The Cathedrals of Northern France Part 14

II

NOTRE DAME D'EVREUX

The Cathedral at Evreux is another of those edifices which gives one its best impression when first seen upon entering the city. Charmingly, possibly romantically, situated, it lies in a shallow valley with all the picturesqueness of its varied style limned against the sky in truly impressionistic fashion. This impression, when viewed from the slight eminence by which the railway enters the town, is a vista of rambling roofs and a long, sloping street running gently down to the very foot of the structure, which, set about and interspersed with verdure, as it is in the spring and summer months, warrants one in counting his introduction to this charmingly attractive, though non-consistent, type of church, as one of the events which will live in memory for years.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Notre Dame d'Evreux_]

If towering spires and pinnacles were a _sine qua non_ for a great and imposing architectural style, this church would at once rank as one of the most delightful examples extant; for these very features, albeit they are mostly of what we have come to accept as a debased form of art, are nevertheless possessed of a grandeur and magnificence which in many worthy examples are entirely lacking. The pair of western towers, of Romanesque foundation, were developed, not in what one knows as Gothic, but of the manifest and offensive pseudo-cla.s.sic order. They are capped, however, with something more akin to Moorish or an Eastern termination than Italian. The spire which surmounts the central crossing is, without question, a reminiscence of much that has been accepted as good Gothic form in the great central-towered English churches. Up to a certain point this can hardly be denied; but this rather weak, effeminate spire, which forms such an unusual attribute of a French cathedral, more than qualifies its right to a place in the first rank of spires. As for the rest of the exterior, it is a _melange_ of nearly every known architectural style. Undeniably fine in parts, like "the curate's egg,"

if a time-worn simile may be permitted, it forms an ensemble which would preclude its ever being accorded unqualified praise from even the most liberal-minded and optimistic enthusiast.

By far the most coherent view to be had near by is that from the gardens of the Archbishop's Palace immediately to the rearward of the choir.

Here the clipped trees, the warm coloured wall, along which the vines are trained, and what was once a ca.n.a.l, or moat, in the foreground, combine to present a singularly artistic and pleasing composition.

The north transept, of Bishop le Veneur, is of the superlative degree of its era (early sixteenth century), bordering upon the profusion of splayed ornament which so soon after turned to dross, but standing, as it does, of itself, clearly defined. The gulf was finally crossed when, less than a half-century later, the incongruous west front with its ill-mannered towers was built,--in itself a subject worth a deal of study from the artist who would picture graven stone, but contrasting unfavourably enough with the heights to which French ecclesiastical architecture had just previously soared. Here is offered the one unified Renaissance facade of a French cathedral, welded, as it were, in unworthy fashion, to a fabric with which it has nothing in common. The stone-mason here superseded the craftsman; and, with the termination of the reign of Francois I., and following with that of Henry II., came the flowering rankness of a degenerate weed, leaving, as evidence of its contaminating influence in this one example alone, traces of nearly every cla.s.sical order, from the simple Doric column to a hybrid which shall be unnamed.

The interior presents a general array of incongruities quite as remarkable as those of the exterior. The nave is very narrow; but the choir widens out perhaps a dozen feet on either side, adding immeasurably to an effect which is far more impressive than might otherwise be supposed.

The nave itself shows many varieties of building, ranging from the Gothic of the early twelfth to the late fifteenth centuries; the lower part and the easterly bays are Romanesque, or what perhaps has been popularly accepted as Norman, and date from 1125; the remainder and the triforium are of a century later.

The choir is of the decorated species of the early fourteenth century, with its arcaded triforium glazed, whereas in the nave it is without gla.s.s. The lady-chapel, of the time of Louis XI., shows that inevitable mark of degeneracy, the "_fleur-de-lys_," in the elaborated tracery of the window framing. The gla.s.s here is, however, excellent, in effect at any rate, with its gorgeous figures of knights, angels, and peers of France, drawn with a masterly skill which is often lacking in even more precious gla.s.s.

The chapel screens, some twenty in all, are wondrously turned and carved of wood. This leads one to venture the thought that the similar decorative embellishments of the Renaissance chateaux of the Loire country were slowly creeping northward, and leaving their impress upon the work of the ecclesiastical builder and decorator. Certainly, the numerous fine examples of the art of the wood-carver, to be seen in this cathedral, bespeak much for the decorative quality of wood, when used considerately in conjunction with stone.

