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 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIECO 
 
 LA JOLLA. CALIFORNIA
 
 The Story of Chartres 

 
 All rights reser-ved
 
 '. ^^ -.; V ■.« t ^ ' \ ■i'^
 
 The Story of CHARTRES 
 by Cecil He ad I am 
 
 lUustrdted by Herbert Rdilton 
 
 London: J. M. Dent & Co. 
 
 Aldine House ^ 29 and 30 Bedford Street 
 Covent Garden, IV. C. * * 1902
 
 Quae qui non vidit jam similia 
 non videbit, non solum ibi, sed in 
 tota Francia.' 
 
 ' La vile esteit mult bone, de grande antiquite, 
 Iglise i aveit bele, de grant anctoritc ; 
 De la sainte Virge Marie mere de De 
 I esteit la kemise tenue en grant chiertc.' 
 
 Robert Wace [Roman du Rou). 
 
 ' Tiie most wonderful thing in France.' 
 
 James Russell Lowell. 
 
 ' Notre-dame de Chartres ! A world to explore, as 
 if one explored the entire Middle Ages.' 
 
 Walter Pater.
 
 TO 
 
 MY KRIEND 
 
 GEORGE MONTAGU 
 
 IN MEMORY OF DAYS 
 
 IN THE 
 
 OLD WORLD AND THE NEW
 
 1'A(;e 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Druids and Komans : The Crypt . . I 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 Saints and Barbarians . . . . 3 1 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 Theobald- the- I'rickster and Fulbert the Bishop 51 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 S. Ives and the Crusades . . . . 80 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 7'he Cathedra/ and Its Buihlers . . . 1 09 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 Mettiaval Class and Mediaval Cuihls . . l 50 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The Cathedral . . . . .182 
 
 vii
 
 Contents 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Birth of the Bourgeoisie and the English 
 
 Occupation . . . , . .231 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 The Siege and the Breach, 1568 . . . 263 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Mathurin Regnier and the Renaissance at 
 
 Chartres . ... . . .285 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 The Coronation of Henri Qjtatre . . . 302 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 The Revolution — S. Pere .... 322 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 I'he Prussians at Chartres . . . 345 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Itinerary and Expeditions . . . . 352 
 
 Index . . • ^55
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 The Cathedra/ from the Rue du 
 (photograi'itre) . 
 
 The House of the Salmon f vignette J 
 
 Tetre de S. Nicholas . 
 
 S. Modesta, South Porch (from a photograph 
 by C. Blin, Chartres ) . ... 
 
 Gargoyle on South Porch 
 
 Cathedral : South Transept . 
 
 Fulbert and His Church 
 
 VRtape-au-Vin .... 
 
 Street Entrance to Old Hotel de Tille 
 
 The Spires of Chartres 
 
 Ij Ane qui vie He 
 
 The Angel Dial ..... 
 
 Tympanum of the Royal Porch (from a photo 
 graph by C. Blin, Chartres J 
 
 Pilaster of the Royal Porch 
 
 Pilaster of the Royal Porch 
 
 Washing-place on the River Eure . f'ci'ig 
 
 Bourg 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 I 
 9 
 
 18 
 
 32 
 
 55 
 
 67 
 
 81 
 
 104 
 
 II I 
 
 125 
 
 126 
 
 1.33 
 136 
 
 138 
 x68
 
 Illustrations 
 
 I'AIIK 
 
 Flying Buttresses of the Nave (from a photo- 
 graph by C. Blin., Chart res) . . I B9 
 
 Ambidatory, Chartres Cathedral . f'i<''»g 203 
 
 Interior North Porch . . . ,, 221 
 
 aS". George from the South Porrh (from a photo- 
 graph by C. B/'w, Chartres J . . 226 
 
 Thlrteejith Century Gable of Old Hotel de I 'die 232 
 
 Courtyard in the Old Hotel tie Pdle . . 239 
 
 Porte Gudlaume . . . . .245 
 
 Chartres in 1500 (from an old engraving J . 259 
 
 Jrms of the Town ..... 262 
 
 Qjieeji Bertha''s Toiver .... 266 
 
 Old Dormer Windcw from Maison du Saumon 268 
 
 Chartres Besieged by M. le Prince de Conde, 
 
 March 1568 . . . . . 275 
 
 To<wer of S. Andre ..... 283 
 
 Courtyard, Maison du Mcdecin . . . 287 
 
 Renaissance Oriel, Rue de la Corroierie . 297 
 
 Place de l' Hotel de Ville . . . .319 
 
 Rt/e des Beg nines . . . . -33^ 
 
 Old Houses in the Rue S. Mane . . .347 
 
 Plan of Chartres . . . fi'''"g 354
 
 Chartres is actually 
 
 86 kilometres from Paris. 
 71 „ from Orleans. 
 
 35 ,, from Dreux. 
 
 An excellent train, leaving the Gare S. Lazare at 
 mid-day, runs through from Paris in one hour and a 
 half. A good dejeuner is served in the train on 
 starting. Returning from Chartres, most of the trains 
 run into the Montparnasse Station, south of the river 
 and twenty minutes' drive from the Place de I'Opcra. 
 
 The road is straight and level and a favourite 
 one with automobilists. Chartres may also, of course,, 
 be approached from Normandy •via Rouen, Evreux, 
 Dreux, and, if you include Amiens to the North- 
 west, and Caen (whence you will visit Bayeux,. 
 Lisieux, and Falaise) to the North-east, Chartres 
 will be found to provide the perfect finish to a 
 delightful and instructive, and also economical, tour. 
 
 An itinerary for those who have but a short time 
 to spare at Chartres is suggested on page 352. 
 
 Hotels — Grand Monarque (Automobile Club de 
 France); Due de Chartres ; France.
 
 r.°!;l 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 Druids and Romans : The Crypt 
 
 BUILT half on the slope and half on the strath in 
 a depression of calcareous soil, Chartres lies 
 along the banks of the gliding Eure, breaking the long 
 levels of La Beauce. 
 
 La Beauce, indeed, is still the waterless, shadeless, 
 
 woodless plain that the Bishop of Poitiers described 
 
 in the sixth century, but it is now also one immense 
 
 field of corn in which man has planted a few scattered 
 
 A 1
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 farms and pleasure houses.* It is the granary of 
 France. Le We c est la Beauce et la Beauce c* est 
 Chartres. \ 
 
 And on every side of it, spread out in the summer 
 time like a many-coloured carpet under the great dome 
 of the sky, stretch the cornfields, cut by the black 
 lines of the railway, or by the straight, disheartening 
 lengths of roads which run beyond the distant horizon 
 of monotonous level, to Dreux, to Orleans, to Paris. 
 The twin spires of Chartres are the only landmark. 
 The sole beauty in this country must be found in its 
 fecundity ; in the fields of standing corn, which the 
 passing breezes curve into travelling waves, and in the 
 endless perspective of sameness which inspires the same 
 emotions of mingled pleasure and sadness as the sight 
 of the vast and melancholy ocean. And, like a ship 
 for ever a-sail in the distance, everywhere the great 
 Church of Chartres is visible, with the passing light or 
 shadow upon its grey, weather-beaten surfaces, or, as 
 it seemed to Lowell : — • 
 
 ' Silent and grey as forest-leaguered cliff 
 Left inland by the ocean's slow retreat.' 
 
 Chartres is no place for an Atheist. J The exclam- 
 
 * ' Belsia, triste Solum, cui desunt bis tria tantum : 
 Pontes, prata, nemus, lapides, arbusta, racemus.' 
 
 The couplet has been neatly translated : — 
 
 ' Le triste pays que la Beauce ! 
 Car il ne baisse ni ne hausse ; 
 Et de six choses de grand prix 
 Collines, fontaines, ombrages, 
 Vendanges, bois et paturages 
 En Beauce il n'en manque . . . que six ! ' 
 
 t In this connection, see the window. No. 6, in the clerestory 
 of the nave of the Cathedral, north side, the subject of which is 
 ' Tilling the Ground.' 
 
 \ Un Athee serait mal a I'aise ici. 
 2
 
 Dj'uids and Romans : The Crypt 
 
 ation of Napoleon on first entering the Cathedral of 
 Notre - Dame is the keynote and summary of the 
 town. For from the earliest dawn of its history down 
 to the prevsent day Chartres has preserved, almost un- 
 broken, the tradition of a religious centre. Other 
 notes have indeed been struck here and died away in 
 the distance of ages. There have been discords in 
 the score of her worldly history. The armies of Cassar 
 and of Hastings have come and gone ; the armies 
 of England, of France, of Germany, have marched 
 through the narrow, tortuous streets of this ancient 
 city and left scarce a trace behind. Mediasvalism with 
 all its charm and all its vileness has disappeared before 
 the excesses of that Revolution which sowed the seed 
 of modern French civilisation. The thick forests 
 which were once the glory of the Druids have vanished 
 and given place to innumerable acres of tillage, whilst 
 the sound of the woodman's axe has been replaced by 
 the swish of the scythe and the hum of the threshing 
 machine. But through all these changes Chartres has 
 remained true to her heritage. She has been always 
 the first town of Our Lady, the chosen citadel of 
 the Virgin. The friars of the Middle Ages, who 
 obtained the right of coining money, stamped on their 
 coins the legend Prima Sedes Frcuicie, and Charles-le- 
 Chauve, when he presented to the town the Veil of 
 the Blessed Mary, chose the Church of Chartres as 
 the earliest and most august sanctuary of the cult of 
 the Virgin. And even before the Christian era it was 
 so. For, by a strange coincidence, in which there has 
 been found something more than a coincidence, or 
 nothing more than a reflection of Isis worship, or, 
 again, merely a monkish invention, but by a strange 
 coincidence, at any rate, the grotto, above which, in 
 after years, the mediaeval masons were to rear the 
 superb superstructure of their Cathedral, was dedicated 
 
 3
 
 T'he Story of Chartres 
 
 by the ancient Druids : * To the Virgin who shall 
 bear a son ' — Virgin't Paritune. There, upon the 
 very spot in the dim vast crypt which is to-day the 
 most famous and the most frequented shrine in the 
 world, they worshipped an image which was the 
 forerunner of the statue of Notre-Dame-de-Sous- 
 Terre. 
 
 Were they moved by some echo of those most 
 ancient Eastern rites which include the cult of a virgin 
 mother and child, or had they heard, these wise and 
 inscrutable priests, some echo of Isaiah's prophecy : 
 A virgin shall conceive and bear a son ? Possibly. At 
 any rate, we know that a hundred years before the 
 coming of Christ the Messianic idea had grown 
 familiar to the Gentile world. The works of Greek 
 and Roman writers are eloquent of this fact, Plato, 
 in a passage which seems to echo the very words of 
 Scripture, had long ago foretold what would be the 
 fate of the perfectly just man upon earth ; and Vergil, 
 voicing the prevailing belief that the world's great age 
 was soon to begin anew, and referring to an oracle of 
 the Sybil, prayed for the speedy coming of the pro- 
 mised Saviour in language strikingly like that in which 
 the prophets of the Old Testament speak of the 
 Messiah. The Magi, the wise men and watchful 
 astrologers of the East, waited impatiently for the 
 coming of God upon earth, till they beheld a new star 
 which rose over Bethlehem and announced His 
 Nativity. And these ancient Druids also gave ex- 
 pression to the yearning of all Creation. Virgini 
 Paritura — To the Virgin who shall bear a son, they 
 dedicated a wooden statue in the mysterious sanctuary 
 hidden in the depths of their sacred forest, beneath 
 the shade of which was the meeting-place of the 
 Carnutes. 
 
 Thus it comes about that with the dawn of history 
 
 4
 
 Druids and Romans : The Crypt 
 
 we see, through the mist of the ages as it were, a 
 solemn procession winding amongst the trees of the 
 primeval forest. 
 
 At the head are two white bulls and the sacrificial 
 priests, and in their train follow bards and novices 
 chanting anthems, and a herald clad in white. The 
 Druids follow. One of them is carrying bread, 
 another a vase full of water, the third an ivory hand, 
 the emblem of Justice. The high priest closes the 
 procession, and about him cluster the other priests of 
 the Oak and the chiefs of the local tribes. For the 
 oak, Pliny tells us in his Natural History, is the Druid's 
 sacred tree, and the mistletoe that grows thereon they 
 regard as sent from Heaven and as the sign of a tree 
 chosen by God. This golden bough of mistletoe, 
 which they call All-Heal, the high priest is now about 
 to cull from the chosen oak with his golden hook. 
 As it falls, the sacred plant is caught beneath in a 
 white mantle ; the victims are slain, and the mistletoe 
 is distributed whilst God is besought to prosper His 
 gift to them unto whom He has vouchsafed it. 
 
 Such rites, so it may appear to the least imaginative 
 of us as we behold to-day the pilgrims crowding to 
 the shrine of Our Lady, or the long processions of 
 priests and choristers winding their way from the 
 sculptured portals of the Cathedral to visit the Abbey 
 of S. Pere, or the Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-la- 
 Breche, or through the crypt to the shrine of Notre- 
 Dame-de-Sous-Terre,* are curiously prophetic of the 
 history of the place. So thinking, we shall look at 
 the western towers and note, like Gaston Latour, 
 the bigness of the actual stones of the masonry, con- 
 trary to the usual Gothic manner, as if in reminiscence 
 of those old Druidic piles amid which the Virgin of 
 Chartres had been adored, long before the birth of 
 * September 15 and December S. 
 
 5
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 Christ, by a mystic race, possessed of some prophetic 
 sense of the grace in store for them. 
 
 Who then were these Druids and who the Carnutes ? 
 From the Carnutes the modern name of this their town 
 is derived, and philologists assure us that the root of 
 the name is to be found in the word for oak, which, 
 in Celtic, bears some resemblance to the Latin quercus. 
 Similarly Evreux is derived from the word ehvre = 
 forest. All Central Gaul in those days was covered 
 with oak forests as with a garment. Hence, it is 
 suggested, the name of Carnutes was applied as a 
 generic term to the dwellers in those forests, and was 
 specialised as the title of the Chartrains par excellence 
 on account of the choice of this spot by the Druids for 
 their deliberations and their sacrifices. It may be so. 
 Philology is one of the most amusing diversions. It 
 is quite as intellectual as most other parlour games, and 
 often much more entertaining. Human as heraldry 
 and more profitable than pedigree hunting it certainly 
 is, but somehow it is less convincing. Therefore if 
 anyone prefer to derive this word Carnutes from ca'trn — 
 the stone which formed the Druidical altar and equally 
 with oaks seems to have played an important part in 
 their ceremonies, he may be as much right as anybody 
 else. 
 
 The condition of the Gauls at the time of the 
 Roman conquest has been described by their con- 
 queror. Cassar in his Commentaries states that the 
 Gauls were divided into three classes — priests, nobles 
 and nobodies. The priests, who enjoyed complete 
 immunity from military service, insisted on oral tradition 
 in the teaching of their tenets. Their object in so 
 doing, as Csesar conjectured, was to prevent the 
 memory from being weakened and their doctrines 
 from being vulgarised ; but the result has been that, 
 apart from the few facts I shall mention and a vast 
 6
 
 Druids and Romans : The Crypt 
 
 superstructure of theory and legend which has been 
 built upon them, they have faded from the ken of 
 mankind. Chief among their tenets Caesar mentions 
 the belief in the immortality and the transmigration of 
 the soul. The Druids were properly the highest of 
 three orders of priests — Bards, Soothsayers and Druids, 
 the latter being philosophers who, to the natural 
 science studied by the soothsayers, added the study of 
 ethics. There would seem to have been much of the 
 Pythagorean and something also of the Brahman in 
 these philosophers, whose teaching was once expounded 
 by the Arch-Druid Divitiacus, in Rome, to the sym- 
 pathetic ears of Marcus Tullius Cicero and his brother 
 Quintus. 
 
 That teaching, alas ! has not been enshrined in 
 Cicero's sonorous page, but Lucan in his Pharsalia 
 corroborates Caesar : — 
 
 ' The Druids now, while arms are heard no more, 
 Old mysteries and barbarous rites restore : 
 A tribe who singular religion love, 
 And haunt the lonely coverts of the grove. 
 If dying mortals' doom they sing aright 
 No ghosts descend to dwell in dreadful night, 
 No parting souls to grisly Pluto go, 
 Nor seek the dreary silent shades below : 
 But forth they fly immortal in their kind 
 And other bodies in new worlds they find. 
 Thus life forever runs its endless race, 
 And like a line death but divides the space. 
 A stop which can but for a moment last, 
 A point between the future and the past. 
 Thrice happy they beneath their northern skies 
 Who that worst fear, the fear of death, despise ! ' 
 
 In another passage the same poet describes in dark 
 colours the gloomy rites of the barbarous priests ; 
 their rude, misshapen images, and the scene of their 
 ritual in the «acred wood, smeared with human blood. 
 But of their ritual we really know nothing, apart 
 
 7
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 from the fact of human sacrifices, which, in extreme 
 cases, they justified by the dogma that * unless for the 
 life of a man man's life be rendered the wrath of the 
 immortal gods cannot be appeased,' and excepting 
 their veneration for the mistletoe.* 
 
 The power of this priesthood was not confined to 
 things spiritual. The Druids acted as a court of 
 public arbitration, and the most important private suits, 
 especially cases of murder and homicide, were submitted 
 to their judgment. Now Britain was the headquarters 
 of Druidism, but once a year, it is recorded by Cassar, a 
 general assembly of the order was held within the terri- 
 tories of the Carnutes, and there the sacred rites were 
 celebrated, the young priests, after a prolonged course 
 of training, initiated, and the Arch-Druid annually 
 elected. It is probable that these ceremonies took 
 place at Chartres — although it is possible that the claim 
 of Dreux, of Senantes, of Alluyes, or of other neigh- 
 bouring places which can boast Druidical remains, may 
 be as well grounded. 
 
 But, at least, it is evident that the Pays Chartrain 
 was a stronghold of priests rather than of fighters, and, 
 perhaps, it was for this reason that in the early years 
 of the Gallic War, the Carnutes, who among the Celtic 
 Gauls were subject to the Remi (Reims), took but 
 little part in the active resistance to Caesar's arms. 
 They had, in fact, welcomed rather than resisted the 
 Proconsul, regarding him as their champion and liberator 
 from the invasion of the Helvetii and the threatened 
 dominion of the Germans. But when he began to 
 meddle with their institutions they grew restive, and 
 determined to throw off the Roman yoke. For, before 
 
 * For a theory of the relation of their ceremonial to that of 
 other primitive cults, see Mr. J. G. Fraser's fascinating book, 
 The Golden Boug/! (2nd Edition), and Mr. Andrew Lang's criticism 
 of that theory in his Magic and Religion (New Edition). 
 8
 
 
 
 
 : \3 
 
 '''^■'^-.-„{-»,
 
 Druids and Romans : 'The Crypt 
 
 Csesar's time, there had been, apparently, a general 
 movement against monarchical government throughout 
 Gaul, with the result that most of the tribes were 
 free, but with a constitution decidedly aristocratical or 
 theocratic. Thus at Chartres — Autrkum was its Latin 
 name — fifty years before the coming of the Romans, 
 Priscus had been reigning. 
 
 A pious legend recounts that, during the lifetime of 
 this King the son of one of the great chieftains was 
 drawn lifeless from a deep well into which he had 
 fallen. The father took in his arms the body of his 
 child, already cold in death, mounted his charger, and, 
 riding at a gallop for twenty leagues, approached the 
 altar of the Virgin, whom the Druids worshipped, and 
 laid the boy at her feet. Then life came back to the 
 lad, he opened his eyes and smiled at the sacred statue. 
 King Priscus, the legend adds, on hearing of this 
 miracle, summoned a great assembly of priests and 
 nobles, and appointed the Lady of Miracles his heiress 
 and the Queen of his realms. 
 
 Thus legend. In fact we know that after the days 
 of Priscus monarchy no longer obtained among the 
 Carnutes. 
 
 But there was a certain Tasgetius, a descendant of 
 the old royal house of the Carnutes. As a reward for 
 his services to the Romans Cccsar restored him to his 
 hereditary throne. The theocracy felt itself attacked ; 
 the Druids roused the republican spirit of the people. 
 The doubtful success of Caesar's second expedition to 
 Britain seemed to offer a good opportunity for success- 
 ful revolt. The people rose and assassinated their 
 King, who was also the Roman nominee. Cassar im- 
 mediately ordered a legion under Lucius Plancus to 
 advance upon Chartres, punish the conspirators, and 
 take up its winter quarters there. 
 
 When the railway was being constructed in 1846, 
 
 II
 
 T'he Story of Chartres 
 
 it was necessary to remove a vast mound which lay to 
 the west of the town between the Portes des Epars and 
 Porte Chastelet. Many Roman, Gallic and Carlo- 
 vingian coins * were found in it, and it is supposed 
 that this mound represented in part the material dug 
 out when the foundations of the crypt and of the 
 Cathedral were sunk, and in part the remains of the 
 camp of Plancus. 
 
 The threatening aspect of affairs in Gaul called for 
 prompt action on the part of Caesar. Before the end 
 of the winter (53 b.c.) he made a dash into the 
 country of the Nervii, and then in the early spring held 
 his usual Council of Gaul, probably at Amiens. The 
 Carnutes, Senones and Treveri, omitted to send their 
 representatives. Cassar took this as a declaration of 
 war. He immediately broke up the Council and 
 ordered it to meet again at Paris, which was a con- 
 venient point for operating against the Senones at Sens, 
 and thereafter against their neighbours the Carnutes at 
 Chartres. The brilliant rapidity of his movements 
 terrified these tribes. Acco, the leader of the con- 
 spiracy, summoned his supporters to the towns. But 
 whilst they were endeavouring to obey the summons, 
 news came that the Romans were already in their midst. 
 Through the jEdui and Remi, who acted as mediators, 
 the Carnutes and Senones sent to make submission and 
 beg for pardon. Cassar granted it for the time, and then 
 devoted his energies to the destruction of Ambiorix, 
 and the chastisement of the Treveri and the tribes on 
 the Rhine. 
 
 But it was only a short respite, not pardon, that they 
 were granted. Returning at the end of the year from 
 his hunt for Ambiorix and taking his revenge upon 
 
 * Such Roman remains as have been found at Chartres to- 
 gether with these coins will be found in the Musee, Hotel de 
 Ville (Rue de la Mairie, Place des Halles). 
 12
 
 Druids and Romans : 'The Crypt 
 
 the Eburones, Cassar brought his army back to Reims 
 and then convened the Council of Gaul. An inquiry 
 was held into the conspiracy among the Senones and 
 Carnutes. Acco was condemned to suffer death after 
 the cruel old fashion of the Romans. He was stripped, 
 his neck was thrust into a fork, and he was then 
 flogged to death. But the flames of rebellion thus 
 rudely repressed were not destroyed. They broke out 
 again the same winter with redoubled fury when the 
 absence of Caesar in Italy afforded an opportunity. 
 The murder of Clodius and the reported anarchy at 
 Rome fanned into a flame the slumbering embers of 
 discontent. The death of Acco was discussed by the 
 Gallic chieftains when they held their councils in their 
 secret woodland retreats, perhaps, indeed, at Chartres 
 itself, and the bitterness of the Roman yoke began to 
 seem intolerable. To regain their lost liberty all were 
 eager for a general revolt. It was decided to begin at 
 once in order to cut Caesar oflf from his army in Gaul. 
 When the question rose as to who should incur the 
 danger of leading the way, the Carnutes undertook 
 this duty. They first exacted a solemn pledge of sup- 
 port from their countrymen by the Gallic custom of 
 mingling their standards, then, on the appointed day, 
 under the leadership of Gutruatus and Conconneto- 
 dumnus, they gave the signal for the great revolt by 
 murdering every Roman citizen they could find in 
 their chief trading town on the Loire, Orleans. With 
 the terrible struggle that ensued between the brilliant 
 energy of Caesar and the noble patriotism of Vercinge- 
 torix we are not here concerned. Suffice it to say 
 that among his first acts of revenge Caesar sacked and 
 burned Orleans, the town of the Carnutes. Nothing 
 daunted, the Carnutes furnished 12,000 mea to the 
 army raised to deliver Vercingetorix, who was holding 
 Alise with desperate valour. On the fall of that town 
 
 13
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 the Carnutes, in obedience to the advice of their leader, 
 Gutruatus, entered into yet another league for their 
 common deliverance from the yoke of their oppressor. 
 They joined the Bituriges and other peoples of Gaul, 
 but when Caesar himself marched against them with 
 his sixth and seventh legion they fled with their cattle 
 into the woods. Yet, even in the secret retreats of 
 their mighty forests, they were not safe from the hand 
 of the Roman general. They were compelled to 
 submit and to pass under the yoke, and their chief, 
 Gutruatus, was beaten with rods until he died. 
 
 Thus the country of the Chartrains was absorbed 
 into the Roman Empire, and it remained under the 
 domination of Rome, reaping the fruits of that strong 
 administration in the form of roads and good order and 
 the minimum of oppression, until the coming, at the 
 end of the fifth century, of Clovis, the Prankish hero. 
 
 Meanwhile, when Augustus gave laws to the con- 
 quests of Caesar, he introduced a division of Gaul 
 equally adapted to the progress of the legions, to the 
 course of the rivers and to the principal national dis- 
 tinctions, which had comprehended above a hundred 
 independent states. The Province in which Chartres 
 (Autricum) now found itself embraced the country 
 between the Loire and the Seine, and was styled 
 Celtic Gaul, or, as it soon came to be known, Gallia 
 Lugdunensis, borrowing its name from the celebrated 
 colony of Lugdunum or Lyons. The principal towns 
 of this Province were still Chartres, Dreux, and, above 
 all, Orleans, to which the Emperor Aurelian was later 
 on to give his name when he separated it from the 
 territory of the Carnutes, and raised it to the rank of a 
 city. For the rest, there were a great number of 
 villages and strongholds even in Caesar's day scattered 
 about in the clearings of the forest. These would 
 increase in size and importance as the great Roman
 
 Druids and Romans : The Crypt 
 
 roads running from Dieppe to Dreux, from Rouen to 
 Paris, and from Paris to Autun, were built, and as the 
 country grew more settled. For Druidism, which had 
 long shown itself a disturbing influence and an irre- 
 concilable factor, was at length proscribed by Tiberius 
 and Claudius, and thereafter, Dion Cassius assures us, 
 the Loire could be navigated in as much security as the 
 Po or Rhone. ' The blue waters of the fair-haired 
 Carnutan ' grew familiar, not only to the Rjaman mer- 
 chant and official, but also to the Roman poet and 
 traveller.* 
 
 But if the legend of the Druidical Virgin be indeed 
 true, it would appear that the Druids, equally with the 
 Romans, had done something to prepare the soil for 
 the seed of Christianity. As to the first sowers of 
 that seed there is some dispute, and also as to the first 
 sowing, which some date from the first century, others 
 from the third. 
 
 Whether Celtic Gaul was evangelised in the days of 
 the Apostles or not, it is at least historically certain that 
 as early as the middle of the second century the country 
 was sufficiently provided with churches to form the 
 principle theatre of the great persecution under Marcus 
 Aurelius. And as Gaul was notoriously evangelised 
 only piecemeal and slowly, and not by a sudden out- 
 burst of religious fervour, it is quite possible that the 
 foundation of the Church of Chartres dates back from 
 the first century. If this is so, it accords well with 
 local traditions drawn from various sources, but agreeing 
 in substance. For it is said f that S. Peter sent forth S. 
 Savinian, S. Potentian and S. Albin to preach the Gospel 
 to the Gallic nation. In the course of their mission 
 they came to Sens and converted many virtuous 
 
 * Tibullus, i. 8. 
 
 j- Acta SS. MM. Sa-vlniani et Potentiani, manuscripts edited 
 by L'Abbe Henault, Origines Chretiennes de la Gaule Celtique. 
 
 15
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 heathen, amongst whom were Serotin and Eodald. To 
 these two, together with Potentian and Akin, Savinian, 
 warned by a mysterious vision, gave this charge : — 
 ' Take unto you,' he said, * the shield of an uncon- 
 querable faith ; go through the other towns of Gaul 
 and banish all false superstition by preaching everywhere 
 the truth of the Gospel.' Leaving him, therefore, to 
 organise the church at Sens, they set forth to Orleans, 
 and thence, coming down that ' Roman road which is 
 still known as the Chem'in de Cesar, they arrived at 
 Chartres. There, perhaps, they found the altar of the 
 Druids and the statue to the Virgin who should bear 
 the Unknown God. Him declared they unto the 
 people. As the word of the missionaries was sup- 
 ported by the miracles they wrought, and the saintly 
 lives they led, a great part of the inhabitants believed 
 on Christ. ' When they saw this, the holy men of 
 God consecrated a church dedicated to the glory of 
 Mary, Mother of God, and built just luithin the walls 
 of the toivnJ 
 
 The northern walls of Chartres, under the Romans, 
 ran along the street du Cheval Blanc, where now the 
 houses of the cloister stand. The site of the Church 
 of S. Potentian may therefore be identified, as on other 
 grounds we naturally should identify it, with that of 
 the Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre in the 
 crypt of the Cathedral. To that impressive under- 
 church we will pay a visit at the end of this chapter, 
 and endeavour to describe the various stages through 
 which it has passed. But first we will trace the tragic 
 history of these Christian pioneers. 
 
 The rapid advance of Christianity soon brought it 
 into conflict with the Roman administration. Domitian 
 decided to check it when it was observed to be spread- 
 ing among the subject races in opposition to the State 
 religion. It became the duty of governors in the 
 i6
 
 Druids and Romans : 'The Crypt 
 
 Provinces to treat the refusal to worship the Emperor's 
 image as an act of sacrilege. There was a governor, 
 Quirinus by name, who proceeded to execute his duty 
 with truly Roman thoroughness and impartiality. He 
 summoned the missionaries of what Tacitus called 
 ' that pernicious religion ' to his presence and demanded 
 why they had brought hither the ignominy of their 
 absurd doctrine. They answered him boldly, and 
 bade him cease from the worship of idols and embrace 
 the true faith. But Quirinus hardened his heart. He 
 scourged and threw into prison three men ' hated for 
 their abominations, and known to the vulgar as Chris- 
 tians ' ; notorious, according to the great Roman 
 historian, ' for their hatred of the human race.' Such 
 cases of persecution as this, it should be remembered, 
 were but occasional exceptions to the general tolerance 
 of Roman administration. The Christians were 
 punished, according to the Roman view, for their 
 inflexible obstinacy, their unsocial habits and indiscreet 
 enthusiasm, rather than for the mere holding of their 
 peculiar religious notions. 
 
 In the present instance crowds of believers collected 
 about the doors of the prison into which the martyrs 
 had been thrown, and by their continual prayers for 
 the deliverance of their teachers roused Quirinus to 
 savage action. He surrounded them with his soldiers 
 when they were met together to pray and sing hymns 
 to the I.ord, and falling upon them suddenly put them 
 to the sword. Amongst those who had been foremost 
 in the faith was a young girl by name Modesta, whom 
 ])opular tradition asserts to have been the daughter of 
 Quirinus himself. She, it is said, was seized upon 
 this occasion and brought before her father. His fury 
 was increased to madness when he learned that she, his 
 only daughter, had joined the sect and had been baptized. 
 She must abjure, he declared, or she must die. 
 
 B 17
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 ^- 
 
 ' Strike,' she exclaimed, ' I am 
 a Christian ! ' * She was brutally 
 tortured, and her body was then 
 thrown along with the bodies of 
 the other martyrs into a deep well, 
 ' which was situated within the 
 Church of the Mother of God.' 
 
 ' The sober discretion of the 
 present age,' wrote Gibbon, * will 
 more readily censure than admire, 
 but can more easily admire than 
 imitate the fervour of the first 
 Christians who, according to the 
 lively expression of Sulpicius 
 Severus, desired martyrdom with 
 more eagerness than his own con- 
 temporaries solicited a bishopric' 
 
 The blood of martyrs became 
 here, as elsewhere, the seed of the 
 Church. Quirinus was struck 
 down by sudden death in the midst 
 of his persecutions. His persecu- 
 tions had only increased the number 
 of the faithful. S. Aventin be- 
 came the first Bishop of Chartres, 
 and, profiting by the calm which 
 followed Quirinus' s death, rebuilt 
 above the ancient altar of the 
 
 * Representations of these early martyr- 
 <loms are to be found in the beautiful 
 statue of Modesta, with bas-relief of the 
 well, etc., and the statue of S. Potentian, 
 with bas-relief of his martyrdom, on the 
 western supports of the north porch (look- 
 ing towards the new tower), and in the 
 "^^ ■ "^ first window of the Chapel of the Sacred 
 
 s. MODESTA (south PORCH ) Heart. 
 
 i8
 
 T)ruids and Romans : 'The Crypt 
 
 Druids the church which Potentian had consecrated 
 and the Roman governor destroyed. This building 
 may well have lasted down to the final persecution of 
 the Christians under Diocletian. For in the mean- 
 time the indifference of some princes and the indulg- 
 ence of others permitted the Christians to enjoy though 
 not perhaps a legal yet an actual and public toleration 
 of their religion. 
 
 The courage and constancy of these first Christians 
 were not forgotten. The well down which their 
 corpses were thrown came to be known as the Lieu- 
 Fort * and later as the Putts des Saints Forts, in 
 memory of them. 
 
 Le Puits des Saints Forts. 
 
 It is in connection with this well that one of the 
 most beautiful of the legends of Chartres is told. 
 
 * A ceremony is still observed in the Cathedral ' 
 (wrote Scbastien Rouillard) 'which surprises many 
 people. The reason of it deserves to be known. 
 When the bishop officiating chants the Pax Vobis or 
 a priest the Dominus Vobiscum, whether at Mass, 
 Vespers or Matins, the choir does not respond in full, 
 but only the nearest priest in a low voice. Some say 
 that this is a perpetual memorial of the first Christian 
 martyrs, in accordance with the saying of the venerable 
 Fulbert in his third epistle, that the divine service 
 which in times of liberty is celebrated with joy and 
 gladness becometh mute during the days of tyranny 
 and oppression. Others say that the custom arose 
 when the " crowds of pilgrims and worshippers in the 
 Cathedral were so large and the resulting noise so 
 
 * The monk Paul, who lived at Chartres towards the end of 
 the eleventh century and wrote the Cartulairc dc Haint Pirc, 
 speaks of it as Locus Fords. 
 
 19
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 great that those who were in the choir and at the altar 
 could not easily hear each other so as to sing the 
 responses.' 
 
 But there is another explanation. When Godfrey, 
 founder of the Abbey of Josaphat, was Bishop of 
 Chartres (1116), the usual devout and solemn pro- 
 cession to the grottoes and holy places was being made 
 on the eve of All Saints. 
 
 Now among the choristers who bore candles in 
 their hands, chanting in this procession, was one beauti- 
 ful lad, blue-eyed and golden-haired, the only son of 
 his mother, and she was a widow. It was the one joy 
 of her life to listen to the flute-like notes of his 
 glorious treble, and in spirit to join in those praises of 
 the Most High to which her son gave heartfelt, won- 
 derful utterance. And on this occasion she, as ever, 
 was among the crowd of worshippers, hearing only — a 
 mother's ear is so fond and so fine — amidst the whole 
 chorus of those soaring voices the voice of her beloved 
 son. Suddenly, though the chant had not ceased, 
 there was, for her, silence. She listened and listened 
 in vain for the voice of her boy. Mad with anxiety, 
 she pushed her way through the crowd, only to find a 
 group of grieving priests standing round the Well of 
 the Constant Saints. The boy, all unheeding in the 
 ecstasy of his song, had stepped over the dim un- 
 guarded edge and fallen into the fathomless depths. 
 
 For days distraught the mother haunted the holy 
 grottoes, ever praying and waiting for her son to be 
 given back to her. At last, on the octave of the feast, 
 the solemn procession wound its way once more through 
 the crypt. The mother listened, dazed with grief, to 
 the chant as it came. But for her there was no music 
 in the sweet harmonies that were sung. 
 
 Then suddenly there struck upon her astonished ear 
 the silver notes of that well-known voice, how musical ! 
 20
 
 Druids ajj{i Ko77ians : The Crypt 
 
 She raised her eyes, half in hope and half in fear, and 
 beheld, walking in his accustomed place and carrying 
 in his hand a golden candlestick, her lost darling. 
 And his face as he sang was as it had been the face of 
 an angel. 
 
 They asked the boy what had happened to him at 
 the bottom of the well, and he told them that he had 
 heard the angels rejoicing and singing in response to 
 the prayers that were being offered in the Church of 
 Chartres. And since that day the choir does not 
 make response aloud to the Pax Voh'is. For so men 
 hope that they may hear the angels singing. 
 
 That this holy well of ttie martyrs was near the 
 spot where is now the altar of Notre-Dame-de-Sous- 
 Terre we are assured by the repeated testimony of old 
 writers. Numerous efforts were made during the nine- 
 teenth century to locate it, and made in vain. But in 
 the year 1901 it was at last discovered behind the 
 wall of that altar. Let us take the present oppor- 
 tunity in our history then to visit the crypt,* to behold 
 the first beginnings of the Cathedral, the statue of 
 Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre and the new-found ancient 
 well of the martyrs. 
 
 ' The crypt,' says Raoul Boutrais, in his Latin poem 
 in praise of Chartres ( 1624), ' lies darkling in a hollow 
 of the earth, resting on many an arch, as long and as 
 wide as is the whole church above it. A dim religious 
 light struggles through the deep-set windows. Enter 
 and behold a sacred altar. Your being is filled with a 
 mysterious awe as you descend. Then by the light of 
 a thousand torches the sacred place becomes visible. 
 The smoke of fragrant incense rises from the altar. 
 
 * The crypt is open an<l free from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., ami 
 sliown to visitors by the concierge at certain hours throughout 
 the ilay for a small fee. Apply to the lodge of the Maison des 
 Clercs at the south-east corner of the church. 
 
 21
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 Priests move to and fro performing their sacred office 
 before the image of the Virgin. Many offerings of 
 gold and silver, in token of granted prayers, hang at 
 the shrines. 
 
 ' We pass into recesses dug deep within the earth, 
 and are conscious of a strange emotion. Here was 
 the first origin of the church, when the early Christians 
 sang their hymns in these dark places to escape the cruel 
 punishments of the Prefect Quirinus, and yet undaunted 
 by the cross, the sword, the fire of his mad rage. He 
 snatched this heroic band from their Christ, and flung 
 their mangled bodies into the deeps of a well. Still 
 may be seen the well, fenced about that none may fall 
 therein ; for, 'tis said, that some have fallen. And it 
 was not only to sing their hymns that the Christians 
 assembled here, but here they passed their lives for fear 
 of persecution. Therefore in their hiding they dug a 
 well that they might have to drink.' 
 
 It is evident from this and other passages that the 
 famous well was in existence in the first half of the 
 seventeenth century; but shortly afterwards ' it was covered 
 up by reason of the vapours with which it filled these 
 subterranean places.' * It was covered up, and the 
 site of it deliberately falsified when the sanctuary of 
 the Virgin was decorated and the transverse wall 
 between the real site of the well and the altar was 
 built. After the alterations which were then made 
 were completed (1671), the public was informed that 
 the well was now under the step of the new altar, so 
 that those who knelt there, and had a particular 
 devotion to the Martyrs' Well, appeared to be render- 
 ing homage to the Virgin. The statements of the 
 historians' to the effect that the well was behind the 
 altar were explained away by the very canon who had 
 superintended the filling up of the well, for he made 
 
 * Pintara MS. 
 22
 
 Druids and Romans : The Crypt 
 
 the misleading assertion that the altar itself had been 
 moved back in the course of the alterations. He was 
 believed. When in the nineteenth century efforts were 
 made again and again to find this well, they were 
 always made on the assumption that the altar had been 
 so moved. The cynical precept which warns us to be 
 on our guard against the occasional untrustworthiness 
 of those who never lie was forgotten. It- was not till 
 M. Rene Merlet's pamphlet, U Ancienne Chapelle de 
 Notre-Dnme-de-Sous-Terre, appeared in 1900 that in- 
 vestigations, based on historical research and archaeo- 
 logical acumen, began to be prosecuted, and were 
 before long crowned with success. Boutrais's words 
 are now once more true, and 'the well may still be 
 seen ' behind the altar, of the Virgin. 
 
 Crvpt : Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre. 
 
 The oldest portions of the crypt, and therefore of the 
 Cathedral, that remain to us are to be found in the 
 Martyrium or Chapel of S. Lubin. The crypt, it 
 must be understood, was not in origin a crypt or a 
 martyrium or a meeting-house of prayer dug beneath 
 the level of the soil, but a tiny church set on the crest 
 of the hill, and raised above the surface of the earth. 
 It only became a crypt properly so-called when it had 
 been covered up and the surrounding soil raised by the 
 debris and deposits of succeeding years ; so that when 
 the new church was built it was erected naturally upon 
 the top of the old. The spade of the archasologist has 
 proved that the soil of a mediaeval European town was 
 raised by the accumulation of dust and rubble as much 
 as one or two feet per century. And at Chartres 
 excavations have revealed Gallo- Roman sub-structures 
 at a depth of some eighteen feet. When we reach the 
 Martyrium or Chapel of S. Lubin we shall find there 
 
 23
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 a piece of the Gallo- Roman walls of the fourth 
 century. This probably is part of the apsidal wall of 
 the church of that date. As the church, with the 
 vicissitudes of the town which we have yet to recount, 
 was alternately built and burnt, destroyed and rebuilt, 
 the crypt was developed until it is now the largest in 
 France, and next to that of S. Peter's at Rome, and 
 that of Canterbury, the largest in the world. It con- 
 sists of two lateral galleries which run from the western 
 towers under the aisles of the upper church, and form 
 a horse-shoe curve beneath the choir and sanctuary 366 
 feet long, and seventeen to eighteen feet broad ; of two 
 transepts, seven apsidal chapels, and the martyr'ium 
 which is under the choir of the upper church. 
 
 The successive developments of the crypt may be 
 summarised as follows : — 
 
 Against the fourth century apsidal wall, of which 
 traces are found in the martyrium, were built in 858 
 two large columns to support the new choir above. At 
 the same time the circular wall of the apse was pierced 
 with windows. In order to support the apse of the 
 upper church other two large isolated piers were built 
 in 962, whilst the windows in the circular apse were 
 blocked by a second strengthening wall. The same 
 year saw the addition of a double transept at the com- 
 mencement of the apse. Fulbert, in 1020, developed 
 these transepts by carrying them out westwards almost to 
 their present extent, and by so doing he left the altar 
 dedicated to the Virgin, though unmoved, no longer 
 before a thick wall, but stranded as it were in a corridor 
 — a situation which aided, and still aids, the progress of 
 the pilgrims past the shrine. The great bishop also ex- 
 tended the crypt by piercing the wall which closed the 
 transepts towards the east, and making the ambulatory 
 out of which opened the three large chapels with deep, 
 round-headed windows (S. Joseph, S. John the Baptist, 
 24
 
 T)ruids and Romans : The Crypt 
 
 and S. Anne). To support the vaulting of this 
 ambulatory a new wall was built round the martyrium. 
 
 In the twelfth century, when the two western towers 
 were constructed, Kulbert's long galleries were extended 
 and connected with them. The windows were raised 
 and enlarged with the exception of those which were 
 blinded by the porches of the upper church. Four 
 smaller chapels, with pointed windows, were inserted 
 between the large apsidal chapels of Fulbert, and these 
 still exhibit traces of early thirteenth-century painting. 
 At the same period, the transepts being now prolonged, 
 it was found necessary to make two new flights of steps 
 by which they might be entered. 
 
 The beautiful doorway of the south staircase dates 
 from this time. Lastly, when the porches of the 
 Cathedral were completed, the transepts were con- 
 nected therewith by means of vaulted passages, of which 
 the one on the north side is near the Chapel of Notre- 
 Dame-de-Sous-Terre, and the other southern one was 
 turned into the Chapel of S. Nicholas in 1681. 
 
 Entering the crypt by the south-eastern door, after 
 noticing the windows of its apsidal chapels, you descend 
 a stone staircase, and by the dim candlelight perceive 
 on your left the long south gallery begun by Fulbert in 
 1020, and extended in the following century right up 
 to the western tower. 
 
 You are now in the original south transept of the 
 crypt, and much of the masonry dates obviously from 
 the tenth century. Turning to the left, the first chapel 
 on the left is now dedicated to S. Martin. It was not 
 originally a chapel, but in the twelfth century was used 
 as an entrance to the crypt. Altered in the seven- 
 teenth century, as the windows and vaulting show, it 
 was converted into a chapel in the nineteenth. It 
 contains a few fragments of the original choir screen of 
 the Cathedral destroyed by seventeenth-century vandals. 
 
 25
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 These fragments, which represent some scenes from 
 the Birth of Our Lord, are very beautiful. Above 
 them, fixed to the wall, are some admirable keystones 
 of the vaulting, and two bas-reliefs with signs of the 
 Zodiac, which still retain some of their original thir- 
 teenth-century colouring. Opposite the wooden nine- 
 teenth-century grille is a stone from the Church of 
 S. Martin-le-Viandier, which was destroyed during 
 the Revolution. Upon this stone are represented 
 S. Eustace hunting, and on his knees before Christ, 
 who appears to him between the horns of a stag ; 
 S. Martin giving his cloak to a poor man ; the Virgin 
 and Child between S. Louis and S. John. 
 
 Below is a fine early stoup from the Cathedral and, 
 in the corner, the sarcophagus of S. Caletric i^see 
 p. 36). The date inscribed upon it has been changed 
 to suit the date of the translation and festival of this 
 saint, who was Bishop of Chartres, and died 557. 
 
 The next chapel on the left is that of S. Nicholas 
 (recently restored by M. Durand). We have already 
 spoken of it. Opposite it is the Chapel of S. Clement, 
 where are some mural decorations of the twelfth cen- 
 tury. The figures, beginning from the right, are 
 recognisable as those of S. Nicholas, S. James, 
 S. Giles, and of a King kneeling. 
 
 The wooden screen which here crosses the crypt 
 was put up in 1687 : behind it on the left is a 
 thirteenth-century piscina, above which is a partly- 
 obliterated twelfth-century fresco of the Nativity. 
 Several windows are blocked by the Cathedral porch ; 
 and the lowest and narrowest of these is one of 
 Fulbert's original windows, which was not enlarged 
 like the rest in the twelfth century, because it was 
 blocked at that time by a porch erected in the eleventh 
 century. At the end of the gallery is a large mono- 
 lithic font, intended for complete baptismal immersion. 
 26
 
 Druids and Romans : 'The Crypt 
 
 It belongs to the eleventh century. The capitals of 
 the four columns which Hank it are curious and note- 
 worthy. 
 
 The plinths and abaci of the last bay of this gallery 
 betray the fact that it was added in the twelfth century, 
 when the old south-western tower (Clocher Vieux), 
 with which a fiight of steps connects it, was built. 
 The walls of this gallery, like that of the northern 
 one, are decorated with modern mural paintings illus- 
 trative of events in the history of Chartres, or of the 
 saints who have been connected with the diocese. 
 They are already in a bad state, and even at their best 
 they must always have displayed more science than 
 art. 
 
 Turning now and retracing our steps we pass the 
 staircase by which we descended and make our way 
 round the horse-shoe curve of the apse. On our right 
 we perceive the seven apsidal chapels, of which the 
 first, third, fifth and seventh are the Chapels of S. 
 Mary Magdalene, S. Ives [see pp. giff.), S. Fulbert 
 [see pp. (^^)ff), and the Sacristy. They were added in 
 1 194; whilst the second, fourth and sixth are the 
 Chapels of S. Anne, S. John the Baptist, and S. 
 Joseph, and they date from 1020. The window of 
 the Chapel of 8. Anne should be noted. S. Anne is 
 represented carrying the Blessed Mary. When we 
 examine the upper church we shall be struck by the 
 importance of the position allotted to S. Anne in glass 
 and statuary — as, for instance, in the great window of 
 the north transept. The explanation is that Louis, 
 Count of Chartres, who died on the fourth Crusade, 
 sent to the Chapter from Constantinople the head of 
 that saint. 
 
 Opposite the Sacristy is the entrance to the 
 Martyrium or Chapel of S. Lubin [see p. 36), which 
 is immediately under the sanctuary. Of this chapel 
 
 27
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 enough has been or will be said.* At this point it 
 will suffice to call attention to the architectural features 
 which serve to illustrate its history. First, the fact 
 that you descend into it by a modern entrance, which 
 has replaced the old staircase and doorway ; and 
 secondly, the depth of the base of the round column 
 on the right, indicating the original level of the primi- 
 tive church floor ; thirdly, the hiding place for the 
 treasure ; next, the fourth-century wall, with its layers 
 of thin horizontal Roman bricks ; and lastly, the cir- 
 cular wall and the ninth and tenth-century piers. The 
 Gallo- Roman wall on the west is probably a portion of 
 the old enceinte of the town. 
 
 Going westwards on leaving the martyrium, we 
 pass a staircase on our right and the Puits des Saints 
 Forts on the left, behind the wall of the altar of 
 Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre. When this wall was 
 built and the well concealed in the seventeenth century, 
 the circular passage by which the chapel could be 
 approached had also to be made, and the masonry was 
 so treated as to suggest the natural rocks of the old 
 Druidical 'grotto.' 
 
 The chapel is at the end of the northern gallery 
 (eleventh and twelfth century), which runs from the 
 base of the Clocher Neuf. It is lit by two long rows 
 of pendant lamps. Here, then, is that mysterious 
 shrine which Boutrais has so well described. Here is 
 that famous statue which for a thousand years has drawn 
 countless myriads of pilgrims from all parts of the earth, f 
 Kings and commons, rich and poor, scholars and 
 Crusaders, sinners and saints unnumbered have knelt 
 
 * See pp. 23, 43, 64, 76. 
 
 \ Notice in this connection the two beadwork belts dedicated 
 by the chiefs of the Hurons, 1676, and Abnaqui Indians, 1700, 
 which are now in the western recess, which is the Chapel of 
 S. Savinian or the Saints Forts. 
 2«
 
 Druids and 'Romans : The Crypt 
 
 at this shrine since the day when Fulbert, having com- 
 pleted his crypt, left, it is said, the ' Statue of the 
 Druids ' in the same place as that in which the Gallic 
 priests had held their assemblies injintbus Caniuttim, on 
 Carnutan territory. That statue was held in honour 
 till the year 1793, when it was burnt by the Revolu- 
 tionists before the Porche Royal. The present Madonna 
 was made on the model of the old, and erected in 
 1857, after the crypt, which for sixty years had been 
 used as a cooper's warehouse, was restored to its sacred 
 uses. On the north wall may be seen the traces of 
 three twelfth-century windows, which were blocked 
 when the north porch was built ; on the south wall 
 traces of twelfth-century frescoes. Other frescoes in 
 the chapel are recent symbolic work by M. Paul 
 Durand. The vaulting was painted in the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 Whether the statue which was destroyed in 1793 
 was older than the eleventh century is a doubtful point. 
 Some suppose that the previous Druidical statue ' Vir- 
 g'tn't Parhura ' was burnt in the fire of 1020, and that 
 Fulbert had a new one carved and set up then. 
 Others, arguing from the colour of the wood, believe 
 that it dated from the days of the Druids. For the 
 face of the Madonna was ' black, but comely,' * like 
 that of the Vierge Noire, Notre-Dame-du-Pilier, in 
 the Cathedral proper. But whether this blackness 
 arose from the action of time upon the wood, or 
 whether it was another instance of that tendency to 
 represent Eastern types and colouring and design, 
 which seems to me very noticeable in the glass and 
 statuary of the Cathedral, cannot be definitely decided. 
 
 One other curious point remains to be noted. We 
 are told that the eyes of the Child were open, but those 
 of the Mother who held Him on her knees were shut. 
 
 * Wisdom. 
 
 29
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 The Druids, it is said, intended by this device to 
 signify that faith was still in darkness, and that she 
 whom they worshipped was not yet born. But the 
 eyes of the Child, whom she in the fulness of time 
 should supernaturally conceive and bear, were open ; 
 for He was without beginning and without end, the 
 Spectator of all time and all existence. 
 
 30
 
 CHAPTE R II 
 Saints and Barbarians 
 
 THE early Christians of Chartres were scattered 
 and their churches destroyed during the final 
 persecution under Diocletian. When, therefore, the 
 disciples of S. Denis, S. Cheron and S. Martin came 
 preaching the Gospel through the valley of the Loire, 
 they found but few faithful among the descendants of 
 those who had been converted by the first missionaries. 
 The evangelisation of the Province by S. Martin, the 
 great Bishop of Tours, was commemorated in the title 
 of the church, ' S. Martin rendant la vie,' in reference 
 to one of his miracles, and in that of the Monastery 
 S. Martin-au-Val, as also in the window in the 
 clerestory of the nave of the Cathedral (north) and 
 of the choir. Soldier, hermit, bishop and saint, he 
 established the monasteries of Gaul. Two thousand 
 of his disciples followed him to the grave, and his 
 eloquent historian, Sulpicius Severus, challenges the 
 desert of Thebais to produce, in a more favourable 
 climate, a champion of equal virtue. S. Cheron, 
 after completing his work at Chartres, turned his 
 steps towards Paris, but was assassinated on his way 
 at a place since named 8. Cheron-du-Chemin. His 
 martyrdom is represented in a bas-relief of the south 
 porch of the Cathedral. 
 
 Then Castor, Bishop of Chartres, profiting by the 
 protection of Constantine, built a second basilica, 
 larger than the first, erecting upon the old site a chapel 
 
 31
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 to the ' Virgin who shall bear a son,' and, above it, 
 the main church and the principal altar. 
 
 Meanwhile the Roman Empire in Gaul was tottering 
 to its fall. That confederacy known as the Franks, 
 which had been formed of the unconquered tribes that 
 dwelt about the Lower Rhine and the Weser, had 
 overrun Spain and Mauritania, and had been flung 
 
 back from Gaul by 
 the brilliant efforts of 
 the Emperor Probus. 
 Again reduced by 
 ■ Julian, they remained 
 ) for some time loyal 
 allies of the Empire. 
 But under Clodion, 
 the first of the long- 
 haired kings of the 
 Merovingian dynasty 
 whose name and 
 actions are mentioned 
 in authentic history, 
 they advanced as far 
 as the Somme, and 
 established a Gallic 
 kingdom between that 
 river and the Rhine. 
 On the death of 
 Clodion, his two sons quarrelled over their inheritance ; 
 one of them obtained the protection of Rome, the 
 other allied himself with Attila. For the King of 
 the Huns eagerly embraced an alliance which facilitated 
 the passage of the Rhine and justified the invasion of 
 Gaul. 
 
 Chartres seems to have escaped as by a miracle the 
 murderous attack of the Huns and Franks. She 
 owed perhaps to the obscurity of her position the 
 32
 
 Saints and Barbarians 
 
 immunity which Paris owed to the prayers of S. 
 Genevieve. But Orleans was besieged and defended 
 successfully by Anianus, a bishop of primitive sanctity 
 and consummate prudence, until the arrival of the 
 Roman and Gothic armies compelled Attila to with- 
 draw his innumerable host of marauders, and at length 
 to give battle and suffer defeat in the plains of Chalons. 
 (451 A.P.) 
 
 Church of S. Aignan. 
 
 Was this Anianus that S. Aignan who founded the 
 church which now bears his name ; the S. Aignan 
 who, with his three sisters, Donda, Monda, Ermenonda, 
 endowed it, and was buried in the ancient crypt of 
 that church ? * On his tomb there was formerly to 
 be read this couplet : — 
 
 ' Corpus in his cryptis Aniani prssiilis olim 
 Carnutum recubat, spiritus astra colit.' 
 
 (The body of Aignan, once Bishop of the Chartrains, 
 lies in this crypt : his soul is in Heaven.) The crypt 
 (restored sixteenth century) and the windows of this 
 church are well worth seeing. The lower windows 
 have nine of them sixteenth-century f glass, and nine of 
 them nineteenth century, chiefiy by Lorin of Chartres, 
 whose atelier is in the picturesque Rue de la Tannerie. 
 The upper windows are chiefly seventeenth-century 
 heraldic. The church was often burnt down in the 
 Middle Ages, and for the last time in the sixteenth 
 century. 
 
 * The Rue des Changes, starting almost opposite the south 
 porch of the Cathedral, leads in a direct line to the Plafce S. 
 Aignan. 
 
 -f- The third window from the north-west corner is called the 
 Bishop's Window, and contains figures of S. Aignan, S. Martin 
 of Tours, S. Denis, and S. Nicholas. 
 
 c 33
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 The architecture is therefore in the style of the 
 Renaissance, though the main entrance belongs to the 
 fourteenth century. The small entrance on the left 
 of the facade is pleasing. The church was sacked 
 during the Revolution and all its artistic treasures 
 stolen. The building itself was used as a magazine, 
 a prison and a military hospital till 1822, when it was 
 restored to religious use by private generosity. The 
 painfully unsuccessful polychrome decorations perpe- 
 trated by M. Boeswilwald make it impossible to 
 remember the interior with any pleasure. Perched, as 
 it seems, in the air, the exterior, beheld from the 
 boulevards and bridges south-west of the town, forms, 
 with S. Pere and the Cathedral, one of the most 
 prominent features of the most unforgettable view of 
 Chartres. But the tower is destitute of grace, and the 
 building, as a whole, devoid of any beauty of form. 
 
 If the nave were worthy of the apse and crypt, it 
 would be another matter, and S. Aignan would be 
 worthy of its place between S. Pere and Notre-Dame. 
 Approach it from the Rue Saint-Pierre by the steps 
 of Saint-Frangois, and the east end of the church 
 with the enormous buttresses which support it, and the 
 massive buttressed walls of the street which hold up 
 the old parish cemetery, now the garden of the 
 Pf-esbytere, give you the impression of a mighty fortress 
 frowning above you. But seen from a distance this 
 effect is lost. 
 
 There is a legend in connection with this church 
 worth recounting. 
 
 A poor tailor of Chartres, the story runs, made a 
 contract to deliver himself body and soul to the Devil 
 at the end of the year if his daughter should recover 
 her health and make the fine marriage on which she 
 had set her heart. At the date fixed when the tailor 
 must fulfil his part of the bargain Satan appeared. It 
 34
 
 Saints and Barbarians 
 
 was evening. The man's wife threw herself on her 
 knees, and by her prayers and entreaties obtained the 
 concession tliat the infernal treaty should not be en- 
 forced so long as the candle burning in the cottage 
 should last. Then the cunning wife rose from her 
 knees, blew out the candle and ran full speed with it 
 to the Church of S. Aignan, where she hid it near the 
 present stoup, in the first pier on the left at which the 
 masons were then working. Wonderful to relate, the 
 pier was immediately completed, and the candle hidden 
 within it safe from the clutches of the Evil One. 
 
 Fifty years after the Battle of Chalons, the Franks, 
 under Clovis, established the French monarchy in 
 Gaul. It was not established by the force of arms 
 alone. 
 
 The Merovingian King had always allowed his 
 Gallic subjects free exercise of religious worship. Now, 
 at the instance of his wife, Clotilda, niece of the King 
 of Burgundy, he listened to the Bishop of Reims. 
 He and his followers, who were equally ready to follow 
 him to the battlefield or the baptismal font, were 
 received into the Catholic Church at Reims. 
 
 This meant that Clovis had on his side the hundred 
 prelates who, under the Roman Empire, had gradually 
 acquired a sovereign power throughout Gaul in matters 
 temporal as well as spiritual. He paid the price in rich 
 gifts to their churches. ' S. Martin,' he remarked on 
 a famous occasion, * is an expensive friend.' It was to 
 this alliance with the Church that the establishment of 
 the French monarchy in Gaul was largely due. The 
 valour, policy and seasonable conversion of Clovis soon 
 added the Northern Provinces of Gaul to his kingdom, 
 whilst the great prelates were left free to strengthen their 
 own hold over the people with whose instructions they 
 were entrusted. And with the Franks the social system 
 
 35
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 of nobles and serfs, which was the basis of mediaeval 
 life, was introduced. 
 
 The Dark Ages creep on. The Prankish con- 
 quest of Gaul was followed, says Gibbon, by ten 
 centuries of anarchy and ignorance. 
 
 So far as Chartres is concerned, the conversion of 
 Clovis is connected with the name of her first authentic 
 bishop, Solemnis,* whom he caused to accompany and 
 catechise him on his campaigns. It is even stated, though 
 without sufficient reason, that Clovis founded the Abbey 
 of S. Pere (St. Pierre), of which the extremely in- 
 teresting fourteenth-sixteenth century church is now 
 all that remains. The rest is cavalry barracks. 
 
 Of the secular history of Chartres under the succeed- 
 ing Merovingian Kings there is nothing worth relating. 
 Whatever there was of sweetness and light in this 
 barbarous epoch survived in the cloister, not the 
 court. One turns with relief from the records of the 
 quarrels and crimes of Clother and his sons to the 
 story of some saintly life like that of S. Lubin, shepherd, 
 monk, hermit. Abbe of Brou, and lastly. Bishop of 
 Chartres in succession to S. Ethere. S. Lubin was a 
 typical and charming saint, whose name and fame still 
 live in the hearts of the people. 
 
 His charity to the poor, his compassion for the sick 
 and infirm was without limit. Thus, when Malle- 
 degonde, sister of the young Caletric, who lay at death's 
 door, asked the holy Bishop of Chartres for some 
 drops of oil blessed by his hands, he did at once that 
 which she had not dared to ask. He came in person 
 to the bedside of her dear invalid, bathed his forehead, 
 and prayed that he might be restored to health. Then 
 the young man opened his eyes, and seizing the aged 
 bishop's hand declared that he was healed. A bas- 
 
 * See him portrayed in the beautiful brown and yellow glass of 
 the fifth window of the south clerestory of the Cathedral nave. 
 36
 
 Saints and Barbarians 
 
 relief on the south porch of the Cathedral portrays this 
 incident in stone. In glass, a bishop and enthroned, you 
 may see the saint in the second window of the northern 
 clerestory of the nave. From that moment S. Lubin 
 continued to take a paternal interest in the lad, and on 
 his death Caletric succeeded him as Bishop of Chartres. 
 S. Caletric, * according to his panegyrist, combined 
 every virtue with every accomplishment, and was, in 
 fact, the personification of that Roman urbanity which 
 the rude manners of the French had almost banished 
 from the Gallic world. His tomb, as we have already 
 seen, is now in the Cathedral crypt, whither it was re- 
 moved from the Chapel of S. Nicholas, when that 
 building, which was formerly adjacent to the apse of 
 the Cathedral, was destroyed in 1 702 to make room 
 for the present bishop's palace.f S. Lubin, like most 
 of the bishops of the sixth and seventh centuries, was 
 still less fortunate in the place of his burial. He was 
 interred in the crypt of 
 
 S. Martin -au-Val, 
 
 which probably marks the site of the chief extra-mural 
 
 * Third window of the south clerestory of the nave. 
 
 f The episcopal palace as it now stands is a handsome eighteenth- 
 century red brick building, and was built by the Bishop de Fleury 
 in 1760. Vast and sumptuous, with its Italian portico and flights 
 of steps, with its gardens of which you see but a small part 
 through the grille which opens on the cloister near the north 
 porch of the Cathedral, with its wing ' de la Duchesse,' as it was 
 called after the Duchesse de Fleury, mother of the bishop, and 
 the wing built in 1 702, wherein are the immense reception-rooms, 
 this palace, regal almost in its size and magnificence, suggests 
 the temporal and spiritual power of the prelates who numbered 
 among their vassals the highest barons of the realm and whose 
 diocese was known at Rome as the Great Bishopric. But it is 
 little in accord with the life or the means of the twentieth-century 
 bishops, to whom, as to their Anglican brethren, the palaces they 
 have to maintain are usually white elephants. 
 
 37
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 cemetery of the Chartres of those days. This asylum 
 of the dead was more than once profaned by the ravages 
 of the Northmen and the excesses committed during 
 the civil and religious wars. The nave and aisles were 
 seriously damaged in the fourteenth century by the 
 bands of English soldiers and marauders who overran 
 the country at that time. The Huguenots, also, under 
 Condc (1568) utterly devastated the church crypt, 
 violating the tombs of the bishops and wantonly burn- 
 ing the building. The tomb of S. Lubin, indeed, was 
 flung out of the church and was long used for domestic 
 purposes, until at last it was cracked by the frost. 
 Even then it was not safe from the utilitarian spirit 
 of the day. It was turned to account when the 
 foundations of the cemetery wall were being 
 constructed. 
 
 The Church of S. Martin-au-Val was restored in 
 1659. It now serves as a chapel for the Hospice S. 
 Brice, where between three and four hundred inmates 
 are provided for. 
 
 It is not without reason that I have spoken of this 
 chapel here, for it is the most important illustration of 
 the Merovingian period at Chartres. Leave the Place 
 Michel and go down the Rue S. Brice till you come 
 to the Rue Vangeon, which is the first street to your 
 left. The simple front of the church with its three 
 little turrets is now before you.* Go to the chief 
 entrance of the Hospital and say that you wish to see 
 the crypt. It lies beneath the raised pavement of the 
 choir, and it is evident that the greater part of it, like 
 the nave, choir and choir aisles, is tenth-century work. 
 You will have noted in this connection the bold abaci 
 of the piers of the nave and the peculiar elongated, 
 round-headed arches of the choir arcade. But here 
 
 * There is a punning saying that this church has 'trois clochers 
 et deux cents cloches' (deux sans). 
 
 38
 
 Saints and Barbarians 
 
 in the crypt, besides the interesting capitals of the 
 detached piers which support the vaulting, are two 
 capitals of extraordinary interest. They are of grey 
 marble in the western hall, on either side of the tablet 
 to Bishop Lescot. Sixth century ; Merovingian ; 
 crude and barbaric as the age which begot them, there 
 is yet a vigour and directness about these carvings which 
 make them not merely curious or grotesque. Nor are 
 they meaningless. They represent, in the symbolic 
 fashion of old days, the principle of life and death, of 
 good and evil. They were intended, even then, as a 
 warning to the faithful who approached the sanctuary, as a 
 reminder of the fact that 'the stones shall cry out.' On 
 the one capital, then, we have a scene of peace and love : 
 two doves supporting the crown of peace, two others 
 kissing. The other capital presents us with a scene of 
 terror. An enormous, savage beast is seen emerging 
 from a forest and seizing a man whose arm it has 
 already half devoured. His friend, meanwhile, has 
 gone to summon aid and is now returning, bringing to 
 succour him a man with a lance. . . . 
 
 There is one other matter to mention with regard 
 to this church. That S. Aignan, of whom we have 
 already spoken, and who, some think, was Bishop of 
 Chartres in the third century, was found here, it is 
 said, at the moment of his nomination, lost in prayer. 
 The brethren had to drag him hence by force and 
 carry him on their shoulders to be consecrated in the 
 Church of Notre-Dame. Ever since then the Bishops- 
 elect of Chartres pass the night preceding the day of 
 their solemn entry into the town in pious retreat at S. 
 Martin-au-Val. 
 
 Under Clotaire II. the French monarchy was re- 
 established and united. The Chartrain territory was 
 joined to Neustria and thus passed under the govern- 
 ment of Pepin d'Heristal, Charles Martel and Pcpin- 
 
 39
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 le-Bref * successively. And Charles, before becoming 
 King and Emperor under the name of Charlemagne, 
 also ruled Neustria. Pepin, his father, who with the 
 aid of the Pope Zachary, had added to the authority 
 of Charles Martel the crown of Clovis, proved by 
 many gifts to the Church that the gratitude of the 
 Carlovingians could be adequate to its obligations. 
 Among his gifts it is recorded that he assigned to 
 Notre-Dame de Chartres part of the forest of Yveline. 
 Ten years before Pepin was established on the Mero- 
 vingian throne Chartres had suffered from one among 
 many bitter experiences of the violence of the times. . 
 
 The annals of Metz record that Hunald, son of 
 Eudes, Count of Aquitane, revolting against Pepin and 
 Carloman, threw himself upon Chartres in 745, sacked 
 and burnt it, and ' did not spare the church consecrated 
 to the Mother of God.' This incident was but a fore- 
 taste of the long and ruinous struggle which the Char- 
 trains were destined to maintain against the invasions of 
 those men of the North, whose appearance on the shores 
 of the Baltic had drawn prophetic tears, it was said, 
 from the eyes of the invincible and enlightened 
 Charlemagne. 
 
 The church damaged by Hunald was doubtless the 
 one which had been built in the fourth century. The 
 wooden roof and supports were probably consumed by 
 the flames on this occasion, but the thick Roman walls 
 of the ancient basilica — such as you see in the mar- 
 tyrium — would survive many a burning. The church 
 therefore was easily and quickly restored by Bishop 
 Godessald, and was ere long the scene of a memorable 
 event. 
 
 Charles, son of Pepin, King of Aquitaine, had been 
 made prisoner in the kingdom of his uncle, Charles-le- 
 
 * He figures in the Galerie des Rois, on the western facade of 
 the Cathedral. 
 40
 
 Saints and Barbarians 
 
 Chauve. He was taken before the meeting of the Estates 
 held at Chartres (849), and there he made a declara- 
 tion aloud from the ambo of the church to the effect 
 that if he turned ecclesiastic it was of his own free will 
 and for the love of God. He was blessed by the 
 bishops and shorn, clad in the garb of a monk and sent 
 to the Monastery of Corbie. Such was one of the 
 ways in which one got rid of a dangerous rival in those 
 days. 
 
 It was during the reign of this grandson of his, 
 Charles-le-Fauve, that the storm foreseen by Charle- 
 magne broke over France in a series of thunderbursts, 
 destroying the fruits of his firm administration and wise 
 encouragement of learning. 
 
 Warned by the troublous experiences of the times, 
 the Chartrains were not ill-prepared for defence. But 
 their fortifications were of no avail. We will tell the 
 story as it is told by the monk Paul in his Latin 
 Cartula'ire dc Saint Pere de Chartres, which was written 
 between 1066 and 1088 : — 
 
 'Chartres at that time' (858) ' had a large popu- 
 lation and was the richest of the cities of Neustria. It 
 was very famous by reason of the magnitude of its 
 walls, the beauty of its buildings and its cultivation of 
 the fine arts.* But there burst upon Neustria a 
 Pagan race from across the seas, who came in their 
 huge beaked boats, and baring the sword of their 
 iniquity cruelly laid waste almost the whole country. 
 They destroyed many seats of the holy and gave them 
 over to the devouring flames : towns, when they took 
 them, they razed to the ground, and the Christians 
 they either slew or led into captivity and sold into 
 everlasting bondage. So furious was the rage of the 
 heathen that they rowed up the Seine ravaging the 
 
 * As early as 680 the Episcopal schools of Chartres were held 
 in repute. 
 
 41
 
 T'he Story of Chartres 
 
 land on every side, and at length coming to the city of 
 Chartres strove to take it, whilst they laid waste the 
 surrounding territory and rendered it uninhabitable. 
 The city thus cut off from support, and reduced by the 
 loss of many citizens and the enfeeblement of others, 
 was surprised by a night attack and taken. All the 
 Christians were slaughtered like sheep. And the city, 
 which had formerly endured unshaken a ten years' siege 
 by Julius Csesar and had repelled the Roman and 
 Argolic armies, for it was built of huge squared stones 
 and strengthened by lofty towers, and was indeed on 
 that account named The City of Stones, and it rejoiced 
 in an abundance of aqueducts and subterranean ways by 
 which it could be supplied with all provisions, was now 
 permitted by Heaven to be burnt and utterly razed to 
 the ground by a nation that knew not God. But the 
 patience of God, which thus corrects the worldliness 
 of His people in order that they may not perish here- 
 after, did not permit the cruelty of those barbarians to 
 pass unavenged. For the Franks gathered from all 
 sides and hastened to the spot where the enemy had 
 left their boats upon the River Diva. There, meeting 
 them as they returned laden with spoil, they fell upon 
 them with so violent an onslaught that the North- 
 men went down before them as in autumn the leaves 
 of the forest fall before the blasts of the north 
 wind.' 
 
 So the good monk, with an indignant energy that is 
 almost eloquent. The discerning reader will be able 
 to separate in this story the wheat from the chaff. But 
 the fact is certain that Hastings it was who took 
 Chartres upon this occasion. He burnt the town and 
 put to the sword the good Bishop Frotbold, with many 
 of his followers who had sought refuge in Notre-Dame. 
 The church itself, and the Abbeys of S. Pere and 
 S. Cheron, he gave to the flames. 
 42
 
 Saints afhl Barbarians 
 
 The Veil ok the Virgin — The Cathepral 
 Treasury. 
 
