Cathedral Cities of France Part 4

In the fifth century Coutances received its first great church, the basilica of St. Eureptiolus, built, according to local tradition, upon the foundations of a pagan temple. Later on, Norman invaders did their best to undo the good work of the Christian bishops, and we hear that the bishops of Coutances in particular were compelled to take refuge in Rouen for a century and a half, until the peninsula finally pa.s.sed into the hands of William Longsword in 931, and for a time the churches had peace.

The barons of the Cotentin played a considerable part in the Norman Conquest of England, being among William's most loyal supporters.

Taillefer, the famous warrior at the battle of Senlac, the seigneurs of Pommeraye, Blainville, Pierrepont, all kept up the honour of Coutances in the lands across the water, as well as Bishop de Montbray, who, like Odo of Bayeux, held the office of a bishop in his own country and of a feudal lord in England. History has it on record that he held no less than two hundred and eighty fiefs in the conquered country, besides the lands which belonged to his ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the Cotentin. After the death of the Conqueror various pretenders to the dukedom of Normandy arose, and Coutances suffered from the local wars, falling into the hands of Fulk of Anjou and being retaken by Henry I., and to complete the hara.s.sed state of the Cotentin a dreadful famine spread over the district and reduced the town to a state of the utmost misery. In 1203 it was joined to France with the rest of Normandy; but this practically meant an entire renunciation of its freedom. Philip Augustus and Louis IX. confiscated its seigneurial rights and set a French governor to rule over the country instead of the Norman lords, though the latter king probably made up, in the eyes of the people of Coutances, for these encroachments by paying a visit to their town, which honour is remembered by them to-day not only as an act of royal condescension but of saintly beneficence.

In the wars of Edward III. and Henry V. Coutances had its share.

Standing in the western corner of Normandy, the town came at the end of a long line of strongholds which one after the other had surrendered to the English a.s.sault. Valognes fell, then the Ponts d'Ouve, then Carentan and Saint-Lo. Next Edward turned off towards Caen and followed on to Crecy; so that it seemed at first as though Coutances would escape altogether. However, the treachery of one of the neighbouring lords was to attempt what the enemy had left undone. In 1358 there lived in the chateau of Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte a certain Geoffrey d'Harcourt, surnamed Le Boiteux, whose nephew had been treacherously murdered at Rouen. D'Harcourt resolved to revenge the crime upon the city of Coutances. He got together an army with the help of the King of Navarre, and drew up his troops outside the town, with heavy machines for battery; and he had succeeded in forcing a breach, when the royal army, arriving at an opportune moment, upset his schemes and sent him back to his chateau of Saint-Sauveur. In the latter part of the war, however, this good fortune left the city. After his victory at Agincourt the English king marched westward to subdue the towns in the far corner of Normandy, and Coutances fell into his hands in 1418, remaining under the same rule until the Constable de Richemont drove out the English in 1449; and it is said that to all those of the inhabitants who had remained faithful to his cause Charles VII. made reparation for all the spoliation they had suffered at the hands of the English. This may, of course, have emanated from that prince's indolent good nature, which did not object to granting a favour where it was not too much trouble; but considering the utter laziness of Charles it seems unlikely that he should have troubled himself to this extent in the cause of a little city in the west, far away from Paris, when he was occupied with the new experience of being king in fact as well as name.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COUTANCES]

The League Wars were the next to touch Coutances.

Bricqueville-Colombieres, who, as we saw, was to meet a soldier's death upon the walls of Saint Lo some years later, took possession of the town in the name of the Protestants in 1561, and as the standards of both armies were followed by crowds of half-savage, ignorant peasants, thirsty for plunder of any sort, Coutances found itself overrun as it had been by a tribe of wild beasts. Men, women and children were ma.s.sacred without quarter, churches and houses were rifled and, worse than all, the beautiful Cathedral of de Montbray suffered a like fate and was despoiled of sculpture, carving, statues and sainted relics, the bishop and clergy being struck down before they could attempt to quell these barbarian inroads. This scene was repeated two years later, when Colombieres burnt part of the town, and again in 1566. After such treatment, it is hardly to be wondered at that the inhabitants of Coutances declared for the League, in spite of the fact that this disobedience caused the temporary removal of both their civil and seigneurial rights, the one pa.s.sing to Saint-Lo and the other to Granville.

