, made notable by Archbishop Gerbert, who later became Sylvester II, the pope of the year 1000. Fulbert, too, like his master, was a versatile genius--doctor in medicine as well as theologian, and one of the first to take up the new musical system of the Benedictine Guy d'Arezzo. He made the cathedral school of Chartres a center of learning, and men who were to be the leaders of the age were his pupils. Like Socrates, he taught his disciples as they paced up and down the cathedral precincts. In his exhortations there was an appealing tenderness that had a singular power in moving men's hearts, and letters from his pupils still exist, complaining of the exile they felt when separated from him.[107] To rebuild his cathedral, Bishop Fulbert gave up his own revenues. Gifts poured in from the kings of England and Denmark, from the bishop's schoolmate of Rheims, the good and cultivated King Robert of France, from the Duke of Aquitaine, who donated the treasure accumulated in St. Hilary's abbatial at Poitiers. The work was pushed forward with such energy that after four years Bishop Fulbert was able to write that, by winter, his lower church would be vaulted. The present magnificent crypt under Chartres Cathedral is the very one built by St. Fulbert. It is the most extensive crypt in France. Its soundly constructed groin vaults stood firm when, two hundred years later, the upper church was destroyed by fire. In times of public calamity the people have fled to Fulbert's subterranean passages, and the devotion of generations has hallowed his shrine. If you would know the soul of this mystic cathedral, gather at dawn with the silent worshipers who choose that hour to kneel daily in the secluded intimacy of Notre-Dame-sous-Terre. The true hour for Chartres is not at noontime, when the tourists flock to the empty church, but in the morning with the dawn.[108] Fulbert's Romanesque cathedral was finished in the same XI century by St. Ives of Chartres, another born leader of the nation, who righted many abuses. He dared stand up against Philip I himself, because of the king's adulterous marriage with the beautiful Bertrada de Montfort, stolen from the Count of Anjou. The bishop wrote thus to the king, refusing to attend his wedding, "out of respect for my own conscience, which I wish to keep pure before God, and because I would retain the good repute by which a priest of Christ should honor himself before the faithful. I would rather be flung into the bottom of the sea, with a millstone round my neck, than be a stumbling block to the weak. Nor do I fail in the fidelity I owe you, in speaking thus to you, but rather I give you proof of it, for I believe that you are risking your immortal soul and are putting your crown in jeopardy." The king's answer was to throw him into prison and to pillage his church. Bishop Ives, in 1095, attended the preaching of the First Crusade at Clermont, after which he accompanied Urban II to the Council of Tours. Scarcely a big event of his day or a leading personage that he was unassociated with, and the three hundred of his letters which are extant form a valuable contribution to history. Twice was the exiled St. Anselm of Canterbury his guest, and in 1107 Paschal II--the pope who built the upper church of S. Clemente at Rome--stopped with him in Chartres. Bishop Ives had been a pupil at Bec, of the celebrated Lanfranc, so he was fully competent to keep up the prestige of his cathedral school. The Romanesque basilica, begun by Fulbert and finished by Bishop Ives, lasted for over two hundred years. The present northwest tower was started probably in 1134, when the nave's western bays had been damaged by fire. Following a pre-Romanesque tradition, the tower was placed a little distance before the church, apart from it, and so it remained for some ten years. Then, one day in June, 1144, the eloquent Bishop Geoffrey de Lèves, successor of St. Ives, was the guest of the abbot of St. Denis during the dedication of Suger's abbatial, and what he there saw of the new system of building made him determined to reconstruct his own church of Chartres. Being an excellent administrator, he was able to start the new works immediately. Within a year was begun the southwest tower of Chartres (1145), which many hold to be the most beautiful in the world. While it was building, the side aisles of Fulbert's basilica were lengthened to meet both western towers. That the one to the south never was intended to stand isolated is shown by the absence of windows on the two sides where it joins the church, whereas the tower to the north had windows on all four sides. While these works were in progress St. Bernard came to Chartres to preach the Second Crusade. He and Bishop Geoffrey had recently traveled together through Aquitaine, combating the Cartharist heresy. It was Geoffrey de Lèves who accompanied the future Louis VII to Bordeaux for his marriage with Aliénor of Aquitaine, and when the death of the king suddenly called Louis away, he left his bride in the care of the bishop of Chartres. Geoffrey was long the sincere defender of Abélard, though finally he disapproved of what was overhardy in his doctrine; with Peter of Cluny he held that the errors of the brilliant schoolman were of the head rather than the heart. Two often-quoted ancient records described the surge of religious fervor which raised the western end of Chartres Cathedral. In 1145 the archbishop of Rouen wrote to the bishop of Amiens to relate how the people of his diocese, knights and ladies, townspeople and peasants, went in a spirit of penitence to Chartres, there to help in the new work of Notre Dame. No one could join the pilgrimage who had not confessed, and renounced all enmities and revenges. As the quarries were some miles from the city, it was a heavy task to drag in the big stones. In that same 1145 Abbot Haimon of St. Pierre-sur-Dives in Normandy, wrote to some monks in England to picture the scenes at Chartres: "Whoever heard tell in times past of powerful princes brought up in honors and wealth, of noble men and women bending their proud necks to the harness of carts, and like beasts of burden dragging stones, cement, wood, to build the abode of Christ? And while men of all ranks drag these heavy loads--so great the weight that sometimes a thousand are attached to one wagon--they march in such silence that not a murmur is heard. When they halt by the roadside, only the confessing of sins, and prayer, humbly suppliant, ascend to God. If anyone is so hardened as to refuse to pardon his enemies, he is detached from the cart and refused companionship in that holy company. When they have reached the church they arrange the wagons about it like a spiritual camp, and during the whole night they celebrate the watch by hymns and canticles." It was not long after this wave of enthusiasm that the Portal Royal was begun, probably about 1155, though some have placed those three western doors earlier and some later. As they resembled the doors of St. Denis (now destroyed), they were made, doubtlessly, within ten or fifteen years of Suger's work. By 1175 cracks appeared in the new west foundations, and the three doors were moved forward, stone by stone, and placed on a line with the towers. In their first position, set back between the advancing towers, they had shown to better advantage, but it is to the advance of Chartres' western façade that we owe the preservation of its priceless glass and sculpture. At the time of these changes the bishop of Chartres was John of Salisbury (1176-80), perhaps the most learned man of his century, and certainly one of the wisest, sincerest, and most likable men who ever lived. In his works this humanist advocated a proper use of dialectics, as opposed to the sterile subtlety then increasing among scholars. His stand on the problem which agitated the thinkers then--how our ideas correspond to things existing outside our intellect--was one of moderate realism. Abélard had led up to such an outlook, and the scholastics of the XIII century, notably Aquinas, also classed themselves as moderate realists. John of Salisbury possessed what the French call _esprit_, and he poked some fun at the hair-splitting in the schools. Hebrew and Greek he knew, and his Latin was of good literary quality, which was rather an exception among scholastic writers. When Thomas Becket was raised to the see of Canterbury, his friend, John of Salisbury, became his chief adviser, and though the latter held principles equally firm, he endeavored to curb the primate's excess of zeal. Through the years of Becket's exile, John lived in France, returned with his archbishop to England, and witnessed his martyrdom in Canterbury Cathedral. At Sens he, too, must have watched with interest that cathedral building, being himself an artist and modeler in clay. Sens' archbishop, Guillaume de Champagne, admired the balanced character and solid scholarship of the Englishman, and after the Canterbury tragedy proposed him for the see of Chartres. No one could have appreciated better than John of Salisbury the strange charm and beauty of the column statues which one by one were moved to a new position at his cathedral's west doors while he governed this see. And no one was more fitted to comprehend the glory of the three XII-century windows, also dismounted and reset in those years, than John of Salisbury's successor at Chartres, his intimate of many years past, Pierre de Celle, who, while abbot of St. Remi at Rheims, had adorned the lovely Primary Gothic choir he built there with admirable colored lights. The south tower was crowned with its mighty spire in his day, and he paved the streets of Chartres and raised the town walls. Both these best types of scholastic authors were interested in maintaining the high repute of their cathedral school. As Pierre de Celle died in 1183, he was spared the sight of his cathedral's destruction. On the night of June 10, 1194, a terrible conflagration wiped out Fulbert's Romanesque basilica. To its cavernous crypt the clerks bore the treasured relics, and after three days emerged, when the fire was spent. Only the crypt and the more recent west façade, with its two towers, escaped destruction; the north tower at the time still lacked its upper stories. On the smoking ruins the pope's legate made an appeal to the people's generosity, and once again Chartres presented the devotional scenes of 1145. Bishop and canons gave up three years of their revenue, and pious confraternities dragged in the big stones. Those passionate rivals, Richard Coeur-de-Lion and Philippe-Auguste, were donors. Thus every part of Chartres Cathedral has been raised by the hands and hearts of faith, and surely the personality which builders impart to their work breathes here in a piety of the soul that not all the science of later times has ever been able to simulate. _Non est hic aliud nisi Domus Dei et porta coeli._ The new cathedral went forward apace; early in the XIII century the big west rose was added to the much-transformed façade. By 1224 the upper vaulting was entirely closed in. The formal dedication was postponed till 1260, to allow for the completion of the two elaborate porches before the transept's doors. To that delayed consecration came St. Louis and his court. The name of the architect of Chartres is unknown, but its unity of plan is proof that it emanated from the brain of one man. The choir had double aisles, the nave a single one. It is believed that to the absence of side chapels in the nave is due the exceptionally good acoustic properties of this church in which the preacher's voice carries to every part. Unknown, too, is the architect of the tower built in the dawn of Gothic art, two generations before the present cathedral. The veriest amateur as he gazes at it is conscious that he has before him one of the supreme things of France. The more closely the _clocher vieux_ is analyzed, the more it becomes a touchstone by which will be judged other towers. A miracle of just gradation, it sprang in one jet from the brain of a man of genius. With a pleasurable sense of harmony the eye travels from the base to the tip of the spire. Proportion, not ornament, is the secret of its transcendent influence. The width is right--and so many towers fail there--the division of the stories is right, and radiantly right is that crucial point, the transition from the vertical square shaft to the inclined octagonal spire, accomplished here by means of dormers and turrets. An innovator was the architect of Chartres' belfry when he placed open windows in the gables. To obviate any monotonous optical effect, he made a ridge down each inclined plane of the spire, which spire is a massive pyramid forming almost half of the tower's height. Its bare nobility surpasses the richer open stonework of the spire to the north. [Illustration: _The Cathedral of Chartres (1194-1240). The Southern Aspect_] It is confusing that the north tower at Chartres façade should be called the _clocher neuf_ because of its Flamboyant Gothic upper stories, for its lower Romanesque parts were built before the _clocher vieux_. When towers were rising in every part of France as the XVI century opened, the chapter of Chartres Cathedral invited a local architect, Jean de Texier, called Jean de Beauce,[109] to complete their truncated northern tower, whose temporary top had just been consumed by fire. Jean de Beauce saw that the XIII-century rose window had crowded the south belfry. While the rose was making, a new story had been added to the north tower. To that tower he decided to add still another story before he topped it with an elaborate lacework spire. In consequence the _clocher neuf_ is out of all proportion to its mate. Nor does it carry the eye smoothly from soil to tip; its renewals are abrupt. However, if it lacks subtlety, its crown is none the less a strikingly effective monument of the final phase of Gothic architecture. The spire is adjusted to the shaft by means of little flying buttresses which spring from the angle and face turrets, and help to unify the design. Some human vanity the north tower of Chartres displays, but no arrogant pride, no Renaissance pretentiousness. And in the inscription commemorating its renewal still breathes the reverential, loving, personal note of the Middle Ages: "I was once built of lead, till after the fire on the feast of St. Anne, six o'clock in the evening, 1506, Messires the Chapter ordered me rebuilt in stone. In my necessity good people helped me. May God be gracious to them." Under his belfry tower, Jehan de Beauce built a pretty pavilion to regulate its chimes. Sculptor as well as architect, he designed the sumptuous screen about the choir, on whose exterior wall is portrayed the life of Our Lord in groups made during seven generations. The oldest and best scenes are those in the south aisle nearest the transept. The mystery plays gave to the iconography of the late XV century its realistic character. In these sculpture panels at Chartres, not only were the costumes of the religious theater copied, but the stage settings. A group was represented in a room, whereas in earlier work the sacred personages "stood with a sort of spiritualized detachment, clad in the long tunic of no country, of no time, the very vestment itself for the life eternal."[110] One of the earlier scenes of Chartres' choir screen presents Our Lady seated in the cosiest of interiors, like a XVI-century housewife, a reticule by her side and a chaplet, which last touch was a charming anachronism. She sews serenely while poor distracted St. Joseph dreams. A complete contrast to this human Virgin Mother is a XIII-century lancet across the aisle from it--the much-venerated Notre-Dame-de-la-belle-verrière, a mother of God, the austere symbolic Throne of Solomon, almost uncanny in her solemn passiveness. In some of the later groups sculptured on the outer walls of the choir screen appears the icy hand of the Renaissance, though the setting remained Gothic throughout. The two decorative glories of Chartres Cathedral are its sculptured portals and its wealth of stained glass, "an assemblage unique in Europe, the thought of the Middle Ages made visible." Though over ten thousand personages are represented, decoration is kept subordinate to structure with an instinct for discipline inherent in the best Gothic art. For the archæologist, the three western doors are of prime importance, last of the Romanesque, first of the Gothic portals, call them whichever you wish. To speak of a transition is to be metaphysical, employing words for what has no existence in reality, since there was no break in the sequence of sculpture from the first imaged portals of French Romanesque art, at Beaulieu, Moissac, Autun and Vézelay to those at Le Mans and Chartres, and to that masterpiece of Gothic sculpture, the portal of Our Lady under the northwest tower of Paris Cathedral. For the making of his three western doors at Chartres, Bishop Geoffrey de Lèves must have obtained workers from his friend, Abbot Suger of St. Denis. Archaic enough seem these kings and queens with their strange, haunting faces, their slim, parallel feet, with their slender figures more architectural than sculptural as they stand against the pillars to which they conform, yet none the less they show freedom from the stereotyped Byzantine traditions. The attitudes are less rigid than in previous column statues, and personality is dawning in the faces. The Madonna is own sister of the Eastern empress of St. Anne's door at Paris, made about fifteen years later under Bishop Maurice de Sully. The "celestial portal" of Chartres portrayed the life of Christ from his birth to his ascension. At the northern doors of the transept was set forth the Creation, to the coming of the Messiah, and Our Lady was especially honored. And the southern portal commemorated from the coming of the Lord to his second advent at the Last Judgment. It was the custom to represent this last scene at the west façade, where it might be illumined by the setting sun of the world's final day, the _dies iræ_ long dreaded. But since the west portal of Chartres had followed a Romanesque tradition by carving in its place of honor a Christ in the elliptical aureole of eternity, accompanied by the symbols of the four evangelists, the Last Judgment was relegated to the transept's south entrance. Between the two lateral portals of Chartres there is little choice. In them Gothic sculpture appears in full bloom. Each is a national heritage. In the first plan of the transept the entrances lacked their magnificent porches begun as afterthoughts (about 1240), but so well adjusted to the doors that they appear to be of the same date. Among the seven hundred statues at the northern entrance, some show that they were portrait studies, but it is mere hypothesis to give names to them. Not a statue was placed haphazard. A prearranged dogmatic scheme was consistently followed, since to the mediæval mind art was before all else a teacher. Our Lady stands at the central door, accompanied by ten big figures representing Melchisedek, Abraham, Moses, Samuel, and David on her right, and Isaac, Jeremiah, Simeon, John the Baptist, and St. Peter on her left. They are the patriarchs who prefigured her Son and the prophets who foretold Him, and the two who witnessed His coming, one as foreteller, the other to be His symbol in the future. Each personified a period of history: "Fathers of the people, pillars of humanity, contemporaries of the first days of the world, they seem to belong to another humanity than ours. They are to be counted among the most extraordinary images of the Middle Ages." It is inevitable that M. Mâle be quoted on all points of mediæval iconography. Usually under each large statue was carved a pedestal scene having some connection with it. Thus beneath the Queen of Sheba is a negro; beneath Balaam, his ass. At the south porch, under St. Jerome, translator of the Bible, is the Synagogue with bandaged eyes, and under St. Gregory the Great is a crouching scribe, who cranes his neck to see the saint, for the legend was that one day as the pope dictated to his secretary, a long pause came, and the scribe peeped through the curtain that hung between them and saw a dove perched on the saint's shoulder, symbolic of the Holy Spirit directing him. St. George and St. Theodore garbed as crusaders are the only youthful images at the south porch, and must have been studied from some of St. Louis' knights. At her entranceways Chartres set forth the calendar of months in small medallioned allegories, and here and at Amiens, Paris, and Rheims was given a complete system of moral philosophy through the contrast of virtues with vices. On the north façade of Chartres is carved "Libertas" under the image of a virtue. Bishop John of Salisbury would have approved this: "For there is nothing more glorious than freedom," he wrote, "save virtue, if indeed freedom may be rightly severed from virtue, for all who know anything know that true freedom has no other source." In structural technique the fenestration of Chartres was a stride forward, and both the cathedrals of Paris and Soissons learned immediately from its clearstory arrangement--the first attempt to fill with colored glass the entire space between the active wall shafts. "In certain parts of the cathedral of Chartres," says M. Mâle, "is a magnificent amplitude, a superabundance of power. Each of the nave's windows is surmounted by an immense rose as wide as the bay, a conception as proud as ever an architect realized. It is one of those flashes of genius such as came to Michael Angelo. Those great orbs of light, those wheels of fire that dart sparkling rays are one of the beauties of the cathedral."[111] Notre Dame has preserved over two hundred of the ancient, imaged windows. The oldest and the best are three large lancets under the western rose which, like the Royal Portal beneath them, are the work of Suger's craftsmen who came here from St. Denis. One of these noted windows relates the childhood of Christ, another His Passion and Resurrection, and the third is a tree of Jesse, similar to one in St. Denis.[112] The iron bars supporting the sheet of glass do not conform to the outline of the medallions, hence it is somewhat more difficult to decipher the scenes than in XIII-century work. None the less, these, the oldest windows of the cathedral, are the peer of any colored glass ever made, because of their inherent genius for decorative effect and their conscientious workmanship. Many a pen has tried--in vain--to describe the marvelous deep blue which blends together the other colors--the streaky ruby, the emerald green, the sea-green white, the brownish purple and pink, the yellow pot metal. Even after the opening of the XIII century the St. Denis school exerted influence, as is shown by the Charlemagne-Roland windows in Chartres' ambulatory, whose outline was taken from a crusader window of Suger's abbey. The majority of Chartres' windows belong to the early XIII century, when the city was mistress of the vitrine art and supplied the cathedrals of Bourges, Rouen, Sens, Laon, Auxerre, Tours, Le Mans, Poitiers, and even Canterbury. In the nave's north aisle, the St. Eustace window (the third) is held to be of faultless artistry. The large lancets which light the aisles scintillate as with precious jewels. Only some five or six have floral scrolls filling the spaces between the medallions and the deep border that surrounds each window; in France a geometric pattern for such interstices was more frequent. At the base of each window is what is called its signature--a medallion which usually represents the avocation of the donors, whether kings, knights, priests, butchers, shoemakers, furriers, or water carriers. Thus below the Charlemagne-Roland windows tradesmen display rich fur mantles, and we know that the _pelletiers_ were the donors. Splendid were the gifts of the old artisan guilds. The tanners presented an apse-chapel window in honor of St. Thomas Becket, the vintners one that related the story of Noe, planter of vines. An overpowering sensation it must have been for those mediæval workmen to worship beneath the vaults they themselves had helped to build, under the windows they had contributed. Kings and knights were their fellow donors, but in the cathedrals of France the gifts of the lowly were the most plentiful, a Christian quality which endured till the XVI-century disunion. To Chartres St. Louis gave a window in honor of St. Denis, patron of his kingdom. The splendid red northern rose, "The Rose of France," is a glorification of Our Lady. The donjons of Castile adorn it in honor of the queen regent. Directly opposite is the big south rose presented by Blanche's enemy, Pierre Mauclerc, who tried to kidnap Louis IX from his mother, but who was to die fighting the infidels under his cousin the king, as did Pierre de Courtenay, another donor of a window at Chartres. Pierre de Dreux, it is said, began the porch before the southern entrance to commemorate his marriage with the heiress of Brittany, a granddaughter of Henry II, Plantagenet. Like every door of this church of the resplendent entranceways, it is a mass of sculpture. Mauclerc was grandson of the builder of St. Yved at Braine, and brother of Archbishop Henri de Dreux, who donated windows to his cathedral at Rheims. Below the Dreux rose at Chartres, four of the Prophets are borne on the shoulders of the four Evangelists, for never could those generations, enamored of symmetry, resist the opportunity to weave together the Old and New Testaments. A first cousin of St. Louis, Ferdinand III, the saint-conqueror of Seville and Cordova, donated to Chartres a window commemorating the patron of Spain. Three times was St. James honored here, so popular was the Santiago Compostela pilgrimage. St. Martin and St. Nicolas of Bari are also commemorated, the former some seven times, for it pleased the voyagers to noted shrines to record their travels. By pilgrimages French art and song spread in Italy and Spain. Single monumental figures of prophet or saint were used in the clearstory windows instead of small medallions, which would be indistinct when viewed at such a height. Although most of the windows in the cathedral belong to the XIII century, the XV century is represented in the Vendôme chapel, begun in 1417 by Louis de Bourbon, an ancestor of Henry IV. Much white was then employed for the better lighting of the church, and the straight saddle-bars of Suger's time were again made use of. No attempt was made for perspective in the earlier glass, which was treated like a translucent mosaic: relief was obtained by the skilled juxtaposition of tones. The old workers had taught themselves many of the secrets of optics. They knew that designs on a background of blue--an expansive color--should be larger than those on red--an absorbent. They knew that blue was a sedative, that red excited the vision, and that yellow stopped contours, hence it was to be employed in borders. It is not of technique that one thinks when standing face to face with the windows of Chartres. "Create in me a new heart, O God!" one murmurs when gazing at them. When at noon the sun renders the colors dazzling and bewildering, the cathedral seems to be chanting "_Sanctus! Sanctus! Sanctus!_" with the seraphim proclaiming that the whole earth is full of the glory of the Lord. Live coals from heaven's high altar are the windows of Chartres, then, cleansing us of our iniquities; and seeing with our eyes we see, and hearing with our ears we hear, and understanding with our heart we comprehend the vision and are converted and healed. When evening blots out the rest of the church, and in luminous obscurity the windows hang ethereally in space, they are psalms of intercession and penitence. To gaze at such windows is to pray, think the Levites who serve in this temple. At sunset it is no unusual sight to see a young student of theology seated with his back to the choir, his forgotten breviary open on his knee, gazing spellbound at the western lancets, in his face a rapt reverence, indicating that his soul is in prayer. Each evening the windows of Abbot Suger's craftsmen hymn the suave and lovely _Te Lucis ante_ which ushers in night's purity. A mediæval cathedral was designed for the Real Presence, and without that soul of all ritual it stands bereft. Windows such as Chartres' proclaim the miracle of the Tabernacle as symbolically as do those pillars of humanity sculptured by the northern doors, Melchisedek and Peter, types of the Christ, each holding a chalice, or as do the transept's outspread arms that recall the sacrifice on Calvary, renewed daily in the sacrifice of the Mass. That Chartres Cathedral has preserved its wealth of colored glass is proof that it came gently through the ages; moreover, it was constructed solidly, being a pioneer in the use of flying buttresses with double arches united by an arcature. Its lower walls never were weakened by the insertion of side chapels, those customary XIV-century additions. That academic period built at Chartres merely the semi-detached chapel of St. Piat, to which a stair ascends from the ambulatory. In the XVIII century some well-intentioned but misguided canons of the cathedral lined their sanctuary with neo-classic marbles and stucco, and cluttered the plain wall spaces over the pier arches with needless ornament. In the time of the Revolution, the entire demolition of the big church was proposed, but happily the embarrassment of how to dispose of such a mountain of stone prevented the vandalism. Lead was stripped from the roof to make bullets and pennies. In the XIX century the vast timber covering of the masonry vaults, called _la forêt_, was burned, but the new steep-pitched roof covered with lead has taken on a greenish hue that blends well with the ancient gray stones. The easy hill of the town serves as pedestal for Chartres Cathedral. Walk through the little city, whose air of cold propriety is very typical of French provincial life, pass through the Porte Guillaume, and from the boulevard beside the stream study the chief edifice of this Beauce which is "the granary of France." Observe how salient are the transept arms. Another Romanesque trait is the placing of two towers--unfinished here--between choir and transept. What Huysmans called the _maigreur distinguée_ of youth is a characteristic of this church. In Rheims, the next begun of the big Gothic cathedrals, is no trace of youth's structural plainness. As you sit by the stream watching Notre Dame of Chartres, its Flamboyant Gothic tower, perfect of its kind, seems to ride imperiously over the nave; none the less it will be the weather-beaten southwest tower on which the eye will linger longest. Though it was designed to accompany a church of lesser proportions, though it labors under the disadvantage of being overtopped by its sister beacon, nothing can diminish its unparalleled unity. Virile, virginal, aërial, majestic, venerable in youth and youthful in its venerable age, the _clocher vieux_ of Chartres is one of the supreme things of the national art, "full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing." THE CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS[113] The nation that made a compact with God at the baptismal font of Rheims will be converted and will return to her first vocation. Her errors may not go unpunished, but the child of such virtues, of so many sighs, of so many tears, will not perish. A day will come, and we hope it may not long tarry, when France, like Saul on the road to Damascus, will be enveloped in a supernal light whence will proceed a voice, asking: "Why persecutest thou me? Rise up and wash the stains that disfigure thee. Go, first-born of the Church, predestined nation, race of election, go carry as in the past my name before all the peoples and before all the kings of the earth."--Address of POPE PIUS X, in 1912, to the visiting French cardinals. The other two of the four great cathedrals have no setting equal to the hill pedestal of Chartres or to the river island of Notre Dame of Paris. Seldom is a French cathedral surrounded by the pleasant precincts and cloisters preserved by the English minsters, and Rheims Cathedral is no exception in its abrupt rise from flat city streets. Its druidical massiveness can easily dispense with a pedestal. Rheims imposes itself. Even in the night its prodigy of magnificence endures. "The huge bas-relief is always there in the darkness," wrote Rodin. "I cannot distinguish it, but I feel it. Its beauty persists. It triumphs over shadows and forces me to admire its powerful black harmony. It fills my window, it almost hides the sky. How explain why, even when enveloped in night, this cathedral loses nothing of its beauty? Does the power of that beauty transcend the senses, that the eye sees what it sees not?... _O Nuit! tu es plus grande ici que partout ailleurs!_"[114] The "masters of the living stone" who built Rheims Cathedral are known to us to-day. Their names were commemorated in a labyrinth that once formed part of the nave's pavement, a drawing of which has been unearthed by M. Louis Demaison. The obliterated figure in the middle of the labyrinth no doubt represented the bishop who laid the foundation stone. He was Albéric de Humbert, formerly archdeacon of Notre Dame at Paris while the bishops Maurice and Eudes de Sully were raising that cathedral. Builder and crusader, Albéric was a true product of his age. He marched into Languedoc, in 1208, to chastise the Albigensian heretics; he attended Innocent III's great Council of the Lateran in 1214, and when he ventured again to the East to take part in the crusade of Jean de Brienne, he was captured by Saracens and ransomed by the Spanish knights of Calatrava. He died on the return journey, 1218. For a man of such energy, it could have been with slight regret that he witnessed, in May, 1210, the destruction by fire of the decrepit church he had inherited, one of whose builders had been Archbishop Hincmar in the IX century. That early cathedral of Rheims had been redressed with a façade by Archbishop Sampson, a friend of Abbot Suger's, and among the prelates who attended the memorable dedication of St. Denis. His Primary Gothic work, wiped out in the conflagration of 1210, was a loss indeed for art. Bishop Albéric de Humbert set vigorously to work, and within a year of the fire had laid the corner stone of the present cathedral (1211). By 1241 services were held in the finished choir. An archbishop of the Dreux line (1227-40) gave windows to the upper apse, and although he and the townsfolk were at bitter odds, the building of the great church by both prelate and people went on unabated. The imperious Henri de Dreux, like Pierre Mauclerc, the donor of Chartres' south rose, was a grandson of that brother of King Louis VII who built the beautiful church of St. Yved at Braine on the highway between Rheims and Soissons. While the cathedral of Rheims was building, another of its archbishops was a Joinville, and in 1270 its sixtieth ruler died on St. Louis' last crusade. The plan of the cathedral was made by Jean d'Orbais, who had watched the erection of the abbatial (1180) in his native town of Orbais,[115] a church modeled on the choir of St. Remi which the celebrated schoolman Pierre de Celle had built from 1170 to 1180. Thus Orbais is the intermediary between the big abbey church of Rheims and Rheims Cathedral. For twenty years Jean d'Orbais directed the works at Rheims, so stated the inscription in the labyrinth; and on his death Jean de Loup became directing architect for sixteen years (1231-47), during which the transept and its portals were constructed. The third architect, Gaucher de Rheims (1250-59), began the west portals and worked on the nave. In his precious notebook, Villard de Honnecourt sketched a bay of the nave before 1250. The fourth master-of-works at Rheims, whose name was inscribed in the labyrinth, was Bernard de Soissons. He worked here for thirty-five years; the inscription states that he made five bays of the nave--no doubt the westernmost ones--and that he opened the big O, the rose window of twelve mammoth petals that flowers in the west façade, and is one of the most beautiful designs of the age. By the end of the XIII century, therefore, Rheims Cathedral was completed in its main parts. Carried on with scarcely a pause, and always after the original plan of Jean d'Orbais, the great church kept its unity throughout. The first four architects who during a century had directed the works were succeeded by Robert de Coucy, to whom for a time was erroneously attributed the original plan, but who really continued to build the elaborate west façade. That frontispiece of Rheims Cathedral, with its cloud of witnesses, is a culmination of Gothic art. Some have called it a work of the XIV century, but the labyrinth, set in the pavement before Robert de Coucy's day, distinctly attributed the placing of the big rose window to Bernard de Soissons, who was in the city till 1298. Also a text of 1299 refers to one of the west towers, and the armor worn in the David-Goliath group of the gable is of the 1280 type. All critics acknowledge that the big statues of the portals belong in main part to the golden period of Gothic sculpture, and were done between 1250 and 1260.[116] The images under the southwest tower had been prepared about thirty years earlier, in the time of Jean d'Orbais. The façade of Rheims inspired many a later Gothic frontispiece--Meaux, Tours, Rouen, Troyes, and Abbeville. The cathedral went on perfecting itself in detail, and was nearing a complete finish when, four months after the raising of the siege of Orléans, Jeanne d'Arc brought her king to be crowned in the city where two hundred years earlier St. Louis had been anointed. Three gentlemen of Anjou wrote a letter to the queen of Charles VII, Marie of Anjou, and to her mother, Jolande of Aragon, to describe the ceremonies at Rheims on that fifth day of August, 1429. As the crown was set on the king's head trumpets rang out, till it seemed that the vaults would crack, and every man cried "_Noël!_" and drew his sword. A fair sight it was to see the gallant bearing of Jeanne the Maid as she stood by the king, holding the banner she cherished more than the sword. At her trial in Rouen even her standard was used against her. "Why," asked her judges, "was your banner carried into the church of Rheims to the consecration rather than those of the other captains?" And Jeanne made one of her ringing answers: "It had been in the fray, surely there was good reason it should be at the victory"--_à la peine ... à l'honneur_--her phrase was to become a proverb of France.[117] Jeanne liked fair play. In her army she would tolerate no pillage, nor eat of food which she thought had been so obtained. But then Jeanne had no _Kultur_. She was merely an unlettered peasant girl of the Middle Ages, who called it plain thieving to carry off household goods in an invaded country. For her good friends of Rheims _la bonne Lorraine_ kept a warm place in her memory, as her letter to them showed: "_Mes chiers et bons amis les bons et loyaulx Franxois de la cité de Rains, Jehanne la Pucelle vous faict à savoir de ses nouvelles ... je vous promect et certiffy que je ne vous abandonneray poinct_." Not many years after that national hour of rejoicing the cathedral of Rheims suffered a disaster which put a stop to further construction; henceforth only restorations went on. In 1481 some careless plumbers set on fire the timber overroof and the molten lead ran like a river into the streets. Many a citizen perished in the effort to check the flames. The stone roof of the cathedral stood firm, justifying those generations whose life struggle had been the problem how to cover their churches enduringly. Though all France contributed, the huge edifice was never to be crowned by the six spires of Jean d'Orbais' plan; yet even as it is, Rheims presents the ideal exterior of a Gothic cathedral. The main façade was made most appropriately a thing of pomp and circumstance, regal and gorgeous for the royal coronations. No need to hang such walls with tapestries for the feast. The three deep portals were united as one by means of an unbroken line of thirty or more large images, deriving from similar arrays at Chartres and Amiens, but possessing a pronounced indigenous genius. In the groups of the Annunciation and the Presentation the Blessed Virgin is a figure of spotless purity, meek and infinitely touching in her little mantle that falls in straight simplicity from her slender shoulders. "By humility the holy Virgin merited to become the mother of God," was the answer given by St. Isabelle of France, the only sister of St. Louis, when asked why she named her convent at Longchamp, L'Humilité-Notre-Dame. A very different Virgin is that in the Visitation group. She and St. Elizabeth are draped voluminously like stately Roman matrons. Those two statues (imitated by Bamburg Cathedral in 1280) must have been inspired by some work of antiquity, of which Rheims possessed a number. Classic influences in the imagery of northern France during the Middle Ages was transitory, however. First and last mediæval sculpture was a building-stone sculpture. In the eyes and on the lips of a few of the entranceway statues hovered a half-smile, a fleeting, rare expression which, long centuries before, the Greek sculptors preceding Phidias had achieved. Again, at the Renaissance, Da Vinci was obsessed by the same expression, "born of a miracle, meant to gladden men's souls forever." To-day, the angel image La Sourire stands headless at the portal under the north tower. Not only was the west frontispiece of Rheims unique, but its transept façades would have distinguished any cathedral. One of the three doors of the north façade is composed of fragments from a monument which had been in the Romanesque metropolitan burned in 1210. The middle door commemorates local saints, for cathedrals were historians and linked the generations with that continuance of tradition which makes the strength of a race. To honor their spiritual forefathers was held to be patriotism by those believing generations. At both west and north façades was an image of St. Nicaise, the eleventh bishop of Rheims, who had been martyred as he knelt by his cathedral door. Tradition relates that he was reciting the Psalmist's words, "My soul is bowed to earth," when the Vandals struck off his head, and that the severed head finished the verse: "Verify me, O Lord, according to thy word."[118] The fifteenth bishop (459-533), St. Remigius, apostle of the Franks, is honored by a statue. In the cathedral of his day he baptized Clovis, and thus made France the first orthodox Christian kingdom of the West, since Gaul's other conquerors had fallen into the Arian heresy. Many an archbishop of Rheims played a foremost part in the life of the nation. The military prowess of Turpin, the twenty-seventh prelate here, is related in the _Chanson de Roland_.[119] The forty-first archbishop was the learned Gerbert, who died Pope Sylvester II (1003). He made the cathedral school famous, among his pupils being the king's son and Bishop Fulbert of Chartres. One of the students in Rheims in that age was St. Bruno of Cologne, founder of the Carthusian Order. For long years he directed the cathedral school, guiding the people during the misrule of a scandalous archbishop. A pupil of his at Rheims became Urban II, who instigated the First Crusade. And a century later one of his ablest and holiest sons, St. Hugh of Avalon, built the cathedral choir of Lincoln, as well as its small transept, and part of the big transept--the oldest examples of Early-English Gothic. In 1180, the archbishop of Rheims, Guillaume de Champagne, crowned as king his nephew, Philippe-Auguste. Only those shepherds of the flock who attained to canonized sainthood were honored by statues at the church entrances. The Beau Dieu of Rheims of most benign majesty is the central image of the transept's northern façade. Surmounting it is a Last Judgment that speaks well for the honesty of the clerics whose pupils were the sculptors. Here at the king's own basilica, whither he came for the most brilliant hour of his life, was sculptured a crowned monarch, as the front figure, marching to hell, and behind him walked a bishop. No pharisees were the men of the XIII century. Sin was sin, and all men were equal before sin's punishment. There are statues on the towers of that same north frontispiece to which names have been given. One has been called Philippe-Auguste, and it certainly was a portrait study, whether or not it represented the most able monarch of the feudal ages, the victor of Bouvines, who tripled the area of France and under whom was begun almost every Gothic cathedral in the land. The name of his grandson, St. Louis, has been given to another image. In a niche of the façade stands a charming Eve holding a very mediæval serpent. One can merely indicate, in passing, the astounding wealth of Rheims--five thousand images whose verve and fecundity are marvelous. "If your heart is right, all creatures will be for you a book of holy doctrine," so they dared to carve clown, dog, cat, or sheep on pinnacle, or in hidden nook, and their flora was as generous as their fauna. A local botanist has found that every leaf growing to-day by the roadsides was reproduced in the cathedral. It was only natural that in Champagne the vine leaf should be popular; on one of the capitals of the nave a pleasant vintage scene is represented. If the gorgeous west approaches of the Cathedral-Royal were suited for earthly pageantry, its eastern end paid homage, in holier simplicity, to the Spiritual King. Around the exterior wall of the apse was set a guard of angels, each carrying an emblem of the Passion, or of its symbol, the Mass--chalice, censer, missal, spear--and the procession met at the Christ image placed in the center of the curving wall. The ordinance was derived from Byzantine art. Many an artist has said of the apse sculpture of Rheims that the Greeks can show no lovelier work. A few years later, more angelic thrones, dominations, and powers were set around this, the Cathedral of the Angels. A seraphic sentry adorned each buttress and at the same time increased its counterbutting force, and were agents toward the swifter grounding of the load. And now, having touched superficially on the exterior of this inexhaustible church, let us step inside its imaged doors. On the inner wall of the three western portals is an elaborate decoration found nowhere else. Tier upon tier of statues shrined in foliage-covered niches rise to the level of the triforium. Never has a wall been more glorified both within and without. Lavish leaf ornamentation forms the capitals of the piers. Each pier consists of a circular shaft cantoned by four lesser columns; the capitals of the latter are divided into two stories because their diameter is less--a skillful contrivance that solves the difficulty of grouping pillars of different sizes. [Illustration: _The Angel Apse of Rheims (c. 1220)_] The nave of Rheims was never weakened by the addition of side chapels, which always diminishes the integrity of an edifice. In fact, the lower walls[120] as well as the piers were made oversolid for what they bear, since it had not yet been learned how to apply exactly the right counterforce to the pressure of the vaulting. Amiens was to be the first to achieve that perfect equilibrium. The interior proportions of Rheims are harmonious; the side aisles are relatively right with the central vessel, and the nave leads up well to the sanctuary, which, inside and out, is beyond criticism. As a whole, however, the interior of this cathedral has not the slender upwardness of Amiens nor the ascetic holiness of Chartres. It stands more than it soars. It praises the deity in another fashion than does the mystic cathedral. The keynote here is a right-minded human splendor. Robust and majestic, this is the church for state pageants, the regal temple for national festivals. Alas! poor battle-worn Rheims! Alas for the _bons et loyaulx Franxois de la cité de Rains!_ Has Jehanne la Purcelle forgotten her promise never to abandon you? Mourant en plein martyre avec vivacité ... Masquant sous sa visière une efficacité ... Jetant toute une armée aux pieds de la prière.... So wrote the poet who fell on the field of honor, in September, 1914, of St. Jeanne, whose martyrdom was a victory; so he might have written of Rheims Cathedral. Again a sublime holocaust was needed for the saving of the soul of France. RHEIMS SINCE 1914 How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people. How is she become a widow, she that was great among the nations.--JERIMIAH: _Lamentations_. Designer infinite! Ah! must Thou char the wood e'er Thou canst limn with it? --FRANCIS THOMPSON, _The Hound of Heaven_. In the first days of September, 1914, after the battle of the Marne, the Germans evacuated Rheims, which they had occupied for little over a week. Before they quitted the city, some cans of inflammable liquids, with bundles of straw, were set on the roof of the cathedral, and there they were found and made note of officially by Frenchmen who ascended the towers to hang out the Red Cross flag. The destruction of Rheims Cathedral was planned deliberately and in cold blood it was carried out. No military excuse for the crime is possible, since General Joffre made a formal statement that at no time were the church towers used as posts of observation. From the heights a few miles away the enemy opened fire on the city. It is said that Baron von Plattenburg ordered the bombardment. General von Haeringen is also cited as an executioner of Rheims Cathedral. On September 17th and 18th the church was riddled with projectiles. Between dawn and sunset, on September 19th, over five hundred of them struck the mammoth church. About four o'clock on that fateful day, Saturday, September 19, 1914, the timber roof caught fire from an inflammable bomb. In less than an hour flames were devouring the wooden scaffolding which, by ill luck, because of repairs in progress, framed part of the edifice. Fire lapped and calcined the outer walls, obliterating the kings and the angels and the saints, wiping out all the loving handicraft of the old stonecutters. Once again molten lead ran in the streets of Rheims. Fire lapped the sculptured screen inside the western doors, and the lovely lavish chiseling has become a blurred, amorphous mass. Projectiles tore through the gaping windows and crashed against the opposite walls. Some of the burning timber from the overroof fell through the apertures of the vault's keystones and ignited the straw spread on the pavement for the wounded German soldiers who had been left behind when the invaders evacuated the city. Let an eyewitness relate the burning of Rheims Cathedral: "It stood enveloped in flames, one towering flame itself. Before the outrage something surged unchained at the root of our being. Our cathedral! Our hearts broke as we watched its desecration. An aged woman of the city intoned solemnly: 'This will bode them no good!' ('_Ca ne leur portera pas bonheur!_') We stood in groups watching with fierce anger the conflagration. We walked, we spoke, but like automatons, for our souls were groaning with anguish. Our cathedral! _Première page de France! Geste des aïeux! Legs des siècles devenant aujourd'hui, en ce poignant martyre, l'hostie nationale!_" Suddenly word came that the German wounded inside the church must be saved. The archpriest of the cathedral, Canon Landrieux (to-day a bishop), called for aid from the onlookers. He was answered by angry murmurs: "What! must we then risk our lives to save these bombarders of hospitals, these incendiaries of cathedrals?" Then a young girl's voice rose, trembling with tears: "_On est de France, nous autres!_" And instantly men stepped forward to aid the heroic priest save their enemies from the flaming furnace. Poor martyred Rheims! Its once illuminated western front is battered and corroded past restoral, and is falling flake by flake. With a touch of the finger the stone crumbles into dust. The towers are mutilated. One after another the rapt and fearless angels on the buttresses have been toppled down. As the incessant rain of fire and iron came from the northeast, the transept's northern entranceway is wrecked--its historic statues mere unsightly stumps. Never again will the hardy lesson of the Last Judgment be preached at the ruined portal. No more will the triple-winged seraphim chant hosannas in the great western rose. No coming generations of travelers will carry away an undying memory of the sunset hour in the great church, when the western inclosure became a resplendent sheet of flame, and those who paced up and down the basilica gazed with awe at that majestic spectacle of Art and Faith. The XIII-century windows of the clearstory are pulverized; scarcely a fragment is left of the forty lancets of the nave where, in superimposed rows, the kings of France stood, with the archbishops who had crowned them, big-eyed barbaric images, so intense of hue that one remembers them as blood-red rubies. The loss of the windows of Rheims has been expressed poignantly by Pierre Loti, who spent a Sunday in October, 1915, in the cathedral. He found the silence of death within its ravaged walls that for centuries had echoed the music of the liturgy. Only a cold wind now and then made fitful psalmody. When it blew strongly he could hear a patter as of delicate light pearls. It was the falling to oblivion of what still remained of the ancient windows. The hammer of Odin and of Thor has gone on beating down relentlessly the national church, and a Berlin poet has sung, exultantly: "The bells sound no more in the two-towered Dom. We have closed with lead, O Rheims, thy house of idolatry." Rheims was hated of old. In its cathedral of 1119 Calixtus II, of the blood of the Capetians, had excommunicated the would-be autocrat of Europe, the German emperor, who had proved himself an unnatural son, a treacherous neighbor, and one who laid sacrilegious hands on holy things. As the pope pronounced the sentence the four hundred prelates gathered in the cathedral dashed down their candles. Yes, Rheims was hated. Every check to the invader's troops in the trenches was immediately revenged on the defenseless church. _Rheims Cathedral bombarded_ became a tragically recurrent line in the war's official bulletin. On October 14, 1914, a hole, meters wide, was torn in the most beautiful of Gothic apses. On February 21 and 22, 1915, the bombardment surpassed in savagery the horrors of the fateful September 19th. On March 29, 1915, a German airship dropped inflammable bombs on the choir, and before many months of this rain of iron and fire the masonry roof began to give way. During the half year preceding the armistice a veritable avalanche of shells fell on the stricken city, where remained only a few hundred of its hundred and thirty thousand inhabitants. From June 15 to June 28, 1918, over sixteen thousand shells fell on Rheims, and, strange to tell, amid it all Dubois' statue of Jeanne d'Arc mounted on her charger on the cathedral parvis stood unscathed.[121] On July 5th eight shells crashed into the western entrances; and so on runs the sinister record. "We wait for a chastisement equal to the crime," is the word of Enlart, the archæologist. And the world's heart echoes the verdict. When on that fatal September day of 1914, the staggering almost unbelievable report first spread over France, "Rheims Cathedral is in flames"--many a strong man wept on the streets of French cities, and throughout the tragic night of the conflagration the French soldiers, camped over the plains for miles, watched in anguish the destruction of their patrimony, of their ancestress cathedral, _l'holocauste de la patrie_. In Jeanne's century it had taken a long and cruel war and the sacrifice of her who was the incarnation of France to remake the stricken soul of the nation, and again an overwhelming martyrdom was needed to set right the grievous _pitié_ there was in the country of France. The city of Rheims is to-day a shapeless mass, resembling a place wrecked by ancient barbarism. The archiepiscopal palace, whose two-storied chapel was built by the same hands that laid the choir stones of Notre Dame, is entirely demolished. The cathedral, though ravaged irreparably, still towers above the ruined city. Had Amiens been subjected to the same bombardment as Rheims, it would have collapsed long ago. It is the surplus strength of Rheims' foundations, somewhat criticized by architects, that has saved the church from utter destruction. Notre Dame of Rheims was built for eternity. The mystic wonder of the severed head of St. Nicaise has been repeated. Immolated Rheims has stirred anew the latent crusading blood. "Honor" and "sacrifice" and all the brave words of the days of chivalry are again on the lips of Frenchmen, and many a scoffer has been beaten to his knees by the same spirit which actuated the generations who built the cathedrals and, building them, welded a nation's unity. Those who committed the sacrilege of Rheims forgot that when mankind is robbed of a heritage it sets the criminal in the pillory of history. To-day Rheims Cathedral lies wounded on the field of honor; Rheims Cathedral is forever the symbol of a people's resurrection. _À la peine!... À l'honneur!_ AMIENS CATHEDRAL[122] There have been, in humanity's story, only two great schools of art--that of Greece, and that of the Gothic era. For only then was expressed the ideas and the religious spirit of the peoples that gave birth to them. The Greeks rendered the Pagan spirit, the Pagan emotion; they left us the Parthenon. The Gothic School rendered the Christian idea, the Christian spirit. It has left us Notre Dame of Amiens.--ÉMILE LAMBIN.[123] The terrors and the thunder of the World War menaced Amiens through the long four years, but the grand doctrinal temple, almost superhuman in its majesty, was spared the fate of Rheims, Soissons, and the noble church of St. Martin at Ipres, begun in the same twelvemonth as itself. The statues at the portals of Amiens have seen pass the great personages of the mediæval centuries. The kings of this world felt honored to visit the church of Our Lady and St. Firman. Its reconciliation Mass put the seal on a treaty of goodwill between France and England, and united the English ruler with his rebellious people; St. Louis, the peace maker, prayed in its sanctuary. On its very enemies it imposed veneration. When Charles le Téméraire attacked the city in 1471 he ordered his troops to respect the cathedral. While the upper vaulting of Chartres was being finished and the choir of Rheims was building, there was laid the first stone of Notre Dame of Amiens in 1220. Amiens is the Gothic cathedral par excellence, recognized from the first as a masterpiece--the Parthenon of Gothic--and immediately taken as a model. The cathedrals of Tours and of Troyes, already begun, were now continued like the big church of Picardy. The Sainte-Chapelle in Paris was modeled on the Lady chapel of Amiens. The cathedrals of Clermont, Narbonne, Rodez, and Limoges are "daughters of Amiens." Its influence extended to the church of St. Sauveur at Bruges, to the cathedral of Prague, and to the choir of Cologne, the latter being almost a replica.[124] Amiens carried the Gothic principle of equilibrium farther than Rheims. The aisles were made higher, the bays wider, the points of ground support fewer, and the piers less heavy. No energy was wasted. Each part was made just strong enough. To go beyond this culminating point of constructive boldness was inevitably to decline. No one has better summed up the amplitude of this inspired church than M. Georges Durand, its latest historian, whose monograph is a model: "A vast space inundated with air and light has here been covered by stone vaults, as light and solid as possible; those vaults have been raised to a height never before attained; no longer any walls; the solidity of the edifice is assured by a play of pushes and resistances; flying buttresses exactly meeting the necessary spot to counterbut the great vault; the system of equilibrium perfectly known, and applied with a rigor and audacity unbelievable; the least possible sharpness given to transverse arches; the collaterals raised to a great height--all contribute to give this interior its expression of immensity." Amiens is a "triumphal chant." The "vast space inclosed" produces an impression that is confounding. When first you step inside the western doors of Amiens, you pause in awe. The emotion felt has the efficacy of a prayer. The edifice is prodigious and appears so; only St. Sophia, Cologne Cathedral, and St. Peter's at Rome cover larger areas. Now in St. Peter's each detail was enlarged in proportion to the giant scale chosen; thus, a cherub would have a thigh the size of an elephant's. The result is that the great church appears less than its real size. The method of the mediæval architect was precisely opposite. He saw no advantage in making his edifice appear smaller than it really was. He observed that no matter how big a tree might grow, its leaves were no larger than those on smaller trees. The mediæval architect took for his scale of measurement the height of man. His doorways were made for man to walk under. In the bases of his piers, in the triforium arches, in the normal size of his sculpted flora and fauna, he recalled to the eye the scale of a man, his chosen _échelle_: "And he measured the wall thereof ... the measure of a man, which is of an angel."[125] No matter how large a Gothic church might be, the statues decorating it did not increase in scale. To those who prefer a cathedral of the north there will always seem to be a touch of the artificial, of the _tour de force_ in St. Peter's. The name of the master mind who designed the cathedral of Picardy was Robert de Lusarches, recorded in a labyrinth formerly in the nave's pavement, as were his two successors, Thomas de Cormont and his son Renaud. The occasion for a new structure was the fire of 1218 which partly destroyed the Romanesque cathedral. As its old choir was preserved sufficiently to serve for a while longer, the new cathedral was begun by the nave, not the usual procedure. The nave rose in one supreme effort; from start to finish its plan never deviated. It has been taken as the typical masterpiece. "The façade of Paris, the tower of Chartres, the sculpture of Rheims, the nave of Amiens" is a popular summing up. [Illustration: _The Transept of Amiens Cathedral (1220-1280)_] By 1236 the nave of Amiens was finished, whereupon the Romanesque choir was replaced by a Gothic one whose plan had been drawn by Robert de Lusarches at the same time with that of the nave. His feeling for proportion was unfaltering; the relation between every part of his church is perfect. The interior elevation in three vertical stories was to become classic--a pier arcade--which is one-third of the entire height, and of the remaining upper wall a clearstory which occupies two-thirds and a triforium one-third. The church is three times as wide as the side aisle is high, and height and span correlate with length. Subtlety of calculation is seen everywhere. The perspective view became a kind of classic type. As you gaze down the church toward the curving east wall which closes the vista, you see beneath the pier arcades of the _sanctum sanctorum_ the windows of the apse chapels behind; they appear to fill the apertures symmetrically, whereas at Beauvais, where the side aisle is exceedingly high, the windows of the chapels rise to merely half the height of the pier arches. The cathedrals of Tours and Clermont followed the more satisfactory arrangement of Amiens. In the last days of Gothic architecture the dislike of the horizontal line was to be carried to such an extent that even the capitals, which the custom of all nations had approved for three thousand years, were eliminated. At Amiens a sane balance was kept. Under its triforium runs a deeply carved band of foliage broken only at the triumphal arches of the transept-crossing. Only there does the ascending line rise unobstructed from pavement to vault. And yet no church ever soared more confidently. The very hall-mark of genius is Amiens' strong horizontal leaf garland--just the needed touch to give variety to regularity as grandiose as this. In the nave the frieze was cut before the posing of the stones, but in the choir the sculpture was done _in situ_. The fenestration of this cathedral of St. Louis' reign shows the national art in its prime. The glazed triforium is a kind of pedestal for the clearstory, with which it is bound in a single composition by means of continuous mullions. The original glass was of the Sainte-Chapelle type, made by the Paris school which led in the second half of the XIII century, and were it still in existence the interior of Amiens would be a gorgeous sight. Only vestiges have survived; in some of the choir chapels are patchwork panels of ancient fragments. No one denies that the light enters this cathedral too profusely for the mystic seclusion beloved of the soul. The prelate who laid the foundation stone of Amiens in 1220 was Evrard de Fouilloy, cousin of that archbishop of the great house of Joinville who was a builder at Rheims. Intimate with Innocent III, connoisseur in notable men, the bishop of Amiens was one of the many building prelates who attended the Lateran Council whose séances must often have appeared like an _Amis des Cathédrales_ reunion. Bishop Evrard's splendid bronze tomb, cast at one flow, escaped the smelting pot of the Revolution, and with that of his successor, Geoffrey d'Eu, who chanted the first Mass in his cathedral in 1236, the year of his death, is now placed under the pier arcades of the nave. "Here lies Evrard," runs the inscription, "a man compassionate to the afflicted, the widows' protector, the orphans' guardian, who fed the people, who laid the foundations of this structure, to whose care the city was given." The hand of the bishop is raised in a grave gesture of power. The image of Geoffrey d'Eu is less personal. "Bright-shining man of Eu," runs his epitaph, "by whom the throne of Amiens rose into immensity." The saintly bishop used to encourage even the beggars to give their penny toward raising the new house of God. By 1245 bells were placed in the western towers; then came a lull in the work, from 1247 to 1257, for the bishop had accompanied St. Louis to the holy wars. Louis IX was in Amiens on several occasions and his Sainte-Chapelle at Paris proved his admiration for the classic church. As the XIII century closed, a chapel was added to Amiens by her bishop, the learned Guillaume de Mâcon, a personal friend of St. Louis, and present at his death in Tunis, 1270. The son and successor of Louis IX sent Guillaume to Rome to solicit his father's canonization. During the XIV century other side chapels were added, and in the one erected by Bishop La Grange, from 1373 to 1375, appeared for the first time in France some of the characteristics of Flamboyant Gothic--the flame tracery and ramified vaulting. As early as 1270, however, Amiens had made a sporadic use of supplementary ribs, in the square over the transept-crossing, employing them there, no doubt, in order to break up the immense expanses of infilling. Though the cathedral of Amiens has lost its stained glass, it has retained that other glory of decorative art--its sculpture. The three western entrance arches, in nine orders, are sovereign compositions. Probably as a scheme of dogmatic theology Amiens is even more complete than Chartres or Rheims. The main façade, with its strong buttress lines unbroken from ground to tower, would be the grandest of all the Gothic frontispieces had it been completed as first planned. But only in its lower stories is it of the XIII century, and the towers scarcely rise above the enormous parallelogram. At the trumeau of the central door stands _le Beau Dieu_ of Amiens, of stronger personality than that of Rheims, a Christ of the West more than the East. "He is the master, wise, steadfast, fraternal, with the patience and the human sympathy that comprehend man's eternal weaknesses."[126] He treads on monsters that symbolize Satan and Sin: "Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk; the lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under foot."[127] About him stand the best loved of all the saints, the apostles--plain, primitive men in whose upturned foreheads shines the serenity of certitude. We are His witnesses, they seem to be saying, and our testimony we sealed _usque ad sanguinem_: "That which we have seen and have heard we declare unto you...." "We were eyewitnesses of His greatness...." "This Voice we heard brought from heaven...." "These things we write to you that you may rejoice and your joy be full." The prophets and patriarchs at Amiens' portals lack the assurance of joy which shines in the faces of the humble men chosen for the hierarchy of the New Law; the earlier ones had not themselves seen and heard and touched. Never was the meaning of the Messiah's coming set forth more sublimely than in this archetype cathedral. The soul of the Middle Ages had brooded over the Gospels till it had pierced to their spiritual sense. "The house of the Lord built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone in whom all the building being framed together, growing up into an holy temple in the Lord."[128] When the apostles were placed at the cathedral doors, the tradition was to have St. Peter stand to the right of his Master, and St. Paul to the left; the latter was substituted for Matthias, elected to Judas' place. St. Peter, tonsured, carried the key and a cross; his beard was short and curly. St. Paul bore a sword, since his Roman citizenship had saved him from death by crucifixion; he was represented with a bald forehead and a long beard. St. Andrew carried the peculiar-shaped cross on which he died; St. Bartholomew a knife, emblem of his martyrdom. At the western doors of Amiens is an Annunciation group in which the Virgin is the prototype of the gentle _Ancilla Domini_ at Rheims. The St. Elizabeth of the Visitation group is a noble aged woman; the St. Simeon of the Presentation has been called the _Nunc dimittis_ in person. Local saints are in a position of honor at the right-hand door, the chief here being St. Firman, the first bishop of Amiens, and the pioneer who preached the Word in Picardy, where he was martyred in 289. On his tomb rose the first cathedral of the city. His statue at the trumeau is a masterpiece of its period. In his _Bible of Amiens_,[129] Ruskin gives enlightening interpretations of the quatrefoils adorning the wall under the big images at the western entrance. Little genre studies of agricultural life typify the seasons, and the vices and virtues are rendered with movement and subtlety. There is a connection between certain of the small bas-reliefs and the large statues standing above them. About 1288 they carved the images at the transept's southern portal. Fifty years had elapsed since the making of the western entrance, and already the early reverential awe had passed away. Our Lady is now shown as a radiant young matron whose smile is somewhat mannered, but to call the charming _vierge dorée_ "the soubrette of Picardy," as did Ruskin, is an absurd exaggeration. The apostles are no longer of the ideal type. They are mediæval schoolmen, debating some point of dialectics. Each century was to add to the sculpture of Amiens. André Beauneveu, an illustrious French-Flemish master, made buttress statues of Charles V and his sons, realistic portrait work. The king was one of the four Valois brothers who were, with the Avignon popes, the chief art patrons of the XIV century. As Amiens Cathedral suffered comparatively little during the two cataclysms which emptied the churches of France, it is still a museum of treasures. When, in 1562, the Huguenots, sword in hand, rushed into the church to shatter the altars, the town's tocsin sounded and the citizens assembled in such numbers that they saved their church. Again, during the Revolution, when brutal soldiery began to mutilate the choir screen's groups, the women of Amiens who lived about the cathedral lustily beat the vandals with chairs. Of course the Revolution set up here the usual altar with its living Goddess of Reason, Marat's bust was honored, and over the portal was inscribed the grandiloquent boast: "Fanaticism is destroyed: Truth triumphs." The tombs, bas-reliefs, and paintings were left intact, as well as the famous carved stalls finished in 1522. In the choir-screen sculpture of XVI-century Gothic the Renaissance had only just begun to appear. St. Firman's mission was related quaintly--no prudery shown in the scene of the baptism of Amiens' first Christians. The life of St. John the Baptist was set forth because crusaders had brought his relics to this church from Constantinople. The tourist guide enjoys leading his clients behind Amiens' sanctuary to show them a plump little cupid weeping a marble tear over the tomb of some good canon who founded a local orphanage. M. Durand remarks that for one who appreciates the magnificent bronze tombs of the bishop-builders, or the realistic late-Gothic groups of the choir screen, there are ten who are moved by that banal little _ange pleurant_. In the transept are some marble slabs inscribed with the names of the presidents of a religious-literary association called Puy-Notre-Dame. Such Puys (from podium, or platform) were poetic contests that sprang up in the XIV century, with the disappearance of the wandering minstrels, and they led in turn to a real literary movement.[130] At Amiens it was the custom each year for a new picture in honor of Notre Dame to be presented to her church, and at the festival a poem was read in her praise. Eventually statues were substituted for pictures, which explains the wealth of XVII-century sculpture in the side chapels and aisles of Amiens Cathedral. A number of the ancient paintings have been placed in the Museum of the city, whose walls have been embellished by Puvis de Chavannes' _Ave Picardia nutrix_. CHAPTER VI Six of the Lesser Great Cathedrals: Bourges, Beauvais, Troyes, Tours, Lyons, Le Mans Every work of art truly beautiful and sublime throws the soul into a gracious or serious reverie that lifts it toward the Infinite. Art of itself is essentially moral and religious, since it expresses everywhere in its manifestation the eternal beauty, or else it is false to its own law, to its own genius. --VICTOR COUSIN, _Du vrai, du beau, et du bien_. Scattered over France are a number of cathedrals that would stand in the first rank in any other land but one in which were such supreme churches as Chartres, Rheims, and Amiens. It is convenient to group here six of these lesser Great Cathedrals, since they will not fall properly within the coming four chapters, which deal with the regional schools of Normandy, Burgundy, the Midi, and Plantagenet Gothic. According to the classification used by M. Lefèvre-Pontalis, there are six schools of Gothic architecture in France. Their differences lie in secondary characteristics such as ground-plan, ramifications of ribs, and the form of piers, window tracery, and ornamentations. Of the Ile-de-France and Champagne schools we have already gained some idea in tracing the first steps of the national art, and in following its highest development at Paris, Rheims, and Amiens. Of the six cathedrals here grouped that of Beauvais belongs to the Ile-de-France Picard school and that of Troyes to the Gothic of Champagne. But the four others--Bourges, Tours, Lyons, and Le Mans--show the influences of two or more schools and therefore fit more reasonably into this heterogeneous chapter. In speaking of Gothic schools it is well to recall that in the Flamboyant development there were no distinct regional groups. A similar Gothic style was used in the Midi as in Normandy, in Picardy as in Burgundy. Though not of the greatest, these six churches are splendid monuments. With hesitation one places such a cathedral as Bourges in a secondary group. Had Beauvais and Le Mans been completed on the same scale as their grandiose choirs, they would stand with the foremost. At Troyes are windows, of the same epochs as the stones framing them, that for splendor are second only to those of Chartres and Bourges. The cathedral of Tours is the personification of the equipoise of Touraine's art, and its storied windows are notable. The metropolitan church of Lyons possesses a grave individuality of the most singular interest, and its windows, too, are masterpieces. During an astonishing century--roughly speaking from 1170 to 1270--France built about eighty Gothic cathedrals, and more than three hundred fine churches. And the miracle is that each had its own distinct personality, which etches itself clearly on the traveler's mind. Such was the super-abounding joy of creation in the golden age of the national art that no two churches are alike. THE CATHEDRAL OF BOURGES[131] One goes before the Lord's altar, one bends the knee, one stays there in an attitude of prostrate humility, and _perhaps_, in it all, one has not rendered to God a single homage. Why? Because religion does not consist of inclinations of the body, or of modesty of the eyes, but of humbleness of spirit, and not for an instant has the spirit been one with those demonstrations of respect and adoration. One visits the hospitals and prisons, one consoles the afflicted, one tends the sick and helps the poor, and _perhaps_ the very one who displays in all this the most assiduity and zeal is he who possesses the least Christian mercy. Why? Because he is carried on by a certain natural activity, or an entirely human pity touches him, or is it any other motive, except God, that leads him.--_On True and False Piety_, BOURDALOUE (1632-1704; born in Bourges). The cathedral of St. Étienne stands on a slight hill in the center of Bourges, and is a landmark for forty miles over the Berry plains that are the tranquil heart of France. The best architectural view of it is obtained from the park once attached to the archbishop's palace and said to have been laid out by Le Nôtre, master of this type of cold distinction which is so eminently French. As the entire south flank of the church is exposed to view there, the absence of a transept is what first strikes the attention. Bourges is the only XIII-century cathedral without the extended arms of the cross. Had it a transept it might appear short, whereas now its four hundred feet of length make the most imposing effect. Bourges, Paris, Troyes, and Clermont are the only cathedrals with double aisles about choir and nave. Bourges is exceptional in that the inner aisle is twice as high as the outer--so high that it possesses its own triforium and clearstory; so high that the pier arches around the middle church rise to more than half the height of the edifice. Indeed, many an English cathedral could stand under the pier arches of Bourges. Each pillar is encircled by eight shafts--an arrangement that accentuates its loftiness. It may be claimed that there is over-emphasis in a procession of such giant columns about the interior of a church, and that there is something spectacular in a colonnade of such stupendous arches. Certainly the main clearstory is dwarfed by comparison, and the contrast in height between inner and outer aisle is too violent. Bourges must pass as a superb experiment rather than the restrained achievement from which emanates a school. Subsequent architects preferred to take as model the more classic division of Amiens' interior wall elevation. None the less is this most original basilica magnificently and romantically beautiful. Upon entering the church for the first time one feels the gripping sensation of beholding a thing audacious and gigantic. And yet the impression conveyed is not that of overweening pride. There is reverence here. Bishop Durandus tells us that the piers of a church are the bishops and doctors who sustain the temple of God by their doctrines, that the length of a church representeth fortitude which patiently endureth till it attain heaven; its breadth, charity; its height, courage that despiseth prosperity and adversity, hoping to see the gladness of the Lord in the land of the living. The windows are hospitality with cheerfulness, and tenderness with charity. They are Holy Scriptures which expel the wind and the rain--that is, all things hurtful--but transmit the light of the true Sun--that is, God--into the hearts of the faithful.[132] So wrote the wise old XIII-century Midi bishop for whom the whole world and everything in it were symbols. Sound doctrine, fortitude, and warm protecting hospitality--such are qualities supremely understood of Bourges. There is awe in this church and there is magic. Of the boundless imagination of dreams are certain sunset aspects here, when from the wide western window of Jean de Berry gleams of light strike athwart these vast arches of wonderland, across these sixty big pillars of stone, and night-time hours--during the May evening services of Our Lady--when the great church as in fearsome meditation is shrouded in shadow. [Illustration: _The Apse of Bourges (1200-1225)_] Some four or five cathedrals have stood, in turn, on the same site which was close by the Gallo-Roman city walls. For the early Christians were despised as pariahs, and allowed to build only on the outskirts of cities, until the edict of Constantine permitted them to exercise their religion with honor. All over France churches are to be found abutting on the ancient ramparts of towns. Of the early cathedrals of Bourges only the core of the present crypt remains. From the Romanesque edifice immediately preceding the present cathedral come its XII-century side portals. There are strong analogies between the ground-plan of St. Étienne of Bourges and that of Notre Dame of Paris, especially if one recalls that the cathedral of Paris, as first designed, possessed no transept. Probably the plans of both were made at the same time, but the work in the capital of the royal demesne started immediately in 1163; hence it retained the galleries over the side aisles--a Romanesque tradition--whereas, at Bourges the actual building began only in the last decade of the XII century, when such tribunes were passing out of vogue. Bourges thereupon undertook to modify its first design, and it tried the startling experiment of making an inner aisle whose height comprised both aisle and tribune. The crypt of Bourges,[133] one of the most spacious in France, was begun by Archbishop Henri de Sully (1184-99), brother of Bishop Eudes who helped build the west façade of Paris Cathedral. When Henri died, the decision was left to his brother in Paris, as to which of three Cistercian abbots should be the succeeding archbishop in Bourges. The nomination fell to St. Guillaume Berruyer (1199-1208) of the house of Nevers, whose counts had built the admirable Romanesque St. Étienne in that city. Guillaume had watched both Paris and Soissons' cathedrals rising; he had been a monk in Pontigny, whose church was the earliest Gothic venture in Burgundy, and he was abbot of Châalis, where the church also was Primary Gothic. This holy Cistercian was loath to leave his cloister, and always wore his white robe and fasted like a genuine son of St. Bernard. In his face shone his purity of soul, and it is said that his manner was merry. Only a saint could have made the ambulatory of Bourges, a place apart from the world's fret, fashioned for meditative prayer, its walls hung with gospel parables of mosaic glass. It is thought that while the new Gothic choir was building, services were held in the Romanesque cathedral, which may have been partly open to the elements, since St. Guillaume caught a chill in it while preaching, from the effects of which he died in 1208. Ten years later, the first ceremony held in the completed choir was for his canonization; without the usual process of investigation the pope declared him a saint. From 1236 to 1260, a nephew of St. William's, Blessed Philippe Berruyer, was archbishop of Bourges and carried forward the nave; and the saint's great-niece, the Countess Matilda of Nevers, contributed generously. Bourges commemorated her saintly bishops in the clearstory of her inner aisle. The window wherein St. Guillaume is pictured shows his niece as the donor. Never was monument set on a more majestic base than the choir end of Bourges. There the crypt stands above the ground, owing to the slope of the land. The chevet of St. Étienne is incomparable. In every part of the edifice good mason work was done, save in the upper vaults, where the necessity of economy led to skimping. It is apparent that, as the eastern curve of the cathedral was rising, the architect modified his plan. In his apse walls he inserted small chapels, each standing on two columns and an engaged shaft and each roofed by a stone pyramid. Not only does the circlet of little shrines add to the beauty of the chevet, but each chapel serves the practical purpose of a buttress. That they were afterthoughts is proved by the ambulatory windows not being set symmetrically over the crypt windows. However, the chapels must have been added during the building of the procession path, because the latter's vaulting shows no sign of reconstruction. The cathedral of Bourges is not well documented. Only by a study of the stones themselves can it be dated. Its eastern end was building during the first part of the XIII century; in 1266 the chapter contributed toward the works, their donations being used probably for the completion of the nave. At the end of the XIII century porches were added to the side doors retained from the Romanesque cathedral. Work continued on the west façade during the early part of the XIV century, but when, in 1324, St. Étienne was dedicated, it had been completed in its main parts for forty years. This makes the west front of Bourges about a century younger than its apse. The five deeply recessed portals correspond to its five aisles, and the western towers are set clear of the aisles, as at Rouen; that to the southwest is now braced by a flying buttress and detached buttress pile. In 1506 the northwest tower collapsed. It was rebuilt by alms, given as thank-offering for the privilege of eating butter during Lent, hence its name Tour de Beurre. Such butter towers may be called the XVI century's method of charity bazaar to raise money for church repairs. During the heyday of Gothic, the fervent layman gave voluntarily, asking for no return, and in that spirit rose the _clocher vieux_ at Chartres. Compare that sublime monument with the elegant, mundane late-Gothic "butter towers" of France, and you comprehend how inevitably the spirit of builders reveals itself in the work of their hands. Of the five western doors of Bourges, only the central one is wholly of the XIII century (c. 1260-75). Its representation of the Last Judgment, adjudged to be the best ever set up at a cathedral door, the _Dies Iræ_ warning in stone, is derived from Job, St. Paul, St. Matthew, and the Apocalypse. In the upper zone Christ is enthroned; in the lower is shown the arising of the dead from their tombs. Between these scenes is the splendid panel of the Judgment, with the stately archangel as its central figure, holding the scales of justice. To his left malign demons seize on the damned to plunge them into the jaws of the Leviathan described in Job. To his right the blessed ones smile with complacency as they move toward Paradise, here represented by a hieroglyphic--supposed to be Abraham's bosom, out of which peep some little souls smuggled safely away.[134] St. Peter stands at the gates of Paradise, holding the keys, a doctrinal symbol of his power to bind and to loose, until in time popular fancy pictured him as the actual gatekeeper of heaven. Among the elect is represented a king holding the flower of sanctity, probably meant for St. Louis. Beside the king is a cord-girdled monk--hence the name "cordeliers" for Franciscans--showing how popular was the new Order. The fall of the north tower caused the ruin of the portals near it, and when rebuilt in the XVI century an iconographic error was made which would have been impossible with the trained scholastics of an earlier day--the mother of the Saviour was placed on his left, instead of in the seat of honor on his right. In the fatal year 1562, when from end to end of France the churches were mutilated, the Calvinists attacked the portal images of Bourges and flung the carven stones into the breaches of the town walls. They went so far as to mine the giant piers in order that the great edifice might totter to its fall; but happily their control of the city was cut short, or the tragedy of Orléans might have been enacted.[135] Bourges is a chosen spot for stained glass, second only to Chartres. Students have made the study of its windows a lifetime enthusiasm. Nowhere can the epochs of the vitrine art from the XII to the XVII century be more easily studied. The school of St. Denis, however, is not represented. Two small panels, now set in a window beside the south portal, are earlier in date than Suger's windows; their flesh tone is purplish; perhaps they are the oldest colored glass extant in France. Of the XIII-century school of Chartres are the twenty and more lancets in the ambulatory, legend-medallion windows ranking with the best ever made. They repeat some of the themes used by the artists at Chartres, such as the parables of the Prodigal Son, presented by the tanners, and of the Good Samaritan, which latter lancet at Bourges is an exception in having its story begin at the top. Ancient windows are to be read usually from the bottom upward. The first window in the choir aisle, as you enter it from the north, shows the beggar Lazarus despised and suffering on earth, then carried by angels to Abraham's bosom, wherein (in the topmost medallion) he sits cozily ensconsed, but Dives, the bad rich man, is snatched by demons from his earthly scenes of plenty and thrust into hell. The lancet which, at Bourges, is devoted to the Apocalypse, is held to be a subtle commentary on the vision of Patmos. To the fifth large window of the ambulatory, called the New Alliance, the Jesuit fathers, Cahier and Martin, have devoted over a hundred pages--a veritable treatise on symbolism--in their monumental study of the earlier stained glass in this church. "Prophecies in action," our friend Joinville called the prefiguring of the New Law by the Old, so popular during the Middle Ages. New Alliance windows are to be found in various cathedrals--their theme being the substitution of Gentiles for Jews by the merit of the Cross.[136] The guild of butchers was the donor of this abstract doctrinal window of Bourges. The only break in the XIII-century glass of the choir aisle is in the axis chapel, where the windows--of the XVI-century Renaissance--belonged originally to the Sainte-Chapelle of the ducal palace that once existed in Bourges; other windows from the same source have been reset in the cathedral's crypt. The small scenes at the base of each lancet--the signatures as they are called--show that here, as at Chartres, the larger number of these priceless treasures of art were donated by the little people of the Lord--carpenters, weavers, coopers, money changers. A window given by the stonecutters, in the choir aisle of Bourges, is devoted to St. Thomas, the apostle, patron of builders. Bourges and Chartres afford the best opportunity for a more intimate study of the legends and symbols then most popular. Here, as at Chartres, the _Golden Legend_ should be one's inseparable companion. In the high windows of the middle choir the apostles are ranged on one side of Sancta Maria, and the prophets on the other--another of the many contrasts of the Old and New Testaments. The nave's clearstory is chiefly XIII-century grisaille. The XIV-century artists, in their desire for more light, gave up the profound colors of their mosaic-like windows for that coldly elegant phase of the vitrine art, when the use of white was carried to excess and each figure set in its own panel was pictured like a statue with architectural niche and dais. About 1370 Duke Jean of Berry, born connoisseur like his brothers Charles V, Philippe of Burgundy, and the Duke of Anjou, presented to Bourges Cathedral its immense western window. Before the Medici, this Valois prince collected cameos and medals and bric-à-brac. Among the twenty castles he built were those of Poitiers, Riom, and Bourges, on which were employed the noted Flamboyant Gothic architects, the Dammartin brothers. When the Sainte-Chapelle of the palace in Bourges was destroyed (1759), the duke's tomb, which his nephew Charles VI had ordered of Jean de Cambrai (1477-83), was brought to the cathedral. The sarcophagus was once surrounded by alabaster statuettes, some of which are in the Museum. The arrangement of mourners came from his brother's world-famous tomb in Dijon. In his old age the spendthrift, unstable Jean de Berry married the very youthful Jeanne de Boulogne, and kneeling images of both duke and duchess have been placed on either side of the entrance to the axis chapel of the cathedral. Apparently art-loving John of France was in person the homeliest of men. The Revolution damaged these images, which were restored by means of drawings made of them by Holbein in the time when Bourges was a Mecca for the artists of Europe. Some of Duke Jean's friends presented early XV-century windows to the side chapels of Bourges Cathedral. His physician, Aligret, gave one. The Hundred Years' War put a stop to the accumulation of art treasures in the metropolitan church. When Charles VII, "the little king of Bourges," as the English had dubbed him ironically, went with the victorious Maid of Orleans to be crowned king at Rheims, his gentle queen, Marie of Anjou, stayed in Bourges with her mother, Yolande of Aragon. Marie's brother, then a youth under Jeanne's command, was to become the good King René of history. To Bourges Jeanne herself came later. She lodged with an estimable widow of the town who, years afterward, during the inquest conducted for the Maid's rehabilitation, bore testimony to the young girl's simple goodness. She told how gallantly Jeanne mounted a horse and how adroitly she managed a lance so that "everyone was in admiration of her, for no knight could have done better."[137] Then when "_Jehanne la bonne Lorraine_," as Villon called her, had given France a new soul, when the blight of the Great Schism of the West was over, and France accepted the same spiritual chief as the remainder of Europe, there came about the energetic, happy, restless manifestation of art which we call Flamboyant Gothic. Bourges then possessed a Mæcenas in the person of a merchant (son of a tradesman of the city) whose ships covered the sea. Jacques Coeur, from 1443 to 1452, built himself, in his native town, the finest burgher's house in France, to see which René of Anjou--great-nephew of Jean of Berry--came especially to Bourges. Its walls were carved with quaint devices and images,[138] and, like Van Eyck's, were the charming little angels painted on its chapel vaults. No civic monument in the land excels it; it ranks as the best with Rouen's Palais de Justice and the Hôtel Cluny at Paris. The same merchant-prince built in Bourges Cathedral a private chapel for his family, and beside it a rich Flamboyant Gothic sacristy. The Annunciation window in the chapel (1450) is held to be the best glass of its century, uniting the better drawing of the later day with a plain, firm, general design. The face of the Angel Gabriel has been said to be a portrait of Jacques Coeur. St. James is represented in pilgrim garb because of the fame of his shrine at Santiago Compostela. It is thought that Jacques Coeur donated the row of richly damasked windows in the west façade beneath Jean of Berry's big sheet of glass, made fifty years earlier. Colors have become richer and the figures show a tendency to escape from the rigid attitude of statues, but not yet has absolute congruity between the hues been achieved. Jacques Coeur was not to be buried in the chapel he had prepared. He served the same master who had let the Maid of Orleans perish at Rouen without striking a blow to save her. With money provided by the merchant-banker of Bourges, Charles VII had reconquered Normandy, but he let the estate of his faithful servant be rapaciously confiscated without a trial, and left him to languish in prison for two years before being banished from the kingdom by the mockery of a law process. Jacques Coeur died in exile in 1461, but his good name was exonerated, and his son Jean, archbishop of Bourges, was buried in the cathedral's choir. The merchant-prince's chapel passed with his mansion into the hands of the Laubespine family, whose kneeling statues now adorn it. With the XVI century there opened another golden period of the vitrine art in Bourges. A local master, Jean Lecuyer, won fame. He made the Tullier window (1532) in the tenth bay (south) of the cathedral. The donor, Canon Tullier, and his father, mother, and various ecclesiastic relatives, are being presented by their patron saints to a distinguished-looking Madonna. The architectural background shows what headway the foreign Renaissance had made in France, though the chief figures are still true to French traditions. The colors are faultlessly balanced and certain exquisite half-tones are noticeable. In the upper panels, in a fair blue sky, are entrancing little angels giving a celestial concert, fiddling, beating a drum, singing with all their hearts, for this is the shrine built by St. William, who knew how to be holy and merry as well. The Tullier light has been called the loveliest of XVI-century windows. And yet no one can deny that enamel painting on glass was a deterioration of the art. The old masters had followed a sounder tradition when they subordinated their windows to their architecture, making them an integral part of it, and not merely isolated painted pictures. Jean Lecuyer also composed the window (1518) relating the lives of St. Stephen and St. Laurence in the cathedral's nave (south side), and several brilliant lights in St. Bonnat's church. Even the XVII century produced interesting work at Bourges; in the Martigny chapel of the cathedral (north side of nave) the portrait of the donor is as realistic as a miniature. THE CATHEDRAL OF BEAUVAIS[139] C'est alors que se constitue cette merveilleuse discipline, vrai fondement de la culture intellectuelle et de la science, qu'est la discipline scholastique.... Toute la connaissance est tournée vers la science de l'être, vers la métaphysique, plus haut encore vers la théologie; plus haut encore, vers théologie vécue, vers la contemplation.--JACQUES MARITAIN. The cathedral of Beauvais derived directly from Amiens, and no expression of the Gothic principle was ever carried farther. It consists of a mammoth choir and transept. As the height of the edifice is three times its width, the nave which now is lacking would need to have been of enormous length. Instead of that much-needed nave, there nestles under the truncated west end a modest little Carolingian edifice called the _Basse-OEuvre_, built by the fortieth bishop of Beauvais, Hervé (987-998). The small cubic stones and occasional courses of brick tell of the antiquity of this, the best-preserved monument in France, dating before the year 1000.[140] Most of the Romanesque churches of the Oise copied it. Scarcely, however, had the Ile-de-France Picard Romanesque school developed than the privileged region gave birth to the national art. In 1227 Beauvais planned a new cathedral, spurred on thereto by the magnificent nave rising in neighboring Amiens. But the works were not started till 1247, for the bishop, more a feudal baron than a pastor, was for a time entirely engrossed in mercenary wars in Italy and in quarreling with Blanche of Castile, the queen-regent. Finally Bishop Milon began his cathedral in Beauvais on a scale beyond the resources of the diocese. Despite his own and the chapter's generous donations, and the exemption of workmen and all building material from taxes, the choir was not finished till 1272, two years after the choir of Cologne. Scarcely was it done when, in 1284, its upper vaulting fell; a few years earlier a partial collapse had occurred. To remedy the disaster new piers had to be inserted between the old ones, which explains the sharp-pointed arches of the pier arcade. Only in the ambulatory, which was untouched by the falling masonry, is the original vaulting to be found. The required addition of flying buttresses was no improvement to the symmetry of the exterior. Instead of being able to proceed to the erection of a nave, forty years were wasted in repairs. Then came the calamities of the Hundred Years' War when building activities flagged all over France. Never again were profiles to be virile. The apogee hour of Gothic was forever past. With English, Burgundian, and French troops roving the country, Beauvais was kept on the alert. In 1429, the citizens, roused by Jeanne d'Arc's success at Orléans, expelled their bishop, who was in sympathy with the foe, and was none other than the unworthy Pierre Cauchon, soon to sit as miscreant judge at the Maid's trial in Rouen. Two years after Jeanne had been burned, Beauvais was besieged by English troops, and so gallant was the behavior of the women of the city, notably Jeanne Hachette, that forever after was accorded to them the right to march in the place of honor in all processions, directly behind the clergy. When the Duke of Burgundy, England's ally, besieged the city in 1472 he burned the episcopal palace, to which the two sturdy towers near the _Basse-OEuvre_ originally belonged. Once more the women of Beauvais fought side by side with the men, while the children and the aged gathered in the cathedrals to supplicate Heaven for protection. No city in the land had better cause to rejoice over peace and the invader's expulsion than Beauvais. And nowhere did Flamboyant Gothic take on nobler expression than in the stately transept now added to the cathedral, a masterpiece worthy to be joined to the giant choir. On its north front worked Martin Chambiges, who gave to Troyes and Sens their admirable façades. Over-ornamentation was a pitfall for the late-Gothic masters, but not for Chambiges, who kept Beauvais' strong lines of construction unobliterated by lavish detail. Flamboyant Gothic was essentially a decorative art. Therein only did it differ from preceding schools, for it developed no new principles of construction. Because of the flamelike undulations of its window tracery, the Norman archæologist, M. de Caumont, who had brought into use the name Romanesque, invented the equally useful term Flamboyant.[141] Capricious, overladen, disturbingly restless, this final phase of the national art may often be (it has been called more terrestrial than celestial), it was inclined to exhibit its technical dexterity; but none the less it was keenly alive and a vast improvement on the over-formalized geometric Rayonnant Gothic to which it succeeded. In both, the profiles were prismatic, fluid, and weak. Discipline which made for robustness was forever lost. A century before the characteristics of Flamboyant art developed in France, they were in use in England, and there called Curvilinear or Decorated Gothic. Window mullions undulated, arches were crowned with reversed curves and sculptured finials, secondary, connecting ribs were added to the vaulting, bases were elongated, there were interpenetrating molds, hanging keystones, piers without capitals, and such new models for foliate sculpture as the deeply indented leaves of parsley and curly cabbage. When capitals were given up, the ribs died away weakly in the piers. The Gothic of England had changed to its cold Perpendicular phase by the time that the architects across the Channel adopted the features called Flamboyant in France. M. Camille Enlart has developed the idea that the last phase of the national architecture was a product of the English occupation during the Hundred Years' War, that from elements of decoration introduced by England, the French composed a style which differed somewhat only from that in vogue across the Channel from 1300 to 1360. In France, flowing tracery and ogee arches were not used before 1375. France need feel no diminution of her claim of leadership in Gothic architecture because she adopted, for her XV-century traits, certain decorative details developed first by others, since the Gothic of England was originally of French derivation. The theory of an English origin for French Flamboyancy is contested by M. Anthyme Saint-Paul, who thought that from the same elements of XIII-century Gothic one country developed its own Curvilinear style and the other its own, Flamboyant Gothic.[142] M. de Lasteyrie agreed with the thesis that there is a French origin for French late-Gothic manifestations. That Flamboyant art is in part indigenous and partly of foreign derivation is probably nearest the truth. Certainly sporadic cases of florid features appeared in French art during the XIII and XIV centuries, but it is clear that in various places long held by the English there appeared the first or the fullest expression of late-Gothic art. Before the Flamboyant Gothic transept of Beauvais was finished, the foreign Renaissance had arrived in France. And it showed here in the richly sculptured doors. The sibyls, all ten of whom are represented, are, as pagans, kept outside the church. With skilled gradation the carving grows deeper and bolder toward the top of the doors, farthest away from the eye. Jean Le Pot carved the southern doors in faultless taste. He was a glassmaker as well, and in St. Étienne's church are his windows beside those of his father-in-law, Engrand Le Prince, who, with his sons Jean and Nicholas, made the north and south rose windows of the cathedral and its splendid Peter and Paul window. Their tree of Jesse, in St. Étienne's choir, is considered a masterpiece of color and design. To-day a Le Prince window in any French city is a matter of civic pride. The old saying ran: "The choir of Beauvais, the nave of Amiens, the portals of Rheims, the towers of Chartres" make the most beautiful cathedral in the world. One hundred and fifty feet high curve the upper vaults of Beauvais choir. Beneath them could be set the belfries of Notre Dame of Paris. As at Bourges, the lofty aisle possesses its own triforium and clearstory, but here the clearstory of the central choir has not been dwarfed as a result of the stupendous pier arcades. Beauvais dared to make its upper windows eighty feet high. Think what its interior would be had it retained the original stained glass! Its towering choir windows would scintillate like those of Sainte-Chapelle, since it was the Paris school that supplied XIII-century Beauvais. Such a sweep of fragile glass was possible because the play of thrusts and counterthrusts had been calculated to a certainty. Technically, Beauvais is the extreme expression of the Gothic theory. It perfected the pier by making it elliptical, widest where fell the greatest strain, north and south. It is said that its error lay in certain false bearings, that some of the intermediate buttresses were balanced half on air without direct ground supports. That may have been temerarious, since building material of perfect quality is required when chances are taken. Certainly Beauvais pushed to its rigid consequences the law of equilibrium, allowing no excess in the supporting members, but it was not a builder's folly. M. de Lasteyrie has called its plan a _chef-d'oeuvre_ of lightness. Though the architect pushed his technique to the extreme limit of the law of thrust and counterthrust, he did not pass beyond the possible, and had he employed the hard, resistant stone of Burgundy the history of the cathedral church he built would not be a tale of disasters. What brought about the collapse of Beauvais' vaults was the use of inferior stone. Sometimes one feels in the hardihood of this cathedral a trace of everweening pride, as if its certitude of excelling tended to virtuosity. The stupefying ascending lines, strong-willed and carried out with science, seem as much to vaunt the enterprise of their builder as pay homage to the Creator. Some of the lesser churches, that humbly and tentatively reached out toward perfection, make a deeper appeal than does stupendous Beauvais. Was man meant for the superlative on earth? And one remembers that Bishop Milon de Nanteuil was a proud man of the world, very unlike that true pastor of souls, Maurice de Sully, who with unpretentious diligence raised Notre Dame of Paris. Such criticisms would be silenced, perhaps, had Beauvais a nave from which could be viewed its overwhelming choir. Truncated as it now is, it is necessary to crane the neck in order to see its clearstory windows. So colossal a thing should be led up to gradually; it cries out insistently for its missing nave. Fatality seemed always to pursue Beauvais. After terminating a noble Flamboyant transept, the ambitious citizens were lured into the scheme of a central tower, when a church of such height should have at its crossing merely a slender spire. Instead of proceeding to build a nave, they raised a lantern that lacked merely a few feet of the enormous height of St. Peter's dome in Rome. It was a day of tower building in France, and Beauvais, ever hopeful beyond its resources, thought to outvie all others. On feast days lights were hung in its spire's open stonework for the illumination of the entire countryside. For five years only the giant beacon stood. On Ascension Day of 1573, just after the congregation had left the church to walk in procession, the tower fell with an appalling noise, covering the whole town with dust. Only one bay of the nave has been built, its piers have disappearing moldings, amorphous profiles, and no capitals whatever. Beauvais stands a massive fragment, and there seems little chance that the truncated church will ever be completed. THE CATHEDRAL OF TROYES[143] With travail great, and little cargo fraught, See how our world is laboring in pain; So filled we are with love of evil gain That no one thinks of doing what he ought, But we all hustle in the Devil's train, And only in his service toil and pray; And God, who suffered for us agony, We set behind, and treat him with disdain. Hardy is he whom death doth not dismay. The feeble mouse, against the winter's cold Garners the nuts and grain within his cell, While man goes groping, without sense to tell Where to seek refuge against growing old.... The Devil doth in snares our life enfold. Four hooks he has with torments baited well; And first with Greed he casts a mighty spell, And then, to fill his nets has Pride enrolled, And Luxury steers the boat and fills the sail, And Perfidy controls and sets the snare. Thus the poor fish are brought to land. --COUNT THIBAUT IV of Champagne.[144] Beneath the present choir of Troyes Cathedral are Gallo-Roman walls, and a succession of edifices have stood on the same site. From the cathedral of the V century started the bishop, St. Loup, "the friend of God," when he went forth to check Attila the Hun, "God's scourge," and the barbarian was touched by spiritual fear and retired. That same good bishop of Troyes was the companion of St. Germain of Auxerre, on the notable journey north, when they blessed the gentle child Geneviève in a village near Paris, marking her as a vessel of election. Probably the cathedral immediately preceding the present one was in large part early-Gothic. Fire wiped it out, in 1188, and preparations for a new basilica were started by the energetic Bishop Garnier de Trainel, who went on the Fourth Crusade, and was among those, says Villehardouin, who scaled the walls of captured Constantinople along with his friend Nivelon, the bishop-builder of Soissons. The first stone of the new cathedral at Troyes was laid in 1206 by Bishop Hervé (1206-23), an able man who had been advanced by the observant prelate of Paris, Eudes de Sully. For almost twenty years Bishop Hervé worked on the choir, considered one of the best chevets in France. During his episcopate Troyes was a brilliant center of European trade and culture. Blanche of Castile and young Louis IX passed some time in the city when Thibaut IV the Singer, related to the royal line, was attacked by the clique of rebellious barons who plotted against the boy king. There had been considerable romancing about the volatile, inconstant Thibaut's admiration for Queen Blanche, who was a married woman before he was born. His own mother, Blanche of Navarre, another of the able women rulers of that day, gave generously to the new cathedral of her capital city. In 1228 a storm damaged the rising structure, necessitating years of tiresome repairs. Pope Urban IV, as a native son of Troyes, contributed. During the last forty years of the XIII century the transept was building. It showed traces of English feeling derived perhaps from Edmund Plantagenet, a son of the builder of Westminster Abbey, who had married the dowager Countess of Champagne. His ward Jeanne, Thibaut the Singer's granddaughter, inherited the countship of Champagne, the kingdom of Navarre, and by marriage became the queen of France. Slowly during the XIV and XV centuries, one bay of the nave was added to another; the changes from the precise lines of Rayonnant tracery to the undulating mullions of the Flamboyant day are easy to follow. The long delays were caused by lack of funds and the repeated need for consolidating the parts already built. The soil on which the church stood was unsuitable, and from the first, security was jeopardized by using the soft, native stone in those parts of the edifice which were out of sight, in order to economize on the firm stone imported from Burgundy. Several times during the difficulties of reconstruction, the cathedral chapter turned for advice to noted masters--to Raymond du Temple, Charles V's architect, and to André de Dammartin, patronized by the king's brothers of Berry and Burgundy. Work ceased altogether during the English occupancy. Then in 1429 the city opened its gates to Charles VII on his way to be crowned at Rheims. Jeanne d'Arc, during her trial in Rouen, told of an incident of their entry into Troyes. Some of the townspeople were fearful lest the heroine of Orleans came of the devil, so they had a holy preacher march out to exorcise her. Scattering holy water and making repeated signs of the Cross, Brother Richard approached the Maid. "Draw near without uneasiness," Jeanne assured him, in her pleasant manner. "I won't fly away." The city by its reception of the king evinced eagerness to wipe out the infamy of the Treaty of Troyes, signed here in 1420 by Queen Isabeau of Bavaria, wherein she repudiated her son Charles VII and gave France over to the foreign invader. The people's renewed hope and self-respect expressed itself in some of the most lovely Flamboyant foliage ever chiseled--the deeply undercut leafage on the gable of the north portal (1462-68). Work on the cathedral was taken up with energy after Jeanne, carrying her standard, had hallowed the streets of Troyes. As the XV century closed, the nave's radiant late-Gothic windows were installed. They are of the _Biblia pauperum_ type, and are surprisingly like big translucent woodcuts. They tell the story of Daniel, Tobias, Joseph and his brethren, Job--a window especially to be noticed--some parables, too, and edifying legends. The scenes are set quite as they appeared in the mystery plays, the costumes being not of Syria, but of the very stuffs and damasks bought in their own international fairs. The same masters of Troyes, Verrat, Godon, Lyénin, Macadré, who signed a rose window of Sens transept, put their signatures here. Bible stories such as these suit the layman's part of a church, for they serve to hold the attention of the average man. In the choir of Troyes are thirteen large windows of an earlier day, profounder in color and more spiritual in suggestion. They are like a jeweled cloistral screen around the Holy of Holies. In the upper central windows are the Passion scenes, and on either side rise tier on tier of martyrs who witnessed to the Faith--bishops, abbots, and a few important personages, such as Pope Innocent III, Bishop Hervé, the builder, and the archbishop of Sens, the learned Pierre de Corbeil. On one side of the choir Henry I, emperor of Constantinople, of the house of Champagne, is pictured, and Philippe-Auguste, suzerain of Champagne. And opposite in the fourth window are donjons and fleurs-de-lys showing that the queen-regent, Blanche of Castile, was generous here as elsewhere. The upper choir windows of Troyes allowed more light to pass than had their immediate predecessors, the lancets of Chartres. Their colors were clear and bright; only such stone mullions were used as were absolutely required for the support of the glass. The eight lateral windows of the upper choir belong to the XIII century, the five at the eastern curve to the XIV century. In the lower choir are various ancient windows, liberally restored, the Tree of Jesse, of Byzantine character, being the best. Two hundred years later another Tree of Jesse was made by Lyénin,[145] for the clearstory of the nave. It gave Christian folk a feeling of pride to record the Lord's high ancestry according to Isaias and the Acts. This cathedral of Troyes was one of the first to glaze its triforium, even before St. Denis' abbatial. The present triforium lights are, in most part, modern. By 1504 the clearstory windows of the nave were all in place. Among their donors was represented a mayor of Troyes with all his family. The golden-hued west rose was put up in 1546. And even into the XVII century the vitrine art of this exceptional city maintained its high traditions of five hundred years. In 1625 Linard Gontier made the _Pressoir_ window, the swan-song of good Renaissance glass. There is a translucent picture of Our Lady in the nave's south aisle, with stars leaded into holes that were cut out of an entire plate of glass; any apprentice who could perform that difficult feat of glazing was promoted to be a master craftsman.[146] For the building of the cathedral's west front, the chapter, in 1506, called on the noted late-Gothic master, Martin Chambiges, who had made his reputation with transept façades at Beauvais and Sens. Together with other artists, his son, Pierre (who won fame with Senlis' transept façade, and who, in 1539, began the château of St. Germain-en-Laye), carried on Troyes' frontispiece during fifty years, so that its imagery--badly damaged by the Revolution--shows the ermine of Anne of Brittany, the porcupine of Louis XII, and the salamander of Francis I. Troyes, with its record of four hundred years, was, of all the cathedrals of France, the longest in building. In spite of its double aisles, its wide transept, its noble, deep choir, and its astounding wealth of storied windows, it is clear when standing before the Flamboyant Gothic front of this chief church of Champagne's capital, that it is a cathedral of secondary rank. The flaw here is one of proportion. With such width--and this is the widest cathedral in France--the church should be thirty feet higher. However, no traveler with harmony in his soul thinks of technical criticism once he steps across the threshold and walks beneath the joyous terrestrial windows of the nave and the seraphic lights of the sanctuary. ST. URBAIN AND OTHER CHURCHES AT TROYES[147] Madame, je vous le demande, Pensez-vous ne soit péché D'occire son vrai amant? Oïl voir; bien le sachiez. S'il vous plaît ne m'occiez; Car, je vous le dis vraiment, Quoique l'amour soit tourment, Si vous m'aimez mieux vivant. Je n'en serai point fâché. --THIBAUT IV of Champagne, in lighter mood. St. Urbain's famous collegiate church, a forerunner of XIV-century Rayonnant Gothic, was founded by a son of Troyes, who sat in Peter's chair, Urban IV. He tells us that "in the desire that the memory of this our name might remain forever in the city of Troyes even after the dissolution of our body," he began, in 1262, a church on the site where his father's shop had stood, choosing for its tutelary the saint-pope, Urban, who had succored the early martyrs in Rome. His father was a prosperous shoemaker in the day when tradesmen gave princely gifts to their parish churches. Urban IV himself had been a choir boy in Troyes Cathedral. He died before his church was finished, but his nephew, Cardinal Pantaleone Ancher, continued the edifice, which was completed in 1276. Urban's successor, Clement IV, also a Frenchman, patronized the new works at Troyes. While the choir and transept were done by one generation, many a century was to pass before the westernmost bay and façade were finished. [Illustration: _St. Urbain at Troyes (1264-1276)_] In archæological circles St. Urbain is noted, Viollet-le-Duc being the first to discuss its ingenuity. As construction it is a small masterpiece, a model of elasticity, perhaps the lightest and most fragile of all Gothic edifices. To an economy in stone we owe this structural feat. Were the principle of equilibrium pushed a step farther, metal, not stone, would be required. Ground supports have been lessened, and flying buttresses attenuated to the last limit. Despite its science, St. Urbain is not doctrinaire, but immaterial and seductive. On first entering it Montalembert exclaimed, "_Quelle délicieuse église!_" The architect, Jean Langlois, here created the most elegant form of Rayonnant window tracery. At his porch appears the first French arch of double curvature, the earliest interpenetration of archivolts. We know his name because in 1267 a papal bull summoned him to account for sums advanced on the edifice, and Jean was not forthcoming, because he had disappeared in the East, crusading. The chief church at Famagusta, in Cyprus, begun in 1300--the only completed French-Gothic cathedral of the XIV century--shows such analogies with St. Urbain at Troyes that apparently Langlois' architectural influence had spread in the Orient. M. Lefèvre-Pontalis has called Troyes' lantern church inundated with light one of the most original monuments of the Middle Ages. Ten feet above the ground its walls change to opalescent glass. No grisaille is more exquisitely decorated with natural foliage outlines; set in the expanses of the opal-tinted white glass are colored medallions of extreme beauty. The lower row of lights around the choir are of this character. Above them, and almost a part of them, are the choir's upper windows--big prophets and patriarchs with the Crucifixion in the center--transition windows between legend-medallion glass, and the XIV century's single figures in a vitrine architectural frame. The arms of France, Champagne, and Navarre appear in the borders of the choir windows. The transeptal chapel to the north of the choir shows in its quatrefoils some interesting heads of men, women, and children. From the windows of the south transeptal chapel some panels were stolen, but St. Urbain's curé, Abbé Jossier, a learned enthusiast, was able, by sending photographs all over France, to trace his lost panels in a private collection, and it is to be hoped they may be returned. In his short pontificate, 1262-64, Urban IV, besides creating this enduring memorial, instituted the feast of Corpus Christi. He requested a liturgy for his new feast from St. Thomas Aquinas, who composed the _Pange lingua gloriosi_, the last stanzas of which are sung daily throughout the Christian world, the familiar _Tantum ergo_. To Aquinas is ascribed the _Verbum supernum prodiens_ hymn whose ending is the lovely _O Salutaris Hostia_. Doubt and heresy have always been instrumental in clarifying doctrine and in enriching the liturgy and art. So in a later day was made, in reaction against the XVI-century desecration of the Eucharist, such windows as the Wine Press of Troyes and that of Conches. In 1906, soon after St. Urbain's church had celebrated the completion of its western portal, it became the scene of a conscientious objection on the part of its parishioners, who protested against the taking of an inventory, they deeming it an unlawful interference with their private affairs. They sat in their church till the police broke in the doors; even then they continued to sing canticles, and were expelled only by having a hose turned on them. Six centuries earlier, St. Urbain's had been the scene, on the completion of its choir, of a suffragette-like demonstration by a community of nuns, who claimed part of the land on which the church stood. They smashed various things on the premises, and, it is whispered, even slapped a high dignitary's face. Apparently St. Urbain's is destined to pass into history under various aspects. For four hundred years the ancient capital of Champagne was an active center of the stained-glass industry. Overpowering is the wealth of storied windows to be found in its churches, the majority being of the Flamboyant-Renaissance day. In the suburbs, and farther afield in the hamlets of Champagne, there is the same prodigal display of colored windows and interesting statues.[148] From father to son, from generation to generation, was passed on the art skill of this ancient city on the highway of international trade. In Troyes there were so many churches that the old saying ran: "You arrived from Troyes? And what are they doing there?" "_On y sonne._" Next to St. Urbain's, for its wealth of art treasures, comes the Madeleine church built about 1175, and reconstructed during the Flamboyant enthusiasm when this city readorned almost every shrine it possessed. Contemporary with its noted _jubé_, or rood screen (1508-17), is the statue of St. Martha, one of the gems of French sculpture, entirely of the national school, unaffected work as ample and robust as the best period of the XIII century. St. Martha is represented, in this church of Troyes dedicated to her sister, with the holy water by which she exorcised the legendary Tarasque of Tarascon. She was the patroness of housekeepers, and it is said that the servant maids of Troyes presented to their church this memorial of the plastic genius of Champagne.[149] Champagne's special aptitude for sculpture appeared in the XIII-century gargoyles of St. Urbain's church, each of which was almost a complete figure. Later her imagery grew mannered for a few generations, with the Madonna's face of a formal type, and an exaggerated throwing out of the hip. The advent of Flemish realism, through the Franco-Flamand school at Dijon, renewed the vigor of French idealism, and before the XV century closed a truly French Renaissance had set in, retaining the equipoise of the old school and quite free of Italian classicism. Eventually the imported standards checked that renewed national movement. It was not the big men of Italy's revival who came to Champagne, but secondary artists whose work was often pretentious or coldly abstract. From 1540, under the leadership of the Italian, Domenico Rinnuccini, called Florentino, the foreign Renaissance prevailed at Troyes. In the church of the Madeleine, besides its _jubé_ and St. Martha statue, is some of the best XVI-century glass. A window of 1506 tells the life of St. Eloi, the goldsmith-bishop of Noyon; a window dated 1517 is devoted to St. Louis; Jean Macadré I made a Jesse tree; and there is the celebrated Creation in which God the Father wears the papal tiara, significant of the reaction that followed Luther's attacks on Rome. There are, also, two good XV-century windows, the Lord's Passion and the Magdalene's story. So vast is the accumulation of treasures in the sanctuaries of Troyes that one can indicate merely a few of them. In St. Jean's church--Flamboyant Gothic mainly, with a XII-century tower and a XIV-century nave--is a Visitation (1520) by Nicolas Haslin, a meeting of two pleasant dames of Troyes, wearing robes of Burgundian fullness, a group in which there appears a first evidence of transalpine influence. The reredos, from the Juliot studio, that led in the transition from French Gothic art to the neo-classic standards, has conventional images somewhat overgestured. In the flat eastern wall of St. Jean is a _maîtresse vitre_ (1630) by the Gontier brothers, delicate in hue, yet radiant, with half tones such as mauve, salmon pink, soft grays, pomegranate, celadine green. Eagerly the Renaissance masters seized on the new invention of _verre double_, which allowed them a fuller palate. Their over-use of opaque enamel-painting on glass led to the deterioration of the vitrine art, for the picture-painter soon swamped the glazier and draftsman who had worked in subordination to the architect. In the church of St. Pantaléon, where Lyénin II worked, the windows are in one or two tones, gray-brown with silver-stain yellow and flesh color, a style better suited to domestic interiors or to civic halls than to churches. The church boasts a statue of St. James and a Charité by Domenico Florentino, and a St. Crespin group by a son of Troyes, François Gentil, influenced by the Italian. To Gentil is attributed the Christ at the column and the Christ bearing the Cross in the church of St. Nicolas, where are also images of St. Anne and St. Joachim from the Juliot studio, a St. Bonaventure from the same source whence emanated the adorable statue of St. Martha, and more of the grisaille picture-glass. In St. Martin-ès-Vignes the window of St. Anne (1623) is attributed to Linard Gontier; in Ste. Sabine are some painted wood panels, and a carved keystone of great beauty; in the hall of the library of Troyes are thirty panels by Linard Gontier, made in commemoration of Henry IV's visit in 1598. CHÂLONS CATHEDRAL[150] It so happens that in most of our communes the church remains the only witness of the olden times and of departed generations. It thus becomes a symbol, legible for the humblest, of the duration of our race, of the persistence, through the dead, of a special group of French families on a special corner of French soil. The village church gives the lesson of lineage, of the solidarity of efforts, of the communion of men.--EDMOND BLANQUERON, Inspecteur de l'Académie de la Haute-Marne, in the crusade to save the churches of Champagne, notably Vignory, one of the oldest in France (c. 1050). The cathedral of Troyes and the church of St. Urbain belong to the Champagne school of Gothic, to which we have devoted no separate chapter because some of its monuments, such as St. Remi at Rheims and Notre Dame at Châlons, we grouped with the Primary Gothic churches, and the cathedral of Rheims with the Great Cathedrals, classifications used solely for greater clarity. From its inception, the Gothic of Champagne kept pace with the Ile-de-France Picard school, and in certain characteristics even took the lead of its neighbor. Gerson, Racine, La Fontaine, Gaston Paris, are among the sons of this province whose Gothic art, formulated centuries before them, displays qualities which embody aspiration, sublimity, sanity always and just measure, a singular ease and grace, patience, and science. From Champagne came the gracious arrangement of planting slender columns and stilted arches at the entrance to radiating chapels. Champagne was the first to use the pier composed of twin columns, first to employ a passageway round the church at the level of the aisle windows, and to place lancets side by side in each bay for the better lighting of the edifice. The region was conservative in clinging to certain Romanesque traits, such as apsidal chapels projecting from the eastern wall of the transept. It employed, as did Normandy and Burgundy, a circulation passage under the clearstory windows. Champagne's influence spread far afield to Sens, Auxerre, St. Quentin, St. Denis, Metz, Toul, Ipres, Tournai, Avila, León, and York.[151] Lest these pages should become overloaded, we can merely touch on the beautiful Champagne cathedral of Châlons-sur-Marne, an old city which is another treasure house of colored glass. The most interesting windows are in the small church of St. Alpin, whose apse celebrates the Eucharist, the souls in Purgatory, the Corpus Christi procession, lately mocked by the Calvinists. Its Manna in the Desert window is a symbol of the Eucharist. In St. Alpin are the most successful examples of that distinguished phase of vitrine art called _camaïeu_--of cameo or chiaroscuro effect, using brown-gray hues, the yellow of silver-stain, a pale blue for the sky, and an occasional single touch of superb ruby red. One of the windows of Raphaelesque design represents St. Alpin, bishop of Châlons, meeting Attila the Hun; another, dated 1539, is a rendering of the Vision of Augustus, a theme most popular then. Peter the Venerable called Châlons "great and illustrious." Guillaume de Champeaux, one of the most learned men of the age, whose schoolroom was really the beginning of the University of Paris, was bishop of Châlons in 1115 when a young Burgundian named Bernard came to be consecrated abbot of Clairvaux. In the monk of twenty-five, unknown yet to fame, the great teacher was swift to recognize a supreme spiritual genius. In 1147 St. Bernard preached at the dedication of the Romanesque cathedral of Châlons before Pope Eugene III, who had been one of his own Cistercian monks at Clairvaux. The present tower to the north of the choir belonged to the church that Bernard knew. The south tower, its mate, is of the XIII century. The placing of belfries on either side of the choir was a Rhenish trait. In 1230 Châlons Cathedral was wrecked by lightning. Its reconstruction began with the choir, under Bishop Pierre de Nemours, whose brothers were building-prelates at Noyon, Paris, and Meaux. In 1250 work on the nave was going on, and at the end of the century was built the transept's excellent north façade. The XVII century erected the unsuitable neo-classic west frontispiece, yet at the same time, curiously enough, the two westernmost bays were constructed in perfect imitation of Apogec Gothic. It remains an open question whether the same Renaissance century made the apse chapels after a fire in 1668. Some say they are of the XIV century, that the choir, as first built, had no ambulatory, but that one was added soon after, with radial chapels. There is a noble purity in Châlons Cathedral, due in large part to its soaring monolithic piers. No church is richer in tombstones, and its stained glass is plenteous. In the eastern clearstory are three lovely silver and blue XIII-century windows; the north rose of the transept is early XIV century and the first window in the nave's south aisle is another good example of that period. The same aisle shows a brilliant XV-century light, ruby red in effect, and a window of 1509, wherein the Blessed Virgin's life is explained by quaint inscriptions. Some XII-century glass from Châlons Cathedral is in the Trocadéro Museum at Paris. Just as Champagne had proved herself a pioneer in the first days of the national art, so she distinguished herself in later times when Rayonnant Gothic turned to Flamboyant art. Among the few churches built during the transition between those two phases is the cathedral-like Notre-Dame-de-l'Épine, in the fields a few miles from Châlons-sur-Marne, a link connecting St. Urbain at Troyes with the goodly array of Flamboyant buildings that sprang up in the ancient capital of Champagne. The interior proportions of Notre-Dame-de-l'Épine resemble those of Rheims Cathedral, and its rood screen recalls the _jubé_ of the Madeleine church at Troyes. But _revenons à nostro matière_, as dear Joinville, seneschal of Champagne, would say. The reason for the wealth of architecture and its allied arts and crafts in the region of which Troyes is the center was because the ancient city, so unnoted in to-day's activities, lay on the mediæval highway of commerce, and under its enterprising rulers became the scene bi-yearly of a fair to which all Europe flocked. To this day we use Troy weight. The counts of Champagne safeguarded the visiting merchants and fostered commerce by wise laws. Their money passed in Rome and Venice as freely as in Provins and Troyes. Lavish and art-loving were the Champagne rulers; one of them founded Clairvaux in lower Champagne; another rebuilt the Cistercian church of Pontigny, just over the border in Burgundy. They were indefatigable crusaders, some of them winning thrones in the East. And their alliances constantly enriched their stock with new qualities, as when Count Henry the Magnificent wedded, in 1164, the daughter of Louis VII by Aliénor of Aquitaine. That Countess Marie--the _suer comtessa_ to whom her half brother, Richard Coeur-de-Lion, addressed his famous prison song--made of her court of Champagne a school of good manners with all the ceremonial of the Midi's _cour d'amour_. What M. Gaston Paris calls poet-laureates' work, _poésie courtoise_, became the vogue, and the Countess Marie herself wrote in the troubadour manner. She encouraged the best of the XII-century poets, Crestien de Troyes (d. 1175), suggesting to him the romances of the Breton cycle, Lancelot, Tristan, and Percival.