 Three years later Charles-le-Chauve, paying one of 
 his frequent pilgrimages to the shrine which he after- 
 wards described as the first seat of the Virgin in 
 France, beheld the ravages of Hastings. Partly per- 
 haps as a consolation to the inhabitants for their losses, he 
 now made their church the depository of one of the most 
 precious relics of the Virgin known to Christendom — 
 her veil or inner vestment, presented * by the Empress 
 Irene to the Emperor Charlemagne at Constantinople. 
 It is and was known as the Sancta Camisia, or, in 
 popular parlance, the Sainte Tunicjue or Chemisette. 
 Hence the form by which it is represented in the arms 
 of the chapter and in the innumerable emblems which 
 from the thirteenth century onwards have been pre- 
 pared in metal or ware as tokens for the pious pilgrim. 
 The immediate result of the possession of this sacred 
 veil and the miracles it wrought was an influx of pil- 
 grims to Chartres, who brought wealth enough to 
 enable the Bishop Gislebert to restore the ruined 
 church. He would seem to have still followed the 
 lines of Castor's church, but he extended it eastwards, 
 over and beyond the Gallo- Roman wall, raising the 
 new sanctuary of the choir so that the floor was two 
 or three yards higher than that of the nave, as in the 
 case of the Church of S. Martin-au-Val, and construct- 
 ing out of the martyrium a crypt where the veil might 
 be kept safe in the time of danger. 
 
 It was not long, if we may believe the chroniclers, 
 before the love and reverence with which all the 
 inhabitants regarded this relic was to be justified and 
 
 * The story of this presentation is told in the glass of the 
 Chapel of S. John the Baptist in the Church of Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 Charles-le-Chauve caused it to be brought thence into France. 
 
 43
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 the reputation of the veil as the palladium of the 
 town established. 
 
 It was in the year 911 that the Northmen, who 
 had now come to regard Neustria as their own, burst 
 for the last time on the land of France. The people 
 of La Beauce fled to the forests and the churches for 
 refuge ; but the forests were soon in flames and the 
 churches were destroyed by the ruthless invaders. 
 The refugees fled with their flocks to seek protection 
 within the walls of Chartres. With them they brought 
 the relics of S. Piat,* as some years before they had 
 brought the body of S. Wandegisile to aid them in 
 their defence. For the Normans were coming, those 
 ' barbarians from across the seas,' and at their head 
 was Rollo, first Duke of Normandy, Rollo, ancestor 
 of the Conqueror, plundering and pillaging churches 
 and abbeys in a fit of religious madness, so the monkish 
 
 * S. Piat preached the Gospel to the Carnutes in the third 
 century before going to gain the crown of martyrdom at Tours. 
 He is the saint to be invoked by farmers for fair weather in the 
 rainy years. See the chapel dedicated to him, built out beyond 
 the apse of the Cathedral. This chapel was added in the four- 
 teenth century, and is a good example of that period, the doorway 
 at the foot of the staircase which gives access to it from the 
 Cathedral being especially beautiful. In the tympanum of this 
 doorway is a statue of the Virgin and the Christ-Child playing 
 with a dove. The bracket of the tympanum of the doorway at 
 the top of the staircase once supported a statue of S. Piat. It 
 has been destroyed, but you may see a picture of the saint in the 
 grisaille above this door. The glass belongs partly to the four- 
 teenth and partly to the fifteenth century, and is good, though 
 not so good as that of the rest of the Cathedral. It has suffered 
 from an ignorant application of oil-colour some fifty years ago. 
 The polychrome bosses in the roof and the rich capitals are full 
 of detail, and skilfully wrought. The exterior, unlike the interior, 
 is unprepossessing. Before the year 1793 it could boast a spire 
 of lead and wood, which may have done something to relieve the 
 present effect of heaviness. The staircase which connects the 
 chapel with the Cathedral is, however, very beautiful. 
 
 44
 
 Saints and Barbarians 
 
 chroniclers aver, against the priests who had converted 
 to Christianity the children of Odin. He had made a 
 vain attempt upon Paris, and now had come down the 
 Seine, rowing as far as he could, then, leaving his ships, 
 marched upon Chartrcs and invested it. But he was 
 obliged to raise the siege. The dry fact of history 
 probably is that the approach of Robert, Duke of 
 France, with the aid of the Duke of Burgundy and 
 the Count of Poitiers, compelled Rollo's men, who 
 were anxious lest their return should be cut off and 
 were disheartened already by their failure to take Paris, 
 to retire when they failed to take Chartres at the first 
 assault. But the traditional account is certainly more 
 picturesque. At the crisis of the siege it was to the 
 Bishop Gasselin, 'a holy man, glorious and just and 
 true,' that all men looked for comfort and courage. 
 So Bcnoit, the Anglo-Norman trouvere, tells us in his 
 poetical history of the Dukes of Normandy. And 
 Robert Wace,* Jehan le Marchand f and the monk 
 Paul \ agree with him in his description of the won- 
 drous episode which ensued. For a bishop, Gasselin 
 was indeed a bishop, potent in prayer and skilled in 
 that art of destroying the human species which is war. 
 He put his trust in Heaven, but did not disdain human 
 succour. He summoned the Dukes of Burgundy and 
 France to his aid. Then, on the day when he learnt 
 that they were at hand, he left the walls on which he 
 had kept watch and ward in prayer, and, ' tout esplore 
 et larmoyanty called the people to the Cathedral. 
 There he first celebrated Mass and offered supplica- 
 tions; next, leaving the altar, he gave absolution to the 
 multitude. Thereafter, having put on his pontifical 
 
 * Roman de Rou. 
 
 ■f Le I'fvre dcs Miracles dc Chartres (translated into French 
 verse from some Latin collection in the thirteenth century). 
 \ Cartulaire de S. Pire. 
 
 45
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 robes, he, preceded by a cross, led the citizens in 
 armed procession back to the walls. Suddenly, above 
 the gate which is called New, he unfurled as a banner 
 the sacred veil, flung open the portals, and bade the 
 people fight boldly. 
 
 'Vers la bataille vait le pas 
 Tote la ville sune a glas.' 
 
 The sortie was well timed, for just at that moment the 
 helmets and bucklers of the advancing Burgundians and 
 Franks were seen glittering in the distance. The 
 besieged fell with resistless enthusiasm upon the aston- 
 ished enemy. The enemy, dazed by the glory of the 
 precious relics, caught between the sallying citizens and 
 the relieving force, retreated to the Hill of Leves and 
 there entrenched themselves. So terrible had been 
 the slaughter that the bodies of the slain (says Paul 
 the monk) heaped in the Eure for a while completely 
 choked the stream. And they tell us that the Place 
 des Epars,* in which to-day the principal hotels of the 
 town are found, owes its name to the flight of the 
 Normans who were scattered on this occasion (^s' epar- 
 pillerent). Others, however, more prosaically explain 
 the name as meaning the ' hub ' whence the various 
 roads of the province diverge. 
 
 It was at this juncture, when RoUo had rallied his 
 men at Lcves, that the Count of Poitiers arrived on 
 the scene, and bitterly he reproached his brothers of 
 Burgundy and France for having given battle before he 
 arrived. In high dudgeon he set off in pursuit of the 
 enemy. But the Northmen outwitted him. Rollo 
 despatched three soldiers into the plain to sound trum- 
 
 * It was outside the walls of that day. The New Gate was 
 that which afterwards formed the gate of the cloister, opposite 
 the Renaissance clock tower, north-west of the Cathedral, de- 
 stroyed at the end of the eighteenth century. Two pillars of the 
 gate then destroyed are still visible. 
 46
 
 Saints and Barbarians 
 
 pets and thus draw off the enemy to engage an imagin- 
 ary foe, whilst he and his followers effected their escape. 
 
 This signal victory long left its mark on the land. 
 The plain near the gate where the Normans were 
 defeated was known thereafter as the Field of the 
 Repulse or of the Men Repulsed.* And the first 
 bas-relief on the south side of the choir screen, which 
 represents the bishop displaying the holy veil to the 
 besiegers, also commemorates this event. 
 
 The veil was brought back in triumphant procession 
 to the Cathedral, and shortly afterwards a skilful gold- 
 smith of the town, Teudon by name, constructed a very 
 rich and beautiful casket of gold and cedar wood to con- 
 tain it. Many miracles were wrought in favour of the 
 devout who sought the aid of the Virgin, like Edward 
 III. of England and Henry IV. of France, by pass- 
 ing under this coffer. Numerous knights who carried 
 the token of the veil were rescued from the greatest 
 dangers, and women, especially queens, who wore 
 taffeta imitations of it, were protected in the pains and 
 perils of their travail. Countless rings and priceless 
 jewels were inlaid in the sides of the casket and hung 
 upon it by the grateful or the expectant, so that it soon 
 became the most valuable treasure of Chartres, in a 
 treasury, that is, of medioeval jewellery such as we 
 have to make a very systematic effort even to imagine.! 
 * The still extant register of the furniture and sacred 
 apparel leaves the soul of the ecclesiologist athirst.' 
 The register to which Pater refers in the sentence I 
 have just quoted was composed in 1682, and an 
 annotated edition of it has been published by M. 
 Merlet ( Catalogues des Rel'iques et Joyaux de Notre- 
 Dame de Chartres^, The curious reader will peruse 
 
 * Le Pre des Recules. 
 
 "I- To visit the treasure, apply to the chaplain who guards the 
 Chapel of Notre-Dame du Pilier. (Fee, half a franc.) 
 
 47
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 with astonishment and scan with regret the long list of 
 precious offerings which the exactions of kings, the 
 exigencies of warfare and the rapacity of the revolu- 
 tionists have caused in great part to disappear. 
 
 The veil, together with the casket in which it had 
 lain for nearly 800 years, was seized during the 
 Revolution. The casket and jewels were sold. The 
 veil, though rent in twain, was recovered, but not in 
 its entirety (3^; yards by 6 feet). It is kept now in 
 two coffers of cedar wood, covered with silver gilt. 
 Beneath the veil is another known as the Veil of 
 the Empress Irene, which is made of embroidered 
 Byzantine stuff of the eighth century. The visitor to 
 Chartres should on no account omit to see these 
 curious relics, and the extremely rich enamelled 
 triptich of the School of Limoges (thirteenth cen- 
 tury, but in part eighteenth century restoration). For 
 the rest, though the Casket of Teudon, which was 
 valued in 1562 at ^8980, without counting the 
 diamonds and rubies, enamels and pearls which 
 adorned it, has disappeared ; though the head and 
 the slipper of S. Anne are gone and the relics of many 
 another saint ; though the golden eagles of S. Eloi, 
 the sapphires of King Robert, and the gems of Henry 
 III. of England ; though cameos and crucifixes of 
 emerald or agate, crystal or ivory, have, like the tapestries 
 of Queen Bertha and the golden girdle of Anne of 
 Brittany, with its fifteen rubies, ten sapphires and sixty- 
 four pearls, and the flagon which contained the blood 
 of Thomas-a-Becket, all been seized and sold by 
 sacrilegious hands, yet there remain to be seen the 
 delicate incense-boat, given by Miles d'llliers. Bishop 
 of Lugon, in 154O, the graceful chalice of Henry III. 
 (1582), and the green marble altar of the English, 
 dedicated by them in 1420, when Chartres was in 
 their hands. 
 48
 
 Saints and Barbarians 
 
 You will also notice a medal, which was struck to 
 commemorate the outbreak of cholera in 11^32 and 
 the part played by the Sa'inte Chemise at that time. 
 For not once only, or only in the mediaeval days, has 
 the veil of the Virgin played a part in the history of 
 Chartres. It was taken at the height of the plague, in 
 obedience to the clamour of the people, in solemn 
 procession through the streets, and from that moment, 
 it is said, the plague was stayed, and all who were 
 ill, save two, who had mocked at this act of piety, 
 recovered. 
 
 Nor should it be forgotten that it was the possession 
 of this veil which, when Fulbert's Cathedral had been 
 burnt down in 11 94, stimulated the desire and pro- 
 vided the means to build a still larger and more beautiful 
 cathedral, worthy to contain it, and to be, in the words 
 of the chroniclers, ' the very couch and chamber of 
 Our Lady.' * 
 
 A few months after his defeat before Chartres, 
 Rollo the Ganger married the daughter of Charles- 
 le-Simple and embraced the Christian faith. Neustria 
 was ceded to the Normans. Their depredations 
 ceased for a while, but, under the young Duke 
 Richard of Normandy, fifteen years later, there was 
 a heathen reaction in Pirates' land. Their fleets once 
 more swarmed up the Seine, and Chartres was the 
 central point of their attack. United in its defence, 
 loud and frequent rang the cry of the House of 
 France, * Montjoie ! ' mingled with that of the Counts 
 of Chartres and Vendome, ' Chartres et Passavant ! ' 
 
 ' Frachois crie Mont-joye et Normans Dez-aie, 
 Flamans crie Afras et Angevin ralie, 
 Et li cuens Thiebaut Chartre et Passavant crie.' 
 
 Wace — Roman de Rou. 
 
 * Cf. the phrase in the Charter of King John (1356) ' qiiam- 
 ijuidem ecclesiam ipsa virgo gloriosa elegit pro sua camera speciali.' 
 
 D 49
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 But soon these visitations ceased. Gradually heathen 
 Norman pirates became French Christians, their 
 descendants feudal nobles, and Pirates' land the most 
 loyal of the fiefs of France. Christianity was embraced 
 by all, from duke to peasant. By the people it was 
 welcomed with an almost passionate fanaticism. Every 
 road was crowded with pilgrims. Monasteries rose in 
 every forest glade, cathedrals in every town. The 
 Abbeys of S. P^re, S. Cheron and S. Martin, and the 
 Churches of S. Lubin and S. Laumerinthe neighbour- 
 ing vineyards, were re-established and restored. The 
 Church of Bishop Wulphard was built, and this 
 restoration of religious centres meant, in a brutal age, 
 the assertion of the rights of humanity, in an age of 
 ignorance the encouragement of learning, of science and 
 art, in an age of devastation the promotion, by means of 
 pilgrimages, of industry and commerce. The growing 
 number of windmills, wine-presses and tanneries on 
 the monastic properties is the index of the civilising 
 influence of the monks. The fragments of their 
 castles remain as the sign of the more picturesque but 
 less admirable occupation of the knights of chivalry. 
 
 50
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 'Theobald-thc- Trickster cwd Fulbert 
 the Bishop 
 
 'Thiebaut li quenz de Chartres fu fel e engignous 
 Mult out chastels e viles, e mult fu averous ; 
 Chevalier fu mult prous e mult chevalerous 
 Mez mult part fu cruel e mult envious.' 
 
 Robert Wace — Roman de Rou. 
 
 ROLLO, on his conversion, gave his domain of 
 Malmaison, near Epernon, to Notre-Dame de 
 Chartres. The deed of gift was long preserved, and 
 ran in these terms : — 
 
 ' I, Rollo, Duke of Normandy, give to the Brethren 
 of the Church Notre-Dame de Chartres my Castle of 
 Malmaison, which I have won with my sword, and 
 with my sword I will guarantee it to them, as let this 
 knife be witness.' 
 
 A knife in the Middle Ages was a symbol of 
 putting in possession. It was a fitting symbol for the 
 Steele de fer, that century of moral and material dis- 
 order and disaster in which the country was now 
 involved. 
 
 For France was now falling into the iron grip of 
 feudalism. It is the age of castles. As the power of 
 the central authority weakens, the power of the great 
 vassals, dukes, counts, bishops and abbots becomes 
 established as absolute in their fiefs. But during the 
 period of disorder, from which the feudal regime 
 emerged triumphant, the serf had waged with his 
 
 51
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 master the same struggle that the vassal was waging 
 with his lords and the lord with the King. The result 
 was similar in all cases. Usurpation of servile tenures 
 accompanied that of liberal tenures, and, territorial 
 appropriation having taken place in every rank of 
 society, it was as difficult to dispossess a serf of his 
 manse as a seigneur of his benefice. The serf, there- 
 fore, emerged from the condition of almost absolute 
 slavery in which he was at the time of the fall of the 
 Western Empire, and from the condition of servitude 
 that had been his up to the end of the reign of Charles- 
 le-Chauve. From this time servitude was transformed 
 into serfage. The serf having withdrawn his person 
 and his field from his master's hands, owes to him no 
 longer his body and goods, but only a portion of his 
 labour and his income. He ceases to be a slave and 
 becomes a tributary. 
 
 With the advent of feudalism the map of the country 
 underwent a change. The Roman arrangement, by which 
 Gaul had been divided into eighteen provinces and 
 127 dioceses, had been little altered by the Francs, 
 and lasted on under the Carlovingians, but it gradually 
 disappeared in the course of the tenth and eleventh 
 centuries. It was preserved only by the Church, the 
 dioceses of which, up to the time of the Revolution, 
 represented very nearly the ancient divisions of Gaul 
 under the Romans. Before the days of Caesar it was 
 into pagi that Gaul had been divided. The pagus or 
 pays persisted now ; more numerous than the cities, 
 they continued to split up and multiply. But from 
 800 onwards most of these pays having set up comtes of 
 the same name and same extent began to be known as 
 such — as, for instance, the Comte of Chartres. 
 
 When in 987 Hugues Capet, Duke of France, 
 decided to assume the title of King, the political unity 
 of the Chartrains had long been broken by the ter- 
 S2
 
 T^heobald-the- 'Trickster 
 
 ritorial usurpations of the great officers of the Crown. 
 The government of the country under Charlemagne 
 had been shared by seven counts — Chartres, Dreux, 
 Chateaudun, Blois, Vendome, Poissy and Mantes. 
 But by Hugh Capet's time these had been reduced to 
 three — Chartres, Blois and Dreux — and in the person 
 of Thibault-le-Vieux or le Tricheur, who was of 
 Capetan stock, the counties of Blois and Chartres were 
 united. They remained in his family till the death of 
 Thibaut VI., 121 8. They were then divided between 
 the two collateral branches of the house, but reunited 
 again in 1269. 
 
 Philippe-le-Bel acquired the county of Chartres in 
 1 289, and gave it to his brother, Charles de Valois, 
 whose son, Philippe de Valois, united it to the Crown 
 
 (1346). 
 
 It is convenient to explain this matter of the Comte 
 here, for the present period of the history of Chartres 
 is connected with the dread name of Thibault-le- 
 Tricheur, Theobald the Trickster, Count of Chartres, 
 the chevalier fel et engignous, whom Robert Wace 
 describes. 
 
 This first hereditary Count of Chartres was the 
 Robert the Devil of the Pays Chartrain. Through 
 the whole country side, from Tours to Blois, and from 
 Blois to Chartres, the impression of his dreaded per- 
 sonality is indelibly stamped. The legend still runs 
 that Thibault, the old Chasseur, nightly crosses the 
 Loire from Montfrau to Bury with a crowd of his 
 reckless men of arms, bent, you may suppose, on some 
 murderous foray. This turbulent spirit threw himself 
 eagerly into the quarrel between Lothaire and Richard, 
 Duke of Normandy, and took an active part in the 
 cruel war that ensued. He invaded the Duke's ter- 
 ritory, and, availing himself of every device, and 
 employing every ruse, for Thibault was ^ plein erengin 
 
 53
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 et ple'in fu de feintie^ he took Evreux and advanced 
 even to the walls of Rouen. His line of advance was 
 marked by devastation so terrible that, says the Norman 
 chronicler, there was not the bark of a single dog to 
 be heard throughout the county.* 
 
 A peace was patched up, and Thibault married 
 Richard's daughter. But the King and the Count 
 shortly afterwards renewed their machinations against 
 the Duke. The latter was hard pressed, but, thanks 
 to his spirit and the valour of his followers, he proved 
 victorious. He ravaged the country of his enemy, and 
 sacked and burnt the town and church of Chartres. 
 It is said that when Thibault, the hardened old Chasseur^ 
 came to the town — sa bonne ville de Chartres — he began 
 to count one by one the heads of those whom the 
 Northmen had slain. Suddenly he stopped in his 
 counting and began to utter the cries and laughter of 
 a madman. For the head of his own son lay there 
 before him, and the shock of the sight unhinged his 
 mind forever. 
 
 The Rue des Changes lies opposite the south-west 
 corner of the Cathedral. Pursue this street and you 
 will find yourself in the modern vegetable market — 
 the Place Billard. It is the site on which — coolly 
 appropriating some territory which belonged to the 
 Monastery of S. Pere — Thibault built the castle and 
 donjon of the Counts of Chartres. It was outside 
 the then walls of the town, between the Porte Eviere 
 and the Porte Cendreuse. Not a vestige of it now 
 remains, if we except a few fragments of the old 
 enclosing wall. For the donjon was destroyed in 
 
 * Cf. ' Ne leissent en Chartrain et en Duneiz bordel, 
 Ne mezon en estant ki seit fors du chastel ; 
 Ne leissent boef ne vaque, genice ni torel 
 Coc, capon, ne geline, ne viez chien ne chael.' 
 
 Roman de Rou. 
 
 54
 
 'iMTtir "5i 
 
 
 , \ i'n \ Ik «h'vi% 
 
 1 !k"ll^Mlll'**7;" '.'![■'/ 
 
 
 
 
 
 •« ilk. im/fl^lic ? 
 
 
 
 
 
 pJFyJ'-'^qi 
 
 -'' ' K -
 
 Theobald-thc- Trickster 
 
 1587, and the castle in the nineteenth century. The 
 great tower known as the King's or Count's Tower 
 (Tour le Roi, Tour le Comte), was used for a prison, 
 and within the spacious halls of the ancient palace most 
 of the general assemblies t)f Chartres were held. It 
 was here that for live centuries justice .was administered, 
 and it was in the chapel of the castle that the bishop, 
 on his entry, was wont to swear that he would not go 
 contrary to the rights of the prince. And it was here 
 that feudal homage was done, a cause de la grosse tour 
 de Chartres. 
 
 The castle, with its crenelated donjon, its huge 
 fagade on the crest of the hill, its massive walls and 
 buttresses ; the Cathedral, with its soaring spires, 
 majestic nave and mystic sculptures, were typical in 
 their juxtaposition. The fortress of the Counts, rising 
 behind armed walls and portcullis ; the stronghold of 
 the bishops, secure within the buildings of the cloister, 
 to which there was access only through guarded gates 
 — such, for instance, as that facing the castle, of which 
 you may still see a trace on the corner house of the 
 Rue des Changes and the Rue du Lait — Castle and 
 Cathedral so placed were stone symbols, you might 
 fancy, of the temporal and spiritual powers which 
 ruled with divided sway the old town of Chartres.* 
 
 For, throughout the Middle Ages, side by side with 
 the persistent power of the bishops and their train of 
 clergy and of serfs, persisted also, but waxing and 
 waning with varying fortune, the power of the Counts. 
 And from the vassals and dependants of these two 
 powers was destined to spring the modern Bourgeoisie. 
 The Counts of Blois, of Chartres, of Meaux pass 
 before us in the pages of history, forever raising levies, 
 waging wars and exacting tolls on merchandise. Some- 
 
 * Compare the castles and cathedrals of Durham and 
 Lincoln. 
 
 57
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 times they are in accord with the clergy ; sometimes 
 in opposition ; and at one moment make large donations 
 to the Church, at another rob it. To-day they fight 
 for their King abroad and on their Crusades, while 
 Viscounts represent them at-home. To-morrow they 
 are home again, fighting among themselves, or trying 
 to throw off their allegiance to their King. Counts of 
 Chartres or their relatives mount the throne of England 
 and the throne of France. But war and brigandage 
 remain their business. They pillage the bishops, and 
 the bishops excommunicate the pillagers. They raise 
 troops, and the bishops call their parish to arms. They 
 war with the sword, and the bishops win with the aid 
 of their trained ability, the cunning of their counsel, 
 and their pens. 
 
 For the great bishops^ — such as Fulbert, Ives and 
 John of Salisbury — were indeed remarkable men, and 
 they held their own successfully, not only, if need be, 
 against the interference of their Archbishop of Sens, 
 but also with the Counts of Chartres and the Kings of 
 France and England. 
 
 The eleventh century above all was an era of notable 
 bishops. 
 
 There were, of course, good bishops and bad. 
 Aganon, who succeeded Gantelme, was in the former 
 class, and he devoted himself to the rebuilding and 
 establishing of the ruined churches and monasteries ; 
 among them that of S. Pere de Chartres, which had 
 been utterly demolished by the Normans. His nephew, 
 Ragenfroi, succeeded him, and continued in the paths 
 of his uncle. He was one of the greatest benefactors 
 of S. Pere, to which he added many buildings, and 
 whither he brought twelve monks from the Monastery 
 of Fleury-sur-Loire. Their fervour and discipline, 
 which was to give new life to the community at 
 Chartres, had been acquired under the rule of their 
 58
 
 Theobald-thc- Trickster 
 
 abbot, Vulphard, destined to be one ot the great 
 bishop-builders of Chartres. 
 
 It was under Ragenfroi rhat Hugues le Grand, 
 father of Hugues Capet, gave evidence of his lively 
 devotion to the Notre-Damc de Chartres by the 
 donation of the domain of Ingro, ' with all its lands 
 cultivated or not, vineyards, pasturage and prairies^ 
 with its forests and serfs of either sex, and the church 
 which is dedicated to Saint Leu.' So runs the charter, 
 and the object is ' that the brethren deriving there- 
 from the necessaries of life may have the more liberty 
 to perform Divine service and spiritual exercises, and 
 pour out the more abundant prayers for us, our wife 
 and our whole family.' 
 
 Hardouin, Bishop of Chartres, succeeded to his 
 brother's position, but not his religion, says the 
 chronicler ; for he was filled with pride and swollen 
 with secular ambition. He waged war with the monks 
 of S. Pere, and took from them every privilege and 
 possession he could. And the chronicler adds (writ- 
 ing always from the point of view of S. Pere) that 
 several later bishops followed his example, and trod in 
 the same path of sacrilege, wasting their own property 
 and coveting that of others, plotting against the monks 
 and harassing them, and even robbing them of much 
 that the charity of the faithful had bestowed upon 
 them, and, whereas they should have protected them, 
 acting in the blindness of their hearts like tyrants and 
 plunderers. Count Kudes succeeded his father Thibault 
 (977), and the following narrative, which the monk 
 Paul gives us in connection with his name, is sufficiently 
 eloquent of the times. 
 
 There was a holy priest, by name Sigismund, whose 
 goodness and sanctity were clearer than the light of 
 day to all people, lay and clerical. Chaste and 
 humble, prudent, prayerful, burning with the fire of 
 
 59
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 faith, yet jocund of speech withal, he shone as an 
 example of all Christian virtues. Now Fulcher, Abbot 
 of S. Lubin,* had committed to his care certain vine- 
 yards, from which, it appears, the Blessed Sigismund 
 knew how to make good wine. And one day when 
 Count Eudes of Chartres was about to dine, and his 
 men were looking about for the best wine to be 
 obtained, they heard that there was wine to be got for 
 nothing in the cellar of the priest. Overjoyed at the 
 news, they hastened there, and boldly entering the 
 cellar filled their skins and carried them off to the hall. 
 The good Sigismund returned from the house of God 
 and found the chief cup-bearer sitting in his cellar, 
 who mocked him, asking, * Master, tell me, is that 
 wine of yours very good or not ? ' * My brother,' 
 returned the holy man, ' you are no novice at wine, 
 and do not need to be told when you have only to 
 taste for yourself.' 'Give me a goblet, then,' said he. 
 ' Nay ; the wine will be better from the cup into which 
 it is drawn.' 
 
 The unhappy man placed the cup to his lips, but 
 before he could drink he was seized with a fit, and 
 fell to the earth foaming at the mouth. He was taken 
 back to the palace, and when the Count heard of the 
 affair he summoned Sigismund to his presence and 
 ordered the eyes of those who had stolen the wine to 
 be gouged out and the wine to be restored to its 
 owner. Sigismund, however, when he saw him so 
 roused, would not leave his presence till the Count had 
 calmed his wrath, set the prisoners free, and consented 
 to drink the wine gratis. Then the holy man turned 
 to pray, and thanks to his intercession the cup-bearer 
 was restored to his former health. 
 
 Count Eudes— whose widow. Bertha, afterwards 
 
 * This monastery, south of the town, like that of S. Martin- 
 au-Val, formed part of the domain of the Counts. 
 60
 
 Theobald-the- Trickster 
 
 became for a while the wife of King Robert — died in 
 995. He was succeeded by his son, Thibault II., 
 and with him the struggle between the spiritual and 
 temporal powers took the form of a claim to present to 
 the Monastery of S. P^re. 
 
 Fulbert, who was one day to be the great Bishop of 
 Chartres, has left us an account of the matter, pre- 
 served and completed by the monk Paul, which is as 
 curious as it is instructive. 
 
 ' The Abbot of S. Pere,' writes Fulbert, ' was very 
 ill, but still in full possession of his faculties, when a 
 monk named Magenard — up to that time a dear friend 
 of mine ' (more of a courtier than a priest, says Paul ! ) 
 — ' slipped secretly out of the monastery by night and 
 hastened to Count Thibault, who was all that time 
 lying at Blois, with the view of begging the post of 
 abbot for himself. The Count sent him back to us 
 next day, accompanied by commissioners, who were to 
 secure from the brethren a magnificent reception of 
 him as abbot. But to almost all of us this conduct 
 appeared as horrible as it was unprecedented. We 
 answered, therefore, that we could not consent to their 
 requests, for the appointment was not legal ; and an 
 ambitious schemer who had tried to secure the post of 
 abbot before the abbot himself was dead could not 
 be accepted. Magenard rode back in high dudgeon to 
 the Count, and fanned the flames of the young man's 
 wrath against us. Five days later Gislebert, the 
 abbot, died. The members of the monastery met, 
 and the question was put whether anyone supported 
 the claim of Magenard. One by one the brethren 
 answered no. A deputation was therefore sent to the 
 Count (who was acting as bishop at the time) to 
 inform him of Gislebert's death, and to ask for regular 
 permission to choose his successor. But this deputation 
 was forestalled by the treacherous conduct of two 
 
 61
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 monks, who hastened to Blois and falsely informed the 
 Count that Magenard had been chosen abbot by the 
 brethren. The Count was delighted at the news, and 
 publicly presented Magenard with the pastoral staff. 
 The brethren who had remained at home were incensed 
 at this fraudulent business, and promptly drew up and 
 signed the following protest : — 
 
 ' Know all the Church that we have not chosen 
 Magenard to be our abbot : we do not approve of him, 
 we do not want him, we do not consent ; but we dis- 
 approve, refuse, and altogether reject him — we, that is, 
 the undersigned monks of Saint Pere.' 
 
 Fulbert tells us that all the brethren either signed 
 or witnessed their signatures in his presence. On the 
 next day, he continues, the Count Thibault returned 
 to Chartres and requested to be admitted with formal 
 processions into the monastery. The monks replied 
 that they would willingly so receive him provided that 
 he did not bring the false abbot with him. The 
 Count was enraged, but held his hand for one day. 
 On the following day, however, with a noisy crowd of 
 followers, he forced Magenard upon the Monastery 
 of S. Pere. At this violence the holy brethren, fear- 
 ing to be contaminated by the presence of the intruder, 
 bade farewell, with tears in their eyes, to the sanctuary 
 of the Lord, and took refuge in the Cathedral. The 
 Cathedral also lacked a bishop, and within its walls 
 the two flocks of monks, like sheep without a shepherd, 
 mingled their tears with mutual consolation. 
 
 The monks found a resting-place in the monastery of 
 Lagni, and Magenard was installed by a foreign bishop, 
 in the absence of the clergy, amidst the indignation of 
 the people, and in spite of the open protest of the 
 Archbishop of Sens and a few of the remaining monks 
 of S. Pere. 
 
 Not the least dramatic part of this curious story is 
 62 /
 
 'TheobaU-the- 'Trickster 
 
 its end. Magenard remained quietly in possession of 
 the monastery, and ' there was not one bishop in all 
 France whose heart was touched by feelings of piety 
 or love of sacred law to interfere on behalf of the 
 monks who had been expelled.' But presently (1004), 
 on his return from a pilgrimage to Rome, Count 
 Thibault died, and his body was brought back, to be 
 laid next his brother Thierry in the Chapel of S. 
 Pere. His gravestone, restored in the seventeenth 
 century, at the time of the reconstruction of the abbey, 
 is now to be found in the Hotel de Ville. Now, on 
 the death of the Count, Raoul, the Dean of Notre- 
 Dame, who had welcomed the monks of S. Pere in 
 their flight, was appointed bishop in his stead. The 
 bitter feeling against Magenard, which had long been 
 smouldering, now burst into flame. He was deprived 
 of his pastoral staff and compelled to pass some days in 
 the bishop's house. But when men saw how instant he 
 was in prayer, and how fervent in vigil, how wise in 
 speech and accomplished in letters, the flames of the 
 quarrel died down. His staff was restored to him, 
 together with the conduct of the monastery, and, adds 
 the chronicler, as long as he breathed this vital air so 
 long did he full well and lovingly feed the flock which 
 was confided to his charge. 
 
 Bishop Hardouin died eight days after the destruc- 
 tion of the town and church in 962, and the pious and 
 able Vulphard was appointed in his stead. The people 
 of Chartres set themselves with undaunted energy to 
 rebuild their town, and they seized the opportunity of 
 making their houses more substantial, and of enlarging 
 their churches. Look at the tenth-century remains 
 of Notre-Dame and S. Pere, and judge how massive 
 was the material they used. Their houses, of course, 
 were still made mostly of wood. Vulphard devoted 
 himself to the business of constructing a new cathedral, 
 
 63
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 which should be more beautiful than any yet con- 
 ceived. 
 
 The martyrium is the kernel of the crypt of Notre- 
 Dame. The latter half of the tenth century was the 
 period of vast crypts, and Vulphard, not content with 
 merely renewing the martyrium of Gislebert, added a 
 broad ambulatory round it, enclosed with a strong 
 circular wall, which was broken by three advanced 
 chapels. This was intended to make the martyrium, 
 as the depository of the treasure and the Veil, safe 
 from all accidents. We shall see presently how well 
 it fulfilled its purpose. The church itself was extended 
 westwards as far as the line marked now by the 
 labyrinth in the pavement of the nave. Two great 
 piers were inserted in the martyrium to support the 
 raised choir. 
 
 In order to understand the growth of the Cathedral, 
 which is in itself, to the eye that can see, an almost 
 complete history of Christian architecture, it is neces- 
 sary to form some idea of the church which Vulphard 
 built. For in size and site it approached the modern 
 building. 
 
 If we count the circular portion embracing the 
 martyrium, and connected by stairs with the main 
 building, it must have been over lOO yards long, and 
 in breadth at least thirty, including the Chapel of 
 Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre on the one side, and the 
 sacristy on the south. But the nave and the aisles — 
 the floor of which was on a level with that of Notre- 
 Dame-de-Sous-Terre — were together only as broad 
 as the modern nave by itself. 
 
 Like the tenth century Church of S. Martin-au-Val, 
 the choir was raised ten or twelve steps above the 
 nave, and was surrounded by an ambulatory. There 
 was a double transept : and it may be that we can 
 trace it in the recesses which now form the Chapels of 
 
 64
 
 Theohald-the- Trickster 
 
 S. Savinian, S. Potentian and the Saints F"orts on the 
 one side, and the Chapel of S. Clement on the other. 
 
 As to the details and ornamentation of the church 
 nothing remains, but we can say from our knowledge 
 of the times, and from a comparison with what tenth 
 century work there is in Chartres, what could and 
 what could not have been, if not what was. There 
 may, for instance, have been a belfry, and, seeing that 
 the great square tower of the Abbey Church of 
 S. Pere was at that time being built, there probably 
 was. Perhaps two such towers flanked the two 
 extremities of the facade. They would have had no 
 spires, but a four-sided, pyramidal roof. Squat 
 columns or square pillars, one may suppose, carried 
 the series of plain round arches of brick and stone 
 which connected the aisles with the central nave. 
 But the great ' Triumphal Arch,' as it was called, 
 separating choir from nave, was richly adorned with 
 sculpture and painting. 
 
 The capitals of the pillars and their bases would be 
 in most instances romanesque, after the fashion of that 
 which serves as a font in the Chapel of Notre-Dame- 
 de-Sous-Terre, whilst others would be decorated like 
 those of S. Martin-au-Val with foliage and forms of 
 real or fantastic animals, the mystic symbols of 
 Mediaeval Masonry, the language in which the Masters 
 of the Living Stone were now beginning to speak 
 The walls may have been enriched with mosaics an'^ 
 paintings in accordance with the precepts of Charle- 
 magne. Above the aisles may have run a triforium or 
 gallery, set apart for the prayers of virgins and widows. 
 If you look at the entrance of Vulphard's crypt you 
 will see that the doorways were simple, and they offer 
 a striking contrast to the porches of the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries with their wealth of sculpture, 
 which records, as it were, in brief the history of 
 E 65
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 Christianity, and serves as a preface to the book of the 
 Cathedral. Without going into further detail, we may 
 add, that as the complete art of vaulting was not yet 
 known, though the small roof of the martyrium may 
 have been vaulted, the large roof of the Cathedral can 
 only have been a flat wooden ceiling. 
 
 The building of this church was completed before 
 Vulphard's death. But the decoration of it lagged 
 under his successor. The skilled monks engaged for 
 that purpose disappeared. The artists had retired to their 
 cloister to await their last hour in prayer and fasting. 
 For the end of the world was expected. The ancient 
 and popular doctrine of the millennium possessed all 
 minds. Every sign, it seemed, had been given. 
 
 Wars, famine and pestilence, and the ravages of the 
 Normans and Saracens had produced a depression of 
 spirit, which, combined with an erroneous interpretation 
 of the Apocalypse, led men to think that the reign of 
 Antichrist and the end of the world must surely be at 
 hand. The beginning of the year looo, it began to 
 be believed, was the appointed date of this dread 
 climax. 
 
 * A long and unceasing series of signs,' writes one 
 in 985, when bequeathing his property to the Abbey 
 of S. Pere, ' bears witness to the approaching end of 
 the world, and of the passing of all things therein.' 
 
 Private wars and the revolt of the Norman peasantry, 
 who had dared to utter the word ' commune ' and had 
 been ferociously crushed by the feudal barons, the 
 breaking up of the Roman Empire, and Charlemagne's 
 after it, the plague of S. Anthony's fire and the 
 scourge of famine, these and a thousand others not less 
 awful were surely signs enough to fill the world with 
 terror and despair. And what should a man do but 
 seek refuge in the house of God and prepare himself 
 66
 
 rULBERT AND HIS CHURCH.
 
 Theobald-the- 'Trickster 
 
 by frenzied supplication against the great day of the 
 Lord? 
 
 But when the year was passed and the world was 
 still unended, a wave of religious feeling swept over 
 Europe and men went with one accord to render 
 thanks at the holy shrines. Pilgrims crowded to the 
 sanctuary of Chartres to make their offerings to the 
 Holy Veil and to acknowledge the protection of the 
 blessed Virgin. They came also to seek relief from 
 the terrible malady known as S. Anthony's Fire or 
 Mai des Ardents. 
 
 S. Fulbert* himself, the successor of Eudes, was 
 afflicted with this painful plague. William of Malmes- 
 bury records the miracle by which he was healed. 
 
 ' He was sick unto death,' he tells us, ' of the sick- 
 ness called the Sacred Fire or Mai des Ardents 
 (erysipelas), which was devouring his tongue with 
 grievous pain. One night, when his agony was most 
 extreme, he beheld a beautiful lady approach with an 
 air of majesty, attended by a numerous suite. She 
 bade him open his mouth, and the sick man obeyed. 
 Thereupon the mysterious lady did unto him as a 
 mother does who suckles her infant child ; she pressed 
 upon his burning tongue some drops of her virginal milk, 
 which refreshed his tongue and healed him instantly. 
 
 ' Even the cheeks of the saint were sprinkled with 
 
 * Fulbert's name in Chartres has been given to a street which 
 runs parallel with the south-west corner of the Cathedral. A statue 
 of the bishop, holrling in his han<i a scroll on which is incorrectly 
 (lisplayaji a plan of the present Cathedral, is to be seen on the 
 eastern extremity of the choir screen. A fresco portrait of him 
 was discovered some years ago in the Church S. Hilaire at 
 Poitiers. The curious portrait of him speaking to his people 
 ivlthin his Cathedral, which is here reproduced, was painted on 
 vellum by Andre de Mici in 1028, the year of Fulbert's death, 
 and illustrates a tomheau, or panegyric, composed in his honour 
 by his pupil, the musician, Sigo. 
 
 69
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 the precious liquid, and he, having wiped off some 
 drops thereof with costly linen, left them to the Church 
 of Chartres as relics, and as a token of the miracle 
 which had been wrought in his favour.' 'Qui se 
 veoid encores parmi les reliques,' adds Souchet. 
 
 But Fulbert's reputation does not rest on these 
 passive acts of sanctity. An event was to happen 
 shortly which brought out all the energy that lay 
 beneath his mild excellence and his scholarly instruc- 
 tions. 
 
 ' It was on the 7th September 1020,' says Souchet, 
 ' that the burning of the Church of Chartres happened, 
 on the eve of the nativity of Our Lady. It is not 
 known how or by whose agency this disaster occurred ; 
 but there was nothing in this holy temple that the fire 
 did not consume.' Rouillard (1608) piously supposes 
 that lightning was sent from heaven to destroy the 
 church, as a punishment for the sins of the pilgrims, 
 some of whom, among the crowds of both sexes who 
 kept vigil there, may by some act of impurity have 
 defiled the sanctity of the place. 
 
 However it may have been, the church was once 
 more destroyed, and, as was happening all over Italy 
 and France at this period, it was destroyed only to rise 
 from its ashes more beautiful than ever. So Angers, 
 Poitiers, Beauvais, Cambrai, Rouen were rebuilt almost 
 as soon as burnt, in the enthusiastic rivalry of the 
 Christian builders of the day. ' Humanity,' in the fine 
 phrase of Raoul Glaber, ' rose from its long agony and 
 set itself to build, and to shake off the rags of its old 
 age in order to put on the white robe of the churches.' 
 
 The great bishop with whose name the new Cathedral 
 at Chartres was to be indissolubly connected, the Fulbert 
 of Fulbert's Cathedral, had been the favourite pupil of 
 Gerbert of Reims and had practised medicine in the 
 Monastery of S. Pere, where that art was long held in 
 70
 
 'Theohald-the- Trickster 
 
 high honour. But Fulbert was more than a mere 
 doctor. He was a poet, a mathematician, a theologian, 
 grammarian and skilful musician as well. When, there- 
 fore, he became the head of the School of Chartres 
 (from which a few years later John, called the Deaf, 
 was to issue, doctor of Henry I. and chief of the sect 
 of Nominalists, whose pupil was Rosselin, whose pupil 
 Abeilard) scholars Hocked from England, Germany, 
 Denmark and all parts of France to listen to the teach- 
 ings of the French Socrates, and to receive from his 
 eloquent lips the precepts of wisdom and the counsel 
 of friendship. For his knowledge was immense and 
 his learning encyclopaedic, ranging from the minutest 
 details of the exact sciences to the most daring specula- 
 tions of metaphysics. Fulbert, we are told, like a 
 modern Plato, would often withdraw to a garden near 
 the bishop's palace, watered by the clear stream (it 
 ivas clear in those days), and there, surrounded by his 
 chosen pupils, expound with mingled sweetness and 
 force the tenets of philosophy and the doctrines of faith. 
 ' The teacher of philosophers, the marvel of his age, the 
 sun whose rays gave life,' his pupil Adelmann called him. 
 And among the philosophers he taught, and the rare 
 flowers of intellect which in this age of brute force 
 expanded beneath the quickening rays of his mind, 
 Adelmann enumerates Lanfranc, the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, Walter of Burgundy, Lambert and 
 Engelbert of Paris and Orleans, Hildier, wise as 
 Socrates and learned as Pythagoras, and Sigo, the 
 musician of the delicate ear. Fulbert's letters,* which 
 place him among the most interesting historians of 
 this obscure period, reveal him as a theologian firm 
 and decided, as a statesman eager to enforce order and 
 to secure the administration of justice, as a man broad- 
 minded, charming, enthusiastic, humane. 
 
 * M'tgnc s Patrology, Vol. 141. 
 
 7i
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 Inspired by a mysterious voice which bade him 
 ' build a sanctuary worthy of his filial love and the 
 divine majesty,' Fulbert now set about procuring funds 
 to build first a veritable crypt, and then above it the 
 new Cathedral, adopting, however, the general plan of 
 the church left by his predecessor in order to make use 
 of the enormous existing foundations, * The subterranean 
 aspect of the old church, built about the grottoes and 
 heaped round by the rapid deposit of rubbish which 
 continually raised the soil of mediaeval towns, would 
 naturally suggest this scheme. But to carry it out 
 funds beyond the ordinary were needed. 
 
 Fortunately Fulbert was no ordinary beggar. Not 
 only did he know how to use the usual means of 
 encouraging gifts, in money and in kind, from the clergy 
 and people of the diocese by holding special assemblies 
 on the site of the proposed church, and by sermons 
 which promised heavenly rewards for those who took 
 part in the building, but he used his connections with 
 the great world and his power of letter-writing to the 
 best advantage. 
 
 He wrote first of all to ' his beloved Lord,' the 
 ' good King Robert,' in whom the historian sees more 
 of a monk than of a sovereign. 
 
 * All our resources fail us for the rebuilding of our 
 church, and a great necessity is upon us. Come then 
 to our aid, O holy father ; strengthen our weakness 
 and succour our distress to the end that God may 
 reward your soul with all blessings.' 
 
 And doubtless the ' father of religious architecture ' 
 responded generously to this eloquent appeal from his 
 former teacher. 
 
 Meanwhile every belfry in the diocese attested by 
 its silence the disaster of the church and the sorrow of 
 its bishop. * On account of the disaster,' he writes, 
 * Cf. York Minster. 
 72
 
 T'heohald-thc- 'Trickster 
 
 ' which has befallen my church, I wish to make known 
 my profound grief to all. In consequence I have 
 commanded that all the bells which are wont to ring 
 with joy and gladness shall attest henceforth by their 
 silence my bitter sadness.' 
 
 Fulbert wrote next to his most beloved and pious 
 Duke of Aquitaine, and he received handsome annual 
 subscriptions from him whilst the Cathedral was a- 
 building. ' Your marvellous and inexhaustible charity,' 
 writes the bishop, ' is pleased to overwhelm me with 
 many gifts which I do not deserve. I should blush to 
 receive your offerings were I not sure that you will be 
 magnificently rewarded hereafter.' 
 
 Eudes II., Count of Chartres and Blois, was, before 
 he met his death in the Battle of Bar-le-Duc, a gener- 
 ous contributor. That was to be expected from so 
 rich a seigneur for the restoration of the principal 
 church of his own county and town, but deeply was 
 Fulbert touched by the receipt of a contribution from 
 Cnut, King of Denmark and England, who, as William 
 of Malmesbury records, ' sent many sums to the churches 
 across the seas, and chiefly enriched that of Chartres, 
 where flourished Fulbert, renowned for his holiness 
 and philosophy.' 
 
 In acknowledging the esterlings of the great Danish 
 King, the bishop speaks of him in terms which the 
 verdict of history has confirmed. 
 
 ' To the very noble King of Denmark, Cnut, Ful- 
 bert, by the grace of God, Bishop of Chartres, with 
 his clerks and his monks, promises the recommendation 
 of his prayers. 
 
 ' When we saw the ofl^ering which you deigned to 
 send us we admired at once your astonishing wisdom 
 and religious spirit — your wisdom in that you, a prince 
 divided from us by language and by sea, are zealously 
 concerned not only with the things around you, but 
 
 73
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 also with the things that touch us ; at your religious 
 spirit, in that you, of whom we had heard speak as a 
 Pagan King, show yourself a very Christian and gener- 
 ous benefactor of the churches and servants of God. 
 We render lively thanks to the King of Kings, through 
 whose mercy your gifts have descended upon us, and 
 we beseech Him to make your reign happy and pros- 
 perous, and to deliver your soul from all sin.' 
 
 Such were the means by which the courtly bishop 
 extracted donations from the great, and such the 
 spiritual consolation with which he rewarded the 
 generosity of his royal patrons. 
 
 Fulbert's labours, supported by the enthusiastic 
 devotion of the people, were interrupted by the 
 turbulent behaviour of Godfrey, Viscount of Chateaudun. 
 He, since Eudes had acquired the county of Champagne, 
 and took, therefore, little interest in the affairs of 
 Chartres, had, like the other great vassals of Eudes, 
 followed the example of his suzerain. He was en- 
 deavouring, by building himself first the Castle of 
 Gallardon, and now of Illiers, in the very centre of the 
 bishop's possessions, to aggrandise himself at the expense 
 of the King and the Church. Fulbert could not prevail 
 upon the monkish Robert to repress Godfrey by force. 
 The spiritual arms which he himself used only roused the 
 Count to take reprisals by plundering the episcopal 
 farms. Eudes himself, who had assumed the title of 
 Count Palatine, was too much occupied with his own 
 ambitious schemes, and his opposition to King Robert 
 and King Robert's successor, to have either the wish 
 or the time to interfere. For, although he had ac- 
 quiesced in Fulbert's advice, followed by Robert the 
 Good, that Henry, the third son, should be appointed 
 to succeed to the throne, yet, when King Robert 
 died, Eudes espoused the cause of the fourth. He 
 was obliged to yield at last to the force of Henry's
 
 T'heobald-thc-T'rickster 
 
 arms, and some years later this turbulent Count was 
 killed at Bar-le-Duc when striving to take vengeance 
 on the Emperor Conrad by attacking his vassal, 
 Gothelon. 
 
 In spite of his many reverses, Eudes had greatly 
 increased the power and repute of the house of 
 Chartres. So far as Chartres was concerned he had 
 made many rich presents to the Cathedral and to the 
 Monastery of S. P^re. He endowed the small 
 church and foundation which was afterwards to become 
 the Monastery of S. Jean-en- Vallce.* 
 
 But his chief act of interference was when, on the 
 death of Fulbert, the Chapter appealed to him to 
 uphold their election of Albert the Dean to the 
 episcopal seat against the appointment of Theodoric, a 
 creature of Queen Constance. Eudes, seizing the 
 opportunity of opposing the royal will, declared that 
 he would not admit the new bishop into his town until 
 he had been examined by a bench of bishops, for he 
 was said to be a man of little sense and no education. 
 Theodoric's appointment was, however, in the end 
 made good. 
 
 The vast possessions of Eudes were divided between 
 his sons, who, following the family tradition, refused to 
 pay homage to the King. They were surprised by the 
 energy of their royal suzerain, overpowered and held 
 captive for six years. Etienne, the younger, died •; 
 but Thibault, at the price of the county of Tours, was 
 set free by Geoffrey of Anjou. Thibault was now 
 Count of Chartres, Blois, Brie and Champagne, but as 
 to the delimitations of their territories endless hostilities 
 
 * It was situated outside the walls, on the north side. 
 Destroyed by the Huguenots in 1568, the site is still marked 
 by the name of the Clos S. Jean, which is near the railway 
 station, and upon which you look from the Butte des 
 Charbonniers. 
 
 75
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 arose between him and the Angevin prince. And 
 when his hands were not full with the attentions of 
 this neighbour he waged disastrous war for his King 
 against William I., Duke of Normandy (1058). 
 
 But in spite of wars and famine and disease, in spite 
 of the violence of Counts and the weakness of Kings, 
 Fulbert's Cathedral was completed ere his death. The 
 fire had left but a few columns and fragments of wall 
 standing where once was the Cathedral of Vulphard. 
 The winter of 1020 was devoted to clearing away the 
 debris, and so active was the work, that by September 
 in the following year Fulbert could write ' we have 
 finished our crypts, and ' (this is the reason why he 
 cannot accept the invitation of William of Aquitaine to 
 be present at the solemn dedication of the Cathedral of 
 Poitiers) ' we must devote all our energies to covering 
 them before the inclemency of the winter damages them.' 
 But in the following year the work had made such 
 progress that he was able to undertake a journey at 
 King Robert's request to Rome, leaving the building 
 to his canons and architect. Who that architect was 
 may perhaps be indicated by the entry in the Necrologie 
 de Notre- Dame, under date October 22 : — Berenger. 
 ' Berengarius hujus matris ecclesiae, Artifex Bonus.' 
 
 The martyrium had suffered less than the rest of the 
 Cathedral, but it was thought necessary to place a large 
 round column on the Gallo- Roman wall, in order to 
 strengthen the vaulted roof. On this column you may 
 descry the word Fulbert, cut not in modern days, nor 
 yet at any great distance of time. 
 
 * The circular part of our crypt,' says 1' Abbe Bulteau,* 
 ' with its vaulting, is to-day just as it was left then.' 
 But the floor was probably much lower if one may 
 judge by the embrasures of the windows. 
 
 * Monographic de la CatheHrale de Chartres par I'Abbe Bulteau, 
 2nd edition, 1887-1891. Two vols. 
 
 76
 
 Theobald-the- 'Trickster 
 
 The convex wall of the martyrium was strengthened 
 on the outside by a double thickness, for it had to 
 support not only the thrust of the new vaulting, but 
 also the weight of the upper church. 
 
 As to the rectilinear portions of the crypt, in spite 
 of the alterations of the twelfth century, we may easily 
 recognise the seal of the eleventh century in the piers 
 and the abaci. To S. Fulbert we may also attribute 
 the construction of two sacristies for Notre-Dame-de- 
 Sous-Terre, that on the south side now being the 
 Chapel of S. Martin, that on the north the Cdve au 
 Bois, known formerly as the ' Place of the Iron Chest.' 
 
 The upper church was built of the same dimensions 
 as those of the former one, but the ground level of the 
 whole was raised considerably, almost to the height of 
 that of the choir. 
 
 The length of the church may be indicated by the 
 excavations of 1849 at the centre of the labyrinth 
 known as L^i L'teue, where fragments were discovered 
 which are supposed to have been the debris of the 
 western fagade. There was a double ambulatory 
 round the choir and chapels corresponding to those of 
 the crypt, and two sacristies may be reckoned to have 
 been built above those of the Sous Terre. 
 
 A transept and two side-doors existed in the same 
 place, but of less size than those of to-day. 
 
 The decoration of the Cathedral was left in great 
 part to Fulbert's successors. 
 
 Henry I., who came to the throne when death had 
 surprised his father, Robert the Good, as he was copy- 
 ing a manuscript in the Church of Melun, owed his 
 succession in some degree, as we have seen, to Fulbert. 
 
 He cancelled his debt in part by paying for the 
 wooden roof* of the Cathedral — wooden, for the art 
 of extensive vaulting in stone was not yet understood — 
 * Henricus Rex hujus ecclesiae lacunar construxit. 
 
 77
 
 T'he Story of Chartres 
 
 whilst Henry's doctor, Jean le Sourd, the Chartrain 
 pupil of Fulbert and leader of the sect of Nominalists 
 in the battle of the schools, was responsible for the 
 construction of the south gate and many other details. 
 Teudon, who had made the Sainte Chasse for the Veil, 
 undertook the principal facade. A big bell weighing 
 5000 livres was also hung in one of Vulphard's towers, 
 which still stood. 
 
 Fulbert died in the year 1028, but so rapid had the 
 work been that he did not die before his Cathedral 
 was complete. For William of Malmesbury [Gest., 
 Vol. II. chap. XXV.) records that 'Bishop Fulbert, 
 among other proofs of his efficient labours, very mag- 
 nificently completed the Church of Our Lady S. 
 Mary, of which he himself had laid the foundations, 
 and which, moreover,' he adds, ' doing everything he 
 could for its honour, he rendered celebrated by many 
 musical modulations. The man who has heard his 
 chaunts, breathing only celestial vows, is best able to 
 conceive the love he manifested in honour of the Virgin.' 
 
 Under Fulbert, indeed, the school of Chartres be- 
 came famous for its music and for its plain-song 
 renderings of the sacred offices. The celebrated 
 Francois de Cologne and many others are mentioned 
 as having belonged to this school. But Fulbert him- 
 self excelled them all in his compositions.* For 
 amongst other beautiful canticles he composed, in 
 collaboration, it is said, with King Robert, the famous 
 responses of the Nativity of the Virgin, a feast which 
 he, in grateful remembrance of his wondrous visitant, 
 was the first to celebrate in France. I shall be for- 
 given for quoting in the untranslatable Latin this 
 
 * Those who are curious on this subject will find some ex- 
 amples of his plain-song in a volume edited by M. Merlet and 
 M. L'AbbeClerval, and entitled Un Manuscript Chartrain du XI'. 
 Steele . 
 
 78
 
 Theobald-the- 'Trickster 
 
 noble hymn of love, which is the most beautiful 
 blossom of the poetic crown of Mary. 
 
 ' Solem justitise, regem paiitura suprcmum 
 Stella Maria maris hoJie processit ad ortum ; 
 Cernere divinum lumen gaiulete fideles ! 
 
 Stirps Jesse virgam produxit, virgaque florem, 
 Et super hunc florem requiescit Spiritus almus, 
 Virgo dei genitrix virga est, flos filius ejus. 
 
 Ad nutum Domini nostrum ditantis honorem, 
 Sicut spina rosam genuit, Judaea Mariam, 
 Ut vitium virtus operiret, gratia culpam.'* 
 
 Fulbert himself left a great part of his wealth to 
 complete the work which he had begun. That work 
 was carried on by his successor, Theodoric. But it 
 must have been interrupted for a while by the terrible 
 famine which came upon France at this period — a 
 famine so terrible that during its course human flesh, it 
 is said, was exposed for sale, and the bodies of the 
 dead were dug up and eaten. The abundant harvest 
 of 1034 put an end to this infliction, and men turned 
 again to finish the decoration of God's house. It 
 would seem, indeed, as if Theodoric turned this task 
 to the purpose of relief-works. For the monk Paul 
 says of him ' that his abounding wealth, poured out in 
 a lavish stream, issuing ever to provide for the hunger 
 and thirst of the needy, completed the famous work of 
 the court of our gracious Lady, the Mother of God, 
 and makes him worthy of saintly renown.' 
 
 But it was not till the year 1037 that the solemn 
 dedication of the Cathedral by Theodoric took place 
 in the presence of Henri 1. and his whole Court. 
 
 Theodoric was buried by the side of Fulbert, and 
 on his tomb in S. Pt^re was written, ' Holy Virgin, he 
 wished to raise to thee a temple, the design of which 
 the author had taken from Heaven itself.' 
 
 * CEwvres de Fulbert, p. 177, 1608 edition. 
 
 79
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 S. Ives and the Crusades 
 
 'A pretty burgh and such as Fancy loves 
 For bygone grandeurs.' — Lowell. 
 
 I 'HE town of Chartres is clearly divided into two 
 
 -^ sections — the upper {^qnart'ier du luxe^, modern, 
 
 unimpressive and inelegant, and the lower, picturesque, 
 
 poor, medisL'val. This lower part of the town is 
 
 watered by an arm of the Eure, 
 
 ' Dont I'eau distille 
 Autour de notre ville, 
 Et d'un murmurant flot 
 Maint beau verger enclot,' 
 
 as a local sixteenth-century poet has it. Like most 
 old towns, Chartres consisted originally of a small city 
 enclosed by strong walls and of suburbs stretching along 
 the main roads which led to it. As these suburbs 
 increased in size and importance, the enceinte was 
 enlarged so as to include them. This took, place at 
 Chartres notably in the twelfth century. But up to 
 that time the area enclosed was remarkably small, for 
 after Hastings had sacked the town ' the inhabitants 
 had not the heart,' says the monk Paul, ' to rebuild all 
 their city, but contented themselves with fortifying the 
 little corner of the ancient town which is still ' ( 1060) 
 'surrounded with walls.' 
 
 The line of the enceinte enclosing this ' little corner 
 of the ancient town ' cannot be exactly traced. But 
 8c
 
 
 
 
 jiic\pe.caiMi\"
 
 S. Ives and the Crusades 
 
 it certainly ran from the Place de I'Etape-au-Vin (the 
 picturesque old shop built out on wooden supports), 
 and, passing behind the Church of S. Aignan, the 
 Castle of the Counts (Place Billard), crossed the Petit- 
 Boucherie to join the Tertre S. Enian,* where was 
 the Porte Evicre (Porta Aquaria). Tertres, it should 
 be remarked, are, in Chartrain dialect, little streets ot 
 stone steps which facilitate communication between the 
 upper and lower towns. The rest of the town was 
 defended by ditches and ramparts. A few wooden 
 forts guarded the bridges. 
 
 Within the walls, the Cathedral and the castle 
 frowned over the rest of the town and other churches, 
 representing the double power of bishop and count, 
 around which was growing up the crowd of dependants 
 who were destined, in the fulness of time, to become 
 the bourgeoisie of Chartres. And without the walls 
 lay the Monastery of S. Pere, waxing yearly in lands 
 and wealth, stirring the jealousy of bishops and tempt- 
 ing the cupidity of counts. About the castle, the 
 Cathedral and the monastery there were gradually 
 being established groups of artisans who, by instinct 
 and necessity, herded together in distinct quarters of 
 the town, and thus gradually formed the redoubtable 
 corporations and guilds of the Middle Ages — unions 
 which, in the learned and unlearned professions alike, 
 still exercise so potent an influence in England and on 
 the Continent. Already there were the quarters of 
 the money-changers, the saddlers, the skinners, the 
 goldsmiths in Chartres. Later, as we shall see, almost 
 every street will fly the banner of some particular Craft. 
 
 * S. Enian of Cappadocia founded a small hermitage beneath 
 the shadow of Notre-Dame, and this hermitage was afterwards 
 turned into a chapel, fragments of the walls of which still remain 
 (Rue S. Eman). The apse was formerly supported by the old 
 town wall of the ninth century. 
 
 83
 
 T'he Story of Chartres 
 
 The liberty of the peasant was also being gradually 
 asserted throughout this period. He was passing from 
 the condition of a farmer under a proprietor to that 
 of a proprietor owing duties to a lord. From these 
 duties and obligations, again, the tendency now was 
 for the peasant, by purchase or refusal, to free him- 
 self. 
 
 Side by side with this very gradual exaltation of 
 the humble and meek, there begin to occur, as the era 
 of the Crusades approaches, numerous instances of the 
 voluntary abasement of the great. Old seigneurs, in 
 strange paroxysms of religious enthusiasm, giving up 
 their old way of life, left lance and sword to younger 
 hands and themselves put on the armour of God. The 
 example of these soldiers of the Lord, having become 
 pauvre et peiiple for the kingdom of heaven's sake, 
 living as mere monks in the Monastery of S. Pere, 
 went some way towards inspiring pity and considera- 
 tion for the truly poor and the naturally low-born. 
 
 Generally, also, throughout this period there is a 
 tendency to substitute for arbitrary exactions and 
 violence arrangements settled by charter and definite 
 duties and rights. But it is only a tendency. The 
 amelioration of life was only very gradual. Neither 
 life nor property in the eleventh and twelfth century 
 were, as a rule, what we should call secure. ^ Take for 
 an instance the behaviour of the sons of one Echambaud 
 when they had a difference over the possession of some 
 land with the Abbot of S. Pere. They refused to sub- 
 mit their case either to the jurisdiction of the Church 
 courts or of Helisende, the lady of the land. For 
 they preferred to have recourse to the intervention of a 
 powerful friend named John, living at Etampes, who 
 was a total stranger to the matter in dispute. Relying 
 upon his protection, these sons of Echambaud proceeded 
 to plunder the property of the abbey and to burn the 
 84
 
 S. Ives and the Crusades 
 
 houses of the tenants. They were only induced to 
 cease from their ways and to follow the peaceable 
 paths of justice when the monks presented themselves 
 at Etampes and threatened to excommunicate the 
 town. 
 
 Crimes were paid for in cash. There was indeed 
 a regular tariff for injuries done in the Middle Ages. 
 The material damage once made good, the moral 
 damage was left out of account. We learn from the 
 CiirUddire the price of a monk of S. Pere, for it is 
 there recorded that Richard de Rcviers, having slain one 
 of these, Giraud by name, bought the pardon (pax) 
 of the monks by making over to them four acres of 
 land and an annual tribute oifour qunrtanls of corn. A 
 century later (1239) we find the monks releasing from 
 prison a man, who had slain a clerk, on receipt of a 
 promise to pay thirty sous tourno'is yearly, in addition 
 to certain other minor considerations. 
 
 Private wars arising from personal quarrels and 
 ambitions, or damages of the sort described, were very 
 frequent. The intervention of the Crown was rare. 
 We have an instance of the exercise of the royal 
 prerogative, however, when Louis le Gros stepped in 
 and destroyed, after three years' war, the fortress of 
 the Seigneurs du Puiset, who had long been a thorn in 
 the side of Chartres, continually committing brigandage 
 on the Church lands and caring nothing for ecclesiastical 
 pains and penalties. The King abolished the oppressive 
 institutions of these lords, and re-established in their 
 ancient liberty the possessions of Notre-Dame and the 
 Monastery of S. Pere. 
 
 In the thirteenth century the power of the King 
 grew stronger, and asserted itself over the monastic 
 property. The monks of S. Pere none the less re- 
 tained the right of jurisdiction in their own lands. 
 Thus when GeofFroi, Seigneur d'Hliers, had arrested 
 
 85
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 a murderer in an inn on their property and had hung 
 the man (1229), he was afterwards constrained to 
 admit that he had exceeded his rights. All jurisdic- 
 tion, he acknowledged, appertained to the abbot and 
 monks ; he gave them satisfaction, and paid them a 
 fine. 
 
 Whilst they upheld their rights against the encroach- 
 ments of Grands Seigneurs in this fashion, the monks 
 were no less frequently involved in similar disputes 
 with the Communes. Such disputes were often carried 
 for settlement to the court of the King. Occasionally 
 we find the courts ordering a point in dispute to be 
 decided by judicial combat. These combats seldom 
 actually took place. The proposal of them seems to 
 have stimulated both parties to come to some arrange- 
 ment, or to have frightened one of them perhaps into 
 withdrawal. The absurd and cruel practice of trial by 
 single combat had been borrowed from the warlike 
 tribes of Germany, who could not believe that a brave 
 man deserved to suffer or that a coward deserved to 
 live. The old, the feeble and infirm, therefore, in 
 civil and criminal proceedings, were exposed to mortal 
 challenge from the antagonist who was destitute of 
 legal proofs, and thus condemned to renounce their 
 fairest claims and possessions, to sustain the danger ot 
 an unequal conflict, or to trust the doubtful aid of a 
 mercenary champion. Two instances of such chal- 
 lenges are recorded by the monk Paul, and are full of 
 human interest. 
 
 The Lord Payen de Remalard brought an action 
 (1090) against the Abbot of S. Pere with regard to 
 some land in the possession of the monastery. The two 
 parties appeared in the Bishop's Court. S. Ives was the 
 Bishop of Chartres, and he appeared among the wit- 
 nesses for the monks. Geoffrey, Count of Perche 
 and many others were present on behalf of Remalard. 
 86
 
 S. Ives and the Crusades 
 
 The advocates on either side had begun to discuss and 
 expound the case, when suddenly a servant of S. Pere, 
 Laurent by name, burst into the middle of the assembly 
 and cried aloud that he had witnessed the gift of the 
 property in question by the Lady Ermengarde to the 
 monks. Remalard himself, he further asserted, 
 was present at the time and had made no objec- 
 tion then. Remalard denied the story ; the servant 
 affirmed it again and again. Neither would give way. 
 It was a question of word against word, and who was 
 to decide which was the better ? At last, at the sug- 
 gestion of the monks, and with the assent of Remalard, 
 Laurent boldly named diem belli et locum — the day and 
 place of combat. But on the day, and at the place 
 named, Remalard failed to put in an appearance — suam 
 present'tam m'lnime exhihuit, and the land passed peace- 
 ably into the undisputed possession of the monastery. 
 
 On another occasion, some twenty years later, the 
 men of God proved themselves too sturdy for their 
 oj)ponents. Again it was the question about the dona- 
 tion of some property. Again one of the witnesses for 
 the monastery, Walter of Treleveisin, offered to make 
 good in a duel his testimony that he had been present 
 on the occasion of the gift. This time once more the 
 offer was accepted, and the opposite party, thinking to 
 succeed by means of many subterfuges which they had 
 prepared, at first put on a bold face. But when there 
 was no sign of wavering on the part of the monks, the 
 adversary's heart failed him ; we are told his con- 
 science smote him He acknowledged the wrong he 
 had done, and begged pardon of the abbot, promising, 
 in the presence of the whole Chapter, that in future he 
 would champion the cause of the monastery, both by 
 word and deed, in court and in battle. 
 
 Occasionally, when temporal power failed to secure 
 them justice. Divine aid helped the monks to maintain 
 
 87
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 their rights. Wiard, son of Drogon de Conflans, 
 found this to his cost when he had wrongfully exacted 
 a horse from the Monastery of S. Pere. Each time 
 that he mounted the beast he was attacked by a 
 sudden malady. So much so that, after making four 
 unsuccessful attempts, he gave in and restored the 
 horse to the monks, as is recorded by the monk Paul 
 in the year 1098. 
 
 The same writer relates an incident of the same 
 year, which throws a vivid light upon the social con- 
 ditions of the days of chivalry. War was the pro- 
 fession of your true chevalier and brigandage his 
 pastime. The excesses of a life spent in these occu- 
 pations were to be repeated and at the same time 
 expiated by the Crusader. The preliminary expenses 
 of. equipment for the Holy War were only to be met 
 by selling some portion of his property to the Church. 
 Many transactions of this sort are recorded in the tell- 
 tale Chartularies of Notre-Dame and S. Pere. The 
 incident to which I refer will serve as an example of 
 this : — 
 
 Nivelon, son of Faucher, Lord of Freteval, con- 
 fesses that, as often as he was carried away by 
 chivalrous ardour (of a sort sufficiently inconvenient to 
 his neighbours), it was his custom to fall upon the 
 village of Emprainville with a troop of his followers 
 and to ' commandeer ' all the provisions to be found 
 there belonging to the men of the Abbey of S. Pere. 
 But when, in after years, he determined to go on a 
 pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he agreed, in order to obtain 
 pardon for his trespasses and money for his journey, in 
 consideration, that is, of thirteen silver pounds from 
 the monks, to forego this vexatious habit of his. 
 
 And he adds that if any of his descendants dispute 
 the validity of this concession, he hopes he may ' be 
 struck down by the thunderbolt that awaiteth on per- 
 88
 
 S. Ives and the Crusades 
 
 jurers, and that he may be condemned with Dathan 
 and Abiram to hell fire, and there to sutler everlasting 
 torture.' There is a fine ecclesiastical ring about the 
 legal documents of those days, it will be noticed. 
 Imprecations on breakers of contracts are indeed com- 
 mon enough in medixval diplomatics. The monk 
 Paul supplies us with an instance in which the guilty 
 man is consigned ' to the everlasting fires of hell along 
 with Nero, who caused the Apostle S. Peter to perish 
 on the cross, and S. Paul the Apostle to perish by the 
 sword.' In another case the hope is expressed that 
 the transgressor may incur, amongst other inconveni- 
 ences, the penalty of eternal damnation, the loss of his 
 eyesight, and the infliction of the mal royal. 
 
 Nor was it a marauding knight only or an aggressive 
 seigneur who was likely to interrupt the even tenor 
 of a man's way in those times. There were not infre- 
 quently bishops in his path also — bishops of the feudal, 
 fighting, robbing sort, whose style of blessing was a 
 blow with a sword. 
 
 Notable among these persecuting Bishops of Chartres 
 is Robert of Tours, Cardinal and Legate (1065), who 
 excommunicated a whole parcel of monks because they 
 refused to accept the abbot he wished to force upon 
 them. Then, too, there was Arrald, deceitful and 
 fair of speech, against whom the chronicler is mightily 
 wroth. But the bishop must at least have had a sense 
 of humour. For his dictum was that gold and silver 
 and the precious ornaments of the Church had no place 
 in a monastery ; they were only provocative of pride and 
 the occasion of wantonness in the monks. Therefore he 
 would take such things away, to save them from tempta- 
 tion. He remarked, too, that it was a wicked thing 
 for monks to eat fish or the fat of beasts ; they ought 
 to cat simple herbs only, and he advised them to strive 
 to be xerophagi, or eaters of dry, plain food. And to 
 
 89
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 help them, no doubt, he confiscated their fish ponds, 
 for he had a nice taste in good fish himself, and a 
 liking for foreign dishes, ' always indulging,' adds our 
 monk savagely, ' his own natural tendency to gor- 
 mandise ' (ventri suo castrimargiam semper habens 
 vernaculam) ! * But it is the monks themselves who 
 have left us an imperishable tradition of gormandising ; 
 even on fast days they would put a fowl in the pot, and 
 salve their consciences with the argument that as birds 
 and fishes had been created on the same day, they 
 might be of the same species ; and, as to drink, they 
 were often under the patronage of S. Martin, in 
 cloisters or at the tavern, quite theologically drunk. 
 As early as 847 the councils of the Church were busy 
 with the scandals of monks in inns. And cleanliness 
 of the body they considered to be a culpable vanity, a 
 pollution of the soul. 
 