In the reign of Louis XIII. Richelieu imposed upon the inhabitants of Normandy the hateful tax known as the Gabelle, and by this means stirred up the revolt of the "Nu-pieds." Coutances shared in several of the subsequent disorders. One Poupinel, charged with a commission from the Parliament of Rouen, was murdered in the streets of Avranches; and the tax-gatherer at Coutances, fearing a like fate, armed all his followers in the event of a possible disturbance. The worthy man's extra precaution, however, proved to do more harm than good; his servants in their excess of zeal saw an enemy in every harmless farmer come to do his marketing in the town, and a deadly weapon in every ashen stick, and the pitch of excitement grew so high that when the bell of Saint Pierre began to ring for a christening, they took it for the warning peal of the tocsin, and rushed out into the streets with loud cries, brandishing their weapons and a.s.saulting in their excitement every innocent burgher whom they met.

As was but natural, this unprovoked attack roused the dormant spirit of revolt among the people; Nicolle, the unfortunate tax-gatherer, found out his mistake too late; the "Nu-pieds," under their chief, Le Sauvage, burnt down his house and murdered his brother; and for a few days, until the popular fury had quieted down, Coutances was thrown into a state of revolution. The terrible disturbances of the next century, however, did not work much havoc here. Only twenty-three persons in all were sent to the guillotine from Coutances during the Terror, and most of these, we are told, were burghers and not aristocrats, and the victims of private vengeance rather than of public fury.

Coutances had a good many notable bishops. There was Eureptiolus, mentioned above; there were Laudus, the founder of Saint-Lo; and Robert of Lisieux, who built his church on the foundations of the old basilica; and Geoffroy de Montbray, whose best life-work was given to finishing what Robert had begun; Hugues de Morville, who restored the Cathedral in the thirteenth century; and energetic, tenacious Geoffroy Herbert, who was possessed with a perfect mania for building, in and out of Coutances, and to whom the town owes the church of St. Pierre.

The Cathedral at Coutances was founded by the widow of Richard the Fearless in 1030, and completed towards the end of the century by Geoffroy de Montbray, William the Conqueror's fighting bishop. After the union of Normandy to France it was rebuilt, and the work of restoration extended into the fifteenth century. Entering by the north porch one is struck by the beauty of the doorway, whose overhanging mouldings and shafts are designed with great elegance and freedom. The English type of capital, with round abacus and vigorous foliation, reminds one of the cathedrals of Salisbury and Lincoln; and the tympanum with its sadly-mutilated figures is carried on a corbel table of great beauty. The interior elevation of the bays is composed of three features--pier arches, a fine triforium with quatrefoil bal.u.s.trade, and a rather small clerestory with a pa.s.sage-way crossing its base. There is a great deal of exquisite gla.s.s in the cathedral, especially in the transepts. In the choir the love of high clerestories, admitting as much light as possible to the chancel, to the almost complete extinction of the triforium, shows itself here as in many other churches already noticed. The upper windows are in two planes, with a light shaft supporting the interior arches.

In the ambulatory there is what looks like a blind stone bay, corbelled out and resting on the capitals of the columns. Probably this is a staircase leading to the upper pa.s.sages of the triforium and clerestory.