[152] Through Crestien the story of the Holy Grail spread over Europe. In him the trouvères new ideals of chivalry met the Midi's refined gallantry, and the Celtic themes which he versified brought what was needed of passion and profundity. All Europe then drew its poetic inspirations from the _matière de France_, as France in her turn was enriching herself from the inexhaustible _matière de Bretagne_. The XII-century French trouvères were imitated by the German Minnesingers, by the early songsters of England, Spain, and Portugal, and in Italy the precursors of Dante preferred the use of the Romance tongues of France. In the fecund hour wherein our modern civilization was conceived, France gave to the Western World her architecture, her sculpture, and her poetry. At the cathedral doors of Verona, Roland and Oliver were sculpted. The international city of Troyes saw the creation of the Templars Order at her Council of 1128, whither had come Hugues de Payns, a knight related to the reigning counts. Taking part in the First Crusade, he proved himself a true _prud'homme_ in Palestine by forming a band of volunteer knights to escort unprotected pilgrims. At the Council of Troyes he won recognition for his monk-knights. St. Bernard championed them, drew up their rule, and gave them their white robe and red cross. With the birth of the national art rose this great military Order and with its decline it was stricken down. When the lust of gain replaced aspiration, men no longer went crusading or built cathedrals. The ancient city of Troyes is not only associated with epic poetry--"history before there are historians"--but is linked with the earliest two historians who wrote in the vernacular, Villehardouin and Joinville. "_Mes lengages est buens car en France fui nez_," boasted the Champagne poet, who tells us that God listened by preference to his speech, since he had made it lighter and better than any other, of more brevity, of nobler amplitude. Villehardouin's record of the Fourth Crusade, the _Conquête de Constantinople_, possesses the same powerful simplicity as the greatest of all chansons-de-geste, _Roland_. He was born near Troyes, in whose convents lived two of his daughters and his two sisters, and to whose churches he left property. Our good friend Joinville grew up in the cultivated court of the Countess Marie's grandson, Thibaut IV _le Chansonnier_, born in Troyes. Thibaut's songs blended the courteous poetry of the troubadour tradition with the attic salt of his own most civilized Champagne. In his gallant company Joinville acquired his good manners and inimitable mode of expression. The last countess of this land of gay singers and soldier-historians was Thibaut's granddaughter, Jeanne, who inspired Joinville to write his memoirs, helped to build Meaux Cathedral, and founded the College of Navarre where Gerson and Bossuet were to be trained. But, alas! the liberal young heiress of Champagne married the legist king of France, Phillipe le Bel, the executioner of the Templars. When he struck a blow at the international fairs of Champagne by persecuting Lombards and Jews, the great day for Troyes was over. When Jeanne d'Arc--born on the confines of Champagne--revived the nation's pride, the art traditions latent in the citizens of Troyes flowered once more with magnificence. Only the slow accumulation of centuries could have produced the unemphatic beauty of the gracious St. Martha in Troyes' Flamboyant Gothic church of the Madeleine. THE CATHEDRAL OF TOURS.[153] A religion is the heart of a race; it expresses the emotions of a people and elevates them by giving them an aim: but, unless a God be visibly honored, religion does not exist, and human laws are powerless.... Thought, the fountain of all good and evil, cannot be trained, mastered, and directed except by religion, and the only possible religion is Christianity, which created the modern world and will preserve it.... France is being saved and lost perpetually. If she wants to be saved, indeed, let her go back to the laws of God.--HONORÉ DE BALZAC (1799-1850; born in Tours). The cathedral of Tours does not startle. One is not carried away by it, at first. Its charm is that of the tranquil horizons of the Loire, _fleuve de lumière, de vie doucement heureuse, partout de plein effets de lenteur, d'ordre_, so Rodin saw it. The beauty of Touraine increases with familiarity because it is touched with that measure, that justness of soul inherited from the classic spirit, that has ever tempered, in the art manifestations of this nation, the sublime overimpassioned consistencies of the Celt and the lofty overexaggerated dreams of the Teuton. The cathedral of Tours does not aspire to the impossible. It is a rather cold, high-bred church at one with its environment, the gracious garden of Touraine, a satisfying, discreet church and most intensely French. While one rejoices that a Robert de Lusarches aspired to the Infinite at Amiens, one approves the architect of Tours who worked within human possibilities. The choir of the cathedral possesses both delicacy and force. Toward its erection Louis IX granted a quarry and some forest lands near Chinon. The choir must have been nearing its completion when in 1255 the king visited Tours, whose archbishop, Geoffrey de Martel, had lately died a crusader in Palestine. During the fifty years prior to 1270 the cathedral was building. In 1269 the relics of St. Maurice and his companions from Thebes, who were martyred in Gaul under Diocletian, were transferred to the sanctuary. Those early Christians were the tutelary saints of Tours Cathedral up to the XIV century. Then St. Gatien, the first to preach Christianity in this region, was chosen as patron. _La Gatienne_ the people call their chief church. The cult of the early missionary had been a favorite devotion of St. Martin, third and greatest bishop of Tours, who died as the IV century drew to a close. Like Lyons, Tours has eminent ecclesiastical memories. The shrine of St. Martin, the most popular saint of Gaul, made the city a frequented pilgrimage for Europe. Gregory of Tours, who ruled this see from 573 to 595, has described the richness of the Byzantine church that stood over the tomb of the great thaumaturge. Like most of the prelates who saved Latin civilization from the Barbarian's submersion, Bishop Gregory was of Gallo-Roman stock, of a senatorial family of Auvergne who boasted descent from an early Christian martyr of Gaul. In the present southwest tower of la Gatienne are traces of the VI-century cathedral built by this bishop-historian of Gaul, whose pages are a chief source for Merovingian times.[154] The city of Tours always had two great monuments--the cathedral within the ramparts, the basilica of St. Martin outside the walls. St. Martin's abbey was the nation's intellectual leader when the Saxon scholar Alcuin became its abbot (796-804). He made of Tours a Christian Athens. They buried him in his abbatial, where four years earlier Charlemagne's wife, Luitgarde, had been laid. To-day only two towers stand of St. Martin's basilica--the Tour Charlemagne, begun by the Blessed Hervé, abbot in 997, hence one of the oldest memorials of the rebirth of architecture associated with the year 1000, and a former façade tower mainly of the XII century. One of the busiest streets of Tours runs up what once was the nave of the abbatial, but, not discouraged, the people of Touraine have erected a new Byzantinesque basilica of St. Martin on the site of the transept's southern arm. Those two tragic frenzies of forgetfulness, 1562, that scattered St. Martin's ashes--for which St. Eloi, bishop-goldsmith of Noyon, had made a priceless reliquary--and 1793, that laid in ruins his church in Tours and Marmoutier's Apogee Gothic abbatial that marked the rock-hewn cells where he had lived a hermit across the Loire, those two blind hours when men thought to erect barriers between themselves and their past, destroyed monuments which, did they exist still, would rank Tours, architecturally, among the first cities of Europe. St. Martin's church, built by Hervé, became a _monument-type_,[155] copied by Ste. Foi, Congnes, St. Martial, Limoges, St. Sernin, Toulouse, and the cathedral at Santiago. It is said that twenty centuries of human effort are represented by the stones of Tours Cathedral.[156] In the base of its façade towers are remains of the city's III-century walls, which had been constructed in their turn with the big stones stolen from the local Roman temples of 50 B.C. For sixteen centuries Mass has been said on this site. In the southwest tower are vestiges of Gregory of Tours' VI-century church, and in the northwest tower traces of the Romanesque cathedral on which worked the philosopher and theologian, Hildebert de Lavardin, the most popular poet of his age and one of the builders of Le Mans Cathedral before promoted to be Tours' sixty-fourth archbishop (1125-34). In refuting Berengar, a canon of Tours, who taught a confused doctrine concerning the Eucharist, Bishop Hildebert was the first to use the term "transubstantiation" in its theological sense. It is said that the custom of elevating the Host in the Mass resulted from the eucharistic controversies started by Berengar. In 1167 a fire, caused by a quarrel over crusaders' treasure, between Louis VII and Henry II Plantagenet, destroyed the Romanesque cathedral of Tours. Bishop Joscion, who died in 1173, planned to construct a Plantagenet Gothic church, since Touraine was in large part under Angevin control, and to the church he began belongs the graceful _bombé_ vault borne on eight slender branches beneath the northwest tower. In 1191 Richard Coeur-de-Lion came to his city of Tours to receive the crusaders' insignia before his venture to the East. His ransom drained the land of building funds. For that cause or another, the projected work at Tours languished. The actual choir was begun only about 1210, when the city had become a part of the royal domain, and its new master Philippe-Auguste wrote that he held the church of Tours to be one of the chief jewels of his crown, and that whosoever molested it touched his (the king's) person. We do not know who was the original architect of _la Gatienne_. Étienne de Mortagne, who designed the Benedictine church at Marmoutier, is mentioned, in 1269, as master-of-works at the cathedral, but by that time its choir was completed. That choir, while making no pretense of being sublime, is a monument of noble robustness, displaying within and without the veriest genius of good taste. The vista closing the eastern end of the church is one of the most satisfactory in France, owing to its right proportion. In this, Tours derives directly from Amiens. Its pier arcade comprises one-third of the interior wall elevation; and the triforium and clearstory make up the other two-thirds--clearstory being double the height of triforium. At Tours the relation of span and height is admirable, and both are well correlated with length. Seen in perspective down the nave, the three stories of colored glass around the sanctuary are the supreme impression of this church interior, and seldom does one pass from its west portal without turning back for a lingering look at that harmonious chevet of consecrated light. Through the pier arches can be seen symmetrically the windows of the apse chapels. The design of the glazed triforium is excelled by no other in France; though serving as a kind of pedestal for the upper lights, it retains its own entity. When the choir of Tours was completed, the builders proceeded at once to erect the transept which, the stones themselves say, must have been finished as the XIII century closed. The nave's easternmost bays touching it belong to the first years of the next century, as do the two rose windows of the transept. The northern rose is irreproachable in design and of the same scintillating jewel tradition as XIII-century glass. The Hundred Years' War, here as elsewhere, checked building activities. When they were resumed at Tours, happily the first plans were adhered to, so that choir and nave are homogeneous. As the church advanced toward the west, the window tracery changed from Rayonnant to Flamboyant, the profiles grew prismatic, and the sculpture of the capitals became naturalistic rather than an architectural interpretation of foliage. The nave was made narrower than the choir, probably with the intention of joining it to the XII-century façade. Of the four triumphal piers at the transept-crossing, the two westernmost ones stand closer together than those flanking the choir, whose spacious procession path causes the side aisles of the nave to appear meager. What might seem an overreasonableness in the architecture of Tours metropolitan church is offset by the glory of its jeweled windows. Between 1260 and 1270 the choir's upper lights were placed, and considering their date, they are exceptional in still being of the legend-medallions type rather than large single figures. Blue is set in greenish white with good effect, contrasting happily with certain contemporary windows at Paris, where the juxtaposition of blue and red produced melancholy purple. The joyous sparkling tone of Tours' lights proves a skillful use of pot-metal yellow. More care was taken to tell the legends plainly than to put borders round each medallion. The glass of Tours belongs to the Paris school, though made, doubtless, by local workers. Were a floor laid below the triforium of the choir, its fifteen upper windows, composing a veritable pavilion of glass, would be almost a replica of the Sainte-Chapelle, and one recalls that it was Archbishop Odo of Tours who on April 25, 1248, dedicated for St. Louis his new shrine at Paris. The donors of Tours' great windows were churchmen and laymen, the lowly and the mighty. Bishop Geoffrey de Loudon, builder of Le Mans' glorious choir, presented a light, as did Tours' own prelate and a group of parish priests. Small craftsmen were donors, drapers, and day laborers, and of course Queen Blanche's donjons of Castile are to be seen. Her window, devoted to St. James, the patron of Spain, is splendid in hue. The fourth clearstory window on the north excels in color harmony. They call it the Adam window, after the first tiller of the soil. It was presented by plowmen, and relates their field labors as well as the story of Genesis. On one side of the central light of the clearstory is a dazzling Tree of Jesse, the gift of a furrier and his wife. Next to it is a window devoted to St. Martin, whose story is told again, in the late XIII-century glass of an apse chapel. More French churches have been dedicated to St. Martin than to any other patron save Notre Dame. The windows of the sanctuary north of the axis chapel, though mixed in design, excel all others in exquisite color, being composed of fragments from St. Martin's abbatial reset here. The New Alliance window in the Lady chapel has medallions of Christ bearing His Cross and the Crucifixion accompanied by such symbols and prefigurings as Elisha resuscitating the child, Jonah issuing from the whale's jaws, the brazen serpent, and Moses striking the rock. All the world was a symbol to the men of those Ages of Faith. The interlinked petals of the transept's northern rose meet in a symbol of the Divinity--a knot without beginning or end--the _forma universal_ visioned by Dante. There are Frenchmen who think that the splendid rose windows in their Gothic cathedrals suggested to the exile of Florence his conception of the empyrean. Heaven as Dante visioned it had neither roof of gold nor pillars of jasper, but was an expanded, supernal, white rose. Once the nave of Tours Cathedral was filled with late-Gothic windows, but storms wrecked many of them. Some of its glass has been set in a line of lights beneath the transept's north rose, XV-century panels representing members of the Bourbon Vendôme family, that was to mount the French throne with Henry IV. Jean Fouquet might have drawn them. Under the XVI-century rose in the west façade is another row of windows containing good portraits of art patrons as munificent as the Bourbons--the Laval-Montmorency family. All over France we find them as donors of beautiful things. The hour when Tours was an individual leader in art came during the late-Gothic development.[157] Then was finished the cathedral's nave, chapter house, library, cloister, and the psaltery with its pretty Renaissance stair. The cathedral canons, _Messires de la Gatienne_, sacrificed a forest for the nave's overroof. The elaborate Flamboyant façade was set up. Jean Papin was its architect, and Jean de Dammartin, fresh from Le Mans' transept, worked on it. It was begun under Archbishop Philippe de Coëtquis (1427-41), one of the learned men whom Charles VII summoned to interrogate Jeanne d'Arc. He pronounced her entirely sincere. In Tours Cathedral, April, 1429, knelt St. Jeanne for a solemn benediction before she went forth to accomplish her feat at Orléans. An artist of Tours made for her the banner she loved better than her sword. When Tours heard that she was taken prisoner, public prayers were ordered and a procession marched with bare feet, in penitential intercession for her deliverance. Charles VII had been married in Tours to his cousin Marie of Anjou, who was, says the modern student, more his incentive to patriotism than Agnes Sorel. The son of Charles, Louis XI, also was married in the cathedral of Tours, and preferred to live in the environs of the ancient ecclesiastic city. Under the saintly Archbishop Robert de Lenoncourt, installed here in 1488, were finished Tours' western portals. Their foliage is tormented, serrated, and deeply undercut, almost too prodigally and delicately sculptured for an exterior decoration. The entranceways are to-day shorn of their imagery, the statues having been shattered in 1562. In the Renaissance day the façade's twin towers were gracefully topped; _deux beaux bijoux_, Henry IV called the belfries of Tours. Throughout the Loire region an astounding number of monuments rose during the last half of the XV century and the early part of the XVI. Tours was the foyer for a school of sculpture that spread to Le Mans, Angers, Nantes, Poitiers, and Bourges. From 1480 to 1512 the school of the Region-of-the-Loire, as M. Paul Vitry calls it, was at its prime. It culminated in the ducal tomb at Nantes and the entombments at Solesmes. Dijon, the leader of the first half of the XV century, benefited Tours by its realism, and the Italian artists, gathered here in the dawn of the foreign Renaissance in France, contributed certain qualities. But the art of Michel Colombo is predominatingly of the Middle Ages, and a product of Touraine, a measured, contained, and charming art, _de pur esprit français_. Colombe simplified the draperies of the Franco-Flamand school and eschewed the Dijon roughness. His grace is never petty, however, nor his idealism conventional. As the XVI century opened he made, in his Tours studio, the statues for the ducal tomb at Nantes. In 1509 his nephew, Guillaume Regnault, sculptured the recumbent images of the children of Anne of Brittany and Charles VIII for the sarcophagus, now in the cathedral of Tours, the base of which was covered with arabesques by Jerome of Fiesole. Colombo's contemporary, Jehan Fouquet, a son of Tours, delighted in painting the regional types. He decorated the walls of Notre-Dame-la-Riche, but his work is lost, though some of the dazzling Renaissance windows of that late-Gothic church of Tours have survived. A certain Jean Clouet emigrated from Brussels to Tours in those days, and his son and grandson, born by the Loire, are two of the French _primitifs_ whose work the traveler does not care to miss in any gallery that can boast their Holbein-like canvases. During the Revolution, plans were afoot to destroy the cathedral of Tours, but two artists of the city (so loyal through centuries to art interests) risked their lives to save their noble Gothic church. THE CATHEDRAL OF LYONS.[158] What Christian does not approach with veneration this city that was in France the cradle of the true religion, and where amid persecutions and tortures rose for the first time the Cross of Christ? Who does not tread with veneration the soil impregnated with the blood of so many martyrs and forever consecrated by the glories of a see that justly claims the title Primate of Gaul?--CHARLES DE MONTALEMBERT, visiting Lyons in 1831. In its early Christian memories Lyons outrivals all other cities of France. It claims a clear apostolic tradition, and boasts that, next to Rome, it shed most Christian blood witnessing to the planting of the Cross. And modern Lyons is the center of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, which sends forth to non-Christian lands more missionaries than any other group in western Christendom--apostles who obey the mandate given to Lyons' first martyr-bishops: Go, teach ye all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Imperial Rome, that foreshadowed many things, chose Lyons, before the birth of Christ, as starting point for her network of highways and aqueducts over Gaul. Augustus made it the capital of Celtic Gaul. It was the bishop of Smyrna, St. Polycarp (d. A.D. 166), the disciple of St. John the Beloved (d. A.D. 100), who sent the first two bishops of Lyons to Christianize Gaul, Pothinus (d. A.D. 177), an Asiatic Greek, and Irenæus (d. A.D. 202), one of the most remarkable writers of the early Christian era, lettered in Greek literature and writing in Greek. With profound knowledge of Christian doctrine, he advocated, for the guidance of the Church, tradition, or the spoken word of the Apostles, as well as their written word. Often with just pride did Irenæus boast that his doctrine came direct from the contemporaries of the Saviour: "I could describe to you the very spot where the blessed Polycarp sat when he preached God's word.... His discourse to the people is engraved in my heart. He had talked with John and the others who saw the Lord." For twenty years St. Irenæus served as priest in Lyons under Bishop Pothinus, and then when that holy prelate, at ninety years of age, was martyred during the persecutions of the Christians under Marcus Aurelius, Irenæus went to Rome to be consecrated primate of Gaul in his place. When the pagan judge asked Pothinus who was the Christians' God, the aged man made answer: "Merit him and you will know him." For twenty years, till his death in 202, St. Irenæus evangelized the country with such success that Lyons was almost a Christian city when the persecution of Septimus Severus broke out. Then followed evil days when the streets of Lyons ran red with blood, and her learned bishop perished with nineteen thousand Christian martyrs. During the first persecution, in 177, the Christians of the city wrote a famous letter describing how forty-eight of their number were tortured day after day in the Roman Forum of Lyons, till even the pagans allowed that never a woman had suffered so much and so long as the fragile slave Blandina. The letter of "the servitors of Christ who inhabit Vienne and Lyons in Gaul, to the brothers of Asia and Phrygia who partake of our Faith and our hope in the Redemption," is not only an historical document, precious for Lyons, but, as Renan said, is "one of the most extraordinary pages that any literature possesses."[159] The hill of Fourvière looms over the scene of the martyrdoms, the _forum vetus_, the forum of Trajan, which gave its name to the neighboring eminence to which many generations have come as to a pilgrimage shrine. On the flank of the hill a hospice marks where St. Pothinus breathed his last. The sumptuous new basilica that stands on the crest of the hill beside an ancient chapel, now its annex, persistently dominates the old, gray city. Lyons fulfilled its war vow of 1870 by the erection of this church wherein are strange echoes of Greek, Sicilian, Byzantine, and Gothic art that surely will make archæologists in the far future wonder at much in our civilization. On its walls the city's proud apostolic traditions are set forth in mosaics. Equally venerated is the ancient church of St. Martin d'Ainay which marks the holy ground where many of the martyrs were slaughtered at the confluence of the Saône and the Rhone. There once had stood the temple of the sixty nations of Gaul consecrated to the glory of Augustus. Haunted by imperial visions, Napoleon at St. Helena suggested that his burial site be where the Rhone met the Saône. No city is more nobly girdled than Lyons. From the altar to Augustus came the four pillars at the transept crossing of St. Martin's; two lofty classic columns were cut in two to make them. The Burgundian queen, Brunehaut, of tragic memory, rebuilt Ainay's original oratory over the Christian martyrs' bones, and founded the monastery which is one of the oldest in France. In the course of time it became affiliated with the world-power, Cluny. The present church of St. Martin was blessed in 1106 by Paschal II, who on this same journey had dedicated various new basilicas in northern Italy. In the XII and XIII centuries St. Martin's outer aisles were added. The crypt under the chapel of Ste. Blandine is not later than the V century. A contemporary of St. Martin's is the little Romanesque building touching the cathedral's façade, the _Manécanterie_ (to sing in the morning).[160] Originally it formed the outer wall of a gallery of the cloister. The cathedral of St. John the Baptist faces the hill of Fourvière and its apse overlooks the Saône. The Baptist was the first teacher of St. John Evangelist to whom the city traces its Christianity. A preceding Romanesque cathedral, building in 1084 and completed by 1117, was destroyed during disorders between the two warring local authorities, the archbishop and the counts of Forez. Lyons for a time was under the titular jurisdiction of the Holy Roman Empire, but to all intents and purposes was a free city with well developed communal rights. While the Romanesque cathedral was building, St. Anselm of Canterbury passed sixteen months in Lyons as guest of Archbishop Hugues. The present cathedral was undertaken by Archbishop Guichard (1165-80), and in its foundation walls were incorporated some of the polished stones from the forum of Trajan, hallowed by the martyrs' blood. So thick were the apse walls made that flying buttresses were never needed. The windows were set in deep embrasures. The absence of an ambulatory, and the flat roof, are reminders that this city neighbors the Midi. The cathedral's apse, as seen from across the Saône, is admirable. Over the arms of the transept are towers whose breadth indicates that the tower of St. Martin d'Ainay created a school in the district. In comparison with the transept towers, the western belfries of the cathedral appear meager. The nave of Lyons rises twenty-five feet above the choir, and, furthermore, is covered by an inappropriate high-pitched roof. Within the church, the difference in height between the two main parts has been gracefully veiled by piercing, in the flat wall over the triumphal arch of the choir, a rose window and two lancets. In size this church may be modest, but its sincere, grave dignity is such that the impression conveyed is that of a very great cathedral. The nave derived from the north. The choir emanated from the south, and its creamy, sculptured marbles and Greco-Italian incrustations compose an interior of sober elegance, the peer of any sanctuary in the land. A unique feature in France is Lyons' incrustations--patterns cut in white marble and filled in with a reddish-brown cement--found only here and in the cathedral of Vienne.[161] St. Sophia in Constantinople first used the decoration, which was imported into Italy and thence passed up the Rhone. The choir of Lyons' Cathedral, up to its vault-springing, is Romanesque, of the Burgundian and Provençal type. The classic pilaster strips are channeled; on each arm of the transept is an apsidal chapel. The prelate who began it, Guichard, had, while abbot of Pontigny, been the host of St. Thomas Becket, and in Pontigny's church he was buried in 1180. His successor, Jean de Bellesmaine (1180-93), born in Canterbury, was another of Becket's friends, and soon after he was transferred here from the see of Poitiers, then under English rule, he inspired the building of a collegiate church dedicated to the new English saint. Archbishop John undertook the second campaign of works on Lyons' choir, which was now vaulted in the Gothic way. On the capitals of the upper walls are the familiar crockets of the north. In the transept is to be seen the same change from the round arches and fluted pilaster strips of the Romanesque day to the Primary Gothic characteristics. During the first third of the XIII century the transept was vaulted, its two towers raised, and the choir's four easternmost bays built. Lyons was then governed by one of its best rulers, Archbishop Renaud de Forez, who laid here the base for several centuries of prosperity. Circumstances forced him into the position of a leader of armies, but his natural inclination led him to the cloister's peace to end his days. In 1226, as president of a free city, he received Louis VIII, shortly before that king's sudden death. This capable churchman presented to his cathedral the seven magnificent lancets in the curving sanctuary wall, that glow with the sparkling jewel-radiance achieved before 1220, but never equaled afterwards. The windows at Lyons are linked with those at Sens, and Sens' lancets we know to have been related to the earlier school of Chartres. What differentiates Lyons' medallions from those in the north was their use of certain Byzantine arrangements, such as the Virgin reclining on a couch in the Bethlehem grotto, or the representing St. John with a beard. The first light in the Lyons' chevet celebrates the local martyrs. The axis window is a New Alliance, wherein the Old Law symbolizes the New. The meaning of its animal allegories was first explained by Père Cahier, who observed that they were taken from the ancient book called the _Bestiaires_. M. Mâle further discovered that Lyons' New Alliance window showed only those animals spoken of in Honoré d'Autun's popular _Mirror of the Church_. Honoré, who taught in Autun's cathedral school early in the XII century, was the initiator of animal symbolism in French cathedrals. In the upper lights of Lyons' choir are some XIII-century archaic figures of big gaunt patriarchs with strange white eyes. The upper choir's triplet windows of different heights are most artistic. Under the north rose of the transept is a large lancet of surpassing effect, and in the transeptal chapel, close by, is a window that is like a sublimated topaz. The small pieces of glass used, their varied thicknesses and roughnesses are causes producing such sparkle. One cannot stress too strongly the exceptional character of Lyons' glass. Centuries later, in the Flamboyant day, this city produced again a bevy of notable masters. The nave of Lyons Cathedral advanced, bay by bay, in slow progress all through the XIII century, and sculpture and tracery in triforium and clearstory show the gradual change to Rayonnant design. The nave of northern Gothic conformed itself with sound instinct to the Romanesque southern choir. This is a cathedral that kneels more than it soars. The ancient city exulted on Fourvière's hill, but it thought best to keep its cathedral as a solemn cenotaph for its white army of unburied martyrs. There came to Lyons, while its nave was building, the great Englishman, Robert Grosseteste (d. 1253), who at Lincoln made an angel-choir, "one of the loveliest of man's works," to shrine the relics of his predecessor, St. Hugh of Avalon, born in this semi-southern region. And many another enthusiast for the art of the builder studied the nave of Lyons in the course of its construction. Here gathered in 1245 a general Council of the Church. Modern congresses are sometimes dull affairs, but they must have been thrilling in the days when cathedrals were building and each prelate championed his regional ideas and yet looked about eagerly to seize on new ones. The two westernmost bays of Lyons Cathedral were finished by 1310, and then were sculptured the façade portals with hundreds of little panels as full of frolic and fancy as the marginal gaieties of illuminated missals. A few years earlier the transept doors at Rouen had made similar medallions. Vice in them was rendered hateful. Where Lot's story should have been was left a blank space. Not until Flemish realism entered French art, in the XV century, were certain gross scenes rendered. The medallions at Lyons are "Gaulois but without obscenity." From 1308 to 1332 the wide, plain west façade of St. Jean's cathedral was done. Two of the Avignon popes were crowned here in those days, Clement V, the builder of Bordeaux's choir, and John XXII. The great dukes of the west, Philippe le Hardi and his son Jean sans Peur, being hereditary canons of the cathedral, often sat in its choir stalls. Of their time is the astronomical clock in the transept. For ten years, prior to 1429, Jean Gerson lived in the old Christian city, teaching little children their catechism, and the only payment he craved was that they should pray: Lord have mercy on your poor servant Gerson. He had been worsted by his century's treachery, bloodshed, foreign rule, and church schism; but after his death Lyons revered him as a saint, and carved his device, _Sursum Corda_, on a chapel in the church of St. Paul. Scholars have decided against Gerson as author of the _Imitation of Christ_, yet during two centuries he was so believed to be, and his memory will be dear to those who have found inspiration in that precious book. Lyons played so important a part in the revival of late-Gothic art that it was called the French Florence. Its new school of glassmakers decorated the church of Brou, at Bourg-en-Bresse, not far away.[162] Two elaborate Flamboyant Gothic tombs were put up in the cathedral--that of Archbishop de Saluces (d. 1419) by Jacques Morel, and that of Cardinal Charles de Bourbon, a grandson of John the Fearless of Burgundy, and son of the Bourbon duke commemorated by the Souvigny tomb. From 1486 to 1501, he and his brother Pierre de Bourbon, son-in-law of Louis XI, added to Lyons Cathedral the splendid chapel of their name whose walls are carved with their winged stag and the device Espérance. Unfortunately the windows, made by the Lyons master Pierre de la Paix, exist no longer, save a few upper panels, in one of which is an angel of rare beauty holding the Bourbon arms. Frequently in France one meets the donations of Henry IV's art-loving forbears, at Chartres, Tours, Souvigny,[163] Champigny-sur-Veude. Henry was married in Lyons Cathedral, in 1600, to Marie de Medici, daughter of another line of connoisseurs. Like many a cathedral of France, Lyons was at its richest when it was sacked most piteously both in 1560 and 1562. Every church in the city was devastated by the cruel Baron des Adrets, who led the Huguenots one year, the Catholics the next, for in those bitter civil wars religion was often the thinnest cloak. The Huguenots destroyed the tomb of Cardinal de Saluces, with its eighteen alabaster statuettes, smashed the Bourbon chapel and tomb, broke up the Flamboyant rood screen, and dragged through the streets a silver statue of Christ that had surmounted it. On the west façade some fifty large statues were brought down, though happily the lovely little scenes chiseled under their brackets were spared. It is told how an archer shattered Our Lady's image, but when he attempted to dislodge that of God the Father, on the pignon, it fell and killed him. Lyons was again the scene of saturnalian havoc during the Revolution, when by the thousand her citizens were mowed down with grape shot because they chose to adhere to the old régime. A passageway was broken open in the walls of the cathedral to permit the entry of a chariot bearing the Goddess of Reason. Of all the happenings in Lyons Cathedral, the most momentous was the Ecumenical Council of 1274. Christendom never witnessed a greater gathering. At the Council held at Lyons in 1245, Innocent IV had preached his famous sermon on the five wounds of the Church, but he was less concerned with healing them than with excommunicating Frederick II. St. Louis tried in vain to make peace between pope and emperor on his visit to Lyons in those days. When the saint-king died on his last crusade his ashes rested in honor in Lyons Cathedral on their long journey from Tunis to St. Denis. Till the death of Frederick II, the pope lived in Lyons, whose independent position, neither wholly of France nor of the Empire, caused it to be a chosen spot for exiles. Innocent contributed toward the building of a stone bridge over the Rhone to replace one that had collapsed under the troops of Philippe-Auguste and Coeur-de-Lion as they marched to the Third Crusade. The Council of 1245 had been held in a cathedral of whose nave only four bays were completed. For the far greater gathering of 1274, Lyons Cathedral could seat over two thousand prelates and princes. The chief visitors were placed in the choir with Gregory X (formerly a canon of this church). Among them was Aragon's king, Jaime el Conquistador, mighty builder of churches and untiring crusader, Guy de la Tour, the bishop-builder of Clermont Cathedral, and the bishop of Mende, Guillaume Durandus, author of the universally read liturgical treatise. St. Bonaventure, whose book of meditations was soon to inspire Giotto, preached at the opening Mass. His fellow teacher in Paris University, St. Thomas Aquinas, journeying north to attend the congress at Lyons, had died suddenly in the prime of life. The Council of 1274 was not political, as had been that of 1245; its main purposes were the Holy War in the East and the reconciliation of the Greek and Latin churches. The Emperor of Constantinople had sent officials to reconcile him with Rome, and to this day memorials of that short reunion--Greek and Latin processional crosses--stand behind the chief altar of Lyons Cathedral. The emperor's ambassadors solemnly abjured the twenty-six propositions condemned by Rome, then took the oath of fidelity to the pope. With swelling heart the vast throng rose to chant the _Te Deum_. Gregory X intoned the _Credo_ in Latin, and the Greek patriarch repeated thrice the _Filioque_ phrase which, centuries earlier, had been the occasion of the break with Rome, _qui ex Patre Filioque procedit_. Before the century ended the union was a dead-letter, though the emperor till his death remained faithful to his pact. The Greek priesthood proved irreconcilable. The day before the Council closed St. Bonaventure died, and around his grave, in the Franciscan church at Lyons, stood the most imposing group of mourners recorded in history, pope, kings, and five hundred princes and prelates of note. The sermon was preached by Bonaventure's pupil of the Paris schoolroom, the learned Pierre de Tarentaise, archbishop of Lyons, soon to mount Peter's chair as Innocent V. All Christendom was bidden to offer up a prayer for the soul of Brother Bonaventure. The city adopted him as a patron. In 1562 the ashes of the Seraphic Doctor were flung into the Rhone, but there still stands in Lyons a late-Gothic church that bears his name. LE MANS CATHEDRAL[164] A cathedral is a book, a poem, and Christianity, true to its promise, has drawn voice and song from stone, _lapides clamabunt_.--FRÉDÉRIC OZANAM. Like Bourges and Lyons, the cathedral of Le Mans shows the influence of different schools. An Angevin architect made the _bombé_ vaults of its nave, and from the Ile-de-France and Normandy came the masters who designed its mammoth choir. The nave of Le Mans is a masterpiece of Romanesque despite its diagonals; the choir a masterpiece of Apogee Gothic. In the nave appear different stages of pre-Gothic art, and in the choir, the transept, and the nave's masonry roof are represented--Primary, Apogee, Rayonnant, and Flamboyant Gothic. To read the stones of this composite church with intelligence, one must trace its story step by step. It is named after the first bishop of the city, St. Julian, who brought Christianity into the region. Several earlier cathedrals succeeded each other on the site. The one erected after the Northmen sacked Le Mans was falling into ruin when, about 1060, Bishop Vulgrim began a new cathedral, carried on by his successor, Arnould. Their Romanesque choir exists no longer, but vestiges of the church are to be traced in the walls of the present nave, and in the gable of the Psallette, a building to the north of the cathedral, which in Bishop Vulgrim's day formed part of his transept's north tower. The nave of Le Mans as we have it to-day shows three distinct campaigns of work undertaken by the three bishops, Hoël, Hildebert de Lavardin, and Guillaume de Passavant. Bishop Hoël (1085-97), a Breton, able, handsome, patriotic, continued the Romanesque transept and the towers that terminate its arms. His works exist in the base of the southern tower and also in those two pier arcades of the nave that touch the transept. The groin vaulting of the side aisles is of Hoël's time, as well as the aisle walls, decorated with blind arcades, the capitals of whose shafts are carved crudely with chimerical animals. As the capitals opposite those of the engaged shafts show more skill, they must have been done later in the XI century. Good Bishop Hoël, in famine time, sold the gold and silver plate of his cathedral to feed the poor, and on his deathbed distributed his possessions among them. After a visit to Rome, he accompanied Urban II back to France, on the momentous occasion of the launching of the First Crusade. When the Council of Clermont ended, the pope came to Le Mans, in February of 1096, to visit his friend the bishop, to the intense pride of all the city. Such episodes reflect clearly the unison of aspiration which was presently to express itself in mighty movements. The Greek princess who saw the first crusaders arrive in Constantinople has told in graphic phrases how Europe, unloosed from its foundations, hurled itself on Asia, and with a like impetuosity western Christendom was about to fling itself toward heaven in cathedrals. The church on which Bishop Hoël had worked was destroyed in large part by fire, and his successor, the illustrious Hildebert de Lavardin (1097-1125), began a reconstruction about 1110. Hildebert was the most popular poet of his day and in the mediæval schools his letters were committed to memory. A lover of the Latin authors, he composed verses of such facture that some of them have been mistaken for ancient classics. He was philosopher, orator, and architect as well. The best years of his life were passed in Le Mans, though he was to die in Tours as archbishop of that city. While a teacher in Le Mans' cathedral school, he accompanied Bishop Hoël on his travels, and knew well Cluny and its great abbot Hugues, whose biographer he became. Hildebert possessed _esprit_, a sound judgment, and much independence. Life tested him harshly. The ordeal of prison he suffered several times, and the worse ordeal of calumny, which is disproved by the affectionate friendship felt for him by St. Anselm, St. Bernard, and Bishop Ives of Chartres. No man, he himself said in one of his sermons, should be a bishop whose life has not always been irreproachable. His contemporaries called him "a prelate attentive to the distribution of the bread of the word of God," a man zealous for discipline, charitable to the poor, and with a love for the House of Prayer that made him a builder both at Le Mans and Tours. [Illustration: _Le Mans' Choir_ (_1217-1254_). _The Double Aisles_] Like St. Anselm, he was bullied by William Rufus. Maine lay between Anjou and Normandy and was fought for by each of those expanding powers, a duel settled only by the marriage of the heiress of Maine to the heir of Anjou, the son of which union was Geoffrey the Handsome, the first Plantagenet so called, who married the heiress of Normandy and England. Geoffrey's son, Henry II of England, inherited Maine, Anjou, and Normandy before he fell heir to the kingdom across the Channel. When William Rufus captured Le Mans in 1097, he exacted the demolition of the cathedral's towers on the charge that they dominated his residence. Annoyed that Hildebert had been elected bishop without his deciding voice, he pillaged his palace, confiscated his possessions, and kept him chained in prison for a year. The bishop was imprisoned as well by Maine's designing neighbor to the south, the Count of Anjou, and once while in the south of France he almost met death at the hands of Saracen pirates. Despite vicissitudes, he found time for writing poetry and for building. He obtained a monk-architect named Jean from the noted Geoffrey, abbot of Vendôme,[165] author, writer, and the intimate of many popes. Later, when Abbot Geoffrey asked for the return of his architect, Hildebert retained him, and a tart letter of the abbot to the bishop exists; it appears that monk Jean was sent, in consequence, on a penitential pilgrimage to Palestine. Bishop Hildebert's part in Le Mans' actual cathedral is the semicircular pier arches discernible in all the bays of the nave save the two touching the transept, the alternate circular piers, and the west façade, wherein were retained older portions, and against which leans a big menhir of immemorial age: "_Il y a dans la cathédrale toute la simple beauté du menhir qui l'annonce_," is one of Rodin's vivifying phrases. Bishop Hildebert consecrated his new cathedral in 1120, and it is related how, on that day, Fulk V of Anjou, the widower of the heiress of Maine, about to start for the Holy Land, set his little son of seven, Geoffrey, on the high altar of Le Mans Cathedral, and said with emotion: "O holy Julian, to thee I commend my child and my lands. Defend and protect them both." His prowess in Palestine was eventually to win for him the heiress of Jerusalem, so that when he had married his son Geoffrey to a woman of great fortune, he sensibly left him as sole ruler in Maine and Anjou, contenting himself with his Oriental kingdom. Two fires in quick succession damaged the Romanesque cathedral of Le Mans. Ordericus Vitalis tells how "in the first week of September, 1134, the hand of God punished many sins by fire, for the ancient and wealthy cities of Le Mans and Chartres were burned." In the necessary changes that followed practically all the central nave was redone by Bishop Guillaume de Passavant (1145-86). The triforium, the clearstory, and the masonry roof are his, and he constructed the pointed arches under the semicircular ones of Bishop Hildebert's pier arcade. The four immense square vault sections (c. 1150) over Le Mans' nave are of the heavy rib Plantagenet type, like the so-called domical vaults of Angers Cathedral. Their crown, or keystone, being ten feet higher than their framing arches, a pronounced concave shape results. The addition of a heavy stone roof necessitated the englobing of each alternate monolithic column by a square pier cantoned with shafts. Bishop Guillaume developed the door in the south flank of the nave, whose column images, though much mutilated, are allied with those at Chartres' western entrances. At the door joints, in bas-relief only, are Peter and Paul; an additional step was taken when the other images were made to stand almost free of their columns. Guglielmo, the Lombard, had used jamb-sculpture at Modena Cathedral as the XII century opened. This door of Le Mans, among the earliest of French imaged portals, belongs to the decade before 1150. The porch leading to it was built in time for the consecration of the cathedral in 1158. Guillaume de Passavant was another of the outstanding men of his age. He, too, wrote Latin verses, and even as he lay dying composed a little satire on his attendants, whom his clear eyes observed to be more concerned over the coming recompense from his estate than for the loss of their bishop. Like St. Bernard, who had loved him as a youth, he was a tireless reader of the Bible. Daily at his table the poor were fed. He presented to his cathedral a cloth of gold studded with gems, for which he wrote verses, saying that in case of famine it was to be sold to feed the destitute. Another princely gift he gave to Le Mans Cathedral was the enameled tomb of Count Geoffrey the Handsome, of which only one large panel has survived, now the treasure of the Museum. Both kinds of enamel were used, the flat surface, or champlevé, and the cloisonné method. The technique is Limousin, not, as some have said, Rhenish; between Le Mans and Limoges were many links. Geoffrey the Handsome was the thirteenth count of Anjou, though the capital of Maine was always his favorite residence, rather than Angers, the chief city of his father's patrimony. He won the nickname "Plantagenet" because of the sprig of broom he used to stick in his cap. True to his race's instinct for territorial aggrandizement, he married, when not yet twenty, a woman twice his age, Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England, the Conqueror's son. Geoffrey died in 1151 on his return from the Second Crusade, where he had fought for his half brother, Baudouin III, king of Jerusalem. His son, Henry II, was born in Le Mans (1133) and baptized in its cathedral. Henry had revered Guillaume de Passavant from childhood, yet once, in an Angevin passion, because the aged bishop had crossed his will, he sent messengers from England to order the sacking of the prelate's palace. Thomas Becket, then Henry's chancellor, gave secret advice to the envoys to tarry long on their journey to Maine. On the third day after their departure he wrung from the king, who fancied his order was already carried out, a counter-order, which he rushed through to Le Mans. Henry Plantagenet loved Le Mans better than any city in his wide dominions, and his heart broke when his rebellious son, Richard Coeur-de-Lion, drove him out in 1189. Two months later he died in Chinon castle and was carried for burial to Fontevrault; the ancient prophecy had said that Anjou's ruler of his generation would lie shrouded among the shrouden women. If Fulk Nerra's wild blood had passed to Henry, so had his shrewdness and progressive statesmanship. He, too, like his father, before twenty, wedded a woman much older than himself, the richest heiress in Christendom, Aliénor of Aquitaine. Possessing Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, Normandy and Aquitaine, this king of England ruled more territory in France than did the French king. And Philippe-Auguste, son of the French monarch, whom Aliénor had discarded, bent his resourceful genius and fox-like policies to change so abnormal a state of affairs. The Capet-Plantagenet duel was to last for centuries. Both Henry and Philippe were munificent patrons of the new architecture. Henry sponsored that individual phase of it called Plantagenet Gothic; under Philippe, French Gothic reached its highest development. And the cathedral of Le Mans records them both, Plantagenet in its nave, northern French in its choir. When Maine, Anjou, and Touraine, because of John Lackland's crimes, passed willingly to the French king, the art of the Ile-de-France found favor in southwest France. Then it was that the XI-century Romanesque chevet of Le Mans Cathedral was replaced by the present stupendous Gothic choir. In 1217 Bishop Hamlin obtained the consent of Philippe-Auguste to destroy the Gallo-Roman city walls in order to extend the apse of his church, and the next year the choir was started. The bishop, trowel in hand, spent hours on the new work. His two successors continued the enterprise. From 1234 to 1255 Bishop Geoffrey de London was its princely benefactor. In 1254 the choir was dedicated, "a day of benediction" for our land, said the people with tears of fervor. Men and women worked voluntarily to clear the edifice of builders' rubbish, even the little children of four carrying out the sand in their frocks. For the happy ceremony, each guild of the city, chanting psalms, brought a candle of two-hundred-pound weight, to be set up in a majestic circle round the high altar. The choir, then blessed for God's service, is one of the vast designs of Gothic architecture. "Words are powerless to paint the majesty of this sanctuary," wrote M. Gonse. Here, as at Bourges, is the note of dream beauty that haunts the memory, the something mysterious and superlatively picturesque. Were the church completed on the same scale it would rank with the supreme cathedrals of France. From the exterior the contrast between the XII-century nave and its towering neighbor is painfully abrupt. The nave's outer walls are stark and unadorned, the round arched windows insignificant in size. But who would be willing to forfeit the venerable monument built by the poet-theologians, Hildebert de Lavardin and Guillaume de Passavant, wherein history has been lived, and whose interior aspect is of so grave, white, and primeval a simplicity? Overawing in size is Le Mans' Gothic choir. The ground falls away to the cast of the church, and then opens out in the Place des Jacobins, whence can be obtained an unobstructed view of the stupendous edifice. Its numerous apse chapels are of exceptional length. The forked flying buttresses allowed the insertion of ambulatory windows. As at Bourges and Coutances, the inner aisle is sufficiently high to possess its own triforium and clearstory, but Le Mans improved on Bourges by omitting altogether the triforium of its middle choir in order not to dwarf its clearstory. Archæologists have traced the handiwork of three different men in Le Mans' choir. First, an architect of the Ile-de-France made the general plan, and built the thirteen radiating chapels. Then a Norman worked on the eastern curve, and it is thought he was Thomas Toustain, cited here as master-of-works, since Toustain is a Norman name. Perhaps he was the same genius who had already planned the high inner aisle at Coutances Cathedral. Very Norman are Le Mans' circular capitals, the sanctuary's twin-column piers, the carved band under the clearstory, the sharp-pointed arches beneath arches, and the foliate sculpture covering the spandrels of the aisle's triforium. The third master-of-works must have been a native of the Ile-de-France, for the upper choir and the two bays nearest the transept belong to that school. There is a progressive enlarging of the bays of the choir from its entrance to its end, done too regularly to have been accidental. Professor Goodyear has developed the thesis of these intentional refinements in Gothic monuments.[166] Mr. Arthur Kingsley Porter thinks that undoubtedly there are cases when it was done with subtle design, but more often the irregularities resulted from the sound artistic taste of the old masters who preferred a free-hand drawing to mechanical perfection. "There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion," said Bacon. Some think that at Le Mans the desire was to counteract the perspective narrowing. Others say that the builder thought thus to conform the wide choir to the ancient nave of lesser breadth. Not till the day of Rayonnant Gothic was Le Mans' transept begun, and it proved exceptional in continuing building while the foreign wars ravaged France; the chapter taxed itself heavily to meet expenses. As the XIV century closed, the southern arm was finished; it is entirely blocked by the ancient tower, to which were then added two stories. Midway in the vertical wall of the northern arm (begun in 1403) appears Flamboyant tracery. As cracks soon showed, the chapter called in a new architect, Jean de Dammartin, whose grandfather and great-uncle had beautified Dijon, Bourges, and Poitiers. When in 1430 the English captured Le Mans, he passed to Tours, on whose west façade he worked. Because the Gothic transept of Le Mans was confined to the same space as the Romanesque one it replaced, it may seem too narrow for such tremendous height. It is a monument as stately and cold as the glass it frames. Window over window rises the fragile audacious sweep of color that closes the transept's northern vista, each part being bound by stone traceries into the monumental whole. White and the yellow produced by silver-stain is the general theme, with brilliant touches of green, flashed ruby, violet, and blue. It has been said that what XV-century glass needs, to give it character, are the strong black cross-hatchings of the earlier schools. In the row of lights below the big rose, a damasked background to the figures was used with good effect. Among those represented are good King René, faithful amateur of art, and his mother, Yolande of Aragon, the regent dowager of Maine and Anjou. Her son-in-law Charles VII contributed toward the transept of Le Mans. For its wealth of storied windows Le Mans comes second only to Chartres and Bourges. It has suffered from hail-storms which wrecked many of its XIII-century treasures. The majority of the choir lights were set up between 1250 and 1260. Those in the radial chapels are somewhat earlier; in the long Lady chapel is a notable Tree of Jesse. The upper windows, contemporaries of those at Tours, have large figures with signatures that tell us their donors were canons, Benedictines,[167] Cistercians, architects, drapers (the donors of the fourth window), furriers (who gave the fifth), innkeepers and publicans (who presented the sixth). The seventh window--in the center of the apse--was the gift of Bishop Geoffrey de Loudon. In the thirteenth window bakers pour grain into sacks and take bread from the oven. In the clearstory of the inner aisle the legend-medallion type of window is retained. The first two bays were filled by Bishop Guillaume Roland (1255-58) here portrayed. The vintners presented the next light, for, on the "day of benediction" in 1254, when each of the town guilds brought a giant candle, the vintners chose to donate a light that would burn longer, so they set up this dazzling window of St. Julian.[168] Over the entrance to the Lady chapel Bishop Geoffrey is again portrayed, and in the eleventh bay Pope Innocent IV appears. A hundred years separate Le Mans' splendid specimens of XIII-century art from certain small lancets in the cathedral's nave, made probably by Suger's own workers of St. Denis, who came here when they had finished the three lancets in Chartres' façade. M. Mâle has proved that all the XII-century windows in the west of France derive from St. Denis. Le Mans' lancets show the same robes, the same borders of medallions as in the Suger lights at Chartres. The up-gazing apostles in Poitiers' Crucifixion window resemble the apostles in Le Mans' Ascension. The large much-restored light in the west façade, relating the story of St. Julian, though modeled on the St. Denis school, must have been executed by local craftsmen; it is rougher workmanship than the XII-century lancets in the nave aisles. Le Mans suffered woefully in 1562 when the Huguenots worked their will for three months on the cathedral's treasures. A choir screen with three hundred figures, a contemporary of that at Albi, was demolished, windows by the dozen were broken, and there was a holocaust of carved altars and tombs. After the Revolution, the XIII-century tomb of Berengaria of Navarre, the childless widow of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, was set up in the transept. For thirty years, as chatelaine of Le Mans, she watched its new Gothic sanctuary rising. They have mistakenly called hers the house of a XV-century lawyer in the Grande Rue. The earliest Renaissance tomb in France is in Le Mans Cathedral, that of King René's brother, made by Laurana from beyond the Alps. The effigy reposes in Christian fashion, but near by, on the later tomb of Guillaume du Bellay, the deceased is represented reclining at ease amid his mundane books. THE SAINTS AT SOLESMES.[169] No one can speak with the Lord while he prattles with the whole world.--HILDEBERT DE LAVARDIN, bishop of Le Mans (1097-1125). Bishop Hoël, who worked on the nave of Le Mans Cathedral, used to retire for meditation to the priory of Solesmes, farther down the Sarthe, a house founded in 1010 by the lord of Sablé and given to the Benedictines of the _Cultura Dei_ at Le Mans. Closed by the Revolution's hurricane, Solesmes was reopened in 1833 through the devoted efforts of Dom Prosper Guéranger, who made it a modern Cluny for erudition, for arts and crafts, and above all for church music. Solesmes restored to the church the Gregorian chant in its purity. Cowled architects of the XIX century rebuilt their monastery. On their own printing press the monks brought out books. Guests came here to find peace of mind and inspiration. At Solesmes Montalembert wrote the noble chapter on the Middle Ages that prefaces his _History of St. Elizabeth of Hungary_.[170] The traveler from Le Mans to Angers should quit the train at Sablé and walk two miles to the now deserted monastery on the Sarthe. In the transept of its church are the groups of images called _Les Saints de Solesmes_, work that ranks with the most vigorous final samples of the national art, and that are in spirit profoundly a part still of the Middle Ages despite Renaissance arabesques and pilasters. What master, or masters, made the Solesmes groups has led to animated controversy. They belong to the Region-of-the-Loire school, of which Tours was the center, and, like Michel Colombe's work, in them the harsh realism of the preceding school of Burgundy has been softened, and the draperies made supple and less overwhelming. If the _Maître de Solesmes_ is not Colombe himself, he was some one trained in his art school at Tours, perhaps some monk in this priory. The entombments at Solesmes are the best of the Middle Ages, with that of Ligier Richier at St. Mihiel.[171] Interest centers chiefly in the Entombment of Christ, the earliest and finest group, made about 1496 under Prior Cheminart, whose crest is cut on the stones. No Holy Sepulcher can compare with this in contained and sustained emotion. Its classic moderation is very different from the dramatic, almost violent, sculpture soon to be made popular by the Renaissance from Italy. The two men who lower the dead Christ into the tomb, Nicodemus (bearded) and Joseph of Arimathea (shaven, for such was the ritual in the mystery plays), are powerful images, and the latter is indubitably a portrait study, but of whom is not known. The Christ type could not be nobler. The Virgin's grief is rendered without emphasis, and St. John, supporting her, is an admirable image. But the supreme saint of Solesmes is the Magdalene, seated beside the tomb, her head bowed, her lips pressed against her crossed hands. She is garbed in as homely fashion as her sister Martha in St. Madeleine's church at Troyes--sisters in blood and sisters by the heart are these two admirable conceptions of late-Gothic sculpture. Nothing could be gentler, more discreet, more poignant in emotion, than the Magdalene of Solesmes, "the exquisite flower of the art of the Loire region," says M. Paul Vitry, "one of the masterpieces of French imagery of all times." "She is alive, she breathes gently," wrote Dom Guéranger, "her silence is at the same time both grief and a prayer." Dom de la Tremblaye asks what Italian master of the Renaissance has rendered faith more profoundly than this Magdalene, whose desolation is closer to a smile of ecstasy than to the contraction of grief. Even the neo-classic XVII century admired this image, and Richelieu wished to transport it to his château in Poitou. Some fifty years later, while Jean Bougler ruled Solesmes, was made the Burial of the Virgin, whose setting is entirely of the Renaissance, though the imagery remains faithful to the French Gothic spirit. It is said that the monk at Our Lady's feet represents the prior, Jean Bougler (1515-56), who returned to the lord of Sablé the eternal answer of the spiritual to the temporal powers. Accosted one day on the bridge over the Sarthe by the baron, against whom he had just maintained the priory's rights, the irate layman cried out: "Monk, if I did not fear God, I should throw you into the Sarthe." "If you fear God, Monseigneur," replied the prior, "I have nothing to fear." ST. QUENTIN'S COLLEGIATE CHURCH[172] Out in the night there's an army marching ... Endless ranks of the stars o'er-arching Endless ranks of an army marching ... Measured and orderly, rhythmical, whole, Multitudinous, welded and one ... Out in the night there's an army marching, Nameless, noteless, empty of glory, Ready to suffer, to die, and forgive, Marching onward in simple trust.... Endless columns of unknown men, Endless ranks of the stars o'er-arching.... Out in the night they are marching, marching ... Hark to their orderly thunder-tread! --ALFRED NOYES, _Rank and File_.[173] In size, if not in name, the church that tops St. Quentin's hill is a cathedral, an achievement of the apogee hour of Gothic fitted to close this group of stately churches. Throughout the World War battles raged round St. Quentin. The saints buried in its crypts, the cloud of witnesses in its window and sculptured groups, listened year after year to the marching millions, marching in the hope that a better world might emerge from the chaos, _ready to suffer and die and forgive_. St. Quentin has always stood in the path of invading armies. Much of its precious glass was destroyed in 1557, when Philip II of Spain attacked the town on St. Laurence day, and in memory of his victory built the Escorial. The siege of 1870 damaged the city dedicated to Caius Quintinus, the Roman senator's son who evangelized this region where he met a martyr's death. In August of 1914 the invaders passed in swift advance on Paris. When the Marne battle drove them back, they dug themselves into trenches a mile from St. Quentin's suburbs and there, with tragic monotony, the giant battle fluctuated. On August 15, 1917, suddenly, like a candle in the night, St. Quentin's great church flamed up, lighting the country for miles around. The projectiles came from the south where the invaders, not the Allies, were intrenched. From beneath this hill, in April of 1918, started the final desperate thrust toward Paris. Four months later the Allies, taking the offensive, swept all before them, and in October the Germans quitted the city in too great haste to destroy the big church, as the bored holes in every one of its piers would indicate had been their intention. A ghost of its former self is the collegiate of St. Quentin to-day. The venerated crypt, part of which dated from 840, was blown up with gunpowder before the evacuation (1918). The notably good XIII-and XV-century windows are wrecked, and the Flamboyant Gothic Town Hall, close to the church, is a ruin. About 1115 was begun the present collegiate as a Romanesque edifice; the north arm of the easternmost transept and the side wall between it and the larger transept are pre-Gothic. St. Quentin is an exception, in France, in possessing two transepts. When in 1257 St. Louis came to St. Quentin for the removal of the martyrs' relics to the new crypt, the Gothic choir was completed. Three of the small chambers in the XIII-century crypt are of Carolingian origin, and vestiges of Carolingian work remain in the west tower, placed directly before the church, and serving as a kind of vestibule to it. Till the present nave was extended to meet that ancient belfry, it stood isolated. Fissures showed in the new constructions and much time was wasted in consolidations. Only as the XIV century opened was the big transept between choir and nave begun; it was made twenty feet wider than the transept between apse curve and choir. The tracery in the rose windows of both cross inclosures is most artistic. The nave continued building all through the XIV century. It repeated the shafts which, in the choir, had been later additions needed for consolidation. Only by 1470 was St. Quentin's nave completed by joining it to the ancient west tower. Three different campaigns of work built this church, and three breaks in its axial line are distinctly visible. Toward its repairs the good king Charles V contributed, and Louis XI bore the expense of remaking the small transept. To Villard de Honnecourt is attributed the plan of St. Quentin, since there are details in his sketchbook--the thirty-three parchment leaves now a treasure of the National Library at Paris--to substantiate the claim. His annotations are in the Picard dialect. St. Quentin's ordinance followed that of Rheims Cathedral sketched by Villard. The planting of columns between axis chapel and ambulatory--a Champagne feature--is the kind of charming novelty which would have appealed to the eager traveler who, at Kassovie, made a church for the king of Hungary wherein he repeated the unique fan-spreading eastern end of St. Yved at Braine. Thus he opened his precious book: "Villard de Honnecourt salutes you, and he begs all those who work at different classes of studies contained in these pages, to pray for his soul and remember him, for in this book can be found great help in teaching oneself fundamental principles of masonry and church carpentry." CHAPTER VII Plantagenet Gothic Architecture[174] Il n'y a pas seulement deux principes opposés dans l'homme. Il y en a trois. Car il y a trois vies et trois ordres de facultés. Il y a trois espèces de dispositions l'âme bien différentes: la première, celle de presque tous les hommes, consiste à vivre exclusivement dans le monde des phénomènes qu'on prend pour des réalités. La deuxième est celle des esprits les plus réfléchis qui cherchent longtemps la vérité en eux-mêmes ou dans la nature.... La troisième enfin est celle des âmes éclairées des lumières de la religion, les seules vrai et immuables. Ceux-là seuls ont trouvé un point d'appui fixe.--MAINE DE BIRAN (1766-1825; born in Périgord). The Gothic of the southwest grew out of the meeting of the cupola church of Aquitaine with the intersecting ribbed vault of northern France. It rose and spread in a region then under Plantagenet rule, Anjou, Poitou, Maine, and Touraine. As the first known vault of the Angevin type was dated approximately 1150, and as the system died out about the middle of the XIII century, Plantagenet Gothic was but an incident of a hundred years in French architecture. However, it was a phase which produced monuments of such remarkable individuality and grace that the school deserves more notice than has hitherto been given it. The dominant feature in Plantagenet Gothic is its cup-shaped vaulting. The French term "_bombé_" is more exact than such expressions as "domical" and "domed." The panels of an Angevin vault do not form parts of a spherical dome. The keystone of each section is raised higher than the four arches framing the section. Similar vaults were built during the first trials of diagonals by other Gothic schools, in districts where there were no cupola churches to serve as models. They were the result of inexperience in constructing ribbed-groined vaults, and their _bombé_ shape disappeared as soon as architects learned to raise their transverse and wall arches, by stilting and pointing them, to the level of the keystone. While the so-called domical vault in other schools had been a transitional step, in Plantagenet Gothic it was intentionally persisted in and became the most distinguishing characteristic of the school. In principle and in construction, the Plantagenet school is truly Gothic. The cells are carried on the backs of diagonal ribs. The Angevin builders recognized at once the advantage of concentrating the thrust of the stone roof at fixed points and counterbutting and grounding the load at those points only, so they followed close on the northern architects in adopting the new system. At the same time they felt that the cupola tradition in their region was not to be wholly set aside. M. Anthyme Saint-Paul well expressed it when he said that southwestern France "_s'est conduit en nation tributaire et non soumise_." There can be little doubt that the presence in the Plantagenet territories of churches covered by a number of small cupolas encouraged a decided curve in the newly imported diagonals. It was not for nothing that near Angers and Saumur, the two cities where Angevin vaults were first constructed, lay the famous abbatial of Fontevrault, a masterpiece of the cupola school. Had not the arrival, midway in the XII century, of the northern French type of masonry roof checked the construction of such churches, it is probable that they would have extended farther north. From the meeting of the two schools developed the Plantagenet phase of Gothic. Before proceeding to a description of the successive steps taken by Plantagenet architecture in its best-known examples at Angers, Saumur, and Poitiers, it is well to touch on the cupola churches of southwestern France, building for a century before the beginning of the regional Gothic school. M. de Lasteyrie has divided Romanesque architecture into some half dozen schools--those of Normandy, Burgundy, Auvergne, Poitou, the Midi, Champagne, and the scarcely enunciated Picardy Ile-de-France school. To these he added two isolated developments of short duration, one typified at Tournus, in Burgundy, where half barrels are placed transversely across a nave; and the other consisting of cupola-covered edifices which were building from Saintes to Fontevrault in the same hour as the Poitou-Romanesque churches surrounding them. For three generations the cupola haunted the imagination of southwestern France. The majority of them came into existence by hazard, as it were. They were not in the first plan of the church, but were built to replace other roofs, and in France they have been set on every kind of pedestal.[175] They were a variant of the barrel vault of the region preferred because less material was required. How the cupola arrived in Aquitaine is still an open question. M. de Lasteyrie has belittled the explanation of an Oriental source, since the mode of construction in France differed from that of cupolas in the East. His idea is that the use of the cupola never died out from the earlier days in Gaul, and that the domed churches of France may be considered to be fairly indigenous. M. Enlart has contended that no matter how or when the use of the cupola got into France, its origin was undeniably Byzantine, since Rome took the feature from Byzantium. He has dwelt on the fact that it was while such churches were building in France, the men of western Europe were going on pilgrimages, on crusades, and on trading ventures into countries where the cupola was a common feature. ST. FRONT AT PÉRIGUEUX.[176] Is it not better to dwell a little sadly far from the world, under the hand of God? The world gives but vain pleasures. You will be like others beguiled by it and hardened. You will hear many evil conversations, you will see many contemptible pushing people with distinguished names, you will feel malignant envy, many will be the faults with which you will reproach yourself.... Nothing is good apart from Peace. Peace is the mark of God's finger. All that is not Peace is but illusion, and disturbing self-love.... Be simple and insignificant, and Peace will be your reward. It is only you yourself who can trouble your own Peace. It is in forgetting self that Peace comes.--FÉNELON (1651-1715; born near Périgueux). The most discussed of the cupola churches is St. Front at Périgueux. For a while it was considered a mother church of the school, but such well-constructed domes are a culmination, not a beginning. One of the oldest cupolas extant is that of St. Astier, near Périgueux, finished in 1018; there are two large domes over Cahors Cathedral, in which church Pope Calixtus II blessed an altar in 1119.[177] The two cupolas over Cahors' unaisled nave appear in the exterior view, but were not well enough constructed for their inner surfaces to be left uncovered by coats of plaster, whereas the interior masonry of St. Front is beautifully finished, proving that in point of time it was separated from St. Astier. Long and heated have been the controversies over the date of the cathedral of Périgueux. As much space has been devoted to the discussion as to the little Morienval in the Ile-de-France. At first it was taken to be the church begun before 1000 and dedicated in 1047. To-day no one dreams of saying it predates the fire of 1120. A few of the bays of the ancient church, burned in 1120 with much loss of life, were retained as parish rooms and now stand to the south of the present cathedral's façade. It is very evident that they never were intended to be incorporated in the new church. Once it was thought that the actual St. Front, which is in the shape of a Greek cross, with a dome over each of its arms, copied St. Mark's at Venice. St. Mark's was modeled on the church of the Apostles at Constantinople, destroyed by Mohammed II in 1464. However, its domes were added only when the basilica was rebuilt, in 1063. And furthermore, there are indications at St. Front to show that the original design was to lengthen its nave by another bay, which would have changed the plan from a Greek cross to the universally used Latin cross. The present St. Front was begun after 1120 and probably was completed by 1180, in which year a record says that Bishop Pierre de Mimet (1169-80) moved the ancient tombs into the basilica. During some modern repairs parchments were discovered in a scaffold hole thirty feet from the ground and closed only by a loose stone. The MSS. were in the Romance dialect of the XII century, and were abusive of Henry II of England, who besieged Périgueux in Bishop de Mimet's time. Such a hiding place for compromising papers might well have been thought of during the last stage of a building while yet the scaffolding stood in place. St. Front's interior possesses a fine, plain solidity of its own, but its garish white walls cry out for mosaics or fresco. The cupolas rise above the big arcades without any vertical foundation members. Each is divided into a hemispherical dome and a drum having the shape of spherical triangles. So massive are the square piers supporting the cupolas that narrow corridors have been threaded through them. Those dense piles of masonry saved St. Front when the Huguenots lighted bonfires at the base of the piers. St. Étienne, formerly the cathedral of Périgueux, was devastated then, so that only two of its cupolas remain; the westernmost one is rougher, earlier work. The restorer, Abadie, took deplorable liberties with St. Front, but it is an exaggeration to call it a modern church studied from a Romanesque original. Abadie from 1865 to 1875 reconstructed the great broad arches hitherto slightly pointed, and the actual sanctuary is entirely his work. Oriental and un-French as is the exterior of Périgueux Cathedral with its white domes, its neo-minarets, its immense tower each of whose stories is lesser in size than the one below it, and whose summit is a pavilion covered with the inverted tiles called pineapple scales, one has to accept the disconcerting fact that it was building in the same year with the cathedrals at Paris and Laon. Well has St. Front been called an archæological monster defying the laws of that science. THE CATHEDRAL OF ANGOULÊME.[178] If we wish to know all that is worthy of being imitated, we must make of legends a part of our studies and observations. The marvel of the lives of the saints is not their miracles, but their conduct.--JOUBERT, _Pensées_ (1754-1824; born in Périgord). [Illustration: _Angoulême Cathedral. A XII-century Cupola Church of Aquitaine with a Typical Façade of Poitou's Romanesque School_] The cathedral of Angoulême shares with St. Front and Fontevrault the distinction of being the finest cupola church in France. It is unsurpassed in the setting on the edge of the city's steep hill above the Charente valley. In ancient Angoumois, now the department of the Charente, are over five hundred XII-century Romanesque churches.[179] Angoulême Cathedral was begun in 1109 by Bishop Gérard (1101-36), who had taught at Périgueux in the cathedral school and no doubt learned there to admire cupolas. His first dome at Angoulême--the easternmost one--is slightly later than the older cupola of St. Étienne at Périgueux. Bishop Gérard had the moral courage to rebuke the sinful union of the troubadour-duke, Guillaume IX, and the fair Vicomtesse Malbergeon, whose portrait he wore on his shield when he marched into battle. Guillaume informed Gérard that only when hair grew on his bald, prelate pate would he give up the lady of his affections. Gérard was papal legate in Gaul for Pascal II, Calixtus II, and the second Honorius, and was the prelate chosen, because of his eloquence, to be spokesman for the bishops who opposed Paschal II's compromise with the German emperor on the question of investitures. And yet this able man, because Innocent II had not renewed his dignities, joined the anti-pope faction and took with him Guillaume X of Aquitaine. Only the passionate genius of St. Bernard was able to end the scandal. The cathedral built at Angoulême by Bishop Gérard, like most of the churches of the southwest, lacks the charm of perspective, since it has neither curving processional path nor side aisle. A note of force is given to the interior by the strong projection of the buttress piers, more salient within the church than without. Farther to the south, when the Gothic day had dawned, buttresses were to be disguised as walls between the side chapels. The three cupolas that roof the nave--each covering a large square bay--are among the largest in France. The side walls are divided at mid-height: below is a huge blind arch, while above are two round-headed windows. Angoulême's hemispherical domes on pendentives were sufficiently well constructed to dispense with plaster coatings, an advance over Cahors Cathedral and St. Étienne at Périgueux. At the transept-crossing is an immense dome forming within the church a lantern lighted by a series of round-headed windows that open in its pedestal. The arrangement derives directly from the Orient and is rare in France. A very fine tower, whose stories lessen as they rise, covers the northern arm of the transept, and till the cathedral was sacked, during the XVI-century wars, a similar tower spanned the transept's southern limb. Angoulême's elaborate XII-century façade is one of the noted pages of monumental decoration in France, a frontal more of ornate beauty than of power, in which M. André Michel finds the influence of old ivories. Tier on tier rise its carven scenes, with a Christ in Majesty crowning the whole. The XIX-century restorer, M. Paul Abadie, who worked such havoc at Périgueux, took equal liberties here. He made the upper story with its turrets topped by conical spires, and over-restored the principal sculptural groups. These pre-Gothic churches of southwest France obsessed his imagination, for when he came to design a church of his own he put up on the Mount of Martyrs in Paris a neo-Byzantine, neo-Gothic basilica most strangely reminiscent of Aquitaine as it stands in exotic isolation under the cold, northern sky. Angoulême's west façade had not long been completed when under its portal passed John Lackland to be married to the fourteen-year-old daughter of the Count of Angoulême, Isabella, already affianced to a Lusignan. Henry III of England, the builder of Westminster Abbey, was the fruit of that union. Twenty years later Isabella married the son of her discarded fiancé, and her jealousy filled France with war. Jezebel, the people called her. She rests in effigy at Fontevrault, beside the tomb of her great father-in-law, Henry II, the first Plantagenet. FONTEVRAULT ABBEY CHURCH.[181] A trait peculiar to this epoch is the close resemblance between the manners of men and women.... Men had the right to dissolve in tears, and women that of talking without prudery. The women appear distinctly superior. They were more serious, more subtle. Richard Coeur-de-Lion, the crowned poet-artist, a king whose noble manners and refined mind, in spite of his cruelty, exercised so strong an impression on his age, was formed by the brilliant Aliénor of Aquitaine. St. Louis was brought up exclusively by Blanche of Castile, and Joinville was the pupil of a widowed and regent mother.--GAREAU, _Social State of France During the Crusades_. The art of the cupola church may be said to have culminated in the abbatial at Fontevrault on the confines of Anjou, Poitou, and Touraine, and practically the northernmost point to which attained the cupola development of Aquitaine. Undoubtedly it would have spread farther afield had it not been checked--even while Fontevrault was building--by the advent of ogival ribs which initiated a new manner of masonry roofing. In Fontevrault's bourg is a village church covered gracefully in the Plantagenet Gothic manner. The untenable theory was advanced by a French architect that the cupola church was the egg out of which hatched the radical organ of Gothic architecture, that the first ribs were employed to stiffen a dome.[182] No one to-day concedes this. Yet, though cupola monuments may not have affected French Gothic in general, they certainly exerted a local influence on the Gothic of the West. The hemispherical domes at Fontevrault were directly under the eye of the first architects of Plantagenet Gothic. An abbess ruled over men at Fontevrault. Its founder, the Blessed Robert d'Arbrissel, had been impressed by the Saviour giving St. John into the spiritual guidance of the Virgin. So he organized a new Order comprised of four communities ruled by a woman: a main house for nuns and another for men; a hospital dedicated to St. Lazarus, and a house for repentant Magdalenes. Robert d'Arbrissel was a Breton, schooled in Paris, and noted for his eloquence, which so impressed Urban II, who heard him preach at the dedication of Angers' church of St. Nicolas, that he named him an apostolic missionary to spread the First Crusade. Feeling need of spiritual renewal, Robert had retired for meditative peace to these forests when one day he was attacked by bandits. He yielded all he possessed on condition that they give him their souls to guide, and, having converted them, the name of their chief, Evrault, was given, it is said, to the congregation that gathered in cells about the holy man. Pious folk came and sinners, the rich and the poor, the halt and the hale, and the impetuous Robert called them one and all "the poor of Christ." "I never read of a hermit," said honest old Samuel Johnson, "but in imagination I kiss his feet; never of a monastery but I fall on my knees and kiss the pavement." In 1106, Paschal II approved the Order and in Blessed Robert's lifetime some five thousand gathered at Fontevrault. Abbot Suger, who was a young student at that time near the new abbey, testified to the edification it gave. A sermon by the Blessed Robert converted the fair Bertrada de Montfort, who had quitted her ignoble husband, Fulk IV of Anjou, to marry Philip I, king of France, which illegal union kept churchmen busy during sixteen years; she callously brought her second master to visit her first. The fight which Rome waged to preserve monogamy in western Christendom deserves the highest praise. Bertrada died the second abbess of Fontevrault. The historic names of France compose the list of abbesses. The young widow of the only son of Henry I of England retired here, after the loss of the White Ship, and her father, Fulk V of Anjou, came to visit her as he quitted his career in Europe to take up his new role as king of Jerusalem. Margaret of Burgundy, the builder of Tonnerre's hospital hall, and second wife of Charles d'Anjou, St. Louis' brother, was educated at Fontevrault by her aunt the abbess. About 1500 Abbess Renée de Bourbon built the Renaissance cloister. To-day the famous house serves as a state prison. Fontevrault church played a part in the Gothic story. Its earliest cupola, over the transept-crossing, differs from those over the nave in that its base is not distinct from its dome. Angers copied it in its churches of St. Nicholas and St. Martin, and so did Saumur in St. Pierre. When in 1119 Calixtus II dedicated Fontevrault, the church consisted of the present choir and the transept. During the first quarter of the XII century the aisleless nave was spanned by four cupolas on clearly defined pedestals. Perhaps from Angoulême Cathedral came the fashion of domes on pendentives, after some Fontevrault monks had gone on legal business, in 1117, to the capital of Angoumois. The _abbaye-double_ was favored both by the Angevin rulers and their Poitevin neighbors, the dukes of Aquitaine. Henry II's father and mother, Geoffrey the Handsome of Anjou and the ex-empress Matilda of England, gave generously toward the building of the new church, and so did Aliénor of Aquitaine's forbears of the illustrious house of Poitiers; hence it was fitting they both, Henry and Aliénor, should lie in burial there. When Henry Plantagenet died in 1189 in his castle at Chinon, which the old chronicler tells us rises steeply from the Vienne "straight up to heaven"--the Chinon whither Jeanne d'Arc was to come to give France a new soul--the dead monarch was carried to Fontevrault church near by, instead of to the Grammont he favored, the mother-house of a new Order founded by Stephen de Tierney in 1176. The archbishop of Tours came to Fontevrault to conduct the funeral, and Henry's rebellious son, Richard Coeur-de-Lion, stood by while they lowered into the tomb the great administrator who gave us the germs of our jury system, the man of the same unbridled passions, the same strong leadership in arms and statecraft, as his ancestor, Fulk Nerra, who had won this strip of middle France by sheer ability. And well Richard might feel serious, for the nine generations of increasing prosperity, promised to Fulk I of Anjou, ended with him. In 1199 the Lion-hearted himself was brought to Fontevrault for burial; he had begged to be laid in penitence at the feet of the father he had defied, like the true Angevin he was. As his elder brother had said: "It has ever been the way with Plantagenets for brother to hate brother, and for son to turn against father." The ceremony for Richard in Fontevrault abbey church was conducted by St. Hugh from Lincoln, where he was raising a splendid Early-English cathedral. He had come to France to protest to Richard against further spoliation of his see. At this 'shrouding of a second Angevin among the shrouden women,' Aliénor stood beside the nuns, and, the ceremony over, St. Hugh, so wise and holy amid such seething passions, proceeded to comfort the widowed Berengaria. Richard, like his father, was a cosmopolite. "_Miey hom e miey baron_, _Angles_, _Norman_, _Peytavin et Gascon_," he sang in his prison lay, and indeed one would be puzzled to know which of them were the countrymen of him whom Guizot called "the bravest, most inconsiderate, most passionate, most ruffianly, most heroic adventurer of the Middle Ages." In 1204 his equally turbulent, able, and seductive mother, Aliénor, was buried at Fontevrault beside the husband against whom she had stirred up undutiful sons, and who in his last years had kept her shut away from further mischief. From 1122 to 1204 stretched her full life; queen of France for fifteen years, queen of England for fifty, a pernicious influence upon them both, but always a most sensible ruler for her own Aquitaine. She passed her final years in peaceful Fontevrault, but her stormy destiny was to be troubled to the end. In 1204 her grandson, Arthur of Brittany, besieged her in a Midi castle where she was visiting, and when John Lackland heard of his mother's plight he came by forced marches to her relief and captured Arthur, who soon after was foully murdered. Aliénor had seen the rise of Gothic at St. Denis, whose corner stone her French husband laid, and she lived to found churches of the gracious Plantagenet phase of the new art. But true daughter of the Midi that she was, an Aquitaine cupola church is her rightful funeral monument. In her, as in her own Midi of that age, culture and corruption were precocious. The fourth of the famous Plantagenet tombs at Fontevrault which England has tried to get for Westminster Abbey, is that of Isabelle of Angoulême (d. 1247), the wife of John Lackland. And there once were two others, the tomb of Richard Coeur-de-Lion's favorite sister, Jeanne (d. 1199), who became the fourth wife of Raymond VI of Toulouse, and that of her son, Count Raymond VII (d. 1249), of the Albigensian wars--tombs swept away either by the Huguenots or during the Revolution. As the XIX century opened, the Plantagenet tombs lay forgotten in a cellar. When England became aware of their value they were shipped to Paris in 1846, to be taken across the Channel. Luckily, however, an Angevin, M. de Falloux, became minister on the declaration of the Second Republic, and the four precious mausoleums were returned to Fontevrault church. Aliénor was ninth in descent from that Duke of Aquitaine who had founded great Cluny itself. Her grandfather, Guillaume IX, the troubadour duke, was a benefactor of the newly established Fontevrault. When her father resigned his dominion in penitence, his will was that Aliénor, his heiress, should wed the son of the king of France. So in Bordeaux Cathedral, in 1137, Aliénor married the future Louis VII. No temperaments could have been more opposite. In 1249 she took the Crusader's cross from St. Bernard, at Vézelay--where the monks were building their glorious basilica. At Constantinople her troublous beauty roused admiration, and scandal at Antioch, where the ruler was her own handsome young uncle, Raymond of Poitiers.[183] Her union with Louis became an irksome bond and she clamored for its dissolution on the ground of consanguinity. The flouted French king was only too happy to be rid of her, but Abbot Suger, foreseeing all too clearly the national calamity that would be precipitated should Aliénor's great domains pass to a rival of France, held together the mismatched pair. When he died, in 1152, headstrong Aliénor broke loose, and as she rode away from the court of France the great lords came out to woo her--one of them even tried to kidnap her. Because she craved a strong arm to revenge herself on her first husband, she chose as consort young Henry Plantagenet, Count of Anjou and Maine, and Duke of Normandy; she was thirty, Henry not yet twenty. Thus began the long Capet-Angevin duel, not to be fought out to a finish until 1452, when all that Henry II had possessed on the Continent and all of Aliénor's wide domain were in the hands of the king of France. It needed a St. Jeanne to atone for the very unsaintly Aliénor. [Illustration: _The Plantagenet Tombs at Fontevrault_] From this unscrupulous, mischief-making, virile, and capable queen of the XII century sprang a vigorous brood of men and women, passionate in both good and evil, and most of them enlightened art patrons, builders of churches, and writers of verses. Coeur-de-Lion was a troubadour. John Lackland's son built Westminster Abbey. Aliénor's daughter, the queen of Castile, had an Angevin architect help in the building of Las Huelgas, by Burgos. Her daughter of Champagne set the trouvères singing of Lancelot, Tristan, and Iseult. Another Eleanor of her lineage had her funeral journey marked by sculptured crosses from Lincolnshire to Charing Cross. It was given Aliénor to make some atonement for the evil she brought on France in her youth; at eighty years of age she went into Spain to bring back her granddaughter, Blanche of Castile, as bride for the grandson of the discarded Louis VII, and Blanche gave France the saint-king who illuminated his realm with fair churches. Another of Aliénor's great-grandsons was a saint-king, Ferdinand, the conqueror of Seville, who founded many a church. Even as the cruelty and craft of John Lackland cropped out in Charles d'Anjou, whom the Sicilian Vespers punished, so the culture and inconsistency of Coeur-de-Lion appeared again in his nephew of Champagne, Thibaut IV, the maker of songs. From Aliénor descended Bishop Eudes de Sully, who built the western portals of Notre Dame at Paris, and Henry de Sully, who had the plans drawn for Bourges Cathedral. Herself an outstanding figure in the early day of Gothic art, and ancestress of enlightened builders, much can be forgiven Aliénor. All of which brings us back to the starting point of our chapter, the formation of the Plantagenet Gothic school of architecture. PLANTAGENET GOTHIC The XII and XIII centuries were a period when men were at their strongest; never before or since have they shown equal energy in such varied directions or such intelligence in the direction of their energy; yet these marvels of history--these Plantagenets; these scholastic philosophers; these architects of Rheims and Amiens; these Innocents and Robin Hoods and Marco Polos; these crusaders who planted their enormous fortresses all over the Levant; these monks who made the wastes and barrens yield harvests--all, without apparent exception, bowed down before the woman. The woman might be the good or the evil spirit, but she was always the stronger force.--HENRY ADAMS. There have been various divisions of this school, and it is always well to bear in mind that such cut-and-dried classifications are arbitrary and made use of merely for the greater ease of the student. By dividing Plantagenet work into three periods--preceded by a brief incubation hour, the twenty years before 1150--it is easier to follow the evolving steps of this brilliant phase of the builder's art. During the short introductory stage before 1150 the cupola had the upper hand and imposed its construction on the intersecting ribs just imported from the north. The earliest _bombé_ vaults with ribs are really cupolas still, since the stones of their infilling were laid in concentric rings round and round. Only a small number of these ribbed cupolas were built. Then in the first phase of Plantagenet Gothic appeared the ascendency of ribbed vault over cupola. The dome was lowered and the stones of the infilling were laid like those of a true Gothic vault, not horizontally, round and round, but vertically, with the courses running parallel with the ridges of the triangular compartments traced by the diagonals. Each of the four triangular cells was concave in both directions, with a groin defining its axial line. Hence eight panels, not four, composed the _bombé_ vault, groin ridges alternating with ribs. Such groin lines called for strengthening ribs beneath them, since a curving surface has more need of a bone skeleton to stiffen it. Given the _bombé_ shape, it was inevitable for the architect to arrive soon at the use of ridge ribs between the diagonals. The Plantagenet vault _par excellence_ is made up of eight ribs that branch from a central keystone, those ribs being of the same slight graceful profile as the arches framing each vault section. For a time the rib molds of the First Period were enormously heavy and wide, like the diagonals of the nave of Angers Cathedral--the oldest Angevin Gothic work extant (c. 1150). Their profile shows two large round molds with a flat space between. Before long the level space tended to swell into a roll molding, which in time predominated over the lateral ones; such are the diagonals of the Trinité church at Angers (c. 1170). Finally, the side rolls died out altogether, leaving one slender uniform torus, a characteristic of the Second Period of Plantagenet art. When the lateral and transverse arches adopted the same delicate profile as that of the eight branching ribs, there was achieved the slender elegance and rare distinction typical of the best Plantagenet interiors. Keystones were richly carved, and pretty figures and heads were added where the vault ribs met the framing arches. During the last quarter of the XII century the Plantagenet school was building vaults of this type, and they remained in vogue till the cuplike shape died out altogether. In Plantagenet art the ramification and intercrossing of ribs had a structural reason, since they were the logical result of the concave outline of the vault and not, like the supplementary ribs of Flamboyant Gothic, mere ornamentations. In the third and final period of Plantagenet Gothic, the ribs ramified more and more. They had first been increased about the windows of apses, because an eight-branch vault was better suited to a square than to a curve. During the years preceding 1250, the ramification of the ribs grew very complicated. All divisions between the vault sections were eliminated, and the masonry roof appeared to be continuous, one bay melting subtly into the next--in reality a cradle vault, _à pénétrations_, carried on intercrossing, branching Gothic ribs. The construction of such stone roofs was no easy matter and comparatively few of them were built. It is interesting to note that a germ of the Angevin school when carried to England, then under the same Plantagenet rule, developed into what is a unique architectural glory, English fan tracery vaulting. Most of the monuments of Angevin art fall under the three main divisions here given. Like a beautiful hybrid, the Plantagenet stone roof passed through a continuous series of transformations, while in northern France, once a satisfactory masonry vault had been achieved, it was adhered to faithfully as a classic type until the Flamboyant, or final, phase. Frequently a Plantagenet church is extremely plain outside, in striking contrast with the aërial grace of its interior. The cause is a structural one, hence satisfactory. The thrust of a _bombé_ vault is not altogether concentrated on branching ribs, piers, and buttresses, but in part is borne by the inclosure walls. Hence these latter were made thick and pierced merely by lancet windows; with such walls there was no need of flying buttresses. When the piers were somewhat relieved of the roof load by the thick walls, they could be made exceedingly slender. There is an effect of gracious winsomeness in certain Plantagenet churches, to be described only by such words as "fairylike" and "Saracenic." The transient perfect moment of the art of northern France was seized and rendered by the curving transept at Soissons, an ideal vision of the Beyond. In southwestern France the first, fine, careless rapture nothing can recapture is to be found in St. Serge at Angers, of lesser genius than Soissons, but, like it, possessed of an enthrallment that is enduring. THE CATHEDRAL OF ANGERS.[184] A mon avis, ceux qui n'ont pas au moins le tourment religieux ignorent la moitié de la vie, et la plus belle, la moitié de la pitié. Un esprit est bien incomplet s'il ne s'élève pas jusqu'à sa destinée, et un coeur est bien faible s'il n'a que des motifs humains d'agir, de se contraindre, et de se donner ou de pardonner.--RENÉ BAZIN (born in Angers, 1850). No city in southwestern France is a more satisfactory center for a comparative study of Plantagenet Gothic than Angers--the old Black Angers of history, which owed its importance not to any pre-eminence of site, but to the powerful line whose cradle land it was. Each phase of the regional school of Gothic can be found in Angers. In the tower of St. Aubin, a vestige of an ancient abbey named after a VI-century bishop of the city, is a ribbed cupola, typical of the incubating period of the school.[185] It is more a cupola than a Gothic vault. The stones are laid horizontally in concentric rings, and the ribs are more decorative than structural, being in part embedded in the infilling. The abbot who erected it ruled from 1127 to 1154. The First Period of the Gothic of Anjou is represented at Angers by a masterpiece of elemental force--the nave of the cathedral. Three huge so-called domical vaults, truly Gothic in construction, span the sixty-foot unaisled nave of St. Maurice. The stones are laid parallel with the groin line of each triangular panel between the intersecting ribs. Those diagonals are needlessly heavy, for the builders were still experimenting. The crown of each vault section is ten feet higher than the framing arches--wall arch and transverse arch. The exceptional span of Angers' three massive vaults is due to a reconstruction of the nave undertaken in the XII century, at which time the side aisles of the Romanesque cathedral were eliminated and the entire width of the edifice thrown into an unobstructed hall. Mr. John Bilson, the eminent English archæologist, belittles the influence of the cupola church in Angevin Gothic, the shape of whose vaults he attributes to a structural cause. He thinks that the extreme width of Angers' nave made it essential to raise the keystone above the crowns of transverse and wall arches in order to prevent its settling. The diagonals were made more obtuse than the equilateral framing arches lest they might tower too high. Given the form adopted for the arches, the _bombé_ vault web resulted inevitably. Arch curves determine the forms of a vault. None the less is M. Berthelé's account of the Plantagenet school sound both ethnically and æsthetically. The Angevin architect chose to persist in the use of _bombé_ vaults over narrow spans where there was no structural need to raise the keystone. A succession of cathedrals had stood on the site of Angers' actual church. To that of the IV century, St. Martin, Gaul's apostle, presented relics of St. Maurice and his legion of Theban soldiers. A Merovingian cathedral mentioned by Gregory of Tours was succeeded by a Carolingian basilica, and after the year 1000 the chief church of Angers was rebuilt several times as Romanesque. A dedication occurred in 1030. In 1032 the cathedral was wiped out by a fire caused by that remarkable personage, Fulk Nerra, the Black Falcon, who raised Anjou from an insignificant under-fief to be one of the chief powers in France.[186] To atone for his feudal excesses, Fulk built many shrines and made many pilgrimages; in Palestine, with the same melodramatic instinct for the picturesque which his descendant, Coeur-de-Lion, was to display, he walked barefooted in the streets of Jerusalem, flagellated by his own servitors, as he lamented, "Lord be merciful to a perjured, unfaithful Christian wandering far from his native land." All over Anjou, and in Touraine, Fulk III put up abbey churches and castles; "the great builder," he was called. One day, from his castle on the rock of Angers, his falcon eyes saw a dove fluttering over a certain spot beyond the river, and there he founded the abbey of St. Nicholas in 1020, and his wife at that period (he had a succession of wives, one of whom he is said to have killed) founded a nunnery close by to which was once attached the church of the Trinité. In the XVI century St. Nicholas was called Ronceray, because a bramble-rose insisted on pushing its way up through the choir's pavement.[187] A superman was Fulk the Black, highly dowered intellectually, with enormous capacity for organization, but of shameless wickedness, calculating, subtle, unscrupulous as to the means by which he pursued his designs, and of demoniac temper--marked traits in his race from generation to generation. Vestiges of the cathedral of Angers which rose after the fire of 1032, and in which Urban II preached the First Crusade, are in the actual nave, built by Bishop Ulger[188] (1125-49). He taught in the cathedral school, which school was the nucleus of the present University of Angers. His successor, Bishop Normand de Doué (1149-53), at his own expense, substituted for the timber roof of the new nave its massive Angevin vaults. When we recall that only fifteen years earlier Abbot Suger, who started Gothic architecture on its triumphal career, was building the heavy diagonals to be seen in the antechurch at St. Denis, we can understand what pioneers were the builders of southwest France in the use of the cardinal organ of the new system. Angers Cathedral continued building during the final years of the XII century, under Bishop Raoul de Beaumont (1177-97), who erected the southern arm of the transept and added a short choir; the city walls at that period prevented the farther extension of the apse. Along the west façade, the same prelate built a spacious porch, twenty-five feet deep, which stood till 1806, when, in spite of episcopal protest, the civic authorities tore it down rather than trouble to repair it. Sorely does the western entrance need that softening portico. Angers' portal images are of the same archaic column-statue type as those at Chartres' western doors, and here, too, in the tympanum is a Byzantine Christ in an elliptical aureole, surrounded by the symbols of the evangelists. Bishop Raoul de Beaumont came of one of the illustrious races of crusaders, statesmen, and prelates, the _ancienne chevalerie_ in which France was so prolific for centuries. A XIII-century Beaumont, marshal of France, stood by Joinville in voting against the knight's return to Europe until they had redeemed their servitors from captivity; a XIV-century Beaumont was instrumental in giving Dauphiny to France; a Beaumont in the XVIII century was the archbishop of Paris, who warned the nation that if it de-Christianized itself it would be denationalized. Bishop Raoul's nephew, Guillaume de Beaumont, became bishop of Angers, and in 1236 donated land from his garden for the erection of the northern arm of the transept. Eight-branch Plantagenet vault sections cover transept and choir. The choir of Angers Cathedral was extended after 1274, when permission was obtained from St. Louis' brother, Charles d'Anjou, to demolish part of the city ramparts. Heavy buttresses mark the junction of the old part and the new. By the extension of the eastern limb the church became a bold Latin cross. Secluded nooks in dim religious corners are not to be found in these unaisled churches of southwestern France. In them is no curving procession path, no picturesque perspective effects. Though they possess their own quiet nobility, seldom does their grave reverence rise to sublimity. The exterior of Angers Cathedral was made equally simple, without radiating apse chapels or flying buttresses. The cathedral's nave boasts some windows which were donated before 1180 by a generous canon. Borders of the St. Denis glass were repeated in them. The third window (north), which has an inimitable deep blue background and a wide border, relates St. Catherine's life; the fourth portrays, the Burial of the Virgin; and the fifth is devoted to St. Vincent. Probably local workers allied with the St. Denis school made these lights. In the nave's southern wall is a good Renaissance lancet, transferred here from a ruined château. When the choir was completed, its windows were filled with glass of the Paris school a century later than the nave's windows. The transept roses are Flamboyant Gothic. Angers Cathedral tops a high hill, so that its towers are landmarks, visible for thirty miles around. Its west façade has been so reconstructed that it now presents the ungainly proportions of the church fronts in Hanover and Brunswick. After a fire, in 1516, when the towers were renewed, stone spires were added by the well-known Flamboyant Gothic master, Rouland Le Roux, who elaborated the frontispiece of Rouen Cathedral. Then, in 1533, a third tower was built between the original two. One of its walls rested on the west façade, but the other three have mere arches for foundations, so that the tower hangs in space, as it were, the kind of feat applauded by the tourist guide, but which the true lover of structural sincerity can dispense with. Jean de l'Espine, a local master of whom Angers is proud, designed the curious central tower, and two sculptors who had worked on groups at Solesmes made the façades eight warrior images which have been restored. Scarcely was Angers Cathedral newly dressed when came the tragic year 1562, to wreck the gathered treasures of generations. The Huguenots broke into the transept from the bishop's garden--and ever since that door has been walled up in disgrace. For a fortnight they intrenched themselves in the church, looting its treasures, destroying tombs and images. More than a hundred splendid tombs lined the walls of the church. The neo-classic canons of the XVII and XVIII centuries lost so entirely the comprehension of the national art that they sent priceless bronze tombs to the smelting pot, even that of Bishop Raoul de Beaumont, the builder. A silver-gilt altar given by Bishop Normand de Doué who spanned the nave with its vaults of magnificent proportions, was sold, as was another altar, the gift of Bishop Guillaume de Beaumont, and with the proceeds was erected the pseudo-classic baldaquin over the high altar. They did away with the lower panels of the precious XII-century windows in order that a new metal balustrade might show to better effect. In a final attack of _bon goût_, those worthy canons proceeded to whitewash the entire inside of the cathedral, including the tombs and statues. The Revolution broke up the elaborate funereal monument of good King René, on which several generations had worked; Jacques Morel, who sculptured the Souvigny sarcophagus, was putting final touches to it when he died in Angers in 1453. For years after 1793 its chiseled stones were used by the city's masons to adorn chimney pieces in civilians' houses. Anjou, after returning to the French crown in the XIV century, was again given as an appanage to a king's son, to Louis,[189] son of Jean le Bon, and brother of those art-loving Valois princes, Charles V and the Dukes of Berry and Burgundy. Louis I d'Anjou had made for his palace chapel at Angers, in 1378, some tapestries telling the Apocalypse wonders. His grandson, good King René, presented them to the cathedral, where first they were hung for a visit of Louis XI. In the days when the cathedral walls were being whitewashed those one hundred and fifty yards of textile art, made by Parisian weavers after Flemish models--and the oldest-dated tapestries extant--were put up for sale, but, not finding a purchaser, were used to cover greenhouses and to line stables. When in 1843 the bishop of Angers was able to rescue a hundred yards of the Apocalypse, he was mocked for his taste for rubbish. Three hundred francs was all he paid for over sixty sections of the embroidery, and when one section was recently loaned to the exhibition at Ghent it was insured for forty thousand dollars. Louis II d'Anjou married Yolande of Aragon, a statesman-like woman of sound character and good taste, and together they built the pavilion that stands within the fortress inclosure, and the chapel adjoining it (finished in 1411), whose _bombé_ vaults are carried on ribs of prismatic profile. Yolande's two sons, Charles and René, ruled Anjou. The claims of Louis XI to the duchy caused his uncle, King René, to spend his latter years in Provence, but never did he forget his birthplace, and to Angers Cathedral he sent the green marble Roman bath mounted on lions, now used as a holy-water font. René wrote poems and plays, composed church music, painted and illuminated, and throughout a long life of misfortunes proved himself a loyal knight and Christian philosopher. Shortly after his death Anjou returned to the French crown. The ramparts within whose somber walls was the palace[190] of the counts and dukes of Anjou's three lines of rulers, was constructed by St. Louis, from 1228 to 1238, though begun by his grandfather, Philippe-Auguste. For the precincts of his huge fortress St. Louis was compelled to take lands from the congregation of Toussaint. With the compensation money the religious rebuilt their church and roofed it with a Plantagenet Gothic vault of the elaborate final phase of the regional school. The interlocking ribs had three lines of keystones, like the vault of Airvault (Deux-Sèvres). Toussaint had been founded in the XI century by a pious canon, as a refuge for the poor and stricken, and the duty of its clergy was to visit the sick and bury the dead. That every forlorn soul might feel under the protection of his own chosen patron saint, the name All Saints was chosen. The Revolution suppressed the asylum of charity and in 1815 Prussian cavalry were stabled in the neglected church. The roofless nave now serves as an archæological museum. The vaults of the choir were made early in the XVIII century on the same model as the nave's XIII-century Plantagenet roof. The fortress built by St. Louis on the Toussaint property was saved from demolition by the seneschal of Anjou, who, when Henry III's orders came to destroy the ramparts, had the tact to proceed in so leisurely a fashion that after seven years, when he was able to get the order revoked, little more was destroyed than the upper stories of the towers. A kneeling image of that truly patriotic seneschal, Donadieu de Puycharic, is now in the museum installed in the XII-century hospital of St. Jean. That hospital of St. Jean was begun by another enlightened seneschal of Anjou, but before long (c. 1180) Henry Plantagenet undertook to finish and endow it, some say to expiate the assassination of St. Thomas Becket. The oldest parts of St. John's establishment are the granary and the north and east corridors of the cloister; the latter's south gallery was built (1538) by Angers' local architect, Jean de l'Espine. The hospital hall was undertaken between 1174 and 1188, and at first was roofed in wood. Shortly after 1200 the Knights of St. John Hospitalier of Jerusalem were put in charge of Angers hospital, and governed it till 1232. During their occupancy the hall was covered by its twenty-four small cuplike sections, each of which is carried on four slender ribs. The effect of the three aisles of little _bombé_ vaults is alluring. The slender torus usually distinguished the eight-branch Plantagenet type, and its use here for simple diagonals is an exception. The chapel attached to the hospital was also built in two campaigns; over part of it was employed the eight-rib vault, while portions were roofed in the more complicated Plantagenet way. The singular grace of St. Jean's hospital hall, with its slender columns and multiple little _coupoliformes_ vaults, inspired the small choir of St. Serge, which many hold to be the most exquisite example of Plantagenet Gothic. The church[191] once formed part of an ancient Benedictine monastery named for the pope, who had instituted the triple chanting of the _Agnus Dei_ in the Mass. Hitherto the Angevin masonry roof had been applied to churches without side aisles. The ground plan of the cupola church had been adhered to. The Plantagenet architects now began to copy another regional model, Poitou's Romanesque church, whose side aisles were almost as high as the principal span they buttressed; hence the light came entirely from the lateral corridors. One roof covered all. Poitiers Cathedral was among the first to use Poitou's pre-Gothic plan in Plantagenet architecture. The choir of St. Serge developed the same idea in its own small, gracious way. No doubt the harmonious effect obtained in St. John's hospital by the three aisles of _bombé_ vaults inspired the architect of St. Serge, who built his choir, from 1220 to 1225. Six fragile-looking columns, thirty feet in height, support with ease the twelve little Plantagenet vaults, which are of the eight-branch type, with elaborate keystones, and minute figures at the intersection of the ribs and the framing arches. At the choir's square eastern end the ribs ramify considerably around the windows. It is impossible to say wherein lies the witchery of this small monument--all elegance and lightness. Some call it Saracenic because of its exotic loveliness. Its science of construction is perfect. Certainly some individual genius designed it. SAUMUR[192] L'ancienne Grand' Rue de Saumur ... la rue montueuse qui mène au château, obscure en quelques endroits, remarquable par la sonorité de son petit pavé caillouteux, toujours propre et sec ... la paix de ses maisons impénétrables, noirs, et silencieuses--l'histoire de France est là, tout entière.--BALZAC, _Eugénie Grandet_ (whose scene is Saumur). Close by Angers lies Saumur on the Loire, "well-loved, well-set city." It comprises, with its environs, another center for the study of Plantagenet Gothic. The town is topped by its castle, now in main part of the XIV century. In its former great hall, built by Henry Plantagenet, took place, in 1241, that celebrated fête called the _Non-Pareille_ which Joinville has described. His memory of it was so fresh, after sixty years, that he could tell the color of Louis IX's robe and surcoat; perhaps it was the first time that Joinville saw the saint-king who was to become his closest friend. He was not yet twenty when he accompanied his suzerain of Champagne, Thibaut IV, the maker of songs, to the feast held in Saumur château for the knighting of Alphonse of Poitiers, the king's brother. [Illustration: _The Plantagenet Gothic Choir of St. Serge at Angers (1220-1225)_] The bodyguard of St. Louis were a Bourbon, a Coucy, and a Beaujeu, behind whom stood ranged a host of barons and knights in silk and cloth of gold. The future king of Portugal and a prince from Thuringia, the son of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, waited on the table of the queen-mother, Blanche of Castile, who, when she heard the name of the princeling from beyond the Rhine, called him to her side and placed a kiss upon his brow, since there, she said, his saintly mother must often have blessed him. Jealous passions, too, burned behind the glitter and show. Isabelle of Angoulême, the widow of John Lackland, married now to a Lusignan who had to render homage to his new suzerain, cried out, imperiously, "Am I a waiting woman that I should stand while they sit at ease?" and she proceeded to stir up war. Below the castle of Saumur lies the XII-century unaisled church of St. Pierre, whose masonry roof belongs to different phases of Angevin Gothic. Over the transept-crossing is a ribbed cupola without distinct pedestal, inspired evidently by the small unribbed cupola of Fontevrault's crossing. The stones are laid in horizontal concentric courses like a true dome. Though archaic in structure, St. Pierre's _croisée_ is of skilled execution. It belongs to the last third of the XII century. Over the choir and transept are the heavy diagonals of the First Period of the Plantagenet development, and the nave's vault sections are carried on the eight branches of the Second Period. Powerful transverse arches separate the wide, square bays, and against the inclosure walls are other strong arches beneath the windows. The walls of St. Pierre's choir are not parallel, but draw closer together at the eastern end, for undoubtedly there was much intentional asymmetry in mediæval monuments. The Flamboyant day gave to St. Pierre its well-carved choir stalls and some exquisitely toned Flemish tapestries executed by local weavers. Other superb tapestries adorn Notre Dame-de-Nantilly, a church patronized by Louis XI, who added to it the south aisle and a Flamboyant oratory. The body of the edifice belongs to the first half of the XII century; its barrel vault is braced by slightly pointed transverse arches. At the transept-crossing is a ribbed cupola, without distinct pedestal, like that of St. Pierre. Against the fourth pier, to the south, is the epitaph which good King René himself composed and set up because of his affection for his old nurse, Dame Tiphaine, for whose soul he begs a paternoster of all who pass by. Against the fifth pier is the Limousin enamel crozier of the archbishop of Tyr, keeper of the seal for St. Louis, who was buried here in his native city in 1266. Behind the Gothic Town Hall is the now unused chapel of St. Jean, a small example of the Third Period of Angevin architecture, when ribs branched considerably; in the square chevet they ramify to the number of twenty. A mile down the river lies what is left of St. Florent-les-Saumur[193] re-established by Fulk Nerra when he conquered Saumur in 1026. Its narthex, now the chapel of a nuns' community, shows one of the earliest uses of the Plantagenet vault of eight branches (1170-1200). At St. Florent was living the daughter of the exiled poet-duke of Orléans, with her young husband, the Duke of Alençon, when one day in 1429 word came that at Chinon, near by, where Charles VII was staying, had arrived an inspired maid, and young d'Alençon, soon to be Jeanne d'Arc's lieutenant--her _gentil duc_--galloped along the banks of the Loire to see the wonder. So delighted was he with Jeanne's management of spear and horse that he presented her with a palfrey, and she came to St. Florent-les-Saumur for a four days' visit to his duchess, promising[194] that anxious young wife that she would bring back her husband safe and sound. Fontevrault's abbatial, where culminated the art of the cupola church, is the chief excursion to be made from Saumur. It can be reached by a ten-mile trolley ride. Only three miles from Fontevrault, and a pleasant cross-country walk from it, is the beautiful Plantagenet Gothic church of St. Martin, at Candes,[195] crowned with battlements, on the highland above the confluence of the Vienne and the Loire. In the ancient abbey here St. Martin died as the IV century closed. A chapel to the north of the choir marks the site of his cell, and its window recalls the pious piracy of his loyal parishioners of Tours, who claimed his body for burial, but who, knowing that Candes would not give it up, came by night and stole it away; and quite rightly they had judged, for when, centuries later, the Northmen invasions forced Tours to send its great relic for safe-keeping to Auxerre, it took an army of six thousand men to get it back. The present choir of St. Martin's at Candes was built in the latter half of the XII century (c. 1180). Fifty years later rose the nave, justly considered one of the most brilliant examples of Plantagenet Gothic architecture, its model, not the unaisled cupola-church, but the Romanesque church of Poitou, whose side aisles are so high that their lancets are the only lighting of the edifice. St. Martin's hall-like interior of three spacious aisles is inundated with light. The well-proportioned clustered piers rising from pavement to vault-springing are placed considerably out of alignment, and in a number of other arrangements the architect here followed his personal bent. In the western porch the ribs of several Plantagenet vault sections fall on a central pillar. THE CATHEDRAL AT POITIERS[196] _Vexilla Regis prodeunt_ _Fulget Crucis mysterium_ _Qua vita mortem pertulit_ _Et morte vitam protulit._ Abroad the regal banners fly And bear the mystic Cross on high, That Cross whereon Life suffered Death And gave us Life with Dying breath. _Impleta sunt quæ concinit_ _David fideli carmine,_ _Dicendo nationibus_ _Regnavit a ligno Deus._ That which the prophet-king of old Hath in mysterious verse foretold Is now accomplished whilst we see God ruling nations from a Tree. --FORTUNATUS, bishop of Poitiers (599-607).[197] The noblest Gothic monument due to Henry Plantagenet and Aliénor of Aquitaine is the cathedral church at Poitiers, founded by them in 1162 about the same time that, in Paris, Louis VII witnessed the laying of the corner stone for a new chief church in his capital. Never were contemporary edifices more unlike in their form and their informing spirit. In Notre Dame of Paris breathes the struggle of human existence and that Christian resignation voiced by the XIII-century Franciscan in the _Dies Iræ_. St. Peter's Cathedral at Poitiers rings with Christian joy, with the triumphal strains of the hymn composed by its VI-century bishop for the arrival from Constantinople of the True Cross relic. From the hour that the ancient ecclesiastical city marched forth with banners flying to meet the Cross, Poitiers has held it to be a tree of royal honor, not of pathetic agony. Her greatest bishop, St. Hilary, was western Christendom's champion for the Son's divinity when the Arian heresy attacked it. Clovis defeated the Arian Visigoths at Poitiers in 508; Charles Martel checked the Mohammedans at Poitiers in 732. A city's spiritual history speaks by its monuments. In the high place of honor in Poitiers' cathedral of St. Peter, hangs a gleaming canticle of translucent mosaic, a window which many hold to be the finest in the world. It celebrates God ruling nations from a tree. It is a passion and a triumph, an agony and an apotheosis. Eight centuries divide the inspiration of the Crucifixion window from St. Hilary's struggle with Arianism, six centuries from the canticle of Bishop Venantius Fortunatus, but Hilary's affirmation and the rejoicing of Fortunatus live in it, and through it have been passed on to us. Poitiers Cathedral is a spacious hall-church illuminated by large lancets that seem to be chanting Alleluias, yet whose piety is plain and robust. It is a church loyal to indigenous art traditions, yet blending those sober Romanesque inheritances of Poitou with the delicate grace of Plantagenet Gothic. Its loveliness is severe, its slenderness is sturdy. St. Peter's both imposes and allures. Poitiers was the cradle of Aliénor of Aquitaine's brilliant and debonaire line of troubadours, crusaders, and church builders. Charlemagne gave them the title of Duke of Aquitaine for their services against Islam. The first warrior duke died a hermit at St. Guilhem-le-Désert, which became a Midi pilgrim shrine where, in the Gothic dawn, appeared a very early use of diagonals, profiled like those of the Ile-de-France. A duke of Aquitaine founded Cluny, the greatest building energy of the ages. Another of the dynasty of the Guillaumes aided Bishop Fulbert to build Chartres, and, when fire wiped out Poitiers Cathedral, reconstructed it in Romanesque form. Guillaume VIII and Guillaume IX built at Bordeaux the churches of Ste. Croix, St. Seurin, and St. André. In Poitiers they raised anew Notre Dame-la-Grande and St. Hilaire, and founded Montierneuf,[198] blessed by Urban II in 1096. Aliénor's grandfather, Guillaume IX, the first-known troubadour, especially favored Fontevrault. Her father was that Guillaume X, with the appetites of eight men, an open boaster of his crimes, whom it took St. Bernard to beat to his knees in penitence, after which he passed out of history in the odor of sanctity as pilgrim to Compostela. With the art of the builder Aliénor's own links were multiple. When Bishop Geoffrey de Lèves took charge of her as a young bride in Bordeaux, he was raising at Chartres the most beautiful tower in the world. She assisted at St. Denis' dedication and knew Abbot Suger well; at Vézelay she watched the Burgundians sculpting a portal of paradise. Through all her crowded life, with all her reckless sins upon her, Aliénor was loyal to her own region. She began Poitiers Cathedral in the same decade that she had her favorite son Richard the Lion-hearted installed as ruler of Aquitaine--another troubadour duke--seating him in the abbot's chair at St. Hilaire's, according to ancient custom. She blended with her own Poitou's Romanesque what was choicest in the Gothic art of her Angevin husband. Poitiers Cathedral was the prototype of monuments such as Candes and Puy-Notre-Dame, in whose interiors Aliénor's own "high grace, the dower of queens," seems incarnate. An Angevin architect probably designed St. Peter's at Poitiers. The works started at the east end, which is square, and rises from the down-slope of the hill like a solid fortress, a hundred and fifty feet in height; Coligny's troops were one day to riddle with bullets that big quadrangular target. So thick was the eastern wall that the round chapels ending the choir disappeared in its depth. The easternmost bays and the south arm of the transept were built about the same time, soon after 1160, and their masonry roof belongs to the first phase of the Gothic of the West. Over the crossing is a six-branch vault; for the rest of the church, the eight-branch type was used. The lower half of the inclosure walls is ornamented with a blind arcade above which runs a circulating gallery carried on corbels carved with fantasy. Again was used the artifice employed in Poitiers' Romanesque church of Notre Dame-la-Grande, whereby from the eastern end onward the edifice grew slightly wider and higher. The axial line deviates considerably, and it is known that this cathedral rose during different periods. While the plan and the beginning of the work were of Aliénor and Henry's day, the greater part of the church was erected under their great-grandson, Alphonse of Poitiers, the brother of St. Louis. When he died in 1271, the two westernmost bays were incomplete. After a lull, the work was resumed at the close of the century. In the XIV century was erected the not very interesting west frontispiece which stands below the street level and which is too wide for its height; it would have been better had the towers been set in a line with the aisles and not planted beyond them like the towers of Rouen and Bourges. The first of the Avignon popes, Clement V, builder of the Rayonnant Gothic choir of Bordeaux Cathedral, watched Poitiers' Rayonnant façade rising during the sixteen months that he spent in the city. While here he learned that fire had damaged St. John Lateran's at Rome and ordered it to be reconstructed. The last windows in St. Pierre's Cathedral have the Flamboyant tracery of Jean de Berry's time. That amateur of art--sixth in descent from Henry and Aliénor--left his mark all through middle France. The interior of Poitiers Cathedral is an ample parallelogram of eight bays, divided into three aisles of equal height, by a dozen widely spaced piers, each of which is a cluster of lovely shafts rising from pavement to vault-springing. The eighteen _bombé_ vault sections are grace itself. As the light floods in from the big lancets in the side walls, one scarcely notices that this church has ground supports. The plan of Poitou's Romanesque churches--seen at its best at St. Savin[199]--shows adroit construction, since it employed the aisles to buttress the principal span, and used one roof to cover the entire structure. Poitiers' memorable Crucifixion window is in the flat, eastern wall of the central aisle. The three windows in that square chevet belong to the transition between the XII and XIII centuries. That to the north was the gift of Maurice de Blason, who became bishop of Poitiers in 1198, and who is supposed to have been also the donor of the Crucifixion, whose date has given rise to controversy. The straight saddle-bars still used in it were abandoned after 1200. In the lower panel of the central light, the founders of the cathedral, Henry and Aliénor, are pictured kneeling. Aliénor knew well Suger's school of glassmakers, and as M. Mâle has proved that all the XII-century windows in western France proceed from those of St. Denis, very likely the ex-queen of France was instrumental in spreading their fame. At Poitiers the apostles gaze upward in quite the same attitude as those in the Ascension window at Le Mans, an accepted work of Suger's craftsmen. Blue as profound as sapphires and a crimson that glows like blood-red rubies make of Poitiers' Crucifix an unapproachable glory. The genius who conceived it had brooded over the ecstatic hymn composed for the glad celebration of November 19, 569. This is the Tree of Life, effulgent in fecundity, on its branches hanging such fruit as the Ransom of the World, the vine that gives sweet wine of the red blood of the Lord. No agonizing Christ on Poitiers' Cross _ornata regis purpura_. The Saviour's eyes are wide open to indicate that the Christ dies not. The arms are extended to great length as if embracing the entire world.[200] The halo is marked by the Greek cross, emblem of divinity. In many other chevets of France the Crucifixion holds the central place, in the Lady chapel at Tours, in the clearstory at Rouen, in the ambulatory at Bourges, in St. Remi's wide gallery at Rheims, in the square east wall of Moulins, and at Ervy. And in many ways was the Sacrifice presented; sometimes the Cross became an apple-decked Tree of Knowledge with Adam and Eve beside it; sometimes the Saviour's arms were high uplifted and angels received the precious blood in chalices. Never was the meaning of Calvary presented with more profundity than at Poitiers, whose ancient bishops had suffered exile to defend the Son and written verses to exalt him. The other lancets of the cathedral are in most part XIII-century work of the closely woven pattern type that produces scintillation; contrary to the more general usage the medallions are to be read from the top downward. As color schemes they have been composed with extraordinary care. Few church interiors can equal this for jeweled riches: 'And the building of the wall thereof was of jasper stone.... And the foundations of the wall were adorned with all manner of precious stones--jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprasus, jacinth, and amethyst.' Poitiers' ancient church of Notre Dame-la-Grande has the appearance of a cathedral, and its elaborate front, the best of all Romanesque façades, is classed among peerless works such as Vézelay's portico, St. Gilles' portal, and the Auvergnat apses. The pre-Gothic school of Poitou, formulated as early as 1050, excelled in sculptured frontispieces, decorated apses, and ornate window frames. Sometimes the side aisles bracing the principal span were made too narrow, as here in Notre Dame, but where the school reached its structural apogee as in St. Savin-sur-Gartemps (which has lofty ample aisles and splendidly carved capitals), it can hold its own with that of any region. Poitou has been called the paradise for lovers of Romanesque architecture. In Notre Dame-la-Grande are some XII-century frescoes, but its modern experiment in polychromy is distressing. Many a gathering has the ancient church seen. When in 1100 a church council at Poitiers censured the illegal marriage of the king of France and the fair Bertrada de Montfort, Guillaume IX, the troubadour duke of Aquitaine who was present--and in much the same predicament, living with the wife of a neighboring lord--made a scene and indignantly left the hall. Stones were thrown at the churchmen who dared censure an open scandal. Then brave Robert d'Abrissel, founder of Fontevrault, tore off his cloak and stood forth, in token of his willingness to suffer in so good a cause.