 But, whether Arrald deserved the censure of the 
 monk Paul or not, that kind of bishop was not uncom- 
 mon in this century. Geoffrey the First, seven years 
 later, was excommunicated for simony and other vices. 
 His simony he had defended with shameless cynicism. 
 
 When the King reproached him with having given 
 to others the benefices which he had asked of him, ♦ I 
 have not given them at all, sire,' he replied ; ' I have 
 sold them very profitably.' 
 
 But his treason, his adulteries and his perjuries 
 became at last unbearable. Pope Gregory VII. de- 
 
 * It is only fair to add that the Cartulaire of Notre-Dame 
 speaks of this bishop (Abbot of Bremes) in terms of the highest 
 praise. Under Arrald, among many other benefactions, William 
 the Conqueror (1070) caused ' a good, a precious ' campanile to be 
 erected over the central point of the transept of the Cathedral, 
 ' for the repose of the soul of his daughter Adeliza,' piously observ- 
 ing that ' The gifts which we offer to God, and which we dedicate 
 to His glory, are not for us loss or sacrifice, for thus we only pre- 
 serve our riches and multiply them with the hope of eternal life.' 
 90
 
 S. Ives and the Crusades 
 
 termined to make an example of him. He was com- 
 pelled to resign his bishopric, and in his stead was 
 appointed one of the greatest of Chartrain Bishops — 
 S. Ives. 
 
 The Feast of S. Ives is kept at Chartres on the 
 20th of May, when his relics, which are kept in the 
 Treasury of the Cathedral, are shown. His name has 
 been given to the passage in the cloister opposite the 
 great north porch, and it lives in the mouth of the 
 peasants as S. Yvre, protector of sheep ; his stone 
 image stands near that of Fulbert on the cloture of 
 the choir, but his spirit lives most surely in those 
 square grey towers which he began to build, and which, 
 so massive and yet so spiritual, point with their spires 
 heavenwards, like hands that have been clasped and 
 raised in prayer. 
 
 A man of high birth, he had joined one of the 
 severest Augustine orders, who eat neither fish nor 
 meat ; a man of great talents, he had improved them 
 by study under the famous Lanfranc, at the Monastery 
 of Le Bee. There he had been the friend and fellow- 
 student of Anselm, who in later years paid him a visit 
 at Chartres, on his way from Canterbury to Rome. 
 The characters of the two men, as revealed by their 
 lives and letters, are much alike in their sweetness and 
 their strength. S. Ives was a man before his time ; in 
 every way superior to his century. A scholar, he was 
 also a man of action, a statesman of indomitable will, a 
 theologian of surpassing acumen and enthusiasm. He 
 did not, like Fulbert, found a school of philosophy, 
 but he made of his monks practical philosophers. As 
 a canonist his famous ' Decret ' caused him to be con- 
 sulted by high and low, learned and learners alike, on 
 questions of theology, jurisprudence or conduct. On 
 questions of practical politics his advice was sought by 
 Popes and Kings, whether of France or England ; by 
 
 91
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 Counts and Seigneurs, and men of low degree. It was 
 always given with sympathy, science, and a charming 
 humility. His letters are indeed full of sweetness and 
 light, of dignity and logic, of firmness and vigour, 
 tempered by Christian charity and meekness. Take, 
 for an example, his reply to the Bishop of Orleans, who 
 had consulted him on the question whether a free man, 
 married to a woman of whose servile condition he had 
 been ignorant, could divorce her and marry again. ♦ If 
 the laws of the world are to be consulted,' S. Ives 
 writes, ' the answer must be that, marriage between 
 equals alone being legitimate, the divorce ought to take 
 place. But if we consult the law of God, which 
 makes us all equal, and is careless of social conditions, 
 we shall answer, No.' And elsewhere he says, ' Reject 
 these pretended trials by ordeal of fire and sword. It 
 is tempting God, and I have often seen the innocent 
 punished and the guilty acquitted by this means.' 
 
 Such was the pure and fearless spirit of the man who 
 was now called to govern Chartres, and who set him- 
 self to introduce order, discipline and a right tone in a 
 diocese which had suffered much from Geoffrey's 
 lawless rule. 
 
 It was much against his will that he left his monas- 
 tery at Beauvais to take up what he called ' the heavy 
 burden of the episcopate' (Letter III.). 
 
 And since he was not willing to receive the insignia 
 of his pastoral charge from the throne, the Canons of 
 Chartres dragged him by main force before Philippe, 
 and compelled him (as Anselm in England also was 
 forcibly compelled) to receive the pastoral staff from 
 the King.* 
 
 Geoffrey, however, the deposed bishop, was not the 
 man to retire without a struggle. He enlisted the 
 
 * The Pope had condemned the royal investiture by cross and 
 ring as implying spiritual jurisdiction in the throne. 
 92
 
 S. Ives and the Crusades 
 
 support of his uncle, Bishop of Paris, and of the Arch- 
 bishop of Sens. Gently but firmly S. Ives ignored 
 their protests, resting his claim on the supreme decision 
 of the Pope. The storm wore itself out against his 
 unflinching calmness. But scarcely was he settled 
 peaceably in possession of his bishopric when, like the 
 conscientious man of action that he was, S. Ives felt 
 bound to stir up another storm, destined to make itself 
 felt throughout Christendom. 
 
 The union of Philippe the First with Bertrade de 
 Montfort was a flagrant violation of the laws of the 
 Church. Against this adulterous marriage S. Ives 
 arose and protested. In order to understand the part 
 S. Ives took in this matter it is necessary to realise 
 that the sanctity of marriage was a point, the observance 
 of which, in his aim of securing not the appearance only 
 but the reality of virtue, 8. Ives had set himself to 
 enforce in all classes. He deals with the subject in 
 his letters with broad judgment and sound sense. 
 
 In the case of princes — for the sake of example — 
 he had continually exerted himself to prevent or to 
 annul marriages which transgressed the laws of holy 
 matrimony. 
 
 Now, therefore, with immense courage, he determined 
 to stop the adulterous and incestuous union of the quin- 
 quagenarian Philippe I. with Bertrade, third wife of 
 Fouques, Count of Anjou. For the King wished to 
 repudiate Queen Bertha and to make a wife of that 
 fciscinating and ambitious woman. 
 
 To quiet all scruples and objections, he began by 
 endeavouring to obtain the consent of the bishops, and 
 especially that of S. Ives (S. Ives, Letter XIII.), 
 whom he tried to trick into giving his assent. But S. 
 Ives would be no party to such a business. Though 
 he could not dissuade the King, he persisted in oppos- 
 ing and condemning his action. He warned his brother 
 
 93
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 bishops not to be mute dogs that know not how to bark. 
 He wrote to the King that he would rather have a 
 millstone round his neck and be cast into the sea than 
 aid and abet by his presence this unrighteous union with 
 Bertrade. 
 
 It was a noble letter ; but the purpose of the writer 
 was not achieved. The marriage took place. It 
 remained to punish the honest bishop. Perhaps 
 Philippe might have forgiven him, but Bertrade was 
 not the kind of woman to forgive such opposition. 
 
 Hugues II. du Puiset, Viscount of Chartres, was 
 her tool. Acting under instructions from the Court, 
 he pillaged the lands of Notre-Dame. Then, profiting 
 by the presence of the bishop in his country house near 
 Fresnay,* he seized him and held him prisoner. 
 
 When news was brought to Chartres of the seizure 
 of their bishop, people and clergy alike rose to arms to 
 rescue him. But he wrote forbidding them to use 
 violence for his sake. ' War,' he said, ' is for 
 wolves, not for shepherds. I did not obtain my 
 bishopric by arms, and by arms I do not care to 
 recover it.' In like manner he restrained the nobles 
 who were eager to fight against the King in his 
 defence, and, for fear of stirring up rebellion, he refused 
 for a long time to publish the letters which the Pope 
 had despatched, denouncing the scandalous marriage of 
 Philippe. As a reward, his lands and property were 
 ravaged and sacked, so that, when in obedience to the 
 Pope's command he was at length set free, he found 
 himself reduced to absolute penury. But his firmness 
 gained him his point in the end. Morality was 
 vindicated. Philippe, excommunicated, made his 
 submission to Pope Urban II., and although he with- 
 drew it under Pascal II., he finally, with Bertrade, 
 
 * Fresnay I'Eveque. The bishop's house may still be traced 
 in the name of a farm, Chateau de I'Eveque. 
 
 94
 
 S. Ives and the Crusades 
 
 made the amende honorable before the assembled bishops 
 in Paris (i 104). 
 
 S. Ives had taken his part in that famous Council of 
 Clermont, in which, after the Roman Pontiff had hurled 
 from this tribunal in the heart of France his anathemas 
 against the French King, the Church confirmed the 
 Truce of God by which it was determined that (1095) 
 ' on all days monks, clerks and women, and those with 
 them shall abide in peace ; but on three days of the 
 week any injury inflicted by anyone upon another shall 
 not be counted an infringement of the peace ; but on 
 the other four days (Thursday-Sunday) anyone who 
 injures another shall be held guilty of breaking the 
 holy peace, and shall be punished accordingly.' Men 
 who lived by violence were to be violent only three 
 days a week — men who lived by the sword were to 
 keep it sheathed more than half the year. The check 
 upon the unbridled power and wanton cruelty of the 
 barons implied by this moderate enactment constituted 
 one of the greatest steps in the direction of alleviating 
 the distress of the poor, the weak and the educated ; 
 of encouraging travelling and trade, and promoting 
 civilisation that was taken in the Middle Ages. 
 
 S. Ives proceeded with the utmost vigour to per- 
 suade the nobles of his diocese to accept the peace 
 which they were tempted to reject as contrary to their 
 privileges, and also to see that it was observed there- 
 after by them and by others within the limits of his 
 own jurisdiction. And thus, by helping to deliver the 
 weak from the power of the strong, he contributed 
 towards preparing the way for the movement which 
 was soon to give the people a voice in their own affairs 
 and procure for them their municipal franchise in the 
 form of ' Communes.' 
 
 Meanwhile this same Council of Clermont had pro- 
 vided an outlet for the energies of the knights of 
 
 95
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 Christendom, which were restricted by the Truce of 
 God. The Crusade had been promulgated. 
 
 The enthusiasm of the people had been carefully 
 prepared. The fantastic figure of Peter the Hermit, 
 dressed in a woollen tunic and a cloak of coarse cloth, 
 his arms and feet alike bare, and his eyes flashing with 
 magnetic frenzy, had appeared among them and heated 
 their imaginations. At the sound of his eloquence 
 every heart caught fire, and a nation of soldiers was 
 burning to exhibit at once its piety and its valour by 
 the conquest of the Holy Land. The merit and glory 
 of that undertaking had also been preached by the 
 clergy in every diocese. When, therefore, the Pope 
 ascended a lofty scaffold in the market-place of Cler- 
 mont his eloquence was addressed to a vast concourse of 
 well-prepared and impatient enthusiasts. The answer 
 to the summons to arms was unanimous. The orator 
 was interrupted by the shout of thousands, ' Diex el 
 volt ! Diex el volt ! ' For so the popular tongue 
 corrupted the cry of the clergy, ' God wills it ! 
 (Deus vult). ' It is indeed the will of God,' replied 
 the Pope, and he gave them as a mark of their sacred 
 and irrevocable engagement the symbol of the red, the 
 bloody cross to be worn on their breast or shoulder. 
 
 Thus in a paroxysm of religious fervour began that 
 Crusade which was to end in the rapine of a mediasval 
 raid, and in the disastrous denouement of Nicaea. 
 
 The effects of the Crusades were as varied as the 
 motives of the Crusaders. For though all were inspired, 
 one need not doubt, by a genuine religious desire to 
 regain the Holy Sepulchre for Christendom, by the 
 belief of merit, the hope of the reward of plenary 
 indulgence promised by the Pope, and the assurance of 
 divine aid, yet other motives and instincts were present 
 in the breasts of many. Collectively, the Crusading 
 Gaul exhibited a perversion of that instinct of expan- 
 96
 
 S. Ives and the Crusades 
 
 sion to which French excursions into Britain and 
 Russia, across the Pyrenees, the Alps and the Rhine, 
 to America, India, Madagascar and Algiers, have 
 continually borne witness, and which now survives 
 the population's power to expand. Individually, the 
 desire to rescue the Church, mingled with the hope of 
 military glory and the prospect of unlimited plunder, 
 were sufficient inducements for the barons to cease 
 from petty wars in their own land, and to gratify, as a 
 penance and against the nations of the East, those 
 passions which, when indulged at home, had involved 
 them in the discipline of penance. And in the case of 
 their followers, among many other motives, the love of 
 freedom prompted. For, under the sign of the Cross, 
 the peasant attached to the servitude of the glebe 
 might escape from a haughty lord and transplant him- 
 self and his family to a land of liberty, just as the 
 monk might release himself from the discipline of his 
 convent and the criminal elude the punishment of his 
 crime. 
 
 Of the effects of the Crusades I shall only mention 
 those which are directly illustrated by the story of 
 Chartres. They rolled back the tide of Mahometan 
 conquest from Constantinople ; they brought together 
 East and West, and led to the awakening of the human 
 intellect which was to put an end to the dark ages ; 
 they opened up new markets and stimulated trade to a 
 wonderful degree — these great results they had, but 
 they only affected Chartres indirectly. More directly 
 we see the effect of them in the relations between the 
 powers that were. By weakening the resources and 
 influence of the barons they strengthened the authority 
 of the Kings acting in alliance with the citizens. And 
 this alliance broke up the feudal system, gradually 
 abolished serfdom, and substituted the authority of a 
 common law for the unstable will of chiefs, whose 
 G 97
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 arbitrament was private war. Last and not least per- 
 manent of the effects of the Crusades was the influence 
 exercised by the East upon art. The Porche Royal of 
 the Cathedral, and the stained glass windows which 
 are the glory of Chartres, would not have been as 
 they are had Peter the Hermit never led his hundred 
 thousand pilgrims to destruction, or if Bohemond, 
 Prince of Antioch, had not taken the Cross in the 
 sanctuary of Notre-Dame. 
 
 The foundation of the Abbey Josaphat-Les- 
 Chartres, which, like so many other religious founda- 
 tions rich in lands, in relics and in books, was 
 destroyed in 1789, affords another example of the 
 indirect influence of the Crusades upon the institutions 
 of Chartres. This abbey * was situated abou two 
 kilometres from Chartres, under the Hill of Leves, on 
 a site which in its topographical relations resembled 
 that Valley of Jehosaphat to which its founder. Bishop 
 Geoffrey, the successor of S. Ives, had vowed to go, 
 but came into the bishopric instead. Even so S. 
 Bernard recalled the town of Tyre to the memory of 
 all Christians in the name of Tyron, which he gave to 
 the monastery which he founded in Le Perche on 
 lands given to him by S. Ives. 
 
 It was to the Abbey of Josaphat that, up to the 
 days of the Revolution, the musicians and choristers of 
 Notre-Dame made yearly, in the vintage season, a 
 strange kind of equestrian promenade, known as the 
 Che'vauch'ee. This probably represented the survival of 
 some feudal obligation. The chevaucheurs in a digni- 
 fied Latin speech obtained leave from the Chapter to 
 perform their functions, and then, before leaving the 
 Cathedral, they used to sing the office of the day. But 
 once en route the cavalcade became as noisy and riotous 
 
 * A Benhier saved from it is to be found in the Cathedral 
 crypt. 
 
 98
 
 6*. Ives and the Crusades 
 
 a scene of carnival as the Feast of Fools. Riding on 
 horses and donkeys, clad in outrageous garments of all 
 colours, armed with swords, wearing absurd hats, and 
 making a deplorable noise with all kinds of instruments, 
 the cacophonous cavalcade made its way through the 
 laughing, boisterous throng, to dejeuner at the Abbey 
 of Josaphat. The Feast of Fools, to which I have 
 referred, like this amazing excursion, was celebrated in 
 the odour of scandal down to the end of the eighteenth 
 century. It was a feast widely popular in France, 
 but much more licentious than religious. It was held 
 at Chartres on the ist of January. An admirable 
 picture of the Feast of Fools as observed at Notre- 
 Dame-de-Paris five days later is drawn by Victor 
 Hugo in the first chapters of his novel of that name. 
 
 Clerks of the choir dressed up in grotesque costumes, 
 elected a Pape des Fous and a college of ridiculous 
 cardinals, and then performed an indecent parody of 
 the sacred offices. They danced in an abandoned 
 fashion in the sanctuary, and ran about the city com- 
 mitting a thousand extravagances and bandying jests 
 with the ribald crowd. There was another Feast of 
 Fools in carnival time, which was authorised in 1300 
 on the condition that it was celebrated devotement. 
 That condition was not observed, and the feast was 
 abolished in the following year. But that of January 
 1st continued till the ' scandals, insolences, turpitudes 
 and abuses ' which attended it led to its being forbidden 
 in 1 479 by the Church authorities. But the people 
 preferred their Saturnalia to the danger of ecclesiastical 
 anathemas, and the feast maintained its indecent ex- 
 istence for many years to come. 
 
 S. Ives had accompanied Urban preaching the 
 Crusade through France. He returned now to Chartres 
 and preached it there. Numerous were the Crusaders 
 who went from the Chartrain country. It was fitting 
 
 99
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 that, as in Foucher [histor'ten un peu trap conteur)^ 
 Chartres was to boast one ot the chief chroniclers of 
 the Crusades, so among her sons there should be many, 
 like Gautier-Sans-Avoir, Raoul de Beaugency, and 
 Gerard de Cherisy, to do knightly deeds worthy to be 
 chronicled. The Battle of Gorgoni was won by the 
 valour of the Count of Chartres and his followers, and 
 Raimbaud Croton, a Chartrain, it was who first scaled 
 the ramparts of Jerusalem. But none among the 
 Chartrain Crusaders exceeded in bravery and brilliant 
 daring Evrard, Viscomte of Chartres and Seigneur 
 du Puiset. It was he who at the passage of the 
 Orontes (El far) stood at the head of the bridge and, 
 like another Horatius Codes, held it against the enemy. 
 It was he again who, when Jerusalem had just fallen 
 into the hands of the Crusaders, won the admiration of 
 the whole army by a bold feat of arms. A party of 
 Christian soldiers were put to flight by the desperate 
 resistance of a troop of the enemy. Their flight was 
 barred by Evrard, whose anger found vent in a 
 scathing volley of reproaches. 
 
 ' Vile troop of cowards,' he cried, ' is it to fight you 
 have come here, or to figure in a ballet ? Are you 
 children playing at soldiers, or little girls footing it in 
 the chorus of a dance ? . . . Away with fear, take 
 courage, and remember you are Francs and born of 
 brave sires. My ensign,' he nobly added, ' shall guide 
 you — follow you me.' Thus speaking, he rushed into 
 the fray, and, inspired by his example, the Crusaders 
 succeeded in overwhelming the^infidels. 
 
 The part played by Count Etienne was at first less 
 noble. He had married Adele, daughter of William 
 the Conqueror, and, like his wife, he was distin- 
 guished in this age of the sword by a love of art and 
 letters. He wrote poetry, and Hildebert, Bishop of 
 Le Mans, rashly compared him to Vergil. ' Gentiz 
 
 lOO
 
 iS*. Ives and the Crusades 
 
 homme, noble barun,' so Robert Wace describes 
 him. 
 
 Summoned from more congenial pursuits, he sailed 
 with Robert, Duke of Normandy, to join the army 
 which was then encamped before Nicxa. In a letter 
 to his wife he described the hospitality with which the 
 I'^mperor Alexis received him at Constantinople. 'He 
 treated me with so much distinction,' he says, ' that I 
 could only tear myself away from him with tears.' He 
 ])roceeded to amass booty both before and after the 
 taking of Nicsa, and his letters acquaint his wife with 
 his increasing wealth and his military preferment, but 
 he grows anxious to return to France with his enormous 
 loot. His cowardly retreat from Antioch and the 
 treacherous representations by which he dissuaded the 
 Emperor Alexis from relieving the Crusaders, who 
 were now pressed by the army of Kerbogha, gained 
 him a poor welcome in France when he returned. 
 The subsequent taking of Jerusalem exposed the 
 deserting Crusaders to unlimited contumely, and filled 
 them with remorse. French irony expressed itself in 
 biting sirvente, short satirical poems by fighting 
 troubadours like Bertram de Born, the Provencal 
 nobleman, who gave to Richard Coeur-de-Lion his 
 nickname of Yea -and -Nay. Those faint-hearted 
 knights who had stolen back to their baronial halls 
 were denounced with cutting invective. 
 
 ' Marques, li monges lie Clunhie 
 Veuilh que fasson de vos capadel 
 O siatz abbas de Cystilh, 
 Pus le cor avetz tan mendic 
 Que mais amatz dos buous et un araire 
 A Montferrat qu'alors estr' emperuieur.'* 
 
 * Marquis, may the monks of Cluny make you their head or 
 may you be Abbot of Citeaux, since you have a heart so base as 
 to prefer two oxen and a plough at Montferrat to being Emperor 
 elsewhere. 
 
 lOI
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 Stung by such taunts, Count Etienne seized an 
 opportunity which was given him of making a fresh 
 expedition against the Turks. On this occasion he 
 amply redeemed his reputation, and after many deeds 
 of heroism he laid down his life for the cause whose 
 sign he bore. Before setting out he had secured the 
 blessing of the bishop by two interesting concessions. 
 
 It was a long-established custom of the town and a 
 right by usage of the Counts of Chartres that, on the 
 death of a bishop, his palace should be sacked. To 
 S. Ives, when his new palace was finished. Count 
 Etienne now granted a charter renouncing this bar- 
 barous practice. But none the less Thibault, his son, 
 sacked the bishop's palace upon the death of S. Ives. 
 The other concession made by the Count was with 
 regard to the liberty of the cloister, which, the canons 
 maintained, was outside all secular jurisdiction. The 
 quarrel which sprang from this question of the rights 
 of the cloister was destined to last for three centuries. 
 For the present it was forgotten in the more absorbing 
 interest of the Crusades. 
 
 From the time of Fulbert onwards, the canons, on 
 one pretext or another, whether by buying houses, 
 claiming jurisdiction, or openly demanding the right of 
 enclosing their cloister by walls and gates, had begun 
 to encroach — so at least it was regarded by Counts and 
 townsmen — upon the domain of Chartres, and to set up 
 by degrees a town within a town, the cloister which 
 stretched from the Rue de Cheval Blanc on the north 
 to the Rue au Lait on the south, and from the 
 Percheronne on the west to the Rue Montonniere, 
 a continuation of the Rue Muret, on the east. The 
 rights claimed by the Chapter were at last acknow- 
 ledged and established by parliamentary decree, 1470 ; 
 but only, as we have said, after centuries of bickering 
 with the Counts. They, feeling themselves assailed 
 102
 
 S. Ives and the Crusades 
 
 both as to their pockets and their powers of jurisdiction 
 by the privileges extended by the Church to those who 
 attached themselves to the cloister, expressed their 
 feelings by frequent armed raids into the precincts, 
 pillaging the shops * which had sprung up beneath the 
 shade of Notre-Dame and carrying off unfortunate 
 clerks as prisoners to be ransomed from the great 
 Tower. The Church retaliated with its one all-powerful 
 weapon — excommunication. 
 
 The cloister f was finally enclosed by thick walls and 
 by nine gates — mostly destroyed in the eighteenth 
 century ; but of some of them traces may still be seen — 
 the Porte Neuve and the Porte de VEtroit-Degre, 
 giving on the Rue du Cheval Blanc ; the Porte des 
 Changes (Rue des Changes), and Porte aux Herbes 
 (Rue au Lait), Porte Eiuere, entrance of Rue Saint- 
 Eman ; Porte Percherotme (Rue du Soleil-d'Or), 
 Porte des Carneaux (Rue Sainte-Mcme), Porte des 
 L'lces (Marchc-a-la-Filasse), Porte de V Eve que 
 (Rue Muret), 
 
 One of the handsomest of the old houses of the 
 canons that remains is that at the corner of the Rue 
 des Changes, facing the south porch of the Cathedral. 
 Utilitarian France has sadly restored this old thirteenth- 
 century house, and turned it to account as the Post 
 Office, just as she has planted some villainous cavalry 
 barracks on the site of the old monastic buildings of S. 
 Pere, and converted into a military bakehouse the 
 interesting old House of Loens. 
 
 Attached to the cloister was the Hospital or Hotel- 
 
 * Stalls first, and then shops, were set up about the western 
 porch as soon as it was built. Pilgrimages meant commerce. 
 There was traffic not only in images of the Virgin, but also in 
 the necessaries of life. Merchants found here a ready market, 
 and one in which they were protected from the rapacity and 
 exactions of the feudal lords. 
 
 "f Lepinois's H'ntohe de Cliartrcs, 2 "vols., 1858. 
 
 103
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 Dieu of Notre-Danie. It was founded about the tenth 
 century ; restored and spoilt in the eighteenth century. 
 The hospital has recently been removed to a more suit- 
 able spot, and the old Hotel-Dieu, with its thirteenth- 
 century chapel, now serves for the Ecole Mutuelle of 
 
 the town. It stands 
 in the south-west 
 corner of the space 
 which has been 
 cleared in front of 
 the Cathedral, be- 
 tween the Rue 
 Fulbert and the 
 Rue de la Cathe- 
 drale. 
 
 The departure 
 and death of Eti- 
 enne left Chartres 
 and its bishop more 
 than ever exposed 
 to the brigandage 
 of the Viscount 
 Hugues, who was 
 always in a state 
 of excommunica- 
 tion, and whose 
 bands of mercenary 
 robbers held the 
 roads, so that S. 
 Council at Sens or 
 as with the greed 
 S. Ives carried 
 long before he 
 
 't'JdHoic'ldt'Ville. 
 
 Ives could 
 
 at Paris. 
 
 and slackness of 
 
 on unceasing war 
 
 not attend the great 
 With his violence, 
 
 his own clergy, 
 and it was not 
 
 found himself involved also in a bitter quarrel with 
 the Countess Adele, widow of Etienne. The 
 Chapter had bound themselves by oath not to admit 
 104
 
 S. Ives and the Crusades 
 
 into their ranks any of those known as cond'ttlonar'ii — 
 men, that is, freed from serfdom but still held under 
 servile obligations to the Countess. The Countess 
 exerted herself with extraordinary energy and persist- 
 ence to advance the claims of certain clients of this 
 description. S. Ives strove to calm her and to support 
 his Chapter. The Countess retorted by violent re- 
 prisals and seized the wine of the precentor, Hilduin, 
 in the street des Corroyeurs. S. Ives threatened her 
 with excommunication, and she interdicted the canons 
 from the use of the roads, and of bread and water 
 throughout her domain. It was time to give way, 
 and S. Ives, by a judicious compromise, obtained 
 the Pope's consent that the Lady Adele's men 
 should be admitted to share in the revenues of the 
 Cathedral. 
 
 In support of his suzerain the Viscount Hugues had 
 been devastating the diocese. But a new Crusade saved 
 S. Ives from his enemies. Bohcmond of Tarentum, 
 Prince of Antioch, came to Chartres to marry Con- 
 stance, daughter of the King, and to receive the nuptial 
 benediction from the hands of S. Ives, to whose efforts 
 the marriage was due. The Countess Adele displayed 
 on this occasion a hospitality worthy in its magnificence 
 of the daughter of William the Conqueror and of the 
 noble House of Thibault the Trickster. The marriage 
 ceremony was performed, and thereafter, before a vast 
 assembly standing on the steps of the altar of the Vierge- 
 aux- Miracles, the Prince of Antioch related his 
 wonderful adventures, and bore witness to the miracul- 
 ous protection afforded to him by God in the former 
 Crusade. Men listened and wondered and waxed 
 enthusiastic. When Bohcmond concluded his dis- 
 course by inviting his listeners to follow the example of 
 the first Crusaders, a crowd of knights rushed forward 
 and then and there took the sign of the Cross. Fore- 
 
 105
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 most among them was the excommunicated brigand, 
 Hugues, Viscomte de Chartres. 
 
 S. Ives died at the end of the year 1 1 1 5. But dur- 
 ing his busy lifetime there had been springing up the 
 great monument which is his in Chartres, the Western 
 Towers and the Porche Royal of the Cathedral, with 
 its sculptured kings and queens, than which no sculp- 
 ture in the world is more beautiful. During his life- 
 time also it had been necessary to rebuild in great part 
 the Church of Fulbert. The rapidity with which it 
 had been built in troublous times of war and famine may 
 account for this necessity. S. Ives increased the length 
 of the building by some twenty-five yards and, whilst 
 carrying the nave and aisles one bay further west, he 
 prolonged the crypt to the foot of his new towers, 
 adorning it with mural paintings, of which traces yet 
 remain. The towers were built at the end of each 
 aisle, and the lower part of the west front, though 
 actually the same now as that then built, lay back at 
 that time on a line within the eastern sides of the 
 towers. It was afterwards brought forward so as to 
 be where it now is, flush with their western sides. 
 
 S. Ives also constructed the two new entrances to the 
 crypt, with staircases and passages, through the Cave 
 du Bois on the north and S. Martin's Chapel on the 
 south. The roof of the apse was also renewed, and an 
 angelot or guardian angel set thereon.* But one of 
 the chief works of S. Ives was the construction of the 
 beautiful Jubc,t of which we have seen the few remain- 
 ing fragments in the crypt. J Meanwhile the rest of 
 the Cathedral, its chapels and altars, were being adorned 
 
 * The present one is on a pivot, and serves as a weather-cock. 
 
 -f- The roodloft or gallery over the entrance into the choir is 
 sometimes called the Jube, from the words ' Jube, Domine, 
 benedicere,' pronounced from it. (Parker). 
 
 \ Page 25. 
 106
 
 *S. Ives and the Crusades 
 
 by the pious generosity of the people of all classes. 
 The choir was paved with marble and mosaic, and 
 tapestries were hung round it where now runs the 
 sculptured cloture. The beautiful glass through which 
 the light still pours its coloured streams were being set 
 up in the lower lights of the western facade, and in the 
 sacristy was accumulating that collection of jewels and 
 relics, of chalices, censers and crucifixes, of liturgies 
 bound in silver, gold and precious stones, and of ecclesi- 
 astical ornaments, which was to render the treasury of 
 Chartres one of the richest in the world, till the Van- 
 dals of the eighteenth century laid their sacrilegious 
 hands upon it. 
 
 In order to obtain funds for the building of his 
 towers and the restoration of his church, S. Ives, like 
 Fulbert before him, begged freely of Kings. 
 
 It will be understood that his relations with Philippe 
 were not of the kind to encourage him to ask for aid in 
 that quarter. But he sent two monks to Henry I. of 
 England with a letter, in which, after expressing the 
 pious hope that Henry would continue to walk in the 
 footsteps of his father, and recognise that, as the body 
 ought to be subject to the mind, so ought the civil 
 government to be subject to the ecclesiastical, he tells 
 him that he is the servant of the servants of God, and 
 not their master ; their protector, and not their lord ; and 
 then adds that the bearers of the letter will explain to 
 His Highness the needs of the Church, which he is 
 conjured to satisfy with the same generosity as his 
 parents showed. 
 
 It is scarcely surprising that a letter couched in such 
 terms was not productive of alms from the English 
 King who had taken his spouse from a nunnery ; nor 
 was an appeal to Matilda in the following year ' to show 
 that love for the Queen of the Angels which the Queens 
 of the Angles have always so generously displayed ' 
 
 107
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 any more successful. But a third more likely letter 
 knocked, to borrow S. Ives's own phrase, at the door 
 of Henry's generous heart with better result. Queen 
 Matilda was charged with the duty of replying to it, 
 and she made many gifts to the Church, among which 
 were several bells, of which S. Ives writes in acknow- 
 ledgment that ' they are doubly dear to us, both on 
 account of your piety and of their own sweet melody. 
 Every time that they are put in motion to indicate 
 certain hours, our ears are soothed with such delicious 
 music that your memory is renewed within our hearts.' 
 He also reminds her, amid many such graceful sayings, 
 that the roof wants mending ; and at her death we 
 find that his words bear fruit, for she made many 
 bequests to the Cathedral, and left money to defray the 
 expenses of a lead roof. But it was not only Kings 
 and Queens who fell under the charm of S. Ives and 
 the love of his Church, and it was not only the great 
 who received his thanks. Such phrases as the follow- 
 ing occur again and again in the Necrology of Notre- 
 Dame : — ' On Nov. 24th, died Jean, son of Vital, the 
 clever and faithful carpenter of this Church, who 
 always worked with love and zeal at the work of this 
 Church.' That is but one name among the thousands, 
 who now, with an extraordinary outburst of enthusiasm, 
 came from far and near to build the superb monument 
 of Chartres Cathedral. 
 
 108
 
 CHAPTER V 
 The Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 ' By suffrage universal it was built 
 As practised then, for all the country came 
 From far as Rouen, to give votes for God, 
 Each vote a block of stone securely laid 
 Obedient to the Master's deep-mused plan.' 
 
 James Russell Lowell. 
 
 ' Like some tall palm the mystic fabric grew.' 
 
 Reginald Heber. 
 
 *Elle est enfin, cette basilique, la plus magnifique expression 
 de I'art que le Moyen Age nous ait leguee.' — J. K. Huysmans. 
 
 ' I ""HE grey spire of the Clocher Vieux,* — 
 
 ' molten now in driving mist. 
 Now lulled with the incommunicable blue,' 
 
 was not completed till near the end of the twelfth 
 century, for upon the soffit of the topmost window 
 facing the Clocher Neuf you may read in great 
 Roman letters the name of the master of the works, 
 Harman, 1 164. N.D.D. Such, at least, is the 
 inference drawn, though it may well be only the weary 
 vigil of a watchman who nightly gazed over the plains 
 of La Beauce on the look out for beacon signals of 
 alarm, or for the first evidence of a fire in the town, 
 that is recorded in these deep-cut letters. The foun- 
 dations of the old tower at any rate were laid as 
 early as 1091, and both the square towers were 
 
 * The south tower of tlie west front. 
 
 109
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 finished by 1145. They carry the spires that are the 
 pride of Chartres, and which have given rise to the 
 popular saying that the perfect cathedral, if it could 
 ever be built, would be composed of the spire of 
 Chartres, the nave of Amiens, the choir of Beauvais, 
 the porch of Reims.* 
 
 Of the two spires, the northern, Clocher Neuf, with 
 its airy staircases and pierced traceries, built by Jean 
 le Texier, called Jean de Beauce, in the sixteenth 
 century, is the more popular, the Clocher Vieux the 
 more beautiful. The former is flamboyant, decked 
 out with delicate ornament, graceful, rich, and femi- 
 nine ; the latter sober, severe, robust, clad, you might 
 fancy, like a man in armour. These giant towers, 
 indeed, and their aerial pinnacles are not twin sisters, 
 but rather, it might seem, sister and elder brother, 
 with their points of resemblance and their points of 
 difference ; the one, weatherbeaten and grey, but still 
 preserving, in spite of the wrinkles of old age, a noble, 
 male and mellowed beauty ; the other, the young 
 sister, smiling through the lace of a wedding veil, 
 comely as a bride, fair as the spouse of Christ. 
 
 The one, fashioned by the Byzantine chisel, sprang 
 into complete being in the heroic ages of faith, in the 
 days of war, and beheld at its feet Thomas, exiled 
 from Canterbury, and Bernard, when preaching the 
 second Crusade, hailed there by bishops and barons as 
 generalissimo of that great enterprise. The other 
 rose, after a long peace, under the hands of the still 
 Christian architects of the Renaissance, when all 
 dangers and difficulties had been surmounted. She 
 arose in her smiling elegance, rose till it seemed that 
 she would touch the stars, and her mantle shone with 
 a thousand lights and sparkled with a thousand orna- 
 
 * Clocher de Chartres, nef d'Amiens, 
 Choeur de Beauvais, Portail de Reims. 
 IIO
 
 ilm A . -'^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - \3i ' i 
 
 
 
 ''' '<"#;! 
 
 / V 
 
 ;w 

 
 The Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 merits. Statues and buttresses, gargoyles, arabesqyes 
 and crochets pile themselves in successive stages, until 
 the eye loses the sense of everything but a sort of 
 architectural lacework. 
 
 The Cathedral is truly a Bible in stone And just 
 as in the sculptured porches the medicpval masons 
 carved in a symbolic type, which the illiterate could 
 read, the story of the Pentateuch and the Gospels ; 
 just as in their jewelled windows the monkish glaziers 
 told again the same Bible story for all to see and 
 understand, so it would seem that here in Chartres, 
 the architects also, but by fortune rather than design, 
 have symbolised in stone the Old Testament and the 
 New. In that amazing window of the south transept 
 the prophets of the former dispensation are portrayed 
 carrying on their shoulders the na'i've evangelists. 
 Similarly the builders have made the Romanesque 
 crypt to carry the Gothic upper church, and the old 
 tower, eloquent of Byzantine art, massive and superb, 
 confronts the joyous, soaring sister who has sprung up, 
 from like foundations, at his side, the last effort, or 
 rather the last amusement, of that Gothic art which is 
 typical of aspirations that are justified, of a faith that is 
 fi-' filled 
 
 The Clocher Vieux combines to the highest degree 
 grandeur with harmonious unity of proportion. From 
 the bottommost stone to the highest there is never a 
 break in the perfect line ; and the plain massive base 
 of enormous quarried stones, some of which, they say, 
 measure ten feet by three, passes into the light octagonal 
 spire, covered with its curious coat of mail or fishcvs' 
 scales, by imperceptible and inevitable gradations. It 
 is a triumph of sheer beauty of proportion unaided by 
 the art of ornament. The transition from the square 
 tower to the tapering Jleche is, in spite of this sim- 
 plicity, so exquisitely treated that it cannot be dis- 
 
 H ' 113
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 tingui&hed. It is a perfect masterpiece of masonic 
 skill. Two terrible fires and more than 700 winters 
 have left it with not one stone displaced.* 
 
 The mere size of the enormous blocks of stone of 
 which the base is built will fill the most casual visitor 
 with astonishment. It has been suggested that they 
 formed part of those city walls described by the monk 
 Paul which once ran close to the Cathedral, and which 
 were at this period being dismantled in order to admit 
 of the enlargement of enceinte of the town. But we know, 
 from independent contemporary sources, how the labour 
 required to quarry and fetch these huge masses of 
 material was supplied. It was supplied by popular 
 enthusiasm, inspired by religious fervour. For though 
 the work of building, impeded by plague and famine, 
 and a terrible fire which destroyed the town in 11 34, 
 went on slowly at first, in 1144 a great outburst of 
 devotion occurred throughout the land. Whole popu- 
 lations arose and came to Chartres to labour at the 
 work of God's house. A noble rivalry urged every 
 man to toil, and women even took their share in a 
 burden which their faith rendered light, in a task which 
 their devotion made both pleasant and honourable. 
 
 ' In this same year,' writes Robert du Mont, Abbot 
 of Mont S. Michel, to quote one only among all the 
 twelfth-century chroniclers who mention this fact, ' In 
 this same year at Chartres men began to harness them- 
 selves to carts laden with stones and wood, corn and 
 other things, and drag them to the site of the church, 
 the towers of which were then a-building. It was a 
 spectacle the like of which he who hath not seen will 
 never see again, not only here, but scarcely in all 
 France or Normandy or elsewhere. Everywhere 
 sorrow and humility prevailed, on all sides penitence, 
 forgiveness and remorse. On every side you could see 
 * The octagonal spire is made of the light stone of Marboue. 
 114 *
 
 The Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 men and women dragging heavy loads through the 
 marshy bogs, and scourging themselves with whips. 
 Miracles were being done on every side, and songs and 
 hymns of praise sung to the Lord. You might say 
 that the prophecy was being fulfilled which says, 
 The Spirit of Life was in the wheels of their 
 chariots.' 
 
 A curious confirmation of this statement exists in 
 the form of a correspondence which passed at this 
 time between the Bishop of Rouen and the Bishop of 
 Amiens. 
 
 ' Mighty are the works of the Lord,' exclaims 
 Hugh of Rouen. ' At Chartres men have begun in 
 all humility to drag carts and vehicles of all sorts to 
 aid the building of the Cathedral, and their humility 
 has been rewarded with miracles. The fame of these 
 events has been heard everywhere, and at last roused 
 this Normandy of ours. Our countrymen, therefore, 
 after receiving our blessing, have set out for that place 
 and there fulfilled their vows. They return filled 
 with a resolution to imitate the Chartrains. And a 
 great number of the faithful of our diocese and the 
 dioceses of our province have begun to work at the 
 Cathedral, their mother.' The north-west tower of 
 the Cathedral of Rouen, the Tour S. Romain, was 
 built in this way. The visitor will notice its resem- 
 blance to the Clocher Vieux of Chartres, and this 
 letter will explain why in workmanship and spirit it 
 does so resemble it. 
 
 These poor Norman workmen departed on a new 
 crusade, as it were, of chisel and trowel to offer their 
 labour for the adornment of Our Lady's Church. 
 They travelled in small bands, forming part of a vast 
 association, and, so the bishop informs his reverend 
 brother, admitted no one to join their company unless 
 he had first been confessed and done penance, and laid
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 aside all anger and malevolence, and been reconciled 
 with his enemies. One of their number was chosen to 
 lead them, and under his directions they drew their 
 waggons in silence and humility, and presented their 
 offerings, not without penance and tears. 
 
 There is yet another letter which I shall readily be 
 forgiven for quoting, so graphic is the picture which it 
 gives. It is the text to which the beautiful window in 
 the south aisle of the choir furnishes the perfect illus- 
 tration. The Abbot Haimon of S. Pierre-sur-Dive 
 wrote to his brethren of Tutbury, in Staffordshire, a 
 small priory dependent on S. Pierre, in the following 
 strain : — 
 
 ' Who has ever seen or who heard in all the ages of 
 the past that kings, princes and lords, mighty in their 
 generation, swollen with riches and honours, that men 
 and women, I say, of noble birth have bowed their 
 haughty necks to the yoke and harnessed themselves 
 to carts like beasts of burden, and drawn them, laden 
 with wine, corn, oil, stone, wood and other things 
 needful for the maintenance of life or the construction 
 of the church, even to the doors of the asylum of 
 Christ ? But what is even more astonishing is that, 
 although sometimes a thousand or more of men and 
 women are attached to one cart — so vast is the mass, 
 so heavy the machine, so weighty the load — yet so 
 deep a silence reigns that not a voice, not a whisper 
 even can be heard. And when there is a halt called 
 on the way there is no sound save that of the con- 
 fession of sins and the suppliant prayer to God for 
 pardon. There, whilst the priests are preaching peace, 
 all hatred is lulled to sleep and quarrels are banished, 
 debts forgiven, and the union of hearts re-established. 
 But if anyone is so hardened that he cannot bring him- 
 self to forgive his enemies or to beg the pious admoni- 
 tions of the priests, then his offering is withdrawn from 
 
 ii6
 
 The Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 the common stock as unclean, and he himself is separ- 
 ated, with much shame and ignominy, from the society 
 of the holy people. Forward they press, unchecked 
 by rivers, unhindered by mountains. You might think 
 that they were the children of Israel crossing Jordan, 
 and for them, as for the children of Israel, miracles are 
 wrought. But when they come to the church, they 
 set their waggons in a circle so as to form, as it were, 
 a spiritual camp, and all the following night the watch 
 is kept by the whole army with hymns and songs of 
 praise. Candles and lamps are lit on each waggon ; 
 the sick and the feeble are placed thereon ; the relics 
 of the saints are brought to them in the hope that they 
 may find relief. The clergy at the head of a pro- 
 cession, and the people following, pass by and pray 
 with renewed fervour that the sick may be healed.' 
 
 Then occurred scenes such as may be beheld to-day 
 before the grotto in the mountain village of Lourdes. 
 For Chartres was the Lourdes of the Middle Ages. 
 The maimed and the halt recovered their powers, 
 leapt from the waggons and flung away their crutches ; 
 the blind received their sight, the sick were healed, 
 and all joined, after returning thanks before the altar, 
 in the task of building the house of their Redeemer. 
 
 You see their work, you behold the material in 
 which they wrought, as you stand before the western 
 facade * and gaze in wonder ; for the stones, it seems, 
 have become intelligent, and matter is here spiritualised. 
 But you will almost cease to wonder when you remem- 
 ber the spirit in which they wrought it. Such was the 
 
 * 'The endless upward reach of the great west front, the clear 
 silvery tone of its surface, the way three or four magnificent 
 features are made to occupy its serene expanse, its simplicity, 
 majesty and dignity — these things crowd upon one's sense with a 
 force that makes the act of vision for the moment almost all of 
 life. There is an inexpressible harmony in the facade of Chartres.' 
 — Henry James — Portraits of Places. 
 
 117
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 spirit, and such only could be the spirit, which pro- 
 duced the master-art of Gothic, and led the daring 
 architects from step to step in the attainment of their 
 triumphs, as they left behind them the heavy piers and 
 the thick dark arches of the Pagan Romanesque and 
 arrived at last at the perfect expression of the Christian 
 spirit in their soaring arches, their airy buttresses, and 
 their pointing pinnacles flaming upwards to the skies. 
 
 Seven miles distant from Chartres lie the quarries of 
 Bercheres-l'Evcque, whence, in the spirit and manner 
 that has been described, they brought this ' miraculous ' 
 stone — miraculous, for it was in a vision that the exist- 
 ence of the quarry was said to have been revealed. 
 Miraculous one may almost call it still, by reason of its 
 quality of hardness, its gift of wear, and the exquisite 
 tones which it has taken on with years. Of the two 
 towers the old one is the better built ; many of the 
 stones of the other were laid in too little mortar and 
 have consequently split. These blocks of stone are 
 marked with various masonic signs, a fact which con- 
 firms the supposition that the two towers were built 
 by the Freres Magons or Logeurs du bon Dieu, 
 as they were called, those famous associations of the 
 Middle Ages, corporations of artist workmen, who 
 were indeed 'masters of the living stone.' 
 
 The first time that the traveller beholds the porches 
 of Chartres he is filled with admiration for the ex- 
 quisite effect of the whole, and afterwards for the 
 exquisite details of which that whole is composed. He 
 may, if he is of an imaginative temperament, fall into 
 Some reverie and picture to himself a host of historic 
 fantasies. 
 
 But later he will begin to realise that the sculpture 
 
 which had pleased his eye and inspired his dreams is 
 
 not a mere ornament of the building. Each part of 
 
 the Cathedral, like the Cathedral as a whole, is the 
 
 ii8
 
 The Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 superb product of the intimate alliance of nameless 
 architects, nameless sculptors, nameless painters of 
 glass, working with the one object of setting forth the 
 glory of God and His Son and the Virgin to the 
 multitude, of illustrating for all unreading eyes the 
 Word of the Lord. The Cathedral is a Bible in 
 stone, and the porches a gospel in relief, a sculptured 
 catechism, a preface and a resume of the book. Each 
 stone, thus understood, is seen to be a page of a great 
 drama. This drama is the history of humanity from 
 the creation of the world to the day of the Last Judg- 
 ment. Within, the same story is repeated. The 
 jewelled windows are there not only for the sake of 
 the holiness of their beauty, not merely to provide the 
 pilgrim with the dim religious light suitable to his 
 mood, or that the placid sunshine of La Beauce may 
 be transformed into imperious angry fire. The five 
 thousand figures in those legendary lights are the 
 commentary and the repetition of the sculptured text 
 without. 
 
 Who conceived, the question arises again and again, 
 this admirable plan, this marvellous whole ? Who 
 were the artists of Notre-Dame ? We are in great 
 ignorance of the matter, and the question cannot be 
 definitely answered. 
 
 The cloister we know was the only refuge of art ; 
 the monasteries the sole asylums for those who would 
 study science. And to those peaceable retreats painters, 
 sculptors, artists perforce retired to practise, to invent, to 
 teach the secrets of their trade ; secrets, alas ! of colour 
 among them, which have been irretrievably lost to this 
 scientific generation. We know, for instance, that in 
 the Monastery of Tiron, which S. Bernard founded on 
 lands given to him for that purpose by S. Ives, more 
 than five hundred artists of one sort or another were to 
 be found. S. Bernard insisted on the observance of 
 
 119
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 that point in the Benedictine rule which recommends 
 that ' if there be artists in the monastery they shall with 
 all humility practise their arts.' These monks, we also 
 know, established a branch at Chartres, ' near the 
 market-place.' Perhaps, therefore, S. Bernard paid his 
 debt to S. Ives and the Chapter of Notre-Dame by 
 furnishing the hands which carved the statues and the 
 storied capitals of the three bays of the western fagade. 
 
 In the S. Sylvester window, to the right of the 
 entrance to the Chapel of S. Piat, and in the S. Cheron 
 window of the Chapel of the Sacred Heart of Mary, 
 the old glass painters have well represented the masons 
 of Notre-Dame. Here is a beardless dresser of stone, 
 there a sculptor with his rough, pointed cap. The iron 
 hardness of the miraculous stone yields to the untiring 
 application of chisel and mallet, and beneath their 
 ceaseless blows its formless mass by degrees becomes 
 shapely. Above the workers appears the chapel in 
 which the window now is. A mason in a round hat is 
 quietly laying a cornice stone, whilst his help-mate, 
 carrying a piece of sculpture, climbs up a little ladder. 
 In the background four other masons, shaven and clad 
 like the common people, are busy shaping the statues 
 of kings — the very statues which now, representing the 
 ancestors of Christ, stand in the porch without. The 
 statue is as yet only blocked out : the artist is beginning 
 to model it with his chisel. His companion the while, 
 warm with his past exertions, is drinking. The royal 
 statue begins to be distinguishable. The eyes and the 
 mouth are leaping into life : the crown is being adorned 
 with pearls, the sceptre decorated, the robe and mantle 
 draped, the hands modelled. The man who has 
 blocked it out has finished his task and takes his rest ; 
 his companion carves, polishes and puts the finishing 
 touches to the work he has begun. 
 
 What were their names ? No one knows. The 
 
 120
 
 'The Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 names of some of the donors are preserved in the 
 necrologies of the grateful canons, but of all the clever 
 artists of Notre-Danie hardly one has left his name 
 behind him, like the Robbir who carved his signature 
 beneath the combat of David and Goliath on the north 
 porch. 
 
 This is in no way surprising, when we remember 
 the spirit in which these works were done. The 
 Cathedrals were built and decorated for the glory of 
 God, not for the glorification of the artists. Men 
 dedicated to the Church their money and their labour 
 for the remission of their sins, and not with the object 
 of acquiring fame. We have seen, and shall see again, 
 how whole populations rose up and came on a pilgrimage 
 from afar to build and to rebuild the house of God, when 
 to the enthusiasm of the Crusades succeeded the holy 
 ardour of religious construction and men took the 
 Cross, not to depart to war in the East, but to labour 
 humbly at the work of God, Our Lady and the saints. 
 Then from the distant cloister came forth the architect, 
 and artists and, at the voice of a bishop calling for aid, 
 the sacred work began. The peasants quarried stone 
 and brought material, the young men dressed it, and 
 the masons raised the lofty piers and fashioned the 
 groined roof beneath the eye of the * master of the 
 work.' The pilgrims would sojourn, perhaps, for a 
 year in the town, labouring with such ardour that when 
 the light failed they would often continue by the light 
 of torches. Not far from the site of the church, in 
 some adjacent monastery, the glass-painters designed 
 and stained and fitted into the leads their coloured 
 windows, and the sculptors chiselled bas-reliefs and 
 statues. A man's labour was his offering, his art very 
 often his best and only alms. His name was one name 
 only among a thousand, his work might surpass in excel- 
 lence but it would be the same in spirit with that of a 
 
 121
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 thousand other pilgrims like unto himself. Why should 
 his name therefore be recorded ? 
 
 So it came about that the ' master of the work ' 
 received from the many workers statuary of varying 
 excellence, and gave it all its place in the Cathedral. 
 Among the thousands of sculptures at Chartres or 
 Reims many are of very inferior merit. Many a 
 chef-d'oeuvre, on the other hand, on which the pious 
 sculptor has lavished all his skill is hidden in inaccess- 
 ible nooks, or scarcely visible in the loftiest part of a 
 building, thus showing clearly the motive of devotion 
 which inspired the worker. 
 
 It was in this sense, then, that the Cathedral of 
 Chartres was built *by universal suffrage,' as Lowell 
 put it, just as the entire population from the Coquet 
 to the Tees, headed by the Earl of Northumberland, 
 rose up to build the Cathedral of Durham. The 
 nearest modern analogy to such enthusiasm is to be 
 found in the history of Christianity in Uganda or in 
 the building of the church at Swindon by the united, 
 unpaid efforts of the working men of that town. It 
 was the living faith of the people, not the mere feudal 
 requisition of their labour by the bishops (corvees) 
 which created the mediaeval temples, faith strong and 
 simple as that which inspired Sabine of Steinbach 
 or her who laid the last stone of the Dom of Koln. 
 
 It would, however, be misleading to suggest that, 
 because many pilgrims worked for the love of God, all 
 the workers were unpaid. We hear of occasions when 
 money failed and 
 
 ' Ne porent pas paier assez 
 Li mestre de I'oeuvre aus ouvrlers.' * 
 
 Such things as the Jube, the porches and the rose 
 windows, executed after elaborate consultations and 
 
 * Li-vre des Miracles. 
 122
 
 The Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 under the supervision of the ' master of work,' were 
 inspected again by a clever master from another 
 country. The chief workers were lodged in houses of 
 the cloister belonging to the Chapter, who granted 
 them doles from time to time and furnished them yearly 
 with gloves and a mantle. 
 
 The naivete of the medixval artists is one of their 
 chief charms, but there is often a spice of wickedness 
 in their work. Read the fabliaux and mysteries of the 
 time, from the Bible of Guyot de Provins to the play 
 acted on the Piazza of Troyes in 1475, and you will 
 find passages enough that offend the taste and are 
 worthy of the actors in the Feast of Fools. The 
 satire of the Trouveres, whether they are scourging 
 monks, barons or sovereign pontiffs, is often extremely 
 gross. Similarly, while the Count of Chartres was 
 chanting in chivalrous fashion the praises of his lady, 
 the porches of the Cathedral were receiving into their 
 niches here and there the representations of certain 
 ugly vices and their punishment, such as Dante ere 
 long was to translate into the harmonious verses of his 
 Divina Commedia. Fallen nuns and erring queens are 
 delivered over to grinning demons, and Satan rubs his 
 hands at the sight of his innumerable victims (south 
 porch). S. Augustin might protest against the 
 apocryphal Scriptures, and Popes denounce the legendary 
 poetry of the early centuries, but painters persisted 
 in depicting with excessive freedom the histories of 
 S. Thomas and S. James, and sculptors still waxed 
 wanton when they carved the sins of the Prodigal Son. 
 S. Bernard, the enigma of his age, was constrained to 
 cry out against the grotesque ornamentation of the 
 churches. 
 
 But it is not the mere naughtiness of some satirical 
 mason giving expression to the humour of the people 
 which accounts for all the mediaeval grotesques — for 
 
 123
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 the Imp of Lincoln, the Noah of Bourges, the Devils 
 of Notre-Dame-de-Paris, the Ass of Chartres. Vices 
 were portrayed in order to illustrate their punishment. 
 * Let faithful souls but see the Passion of Our Lord 
 represented,' says an old writer, ' and rarely will they 
 fail to be filled with compunction and to raise their eyes 
 to heaven.' To the impressionable, childlike, illiterate 
 men of the Middle Ages, accordingly, the clergy taught 
 the lessons of dogma and belief through the personages 
 of drama or the medium of art. The sculpted bays of 
 a porch or the storied windows of a nave were a lesson 
 for the ignorant, a sermon for the believer, appealing 
 through the eyes to the heart. The representation of 
 the mysteries and miracle plays showed to him in action 
 and helped him to realise the persons whose figures 
 were already familiar to him as painted on glass, sculp- 
 tured on capitals, incrusted on the vaulting of the doors. 
 Graphic and dramatic art constituted the books of 
 those who did not know how to read. With the 
 aid of these material objects, as the Abbot Suger, 
 the great artist of S. Denis, declared,* the feeble 
 spirit can mount to the truth and the soul which was 
 plunged in darkness rise to the light which bursts upon 
 its terrestial eyes. We need not wonder then if the 
 paintings of the Middle Ages have not always the 
 severity of modern ecclesiastical art, for vices were 
 portrayed with a view to condemning them the more 
 thoroughly. The mediaeval masons were strangers, it 
 would seem, to the legend of Spinello. Evil for them 
 was always ugly, and the Devil a monster, not 
 Lucifer. 
 
 But at Chartres this side of life is not dealt with 
 overmuch. The bases of the pillars of the bays in the 
 south and the western porches give some examples ot 
 
 * Mens hebes ad verum per materialia surgit 
 Et demersa prius hac visa luce resurgit. 
 124
 
 The Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 i 
 
 
 men and women in the thralls of vice. Apart from 
 these instances, the most famous and striking examples 
 of the masons' satiric warning are the Ane qui v'lelle 
 and the Trii'ie qtiijile. These curious imposts of the 
 closed doorway on the south side of the clocher V'teux 
 represent a donkey playing i 
 
 a harp and a sow spinning.* 
 They are epigrams in stone, 
 intended to remind us of the 
 maxims, Asinus ad lyram, and 
 Ne sus Minervam doceat ; 
 warnings against the preten- 
 tious ambitions of the awk- 
 ward and incompetent, 
 equivalent to the French 
 dictum Que Gros-Jean nen 
 remontre pas a son cure ; a 
 proverb of which we have 
 some obvious but homely - 
 
 versions. But of infernal 
 beasts and Vices there is at ~'^- 
 Chartres, so much is this the - j A 
 Church of Our Lady, a •, 
 decided scarcity. Of the i 
 Virtues there are many : 
 most celebrated is the proud 
 statue of Liberty in the 
 left bay of the north porch, ' 
 
 in which some writers have 
 
 seen a reference to the Communal freedom granted 
 to the people by the Kings, but which is in reality only 
 
 * There were formerly five statues on the front of the south- 
 west tower. The Ass is resting on two human heads that 
 seem crushed by his weight. The Sow is much mutilated. A 
 similar piece occurs on the facade of S. Pol-de-Lcon (Finis- 
 terre). The motive of an ass playing a lyre is found in ancient 
 Egyptian monuments ; a dog playing a lyre occurs at Poitiers. 
 
 125 
 
 LAiie qiii Vitllt
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 one of the series of fourteen Heavenly Beatitudes as 
 described by the mediaeval theologians, which fill some 
 of the rows of the vaulting of this bay. 
 
 On the south angle of the Clocher Vieux there is an 
 angel carrying a sun-dial, of whom one would gladly know 
 more. There is an angel-dial on the corresponding part 
 of the S. Laurence Church at 
 Genoa, and one which much 
 resembles this, and may have 
 been by the same hands, is at the 
 south corner of the cloister at 
 Laon. Our angel stands with 
 bare feet on a bracket, and 
 above his head is a ' Heavenly 
 I Jerusalem ' — a dais showing a 
 city with turrets and windows. 
 He is clad in a long tunic 
 *i covered by a mantle which 
 fits close to his long, thin 
 body. His hands are intended 
 to support a disc on which a 
 5^ii&eJ DicJ sun-dial was traced. His arms 
 I are outspread. Clearly the 
 
 i'"T present dial traced on a heavy 
 
 ,' square stone, with the date 
 
 I 1578, which covers his breast, 
 
 ' was an addition of that year, 
 
 but does not mark the date 
 For though the smile which lurks about 
 his fair monastic countenance is scarce angelic, and may 
 suggest rather the disquieting, seraphic types of the 
 Renaissance, yet the whole figure, with its simple and 
 successful treatment of the hair and draperies, is redol- 
 ent of the Byzantine style, which we shall trace in the 
 family of kings and queens grouped beneath the Porche 
 Royal. To that family he must belong. 
 126 
 
 of the 
 
 angel
 
 The Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 You will move gladly into the porch to study its 
 beautiful twelfth-century sculpture, for whilst you have 
 been looking at this angel you will have learnt that 
 round the south-west corner of the Cathedral, as about 
 the Abbey in Old Palace Yard in Westminster, the 
 wind never ceases to blow, and often blows a hurricane. 
 Before the Hotel-Dieu, which was quite close to the 
 Clocher Vieux, was destroyed, the gusts of wind were 
 so violent that the passage called U Ane qui inelle had 
 the reputation of being impassable. One Canon Brillon, 
 a hundred years ago, wrote a poem in which he related 
 that ' On a time Wind and Discordwere travelling over 
 the plains of La Beauce and suddenly turned in the 
 direction of the Cathedral. Arrived at the foot of the 
 towers. Discord left his companion, asking him to wait 
 near V Ane qui inelle whilst he went into the Chapter- 
 house. Contentious business detained him there so long 
 that the Wind is still waiting, waiting for him outside ; 
 
 Le Vent dehors I'attenH encore !' 
 
 As I Struggle through Old Palace Yard I often wonder 
 whether it is in the House of Commons or in the 
 Chapter-house of the Abbey that Discord is so busily 
 engaged, for the wind here, as in Chartres and at Kill- 
 Cannon Corner at Lincoln, is always waiting outside, a 
 truly Gothic draught!* 
 
 The western porch is composed of three large bays, 
 of which the middle one was, as always in Christian 
 churches, known as the Porte Royale. This name 
 was given it because in the tympanum Christ was always 
 represented triumphant, the King of Kings. Nor, as 
 you gaze at the wealth of statuary and ornamentation 
 upon which, as upon the architecture, the artists have 
 lavished all their resources and all their skill in their 
 
 * The same legend is connected with the Imp of Lincoln and 
 also with one of the churches at Rome. 
 
 127
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 endeavour to illustrate the Story of the Triumph of Our 
 Lord, will you grudge this entrance its other names of 
 Porta Speciosa and Porta Triumphalis. The sculp- 
 tured figures are of every size. Once the whole porch 
 was a blaze of colour. Of this colour and gold you 
 may still see a few traces left. 
 
 Begun about iiio, under S. Ives, this typical ex- 
 ample of early Gothic work was not completed till 
 nearly 1 1 50, and among those who wrought the images 
 which people it were, some think, the artists who had 
 worked at the Porch of S. Sermin at Toulouse, and 
 knew that of S. Trophimus at Aries. 
 
 They would thus connect it with the art of the South, 
 and, through that, with Roman art. It appears to me 
 rather to be directly under the influence and inspiration 
 of Byzantine art. There is to one's eye something 
 Eastern in this work as surely as there is something 
 Eastern also to one's ear in the rhythms of a Gregorian 
 chant. • However that may be, nowhere, at any rate, 
 has the story of Christ's Triumph been told so fully 
 and with such a wealth of detail in stone as at 
 Chartres. We are shown here not only His triumph 
 but the events which led up to it. The whole Gospel 
 is revealed to the gaze of the Christian who is about to 
 enter the house of the Lord. The story is taken from 
 the apocryphal as well as the canonical Gospels. It 
 begins with the scenes represented by the thirty-eight 
 miniature groups of the capitals, the figures of which, in 
 spite of their small size and occasional lack of propor- 
 tion, are full llife and interest. The first series starts 
 northwards from the central doorway, and here the 
 chisel literally reproduces the legend of S. Joachim and 
 S. Anne and the Birth of the Virgin : then follows the 
 story of Joseph and Mary and the Nativity of Our 
 Lord, up to the episode of the Massacre of the Inno- 
 cents. This brings us to the Clocher Neuf. We must 
 128
 
 The Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 now return to the right hand portion of the central 
 doorway, and take up the story again, moving in the 
 direction of the Clocher Vieux. The events recorded, 
 up to the last appearance of Jesus to His disciples on the 
 Mount of Olives, it is hardly necessary to enumerate. 
 
 Thus in this rich stone compendium of the Christian 
 story even the capitals of the pillars, which we are 
 accustomed to see adorned only with foliage, flowers, 
 fantastic figures and mere patterns, have been pressed 
 into the service of the teller of the tale, and recount in 
 petto scenes from the life of Christ upon earth. We 
 have been shown Him expected, prophesied, prefigured 
 and again realising the prophecies and fulfilling all the 
 acts of His divine mission. If we look now above, in 
 the tympanums of the three doorways, we shall find the 
 triumph, joys and glory of the life to come portrayed, 
 and the crowning of religion in the person of its Chief. 
 First of all, in the tympanum of the left bay, we have 
 His Last Coming. 
 
 The artists of the Middle Ages never omit the scene 
 of the Last Judgment from the western facade of their 
 churches ; but, curiously enough, the Last Judgment 
 before us is always interpreted as an Ascension or a 
 Descent into Hell, and writers have been exercised to 
 explain the omission of what after all has not been 
 omitted. 
 
 Not only is a Last Judgment required here, but any 
 other explanation of the sculpture fails to suit the atti- 
 tude of the figures represented. The tympanum is 
 divided into three sections. In the upper portion 
 Christ is standing upright on a ground of fire or cloud. 
 His right hand is raised. His left lowered. Two angels 
 accompany Him, whose pose is not symmetrical, as 
 would be that of censing angels, for Christ is saying to 
 the angel on the right, ' Come, ye blessed of My Father,' 
 and to the angel on the left, ' Depart from Me, ye who 
 I 129
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 work iniquity.' In the central section are four angels 
 emerging from the clouds. Their open mouths, and 
 the gestures of their arms, one beckoning, the other 
 pointing above, indicate that they are heavenly messen- 
 gers, who have come * to gather together the elect from 
 the four winds.' And below them, gazing heavenward 
 in holy calm and happiness, sit the Apostles, chosen to 
 judge the twelve tribes of Israel. They are clad in 
 long robes and mantles with borders of pearls after the 
 Byzantine fashion. There is room for only ten of 
 them on the lintel (which is nearly 9 feet broad), 
 and several of them are mutilated. We may regret but 
 we cannot wonder that many of the seven hundred statues 
 have suffered more or less from the hand of Time or of 
 men. There is more reason to be amazed that for over 
 seven hundred years they have so successfully escaped 
 the perils of war and of sacrilege that have threatened 
 them. 
 
 In the vaulting of this doorway are the signs of the 
 months and the signs of the Zodiac which roughly 
 correspond with them. But since there was room for 
 only ten of the latter, the remaining two were inserted 
 in the vaulting of the right bay, where they are really 
 out of place. Here they suggest the meaning that 
 Christ is of all time, ' the same yesterday, and to-day 
 and for ever.' 
 
 The Cathedral can boast five such almanacs, 
 which it may be found interesting to compare — three 
 in the porches, one in a window of the south aisle of 
 the choir, and one (sixteenth century) on the clock of 
 the choir screen. 
 
 Mediaeval masons followed the example of Pagan 
 antiquity, and like the architects of Persia, Egypt, 
 Greece, Italy, India and Mexico, loved to trace upon 
 their holy buildings the allegories of Time, whether in 
 the form of the personification of the twelve months, 
 130
 
 The Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 of the four seasons, or the twelve signs of the Zodiac. 
 The months are symbolised with extraordinary clever- 
 ness of detail, in a manner at once naive and effective, 
 by the recreations and employments to which they lend 
 themselves. 
 
 The zodiacal signs are given in the verses of 
 Ausonius : — 
 
 ' Sunt Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, 
 Libraque, Scorpius, Arcitenens, Caper, Amphora, Pisces.' 
 
 And as to the months, they, in the quatrain attri- 
 buted to the venerable Bede, describe themselves as 
 follows : — 
 
 ' Poto — ligna cremo — de vite superflua demo ; 
 Do gramen gratum — mihi flos servit — mihi pratum : 
 Fenum Heclino — messes meto — vina propino; 
 Semen humi jacto — pasco sues, — immolo porcos.' * 
 
 The studious visitor may compare the treatment of 
 them in the windows and porch at Chartres with that 
 which they receive at Venice, Reims, Verona, Sens, 
 Amiens, Bruges and the Llnglish churches. 
 
 In the tympanum of the right-hand doorway the 
 Virgin (1150) sits, crowned and throned, a sceptre in 
 her hand, sharing the triumph of her Son, The Holy 
 Child is in the act of blessing the world, and on either 
 side are two archangels, censing. Beneath are the 
 chief scenes of the life of Mary — the Annunciation, 
 Visitation, Nativity, appearance of the Angels to the 
 Shepherds and the Presentation of Christ in the 
 Temple ; and above, in the vaulting which forms the 
 frame of this picture, are, in one row, six archangels 
 carrying incense in honour of Mary, and, in the other, 
 the seven Liberal Arts, each of them symbolised by 
 
 * I drink — burn wood — prune vines — give grass — flowers — 
 field sports — hay — Iiarvest — vintage — sow corn — fatten swine on 
 acorns — kill swine. 
 
 131
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 two statuettes, the one representing the inventor or 
 paragon, the other the allegory of the art. Here, 
 then, as at Laon, Sens, Auxerre and many other 
 places, we have the carved expression of the opinion 
 of Albertus Magnus, that in Music (Pythagoras), 
 Dialectic (Aristotle), Rhetoric (Cicero), Geometry 
 (Euclid), Arithmetic (Nichomachus), Astronomy 
 (Ptolemy), and Grammar (Priscian), in all the know- 
 ledge of the Middle Ages, in fact, the Virgin Mary 
 was well skilled. 
 
 The tympanums of the right and the left bays have 
 both suffered much from years : they are blurred and 
 defaced with age, and it is perhaps partly for this 
 reason that, in spite of many fine points, they seem 
 inferior, crude even, by the side of the tympanum of 
 the central bay. 
 
 This is one of the most beautiful masterpieces of 
 medijEval statuary. In the centre is the risen Christ, 
 enthroned, triumphant, yet full of mercy and tenderness. 
 An aureole is about His head, His feet are set upon 
 the footstool of the earth. With an infinite pity, it 
 would seem. He beholds and blesses the thousands 
 who for seven hundred years pass, and have passed, 
 beneath Him into the Cathedral. With one hand He 
 blesses, with the other He holds the book sealed with 
 the seven seals. He is there, clad in an antique 
 mantle, which falls in a cascade of folds about His 
 naked feet, a bearded Christ, with long, straight hair, 
 and an expression of sweet gravity, and the artist has 
 succeeded somehow in convincing us that this is the 
 Christ expected and foretold, fulfilling the past as He 
 will fulfil the future, and reigning for ever in time upon 
 earth, and hereafter for ever beyond time in heaven. 
 Above Him two angels hold a large crown, destined 
 for the eternal King of the Ages. 
 
 He is surrounded by the four-winged symbols of the 
 132
 
 The Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 evangelists. On the lintel, as if on the first step of 
 the throne, are grouped beneath an arcade, and in 
 pairs, as they were sent forth to preach the Gospel, 
 the twelve Apostles. And, to complete the scene from 
 the Apocalypse, in the rows of the vaulting above, are 
 the twelve angels and the heavenly choir of four-and 
 twenty elders, having every one of them a different 
 and curious mediaeval instrument of music. They are 
 clothed in white raiment, and on their heads are crowns 
 of gold.* 
 
 They form, as it were, a living halo round the King 
 of Ages, in a picture of incomparable grandeur and 
 simplicity, the conception of which reveals not only 
 the genius of art, but also, and, above all, the genius of 
 faith. 
 
 But we have not yet completed the tale of the 
 western porch. It yet remains to mention those 
 strange colossal figures, which are by far the most 
 beautiful and remarkable among all these 
 
 ' Dedicated shapes of saints and kings, 
 Stern faces bleared with immemorial watch.' 
 
 These curious figures, these seven kings and seven 
 prophets and five queens, these nineteen survivors 
 of the twenty - four once here, with their thin, 
 elongated bodies, their small heads, their Eastern 
 drapery, their anatomical faults, and their haunting 
 faces, may strike you at first as unattractive, bizarre. 
 But nothing is more certain than that, if you study 
 them, you will find in them an unutterable beauty and 
 an ineffable charm. For this is the most spiritual and 
 fascinating sculpture in the world, wrought with an 
 infinite delicacy and an inimitable cleverness of detail, 
 by the hands of artists who were consummate in their 
 craft, and had learned, if not the perfection of form of 
 * Revelation, chaps, iv., v. 
 
 135
 
 T^he Story of Chartres 
 
 m^- 
 
 
 PILASTER OF THE ROYAL 
 PORCH. 
 
 the old Greeks, yet the secret, 
 as it has been said, of spiritual- 
 ising matter. 
 