There are two rose windows, of the petal species, unquestionably fine as to framing, but leaving little s.p.a.ce for the effect of the gla.s.s, which they hold only in small proportion.

The "treasury," alone, is enclosed with iron bars, and a _grille_ of graceful late flowing ironwork forms the screen of the choir. Altogether the Cathedral at Evreux will be remembered quite as much for its wonderful array of wooden and iron _grilles_ as for any other of the specific details among its ma.s.s of general attributes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Window Framing--Evreux_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Notre Dame d'Alencon_]

III

NOTRE DAME D'ALENcON

This former capital of the duchy of the same name is a sleepy, countrified French town, with little but its reputedly valuable and beautiful lace to commend it to the average observer.

As a cathedral town, of even secondary rank, it will fall far short of any preconceived ideas which one may be possessed of concerning it, though its Cathedral of Notre Dame is in many ways one of those irresistible shrines, which at least promise, and often fulfil, a great deal more than their lack of magnitude indicates.

Its facade, lacking the conventional towers, advances well into the roadway, as a sort of forward porch; as at Louviers near by. This porch is very ornate, with decorations of the late Gothic period of flowing tracery.

After all, it is an incongruous sort of a building, in that only this porch and its squat central tower, which is nought but a mere cupola, are in the least decorative.

The nave, the choir and chevet, and chapels, are all of a bareness which only exaggerates the floridness of these other appendages. The nave itself is but one hundred and ten feet long, and perhaps a scant thirty wide, and dates from the fourteenth century. It contains good gla.s.s of the same period, which luckily escaped the spoliation of the Revolution.

The choir is more modern, and much plainer in treatment, and is but fifty-five feet in length and of the same width as the nave.

There are no transepts; in short, the chief and most interesting features of the church are the before mentioned details, which, unquestionably bordering upon the debas.e.m.e.nt of Gothic art, are in every way attractive, with lightness and colour, if such an expression may be applied to gray stone.

Certainly the play of sunlight on gracefully carven stone is indicative of a brilliancy which might be termed an effect of colour; and it is with respect to that quality that the west facade of Notre Dame d'Alencon appeals; more than as an otherwise grand or even highly interesting structure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _St. Pierre de Lisieux_]

IV

ST. PIERRE DE LISIEUX

Lisieux, the city of the Lexavii, taken by Caesar and besieged by Geoffrey Plantagenet; its old houses; its crooked streets and picturesque decay; with its former Cathedral of St. Pierre (M. H.), memorable as the marriage place of Henry III. and Eleanor of Guienne; all go to make up the formula of one of the stock sights of Normandy.

It is scarcely an attractive town, in spite of its picturesque sordidness, made the more so by the smoke arising from many belching factory chimneys. In fact, one has difficulty in thinking of it as a cathedral town at all; and, as such, it hardly claims more than a brief resume of its important features. A much more interesting, impressive, and commanding church is that of St. Jacques, which at least has the stamp of a personality, which in the cathedral itself is entirely wanting, so far as one's latent sympathies are concerned. In spite of the purity of that which is Gothic in its fabric, it has little of that quality which arouses admiration, and which, regardless of the edict of a certain seer and prophet, is mostly that for which we revere a great monument,--its power to sway us impressively.

Mr. Ruskin has taken great pains to commend the southern portal as being "one of the most quaint and pleasing doors in all Normandy,"--a non-committal enough statement, most will admit, and one with which we are not obliged to agree. A broader-minded observer would have said that the main body of the church presents a unity of design, very unusual in a mediaeval work,--excelled by no other example in France. The greater part of the nave, choir, and transepts is the work of one epoch only; and, as some writers have it, of one man, Bishop Odericus Vitalis, who died shortly after its completion, in the latter part of the eleventh century. As a style, it may be said to be either the last of the transition or of the very earliest Gothic. Certainly this is something in its favour; but the general charm of its immediate surroundings is lacking, and the effect of its interior, with the diminutive windows of the nave and clerestory, does not tend to satisfy, or even gratify, one with the sense of pleasure which perhaps its more creditable features deserve. These are not wholly wanting; for, of course, one must not forget that doorway of Ruskin's nor the quite idyllic proportions of the nave with its uniform ma.s.sive pillars.