The lantern, which is octagon in plan, has three tiers of arches, the over-hanging sides being supported by a simple pendentive with very slight mouldings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SOUTH PORCH OF THE CATHEDRAL, COUTANCES]

Beyond the Place du Parvis, where the Cathedral stands, is the Musee, once the house of Quesnel Moriniere, who at his death left to the town both house and garden. The latter is now converted into a Jardin Public, which every French town, however small, seems to possess; and sitting or walking amidst its shady alleys and green lawns, with catalpas and orange trees in full bloom overhead, one feels very kindly disposed towards the good citizen who planted them and left this possession for the enjoyment of his fellows.

During our stay at Coutances one incident took place which may be interesting as showing how mediaeval customs still survive in these little towns. In the middle of the night we were roused from sleep by the blast of a bugle in the street below. This was presently followed by a roll of drums and shouts of "Au feu! au feu!" The deep-toned bell of St. Nicolas then took up the alarm and echoed out far and wide its warning notes. In a moment the town was awake. Heads peered out at every window, and the street was soon alive with the tread of hurrying feet; cafe and cabaret furnished their contingent to the excited crowd, and even children were brought out of their beds to gaze down the blazing street. The gregarious and sympathetic Frenchman can never allow any event to take place, be it funeral, festival or fire, without calling all his friends to a.s.sist at it; and the general turn-out into the streets reminds one of the thousands of Londoners who left their beds to celebrate the relief of Mafeking.

Chapter Eight

LE MANS

"Each land and city," says Freeman, "has its special characteristics which distinguish it from others. One is famous for its church and its bishops, another for its commonwealth, another for its princes. Le Mans has the special privilege of being alike famous for all three." At Le Mans, church, counts and commune have each made a separate mark upon the roll of French history. The communal power gave the town strength within itself; the counts of Maine, whose line dates back to the time of Hugh Capet, made of it a mighty feudal possession; and the great church above the Sarthe, whose traditions have been handed down even from Saint Martin of Tours, stood apart on its hill-crest and watched over the city.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. PIERRE, COUTANCES]

As was usually the case in these powerful cities the commune was the last element to arise at Le Mans; before its appearance we find both Church and State fully established on the hill. Julian built his church under the rule of Trajan; Defensor, the local ruler, lived in his palace side by side with the great missionary bishop who had converted him to Christianity; and after him came the line of counts who seem to have been always at war either with Normandy on the one side or with Anjou on the other. Considering these two powerful neighbours, it is wonderful what a prestige Maine did succeed in establishing, by the help of her bishops, and also by the help of the strong fortress which was her capital city. But in the reign of the prince from Liguria, Azo, to whom Maine had descended in an indirect line, a third factor thrust itself into the growing fabric of the city. It may have been the example of Italian states which the coming of an Italian ruler had brought before the Cenomannians more forcibly; it may have been the encroachments of the Countess Gersendis, regent in the absence of her husband; but from whatever cause, it was certain that memories of the munic.i.p.al rights of ancient Gaul were being kindled amongst the people--murmurs were heard of a time when, under the Roman yoke, a prince did not signify a tyrant--and presently the Cenomannian burghers took the law into their own hands and met together to declare their freedom and--a testimony of their strength--compelled Geoffrey of Mayenne and all the surrounding princes to swear their civic oath. Thus was founded the earliest _commune_ in Gaul, and when, soon afterwards, the Conqueror subdued Le Mans and the whole state of Maine, the city still retained its newly won privileges, William binding himself over to respect and observe the customs pertaining to the same, the ancient "justices" of the city. A threefold history of this kind leads one naturally to look for a threefold interest within the town itself; yet this is lacking in the city of to-day--its past glories lie rather in tradition and a.s.sociation than in anything more tangible. The church still stands upon the hill, but it stands alone. Almost every trace of feudal prince and ancient commune has been swept away, and the old Le Mans has become a city of solid white-painted buildings and clean, sunny _places_. By the river-side and near the Cathedral a few old houses and crooked alleys still remain, and here too may be seen fragments of the old city walls, built by Roman forethought in the third and fourth centuries. These ramparts have stood the town in good stead. From its position and importance, Le Mans has always been coveted by the enemy, and since the days of Clovis down to the war with Prussia it has known the tread of besieging hosts at its gates. The Normans had it under the Conqueror, and lost it under his son, Duke Robert; during the Hundred Years' War it was besieged five times; the Huguenots took it during the wars of the League; after the fall of the Bourbon monarchy it was seized in desperation by the Royalists of La Vendee, but retaken by Marceau; and nearer our own day comes the terrible "week of battles" in January, 1871, during which the Prussians occupied Le Mans and defeated the army of the Loire so severely as to destroy all hope of relieving Paris.