 The figures stand upright, 
 with an air of inviolable repose, 
 beneath canopies like that of the 
 Angel-sundial, heavenly Jerusa- 
 lems, miniature Zions. Their 
 hands are glued to their sides, 
 their drapery falls, in most cases, 
 in straight parallel folds ; a halo 
 is, or has been, behind the head 
 of each. They are clad in the 
 long, rich robes of the East. 
 Over some of these a kind of 
 dalmatic reaches to the knees. 
 The girdles and the broidered 
 robes, the arrangement of the 
 sleeves and veils, and the 
 jewellery of the crowns they 
 wear, all demand the closest 
 study. The hard stone has 
 been handled with such precision 
 and such feeling that you might 
 almost fancy it, here, a delicate 
 brocade, and there, a necklace 
 of veritable jewels. You could 
 almost untie the knots of those 
 girdles, unplait almost the long 
 braided tresses of those mystic 
 queens. And the heads of these 
 silent watchers, who have waited 
 here and watched, with ever the 
 same living smile about their thin, 
 ironical Gallic lips, are portraits 
 startling in their lifelike reality.
 
 The Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 The bare feet rest upon pedestals which are not the 
 least exquisite portions of these sculptured monoliths. 
 For they are richly ornamented with carved chequer- 
 work, so delicately chiselled as to seem the work, of a 
 goldsmith rather than a mason ; mosaic patterns, which, 
 like the borders of the stained-glass windows, betray 
 the influence of the East through the medium of the 
 Crusades. An exception, however, must be made in 
 the case of the three first statues of the left bay, next 
 to the Clocher Neuf. These have no halo, and the 
 pedestals on which they rest their feet are groups of 
 enigmatic beings. The first, a king who has been 
 given by some modern restorer a thirteenth-century 
 Virgin's head, treads underfoot a man, now scarce 
 recognisable, enfolded by two serpents ; the second, a 
 king also, rests upon a woman, who holds with one 
 hand the tail of a dragon, on which she is trampling, 
 and with the other she fingers a tress of her long, 
 plaited hair ; the third, a queen of grosser type, but 
 very richly clad, has beneath her feet a curious group, 
 composed of a large ape, two dragons, a toad, a dog 
 and a basilisk with a monkey's face. 
 
 It has been supposed that this group represents the 
 benefactors of the Cathedral, William the Conqueror, 
 Henry the First and Queen Matilda. But this ex- 
 planation, like that of the last-named group as repre- 
 senting the Deadly Sins, is mere conjecture. Nor 
 can we do more than name as kings, prophets and 
 queens the remaining sixteen statues which line the 
 porch. The fourth and fifth, counting from the 
 Clocher Neuf, are prophets, Isaiah and Daniel per- 
 haps, according to the suggestions of M. I'Abbe 
 Bulteau : the eighth, ninth and tenth, Ezekiel, James- 
 the-Less and Thadda-us ; the eleventh, thirteenth and 
 fourteenth, kings with missals and sceptres in their 
 hands, may be Edward the Confessor, Charlemagne 
 
 137
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 and Cnut ; the fifteenth, 
 S. Paul ; the sixteenth, 
 a haloed, virgin king, 
 beardless, and full of the 
 holy charm and freshness 
 of youth, S. Henry 
 (1024) ; the seven- 
 teenth, S. Peter ; the 
 eighteenth, S. Constan- 
 tine ; the last, a queen, 
 much defaced, like 
 several of the others, 
 Pulcheria, beloved of 
 the Byzantines. 
 
 There yet remains 
 the sixth, seventh and 
 twelfth of the statues, 
 the absorbing, seductive, 
 inexpressible queens of 
 the central bay. Her 
 sexless shape, the book 
 in her hands, her ex- 
 pectant gaze, rapt as it 
 were in a vision of the 
 ages, proclaim the first 
 to be a nun rather than 
 a queen, albeit she is 
 clad in royal raiment ; 
 — S. Radegonde, Queen 
 of France (582), 
 Bulteau suggests. 
 
 The second is 
 younger, and her beauty 
 of a more earthly type. 
 She wears a halo, and 
 is clad like the other, 
 
 PILASTER OK THE ROYAL PORCH.
 
 The Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 save that she has no mantle, and her head is not 
 shrouded in a veil. Her long hair falls in two plaits 
 over her shoulders, and the tight-drawn body ot her 
 garment reveals the curves of her figure. Her ex- 
 pression is that of a rebellious, artful and vindictive 
 nature, and, if she is rightly supposed to be Queen 
 Clotilde, she is, as M. Huysmans * remarks, Clotilde 
 before her repentance, the Queen before the saint. 
 
 The last, the angelic mysterious queen with the 
 sweet, ingenuous smile, and the great deep eyes, is, 
 according to local tradition. Bertha aux grands pieds^ 
 mother of Charlemagne. Her right hand once lay 
 open upon her breast, and there it has left its impres- 
 sion. In the left hand she carried a sceptre, ter- 
 minating in an ornament that still remains. She is 
 clad in sumptuous raiment, most delicate in texture, 
 and fringed with lace. Her figure is elongated, so 
 that she seems to be like some rare lily swaying 
 forward on its stalk. And thus, beneath her eyebrows 
 slightly raised, she smiles down upon the visitor in the 
 childlike grace of her chaste simplicity, saintement 
 gamine. 
 
 Of the other statues that complete the company of 
 Christ — martyrs, prophets and patron saints of donors 
 in the jambs of the doorways, or between the other 
 figures — I shall only call attention to the merchant on 
 the right pier of the Porte Royale, who is being robbed 
 by the earliest cut-purse in mediaeval sculpture, and to 
 the name Rogerus, cut above the broken head of an 
 adjacent butcher. Was this the architect Roger who 
 built the Tour-Gr'tse at Dreux, and who was then 
 chosen by S. Ives to build this western porch ? 
 
 M. Bulteau suggests the question. But it cannot 
 be answered. 
 
 Over the three doorways two pilasters with simple 
 
 * La Cathedralc.
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 mouldings run up on either side of the central window 
 as far as the rose, terminating in symbolic carvings — 
 the northern one in the head of an ox, representative 
 of sacrifice, symbolising here, it is said, the abolition of 
 Judaism, with its sacrifices and cult ; the southern one 
 in that of a lion holding a man's head, which is the 
 Lion of the tribe of Judah, and here symbolises Christ 
 triumphant in the hearts of men. 
 
 The two towers, the old spire, and the western 
 porch described, together with the west front up to 
 the rose-window, including, therefore, the three enor- 
 mous windows (34 feet by 13 feet, and 28 feet by 9 feet), 
 and their unrivalled treasure of twelfth-century glass, 
 which, through repeated dangers, has been preserved 
 to us, are all that remain of the Church of Fulbert, 
 rebuilt by S. Ives. 
 
 For in 1 194, when Regnault de Mougon was bishop, 
 and when they were about to begin the spire of the 
 Clocher Neuf, the Cathedral was destroyed by fire. 
 Mirabil't et mlserabd't incendio devastata, says a manu- 
 script of the year 12 10, now in the Vatican, and Jehan 
 le Marchand in his Book of Miracles writes of this 
 year : — 
 
 ' A Chartres prist en la cite 
 
 Un feu qui ne fu pas a geus, 
 
 Car trop fu grant et domageus . . . 
 
 Moult fu grant douleur dou veoir 
 
 Telle iglise ardoir et cheoir.' 
 
 It is worth while to quote this and other accounts 
 because the patriotic desire to see in the present build- 
 ing the Cathedral of Fulbert has led to some unpardon- 
 able garbling of evidence, with a view to concealing 
 the fact of this fire. 
 
 Guillaume-le-Breton, who died in 1226, records in 
 his Latin poem, ' The Fhilippide,' written in honour 
 of King Philippe-Auguste, that the church was burnt 
 1 40
 
 The Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 at this time. ' It was so ordered,' he infers, ' in order 
 that the present church might be built and shine in its 
 unequalled splendour.* For the former one was not 
 yet worthy to be called the " mestre maison de Marie." 
 Completely rebuilt of hewn stone, and covered through- 
 out its whole length by a roof as it had been by the 
 shell of a tortoise, it now need have nothing to fear 
 from fire till the day of judgment. And from that 
 fire springeth the salvation of the many by whose 
 efforts the Cathedral was rebuilt.' 
 
 The account of another contemporary, William of 
 Newbridge, the chronicler of the wars of Philippe- 
 Auguste and of our Richard, whose lion-heart lies in 
 the tomb at the Cathedral of Rouen, gives another 
 explanation of the burning, and incidentally throws a 
 vivid light upon the state of the country at that time. 
 
 ' The troops of King Philippe,' he says, ' had re- 
 tired precipitately from Evreux on the approach of 
 King Richard. Now the King of the French, to 
 wipe out the dishonour of this shameful retreat, threw 
 himself with implacable fury on Evreux, which he had 
 already sacked a short time before. He did not even 
 spare the Church of S. Taurin, so famous in that 
 country. He gave orders, indeed, that it should be 
 given to the flames, and, as no one in his army would, 
 for fear of God, execute so sacrilegious a command, 
 the King himself, it is said, with some abandoned men 
 called Ribauds, entered the sacred edifice and set fire 
 to it. It is said, further, that he transferred to Chartres 
 the spoils of the Church of S. Taurin ; but these 
 spoils were as fire to that famous city. It fell, in con- 
 sequence, a prey to the flames, and was almost com- 
 pletely destroyed.' 
 
 All the inhabitants of the town, we learn from the 
 author of the Book of Miracles, clergy and laymen 
 
 * ' Cui toto par nulla hodie splendescit in orbe.' — Book IV. 
 
 141
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 alike, lost all their houses and their wealth in this 
 disastrous conflagration. Yet their distress at their 
 own losses was as nothing compared with their grief 
 at the destruction of the church. But when the Sainte 
 Chdsse, containing the precious relic which they called 
 
 ' la gemme 
 Et la gloire de leur cite ' 
 
 could no more be seen, their sorrow passed all bounds. 
 Bitter tears filled their eyes, and they cried aloud that 
 the glory of Chartres and of the whole country side 
 was departed. They despaired of their town, and 
 were ready to quit forever the homes which they no 
 longer had the heart to rebuild. 
 
 But the legate of the Pope, Melior, Cardinal of 
 Pisa, who happened to be at Chartres, summoned the 
 bishop and Chapter, and called upon them to take 
 courage and to begin rebuilding their Cathedral. He 
 exhorted them to fast and pray that their sins, which 
 had brought upon them this calamity, might be for- 
 given, and to set an example to the laity by emptying 
 their purses, 
 
 ' Por loer ovriers et majons 
 gui sache bien et tout ovrer.' 
 
 His eloquence met with such success that the bishop 
 and his clergy devoted the greater part of their incomes 
 for three years to the work of rebuilding and paying 
 those ' skilled labourers and masons.' 
 
 Next he called together all the people, and exhorted 
 them also to devote themselves to the task. And 
 when he had finished speaking there emerged from the 
 depths of the crypt some devoted clerks, bringing with 
 them the holy casket and its priceless contents, ' the 
 true mirror and the precious treasure,' which all 
 thought had been destroyed. The people fell on 
 142
 
 T/zf Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 their knees in a transport of delight, weeping tears of 
 gratitude and joy. For a miracle had been wrought. 
 As Jonah was kept from harm three days in the belly 
 of the whale, as Noah was preserved from the flood 
 and Daniel from the lion's jaws, so these devout 
 servants of the Lord had been saved alive in the 
 deep recesses of the martyrium, ' in the grotto near the 
 altar which the men of old had prudently constructed,' 
 whither they had retired with the Veil, and had lived 
 unharmed and unafraid, whilst the walls and roofs of 
 the Cathedral fell about their ears, and the molten bells 
 and glass surged in a fiery flood around them. 
 
 Their appearance gave point to the eloquence of the 
 cardinal. All classes, in gratitude, devoted themselves 
 to rebuilding the Cathedral. And, in order that 
 resources might not be lacking, in order that pilgrims 
 might come from far and near, bringing money and 
 labour to supplement the contributions of the Chapter 
 and people, a series of miracles was wrought.* 
 
 It appears, says the chronicler Jehan de Marchand, 
 with whose poetical legends, let me advertise the reader, 
 I shall fill the remainder of this chapter, that the first 
 miracle which roused the enthusiasm of the people was 
 the healing of a little child of Le Perche, young 
 Guillot. His tongue had been cruelly cut out by a 
 
 * ' La haute dame glorieuse 
 Qui voloit avoir merveilleuse 
 Iglise et haute et longue et lee 
 Si que sa per ne fu trouee 
 Son douz fils pria doucement 
 Que miracles apertement 
 En son iglise a Chartres feist 
 Que touz le peuples le veist 
 Si que de toutes pars venissent 
 Gens qui offerendes tant feissent 
 Que achevee fust siglise 
 Qui estoit a faire emprise.' 
 
 L'fvre lies M'nades, p. 32.
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 knight whom he had surprised in an intrigue. Poor 
 and mutilated, the orphan lad fled to Chartres to beg 
 his bread. Kneeling there, on Shrove Tuesday, before 
 the altar of Our Lady, he burst suddenly into loud praise 
 of God, albeit he was tongueless. All the people when 
 they heard him were filled with amazement. They 
 crowded to the scene of his healing to render thanks 
 and make their offerings before the altar, whilst the 
 boy, that he might not be stifled by the crowd, was 
 placed upon a scaffolding near the Chasse of S. Lubin. 
 And the Virgin, ' qui voloit la chose parfeire,' obtained 
 for him that on the day of Pentecost he should receive 
 a new tongue. ' This child,' says the author, ' object 
 of a double miracle, is still living in our midst.' 
 
 At the news of these marvels multitudes began to 
 come together from every part, bringing waggons and 
 carts laden with corn, wine, iron and all things useful 
 or necessary for the building of the church. Jewels 
 also and precious things they brought. The devotional 
 enthusiasm of 1145 was repeated. The marvellous 
 spectacles presented to-day by the Grotto of Lourdes 
 were seen then at Chartres. 
 
 ' Undique dona ferunt burgenses atque coloni, 
 Pontifices, clerus cum militibus dare pronis !' 
 
 So great was the crowd of pilgrims that they were 
 obliged to pass the night in their carts about the 
 Cathedral, for they could not all find shelter within 
 the Cathedral, and the clerks coming to perform their 
 offices therein could not for the press make their way 
 into the cloister.* 
 
 * ' Lors vindrent gens de totes pars 
 Qui en charrestes et en chars 
 Grans dons a I'iglise aportoient 
 Qui a I'ceuvre mestier avoient . . . 
 Tant y venoit de pelerins 
 Et par voi'es et par chemins 
 144
 
 The Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 These pilgrims were but one wave on the ocean 
 of Catholic devotion : pilgrims, whether kings like 
 Charles, coming to replace an image disiigured by 
 profane Huguenots, or courtiers bringing with them the 
 very presence and perfume of the Paris of their day, 
 or pious wanderers from the remotest provinces of 
 France and from strange lands beyond the seas, scholars 
 from the universities and weather-beaten travellers from 
 the New Continent, with outlandish offerings to Our 
 Lady, they wash forever against the hospitable shores 
 of Chartres, and break peacefully upon the gray cliffs 
 of the Cathedral. A trace of their offerings, stranded 
 on the shores of time, is to be found in the coins dug 
 up in the Butte des Charbonniers in 1846, now in the 
 Musce ; coins which range in date from the earliest 
 days of the Roman occupation down to the latter part 
 of the sixteenth century, and which bear the super- 
 scription of innumerable kings and dukes and princes of 
 various climes. 
 
 Of the wave of pilgrims which now occupies our 
 attention you may see a record, in the first window in 
 the clerestory of the choir on the north side. There, 
 beneath a Virgin enthroned and the blazon of the 
 bishop, Regnault de Mougon, are two groups which 
 show what manner of men were they who came to 
 swell the tide of workers for Our Lady of Chartres, 
 and through whose aid, says the chronicler, the piers, 
 the vaults and the altars of the Cathedral rose as if 
 by magic. 
 
 The Chapter was not content to sit idly and wait for 
 
 Que c'estoit une grand merveille, 
 Chacune nuit fesoient veille 
 Et en avoit tant en I'iglise . . . 
 Si que li clerc qui a matines 
 De nuit a I'iglise venolent 
 Entrer ou cloitre ne poaient.' 
 
 K 145
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 miracles. They had recourse to human means. To 
 obtain contributions towards the expense of this mestre 
 ma'tson de la Reine des Cieux, they sent priests afar to 
 collect in all the countries and cathedrals of Europe. 
 Now a young Englishman who had been studying in 
 the schools of Paris and was returning home passed 
 by Soissons by chance and entered the church. A 
 Chartrain preacher was describing in eloquent and 
 touching terms the disasters that had befallen Notre- 
 Dame of Chartres. The audience was so moved by 
 his eloquence that they all emptied their purses in 
 response to his appeal. But the young Englishman 
 had nothing to give except a golden necklace, which 
 he intended for the girl he loved in London. Moved 
 by the words of the preacher, after a long struggle, he 
 made the offering of this necklace and, leaving Soissons, 
 set out for the sea, passing the night in the barn of a 
 friendly innkeeper, for, as we have seen, he was penni- 
 less. Overwhelmed with fatigue, he fell asleep upon 
 the straw. But in the dead of night the barn was 
 filled with a celestial light, and, waking, he beheld three 
 women of rare beauty, one of whom revealed herself to 
 him as the Lady of Chartres. Then she restored to 
 him his necklace, and he vowed to consecrate himself 
 to her service. He returned to his own country, 
 
 'A Londres dont il fu nais, ' 
 
 and after taking leave of his parents, withdrew to a 
 desert island, where he lived the chaste life of a hermit 
 and enjoyed the ineffable bliss of communion with his 
 fair visitant. 
 
 Richard Coeur-de-Lion, King of England, when he 
 heard of this miracle, conceived a great veneration for 
 the Church of Chartres, and, although he was at that 
 time at war with Philippe-Auguste, he welcomed, 
 encouraged and endowed with alms the emissaries of 
 1 46
 
 The Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 the Chapter, gave them safe conduct through his lands, 
 and himself did obeisance before the sacred coffer and 
 its relics. It was he who told the tale of this miraculous 
 vision to his sister. Countess of Blois, and he loved to 
 speak of it to the faithful on every occasion. 
 
 Thus the solemn voice of the Church, through the 
 agency of these emissaries, made itself heard throughout 
 the land, promising ' indulgences ' to those who re- 
 sponded generously to her appeals, and threatening 
 with anathemas those who dared to pillage the convoys 
 of the pilgrims. The inhabitants of Chateau-Landon, 
 as our poet relates, stirred, man and woman alike, by 
 the discourse of their pastor, resolved to load a waggon 
 with wheat and take it to aid the workers at Chartres. 
 They yoked themselves to the waggon and began to 
 pull with all their strength, but the road was so heavy 
 that they made but slow progress. Ere they reached 
 Chartres they ran short of provisions. The villagers 
 gave them bread out of their small store, and behold, 
 the loaves of bread were multiplied unto them, and they 
 found, when they had eaten, that the villagers had as 
 many loaves as they had had at first. 
 
 The inhabitants of Bonneval, of Puiset, of Pithivicrs 
 and of Corbeville, filled with a like spirit and parting 
 on a like errand, experienced similar miracles, thanks to 
 ' la dame, qui est salu de cors et d'ame.' 
 
 The Bretons, also, who were established at Chartres 
 in the street called La Bretonnerie, n>et together and 
 decided to go out together to Berch^res-l'Kveque and 
 bring back as their tribute a waggon-load of stone, a 
 task in which none but a Breton born should take a 
 hand. They set out, therefore, one evening, every 
 man of them who could help with collar or trace, but 
 ere they could regain the town with their burden the 
 sun went down behind a thick bank of clouds ; there 
 was no moon nor any light, but in marvellous wise an 
 
 147
 
 T'he Story of Chartres 
 
 obscure and dreadful night was upon them. The 
 unhappy pilgrims soon lost their path, and wandered 
 astray over the vast plains of La Beauce. Blind terror 
 seized their hearts, but God sent three brands of 
 flaming fire before them to lighten their way. Re- 
 joicing and amazed, they regained the road to Chartres, 
 whose iglise et la tour (church and the tower) were 
 rendered visible by these heavenly torches. Then 
 they deposited their offering and spread abroad the 
 news of the miracle which they had beheld. 
 
 Of another sort was the marvellous deliverance of a 
 rich merchant of Aquitaine, who, whilst he was bringing 
 on his horse a barrel of oil for the lamps of Notre- 
 Dame, was made prisoner by the English soldiers of 
 Coeur-de-Lion. To him, in answer to his prayer, the 
 Virgin appeared, and she enabled him to pass out of 
 the prison into which he had been thrown, without the 
 knowledge of his gaolers. 
 
 The fame of these and other wonders of the sort, 
 narrated by the pilgrims and repeated by the inhabitants 
 of the town, soon filled the countryside and spread to 
 the more distant provinces. The renown of tlie Church 
 of Chartres filled the land and reached beyond the 
 seas. In La Beauce every hamlet was eager to con- 
 tribute something to its glory. Those who had no 
 possessions to oflTer gave their services loading and 
 drawing vehicles : the roads were crowded with these 
 humble servants of the Lord. The blind, the dumb, 
 the lame and the halt awaited in each village the 
 passing of the pilgrims and besought to be allowed to 
 join their company. Rich and poor, all came to 
 Chartres with their offerings, so that, in the words of the 
 chronicler, money came to support the workmen, rather 
 from the hand of Providence than human purses.* 
 
 * The window which recorded in a series of medallions many 
 of these miracles has been sadly mutilated (south aisle). 
 148
 
 The Cathedral and Its Builders 
 
 The deduction of the historian from the legends of 
 our Trouvere is one which we shall find illustrated by 
 the Cathedral windows. It is, that this Cathedral is a 
 popular and national monument, built by the free 
 labour of the people gathered together freely from all 
 parts of France, joining and rejoicing in the new 
 democratic movement of the Communes, and recording, 
 therefore, in stone and glass their new aspirations, their 
 new dignity. 
 
 149
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 SVLediceval Glass and ^SMedicsvai Guilds 
 
 'I gaze round on the windows, pride of France ! 
 Each the bright gift of some mechanic guild, 
 Who loved their city and thought gold well spent 
 To make her beautiful with piety.' 
 
 James Russell Lowfll. 
 
 'Fine coloured windows of several works.' 
 
 Francis Bacon. 
 
 THERE are in the Cathedral one hundred and 
 seventy-five stained-glass lights, ' storied windows 
 richly dight,' and of these almost *all date from the 
 thirteenth century. Remembering the glass of the 
 following century in S. Pere and the later windows of 
 S. Aignan, we shall not care to dispute the claim of 
 Chartres to be the locus classkus of medieval glass. 
 
 The three western windows of limpid blue belong, 
 as we have said, to the twelfth century. And we 
 know that by the year 1220 all the great legendary 
 lights of the nave and all the windows of the choir, 
 with the exception of those given by S. Piedmont of 
 Castile and Jeanne de Dammartin, had been placed in 
 the bays. Almost all the original glazing remains. There 
 is, of course, fine thirteenth-century glass in England, 
 at Canterbury for instance, and at Lincoln, whilst 
 Salisbury and York are scarcely to be surpassed for the 
 pale beauty of their silvery grisailles. But we have 
 nothing in this country to compare in quantity, and 
 therefore in effect, with the gorgeous glass which 
 150
 
 <S[IedJaval Glass and ^Mediceval Guilds 
 
 illustrates the great French churches. It is at Reims, 
 Le Mans and Bourges, and most of all at Chartres, 
 that are to be found the largest and most complete and 
 therefore the most gorgeous galleries of the deep, rich 
 mosaic glass of that date. At Chartres, throughout 
 the whole vast expanse of jewelled lights, there is 
 scarcely one that is not early, and there are very few 
 that are not of the thirteenth century. 
 
 Consider the list of them now as they have come 
 down to us across the ages, in spite of fires and sieges, 
 artists and vandals, cleansing and restoring, in spite of 
 the winds that sweep across La Beauce and the desire 
 of the people to read : in spite even of the eighteenth- 
 century architects and their eagerness to throw day- 
 light upon their abominable deeds. This is the 
 reckoning: — One hundred and twenty -four great 
 windows, three great roses, thirty-five lesser roses, and 
 twelve small ones ! And in these are painted 3889 
 figures, including thirty-two contemporary historical 
 personages, a crowd of saints and prophets in thirty- 
 eight separate legends, and groups of tradesmen in the 
 costumes of their guilds. This is the national portrait 
 gallery of medieval France ! It is one of the most 
 precious documents of mediaeval archaeology. It is 
 one of the most rich and poetical applications of 
 symbolic art. 
 
 Amazing, unspeakable are the glories of this un- 
 rivalled treasure of stained glass. ' I gaze round on the 
 windows, pride of France ! ' Language is futile in the 
 presence of their rich, deep, gem-like colouring, and the 
 memory of them, faint though it must be, compared with 
 the intense impression conveyed by the immense reality, 
 makes the tongue to falter, the pen to fail. 
 
 ' I gaze round on the windows, pride of France !' 
 
 The building is Aladdin's cave, and the glass a
 
 T'he Story of Chartres 
 
 myriad jewels set in lead lines and in tracery of stone ! 
 But metaphors are unavailing, epithets are quite power- 
 less to convey the beauty of the light which pours 
 through them. It is as marvellous, and it changes as 
 unceasingly as the ever-changing hues of a sunset on the 
 western shores of Scotland, or on the iridescent waters 
 of the Venetian lagoons. And it is even more brilliant 
 than these. When the noonday sun is darting his angry 
 rays across the aisles, or soft rain-laden beams streak 
 the spaces with stripes of bloom ; when the shades of 
 evening have begun to fall, or when the dawn is gather- 
 ing strength, and is now lighting the dim distances of 
 the vast nave, you may sit and gaze round on those 
 windows. You watch the wine-red, the blood-red, 
 the yellow and the brown of the Rose of France and 
 the lancet lights beneath, till the memory of all other 
 beauty upon earth fades in the intoxication of that 
 stupendous colouring. You turn at last, and, since no 
 memory, however vivid, can retain to the full the im- 
 pression of the beauty of that glass, you are startled 
 into another ecstasy. For you have forgotten that 
 there can be other windows as beautiful. You cannot 
 believe that there are other colours as exquisite, until 
 you see once more those blues and greens, ultramarines 
 and peacock blues and azures, and those fieiy reds 
 which shine in upon the astonished sight from the 
 windows of the south transept and the aisles. And 
 still there remain the lights of the choir and the apse, 
 and still the old glories, ever new, of the azure of the 
 western lancets, the sapphires and rubies of the western 
 rose. 
 
 The reds, like those at Reims, are everywhere 
 wonderful ; the saffron also and the citron yellows, the 
 brown and the emerald green ; but most superbly beauti- 
 ful of all are the blues, the lucid transparent azure of 
 the twelfth-century lancets, and the deep sapphire, the 
 152
 
 iSileduevai Glass and <^ediaval Guilds 
 
 blue of Poitiers, which fills the lower windows of the 
 nave. The secret of its manufacture is lost, but you 
 can understand, when you behold it, how easily that 
 story was believed which said that in order to secure 
 this depth of blue the monkish glaziers used to grind 
 sapphires to powder and mix them with their glass. 
 There is only one thing that can be compared with the 
 stained glass of the North, and that is the mosaics of the 
 South, of Ravenna, Palermo, San Sofia. 
 
 You * gaze round on those windows, the pride of 
 France,' and as you feast your eyes upon the sparkling 
 azure and the blood-red rays that stream from the rose, 
 you understand also how easily the lad who saw it for 
 the first time was led to say, when suddenly above him 
 the organ burst forth into music, that it seemed to him 
 as if the window spoke ! 
 
 The Cathedral offers to the student of glass a perfect 
 model, not indeed of detail, for upon the path which 
 leads to the perfection of detail the thirteenth-century 
 glazier had still many steps to take, but of effects in 
 decorative colouring. In the rose you have a confused 
 effect of colour, in which there is not any too definite 
 form to spoil the charm of the broken bits of colour 
 upon the senses. The meaning is there, too, as we 
 shall see, many meanings, simple and elaborate, direct 
 and mystical. But it is in the lancet windows of the 
 nave that the row of otherwise (let it be confessed) 
 ungainly figures supplies us at once, by means of the 
 drapery, cloaks and borders, with that mixture of colour 
 and shade that makes colour beautiful, and with those 
 broad masses of stain combined with absolute simplicity 
 and severity of design which should be the ideal of the 
 glazier. And they are not crowded with too much 
 story. 
 
 The lesson of the army of saints and martyrs which 
 they represent is printed in large type, so that it may be 
 
 153
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 easily read and understood from the distant level of the 
 nave. Each light exhibits one enormous figure of a 
 saint, with features strongly marked, clad in bright robes 
 of blazing colour, set off by a border that is more sober 
 in tone and opaque. The fire dies out of these broad 
 patches of limpid blue and emerald green, of flaming red 
 and saffron yellow, as they approach the deep, cool 
 borders of brown and black, violet and grey, mingled 
 with lower tones of red and green. You see, then, the 
 object and the successful result of these bold designs of 
 huge saints. The mediaeval glaziers had considered the 
 position which their glass was to occupy in the Cathe- 
 dral. They did not merely design it with a view to its 
 being effective in the studio. There is another point to 
 be noted. Working, as they did, with small fragments 
 of the precious glass as it came out of the melting-pot, 
 and binding each fragment in lines of lead till the whole 
 formed a pattern or drawing in a leaden framework, 
 they were able to watch and test their work in its pro- 
 gress. Thus, watching and testing, they were able also 
 to arrange for the proper mingling of the rays diffused 
 on all sides by each piece of the mosaic. They did not 
 aim so much at painting a good preliminary design upon 
 paper as at producing a fine effect of colour in glass. 
 When in succeeding centuries painters invaded the 
 realms of glass they would appear to have ignored the 
 obvious requirements of the new medium in which they 
 were to work. Experimentally and intuitively the 
 mediaeval glazier, on the other hand, must have studied 
 the whole question of radiation as it affected his task. 
 And the result is, that for the most superb effects of 
 stained glass we have to go, not to the pictures burnt on 
 the large sheets of glass by famous painters, but to the 
 designs of the thirteenth-century anonymous monkish 
 craftsmen. In the matter of stained glass the latter 
 had this advantage also in their favour. They had to 
 154
 
 <3\iedi(^val Glass and SMediaval Guilds 
 
 work with a material which, being less scientifically 
 compounded, was artistically immensely superior. In 
 the manufacture of the old pot-metal something was 
 left to Nature, much, that is to say, to accident. The 
 colour, in other words, was not so evenly and exactly 
 spread as by more modern processes. Being more un- 
 evenly distributed, it would frequently tone off at the 
 edges, and the rays diffused from it would mingle in a 
 softer harmony with those of the neighbouring coloured 
 fragments. And greater variety was obtained, because 
 a chemically imperfect process never gives two batches 
 of glass from the pot quite alike. In early work, again, 
 the fact that large pieces of glass could not be made 
 was also on the side of the craftsmen. Perfect colour 
 is the product of varied colours ; the multiplicity of 
 small pieces of glass set in deep black lines of lead 
 yielded a result of rich, deep colouring, which is in the 
 nature of things not to be obtained from one large sheet, 
 however fine. 
 
 But though the palette of the early glazier was so 
 rich in quality with those splendid reds and ineffable 
 blues, the secret of which has long been lost, and other 
 primary colours, it was poor in extent. To this poverty 
 must be ascribed the curious colouring of many details. 
 Beards are often painted blue, and faces usually brown. 
 Some shade of a rich purplish brown was in fact the 
 ordinary flesh tint of the early glazier. In the window 
 of the north transept, where S. Anne is portrayed, we 
 have a very striking example of this. The brown face 
 of S. Anne is there so large (it must be at least 2 feet 
 in length), that the craftsman has been able to glaze it 
 in several pieces. The eyes are of white, and so 
 strongly leaded that they seem to stare out of the 
 picture. 
 
 The sunburnt effect of their brown visages only 
 accentuates the Oriental aspect of many of these glass 
 
 155
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 figures. As at Bouiges, so here, the influence of the 
 East is plainly visible, not only in the hieratic type of 
 the personages and their sumptuous apparel, but also and 
 still more undoubtedly in the mosaic borders by which 
 they and the medallions beneath are framed. The 
 tones are rich and soft as those of a Persian rug ; the 
 patterns and devices are clearly related to those in 
 Byzantine ivories and enamels. Nor will the simile I 
 have used seem inept when it is remembered that at this 
 very time imitations of the Persian rugs brought home 
 by the Crusaders were being deliberately manufactured 
 in Paris. 
 
 The enjoyment of colour is one of the finest of 
 pleasures, but it was not merely to give pleasure that 
 this glass was stained, and these figures drawn in lead. 
 There is a reasoned aim, a definite symbolic purpose in 
 all mediaeval art, and not least in the art of stained glass. 
 
 We have seen how the huge figures of the guardian 
 saints in the nave are made to stand out from their 
 borders and tell, in spite of the height at which they are 
 placed, their story, plain for every eye to see. If you 
 now look at the windows of the lower row, of the aisles 
 that is, you will notice that the breadth and importance 
 of the borders which form the framework of the circular 
 and quatrefoil medallions are striking. They are not, 
 however, intended to make the medallions stand out — 
 if they were, they would fail in their object — but to 
 give the effect of an immense blaze of subdued, 
 indeterminate colour. 
 
 That effect is reasoned : the light in the nave is 
 subdued for a mystic purpose. It is not the chance 
 result of light playing upon a fortuitous collection of 
 coloured fragments of glass. It is a result knowingly 
 and scientifically produced by the artist. The dim 
 religious light which fills the threshold of the temple 
 grows less dim as it approaches the centre of the Cross ; 
 156
 
 >^cdiaval G las ^ and SJVLediceval Guilds 
 
 it borrows still more transparent colours from the 
 painter's palette as it circles round the choir, and in 
 the sanctuary gives place to the most lively and bril- 
 liant tones, which pour in from above. ' What poetry 
 is there,' exclaims M. Ferdinand de Lasteyrie,* ' in 
 this immense gamut of tones, so cleverly arrayed. It is 
 an admirable symbol of the light of Christianity escap- 
 ing in great floods from the summit of the Cross, but 
 throwing a lesser brillance upon those who stand 
 afar off.' 
 
 To produce this striking efl^sct the artist has availed 
 himself of very simple means. In the aisles the 
 windows are cold in tone, and the medallions,! as we 
 have said, set in very broad borders. And these 
 borders themselves, filled with a variety of patterns 
 and ornaments, are composed of an infinite number of 
 pieces of glass, mosaic work, the leaden frames of 
 which contribute to the desired gloom. It is a clever 
 application of the ' legendary ' style, and the very 
 choice of subjects here is in keeping with the place 
 they occupy. The same tones prevail in the lofty 
 windows of the nave, but there the figures are larger ; 
 huge saints and tall apostles look down from their 
 posts upon the Cross of Christ and guard His church, 
 S. Piat at their head ; and the broad bands of colour 
 give more access to the light. Advancing to the 
 centre of the Cross, you perceive that the aisles are still 
 plunged in a gloom, which is rendered yet more obscure 
 by the unlit spaces of the great transept doors. But 
 
 * Histoire de la Pe'wture sur -verre d'aprh ses Monuments en 
 France, z Vols., folio, 1841. The coloured plates of this fine work 
 give no idea, however, of the real richness of the colours of the 
 glass. tVindoiuSy by Lewis Day, is the best English book upon 
 stained glass. 
 
 \ The strong iron bars supporting the glass are frequently 
 bent to follow the outline of the medallions. This is only 
 found in early glazing.
 
 T^he ^tory of Chartres 
 
 the roses set on high throw rainbow lights aslant the 
 transepts, which mingle at the entrance of the choir 
 with the mysterious tints of the nave, and the gallery 
 of lights beneath these roses seem intended to effect the 
 needed transition between their transparent loveliness 
 and the opaque mass of stone beneath. In the apse, 
 again, with its unique double aisles and the series of 
 chapels, which form, as it were, the crown of thorns 
 about the head of Christ upon the Cross, symbolised 
 by the Church, there reigns a luminous obscurity. 
 Here we have once more storied windows with 
 medallion subjects and broad borders of topaz, 
 emerald and ruby, rich and deep, and warmer in 
 tone than were those of the nave. And in the centre 
 of this sacred aureole of chapels rises the sanctuary in 
 a blaze of light, like Jesus in the midst of His 
 Apostles, and floods of warmly-coloured light pour 
 down into the choir through the huge figures which 
 fill the windows. ' It seems,' says M. Lasteyrie, 
 * that the artist has borrowed a ray of light divine to 
 animate his work, a ray which is brilliant at first but 
 dies away at the entrance of the sanctuary, as if to 
 indicate the spot in which the Christian enters into 
 communion with his God.' 
 
 The mediaeval artist, however, was not content with 
 a reasoned effect of colour, however beautiful. His 
 windows must be ' storied ' as well as ' richly dight.' 
 They must repeat in glass the lessons read to the 
 people by the statuary without. In those three superb 
 twelfth-century azure windows of the west the Tree 
 of Jesse, the Childhood of the Saviour, and the 
 principal scenes of the Passion are represented. The 
 rose above them, with its rubies and sapphires in a deep 
 setting of stone, tells again the story of the Last Judg- 
 ment. From the wounds of Jesus, who is seated on a 
 throne of clouds, flows the blood which saves or con- 
 158
 
 <3dediceval Glass and SMediceval Guilds 
 
 demns mankind. Angels, cherubim and apostles 
 surround him. An aureole in quatrefoil is about His 
 head. Above shine the instruments of the Passion, 
 and four angels are blowing the last trump. The 
 earth opens and the sea gives up its dead. Emerging 
 from their tombs, the dead look, towards the Supreme 
 Judge. S. Michael (as on the south porch) is weigh- 
 ing souls in the balance. Some are being led to 
 Abraham's bosom, whilst others, dragged by demons, 
 fall into the vivid Hames of hell. 
 
 A panel under the centre circle was destroyed by a 
 cannon ball in the siege of 159 1. It has been replaced 
 by some fragments from another window. The rose 
 of the north transept is called the Rose of France, 
 because it was given to the Cathedral by S. Louis 
 and Blanche of Castile. The Fleurs-de-lys of 
 France and the Castles of Castile recall this fact 
 when you see them repeated in their blue and gold 
 in the medallions and the spandrels ot the window. 
 The rose itself is not so large as that of Notre-Dame- 
 de-Paris, nor so delicately graceful as that of Amiens, 
 but, as in the case of the western rose, the boldness 
 of the masonry and the clear depths of the colouring 
 lend to it a charm and beauty all its own. It represents 
 the Glorification of Mary, the subject of the noble 
 porch without. 
 
 In the centre, Mary seated on a throne, holds in 
 her arms the Saviour of the world, and receives the 
 homage of the angels, the Kings of Judah and the 
 prophets, who are painted in these circles of twelve 
 medallions. The panels of the second circle are 
 rectangular. 
 
 Beneath the rose are five tall pointed windows of 
 unforgettable splendour and extraordinary interest. 
 King David with his harp of gold, Solomon the monarch 
 with the blue fleur-de-lys and Jeroboam worshipping 
 
 159
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 his calves of gold below, both stand forth from a 
 background of purple, prefiguring the Kingship of the 
 Son ; Aaron, the high priest, with the rod that 
 budded and the book of the law, wearing a curious 
 red hat, and beneath him Pharaoh engulfed in the Red 
 Sea ; Melchisedek, with chalice and censer, and 
 beneath him Nebuchadnezzar in front of the statue of 
 gold, silver, iron and clay, represent beforehand the 
 Priesthood of Christ. And all these rich Oriental 
 figures support the enormous brown-faced portrait of 
 S. Anne, who sits in the central light and carries the 
 infant Mary. 
 
 The great white eyes of these figures seem to stare 
 across at the rose of the south transept opposite, which 
 represents the fulfilment of all that they had fore- 
 shadowed — the Glorification of Christ. The story is 
 repeated by the statuary of the south porch without. 
 This window was founded by Pierre Mauclerc, Count 
 of Dreux and Duke of Bretagne, who figures there- 
 fore with his wife and family and arms in the lower 
 portions of the windows below the rose. 
 
 The arms of Dreux and Bretagne also appear with 
 fine efl^ect in the twelve quatrefoils of the rose, which 
 correspond to the rectangular panels of the windows 
 opposite. In the centre of the rose Christ enthroned 
 blesses the world and holds in His left hand a large 
 chalice. The surrounding medallions contain eight 
 angels censing the four beasts and twenty-four 
 elders before the throne, referred to in the Book of 
 Revelations. 
 
 As in the north transept, five large pointed windows 
 beneath complete the subject. The central figure is 
 that of Christ presented to the faithful in the Virgin's 
 arms, whilst on either side are the four evangelists 
 carried on the shoulders of the four great prophets ; 
 S. Matthew seated on Isaiah, S. Luke on Jeremiah, 
 1 60
 
 f^Mediaval Glass and <^ediceval Guilds 
 
 S. John (beardless, as always in mediaeval portraiture, 
 to typify his virginity) on Ezekiel, and S. Mark, on 
 David. The strange position of these naive evangelists 
 is intended to symbolise the fact that the new dis- 
 pensation rests upon the old, even as the Christian 
 Gothic of the upper church is built upon the Pagan 
 Romanesque of the old basilica, the crypt beneath. 
 
 To the east, in the apse, seven great windows repeat 
 the motive of the Glorification of Mary, and the 
 artists, who, throughout this Cathedral of Notre-Dame, 
 are never weary of portraying its patroness in every 
 guise and every form, at every age, and almost as of 
 every clime, represent her as receiving homage from 
 the personages of the Old Testament, and even of 
 S. Peter. 
 
 Not the least famous, not the. least fascinating of 
 these innumerable Madonnas, though candles are no 
 longer burnt to her as they were of yore, is the window — 
 the second in the south aisle of the choir after leaving 
 the transept — which is known as the Notre-Dame 
 de la belle Verriere. She is clad in bright vestments 
 of azure, and, like the Virgin who appeared to the 
 peasant girl at Lourdes, she has about her head an 
 aureole of blue. Deep tones of red and brown form 
 the background of the window from which the figure 
 of the Madonna stands out, so that you might almost 
 believe that she is about to step through into the dark 
 aisles of the Cathedral that is hers. 
 
 This window belongs to the thirteenth century, but 
 it is probably modelled on an earlier one of which there 
 is mention. I -ike the three twelfth-century windows 
 of the west, and especially the southernmost of these 
 three, it is strikingly Byzantine in character. The 
 Miracle at the Marriage of Cana and the Temptations 
 of Christ fill the lower part of the light. 
 
 In the case of the remaining windows the evidence 
 L i6i
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 of design is less obvious than in that of the groups with 
 which we have dealt. Much was evidently left to the 
 caprice of the donors, who usually chose to represent 
 the lives, the struggles or the martyrdoms of their 
 patron saints. Thus the episodes of the life of a local 
 priest, S. Laumer, are recorded in a series of medallions, 
 just as one of his miracles is related in stone in the 
 south porch. The storied window suggests at once 
 practically all that we know of him. Some time in 
 the seventh century, it is said, he kept his father's sheep 
 near Chartres, but afterwards, having learned his letters, 
 he was ordained priest and entered a monastery. But 
 he longed for a life of prayer and solitude, and fled to 
 the forest where he hoped none would follow him. It 
 was vain ; disciples, hearing of his sanctity and the 
 miracles he wroughtj flocked to him. Again he fled 
 and settled in the woods near Dreux. But his cell of 
 green leaves and wattles soon became the centre of a 
 colony of monks, so that he was fain to recognise the 
 call of God and to build a monastery there. Of the 
 miracles recorded as wrought by him there is one 
 characteristic of his gentle individuality. During the 
 night some robbers stole a cow belonging to the monks. 
 The brethren were in despair. The robbers, however, 
 lost their way in the tangled forest. They wandered 
 all night and all next day, unable to discover the road. 
 At last, as evening settled in, they saw the darkness ot 
 the forest lighten, and, still driving the cow, they came 
 out upon the clearing of the monastery. S. Laumer 
 himself stood before them. They fell at his feet, ask- 
 ing his pardon and imploring him to direct them aright. 
 He raised them and said, ' I thank you, kind friends, 
 for finding and bringing back to me my strayed cow. 
 You must be very tired and hungry. Follow me.' They 
 followed him into his hut and he set before them such 
 food and drink as he had, and they ate and drank and 
 162
 
 S^cdictval Glass and <^cdiceval Guilds 
 
 were refreshed. Then he set them on their right road, 
 and they departed — but without the cow. 
 
 Or take, as another example, the third window of 
 the north aisle where the lesson of the life of another 
 saint, not local, is taught in another series of medallions, 
 because S. I'^ustace was the patron saint of the founder. 
 In the bottom panel, Placidius, a centurion of the 
 guard in Trajan's day, appears hunting a stag. A 
 miracle is wrought which brings about the conversion 
 of the Pagan hunter. For a cross of light shines be- 
 tween the horns of the fugitive. Overwhelmed by the 
 sight of this prodigy, Placidius dismounts from his 
 horse, kneels down and is baptized. The change 
 wrought within is described in the upper panels. Great 
 calamities»befall him ; his wife is taken from him ; his 
 children are devoured by wild beasts. But I'^ustace, 
 illled with a perfect trust in God, bears all with 
 Christian resignation. He retires to a distant land, and 
 there his virtue waxes daily until at last he is deemed 
 worthy to suffer martyrdom for his faith. Together 
 with his wife he is roasted alive in the belly of a brazen 
 bull. 
 
 Thus in all simplicity the glaziers paint the legends 
 which the people have learned. They tell the story 
 of a man's life from his birth, and do not even hesitate 
 to represent his faults, because these windows were 
 intended to serve as an illustrated catechism for the 
 poor and ignorant, and the saintliness that has no 
 touches of things human proves for ordinary people 
 discouraging. In the lower panels of the windows, 
 therefore, the early years of the saints are shown so 
 that we may be comforted and inspired by the know- 
 ledge that they too shared in the weaknesses and the 
 miseries of our nature. And above, when they have 
 risen superior to their trials, we see them in a halo of 
 sanctity, performing miracles by their faith. Prail man 
 
 163
 
 T'he Story of Chartres 
 
 has shaken off this vile earth and goes on from strength 
 to strength, according to the simple expression of a 
 chronicler, until he arrives in the house of the Eternal 
 Father, whose glorious person dominates the whole 
 window. As in the case of the sculptured porches so 
 here, when we study and admire the conception and 
 execution of these storied windows, the question arises, 
 Who was it who arranged, who was it who coloured 
 this glorious glass \ And again the answer must be 
 that we know not. The artists of the twelfth century 
 have not been careful in this matter : the object of 
 their fecund imagination and their exquisite workman- 
 ship has been this only — the majestic expression of the 
 burning faith within them. 
 
 One name only, that of Clement, the .Chartrain 
 glazier {^Clemens, vitrearlus Carnotetis'is), found on a 
 window in the Cathedral of Rouen, has come down to 
 us. And Clement, it is supposed, designed the win- 
 dow which recounts the legend of S. Martin. That 
 name alone survives out of all the artists whose work 
 has for over seven hundred years been the admiration of 
 all Europe ! 
 
 The donors of the windows, on the other hand, 
 shine there amid a blaze of heraldic glory. You may 
 still behold Louis de Poissy on his white charger 
 and at the head of his men, clad in full armour, setting 
 forth on the Crusade. Ferdinand III. of Castile also, 
 S. Ferdinand, you may see, wrapped in mail for the 
 defence of the faith, and Blanche of Castile, who so 
 often brought her young son to Chartres and inspired 
 him with his so tender devotion to Notre-Dame. 
 Pierre Mauclerc is here, that turbulent spirit who 
 expiated his offences against order by his immense 
 generosity to the Cathedral ; Thibault VI., Count of 
 Chartres, the very valiant Crusader ; Amaury de 
 Montfort, Constable of France ; Pierre de Courtenay ; 
 164
 
 ^Mediaval Glass and :3V[cd'umial Guilds 
 
 Bouchard de Marly, of the noble house of Mont- 
 morency — these and a whole gallery of other counts 
 and barons and knights of chivalry live on in the 
 church which they endowed with their gold and for 
 which they fought with their swords. 
 
 But we have seen that this Cathedral was built not 
 by the generosity of the great alone. It was in every 
 sense a popular, a national monument, raised to the 
 glory of God by the contributions and labour of all 
 classes. And if the humble donors have scarcely 
 dared, like the great lords, to represent themselves 
 individually, they have fortunately not shrunk from 
 perpetuating, under the guise of the guilds through 
 which they subscribed, the record of their no less 
 interesting personalities. They all figure in the win- 
 dows founded by their several trades ; masons and 
 skinners, drapers and goldsmiths, bakers and armour- 
 ers, butchers and tanners, cobblers and water-carriers 
 even, are all portrayed at work with the simple realism 
 of the Middle Ages. 
 
 A whole book, and a very interesting one, might be 
 written as a commentary on the thirty or forty trade 
 corporations here depicted. It would exhibit the 
 commercial history of a medi-.rval shrine, the mart of 
 pilgrims and the ha-z.ar of the devout. 
 
 All the trading corporations of the Middle Ages 
 were close and exclusive bodies. Admission to them 
 was only possible by the long and narrow path of 
 apprenticeship. Hconomically, their general aim was 
 to limit competition by limiting the number of masters, 
 by limiting the number of embryo masters in the shape 
 of apprentices whom each master in a guild might 
 receive. Their general result was to maintain a high 
 standard in the quality of the work produced, and by 
 discouraging the modern ideal of quantity to provide a 
 certain and sufficient employment amongst all those 
 
 165
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 who were fortunate enough to be within the sacred 
 circle of their union. 
 
 An apprentice was an unmarried lad of from 
 fifteen to twenty years of age, bound to his master 
 for a certain number of years by the payment of a 
 fixed fee and an oath. As elsewhere, so in France,* 
 the master was responsible not only for teaching the 
 apprentice his trade, so that he might in due course be 
 approved a master-workman himself, but also for his 
 moral training. By the rules of the craft he was 
 required to cherish the boy * beneath his roof, at his 
 board and at his hearth.' 
 
 If he did his duty, in fact, the master treated the 
 apprentice as his own sons and thrashed him as heartily. 
 The apprentice frequently returned the compliment 
 by making him his father-in-law. Shortly before the 
 expiration of his apprenticeship the young craftsman 
 was examined by a board of jure s, and was called upon 
 to give a practical exhibition of his skill. If he suc- 
 ceeded in satisfying them that he could fashion a 
 proper doublet or bake a good loaf of bread, he was 
 allowed to call himself a workman, to practise his 
 trade, and to take his share in the management and 
 the benefits of his guild. Those benefits often included 
 comprehensive schemes of charity and mutual aid. 
 The widows and indigent members of a corporation 
 were provided for by funds to which all had contri- 
 buted their quota. The standard of efficiency was 
 maintained not only by the vigilance of the jures, who 
 examined each finished article before it was offered 
 for sale, not only by the fear of a fine which might be 
 inflicted for defective work, but also by the pride and 
 sense of honour fostered in each individual craftsman. 
 
 * The subject of the French apprentice is pleasantly expounded 
 in Mr. Tighe Hopkins's ^ri Idler in Old France. His German 
 counterpart I have dealt with in my Story of Nuremberg. 
 
 i66
 
 ^Mediceval Glass and SMcdiaval Guilds 
 
 It was lowered on the other hand by the excessive 
 conservatism of the guilds, who forbade any under- 
 selling or departure from customary models, insisted on 
 a minute and absurd division of labour, condemned all 
 inventions, and nipped all developments in the bud. 
 
 Such, briefly, was the constitution of the famous 
 mediaeval guilds, such were their faults and excellences. 
 The record of these Cathedral windows helps us to 
 realise their importance in the history of Chartres, and 
 also enables us to imagine the state and the character 
 of the old town's trade. In spite of the exactions and 
 taxes levied by bishop and count, chapter, monastery 
 and viscount, the merchants of Chartres flourished 
 mightily in the thirteenth century, and the fairs of the 
 town held during the four feasts of Our Lady rivalled 
 in importance even those of Brie and Champagne. 
 Chartres was one of the seventeen towns in France 
 where the trades were separate and distinct, and each 
 trade had its statutes regulated and enforced by jures 
 in the manner I have sketched. She owed her com- 
 mercial activity to the gatherings of pilgrims at the 
 shrine of Notre-Dame, and when these gatherings 
 ceased her trade drooped and dwindled away till once 
 more, as in the Merovingian days, it was confined to 
 traflic in wool and corn. 
 
 Take first, for instance, the window which gives us 
 the story of S. Eustace, the third in the north aisle of 
 the nave, and the third in the north clerestory of the 
 nave, with its medallions of apostles and S. Thomas of 
 Canterbury, that favourite saint of the Middle Ages. 
 They were given by the furriers and drapers, the 
 Bourgeois, as they were called, of the River, members 
 of the renowned corporation known as the Metier de la 
 Riviere. This metier included the professions of the 
 woollen-drapers, combers and cleaners, felt-makers and 
 dyers, 
 
 167
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 Six jures were elected annually by the masters of 
 the guild, whose duty it was to examine, and pass or 
 reject every piece of cloth . or wool-work made at 
 Chartres or anywhere within a radius of three leagues. 
 Latterly every piece approved was stamped with a 
 leaden trademark. The trade flourished and brought 
 great reputation to the town from the twelfth to the 
 sixteenth century. But the wars with England, and 
 plague and famine greatly affected its prosperity. 
 These and other causes led to its gradual decay and 
 final disappearance. 
 
 The tanners and cobblers who gave the third and 
 fourth windows in the south aisle of the nave formed 
 one corporation, and the curriers were for a long time 
 included under the heading of tanners. The latter 
 were attracted to Chartres by the excellence and 
 quantity of the skins to be obtained there, and by the 
 peculiar quality of the water of the Eure, which, 
 together with the bark supplied by the trees of the 
 neighbouring forests, was specially adapted for curing 
 them. The tanners flourished exceedingly, and were 
 accustomed to celebrate with great magnificence at the 
 riverside Church of S. Andre the feast of their patron, 
 S. Louis. The difficulty of procuring skins and other 
 accessories had considerably injured them by the time 
 of the Revolution, and their industry, like that of the 
 shoemakers, has to-day no more than a quite local 
 importance. But the river is still to some extent the 
 scene of their labours. For though agriculture is now 
 the chief industry of the department, and though the 
 great fairs of May and September are great no longer 
 in comparison with their splendid past, the commerce 
 of Chartces is not altogether dead. There is a con- 
 siderable traffic not only in corn and wool but also in 
 sheep and horses, and a walk along the river banks 
 between the Pont Neuf and the Porte Guillaume will 
 1 68
 
 
 
 
 Faang Page \i
 
 ^EMediceval Glass and ^^ediaval Guilds 
 
 show you that the chief ateliers of the district are the 
 wash-houses of the tanners and the wool-workers. 
 Along the base of the mouldering wall which skirts 
 the diverted arm of the L']ure lie the backs of old 
 houses with their adjoining tanyards. Many of them, 
 too, are garnished with little wooden galleries, lavatories 
 of the town's soiled linen. ' These galleries are filled 
 with washerwomen, who crane over and dip their 
 many-coloured rags into the yellow stream. The old 
 patched and interrupted wall, the ditch with its weedy 
 edges, the spots of colour, the white-capped laundresses 
 in their little wooden cages — one lingers to look at 
 it all.' * 
 
 Wine was another commodity for which Chartres 
 was once famous. The author of the Book of Miracles 
 tells us of a troubadour who left his companion to 
 pursue his pilgrimage alone whilst he himself paid a 
 prolonged visit to a cabaret. 
 
 ' Car la parole et le renon 
 Des bons vins avoit entendu 
 Qui a Chartres erent vendu 
 Clers seins nes et delicleux.' 
 
 The monks, it seems, had not planted their vines in 
 vain. But, alas ! the modern vintage of La Beauce 
 cannot claim any of the epithets assigned to it above. 
 T\\e graruls clos de ires ban inii of which Souchet speaks 
 (1640), which cardinals had found excellent in 1506, 
 and which were sold with ])ride and profit at the Etape- 
 aii-vin or the various taverns, is but a thin and dreary 
 liquor to-day. Either the soil has been exhausted and 
 the grape lost its virtue, or the taste of the former 
 connoisseurs was faulty. No doubt their standard of 
 taste in wine was lower than ours. A cup of sack, I 
 doubt, would not prove so pleasant to the modern 
 
 * Henry James, Portraits of Places 
 
 169
 
 'T'he Story of Chartres 
 
 palate as it is to the modern car. But even so the 
 vintage of La Beauce must have suffered a sore deteri- 
 oration. The flourishing condition of the old tavern- 
 keepers and vintners is indicated by their generous 
 donation of the magnificent window which records the 
 chief events of the life of S. Lubin (second in the 
 north aisle of the nave). 
 
 It remains to close this chapter with a bald list of 
 the subjects of the windows, taken in order, starting 
 from the western front and moving round the Cathedral 
 from the Clocher Neuf along the north or left- 
 hand side. 
 
 1. Rose Window. Last Judgment. Described 
 above. 
 
 2, 3, 4. Below it the three twelfth-century windows, 
 of which the one on the south side contains twelve 
 circular panels representing the later events from the 
 life of Christ (Transfiguration to Supper with Disciples 
 at Emmaus). The arrangement of the windows should 
 be compared with that of the Notre-Dame de la Belle 
 Verriere, which, though made of thirteenth-century 
 glass, was copied in design from an earlier one of which 
 mention is made. The centre window of the three 
 (32 feet 10 inches) contains the Virgin and Child in 
 the head, and in twelve panels the chief events of the 
 Gospel story from the Annunciation to the Entry into 
 Jerusalem. The northern one is a Jesse window, on 
 which the genealogical tree of our Saviour is shown. 
 Among the branches are the first four Kings, then the 
 Virgin, and Christ surrounded by the seven gifts of the 
 Holy Ghost. On either side of the tree are seven 
 prophets. 
 
 North Aisle of the Nave. 
 
 5. Story of Noah. Given by the Carpenters, 
 Wheelwrights and Coopers. 
 
 170
 
 <SMedic:evaI Glass and SMcd'heval Guilds 
 
 6. Story of S. Lubin (//r ]). 36). Given by the 
 Tavern-kce])ers and Vintners. 
 
 7. Story of S. Eustace {^see p. 163). Given by the 
 Furriers and Drapers. 
 
 8. Story of Joseph. Given by the Moneychangers 
 and Minters. 
 
 9. Story of S. Nicholas. Given by the Grocers 
 and Druggists. 
 
 10. La Nouvel/e JlUiance. Given by the Farriers and 
 Blacksmiths. (Seven ))anels were removed in 18 16). 
 
 Clereslnry of the Nave (North). 
 
 11. Lancets (c/) Temptations of Christ. 
 
 (^) .lonah, Daniel, Habbakkuk. 
 Rose (r) Bishop (S. Ftherius ?) with two 
 suppliants at his feet. 
 
 12. Lancets (17) S. Laurence, as a deacon, with the 
 
 Evangelists, and below, on his 
 gridiron. 
 (/^) S. Stephen, and, below, his 
 Martyrdom. Also a group of 
 Weavers. 
 Rose (r) S. Lubin, in pontifical robes on a 
 throne. Two Innkeepers offer 
 him wine. 
 
 13. Lancets (c?) Six medallions in which appear 
 
 two pairs of Apostles, and, 
 below. Furriers and Drapers. 
 (Z-) S. Nicholas, and below, Curriers 
 and Leather-dressers. 
 Rose (r) S, Thomas of Canterbury and two 
 Knights invoking him, 
 
 14. Lancets (c/) Six Apostles seated in quatrcfoiled 
 
 ])anels. 
 {h') An Apostle, and below, the 
 Moneychangers. 
 
 171
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 I 5. Lancets (a) 
 
 {b) 
 
 16. 
 
 Rose (f) The Virgin Mary holding in her 
 lap the seven gifts of the Holy 
 Ghost : Wisdom is represented 
 by Christ, the other gifts by 
 white doves with a simple 
 nimbus, bound to the aureole of 
 Christ by red rays. 
 S. Giles in the act of blessing, 
 and below, celebrating Mass 
 before the King. 
 S. George of Cappadocia in 
 thirteenth-century armour, and 
 below, nude on a wheel of 
 swords. 
 S. George on horseback slaying a 
 
 dragon. 
 Christ, and below, Abraham 
 
 about to sacrifice Isaac. 
 The sacrifice of Isaac repeated, 
 and above, a bust of Christ with 
 the letters Alpha and Omega, 
 ' the beginning and the end.' 
 Rose (r) Scenes of tilling. 
 Lancets (^/) A Martyr and S. Martin of Tours. 
 (/>) S. Martin cutting his cloak and 
 beholding Christ in a vision. 
 Rose (r) The donors, with an inscription, 
 ' The men of Tours have given 
 these three windows.' 
 
 North Transept (below the Clerestory). 
 
 18. A free version of the story of the Prodigal Son. 
 
 19. The story of S. Laurence was portrayed in this 
 window, but the central portion of it was removed in 
 1 79 1, when the Chapel of the Transfiguration was made. 
 
 20. Removed 1791. 
 172 
 
 17- 
 
 Rose (r) 
 Lancets («)
 
 SMediaval Glass and SMedicPval Guilds 
 
 North Transept, Clerestory (West vSidc). 
 
 21. Lancets ((?) The Death, Assumption and 
 
 Crowning of the Virgin. 
 (^) Angels announcing the Birth of 
 Christ to the Shepherds, and 
 below, the Presentation in the 
 Temple. Below again, and in 
 the 
 Rose (r) Philip of France, Count of Bou- 
 logne, uncle of S. Louis, on 
 his knees before an altar, and on 
 horseback. 
 
 22. Lancets (r?) The Annunciation and the Visita- 
 
 tion. Below, Mahaut, Countess 
 of Boulogne. 
 [h^ S. Joachim and S. Anne visited 
 by Angels. Their meeting at 
 the Golden Gate of the Temple. 
 Below, Countess Jeanne, the 
 donor. 
 Rose (r) The Virgin Mary. 
 
 23. Thirteenth-century grisailles, with border of the 
 I^ilies of France, and the Castles of Castile. 
 
 24. The Rose of France, and beneath, 
 
 25. 26, 27, 28, 29. The five pointed windows 
 described above (p. 159). 
 
 North Trtinsept, Clerestory (East Side). 
 30. Lancets (^a) S. Thomas and S. Barnabas. 
 
 (b) S. Thomas and S. Jude, and be- 
 low, the Canon who gave the 
 window. 
 (<:) Christ seated between the sun 
 and the moon, and holding a 
 globe blazoned with the arms of 
 Castile. 
 
 173
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 31. The Lancets of this window contain four more 
 
 Apostles, like the last, and 
 The Rose, a portrait of the same munificent 
 Canon. 
 
 32. Lancets [a) S. Eustace and the Stag, his 
 
 Baptism, before the Idols. 
 Below, an Armed Knight on 
 horseback. 
 i^b) The Annunciation, Birth of Christ, 
 and the Adoration of the Magi. 
 Below, the wife of the aforesaid 
 knight. 
 Rose (c) Christ seated. 
 
 33. The seven large windows (46 feet high) of the 
 choir apse repeat the story of the north rose — the 
 Glorification of the Virgin. In the first (north) is 
 
 34. Aaron, and an Incense-bearing Angel, with the 
 donor (Gaufridus) and his family. Below, 
 
 35. Ezekiel, David, and a Seraph. Below, the 
 Butchers. 
 
 36. Events from the Life of S. Peter. Below, 
 the Moneychangers. 
 
 37. The Annunciation, Visitation, Motherhood of 
 the Virgin. Below, the Bakers bringing bread. 
 
 38. Moses, Isaiah and Incense-bearing Angel. 
 Below, the Bakers. 
 
 39. Daniel, Jeremiah, a Seraph. Below, the 
 Drapers. 
 
 40. Scenes from the Life of S. John the Baptist. 
 Below, the Moneychangers. 
 
 The Clerestory oj the Choir (North). 
 
 41. Lancets [a) The Virgin enthroned, and the 
 
 escutcheon of Regnault de 
 Mougon, the bishop. 
 {^b) Two groups of Pilgrims, and, 
 174
 
 SMcdicvval Glass and <3\lcdicvviil Guilds 
 
 below, the donor, kneeling, 
 Robert de Berou, sub-deacon 
 and chancellor of the Cathedral. 
 The plain glass border was in- 
 serted 1757. 
 Rose (f) Christ seated between two three- 
 branched candlesticks. 
 
 42. This window was founded by 8 Ferdinand, 
 King of Castile, who appears on horseback in the 
 rose. The other two lights were removed in 1788 at 
 the request of Bridan, in order to set off his marble 
 Assumption below. 
 
 43. The same fate attended the next but one, 
 founded by S. Louis, whose figure was allowed to 
 remain in the rose. 
 
 44. Lancets (^v) S. Martin working miracles. 
 
 (^) S. Martin giving away his cloak, 
 and beholding Christ in a. vision. 
 Below, and in the 
 Rose (r) Jean de Chatillon, the founder, on 
 horseback, and kneeling. 
 
 Clerestory of the Choir (South). 
 
 45. The lancets were destroyed in 1773. The 
 founder, Amaury, Count of Montfort, remains in the 
 rose. He appears again in the rose of the next 
 window. 
 
 46. Lancets [d) S. Vincent, with millstone about 
 
 his neck, on the land and on 
 the sea. Below, the donor, 
 Petrus Bai. . . . 
 [b) S. Paul. Below, the Curriers. 
 
 47. Destroyed 1788. 
 
 48. Lancets (^ii) S. John, S. James the Great, the 
 
 Adoration of the Magi. Below, 
 the arms of Montmorency.
 
 T/zf Story of Chartres 
 
 [h) The Birth of Jesus, the Flight 
 
 into Egypt, and below, the 
 
 donors, Colin and his wife, 
 
 before a chess-board. 
 
 Kosc (( ) Robert de Beaumont on horseback. 
 
 South 'Iransept (now being restored). 
 
 49. Destroyed 1791. 
 
 50. Destroyed 1792. A border alone remains. 
 
 51. S. Apollinaris of Ravenna and Hierarchy of 
 Angels (1328) 
 
 South Transept, Clerestory (East Side). 
 
 52. Lancets (rf) S. Christopher, S. Nicaise and 
 
 the donor, GeofFroi Chardonnel, 
 Canon of Chartres. 
 (/^) S. Denis presenting the oriflamme 
 to Henry Clement. 
 Rose (f) S. John the Baptist. 
 
 53. Lancets [a) S. Protais and S. Gervais. 
 
 (^b) S. Cosmas and S. Damien. The 
 same donor as above, kneeling. 
 Rose (c) The Virgin Mary. 
 
 54. Lancets [a) {^b) Two Prophets, and donor, 
 
 Jean de Bretagne. 
 Rose (t) The Virgin Mary. 
 
 55. The rose of the south transept and the 
 
 56. 57, 58, 59, 60. Five large pointed windows, as 
 described above (p. 160). 
 
 South Transept, Clerestory (West Side). 
 
 61. Lancets {^a) (^) Malachi and Micah, and 
 below, the arms of Mauclerc. 
 Rose [c) Pierre Mauclerc, the donor, on 
 horseback, and in full armour. 
 176
 
 SVLediaval Glass and SVLedicvval Guilds 
 
 62. Lancets (//) Destroyed 1786. Border remains. 
 
 {b) S. Paul, the first hermit, and S. 
 Antony. Below, a Deacon 
 serving at an altar. 
 Rose (r) S. Ambrosius, the Archbishop (?) 
 
 63. Lancets (^/) [h^ 8. Paul and S. Peter. 
 Rose (r) The donor, a Canon of Chartres. 
 
 SoutJ) Aisle of the Nave (starting from South Transept). 
 
 64. This window formerly recorded the miracles 
 of the Virgin, wrought in the thirteenth century. But 
 only one out of sixteen medallions remains complete. 
 
 Vendome Chapel. 
 
 (Founded 1413 by Louis de Bourbon. Two chests 
 contain remains of 8. Piat and 8. Taurin.) 
 
 65. Below, six Angels bearing the arms of 
 Bourbon- Vendome, and a piece of another window 
 representing the Death of the Virgin. Above, on 
 left, Jacques de Bourbon kneeling ; S. Louis of 
 France, S. Louis of Toulouse, Louis and Jacques 
 de Bourbon ; on right, 8. James, in similar company. 
 Above, again, the Virgin and Child, next to a lady, 
 crowned by two angels ; 8. John blessing a chalice, 
 8. John the Baptist, with the Lamb. 
 
 In the head of the window, the Crucifixion, and, on 
 the right, the Holy Women ; on the left, the Jewish 
 Priests and the Centurion. Above, Christ judging 
 the world, between Mary and John praying, and the 
 angels summoning the dead, who rise from their 
 tombs. 
 
 66. The Death, Funeral, Assumption and Corona- 
 tion of the Virgin. Below, the donors, Cobblers. 
 
 67. The Story of the Good Samaritan. Below, 
 the Cobblers, Sutores. 
 
 M 177
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 68. The Life of S. Mary Magdalene. Below, 
 the Water-carriers. 
 
 69. The Life of S. John the Evangelist. Below, 
 the Armourers. 
 
 The Nave, South Side, Clerestory. 
 
 70. I^ancets [u) S. Symphorian and his Martyrdom. 
 
 [b) Mostly hidden by the organ. 
 Rose [c) S. Hilary. 
 
 71. Lancets [a) [b) Destroyed 1648. 
 Rose [c) S. Gregory the Great. 
 
 72. Lancets (,;) S. Bartholomew and Moses. 
 
 (Z^) S. Caletric and the donors, the 
 
 Turners, 
 (r) S. Augustin. 
 This window also is partly hidden by the organ. 
 
 73. Lancets [a) S. Philip and Jeremiah 
 
 (/-') S. James the Less and the donor, 
 Gaufridus. 
 Rose (r) S. Jerome. 
 
 74. Lancets ((/) S. Faith, and below, her Martyr- 
 
 dom. 
 (Z-) The Virgin, and below, the scene 
 of Christ saying. Noli me tan- 
 gere (Touch me not). 
 ■) S. Solemnis, Bishop of Chartres. 
 /) S. Peter, and below, the donors, 
 the Pastry Cooks. 
 (/>) S. James. 
 
 (r) Christ with the signs Alpha and 
 Omega. 
 Lancets (//) S. Laumer, and below, his 
 death-bed scene. 
 [b) Meeting between S. Mary of 
 178 
 
 75 
 
 76. 
 
 Rose 
 
 Lancets 
 
 Rose
 
 SMediceval Glass and SMcdiaval. Guilds 
 
 Egypt with Zozimus, and be- 
 low, her burial. \ 
 Rose [c) S. Laumer. 
 
 The Chapels of the Ambulatory and Apse. 
 
 77. Subject unknown. Given by Geoffroi Char- 
 donncl. 
 
 78. Lite of S. Nicholas. Given by Etienne Char- 
 donnel. 
 
 Rose, Jesus and the four beasts. 
 
 79. 80, 81, 82. Four interesting grisailles with 
 coloured borders. 
 
 Sacristy. 
 
 83. Grisaille, fourteenth century. 
 
 Chapel of S. Joseph. 
 
 84. Story of S. Thomas. 
 
 85. S. Julian. Given by the Carpenters, Wheel- 
 wrights and Coopers. 
 
 86. Grisaille, picked out with colour. 
 
 Chapel of the Sacred Heart of Mary. 
 
 87. Story of S. Savinian, S. Potentian, S. Modesta 
 (^see p. 18). Given by the Weavers. 
 
 88. vStory of S. Cheron. Given by the Sculptors, 
 Masons and Stone-dressers. 
 
 89. Story of S. Stephen. Given by the Shoemakers. 
 
 90. Story of S. Quentin. Given by Nicolas Les- 
 cine, Canon of the Cathedral. 
 
 91. Story of S. Theodore and S. Vincent of Sara- 
 gossa. Given by the Weavers. 
 
 Windotvs betiveen the Chapels. 
 
 92. The legend of S. Charlemagne and S. Roland, 
 told in great detail and with remarkable clearness, after 
 the versions of Turpin and Vincent de Beauvais. 
 
 179
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 93. S. James, the Apostle. Given by the Drapers 
 and Furuiers. 
 
 ChaptI of the Communion. 
 
 94. Grisaille, ornamented with arms of House of 
 Castile. 
 
 95. Lives of S. Simon and S. Jude. Donor, 
 Henri Noblet. 
 
 96. 97, 98. Scenes from the life of Christ, given 
 by the Bakers. Nine of the panels were removed in 
 1791, and like those of the two next windows, which 
 depict the incidents of the lives of S. Peter and S. Paul, 
 they have been very skilfully restored. 
 