[201] Poitiers' abbey church of St. Hilaire has much interest for archæologists.[202] The Vandals destroyed a church here, the Saracens burned another, twice was it wrecked by Norse pirates during the IX century when St. Hilary's relics were carried to Le Puy Cathedral for safety. Then a daughter of the Duke of Normandy, Emma, the mother of Edward the Confessor, had her architect, Gautier Coorland, rebuild the abbatial, which was dedicated in 1049. Owing to continuous reconstructions, little of that period remains, save in the ambulatory and in the tower which once stood isolated. The XII century added the oblong cupolas whose only counterparts are to be found at Le Puy. To support its new cupola-vaulting, St. Hilaire built two rows of pillars with a narrow passageway between, and when, in later times, outer aisles were added, the interior was given the uncommon aspect of triple aisles. A Huguenot sacking worked irreparable damage, and after the Revolution the westernmost bays of the church had to be demolished. In Merovingian times the two most-visited shrines in France were St. Hilary's at Poitiers, and St. Martin's at Tours. When Hilary, the thirteenth bishop here (d. 368), returned from his exile in Phrygia, whither he had been driven for combating the Arian heresy, he brought back from the East a fondness for the interpretation of Scripture by allegory which was to have a strong influence on the iconography of Gothic cathedrals. To pray by St. Martin's tomb at Tours there came north the Italian poet, Venantius Fortunatus, who continued his pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Hilary, the master who had trained Martin in the spiritual life. Never was he to quit Poitiers, where, in 607 he died, its revered bishop. In those days, Radegund, the Thuringian wife of Clotaire, son of Clovis, had retired to Poitiers to pass her life in study and prayer. Scripture and the works of the church fathers were read in Greek and Hebrew, in her cloister. About her gathered pious maidens, chiefly of the Gallo-Roman stock, harried by the rougher peoples from the north. Fortunatus became for Queen Radegund and her Abbess Agnes a sort of self-appointed intendant; he sent them gifts of fruit with verses. Puvis de Chavannes has painted it all on the walls of Poitiers' Town Hall. St. Radegund's tomb became a pilgrim shrine. The savants see no reason to doubt the genuine antiquity of the queen's sarcophagus of black marble now in the crypt of her church, part of which crypt escaped the fire of 1083 and so dates before 1000. The new apse was dedicated in 1099. The three big bays of the aisleless nave are covered by Plantagenet Gothic vaults with eight branches, and along the walls are the same blind arcades and carved carbels as in the cathedral. The sacristy shows an octagonal dome on ribs. The church has no transept, but over the north portal is a XIII-century rose window of deep blue hue, between which and the apse are some XIV-century windows that experimented not very successfully with colored figures in white glass. The porch is good Flamboyant Gothic. Poitiers boasts the oldest extant Christian church in France, the baptistry of St. Jean, in whose walls are Gallo-Roman IV-century vestiges.[203] There is VII-century Merovingian work in its apsidal chapels, and the later Romanesque and Gothic times added their quotas. The ancient well in which baptism by submersion was practiced has been preserved. A son of Poitiers feels doubly a Christian if baptized in the church of St. Jean's. The venerable little edifice to-day lies many feet below the level of the city streets, for Poitiers escaped few of the sackings of history. For safety from the Barbarian invasions some rich Gallo-Roman must have buried the statue of Minerva exhumed in 1902, in the garden of a girls' school, and now in the town's museum. It is a most lovely Greek marble of the VI century, B.C.[204] Henry Plantagenet and Aliénor of Aquitaine built in Poitiers the guard's hall of the Counts' Palace, in the center of the town, on its highest eminence.[205] The wall-arcading is like contemporary work in the cathedral and the church of St. Radegund. In late-Gothic times the south wall was remade. In this hall the second husband of Isabella of Angoulême made amends to his suzerain, Alphonse of Poitiers, for the war to which her jealous haughtiness had forced him. In this hall in 1307-08 the accused Templars were interrogated by Clement V, the pontiff who initiated the residence at Avignon, and the consequent papal subserviency to the French crown, Philippe le Bel cowed the pope, and the group of anti-cleric legists who controlled the king arranged that only picked specimens of the doomed military Order should appear at Poitiers. The royal coffers were empty and those of the Templars were full. Torture and intimidation had wrung from all too many of the monk-knights false avowals of guilt. In Spain, where the investigation was carried on without torture, the bishops found no heresy in the Order; instead, they bore testimony to its exemplary standing. One brave old crusader raised his voice in honest speech: "Let him have a care," wrote Joinville, "this king who now reigns. Let him amend his ways, lest God strike him down without mercy." The Grand Master of the Templars, Jacques Molay, was burned publicly in Paris, calling on king and pope to meet him before God's judgment seat within the year. A month later Clement V died, and before 1314 closed, the young king met sudden death. And the people recalled that when Clement was crowned at Lyons, the tiara had been knocked from his head by a collapsing wall and one of its precious jewels lost. Less discouraging were other doings of Clement V in Poitiers. Here he dated the nomination of John of Montecorvino (d. 1328), pioneer of Christian missionaries, to the see of Peking. Armed crusading had run its course; the crusade by preaching, prayer, and penance was to begin. Already in 1245 Innocent IV had sent Dominicans to Persia and Franciscans farther east, St. Louis had sent William de Rubruquis to the Mongols, and those astonishing Venetian merchants; the Polos, had roused the papacy to the spiritual needs of Cathay, the far Cathay of the mediæval tradition, to which Columbus was seeking a shorter route when he accidentally discovered America. For thirty years John of Montecorvino missionized Tartary. He translated the New Testament and the Psalms. To encourage missionary activity, Clement V ordered that Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic be taught publicly at Rome, Bologna, Paris, Oxford, and Salamanca. The Hundred Years' War, so fatal to French architectural progress, surged round Poitiers. After Crécy, in 1346, the hall of the Counts' Palace was damaged by the English. In the environs of Poitiers took place the bitter French defeat of 1356, when King Jean le Bon was made prisoner. "_Et fut là morte toute la fleur de chevalerie de France_," says Froissart. The siege by Duguesclin to recapture the hill city from the English damaged its monuments. When the Duke of Berry, son of King Jean the Good, became master of Poitiers he undertook to restore the Counts' Palace, and he had noted Flamboyant Gothic masters construct for him the splendid triple chimney piece of the guard hall, decorated about 1383 by André Beauneveu with statues of Charles VI, of his wife Isabeau of Bavaria, and of Jean of Berry and his first duchess. In the pignon above the great fireplaces was set some XIV-century glass. Guy de Dammartin re-established the donjon tower called Maubergeon, now cut off at the third story. The images of the counts of Poitiers, decorating it, belong to that phase of French sculpture which preceded the Franco-Flamand school at Dijon. Before transalpine influences were imported, a truly national renaissance had begun. The Tour Maubergeon and the pignon of the great hall are all that remain of the palaces built at Poitiers by Jean de Berry; but what they were can be seen in his illuminated Book of Hours now in Chantilly's museum. The historic hall of Poitiers has its memories of Jeanne d'Arc. Hither, in 1429, Charles XII brought her to be examined by learned men. When one of them told her, with condescension, that if God wished to deliver France he had no need of men-of-arms, swift was Jeanne's reply, "Man does the battling and God gives the victory." Finally her judges reported to the king that she was of sound sense and a true Christian and appeared to be sent of God, and that, given the desperate need of the kingdom, they advised the king to put her at the head of an army for the relief of Orléans. Decision momentous for the fate of France! Jeanne, during her trial at Rouen, often referred to the answers she had given to her honest judges at Poitiers: "If you do not believe me, send to Poitiers, where I was questioned before.... It is written in the book at Poitiers." Cauchon might wear a miter, well she knew it was not the Church which persecuted her, though the English left no stone unturned to have it so appear. Jeanne in Poitiers lodged with Maître Jean Rabateau, advocate, and it was the duty of his good dame to spy on her night and day. Many years after she testified to Jeanne's habit of long prayer in the night-time. To test the maid's virtue the king's own mother-in-law visited her. That able Yolande of Aragon had brought up Charles VII. Her own son, the young knight René d'Anjou, was soon to fight under Jeanne, and Yolande, herself, convinced of the Maid's mission, helped with funds for the expedition to Orléans. They say that Jeanne made answer to the court ladies with such sweetness and grace that she drew tears from their eyes. The old hill city of Poitiers, so ecclesiastical, so full of national memories, has had the good sense to keep itself _très province_, and its street directory still makes a sort of calendar of saints. At Bourges, the mania to wipe out its past has reached such a pass that the rue St. Michel is now the rue Michel-Servet and the rue St. Fulgent the rue Fulton. Poitiers has no desire to blot out her high historic memories. CHAPTER VIII Gothic in the Midi The giant struggle we have witnessed is but the beginning of a long and complicated historical crisis in which men will have to make their choice between the unlimited augmentation of power (by force, riches, and success) and a forward-moving moral progress (by justice, charity, and loyalty). If we live always in exterior things, if we are always in movement, we become, little by little, incapable of recollection and fecund meditation. --GUGLIELMO FERRERO, 1917. It has been said that the Midi adhered long, if not always, to Romanesque architecture, even when employing the Gothic vault. Gothic art was not an indigenous development in the south, but was brought in the wake of political events, when central France and Languedoc became one with the royal domain. It proceeded, in part, from the architecture of southwest France, and in part from the classic Ile-de-France Picard region. The realization of the local type of Midi Gothic was Albi's fortress cathedral, which comprises a wide unaisled hall covered by twelve bays of diagonal vaults whose span is sixty feet--the width of Amiens' nave being merely forty-five feet. The buttress are disguised as walls between the side chapels, the windows are long, narrow lancets, there is no triforium, and the roof is flat. Ogival art such as this has retained all the grand simplicity of Romanesque. The chief care of the Midi architect was to avoid the flying buttress; he had inherited Rome's admiration for wide, unincumbered interiors, and its aversion to showing the structural skeleton. His warm sun precluded the use of wall inclosures that were composed entirely of stained glass, which fragile screens would have necessitated wide-spreading buttresses. He seemed to disdain sculpture. And yet, during the pre-Gothic day, Languedoc had excelled in that important branch of the builder's art, as Moissac's wealth of imagery and Elne's lovely cloister show. Various causes led to the nudity of sculpture in the later churches of the south. The Gothic cathedrals of the Midi were erected after two generations of the Albigensian strife had impoverished the race. The new mendicant Orders of Francis and Dominic advocated austerity; the best Gothic of Provence is the Dominican church of St. Maximin. The building material available in some of the central and southern provinces did not lend itself to ornamentation; the lava of Auvergne, the granite of Limousin, and the brick of the Toulouse region are unyielding to sculpture. The chief Gothic churches of the Midi were built in the second half of the XIII and the first part of the XIV centuries. First there rose in central France the sister cathedrals of Clermont and Limoges--northern Gothic infused with the regional spirit. Directly derived from them are the cathedrals of Toulouse and Narbonne. Albi Cathedral was not begun till 1282. The choir of Bordeaux, built by the first of the Avignon popes, is a classic of Rayonnant Gothic, and so is that jewel of Carcassonne Cité, the whilom cathedral of St. Nazaire. St. Sauveur, at Aix-en-Provence, the cathedral of Rodez, and Béziers' fortified church were the work of the successors of the apogee period of Gothic. At Montpellier, Mende, La Chaise Dieu, and Avignon, the XIV-century popes, all of whom were meridionals, built Gothic halls and chapels. Memorable and interesting as are the Gothic monuments of the Midi, the traveler carries away the impression that the inmost soul of these central and southern provinces lingers most happily in the venerated shrines of Our Lady and St. Michael at Le Puy, in such churches as Notre Dame-du-Port, St. Sernin, St. Trophime, in the sculptured portal of St. Gilles, and in Maguelonne's isolated cathedral of St. Peter. CLERMONT-FERRAND[206] Si c'est un aveuglement surnaturel de vivre sans chercher ce qu'on est, c'en est un terrible de vivre mal en croyant Dieu.... La conduite de Dieu, qui dispose toute choses avec douceur, est de mettre la religion dans l'esprit par les raisons, et dans le coeur par la grâce.--PASCAL (1623-62; born in Clermont). In mediæval reckoning that mountainous, central province of France which was called Auvergne was counted in Languedoc. Therefore, to place the cathedral of Clermont in this general group of Midi Gothic is permissible. It is a daughter of Amiens, of the northern French type, and yet it belongs in a marked degree to its own volcanic region of mountains and storms. In it is the endurance and sturdy individuality of Auvergne, the inmost heart of France, where the Romanesque work may be said to be indigenous, so directly does it derive from the local traditions of Rome grafted on those of Gaul, and scarcely touched by those of Byzantium. The chief Gothic church of Clermont has in it much of Romanesque austerity. The black lava of which it is built sets it apart among French cathedrals. "A pious fear of God makes itself felt in this spot," wrote a son of Clermont, Gregory of Tours, of the cathedral governed by Bishop Sidonius Apollinaris, Gallo-Roman and "last zealot for Latin letters." And though not a stone of the present edifice is of historian Gregory's day, one often murmurs in its precincts, "_Terribilis est locus iste_," and one often experiences in this abode of Jehovah the Lord, _un frisson d'âme à la Pascal_. In Clermont, where even the serene Gothic art could not free itself of the fire-torn mountains around, the somber soul of Pascal first experienced religion. That he should overstress the fall of man and original sin, what wonder? But Jansenist in temperament though he was--overwhelmed by man's nothingness and God's grandeur--the mystic Pascal was no rigid pessimist. Cathedral and man of genius both preach the resurrection after the fall, both have the upward surge of hope, even as the fearful summit of the Puy-de-Dôme, standing over Clermont, outsoars the storm clouds hiding its base, to rear its head in sunlight. For all its soberness, the cathedral of Clermont has the true Gothic sweep of the spirit _au-delà_. Happy the traveler who first approaches it at sunset, coming slowly across the mountain-walled plain, out of the Forez hills of rushing torrents where is set the Chaise Dieu. The cathedral crowns the foothill around which has settled the city, and as it stands silhouetted against a bluish haze of mountain--the extinct crater, the Puy-de-Dôme--it fulfills the ideal of a church crowning a city.[207] Seen from the town, the massed volcanic hills are sufficiently near for their woods and villages to add picturesque details to the ever-changing views, yet not so close that they hang oppressively over the city. Other views of the cathedral can be gained from the foothills around Royat, whose small, sturdy church was fortified to bar the valley into the huge mountain behind it. Lava stone is dusty black, therefore on closer inspection Clermont Cathedral has somewhat the aspect of the smoke-stained churches in manufacturing centers. The gray-black Volvic stone is of better effect within the church, though at first that interior may strike a chill. Lava does not lend itself to sculptural decoration. However, the essential lines of Clermont are of such masterly proportions, of so grand a simplicity, that deeper and deeper grows the influence of this church on those who frequent it. The diagonals etched black against the white vault panels fall with peculiar ease and vigor on the tall dark piers. The slenderness of those clustered columns is not foolhardy, since lava has much resistant force. The single aisles of the choir and the double aisles of the nave rise to half the height of the church, and we have seen at Bourges and Le Mans that when pier arches are above the average height there is given to an edifice a note of exotic beauty. Like Amiens, the height of this church is three times greater than its width. Its vista is closed imposingly; the imaged windows of its high apsidal chapels appear symmetrically behind the arches that surround the sanctuary. The story of the chief church of Auvergne interests the archæologist. The crypt belonged to the previous Carolingian church, and so did the two western towers until the XIX century. M. Viollet-le-Duc removed the ancient belfries, extended the nave by two bays, and built the present towers, whose sky-pointing spires are superb in the general view of Clermont, but whose details can be criticized, as, for instance, the blocking of corner niches by pinnacles when the purpose of a niche is to hold a statue. Modern Gothic is too often a cold, hard imitation. The stair approaches here lack the old-time amplitude of the triple portals. The XIII-century cathedral of Clermont was practically the first Gothic monument raised in Auvergne, which province adhered stubbornly to its own exceptional Romanesque architecture. The first stone was laid in 1248, in the same year that Cologne Cathedral was begun. The founder, Bishop Hugues de la Tour, had attended the dedication of the Sainte-Chapelle at Paris, and then had returned to Clermont to begin his own cathedral. That same year he started out as a crusader, in the train of Louis IX, but as he died in Egypt the work on the church was not continued seriously till 1253, when St. Louis helped to raise to the see of Clermont his friend Guy de la Tour, nephew of Hugues. Belonging to a feudal family of great possessions, the new bishop, too, was able to be munificent toward his cathedral. In 1254, when St. Louis was returning from his unsuccessful crusade, he paused in Clermont, to replenish his depleted treasury. Ten years later he presented windows to the cathedral, on the occasion of his son Philippe's marriage there to the daughter of Jaime el Conquistador of Aragon. The lights in the Lady chapel show the fleur-de-lis and the donjons of Castile, and are apparently the work of Paris craftsmen, who controlled the vitrine art of the later XIII century. That unskilled local workers set them in place would seem to be indicated by the armature bars which do not follow the contour of the medallions, as was then the custom. In the choir's clearstory are the single figures and grisaille that were in vogue during the next century. Jean Deschamps made the plan of Clermont Cathedral. He may have studied in the north, since certain traits of Picardy appear here, but the spirit of the work is regional. His windows do not fill the entire upper space between the active members. Under Bishop Guy de la Tour he directed the building of the cathedral for almost forty years, till 1287. Perhaps he designed the cathedral of Limoges, in west-central France, since its plan and details closely resemble those of Clermont. Bishop Aymar de Cros, who carried on the works in Auvergne's capital, was another of the schoolmen who were builders of churches; such was his intellect that St. Thomas Aquinas willed to him his manuscripts in the hope that his _Summa_ might be completed. Under Bishop Aubert Aycelin de Montaigu a new master-of-works took charge--Pierre Deschamps (1287-1325), the son probably of Jean who had made the plans. He erected the four westernmost bays of the choir, the transept, and the easternmost bay of the nave in its lower parts. From 1340 to 1359 the master-of-works was Pierre de Cabazat, who added three more bays to the nave, and was employed in those same years in making, with Hugues Morel, the abbey church of La Chaise Dieu in the Forez mountains across the plain from Clermont.[208] An Avignon pope, Clement VI, was the patron who undertook that gaunt granite structure, as full of sorrow as the times that produced it. Clement had been abbot at La Chaise Dieu, so naturally he contributed toward the erection of the cathedral of Auvergne as did his successor at Avignon, Innocent VI (d. 1362), a former bishop of Clermont. The city was fortunate to have one of the notable D'Amboise family for its prelate in the late-Gothic day, Jacques d'Amboise (1505-16), who as abbot of Cluny had built at Paris the stately residence called the Hôtel Cluny. Close to his Auvergne cathedral he set up the Fontaine d'Amboise, now on the Cours Sablon. The eloquent Massillon was a later bishop of Clermont (1717-42); he founded its town library and bequeathed his fortune to the sick poor of the Hôtel Dieu. Before the French Revolution had turned to violence and destruction, in Clermont Cathedral gathered the people, with hearts beating high with generous desire for reform, for the blessing of their National Guard banner, embroidered by a community of nuns. With all too tragic swiftness came the day when in the same church were lighted bonfires for the destruction of vestments and missals. Among the precious things then wrecked was a portrait statue of Louis IX, made while his friend Guy de la Tour was bishop. Only by chance did the cathedral itself, riddled with bullets, escape annihilation. The see of Clermont has gone by various designations; so ancient is this city that it has been called successively by five different names. Here where is more Celtic blood than in any other region in France, save Brittany, the Celtic hero, Vercingetorex, inflicted on Cæsar his sole defeat. When Gaul became Christian, Clermont continued to be important. Her first bishop, St. Austremonius, was one of the seven whom Gregory of Tours says were sent into Gaul in 250 by Pope Fabian, with St. Denis of Paris, St. Martial of Limoges, St. Saturninus of Toulouse, St. Just of Narbonne, St. Trophimus of Arles, and St. Gatien of Tours. At the close of the V century Clermont's bishop, the celebrated Caius Apollinaris Sidonius, poet and scholar, son-in-law of an emperor, made his stand for Latin culture against Teutonic submersion. Dearly he loved his own enlightened Lyons, but of Clermont he said, "Such an horizon would make a stranger forget his native land." A generation later another outstanding Gallo-Roman bishop of Clermont was St. Gall, uncle of Gregory of Tours, who was so just to all that even Jews marched with lighted tapers at his funeral. Some twenty-six of Clermont's bishops have been canonized. The third cathedral of the city, and that which immediately preceded the present one, was consecrated in 946 by Bishop Étienne II. Clermont had suffered grievously by Saracen invasion, followed by the Northmen inroads. After the second Norman sacking the ruined houses smoldered for a month, and in the streets corpses lay unburied, for the population in terror had fled to the countryside. The bishop called back his flock to remake their homes. In his new church was a precocious use of ambulatory and radiating chapels, a disposition which was to lead to the chief beauty in the Gothic cathedrals of the land, but which made its appearance in the Ile-de-France only in the XII century. Bishop Étienne's Carolingian cathedral became the prototype for the Auvergnat-Romanesque school. In the good Étienne's church prayed the first crusaders when by papal bidding there gathered at Clermont a mighty council at whose tenth and last session was preached the First Crusade. Nature herself seemed to have prepared the people's minds for some vast enterprise, for all the chroniclers of western Christendom describe the sublime shower of astral stars, thick as snowflakes, which whirled in the sky. So in this same primeval Auvergne, some six centuries earlier, at the break-up of Rome's empire before the invading Barbarians, there had for three years been earthquakes and fiery volcanic eruptions. Tradition says that the momentous gathering of 1095 took place in what is now the Place Delille and the adjacent Cours Sablon. Many of our building friends were present--Bishop Odo from Bayeux, Bishop Ives from Chartres, Bishop Hoël from Le Mans, the abbots Geoffrey of Vendôme, Jarenton of St. Bénigne, and St. Hugues of Cluny, and from Spain came the great Bernardo who ruled the see of Toledo. For the people of Clermont to-day, November 28, 1095, is as vivid a reality as any of the revolutions of yesterday. A statue of Urban II stands outside the cathedral. Even so he stood, said a witness, as one having authority, high above the vast throng, on one side of him the stunted Peter the Hermit of Picardy, and on the other the Norman-Italian Bohemund of Taranto, a veritable Greek god in build and feature. From end to end of France Urban journeyed to arouse the people. Now he used persuasion, now invective; sometimes he appealed to idealistic motives or propounded colonial policies very like modern ideas. Europe had good cause to be apprehensive. The Almoravids had advanced into Spain. The Seljukian Turks were a menace more serious than the Saracens. Urban understood the peril and raised his voice in warning. "Cease to be a terror to peaceful citizens," he exhorted the gathered barons. "Turn your arms to the defense of the soil trod by the King of Kings, of the tomb over which rose the sun of the Resurrection.... The great cities of Asia Minor have fallen a prey to the Mussulman, who has planted the crescent by the Hellespont, whence he menaces Europe.... Nation of the Franks, set beyond the mountains, nation cherished and chosen of God, as clearly your high deeds prove, nation distinct from others by your situation, by your faith, by your respect for Mother Church, to you I address my plea.... Who should right these wrongs but you who have received from on high agility of body, the training of arms and grandeur of soul?... Cease these mutual wars!... Jesus Christ died for you. You should be willing to die for him." And a great answering cry rose from the hundred thousand gathered there, "God wills it," to be the rallying call of the crusades. Thus in the heart of France a French pope initiated the cosmic ventures which were to change European ways of life, ventures in which Frenchmen played a leading part so that to this day a European is called a Frank by a Mohammedan. One can easily see in the crusades only their failures and their crimes, one can sneer at them with Voltaire--who sneered at Jeanne d'Arc. Europe's aggression was needed then to save Christianity from Asiatic immobility. The benefits of the crusades outweigh their delinquencies. _Gesta Dei per Francos_ a monk called his chronicle of the First Crusade. And while those feats by God through the men of France in the East went on, other feats for God were ventured in France, the raising of Gothic cathedrals, sister movements that gave wings to the soul, purifying and molding the faith and the genius of those virile and faulty generations. Already the movement was stirring. On his way to Clermont, Urban II had seen Verona Cathedral building and S. Ambrogio's at Milan. He had blessed S. Abondio at Como. In France he blessed the new choir of St. Sernin at Toulouse and the material gathered for the cathedral at Carcassonne. Cluny's new choir he dedicated, and various other Romanesque churches. Before the Second Crusade set out Suger had built St. Denis. [Illustration: _Notre Dame du Port at Clermont-Ferrand. Typical XII-century Church of Auvergne's Romanesque School_] In Clermont, though the cathedral of 1095 has been superseded by the present Gothic structure, there is intact a venerated sanctuary where Urban had a votive Mass chanted on the eve of the historic council. Every morning one can see the men and women of the city gather in the crypt of Notre Dame-du-Port to beg a blessing on their working day. They may not be able to put into words what it is each feels in that subterranean chamber impregnated by the petitions of those of their race who have gone before them, but each knows that here his prayer has plenitude and patriotic aspiration. A _custodia matutina_ in Notre Dame-du-Port, _usque ad noctem_ in the cathedral. One fears God in the cathedral, one loves God in Notre Dame. Notre Dame-du-Port is a masterpiece of the Romanesque school of Auvergne.[209] When it was built lava stone was not in use for construction, but solely for decorative purposes. So curiously alike are all the pre-Gothic churches in this province that one architect might have planned them. The venerable crypt of Notre Dame-du-Port was built in the XI century. The Romanesque church above it was constructed during the XII century and has all the Auvergnese traits: a central tower in two stories set on a barlong which forms a kind of upper transept, a compact apse with snug absidioles whose exterior walls are decorated by colored volcanic stones in marquetry designs, a western narthex, and a principal span covered by a half-barrel vault undivided by transverse arches and buttressed by side aisles surmounted by tribunes, which meant that light entered the middle vessel indirectly. Auvergne, like Burgundy, attempted to light her upper church by a clearstory, but found the experiment hazardous and gave it up. Her churches have stood intact through centuries of harsh winters. The very mortar lines were made means of decoration; wide bands of red mortar were found to be effective with blocks of black lava.[210] In the volcanic soil of Auvergne were elements that rendered mortar as resistant as stone. The local Gallo-Romans had used the polychrome lava as decoration. The interior apse of Notre Dame-du-Port is a gem of masoncraft. Around the tiny processional path stand engaged pillars that are decoration and buttresses, too. The regional skill in sculpture appears in the capitals of the main piers, where the story is related with animation, even if the figures are too squat and the heads too large. The armor indicates that the work was done early in the XII century. The doorjamb images at the southern entrance of the transept were sculptured in the years when St. Thomas Becket came to Clermont wearing the white robe of the Cistercians who had given him hospitality in France. Crowds gathered every day to receive his blessing, for all Christendom held him to be a saint defending right and liberty. A cast of Clermont's archaic portal, whose charm is exceptional, with its seraphim of the mystic triple wings, has been placed in the Trocadéro Museum at Paris. When this side entrance was completed, Richard Coeur-de-Lion was making over his claims in Auvergne to his lifetime rival, Philippe-Auguste, which cession was to lead, in time, to the erection of the Ile-de-France Picardy cathedral of Clermont. Some of the most admirably sculptured capitals in Auvergne are at Mozac, a suburb of Riom.[211] The nave of Mozac's abbey church was built from 1131 to 1147 by a brother of Peter the Venerable, who made Cluny's nave, and of the doughty abbot, Pons de Montboissier, who erected Vézelay's portico of paradise, all three of them belonging to a feudal family of Auvergne. The small abbatial holds a priceless treasure, the reliquary of St. Calmin, which an abbot presented in 1168. Its fourteen panels of Limoges enamel are ornamented in gold. A bold attempt was made to rob the church of this national heritage, so it is now protected by electric bells and every kind of burglar alarm. "_Clermont le riche, Riom le beau_," so ran the old saying. Riom, the small but proud rival of the capital of Auvergne, was a town of magistrates who built themselves Gothic Renaissance houses as individual as the pre-Gothic work of the province. The church of St. Amable has a Romanesque nave and an early-Gothic choir. Jean, Duke of Berry, had Guy and André de Dammartin design the XIV-century Sainte-Chapelle for his palace at Riom. Its brilliantly cold stained glass was commanded for the wedding, in 1389, of sixty-year-old Duke John and the thirteen-year-old heiress, Jeanne de Boulogne. Froissart has described the curious union. Each window panel has a single statue under a canopy; the prophets and apostles carry appropriately inscribed scrolls. A XV-century window, representing the Bourbon dukes, Jean II and Pierre II, patrons of Moulins, contains a St. Marguerite so similar to one in the "Book of Hours" which Jehan Fouquet painted for Étienne Chevalier that the window is thought to be designed by the great _primitif_ of Tours. It may be to artists of Jean de Berry's entourage that we owe the most entrancing Madonna of Flamboyant art, the _vierge à l'oiseau_, an image in the regional stone which stands at the trumeau of the XV-century church of Notre Dame-du Mathuret. One student after another has discussed the date of this exquisite figure, so purely French in essence, whose simplicity is as ample and unaffected as the best XIII-century art. Work as exceptional as this is of no date or school, but is due to some unrecorded individual genius. In that same late-Gothic day the spirit of St. Louis and Joinville lived again in _The Very Joyous, Pleasing and Diverting History of the Gentle Lord of Bayard, written by the Loyal Servitor_. The serrated foliage of the Madonna's crown proves the sculpture to be late-Gothic. M. Gonse places it midway in the XIV century, M. Vitry early in the XVI, and M. Enlart thinks that it could not have been produced before the XV century. MM. Mâle, Palustre, Merimée, and others have discussed it. In the ideal innocence and dignity of the Virgin is Michel Colombe's charm. The legend was that in Egypt the infant Jesus modeled images of birds, then breathed on them, imparting life. This is the mystic moment which the unknown master of Riom chose to render; there is a brooding reverence in the young mother's face as she gazes at her Son, who ponders in a divine wonderment at a bird about to fly from his hand. THE ROMANESQUE CATHEDRAL OF LE PUY[212] Into whatever country you carry war, remember that children, women and churchmen and the poor are not your enemies.--(Dying words of BERTRAND DUGUESCLIN, killed near Le Puy, 1380). Le Puy is hoary with history. Perched high on basaltic rocks near the source of the Loire, picturesque beyond description, it stood on the great pilgrimage route from Italy to Compostela, the _Via Francigena_ by which French art and poetry passed into Spain and penetrated to Italy, along whose pilgrim roads are found portal images of the Round Table heroes and the sculptured tympanums of France.[213] The cathedral is built near the top of the town's hill, and above it on the hillcrest has been set a mammoth statue of Our Lady cast from cannon taken at Sebastopol. In the immediate suburbs rises another mass of volcanic rock, a needle some two hundred and fifty feet in height. The oldest part of the chapel crowning that extraordinary little basalt mountain dates before the year 1000. The sanctuary is trefoil, like the early-Christian churches at Rome, and like St. Laurent at Grenoble.[214] At the end of the XI century St. Michel d'Aiguille was enlarged irregularly. From time immemorial a shrine dedicated to the Archangel has crowned the pinnacle: "In the presence of angels I shall sing my psalms." The approach to the cathedral of Le Puy, while less difficult than the precipitous needle of St. Michel, is equally romantic and solemn. You mount the hill by the Street of Tables, so called from the days of pilgrimages, when the merchants' booths lined it. As you climb, the way changes to a broad flight of steps, more than a hundred, and up and up you mount, with the polychromatic façade of the cathedral rising before you on high. Then suddenly, almost before you are aware of what has happened, you pass right under that western front of the church, ascending always, climbing under the cathedral's western bays. Formerly you could have mounted right into the very sanctuary itself, coming to it through the pavement. To-day the stairway branches, and you enter the church at the side. Never was there such an approach to the House of Prayer as this, never a more sublime and grandiose conception than the shadowed stair over which hangs the façade. Halfway up, where stand red porphyry columns and doors of chiseled bronze, is carved, "If you do not fear crime, fear to cross this threshold, for the Queen of Heaven wishes a devotion without stain." M. Thiollier has shown that the Romanesque school of the Velay region was an intermediary between Burgundy, Auvergne, and the Midi, with the meridional influences the strongest. Le Puy's choir, transept, and two bays of the nave were erected in the XI century, and of that date is the cloister walk that touches the church. The transept has a tribune at each end. Beyond the chevet stood a tower of which the actual one is a replica. As all the level space available was covered by these structures, it became necessary, when they wished to lengthen the nave in the XII century, to build out from the hill a vast masonry foundation as a platform. It is under those westernmost bays that mounts the stairway of Wonderland. Each bay of the nave is covered by an oblong cupola set on an octagonal base, of a type found again only at Poitiers, in the church of St. Hilaire. At Le Puy the side aisles buttress the cupolas. No one should miss seeing a XV-century fresco discovered under whitewash, in 1860, in the library off the cloister. The Liberal Arts are symbolized by women of the type of Anne of Brittany with bombous foreheads, and at the feet of each sits a disciple. Thus Aristotle, with the sensitive face of a scholar, is seated at the feet of Logic, and Cicero learns of Rhetoric. [Illustration: _Le Puy in Old Auvergne_] The cathedral of Le Puy has been venerated and visited by practically every ruler of France from Charlemagne to Francis I. This ancient city was almost chosen as the meeting place for launching the First Crusade. Urban II paused here in 1095, and the bishop of Le Puy, Adhémar de Monteil (1087-1100), accompanied him to Clermont, and when the pope's great rallying speech was ended it was Bishop Adhémar, his face shining with enthusiasm, who first stepped forward to take the cross. Urban appointed him the spiritual chief of the expedition, and his skill in military strategics proved of use since he had been a knight before becoming a churchman. This good man died in the grievous days at Antioch, worn out with his efforts to check disorders in the crusaders' camp. To Adhémar de Monteil has been attributed the _Salve Regina_ called in the olden times the anthem of Puy. To Le Puy's famous shrine St. Louis presented a thorn from the Crown he had obtained from Constantinople, and on his way back from his first crusade he deposited in the church the curious image of a black Virgin given him in Egypt. THE CATHEDRAL OF LIMOGES[215] Bien me sourit le doux printemps, Qui fait venir fleurs et feuillages; Et bien me plait lorsque j'entends Des oiseaux le gentil ramage. Mais j'aime mieux quand sur le pré Je vois l'étendard arboré, Flottant comme un signal de guerre. Quand j'entends par mont et par vaux Courir chevalier et chevaux Et sous leur pas frémir la terre, Et gens crier: "A l'aide! A l'aide!" De voir les petits et les grands Dans les fossés roulers mourants. A ce plaisir tout plaisir cède.[216] --BERTRAN DE BORN (1140-1215). Although in plan, in the mode of construction, in the covering of chapels and various details, the resemblances between the cathedrals of Clermont and Limoges are such that it is thought the same Jean Deschamps designed both, the cathedral of St. Étienne at Limoges possesses its own individual character because of the fine-grained, compact granite of which it is built and the unusual talent of its masons. M. Viollet-le-Duc considered the apse of Limoges one of the most scientific of Gothic constructions. The very beautiful leaf foliage is as crisply cut as when it came from the master's hand. Full of character are the profiles of the molds used in the triforium for decorative effect. Because of the enduring quality of their building material, the Romanesque edifices of Limousin lasted so well that there was little temptation to tear them down in order to substitute Gothic churches. Till the Revolution, Limoges kept its great pre-Gothic abbatial of St. Martial, and its cathedral was, like that of Clermont in Auvergne, an isolated example of Gothic. Like Clermont's chief church, the western bays of Limoges were not built till the XIX century. The general aspect of St. Étienne is Rayonnant. Its Flamboyant Gothic additions were held in rigorous restraint. When Bishop Aimeric de la Serre (1246-73), a man of wealth, determined to remake his church, he willed his fortune to the enterprise. As Bishop Aimeric had just died, the first stone was laid on June 1, 1273, by Hélie de Malemort, doyen of the chapter. For over fifty years they built steadily till under Bishop Hélie de Talleyrand the choir was completed in 1327. A second period of work, from 1344 to the end of the century, resulted in the south arm of the transept whose rose is Rayonnant, whereas that to the north is Flamboyant. In its tendency to eliminate the horizontal line Limoges is eminently a church of the XIV century. The shafts before the piers rise unbroken from pavement to vault-springing; the pier arches at the apse curve are very pointed. Yet there is no geometric dryness in this interior. Plain wall surfaces above the main arcade and around the triforium and clearstory add to its robust aspect. In 1370 the Black Prince sacked Limoges and left little but the cathedral standing. Froissart recounts that "there was no pity taken of the poor people who had wrought no manner of treason ... more than three thousand persons of all ages and both sexes were slain that day ... and the city clean brent and brought to destruction." It took time and treasure to repair the devastation. Only from 1458 to 1490 were the two easternmost bays of the nave erected. The fourth period of energy at Limoges, from 1515 to 1530, created a gem of Flamboyant Gothic, the transept's north façade, which is called the Portail de St. Jean, as it stood near a church dedicated to the Baptist. Bishop Philippe de Montmorency began it, and his successor, César de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, completed it, as their carved armorials bear witness. Because it stood on the emplacement of the old Romanesque transept, it was somewhat too narrow. To obviate that impression the corner buttresses were offset at an angle. The wooden doors of this, the main entrance to Limoges Cathedral, are of the Renaissance. They represent the stoning of St. Stephen, and the first Christian missionary of Limousin, St. Martial, to whom an early local martyr, St. Valérie, is presenting her decapitated head. The ring of St. Valérie gave symbolic investiture to the dukes of Aquitaine. Limoges was active in the Renaissance days. Her bishop, Jean de Langeac, erected an elaborate _jubé_ between choir and transept, a rood loft which is one mass of hanging keystones, channeling, bas-reliefs, and arabesque panels, with six big statues of the Virtues made in 1536 by an artist of Tours named Jean Arnaud. It is plain to see that the Renaissance was in full swing. The Labors of Hercules were set forth, and Bacchus was placed beside Ambrose and Augustine. Perhaps the huge _jubé_ and the episcopal tomb both came from the studios of Tours, where had settled the earliest artists of the transalpine Renaissance. The master hand that made the bishop's tomb, says M. Mâle, followed Dürer, but his eight Apocalypse panels were an improvement over the designs of the German. Unfortunately the bronze recumbent figure of the munificent prelate whose pride it was to adorn his church was melted up for pennies in 1793. There are two other notable tombs in the choir's procession path--that of a bishop-builder, Raynaud de la Porte--the only funeral monument in France that represents stone curtains drawn aside by angels--and the tomb of his nephew, Bernard Brun (d. 1350). Three of the Avignon popes were natives of art-loving Limousin. The Revolution robbed Limoges of the noble abbey church of St. Martial, which had been dedicated by the pope of the First Crusade in 1095. St. Martial had formed the center of the Château section of Limoges, ruled by its own counts with a totally different administration from that of the Cité division, where the cathedral stood, and whose civic master was the bishop. Many a feud had Cité with Château. The abbatial of the "apostle of Aquitaine" would tell us the story had not blind passion laid it in ruins. For three hundred years no effort was made at Limoges to complete its cathedral's nave until, through the enterprise of Monseigneur Duquesnay, the first stone of the sorely needed western church was laid in 1876 and the structure finished in 1888. It was joined, by means of a narthex or forechurch, to the ancient tower which had been built isolated before the Romanesque cathedral of St. Étienne. In its three lower stories, now hidden by cumbersome masonry propping, save on the east side, the tower belonged to the cathedral which Urban II blessed in 1095 when he dedicated St. Martial's abbatial. Its four upper stories, mainly of the XII century, were begun by Bishop Sebrand-Chabot while the overlord of the province, Richard Coeur-de-Lion, was on his crusading venture. In this very region, at the castle of Chalus near Limoges, the Lion-hearted met his death in 1199. The dialect of Limousin was considered the purest form of Provençal by the troubadours. Here in the west center of France, Coeur-de-Lion's troubadour friend, the malignant breeder of dissensions, Bertran de Born, had his castle of Hautefort south of Limoges. He excited Henry Plantagenet against his sons, and spurred on the sons to rebellion. Unlike the gentle Valérie who carries in her hands her own head with right Christian pride since she lost it to witness to the planting of the Cross, Bertran de Born, sower of discord, is represented swinging his severed head by the hair like a lantern. So Dante saw him in the ninth chasm of hell herded with the malicious ones who had abused the attribute of reason: "I made the father and the son rebels to each other," he wailed. "Because I parted persons thus united, I carry my brain, ah, me! parted from its source. Thus the law of retribution is observed in me."[217] And equally merciless has been the law of retribution for Limoges, than which no other city has suffered more from pillage, pest, and fire. Froissart tells us that during centuries the frontier lands of Limousin and Gascony exercised brigandage as a _métier_. Like the three lower stories of the tower, the crypt belonged to the XI-century Romanesque cathedral of Limoges. On its groin vault was painted a Byzantinesque Christ surrounded by the symbols of the Evangelists. The cathedral has recently lost by theft some precious enamels. From father to son in Limoges passed the skill in this beautiful art craft. St. Eloi was apprenticed to a goldsmith in Limoges in the VII century. At Le Mans is the XII-century plaque of Geoffrey Plantagenet, at Mozac an unrivaled Limousin reliquary, and Jean, duc de Berry, prince of amateurs, once possessed the best XIII-century work of Limoges enamel, the gold King's Cup, now in the British Museum. In St. Pierre's at Chartres are the splendid Apostle plaques of the XVI century by Léonard Limosin. The earlier method had been to sink the enamel like a jewel in cells or _cloisons_, hence the name _cloisonné_, but the Renaissance artists used no inclosing ribbon of metal. The only ancient windows remaining in the cathedral's clearstory are the two at the apse end, which a canon, Pierre de la Rodier, presented. When he became bishop of Carcassonne he built the south chapel that opens from St. Nazaire's nave (1323-30). In the cathedral chapels are some XV-and XVI-century lights, and fragments of earlier glass. On the same river, Vienne, which at Limoges is crossed by two noble XIII-century bridges, lies Eymoutiers, some thirty miles to the west, between Clermont and Limoges. Its remarkable collection of windows is entirely of the XV century; each panel contains a single figure in an architectural setting. French writers claim that between Eymoutiers and Limoges took place the apparition of the Infant Jesus to St. Anthony of Padua which became a favorite theme with painters, but the Italians insist that Padua was the privileged spot. Limoges city has its St. Anthony tradition. In its square, they say, while the saint was preaching in 1225, his audience was untouched by a rainstorm that inundated the other townspeople. As we have seen that the building of great churches was preceded in most cases by a spiritual regeneration, it is not extreme to think that the fervor roused in the Midi by the great son of St. Francis had much to do with the laying of the corner stone of Limoges Cathedral in 1273. THE CATHEDRAL OF BORDEAUX[218] Celuy qui, d'une doulceur et facilité naturelle, mépriseroit les offenses reçues, feroit chose très belle et digne de louange: mais celuy qui, picqué et oultré jusques au vif d'une offense, s'armeroit des armes de la raison contre ce furieux appétit de vengeance, et aprèz un grand conflict s'en rendroit enfin maistre, feroit sans doubte beaucoup plus. Celuy là feroit bien; et celuy cy, vertueusement: l'une action se pourroit dire bonté: l'aultre, vertu; car il semble que le nom de la vertu présuppose de la difficulté et du contraste. Nous nommons Dieu bon, fort, et libéral, et juste, mais nous ne le nommons pas _vertueux_.--MONTAIGNE (Mayor of Bordeaux from 1581 to 1585). While Bordeaux has the warm fertility of the Midi, there is much of the north in the big commercial city. And its cathedral of St. André is typical of the dual temperament. The nave is the aisleless, wide hall preferred by meridionals, the choir has the procession path with its circlet of chapels loved by the north. Excepting Le Mans, Amiens, and Rheims, it is the longest cathedral in France. Bordeaux was an important city in the wide possessions of the dukes of Aquitaine. In 1137 Aliénor, the daughter of the last William, was wedded in its cathedral to the prince who immediately ascended the French throne as Louis VII. When she left him after fifteen years and wedded Henry Plantagenet the rich city on the Garonne passed under English rule. In all the vicissitudes of the three hundred years that followed, from 1154 to 1453, Bordeaux' self-interest kept her faithful to her masters beyond the sea, the chief customers in her wine trade. Bordeaux remained French, however, in race and in the expression of race, architecture. Aliénor's second husband, Henry II of England, was, like herself, more French than English; of his thirty-four years' reign he passed only twelve in England, and his son, Coeur-de-Lion, was another Anglo-Frenchman. The hardy, domelike vaults carried on diagonals that span the nave of Angers' Cathedral (c. 1150) have been considered the earliest extant examples of the Gothic of the West. And yet it is possible, thinks M. Brutails, the erudite archivist of the Gironde, that the vaults of the same type which were built over the nave of the present cathedral of Bordeaux antedated the notable ones of Angers. In Bordeaux occurred one of the premature isolated examples of Gothic ribs under the south tower of Ste. Croix. During a revival of builder's energy, from 1052 to 1127 (under the eighth and ninth dukes of Aquitaine), Ste. Croix and St. Seurin were reconstructed and St. André begun. It seems more reasonable to suppose, however, that Anjou, where first the cupola church of Aquitaine met the diagonal ribs of northern France, should have been the cradle of that phase of the new architecture which we call Plantagenet. The nave of St. André is a difficult page to read, Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance as it now is. The Romano-Byzantine church here which Urban II blessed in 1096 exists only in vestiges in the lower walls on either side of the wide hall. Originally the church had side aisles, but they were obliterated when the XII century spanned the entire width with Angevin diagonals. The side walls were then made into two stories, a lower wall arcade surmounted by a window story, such as we have seen in the cathedrals at Angers and Angoulême. In 1437 an earthquake caused the collapse of the masonry roof of the four westernmost bays, which were recovered by a Flamboyant Gothic vaulting rich with supplementary ribs. The west front of St. André never was developed, as the church abutted there on the ancient ramparts. The main entrance was the Porte Royale in the north flank of the nave, whose statues, made in the golden hour of St. Louis' reign, were used as models by Viollet-le-Duc when he refilled the empty niches of Notre Dame at Paris. There can be no clearer exposition of what qualities were lost in Rayonnant Gothic than to pass from this apogee portal to the smoother, more conventional images at the northern entrance to the transept; in the rugged apostles, full of character, is the touch which all time recognizes as genius; in the aristocratic churchmen of the XIV-century door is mere talent. To the nave of Bordeaux a XVI-century archbishop, Charles de Grammont, who initiated here the Italian Renaissance, added an elaborate buttress. That miniature façade is called the _contrefort de Grammont_.[219] Under Archbishop de Mallemort (1227-60) St. André superseded St. Seurin as the cathedral of Bordeaux. As late as 1259 it lacked a suitable chevet. Gascony was in chaos in those years when Henry III, builder of Westminster Abbey, sent the Earl of Leicester, Simon de Montfort (son of the leader of the Albigensian Crusade), to straighten out the disorders. That strong administrator, who was on the constitutional liberal side in English politics, was frustrated by Midi corruption. Only as the XIII century closed was built the present splendid choir of Bordeaux Cathedral, a classic work of Rayonnant Gothic before that phase turned to geometric rule. How technique cramped and killed inspiration can be seen in the later Rayonnant church of St. Michel. At St. André, it is true, the capitals are slight and the profiles not overvirile. Decadence is foreshadowed, but not yet is the art academic and wiredrawn. The Midi appears in the clearstory and triforium, which do not fill the entire space between the shafts. The partiality of the meridional for unencumbered interiors had something to do with making the procession path thirty feet wide. Most grateful is the traveler for a curving aisle around the sanctuary after having sojourned among the cupola and hall-like churches of Anjou and Aquitaine. Bordeaux' choir possesses some good stained glass of its own period, and some of its buttress statues are among the best imagery of the XIV century. Mary Magdalene, carrying her vase of ointment, appears as a chatelaine of the Middle Ages with the bandeau under her chin then fashionable; Aliénor of Aquitaine could not have been very unlike her. The most active patron of St. André's Gothic choir was the archbishop of the city, Bertrand de Got, who in 1305 became Clement V, the first Avignon pope. When he died, in 1314, the new choir was practically completed. His image stands at the trumeau of the transept's north door (the head and hand are reproductions), and around him are six prelates who may be intended to represent the French bishops whom Clement raised to the cardinalate. In technique these images may surpass the weather-beaten apostles at the Porte Royale (c. 1260), but they are their inferior in spirit. Five of the statues are studies from the same model. Casts of the transept portal of Bordeaux are in the Kensington Museum and in the Trocadéro. The Avignon popes were the chief art patrons of the XV century, with the four Valois princes--Charles V of France and his brothers at Dijon, Bourges, and Angers. No pontiff was more munificent than Clement V. While he was bishop at St. Bertrand-de-Comminges (Haute Garonne)[220] he renewed that small cathedral, which consists of two unequal parts, a Romanesque façade, donjon tower, and forechurch of the day when St. Bertrand had been bishop (1073-1123), and an unaisled Gothic choir, begun by Bertrand de Got, continued by him while pope and finished by Bishop Hugues de Chatillon, who died in 1352. The Rayonnant chevet of Bordeaux Cathedral and its transept, two of whose towers are spire-crowned, compose an effective architectural group, with a detached campanile in the gardens. In order to give employment to the poor, Archbishop Pierre Berland, who had been a shepherd's son, erected the graceful, isolated tower for bells to hang in, "that God might be praised in the sky." And the same generations built St. Michel's tower (1472-92), the highest beacon in southwest France, mutilated mercilessly by M. Paul Abadie's restoration. The lifeless church before which it stands is proof of how much needed was the vim, even if often exaggerated and bizarre, of the late-Gothic movement. M. Enlart considers Bordeaux and Bayonne[221] to be two of the principal doors by which the English Curvilinear style entered France. There its name is Flamboyant Gothic. And yet in this same Midi, M. Anthyme Saint-Paul, who denies the English origin of French late-Gothic architecture, claims to have found proof of his theory that already in Apogee Gothic and in the Rayonnant hour were developing the characteristics of the final phase. One cannot help but feel that the English builders' partiality for exuberant decoration had something to do with the making of such towers as St. Michel and the Pey Berland. The landscape round Bordeaux is as rich in sky-pointing spires as Calvados in Normandy. When, in 1451, the English surrendered Bordeaux, the great Dunois, Jeanne d'Arc's companion in arms, was received as conqueror in its cathedral (where in 1376 the Black Prince had accepted the citizens' oath of fealty to his father), and to the ringing of bells and cries of "_Noël_," Archbishop Pierre Berland and the chief men of the town swore to be loyal subjects of France. Among the ancient churches of historic interest in Bordeaux is Ste. Croix, rebuilt by Charlemagne when Saracens destroyed it, and again remade (1099) as Romanesque according to the school of Poitou. Under its tower, Gothic ribs were used early in the XII century. The church was partly wrecked in 1179 and revaulted at the end of the XIII century. In the sculpture of the rich façade is a certain Assyrian note. M. Brutails complains that Abadie, the restorer, made of the frontispiece a neo-Angoumois work and that the north tower is entirely of his building. Memories of the great Emperor Charles haunt the former cathedral of Bordeaux, St. Seurin. Fundamentally it belongs to the cupola type of edifice, and though incessantly rebuilt up to the XV century, it presents the aspect of a Romanesque church. The south portal (c. 1260), sculptured with elaborate foliate ornament, has images of unequal merit. In St. Seurin, says tradition, Charlemagne paused, in 778, with the bodies of the heroes of Roncevaux to be buried at Blaye, his nephew Roland and that paladin's comrade, Sire Olivier, and Archbishop Turpin of Rheims, who fought pagans--_par granz batailles et par mult bels sermuns_. On the altar of St. Seurin the emperor laid the horn that Roland blew in his last extremity, the olifant which the Midi folk say still echoes in the Pyrenean gorges: Vient à Burdele la citet de valur, Desur l'alter seint Sevrin li barun Met l'olifant, plein d'or et de manguns, Li pélerin le veient ki là vunt.[222] (Came to Bordeaux the city of great price, And on the shrine of Baron St. Seurin, The olifant Charles laid, filled full with gold, And to this day pilgrims can see it there.) The XX-century pilgrims to the old city on the Garonne must remember that the _Chanson de Roland_ was written a long, long time ago, and that to-day the olifant of the paladin lives only in the pages of French history, where its place is as secure as the standard of Jeanne d'Arc. _À la peine, à l'honneur._ Without St. Seurin's church we might have forgotten a proud page of Bordeaux' past. TOULOUSE[223] Ici, dans Toulouse, je sens palpiter La prodigieuse histoire du libre Languedoc! Et je vois Saint-Sernin, la grande église romane, ... Et le rempart où la pierre écrasa l'oiseau de Proie que je ne veux pas nommer.... À Toulouse vivante, à Toulouse qui chante, J'élève mon salut et je dis: Ville sainte! Au soleil à jamais épanouis-toi puissante!... L'âme du Midi réfugiée en toi, Chevaleresque et digne, tu as traversé les âges! --Frédéric Mistral, at the _Jeux Floraux_ of Toulouse, 1879.[224] If the influence of both the north and the south is felt at Bordeaux, the unadulterated Midi reigns at Toulouse. It is eminently the capital city of this fertile Languedoc, where art and luxury developed precociously in the earlier periods of the Middle Ages. Here the troubadour still sings in the regional tongue which might to-day be the speech of France (instead of a dialect) had a genius such as Dante written in the _langue d'oc_, the most gracious form of the Romance language. It is spoken in Aragon and Catalonia--lands where the architectural development followed the same trend as that of French Languedoc. Modern Toulouse is not a handsome city like the Bordeaux of to-day. Its most imposing church is not its cathedral of St. Étienne, which is as ungainly outside as it is irregular within. The nave and choir make no pretense of following the same axis line, since they never were intended to form one edifice; were the north wall of the nave extended down through the choir, it would abut on the high altar. The nave is of enormous span like that of Bordeaux Cathedral. It once had side aisles, but the entire width of the edifice was thrown into one hall when the church was remodeled in 1211. Simon de Montfort (whom Mistral, as a patriotic son of the Midi, refuses even to name in his verses) was besieging the city while the Angevin vaults of its cathedral were building, and Count Raymond VI of Toulouse ordered that the works should continue, war or no war. The choir of Toulouse Cathedral belongs to the same current of northern Gothic that produced Clermont, Limoges, and Narbonne. Begun in 1275, it was inspired directly by Narbonne Cathedral, whose foundation stone was laid in 1273. The plan is of the north, but the feeling is meridional. After the death of the wealthy Bishop Bernard de Lille, the founder, the chapter had not sufficient funds to continue building on the same ambitious scale. Only in the XV century was the triforium level reached, and it was not until the XVII century that the masonry roof was added. Even then it was so skimped that the exterior aspect of the choir is deplorable. At St. Étienne there seemed to be a fatality against symmetry. When all hope was given up of replacing the Romanesque nave by one of the same character as the choir, it was decided to make its entrance more important; but instead of setting the new Flamboyant portal in the center of the west façade, it was placed to one side. The window dedicated to two sons of the Midi, St. Roch and St. Sebastian, is attributed to Arnaud de Moles who made the celebrated Creation, prophets, and sibyls of Auch Cathedral. Some of the grisaille in St. Étienne came from the Jacobins. There are few church interiors in Europe more stately and unique than that of the brick abbatial in Toulouse, called the Jacobins', a name given the Dominicans because their Paris convent was in the rue St. Jacques. The house of wisdom is founded on seven pillars, Scripture tells us.[225] So the Friars Preachers planted directly down the center of their lofty hall church seven columnar piers that soar to an enormous height. The easternmost one is set in the middle of the apse and on it fall some fourteen ribs. The vault arches of white stone against the red brick infilling are of striking effect. No mediæval pillars--save those of the late-Gothic church of St. Nicolas-du-Port near Nancy--are higher than the seven giants of Toulouse. In the desecration of the edifice after the Revolution, its pavement was covered with soil, for the stabling of horses, but within the last ten years excavations have exposed the true bases of the piers. The Jacobins' church was founded in 1229 by a rich citizen and his wife, who had vowed to devote a large portion of their fortune to God's service, should their only daughter recover from a desperate illness. The edifice, constructed with an audacious massiveness, as if for eternity, has been allowed to fall into general decay, and now appears more desolate than would a ruin of stone. Like alien images, gargoyles protrude forlornly from the red brick walls, so inconsistent is brick with the true Gothic spirit. The Midi was too wedded to classic traditions to excel in the national art, which it never took completely to its heart. There is little of the ogival style about these narrow loophole windows, these diagonals unbraced by flying buttresses. Gothic in the south has an accidental aspect. [Illustration: _The Jacobins', or Dominicans', Church at Toulouse_ (_XIII Century_)] To the greatest of Dominican churches the Avignon pope, Urban V, who covered the Midi with his monuments, gave the body of St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest of Dominican doctors. It was saved when the Jacobins were sacked in 1562, and is now in St. Sernin, whose collection of authentic relics is the richest in France--and some say in Europe. Toulouse also had a Franciscan brick church, whose wall bordered on the city ramparts, so that passages of defense were thrown from buttress to buttress. That church of the Cordeliers (rich with memories of St. Anthony of Padua) was burned in 1870, and its lovely XV-century cloister now forms part of the Museum that is housed in the former convent of the Augustinians. The graceful octagonal brick tower of the Cordeliers,[226] saved from the wreckage, was modeled on that of the Jacobins', just as the Jacobins' tower, in lessening stories, was designed probably by the architect who made the top stories of St. Sernin's beacon. Artists have preferred the Jacobins' belfry to its prototype. The paucity of stone in the province caused the creation of a school of brick architecture of which Toulouse was the center. One may prefer a stone architecture, but one cannot deny the lovely tones of brown and crimson madder acquired in time by these brick monuments of the Midi that seem created especially for resistance and long duration. Not the cathedral of Toulouse, but its monastic brick church of St. Sernin, is the supreme religious monument of the city and the grandest Romanesque edifice in France. Its date has been discussed by MM. de Lasteyrie, Corroyer, Saint-Paul, and Jules de Lahondès. In the last quarter of the XI century the monks began the choir of the present church, which combined the characteristics of the Romanesque schools of Burgundy and Auvergne. Those influences had passed south by way of Conques, where the abbatial of Ste. Foi had been rebuilt a generation before St. Sernin. In 1083 Cluny monks replaced at St. Sernin the canons regular, and where Cluny reformed, building activities usually followed. While the Toulouse monastery church was rising, its selfsame plan appeared in the northeast corner of Spain in the cathedral of Santiago Compostela, begun in 1082, too direct a copy to have been done by any but St. Sernin's own architect or his favorite pupil. In Spain the works went faster, so that Santiago Cathedral was completed long before the abbatial at Toulouse, and, being constructed in stone, its interior has not been marred by centuries of whitewashing. "The entry of Urban II into Toulouse" is pictured by Benjamin Constant in the Museum. In 1096, on his journey through France, preaching the First Crusade, he blessed the unfinished choir and transept of St. Sernin. The aisles around the transept form the most imposing part of the church. As the XI century closed, the transept was continued and the nave begun under the direction of a monk-builder, St. Raymond Gaynard, a man of wealth before entering the cloister. He conceived the masterly plan of five aisles. The side aisles were covered by a quarter-barrel vaulting that serves the purpose of a continuous flying buttress. Perhaps it was when the original architect of St. Sernin had proceeded to Santiago Compostela that St. Raymond became master-of-works at Toulouse. In 1119, a year after his death, another pontiff, Calixtus II, blessed St. Sernin. From 1120 to 1140 was made the south portal, which constitutes, with Moissac's[227] portal and cloister, the chief works extant of the Languedoc school of sculpture. That school needs a competent biographer who will do for it what M. Paul Vitry has done for the Region-of-the-Loire school, and MM. de Vasselot and Koechlin for the imagery of southern Champagne.[228] The high-water mark of the regions' sculpture was attained in the Annunciation group at Moissac, whose ethereal elongated figures in clinging draperies rouse the imagination. The monks of Moissac, being Cluniac and not Cistercian, found imagery profitable to their souls. What were Bernard's thoughts as he gazed at their haunting rendering of the Incarnation? Puritan Bernard thundered against the bizarre grotesques carved in cloisters. Up to 1140 they were popular, since the untrained stonecutters found it easier to make a caricature than an image true to nature. The invasions of the Barbarians had wiped out the sculptor's art, and the men of the XI century had to rediscover it. While St. Bernard sojourned in Toulouse he lived in St. Sernin's monastery, a Cluniac house, and it is probable that he paused with the monks at Moissac on the memorable journey he made into Languedoc to combat the fast-spreading dualist heresy of the Catharists. He was accompanied by Bishop Geoffrey de Lèves of Chartres, the builder of the most beautiful tower in the world. Surely those enlightened men mused with spiritual benefit before the _Ecce ancilla Domini_ at Moissac? But one very much doubts if Bernard could have approved of four hundred carven capitals in the abbatial at Toulouse. Slowly the making of St. Sernin's nave advanced. At first it was built story by story, but later the more usual procedure of bay by bay was adopted. In 1217, from the roof of St. Sernin, the stone was thrown that killed Simon de Montfort, who was besieging Toulouse. To the end of time a character such as his will rouse both enthusiasm and detestation. His personal morals were exemplary, his own troops adored him. The leading men of Christendom regarded him as an instrument of Heaven and right progress. The Midi execrated him, and does to this day, even as Ireland execrates Cromwell, whom good Puritans consider a hero, for the religious psychology of those two born leaders was curiously alike. With God's name on their lips their troops felt righteous in butchering. With the death of Simon de Montfort the Albigensian wars changed in character. Simon's son, Amaury de Montfort, was incapable of retaining the principality won by his father's sword, so he sensibly passed over his claims to the king of France. The struggle henceforth was purely political. Blanche of Castile's wise head solved the Midi tangle when she married her son Alphonse of Poitiers to the heiress of the Count of Toulouse, with the understanding that, should the young people die childless, Languedoc fell to the French Crown. Alphonse gave the Midi, says Molinier, the first intelligent administration it had received since the better times of the Roman Empire. When he and his wife died, returning from St. Louis' fatal crusade of 1270, the great southern land became a part of France. The Albigensian wars--for with reluctance one calls those years of bitter strife a crusade--delayed the completion of St. Sernin, whose main façade is gaunt and bare, and whose westernmost windows lack stone casements. When the Midi came under French rule the monks attained sufficient prosperity to erect the octagonal tower in five stories--each of lesser dimensions than the one below it. The upper stories used the miter arch so suited to brick. M. Enlart has called attention to the affinity of the _clochers Toulousans_ and the Lombard steeples. At present the underpinning of the tower obstructs the transept-crossing, but propping is better than demolition, which is what M. Viollet-le-Duc proposed in his blind enthusiasm for unity of style. The townspeople indignantly protested and the supreme beacon of this patroness city of art was saved. A proud boast of Toulouse is that the first Dominican monastery was established there, and by Dominic himself, the saint whom Dante called "the messenger and familiar of Christ."[229] The Friars Preachers, like the Franciscans (who, because of a new appreciation of their founder's character, are found sympathetic by many who still call a Dominican a "bloody sort of monk"), were agents for the quickening of the religious fervor of the XIII century. Both Orders were protests against abuses such as luxury, love of gold, and selfish privilege, which feudalism had helped to foster in the clergy. Dominic de Guzman was a Castilian gentleman, a trained scholar, a man whose luminous face won instant affection and respect. In the first years of the XIII century he came north with the bishop of Osma on a diplomatic mission relating to a royal marriage. As those two good men journeyed through Languedoc amid the fearful havoc wrought by heresy, the vocation of the younger priest took shape. Returning from Italy in 1206, he and the bishop of Osma laid aside pomp and comforts to evangelize according to primitive Christianity. Only too clear was it to them that heresy was fed by the unworthy priesthood of the Midi that had lost the people's esteem. Two generations earlier St. Bernard had lamented over the same evil. Innocent III rebuked the worldling prelate of Bordeaux, and asked the bishop of Narbonne if he had a purse in place of a heart. After ten years' heroic missionizing both before and during the Albigensian Crusade, Dominic won papal sanction for his new Order in 1216. He was then a man of forty-seven. When he died, at Bologna in 1221, he left flourishing houses all over Christendom. The function of his Friars was to teach again Christian doctrine in its purity; hence it was only natural, when the Inquisition[230] was founded, after the death of Dominic, that it should be intrusted to such trained theologians. They were to be a kind of jury to ascertain whether a case was heretical; if it was so decided, then the civic authorities stepped in and took action, since heresy was a state offense. The best minds of that day held the theory that the decline of religion was a menace to law and order. The violent repression of heresy to prevent the dissolution of society seemed then as necessary as the repression of anarchy seems to-day. It had not always been so. "Slay error, but always love the man who errs," was St. Augustine's maxim. St. Ambrose and St. Hilary reprobated physical violence toward heretics. Gregory VII had protested against the "impious cruelty" which had burned a man of Cambrai for heresy. "Heretics are to be taken by force of arguments, not by force of arms," said the vehement St. Bernard himself on one occasion. Gradually a different outlook had taken possession of men's minds, a change of view that was to cost the Church dear. Crusades against the infidel were on every side, in the Orient, in the Balkans, in Spain. When heresy took on so alien and perverse an aspect as the Catharist errors, which were at root the negation of Christian standards and a veritable antisocial menace, it needed but an incident to start a crusade against heretics in France. It should not be forgotten that had the Albigensians won the victory, the south of France would have been placed outside the pale of western civilization as effectively as was southern Spain under Moslem rule. Had the Midi wars been conducted by civil authority many a partisan of to-day would not hold them up as exceptional horrors, but, since all the thinking of the Middle Ages was expressed in religious form, unfortunately the term "crusade" was used for the embittered struggle in the south. THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE[231] La vérité n'est point a nous, nous n'en sommes que les témoins, les défenseurs, et les dépositaires.--MASSILLON. So interwoven is the architectural story of Languedoc with the Albigensian Crusade that to find the underlying significance of the southern monuments it is needful to comprehend the trend of thought of the Midi people. We have the unbroken testimony of five hundred years as to what were the tenets of Catharism, the final form taken by the Manichean heresy. They held that two principles, one good and one evil, ruled the universe. In the third century Manes in Persia had woven a curious tissue of beliefs, largely Zoroastrian with a tinge of Buddhism, and had coated it all with a thin veneer of Christianity of the gnostic type. The dualist idea and a complete rejection of the Old Testament were leading Manichean doctrines. Manes was put to death in Persia, but his teachings lingered on in the Orient, and after seven centuries crept into Europe by way of the Slav countries of the Balkans. Without a doubt, the intercourse of Europe with the Orient, through the crusades, fostered the gnostic superstitions. The dualist heresy cropped out in the north of France, but after the XII century was confined more or less to Languedoc, where the Visigoths' Arian beliefs had prepared the soil. From the XI to the XIII century these neo-Manicheans were called Catharists. The local name Albigensian came into usage because in the region round Albi, though not especially in that city itself, the new ideas flourished. Toulouse was the heretic's stronghold. It has always seemed illogical that many Protestants who revere the Bible should be sympathetic toward the Midi heretics who reprobated the Jehovah of the Old Testament as a vindictive assassin, the creator of this the visible world, which is Hell. Life is a nightmare, they taught, and suicide a virtue. Moses was sorcerer and thief (and the Ten Commandments?). John the Baptist was a strong incarnation of the Devil sent to combat the coming Christ. Baptism by water was reprehensible. On this muddle of the Old Law was grafted some neo-Christian spiritism. Christ was the God of good who created the invisible world of spirits. He was a phantom being who never really lived on earth or suffered or died. The Albigensian denied His human nature. Man's body, living or dead, was Satan's (Jehovah's) creation and to be annihilated; respectful burial of the dead was frowned on; marriage was sinful, since to engender was to capture souls and imprison them in the material world or Hell. Libertinage was preferable to marriage, since it did not pose as virtuous. We find in an official recantation of his Albigensian beliefs by a Midi lord that he promises to accept the Church's tenet that marriage is not sinful, as was taught by his sect. The Albigensian heresy was an anti-social peril. It is sophistry to say, as has Molinier, that we do not know what they taught, or to call their movement a step in freeing the human mind, as do certain modern rationalists. They had two moralities, one for the people, or Hearers, and a stricter code for the elect, or the Perfect. If a Perfect relapsed, he had, after death, to pass through another existence, or Hell, in another body. This current of anti-Christian thought, flowing in from the East, brought with it the over-rigid asceticism of the Orient, but in the Midi few lived up to ascetic practices. There were minor divergencies in the tenets according to the different regions, but always, East or West, the heretics were one in their detestation of the Jehovah of the Old Testament, and of the Church and her sacraments, especially that of Holy Eucharist. The Church was held to be a prolongation of the abhorred synagogue, and, like it, an incarnation of Satan. No one can deny the crying need of reform in the Midi church. But the Albigensians damned one half of the Creator's work--the visible world--and the perfection which they preached was race suicide. When, more recently, Mormonism struck at the root of the social fabric, the United States government took immediate action. Had the Mormons resisted, had they, for instance, murdered an ambassador from Washington and war resulted, would we not think that the use of force by the Federal government was legitimate? From 1100 to 1208 Rome had sent one peaceful ambassador after another into Languedoc. St. Bernard, who was loved all over Europe, was stoned in the Midi streets. The Albigenses were aggressive wherever they outnumbered the orthodox, and as most of the Midi lords held the new tenets, it was the believer who was persecuted in Languedoc. Churches were attacked and bishops flung into prison. Because the Count of Béziers accepted a local council which had censured the heretics, he was murdered by the people of Béziers in the very church and on the very day where they themselves, forty years later, were massacred by the northerners. "On all sides is the image of death," wrote the visiting bishop of Tournai, in 1182, "villages are in ashes, churches in ruin, and the inhabitants living like beasts." Long before the crusaders arrived in Languedoc life there was a bloody feud, and like ravening wolves the heretic lords warred one on another; their repeated divorces were a flaunted scandal. The Albigensian Crusade is no isolated page in the annals of the Midi. Read of the anarchy in the south, previous to 1208, and then pass from the XIII century to the gigantic duel between France and England in the Hundred Years' War. You will feel no sense of dislocation. The crusade methods were hideous, but not exceptional. In the later debacle, Froissart relates as a matter of course the pleasant little jaunt of the Black Prince, _fleur de toute chevalerie_, into Languedoc, in 1355,[232] when he burned some seven thousand houses in the faubourgs of Toulouse, when Carcassonne was twice sacked and burned, Narbonne wrecked, treasure seized, and all ages and sexes butchered "till a line of fire and blood stretched from Toulouse to the sea." And the Black Prince was succeeded by avowed freebooters who gnawed France to the bone, the Grandes Compagnies who, as said the harassed pontiff at Avignon, _mettaient tout la Crestienté à combustion_. It was in the dire times of the XIV century that the Midi churches fortified themselves. War slackens architectural work in any period. A radical decay of builders' energy in the Midi was not the result of the Albigensian Crusade, since Languedoc erected its chief Gothic churches between those wars and the Hundred Years' War, a period, moreover, that was controlled by the newly functioning Inquisition. To generations torn by anarchy, the methods of that tribunal, hateful though they appear to us, were an advance in jurisprudence. Every leader of the day accepted them as a progress. The civil courts were not to be able, for centuries to come, to offer even such guaranty for justice. No balanced mind can read the lives of such chief inquisitors as, for instance, St. Raymond of Penafort,[233] and fail to comprehend that past history is not to be read in the light of modern prejudices. Rome had carried on a hundred years' diplomatic negotiation with the Midi heretics. Finally, in 1208, the pope's legate was murdered by a henchman of the Count of Toulouse and hostilities were precipitated. Innocent III proclaimed a crusade. Later he regretted its excesses just as he had cause to deplore the divergence of the Fourth Crusade to filibustering purposes, but he was too entirely a man of his own epoch to regret the Albigensian Crusade itself. By 1209 the northern barons had invaded Languedoc and many a building-bishop was in their ranks. The spirit of crusading was at first strong enough to prevent their attacking the rich trading city of Montpellier which lay in their path but which was singularly free of heresy. Yet their very next step was a sacrilege. The orthodox population of Béziers, when called on to deliver up their heretic citizens, answered they would sooner see themselves sunk in the deep sea. It would seem that from the first hour many Catholics of the Midi looked on the crusade as a war of conquest on the part of the barons of the north. Between north and south was deep-rooted antipathy. The more cultivated but more corrupted Midi scorned the rougher peoples beyond their confines, who in their turn despised the southerners. Inevitable was it that a clash between those opposite civilizations should acquire the character of racial hate. Simon de Montfort, chosen leader of the crusaders after the sack of Béziers, soon overran the heretical region, whereupon many barons of the north, deeming that the ethical purpose of the Midi excursion was accomplished, returned to their homes. Henceforth the racial and political aspects of the struggle were accentuated. Cruelty and perfidy marked both sides. The Midi lords boasted that no crusader escaped them with eyes, fists, or feet, and they cut into little pieces the nephew of Albéric de Humbert, archbishop-builder of Rheims Cathedral. In retaliation Simon de Montfort cut off heretics' ears and noses. By 1212 word was sent to Innocent III that hate and cupidity, as much as zeal for the Faith, actuated the invaders, whereupon the pope roundly ordered them to pass into Spain to fight Islam. It was too late to stem the tide. In 1215, at the Fourth Lateran Council, in which every power in Christendom, lay and ecclesiastic, had a voice, Simon de Montfort's retention of his Midi conquests was sanctioned. Simon's death, in 1218, led young Raymond VII of Toulouse to rise in arms and the wars that followed were frankly political. In 1229 peace was signed under the portal of Paris Cathedral and the only daughter of Raymond VII affianced to the brother of the king of France. ALBI CATHEDRAL[234] Laissons-nous aller de bonne foi aux choses qui nous prennent par les entrailles et ne cherchons point de raisonnements pour nous empêcher d'avoir du plaisir.--MOLIÈRE. The city which gave its name to the terrible episode of the XIII century lies forty miles east of Toulouse. The local saying is, "Who has not seen the cathedral of Albi and the tower of Rodez has seen nothing." Albi Cathedral yields to none in its gaunt majesty. It stands apart in one's visions of travel, as unique a memorial of past history as the Mount of the Archangel off the coast of Normandy, as Vézelay looking out over the soft valleys of Burgundy, as Le Puy on its basaltic pinnacles. Never was a monument more absolutely itself. [Illustration: _Albi Cathedral (1282-1399). A Midi Fortress Church_] Unfrequented Albi was once in the stir of life, and over its stone bridge, built nine centuries ago, have passed the notable folk of the Middle Ages[235] as they wended their way to Santiago Compostela, whither all the world was going in those days. Time-scarred houses border the reddish Tarn; dark, decayed streets climb the hill. At a curve of the river, bastions and ramparts rise in terraces to a fortified episcopal palace and--crowning all--the enormous bulk of the cathedral. Its long, stark wall strikes the sky in a formidable straight line. The west façade is a massive donjon, four hundred feet above the Tarn. No welcoming west portals here, no extended transept arms of sacrificial mercy, no soaring buttress, no leaping pinnacles. Not the lore of Christ, "Do as you would be done by," seems to have inspired Albi, but the Hebraic spirit of breaking one's enemies' bones, as if the Jehovah of the Old Testament, outraged by Albigensian blasphemies, here asserted himself in a temple that would forever be a looming menace for heretics. Albi's forbidding structure rose between those two harsh epochs--the Albigensian Crusade and the Hundred Years' War. Its aggressive mass was planned by a most aggressive churchman, Bernard, Cardinal de Castanets, the city's learned bishop detested of the people as their uncompromising feudal master, as well as a spiritual chief so harsh in his inquisitorial functions that a pontifical commission was appointed, in 1306, to repair his excesses. In 1282 Bernard de Castanets laid the first stone of Albi Cathedral and for twenty years he and the chapter contributed a twentieth of their revenues. The church was finished by the sixty-fifth bishop, Guillaume de la Voulte, in the last years of the XIV century. To approach the cathedral at its apse end is not so picturesque as from the river side, but it is formidable enough. The prodigious apse rises abruptly, imperiously, from the town square. One fairly shivers beneath its Tolosan brick walls, overtowering and overpowering, broken merely by a few narrow windows--surely the narrowest ever made in a Gothic church--and by uniform bastion-tower buttresses. Gargoyles, of as alien an aspect as those of the Jacobins' at Toulouse, crane their gaunt necks from the upper walls, as if asking what manner of Gothic this is. Albi Cathedral is the meridional interpretation of the national art. The traditions of Rome held tenaciously in southern France, where builders disliked to show the machinery by which their edifices stood. The buttresses at Albi are in larger part hidden within the church under the guise of walls between the side chapels. The flying buttress is uncommon in the Midi. Like Rome again, with her preference for an unencumbered floor space, Albi's immense interior is unbroken by aisles. The vault's diagonals spring over a width of sixty feet--a span unrivaled by any in the north. Albi Cathedral is a vast hall three hundred feet long, one hundred feet high, not high enough for its length, perhaps, but few will regret having the marvelous frescoed ceiling, "the missal of St. Cecilia," brought nearer to the eye. The tutelary of this fortress-church is the gentle patroness of music. Half the fascination of Albi comes from its convincing inconsistencies. It would seem that not Cécile--doubly feminine and gracious under her French name--but Michael Archangel with a brandished sword, should guard this rugged pile. As if the good people of Albi felt the incongruity, they added, long after Bishop de Castanets' day, a southern portal preceded by a porch, the baldaquin, with all its elaborate Flamboyant tracery executed in a creamy-white marble in which surely Cécile, saint though she was, must have felt a personal satisfaction. An architect of genius set that marble porch of Albi against its red time-dulled walls, 'alabaster on corall'; one takes liberties with Chaucer's rime: And southward in a portal on the wall Of alabaster white on red corall An oratorie riche for to see, In honor of the Roman Cicily. To ascend to the marble baldaquin one passes under a fortified sculptured gateway, erected by the Dominican bishop of Albi, Dominique de Florence (1392-1410). The marble portal and porch were executed under Bishop Louis I d'Amboise (1472-1502) and his successor, Louis II d'Amboise (1502-11) his nephew, belonging to an enlightened family all of whose members excelled in affairs, war, letters, and art, leaving their memorials at Chaumont on the Loire, their feudal seat, at Cluny, Paris, Clermont, Gaillon, and Rouen. Louis I d'Amboise also adorned the interior of his cathedral by the sumptuous screen of white stone that surrounds the choir, leaving a passageway between it and the side chapels. The rood-loft, or _jubé_ (so called because from its balcony the clerk chanted _Jube Domine dicere_ before the gospel), is sculptured with the ermine of Anne of Brittany and the lilies of France, being made about 1499, when Anne wedded Louis XII. Bishop Louis at Albi was brother of the king's prime minister, Cardinal Georges d'Amboise. Originally the choir screen of Albi was painted in colors. While the accessories indicate that the Italian Renaissance was obtaining headway in France, the images derive from the short, overdraped Franco-Flamand figures of Dijon. Perhaps the stonecutters who made Albi's choir wall came direct from Cluny, where a late-Gothic chapel, on which had worked Abbot Jacques d'Amboise, was adorned with prophets and apostles, each with his suitable text. On the inner wall of Albi's choir screen are sculptured homely but charming little angels, and the twelve apostles holding scrolls inscribed with phrases of the _Crédo_. Old Testament personages, who only heralded the Messiah, were not admitted to the _sanctum sanctorum_; the vestibule was their proper place. Prosper Mérimée called Albi's screen "a splendid folly before which one is ashamed to be wise." Inside and out it is exuberant with sculpture, though its extravagant caprices do not stifle a very real religious feeling in the images. Such a profusion of delicate ornament led the modern critic to suspect that the choir wall was modeled in cement, not chiseled in stone, but when a Sorbonne geologist analyzed the substance it was found to be a fine-grained white stone that grows harder with time. Everywhere in St. Cecilia's cathedral is fragile loveliness set side by side, as an afterthought, with stern forcefulness. Bishop Louis II d'Amboise brought from Italy a group of artists to paint the panels of Albi's cyclopean vaulting, and the work accomplished by those men of northern Italy, from 1509 to 1512, remains the most splendid color decoration of the Middle Ages in France. Michael Angelo was painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling in those same years. Languedoc produced another superb array of color, the windows of Auch Cathedral,[236] and we must not forget that the greatest of all Renaissance glassworkers, the friar who filled Arezzo with glory, was a Midi Frenchman. Amid Albi's arabesques the artists from Bologna and Modena inscribed their names, and some young lovers wrote "Antonia, mia bella," and "Lucrezia Cantora, bolognesa." The frescoes give the genealogy of Christ. They recall Perugino, Francia, and Pintoriccio. Never was blue background more marvelous--a strong rare hue neither indigo nor Prussian nor peacock, but a blending of them all in a cerulean depth of color--an art as entirely lost to posterity as the blue background of Suger's windows. Chemical analysis has busied itself with Albi's frescoes, too; but though the blue color of the vault panels was found to be obtained from the precipitation of salts of copper by carbonate of potassium, how to produce a similar hue to-day remains unsolved. Over the blue background wind lovely arabesques, and the saints portrayed are stately Italians of the Renaissance. The diagonals and transverse arches are colored in old-gold. On the western wall of the church a XV-century fresco was painted directly on the bricks, a Last Judgment copied from popular woodcuts of the day, with the punishments of the seven deadly sins pitilessly set forth. The painting was ruthlessly cut into when a chapel was introduced under the western tower. The side chapels of Ste. Cécile are illuminated in gold and color like a Book of Hours. Never was there a church of such contrasts: within--a shrine of warm, polished, over-splendid beauty, and without--the most rugged feudal challenge of the Middle Ages. CARCASSONNE[237] It is the first sharp vision of an unknown town, the first immediate vision of a range of hills, that remains forever, and is fruitful of joy within the mind ... that is perhaps the chief of the fruits of travel.--HILAIRE BELLOC. The Cité of Carcassonne was long one of the most formidable fortresses of Europe, covering the route from ocean to sea and guarding a pass into Spain. These Pyrenean provinces of France gave Joffre and Foch to the World War. The lower walls of the Cité were of Rome's building; above came the Visigothic defenses; then St. Louis extended the fortifications and his son completed them. Within its double belt of walls and half a hundred towers is the precious little church of St. Nazaire, once of cathedral rank. Its western front was never opened by a portal because it stood near what were long the outer ramparts. The Romanesque nave is small and dark, without triforium or clearstory, and with high aisles that buttress the tunnel vault of the principal span, whose transverse ribs are slightly pointed. Piers and columns alternate. The materials to build this early church were blessed by Urban II in 1096 in the same month that he dedicated the new choir of St. Sernin at Toulouse. St. Nazaire was an entirely Romanesque church when Simon de Montfort ruled the Cité for ten years. In this church St. Dominic married Amaury de Montfort to a princess of Dauphiny. St. Dominic had held a public controversy of eight days with the heretics of Carcassonne in 1205, before the coming of the northern barons, and in St. Nazaire he preached the Lent of 1213. Simon de Montfort was buried temporarily in St. Nazaire, and there exists in a nave chapel a sculptured stone which some have thought to be part of his sepulcher, but which is more probably from the tomb of a brother of Count Raymond of Toulouse, who, having sympathized with the northern barons, was slain in consequence. The curious stone shows the engines of war described in the _Chanson de la Croisade_, and the costumes of that period. Under Bishop Radulph (1255-66), who built the Gothic chapel beside the south arm of the transept, permission was obtained to replace the ancient transept and choir by a new one. Bishop Radulph won forgiveness for those citizens of Carcassonne who were expelled from the fortress in 1262, because they had conspired against the crown with one of the Trencavel dynasty, their old rulers, and the builders of the Cité's château. Louis IX, who governed Carcassonne through a seneschal, allowed the exiles to start the present town of Carcassonne beyond the river, in the plain below the citadel. The erection of the Gothic half of St. Nazaire took place under Bishop Pierre de Roquefort (d. 1321) during the first twenty years of the XIV century. To him we owe the radiant glass lantern which is St. Nazaire's transept and choir, a structure that is really a big transept with seven chapels, equally high, along its eastern wall, the central of which chapels, and the longest, serving as choir. The windows in the chapels rise to the roof, and are filled with clear and brilliant glass ranked with the best of the XIV century; those in the first two chapels excel the others. Two windows show the arms of Pierre de Roquefort. St. Nazaire was one of the last to use the legend-medallion type of window; henceforth, in each panel, a single figure was placed in an architectural setting. The seven eastern chapels of the transept open one on the other above a low dividing wall, and standing out from those walls, so that a narrow passage is made between them and the transept, are detached piers that rise powerfully from pavement to vault-springing. Above their capitals the molds die away in the column--a very early use of a Flamboyant characteristic. The two pillars flanking the entrance to the choir are decorated, midway up, with statues under canopies sculptured by northern artists before 1320. Archæologists declare that the Gothic part of the Cité's ancient cathedral are the perfection of XIV-century construction, elastic in every part, each part fulfilling its own separate function. The ogival principle could not be carried farther. It is thought that some architect of the north made the plan, which local masons executed. The only Midi trait is the flat, tiled roof. Modern restoration has overhauled the citadel of Carcassonne too radically. Imperiously set though it is, does it grip the imagination as entirely as Aigues-Mortes, lying flat on marsh lands, its time-stained walls untouched? Often in France one echoes Pius IX's response to Baron de Crozé, who proposed the restoration of the Coliseum: "Dear Son, I have read your memoir and I thank you for it; but do you not know that there are two sorts of vandalism, one which consists in destroying, the other in restoring? Never has the Coliseum been so beautiful as in its moving contrast of past splendor and magnificent present decay. To restore it is to annihilate the work of centuries, to recompose an ordinary pastiche with no _éclat_." Not that Carcassonne, as redressed by M. Viollet-le-Duc, is deficient in _éclat_; it has too much of it. It is a vision of a feudal fortress too carefully prepared, too deliberately made ready for the tourist. In the lower town are the typically meridional churches of St. Michel, the actual cathedral of Carcassonne, and St. Vincent whose aisleless hall is the widest in the Midi--a span of sixty-eight feet. Even when using diagonals, the south kept true to its favorite Romanesque traditions. Neither church has a triforium, the apse windows are long and narrow, over the entrance of each chapel is an eight-lobed rose, and the buttresses are disguised as walls between the side chapels. The tracery is Rayonnant. St. Vincent was built after the Black Prince burned Carcassonne in 1355. At its sculptured portal was placed a statue of the newly canonized saint-king, Louis IX, under whom this modern Carcassonne was founded. NARBONNE CATHEDRAL[238] Que chaque homme console un homme, Fasse un bien, donne une pitié, Ne t'occupe pas de la somme: Ce pain sera multiplié. --JEAN AICARD (born in the Midi, 1848). At Narbonne one is at the very heart of the Midi. It is an ancient mother city of Europe, a capital of Celtic Gaul. Surpassed by nothing in the Roman world, Narbonne kept its pre-eminence under both pagan and Christian Rome. It became the seat of the Visigothic royal line, and of their Moorish conquerors. Charlemagne made it a fortified outpost, and during the Middle Ages it was the richest of trading centers, a third of whose population was Jewish. In 1311, the same covetous king who abolished the Templars banished the Jews, to whom Charlemagne had given the freedom of this town for their support of his cause against Islam. To-day one walks its dust-white streets with a strange sensation of loneliness. Narbonne is a dead city. When in the latter part of the XIII century the great Gothic cathedral of St. Just was begun, there seemed no reason why so flourishing a trading center could not succeed in the enterprise. Unlike Beauvais, where the chief church was from its inception out of all proportion to the population, Narbonne could easily have erected a nave to complete its mighty choir. In 1272 was laid the first stone of St. Just Cathedral.[239] Then there occurred here what happens to all rivers that communicate with the sea by means of lagoons: gradually the salt lakes silt up till they become marshes through which the river winds tortuously till suddenly it breaks a new path to the sea. In 1320 occurred this catastrophe for Narbonne. The Roman dike gave way and the river Aude left its ancient bed, quitting Narbonne to flow toward Courson, where it still is. The stagnant waters bred disease, and the metropolis, greeted by Sidonius Apollinaris for its salubrity, _Salve Narbo, potens salubritate_, became a pestilential site. Narbonne sank into silent decay. Over the shrunken city stands the ghostly fragment of the great cathedral, surpassed in height only by Beauvais and Amiens. St. Just was begun in 1272, and three years later the cathedral of Toulouse was started on a plan and with profiles so closely resembling Narbonne's chief church that one master may have designed both. Both derive immediately from those northern Gothic churches translated with a meridional accent, the cathedrals of Clermont, whose choir was finished in 1265, and of Limoges, begun in 1273. The Midi shows in Narbonne Cathedral in the simplified triforium which is framed by wall spaces, as are the clearstory windows, in the extremely high pier arcades, and in the stout buttresses that are disguised as dividing walls between the side chapels. The capitals are mere uncarved bands, and over them certain molds die away in the pier. M. Anthyme Saint-Paul's theory was that even in the XIII century began the evolution which was to end in Flamboyant Gothic. He pointed out, in Narbonne's chapels, windows with Rayonnant tracery side by side with flamelike undulations. M. Enlart thinks we cannot be sure that they were done at the same time. An unusual and graceful aspect was achieved in the choir's northern aisle by the setting of piers beyond the dividing walls of the chapels, making a kind of double aisle like that in the transept of St. Nazaire at Carcassonne. An architect named Henri is cited as master-of-works at Gerona Cathedral whose chevet, begun after 1312, resembles that of St. Just. Henri was a name uncommon in the Midi. It is thought that he was the original architect of Narbonne. His successor at Gerona, Jacques de Favari or Favers, a name of the central plateau of France, is known to have directed the works of Narbonne's chief church. Catalonia, Aragon, and Languedoc were allied in architecture as in tongue. Poblet in Catalonia is directly the daughter of the abbey at Fontfroide, six miles from Narbonne.[240] The Gothic influence of Narbonne spread to the isles in the Mediterranean, to southern Italy and Cyprus. Archbishop Maurin began Narbonne Cathedral after the tragic crusade of St. Louis in 1270. He had vowed that if ever again he saw the fair land of France he would offer thanksgiving by rebuilding his church. The corner stone and relics were sent by Pope Clement IV, originally a lawyer at St. Gilles, and then archbishop of Narbonne, whose crumbling cathedral of Charlemagne's time he had purposed to replace by a Gothic one, when his translation to the papacy intervened. The apse chapels were built first. The main parts of the choir are the work of Archbishop Gilles Aycelin de Montaigu, (1292-1311), a noble of Auvergne, brother of the bishop who was building Clermont Cathedral and who had himself been a canon at Clermont. He also began the cloister, and to his own residence added a donjon tower. It is thought that the episcopal palace at Narbonne served as prototype for the palace of the popes at Avignon. In modern times, between its ancient towers a town hall has been constructed. In 1311 Gilles Aycelin was transferred to the see of Rouen, and Rouen's archbishop, Bernard de Farges (d. 1341), a nephew of the pope who built the choir of Bordeaux Cathedral, took his place at Narbonne, where he completed the giant choir. Services were held in it in 1320. The truncated western end of the cathedral is a depressing sight. Work stopped after the completion of the east wall of the transept, whose window apertures had later to be filled in; by the XV century all hope of completing the church was abandoned, and two west towers were raised. In the XVIII century the plan to build a nave was revived and part of the city ramparts were thrown down to allow for its extension. One bay of the proposed structure was begun in bastard Gothic, and then the enterprise collapsed. The present entrance is through a door contrived in one of the apse chapels. The exterior of that apse was fortified. From one turreted buttress pile to the other was maneuvered a crenelated gallery, and originally the passage communicated with the bishop's palace. Although sadly needing a nave, Narbonne's choir is a proud and noble vessel. Critics have called it a work of mechanical skill more than of imagination. Its science is beyond cavil, each thrust being exactly counterbutted. Profiles, however are angular and there is a painful lack of sculpture. If, technically, Narbonne's chief church is somewhat hard and dry, it has retained sufficient of the emotional quality of Gothic, what has been called its _sursum corda_, to belong to the grand tradition of the national art. Moreover, one can kneel reverentially on the very steps of the altar instead of being kept at a stately distance. In the clearstory are the loveliest XIV-century windows in France, like rare-toned etchings or delicate spider-web, time-stained lace. As there is color in them, it is inexact to call such windows grisaille, but the subdued note of grisaille glass predominates. Between Narbonne and Spain lies Perpignan's XIV-century[241] cathedral, and Elne's cloister, called a work of supreme elegance by the critical Prosper Merimée, and to the east at Béziers is a fortified cathedral with massive towers, begun in 1215 and building through the XIV century; it has good stained glass of this latter period. One's interest in Béziers centers in the terrible massacre of 1209, the opening act of the Albigensian Crusade. Not that the mere sacking of a city would have roused such horror. In the course of its history eight massacres had occurred in Béziers. It was a day when such acts were the accepted methods of warfare and the northern leaders had discussed whether it were not good tactics to start their campaign by terrorization. It was the slaughtering of the citizens in the churches to which they had fled for sanctuary that violated the general standards. Witnesses of the sacking of Béziers say that while the chiefs of the besieging army were considering how to spare those in the city who were not Albigensian, an assault was started through the skirmish of lawless hangers-on of the crusading army and a few townspeople. In the confusion that followed, the northern knights rushed to arms and the city was captured. A XX-century wrecking of the Louvain-Dinant-Termonde type followed, and some twenty thousand perished. Modern scholars doubt that the famous _Tuez-les-tous_ remark, attributed to Abbot Arnaud of Cîteaux, who died archbishop of Narbonne, was ever uttered. He is accused of saying, "Kill them all, God will know his own," when asked how the orthodox were to be told from the heretics. No contemporary chronicle mentions it and Albigensian historians would certainly have flung such words at the crusaders; equally would an ardent admirer of Simon de Montfort, who wrote his _Gestes_, have lauded the sentiment, if one is to judge by other happenings he thought praiseworthy. Neither enemy nor friend mentions the _Tuez-les-tous_ phrase. It first occurs in the history of a German monk at Bonn, long after the Midi crusade, and the pages of that chronicler are so filled with discredited assertions that little he says should be taken seriously. MONTPELLIER AND MAGUELONNE[242] The tocsin sounded its lamentable notes of alarm over all the land of France. Fire? No. _War._ The voice of the bells long condemned to silence by the authorities suddenly rang out everywhere. From the high belfries spread the warning, and no one worried now to refuse to God, to the Inexplicable, the right of speech. From God's house alone came to France, waiting in tense agony, the announcement of the most terrible catastrophe that ever fell like an avalanche on humanity. Sunrise to sunset from east to west, from north to south rang out the coming of War, the world's misery.--JEAN AICARD, on how the World War opened in the Midi.[243] In Montpellier is a stately terrace called the Peyrou, built in the artificial, distinguished style of Louis XIV, from which one looks out on a most lovely landscape of Midi fertility.[244] Here Mistral in 1878 read his vibrant ode to the Latin race, _la race lumineuse, la race apostolique_, and a generation later the people gathered here to listen to the belfries far and near ring out over that peaceful Claude Lorraine scene the hour of unity in battle array, for all Frenchmen--Latin and Celt and Frank. No longer a Midi and a North. The time was past for race hate or conquest to pose as a crusade. The time had come to end the silencing of Christian steeples under the guise of freedom. As one man, Midi and North sprang up in answer to the tocsin of August, 1914. What to-day is the cathedral of Montpellier was built from 1364 to 1367 as a monastery church, so that it hardly falls within our scope. But if architecturally the city of Montpellier is of lesser importance, it has been for long centuries the intellectual stronghold of the Midi, and we know that cathedrals are built with more than stones. Montpellier's school of medicine was famous in the XII century. The city was free of Albigensian taint; no trading town was more flourishing during the XIII century. At the hour that the northern barons invaded the Midi, the heiress of Montpellier, whom the king of Aragon married for her dowry and immediately deserted, gave birth to one who was to build more churches than any monarch in Christendom. Twelve candles were set up in the chief church of Montpellier, each with the name of an apostle, and when the candle called James burned the longest the child was named Jaime. An inscription on the Tour du Pin, a vestige of the city ramparts that originally had twenty-five such towers, records the birth of Jaime el Conquistador, the scourge of Islam, the conqueror of Valencia and the Balearic Islands, and the builder of six thousand churches. His father was one of the victors of Las Navas de Tolosa, in 1212, where a vital blow was struck at Moorish domination in Spain; yet he was killed in the very next year in Languedoc, fighting on the heretic side. Peter of Aragon looked on the Albigensian Crusade as a northern war of conquest, and if outsiders were to win new lands why had he not the same right. Jaime's mother fled to Rome, the sole court of arbitration then in Europe, and when she died there, she left her son the ward of Innocent III.[245] The pope compelled Simon de Montfort, who held the child as hostage, to return him to his Spanish subjects. Jaime's tutor was that Languedoc knight, St. Peter Nolasco (d. 1258), who founded the Order of Mercy to redeem captives from Moslem prisons, but no saint-tutor or saint-neighbor could tame this fierce young eagle, the scion of the French Midi and the Spanish Pyrenees. From the time he buckled on his sword as a boy, to his death in 1276, the weapon never left his side. He cut off the ear of the bishop of Gerona who had rebuked his free living, for Jaime's domestic relations were on a par with those of the Languedoc lords and of his Mahommedan neighbors. The church which now is Montpellier's cathedral consists of a modern choir of the meridional type, without ambulatory or flying buttresses, and a nave built as an abbatial by Guillaume de Grimoard, the best of the Avignon popes, Urban V. The nave is a wide, unaisled hall, with small clearstory windows. Even when the Midi used diagonals, says M. Enlart, it remained faithful to Romanesque traditions. At the west façade is an ungainly canopy held up by two round turrets of solid stone, the sort of thing which is a builder's notion, not the design of an architect. Urban was disappointed when he found that his architect from Avignon had erected a big chapel rather than a church. When he came to Montpellier in 1367 the new edifice was almost finished. He was honored as never man was before by any city. The townspeople marched out to meet him, every guild and corporation in the ranks, the lawyers carrying the image of the newly canonized St. Yves of Brittany. When the pope's visit ended, half the population walked for miles with him into the country, and the town authorities escorted him all the way back to Avignon. Urban V had been educated in Montpellier and he loved its university, in which for years he had taught law in the school where Petrarch studied. He renewed the departments of law and art, put new life into the famed medical school (which to-day is housed in the former bishop's palace, fortified with propped machicolations), and founded a college for the free maintenance of a certain number of students. To this day Montpellier reveres him. All over Christendom this energetic Midi baron endowed institutions of learning, supported hundreds of students, and built monuments. He founded the universities of Prague, Cracow, and Vienna, re-established that of Orvieto, made a school of music at Toulouse, began the cathedral of Mende,[246] near his birthplace, and in Marseilles rebuilt St. Victor's, where he had been abbot,[247] and where remains his towering tomb. At Avignon he continued the making of its walls of defense, for it was a day when the lawless _Grandes Compagnies_ roved over France. Urban was too wise a man not to perceive that his continued residence at Avignon was a detriment to the papacy, and he made a valiant effort to return to Rome. There, too, he was no sooner established than he initiated works of art.[248] Broken by the disorders round him with which he had not strength to cope, he returned to his beloved southern France, where he died almost immediately, in 1370. His successor, Gregory XI, inspired by St. Catherine of Siena, who journeyed to Avignon in 1376, was to be the pontiff who ended what Italy, sick to death, called "the Babylonian captivity." Montpellier was not a bishopric till 1536, when the see was removed from Maguelonne here, and no sooner was the new see established when the city was sacked twice--in 1561 and again in 1565. Every tomb in the present cathedral was violated. Were its walls lined with those old-time memorials they would appear less bare. Neither side was distinguished by amenity in those long years of civil strife. Maguelonne, the original bishopric, lies six miles from Montpellier on the Mediterranean. In ancient days it was a little island of volcanic formation, then in time an island in a swamp, connected artificially with the mainland. Climb to the flat stone roof of the ancient cathedral of St. Pierre, almost the only monument left standing here where civilization has followed civilization, and look across the lagoons that lie between France and the solitary dead city. Europe and the present seem no longer to exist in this the most aloof, self-effaced, most philosophic spot in the world. Maguelonne had known all the peoples in their pride. During fifteen hundred years it played its part--Celt, Phoenician, Greek, and Roman ruled here in turn. Visigothic Wamba besieged it. Islam held it under the name of Port Saracen till Charles Martel drove the sea robbers from their stronghold by destroying the city; only the new church of St. Peter was saved. For the following three centuries Maguelonne lay deserted. Then in 1037 Bishop Arnaud undertook to restore the city, and the cathedral he rebuilt was blessed in 1054. Prosperity soon returned under a republican form of government, with the bishop as president. Maguelonne became an asylum for exiles and a retreat for scholars. Urban II blessed the island in 1095. When Pope Gelasius II, driven from Rome, landed at St. Gilles in 1118, he soon sailed thence for Maguelonne, and hither came Alexander III in 1162. The cathedral of St. Pierre stood up a very rock of defense against the corsairs of Spain and Africa. On its flat stone roof engines of war were placed. The present XI-century church replaces that of Charles Martel's day; over an arm of its transept occurred one of the pre-Gothic early uses of diagonals. The transverse arches of the nave are slightly pointed. On the lintel of its portal of creamy-white marble--Classic, Saracenic, Romanesque, and Gothic, with doorjamb bas-reliefs of Peter and Paul, key and sword--were inscribed by Bernard de Trevies in 1178 some Latin verses still legible: Ye who seek life's port to gain enter now this sacred fane. If ye pass these gates within, ye may break the chains of sin, So to pray thou must not fail, all thy cruel sins bewail; Know that all thy sins and fears may be washed away in tears.[249] The cathedral of St. Peter was spared in the second annihilation of Maguelonne, which took place after the religious wars, when Richelieu's policy was to level every possible fort that rebellion might use. Stone by stone the other monuments of the city were carried away. When the canal from Cette to Aigues-Mortes was built, in 1708, Maguelonne became a useful quarry. St. Peter's church now stands alone, embalmed as in amber, preaching the sobering lesson, _Sic transit gloria mundi_. AIGUES-MORTES[250] Aigues-Mortes! Consonnance d'une désolation incomparable! Dans le train si lent à traverser la Camargue je m'imagine ces mornes remparts qui depuis sept siècles subsistent intacts. J'évoque ces mystérieux Sarrasins, ces légers Barbaresques qui pillaient ces côtes et fuaient, insaisis, même par l'histoire. Aigues-Mortes, le vieux guerrier qu'ils assaillaient sans trêve, est toujours à son poste, étendu sur la plaine, comme un chevalier, les armes à la main, est figé en pierre sur son tombeau.--MAURICE BARRÈS.[251] "I propose that we institute a pilgrimage," sighed Rodin, "to all monuments _de plein air_ yet spared by restoration." Aigues-Mortes' big quadrangle set on the dead lagoons is precisely as it came from its builder's hand in the reign of Philippe III, son of St. Louis. No destructive restoration has ever chipped away the time stain of centuries. So shrunken is the little town of to-day, within those imposing ramparts with their fifteen towers and nine gateways, that it is as weird an experience to encircle the walls within as to make the solitary tour without. No sooner did St. Louis take the crusaders' vow, in 1244, when he began to look about for a concentration camp on the southern coast. He was suzerain only in the south of France. Narbonne had its own counts and so had Provence; St. Gilles and Adge were in the Toulouse countship, and the Montpellier coast was under Aragon. Practically only swampy Aigues-Mortes was available. St. Louis purchased it from the monks of Psalmodi, and reconstructed an old tower on the site which had served as a fort during piratical attacks. The grand Tour de Constance, now standing outside the quadrangle fortification, is the only part of Aigues-Mortes of Louis IX's day. He deepened the tortuous canal of eight miles that led to the sea, since Aigues-Mortes never was directly on the Mediterranean. The Genoese architect, Boccanegra, who constructed the ramparts for Philippe III, followed the type of fortified town in the Orient; Aigues-Mortes especially resembled Antioch. On both his crusades St. Louis started from his fort on the dead waters. When in 1248 the crusaders saw the low-lying spot so like the pestilential coasts of the East, many a heart felt oppressed. Again in 1270 the king's army arrived at Aigues-Mortes. Finding his transport ships delayed, Louis IX thought it best to move his warriors to the more healthful site of St. Gilles. There he held brilliant court, to keep up the idle army's spirit, and at the tourneys excelled his Provençal queen's nephew, the future king of England, Edward I. The crusaders left their mark on the walls of St. Gilles. ST. GILLES[252] Noms des Morts pour la Patrie, Qu'on vous trie Selons vos provinces; puis, Pour propager votre culte, Qu'on vous sculpte Sur la borne et sur le puits!... Mais d'abord, que votre zèle Vous cisèle Sur les maisons mêmes d'où Pour aller vers le martyre, Ils partirent Dans le soleil du mois d'août. ... On lira sur la corniche Pauvre ou riche: "_Mort pour nous ... un tel ... un tel...._" Trois fois, tous bas, comme on prie, On s'écrie: "_Morts pour nous ... pour nous ... pour nous!_" --EDMOND ROSTAND (1868-1918; born in Marseilles).[253] To this day on the stones of St. Gilles' abbatial are the graffiti of ships and warriors--a king among them--scratched by the swords of St. Louis' crusaders before they crossed to their death in Africa, 1270. The sadly dilapidated bourg which is St. Gilles to-day played a prominent part in the important centuries of the Middle Ages. Many were the popes and kings who visited it to venerate the tomb of the VIII-century hermit, Ægidius, from Athens, whose cult was widely spread over western Christendom, as many a church image and window showing the holy man and his fawn remain to tell. The counts of Toulouse were the chief patrons of the abbey. On the First Crusade, Raymond IV of Toulouse bore the title Count of St. Gilles. Raymond VI held here, in 1208, an interview with the papal legate, Guy de Castelnau, the after-consequences of which precipitated the Albigensian wars. Angry words were uttered by the count when the legate rebuked him for shielding the heretics, and the next day the legate was murdered by one of the count's retainers as he was about to cross the Rhone. Thereupon Innocent III declared the Albigensian Crusade. In the following year Raymond VI performed penance before the church door of St. Gilles--the last public canonical penance of the Middle Ages. The disasters of the house of Toulouse diminished the abbey's building funds. The discussions over the date of St. Gilles have been of importance because of its relation to the school of Provençal sculpture of which the most notable monument is its triple portal. Before St. Gilles' western end is a mass of composite imagery, of different dates and material, yet composing an architectural unit. Six bays of the nave are covered by a masonry roof of the XVIII century; only the piers and side walls of the edifice are ancient. Beyond the nave lie the ruins of the choir, in which has been installed an open-air archæological museum. Did the choir of St. Gilles still stand, it would be the best Gothic monument in the south of France, exceptional in possessing an ambulatory and radiating chapels. At its entrance still exists a spiral staircase, the _vis de St. Gilles_, the first of its kind constructed, which many a mason of the Middle Ages journeyed hither to see. The steps compose an annular vault, winding like a corkscrew. According to M. Labande, the choir of St. Gilles was built from 1140 to 1175, and at first there was no intention of vaulting it with diagonals. As the walls rose, however, a Gothic vault was prepared for. The nave, whose capitals have well-cut acanthus leaves, was erected from 1175 to 1209. It could not have been finished when in 1265 Clement IV rebuked his fellow citizens of St. Gilles for their delay in completing their church. Clement had been a local lawyer--a Romanesque house is still pointed out as his--by name, Guy Fouquet, or Fulcodi. The death of his wife caused him to embrace religion. When raised to St. Peter's chair, such was his dread of nepotism that he wrote to his daughters they were not to expect matches any more important than if he were a simple knight; we learn that the well-admonished young ladies failed to obtain any husbands at all. This pope, whom St. Louis called "_notre aimé et féal Guy_," instigated the crusade of 1270, which was associated in the hour of its departure with his own town. Despite his exhortation, St. Gilles' choir was joined to its nave only in the XIV century, as is proved by the rows of Rayonnant Gothic foliage on the capital of the nave's easternmost bay. The XVI-century religious wars devastated the abbey, which now was held by Calvinists, now by Catholics; and finally the Huguenots, after using the church as a citadel, ordered that it be razed. The tower was mined and its fall wrecked all around it, but the arrival of the king's troops saved the edifice from entire destruction; as the masonry roof had collapsed, a bastard-Gothic restoration of the nave was undertaken from 1650 to 1670. Then came the Revolution; the choir was sold and its stones carted away. So dead seemed all appreciation of the national art that the constitutional curé of St. Gilles clamored for the demolition of the famous triple portal, as its images "were insupportable reminders of past servitude, recalling the odious feudal régime, displeasing to lovers of liberty and equality." Till the middle of the XIX century the church was abandoned. During excavations in 1765 a chamber, or bay, of rough workmanship was unearthed in the crypt, and in it was found a tomb inscribed as that of St. Gilles. This is all that remains of the church in which Urban II blessed an altar in 1096. On a buttress of the crypt an inscription states that its foundation was laid Easter Monday of 1116. The abbey had been damaged by an irate count of Toulouse, and Calixtus II asked Peter the Venerable to send from Cluny a new abbot to reorganize things. The crypt's north and west walls rose first, but the work was dropped and taken up several times. All the vaulting, whether groin or diagonals, was an afterthought, for all the piers have been rearranged for the masonry roof they now support. Only a few of the westernmost bays of the crypt used diagonals, and as their profiles are the same as those in the choir, building from 1140 onward, they are probably contemporary. Inscriptions on the outer west wall of the crypt prove that in 1142 people were buried there, which would indicate that the present stair to the west portal was not yet arranged. Perhaps for a time they were not sure of making an upper church above the spacious basement. By 1209 that upper nave was built, because Innocent III buried his murdered ambassador beside the tomb of St. Gilles, and when Raymond VI had performed public penance before the portal, we are told that he was brushed against by the crowd, and escaped through the lower church, passing his victim's new tomb. The imaged portal of St. Gilles, which inspired the porch of Trinity Church, Boston, is a composite mass of imagery begun in the XII century and continued till St. Louis' day. Pilfered fragments were made use of, as was only natural in a region where Rome had left many monuments. Some of the pillars are the fluted marbles of antiquity; others are of granite. Fourteen columns and fourteen large images of apostles and angels give unity to the composition, as does the continuous wide frieze. St. Gilles' images, strong and short like the figures on the Gallo-Roman sarcophagi near the mouth of the Rhone, are perfectly proportioned to the place they occupy, cold, impersonal figures, more architectural than sculptural, the fruit of an old art, not the beginning of a new tradition, as was the theory of Herr Vöge, who would trace to Provence the origin of French Gothic sculpture. M. de Lasteyrie contended that the Porte Royale at Chartres--first of the Gothic portals, last of the Romanesque--with its long, slender figures in whose visages expression has been attempted, descends from the imaged portals of Burgundy, not from St. Gilles or St. Trophime, but from a nascent rather than a dying art tradition. The Lombard school gave to St. Gilles its lion caryatides, a very popular feature at church doors; Lanfranco, who remade Modena's cathedral in 1099, had been the first to plant pillars on the backs of lions, perhaps copying some lost work of antiquity. "A world in itself," said Prosper Merimée of St. Gilles' sculptured portal. Under the biblical scenes of the frieze animals crouch and crawl. Some of the frieze groups, such as the Flagellation, are full of spirit, and must be of later date than certain other stiff archaic figures. The Kiss of Judas with its grimacing soldiers is probably a XVII-century restoration. The only time that the Expulsion from the Temple was treated in the older work was here. The sisters Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus, with Mary Jacobi and Mary Salome, are all imaged at St. Gilles' door. The tradition of their arrival in Provence was gaining in favor every day while this portico was making. The savants inform us, though not patriotic Provençal savants, that no mention of the saints of Bethany is to be found in Provence before the middle of the XI century. Monseigneur Duchesne of the Institute of France, who takes saints out of their niches as boldly as any Bollandist, tells us that it was the monks of Vézelay in Burgundy who first imagined the arrival in southern France of Mary Magdalene, in order to explain how it was they possessed her relics, the lodestar of their pilgrim shrine. Then, gradually, the legend grew till it was a remarkably full boatload that landed, in A.D. 40, at Les Saintes-Maries,[254] where the Little Rhone, on which stands St. Gilles, enters the Mediterranean: the risen Lazarus, whose relics were claimed by Autun in 1144; Martha, whose relics appeared at Tarascon in 1187 and caused a new church there to rise;[255] Marcella, the waiting woman of Martha and Mary; Maximinus, one of Our Lord's disciples; Simon the leper; St. Sidonius; Joseph of Aramathea; and the Blessed Virgin's sisters, Mary Jacobi, mother of James the Less, and Mary Salome, mother of James and John, and their dark handmaiden Sara, who became the patroness of gypsies. Monseigneur Duchesne says that a grotto dedicated to the Virgin in the mountains east of Marseilles came to be regarded, by gradual unconscious fabrication, as the Sainte Baume where Mary Magdalene passed years of penitence, for the Midi wove the story of St. Mary the Egyptian with the saint of Bethany. All these holy people who had known the Lord fled from Syria after the martyrdom of St. Stephen and found asylum in southern France. The savants can prove what they will; while in Provence, in the "kingdom of sentiment," one believes every word of it. Read Mistral's _Mireille_ and dare to be a skeptic! Under the leaden skies of Paris you may take the Institute's learning seriously. But gazing at _la grand bleu_, the frequented highway between Syria and Gaul when Roman Emperors ruled both, you say to yourself that it all _could_ have happened. For hundreds of years the people of Provence have been made better and happier because they have believed that the historic family of Bethany who entertained the Lord were entertained by them. ST. TROPHIME AT ARLES[256] Seigneur, des lois et voies antiques, nous avions quitté; l'austérité, vertus, coutumes domestiques, nous avions tout détruit, démoli.... Seigneur, nous sommes tes enfants prodigues; mais nous sommes tes vieux chrétiens: que ta justice nous châtie, mais au trépas, ne nous laisse point.... Seigneur, au nom des pauvres gens, au nom des forts, au nom des morts--qui auront péri pour la patrie, pour leur devoir, et pour leur foi!... Seigneur, pour tant d'aversités, de massacres, d'incendies; pour tant de deuil sur notre France, pour tant d'affronts sur notre front, Seigneur, désarme ta justice! Jette un regard par ici-bas; et enfin écoute les cris de meurtris et des blessés!... Seigneur, nous voulons devenir des hommes; en liberté-- tu peux nous mettre! Gallo-Romans et fils de noble race, nous marchons droit dans notre pays. --(Literal French translation of Mistral's "Psaume de la pénitence," 1870.) The western portal of the cathedral at Arles, less carefully executed than that at St. Gilles, was begun at the end of the XII century and finished in a couple of generations. Both were inspired by the same local classic influences of Rome and the subsequent Gallo-Roman development. The large statues, eminently architectural, at the famous door of St. Trophime, are as sturdy and squat as the images on early Christian tombs. Two of those ancient tombs, of the V and VI centuries, have been turned to ecclesiastic usage in this very church, as baptismal font and altar, and across the square from the cathedral many others can be studied in the Museum of Arles. The strong Byzantine influences apparent in St. Trophime's sculpture recall that Arles was the favorite residence of Constantine. From northern Italy came the animal-caryatides idea. St. Trophime's Romanesque entrance leads into a somber church under whose barrel vault reigns a mellow gloom.