"In the second half of the campaign, in the contest against France ...

both belligerents kept the same goal before their eyes--Paris: the one in order to dictate peace from within the walls of the conquered capital, the other in order to gain that victory which would give to the war the long and eagerly-desired change of fortune." During the winter of 1870 the army of the Loire had set out to reach Paris from Orleans; but a succession of defeats drove it back to the Loire, from whence it was to retreat upon Le Mans. Pursuit did not follow at once. The Prussian Army, under Prince Frederick Charles, waited between Orleans and Vendome until the New Year, when an advance was ordered, and the three divisions of the army marched upon Le Mans by their respective roads. Pa.s.sing Vendome, which was the scene of a sharp engagement with the enemy, they crossed the country between the Loire and the Sarthe with some difficulty; bad weather had made the roads almost impa.s.sable, and the district was cut up into vineyards, farmsteads and small valleys. "The invader rarely gets a general view of the country even from elevated positions; he must renounce any plan of acting with large displayed ma.s.ses, especially in the case of artillery; the action of cavalry is restricted to the roads, and the whole burden of the contest falls exclusively on the infantry." Fighting their way through the scattered French forces two divisions managed to come within ten miles of Le Mans by January 9, and on the next day the battle began. The Prussian watchword was "Forward with all speed," and such speed did they make that at the end of three days they had advanced upon the French in their strong position, keeping always to the maxim, "Stand firm in the centre and act on the offensive at the two wings."

"On January 11, the French army of the West was completely defeated near Le Mans by the German Second Army, under Prince Frederick Charles and the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, and Le Mans was immediately occupied."

Such was the announcement in _The Times_ newspaper on the morning of January 13, 1871.

General Chanzy, who was in command of the French army of the West, courted defeat by advancing upon Paris, and by his retreat upon Le Mans invited the Germans to occupy it. Prince Frederick Charles, leaving Orleans and pa.s.sing Beaugency and Vendome, arrived at the latter place in time to see Chanzy repulsed, but not in time to cut off the French army, which was now in full retreat towards Paris. A series of rear-guard engagements followed as the Prussians drove the French before them towards Le Mans. The storming of Change was the last of the many battles around Le Mans. It lies in a hollow with hills curving round it on two sides, the north and west, and on these hills the French had taken up their position. They had, apparently, no desire to advance and clear away the Germans who were attacking them, laboriously marching through snow and the thick woods which covered the position. The attacking force ran from tree to tree and sought whatever shelter was available, making frequent charges whenever an occasion offered itself.

Notwithstanding their pertinacity they failed to carry the heights, and were for some time in danger of suffering a severe repulse, as the reserves on whom they relied had not yet come up, but were pounding their way along the frozen roads from La Chartre to Le Mans. The troops bivouacked in the snow on the night of the 11th, and when the frosty sun rose on the morning of the 12th the French outposts had been withdrawn and retired upon Le Mans. By this time the Tenth Corps had joined the attacking force, and after heavy fighting in the streets and squares the town was won in the evening, and on the following day Prince Frederick Charles established there his headquarters.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LE MANS]

General Chanzy in his defence of Le Mans accomplished all that courage and gallantry in his dire situation could suggest; he disputed the country inch by inch before the advancing armies of the Duke of Mecklenburg and Von der Tann, but he was unable with his raw levies, with recruits undrilled, unshod and unofficered, to withstand the furious onslaught of the enemy. Such is the short tribute paid to the French general by _The Times_ correspondent with the Prussian Army.