 Entrance to Chapel of S. Plat (^see p. 44). 
 
 99. Grisaille, fourteenth century. S. Piat in 
 ecclesiastical robes. 
 
 Chapel of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 
 
 100. Grisaille. S. Nicholas restoring three children 
 to life (fifteenth century). 
 
 loi. Life of S. Remy. The donor below kneeling. 
 
 102. S. Nicholas. 
 
 103. Story of S. Marguerite and S. Catherine of. 
 Alexandria. Donors, Marguerite de Leves, and her 
 husband, Gucrin de Friaise, with her brother Hugues 
 de Meslay. 
 
 1 04. Life of S. Thomas of Canterbury. Given 
 about thirty years after his murder by the Tanners and 
 Curriers. John of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres, had 
 been the secretary of Thomas a Becket, and an eye- 
 witness of his murder. 
 
 Chapel of All Saints. 
 
 105. The story of S. Martin (by Clement, the 
 glass painter of Chartres, whose name is recorded in 
 
 180
 
 <3^edideval Glass and ^Mediaval Guilds 
 
 a similar thirteenth-century window in Rouen 
 Cathedral ?). Given by the Shoemakers. 
 1 06, 107. White eighteenth-century glass. 
 
 108. Fourteenth-century grisailles. The An- 
 nunciation. Two coats of arms. 
 
 Rose, Christ blessing. 
 
 109. Signs of the Zodiac and Months of the year. 
 The life of the Virgin. Rose, Christ crucified. 
 Given by Thibaut VI., Count of Chartres, for 
 Thomas, Count of Perche, killed in the Battle of 
 Lincoln, 12 17. 
 
 1 10. Notre-dame de la Belle Verricre {^see p. 161 ). 
 Above, the Virgin (whose mouth has been skilfully 
 restored), enthroned and crowned, with Christ between 
 her knees, surrounded by angels bearing candlesticks 
 and censers. Below, the Marriage at Cana, and the 
 Temptation of our Saviour in the Wilderness, on the 
 Temple and the Mountain. 
 
 111. Scenes from the lives of S. Antony and S. 
 Paul, the first hermit. Given by the Basketmakers. 
 
 Rose, Virgin and Child.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 ' Monument unique, et qu'il faurlrait comparer aux gigantesques 
 constructions de I'Egypte, aux monstrueuses pagodes de I'lnde 
 pour lui trouver des analogues.' — Didron. 
 
 ' Notre-Danie de Chartres ! It is a world to explore, as 
 if one explored the entire Middle Ages.' — Pater. 
 
 ' I 'HE Cathedral of Chartres is gifted to a peculiar 
 -■■ degree with the quality of impressiveness. This 
 quality it owes to the living unity, the animated har- 
 mony of its members, and also to the sensation of 
 space, not emptiness, to the impression of massiveness 
 which is yet not heavy, suggested by the whole, 
 whether viewed from near or afar, and equally by the 
 parts, such as the west front or the nave. 
 
 ' Dependent,' says Pater, ' on its structural com- 
 pleteness, or its wealth of well-preserved ornament, or 
 its unity in variety, perhaps on some undefmable 
 operation of genius, beyond, but concurrently with, all 
 these, the Church of Chartres has still the gift of a 
 unique power of impressing. In comparison, the other 
 famous Churches of France, at Amiens for instance, at 
 Reims or Beauvais, may seem but formal, and to a 
 large extent reproducible, effects of mere architectural 
 rule on a gigantic scale. 
 
 The main body of the Cathedral was completed by 
 I2IO, for it is written in the Latin version (1210) of 
 the Poem of Miracles that one day there came a 
 1S2
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 shining light which dimmed the candles that were 
 lit, and a noise as of thunder that drowned the 
 voices of the many faithful praying in the church, 
 and that a belief sprang up that the Virgin herself had 
 appeared to honour with her presence the Cathedral 
 built to her praise.* 
 
 The north and south porclies, which were not 
 part of the original plan, as is evident from the manner 
 in which they have been applied to the walls and the 
 buttresses cut away to admit them, would appear to 
 have been begun in this same year 1 2 1 o. 
 
 But the dedication of the Cathedral was long deferred. 
 It did not take place till 1260, when S. Louis him- 
 self, the devoted benefactor of the Cathedral, whose 
 personality has filled the north transept, the Rose of 
 France and the north porch, attended with all his family, 
 and with multitudes of people from every side, princes 
 and dukes and peasants, and the bishop, surrounded by 
 
 * A similar legend is tolH of the consecration of Westminster 
 Abbey. 'One stormy Sunday night during the reign of King 
 Sebert, the eve of the day fixed by Mellitus, Bishop of London, 
 for the consecration of Sebert's newly - finished church at 
 Thorney, it happened that one Edrie, a fisherman, was casting 
 his nets into the Thames. His attention was arrested by a voice 
 calling from the opposite shore at Lambeth. He crossed, and 
 found there a venerable stranger in foreign garb, who desired to 
 be ferried over to Tiiorney Isle. Edrie complied with the 
 request. The stranger landed and went at once to the church. 
 And while Edrie waited on the bank, suddenly the air grew 
 bright with celestial splendours, there was no darkness more or 
 shadow in the monastery, and choirs of angels he beheld ascending 
 and descending on a ladder which reached from heaven to earth, 
 with song and flaming tapers and .sweet odours of incense. The 
 fisherman remained gazing at these wonders and caught nothing 
 all night. At last the stranger returned and said unto Edrie, 
 " I am Peter, keeper of the keys of Heaven. When Mellitus 
 comes to-morrow, tell him all that you have seen, and show him 
 that I, S. Peter, have consecrated my own Church of S. Peter, 
 Westminster." ' 
 
 1^3
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 his seventy canons, joined in the solemn dedication of 
 he temple. 
 
 By the fire of 1 194 the whole of the upper church 
 nad been destroyed. The narthex, with the western 
 porch and its three twelfth-century windows, alone 
 remained. Beyond the church stood the two towers 
 still, but their bells and woodwork were all gone, and 
 the masonry was so charred that traces of the fire may 
 be seen to this day. 
 
 Briefly , the steps that were now taken to give us 
 the Cathedral which we have may be summarised as 
 follows. Four apsidal chapels were added in the 
 crypt, completing thus the favourite Gothic number 
 of seven ; all the soil of the crypt (except the 
 martyrium) was levelled up to that of Notre-Dame-de- 
 Sous-Terre ; aisles were constructed over the corridors 
 of the crypt ; a vast transept was added ; an enormous 
 choir, with double aisles and apsidal chapels, was 
 erected over new vaulting of the crypt ; the narthex 
 was displaced and made room for two new bays in the 
 nave ; whilst the west porch was moved skilfully 
 westwards, with the same object, and set in a line 
 flush with the two towers. Traces of this latter 
 process will be found in the fact that the three door- 
 ways, having existed before the present nave and aisles, 
 do not now correspond with them, and traces of what 
 was once exterior masonry of the towers may also be 
 seen inside the present church, between the Chapel 
 of the Seven Sorrows and that of the Calvary. 
 
 At the same time, above the triplet window, in a 
 severe quadrangular framework, was inserted the splendid 
 Rose window, which is a masterpiece of masonry, a 
 superb creation, recalling at once to mind the magnificent 
 circular window of Lincoln, which, however, was a 
 good score years later, and also — for the thick radii of 
 the circle still suggest the spokes of a wheel quite 
 184
 
 T^he Cathedral 
 
 as much as the petals of a rose — the rather earlier 
 Wheel of Barfreston (Kent, 1180). It is 46 feet in 
 diameter, and has been set, designedly, not in the exact 
 centre of its flat stone frame, in order to counterbalance 
 the inequality noticeable in the breadth of the two 
 towers. There, with its double row of sculptured 
 spokes, which radiate from its centre, it looks, to 
 borrow Mr Henry James's fine phrase, on its lofty 
 ileld of stone, as expansive and symbolic as if it were 
 the wheel of Time itself. 
 
 Above this window stretch a noble cornice and 
 a simple balustrade which serve for communication 
 between the two towers, and above this again are the 
 sixteen niched figures which have earned for this 
 gallery the title of the Gallery of Kings. Higher 
 slill is the gable which terminates the front, containing 
 in a niche a colossal statue of the Virgin and Child, 
 and on the apex a statue of Christ in the act of blessing. 
 (Both these statues were re-made in 1855). 
 
 The kings stand upright in their niches ; their pose 
 is little varied ; their costumes uniform. M. Viollet- 
 le-Duc suggested that they represent the Kings of 
 Judah, but there is no reason to doubt the tradition 
 that, like the royal statues at Wells and Notre-Dame 
 de Paris and the stained-glass figures at Strasbourg, 
 they really represent the kings of the country who 
 were benefactors of the church. 
 
 The first seven, then, are the figures of Merovingian 
 Kings, the eighth Pepin-le-Bref, as you may tell by 
 his small stature and the^fact that he is standing upon 
 a lion, in allusion to his courageous feat when, after 
 challenging the French nobles who despised him for 
 his smallness, he slew a raging lion single-handed, 
 and then demanded, ' Do you think me worthy to 
 rule you now : ' The ninth statue was broken by a 
 cannon-ball in the siege of 1591. It was Charlemagne
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 or Charles-le-Fauve. The others are, according to M. 
 Bulteau, Philippe I., Louis le Gros, Louis le .leune, 
 Philippe Auguste, Louis le Lion, Louis IX., and 
 Philippe le Hardi, in whose reign the gallery was 
 finished (1280). 
 
 As at Rouen and at Bayeux, it was originally intended 
 that six new towers, two at each corner of the north 
 and south front, making eight in all, should be grouped 
 round the soaring spire of a central tower which was 
 to rest on the four huge piers at the point of intersection 
 of the transepts of the nave and choir. But they 
 remain incomplete, even as, in accordance it might be 
 fancied with some inscrutable degree, almost every 
 Cathedral in the world is unfinished. 
 
 Thus at Chartres the Cathedral type, after which, 
 with tentative, uncertain hand, the twelfth-century 
 architects of Poitiers and Soissons, Laon and Paris 
 had been striving, was struck out at last. It was to 
 serve as a model for Central Europe throughout the 
 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, just as the sculpture 
 of the western porch was to be copied at Corbeil and 
 Paris, Sentis, Laon and Sens. 
 
 The name of the genius who achieved this glorious 
 success we do not know, though the names of the 
 builders of Reims, of Rouen and of Amiens have 
 come down to us. All we do know is, as has been 
 said above, that there was an active school of architects 
 and sculptors, drawn chiefly from the monks of the 
 Monasteries of Tiron and S. Pere, established at this 
 time in La Beauce, who worked with humble zeal, 
 anonymous. 
 
 But, whatever his name, he succeeded at last, after 
 the efforts and by aid of the efforts of his so many pre- 
 decessors, in striking out the cathedral type, in shaping 
 the mould in which, with various alterations, modifica- 
 tions, improvements and excesses, all the cathedrals of 
 186
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 France were henceforth to be cast. In striking out the 
 type he was himself confined by local conditions, and 
 limited by his lack of experience. By bringing the 
 western facade flush with the western extremities of the 
 towers he was enabled to increase the length of that 
 nave, which he made to leap heavenwards with almost 
 the same joyous spring as that of Amiens, and the 
 length and breadth, and height and strength of that nave, 
 with its massive piers, its splendid vaulting, and its 
 jewelled windows casting their purple and crimson rays 
 across its dark roomy spaces, and the dim distances of 
 the mysterious aisles, render Chartres ' awful ' in a 
 manner seldom or never elsewhere achieved by Gothic 
 architect. But the proportion of the nave to the choir, 
 or, again, to the vast transepts, is not perfect, for the 
 builder was limited by the existing towers. As a 
 pioneer, too, he was limited by inexperience. There 
 is, indeed, no effect of heaviness in this nave, for the 
 massiveness of the work, which is almost equal to that 
 which we call Norman, is relieved by the stupendous 
 height. And the solemnity, the overwhelming impres- 
 siveness of Chartres are due, it might almost seem, to 
 that accident of ignorance. For if he had dared, if he 
 had known that it was possible and safe, can you doubt 
 that the architect would have added to the soaring spires 
 of Chartres the soaring nave of Amiens ? But what 
 we should have gained in sheer beauty we should have 
 lost in character. For Amiens is light and joyous ; 
 Chartres is mysterious and sad. Amiens rises as 
 naturally as the sparks fly upward, as ethereal as the 
 flute-like notes of a treble voice, as careless as a child's 
 light laughter. But Chartres it would seem has more 
 sympathy with the sadder, deeper sides of human life ; 
 it is older, stronger, more masculine, and more wise ; 
 combining the stern philosophy of the Pagan Stoic with 
 the comforting tidings of the Christian martyrs and 
 
 187
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 saints ; combining, that is, as never before or since so 
 harmoniously, the Romanesque and the Gothic styles, 
 the rounded and the pointed arch, talcing the best of 
 each, and uniting them in a transition that is yet a 
 triumph, in an attempt that is an eternal monument of 
 success. 
 
 The transition of style is to be observed on almost 
 every side. Not, indeed, so much in the plain round 
 pillars with capitals in imitation of the Roman com- 
 posite, and with square abaci, as the eye accustomed 
 only to English work might assume, for these in France 
 were retained much later than in England, even through- 
 out the period of Flamboyant. But in almost every 
 direction you can see the tentative mason at work, leav- 
 ing the old heavy style with its horizontal lines behind 
 him, and making new experiments, discarding or de- 
 veloping fresh ideas which tended to the achievement of 
 lightness and spring, but as yet hardly daring to believe 
 to the full in the capacity of stone. Here, for instance, 
 in the nave, the blind triforium has not broken yet into 
 one continuous window, as it was soon to do in the 
 the Church of S. Pere, of S. Ouen at Rouen, and at 
 Amiens ; nor have the heavy masses of stone been 
 resolved into a network of delicate tracery, leaving not 
 a span uncovered by its gossamer thread. The desire 
 for lightness, again, which was in time to lead to the 
 adoption of bar tracery is, in the case of the windows, 
 evident, but not fully attained. Combined, however, 
 with the rare opportunities offered to the architect by 
 the excellent quality of the stone of Bercheres, it has 
 led him to invent a very simple and handsome type of 
 window, which consists of two lancet lights under one 
 arch, with a foliated circle in the head, the plate tracery 
 of which is peculiarly heavy, and is cut through the solid 
 stone. Between these circular openings, which fill a 
 whole bay between the flying buttresses, and the heads 
 i88
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 of the lower lights, there ivS, as at Soissons, Bourges, 
 Reims and so forth, a considerable interval of 
 masonry. The foliated circles themselves are sur- 
 rounded by a number of small trefoil or quatrefoil 
 openings, not formed of bars, but likewise pierced 
 through the solid stone. 
 
 The buttresses of the nave, again, are amazingly 
 heavy and massive, as if the workmen were still afraid 
 to trust them to support the thrust of the vaultini'^ of the 
 roof at so great a height. This is 
 borne by flying buttresses of 
 enormous solidity, composed of an 
 upper and a lower section, which 
 are strengthened in turn by an 
 arcade. The arcading is remark- 
 able for its rugged grace, its mas- 
 culine beauty. Its round-headed 
 arches, which are supported by 
 short, thick shafts, that remind one 
 of the spokes of the wheel window, 
 are composed of two large blocks 
 of hewn stone. 
 
 Compare these flying buttresses 
 with the later and lighter but less 
 
 I ■ r ..1 1 • "..I FLYING BUTTRESSrS 
 
 pleasmg ones of the choir, or with 
 
 * ■ OF TH E NAVE. 
 
 the almost impudent development of 
 the use of them in the Abbey Church of S. Pere, and, 
 without any doubt, you perceive in what direction 
 lay the ambition of the transitional architect. 
 
 These buttresses of the nave will be best seen from 
 the galleries of the roof, with their graceful balustrading, 
 along which you pass, when, under the guidance of a 
 verger from the Maison-des-Clercs, you make your 
 ascent of the clorhers, starting from a door near the 
 north entrance and the sacristy. Passing, then, along 
 these galleries, you come to the Clocher Neuf , with its 
 
 189
 
 "The Story of Chartres 
 
 Flamboyant spire, the work of Jehan de Beauce 
 ( 1 507- 1 5 1 3 ) ; built after the spire of timber and lead, 
 which replaced the one destroyed in 1194, had been 
 destroyed itself in 1 506. It was raised 4 feet by 
 Claude Auge in 1690, so that the present height of the 
 Clocher Neuf is 378 feet, that of the Clocher Vieux 
 being 350. Auge, in the following year, added the 
 enormous bronze vase on the top ; the cross above that 
 was placed in position in 1854. There is a vane in the 
 form of a sun (Jesus, the Sun of Justice, the Light of 
 the World) upon this cross, corresponding to the moon 
 on the old spire (Mary, ' clothed with the sun, with the 
 moon under her feet.' — Rev. xii.) 
 
 The third storey of the Clocher Neuf into which 
 the gallery brings us is the beginning of the Flamboyant 
 work of Jehan de Beauce. An elegant balustrade 
 connects the parts of the different date. On the south 
 wall of the Chamhre des Sontieiirs, as the third storey 
 is called, is graven in Gothic, but now scarce legible 
 characters, an inscription in six quatrains, in which the 
 clocher tells us the history of the disaster of 1 506, 
 and the event of its rebuilding by Jehan de Beauce, 
 the skilful mason, just as the bronze vase above relates 
 in Latin prose the further history of the spire down to 
 1 690, and the name of the bronze-founder, Ignace Gabois. 
 
 ' Je fus jadis de plomb et boys construit, 
 Grant, hault et beau, de somptueux ouvraige, 
 Jusques ad ce que tonnerre et oraige 
 M'a consume, degate et detruit 
 
 Le jour sainte Anne vers six heures de nuyt 
 En I'annee mil cinq cens et six. 
 Je fu brule demoly et recuyt 
 Et avec moy de grosses cloches six. 
 
 Apres Messieurs en plain Chappitre assis 
 Ont ordonne de pierre me reffaire 
 A grant voultes et pilliers bien massifs 
 Par Jehan de Beausse, macon qui le sut faire. 
 190
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 L'An (lessu (list apres pour I'euvre faire 
 Assouar firent le vint ijiiatriL-me jour 
 Du moys de mars pour Ic premier affaire 
 Premiere pierre et aultres sans ce jour. 
 
 Et en avril huitiesme jour expres 
 Rene d'Hliers evesque de regnon 
 Pardist la vie au lieu duquel apres 
 Feust Erard mis par postulacion. 
 
 En ce temps la que avoys nicessite 
 Avoit lies gens qui pour moy lors vieilloient 
 Du bon du cccur feust yver ou este, 
 Dicu le pardont et a ceulx qui s'y emploient. 
 1508.' 
 
 The fourth storey, lit by four large bays, contains 
 two great bells cast in 1840, Marie (C, 13,228 lbs.) 
 and Joseph, the tenor, who sounds the Angelus 
 throughout the year. 
 
 The fifth storey, pierced on each of its eight sides 
 by a large bay, contains four large bells of 1845, 
 Anne (D., 2040 kilos.), Elizabeth (E., 15 10 kilos.), 
 Fulbert (F., i 510 kilos.), Piat (G., 870 kilos.). The 
 first-named bell is always known as Anne of Bretagne. 
 For she, when visiting the Cathedral in 15 10, was so 
 delighted with the voice of one of the lads singing in 
 the choir that she begged him of the canons, and 
 when they granted her request she thanked them in 
 these words : ' Messieurs, you have given me a little 
 voice, and I in return wish to give you a big Qne.' 
 This she did, giving them the bell which has ever 
 since been called by her name. It was known also by 
 the name of the Cloche des bieris, for at one season of 
 the year it was rung for an hour every evening to 
 secure an abundant harvest. ' At the first stroke of 
 the bell,' wrote Sablon, in 1697, ' all the people make 
 the sign of the cross and recite an Ave Maria for the 
 products of the soil.' 
 
 The fifth storey marks the beginning of the spire, 
 
 191
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 and is itself octagonal. The transition is ingeniously 
 concealed by tiae richly-ornamented pinnacles at the 
 four corners, which tie the balustrade to the tower and 
 support, each of them, three colossal statues (John the 
 Baptist and the eleven Apostles). Light flying 
 buttresses, adorned with graceful mouldings and ad- 
 mirable grotesques, connect the pinnacles with the 
 tower. Over one of the lights is a Christ in the act 
 of benediction. 
 
 The sixth storey, surrounded by a gallery in Flam- 
 boyant style, panels of rich tracery and gargoyles, and 
 pinnacles at the corners of the octagon, contains the 
 room of the watchmen, whose duty it was every half- 
 hour during the night to walk round this gallery and 
 give the alarm when they saw a fire in the town. A 
 Latin inscription records that by the peculiar grace of 
 God this pyramid was preserved from the effects of a 
 fire (1674) due to the watchman's carelessness. This 
 good man, Gendrin by name, finding that the hours of tlie 
 night watch hung heavy on his hands, used to amuse him- 
 self by reading. One night the candle fell and set light to 
 his straw mattress, and thence the flames spread rapidly 
 to the timber of the room. The wooden belfry was 
 saved from destruction by the great bravery of a work- 
 man named Claude Gauthier. A quotation from 
 Psalms cxxvii., outside the western door, draws the 
 moral, ' Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman 
 waketh but in vain.' It is signed F. Foucault. But 
 the significance of the name has died away. 
 
 At last, after having mounted 377 steps, we reach 
 the seventh storey, where hangs the ' Tocsin ' bell, ' in 
 accordance with which,' says an old writer, ' all the 
 people of Chartres order and conduct themselves.' * 
 It weighs 5000 kilos., and was cast on the 23rd 
 September, 1520, by Pierre Sayvet, as the inscription 
 
 * Rouillard, Parthe'me. 
 192
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 tells us, ' Petrus Say vet me fecit.' Another and 
 longer inscription, in beautiful Gothic characters, runs 
 round the bell in two lines. The bell, speaking in 
 l^atin verses, tells us that it has been raised < to the 
 lofty summit of this mighty building to announce the 
 eclipses of the sun and the moon.' And it fixes its 
 date as 1520, with a reference to the great event of 
 that year, the meeting of Henry VIll. and Francois I., 
 near Calais, on the Held of the Cloth of Gold, ' when 
 the Frenchmen met the linglish and lay down together 
 in everlasting goodwill.' 
 
 ' Facta ad signandos solis luneque labores 
 Evehor ad tante culmina celsa domus 
 Annus erat Christi millesimus adde priori 
 
 Quinycntos numero bis quoquc junge decern 
 Illo quippe anno quo francus convenit angluni 
 Perpetuaque simul discubuere fide.' 
 
 The arms of the Chapter, the chemisette of Notre- 
 Dame, and the escutcheon of a dauphin will be noticed 
 at the end of the last line. 
 
 You reach the old tower from the new by way of 
 the Gallery of Kings or by crossing, within, the vault- 
 ing of the nave, beneath the copper roof which has 
 taken the place of the old wooden roof destroyed in 
 the fire of 1^36. The old roof was an immense and 
 elaborate construction of timber known to the people as 
 The Forest, because, one old chronicler explains, had 
 the trees of which it was composed still been growing 
 they would constitute a large forest by themselves ; 
 because, says another, the sight of it recalled to the 
 people the sacred groves of the ancient Druids, who 
 once performed their rites upon this spot. The mag- 
 nificent woodwork of the belfry of the old tower was 
 consumed in the same fire, and the huge bells that were 
 once its boast — Mary and Gabriel — were melted down 
 in I 7y3 to supply the men of reason with bullets. 
 
 N 193
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 The great bell of the old tower (Marie) had been 
 re-made in 1723 and carried the inscription — 
 
 ' Marie-Anne je m'appele 
 Et trente mille je pese, 
 Celui qui bien me pesera 
 34,000 trouvera.' 
 
 At the foot of the Clocher Neuf is the extremely 
 elegant little Renaissance clock tower, which was 
 built by Jehan de Beauce in 1520, when he had com- 
 pletely abandoned the Gothic style and adopted the 
 classic manner lately introduced by the Italian artists 
 who had followed Louis XII. and Frangois I. into 
 France. Partisans of pure Gothic may call it mytho- 
 logical, mannered, mundane, but the more catholic 
 lover of the beautiful will not dismiss it so contempt- 
 uously. From this pavilion de I'horloge there used to 
 run alongside the nave up to the transept some four- 
 teenth-century buildings, which were demolished in 
 i860. They served as a lodging for the Soeurs- 
 cryptes, who, when the epidemic known as the Mai 
 des Ardents was scourging France in the eleventh 
 and twelfth centuries, had charge of the Hopital des 
 Saints-Lieux-Forts, organised in the north gallery 
 of the crypt to receive the crowds of sufferers who 
 flocked to the shrine of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre. 
 The patients were received and nursed in this hospital 
 for nine days and then dismissed, healed or not.* 
 
 * * Quer tele fu sa destinee 
 
 Que Hou seint feu fut alumee 
 Dont li martir ardant alument 
 Qui a seint Leu Fort acoustument 
 En la crote a Chartres venir 
 La ou la Dame fet fenir 
 Dedens ix jorz la maladie 
 Ou soit a mort ou soit a vie.' 
 
 Jf.han le Marchant. 
 194
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 From the fourteenth century onwards the plague 
 gradually decreased in intensity, cases became less 
 and less rare, and the staff of Sisters was finally reduced 
 to one, known as La Dame des Grottes. 
 
 We will leave for the present the exterior of the 
 Cathedral and return later to the consideration of the 
 north and south porches. For it is time to enter, by 
 the western portal which we know, the sanctuary of 
 Notre-Dame. Here, amid the dim shadows of old 
 dreams, the mystic may indulge his fancy, and here, if 
 anywhere, wandering through this veritable gallery of 
 Madonnas, in escaping from the feverish passions of the 
 world, a man may cool his hands awhile in the gray 
 twilight of Gothic things. More souls, they say, have 
 been healed at Chartres than bodies at Lourdes. In 
 solitude and silence it is best ; but wonderful also and 
 impressive is the Cathedral when filled with long trains 
 of pilgrims, whose shuiHing feet and murmured prayers 
 echo through the vast nave and resound from the 
 innumerable chapels. These sounds, these sights carry 
 us back in a flash of memory to those mediasval days 
 when Scbastien Rouillard was astonished at the crowds 
 of all nations who congregated here ' and slept all night 
 in the church or in the grottoes for lack of lodgings.' 
 On the very threshold the sloping floor of the west end 
 of the nave, so made that it might the more easily be 
 cleansed, suggests that scene. 
 
 Surely the vast nave with its gloomy spaces is filled 
 with the ghosts of forgotten worshippers, and it thrills 
 with the unheard echoes of unanswered prayers. It is 
 melancholy with the records of perverted faith and 
 false enthusiasm, and it is magnificent with the chanted 
 hopes of the faithful and the undying promises of the 
 Risen Lord. The blood of martyrs and the blood of 
 infidels cries aloud from those stones which once re- 
 sounded with the fiery exhortations of a crusading
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 monk or of a fanatic preaching the extermination of 
 the Jews and the persecution of the Huguenots. 
 
 Here knights have kept their vigil and watched by 
 their armour on the eve of a Crusade, and here many 
 a young squire after his night watch by the altar, 
 clothfctl in vestments of white linen that symbolised 
 his moral purity, has been struck on the shoulder with 
 the consecrated sword and made ' a knight in the name 
 of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.' Hither, 
 again, courtier pilgrims have brought with them the 
 perfume of Paris, and Norman peasants the odour of 
 the fields. Here many a penitent Magdalen has 
 poured out her soul in contrite supplication. Here, 
 too, the hand of the sacrilegious destroyer has wrought 
 its vile work, and yet failed to leave more than a few 
 blots and stains upon the mighty fabric reared by 
 mediaeval faith. 
 
 You may close your eyes and imagine that you are 
 present at a Mass of old days — a Mass of the dead — a 
 silent Mass, at which no sound escapes from the lips of 
 the praying, and no tinkle comes from the bell that is 
 vainly shaken. Kings do penance before the sacred 
 altar, knights in chain armour kneel and take the sign 
 of the cross ; noble lords, clad in velvet and brocade, 
 with plumes in their hats and swords at their sides, 
 carry in their hands tall canes, with golden knobs, and 
 bow to great dames with powdered hair, who hide 
 behind their fans lovely faces powdered, painted, 
 patched. And in the aisles a crowd of youthful 
 artisans, in brown jerkins, dimity breeches, and hose of 
 blue, stand beside young women with rosy cheeks and 
 downcast eyes. Elsewhere peasant women, in their 
 old skirts and laced bodices, sit tranquil, whilst up- 
 right, behind them, their young lovers shift their legs 
 ind twist their hats in their fingers, gazing open-eyed. 
 
 They seem to follow with their silent lips the noise- 
 196
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 less priests as they perform that ritual order of Notre- 
 Dame de Chartres, which rejoiced the Gothic soul of 
 Gaston de Latour ; a year-long dramatic action, in 
 which everyone had and knew his part — the drama or 
 mystery of redemption, to the necessities of which the 
 great church had shaped itself. For all those various 
 • offices ' which, in pontifical, missal and breviary, 
 devout imagination had elaborated from age to age 
 with such a range of spiritual colour and light and 
 shade, with so much poetic tact in quotation, such a 
 depth of insight into the Christian soul, had been 
 joined harmoniously together, one office ending only 
 where another began, in the perpetual worship of this 
 mother of churches. And Notre-Dame had also its 
 own picturesque peculiarities of ' use,' and was proud 
 of its maternal privilege therein,* 
 
 You notice the rich tones of the masonry, made 
 richer by the jewelled lights of those rare windows ; 
 you notice in the centre of the nave the mysterious 
 maze traced upon the pavement, the scene in old times 
 of much devotional exercise, — la Lieue, it is vulgarly 
 termed, for the miniature pilgrimages, along the line 
 of white stores, with prayers at stated intervals, as 
 once at Reims, Amiens, Arras, and Bayeux, earned 
 many indulgences, and took the place of a journey to 
 Jerusalem. This, with the exception of that at S. 
 Quentin, is the only remaining instance of a labyrinth 
 in the French churches. Above you, around you, 
 tower the piers and vaulting of the nave — 
 
 ' Heavy as nightmare, airy light as fern, 
 Imagination's very self in stone. 
 Solemn the lift of high-embowered roof; 
 Solemn the deepening vault.' 
 
 Something of the power of impressing which this 
 
 * C/. Walter Pater, Gaston de Latour. 
 
 197
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 Cathedral possesses is due, one begins to reflect, to the 
 fortunate scarcity of side-chapels, and the complete 
 absence of the tombs, which fill up the spaces, and 
 therefore detract from the effect of so many churches. 
 The reason for this happy freedom from monuments is 
 given by the old writer, Rouillard. ' This church 
 has the special prerogative of being reputed the cham- 
 ber or couch of the Virgin. As a sign thereof the 
 soil of this church has always hitherto been preserved 
 pure and undefiled, without ever having been dug or 
 opened for any sepulture.' But there was one excep- 
 tion. One military leader was interred there with all 
 honours in 1568, within the precinct of the high altar 
 itself. Much against their will, the canons had yielded 
 to the pressure of the King and the Court, and con- 
 sented at last to inter in the Choir the body of the 
 Baron of Bourdeilles, the colonel of the Gascons, who 
 had fallen in the defence of the breach against the 
 Huguenots {^see p. 277). To the sound of tabourins 
 and fifes the funeral cortege wound its way through 
 the town of mourning citizens, and the remains of the 
 valiant D'Ardelay were regretfully lowered into a vault 
 to the left of the high altar, which was not to prove 
 their last resting-place. Rouillard, who saw the tomb 
 of the gallant colonel in 1608, adds that many believed 
 then that the body would not long remain where it 
 was. And, indeed, fifty years afterwards, the reverend 
 canons, resenting, on the part of their immaculate 
 Patroness, this intrusion, reported that the corpse itself, 
 ill at ease, had protested, lifting up its hands above the 
 surface of the pavement, as if to beg interment else- 
 where. This it easily obtained in the cemetery of 
 S. Jerome. 
 
 The nave exceeds in width any in France or Ger- 
 many. Its width, as also its length, which is short in 
 comparison with the other parts of the Cathedral, was 
 198
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 determined, as we have seen, by the position of the 
 two towers. In height it falls short of the naves of 
 Bourges and Amiens, and of Beauvais, which out- 
 rivalled even its sisters, and fell in the moment of its 
 mad success. But it is an unprofitable business, this 
 comparison of cathedrals. One is not less beautiful 
 because another is of larger dimensions, nor less perfect 
 because another is more uniform. This nave has its 
 own qualities, which I have feebly endeavoured to 
 suggest, qualities different from, but not less valuable 
 than the pure beauty of that of Amiens. 
 
 Architecturally speaking, Parker put the matter in a 
 nutshell when he wrote that the nave of Chartres was 
 ' nearly as massive as Norman work, although the 
 effect of heaviness is removed by the enormous height.'* 
 Detached piers and engaged pilasters support the vault- 
 ing, which is as daring as it is strong. 
 
 ' The main ribs of the vault spring from, or are 
 rather continuations of the tall clustered pilasters, 
 which are themselves continuations of the main piers ; 
 and from the points where each of the main ribs rise 
 two other cross - ribs also spring. These at their 
 points of intersection are adorned with crown-shaped 
 bosses, for the most part enriched with carvings of 
 foliage, coloured in part, which have been marred with 
 colour-wash. Lines, in imitation of ashlar-work, have 
 been painted upon the vault' ( Masse ).t 
 
 The piers in the nave and transept are alternately 
 cylindrical and octagonal in section, and have supple- 
 mentary cylindrical or octagonal columns ; but in the 
 ambulatory of the choir there are several piers circular 
 in section, with octagonal bases and square plinths, but 
 without any sup])lcmentary columns. Such plain 
 lound piers, which in lingland are called Norman, 
 
 * Introduction to the Study of Gothic Architecture. 
 t Chartres, 
 
 199
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 are rare in France. Examples of them are, however, 
 to be found at Laon, Soissons and Paris. The 
 capitals are rich and varied, and consist chiefly of 
 foliage ; those of the piers in the Chapel of the Seven 
 Sorrows (Clocher Neuf), and, again, those of the 
 Norman pillars, in the deambulatory of the choir 
 opposite the shrine of Notre -Dame du Pilier, are 
 remarkably fine. But the most noteworthy of the 
 piers are the four ' Toureaus,' as they are called : the 
 enormous piers at the intersection of nave and transept, 
 which were intended to support the central tower and 
 spire, and which rise sheer to the roof, in an unbroken 
 line, to the height of 120 feet. Their faces are 
 covered with a quantity of slender columns. 
 
 The arcading of the- triforium varies in width and 
 character in the nave, the choir, and the transepts and 
 the apse. The arches of the smaller bays into which 
 each main bay is divided are pointed. The soffit is 
 flat, with a round moulding at the inner and the outer 
 edge. The capitals are richly carved with foliage ; 
 the bases are plain and severe. 
 
 The clerestory is composed of pairs of tall lancet 
 windows, with a rose window above them, which fill 
 the whole available space in each bay. Of the glass 
 we have spoken in the previous chapter. 
 
 The Flamboyant period is represented in the Cathedral 
 by the spire of Jehan de Beauce and the Chapelle Vendome, 
 next to the south transept. It was founded in 141 3 
 by Louis de Bourbon, and dedicated to the Annuncia- 
 tion. It has recently been restored. The style is 
 incongruous with this massive transitional nave, but 
 serves perhaps to accentuate the beauty of its masculine 
 grandeur and reserve. The remains of S. Fiat and S. 
 Taurin are preserved here ; the one is invoked for fair 
 weather, the other for rain by the farmers of La Beauce. 
 
 The influence of the Renaissance is to be traced in 
 200
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 the clock tower at the foot of the Clocher Neuf, in 
 the later portions of the Cloture du Chceur and, in its 
 most fatal form, in the alterations that were made in 
 the eighteenth century within the choir.* The Chapter, 
 about 1750, was composed of men with much taste, 
 ail of it bad. A terrible mania for ugliness had seized 
 mankind. Men like Bossuet, Fenelon, Montesquieu 
 and Racine, enamoured of the classical style, declared 
 the Gothic barbarous. At that inopportune crisis of 
 taste the Chapter began to 'decorate' the choir. The 
 result is simply nauseating. 
 
 The jube, the beautiful screen which had come 
 down from the century of S. Louis, required repair. 
 The excuse was welcomed, and it was destroyed. A 
 few fragments only remain in the Chapel of 8. Martin 
 in the crypt. The pillar upon which the Vierge Noire 
 (Notre-Dame du Pilier) was then set is said to have 
 been part of the dehr'is of this screen. The present 
 grille replaced in 1S66 the pretentious iron-work of 
 the eighteenth century. 
 
 This achievement of the Chapter seems to have 
 whetted rather than satisfied their shameless appetite 
 for the hideous. ' Sans doute,' wrote Victor Hugo, 
 'C'est encore aujourd'hui un majestueux et sublime 
 edifice que Notre-Dame de Chartres. Mais si belle 
 qu'elle se soit conservce en vieillissant, il est difficile 
 de ne pas soupirer, de ne pas s'indigner devant les 
 degradations, les mutilations sans nombre que simultane- 
 ment le temps ct les hommes ont fait subir au venerable 
 monument.' 
 
 Italians were sent for from Milan to wash the grand 
 old stone of Bercheres a sickly yellow ; the noble 
 simplicity of the piers, capitals and soffits of the arches 
 disappeared beneath a mess of stucco, gilding and sham 
 marble. The choir was treated like an eighteenth 
 * Tlic choir is the largest in France, after that of Laon. 
 
 201
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 century drawing-room. The old tapestry hangings, 
 hve of which are happily preserved in the Museum, 
 were removed, and in their place eight mediocre bas- 
 reliefs in glaring white marble were substituted by 
 Bridan, two of which have been removed to the 
 Bishop's Palace. The old paving of the choir, on which 
 S. Louis and a thousand other illustrious pilgrims had 
 knelt, was also removed, and an utterly unsuitable 
 pavement of black and white marble laid down in its 
 stead. In order to throw light upon the atrocious 
 transformation that had been wrought, several of the 
 priceless thirteenth-century windows were taken out 
 and plain glass substituted. To such an extent was 
 this done, indeed, that in 1786 we find a canon of the 
 Cathedral gravely complaining that there was too much 
 light, and asking for a curtain to be drawn across the 
 window ! But the Revolution surprised these canons 
 seated in their new stalls ere the curtains had yet been 
 made to hide the results of their pious Paganism. 
 They were sent to the scaffold, and their church was 
 converted into a Temple of Reason amid scenes of 
 abominable profanity and vile orgy. 
 
 The group of the Assumption was preserved by the 
 presence of mind of an architect, by name Morin, who 
 placed a red cap of liberty on the Virgin's head and a 
 lance in her hand. It might have been more reasonable 
 to destroy it. For anything more detestably out of 
 place than this soulless mass of Carrara marble in the 
 old Gothic sanctuary it is impossible to discover 
 without going to Westminster Abbey. It is the work 
 of Antoine Bridan, the King's sculptor, and the Chapter 
 were so pleased with it that they settled a pension on 
 him and his wife, and cheerfully destroyed more windows 
 in order to throw more light upon the monument. 
 
 Vandals, alas, are of all time and of all countries. 
 Even the beautiful Cloture, the great horse-shoe wall 
 202
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 
 / 
 
 Facing Page 203.
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 which, chiselled like a silver bowl, encloses the choir, 
 has been and continues to be horribly defaced and 
 defiled by the ignorant vandalism of impious idiots and 
 pious pilgrims, whose zeal has eaten them up and moves 
 them to write or scratch their names upon the walls of 
 this exquisite though unequal work. 
 
 More beautiful than the fourteenth-century screen of 
 Notre-Dame de Paris, but inferior in unity and nobility 
 of feeling to the Pourto'ir of Amiens, this Cloture, 
 although executed at various periods, is one in design. 
 The plan of forty groups, representing the principal 
 scenes in the life of the Virgin and the Gospel story was 
 drawn up by the Chancellor of the Chapter, Mainterne, 
 at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The work 
 was begun in 15 14 under Jehan de Beauce. It was 
 continued in 161 1 by Boudin. It was finished by 
 various sculptors at the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century, and the style naturally varies from late Gothic 
 to Renaissance. The earliest work is the best. 
 
 It comprises the first twelve groups in the south 
 ambulatory. These were wrought by or under the 
 supervision of Jehan Soulas, a Parisian sculptor, 
 engaged for that purpose by the Chapter ( 1 5 1 8). For 
 Jehan de Beauce, being an architect and not a sculptor, 
 was responsible only for the framework, and not for the 
 groups of figures. But that framework is a masterpiece 
 of delicate grace and prolific imagination. A wealth of 
 ornament, of foliage and arabesques, of mythical person- 
 ages and fantastic beasts, covers the base and the 
 innumerable columns about it. The stone openwork 
 above and the canopies are exquisite in their lightness 
 and finish. Before he died in 1529 Jehan de Beauce 
 had passed completely under the influence of the Renais- 
 sance. The elegant and ingenious clock tower, which 
 breaks the series of niches on the south side of the 
 cloture, with its decorative Titus and Vespasian, and 
 
 203
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 so forth, gives evidence of this. The elaborate clock- 
 work with which it was originally provided, and which 
 showed the days, hours, months, time of sunrise and 
 sunset, and signs of the Zodiac, was destroyed in 1793. 
 The initial F, with a crown, which appears on the 
 vertical band, refers to the then reigning Francois I. 
 
 Apart from the infinite variety of other ornamental 
 details in which the framework is so rich, there are 
 thirty-five medallions on the base. The first on the 
 south side refers to the Siege of Chartres by Rollo in 
 911 ; the next fifteen to the lives of David, Daniel, 
 Moses, Samson, Abraham and Jonas ; the next twelve to 
 mythological subjects — Labours of Hercules^and the 
 last seven are heads of Roman emperors. 
 
 The pillars of the screen carry statuettes of founders 
 and bishops, of whom we have already mentioned S. 
 Fulbert and S.Ives at the eastern extremity. The small 
 doors in their beautiful frames give access to rooms of 
 which four were once chapels, and two others served 
 for the night-watchers. 
 
 The first group in the south ambulatory represents 
 the angel appearing to S. Joachim, who is watching 
 his flocks with two shepherds and a dog, and announc- 
 ing the birth of the Virgin. This and the three 
 following groups are certainly the work of Jehan Soulas 
 (1520). 
 
 The second group shows S. Anne receiving a similar 
 message from an invisible angel, to whom she listens 
 with the most intent absorption. The servant, whose 
 attention has also been arrested, is portrayed with equally 
 vivid realism. The sculptor was evidently a master of 
 exact observation. There is something Flemish in his 
 closeness to life. The third group, where the aged 
 couple meet and embrace before the Golden Gate, shows 
 a minute and vivid understanding of the gestures of old 
 age, and the attitude of the servant is admirably sug- 
 204
 
 'The Cathedral 
 
 gestive of her nai've, sympathetic delight. There is 
 something P lemish, again, in the homely details with 
 which (4) the Birth of the Virgin is portrayed. 
 S. Anne lies on a curtained couch in the background, 
 attended by a servant, whilst another prepares to wash 
 the Infant. 
 
 The next eight groups owe much to Jehan Soulas, 
 but they cannot be ascribed with certainty to his chisel. 
 They show ( 5 ) the Virgin Mary ascending the steps of 
 the Temple with S. Joachim and S. Anne, (6) the 
 Marriage of the Virgin, (7) the Annunciation, (iS) 
 the Visitation. 
 
 The ninth group, next to the Renaissance clock, is 
 of extraordinary excellence. It is conceived in a spirit 
 of the most bold and vivid realism, absolutely justified 
 in the result. Mary is sewing and reading a book ; 
 Joseph asleep (and not his eyes only but his whole 
 body proclaims profound slumber), learns in a dream 
 the immaculate conception of the Virgin. Then follow 
 three excellent groups — the Adoration of the Shepherds 
 and Angels, the Circumcision and the Adoration of the 
 Magi. In the latter the figure of the Virgin is particu- 
 larly noteworthy. On the threshold of the Renais- 
 sance the sculptor has suddenly left the uninspired style 
 of his day and gone back to the mystic ideal charm of 
 the thirteenth century. 
 
 The next two scenes, the Presentation in the Temple 
 (13), and the Massacre o? the Innocents (14), with 
 the Flight into l'"gypt in the background, were finished 
 by Franc^ois Marchand, of Orleans, in 1542, and, in 
 spite of mutilation and restoration, they revea-1 the 
 beginnings of the influence which the Italian Renais- 
 sance was to exercise upon French art. The Baptism 
 of Christ in the Jordan (15), which follows, is by 
 Nicholas Guybert, who lacked the draughtsmanship 
 and anatomical study of Marchand, but was inspired 
 
 205
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 with a devotional feeling quite foreign to the seventeenth- 
 century work of Thomas Boudin, (i6, 17, 18) the 
 Temptation, the Canaanitish woman, the Transfiguration 
 (161 2). The Woman taken in Adultery (19) is 
 the work of Jean de Dieu (1681), and (20) the Man 
 born Blind, that of Pierre Legros (1683). 
 
 The centre of the Tour du Choeur, as it is called, 
 was formerly filled by an altar, above which were relics 
 of several saints in rich caskets (SS. Piat, Lubin, 
 Caletric, Tugdualus, etc.) ; but those have disappeared, 
 and a fifteenth-century group, representing S. Martin 
 sharing his cloak with a poor man, has taken its 
 place. 
 
 Tuby the younger executed the next two groups in 
 1703. They represent (21, 22) the Entry into 
 Jerusalem, whilst the next six are as late as 1714, and 
 are by Simon Arazicres. They depict (23) the Agony 
 in the Garden, (24) the Betrayal, (25) the Trial 
 before Pontius Pilate, (26) the Scourging of Jesus, 
 (27) the Crown of Thorns, (28) the Crucifixion, 
 (29) the Virgin gazing at the dead Christ. 
 
 Thomas Boudin, again, is responsible for the next 
 four groups (1611) — (30) the Resurrection, (31) the 
 Holy Women bringing vases of perfume to the Tomb, 
 (32) Christ and the Disciples of Emmaus, (33) Christ 
 dispelling the doubts of S. Thomas. 
 
 The remaining eight groups are of the same date, and 
 almost of the same excelleftce as those by Jehan Soulas 
 at the beginning of the cloture opposite, and contrast 
 favourably with the cold and Pagan feeling of the fore- 
 going. They are probably the work of a pupil of that 
 sculptor, and were made under the supervision, in part, 
 perhaps, with the aid of Jehan Texier, called De Beauce. 
 An inscription of the plinth beneath explains the subject 
 of each scene. 
 
 (34.) Comment Jesus-Chr'tst ressuscite apparoist a la 
 206
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 Fierge Miir'te. Christ appearing to the Virgin and S. 
 John. 
 
 (35') Comme Nostre-Seigneur monte es-cicux. The 
 Virgin and the Apostles grouped round the stone which 
 bears the imprint of the Saviour's feet, look upwards to 
 the sky, where the robe and feet of the ascending Lord 
 can be seen. 
 
 (36.) Commt- le S. - Esprit descent sur les apotres. The 
 tongues of fire descending on the day of Pentecost on 
 the Virgin and the eight Apostles round her. 
 
 (37.) Comme Nostre-Dame adore la Croix. The 
 Adoration of the Cross by the Virgin, accompanied by 
 S. John, Mary Magdalen, Mary Salome. 
 
 (38.) C'est le trepassemetit de Nostre-Dame. The 
 Death of the Virgin, who lies upon a couch, holding a 
 taper, whilst all the Apostles attend — S. John weeping, 
 S. James the Less taking offhis spectacles, and so forth. 
 
 (39.) Le Portement de Nostre-Dame. The Virgin is 
 borne on the shoulders of eight Apostles to the Tomb 
 in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. 
 
 (40.) Le Sepulcre de Nostre-Dame. Four angels 
 raise the body of the Virgin from the Tomb, whilst 
 Christ descending between two angels blesses the body, 
 which has half risen from the grave. 
 
 (41.) Le couronnement Nostre-Dame. The crowning 
 of the Virgin by the three Persons of the Trinity is a 
 charming group, worthy to be compared with the best 
 of the fust twelve in the south ambulatory. 
 
 In the dim aisle, opposite the groups of the Cloture 
 which we have just described, is the shrine which 
 draws from every side the greater number of the 
 visitors to Chartres. Notre-Dame de la belle Verriere 
 is, save for the devotion of a few aged peasants, a 
 deserted Madonna, and even the cult of Notre-Dame- 
 de-Sous-Terre or of the Voile de Marie is at the 
 present time less jjopular than that of Notre-Dnmc du 
 
 207
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 Piller, the Vierge Noire, black also and comely. The 
 chapel in which this statue is placed is next to the 
 sacristy, which was built, like the three gables of the 
 fagades, with their turrets, galleries, balustrades and 
 statues, about the year 1 3 1 o, under the direction of 
 Jean des Carri^res, ' mason and master of the work of 
 Notre-Dame.' The Chapel of Notre-Dame du Pilier 
 is not, properly speaking, a chapel, but part of the 
 ambulatory of the choir in which the statue of the 
 Vierge Notre du Pilier or the F'ierge aux Miracles is 
 set. A priest from the CEuvre des clercs is always 
 in attendance ; innumerable lamps and candles burn 
 before the shrine, and countless pilgrims kiss the pillar 
 devoutly and obtain the forty days' indulgence granted 
 for that act of faith. 'The column,' said Rouillard 
 (1608), ' is worn hollow by the kisses of the faithful.' 
 The statue dates from the latter part of the fifteenth 
 century, and was originally placed at the foot of the 
 cross above the choir screen. When that screen was 
 destroyed in 1763 it was moved near a pier in the 
 choir, and afterwards, in 1791, banished to the crypt 
 and its place taken by the statue of Notre-Dame-de- 
 Sous-Terre. It was established in its present position 
 in 1806, and set upon a column which is a fragment 
 of the old jube. Notre-Dame du Pilier was solemnly 
 crowned, in the name of Pius IX., on May 31, 1855, 
 after a month-long festival, and amid a scene of 
 extraordinary splendour and jubilation. Ever since 
 then, on the anniversary of that feast, the statue is 
 borne in triumphant procession round the church. 
 
 I do not think that there is any other detail in the 
 Cathedral over which it is necessary to linger. For 
 the crypt and the Chapel of S. Piat have already 
 been described at length. Let us, then, seek the 
 open air and examine the copper-stained statuary of 
 the northern porch, choosing, if possible, the late 
 208
 
 'The Cathedral 
 
 afternoon for our visit, when the cold stone is warmed 
 by the rose-pink tint of the setting sun. The effect of 
 this gallery of seven hundred thirteenth century statues 
 of all sizes is splendid enough as it is, but it must 
 have been greatly enhanced originally, when, in accord- 
 ance with the early regulation of the church, every 
 piece of carving was coloured or gilded. The same 
 perfect harmony of structure which distinguishes the 
 western and southern porches is visible in the northern, 
 and the latter is even richer in detail. It was given by 
 the Royal Family, like the rose window above, and, 
 like the south porch, it was added after the plan of 
 the Cathedral was more or less comjjleted. Traces of 
 this fact are evident. Buttresses had to be cut away 
 to make room for it, and it was soon found necessary 
 to insert iron ties to hold it to the main building. 
 
 There is nothing outside France which can be com- 
 pared with the splendour of these porches. And among 
 French churches those of S. Urbain at Troyes, S. 
 Maclou at Rouen, S. Germain at Paris, and the Cathe- 
 dral of Bourges and of Alby rival, but cannot claim to 
 surpass, in harmonious effect and delicate grace of 
 detail, the open porches of Chartres. The fact that 
 these porches are opened and advanced, verandah-like, 
 beyond the line of the building, relieving thereby the 
 severity of it, is significant. It indicates the change 
 from the primitive architecture of the church. For 
 the early buildings, the style of which was based on 
 that of the Roman basilicas, had closed porches 
 beneath which persons of importance were buried, 
 catechumens were instructed and baptized, and 
 exorcisms of the devil performed. But in the 
 thirteenth century it became the practice, as here 
 with regard to the western facade, to build the 
 entrance Hush with the towers, and when later, in the 
 reign of S. Louis, the fashion of lateral porches was 
 V 209
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 revived, they were no longer used for sacred pur- 
 poses as before, but merely as shelters for the faithful 
 coming into or going out of the church. It was not 
 therefore any longer necessary to build them entirely 
 covered in. 
 
 The architect will study with pleasure the arrange- 
 ment of the arcading and the exquisite plinths of the 
 piers which support it. To the artist the study of the 
 sculpture with which the bays and the piers of the 
 porch are filled will prove of profound interest. Com- 
 paring this statuary with that of the western front, he 
 will notice a distinct difference in feeling, a marked 
 advance in style. The overwhelming influence of the 
 East has disappeared. Classical and Byzantine art have 
 given place to the original genius of France. Throw- 
 ing away the debased classical traditions, the neo- 
 Christian artist has given expression to the new 
 Christian ideal of character in a type of Germanic 
 origin, with wavy hair and prominent forehead, which 
 he has observed from the men and women of his own 
 time and country. He has given expression, that is, 
 to the ideal of humility and graciousness which has 
 been traced by the teaching of chivalry, with all its 
 appreciation of physical perfection and its teaching of 
 noble manners. ' We have then,' it has been well 
 observed, * in this new art, evidences of a sudden 
 increase in the feeling for pure sensuous charm, and at 
 the same time for spiritual grace.' A perfect union 
 between sense and spirit has arisen, imparting to each 
 a rare intensity. In the grace and movement of the 
 drapery (for the old straight folds have been dis- 
 carded), and in the simple grandeur of pose as well 
 as in the qualities of truth and self-restraint, these 
 sculptors are nearer to the masterpieces of Greek 
 sculpture than perhaps any before or since. Yet they 
 lack, do they not ? something of the intimate mystic 
 
 210
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 charm of the kings and queens of the Porche Royal. 
 In the name of Philosophy and the Republic it was 
 proposed (1793) to destroy them. And this, save 
 for the firm opposition of the deputy, Sargent-Marceau, 
 would have been done. 
 
 Some damage, however, they did succeed in doing. 
 The left bay, for instance, is sadly nmtilated, and the 
 large statue of Philippe-Auguste, who had provided 
 for the yearly expenses in connection with the work 
 of the porch, has disappeared from the column of the 
 vestibule on which it used to be. The statue of his 
 son, Louis VIII., however survives (central bay). 
 Louis IX., S. Louis, followed the example of his 
 mother, Blanche of Castile, and, besides founding 
 windows and chapels, he, ' by reason of his particular 
 devotion to the Church of Notre-Dame, and for the 
 saving of his soul and the souls of his forefathers,' to 
 quote the words of a charter of the year 1259, caused 
 the north porch to be completed. His statue is to be 
 seen on the pier of the central bay. 
 
 The north porch, which was always in the Middle 
 Ages dedicated to the Virgin, is peopled by 705 
 statues, who are the characters of a vast poem in 
 stone. The subject of this poem is the ' Olorification 
 of Mary.' ♦ It recounts,' says M. Bulteau, ' the 
 carnal and spiritual genealogy of the Virgin, her pre- 
 rogatives, her acquaintances, her virtues, her occupations, 
 her life, death, assumption and crowning in heaven.' 
 Then come the personages and the biblical scenes 
 which have foreshadowed the Messiah and His 
 Mother ; S. John the Baptist and S. Peter, who 
 inaugurated the Christian era ; and to connect this 
 vast whole with the Church of Chartres, S. Potentian, 
 S. Modesta and the donors of the porch, S. Louis at 
 their head. The Creation, the Earth, the Sea and 
 the Heavens, Time also, and its seasons, assist at 
 
 211
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 this glorification of the Mother of God, and appear to 
 render her respectful homage. 
 
 We have had occasion to notice before (p. 27) 
 the prominent position which S. Anne is allotted in 
 the iconography of this Cathedral, and we have ex- 
 plained that the reason is that Chartres possessed a 
 precious relic of that saint. For, after the sack of 
 Constantinople in 1204, the Emperor Baldwin sent 
 the head of S. Anne, the Virgin's mother, to Chartres, 
 * in order that the head of the mother might rest in 
 the house of the daughter.' Departing, therefore, 
 from the almost invariable custom by which the Virgin 
 is represented on the pier between the two sections of 
 the centra! door, the sculptors have here given us a 
 colossal statue of S. Anne carrying the little Mary in 
 her arms. Beneath her feet are the remains of a group 
 in which S. Joachim, feeding his sheep, was depicted 
 receiving from the angel Gabriel the announcement of 
 the future birth of Mary. 
 
 Ranged on either side of this central doorway are 
 ten large statues, beneath canopies and wearing haloes. 
 They are the personages of the Old Testament who 
 have prefigured the birth of Jesus Christ, His passion, 
 His death. His resurrection and His eternal priesthood. 
 They emphasise once more the parallelism of the Old 
 Testament and the New ; the New hidden in the Old ; 
 the Old made manifest in the New. The same thought 
 is symbolised by the figurative image of the Son which 
 the five statues on the left carry, and the effigy of our 
 Lord which is borne by those on the right. For 
 thereby the prophecy and its accomplishment is sym- 
 bolised. The cathedrals of Paris, Amiens, Rouen, 
 Sens, Bourges, Senlis and Reims, and all the great 
 cathedrals of the thirteenth century, in fact, show the 
 same persons surrounding the Virgin. 
 
 And at Reims several of the statues would seem to
 
 'The Cathedral 
 
 be from the same chisel as those at Chartres. The char- 
 acters represented arc Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses, 
 Samuel and David on the left, and on the right, Isaiah, 
 Jeremiah, Simeon, S. John the Baptist and S. Peter. 
 S. John is introduced as the link between the old and 
 the new, the prophecy and its fulfilment. He stands 
 close to S. Peter, for he was the immediate precursor 
 of Christ and S. Peter, shown here in the garb of a 
 thirteenth century Pope, the immediate successor. 
 
 Melchizedek is the first and one of the best statues. 
 He wears a priestly garment bound at the waist by a 
 knotted girdle, and on his head a Papal tiara of the 
 thirteenth century, the lower part suggestive of a crown, 
 for both as king and priest he prefigures Christ. 
 
 In one hand he holds a censer, in the other the 
 bread which he offered to Abraham. His grave features 
 and absorbed mysterious gaze admirably shadow forth 
 that most enigmatic personage, Melchizedek, King of 
 Salem, the Priest of the Most High God, who met 
 Abraham returning after the slaughter of the kings, 
 and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave tithes ; 
 Melchizedek, the King of Righteousness as his name 
 implies, and the King of Peace also, without father, 
 without mother, without descent, having neither begin- 
 ning of days nor end ot life, who was the forerunner 
 and prototype of Jesus ' made an high priest for ever 
 after the order of Melchizedek.' 
 
 Christ, as the Son offered by the Father and the 
 sacrificial Ram, is prefigured in the neighbouring 
 statue of Abraham with his son Isaac, whom he holds 
 ready bound for the sacrifice. Beneath his feet is the 
 ram caught in the bush. His face, which, with its 
 flowing beard and prolonged nose, is distinctly of the 
 Jewish type, is averted, for he is looking up at the 
 angel who bade him stay his hand. Moses, trampling 
 on the golden calf and carrying in his left hand the 
 
 213
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 table of the law and a column about which the brazen 
 serpent entwines, stands next to Abraham, and likewise 
 symbolises Christ, the Deliverer and the Law-Giver. 
 His right hand points to the serpent and suggests 
 the words of our Lord himself, * Even as Moses lifted 
 up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the 
 Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in 
 Him should not perish but have eternal life.' Next 
 comes Samuel, clad in a garment which resembles the 
 taled of the Jews, preparing to sacrifice and to anoint 
 Saul, who is represented by the small kneeling figure 
 beneath. This statue illustrates i Samuel ix. Lastly 
 David, crowned in royal majesty, carries the lance and 
 crown of thorns, instruments of that passion which he 
 had so minutely prophesied in the Psalms. The lion 
 at the base alludes to David's answer to Saul when he 
 beheld Goliath, or else is the ramping and roaring lion 
 of the Messianic psalms. Equally with David, Isaiah 
 foretold in detail the events of the Gospels, and he, 
 clad, like most of the other personages that remain, in 
 a long robe and mantle, occupies the niche of the right 
 bay facing David. The stem which was to come 
 forth from Jesse rises at his feet, and the prophet points 
 to the flower which should grow from that root. 
 
 Jeremiah is at his side, the sublime chanter of 
 lamentations, bearing a beautifully - wrought Greek 
 cross and recalling to mind his own words, ' Is it 
 nothing to you all ye who pass by ? behold and see if 
 there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.' 
 
 Next to him the aged Simeon caresses the young 
 Christ whose sufferings he had foreseen. 
 
 S. John the Baptist, the prince of monks, is the link 
 between these forerunners of Christ and His Apostles. 
 His ascetic figure is revealed beneath his rough raiment 
 of skins, for, in accordance to the usual practice 
 of the Middle Ages, but not of former or more recent 
 214
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 times, he is represented in the Apostolic costume of 
 tunic and mantle, and as with the Apostles his feet are 
 bare. He tramples under foot a dragon which typifies 
 Vice, not a locust as some suppose. The extraordinary 
 tenderness with which he clasps to his breast the lamb, 
 which is Jesus, the lively expression of his worn and 
 wrinkled countenance and his emaciated body, proclaim 
 this to be one of the finest statues of the Cathedral 
 porches. Lastly comes S. Peter, as we have de- 
 scribed him above. He stands upon a rock in refer- 
 ence to the words of our Lord, 'Thou art Peter, 
 and on this rock will I build My Church.' 
 
 All the details, the costumes and ornaments of these 
 statues are wrought with extraordinary skill and minute- 
 ness, so that, like that of the western porch, the work 
 might almost seem that of a jeweller, not a mason. 
 
 To the right of Melchizedek and to the left of 
 S. Peter are two large figures which are related to the 
 scheme of the central doorway. For they are Elijah 
 and Elisha, who were the types of the ascension and 
 the resurrection of .Jesus Christ. Elijah is shown 
 mounting to heaven in his chariot of fire ; Elisha, 
 promising to the Shunamite the son whom he after- 
 wards raised from the dead. 
 
 In the tympanum of the doorway we have the 
 Death, the Resurrection and the Crowning of the Blessed 
 Mary, a subject which has received its most perfect treat- 
 ment at Reims. It will be noticed that the Virgin is 
 represented as quite young, for, as Michelangelo finely 
 explained, when he had painted his Lady of the Seven 
 Sorrows, virtue confers an eternal youth. Above are 
 angels censing. The figures have been sadly mutilated. 
 In the splay of the vaulting the first row contains a multi- 
 tude of angels with halos, bearing censers, torches, 
 books and palms, witnesses of the triumph of the Virgin. 
 The next four rows exhibit the ancestors of Mary 
 
 215
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 according to the flesh and according to the spirit — the 
 prophets, that is, who announced her. Together they 
 form a tree of Jesse growing from between the feet of 
 Jesse below on the left. Compare it with the tree in 
 the twelfth-century Jesse window of the Porte Royale 
 and you will see that, though it follows the same order, 
 the stone tree is even more complete. It includes the 
 greater and minor prophets, with Judith, Esther and 
 Deborah, and, beginning from the fourth row, the 
 twenty-eight ancestors of the Virgin, mostly as described 
 in the first chapter of the Gospel of S. Matthew. 
 The last two rows translate into stone the first chapter 
 of Genesis, giving the story of the Creation of the 
 World and of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden 
 in a series of admirable tableaux which explain them- 
 selves sufficiently. In the gable is Christ surrounded 
 by angels. 
 
 Large statues of benefactors of the Cathedral and of 
 the prophets Jephthah and Zachariah adorn the piers in 
 front. The first two on the left are Philippe Hurepel, 
 Count of Boulogne, and his wife Mahaut. The statue 
 of the latter is particularly beautiful, the expression full 
 of life and grace, the costume of striking simplicity. 
 Next to these two there used to be, before the Revolu- 
 tion, statues of Philippe- Auguste, King of France, and 
 Richard Coeur-de-Lion, rivals in the field but united 
 here in their generous devotion to Notre-Dame de 
 Chartres. The decoration of the plinths of these two 
 piers is different from that of the others ; it is Anglo- 
 Norman in character, and the name Robir cut hereon 
 is probably that of the Norman sculptor who made 
 them under the patronage of Richard in Normandy. 
 
 The brackets of these four statues are storied with 
 incidents from the life of David — (i) a group repre- 
 senting the young shepherd being anointed by Saul, 
 (2) David chasing away the melancholy of Saul, (3) 
 216
 
 'The Cathedral 
 
 David armed before Saul, (4) David and Goliatli, 
 (5) David triumphing over Goliath. The armour of 
 Goliath is extremely curious. 
 
 On the right is a prophet in the .Jewish Schimla, 
 who may be JepTithah or perhaps lizekiel, and next to 
 him Louis VIII. and Isabella, his daughter, pious 
 Sister of S. Louis. She is habited as a nun, for she 
 founded the Convent of Longchamps, and died there, 
 its abbess. 
 
 Zachariah, father of S. John the Baptist, comes next, 
 and on the brackets beneath are six exquisite scenes 
 from the life of Samuel. The prophet is shown with 
 Hannah and Llkanah taking a lamb to Lli, serving in 
 the Temple, beholding a vision. The remaining scenes 
 are those of the capture of the Ark by the Philistines, 
 the fall of Dagon, and the return of the Ark. 
 
 The second part of the north porch is the left bay, 
 and it is consecrated to the life and virtues of the 
 Virgin. On the splays of the porch wall are repre- 
 sented on either side the Annunciation and the Visita- 
 tion, whilst on the left is Isaiah, the prophet of the 
 Incarnation, on the right Daniel. The heads of Isaiah 
 and Gabriel are broken, and indeed most of this bay is 
 in a deplorable state. Of the surviving figures those of 
 Mary, of L,lizabeth and Daniel are rightly considered 
 masterpieces. They are beautiful in jjose, and their 
 draperies are skilfully arranged, distinctly Greek in 
 feeling. About them there seems to blow the wind 
 that comes before the dawn of the Renaissance. 
 
 The tympanum is filled with the familiar scenes of 
 the first Christmastide, the birth of Christ, the 
 Announcement to the Shepherds, the Adoration of the 
 three Magi, traditionally named Caspar, Melchior and 
 Balthasar, and their gifts of gold for the King, incense 
 for the God, and myrrh for the Man who should die 
 for men. Lastly comes the scene of their warning in 
 
 217
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 a dream. These scenes are lit by a row of torch- 
 bearing angels. The second and part of the third row 
 of the vaulting contains the ten virgins of the parable, 
 on the left the five foolish, with elegant garments and 
 worldly, licentious faces, and lamps turned upside 
 down ; the five wise on the right, modest and veiled, 
 hold their flaming lamps upright. The rest of the 
 third row represents the battle of the Vices and the 
 Virtues ; Wisdom carrying an open book, and at her 
 feet Folly nude and eating a stone ; Justice with her 
 sword and a balance, which the Injustice whom she 
 tramples on vainly endeavours to disturb ; Christian 
 Strength in full armour, with Cowardice, a terror- 
 stricken soldier, grovelling before her ; Temperance 
 caressing a dove, and at her feet Luxury, the aban- 
 doned courtesan. On the right hand, after these 
 cardinal virtues, are the three theological virtues, 
 Faith, Hope and Charity, and also Humility, with 
 their corresponding vices. Faith catches in a chalice 
 the blood o\ a lamb upon the altar, whilst Infidelity, 
 with bandaged eyes, cowers below ; the hands of 
 Hope are clasped and she gazes heavenward, but 
 Despair lies at her feet and has plunged a sword into 
 her breast ; Charity gives her garment to clothe the 
 naked, but Avarice plays with pieces of gold and hides 
 them about her person ; Humility holds in her hand a 
 dove, which is her symbol, and at her feet Pride has 
 fallen. These Virtues and Vices are succeeded by a 
 row of twelve queenly figures, which symbolise the 
 Fruits of the Spirit. They are a translation of the 
 passage in Galatians (v. 22) in which S. Paul enu- 
 merates them. 
 
 More remarkable still and more charming are the 
 
 statuettes which fill the fifth row and which translate 
 
 the doctrine of the mediaeval theologians with regard 
 
 to the active life and the contemplative life. These, 
 
 218
 
 'The Cathedral 
 
 according to S. Gregory, were typilicd by the two 
 wives of Jacob, Leah and Rachel,* and again by 
 Martha and Mary. Here, on the left, the active life 
 is portrayed with extraordinary vividness and delicacy 
 in the character of the virtuous woman described in 
 the last chapter of the Book of Proverbs. ' She 
 seeketh wool and flax and worketh willingly with her 
 hands . . . ,she layeth her hands to the spindle and 
 her hands hold the distafl^.' The six degrees of the 
 contemplative life are shown on the right-hand side in 
 the form of a veiled woman praying before reading, 
 opening her book to read, reading in her book of 
 hours, closing it immediately, comprehending the lesson 
 she has learnt, and thereafter rapt in ecstasy. 
 
 At the ends of the moulding of the vaulting are two 
 statuettes which seem to be connected with the subject 
 of the active and the contemplative life ; they are, a 
 cobbler cutting leather and a monk reading. 
 
 In the last and outermost row were sculptured, for 
 the first and only time, the fourteen Heavenly Beatitudes 
 iirst described by S. Anselm, ' In heaven the bodies of 
 the just shall enjoy the seven beatitudes, which are 
 Beauty, Swiftness, Strength, Liberty, Health, Pleasure, 
 Longevity ; and likewise the souls of the just shall 
 receive the seven beatitudes, which are Wisdom, 
 Friendship, Concord, Honour, Power, Security and 
 Joy.' 
 
 Two statues personifying the Synagogue and the 
 Church were in front of this bay till 1793, and on the 
 pedestals of these and the two other statues which 
 were on these piers, but of which one only, that of 
 Philippe III. le Hardi, remains, traces of a series of 
 Virtues trampling the Vices underfoot are still visible. 
 
 On the wall of the right-hand bay, which is devoted 
 
 * Two large statues of Leah and Rachel were formerly on the 
 piers here, but were destroyed in 1793. 
 
 219.
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 to the persons of the Old Testament who prefigured 
 and foretold the Messiah and His Mother, are six 
 splendid statues representing Balaam, the Queen of 
 Sheba and Solomon on the left, and, on the right, 
 Jesus, son of Sirach, Judith and Joseph. Each of 
 these statues and the figures on which they rest demand 
 careful study, but especially the statue of Joseph, the 
 precursor of Christ in his persecution, his selling into 
 captivity, and his deliverance of the people. A beardless 
 figure with curling hair and a simple, open countenance, 
 with Pharaoh's ring upon his finger and the sceptre of 
 authority in his hand, and about him a robe of fine 
 linen, he treads underfoot the bronzed dragon who is 
 pouring into the eager ear of Potiphar's wife his foul 
 suggestions. With extraordinary delicacy and reserve 
 the artist has succeeded in making every line of this 
 portrait — for a portrait it must be — express all the 
 innocence and charm, all the passionate purity of youth. 
 
 In the tympanum, over the door, is, first. Job on his 
 hearth, with a demon, for the trials and patience of 
 Job foreshadowed the agony and triumph of Christ, 
 and, second, the Judgment of Solomon, the prototype 
 of Him who is called the Sun of Justice. The vaulting 
 above contains twelve angels doing homage to Christ, 
 then, on the left, the story of Samson, the story of 
 Esther, and, on the right, the story of Gideon and that 
 of Judith. The fourth row tells the story of Tobias, 
 and on the outer edge are the twelve months of the 
 year with the corresponding signs of the Zodiac and 
 the allegorical representations of summer and winter, 
 which should be compared with those of the western 
 porch {^see p. 130). 
 
 Four large statues on the arcade outside this bay 
 represent Ferdinand, King of Castile, a great bene- 
 factor of the Cathedral, who was canonised 1671, 
 two hundred years after his death, and whose body is 
 220
 
 
 
 
 k Ji' 1? 
 
 
 f 
 
 ll'- r * 
 
 ^yrt^.>^- 
 
 . -A^ 
 
 .,7 
 
 Facing Page 221.
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 preserved at Seville. He is accompanied by a Judge 
 of Israel, Barak, M. Bultcau suggests. On the right 
 pier Tobias accompanies S. Louis. The beautiful and 
 appropriate portrait of that devoted patron of Notre- 
 Dame was fashioned in all probability shortly after the 
 pilgrimage which he made to Chartres in 1260, walking, 
 in spite of extreme fatigue, barefoot all the way from 
 Nogent-le-Roi. He is represented, it will be noticed, 
 with bare feet here, either in allusion to this pilgrim- 
 age, or to his annual practice of visiting barefoot, and 
 in penitential garb, all the churches of any town in 
 which he might be on Good Friday. But there is 
 another incident in his life to which reference may be 
 intended. In 1239 he and his brother Robert carried 
 barefoot into Paris the instruments of the Passion 
 which he had redeemed from Venice. 
 