[257] Begun before the middle of the XI century, it was reconstructed in the XII century; the painfully narrow high side aisles are covered by quarter circles that buttress the central vessel, whose undergirding arches are slightly pointed because the pre-Gothic masons had learned that the thrust of a broken arch was less. The XV century built the insignificant choir (without the vestige of a capital), exceptional only in having the sole ambulatory and radiating chapels in Provence. A prelate of the Grignan family built a chapel projecting from the transept, for, not far away, in Dauphiny, is the château of Grignan, where Madame de Sévigné died while staying with her daughter; one knows that she and XIII-century Blanche of Castile had been friendly. [Illustration: _The Mediæval Cloister of Arles_] St. Trophime's cloister, among the most beautiful in France, building from the XII to the end of the XIV century, is the fairest Christian monument of Arles.[258] This Midi art expands in the sunlight and grows melancholy under a masonry roof. Arles was a free town when it was begun, with its own podesta and consuls like a flourishing commercial city in Italy. About 1150, the north gallery was commenced, and the one to the east soon followed. The angle pier is composite (c. 1180), with St. Trophimus standing between St. John and St. Peter, the latter being sculptured in marble. The storied capitals of the cloister are exceedingly interesting. In the second half of the XIV century the west walk was begun, and almost immediately was followed by the south gallery, which is similar to it save for slight details. The cloister was completed under Bishop Jean de Rochechouart (1390-98). Arles, like Lyons, claims a direct apostolic origin. A tradition says that St. Trophimus, her first bishop, was the disciple of the gentile of Ephesus, whom St. Paul mentioned in his epistle to Timothy. For centuries before the popularity of the Saints of Bethany legends in the Midi, St. Trophimus was revered. Pope Zosimus, in the V century, called Arles "the source from which flowed all over Gaul the rivulets of the Faith." Gregory of Tours voiced another tradition concerning St. Trophimus when he named him as one of the seven evangelists sent by Pope Fabian into Gaul in 250. At any rate, whether he lived in the first century or the third, St. Trophimus was the first bishop of Arles, and it is right that its primate church should be dedicated to him. Arles, from which flowed over Gaul the rivulets of the Faith, is a city of ruins, and yet most gracious in aspect; _Arles la blanc_, Joinville called it as he sailed by on his way to the Sixth Crusade; _Arles la Grecque_. The women walk as nobly as the matrons of antiquity here where "the copper coins of Rome's republic and the gold of the emperors gleam in the sun amid the springtime wheat." "I tell you, and you can well believe me," sings Mistral, "that the damsel of whom I speak is a queen, for, know you, she is twenty years old and she is Arlésienne.... She descended with lowered eyes the steps of St. Trophime, and the stone saints by the portal blessed her as she passed, for she was ineffably good." There are books so typical of their race, or this period, that they belong to all time, and by them posterity can learn more of the basic forces that build monuments than from many a learned treatise. Such a book is Voragine's _Golden Legend_, such a book is the _Rationale_ of Durandus. The _Barzas-Breiz_ teaches us to comprehend Carnac and the Calvaries of Brittany. Even so the soul of Provence has been interpreted by her own Mistral, who loved "the perfume of the ancient days when on the banks of the Rhone flourished a refined civilization that for a time bore the name, the Kingdom of Arles, but that really, through all the successive revolutions, was naught else but the direct survival, on French soil, of Rome's civilization."[259] ST. MAXIMIN[260] The cement, without which there can be no stability of the walls, is made of lime, sand, and water. The lime is fervent charity which joineth to itself the sand--that is, undertakings for the temporal welfare of our brethren. Now the lime and the sand are bound together in the wall by an admixture of water. Water is the emblem of the Spirit. And as without cement the stones cannot cohere, so neither can man be built up in the heavenly Jerusalem without that charity which the Holy Ghost worketh in them. The stones are built by the hands of the Great Workman into an abiding place in the Church: whereof some are borne and bear nothing, as the weaker members; some are both borne and bear, as those of moderate strength; and some bear and are borne of none save Christ the Corner Stone. All are bound together by one spirit of Charity as though fastened with cement, and these living stones are put together in the bonds of peace. --BISHOP GUILLAUME DURANDUS of Mende (1220-96), _Rationale_.[261] The bourg and church of St. Maximin lie about thirty miles east of Aix-en-Provence. Some rich Gallo-Roman noble of the V or VI century had his estate here, thinks Monseigneur Duchesne, on which he built a funereal chapel and crypt according to custom. That crypt with its early Christian sarcophagi is now under the church of St. Maximin, though why that saint is honored in the locality is not known. The first record of the site occurred when the estate was passed over to the monks of St. Victor's at Marseilles, who built a priory here (1038), and chose Maximinus as its tutelary. It was only when some fertile brain, in Vézelay, said that St. Maximinus was one of the Lord's seventy-two disciples, and had accompanied Mary Magdalene to Provence, that Aix-en-Provence began to claim him as her first bishop. For two centuries Provence allowed Vézelay to boast of the possession of the Blessed Magdalene's remains. During Saracen inroads she had lost the relics of Lazarus and his sister, so the Burgundian church told her. Finally--we are quoting Monseigneur Duchesne, not a Midi savant--a patriotic Provençal whose mind was as fertile in inventions as the chronicler at Vézelay, arranged a rediscovery in 1279, in the crypt of St. Maximin, of the Magdalene's relics, whereupon the pilgrimages to Vézelay ceased. Before witnesses and the ruler of Provence, Charles II d'Anjou (nephew of St. Louis), was opened one of the sculptured tombs in the Gallo-Roman noble's funeral crypt now under the nave of St. Maximin. In the sarcophagus was found a manuscript, in a wooden coffer, relating that in the year of the Incarnation, 716, on December 6th, under King Odoin, the body of Mary Magdalene had been moved from its alabaster tomb, in this same crypt, to the plainer tomb of St. Sidonius, in order to save it from those felons, the Saracens. The uncritical mind of the age accepted the obvious forgery as genuine. It was worded in XIII-century, not VIII-century Latin, the use of the term Incarnation for dating was an anachronism, and no such king as Odoin ever existed. Why should it have been expected that Saracens would spare one tomb more than the other, asks the courageous Monseigneur Duchesne. But why feel too critical of the pious fraud, since the genuine enthusiasm it aroused led to the building of the most imposing Gothic church in Provence and the one most pure in style, an edifice that inspired the imposing modern church of St. Vincent de Paul at Marseilles. In 1295 Charles II d'Anjou[262] (1285-1309) began St. Maximin, which he passed into the care of the Dominicans. Abbé Albanès has discovered that the architect's name was Jean Bandier. During two centuries the Angevin rulers of Provence continued the church, and good King René finished it before he died in 1480. As the first plans were adhered to, the edifice possesses unity save for a few Flamboyant windows in the aisles. Those side aisles of St. Maximin are almost as high as the central vessel; they braced the main span and did away with the need of flying buttresses. Traits of Midi Gothic are the exceedingly narrow windows, the lack of a triforium, and uncut bands for capitals, though the omission of sculpture may be due to the fact that the abbatial belonged to a mendicant Order, vowed to poverty. St. Maximin's piers soar majestically from pavement to vault springing, nor has nobility of proportion been sacrificed in its severe granite interior. AIX-EN-PROVENCE[263] Le désordre des malheureux est toujours le crime de la dûreté des riches.--VAUVENARGUES (1715--47; born in Aix-en-Provence). The cathedral of St. Sauveur is a composite edifice needing skilled archæologists to decipher it. Its semicircular apse, without ambulatory or chapels, was begun by Bishop Rostan de Noves. Its nave, of the XIV century (with typical capitals whose foliage is disposed in two bands), shows vestiges of a far more ancient church. The nave's north aisle is neo-classic. The south aisle, called _Corpus Domini_, is Romanesque, and was held to be the ancient cathedral, since it conforms to the classic type of the regional Romanesque school, such as the Dom at Avignon. M. Labande has demonstrated that this pre-Gothic portion of Aix Cathedral was originally a church for the laity, built between 1150 and 1180 and dedicated to St. Maximinus, and that it was planted along the side of a church for the canons, dedicated to Notre Dame in 1108. Vestiges of this latter church are the ancient parts in the actual nave of St. Sauveur. The _Corpus Domini_ has its own sculptured doorway, and three bays covered by a barrel vault carried on pointed arches. Over the fourth bay is a shallow cupola ridged with eight pilasters in a manner inherited from ancient Rome. Classic, too, are the columns now arranged to form a baptistry. Aix was the capital in Provence of the art-loving Anjou princes of the Capetian line. Under them in 1476 was begun St. Sauveur's beautifully restrained Flamboyant Gothic façade and tower. In the nave is a stone reredos of 1470 called the Tarasque, from the dragon of St. Martha represented in it, and under King René's inspiration was made the splendid triptych of the Burning Bush by the French _primitif_, Nicolas Froment, born in Avignon, but impregnated with the Flemish spirit of Van Eyck. King René kneels in one panel, and his second wife, Jeanne de Laval, in the other; the outer side of the folding panels is painted in grisaille. The Burning Bush was taken as a symbol of the Virgin's integrity. The carved doors at the west entrance of St. Sauveur, rich with prophets and sibyls, are ranked with the noted doors of Beauvais and Rouen. While the church of St. Maximinus, or the present south aisle of St. Sauveur, was building, a student at the University of Aix, across the way from its cathedral, was St. Jean de Matha (1156-1213), one of those good men of history who accomplished a great work but are overlooked by posterity. In Aix he passed his leisure waiting on the poverty-stricken sick. Then he went up to the Paris schools to perfect himself in theology, and good Bishop Maurice de Sully, then building Notre Dame, became interested in him, and with the prior of St. Victor's, after attending the young Midi noble's first Mass, prophesied that this was a soul chosen of God. Because Jean de Matha had been born in the south, a witness of Islam's piracies, he vowed himself at his first Mass to the redemption of Christian captives. His fellow student at Paris, Innocent III, approved the new Trinitarian Order called popularly Maturins because their Paris house was dedicated to St. Maturin. So rapidly did it spread that before long it had fifty houses in far-off Ireland, and as many in England. In its annals are the names of all the western nations. Jean de Matha, until his death, passed backward and forward to Africa. When the first boatload of redeemed captives landed at Marseilles a cry of thanksgiving rose in Christendom. Sometimes a brother of the Order would remain in a captive's place, when his funds for ransoming prisoners gave out. In Granada, Maturins were martyred. In the year 1260 five thousand Christians were redeemed from Islam prisons by these devoted men. And for five centuries the good work went on, so that we hear of Trinitarians freeing Christians from Mohammedans in the reign of Louis XIV. Cervantes was released from African captivity by the sons of St. Jean de Matha, else we would have no _Don Quixote_. All through the dark episodes of the Albigensian wars these lives of unobtrusive Christian charity endured. Their deeds have not been trumpeted to the winds. I dare say the historian who rings the changes on the _Tuez-les-tous_ phrase never heard of St. Jean and his Maturins. AVIGNON[264] In abandoning Rome, their cradle, in departing from the venerated tomb of the Prince of the Apostle, in ceasing to reign on the site consecrated by the blood of martyrs, the popes failed to value the prop those august memories were for them. In their voluntary exile on the banks of the Rhone the popes were controlled by the king of France. Villeneuve's high towers, a French stronghold, threw too protective a shadow over the papal palace of Avignon.--L. SALEMBIER. Architecturally Avignon does not fit into our category, but who can close a chapter on the Midi and not mention, among gems, this diamond? There is no more imposing, no more magnificent a palace in the world than that of the XIV-century popes at Avignon. Romanesque architecture is represented by the Dom and the bridge built by _frères-pontifes_ over the Rhone (1177-85) under the inspiration of the shepherd boy St. Bénézet. Many a time has the river carried away its bays. The chapel on the bridge shows the work of three epochs, part being of Little Benedict's time, part of 1234, and an apse of 1513. Notre Dame-des-Dom, as it was first built, belonged to the usual type of a Midi Romanesque church (1140-60), but to it have been added chapels and neo-classic decorations.[265] The west porch of the cathedral can claim to be one of the first conscious revivals of classic art in France, inspired by a Roman triumphal arch in neighboring Carpentras. Originally the inner walls of the porch were frescoed by Simone Martini of Siena, a friend of Petrarch. That humanist spent many years in Avignon, and it was at the door of the church of St. Clara that he first saw Laura, in 1327. If the Avignon popes employed Italian painters, their architects and sculptors were mainly local. Avignon's great day was under the seven Roman pontiffs who lived here in succession during sixty-eight years, a period disastrous to the interests and prestige of the Church, but fecund for the art life of southern France. All seven of the popes were meridionals. Clement V (1305-13), whom the patriotic Italian poet places in hell for his subservience to the French king, was the first to take up his residence in Avignon, but his building enterprises were elsewhere, at Bordeaux and St. Bertrand-de-Comminges, and he chose to be buried near Bordeaux, at Uzeste, his native place, where his tomb was mutilated in 1577. Clement is pictured on the walls of the Spanish chapel in Santa Maria Novella at Florence. Neither his statue at the chief portal of Bordeaux Cathedral nor his effigy on his tomb is a portrait. After an interval he was succeeded by John XXII (1316-33), born in Cahors, where a tower of his palace still stands, as well as the most beautiful bridge of the Middle Ages, which he helped to build. John had been educated at Cahors, Montpellier, and Paris; he had taught law at Toulouse, and from 1310 was bishop of Avignon, so that he made it his permanent residence when elected to the papacy at seventy-two. John was an organizer of genius; he founded Perugia University and reformed those of Paris, Cambridge, and Oxford. The great treasure he left was the fund drawn on by his successors for the erection of their palace. His tomb in the cathedral of Avignon is like an immense reliquary, excessive lace stonework and pinnacles, though if some of the sixty statues that once embellished it remained, there would naturally be more character in the ornamentation. The tomb has recently been claimed as a late-Gothic west-of-England work, similar to monuments at Exeter and Tewksbury. His successor, Benedict XII (1333-42), was the pope who really began the Avignon palace which was to be completed in twenty-five years. While abbot of Cistercian Fontfroide, he had watched Narbonne's episcopal palace rising, and there are decided likenesses between it and the papal residence on the Rhone. Both were fortresses eminently of the Midi, not of Italy. Of Benedict it is related that when his father, a baker in the comté of Foix, came to visit him, dressed richly by courtiers who thought to save the pope's _amour propre_, the pope declined to recognize him till he garbed himself humbly. His was a complex character. He spent vast sums lavishly on his palace, bringing artists from Italy to decorate its walls and ceilings. His tomb, that had resembled his predecessor's, exists only in a few arcades housed in the Musée Calvert. The tomb called his in the cathedral is a composite affair. There is a statue of Benedict XII in the crypt of the Vatican. The next pontiff, Clement VI (1342-52), a Limousin lord of great lineage, more knight than churchman, made the most beautiful parts of the papal palace, the conclave gallery, the Audience Chamber, the Pontifical Chapel over it, and the tower called St. Jeane whose chapels, _sotto_ and _sopra_, were decorated by Martini. Petrarch had praised Clement for his liberality toward the Jews, who, driven out of other countries, found a home here, "_povres Juifs ars et escacés par tout le monde excepté en la terre d'Église dessous les clefs des papes_." For his burial Clement VI rebuilt, in the Forez mountains, the church of his former abbey, La Chaise Dieu, in the center of whose choir he placed his own sumptuous monument, whose forty-four statuettes represented his great relatives. In the religious wars of the XVI century the mausoleum was sacked and only the pontiff's marble effigy now remains. Clement VI purchased the city of Avignon from Queen Joanna of Naples of the Anjou house. The Comtat-Venaissin, but not Avignon, formed part of the possessions that fell to the French Crown on the death of Alphonse of Poitiers and his wife in 1271. Philippe III gave it to the popes, to whom it had been promised by the last count of Toulouse. The papal palace was finished by Innocent VI (1352-62), another Limousin. He made the tower applied to the south wall of audience hall and church, and he added to the city's fortifications. Across the Rhone he began the Chartreuse, later called Val de Bénédiction, a vast structure carried on by his family as a hereditary obligation.[266] To-day it is a mass of desolate ruins, and the pope's mutilated tomb is now housed in the hospice at Villeneuve-lès-Avignon. Urban V (1362-70), "_moult saint homme et de belle vie_," says Froissart, was a patron for art and letters throughout the Midi. At Avignon he continued the fortifications. His work is to be found in Montpellier Cathedral, also at Mende, St. Flour, and Marseilles, where his mausoleum towers in St. Victor's abbatial. His attempt to re-establish the papacy in Rome failed, but his successor, Gregory XI--Count Roger de Beaufort, a nephew of Clement VI--went back definitely in 1377 to the Holy City, where a bas-relief on his tomb, in Santa Francesca Romana, records his triumphal entrance. The consequences of the long exile were deplorable. Immediately came the Great Schism of the West, during which some of the doubtful pontiffs resided at Avignon. After their return to Rome the popes governed their small Midi principality by viceroys till at the time of the Revolution it passed to France. The palace was turned into a prison and barracks; when a local antiquarian society begged that they might be allowed to preserve the precious frescoes of Simone Martini in the chapels of Clement VI, the military governor replied that such notions were contrary to military custom. Happily the Palace of the Popes is now a national monument, and its judiciously accomplished renovation is one of those restorals against which no one can cavil. CHAPTER IX The Gothic Art of Burgundy[267] _Be strong in humility and humble in authority: Be austere in tenderness and tender in austerity: Be amiable in sorrow and grave in prosperity._ --ST. COLUMBANUS' Antitheses. Burgundy, "a country placed on Europe's highways," was a land of monasteries. They dotted the fertile province. There were "prodigious Cluny," and Vézelay "the superb," scenes of historic gatherings; at Auxerre was St. Germain's monastery; at Dijon, the abbey of St. Bénigne, pioneer in the Romanesque renaissance of the region. There were Cîteaux, the mother house of missions over the entire Christian world, Pontigny, that harbored three archbishops of Canterbury, Fontenay with its industrial forge, Tournus, Saulieu, Paray-le-Monial, and Flavigny, that reminded Chateaubriand of Jerusalem set on its hill. Up and down the land the _laus perennis_ never ceased. On the confines of the old kingdom of Burgundy, as the VI century closed, St. Columbanus founded at Luxeuil, between the sources of the Moselle and the Saône, an abbey which was to mold the religious life of the VII century, most fertile of epochs in the number and fervor of its religious institutions. Luxeuil became the popular school of Gaul, the mother house of hundreds of monasteries. Her monks filled the sees of France. The Celtic Rule was harsh, a compound of the Orient, of Lerens, and of Bangor in Ireland; even on feast days fish was a luxury. It was only the personal genius of the impetuous Irish missionary that caused it to be accepted for a few generations; then as the VII century closed, the Benedictine Rule which conformed better to human limitations superseded the Columban. "Where Columbanus sowed, Benedict reaped."[268] Three hundred years later there rose in Burgundy the most splendid monastic institution that Christendom has ever known, Benedictine Cluny, that stood shoulder to shoulder with the reforming popes in their fight for the purification of the Church.[269] Cluny initiated the Truce of God, the peace movement of the XI century that permitted the art renaissance which was to culminate in the Gothic cathedrals. Peace meant an unmolested commerce, peace meant city charters and stable laws. A reformed clergy meant the renewal of the people's love of the altar, and their generous contributions toward the erection of churches. With Cluny as leader there was then formulated the architecture which was a stepping stone to a greater system. Two hundred years after Cluny's foundation, Burgundy again gave birth to a monastic movement which was to carry to the ends of Europe the Gothic system of building. Cîteaux, in the extent of its conquests and its centralized administration, has been compared with the Roman Empire. Cistercian monks carried Burgundian Gothic to Spain, to Italy, to Greece, to England, Germany, and Scandinavia. Owing to the conditions of society and of the episcopacy, the cloister then was chief patron of art. Simony infected the bishoprics and it is not under unworthy prelates that churches are reared. Gregory VII, Cluny, that supplied him with his army of reformers, and St. Bernard, with his white-cowled brethren, warred unceasingly on simony, concubinage, and investiture (the tormenting question of layman control of churchmen). And since it was monasteries that fought that battle of regeneration, monastic churches and not cathedrals were the first tangible proof of the ethical rebirth of Europe. _À la peine ... à l'honneur._ When the reform achieved by Cluny and Cîteaux had filled the sees with worthy bishops, then were built the great cathedrals. We have seen how the problem of roofing churches in stone caused the evolution from Romanesque to Gothic art. Burgundy's struggle to achieve a permanent stone roof was bolder than that of other regional schools in France, and perhaps it was overhardy, since her abbatials, in Gothic times, had to be buttressed to keep them standing. Though the Burgundian discarded too early the Romanesque principle of equilibrium by dead load, his temerity was a step forward in the march toward new principles of construction. These monks on Europe's highway made churches of ample width and height, and, rather than sacrifice their proper lighting, opened windows in the upper walls of the central vessel. However, they must have felt that their clearstory windows were an experiment, for they essayed, occasionally, an embryo flying buttress, keeping it hidden under the lean-to roof of the aisles. The militant Romanesque school of Burgundy was too well developed for it to bow instantly before the new art. Not here did the generating member of Gothic architecture first come into common usage, but in that region of northern France whose pre-Gothic school was of less importance. The Burgundian clung stubbornly to his early ways of building, and even after other provinces had accepted the ogival style he erected thoroughly Romanesque churches; St. Philibert at Dijon is the contemporary of the cathedrals at Chartres and Paris. Flying buttresses at no time found favor in Burgundy. Groin vaults were persisted in simultaneously with diagonals, and the sexpartite vault used long after the north had dropped it. Firm plain profiles for archivolts and window molds were preferred. Once the Burgundian frankly accepted the new system, his bold genius led him to push its principles to their limit. Within the confines of the duchy were the quarries of hard Tonnerre stone that permitted audacious experiments in building. He dared traverse his exterior buttresses by circulation passages, he dared catch his heavily weighted diagonals on corbels (carved with original heads), and to poise a mass of material on the slenderest of colonnettes. Often he surmounted his triforium by a passage that passed directly through the active wall shafts, as in cathedrals of Auxerre, Nevers, and Semur. By the middle of the XIII century Dijon achieved a marvel of Gothic technique in its church of Notre Dame. Despite much notable Gothic work one is inclined, none the less, to maintain that Burgundy found her fullest expression in her earlier monastic churches. Alas, that the greatest of them, Cluny, should to-day be but the phantom of its once colossal self! CLUNY[270] Time will be ending soon, heaven will be rending soon, fast we and pray we: Comes the most merciful; comes the most terrible; watch we while may we. --BERNARD DE MORLAIX, "Jerusalem the Golden"[271] (c. 1140). The "mother abbey of Europe" lies in a fertile valley some fifteen miles off the express route that passes through Mâcon. The property was given to the monks by a duke of Aquitaine, who thus anathematized future despoilers: "I conjure you O holy Apostles Peter and Paul, to cut off from life eternal all robbers, invaders, or sellers of that which I herewith donate with full satisfaction and entire free will." When Cluny was founded in 910, the victory of Christianity over the Barbarians still hung in the balance. It was Cluny that weighed down the scale for justice and progress, Cluny that gave to Rome the needed reforming popes. Hers should be a name as honored in humanity's history as Athens: "We leave college," wrote Montalembert, "able to cite the list of Jupiter's mistresses, but ignorant, even to their names, of the founders of the religious Orders that civilized Europe." And the testimony of the Protestant Leibnitz is: "Without monks we should have no erudition, for it is certain that we owe to monasteries the preservation of letters and books." Four of the best among the popes came out of Cluny's cloister: Gregory VII, Urban II, Paschal II, and Urban V. [Illustration: _The XI-century Sanctuary of Cluny as It Was until the Revolution_] The modern French school of mediæval archæology, delving into the past, has drawn Cluny from its long oblivion. In 1910 was celebrated with national honors the millennium of the Burgundian "abbey of abbeys," and to the festival the French Academy sent M. René Bazin as its representative to voice the gratitude of French letters to the "great Order of Cluny which in the France of the Middle Ages exercised in its plenitude the mission of civilizer, apostle of the Gospel, apostle of peace, guardian of the whole field of knowledge, founder then, of all works of charity, initiator of both literary and agricultural progress, creator of an art which she spread over Europe." During the Middle Ages the silent Burgundian valley was a busy hive of arts and crafts[272] with goldsmiths' work, illuminating, carving in ivory and in stone, foundering of bells, and the making of stained glass. All that went toward the adornment of God's house was fostered in Cluniac schools, but above all was the master art of the builder honored. In bands of twelve the monks carried not only the Gospel, but the arts to every part of Europe, and even farther afield, for there were houses of the Order on Mount Tabor, in Nazareth, and in Bethany. No uniform Cluniac building lore was followed; it was the usual custom for the monks to conform to the local traditions in each different country.[273] It was natural that the big abbey church at Cluny proper should have been Burgundian Romanesque. Hazelon, a monk of Cluny, was the master-of-works, a learned man who had once occupied a high position in the world; he is said to have himself worked here with trowel and mortar. The tunnel vaulting was braced by transverse ribs that were slightly pointed; clearstory windows were opened in the upper walls. The channeled pilasters were a heritage from the classic traditions of the region; near by, in Rome's former capital of Autun, were many monuments of antiquity. Cluny's abbey church of St. Peter was the largest in the world, and covered an area about equal to that of the present St. Peter's at Rome. It was over five hundred and fifty feet long; the cathedral at Paris is not four hundred feet in length. There were double aisles and double transepts. St. Hugues of Cluny, the sixth abbot, "a man of God greatest among the great," "the pupil of the papacy's eye," ruled the Burgundian mother house during the sixty years that Cluny guided Christendom (1049 to 1109). No flattery, no subtlety could turn him from pure justice. Under him were trained Hildebrand, the future Gregory VII, who led the forces of church reform. "The giving up of justice is the shipwreck of the soul," said Gregory VII. Abbot Hugues trained also Urban II, who preached the First Crusade. Among the houses he founded were St. Martin-des-Champs at Paris, and St. Pancras at Lewes; in England there were thirty-five Cluniac establishments in the time of Henry VIII. Twice St. Hugues went into Spain, where his niece was the Queen of Castile, engaged in substituting the liturgy of the Church universal for the Mozarabic rite. To the town of Cluny he granted a commune, and he built two of its parish churches, Notre Dame and St. Marcel.[274] When he felt death approaching, he had himself carried before the altar of St. Marcel, there to breathe his last on a bed of ashes, and a few days earlier than the Easter Tuesday of 1109 on which he passed away, his dear friend and frequent visitor at Cluny, St. Anselm of Canterbury, died, being privileged, he said, to go to meet his Saviour in time for the blessed Easter feast. Those two great men of the cloister by their ethical and intellectual leadership laid the basis for the Gothic cathedrals. The choir of St. Peter's, at Cluny, was blessed by Urban II, in 1095, when he came into France to preach the First Crusade. He passed a week in his old home, after which he and his beloved master, St. Hugues, proceeded to the historic gathering at Clermont. The nave of St. Peter's was carried forward by succeeding abbots of Cluny, and many a pope was to watch the edifice rising. Paschal II passed the winter of 1106-07 in Cluny, and his successor, Gelasius II, died there in 1119; he had recently consecrated the new Romanesque cathedral of Pisa.[275] On the site of the wing of the cloister where he lodged now stands a XIV-century building called by his name. On his death the cardinals at Cluny held conclave, electing as pope a member of the ducal house of Burgundy, the bishop of Vienne, who took the name Calixtus II; in Cluny church he canonized the great Abbot Hugues. St. Hugues' successor, Pons de Melgueil, after an estimable career, was led by pride to a downfall. On his resignation, Pierre de Montboissier, an Auvergne noble, known in history as Peter the Venerable, became the ninth abbot (1122-56). At that time he was but thirty years of age. Pons returned, seized Cluny abbey, and in the ensuing disorders the vaulting of the new nave collapsed. Abbot Peter restored the stone roof, and Innocent II dedicated the completed church in 1131. The capitals then carved are to be seen in the town's Museum. Some of them personified the eight tones of liturgical music, for Cluny excelled in song, and every twenty-four hours her vast basilica echoed to the chanting of the entire book of Psalms; never, says the old chronicle, was there pause in the _saintes clameurs_, the _laus perennis_ started by Irish Columbanus in the valleys of Burgundy. Some of the capitals from the abbatial are contemporaries of the statuary at Vézelay, where Peter the Venerable had been prior, and where his brother, Pons de Montboissier, was abbot. Vézelay was a pilgrimage church, so that its imagery was made of more popular character than that of Cluny, where worshiped an intellectual élite. Cluny began the carving of the Bible for the Poor. The Burgundians were the first to develop the imaged portal which the Gothic cathedrals were to elaborate into their sumptuous triple entrances. While Cluny was building, a monk in the monastery composed a poem of some thousand lines, opening with a vision of the heavenly Jerusalem. Bernard of Morlaix must have found inspiration in his own Burgundian basilica, which we know to have contained over three hundred windows of translucent mosaic. He dedicated his poem to his beloved abbot, Pierre de Montboissier. Peter the Venerable was no Puritan in art, as was his friend St. Bernard, with whom he had many a skirmish, owing to their temperamental differences and the rivalship of their respective Orders. The abbot of Cluny never wavered in his reverence for the "fellow citizen of angels," as he called the abbot of Clairvaux, and Bernard saw in Peter, man of the world though he was, "a vessel of election full of truth and grace." Like Abbot Suger, Pierre de Montboissier was the type of the liberal culture of the Benedictine, and he was to live again in the XVII-century scholars of the St. Maur reform, even as Bernard's uncompromising spirit reappeared then in De Rancy and his Trappists, a reform of Cîteaux. Like Suger, Peter the Venerable was a quoter of the classics, and a literary man. "To write was for an abbot of Cluny a hereditary tradition," said a XII-century historian. He had Arabic taught at Cluny for mission purposes. Journeying in Spain, he was the first to have the Koran translated for Europe; he held it to be Islam's best refutation. Very modern appears this old-time abbot in the zest with which he set out to travel, to inspect the houses of his Order. When he died in 1156, he was ruling over two thousand establishments, in every part of Christendom. In person Peter was distinguished, and in character most generous, humane, and free from narrowness. He was wisely moderate always, and simple and direct. The letters of his which still exist make him a living personality. Though as keen a theologian as his friend Bernard, Abbot Peter kept the defeated Abélard with him at Cluny until his irritated spirit was soothed, and when the great schoolman died in 1142, Abbot Peter wrote to Héloïse, in her nunnery of the Paraclete, in Troyes diocese, to arrange that Abélard's body be brought there for burial, and he himself went to preach the funeral sermon.[276] In his letter to Héloïse he said that never had he seen truer humility and retirement than Maître Pierre's; "after which," as M. René Bazin remarks, "none of us need despair." Cluny's abbatial of St. Peter was enlarged in the XIII century by a forechurch of several bays, with double aisles. An antechurch or narthex was a frequent addition to the Burgundian basilica; sometimes it was open as at Autun and Beaune, sometimes wholly inclosed as at Vézelay. Although Cluny's narthex was built as late as 1220, groin vaulting was used for the aisles. In 1245 Innocent IV paused for a month at Cluny, having in his train a dozen cardinals and their suites, and Louis IX came for a fortnight's conference with the pope, accompanied by the queen mother, his brothers, and courtiers. The emperor of Constantinople and the heirs both of Castile and Aragon were guests at that same time, and yet so immense was the establishment, that all were accommodated without the monks quitting their usual quarters. In 1248 St. Louis paused again in Cluny before his first crusade. With material success came spiritual decline. The tale runs the same in most of man's organizations. As a reformer Cluny was succeeded first by the Cistercians, whose fervor lasted for a century, when were needed the two mendicant Orders of Francis and Dominic. The system that allowed the king to appoint abbots, initiated by the Concordat of 1516, proved fatal, and there is truth in the saying that the court prelates paved the way for the religious wars. Three times in those bitter years of strife was Cluny sacked, its famous library ravaged, and its art treasures burned. The Revolution completed the ruin. The first mob that marched out from Mâcon to wreck the abbey was dispersed with firearms by the townspeople. The municipality of Cluny wrote to the National Assembly to tell of the constant benefits it had derived from the monks--so the rationalist Taine relates in his _Ancien Régime_--but the impious wrecking of the great monastery went on. Day after day cartloads of rare books were brought to feed the bonfires in the square. All through 1793 bands of looters came out from Mâcon to break windows and destroy images. The indignant townspeople looked on impotently at the vandalism that spelled their own material decline. At Napoleon's advent they sent petition after petition to try to save the big church, but the Mâcon merchant who had purchased it proceeded to open a road right up its nave and sold the stones as building materials. First the narthex was blown up with gunpowder; then a transept arm. When the huge central tower fell with stupefying noise the people shivered with a nameless fear. The history of France was being obliterated before their eyes. To save what remained the town offered in exchange its communal lands and market halls. In vain; the grandest monastic church in the world was demolished piecemeal after the nineteenth century opened. Some seven or eight towers had crowned St. Peter's. In 1811 the one over the choir was destroyed. Gunpowder blew up the stately pillars of Pentelic marble and Italian cipolin set around his sanctuary by St. Hugues seven hundred years before. They destroyed the frescoes of the apse, which were so fresh that one who then sketched them said that they seemed to have come straight from the artist's brush. To-day little of the abbey church is standing. There are vestiges of the choir, a small tower, and the south arm of the main transept with a big tower over it. There also remains the Flamboyant Gothic chapel built by Abbot Jean de Bourbon (1456-81), out of the smaller transept. In the town street are evidences of where the western doors of the abbatial once stood. The entrance arches to the abbey grounds are intact, and some few of the towers of the inclosure walls. The museum is now housed in the monastery's guest quarters built by Jean de Bourbon. His successor, Abbot Jacques d'Amboise (1481-1514), erected the pavilion which now serves as Town Hall. Both of those art-loving prelates constructed at Paris the Hôtel Cluny as town residence for the abbot of the Burgundian mother house. THE ROMANESQUE ABBATIAL OF PARAY-LE-MONIAL[277] The world is very evil, The times are waxing late, Be sober and keep vigil, The Judge is at the gate! The Judge that comes in mercy, The Judge that comes with might, To terminate the evil To diadem the right. --BERNARD DE MORLAIX, "Jerusalem the Golden."[278] Not far from Cluny lies Paray-le-Monial, "a town very dear to heaven," said Leo XIII's brief of 1896. The monastery was founded by the second abbot of Cluny, St. Majolus, who was instrumental in bringing to France William of Volpiano, the leading spirit in the renaissance of architecture after the year 1000. The present abbatial resembles on a very small scale that of Cluny. Its barrel vaulting is braced by pointed arches and there are the channeled pilasters of Rome's tradition in the region. The exterior of the apse and the carven doorway are gems of pre-Gothic art. Towers and porch date from the end of the XI century, and the remainder about 1130. At present the monastery church (which is abominably marred with whitewash) is dedicated to the Sacré Coeur, a devotion that was initiated by the Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque, who died in the Visitation convent of this town in 1690. Paray-le-Monial has become one of the pilgrimages of modern France. St. Odilo, who governed Cluny for the half century preceding the sixty-year rule of Abbot Hugues, loved especially the priory of Paray-le-Monial. He inspired and organized the Truce of God, the _Treuga Dei_, by which war was prohibited on certain days and in certain holy seasons. The monk, Raoul Glaber, to whom Odilo was patron, has described in a chronicle covering the period from 900 to 1047 (an invaluable document for the sources of the Capetian line) how the war-wrecked populace flocked to the church councils that were their only hope, their hands uplifted, with the beseeching cry, "Peace! Peace! Peace!" In the rebirth of hope and energy that succeeded to the terrors of the year 1000, Glaber has told us how the earth reclothed herself in a white mantle of churches. He had been spurred on to write his history by the chief builder of the age, William of Volpiano. The great monastic churchmen of Burgundy were leaders in the movement that was to culminate, within four generations, in Gothic cathedrals. To Abbot Odilo is attributed, also, the founding of the feast of All Souls, which he set on the day following All Saints, as if to place the suffering ones in the care of the elect. From the observance of this feast in Cluny houses it spread to the entire Church. THE ROMANESQUE CATHEDRAL OF AUTUN[279] Et c'est ainsi que Dieu travaille quand il veut nous châtier sans nous perdre, quand il ne veut pas que la guerre finisse, par le feu, le sang, la désolation générale, la ruine entière et le changement d'un État. _Il sépare les gens de bien_: il faut que les uns se mettent avec choix au parti qu'ils estiment le plus juste, et que les autres se trouvent dans le parti qu'ils approuvent quelquefois le moins.--LE PRÉSIDENT JEANNIN (1540-1622; born in Autun). Autun's chief church, one of the few cathedrals in France which is Romanesque, was begun in 1120 and consecrated in 1132 by Innocent II. In that same year he blessed Cluny's nave and Vézelay's narthex. A friend of St. Bernard, Bishop Étienne de Baugé (1112-36), was its chief benefactor, as he was, also, of the Burgundian abbey of Saulieu.[280] The Last Judgment over Autun's west door, signed by one Gislebertus, dates from that period. Its strange, elongated figures are not the culmination of an old art, but a first effort in a development that was to produce the imaged portals of Gothic cathedrals. Autun's curious tympanum was saved from the iconoclasts of the Revolution because the _gens de goût_ of the XVIII century had covered it over with the neo-classic plaster ornamentation they preferred. The graceful trumeau images of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary are restorations. Before the western door an open narthex for the use of lepers was added about 1178. In the first part of the XII century, the cathedral school was directed, during thirty years, by Honoré d'Autun, whose popular book, _The Mirror of the Church_, introduced the use of animal symbolism into the iconography of cathedrals. M. Mâle discovered that the New Alliance window in Lyons Cathedral copied his book verbatim. In the learned Honoré's day Autun Cathedral had not yet laid claim to the relics of the risen Lazarus. Originally the church was consecrated to St. Nazaire, which name was changed to Lazare after the Burgundian abbey of Vézelay had spread the story that Mary Magdalene had died in Provence. No one knew how Autun obtained the relics said to be those of Lazarus of Bethany. They were first exposed for veneration in the cathedral in 1147. Monseigneur Duchesne has thought that the legend grew by unconscious fabrications. It certainly did the Burgundian towns little harm to honor those whom the Lord had cherished. Through long centuries Burgundy delighted to call her sons Lazare. The cathedral of Autun has a barrel vault undergirded by pointed arches. Channeled pilasters,[281] great and small, abound; they are on all four sides of the piers. In Autun stand gateways of Rome's empire to serve as classic models. The acanthus leaves of the cathedral's triforium can compare with those of the Porte d'Arroux. Autun was a Roman capital in Gaul, founded by Augustus. It covered then twice its present area. Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus, built the great military road that ran from Lyons to Autun, Autun to Auxerre, Auxerre to Troyes, Troyes to Châlons-sur-Marne, Châlons to Rheims, Rheims to Soissons, Soissons to Senlis, Senlis to Beauvais, Beauvais to Amiens, and thence to Boulogne-sur-Mer. The graceful central tower of the cathedral was added in the Flamboyant Gothic day by Cardinal Rolin (d. 1483), son of the builder of Beaune Hospital, Nicolas Rolin (a native of Autun), the self-seeking but able chancellor of Duke Philippe le Bon. Another son of Autun was Pierre Jeannin, president of the parliament of Burgundy and minister of Henry IV. His father, a tanner, was a man of civic importance in the town. President Jeannin's kneeling statue and that of his wife, Anne Gueniot, are now in the cathedral choir, being all that remained, after the Revolution, of his tomb made by Nicolas Guillan of Paris. No man ever had a truer passion for the public weal than this Burgundian magistrate who saved Burgundy from the stain of blood on St. Bartholomew's day in 1572. Word came from the king to kill, but the Catholic Jeannin on the governor's council at Dijon urged delay, saying that when a king's orders were given in anger, the wisest course was procrastination. He was to live long enough to aid Henry IV in drawing up the Edict of Nantes in 1598. Jeannin's attitude in 1572 was all the more meritorious because Burgundy had suffered acutely from the Calvinists, who invited their co-religionists from Germany to fight their fellow citizens. In 1569 a band of the invaders left behind them a trail of four hundred burned villages. Cluny was attacked, and Cîteaux was sacked from top to bottom; to-day some XIV-century debris is all that marks the mother house of the Cistercian Order. The destruction of Cîteaux was irreparable for art, since during centuries its abbatial was the St. Denis of the first Capetian dukes who ruled Burgundy. The leading families of the province felt it an honor to be buried at Cîteaux. In its church was once the splendid tomb (now in the Louvre) of the seneschal of Burgundy, Philippe Pot (d. 1494). The effigy of the baron in armor is carried on the shoulders of eight black, cowled figures--a further development of the _pleurant_ type of tomb. In a chapel of Autun Cathedral is a beautiful modern statue of Pope Gregory the Great, presented to Cardinal Perraud (1882-1906) of the French Academy, as bishop of this ancient city whose prelate in the VI century had entertained Augustine and his monks on their way to missionize England. Cardinal Vaughan of Westminster was the donor of this grateful souvenir. THE HOSPITAL AND ROMANESQUE COLLEGIATE AT BEAUNE[282] L'art du Moyen Âge--aussi ennemi de l'art académique figé dans ses moules conventionnels que du désordre matérialiste--est une esthétique très simple, très certaine, très puissante et très libre. Cette esthétique n'invoque pas un idéal abstrait; elle impose le culte de la réalité, de la plus humble comme de la plus éclatante; elle pourrait s'appeler un réalisme trancendant, respectant la forme telle que Dieu l'a faite, et en même temps la transfigurant par la grand frisson de l'au-delà.--ROBERT VALLERY-RADOT.[283] The Hospital of the Holy Ghost, built by Chancellor Nicolas Rolin from 1444 to 1457, is a gem of the province, reminding us of the close union of Burgundy and the Netherlands under the four great dukes of the West. The third of those rulers, Philippe le Bon, patronized Jean Van Eyck, as did the enterprising man who was the duke's chancellor during forty years. For a church at Autun, Rolin ordered of Van Eyck, in 1425, the magnificent Madonna now in the Louvre in which he kneels as donor--a shrewd, hard-featured, capable man. For his new hospital at Beaune he commissioned Roger Van der Weyden to paint, in many panels, the Last Judgment now in the little museum of the establishment, but originally installed in the large raftered hall. After the Van Eyck's Adoration of the Lamb it was the most important work of Flemish art undertaken. Philippe le Bon is portrayed in it twice, and so is the donor. The outside of the panels is painted in monochrome--what the French call _camaïeu_ from its cameo effect, and the Italians call chiaroscuro. When this superb painting hung at the end of the hospital hall that ended in a chapel like the XIII-century hospice at Tonnerre, the patients could see it from their beds. The Hôtel Dieu at Tonnerre had been founded by Marguerite of Burgundy, in 1293. After the death of her husband, Charles d'Anjou, whose cruelty roused the Sicilian Vespers, she retired to the city of which she was hereditary countess, and with two other dethroned ladies, the Empress of Constantinople and the Countess of Tripoli, gave herself up to good works. _La bonne Reyne_, the people called this princess who passed her days serving the sick poor in a hospital where the spirit of the Beatitudes ruled. None was dismissed from its door without new cloak and shoes. To-day the great rafter-covered hall at Tonnerre lies empty; the raising of its pavement has somewhat impaired its proportion. Beaune's hospital hall, that indubitably copied Tonnerre's, serves still the charitable purpose for which it was founded. Its quiet courtyard is a vision of Flanders. In the kitchen the ancient iron crane of the fireplace is ornamented with I.H.S.; the Middle Ages made even work artistic. On feast days, such as Corpus Christi, the quaint half-timber hospice is hung with beautiful XV-century tapestry. It is deemed an honor for the leading families of the region to count one of its members among the nuns whose service is for a few years, after which they may return to their own people. The collegiate church of Notre Dame at Beaune is a typical Burgundian Romanesque edifice of the XII century, to which the following century added a graceful open narthex of two bays. It possesses seventeen embroidered panels relating Our Lady's life, presented in 1500 by the Chanoine Hugues le Coq, and held to be among the most lovely tapestries in France, evoking memories of Memling and the Flemish primitives. AVALLON, MONTRÉAL, FLAVIGNY, AND FONTENAY[284] L'esprit humain, poussé par une force invincible, ne cessera jamais de se demander: qu'y a-til au delà? Il ne sert à rien de répondre: au delà sont des espaces, des temps, ou des grandeurs sans limites. Nul ne comprend ces paroles. Celui qui proclame l'existence de l'infini accumule dans cette affirmation plus de surnaturel qu'il n'y en a dans tous les miracles de toutes les religions. La notion de l'infini dans le monde j'en vois partout l'inévitable expression. Par elle, le surnaturel est au fond de tous les coeurs. L'idée de Dieu est une forme de l'idée de l'infini. Tant que le mystère de l'infini pesera sur la pensée humaine, des temples seront élevés au culte de l'infini. Et sur la dalle de ces temples, vous verrez des hommes agenouillés, prosternés, abimés dans la pensée de l'infini. Où sont les vraies sources de la dignité humaine, de la liberté, et de la démocratie moderne, sinon dans la notion de l'infini devant laquelle tous les hommes sont égaux?--LOUIS PASTEUR (1822-95; born in Burgundy).[285] The hill town of Avallon, above the gorge of the Cousin, with a square that would do honor to any capital, makes a convenient center from which to explore various Burgundian churches. Its own church of St. Lazare still possesses the apse and absidioles of the edifice blessed by Paschal II in 1107. The remainder of the church was built in mid-XII century, and the portal (in five orders richly carved, with channeled and twisted columns) belongs to the end of the century. A copy of Avallon's door is in the Trocadéro Museum at Paris where it can be compared at close range with the two other notable Romanesque portals of the province--those of Autun and Vézelay. The interior of St. Lazare is excessively plain, having a high expanse of unbroken wall over the pier arches, with the clearstory opened merely by little circular windows. Twenty miles from Avallon is the church of Montréal, like a feudal fort guarding one of the main passageways from Champagne. The lord of Montréal was among the few hundred barons who returned from the dire experience of famine, treason, and death which was the Second Crusade, on which had set forth a hopeful hundred thousand knights and pilgrims. In the latter part of the XII century he built Montreal's collegiate church, one of the earliest Gothic ventures in the province, showing a simultaneous use of Romanesque and Gothic vaulting. Its two westernmost bays were added early in the XIII century. The beautiful alabaster reredos of the XV century, and the carved choir stalls, are well worth studying. Beyond Montréal, to the north of Avallon, lies Tonnerre's hospital hall and to the south can be visited the abbatial at Saulieu and the XIII-century castle of Chastellux, a son of which ancient house fought in America with Rochambeau and was the good friend of George Washington.[286] To the east, at Flavigny, set picturesquely on a hill near the last stronghold held by the Gauls against the Romans, stood one of the most interesting of abbey churches, of which portions of the XIII-century sanctuary remain, a few arches of the nave, and a Carolingian crypt built by the abbot who ruled here from 755 to 768, hence that subterranean chamber can claim to be the oldest dated monument extant in France. Over the choir of Flavigny was a cupola, and the Lady chapel was an XI-century octagon like that which William of Volpiano constructed for his abbey at Dijon. This precious Benedictine abbatial was destroyed in the XIX century. At Flavigny are two ancient parish churches. What is now the Pension Lacordaire was the Dominican convent opened in 1849 by that brilliant son of Burgundy, with funds donated by his admirers of Dijon. To the northeast of Avallon, at Fontenay, near Montbard, is the oldest extant Romanesque church of the Cistercian Order, built from 1139 to 1147, on land given by the lord of Montbard, the maternal uncle of St. Bernard; on his mother's side St. Bernard was of the blood of Burgundy's first line of Capetian dukes. The great abbot of Clairvaux himself conducted hither the twelve monks who were to found the new house and reclaim the marshy region; and for his brethren of Fontenay he wrote his treatise on Pride and Humility. The first small sanctuary at Fontenay was soon replaced by the actual one, built on the same lines as the church at Clairvaux, which no longer stands. Both followed the Cistercian plan; no tower; no triforium nor clearstory; uncut capitals; the east end rectangular; square chapels opening on the eastern wall of the transept. Funds for the new constructions at Fontenay were provided by a wealthy English prelate who had retired here, Evrard de Montgomery, of the Arundel family, who, while bishop of Norwich, completed the long Norman nave of that cathedral. In 1147 the church was consecrated by Pope Eugene III, St. Bernard being present. As it was frequent in Cistercian monasteries to make a specialty of some branch of manual work, Fontenay conducted a forge, and the massive XII-century building which housed it still stands. The forge, the abbey church, and the refectory to-day comprise part of a paper factory whose proprietor has taken a patriotic pride in restoring these precious monuments of ancient Burgundy. THE PRIMARY GOTHIC ABBATIAL AT PONTIGNY[287] Whatever draws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and from my friends be the frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue.... That man is little to be envied whose patriotism does not gain force on the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.--DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. The oldest Gothic church in Burgundy is the Cistercian abbatial at Pontigny. "Cradle of bishops and asylum of great men," Pontigny is _parfumée de souvenirs_, to use a charming stilted French phrase. It was the first daughter of Cîteaux, founded in 1114. When a pious canon of Auxerre proposed to endow a house of the new Order, the abbot of Cîteaux, St. Stephen Harding, came to overlook the site on the confines of Champagne, and then sent twelve monks to found the house, under the leadership of Hugues de Mâcon, kinsman and childhood friend of St. Bernard. The Cistercians had not the Benedictines' weakness for a noble site, but if they planted their monasteries in a marsh--as at Fontenay and Pontigny--their agricultural industry soon made the desert bloom. The earlier Cistercian churches obeyed St. Bernard's ascetic admonitions for architecture, a Puritanism that became monotonous in the Italian churches of the Order. In France the Cistercians ceased to adhere to church simplicity, raising sanctuaries such as Ourscamp, Longpont, and St. Julien-le-Pauvre at Paris. No towers adorned Pontigny, and stained glass was eschewed, but the leaded design of the grisaille windows is so lovely that, as M. André Michel has said, "one could not be poor with more nobility." The architect of Pontigny made skillful use of certain essential constructive features to obtain his decorative effects. Thus, though monastic sobriety was followed by omitting the triforium, the bare wall between pier arches and clearstory was relieved (at the sanctuary curve) by carrying down the moldings from the upper windows; and in the procession path a fifth rib was introduced into each vault section, which rib fell on a corbel set above the entrance to each of the radiating chapels--a constructive subtlety by which was produced a graceful wall arcade. The present abbatial was begun a generation after the foundation of Pontigny, with funds contributed by Thibaut the Great, Count of Champagne. The transept, which is Romanesque, rose from 1150 to 1160. While the walls of the nave were mounting, the master-of-works began to prepare for a Gothic vault over the principal span. The lower windows were round-headed; the upper ones used the pointed arch. As the keystone of the diagonals was raised far above the arches framing each section, a pronounced _bombé_ shape resulted. From 1160 to 1180 this transitional nave of Pontigny was building, and the most famous of the English exiles, who sought the hospitality of Pontigny, must have watched the works. The choir, as first erected, had a rectangular eastern wall after the usual manner of Cîteaux's churches. Then, from 1170 to 1200, the present choir was erected with Gothic ambulatory and radiating chapels.[288] Alix of Champagne, daughter of the abbey's generous patron, and mother of the French king, Philippe-Auguste, was buried in the new choir, in 1208. From 1207 to 1213 Pontigny harbored a second archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, of Magna Charta fame. During the studious years he passed here he divided the Bible into chapters for the first time, and even the Greeks accepted his rulings. In later life Archbishop Langton often looked back to this byway of Burgundy; "his garden, his solace, his abode of peace," he called it. His predecessor at Pontigny was St. Thomas Becket, one of the outstanding figures of the XII century, whose story is told in many a French window and sculptured group. If ever an Englishman was all of a piece it was that son of a Rouen merchant settled in London. During his life as a courtier Becket was so lavish in grandeur that when he passed through France as Henry II's ambassador, the countryside turned out to see him, since few were the king's retinues that could equal his. When Henry raised him to the highest post in the English Church he instantly dropped luxury. He stood firm as a rock in defense of ecclesiastical rights against the king's attempt at Church supremacy. Tennyson's "Becket" says, "I served King Henry well as Chancellor; I am his no more, and I must serve the Church." To the end of time such a character will be discussed; some for, some against, him; admired he certainly was by that sincerest and cleverest of men, John of Salisbury, who lived in his intimacy.[289] Both in England and France the populace felt that Becket was the champion of their civic rights by his defense of church independence--then the only supreme court against lay tyranny. Undeviatingly and enthusiastically they supported him all through his seven years' exile. One of the articles of the Clarendon Constitutions which Henry Plantagenet tried to impose on English ecclesiastics was that no peasant could become a priest without his lord's permission. The poet voiced the indignant outcry: "Hath not God called us all, bond or free, to his service?" When Henry II, with his usual Angevin bad faith, duped his new archbishop into a promise to maintain the customs of the kingdom, and thereupon proceeded to revive obsolete customs, Becket, repenting the concessions he had made, fled, in 1164, to Sens, to lay the case before Alexander III. The pope decided that certain of the Clarendon propositions were impossible for any churchman to accede to. The abbot of Pontigny offered hospitality to the persecuted primate and Becket stayed with him till 1168, conforming to the severe Cistercian Rule. He quitted the Burgundian monastery when Henry, in a burst of vindictive anger, threatened to shut up every house of the white monks in England as well as in his continental possessions if they harbored the rebellious churchman. Soon after Becket's arrival at Pontigny, the irate king sent thither the primate's relatives and friends, turned out to beggary, in order that their plight might oppress the archbishop's spirit. The third exile from Canterbury, and the saint who has given his name to Pontigny's abbatial, was a gentler spirit. St. Edmund Rich knew France as well as his native region of Oxford, having studied in Paris University and taught there for years. It is told how his mother, Mabel, sent him to the foreign schools with a hair shirt and a cord whip in his gripsack in order that he might learn to chastise and thus curb himself. She was a merchant's wife, and alone reared her family, to enable her husband to follow the call he felt for the cloister; two of her daughters died the saintly abbesses of Catesby. At the knee of that XIII-century mother the little Edmund, as a child, recited every Sunday the entire book of Psalms. While lecturing at Oxford he initiated the study of Aristotle. In Paris, St. Edmund watched the cathedral of Notre Dame perfecting itself, and at Salisbury, while treasurer, he assisted at the laying of the corner stone of the Gothic cathedral in 1220. Worsted in the struggle to right crying abuses in English church affairs where the king kept bishoprics vacant for his financial profit, and the queen filled the sees with her own unpopular foreign relatives, the archbishop, accompanied by his chancellor, St. Richard, was on his way to Rome to remonstrate. He thought it wrong to condone further by his presence evils he was powerless to correct. He paused in Burgundy, and there death came to him in 1243. To-day his tomb stands over the high altar of the abbey church named St. Edmé, in his memory. Puritan Bernard most certainly would not approve the gymnastic-limbed angels that decorate the present Renaissance tomb of St. Edmund, but one fears that he would give his sanction to the whitewash that disfigures the interior of the interesting Primary Gothic church. To the canonization ceremonies at Pontigny in honor of St. Edmund of Abingdon came St. Louis (who had known him well in Paris) and Blanche of Castile, and notables such as the archbishop-builder of Bourges Cathedral, and St. Richard, now become bishop at Chichester, in which cathedral his tomb was destroyed, in 1538, by order of Henry VIII. Few spots in France are more entirely apart from the come-and-go of modern life than is forgotten Pontigny, _parfumée de souvenirs_. THE ABBATIAL OF VÉZELAY[290] Il y a des lieux qui tirent l'âme de sa léthargie, des lieux enveloppés, baignés de mystère, élus de toute éternité pour être le siège de l'émotion religieuse ... l'héroique Vézelay, le mont Saint-Michel, qui surgit comme un miracle des sables mouvants ... lieux qui nous commandaient de faire taire nos pensées et d'écouter plus profond que notre coeur. Silence! les dieux sont ici! Il y a des lieux où souffle l'Esprit.--MAURICE BARRÉS, _La colline inspirée_.[291] The supreme excursion from Avallon is that to Vézelay, ten miles away. One can drive to it or walk to it, since no railway touches the valley which once was the beaten thoroughfare for Christendom marching to crusades. A good way to approach it in the proper spirit of pilgrimage is to walk from the station at Sermizelle with the church of St. Magdalene as the lodestar to guide one's steps. Vézelay has the aspect of a hill city of Umbria. The abbey church, Gothic in its choir, Romanesque in its nave, transition in its forechurch, and practically all of it of the XII century, crowns the hill like a cathedral. "_Le grand nom de Vézelay sonne aux oreilles avec une sauvage poésie. La majesté du site est digne de la splendeur du monument._"[292] Always afterward will you remember this abode of reverie with that uplift of the heart which high art and high thoughts arouse. Like loved sites in Umbria, this, too, is "one of the earth's oases of spiritual rest and refreshment." The abbey was founded in the IX century by Girard de Roussillon[293] of _chanson de geste_ fame, but its position as a leading pilgrim shrine was not established till Abbot Geoffrey was installed in 1037. Only then did the relics of the Magdalene appear here, given, it was claimed, by Charles Martel as reward for Burgundian aid during Saracen inroads in the Midi. Monseigneur Duchesne thinks that from Vézelay started the legends so loved in Provence, that the privileged family of Bethany, with others who had known the Lord, fled from persecution in Syria to the mouth of the Rhone about A.D. 40. Up to the XI century the Christian world had accepted Ephesus as the burial place of the Magdalene, and the tomb of Lazarus was claimed by Cyprus. In 899 the Emperor Leo VI had removed both bodies to Constantinople, where he built a church for them. Not a trace of the tradition concerning the Bethany sisters and brother is to be found in France before Vézelay monastery claimed the possession of the relics of the Magdalene and dedicated its church to her. [Illustration: _Vézelay's XII-century Abbey Church of the Madeleine_] The founder of Vézelay freed its abbot of the control of local bishop or baron by establishing him as feudal proprietor of the town. The result was that the history of the abbey was a stormy one. The neighboring proprietors, resenting the abbot's independence, excited against him the townspeople who had grown rich from the fairs held during the pilgrimages. The burghers chafed at their serfdom to the monastery, and in 1106, during riots, they murdered Abbot Artaud. He probably was the builder of the Romanesque choir to which was originally attached the actual nave, since there is record of a dedication ceremony at Vézelay in 1104. As the archives were burned by the Calvinists in 1560, no precise dates exist for the church, but M. Lefèvre-Pontalis thinks that the crypt under the choir is of Abbot Artaud's time. A fire in which hundreds perished occurred in 1120. The present nave could not have been in use before then. When it was completed the builders proceeded to erect a forechurch of three bays, and between it and the nave was opened the famous portico which has been called worthy of Paradise. Innocent II, in 1132, blessed the new parts of the abbatial. He had lately consecrated the cathedral of Piacenza, and at Pavia in that same year was blessed San Pietro-in-Ciel-d'Ore. North and south of the Alps the same energies were astir, but no sculpture of that period in Italy equals that of Vézelay. The date of the imaged portal of Ferrara Cathedral is 1135, and that of St. Zeno at Verona, 1183. The nave at Vézelay had no triforium, nor was there a tribune over the aisles. However, in the narthex they built upper galleries, under whose lean-to roof was concealed a quarter-circle wall that did the work of a continuous flying buttress. The principal span was still further counterbutted by the side aisles themselves. Over the easternmost bay of the narthex appeared a vault section with Gothic ribs, but the diagonals were more decorative than functional; the vault web of rubble in a bed of mortar was molded on a temporary frame like a groin vault. Pointed arches were employed in the main arcade of the forechurch. Vézelay's capitals rivet attention, so dramatic are the Bible stories related--the suicide of Judas, David and Goliath, Absalom, Moses, some symbolized vices and virtues, too, and a few _genre_ studies. The capital of the fifth pier on the north side of the nave shows field laborers who carry cones which some say were used for scattering grain, and others think were for the vintage, or for honey-gathering; the same agricultural scene was represented at Cluny. Vézelay even ornamented with sculpture some of the bases of its piers. The triple doors between narthex and nave are a supreme work. At the middle trumeau stands John the Baptist, he who was sent before to prepare the way, the announcer as well as the witness. On the disk which he holds was once carved the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world. Observe that the trumeau was made narrow at its base, in order to let pass the pilgrim throngs. At each side of the door stand a few apostles, and among them M. Viollet-le-Duc cited St. Peter as one of the earliest attempts to escape the stereotyped Byzantine models by portraying individual expression in imagery. In the tympanum is the Pentecost, or perhaps it may be called more exactly the Messiah's mandate to the apostles: Go, teach all nations. Christ is surrounded by a gloria, and the Greek cross of his nimbus symbolizes divinity. From his outstretched hands spread rays which touch the head of each apostle. The explanations of the lintel stone have been various. It would seem to represent the strange peoples of the world to be won by Gospel preaching. Around the tympanum are eight medallions, thought to interpret John the Evangelist and the seven churches of Asia he exhorted. In 1136 an Auvergne noble, Pons de Montboissier, became abbot of Vézelay (d. 1161), when the forechurch was practically finished, but without doubt while its statuary was in progress, for certain uncut sides of the capitals prove that the stones were set up in the rough and carved _in situ_. Under Abbot Pons, Vézelay emancipated itself from Cluniac rule. He was the brother of Peter the Venerable of Cluny, who had become prior of Vézelay at twenty years of age. In vain the amenable Peter counseled Pons to show a more conciliatory spirit toward the restless townsmen, but Pons was as stubbornly convinced of the righteousness of his monastery's privileges as is many a modern landlord who holds vast areas among the unlanded millions. He held a stiff head against popular demands, the trouble grew aggravated, and the embittered burghers passed beyond their first fair demands and compromised their cause. Abbot Pons was driven out, but returned a victor after Louis VII had investigated the case and imposed a heavy fine on the citizens. Some have thought that the penalty money was expended on the elaborate sculptures of the abbey church. The people might oppose their feudal master, but they were aware that their material prosperity came from the pilgrimage church of the monastery, and each Burgundian was proud to show the visiting strangers the region's exceptional ability in stonecutting. In Vézelay occurred two notable gatherings of mediæval history. Here, on March 31, 1146, St. Bernard preached the Second Crusade, on the hillside without the northern gate. Abbot Pons built on the site the chapel of the Holy Cross, wherein was preserved the tribune on which the saint had stood. The leaders of France flocked into this valley of Burgundy, Louis VII and his brilliant queen, Aliénor of Aquitaine.[294] St. Bernard had been commissioned by the pope to set the new venture in motion, and he threw his whole passionate heart into the enterprise. Standing above the vast gathering, he read the papal letter that told of Odessa's fall, two years earlier, and the horrifying massacre of eastern Christians. It was sound statesmanship that discerned the menace of the Eastern Question; the advance of the Seljukian Turk was indeed a knotty problem for the XII century, when XX-century Europe, after oceans of blood, has not settled the trouble. We may be sure that Bernard of Clairvaux used no flatteries in addressing the throng at Vézelay, if his public word was as uncompromising as his private letters: "Up! soldier of Christ! Go, expiate your sins! The breath of corruption is on every side. The license of manners is unchecked. Brigandage goes unpunished. _Debout, soldats du Christ!_" We know that his words of flame swept the crowd, and that, as at Clermont, fifty years earlier, again rose the cry: "God wills it! The Cross! The Cross!" The seductive queen, whose equivocal conduct on this very crusade was to start centuries of calamity for France, threw herself at Bernard's feet, to receive from his hand the Cross. The lowly people jostled with the lords to take the vow, "_les menues gens et les gens de grand air_," for crusades were democratic things that did more than aught else to break up feudal autocracy. The eager men and women of 1146 knelt in the actual nave and narthex of Vézelay's abbatial. The choir which we have to-day was not yet built. In 1165 a fire damaged the choir of the Madeleine. A year later the exiled archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, excommunicated his enemies in England from Vézelay's pulpit. The new choir was built mainly under Abbot Girard d'Arcy (1171-96), and is Burgundy's Primary Gothic, though a generation behind the work of that phase in the Ile-de-France. Unpracticed hands made its vaulting, whose web is not built elastically as in the true Gothic fashion; the stones were welded in a compact mass by a bath of mortar. Viollet-le-Duc suggested that Abbot Hugues, deposed by the pope in 1206 for indebtedness, may have expended more than he should on the church. The choir was well advanced when, in July of 1191, the second great gathering at Vézelay occurred. Here Philippe-Auguste and Richard Coeur-de-Lion met, swore eternal friendship, and then marched south together for the Third Crusade. Before ever they reached Palestine their pact of good will was broken, as was only to be expected with the virus of the Capet-Angevin duel in their veins. Richard's mother, Aliénor, had flouted Philippe's father, her first husband, on the former great enterprise for the East which had been initiated at Vézelay. The Madeleine church reconstructed its west frontispiece in the XIII century in order to light better its narthex; the pignon is overheavy and rather odd. Three times St. Louis came to pray in the famous Burgundian pilgrim church, his last visit being a few months before his death while crusading in Africa. Then, in Provence in 1279, was discovered what was claimed to be the real body of the Magdalene. Before the XIII century was ended the prestige of Vézelay's pilgrimages was a thing of the past. The monastery's ruin was consummated during the religious wars.[295] Such was the decrepitude into which the splendid church fell, that only a complete restoration by Viollet-le-Duc, from 1840 to 1858, saved the edifice from collapse. Because Vézelay's nave belongs to Burgundy's school of Romanesque it is spacious and amply lighted; no gloom, no cramping here. Such a nave could lead up to a Gothic choir, without sharp contrast. The choir, taken by itself, may be a cold work, but the sublimity of its setting places it beyond criticism. There is no more romantically ideal a vista in architecture than the white choir of Vézelay, as it appears from the narthex through the imaged portico. Seen thus down the prospect of the sober nave four hundred feet away, it rises like the crusaders' dream of the Heavenly Jerusalem. The dominant note of Vézelay's interior is serenity. Pace up and down its deserted aisles as a warm June day fades. The rose glow of sunset transmutes the coarse, porous stones to glory and the church seems voicing, _securo e gaudioso_, the grand old plain-chant psalmody which through long centuries echoed here. With you, like a tangible presence, is Faith's certitude, the certitude of John the Baptist who witnessed, the vision of John the Evangelist who loved, the impassioned tranquillity of Mary of Magdala. Here reigns the benignant gladness, _benigna letizia_, that Dante attributes to St. Bernard in Paradise. The luminous stillness of Vézelay testifies that he that cometh to God must believe that He is. Here Faith is an overwhelming acquiescence of the conscience as entire as was the belief of the men and women of the XII century who, when they heard the preacher's word, responded with the cry: "The Cross! The Cross!" In the solitary abbatial of to-day, half forgotten on a bypath of the world, breathes the living quietude, the active repose, the voluntary discipline of its old Benedictine builders. "Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not. Without faith, it is impossible to please God." Like the Tag, in India, there is here a supersensual art beauty that renews the jaded spirit. Both have been embalmed for eternity in a vivifying peace. "Without holiness no man shall see God," thought the faulty, vehement, crusading generations who prayed in Vezelay's church, and holiness, then, meant primarily the humble repentance of sins. Whoever it was built the tomb of the Indian princess at Agra, whoever it was built the church in Burgundy called after Mary of Magdala, he worked in something more than stones and mortar. At Agra you end by thinking that the secret of the enthralling magic lies in the marvel of atmosphere, the deep soft shadows which break the dazzling sun expanses. At Vézelay, in the groping effort to put its spell into words, you end by saying that the beauty lies in the space which the inclosing walls have so holily shut in. But what analysis or what detailed description can convey how the spirit is impressed by this shrine, named for the Sinner who poured out the precious ointment with a Faith and Love so complete that it washed her clean! In such a church come flashes of insight, momentary liftings of the veil, periods of mental fecundity that make clear why the true mystic passes without loss from his isolated reverie of Divine Love to an intensely practical activity, and when you begin to understand that you are on the way to a comprehensive sympathy with that pillar of French Christianity, that apostle sent of God as surely as was Paul to the Gentiles--Bernard the Burgundian, who prayed and preached in this abbey church. THE GOTHIC COLLEGIATE AT SEMUR-EN-AUXOIS[296] Les Français, fils ainés de l'antiquité, Romain par le génie, sont Grec par le caractère. Inquiets et volages dans le bonheur; constant et invincibles dans l'aversité; formés pour les arts; civilisés jusqu'à l'excès durant le calme de l'État; grossiers et sauvages dans les troubles politiques; flottants comme des vaisseaux sans lest au gré des passions; enthusiastes du bien et du mal; aimants pusillanimes de la vie pendant la paix; prodigues de leur jours dans les batailles; charmants dans leur pays; insupportable chez l'étranger; tels furent les Athéniens d'autrefois, tels sont les Français d'aujourd'hui.--CHATEAUBRIAND. If the traveler has chosen little Avallon as the center from which to explore Burgundian churches, Semur-en-Auxois, lying a few miles to its east, will soon be visited. Picturesque and well kept, it is perched on a crest round which loops the river, a site such as a feudal baron chose, when possible, for his lair. The donjon towers at Semur belonged to a fortress built by Duke Philippe le Hardi. The collegiate church of Notre Dame, included with the best Gothic work in Burgundy, derived indirectly from the choir of Auxerre Cathedral, through the church of Our Lady at Dijon. About 1225 the builders began to replace the XI-century Notre Dame at Semur by the present edifice, which reproduced the columnal piers with salient crockets that distinguish the most beautiful of Dijon's churches. By 1250 they had terminated the choir, transept, and the bay of the nave touching the transept. The nave and transept are too narrow for their height, because they followed the same ground plan as the antecedent Romanesque church. Burgundy seemed to enjoy a problem in construction. Here, the arches of the vault being excessively pointed, the flying buttresses were made with a radius greater than is to be found elsewhere. Early in the XIV century, three new bays were added to the nave, as is shown by their main arches, which are more pointed than those of the earlier bays. Then about 1370, probably after a fire, the nave's stone roof was rebuilt and its triforium suppressed. The religious wars of the XVI century played havoc here in Notre Dame. During the Revolution, for two entire weeks, cartload after cartload of art treasures was carried away from the collegiate. Happily, the transept's northern portal escaped destruction, for it is a small masterpiece of Burgundian sculpture. Its tympanum relates the adventures in India of St. Thomas the Apostle, whose builder's rule was said to be of gold, in emblem of his spiritual masoncraft. St. Jerome would not sanction the Indian legends of the architect apostle, but the story of King Goldoforus and St. Thomas lingered in popular favor. In one of the chapels of Semur's collegiate church is a XIV-century window dedicated to no saint, telling no Scriptural story, but merely setting forth, in large, clear panels, the working day of various artisans--dyer, vintager, butcher, tailor. The theologians who directed the iconography of mediæval churches permitted the old guildsmen to translate into sign language their sensible idea that honest work was prayer. The keystone over the sanctuary of Notre Dame, where eight ribs meet, is the most beautiful ever carved--a Coronation of the Virgin. Throughout the church the sculpture is exceptional. In the choir and transept, carved heads lean out from the triforium's spandrels, heads of monarch, bishop, monk, nun, and chatelaine, with here and there a grinning mask or grotesque. The restorer has followed a wrong path when he makes the exaggerated images in XIII-century sculpture exceed the ideal or realistic ones. Semur's triforium is among the most beautiful in Gothic art. On some of the capitals of the collegiate are vintage scenes, as was natural in this land of famous wines. There are noted modern vineyards, such as Chambertin and Vougeot, which were cultivated by the monks of Cluny and Cîteaux for many a long century. THE CATHEDRAL OF AUXERRE[297] J'erre à pas muets dans ce profond asile, Solitude de pierre, immuable, immobile, Image du séjour par Dieu même habité, Où tout est profondeur, mystère, éternité ... La voix du clocher en son doux s'évapore; Et, le front appuyé, contre un pilier sonore, Je le sens, tout ému du retentissement, Vibrer comme une clef d'un céleste instrument ... Les rayons du soir que l'Occident rappelle, Éteignent au vitraux leur dernière étincelle, Au fond du sanctuaire un feu flottant qui luit, Scintille comme un oeil ouvert sur cette nuit; Alors, portant mes yeux des pavés à la voûte Je sens que dans ce vide une oreille m'écoute, Qu'un invisible ami dans la nef répandu, M'attire à lui, me parle un langage entendu, Se communique à moi dans un silence intime Et dans son vaste sein m'enveloppe et m'abîme. --LAMARTINE (1790-1869; born in Burgundy). At Auxerre, on the Yonne, two Gothic edifices stand imposingly above the city, the cathedral of St. Stephen and the abbatial church named after that bishop of Auxerre, St. Germain, who foretold the sanctity of _la pucellette_ Geneviève in the village of Nanterre by Paris, and whose own sanctity was so assured that more churches have been called for him than for any other saint of France save the supreme St. Martin himself. Paris put her church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois under his protection. He had been the ruler of this region of middle France under the Emperor Honorius, and was a soldier and devoted to sports; yet the old bishop of Auxerre, St. Amâtre, chose him as his successor, divining in him a man destined to do great things for God. The splendid abbey church at Auxerre stands on the site of the oratory which rose over the grave of St. Germain. Queen Clotilde on her way to wed Clovis, pausing here in 490, renewed the shrine by a church, which became the nucleus for an abbey favored by all three dynasties of France--Merovingian, Carolingian, and Capetian.[298] The monastery was a noted school whither came St. Patrick, and many generations later St. Thomas Becket studied here after he had finished his law courses at Bologna. In memory of Auxerre's reputation as a teacher, the cathedral has twice represented the Liberal Arts, in glass and in sculpture. The choir of St. Étienne Cathedral was begun about 1215 by a well-known schoolman, Bishop Guillaume de Seignelay, who undertook it at his own expense, stimulated thereto by some of the parish churches which had lately been rebuilt in the new way. The crypt (c. 1130), retained under the choir of the new cathedral, had been begun by the bishop, St. Hugues de Châlons, a friend of St. Bernard, and probably finished by his successor, Hugues de Mâcon (1137-51), the first abbot of Pontigny, and St. Bernard's kinsman and childhood intimate. Of the cathedral of their day only the present crypt remains. When Bishop Guillaume de Seignelay was transferred to the see of Paris, in 1220, he worked on the west façade of Notre Dame of the capital, and his successor at Auxerre, Henri de Villeneuve, completed the choir of St. Étienne in 1234. Two lancets in the sanctuary are his gifts. The cathedral of Auxerre was building at both ends, while between lay the ancient Romanesque nave. The easternmost bay of the nave is XIII century, but the next five bays were erected only during the XIV century, at which time most of the statues of the western portals were done. With the choir's superb stained glass they form the supreme accessory of this cathedral. M. Enlart holds Auxerre's imagery to be, for delicacy and charm, among the best produced by the XIV century, and that the statuettes of the Liberal Arts, in the spandrels over the canopies of the David-Balthazar groups, are equal to Greek terra-cotta figurines. The Judgment of Solomon by the northwest door is excellent. Within and without the stonecutting of the transept's southern façade should be observed. At that entrance appeared an early example of an accoladed arch, cited by M. Enlart as an indication of the English derivation of Flamboyant Gothic in France, since during the XIV century they were masters of Auxerre for a time. As the Hundred Years' War relaxed building enterprise, the nave was not covered by a masonry roof till the XV century, about the time when Jeanne d'Arc paused to pray in Auxerre Cathedral on her memorable journey of eleven days from Lorraine to Touraine, across a France ravaged by civil and foreign wars.[299] The gracious Flamboyant west front of Auxerre's chief church is an expression of the hope and national pride renewed in France by the Maid's feat at Orléans. The well-designed north tower proves that the final phase of Gothic art in France did not pass away in decrepitude; had only the south tower been raised above the roof, this frontispiece could claim foremost rank. For bold and light construction Auxerre's choir is notable, and it made a school in Burgundian Gothic. It has only one radiating chapel--that in the axis--because it followed the ground plan of the Romanesque crypt, its foundation. The charming Champagne disposition of planting columns between chapel and ambulatory was made use of; perhaps the pillars and stilted arches of Auxerre are rather too frail in their proportions. The same feature was used in the abbey church of St. Germain, and when the church of St. Eusèbe[300] rebuilt its chevet, in the XV century, pillars were again placed to divide the curving aisle and the radiating chapels. Auxerre Cathedral showed another trait of the Champagne school of Gothic--an interior passageway beneath the aisle windows. The plain wall below it is relieved by a kind of arched corbel course not very satisfactory; the arches and the capitals upon which they rest are present, but there is no shaft to support the capitals, from above each of which reaches out a well-sculptured head. One of these busts represents the Erythræan priestess referred to in the _Dies iræ_: That day of wrath, that dreadful day, When Heaven and Earth shall pass away, As David and the Sibyl say. The XIII century distinguished only that one sibyl whom St. Augustine's _City of God_ had popularized as the prophetess of the Last Judgment, but later in the Middle Ages all ten of them were represented, and certain Renaissance windows represented as many as twelve pagan prophetesses. The placing of sculptured heads in the spandrels of arches was not infrequent in Burgundy, though occasionally merely one salient crocket was used. The cathedral of Nevers,[301] south of Auxerre, went a step farther and chiseled a small figurine in the spandrels of its triforium, like the angels of Lincoln's choir. Moreover, the colonettes of Nevers' triforium are borne on the backs of small crouching caryatides--a Lombard echo. In France, Nevers' cathedral of St. Cyr was exceptional in having an apse at both east and west ends, like a Rhenish church. One is forced to relegate the beautiful little capital of the Nivermois to a footnote, which is what France herself seems to be doing to the well-set town on the Loire which in England or beyond the Rhine would be made into a small residence city. Its palace, parks, cathedral, and numerous churches, its faïence industry and fortifications give it the air of a little capital. Auxerre is another Mecca of stained glass in France. Its choir possesses almost forty windows (1220-30) of the school of Chartres, half of them being in the ambulatory and Lady chapel. Unfortunately, the lower panels were wrecked in 1567, and the east window of the axis chapel was destroyed in the Franco-Prussian war; the grisaille design throughout is mastery. The opaline loveliness of the choir's clearstory grisaille has drawn from M. Viollet-le-Duc one of his most eloquent pages.[302] Each bay is filled with twin lancets surmounted by a rose; each lancet has a large figure set in uncolored glass--one of the first attempts made to give more light to an interior. Those crusading generations visioned their Heavenly Jerusalem in sculpture at Vézelay, in color at Auxerre: With jaspers glow thy bulwarks, Thy streets with emeralds blaze, The sardius and the topaz Unite in thee their rays: Thine ageless walls are bonded With amethyst unpriced; The saints build up its fabric, And the corner stone is Christ. They stand, those halls of Zion, Conjubilant with song, And bright with many an angel, And all the martyr throng: The Prince is ever in them; Their daylight is serene, The pastures of the blessed Are decked in glorious sheen. There is the throne of David, And there, from care released, The song of them that triumph, The shout of them that feast; And they who, with their leader, Have conquered in the fight, For ever and for ever Are clad in robes of white.[303] In the roses of the two bays neighboring the central lancets are the Liberal Arts and virtues contrasted with vices. The choir aisle has a Creation window, and lancets of the popular St. James, St. Nicolas, and St. Eustace. The transept's south rose is Rayonnant. Its north one is Flamboyant, and with the eight golden lights below it was given by Bishop François de Dinteville, the younger (1530-52), who donated also the _Gloria in Excelsis_ west rose. But no sooner were all these precious things installed when came the bitter civil wars of the XVI century. No place in France suffered more than Auxerre. An eyewitness of the 1567 sacking wrote: "All the woes of Jerusalem when it fell to the infidel are heaped on our city." Many a citizen died of grief at the town's desolation, and so devastated was every single church that for months no services were held. A restoration was accomplished by Bishop Jacques Amyot (1571-93), the noted Hellenist, who first brought flexibility and amenity into French prose.[304] His translation of Plutarch--a French classic--molded the ideals of French youth for generations. Unfortunately, because imported foreign taste had won the victory over the national art, this enlightened Renaissance prelate removed some of the ancient windows to light his high altar. His marble bust adorns a pier of the choir of Auxerre Cathedral. DIJON[305] Eternal, je me tais; en ta sainte présence Je n'ose respirer, et mon âme en silence Admire la hauteur de ton nom glorieux. Que dirai-je? Abîmés de cette mer profonde, Pendant qu'à l'infini ta clarté nous inonde, Pouvons-nous seulement ouvrir nos faibles yeux? * * * Cessez: qu'espérez-vous de vos incertitudes, Vains pensers, vains efforts, inutiles études? C'est assez qu'il ait dit: "Je suis Celui qui suis." Il est tout, il n'est rien de tout ce que je pense; Avec ces mots profonds j'adore son essence Et sans y raisonner, en croyant, je poursuis! --BOSSUET, _Tibi silentium laus_ (1627-1704; born in Dijon). [Illustration: _Notre Dame at Dijon (1220-1245). Burgundian Gothic_] And finally we come to the capital of Burgundy, to a city of prime importance in the art history of France, although it can claim no one supreme monument. Dijon's leadership was from 1364 to 1477, under the four art-loving Valois princes, Philippe le Hardi (1364-1404), Jean sans Peur (1404-19), Philippe le Bon (1419-67), and Charles le Téméraire (1467-77). "Never," says Brantôme, "were there four greater princes one after the other than the great dukes of Burgundy." Each in turn on his formal entry into Dijon came to the abbey church of St. Bénigne to take oath to defend the special privileges of his capital. Tradition says that St. Benignus was sent to Christianize Gaul by St. Polycarp, who had known John the Evangelist. The hypothesis is possible, since it is historically certain that Polycarp provided Lyons with its first two bishops. Many a son of Dijon has borne the revered name of Bénigne, none with greater honor for his native city than Bossuet, descended from ancient parliamentary stock. The neo-classic taste of the great preacher's day might prevent his knowing Gothic architecture rightly, but without the centuries that built mediæval cathedrals he had not been what he was.[306] Dijon became the capital of Burgundy under the first line of Capetian dukes who governed the province from 1032 to 1361 and who gave the city its franchise and privileges. A duke of Burgundy led the right wing at Bouvines, another fought under St. Louis at Mansourah. From Burgundy's reigning line came Pope Calixtus II (1119-24), whose brother went crusading in Spain, where he founded the house from which descended Queen Isabella; Burgundian Capetians also reigned in Portugal. Cluny and Cîteaux were favored by the first line of Burgundy's dukes, to which belonged, by ties of blood, the two greatest abbots of their respective Orders, St. Hugues and St. Bernard. In 1361 the last duke died childless and the duchy returned to the French crown. Three years later the Valois Capetian king, Jean le Bon, gave Burgundy to his youngest and favorite son, Philippe le Hardi, who won his surname of valiant when fifteen years of age through his defense of his father at the battle of Poitiers. When Philippe, by the generous aid of his brother, King Charles V, wedded the richest heiress in Europe, the very plain Marguerite of Flanders, there resulted the political union of Burgundy with the Netherlands that was of important influence on French art. It led to the formation at Dijon of a French-Flemish school of sculpture. The robust middle region of France impressed its own character on the masters from the Lowlands who flocked to the semi-royal court of the dukes, and equally it assimilated the artists who came from Lyons and neighboring regions. The Flemish-Burgundian style controlled the first half of the XV century. Its fusion of national and local art traditions with Flemish realism renewed the vigor of French sculpture, and a truly French Renaissance had already set in before the advent of the Italian spirit. In Dijon took place the evolution that changed the sculpture of the Middle Ages to that of modern times. The artists who had gathered around Charles V in Paris, were scattered by that king's premature death and the subsequent disorders in the royal domain, and they flocked to the Burgundian court of his brother. Among them were André and Guy de Dammartin, who erected outside the gates of Dijon the Chartreuse of Champmol (1388-96) as a burial place for the Valois line of dukes. The work of the Dammartin family--with whom Flamboyant Gothic became a heritage passing from father to son--can be found at Bourges, Poitiers, Tours, Le Mans, and Nantes. What parts of the Chartreuse monastery now remain constitute an asylum. The sculptured portal of the church shows kneeling images of Philippe le Hardi and his duchess Marguerite, and in the cloister is the noted Well of the Prophets, conceived, and in part executed, by Claus Sluter in 1395, and finished by his nephew, Claus de Werve, in 1403. The _Puits de Moïse_ was so called because the statue of Moses, alone of the six prophets, shows religious analogy with the biblical character it stands for. The others are realistic studies of tradesman, rich citizen, or Jew, in eccentric costumes that probably were copied from those in the mystery plays of the day. With these prophet images of Claus Sluter, modern sculpture took birth. The two most regal tombs of the Middle Ages, those of Philippe le Hardi and his son Jean sans Peur, were originally in the Chartreuse church, but were broken up by the Revolution. They were reset, for a time, in St. Bénigne's church, and now are installed in the XV-century guard hall of the ducal palace, a part of Dijon's Art Museum, raising that collection to first-class rank. Near them are placed the elaborately carved and painted altarpieces brought from Termonde by the dukes. The pomp and pageantry of the knighthood described by Froissart and Commines breathes in the two grandiose tombs of Dijon, and the progeny of sumptuous funereal monuments they inspired. Cowled figures called _pleureurs_ are set in niches around each sarcophagus. They seem like symbols of the lesser people's sufferings in the dire Hundred Years' War, when France became a field of carnage. Foreign invasion, the Great Schism of the West, pest, massacres, misrule, lawlessness--such was the accumulation of miseries that only the heaven-sent Jehanne la Pucelle, from the far borders of the land, could right the immeasurable _pitié_ there was in the kingdom of France. Though Burgundy suffered less than the royal domain, the lesser people had to pay heavily for the prodigal largess of their dukes. At times the lavish giving of Philippe le Hardi bordered upon folly; while on visits of state he was forced to put his jewels in pawn to obtain sufficient funds for his home journey. When he died, in 1404, it took six weeks for his funeral _cortège_ to journey from Brussels to Dijon, and those of his household who accompanied the body were provided with Capuchin capes of black cloth. That is the procession represented by the statuettes around his sarcophagus, though, unfortunately, the original order of their march has been lost. Among the eighty _pleurants_ of the two ducal tombs are only eight restorations. Jean de Marville, a Lorraine master, designed Duke Philippe's monument, whose imagery is in greater part from the hand of Claus Sluter and Claus de Werve, Netherlanders (1384-1411). De Werve made most of Duke Jean's monument, a replica of his father's tomb; it was finished by an Aragonese sculptor, Juan de Heurta, and Antoine le Moiturier from Avignon. The latter was nephew of Jacques Morel of Lyons, trained in the Dijon studios, who made for the daughter of John the Fearless, the Duchess of Bourbon, a tomb in Souvigny's abbatial near Moulins, which M. Enlart has called the most masterly work in sculpture of the XV century. Dijon built no XIII-century cathedral. What to-day is its cathedral was originally the abbey church of St. Bénigne, not of architectural pre-eminence, but rich in historic memories. Abbot Hugues d'Arcy began it in 1280, in the hour of hope and energy that followed on the Council of Lyons, where Greek and Latin churches fraternally united. In 1286 the choir was dedicated and the relics of St. Benignus transferred from the crypt to the new sanctuary. St. Bénigne of Dijon is a secondary church compared with its neighbors, the cathedrals of Bourges and Lyons. The profiles are emasculated, the clearstory windows lack sufficient height, the wall surface above the triforium is monotonous, the denuded triforium of the nave lacks capitals, and despite the warm brown color of the stone, the general aspect of the interior is glacial. The Gothic effect has been marred further by the numerous busts and statues brought here from other churches after the Revolution. Far surpassing in interest the somewhat pinchbeck Gothic upper church of St. Bénigne is its crypt, the oldest Romanesque monument in Burgundy. It lies beyond the actual apse. For eight hundred years it was the foundation of a rotunda church of the same type as the round church at Cambridge, England, the prototypes for both being certain Roman mausoleums. Originally the Dijon crypt opened westward on a crypt now lost--the basement for a Latin cross church--and where that juncture occurred are vestiges of buildings that antedate the actual crypt. The round church beyond the apse of St. Bénigne's Gothic abbatial was destroyed during the Revolution, and its crypt filled in and forgotten. In 1858, while digging foundations for a new sacristy beyond the choir, the circular chamber was unearthed, in which was found a tombstone, apparently the ancient one of St. Benignus. Once again the venerable subterranean shrine became a pilgrimage for Burgundy. St. Bénigne's crypt has double circular aisles. Its sculpture is rude, even amorphous, and testifies to the extinction of the art during the Barbarians' immigrations. These rough designs on the capitals of St. Bénigne are, as it were, the first stutterings of the national pæans in praise of God and country that are the imaged portals of Gothic cathedrals. Abbot William of Volpiano, who made St. Bénigne's Romanesque rotunda and its adjacent basilica, came from Cluny to reform the spiritual life of the Dijon monastery and rebuild its church. Born on an island in the lake of Orta, he had crossed the Alps with Abbot Majolus of Cluny. For over thirty years he exercised his double function of administrative reformer and architect in Burgundy[307] and in Normandy, introducing certain Lombard features such as alternating piers, arched corbel courses, and superimposed arcades for decorative effect, this latter being a Ravennate motive adopted by Lombardy. He began his two connecting churches at Dijon in 1001, and completed them in 1018, when there was a solemn dedication at which St. William preached most movingly. St. Bénigne is, therefore, the first-recorded monument built after the terrors of the year 1000, described by Raoul Glaber, who lived in this monastery. William of Volpiano founded schools, taught the plain chant to children, revised Gregorian music, and established centers for craftsmen. In manner he was authoritative, but one on intimate terms with him wrote: "No one can tell to what degree in him rose mercy and compassion. In famine time, he sold the gold plate of the church to feed the people." To this day a gateway of Dijon bears his name, the Porte Guillaume. A century later Abbot Jarenton of St. Bénigne invited monks from Cluny to reanimate the spiritual life of his monastery. Paschal II blessed the Dijon abbatial, repaired after the fall of a tower in 1096. When in 1107 Aleth de Montbard, mother of St. Bernard, died in her castle two miles from Dijon, Abbot Jarenton hastened out to Fontaine-lès-Dijon to claim the body of the saintly woman for his hallowed crypt of St. Bénigne, and an enthusiastic procession carried the Blessed Aleth to the city. St. Bernard was an unknown lad at the time. In 1131, Pope Eugene III blessed the Dijon abbatial subsequent to still other restorations. Finally, in 1271, the easternmost church of William of Volpiano was wiped out by fire (though his rotunda church was to stand till 1792), and the present St. Bénigne was begun immediately on the site of the destroyed Latin cross basilica. If the ex-abbatial which is now Dijon's cathedral is secondary in size and character, the parish church of Notre Dame is a veritable gem of Gothic architecture, faultless in construction and of singular purity and unity. Its influence on the Gothic art of the province was widespread. After a fire in 1137, which consumed half the city, a Romanesque Notre Dame had risen. It was cited, in 1178, as the first of the town, its bells sounding the opening and the shutting of the city gates and alarms for fire. The present church of Notre Dame was begun about 1220; a record referred to it as in use in 1245. The architect had to contend with difficulties. His funds were so small that a minimum of building material was necessary. Three sides of his edifice were bounded by public thoroughfares; hence it was impossible to spread out the piles required by flying buttresses; at the same time the limited plot of ground made it imperative not to encumber the small interior by clumsy piers. How to construct a secure edifice without big piers, thick walls, or flying buttresses was the problem. The builder showed his genius when he used the inclosure wall to counterbut the vault thrust and yet dared open these walls by generous Gothic windows. For ten feet above the ground the walls are heavy; then they become a mere shell, skillfully doubled by the use of colonnettes of durable stone, each slender shaft being so weighted that it stands with the security of iron. The interior of Notre Dame appears charmingly spacious and airy. The XVII century added circular windows to the triforium of the apse, in character with the church, however. The exterior of the apse is plain and neat and, with the central lantern tower, composes an architectural group of simple elegance. The eastern buttresses fulfill a triple function as piers, as walls, and as counterbutting members. Technical subtlety is to be found throughout Notre Dame. The vaults of the side aisles were constructed to brace the principal span. The piers are uniform monoliths, but a sexpartite vault was built, though for a generation that system had been discarded in the north. The coping stones over the capitals of each alternate pier were enlarged to catch there the heavier weight. There are so many points of resemblance between Notre Dame of Dijon and the choir of Auxerre Cathedral, begun in 1215, that M. Charles Porée has thought that the same architect designed both. Their profiles are alike, their capitals have similar salient crockets, and their colonnettes were cut from the quarry according to the rock's horizontal strata, and not by the usual method of vertical cutting. In boldness of technique the small Dijon church is a masterpiece to which many an eloquent page has been devoted.[308] Beneath an apparent simplicity is unsurpassed scientific construction. The great engineer Vauban praised it, as did Soufflot, the XVIII-century architect of the Panthéon at Paris. The balanced equilibrium of the national art can be carried no farther, and only the use of hard Tonnerre stone permitted this successful audacity. Were a modern student to present such a plan to any commission, said M. Lassus, he would be dismissed as mad. While the nave was building a narthex was added before the western entrance, consisting of a fifty-foot-deep porch. Notre Dame's west façade rides astride two rows of pillars set close together before the narthex, again a case of strength being attained by the able use of double walls. The façade's superimposed arcades, used merely as decoration, as at Pisa, prevented the employment of strong buttress ridges, and give to the western front of the church a most un-Gothic aspect. It cannot be said that the lamp of truth is upheld, since the frontispiece makes no pretense to express the three-aisled interior, but rises above the roof like an abstract screen. The gargoyles that alternate with some ancient superbly cut panels of foliage across the west front, date only from 1881, and, as usual with restorations, the grotesque element has been overemphasized. A manuscript of the XIII century relates that the original gargoyles were removed when a bridegroom (a money-lender) about to enter the church was killed by the fall of a protruding image that represented a man gripping a money bag. The imagery of Notre Dame's portal has been entirely obliterated. When the Revolution voted to destroy "all signs of fanaticism," an apothecary of Dijon mounted a ladder each morning and leveled with his hammer all the stonecutters' work. The present image at the trumeau is a fragment saved from the late-Gothic Chartreuse of the Valois dukes. To Notre Dame Philippe le Hardi gave the Jacquemart[309] clock, one of his spoils from the sacking of Courtrai in 1382, whereat he had been assisted by the Dijon citizens _par loyauté et parfait amour_. SAINT BERNARD, AND CISTERCIAN INFLUENCE IN GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE[310] What is genius? It is a mind in which imagination, intelligence, and feeling exist in an elevated proportion and in an exact equation. It is a mind which has a penetrating view of ideas, which incarnates them powerfully in marble, in brass, in language, and in that dust which we call writing, which also communicates to ideas an impulse from the heart to precipitate them, living, into the hearts of others. Genius is, with conscience, the most beautiful endowment of humanity.... Genius is the greatest power created by God for grasping truth. It is a sudden and vast intuition of the connections which bind beings together.... It is the faculty of rendering ideas visible to those who would not have discovered them by themselves, of incarnating them in speaking images, of casting them into the soul, enlightening it, subjecting it, thrilling it.--LACORDAIRE (1802-61; born in Burgundy). Although modern Dijon may momentarily blot out much in its past history by renaming the square before Notre Dame _Place Ernest Renan, auteur de "La vie de Jésus"_ (which work depicts the Saviour as an unconscious charlatan), and christening the square before the cathedral _Place Blanqui, grand Révolutionnaire_ (Blanqui being the Communist who founded the journal _Ni Dieu ni Maître_), although it may mark one street sign _Rue Babeuf, écrivain politique, démocrate très ardente_ (the socialist, Babeuf, was executed under the Directory), and another with an equal pedantry that is most un-French, _Rue Diderot, auteur principale de l'Encyclopédie_ (the encyclopedia which railed at the Christian religion), none the less will the greatest honor of the ancient capital of Burgundy be the monk in whom western monasticism culminated, Bernard of Clairvaux, who led Dante to the Supreme Vision in Paradise, "who spoke to kings as a prophet, to the people as their leader, and transported Christendom by his eloquence," the greatest of Cistercians, the greatest of Burgundians, and the last great Doctor of the Church. As the XI century drew to a close, certain pious Benedictines, who regretted the laxity of rule in their own convent, retired to the marshy woods near Beaune, to Cîteaux, some twelve miles south of Dijon. There was started a new Order which languished during fifteen years, fever decimating the postulants, till the third abbot, St. Stephen Harding, stormed heaven with petitions to spare his dwindling flock. And efficacious prayers they appeared to be, for one spring day in 1113 there came to the abbey gates (Cîteaux' name signifies _Sistite hic_, Halt here!) a group of thirty young nobles, whose conversion was to set all Burgundy talking. Their leader was Bernard of Fontaine-lès-Dijon,[311] then in his twenty-fourth year. When he experienced the call to a monastic life, he drew after him brothers, cousins, uncle, and friends. His mother, the Blessed Aleth, had impressed ineffaceably on his soul her own ardent love of God. As Peter the Venerable said in that same generation: "With us the virgin, the wife, the mother, expand the soul of the country by the breath of their piety." When the small band of enthusiasts were quitting the château of Bernard's father, the elder brother and heir, Guy, told Nivard, the youngest of the six sons of Aleth, that now he alone remained to inherit the estate. "Ah," cried the lad, "you would leave me the earthly reward while you gain the eternal? The exchange is not fair." And in time he, too, sought his brothers in the cloister as did his father, who died in a Cistercian robe. All the nations of Europe were meeting then in the internationalism of monastic institutions. St. Stephen Harding, who was practically the founder of the Cistercian Order, who drew up its charter and began its centralized system of chapters-general, was an Englishman, educated in Sherborne abbey in Dorset, and later at Paris University. Feeling the desire to visit Rome in pilgrimage, he went there afoot, reciting each day, as he walked, the entire Psaltery. It is said that benignant joy shone in his face. To-day a Bible he translated is treasured in Dijon; he used to consult the learned rabbis of his acquaintance whenever in doubt concerning the Hebraic text. It was an hour of internationalism. A frequenter of St. Bernard's own Clairvaux was St. Malachy O'Morgair, archbishop of Armagh, who died in Bernard's arms in 1147. The Burgundian saint loved Malachy for his gentleness, his holiness, his delicacy of soul, and his noble majestic presence, and for him trained young Irish monks to serve in the reform needed then in the Celtic church, thus paying back to Ireland the debt incurred by the mission of Columbanus. With such souls as Bernard and his kinsmen, the new Order governed by Abbot Stephen Harding took on fresh vigor. Pontigny was founded a year later, and in 1115 Bernard and twelve companions were sent to establish Clairvaux[312] in a former robber haunt given by the Count of Champagne, a valley of wormwood which they turned into a valley of light. By the middle of the XIII century there were five hundred Cistercian houses in Europe. In England, from 1125 to 1200, rose a hundred monasteries of the white monks, Fountains, Furness, Tintern, Kirkstall, "God's castles," wrote a contemporary, "where the servants of the true anointed King do keep watch, and the young soldiers are exercised in warfare against spiritual evil." Many a Cistercian house was in Scotland and Ireland--Melrose, Mellifont, Boyle; in Germany and the north--Maulbronn, Arnsberg, Warnhem, and Sorö; in Spain--Poblet and Santa-Creus; in Portugal--Alcobaça. St. Bernard himself founded Chiaravalle near Milan, and on the spot of the Roman Campagna where St. Paul was beheaded flourished the Cistercian house of Tre Fontane, whose first abbot, trained under Bernard at Clairvaux, mounted Peter's Chair as Eugene III. Wherever the Cistercians went they promulgated the new Gothic building lore of France. Their churches with square east end, square chapels opening on transept arms, and neither tower, triforium nor clearstory, were built exactly alike whether it was in the far north as at Alvastra in Sweden, or in the far south as at Girgenti in Sicily. Burgundy's abbatial at Fontenay is the type at its purest. M. Camille Enlart was first to draw attention to the active rôle played by Cistercian monks in the dissemination of Gothic architecture in Europe.[313] All Cistercian churches were dedicated to the Mother of God, and the use of the gracious term _Notre Dame_ spread from their abbatials to the cathedrals. Dante opens the final canto of the _Paradiso_ by a eulogy of the Queen of Heaven, put into the mouth of St. Bernard, who never flagged in her praise, culling from Scripture every mystic and lovely name for her. _Io sono il suo fedel Bernardo_, the Burgundian proudly boasts in Paradise. Though Bernard's devotion to his _Dame souveraine_ was poles apart from Puritanism, his rules for ecclesiastic plainness were as rigid as those of the Puritans. His severe ideas concerning art restrained the earlier Cistercian churches, though his apostolate quickened the spiritual forces that soon were to rear the cathedrals. It has been said that to relate St. Bernard's life is to resume the history of the XII century during half its course. He ended the schism of an anti-pope; he went up and down Europe preaching unity and peace and reconciling enemies; he journeyed into Languedoc to combat, by word, the Catharist heresy; fearlessly he rebuked scandal in high places. He drew up the Rule for the Military Order of Templars. His _Book of Considerations_, written for Eugene III, became a manual of behavior for the papacy. His treatise on Grace and Free Will defined so perfectly the Church doctrine of Justification that almost textually it was repeated by the Council of Trent. No man ever received more overwhelming ovations than Bernard; at Toulouse they crowded to kiss his hand till his frail arms were swollen past all movement; at Albi a jeering crowd was subjugated by one sermon; in northern Italy, such was the reverence for the maker of peace between the rival cities, that Genoa chose him as a patron, and Milan placed herself under his protection. As he crossed the Alps, word passed among the mountaineers, and his way became a triumphal procession. He was worn to a shadow in the service of Christendom when Eugene III commissioned him to preach the Second Crusade, and when the expedition proved a lamentable failure, Heaven sent this strong man, who had passed unscathed through the intoxication of human glory, the severer test of human disgrace. The figure of the greatest proselytizer since St. Paul is no vague one in history. Bernard was tall and slender, with chiseled features like polished ivory; his hair was red-blond; in his blue eyes was a flame of celestial purity. Many have testified to the serenity of his visage, the modesty of his attitude, and the almost superhuman influence he exerted on those who saw him. They say that the very sight of him preached. Apart from the numerous descriptions of him by his contemporaries, there are over four hundred of his own letters extant, letters straightforward, abrupt, ironic here and there, fearless, and warm-hearted. He swayed emperors and kings, yet retained always his personal humility. Reluctantly he tore himself from the peace of Clairvaux to direct the affairs of Europe, and eagerly he returned to the life of prayer and brotherly love. A preacher, he said, must be a man of prayer if he would convert men. He must be a reservoir kept full and overflowing, not merely a canal that can run dry. Some to whom the spiritual life is a dead letter have called the abbot of Clairvaux unsympathetic and superhuman. Others, while admiring him, regret his brusqueness and hardy invectives. It was not a day when controversialists handled their adversaries with gloves; witness Abélard's onslaughts on those who disagreed with him on the most abstract theological points. No doubt, in some cases, Bernard's zeal exceeded propriety; perhaps his father had touched exactly on the defect of his qualities when he advised him to keep measure in all things. But who that appreciates this great man would tone down his splendid vehemence? His love for morality and pure doctrine was a glorious passion. He struck at the sin, not the sinner. Such censures are the anger of love. And remark how the men whom Bernard rebuked accepted the humiliation of his public censures. When he asked the archbishop of Sens--the feudal lord, Henri le Sanglier, who began that cathedral--if he thought justice had disappeared from the rest of the world as it had from his own heart, the proud churchman set about curbing his autocratic tendencies, and died an honored pastor. No disputants ever more soundly berated each other than Abélard and Bernard, yet their reconciliation, brought about by kindly, large-minded Peter of Cluny, was frank and complete. And we have seen how Abbot Suger changed his worldly ways of life, how he reformed his monastery, and how the revenues hitherto wasted on a retinue of sixty horsemen were devoted to building the first Gothic monument in France. St. Bernard was, without question, the most eloquent preacher of the Middle Ages, but the conversions he wrought were due as much to the purity, charity, and humility of his own life as to his unparalleled powers of persuasion. The ideal of that harsh age, despite its shortcomings, was saintliness, and when men found it incarnate in this Burgundian, they accepted him as their leader. Bernard held that it was false principles that led to social corruption, and to punish the evil act while the mental crime which led to it went unchastened, was illogical. So whenever the purity of Christian doctrine was threatened, this champion of the Cross emerged from his seclusion full armed for its defense. His vigilance was not bigotry. When a fanatical German monk preached a persecution of the Jews, the abbot of Clairvaux came to their defense: "The Just," an old rabbi called him, "without whom not one among our people had saved his life. Honor to him who came to our succor in our hour of mortal anguish." In all Bernard's writings is not one word of disloyalty to what he thought was right, not a trace of the hypocrite. If he thundered against ambition, cupidity, and that hypocrisy which moves about in dim corners, _perambulante in tenebris_, he knew that scandals there have been and will ever be, since even among the chosen twelve Judas betrayed, Peter denied, and Thomas doubted. He might flagellate ecclesiastic disorders as openly as Luther himself, but the pope called him the pillar of the Church and its guide. Towering above his fellow men morally, he took up his Master's cord whips to drive the traffickers from the temple, but he left an altar in the sanctuary and a high priest at the altar, and his own life was blameless. The choicest spirits of the age sought Bernard's friendship. He was loved by St. Norbert, whose new Order of Prémontré spread over Europe with the same rapidity as that of Cîteaux. He had links with the mystics in St. Victor's abbey at Paris; Hugues de St. Victor submitted cases of conscience to him; Richard de St. Victor asked of him criticism on his book on the Trinity; and the Latin hymns of Adam de St. Victor breathe the selfsame spirit as that of the Burgundian mystic. Geoffrey de Lèves, who built the tower at Chartres, traveled with him in Italy and Languedoc. Pierre de Celle, who built the choir of St. Remi, at Rheims, wrote of Bernard: "His life, his fame, his works, his writings, his miracles, his faith, his hope, his charity, his chastity, his abstinence, his words, his visage, his gestures, the attitude of his body, all, in a word, rendered homage to his sanctity. He was the well-beloved disciple of the Lord, in whose honor he built, not only one basilica, but all the basilicas of the Order of Cîteaux. If, then, thou wouldst touch the pupil of Our Lady's eye, write against Bernard." And the bishop of Paris, who worked on the façade of Notre Dame, the schoolman, Guillaume d'Auvergne, testified that Bernard "lived in the highest perfection," that his "wisdom proceeded not from human instruction, but from divine inspiration." The first great master of scholasticism, Guillaume de Champeaux, the progenitor of Paris University, was bound to Bernard in loving friendship till his death, and asked to be buried in the abbey church at Clairvaux. Detachment from the things of the world never weakened this saint's human affections. What cry from a stricken heart is more moving than Bernard's lament for his brother Gerard? That elder brother was following a knight's career when Bernard won him for God's service in the cloister. There for twenty-five years they lived side by side. They had just returned together from Italy when Gerard suddenly died. Dry-eyed, Bernard attended the burial, and dry-eyed he went about his daily tasks. He mounted the pulpit to continue an exposition of the Canticle of Canticles which he was conducting, and all at once his grief broke forth irresistibly in one of the sublime elegies of literature, recorded by a monk of Clairvaux who heard it: "What is there in common between this Canticle of joy and me who am in bitter anguish!... I have done violence to my heart.... Grief shut in but wounds with deeper sting. It has vanquished me. What I suffer must have its way. I must pour out my trouble before you, my sons, who knew the faithful comrade I have lost and the justice of my sorrow. You knew his vigilance, his sweetness; you knew my need of him. When I was weak in body, he strengthened me; when I hesitated he spurred me on; when I grew negligent he cautioned me. My Gerard! why have you left me to stumble alone on the road we two trod together, my brother by blood but still more by religion! Ah! I would know if you still think of one whom you loved, if, in God's presence, you can lean toward our distress? You have shed your mortal weaknesses, but surely not your human tendernesses, for charity endures, says the apostle. No! my Gerard does not forget me in eternity! It was our joy to be together, inextricably were our spirits interlinked, the same thoughts, the same emotions, the same will; one only heart, one only soul between us; with one blow, the sword has pierced my heart and his.... That I might have tranquillity he took on his own shoulders the material cares of the convent. It was his heart bore my troubles. His eyes led my steps. Now, when a need rises I turn to where I think to find him, and he is not there!... I am deprived of the best part of myself and I must not weep. My heart is torn from my bosom, and I must not suffer.... But my courage is not of stone.... I suffer, I weep, and my grief is ever before me...." And so on it runs, this lamentation with its Hebraic note of sorrow's passion. Impregnated through and through was Bernard with the Bible, and his speech fell naturally into its cadences. To mark the biblical references in his works would be, says the student, to fill half the pages with annotations. There is a book of interior consolation, precious to humanity, which has preserved for us intact the spiritual teachings of this Cistercian abbot who led the XII century. Scholars say that the _Imitation of Christ_ bears the direct impress of St. Bernard's spirit, that it reproduced and analyzed his writings. Whoever its author, his prayer _Da mihi nesciri_ has been answered. Those who have been comforted by the book which, next to the Bible, has been chief solace for the stricken heart, have leaned unaware on the purpose, the faith, and the purity of the greatest saint of the Middle Ages, the man who made Burgundy as illustrious by its Cistercian reformers and missionary builders as it had been by its Benedictines when Cluny was a world power. CHAPTER X Gothic Art in Normandy[314] The cathedral was perfected slowly and passionately. The Romans brought to it their force, their logic, their serenity. The Barbarians brought to it their naïve grace, their love of life, their dreamful imaginations. From this unpremeditated collaboration sprang a work modelled by times and places. It is the French genius and its image. It did not progress by fits and starts; it was not the servant of pride. It mounted in the course of centuries to complete expression. And that expression, one throughout the country, varies with each province, with each fraction of a province, just enough to make interesting the chain that joins all the pearls of this monumental necklace of France. --RODIN, _Les cathédrales de France_.[315] Virtually the land conquered by the vikings received its civilization from monasteries. Like Burgundy, Normandy was a very Egypt, a Thebaid, for the number of its religious houses. Each baron sought to have one on his domain. In the capital of the duchy was St. Ouen, whose abbot owned half the city; on the same Seine lay Jumièges, a center of letters and arts, and farther down the river was St. Wandrille, "nursery for saints"--three noted houses that inherited directly the apostolate of Celtic Columbanus. From St. Wandrille went monks to establish Fécamp, favorite of the Norman dukes, with an early-Gothic church equal to a cathedral. Other monks from Fontenelle reorganized the most romantic pile of monastic buildings in the world, Mont-Saint-Michel, guarded by the patron of the kingdom of France, _Sanctus Michael in periculo maris_. When that man of genius, William of Volpiano, abbot of St. Bénigne, at Dijon, came to Normandy to reform its houses, he himself rebuilt the abbatial church at Bernay which architecturally is an ancestress for such Romanesque work as Cerisy-la-Forêt, Lessay, the Caen abbatials, and St. Georges de Boscherville. At Mortain, at St. Sauveur-le-Vicomte, at St. Évroult, were monastery churches, and the picturesque ruins of Hambye cause one to mourn that Primary Gothic abbatial wrecked by the Revolution. St. Pierre-sur-Dives and the collegiate at Eu are later monastic works of the province. For its influence as a world power--what we may call the Cluny of Normandy--was Bec abbey that became, under Lanfranc the Lombard, and St. Anselm the Piedmontese, the intellectual leader of the West. Its mammoth church has gone the way of Cluny's--scarcely stone left on stone. BEC ABBEY[316] O beata solitudo! O sola beatitudo! --(Inscription on a Benedictine monastery in France.) In Bec, theology for the first time spoke the language of philosophy. Herlouin, an unlettered knight, who learned to write only at forty, founded, in 1034, an abbey on his lands on the banks of a beck in the valley of Brionne. With the monks who gathered round him, he was engaged in building with his own hands his convent when, one day in 1042, Lanfranc of Pavia arrived in their midst, the learned one needed by those simple, good men. Lanfranc had been teaching at Avranches, and was journeying to Rouen when brigands seized him in a forest near Bec, stripped and tied him to a tree to perish. Before aid came to him, as he faced death during long hours--learning that despite his scholarship he was incapable of reciting one single psalm to support his soul--a new comprehension of life dawned on him, and he vowed himself to the triumph of religion. The school which he opened in Bec abbey soon drew students from all parts of Europe. From northern Italy came young Anselm, destined twice to succeed his master, in Bec as prior, in Canterbury as archbishop. Lanfranc, practiced in the affairs of the world, a born statesman, was better fitted to be primate of England than was Anselm with his childlike, tender nature, and his subtle, speculative brain. Bec gave still a third archbishop to the see of Canterbury, Theobald, the patron of St. Thomas Becket; Martin, whilom abbot of Bec, built Peterborough Cathedral. For thirty-three years St. Anselm wrote and taught in Bec abbey, student first, then monk, then prior, and in 1078 abbot. There at night, while all the house slept, he wrote the books which have won for him the title of founder of the Christian philosophy of the Middle Ages. A forerunner of scholasticism, he was among the first to set forth the conformity of Christian doctrine with human reason. Dante places him in Paradise among the great contemplatives. The union of the mystic and the rational in theology, in the Norman abbey ruled by Anselm, started impulses which were to pass down through the centuries. An immediate result was the quickening of the mental life of the XII century. Among St. Anselm's pupils at Bec was Anselm de Laon, whose classes, with those of Guillaume de Champeaux, are regarded as the nucleus of the University of Paris. What is of interest to us here is that, from the hour of the opening of men's minds to scholastic learning, rose the architecture of France, that the giant energy which built cathedrals had its source in a faith that _believed in order that it might understand_, which is St. Anselm's own proposition, _Credo ut intelligam_, as well as it is the apogee flight reached by Plato, what the Greek philosopher called _the wings of the soul_. And Plato's peer, XIII-century Aquinas, voiced the Greek's vision, and repeated Anselm's thought, in a hymn whose subtle stanzas are sung daily over Christendom: "_Præstat fides supplementum sensuum defectui_" ("Faith for all defects supplying where the feeble senses fail"). Anselm, with his "face of an angel," naïvely enthusiastic over his metaphysical proof of God, writing alone in Bec, in the silence of the night, was digging unaware the foundations for Chartres, Rheims, Amiens, and those other visions of the Beyond to which man gave tangible shape in the scholastic-trained centuries because, _believing_, he _understood_. Sorely against his will St. Anselm left the peace of Bec to take up the duties of England's primacy in an hour when the eternal lay-ecclesiastical controversy was embittered. The wanton and despotic William Rufus was the opponent who overwhelmed him. His sole friends were the little people for whom, at that time, any churchman who maintained independence against layman tyranny was a champion of civic liberties. The scholar of Bec was the only prelate of the many crossing from Normandy to England who displayed loving kindness for the downtrodden Saxons. Homesick in England, St. Anselm used pathetically to sign his letters to his intimates, "Brother Anselm by the heart, Archbishop of Canterbury by coercion." At Le Bec-Hellouin to-day little remains of the abbatial whose choir once soared on twenty immense piers. Again and again the church was reconstructed. In 1077 Archbishop Lanfranc crossed the Channel for a dedication. Early in the XIII century the master-of-works at Rouen, Enguerrand, proceeded to Bec to superintend a new Gothic edifice. A fire in 1263 caused another renewal of the choir. In the Rayonnant day the nave was rebuilt on the same lines as St. Ouen's abbatial. The religious wars of the XVI century damaged the church, whose demolition was continued as late as 1814. What now remains are a portion of the transept, a chapter house of the XII century, and the isolated tower of St. Nicholas (1467-80), another memorial of Normandy's rejoicing to be free of foreign rule. Eight large statues adorn its upper walls. Bec had been pillaged by Henry V's troops before Jeanne d'Arc's advent, and the abbot then appointed by the invaders was one of the sixty university professors and ecclesiastics who condemned the Maid to death in Rouen, 1431. Ten abbots of Normandy thus tarnished their great names, but it is well to bear in mind that in each case the delinquent monastery had recently been sacked because of its patriotic stand against the foreigners, and that it was governed by a tool of the victors. Fifty Norman abbeys honored themselves by their absence from the torture of a young girl who had all England against her, half of France, as well as the perverted learning of Paris University. NORMANDY'S ROMANESQUE SCHOOL[317] The Christian world made no mistake when, in calm confidence, it sought, under the wing of the Benedictine abbeys, that strong education of the Western races which made possible all the marvels of faith, courage, fervor, and humility with which Europe was illuminated from the XI to the XV century, from Gregory VII to Jeanne d'Arc. --CHARLES DE MONTALEMBERT, _The Monks of the West_. Normandy's hardy personality showed at its best in her Romanesque monastic churches. Their design is decisive and vast, their construction solid--the Norman excelled in masoncraft--and as art they have never been surpassed for grave impressiveness. In the Norman minsters is a primeval energy admirably restrained, a massive grace, a something of reasoned simplicity lost in the Gothic cathedrals of the region. One who fell under the spell of Normandy's Romanesque architecture has told how its repose "appeals to men and women who have lived long and are tired, who want rest, who have done with aspiration and ambitions, whose life has been a broken arch.... The quiet strength of these lines, the solid support of the moderate lights, the absence of display, of effort, of self-consciousness, satisfy them as no other art does. They come back to it to rest after a long cycle of pilgrimage--the cradle of rest from which their ancestors started."