The Cathedral of Saint-Julien sits astride a great rock overlooking the Place des Jacobins--a square wide enough for once to allow of an adequate view of the great church on its eastern side. It stands so high that the want of a central tower is felt less than would be the case at a lower level. The only tower of any pretensions is over the south transept--originally the north transept possessed one also--but even this is rather inefficient. It is advisable to enter the Cathedral by the west door rather than by the south porch, so as to prevent the uninteresting west wall of the nave from becoming a factor of one's first impression. From this point it is the choir that first arrests our attention; we pa.s.s on through the lower, simpler nave and through the great soaring chancel arch that to look upon makes us giddy, to the blaze of deep-coloured gla.s.s and the magnificent _chevet_ of stilted arches placed close together and looking from their great height much narrower than they really are. The same idea of height and light prevails in the transepts, for by this time the French architect had begun to gauge the emotional effect of tremendous height, and to dare greater things than his predecessors had ever dreamed; while the same insatiable desire for light that we saw in the choir at Amiens has possessed the builder of Saint Julien, and led him to make his transepts nearly all window--especially the northern one, which has a triforium lighted by beautiful fifteenth-century gla.s.s--and to put a double ambulatory round the choir, both lighted by that marvellous jewelled gla.s.s.

The Romanesque nave was restored in the twelfth century, but this restoration was apparently a replacement of a great deal of old work, with only slight modifications of the original inspiration. A large door, decorated with sculpture and bearing a strong a.n.a.logy to the Portail Royal of Chartres, was opened in the middle of the south aisle.

Further changes were made in the early part of the thirteenth century, when the ancient apses were destroyed, and the admirable choir, as we now see it, was built--"a masterpiece of effect"--with its encircling chapels radiating like the petals of a flower. The vaulting approaches in construction the "cupola inspiration"; but here, as at Angers and Poitiers, it is an example of only the last traces which remain to us of the domical design.

Besides the Cathedral there are two churches worthy of note--Notre Dame de la Coture, in the eastern quarter of the town, amongst the shops and markets; and Notre Dame (sometimes called St. Julien) du Pre, across the river in the far west. The latter church, in spite of having been a good deal restored, is extremely interesting. In the nave hangs a little printed history, which tells us that the church was founded by the first bishop of Le Mans, Saint Julian, sent as a missionary by Saint Peter. In honour of his great master Julian built a basilica, which was enlarged by Saint Innocent in the sixth century and restored about 1050. In the fifteenth century both church and monastery suffered from fire; two centuries later the pious Benedictines made some alterations, but during the Revolution the church was sacked and burnt, and the crypt, together with the tombs of Saint Julian and Saint Hadouin, entirely destroyed. The task of restoration was left to the faithful in the nineteenth century. In spite of the modern work, however, the church contains a great deal that is very interesting and undoubtedly ancient.

The nave pillars especially, with their carved capitals, are worth individual notice. In those of the north aisle, from west to east, we find portrayed:

No. 1. Animals caught in a thicket, turning their heads over their shoulders to free themselves from the branches. Notice here how the volute at the corner has suggested to the sculptor a human face.

No. 2. Leaves and curiously twisted arabesques.

No. 3. The same in a simpler form.

No. 4. Volutes and grotesque heads at the angles.

No. 5. [South aisle, east to west] gives a kind of rope-work, with volutes and human-headed dragons.

No. 6. Is much the same as No. 3.