 On the graceful supports of these four statues are 
 allegorical representations of the arts and sciences : 
 Agriculture, personified by Adam, Abel and Cain ; 
 Music, by Jubal, with his lyre; Metalwork, by Tubal- 
 Cain ; Medicine, by Hippocrates ; Geometry and 
 Architecture, by Archimedes ; Painting, by Apelles ; 
 Philosophy, by Aristotle ; Magic, by a wizard and 
 a dragon. These, it will be seen, unlike those of the 
 western porch, are not merely representations of the 
 seven liberal arts taught since the sixth century. The 
 artist of S. Louis's day is breaking away from the old 
 tradition. He invents new types ; he is looking for a 
 new system. Lastly, on the western side of the porch, 
 are two very beautiful statues, the one of S. Potentian, 
 the other of 8. Modesta {see p. 18). Below the 
 former is a scene in which he, together with SS. 
 Altin and Lodald are baptizing a neophyte, and another 
 in which the Roman Governor, Quirinus, in spite of the 
 intercession of his daughter Modesta, condenms him to 
 be cast into chains. Below the graceful and impressive 
 
 221
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 figure of Modesta are several bas-reliefs of incidents in 
 her life. They are much worn and mutilated, but you 
 can discern an angel rising from the Well of the 
 Martyrs, the martyrdom of Modesta, and a pair of 
 angels carrying her soul up to heaven. 
 
 We will now walk round to the south side of the 
 Cathedral, turning, as it were, the last leaf of the Bible 
 of Chartres. And, indeed, the south porch* may well 
 be regarded as a postcript to the story of the windows 
 and the porches ; not only because it is later in date — 
 it was begun under Philippe-Auguste, at the expense of 
 Pierre Mauclerc, Count of Dreux, and only finished 
 in the reign of Philippe le Bel — -but also because the 
 subject of it is a variant of that of the Porte Royale. 
 It is the Glorification of our Lord again, but here in 
 His office as Supreme Judge and in the presence of His 
 saints and elect. 
 
 Like the northern one, the south porch is evidently 
 an afterthought, and, like it, it consists of three open 
 porticoes, corresponding to the doors of the transept, 
 and supported in front by six piers, which are treated 
 with amazing originality and skill. Enormous lintels 
 of Berch^res stone connect the vestibule with the door- 
 way. These have had to be strengthened, as on the 
 other side, by iron ties. Though only a couple of 
 yards or so broader than the north porch, the south 
 porch, thanks to the open space in which it stands, and 
 to its advantageous position on top of seventeen steps, 
 appears much larger and more imposing. The bays 
 and the vestibule are peopled by 783 figures, in which 
 the visitor will note the advance in art made by the 
 sculptors since they took in hand the statuary of the 
 western and, again, of the northern porch. The 
 anatomy of these figures and the treatment of their 
 drapery are infinitely more correct ; the pose is more 
 * Restored 1901. 
 222
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 probable, the work more polished, the whole un- 
 doubtedly much more beautiful according to all the 
 canons of classical art. But quite as undoubtedly there 
 has been a loss of charm as well as a gain in the 
 technique. The figures, if they are less crude, are 
 also less expressive. The superb Christ of the central 
 bay, classic in its calm and regularity, is not so con- 
 vincing, so unforgettable as the Christ surrounded by 
 the winged beasts of the western facade. Even the 
 magnificent effigies of S. Theodore and S. George 
 have not the same haunting loveliness as the earlier 
 nameless kings and queens, which are ill-drawn, and 
 unknown indeed, but alive for ever in their human 
 simplicity. 
 
 The majestic statue of Christ, trampling under foot 
 a lion and dragon, which I have mentioned, is on the 
 face of the central bay, and holds the place of honour 
 as the Master in the midst of His Apostles. On His 
 right is the bay of the martyrs, whose strength He is, 
 and He is the Light of the confessors in the bay on 
 His left. His divine kingship is suggested by the 
 representation of Him in the upper part of the central 
 bay, judging the living and the dead. 
 
 Beneath the central statue are the figures of Pierre 
 Mauclerc, Count of Dreux, and Alice, his wife, who 
 -spent some 10,000,000 francs upon this porch and the 
 rose window above. They are represented in two 
 scenes, praying and being married, but in both giving 
 bread to the poor. 
 
 The Christ is surrounded by His Apostles. On His 
 right, S. Peter, with a cross and two keys, tramples 
 under foot Simon the magician. Next to S. Peter 
 comes S. Andrew, his brother, clasping the cross of his 
 martyrdom to his breast, and, beneath his feet, the 
 proconsul who condemned him to death ; 8. Philip, 
 with a sword, and, beneath, the King of Hierapolis, 
 
 223
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 who crucified him ; S. Thomas, with the sword of his 
 martyrdom, standing upon the Indian King who gave 
 him to the priests to be cut in twain ; and similarly 
 with swords, and trampling on their persecutors, S. 
 Matthew and S. Simon. Opposite are S. Paul and 
 the beardless John, the former holding and pointing to 
 the sword of his martyrdom, and trampling down 
 Nero, the latter with the (broken) palm of his 
 martyrdom and the book of his Gospel, and, beneath 
 him, Aristodemus, priest of Diana, offering to him a 
 vase of poisonous snakes ; S. James, the brother of 
 John, comes next, and, below him, is Herod Agrippa, 
 .who put him to the sword ; then S. James the Less, 
 and the Jew who slew him with a club, S. Bar- 
 tholomew and S. Jude and their persecutors beneath. 
 All these statues are of great beauty and in the grand 
 manner, varied in pose and movement, and correct in 
 design. 
 
 Above them, in the tympanum of the bay, is Christ 
 enthroned as the Judge, on the great and dreadful day 
 of the Lord, the Virgin and S. John on either side of 
 Him intercede for sinners, and around Him six angels 
 bear the instruments of the Passion. Below are two 
 scenes — S. Michael weighing a soul, and the separation 
 of the just from the unjust. On the right of the 
 archangel is the glorious army of the elect, clad in 
 long robes, and wearing an expression of serene happi- 
 ness. They are being led by guardian angels to the 
 abodes of everlasting joy. On the continuation of the 
 lintel are several types of the elect being led to Abra- 
 ham's bosom. On the left of S. Michael is a lively 
 picture of the fate of the wicked, the condemned of 
 every class are being dragged by horrible demons to 
 the mouth of hell, a dragon with flaming jaws, and on 
 the continuation of the lintel also various types of 
 sinners are meeting with a like fate. 
 224
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 On either side of the central figure of Christ the 
 second row represents the Resurrection of the Dead, 
 and, above this, are nine choirs of angels, then twenty- 
 eight ])airs of statuettes, representing the prophets of 
 the Old Testament ; and, lastly, fourteen admirable 
 figures of Christian virgins who have fought the good 
 light of chastity, and carry in their hands, as symbols 
 of their purity, fleurs-de-lis. 
 
 The Virgin Mother, holdmg the child Jesus on her 
 knees, sits enthroned in a niche of the gable, whilst 
 two archangels cense. The square pillars continue 
 the main thesis, and carry on one side the twenty-four 
 elders of the Apocalypse and their instruments of 
 music, and, on the other side, the twelve Vices and 
 twelve corresponding Virtues, in accordance with 
 v/hich the Last Judgment is decided. Here, then, 
 we have once more, as on the north porch, Faith and 
 her cross opposed to Idolatry and her idol, Hope to 
 Despair, Charity to Avarice ; Chastity, with her curi- 
 ous symbol, the Phoenix, confronts Luxury, Prudence, 
 Folly, Humility, Pride. These appear on the western 
 and southern sides of the left pillar ; the series is con- 
 tinued on the one opposite. Docility, with an ox, 
 faces, on the south side. Intractability, Mildness, Anger, 
 Strength, Cowardice ; and, on the east face. Per- 
 severance, Inconstancy, Temperance with a camel, 
 Drunkenness, Concord, Discord. 
 
 The left or western bay is entirely concerned with 
 the noble army of martyrs, of whom the eight most 
 honoured at Chartres, resting on storied bases, and 
 beneath rich canopies of the kind called heavenly 
 Jerusalem, adorn the walls. They are, on the left, 
 S. Laurence, S. Clement, S. Stephen, and S. Theo- 
 dore. The latter is clad in a coat of mail, of the time 
 of S. Louis and the Crusaders. The statue is beauti- 
 fully modelled and splendidly wrought, and forms a 
 P 225
 
 S. GF.ORGK 
 
 (From the South Porch) 
 226 
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 noble counterpart to the mag- 
 nificent portrait of S. George 
 opposite, who, likewise accoutred 
 for battle, is trampling on the 
 wheel of his martyrdom. The 
 other martyrs on the right- 
 hand wall are S. Vincent, S. 
 Denis, and the S, Piat of whom 
 we have spoken above (p. 44), 
 and the outside of whose chapel, 
 with the beautiful staircase 
 connecting it with the main 
 body of the Cathedral, we 
 can see beyond the apse on our 
 right. 
 
 The story of S. Stephen is 
 retold in the tympanum and the 
 first row of the vaulting ; in the 
 next five rows are twenty-eight 
 statuettes, representing the hier- 
 archy of martyrs ; in the sixth, 
 the parable of the wise and 
 foolish virgins reappears, and in 
 the gable is S. Anne seated, 
 holding a vase, in which is a 
 lily, the symbol of purity. 
 
 The square pillar on the 
 left hand, which helps to 
 support the vaulting, gives us 
 twenty-four scenes from the 
 Golden Legend of the deaths 
 of martyrs. On the east face, 
 at the top, is S. Thomas of 
 Canterbury, whose secretary 
 and friend, John of Salisbury, 
 one of the most attractive
 
 'The Cathedral 
 
 characters and typical minds of the Middle Ages, 
 was Bishop of Chartres the last three years of his 
 life. Among the other martyrs are several whose 
 names occur in the story of Chartres — S. Blaise, S. 
 Leger, S. Vincent, S. Laurence, S. Cheron ; on the 
 south face, S. John the Baptist, S. Denys of Athens, 
 S. Saturnin, S. Piat, S. Procopius, S. Symphorian ; on 
 the west face, S. Calixtus, S. Cyprian, S. Ignatius, S. 
 Theodore, S. Eustace, S. Gervais and S, Protais ; on 
 the north, S. Clement, S. Potentian, S. Lambert, 
 S. Vitus and S. Modesta, S. Bacchus and S. 
 Quentin. 
 
 The right-hand bay is devoted to the confessors, and 
 corresponds in arrangement to that of the one we have 
 just left. Eight large statues fill the walls ; on the west, 
 S. Nicholas, S. Ambrose, S. Leon and S. Laumer 
 (the latter a fourteenth-century insertion); and on the 
 right or east, S. Martin of Tours, S. Jerome, S. Gregory 
 the Great, S. Avitus (also fourteenth century). The 
 tympanum gives the story of the lives of S. Martin and 
 S. Nicholas. In the vaulting above S. Leon the legend 
 of S. Giles is told, and in the outermost row of the 
 vaulting are ten of the Apostles, crowning five rows in 
 which is represented the whole hierarchy of confessors 
 — warriors", monks, laymen, priests, abbots, bishops, 
 archbishops, kings, emperors and popes, all wearing 
 the halo of sanctity. In the gable the Blessed Mary 
 is seated holding a book, supported by Gabriel and 
 another archangel. 
 
 The pier on the right gives various incidents from 
 the lives of confessors : on the west face, S. Leon 
 praying at the tomb of S. Peter ; S. Martin blessing a 
 man who has threatened to strike him ; S. Lubin 
 (p. 36) giving extreme unction to S. Caletric ; S. Avit, 
 Abbot of Micey, reposing ; S. Anthony reading the 
 Scriptures and a devil appearing ; S. Benedict seated 
 
 227
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 and reading. On the south face is S. Gregory the 
 Great writing his commentaries, inspired by the Holy 
 Spirit in the form of a dove, and his secretary Peter 
 behind a thick curtain ; S. Remi consecrating and 
 S. Solemnis blessing Chlovis ; S. Laumer healing 
 the Abbess Ulfrade ; S. Calais or Karilef digging 
 (the cloak in which, whilst he was working in his 
 vineyard, a wren nested and laid an egg, is suspended 
 from a neighbouring tree) ; S. Hilarion visiting S. 
 Anthony. On the east face, S. Sylvester baptizing 
 Constantin ; S. Martin restoring a child to life near 
 Chartres ; S. Caletric visiting S. Lubin ; S. 
 Benedict blessing the poisoned cup (appearing thus 
 for the second time on this pier, first as a hermit in the 
 Cave of Subiaco, and now as Abbot of Vico-Varo, 
 where the monks objecting to his strict rule vainly 
 endeavoured to poison him) ; S. Lie or Loetus of 
 Pithiviers seated, and at his feet the owner of the forest 
 to which the holy priest retired, and which afterwards 
 became the site of the village Saint-Lie, in the depart- 
 ment of Loiret. The gift of this forest to the saint as 
 a dwelling-place is symbolised by the faggot which the 
 owner is depositing ; S. Armel exorcising a dragon ; 
 a Breton saint, born in Great Britain 482, and founder 
 of the monastery at Plouarzel. 
 
 On the north face of the pier, S, Ambrose converting 
 S. Augustine ; S. Martin healing a deaf mute at 
 Chartres ; S. Marcel of Paris leading a dragon in his 
 stole ; S. Giles casting out a devil from a man at 
 Athens ; S. .Jerome translating the Holy Scriptures ; 
 S. Martinien, the hermit of Cassarea, with the penitent 
 courtesan Zoe. 
 
 Above the porch, in the Gallery of the Kings of 
 
 Judah, are eighteen life-size statues arrayed in the 
 
 royal vestments of the time of S. Louis. They are 
 
 the ancestors of Christ, and that was the only merit 
 
 228
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 of some of them, as their history is given us in 
 the Books of Chronicles and Kings. Varied in 
 age and pose but similar in costume, they are, where 
 they stand, sufficiently decorative, but they cannot 
 compare with the kings and queens of the western 
 porch. 
 
 Regarded merely as works of art, a large proportion 
 of the two thousand odd statues in the porches of 
 Chartres deserve almost as much praise as they excite 
 interest. But when we consider the intentions of the 
 artists who made them, and remember the conditions 
 under which they were wrought, as they have been 
 suggested in the previous chapters, we shall be able to 
 appreciate them with a more perfect sympathy and to 
 judge them with a broader understanding. The 
 sculptors of the thirteenth century did not aim ex- 
 clusively at sensuous beauty or at anatomical perfection, 
 and they did not attain it. They were concerned with 
 psychology as well as and even more than anatomy, and 
 they strove to give by their art not only pleasure but 
 instruction also. The perfection of the human body 
 was not so obvious to them as the imperfection of the 
 human soul. For them the flesh was only desirable 
 when it exhaled the odour of virtue, when it was 
 inspired by the sympathetic sadness which springs from 
 the consciousness of frailty and resignation to the 
 burdens of this life, combined with a burning desire for 
 the eternal life to come, or when it was rendered sweet 
 by the holy joyousness of spirit which springs from 
 peace, pity and love. They added, then, to the science 
 of art, the science of ideas. And if, therefore, 
 mediaeval sculpture never rose to the height of artistic 
 perfection achieved by a Phidias or Praxiteles, yet 
 their work remains fulfilled with a quality not pos- 
 sessed by any Apollo, the charm of a spiritual 
 intelligence. 
 
 229
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 Dimensions of the Cathedral. 
 
 I. Total Ler 
 
 , Exterior, 
 ngth { T • 
 ° ( Interior, . 
 
 This is less than that of the Cathedrals 
 
 of Le Mans, Reims, Amiens, Bor 
 
 deaux and Rouen. 
 
 2. Length of Nave, 
 
 3. Length of Choir, . 
 
 4. Length of Transept (largest i 
 France), .... 
 
 Width of West Front, . 
 Width of Nave (largest in France), 
 Length of Crypt, . 
 Width of Crypt, . 
 Height of Vaulting of Nave, . 
 Height of Vaulting in Aisles, . 
 North Tower (Clochcr Neuf), 
 South Tower (Clocher Vieux), 
 Diameter of the three large Rose 
 Windows, . . . . 
 
 ft. 
 
 ins 
 
 . 506 
 . 426 
 
 4 
 5 
 
 s 
 
 
 240 
 
 4 
 
 121 
 
 5 
 
 . 2( 1 
 
 6 
 
 . 156 
 
 • 53 
 . 366 
 . 18 
 
 
 6 
 6 
 
 
 . 122 
 
 3 
 
 • 45 
 
 6 
 
 • 377 
 
 4 
 
 • 349 
 
 6 
 
 44 O 
 
 230
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Birth of the Bourgeoisie and the 
 English Occupation 
 
 'Servant! Civem querna corona datur.' 
 
 ToTvn Motto.* 
 
 VWHILST the Cathedral was a-building, events 
 ^^ had happened at Chartres which serve to 
 indicate the importance of the position attained by the 
 town in feudal France by virtue of the power of its 
 Counts, the greatness of its Bishops and the prosperity 
 of its commerce. The legate, Pierre Leon, who was 
 afterwards to become the anti-pope Anaclete, held a 
 council here and, in 1 1 30, the legitimate Pope sought 
 refuge at Chartres, where Henry the First of England 
 came to prostrate himself before him. As to the 
 Counts, their greatness had been increased by the 
 inheritance of the County of Champagne. They were 
 not chary of using their strength to advance their own 
 importance. Thibault the Great, son of Adele, 
 Countess of Chartres and daughter of William the 
 Conqueror, allied himself with the King of England 
 and waged continual warfare with the King of France. 
 When his foreign ally died, Thibault's brother Stephen 
 ascended the English throne, and he himself became 
 Duke of Normandy. 
 
 * First used on some jettons d'argetit struck for distribution on 
 January i, 1775. It is, perhaps, an adaptation in elegiac verse of 
 the ' Ob cives servatos' found on certain coins of Augustus. 
 
 231
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 
 
 His eldest son, Henry, was one of those who took 
 the Cross when S. Bernard came to Chartres, preaching 
 the Crusade of 1145. On that memorable occasion 
 the Abbot of Clairvaux was elected, by acclaim in the 
 Cathedral, Generalissimo of the Christian forces. But 
 with the example of the disastrous leadership of Peter 
 
 the Hermit before 
 his eyes, S. Ber- 
 nard wisely de- 
 clined. ' Who am 
 1/ he wrote to 
 the Pope, ' that I 
 should order the 
 lines of battle, and 
 go out before the 
 faces of armed 
 or what is 
 remote from 
 profession ? ' 
 Count Henry 
 gained great re- 
 nown in the Holy 
 Land, and when 
 at last, after fifty 
 years of opposition 
 to his King, the 
 old Count died, he 
 left to his valorous 
 eldest son the County of Champagne, and Chartres and 
 Blois passed to his second son, Thibault, owing homage 
 to Henry. This Thibault, surnamed Le Bon, aided 
 the King against Henry Plantagenet, and was rewarded 
 by being made Seneschal of France. The amicable 
 relations which were now at last established between 
 the race of Thibault and the throne were still further 
 strengthened by the marriage of Louis-le-Jeune with 
 232 
 
 men, 
 more 
 my
 
 'Birth of the Bourgeoisie 
 
 Alice of Champagne, the sister of Thibault, and 
 mother, by this marriage, of Philippe-Auguste. Thi- 
 bault himself, through the good offices of the Queen, 
 obtained the hand of the King's daughter by his first 
 wife. The alliance thus consolidated bore fruit for the 
 King when he took the offensive against the King of 
 England in 1 167. For the troops of Chartres and of 
 Champagne followed the royal standard on that occa- 
 sion. A few years before, a younger brother of Count 
 Thibault, William of the White Hands, had succeeded 
 Robert-le-Breton as Bishop of Chartres, and he soon 
 became the adviser of the princes whose relative he was. 
 Philippe-Auguste used to speak of him as ' the watch- 
 ful eye of his Council.' Together with Count Henry 
 and the King, he received the exiled Thomas of Can- 
 terbury with open arms, and succeeded m effecting a 
 reconciliation between him and the English King, whose 
 imperious will he had thwarted. The reconciliation 
 was hollow. Before long France was filled with horror 
 at the news of the murder of A Becket. Louis de- 
 manded vengeance from the Pope : Count Thibault wrote 
 to the Roman pontiff that the ' dogs of the Court had 
 spilled the blood of the just ' ; the Bishop of Chartres 
 excommunicated all the Continental possessions of the 
 King of England. 
 
 But it was not till three years later that hostilities 
 •broke out between France and England, when the 
 three sons of Henry Plantagenet — Henry, Geoffrey 
 and Richard Coeur-de-Lion — united with Louis and 
 the Princes of Champagne against their father. That 
 redoubtable coalition of Frenchmen, Chartrains, Cham- 
 penois and Angevins was, however, no match for the 
 English King. Beaten near Verneuil, Louis was 
 obliged to make terms with his enemy in the following 
 year (i 174). 
 
 The blood of the martyred A Becket had sjirinklcd 
 
 233
 
 'The Story of Chartre^ 
 
 his friend and secretary, John of Salisbury. ' By the 
 grace of God and the merits of the martyr, S. Thomas,' 
 as he himself expresses it, he was called to succeed 
 William tiux Blanches-Malm in the bishopric of Chartres. 
 The life of the great writer was nearly over when he 
 came there, bringing with him, as a gift to the treasure of 
 the Cathedral, a phial containing some drops of the blood 
 of the master whom he had so faithfully served at Canter- 
 bury and followed in exile, and the dagger with which that 
 master had been murdered. But, short as was his tenure 
 of the See, he left his mark upon the history of Chartres. 
 He overthrew the exorbitant pretensions of the secular 
 lords who claimed as choses of their domain all serfs set 
 free by the Church, and thus rendered illusory the 
 enfranchisement of ecclesiastical serfs, and he obtained 
 for clerks brought to justice that they should henceforth 
 not be condemned to undergo trial by ordeal, whether 
 of duel, hot iron, or hot or cold water. 
 
 Philosopher and man of affairs, secretary of Arch- 
 bishop Theobald, intimate friend of Nicholas Break- 
 spear (the only Englishman who has ever filled the 
 chair of S. Peter) , and the devoted adherent of Thomas 
 a Becket, John was born at Salisbury, but his enthu- 
 siasm for culture he owed to his training as a youth 
 under Abelard at Paris, and in the school of Chartres. 
 For that school still maintained the reputation which it 
 had acquired under Fulbert. In his book Metaiogicus, 
 John, who has been termed the ' central figure of 
 English learning ' in his time, has left us a lively account 
 of the method of teaching practised by Bernard Sylvester, 
 ' the old man of Chartres, the most fruitful source ot 
 letters in all France,' and by his successors. The 
 breadth of view, the sound common sense, and the lack 
 of pedantry which characterise John of Salisbury's con- 
 tributions to logic and to political thought are due, we 
 may believe, not only to his practical training in the 
 234
 
 Birth of the Bourgeoisie 
 
 Archbishop's household at Canterbury, but also to the 
 ' humane ' teaching of Bernard and his school. John 
 of Salisbury died in 1 1 80, and was buried in the 
 Monastery of S. Marie-dei-Josaphat, now destroyed 
 [see p. 9S). His books he left to the Cathedral 
 library. He was succeeded by his friend Pierre, Abbot 
 of Celles, and afterwards of S. Remy, at Reims, with 
 whom he had passed a great part of his exile, when the 
 exquisite ckcuet there, one of the earliest bits of pointed 
 architecture, was being built. This excellent bishop 
 spent the two years of his episcopate in the execution of 
 public works, the abolition of vexatious feudal customs, 
 and the distribution of alms. At his own charges he 
 constructed the town walls from the Porte des Epars to 
 the Church of S. Foy, and repaved the streets. He 
 obtained from the Count a modification in the exercise 
 of the right of Banvin. For, according to usage, it 
 was forbidden to sell wine during a period of time called 
 the ban, in order to give the lord an opportunity of 
 selling his wine without competition. Thibault con- 
 sented to abolish this custom, whilst exacting a small 
 toll from those who sold wine in inns during the ban. 
 And the charity of Pierre de Celles was so abounding 
 that, at his funeral, the crowd flung itself upon his coffin 
 and embraced his corpse. His successor was Renaud 
 de Mou^on, under whom the Cathedral was built. He, 
 like Thibault, had taken the Cross in 1 189, but, unlike 
 the Count, returned home alive and well. 
 
 The thirteenth century saw yet another Count of 
 Chartres lay down his life in battle with the Infidels. 
 For Louis, who had been made King of Bithynia by 
 the Emperor Baldwin after the sack of Constantinople 
 (1204), was attacked by the Bulgarians before Andri- 
 nople and perished heroically. Jean de Friaize, seeing 
 that he had been twice severely wounded, exhorted 
 him to retire. ' Nay,' he cried. ' Leave me to 
 
 235
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 fight and die. God grant that I may never be re- 
 proached with having fled the battle ! ' His son took 
 part in the crusade against the Moors and also in that 
 other holy war, more popular because less distant, 
 which Simon de Montfort conducted. Following their 
 Count and their Bishop, thousands marched south to 
 massacre the Albigenses, because they entertained the 
 heresy of the Manichasans, which admits the existence 
 of two gods, identified with the principles of good and 
 evil. 
 
 Meantime, whilst bishops and counts were warring 
 against Turks, Moors and Albigenses, Chartres was 
 left in the hands of the Countess Catherine, in whose 
 name a marshal of her palace and a provost of the 
 town administered justice. The jealousy between the 
 Count's men and the proteges of the Chapter which 
 was always smouldering broke out in a startling fashion 
 about this time. The outbreak is worth mentioning, 
 for it throws light upon the growing power and self- 
 assertion of the people. Speaking generally, the ten- 
 dency at this period was for the notable citizens of the 
 town to become, under the title of Avoiies, vassals or 
 proteges of the Chapter, but the trades and corporations, 
 revolting against the oppression of the Avoues, who tried 
 to exact from them all the taxes and impositions laid 
 upon the town, strove to secure their liberties and 
 customs by rallying to the Count. On the pretext, 
 then, of some injury done to a serf of the Countess by 
 the Dean William, the people burst suddenly into the 
 cloister and laid siege to the house of the Dean. 
 
 The Chapter demanded the intervention of the 
 marshal and the provost, but those officers, instead of 
 stopping the riot, incited the mob to break down the 
 doors and smash the windows of the house. The Dean 
 from the first had wisely taken refuge in the Cathedral, 
 but his retainers, barricading themselves, returned the 
 236
 
 Birth of the Bourgeoisie 
 
 assaults of the rioters with a rain of tiles and faggots. 
 Maddened by this resistance, the mob procured a heavy 
 waggon, and using it as a battering-ram burst open the 
 main entrance and sacked the house, hurling all the 
 furniture out of windows. 
 
 Next day the outraged Chapter excommunicated 
 the town and hanlieue. No services were held ; the 
 altar of Notre-Dame was stripped of its ornaments ; 
 and even the curfew bell was not allowed to ring. 
 Every day from the top of the jubc a priest pronounced 
 the terrible curse known as ' the great excommunica- 
 tion, the anathema and fulmination.' At this solemn 
 moment the candles were lit and the bells rung con- 
 fusedly, and, as the priest finished his malediction, all 
 became silent again and the candles were extinguished. 
 But this demonstration, usually so eifective, was re- 
 ceived with shouts of laughter and screams of abuse. 
 
 However, a fire which destroyed the lower streets 
 on the banks of the Eure filled the rioters with fear. 
 The revolutionists, thinking that they beheld the finger 
 of God, were ready to submit, but the Dean and 
 Chapter had already summoned the King, who came 
 incontinent to Chartres, and after inquiry ordered the 
 Count's people to make amende honorable and to pay for 
 the damage they had done. But the bishop returning 
 from abroad was not satisfied, and at his request 
 Phillippe-Auguste ordered the offenders to pay a heavy 
 fine and to make amende honorable in full church, on a 
 feast day, nuds en chemise^ and bringing rods with which 
 they were to be scourged before the altar of the Virgin. 
 And this was actually done. Thus, says the chronicler, 
 the Church by the aid of Heaven emerged from this 
 tribulation. 
 
 But the quarrel between the two parties was not 
 quenched. It broke out five years later, and was settled 
 again to the disadvantage of the Counts. Later, in a 
 
 237
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 collision between the bourgeois and the men attached to 
 the Cathedral, two of the latter were killed. The 
 murderers were pursued by some canons and protected 
 by others. One canon was assassinated by his brethren. 
 A new excommunication was pronounced upon the 
 town. The synod appointed to judge the matter, not 
 thinking itself safe in the presence of the growing 
 power of the Third Estate, removed to Mantes. The 
 banishment of the murderers and the intervention of 
 S. Louis succeeded in producing an apparent calm. But 
 the storm soon broke out afresh, and the people plun- 
 dered and the Chapter excommunicated as vigorously 
 as ever. 
 
 Troublesome as these perpetual conflicts between 
 the rival authorities were, it is to be observed that the 
 liberty of the cloister and the privileges of the clergy, 
 which were in dispute, were institutions which led to 
 the emancipation of some Chartrain families formerly 
 subject to the Counts. The ecclesiastical corporations, 
 in fact, set an example in this matter of enfranchise- 
 ment which the Counts were slow to follow. And it 
 was probably due to this antagonism that the feudal 
 lords of Chartres delayed for so long the grants of a 
 communal charter to the town. 
 
 It was not till the King Philippe-le-Bel bought the 
 County of Chartres from Jeanne, the widow of S. 
 Louis's son, Pierre de France, and gave it to his own 
 brother, Charles de Valois (1293), that the dispute 
 was finally closed. Three years later the town re- 
 ceived its charter and the Bourgeoisie began to come 
 into its own. The granting of the charter was a busi- 
 ness transaction. The need of money was great 
 in France. The differences of the King with the 
 Pope, with England and the Flemings, rendered it 
 imperative that he should prepare for war. Under the 
 new conditions, when the King's domain included two- 
 238
 
 1 VN' 
 
 ■■i^s^ 
 
 
 

 
 Birth of the Bourgeoisie 
 
 thirds of all France and the days of feudalism had 
 passed away, it was necessary both to maintain a fleet 
 and to pay mercenaries. Philip, whose short-sighted 
 methods of raising money had already got him into 
 difficulties with Flanders and the Church, now sent 
 his men through the 'good towns of France' to 
 collect contributions. ' But,' says Souchet, the old 
 historian of Chartres, ' the people of Paris, Rouen, 
 Orleans and other cities rose and slew the comrnis- 
 sioners who prosecuted their charge with more vio- 
 lence than was needful,' and the contemporary 
 Chron'tque de la Saint- Maglo'ire records : — 
 
 ' En Normandie et en Chartrain 
 De ce suis je trestot certain 
 Que en France, que en Champaigne 
 II n'y a nul qui ne s'en plaigne 
 Des coustumes qu'estoient levees 
 Sur ble, sur vin et sur Henrees.' 
 
 In these circumstances, therefore. Count Charles of 
 Valois, when he wished to raise money in Chartres to 
 aid his royal brother, found that there was only one 
 way of doing it and that was by granting to the 
 citizens, who, as we have seen, had long been restive 
 because they were subject to all kinds of feudal 
 charges and services of which the surrounding towns 
 had been freed, a kind of Charter of Commune. For 
 a cash consideration of 12,000 livres lournois, he con- 
 firmed several usages which were already by tacit 
 consent practised, and he compounded for the annual 
 tribute paid to the Counts by the town. It would be 
 interesting to quote this document in full, but I must 
 be content to give a summary of it. Shortly, it 
 provided that the citizens should in future be exempt 
 from paying the Count the annual tribute of £400, 
 and exempt also, unless in cases of pressing necessity, 
 from Taille, Ost and Chevauchee ; their horses were not 
 Q 241
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 to be impressed for the use of the Count, their personal 
 liberty was to be respected and, for criminals, before 
 their trial, bail allowed after a certain period of im- 
 prisonment. Lastly, the citizens were authorised to 
 assemble and elect Procureurs or Governors for the 
 needs and necessities of the town after the form and 
 manner of the citizens of Orleans. The Count also 
 undertook to make good the use and custom of the 
 town by which contracting parties in case of dispute 
 were judged exclusively by local courts. 
 
 Charters usually promised more than they gave. In 
 spite of remonstrances, the citizens did have to supply 
 considerable sums in tribute from time to time in the 
 ensuing centuries. Whether under the name of loans, 
 or advances, or octrois, Kings like Frangois I. and 
 Henry IV. bled the merchants freely, and, if they 
 protested too loudly, quickly brought them to their 
 senses by the threat of force. But, in the meantime, 
 whilst Charles de Valois, with the aid of the Chartrain 
 contribution, was asserting the rights of his wife to the 
 throne of Constantinople, or earning, at Florence, a 
 place in Dante's Inferno, the town of Chartres, pro- 
 fiting by his absence, was quietly organising and 
 ameliorating its administration. 
 
 The development of the municipality and the sub- 
 sequent absorption of the domain of Chartres by the 
 Crown by no means diminished the loyalty of its 
 citizens. A worthy reception was given to Philippe- 
 le-Bel when he came with his son, the boy Prince 
 Charles, after his victory over the Flemish at Mons- 
 en-Puelle, to render thanks and offer his armour at the 
 shrine of the Vierge-Noire. The King also founded 
 in commemoration of his victory a service in honour of 
 Notre-Dame-de-la-Victoire. Down to the year 1793 
 the martial ex-voto of the royal father and son was 
 shown from the pulpit on each anniversary of the 
 242
 
 Birth of the Bourgeoisie 
 
 defeat of the Flemings. In that year, however, the 
 rich armour was stripped of the precious metals with 
 which it was adorned. The gold was sent to the mint 
 in Paris. The remaining fragments, pieced together, 
 may be seen in the town museum (^see p. 317). 
 The example of Philippe-le-Bel was followed some 
 years later by Philippe de Valois after his similar 
 victory at Cassel. Fully armed, he rode into the 
 Cathedral, knelt before the ancient statue, and left a 
 thousand pounds to redeem the armour and steel which 
 he had dedicated to the Virgin. 
 
 It was at this period that Chartres may be said to 
 have reached the zenith of its prosperity. From this 
 time forward we have to trace the process of its decay. 
 For not only was Chartres, like all provincial towns, 
 destined to suffer from the centralising tendency of the 
 new era which succeeded that of feudalism, but it 
 was also condemned by its position at the gates of 
 Paris not to escape any of the catastrophes attendant 
 upon the political and social developments of the day. 
 Its history, however, becomes on that account more 
 rather than less interesting. It was taken and re-taken 
 in the fifteenth century by the Armagnacs and the 
 Burgundians, the English and the French, twice 
 besieged in the sixteenth century by the Huguenots of 
 the Prince de Conde and of Henry IV., and torn asunder 
 by the passions of the Fronde in the seventeenth. 
 
 With the fourteenth century France entered upon a 
 period of disaster and defeat. To the terrible ravages 
 of the Black Death were added the horrors of famine, 
 and the shame and devastation of the Hundred Years' 
 War. The odds in that war, brought on by the 
 continual intervention of the French King on behalf 
 of Scotland and his obstinacy in the matter of Guienne, 
 must have seemed at the first enormously in favour of 
 France. But the vast superiority of the French in 
 
 243
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 numbers and wealth was to prove useless in the face of 
 the English yeomen. Crecy and Poitiers revealed the 
 fact, bewildering to feudalism, that the superb bravery 
 of French knighthood was futile when confronted with 
 the English unmounted churl shooting his cloth-yard 
 shaft. A cavalry charge in the face of those archers 
 had no more chance of being successful than the charge 
 of the Dervishes at Omdurman, or the later frontal 
 attacks of our own infantry upon positions defended 
 with magazine rifles. King John, taken prisoner at 
 Poitiers, was carried captive to London, whilst in 
 France, his routed soldiery turned into free companies 
 of bandits, pillaged the country, and held the Chartrains 
 prisoners for six months within their walls. The 
 captive lords procured the sums needed for their 
 ransom by extortion from the peasantry, who were 
 driven by oppression and famine into frantic insurrec- 
 tion, butchering their lords and firing their castles. 
 And Paris, impatient of the weakness and misrule of 
 the Regency, rose in arms against the Crown. 
 
 Chartres in these days was compelled to strain every 
 nerve to defend herself. A band of mercenaries was 
 engaged to garrison the town. The Church of S. 
 Saturnin, which was then in front of the Porte des 
 Epars, and several convents, hospitals and mansions 
 outside the walls, which might have given a foothold 
 to the enemy, were destroyed. And in 1358 an order 
 was issued that everyone should co-operate to fortify 
 the town, ' which is the safety and salvation of all the 
 people within and without.' Money for this purpose 
 was raised by an extra tax upon beasts and skins. 
 The ramparts of the town were now defended by a 
 ditch and moat, and the gates, which had formerly 
 been square and without ravelins, were modified and 
 reconstructed in accordance with the more modern 
 ideas of fortification, which the introduction of gun- 
 244
 
 ■■•■*■ -. 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 Birth of the Bourgeoisie 
 
 powder and artillery had developed. Cannons were 
 mounted on the walls. The Porte Drouaise, Porte 
 S. Michel and the Porte des Kpars have disappeared, 
 but the Porte Guillaume remains to show us what they 
 were like. This gate, named after the Vidame 
 Guillaume de Ferri^res (1182), has been referred to 
 the tenth century by local enthusiasts. But that date 
 is too ambitious, except perhaps for the foundations. 
 The inside of the gate, on the town side, and part of 
 the vaulting belong to the year 1182, when the 
 enlargement of the town enceinte took place and the 
 perimeter of the walls and fortifications was extended, 
 especially in the quarter between the Gates Chatelet, 
 des Epars and S. Michel. But the outside of the 
 Porte Guillaume, its facade very much as we have it 
 now, was constructed after Poitiers. With its well- 
 preserved crenellated parapet and machicoulis, and the 
 openings for the play of the drawbridge, it presents 
 a fine specimen of the military architecture of that 
 period, and reminds one not a little of the contemporary 
 towers of the Bastille at Paris (1369), a plan of which 
 is in the town museum. The drawbridge used to 
 connect the main towers of the gateway with an 
 advanced fortification surrounded by the waters of the 
 moat. The reader will gain a clear idea of the 
 arrangement by referring to the old print reproduced 
 on page 275. The strength of the Porte Guillaume 
 was so great, that though dominated by the heights of 
 S. Barthelemy and 8. Chcron, it withstood all the 
 assaults and batteries of besiegers, and the town was 
 never taken from this side. Deservedly, therefore, 
 it remains almost intact, though nearly all the rest of 
 the fortifications of Chartres have been converted into 
 boulevards and 
 
 ' Its once grim bulwarks tamed to lover's walks 
 Look down unwatchful on the sliding Eure.'
 
 77/^ Story of Chartres 
 
 Close under it, in old days, was a chapel dedicated to 
 S. Fiacre, whither pilgrims afflicted by the distressing 
 complaint known as Mai de S. Fiacre used to 
 come in hopes of healing. But this has long since 
 disappeared. 
 
 The new defences of Chartres were soon shown to 
 be needed. Charles-le-Mauvais, a third competitor to 
 the throne of France, plotted, but in vain, to surprise 
 the town. Nor were his English allies more successful. 
 For no sooner had the ' Jacquerie ' * or peasant rising 
 been crushed, than Edward again poured ravaging over 
 the wasted lands of France, for the Dauphin refused to 
 sanction the humiliating terms upon which the English 
 King proposed to treat with the captive King John. 
 The sufferings of the country around Chartres under 
 the repeated ravages of the soldiery of all nations were 
 now unspeakable. The enemy passed over the vine- 
 yards, the cornfields and the gardens of La Beauce like 
 a storm, but they were only succeeded by the unpaid 
 troops of the French. Plunder, indeed, wasforbidden 
 them, but plunder was their only means of living. 
 ' Damoiselle Ficoree ' (Miss Plunder) ' sold me this ' was 
 the private soldier's proverbial explanation as he helped 
 to accomplish the ruin of those he was supposed to 
 defend. And at the inn, when the bill was being 
 prepared, he would lay his sword with a clatter on the 
 table and exclaim with intention, ' God send me no 
 need of thee.' Whether there was need or no would 
 depend usually upon the landlord's physical courage and 
 capacity. 
 
 * Jacques Bonhomme was the nickname of the French 
 peasantry, and his cry had been 
 
 ' Cessez, cessez, gens d'armes et pietons 
 De piller et manger le Bonhomme 
 Qui de long temps Jacques Bonhomme 
 Se nomme.' 
 248
 
 Birth of the Bourgeoisie 
 
 The bitter cry of France at this juncture is voiced 
 by a document embodying a resolution of the canons. 
 
 * The persecution of the Church,' it is written, ' can 
 only be compared to that of Jerusalem ; there are no 
 friends left to us, and those entrusted with our affairs do 
 us more harm than our enemies. None dare quit the 
 city : our houses are sacked, our property in the country 
 burnt, our retainers killed or imprisoned. Our debtors 
 do not pay their debts, and the voice of the Church is 
 of no avail. Justice is departed from the land with the 
 captive King. There is no more confidence in the 
 royal safe-conduct, and that of the English is abhorred 
 by the nobles and the people. We, therefore, the 
 canons of Notre-Dame met in general assembly, decree 
 that the fruits and emoluments of the prebends shall be 
 shared in common among all the canons in order that 
 each may have a morsel of bread to break ; that each 
 resident canon shall provide himself with arms, and 
 maintain two knights and an armed page to resist the 
 assaults of the enemy.' 
 
 But an event was shortly to happen which relieved 
 France, for a while at least, from the presence of a foreign 
 enemy. The misery of the land at last bent Charles to 
 submission, and Edward III., weary of constant warfare 
 in a famished country, at last concluded a peace. The 
 incident which induced him to sign the Treaty of 
 Brctigny was regarded by all his contemporaries as 
 miraculous. The part which 'our Lady of Charters ' 
 played in this affair is recorded in the fascinating 
 chronicles of Sir John Froissart. ' Edward,' he tells 
 us, ' having put the realm of France into great tribula- 
 tion, intended to lay siege to Paris after August and 
 not to return again to England till he had France at 
 his pleasure. Leaving garrisons, therefore, to make 
 war in France, Champagne, Poictou, Ponthieu, Vexin, 
 Normandy and all the realm of France, he came into 
 
 249
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 " the good country of Beauce " with the idea of staying 
 in Brittany till the vintage season. But he was led to 
 change his mind. 
 
 ' All this season the Duke of Normandy was at 
 Paris, and his two brethren and the Duke of Orleans, 
 their uncle, and their Counsels. They imagined well 
 the courage of the King of England, and how that he 
 and his men brought the realm of France into great 
 poverty, and saw well how the realm could not long 
 endure in that case, for the rents of the lords and of 
 the churches were nigh lost in every part. As then 
 there was a sage and discreet person Chancellor of 
 France, called Sir William of Montague, Bishop of 
 Terouenne, by whose counsel much of France was 
 ruled, and good cause why, for ever his counsel was 
 good and true, and with him there were two other 
 clerks of great prudence, the Abbot of Cluny and the 
 master of the Friars Preachers, called Sir Simon of 
 Langres, a master in divinity ; these two clerks, at the 
 desire of the Duke of Normandy and of the whole 
 Council of France, departed from Paris with certain 
 articles of peace, and Sir Hugh of Geneve, Lord of 
 Autun, in their company, and they went to the King 
 of England, who rode in Beauce towards Galardon. 
 These two clerks and two knights spake with the 
 King and began to fall in treaty for a peace, to be had 
 of him and his allies ; to the which treaty the Prince 
 of Wales, the Duke of Lancaster and the Earl of 
 March were called. This treaty was not as then con- 
 cluded, for it was long a-driving and always the King 
 went forward. These ambassadors would not so leave 
 the King, but still sued and followed on their purpose, 
 for they saw how the French King was in so poor 
 estate that the realm was likely to be in a great jeopardy, 
 if the war continued a summer longer. And on the 
 other side, the King of England required so great 
 250
 
 Birth of the Bourgeoisie 
 
 tljings and so prejudicial to the realm of France, that 
 the lords would not agree thereto for their honours, so 
 that all their treaty (the which endured a seventeen 
 days, still following the King) they sent ever their 
 process daily to the Duke of Normandy, to the city of 
 Paris, ever desiring to have again answer what they 
 should do farther, the which process was secretly and 
 sufficiently examined in the Regent's chamber at Paris, 
 and answer was sent again by writing to them what 
 they should do and what they should offer ; and so 
 these ambassadors were oftentimes with the King, as 
 he went forward toward the city of Chartres, as in 
 other places, and great offers they made to come to a 
 conclusion of the war and to have a peace. To the 
 which offers the King of England was hard hearted to 
 agree unto, for his intention was to be King of France 
 and to die in that estate. For if the Duke of Lan- 
 caster, his cousin, had not counselled him to have 
 peace he would not have agreed thereunto. But he 
 said to the King, " Sir, this war that ye make in the 
 realm of France is right marvellous and right favour- 
 able for you : your men win great riches and ye lose 
 your time, all things considered, or ye come to your 
 intent, ye may hap to make war all the days of your 
 life. Sir, I would counsel you (sith ye may leave the 
 war to your honour and profit) accept the offers that 
 ben made unto you, for, sir, you might lose more in a 
 day than we have won in twenty years." Such fair 
 and subtle words that the Duke of Lancaster said in 
 good intention, and for weal of the King and all his 
 subjects, converted the King by the grace of the Holy 
 Ghost, who was chief worker in that case. For on a 
 day, as the King was before Charters, there fell a case 
 that greatly humbled the King's courage. For wliile 
 these ambassadors were treating for this peace and had 
 none agreeable answer, there fell suddenly such a 
 
 251
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 tempest of thunder, lightning, rain and hail in tl;ie 
 King's oost, that it seemed that the world should have 
 ended : there fell from heaven such great stones that it 
 slew men and horses, so that tlie most hardiest were 
 abashed. 
 
 ' Then the King of England beheld the Church of 
 our Lady of Charters, and avowed devoutly to our 
 Lady to agree to the peace, and, as it was said, he was 
 as then confessed, and lodged in a village near to 
 Charters, called Bretigny. And there were made 
 certain compositions of peace, upon certain articles 
 after ordained ; and, the more firmly to be concluded 
 by their ambassadors, and by the King of England and 
 his Council, there was ordained, by good deliberation 
 and advice, a letter called the Charter of Peace ' 
 {1360). 
 
 By this treaty the English King waived his claims 
 on the crown of France and on the Duchy of Nor- 
 mandy ; but, on the other hand, his Duchy of 
 Aquitaine was not only restored to him, but freed 
 from its obligations as a French fief, and granted in 
 full sovereignty with Ponthieu, as well as Guisnes, and 
 the new conquest of Calais. 
 
 The captive King, Jean-Ie-Bon, was ransomed and 
 released, and he, like his captor Edward, and the 
 Black Prince before him, made a pilgrimage to Notre- 
 Dame, and passed piously beneath the Holy Chest, 
 which it was deemed safe at last to bring forth from its 
 hiding-place in the Chapel of S. Lubin. 
 
 A period of comparative quiet ensued under the 
 administration of Charles the Wise, who summoned 
 the States-General to meet at Chartres, and entrusted 
 the patriotism of this and other principal towns with 
 the task of raising forces to deal with the roving bands 
 of freebooters which, under the name of grandes com- 
 pagti'tes, swarmed over the country. The campaigns 
 252
 
 Birth of the Bourgeoisie 
 
 conducted by Duguesclin against the English in the 
 south left Chartres undisturbed. She devoted herself 
 to the restoration of order, the enforcement of law, and 
 the strengthening of her wall. One little incident will 
 show the progress which, in spite of war, and imposi- 
 tions of every sort, had been made since the high days 
 of feudalism. 
 
 The house of one Guillaume Morhicr, knight and 
 seigneur of S. Piat, was forcibly entered by some 
 bailiffs, who were charged to distrain upon him for the 
 benefit of a horse-dealer. Morhier's daughter, when 
 the chief official was preparing to read his warrant to 
 her, snatched the paper out of his hands, and for this 
 offence was roughly seized and, in spite of her protests, 
 dragged on her knees across the town, as though 
 she had been a common thief or murderess, and com- 
 mitted to prison in the Tour-le-Roi. She was thrown 
 into the cells used for women of loose life. It was 
 with the utmost difficulty that the unfortunate girl 
 regained her liberty, after two friends had appeared to 
 go bail for her. Intense indignation was aroused by 
 this high-handed behaviour on the part of the officials. 
 For the Morhier family was one of the most important 
 in the district. The bailiffs, after a formal investigation 
 of the case, lasting over two years, were condemned 
 to make full apology, and pay a heavy fme. But the 
 mere fact that Morhicr did not, without trial, hang 
 then and there the servant of the law who had pre- 
 sumed to raise his hand against his high-born daughter 
 is significant of the advance that had been made in the 
 last two hundred years. 
 
 The next thing of importance that happened at 
 Chartres was the curious episode of the Paix Fourree. 
 A terrible crime plunged France into all the horrors 
 of civil war. The Duke of Burgundy, John the 
 Fearless, jealous of the popularity of the Duke of 
 
 253
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 Orleans, caused him to be assassinated (1407) at 
 Paris. A year of struggle and recrimination passed 
 before Charles VI. could bring the murderer and the 
 son of his victim to make even a pretence of recon- 
 ciliation. The Duke of Burgundy demanded, without 
 desiring, pardon, which the Duke of Orleans, without 
 forgiving, granted. Each swore aloud to live hence- 
 forth in peace with his cousin, and swore beneath his 
 breath to slay him. The ceremony took place in the 
 Cathedral of Notre-Dame. Armed men in battle 
 array stood at the porches of the church, and within, 
 seated on a throne near the crucifix, with the Queen 
 and Dauphin, the Kings of Sicily and Navarre, dukes, 
 cardinals, and other nobles and officials near at hand, 
 Charles waited the arrival of John the Fearless, who 
 had left Gallardon that morning with six hundred 
 men-at-arms. 
 
 Amidst profoundest silence the cruel conqueror of 
 the Liegeois advanced down the nave and made his 
 submission to the imbecile King, who had so feebly 
 forgiven the murderer of his brother. Then again 
 advancing towards his ' dear cousins,' the children of 
 the murdered duke, he formally besought them to 
 banish from their hearts all hatred and feelings of 
 revenge, and to live in amity with him. At these 
 words, and at the sight of their father's murderer, the 
 young princes burst into tears. The Queen and 
 Dauphin approached them, and begged them to for- 
 give, and, at the command of the King, the young 
 duke and his brother repeated the prescribed words of 
 the treaty, and they and the Duke of Burgundy, and 
 all the princes of royal blood, swore upon the Cross 
 and the Gospels to obey the behest of the King in 
 this matter. This done, John the Fearless, without 
 taking bite or sup in Chartres, mounted his horse and 
 rode away. Little wonder that John of Montagu, 
 254
 
 Birth of the Bourgeoisie 
 
 brother of the former Bishop of Chartres, in register- 
 ing this pact, wrote beneath it these significant words, 
 ' Pax, Pax ; et non est Pax ' (Peace, Peace ; and it is 
 not peace). So also thought the excellent Fool of 
 the Duke of Burgundy, who, wrapping an ecclesiastical 
 paten [pa'tx cV eglise) in his fur mantle [fourrure), 
 remarked that it was but a patched-up peace (Paix 
 Fourree). 
 
 The Fool's verdict was soon justified. John the 
 Fearless went to Paris, and curried favour with the 
 people of the market-place. His popularity and 
 democratic tendencies provoked the displeasure of the 
 Orleanists, who represented the old feudal party. In 
 the civil war which ensued between the Armagnacs, as 
 the Orleanists were called, and the Burgundians, 
 Chartres, lying very much in the centre of the opera- 
 tions, suffered almost equally from both sides. 
 
 The spirit of patriotism and the sense of unity were 
 as yet scarce born in France. The example and 
 exigencies of civil war were not calculated to promote 
 their growth. Maddened by the assassination of the 
 Duke of Burgundy in the very presence of the 
 Dauphin, with whom he had come to confer, the 
 Burgundians threw themselves into the hands of the 
 English. After the Battle of Agincourt, where, 
 against still greater odds, the English archers had 
 inflicted a still more overwhelming defeat upon the 
 French knighthood than at Crecy and Poitiers, Henry 
 V. had been steadily reducing the province of Nor- 
 mandy, Now, by the aid of his new allies, he con- 
 cluded with the maniac Charles VI, the Treaty of 
 Troyes (1420), which handed over to England the 
 crown of France and tbe whole kingdom. Chartres 
 had been taken in 1417* by John the Fearless, and 
 
 * It was in this very year that Louis de Bourbon, Comte de 
 Vendome, in expiation of the vow which he had made when
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 converted into his capital. Every citizen suspected of 
 favouring the Armagnacs had been expelled from the 
 city. The capital of the Burgundians was therefore 
 not unnaturally one of the first towns to recognise 
 Heniy V. in his new role of heir to the French 
 crown. The Dauphin, indeed, marched from Blois 
 to take vengeance upon the rebellious city, but he 
 promptly raised the siege when Henry, leaving Paris, 
 advanced to relieve it. 
 
 Henry took Dreux, and remained there a month. 
 Then he returned to Chartres as a pilgrim, with bare 
 feet, and a candle in his hand. Rich gifts were 
 bestowed upon Notre-Dame by the English soldiery, 
 amongst which is mentioned a magnificent ostensoir 
 that disappeared during the Revolution. The high 
 bourgeoisie and clergy, captivated by the favours of the 
 English King, were now all addicted to Anglescherie 
 (Anglomania), a fault which they, with the rest of 
 Europe, have since managed to correct. Thus, 
 whereas formerly a Bishop of Chartres had equipped 
 himself as a knight and gone to die at Agincourt in 
 battle with the enemy, the Bishop now could only 
 maintain his See by devoting himself to the English 
 cause. This Jean de Fretigny did with success. As 
 a rival of Orleans and Chateaudun also, Chartres 
 naturally favoured Henry in days when centralisation 
 and patriotism, that higher form of selfishness, were 
 almost unknown, as the tragic history of the Maid of 
 Orleans was shortly to show. Her brother, we may 
 mention, was for a while captain of Chartres. 
 
 One year after Joan of Arc, the patriot before her 
 time, had been put to death by a judicial murder at 
 Rouen without one word of protest from her country- 
 held prisoner by his brother, the Count of Marche, having come 
 as a pilgrim to Chartres, began to build the Flamboyant chapel, 
 in the south aisle of the Cathedral, wliich bears his name. 
 256
 
 Birth of the Bourgeoisie 
 
 men or' the Church, Chartres was retaken by the 
 French. The manner of its taking was on this wise. 
 Two merchants of the town, Guillaume Bouffineau 
 and Jean Lesueur by name, who traded in salt, wine 
 and corn with the people of Blois and Orleans, were 
 won over by the governor of the latter city to the side 
 of the French King, Charles VII. At his instigation 
 they prepared a plan for surprising the town, which 
 took effect on the i ith of April. On that day 
 Bouffineau and Lesueur, accompanied by some soldiers 
 disguised as waggoners, arrived early in the morning at 
 the gate S. Michel with several loads of what they 
 said was salt. They demanded admittance ; and as 
 they had the reputation of being the best possible of 
 citizens, the guards lowered the drawbridge. Two 
 waggons passed safely in ; the third was purposely 
 upset on the bridge. Profiting from the confusion 
 caused by this accident, the conspirators attacked the 
 guards, slew them, and rushed into the town shouting, 
 * La Paix, Ville Gagnee ! ' Two strong French 
 detachments, commanded by Longueville, Dunois, 
 Boussicault and La Hire,* who had been lying in 
 ambush near at hand, now arrived, reinforced the 
 assailants, and occupied the principal thoroughfares. 
 The English party was taken completely unawares, 
 and was slow to rally ; for not only were the cries of 
 the assailants confusing, but the eloquence of a con- 
 
 * Of this La Hire the following anecdote is told. He was 
 marching to relieve Montargis, which was in dire straits after a 
 long resistance to the besieging English, On his way he met a 
 priest, from whom he demanded absolution. 'Confess your 
 sins, then,' returned the priest. 'I have no time,' was the 
 reply, 'for I am in a hurry to engage the English; and, 
 besides, the tale of a soldier's sins is not a short one.' The 
 priest somewhat hesitatingly pronounced the sentence of abso- 
 lution. La Hire immediately knelt down by the wayside and 
 prayed aloud, 'God, I pray Thee to do this day on La Hire's 
 R 257
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 federate monk was enthralling. He had assembled 
 the people at the other end of the town to hear him 
 preach, and their interest in his sermon prevented 
 them from realising their danger till too late. 
 
 The Anglicising Bishop Fretigny, however, when 
 he heard of the affair, rushed to arms and fell fighting 
 at the head of his men. The town was taken. The 
 conspiring bourgeois were rewarded with money and 
 office. Charles VII. achieved the pacification of 
 Chartres with letters of pardon and confirmation. A 
 strong force of French troops garrisoned it against any 
 attempt of the English to retake it, and used it as a 
 convenient spot from which to make marauding expedi- 
 tions against the neighbouring English territory. It 
 was, indeed, for a while a frontier fort, guarding the 
 French marches. Night and day, from the towers of 
 Notre-Dame, men watched the plains of La Beauce, 
 ready to give the alarm when the English, moving 
 from their quarters in Normandy, threatened this 
 district. In 1491 the Chartrain garrison moved out 
 and laid siege to Gallardon, which was still held by 
 the English. Talbot, marching on the Ile-de-France, 
 relieved his fellow-countrymen. But next year 
 Gallardon fell into the hands of the Chartrains. 
 Gradually the English were driven out of France, and 
 the people of Chartres began to make a desperate effort 
 to restore their ruined commerce by developing the 
 
 behalf what Thou wouldst that La Hire should do for Thee, 
 supposing he was God and Thou wast La Hire.' His somewhat 
 uncanonical prayer was granted. He attacked the English and 
 obliged them to raise the siege of Montargis. I note a curious 
 parallel between this prayer of his and the quaint old English 
 epitaph of John Hildebrod, — 
 
 ' Here lies the body of old John Hildebrod. 
 
 Have mercy on his soul, O God ! 
 
 As he would do, if he were God, 
 
 And you were old John Hildebrod.' 
 258
 
 Birth of the Bourgeoisie 
 
 navigation of their river Eure. Thereby they in- 
 volved themselves in continual and expensive litigation 
 with the owners of riparian rights and the jealous 
 merchants of neighbouring towns. 
 
 Relieved from the pressure of a foreign enemy, the 
 quarrels between the Bishop and the Chapter broke out 
 with renewed vigour. The disgraceful and ridiculous 
 scenes of the last century were repeated. Then the 
 esteem in which the clergy were held had been damaged 
 by the exhibition of the Bishop and the Chapter quarrel- 
 ling over the question of authority, excommunicating each 
 other and continuing to say Mass. Apart from deeds of 
 violence — and these were not few — it was a sufficiently 
 deplorable object-lesson for the people. Canons in 
 the Cathedral made such a clatter with their chairs 
 that the proclamations of the Bishop could not be 
 heard. Now, the Chapter, who refused to recognise 
 the right of mandamus claimed by the Bishop, was 
 involved in a similar quarrel with Miles d'llliers. 
 When he endeavoured to enforce his episcopal juris- 
 diction upon the canons of the cloister, they declared 
 that he was violating the rights of the Holy See, to 
 which alone they were responsible, and forthwith 
 excommunicated him. Nothing daunted, he appeared 
 in the choir of Notre-Dame. The canons rose 
 from their stalls and made for the doors, as if to avoid 
 all contact with a man who had been excommunicated. 
 The Bishop, treating the matter as a jest, pronounced 
 his blessing on the fugitives, ' to absolve them from 
 the excommunication which they were afraid of 
 sharing with him.' Then he ordered his chaplains to 
 continue divine service without the canons. The 
 violent and imperious temper of Miles d'llliers 
 brought him into conflict, not only with the Chapter 
 of the Cathedral, but also with the abbeys and the 
 town. He was usually in the wrong. Louis XI., who 
 
 261
 
 T^he Story of Chartres 
 
 divided his time between Chartres, where his devotion 
 held him, and Paris, whither the administration of his 
 kingdom summoned him, invariably decided against 
 him when the cases of his aggression were submitted 
 to him. These affairs, endless litigation with reference 
 to the navigation of the river, the plague, and bene- 
 factions from the King to the Cathedral, made up the 
 history of Chartres till the end of the fifteenth 
 century. 
 
 ARMS OF THE TOWN 
 
 262
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 T'he Siege and the Breach, 1568 
 
 ' Le canon battait nos murailles. 
 La Vierge, comme un boiiclier, 
 Au choc terrible des batailles 
 Opposait son blanc tablier. 
 
 Le plomb, dans sa course rapide, 
 Devant la Vierge se courbait, 
 Et I'obus, au vol homicide, 
 Sans bruit, dans son giron tombait.' 
 
 L. JOLLIET. 
 
 PLAGUE and famine weighed heavily upon Char- 
 tres throughout the sixteenth century ; not less 
 heavily the wars of Frangois I. and of Henry IV., and 
 the continual contributions in money which she was 
 called upon to make in order to enable them to be 
 waged. Year by year, under the three curses of that 
 age — plague, soldiers, and impositions — the exhaustion 
 of the city increased. She was able, however, to re- 
 ceive with sufficient magnificence the occasional visits 
 of kings and princes. Particularly splendid was the 
 reception accorded to Mary Queen of Scots, when, at 
 the age of six, she was brought here in state by the 
 Constable de Montmorency and the Due d'Aumale. 
 And the period in which Jean de Beauce wrought the 
 Clocher and the Cloture of the Cathedral cannot have 
 been one of abject poverty. 
 
 Royal visits to the town were not altogether wasteful. 
 Not only did they, in the ordinary course of things, stimu- 
 
 263
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 late trade, but they also served the cause of sanitation. 
 For on such great occasions, and on such occasions only, 
 the streets were cleaned. Street police was still quite in 
 its infancy ; hygiene an art scarce beginning to be prac- 
 tised. We find mention of an order in 1526 forbidding 
 swineherds to allow the animals in their charge [betes 
 porchines de M. S. j4ntoine) to wander about the streets. 
 But this was an unpopular measure, and stood rather as 
 a pious opinion of the more enlightened than as an effec- 
 tive piece of legislation. Things were but little better 
 than they had been when the heir of Louis-le-Gros, 
 riding in the Rue S. Jean in Paris, was thrown from 
 his horse by an abbot's pig, and died of his 
 injuries. 
 
 The vile odour that arose from the narrow, ill-paved, 
 uncleansed passages called streets, filled with the rotting 
 garbage which so tempted the pigs, is not pleasant even 
 to imagine. Little wonder that here, as at Paris, 
 where the same reign of mud and dirt obtained, the 
 plague broke out again and again. 
 
 In one of these outbreaks Chartres lost no less than 
 8000 of its inhabitants. As in Paris, and later in 
 London, the houses tainted by the plague were marked 
 with a cross, and persons who were infected by it were 
 obliged to carry a white wand in the streets. But 
 people have always been curiously slow to learn the 
 lessons of sanitation. The open sewer, the filthy water, 
 the system of burial, the state of the dwelling-houses, 
 the tradition of personal uncleanliness, these were all 
 powerful friends of the pest in every mediaeval town. 
 
 ' You have,' Voltaire wrote later of Paris, ' slaughter- 
 houses in back streets with no issue, which give out in 
 summer a cadaverous odour capable of poisoning an 
 entire quarter.' On this point at any rate Chartres 
 was superior to Paris. For in the sixteenth century 
 public slaughter-houses (massacre — the name still marks 
 264
 
 The Siege and the Breach, 1568 
 
 a section of the river) were erected in an appropriate 
 place. But the butchers did not taice kindly to them. 
 In spite of frequent pains and penalties, it was long be- 
 fore the inveterate habit of slaughtering animals and 
 throwing their blood into the streets was abandoned. 
 
 As to the streets, the authorities contented them- 
 selves for the most part with quite platonic aspirations 
 that they should be watered and cleaned. But on great 
 occasions, as I have said, cleaned they were, along with 
 the roads, passages and bridges. Such an occasion was 
 the visit of the King and Queen in 1550, with the 
 Dauphin and his youngjiancee, Mary Stuart. 
 
 The masters and companions of each trade and 
 mystery, and the pages of honour to accompany the 
 King on horse and foot were carefully selected ; and 
 costumes were as nicely chosen. The Lieutenant- 
 General de Herouad indeed issued an order calling upon 
 the citizens, on pain of forfeit and arrest, to array them- 
 selves for the ceremony in velvet, satin, taffetas, and 
 other rich garments. Triumphal arches were raised 
 before the gates. At the cross roads scaffoldings were 
 erected and decorated with tapestries and gilt, whereon 
 plays and mysteries were to be performed. 
 
 These elaborate arrangements, however, ended in a 
 lamentable fiasco. As the cortege wound its way out 
 of the Porte Drouaise to meet the King and Queen a 
 violent storm burst over them, and compelled them all, 
 Lieutenant-General included, to seek refuge in the 
 Church of S. Maurice and the neighbouring houses, in 
 order to save their gala clothes from ruin. At the 
 same moment, unfortunately, the King and Queen left 
 the road of Josaphat, which they were following, and 
 made a short cut for the town, where they arrived 
 without meeting a soul to welcome them. 
 
 As the key and granary of Paris, Chartres began to 
 be the favourite garrison town of the French army, and 
 
 265
 
 T'he Story of Chartres 
 
 
 "^l 
 
 was obliged to contribute accordingly to the expenses of 
 
 huge masses of men quartered on her. 
 
 Meantime, 
 the County of 
 Chartres was 
 raised to a 
 Duchy in favour 
 of R e n e e, 
 daughter of the 
 late King Louis 
 XII. and Anne 
 de Bretaigne, on 
 the occasion of 
 her marriage 
 with Hercules 
 d'Este, son of 
 the Duke of 
 Ferrara. A 
 more profitable 
 honour befell the 
 town a few years 
 later, when a 
 judicial tribunal 
 was set up here, 
 a step which 
 tended in some 
 degree to lessen 
 the excessive 
 expenses and 
 delays of the 
 law. This was 
 done in 1552, 
 and in 1566 
 authorised the merchants and various 
 
 trades, who were groaning under the exactions of 
 
 the procureurs and the ruinous procedure of the gens 
 266 
 
 Charles IX.
 
 'T'he Siege and the Breach, 1568 
 
 du baillage, to choose a merchant judge and four 
 colleagues (consuls) in the town of Chartres. This 
 tribunal was intended to deal with business affairs. 
 The bailiffs and attorneys, seeing in the creation of a 
 Tribunal of Commerce a severe blow to their interests, 
 did their utmost to frustrate it. But the Tribunal got 
 itself established none the less in the House and Meet- 
 ing-place of the Merchants, as they then called it ; the 
 Maison des Vieux-Consuls, as it came to be known 
 later, after the consuls had transferred the scene of 
 their labours elsewhere. 
 
 The ' House of the Old Consuls ' in the Rue des 
 Ecuyers, facing the entrance of the Rue de la Petite- 
 Boucherie de Bourg, is not in itself remarkable, save 
 as the seat and cradle of municipal justice in Chartres. 
 For that purpose it was well placed, being in the centre 
 of the steep old streets of the lower town and near 
 the river, round which, as we have seen, clustered 
 numerous industries. The site was originally just 
 within the old walls. of the ninth century, and it is 
 possible that the house was part of the old Tour du 
 Roy. But it was completely rebuilt in the seventeenth 
 century, and were it not for the fifteenth-century 
 entrance, and the extremely picturesque circular stair- 
 case with its elegant and curious carving (early six- 
 teenth century), it would be of no account. This 
 staircase is known as the Escal'ier de la Re'tne Berthe — 
 Queen Bertha's Staircase. The name apparently is 
 quite modern, and there is no explanation of it which 
 can claim to be certainly correct. 
 
 The Queen Bertha indicated may be either the wife 
 of Eudcs 1., Count of Chartres, who afterwards mar- 
 ried King Robert, and who, when he was forced to 
 repudiate her, came to live in the old castle at Chartres, 
 where she ended her days striving to forget her ephem- 
 eral greatness and succouring the poor ; or, and this 
 
 267
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 seems more likely, it may be Bertha, sister of Count 
 Thibault III., widow of the Duke of Aquitaine, who 
 spent her widowhood at Chartres in this quarter of the 
 town, a fact which has survived in tradition and is con- 
 firmed by a document of 1069. For there is mention 
 of the house of the Countess between the Toru du 
 ;. Roy and the Porte Cen- 
 
 dreuse {^camera com'tt'tssa inter 
 Turrim et port am Cinerosam j . 
 Of other old wooden 
 houses in Chartres the most 
 famous for its carving and 
 its picturesqueness is the 
 Maison du Saumon in the 
 Place de la Poissonnerie, 
 No. 10, so called from the 
 huge salmon which is carved 
 upon one of the beams, and 
 recalls the fact that Pois- 
 sonnerie means Fish- 
 market. And No. 49 Rue 
 des Changes is also dis- 
 tinguished by its carving. 
 The Etape-au-vin we have 
 already mentioned. 
 
 , 111 ''-in; .y.\<;H<^f- 
 
 
 
 The sixteenth century in 
 France was an epoch of 
 confusion and distress, but from the chaos that then 
 prevailed modern civilisation sprang. Two great 
 historic facts dominate that epoch : the Renaissance of 
 art and letters and the religious Reformation. They 
 were naturally not wholly disconnected. Gutenberg 
 was the forerunner of Luther. The revival of interest 
 in the intellectual treasures of antiquity introduced into 
 a society formed by Catholicism and feudalism a new 
 268
 
 The Siege and the Breach y 1568 
 
 comparison. The languages, politics, art, philosophy 
 and religious beliefs of Rome and Athens were con- 
 trasted for the first time in the light of history with 
 those of an organisation already exhausted by the 
 length of its duration and the poison of its own vices. 
 To this extent the intellectual awakening of the six- 
 teenth century, with its new study of things old, led 
 up to and aided the Reformation. But the idea of 
 reform was not new. It had appeared and been 
 repressed many times and in many countries from the 
 twelfth century onwards. The authority of the 
 Councils and the rigour of the punishments directed 
 against it had succeeded in choking the movement 
 hitherto, for it is one of the most inaccurate of com- 
 monplaces which asserts that persecution only succeeds 
 in promoting the cause it endeavours to check. The 
 Reformation was for hundreds of years quite success- 
 fully checked by persecution. But it came at last 
 when, in the fulness of time, the minds of men were 
 enlightened by the new spirit of discovery, inquiry and 
 learning, and when the authority of the Church was 
 weakened by the schisms and depravity of its repre- 
 sentatives. The country which had invented the 
 printing press, that powerful engine for the dissemina- 
 tion of ideas, sent forth also Luther. The shock of 
 the revolt inaugurated by him struck France at a 
 moment when, in the person of Francois I., the 
 prerogatives of the Crown were almost without limit, 
 and the regal splendour in which the King delighted 
 dazzled every eye. Francois did not at first perceive 
 the political tendencies of the Reformation, and he 
 allowed the Protestant doctrines to be cherished even 
 at his own Court. Marguerite de Valois, his sister, 
 openly encouraged Protestantism, and CIdment Marot, 
 his favourite poet, translated for the use of the Re- 
 formers the Psalms into French. That charming poet 
 
 , 269
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 and witty epigrammatist had started in life with the 
 intention of never giving offence or rousing incon- 
 venient opposition. Like Rabelais, he was ready to 
 espouse a cause with an enthusiasm that was warm 
 indeed but stopped short of burning point (jusqu'au 
 feu exclusivement). 
 
 ' Tant de brouillis qu'en justice on tolere 
 Je I'ecrirois, mais je crains la colere, 
 L'oisivete des pretres et catrots 
 Je la dirois, man S"^^ Us fagots ,• 
 Et des abus dont I'Eglise est fourree, 
 J'en parlerois, mais gare la bourree.' 
 
 So he had written. But his zeal or his art soon out- 
 ran his discretion. He provoked the enmity which he 
 deprecated. Pursued by the hatred of the Lady ot 
 Annet, Diane de Poitiers, of the poet Sagon and the 
 inquisitor Jean Bouchard, the satirist was imprisoned 
 more than once, and at last banished in poverty. 
 