[318] No church earlier than the year 1000 has survived in Normandy. The Norseman, while still an unbaptized buccaneer, laid low every Merovingian and Carolingian edifice. All was in ruin. "From Blois to Senlis," says the old record, "not an acre is plowed, for none dare work in the fields." Then, Rollo, chief of the marauders, baptized in Rouen, settled down in the duchy granted him in fief by the harassed king of France. In an incredibly short time the erstwhile pagans became the most indefatigable of church builders. For Normandy, the date 911 is as important a landmark as is 910 for Burgundy, the year of Cluny's foundation.[319] The Norman Romanesque school made general use of the roll molding at window and portal, of griffes at the base of piers, blind arcading, intercrossing wall arches (that became monotonous in the Anglo-Norman school), and very frequently it contrived an interior passage at the clearstory level, whose effect was heightened by the use of arches of different designs in its outer and inner walls. Certain archæologists contend that the predominant influences in the development of Norman Romanesque were Lombard, and that in this it differed from other French schools which in main part derived from local Carolingian work. As the Norman's creative genius was not on a par with his constructive abilities, it seems reasonable to look for foreign influence when finding its school precociously formed by the middle of the XI century. The Lombards used, before the Normans, the alternate system of ground supports, cubic capitals, transverse arches, compound piers, crypts, and raised choirs, and their most striking feature of exterior decoration was the arched corbel table that made a continuous cornice. Mr. Arthur Kingsley Porter says that diagonals were used in Lombardy early in the XI century as an expedient to economize wood, groin vaults being molded on a temporary wooden substructure, but as the Lombard never counterbutted his intersecting ribs, such vaults proved unsatisfactory and were given up after 1120. If the Norman had an early knowledge of diagonals through the Lombard, like the Lombard he failed to derive from them their constructive consequences. That fact of creative genius no one can deny to the Ile-de-France. Even if the controversy as to who first used Gothic ribs should be decided in favor of the Anglo-Norman school, and behind their use of it, traced to Lombardy's Romanesque builders, none of them saw in it what Abbot Suger did--the radical member of a new system of building. William of Volpiano, a Lombard, and an architect as well as a reformer, spent many active years in Normandy, where he died in 1031. At Fécamp he is said to have trained a group of masons. A decade after his death, Lanfranc, born in northern Italy, became a leader in the duchy, and under him was built the present nave of the Abbaye-aux-Hommes at Caen. It seems very natural to suppose that such men, alert as they were to architectural progress, should have exerted influence on the Norman school. However, M. Lefèvre-Pontalis thinks it wiser not to exaggerate the immediate influence from beyond the Alps. He holds that the Romanesque school of Normandy proceeded in main part from the same element as the other pre-Gothic schools of France, elements derived somewhat from Barbarian sources, but chiefly from Rome's occupation of Gaul. In the case of Normandy the Barbarian influences would be largely Scandinavian, and there has been considerable speculation over the Norseman's wooden structure and the Norman's partiality for the pleated capital. Mr. John Bilson is unsympathetic to Mr. Kingsley Porter's ideas of Lombard influence in Normandy, and he considers the early dates ascribed to Lombard diagonals most improbable. Why, he asks, if the solution was reached in Lombardy about 1025, did it take three quarters of a century for the Normans, directly in contact with the builders of Italy, to arrive after long experimenting at the same intersecting ribs? He claims that the Ile-de-France was indebted to Normandy for diagonals, which were not in use in the royal domain before 1130, but that, once that school came into possession of intersecting pointed arches and flying buttresses, it developed from them a new system of construction, clothing it with a new expression, which we call Gothic. The controversy is by no means closed. Normandy's Romanesque school spread far afield.[320] It passed into Picardy and penetrated as far south as Chartres. It crossed the Channel with the adventurers who descended on England, and with other free lances who carved out distant kingdoms for themselves, its characteristics appeared in southern Italy and Sicily. The ornamentation of the Norman school came in part from Oriental or Byzantine sources already in use in the Carolingian era, and in part from Scandinavian. Unlike Burgundy, this province, despite its good stone, never won distinction in sculpture either in the Romanesque or the Gothic day. Never was Norman decoration equal to Norman construction, otherwise this school would be without a peer. Its ornamentation lacks variety and imagination. Geometric designs were endlessly repeated. Both in England and in Normandy the traveler grows weary of the zigzag or chevron motive, taken from Merovingian interlacings, or Carolingian triangular outlines, and very weary, too, of its variants, the dog-tooth or star ornament, and the fret or meander which reproduced a classical motive. The Carolingian billet molding was also overused. Such monotony of decoration was probably the defect of a good quality--caution and thoroughness. The Norman seldom attempted what he could not put through, hence his churches were usually completed, even to having their towers crowned by stone spires. The builders of the Ile-de-France were less cautious, but more sublime. THE ROMANESQUE ABBEY CHURCH OF JUMIÈGES[321] Aucun pays n'avait fourni au moyen âge plus de missionnaires chrétiens qu'Irlande, ni d'hommes empressés de répandre chez les nations étrangères les études de leur patrie.--A. THIERRY. The first Romanesque church of Normandy with architectural pretensions, the first to present the regional school fully formed, was the abbatial of Jumièges, begun about 1040. That virile, rugged "château de Dieu" stands on a semi-island of the Seine where the river makes a gracious twenty-mile meander, or rather, there stand the "incredible masses of masonry" which are the ruins of Jumièges, a wall of the big central lantern, a roofless nave, and two gaunt façade towers, the only Norman towers entirely of the XI century. In all France is no more austere, stark, and grandiose a ruin. How from such a predecessor as Bernay's abbatial the Norman could immediately evolve an architectural feat as tremendous as Jumièges seems explicable only by some strong exterior impetus. Here is the Lombard alternance of ground supports over whose origin in Normandy much printer's ink has been spilled. As the Lombard groin vault embraced two bays, a strong pier was needed only for the transverse arch separating the large square vault sections; or if a timber roof was used, a reinforced pier was required only for the bigger tiebeams. Now, at Jumièges, the lower structure proves (say certain archæologists) that never was a masonry roof planned for, so it is probable that the open timber roof required heavy tiebeams only at every other bay, hence an alternance of substantial and slight piers to correspond to the alternance of big beams and little beams. Jumièges also used the Lombard engaged shaft. Its uniform _hautes colonnes_, without capitals, rise from soil to roof, serving as interior buttresses, and some say as supports for the tiebeams, since they rose too high to be intended for a masonry roof. They bind together the three stories, and æsthetically their rhythm breaks the monotony of the plain walls. Mr. John Bilson thinks that the wall shafts of Jumièges can have had no other motive than to support a vault over the principal span, and cannot have been the supports of mere tiebeams. They may have been planned, suggests Prof. Baldwin Brown, to carry an undergirding arch such as occurs beneath some wooden roofs. Normandy's invention of the sexpartite vault came about, thinks M. Anthyme Saint-Paul, through her predilection for multiple lines. With such Gothic vaults--each section of which embraced two bays--she proceeded to reroof various of her Romanesque abbatials, whose already existent alternated piers were thus made logical. Almost it would seem as if the presence of ground supports, substantial and slight, had called into being the new type of masonry roof. St. Denis used a sexpartite vault in 1140, and M. Lefèvre-Pontalis suggested, at one time, that Normandy derived the idea from the Ile-de-France. In the royal domain, however, no steps are to be found leading up to it, whereas in Normandy can be seen sexpartite vaults of primitive design, such as those covering the Abbaye-aux-Dames, which consist merely of two diagonals with a transverse rib crossing their apex. In the Abbaye-aux-Hommes, where the timber roof of the nave was replaced by a Gothic vault as early, perhaps, as 1135, the vault web is warped to the intermediate transverse rib. It has been suggested that the sexpartite vault originated from the employment of the diaphragm arch. Jumièges abbey church was dedicated "with great spiritual joy," so an old chronicle relates, by saintly Archbishop Maurille of Rouen, in the presence of William the Conqueror and Matilda. Maurille had been trained at Fécamp under the great William of Volpiano. A Gothic choir, added to the abbatial later, was blown up after the Revolution by a contractor who acquired the monastery in order to sell its stones as building material. Under the flank of the now roofless nave nestles a ruined little church of the XIV century, St. Peter its tutelary. Two of its bays incorporate parts from a Carolingian church built by Rollo's son, William Longsword (928-943). They are of archæological interest in being the oldest examples extant of twin arches beneath a common arch for the tribune-opening on the middle vessel. The arrangement became popular in the Romanesque churches of Normandy and England, and can be seen at Mont-Saint-Michel, Rochester, Ely, Gloucester, Peterborough, and Winchester. Jumièges was an ancient foundation of Clovis II and Queen Bathilde. They granted forests on the Seine to St. Philibert (d. 684), who had been an intimate at the Merovingian court, of St. Ouen and St. Wandrille. To obtain the Celtic rule of Columbanus at its source, Philibert visited Luxeuil and Bobbio, and he dedicated a chapel of his abbatial at Jumièges to the Irish missionary. His own cult was to crop out at Tournus and Dijon when the Norse piratical inroads drove the inmates of wrecked monastic houses into Burgundy. Jumièges was a scene of pillage and massacre during the last acts of the Capet-Plantagenet duel, when Henry V, the victor of Agincourt, overran Normandy. The abbot, then appointed, sat in judgment on St. Jeanne in 1431, and fell down dead three months later. After Charles VII had entered Rouen as conqueror, in 1449, he retired to Jumièges. During the feasts of rejoicing _la dame de beaulté_, Agnes Sorel, died in a manor close by, and her memorial stone in Jumièges abbatial recorded her "pitiful loving kindness to all men and especially the poor and children." Days of decline came for Jumièges under her commendatory abbots. A XVII-century revival of learning was led by the reformers of the Congregation of St. Maur, but the famous establishment went under completely during the Revolution. The sequence is the same for most French abbeys. Farther down the Seine, at what once was Fontenelle, stand the less imposing ruins of St. Wandrille's abbatial, consisting of a transept of the XIII century and a Flamboyant Gothic cloister, whose _lave-mains_ is a gem of Renaissance delicacy. The house was founded in 649 by St. Wandrille, of Merovingian blood. Like his friend, Philibert of Jumièges, he sought the rule of St. Columbanus at its fountainhead, though the more equable rule of St. Benedict was to prevail in French religious establishments before the VII century closed. St. Wandrille trained many of the saints who planted monasteries over northern France, and in later centuries the Duke of Normandy chose monks from St. Wandrille's abbey to institute a Benedictine house of prayer on the rock of St. Michael-in-peril-of-the-sea. THE ROMANESQUE ABBATIALS AT CAEN[322] Clochers légers, clochers aigus, Clochers de France, Par quel attrait d'élan pieux Emportez-vous si vite et si haut dans les cieux Nos regards et notre espérance?... Longs et pareils à ces lances pointus Que les géants piquaient au sol, Vous montiez d'un seul jet pour défier le vol Des hirondelles éperdues. --GEORGES LAFENESTRE, "Clochers de France."[323] Caen played a prominent part in the builder's story of Normandy. It has been called the Romanesque Mecca. Its church of St. Nicolas (c. 1180-93), one of the most interesting Romanesque edifices of the duchy, is dismantled, but the Abbaye-aux-Hommes or St. Étienne, and the Abbaye-aux-Dames, or Ste. Trinité, are in good repair. All the world knows how William the Conqueror and his good and gentle Matilda of Flanders each founded an abbey in Caen, "that God might be served by both sexes and thus pardon their transgression." Their marriage disobeyed Church regulations concerning consanguinity and a canonical atonement was required. Matilda's tomb rests in the middle of the choir she built. Her epitaph was inscribed in letters of gold: "Consoler of the needy, lover of piety, a woman who, having lavished her treasures in good works, was poor to herself, but rich to the unfortunate. Thus she sought the fellowship of eternal life on the second of November, 1083." [Illustration: _The Crypt of the Abbaye-aux-Dames at Caen (1059-1066)_] The Abbaye-aux-Dames, begun about 1059, was dedicated in 1066 by the same Archbishop Maurille who blessed the new church at Jumièges. A few weeks after the ceremony, William descended on England, which his knights and villeins conquered to the chant of the _Chanson de Roland_, written by some unknown poet who, like themselves, looked to the Archangel of the Peril for inspiration. Yet a few decades more and Roland's war song was sung by the first crusaders before Jerusalem. Architecture, crusades, language, literature--many were the vital movements then coming to birth. On the day of the blessing of Matilda's convent of the Holy Trinity, her little daughter, Cécile, was laid on the altar and dedicated to God's service. For almost fifty years her aunt, Matilda, daughter of Richard II and the fair Judith of Brittany, ruled the Abbaye-aux-Dames, and then Cécile succeeded as second abbess; _Dame de la ville de Caen_, her brother Henry I of England called her. Cécile was one of the learned ladies of her day, having studied philosophy and belles-lettres under the patriarch of Jerusalem. One recalls that it was a contemporary abbess--at St. Odile in Alsace--who made the first attempt to compile an encyclopedia. Several English princesses were nuns of the Trinité, among them the daughters of Henry III and Edward I. In a later century Charlotte Corday was a pupil of the convent. It has been thought that Gundulf, a monk of Bec, called to Caen by Lanfranc, was architect of the Abbaye-aux-Dames, where his mother had retired as a nun. This learned and pious man had entered Bec in the same year as St. Anselm, and when he had become the bishop of Rochester he remained faithful to Anselm, then the primate of England, facing bitter troubles with the king. The saint came to attend the good bishop on his deathbed. Gundulf rebuilt Rochester Cathedral, whose crypt and western bays are of his time (1076-1108); Rochester Tower, too, he raised, and the chapel of St. John in London Tower. It was said of him that he was the most skilled of all men in masoncraft. The apse of the Trinité is considered one of the best things in Caen. It stands over a crypt whose sixteen piers are in four rows. When the choir was renovated, after 1100, some of its sculptures were modeled on certain Byzantine ivories that had been brought as gifts to Abbess Cécile by her crusading brother. The abbatial's triforium is a blind arcade behind whose wall was essayed some very primitive flying buttresses. The present sexpartite vault was an early trial of that Norman form of the Gothic masonry roof, and is really a quadripartite vault divided by a transverse rib, the web being unwarped to that intermediate member. Though the XII century replaced the original timber roof of the Trinité by this sexpartite one, exactly when it was done is not known. But those interested in claiming priority for Normandy in the use of diagonal ribs place it before the sexpartite vaulting of St. Denis. The XIII century added a handsome Gothic chapel to the transept of Matilda's convent church. As the expiatory abbatial erected by the Conqueror was on a far larger scale than the Abbaye-aux-Dames, it took longer to build; perhaps the same Gundulf of Bec and Rochester was its architect. Over the aisles are deep tribunes, some of whose bays have retained their primitive vaults of the same type as those at Tournus in Burgundy--half barrels placed side by side on lintels at right angles to the axis of the church. The original roof of the principal span was replaced by the actual sexpartite vault (whose web is warped to the six branches) about 1130, said M. Régnier; other archæologists have placed it a generation later. By the addition of a sexpartite vaulting the much-discussed Lombard alternate piers were no longer inconsequent. The height to which the wall shafts of the nave are carried indicates that the cowled architect had not purposed originally to cover his main span with a stone roof. When the Gothic vaulting was added the clearstory was changed in the interior of the church, but the exterior was left as first built. William and Matilda made Caen their chief residence in Normandy, and Lanfranc was brought from Bec in 1063 to be prior of the duke's new monastery. He opened a school in Caen to which his pupil, Pope Alexander II, sent his relatives as scholars. In the peaceful cloister of St. Étienne the able Italian composed a treatise--to counteract Berengar's heresy on the Eucharist--which is considered a small masterpiece of Christian controversy. Lanfranc was dialectician, administrator, builder, subtle lawyer, and statesman. His genius reached its highest development in the organization of a Norman hierarchy for England. He rebuilt his own church at Canterbury, and two former monks of St. Étienne, Caen, rebuilt the cathedral of Winchester and St. Alban's abbey. Other memorials of Lanfranc's primacy in England are the crypt and eastern end of Gloucester Cathedral, the work of a monk of Mont-Saint-Michel, the crypt at Worcester, choir chapels and ambulatory at Norwich, and the western transept of Ely Cathedral, erected by a monk from St. Ouen, Rouen. It is said that during the century and a half from the Conqueror to John Lackland the Norman prelates in England erected over four hundred churches as expiatory offerings for the grievous wrong perpetrated in the Norman conquest. In Caen, Lanfranc built the nave of the Abbaye-aux-Hommes, a monument of magnificent proportions, compact, tranquil, and sincere. When archbishop of Canterbury he returned to Caen in 1077 for the dedication of his abbey church. Another ten years and in St. Étienne's choir took place the sinister burial of William the Conqueror. In the town was raging a fierce conflagration which was to wipe out half the place. As they lowered into the tomb the proud and wrathful overman whose strength had been so pitiless, whose will so inflexible, a poor townsman stepped forth to forbid the burial, claiming he had been robbed of that special parcel of land. In the disorders that ensued the corpulent body of the dead king was injured, and though incense was burned to purify the infected air, the people deserted the church in horror. _Sic pulvis es._ In 1210 the Romanesque choir of the Abbaye-aux-Hommes was replaced by the present Gothic one. Normandy apparently used annulets about the clustered shafts at a much later date than the Ile-de-France, and it continued to employ its pre-Gothic zigzag decoration. The chapels round the choir were made to open one on the other above low dividing walls; Bayeux and Coutances repeated this, as they did the turrets at the birth of the apse. The exterior aspect of the edifice was enhanced by a row of small rose windows each of which lighted a bay of the choir's tribune. A generation later the same arrangement was employed in the collegiate church at Mantes. The new Gothic choir of St. Étienne at Caen was joined with skill to Lanfranc's grave Romanesque nave. Maître Guillaume is cited as architect of the new works, and he probably crowned the two western towers that so grandly dominate the city. Few architectural views in France surpass the stark majesty of the fortresslike church built by the Conqueror, as it appears from across the town, from the rue des Chanoines, when one stands near the convent church of Queen Matilda. St. Étienne's towers were the prototypes for the other notable ones at Caen. During the XVI-century religious wars the Abbaye-aux-Hommes was twice pillaged and the Calvinists scattered the Conqueror's ashes. They stripped the roofing of its lead, which soon caused the collapse of the central lantern and the choir vaults. During two generations the great church lay unused save as a stone quarry. Then the prior, Jean de Baillehache, in 1609, undertook a restoration, carried through so judiciously that were it not for the monastery's official record, and a slight poverty in the sculpture, it would be impossible to detect the new parts from the old. For the making of towers Caen is a queen city. In descending the rue des Chanoines one passes the church of St. Pierre, whose much-admired Renaissance apse (1518-45) was the work of a regional master, Hector Sohier. But it is the tower of St. Pierre which is its glory and the boast of Normandy. It served as model for belfries throughout the duchy and in Brittany. Built from 1308 to 1317, it stands as proof that the tradition of Apogee Gothic continued till the opening of the Hundred Years' War. Apart from the natural rise and fall of things human various causes contributed to the decline of Gothic art after the XIII century. A soulless mechanical dexterity that crystallized the principles of Gothic architecture succeeded to the creative genius that had made glorious the reigns of Philippe-Auguste and Louis IX. Symbolism and true mysticism gave place to doubt, and--when internal dissensions and foreign invasion rent the land--to superstition. With the blurring of spiritual vision passed the vigor of construction. The XIV century in France opened under a king who debased the coinage, overtaxed the clergy, persecuted the Jews, and who, by the outrage of Anagni, struck a fatal blow at the prestige of the papacy. Soon followed the Black Death, when a third of Europe's population perished. Radical deterioration of the national art set in after France "went to pieces at the Battle of Crécy" (1346). The royal domain was a field of brigandage: "From the Loire to the Seine, and from the Seine to the Somme, the peasants being killed, all the fields lay uncultivated, and this during many years," wrote Bishop Bérenger of Le Mans. In Paris Cathedral a foreigner was crowned king of France. What horrors reigned in Normandy, many an old record relates. More than a thousand patriot leaders perished when English gold was given for each decapitated corpse. "Houses are without occupants, fields without workers," wrote a XV-century bishop of Lisieux. Bedford's troops pillaged and massacred. Near Falaise twelve thousand civilians were butchered in one day. "The land of Normandy was grievously oppressed and _le pauvre peuple détruit_," wrote Monstrelet. "Men and women fled for their lives, by land and by sea, as if in peril of fire. Nobles gave up their fiefs, clerks their benefices, burghers their patrimony, rather than take oath to the invader."[324] _Normannia nutrix_ lay almost uninhabited. Such is the French version. Naturally the English outlook was different. "The false Frenchman," sings Drayton in his Agincourt ballad. Freeman falls into a vein of self-congratulation. "Go from France proper into Normandy," he writes, "and you at once feel that everything is palpably better; men, women, horses, cows, all are on a grander, better scale. The good seed planted by the old Saxon and Danish colonists, and watered in aftertimes by Henry V and John, Duke of Bedford, is still there. It is not altogether choked by the tares of Paris." Gothic art deteriorated, but so persistently lingered the simplicity, the spiritual poignancy of the XIII century that in the late-Gothic day it was still possible to produce the mystic loveliness of Riom's Madonna of the Bird, and the humble prayerfulness of Solesmes' Magdalene. In the unspoiled years of the XIV century was built the tower of St. Pierre, at Caen. Its shaft rises in a virile, unbroken ascent from soil to spire tip. On the busiest street corner of the city it stands like a perpetual call to recollection and joy. The Norman will boast with legitimate pride that it is the most beautiful tower in France, excelling those of Chartres and Senlis, whose shafts, he will tell you, are either too high or too short, whereas his loved tower of St. Pierre has spire and shaft in perfect accord. When Caen added this stately monument to its wealth of churches it was as rich a metropolis as Rouen, and it had contributed more than London toward the ransom of Richard Coeur-de-Lion from Teuton captivity. Just before the defeat of Crécy, this, the intellectual capital of Normandy, was besieged by English troops, and all its wealth pillaged, and its streets strewn with dead. Amid havoc wrought, the towers of the Abbaye-aux-Dames were destroyed. [Illustration: _Belfry of St. Pierre at Caen (1308-1317). Prototype for the Gothic Towers of Normandy and Brittany_] All over the department of Calvados are towers.[325] A Romanesque one crowns the church of Vaucelles, a suburb of Caen. At Ifs, and near Bayeux, at St. Loup (c. 1180), are others. The monk's church of Norrey, a dependency of St. Ouen, at Rouen, noted for the lavishness of its foliate ornamentation, has a tower of the XIII century, and near it, also ten miles from Caen, is Secqueville's Gothic beacon. There are belfries at Bernières-sur-mer (c. 1150), at Langrune, Thaon, Tour, and Basly. Three of the most beautiful towers in Calvados crown the abbatial of St. Pierre-sur-Dives, an edifice, too much a patchwork of five centuries to be altogether pleasing, but linked with a memorable hour of the Gothic story, 1145. Popular enthusiasm then aided Abbot Haimon to reconstruct his church, as he wrote, in a much-quoted letter to the English monks at Tutbury. The same wave of fervor was raising the Primary Gothic towers of Chartres and Rouen. The western towers of St. Pierre-sur-Dives are of Haimon's day only in their lower stories; that to the south has a XIII-century top, and that to the north was finished in the XIV century.[326] Throughout the final phase of Gothic, Normandy continued to excel in towers. Witness Rouen's Flamboyant beacons. In quiet country places and lesser towns rise belfries as stately as those of cathedrals: at Carville is the "Giant of the Valley" (1512-14), at Harfleur is a most beautiful tower, and still another at Verneuil (1506-30), built by a son of the town, Arthur Fillon, curé of St. Maclou, Rouen, and vicar-general of that lover of noble structures, Cardinal Georges d'Amboise; when he became bishop of Senlis, he helped to finish the Flamboyant Gothic transept of that cathedral. THE ROMANESQUE ABBATIAL OF ST. GEORGES DE BOSCHERVILLE[327] I have borne for forty-two years with happiness the sweet yoke of the Lord.--ORDERICUS VITALIS (xii century). From Rouen a pleasant six-mile walk through the forest of Roumare leads to the abbatial of St. Georges de Boscherville, an example of the best Anglo-Norman Romanesque. Some have thought it belongs to the first decade of the XII century, but M. Besnard places it a generation earlier. Mr. John Bilson claims that, like its contemporary, the cathedral at Durham, the piers show that from the start the design was to construct ribbed groin vaults over the wide span, and he thinks that the same is true for the now disused Romanesque abbatial of St. Nicolas, at Caen (1083-93), building twenty years before Durham's choir. He has cited the diagonals of Lessay's choir and those of the transept of Montvilliers as the primitive Gothic of Normandy, vaults which M. de Lasteyrie considered to be contemporary with Suger's St. Denis. The German archæologists, Dehio and von Bezold, give priority to Normandy. The actual intersecting ribs at St. Georges de Boscherville are a XIII-century reconstruction. So solid were the church walls made that no flying buttresses have been needed. The tribune at the end of each arm of the transept is supported by an isolated pillar, apsidal chapels project from the eastern wall of the transept, and the central lantern is one of the best in Normandy. The entire church, save its west façade flanked by slender turrets, was the work of some six or seven years only. About 1157, under Abbot Victor, was erected the chapter house that nestles beneath the transept's northern arm. The French students who did not know, or who have not accepted, Mr. John Bilson's theory of Anglo-Norman priority in the use of the essential organ of Gothic architecture, have claimed that the diagonals of St. Georges' chapter house are among the earliest extant of the province, of the same decade as the vaulting of the lower hall of St. Romain's tower at Rouen. Mr. John Bilson's championship of Anglo-Norman pioneer work, and Mr. Arthur Kingsley Porter's theory of Lombard priority, have both found supporters among leading French archæologists; the English scholar is patriotically disgruntled at the American's advocacy of the Italian claims. It would seem that during the XI century the Normans, like the Lombards, used what Mr. Bilson calls ribbed groined vaults, occasionally, for one reason or another. The Norman developed tentatively the ribbed vault, always associating it with the semicircular arch, and without comprehending the wonderful results that were to be derived from concentrating the weight of a masonry roof at fixed points. The possibility of those results was perceived first in the Ile-de-France, and from there, when Gothic architecture had taken on its special characteristics, it entered Normandy by way of the Seine at Rouen and Boscherville, then at Fécamp and Lisieux. The first Gothic cathedrals of Normandy show purely French influence and only gradually were regional ogival traits developed. In the controversy as to who first used diagonals, one can take whichever side one prefers; the question remains open. Light will be thrown on it, doubtless, by a forthcoming paper by Mr. Bilson in the _Archeological Journal_, tracing the evolution of the diagonal rib in Normandy. The abbey at Boscherville was founded by the lord of Tankerville, high chamberlain of the Conqueror and Henry I. In its abbatial, when his grandson, hereditary constable of Normandy, was knighted, he laid his sword on the altar, and to redeem it presented property to the monastery. If we would comprehend the society that built these churches, we must understand that such donations were voluntary and a matter of civic pride. "If I cannot myself attend to the works of God," runs an ancient deed of gift, "at least I can assure a home for those with whom God loves to dwell. It is only natural to enrich our Holy Mother the Church, and thus to take a hand in caring for Christ's poor." THE GOTHIC ABBATIAL AT FÉCAMP[328] It is a usage bequeathed to us from our ancestors, never to let anyone depart from our abbey without a gift. --(From an old Latin chronicle of Fécamp.) If one would enjoy, without critical comparison, the Gothic of Normandy, her churches should be visited before the taste has become sensitized by loiterings in the Ile-de-France. In that classic region of the national art is found a simplicity, a purity, a restraint, a something of imaginative genius that makes of its work the touchstone by which all other manifestations of Gothic are judged. Of the Norman churches, the Trinité, at Fécamp, is most closely related to the Primary Gothic work of the royal domain. Its architect must certainly have come from the Ile-de-France. Monks trained in the Celtic rule by St. Wandrille founded Fécamp, which was wrecked by Norse pirates in 876. William Longsword, the first duke's son, built his palace here, and his son, Richard I the Fearless (d. 996), began a new monastery. In his will Richard ordered: "Bury not my body within the church, but deposit it on the outside, immediately under the eaves, that the dripping of the rain from the holy roof may wash my bones as I lie and may cleanse them of the spots of impurity contracted during a negligent and neglected life." He desired that on every Friday a sarcophagus be filled with wheat and grain for the poor. His son, Richard II the Good (d. 1020), finished Fécamp abbatial, and was laid to rest beside his father. The dukes of Rollo's line especially favored Fécamp, which held a front rank among Normandy's institutions, and was the richest of her monasteries down to the Revolution. Henry Plantagenet presented Fécamp town to the monastery. After Duke Richard the Good had brought that man of administrative genius, William of Volpiano, into his duchy to reorganize its spiritual life, architectural activities took on new vigor. William himself directed the construction of Bernay's[329] church; the abbatial of Mont-Saint-Michel rose when he reformed that house; and the church of Jumièges followed immediately after his reformation there. The Blessed William, in his thirst for souls, used to loiter at the crossroads to gather in the stricken of body or spirit. He passed away in Fécamp in 1031, and his ashes are still preserved in a chapel of the present Gothic abbatial. In 1034, in the Romanesque Trinité, Robert the Magnificent gathered the chief men of Normandy to have them swear allegiance to his sturdy little bastard son of seven, who was to be known in history as William the Conqueror, after which Duke Robert started on his pilgrimage to the East, from which he was never to return. The abbey church of Fécamp long consisted of the nave begun by Richard I, and a choir built by Abbot Guillaume de Ros (1082-1108), under whose rule the Trinité won the admiration of Europe. He is said to have introduced into Normandy the ambulatory and its radiating chapels. Two of the radial chapels which he constructed at Fécamp have survived. While they were building, there lived in the Trinité convent, as prior, Herbert de Lozinga, who, obtaining the bishopric of Norwich, erected on the Norfolk downs a stately Norman cathedral (1096-1119). Abbot Guillaume de Ros carried out the instructions of Richard I to give a loaf of bread to every beggar asking it, and when Fécamp was dissolved at the Revolution its abbot was distributing daily some twelve thousand free loaves of bread. In 1169 fire wrecked the Romanesque Trinité, whereupon the present Gothic edifice was begun immediately, and in it two of the groin-vaulted chapels from the choir of Guillaume de Ros were incorporated. Abbot Henri de Soullay (1139-87) built the Primary Gothic choir, transept, and half of the nave. After the fifth bay of the nave a new architect took up the work, as is shown by differences in the pier profiles, but the cessation of activities must have been of short duration, as the church is homogeneous. The nave was finished under Abbot Raoul d'Argence (1190-1220), who organized Normandy's first literary academy--a confraternity of jongleurs. Its character was more Norman than the choir, though regional traits had early appeared in the turrets at the birth of the apse and the square central lantern. To increase the impression of length in the nave its side walls were marked by double the number of arcades that divide the middle church from the aisles. This was accomplished by introducing a fifth rib into each vault section of those side corridors, which rib fell on a shaft engaged in the side walls. Like the minsters of England, Fécamp is more remarkable in its length than in its height. Abbot Thomas de Saint-Benoît (1297-1307) decided to suppress the deep gallery over the choir's ambulatory, making the chapels that open on the curving aisle of exceptional height. He changed the southern aisle, giving it a coldly elegant Rayonnant aspect, but happily not that to the north, or we would have lost the two interesting Romanesque chapels of Abbot Guillaume de Ros. Some of Fécamp's later abbots were Clement VI, builder of the palace of the popes at Avignon and of the Chaise Dieu in the mountains of Auvergne, and an abbot of the patriotic Estouteville family, who was driven out by the English when Fécamp was besieged in 1415. The tool who succeeded him sat in judgment on Jeanne d'Arc. The abbot of Fécamp during the transitional Flamboyant Renaissance day was Cardinal Antoine Boyer (1492-1519), a Mæcenas who adorned his beautiful church with Italian marbles. He had sculptured, in the same studio at Genoa that provided Louis XII with the Orléans tombs for St. Denis, an Entombment more spectacular in character than the famous one at Solesmes. Girolamo Viscardo made for him a tabernacle (for the choir's procession path), after the style of Mino da Fiesole. The lovely marble screens that close the side chapels are due to this generous prelate. For him Jacques Le Roux, the noted architect of Rouen, lengthened the Lady chapel. The only later change of importance in the Trinité was the erection of its neo-classic façade. THE GOTHIC ABBATIAL AT EU[330] La Nature a bien des manières de sourire. La Normandie est le plus beau sourire de la nature temperée.--O. RECLUS. The tutelary of Eu is St. Laurence O'Toole, archbishop of Dublin, son of a prince in Leinster, an active continuer of the reforms begun by St. Malachy of Armagh, who died in St. Bernard's arms at Clairvaux. St. Laurence had crossed the Channel to plead with Henry Plantagenet for certain of his flock in disgrace (1180). Arriving at Eu's convent, then belonging to the congregation of St. Victor, he felt a premonition of his approaching death, and exclaimed, as he crossed the threshold, "Here is my abode of rest forever." He was worn out in the struggle to uphold the weak against the strong in those difficult years of the Anglo-Norman seizure of the eastern coast of Ireland. As his end drew near a monk suggested that he make his testament. "I thank God that I have nothing to bequeath," he said. So impressive was the death of Archbishop Laurence in Eu monastery that the little people of the Lord soon began to pray beside his tomb. When the monks reconstructed their church they placed the saintly man's relics in the new crypt. From 1186 to 1226 the choir, transept, and one bay of the nave were built without interruption, in a Gothic more of the Ile-de-France than regional, though the placing of towers between transept and choir and the central lantern followed the Norman tradition. Archbishop Laurence O'Toole was canonized in 1225, and to the joyous ceremony when his relics were set above the high altar came the archbishop of Rouen--then building his cathedral, and Bishop Geoffrey, the "shining man of Eu by whom the throne of Amiens rose into immensity." For eight days the throng pressed to pray near the relics of the canonized Irish prelate, and with the gifts that poured in the monks were able to finish their nave by 1230. It is a gem of Norman Gothic, sober, elegant, of perfect unity. The first plan called for tribunes over the aisles, as in the choir. Before they were constructed, however, the idea was given up, but it was decided to keep the arches by which the tribunes would have opened on the middle church. The same effect of false tribunes had been used earlier in the nave of Rouen Cathedral. In 1426 lightning caused the collapse of the central tower, and in the reconstruction of the transept and choir, undertaken after the invaders were driven from Normandy, Flamboyant work was set side by side with Primary Gothic. From 1511 to 1534 rose the transept's florid south façade. After the Revolution the church of St. Laurent was restored by the Orléans family, who own the château and park at Eu. MONT-SAINT-MICHEL[331] Chaque peuple a son ange, disait Daniel le prophète. Le nôtre ne peut pas, même indignes nous délaisser.... Plus encore que Saint Jacques était le patron des espagnols, Saint Michel voulut être le Baron de France. Il mit les trois lys dans ses armes et fit passer sur le royaume l'éclair de son glaive. Avoir suscité Jeanne d'Arc et par elle libéré la France.... Voilà bien le plus beau miracle dû à l'archange. Il constitue pour le pays une promesse de perennité.--JOSEPH LOTTE (born in Normandy, 1875; killed in the World War, 1914). Surpassing all the abbeys of Normandy is the outpost of the archangel that lies offshore, at the junction of Normandy and Brittany, a conicle mass of "rock on rock, keep on keep, century on century," sand-locked one hour, and the next rising from the Atlantic. _Tremor immensi oceani_ is the motto of the Mount. Before the days of crusaders it was one of Europe's chief points of departure for the Eastern pilgrimage. Like Jerusalem, it has been one of the sites of the earth that has impressed itself with historic signification on the imagination of mankind. Many have felt the kindred spirit of the _Chanson de Roland_ and the granite, military monastery. They are both of the same high lineage. To the paladin Roland, dying at Roncevaux, as he held up his right glove to God, his suzerain, there came, to fetch his soul to Paradise, the very special St. Michael of the Mount that stood in peril of the sea, in _periculo maris_.[332] Scholars think that the most virile, the most heroic of the _chansons de geste_, wherein already was _la douce France_ loved beyond the regional cradle, was composed by a Norman who lived in the marches within the cult of the Angel of the Peril.[333] [Illustration: _The Hall of the Knights at Mont-Saint-Michel (1203-1228). Second Story of the Merveille_] Alas, in our day Mont-Saint-Michel-au-péril-de-la-Mer is in very deadly peril of the land, for it looks as if the covetousness of financiers was to defraud France of this rock of glory "_qui s'émeut et s'achève en prière_." Dikes and dams, to reclaim coast lands, will before long cause the historic crag to rise from green woods as it did some geological periods ago. Citadel, palace, cloister, church, and town, the Mount is a thing of romance that not all the vulgarity of daily tourist crowds can tarnish. Charlemagne himself chose its tutelary archangel for the national patron saint, and the cowled guardians here were in truth through long centuries what the great emperor called monks: "Knights of the Church, of the willing vassalage and chivalry of Christ." The Northmen destroyed the ancient shrine. Then Richard the Fearless, grandson of the pirate Rollo, placed on the rock the sons of St. Benedict, trained at St. Wandrille. Richard II, in 1017, came to the Mount to ask a blessing on his union with Judith of Brittany, whose beauty was such that the old chronicle exclaimed _corpore et moribus usque ad miraculum elegantem_. The duke's marriage gift enabled the monks to supplant their Carolingian church by a bigger one. The discarded X-century chapel was discovered in 1909 by M. Paul Gout, the Mount's latest historian. Until 1780 it had been used as Notre Dame-sous-Terre, but during the building of the foundations for the ugly west façade of the upper church it was walled up. With Richard the Good's donation, Abbot Hildebert II erected his new church on the very summit of the rock, but as there was not sufficient level space, he built out from the hillcrest a platform of masonry to support the nave. From William of Volpiano's school at Fécamp came skilled journeymen. The church at Mont-Saint-Michel was begun in 1020, and still building in 1057. Abbot Roger I, formerly chaplain to William the Conqueror, erected the nave. William prayed at the Mount before undertaking the conquest of England, and the abbot fitted out for him an entire fleet. In 1103 the northern wall of the Romanesque nave collapsed one night as the monks were chanting matins in the choir. It was restored immediately in the same style, and Abbot Roger II took the opportunity to reconstruct the monks' quarters. Above the crypt called Aquilon (c. 1112) he built a cloister, which later was vaulted with diagonals, and over that _promenoir_ was made a dormitory on the same level as the church. During the years that followed the Mount was governed by a man of genius, Robert de Torigni (1153-80), whose chronicle is the most important history of France for that epoch. In the _promenoir_ he entertained, at a banquet in 1158, his sovereign, Henry II, and Aliénor of Aquitaine. They chose him as godfather for their daughter, who, later, as queen of Castile, built the convent church of Las Huelgas by Burgos. Abbot Robert was a pupil of Bec, whose higher standards of intellectual life he brought to the Mount, where he formed a library, built monks' quarters, and added western belfries to his abbatial, though the façade of his day no longer exists. As the XIII century opened, Normandy became once more a part of the royal domain, after being three centuries under dukes of its own. When Rollo's strong breed ended in the debased John Lackland, the northern province gladly accepted Philippe-Auguste as ruler. How whole-heartedly, how unreservedly French it became it was to prove by its heroic resistance to the English invaders during the Hundred Years' War.[334] In the frays of 1203, fire had spread from the town that hugged the rock's edge, to the monastic buildings on the summit. Philippe-Auguste, always wisely conciliatory toward new subjects, contributed toward the restorations. With the gift from the king under whom most of the Gothic cathedrals of France were begun, Abbot Jourdan (1191-1212) built the supreme architectural work of the citadel, what is called the Merveille, and a marvel indeed are its three stories that rise, one above the other, hall over hall, two hundred feet in height above the sea, ridged heavily outside by stout buttresses and graced within by pillars, arches, and a sky-gazing cloister. From the brain of some unknown cowled genius sprang this _mâle_ and splendid conception, built in the very prime of Gothic. Who else but one enamored of meditation would have set his cloister atop of his monastery under the open sky, or have opened on that courtyard of peace a monks' refectory, where, in a flooded stillness of light, the brethren could sit pondering as they listened to one of their number reading from the stone lectern the book which is the spirit of Bernard of Clairvaux incarnate: "Give all for all; seek nothing; call for nothing back. Thou shalt be free in heart and the darkness shall not overwhelm thee." And around them there spread the wide horizon of the sea one hour, of the white ashes of sand the next. Pacing the lovely skyward cloister one has time to brood on life and death, on God and one's own soul; it refutes a hundred calumnies against monastic life just by being what it is. Serious men enamored of voluntary seclusion carved it unstintingly and set its columns quaintly in triangular order. Love and science contrived the diffused, soothing luminousness of the brothers' dining hall. The present gable windows there are innovations. Originally when one entered one could discern no window, and yet light was everywhere. The side walls, that from the door appear to be blind arcades, are in reality a succession of narrow panel windows--thirty to a side--deeply recessed in stone embrasures that are triangular in shape, because they serve the purpose of buttresses. To have carried the exterior buttress ridges to such a height as is this refectory, set audaciously up in the sky on the Merveille's third story, would have been an awkward procedure; so the nameless monk-architect, because he was a XIII-century man, let his genius lead him, and, "master of the living stone" that he was, contrived a supreme beauty of decoration out of a structural necessity. The Merveille was erected under a succession of abbots, in one consecutive radiant effort, from 1203 to 1228--a Titan's work. Each of its three stories is divided into two halls; on the ground floor are the almonry, where the pilgrims fed, and a groin-vaulted cellery or storehouse; the top story, as we have seen, consists of open cloister and monks' refectory; and between the upper and lower stories are two of the most vigorous halls ever built; that over the almonry called the Salle des Hôtes because in it were entertained the guests of the monastery, and that to the west, over the cellery, acquiring the name Salle des Chevaliers, from the Order of the Knights of St. Michael, whose members met here. The latter is divided by rows of stout pillars, and served as the common room of the community, where the tireless scholar-scribes illuminated missals and copied manuscripts. The charter for the military Order of the Archangel, founded in 1469 by Louis XI, welded the name of St. Michael, whom every good Frenchman knew kept a specially friendly eye on France, with that of Jeanne the Maid, who had quitted Domrémy-on-the-Meuse because the voice of her dear archangel rang insistent in her ear: _Fille Dè, va! Je serai à ton ayde. Va!_ It was St. Michael who first roused her to the sense of the great misery there was in the kingdom of France, and in her hour of victory after Orléans she spoke of going to the rescue of the besieged Mount in Normandy. At her trial in Rouen she dwelt on the comfort he had given her.[335] He appeared to her, she said, in the guise of "_un très vrai prud'homme_"--the term loved of St. Louis, who once told Joinville that to be _prud'homme_ meant to be knight in heart, as well as outward bearing. "I believe the words of St. Michael who appeared to me," said Jeanne, at her trial, "as firmly as I believe that Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered death and passion for us. And what leads me so to believe is the good counsel, comfort, and good doctrine St. Michael gave me." On the completion of the Merveille, the monks continued building. They had finished the officiality hall by the entrance gate of the monastery before the visit of St. Louis to the Mount in 1254, when he came to return thanks for his safety during his late crusade. The XIV century added more defenses till the rock became the most forceful example of mediæval military architecture. Strong walls were needed during its siege by the English who invaded Normandy under Henry V. The Mount's abbot, Robert Jollivet, whose name figures among the well-paid judges at Rouen in 1431, allied himself with the victorious foreigners who had quickly overrun the province. His monks repudiated him, led by their prior, Jean Gonault. Defended by the gallant knight Louis d'Estouteville, they endured the longest siege recorded in history, 1415 to 1450, when, as Jeanne had proclaimed, the invaders were "_boutés tous hors de France_."[336] In 1429, during the memorable siege, the Romanesque choir of Mont-Saint-Michel's abbey church collapsed. It was impossible then to rebuild it; they had even to sell their altar vessels to carry on the defense. When Normandy was again a part of France the erection of a new choir was undertaken by the abbot of the Mount, who was none other than the distinguished Cardinal Guillaume d'Estouteville, the chief agent in the vindication of Jeanne d'Arc's memory. His layman brother had directed the defense of the Mount during many years. In 1450 were laid down the crypt's nineteen mammoth piers, among the most powerful ever planted. The upper church reached its triforium story by 1469, the year when Louis XI came to the rock to establish his new Order of knighthood, and about 1513 the choir was completed. Many hold it to be superior to all other late-Gothic works in France. There are no capitals, the moldings die away in the shafts, the triforium is glazed. It belongs to the fleeting splendor of Flamboyant art, but without capriciousness. There is no overexuberance, no virtuosity in this vigorous, glad memorial of the nation's reconquered freedom: Sainte Jeanne went harvesting in France, And oh! what found she there? The brave seed of her scattering In fruitage everywhere. And where her strong and tender heart Was broken in the flame, She found the very heart of France Had flowered to her name.[337] Building activities at the embattled abbey ceased after the erection of its beautiful florid choir. The evil consequences of commendatory abbots--those named by royal whim--bore bitter fruit from end to end of France in the relaxed spiritual life of the monasteries. The XVII-century reformers of the Congregation of St. Maur found the Mount's abbot to be a princeling of Lorraine, five years of age. Those scholarly Benedictines carried on excellent research work in local history, but to their neo-classic generation Gothic art was a sealed book. Deplorable changes went on during three hundred years: an apsidal chapel of the church was made into a staircase, irregular windows were opened in the halls of the Merveille, the cloister was planted as a garden, to the deterioration of the lower structures, and when, in 1776, fire weakened the abbatial, its three westernmost bays were demolished and the present ugly façade put up. After the Revolution pillaged the monastery it became a state prison called Mont Libre, and so continued until 1863. The church was floored midway to serve as a convicts' hat factory. The modern restoration of Mont-Saint-Michel has been, like that which saved the palace of the popes at Avignon, a truly national benefit. THE CATHEDRAL OF ROUEN[338] One can say that nothing great ever was accomplished in the Church without women bearing a part. A host of them stood among the martyrs in the amphitheater; they disputed with the anchorites the possession of the desert. Constantine set up the Labarum on the Capitol, and St. Helena raised the True Cross on the walls of Jerusalem. Clovis, at Tolbiac, invoked the God of Clotilda. Monica's tears won the conversion of Augustine. Jerome dedicated the Vulgate to the piety of two Roman ladies, Paula and Eustochium. The first lawmakers of monkish life, Basil and Benedict, were seconded by their sisters, Macrina and Scholastica. The Countess Matilda held up the tottering throne of Gregory VII. The wise judgment of Queen Blanche dominated the reign of St. Louis. France was saved by Jeanne d'Arc. Isabella of Castile led in the discovery of the New World. And in times closer to our own we see St. Teresa mixing with bishops, doctors, and the founders of Orders by which the reform in Catholic ranks was operated. We see St. Francis de Sales cultivating like a rare flower the soul of Madame de Chantal, and St. Vincent de Paul passing over to Louise Marillac the most admirable of his designs, the establishment of the Sisters of Charity.--FRÉDÉRIC OZANAM. So much for the abbey churches of Normandy. Many another might be described, but with six Gothic cathedrals to consider, one must refrain. Of the six--Rouen, Lisieux, Évreux, Séez, Bayeux, and Coutances--that of Rouen shows the earliest Gothic work and its character is more French than Norman, as if the river, flowing down from Paris, carried with its waters the characteristics of the art life astir on the banks of the Seine, Oise, Aisne, and Marne. The least local of Normandy's cathedrals, Our Lady's church at Rouen, has a magnetism distinctly its own--from its florid romantic west front, the most lavish screen ever set up, to the imposing sentry columns that guard its sanctuary. The northwest tower is Normandy's best Primary Gothic, the southwest tower the supremest belfry that sprang up to commemorate the freeing of France from foreign yoke. The façades of the transept and the Lady chapel (whose tombs mark dates in the art history of France) rank with perfect Rayonnant work. Its storied windows are among the richest ever dight by mediæval guildsmen. Not but that a dozen flaws might be picked in the metropolitan church at Rouen. Were it to be strictly ranked among French cathedrals, it could not be placed among the foremost. But it has gone on embellishing itself century after century with a self-respect so sincere that few care to dispute its claim to stand in the front rank. On a first visit to Rouen many an amateur prefers the regularity of St. Ouen's abbatial, which in size equals Westminster Abbey.[339] St. Ouen, the classic of Rayonnant design, geometric in tracery, accentuating the ascending line, coldly perfect in construction, possessed still the true _sursum corda_ of Gothic, though the art was fast crystallizing into formulas. The capitals were lessened, and the glazed triforium united to the clearstory in a single composition. Made of fine-textured gray stone St. Ouen is a stately vessel, but, add the critics, "its uniform excellence is average." Gothic lore has not degenerated, but has simply gone too far in the development of its principles, says the mechanical artistry of the last built of the great monastic churches of France, planned before the tragedies of the Hundred Years' War had petrified the national genius.[340] The cathedral of Normandy's capital is not uniform, but its excellence surpasses the average. It is not homogeneous, its proportions are not absolutely harmonious, but it has profundity, personal character, and flashes of genius. The better it is known the deeper grows affection for it, which is not the case with St. Ouen. In the latter one feels that the cult is the main concern; in the cathedral there is piety of heart. The early history of Sainte-Marie at Rouen follows the usual course. Norse marauders wrecked the ancient cathedral. Rollo, the first duke, endowed another which was radically reconstructed under an XI-century archbishop, a son of Duke Richard II. In 1063, that Romanesque church was dedicated by Archbishop Maurille (whose tomb is in the present ambulatory) in the presence of William the Conqueror and his good Matilda. Vestiges of the Romanesque edifice are in the first bay of the choir aisle. In it were interred the prodigious Rollo, the Norwegian sea-robber, who sacked half Normandy, sailed up the Seine to terrorize Paris, and up the Loire to overrun Auvergne and Burgundy, and yet, no sooner was he granted the duchy of northern France than the buccaneer gave way to a ruler whose laws were so respected that golden bracelets were left exposed and remained unstolen for years in the forest of Roumare. Rollo was baptized a Christian in Rouen, in 912, and there he wedded a Carolingian princess. When his son, William Longsword, died in 945, he was wearing a gold key that opened a casket containing a monk's robe for his burial; the new rulers were swift to comprehend that monasteries were the chief civilizers in that formative age. Near Rouen, in 1087, died the Conqueror, sixth in descent from Rollo. "Pirate jostled statesman" in him, too. Mortally wounded at Mantes, he was brought to the priory of St. Gervase--beneath which suburban church still exists intact a V-century crypt--and as he heard the bells of Rouen Cathedral ringing, there rose to haunt him the curses, not loud but deep, of the oppressed Anglo-Saxons, and most piteously he petitioned the Queen of Heaven to draw Her Son's attention to all the religious houses he had built for the people's good on both sides of the Channel. No sooner was he dead than his retainers stripped and robbed him, and through private charity he was carried to his horror-inspiring burial at Caen. To Rouen, because of its generosity to him in his captivity, Richard Coeur-de-Lion bequeathed his heart. In 1203 the last duke of Normandy, John Lackland, fled from Rouen after the murder of his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, of which the popular voice accused him. Philippe-Auguste entered the city in triumph in 1204, and the building of the new Gothic cathedral started apace. Notre Dame at Rouen is associated closely with the return of Normandy under French rule. On Easter night, 1200, fire ravaged the city and its chief church. Whether the cathedral then wrecked was that blessed in 1063 by Bishop Robert de Maurille is uncertain. Some think that it was a Romanesque choir and transept which were burned, and a recently built Primary Gothic nave. It may have been an entirely new Gothic church which was destroyed. At any rate, the northwest tower, named after the VII-century bishop, Romanus, and the side doors of the main façade escaped the fire. The preservation of the tower was due, probably, to its position beyond the side aisle. The doors, built about 1180, are ornamented with Oriental incrustations such as are to be seen in the cathedral at Genoa, with which seaport Rouen had trade links. The Tour Saint-Romain, whose prototypes were the towers at Étampes, Vendôme, and Chartres, was long counted as the oldest Primary Gothic work extant in Normandy, with the chapter house at St. Georges de Boscherville and the chapel of St. Julien, Petit-Quevilly.[341] But as many archæologists now say that the Gothic vault of St. Étienne's nave at Caen may be 1130 just as well as 1160, and that there are still earlier diagonals in the duchy, it remains an open question where the oldest extant ogival work of Normandy is. Mr. John Bilson claims that the diagonals of Lessay's choir pre-date any in the Ile-de-France. However the controversy over the priority of diagonals may be decided, the tower of St. Romain is the first Norman monument that shows the incontestable influence of Gothic of the Ile-de-France type. The spirit of religious ardor that expressed itself in the northwest tower of Rouen Cathedral was described by Bishop Hugues d'Amiens in a letter, in 1145, to a brother prelate. He tells how volunteers were quitting Normandy to aid in the making of the new tower at Chartres: "In like manner, a large number of the faithful of this, our diocese, and of neighboring regions, put themselves to work on the cathedral church, their mother, forming associations to which no one is admitted unless he has confessed his sins, fulfilled his penances, laid down at the foot of the altar every enmity and revenge, and become reconciled with his enemies in a true peace. Under the lead of one in the band, who is chosen as chief, the people drag heavy wagons in humility and silence." The writer of this famous letter had been a monk of Cluny, and while ruling the see of Rouen he taught school there; he had inherited the traditions of Bec's scholarship through Anselm of Laon. The lower hall of the cathedral tower then begun is considered faultless. Before the close of the century the upper hall was completed, but the belfry story was not added till the late-Gothic day. After the fire of 1200 work on the new cathedral was pushed on with energy. A master called Jean d'Andely is cited as the architect, a native, probably, of Les Andelys farther up the Seine, where there are two churches so closely resembling the cathedral of Rouen that they are doubtless from the same hand.[342] Another architect, named Enguerrand, is mentioned as quitting work on the cathedral of the capital in 1214, to undertake the abbatial at Bec. A keystone of Notre Dame, of the date 1233, is inscribed by one Durand, mason. He is thought to have been the son-in-law of the original architect, Jean d'Andely. The first plan of Rouen Cathedral called for tribunes over the aisles, but the idea was given up in order to have the side aisles twice as high as originally designed. The arches by which the tribunes would have opened on the central vessel were retained, however, as was done later with the false tribunes of the abbey church at Eu. In the side aisles, resting on the capitals of the nave's piers, are ringed colonnettes that rise to the ledge above--a ledge constructed to catch the tribune's diagonals (which never were built). By this graceful expedient they cloaked architectural members prepared but not used. The passageway carried from pier to pier above the main arcade of the nave is exceptional. An apsidal chapel projects from each arm of the transept, as in the Romanesque edifices of the region. The archbishop under whom Notre Dame of Rouen was begun was Walter of Coutance, _Gautier-le-magnifique_ (1184-1207), who willed his fortune to the cathedral, since it was he, devoted public servant of the Plantagenets, and long the chief justice of England, who had urged the chapter to sell its treasure to help ransom Coeur-de-Lion from captivity after the Third Crusade. He himself went as hostage into Germany in order that Richard might be released before his full ransom was raised. Learned, liberal, and affable, Bishop Walter was a man of whom all spoke well. The choir of Rouen Cathedral showed more the regional characteristics; the arches were more acute and the moldings multiple. The circular piers about the sanctuary have Norman round capitals. We know that in 1235 a bishop was buried in the choir, which must have been entirely finished when, in 1255, St. Louis spent Easter in Rouen as the guest of his friend and counselor, Archbishop Eudes Rigaud (1247-74), a Franciscan, who was to accompany the king on his fatal crusade. The choir's upper windows were reconstructed during the XV century. About 1280, architect Jean Davy began the south façade of the transept, the Portail de la Calende, so called because there was carved there a mythical animal of that name, considered in ancient times as a symbol of the Saviour, since the superstition was that the sight of a Calende cured illness. The transept façades of Rouen are among the best works of the Rayonnant phase. Their sculpture, says M. Enlart, has not yet the fluid indecision of XIV-century draperies. A pronounced feature of that period are the openwork gables, which, though they may be superbly decorative, are none the less a step away from constructive sincerity, since drip stones made of lacework masonry fail to fulfill their practical function. The northern door of the transept was named from the canon's library beside it. It, too, like the earlier Calende portal, was paneled with medallions over which many a pharisee has shaken his head. The Middle Ages were neither pharisaic nor prudish. Rouen's little sculptured groups are merely fantastic and popular. They embody no satire against the clergy, as some would intimate; nor are they obscene. To place a centaur or an acrobat in proximity to a scriptural group seemed then no more profane than to illuminate the margins of missals with meaningless frolics. Leeway was allowed the artistic imagination, which here ran largely to grotesques. The medallions of the Calende door were in better sequence and of more vigorous character than those of the Portail des Libraires. Beside this latter entrance is the courtroom of the archepiscopal palace adorned with statues representing Solomon's judgment, in souvenir of the old usage of rendering justice before church doors. From 1302 to 1320 rose the Rayonnant Gothic Lady chapel of impeccable mechanical skill but not inspired. Long centuries later, during the Revolution, its tomb of the cardinals d'Amboise,[343] in which Gothic sculpture culminated, escaped destruction because the axis chapel served as a granary. Clement V, the builder of Bordeaux' Rayonnant choir, arranged that his nephew, who was archbishop of Rouen and had got into difficulties with the Norman nobles, should exchange his see with Gilles Aycelin, the prelate who was erecting Narbonne Cathedral, brother of the bishop-builder of Clermont's nave. A little later another archbishop of Rouen became the Avignon pontiff who built the audience hall and the chief chapel of the palace on the Rhone. Other XIV-century additions to Rouen Cathedral are the side chapels; every guild and corporation craved thus to honor its own particular patron. Those contemporary works, Rouen's Lady chapel, the choirs of Bordeaux and Narbonne, Avignon's halls, belong to the phase of the national genius which we call Rayonnant because of its geometric window tracery, a phase aptly designated as metallic by M. Gonse. Artists were fast losing their exquisite feeling for the silhouette; the vertical line was over-accentuated; triforium and clearstory had become one composition. Pitiless logic was drying up the spring of inspiration. When the cathedral of Rouen remade three bays of the nave's triforium, the model taken was the geometric design of that masterpiece of Rayonnant Gothic, the abbatial of St. Ouen. Before the XIV century closed the façade of the cathedral was redressed with arcatures and statues like the west frontispieces of Wells, Salisbury, and Litchfield. The XV century carried through the chief supplementary works of Sainte-Marie of Rouen in a style frankly florid. Normandy, Artois, and Picardy reveled in the last development of the national art, regions all of them having close links with England. For if much of Flamboyant Gothic was indigenous, as M. Anthyme Saint-Paul contends, if it enveloped and absorbed Rayonnant Gothic, it seems fairly well proved that its two most pronounced traits, the flamelike window tracery and arches of double curvature, came from England. M. Enlart says that ramified vaults were built at Ely, Lincoln, and Litchfield, during the XIII century. By 1304 accolade arches were used; at Merton College, Oxford, is a flame-tracery window of 1310, features not to be found in France before 1375.[344] In the Rayonnant phase lines break; in the Flamboyant they undulate. Rayonnant capitals were diminished; capitals disappeared altogether in the later period, and molds melted into the piers. Normandy expressed her renewed national dignity with enthusiasm in the flowery, happy architecture we call Flamboyant: Le Temps a laissié son manteau De vent, de froidure et de pluye, Et s'est vestu de broderye De soleil raiant, cler, et beau. So sang Charles, Duke of Orléans, come back from twenty years in English prisons to witness the expulsion of the invader from Normandy: Il n'y a beste ne oiseau Que en son jargon ne chante ou crye; Le Temps a laissié son manteau De vent, de froidure et de pluye.[345] How they built in Rouen! With what vim and emancipated energy! St. Ouen carried forward its nave and raised a central tower. From 1437 to 1480 was built the gallant little church of St. Maclou with a central tower that is one of the best in Normandy, and whose curving front of five arcades is profusely elegant. Similarly large, ornate portals became the vogue in late-Gothic Norman construction. St. Maclou is to the Gothic art of the XIII century what the reel is to the minuet, said an English architect.[346] In the cathedral of Rouen one noted master succeeded another. Guillaume Pontifs put the belfry on St. Romain's tower (1463-77); built the canon's library, to which he made a staircase from the cathedral's transept; and made the decorated portico leading from the rue St. Romain to the court before the Portail des Libraires. No approach to a church possesses more entirely the atmosphere of the Middle Ages than that. Pontifs began a masterpiece of Flamboyant architecture, the Tour de Beurre (1485-1509), that, as it rises, grows more and more sumptuous, though it never loses its architectural lines. Unfortunately the stone used was of poor quality, which necessitated a coarse sculpture. The transition from square to octagon was gracefully achieved by the one constructive arrangement which originated during the final stage of the national art: to unify the design, flying buttresses were sprung from the corner turrets and the face-shafts to the octagon.[347] From 1497 to 1507 the master-of-works at Rouen Cathedral was Jacques Le Roux, who continued the Tour de Beurre, finished by his nephew, Rouland Le Roux (1507-20), an artist of the first order. He redressed the upper part of the main frontispiece in order to put it into character with the Tour de Beurre and St. Romain's belfry. After completing the middle portal of the façade he reconstructed the central tower, whose platform he raised a story higher. When Rouen's lantern tower was burned in 1822 the present iron skeleton was contrived, a structure too mechanical to be architecture, but of good effect in the distant views of the city. The oft repeated renewals of the famous frontispiece of Rouen Cathedral account for its failure to express the interior church structurally, but though merely a screen, it is deservedly popular, "one of the dreams of the Middle Ages," M. Émile Lambin has called it. By moonlight its effect is romantic, almost spectacular. Most popular, too, is another work of Rouland Le Roux, the Palais de Justice which he built with Roger Ango, from 1493 to 1507, for the parliament of Normandy. A pomp and a pageantry carried almost to folly distinguished the generations that raised monuments such as these. In 1520, when Francis I met Henry VIII, not far from Rouen, at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, many a lord, says the chronicler, carried on his back his mills and his forests and his meadows. One of the most curious houses in France, Rouen's Hôtel du Bourgtherould, now a bank near the Old Market, is decorated exteriorly by reliefs of the Field of the Cloth of Gold.[348] M. Léon Palustre discovered that the sculpture on its tower, originally polychrome, was a copy of a Flemish tapestry in the possession of that prince of pageantry, Philippe le Hardi of Burgundy. The archbishop of Rouen from 1493 to 1510 was none other than the Mæcenas of his age, Cardinal George I d'Amboise, chief minister of Louis XII. All over France we have traced the work of that art-loving family--at Paris, Cluny, Clermont, Chaumont, Albi. A nephew of the same name held the see here until 1545, and saw to the erection of his uncle's tomb, designed by Rouland Le Roux, with sculpture by artists of the Michel Colombe tradition as well as those of the Italian Renaissance. Rouen was so active a center for glassmaking that, in 1317, Exeter obtained windows here, as did Gloucester and Merton College, Oxford. Next to Troyes, Rouen contained the richest collection of colored glass in France. Until the Revolution her eighty lesser churches were filled with it. The best windows left are six lancets in the ambulatory of the cathedral. They belong to the XIII-century school of Chartres and are exceptional in being the only signed windows; "Clement of Chartres" was their maker. The first, given by a company of boatmen, relates the legend of St. Julian Hospitator, who ferried strangers day and night over the river, a story recounted by Gustave Flaubert, a son of Rouen.[349] The other five lancets are of the _Biblia pauperum_ type, teaching dogma to the people. The cold, limpid hues of the XIV century appear in the Lady chapel, and in the chapel of St. Jeanne d'Arc is an interesting Pentecost window of that century; contemporary are the apse lights in the upper choir, where the unsuccessful experiment was tried of continuing the subject from one panel to another--here the arms of the Crucified Lord extend into the lateral lights. The cathedral's west rose is of the XV century; in the transept is a XVI-century window devoted to the ancient bishop Romanus. The abbatial of St. Ouen has, with the choir of Évreux, the best array extant of XIV-century canopy glass figures. So loath were the vitrine artists to give up an architectural design in glass that when the XV century composed scenes instead of single figures for each panel, even those small groups were set in grisaille frames. The iconoclastic 1562 worked havoc in Rouen. For twenty-four hours a Huguenot mob wrecked tombs, altars, and windows in the cathedral, to such an extent that it lay unused during half a year. One mourns the loss of the cenotaph of good Charles V, made in 1369 by the same Jean de Marville who designed the famous Dijon tomb of the king's brother. Ten years later, in 1572, the Rouen Catholics retaliated by massacring some eight hundred Calvinists in the city on St. Bartholomew's Day. In the World War Rouen became almost an English city again. This time, however, England, the ancient combatant of France, came not as a detested invader, but as her ally in dire years of distress. It is pleasant to learn that devotion to the Maid of Orleans was not infrequent among the English troops of 1914-18. JEANNE D'ARC'S TRIAL IN ROUEN[350] De ma part, je répute son histoire un vrai miracle le Dieu. La pudicité que je vois l'avoir accompagnée jusques à sa mort, même au milieu des troupes; la juste querelle qu'elle prit; la prouesse qu'elle y apporta; les heureux succès de ses affaires; la sage simplicité que je recueille de ses réponses au interrogatoires qui lui furent faits par les juges du tout voués à sa ruine; ses prédictions qui, depuis, sortirent effet; la mort cruelle qu'elle choisit dont elle se pouvoit garantir s'il y eût de la feintise en son fait; tout cela dis-je, me fait croire (joint les voyes du ciel quelle oyoit) que toute sa vie et histoire fut un vrai martyre de Dieu.--Testimony of ÉTIENNE PASQUIER (1529-1615). So swiftly followed the fruitage of the sacrifice offered up in the Vieux-Marché on May 21, 1431, that in every part of the ancient city of Rouen sprang up exuberant, vigorous, Flamboyant monuments. The most momentous and the saddest happening in the history of Normandy's capital was the burning at the stake of Jeanne la Pucelle whose relief of Orléans, only two short years before, had saved the nation in its last gasp. From the church of St. Saviour on the market place they brought her the cross for which she begged on that tragic morning, that the pillory on which her Lord had hung might be held up before her eyes, to strengthen her in her last hour. Long afterward, in 1450, Massieu, the priest-sheriff of her trial, a weak man but less unsympathetic than many in that grim gathering of rascals, testified: "The English feared her more than the whole army of the king of France.... It was they who held the trial and paid its costs. She was taken to the Viel-Marché, having beside her Brother Martin and me, and accompanied by more than eight hundred men at arms, with spears and swords. On the way she made pious lamentation so touchingly that my companion and I could not keep back our tears. She recommended her soul to God and the saints with such devotion that those who heard her wept. All distressed, she exclaimed, 'Rouen, Rouen, must I die here!'" When the Old Market was reached Jeanne heard herself sermonized as a limb of Satan, a blasphemer guilty of diabolical malice, of pernicious crimes, and infected with the leprosy of heresy. Her sentence read, she fell on her knees and addressed to God prayers so ardent that even the foreign masters of Rouen were moved. Her dear St. Michael she petitioned, too. "As soon as the flames reached her," relates an eyewitness, "she cried out more than six times, '_Jhésus!_' and then a final time, in a loud voice, with her last breath, '_Jhésus!_' And her cry was heard from end to end of the market place, and almost everyone was weeping.... A shiver passed over the assembly.... The people pointed at her judges and said that Jeanne was the victim of a great injustice.... They murmured that such an evil deed should have taken place in their city.... That evening the executioner went to the Dominican convent and confessed in fear, 'I have burned a saint!'... The secretary of the English king turned away from the lamentable spectacle, muttering: 'We are lost. We have burned a saint!" Surrounded by her brutal jailers, at dawn that May morning, Jeanne had said, with confidence, "With God's aid, I shall be this night in His Kingdom of Paradise." As her final cry to her Redeemer rang out, a canon of Rouen Cathedral prayed aloud, "Would to God my soul were where I believe is the soul of this Maid." The young priest-secretary, the clerk of the court, Manchon, who took down her trial (and let his irresistible admiration for her run over in marginal notes, "_Superba responsio!_"), testified later: "Never did I weep so much over any grief that has come to me, and for a month I could not be appeased. I bought a little missal with the money that came to me from the trial, that I might have cause to remember her in my prayers." The verdict of all impartial men in Rouen, that somber May morning of 1431, was that the whole business from beginning to end had been violence and injustice.[351] A packed jury had judged her. The president of the tribunal, the renegade selected to prove a saint a sorceress, was Bishop Pierre Cauchon, driven from his see of Beauvais by loyal Frenchmen, as the enemy of his own country. Because the see of Rouen was unoccupied, the English preferred to hold Jeanne's trial there rather than at Paris, where the bishop was not their creature. How abject a tool Cauchon was is to-day shown by old receipts which prove that he was the recipient, on each day of the trial, of a hundred _sols tournois_. For the same ignoble reason many a learned professor "charged his soul." There was not the faintest shadow of fair play in the process. After Maître Jean Lohier had said to Cauchon that the proceedings were not valid because Jeanne was allowed no counsel, nor were the hearings in public court, and those present had not freedom to express their true opinion, that honest Norman lawyer saw that his only safety lay in quitting the city. "It is an affair of hate," he said to young Secretary Manchon one day as they stood together in Rouen Cathedral. "Deliberately they try to trap her. If only she would not say in regard to her apparitions, 'I know for certain,' but, 'It seems to me,' I do not see how she could be condemned." Some canons of the cathedral who criticized the trial were thrown into prison, and the English locked up a citizen who remarked that since Jeanne had been judged innocent by the doctors at Poitiers, in a court presided over by the archbishop of Rheims, a second trial was illegal. Three of the younger judges who at first dared to give their true opinion were berated by Cauchon, who bade them quit their ecclesiastical quibbling and let the jurists decide the matter. The testimony of the aged bishop of Avranches, then a resident of Rouen, was set aside because he advised that in matters doubtful touching the faith the case should be referred to a council or to the pope. Because Massieu, the humble court usher, said to a townsman, "I can see nothing but goodness and honor in her," he was threatened with a prison cell where never again would he see sun or moon. The secretaries, Manchon and Boisguillaume, were beaten by the English. A man on the street who spoke well of Jeanne was chased by Lord Warwick with a drawn sword and almost killed. Passions ran high. Lord Stafford drew his dagger on Jeanne in her cell one day because she said that the English would be driven out of France. Even after her execution, when a Dominican in the city spoke kindly of her, he was flung into prison for a year. Her judges sought to tire Jeanne out by long hours of interrogation; the lawyers themselves came away exhausted from the sessions. Virulent against her was Beaupère, rector of Paris University, who, when routed by the young girl's replies, called her sly. When Cauchon wished to have it appear that she refused to submit to the Church, he made the scribes omit her statement that gladly she appealed to a general council or to the pope. "Ah," cried Jeanne, "you write all that is against me, but you do not write anything for me." The lawyers' subtle questions rained on her thick and fast till she would call them to order with admirable courtesy, "_Beaux seigneurs, faites l'un après l'autre_." Whenever she wished to make no reply to a question came her concise, "_Passez outre_." Secretary Manchon testified before an inquest, twenty years later, "Never could Jeanne have defended herself as she did in so difficult a cause, against so many and such learned doctors, if she had not been inspired." Sublime to tears are some of the answers made by this young country girl not yet twenty, who could barely read and write, who knew only _Pater_ and _Ave_. When sheeringly asked were she in a state of grace, she replied: "A serious question to answer. If I am, may God keep me so; if I am not, may God put me in his grace. I would rather die than not have God's love." Awe fell on the assemblage and for that day the session broke up.[352] Yet Jeanne was very human at her trial, too. It was just the well-brought-up country maid, the Jeannette they all loved in Domrémy, who boasted before those callous men: "For sewing and for spinning, I fear no woman in Rouen." Those housewives of Rouen, the "little people of the Lord," to whom Jeanne's thoughts turned in homely fashion, dared only murmur beneath their breath that her process was "a crying injustice," and shame it was that so evil a _cause célèbre_ should take place in their good town. Rouen was terrorized into silence by her foreign master. Jeanne's five months' imprisonment and final execution at Rouen was a political crime covered with the cloak of religious zeal by a very genius of hypocrisy. John Plantagenet, Duke of Bedford, together with the boy king's great-uncle, the cardinal of Winchester, were the movers behind the scenes. Jeanne never quitted her prison in the castle built by Philippe-Auguste--only a tower of which is extant to-day. From that stronghold the English governed Normandy. Since the opening of the World War an erroneous inscription, placed by partisan politicians in the wall of the episcopal palace of Rouen, has been changed, for it sought to convey the idea that from the prelate's court of justice Jeanne was led forth to her death. Never did she set foot in that officiality building; she was held from the first day to the last in an English prison. From a dark cell in the tower fortress she was conducted through corridors of the same castle to the hall where sat her judges. Massieu, the usher, used to let her slip into the castle chapel for an _Ave_ as she passed its open door, but even that solace was stopped by Estivet. That venomous agent of Cauchon accused Jeanne of ironic replies ill suited to a woman.[353] Cauchon tried to coerce the young priest-secretaries of the trial, Manchon and Boisguillaume, to falsify their notes, but they proved incorruptible. And twenty years later they, with Massieu, became the chief vindicators of the Maid when the inquests for her rehabilitation were started. Jeanne had felt their unspoken sympathy. Once with pleasant humor she told them not to ask her the same question twice or she would pull their ears. We know from contemporaries that Jeanne's way of intercourse was natural and friendly, _enjouée_, that her attitude was modesty itself, that her voice had a feminine note of sweetness, that she was strong and comely and well shaped, that her hair was dark. Born in 1412, by the Meuse, in Domrémy, on the old Roman road from Langres to Verdun, in French territory, on the borders of Champagne and Lorraine, she was not yet eighteen when she crossed the ravaged land in the winter of 1429 to rouse Charles VII, then in Chinon Castle. In March of that year she raised the siege of Orléans; in July she witnessed the coronation of her "_gentil dauphin_" at Rheims; in September occurred the assault on Paris, from which siege Charles VII, counseled by traitors, retired, and all winter Jeanne was kept in semiactivity, though chafing to free the land from the foreign yoke. Especially she longed to go to the aid of the besieged Mont-Saint-Michel, and to liberate from his English prison the poet-duke of Orléans, even, she said, if it meant going to London Tower itself. In May, 1430, she was captured by her enemies, the Burgundians. Jeanne's active mission covered only a year. "Several times in my presence," testified the Duke d'Alençon,[354] her companion in arms, "Jeanne told the king she would last but a year, and to look well that he made right use of her." But Charles VII failed her. After her capture Jeanne spent some months in prisons in northern France, and finally she was sold to the English for a king's ransom. Never in their minds was there any mistake as to who had turned the tide against them. "They had for her a mortal hate," said, in later years, Pierre Minier, one of the judges cowed by the Duke of Bedford; "they thirsted to bring about her death, no matter by what means." From December, 1430, to May, 1431, Jeanne's martyrdom at Rouen endured. "An iron cage was made for her, and at night she was chained up," declared Secretary Boisguillaume, at the inquest of 1450. "She was incarcerated in Rouen Castle; her guardians were English soldiery of the lowest type; day and night they kept watch ... they made her the object of their mockeries; often she reproached them for it. Her feet were held in irons which were attached to a post." There were scenes in that dark cell, vouched for by witnesses, which are too painful to transcribe.[355] Only when she fell ill was the severity with which she was treated relaxed, lest by a natural death she escape public burning. One day Estivet so vilified her that she had a relapse of fever. Every detail is set down in the process for her rehabilitation, for which the Dominican Bréhal traveled from end to end of France, gathering testimony from those who had known Jeanne. But the chief instrument of her vindication is the word-for-word record of her trial at Rouen in 1431. Not in all history is there a more personal and appealing document. One can hear Jeanne's very accent in her valiant replies to her tormentors. "_Répondes hardiment_," her voices admonished her. Why did Charles VII, who, before Jeanne appeared, was about to pass into foreign exile, strike no blow to rescue her who had given him back his kingdom? A difficult question to answer. Charles was no hero, though his quality of perseverance was ultimately to make him the instrument that ended the centuries-old Capet-Plantagenet duel. Charles was surrounded by counselors who were jealous of Jeanne's leadership, who represented her captivity as the result of her headstrong character. In 1449 Charles, _le bien servi_, but not the duly grateful, entered Rouen "in triumph and magnificence as never king in city." Bells rang out and children cried, "_Noël!_" in welcome. In the cathedral the festal throng gathered. Beside the king stood Jacques Coeur, the merchant-prince, who had provided the funds for the reconquest of Normandy, and whose splendor of apparel on this triumphal entry was so to excite the barons' envy that within four years their machinations had him impeached, despoiled, and banished. He who was building at Bourges the finest bourgeois mansion in France, must have observed with interest the host of Flamboyant monuments then arising in Rouen. With Charles VII came, too, his commander in chief, the great Dunois, who had fought with Jeanne, the half brother of the Duke of Orléans, who that day was singing: "Resjoys-toy, franc royaume de France! À présent Dieu pour toy se combat." When Normandy was again French, not many years were to pass before Rouen exonerated herself of the crime of Jeanne's execution. The chief mover of the rehabilitation was the archbishop of the city, the Norman, Guillaume d'Estouteville, son of the hero who in 1415 held Harfleur against the entire army of Henry V, brother of the knight who led the defense of Mont-Saint-Michel, and nephew of Archbishop d'Harcourt, who gave up his see of Rouen to live in exile, rather than swear fealty to a non-French master. Cardinal d'Estouteville saw the propriety of clearing not only Normandy but France and the Church of what had been the political crime of foreigners. Through his efforts Pope Calixtus III, in 1456, revoked the legal decision of 1431, as "iniquitous, malicious, calumnious, and fraudulent." The unworthy Cauchon was excommunicated. A formal reading of the sentence of rehabilitation took place in the big hall of Rouen's episcopal palace: "Considering the quality of the judges and of those who directed the trial, considering that her abjuration was extorted by fraud and violence, in presence of the executioner and under threat of fire, without the accused understanding its full content and terms, considering finally that the crimes charged against her are not proven whatsoever by the process"--thus runs the decree declaring Jeanne's two sentences of condemnation in 1431 to be the work of iniquity. It was ordered that the rehabilitation be read publicly, not alone in Rouen, but in all the chief towns of France. Rouen celebrated with gladness the justice rendered to the Maid who had saved France in her darkest hour. A solemn procession, in which marched Jeanne's brothers, who had been ennobled by the king, proceeded to the graveyard beside St. Ouen's abbatial, where, twenty-five years earlier, Jeanne had sat alone on a platform above the crowd, just a week before her execution. They had there read to her the twelve accusations--dubbing her witch and wanton--which a doctor of Paris University had drawn up, and then a preacher thundered in vituperation. Jeanne listened gently till she heard Charles VII abused, whereupon she, who had the mystic cult of royalty, lifted up her head bravely: "By my faith, sire," she cried, "my king is a noble Christian. Say what you will of me, but leave my king alone." "Hush her up!" angrily cried Cauchon. In that cemetery of St. Ouen occurred what now is called proper self-defense on Jeanne's part. She could write her name, but with a smile she signed with a circle, emblem of mockery, and a cross, meaning negation. She hoped to be transferred to the prisons of the Church, where she clamored to be placed. Jeanne signed a paper consisting of seven lines, and afterward they produced an abjuration of fifty lines. Her judge might be a bishop, but never once did she confuse the Church she revered and the unworthy clerics who sat in judgment on her. During the ceremonies of the rehabilitation at Rouen, a great procession marched to the Old Market where had stood Jeanne's funeral pyre, and with solemnity the twelve accusations against her were torn into shreds and burned. Rouen felt happier after rendering that justice, and her renewed self-respect found natural expression in her Flamboyant Gothic monuments. However, many a long year was to go by before France fully comprehended the martyr of Rouen. Voltaire libeled Jeanne as vilely as the XV-century savants of Paris University. The rationalists of a later day have patronized her as self-hallucinated. But the tide has mounted. "The day that all the bells of the world ring in honor of Jeanne d'Arc, they will sound abroad the glory of France," said Leo XIII, in 1896. The Maid of Domrémy-on-the-Meuse was declared Venerable in 1904, Blessed in 1909, and canonized a saint in 1920. _St. Jeanne d'Arc, ora pro nobis!_ THE CATHEDRAL OF LISIEUX[356] One must live as one thinks, or else, sooner or later, one finishes by thinking as one lives.--PAUL BOURGET. Lisieux Cathedral is, with that of Rouen, the least Norman in the province. It claims to be the first built of the Gothic cathedrals of Normandy and the most vigorous. The preceding Romanesque cathedral was grievously damaged by fire in 1136. Arnoul, a prelate who had gone through the disillusioning experience of the Second Crusade, began the present church. Similarities between it and Laon Cathedral, and various other indications, prove that it was building from 1160 to 1190. Bishop Arnoul, of a line of shrewd Norman diplomatists, profited materially by his ability to keep on good terms with both husbands of Aliénor of Aquitaine, Henry of England, and Louis of France. In Lisieux Cathedral he married Aliénor to Henry II, which act was to take three hundred years of war and Jeanne's sacrifice to undo. Arnoul was the English king's chief adviser before Becket's ascendancy. It is said that he counseled Henry, after his first quarrel with Becket, to detach one by one the English bishops from their primate, which policy of _divide et impera_ came only too easily to an Angevin-Anglo-Norman. Four times did Bishop Arnoul journey to Sens to negotiate for Henry with the pope, during the Becket controversy. Some of the leading men of his day admired the prelate of Lisieux; but soundly honest men such as Abbot Robert de Torigny of the Mount, and the bishop of Chartres, John of Salisbury, distrusted him entirely--the latter remarked on his political sense in bestowing benefits when he wished to convince a man of his point of view. Under Bishop Arnoul the nave of Lisieux rose in one campaign, a monument severe and pure, fog-colored like the wintry sky over it, say the townsmen. A note of force is imparted by the sturdy cylindrical piers. There is a narthex bay at the western end--a Germanic influence. No trace of vaulting shows in the deep gallery over the aisles, though the triforium arches that open on the central vessel are better suited for a tribune than a blind arcade. Behind that arcade now stands a poorly constructed wall opened here and there by doors, reminding us that once it was the custom for crusaders to store their valuables in the upper galleries of cathedrals. Some have suggested that Guillaume de Sens was the architect of Lisieux, whose resemblances with his known works at Sens and Canterbury are discernible. Lisieux adhered to the Romanesque tradition of salient transept arms; that to the north lacks a portal; that to the south is an excellent example of plainest Primary Gothic. The transept has an eastern aisle, an arrangement found at Durham, Lincoln, Salisbury, and Peterborough. The first two bays of the choir were built, like the nave, in the XII century; the birth of the apse is marked by a staircase, as at Caen, Boscherville, Fécamp, and Eu. The ample central tower of Lisieux, not in the first plan, was erected as the choir was gradually extended. In the later-constructed straight bays of the choir, and at the apse, finished under Bishop Jourdain du Hommet, no annulets broke the ascending line of the clustered shafts, quatrefoils were cut in the spandrels, and more and more the structure took on regional characteristics. Arches were set under arches, some of them being acutely pointed, because the Norman preferred to use the same opening of the compass for all his arches, wide or narrow. It gave his eye pleasure to multiply molds, and his sense of exactitude craved a support for every roll molding. Lisieux' choir, however, avoided what was to become an excessive complication of parts in the Anglo-Norman school. The cathedral is essentially vigorous and severe. In 1226 a fire necessitated repairs, and Bishop Guillaume de Pont-de-l'Arche took the opportunity to make three ambulatory chapels. He built the façade towers whose lower walls retained Romanesque parts of the XI century. When the southwest tower fell in 1553 it was replaced by one of pre-Gothic design. The northwest belfry had as prototype the famous one of St. Pierre at Caen. The axis chapel--longer than the XIII-century one it replaced--is a gem of Flamboyant art. On its walls are some small funereal bas-reliefs erected by the cathedral canons. The builder of Lisieux' Lady chapel was Pierre Cauchon, president of the tribunal that sentenced Jeanne d'Arc to death. He did not erect his chapel, as some intimate, in expiation of his conduct at Rouen in 1431, for he remained to the end the creature of his country's invaders. His detestation of Jeanne, moreover, was a personal affair, since it had been her triumph at Orléans, creating a national hope, that put heart into the citizens of Beauvais to expel their pro-English bishop. The English sent him to buy Jeanne from her captors. After the happenings in St. Ouen's cemetery, by law Jeanne should have been passed into the control of the Church, but Cauchon ordered her back to her English prison, and when she again donned male attire, and again asserted that she had heard her voices, her unscrupulous enemies were enabled to accuse her of being a relapsed heretic and wanton, to start a new trial, and condemn her to death. Cauchon himself hastened to the fortress to witness Jeanne's "relapse," and with Lord Warwick he is said to have chuckled over it--"This time she's well caught!" The morning that Jeanne was led to her execution she faced Cauchon fearlessly: "Bishop, I die by your hand. Had I been placed in the prisons of the Church, this would never have happened. You have left me in the clutches of my enemies. I call you before God, the great judge, to answer for the wrong you have done me." Even as she so spoke a spirited statue now represents Jeanne in Cauchon's Norman cathedral, while her judge is a condemned felon before the bar of history. Like Arnoul, builder of Lisieux' nave, Cauchon knew how to act a better part. As rector of Paris University he had been esteemed for his learning. But, coming to the parting of the ways, he chose the broad and easy path, and the rest followed. His influence encouraged the University of Paris in its pernicious betrayal of France after Henry V's invasion. Cauchon won the see of Beauvais by defending Jean Sans Peur of Burgundy, in 1407, when the latter had murdered his cousin, the Duke of Orléans,[357] in the streets of Paris. And in the same hour that he thus truckled for advancement, Jean Gerson, the chancellor of Paris University, denounced the ducal crime--destined to be for France of incalculable consequence--and had his house sacked by Burgundians. Ten years later, at the Council of Constances, in Switzerland Cauchon upheld the murderer, and Gerson rebuked the crime, whereupon he felt it to be wiser to quit Constances in disguise and to pass his latter life in retirement. Cauchon became the butcher of Jeanne d'Arc, his name forever an infamy; Gerson, dying in poverty and defeat at Lyons, was thought worthy, during two centuries, to be called the author of the _Imitation of Christ_, and before he passed away in July, 1429, it was given to him to learn that the Maid had triumphed at Orléans, and to testify that her mission was of God: _Gratia Dei estensa est in hac puella; a Domino factum est istud_. Cauchon, ex-bishop of Beauvais, having placed his learning and energies at the service of his country's invaders, ambitiously hoped to obtain Rouen as his thirty pieces of silver, but the Duke of Bedford compromised matters by bestowing on him the lesser see of Lisieux, in 1432. As the national cause prospered the traitor was more and more detested by the populace. When the Burgundian partisans of the English were expelled from Paris, the properties of the bishop of Lisieux in the capital were seized and he himself was mobbed. In 1442 he fell dead suddenly one day while his barber was shaving him. A few years later, when Jeanne was rehabilitated and her judge excommunicated, the populace broke open Cauchon's tomb in the cathedral and flung his bones into the mire. His successor at Lisieux, Bishop Pasquier de Vaux, also one of Jeanne's faithless judges, died alone, deserted, on the day that the French army entered his city as victors, in 1449. The after history of Lisieux Cathedral followed the same course as others in France; 1562 and 1793 wrecked its monuments and smashed its stained glass. In the Flamboyant Gothic church of St. Jacques--where not a capital breaks the ascending line--are some XVI-century windows, making it the first church with such remaining. Lisieux can boast of no bishop canonized by the Church, but her citizens are doing all in their power to let Christendom know of the gentle Norman girl, Thérèse Martin, the "Little Flower," who died in the odor of sanctity (1897) in the Carmelite convent of the town, before she had reached her twenty-fifth year. Her extraordinary cult, especially among soldiers during the World War, proves that the thirst for sainthood is as strong as ever in the peoples who went crusading and flung themselves toward heaven in cathedrals. Art springs from emotions such as that felt by Frenchmen for the "Little Flower." To ignore such manifestations, as do the rationalists who still are insisting, as dogmatically as before 1914, that France, at root, is the land of Voltaire, is a willful shutting of the eyes to the basic forces that make history. Those good people of Lisieux who are mystic-minded, who _believe in order that they may understand_, as Anselm taught at Bec near by, as Plato taught in Greece, feel subconsciously that their "Little Flower," who said that only after her death would begin her real mission, is atoning for Pierre Cauchon.[358] THE CATHEDRAL OF ÉVREUX[359] Il en coûte cher pour devenir la France. Nous nous plaignons, et non sans droit, de nos épreuves et de nos mécomptes. Nos pères n'ont pas vécu plus doucement que nous, ni recueilli plus tôt et à meilleur marché les fruits de leurs travaux. Il y a dans le spectacle de leurs destinées de quoi s'attrister et se fortifier à la fois. L'histoire abat les prétentions impatientes et soutient les longues espérances.--GUIZOT. The cathedral of Évreux is not homogeneous like that of Lisieux, but, gathering of different styles though it is, Romanesque, Gothic, early and late, neo-classic, it possesses its own distinct personality. A church of whose choir it has been said by one so competent to compare the cathedrals of his native land as M. Louis Gonse, that it is "one of the fairest bits of Gothic architecture in France," surely can hold its own among more brilliant companions. Two Romanesque edifices stood in succession on the site, not to speak of the Merovingian and Carolingian cathedrals here. Évreux is the _Evora_ of Gallo-Roman times when it was ranked with Rouen and Tours. St. Patrick came hither in 432 for his consecration as bishop before his apostolate to Ireland. The first of the Romanesque cathedrals was dedicated in 1072 by Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury, but in 1119, when Henry I of England was besieging the city, it was destroyed for strategic purposes, by consent of its bishop, who was in the king's camp. Henry and all his barons gave generous compensation, we are told by Ordericus Vitalis, the English monk who spent most of his life in the Norman monastery of St. Évroult, "delighting in obedience and poverty," writing a history which is the chief XII-century record of the duchy. The second Romanesque cathedral was begun in 1126. To it belonged the pier arcade of the present nave and the entire westernmost bay, as well as portions of the façade towers. At one time it was thought that the arches adjacent to the transept were part of the earlier church blessed by Lanfranc, inasmuch as they differ from the profiles of the other pier arches. Further study has demonstrated, however, that the entire arcade belongs to the XII century, since it was not the usage, before 1120, to flank a pier's four faces by columns, as was done here throughout. The second Romanesque cathedral of Évreux was also destined to be of short duration. In 1194, Philippe-Auguste laid the city in ashes as chastisement for John Lackland's black deed. John had allowed a French garrison into Évreux during his intrigues with the French king, while Richard the Lion-hearted was on his crusade. When word came that his brother was returning to his possessions, John, hoping to placate him for his own treachery, invited the French garrison of three hundred to a feast and, it is said, foully murdered them all. The bishop of Évreux had accompanied Richard Coeur-de-Lion to the East and in Cyprus had crowned his bride, Berengaria of Navarre. In the course of time the counts of Évreux became kings of Navarre, through the marriage of Berengaria's sister to the Count of Champagne.[360] The niece of Richard and John, Blanche of Castile, brought in her dowry Évreux to the French Crown, when she married (1200) the son of that wily augmenter, Philippe-Auguste. The renewal of the cathedral as Gothic proceeded slowly. By 1230 the nave had merely reached the triforium level. A horizontal sculptured band, such as surmounts it, was not used after that date. The clearstory of the nave is contemporary with the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, and when Louis IX came to his mother's dower city, in 1259, for the consecration of its bishop, who was his personal friend, he and the group of building-prelates with him, from Rheims, Rouen, Coutances, and Séez, must have discussed the new works at Évreux with interest. The choir of the cathedral was not undertaken till the close of the century. From 1298 to 1310 it was built in a Rayonnant style fully as advanced as the later abbatial of St. Ouen, at Rouen, with glazed triforium, capitals that are slight bands of foliage, and precocious prismatic profiles. The only distinctly Norman trait is the balustrade of the triforium. As the choir was made fifteen feet wider than the nave, its westernmost bay was canted to join the transept, but the effect is not displeasing. The Hundred Years' War caused a cessation of works at Évreux. Dire years were they for the city ruled by Charles le Mauvais, a "demon of France," "perfidy in person." He plotted ceaselessly against the national party, not because he leaned to the English side, but that he was obsessed by his own superior claims to the French crown, being by both father and mother directly of St. Louis' line. His high abilities--and he was learned, eloquent, and handsome--were wasted in mischief making. In 1365 he gave up his city of Évreux to the flames. Charles the Wicked is pictured in the cathedral's clearstory windows, in the fourth on the north side of the choir, and across the sanctuary from him, in another light, is his wife, a Valois, sister of the French king, Charles V, and his art-loving brothers at Dijon, Angers, and Bourges. She possessed Mantes by her dower right, and added to its collegiate church the Rayonnant chapel of Navarre, in which are portrait statuettes representing her daughters. Her four brothers, says M. Anthyme Saint-Paul, were the paramount influences in the formation of French Flamboyant Gothic, from 1365 to 1415. The best array of XIV-century glass[361] in France is that of the choir of Évreux. The windows are not forceful, like XIII-century medallion-mosaics, any more than the Rayonnant stonework framing them resembles hardy Apogee Gothic. The hues, while limpid and pleasing, show none of the lovely half-tones which the Flamboyant-Renaissance day was to achieve. Large plates of glass were employed in order that fewer leads might darken the window. White was overused, as well as the recently discovered yellow, called silver-stain, obtained by fusing the surface of white glass with a solution of silver. Pot-metal glass--that colored in the mass--had hitherto been used exclusively. Effective backgrounds were obtained by damasked patterns. In each panel was a single figure in an architectural setting of grisaille and silver-stain, which frames grew so elaborate, by the middle of the century, that perspective was represented. The earliest example of a canopy type of window is in Évreux' upper choir--the third light on the north side. It was the gift of the _grand queux_, or cook, of France, Guillaume d'Harcourt, who died in 1327. The two windows presented by the bishop of Évreux, Bernard Cariti (1376-83), show progress in architectural backgrounds, and the donor is drawn from life. In the canted bay of the choir (north) is a XV-century window of the Saintes Maries, whose alleged relics were given to the bishop here by good King René of Anjou. The window commemorates Normandy's newly acquired freedom, hence its portraits of Charles VII, his son, the future Louis XI, and the seneschal of Normandy, Pierre de Brézé. It is also a memorial of the Great Schism of the West, ended by the Council of Constance, at which the bishop of Évreux was present. Foliate designs cover the grisaille lights of the triforium. The quarries (white, parallel pieces of glass framed together in a lead pattern) are enlivened by strips of colored glass and heraldic ornament. Louis XI built the Lady chapel of Évreux, in whose windows he depicted his coronation. In the lily-petals formed by the Flamboyant tracery of the mullions are pictured the barons who attended the king's investing. Instead of the single figures in each panel, hitherto popular, small groups were now set under the vitrine canopies, and subjects heretofore unknown in western iconography appeared, such as the Transfiguration, the Woman of Samaria, the Marriage at Cana. They were pictured just as the mystery plays of the day presented them on the stage. In the Tree of Jesse, at the end of the chapel, the new process of abrasion was employed, by which the color of flashed glass was ground away in places, and on the white surfaces thus exposed were enameled new colors, so that one piece of glass could exhibit a variety of hues. These windows of Évreux' Lady chapel belong to the transition hour between the earlier tradition that treated a window as an adjunct of the architecture, and the later tradition that composed a window as an independent painted picture.[362] When, in 1441, Évreux opened its gates joyously to the national troops, new works were begun in the cathedral. The actual Flamboyant transept was substituted for a decrepit Romanesque structure, whose ground plan it followed, hence it is too narrow for its height; seen from the interior of the church, the octagonal lantern appears cramped. The lacework stone spire of the crossing was one of the first in the region. For sixty years during the XVI century two prelates of the prominent Tillières family held the see; to Ambrose le Veneur is due the superlatively ornate Flamboyant north front of the transept, an unanswerable proof that if Gothic art was soon to end it was not of inanition it expired. To put the northern flank of his church in accord with the façade's festival of lace stone he re-dressed the chapels along nave and choir. His nephew, Bishop Gabriel le Veneur, undertook to remake the west frontispiece in a style so neo-classic that M. Léon Palustre, the historian of the Renaissance, exclaimed, "_Pour cette fois le moyen âge est bien fini!_" And yet only thirty years separated the façades of uncle and nephew. The southwest tower has been left uncrowned; that to the northwest is an imposing heavy mass in which is the sonorous bell of Évreux, called Gros-Pierre. THE CATHEDRAL OF SÉEZ[363] Il y a plus d'une sorte de chevalerie, et les grands coups de lance ne sont pas de rigueur. À défaut d'épée, nous avons la plume; à défaut de plume, la parole; à défaut de parole, l'honneur de notre vie.--LÉON GAUTIER, _La Chevalerie_. "Prudent, modest, and gracious," reads the epitaph of Bishop Jean de Bernières, who, having in large part built the choir of Séez Cathedral, impressing on it his personal qualities, departed this life on Holy Thursday of 1292. Séez has been called a little sister of Chartres. It is well set, but of unpretentious dimensions. Its twin spire-crowned western towers will be improved when the masses of masonry now propping them are removed. The interior is white and clean, almost to prudery, which may be due to the renewal of choir and transept in modern times. Never from its inception have restorations ceased in this church. Not that Séez overstepped the possibilities of Gothic equilibrium, but it made incautious use of the calcined foundations of the Romanesque cathedral to which it succeeded. That earlier church had been erected by Bishop Yves de Bellême after two cathedrals had been wiped out by the Norse invasions. Brigands had nested beside his church, and in seeking to dislodge them he had set fire to his own sanctuary, for which act he was rebuked by Leo IX at the Council of Rheims in 1049. He took as his penance the replacing of the cathedral at his own expense, and since he was connected with the rich Norman princes of Italy funds soon poured in. The edifice he erected was destroyed in the unceasing petty wars waged against each other by the husbands of Aliéner of Aquitaine. The nave of the actual cathedral, the part first undertaken, rose from 1220 to 1240 under Bishop Gervais, a member of the Order of Prémontré. After the pause of a generation, its upper vaulting was constructed. All the traits loved by the Norman are here; friezes below triforium and clearstory, balustrades, sharp twin lancets under equilateral arches, multiple ridges and multiple supports, circular capitals and bases, interior passageways contrived skillfully. Subdivision and multiplication of parts reign supreme; merely for the pleasure it gave his eye the Norman increased the molds of his archivolts. There are diagonals here of so generous a profile that little vault-web shows. The Norman was partial to shadow decoration. He covered his walls with holes cut into foiled shapes which lent themselves to ever-changing contrasts of light and shade. In each spandrel of the main arcade is cut an elaborate rosette before which stands the shaft that mounts to the vault-springing. No Ile-de-France architect had thus obstructed his pierced ornament. The choir of Séez was begun soon after the nave, but about 1270 was entirely reconstructed as a Rayonnant vessel, designed audaciously to weigh as little as possible on defective foundations. The sanctuary was raised above the ambulatory, with no screen between. The capitals were slight. Here again appeared a trait of Norman redundancy--rain-guards or weather-drips over the main arches and the wall arcading; an Ile-de-France master had relegated such crocketed gables where they belong--to the exterior walls of a church. Like Évreux, Séez Cathedral possesses a uniform array of XIV-century glass. Above and below the canopied figures in the clearstory lights are panels of grisaille. The triforium was among the first to become one composition with the upper windows, by means of stone mullions; its quarry designs are bordered with strips of colored glass. The transept, built from 1290 to 1330, has in its side walls excellent images of the prophets. Its roses are linked by mullions with the row of windows below; the north rose traces a star with rays. In 1373 a fire damaged the edifice, and its reconstruction continued through the foreign wars. The Bishop of Séez, Robert de Rouvre, proved loyal to the national cause and quitted his city for the wandering court of Charles VII, rather than take oath to Henry V. This patriotic Norman prelate knew Jeanne d'Arc, not at her trial at Rouen, but in her triumphal hour of the coronation at Rheims. The cathedral of Séez was twice pillaged during the religious wars. The Huguenots tore the lead from the roofs, and piled the art treasures in the aisles for bonfires. One doubly regrets the loss of the nave's windows which would have completed the coherent scheme of color decoration that distinguishes the church. Séez was neglected for centuries, its decrepitude becoming such that the priests at its altars were inconvenienced by wind and rain, and not so inconsequent, after all, then seemed the interior weather-guards. The much criticized restoration of M. Ruprich-Robert was a necessity, even though it may have been too radical. Of the six Norman cathedrals, that of Séez is the least known, yet it lies but a few miles beyond Falaise, visited by most travelers in Normandy. In the streets of the Conqueror's birthplace they still sing, "_Vive le fils d'Ariette, Normans, vive le fils d'Arlette!_" A statue of William faces the Trinité in which parish he was baptized (1027). The XIII century built the Trinité's transept, the XVI century its choir (beneath which passes a street), and the Renaissance appears in a porch of faultless taste.[364] The donjon of the castle belongs to the XII century, though the guides will point out a window whence Duke Robert the Magnificent first beheld the maid Arlette. THE CATHEDRAL OF BAYEUX[365] Mais c'est toujours la France, ou petite ou plus grande Le pays des beaux blés et des encadrements, Le pays de la grappe et des ruisslements, Le pays de genêts, de bruyère, de lande. --CHARLES PÉGUY. In the cathedrals of Rouen, Lisieux, and Évreux, the Norman traits are subordinate to those of the Ile-de-France; at Séez all is Norman, and altogether Norman, too, are Bayeux and Coutances, the gems of the duchy's Gothic school. The cathedral of Bayeux stands on the site of one burned in 1046. After that fire Bishop Hugues began a Romanesque cathedral which was continued by his successor, Odo de Conteville, a half brother of the Conqueror. The fair Arlette, the tanner's daughter of Falaise, after the death of Duke Robert the Magnificent, was joined in lawful wedlock with a Norman baron. Her son, Odo, without the slightest vocation, was made a bishop at seventeen--precisely the feudal debasing of the priesthood which Gregory VII was combating. At the battle of Hastings, when he had blessed the troops, he sprang to his charger and led the cavalry. A XII-century canon of Bayeux, Robert Wace, in his rimed history of the Norman dukes, the _Roman de Rou_, tells how, at Hastings, the Norman minstrel, Taillefer, "famed for song, mounted on a charger strong, rode on before, awhile he sang of Roland and of Charlemagne, Oliver and the vassals all, who fell in fight at Roncevals." As governor of Kent, Bishop Odo deepened, by his injustices, the hate of the dispossessed Anglo-Saxons for their new masters. On an excursion against Durham he so harried the countryside that it lay waste for a hundred years. When to his misgovernment was added the folly of grandeur--for this unbalanced feudal bully intrigued to wear the papal tiara, to succeed to the great-hearted champion against iniquity, Gregory VII--his brother, William, thought it best to shut him up. From 1047 to 1096 Odo held the see of Bayeux. The Romanesque cathedral which he completed was blessed in the presence of William the Conqueror and Matilda, in 1077, on which occasion the bishop presented to his church a candelabrum such as can be seen at Hildersheim. Bayeux' crown of light hung from the high vaults until wrecked by the Calvinists in 1562. Of the cathedral built by this anomalous prelate very little remains. The crypt is of his time, parts of the outer walls, and the body of the west towers in their lower halls; their upper stories were re-dressed later. The crypt was forgotten till 1412, when, in digging for a certain bishop's tomb they unearthed it. Odo's cathedral was in part destroyed in 1106 when Bayeux was besieged and burned by Henry I of England. Another fire in 1160 made rebuilding imperative, and even before the latter disaster Bishop Philippe d'Harcourt (1142-62) had begun a new Romanesque church. To it belonged the core of the actual transept-crossing's piers and the lower part of the nave, which is considered the richest Romanesque[366] work extant. The flat wall above the pier arcade is covered with geometric designs, interlacings, and chevrons. The curious carved disks, in the spandrels of the arches, represent Oriental animals and the grotesques that are to be found in Celtic illuminations. Some have thought that the exotic sculptures of Bayeux derived directly from an ivory coffer, of the IV-century Hegira, brought home by crusaders for the treasury of their cathedral. Oriental Byzantium was their common origin. [Illustration: _The Choir of Bayeaux Cathedral (1210-1260). Typical of Normandy's Elaborate Gothic_.] The choir of Bayeux is a masterpiece of Norman Gothic erected by Robert des Ablêges (1206-31), who died a crusader, and by the two successive bishops. In the nave those prelates surmounted the Romanesque lower walls with Gothic windows and vaulting; a balustrade marks the division between the dissimilar parts. They reinforced the façade towers, and made five western doorways--although the church behind possessed only three aisles. The student who would comprehend at a glance the difference between the æsthetic equipoise of the Ile-de-France and the sumptuous Gothic of Normandy can do nothing better than to place side by side the pictures of Bayeux' choir and the curving transept end of Soissons. Those whose taste has been formed by English minsters may prefer Bayeux, those whose loiterings have made them familiar with the cradle-land of the national art of France will find their ideal in the classic restraint of Soissons. Scarcely a square foot of Bayeux' choir is unadorned. Each spandrel is pierced by trefoils and quatrefoils, and at the apse the triforium spandrels are entirely covered with foliage. There are acutely pointed arches, and arches under arches. Mold has been added to mold, and each roll molding has its own colonnette. There are carved friezes at different levels, and the horizontal line is still further accentuated by balustrades. At the sanctuary curve double pillars stand one behind the other. Even the vault web is decorated with the portraits of bishops. As the choir surmounts Odo de Conteville's crypt it is raised above the procession path. Some of its side chapels open, one on the other, above a dividing wall, as in the Gothic choir of the Abbaye-aux-Hommes at Caen, an arrangement repeated with beautiful effect at Coutances. At the birth of the apse are turrets; there are corner towerettes with staircases on each of the western belfries. The Norman façade, as a rule, is very plain, lacking rose window and galleries, and with undeveloped portals. Two marked stories usually divide it--that of the entranceway and the big window story over it. Often the towers are disengaged awkwardly from the massive, nor is the transition from shaft to pyramid accomplished with subtlety. Yet the Norman church has great compensations to offer. Few edifices in the classic region of the Oise, Seine, and Marne present a more complete exterior than this chief church of Bayeux that stands so proudly over the flat little city, unencumbered by houses, raised on a dignified platform where the ground slopes to the east. The cathedral's transept is Rayonnant Gothic of the XIV century, in which day were added the various side chapels whose tracery is geometric. When Jeanne d'Arc had given France a new soul, Bayeux raised its lordly central tower "to praise God in the sky." It was undertaken by a wealthy prelate, Louis d'Harcourt (d. 1479), of the same family as the bishop who had built the Romanesque wall of the nave. He planted his Flamboyant octagon on the square XIII-century lantern, but the actual top story of the transept-crossing tower is modern. Bayeux almost lost her notable beacon in the XIX century, when fissures appeared, and a zealous restorer thought to demolish it whereas all that was needed was consolidation. The ancient Romanesque piers at the four corners of the _croisée_ were found incased in XIII-century masonry. Opposite the cathedral in the town library is an invaluable historical document, the Bayeux Tapestry,[367] the oldest extant large amount of the art of design in the mediæval centuries. Many a vicissitude it has had: lost from view till Montfaucon, the learned Benedictine of St. Maur's reform, unearthed it in 1720, and again, during the Revolution's disorders, used as covering for ammunition carts till an enlightened citizen redeemed it. Originally it comprised one seamless piece, just sufficient to encircle the nave of Bayeux Cathedral, for which, indubitably, it was made. Every summer solstice, on the dedication day of Odo's church, it adorned the cathedral, "the toilet of St. John," it was named, a very simple toilet, for, though called a tapestry, it is really a drab linen band twenty inches wide, two hundred and thirty feet long, with the design alone worked in worsted of eight colors. The scheme is the perjury of Harold and its punishment, hence its suitableness as an embroidery for a church. It begins with Harold and ends with his death at Hastings. His oath of allegiance to William, given at Bayeux, is pictured. Odo is shown saving the Normans from retreat at the battle of Hastings. Some have thought he would not have dared to glorify himself till after the death of his brother, William. The tapestry was made, probably, from 1067 to 1077, immediately following the successful conquest of England, and is a contemporary, therefore, of the _Chanson de Roland_, composed by a Norman anterior to the First Crusade. The embroidery was done before 1085, since the Conqueror's seals of that date show armor similar to that pictured in the canvas; the sequence of the scenes indicates they are subsequent to Wace's poem (c. 1160). Critics have thought, from the inscriptions, that Anglo-Saxons made the tapestry. It is known that the textile art flourished in Kent, the province ruled by Odo; in Normandy, too, the industry was popular. M. Levé, in the most recent monograph of this precious legacy from the past, contends that a Norman who was favorable to William the Conqueror made it, and that the popular attribution to Queen Matilda is not unlikely. She may have had the work done as a gift for Bayeux Cathedral while Odo was still in royal favor. The war-like bishop died as a crusader journeying East, and lies buried in Palermo Cathedral. The people despised Odo, and would openly mock as he passed, "Fie on the bishop who married adulterous King Philip to adulterous Bertrada de Montfort." A century after Harold's oath to Duke William, in Bayeux, and in the same hunting-seat, at Bures, near the city, occurred a scene of passion whose consequences were momentous. Bishop Henri de Beaumont was at work on the cathedral's transept and upper nave when Henry II came to Bayeux to spend the Christmas season of 1170. For seven years western Christendom had watched his feud with the exiled primate of Canterbury. The lesser people of France and England considered that the prelate defended their liberties by his defense of church liberty. For how, they asked, can a churchman rebuke lay injustices if he owes his position to the very culprits he should censure? A pretense of reconciliation between Henry and his whilom intimate had recently been brought about. Becket felt its hollowness, since none knew better than he that the Angevin monarch's besetting sin was duplicity and a merciless vindictiveness when his will was successfully crossed. As he parted with the king he had looked steadily at him, saying, with meaning: "I think I shall never see you again," and Henry Plantagenet had cried, vehemently, "Do you take me for a traitor?" Soon after word was brought to the king that Becket, newly arrived in England, was again stirring up difficulties. Henry flew into one of his madman passions hereditary in his blood from Fulk Nerra, from the Conqueror, too; frenzied words broke from him, their purport being the upbraiding of his followers that he lacked a friend to rid him of this upstart priest. Immediately four of his courtiers started for England, and as December of 1170 closed, Canterbury Cathedral was the scene of a bloody assassination. Becket dead was more formidable than Becket alive. Frightened by the indignation roused by the murder, Henry conceded what the primate had contended for. The Canterbury martyr became a frequent theme with the mediæval artist. At Coutances, Chartres, Angers, and Sens are medallion windows that relate his story. Twice he is honored in Bayeux Cathedral, in the sculpture of the southern portal and in a window of the transept. The popular voice of Europe canonized St. Thomas, and his grave at Canterbury became the loadstone of an international pilgrimage. The XIV-century poet has related how Merrie England rode down to Kent in the first spring days, when that Aprille with his shoures sweet hath pierced to the root the drought of Marche, and with the new-liveried year the _wanderlust_ awakes: Then longen folk to goon on pilgrimages ... And specially, from every shires ende Of Englelond, to Caunterbury they wende, The holy blisful martir for to seke That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke.[368] THE CATHEDRAL OF COUTANCES[369] Art is the stammering of man driven from his terrestrial Paradise but not yet arrived at the heavenly Paradise. Ever has he recalled, ever will he recall, the lost beauty. He is fallen: beauty's sanctuary is shut to him, but the exile traces a sketch of his original home in the strange land where he finds himself. Does not art fill in the intellectual life the same place that hope does in the moral? Art is man's trial to embody his ideals, it is a presentiment and a souvenir.