The lady-chapel was founded in the fifteenth century by the rascally Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, who, with his brother, prelate of Winchester, so gleefully burned Joan of Arc. This much he did in expiation of "_his false judgment_," though, except as a memorial of his significant remorse, the chapel itself would hardly be remarkable. The clerestory of nave and choir is considerably later. The transepts vary as to their windows, and the triforium arches are here at a different level from those in the nave.

The general exterior view of the cathedral is hardly satisfactory from any point. On three sides it is almost entirely hemmed in by surrounding structures, and the frontage, on the great open Place Thiers, is the first and the last opportunity of an un.o.bstructed view. As the Abbe Boura.s.se wrote of the Cathedral at Arras, it is best seen from a distance, about that, we should say, from which the accompanying drawing was made. The gardens of the Sous-Prefecture, formerly the Bishop's Palace, should form in a way a cool green setting for the church; but, as a matter of fact, they do nothing of the sort, since the enormous ma.s.s of a none too good Renaissance facade extends along quite two-thirds of the length of the cathedral on the north, and blankets it thoroughly, scarcely more than the rather stubby tower of the west front being visible above the roof of the other structure.

Lisieux apparently never ranked as an important see, but depended for the prominence which it attained previous to the Revolution, when the see was abolished, on its a.s.sociation with Rouen, to which it was attached. The neighbouring Cathedrals of Seez, Bayeux, and Coutances far outrank St. Pierre de Lisieux in size, beauty, and importance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NOTRE DAME _de SeEZ_ ...]

V

NOTRE DAME DE SeEZ

The ancient Civitas Sagiorum of the Romans is now a bishopric, suffragan of Rouen. This ancient Gallic stronghold, which fared hardly in the Anglo-Norman wars, presents to-day the impression of being a town somewhat smaller than the usual small town of France. It also has this advantage,--it is comparatively unknown to tourists, and likewise to some map-makers; all of which is decidedly in its favour. Seldom is Seez included in the itinerary of the tourist, even though it is situated in the heart of the "popular province."

Except for the fact that its charming cathedral is not of the generous proportions first impressed upon one, it is difficult to realize that such a n.o.ble architectural memorial should so often be overlooked and apparently neglected by those who might find a great deal of pleasure, and incidental profit, from a contemplation thereof.

As a town of celebrated history, Seez is of far more relative rank than its cathedral, which, in spite of its many beauties and charm of detail, has suffered perhaps more than any other in France, and yet kept a fairly pure early Gothic style; referring to the many additions and repairs made necessary by crumbling walls and sinking foundations.

The worst that has arisen from this unhappy state of affairs is, not that there has been any serious admixture of style, but rather that one gross interpolation has been foisted upon an otherwise symmetrical whole,--the enormous advancing b.u.t.tresses which flank the portal of the western facade; an addition of the fourteenth century, neither graceful nor decorative, and only made necessary by a tottering wall. A pity it is that some other equally effective method was not adopted.

The cathedral is, in a way, a satisfying representation of the cathedral of our imagination. From a distance, at least, and in comparison with the low-lying structures round about, it certainly appears as of great proportions, uniform and complete in itself. Immediate contact with it somewhat dispels these charms.

All things considered, one finds here, in this idyllic, countrified setting, a very attractive and fairly consistent Mediaeval Gothic church of the epoch contemporary with that of the best work of the northern builders, showing unmistakable evidence of having been laid down on good lines, and after a good design, in spite of the structural defects of its foundations. From any direction it may be viewed across a quarter of a mile of ploughed fields. The great national highroad, from the Channel to Bordeaux, pa.s.ses straight as a die through the town, and the cross-country line of the _Chemin de-Fer de Ouest_ ambles slowly northward or southward; with little occurring to break the quietude of local ease. The native is for the most part engaged in garnering from his truck farm, or in carrying its product to the railway, to be transported to market, and pays little attention to the stray traveller who occasionally wanders in to study the architectural offering of the town.