 Chartres was the last place in which Calvinism was 
 likely to be popular. Marot, there, was as unwelcome 
 as his Psalms. He was seized and imprisoned in the 
 Tour de Roy. The courts recently established in the 
 town were active in the suppression of heresy, and 
 burnt their first victims at the stake in 1553, * qui ne se 
 voulurent jamais confesser ny reconnoistre nostre bon 
 Dieu et sauveur Jesus, ny la beno'tste vierge Marie.' 
 As time went on the inquisitions grew more exacting. 
 Their increasing severity drew forth increasing resist- 
 ance on the part of the Protestants. More Huguenots 
 were burnt and hundreds were banished from the town. 
 A bishop, suspected of favouring their cause, was 
 quickly denounced and cited to Rome. He departed 
 amidst popular execration. Chartres remained enthu- 
 siastically Catholic of the Catholics. The Church 
 festivals were celebrated with renewed pomp in the 
 270
 
 The Siege and the Breach, i 568 
 
 Cathedral, and the Mystery of Abraham was per- 
 formed with impressive solemnity. 
 
 From the commencement of the religious wars, 
 Louis, Prince of Condc, head of the Protestant 
 League, ' for the maintenance of the pure worship 
 of God and the due observance of the edicts,' turned, 
 his attention to the country of the Orlcanais in order 
 to facilitate his communications with the South. 
 Hoping to avenge the catastrophe of Rouen, he made 
 a bold movement from Orleans upon Paris. But 
 after meeting with a severe check at Corbeil, he was 
 obliged to fall back, upon Normandy, devastating and 
 burning La Beauce on his way. He had vainly 
 called upon Chartres to open her gates to him. 
 ' Never,' was the bold reply he received from the 
 governor. ' I hold the town for the King, and if 
 your army attacks this place it will prove their 
 cemetery ! ' Condc continued to retire northwards. 
 The Royal army engaged him under the walls of 
 Dreux, and there the first pitched battle of the war 
 was fought. It resulted, after an arduous struggle, in 
 a hard-won victory for the Catholics. Eight thousand 
 corpses strewed the plain, and whilst Montmorency 
 remained prisoner in the hands of the Protestants, 
 Condc himself was a captive to the Royalists. The 
 pacific arrangement which was made shortly after- 
 wards was not of long duration. The fierce persecu- 
 tion commenced by the Duke of Alva against their 
 brethren in the Netherlands roused, not without 
 reason, the apprehension as well as the indignation of 
 the French Reformers. The Huguenots rose and 
 moved upon Paris. A drawn battle was fought in the 
 plain of S. Denis. 
 
 Chartres had but a moment's respite. It was 
 employed with feverish activity in making prepara- 
 tions for defence. The inhabitants were commanded 
 
 271
 
 ^he Story of Chartres 
 
 to lay in provisions for two months. The watchmen 
 installed in the Ciocher Neuf were instructed to make 
 the following signals : — On the first appearance of the 
 enemy three strokes of the bell, three more if the 
 enemy advanced towards the town. If they were 
 cavalry a tapering banner was to be flown, if infantry a 
 square one, and if the Huguenots tried to rush upon 
 the suburbs the tocsin was to be rung. A bell was 
 placed at each gate to correspond with that of the 
 watch, and to summon the quarter to arms. Urgent 
 appeals were sent to the King for aid, who replied 
 by despatching some troops with Jean de Bourdeilles, 
 Baron d'Ardelay, to superintend, in conjunction with 
 Antoine de Linieres and his garrison, the defence of 
 the town. They busied themselves with placing some 
 artillery in position, and establishing a bullet manu- 
 factory. The church bells were melted to supply 
 the forge. 
 
 On the approach of the enemy the bridges over the 
 Eure outside the town were destroyed. On the last 
 day of February, 1 568, the Huguenot army, com- 
 manded by the gallant Conde himself, encamped at 
 L^ves and Josaphat, and in the suburbs about the 
 gates Drouaise, Guillaume, Morard and S. Michel. 
 Their numbers are given variously at 10,000 and 
 45,000 men. Their artillery consisted of only five 
 siege pieces and four small culverins. The first 
 four days of March were employed by the enemy in 
 fortifying their positions, and by the Catholic Chartrains 
 in skirmishing about the environs and setting fire to 
 the suburbs of the town. M. de Linieres, their vigorous 
 leader, who was afterwards to meet his death on the 
 battlefield of Jarnac, destroyed, as a necessary measure 
 of war, Mainvilliers, and the monasteries of the 
 Franciscans (with its splendid library) and of S. 
 John. The Huguenots, on the other hand, endeavoured 
 272
 
 'The Siege and the Breach, i 5^8 
 
 to preserve some buildings which might afford them 
 cover, but they destroyed the Churches of S. Chcron 
 and S. Barthclemy, which could be of no use to them. 
 
 These preliminaries gave the inhabitants of Chartres 
 time to complete an entrenchment stretching from the 
 Monastery of S. Pere to the Porte Morard, and to 
 construct also a platform near the convent of the 
 Soeurs-de-S.-Paul, on which was mounted a cannon 
 named La Huguenotte, which had been taken from the 
 enemy at the Battle of Dreux. This piece did such 
 good service during the siege that it soon earned the 
 name of ' The Good Catholic ! ' 
 
 On the 5th of March the German soldiers, the 
 Reiters and Lanskenets of the enemy, took up a position 
 at the entrance of S. Maurice and at the Filles-Dieu, 
 and opened two batteries, one opposite the Porte 
 Drouaise, masked by the walls of the house Trots- 
 Maures, the other in the enclosure of the Filles-Dieu, 
 intending to take the same gate on the flank. The 
 bombardment began on the following day. 
 
 The householders had watched the forces of their 
 enemy gathering from this side and that, and knew 
 that at last the dreaded circle was complete. They 
 knew that Condc was in command, and had sworn to 
 ruin their Cathedral, to scatter the relics stored there, 
 and to feed his horse at the high altar. They knew 
 that his soldiers were eager to ' ruin and annihilate the 
 most beautiful building in France that remained as yet 
 undefiled by them, namely, this devout and excellent 
 temple of the Church of Notre-Dame de Chartres, the 
 terror and despair of the heretics.' * But in spite of 
 this knowledge and preparation the opening cannonade 
 took the people of Chartres, as two hundred years later 
 it took the people of Paris, by surprise, f It was 
 
 * Contemporary MS. (Bibliotheque Municipale), Duparc, 1578. 
 ■\ Siege de Pans, Francisque Sarccy. 
 
 s 273
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 early in the day. A crowd of worshippers filled the 
 Church of S. Foy (S. Faith, Rue d'Harleville), 
 which was built partly on the ramparts. At the con- 
 clusion of the Mass the Sacrament was to be carried 
 to a sick person. Touched by unusual devotion at 
 this perilous time, the whole assembly rose to escort 
 the procession on its way, passing out slowly, group 
 after group, as if by mechanical instinct, the more reluctant 
 led on by the general consent. At last the church 
 was quite emptied, when, it is said, a shower of massy 
 stones from the culverins or great cannon of the 
 besiegers fell suddenly upon it, and the entire roof of 
 the place sank into the empty space beneath. 
 
 The rebuilding of the little chapel rendered neces- 
 sary by this disaster accounts for the Flamboyant style 
 of architecture which it now represents. Originally it 
 had been dedicated in the time of S. Fulbert, and was 
 enlarged and raised to the dignity of a parish church 
 in the days of S. Ives. It was horribly profaned 
 during the Revolution, being converted into a Salle de 
 Spectacle by a decree of the Municipal Council in 1794 
 on the motion of one Morin, an architect. It was not 
 till 1857, on the same day as the Druidical Virgin, 
 Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre, was restored to the 
 traditional place in the crypt, that the church passed 
 again by purchase into clerical hands and was carefully 
 restored. 
 
 The changes and degradations which it has under- 
 gone have left little worth studying in what was once the 
 parish church of the most populous quarter in the town. 
 
 Whatever damage it did elsewhere (and a few days 
 later a neighbouring church was crushed like S. Foy, 
 but with all its good people inside), the cannonade 
 directed against the Porte Drouaise on two sides at 
 once failed in its object. For the ravelin proved a 
 sufficient protection for the besieged. It therefore 
 274
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 A. M. d'Andelot's regiment of from ten to twelve companies 
 
 preparing to advance to the assault. 
 
 B. Four guns, belonging to M. Cassimir, leader of the Germans, 
 
 on a ridge, firing as a rule into the town. 
 
 C. Regiment of Germans preparing to advance to the assault. 
 
 D. Breach of about 30 yards. 
 
 E. M. du Bordet, at the head of twenty-five or thirty soldiers 
 
 and sappers who were to undermine the ravelin, was 
 killed by a shot from an arquebus. 
 
 F. M. des Champs' regiment also making ready to advance to 
 
 the assault. 
 
 G. A sortie made by the besieged against M. de Pille's troops. 
 H. The gate.
 
 The Siege and the Breach^ i c;68 
 
 became necessary for the Huguenots to get possession 
 of this advanced work. One of them, Du Bordet* by 
 name, slipped with some pioneers into the ditch and 
 began to sap, but being perceived by the defenders 
 above, was shot down by an arquebus, and his men 
 were unable to resist a sortie with which the arque- 
 busiers followed up this success. On the same day the 
 enemy were foiled in their endeavour to establish them- 
 selves near the suburb of S. Brice. But next morning 
 the Huguenots, after a prolonged cannonade, effected a 
 breach, and endeavoured to take by assault the ravelin 
 from which they had been repulsed the night before. 
 They were for a moment successful, but M. de Linicres 
 bravely recovered this important position. ' Incon- 
 tinent,' wrote the contemporary historian, Simon de 
 Gives, in his Bref Discours du Siege mis devant la Ville 
 de Chart res,] ' Incontinent, the said seigneur began to 
 pledge the captains who were near him, boldly resolute, 
 with a heart not sad but joyful rather, drooping his head a 
 little, and began to throw down planks to take the place 
 of the bridge which the cannon had broken by force. 
 These captains, wishing to show their generous courage 
 and doing their duty marvellous well, entered the ravelin 
 which the enemy had seized and held. Their own 
 men, to recover it, engaged the Huguenots in a hand- 
 to-hand fight, and being thus mixed together, the 
 enemy were right manfully repulsed, and left many of 
 their number dead within the ditch.' 
 
 At the same time the enemy had made an attack upon 
 the ravelin of the Porte S. Michel, and were repulsed 
 there also. But not without loss to the Chartrains. 
 The brave D'Ardelay, colonel of the Gascons, received 
 
 * This incident is represented in the engraving by Perrissim, 
 1570, here reproduced. It will be noticed that the artist has 
 ignored the river. 
 
 f Edited by M. L'Abbe Metais, 1895. 
 
 277
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 then a wound in the eye, of which he died some days 
 later. Of his burial in the Cathedral and its sequel we 
 have already spoken above.* 
 
 The failure of their efforts against the Porte Drouaise 
 induced the Huguenots to direct their attention to the 
 stretch of wall running from that gate to the Tower des 
 Herses de Lethiniere. And here it was that they 
 established the breach so famous in the annals of Char- 
 tres. The whole of the 8th of March their batteries 
 from the Clos-l'Eveque and the Filles-Dieu played 
 upon the wall, and by two o'clock on the following 
 afternoon a breach thirty feet wide had been made. 
 The capable and energetic governor of the town, M. 
 de Linieres, had taken every possible measure of pre- 
 caution to forestall the ill effects of the bombardment. 
 As the breach widened a strong entrenchment was 
 disclosed constructed of earth and bags of wool. A 
 thousand workmen, soldiers and civilians, worked un- 
 ceasingly at the task of throwing it up and strengthening 
 it. Under pain of cord and gibbet, the inhabitants 
 were impressed for the work. Night and day they 
 toiled, and their toil was crowned with success. The 
 Huguenots, seeing that there was no chance of deliver- 
 ing an assault with success, contented themselves with 
 firing some salvoes on the lOth and nth, and then 
 shifted their artillery opposite the Porte Morard. 
 There they began to endeavour, by destroying a large 
 dam, to divert the course of the river, which ran through 
 the lower town, and supplied the forces of the water- 
 mills. This move, in spite of the wind-mills which 
 M. de Linieres had made at once, would very likely 
 have been attended with serious results, had not rumours 
 of peace begun to reach the ears of the belligerents. A 
 truce, preliminary to the Peace of Longjumeau, was 
 proclaimed. The Huguenots made haste to quit the 
 
 * (See p. 198). 
 278
 
 The Siege and the Breach^ 1568 
 
 town they had so unsuccessfully besieged. They re- 
 moved their artillery on the 14th, and next day saw the 
 last of their battalions disappear down the roads of 
 Bonneval and Illiers. 
 
 < Thus, after fourteen days of struggle and vain 
 assault,' exclaims our triumphant chronicler Rouillard, 
 ' the enemy were compelled to retire with great loss 
 and slaughter, and to give once more occasion for the 
 name des Recules (^see p. 47), to the quarter in the 
 midst of which they had proudly raised their accursed 
 tents.' Disappointed of the plunder of the Cathedral 
 treasure and of the pillage of the town upon which they 
 had counted — for Conde himself had sold beforehand 
 the lead of the Cathedral roof — -they retired discomfited, 
 to conclude the Peace of Longjumeau — La Patx 
 boiteuse et mat assise, as it was called, because one of 
 the negotiators was named Malassise, and the other was 
 lame. 
 
 In memory of this deliverance it was decreed at 
 Chartres that a solemn annual procession should take 
 place on the 1 5th of March ; that part of the street 
 S. Andre should take the name of Rue de la Br^che, 
 and that a commemorative inscription should be graven 
 on the reconstructed wall. 
 
 In connection with the procession referred to we 
 must mention the Tour de V'tlle, as it is called, or Lti 
 Chandelle du Tour, or Le Tour de cire. This was a 
 huge yellow wax candle, rolled on a wooden cylinder, 
 and weighing as much as 220 pounds. ' From time 
 immemorial,' the archives record, ' the town of Chartres 
 has been wont to maintain this candle before the Black 
 Virgin of the pillar in front of the jube. It was 
 instituted originally by the community of the said town 
 as an oblation for the safety of the town, and was to 
 burn before the said image.' Every day a piece was 
 cut off and burnt on the town candlestick. For many 
 
 279
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 years the Tour de la Ville was presented at one or other 
 of the Church festivals indifferently, very often on the 
 I yth of October, the Feast of the Dedication of the 
 Cathedral. But in the seventeenth century it was 
 decided that the presentation should take place on the 
 I 5th of March, the anniversary of the deliverance ot 
 the town from the siege of the Huguenots. The cere- 
 mony was very popular. All the officials of the town 
 attended. Before the procession started the Mayor 
 (for he had come into existence by that time), or, 
 occasionally, some great man who happened to be the 
 guest of the town at the time, lit the first candle before 
 the shrine of the Black Virgin. Thereafter the Tour 
 de Ville was carried in the procession to the breach. 
 This custom lasted on to the days of the Revolution. 
 
 You can imagine the procession winding its way 
 from the Cathedral down the steep curves of the Rue 
 Muret towards the Place Drouaise and the Pont Neut 
 where once was the Porte Drouaise. Those who 
 took part in it would pause, perhaps, and read the in- 
 scription let into the ramparts and engraved on two 
 stones six feet long by three high which recorded the 
 events of the siege in the Latin tongue for the in- 
 struction and example of posterity. One of the stones 
 is, I gather, still preserved in the garden belonging to 
 Madame Tillionbois de Valeuil and may be seen from 
 the Pont Neuf. Pursuing their way up the Rue de la 
 Breche, the procession would next arrive at the Chapel 
 of Notre-Dame-de-la-Br^che on their left. Let the 
 reader enter this tiny chapel, after noticing the arms 
 sculptured above the window, and he will find himself 
 face to face with a statue of the Virgin which rests on 
 the keystone of the old chapel erected in 1 599 in 
 memory of this event, and near the site of the famous 
 breach. 
 
 About the altar are numerous cannon-balls of stone 
 280
 
 The Siege and the Breach, 1568 
 
 which are relics of the siege. Entering the large 
 annex on the right the visitor will now perceive a still 
 more curious relic of the siege — the fourteenth or 
 iifteenth-century statue of Notre-Dame-de-la-Brcche, 
 whose name was graven on the keystone above men- 
 tioned. And if he inquire how that name was earned 
 he will be told that this- is the very statue which was 
 set over the Porte Drouaise and, by a miraculous in- 
 tervention, saved the town. For the contemporary 
 chronicler Duparc informs us that * For all that the 
 chiefs of the Huguenot army were esteemed the 
 greatest soldiers in Europe, yet were they miraculously 
 blinded by a manifest miracle. And the miracle was 
 on this wise. There was on the Porte Drouaise an 
 image of Our T.ady against which the enemy fired 
 many shots from cannon and arquebus alike, but without 
 being able to hit it. And to show that many shots 
 were fired at the said gate on which was the said image, 
 the bridge of that gate was broken and cut in twain by 
 the cannon-balls, and all round the image up to a few 
 inches of it the marks of many bullets may still be 
 seen. But it was hit by never a one, and it remained 
 therefore whole and intact ; in spite of the efforts of 
 the enemy to destroy that image, it was never struck 
 by a single shot. I know well,' he adds, ' that the 
 heretics and some others laugh at this, but Herod also 
 mocked at Christ when he beheld Him.' 
 
 Another version of this miracle is given by Chaline 
 (b. 1596) in his old H'tsto'ire de Chartres. 'The 
 Huguenots,' he says, ' having drawn near on the 9th 
 of March to enter the town by the breach which they 
 had made, it happened that there appeared on the said 
 breach opposite to them a tall lady holding a child in 
 her arms, against whom they fell to firing and to hurl- 
 ing volleys of abuse, without being able to reach or 
 strike her in any way terribilis ut castrorum ac'ies ordinata. 
 
 2bi
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 On the contrary, the bullets which they fired fell harm- 
 less, without effect or force, at the foot of the wall, 
 and they, thinking to enter, found themselves repulsed. 
 The Chartrains perceiving this, and knowing that it 
 was the Holy Virgin who, with her Son, was thus 
 visibly taking the defence of the town into her own 
 hands, the ecclesiastics and women turned to pray, and 
 the men of war and all capable of bearing arms made a 
 sortie upon the besiegers and vigorously repelled them.' 
 
 By a further development, the popular tradition of 
 the country, so prettily expressed in the verses of M. 
 Jolliet which I have put at the head of this chapter, 
 now maintains that the Virgin caught the bullets in the 
 folds of her mantle. 
 
 The chapel founded in i 599 was destroyed during 
 the Revolution and rebuilt in 1843. Leaving this 
 chapel and pursuing its way along the street, the proces- 
 sion would next arrive at the Parish Church of S. 
 Andre and the adjoining Chapel of S. Nicholas, and 
 then, after singing an anthem there before the bas-relief 
 which commemorated events of the siege, would make 
 its way up the steep ascents back to the Cathedral. 
 
 The Church of S. Andre, as seen in its ruins and 
 desecration to-day, presents one of the most offensive 
 examples of callous profanation in France. When you 
 have mastered your disgust with the disastrous and 
 discreditable fact that this once magnificent building is 
 used as a municipal lumber-room, you begin to perceive 
 that its remains are still beautiful, and you regret the 
 more keenly the fire which, when it was an army forage 
 store in 1865, completed the damage begun by the 
 Revolutionists. Take first the extremely beautiful 
 and interesting west front, which presents, as it were, 
 an epitome of mediaeval architecture — the Norman or 
 Romanesque arch, the Gothic beginning and the Flam- 
 boyant decadence are all represented. For the lower
 
 The Siege and the Breach, 1568 
 
 
 portion is composed of three round-headed arches, the 
 soffits of which are ornamented with round mouldings 
 and zigzag work, and rest on columns with curious 
 capitals formed of acanthus leaves from which grotesque 
 heads peep out. Above these three round arches are 
 three pointed windows. The transition character of 
 these is emphasised 
 by the mouldings in ,— iii^^' 
 
 the soffits being con- 
 tinuations of those in 
 the side piers. The 
 windows rest on 
 a simple cornice, 
 carried by corbels, 
 also grotesque. 
 Above them was a 
 Flamboyant rose, 
 demolished after the 
 fire in 1865. 
 
 The church was 
 founded in 1 1 08 by 
 the great Bishop of 
 Chartres, S. Ives, 
 and was at once a 
 collegiate and paro- 
 chial institution in 
 
 one of the most __ 
 
 populous parishes of ' "^ 
 
 Chartres. A massive square tower flanks the south 
 side of the transept ; the spire which it once sup- 
 ported was destroyed during the Revolution, f f At 
 the east end there was a curious feature. |An 
 arch was thrown out into the Eure in the thirteenth 
 century, and was made to carry the annexed choir 
 and sanctuary. This portion of the church was 
 rebuilt in the Flamboyant style by Jehan de Beauce 
 
 283 
 
 '♦^^^dt-
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 in the sixteenth century; and in 1612 a second 
 arch, in continuation of the earlier one, completed 
 the span of the river and connected the church 
 with the right bank. The apsidal chapel built thereon 
 was dedicated to the Holy Virgin. Vauban called the 
 attention of Louis Quatorze to the excellence of these 
 arches, but some picturesque traces only of them can 
 be seen from the riverside to-day, for the arches 
 collapsed and were removed in 1805. 
 
 The interior is in the simple Romanesque manner, 
 and, in spite of base uses to which the place is now put, 
 it remains impressive by virtue of the sixteen massive 
 piers which support the nave and aisles, which have 
 been simple always, and remain grand in their ruin. 
 
 Two early square crypts under the transepts are 
 worth seeing. For the rest, of what once was, I need 
 only mention the wooden jube, carved by P. Courtier, 
 on which Jehan de Beauce had also done some work. 
 Among the carvings, it is said, was one which repre- 
 sented a pig churning butter — an epigram in stone 
 against notorious heretics, for Calvin is frequently 
 treated as a pig in this sort of imagery. 
 
 284
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 ^Mathurin Regnier and the '\E(enaissance 
 at Chartres 
 
 ' J'ai vecu sans nul pensement 
 Me laissant aller rioucement 
 A la bonne loi naturelle ; 
 Et si m'etonne tort pourquoi 
 La Mort daigna Denser a moi 
 Qui ne pensai jamais a elle.' 
 
 Epitaph of Regnier. 
 
 UNLIKE the English, who, in public, prefer to 
 ignore genius, the French provincials, when 
 they have any great men born within the borders of 
 their town, are not ashamed to honour them. They 
 erect monuments easily, and it even occurs to them to 
 call their streets after the names of great writers. In 
 Chartres you have the Rue Felibien * and the Rue 
 Regnier,! with the house in which Mathurin Regnier 
 was born. 
 
 God has made the men of La Beauce in the image 
 of the soil whence they have sprung. They have the 
 regularity, the monotony and the hardness of their 
 native land. They are without passion or imagination, 
 cold and avaricious, and their women are like them. 
 Their wit, when they have any, is of the kind that 
 delights in carping, ironical raillery. Their minds, 
 
 * Left of the Place de la Gare. 
 
 t Connecting the Boulevard Chasles with the Rue des 
 Bouchers. 
 
 285
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 when they are developed, are cast in a logical and 
 scientific mould. Therefore it is that the representative 
 writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries at 
 Chartres are Pierre Nicole, the moralist and theologian 
 of the Port Royal School (Essais de Morale") ; Michel 
 Felibien, the critical and scientific historian of Paris 
 (Histoire de la Ville de Paris) ; the oold, but elegant, 
 courtier poet, Philippe Desporfes, and his nephew, 
 Mathurin Rcgnier, the creator of French satire (1573- 
 1613). 
 
 The School of Chartres had, we know, long been 
 famous. When, at the end of the fifteenth century, 
 the new movement in literature, philosophy and art 
 began to be felt through France, the successors of 
 Fulbert were not unaffected by it. They welcomed 
 the new learning. The discussions of the schoolmen 
 yielded place to the new appreciation of Greek and 
 Latin, art and literature. Nor were the Chartrains 
 slow to apply the new discovery of the art of printing. 
 Twelve years after the introduction of Gutenberg's 
 invention into France, Pierre Plume, a learned canon 
 of Notre-Dame, caused to be printed, at his own ex- 
 pense, in his house in the cloister, and by the printer 
 Jean Dupre, a magnificent folio missal for the use of 
 the diocese (1482). A fine copy of this missal 
 i^Missale Secundum usum ecclesia Carnofens'ts) is in the 
 town library. 
 
 In the architecture of this period the same tendency 
 towards the adoption or imitation of classical models, 
 as interpreted by the Italian artists, is evident. Jean 
 de Beauce abandoned the Flamboyant style in which 
 he had hitherto so triumphantly wrought, and built the 
 Renaissance clock tower of the Cathedral ; and a 
 certain doctor, Claude Huve byname (i 501-1559), in 
 his enthusiasm for the revival of the old classical style, 
 erected the house in the Rue du Grand Cerf (number 
 286
 
 tt^ / 
 
 
 L^.i 
 
 
 3Sio=r5^^H5j_;i___-^'>4|: 
 
 ^l'^ 
 
 w n 
 
 \^^^^1^- .
 
 SVLathurin Regnier 
 
 8), which still goes by the name of the Maison du 
 Medecin. The Renaissance fa9ade and court of this 
 house contrast strikingly with the narrow, mediasval 
 streets and Gothic style of the old town. They speak 
 with strange distinctness of the intellectual and artistic 
 awakening of the world after the slumber of the Dark 
 Ages. And, as you read the inscription on the front 
 of the house — 
 
 sic construxit claudi hw' 
 
 iatPoS decori urbis 
 ac posteritati consulens,* 
 
 — you sympathise at once in the pride and delight which 
 this child of the new era must have taken in the new 
 birth of old things revealed to him by the Italian 
 artists of the Renaissance. The front of this house 
 may be compared with the entrance of the Chateau 
 d'Anet, built by Philip Delorme at the same period 
 ( I 54^), and now preserved in L'Ecole des Beaux Arts 
 at Paris. 
 
 About the same time, in the domain of literature, 
 the satiric turn of mind which we have noted as 
 typical of his countrymen, was illustrated by a young 
 poet of good Chartrain family, named Laurent des 
 Moulins. He wrote a long poetical satire, which is, 
 however, really only a sermon in verse, entitled IjC 
 Catholicon des mal advises. It is an allegorical vision, 
 written after the manner of the Roman de la Rose. 
 For Master Laurent, like all the poets of the four- 
 teenth and fifteenth century, cast his verses in the 
 mould of Guillaume de Loris and Jean de Meung. 
 He turns a good verse out of that mould now and 
 again, and he writes with a genuine moral intention, so 
 
 * Thus built Claudius Huve, physician, for the adornment of 
 the city and the benefit of posterity. 
 
 T 289
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 that, in spite of his oddities, his tediousness and his 
 prosaic view of life, he goes some way towards filling 
 up, for the curious student of French letters, the 
 dreary gap which separates Villon from Marot. He 
 shows us the usual dreamer falling asleep, like William 
 Langland, ' on a May morning on Malvern Hills,' and 
 seeing troops of types in whom there is no good. 
 And of them ('All I saw sleeping, as I shall you 
 tell ') he writes in several thousand lines, good, bad 
 and indifferent, — 
 
 ' Melant le vin rouge avec le vin blanc' 
 
 Very different in style and in spirit from this sombre 
 and unpolished poet was Philippe Desportes, Abbot of 
 Tiron and Josaphat (i 546-1606), the favourite poet, 
 first, of Charles IX., who gave him ten thousand 
 crowns for his La Mort de Rodomont, and afterwards 
 of Henry III. and his mignons. 
 
 To them this most unclerical cleric, this courtier 
 poet and successful diplomatist, wrote in his earlier 
 days songs and sonnets of remarkable sweetness and 
 grace, and was rewarded with poetic crowns and many 
 abbacies. Devoid of the poetic passion and picturesque 
 invention of his master, Ronsard, he was often content 
 to translate or imitate an Italian celebration of an 
 imaginary mistress, and to compensate by his gift of 
 happy expression for his utter lack of sentiment or 
 enthusiasm. Though the most prominent of Ronsard's 
 own particular disciples, his style is so simple and 
 correct that he seems to be rather a forerunner of 
 Malherbe than a follower of the school which had 
 endeavoured to introduce into French poetry curious 
 words and a peculiar phraseology, and to substitute, 
 for simplicity and directness of speech, ingenious 
 periphrases. 
 
 The following 'v'lllanelle., charming in its neatness 
 290
 
 <SMaihurin Regnier 
 
 of expression and polished elegance of style and form, 
 is, I think, a good example of Desportes at his best 
 in his lighter and more mundane manner. It was 
 repeated, one may note, by Henri de Guise at Blois 
 a few minutes before he fell by the dagger of an 
 assassin. 
 
 ' Rozette, pour un peu d'absence 
 Votre cceur vous avez change 
 Et moi, sachant cette inconstancc, 
 Le mien, autre part j'ai range. 
 Jamais plus beaute si legere 
 Sur moi tant He pouvoir n'aura. 
 Nous verrons, volage bergere, 
 Qui premier s'en repentira. 
 
 Tandis qu'en pleurs je me consume 
 Maudissant cet eloignement, 
 Vous, n'aimiez que par coutume 
 Caressiez un nouvel amant. 
 Jamais legere girouette 
 Au vent si tot ne se vira. 
 Nous verrons, bergere Rozette, 
 Qui premier s'en repentira. 
 
 Ou sont tant de promesses saintes, 
 Tant de pleurs verses en partant ? 
 Est-il vrai que ces tristes plaintes 
 Sortissent d'un caur inconstant ? 
 Dieux, que vous etes mensongere ! 
 Maudit soit qui plus vous croira ! 
 Nous verrons, volage bergere. 
 Qui premier s'en repentira. 
 
 Celui qui a gagne ma place 
 
 Ne vous peut aimer tant que moi ; 
 
 Et ccUe que j'aime vous passe 
 
 De beaute, d'aniour et de foi. 
 
 Garde bien votre amitie neuve ; 
 
 La mienne plus ne variera 5 
 
 Et puis nous verrons a I'epreuve 
 
 Qui premier s'en repentira !* 
 
 Later, Desportes had other moods, more befitting 
 
 2yi
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 his cloth, and under their inHuence he wrote devotional 
 poems of considerable merit and somewhat feeble 
 versions of the Psalms. Malherbe was quite justified 
 in his criticism ; — ' Your soup is better than your 
 Psalms.' For the table of the rich and sensual Abbot 
 of Tiron, Bonport, Aurillac and other places was 
 excellent, whilst the more edifying verses of his old 
 age failed to acquire the bouquet of his wines. 
 
 Mathurin Rcgnier was born at Chartres in 1573. 
 His mother was the sister of Desportes, and Mathurin, 
 in spite of his father's protests, determined to follow in 
 the footsteps of his uncle and to be a poet. So great 
 was his natural talent that, notwithstanding his idleness 
 and such indulgence in debauchery that his life was 
 shortened by his excesses, he certainly succeeded. He 
 holds a place unique in French literature. For he is, 
 perhaps, the only French poet before the so-called 
 classical period who has had the good fortune con- 
 tinuously to maintain his position. He attacked 
 Malherbe, yet was praised by him. He was an ardent 
 supporter of the Pleiade, that group of men who, with 
 Ronsard, * the prince of poets,' at their head, aimed at 
 the reformation of the French language and literature 
 by means of the study and imitation of ancient, classical . 
 models. His defence of the Ronsardising tradition 
 secured him, later, the approval of the first Romantics. 
 But he earned also the admiration of Boileau. And 
 the praise of Boileau, who said that he was the French 
 writer, before Moliere, who best knew human nature, 
 made his reputation safe during the eighteenth century. 
 
 Of his life we do not know much : what we do 
 know is chiefly discreditable. His father was a citizen 
 of position, and he wisely desired for his son the 
 ecclesiastical but not the poetical eminence of his 
 brotheriin-law, Desportes. Mathurin, therefore, was 
 tonsured at the age of eleven. For himself he had no 
 292
 
 SVLcithur'm Regnier 
 
 hesitation. His uncle's example was too alluring. He 
 began to write early, and he never wholly shook off 
 the tradition of the school which his uncle represented 
 and Malherbe with excessive bitterness and pedantry 
 attacked. As he says himself in his Ninth Satire, 
 wherein he so vigorously criticises the critics of the 
 Pleiade : — 
 
 ' Je vais le grand chemin que mon oncle m'apprit 
 Laissant la ces Docteurs que les Muses instruisent 
 En des arts tout nouveaux ; et s'ils font, comme ils disent, 
 De ses fautes un livre aussi gros que le sien, 
 Telles je les croirai quand ils auront du bien, 
 Et que leur belle muse, a mordre si cuisante, 
 Leur donra, comme a lui, dix mil ecus de rente.' 
 
 His father, so he tells us, had endeavoured to keep him 
 from following the paths of poetry by instancing the 
 present troubles of the country and the troubles that 
 threatened. Poetry, he said, like many another father 
 since, with as good reason and with as little effect, 
 would not pay. His uncle's good fortune was excep- 
 tional and misleading. 
 
 ' La muse est inutile, et si ton oncle a su 
 S'avancer par cet art, tu t'y verras decu. 
 Un meme astre toujours n'cclaire en cette terre ; 
 Mars tout ardent de feu nous menace de guerre. 
 Tout le monde fremit et ces grande mouvements 
 Couvent en leurs fureurs de piteux changements ; 
 Penses-tu que le luth et la lyre des poetes 
 S'accordent d'harmonie avec les trompettes, 
 Les fifres, les tambours, le canon et le fer 
 Concert extravagant des musiques d'enfer.' 
 
 Sat. IV. 
 
 The clatter of drums and cannons, however, was 
 destined soon to cease, and the voice of Rcgnier's muse 
 was before long to be heard in the land. Regnier was 
 a true child of the Renaissance in that he not only 
 imitated, like his uncle, the Italian poets of his day, but 
 
 293
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 he also based his satire on a close study of the classical 
 writers. For he knew his Ovid thoroughly ; like 
 Ronsard, he modelled himself on Juvenal, and, like 
 Joachim du Bellay, he recalls the manner of Horace. 
 But apart from the knowledge and appreciation of great 
 models, Regnier enjoyed also the genuine inspiration of 
 a poet. He tells us how, in his youth, he would 
 wander in the woods dreaming of fame and fortune, and 
 learning the mysteries of the Muse : — 
 
 ' Reveur je m'egarai tout seul par les detours 
 Des antres et ties bois aftVeux et solitaires, 
 Oil la Muse, en dormant, m'enseignait ses mysteres, 
 M'apprenait des secrets, et m'echauffant le sein 
 De gloire et de renom relevait mon dessein.' 
 
 Sat. IK 
 
 This and other passages are enough to show that 
 Regnier had the imagination as well as the tempera- 
 ment of the true poet. Therefore, in spite of his free 
 imitation of the ancients, he remains original — a great 
 poet of the order of Clement Marot. What he borrows 
 he makes his own, and in adapting passages from the 
 Roman writers to the Gallic manners of his own day 
 he not infrequently improves them. And apart from 
 his satires, he reveals in his lyrics, to a high degree, 
 the same poetical sensibility, and he describes with a 
 melodious melancholy the poet's regret for the days 
 that are no more : — 
 
 ' Un regret pensif et confus 
 D'avoir ete ct n'etre plus 
 Rend mon ame aux douleurs ouverte ; 
 A mes depens, las ! je vois bien 
 Qu'un bonheur comme etait le mien 
 Ne se cognait que par la perte.' 
 
 Mathurin was relieved from the restraints of paternal 
 authority in 1591. For in that year his father was 
 thrown into prison, under circumstances typical of the 
 294
 
 ^SMathurin Regm'er 
 
 time. Philippe Desportes had chosen Jacques Rcgnier 
 to farm one of his benefices, the Abbey of Josaphat, 
 but he, instead of devoting himself wholly to the peaceful 
 cultivation of the land, exerted himself politically on 
 the side of the Chartrain Ligueurs. The good King 
 Henry, whose habit it was to draw less blood than 
 money from rebellious citizens, fined him sixteen 
 hundred crowns, and, when he failed to pay, threw him 
 into prison at Chartres. There he remained some 
 months. His son, meanwhile, who had already got 
 himself into trouble by writing lampoons on the in- 
 habitants of his native town, and repeating them to the 
 frequenters of a tennis-court which his father had built, 
 took this opportunity of slipping away to Paris. There 
 his uncle, Desportes, recommended him to the Cardinal- 
 Archbishop of Toulouse, Francois de Joyeuse, and he 
 took, part in that prelate's embassy to Rome. At the 
 same time he was presented with the small priory of 
 Bouzancourt. Thus one fine morning he, 
 
 ' Vif de courage abandonna la France.' 
 
 He seemed to be on the high road to fortune. But 
 though a better poet he was a worse courtier than his 
 uncle. In ten years spent with Joyeuse and his suc- 
 cessor, the young secretary earned nothing except 
 experience. Of that and its fruits he earned more 
 than enough. He indulged without restraint in the 
 careless joy of living, and he suffered, like so many of 
 his contemporaries, from the intense delight in life and 
 the feverish gratification of the pleasures of the flesh 
 which marked the Renaissance movement. For men 
 were encouraged to give free reign to the bonne lot 
 naturelle by the whole spirit of an age which was a 
 revolt from the gloomy monasticism of the Middle 
 Ages. Of the results, in his own case, of such in- 
 dulgence and of his sufferings, which had nothing in 
 
 295
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 common with those of the saints, Mathurin Regnier 
 tells us in some of his passages more than we care to 
 know. 
 
 They taught him at any rate a certain philosophy 
 of a not very exalted sort, which he expounds to us in 
 one of his satires. It is a kind of epicurean poco- 
 curantism, summed up in the words of Swinburne, 
 ' Hope thou not much and fear thou not at all,' 
 and expressed by the poet himself: — 
 
 ' N'avoir crainte de rien et ne rien esperer 
 Ami, c'est ce qui pent les hommes bien-heurer.' 
 
 The best comment on it, perhaps, is that implied in the 
 epitaph on himself which heads this chapter. 
 
 Regnier returned from Italy, then, with an ample 
 provision of memories, and perhaps with those poems 
 which are based on the works of the Italian satirists. 
 He took up his abode in his uncle's house at Paris, 
 and there, as in Rome, he noted in the intervals of 
 dissipations the manners and the characters of men. He 
 saw and knew the high personages who frequented the 
 house of Desportes, and whose names occur in his 
 poems. And not being a time-server himself, 
 
 ' Instruit par le temps a la fin j'ai connu 
 Que la fifielite n'est pas grand revenu,' 
 
 he was content to draw with biting irony the portrait 
 of a courtier bard, who, 
 
 ' Ambitieux, pour les vers qu'il compose, 
 Quelque bon benefice en I'esprit se propose, 
 Et dessus un cheval comme un singe attache 
 Meditant un sonnet, medite un evesche.' 
 
 Sat. II. 
 
 Or of the vain beggar poets who 
 
 ' L'ccil farouche et trouble, i'esprit a Tabandon 
 Vous viennent accoster comme personnes yvres, 
 296
 
 
 u I'M ; 
 
 toll ^ M. ii^< . 
 
 -cv-tr-H 
 
 
 
 
 
 :5# 
 
 iiM/ybnce 
 
 v. xie'ly^ dela(QrrMerji.
 
 S\dathtirin Regnier 
 
 Et clisent pour bon-jour " Monsieur, je fais des livres, 
 On les vend au Palais, et les doctes du temps, 
 A les lire amusez, n'ont autre passe-temps." ' 
 
 Sat. II. 
 
 Or, again, he marks down a courtier with a vigour and 
 point which Molicre could not surpass : — 
 
 ' Laissons-le discourir, 
 Dire cent et cent fois : II en faudrait mourir ; 
 Sa barbe pinyoter, cageoUer la science, 
 Relever ses cheveux, dire ; En ma conscience ; 
 Faire la belle main, mordre un bout de ses gants, 
 Rire hors de propos, monstrer ses belles dents, 
 Se carrer sur un pied, faire arser son epee, 
 Et s'adoucir les yeux ainsi qu'une poupee.' 
 
 Sat. VIII. 
 
 A dozen other examples might be quoted to show 
 with what satiric acid he can etch a portrait. Regnier 
 can paint a scene, too, with same unerring detail and 
 bitter accuracy, as, for instance, ' Le Souper Ridicule ' 
 and the less savoury ' Mauvais Gite.' The latter poem 
 is indeed the only one which deserves the imputation 
 conveyed by Boileau's phrase about the author's 
 rimes cymques. Regnier is essentially a moral 
 writer, for he makes vice, even when he describes it 
 openly, the reverse of attractive. The worst that can 
 and may be said of him is that, like Juvenal, he attacks 
 vice with arms that make virtue blush. He says 
 himself: — 
 
 ' Je croirai qu'il n'est rien au monde qui guarisse 
 Un homme vicieux comme son propre vice,' 
 
 and certainly the sincere and vigorous pictures he 
 draws will prove a temptation to no one, though they 
 may inspire, like his habit of calling a spade a spade, 
 feelings of repugnance and disgust. But this is the 
 aim, as these are the means of all genuine satirists. 
 Rcgnier's comment on his own failings is pathetic, but 
 
 299
 
 'The Story of Chartres 
 
 does not condone them. It reminds one of Ovid's 
 words, ' Video meliora prohoque. Deter'iora sequor. 
 
 ' Etant homnie, on ne peut 
 Ni vivre comme on doit, ni vivre comme on veut,' 
 
 For, happily, the consequences of his loose living had 
 wrought in him a tardy repentance. His conversion 
 was as late and as sincere as that of La Fontaine — 
 and not less needed. As he left politics alone, and 
 attacked not individuals but social types, he made no 
 enemies. For most men group others in classes but 
 not themselves, or at any rate suppose themselves to be 
 free from the vices of the class to which they belong. 
 So they called our satirist Bon Rcgnier, as later they 
 spoke of Bon la Fontaine, and the bonhomie implied 
 by their nickname had the same seasoning of malice. 
 But it was not rewarded with any great share in the 
 goods of this world. His uncle, dying in 1606, left 
 him only a legacy of 2000 liz'res on the Abbey 
 des Vaus de Cernay. Henry IV., by conferring this 
 request, gained the friendship of the poet, who ex- 
 pressed his gratitude in the admirable verses of his 
 first satire. In 1608, the year in which his works 
 were first published, he was presented with a stall in 
 the Cathedral of Chartres. But only five years later 
 he left Royaumont, the abbey of the Bishop of 
 Chartres, who always made him welcome, and found 
 his way to Rouen. There he consulted a quack 
 doctor, a famous empiric, Le Sonneur by name, who 
 promised to heal him of all his diseases. But he died 
 after dining with this too encouraging physician. 
 
 I have spoken of Rcgnier as the creator of French 
 satire, and so, in a sense, he was. But the phrase 
 requires qualification. His satires are not indeed 
 absolutely the first of their kind in France. They had 
 been preceded by the terrific invectives of D'Aubigne, 
 300
 
 <LMathiirin Kevnier 
 
 o 
 
 the vigorous outbursts of Jean de la Taille, and the 
 less vehement but more polished satirical portraits of 
 Vauquelin de Fresnaye. But in breadth and technical 
 merit he far surpassed all his predecessors, and, in 
 force, all except D'Aubignc. The longest, the best 
 known, and undoubtedly the best of his sixteen satires, 
 is the thirteenth. There, under the title of Macette, 
 he describes an old woman who hides vice under a 
 mask of hypocrisy, and corrupts youth with her evil 
 philosophy of the world and its ways. The type is 
 not new, but Rcgnier's description of it is original and 
 vigorous in the extreme. His Macette, in fact, is the 
 grandmother of Molicre's Tartuffe. 
 
 ' Loin tlu monde elle fait sa demeure et son giste 
 Son ceil tout penitent ne pleure qu'eau beniste. 
 Enfin c'est un exemple, en ce siecle tortu 
 D'amour, de charitc, d'honneur et de vertu. 
 Pour beate partout le peuple la renonime, 
 Et la gazette nieme a deja dit a Rome, 
 La voyant aimer Dieu et la chair maitriser 
 Qu'on n'attend que sa mort pour la canoniser. ' 
 
 Clearly the style of comedy had been found when a 
 man could write like that, and Molicre, fifty years 
 later, had only to choose among the lines of Rcgnier 
 when he wished to draw the character of TartufFe. 
 
 ' Le peche que Ton cache est dcmi-pardonne, ' 
 
 becomes in Tartuffe 
 
 ' Et ce n'est point pecher que pecher en silence.' 
 And in many other instances our Chartrain poet has 
 supplied the great comedian with lines and hints, which 
 Molicre, true to his principle, Je pre/uls mon Lien ou je 
 le trouve, has appropriated as unblushingly and as suc- 
 cessfully as a Vergil. This, apart from his other 
 merits, and in spite of his f;mlts, is in itself enough to 
 justify the existence of the rimes cyniques of Mathurin 
 Regnier. 
 
 301
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 T'he Coronation of Henri Quatre 
 
 WHEN Henri III. fell beneath the dagger of 
 the assassin, Jacques Clement, the King of 
 Navarre was hailed King of France at S. Cloud. But 
 the fair realm which was one day to be his 
 
 ' Et par droit de naissance 
 Et par droit de conquete,' 
 
 was far from being prepared as yet to accept Henri 
 Quatre as its ruler. The throne of S. Louis could 
 not, in the eyes of a large section of the nation, belong 
 to a heretic, and Henri de Beam was a Huguenot. 
 Paris, which was devoted to the Catholic League, 
 closed its gates to him, and Chartres, equally en- 
 thusiastic in the same cause, refused to admit him. 
 Resolved to make himself master of a town which 
 was regarded as a boulevard of the capital, Henri had 
 forced the rest of the Duchy to recognise him by the 
 end of 1 590, but Chartres was still stubborn. He 
 sent, therefore, Marshal de Biron to lay siege to the 
 town, and he began operations on the 12th February. 
 But, contrary to the expectations of Henri, who was 
 in communication with many of the citizens, the 
 resistance offered by the Catholic city was vigorous 
 and prolonged. Instead of a few days the siege lasted 
 two months, and the defence was conducted with such 
 energy and skill that M. de Reclainville, who had 
 been summoned to their aid, with some troops of the 
 Ligue, complimented the citizens on their bravery and 
 302
 
 'The Coronation of Hemi Quatre 
 
 resource. He had taken a part, he said, in many an 
 affair, but never had he seen a finer struggle than the 
 siege of Chartres. 
 
 The first few days were taken up with skirmishes in 
 the suburbs and sorties by the garrison, who en- 
 deavoured, too late, to destroy the cover which the 
 outlying buildings afforded the enemy. On the i 5th 
 of the month the King himself arrived, and the 
 Royalists thereupon constructed a barricade, facing the 
 ravelin of the Porte Drouaise, and opened a trench in 
 the Pig Market, under cover of a battery masked by 
 the ruined houses, and directed against the ravelin of 
 the Porte des Epars. The latter point was chosen 
 because there the walls of the ravelin being incom- 
 plete, gave greater scope for the effective play of the 
 artillery. 
 
 But before commencing hostilities Henri resolved to 
 try more peaceable means of gaining possession of the 
 town. He had no wish to be involved in the expense 
 and delay of an unnecessary siege. A trumpeter and 
 herald were sent therefore on the i6th, the day after 
 his arrival, to summon the Chartrains to surrender. 
 But Suireau, the mayor, and La Bourdaisiere, the 
 military governor, rivalled one another in the vehe- 
 mence of their refusal to open the gates so long as the 
 King remained a heretic. Their vehemence was pro- 
 bably stimulated by the suspicion which had recently 
 been thrown on their sincerity. For an epigram had 
 recently been pasted on the walls of the town accusing 
 them of treacherous intentions — 
 
 ' Ecoutez, Messieurs de Chartres 
 Si ne mettez bien tot en chartres 
 La Bourdaisiere et Suireau 
 lis vous mettront tous au tombeau.' 
 
 Whether there was any truth in the accusation or
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 not, their answer now was uncompromising enough. 
 The Royalists retorted by pushing their trench and 
 mines up to the raveHn of the Porte des Epars, whilst, 
 on their side, the besieged prepared counter - mines. 
 Meanwhile, they dealt successfully with the barricade 
 which threatened the Porte Drouaise. Three heavy 
 pieces of artillery were brought up, the feint of a sortie 
 was made to distract the attention of the enemy, and 
 when this had been successfully accomplished, the 
 cannon were unmasked, and a few rounds ' poured into 
 their nest quickly turned the birds out,' as a contem- 
 porary puts it.* The Chartrains completely destroyed 
 the barricades during the ensuing night. But the 
 besiegers quickly opened another trench, and began to 
 run other mines against the counterscarp of the ditch 
 between the Porte Chatelet and the Porte S. Jean. 
 In order, if possible, to destroy the barricade which 
 protected this trench a gun- platform was hastily 
 erected, and some heavy pieces placed in position. 
 
 The King, who had a large number of supporters 
 among the better class of citizens, had expected to 
 take Chartres at the first attempt. Before beginning 
 the bombardment he again summoned the town to 
 surrender, and so anxious was he not to be drawn into 
 the trouble of a siege that he engaged in still further 
 parleyings with the governor and mayor. But it was 
 all to no purpose. The people were determined to 
 resist, and they cut short all attempts at negotiation. 
 
 On Ash Wednesday, therefore, February 27, the 
 bombardment commenced. A battery of seven pieces 
 established in the trench of the Pig Market, opened 
 fire on the walls between S. Foy and the Porte des 
 Epars. A furious cannonade was maintained at inter- 
 vals during that day and the next, and made a serious 
 
 * Journal des C/ioses plus Me'morables Ad-venucs a Chartres^ 
 1579-1592.
 
 The Coronation of Henri Quatre 
 
 impression upon the defences. Many houses also were 
 levelled to the ground ; the spire of S. Foy was 
 knocked down ; one cannon ball entered the room of 
 the Bishop's Palace, in which Henri III. had been 
 wont to assemble his Council, and in which, it is said, 
 the Massacre of Blois was arranged ; another ball 
 lodged between the two spires of the Cathedral, and 
 broke one of the figures in the Gallery of Kings. A 
 third, weighing 42 pounds, entered the old spire ; 
 and a fourth crashed through a section of the western 
 rose window and fell into the choir. After that, the 
 Chapter decided to perform the service in the crypt. 
 
 The resistance of the besieged was desperate. But, 
 none the less, the enemy succeeded in a few days in 
 pushing their trenches and galleries right up to the 
 walls of the ravelin of the Porte des Kpars. The 
 King decided that the moment had come to deliver an 
 assault. On the 5th of March, accordingly, a terrific 
 bombardment took place, which had the undesired 
 effect of knocking some of the masonry of the gate 
 into the breach — an accident which prompted Gramont 
 to remark, that the King of Navarre had fired five 
 hundred rounds and only succeeded in filling the 
 breach, but that he would have to fire fifteen hundred 
 more to open it again. Under cover of this bom- 
 bardment, a party of soldiers massed themselves 
 behind the barricade in preparation for the assault. 
 But an officer of the garrison, who was on guard in 
 the Clocher Neuj espied this movement, and informed 
 La Bourdaisit^re of it. His warning saved the town. 
 The besieged concentrated their forces to repel 
 the attack when the enemy attempted to scale the 
 breach of the ravelin. The struggle even so was long 
 and desperate. It lasted from three in the afternoon 
 till nightfall, when the Royalists were compelled to 
 retire, leaving many of their number dead in the ditch, 
 u 305
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 The Chartrains had also suffered heavily. Their 
 losses included forty soldiers and twenty citizens. 
 The gallant De Pescheray, one of the chief defenders 
 of the town, was mortally wounded in this fight. But 
 an important check had been given to the besiegers, 
 who contented themselves for some days with driving 
 their galleries and mines. 
 
 Ill with impatience, the King swore to make the 
 citizens of Chartres pay dearly for the powder which 
 they made him burn. But they, looking daily to be 
 relieved by the Ligue from the quarter of Dreux or 
 elsewhere, actively counter-mined the Royalist sappers, 
 and when the fire of the arquebusiers had no effect upon 
 them, they adopted Gramont's suggestion, and hurled 
 bottles of burning oil and Jleurs de soufre amongst the 
 enemy. 
 
 And now the siege had lasted a month, when one 
 morning — it was the 15 th of March — Henri was 
 amazed to hear all the bells of the town, Marie and 
 Gabrielle and the rest, ring out in joyful peals. The 
 streets, it was soon reported, were filled with proces- 
 sions of the inhabitants, who were celebrating with un- 
 wonted fervour and extraordinary pomp the anniversary 
 of the deliverance of the town upon the investment of 
 Conde. Yet, even as they did so, many shook their 
 heads at the evil augury of the statue of the Virgin that 
 had been set above the Porte Drouaise. Throughout 
 the siege of 1568, it was pointed out, the cannon-balls 
 of the Prince de Conde had never been able to touch it, 
 but Henri's bombardment had succeeded in upsetting, 
 though not in breaking it. 
 
 Struck by the devotion of the citizens, it is said, and 
 charmed by the melody of the bells, Henri gave orders 
 that no guns should be fired that day, in order that the 
 harmony of the celebration should not be troubled. 
 
 If this story be true, the garrison acknowledged the 
 306
 
 The Coronation of Henri Quatre 
 
 courtesy of Henri in a scurvy fashion. For on the 
 evening of this day Gramont exploded a counter-mine 
 before the Porte des Epars. In so doing he not only 
 destroyed the enemy's works, but also a large section of 
 his own ravelin. The result might have been serious if 
 an assault had been delivered at once. But, contrary 
 to the King's directions, the citizens were given time 
 to repair the damage. 
 
 Still there was no sign of immediate succour from 
 without. Fair words from the Ligueurs at Dreux, 
 and promises from the Due de Mayenne came in abund- 
 ance. But those in charge of the defence knew that 
 unless aid came quickly or provisions were thrown into 
 the town, it would-be impossible to hold out long. 
 Already they were dependent for their flour upon the 
 little wind-mills set up in the town, one of which had 
 just been discovered in the Clocher Neuf, where it had 
 lain since the days when the English besieged Char- 
 tres.* Those in command of the garrison were indeed 
 by this time quite ready to deliver up the town into the 
 King's hands, but the inhabitants refused to entertain 
 the idea of yielding to the heretic of Navarre. They 
 therefore decided to gain time by any means. Negotia- 
 tions were opened with this object. La Bourdaisiere 
 and Gramont held an interview with the King's repre- 
 sentatives on the 19th, and again on the 26th. Biron 
 and others, with a strong escort, came to the Porte 
 S. Michel, when Gramont went forth to parley with 
 them. But hardly had the conference begun when a 
 cannon-shot, fired by mistake from the Royalist camp, 
 ricochetted near them. The people of Chartres, think- 
 ing themselves betrayed, replied with a volley, which 
 accounted for several soldiers of Biron's escort, and 
 abruptly put an end to parleyings. Next day Gramont 
 and others had an interview with the King in person at 
 
 * Histoire de dartres, Souchet. 
 
 307
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 the Monastery of S. Lubin, and brought back terms 
 which were promptly rejected by the Ligueurs, who 
 were still in a majority in the Council. They would 
 rather die, they said, than surrender to a Huguenot 
 King. This reply provoked an assault from the 
 enemy, but the Chartrains were still unshaken. They 
 informed the King that they would recognise him when 
 he returned to the bosom of the Church, and mean- 
 while proposed such terms of capitulation that Henri 
 swore a Mort D'leu, instead of his usual Ventre S. Gr'ts, 
 and cried out that as soon as he had taken the town he 
 would hang these mutinous rascals who made fun of 
 him. 
 
 His next step was to shift all his batteries suddenly 
 to the side of the bishop's palace, and, concentrating 
 his fire on a small section of the wall in that quarter, 
 speedily to effect a new breach. Every effort had been 
 made by the defenders during the short respite allowed 
 them to strengthen their position against the inevitable 
 assault. And when the assault was delivered the 
 defence was admirable. Six times the Royalist troops 
 rushed to the breach ; six times they were flung back 
 by the desperate courage of the besieged. They retired 
 finally at seven o'clock in the evening, after five hours' 
 fighting. They had lost three hundred men. The 
 trenches were filled with dead and dying. Among the 
 Chartrains the losses were almost as heavy. After the 
 fourth assault, not one of the defenders of the first 
 entrenchment had remained unwounded. A truce for 
 the removal of the dead was arranged, and during the 
 following night the besieged filled up the gap in the 
 walls with sacks and gabions. But a new trial was in 
 store for them. The Royalists built a large wooden 
 bridge, closed like a gallery, and this, on the night of 
 the yth, they rolled on barrels up to and over the moat. 
 The garrison were filled with consternation when they 
 308
 
 The Coronation of Henri Quatre 
 
 woke to see it in position, and the soldiers within, safe 
 from attack, engaged in pulling down the sacks and 
 gabions with which the breach had just been built up. 
 The discouragement was great. Many began openly to 
 declare that further resistance was useless. In some 
 cases the soldiers were only induced to enter the ravelin, 
 which, they maintained, was now untenable, by the per- 
 suasion of their officers' swords. The King, hearing 
 of the growing spirit of discouragement within the walls, 
 made yet another attempt to bring about a surrender. 
 But such was the suicidal intolerance and obstinacy of 
 the leading Ligueurs, that in the proposals they sub- 
 mitted they still insisted on the absolute prohibition of 
 the reformed cult, a governor of their own choice, and 
 a long truce, to enable them to inform the Duke of 
 Mayenne of what was being done. Henri, of course, 
 tore up the paper on which these absurd conditions 
 were written, and proceeded to impose his own terms. 
 They were accepted on the loth of April, and proved 
 to be extraordinarily lenient. 
 
 Henri authorised the practice of the Catholic religion, 
 and forbade that of the reformed cult in the town and 
 suburbs ; he confirmed the established government and 
 offices, and promised to punish no one tor an act of war. 
 The Ligueurs were granted permission to retire from 
 the town, and eight days were allowed in which to 
 warn Mayenne. If within that time a relieving force 
 of four hundred men or more succeeded in throwing 
 themselves into the town, the capitulation should be re- 
 garded as not having taken place. Henri took care, of 
 course, that no force should so find its way into the 
 town. With the object of intercepting any relief that 
 might arrive, he himself, it is said, rode unceasingly 
 round the environs of the town, and so wore himself out 
 with his excessive vigilance that one day, overwhelmed 
 by fatigue, he dismounted, made his pages lie down 
 
 309
 
 ^he Story of Chartres 
 
 side by side on the ground, and, stretching himself upon 
 them, slept thus for some hours. 
 
 It was also provided that the professional soldiers 
 who formed the garrison should be allowed to march 
 out of the town with their arms and baggage, colours 
 flying and drums beating, and that they should make 
 arrangements, in which the King would aid them, for 
 the care of their wounded. 
 
 The clergy were still firm in their refusal to treat 
 with the heretic and held out hopes of a miracle. But 
 La Bourdaisiere and Gramont and the majority of 
 responsible people declared that the age of miracles 
 was past and the day of necessity was upon them. 
 
 No succour arrived, and on the 19th of April the 
 garrison marched out through the Porte S. Michel 
 between two rows of Royalist soldiery. They were 
 accompanied by the principal Ligueurs among the 
 citizens. It was arranged that next day all the clergy 
 and communities of the town should present themselves 
 at the same gate on the morrow to receive the King 
 and conduct him in full procession to the Porte Royale 
 of Notre-Dame, and that there the Bishop, De Thou, 
 should pronounce an official harangue. The King 
 arrived on horseback with his staff at the appointed 
 hour and was presented with the keys of the city by 
 the mayor. ' Sire,' he said, ' we are obliged to obey 
 you both by human law and law divine.' * You might 
 add by canon law,' threw in the conqueror, with a laugh. 
 Thereafter, beneath a canopy of blue velvet fringed 
 with gold and silver, and supported by four aldermen. 
 His Majesty went in triumphant procession across the 
 city by the streets S. Michel and Des Changes until he 
 came to the Cathedral. But then, instead of stopping 
 opposite the western porch, he went on his way to the 
 episcopal palace, without appearing to notice the Bishop 
 and Chapter who awaited him on the steps. Not to 
 310
 
 The Coronation of Henri Quatre 
 
 be cheated of the opportunity of delivering their address, 
 Bishop and Chapter cut across through the church and 
 appeared beneath the northern porch in time to stop 
 the King, make the harangue and receive a gracious 
 reply. 
 
 Henri Quatre made arrangements for converting the 
 Porte S. Michel into a citadel and for levying a large 
 sum of money from the citizens, and then, after 
 attending the Protestant meeting-house, he left Chartres. 
 
 For the moment it must have seemed that the ob- 
 stinate defence of the town had done little except add 
 to the lustre of its arms. For the Catholic city was 
 held now by the Protestant troops and became, next 
 to Tours, the most important place in the hands of the 
 Huguenot King. Henri, indeed, soon made it his 
 seat of government. He summoned the Parliament, 
 the Cour des Aides and the Council of State to meet 
 here, and here they sat till the year 1 594. It was in 
 that year that he took the * perilous leap,' as he termed 
 it, which was, however, nothing more or less than a 
 step of the highest political wisdom. He put a stop 
 to the civil war, which was plunging France into 
 anarchy and ruin, by reconciling himself with the Church 
 of Rome. Amongst those prelates, before whom at S. 
 Denis he solemnly abjured his Calvinistic errors and 
 made profession of the Catholic, Roman and Apostolic 
 faith, was Nicholas de Thou, Bishop of Chartres. 
 And from that same bishop, whom he had flouted three 
 years before, he received the royal consecration in the 
 Cathedral of Chartres. For to prove the sincerity of 
 his conversion, which was still much doubted, he de- 
 manded of the Church the Holy Unction which con- 
 secrates the kings. And Reims, the proper place of 
 coronation for the French kings, being still occupied 
 by the troops of Mayenne, Henri chose the ' town 
 of his good council ' as the scene of this august cere- 
 
 3"
 
 '' The Story of Chartres 
 
 mony. ' He was moved to make this choice,' says a 
 writer of his day, ' by reason of the peculiar devotion 
 entertained for Notre-Dame by the Dukes of Vendome, 
 his ancestors, and also because that magnificent temple 
 is the most ancient in Christendom.' But whatever 
 the cause, it may well have seemed to the Bishop and 
 Chapter of Notre-Dame on this occasion that the con- 
 queror was conquered and felt his captive's charms, 
 that ' her arts victorious triumphed o'er his arms.' 
 
 The occupation of Reims by the enemy rendered it 
 impossible for the sacred vessel of oil to be used for 
 Henri's consecration, but as the monks of Marmoutiers 
 possessed a phial of miraculous oil, the King sent a 
 deputation to ask them to send it to be used for his 
 coronation. The precious relic arrived in the capital 
 of La Beauce on February 19, 1594, brought by three 
 brethren, monks and officials of the monastery, and 
 escorted by De Souvre, the King's deputy, the Bishop 
 of Angers and a great number of gentlemen, presidents 
 and councillors. The Bishop of Chartres had sent to 
 meet them all the clergy of the parishes and monasteries 
 of the town, who were joined by Guy Robert, the 
 Provost of Chartres, and twelve notable burgesses, 
 carrying torches decorated with the royal arms and 
 those of the town. A huge concourse of citizens in 
 festal garb accompanied them. 
 
 The relic was then carried in procession through 
 the streets, which were hung with tapestry, and to the 
 sound of peals of bells, till it reached the Abbey of 
 S. Pere. There it was entrusted to the care of Yves 
 Gaudeau, the prior, and four other monks. On Sunday, 
 the 27th, the Comtes de Cheverny, D'Halluin, De 
 Lauzun and the Baron de Termes presented themselves 
 at the abbey and begged Brother Giron and his com- 
 rades of Marmoutiers to bring the holy oil to Notre- 
 Dame to anoint His Majesty withal. The monks 
 312
 
 The Coronation of Henri Qnatre 
 
 acquiesced, but first exacted from the King's deputies 
 an oath, which was given before notaries, to the 
 effect that the said sacred vessel should be brought 
 back in good faith to S. Pere after the said consecra- 
 tion was performed. Then Brother Giron, mounted 
 on a white hackney, bore the precious phial under a 
 magnificent canopy of red damask, followed by the 
 lords responsible for its safety, notable citizens and the 
 multitude of the people. The bishop, Nicholas de 
 Thou, received the sacred vessel from the hands of 
 Brother Giron, and took the oath exacted from the 
 deputies. Then commenced the ceremony of the 
 coronation. Apart from its picturesqueness and the 
 fact that it illustrates a really important moment in 
 French history, the following account, drawn from a 
 contemporary record, may prove of particular interest 
 in this year of grace 1902. It will be not uninterest- 
 ing to compare the ceremony with that which is to 
 take place in Westminster Abbey in June. The choir 
 of the Cathedral had been hung with rich tapestry. 
 Two arm-chairs had been placed before the high 
 altar, one for the King and one for the officiating 
 Bishop. Behind these, seats were reserved for the 
 peers spiritual and temporal, and for the seigneurs and 
 magistrates invited to assist at the splendid ceremony, 
 whilst the galleries of the choir and nave were ex- 
 pressly left for those who could find a place there 
 through the good offices of those in charge.* The 
 King, who had had to listen the previous evening to a 
 preachment on the custom of anointing the kings of 
 France, emerged from the episcopal palace clad in a 
 camisole of crimson satin and a long robe of silver cloth. 
 He entered the Cathedral by the Porte Royale, ac- 
 
 * Ceremonies observees au sacre et couronement du tres- 
 chrestien et tres valeureiix Henry IV., etc. — Paris. Jamet 
 Mettayer. 1594.
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 companied by the Bishops of Nantes and Maillezais 
 and preceded by the archers of the Grand Provost, the 
 clergy, the Swiss Guards, heralds, Knights of the 
 Holy Spirit, the Scots Guards, and the Marshal de 
 Matignon bearing the Constable's sword. Behind him 
 came the Grand Chancellor of France, the Grand 
 Master, the Lord Chamberlain and the First Gentle- 
 man of the Bedchamber. The King walked straight 
 towards the altar, accompanied by the two bishops 
 aforesaid, and deposited there as an offering a casket 
 of silver gilt. Then he took the seat prepared for 
 him at the foot of the altar steps. The Bishop of 
 Chartres now took the sacred oil from the hands of 
 the monks of Marmoutiers, showed it to the people 
 and placed it on the high altar. Next, turning towards 
 His Majesty, he said, ' We demand of you that you 
 should grant unto each one of us, and to the churches 
 whereof we have charge, the lawful and canonical 
 privileges, rights and justice, and that you should 
 defend us as a king in his kingdom should defend all 
 the bishops and their churches.' 
 
 The King standing upright, his right hand on the 
 Book of the Gospels, replied, ' I promise and grant 
 you that I will preserve to you your canonical privi- 
 leges and your churches, and that I will give you good 
 laws and administer justice to you and defend you, by 
 God's grace, according to my power, as a king in his 
 kingdom should do by right and reason on behalf of 
 the bishops and their churches.' 
 
 After he had made this response the Bishops of 
 Nantes and Maillezais raised the King from his chair 
 and asked those present whether they wished to accept 
 him as king. Hailed as legitimate sovereign by the whole 
 of that vast and magnificent assembly, Henri IV. then 
 took the oath, his right hand resting on the Holy Book. 
 
 ' I promise,' he said, ' in the name of Jesus Christ, 
 31 +
 
 The Coronation of Henri Quatre 
 
 three things to the Christians, my subjects. Firstly, 
 I will take pains that the Christian people may live in 
 peace with the Church of God. Further, I will strive 
 that on all occasions robbery and injustice may cease. 
 Further, I will command that in all judgments equity 
 and pity be observed, to the end that God in His 
 infinite mercy and pity may have pity upon me and 
 upon you. Further, I will strive to my uttermost, in 
 good faith, to chase from my jurisdiction and lands all 
 heretics denounced by the Church, promising on oath 
 to observe all that has been said, so may God and this 
 His holy Gospel help me ! ' 
 
 The Bishop of Chartres, with the aid of the spiritual 
 peers, then anointed Henri with the holy oil, and after 
 the peers had been summoned by the Chancellor of 
 France, taking the crown, and raising it above the head 
 of the monarch, he gave it to the dukes and peers to 
 hold, blessed it and placed it upon the brow of the 
 King. Henri IV. was forthwith conducted by the 
 Bishop and the great lords to the throne which had 
 been erected on the Jubc, that all the people might 
 behold him. The bishop officiating next bade the 
 monarch be seated, and prayed to God ' to confirm 
 him on his throne and to render him invincible and 
 unshaken before those who strive unjustly to snatch 
 from him the crown which has legitimately fallen to 
 him.' Then he gave him the kiss of peace and cried 
 aloud three times, ' Vive le Roi ! ' The cry was taken 
 up and repeated by the peers and all the people. The 
 sound of clarions, hautbois, trumpets, drums and other 
 instruments of music echoed through the vaulting of 
 the ancient Cathedral, whilst heralds threw amongst 
 the crowd pieces of gold and silver * marked with the 
 effigy of the King and with the date of the day and 
 the year of his anointing and coronation.' Mass was 
 then celebrated, and the King, having received absolu-
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 tion from the bishop, partook of the communion with 
 great humility. The service over, the bishops and 
 lords escorted the monarch back to the episcopal 
 palace. The Duke of Montbazon led the way, bear- 
 ing the crown on a velvet cushion, whilst others accom- 
 panied him with the sceptre and the royal sword. The 
 sacred vessel was taken back at once in procession to 
 the Abbey of S. Pere by the barons. They restored 
 it to the safe keeping of the monks of Marmoutiers. 
 
 Meanwhile the King, clad in fresh robes of equal 
 magnificence, ' sat at table under a canopy of beautiful 
 stuff, in the great episcopal hall, which was adorned 
 with rich tapestries.' On his right, at another table, 
 were ranged the spiritual peers in pontifical garb ; on 
 the left, and at another table, the temporal peers in 
 their coronation robes. Below the stage reserved for 
 the King and these high personages, the ambassadors, 
 the Chancellor, Knights of the Order and the principal 
 officers of the realm took their place at yet another 
 table. The banquet finished with a fanfare of trum- 
 pets, hautbois and clarions, and the King retired, 
 preceded by the Marshal de Matignon, carrying 
 before him the royal sword 'bared outright.' 
 
 In the evening there was another splendid banquet, 
 after which grace was said and sung as the late King 
 Henri III. had been wont to have it. 
 
 So closed that day of solemn pomp and of cere- 
 monies not meaningless. For they impressed upon 
 the people the reality of a conversion which was 
 politically of almost as much importance to France as 
 the conversion to Christianity of Clovis and his fol- 
 lowers. The report of the consecration of the King 
 at Chartres was followed almost immediately by the 
 surrender of Paris, and Henri became in fact what he 
 had so long been in name only. King of France. 
 
 I have endeavoured to illustrate each stage of this 
 316
 
 The Coronation of Henri Quatre 
 
 story of a French ecclesiastical town by the mention or 
 description of some building, and to illumine each 
 notable building by some historic episode connected 
 with it or with the period at which it was constructed. 
 There is little left of the walls and gates which he 
 bombarded to remind us of the taking of the town by 
 Henri Quatre. But if we go to the Municipal Museum 
 and Library we shall find pictures of this siege* and of 
 the unsuccessful siege laid by Condc, besides numerous 
 old maps and plans which show us, with varying 
 degrees of accuracy, the town as it was in those days 
 of storm and stress. 
 
 The Hotel de Ville,t in which the museum is lodged, 
 is a fine building of red brick and stone, composed 
 of three sections and a very handsome gateway. It is 
 itself connected with the period under review ; for, 
 when Henri was besieging the place nearly half the 
 town was in correspondence with the besiegers, and, 
 among the rest, was the important family of Montescot. 
 Montescot was a good courtier, and he was rewarded 
 with a canon's stall in Notre-Dame. But he was also 
 a good citizen, and he acted as intermediary between 
 Chartres and the King in the matter of the pecuniary 
 contributions levied from the town. He it was who 
 built, t as a mansion for himself, the present Hotel de 
 
 * No. 189, a picture of the Flemish school, represents Henri 
 Quatre surrounded by his staff and watching the effect of the 
 bombardment of the town. The quarter of S. Jean is in flames. 
 His soldiers are endeavouring to force their way through the 
 breach at the Porte-Drouaise. The Cathedral, it will be ob- 
 served, has here its \.\)\rA jieche. The towers in the fortifications 
 are square. 
 
 f Starting from the Place des Epars, you reach the Place 
 des Halles by the Rue du Bois Merrain, and enter the Hotel de 
 Ville by the Rue de la Mairie. 
 