No. 7. Flat _applique_ leaves, volutes and ball-flowers; and in

No. 8. We return to the wild animals. Both aisles are arcaded on their outer walls; on the north we find arches ornamented with ball-flowers, on the south an arcade of some interest, as showing the immense variety of design in its capitals--dragons, fir-cones, arabesques, and, strangest of all, winged lions, with a most a.s.syrian air. Apart from the capitals, the architecture of the church is quite simple, and whoever rehandled it has done so much in keeping with the old work. The windows are round-headed: the clerestory consists of single lights, and the triforium is a blind arcade.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NoTRE DAME DE LA COTURE, LE MANS]

Notre Dame de la Coture--the name originally referred to the _Cultura Dei_--is an old Benedictine foundation, dating from the sixth century, but destroyed during the Revolution; the church, however, remains, with most of the old work intact, the two square fourteenth-century towers rising in quaint contrast to the modern buildings around them. Between the towers a remarkable Last Judgment confronts the visitor from the west doorway. The central figure, Justice, weighs a sinner in the balance, and apparently finds him wanting, if one may judge by the angle of the scales and the expectantly gleeful att.i.tude of a devil amongst the "goats" on the left hand. Of the interior, the choir is the oldest part, and here we find eleventh-century work, especially in the crypt, which contains the tomb of the founder, Saint Bertrand, and shows the rudely carved capitals and square-edged arches of an age before architects had blossomed out into beauty of sculpture and design. The same simplicity characterises the choir, which has four bays and a _chevet_ of five-round arches, with ma.s.sive piers, and the abacus square and voluted at the angles. The vaulting of the _chevet_ is terminated by figures of saints, which rest upon the shafts of the clerestory windows.

There is no triforium, its position being taken throughout the church by corbel tables in the form of human and animal faces. The nave consists of a single wide body without aisles, and set in the blank wall are three large bays of relieving arches, their s.p.a.ce being filled in with curious old tapestry, in which appears a medley of Biblical subjects, pastoral and hunting scenes, and Chinese paG.o.das.

This quiet little church was in the very centre of the furious street fighting which followed the first rush into the city of the Prussian troops, and fulfilled its sacred mission of giving shelter to the wounded and comfort to the dying who lay stretched in the neighbouring streets of the town. "We entered," says the war correspondent of _The Times_, "the picturesque old church of Notre Dame de la Coture, interesting from its quaint mixed architecture, its old choir and vaulted walls, and were told by the meek-looking priest who sadly showed us over it, and was busy cleaning it as we entered, that no fewer than six hundred wounded had pa.s.sed the night in it."

Chapter Nine

ANGERS

If Le Mans marks the first stage from Normandy upon the southward road, Angers may certainly be counted as another stepping-stone to the lands of the Loire--another landmark in our own history--another city upon a hill, and yet differing from all the hill cities before it. We are now in what Freeman calls "before all things the land and the city of counts," the city which gave to history the name of Fulk the Black, warrior and pilgrim and enemy of Odo of Chartres; of Geoffrey the Hammer, who strove with the Conqueror at Domfront and Alencon; of Rene the minstrel and of Margaret his daughter, who carried to England the spirit of the old Angevin line, and fought with the strength of two for the inheritance of her husband, meek, scholarly Henry of Windsor, for whom the shield of faith had more significance than the shield of the warrior.

The house of Anjou cannot but have an interest to an Englishman, since it is the parent stock of our longest dynasty. Long before it came through Normandy into contact with England it held its own, however, in Gaul, Roman and Frankish. The Andecavi, who settled on the Maine, were an important tribe, and their city was of equal importance. In 464 the Saxons wandered down from Normandy and overran Anjou, but their occupation was merely temporary, and left no traces in city or people, as did the Saxon colonies at Bayeux and in England; and when this one cloud has cleared off, an open field is left for the history of the counts. Now the Counts of Anjou may be said to stand very near the head of the list of all the rulers in France at this early time--a long list, which numbers many important names, Hughs and Roberts of Paris, Williams and Richards of Normandy, Thibauts of Champagne--yet against whose feats of arms and feats of policy the Angevins can measure theirs almost one by one. "The restless spirit of the race showed itself sometimes for good and sometimes for evil, but there was no Count of Anjou who could be called a fool, a coward, or a _faineant_."