--ERNEST HELLO, _Philosophie et Athéisme_. If the exterior aspect of Bayeux is admirable, that of Coutances Cathedral is superb. The high hill of the town is its pedestal. Few architectural views in France are finer than the silhouette of Coutances against the sky. And when its crowning cathedral is seen rising from a mist, it appears to ride the clouds like a mighty ship--a vision of Norman energy as memorable as the Mount of the Archangel off this very coast, in the bay of St. Michael. As the archives of Coutances Cathedral were destroyed by the Huguenots, documentary proof of its date is lacking. Midway in the XIX century even serious students contended that this Apogee Gothic edifice was the church dedicated in 1056 by a hero of Hastings' battle, Bishop Geoffrey de Mowbray. Like Odo of Bayeux, the sword, not the crozier, should have been his emblem. He was the holder of two hundred lordships. He it was who, in Westminster Abbey, in 1066, mounting a tribune, asked the cowed Anglo-Saxons if they would consent that Duke William of Normandy assume the title, king of England, and the next day an enormous tax was imposed on the conquered race as "joyous tribute" to their new rulers. Geoffrey gave up residence in his Norman see to be castillan of Bristol, but, taking part in Odo's intrigues, he was driven from the country with the cry, "Gallows for the bishop!" This ambitious baron-prelate obtained donations for his Romanesque cathedral when he journeyed in southern Italy and the East, where ruled his Norman kinsmen. When the archæologists Bouet, A. de Dion, and Abbé Pigéon found parts of Geoffrey's church englobed in the present nave and façade of Coutances, the heated controversy over the date of the cathedral ceased. The core of each façade tower is Bishop Geoffrey's, as are some of the piers in transept and nave, and the nave's upper wall (re-dressed as Gothic about 1230). The tribune of the fighting bishop lies unused behind the present triforium, whose wall arcades plainly show a succession of transformations. The Romanesque cathedral was injured by fire in 1218. Bishop Bivien de Champagne planned a new church which his successor, Hugues de Morville (1208-38), started. That prelate, and his two successors, built the choir with its double aisles of different height, and the central tower carried on triumphal piers of multiple molds. "What inspired idiot dared fling those stones toward the sky!" exclaimed the great engineer, Vauban, before the lantern of Coutances. The transfused gentle light that falls from its windows tranquilizes the entire church. Even the laie-haunted Viollet-le-Duc likened it to St. Christopher bearing the Christ Child before an image of the Virgin, in her honor. Joinville would have called it prayer in action. The _Deus absconditus_ impression conveyed by the mystical choir of Coutances is another of its ravishing qualities. As at Bourges and Le Mans, the inner aisle is so high that it possesses its own triforium and clearstory; however, it avoided the stunted aspect of Bourges' main clearstory by omitting the triforium altogether in the central vessel. The choir of Coutances has retained more of the warmth of atmosphere that induces piety of soul than any other Norman cathedral, save that of Rouen. Not mere brilliant talent, but genius and faith, built it. It is almost triple-aisled, inasmuch as columns were planted in the outer aisle slightly before the walls that divide the radiating chapels. Throughout the church are these lesser arrangements that charm--such, the opening of the nave's chapels, one on the other above the dividing walls. The ends of the transept have tribunes like many Romanesque churches of the duchy. There are the usual Norman characteristics of a double-walled clearstory with different tracery in each wall, friezes of sculptured foliage, balustrades, acutely pointed arches, pierced ornament, and a generous multiplication of molds, each with its own support. Two architects designed the church; one made the nave and the other--thought by M. Lefèvre-Pontalis to be the same Thomas Toustain who planned the apse of Le Mans Cathedral--constructed the choir, lantern, transept, and perhaps the spires of the western towers. Under Bishop Jean d'Essay (1251-74) the cathedral was finished. Louis IX was the guest of that prelate when he came to render thanks at the national shrine of St. Michael for his safe return from Palestine. The west façade of Coutances is very Norman: plain portals, no rose window, and a staircase on a corner of each belfry. The lines of the towers rise uncrossed by horizontal bar from ground to tapering point. "Ponder them well," old Villard de Honnecourt would have said before the faithful sentinel towers of Coutances, that seem planted "like the spear of a man-at-arms." This severe church front was not meant for romance like the façade of foreign-trading Rouen, or for royal pageants like that of wine-growing Rheims. The basic forces that lead to architectural character were different here. Northern men in an outpost of France facing the dangers of the sea, built the façade of Coutances, men who had won this province by the sword, who with the sword were seekers for new conquests to the north, to the south. Taken with the central tower, the belfries of Coutances compose an unequaled group. The apse exterior is equally admirable; the flying buttresses, as at Notre Dame, at Paris, clear both aisles of the choir by a single hardy leap. The adventurers of Normandy who made the brilliant, if ephemeral, kingdoms of Apulia, Sicily, and Antioch, were the sons and grandsons of a Norman knight called Tancred de Hauteville,[370] whose manor lay not far from Coutances. The people have chosen to call certain statues on their cathedral's northern outer wall by the names of Roger and Robert de Hauteville, and their descendants of the next generation--Bohemund, who used the Holy Wars to push his own fortunes, and his cousin, Tancred, the idealist of the First Crusade. Probably the "Tancred" statues--which now are restorations--were intended by the XIII-century sculptors for Hebrew kings. In the southern kingdoms founded by the stalwart offshoots of a simple knight of Normandy, the local architectural traits predominated, but such Norman influences appear as the central lantern and intercrossing arches (at Monreale), acutely pointed arches, and lobed rosettes cut in the spandrels (in the hospital at Palermo), west towers with corner staircases in turrets, an aisle preceding the chapels that open on the east wall of the transept (the cathedral of Cefalu, c. 1145). There are Norman traits in the cathedrals of Bari and Barletta, the latter having false tribunes like those of Eu and Rouen.[371] At Coutances the XIV century added side chapels to the cathedral. During a siege in 1356, English stone bullets damaged the church; Charles V had it restored and fortified. Bishop Silvester de Cervelle (1371-86) built the Lady chapel, some lateral chapels, and added to the façade its only ornamentation--the colonnade connecting the towers. When Jeanne d'Arc's good name was to be vindicated, a bishop of Coutances was named by Rome as one of the three judges in the process of rehabilitation. "Would to God," exclaimed the pope, "that I had bishops of Coutances. The Church would be well governed." Olivier de Longueil, _vir gravis_, _vir bonus_, _vir mutis_ (like his own cathedral), was endowed with the ideal qualities for a judge--independence and firmness. His boyhood friends were the Estouteville brothers, one the defender of the Mount, and the other the most active agent in the clearing of the Maid's name. The cathedral of Coutances suffered much in the religious wars. So devastated was it in 1562, when from end to end of Normandy, as at a given signal, priests were slaughtered at the altar, tombs violated, church windows broken, and images shattered, that it lay long unused. The collapse of some vault sections made a thorough restoration necessary. To the south of Coutances, at Avranches,[372] once stood another cathedral of Normandy, begun in 1109, dedicated in 1120, and later changed to Gothic. It was exceptional in having no transept. An inscription in the street marks the spot where, before its northern portal, Henry II of England did public penance in 1172, and received absolution from the papal legate for his guilt in the murder of St. Thomas Becket. Alas! like the cathedrals of Cambrai and Arras, the Revolution brought about the ruin of Avranches. "_L'égalité s'était faite dans les ruines_," says one of its biographers. After the sacking of 1794 the historic church collapsed. Ruskin has nobly lamented its loss: "Did the cathedral of Avranches belong to the mob who destroyed it any more than it did to us who walk in sorrow to and fro over its foundations?" THE GOTHIC ART OF BRITTANY[373] Chez les Bretons un double courant: l'esprit de liberté, l'esprit de tradition; et pour les concilier, les pousser tous deux vers un même but et vers un but supérieur, la flamme, la passion de l'idéal, si ardente chez nos bardes et nos saints, si vivante, si puissante toujours dans l'âme bretonne, et qui l'a jetée tout entière dans la religion de l'idéal par excellence: la foi du Christ. Liberté, tradition, idéal: voilà le triple facteur de la vie intime et de la vie publique, de la vie nationale des Bretons.--LÉON SÉCHÉ. Brittany was a late comer in the national art and much is it to be regretted, for had her building energies been aroused during the Romanesque epoch, her storm-worn granite rock would have then best expressed her regional character. Among the few Romanesque works of Brittany are the crypt of Nantes Cathedral; the nave of St. Aubin's church within the corselet of stone at Guérande; a stalwart central tower over monastic Redon--cradle of Breton history-making, St. Gildas de Rhuys, which M. Lefèvre-Pontalis places in the first quarter of the XI century; the church of the Holy Cross, at Quimperlé, radically remade after the fall of its tower in 1862 (the Gothic-rib masonry roof beneath that tower dating before 1150); a Templar's church at Loctudy; the Bréléverez church beside Lannion. Equally rare are Brittany's Gothic monuments of the first part of the XIII century, Dol Cathedral being one of the few. As the era of Apogee Gothic drew to a close the cathedrals at Quimper, St. Pol-de-Léon, and Tréguier were rising. So was that rude mass of granite, the cathedral at St. Brieuc, and the churches of Rosporden and Guingamp. In the XIV century was built the Kreisker tower, parent of a generous progeny. Sea-going people are lovers of high towers, and Brittany is dotted with them. Over the flat, bleak land of Léon the _clochers à jour_ are a glory. With passion the Breton admired his landmarks. As he sailed home from long months in the northern fisheries, they were the first signals of welcome. To express his affection, he sometimes inscribed the Canticle of Canticles on his tower: "Who is this that cometh up from the desert flowing with delights?" No village felt itself too humble to attempt an imitation of the Kreisker at St. Pol-de-Léon. By far the greater number of Breton churches belong to the Flamboyant Gothic day, and at that time the most energetic builder was Finistère, the far-western stronghold called Armorica before the Celts from Britain fled in the V and VI centuries from invading Saxons to the inviolate refuge of these other dwellers by the sea. St. Jean-du-Doigt was built from 1440 to 1513, and when almost completed, Anne, duchess of Brittany and twice queen of France, visited it to pray for a cure. Her daughter, Claude, also queen of France, was equally generous to the shrine. St. Jean's Pardon of the Fire, in the latter days of June, is one of the five big Pardons of Brittany. Anne of Brittany's device, the ermine, is carved on many a façade of France. Both her husbands were notable art patrons. For her Charles VIII rebuilt the château at Amboise, and for her Louis XII began the château at Blois, and at Loches made an oratory that bears her name. The _Book of Hours_ of Anne of Brittany has never been surpassed. It was for her a liberal education to live in contact with her second husband's minister of state, Cardinal Georges I d'Amboise, who is said to have employed practically every Flamboyant and Renaissance architect and sculptor of the time on his château at Gaillon, and whose tomb in Rouen Cathedral retains much of the truly French spirit of Michel Colombe's school. Brittany benefited artistically by the royal marriages of her last duchess: Anne gave the Breton Colombe the opportunity to make his _chef-d'oeuvre_--the splendid ducal tomb in Nantes Cathedral. The ermine of Anne of Brittany adorns the lintel of Folgoët, to which she added a tower, after her visit in 1505. That stately late-Gothic collegiate church, standing in a little Breton village above Landerneau, possesses an apostle porch--a feature popular in Brittany--a richly sculptured _jubé_ of three arcades, and altars of green Kersanton granite. On one of its altars the corporation of masons carved compass, rule, and hammer. And in like manner, as emblems of patriotic service, might be inscribed the names of the twelve villagers who, at personal sacrifice, when their church was to be demolished in 1808, bought it as a gift for their commune. On many a shrine can modern Finistère inscribe the names of those of her sons who fought for their country in the World War. Just as it was given Breton sailors of the XV century to raise the siege of Mont-Saint-Michel, so at Dixmude, in the autumn of 1914, they checked the drive toward Calais of other invaders of French soil. Brittany, with her profound cult of the dead, will consecrate one of her noblest Calvaries to the memory of Dixmude's heroes: Que ces noms soient sur l'église! Qu'on les lise Sur le granit des piliers ... Que, sur la roche sévère D'un Calvaire, Solitairement inscrit, A travers la pastorale Vespérale Le nom du mort pousse un cri![374] Other Flamboyant Gothic monuments of the ancient duchy are the choir of the cathedral of St. Pol-de-Léon; the cloister, porch, and central tower of Tréguier Cathedral; the chapel of Notre Dame-des-Portes at Châteauneuf-du-Faou; Notre Dame in the little city of Vitré, that claims to be, with Avignon, the most entirely mediæval walled town in France; St. Jean and Notre Dame at Lamballe, which latter XIII-century church, with foundations hewn out of the solid rock, was rebuilt and fitted with XVI-century windows; St. Mélaine, at Morlaix, rebuilt, 1482, and possessing a towering baptismal font of carved wood; and Notre Dame at Kernascleden, between Le Faouët and Guéméné, the work of two brothers named Bail. The making of stained glass flourished in the later Middle Ages at Quimper, Tréguier, and Vannes. Good windows are to be found at Dol, Quimper, Guérande, Ploërmel (where the church has a rich Flamboyant façade pignon), at Kergoat, Moncontour, Les Iff (where the donors were the Laval-Montmorency family), at Plélan, Plogonnec, and at Penmarc'h, whose Pardon of the Rosary occurs on the first Sunday of October. Because the popular gatherings called pardons are among the basic forces that have helped to mold the architecture of the ancient duchy, they are important for the student of the builder's art. The late-Gothic churches that cover Brittany are rich in ecclesiastical furniture, carved baptismal temples, and panels sculptured with the quaint usages of burial and marriage, or with agricultural scenes, such as those at St. Goueznon (1615), at Bannalec (1605), at La Roche-Maurice near Brest, and at Notre Dame-la-Grâce, near Guingamp, the latter two churches possessing some "storied windows richly dight." At Kerdévot is a wooden reredos, at Roscoff a very beautiful alabaster one of the XV century; at Lambadec a _jubé_ dated 1480; at St. Fiacre-du-Faouët (whose pardon comes on the first Sunday of July) a rood-loft of richly carved wood, unfortunately painted in crude colors; at Quimperlé, in the church of Ste. Croix, that is fashioned in memory of the sepulcher shrine at Jerusalem, is a _jubé_ almost wholly of the Renaissance. Because of her pardons, Brittany's religious ceremonies took place largely in the open air, even as each of her tribes, each _plou_, in prehistoric times had gathered around her solemn menhirs and dolmens. Hence the Breton made much of churchyards, placing in them his Calvaries, profound expressions of a people's emotions carved primitively in the regional coarse granite. The Lord's Passion had vivified the Celtic soul ever since Christianity took possession of it. As granite is unyielding to sculpture, many a Breton turned to wood to express his verve, carving his church beams like the prow ends of ships. Morlaix[375] is a good center from which to visit many of the notable revered places. Close by, in the village of Plougonven, is the oldest Calvary extant (1554). A few miles away is that of St. Thégonnec (1610), a shrine invoked for the cure of beasts, where beneath a statue of Our Lady is inscribed: "We beg you, _Madame Vièrge_, to accept our first bull." Near the church is one of the isolated chapels called ossuaries in which were gathered the bones of the past generations when they had had their turn in the churchyard's consecrated ground. The chapel bears an inscription from Maccabees: "It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins." Bedrock in the Breton is his instinct to join his progenitors and his descendants in a permanence of spiritual emotion.[376] No other people of the earth risk life more freely than these frequenters of the deep-sea fisheries; nowhere is the cult of the dead more tenacious, because it is considered that they who have fallen asleep with Godliness have great grace laid up for them. Near St. Thégonnec, at Guimiliau, is another Calvary (1581), and another ossuary and triumphal arch. The capacious church porch is lined with statues of the apostles. At Carhaix, Pleyben (1650), Cronan, and Penmarc'h, are Calvaries, and that at Lampaul is united in the same composition with the graveyard's triumphal arch. Brittany's most imposing _Calvaire_, and the most wonderful wayside shrine ever made, comprising over two hundred images in all, is at Plougastel-Daoulas, a memorial of the epidemic of 1598. The greenish Kersanton granite of which it is made is quarried close by in the harbor of Brest, and acquires with time the endurance and appearance of bronze. Breton peasants are represented playing on Breton pipes in the Entry-into-Jerusalem scene. Late comers these rough-hewn sculptures may be in the national art, but in so far as character goes they might easily belong to the XII or XIII century. The theorist may say that the racial exclusiveness of Brittany is one of the reasons why it has not excelled in architecture and the kindred arts. That may be so. The chief concern of the Celt has ever been to save his soul. The architectural purist is prone to carp at Breton Gothic, and some even dare say that the Kreisker itself errs, in that its shaft is not sufficiently welded with its spire. Without a doubt the absence of symmetry in many churches of the ancient province is at first disturbing, but soon one comprehends that one travels in Brittany not for its architecture, but for the unconquerable soul of a people who, while devoted to tradition, have ever stood up uncowed, unswerving in their antagonism to despotism. The sensitive traveler--that is, the man with kindly, plain loyalties--will let himself grow attached to the mediocre, irregular churches of this individual land. Some of those irregularities are startling enough. The pilgrimage church of Guingamp has a curious two-storied triforium, and flying buttresses inside the choir over the aisles. Its nave is an amalgam, one wall Gothic and its vis-à-vis a fluted-pilastered Renaissance affair. The sculptor gave his initiative full scope in the apostle's porch--a revered spot on the days of Guingamp's famous pardon, that precedes the first Sunday of July. At Dinan, in the church of St. Sauveur--in whose transept is treasured the heart of Duguesclin, born not far away--a Romanesque wall faces a Flamboyant Gothic one. In the corsair stronghold of St. Malo,[377] breeder of strong men, the cathedral's walls make no pretense to be parallel. The Breton has been too engrossed in keeping warm in his churches the spirit of devotion to bother about such details as symmetry. Eagerly he added chapel to chapel, aisle to aisle, regardless how difficult it might be for a stranger to orient himself on entering. The wise traveler will accept Brittany as she is, for if he does not, Brittany, like Spain, will exasperate him by her tranquil indifference to his criticisms. On a mediæval tower of the castle at St. Malo was inscribed: Grumble who will. So shall it be As pleases me.[378] THE CATHEDRAL AT DOL-EN-BRETAGNE[379] Bretagne, ô mon pays, garde ta foi naïve, Car Dieu se plaît surtout dans la simplicité; C'est comme le miroir d'une source d'eau vive, Où vient se réfléchir, l'astre de vérité. --JOSEPH ROUSSE, _Poésies bretonnes_. Brittany may be a land of shrines more than of churches; nevertheless, some five of its former nine bishoprics are of interest in the Gothic story--Dol, Nantes, Quimper, St. Pol-de-Léon, and Tréguier. The hardy outpost of Dol, in the north, has stood many a siege, fought many a battle, and its church walls are crenelated where they face the city ramparts. The tutelary of the _ci-devant_ cathedral is St. Samson, whose name keeps alive the memory of the arrival of the harassed Celts of Britain who poured "like a torrent" into Armorica during the dark centuries of the Middle Ages when the migrations of the Barbarians had wiped out Rome's civilization in England. In Dol's great eastern window, St. Samson and some monk companions are shown crossing the Channel. The cathedral of Dol--which Stendhal admired beyond others in France--is a melancholy severe granite edifice, though probably the best Gothic of the province. Characteristics both of Normandy and the Ile-de-France appear in it. Two of the wholly detached colonnettes of each pier are now clamped with metal bands, and the wide arches of the triforium would be better suited to open on a gallery than as they are at present--set close to a blank wall; a few doors in the wall give on the lean-to roof over the aisles. The structure of the church demonstrates that, as the works rose, extra supports were added for stability. The cathedral was begun by its nave soon after a conflagration of the town, in 1203, caused by the troops of John Lackland. Vestiges only of the wrecked church were retained. The façade's southern tower is late work, despite its Romanesque character, and its fellow belfry to the north is in larger part of the XVI century. Out of the nave's southern flank opens a graceful XIII-century porch. The choir, which ends in a flat eastern wall, was finished by 1265, when was installed its splendid big window of eight medallion panels that set forth the Last Judgment. In the XIV century was opened the arch leading to the Lady chapel of that same date, wherein were used various supplementary ribs, around windows and in corners, to obviate the difficulty of vaulting a square-ended edifice. To the XIV century, too, belong the side chapels of the choir, and the big porch of St. Magloire before the transept's southern door. Against the blank wall that closes the north arm of the transept stands the much-discussed Renaissance tomb of Bishop Thomas James. It is an initial work of the Juste brothers of Tours, the ablest among the Italians who brought the new art standards across the Alps. The bishop's recumbent image has disappeared. From 1482 to 1504 he held the see of Dol, though only in residence after 1486, as he lived in Rome, the papal guardian of the castle of St. Angelo. In his testament he requested a simple burial, but his nephews--whose profiles adorn the tomb--chose to erect this elaborate monument, whose cream-colored fine-grained stone, delicately arabesqued, contrasts happily with the dark granite walls. One of the nephews had known the Juste, or Betti brothers, in Florence, and through him those artists came to France. In his prime Jean Juste made the tomb of Louis XII and Anne of Brittany for the Royal Abbey at St. Denis. THE CATHEDRAL AT NANTES[380] Très crestien, franc royaume de France, Dieu a les braz ouvers pour t'acoler, Prest d'oublier ta vie pécheresse: Requier pardon, bien te vendra aidier Nostre Dame, la très puissante princesse, Qui est ton cry et que tiens pour maistresse. Les saints aussy te viendront secourir, Desquelz les corps font en toy demourance. Ne vueilles plus en ton péchié dormir Très crestien, franc royaume de France! --CHARLES D'ORLÉANS (1391-1465). The cathedral of St. Peter, at Nantes, the third on the site, is a late-Gothic structure, not overvirile, somewhat artificial, but ingenious and elegant, even as is the contemporary verse of Charles d'Orléans, who was taken prisoner at Agincourt and passed half a lifetime in exile. M. Gaston Paris has drawn attention to the similarity between XV-century architecture and XV-century poetry. Is not that bijou of artistry, the chapel of St. Hubert, which Anne of Brittany's first husband set on the cliff edge at Amboise, of the same quality as a rondel of the poet-duke's? Is not Villon's ironic, tragically-true note reflected in the Dance of Death painted on church walls during those years of pest and internecine strife? Brittany has retained one of the only two surviving _danses macabres_, in the hamlet of Kermaria,[381] the house of Mary, that lies between the villages of Plehedel and Plouha. In Auvergne, at La Chaise Dieu, is the other. In 1431 Jean V, of the third ducal line of Brittany, the de Montforts, decided to remake the cathedral of the outpost city wherein stood his castle. Nantes never was _Bretagne bretonnante_, being differentiated from Finistère amid its rocky seacoast, by its position on the Loire of commerce and art. That wonderful river, in an eight-hundred-mile course from Languedoc to Brittany, passes some of the fairest monuments of France: Le Puy, Nevers, La Charité, St. Satur, St. Benoît, Orléans, Blois, Chaumont, Amboise, Tours, Langeais--where Anne of Brittany wedded Charles VIII--Saumur, St. Florent, Gennes, Cunault, and the castle and cathedral of Nantes. Under ducal patronage the nave of Nantes Cathedral rose apace; the capitals of its north side have deeply undercut curly-tipped foliage, but on the nave's south side the piers lack capitals altogether. The interior of the church is of glacial aspect; light floods it pitilessly. Its eastern end is modern. In 1886 was unearthed a Romanesque crypt which Abélard must have known, for he was born in a manor close by Nantes, and returned to live here in 1136. Guillaume Dammartin, of the notable family of Flamboyant Gothic architects, is mentioned as working on Nantes Cathedral, and M. Arthur de la Borderic, Brittany's historian, has discovered that an artist of Tours, Mathelin Rodier, was master-of-works when the western portals were sculptured (1470-80), and while the stately inner-court façade of the duke's château was rising. In that castle Anne of Brittany was born in 1477, became a reigning duchess at twelve years of age, and in its chapel was married, in 1499, to Louis XII. On her deathbed she willed her heart to her native city. She completed the castle of Nantes by what is called the Horseshoe Tower overlooking the river. Anne must have known the master, Mathelin Rodier, who made the portals of the cathedral, decorating them with the same undercut leaf foliation, the same lavish splayed ornaments as adorn the contemporary western doors of Tours Cathedral, a hundred and thirty miles to the east. The larger statues at Nantes' entrances have been destroyed, but in the voussures are many small groups, sometimes with four or five personages in a scene, chiseled with natural attitudes and expressive faces. One of the portals commemorates St. Peter (observe the _Quo Vadis_ episode), another, St. Paul, while the place of honor is given to the Saviour. Within the church, under the organ, are XV-century statues, one of which represents the duke patron who began the cathedral, the grandfather of Anne of Brittany. Through the filial piety of Anne, her birthplace possesses the _canto cygni_ of Gothic sculpture, "the most unscathed monument of the Middle Ages," intact because it was taken apart and buried during the Revolution. The tomb of Anne's parents, Francis II, the last duke of Brittany, and his duchess, is the work of a Breton, for an authentic manuscript has proved that Michel Colombe was born in Finistère, within sight of the Kreisker. His genius was fortified by long years passed in the art atmosphere of Tours, and strengthened, too, by the Flemish realism which had come into France by way of the Dijon school that led the first half of the XV century, even as the school of Tours, whose chief master was Colombe, led its latter half. Nor did this Breton, fecundated by Touraine and sturdy Burgundy, ignore the incoming Italian culture, as is shown by his preference for ideal beauty over absolute realism: Celt, Teuton, and Latin--all were needed for the making of the last of the great Gothic masters, one who held loyally to the spiritual essence of the Middle Ages in a day when Renaissance pomp was fast rising to supremacy. Michel Colombe was seventy years of age when Anne of Brittany, on a visit to Tours shortly after her second marriage, commissioned him to make a mausoleum for her parents, for which she had imported white marble from Genoa, and black from Liège. From 1502 to 1507 Colombe worked on the larger images, in his studio at Tours. His are the recumbent figures of the duke and duchess, and the entrancing little angels who support their headcushion, ministering with the same loving willingness as the XII-century angels of Senlis' lintel. From Colombe's master hand are the four allegorical figures at the corners of the tomb, robust and graceful women, of the local type to be seen in central France to-day. They typify qualities of the defunct, Fortitude, Temperance, Prudence, and Justice--this last image said to be a study from Duchess Anne herself. Centuries later a similar arrangement of symbolic figures was used by Paul Dubois for his noble tomb of General de Lamoricière (a son of Nantes), which balances, in the north arm of the transept, the ducal tomb to the south. Valor, Faith, Charity, and History, are the four corner statues that commemorate the pioneer of civilization in French Africa, who was so loved by the natives that he went freely among them unarmed, a modern hero who proved himself a true Breton by assuming the leadership of a lost cause. Lesser masters of the school of Tours worked on the noted ducal tomb of Nantes; Guillaume Regnault made the small images and Jerome of Fiesole the arabesques, the same two masters who composed the tomb of the children of Anne of Brittany and Charles VIII, now in the cathedral at Tours. And when Michel Colombe had finished his statues, Anne had the Lyons master, Jean Perréal, one of the most active agents in popularizing in France the new art standards of Italy, visit Nantes to supervise the erection of the mausoleum whose ordinance he had designed. THE CATHEDRAL OF QUIMPER[382] Ce qui me charme en toi, Quimper de Cornouailles, C'est ton coeur paysan sous tes airs de cité. --ANATOLE LE BRAZ. Like the chief church at St. Pol-de-Léon, and that of Tréguier, St. Corentin at Quimper is "widowed of its bishop." Admirably situated, it stands with all the dignity of a cathedral above the pleasant little "river city of gables and fables," which etches itself on the memory. It is a well-cared-for shrine, full of warm Breton piety, seen at its richest during the pardon gatherings of August 15th. Bishop Rainaud laid the first stone of Quimper Cathedral in 1239. Its ambulatory copied a disposition first used in Soissons Cathedral, but repeated only here and at Bayonne, though across the Rhine it became popular. The vault ribs of each chapel meet in the same keystone as the ribs of that section of the procession path on which the chapel opens. About 1280 a little shrine, which had stood in the rear of the cathedral, separated from it by a lane, was joined to the ambulatory of the new Gothic choir by means of a canted bay. This improvised Lady chapel increased the irregular alignment of the church. The deviation of Quimper's axis is extraordinary. Standing in its central aisle, at the rear of the nave, you cannot see the first of the three bays that usually are apparent at the apse curve, and such is the bend of the choir that its southern aisle possesses one more bay than does the aisle to the north. When the time came to replace the Romanesque nave by the actual one, that new Gothic edifice might have straightened somewhat the axial line by following the false orientation of the choir. But apparently the proximity of the episcopal quarters prevented this being done. The choir of St. Corentin retains the canopy-image windows of Jamin Sohier (1417), and the nave, those of the Jamin Sohier of a second generation; a western window is dated 1496. The shield and helmet of one of Brittany's dukes of the Montfort line, Anne's immediate forebear, adorn the gable of the main façade. The cathedral works ceased during the first part of the Hundred Years' War; the choir was not roofed in stone till the first quarter of the XV century. In 1424 the nave was begun and the foundations of the west towers laid. Quimper's towers derive directly from the famous one of St. Pierre at Caen. There are the same deep, elongated twin-window recesses serving as buttresses. After another period of inactivity, the cathedral's nave was vaulted. In the latter part of the XIX century the west towers received their crowning of crocketed spires, paid for by a popular collection called "the penny of St. Corentin." How these dwellers by the sea love their obsolete local saints! How certain they are that to forget them is to lose infinitely precious links with the past. The solidarity of ancestors with descendants is no dead letter in Finistère, that lives not by bread alone. One knows that the white-coiffed women of Quimper--and their daily gathering in their mediæval church makes a brave showing--would not love this shrine of St. Corentin so well had it a name common to western Christendom. But St. Corentin, St. Tugdual, St. Huec, St. Iltud, St. Budoc, St. Jacut, St. Jubel, St. Gulstan, St. Comery--ah, those are the potent ones before the heavenly throne when a true Breton needs assistance! THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. POL-DE-LÉON[383] O Dieu qui nous créas ou guerriers ou poètes, Sur la côte marins, et pâtres dans les champs, Sous les vils intérêts ne courbe pas nos têtes; Ne fais pas des Bretons un peuple de marchands. J'ai vu, par l'avarice ennuyés et vieillis, Des barbares sans foi, sans coeur, sans espérance, Et, l'amour m'inspirait, j'ai chanté mon pays. --A. BRIZEUX, _L'élégie de la Bretagne_. The most complete Gothic monument of Brittany is the whilom cathedral of St. Pol-de-Léon, one of the few important churches of the Middle Ages to be entirely carried out, with spired towers, and porches for the different needs of soul and body, one for catechumens, another for lepers. Its choir and nave differ strikingly in color and quality of stone. The nave of yellow sandstone was built first, and is decidedly the most artistic portion of the edifice. The florid Gothic choir is of gray granite. As the XIII century closed the nave was begun, continuing building up to the dire times of the Hundred Years' War. It has the Norman traits of sculptured bands of academic design below triforium and clearstory, trefoils cut in the spandrels of arches, multiple arch molds, each with its own support, and a circulation passage beneath the upper windows. The triforium was begun elaborately, with much foliate decoration, but economy soon forced the architect to adopt a simpler plan. The nave's south aisle is double beyond the fourth bay where a porch opens, and the stones show that the outer aisle was originally a separate chamber, converted during the XV century into a passageway. The Flamboyant Gothic choir, that lacks the harmony and elegance of the nave, was built from 1439 to 1472. Chapel has been added to chapel, aisle to aisle, with the profusion loved by the Breton, who would press into God's service every foot of free land around his presbytery. The transept of the XII and XIII centuries was radically reconstructed during the late-Gothic day, retaining vestiges only of its Romanesque and early-Gothic work. It is doubtless to such repeated modelings that some of the buttresses fail to correspond to columns and vault shafts. During a siege of St. Pol-de-Léon by the English, the church called the Kreisker, "center of the city," was injured. When rebuilt, from 1345 to 1399, there was erected, between its nave and choir, carried merely on open arches, a grandiose tower modeled on Caen's belfry of St. Pierre, as had been the twin towers of St. Pol's cathedral, lesser in height than "the Kreisker." The deeply recessed lancet openings in each face of the giant beacon serve the practical purpose of buttresses. Few cities can show three such brave towers as this little Breton town. "The Kreisker," mantled in golden lichen, is the pride of every Breton. So sure is its poise, so supple and strong, that for centuries all the wild storms of the ocean have swept unheeded through its open stonework spire. The popular songs love to extol it: Je suis natif du Finistère, A Saint-Pol j'ai reçu le jour, Mon clocher est l'plus beau d'la terre, Mon pays l'plus beau d'alentour; Rendez-moi ma bruyère et mon clocher à jour! St. Pol received its name from another exile of Britain, and the good man's little bell is rung on the days of Pardon, over the heads of the people, who believe it can cure maladies of the mind. The Revolution tried to change the town's name to Port Pol, but the traditionalists and the independents that are the Bretons soon reverted to their St. Pol-de-Léon. THE CATHEDRAL OF TRÉGUIER[384] Une, deux génerations peuvent oublier la Loi, se rendre coupable de tous les abandons, de toutes les ingratitudes. Mais il faut bien, à l'heure marquée que la chaine soit reprise et que la petite lampe vacillante brille de nouveau dans la maison. --ERNEST PSICHARI (1883-1914). The cathedral of St. Tugdual obtained its name from the founder of a local monastery, a nephew of St. Brieux, who had crossed from Britain with the returning missionary, St. Germain of Auxerre, and in Armorica had established a religious house which eventually gave its name to a Breton city. No church of the region demonstrates more clearly how difficult it is to obtain full Gothic effect with granite. Lacking sculpture, the art is necessarily abortive. The interior of Tréguier is dark and forbidding. The capitals of the graceless octagonal piers are merely uncut bands. There are Norman balustrades and a Norman interior passage below the clearstory lights. The name of the architect, Goneder, was recently unearthed by M. de la Borderie. From the previous Romanesque cathedral was retained the Tour Hastings which now terminates the northern arm of the transept. Toward the western end of the church the molds of the archivolts die off in the piers. The nave rose from 1296 to 1333; then came the pause of the Hundred Years' War. Building was resumed--always on the original Rayonnant lines--by Bishop Jean de Coëtquis (1450-61), whose relative, of the same name, was finishing the nave of Tours Cathedral. The charming Flamboyant cloisters of Tréguier were made from 1461 to 1468, and with the Tour Hastings they compose one of the oft-sketched architectural groups of the country. St. Tugdual has suffered by wars and revolutions, being damaged by the English in 1347, by the Spaniards in 1592, the Liguers in 1594, and the Revolution's cyclone passing here as elsewhere. In the nave of Tréguier Cathedral stands a sumptuous Gothic monument to honor Brittany's patron saint, Yves de Helori, born in 1253, a mile from the town in the manor of Kernartin--modern Minihy. On the nineteenth of every May Tréguier marches in procession to Minihy to commemorate the good man who cleared the region of evil-doers, built a hospital beside his home that he might himself wait on the stricken, rose at midnight to chant matins, preached sometimes five sermons a day, and was the poor man's lawyer, so a popular hymn relates: "An advocate and not a thief, a thing almost beyond belief." The pardon of St. Yves, the Pardon of the Poor, is one of the five chief ones of Brittany. For centuries those who had pending law cases repaired to his primitive tomb. Thus Henry VII, Tudor, crossed from England the year before he won his kingship, to petition the favor of the Breton saint who had supported only just causes in law. Universities selected him as their patron. St. Yves was the son of a knight who went crusading with St. Louis. When sent, at fourteen, to Paris University, he sat with other young scholars on the rush-strewn floors to listen to the scholastics; even in his student days he visited the sick poor in the hospitals. Before thirty he entered the episcopal magistry, and henceforth his abilities were devoted to the relief of orphans and widows. This good man, after whom myriads of the sons of Brittany have been named, worked assiduously, it is said, to collect funds for the building of the Gothic cathedral of Tréguier. In a street near the cloisters of St. Tugdual, Ernest Renan was born in 1828, his name deriving from an Irish anchorite of VI-century Armorica. From his Breton father he derived his gravity, respect, faith, and imagination; from his mother's Gascon stock his irony, gayety, and serenity in skepticism, the result being, as he himself said, a tissue of contradictions. Brittany took his _Vie de Jésus_ as a personal affront. That a son of hers, once destined for the priesthood, should call her dear Christ of Calvary a "sorcerer," a "demi-impostor," a "_géant sombre_," "_un fin et joyeux moralist_," pierced her to the soul. When, beside the cathedral of Tréguier, partisan politics raised a Renan statue (singularly inartistic), whose inscription was taken as an affront by every believing Christian, two million Bretons donated toward the erection of a monumental protest. The Calvary of Reparation stands at the entrance to Tréguier, voicing the cry attributed to the dying Julian the Apostate, "Thou hast conquered, Galilæan!" The son of Renan's daughter was that chosen soul, Ernest Psichari, who fell defending Belgium in August, 1914, a death considered by mystic Brittany to be an atonement. He has told of his spiritual anguish, "without defense against evil, without protection against sophistry, wandering without conviction in the poisoned gardens of vice, sick to the soul and ever pursued by obscure remorse, weighed down by the bitter derision of a life ruled by disordered sentiments and thoughts." In his _Appel des Armes_ and his _Voyage du Centurion_ he has traced his pilgrimage from materialism to Christian belief, taking "_contre son père le parti de ses pères_." His grandfather, of Tréguier, in Armorica, had written many years earlier: "The characteristic trait of the Breton race is idealism--the disinterested pursuit of a moral or intellectual aim. The Celt craves the Infinite. He thirsts for it, seeking it beyond all the prizes of the world." A SUMMING UP All our France is in our cathedrals.... Initiation into the beauty of Gothic is initiation into the truth of our race, of our sky, of our landscape.... Gothic art is the sensible, tangible soul of France; it is the religion of the French atmosphere. We are not incredulous; we are merely unfaithful. We have lost at the same time the sense of our race and of our religion. To regain force we must live again in the past, revert to first principles. Taste reigned of yore in our country: we must become French again. --RODIN, _Les cathédrales de France_. With many a gap, with many a lapse, we have followed the earlier stages of Gothic art in the land where it was born. We have seen how, from the efforts of the monks to cover their Romanesque naves with a permanent stone roof, was evolved the intersecting rib vault which was the basis of Gothic architecture, how for a short time churches used the Romanesque and Gothic systems simultaneously as in Morienval and Poissy, and for another short period the churches were Gothic in essentials while retaining a few traits of the earlier phase. By many the imperishable hour that produced Soissons' transept, the choir of St. Remi, Notre Dame at Laon, and Notre Dame at Paris, is beyond all others. When the national art expanded into its full flowering in the XIII century--an era as great in men and the making of history as in art--Gothic science, though ever seeking, ever reaching out, remained disciplined, even as the scholastic builders themselves were disciplined. While eighty cathedrals in France were rising, and in the same hour some hundreds of lesser churches, the rulers of the nation were capable warriors, compilers of laws, and administrators, the builders were monarchs, crusading bishops, troubadour counts, cloistral ascetics, and arduous sinners. Serf, artisan, burgher, baron, and king built the cathedrals; field laborer, minstrel, maiden, and chatelaine were harnessed to the same cart to drag in the great stones. Little children cleared the church pavement of sand and cement in preparation for the "Day of Benediction" for their city, as the solemn blessing of their church was held to be by those God-fearing generations. The new school of mediæval archæology, that during three generations has been interpreting the Gothic churches of France, is teaching us to read the stones with sympathy. "Symbol of Faith, the cathedral was also a symbol of Love," says M. Émile Mâle. "All men labored there. The peasants offered their all, the work of their strong arms. They pulled carts and carried stones on their shoulders with the brave good will of the giant-saint, Christopher. The burgess gave his money, the baron his land, the artist his genius. During more than two centuries every vital force in France collaborated on the cathedrals. From that comes the puissant life emanating from these eternal monuments. The dead, too, were associated with the living, for the cathedral was paved with tombstones, and the earlier generations, with hands joined in prayer, continued to worship in their ancient church. Past and present were united in the same feeling of love. The cathedral was the very conscience, the very soul of the city."[385] After five generations had reared so many and such magnificent churches, their energy, because it was human, passed from plenitude into decline. The death of St. Louis, in 1270, may be taken as the beginning of the change, though even before had been used various cut-and-dried Rayonnant features. Genius flagged when structural perfection was achieved. The divinely restless reaching out of art was stultified by geometric rule. Graceful and stately as is many a XIV-century church, never in them do we find the unexpected entrancing touches of Apogee Gothic. Gothic was fast becoming an art made tongue-tied by authority. As time went on profiles deteriorated, sharp prismatic molds succeeding to the virile torus, or molds fluid and vague. By the XV century capitals were omitted altogether. The sane marking of the horizontal line had become an offense to the eye. Without capitals the molds died away weakly in the piers. Flamboyant Gothic architecture exhibited all these traits, and, moreover, gave capricious rein to many a redundant detail, yet it was none the less a phase of art far more vigorous and satisfactory than the Rayonnant geometric period, its predecessor. The verve and abundance of Flamboyant Gothic was a rebirth. The inspiration of St. Jeanne d'Arc, the restored political unity, the increase of trade, the love of pageantry, all aided the art renaissance which was in progress before the advent of Italian ideas. No one can say that Gothic architecture ended in decrepitude who knows such masterpieces as the façades of Rouen and Beauvais, the towers at Bordeaux, Rodez, and Chartres, the baldaquin and choir screen of Albi, or statuary as ample in its simplicity as Riom's Virgin of the Bird and "the Saints" at Solesmes. And from end to end of France, as the XVI century opened, such work was in progress. What, then, killed Gothic art? For it was slain with all this warm blood in its veins. Some say the return to pagan ideals dealt the death blow, the deserting of the celestial man-humble ideal for the terrestrial self-intoxicated pride of the Italian Renaissance: "The Renaissance is man seeking knowledge, happiness, and love, outside of Christianity." A Christian had knelt in prayer on a Gothic tomb, or reposed with serene confidence, awaiting the trumpet call of the archangel, a Book of Hours in his hand. On a Renaissance tomb the deceased reclined like a pagan at a feast. The Italian wars diverted from its natural channels the genius of the northern Latins (who were so strongly Celt and Frank), and in many cases the imported neo-classicism was not that of Italy's supreme masters, but of the lesser artists, their successors. Others have contended that the printing press and the Protestant Reformation--with its spirit of hostile criticism--proved fatal to the national art, since the very life of Gothic was legend, poetry, and dreams, and symbolism its inspiration. Doubt quickly drained the sources of life. "Its charm had been to retain the candor of childhood, the limpid book of young saints. It was an art whose faith discussed not--it sang."[386] It was an art happy and bold and free of restraint, save the restraint which its own right instinct for discipline imposed--co-ordinating the multitudinous into a symmetrical unity--an art unfettered in its truth telling, daring to sculpture king or bishop marching to Hell, yet giving no offense to authority by so doing. Alas, one must acknowledge that the Church, so long the guardian of Gothic art, dealt a deadly blow at the sweet naïve gayety of the Middle Ages. To reform Catholic Christendom there gathered at Trent a much-needed Council, impregnated with the critical spirit which Luther had unloosed. Pious churchmen had come to look askance on legends. They were ashamed of the simplicities which the XIII-century man was so certain pleased Our Lady, who accepted them with a friendly smile of comprehension of her fellow creatures. The good fathers at Trent regarded prudishly the spiritual passion of the Canticle of Canticles flaming in cathedral windows; they thought it forwardness to carve mechanics' tools on altar stones. Such manifestations were excessive. What would our critics of Wittemberg and Geneva say? The mystery plays, source of inspiration for the late-Gothic sculptors, now became suspect. Deprived of popular life, the religious themes grew cold. When censured, the creative instinct withered. In 1563 (a year after the iconoclastic outrages in France) the Council of Trent, at its last session, complained that Gothic artists scandalized the faithful by their childish superstitions. The Middle Ages were ended. Cathedrals are not raised by critics or doubters. When France built her great churches, her faith was humble, her love a mounting flame. Her cathedrals were symbols of the Kingdom of God in her midst, the _pons sæculorum_ whereby man passed beyond the bourne of his narrow life. They were solaces in his hours of misery, in his delinquencies; they stood for justice alike to serf and baron; they were the Sermon on the Mount made visible, the _Biblia pauperum_ wherein lettered and unlettered read the same lessons; they were the _Credo_ chanted by men who believed in Christ, Son of the Living God and Son of the Immaculate Virgin. Nor should it be forgotten that the generations who raised the great cathedrals believed profoundly in themselves as God's specially loved instruments, his own selected knights-errant. "We are a race that exists to advance in the world the affairs of God," said the old Gallic patrician to Clovis the Frank, and soon a Frankish parchment ran, "_Vivat Christus qui diligit Francos_." When men feel like that they are compelled to express it grandly. When as pagans they feel it, the expression is a cataclysmic war of conquest. When they feel it as Christians, they build cathedrals. The generations whom St. Bernard purified, whom Suger trained, whom St. Louis inspired, founded their church on a firm rock, a living rock, lighted it unto a precious stone, prepared it as a bride adorned for her husband, and ever since sanctity has abided therein; kings have brought hither their honors and glory, and the glory and honor of the people have adorned the walls. FRANCE Because for once the sword broke in her hand, The words she spoke seemed perished for a space; All wrong was brazen, and in every land The tyrants walked abroad with naked face. The waters turned to blood, as rose the Star Of evil fate, denying all release. The rulers smote the feeble, crying, "War!" The usurers robbed the naked, crying, "Peace!" And her own feet were caught in nets of gold, And her own soul profaned by sects that squirm, And little men climbed her high seats and sold Her honor to the vulture and the worm. And she seemed broken and they thought her dead, The Over-Man, so brave against the weak. Has your last word of sophistry been said, O cult of slaves? Then it is hers to speak. Clear the slow mists from her half-darkened eyes, As slow mists parted over Valmy fell, And once again her hands in high surprise Take hold upon the battlements of Hell. --CECIL CHESTERTON (who died a soldier of the World War). Regretfully one turns to other interests after spending years in trying to draw closer to the spirit of the Middle Ages--years that have coincided with the apocalyptic struggle that has desolated the classic region of the national art, laying low, one after another, the churches of the first fugitive hour. And watching the giant battle, it has grown clearer how indissoluble is the solidarity of modern Frenchmen with their achieving grandfathers. A nation's bulwark is the unbroken solidarity of Past with Present. And only when _la race lumineuse_, compounded of Celt, Gaul, Latin, and Frank, denies that solidarity will it be conquered. The peasant-soldier of 1914, starting for the front, who replied with grave dignity to his well-wisher, "Whichever way it turns, I am ready,"[387] would have met death like a paladin at Roncevaux, in 778, holding up his gauntlet to God, his suzerain, certain of the justice of Him who from the grave raised Blessed Lazarus, and Daniel saved from lions. The young tradesman of 1915 who wrote from the trenches to one who loved him: "I look on this struggle less as a war against an enemy than as a crusade to reinstate God in his place in France," was true to his _race apostolique_ that sets the church bells ringing. At Clermont, in 1095, he pressed forward with the cry: "The cross! The cross! God wills it!" The priest-soldier offering sacrifice at an improvised altar within hearing of the guns, his spurs fretting his sacerdotal gown, is Turpin, guarding well the Cross and France. The stricken lad, flung back, diseased from the prisons beyond the Rhine, weak, broken, in tatters, who cried with vibrant voice, as he and his comrades crossed the Swiss frontier, and friendly strangers gathered round: "_La tête haute! C'est nous la France!_" conquered Jerusalem with Godfrey de Bouillon in the olden days, and related his prowess in a legend-medallion window at Chartres. Above all, lives the soul of the Past in the generalissimo to whom a righteous destiny granted the freeing of his land from invaders. In churches shattered by shell fire he knelt daily--the weightiest fruit bending lowest--and he begged that the children of Christendom lift up their little white hands to heaven to petition for his endurance. In 1249, with flashing sword and the cry, "_Montjoie-St.-Denis_," he sprang into the surf beside his saint-king, following the oriflamme as it touched African soil. We have seen them alive again, the cathedral builders, the commune winners, the crusaders, dying with the farewell sigh, "_Ha! doulce France!_" And thank God the flame is unquenchable, thank God that in the French race is the underlying sentiment for the Infinite, that peasant, artisan, student, priest, and chief feel the same humility and the same proper pride as those who built Soissons, the lovely stricken virgin; and Laon the intrepid, braving the hammer of Odin and Thor; Amiens the perfect, menaced and shaken but spared to us; and tragic, immortal Rheims, symbol of a people's resurrection. To herald the dawn is the mission of France, to look on her deeds as _Gesta Dei per Francos_. "Hers is the hand that scatters the seed." Index NOTE.--The heavy figures appearing here and there in the index indicate the pages in which a complete description of the subject is given. The other figures indicate additional references to the subject. A Abadie, Paul, 151, 290, 292, 354, 355. Abbeville (Somme), 210, 226. Abélard, Pierre, 41, 91, 104, 130, 133, 138, 174, 175, 414, 419, 467, 566. Abraham, 182, 218, 219. Achery, Dom Luc d', 149. Acy-en-Multien (Oise), 45, 48. Adams, Henry, 165, 170, 231, 299, 477, 499. Adrian IV (Nicolas Breakspear), Pope, 134. Agincourt, =1415= (Pas-de-Calais), battle of, 71, 483, 490, 565. Agnes of Meran, 54, 95, 280. Aicard, Jean, 378, 384. Aigueperse (Puy-de-Dôme), 341. Aigues-Mortes (Bouches-du-Rhône), 11, 66, 157, 377, =389=, =390=, 400. Airaines (Somme), 45. Airvault (Deux-Sèvres), 321. Aix-en-Provence, 40, 330, 401, =403=, =404=. Albi (Tarn), Cathedral of, 11, 13, 14, 279, 329, 330, =370-375=, 466; choir screen, 373, 577; vault frescoes, 374, 519. Albigensian Crusade, 11, 189, 330, 353, 357, 358, 362, 363, 364, 365-370, 371, 376, 383, 385, 386, 392, 394, 405. Alcobaça, Cistercian abbatial of, 465. Alcuin, 4, 10, 149, 249. Aldégrevier (vitrine artist), 541. Alençon (Orne), 542. Alençon, the Duke d', 315, 515, 527. Aleth, Blessed, 458, 463. Alexander II, Pope, 487. Alexander III, Pope, 91, 136, 149, 250, 388, 433. Aliénor of Aquitaine, 10, 60, 137, 138, 153, 174, 254, 274, 293, 296, 297, 298, 317, 318, 319, 320, 321, 326, 351, 353, 439, 440, 465, 502, 531, 543. Alternate system, the, 80, 81, 93, 100, 127, 164, 478, 481, 482, 486. Amboise (Indre-et-Loire), 254, 304, 558, 565. Amboise, Cardinal Georges d' (of Rouen), 373, 492, 513, 519, 558. Amboise, Bishop Jacques d' (of Clermont), 97, 335, 373, 421. Amboise, Bishop Louis d' (of Albi), 373, 374. Ambulatory, 19, 24, 45, 48, 51, 54, 58, 64, 65, 92, 109, 124, 129, 150, 216, 278, 292, 307, 337, 353, 398, 432, 569. America, United States of, 57, 367, 394, 429. Amiens (Somme), Cathedral of, 12, 31, 34, 39, 46, 55, 181, 197, 201, =202-210=, 214, 224, 225, 329, 331, 333, 351, 380, 425, 475, 539, 581. Amyot, Bishop Jacques, 451. Angers (Maine-et-Loire), 10, 13, 39, 255, 286, 303, 309, 310; Cathedral of, 59, 113, 146, 273, =302-309=, 351, 550; Fortress of, 309, 310; St. Jean's Hospital, 310, 311; St. Martin, 295, 305; St. Nicolas-du-Ronceray, 294, 295, 305; St. Serge, 302, 311, 312; Toussaint, 310, 321; Trinité, 300, 305. Angoulême (Charente), Cathedral of, 287, =290-293=, 295, 352. Anjou, counts and dukes of, 173, 220, 269, 271, 273, 274, 280, 408. Anjou, Charles I d', 154, 156, 280, 295, 299, 307, 309, 427, 465; Charles II d', 280, 309, 401, 402; St. Louis d', 402; Louis II d', 280, 308, 309, 396. Anjou, King René. _See_ René. Anne, St., 138, 181. Anne of Brittany, 67, 89, 256, 344, 373, 557, 558, 565, =566=, =567=, 569. Annunzio, Gabriele, d', 107, 121. Anselm, St., 4, 34, 133, 173, 250, 260, 271, 417, 473, =474=, =475=, 485. Anselm de Laon. _See_ Laon. Anthony of Padua, St., 5, 350, 359. Antioch, 157, 208, 323, 345, 390, 554. Apocalypse, the, 20, 98, 99, 144, 204, 217, 219, 239, 309, 320, 347. Apostles in art, the, 146, 182, 207, 208, 262, 278, 321, 349, 352, 377, 389, 438, 561. Apses, notable, 65, 80, 93, 105, 115, 116, 122, 129, 216, 232, 251, 275, 276, 421, 486, 489, 536, 547, 554. Aquinas, St. Thomas, 2, 4, 41, 126, 130, =131=, =132=, 133, 134, 175, 238, 267, 334, 359, 465, 475. Aquitaine, dukes of, 10, 298, 318, 327, 347, 351, 384. Arbrissel, Robert d' (founder of Fontevrault), =294=, 323. Archæology of the Middle Ages, 2, 13, 40, 92, 552. Archæology, modern French school of, 32, =37-48=, 415, 428, 576. Architects, mediæval, 5, 34, 35, 39, 57, 66, 82, 93, 94, 96, 141, 146, 150, 152, 163, 167, 177, 179, 190, 191, 204, 237, 276, 284, 251, 264, 271, 284, 299, 303, 334, 360, 380, 390, 406, 411, 457, 513, 517, 518, 553, 559, 564. Architecture, 1, 4, 5, 7, 12, 15, 27, 56; X century, 20, 21, 148, 411; XI century, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 34, 48, 117, 254, 270, 305, 314, 343, 349, 384, 397, 481, 546, 554; XII century, 12, 22, 31, 34, 41, 57, 58, 92, 104, 105, 108, 109, 115, 116, 119, 120, 124, 136, 137, 147, 253, 270, 275, 287, 289, 291, 295, 300, 303, 313, 314, 320, 344, 381, 392, 403, 406, 423, 428, 435, 446, 532, 537, 546, 552, 554; XIII century, 12, 41, 65, 66, 105, 110, 111, 139, 141, 146, 166, 177, 190, 204, 237, 330, 436, 446, 489, 503, 504, 538, 575, 576; XIV century, 12, 13, 65, 105, 130, 164, 187, 207, 232, 265, 330, 346, 377, 378, 381, 382, 386, 407, 408, 447, 449, =489=, =490=, 509, 513, 514, 515, 538, 555, 564, 576; for the XV and XVI centuries _see_ Flamboyant Gothic; XVII century, 243, 561. Arcis-sur-Aube, 239. Arezzo (Tuscany), 171, 374. Aristotle, =344=, =434=. Argentan (Orne), 542. Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône), 11, 24, 397, 399; St. Trophime, 330, 336, =398=, =399=, 400. Arnold, Matthew, 264, 265. Arnoul, Bishop (of Lisieux), 250, 531, 532, 534. Arras (Pas-de-Calais), 2, 556. Arthur of Brittany, 297, 308, 511. Artois, Robert d', 96, 156. Asnières (Maine-et-Loire), 314. Attila the Hun, 201, 231, 243. _Aucassin et Nicolette_, 396. Auch (Gers), Cathedral of, 358, 374. Augustine, St., 132, 158, 364, 449, 508. Augustus, 239-243, 257, 259, 424. Aulnay (Charente-Inférieure), 291. Autun (Saône-et-Loire), Cathedral of, 24, 181, 416, 419, =423-426=, 429. Autun, Honoré d', 262, 424. Auvergne, 11, 38, 39, 249, 330, 331, 336, 337, 381; Romanesque school of, 11, 24, 38, 151, 254, 329, 331, 333, 337, 339, 340, 343, 344, 360, 449. Auvergne, Guillaume d' (Bishop of Paris), 133, 139, 140, 141, 469. Auxerre (Yonne), 224, 428, 445; Cathedral of, 7, 33, 115, 226, 242, 316, 429, =446-451=, 460; glass of, 449, 450, 451; sculpture of, 447; St. Germain, 410, 445, 446, 572; St. Eusèbe, 448. Avallon (Yonne), 24, =428=, 435, 441. Avignon (Vaucluse), 209, 381, 388, =405-409=; the Avignon popes, 330, 335, 347, 353, 359, 368, 381, 386, 387, 388, 405, 406, 407, 408, 409. Avila, 242, 264, 340, 465. Avranches (Manche), Cathedral of, 2, 474, 556. B Bacon, Francis, 276. Bacon, Roger, 134. Balmes, J. C., 41. Balzac, Honoré de, 119, 247, 249, 312. Bamburg, Cathedral of, 2, 77, 193. Bannalec (Finistère), 560. Barbarian invasions in France, 4, 18, 20, 28, 29, 36, 78, 107, 142, 172, 261, 325, 336, 337, 361, 411, 414, 472, 479, 483, 495, 510, 563. Bari, Cathedral of, 555. Barre, Chevalier de la, 151. Barrès, Maurice, 389, 398, 435. Bar-sur-Aube, 239. Bar-sur-Seine, 239. _Barzas-Breiz_, 400, 556. Basly (Calvados), 491. Bassac (Charente), 291. Bayard, Chevalier, 342. Bayeux (Calvados), Cathedral of, 488, 508, =545-551=. Bayonne (Basses-Pyrénées), Cathedral of, 354, 569. Bazin, René, 259, 302, 415, 410, 580. Beaucaire (Gard), 396. Beauce, Jehan Texier, called de, 179, 180. Beaulieu (Corrèze), 24, 288. Beaumont, Raoul de, 306, 308; family of, 308, 550. Beaumont-le-Roger (Eure), 536, 541. Beaune (Côte-d'Or), hospital and collegiate of, 419, =426=, =427=. Beauneveu, André (sculptor), 67, 299, 327. Beauvais (Oise), 3, 96, 100, 125, 127, 379, 380, 425, 533, 534, 539; Cathedral of, =224-230=, 404, 577; St. Étienne, 45, 46, =50-53=, 224, 228. Beauvais, Vincent de, 9, 133, 134. Bec (Eure), Abbey of, 125, 173, =473-476=, 485, 487, 496, 502, 512. Becket, St. Thomas, 11, 41, 91, 93, 94, 95, 97, 134, 136, 176, 184, 250, 261, 311, 340, 432, 433, 446, 518, 527, 531, 532, 550, 556; windows of, 97, 184, 518, 550. Bedford, John Plantagenet, Duke of, 87, 143, 489, 490, 523, 525, 527, 530, 535. Bellefontaine (Oise), 45. Belloc, Hilaire, 375, 548. Benedict, St., 4, 23, 411, 483. Benedict XII, Pope (Avignon), 407. Benedictines, 7, 34, 54, 114, 117, 123, 124, 133, 148-151, 190, 278, 411, 476, 501, 548, 554. Berengaria of Navarre, 279, 296, 538. Berengar of Tours, 250, 487. Berland, Pierre (Archbishop of Bordeaux), 354, 355. Bernard, St., 14, 34, 40, 63, 64, 91, 92, 93, 107, 133, 135, 152, 243, 246, 271, 273, 298, 319, 321, 361, 362, 364, 367, 371, 412, 414, 418, 423, 430, 431, 434, 439, 440, 441, 442, 453, =461-471=, 503, 541, 579. Bernay (Eure), Abbatial of, 473, 481, =495=, 496, 541. Bernières-sur-mer (Calvados), 491. Berry, Jean, Duke de, 214, 220, 221, 222, 232, 309, 320, 327, 329, 341, 342, 349, 353, 539. Berzy-le-Sec (Aisne), 45. Béthisy-St. Pierre (Oise), 45. Bèze, Théodore de, 218, 441. Béziers (Hérault), Cathedral and sack of, 330, 367, 369, =383=, 405, 539. Bible, in the Middle Ages, the, 9, 11, 58, 133, 142, 145, 208, 217, 233, 253, 273, 327, 358, 395, 418, 432, 434, 437, 470, 557. _Biblia pauperum_ windows and sculpture, 97, 184, 219, 233, 418, 437, 451, 462, 520, 579. Bilson, John, archæologist. _See_ Bibliography. Bishop-builders of French cathedrals, 5, 32, 79, 80, 86, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 105, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 150, 172, 173, 174, 189, 202, 215, 229, 231, 243, 250, 251, 261, 263, 267, 270, 272, 275, 291, 299, 306, 334, 335, 344, 353, 354, 371, 373, 377, 381, 447, 513, 538, 542, 546, 592. Black Prince, the, 347, 355, 368, 378. Blanche of Castile, 54, 86, 106, 107, 153, 154, 185, 225, 232, 234, 253, 299, 313, 362, 398, 435, 508, 538. Blois (Loir-et-Cher), 121, 254, 558. Bobbio (Province of Pavia), monastery of, 411, 483. Bohemund of Taranto, 323, 337, 555. Bologna, 134, 327, 364, 374, 446. Bonaventure, St., 5, 41, 133, 134, 267, 268. Boniface VIII, Pope, 385. Bonneuil-en-Valois, 45, 49. Bordeaux (Gironde), 350-356; Cathedral of, 13, 31, 226, 298, 318, 330, =350-356=, 577; Ste. Croix, 318, 351, 355; St. Michel, 320; St. Seurin, 318, 351, 352, 355, 356. Born, Bertran de, 345, 348, 349. Boscherville. _See_ St. Georges de. Bosham, Herbert of, 93. Bossuet, 121, 163, 167, 247, 252, 253. Boston, U. S. A., 353, 394. Botrel, Théodor, 201. Bouilhet, Louis, 78. Bourbon art patrons, 185, 253, 259, 264, 265, 266, 295, 341, 357, 364, 406, 421, 456, 513, 539. Bourdaloue, 212. Bourges (Cher), Cathedral of, 8, 11, 14, 211, =212-224=, 226, 255, 275, 276, 320, 322, 328, 454. Bourget, Paul, 339, 531. Bourgonnière chapel in Bouzilly (Maine-et-Loire), 322. Bouvines, =1214= (Nord), battle of, 12, 32, 70, 86, 122, 195, 453. Boyle (Co. Roscommon), Abbey of, 464. Braine (Aisne), St. Yved at, 99, 113, 116, =121-125=, 185, 284. Brest (Finistère), 560, 561. Bridges, mediæval, 267, 289, 350, 371, 405, 407. Brienne (Aube), 239. Brienne, Jean de, 4, 70, 189. Brioude (Haute-Loire), 340. Brittany, 11, 400, =556-575=; Calvaries of, 400, 559, 560, =561=, 574; cult of the dead in, 559, 561; dukes of, 297, 308, 566, 567, 569; glass of, 559, 560, 563, 569; Gothic of, 12, 557, 558, 559, 562, 563, 570, 571; Romanesque of, 557, 562; the Renaissance in, 559, 560, 561, 562, 563, 564, 568. _See_ Anne of Brittany. Brizeux, A., 570. Brou (in Bourg-en-Bresse), the church of, 264, 265. Brunetière, F., 148. Bruno, St., 4, 117, 118, 194. Bruyère (Aisne), 45. Burgos, Cistercian abbatial of Las Huelgas, 2, 264, 399, 465, 502. Burgundy, 21, 23, 39, 229, =410-470=; dukes of, 143, 154, 226, 261, 410, 425, 452, 453, 454; Franco-Flamand school of sculpture, 240, 255, 256, 281, 452, 455, 456, 567; Gothic of, 242, 410, 412, 413, 415, 427, 436, 440, 443, 446, 447, 448, 464, 465; Apogee Gothic, sculpture of, 410-413, 444, 447, 449; Romanesque school of, 23, 254, 340, 344, 360, 394, 422, 423, 428, 437, 438, 439; Romanesque, sculpture of, 418, 422, 423, 424, 437, 457. Bury (Oise), 44, 45, 150. Buttresses, 25, 26, 27, 229, 352, 378, 412, 413, 451, 481, 504; flying buttresses, 26, 27, 46, 52, 117, 124, 129, 163, 179, 181, 187, 196, 225, 237, 260, 276, 292, 360, 413, 437, 443, 486, 554. Byzantine influences in French art, 17, 18, 43, 59, 101, 120, 123, 137, 138, 180, 181, 196, 234, 248, 249, 262, 287, 291, 292, 306, 322, 349, 398, 438, 486, 547. C Caen (Calvados), 10, 13, 30, 163, 478, =484-491=, 519, 520; Abbaye-aux-Dames (Ste. Trinité), 164, 482, =484=, 485; Abbaye-aux-Hommes (St. Étienne), 415, 482, =484=, =486=, =487=, 488, 512, 532, 547, 554; St. Nicholas, =484=, 493; St. Pierre, 488, 489, 490, 523, 570, 571; Vaucelle's tower, 491. Cahors (Lot), Cathedral of, 24, =288=, =289=, 292, 407. Calixtus II, Pope, 151, 200, 250, 261, 288, 291, 295, 360, 393, 417, 423, 453. Calixtus III, Pope, 529. Calvaries. _See_ Brittany. Cambrai (Nord), 2, 81, 264, 556. Cambrai, Jean de (sculptor), 221, 266. Cambridge, England, 407, 457. Cambronne (Oise), 44, 45. Candes (Maine-et-Loire), =314=, =316=, 319. Canterbury, archbishops of, 173, 260, 410, 432, 433, 434, 474, 475, 550; Cathedral of, 3, 30, 93, 94, 173, 474, 475, 487, 532; pilgrims, 94, 551. Captives, redeeming of Christian, 6, 38, 42, 139, 369, 386, 404, 405. Carcassonne (Aude), 11, 330, 339, =375-378=; Cathedral of St. Nazaire, 349, 376, 377, 539. Carentan (Manche), 539, 541, 554. Carhaix (Finistère), 561. Carnac (Morbihan), 400. Carolingian vestiges and times, 20, 56, 57, 77, 78, 84, 149, 171, 173, 224, 225, 249, 250, 278, 283, 284, 305, 311, 324, 333, 337, 411, 470, 471, 478, 480, 482. Cartharist heresy, 174, 362, 365, 366, 466. Carthusian Order, 4, 117, 118, 194, 408; the Grande-Chartreuse, 118, 408. Carville (Seine-Inférieure), 492, 494. Casamari (Province of Rome), Cistercian abbatial of, 465. Castanets, Bernard de (Bishop of Albi), 371, 372. Catalonia, 357, 380. _See_ Gerona, Poblet, Tarragona. Cathedrals of France, 9, 42, 74, 193, 202, 268, 575, 576, 578, 579; Religious fervor of the builders, 5, 8, 9, 23, 32, 33, 35, 36, 42, 57, 115, 174, 175, 275, 338, 350, 472, 491, 512, 553, 578, 579, 580, 581. Catherine of Siena, St., 307, 388. Cauchon, Bishop Pierre, 225, 328, 523, 524, 525, 529, 530, 531, 533, 534, 535, 536. Caudebec-en-Caud (Seine-Inférieure), 474, 494, =518=, 541. Cécile, Abbess (Trinité, Caen), 485, 486. Cecilia, St., 14, 370-375, 485, 486. Cefalu (Palermo province), Cathedral of, 555. Ceffonds (Aube), 239. Celle, Pierre de (Bishop of Chartres), 114, 116, 170, 176, 190, 469. Celtic element in France, 4, 11, 12, 21, 91, 135, 174, 177, 245, 336, 378, 384, 388, 411, 483, 556, 558, 562, 563, 567, 572, 574, 575, 577, 580. Cerisy-la-Forêt (Manche), 473, 554, 573. Cervantes, 405. Chaalis (Oise), ruins of abbatial, 87, 215. Chaise Dieu (Haute-Loire), abbatial of La, 330, 332, =335=, 408, 566. Châlons-sur-Marne, 424; Cathedral of, 7, =241-244=; Notre Dame, 33, 74, 90, =114-116=, 415; St. Alpin, 243. Chambiges, Martin (architect), 97, 152, 226, 235; Pierre (architect), 89, 235. Champagne, 6, 7, 39, 66, 121, 162; counts of, 94, 119, 120, 137, 157, 231, 232, 234, 236, 244, 245, 246, 432, 464, 538; fairs of, 6, 235, 244, 245; glass of, 98, 118, 150, 219, 233, 234, 235, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 243; Gothic art of, =114-120=, =188-197=, 211, 213, =230-247=; Gothic influence of, 109, 115, 116, 190, 191, 193, 202, =242=, 244, 245, 246, 247, 448; literature of, 119, 245, 246; sculpture of, 113, 116, 117, 194, 195, 196. Champeaux, Guillaume de (Bishop of Châlons), 41, 86, 104, 133, 176, 194, 243, 466, 469, 474. Champigny-sur-Veude (Indre-et-Loire), 254, 266. _Chansons de geste_, 42, 106, 135, 239, 245, 246, 299, 343, 376, 384, 436, 500, 501, 549, 580, 581. Chantilly (Oise), 144, 328. Charité-sur-Loire, abbatial of, 254, 566. Charlemagne, 9, 10, 20, 22, 57, 78, 86, 105, 153, 184, 249, 344, 355, 356, 379, 501, 545. Charles V, Emperor, 144, 264. Charles V of France, 67, 144, 164, 209, 309, 353, 454, 520, 534, 539. Charles VI, 221, 327. Charles VII, 118, 223, 233, 247, 255, 278, 299, 483, 526, 527, 528, 529, 530, 540. Charles VIII, 247, 256, 264, 558, 566. Charles le Téméraire, Duke of Burgundy, 226, 264, 266, 452. Charles Martel, 317, 388, 389, 436. Charles the Bad, Count of Évreux, 164, 538, 539. Chartier, Alain, 143, 546. Chartres, Cathedral of, 8, 14, 22, 33, 36, 39, 111, 113, 115, 122, 139, =170-187=, 197, 204, 207, 211, 212, 219, 220, 224, 226, 234, 272, 279, 306, 318, 413, 475, 490, 511, 512, 519, 541, 550, 581; school of glass, 59, 101, 183, 184, 262, 519; sculpture of, 175, 180, 181, 182, 288, 394; St. Pierre, 172, 349, 539. Chartres, St. Ives of, 337. Chastellux, Jean de, 429. Chateaubriand, 70, 118, 410, 443, 562. Châteauneuf-du-Faou (Finistère), 559. Chaucer, 372, 551. Chaumes, Nicolas de (architect), 96, 167. Chaumont-sur-Loire, 373, 566. Chauvanges (Aube), 239. Chauvigny (Vienne), 320, 321. Chelles (Oise), 45. Chelles, Jean and Pierre de (architects), 141, 146. Cherbourg (Manche), 554. Chérisy, Nivelon de (Bishop of Soissons), 6, 41, 86, 108, 109, 110. Chesterton, Cecil, 579, 580. Chevalier, Étienne, 241, 342. Cheverus, Cardinal de, 352. Chiaravalle (Milan province), 464, 465. Chichester, St. Richard of, 434, 435. Chinon (Indre-et-Loire), 254, 296, 315, 526. Christian persecutions, the, 9, 56, 215, 248, 252, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 263, 436, 439. Christopher, St., 553, 576. Cicero, 344, 411. Cistercian Order and architecture, 4, 7, 34, 93, 104, 105, 106, 107, 215, 278, 361, 412, 417, 430, 431, =461-465=, 554; influence of Cistercian Gothic, 461, 464, 465, 470, 471. Cîteaux (Côte-d'Or), 34, 410, 412, 418, 425, 431, 444, 462, 469. Civray (Vienne), 291. Clairvaux (Yonne), 245, 430, 464, 467. Claudianus Mamertus (Bishop of Vienne), 261. Clearstory, 24, 92, 111, 115, 116, 124, 128, 141, 183, 185, 205, 214, 242, 251, 276, 353, 412, 413, 430, 478, 486, 500, 553. Clement IV, Pope (Guy Fulcodi), 236, 381, 392, 393. Clement V, Pope (Bertrand de Got), 261, 264, 320, 326, 327, 353, 354, 406, 515. Clement VI, Pope, 335, 407, 408, 409, 497. Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme), 334, 336, 373; Cathedral of, 10, 146, 203, 205, 213, 330, =331-339=, 346, 380, 381, 519; Council of, 173, =337=, =338=, 344, 581; Notre Dame-du-Port, 330, 339, 340. Cloisters, sculptured, 82, 149, 254, 354, 360, 361, 383, 398, 399, 503, 504, 573. Clouet, Jean and François, 256. Clovis and Clotilda, 107, 118, 194, 317, 411, 446, 508. Cluny (Saône-et-Loire), 2, 14, =22=, 23, 24, 34, 104, 149, 150, 163, 259, 266, 270, 318, 335, 360, 361, 373, 393, 410, 411, 412, 413, =414-421=, 425, 438, 444, 457, 465, 471, 473, 477, 512, 519. Coeur, Jacques, 11, =222=, 223, 528, 529, 541. Cognac (Charente), 291. Coliseum, 377. Cologne, Cathedral of, 132, 203, 225, 333; St. Gereon, 112, 122. Colombe, Michel (sculptor), 67, 254, 255, 256, 264, 279, 280, 281, 342, 513, 519, 558, 563, =567-568=. Columbanus, St., 4, 122, 410, =411=, =412=, 457, 464, 483, 509. Commendatory abbots, 420, 483, 507. Communes, mediæval, 7, 8, 12, 32, 74, 62, 79, 102, 103, 262, 416, 435, 437, 439. Como, Church of S. Abondio, 29, 338. Compiègne (Oise), 47, 77, 143, 226, 534. Comtat-Venaissin, the, 405, 408, 409. Conches (Eure), Church of Ste. Foi, 536, 541. _Congrès Archéologique de France_, 38, 50, 78, 84, 92, etc. Conques (Aveyron), Abbatial of Ste. Foi, 250, 360, 415. Constantine, Emperor, 215, 398, 507. Constantinople, 6, 41, 204, 234, 261, 268, 270, 289, 298, 317, 345, 420, 427, 436. Corbeil, Pierre de (Archbishop of Sens), 95, 234. Cordova, 379. _Corpus Christi_ feast, 238, 243, 427. Cosmati, the (artists), 29, 387. Coucy-le-Château (Aisne), =102=, 313. Coulanges, Fustel de, 42. Councils of the Church, 91, 117, 189, 206, 246, 250, 261, 263, 267, 268, 323, 337, 338, 344, 370, 534, 540. Cousin, Jean (vitrine artist), 94, 98, 144. Cousin, Victor, 133, 211. Coutances (Manche), Cathedral of, 10, 276, 488, 538, 539, 547, 550, =551-556=. Coysevox (sculptor), 259. Cram, Ralph Adams, 91. Crawford, F. Marion, 439. Crécy, =1346=, battle of, 327, 487, 491. Crestien de Troyes (trouvère), 245. Creuil (Oise), 45, 46. Crouy-sur-Ourcq (Seine-et-Marne), 45, 48, 405. Crown of Thorns, the, 145, 159, 345. Crucifixion windows. _See_ Glass. Crusades, 11, 31, 32, 299, 338, 365, 366, 440, 581; First Crusade, 22, 118, 173, 194, 246, 250, 270, 294, 305, 323, =337-339=, 344, 345, 360, 449; Second Crusade, 62, 70, 79, 274, 298, 339, 429, 439, 466, 531; Third Crusade, 70, 94, 136, 143, 367, 440, 514, 538; Fourth Crusade, 41, 110, 161, 231, 233, 246, 369; Fifth Crusade, 70, 159; Sixth Crusade, 154, 155, 159, 390, 400, 553, 581; Seventh Crusade, 120, 157, 158, 162, 262, 390, 391, 514. Crusading-bishops, 6, 41, 79, 81, 82, 86, 97, 110, 111, 139, 189, 190, 206, 231, 233, 248, 334, 344, 345, 514, 531, 538, 547, 549. Crypts of France, noted, 19, 22, 65, 168, 172, 215, 224, 225, 259, 283, 287, 339, 399, 401, 429, 446, 457, 486, 547, 566. Cunault (Maine-et-Loire), 314. Cupola churches, 18, 24, 151, 227, 285, 286, =287-295=, 300, 303, 324, 344, 403. Cyprus, 38, 154, 237, 381, 436, 538. D Dagobert, 51, 57, 67, 80. Dammartin, Guy de, 221, 277, 327, 341, 387, 454; André de, 221, 232, 277, 341, 454; Jean de, 221, 255, 277; Guillaume de, 566. Dance of Death frescoes, 335, 565, 566. Daniel, 233, 580. Dante, 9, 133, 137, 141, 147, 148, 150, 153, 156, 245, 253, 349, 357, 363, 441, 462, 465, 474. Daudet, Alphonse, 259, 396. David, 9, 437, 447. Da Vinci, Leonardo, 193. Delorme, Philibert, 259. Deschamps, Jean and Pierre (architects), 334, 346. Deviation of axis, 68, 69, 136, 320, 569. Dieppe (Seine-Inférieure), 494, 518. _Dies iræ_, 128, 217, 317. Dijon (Côte-d'Or), 11, 13, 40, 255, 314, =452-461=; Cathedral of St. Bénigne, 22, 410, 415, 452, 453, =456-459=; Franco-Flemish school of sculpture, 255, 256, 281, 327, 373, =454=, =455=, =456=, 567; Notre Dame, 413, 443, 452, 453, =459-461=; Fontaine-lès-Dijon, 463. Dinan (Côtes-du-Nord), 541, 562. Dol (Ille-et-Vilaine), 539, 557, 559, =563=, =564=. Domenico Florentino (sculptor), 67, 240, 241. Dominic, St., 5, 41, 128, 363, 364, 376. Dominican Order, 134, 327, 330, 358, 364, 369, 373, 402, 420, 524, 528. Doué, Normand de (Bishop of Le Mans), 306, 308. Drayton, Michael, 490. Dreux, family of, 122, 185, 190. Dubois, Paul, 201, 568. Dugueselin, Bertrand de, 67, 266, 327, 342, 557, 562. Dunois, bâtard d'Orléans, 77, 355, 527, 529, 534. Durandus, Guillaume (author of _Rationale_), 19, 69, 214, 267, 359, 387, 400, 401. Dürer, Albert, 144, 347, 541. Durham, Cathedral of, 30, 31, 492, 493, 532, 545. E École des Chartes, 25, 37, 38, 50, 545. Écouen (Seine-et-Oise), 144. Edmund Rich, St. (Archbishop of Canterbury), 4, 41, 434, 435. Edward I of England, 390, 485. Elbeuf (Seine-Inférieure), 518. Elizabeth of Hungary, St., 53, 54, 112, 122, 280, 313. Elne (Pyrénées-Orientales), 382, 383. Eloi, St. (Bishop of Noyon), 80, 83, 240, 249, 349. Ely, Cathedral of, 3, 482, 487, 516. Enamel, Limoges, 172, 273, 314, 341, 349. England, 11, 105, 351, 416, 426, 430, 478, 482, 487, 502, 516, 517, 518, 520, 549, 550, 552, 563. _See_ Henry I, Henry II, Henry III, the Black Prince, St. Thomas Becket, St. Stephen Harding, John of Salisbury, etc. English architecture, 30, 93, 94, 99, 227, 296, 299, 301, 354, 407, 412, 432, 487, 495, 497, 516, 520, 523, 524, 533, 547. _See_ Canterbury, Durham, Ely, etc. Enlart, Camille, archæologist. _See_ Bibliography. Entombments (Holy Sepulcher groups), 225, 239, 280, 281, 282, 497. Ervy (Yonne), 239, 322. Escorial, the, 283. Espine, Jean de l' (architect), 308, 311. Estonteville family, the d', 497, 518, 555; Cardinal Guillaume d', 506, 513, 517, 529; Louis d', 505, 529. Étampes (Seine-et-Oise), 112, 511. Eu (Seine-Inférieure), Abbatial of St. Laurent, 473, =498=, =499=, 513, 532, 555. Eu, Geoffrey d' (Bishop of Amiens), 206, 499. Eugene III, Pope, 152, 243, 430, 458, 464, 466. Eustace, St., 91, 152. Évreux (Eure), Cathedral of, 518, 529, =536-541=; XIV-century glass of, 539, 540. Exeter, Cathedral of, 407. Eymoutiers (Haute-Vienne), 350, 541. F Fabian, Pope, 330, 399. Façades, noted church, 51, 89, 97, 105, 129, 191, 192, 207, 217, 226, 235, 254, 271, 291, 292, 307, 323, 343, 347, 353, 406, 460, 514, 518, 548, 553. Falaise (Calvados), 489, =544=. Fécamp (Seine-Inférieure), Abbatial of, 478, 482, =494-498=, 502, 532, 554. Fénelon, 36, 288. Fenestration, development of Gothic, 25, 26, 51, 55, 111, 128, 146, 164, 183, 205, 213, 214, 227, 228, 234, 235, 237, 251, 262, 276, 292, 322, 333, 340, 377, 380, 406, 413, 431, 441, 450, 459, 478, 486, 488, 506, 519, 539, 548, 553, 554. Ferdinand of Spain, St., 299. Ferrero, Guglielmo, 329. Feudal system, the, 11, 31, 61, 63, 92, 102, 104, 105, 151, 156, 160, 195, 225, 262, 271, 296, 299, 304, 305, 310, 313, 337, 349, 351, 362, 369, 370, 376, 383, 390, 394, 439, 455, 487, 531, 545, 550, 555. Fiesole, Jerome of, 256, 568; Mino da, 497. Flamboyant Gothic, 13, 89, 118, 146, 152, 167, 207, 217, 222, =226=, =227=, 228, 232, 233, 237, 239, 244, 252, 254, 265, 271, 277, 301, 309, 314, 327, 335, 347, 354, 372, 380, 387, 403, 415, 425, 447, 473, 506, 513, 516, 517, 518, 521, 529, 530, 539, 541, 542, 558, 559, 565, 569, 571, 573. Flandrin, H., 259. Flaubert, Gustave, 519. Flavigny (Côte-d'Or), 224, 410, 428, =429=. Fléac (Charente), 291. Flemish influences in French art, 6, 44, 67, 209, 240, 263, 264, 309, 373, =404=, 426, 427, 454, 455, 456, 567. Flodoard (chronicler), 20. Florence, Cathedral of, 3, 30, =406=. Foch, General, 106, 375, =581=. Folgoët (Finistère), Collegiate at, 558, 559. Fontenay (Yonne), 7, 410, 428, =430=, 431. Fontevrault (Maine-et-Loire), Abbatial of, 10, 274, 286, 291, 294, 313, 315, 318, 328. _See_ Plantagenet tombs. Fontfroide (Aude), Cistercian abbatial of, =380=, =381=, 407. Fortified churches in the Midi, 332, 359, 368, 382, 383. Fortunatus Venantius (Bishop of Poitiers); 10, 316, 317, 318, 322, 324. Fossanuova (province of Rome), Cistercian Burgundian church, 132, 465. Fouilloy, Evrard de (Bishop of Amiens): 206. Fountains Abbey (Yorkshire), 3, =464=. Fouquet, Jean, 254, 256, 342. Francis of Assisi, St., 4, 101, 131, 465. Francis I, 67, 89, 172, 344, 518, 534. Francis II, Duke of Brittany, tomb of 558, 567, 568. Franciscan Order, 218, 268, 317, 330, 359, 364, 420. Frederick II, Emperor, 132, 267. Freeman, E. H., 412, 490. Frescoes in French churches, 288, 314, 320, 321, 335, 344, 349, 374, 375, 405, 407, =408=, =409=, 511. Froissart, 210, 327, 347, 349, 368, 408, 455. Fulbert, of Chartres, Bishop, 22, 41, =170=, =171=, =172=, 173, 174, 176, 194. Fulk III, Nerra, Count of Anjou, 254, 274, 296, 302, 304, 305, 310, 314, 315, 550. Fulk IV, Count of Anjou, 295, 304. Fulk V, Count of Anjou, 173, 272, 295, 304. Furness Abbey (Lancashire), 464. G Gaillon (Eure), Château of, 373, 513, 558. Gallo-Roman bishops and times, 21, 86, 117, 118, 148, 164, 193, 194, 208, 231, 243, 248, 325, 331, 336, 337, 340, 349, 394, 396, 398, 399, 429, 433, 515, 579. Gargoyles, 8, 139, 142, 239, 358, 372, 461. Gassicourt (Seine-et-Oise), 163. Gautier, Léon, 133, 135, 162, 245, 356, 500, =501=, 520, 542. Gelasius II, Pope, 388, 417. _Genesis_, 145, 253. Geneviève, St., 71, 72, 73, 98, 133, =445=. Gennes (Marne-et-Loire), 314. Genoa, 466, 497, 511. Gensac (Charente), 291. Gentil, François (sculptor), 241. Geoffrey the Handsome, Count of Anjou, 271, 272, 273, 274, 295, 304. Geoffrey, Abbot (of Vendôme), 271, 272, 337, =436=. Gerard, Bishop (of Angoulême), 291 292. Gerbert (Sylvester II), 171, 194. Germanic influences on French architecture, 21, 48, 81, 84, 109, 124, 142, 164, 243, 336, 347, 449, 567, 580, 588. Germany, architecture in, 27, 77, 81, 99, 223, 288, 307, 464, 569. _See_ Rhenish school. Gerona (Catalonia), 380, 386. Gerson, Chancellor Jean, =143=, 242, 247, 264, 534. Giotto, 29, 267, 402. Glaber, Raoul (chronicler), 22, 414, 458. Glass, stained: XII-century, 10, 55, =58-60=, 97, 98, 118, 144, 183, 184, 219, 244, 272, 279, 307, 308, 321; XIII-century, =10=, 59, 97, 98, 101, 118, 143, 145, 146, 172, 180, 184, 185, 186, 219, 234, 252, 262, 278, 321, 449, 450, 511, 519, 539; XIV-century, =98=, 172, 220, 234, 237, 244, 252, 325, 341, 377, 382, 444, =539=, 543; XV-century, 118, 185, 222, 223, 240, 244, 253, 265, 277, 350, 520, 540, 541, 569; XVI-century, 51, 98, 144, 220, 223, 228, 233, 234, 235, 238, 239, 240, 244, 254, 264, 307, 374, 451, 513, 535, 539, 541; XVII-century, 224, 234, 240; grisaille glass, 172, 237, 431, 450, 540, 543; _camaïeu_ glass, 144, 239, 243; abrasion, 540; quarries, 540; Creation windows, 239, 240, 451; Crucifixion windows, 10, 32, 243, 39, 237, 322, 520; New Alliance windows, 97, 185, 219, 220, 253, 260, 262, 424; Jesse Tree windows, 59, 183, 228, 234, 238, 240, 253, 278, 517, 541; _Pressoir_ windows, 238, 240, 541; Renaissance glass, 98, 115, 144, 223, 224, 233, 234, 240, 241, 243, 449, 451, 513, 539, 541. Glennes (Aisne), 45. Gloucester, Cathedral of, 482, 487, 519. _Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea)_, 9, 85, 97, 220, 400. Gontier, Linard (vitrine artist), 234, 238, 240, 241. Gothic architecture, 3, 17, 25, 26, 27, 29, 36, 113, 123, 202, 246, 426, 459, 575, 576, 578; birth of, 42-52, 55, 123; definition of, 16, 17, 22, 26, 31, 36; first Gothic vaults, 27, 31, 39, 44, 45, 46, 287, 478, 479, 481; sporadic examples of early Gothic vaults, 31, 48, 351, 355, 361, 384, 387, 389, 437; Gothic schools in France, 211; structural development of Gothic, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 50, 52, 55, 56, 81, 82, 100, 110, 115, 116, 124, 127, 131, 138, 150, 229, 237, 377, 479, 514; ending of Gothic art, 576, 577, 578; neo-classic contempt for Gothic, 36, 114, 130, 187, 308, 424, 450. Goujon, Jean (sculptor), 515, 517. Grandlieu (Loire-Inférieure), 224. Gregory the Great, Pope, 181, 426. Gregory VII, Pope, 22, 34, 250, 364, 412, 415, 416, 422, 508, 545, 546. Gregory X, Pope, 267, 268. Gregory XI, Pope, 335, 387, 388. Gregory of Tours, Bishop, 248, 249, 304, 331, 332, 336, 399. Grenoble (Izère), Church of St. Laurent, 225, 343. Grosseteste, Robert (Bishop of Lincoln), 134, 263. Guéranger, Dom Prosper, 280, 281, 321. Guérin, Bishop (of Senlis), 86, 87. Guildsmen donors and artisan artists, mediæval, 6, 7, 8, 25, 34, 55, 57, 58, 62, 79, 98, 102, 103, 141, 143, 184, 186, 210, 219, 220, 222, 228, 233, 234, 235, 239, 240, 241, 244, 253, 275, 278, 284, 415, 422, 430, 435, 439, 464, 478, 503, 514, 540, 550, 558, 578, 580, 581. Guillaume of the White Hands, Archbishop (of Rheims), 94, 118, 176, 194. Guillaume VIII, Duke of Aquitaine, 318, 351; Guillaume IX, 291, 298, 318, 323, 351; Guillaume X, 292, 298, 319, 321, 354. Guimiliau (Finistère), 561. Guingamp (Côtes-du-Nord), 557, 559, 560, 562. Guizot, 36, 103, 296, 297, 536. H Haimon, Abbot, 174, 491, 492. Halberstadt, Cathedral of, 3, 77. Hambye Abbey (Manche), ruins of, 473, 554. Hanoteau, Gabriel, 400, 503, 521. Harcourt family, 529, 540, 546, 548. Harding, Abbot Stephen (of Cîteaux), 4, 41, 431, 462, =463=, 464. Harfleur (Seine-Inférieure), 492, 494, 529. Harold II, king of England, 549, 550. Haslin, Nicolas (sculptor), 240. Hastings, =1066=, battle of, 545, 549, 552. Héloïse, 133, 419. Henry I, of England, 234, 295, 304, 485, 492, 494, 537, 546. Henry II, Plantagenet, 5, 10, 67, 68, 91, 93, 94, 153, 250, 269, 271, 273, 274, 275, 290, 293, 295, 296, 298, 304, 312, 317, 319, 320, 321, 326, 348, 351, 433, 434, 495, 498, 502, 511, 531, 532, 550, 556. Henry III of England, 154, 293, 352, 434, 485. Henry V of England, 476, 483, 490, 505, 529, 534. Henry VI of England, 143, 265, 266. Henry VII, Tudor, 573. Henry VIII, 416, 435, 518. Henry II of France, 67, 144, 172. Henry IV of France, 69, 147, 185, 219, 241, 255, 265, 266, 425. Herlouin, Abbot (of Bec), 373. Hilary, St. (Bishop of Portiers), 10, 317, 318, 321, 323, 324, 344, 364. _Histoire Littéraire de la France_, 41, 55, 150, etc. _See_ Bibliography. Hoël, Bishop (of Le Mans), 269, 270, 278, 280, 337. Holbein, 221. Holycross Abbey (Co. Tipperary), 3. Honnecourt, Villard de, 34, 38, 101, 102, 122, 190, 280, =282=, =284=, 553. Hospitals, mediæval, 80, 86, 96, 298, 310, 311, 323, 426, 427. Hugh, St. (Bishop of Lincoln), 194, 263. Huguenots. _See_ Sixteenth-century religious wars. Hugues, St. (Abbot of Cluny), 22, 34, 270, 337, 414, 416, 417, 421, 440. Hugues de St. Victor. _See_ Paris, Abbey of St. Victor. Humbert, Albéric de, 6, 41, 139, =189=, 370, 371. Hundred Years' War, 52, 69, 71, 72, 73, 97, 108, 165, 221, 225, 227, 228, 252, 327, 347, 368, 371, 378, 447, 455, =489=, =490=, 499, 503, 505, 506, 507, 509, 538, 570, 571, 573. Hungary, 280, 284. Huysmans, J. K., 100, 128, 144, 170, 280, 284, 321, 415, 460. Hymns, mediæval, 128, 130, 135, 238, 261, 317, 345, 468. I Ile-de-France, 12, 24, 30, 31, 44, 45, 46, 49, 78, 113, 114, 141, 211, 225, 242, 269, 275, 276, 285, 337, 478, 479, 482, 494, 495, 514, 543, 547, 564. _Imitation of Christ_, 143, 263, 470, 503, 535. Ingeborg of Denmark, 80, 94. Innocent II, Pope, 79, 291, 417, 423, 437. Innocent III, Pope, 41, 95, 110, 134, 135, 138, 139, 206, 234, 299, 364, 369, 370, 385, 392, 394, 404, 465. Innocent IV, Pope, 264, 278, 327, 419. Innocent VI, Pope (Avignon), 267, 278, 335, 374, 408. Innsbruck, tomb of Maximilian I in, 264. Inquisition, the, 364, 368, 371. Ipres, 2, 110, 193, 242. Ireland, 5, 153, 155, 404, 411, 463, 464, 498. Irenæus, St. (Bishop of Lyons), 5, 257, 258. Irish missionaries, 4, 22, 410, 411, 449, 463, 480, 498, 560, 574. Isabeau of Bavaria, 233, 327. Isabelle of Angoulême, 193, 293, 297, 313, 326. _Isaias_, 9, 234. Issoire (Puy-de-Dôme), 340. Italian influences in France, 67, 144, 239, 240, 241, 243, 255, 279, 324, 361, 373, 374, 375, 384, 456, 466, 474, 478, 479, 493, 497, 555, 564. Italy, Gothic in, 10, 23, 28, 29, 38, 61, 185, 261, 345, 381, 411, 431, 464, =465=, 479, 554, 555. J Jacquemart-André, Mme., 89. Jaime el Conquistador, 267, 280, 334, 385, 386. James, St., 185, 222, 250, 451. James, Henry, 218. Jarenton, Abbot (of St. Bénigne, Dijon), 337, 414, 458. Jean le Bon, king of France, 308, 309, 327, 454. Jean sans Peur, Duke of Burgundy, 143, 264, 265, 452, 523, 534. Jeanne d'Arc, St., 13, 70, 71, 72, 73, 77, 87, 143, 152, 162, 166, 167, 168, 191, 192, 197, 201, 221, 222, 223, 225, 226, 233, 247, 254, 255, 296, 298, 315, 328, 338, 355, 356, 447, 448, 455, 476, 483, 497, 504, 505, 506, 508, 509, 520, =521-531=, 533, 534, 535, 536, 544, 548, 555, 577. Jeanne of Navarre and Champagne, 119, 120, 162, 166, 167, 232, 246, 247, 538. Jeannin, Président, 423, 425. Jerome, St., 9, 182, 444. Jerusalem, 119, 142, 145, 154, 157, 274, 304, 311, 410, 485, 500, 508, 560, 561, 581. Jesse Tree windows. _See_ Glass, stained. Jesus Christ, iconography of, 98, 120, 137, 142, 180, 183, 195, 199, 207, 208, 239, 240, 241, 288, 292, 317, 321, 322, 361, 373, 423, 438, 450, 520, 540, 560, 561, 574. Jews in the Middle Ages, 12, 247, 336, 379, 408, 463, 468, 490. _Job, Book of_, 217, 233. Joffre, General, 198, 375. John the Baptist, St., 146, 182, 210, 259, 347, 366, 408, 438, 441. John the Evangelist, St., 9, 68, 204, 217, 219, 257, 259, 262, 281, 294, 310, 361, 396, 438, 441. John Lackland, king of England, 275, 293, 297, 298, 299, 308, 313, 487, 503, 511, 537, 564. John XXII, Pope, 264, 288, 289, 387, 407. Johnson, Lionel, 165. Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 294, 431. Joinville, Jean, Sire de, 41, 70, 111, 119, 120, 138, 140, =152-162=, 166, 190, 206, 219, 244, 245, 246, 247, 306, 312, 313, 326, 342, 399, 553. Jouarre (Seine-et-Marne), crypt of, 168, 225, 411. Joubert, J., 290. _Jubé_, or rood screen, 239, 244, 247, 347, 373, 558, 560. Judith of Brittany, Duchess of Normandy, 501. Juliot, the (sculptors of Troyes), 235, 240, 241. Jumièges (Seine-Inférieure), ruins of, 23, 116, 224, 411, 415, =480-483=, 496, 509. Juste, the (sculptors), 67, 564, 565. K Kensington Museum, 353. Kernascleden (Morbihan), 559. Keystones of Gothic vaults, 37, 48, 104, 150, 166, 301, 314, 444, 513. Koran, the, 419. Kreisker Tower, the. _See_ St. Pol-de-Léon. L Lacordaire, J. B. H. D., 128, 430, 453, 462. Lady chapel, 52, 203, 498, 515, 533, 540, 555, 569. Lafayette family, burial place of, 335. Lafenestre, George, 484. La Ferté-Milon (Seine-et-Marne), 534. Laffaux (Aisne), 45. La Fontaine, 242. Laic theory, the, 32, 100. Lamartine, Alphonse de, 445. Lamballe (Côtes-du-Nord), 559. Lambin, Émile. _See_ Bibliography. Lamoricière, General de, 568. Lampaul (Finistère). Landrieux, Monseigneur, 188, 199. Langeais (Indre-et-Loire), 566. Langlois, Jean (architect), 237. Langres (Haute-Marne), 424, 526. Langrune (Calvados), 526. Langton, Archbishop Stephen, 11, 41, 134, 432. Languedoc, 11, 23, 24, 42, 356, 357, 361, 362, 365, 368, 370, 380, 384, 387; Romanesque school of, 24, 28, 360, 361; Romanesque sculpture of, 360, 361. Lannion (Côtes-du-Nord), 557. Laon (Aisne), 102, 103, 104, 106, 531; Cathedral of, 7, 12, 32, 40, 74, 75, 76, 77, =99-106=, 575, 581; its glass and sculpture, 101; its façade, 105; St. Martin, 105, 106; Templar's church, 99, 106. Laon, Anselm de, 104, 474, 512. La Roche-Maurice (Finistère), 560. Lasteyrie, Comte Robert de. _See_ Bibliography. Last Judgment, representation of, 147, 181, 195, 199, 217, 218, 375, 423, 426, 564. Lateran, Church of the, 387; 4th Council of, 189, 206, 370. Latin influences and vestiges in French art, 4, 9, 11, 18, 19, 21, 28, 30, 61, 193, 249, 257, 263, 270, 318, 336, 353, 384, 388, 389, 394, 398, 399, 400, 401, 403, 416, 418, 422, 424, 479, 507, 577, 579, 580. La Trappe (Orne), Souligny, 418, 542. Laurana, Francisco (sculptor), 279, 406. Laurence, St., 224, 283. Lavardin, Hildebert de, 41, 250, 269, 270, 271, 272, 275, 279. Lavisse, Ernest, 76. Lay-Ecclesiastic Controversy, the, 91, 94, 154, 173, 260, 267, 271, 282, 340, 432, 433, 434, 441, 475, 532, 556. Lazarus, 395, 396, 424, 428, 436, 501, 580. Le Braz, Anatole, 556, 568. Lecuyer, Jean (vitrine artist), 223, 224. Lefèvre-Pontalis, Eugène. _See_ Bibliography. Le Mans (Sarthe), 10, 274, 279, 349, 406, 454, 541; Cathedral of, 13, 59, 125, 211, 212, 255, =268-279=, 304, 315, 321, 351, 553; glass of, 59, 220, 276, 277, 278; St. Julien du Pré and the Couture church, 278, 280; Henry II of England in Le Mans, 274. Lenoncourt, Robert de (Archbishop of Rheims), 118, 198, 255. Leo IX, Pope, 117, 542. Leo XIII, Pope, 130, 385, 422, 521. Leon, Cathedral of, 3, 242. Le Pot, Nicolas, 51, 228. Le Prince, Engrand (and sons, vitrine artists), 51, 144, 228, 517. Le Puy (Haute-Loire), 342, 371, 566; Cathedral of, =343=, =344=, 345; St. Michel d'Aiguille, 343. Lerens, Island of, 411. Le Roux, Rouland (architect), 307, 498, 518, 519. Les Andelys (Seine-Inférieure), 512, =513=, 520. Les Iff (Ille-et-Vilaine), 541, 559. Les Noès (Aube), 238. Les Saintes-Mariés (Bouches-du-Rhône), 239, =395=, 396, 397. Lessay (Manche), 473, 493, 512, 554. Lèves, Geoffrey de (Bishop of Chartres), 60, =170=, =173=, =174=, 181, 319, 361, 362, 469. Liebnitz, 414. Ligugé (Vienne), 321. Lille (Nord), 226. Limoges (Haute-Vienne), Cathedral of, 203, 334, =345-348=, 380, 407, 408, 539; St. Martial, 336, 345, 346, 348; enamels of, 172, 341, 345, 349. Lincoln, Cathedral of, 31, 134, 194, 298, 449, 516, 532. Lincoln, St. Hugh of, 194, 263, 296. Lisieux (Calvados), Cathedrals of, 113, 531-536; St. Jacques, 518, 535. Litchfield, Cathedral of, 516. Literature in the Middle Ages, 4, 7, 9, 18, 31, 135, 150, 400; XI-century, 106, 133, 171, 173, 195, 304, 318, 415, 417, 422, 424, 430, 432, =450=, =461=, 466, 474, 475, 478, 500, 501, 545, 549; XII-century, 57, 116, 131, 133, 135, 174, 175, 176, 250, 270, 272, 273, 318, 345, 348, 398, 418, 419, 502, 537, 545; XIII-century, 9, 119, 130, 131, 132, 135, 140, 158, 161, 166, 231, 232, 236, 238, 245, 246, 267, 334, 396; XIV-century, 210, 287, 407, 551; XV-century, 516, 517, 529, 565. Loches (Indre-et-Loire), 44, 254; Beaulieu-lès-Loches, 254. Loctudy (Finistère), 557. Loire, the, 10, 247, 254, 255, 304, 449, 565, 566. Lombard architecture, 17, 24, 28, 29, 32, 44, 478, 479, 481, 493; influences of, 28, 247, 360, 384, 395, 478, 481, 486, 493, 495. Lombard, Pierre, 133, 134. London, 486, 491, 517. Longpont (Aisne), Abbey of, 107, 147, 431. Longueil, Olivier de (Bishop of Coutances), 555. Loti, Pierre, 199, 200, 561. Lotte, Joseph, 499, 536. Louis VI, 61, 122, 151. Louis VII, 57, 60, 62, 70, 79, 84, 137, 138, 174, 245, 248, 250, 298, 299, 317, 351, 439. Louis VIII, 69, 86, 96, 262. Louis IX, St. Louis, 5, 9, 12, 14, 41, 52, 53, 54, 65, 66, 67, 70, 71, 86, 96, 106, 107, 118, 132, 135, 140, 143, 145, =152-162=, 177, 184, 185, 193, 206, 218, 232, 248, 283, 299, 309, 310, 313, 314, 327, 334, 336, 375, 378, 390, 410, 435, 441, 489, 514, 538, 553, 579, 593. Louis XI, 247, 255, 265, 309, 314, 452, 504, 540. Louis XII, 67, 89, 96, 97, 373, 497, 534, 558, 565, 566. Louis XIV, 70, 384, 405. Louis XV and Louis XVI, 70. Louis-Philippe, 66, 157. Loup, St. (Bishop of Troyes), 231. Loutil, Abbé (Pierre l'Hermite), 129. Louviers (Eure), 518, 536. Lowell, James Russell, 100, 170. Loyola, St. Ignatius, 151. Lozinga, Herbert (Bishop of Norwich), 494, 496. Luce, Siméon, 490, 499, 520, 526, 557. Lugo, Cathedral of, 465. Lusarches, Robert de (sculptor), 204, 205, 248. Luxeuil (Haute-Saône), monastery of, 122, 410, =411=, 483. Lyénin, family of (vitrine artists), 233, 234, 241. Lyons, 13, 39, 336, 400; Cathedral of, =211=, 212, 220, 248, =256-268=; Councils of, 263, 267, 268, 456; glass and sculpture of, 262, 263, 264, 265; St. Martin d'Ainay, 225, 259, 260. M Mabillon, Dom, 149, 418, 461. Macadré family, the (sculptors), 233, 234, 240. Mâcon, Hugues de (Bishop of Auxerre), 431, 447. Magdeburg, Cathedral of, 2, 3, 77. _Magna Charta_, 1215, 11, 12, 15, 432. Maguelonne (Hérault), 11, 28, 330, =384=, 388, 389. Maine, Province of, 269, 271, 274, 302. Maine de Biran, 579. Maistre, Joseph de, 222, 411. Malachy, O'Morgair, St., 4, 41, 463, 498. Mâle, Émile. _See_ Bibliography. Manchon, secretary of Jeanne d'Arc's trial, 523, 524, 525, 526. Mansurah, =1250=, battle of, 8, 111, 155, 156, 159, 453. Mantegna, 341. Mantes (Seine-et-Oise), Collegiate of Notre Dame at, 113, =162-165=, 488; its Chapel of Navarre, 164, 538, 539. Marbeau, Monseigneur (Bishop of Meaux), 168. Marburg, Church of St. Elizabeth at, 112, 122, 280, 313. Marcherez, Madame Jeanne, 112. Marguerite of Austria, 264. Marguerite of Burgundy, 295, 427. Marguerite of Flanders, 454, 455. Marguerite of Provence, 96, 153, 154, 390. Marie Antoinette, 70. Marie of Champagne, Countess, 245, 299. Maritain, Jacques, 224. Marle, Thomas de, 102, 103. Marmoutier (Indre-et-Loire), 251, 387, 400, 402. Marolles (Oise), 45. Marseilles, 28, 400, 401; St. Victor's abbatial, 387. Martha, St., 239, 240, 247, 281, 395, 396, 403, 424. Martin, St., 5, 9, 148, 185, 248, 249, 250, 253, 304, 315, 316, 321, 324, 446. Martin, Thérèse, the "Little Flower," 535, 536. Marville, Jean de, 456, 520. Mary of Burgundy, 264. Mary Magdalene, 239, 240, 247, 254, 281, 353, 395, 396, 401, 402, 424, 436, 441, 442. Matha, St. Jean de, 139, 404, 405. Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, 216, 295, 482, 484, 485, 486, 546, 549. Massillon, Bishop, 335, 365. Maulbronn, Cistercian church of, 464. Maurice and the Theban Legion, St., 5, 248, 303, 304. Maurille, Archbishop (of Rouen), 482, 485, 510, 511. Meaux (Seine-et-Marne), Cathedral of, 96, 152, =165-168=, 247, 538. Mellifont Abbey (Co. Louth), 3, 464. Melrose Abbey (Roxburghshire), 3, 464. Mende (Cantal), Cathedral of, 330, =387=. Merimée, Prosper, 38, 285, 312, 321, 331, 341, 343, 370, 373, 383, 395. Merovingian vestiges and times, 20, 56, 57, 77, 78, 84, 171, 224, 225, 249, 305, 324, 325, 470, 471, 480. Metz (Lorraine), 226, 242. Mézerai, François Eudes de, 298, 519, 520. Mézières (Ardennes), 226. Michael, St., 330, 343, 372, 499, 500, 504, 505, 520, 522, 553. Michael Angelo, 183, 374. Midi, Gothic in the, 329, 330, 346, 354, 377, 380, 386, 398, 402, 407, 408; Romanesque in the, 25, 329, 330, 337, 339, 340, 342, 355, 359, 360, 371, 376, 381, 398, 403, 406. Milan, 3, 28, 29, 338, 384, 464, 465, 466. Military orders, 86, 106, 189, 246, 311, 326, 466, 504. Missions in the Middle Ages, foreign, 327, 369, 386, 404, 405, 415, 419. Mistral, Frédéric, 356, 357, 384, 397, 400, 466, 504, 581. Modena, Cathedral of, 273, 361, 374, 395. Moissac (Tarn-et-Garonne), 24, 28, 31, 288, 330, 360, 361, 415. Moles, Arnaud de, 358, 374. Molière, 36, 370. Moncontour (Ille-et-Vilaine), 559. Monk-builders, 17, 21, 22, 24, 25, 33, 34, 280, 295, 360, 361, 365, 371, 392, 410, 411, 412, 413, 415, 416, 417, 422, 437, 440, 473, 475, 481, 493, 494, 496, 498, 502, 554. Montaigne, 350, 451. Montaigu, Gilles Aycelin de, 381, 515. Montalembert, Charles de, 237, 256, 280, 411, 414, 476. Montbard (Côte-d'Or), 430, 453. Montboissier, Pons de (Abbot of Vézelay), 338, 341, 418, 438, 439; Peter de. _See_ Peter the Venerable. Montecorvino, John of, 326, 327. Monteil, Adhémar de (Bishop of Le Puy), 344, 345. Montereau, Pierre de (architect), 35, 53, 66, 70, 141, 146, 149, 150, 280, 299. Montfort, Bertrada de, 173, 295, 323, 549. Montfort, Simon de, 14, 353, 357, 362, 369, 370, 376, 383, 386. Montfort-l'Amaury (Seine-et-Oise), 144. Montier-en-Der (Haute-Marne), 239. Montmajour-lès-Arles, 398, 399, 400. Montmorency (Seine-et-Oise), 144; art patrons, 144, 254, 347, 390, 408, 559. Montpellier (Hérault), 369, =385-387=; Cathedral of, 384, 385, 386; le Perou, 385, 400, 407. Montréal (Yonne), 121, 428, 429. Mont-Saint-Michel, 22, 34, 226, 322, 371, 435, 473, 482, 483, 487, 495, =499-507=, 527, 529, 551, 554, 559; the Merveille, 503. Mont-Sainte-Odile (Alsace), 485. Montvilliers (Seine-Inférieure), 491, 555. Morel, Jacques (sculptor), 254, 265, 266, 308, 456. Morlaix (Finistère), 559, 560. Mortagne, Gautier de (Bishop of Laon), 105. Mortain (Manche), Abbey of La Blanche, 473, 554. Moses, 182, 438, 455. Mouliherne (Seine-et-Loire), 315. Moulins (Allier), 226, =265=, =266=, 322, 541. Mowbray, Geoffrey de (Bishop of Coutances), 552. Mozac (Puy-de-Dôme), 340, =341=, 349. Musset, Alfred de, 16. Mussy-sur-Seine (Aube), 239. Mystery plays, influence on sculpture of, 180, 223, 281, 455, 540, 578. N Nantes (Loire-Inférieure), Cathedral of, 255, 256, 557, 558, 563, =565-568=. Naples, Gothic in, 465. Napoleon, 70, 259, 420, 446. Narbonne (Aude), 368, 378, 408; Cathedral of, 11, 203, 330, 336, 357, 364, =378-382=, 390, 515, 539. Narthex, or forechurch, 18, 57, 419, 424, 427, 436, 437, 457, 460, 532. Navarre, 167, 232, 237. Navas de Toloso, Las, 115, 153, 385, 538. Neale, Rev. John Mason, 19, 214, 414, 421, 451. Nemours, Pierre de (Bishop of Noyon), 80, 139, 243. Nevers (Nièvre), Cathedral of, 413, =449=, 566; St. Étienne, 215, 254, 340, 495. New Alliance windows. _See_ Glass, stained. Newman, Cardinal, 123. Niçaise, St., 193, 194, 202. Nicolas of Bari, St., 185, 239, 451. Nîmes (Gard), 397, 400. Nolasco, St. Peter, 369, 386. Nonancourt (Eure), 536. Norbert, St., 2, 4, 104, 467. Normandy, 40, 223, 226, 242, 274, =472-556=; Gothic of, 494, 499, 504, 505, 508, 518, 533, 543, 547, 553, 554; first Gothic vaults of, 30, 46, 478, 479, 493, 554; sexpartite vaults of, 481, 482; Romanesque school of, 17, 23, 30, =476-480=, 481, 485, 486, 493, 502, 546, 554; architectural influences of, 11, 46, 48, 163, 165, 276, 479, 555; monasteries of, 372, 373, 374, 480, 484, 492, 494, 498, 499, 554; Normans in Sicily, 132, 542, 552, =554=, 555; Norse invasions, 20, 21, 171, 324, 336, 477, 483, 495, 501, 510. Norrey (Calvados), 491. Norwich, Cathedral of, 430, 487, 496. Notre Dame, the term, 565; devotion to, 5, 126, 137, 138, 169, 170, 193, 343, 344, 404, 465, 511, 564, 571, 572; iconography of, 85, 101, 123, 137, 138, 180, 182, 193, 208, 209, 240, 242, 244, 278, 280, 282, 342, 361, 362, 373, 541. Notre-Dame-de-l'Épine (Marne), 242, 244. Noyes, Alfred., 282. Noyon (Oise), Cathedral of, 12, 33, 74, 75, 76, 78-84, 99, 112; commune of, 12, 79; World War havoc in, 2, 76, 82, 83. O Odilo. St. (Abbot of Cluny), 266, 414, =422=. Odo de Conteville (Bishop of Bayeux), 337, 545, 546, 547, 549, 552. Orbais (Marne). Orbais, Jean d' (architect), 34, 190, 191, 192. Orcival (Puy-de-Dôme), 340. Ordericus Vitalis, 272, 492, 537. Orders, mediæval religious, 414, 420; Trinitarians, or Mathurins, 401, 405; Order of Mercy, 369, 386. _See_ Carthusians, Cistercians, Cluny, Dominicans, Franciscans, Fontevrault, Prémontré. Orgeval (Seine-et-Oise), 45. Oriflamme of St. Denis, the, 61, 70, 71. Orléans (Loiret), 2, 328, 504, 521, 526, 527, 529, 533; Cathedral of, 2, 7, 218, 224, 254; family of, 499. Orléans, Charles d', 67, 315, 497, 516, 517, 529, 534, 565. Orléans, Louis, Duke d', 67, 143, 497, =534=. O'Toole, St. Laurence, 498, 499. Ourscamp (Oise), hospital and abbey of, =80=, 96, 150, 431. Oxford, 327, 407, 434, 516, 519. Ozanam, Frédéric, 135, 259, 268, 508. P Palermo, 549, 555. Papacy in the Middle Ages, the, 22, 23, 79, 91, 95, 135, 154, 171, 177, 194, 206, 239, 240, 243, 266, 267, 268, 291, 337, 388, 364, 367, 369, 370, 385, 386, 387, 388, 392, 393, 407, 408, 409, 411, 412, 416, 419, 466, 468, 489, 501, 578. Paray-le-Monial (Allier), 410, =421=, =422=. Paris, 7, 82, 126, 133, 317, 419, 445, 513, 527, 530; Cathedral of Notre Dame, 3, 6, 7, 13, 33, 41, 59, 74, 85, 99, 100, 112, =126-146=, 163, 167, 181, 182, 204, 213, 215, 228, 229, 290, 413, 416, 434, 489, 554, 575; Flamboyant Gothic churches in, 144; glass, school of, 59, 143, 145, 146, 252, 334; Hôtel Cluny, 53, 97, 222, 335, 373, 421; Hôtel Sens, 97; Louvre, the, 425, 426; Montmartre, church of St. Pierre de, 56, =148=, =151=, and Sacré-Coeur basilica of, 151, 292; Sainte-Chapelle, the, 132, 145, 146, 203, 205, 229, 252, 334, 538; St. Germain-des-Prés, 33, 34, 148, 149, 415; St. Germain l'Auxerrois, 152, 446; St. Julien-le-Pauvre, 147, 431; St. Martin-des-Champs, 33, 45, =148=, 150; St. Séverin, 152, 541; St. Victor, Abbey of, 133, 134, 135, 468; sculpture of, 131, 132, 137, 138, 139, 141, 142, 146, 147, 149; Trocadéro Museum, 38, 244, 340, 353; University of, 7, 41, 104, 133, 134, 147, 294, 327, 404, 408, 428, 434, 463, 469, 474, 476, 521, 524, 530, 534, 573. Paris, Gaston, 135, 152, 242, 245, 565. Parthenay (Deux-Sèvres), 321, 340. Pascal, 331, 332. Paschal II, Pope, 173, 250, 259, 261, 266, 291, 295, 415, 417, 428, 458. Pasquier, Étienne, 521. Passavent, Guillaume de (Bishop of Le Mans), 269, 272, 273, 274, 275. Pasteur, Louis, 428. Pater, Walter, 170, 432, 578. Patrick, St., 446, 536, 537. Paul, St., 9, 95, 208, 217, 273, 387, 389, 399, 442, 466, 567. Paul, St. Vincent de, 151, 259, 402, 508. Pavia (Lombardy), 437. Péguy, Charles, 72, 73, 168, 179, 197, 536, 545. Peking, 327. Penafort, St. Raymond of, 369. Penmarc'h (Finistère), 560, 561. Pépin, 57. Périgieux (Dordogne), Cathedral of St. Front, 47, =288-290=., 291, 465. Péronne (Somme), 82, 124, 226, 411. Perpignan (Pyrénées Orientales), 382. Perréal, Jean, 264, 568. Peter, St., 9, 103, 148, 182, 186, 208, 218, 273, 317, 387, 388, 389, 399, 416, 438, 482, 565, 567. Peter of Aragon, 385. Peter the Venerable, 41, 60, 152, 174, 243, 341, 393, =414=, 417, =418=, =419=, 435, 438, 463, 467. Peterborough, Cathedral of, 482, 487, 562. Petrarch, 239, 386, 406, 408. Philibert, St., 413, 483. Philippe I, king of France, 51, 173, 295, 323, 549. Philippe-Auguste, 12, 14, 53, 54, 60, 62, 69, 70, 80, 94, 96, 108, 135, 136, 162, 163, 177, 194, 195, 234, 251, 267, 274, 275, 280, 309, 310, 340, 432, 440, 489, 503, 511, 513, 525, 537, 538. Philippe III, the Bold, 67, 71, 247, 338, 375, 390, 408. Philippe IV, le Bel, 13, 326, 489, 538. Philippe le Hardi, Duke of Burgundy, 220, 232, 264, 353, 443, 452, 454; tomb of, 455. Philippe le Bon, Duke of Burgundy, 426, 427, 452, 527. Picardy, 202, 203, 210, 503. Pierrefonds (Oise), 534. Piers, development of, 23, 24, 25, 26, 49, 55, 93, 100, 111, 122, 127, 166, 213, 214, 320, 333, 346, 358, 377, 380, 402, 514, 532. Pilasters, channeled, 416, 422, 424. Pilgrim shrines, mediæval, 6, 94, 157, 179, 185, 249, 250, 289, 324, 325, 343, 395, 436, 437, 498, 500, 551. Pilon, Germain (sculptor), 68, 278. Pinaigrier (vitrine artist), 149, 254. Pisa, 417, 460. Pisano, Niccola, 29. Pius IX, Pope, 377. Pius X, Pope, 188. Plantagenet Gothic, 10, 39, 113, 250, 273, 275, 278, =291-301=, 307, 311, 312, 314, 315, 317, 351. Plantagenet tombs, the, 293, 296, 297. Plato, 132, 169, 475. Plélan (Ille-et-Vilaine), 541. Pleyben (Finistère), 561. Ploërmel (Morbihan), 559. Plougastel-Daoulas (Finistère), 561. Plougonven (Finistère), 561. Poblet (Catalonia), Monastery of, 380, 381, 464. Poissy (Seine-et-Oise), 45, =53=, =54=, 574. Poitiers, 40, 221, 255, 286, 318, 324, 325, 327, 328, 454; Cathedral of, 10, 57, 279, 312, =316-322=; Baptistry of St. Jean, 225; Counts of, 298, 318: _see_ Guillaume VIII, IX, and X; glass of, 10, 59, 317, 321, 322; Minerva statue, 325; Montierneuf, 318; Notre Dame-la-Grande, 24, 318, 323; Palais de Justice (Counts' palace), 326, 327, 328; St. Hilaire, 172, 319, 323, 324, 344; Ste. Radégonde, 325, 326, 327, 539; University of, 325. Poitiers, Alphonse de, 156, 313, 320, 362, 370, 408. Poitiers, Diane de, 144, 172, 515. Poitou, 5, 10, 39; Romanesque school of, 24, 38, 291, 311, 316, 319, 320, 321, 323, 355. Polo, Marco, 299, 327. Polychrome decoration, 339, =340=, 343. Pont-Audemer (Eure), 541. Pont-de-l'Arche (Eure), 536, 539. Pontigny (Yonne), Cistercian abbatial of, 11, 33, 93, 215, 239, 261, =430-435=, 447. Pontoise (Seine-et-Oise), 45, =53=, =54=, 57, 65. Portals, sculptured, 4, 95, 180, 181, 182, 239, 252, 253, 261, 273, 289, 394, 398, 418, 428, 438, 514, 515, 517, 518, 550, 561. Porter, Arthur Kingsley. _See_ Bibliography. Portugal, 38, 454. Pot, Philippe (Seneschal of Burgundy), 144, 425. Pothimus, St. (Bishop of Lyons), 257, 258, 259. Prague, 3, 203, 387. Prémontré, Order of, 34, 104, 122, 468, 543. Primary Gothic, 68, =74-125=, 75, 76, 77, 108, 109, 110, 113, 114, 125, 303, 306, 440, 494, 508, 511, 580. _Primitifs_, French, 265, 404. Prophets and patriarchs, in art, 182, 262, 373, 404, 455. Provence, 112, 113, 114, 153, 309, 361, 390, 397, 400, 402, 441, 465; Romanesque school of, 23, 24, 398, 403, 405, 406; sculpture of, 361, 392, 394, 395, 398; tradition of the Saintes Maries in, 436, 441. Provins (Seine-et-Marne), 7, =119-121=, 538; St. Quiriace, 123. Psichari, Ernest, 168, 572, 574. Puvis de Chavannes, 216, 259. Puy-Notre-Dame (Maine-et-Loire), 314, 319. Q Quimper (Finistère), Cathedral of, 541, 557, 559, 563, =568-571=. Quimperlé (Finistère), 31, 557, 560. R Races in France, amalgamation of, 4, 5, 21, 135, 248, 378, 388. _See_ Barbarian invasions, Celtic element, Gallo-Romans, and Latin influences. Racine, 36, 242. Radegund, Queen, 4, 10, 78, 84, 324, 325, 327. _Rationale_, or the symbolism of churches, 19, 69, 214, 267, 359, 377, 387, 400, 401. Raymond IV, of Toulouse, 391. Raymond VI, of Toulouse, 297, 357, 369, 376, 392, 394. Raymond VII, 297, 370. Rayonnant Gothic, 12, 13, 105, 116, 130, 141, 232, 236, 237, 277, 346, 352, 353, 354, 380, 497, 508, 509, 514, 515, 516, 538, 543, 548, 573, 577. Rebirth of architecture after the year 1000, 20, 22, 422, 458, 575. Reclus, O., 498. Redon (Ille-et-Vilaine), 256, 268. Regnault, Guillaume (sculptor), 67, 256, 568. Remigius, St., 118, 191, 194. _See_ Rheims, Church of St. Remi. Renaissance, the classic, 10, 152, 179, 180, 228, 239, 240, 243, 246, 279, 281, 282, 295, 306, 374, 375, 406, 483, 489, 497, 513, 515, 541, 560, 564, 566, 567, 568, 577. Renan, Ernest, 27, 258, 462, 572, 574. René, King, of Anjou, 221, 222, 277, 279, 305, 308, 309, 314, 402, 404, 540. Revolution, devastation by the French, 2, 34, 69, 81, 122, 139, 144, 149, 153, 155, 209, 221, 239, 240, 241, 243, 249, 265, 266, 279, 308, 336, 347, 348, 358, 363, 374, 393, 420, 421, 423, 455, 457, 461, 497, 515, 519, 548, 554, 556, 573, 577. Rheims (Marne), 2, 6, 10, 32, 40, 61, 77, 153, 197-201, 425, 527, 538; Cathedral of, 34, 122, =188-201=, 209, 211, 242, 244, 284, 475, 581; its sculpture, 6, 192, 193, 195, 196, 204, 208; St. Remi, 7, 33, 74, 76, 77, 105, 109, =116-119=, 121, 196, 242, 322, 415, 575; World War devastation by, 2, 76, 196, =197-202=, 581. Rhenish school, the, 24, 27, 28, 164, 177, 449. Rhuis (Oise), 45. Richard I, the Fearless, Duke of Normandy, 495, 501. Richard II, the Good, Duke of Normandy, 485, 492, 495, 501, 502, 510. Richard Coeur-de-Lion, 10, 14, 177, 245, 251, 267, 269, 274, 279, 293, 296, 297, 298, 299, 304, 319, 340, 348, 351, 440, 491, 511, 513, 514, 537, 538. Richelieu, 282, 289. Riom (Puy-de-Dôme), 340, =341=, 342, 387, 541; Virgin of the Bird, the, 342, 490, 577. Robert the Magnificent, Duke of Normandy, 544, 545, 554. Roc-amadour (Lot), 289. Rochester, Cathedral of, 482, 485. Rodez (Aveyron), Cathedral of, 203, 226, 330, 370, 374, 577. Rodin, Auguste, 114, 172, 189, 196, 215, 250, 272, 278, 390, 472, 575. _Roland, Chanson de_, 106, 184, 194, 246, 355, 356, 500, 501, 545, 549, 580. Rolin, Nicolas, 425, =426=, =427=. Rollo, Duke of Normandy, 477, 482, 503, 510. Roman centers in Gaul, 9, 91, 379, 398, 424. Romanesque architecture, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 43, 44, 48, 49, 187, 225, 287, 291, 320, 321, 323, 329, 340, 344, 359, 361, 362, 378, 403, 406, 422, 427, 433, =476-486=, 493, 546, 557, 575; Romanesque sculpture, 51, 288, 291, 292, 361, 480, 546, 547; Romanesque traits in Gothic art, 55, 75, 80, 81, 82, 92, 95, 99, 100, 116, 117, 120, 127, 149, 150, 180, 181, 223, 242, 261, 378, 394, 419, 429, 434, 437, 488, 513, 532, 547, 553, 575. Rome, 11, 18, 19, 81, 119, 204, 230, 250, 257, 320, 327, 329, 343, 372, 375, 385, 387, 388, 397, 398, 405, 406, 407, 409, 416, 424, 434, 464, 472, 479, 564. Roncevaux, =778=; battle of, 8, 194, 355, 500, 545, 580. Roquefort, Pierre de (Bishop of Carcassonne), 377. Ros, Guillaume de (Abbot of Fécamp), 496, 497. Roscoff (Finistère), 560. Rosnay (Aube), 239. Rostand, Edmond, 391, 559. Rouen, 10, 13, 33, =507-530=, 535, 538, 554, 558; Cathedral of, 104, 113, 129, 322, 373, 475, 494, 499, =507-520=, 523, 524, 531, 541, 555, 577; Abbatial of St. Ouen, 415, 472, 475, 487, 491, 507, =509=, =516=, 520, 522, 524, 530, 534, 541; Flamboyant towers, 509, 517, 518; Hôtel du Bourgtherould, 519; Palais de Justice, 222, 518; St. Gervais, 510; St. Julien, Petit-Quevilly, 511, 512; St. Maclou, 404, 492, 515, =517=, 541; St. Vincent, 517; sons of, 519; trial of Jeanne d'Arc in, =521-530=. Rouilly (Aube), 239. Roullet (Charente), 291. Rousse, Joseph, 563. Royal (Puy-de-Dôme), 332. Rubruquis, William of, 327. Rue (Somme), 222. Ruffec (Charente), 291. Ruskin, John, 1, 3, 15, 208, 209, 556. S Sablé (Sarthe), 280, 282. St. Albans (Hertfordshire), Abbey of, 487. St. Andre-lès-Troyes (Aube), 238. St. Astier (Dordogne), 288, 289. St. Bartholomew Massacre, 1572, the, 425, 566. St. Benoît-sur-Loire (Loiret), 254, 566. St. Bertrand-de-Comminges (Haute-Garonne), 354, 406. St. Brieuc (Côtes-du-Nord), 557, 572. St. Catherine de Fierbois (Indre-et-Loire), 254. St. Cher, Cardinal Hugues de, 134. St. Denis-en-France, Abbey of, 21, 31, 33, 44, 45, 51, 52, =54-72=, 125, 132, 146, 147, 175, 336, 339, 415, 482, 486, 565, 581; built by Abbot Suger, 56, 57, 58, 59, 64; rebuilt by St. Louis, 65, 66; dedicated, 60, 319; its deviated axis, 68; glass of, 55, 58, 59, 60, 64, 66, 183, 184, 279; influence of, 65, 66, 74, 173, 175, 307, 321; tombs of, 66, 67, 68, 153; notable gatherings in, 56, 57, 60, 70. Ste. Baume (Var), 396. Sainte-Beuve, Ch. A., 158, 451, 453. Saintes (Charente-Inférieure), 226, 287, 340. Saintes-Chapelles, various, 52, 66, 145, 146, 153, 205, 206, 221, 341. St. Évroult (Orne), 473, 537, 542. St. Fiacre-du-Faouët (Morbihan), 560. St. Florent-lès-Saumur (Maine-et-Loire), 314, 315, 566. St. Florentin (Yonne), 239. St. Flour (Cantal), 408, 487. St. Gall, Switzerland, Abbey of, 411. St. Georges de Boscherville (Seine-Inférieure), 473, =492-494=, 532. St. Germain-en-Laye (Seine-et-Oise), 53, 66, 235. St. Germain-sur-Vienne, 314. St. Germer-en-Flay (Oise), 45, 51, 52, 53, 66. St. Gildas-de-Rhuis (Morbihan), 557. St. Gilles (Gard), 11, 24, 31, 323, 330, 388, 390, =391-396=. St. Guilhem-le-Désert (Hérault), 318, 384. St. Jean-du-Doigt (Finistère), 558. St. Jouin-de-Marne (Deux-Sèvres), 224, 321. St. Julien-du-Sault (Yonne), 98. St. Léger-lès-Troyes (Aube), 239. St. Leu d'Esserent (Oise), 45, 46, 74, 76, 113, 121, =123-125=. St. Lô (Manche), 518, 541, 554. St. Loup (Aube), 239. St. Loup-de-Naud (Seine-et-Marne), 120. St. Maixent (Deux-Sèvres), 225, 321, 415. St. Malo (Ille-et-Vilaine), 4, 562, 563. St. Maur, Congregation of, 37, 41, 418, 483, 507, 548. St. Maximin (Var), 280, 309, 330, =400=, =402=. St. Mihiel (Meuse), 281. St. Nectaire (Puy-de-Dôme), 340. St. Nicolas-du-Port (Meurthe-et-Moselle), 226, 358. St. Parre-lès-Tertres (Aube), 238. St. Père-sous-Vézelay (Yonne), 436. St. Pierre-sur-Dives (Calvados), 33, 473, 491. St. Pol-de-Léon (Finistère), Cathedral of, 557, 563, 568, =570-572=; the Kreisker Tower, 12, 557, 562. St. Ponanges (Aube), 239. St. Quentin (Aisne), 2, 115, 224, 226, 242, =282-284=. St. Riquier (Somme), 226, 411. St. Satur (Cher), 254, 566. St. Saturnin (Puy-de-Dôme), 340. St. Savin-sur-Gartemps, 320, 321, 415. St. Thégonnec (Finistère), 561. St. Vaast-lès-Mello (Oise), 45. St. Victor's Abbey, Paris, 133, 135; Adam de St. Victor, 133, 134, 468; Hugues de St. Victor, 133, 468; Richard de St. Victor, 133, 135, 468; St. Victor's Abbey at Marseilles, 387, 468. St. Wandrille (Seine-Inférieure), Abbatial ruins of, 373, 411, 415, 472, 473, 483. Salamanca, 327, 465. Salazar, Tristan de (Archbishop of Sens), 97. Sales, St. François de, 151, 259, 508. Salisbury, Cathedral of, 434, 516, 532. Salisbury, John of (Bishop of Chartres), 4, 41, 94, 116, 120, 134, 136, 170, =175=, =176=, 183, 433, 532. San Galgano (province of Siena), 465. Sanglier, Henri le, (Archbishop of Sens), 92, 132, 467. Santa-Creus (Catalonia), 464, 465. Santayana, George, 169, 170. Santiago Compostela, 185, 222, 250, 319, 340, 360, 361, 371. Saracens, 6, 124, 158, 159, 160, 184, 323, 326, 336, 338, 355, 388, 389, 390, 395, 402, 404, 405. Sarcey, Madame Yvonne, 102. Saulieu (Côte-d'Or), 410, 423, 429. Saumur (Marne-et-Loire), 286, 295, =312-316=. Scandinavia, Gothic in, 324, 412, 464, 465, 477, 479, 480. Schism of the West, Great, 222, 409, 455, 540; the Greek Schism, 14, 268, 456. Scholastics, mediæval, 8, 39, 95, 96, 104, 130, 132, 133, 136, 138, 139, 175, 209, 224, 299, 334, 446, 473, 474, 475, 476, 575. Schools, mediæval, 7, 61, 104, 133, 134, 170, 171, 172, 299, 415, 446, 474, 487, 496. Sculpture, 6, 8, 11, 35, 37, 39, 126, 167, 454, 560; XI-century, 361, 418, 423, 437, 438; XII-century, 65, 85, 120, 134, 138, 180, 181, 273, 306, 330, 339, 340, 394, 422; XIII-century, 66, 69, 101, 122, 137, 141, 142, 167, 192, 195, 196, 205, 208, 209, 217, 239, 252, 273, 278, 444; XIV-century, 166, 167, 252, 253, 59, 263, 373, 377, 387, 436, 447, 514; XV-century, 67, 167, 181, 209, 247, 263, 281, 282, 327, 406, 429, 454, 566; XVI-century, 10, 67, 180, 210, 218, 233, 255, 256, 265, 278, 280, 281, 322, 327, 342, 373, 404, 490, 515, 577; XVII-century, 210, 518, 560, 561, 567, 568. Séché, Léon, 556. Secqueville (Calvados), 491. Séez (Orne), Cathedral of, 166, 539, =542-544=. Seignelay, Guillaume de (Bishop of Paris), 32, 139, 446, 447. Semur-en-Auxois (Côte-d'Or), 413, =443=, =444=. Senlis (Oise), 14, 33, 40, 74, 77, =84-90=, 99, 425; Cathedral of, 74, 75, 76, 78, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 99, 112, 124, 490, 508; its tower, 76; St. Frambourg, 88; Abbaye de la Victoire; World War devastations, 89, 90. Sens (Yonne), 91, 99, 433, 532; Cathedral of, 74, 75, 91, 92, 93, 94, 112, 153; glass of, 97, 98, 100; noted archbishops of, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96; St. Louis in, 96; St. Thomas Becket in, 91, 93, 95. Sens, Guillaume de (architect), 30, 93, 94, 532. Sévigné, Madame de, 398, 453. Seville, 185, 299. Shakespeare, 4, 5, 159, 162. Sibyls in French art, the, 98, 224, 228, 238, 239, 243, 258, 404, 448, 449. Sicily, 309, 464, 465, 479, 554, 555; Sicilian Vespers, =1280=, the, 156, 299, 427. Sidonius Apollinaris, 261, 331, 379. Siena, Cathedral of, 29, 406, 465. Sigüenza, Cathedral of, 465. Sixteenth-century religious wars, destruction by, 2, 34, 69, 107, 108, 167, 218, 249, 254, 266, 279, 290, 292, 308, 314, 319, 324, 393, 406, 408, 420, 425, 437, 446, 451, 488, 509, 520, 546, 552, 554, 556, 577. Smith, Marion Couthouy, 506. Soissons (Aisne), 77, 103, 107, 108, 112, 424; Cathedral of, 6, 12, 33, 74, 75, 77, 78, =106-114=, 122, 185, 215, 302, 547, 569, 581; St. Jean-des-Vignes, 106, 108; St. Léger, 106, 122; World War, destruction by, 107, 108, 112. Solesmes (Sarthe), 255, =278-282=, 308, 490, 494, 577; Saints of, 255, 280, 281, 282. Solignac (Haute Vienne), 291. Solomon's Judgment, 447, 515. Sorbon, Robert de, 8, 133, 134. Sorel, Agnes, 254, 255, 483. Soufflot (architect), 423, 460. Souillac (Lot), 291. Souvestre, Émile, 560. Souvigny (Allier), Abbatial and tombs of, 265, 266, 456. Spain, 3, 416, 420, 465, 563; French architectural influences in, 23, 38, 115, 185, 337, 361, 380, 385, 416, 419, 465. Spandrels, ensculptured, 444, 448, 449, 547, 555. Stephen, St., 95, 96, 141, 167, 224, 346, 347, 357, 396, 445, 449. Suger, Abbot, 5, 6, 14, 31, 34, 40, 43, 44, 45, 52, =55-65=, 66, 68, 69, 79, 84, 103, 143, 144, 175, 181, 189, 295, 298, 306, 319, 321, 339, 371, 417, 418, 467, 579. Sully, Eudes de (Bishop of Paris), 137, 138, 139, 215, 232, 299; Henri de, 139, 215, 299. Sully, Maurice de (Bishop of Paris), 33, 41, 94, 133, 136, 138, 181, 229, 405. _Summa_, the, 130, 131, 132, 334. Symbolism in mediæval art, 9, 12, 19, 36, 56, 64, 68, 69, 105, 136, 139, 195, 207, 214, 219, 253, 262, 289, 324, 371, 396, 400, 401, 404, 424, 438, 450, 514, 578, 579. T Taine, H., 53, 108, 420. Taj, the (Agra), 442. Tancreds, the, 10, 106, 323, =554=, =555=. Tapestry, mediæval, 118, 196, 309, 313, 314, 335, 427, 519, 548, 549. Taragona (Catalonia), 381. Tarentaise, Pierre de (Innocent IV), 268. Tarascon (Bouches-du-Rhône), 239, =396=. Templars, Order of, 12, 62, 99, 106, 246, 261, 326, 379, 466, 557. Temple, Raymond du (architect), 164, 232. Tennyson, Alfred, 433. Tenth century, horrors of the, 20, 21, 411. Thibaut IV, _le chansonnier_, 119, 157, 231, 236, =246=, 247, 299, 313, 432, 538. Thibaut V, Count of Champagne, 119, 120, 159. Thierry, A., 23, 435, 472, 480. Thomas, St., 8, 9, 220, 441. Thompson, Francis, 197. Tillières (Eure), 536, 541. Tintern Abbey (Monmouthshire), 3, 464. Toledo, 3, 264, 337. Tombs, mediæval, 11, 66, 67, 69, 244, 254, 256, 266, 308, 405, 406, 407, 408, 425, 455, 456, 504, 515, 519, 564, 567, 568. Tonnerre (Yonne), Hospital of, 295, 427, 429. Torigny, Robert de (Abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel), 499, 502, 532. Toucy, Hugues de (Archbishop of Sens), 92, 93, 94, 96. Toul (Meurthe-et-Moselle), 226, 242. Toulouse (Haute-Garonne), 330, 356, 357, 359, 368, 387, 391, 407, 466, 539; Cathedral of, 330, 356, =357=, =358=; Jacobins Church, =11=, 358, 359, 372; museum of, 256, 259, 360; St. Sernin, 24, 250, 330, 336, 338, 340, 356, =359=, =360=, 361, 415. Tour, Guy de la, 267, 333, 334, 336. Touraine, 40, 212, 248, 250, 254, 256, 274, 567. Tournai (Belgium), 81, 89, 242, 305. Tournus (Saône-et-Loire), 24, 164, 287, 410, 414, 415, =457=, 458, 483. Tours (Indre-et-Loire), 173, 347, 454, 566, 568; Cathedral of, 8, 9, 125, 203, 205, 211, 212, 220, 226, 270, 315, 316, 322, 324; St. Julien, 250; St. Martin, 10, 248, 249, 250, 304; St. Symphorien, 250; sculptor, Region-of-the-Loire school, 254, 278, 281, 361, 564, 567, 568. Tours, Gregory of, 249, 250, 331, 336. Toustain, Thomas (architect), 276, 553. Towers of France, noted, 11, 78, 87, 89, 101, 140, 141, 174, 177, 179, 187, 188, 271, 276, 354, 436, 481, 484, 488, 489, 511, 517, 533, 553, 557, 572; Flamboyant towers, 217, 230, 287, 374, 492, 509, 517, 518; Romanesque towers, 49, 113, 446, 491, 557. Transept, 19, 54, 69, 108, 129, 136, 213, 215, 226, 283, 360, 532, 541, 556. Transition from Romanesque to Gothic, 16, 26, 33, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 50, 52, 57, 58, 75, 99, 120, 124, 262, 412, 413, 419, 432, 437, 554, 575. Tréguier (Côtes-du-Nord), Cathedral of, 557, 559, 563, =572-575=. Trent, Council of, 130, 466, 578. _Trève-de-Dieu_, 21, 411, 422. Tribune galleries, 18, 52, 82, 92, 99, 116, 125, 128, 163, 164, 166, 482, 486, 493, 532, 552, 564. Triforium, =65=, =66=, 82, 99, 116, 125, 234, 251, 276, 353, 380, 430, 431, 437, 444, 486, 547, 552, 553. Troubadours and trouvères, 245, 298, 345, 348, 357, 545. Troyes (Aube), 419, 424, 519, 538; Cathedral of, 98, 125, 203, 211, 213, 226, =230-235=, 281; glass of, 98, 115; Treaty of, 233; St. Jean, 240; St. Madeleine, =239=, 240, 244, 247; St. Martin-ès-Vignes, 241; St. Nicolas, 241; St. Nizier, 235; St. Urbain, =236-238=; churches in the environs, 238, 239, 539. Troyes, Crestien de, 245. Tunis, 71, 157, 162. Turpin, Archbishop (of Rheims), 194, 355. Tympanums, 85, 137, 141, 288, 345, 361, 423, 438, 444. U Urbain II, Pope, 22, 29, 118, 194, 266, 270, 294, 305, 337, 338, 344, 348, 352, 360, 375, 376, 388, 393, 415, 416, 417. Urbain IV, Pope, 232, 236, 238. Urbain V, Pope, 259, 384, 386, 387, 408, 409, 415, 446. V Vallery-Radot, Robert, 428. Valmont (Seine-Inférieure), ruins of, 518. Valois princes, 309, 353, 452, 453, 454. _See_ Charles V, Jean de Berry, Louis d'Anjou, Philippe-le-Hardi of Burgundy. Van Eyck, 222, 404, 426. Vauban (engineer), 423, 460, 552. Vaughan, Cardinal, 426. Vault, masonry, 19, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 38, 43, 44, 48, 55, 58, 95, 100, 372, 413, 424, 440, 457, 575; _bombé_ vaults, 84, 95, 124, 269, 285, 286, 300, 301, 303, 309, 310, 311, 314, 316, 320, 351, 357, 381, 432; broken-rib vault, 58, 92; octopartite vault, 120; sexpartite vault, 81, 100, 127, 398, 481, 482, 486. Vauvenargues, 403. Vendôme (Loir-et-Cher), church of the Trinité, 59, 112, 113, 271, 272, 304, 305, 315, 511. Vendôme, Geoffrey of (Abbot of the Trinité), 271, 272, 337, 415. Venice, 96, 289. Verdun (Meuse), 129, 281, 526. Verlaine, Paul, 74. Verneuil (Eure), 536. Verona, 246, 338, 361, 437. Verrières (Aube), 239. Vézelay (Yonne), Abbey of the Madeleine, 10, 24, 31, 33, 121, 180, 288, 298, 319, 323, 371, 395, 401, 410, 415, 418, 419, 424, 429, =435-442=, 450; its portico, 428, 439; meeting place of crusades, 439, 440. Vienne (Isère), Cathedral of, 256, 258, 261, 417. Viffort (Aisne), 45. Vignory (Haute-Marne), 241. Villehardouin, 161, 231, 246. Villeneuve l'Archevêque (Yonne), 239. Villeneuve-lès-Avignon (Gard), 405, 408. Villetertre (Oise), 45. Villon, François, 222, 565. Vincennes (Seine), 144. Viollet-le-Duc, E. _See_ Bibliography. Viterbo, 110, 465. Vitry (Ille-et-Vilaine), 559. Volpiano, William of, 4, 34, 266, 414, 422, 452, 457, 458, 473, 478, 482, 495, 502, 554. Voltaire, 36, 150, 338, 453, 530, 536. Voragine, Jacobus de, 9, 85, 97, 220, 400. W Wace, Robert, 545, 549. Wells, Cathedral of, 516. Westminster Abbey, 3, 154, 232, 293, 297, 299, 552. Weyden, Roger van der, 426, 427. William the Conqueror, 5, 10, 22, 51, 53, 101, 137, 164, 165, 274, 304, 482, 484, 485, 486, 487, 488, 494, 496, 502, 510, 511, 544, 545, 546, 549, 550, 552, 554, 580, 581. William Longsword, Duke of Normandy, 482, 495, 510. William Rufus, 271, 475. Winchester, Cathedral of, 481, 482, 487. Women in the Middle Ages, 13, 54, 72, 86, 96, 121, 122, 135, 138, 153, 154, 159, 166, 173, 174, 193, 209, 226, 232, 234, 238, 245, 253, 264, 279, 281, 293, 294, 295, 297, 298, 299, 309, 315, 319, 324, 341, 344, 353, 385, 395, 396, 419, 427, 434, 440, 458, 463, 483, 484, 485, 490, 501, 508, 527-531, 536, 544, 549, 558, 567. Worcester, Cathedral of, 487. Wordsworth, 54, 65. World War, devastation by the, 76, 77, 82, 123, 144, 145, 168, 196, =197-201=, 283, 329, 375, 384, 391, 405, 520, 526, 535, 559, 580, 581. Y Yolande of Aragon, Countess d'Anjou, 191, 221, 277, 280, 309, 328. York, Cathedral of, 59, 242. Ypres, 2, 110, 202. Yves of Brittany, St., 386, 572, =573=, 574. Z Zamora, Cathedral of, 465. Zola, Émile, 249, 362. Zozimus, Pope, 399. Bibliography A Abadie, Paul, 151, 290, 292, 355. Abgrall, Abbé, 40, 556, 565, 568, 570. Adams, Henry, 165, 170, 231, 299, 477, 499. Agnel, Abbé A. d', 387. Agos, D', 354. Aigon, Abbé H., 389. Albanès, Abbé, 400, 402. Allard, Paul, 258, 331, 520. Alline et Loisel, 504. Annunzio, Gabriele d', 107, 121. Antony, C. M., 364. Arbellot, Abbé, 345. Arnaud, F., 230. Arnold, Matthew, 264, 265. Assier, A., 234. Auber, Abbé, 40, 316. Aubert, Marcel, 39, 78, 84, 126, 461. Aucouturièr, H., 266. Aufauvre, Amédée, 231. Auger, 148. Avril, Adolph d', 194. Ayroles, R. P., 521. Ayzac, Félicie d', 55. B Balzac, Honoré de, 119, 247, 249, 312. Barbat, L., 114. Barbeau, Albert, 236. Barraud, P. C., 50, 224. Barrès, Maurice, 50, 389, 398, 435. Barres, Chaillon des, 430. Barron, L., 126, 247, 256, 350. Barsaux, Chanoine, 224. Barthélemy, E. M. de, 114, 241. Bavard, Abbé, 426. Bayet, Jean, 126. Bayle, G., 406. Bazin, H., 126, 188. Bazin, J., 410. Bazin, René, 259, 302, 415, 419, 580. Beaurepaire, Ch. de, 38, 472, 484, 499, 507. Bédier, Joseph, 135, 245, 344, 435, 501. Bégule, Lucien, 39, 256, 261, 428, 461, 565. Beissier, F., 397. Belloc, Hilaire, 375, 548. Benard, Pierre, 282. Bérard, E., 90. Berger, E., 133, 154. Bernard, Abbé, 397. Berret, P., 261. Bertaud, Émile, 479, 555. Berthelé, J., 39, 404. Besnard, A., 50, 492. Besnard, Ch. H., 288, 303, 499. Beugnot, A., 152. Biais, 290. Bilson, John, 16, 30, 46, 47, 68, 276, 302, 303, 461, 476, 479, 480, 481, 484, 493, 494, 495, 496, 512, 554. Biran, Maine de, 285. Blanqueron, Edmond, 241. Boinet, Amédée, 39, 126, 281, 282. Boissonnot, Chanoine, 247. Bondot, L., 428. Bonnard, 133. Bonnet, Émile, 39, 384. Bontier, 231. Borderie, A. de la, 557, 566, 573. Born, Bertran de, 345, 348, 349. Bosseboeuf, Abbé, 40, 249, 254, 280, 285, 293. Bossuet, 121, 163, 167, 247, 452, 453. Botrel, Théodor, 201. Bouet, G., 39, 106, 484, 491, 551, 552. Bouilhet, Louis, 78. Bouillart, Jacques, 148. Bouillet, Abbé A., 145, 541. Bourassé, Abbé J. J., 39, 247, 315. Bourdaloue, 212. Bourget, Paul, 339, 531. Bourillon, F. W., 396. Bournon, F., 254. Bourrienne, V., 545. Boutarie, E., 154. Bouvier, Abbé, 39, 40, 90. Bouxin, Abbé, 40, 99. Bouzerand, 443. Branche, D., 331. Bréhier, Louis, 188, 331. Brière, Gaston, 39, 54, 188. Brin, 499. Brizeux, A., 570. Broche, Lucien, 39, 99. Broglie, Em. de, 148. Brown, Prof. Baldwin, 481. Bruel, F. L., 114. Brun, Armand de, 147. Brunetière, F., 148. Brutails, J. A., 39, 47, 288, 291, 350, 351, 355. Bulteau, Abbé, 40, 170. Bunodière, H. de la, 509. Bushnell, A. J. de H., 55, 90, 170, 234, 242, 247, 266, 302, 316, 536. C Cagnat, R., 157. Cagni et Mocquereau, 280. Cahier et Martin, P. P., 213, 219, 262. Calmette, A., 382, 410. Canéto, Abbé, 384. Calvert, 381. Caumont, Arcisse de, 38, 226, 293, 410, 472, 484, 491, 520, 531, 545, 546, 554. Cerf, Abbé, 40, 188. Chabeuf, H., 426, 452. Chaillan, Abbé, 384. Chaillot, A., 406. Chalandon, F., 479, 555. Champeaux et Gauchery, 213, 341. Chantelon, Dom, 399. Charmasse, A. de, 423. Chartraire, E., 90. Chassepied, Ch., 570. Chateaubriand, 70, 118, 410, 443, 562. Chaucer, 372, 551. Chaumont, Chanoine L., 414. Chérest, A., 435, 445. Cherge, De, 316. Cherval, 170. Chesterton, Cecil, 579, 580. Chevalier, Ed., 250. Chevalier, U., 152, 452, 521. Chigougesnel, 545. Chomton, Abbé, 40, 452. Choyer, 285. Clémat, Chanoine Joseph, 266. Clément, Pierre, 222. Cleuziou, H. de, 556. Cloquet (A.) et Cassier (J.), 254. Clouard, E., 341. Coffinet, J. B., 230. Cogny, G. de, 374. Colonne, A. de, 202. Congny, Gaston, 213, 449. Cook, 507. Cook, Sir Theodore Andreas, 213, 254, 499, 519, 534. Corberon, 448. Corbolin, 428. Cordier, Léon le, 472. Corroyer, Ed., 288, 294, 298, 359, 499. Coulanges, Fustel de, 42. Courajod, Louis, 38, 145, 247, 266, 452. Courcel, V. C. de, 230. Courteault, P., 350. Courtépée, Claude, 410, 423, 428. Cousin, Victor, 133, 211. Coutan, Dr., 38, 494, 498, 512. Cram, Ralph Adams, 91. Crawford, F. Marion, 439. Crégut, Abbé R., 341. Cros-Meyreveille, 375. Crosnier, Abbé, 39, 55, 90, 170, 435, 449. Crozes, H., 390. Cruppi, 151. Cucherat, Abbé, 421. Cunisset-Carnot, 452. D Dangibeaud, Ch., 287. Dante, 9, 133, 137, 141, 147, 148, 150, 153, 156, 245, 253, 349, 357, 363, 441, 462, 465, 474. Darcel, Alfred, 480. Daudet, Alphonse, 259, 396. Déchelette, Joseph, 423. Dehaines, Mgr., 99, 226. Delaborde, H. F., 245. Deliguières, 210. Delisle, Léopold, 378, 499, 520. Demaison, Louis, 39, 114, 188, 199, 241. Demimuid, 114. Demogeon, 202. Denais, J., 302, 311. Dénifle, H., 490, 521. Denis, Abbé, 492. Depeyre, G., 266. Desdevises du Dézert, 331, 381. Desgardin, Gustave, 224. Deshair, Léon, 453. Deshoulières, F., 266, 313. Deville, A., 507. Deville, J. A., 492. Devoncoux, Abbé, 423. Didot, A. F., 90. Didron, E. A., 39, 265, 513. Diehl, Ch., 479, 555. Dieudonné, A., 269. Digonnet, Félix, 405. Dion, A. de, 38, 114, 269, 461, 545, 551, 552. Douais, Mgr. C., 364, 365, 375. Dreux-Durandier, 316. Drouet (H.) et Calmette (A.), 410. Dubois, P., 224. Dubouchet, 499. Duchaisne, Mgr., 39, 395, 400, 401, 402, 424, 436. Duchemin, 512. Dufay, C. J., 265. Duhamel, L., 405. Dumaine, Abbé L. V., 542. Durand, E., 335. Durand, Georges, 39, 202, 203, 210. Durandus, Guillaume, 19, 69, 214, 267, 359, 387, 400, 401. E Echivard, A., 268. Édeline, Abbé, 491. Ehrle, R. P., 405. Engelhard, Ch., 531. Engerand, Louis, 476, 545. Enlart, Camille, 16, 18, 29, 30, 31, 38, 47, 49, 78, 81, 126, 201, 227, 228, 282, 287, 341, 342, 354, 435, 445, 447, 456, 461, 464, 465, 476, 479, 484, 507, 509, 514, 516, 555. Escoffier, H., 152. Esnault, G., 269. Espinay, D', 306, 312. F Fabrège, A., 384. Fage, René, 39, 345. Faillon, 396. Fallue, A., 507. Fançon, Maurice, 335. Farcy, Louis de, 39, 302, 303, 310. Farcy, Paul de, 545. Faure, H., 266. Fédié, L., 375. Fénelon, 36, 288. Fichot, Ch., 230. Fillon, Benj., 280, 316, 565. Flandin, V., 435. Fleury, Gabriel, 39, 84, 99, 119, 170, 268, 428, 551. Florival (de) et Midoux, 99. Focillon, Henri, 257. Fonteray, H. de, 423. Forel, Alexis, 288, 289, 316, 331, 343, 356, 391. Formeville, H. de, 531. Formigé, J., 165, 408. Forts, Paul des, 50. Fossa, F. de, 144. Fossey, Abbé Jules, 40, 536. Foucaud, L. de, 350, 509. Fournier, Paul, 369. Fowke, J. R., 548. Fraipont, G., 331. France, Anatole, 521. François, S., 126. Freeman, E. H., 412, 490. Froissart, 210, 327, 347, 349, 368, 408, 455. Fyot, Eugène, 452. G Galimard, J., 428. Gally, 435. Gandillon, A., 213. Gard, R. Martin du, 480. Gareau, 293. Garry, Eugène, 219. Gauchery, P., 213, 341. Gautier, Léon, 133, 135, 162, 245, 356, 500, 501, 520, 542. George, J., 291. Germain, Alphonse, 384, 426, 452. Germain, A., 384. Gerville, C. de, 546, 551. Gillet, H. L., 356. Girard, Ch., 343. Girardot, A. T., 213, 280. Glanville, L. de, 492. Gobillot, Abbé Ph., 331. Godart-Faultrier, 302, 312. Gomart, Ch., 282. Gonse, Louis, 16, 39, 67, 247, 282, 332, 342, 345, 435, 452, 498, 515, 537. Goodyear, Prof. W. H., 68, 276. Gosset, Alphonse, 114, 188. Gourmont, Remy de, 135. Gout, Paul, 499, 502. Graillot, H., 356, 375. Grandmaison, Ch. de, 38, 247, 280. Gratry, P., 79. Graves, 224. Green, Mrs. J. R., 269, 472. Grignon, Louis, 114. Guépin, Dom, 279. Guéranger, Dom Prosper, 280, 281, 321. Guérard, R. Louis, 405. Guerlin, H., 242, 249. Guigue, C., 256, 266. Guilhermy, F. de, 126, 565. Guirard, Jean, 364, 365, 384, 405. Guizot, 36, 103, 296, 297, 536. H Hallays, André, 84, 405. Halphen, L., 302. Hanoteau, Gabriel, 400, 503, 521. Hardy (G.) et Gandillon (A.), 213. Hardy, Abbé V., 535. Haskins, Ch. H., 477. Hauréau, B., 133. Havard, H., 39, 99, 144, 148, 149, 219, 250, 256, 310, 389, 423, 435, 452, 507, 509. Healy, 411. Heaton, Clement, 458. Hefele, 257. Hello, Ernest, 551. Hennezel, H. d', 256. Henry, Abbé V. B., 430. _Histoire Littéraire de la France_, 41, 55, 84, 90, 99, 133, 150, 170, 258, 269, 293, 304, 343, 378, 391, 414, 430, 473, 494, 499, 531, 545. Hubidos, H., 391. Hucher, E., 268, 269. Huillier, L., 433. Humbert, A., 452. Hurault, E., 242. Hutton, W. H., 162. Huysmans, J. K., 100, 128, 144, 170, 280, 284, 321, 415, 460. Hymans, H., 203, 242. J Jeannin, Président, 423, 425. Joanne, 39. Johnson, Lionel, 165. Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 294, 431. Join-Lambert, O., 165. Joinville, Jean de, 41, 70, 111, 119, 120, 138, 140, 152-162, 190, 206, 219, 244, 245, 246, 312, 342, 399, 553. Jossier, Abbé, 236, 237. Joubert, J., 290. Jouin, H., 302, 310. Jourdain et Duval, 202. Jourdanne, Gaston, 375. Jubainville, d'Arbois de, 231, 461. Juiffrey, Jules, 312, 426. Julleville, Petit de, 135, 245, 521. Jullian, C., 350. K Kersers, A. Buhot de, 38, 213. Kleinclausz, A., 410, 426, 452. Koechlin, Raymond, 39, 231, 361, 452. L Labande, L. H., 39, 391, 392, 397, 403, 405. Lacordaire, J. B. H. D., 128, 450, 462. La Croix, P. de, 40, 325. Lafenestre, George, 484. Laferrière (J.) et Musset (G.), 287. Lafond, Jean, 507. Lahondès, Jules de, 39, 356, 360, 375, 381. Lahore, Abbé, 236. La Martillière, 272. Lamartine, Alphonse de, 445. Lambin, Émile, 39, 84, 99, 106, 123, 126, 165, 188, 202, 445, 507, 517, 531. Landrieux, Mgr., 188, 199. Laran, Jean, 370. Largent, R. P., 316. Lassus, J. B. A., 126, 266, 282, 460. Lasteyrie, Charles de, 345. Lasteyrie, Comte Robert de, 16, 17, 30, 38, 39, 49, 68, 114, 170, 228, 229, 250, 287, 331, 356, 359, 391, 394, 476, 484. Lasteyrie, Ferdinand de, 55. Latouche, Robert, 269. Lauer, Philippe, 153. Laurière, J. de, 354. La Tremblay, Dom Coutil de la, 279, 281. Lavalley, G., 491. Lavedan, P., 172, 345. La Villemarqué, Hersant de, 557. Lavisse, Ernest, 76. Lebeuf, Abbé, 445. Le Beuf, D., 498. Leblant, E., 397. Le Braz, Anatole, 556, 568 Lecestre, 414. Lecocq, 282. Le Conte, R., 554. Lecureur, L. Th., 570. Ledeuil, 443. Ledru, Abbé A., 40, 268. Lefèvre, L. E., 435. Lefèvre-Pontalis, Eugène, 16, 30, 31, 37, 38, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 78, 84, 99, 102, 106, 112, 121, 123, 126, 163, 170, 211, 237, 241, 268, 285, 291, 305, 323, 325, 340, 379, 421, 423, 443, 452, 479, 480, 482, 490, 491, 551, 553, 554, 557. Leger, L., 203. Legris, Abbé A., 498. Leliène, Abbé, 545. Lelong, E., 302. Lemire, Ch., 521. Lenoir, A., 148. Lentheric, Ch., 378, 389. Leo XIII, 130, 385, 422, 521. Leport, A., 494. Leroux, A., 345. Leseur, F., 315. Lestrade, Abbé, 356. Levé, A., 548, 549. Levillain, L., 55. Lhuillier, Victor, 50. Liard, L., 133. Lignum, Lambin de, 279, 565. Lincy, Le Roux de, 419, 494, 557. Locquin, J., 266, 449. Loisel, Abbé, 40, 504. Lorière, Éd. de, 314. Loriquet, Ch., 188. Lorme, A. de, 556. Lot, F., 480. Loth, Abbé Julien, 480, 507. Loti, Pierre, 199, 200, 561. Lotte, Joseph, 499, 536. Loutil, Abbé, 129. Louvière, J. de, 397. Lowell, James Russell, 100, 170. Luce, Siméon, 490, 499, 521, 526, 557. Luchaire, A., 162, 365. Luzel, F. M., 557. Luzuy, Abbé, 341. M Mabillon, Dom, 149, 418, 461. Mâcon, E., 144. Magne, Lucien, 293, 326. Maistre, Joseph de, 222, 411. Maître, Léon, 55, 257. Mâle, Émile, 35, 39, 55, 85, 126, 144, 180, 182, 183, 207, 256, 262, 335, 341, 342, 343, 345, 347, 361, 424, 507, 541, 565, 570, 578. Maleissye, C. de, 521. Malifaud, G., 293. Mallay, 343. Mandet, 343. Manteyer, Georges, 395, 397. Mantz, Paul, 341, 343. Marchand et Bourassé, 247. Marche, Lecoy de la, 55, 133, 152, 302. Marignan, A., 254, 356, 391. Maritain, Jacques, 224. Marlavagne, Bion de, 374. Marsaux, Chanoine, 242. Martin, Alexis, 126. Martin, H., 250, 411, 490. Martin, 39, 356, 397. Maurin, Abbé E. F., 40, 403. Mauvinière, H. de la, 290, 316. Méloizes, Vicomte des, 213. Mély, F. de, 145, 170. Merimée, Prosper, 38, 285, 312, 321, 331, 341, 343, 370, 373, 383, 395. Merlet, Lucien, 170. Merlet, René, 39, 170, 171. Meunier, Paul, 449. Meyer, Alfred, 345. Mézerai, 298, 519, 520. Michel, André, 39, 228, 292, 345, 426, 431, 452, 507, 509, 516, 541. Michel, Robert André, 405, 408. Michel-Danzac, R., 288. Migne, 414. Mignon, A., 133. Mistral, Frédéric, 356, 357, 384, 397, 400, 466, 504, 581. Mocquereau, Dom, 280. Molière, 36, 370. Molinier, A., 152, 356, 362, 364. Monod, Gabriel, 477, 520. Monstrelet, 489. Montaiglon, A. de, 67, 90, 563. Montaigne, 350, 451. Montalembert, Ch. de, 237, 256, 280, 411, 414, 476. Montault, Mgr. Barbier de, 40, 224, 316. Montegut, 423. Montfort, J., 565. Moore, Charles Herbert, 16, 22, 29. Morand, 145. Moreau-Nélaton, E., 106, 188. Morel-Payen, 119, 230. Mortet, Victor, 39, 126, 378. Mortier, 364. Mottay, Gautier du, 556. Moulton, E., 445. Müller, Abbé Eugène, 40, 84, 123. Müntz, Eugène, 39, 312, 384, 387, 405. Mure, De la, 343. Musset, Alfred de, 16. Musset (G.) et Laferrière (J.), 287. Musset, Abbé E., 242. Mylne, Rev. R. S., 545. N Narbonne, L., 317, 378. Neale, Rev. John Mason, 19, 214, 317, 401, 414, 421, 451. Newman, Cardinal, 123. Nicolai, N. de, 421. Nicquet, Honorat, 293. Nodet, V., 265. Norgate, Kate, 269, 302, 433, 472. Normand, Ch., 149. Noyes, Alfred, 282. O Oliphant, Mrs., 521. Orderieus Vitalis, 472, 492, 537. O'Reilly, E., 72, 194, 503, 506, 521, 523, 525, 527, 528. O'Reilly, P. J., 350. Orléans, Charles d', 67, 143, 315, 497, 516, 517, 527, 529, 534, 565. Ouin-Lacroix, Abbé, 517. Ozanam, Frédéric, 135, 259, 268, 508. P Pacary, P., 536. Palustre, Bernard, 293, 452. Palustre, Léon, 39, 67, 302, 342, 405, 515, 519, 541, 556, 563. Paris, Gaston, 135, 152, 242, 245, 565. Pascal, 331, 332. Pasquier, Étienne, 521. Pasteur, Louis, 428. Paté, L., 423. Pater, Walter, 170, 432, 578. Pavie, Victor, 293. Pécout, Abbé, 288. Péguy, Ch., 72, 73, 168, 179, 197, 536, 545. Peigné-Delacour, 80. Pélissier, L. G., 400. Penjon, A., 405, 414. Pépin, J., 492. Perier, Arsène, 426. Perkins, Rev. T., 202, 507. Perrault-Dabot, A., 410. Petit, A., 345. Petit, Ernest, 410, 428, 452. Petit-Dutaillis, 247, 452. Peyre, Roger, 361, 397. Peyron, P., 569. Philippe, André, 417, 445, 461. Pigéon, Abbé E. A., 40, 551, 552. Pignot, H., 114. Pihan, Abbé L., 50, 224. Pillion, Louise, 188, 224, 445, 507. Pinier, Chanoine, 305. Pissier, Abbé, 436. Plancher, Dom, 410. Plat, Abbé, 272. Poli, Vicomte Oscar de, 499. Pommeraye, Dom, 509. Poquet, Abbé, 106, 107. Porée, Chanoine, 40, 472, 473, 496, 513, 536. Porée, Charles, 39, 90, 435, 445, 446, 452, 460. Port, Célestin, 280, 285, 302, 312. Porter, Arthur Kingsley, 16, 18, 28, 29, 44, 46, 69, 183, 225, 228, 254, 277, 361, 465, 476, 478, 479, 493, 517. Pottier, Abbé, 361. Poulaine, F., 521. Poussin, Abbé, 114. Pradel, F., 378. Prentout, Henri, 267, 472, 477, 484, 545. Prioux, S., 121. Psiehari, Ernest, 168, 572, 574. Purchon, W. S., 410. Q Quantin, Max, 443, 448. Queyron, 126. Quicherat, Jules, 38, 99, 148, 152, 282, 509, 521. Quirielle, R. de, 266. R Racine, 36, 242. Ramée, D., 78. Ranquet, H. du, 39, 331, 340. Rashdall, H., 133. Raynouard, 316. Reau, L., 203. Rebatu, 397. Reclus, O., 498. Régnier, Louis, 16, 39, 47, 544. Rémusat, Ch. de, 419, 473. Renan, Ernest, 27, 258, 462, 572, 574. Renaud, Edmond, 517. Requin, Abbé, 266. Revoil, 38, 356, 397. Rey, E., 289. Reymond, Marcel, 261, 343. Rhein, André, 39, 291, 315, 316, 554, 563. Riat, G., 126. Richard, Alfred, 316. Rigault, G., 219, 234. Rivières, B. Ed., 370. Rivoira, G. T., 28, 30, 414, 428, 452, 476, 496. Robertson, J. C., 433. Robida, A., 557. Robuchon, J., 316. Rochias, Abbé G., 340. Rodière et Guyencourt, 202. Rodin, Auguste, 114, 172, 189, 196, 215, 250, 272, 278, 390, 472, 575. Roschach, 356. Rossi, J. B. de, 397. Rostan, L., 400. Rostand, Edmond, 391, 559. Rousse, Joseph, 563. Roux, J. Ch., 261, 288, 389, 391, 397. Royer, L., 399. Rule, Martin, 373. Rupin, Ernest, 39, 289, 345, 361. Ruprich-Robert, V., 38, 472, 476, 484, 531, 542, 544. Ruskin, John, 1, 3, 15, 208, 209, 556. S Sainsaulieu, Max, 188. Sainte-Beuve, Ch. A., 158, 451, 453. Saint-Germain, S. de, 50. Saint-Paul, Anthyme, 16, 31, 32, 38, 39, 47, 49, 53, 54, 67, 68, 84, 126, 188, 227, 228, 276, 285, 288, 345, 354, 356, 481, 490, 516, 539. Saladin, H., 157. Salembier, 405. Sanoner, G., 142, 435. Santayana, George, 169, 170. Sarcey, Mme. Yvonne, 102. Sarrazin, A., 521, 531. Saunier, Ch., 350. Sauvage, Abbé, 480, 494. Sauvageot, 213. Saveron, 331. Savory, Isabelle, 382. Schmidt, Ch. E., 379. Séché, Léon, 556. Segange, L. du Broc du, 266. Sepet, Marius, 61, 447, 521. Serbat, Louis, 39, 254, 291, 345, 378, 417, 449, 531. Sertillanges, R. P., 152. Sery, Abbé, 449. Shakespeare, 54, 159, 162. Sharp, 291. Sicotière, De la, 542. Simpson, F. M., 16, 517. Smith, Marion Couthouy, 506. Soleil, Félix, 565. Sommerard, E. du, 149. Sorel, Albert, 472. Souvestre, Émile, 560. Spiers, R. Phené, 288, 291. Stein, Henri, 39, 66, 126, 145, 165, 331. Steyert, André, 256. Suppligeon, 315. T Taine, Henri, 53, 108, 420. Tarbé, P., 245. Tardieu, Ambrose, 331. Taylor, I., 165. Taylor et Nodier, 202, 331, 370, 410, 443, 472, 556. Tennyson, Alfred, 433. Thierry, A., 23, 435, 472, 480. Thiollier, Noël et Félix, 39, 342, 344. Thomas, Chanoine, 452. Thompson, Francis, 197. Tillemont, Le Nain de, 152. Tillet, Jules, 445, 446. Topin, Marius, 389. Tougard, Abbé A., 492. Tournouër, H., 542. Tranchant, Ch., 321. Trichaud, J. M., 399. Triger, Robert, 39, 268. Troche, 145. Truchis, Vicomte Pierre de, 423, 428. U Urseau, Chanoine, 293, 302. V Vacandard, E., 364, 419, 461. Vachon, Marius, 90. Vallery-Radot, Jean, 428, 545. Vallery-Radot, Robert, 426, 428. Valois, Noël, 133. Vasselot, J. M. de, 39, 231, 361. Vasseur, Ch., 531. Vaudin-Bataille, E., 90. Verlaine, Paul, 74. Verlaque, 405. Verneilh, Félix de, 38, 43, 55, 288. Viatte, J., 147. Vic et Vaissette, 356, 389. Vidal, Pierre, 382. Villat, Louis, 343. Ville, Cirot de la, 350. Villefosse, Héron de, 190. Villehardouin, 161, 231, 246. Villetard, Abbé, 428. Villon, François, 222, 565. Vimont, E., 331. Viollet-le-Duc, E., 32, 35, 38, 50, 90, 100, 123, 126, 128, 139, 162, 236, 291, 333, 346, 352, 363, 378, 389, 440, 441, 445, 446, 450, 460, 498, 534, 552. Virey, Jean, 39, 414. Viriville, Vallet de, 222, 521. Vitet, Victor, 78. Vitry, Paul, 39, 54, 188, 231, 255, 265, 279, 280, 342, 361, 423, 452, 507, 515, 563, 565. Vöge, Wilhelm, 394. Vögué, Melchior de, 37. Voltaire, 36, 150, 338, 453, 530, 536. Voragine, Jacques de, 9, 85, 97, 220, 400. W Waern, C., 555. Wailly, Natalis de, 152, 245. Wallon, H., 152, 521. Westlake, M. H. J., 536. Wismes, De, 269, 302. Woillez, Eugène, 31, 38, 50, 224. Wordsworth, 54, 65. THE END * * * * * FOOTNOTES: [1] Ruskin, _The Seven Lamps of Architecture_. [2] Ruskin, _Sesame and Lilies_. [3] Louis Gonse, _L'art gothique_ (Paris, Quantin, 1891); Camille Enlart, _Manuel d'archéologie française_ (Paris, A. Picard et Fils, 1902), 2 vols., 8vo; _ibid._, _Monuments religieux de l'architecture romane et de la transition dans la région picarde_ (Paris, A. Picard et Fils, 1895), folio; E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, _L'architecture religieuse dans l'ancien diocèse de Soissons au XIe et au XIIe siècle_ (Paris, Plon, 1894-97), 2 vols., folio; Arthur Kingsley Porter, _Medieval Architecture, Its Origins and Development_ (New York and London, 1909), 2 vols.; C. H. Moore, _Development and Character of Gothic Architecture_ (New York, Macmillan, 1904); Anthyme Saint-Paul, "La transition," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1895-96, vols. 44, 45, and 1912-13, pp. 206, 263; R. de Lasteyrie, _L'architecture religieux en France à l'époque romane_ (Paris, 1912), chap. x; _ibid._, in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1902, vol. 45, p. 213, his answer to Mr. Bilson, and Mr. Bilson's reply; Louis Régnier, "Les origines de l'architecture gothique," in _Mém. de la Soc. hist. et archéol. de Pontoise_, vol. 16; John Bilson, "The Beginnings of Gothic Architecture," in _Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects_, 3d series, 1898-99, vol. 6, pp. 289, 322, 345; p. 259 (answer to M. de Lasteyrie); vol. 9, p. 350; Mr. Bilson's papers were given in part in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1901, vol. 44, pp. 369, 462; F. M. Simpson, _A History of Architectural Development_ (London, 1909). [4] "Gothic architecture did not arise from a reaction against the principles of Romanesque: on the contrary, it is the natural development of those principles, the logical consequence of the germ idea of the Romanesque builders, which was to protect the naves of their churches by vaults of stone."--R. DE LASTEYRIE. [5] Any raised balcony, or gallery, in a church is called a tribune. The term will be used here mainly for the deep gallery over side aisles. The making of tribunes was brought about by the custom, in early Christendom, of separating the ages and sexes; in primitive days the kiss of peace used to be given among the congregation. [6] Transept, or across inclosure, from _trans_, across, and _sepire_, to inclose. [7] Guillaume Durandus, _Rationale Divinorum Officiorum_, translated as _The Symbolism of Churches and Church Ornaments_ by Neale and Webb of the Camden Society (Leeds, T. W. Green, 1843). [8] The barrel vault (a half cylinder) was known to the Egyptians and Assyrians. Rome used it extensively, also the groin vault (made of two intersecting half cylinders). [9] "There are few things more interesting, more instructive, or more beautiful in human history than the spectacle of those early cowled builders struggling against all difficulties and disadvantages, and laying the foundations of a new art which was, in the stronger hands of their lay successors, to culminate in the marvels of Chartres and Amiens."--CHARLES HERBERT MOORE, _Development and Character of Gothic Architecture_ (New York, Macmillan, 1904). [10] Let us run briefly over the French Romanesque schools to gain an idea of the monk builder's activities. _Normandy_ displayed a powerful regional genius, and carried through her Romanesque churches with native thoroughness. Her school was formulated early. By 1040 Jumièges abbey church was begun, and within thirty years the two abbeys of Caen were building. Norman Romanesque used the alternate system of piers, a central lantern tower, cubic capitals, and a geometric sculpture. Their architects were inclined to be overcautious; up to the advent of Gothic they often covered the middle nave with a timber roof, though they vaulted the side aisles with stone. _Burgundy's_ Romanesque school was bolder. Groin and barrel vaultings covered side aisles and central vessel; and the transverse arches which braced the vaulting were often pointed, since it was found that such an arch exerted less side thrust. Some of Burgundy's monastic churches were as lofty and spacious as the coming Gothic cathedrals. However, to obtain proper lighting by clearstory windows she sacrificed stability, and years later the Gothic builders had to add flying buttresses to prevent the collapse of the Romanesque churches. In this region where Gallo-Roman art had flourished, channeled pilasters were used. As was to be expected of the province where Cluny's arts and crafts were centered, Burgundy was a leader in monumental sculpture, and such portals as Avallon, Autun, and Vézelay attest her skill. _Auvergne_ produced a distinctive Romanesque school. Her art sprang direct from the ancient Roman traditions in the province. More cautious than her neighbor Burgundy, she soon gave up trying to light her upper nave by clearstory windows, but obtained light indirectly from side aisles and from a central tower. A precocious use of the ambulatory and of apse chapels appeared in the region. The two most striking features of her churches were the octagonal central tower set on a barlong base, and the apse whose exterior walls were decorated by the volcanic polychrome stones of the district. _Poitou's_ Romanesque school also developed early, and it, too, sacrificed spaciousness to solidity. The side aisles were made of almost equal height as the central vessel, and one roof covered all. The church interiors were often somber and cramped. The apse exterior was ornamented, and the boast of the region is its richly sculptured façades of which that of Notre-Dame-la-Grande at Poitiers is one of the best examples. _Languedoc_ built Romanesque churches of the first rank, such as St. Sernin at Toulouse, but the school had no definite uniformity. Sometimes it combined with the Romanesque of Poitou, sometimes with that of Auvergne, or of Burgundy. Because of Cluny affiliations, the Midi school was strong in sculpture--witness Beaulieu, Cahors, Moissac, and Toulouse. _Provence_ Romanesque covered a more limited area. Usually the churches were aisleless, with a simple apse. A flat stone roof was laid directly on the barrel vaulting, which had pointed transverse ribs like those of Burgundy. Provence also used the fluted pilasters of antiquity. The many remains of Gallo-Roman sculpture in the region served as models for the notable imaged portals at St. Gilles and Arles. _The Franco-Picard_ school had scarcely developed when it was supplanted by the nascent Gothic art. Besides these regional schools, two unique experiments in vaulting were essayed, though neither spread far afield. At Tournus, in the abbey church of St. Philibert was built a series of barrel vaults (carried on lintels) placed side by side transversely over the central vessel. And in Aquitaine, in the region of Périgueux and Angoulême, spreading in a line, north and south, arose a number of churches, each bay of which was covered by a cupola. Both these experiments were but partial solutions. While mediæval archæology was obscure, the pointed arch was looked on as the _sine qua non_ of Gothic, and it was puzzling to find it in certain Romanesque churches, like those in Burgundy and Provence. The pointed arch was in use in Persia, in the VI century, and the Arabs early brought the form to Egypt, Sicily, and Spain. From the XI century it had appeared sporadically in Christian Europe. Such arches were not the first step in a new architecture, but were used either as a decorative feature or as an expedient to lessen the side thrust of a vault. From outside of France two schools of Romanesque art, the Lombard and the Rhenish, exerted considerable influences on their neighbor, but the forces paramount in each of the local French schools were the pre-Lombardic pre-Rhenish inheritances from Rome, blended with indigenous traditions. [11] Rome had used some brick lines under the surface of certain of her groin vaults. They performed no separate function, but were embedded in the vaults' concrete. The true Gothic vault has the ribs independent of the infilling. In their elasticity is their strength. [12] G. T. Rivoira, _Lombardic Architecture_ (London, Heinemann, 1910). Translated from _Le origini dell' architettura lombarda_ (Milano, 1908); Arthur Kingsley Porter, _Lombard Architecture_ (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1917), 3 vols. and Atlas; _ibid._, _The Construction of Lombard and Gothic Vaults_ (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1911). [13] E. Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle_ (Paris, 1875), 11 vols.; Anthyme Saint-Paul, _Viollet-le-Duc et son système archéologique_ (Tours, 1881). The masterly technical knowledge of M. Viollet-le-Duc did much to remove the stigma of caprice and extravagance which the neo-classic age had fixed on Gothic art. It is a pity that the pioneer who struck good blows for the rehabilitation of Gothic should have jeopardized the permanence of his work by giving free rein to his personal prejudices. [14] E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, "Le plan d'une monographie _d'église et le vocabulaire archéologique_," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1910, p. 379. He has written on the same subject in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1906, vol. 70, p. 453, and 1907, vol. 71, pp. 136, 351, 535. [15] Jules Quicherat, "La croisée d'ogives et son origine," in _Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire_ (1850), vol. 2, p. 497. [16] Camille Enlart, _Origines françaises de l'architecture gothique en Italie_ (Paris, 1893); _ibid., Les origines de l'architecture gothique en Espagne et en Portugal_ (Paris, 1894); _ibid., Notes archéologiques sur les abbayes cisterciennes de Scandinavie_ (Paris, 1894); _ibid., Villard de Honnecourt et les Cisterciens_ (Paris, 1895); _ibid., L'art gothique et de la Renaissance en Chypre_ (Paris, Leroux, 1899), 2 vols.; Émile Bertaud, _L'art dans l'Italie méridionale_ (Paris, Fontemoing, 1904). [17] Other publications of value to the student are the _Revue de l'art chrétien_, _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_, _Moyen-Âge_, _l'Archéologie_, _Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes_, _Revue archéologique_, and the Didron's _Annales archéologique_. There are H. Havard's _La France artistique et monumental_, Viollet-le-Duc's _Dictionnaire de l'architecture française_, Joanne's _Dictionnaire de la France_. The regional and local monographs will be given here with each school of Gothic and each cathedral as it is described. [18] André Michel (Publiée sous la direction de), _Histoire de l'art depuis les premiers temps chrétiens_ (Paris, A. Colin, 1906), 10 vols. [19] Émile Mâle, _L'art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France_ (Paris, Colin, 1908), 4to; _ibid., L'art religieux de la fin du moyen âge en France_ (Paris, Colin, 1910), 4to. [20] "Il en est parmi nous qui préfèrent la victoire de leur parti à la victoire de la patrie. Écrire l'histoire de France était une façon de travailler pour un parti et de combattre un adversaire. Pour beaucoup de Français être patriote, c'est être ennemi de l'ancienne France. Cette sorte de patriotisme au lieu de nous unier contre l'étranger nous pousse tout droit à la guerre civile."--FUSTEL DE COULANGES. [21] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1905, p. 39, on Bury (Oise), and p. 43, on Cambronne (Oise). [22] Arthur Kingsley Porter, _The Construction of Lombard and Gothic Vaults_ (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1911). [23] In each vault section of the ambulatory of St. Maclou, Pontoise, was inserted a fifth rib, which sprang from the keystone to the middle of each apse chapel's rear wall, and which consolidated both chapel and procession path. The diagonals do not curve, as do those of Morienval. St. Maclou was entirely finished in the XII century, but it was reconstructed radically in the XV century: the present façade is 1450-70. Again in the XVI century the church was partly rebuilt, so that the double-aisled nave of to-day appears a beautiful example of Renaissance art. It was at Pontoise that St. Louis, in 1244, took the vow to go crusading. (See, Lefèvre-Pontalis, _Monographie de l'église St. Maclou de Pontoise_.) [24] Arthur Kingsley Porter, _Medieval Architecture_ (New York and London, 1909). In vol. 2, pp. 193-251, is a full list of monuments of the transition. [25] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1905, p. 154, on Morienval; _ibid._, 1908, vol. 2, pp. 128, 476, on Morienval, E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, Brutails, and John Bilson; E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, _L'architecture religieuse dans l'ancien diocèse de Soissons au XIe et au XIIe siècle_ (Paris, Plon, 1894-97), 2 vols., folio. Also, his discussion on the vaults of Morienval in _Bulletin Monumental_, vol. 71, pp. 160, 335; 1908, vol. 72, p. 477; and in _Correspondance historique et archéologique_, 1897, pp. 193, 197; Anthyme Saint-Paul, "La transition," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1895, p. 13. Also, his studies of Morienval in _Mémoires de la Soc. archéol. de Pontoise_ ..., 1894, vol. 16; _Mémoires du Comité archéol. de Senlis_, 1892, vol. 7; _Correspondance historique et archéologique_, 1897, pp. 129, 161; John Bilson, on Morienval, in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1908, vol. 72, p. 498; and _Congrès Archéologique_, 1905; L. Régnier, in _Mémoires de la Soc. archéol. de Pontoise_ ..., 1895, p. 124. [26] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1905, "St. Étienne, at Beauvais," pp. 15, 530; Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire_, vol. 3, pp. 254, 263; vol. 4, p. 289; vol. 7, p. 133; Stanislas de Saint-Germain, _Notice historique et descriptive de l'église St. Étienne de Beauvais_; Victor Lhuillier, _St. Étienne de Beauvais_; P. C. Barraud, "Les vitraux de St. Étienne de Beauvais," in _Soc. Académique d'archéologie, department de l'Oise_, vol. 2, p. 507; _Congrès Archéologique_, 1905, p. 81, "St. Germer," L. Régnier; and p. 406, "St. Germer," A. Besnard; E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, "L'église de St. Germer," in _l'Annuaire Normand_, 1903, p. 134; and _Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes_, 1885 and 1889; also _Bulletin Monumental_, 1886; A. Besnard, _L'église de St. Germer de Fly_ (Oise), (Paris, E. Lechavalier, 1913); Paul des Forts, "Une excursion en Beauvaisis," in _Bulletin de la Société d'émulation d'Abbeville_, 1903; Eugène Woillez, _Archéologie des monuments religieux de l'ancien Beauvoisis_. [27] Maurice Barrès, _La grande pitié des églises de France_ (Paris, Émile-Paul, frères, 1914). [28] Anthyme Saint-Paul, "Poissy et Morienval," in _Mémoires de la Société archéol. de Pontoise et du Vexin_, 1894, vol. 16; E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, _L'Architecture religieuse dans l'ancien diocèse de Soissons au XIe et au XIIe siècle_ (Paris, Plon, 1894), 2 vols., folio; F. de Verneilh, _Le premier des monuments gothic_ (Paris, 1864). [29] Some naïve XVI-century lines are under the window of St. Louis' chapel: "Saint Louis fut un enfant de Poissy, Et baptisé en la présente église; Les fonts en sont gardés encore ici, Et honorés comme rélique exquise." [30] "King John," Act II. [31] Vitry et Brière, _L'église abbatiale de St. Denis et ses tombeaux_ (Paris, Longuet, 1908); _ibid., Documents de sculpture française_ (Paris, 1913); Anthyme Saint-Paul. "Suger. L'église de St. Denis, et St. Bernard," _Mémoire lu à la_ Sorbonne, inséré au _Bulletin archéologique_, et tiré à part, 1890; F. de Verneilh, _Le premier des monuments gothiques_ (Paris, 1864); Abbé Crosnier, "Vitrail de l'abbaye de St. Denis expliqué," in _Revue archéologique_, 1847, vol. 7, p. 377; Félicie d'Ayzac, _Histoire de l'abbaye de Saint Denis-en-France_ (Paris, 1861), 2 vols.; Ferdinand de Lasteyrie, _Histoire de la peinture sur verre_ (Paris, Didot, 1852), 2 vols.; Bushnell, _Storied Windows_ (New York, Macmillan, 1914); Émile Mâle, _L'art religieux de la fin du moyen âge en France_ (Paris, A. Colin, 1910); _ibid._, "La part de Suger dans la création de l'iconographie," in _Revue de l'art ancien et moderne_, 1914; L. Levillain, "L'église carolingienne de St. Denis," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1907, vol. 71, p. 211; L. Levillain et L. Maitre, "Crypt de St. Denis," in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1903, p. 136; Suger, _OEuvres complètes_, éd. Lecoy de la Marche (Paris, Renouard, 1867); _Histoire littéraire de la France_. (Begun by the XVII-century Benedictines and continued by the Institute of France.) Vol. 12, p. 361, on Suger, published in 1764. [32] Marius Sepet, _Le Drapeau de la France_. [33] Henri Stein, _Les architectes des cathédrales gothiques_ (Paris, H. Laurens, 1908); ibid., "Pierre de Montereau," in _Mémoires de la Société des antiquaires de France_, 1900, vol. 61. [34] A. de Montaiglon, "La famille des Juste en France," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1876, vol. 42, pp. 76, 768. Details of the tombs of St. Denis are to be found in Palustre, _La Renaissance en France_ (1888); Gonse, _La Sculpture française depuis le XIVe siècle_ (1895); Vitry, _Michel Colombe et la sculpture française_ (1901); and in writings by A. Saint-Paul and Louis Courajod. [35] R. de Lasteyrie, "La déviation de l'axe des églises est-elle symbolique?" in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1905, vol. 69, p. 422, also published separately; A. Saint-Paul, "Les irrégularités de plan des églises," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1906, vol. 70, p. 129; John Bilson, "Deviation of Axis in Medieval Churches," in _Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects_, December 25, 1905; W. H. Goodyear, "Architectural Refinements in French Cathedrals," in _Architectural Record_, vols. 16, 17, 1904-05, and _Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects_, 3d series, 1907, vol. 15, p. 17. [36] During three days in August, 1793, and again in October of the same year, the tombs at St. Denis were violated. Robespierre stood long studying the chivalrous head of Henry IV, then plucked some hairs from the king's white beard and put them in his portfolio; Henry IV had abjured Calvinism in this very church of St. Denis in 1593. The corpse of Louis XIV presented an air of serene majesty. When the coffin of Louis XV was opened the air was infected insupportably. On that same day in October, 1793, Marie Antoinette mounted the scaffold. Her remains and those of Louis XVI are to-day laid in the inner core of St. Denis' crypt. [37] E. O'Reilly, _Les deux procès de condamnation_ ... _de Jeanne d'Arc_, vol. 2, p. 134, the eighth interrogation, March 17, 1431 (Paris, Plon, 1868), 2 vols. [38] Charles Péguy, _OEuvres de_, "La tapisserie de Sainte-Geneviève et de Jeanne d'Arc," vol. 6 (Paris, édition de la Nouvelle Revue française, 1916-18). [39] The following is a free rendering of Péguy's verses: Since God but acts for pity of us here, So Geneviève must see her France in shreds, And Paris, her own godchild, swept by flames, And ravaged by the most sinister hordes. And hearts devoured by blackest base discords, And even in their graves the dead pursued, On gibbets many an innocent hung high With tongue protruding, pecked by raven birds. France all despair. Then saw she come the Sign, A greater marvel never God had willed In His Serenity and Grace and Force, After nine hundred-twenty vigil years Geneviève saw approach her ancient city Her of Lorraine, emblem of God's pure pity-- Jeanne the Maid!-- Guarding her heart intact in dire adversity, Masking beneath her visor her efficacity, Living in deep mystery with sweet sagacity, Dying in drear martyrdom with brave vivacity Sweeping all an army to the feet of Prayer. [40] Paul Verlaine, _Choix de Poésies_ (Paris, Charpentier, 1912). [41] "The privileged land where the Seine, the Oise, and the Marne approach their waters gave France its laws and political unity, its literary language with its incomparable clarity, and its Gothic art."--ERNEST LAVISSE, _Histoire de France_. [42] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1905, p. 131, "Compiègne." [43] The people of the Valois country cried "Noël!" as Jeanne passed. And as she rode between the great Dunois and the archbishop of Rheims she exclaimed, with emotion: "Here is a good people! Happy would I be, when I come to die, to be laid here to rest." "Know you when you will die, Jeanne?" said the archbishop. "I know not. I am in the hands of God," she made answer. "I would it pleased God, my creator, that I could go back now to serve under my father and my mother, and to keep their sheep with my brothers, who would be right glad to see me home."--From the testimony of the Comte de Dunois, in 1455, Jeanne's companion-in-arms in 1429. [44] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1905, p. 170; E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, _Histoire de la cathédrale de Noyon_, (1901); Vitet et Ramée, _Monographie de l'église Notre Dame de Noyon_ (Paris, 1845), 2 vols., 4to and folio; _Brière, Précis descriptive et historique de la cathédrale de Noyon_ (1899); Camille Enlart, _Hôtels de Villes et beffrois du nord de la France_ (Paris, H. Laurens, 1919); Marcel Aubert, _Noyon et ses environs_ (Paris, Longuet, 1919). [45] Noyon was made a bishopric in the VI century, when St. Médard translated the see from St. Quentin, before the advance of the Huns and the Vandals. St. Médard gave the veil to Queen Radegund in the Merovingian cathedral of Noyon. Two Carolingian cathedrals stood in succession on the site: in the first, Charlemagne was consecrated king, 768, Noyon being his residence before Aix-la-Chapelle; in the second church, which rose after a Norman sacking, Hugues Capet was elected king shortly before 1000--the first monarch of the House of Capet, which was to rule over France during seven hundred years. Since the Revolution the sees of Noyon, Senlis, and Laon have been suppressed. [46] The abbey church of Ourscamp is a ruin, but with the choir and ambulatory of the end of the XIII century partly standing. Where once were the piers of the nave have been planted two rows of poplars. Like Longpont and Royaumont, it was a Cistercian church that paid no heed to St. Bernard's strictures on lavish architecture. The former infirmary of the monastery, now used as a factory, is one of the most graceful civic halls of the age (c. 1240); Peigné-Delacour, _Histoire de l'abbaye de Notre Dame d'Ourscamp_ (1876), in 4to; _Congrés Archéologique_, 1905, p. 165, on Ourscamp. [47] Camille Enlart, _De l'influence germanique dans les premiers monuments gothiques de la France_, 1902. [48] Marcel Aubert, _Monographie de la cathédrale de Senlis_ (1907). He has also described Senlis in the collection, _Petites monographies_ (1910); _Congrès Archéologique_, 1905, p. 89, E. Lefèvre-Pontalis; _passim_, 1877, vol. 44, "L'architecture dans le Valois," Anthyme Saint-Paul; E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, _À travers le Beauvaisis et le Valois_ (1907); Émile Lambin, "La Cathédrale de Senlis," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1898, vol. 47; Abbé Eugène Müller, _Senlis et ses environs_ (1897); André Hallays, _En flanant à travers la France_. _Autour de Paris_ (Paris, 1910); G. Fleury, _Études sur les portails imagés du XII siècle_ (Mamers, Fleury et Dangin, 1904); _Histoire littéraire de la France_ (Paris, 1835), vol. 18, p. 33, "Guérin, évêque de Senlis." [49] Emile Lambin, _La Flore des grandes cathédrales_ (Paris, 1897). [50] Émile Mâle, _L'art religieux en France au XIIIe siècle_ (Paris, A. Colin, 1908). [51] Jacobus de Voragine, _The Golden Legend_. Translated into English by Caxton and reprinted by William Morris, Kelmscott Press, 1872, 3 vols. Translated also in Temple Classics. One of the best recent French editions is that of Théodor de Wyzewa (Paris, Perrie et Cie, 1909). [52] The Church of the Victory, consecrated by the warrior-bishop in 1225, was ruined during the Hundred Years' War by the Duke of Bedford's troops, who day after day were pricked on by Jeanne d'Arc's army to a battle. In Flamboyant Gothic times the abbatial was rebuilt, but again it was wrecked in the XVIII century. Only a few late-Gothic bays now stand on the lawn before the country house of the Comte Boula de Coulomier. Bishop Guérin also consecrated the church of Chaalis abbey, where he was buried in 1228. Chaalis is now a picturesque ruin. [53] E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, "Les clochers du XIIIe et du XVIe siècle dans le Beauvaisis et la Valois," in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1905, p. 592. [54] The corner stone of St. Frambourg was laid in 1177 by Louis VII. It is a sort of forerunner of the Sainte-Chapelle type of edifice, without aisles or transept. Its sober, pure lines show faultless constructive skill, and a grievous pity is its present abandonment. Behind the cathedral is the church of St. Pierre, built in six different epochs: the lower stories of the tower, XI century; the choir and transept, 1260; the piers of the nave and the north tower's top story, XV century; the rich façade, XVI century, a work of Pierre Chambiges; and the heavy, cold south tower, of the XVII century. In Senlis are St. Vincent's church with a choir built after 1136, a XII-century tower, contemporary of the cathedral, and a groin roof of the XVIII century. St. Aignan's belfry is of the end of the XI century, and served as model for the towers of St. Vincent and St. Pierre, just as all three of them contributed toward the inspiration of that sovereign thing of Senlis, the cathedral tower. [55] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1907, p. 205, Charles Porée; E. Chartraire, _La cathédrale de Sens_ (Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1920); E. Bérard, "La cathédrale de Sens," in _L'Architecture_, 1902; E. Vaudin-Bataille, _La cathédrale de Sens_ (Paris, 1899); Bouvier, _Histoire de l'église de l'ancien archdiocèse de Sens_ (Paris, 1906); A. de Montaiglon, _Antiquités de Sens_ (Paris, 1881); A. J. de H. Bushnell, _Storied Windows_ (New York, Macmillan, 1914); A. F. Didot, "Jean Cousin, peintre verrier," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1873, vol. 39, p. 75; Marius Vachon, _Une famille parisienne d'architectes maistre-maçons: les Chambiges_; Crosnier, in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1847, "Iconographie des portails de Sens"; Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire_, vol. 9, pp. 222, 506; vol. 8, p. 74 (on the synodal hall); _Histoire littéraire de la France_, vol. 15, p. 324, "Michel de Corbeil, archévêque de Sens"; p. 524, "Guillaume de Champagne, cardinal, archevêque de Rheims" (Paris, 1820); vol. 17, p. 223, "Pierre de Corbeil" (Paris, 1832); vol. 18, p. 270, "Gautier de Cornut, archévêque de Sens" (Paris, 1835). [56] Ralph Adams Cram, _Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh_ (Boston, Marshall Jones Company, 1919). [57] At St.-Julien-du-Sault, fourteen miles from Sens, are over a dozen good XIII-century windows, and some four of the XVI century. St. Louis was a donor. In the window devoted to Ste. Geneviève are interesting XVI-century costumes. [58] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1911, Lucien Broche, p. 158, the cathedral; p. 225, St. Martin's church; p. 239, the Templar's church; Chanoine A. Bouxin, _La cathédrale Notre Dame de Laon. Histoire et description_ (Laon, 1902); Jules Quicherat, "L'âge de la cathédrale de Laon" in _Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes_, 1874, vol. 35, p. 249; Lucien Broche, _Laon et ses environs_ (Caen, 1913); _ibid._, "L'évêche de Laon," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1902, vol. 66; De Florival et Midoux, _Les vitraux de la cathédrale de Laon_ (Paris, Didron, 1882), folio; E. Fleury, _Antiquités et monuments du département de l'Aisne_, (1879), vol. 3, p. 153; Émile Lambin, _Les églises de l'Ile-de-France_ (Paris, 1906). His description of Laon is also in the _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1901-02, vols. 14, 15; E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, "Les influences normandes au XIe et au XIIe siècle dans le nord de la France," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1906, vol. 70; _Histoire littéraire de la France_, vol. 10, p. 171, "Anselm de Laon" (Paris, 1756); vol. 11, p. 243, "St. Norbert" (Paris, 1759); vol. 13, p. 511, "Gautier de Mortagne, évêque de Laon" (Paris 1814); H. Havard, éd _La France artistique et monumentale_, vol. 4, p. 81, Mgr. Dehaisnes, on Laon. [59] For Coucy-le-Château (between Soissons and Laon) see M. Lefèvre-Pontalis' study (1909) in the _Petites Monographies_ series; or the _Congrès Archéologique_, 1911, p. 239. The XIII-century donjon was the most massive conception of the Middle Ages. Coucy's lord ruled a hundred towns and was one of the big figures in feudal France. His proud device read: "_Roi ne suis, ne prince, ne duc, ne comte aussi--Je suis le sire de Coucy_." The superb pile has been demolished in the World War. Madame Yvonne Sarcey visited Coucy in April, 1917. Of the imposing mediæval castle, hanging like a bourg to the flank of the hill, there remain two gaping porticos. "_C'est tout!... C'est tout!_" she lamented. "_Ce paysage adorable de l'Ile-de-France portera sa croix._" The Germans blew up the castle before their strategic retirement, in 1917. [60] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1911, E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, p. 315, the cathedral; p. 337, St. Médard; p. 343, St. Léger; p. 348, St. Jean-des-Vignes; Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, "Soissons avant la guerre," in _Les cités ravagées_ (Collection, Images historiques), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1919); _ibid., Les églises de chez nous: Soissons_ (Paris, H. Laurens); Abbé Poquet, _Notice historique et archéologique de la cathédrale de Soissons_ (Soissons, 1848); Émile Lambin, "La cathédrale de Soissons" in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1898, vol. 47; Émile Mâle, _L'art allemand et l'art français du moyen âge_ (Paris, 1917); Bouet, "Excursion à Noyon, à Laon et à Soissons," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1868, vol. 34, p. 430; E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, _L'architecture religieuse dans l'ancien diocèse de Soissons au XIe et au XIIe, siècle_ (Paris, Plon, 1894-98), 2 vols., folio. [61] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1911, p. 410, Longpont abbatial; Abbé Poquet, _Monographie de l'abbaye de Longpont_ (1869). Longpont, where the bishops of Soissons were buried, was founded by Gerard de Chérisy, who had married Lady Agnes of Longpont. St. Bernard sent twelve Cistercian monks to start the new house in 1131. The splendid Gothic church, which departed from Cîteaux's rule of church simplicity, was consecrated in 1227 before the queen regent and Louis IX, by the bishop of Soissons, Jacques de Bazoches, who had just anointed Louis as king, at Rheims. Longpont was sacked by the Huguenots in 1567, and wrecked by the Revolution. The picturesque ruins were acquired by the de Montesquieu family in 1850. [62] The monastery church of St. Jean-des-Vignes was in size a cathedral, and the maker of the great façade at Rheims, Bernard de Soissons, is said to have designed it. The cloisters, once the most sumptuous in the kingdom, were begun by an abbot who died in 1224, after he had built an aqueduct for the city which still is in use. St. Jean's big west rose had been, since 1870, an empty circle. Little more than its façade and western towers stood before 1914. Sacked by the Revolution, its real demolition was under the Empire, when to repair the cathedral the deserted monastery was sold for a paltry sum, and stone by stone removed. The congregation of good men in this abbey did parish work for many centuries. In such good repute with the citizens were they that, when the Revolution suppressed the house, Soissons' municipality protested, saying that the abbey had "always claimed with zeal its share of public duties." Taine in his _L'Ancien Régime_ quotes the protest: "In calamities this abbey opens its doors to the destitute citizens and feeds them. It alone has borne the expense of the citizens' meetings, preparatory to the election of deputies for the National Assembly. It now is lodging a company of soldiers. Always when there are sacrifices to be made it is on hand." However, the revolutionary authorities paid no heed to the citizens' desire to retain their historic house. [63] For the churches of Notre Dame and St. Martins, at Étampes, see _Bulletin Monumental_, 1905, vol. 69, and _Annales de la Société hist. et archéol. du gatinais_, 1907, Lefèvre-Pontalis; also the _Congrès Archéologique_, 1901, p. 71. Notre Dame was begun about 1160. Its strongly Romanesque south portal is of the same type as Chartres' western doors. The crypt and piers of the nave are XI century, and the transept and choir were rebuilt about 1170 as early Gothic. The Romanesque tower is one of the best of its epoch; its base is approximately 1050; the next two stories about 1075; the fourth story, 1125; and the spire, 1130. The church is full of irregularities from rebuildings. St. Martin's church is XII and XIII century; its much discussed ambulatory of the Champagne type is about 1165. The number of supports for the vault was doubled in the outer wall, thus making the space to be covered a series of square compartments alternating with triangles. [64] Auguste Rodin, _Les cathédrales de France_ (Paris, A. Colin, 1914), 4to. [65] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1911, St. Remi (Rheims), p. 57, and Notre Dame (Châlons), p. 473, Louis Demaison; Louis Demaison, _Les églises de Châlons-sur-Marne_ (Caen, 1913); E. M. de Barthélemy, "Notre Dame-en-Vaux à Châlons-sur-Marne," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, vol. 15, p. 97; A. de Dion, "Notre Dame-en-Vaux à Châlons-sur-Marne," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1886, vol. 52, p. 547, and 1887, vol. 53, p. 439, Louis Grignon; L. Grignon, _Description et l'histoire de Notre Dame de Châlons-sur-Marne_ (Châlons-sur-Marne, 1884), 2 vols.; Abbé Poussin, _Monographie de l'abbaye et de l'église de St. Remi de Rheims_ (Rheims, 1857); Alfonse Gosset, _La basilique de St. Remi à Rheims_ (Paris, 1900); L. Barbat, _Histoire de la ville de Châlons-sur-Marne_; R. de Lasteyrie, _L'architecture religieuse en France à l'époque romane_ (Paris, 1912), p. 158, St. Remi. [66] "Il est digne de remarque, que de toutes ces règles monastiques les plus rigides ont été les mieux observées: les Chartreux ont donné au monde l'unique exemple d'une congrégation qui a existé sept cents ans sans avoir besoin de réforme."--CHATEAUBRIAND, _Génie du Christianisme_. In April, 1903, two squadrons of dragoons expelled the last monks from La Grande Chartreuse. An economic loss for the entire region has resulted. [67] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1902; Morel-Payen, _Troyes et Provins_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1910); Félix Bourquelot, _Histoire de Provins_ (Paris, Techener, 1840), 2 vols.; Gabriel Fleury, "Le portail de St. Ayoul de Provins," in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1902, p. 458, or in _Études sur les portails imagés du XIIe siècle_ (Mamers, Fleury et Dangin, 1904). [68] The transept of St. Ayoul is good Romanesque. After a fire in 1160 the nave was rebuilt as XIII-century Gothic; the choir is XVI century. At St. Loup-de-Naud there is a central lantern on squinches (XII century). [69] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1911, p. 428, E. Lefèvre-Pontalis; S. Prioux, _Monographie de l'ancienne abbaye royale St. Yved de Braine_ (1859), folio; _Bulletin Monumental_, 1908, vol. 72, p. 455, A. Boinet. [70] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1905, p. 121, E. Lefèvre-Pontalis; E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, _À travers le Beauvaisis et le Valois_ (Paris, 1907); Émile Lambin, "L'eglise de St. Leu d'Esserent," in _Gazette des beaux-arts_, 1901, tome 25, p. 305; Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire_, vol. 2, p. 504; vol. 4, pp. 83, 230; vol. 7, p. 384; vol. 9, p. 280; Abbé Eugène Müller, _Senlis et ses environs_ (1897). [71] Marcel Aubert, _La cathédrale de Notre Dame de Paris_ (Paris, Longuet, 1909); Lassus et Viollet-le-Duc, _Monographie de Notre Dame de Paris_ (Paris), folio; V. Mortet, _Étude historique et archéologique sur la cathédrale et le palais épiscopal de Paris_ (Paris, 1888); Queyron, _Histoire et description de l'église de Notre Dame_ (Paris, Plon, Nourret et Cie); De Guilhermy, _Description de Notre Dame de Paris_ (1856); _ibid., Itinéraire archéologique de Paris_ (1855); S. François, _La façade de Notre Dame de Paris_ (Brussels, Imprimerie Goosens, 1907), 4to; E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, "Les origines des gables," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1907, vol. 71, p. 92; Camille Enlart, _Le musée de sculpture comparée du Trocadéro_ (Collection, Les grandes institutions de France), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1911); H. Bazin, _Les monuments de Paris_ (Paris, 1904); G. Riat, _Paris_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens); Amédée Boinet and Jean Bayet, _Les édifices religieux de Paris_ (Collection, Les richesses d'art de la ville de Paris), (Paris, H. Laurens), 3 vols.; L. Barron, _La Seine_ (Collection, Fleuves de France), (Paris, H. Laurens); Émile Lambin, _La flore des grandes cathédrales de France_, (Paris, 1897); _ibid., Les églises des environs de Paris étudiées au point de vue de la flore ornamentale_ (Paris, 1896), folio; _ibid., Les églises de l'Ile-de-France_ (Paris, 1906); Anthyme Saint-Paul, "Notices sur les églises des environs de Paris," in _Bulletin Monumental_, vol. 34, p. 861, and vol. 35, p. 709; Alexis Martin, _Excursions dans les environs de Paris_ (Paris, 1900); Henri Stein, _Les architectes des cathédrales gothiques_ (Paris, 1908); Émile Mâle, _L'art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France_ (Paris, Colin, 1908), 4to. [72] "Les ardentes prières, les sanglots désespérés du moyen âge avaient à jamais imprégné ces piliers et tanné ces murs."--J. K. HUYSMANS. [73] "Il me sembla que tout le passé de mon pays se dressait devant moi. Tout ce qu'elles ont vu, ces pierres!... Tout ce qu'elles ont entendu, ces voûtes!" --PIERRE L'ERMITE (Abbé Loutil) [74] "The first of the great Gothic façades in point of dignity is undoubtedly that of Paris, a design of which no words can express the exalted beauty. Grandeur of composition, nobility of silhouette, perfection of proportion, wealth of detail, infinitely varied play of light and shade combine to raise this composition, so majestic, so serene, to the place it has ever occupied in the heart of everyone endowed with the slightest feeling for the beautiful."--ARTHUR KINGSLEY PORTER. [75] The problem of Universals remains still a real one for the thinker--how our intellectual concepts correspond to things existing outside our intellect. [76] In his _Summa totius theologiæ_ St. Thomas held that the existence of God was to be known by reason. He took his stand on a palpable fact--the existence of creatures. He began with the fecund idea of motion, the stars in their orbits, man engendering man. If there is movement there must be a First Motor. If there ever had been an instant when nothing was, nothing ever would have been. Effects must have a cause. Either nothing is, which is an absurdity, or there must be One Being eternally immutable. That the movement is ordered, such as night and day, season following season, shows a supreme power directing. That creatures are more or less perfect supposes a perfect being. One by one Aquinas laid his foundation stones till a solid lower wall was built, on which he reared his majestic structure. In the Roman Breviary, he is thus recorded: "Thou hast written well of me, Thomas, what recompense do you ask of me?" "None but yourself, Lord!" ("_Non aliam, Domine, nisi te ipsum!_"). [77] The father of St. Thomas was the Count of Aquin, nephew of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. His mother came of the line of the Norman rulers in Sicily; the same stocks produced that undisciplined, undecipherable genius of the XIII century, Frederick II. [78] L. Liard, _L'Université de Paris_ (Collection, Les grandes institutions de France), (Paris, H. Laurens); L. Maître, _Les écoles épiscopales et monastiques de l'occident depuis Charlemagne jusqu'à Philippe-Auguste_ (Paris, 1866); Tarsot, _Les écoles et les écoliers à travers les âges_ (Paris, H. Laurens); H. Rashdall, _The Universities of the Middle Ages_ (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1895), 2 vols.; Bonnard, _Histoire de l'abbaye royale de St. Victor de Paris_ (1907); V. Cousin, éd., _OEuvres de Pierre Abélard_ (Paris, 1849-59), 2 vols.; B. Hauréau, éd., _Les oeuvres de Hugues de St. Victor_ (Paris, 1887); B. Hauréau, _Histoire de la philosophie scholastique_ (Paris, 1872), 3 vols.; A. Mignon, _Hugues de St. Victor_ (Paris, 1895); Léon Gautier, éd., _OEuvres poétiques d'Adam de St. Victor_ (Paris, 1858), 2 vols.; Léon Gautier, _Histoire de la poésie religieuse dans les cloîtres des Xe et XIe siècle_ (Paris, 1887); Noël Valois, _Guillaume d'Auvergne_ (Paris, 1880); E. Berger, _La Bible française au moyen âge_ (Paris, 1884); Lecoy de la Marche, _La chaire française au moyen âge_ (Paris, 1886); _Histoire littéraire de la France_. (Begun by the XVII-century Benedictines, continued by the Institute of France.) Vol. 9, p. 1, "L'État des lettres en France, XIIe siècle" (Paris, 1750); vol. 10, p. 309, "Guillaume de Champeaux" (Paris, 1759); vol. 12, p. 1, "Hugues de St. Victor"; p. 86, "Abélard"; p. 585, "Pierre Lombard"; p. 629, "Héloïse" (Paris, 1764); vol. 13, p. 472, "Richard de St. Victor" (Paris, 1814); vol. 15, p. 40, "Adam de St. Victor"; p. 149. "Maurice de Sully" (Paris, 1820); vol. 16, p. 1, "L'état des lettres en France au XIIIe siècle" p. 574, "Eudes de Sully" (Paris, 1824); vol. 18, p. 357, "Guillaume d'Auvergne" p. 449, "Vincent de Beauvais" (Paris, 1835); vol. 19, p. 38, "Hugues de Saint-Cher"; p. 143, "St. Louis"; p. 238, "St. Thomas d'Aquin"; p. 266, "St. Bonaventure"; p. 291, "Robert de Sorbon"; p. 621, "Les trouvères," (Paris, 1838). [79] The last vestige of St. Victor's monastery, foyer of sanctity for the XII century, was wiped out by order of a stupid municipality of Paris, in 1842. [80] Petit de Julleville, éd., _Histoire de la langue et de la littérature française_ (Paris, Colin, 1900), 8 vols. In vols. 1 and 2 the Middle Ages are treated by Gaston Paris, Léon Gautier, and Joseph Bédier; Gaston Paris, _La littérature du XIIe siècle_ (Paris, Hachette, 1895). He places the classic epoch of the literature of the Middle Ages between 1108 (opening of Louis VI's reign) and 1223 (end of Philippe-Auguste's rule); Joseph Bédier, _Les légendes épiques_ (Paris, H. Champion, 1908-13), 4 vols.; Remy de Gourmont, _Le Latin mystique_. [81] _Paradiso_, xxxiii: 4-6. [82] Some of the modern archbishops of Paris have added to the prestige of their see. Monseigneur Affre was shot on the barricades, in 1848, when he went forth bearing a message of peace. Monseigneur Darboy was shot in prison by the Commune of 1871. Both are commemorated in side chapels of the cathedral's choir. [83] G. Sanoner, "La Bible racontée par les artistes du moyen âge," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1907-13; _ibid._, "La vie de Jésus-Christ racontée par les imagiers du moyen âge sur les portes d'églises," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1905-08. [84] Once the Paris churches were filled with late-Gothic windows, though the troubled history of the city has left but few. Some XVI-century glass is still to be found in St. Merri and St. Germain-l'Auxerrois, for which churches see Huysman's _Trois églises et trois primitifs_ (1908). St Étienne-du-Mont has in a chapel an Engrand Le Prince window, a symbolic wine press with portraits of Pope Paul II, Charles V, Francis I, and Henry VIII; and reset in the passage leading to the catechism chapel is the masterpiece of Pinaigrier, twelve panels that are veritable enameling on glass. In St. Gervais, where on Good Friday, 1918, a projectile from the long-distance German gun crashed through the masonry roof, killing many, are two windows, Solomon's judgment (1531), and St. Laurence (1551), said to be by Jean Cousin, also some Pinaigrier glass. To Jean Cousin are attributed the five splendid windows of the Apocalypse in the chapel at Vincennes, whose design derives from Dürer's woodcuts, published in 1498. They have deep shadows and are strong in color and plan. M. Mâle says that Dürer's German has here been translated into graceful Renaissance Italian. Vincennes' chapel had been begun by Charles V in 1378. Then came the pause of a century, and the works were finished by Henry II, still on the Gothic plan, however. Henry donated the windows and he had Diana of Poitiers pictured among the righteous souls in the fifth seal of the Apocalypse. Francis I is represented at the base of the second window. Excursions can be made from Paris to places within easy distance that posses Gothic-Renaissance glass. At Écouen, nine miles from Paris, in the church of St. Acceul, are sixteen windows due to De Montmorency patronage. Originally in Écouen's guard hall were the forty-four panels (made for the constable, Anne de Montmorency) now in the long gallery of Chantilly, the château bequeathed to the Institute of France in 1897 by the Duc d'Aumale. The story of Cupid and Psyche is told in that camaïeu glass so suited for domestic decoration, a species of iron-red grisaille, whose only other hue is yellow stain. Chantilly's panels were painted in the Raphaelesque style by the Flemish master, Coexyen, trained in Van Orley's school. At Montmorency, ten miles from Paris, in St. Martin's church, the history of France seems written in the windows, with the portraits of Francis I, Henry II, Adrian VI, and members of the houses of Montmorency, Pot, and Coligny. Three of the lights are by Engrand Le Prince. More portrait work appears in the many windows at Montfort l'Amaury, twenty-nine miles from Paris (1544-78), work not equal to the earlier XVI-century glass. H. Havard, éd., _La France artistique et monumentale_, vol. 4, Écouen; vol. 5, Chantilly, Vincennes, Pierrefonds; F. de Fossa, _Le château de Vincennes_ (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens); E. Macon, _Chantilly et le musée Condé_ (Paris, H. Laurens). [85] Henri Stein, _La Sainte-Chapelle de Paris_ (Paris, 1912); F. de Guilhermy, _Description de la Sainte-Chapelle_ (Paris, 1899), 12me; Troche, _Notice historique et descriptive sur la Sainte-Chapelle_; Morand, _Histoire de la Sainte-Chapelle_ (Paris, 1790); Louis Courajod, _La polychromie dans le statuaire du moyen âge et de la Renaissance_ (Paris, 1888); Abbé A. Bouillet, _Les églises paroissiales de Paris_, vol. 5, _La Sainte-Chapelle_ (Paris, 1900); F. de Mély, "La sainte couronne d'épines," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1899, vol. 42. [86] Armand le Brun, _L'église St. Julien-le-Pauvre_ (Paris, 1889); J. Viatte, _L'église de St. Julien-le-Pauvre de Paris_ (Châteaudun, Prudhomme, 1899). [87] Jules Quicherat, "St. Germain-des-Prés," in _Bibli. de l'École des chartes_, 1865, vol. I, p. 513; and _Mémoires de la Soc. des Antiquaires de France_, 1864, vol. 28, p. 156; Jacques Bouillart, _Histoire de l'abbaye royale de St. Germain-des-Prés_ (Paris, 1724); Auger, _Les dépendances de St. Germain-des-Prés_ (Paris, 1909), 3 vols.; E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, "Étude sur le choeur de l'église de St. Martin-des-Champs à Paris," in _Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes_, 1886, vol. 47; F. Deshoulières, _St. Pierre de Montmartre_ (Caen, H. Delesque, 1913); also in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1913, vol. 77, p. 4; H. Havard, éd., _La France artistique et monumentale_, vol. 6, p. 66, "Le conservatoire des arts et métiers" (St. Martin-des-Champs); A. Lenoir, _Statistique monumentale de la ville de Paris_ (Paris, Imprimerie Impériale, 1867), 3 vols., folio (valuable drawings of the Parisian abbeys); Em. de Broglie, _Mabillon et la société de l'abbaye de St. Germain-des-Prés_ (Paris, 1881). [88] The Hôtel Cluny, which became a national museum in 1848, was built as the town house for the abbot of Burgundian Cluny, by those two art patrons, Jean de Bourbon (1456-81) and Jacques d'Amboise (1481-1514). It is one of the best works of Gothic civic architecture in France. It stands on the site of Roman baths, alleged to be those of Julian the Apostate, above which had later risen a residence of the Merovingian kings. In the time of the Carolings, Alcuin taught on this spot. The Palais des Termes was purchased for Cluny by Abbot Pierre de Chastellux (1322-43). H. Havard, éd., _La France artistique et monumentale_, vol. 1, p. 161, A. Darcel, on Musée Cluny; E. du Sommerard, _Le palais des thermes et l'Hôtel de Cluny_; Ch. Normand, _l'Hôtel de Cluny_ (Paris, 1888). [89] Paul Abadie, who over-restored the cathedrals of Angoulême and Périgieux, won the competition for the national memorial basilica of the Sacré-Coeur, and began his strange Romano-Byzantine monument in 1873. He united Auvergne's Romanesque ambulatory with the cupola church of Aquitaine. There is not sufficient contrast between his elongated dome and the tower. Nevertheless, the immense pile of white stone standing over the capital presents exotic and superb effects in sun and mist, and no one can deny that a profound religious spirit breathes in this new shrine of France, as if the prayers and sufferings of generations had already hallowed its walls. Below the basilica stands a statue of the young Chevalier de la Barre, a victim of the personal intrigue of a corrupt magistrate of Abbeville and the lax law courts of Louis XV's time, not in any way the object of clerical hate, as the inscription on his statue would indicate. His abbess aunt was his warm defender, as was the bishop of Amiens, and on the day of his execution he received the sacraments piously. See Cruppi, _Révue des Deux Mondes_, March, 1895. As this mythical hero meets one in many a French city, it were well to know his real story. [90] Some of the later manifestations of Gothic art in the capital are the porch and façade of St. Germain l'Auxerrois (1431-39), one of the first signs of renewed energy after Jeanne d'Arc's mission; the tower of St. Jacques (1508-22), attributed to the late-Gothic master, Martin Chambiges, and formerly part of a Flamboyant church destroyed by the Revolution; and the church of St. Merri (1520-1612), still Gothic in spirit. Th e Renaissance appears in St. Étienne-du-Mont (1517-63), whose interior is alluringly graceful, though it cannot boast of purity of style. St. Eustache (1532-1642), begun slightly after St. Merri, has a Gothic skeleton, "dressed in Renaissance robes sewed together like the pieces of a harlequin's garment, bizarre and contradictory, satisfactory to neither taste nor reason." The old church of St. Séverin used to be employed by M. Jules Quicherat as an object lesson for his pupils, since four different epochs are traceable in it; the three westernmost bays of the nave are early XIII century; and there is much Flamboyant Gothic with disappearing moldings. Abbé A. Bouillet, _Les églises paroissiales de Paris_ (1903); H. Escoffier, _Les dernières églises gothiques au diocèse de Paris_ (Thèse, École des chartes, 1900). [91] Le Nain de Tillemont, _Vie de St. Louis_ (Paris, 1848-51 éd., Gauble), 6 vols.; Sertillanges, _St. Louis_ (Collection, L'art et les saints), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1918); H. Wallon, _St. Louis et son temps_ (Tours, 1865), 2 vols.; A. Beugnot, _Essai sur les institutions de St. Louis_ (Paris, 1821); Jean, sire de Joinville, texte original accompagné d'une traduction, Natalis de Wailly, éd., Paris, 1867. Translated into English, Bohn's Antiquarian Library, London; Gaston Paris, "Jean de Joinville," in _Hist. littéraire de la France_, 1848, vol. 32, p. 291; also Delaborde's biography; Lecoy de la Marche, _La France sous St. Louis et sous Philippe le Hardi_ (Paris, 1894); A. Molinier, _Les sources de l'histoire de France_ (Paris, 1901-06); U. Chevalier, Répertoire _des sources hist. du moyen âge_ (Montbéliard, 1903). [92] Philippe Lauer, "Royaumont," in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1908, vol. 2, p. 215. [93] One sister of St. Louis' queen married Henry III of England, under whom was built Westminster Abbey (1217-54). The second was the wife of King Henry's brother, Richard of Cornwall, who was titular emperor of Germany. The youngest sister inherited Provence and wedded St. Louis' brother, Charles d'Anjou, king of the Two Sicilies. E. Boutarie, _Marguerite de Provence, femme de St. Louis_ (Paris, 1869); E. Berger, _Blanche de Castille_ (Paris, 1900). [94] Joinville, in Syria, went to the Krak, the great Christian fortress beyond the Jordan, to obtain, as a relic for his church at Joinville, the shield of his crusading ancestor whom Richard Coeur-de-Lion had admired. His "_beau chastel_" on the Marne was wrecked by the Revolution. His line had ended in an heiress who married into the ruling house of Lorraine, so that the XVI-century Duke of Guise, whose personal charm made him the idol of the French people, was fifth, by female descent, from the irresistible seneschal. A brother of Joinville's, Geoffrey, married Mahaut de Lacy, heiress of Meath, and became Lord Chief Justice of Ireland in 1273. Under Henry III and Edward I he played a role, and went crusading in 1270. He left nine children. On his wife's death he entered the Dominican convent of Tuam, where he died in 1314. [95] Often did Louis IX sigh over his youngest brother. "Charles d'Anjou! Charles d'Anjou!" he would say, sadly. As king of the Two Sicilies, Charles won the title of the Merciless, and his harshness was punished by the Sicilian Vespers, 1282. Dante abominated the house of Anjou in Italy. Of Charles he wrote in the _Paradiso_ (viii: 73-75), "His evil rule, which ever cuts into the heart of subject people, caused Palermo to shriek out: 'Die! Die!'" St. Louis loved especially his brother Robert d'Artois, whose overhardy courage caused the defeat of the crusaders at Mansourah. When word was brought to the king of his brother's death in that battle, tears warm and full fell from his eyes, though he said, "God must be thanked for all he sends." The other brother of Louis IX was Alphonse of Poitiers, who married the heiress of Toulouse and took guidance of the king in his administration of the Midi. [96] In 1841 Louis-Philippe built a chapel on the site where St. Louis had died in Tunis, 1270. In the _Ville d'Art Célèbres_ series (H. Laurens, Paris), see H. Saladin, _Tunis et Kairouan_, and R. Cagnat, _Carthage, Tingad, Tébessa_. [97] Shakespeare, "Richard II." iv: 1. [98] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1905; Léon Gautier, _La France sous Philippe-Auguste_ (Tours, Mâme et fils, 1869); A. Luchaire, _La société française au temps de Philippe-Auguste_ (Paris, Hachette, 1909); W. H. Hutton, _Philip-Augustus_ (London and New York, Macmillan Company, 1896); Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire de l'architecture_; see articles on cathedral, rose, triforium. [99] Two miles from Mantes, across the river, is Gassicourt (Seine-et-Oise), once a Cluniac priory. Its earliest diagonals were built about 1125. The nave and tower are XII century; the choir and transept are Rayonnant Gothic. Some of the windows donated by Blanche of Castile remain. Bossuet long held the living of Gassicourt. See Lefèvre-Pontalis, "Monographie des églises Gassicourt, Meulan," etc., in _Bul. de la Commission des antiquités et des arts de Seine-et-Oise_, 1885-88, vols. 5 to 8. [100] J. Formigé, _La cathédrale de Meaux_ (Pontoise, 1917); Amédée Boinet, "La cathédrale de Meaux," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1912; I. Taylor, _La cathédrale de Meaux_ (Paris, Didot, 1858), folio; Emile Lambin, "La cathédrale de Meaux," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1900; Henri Stein, _La cathédrale de Meaux et l'architecte Nicolas de Chaumes_ (Arcis-sur-Aube, 1890); Du Carro, _Histoire de Meaux et du pays meldois_ (Meaux, 1865); Monseigneur Allon, _Chronique des évêques de Meaux_; also his _Notice hist. et descript. de la cathédrale de Meaux_ (1871); O. Join-Lambert, _Le diocèse de Meaux_ (Thèse, École des chartes, 1894). [101] Lionel Johnson, _Poetical Works_ (New York and London, Macmillan Company), p. 252. [102] Péguy pierced to the very soul of the Maid in his _Mystère de la charité de Jeanne d'Arc_. Jeanne, in Domrémy, seeing the evil round her caused by war, says: "Je pourrais passer ma vie entière à la maudire, et les villes n'en seront pas moins efforcées, et les hommes d'armes n'en feront pas moins chevaucher leurs chevaux dans les blés vénérables ... blés sacrés, blés qui faites le pain ... sacrés blés qui devîntes le corps de Jésus-Christ." [103] Another who fell in battle in that same summer of 1914, Ernest Psichari, divined this pregnant region: "Diocèse de Meaux, cryptes de Jouarre, cloches des petites communes ... l'harmonie délicate, la grâce parfaite, le bon goût de ces paysages modérés. Ici la race est d'accord avec le paysage, sérieuse comme lui, ardente sans frivolité, sans élégances inutiles. Certains soirs, on pense à Pascal, si français, quand il écrivait: 'Certitude.... Pleurs de joie.' "--_L'Appel des Armes_ (Paris, G. Oudin et Cie, 1913). [104] _Paradiso_, xxxiii: 15-16. [105] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1900; René Merlet, _La cathédrale de Chartres_ (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1909); _ibid._, "Les architectes de la cathédrale de Chartres et la construction de la chapelle Saint Piat au XIVe siècle," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1906, vol. 70, p. 218; E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, _Les architectes et la construction des cathédrales de Chartres_ (Paris, 1905); _ibid._, _Les façades successives de la cathédrale de Chartres au XIe et au XIIe siècle_ (Caen, 1902); Abbé Bulteau, _Monographie de la cathédrale de Chartres_ (1891), 3 vols.; E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, "Le portail sud de la cathédrale de Chartres," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1907, p. 100; F. de Mély, _Études iconographiques sur les vitraux du XIIIe siècle de la cathédrale de Chartres_ (Lille, 1888), 4to; J. K. Huysmans, _La Cathédrale_ (Paris, 1898; tr. London, Paul, Trench & Trübner); Henry Adams, _Mont Saint-Michel and Chartres_ (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913); De Lasteyrie, _Études sur la sculpture française au moyen âge_ (Paris, 1902); Cherval, _Chartres, sa cathédrale, ses monuments_ (Chartres, 1905); _ibid._, _Les écoles de Chartres au moyen âge_ (1895); Lucien Merlet, tr. _Lettres de St. Ives, évêque de Chartres_ (Chartres, Petrot-Garnier, 1885); A. J. de H. Bushnell, _Storied Windows_ (New York, Macmillan Company, 1914); Crosnier, _Iconographie chrétienne_ (Tours, Mâme, 1876); Gabriel Fleury, _Études sur les portails imagés du XIIe siècle_ (Mamers, Fleury et Dangin, 1904); _Histoire littéraire de la France_, vol. 7, p. 1, "État des lettres en France, XIe siècle"; p. 261, "St. Fulbert" (Paris, 1746); vol. 10, p. 102, "St. Ives" (Paris, 1756); vol. 13, p. 82, "Geofroi de Lèves" (Paris, 1814); vol. 14, p. 89, "Jean de Sarisbéry"; p. 236, "Pierre de Celle, évêque de Chartres" (Paris, 1817). [106] George Santayana, _Interpretations of Poetry and Religion_ (New York, Scribner's, 1905). [107] Bishop Fulbert was buried in 1029 in the church of St. Pierre-en-Vallée. St. Pierre's choir is Romanesque and early Gothic; its sanctuary is a gem of XIV-century Rayonnant; its nave is in larger part of the XIII century, but later than the cathedral of Chartres; its west tower is of the XI century. At present it possesses a treasure of enamel work, the plaques of the apostles, by Léonard Limosin, which Francis I had made in 1545, and which Henry II gave to Diana de Poitiers for the château of Anet. There is much grisaille glass in St. Pierre; each window of the nave is divided perpendicularly into three panels--a colored one in the center and grisailles on either side. In the choir is some XII-century glass; the brilliant apse windows are XIV century, as are a few in the nave. P. Lavedan, _Léonard Limosin el les émailleurs français_ (Collection, Les grands artistes), (Paris, H. Laurens); Alleaume et Duplessis, _Les douze apôtres; émaux de Léonard Limosin_ (Paris, 1865). [108] "Chartres est sage avec une passion intense.... Palais de la paix et du silence!... C'est du paix héroique qu'il s'agit ici."--RODIN, _Les Cathédrales de France_ (Paris, Colin, 1914). [109] "I am Beauceron, Chartres is my cathedral," said Charles Péguy, who walked in pilgrimage a hundred miles to pray in the cathedral when his little son lay dying with diphtheria. No one has celebrated it better than that XX-century maker of mystery plays, true artisan-artist of the _moyen âge_: "Voici le lourd pilier et la montante voûte; Et l'oubli pour hier, et l'oubli pour demain; Et l'inutilité de tout calcul humain; Et plus que le péché, la sagesse en déroute. "Voici le lieu du monde où tout devient facile, Le regret, le départ, même l'événement, Et l'adieu temporaire et le détournement, Le seul coin de la terre où tout devient docile.... "Voici le lieu du monde où tout rentre et se tait, Et le silence et l'ombre et la charnelle absence. Et le commencement d'éternelle présence, Le seul réduit où l'âme est tout ce qu'elle était." --"Prières dans la cathédrale de Chartres," _OEuvres de Charles Péguy_, vol. 6, p. 383, éd., _Nouvelle Reçue française_, 1916-18. [110] Émile Mâle, _L'art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France_ (Paris, A. Colin, 1908); _ibid._, _L'art religieux de la fin du moyen âge en France_ (Paris, A. Colin, 1910). [111] Émile Mâle, _L'Art allemand et l'art français du moyen âge_ (Paris, A. Colin, 1917). [112] "Lovelier color the hand of man has not produced. There are times when human art seems to be something more than mortal; when it rises to heights infinitely above the ordinary achievements of men. French glass of the XII century is such an art. It is impossible to stand in the presence of these translucent mosaics without experiencing a depth of æsthetic emotion that at once disarms the critical faculty. Such sensuous beauty of tone, such richness of color, has been equaled by no painter of the Renaissance, by no Byzantine worker in mosaics. Yet it is not only for their absolute beauty, but also for their perfectly architectural character that these windows claim unqualified admiration."--ARTHUR KINGSLEY PORTER, _Medieval Architecture_ (New York and London, 1907), vol. 2, p. 108. [113] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1911, Rheims, p. 19, the cathedral; p. 57, St. Remi, L. Demaison; Louis Demaison, _Album de la cathédrale de Rheims_ (Paris, 1902), 2 vols., folio; _ibid._, _La cathédrale de Rheims_ (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1910); Abbé Cerf, _Histoire et description de Notre Dame de Rheims_ (Rheims, Dubois, 1861), 2 vols., 8vo; Alphonse Gosset, _La cathédrale de Rheims_ (Paris and Rheims, 1894), folio; _ibid._, _Rheims monumental_ (Rheims, 1880), 12mo; Anthyme Saint-Paul, "La cathédrale de Rheims, au XIIIe siècle," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1906, vol. 70, p. 288; E. Moreau-Nélaton, _La cathédrale de Rheims_ (Paris, 1915); Monseigneur Landrieux, _La cathédrale de Rheims_ (Paris, H. Laurens, 1917); Louis Bréhier, _La cathédrale de Rheims_ (Paris, H. Laurens, 1919); Max Sainsaulieu, _Rheims avant la guerre_ (Paris, H. Laurens); Vitry, _La cathédrale de Rheims, architecture et sculpture_ (Paris, Longuet, 1913); Ch. Loriquet, _Les tapisseries de Notre Dame de Rheims_; H. Bazin, _Une vieille cité de France, Rheims_; _monuments et histoire_ (Rheims, Michaud, 1900), 4to; Louise Pillion, _Les sculpteurs français du XIIIe siècle_ (Collection, Les maîtres de l'art), (Paris); Émile Lambin, _Flore des grandes cathédrales_ (Paris, 1897); Vitry et Brière, _Documents de sculpture française au moyen âge_ (Paris, Longuet, 1900). [114] Auguste Rodin, _Les cathédrales de France_ (Paris, Colin, 1914). [115] The Benedictines' church at Orbais (Marne), between Rheims and Châlons, contains some exceptionally good XII-century windows. Its nave has been destroyed, but the transept and the choir, with its radiating chapels (c. 1200), survive. The World War swept over Orbais, but the abbatial is unharmed. Héron de Villefosse, _Abbaye d'Orbais_ (Paris, 1892). [116] It has been suggested that about 1260 a façade then rising was dismounted and moved forward, to allow for the insertion of several more bays in the nave, but the idea remains a hypothesis. [117] E. O'Reilly, _Les deux procès de condamnation ... de Jeanne d'Arc_, eighth interrogation, March 17, 1431. "Il avait été à la peine, c'était bien raison qu'il fût à l'honneur." (Paris, Plon, 1868), 2 vols. [118] During this summer of 1020 excavations made under Rheims Cathedral have brought to light vestiges of the cathedral of the Virgin, founded by St. Nicaise in 401. Three Roman arches in good condition support the venerable nave, in a corner of whose floor was found buried sacred images of ivory most beautifully carved. Evidently they had been hidden to save them from the invading Vandals. [119] "Et les Français disent: Quel grand courage! Avec Turpin la croix est bien gardée!" Roland addressed the dead archbishop on the field of Roncevaux: "Eh! Chevalier de bonne aire, homme noble, Nul ne sut mieux, depuis les saints apôtres La foi garder et convertir les hommes: Du paradis lui soit la porte ouverte!" --_La Chanson de Roland_ (Edition, A. d'Avril). [120] Along the lower walls of the side aisles of Rheims hung splendid tapestries, "color of incense, silver-gray dashed with blue, with red." They related Our Lady's life and were given in 1530 by the saintly archbishop, Robert de Lenoncourt, the same who presented to St. Remi's monastery church other sumptuous embroideries, and who remade as Flamboyant Gothic St. Remi's south façade. The tapestries of Rheims were saved from the wrecked city and exhibited in Paris during the World War for the benefit of the refugees. It is said that a certain number of the stained-glass windows of the cathedral were dismounted in time to escape annihilation. [121] Sung in the French trenches: "... Attila II s'en veng et brûle Le baptistère de nos rois. Un siécle d'art à chaque bombe Se craquèle, s'effrite et tombe Avec un râle, et tout d'un coup! ... Mais dans la ville ruinée, Par l'incendie illuminée, _Jeanne d'Arc est encor debout!_" --(THÉODOR BOTREL, _Refrains de guerre_ (Paris, Payot, 1915)). [122] Georges Durand, _Monographie de l'église Notre Dame, cathédrale d'Amiens_ (Paris, Picard et fils, 1903), 2 vols., folio; _ibid., Description abrégée de la cathédrale d'Amiens_ (Amiens, Yvert et Tellier, 1904); _ibid._, "La peinture sur verre au XIIIe siècle et les vitraux de la cathédrale d'Amiens," in _Mémoires de la Société des antiquaires de Picardie_ 1891, 4e série, tome I, p. 389; Jourdain et Duval, "Le grand portail de la cathédrale d'Amiens," in _Bulletin Monumental_, vols. 11, 12, _passim_; _ibid., Cathédrale d'Amiens, les stalles et clôtures du choeur_ (Amiens, 1867), 8vo; T. Perkins, _The Cathedral Church of Amiens_ (London, Bell, 1902); Rodière et Guyencourt, _La Picardie historique et monumentale_ (Paris, Picard, 1906), 4to; Camille Enlart, _Monuments religieux de l'architecture romane et de transition dans la région Picarde_ (Amiens, Yvert et Tellier, 1895); Taylor et Nodier, _Voyages pittoresques ... dans l'ancienne France. Picardie_, (Paris, Didron, 1835-45), 3 vols.; Émile Mâle, _L'art religieux de la fin du moyen âge en France_ (Paris, Colin, 1910); A. de Colonne, _Histoire de la ville d'Amiens_ (Paris, 1900); Demogeon, La Picardie (Collection, Les régions de la France), (Paris, L. Cerf). [123] Emile Lambin, _La flore des grandes cathédrales_ (Paris, 1897). [124] L. Reau, _Cologne_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens); L. Leger, _Prague_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens); Henry Hymans, _Bruges et Ipres_ (Paris, H. Laurens). [125] Apocalypse xxi:17. [126] Emile Mâle, _L'art religieux de XIIIe siècle en France_ (Paris, Colin, 1908). [127] Psalm xc:13. [128] Eph. ii:20-21. [129] John Ruskin, _The Bible of Amiens_, vol. 33, Complete Works (London, Cook & Wedderburn, 1908). Illustrated; chap. iv, "Interpretations." [130] Abbeville, close by, also had its Puy, in whose competitions figured Froissart, the historian, as laureate. The magnificent portal decorations (1548) of the Flamboyant Gothic collegiate church of St. Wulfran were contributed in this way. Émile Deliguières, _L'église Saint-Vulfran à Abbeville_ (Abbeville, Paillart, 1898); _Congrès Archéologique_, 1893. [131] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1849 and 1898; Amédée Boinet, _La cathédrale de Bourges_ (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1911); _ibid_., "Les sculpteurs de la cathédrale de Bourges," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1912; also published by Champion (Paris, 1912); Gaston Congny, _Bourges et Nevers_; Buhot de Kersers, "Les chapelles absidioles de la cathédrale de Bourges," in _Bulletin Monumental_, vol. 40, p. 417; _ibid., Histoire et statistique monumentale du département du Cher_ (Bourges, 1875-98), 8 vols., 4to; Girardot et Durant, _La cathédrale de Bourges_ (Moulins, 1849); G. Hardy et A. Gandillon, _Bourges et les abbayes et châteaux de Berry_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1912); Cahier et Martin (P. P.), _Monographie de la cathédrale de Bourges; vitraux du XIIIe siècle_; Des Méloizes, _Les vitraux de Bourges postérieurs au XIIIe siècle_ (Lille, 1897), folio; _ibid., Les vitraux de Bourges_, 1901; _ibid._, "Note sur un très ancien vitrail de la cathédrale de Bourges," in _Mémoires de la Soc. des Antiquaires du Centre_, 1873, vol. 4, p. 193; Champeaux et Gauchery, _Les travaux d'art exécutés pour Jean de France, duc de Berry_ (Paris, Champion, 1894), folio; Buhot de Kersers, "Caractères de l'architecture religieuse en Berry à l'époque romane," in _Bul. archéol. du Comité des Travaux hist. et scientifiques_, 1890, p. 25; F. Deshoulières, "Les églises romanes du Berry," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1909, p. 463; Raynal, _Histoire de Berry_; Vacher, _Le Berry_ (Collection, Les régions de la France), (Paris, L. Cerf); Sauvageot, _Palais, châteaux, hôtels et maisons de France_; Sir Theodore Andreas Cook, _Twenty-five Great Houses of France_ (London and New York, 1916). [132] _Rationale Divinorum officiorum_, tr. by Neale and Webb of the Camden Society (Leeds, Green, 1843). [133] Rodin should have placed his "Thinker" here: "Le Penseur aurait été au diapason dans cette crypt; cette ombre immense l'aurait fortifié!" --RODIN, _Les cathédrales de France_. [134] "There is a charming detail in this section. Beside the angel, on the left, where the wicked are the prey of demons, stands a little female figure, that of a child, who, with hands meekly folded and head gently raised, waits for the stern angel to decide upon her fate. In this fate, however, a dreadful big devil also takes a keen interest; he seems on the point of appropriating the tender creature; he has a face like a goat and an enormous hooked nose. But the angel gently lays a hand upon the shoulder of the little girl--the movement is full of dignity--as if to say, 'No; she belongs to the other side.' The frieze below represents the general Resurrection, with the good and the wicked emerging from their sepulchers. Nothing can be more quaint and charming than the difference shown in their way of responding to the final trump. The good get out of their tombs with a certain modest gayety, an alacrity tempered by respect; one of them kneels to pray as soon as he has disinterred himself. You may know the wicked, on the other hand, by their extreme shyness; they crawl out slowly and fearfully; they hang back."--HENRY JAMES, _A Little Tour in France_ (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1900), p. 105. [135] The chief piers of Orléans Cathedral were mined by Théodore de Bèze and blown up on the night of March 23, 1567. The portal, part of the choir, and the apse chapel escaped. The XII-century nave had double aisles with tribunes; the frontispiece also was XII century. The choir, begun in 1287, was finished by 1297, and a new Gothic nave was in progress at the time of the civil wars of religion. Henry IV undertook to rebuild Orléans Cathedral, and with his bride, Marie de Medici, laid the first stone in 1601. But a bastard-Gothic edifice is not compensation for earlier work. H. Havard, éd., _La France artistique et monumentale_, vol. 6, p. 122, "Orléans," G. Lefenestre; _Congrès Archéologique_, 1854 and 1892; G. Rigault, _Orléans et le val de Loire_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens); E. Lèfevre-Pontalis et Eugène Garry, on Orléans Cathedral, in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1904, vol. 68, p. 309. [136] _Nouvelle Alliance_ windows are to be found at Chartres (sixth window in the nave's north aisle), at Le Mans (the east window of the long Lady chapel), at Tours (in the axis chapel), in the transept of Sens Cathedral (in five lights below the north rose), and in the apse curve of Lyons Cathedral. [137] The happy chance of travel led the writer, in May of 1914, to the ceremony of the unveiling of a statue of Jeanne d'Arc in the cathedral of this city, that has not known invasion--the military arsenal of France. As the preaching bishop exhorted modern France to remake her soul else she would perish, over that spellbound congregation seemed to pass a premonition of portentous events looming ahead. Within three months the World War opened, _forte et aspre guerre_, as they said in Jeanne's day, war the chastiser, war the purifier: "_Il y a des guerres qui avilissent les nations, et les avilissent pour des siècles; d'autres les exaltent, les perfectionnent de toutes manières_," wrote Joseph de Maistre. [138] Carved on Jacques Coeur's house in Bourges are mottoes such as, "_A vaillans coeurs rien impossible_," or "_Dire, faire, taire, de ma joie_," or "_En bouche close, n'entre mousche_." Vallet de Viriville, _Jacques Coeur_; Pierre Clément, _Jacques Coeur et Charles VII_. [139] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1905, "Beauvais," Chanoine Barsaux; P. Dubois, _La cathédrale de Beauvais_ (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1911); Abbé P. C. Barraud, "Beauvais et ses monuments," in _Bulletin Monumental_, vol. 27, _passim_. He gives studies on the Le Prince and other windows in the cathedral and St. Étienne, in _Mémoires de la Soc. Académique de l'Oise_, 1851-53, vol. 1, p. 225; vol. 2, p. 537; vol. 3, pp. 150, 277; Louise Pillion, on St. Étienne's glass, in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1910, p. 367; Eug. J. Woillez, _Archéologie des monuments religieux de l'ancien Beauvoisis pendant la métamorphose romane_ (Paris, 1839-49), folio; Graves, _Notice archéologique sur le département de l'Oise_ (Beauvais, 1856); Gustave Desgardins, _Histoire de la cathédrale de Beauvais_ (1875); Abbé L. Pihan, _Beauvais, sa cathédrale, ses monuments_ (1905); _ibid., Esquisse descriptive des monuments historiques dans l'Oise_; see Gonse and Palustre on the portals of the cathedral; Monseigneur Barbier de Montault, "Iconographie des Sibylles," in _Rev. de l'art chrétiens_, 1874. [140] Carolingian work aboveground is rare; besides this _Basse-OEuvre_ at Beauvais, there is St. Philibert de Grandlieu (Loire-Inférieure), part of the small church under the flank of Jumièges' ruined abbatial, portions of St. Jouin-de-Marnes (Deux-Sèvres), and vestiges in the walls of La Couture at Le Mans. There are Carolingian crypts at St. Quentin, Amiens, Chartres, Orléans, Auxerre, Flavigny. More exceptional still are Merovingian remains, such as the crypt of Jouarre, the small tri-lobed church of St. Laurent at Grenoble, the crypt of St. Léger at St. Maixent (Deux-Sèvres), a crypt at Lyons, in St. Martin d'Ainay, and apsidal chapels in St. Jean's baptistry at Poitiers. A list of the Romanesque monuments of the Ile-de-France and bordering districts is to be found in Arthur Kingsley Porter's _Medieval Architecture_, 1909, vol. 2, pp. 13-49. [141] Among the Flamboyant monuments of France are St. Wulfran's frontispiece at Abbeville, begun in 1481, overcharged with ornament but with portals of great beauty; St. Riquier near by, also overcharged; the churches of Rue and Mézières; façades of cathedrals at Sens, Senlis, Auxerre, Troyes, Tours, and Limoges; Vendôme's frontispiece, and Albi's porch; towers at Bordeaux, Rodez, Saintes, Chartres, Auxerre, Bourges, Rouen, and many other cities in Normandy; the cathedrals of Toul and Metz; St. Maurice at Lille, a well-restrained Flamboyant monument; the magnificent church of St. Nicholas-du-Port near Nancy; the choir of Moulins; St. Antoine at Compiègne and a number of civic halls such as Compiègne's and St. Quentin's. The beautiful Flamboyant Gothic church at Péronne (1509-25) has been wiped out in the World War. Artois and Flanders were especially rich in late-Gothic edifices. Normandy was a Mecca of Flamboyant work--from Rouen, to that gem of the final phase, the choir of Mont Saint-Michel. Monseigneur Dehaisnes, _Histoire de l'art dans la Flandre, l'Artois et le Hainaut_ (Lille, 1886), 3 vols. [142] André Michel, éd., _Histoire de l'Art_, vol. 3, 1^{ère} partie, "Le style flamboyant," Camille Enlart (Paris, A. Colin), 1914, 10 vols.; Camille Enlart, "Origine anglaise du style flamboyant," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1886, 1906, p. 38; A. Saint-Paul, "L'architecture religieuse en France pendant la Guerre de Cent Ans," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1908, p. 5; _ibid., Les origines du gothique flamboyant en France_ (Caen, 1907); Arthur Kingsley Porter, _Medieval Architecture_, vol. 2 (New York and London, 1907), 2 vols. [143] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1902; V. C. de Courcel, _La cathédrale de Troyes_, (1910); L. Morel-Payen, _Troyes et Provins_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1910); F. Arnaud, _Description historique de l'église cathédrale de Troyes_; J. B. Coffinet, "Les peintres-verriers de Troyes," in _Annales Archéologiques_, vol. 18, pp. 125, 212; A. J. de H. Bushnell, _Storied Windows_, chapters 32 and 33, on Troyes (New York, Macmillan Company, 1914); Ch. Fichot, _Statistique monumentale du département de l'Aube_, vol. 1, _Arrondissement de Troyes_ (Troyes, 1884), 4to; R. Koechlin and J.M. de Vasselot, _La sculpture à Troyes et dans la Champagne méridionale au XVIe siècle_ (Paris, A. Colin, 1900); Raymond Koechlin, "La sculpture du XIVe et du XVe siècle dans la région de Troyes," in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1908; Paul Vitry, _Michel Colombe et la sculpture française de son temps_ (Paris, 1901); Louis Gonse, _La sculpture française depuis le XIVe siècle_ (Paris, Quantin, 1895), folio; D'Arbois de Jubainville, _Histoire des ducs et des comtes de Champagne_, 1859, 7 vols.; Bontier, _Histoire de Troyes et de la Champagne méridionale_ (Troyes, 1880), 4 vols.; Amédée Aufauvre, _Troyes et ses environs_. [144] Translation from XIII-century French by Henry Adams. [145] Generation after generation, the Lyénin, Macadré, Verrat, and Gontier families produced noted artists. Assier, _Les arts dans l'ancienne capitale de la Champagne_. [146] The same feat can be seen in St. Nizier at Troyes, rebuilt in 1528 and literally filled with XVI-century glass. Its best window is in the transept (1552), and shows the beasts of heresy trampled upon, for that day was nothing if not controversial. In a central window of the choir, the Descent of the Holy Ghost, the artist made the hands of a figure in one panel appear in the neighboring panel, regardless of the stone mullions. In 1901 an anarchist bomb exploded in St. Nizier, and in 1910 a terrible storm wrecked more of its windows. The church possesses a _Saint Sépulcre_ and a _Christ de Pité_ in which the Gothic spirit lingers. Its reredos, now in the Museum, was from the Juliot _atelier_. Her international fairs early accustomed Troyes to foreign influences. Flemish realism had fortified her sculptors and vitrine artists, and during the first third of the XVI century (when the trade of the city tripled itself) the new Italian ideas found favor. For a generation the just and loyal measure of Champagne's own Gothic tradition held the leadership, but finally the Italian Renaissance conquered. When abstract types were substituted for types precisely observed, imagery became cold, declamatory, and pretentious. In several of the churches of Troyes will be found the Education of the Virgin by her mother, St. Anne, a theme for which this city had a partiality. [147] Abbé O. F. Jossier, _Monographie des vitraux de St. Urbain de Troyes_ (Troyes, 1912); E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, "Jean Langlois, architecte de St. Urbain de Troyes," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1904, vol. 64, p. 93; Albert Barbeau, _St. Urbain de Troyes_ (Troyes, Dufour-Bonquot, 1891), 8vo; Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire de l'architecture_, vol. 4, pp. 182-192; Abbé Lahore, _L'église Saint-Urbain_ (1891). [148] Within walking distance of Troyes are Ste. Maure, with a Jesse tree by Linard Gontier; Les Noès, with good sculpture and a Jesse-tree window of 1521; St. André-lès-Troyes, with a lovely St. Catherine statue; St. Parre-les-Tertres, with a Vision of Augustus in _camaïeu_ like a magnificent enamel on white glass, and another grisaille-like Vision of Augustus at St. Léger-lès-Troyes (1558); Chapelle St. Luc, with a triptych on wood, sculpture of the Three Maries, and good glass; Torvilliers, Pont-Ste.-Marie, and Montgueux, with other _objets d'art_. Eight miles away, at Verrières, is the best portal of the region and more late-Gothic glass. There are storied windows at St. Loup, St. Ponanges, Rosnay, Brienne, Rouilly (with a good Virgin image), Pouvres, Chavanges, Bar-sur-Seine, Bar-sur-Aube (with a statue of St. Barbara), Mussy-sur-Seine, Montier-en-Der, Arcis-sur-Aube, and Ceffonds, whose windows were the gift of Étienne Chévalier (1528). Some thirty miles away lies St. Florentin (six miles from Pontigny), where are twenty splendid Renaissance lights, among them a Creation window (1525), with God the Father wearing the tiara, one of 1528 telling St. Nicolas' life in quatrains describing each scene, and a 1529 window devoted to the Apocalypse. Between Troyes and St. Florentin lies Ervy, where is a Crucifixion window (1570), showing the Saviour nailed to a Tree of Knowledge Cross with apples and leaves on its top, and Adam and Eve standing below. There are also the noted windows of the Sibyls (1515), representing twelve instead of ten prophetesses, each accompanied by the event of the New Law which she is said to have foretold, and the window called the Triumph of Petrarch (1502). [149] Of the same appealing type as St. Martha at Troyes are the Virgin and Madeleine of the Holy Sepulcher group at Villeneuve l'Archevêque (Yonne), where are also some beautiful portal images of the XIII century. M. Ch. Fichot has brought forward testimony that would indicate the image called St. Martha in the church of the Madeleine is really one of St. Mary Magdelene herself. However, the majority of those who have written on the sculpture of Champagne continue to call it a St. Martha. [150] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1855, 1875, and 1911, p. 447, the cathedral of Châlons; p. 473, Notre-Dame-en-Vaux; p. 496, St. Alpin; p. 512, Notre-Dame-de-l'Épine; E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, "L'architecture dans la Champagne méridionale au XIIIe et au XVIe siècle," in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1902, p. 273; _ibid._, "Les caractères distinctifs des écoles gothiques de la Champagne et de la Bourgogne," in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1907, p. 546; Louis Demaison, _Les églises de Châlons-sur-Marne_ (Caen, 1913); E. de Barthélemy, _Diocèse ancien de Châlons-sur-Marne_. _Histoire et monuments_ (Paris, 1861), 2 vols.; E. Hurault, _La cathédrale de Châlons-sur-Marne et sa clergé au XIIIe siècle_; A. J. de H. Bushnell, _Storied Windows_, chapter 34, on the windows of Châlons (New York, Macmillan Company, 1914); Abbé E. Musset, _Notre Dame-de-l'Épine près Châlons-sur-Marne. La légende, l'histoire, le monument et le pèlerinage_ (Paris, Champion, 1902); Chanoine Marsaux, "La prédiction de la sibylle et la vision d'Auguste," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1908, p. 235. [151] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1890, Toul. In the series of _Villes d'art célèbres_, published by H. Laurens (Paris), are studies on Tournai, Ipres, and Avila: Henri Guerlin, _Ségovie, Avila, Salamanque_; Henri Hymans, _Gand et Tournai_ and _Bruges et Ypres_. [152] L. Petit de Julleville, _Histoire de la langue et de la littérature française_, dirigée par (Paris, Colin et Cie, 1841-1901), 8 vols. In vols. 1 and 2 the Middle Ages are treated by Léon Gautier, Gaston Paris, and Joseph Bédier; Gaston Paris, _La littérature française au moyen âge_ (Paris, Hachette, 1890); _ibid._, _Les origines de la poésie lyrique, en France au moyen âge_ (Paris, 1892); Léon Gautier, _Origines et histoire des épopées françaises_ (Paris, V. Palme, 1878-94), 4 vols.; Joseph Bédier, _Les légends épiques_ (Paris, H. Champion, 1908-13), 4 vols.; P. Tarbé, _Les chansonniers de Champagne_ (1851); Delaborde, _Notice historique sur le château de Joinville_. _Haute-Marne_ (Joinville, 1891); Natalis de Wailly, éd., _Jean, sire de Joinville, texte original accompagné d'une traduction_. Translated into English, Bohns' Antiquarian Library, VI, London; Bouchet, éd., _Villehardouin_ (Paris, 1891). English translation by Sir F. T. Marzial (London, Everyman's Library, 1908). [153] Chanoine Boissonnot, _La cathédrale de Tours_ (Tours, 1904); Paul Vitry, _Tours et les châteaux de Touraine_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1905); _ibid._, _Michel Colombe et la sculpture française de son temps_ (Paris, 1901); Marchand et Bourassé, _Verrières du choeur de l'église metropolitaine de Tours_ (Paris, 1849), folio; A. J. de H. Bushnell, _Storied Windows_, chapter 22, on Tours (New York and London, 1914); Charles de Grandmaison, _Tours archéologique_ (Paris, 1879); Abbé Bosseboeuf, _Tours et ses monuments_; Monseigneur Chevalier, _Promenades pittoresques en Touraine_ (Tours, 1869); Abbé J. J. Bourassé, _Recherches hist. et archéol. sur les églises romanes en Touraine_ (1869); L. Courajod, _La sculpture française avant la Renaissance classique_ (Paris, 1891); Louis Gonse, _La sculpture française depuis le XIVe siècle_ (Paris, 1895), folio; Giraudet, _Histoire de la ville de Tours_ (Tours, 1873), 2 vols.; Chalmel, _Histoire de Touraine_ (1841), 4 vols.; Henri Guerlin, _La Touraine_ (Collection, Provinces françaises), (Paris, H. Laurens); L. Barron, _La Loire_ (Fleuves de France), (Paris, H. Laurens); C. H. Petit-Dutaillis, _Charles VII, Louis XI et les premières années de Charles VIII_ (Paris, Hachette, 1902). [154] Behind the choir of Tours Cathedral, in the Place Grégoire de Tours, a veritable nook of the Middle Ages, are XII-century vestiges of the Episcopal Palace, a mansion of the XV century, and near by is the rue de la Psalette, in which Balzac set the scene of his _Curé de Tours_. Why has not Tours named her chief square and residential street for Balzac, her own son, instead of for Emile Zola? Balzac's sister has told of the profound impression made on him by the cathedral of Tours, especially by its marvels of stained glass, so that all through the novelist's life the mere name "St. Gatien" had the power to rouse him to the dreams and aspirations of his youth. [155] R. de Lasteyrie, _L'église St. Martin de Tours_ (Paris, 1891); Monsuyer, _Histoire de l'abbaye de St. Martin_; Henri Martin, _Saint-Martin_ (Collection, _L'art et les saints_), (Paris, H. Laurens); Ed. Chévalier, _Histoire de l'abbaye de Marmoutier_ (Tours, 1871), 2 vols. There are papers on the church of St. Julien de Tours in the _Mémoires de la Soc. archéol. de Touraine_, 1909, p. 13, and on St. Martin de Tours, 1907; also in the _Bulletin Monumental_, 1873, p. 830, on St. Symphorien de Tours. The abbatial of St. Julien, a contemporary of Tours Cathedral, is exceptionally pure Gothic. Its tower is Romanesque and in part dates before 1000. [156] Many a Council has been held in Tours. In 1055 came Gregory VII, the reformer. In 1095 Urban II preached the First Crusade, and dedicated a Romanesque abbatial at Marmoutier. In 1107 Pope Paschal II came, in 1119 Calixtus II, in 1134 Innocent II, and Alexander III in 1163. At the Council of 1163 the new archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, pleaded for St. Anselm's canonization, and the builder of Lisieux Cathedral, the politic Arnoul, delivered an address that urged the unity and liberty of the Church; yet later he upheld Henry II in his dispute with St. Thomas Becket. Tours can even boast a pope, for Martin IV (d. 1285) had long been a canon in St. Martin's abbey. [157] Such is the architectural wealth within reach of Tours that one can draw but a few monuments to the traveler's attention. At Amboise is St. Hubert's marvelously sculptured little chapel (c. 1491) and the church of St. Florentin (c. 1445). At Loches is Anne of Brittany's oratory, a Virgin statue of Michel Colombe's school of Tours, and the tomb of Agnes Sorel, attributed to the master who made Souvigny's ducal tomb, Jacques Morel. The collegiate church of St. Ours is of exceptional interest to archæologists; its narthex (now the first bay), covered by a tower, was built by Fulk II of Anjou; the porch, also with a tower over it, was added in the XII century. To that date belong the two bays of the church covered by hollow pyramids, said by Mr. A. Kingsley Porter to be an attempt to make a stone roof without wooden centering. At Beaulieu-lès-Loches, founded by Fulk Nerra, the choir is late-Gothic (1440-1540). At St. Catherine de Fierbois, where Jeanne d'Arc found her sword, is a charming Flamboyant Gothic church. There are Plantagenet Gothic vaults at Chinon. Nine miles from Chinon, at Champigny-sur-Veude, is a rich mass of Renaissance glass attributed to Pinagrier, with Bourbon-Montpensier portraits. Some twenty miles from Blois is the Romanesque church of Fleury Abbey at St. Benoît-sur-Loire, with a superb XI-century narthex of three bays, surmounted by a tower. In 1562 the Huguenots wrecked the church. Also, between Orléans and Nevers, beside Sancerre, is the abbey church of St. Satur, a forerunner of Flamboyant Gothic, as early as 1361. The Benedictine church of La Charité-sur-Loire derives chiefly from the Burgundian Romanesque school, influenced by Berry and Auvergne. Its central and west towers, its nave, and chevet belong to the second half of the XII century, the transept is earlier; there was a reconstruction of the nave after 1559. Louis Serbat, "La Charité-sur-Loire," in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1913, p. 374; Abbe Bosseboeuf, _Amboise_. For Loches, see _Congrès Archéol_., 1869, 1910; G. Rigault, _Orléans et le val de Loire_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres); F. Bournon, _Blois, Chambord et les châteaux du Blésois_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres); A. Marignan, "Une visite à l'abbaye de Fleury à St. Benoît-sur-Loire," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1901-02, p. 291; L. Cloquet et J. Casier, "Excursion de la Gilde de St. Thomas et de St. Luc dans la Maine, la Touraine, et l'Anjou," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1889-90, vols. 42, 43; _La Touraine artistique et monumental; Amboise_ (Tours, Pericet, 1899); Sir Theodore Andreas Cook, _Twenty-five Great Houses of France_ (New York and London, 1916). [158] Lucien Bégule et C. Guigue, _Monographic de la cathédrale de Lyon_ (Lyon, 1880); Lucien Bégule, _La cathédrale de Lyon_ (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens); _ibid._, _Les vitraux du moyen âge et de la Renaissance dans la région lyonnaise_ (Lyon, A. Rey et Cie, 1911); _ibid_., _Les incrustations décoratives des cathédrales de Lyon et de Vienne_ (Lyon, 1905); H. Havard, éd., _La France artistique et monumentale_, vol. 3, p. 80, C. Guigue; Émile Màle, _L'art religieux du XIIIe siècle_, pp. 52-59, on the glass of Lyons Cathedral; _Congrès Archéologique_, 1907, p. 527, on St. Martin d'Ainay; Abbé Martin, _Histoire des églises et chapelles de Lyon_ (1909); André Steyert, _Nouvelle histoire de Lyon_ ... (Lyon, Bernoux et Gamin, 1895), 3 vols.; Meynis, _Grands souvenirs de l'église de Lyon_ (Lyon, 1886); Charletz, _Histoire de Lyon_ (Lyon, 1902); Hefele, _History of the Christian Councils_, 12 vols.; H. d'Hennezel, _Lyon_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens); Léon Maitre, "Les premières basiliques de Lyon et leurs cryptes," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1900, p. 445; Henri Foeillon, _Le Musée de Lyon_ (Paris, H. Laurens); L. Barron, _Le Rhone_ (Collection, Fleuves de France), (Paris, H. Laurens). [159] Paul Allard, _Histoire des persécutions_ (Paris, 1892), 5 vols.; _Histoire littéraire de la France_, vol. 1, pp. 290, 324, on St. Irenæus and the churches of Lyons and Vienne (Paris, 1733). [160] The church of St. Nizier also possessed a _manécanterie_ in which Alphonse Daudet, as _Le Petit Chose_, spent some happy years. Another romance based on reality whose scene is Lyons is René Bazin's _l'Isolée_. An ancient crypt under St. Nizier, shaped like a Greek cross, dedicated to St. Pothin since the IV century, has been ruined by restorations; the actual church is Rayonnant and Flamboyant Gothic, with a portal of the Renaissance by a son of Lyons, Philibert Delorme (d. 1570). Jean Perréal was also born here, as was Coysevox, who made the Virgin of St. Nizier (1676). Eminence in religious or idealistic mural painting has been attained by two sons of Lyons, Puvis de Chavannes (1824-98), who decorated the Museum with _Le Bois Sacré_, and Flandrin (1809-64), who frescoed the walls of St. Martin d'Ainay. Meissonier (d. 1891) was born here; so was Ampère, scientist and Christian believer (d. 1836). In the hospital of fifteen thousand free beds which opened its doors in the VI century and has never since closed them, worked a loved physician who was father of Frédéric Ozanam, the founder of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. St. Vincent's heart is treasured in a chapel of the cathedral. Another of the leaders of the Catholic reform, St. Francis de Sales, died in Lyons in 1622. [161] The see of Vienne was founded A.D. 160. The cathedral of St. Maurice, well set on the Rhone, contains vestiges of the church consecrated in 1106 by Paschal II, and which had been aided by that archbishop of Vienne, of the first line of Burgundy's Capetian dukes, who became Pope Calixtus II in 1119. The present edifice is due to Bishop Jean de Bernin (1218-66), and was consecrated by Innocent IV in 1251. Only in 1533 were its façade and the four bays behind it finished. There is no transept. The XV century made the northern entrance, and the XVI century that to the south. The red incrustations form friezes, in the choir, below both triforium and clearstory. A V-century bishop of Vienne was Claudianus Mamertus, who upheld Latin culture against the Barbarians, like his friend and fellow poet, Bishop Apollinaris Sidonius at Clermont. To Vienne's bishop is attributed the noted hymn _Pange lingua gloriosi proclium certamini_, and the institution of the Rogation days of penance and procession before the Ascension, in that hour when earthquakes and volcanic eruptions had terrorized central France. In 1312 Vienne was the scene of a general Council of the Church at which the Templars were suppressed by a pope cowed into obedience by the king of France, who arrived at the Council with an escort of the size of an army. The majority of the bishops present held that to abolish the Order was not a legal act, since the charges against them were unproven. Therefore, Clement V was forced to fall back on the expedient plea of solicitude for the public good. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1879; J. Ch. Roux, _Vienne_ (Paris, Bloud et Cie, 1909); M. Reymond, _Grenoble, Vienne_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, II. Laurens); Lucien Bégule, _L'ancienne cathédrale de Vienne-en-Dauphiné_ (Paris, II. Laurens, 1914); Paul Berret, _Le Dauphiné_ (Collection, Provinces françaises), (Paris, II. Laurens). [162] About thirty miles to the north of Lyons lies Bourg-en-Bresse, in whose suburbs is the church of Brou. The eighteen windows of the school of Lyons were installed when the church was finished in 1536. Marguerite of Austria built it in fulfillment of a vow of her mother-in-law, a Bourbon princess, Marguerite herself being daughter of Mary of Burgundy, a line, like the Bourbous, that gloried in sumptuous mausoleums. She intrusted the work to the Lyons master, Jean Perréal, who called on his aged friend, Michel Colombe, for the imagery of the tombs. Colombe designed Duke Philibert's _gisant_ and the six winged genii, executed later, with liberties, by Conrad Meyt, and his brother (artists trained at Lyons), and some Italians. Disagreements rose, and Perréal was superseded by Loys van Boghem, who erected a bastard Gothic church of the same heavy Flemish type popular then at Toledo and Burgos. The three rich overcharged tombs are in the choir. Marguerite almost became the wife of Charles VIII, late-Gothic builder, and for a short time was married to the only son of Isabelle and Ferdinand, whose tomb is a boast of Avila. When the early death of the Duke of Savoy left her a widow she governed the Netherlands for her nephew, the Emperor Charles V. Her father's tomb at Innsbruck is one of the noted ones of the world, and the heraldic tombs of her mother and her grandfather (Charles le Téméraire of Burgundy) are in Bruges. If the traveler hopes to find flat, suburban Brou as described by Matthew Arnold, "mid the Savoy mountain valleys, far from town or haunt of man," he will be disappointed. Moreover, no reflections fall from ancient glass, owing to the patina or coating added by time to its exterior surface. Poetic license is allowed, and "The Church of Brou" adds to this heavy votive monument the charm it needs: "... So sleep, forever sleep, O marble Pair! Or, if ye wake, let it be then, when fair On the carved western front a flood of light Streams from the setting sun, and colors bright, Prophets, transfigured saints, and martyrs brave, In the vast western windows of the nave; And on the pavement round the Tomb there glints A checkerwork of glowing sapphire tints, And amethyst, and ruby--then unclose Your eyelids on the stone where ye repose, ... And looking down on the warm rosy tints Which checker, at your feet, the illumined flints, Say: 'What is this? We are in bliss--forgiven. Behold the pavement of the courts of Heaven.'" V. Nodet, _L'église de Brou_ (Collection, Petites Monographics), (Paris, H. Laurens); C.J. Dufay, _L'église de Brou et ses tombeaux_ (Lyon, 1879); Paul Vitry, _Michel Colombe et la sculpteur française de son temps_ (Paris, 1901), p. 365; Dupasquier et Didron, _Monographie de Notre Dame de Brou_ (Paris, 1842), in 4º et atlas in fol. [163] In the XV century the dukes of Bourbon filled their capital of Moulins with art treasures, and Souvigny's abbatial, close by, was their necropolis. The present choir of Moulins Cathedral, originally the chapel of their palace, was begun by Agnes of Burgundy, daughter of Jean sans Peur, and finished by her sons, Jean II de Bourbon and Pierre II sire de Beaujeu, who in 1475 wedded the daughter of Louis XI and governed France with his wife during the minority of Charles VIII. Jeanne of France and her husband are portrayed on the folding doors of the splendid triptych (1488-1503), by some unknown French _primitif_ now in the sacristy of Moulins Cathedral, and again in one of the three windows--warm in color and with fine, clear portrait work--in the square east wall of the chevet, glass that belongs to the transition from Gothic to Renaissance as the XV century merged in the XVI. Fifteenth-century windows are comparatively rare, so the twelve possessed by Moulins' chief church are precious. Cardinal Charles de Bourbon, who beautified Lyons Cathedral, also appears in the Bourbon dukes' window with his two brothers. The nave of Moulins Cathedral, in black-and-white Volvic stone, is a modern rendering by Lassus and Millet of the Primary Gothic of the region. Souvigny was a Cluniac priory, in which died the two great Cluny abbots, St. Majolus (d. 994), who brought to France the noted William of Volpiano, the organizer of the Romanesque renaissance of architecture, and St. Odilo (d. 1049). In 1095 Urban II stayed in Souvigny, and so did Paschal II in 1106. The XII-century church was largely reconstructed in the late-Gothic day when the prior Dom Geoffrey Chollet wished to house fittingly the splendid new Bourbon tombs. That of Louis II (comrade in arms of Dugueselin) has been attributed without proof to Jean de Cambrai, who made the Berry tomb at Bourges. M. Guigue has ably assigned to Jacques Morel the tomb of Charles I and Agnes of Burgundy. The Bourbon line, direct in descent from St. Louis, mounted the French throne with Henry IV. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1913, p. 1, Chanoine Joseph Clémat; p. 182, Doshoulières; J. Locquin, _Nevers et Moulins_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, II. Laurens); H. Aucouturier, _Moulins_ (1914); R. de Quirielle, _Guide archéologique dans Moulins_ (1893); Abbé Requin, "Jacques Morel et son neveu Antoine le Moiturier," in _Revue des Soc. des Beaux-Arts des Départements_ (Paris, 1890); L. Courajod, "Jacques Morel, sculpteur bourguignon," in _Gazelle archéol_, 1885, p. 236; A. J. de H. Bushnell, _Storied Windows_ (New York, 1914); L. du Broe de Segange, _Hist. et description de la cathédrale de Moulins_ (Paris, 1885), vol. 2, Inventaire des richesses d'art de la France; L. Desrosiers, _La cathédrale de Moulins, ancienne collégiale_ (Moulins, 1871); H. Faure, _Histoire de Moulins_ (Moulins, 1900), 2 vols.; G. Depeyre, _Les ducs de Bourbon_ (Toulouse, Privat, 1897). [164] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1860, 1863, 1871, 1878, and 1910, p. 267, on the cathedral; p. 280, on Le Mans' two Benedictine churches; Abbé A. Ledru et G. Fleury, _La cathédrale St. Julien du Mans_ (Mamers, Fleury et Dangin, 1900), folio; Gabriel Fleury, _La cathédrale du Mans_ (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens); E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, _Étude historique et archéol. sur la nef de la cathédrale du Mans_ (1889); Abbé A. Ledru, _Histoire des églises du Mans_ (Paris, Plon-Nourrit, 1905-07); R. Triger, _Le Mans à travers les âges_ (Le Mans, 1898); E. Hucher, _Vitraux peints de la cathédrale du Mans_ (Paris, Didron, 1865), folio and supplement claques; A. Echivard, _Les vitraux de la cathédrale du Mans_ (Mamers, 1913): _Bulletin Monumental_, studies on Le Mans, in vol. 7, p. 359; vol. 14, p. 348 (Hueher); vol. 26, on the Geoffrey Plantagenet enamel; also vol. 31, p. 789; vol. 37, p. 704; vol. 39, p. 483 (Dion); vol. 44, p. 373; vol. 45, p. 63 (Esnault); and vol. 72, 1908, p. 155 (Pascal V. Lefèvre-Pontalis); De Wismes, _Le Maine et l'Anjou, historique, archéologique et pittoresque_ (Paris, A. Bry), 2 vols., folio; Guénet, _Le Maine illustré_ (Le Mans, 1902); Abbé R. Charles, _Guide illustré du Mans et dans la Sarthe_ (Le Mans, 1886); Kate Norgate, _England Under the Angevin Kings_ (London, 1887), 2 vols.; Mrs. J. R. Green, _Henry II_ (London, 1888); see also Davis (London, 1905); Robert Latouche, _Histoire du comté du Maine pendant le Xe et XIe siècle_ (Paris, H. Champion, 1910); H. Prentout, _Le Maine_ (Collection, Les régions de la France), (Paris, L. Cerf); _Histoire littéraire de la France_, vol. 11, p. 250, "Hildebert de Lavardin"; p. 177, "Geoffrey, abbé de Vendôme" (Paris, 1759); on Hildebert, see A. Dieudonne (1898) and P. Déservellers. [165] The abbey church of the Trinité has in its transept walls parts of the edifice dedicated in 1040. At the beginning of the XIII century that transept was vaulted in the eight-rib Plantagenet way, the keystones being well carved. The ambulatory and radiating chapels are early-Gothic; the choir is late XIII century; the easternmost bays of the nave are of the XIV, and its westernmost bays of the XV century. The façade is a gem of Flamboyant Gothic. There are also windows of the XIII and XV centuries, and some well-known carved choir stalls. The Merveille of Vendôme, its tower of 1140, prototype for the Primary Gothic ones at Chartres and Rouen, stands free of the church. From the earlier abbatial was saved a famous XII-century window of the St. Denis school, a Byzantinesque Madonna. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1872; Abbé Plat, _Notes pour servir à l'histoire monumental de la Trinité_ (Vendôme, 1907); La Martellière, _Guide dans le Vendômois_ (Vendôme, 1883). [166] W. H. Goodyear, "Architectural Refinements in French Cathedrals," in _Architectural Record_, 1904-05, vols. 16, 17; _ibid._, "Architectural Refinements, a reply to Mr. Bilson," in _Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects_, 3d series, 1907, vol. 15, p. 17; Anthyme Saint-Paul, "Les irrégularités de plan dans les églises," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1906, p. 135. Professor Goodyear's theory of intentional asymmetry in mediæval buildings--such irregularities as curves of alignment, vertical curves, want of parallelism in walls and piers, deflection of axis--has not found favor with various French and English archæologists, but much of what he has noted may some day be accepted as self-evident. [167] In Le Mans are two Benedictine churches of archæological interest. _De Cultura Dei_ is now Notre-Dame-de-la-Couture. When the church was rebuilt after a fire in 1180, big Plantagenet Gothic vaults, each section with eight ribs, were flung over the wide nave, which originally had possessed side aisles. Vestiges of a Carolingian church, built a decade before 1000, are in the crypt and the lower walls of choir and transept, where alternance of stone and brick work appears. The chevet is the oldest example now extant of an ambulatory and radiating chapel. In the XII century the upper choir was rebuilt, and again it was retouched during the XIII and XV centuries. The façade and the well-sculptured portal are late XIII century. A charming XVI-century Virgin, by Germain Pilon, on a pier opposite the pulpit, is to be classed with the prolongation of the Region-of-the-Loire school of sculpture whose center was Tours. Across the Sarthe lies the other Benedictine church, the former St. Julien-du-Pré, a Romanesque edifice of the XI and XII centuries, revaulted in the Flamboyant Gothic day. [168] "O noble peuple d'artisans! Si grands, que les artistes d'aujourd'hui n'existent pas auprès de vous!"--RODIN, _Les cathédrales de France_. [169] De la Tremblay, Dom Coutil, _L'église abbatiale de Solesmes_ (Solesmes, Imprimerie St. Pierre, 1892), folio; Paul Vitry, _Michel Colombe et la sculpture française de son temps_ (Paris, 1901); Dom Guépin, _Description des deux églises abbatiales de Solesmes_, and also his _Solesmes et Dom Guéranger_ (Le Mans, 1876); Dom Guéranger, _l'Année Liturgique_ (Paris, 1888), 12 vols., tr. Worcester, England, _The Liturgical Year_, and also his _Études historiques de l'abbaye de Solesmes_; Cagni et Mocquereau, _Plain chant and Solesmes_ (tr. London, 1902). Among those who have taken part in the discussion as to who made the sculptural groups at Solesmes are L. Palustre, Girardet, Charles and Louis de Grandmaison, Benj. Fillon, Célestin Port, Lambin de Lignin, E. Cartier, A. Salmon, and Abbé Bosseboeuf. [170] The church of St. Elizabeth, in Marburg, is one of the earliest Gothic monuments in Germany, 1235-83. The saint was linked with the new system of building. For the king of Hungary, Villard de Honnecourt built Kassovic church. Her aunt was the gentle Agnes of Méran, married to Philippe-Auguste. Her half sister, Yolande, wedded that other builder of churches, Jaime el Conquistador, from whom sprang Yolande of Aragon, King René's mother, also a builder. St. Elizabeth's niece, daughter of the king of Hungary, married Charles II d'Anjou, who began the best Gothic church in Provence, at St. Maximin. [171] Amédée Boinet, _Verdun et St. Mihiel_ (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens). [172] Amédée Boinet, _St. Quentin_ (Paris, H. Laurens); Ch. Gomart, "Notice sur l'église de St. Quentin," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1856, p. 226; and 1870, p. 201; Pierre Bénard, _Monographie de l'église de St. Quentin_ (Paris, 1867), 8vo; also his studies in the publication of the _Société Académique ... de Soissons_, 1864, p. 260; and 1874, p. 300; Lecocq, _Histoire de la ville de St. Quentin_ (St. Quentin, 1875); J. B. A. Lassus, éd., _L'album de Villard de Honacort_ (Paris, 1858; and London, tr. by Willis, 1859); Jules Quicheral, _Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire_ (1886), vol. 2, on Villard de Honnecourt's album; Camille Enlart, _Hôtels de ville et beffrois du nord de la France_ (Paris, H. Laurens, 1919); _ibid_. on Villard de Honnecourt, in _Bibli. de l'École des chartes_, 1895. [173] Alfred Noyes, _Collected Poems_ (London, Methuen; New York, Fred. A. Stokes Co.). [174] J. Berthelé, "L'architecture plantagenet," in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1903, p. 234; E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, "L'architecture plantagenet," in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1910; Prosper Merimée, _Notes d'un voyage dans l'Ouest de la France_ (1836); Choyer, "L'architecture des Plantagenets," in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1871, p. 257; Célestin Port, _Dictionnaire de Maine-et-Loire_, 3 vols.; Abbé Bosseboeuf, _L'architecture plantagenet_(Angers, Lachène, 1897). [175] Saintes lies on the Charente, some fifty miles from Angoulême. In the venerable XII-century church of St. Eutrope cropped out one of the early sporadic uses of diagonals. Its crypt, which is one of the largest in France, is braced on heavy, semicircular arches. The exterior of the apse is decorated. Nothing is left of the original nave; the present one is transitional work. The choir and part of the transept are of the XV century. The superb tower, with corner-turret effects that rise from base to summit, was finished with a spire by 1480. It is said that John XXII, who promulgated the Angelus by his bull of 1318, had learned its usage from a custom of St. Eutrope. The church of St. Pierre, at Saintes, rebuilt in 1117, and again in 1450, has another Flamboyant Gothic tower of good design, which is now much wasted by decay. See _Congrès Archéologique_, 1894; 1912, pp. 195, 309; also _Bulletin Monumental_, 1907, vol. 71; J. Laferrière et G. Musset, _L'art en Saintonge et en Aunis_; Ch. Dangibeaud, _L'école de sculpture romane saintongeaise_ (Paris, 1910). [176] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1858, 1901, and 1910; Chanoine Roux, _Monographie de St. Front de Périgueux_ (Périgueux, 1920); J. A. Brutails, "La question de St. Front," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1895, p. 125; 1906, p. 87; 1907, p. 517; Anthyme Saint-Paul, on St. Front, in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1888, p. 163; 1891, p. 321; 1906, p. 5; Félix de Verneilh, _L'architecture byzantine en France_, 1851; R. Michel-Dansac, _De l'emploi des coupoles sur la nef dans le sud-ouest Aquitain_; Corroyer, _L'architecture romane_, 1888; _ibid._, _L'architecture gothique_, 1899; Ch. H. Besnard, "Étude sur les coupoles et voûtes domicales du sud-ouest de la France," in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1912, vol. 2, p. 118; Abbé Pécout, _Périgueux_; R. Phené Spiers, "St. Front de Périgueux et les assises à coupoles," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1897; 1907, p. 175. [177] The cathedral of Cahors was damaged by earthquake in 1303, after which its apse was rebuilt as Gothic, but not too much out of harmony with the rest of the church. The ancient frescoes are full of interest. At the north end of the transept is a now unused portal, whose sculpture belongs to the same Midi school as Moissac, but later and calmer work. The Christ of its tympanum is classed with Vézelay, Chartres, and Beaulieu--the supreme Christ images of Romanesque art. M. Forel praises the angels' magnificent gesture of adoration. The XIV-century west front resembles those of the Brunswick churches whose façade and towers comprise one massive up to the roof. John XXII (1316-33), the second Avignon pope, was born in Cahors, where he founded the university, contributed toward the cathedral, and built a bridge over the Lot which is considered the handsomest of the Middle Ages. In the diocese of Cahors is Rocamadour, the most picturesque pilgrim shrine of Our Lady in France, visited by St. Louis. E. Rey, _La cathédrale St. Étienne de Cahors_ (Cahors, J. Girma, 1911); _Congrès Archéologique_, 1907, p. 413; Alexis Forel, _l'Voyage au pays des sculpteurs romans_, vol. 2, p. 52; "Le cloître de la cathédrale de Cahors," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1883, p. 110; E. Rupin, _Roc-amadour_ (Paris, Baranger, 1904). [178] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1847, 1903, and 1912; Biais, _La cathédrale d'Angoulême_ (Paris, H. Laurens); H. de la Mauvinière, _Poitiers et Angoulême_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1908); J. George, _La cathédrale d'Angoulême_ (Angoulême, Cha 1901-04); Michon, _Histoire de l'Angoumois_, 1846; _ibid._, _Statistique monumentale de la Charente_, 1844; Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire de l'architecture_ (see article _coupole_); Sharpe, _A Visit to the Domed Churches of Charente_ (London, 1876); J. A. Brutails and Spiers, "Les coupoles du Périgord et de l'Angoumois," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1895, 1897, 1906, and 1907. [179] Four miles from Angoulême is the curious octagonal church of St. Michel d'Entraignes (1137), built up to its big dome, as it were. Close to it is Fléae, whose three cupolas have no separate bases, but are pierced directly by the big arcades, which is more the Byzantine way of making a cupola than the French. Six miles from Angoulême are the ruins of La Couronne abbatial, where once was a Plantagenet Gothic choir; and ten miles away, at Roullet, is a remarkable sculptured façade. Aulnay's fine church has a decorated front, well-cut capitals, and a ribbed cupola, without distinct pedestal. Pont l'Abbé possesses one of the best Romanesque façades in France. At Ruffec and at Civray are others. There is a church at Charroux with the curious plan of three aisles round a central octagon. Cupola churches are to be found at Plazzac, Bassac, Gensae, Cognac, Souillae, and Solignac, six miles from Limoges. Studies of these churches by E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, L. Serbat, and André Rhein are to be found in the _Congrès Archéologique_, 1912. [181] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1862 and 1910; L. Magne, "L'ancienne abbaye de Fontevrault," in _L'architecte_, 1910, p. 60; A. de Caumont, "Fontevrault," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1867, p. 73; Bernard Palustre, "Les coupoles de Fontevrault," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1898, vol. 63, p. 500; Honorat Nicquet, _Histoire de l'ordre de Fontevraud_, 1642; G. Malifaud, _L'abbaye de Fontevrault, notices historiques et archéologiques_ (Angers, 1866); Abbé Bosseboeuf, _Fontevrault, son histoire et ses monuments_ (Tours, 1867); Édouard, _Fontevrault et ses monuments_ (Paris, 1874), 2 vols.; Joseph Joubert, "Les mausolées des Plantagenets à Fontevrault," in _Mém. de la Soc. d'arts d'Angers_, 1903; and 1906, p. 61, Chanoine Urseau; Vietor Pavie, "Westminster et Fontevrault," in _Mém. de la Soc. d'arts d'Angers_, 1866, p. 229; _Histoire littéraire de la France_ (Paris, 1756), vol. 10, p. 153, "Robert d'Arbrissel." [182] Louis Corroyer, _L'architecture gothique_ (Paris, 1899), p. 1. "La coupole, sous sa forme symbolique, est l'oeuf d'où est sorti un système architectonique qui a causé une révolution des plus fécondes dans le domaine de l'art." [183] "_Dans ces choses-là on eu dit plus qu'il n'y en a, mais aussi il y a souvent plus qu'on eu dit_," says the discreet historian Mézerai. [184] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1910, the cathedral of Angers; p. 161, Chanoine Urseau; p. 182, St. Serge; p. 228, the château; p. 232, l'évêché; Louis de Farcy, _Monographie de la cathédrale d'Angers_ (1910), 3 vols. and album; _ibid._, _Les vitraux de la nef de la cathédrale d'Angers_ (1912); J. Denais, _Monographie de la cathédrale d'Angers_ (Paris, 1899); John Bilson, "Angers Cathedral, the Vaults of the Nave," in _Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects_, 1911-12, p. 727; also in the _Congrès Archéologique_, 1910, vol. 2, p. 203; V. Godard-Faultrier, _Répertoire archéologique de l'Anjou_ (1865); L. Halphen, _Le comté d'Anjou au XIe siècle_ (Paris, Picard, 1906); Léon Palustre, _La Renaissance en France_ (3 vols.), vol. 3, Anjou et Poitou (Paris, Quantin); H. Jouin, _Les musées d'Angers_ (Paris, Plon, 1885), 4to; Péan de la Tuilerie, _Le Maine et l'Anjou_; Wismes, _Le Maine et l'Anjou, historiques, archéol. e pittoresque_ (Paris), 2 vols., folio; E. Lelong, "Histoire et mon. d'Angers," in _Angers et l'Anjou_ (1903); Lecoy de la Marche, _Le roy René, sa vie, son administration_ (Paris, 1875), 2 vols.; Kate Norgate, _England Under the Angevin Kings_ (London, 1887), 2 vols.; De Solies, _Foulques Nerra_; Célestin Port, _Dictionnaire historique, géographique, et biographique de Maine-et-Loire_ (Paris and Angers, 1874-78), 3 vols. also his _Notes et notices angevins_ (Angers, 1879); A. J. de H. Bushnell, _Storied Windows_ (New York, Macmillan Company, 1914); Sir J. H. Ramsay, _The Angevin Empire_, (London, 1903). [185] Ch. H. Besnard, "La coupole nervée de la Tour St. Aubin d'Angers," in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1910, vol. 2, p. 196; L. de Farcy, "Tour St. Aubin," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1906, p. 558. [186] Beginning with a Breton woodsman, five counts of Anjou ruled before Fulk III the Black (989-1040). He held Vendôme, Amboise, and Loches, where he founded Beaulieu Abbey, and he won Chinon, and Saumur, where he established St. Florent-les-Saumur. His grandfather, Fulk II the Good, a canon in St. Martin's at Tours, and a poet, had said, "_Rex illiteratus est asinus coronatus_," which Henry I of England was fond of repeating. The son of Fulk Nerra was Geoffrey Martel (d. 1060), who won Tours and Le Mans, but later lost the overlordship of the latter to William the Conqueror. He founded the Trinité at Vendôme. Geoffrey and Fulk, his two nephews, succeeded in turn, but Geoffrey was kept imprisoned in Chinon for almost thirty years by his unnatural brother Fulk Rechin, or the Quarreler, who had all the greed, subtlety, and turbulance of his line, without its genius for statesmanship. He is counted as the first historian of the Middle Ages. (See _Hist. littér. de la France_ (Paris, 1750), vol. 9, p. 391.) Fulk Rechin's son by the beautiful Bertrada de Montfort (who deserted him for the king of France) was Fulk V, who wedded the heiress of Maine. When later Fulk V won a second heiress in the East, he left Anjou and Maine to his son Geoffrey the Handsome, and reigned as king of Jerusalem (d. 1143). Geoffrey (d. 1151), nicknamed Plantagenet, married to the heiress of Normandy and England, always preferred Le Mans to Angers. His son became Henry II of England and a leader in Europe because of his territorial possessions on the Continent and his ability as a statesman. [187] The abbatial of St. Nicolas-du-Ronceray is in a lamentable state; its nave serves as a hall for the Arts and Crafts school, the transept's north arm is a laundry, and its south arm a roofless ruin. The dome at its crossing is without distinct pedestal. The nuns of this house erected at the side of their own sanctuary, the Trinité church for parish use. The present admirable Trinité was built after a fire in 1062. Its chevet and transept are the oldest parts, and then rose the nave, covered with First-Period Angevin vaults (c. 1170). Chapel-like niches are lost in the thickness of the walls. Angers' abbatial of St. Martin contains Gallo-Roman, Merovingian, and Carolingian vestiges, and parts of the XI, XII, and XV centuries. Fulk Nerra rebuilt it on returning from one of his pilgrimages. Over its transept-crossing is a dome modeled on the one at Fontevrault, without separate pedestal. The church possesses one of the earliest eight-branch Gothic vaults extant; King René added the Flamboyant parts. Chanoine Pinier at his own expense is restoring the choir and transept. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1910, vol. 1, p. 211, "St. Martin," Chanoine Pinier; and vol. 2, p. 12, "St. Nicolas-du-Ronceray," E. Lefèvre-Pontalis. [188] Bishop Ulger carried forward, too, the episcopal palace which stood on V-century walls over the Roman citadel and is connected with the cathedral's transept. Its ancient façade is the finest civic monument in Angers (1101-49). The ground floor was used as a stable; over it rose Bishop Ulger's synodal hall, and under the rafters was made a library in the XV century. Angers is exceptionally rich in late-Gothic and Renaissance mansions. G. d'Espinay, _Angers et l'Anjou_ (Angers, 1903); _ibid._, _Notices archéol., Les monuments d'Angers, Saumur et ses environs_ (Angers, 1875), 2 vols. [189] The first line of Anjou's counts came to an end when John Lackland did away with his nephew, Arthur of Brittany. The region of the Loire became then most willingly a part of Phillipe-Auguste's royal domain. Anjou was given as an appanage to St. Louis' brother Charles d'Anjou, whose first wife brought him Provence, and who by invitation and conquest became king of the Two Sicilies. His son, Charles II, built the church of St. Maximin in Provence. He left only one daughter, who married the Count of Valois, like herself of St. Louis' direct line. The son of that union mounted the French throne as Philip VI. It was his son, Jean le Bon, who again detached Anjou from the French crown for his son Louis, who began the short-lived third line of Angevin princes. [190] That a portion of Angers' palace walls dates from Gallo-Roman times is indicated by the courses of brick in the small stones. When such brick courses alternate with big material, the work was done after 1000. Of the red flint-stone castle built by Fulk Nerra only fragments remain. A fire in 1132 and later disasters wiped out the counts' residence, to which Henry Plantagenet had added. L. de Farcy, "La chapelle du château d'Angers," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1902; Henri René, _Le château d'Angers_ (Angers, 1908); H. Havard, éd., _La France artistique et monumental_, vol. 2, "Angers," H. Jouin. [191] The nave of St. Serge is a mediocre XV-century structure. In its transept walls are vestiges of earlier churches; the cordons of brick in the stonework date from Carolingian times. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1871 and 1910; V. Godard-Faultier, "Le coeur de St. Serge à Angers," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1866, vol. 32; J. Denais, "Histoire et description de l'église St. Serge à Angers," in _L'inventaire des richesses d'art de la France_, vol. 4, p. 20, Province, monuments religieux (Paris, Plon). [192] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1862 and 1910; Prosper Merimée, _Notes d'un voyage dans l'Ouest de la France_ (Paris, 1836), pp. 345-358; G. d'Espinay, _Notices archéologiques. Les monuments d'Angers, Saumur et ses environs_ (Angers, 1875), 2 vols.; Célestin Port, "Les stalles et les tapisseries de St. Pierre de Saumur," in _Revue des Sociétés savantes_, 1868, p. 278; _ibid._, _Dictionnaire historique, géographique, et biographique de Maine-et-Loire_ (Paris and Angers, 1874-78), 3 vols.; V. Godard-Faultrier, _Monuments antiques de l'Anjou, arrondissement de Saumur_ (Angers, 1863); Jules Juiffrey, "Tapisserie du XVe siécle à l'église Notre Dame-de-Nantilly à Saumur," in _Revue de l'art ancien et moderne_, 1897, vol. 4, p. 75; Eugène Müntz, Jules Juiffrey, Alex. Pinchart, _Histoire générale de la tapisserie_ (Paris, 1879-84), 3 vols. [193] From Saumur, eight miles down the Loire, can be visited the magnificent Romanesque church at Cunault, XI and XII centuries. It has noticeable capitals, mural paintings, and Plantagenet vaults with sculptured keystones and figurines. Two miles below it lies Gennes, whose church has Angevin vaults of the First Period. To be reached, _via_ Doué-la-Fontaine, are both Puy-Notre-Dame and Asnières, the latter called "the most beautiful ruin in Anjou." Its square-ended XIII-century choir resembles St. Serge's. Slender pillars divide that wide chevet into three aisles of equal height, composing one of the most graceful specimens of the school's Third Period. One arm of the transept has heavy diagonals of the first phase, and over the other are the eight-branch type. The Huguenots wrecked Asnières in 1569. The present nave is a restitution. A society of artists saved the choir and transept from demolition. The abbatial of Puy-Notre-Dame is very beautiful. Heavy diagonals of the First Period cover the transept's south arm; eight-branch vaults cover the nave and the transept's north limb; over the choir, which resembles St. Jean's chevet at Saumur, is a much-ramified Plantagenet vault. The lofty side aisles and clustered piers make this interior one of the best of XIII-century Angevin works extant. At St. Germain-sur-Vienne (Indre-et-Loire), two miles from Candes, the choir has the complicated multiple-ribbed vault of the Third Period, with three lines of keystones. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1910, p. 128, Cunault and Gennes; p. 65, Puy-Notre-Dame and Asnières; E. de Lorière, "Asnières-sur-Vègre," in _Revue hist. et archéol. du Maine_, 1904, p. 95. [194] At the battle of Jargeau, Jeanne reminded the duke of her promise. D'Alençon himself has related the episode: "_Je lui fis observer que c'était aller bien vite en besogne que d'attaquer si promptement: 'Soyez sans crainte,' me dit-elle, 'l'heure est bonne quand il plaît à Dieu, il faut besoigner quand s'est sa volonté: agissez, Dieu agira! Ah, gentil duc,' me dit-elle quelques instants après, 'aurais-tu peur? Ne sait-tu pas que j'ai promis à ta femme de te ramener sain et sauf?'_" Alas, for the deterioration of character brought about in those troubled years of foreign invasion and misrule; Jeanne's _gentil duc_ was later to plot with the English and to be impeached. At Chinon are specimens of Plantagenet Gothic (_Bulletin Monumental_, 1869). In the Loire-et-Cher department are some fourteen churches of the school. The other Plantagenet monuments usually seen by the traveler before his arrival in Angou are the eight-branch vaults at Vendôme, in the transept of the Trinité; the vault under the northwest tower of Tours Cathedral; and in Le Mans, the cathedral nave and the church of the Couture. At Mouliherne (Seine-et-Loire) every type of the Plantagenet development is present. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1910, vol. 1, p. 130, "St. Florent-les-Saumur," André Rhein; vol. 2, "Les voûtes de l'église de Mouliherne," André Rhein; p. 247, "Les influences angevines sur les églises gothiques du Blésois et du Vendômois," F. Leseur. [195] _Congres Archéologique_, 1910, p. 33, André Rhein, on Candes; Abbé Bourassé, "Notice historique et archéologique sur l'église de Candes," in _Mémoires de la Soc. archéol. de Touraine_, 1845, p. 141; Suppligeon, _Notices sur la ville et la collégiale de Candes_ (Tours, 1885). [196] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1843, 1884, and 1903, "Poitiers," André Rhein; H. L. de la Mauvinière, _Poitiers et Angoulême_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1908); Abbé Auber, _Histoire de la cathédrale de Poitiers_ (Poitiers, 1849), 2 vols.; _ibid._, _Histoire civile, relig. et littéraire du Poitou_ (Poitiers, 1856), 8 vols.; J. Berthelé, _Recherches pour servir à l'histoire des arts en Poitou_; Alfred Richard, _Histoire des comtes du Poitou_, 788-1204 (Paris, Picard et fils, 1903), 2 vols.; Dreux-Duradier, _Histoire littéraire du Poitou_; Alexis Forel, _Voyage au pays des sculpteurs romans_ (Paris and Geneva, 1913), 2 vols.; Raynouard, _Choix des poésies originales des troubadours_ (Paris, Didot, 1816), vol. 5, "Richard Coeur-de-Lion"; R. P. Largent, _St. Hilaire de Poitiers_ (Collection, Les Saints), (Paris, Lecoffre); J. Robuchon, _Paysages et monuments du Poitou_ (Paris, 1890-1903), folio; (on Poitiers, Mgr. Barbier de Montault); Benj. Fillon, _Poitou et Vendée_; A. J. de H. Bushnell, _Storied Windows_ (New York, Macmillan Company, 1914); Boissonnade, _Le Poitou_ (Collection, Les régions de la France), (Paris, Cerf, 1920). [197] The _Vexilla regis prodeunt_ hymn is sung on Good Friday when the Blessed Sacrament is carried from the Repository to the main altar, and as a vesper hymn from the Saturday before Passion Sunday to Maundy Thursday. It has also been incorporated in the Roman Breviary for feasts of the Holy Cross. There have been a host of translations. In his _Medieval Hymns and Sequences_, London, 1813, Dr. J. M. Neale thus rendered the first quatrain: "The royal banners forward go. The cross shines forth with mystic glow, Where He in flesh, our flesh Who made, Our sentence bore, our ransom paid." [198] Montierneuf was founded in 1078 by Guillaume VIII (d. 1086). Only eight of the nave's eleven bays remain. The chevet was rebuilt in the XIV century. The abbey was sacked in 1562. St. Porchaire's tower is all that remains of an XI-century church, a contemporary of Notre Dame-la-Grande and Montierneuf. It was to be destroyed in 1843, but luckily some visiting archæologists saved it. From St. Porchaire's belfry rang the summonses of Poitiers University. De Cherge, "Mémoire historique sur l'abbaye de Montierneuf de Poitiers," in _Mém. de la Soc. des antiquaires de l'Ouest_, 1844; _Deux étudiants de l'Université de Poitiers, Francis Bacon et René Descartes_, 1867, p. 65. [199] St. Savin lies thirty miles from Poitiers. Its choir and transept belong to the early part of the XII century, and its nave was erected about thirty years after. Its donjonlike tower was crowned later by a spire, the highest in southwest France with St. Michel's at Bordeaux. Like Etruscan vase ornamentation are its unique frescoes giving Genesis, Exodus, and the Apocalypse. On the route from Poitiers to St. Savin lies Chauvigny, "the pearl of Poitou," with the ruins of several castles. Its church of St. Pierre has a decorated apse and some eight-branch Plantagenet vaults; its church of Notre Dame possesses some XV-century frescoes. Another of the chief Poitou-Romanesque churches is at St. Maixent, thirty miles from Poitiers, _via_ Niort. The nave is XII century, the choir, Angevin Gothic, and the tower, Flamboyant; its crypt capitals are noticeable. The abbey church at St. Jouin-de-Marnes, near Montcontour, has a good façade, a fine Romanesque tower, a transept of the end of the XI century, and a XII-century choir and nave, only three of whose vault sections, however, are the primitive ones. In the XIII century the present elaborate masonry roof was substituted. It belongs to the Third Period of the Plantagenet school, with three lines of keystones. Airvault abbey church, not far away, built a similar much-ramified vault, the prototype for that of Toussaint, at Angers. Parthenay can be included in the trip from Poitiers to St. Jouin-de-Marnes. In its venerable church took place the scene when St. Bernard rose in majesty at the altar and compelled the giant sinner Guillaume X of Aquitaine to repent. Three miles from Poitiers lies St. Benoit's Romanesque church, with a XIII-century spire, and five miles away is Ligugé, where St. Martin, under St. Hilary's guidance, founded the first monastery in Gaul. Dom Prosper Guéranger restored Ligugé in 1864, and here J. K. Huysmans lived, as he has described in _l'Oblat_. The XV-century church was rebuilt by that prelate of the Renaissance, Geoffrey d'Estissac, whom Rabelais came to visit. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1910, St. Savin; p. 119, Airvault; p. 108, St. Jouin-de-Marnes, and the latter also in the _Congrès_ of 1903; Prosper Merimée, _Les peintures de St. Savin_ (Paris, 1845), folio; Ch. Tranchant, _Guide pour la visite des monuments de Chauvigny en Poitou_ (Paris, 1901). [200] Probably because of the magistral window at Poitiers, the Byzantine tradition of the crucified Christ lingered long in the art of midland France. Over an altar of the chapel of Bourgonnière, in the parish of Bouzillé, in Angers diocese, is a remarkable XVI-century polychrome image of the Saviour, unwounded, robed, and awake, with arms wide outstretched against the Cross. [201] In 1106 gathered another council at Poitiers, a holy-war rally, but the war was to be waged on Christian Constantinople. The superb Bohemund, the new prince of Antioch, came to organize the expedition; he had gone on the First Crusade for booty, fierce as a Norman, astute as an Italian, in person like a Greek god, tall beyond man's normal height, broad-shouldered, and lithe--so the Greek princess at Constantinople saw him. Philip I gave him his daughter, and on Tancred, his cousin, a true hero of the holy wars, not a buccaneer, the king of France bestowed his daughter by the fair Bertrada de Montfort. [202] E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, _Étude archéologique de St. Hilaire de Poitiers_ (Caen, 1904); also in the _Congrès Archéologique_ of 1903; De Longuemar, "Essai historique sur l'église Saint Hilaire-le-grand de Poitiers," in _Mémoires des antiquaires de l'Ouest_, 1856. [203] De la Croix, _Étude du baptistère de St. Jean de Poitiers_ (Poitiers, 1903); E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, "Les fouilles du R. P. de la Croix au baptistère de St. Jean à Poitiers," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1902, vol. 66, p. 529; Mgr. X. Barbier de Montault, _OEuvres complètes_ (various studies on the monuments of Poitiers and its region), (Poitiers, Blais et Roy, 1899). [204] Like other Greek works of the period the Minerva at Poitiers shows the influence of Egyptian art in its stiff, regal attitude. The proud, full chin is uplifted. The shapely back is molded by a leopard's skin. The right arm is missing, but the left arm is honey-hued and as delicate as flesh in appearance. She bears the olive branch of peace, this wise Minerva. [205] Lucien Magne, _Le Palais de Justice de Poitiers_. [206] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1850 and 1895; Abbé Ph. Gobillot, _La cathédrale de Clermont_ (Clermont-Ferrand, F. L. Bellet, 1912); H. du Ranquet, _La cathédrale de Clermont-Ferrand_ (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens); _ibid._, "Les architectes de la cathédrale de Clermont-Ferrand," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1912, vol. 76, p. 7; G. Desdevises du Dézert et L. Bréhier, _Clermont-Ferrand, Royat et le Puy-de-Dôme_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1910); Louis Bréhier, _L'Auvergne_ (Collection, Les provinces françaises), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1910); _ibid._, in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1912, on the capitals of Notre Dame-du-Port; G. Fraipont, _L'Auvergne_ (Collection, Montagnes de France), (Paris, H. Laurens); E. Vimont, _Les deux principales églises de Clermont_; R. de Lasteyrie, _L'architecture religieuse en France à l'époque romane_ (Paris, 1912); H. Stein, _Les architectes des cathédrales gothiques_ (Paris, 1912); Prosper Mérimée, _Notes d'un voyage en Auvergne_ (Paris, 1838); Alexis Forel, _Voyage au pays des sculpteurs romans_ (Paris and Geneva, 1913), 2 vols.; Saveron, _Les origines de la ville de Clermont_; Ambrose Tardieu, _Histoire de la ville de Clermont_; G. Desdevises du Dézert, _Bibliographie du centenaire des croisades à Clermont-Ferrand_ (Clermont-Ferrand, 1895); D. Branche, _Auvergne au moyen âge_ (Clermont-Ferrand, 1842); Paul Allard, _St. Sidoine Apolinaire_ (Collection, Les Saints), (Paris, Lecoffre); Taylor et Nodier, _Voyage pittoresque dans l'ancienne France_. _Auvergne_ (Paris, Didot, 1829-33), 3 vols. [207] "Il est peu de constructions ogivales qui se présentent d'un façon plus dégagée et plus pittoresque. La sombre masse se détache de la ville aux rues tortueuses comme une haute statue de son piédestal. Les deux flèches hardies s'encadrent dans la cirque majestueux de montagnes volcaniques. Il semble que la cathédrale soit le Mont-Saint-Michel de cette baie aux lumières mouvantes. Tantôt silhouettée par de vigoureux éclairages, tantôt estompée par les vapeurs qui planent dans la vallée, et quelquefois, aux heures matinales émergeant de leur nappe grise, comme une haute mâture au-dessus de la mer tranquille, elle reste toujours fière, imposante, poétique."--LOUIS GONSE, _L'art gothique_ (Paris, 1891). [208] The Chaise Dieu monastery, founded by St. Robert in 1043, was later affiliated with Cluny. The present church was begun in 1344 by Clement VI, who built the choir and four bays of the nave. The abbatial was completed, after 1370, by his nephew, Gregory XI. Clement had Avignon artists prepare his funeral monument, which originally possessed over forty statuettes representing his relatives, for he came of the great lines of Beaufort and Turenne. The Casa Dei abbatial, though possessed of grandeur, is dull and heavy. The aisles are as high as the principal span. The octagonal piers with uncut capitals lack elegance and lightness, the windows are the narrowest lancets, and there are no flying buttresses. Molds die away in the piers above the capitals--an early appearance of Flamboyant Gothic. The cloister (1378-1417) is frankly late-Gothic. The denuded church once was filled with the tombs of local magnates, among them those of the Lafayette family, precious pages of French history obliterated in 1562 and 1793. As if to shut out the funereal, humid aisles, the choir has been lined with tapestries (begun in 1492) unsurpassed in France. They reproduce the _Mirror of Perfection_ and the _Bible of the Poor_, two books popular in the XIII and XIV centuries. Each episode of the Saviour's life is accompanied by scenes of the Old Testament, prefiguring it. On the outer wall of the choir screen is a sketch, a Dance of Death, with the grim skeleton stalking in and out, touching with his chill finger pope, baron, burgher, page, field laborer, and little child. No XIII-century church had allowed so gruesome a theme on its walls. This lugubrious allegory came into vogue after the Black Death of 1348, when a third of Europe's population perished. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1904, pp. 54, 402; E. Durand, _La Chaise Dieu_ (1903); Maurice Fançon, _L'église abbatiale de la Chaise Dieu en Auvergne_; Émile Mâle, _L'art religieux de la fin du moyen âge_ (Paris, Colin, 1910). [209] "Quiconque en a senti une fois la beauté forte et simple de ce vigoureux style roman-auvergnat, dont l'origine demeure mystérieuse, n'oublie plus ces églises, solides, trapues, ramassées, dont l'ordonnance extérieure, au lieu d'être un décor plaqué, reproduit en relief l'ordonnance intérieure. Vue du chevet surtout, avec l'hémicycle de leurs chapelles serrées, accolées contre la masse de l'édifice, elles donnent une saisissante impression d'aplomb et d'unité."--PAUL BOURGET, _Le demon du midi_ (Paris, Plon-Nourrit et Cie, 1913). The feast of Notre Dame-du-Port falls on May 15th, and the city is illuminated with myriads of little lamps. [210] Polychrome decoration is to be found everywhere in Auvergne: Royat, Riom, Mozac, Saint-Saturnin, Orcival, Saint-Nectaire (where are some of the best carved capitals in the region), Issoire (observe _La cène_ sculptured on one of its capitals), Le Puy, and Brioude. This latter is one of the most beautiful of XII-century churches, showing Burgundian traits as well as those of Auvergne and the Velay. The influence of the Romanesque school of Auvergne spread to Parthenay, Saintes, Nevers, Toulouse, Santiago, and Avila. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1904, p. 542, E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, on Brioude; _Congrès Archéologique_, 1895, pp. 96, 238, 292, on Saint-Nectaire; and p. 177, "École romane d'Auvergne," H. du Ranquet; _Bulletin Monumental_, 1909, vol. 73, p. 213, "Saint-Nectaire," Abbé G. Rochias. [211] Those who visit Riom (which lies close to Clermont) should go to Aigueperse, eight miles away, to see Mantegna's St. Sebastian and a Nativity by a brother of Ghirlandajo. As the lord of the region, a Bourbon-Montpensier--who died in 1496, had married the sister of the Gonzaga ruler of Mantua, these treasures probably came through that source. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1895; and 1913, p. 124, Mozac, Abbé Luzuy; p. 144, Riom, P. Gauchery; Paul Mantz, "Une tournée en Auvergne," in _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_, 1886; Abbé R. Crégut, _La vierge du Mathuret_ (_Clermont-Ferrand_, 1902); _ibid._, _Les vitraux de la Sainte-Chapelle de Riom_ (1906); E. Clouard, _Les gens d'autrefois aux XVe et XVIe siècles_. (The controversy on the Madonna of the Bird is here summed up); Gondalon, _Riom et ses environs_ (Riom, Jouvet, 1904); A. de Champeaux et P. Gauchery, _Les travaux d'art exécutés pour Jean, duc de Berry_ (Paris, II. Champion, 1891); Camille Eulart, _Le musée de sculpture comparée du palais du Trocadéro_ (on the _vierge à l'oiseau_), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1913). [212] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1904, pp. 1, 403; Noël Thiollier et Félix Thiollier, _L'architecture romane du diocèse du Puy_ (Le Puy, 1900); Félix Thiollier, _Le Forez pittoresque et monumental_; Mallay et Noël Thiollier, _Monographie de la cathédrale du Puy_ (Le Puy, 1904); Prosper Merimée, _Notes d'un voyage en Auvergne_ (Paris, 1838), p. 242; Alexis Forel, _Voyage au pays des sculpteurs romans_ (Paris and Geneva, 1913), 2 vols.; Paul Mantz, "Une tournée en Auvergne," in _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_, 1887, vols. 35, 36; Louis Villat, _Le Velay_ (Collection, Les régions de la France), (Paris, L. Cerf); Mandet, _Histoire de Velay_ (Le Puy, 1860), 6 vols.; De la Mure, _Histoire des ducs de Bourbon et des comtes de Forez_; Michel, _Auvergne et le Velay_ (Moulins), 3 vols. and atlas; _Histoire littéraire de la France_, vol. 8, p. 467, "Adhémar de Monteil"; p. 514, "Urbain II" (Paris, 1747). [213] Marcel Reymound et Ch. Girard, "La chapelle de St. Laurent à Grenoble," in _Bulletin Archéologique_, 1914-16, vol. 56, p. 176. [214] Emile Mâle, "L'art du moyen âge et les pèlerinages" in _Revue de Paris_, Oct. 1919, Feb. 1920. [215] René Fage, _La cathédrale de Limoges_ (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1913); Abbé Arbellot, _Monographie de la cathédrale de Limoges_ (Limoges, 1853); A. Petit, "Les six statues du jubé de la cathédrale de Limoges," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1912, vol. 62, p. 144. MM. Émile Mâle, André Michel, and Louis Gonse have written on the _jubé_; René Fage, "Le clocher limousin à l'époque romane," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1907, vol. 71, p. 262; Anthyme Saint-Paul, "Archéologie limousin," in _L'Almanac limousin_, 1885; Charles de Lasteyrie, _L'abbaye de St. Martial de Limoges_ (Paris, Picard, 1901); A. Leroux, _L'abbaye de St. Martial de Limoges_ (Toulouse, 1901); _ibid._, _Géographie et histoire du Limousin_ (Limoges, 1892); Ernest Rupin, _L'oeuvre de Limoges_ (Paris, 1890); A. Meyer, _L'art de l'émail de Limoges_ (Paris, 1896); P. Lavedan, _Léonard Limosin et les émailleurs français_ (Collection, Les Grands Artistes), (Paris, H. Laurens). (The meeting for the _Congrès Archéologique_, 1921, is to be held at Limoges.) [216] Rendered in modern French by J. Demogeot. [217] _Inferno_, xxviii:112-142. [218] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1861; Charles Saunier, _Bordeaux_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens); J. A. Brutails, _Les vieilles églises de la Gironde_ (Bordeaux, Feret et fils, 1912); _ibid._, "La cathédrale de Bordeaux," in _Le moyen âge_, 1899-1901, vols. 12-14; H. Havard, éd., _La France artistique et monumentale_ "Bordeaux," L. de Foucaud, vol. 5, p. 105; Cirot de la Ville, _Origines chrétiennes de Bordeaux, ou hist. et descript. de l'église de St. Seurin_ (Bordeaux, 1867); P. J. O'Reilly, _Histoire de Bordeaux_ (Paris and Bordeaux, 1857), 6 vols.; C. Jullian, _Histoire de Bordeaux_ (Bordeaux, 1895); L. Barron, _La Gascogne_ (Collection, Régions de la France), (Paris, L. Cerf); _ibid._, _La Garonne_ (Collection, Fleuves de France), (Paris, H. Laurens); P. Courteault, _Histoire de Gascogne_ (Collection, Les vieilles provinces de France), (Paris, Boivin et Cie). [219] In the nave of the cathedral is the neo-classic tomb of Cardinal de Cheverus, who died, archbishop of Bordeaux, in 1836. Driven out of France at the time of the Revolution, he founded the see of Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States of America. [220] The beautiful cloister of St. Bertrand-de-Comminges belongs to the XII century. In 1536 the Renaissance art prelate, Jean de Mauléon, presented the carved choir stalls. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1874, p. 249, J. de Laurière; and 1906, p. 79, Louis Serbat; Morel, _Essai hist. sur St. Bertrand-de-Comminges_; d'Agos, _Description de l'église cathédrale de Comminges_. [221] The cathedral of Bayonne was begun about 1135 under Aliénor of Aquitaine's father. The choir is of that century; the nave was finished about 1335, and some of its sculptures, showing the national crest with the arms of both England and France, recall the short sovereignty in France of Henry V and Henry VI. The cloister of Bayonne ranks with those of Elne and Arles. A transept is indicated merely by the spacing of bays. The XII-century tower was rebuilt from 1501 to 1544. The interior of the cathedral is more firm than it is graceful, owing to the piers being six feet square and to an excessive sobriety in ornamentation. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1888. [222] Léon Gautier, éd., _Chanson de Roland_ (Tours, Mâme, 1895), section 297, l. 3684. [223] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1874 and 1906; H. Graillot, _Toulouse et Carcassonne_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens); Jules de Lahondès, _Toulouse chrétienne; l'église de St. Étienne, cathédrale de Toulouse_; _ibid._, "Les chapiteaux de St. Sernin de Toulouse," in _Mém. de la Soc. archéol. du Midi de la France_, 1897; Anthyme Saint-Paul, "St. Sernin," in _Album des monuments du Midi de la France_, 1897; in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1899; and in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1905, vol. 48, p. 145; Abbé Lestrade, _Histoire de l'art à Toulouse_ (Toulouse, 1907); H. L. Gillet, _Histoire artistique des ordres mendiants_ (Paris, 1912); A. Marignan, _Histoire de la sculpture en Languedoc des XIe et XIIIe siècles_ (Paris, Bouillon, 1902); Alexis Forel, _Voyage au pays des sculpteurs romans_ (Paris and Geneva, 1913), 2 vols.; Roschach, _Le musée de Toulouse_, "Inventoire des richesses d'art de la France: ministère de l'instruction publique" (vol. 8), (Paris, 1908), 4to; Martin, _L'art roman en France_ (Paris, 1910); H. Revoil, _L'architecture romane du Midi de la France_ (Paris, 1873-90), 3 vols.; R. de Lasteyrie, _L'architecture religieuse en France à l'époque romane_ (Paris, 1912); Vie et Vaissette, supplemented by Du Mège, Molinier, and Roschach, _Nouvelle histoire de Languedoc_ (Toulouse, Privat, 1872-92), 15 vols. [224] Frédéric Mistral, _Poèmes_ (Paris, Charpentier-Fasquelle, 1912). [225] "Wisdom hath built herself a house, she hath hewn her out seven pillars."--Prov. ix:1. [226] From the Chapelle de Rieux at the Cordeliers came some curious statues which are now in the Museum of Toulouse. Their date is certain, 1324 to 1348, yet their realism is of the XV century. Again Languedoc proved precocious in sculpture. In the Museum is a XIV-century statue of Bishop Guillaume Durandus, author of _Rationale_. [227] When Moissac was affiliated with Cluny and reformed, its church was rebuilt by Abbot Durand, whose image adorns a pier of the cloister's east gallery. The walls of the nave belong to the edifice consecrated in 1063. That church of three aisles was remade with cupolas and blessed in 1180, and of the same date are the fortified narthex and its tower. Owing to those defenses the celebrated portal is in the south wall of the porch, not in the church axis. The Gothic ribs beneath the tower are rectangular and three feet wide. In the XIV century the cupolas were replaced by diagonals. The cloisters were begun about 1100 under Abbot Ansquitil, who made the pier images, also the marble parts of the portal, its trumeau, and the Visitation. Abbot Roger (1115-31) finished the cloisters, inscribing the carved Scripture scenes of the capitals. During the first quarter of the XII century Moissac's imagery passed from the squat, coarsely executed figures of the cloister piers to the appealing, etherealized types--"_fluides créations du Languedoc_"--the Annunciation group. Mr. A. Kingsley Porter thinks that door-jamb-figure sculpture was first used by Guglielmo at Modena Cathedral (c. 1100), and from Italy passed into southern France. The current of art flowed in the opposite direction, too, for the coupled colonnettes, typical of the Romanesque cloisters of Provence, Languedoc, and Spain, soon found their way across the Alps, where early examples are to be seen at Verona and Aosta, and at the cathedral door of Verona are Languedoc's elongated figures with crossed feet. The _Portico de la gloria_ at Santiago sets forth the vision of John the Beloved at Patmos quite as Moissac's tympanum presents it. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1901, vol. 2, pp. 43, 303; E. Rupin, _Abbaye et les cloîtres de Moissac_ (Paris, Picard, 1897); André Michel, "Sculpture romane de Moissac," in _Bull. de la Soc. Archéol. du Midi de la France_, 1899 to 1901; Roger Peyre, _Padoue et Vérone_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens). [228] The master of French iconography, M. Émile Mâle, is on the eve of publishing a work on XII-century imagery, of which he says, "The art of Languedoc undulates like a flame in the wind, that of Provence seems cast in bronze." [229] _Paradiso_, xii:70-73. "Dominico fu detto; ed io ne parlo sì come dell'agricola, che Cristo elesse all'orto suo per aiutarlo. Ben parve messo e famigliar di Cristo." ("Dominic was he named; and I speak of him as of the husbandman whom Christ chose for his orchard to bring aid to it. Well did he show himself a messenger and a familiar of Christ.") [230] Douais, _L'Inquisition, ses origines, sa procédure_ (Paris, 1906); A. Molinier, _L'Inquisition dans le Midi de la France au XIIIe et au XIVe siècles_ (Paris, 1880); Vacandard, _L'Inquisition; étude historique et critique sur le pouvoir coercitif de l'église_ (Paris, 1907), (tr. London and New York, Longmans, Green & Co., 1908); Jean Guiraud, _Histoire patiale, histoire vraie_ (Paris, 1911); _ibid._, _Questions d'histoire et d'archéologie chrétienne_ (Paris, 1906); _ibid._, _St. Dominique_ (Collection, Les Saints), (Paris, Lecoffre, 1909), (tr. London, Washburne, 1913); C. M. Antony, _In St. Dominic's Country_ (London, Longmans, Green & Co., 1912); Mortier, _Histoire des maîtres généraux de l'Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs_ (Paris, 1903), 5 vols. [231] Jean Guiraud, _Cartulaire de Notre Dame-de-Prouille_ (Paris, Picard, 1907), 2 vols. Vol. 1 is the ablest exposition of the Albigensian tenets; A. Molinier, "L'Albigeisme languedocien au XIIe et XIIIe siècles," in _Histoire de Languedoc_, vol. 1 (Toulouse, Privat, 1872-92), 15 vols.; C. Douais, _Les Albigeois; action de l'église au XIIIe siècle_ (Paris, 1889); A. Luchaire, _Innocent III; la croisade des Albigeois_ (Paris, Hachette, 1905). [232] "Les vainqueurs mettent à sac toutes les maisons au nombre de 7000.... Si trouvèrent en la ville grant avoir; si en prisent donquel qu'ils veurent et le remanant ils ardirent. Là eut grant persécution d'hommes, de femmes et d'enfans, dont ce fut pitié."--FROISSART, book I, chap. lxxvi. [233] Paul Fournier, _St. Raymond de Pennafort_ (Collection, Les Saints), (Paris, Lecoffre). St. Raymond's life, from 1175 to 1275, covers one of the most vital centuries in history. He helped St. Peter Nolasco found the Order of Mercy to redeem Christian captives from Islam; he founded chairs for the study of Oriental languages; he reformed morals by his preaching. A voluntary teacher of philosophy at twenty, then a trained lawyer, it was not till he was touching the half-century limit that he entered the Dominican Order, of which he became the head. For fifty more years he gave himself up to works for humanity's advancement. [234] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1863; Jean Laran, _La cathédrale d'Albi_ (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1911); H. Crozes, _Monographie de la cathédrale de Ste. Cécile d'Albi_, 1873; E. d'Auriac, _Histoire de l'ancienne cathédrale et des évêques d'Albi_ (Paris, 1858); Abbé A. Aurial, "La voûte de Ste-Cécile d'Albi," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1913, p. 91; Prosper Merimée, _Notes d'un voyage dans le Midi de la France_ (1835); B. L. de Rivières, "Les églises d'Albi," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1873, vol. 39, p. 194; Taylor et Nodier, _Voyages pittoresques dans l'ancienne France_. _Languedoc_ (Paris, Didot, 1833-37), 2 vols. [235] In the Romanesque brick church of St. Salvi, with its imposing tower and XII-century cloister, St. Bernard preached in 1145. [236] The cathedral of Auch, which can be visited from Toulouse, was rebuilt (1371) by a nephew of Innocent VI, and again, after a fire in 1483. It is quite devoid of capitals. The façade is neo-classic. The choir stalls (1520-29) are masterpieces; Italianate fawns and Bacchantes are placed beside sacred personages. The magnificent windows, of the transition between Flamboyant Gothic and Renaissance, were the work of Arnaud de Moles (1507-13); their portrait studies are like Holbein's pictures. Abbé Canéto, Notice _sur l'église metro. de Ste. Marie d'Auch_ and _Congrès Archéologique_, 1901. The cathedral of Rodez, some fifty miles west from Albi, built its grand Flamboyant tower, _la couronne_, from 1510 to 1526, under the Blessed François d'Estaing. The Romanesque cathedral at Rodez was supplanted by the present one in 1277. The works flagged, however, and the nave was built as late-Gothic by Bishop Guillaume de la Tour d'Oliergues and a nephew who succeeded him. The west façade was left bare, since there the church overlooked the ramparts; to it were added later a rose window and a Flamboyant gallery. G. de Cogny, in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1874, vol. 39; Bion de Marlavagne, _Cathédrale de Rodez_ (Paris, 1875). [237] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1868; and 1906, J. de Lahondès; Viollet-le-Duc, _La cité de Carcassonne_ (Paris, 1858); H. Graillot, _Toulouse et Carcassonne_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens); L. Fédié, _Histoire de Carcassonne_ (Carcassonne, 1887); C. Douais, _Soumission de la vicomté de Carcassonne par Simon de Montfort_; Cros-Meyrevieille, _Histoire des comtes de Carcassonne_ (1845), 2 vols.; Gaston Jourdanne, _La cité de Carcassonne_ (1905). [238] Louis Serbat, in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1868 and 1906; L. Narbonne, _La cathédrale de Narbonne_, 1901; Victor Mortet, "Notes historiques et archéologiques sur la cathédrale de Narbonne," in _Annales du Midi_, vol. 10, p. 401; vol. 11, pp. 273 and 439--also printed separately (Toulouse, Privat, and Paris, Picard, 1899); F. Pradel, _Mono, graphie de l'église St. Juste de Narbonne_ (Narbonne, Caillard, 1884); Ch. Lentheric, _Les villes mortes du Golfe de Lyon: Narbonne, Maguelonne, Aigues-Mortes, Arles, Les Saintes-Mariés_ (Paris, Plon, 1883); "École gothique religieuse du Midi de la France," in _Positions des thèses soutenues par les élèves de l'École des chartes en 1909; Histoire littéraire de la France_, vol. 32, p. 474, on Gilles Aycelin, archbishop of Narbonne and Rouen, Léopold Delisle. [239] For the other churches at Narbonne, see the _Congrès Archéologique_, 1906. M. Lefèvre-Pontalis devotes a study to St. Paul Serge (p. 345), whose choir was built from 1229 to 1244. In the transept are vestiges of the primitive church. Two bays of the nave are of the XIV century, and the others are XII-century work redone in the XIII. To bind together the bulging walls, flat arches were thrown over the central vessel at the level of the pier arches. The church presents such peculiarities in the Midi as circulation passages at different levels round the edifice. There are false tribune arches, and over the pier arcade a passageway is maneuvered. Sergius Paulus was the first to preach Christianity in the city. In Narbonne's valuable Museum are classic vestiges of the city's great day under the Roman Empire. Many of the classic marble columns are to-day in the mosque at Cordova. Ch. E. Schmidt, _Cordoue, Grenade_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens). [240] The Cistercian abbey of Fontfroide lies in a wild gorge some six miles from Narbonne. The church, begun in the middle of the XII century, was roofed with a pointed cradle vault. The cloister, like that at Tarragona, was covered with _bombé_ vaults on eight ribs. Little marble columns support the Gothic masonry roof of the chapter house, which, like Poblet's, opens by arcades on the cloister. Twelve monks from Fontfroide founded Poblet in 1150. The countess who ruled Narbonne for sixty years confirmed the abbey charter in 1157: " I, Ermengarde, give to God and the Blessed Mary, to Abbot Vital and the present and future servants of God, the lands of Fontfroide," runs her deed of gift. Doubly is a nation robbed when monastic lands are held by private individuals who assume no responsibility toward the public, as did a majority of the ancient houses, before royalty named its favorites as their abbots. Even as vast tracts were granted to nobles that they might perform gratis the military defense of a land, so monasteries were expected to give payment for their domains, by voluntary services to civilization. J. de Lahondès, in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1906, p. 61; Calvert, _Études historiques sur Fontfroide_ (1875); G. Desdevises du Dézert, _Barcelone et les grands sanctuaires d'art catalan_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens). [241] Perpignan's aisleless cathedral of St. Jean was begun in 1324 and finished, as the century ended, under the kings of Majorca, who then ruled the Roussillon. The transept ends are apsidal below and pentagonal above. Beside it stands an older St. Jean, dedicated in 1025. The see originally was at Elne, where the cathedral was rebuilt in the XI century; lotus leaves are carved on the capitals of its lovely marble cloister (c. 1175). _Congrès Archéologique_, 1868; and 1906, p. 109, Perpignan; p. 135, Elne; E. de Barthélemy, " Le cloître de la ville d'Elne," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1857, vol. 23; Bernard Palustre," Perpignan et ses monuments," in _Revue d'hist. et d'archéol du Roussillon_, 1905; Auguste Brutails, " Notes sur l'art religieux du Roussillon," in _Bulletin archéol. du comité des traveaux hist. et scientifique_, 1892, No. 4; 1893, No. 3; P. Vidal, _Histoire de la ville de Perpignan_ (Paris, 1897); P. Vidal et J. Calmette, _Le Roussillon_ (Collection, Les régions de la France), (Paris, L. Cerf, 1909); J. de Gazanyola, _Histoire de Roussillon_ (Perpignan, Alzinc, 1857); Isabel Savory, _Romantic Roussillon_ (London, Unwin, 1919). [242] Eugène Müntz, _Les constructions du pope Urbain V à Montpellier, 1364-70_ (Paris, 1900); Jean Guiraud, _Les fondations du pape Urbain V à Montpellier_ (Montpellier, 1899), 3 vols.; G. E. Lefenestre, _Le musée de Montpellier_ (vol. 1, p. 189, "Inventaire des richesses d'art de la France: ministère de l'instruction publique"), (Paris, 1878); Émile Bonnet, _Antiquités et monuments du département de l'Hérault_ (Montpellier, 1908); Abbé M. Chaillon, _Le bienheureux Urbain V, 1310-70_ (Collection, Les Saints), (Paris, Lecoffre, 1911); A Germain, _Maguelonne, étude historique et archéologique_; A Fabrége, _Histoire de Maguelonne_ (Montpellier, 1900), 2 vols. [243] Jean Aicard, _Arlette des Mayons_ (Paris, Flammarion, 1916). [244] To the northwest of Montpellier, near Aniane, is St. Guilhem-le-Désert, with blind niches in its exterior apse wall that derive from such Lombard churches as S. Ambrogio at Milan. Lombard towers, arched corbel tables, and mural arcaded bands passed from northern Italy into Languedoc. The early intersecting ribs here were exceptional for the Midi in being profiled. The nave and aisles are of the first half of the XI century, the chevet and transept of the early XII, as is the cloister, which once had a second story. The narthex was built from 1165 to 1199. The first duke of Aquitaine, Aliénor's ancestor, died here, a monk. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1906, p. 384; "L'église abbatiale de St. Guilhem-le-Désert," Émile Bonnet; Joseph Bédier, _Les légendes épiques_, vol. 1, "St. Guillaume de Gellone" (Paris, H. Champion, 1908-13), 4 vols. [245] Innocent III was the best type of the theory, enunciated by Boniface VIII as the XIII century closed, that civil rulers derive their power from religious authority. Leo XIII, in the encyclical _Immortale Dei_, November, 1885, set aside that claim. Each should keep to its own sphere, he said, one is not subordinate to the other; civil authorities are to attend to human affairs, and spiritual authorities to divine things. With every monarch in Europe appealing to him for his arbitration, it is little wonder that Innocent III should have held the views he did. [246] Mende lies in the mountains of western Languedoc. Its cathedral was begun (1365) under the auspices of Urban V, whose statue stands in the square close by. Practically it is a XV-century church, without capitals, flying buttresses, or transept. During twelve years the architect was Pierre Juglar, an associate, at Riom, of those Flamboyant Gothic masters, the Dammartin brothers. The cathedral was finished with its two towers in 1512. From 1286 to 1296 the bishop of Mende was Guillaume Durandus, author of _Rationale_, the famous book on church symbolism. He was governor under the popes of the marches of Ancona and the Romagna, and led the papal forces in battle. The Italian city of Castel Duranti was named after him. When he died at Rome in 1296, Giovanni Cosmati made his tomb, a masterpiece in the only Gothic church of Rome, Santa-Maria-sopra-Minerva. Urban V was generous also to St. Flour (which lies south of Mende), whose abbatial was rebuilt in the XIV century; John XXII had raised it to cathedral rank in 1317. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1857, Mende. [247] Nothing now at St. Victor's, Marseilles, is earlier than the XI century. A pre-Gothic use of diagonal ribs (with Lombard rectangular profiles) cropped out here, yet when the upper church was remodeled in the XIII century, Romanesque vaulting was used. Urban V rebuilt the transept, made the square apse, and raised the battlemented towers. When he visited Marseilles in 1373 every man in the city ceased his work to welcome him. As it was his desire to be buried in his former abbey, his remains were brought hither in 1372, and his successor, Gregory XI, raised a sumptuous Gothic monument forty feet in height. Abbé A. d'Agnel, "L'abbaye de St. Victor de Marseilles," in _Bulletin historique et philosophique_, 1906, p. 364; Eugène Müntz, "St. Victor, Marseilles," in _Gazette Archéol._, 1884. [248] In his short time in Rome Urban V gave commissions for art works to Giottino and the sons of Taddeo Gaddi, and he had made the precious shrine for the relics of St. Peter and St. Paul in the Lateran. (See Eugène Müntz in the _Cronique des Arts_ for 1880.) [249] Translated by F. J. C. Kearns, O. P. [250] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1909, p. 183; J. Ch. Roux, _Aigues-Mortes_ (Paris, Bloud et Cie, 1910); F. Em. di Pietro, _Histoire d'Aigues-Mortes_ (Paris, 1849); Marius Topin, _Aigues-Mortes_ (Nîmes, 1865); Abbé H. Aigon, _Aigues-Mortes, ville de St. Louis_ (1908); H. Havard, éd., _La France artistique et monumentale_, vol. 3, p. 145; Ch. Lenthéric, _Le littoral d'Aigues-Mortes au XIIIe et au XIVe siècles_ (Nîmes, 1870); Vie. (Dom) et Vaissette (Dom), _Histoire de Languedoc_, vol. 7, p. 107, 3d éd.; Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire de l'architecture_, vol. 1, pp. 378, 390; vol. 9, p. 182. [251] Maurice Barrès, _Le jardin de Bérénice_ (Paris, Charpentier, 1894). [252] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1897, p. 98; and 1909, p. 168, L. H. Labande; J. Ch. Roux, _St. Gilles, sa légende, son abbaye, ses coutumes_ (Paris, Lemerre, 1910), 4to; J. Hubidos, _Histoire et décoration de l'église abbatiale de St. Gilles_ (Nîmes, 1906); De Lasteyrie, _Étude sur la sculpture française au moyen áge_ (Paris, 1902); A. Marignan, _L'école de sculpture de Provence du XIIe au XIIIe siècle; Histoire littéraire de la France_, vol. 19, p. 268, Clement IV (Paris, 1838); Forel, _Voyage au pays des sculpteurs romans_ (Paris and Geneva, 1913), 2 vols; W. Vöge, _Die Anfänge des monumentalen Styls_. [253] Edmond Rostand, "Le nom sur la maison," in _Le vol de la Marseillaise_ (Paris, Charpentier-Fasquelle, 1919). [254] Les Saintes-Maries is a desolate village of the Camargue, on the sea by the "Rhone of St. Gilles," six miles to the west of the big Rhone. The crenelated fortress-church replaced, in the XII century, one destroyed by Saracens. Its eastern end rises in three stories; below, in the crypt, is the shrine of Sara, the dark handmaiden; above is the high altar; and crowning all is the shrine (placed in St. Michael's care) in which Mary Jacobi and Mary Salome are honored. Their chapel opens on the church over the entrance to the Mass chapel. The sculpture resembles that of St. Trophime, at Arles; perhaps the much-eroded marble lions came from some monument of antiquity. Twice a year there are popular pilgrimages to Les Saintes-Maries, that of May being frequented by the gypsies. Monseigneur Duchesne, "La légende Sainte-Marie-Madeleine," in _Annales du Midi_, 1903, vol. 5; Georges de Manteyer, "Les légendes saintes de Provence," in _Mélanges d'archéol. et d'hist.: École de Rome_, 1897, vol. 17; Faillon, _L'apostolat des Saintes-Maries en Provence_. (This latter gives the Midi loyalists' point of view.) (1848, 2 vols.) [255] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1897, pp. 95, 291, Tarascon; pp. 92, 333, Beaucaire; and 1909, p. 262, Tarascon. The church of St. Martha at Tarascon was dedicated in 1197, but reconstructed in the XIV century. The south portal, with its curious little gallery, is of the XIII century. The honored relics are in the crypt in a heavy tomb of 1650. The simpler sarcophagus that once held them now stands by the side wall. All over France the defeat of paganism by Christian bishop or saint was symbolized by a dragon, and in the course of time the people often took the symbol for reality. The legend of St. Martha's Tarasque, or dragon, may be of this origin. Louis II d'Anjou began the castle of Tarascon, which was decorated by good King René. At Beaucaire, across the Rhone, is a tower built by St. Louis. The international fair of Beaucaire was famous. "Aucassin was of Beaucaire, of a goodly castle there": "'Tis of Aucassin and Nicolette.... The song has charm, the tale has grace, And courtesy and good address. No man is in such distress, Such suffering or weariness, Sick with ever such sickness, But he shall, if he hear this, Recover all his happiness, So sweet it is!" Turn to that cante-fable of the XIII century, and live again the Midi's days of chivalry. Turn to that XIX-century masterpiece of satirical generous humor, _Tartarin de Tarascon_, more likely to survive than many a more pretentious tale, so gay it is. F. W. Bourillon, éd. and tr. of _Aucassin et Nicolette_ (Oxford, 1896). [256] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1876; and 1909, p. 213, L. H. Labande; L. H. Labande, "Étude historique et archéologique sur St. Trophime d'Arles," in _Bulletin Archéologique_, 1904, p. 459; J. de Louvière, "St. Trophime d'Arles," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1876, vol. 42, p. 741; Abbé Bernard, _La basilique primatiale de St. Trophime d'Arles_, 2 vols., 8vo; Roger Peyre, _Nîmes, Arles, Orange_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1904); Georges de Manteyer, _La Province du Ie au XIIe siècle_ (1908); F. Beissier, _Le pays d'Arles_ (1889); Abbé Pougnet, _Étude analytique sur l'architecture de la Provence au moyen âge_ (1867); H. Revoil, _L'architecture romane du Midi de la France_ (Paris, Morel et Cie, 1873), 3 vols.; Martin, _L'art roman en France_ (Paris, 1910); Rebatu, _Antiquités d'Arles_ (1876); J. B. de Rossi, "Le cimétière des Arlescamps et sa basilique de St. Pierre," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1875, vol. 41, p. 170; E. Leblant, _Les sarcophages chrétien de la Gaule_ (1886); Alexis Forel, _Voyage au pays des sculpteurs romans_, vol. 1, chap. 1, "Arles-la-grecque" (Paris and Geneva, 1913), 2 vols. [257] "Saint-Trophime, humide et écrasé, dit une louange irrésistible â la solitude et s'offre comme un refuge contre la vie.... Arles, où rien n'est vulgaire."--MAURICE BARRÈS, _Le jardin de Bérénice_ (Paris, Charpentier, 1894). [258] There is another cloister at Montmajour, four miles from Arles. Its transverse ribs are caught along the wall on corbels carved with grotesques. Nothing at Montmajour pre-dates A.D. 1000. In the monastery church appeared (in the transept) some early diagonals; the crypt (middle of the XII century) is of a peculiar plan: a circular chapel in the middle of its apse with chapels radiating from the passage round it. From each arm of the transept projects an apse chapel. Under a hillock is a small shrine remade in the XIII century. In 1369 a tower of defense was added to the abbey. The curious chapel of the Holy Cross, in a meadow near by, is not of the time of its foundation, 1019, but a reconstruction of the XII century, probably intended for the chapel of a graveyard. Montmajour once rose from the sea marshes that for centuries came up to the gates of Arles. J. M. Trichaud, _Les ruines de l'abbaye de Montmajour-lès-Arles_ (Arles, 1854); _Congrès Archéologique_, 1876, p. 362; and 1909, p. 154; Chantelon (Dom), _Histoire de Montmajour_ (1890); L. Royer, _L'abbaye de Montmajour-lès-Arles_ (Abbeville, Paillart, 1910). [259] "Sur cette terre élégante, au dessin si précis et si pur, sous cette lumière pénétrante, sur ces champs rouges où l'ovilier verse son ombre fine et grise, sur ces bords que la mer antique bat de sa flot court et rythmé, subsistent des oeuvres et des souvenirs qui ne dépareraient pas la Grèce elle-même, mère de toute beauté. Le Pont du Gard, la Maison Carrée, les Arènes de Nîmes et d'Arles, Saint Trophime, Montmajour, Les Saintes-Maries, Les Baux, le Château des Papes à Avignon, les remparts de Saint Louis à Aigues-Mortes, le Peyrou à Montpellier, le canal du Midi, sont les monuments de cette activité séculaire qui recueillit l'héritage de Rome, et l'entretint tout le long de cette vallée du Rhône qui, à ses deux extrémités, comme deux phares, porte deux villes, deux républiques qui n'ont rien de supérieur par l'antiquité, l'activité, et l'éclat: Lyon et Marseilles."'--GABRIEL HANOTAUX. [260] L. Rostan, _Monographie du couvent de St. Maximin_, 1874; Abbé Albanès, _Le courent royal de St. Maximin_; Monseigneur Duchesne, "La légende de Ste. Marie Madeleine," in _Annales du Midi_, 1893, vol. 5; L. G. Pélissier, _La Provence_ (Régions de la France), (Paris, L. Cerf). [261] _Rationale divinorum officiorum_, translated by Neale and Webb (Camden Society) as _The Symbolism of Churches and Church Ornament_ (Leedes, Green, 1843). [262] His son, St. Louis d'Anjou, died archbishop of Toulouse, having resigned his heirsships after captive years in Spain proved to him the futility of grandeur. Giotto painted him on the walls of Santa Croce, Florence. His chasuble, a masterpiece of embroidery, was preserved by the solid wardrobes of St. Maximin's XIV-century sacristy. [263] L. H. Labande, "St. Sauveur d'Aix-en-Provence," in _Bulletin archéological du comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques_ (Paris, 1912), p. 289; Abbé E. F. Maurin, _Notice historique et description de l'église métropolitaine St. Sauveur d'Aix_ (Aix-en-Provence, 1837); Prosper de St. Paul, "La cathédrale d'Aix-en-Provence," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1875, vol. 41, p. 442; J. Ch. Roux, _Aix-en-Provence_ (Paris, Bloud et Cie, 1907); L. Dimier, _Les primitifs français_ (Collection, Les Grands Artistes), (Paris, H. Laurens). [264] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1882; 1897, p. 113; and 1909, L. H. Labande; André Hallays, _Avignon el le Comtat-Venaissin_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens); F. Digonnet, _Le palais des papes d'Avignon_ (after R. P. Ehrle, S. J.), 1907; L. Duhamel, _Les origines du palais des papes d'Avignon_ (Tours, 1882); L. H. Labande, "L'église de N.-D.-des-Doms à Avignon," in _Bulletin Archéologique_, 1906; A. Penjon, _Avignon la ville, et le palais des papes_ (1905); Léon Palustre, "Les peintures du palais des papes à Avignon," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1874, vol. 40, p. 665; Eugène Müntz, "Les tombeaux des papes en France," in _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_, 1887, vol. 36, pp. 275, 367; _ibid._, "Les sources de l'histoire des arts dans la ville d'Avignon pendant le XIVe siècle," in _Bulletin Archéologique_, 1887, p. 249; Verlaque, _Jean XXII, sa vie, ses oeuvres_ (Paris, 1883); Robert André-Michel, "Les fresques de la garde-robe au palais des papes à Avignon," in _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_, 1914-16, vol. 56, p. 293. (This study of the frescoes, discovered in 1909, was the author's last work. He fell in battle at Crouy-sur-Ourcq in 1914); Louis Guérard, R. P., _Les papes d'Avignon_ (Paris, Lecoffre, 1910); Jean Guiraud, _L'église et les origines de la Renaissance_ (chap. 2, on thé Avignon popes). (Paris, Lecoffre, 1902). [265] While the popes ruled in Avignon, churches rose from end to end of the city. In St. Didier (XIV century) is the bas-relief N. D.-du-spasme made for King René in 1476 by Francisco Laurana, one of the earliest Renaissance sculptors to work in France. He made the tomb for King René's brother in Le Mans Cathedral. The Gothic-Renaissance façade (1512) of St. Pierre is of singular grace; the date of its carved doors is 1551. There is a XV-century pulpit, and a retablo (1461) by Antoine Le Moiturier, born in Avignon, who finished the celebrated tomb of Jean Sans Peur now in Dijon's Museum. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1909, p. 17; A. Chaillot, _Les oeuvres d'art dans les églises et chapelles d'Avignon_; G. Bayle, _Notes historiques sur l'église de St. Pierre d'Avignon_ (Avignon, 1899). [266] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1897, p. 280; and 1909, p. 144, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon; Jules Formigé, _Rapport sur la Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lès-Avignon_ (Gard), (Paris, 1909); Robert André-Michel, "Le tombeau du Pope Innocent VI à Villeneuve-lès-Avignon," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1911, p. 204. [267] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1907 and 1913; A. Kleinclausz, _La Bourgogne_ (Collection, Régions de la France), (Paris, L. Cerf, 1905); _ibid._, _Histoire de Bourgogne_ (Paris, 1909); Dom. Urbain Plancher, _Histoire générale de Bourgogne_ (1739-81), 4 vols.; Claude Courtépée, _Description du duché de Bourgogne_ (1775-85); De Barente, _Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne de la maison de Valois_ (Paris, 1825), 12 vols.; Ernest Petit, _Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne de la race capétienne_ (Dijon, 1905), 9 vols.; A. de Caumont, "Rapport sur une excursion archéol. en Bourgogne," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1852, vol. 18, p. 225; J. Calmette et H. Drouot, _La Bourgogne_ (Collection, Provinces Françaises), (Paris, H. Laurens); A. Perrault-Dabot, _L'art en Bourgogne_ (1897); J. L. Bazin, "La Bourgogne sous les ducs de la maison de Valois, 1361-1478," in _Mémoires de la Soc. Éduenne_, 1901, vol. 29, p. 33; Taylor et Nodier, _Voyages pittoresques et romantiques dans l'ancienne France, La Bourgogne_ (Paris, Didot, 1863), 2 vols., folio; W. S. Purchon, "An architectural Tour in Central France and Burgundy," in _Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects_, 1913-14, 3d series, vol. 21, p. 557. [268] From Luxeuil derived Jumièges, St. Wandrille, Fécamp, St. Malo, St. Valéry, St. Bertin, Corbie, St. Riquier, Péronne, Lure, Rebais, Jouarre, Faremoutier, Remiremont, Dissentir, St. Gall, and Bobbio. St. Columbanus was born in Leinster in 543, the year that St. Benedict died at Monte Cassino. It is said that there was something supernatural in his appearance. Because of his comeliness he embraced the monastic life to flee temptation, entering the abbey of Bangor, a center of letters in what is now Ulster. All his life Columbanus was a lover of the classics; from his library at Bobbio was recovered Cicero's _De Republica_. At thirty came the call to missionize in Gaul. Ireland, on the outer verge of Europe, had escaped the Barbarian's wrecking so that her culture was intact. With twelve monks, among them his nephew, St. Gall (future founder of the noted Swiss abbey), Columbanus crossed to France. The king of Burgundy, a grandson of Clovis, gave him the region of Luxeuil, which the late invasions had turned into a desert. In twenty years Columbanus made it the center of spiritual life in Gaul. He was exiled in 610 because of his strictures on the evil living of Burgundy's rulers. After many wanderings he founded Bobbio, between Genoa and Milan, which abbey became another seat of learning. There he died in 615. Martin, _St. Columban_ (Collection, Les Saints), (Paris, Lecoffre, 1909); Healy, _Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars_ (Dublin, 1890); Ch. de Montalembert, _Monks of the West_ (translated, London, 1896); Dalgairns, _Apostles of Europe_ (London, 1876), vol. 1; Besse, _Les moines de l'ancienne France_ (Paris, 1906). [269] "On peut dire que vers le Xe siècle, le genre humain en Europe, était devenu fou. Du mélange de la corruption romaine avec le férocité des barbares qui avaient inondé l'empire, il était enfin resulté un état de choses que, heureusement peut-être, on ne reverra plus. La férocité et la débauche, l'anarchie et la pauvreté étaient dans tous les états. Jamais l'ignorance ne fut plus universelle. Le chaire pontificale était opprimée, deshonorée, et sanglante."--JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. [270] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1899, p. 48; 1913, p. 65, Jean Virey; _Millénaire de Cluny_ (Mâcon, 1910), 2 vols.; Jean Virey, _L'architecture romane dans l'ancien diocèse de Mâcon_ (Paris, 1892), 2 vols.; _ibid._, _L'abbaye de Cluny_ (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens); Chanoine L. Chaumont, _Histoire de Cluny_ (Paris, 1911); Migne, _Dictionnaire des abbayes_ (Paris, 1856); Ch. de Montalembert, _Monks of the West_ (trans. London, 1896); H. Pignot, _Histoire de l'ordre de Cluny depuis la fondation de l'abbaye jusqu'à la mort de Pierre le Vénérable_ (Autun et Paris, 1868), 3 vols.; F. L. Bruel, _Cluny_, 910-1910. _Album historique et archéologique_ (Mâcon, 1910), 4to; Ponzet, in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1912, on the capitals of Cluny's abbatial; David, _Grands abbayes de l'occident_ (Paris, 1909); Lecestre, _Abbayes en France_ (Paris, 1902); G. T. Rivoira, _Lombardic Architecture_, vol. 2, p. 104, Cluny; p. 112, Tournus. Tr. by G. McN. Rushforth (London and New York, 1910); Demimuid, _Pierre le Vénérable et la vie monastique au XIIe siècle_ (Paris, 1895); A. Penjon, _Cluny, la ville et l'abbaye_ (Cluny, 1884); _ibid._, "Abélard et Pierre le Vénérable d'après Dom Gervaise," in _Annales de l'Acad. de Mâcon_, 1910, p. 393; _Histoire littéraire de la France_, vol. 7, p. 318, "Le bienheureux Guillaume, abbé de St. Bénigne"; p. 399, "Raoul Glaber"; p. 414, "St. Odilon" (Paris, 1746); vol. 9, p. 465, "St. Hugues"; p. 526, "Abbé Jarenton" (Paris, 1750); vol. 14, p. 211, "Pierre le Vénérable"; p. 129, "St. Bernard" (Paris, 1764). [271] Dr. John Mason Neale, éd., _Rhythm of Bernard of Morlaix_ (London, 1858). Dr. Neale has here rendered his translation like the XII-century original, dactylic hexameters divided into three parts. [272] "Ah! ce Cluny!... ce fut vraiment l'idéal du labeur divin, l'idéal rêvé! Ce fut, lui, qui réalisa le couvent d'art, la maison du luxe pour Dieu."--J. K. HUYSMANS, _L'Oblat_ (Paris, Plon-Nourrit et Cie). [273] Some of the French houses affiliated with Cluny were Vézelay, the Trinité at Vendôme, the Trinité at Fécamp, St. Martin-des-Champs and St. Germain-des-Prés at Paris, St. Denis, the Caen abbatials, St. Ouen at Rouen, Jumièges, St. Wandrille, St. Remi at Rheims, Notre Dame at Châlons-sur-Marne, St. Bénigne at Dijon, Tournus, St. Maixent, St. Savin, Ste. Foy at Conques, Moissac, St. Sernin at Toulouse, and St. Eutrope at Saintes. [274] The church of Notre Dame built in Cluny by St. Hugues was burned in 1233, and immediately reconstructed as Burgundian Gothic; the lower walls and some of the capitals are of St. Hugues' time. Consoles, sculptured with heads, such as those under the lantern, are frequent in the province, but a central tower is exceptional. In the XVIII century the narthex was destroyed. St. Marcel's church was rebuilt after a fire in 1159 by the abbot of Cluny, who was a great-nephew of William the Conqueror. The octagonal tower, capped by a XIII-century spire, is of exceptionally lovely proportions. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1913, p. 68. St. Hugues also founded the Charité-sur-Loire, whose church was dedicated by his pupil. Paschal II, in 1107, at which ceremony assisted Suger, then a monk at St. Denis. Only the transept and absidioles are of that time, for the choir, nave, and tower are Burgundian Romanesque of the second half of the XII century; the Lady chapel rose two centuries later. Once the abbatial was four hundred feet long, but a fire, in 1559, damaged it and only four bays of the nave remain. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1913, p. 374, Louis Serbat; André Philippe, "Charité-sur-Loire," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1905, vol. 69, p. 469. [275] De Foville, _Pise et Lucques_ (Villes d'art célèbres) (Paris, H. Laurens). [276] Héloïse as a girl, in the convent of Argenteuil, studied Greek, Latin, Hebrew, philosophy, and theology; the women of that age were as eager for learning as the men. In 1817 her body and that of Abélard were removed to the cemetery of Père la Chaise at Paris. Le Roux de Lincy, _Les femmes célèbres de l'ancienne France_ (Paris, Leroi, 1848), 2 vols. For Abélard, see de Rémusat (Paris, 1855) and E. Vacandard (Paris, 1881). [277] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1899; and 1913, p. 63, E. Lefèvre-Pontalis; Abbé Cucherat, _Monographie de la basilique du Sacré Coeur à Paray-le-Monial_, 1884; N. de Nicolai, _Générale description du Bourbonnais_. [278] John Mason Neale, _Collected Hymns, Sequences, and Carols_ (London, Hodden & Stoughton, 1914), p. 199, a translation of the XII-century poem of Bernard de Morlaix. [279] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1899, p. 62; and 1907, p. 32, Joseph Déchelette; also p. 537; H. de Fonteray and A. de Charmasse, _Autun et ses monuments_ (1889); Abbé Devoncoux, _Description de l'église cathédrale d'Autun_ (1845); Claude Courtépée, _Description de la duché de Bourgogne_, vol. 6; H. Havard, éd., _La France artistique et monumentale_, vol. 5, p. 49, L. Paté, on Autun; Paul Vitry, in _Revue Archéol._, 1899, p. 188; Montegut, _Souvenirs de Bourgogne_. [280] The abbey of St. Andoche, Saulieu, was named for a companion of St. Benignus, a Greek missionary sent to evangelize Gaul, perhaps by St. Polycarp of Smyrna. The church was rebuilt early in the XII century, and of that period is the nave whose capitals present sculpture of different epochs: the barbaric earlier grotesques censured by St. Bernard, then a few acanthus leaves and medallions, and, finally, naturalistic work. Calixtus II dedicated Saulieu's abbey church in 1119. In 1339 the English sacked the choir and transept, which were rebuilt in 1704. That true son of Burgundy, Vauban, the celebrated engineer of Louis XIV, was born in a château near Saulieu in 1633: "The most honest man of his century, the simplest, truest, and bravest," according to St. Simon. He covered France with defenses whose worth was proved in 1914. One can comprehend qualities in a region's architecture by a knowledge of regional characters. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1907, p. 103, Pierre de Truchis, on Saulieu. The architect Soufflot, of M. Lefèvre-Pontalis' family, was a Burgundian. [281] The cathedral of Langres in ancient Burgundy resembles Autun in its channeled pilaster strips and its acanthus-leaf sculpture. Its choir was rebuilt in 1100, using simultaneously groin vaulting and diagonals. The façade is neo-classic. [282] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1899, p. 68; A. Kleinclausz, _Dijon et Beaune_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens); Alphonse Germain, _Les Néerlandais en Bourgogne_ (Bruxelles, 1909); Arsène Périer, _Un chancelier au XVe siècle, Nicolas Rolin_ (Paris, Plon, 1904); H. Chabeuf, in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1900, p. 193, on the tapestries of Beaune; Abbé Bavard, _Histoire de l'Hôtel Dieu de Beaune_ (Beaune, 1881); André Michel, éd., _Histoire de l'art_, vol. 3, première partie, "La tapisserie aux quatorzième et quinzième siècles," Jules Guiffrey. [283] Robert Vallery-Radot, _Le réveil de l'esprit_ (Paris, Perrin et Cie, 1917). [284] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1907, p. 4, Avallon, Charles Porée, and p. 129, G. Fleury; p. 97, Montréal, Charles Porée; p. 49, Flavigny, P. de Truchis; E. Petit, _Avallon et l'Avallonnais_ (Auxerre, Gallot, 1867); R. Vallery-Radot, _Un Coin de Bourgogne_; _Avallon_; Abbé Villetard, "Les statues du portail de l'église St. Lazare d'Avallon," in _Bull. de la Société d'études d'Avallon_, 1899, 1900, and 1901; E. Petit, "Collégiale de Montréal," in _L'Annuaire de l'Yonne_, 1861, p. 121; G. T. Rivoira, _Lombardic Architecture_ (tr. London and New York, 1910), vol. 2, on the crypt of Flavigny; L. Bondot et J. Galimard, _Restes de l'ancienne basilique de Flavigny_ (1906); Claude Courtépée, _Description du duché de Bourgogne_, vol. 3, on Flavigny; Lucien Bégule, _L'abbaye de Fontenay et l'architecture cistercienne_ (Lyon, 1912). There is also a study by Bégule of Fontenay in the Petites Monographies series published by H. Laurens; J. B. Corbolin, _Monographie de l'abbaye de Fontenay_ (Cîteaux, 1882). [285] _Discours de réception de M. Louis Pasteur à l'Académie Française_, 1882. Pasteur was born at Dôle (Jura), once a part of ancient Burgundy. A grandson, Robert Vallery-Radot, is one of the younger generation that comprehends the spiritual essence of the Middle Ages. He has written of the potency of his prayer in the church dedicated to holy Lazarus in his native Avallon. Another grandson, Jean Vallery-Radot, is a rising member of the school of mediæval archæology. [286] Jean de Chastellux, _Travels in America, 1780-1782_. He was the first to have himself inoculated with smallpox in order to give confidence to the people. The heir of Chastellux was a hereditary first canon in Auxerre Cathedral, privileged to sit in its choir with a falcon on his wrist. [287] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1907, p. 199; Abbé Henry, _Histoire de l'abbaye de Pontigny_ (Avallon, 1839); Chaillon des Barres, _L'abbaye de Pontigny_ (Paris, 1844); _Histoire littéraire de la France_, vol. 11, p. 213, "St. Étienne, troisième abbé de Cîteaux" (Paris, 1759). [288] "The long prospect of nave and choir ends with a sort of graceful smallness in a chevet of seven closely packed, narrow bays. It is like a nun's church, or like a nun's coif."--WALTER PATER, on Pontigny, in _Miscellaneous Studies_ (London, The Macmillan Company, 1895). [289] J. C. Robertson, ed., _Material for the History of Thomas Becket_. Rolls series, 7 vols.; vols. 1 to 4 contain the lives written by John of Salisbury, Herbert of Bosham, etc. Other studies of St. Thomas of Canterbury are Morris (London, 1885); Kate Norgate (_Dictionary of National Biography_); L. Huillier (Paris, 1891), 2 vols. [290] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1907, p. 27; Charles Porée, _L'abbaye de Vézelay_ (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens); H. Havard, éd., _La France artisque et monumentale_, vol. 4, Vézelay; De George, "L'église abbatiale de Vézelay," in _L'Architecture_, 1905; L. E. Lefèvre, "Le portail de l'abbaye de Vézelay," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1906, p. 253; also, 1904, vol. 54, p. 448, G. Sanoner; Crosnier, "Iconographie de l'abbaye de Vézelay," in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1847, p. 219; V. Flandin, "Vézelay," in _Annuaire statistique du département de l'Yonne_, 1841-45; A. Chérest, _Études historiques sur Vézelay_ (Auxerre, 1868); Gally, _Vézelay monastique_ (Tonnerre, 1888); Camille Enlart, _Le musée de sculpture comparée du Trocadéro_ (Paris, H. Laurens, 1913); A. Thierry, _Lettres sur l'histoire de France_, chaps. 22-24; Joseph Bédier, _Les légendes épiques_, vol. 1, "La légende de Girard de Roussillon" (Paris, H. Champion, 1908), 4 vols. [291] Maurice Barrès, _La colline inspirée_ (Paris, Émile-Paul, frères, 1913). [292] Louis Gonse, _L'Art Gothique_ (Paris, Quantin, 1891). [293] St. Père-sous-Vézelay, below the hill, occupies the site where Girard de Roussillon's foundation was first established. The present church is a typical Burgundian Gothic edifice, partly of the XII and partly of the XIII century. Carved corbels catch the fall of certain diagonals, and in place of a triforium is an interior passageway that passes through the shafts. In the opening years of the XIV century was added the narthex, a noble porch of two bays whose capitals have foliage in little bunches set in two rows. The façade is decorated by big statues like that of the Madeleine church, a mile away, and at the corners of the tower, a landmark for the valley, are sculptured angels blowing trumpets. The choir of St. Père-sous-Vézelay was wrecked during the English wars, and was in large part rebuilt as late-Gothic. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1907, p. 16; Abbé Pissier, "Notice historique sur Saint-Père-sous-Vézelay," in _Bull. de la Soc. des Sciences de l'Yonne_, 1902, vol. 56, pp. 33, 275. [294] In his _Via Crucis_, F. Marion Crawford has described the great gathering at Vézelay. [295] The Huguenot leader, Théodore de Béze, was born in the bourg of Vézelay. His brother, a canon in the church of St. Lazare at Avallon, espoused the opposite side with equal zest. [296] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1907, p. 64, Pierre de Truchis; Abbé Bouzerand, _Mémoirs sur l'église Notre Dame de Semur_, 1864; _ibid._, _Histoire générale de Semur-en-Auxois_; Ledeuil, _Notice sur Semur-en-Auxois_ (Semur-en-Auxois, 1886); Taylor et Nodier, _Voyage pittoresque et romantique dans l'ancienne France. Bourgogne_ (Paris, Didot, 1863), folio; Max Quantin, _Répertoire archéol. du département de l'Yonne_ (Paris, 1908); Eugène Lefèvre-Pontalis, "Les caractères distinctifs des écoles gothique de la Champagne et de la Bourgogne," in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1907, p. 546. [297] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1850, p. 22; and 1907, p. 167, Charles Porée; p. 599, Camille Enlart, on the sculptured doors of Auxerre Cathedral: Camille Enlart, _La cathédrale d'Auxerre_ (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens): A. Chérest, _La cathédrale d'Auxerre_. _Conferences d'Auxerre_ (Auxerre, 1868); Émile Lambin, "La cathédrale d'Auxerre," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1897, vol. 47, p. 383; Charles Porée, "Le choeur de la cathédrale d'Auxerre," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1906, vol. 70, p. 251; Louise Pillion, "Sculpture de la cathédrale d'Auxerre," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1905, p. 278; Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire de l'architecture_, vol. 4, p. 131, on construction; vol. 9, p. 447, on vitrail; Victor Petit, "Description des villes et campagnes du département de l'Yonne" (Auxerre, 1876). In the _Annuaire de l'Yonne_, earlier studies on Auxerre are, 1841, p. 38, F. de Lasteyrie; 1843, p. 128, V. Petit; 1846, p. 207, and 1847, p. 141, Challe; 1872, p. 161, and 1873. p. 3, Daudin; André Philippe, "L'architecture religieuse au XIe et au XIIe siècle dans l'ancien diocèse d'Auxerre," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1904, vol. 68, _passim_. Other notices on Auxerre in the _Bulletin Monumental_ are, 1847, vol. 13, p. 153, and 1849, vol. 15, p. 145, Victor Petit; 1872, vol. 38, pp. 494, 744, Victor Petit; Abbé Lebeuf, _Histoire d'Auxerre_; E. Moulton, _La guerre au XVIe siècle_ (Paris, H. Laurens). [298] St. Germain's abbatial is less pure Gothic than the cathedral's choir. Beneath its sanctuary are two superimposed crypts, the lower one of the IX century, and that above it belonging to the XIII-century reconstruction of the abbey church. Conflagrations wiped out several early churches of the monastery. In the XII century rose the Romanesque tower--one of the best in France; until 1820 it was attached to the nave. A total reconstruction of the abbatial was necessary in 1277, but after the upper crypt and the choir were undertaken there came a pause. The abbot here (1309-39), who erected the crenelated inclosure walls of the monastery, resumed the church as Rayonnant Gothic. Urban V, the greatest of the Avignon patrons of art and letters, had been abbot of St. Germain (1352), and his arms were cut on a keystone of the new nave, to which he contributed, as did his successor, Gregory XI. Soon after the church was completed it was pillaged during the religious wars. Napoleon turned the establishment into a hospital, which it still is. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1907, p. 182, C. Porée; p. 627, Jules Tillet; Abbé V. B. Henry, _Histoire de l'abbaye de St. Germain d'Auxerre_ (Auxerre, Gallot, 1853); Victor Petit, "Les cryptes de St. Germain d'Auxerre," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1872, vol. 38, p. 494; Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire de l'Architecture_, vol. 3, p. 377. [299] At her trial in Rouen Jeanne spoke of Auxerre Cathedral: "_En route, je traversai Auxerre, où j'entendis la messe dans la principale église.... Alors, j'avais fréquemment mes voix._" Marius Sepet, _Au temps de la Pucelle, récits et tableaux_ (Paris, P. Téqui, 1905). [300] The abbey church at St. Eusèbe is of archæological interest. The octagonal tower over its altar, forming internally a lantern, is of the XII century, as are the piers and their arches. A pause came between the making of the nave's lower and upper parts, for the church did not follow the usual custom of advancing bay by bay, but was constructed story by story. The west front is full Gothic, and the ambulatory of the XIII century. The original choir was in large part replaced by the present well-built Flamboyant Gothic one, finished by 1530. What used to be the episcopal palace of Auxerre is to-day the Prefecture. It shows, in its wall on the river side, the Romanesque gallery built by Bishop Hugues de Châlons (1116-36). Its hall, with pignons alike at both ends, was erected by Bishop Guillaume de Mello (1247-70). _Congrès Archéologique_, 1907, p. 188; Corberon, _Auxerre, ses monuments_; Lescuyer, "Notice sur l'église de St. Eusèbe," in _l'Annuaire de l'Yonne_, 1839, p. 318; 1845, p. 103, "St. Eusèbe," Max Quantin. [301] The west apse of Nevers' Cathedral, dedicated to St. Juliette, mother of the child martyr, St. Cyr, formed, with its crypt and transept, part of the XII-century Romanesque edifice. Late in the XIII century was built a Gothic nave, which was reconstructed after a fire in 1308, and again its outer walls were reconstructed in the Flamboyant Gothic day. The present choir dates from the XIV century. The fine tower at the transept's southern façade was built 1506 to 1528. Nevers' former ducal palace, of the XV century, stands on a park overlooking the Loire. The Romanesque abbey church of St. Étienne, founded, tradition says, by St. Columbanus, combines the schools of Auvergne and Burgundy, and is important to archæologists because the date of its building, 1063 to 1097, is certain. The expense of constructing it caused the Count of Nevers to forego the First Crusade. Bishop Ives of Chartres consecrated the church in 1097. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1913, p. 300, Louis Serbat; Gaston Congny, _Bourges et Nevers_; J. Locquin, _Nevers et Moulins_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens); Monseigneur Crosnier, _Monographie de la cathédrale de Nevers_ (1854); Abbé Sery, _Les deux apsides de la cathédrale de Nevers_ (1899); Morellet, Barat, et Bussière, _Le Nivermois_ (1840), 2 vols.; Paul Meunier, _Nevers historique et pittoresque_ (1901). [302] "Because the pearly white surfaces of the grisaille would make the adjacent colored surfaces appear heavy and opaque, they introduced, into these latter, limpid blues and yellows, very light reds, whites with a greenish or rosy tint. In the high windows of the cathedral of Auxerre they first tried this method, and here the grisaille is chased with a large and firm design that offsets the transparency of the colorless surfaces. Notice how the pedestal and the canopy, both very light, bind together the bands of grisaille on either side, while the latter is heavily painted with a trellis and rich ornaments. In Auxerre, the grisaille is found only in the lateral windows which are seen obliquely. The apse windows, meant to be seen, in face and from a distance, are filled with color. The lateral windows are sufficiently opaque to prevent the solar rays which pass through them from lighting the colored windows on the reverse side. At certain hours the luminous rays throw a pearly light on the colored windows, imparting to them a transparency of tone and a delicacy impossible to describe. The opalescent light from the lateral windows makes a sort of veil of extreme transparency under the lofty vaults, and is pierced by the brilliant tones of the apse windows, producing the sparkle of jewels. Solid outlines then seem to waver like objects seen through a sheet of limpid water. Distance changes values and gains a depth in which the eye loses itself. Hourly during the day these effects are modified, and always with new harmonies of which one never wearies trying to understand." --VIOLLET-LE-DUC, _Dictionnaire de l'architecture_, vol. 9, p. 447. [303] John Mason Neale, translator of "The Rhythm of Bernard of Morlaix" (e. 1140), in _Collected Hymns, Sequences, and Carols_ (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1914), p. 19. [304] "Je donne la palme à Jacques Amyot sur tout nos écrivains français."--MONTAIGNE. "Quand il s'agit d'une jolie et gracieuse naïveté de langage, on dit aussitôt pour le définir: C'est de la langue d'Amyot."--SAINTE-BEUVE. [305] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1907, on Dijon, Charles Porée; p. 546, "Les caractères distinctifs des écoles gothiques de la Champagne et de la Bourgogne," E. Lefèvre-Pontalis; A. Kleinclausz, _Dijon et Beaune_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens); _ibid._, "L'art funéraire de la Bourgogne," in _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_, 1901-02; _ibid._, _Claus Sluter et la sculpture bourguignonne au XVe siècle_ (Paris, 1906); Abbé L. Chomton, _Histoire de l'église St. Bénigne de Dijon_ (Dijon, 1900), folio; G.T. Rivoira, _Lombardic Architecture_, vol. 2, chap. 1, on St. Bénigne (tr. London and New York, 1910); Chanoine Thomas, _Épigraphie de Notre Dame de Dijon_ (1904); H. Chabeuf, "Tête sculptée à Notre Dame de Dijon," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1900, vol. 43, p. 472; _ibid._, _Dijon, monuments et souvenirs_ (Dijon, Damudot, 1894); H. Havard, éd., _La France artistique et monumental_, vol. 6, p. 26, Cunisset-Carnot; Alphonse Germain, _Les Néerlandais en Bourgogne_, 1909; Raymond Koechlin, _La sculpture belge et les influences françaises au XIIIe siècle_ (Paris, 1903); Louis Courajod, _Leçons professées à l'École du Louvre_, 1887-96. Vol. 2, _Origines de la Renaissance_ (Paris, Picard et fils, 1901), 3 vols. On the sculpture at Dijon, see MM. Paul Vitry, Louis Gonse, Léon Palustre, André Michel; A. Humbert, _Sculpture en Bourgogne_ (Paris, H. Laurens); Ernest Petit, _Hist. des ducs de Bourgogne de la race capétienne_ (Dijon, 1905), 9 vols.; B. de Barante, _Hist. des ducs de Bourgogne de la maison de Valois_ (Paris, 1825), 12 vols.; Petit-Dutaillis, _Charles VII, Louis XI, et les premières années de Charles VIII_ (Paris, Hachette, 1902); Abbé Chevalier, _Le vénérable Guillaume, abbé de St. Bénigne_ (Dijon, 1875). [306] "La gloire de Bossuet est devenue l'une des religions de la France; on la reconnaît, on la proclame, on s'honore soi-même en y apportant chaque jour un nouveau tribut. Bossuet, c'est le génie hébreu, étendu, fécondé par le Christianisme, et ouvert à toutes les acquisitions de l'intelligence, mais retenant quelque chose de l'interdiction souveraine. Il est la voix éloquente par excellence, la plus simple, la plus forte, la plus brusque, la plus familière, la plus soudainement tonnante."--SAINTE-BEUVE. No city has been more prolific in notable sons than Dijon, where, as Voltaire said, "_le mérite de l'esprit semble être un des caractères des citoyens_." Among them are Rameau, the musician (1683-1764), who founded French opera and discovered important laws in harmony; he and his descendants were exempted from tithes by their native city; Dubois, the sculptor (1626-94), whose Assumption and the high altar of Notre Dame, Dijon, are his best works; the critic and philologist, La Monnaye (b. 1641); the playwright, Crébillon (d. 1762); Piron, the witty epigrammatist (d. 1773); the learned Président de Brosse (1709-77), whose _Lettres d'Italie_ are full of Burgundian vivacity and salt, and whose friend, Buffon, the naturalist (1707-88), though born at Montbard, was educated in Dijon, where his father was counselor in the parliament. The grandmother of Madame de Sévigné, St. Jeanne Françoise de Chantal, founder of the Visitation Order, was born at 17 rue Jeannin, 1572. Her father was a president of Dijon's parliament. The sculptor Rude was a son of Dijon (d. 1855), and in this same city that had produced St. Bernard and Bossuet, the most eloquent preacher of the XIX century, Lacordaire, spent his childhood and youth, as his mother came of an old legal family here. Léon Deshairs, _Dijon, architecture des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles_ (Paris, 1910). [307] Tournus abbey (Saône-et-Loire), when founded, was affiliated with the Columban tradition. From 946 to 980 the church was rebuilt, and again from 1008 to 1028, under the auspices of William of Volpiano, abbot of St. Bénigne. On its outer walls are Lombard mural arcaded bands. The massive forechurch, or narthex of three bays, has two stories of different dates, the lower one about 950, and the upper about 980. The vault of the latter--a cradle carried on brackets--is the earliest example extant in France of a wide-span masonry roof at such a height. Tournus exemplified the militant spirit of Burgundy's Romanesque school by experimenting with every kind of vault, cradle, half cradle, transverse cradle, and groin. The pier arcades of the main church are of William of Volpiano's time. The transept and choir are early XII century, and in that same period the reconstructed nave was covered by an experiment in stone roofing which never made a school; it had been used in Persia in the VI century. A series of half barrels borne on lintels were placed side by side across the wide nave, from north to south, instead of one long tunnel vault from east to west. The system allowed for the better lighting of the upper church, and as each barrel vault was buttressed by the one next it, only at the east and west ends of the edifice was abutment required. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1899, pp. 223, 236; and 1909; Clement Heaton, in _Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects_, 3d series, 1909. [308] Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire de l'Architecture_, vol. 4, pp. 131-147; Huysmans, _L'Oblat_, chap. 5, on Notre Dame of Dijon. In his story, which is the continuation of _En Route_ and _La Cathédrale_, Huysmans described the closing of the Burgundian monastery of Val des Saints near Dijon. His theory is that by such acts the balance of good and evil in the world is destroyed, since no longer is propitiatory self-sacrifice and prayer offered to heaven for the sins being committed on earth: "_Il faut s'attendre à ce que le Bon Dieu tombe sur nous ... pour remettre les choses en place, et vous savez comment il procède, dans ces cas là, il vous accable d'infirmités et d'épreuves._" [309] A clockmaker named Jacquemart made such works, hence their name. Originally only one figure struck the hours on the big bell. Then a wife, Jacqueleine, was given to the bell-knocker, and after a local wit had rallied the couple on their childless state, first one child, Jacquelinet, was added, and then another, Jacquelinette, and the industrious children now ring the quarter hours on the little bells. [310] Works of St. Bernard, edited by Mabillon (Paris, 1669-90), tr. by Eales and Hodges (London, 1889), 4 vols.; E. Vacandard, _Vie de Saint Bernard_ (Paris, Lecoffre, 1895), 2 vols.; other studies of the saint, by Eales (London, 1890) and R. P. Ratisbonne; De Dion, _Étude sur les églises de l'ordre de Cîteaux_; Arbois de Jubainville, _Étude sur l'état intérieur des abbayes cisterciennes et principalement de Clairvaux au XII siècle_ (Paris, 1858); Lucien Bégule, _L'abbaye de Fontenay et l'architecture cistercienne_ (Lyon, 1912); Camille Enlart, _L'architecture gothique en Italie_ (Paris, 1893); _ibid._, _En Espagne et en Portugal_ (Paris, 1894); _ibid._, "Villard de Honnecourt et lex Cisterciens," in _Biblio. de l'École des chartes_, 1895; _Bulletin Monumental_, 1904, André Philippe, on Cistercian churches; John Bilson, _The Architecture of the Cistercians; Their Earliest Churches in England_ (London, 1909); also in the _Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects_, 1909; Marcel Aubert, on Cistercian churches in Germany. [311] The castle of Fontaine-lès-Dijon was held by Bernard's lineage till the XV century. To-day the site is covered by an unfinished commemorative church. The village church is of the XVI century. [312] As at Cîteaux, scarcely an ancient vestige remains at Clairvaux. The XII-century monastic storehouse now serves as a house of detention. All trace of St. Bernard's tomb has been lost. The Revolution finished what the Huguenot wars and the absentee commendatory abbots began. [313] M. Enlart calls Fossanuova, on the Appian Way between Rome and Naples, the first Gothic church in Italy, begun in 1187 by Burgundian Cistercians. Mr. Porter thinks that the infiltration had begun thirty years earlier through various channels. In 1208 Innocent III dedicated Fossanuova; in 1274 St. Thomas Aquinas died there, en route to the Council at Lyons. The same plain Burgundian plan was followed at Casamari (1217), and a daughter house of the latter was S. Galgano (1218), from which went monks who are cited as the masters-of-works of Siena Cathedral, the best Gothic edifice of the peninsula. Monks from French Clairvaux built the three Chiaravalle churches of Italy, and monks from Pontigny raised S. Martino near Viterbo. Later, Italy felt the influence of different French schools; thus the Naples churches are Gothic of Provence because southern French architects accompanied Charles d'Anjou, count of Provence, when he became king of the Two Sicilies. At Assisi the church of S. Francesco shows the Gothic traits of Burgundy, Provence, and Champagne. The Cistercians introduced the torus profile of diagonals, but they long clung to round-headed windows. The Provence masters introduced pointed arched windows. In Spain, Cîteaux found a rival in the monks of Cluny for the dissemination of the new art. In the XII century a large number of Spanish bishoprics were filled by Cluny monks. Sometimes they built according to their own native architecture, as in Lugo Cathedral, San Vincente at Avila, and churches in Seville, which are Burgundian Romanesque. Sigüenza Cathedral is Burgundian both in its Romanesque and Gothic parts. Zamora Cathedral, consecrated 1174, and the old cathedral of Salamanca, show traits of Aquitaine; both sees were occupied by Bishop Jerome, who came from Périgieux. The Cistercians of Spain did not confine themselves, as in Italy, to typically Burgundian Gothic churches. Poblet and Santa-Creus (1157) derive from the early Gothic of Midi France, as well as from Burgundy. Las Huelgas, the Cistercian house for nuns near Burgos, finished about 1180, shows slight Burgundian and much Plantagenet Gothic influence. The foundress was the daughter of Henry II and Aliénor of Aquitaine. In Spain, as in Italy, the later Gothic monuments conformed to the standards of northern French Gothic. Portugal was more exclusively a Cistercian field of art. In 1148, Alcobaça monastery was founded by the son of a Burgundian prince, progenitor of Portugal's royal line. While it shows Angevin Gothic traits, its plan is the sober Cistercian Burgundian type. In the military Orders of Spain and Portugal the Cistercian Rule was used. The king of Sweden, in 1143, obtained Cistercian missionaries from Clairvaux; in Denmark the abbey church of Sorö is Burgundian Gothic. Camille Enlart, _Les origines de l'architecture gothique en Espagne et en Portugal_ (Paris, 1894); _ibid._, _L'architecture gothique en Italie_ (Paris, 1893); _ibid._, _Notes archéologiques sur les abbayes cisterciennes de Scandinavie_ (Paris, 1894); _ibid._, "Villard de Honnecourt et les Cisterciens," in _Biblio. de l'École des chartes_, 1895; _ibid._, _L'art gothique ... en Chypre_ (Paris, 1899), 2 vols. [314] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1908; V. Ruprich-Robert, _L'architecture normande aux XIe et XIIe siècles_ (Paris, 1897), 2 vols.; A. de Caumont et Ch. de Beaurepaire, _Mémoires historiques sur la Normandie: antiquités, monuments, histoire_ (1827-36); _La Normandie monumentale et pittoresque. Seine-Inférieure, Calvados, Eure, Orne, Manche_ (Le Havre, Lemale et Cie), 8 vols, folio; Léon le Cordier, "L'architecture de la Normandie au XIIIe siècle," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1863, vol. 29, p. 513; Chanoine Porée, _L'art normand_ (Paris, 1914); Taylor et Nodier, _Voyages pittoresques ... dans l'ancienne France. Normandie_ (Paris, Didron, 1825), 2 vols., folio; Henri Prentout, _La Normandie_ (Collection, Les provinces françaises), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1910); Lechandé d'Anisy, _Les anciennes abbayes de Normandie_ (1834), 2 vols, and atlas; Ordericus Vitalis, _The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy_ (London, Bohn Library, 1856), 4 vols.; Albert Sorel, _Pages normandes_ (Paris, Plon, 1907). On Normandy's history, see Stubbs, Freeman, Palgrave, H. W. C. Davis, G. B. Adams, Sir J. H. Ramsay, Miss Kate Norgate, Mrs. J. R, Green, etc. A. Thierry in his _Conquête de l'Angleterre_ gives details of the oppression of the Anglo-Saxons by their Norman conquerors. [315] Rodin, _Les cathédrales de France_, (Paris, A. Colin, 1914). [316] Chanoine Porée, _Histoire de l'abbaye du Bec_ (Évreux, impri. de Hérissey, 1901); _La Normandie monumentale et pittoresque Eure_, vol. 2, p. 221, "Bec," Chanoine Porée (Le Havre, Lemale et Cie, 1895); Ragey, _Histoire de Saint Anselm_ (Paris, 1889); Martin Rule, _Life and Times of St. Anselm_ (London, 1883). Other studies of St. Anselm by Rémusat (Paris, 1853); R. W. Church (London, 1870); J. M. Rigg (London, 1896), and in _Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury_ (London, 1860-75); _Histoire littéraire de la France_, vol. 8, p. 260, "Lanfranc" (Paris, 1749); vol. 9, p. 398, "St. Anselm"; p. 369, "Gondulfe, évêque de Rochester" (Paris, 1750). [317] V. Ruprich-Robert, _L'architecture normande aux XIe et XIIIe siècles_ (Paris, 1885-87); G. T. Rivoira, _Lombardic Architecture_, vol. 2, on Normandy (London and New York, 1910), translated from _Le origini dell 'architettura lombarda_ (Milano, 1908); Canoine Porée, _L'art normand_ (Paris, 1914); Camille Enlart, _Manuel d'archéologie française_ (Paris, Picard et fils, 1904), 2 vols.; R. de Lasteyrie, _L'architecture religieuse en France à l'époque romane_ (Paris, 1912); John Bilson, "The Beginnings of Gothic Architecture," in the _Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects_, Third series, 1898-99, vol. 6, pp. 289, 322, 345; 1901-02, vol. 9, p. 350; René Fage, "La décoration géométrique dans l'école romane de Normandie," in _Congrès Archéol._, 1908, vol. 2, p. 614; Louis Engerand, "La sculpture romane en Normandie," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1904, vol. 68, p. 405; Arthur Kingsley Porter, _Medieval Architecture_, vol. 1, pp. 285 to 332, gives the chief Norman Romanesque monuments (New York and London, 1907); _ibid._, _Lombard Architecture_ (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1917), 3 vols. and atlas. [318] Henry Adams, _Mont Saint-Michel and Chartres_ (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913). [319] Normandy's _Millénaire_ of 1911 was celebrated fitly. Among the books it called forth are: Gabriel Monod, _Le rôle de la Normandie dans l'histoire de France_ (Paris, 1911); H. Prentout, _Essai sur les origines et la fondation du duché de Normandy_ (Paris, 1911); A. Albert, _Petit histoire de Normandie_ (Paris, 1912). In 1915 appeared Charles Homer Haskins, _The Normans in European History_ (Boston, Houghton Mifflin). [320] E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, "Les influences normandes au XIe et au XIIe siècle dans le nord de la France," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1906. vol. 70; Camille Enlart, _L'influence extérieure de l'art normand au moyen âge_; F. Chalandon, _Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile_ (Paris, 1907); Ch. Diehl, _Palerme et Syracuse_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1907); Émile Bertaud, _L'art dans l'Italie méridionale_. [321] Roger Martin du Gard, _L'abbaye de Jumièges, étude archéol. des ruines_ (Montdidier, 1909); _ibid._, "Jumièges," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1909, vol. 73, p. 34; John Bilson, on "Jumièges," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1901, p. 454; F. Lot, _Études critiques sur l'abbaye de Saint-Wandrille_ (Paris 1913); _La Normandie monumentale et pittoresque. Seine-Inférieure_, p. 219, "Jumièges," Alfred Darcel; p. 353, "St. Wandrille," Abbé Sauvage (Le Havre, Lemale et Cie); Abbé Julien Loth, _Histoire de l'abbaye royale de St. Pierre de Jumièges_ (Rouen, 1882-85), 3 vols.; David, _Les grandes abbayes de l'Occident_ (Lille, 1907); Lefèvre-Pontalis, _Les influences normandes au XIe et au XIIe siècle dans le nord de la France_ (1906), also in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1906, vol. 70. [322] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1883 and 1908; H. Prentout, _Caen et Bayeux_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1909); V. Ruprich-Robert, _L'église Ste. Trinité et l'église St. Étienne de Caen_ (Caen, 1864); E. de Beaurepaire, _Caen illustré, son histoire, ses monuments_ (Caen, 1896), folio; Bouet, _Analyse architecturale de l'abbaye de St. Étienne de Caen_ (1868); _La Normandie monumentale et pittoresque. Calvados_, pp. 1, 49; Arcisse de Caumont, _Statistique monumentale du Calvados_ (Caen, F. Le Blanc-Hardal, 1898), 6 vols.; Camille Enlart, _Manuel d'archéologie française_ (Paris, Picard, 1902), 2 vols.; John Bilson, "The Beginnings of Gothic Architecture," in _Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects_, Third series, 1898-99, vol. 6, pp. 289, 322, 345, and p. 259, his answer to M. de Lasteyrie. Reprinted in part in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1901, vol. 44, pp. 369, 462. In the excellent public library of Caen are to be found the _Congrès Archéologique_, the _Bulletin Monumental_, and other archæological publications. Also the _Catalogue des ouvrages normande de la Bibliothèque municipale de Caen_ (Caen, 1910-12). [323] Georges Lafenestre, _Gloires et deuils de France_ (Paris, Hachette, 1918). [324] An old chronicle related how the young widow of the lord of La Roche-Guyon "_mieux aimer s'en aller denuée de tous bien, avec ses trois enfants, que de rendre hommage au roi d'outre mer et de se mettre ès mains des anciens ennemies du royaume_." Anthyme Saint-Paul, _L'architecture française et la Guerre de Cent Ans_ (Paris, 1910); Siméon Luce, _La France pendant la Guerre de Cent Ans_ (Paris, Hachette, 1893); H. Dénifle, _La désolation des églises, monastères, et hôpitaux en France pendant la Guerre de Cent Ans_ (Paris, Picard, 1899); H. Martin, _La guerre au XVe siècle_ (Paris, H. Laurens); G. Lefèvre-Pontalis, "Épisodes de l'invasion anglaise. La guerre de partisans dans la Haute-Normandie" (1424-29), in _Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes_, 1893 to 1895, vols. 54, 55, 56. [325] A. de Caumont, "Les tours d'églises dans le Calvados," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1847, vol. 23, p. 362; E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, "Les clochers du Calvados," in _Congrès Archéologique_, 1908, vol. 2, p. 652; G. Bouet, "Clochers du diocèse de Bayeux," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1872, vol. 38, p. 517; Abbé Édeline, _Norrey et son histoire; La Normandie monumentale et pittoresque_. _Calvados_, p. 231, "Norrey," G. Lavalley; p. 349, "Secqueville"; _Congrès Archéologique_, 1908, p. 193, "Bernières"; p. 338, "Norrey"; p. 349, "Secqueville." [326] In the abbatial of St. Pierre-sur-Dives there is XII-century work in the ambulatory walls, in the piers and side walls of the nave, and in the lower parts of the façade towers. To the XIII century belong most of the choir's piers and the apsidal chapels, also the beautiful chapter house. The transept then was put into harmony with the nave, and its tower built, which latter now is braced by clumsy obstructions within the church. In the XIV century rose the west façade, and the north tower was rebuilt. The XV century rehandled the high vaulting and clearstory, where appear die-away moldings and flamelike tracery. The abbey was founded by Richard II (d. 1020) and his beautiful duchess, Judith of Brittany. Its Romanesque abbatial was dedicated in 1067 by Archbishop Maurille in the presence of the Conqueror and Matilda. In 1107 the abbatial was burned by Henry I of England, who accused the abbot of siding with his elder brother, with whom he was at war, but in atonement the king contributed toward the reconstruction of the church; _Congrès Archéologique_, 1861, 1862, and 1908, p. 278; J. Pépin, _Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives_ (Caen, 1879); Abbé Denis, _Église de Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives en 1145_ (Caen, 1869); _Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes_, vol. 21, p. 120, gives Abbot Haimon's letter, which also was published in Rouen, 1851, by L. de Glanville. [327] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1908; A. Besnard, _Monographie de l'église et de l'abbaye Saint Georges de Boscherville_ (Paris, Lechevailier, 1899); J. A. Deville, _Essai historique et descriptive sur l'église et l'abbaye de St. Georges de Boscherville_ (Rouen, 1827); _La Normandie monumentale et pittoresque. Seine-Inférieure_, p. 235, Abbé A. Tougard. [328] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1908; Doctor Coutan, _La Trinité de Fécamp_ (Caen, 1907). He also describes the Trinité in _La Normandie monumentale et pittoresque_. _Seine-Inférieure_, p. 465; the churches at Dieppe, p. 279; the church of Harfleur, p. 393; Le Havre, p. 381; Carville, p. 177, and Notre Dame at Caudebec-en-Caux, of which Abbé Sauvage has published a separate monograph (1876); A. Leport, _Description de l'église de la Trinité de Fécamp_ (Fécamp, 1879); Leroux de Lincy, _Essai historique sur l'abbaye de Fécamp_; _Histoire littéraire de la France_, vol. 7, p. 318, "Le bienheureux Guillaume, abbé de St. Bénigne de Dijon" (Paris, 1746); vol. 10, p. 265, "Herbert Lozinga, évêque de Norwich" (Paris, 1756). [329] The abbatial of Bernay (Eure), to-day a corn exchange on the market place, shows in its transept the earliest instance of an arcaded wall passage, the feature that, when placed at the clearstory level, became one of the most frequent characteristics of Anglo-Norman architecture, both Romanesque and Gothic. Bernay was founded between 1013 and 1019 by Richard II and Judith of Brittany, the same who invited to their duchy the Lombard, William of Volpiano. William is known to have worked on the Bernay abbatial, which shows resemblances to Burgundian churches at Auxerre and Nevers, and he may have brought to Normandy the Lombard trait of absidal chapels projecting from the eastern wall of the transept. Bernay, however, did not use the Lombard alternance of ground supports. Mr. Bilson thinks that the tall attached stripes were intended for a vaulted, not for a timber roof. The nave's side walls and piers are of Abbot William's time; two bays of the choir belong to later years of the XI century. William the Conqueror is said to have finished the church. It was grievously sacked during the religious wars. The church of Ste. Croix in Bernay, begun, 1373, enlarged 1497, contains tombs from Bec, of former abbots there. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1908, vol. 2, p. 588, Chanoine Porée; _Bulletin Monumental_, 1911, vol. 75, p. 396, Chanoine Porée, and p. 403, John Bilson; G.T. Rivoira, _Lombardic Architecture_, translated by G. Mc. N. Rushford (London and New York, 1910); Chanoine Porée, _Bernay_ (Caen, H. Delesques, 1912). [330] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1895; Abbé A. Legris, _L'église d'Eu_ (1913); Desiré Le Beuf, _La ville d'Eu_ (1884); Doctor Coutan, in _La Normandie monumentale et pittoresque_. _Seine-Inférieure_, vol. 1, p. 333; Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire de l'architecture_, vol. 1, p. 198; vol. 2, p. 364; vol. 5, p. 359; Gonse, _L'art gothique_, p. 210 (Paris, Quantin, 1891). [331] Paul Gout, _Le Mont-Saint-Michel_ (Paris, Colin, 1910), 2 vols.; Ch. H. Besnard, _Mont-Saint-Michel_ (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1911); Ch. de Beaurepaire, _Curieuses recherches sur le Mont-Saint-Michel_ (Rouen, 1873); Ed. Corroyer, _Description de l'abbaye du Mont-Saint-Michel et de ses abords_ (Paris, 1877); Dubouchet, _L'abbaye de Mont-Saint-Michel_ (Paris, 1895); Sir Theodore Andreas Cook, _Twenty-five Great Houses of France_ (London and New York, 1916), chap. 1; Henry Adams, _Chartres and Mont-Saint-Michel_ (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913); Léopold Delisle, éd., _Cronique de Robert de Torigni_ (Paris, Soc. de l'histoire de Normandie, 1872-75), 2 vols. On Robert de Torigny see _Histoire littéraire de la France_, vol. 14, p. 362 (Paris, 1817); Siméon Luce, éd., _Cronique de Mont-Saint-Michel: la défence nationale_ (1879-86); O. de Poli, _Les défenseurs du Mont-Saint-Michel, 1417-50_, (Paris, 1895); Huynes, _Histoire générale de Mont-Saint-Michel_ (Rouen, 1872); Brin, _St. Michel et le Mont-Saint-Michel dans l'histoire et la littérature_ (Paris, 1880). [332] From the _Chanson de Roland_, édition Léon Gautier (Tours, Mâme et fils, 1895). "Li quens Rollanz se jut desuz un pin; Envers Espaigne en ad turnet sun vis. De plusurs choses à remembrer li prist; De toutes teres que li bers ad cunquis, De dulce France, des humes de sun lign, De Carlemagne, sun seignur, ki l'nurrit, Ne poet muer n'en plurt e ne suspirt. Mais lui meïsme ne voelt metre en ubli; Cleimet sa culpe, si priet Deu mercit: 'Viere paterne, ki unkes ne mentis, Seit Lazarin de mort resurrexis E Daniel des leuns quaresis, Guaris de mei l'aume de tuz perilz Pur les pecchiez que en ma vie fis!' Sun destre gant à Deu en puroffrit, E de sa main seinz Gabriel l'ad pris. Desur sun braz teneit le chef enclin: Juintes ses mains est alez à sa fin. Deus li tramist sun angle chérubin, Seinz Raphael, seinz Michiel de l'Péril, Ensemble od els seinz Gabriels i vint, L'aume de l'Cunte portent en pareïs." ("Roland the brave lay prone beneath a pine, Toward Spain his face was turned as conqueror, Of many things came back the memory sharp, The host of places he had won in war, Thoughts of sweet France and of his parentage, Of Charlemagne, his lord, who nurtured him; And tears and sighs rose as the memories surged. Nor did he wish his own self to forget. Demanding grace of God, he told his sins: 'Our Father true, who never yet has lied, Who from the grave raised Blessed Lazarus, Who Daniel saved from lions, save my soul. Pardon the sins that I have stained it with!' Toward God he held his right-hand gauntlet up, Archangel Gabriel took it from his hand. Then on his arm his head sank slowly down, Hands clasped in prayer his spirit passed beyond. God to him sent his angel cherubim, Archguardian Michael, him called of the Peril, St. Raphael and St. Gabriel with him came And bore the Count's soul straight to Paradise.") [333] Léon Gautier, _Les épopées françaises_ (Paris, V. Palme, 1878-94), 4 vols.; Joseph Bédier, _Les légends épiques, recherches sur la formation des chansons de geste_, vol. 3, "La légende de Roland" (Paris, H. Champion, 1908-13), 4 vols. [334] "Il y a des provinces qui ont le doit de se dire françaises par excellence.... La Normandie et la Picardie sont de celles-là.... Elles ont apportés, dans le cours des siècles, à la vieille Ile-de-France, leur aînée, le concours loyal de leur bras, de leur courage, de leur génie."--GABRIEL HANOTAUX, "La Normandie dans l'unité française," in _Société normande de géographie_, 1900, vol 22. [335] The court at Rouen asked Jeanne at the fourth interrogation, February 27, 1431: "Whose was the first voice you heard when you were about thirteen?" Jeanne replied: "It was St. Michael's. I saw him before my eyes; he was not alone, but was encircled by angels of heaven. I saw him with my bodily eyes as clearly as I see you. When they left me, I wept; right gladly would I have gone with them, that is--my soul." At the seventh interrogation, March 15, 1431, when asked how she knew it was St. Michael, Jeanne replied: "_Par le parler et le langage des anges_.... He told me I was a good child and that God would aid me, and to come to the aid of the king of France. He related to me the _grand pitié qui était au royaume de France_."--E. O'REILLY, _Les deux procès de condamnation et la sentence de réhabilitation, de Jeanne d'Arc_ (Paris, Plon, 1808), 2 vols. [336] _Le procès Jeanne d'Arc_, eighth interrogation, March 17, 1431. When asked by her judges if God hated the English, Jeanne replied: "Of the love or the hate which God has for the English, or of what He will do with their souls, I know nothing. But this I know: that they one and all will be driven out of France, except those who here die, and that God will send victory to the French against the English." [337] Marion Couthouy Smith, "Sainte Jeanne of France," in _The Nation_ (London, 1915.) [338] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1859 and 1868; Abbé Loisel et Jean Lafond. _La cathédrale de Rouen_ (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1913): Loisel et Alline, _La cathédrale de Rouen avant l'incendie de 1200_ (Rouen, Lecerf fils, 1904); Louise Pillion, _Les portails lateraux de la cathédrale de Rouen_ (Paris, Picard et fils, 1907); A. Deville, _Tombeaux de la cathédrale de Rouen_ (Paris, Levy, 1881), folio; Camille Enlart, _Rouen_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1904); Émile Lambin, "La cathédrale de Rouen," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1900; Abbé Julien Loth, _La cathédrale de Rouen_ (1879). Other descriptions of Rouen's monuments can be found in the general works of Henri Havard, André Michel, Louis Gonse, Émile Mâle, Paul Vitry. Cheruel, _Histoire de Rouen sous la domination anglaise au XVe siècle_ (Rouen, 1840); A. Fallue, _Histoire de l'église métropolitaine et du diocèse de Rouen_ (Rouen, 1850), 4 vols.; Ch. de Beaurepaire, _Notes historiques et archéol. concernaut le département de la Seine-Inférieure_ (Rouen, Cagniard, 1883); _ibid._, _Dernières mélanges historiques et archéol. Seine-Inférieure_ (Rouen, 1909); Cook, _The Story of Rouen_ (London, 1899); Perkins, _The Churches of Rouen_ (London, 1900). [339] St. Ouen derived its name from the bishop who succeeded St. Romanus and governed Rouen for forty years in the VII century, aiding the founders of Jumièges, Fécamp, and St. Wandrille. He had been blessed as a child in his father's castle near Braine by a passing guest, the Irish missionary, St. Columbanus, and he loved to trace thence his vocation. So rich grew the abbey of St. Ouen that it ruled half the city as temporal lord. In the XV century the English expelled Abbot Jean Richard, a builder of the present nave, to substitute a prelate docile to themselves who sat as judge at Jeanne's trial. But the pope restored Jean Richard in 1434, and he lived to entertain Charles VII in his monastery when that king came as victor to Rouen in 1449. Vacandard, _Vie de St. Ouen_ (Paris, 1902). [340] To a Romanesque abbatial of St. Ouen, burned in 1136, belonged the two-storied chapel called the Chambre-aux-Clercs, now set against the northern limb of the transept. In 1318 Abbot Jean Roussel, called Marc d'Argent, began the present abbatial, making its choir and transept in twenty years, as well as one bay of the nave. After a pause, two more bays were finished by 1390. Another cessation of work came during the Hundred Years' War. Alexander Berneval set up the transept's south rose (1439), made the pretty southern portal (1441) called after the marmosets decorating it; his son put up the north rose. Both architects repose in the same tomb in the church. Many hold the central lantern (c. 1490) to be a prime success of Flamboyant art. Flame tracery appeared in the XV-century windows, but the Rayonnant first plan was adhered to for the chief lines, so that the church, whose building extended over two centuries, is homogeneous. The abbatial was finished under Abbot Bohier (1491-1515). The Huguenots stripped it of its tombs, and lighted bonfires in the church. In the XIX century was added the mediocre west façade. _La Normandie monumentale et pittoresque_. _Seine-Inférieure_, p. 105, "St. Ouen"; p. 129, "St. Maclou"; H. Havard, éd., _La France artistique et monumentale_, vol. 2, p. 79, "St. Ouen," L. de Foucaud; p. 85, "St. Maclou"; Dom. Pommeraye, _Histoire de l'abbaye royale de St. Ouen_ (Rouen, 1662), folio; Jules Quicherat, "Documents inédits sur la construction de St. Ouen de Rouen," in _Biblio. de l'École des chartes_, 1852, vol. 3, p. 454; H. de la Bunodière, _Notice sur l'église St. Ouen de Rouen_ (Paris, 1895); Camille Enlart, "L'architecture gothique au XIV siècle," in _Histoire de l'Art_ (éd., André Michel), vol. 2, partie 2 (Paris, Colin, 1914). [341] Henry II, the first Plantagenet, made for his own residence the chapel of St. Julien in a faubourg of Rouen, Petit-Quevilly. Simultaneously Romanesque and Gothic, the small edifice is one of the most elegant specimens of Normandy's XII-century architecture. Only the choir bay has retained the polychrome decoration which once covered the interior. St. Julien's sexpartite vault has been replaced by a wooden roof. Doctor Contan, _Monographie de St. Julien, Petit-Quevilly_, and his account, p. 239, in _La Normandie monumentale et pittoresque_. _Seine-Inférieure_; Duchemin, _Le Petit-Querilly et le prieuré de Saint Julien_. [342] The church of St. Sauveur in Petit-Andely, begun in 1215, finished in 1245, contains excellent XIII-century glass. Of the same date are the façade, nave, and square-ended choir of Notre Dame at Grand-Andely. Its central tower is of the XV century; the transept is a gem of Flamboyant Gothic. The most brilliant of its windows date from 1540 to 1616. Above the smaller Andely stands Château Gaillard, the "Saucy Castle," which Richard the Lion-hearted built in a year. Its capture in 1204 by Philippe-Auguste ended the English resistance in Normandy at that period. Five miles away are the remains of the magnificent château of Gaillon, where every master of the Renaissance in France was employed. Begun in 1454 by Cardinal d'Estouteville, it was carried forward by Cardinal George I d'Amboise and Cardinal de Bourbon. Its bas-relief of St. George and the dragon is one of the three authenticated works of Michel Colombe. A façade of Gaillon is now in the courtyard of the Beaux-Arts at Paris. Abbé Porée, _Guide historique et descriptive aux Andelys_; _Congrès Archéologique_, 1853; _La Normandie monumentale et pittoresque_. _Eure 1_, pp. 147, 163 (Le Havre, 1895); E. A. Didron, "Les vitraux du Grand-Andely," in _Annales Archéol._, vol. 22. [343] Opposite the tomb of the d'Amboise cardinals (1513-25), predominantly Gothic in character, is the purely Renaissance monument of Louis de Brézé (1536-44), seneschal of Normandy, son of the daughter of Charles VII and Agnes Sorel. The kneeling figure on the tomb is the notorious Diane de Poitiers, his widow. The critics say that if the De Brézé mausoleum is not the work of Jean Goujon, Diane's favorite sculptor, then there must have been living here an unknown XVI-century master of the first order. Jean Goujon was in Rouen, making the wooden doors of St. Maclou, at that time. Paul Vitry, _Jean Goujon_ (Collection, Les Grandes Artistes), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1908); Louis Gonse, _La sculpture française depuis le XIVe siècle_ (Paris, 1895); Léon Palustre, _La Renaissance en France_, vol. 1 (Paris, Quantin, 1888), 3 vols. [344] Camille Enlart, on the origin of Flamboyant Gothic, in the _Archæological Journal_, 1886, and in _Histoire de l'Art_ (éd. A. Michel), vol. 3, 1^{ère} partie (Paris, Colin, 1914); _Bulletin Monumental_, 1906, vol. 70, pp. 38, 483, 511, the controversy between M. Saint-Paul and M. Enlart, on the origin of Flamboyant Gothic; Anthyme Saint-Paul, _L'architecture française et la Guerre de Cent Ans_ (1910); _ibid._, _Les origines du gothique flamboyant en France_ (Caen, 1907). [345] Charles d'Orléans, _Poésies_, éd. Ch. d'Héricault (Paris), 2 vols. [346] St. Maclou, says Mr. F. M. Simpson, expresses the _joie de vivre_, even as the stiff angular lines of a contemporary style--the English Perpendicular--show the gloom that prevailed in England after the War of the Roses. Cardinal Guillaume d'Estouteville contributed toward St. Maclou, which was dedicated only in 1521, by Cardinal Georges II d'Amboise. Jean Goujon probably made the richly chiseled doors. St. Maclou has XV-century windows; its rose windows are of the XVI century. There is Le Prince glass in the late-Gothic church of St. Vincent, and other XVI-century windows in St. Patrice. Abbé Ouin-Lacroix. _Histoire de l'église et de la paroisse de St. Maclou de Rouen_ (1846); Edmond Renaud, _L'église St. Vincent de Rouen_ (1885); Arthur Kingsley Porter, _Medieval Architecture_, vol. 2, pp. 389 to 416, "Flamboyant Gothic Monuments." [347] Notre Dame at Caudebec-en-Caud, called by Henry IV "the most beautiful chapel of my kingdom of France," has its "tiara" united to its shaft by flying buttresses. Other Flamboyant Gothic monuments in Normandy are Louviers' lacelike portal (1493); churches at Dieppe; the transept of Évreux Cathedral; St. Jacques at Lisieux; St. Pierre at Coutances; Les Andelys, Elbeuf, Gisors, and the joyous festival of stone of Notre Dame at Alençon, where the shady north side of the nave is adorned with Old Testament scenes, and the sun-lit southern wall opened by spacious Flamboyant traceries that frame the New Testament; its Jesse tree is unusual. Notre Dame at St. Lô (which has a Becket window) shows Perpendicular traits. Its west portals are strangely dissimilar, as are its monumental towers. Near Fécamp, the Estouteville family founded Valmont abbatial (1116) now unroofed save its Lady chapel, in which are splendid tombs, a reredos of the Annunciation that is a gem of XVI-century realism, and a window that inspired Eugène Delacroix's palette. [348] Sir Theodore Andreas Cook, _Twenty-five Great Houses of France_, chap. 12 (New York and London, 1916). [349] Flaubert, born in Rouen, 1821, died near the city, at Croisset, in his ancient house that formerly belonged to the monks of St. Ouen. The increased river activities during the World War have encroached on his property. His pupil, Guy de Maupassant, born near Dieppe, was associated with his mother's city, Rouen, where stands his statue (1853-93). The house of the great Corneille (1636-1709) is near Rouen's Old Market. Other sons of Rouen were La Salle, the explorer (d. 1687), and the painter Géricault (1791-1824). Nicholas Poussin (1594-1665) was born at Les Andelys; Jean-François Millet, near Cherbourg (1814-74); Auber, the composer (1782-1871), at Caen, as was the poet Malherbes (1555-1628). Mézerai, whose history is considered the best account of the XVI-century religious struggle in France, and his brother, Jean Eudes, founder of the Eudists, were born near Caen. The great seamen, Tourville (1642-1701) and Du Quesne (1610-88), were Normans; so were Laplace, the mathematician (1749-1827), Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59), Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1736-1814), Octave Feuillet (1821-90), Léon Gautier (1832-97), Barbey d'Aurevilly (1808-89), and savants such as Simeon Luce (d. 1892), Gabriel Monod (d. 1912), Albert Sorel, Paul Allard, Leopold Delisle (d. 1910). The latter was led to decipher ancient manuscripts by C. de Gerville, who, with that other Norman, Arcisse de Caumont, was a pioneer in mediæval archeology. [350] Jules Quicherat, the archæologist, was the first to place before the public the records of Jeanne d'Arc's two trials. He printed (1841-49) five volumes in Latin for the _Société de l'histoire de France_. Accounts of Jeanne have been written by Wallon (Paris, 1877); Marius Sepet (Tours, 1885); Ayroles, S. J. (Paris, 1902), who dwells much on the nefarious part played by Paris University in her condemnation: Siméon Luce; G. Hanotaux (Paris, 1911); Petit de Julleville (Les Saints Collection, Paris, Lecoffre, 1907); Andrew Lang (London, 1908): Mrs. Oliphant (Leaders of the Nation Series, New York); D. Lynch, S. J. (New York, 1919); Sarrazin, _Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie au XVe siècle_ (Rouen, 1896); F. Poulaine, _Jeanne d'Arc à Rouen_ (Paris, 1899); Ch. Lemire, _Jeanne d'Arc en Picardie et en Normandie_ (Paris, 1903); Le P. Denifle et Chatelain, _Le procès Jeanne d'Arc et l'université de Paris_ (Paris); U. Chevalier, _L'abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc_; C. de Maleissye, "La prétendue abjuration de St. Ouen," in _Revue des Deux Mondes_, February, 1911, p. 610. The study of Anatole France on Jeanne d'Arc is written from the rationalist standpoint that considers hers a case of hysteria fitted for medical science. No book on Jeanne equals the contemporary records. The report of her two trials in Rouen, and the testimony gathered from end to end of France to vindicate her memory in 1456, have been marshaled and clarified in a skilled legal manner by a magistrate of Rouen: E. O'Reilly, _Les deux procès de condamnation ... et la sentence de réhabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc_ (Paris, Pion, 1868), 2 vols. This masterly work should be translated into English. It is an example of the right way to write history. For Charles VII see Thomas Basin and Vallet de Viriville. [351] Boisguillaume, second clerk of the Rouen court in 1431, Manchon's assistant, testified before the three inquests for Jeanne's rehabilitation. He drew attention to the fact that all who had been culpable of the Maid's death had come to a swift or shameful end. Estivet was found dead in a gutter at the gates of Rouen; Loyseleur, the false confessor, was struck down suddenly; Cauchon expired ignominiously. "I call you to judgment before God for what you have done," rang out Jeanne's words to these unworthy churchmen on her last day. Nicolas Midi, of the Paris Parliament, who drew up the odious twelve accusations, and who sermonized Jeanne in the Old Market, was stricken with leprosy. A year after the execution died the young Duchess of Bedford, who had inflicted a gross outrage on Jeanne, and her death detached from the English cause her brother, the Duke of Burgundy. Her husband, John of Lancaster, regent-duke, brother of Henry V, died in full youth, three years later, and was buried in Rouen Cathedral. His nephew, Henry VI, was dispossessed of his English crown, imprisoned, and murdered. [352] "'Si j'y suis, Dieu m'y tienne; si je n'y suis, Dieu m'y veuille mettre: j'aimerais mieux mourir que de ne pas avoir l'amour de Dieu!' A cette réponse, les juges restèrent stupéfaits et rompirent sur-le-champ."--Testimony of the second clerk of the court, Boisguillaume, in 1450, before the inquest for the rehabilitation. [353] The Norman, Siméon Luce, has written of Jeanne: "La Pucelle n'est pas seulement le type le plus achevé du patriotisme, elle est encore l'incarnation de notre pays dans ce qu'il a de meilleur. Il y a dans la physionomie de l'héroïne du XVe siècle, des traits qui la rattachent à la France de tous les temps, l'entrain belliqueux, la grâce légère, la gaieté prisesantière, l'esprit mordant, l'ironie méprisante en face de la force, la pitié pour les petits, les faibles, les malheureux, la tendresse pour les vaincus. De tels dons appartiennent à notre tradition nationale, et la libératrice d'Orléans les a possédés à un si haut degré que cette face de son génie a frappé tous ses admirateurs." [354] The Duke d'Alençon testified, in 1455, concerning Jeanne: "I have heard captains who took part in the siege of Orléans declare that what passed there touched on the miraculous, that it was no human work. Apart from things of war Jeanne was a simple young girl; but for things of war, wielding the lance, massing the army, preparing the battle, arranging the artillery, she was remarkably skilled. All marveled that she should show the ability and foresight of a captain who had warred for thirty years. Especially in her control of artillery was she admirable." Equally convincing is the testimony, in 1455, of the bastard of Orléans, the great Dunois: "I believe that Jeanne was sent of God and that her conduct in war was more a divine than a human act.... I heard the seneschal of Beaucaire, whom the king had appointed to watch over Jeanne in the wars, say that he believed there never was a woman more chaste. I heard Jeanne say to the king one day: 'When I am distressed that credence is not given that it is Heaven has sent me to your aid, I withdraw to a quiet place and I pray and complain to God, and, my prayer finished, I hear a voice saying, "_Fille Dè, va, va, va! Je serai à ton ayde, va!_" ' And in repeating what the voice said, Jeanne was--an extraordinary thing--in a marvelous ravishment, in a sort of ecstasy, her eyes lifted to heaven." E. O'Reilly, _Les deux procès de condamnation et la sentence de réhabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc_ (Paris, Plon, 1868), vol. 1, pp. 153, 156, 200, 214, 2 vols. [355] Testimony of Isambeau de la Pierre, in 1450, before the inquest for the rehabilitation: "Je la vis éplorée, son visage plein de larmes, défigurée et outragée en telle sorte que j'en eus pitié et compassion." [356] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1858, 1870, and 1908, p. 300, Louis Serbat; Abbé V. Hardy, _La cathédrale St. Pierre de Lisieux_ (Paris, Impri. Fazier-Saye, 1917); _La Normandie monumentale et pittoresque_. _Calvados_, pp. 91, 103, "Lisieux," Abbé Marie (Le Havre, Lemale et Cie, 1875); Ch. Vasseur, _Études historiques et archéologiques sur la cathédrale de Lisieux_ (Caen, 1891); Émile Lambin, "La cathédrale de Lisieux," in _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1898, vol. 45, p. 448; A. de Caumont, _Statistique monumentale du Calvados_ (Caen, 1867), vol. 5, p. 200; V. Ruprich-Robert, _L'architecture normande au XIe et XIIe siècles_ (Paris, 1897), 2 vols.; H. de Formeville, _Histoire de l'ancien évêche-comté de Lisieux_ (Lisieux, 1873), 2 vols.; _Histoire littéraire de la France_, vol. 14, p. 304, "Arnoul, évêque de Lisieux" (Paris, 1817); A. Sarrazin, _Pierre Cauchon, juge de Jeanne d'Arc_ (Paris, 1901). Other studies of the judges of Jeanne d'Arc, by Fabre (Paris, 1915), and Ch. Engelhard (Le Havre, 1905). [357] The murdered Duke of Orléans, a son of the art-loving Valois king, Charles V, built the châteaux of La Ferté-Milon, on the Oureq, and Pierrefonds, in the forest of Compiègne, in the courtyard of which latter stands his equestrian statue. His sons were the poet-duke, Charles d'Orléans, and Dunois, his acknowledged bastard, the chief instrument in ridding France of her invaders. Two grandsons of the builder of Pierrefonds ascended the French throne, Louis XII and Francis I, and those who undertake an architectural journey over France will soon become familiar with the porcupine of the one and the salamander of the other. Sir Theodore Andreas Cook, _Twenty-five Great Houses of France_ (New York and London, 1916); Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire de l'architecture_, on Pierrefonds. [358] A professor in a Norman college, Joseph Lotte, who fell on the field of honor at Arras, in December, 1914, thus apostrophized the "Little Flower" of Lisieux: "Enrôlez-nous, petite soeur céleste! Enrôlez-nous sous vos bannières. Nous avons battu bien des pays, couru bien des aventures, dissipé bien des dons: il nous reste la fidélité. Nous serons derrière vous les vieux routiers qui escortaient Jeanne d'Arc. Notre France ne veut pas mourir. Apprenez-nous à aimer. Il faut qu'un tel amour monte de nous à Dieu qu'il tourne à nouveau sa face vers notre terre de France et, retrouvant son peuple, décide de le sauver. Mais ne l'a-t-il pas déjà décidé, puisqu'il vous a envoyée?" P. Pacary, _Un compagnon de Péguy, Joseph Lotte; pages choisies_ (Paris, J. Gabalda, 1916). [359] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1864, 1889, and 1908; Abbé Jules Fossey, _Monographie de la cathédrale d'Évreux_ (Évreux, 1898); Abbé Forée, _Les clôtures des chapelles de la cathédrale d'Évreux_ (Évreux, Hérissey, 1890); A. J. de H. Bushnell, _Storied Windows_ (New York, Macmillan, 1914); N. H. J. Westlake, _A History of Design in Painted Glass_ (London, Parker & Co., 1881); _La Normandie monumentale et pittoresque_. _Eure_, vol. 1, p. 1, Évreux; p. 31, Conches; p. 61, Verneuil; p. 89, Tillières; p. 93, Nonancourt; p. 119, Vernon; p. 147, Les Andelys; p. 191, Gisors; vol. 2, p. 1, Louviers; p. 23, Gaillon; p. 97, Pont-Audemer; p. 63, Pont-de-l'Arche: p. 183, Bernay; p. 221, Bec-Hellouin; p. 245, Beaumont-le-Roger. In most of these churches the colored windows are remarkable. [360] The son of that union was the trouvère poet, Thibaut IV of Champagne and I of Navarre, of which latter domain he was chosen king in 1234, on the death of his mother's brother, Sancho, the chief victor of Las Navas de Toloso. His niece, Jeanne, inheriting both Champagne and Navarre, united them with the royal domain by her marriage to Philippe le Bel. Three of her sons ruled successively as kings of France, and then the Valois branch--sprung from a brother of Philippe le Bel--came to the throne. Whereupon the Navarrese elected, as their ruler, the Count of Évreux, who had married a daughter of Jeanne's. His son was Charles the Wicked (1319-87), Count of Évreux, king of Navarre, who in turn was succeeded by his son, Charles the Noble (1387-1425). One and all of them were linked with the architectural story of France: at Troyes, Provins, Meaux, Mantes, and Évreux Cathedral. [361] In Normandy, glass of the XIV century is to be found in the cathedrals of Séez and Coutances, at Carentan, Pont-de-l'Arche, Nesle-St.-Saire, and in Rouen's big abbatial. Elsewhere in France there are XIV-century windows at Mantes, Beauvais, Amiens, Dol, Limoges, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Narbonne, Béziers, Carcassonne (in St. Nazaire), Chartres (in St. Pierre), and Poitiers (in Ste. Radégonde). In St. Urbain's at Troyes is some of the earliest glass of this century. [362] Normandy's XV-century glass, besides that of Évreux' Lady chapel, can be studied at Rouen, in the cathedral, and the churches of St. Ouen and St. Maclou, at Caudebec, Bernay, Vereuil, Beaumont-le-Roger, St. Lô, Carentan, Falaise, Pont-Audemer, Bayeux, and Coutances. Elsewhere in France glass of this period can be seen in Amiens Cathedral, in the Vendôme chapel of Chartres, in the choir of Moulins, in the north transept of Le Mans, and the windows presented to Bourges Cathedral by the Duke of Berry and Jacques Coeur. There is also XV-century glass at Clermont-Ferrand, Eymoutiers, Riom, in some of the churches of Paris, such as St. Sévérin, and in Brittany, at Dinan, Plélan, Les Iffs, and in Quimper Cathedral. Windows of the XVI century abound in Normandy. The most imposing array is near Évreux, at Conches, whose church of Ste. Foi is on no account to be missed. Aldégrevier, a pupil of Albert Dürer, designed the seven tall apse windows, about 1520. There are eighteen other lights (1540-53), very Raphaelesque in type; the _Pressoir_ window and the apotheosis of the Virgin are typical of that heated hour of controversy. Andre Michel, éd., _Histoire de l'art_, vol. 4, 2{ème} partie, "Le vitrail français au XV{e} et au XVI{e} siècle," Émile Mâle; A. Bouillet, _L'église Ste. Foi de Couches (Eure) et ses vitraux_ (Caen, H. Delesque, 1889). [363] V. Ruprich-Robert, _La cathédrale de Séez_ (Paris, Morel, 1885); Abbé L. V. Dumaine, _La cathédrale de Séez, son histoire et ses beautés_ (Séez, 1894); H. Tournouër, "La cathédrale de Séez," in _Bulletin de la Soc. hist. et archéol. de l'Orne_, 1897; Marais et Beaudouin, _Essai hist. sur le cathédrale et le chapitre de Séez_ (Alençon, 1878); Robert Triger, "La cathédrale de Séez," in _Revue hist. et archéol. du Maine_, 1900, vol. 47, p. 287; _De la Sicotière et Poulet-Malassis, Le département de l'Orne, archéol. et pittoresque_ (Laigle, Beuzelin, 1845), folio; _La Normandie monumentale et pittoresque_. _Orne_, p. 101, on Séez, Abbé Barret; p. 1, St. Germain at Argentan, with a central lantern and elaborate late-Gothic porch; p. 41, Notre Dame at Alençon; p. 77, St. Évroult-de-Montfort, a late-XI century abbatial; p. 245, the monastery of La Trappe, in Séez diocese, established in 1122, and reformed in 1662 by the noted Abbé de Rancy. [364] St. Gervais, at Falaise, has a good Romanesque tower consecrated in the presence of Henry I of England. The nave's southern pier arcade is Romanesque, but the arches on the north side were reconstructed as Gothic at the same time that the vaults were redone during the XIII century. See _Congrès Archéologique_, 1848, 1864, and 1908, p. 367; Louis Régnier, "Falaise et la vallée d'Auge," in _Annuaire normand_, 1892; Langevin, _Recherches historiques sur Falaise_; Meriel, _Hist. de Falaise_ (1889); Black, _Normandy and Picardy, Their Castles, Churches, and Footprints of William the Conqueror_. [365] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1853 and 1908, vol. 1, p. 145; Henri Prentout, _Caen et Bayeux_ (Collection. Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens); Abbé Lelieve, _Bayeux, la cathédrale, les églises_ (Bayeux, Deslandes, 1907); Jean Vallery-Radot, _La cathédrale de Bayeux_, Thèse: École des chartes (1911); De Dion et Lesvignes, _La cathédrale de Bayeux_ (Paris, A. Morel et Cie, 1861); Rev. R. S. Mylne, _The Cathedral of Bayeux_ (London, 1904); Chigonesnel, _Histoire de Bayeux_ (1867); Paul de Farcy, _Abbayes du diocèse de Bayeux_ (Laval, 1886-88), 3 vols, (on Cerisy-la-Forêt, etc.); Arcisse de Caumont, _Statistique monumentale du Calvados_ (Caen, F. Le Blanc-Hardel, 1898); G. Bouet, "Clochers du diocèse de Bayeux," in _Bulletin Monumental_, vol. 17, p. 196; vol. 23, p. 362; vol. 25, 1859, p. 165; vol. 49, p. 465; Engerand, "La sculpture romane en Normandie," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1904; _Histoire littéraire de la France_, vol. 13, p. 518, "Robert Wace, chanoine de Bayeux, historien-poète"; V. Bourrienne, in _Revue catholique de Normandie_, on the bishops Odo de Conteville and Philippe d'Harcourt, vii to x, xviii to xxiii. [366] The term Romanesque was put into usage by the archaeologist, Arcisse de Caumont (1802-73), to whom Bayeux has erected a statue. He also originated the useful term "Flamboyant." His Norman Society of Antiquarians was a pioneer in the study of mediæval monuments. Another son of Bayeux, honored by a statue, is the poet, Alain Chartier (1386-1449), who lived to see his master, Charles VII, the conqueror of Normandy. [367] A. Levé, _La tapisserie de Bayeux_ (Paris, H. Laurens, 1919); Hilaire Belloc, _The Bayeux Tapestry_ (London and New York, 1914); J. R. Fowke, _The Bayeux Tapestry_ (London, G. Bell, 1898); Lefebvre des Mouettes, in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1912, p. 213; 1903, p. 84. [368] Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_, "Prologue." [369] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1883; and 1908, p. 247, "La cathédrale de Coutances," E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, also published separately by H. Delesques, Caen, 1910; Abbé E. H. Pigéon, _Histoire de la cathédrale de Coutances_ (Coutances, Salette fils, 1876); Alfred Ramée, "Cathédrale de Coutances," in _Revue des Soc. Savantes_, 1880, p. 94; A. de Dion, in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1884, vol. 50, p. 620; 1865, p. 509, G. Bouet; 1872, p. 19, Regnault; Gabriel Fleury, in _Revue ... archéol. du Maine_, 1909, on the architect, Thomas Toustain; Regnault, _Revue monumentale et historique de l'arrondissement de Coutances_ (St. Lô, 1860); C. de Gerville, "Recherches sur les abbayes de la Manche," in _Mém. de la Soc. des Antiquaires de Normandie_, vol. 2, p. 77; _ibid._, _Études géographiques et historiques sur le département de la Manche_ (Cherbourg, 1854). [370] Near Hauteville-sur-mer are the ruins of Hambye Abbey, whose destruction was an irreparable loss for art, since its church was Primary Gothic. On the road from Coutances to Cherbourg is the abbatial of Lessay (a contemporary of St. Étienne at Caen), said by M. Arcisse de Caumont to be one of the purest models of Norman Romanesque, an austere monument of the XI-century type. Differences in the pier's profiles show where, in the nave, the XII century resumed work. In this latter period Gothic ribs were prepared for from the planting of the piers, but the actual diagonals of the nave were built in the XIII century. Mr. John Bilson claims that the Gothic ribs of the two sections preceding the apse are of the XI century, which again brings up the controversy of priority in the use of diagonals. The Cistercian church of La Blanche at Mortain was another abbatial of the Manche, dedicated in 1206. At Cerisy-la-Forêt the abbey church was begun (c. 1130) by the Fécamp school of William of Volpiano, continued by Duke Robert the Magnificent, and finished by his son William the Conqueror. The nave was built from west to east in the last quarter of the XI century, the apse slightly after 1100, the actual vaulting a century later. The religious wars and the Revolution sacked the abbatial; in 1811 its demolition was still going on. _Congrès Archéologique_, 1908, p. 242, "Lessay," Lefèvre-Pontalis; p. 553, "Cerisy-la-Forêt," André Rhein; _Congrès Archéologique_, 1860, on Cherbourg; _La Normandie monumentale et pittoresque_. _Manche_, p. 173, "Lessay"; p. 1, "St. Lô"; p. 51, "Carentan"; p. 73, "Cerisy-la-Forêt"; p. 153, "Hambye"; R. Le Conte, _Études hist. et archéol. sur les abbayes bénédictines en général, et sur celle de Hambye en particulier_ (Bernay, 1890). [371] Camille Enlart, _L'influence extérieure de l'art normand au moyen âge_; _ibid._, _Origines françaises de l'architecture gothique en Italie_ (Paris, Thorin, 1894); Ch. Diehl, _Palerme et Syracuse_ (Collection, Villes d'art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1907); Miss C. Waern, _Medieval Sicily_ (London, 1910); Émile Bertaud, _L'art dans l'Italie méridionale_; F. Chalandon, _Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile_ (Paris, 1907); E. Curtis, _Roger of Sicily_ (New York, 1912). [372] Doctor Coutan, _La cathédrale d'Avranches_ (Rouen, Cagniard, 1902); _La Normandie monumentale et pittoresque_. _Manche_, vol. 2, p. 65, "Avranches." [373] Anatole Le Braz, _La Bretagne_ (Collection, Les provinces françaises), (Paris, H. Laurens); _ibid._, _Histoire de Bretagne_ (Collection, Les vieilles provinces de France), (Paris, Bouvin); _ibid._, _Au pays des pardons_ (translated, London, Methuen, 1906); Abbé J. M. Abgrall, _Architecture bretonne; études des monuments du diocèse de Quimper_ (Quimper, 1904); _ibid._, _Paysages et monuments des Côtes-du-Nord_; Gautier du Mottay, _Répertoire archéol. des Côtes-du-Nord_; H. du Cleuziou, _Bretagne artistique et pittoresque_ (Paris, 1886); _Bulletin de la Soc. archéol. du Finistère_, 1901, vol. 28, p. 264, "Le vieux Morlaix"; and 1902, vol. 30, p. 24, "Le vieux Quimperlé"; A. de Lorme, "L'art breton du XIIIe au XVIIe siècle," in _Bulletin de la Soc. archéol. du Finistère_, 1901, vol. 28, p. 264; Taylor et Nodier, _Voyages pittoresque ... dans l'ancienne France, La Bretagne_ (Paris, Didron, 1845-46), 2 vols.; André, _La verrerie et les vitraux peint dans l'ancienne province de Bretagne_ (1878); Léon Palustre, _La Renaissance en France_, vol. 2, "La Bretagne" (Paris, Quantin, 1885), 3 vols., folio; De la Borderie, _Histoire de Bretagne_, vol. 3, from 995 to 1364, and vol. 4, from 1364 to 1522 (Rennes, 1896-1900); _ibid._, _Mosaïque bretonne_ (Rennes, Plihon et Hervé); De la Villemarqué, éd., _Barzas-Breiz; chants populaires de la Bretagne_, ninth edition (1892), 2 vols.; F. M. Luzel, _Gwerziou Briez-Izel_ (epics) and _Soniou_ (lyrics), (Lorient, 1868-74), 3 vols.; Siméon Luce, _Histoire de Bertrand Duguesclin et de son épogue_ (1883); Leroux de Lincy, _Vie de la reine Anne de Bretagne_ (1860); A. Robida, _La veille France, Bretagne_ (Paris, 1891). [374] Edmond Rostand, "Le nom sur la maison," in _Le vol de la Marseillaise_ (Paris, Charpentier et Fasquelle, 1919). [375] A son of Morlaix, Émile Souvestre (1806-54), has written lovingly of Brittany: "Il y a quelque chose de bien supérieure à la louange; la conscience que l'on a été compris et que l'on est aimé pour son oeuvre. _Aimé pour son oeuvre!_ Je sais mieux que personne ce qui manque à ce que j'écris. Il faut quelque chose d'ondoyant. J'appartiens à cette terre Celtique où les monuments sont des pierres non taillées." [376] "Campagnes bretonnes, qu'on dirait toujours recueillies dans le passé ... grandes pierres qui couvrent les lichens gris ... plaines où le granit affleure le sol antique.... Ce sont des impressions de tranquillité, d'apaisement, que m'apporte ce pays; c'est aussi une aspiration vers un repos plus complet sous la mousse." --PIERRE LOTI, _Mon frère Yves_. [377] The men of St. Malo have been pioneers under one aspect or another, sea rovers, like Duguay-Trouin, Surcouf, or Jacques Cartier, who, in 1535, knelt in the cathedral, where an inscription marks the pavement, to receive episcopal blessing before he sailed to discover Canada. Other sons of St. Malo have been the astronomer, Maupertius (1698-1756); Lamennais (1782-1854); and Chateaubriand (1768-1848), who chose for his burial the barren island of Grand Bé, offshore. [378] "Quiqu'en grogne, Ainsi sera: C'est mon plaisir." [379] André Rhein, "La cathédrale de Dol," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1910, vol. 74, p. 367; A. Ramé, "La cathédrale de Dol; tombeau de l'évêque Thomas James," in _Mélanges d'archéologie bretonne_, 1858, vol. 2, p. 10; T. Gautier, _La cathédrale de Dol_; Ch. Robert, _Guide de tourist archéologique à Dol_ (Dol-de-Bretagne, 1892); Léon Palustre, _La Renaissance en France_, vol. 2, "La Bretagne," p. 87, on Dol (Paris, Quantin, 1885); Paul Vitry, _Michel Colombe et la sculpture française de son temps_ (Paris, 1901); A. de Montaiglon, "La sculpture française à la Renaissance: la famille des Juste en France," in _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_, 1875, vol. 12, p. 394. [380] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1856 and 1886; Guilhermy, "Monuments des bords de la Loire; Nantes," in _Annales archéol._, 1845, vol. 2, p. 87; J. Montfort, "La crypte de la cathédrale de Nantes," in _Bulletin Monumental_, 1884, vol. 50, pp. 368, 449; Paul Vitry, _Michel Colombe et la sculpture française de son temps_ (Paris, 1901); Lambin de Lignum, _Recherches historiques sur l'origine et des ouvrages de Michel Colombe_; Benj. Fillon, _Poitou et Vendée_ (1846); Travers, _Histoire ... du comté de Nantes_, 3 vols. [381] Félix Soleil, _La danse-macabre de Kermaria-an-Isquit_ (St. Brieuc, 1882); Émile Mâle, _L'art religieux de la fin du moyen âge en France_, chap. 2, "La danse macabre" (Paris, Colin, 1910); Lucien Bégule, _La chapelle de Kermaria Nisquit et la danse des morts_ (Paris, 1911); Abbé J. M. Abgrall, _Le mobilier artistique des églises bretonnes_ (Quimper, Cotonnec, 1898). [382] R. F. Le Men, _Monographie de la cathédrale de Quimper_ (Quimper, 1877); Abbé J. M. Abgrall, "Autour du vieux Quimper," in _Bulletin de la Soc. archéol. du Finistère_, 1901, vol. 28, p. 79; _ibid._, _L'architecture bretonne, étude des monuments du diocèse de Quimper_ (1882); Thomas, _La cathédrale de Quimper_ (1892); P. Peyron, "Les églises et chapelles du diocèse de Quimper," in _Bulletin de la Soc. archéol. du Finistère_, vol. 20, pp. 129, 451; vol. 31, pp. 18, 216, 304; vol. 32, p. 183. [383] L. Th. Lecureur, _La cathédrale de St. Pol-de-Léon_ (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens); Ch. Chassepied, "Notes sur la cathédrale de St. Pol-de-Léon," in _Bulletin de la Soc. archéol. du Finistère_, 1901, vol. 28, p. 304; Abbé J. M. Abgrall, _Au pays des clochers à jour_ (Paris, 1902). [384] _Congrès Archéologique_, 1883, on Tréguier; Ch. de la Ronsiere, _Saint Yves_ (Collection, Les Saints), (Paris, Lecoffre, 1901); Ernest Renan, _Souvenirs d'enfance_ (1883). [385] Émile Mâle, _L'art religieux au XIIIe siècle en France_, p. 442 (Paris, Colin, 1908). (Trans. by Dora Mussey, London, Dent & Sons, New York, Dutton, 1913). [386] "Un tel art ne pouvait être effleuré par le doute. L'art et la poésie qui émeuvent sortent du coeur et d'une région obscure où la raison n'a pas accès. L'artiste qui examine, juge, critique, doute, concilie, a déjà perdu la moitié de la force créatrice."--ÉMILE MÂLE, _L'art religieux de la fin du moyen âge en France_ (Paris, Colin, 1910). "Art addresses not pure sense, still less the pure intellect, but the imaginative reason through the senses."--WALTER PATER. [387] "Hier, pendant son congé de vingt-quatre heures, j'ai rencontré le fils d'une pauvre femme de la campagne, un ouvrier que j'aime bien depuis longtemps. Quand je l'ai quitté, et que je lui ai dit: 'Bonne chance, Marcel,' il m'a regardé de ses yeux sans reproche, et il m'a répondu: 'D'un côté ou de l'autre, je ne crains rien.' Et cela voulait dire: la vie la mort? Qu'importe! je suis prêt. Qu'est ce que tout cela. C'est la chanson de geste qui continue: c'est la croisade qui n'est point finie, c'est Dieu transparaissant à travers la France purifiée."--An episode to the World War, 1914: René Bazin, _Les Preux_. * * * * * Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: Madgeburg is a Primary Gothic cathedral=> Magdeburg is a Primary Gothic cathedral {pg 2} builder of Sossions Cathedral=> builder of Soissons Cathedral {pg 6} To point a rose-colored picture=> To paint a rose-colored picture {pg 41} blood of the Caroligian line=> blood of the Carolingian line {pg 86} Germans' stategic retreat=> Germans' strategic retreat {pg 112} conterbutting members of Rheims Cathedral=> counterbutting members of Rheims Cathedral {pg 117} congrégation quia existé=> congrégation qui a existé {pg 118-(note 66)} Les eglises de l'Ile-de-France=> Les églises de l'Ile-de-France {pg 126 (note 71)} Cronique des évêques de Meaux=> Chronique des évêques de Meaux {pg 165 (note 100)} its sanctury is a gem=> its sanctuary is a gem {pg 172 (note 107)} They are the patriachs=> They are the patriarchs {pg 182} Quelle delicieuse église!=> Quelle délicieuse église! {pg 237} Through Créstien=> Through Crestien {pg 245} l'oyage au pays des sculpteurs romans=> l'Voyage au pays des sculpteurs romans {pg 288 (note 177)} tantôt estrompée=> tantôt estompée {pg 332 (note 207)} the tenets of Cartharism=> the tenets of Catharism {pg 365} vestage of the city ramparts=> vestige of the city ramparts {pg 385} fit into our catagory=> fit into our category {pg 405} Gregory XI--Count Roger de Beaufort, a nephew of Clement VI--went back definitely in 1177 to the Holy City=> Gregory XI--Count Roger de Beaufort, a nephew of Clement VI--went back definitely in 1377 to the Holy City {pg 409} Celui qui proclaime l'existence de l'infini=> Celui qui proclame l'existence de l'infini {pg 428} et de la democratic moderne=> et de la démocratie moderne {pg 428} Sacracen inroads=> Saracen inroads {pg 436} more romatically ideal=> more romantically ideal {pg 441} XI-centuy-Notre Dame at Semur=> XI-century Notre Dame at Semur {pg 443} nos éerivains français=> nos écrivains français {pg 451 (note 304)} et vous savez somment il procède=> et vous savez comment il procède {pg 460 (note 308)} the Cartharis heresy=> the Catharist heresy {pg 466} Lanfrance had been teaching at Avranches=>Lanfranc had been teaching at Avranches {pg 474} a chonicle mass=>a chonicle mass a conicle mass {pg 500} beseiged and burned=> besieged and burned {pg 546} joie de viore=> joie de vivre {pg 517} La crypt de la cathédrale de Nantes=> La crypte de la cathédrale de Nantes {pg 565 (note 380)} was married, in 1199, to Louis XII.=> was married, in 1499, to Louis XII. {pg 566} place of honor is give to the Saviour=> place of honor is given to the Saviour {pg 567} Tarantaise, Pierre de (Innocent IV), 268.=> Tarentaise, Pierre de (Innocent IV), 268. {index} Viffart (Aisne), 45.=> Viffort (Aisne), 45. {index}