 I On the window of the facade runs the following inscrip- 
 tion : — * Atavitam Montescotiorum domum qua natus CI. restituit 
 an. 1614.' He built it, then, on the site of his old home.
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 Ville (1614), and in his character of good courtier he 
 inscribed those words, ' Henrico Magno,' over the 
 principal entrance. The bust of Marie de Medici 
 figures on the doorway of the right wing, the bust of 
 Louis XIII. on that of the left. The old Parloir 
 aux Bourgeois, or site of municipal administration, 
 which had been in the hotel known as the Perron des 
 Trois-Rois in the Rue des Changes since 1 571, was 
 moved here in 1792. One wing of the building abuts 
 on the Place des Halles, or market-place, at the corner 
 of which is the Librairie Selleret (Petrot-Garnier), the 
 booksellers and publishers whose name is honourably 
 connected with most of the publications of Chartres. 
 
 The municipal rooms, hung with tapestry, are on the 
 ground floor ; the library and museum above. The 
 library is of exceptional interest, and it is admirably 
 arranged. Unfortunately it is only open on Mondays, 
 Wednesdays and Fridays from 12 to 3.30 p.m. But, 
 if the hours are short, the visitor who may wish to 
 study the extremely rich collection of books and manu- 
 scripts, which were removed here from the surrounding 
 monasteries during the Revolution, will find every 
 encouragement to do so. Without credentials or 
 explanation I have read there myself many days, and 
 it is with grateful pleasure that I take this opportunity 
 of acknowledging the polite attention and the ready 
 help proffered to me, a stranger, by the Librarian and 
 his assistants. The collection includes over 100,000 
 volumes, and among the thousand manuscripts six 
 hundred are earlier than the sixteenth century, and 
 many beautifully illuminated. 
 
 The Museum, the entrance to which faces that of 
 the Library, is open to the public on Thursdays and 
 Sundays from 2 to 4 p.m. (gratuity). Catalogue, 
 I franc, 50 centimes. I have referred already, in the 
 course of my story, to most of the interesting things to 
 318
 
 
 It It 
 
 
 
 ,U V 
 
 \ r'-^ 
 
 
 
 
 VllV 

 
 The Coronation of Henri Quatre 
 
 be seen there. I have mentioned some of the Roman 
 antiquities — the coins and pottery found in the neigh- 
 bourhood — the armour of Philippe-le-Bel, and of 
 Charles V., his son, offered to Notre-Dame after the 
 battle of Mons-en-Puelle ; and among the pictures, 
 the numerous maps and pictures and portraits that 
 relate to the history of Chartres. 
 
 It remains to call attention to the Laye collection of 
 arms, armour, porcelain and medals, and, in the room 
 above, what should on no account be missed, the magni- 
 ficent pieces of Flemish tapestry (sixteenth century) 
 which were brought here from the choir of the 
 Cathedral. Five out of the original ten are to be 
 seen in the Hotel de Ville. The borders are rich and 
 the work exquisite. They were . presented originally 
 to the church by that Bishop de Thou of whom we 
 have spoken above. The designs of the five panels are 
 based on those of the cartoons made by Raphael for 
 the Vatican, and they represent incidents from the life 
 of Moses. 
 
 A beautiful example of fourteenth-century French 
 needlework should be noted in a triptych here. 
 
 321
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 The 'Revolution — S. ^ere 
 
 THE events recorded in the last chapter, culminating 
 in the coronation of Henri Quatre in the 
 Cathedral of the town which, as the Huguenot King, 
 he had besieged three years before, are the last in 
 which Chartres played a part of real importance in the 
 history of France. She suffered, indeed, during the 
 troubles of the Fronde, both from the massing of 
 troops that occurred continually about her borders, and 
 from many serious attacks of plague and famine, for 
 which they were doubtless, to a large extent, respon- 
 sible. But the trials which she had undergone had 
 damped her military ardour. Bitter experiences in the 
 past had exhausted the vehemence of her enthusiasm. 
 Henceforth she lays aside her militant character and 
 devotes herself to the peaceful pursuit of a quiet muni- 
 cipal life. The part she takes in politics is 
 distinguished by ecclesiastical sobriety and commercial 
 prudence. 
 
 An excellent college, founded by a good merchant, 
 Pocquet by name, sprang into prominence in the life of 
 the town, whilst the citadel, established by Henri 
 Quatre at the Port S. Michel, is declared to be no 
 longer needed. It is handed over, in 1600, to the 
 citizens, and converted again into a church. And the 
 Huguenots, so much has the spirit of the age changed, 
 are provided with a church, so that each may worship 
 in peace according to his own conscience. 
 322
 
 The ^.evolution — S. Pere 
 
 The year 1623 saw two changes which affected the 
 nominal ])Osition of Chartres and continue still to affect 
 it. In the first place the diocese of Chartres became 
 in that year the first suffragan of the newly-created 
 Archbishopric of Paris, and, in the second place, the 
 Duchy of Chartres, definitely and officially united 
 with the crown, passed to Gaston, Duke of Orleans, 
 and has ever since remained in the house of Orleans. 
 The Duchy, it will be remembered, had been created 
 by Francois I. in favour of Rcnce, daughter of Louis 
 XII. Louis XIII. now bought it back from the 
 Duke of Nemours, and himself, Duke of Chartres, 
 visited the town in October of the same year. (It 
 was on a previous occasion that, as the historian Doyen 
 narrates, he came to pay his devotions at the shrine of 
 Notre-Dame, and thereafter was indulging in a game 
 of tennis at the court in the market-place when he 
 was informed that there was a certain woman there 
 who played a strong game. He sent for her and 
 played a set with her. But she beat him. Cette 
 femme prit un cale(;on et gagna le roi, en jouant par- 
 dessous lajambe.) Three years later he presented his 
 brother Gaston, on the occasion of his marriage and in 
 exchange for the Duchy of Anjou, with the County 
 of Blois and the Duchies of Orleans and Chartres. 
 On the death of Gaston, the opponent of Mazarin, 
 the Duchy of Chartres reverted to the Crown again, 
 but Louis XIV., a few weeks afterwards, settled it, 
 together with the Duchy of Orleans as an appanage, on 
 his only brother, Philippe, on the occasion of the 
 marriage of that prince with Henrietta of England. 
 Since that time the title of Duke of Chartres has 
 always been the appanage of the eldest son of the 
 house of Orleans. 
 
 For the rest, Chartres passed more and more into 
 the condition of a l^ille de Province, where only the 
 
 323
 
 The Story of Charires 
 
 echoes of what is being said and done in Paris and 
 France are to be heard. 
 
 The mystic heresy of the Illuminiime, propagated by 
 the ' alumbrados ' of Spain, appeared here in the first 
 half of the seventeenth century, but was routed out 
 before long. The method by which it was crushed 
 is, however, significant. This heresy represented a 
 revolt against the hierarchy of the Church. It rejected 
 all dogmas and all ministers of religion. The chief 
 exponent of it at Chartres was a hermit who took up 
 his abode in the woods of Leves, and soon secured a 
 strong following among the unlettered classes. The 
 heretics, in fact, began to make such progress in La 
 Beauce and Picardie that Richelieu became alarmed. 
 The Government gave orders that the sect was to be 
 exterminated. The hermit of Chartres was therefore 
 arrested and sent to Paris, where he recanted his 
 errors. 
 
 He and his followers, in earlier days, would doubt- 
 less have been burnt at the stake without more ado. 
 Now, such has been the growth of the central power, 
 they were merely sent to Paris and converted. The 
 punishment of heterodoxy had become generally much 
 less severe. Very little hanging was now done for 
 conscience's sake. We only come across one instance 
 of a monk being hung at this time, and that was for 
 celebrating Mass without having been ordained priest. 
 
 Throughout the succeeding centuries, then, the 
 political action of Chartres is reduced to that of an 
 ordinary commercial municipality. It suffered none 
 the less in common with the rest of France from all 
 those causes which had issue in the Revolution. The 
 crash of 1789 was precipitated by the coincidence of two 
 events — the imminent bankruptcy of the Government 
 and the great famine which, following on one of the 
 worst winters on record, produced universal rioting 
 324
 
 'The devolution — S. Pere 
 
 throughout the country and ended in pure anarchy. For 
 the Government, having no money and no credit, could 
 not feed the people. The people might bring the 
 King from Versailles and sack the Bastille but that 
 did not make bread cheaper. The Constituent As- 
 sembly was as helpless as the King. The pressure in 
 Paris was worse in October than during the siege by 
 the Prussians. These famine riots continued in Paris 
 and all over the country till good harvests came. 
 Then the country would have settled down. But 
 the Revolution had been begun, and, under the ex- 
 treme party, with the aid of the Jacobin clubs, was 
 destined to bring in its train the Reign of Terror. 
 The Girondins wished for war and that the country 
 should not settle down. 
 
 The Government had been more or less insolvent 
 since 171 5, but since 1783 the share taken by France 
 in the War of American Independence had rendered 
 total failure inevitable. The wealth of the country 
 was not small and it was rapidly increasing. But the 
 Government had for years put an immense strain upon 
 their preposterous financial system, and the ridiculous 
 machine had now completely broken down. Since 
 1783, one Superintendent of Finance after another 
 had declared that the only possible way to avert 
 bankruptcy was to introduce a sweeping change in the 
 system of taxation. As soon as they came to that 
 conclusion they were dismissed, for Louis XVI., who 
 half knew that they were right, could not stand against 
 his Court. But in the year 1788 the fact became too 
 obvious. The Superintendent Necker declared that, 
 unless some reform were undertaken, bankruptcy, in a 
 few months, was inevitable. Now, the National Debt 
 was held almost entirely by the official class in France, 
 to whom, therefore, even the loss of their privileges, 
 which consisted to a large extent in not paying taxes, 
 
 325
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 seemed better than the bankruptcy of the country. 
 Necker advised the King to summon the States-General 
 and to carry out reforms in connection with it. 
 
 The demand for it to be summoned was already 
 loud. It was the old Parliament of France, but it had 
 not met since 1614. Then it had consisted of three 
 separate houses, the Nobles, the Clergy, and the Third 
 Estate, each acting independently of each other and 
 enjoying the right of presenting petitions to the King. 
 How the Third Estate asserted itself and, after the 
 States-General had been converted into the Constitu- 
 ent Assembly, proceeded to fulfil its Tennis-Court 
 Oath and to give a Constitution to France we need not 
 repeat here. What from the point of view of the story 
 of Chartres requires to be noticed is that the new 
 Constitution, which was gradually drawn up between 
 the years 1 789-1 791, represented to a great extent the 
 ideas implied in the list of grievances, cahier des plaintes, 
 submitted to the Chartrain representatives of the Third 
 Estate. They had had a sufficiently bitter experience 
 in past years of the heavy and unjust incidence of 
 taxation, and the congestion and confusion of the 
 judicial system, which, together with the existence of 
 the official class, were the real grievances of the age. 
 The administrative arrangements of the new Constitu- 
 tion embodied the theories of Rousseau, who advocated 
 extreme democratic decentralisation. For this was a 
 panacea which the followers of Diderot and the 
 Encyclopaedists, believing that the correction of bad 
 laws and bad government would produce the millennium, 
 that, in fact, you can change the character of the whole 
 by changing the arrangement of the units, imagined 
 would cure all the evils of Society. Almost all real 
 power, therefore, was taken from the King and placed 
 in the hands of municipal and village Councils, of what 
 Carlyle called 'forty thousand sovereign bodies.' One 
 326
 
 77?^ Revolution — 5. Pere 
 
 need not emphasise the grim comment passed by history 
 upon these theories. 
 
 So far as Chartres was concerned they had their 
 immediate and lasting effect in a decree of the National 
 Assembly, dated January 15, 1790, which constituted 
 our town Capital of the Department of Eure-et-Loir 
 and gave it a departmental administration. The 
 bishopric was preserved, and only a court of appeal 
 was wanting. The assembly of citizens, some 1500 
 in number, met and elected the members of the new 
 municipal body, which included a mayor, eleven 
 municipal officers, twenty-four notables, and z. procureur 
 de la commune. 
 
 Besides drawing up a new Constitution, the Con- 
 stituent Assembly had been busy promulgating a series 
 of decrees, ot which some, such as those bringing in a 
 new financial system, proved inoperative, and others, 
 such as that concerning seigneurial dues, were con- 
 cerned with abolishing what had already ceased to 
 exist. But their decrees concerning the Church had 
 some effect, and that bad. In the first place, the whole 
 property of the Church was confiscated and tithes were 
 abolished. In the second place, under the civil consti- 
 tution of the clergy, all beneficed clergy were, it was 
 decided, to be beneficed by the State (July 12, 1790). 
 Thirdly, all beneficed clergy were required to submit 
 themselves to free election at the hands of laymen, and 
 to undertake the discharge of their holy office only 
 after swearing a solemn oath to obey the rules of the 
 new Constitution. This decree was an immense 
 blunder. It was offensive in the extreme to every 
 good Roman Catholic, to whom the spectacle of a 
 purely lay power interfering in questions of ecclesiastical 
 discipline was unbearable. 
 
 The Pope intervened and forbade the bishops to 
 take an oath which involved the renunciation of all
 
 The Story of Chm'tres 
 
 Papal claims. The greater number of bishops and 
 clergy obeyed the Papal order, and were supported by 
 the majority of the lower orders in whom the love of 
 the Church was still quite strong and deeply rooted. 
 At Chartres, M. de Lubessac refused to take the oath, 
 and the assembly of departmental electors met and 
 appointed in his place Nicolas Boisnet, a doctor of 
 theology and vicar of the parish of S. Michel. He 
 was a worthy man who for forty years had offered an 
 example of all the Christian virtues, and he only 
 accepted the See of the civic episcopate on the express 
 condition that he would render it to him who had 
 abandoned it when he should see fit to come and take 
 it again. 
 
 Meantime the revenues of the Church had been 
 sequestrated, and the Chapter, yielding to force, had 
 passed out of existence. It was after this fashion that 
 religion, like the monarchy, was provided with a 
 Constitution. 
 
 The Girondin Clubs had taken possession of Chartres 
 as of the other towns. They soon had their way, and 
 France was at war with Prussia and Austria. That 
 war was entered into without any very definite plan 
 or enthusiasm by the Allies, who expected a mere 
 parade march to Paris and an opportunity of aggrandise- 
 ment for themselves. But France, thinking that the 
 victory of the Allies would mean the restoration of the 
 old regime, took the war very seriously from the 
 beginning. A voluntary movement of unequalled size 
 and enthusiasm took place in the spring of 1792. 
 Eure-et-Loir furnished several battalions of volunteers, 
 and Chartres gave to France, as captain of their first 
 battalion, the young and chivalrous Marceau. The 
 vigour of this resistance surprised the Allies, who in 
 the face of it would have been at a loss to know what 
 to do if they had arrived at Paris. Instead of exerting 
 328
 
 The Revolution — S. Pere 
 
 themselves, therefore, they fell back upon the frontiei-. 
 But their advance had proved fatal to Louis, who must 
 have hoped for their success. As they advanced the 
 panic in Paris had increased. The crisis came with the 
 lOth of August, on which day a big mob rising, clearly 
 engineered by the Girondins, drove the King to seek, 
 safety in the Assembly, whence he passed to spend his 
 last sad hours in the Temple prison, and finally to meet 
 death on the scaffold. Meanwhile, the Girondin 
 leaders dictated three decrees to the Chamber. The 
 King was suspended from his functions, the new 
 Commune of Paris was recognised, and it was decided 
 to summon an extraordinary National Convention, a 
 single Chamber with powers to do what it pleased, 
 elected by universal suffrage. To that celebrated 
 Assembly Chartres contributed some very notable 
 deputies. The upheaval of public opinion in the town 
 is indicated by its representatives, for among them 
 was Jerome Petion, Mayor of Paris in 1792 and 
 President of the Convention, and Brissot de Warville. 
 These men were Girondins, and when the party split 
 in two they remained Girondins and suffered death in 
 the following year at the hands of the extreme section, 
 the Jacobins. As a Girondin town Chartres, then, 
 was typical of the provincial towns of France. For 
 while as to political theory Girondins and Jacobins 
 were agreed in aiming at an ideally democratic Republic 
 extremely decentralised, on the practical question of 
 ways and means they differed. The Girondins insisted, 
 in spite of the war, on carrying out their decentralising 
 projects at once, but the Jacobins recognised that if 
 Paris was to be defended at all in the ensuing campaign 
 of '93, a strong central government, a dictatorship in 
 fact, was absolutely necessary. The soul of the Jacobin 
 party was Danton, the one man neither fanatic nor 
 fool, and he saw not only the necessity for improvising 
 
 329
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 a strong central government, but also how it could be 
 done. It could be done by means of the organisation 
 supplied by the political clubs scattered through France, 
 and by terrorising the majority. For the numbers of 
 the Jacobins were always small, but the audacity of 
 their measures produced the illusion of power. Paris 
 was cowed, the Girondin party crushed by force, and 
 the Jacobin conquest of France, after the suppression 
 of the risings in the Girondin provincial towns, for a 
 while complete. 
 
 The Reign of Terror had begun and lasted till July 
 1 7.94. It lasted, in other words, till the Jacobin 
 party had done that side of its work, which was 
 thoroughly national and popular, and, thanks to its 
 conduct of the war, under Carnot, the danger on the 
 frontier had ceased. Then the Jacobin Government 
 fell at once. It was because they were doing their 
 work with regard to the war, and no one else could do 
 it, that France tolerated the policy of brigandage and 
 butchery by which they governed ; — for this reason, 
 and because those most likely to resist were away at 
 the frontier, and also through fear. For the Jacobins 
 were an organised party, and the rest were a chaotic 
 mass of individuals. Therefore they slew not less 
 than thirty thousand men and women of all classes. 
 A minority that had begun to rule by terror, they 
 could not go back. They felt the weakness of their 
 position, and went on increasing the pressure, them- 
 selves almost mad with terror. Individual zeal was 
 required to make up for their lack of numbers. A 
 scrutiny was held of their own members, and those 
 who showed a lack of energy were expelled and 
 guillotined. They executed also that they might 
 confiscate, and thus provide the sinews of war. And 
 an official theory, stated by the chiefs and formulated 
 by Robespierre, was not lacking to justify their be- 
 330
 
 
 
 
 fc2?*®j 
 
 
 
 
 .- -/X im. -^ '-~ r '■■ 

 
 'The Revolution — S. Fere 
 
 haviour. Owing to centuries of despotic government, 
 it was said, the mass of Frenchmen were corrupt and 
 unfit for citizenship in the ideal Republic that was 
 going to be established. They must wipe out the bad 
 blood. 
 
 In this matter of wiping out bad blood a certain 
 amount of moderation at any rate was observed at 
 Chartres. But, short of bloodshed, every outrage and 
 abomination conceivable by a horde of raging maniacs 
 was solemnly proposed and perpetrated. The priceless 
 treasure of the Cathedral was looted, and all the 
 churches pillaged. The leaden roofs thereof, and the 
 bells of the Cathedral, and all leaden tombs that could 
 be found, were melted down to supply the army with 
 money and with cannon. It was decreed that every 
 statue within and without the Cathedral should be 
 destroyed. The work of destruction had already 
 begun on the north porch, when a member of the 
 Convention, Sergent Marceau, raised his voice against 
 the measure, and, in the interest of art, the decree was 
 repealed. But next day, at a meeting of the Chartrain 
 Club, a member arose, and, declaring that the Cathedral 
 dominated this Republican city too much, proposed 
 that it should be destroyed. The proposal was con- 
 sidered, and actually adopted. 
 
 But the Cathedral of Chartres was in the end 
 allowed to stand. For a curious reason. It was 
 found that the difficulty of getting rid of the vast 
 masses of debris would be insuperable. No citizen 
 would undertake to allow the fragments of the building 
 to be cast upon his land, and, seeing that the town would 
 be endlessly encumbered by them, it was decided that 
 the Cathedral should not be destroyed. 
 
 But, if not destroyed, it must be profaned. Hideous 
 orgies were prepared to celebrate the Feast of Reason. 
 The group of the Assumption in the choir was con- 
 
 333
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 verted into a group more conformable to the patriotic 
 sentiments of the moment by setting a red cap on the 
 head of the Virgin, and placing a pike in her hand. 
 The marbles of the choir were inscribed with Republi- 
 can maxims, and in the centre of the sanctuary a 
 miniature mountain was raised. On the summit was 
 reared a statue of Reason, leaning against an oak, on 
 the highest branch of which was perched a cock hold- 
 ing in his beak a tricolour. The Temple of Reason 
 was inaugurated by a sermon, in which the citizens 
 were informed that they had recovered their liberty, 
 and were once more men, pure as Nature herself. 
 This discourse was followed by a musical drama, 
 entitled Reason Victorious over Fanaticism, in which 
 Watchfulness, in a robe sown with eyes, and Fanati- 
 cism in priestly garb figured, with Rousseau and 
 Voltaire as acolytes of the former. Philosophy then 
 engaged and easily vanquished with argument Fanati- 
 cism, who, seeing himself beaten, hurled himself, 
 shrieking abuse, on Watchfulness. But the cry, ' To 
 Arms ! ' was raised, and lo ! the Republic, in the 
 guise of a woman in a tricolour robe, rose from a 
 cavern near and cast down Fanaticism, pierced him 
 with a dart, broke the altars and trampled under foot 
 a crucifix. Then a machine in the form of a cloud 
 raised the Republic to the mountain top and set her 
 beside the statue of Reason. 
 
 And M. Thirion, of the Convention, closed the 
 proceedings with an address. 
 
 These profane and grotesque celebrations were 
 followed up a month later (December 23, 1793) by a 
 bonfire, which was lit in front of the Porte Royale on 
 the day which would have been Sunday had not 
 Sundays been abolished. Into this bonfire were 
 hurled all ornaments of the Church which were not 
 of precious metal — books and wooden crucifixes and 
 334
 
 The Revoiutiofi — S. Pere 
 
 statues. And with them was burnt the ' Druidical 
 Statue,' Notre-Danie-de-Sous-Terre. 
 
 On the civil side, bread riots and brigandage were 
 the order of" the day at Chartres, but at last, under the 
 Directory, comparative quiet began to be restored. 
 The town, however, was accused of not supporting 
 that highly centralised administration with sufficient 
 warmth, and, indeed, Delarue, the deputy of the Five 
 Hundred, made a report, in which he stated that the 
 Chartrains ' had furnished arms and ammunition to five 
 hundred brigands to suppress the liberty of the legisla- 
 tive body.' The municipal administration defended 
 themselves vigorously against this charge. It was 
 probably true enough that Chartres was not in favour 
 of the Directory, which, from the beginning, rested on 
 the support of the army, and thus began that process 
 which was to end in the Consulate — when the army 
 set up its own man. From this time forth the army is 
 France. It had been enormously improved since 1 792. 
 Out of the unskilled rabble that had ffed before the 
 Allies without striking a blow it had been converted 
 into an organised machine. Under Carnot, at the 
 War Office, good men were coming to the front. In 
 1796 they took the offensive, and arranged a big triple 
 advance upon Vienna. Jourdan was to advance from 
 the Netherlands, Moreau from Alsace, Bonaparte 
 through North Italy. The brilliant successes of the 
 latter covered the failure of the other two, who were 
 beaten back to the French frontier. But before their 
 retirement the Battle of Altenkirchen had been fought, 
 and there had fallen the young Chartrain, General 
 Marceau — Frangois Severin Marceau-Degraviers — 
 whose statue stands in the centre of the Place des 
 Epars. He was only twenty-seven years of age at 
 the time of his death. His praises were pronounced 
 to the Council of the Five Hundred by his old friend 
 
 335
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 and comrade in arms, Jourdan, who secured for his 
 mother a handsome pension. Marceau represents to 
 the Chartrains the ideal of that military ardour which 
 is the keynote of modern France. 
 
 Nothing could be more eloquent of the difference be- 
 tween medieval and modern France, of the change from 
 the rule of Church and King to the domination of the 
 established army, than the present state of the old 
 Benedictine Abbey of S. Pierre, locally called S. Pere, 
 and its precincts. For the site of the old dormitory, 
 refectory and cloisters is now used for cavalry barracks, 
 and Chasseurs d'Afrique now stable their horses where 
 once the cloistered monk tended his garden and fish 
 ponds. 
 
 The church itself is one of the most remarkable in 
 existence, and would doubtless be better known had 
 Chartres no Cathedral. As it is, the magnificence of 
 Notre-Dame obscures the excellence of the smaller 
 church, and obliterates from the memory its striking 
 characteristics. In any other town its glass alone 
 would bring pilgrims from afar. For not only are the 
 thirty-six great lancet windows of rare beauty, being 
 filled, to a great extent, with thirteenth and fourteenth- 
 century glass, but the impression which they give you on 
 first entering the church is almost unique. The apse is 
 ablaze with colour, the triforium of the choir glazed, 
 chiefly in grisaille, and the delicate triforium of the 
 nave is topped by huge lights of colour and grisaille, 
 which are interrupted by hardly any framework of 
 stone. It seems as if the whole of the upper part of 
 the building were one continuous sheet of glass glori- 
 ously coloured. The effect, indeed, is scarce an 
 illusion. 
 
 For the monks of S. Pore have taken up the idea of 
 the flying buttresses where the builders of the 
 Cathedral had left it. We have seen (p. 189) how
 
 The Revoiution — S. Pere 
 
 those builders had felt their way with the buttresses of 
 the nave, and developed those later ones of the choir. 
 In happy rivalry of the Cathedral, our monks now, it 
 would appear, determined to show the full possibilities 
 of the idea. They built a temple of glass and supported 
 it with frying buttresses. Windows took the place of 
 walls in their church, and the walls were set several 
 yards outside the windows. That is the effect of this 
 amazing tour-de-force as you look at it from the east or 
 west. The line of buttresses show like the solid wall 
 of the church without. Yet so cunningly were those 
 buttresses arranged to carry the thrust of the building, 
 that the church, windows and roof and all, still stands 
 unimpaired. 
 
 Something of the history of this once large and 
 famous abbey we have already given in the course of 
 our extracts from the Chartulary of S. Pierre, which 
 was written in great part by the monk Paul in the 
 eleventh century. There is an old tradition, quite 
 devoid of foundation, that a church was built at 
 Chartres in honour of S. Peter, who then held the See 
 of Rome, by S. Potentian and his disciples. This 
 church, tradition further asserts, was connected with an 
 abbey by Clovis, and endowed by Queen Clotilda on 
 the death of her husband. However that may be, the 
 church was certainly founded by the middle of the 
 seventh century, and probably the monastery also. 
 They grew and flourished exceedingly in spite of 
 wars and sieges, burnings and bishops, and waxed in 
 wealth and importance to such an extent as to provoke 
 serious jealousy in the hearts of the clergy and adherents 
 of Notre-Dame. Thus, even as early as the year 
 S40, we fmd the monks asserting the rights of their 
 constitution against the Bishop Hclie, and refusing to 
 recognise the episcopal jurisdiction. The bishop did 
 not hesitate to have recourse to arms. The very 
 Y 337
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 threshold of the Church of S, Pcre was stained with 
 blood. The greater part of the monks were forced to 
 flee from their monastery, whilst the prelate seized all 
 the precious ornaments and property that belonged to 
 them, and left but a bare sustenance for the small band 
 of brethren who had dared to remain. The hand of 
 the Northman completed, in 857 and 911, the ruin of 
 the abbey thus begun by the bishop, and it was not till 
 930 that that ' noble, rich and virtuous prelate,' 
 Aganon, built on the site of the ruins a vast monastery 
 and great church, and restored to the brethren and 
 canons thereof their confiscated vineyards and property. 
 The work, of the material and spiritual reformation 
 of the monastery was continued by his successor, 
 Ragenfroy. To this period must be referred the 
 great square western tower, of which we have spoken 
 as being contemporary with the Cathedral of Fulbert 
 [see p. 66 ff.). It is even possible that it formed a part 
 of the church reconstructed by the Bishop Aganon 
 about the year 940. It is certainly much the oldest 
 portion of the building. The rest, together with the 
 monastic buildings, perished in the great fire which 
 destroyed the town and damaged the Cathedral in 
 1 1 34. After that disaster the monk Hilduard was 
 entrusted by his abbot with the task of rebuilding 
 the church of the monastery, and he began to work 
 in the year 1 1 50. After he had finished the choir, 
 however, lack of funds brought matters to a stand- 
 still. A wall was built across the western end of the 
 choir in order to enclose it. But whilst the foundations 
 of this wall, which was meant to serve as a temporary 
 west end, were being dug a discovery was made, the 
 result of which was quickly to furnish the means ' 
 needful for continuing the construction of the church. 
 A small vaulted chamber was opened, in which was 
 found the body of S. Gilduin. Miracles began to 
 338
 
 The Revolution — S. Pere 
 
 occur. The faithful Hocked to the new shrine, bring- 
 ing rich gifts, and about the year 1210 the building 
 was again able to be taken in hand. The church was 
 completed. But when this was done, either because 
 they were not content with the choir of Hilduard, as 
 being unworthy of the later nave, or because it was 
 already in need of repair, the monks of S. Pcre rebuilt 
 the choir towards the end of the reign of S. lyouis. 
 The apse was finished in or about the year 13 10. 
 The monks made it, as it were, almost one sheet of glass, 
 and supported their beautiful, if daring, creation by a 
 series of sixteen buttresses without, which are higher, 
 lighter and more graceful than those of the nave. A 
 beautiful thirteenth-century doorway on the north side 
 of the church is the remaining feature of note on the 
 exterior. But, in spite of the variety of dates to 
 which the various portions of the building belong, it 
 is, as a whole, singularly well proportioned and full of 
 grace. 
 
 Within, since the Revolution, when the tombs ot 
 Fulbert and many other bishops were destroyed to- 
 gether with much valuable and artistic furniture, carved 
 stalls and a Renaissance jubc, there are two main 
 attractions — the windows and tho Limousin enamels. 
 But before speaking of them we must mention the 
 epitaph of Robert, son of Richard, first Duke of 
 Normandy, who was not Archbishop of Rouen, as the 
 inscription which is in the aisle states. Also the very 
 rich and graceful triforium of the nave, and the later 
 and still more delicate triforium of the choir, cannot 
 fail to please. 
 
 The unique gallery of fourteenth-century glass pre- 
 'sented by the windows of S. P^re is, as M. I'Abbe 
 Bulteau remarked, arranged methodically in a carefully- 
 considered combination and not according to the whims 
 of the various founders, as was to a large extent the 
 
 339
 
 T'he Story of Chartres 
 
 case with the thirteenth-century lights of the Cathe- 
 dral. On the left-hand side of the nave are repre- 
 sented the Apostles and episodes from the Gospel 
 story ; on the right, the Confessors and incidents drawn 
 from the lives of the martyrs ; in the choir, martyrs, 
 prophets and saints group round our Saviour, who, as a 
 little child, is borne on His mother's arm, and as a 
 grown man hangs upon the tree of the Cross. 
 
 All the windows of the church, therefore, viewed 
 thus, seem to converge towards a common centre, which 
 is Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 The scheme of the majority of windows is the 
 presentation of large single figures of stained glass 
 surrounded by broad bands of grisaille. 
 
 On the north or left-hand side, beginning from the 
 west end, next the old tower, are two Apostles, set in 
 a broad frame of grisaille. 
 
 These two Apostles are S. James the Less and 
 S. Matthias. The next window gives S. Jude and 
 vS. Barnabas, and the next two tell the story of S. John 
 the Baptist — {^a) Baptizing Jesus ; the daughter of 
 Herodias demanding his head and presenting his head 
 in a charger to her mother ; John showing the Divine 
 Lamb to his disciples. (^) The announcement to 
 Zacharias ; his childhood, preaching, and answering 
 Herod. The fifth window shows S. Andrew (with 
 a book) and S. John (with a book open). In the 
 next S. Bartholomew holds a cutlass and S. James a 
 book, whilst the seventh and eighth recount the history 
 of S, Peter. For the seventh shows him with his 
 disciples, healing a man born blind, preaching, and 
 being delivered from prison by an angel. In the 
 eighth S. Peter receives the keys, appears before Nero, 
 confronts Simon, is crucified and taken up to heaven. 
 
 S. Thomas and S. Philip, S. Matthew and S. 
 James fill the ninth and tenth windows. The eleventh 
 340
 
 The Revolution] — S. Pere 
 
 and twelfth recount the chief incidents in the life of 
 Jesus Christ. In the eleventh, the entry into Jeru- 
 salem, the Last Supper, the Betrayal, the Cruciiixion, 
 the Resurrection and the ' Touch nie not ' are repre- 
 sented, and in the twelfth the disciples of Emmaus, 
 S. Thomas, the Ascension, Pentecost and Judgment. 
 On the right-hand or south side of the nave we are 
 shown the Confessors and incidents from ecclesiastical 
 history. The first, next to the tower, gives S. Bene- 
 dict and S. Maur, for the Church of S. Pcre, it will 
 be remembered, was the church of a Benedictine 
 monastery. The second light gives S. Avitus and 
 S. Laumer. The third relates the legend of S. Agnes; 
 she repels the son of the Proconsul and her modesty is 
 miraculously shielded ; she is burnt at the stake and 
 transferred- The story of S. Catherine, who disputed 
 with the Emperor and converted the heathen philoso- 
 phers and led them to martyrdom, is told in the 
 fourth. 
 
 S. Malard and S. Solemnis, S. Lubin and S. Martin 
 fill the fifth and sixth. The seventh and eighth, 
 which are now in a deplorable condition, once illus- 
 trated the lives of S. Denis and S. Clement, the pope 
 and martyr. S. Gregory and S. Sylvester fill the 
 ninth, the Virgin and Child, with the donor kneeling 
 below, the tenth. 
 
 The eleventh traces the history of the parents of the 
 Virgin. Joachim and Anna are repelled by the priest, 
 Anne by her servant. Joachim feeds his ffocks ; an 
 angel appears to him and also to S. Anne, who goes 
 out and meets her husband at the gates of Jerusalem. 
 She gives birth to Mary, who presents herself at the 
 Temple and marries Joseph. 
 
 The twelfth window portrays further scenes in the 
 life of the Virgin — the Annunciation, Visitation, Birth 
 of Christ, Adoration of the Magi, the Presentation 
 and Death of Mary. 
 
 341
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 The windows of the choir, with the exception of 
 those in the apse, are of thirteenth-century glass. In 
 them the patriarchs, prophets and personages of the 
 Old Testament are shown, to the number of forty, 
 carrying palms in their hands, and speaking, appar- 
 ently, to each other. 
 
 The six apsidal windows contain the most brilliant 
 glass in the abbey. They are as remarkable, so M. 
 I'Abbe Clerval observes, for elegance of design as for 
 vivacity of colouring. Each of them holds four life- 
 size figures of bishops or apostles surrounded with rich 
 architectural ornamentation ; whilst the heads, divided 
 into three quatrefoils, give scenes of martyrdom and an 
 angel bearing a crown for the martyred saints below. 
 
 The grisailles of the triforium were replaced in the 
 early part of the nineteenth century by some glass 
 painted in 1527 by Robert Pinaigrier, which had 
 been saved from the adjacent Church of S. Hilaire, 
 destroyed during the Revolution. Unfortunately they 
 have been arranged with extraordinary indifference to 
 their meaning, and pieces of glass have been stuck in 
 pell-mell according as they happened to suit the shape 
 of the window or convenience of the glazier. The 
 result is that windows which, both in colouring and 
 design, were quite exceptionally good have been de- 
 prived of all the charm of their design and much of the 
 effect of their colour. 
 
 The lower series of windows of the church are for 
 the most part modern. They represent chiefly scenes 
 from the Gospel story of the life of Christ and come 
 from the hand of M. Lorin, the glass-painter of 
 Chartres, whose atelier is in the Rue de la Tannerie. 
 
 Leaving the study of the glass you should now go 
 
 to the apsidal chapel dedicated to the Conception. 
 
 This chapel has been restored and polychromed by 
 
 M. Paul Durand, and contains a statue of the Virgin 
 
 342
 
 I'he Revolution — S. Pere 
 
 by Bridan and the tombstone of Simon de Beron, 
 Canon of Chartres in the twelfth century. But it is 
 the magnificent Limoges enamels of Leonard Limou- 
 sin, 1547, which we wish to see. They are ranged 
 round the walls of the chapel, and in order to see them 
 you must ring the bell near the chapel railings and 
 summon the attendant. 
 
 These enamels, which are of extraordinary beauty 
 and size (24 x lOj^-), exquisite in colour and shading, 
 and are in perfect preservation, come from the chapel 
 of the famous Chateau d' Anet, which Diane de Poitiers 
 built, z'oulant utie cewvre toute Franga'tse, and of which 
 Henri IL wrote to his Queen — 
 
 ' S'il vous souvient, Madame, ti'avoir lu 
 En quelque livre elegante et eslu 
 Le (iessein rare et la description 
 De quelque lieu beau en perfection 
 Je vous supply imaginer et croire 
 {2ue c'est (i'Annet le pourtraict et rhistoire.' 
 
 This magnificent chateau, the noblest type of the 
 Renaissance in France, was destroyed to a large extent 
 (1799- 1 8 10,) ^"'- ^'^^ ^" great part restored by the late 
 M. Moreau. Lying, as it does, on the Evreux line, it 
 is quite worth stopping to see. But the tourist may be 
 grateful for the information that it is i^ kilometres 
 from the station, and is only shown on Thursdays and 
 Sundays. 
 
 The beautiful enamels before us, so rich in their 
 varied shades of blue, were presented by Henri H. to 
 the lovely and accomplished mistress, who, in spite of 
 her years, had won his heart when he was but a lad of 
 thirteen. 
 
 They had been wrought for Frangois L by the 
 famous Leonard Limousin,* after the designs of Michel 
 
 * Leonard tlie Limousin, so called to distinguish him from 
 Leonard the Engraver, was retained by Francois L, who gave 
 
 343
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 Rochetel. The date (1547) and the initials and sala- 
 mander of Francois bear witness to this fact, and the 
 initials L. L. on the handle of the sword of S. Paul 
 and beneath 8. James the Less proclaim the artist. 
 
 The panels represent the twelve apostles, with their 
 characteristic emblems, and each apostle is set in a 
 framework of Renaissance ornament — genii and fantastic 
 animals and garlands of flowers. 
 
 There is nothing else in S. Pcre of sufficient interest 
 to detain us. 
 
 him the post of one of his valets. He was the greatest enameller 
 of his day, excelling chiefly in portraiture. His other work, is 
 unequal, being often inferior in colour and marred by the 
 influence of the Italian school, the defects and absurdities of 
 which, without its merits, he, in common with the decorators of 
 Fontainebleau, too frequently reproduced. 
 
 344
 
 CH APTE R XIII 
 The Prussians at Chartres 
 
 ' Je sais le plan de Trochu 
 Plan, plan, plan, plan, plan ! 
 Mon Dieu ! quel beau plan ! 
 Je sais le plan de Trochu ! ' 
 
 ON the 26th of October 1901 a monument, standing 
 at the entrance of the Promenade des Char- 
 bonniers, near the Place du Chatelet, and dedicated to 
 tlie memory of the children of Eure-et-Loir, who laid 
 down their lives for their fatherland, was unveiled by 
 M. Caillaux, the Minister ot Finance. The monument 
 was designed by M. Ncnot, and consists of a triumphal 
 arch in the Classic style, crowned by a pediment bearing 
 the arms of Chartres, Chateaudun, Dreux and Nogent- 
 le-Rotrou. This is accompanied by three groups in 
 bronze : on either side an artilleryman and a foot soldier 
 of the mobile ; in the centre, beneath the arch itself, 
 the principal group, representing ' France calling to the 
 defence.' It consists of a female figure, who personifies 
 the Fatherland and the Republic, brandishing in one 
 hand a Hag tattered and torn with bullets, and pointing 
 with the other in the direction of the enemy. And an 
 officer at her feet fires a revolver in that direction. 
 
 To the France of to-day this monument is not a mere 
 memorial of the past and useless valour of her sons, but 
 a warning also, lest she should forget the coming of the 
 Prussians in 1870, her own military unpreparedness, and, 
 it should be, her own fatal political weakness. Some- 
 
 345
 
 T'he Story of Chartres 
 
 thing, too, it doubtless expresses of that thirst for revenge 
 which threw her some years ago into the arms of Russia, 
 and which that alliance was really certain to prevent 
 her from gratifying. 
 
 It was on Friday, the 30th of September 1870, that 
 the Prussian soldiers appeared for the first time near 
 Chartres.* Three weeks later Chateaudun fell, after a 
 desperate and heroic defence, for which that picturesque 
 and ancient town paid the dear price of failure. Two 
 days later the enemy marched in force upon Chartres. 
 The tirailleurs and mobiles and troops of the National 
 Guard, who endeavoured to defend the town, after vain 
 marching and counter-marching, with the same generous 
 ardour and utter ineffectiveness as had distinguished the 
 movements of the other armies before the disasters of 
 Wissembourg, Worth and Sedan, returned exhausted. 
 Without firing a shot they had been rendered in- 
 capable of fighting. Fighting in any case would have 
 been useless. It was wisely decided to capitulate, and 
 on the 2 1st the Mayor and Prefect of the Department 
 drove out to Morancez to save the city and Cathedral, 
 by surrendering them to General von Wittich, from the 
 inevitable destruction of which Chateaudun had given 
 them a terrible example. What they saw on their way 
 of the French defence and the Prussian advance con- 
 vinced civilians and military men alike that it was 
 impossible to hope to defend Chartres. It was agreed 
 that half the French garrison should evacuate the town, 
 and that the Prussians should halt at the Three Bridges 
 till half-past four, and then take possession. When the 
 news of the capitulation was heard by the troops assem- 
 bled on the Boulevard Chasles,t they protested, and 
 
 * Les Prussiens a Chartres. Ernest Caillot. Petrot-Garnier, 
 1871. 
 
 ■\ So called after M. Michel Chasles,the eminent geometrician, 
 who was a Chartrain.
 
 .' If ~ 
 
 
 
 ■'^"^:' \i rmm^- 
 
 
 >.;> 
 
 
 mil '■■! 1v \ ,■" 
 
 
 'f- 
 
 
 — .-" — =r^-^;>'c^i•ffl.^»^^-
 
 'The Prussians at Chartrcs 
 
 raised the cry of treason, which was the watchword of 
 the whole war. 
 
 It had been expressly stipulated that the National 
 Guard should be disarmed, and Colonel Heiduck, who 
 conducted the negotiations at Morancez, had demanded 
 the surrender of 2000 rifles. ' But,' replied M. 
 Labiche, the prefect, 'there never have been more than 
 1300, and we really have not time to get any more to 
 make up the 2000.' With such inadequate means of 
 defence, and with the threat of immediate bombardment 
 from the artillery, which was ranged in a semi-circle 
 round the town on the south-west side, hanging over 
 their heads, the representatives of Chartres behaved 
 wisely in yielding at once. The stranger at least can- 
 not regret that the Cathedral was preserved from the 
 ordeal of a bombardment. 
 
 ' The Prussian troops,' said the Cologne Gazette, 
 ' entered Chartres with bands playing and saluted with 
 enthusiastic cheers Prince Albert of Prussia, whom they 
 marched past. Next morning presented a striking 
 scene when these German warriors met in the famous 
 crypt of the Cathedral, and visited by the light of 
 the lamps every part of that splendid subterranean 
 building.' 
 
 The occupation of Chartres lasted for five months — 
 the place, of course, was important to hold during the 
 siege of Paris — but the inhabitants would appear to have 
 suffered very little, except from German music. This 
 is how M. Caillot, the historian of the occupation, de- 
 scribes the behaviour of the Prussians on the morrow 
 ot their entry. 
 
 ' Towards nine o'clock in the morning their infernal 
 music, which they had had the indecency to parade 
 through the town the night before, echoed through the 
 Place des Epars. The officers, smart and pomaded 
 like circus-clowns, strutted round the musicians and 
 
 349
 
 T^lie Story of Chartres 
 
 saluted each other with a stiffness that they seemed to 
 have borrowed from the English. Out of the hotels 
 and houses they poured in an endless stream, men of 
 all colours, sizes and ages, stiff, proud and haughty, 
 with all the airs of conquerors.' 
 
 Conquerors, after all, they were, but though, like 
 all the French writers of the period, M. Caillot refers 
 to the Germans as barbarians and savages, they seem 
 to have done little that can honestly be called savage — 
 unless leaving without paying their bill, which amounted 
 to nearly half a million francs, can be considered so. 
 The fact is that, according to the unanimous testimony 
 of foreign observers who accompanied the army, the 
 moderation of the German soldiers was as remarkable 
 as their successes. 
 
 During the weary months that ensued, the Chartrains 
 remained as ignorant of what was going on in the De- 
 partment and round Paris as the beleaguered Parisians 
 themselves. The same unfounded hopes and false 
 rumours, the same invincible optimism and futile belief 
 in the ' plan of Trochu,' in successful sorties from Paris 
 or in the victories of the army of the Loire prevailed as 
 in Paris itself. They are recorded in M. Caillot's 
 little volume with something of the same pathos, but 
 not with the same spirit that distinguishes Francisque 
 Sarcey's Le Siege de Paris. There we learn how the 
 Chartrains listened to the battle of Loigny raging in 
 the distance, and thought that the sound of the 
 Prussian artillery was that of the French guns till the 
 arrival of 2400 French prisoners told them the bitter 
 truth, and how they rejoiced at the lyrical proclama- 
 tions of Gambetta, only to be reduced to despair at 
 the news of the fall of Orleans. 
 
 They learnt on the 29th of January, with bitter grief 
 and mortification, that Paris had been forced at last to 
 capitulate, and from that time onwards they were busy 
 350
 
 'The Prussians at Chartres 
 
 with the payment of their share of the impositions and 
 indemnities that were inliicted upon the conquered 
 nation. 
 
 The Prussians left Chartres on the i6th of March 
 1871. 
 
 35'
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 Itinerary and Expeditions 
 
 THE following scheme may perhaps prove of use 
 to those who have but a few hours to spend in 
 Chartres and wish to find their way quickly about the 
 picturesque but tortuous streets of the old, lower town. 
 Leaving the station, go down the Rue Jean de 
 Beauce, cross to the far corner of the Place Chatelet, 
 go down the Rue Sainte Mcme, take the first turning 
 to the left down the Rue du Cheval Blanc, and keeping 
 up to the right, where the street divides, you come out 
 opposite the west front of the Cathedral. Go down the 
 Rue des Changes (opposite the south porch of the 
 Cathedral), and turning to the left before reaching the 
 Place Billard (the old site of the Castle of the Counts) 
 reach the Place de la Poissonnerie (fish-market : 
 Maison du Saumon). Pass on into the Rue S. Eman, 
 and turning to the right pass Queen Bertha's staircase, 
 which is in the Rue des Ecuyers, opposite the Rue 
 du Bourg. Bearing up the Rue des Ecuyers, follow the 
 Rue S. Pierre. You leave the Church of S. Aignan 
 on your right and arrive at the old Abbey Church of 
 S. Pcre. Leaving the Place S. Pierre by the Rue du 
 Pont S. Hilaire at the eastern corner of it, cross the 
 water and turn sharp to the left down the Rue Foulerie, 
 which skirts the river with its picturesque tanneries 
 and wash-houses. You pass on the right the street 
 leading down to the Porte Guillaume. Continuing, 
 the Rue de la Foulerie becomes the Rue de la Tannerie,
 
 Itinerary and Sxpedkions 
 
 and the Rue de la Tannerie the Rue Massacre. Cross 
 the river and visit the ruined Church of S. Andre, 
 then go down the Rue de la Broche. The Chapel of 
 Notre - Dame de la Brcche is on the right in this 
 street, which runs into the Place Drouaise. Before 
 reaching this take the turn to the left up the Rue 
 Muret, which winds up into the Rue du Cardinal Pie 
 (formerly called the Rue du Marchc de Filasse), from 
 which a picturesque archway leads through the old 
 cloister buildings into the Rue S. Ives, which opens on 
 the north porch of the Cathedral. The Bishop's 
 Palace is now on your left. 
 
 The promenade * known as the Tour de la Ville, at 
 the foot of the ancient ramparts and round the old 
 moat of the town, should not be omitted. You will 
 start naturally from the Place Chatelet, down the Pro- 
 menade des Charbonniers, which brings you to the 
 Place Drouaise, and so on across the Pont Neuf to 
 the Porte Guillaume and the Boulevard de la Porte 
 Morard. Hence the Rue du Pont de la Courtille 
 leads to the Place S. Michel, and thence by the Boulevard 
 Chasles to the Place des Epars. 
 
 The Rue Rcgnier leads from the Boulevard Chasles 
 to the Place des Halles. 
 
 Some magnificent views of the Cathedral and the 
 town, and ' bits ' of the old walls and moat, will be 
 obtained in the course of this circuit. 
 
 Expeditions. 
 
 The Chateau de Maintenon (Due de Noailles) lies 
 on the line between Chartres and Paris, and, with its 
 waterworks, is well worth a visit. Other chateaux in 
 
 * Carriages may be hired by the Course, 75 centimes ; by the 
 hour, I franc 75 centimes. Outside the town the fare is 2 francs 
 the hour. 
 
 ^' 353
 
 The Story of Chartres 
 
 the neighbourhood are those of Villebon, near Courville, 
 which belongs to the Marquis de Pontoi-Poncarre, and 
 Eclimont, near Gallardon, the property of the Due 
 de La Rochefoucauld. 
 
 Dates of the Chief Festivals at Chartres. 
 
 May 31. — Notre-Dame du Pilier. 
 
 August 15. — Feast of the Assumption. 
 
 September 8 and 15 ; December 8. — On Septem- 
 ber 1 5 and December 8 a magnificent procession 
 through the Crypt takes place in the evening. 
 
 354
 
 mL 
 
 G
 
 INDEX 
 
 Acco, leader of conspiracy in 
 Gaul, 12 ; death, 13. 
 
 Adfele, widow of Count Etienne, 
 dispute with S. Ives, 104, 105. 
 
 Aganon, Bishop of Chartres, 58. 
 
 Agincourt, battle of, 255. 
 
 Albert the Dean, election of, as 
 Bishop of Chartres, in opposi- 
 tion to that of Theodoric, 75. 
 
 Albigenses, 236. 
 
 Amiens, Cathedral of, compared 
 
 ^ with that of Chartres, 187. 
 
 Ane ciui vielle, 125 ; passage 
 called after, 127. 
 
 Angel-dial, 126. 
 
 Anne of Bretagne, bell known as. 
 
 Apprentices m the Middle Ages, 
 
 166. 
 Aquitaine, Duke of, contributes to 
 
 building of Cathedral, 73. 
 Arrald, Bishop of Chartres, 89, 
 
 90. 
 Avou6s and Bourgeois, quarrel 
 
 between, and outbreak of the 
 
 people, 236-238. 
 
 Baxvin, right of, 235. 
 
 Bells of Clocher Neuf, igi, 192, 
 
 ;el^- 
 
 Bells of Clocher Vieux, 193, 194. 
 
 Bercheres-l'Eveque, quarries of, 
 n8, 147. 
 
 Bishop and Chapter, quarrel be- 
 tween, 261. 
 
 Bishop's Palace, custom of sack- 
 ing, 102. 
 
 Boh^mond of Tarentum, Prince 
 of Antioch, marriage of, 105 ; 
 preaches crusade, 105. 
 
 Burgundi.'ins and Armagnacs, civil 
 war between, 253 ff. 
 
 C^SAR IN Gaul, 8 ff. 
 Canons, encroachment of, and 
 struggle with Counts, 
 102, 103. 
 ,, remains of old house of, 
 103. 
 Carnutes, 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14. 
 Casket of Teudon and other relics 
 
 preserved in Cathedral, 48. 
 Castor, Bishop of Chartres, 31. 
 Cathedral, 2, 57, 113, 118, 119, 
 149, 165, 182, 187, 
 _ 195-198. 
 ,, dimensions of, 230. 
 
 ,, foundation of early- 
 
 Church, 15, i6. 
 ,, oldest portions of, 23. 
 
 ,, Vulphard's, 63 - 66 ; 
 
 burnt, 70. 
 ,, Fulbert begins the 
 
 rebuilding of, 72 ; 
 work completed, 76 ; 
 architect of, 76 ; 
 description of, 76- 
 78 ; continuation of 
 work, and dedica- 
 tion by Theodoric 
 
 79; . 
 
 ,, rebuilt m part by S. 
 
 Ives, 106; decoration 
 of, 107 ; enthusiasm 
 of men and women 
 in advancing the 
 building, 114-117 ; 
 artists of, their 
 work, payment, etc. 
 119 ff . ; burnt, 49, 
 140, 141, 184. 
 
 ,, Pope's legate incites to 
 
 rebuilding of, 142 ; 
 repetition of former 
 enthusiasm, 142 ff. 
 
 ,, windows of, 150 ff. 
 
 ,, date of building of 
 
 various parts of, 
 182, 183. 
 
 355
 
 Index 
 
 Cathedral, dedication of, 183. 
 
 ,, gradual growth of 
 
 building, 184. 
 ,, interiorof extant build- 
 
 ing, style of archi- 
 tecture, ornamenta- 
 tion, etc., 184 ST., 
 198 AT. 
 ,, destructive work of 
 
 alteration, 201, 202. 
 ,, desecration of, by 
 
 Revolutionists, 202. 
 ., porches of, 208 flf. 
 
 „ looting of, 333. _ 
 
 ,, profane celebrations in, 
 
 334- 
 ,, ornaments and images 
 
 of, burnt, 334. 
 „ gifts to, 40, 43, 51, 59, 
 
 108, 256. 
 Chambre des Sonneurs, 190. 
 Chapel of the Seven Sorrows, 184, 
 
 20c. 
 Chapelle Vendume, 200. 
 Charles VII., 257, 258. 
 Charles-le-Mauvais, 248. 
 Charles the Wise, 252. 
 Charter, town of Chartres receives, 
 238. ^ 
 ,, conditions of, 241, 242. 
 Chartrain Crusaders, 100. 
 Chartres, passim. 
 
 defences of, in fourteenth 
 
 century, 244, 247. 
 made the capital of the 
 Burgundians,255, 256. 
 retaken by stratagem, 
 
 . 257> ^58. 
 
 siege of, by Cond^, 272- 
 
 279 ; record and relics 
 
 of siege, 279, 280, 281. 
 
 siege of, by Henry IV., 
 
 302 fF. 
 constituted the capital 
 of the Department of 
 Eure-et-Loir, 327. 
 march upon, and occu- 
 pation of, by Prus- 
 sians, 346-350. 
 school of, 71, 78, 286. 
 Chateau d'Anet, 289, 343. 
 Chemin de Cisar, 16. 
 Chevauch^e, equestrian promenade 
 to Josaphat-Les-Chartres, 98, 
 99. 
 Citadel, Porte S. Michel converted 
 into, 3H, 322. 
 
 356 
 
 Claude Huvi, 286. 
 Clement, glazier of Chartres, 164. 
 Clement Marot, 269, 270. 
 Clocher Neuf, 28, no, 113, 118, 
 140, 189-193. 
 ,, ,, signals from, dur- 
 
 ing siege, 272. 
 Clocher Vieux, 27, 109, no. 113, 
 
 114, 118, 125, 126, 190, 193. 
 Cloister, 102; remains of gates, 103. 
 Cloture du Chceur, 201, 202-207. 
 Clovis, 14, 35, 36. 
 Cnut, contributes to building of 
 
 Cathedral, 73. 
 Coalition of Chartrains, Cham- 
 
 penois and Angevins against 
 
 King of England, 233. 
 College founded at Chartres, 322. 
 Communes, way prepared for 
 
 their institution, 95. 
 Conconnetodumnus, leader of 
 
 revolt in Gaul, 13. 
 Conde, Prince of, 271, 272, 273, 
 
 279. 
 Consecration of Henry IV., mir- 
 aculous oil used for, 312 ; its 
 
 arrival at Chartres, 312, 313 ; 
 
 taken back to Marmoutiers, 316. 
 Constituent Assembly, decrees of, 
 
 concerning Church, 327. 
 Corporations, trading, in the 
 
 Middle Ages, 165, 166, 167. 
 Council of Clermont, 95. 
 Countess Catherine, 236. 
 Counts, government by, 53. 
 ,, power of, 231. 
 ,, of Chartres, castle of, 54, 
 
 55, 83. 
 County of Chartres bought by 
 
 Philippe-le-Kel, 238. 
 County of Chartres raised to a 
 
 duchy, 266. 
 Courtier, P., carver in wood, 284. 
 Cr^cy and Poitiers, 244. 
 Crimes, compensation for, by 
 
 cash, 85. 
 Crown, intervention of, in private 
 
 quarrels, 85 ; power over mon- 
 astic property, 85. 
 Crusades, effects of, 96 ff. 
 Crypt of Cathedral, 21 ff. 
 
 D 
 
 D'Ardelav, colonel of the Gas- 
 cons, 277, 278.
 
 Index 
 
 I )imensions of Cathedral, 230. 
 Divine intervention on behalf of 
 
 justice, 87, 88. 
 Divitiacus, Arch-Druid, 7. 
 Dreux, battle under walls of, 271. 
 Druids, 3 ff., 11, 15, 19, 29. 
 1 >u Cheval Blanc, street, 16. 
 Duchy of Chartres, 266, 323. 
 
 English akcheks, 244, 255. 
 
 Kodald, converted heathen, 16. 
 
 Ktienne, Count, Chartrain Cru- 
 sader, 100-102, 104. 
 
 F.udes, Count of Chartres, jq ; 
 narrative in connection with, 
 59. 60. 
 
 Kudes II., 73, 74, 75- 
 
 Evrard, Viscomte of Chartres, 
 Chartrain Crusader, i&o. 
 
 Evreux, sacked and burnt, 141. 
 
 P'east of Fools, 99. 
 
 Feudalism, change resulting from 
 
 advent of, 52. 
 Field of the Repulsed (Pre des 
 
 Reculis), 47, 279. 
 France, distressful state of country 
 
 after Poitiers, 244, 248, 249. 
 P'ranciscans, monastery and lib- 
 rary of, near Chartres, destroyed, 
 
 272. 
 Fran(;ois de Cologne. 78. 
 Frotbold, Bishop of Chartres, slain 
 
 with his followers. 42. 
 Fulbert, Bishop of Chartres (S. 
 
 Fulbert), 69-79. 
 
 Gallardon, taken by Chartrains, 
 
 258. 
 Gantelme, Bishop of Chartres, 58. 
 Gasselin, Bishop of Chartres, saves 
 
 the town, 45, 46. 
 Gaul, division of, under Augustus, 
 
 14. 
 
 Geoffrey the First, Bishop of 
 
 Chartres, 90, 91. 92. 
 Girondins, 328-330. 
 Godfrey, Bishop of Chartres, 20. 
 Godfrey, Viscount of ChSteaudun, 
 
 74- 
 Grandes compagnies (freebooters), 
 
 252. 
 Grotto, the, 3, 28. 
 Guillaume Morhier, seizure and 
 
 imprisonment of daughter, 253. 
 Gutruatus, leader of revolt in 
 
 Gaul, 13; his death, 14. 
 
 H 
 
 Hardouix, Bishop of Chartres, 
 59,.53- 
 
 Hastings, Chartres t.aken and 
 burnt by, 42. 
 
 Henry I. of England, letter of .S. 
 Ives to, 107 ; responds through 
 Queen Matilda, 108. 
 
 Henry I., successor of Robert the 
 Good, 77 ; present at dedication 
 of Cathedral, 79. 
 
 Henry IV. of France, besieges 
 Chartres, 302 ff. ; makes terms 
 with besieged, 309; his entry 
 into Chartres, 310, 311 ; makes 
 Chartres his seat of government, 
 311 ; reconciled with Church of 
 Rome, 311 ; coronation at 
 Chartres, 312-316. 
 
 Henry V. of England, 255, 256. 
 
 Henry, son of Thibault the Great, 
 232. 
 
 Hospital, or Hotel-Dieu, of Mitre- 
 Dame, 103, 104, 127. 
 
 H6tel-de-Ville, 317, 318 ; library 
 at, 318. 
 
 Hou.se of the Old Consuls, 267. 
 
 Huguenots, under Cond6, destroy 
 parts of Cathedral, 38 ; besiege 
 Chartres, 272-279 ; persecuted 
 at Chartres, 270; allowed their 
 own church, 322". 
 
 Hugues, Viscomte de Chartres, 
 104, 105 ; joins Cruriade, 106. 
 
 Hunald, Chartres taken and burnt 
 by, 40. 
 
 Hundred Years' War, 243, 244. 
 
 357
 
 Index 
 
 Illuminisme, heresy of, 324. 
 Irene, Empress, 43. 
 
 ,, ,, veil of, 48. 
 
 Jacobins, 329, 330. 
 
 Jean, carpenter of Cathedral, 108. 
 
 Jean de Fr^tigny, Bishop of 
 
 Chartres, 256, 258. 
 Jean Dupre, printer, 286. 
 Jean-le-Bon, 244, 252. 
 Jehan de Beauce, architect, no, 
 
 190, 194, 200, 203, 283, 284, 
 
 286. 
 Jehan Soulas, sculptor, 203. 
 Joan of Arc, 256 ; her brother, 
 
 Captain of Chartres, 256 
 John of Salisbury, Bishop of 
 
 Chartres, 234, 235. 
 John the Fearless, 253-255. 
 Josaphat-Les-Chartres, abbey of, 
 
 98 ; equestrian promenade to, 
 
 q8, 99 
 Jub6 (roodloft), 106, 122, 201. 
 Judicial combat, disputes decided 
 
 by, 86, 87. 
 
 La Dame des Grottes, 195. 
 
 La Hire, 257, 258. 
 
 La Huguenotte, 273. 
 
 Laurent des Moulins, poet, 289, 
 
 290. 
 Lay6 collection of arms, etc., 321. 
 Leonard Limousin, enamels of, 
 
 343. S44- . , ^ . 
 
 Lieu-Fort, Puits des Saints Forts, 
 19 ff. 
 ,, chapel of, 65. 
 
 Life and property, insecurity of, 
 in eleventh and twelfth cen- 
 turies, 84. 
 
 Louis, Count of Chartres and 
 King of Bithynia, 235, 236. 
 
 Louis-le-Jeune, 232, 233. 
 
 Louis XL, 261, 262. 
 
 Lubessac, M. de. Bishop of 
 Chartres, refuses oath to New 
 Constitution, 328. 
 
 Lucius Plancus, 11 ; remains of 
 camp, 12. 
 
 M 
 
 Magenakd, Abbot of S. Pere, 
 
 61-63. 
 Maison du M^decin, 289. 
 Maison du Saumon, 268. 
 Malledegonde, Sister to S. Cal6- 
 
 tric, 36. 
 Marceau, General, 328, 335, 336. 
 Marot, 269-270. 
 Martyrium, or Chapel of S. Lubin, 
 
 23, 27, 28. 
 Mary Queen of Scots, reception 
 
 at Chartres, 263, 265. 
 Mary and Gabriel, bells known as, 
 
 193, 306. 
 Mathurin R^gnier, 286, 292-301. 
 Matilda, wife of Henry I., her gifts 
 
 to Cathedral, 108. 
 Metier de la Riviere, 167, 168. 
 Michel F^libien, historian, 286. 
 Miles d'llliers. Bishop of Chartres, 
 
 261. 
 Miracles wrought by Our Lady of 
 
 Chartres, 143, 144, 146, 147, 148. 
 Modesta, martyr, 17, 18. 
 Mosaic glass, colours and manu- 
 facture of, 151-155. 
 Municipal Museum, 317, 318. 
 
 N 
 
 Nicholas de Thou, Bishop of 
 
 Chartres, 310, 311,321; assists 
 
 at coronation of Henry IV., 313- 
 
 316. 
 Nicolas Boisnet, appointed Bishop 
 
 in place of M. de Lubessac, 
 
 328. 
 Notre-Dame-de-la-Breche, 280, 
 
 306 ; miraculous intervention of, 
 
 281, 282. 
 Notre-Dame-de-la-Breche, chapel 
 
 of, 5, 280, 282. 
 Notre-Dame-de-la-Vicloire, 242. 
 
 358
 
 Index 
 
 Notre-Danie-de-Sous-Terre, 4, 5, 
 21, 28, 29, 30, 274; burnt by 
 Revolutionists, 335. 
 
 Notre - Dame • de - Sous - Terre, 
 cliapel of, 16, 25, 28, 65. 
 
 Old wooden houses in Chak- 
 
 TKES, 267, 268. 
 
 Orleans, sacked and burnt, 13 ; 
 named after Aurelian, 14 ; 
 besieged by Attila, 33. 
 
 Paix Foukr^e, 253, 255. 
 Peace of Longjunieau, 279. 
 Peasants, amelioration of condition 
 
 of, 84. 
 Fcpin, 40. 
 
 IVter the Hermit, 96. 
 Philippe 1., marriage of, opposed 
 
 Ijy S. Ives, 93. 
 I'liilippe Auguste, 233, 237. 
 Pliilippe-le-Bel, 238, 239, 242. 
 Philippe de Valois, 243. 
 Philip Delorme, 2S9. 
 Pierre, Ablwt of Celles and S. 
 
 kemy. Bishop of Chartres, 235. 
 I'ierre Nicole, theologian, 286. 
 l^ierre Plume, Canon of Notre- 
 
 Dame, has folio missal printed, 
 
 286. 
 Pilgrims to Charlres and their 
 
 offerinus, 144, 145. 
 Place Hillard, 54, 83. 
 Place de I'Etape au Vin, 83. 
 Porche Royal, 29, 98, 106, 126, 
 
 127 ff. 
 Porte Guillaume, 247. 
 Porte Neuve, and eight other 
 
 gates, part of enclosure of 
 
 cloister, 103. 
 Porte Royale, Porte Speciosa, 
 
 Porte Triumphalis, 128. 
 Priscus, King of the Carnutes, 
 
 II. 
 Procession, annual, on anniversary 
 
 of deliverance of town, 279, 280, 
 
 306. 
 
 Queen P.ektha, 267, 268. 
 Queen Bertha's staircase, 267. 
 Quirinus, 17, 22 ; sudden death. 
 
 R 
 
 Ragenfkoi, Bishop of Chartres, 
 
 58, 59- . 
 Reformation, the, and its sup- 
 porters, 269. 
 Regnault de Mougon, Bishop of 
 
 Chartres, 140, 235. 
 Renaissance, influence of, 200, 201. 
 Revolution, 324 fT. 
 Robert, King, 72, 74 ; Canticles 
 
 composed by, 78. 
 Robert of Tours, liishop of 
 
 Chartres, Cardinal and Legate, 
 
 89. 
 Robert • le - Breton, Bishop of 
 
 Chartres, 233. 
 Robert Pinaigrier, window painted 
 
 by, 342. 
 Roger, architect, 139. 
 Rollo, 44, 49, 51. 
 Rose of France, window so called, 
 
 159. 183. 
 Rue de la Breche, 279. 
 
 S. Aionan, 33, 39. 
 
 ,, church of, 33, 34, 35, 
 
 83. 
 S. Albin, 15, 16. 
 S. Andre, church of, 282-284. 
 S. Anne, chapel of, 27. 
 
 ,, head of, .sent from Con- 
 stantinople, 27, 212. 
 S. Aventin, first Bishop of 
 
 Chartres, 18. 
 S. Bernard, preaches crusade, 232. 
 S. Cal6tric, Bishop of Chartres, 36, 
 37- 
 ,, sarcophagus of, 26. 
 S. Ch<fron, 31. 
 
 ,, abbey of, destroyed, 
 
 42 ; restored, 50. 
 ,, church of, destroyed, 
 
 273- 
 
 359
 
 Index 
 
 Ch6ron-du-Chemin, 31. 
 
 Clement, chapel of, 26, 65. 
 
 Denis, 31. 
 
 Denis, battle of, 271. 
 
 Eustace, 163. 
 
 Fiacre, chapel of, 248. 
 
 Fulbert ; see Fulbert. 
 
 Fulbert, chapel of, 27. 
 
 Foy, church of, destroyed, 274 ; 
 rebuilt, 274. 
 . Jean-en-Vall6e, monastery of, 
 
 75- 
 
 . John the Baptist, chapel of, 27. 
 
 . Joseph, chapel of, 27. 
 
 . Ives, Bishop of Chartres, 91, 
 ff., 283 ; his attitude towards 
 divorce, 92 ; opposes marriage 
 of Philippe I. with Bertrade de 
 Montfort, 93, 94 ; seized, and 
 lands ravaged. 94 ; takes part 
 in Council of Clermont, 95 ; 
 preaches crusade, 99 ; dispute 
 with Adele, widow of Count 
 Etienne, 104, 105 ; death, 106. 
 
 . Laumer, 162. 
 
 . Laumer, church of, restored, 
 
 50- 
 . Lubin, Bishop of Chartres, 36, 
 
 37- 
 ,, tomb of, 38. 
 
 ,, church of, restored, 
 
 50. 
 ,, chapel of, or martyrium. 
 
 23, 27, 28. 
 . Martin, 31. 
 
 ,, abbey of, restored, 50. 
 
 ., chapel of, 25, 26. 
 
 , Martin-au-Val, church of, 37, 
 38,39,43,64, 
 65. 
 ,, monastery of, 
 
 31- 
 , Martin-le-Viandier, church of, 
 26. 
 , Mary Magdalene, chapel of, 
 
 27-. 
 
 , Nicholas, chapel of, 25, 26, 37. 
 , Pere, abbey of, 5, 36, 58, 59, 83 ; 
 destroyed, 42 ; restored, 50, 58 ' 
 election of abbot, dispute con- 
 cerning, 61, 62, 63 ; monks of, 
 their right of jurisdiction, 85, 
 337 ; abbey church of, 65, 
 
 336 ff. ; barracks 
 abbey, 103, 336. 
 
 Piat, 44. 
 
 Potentian, 15, 16. 
 O 
 
 site of 
 
 36c 
 
 S. Potentian, church consecrated 
 by, i6 ; destroyed 
 and rebuilt, 19 ; 
 ,, chapel of, 65. 
 
 S. Savinian, 16. 
 
 ,, chapel of, 65. 
 
 Sancta Camisia, or Veil of the 
 Blessed Virgin, 3, 43,44, 47. 48, 
 49. 142, 143- 
 Serfage, 52. 
 Serfs, ecclesiastical, claimed by 
 
 secular Lords, 234. 
 S6rotin, converted heathen, 16. 
 Social conditions in the days of 
 
 chivalry, 88, 89. 
 Soeurs-cryptes, les, 194, 195. 
 Streets of Chartres, filthy condi- 
 tion of, 264, 265. 
 
 Talbot, 258. 
 
 Tanners and cobblers, i68, 169. 
 
 Tasgetius, nominated king by 
 
 Cjesar, assassinated, 11. 
 Tertres, 83. 
 The Forest, old roof known as, 
 
 193- 
 Theodoric, Bishop of Chartres, 
 
 7.5' 79- 
 
 Thibault-le-Tricheur, first heredi- 
 tary Count of Chartres, 53, 54, 
 59- 
 
 Thibault IL, 61, 62, 63. 
 
 Thibault, successor of Eudes H,, 
 75.76. 
 
 Thibault the Great, 231. 
 
 Thibault-le-Hon, 232, 233. 
 
 Thomas of Canterbury, 233. 
 
 Tocsin bell, 192. 193. 
 
 Tour de Ville, la Chandelle du 
 Tour, 279, 280. 
 
 Tour le Roi, Tour le Comte, 57. 
 
 Treaty of Br^tigny, 249 ; prelimin- 
 aries and miraculous interven- 
 tion of Notre-Damede Chartres, 
 249-252. 
 
 Treaty of Troyes, 255. 
 
 Tribunal, judicial, set up at 
 Chartres, 266. 
 
 Tribunal of Commerce, 267. 
 
 Truce of God, the, 95. 
 
 Truie qui file, 125.
 
 Index 
 
 Vercin(;etorix, 13. 
 Vierge Noire, Notre-Danit-du- 
 Pilier, 29, 201, 279 ; 
 offerings at shrine, 
 242, 243. 
 ,, chapel of, 20S. 
 
 Vintage of La Keauce, 169, 170. 
 Virgin! Paritura;, 4, 16, 29, 30. 
 
 ,, chapel dedicated 
 
 to, 31. 
 Vulphard, Bishop of Chartres, 63. 
 
 W 
 
 William of the White Hands, 
 Bishop of Chartres, 233. 
 
 Windows of Cathedral — apse, 
 158, 161 ; aisles, 156, 157 ; choir, 
 150, :6i ; designers of, 164 ; 
 donors of, 164, 165, 167, 168, 
 170; nave, 150, 153, 154, 157; 
 north transept, 155, 159, 160 ; 
 rose, 153, 158, 159, 160, 184, 
 185; western, 150, 158; south 
 transept, 160; subjects of, 170 ff. 
 
 Zodiacal Signs, months of the 
 year, treatment of, 130, 131. 
 
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