The Cathedrals Of Southern France Part 8

The first mention of a cathedral church here is of a structure which took form in 1117--the progenitor of the present edifice. Such considerable repairs as were necessary were undertaken in the fifteenth century, but the church seen to-day is almost entirely of the century following.

The most remarkable feature of note, in connection with this _ci-devant_ cathedral, is unquestionably the luxurious flamboyant tower of the fifteenth century.

This really fine tower is detached from the main structure and occupies the site of the church erected by Charlemagne in fulfilment of his vow to Pepin, his father, after defeating Gaiffre, Duc d'Aquitaine.

In the interior two of the bays of the transepts--which will be readily noted--date from the twelfth century, while the nave is of the fifteenth, and the vaulting of nave and choir--hardy and strong in every detail--is, in part, as late as the mid-eighteenth century.

The eglise de St. Eutrope, before mentioned, is chiefly of the twelfth century, though its crypt, reputedly the largest in all France, is of a century earlier.

Saintes is renowned to lovers of ceramics as being the birthplace of Bernard Pallisy, the inventor of the pottery glaze; and is the scene of many of his early experiments. A statue to his memory adorns the Place Ba.s.sompierre near the Arc de Triomphe.

X

CATHeDRALE DE TULLE

The charm of Tulle's cathedral is in its imposing and dominant character, rather than in any inherent grace or beauty which it possesses.

It is not a beautiful structure; it is not even picturesquely disposed; it is grim and gaunt, and consists merely of a nave in the severe Romanesque-Transition manner, surmounted by a later and non-contemporary tower and spire.

In spite of this it looms large from every view-point in the town, and is so lively a component of the busy life which surrounds it that it is--in spite of its severity of outline--a very appealing church edifice in more senses than one.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CATHeDRALE _de TULLE...._]

Its tall, finely-proportioned tower and spire, which indeed is the chief attribute of grace and symmetry, is of the fourteenth century, and, though plain and primitive in its outlines, is far more pleasing than the crocketed and rococo details which in a later day were composed into something which was thought to be a spire.

In the earliest days of its history, this rather bare and cold church was a Benedictine monastery whose primitive church dated as far back as the seventh century. There are yet remains of a cloister which may have belonged to the early church of this monastic house, and as such is highly interesting, and withal pleasing.

The bishopric was founded in 1317 by Arnaud de St. Astier. The Revolution caused much devastation here in the precincts of this cathedral, which was first stripped of its _tresor_, and finally of its dignity, when the see was abolished.

XI

ST. PIERRE D'ANGOULeME

Angouleme is often first called to mind by its famous or notorious d.u.c.h.esse, whose fame is locally perpetuated by a not very suitable column, erected in the Promenade Beaulieu in 1815. There is certainly a wealth of romance to be conjured up from the recollection of the famous Counts of Angouleme and their adherents, who made their residence in the ancient chateau which to-day forms in part the Hotel de Ville, and in part the prison. Here in this chateau was born Marguerite de Valois, the Marguerite of Marguerites, as Francois I. called her; here took welcome shelter, Marie de Medici after her husband's a.s.sa.s.sination; and here, too, much more of which history tells.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. PIERRE ... _a' ANGOULeME_]

What most histories do not tell is that the cathedral of St. Pierre d'Angouleme, with the cathedral of St. Front at Perigueux and Notre Dame de Poitiers, ranks at the very head of that magnificent architectural style known as Aquitanian.

St. Ansone was the first bishop of the diocese--in the third century.

The see was then, as now, a suffragan of Bordeaux. Religious wars, here as throughout Aquitaine, were responsible for a great unrest among the people, as well as the sacrilege and desecration of church property.

The most marked spoliation was at the hands of the Protestant Coligny, the effects of whose sixteenth-century ravages are yet visible in the cathedral.

A monk--Michel Grillet--was hung to a mulberry-tree,--which stood where now is the Place du Murier (mulberry),--by Coligny, who was reviled thus in the angry dying words of the monk: "You shall be thrown out of the window like Jezebel, and shall be ignominiously dragged through the streets." This prophecy did not come true, but Coligny died an inglorious death in 1572, at the instigation of the Duc de Guise.

This cathedral ranks as one of the most curious in France, and, with its alien plan and details, has ever been the object of the profound admiration of all who have studied its varied aspects.

Mainly it is a twelfth-century edifice throughout, in spite of the extensive restorations of the nineteenth century, which have eradicated many crudities that might better have been allowed to remain. It is ranked by the Ministere des Beaux Arts as a _Monument Historique_.

The west front, in spite of the depredations before, during, and after the Revolution, is notable for its rising tiers of round-headed arches seated firmly on proportionate though not gross columns, its statued niches, the rich bas-reliefs of the tympanum of its portal, the exquisite arabesques, of lintel, frieze, and archivolt, and, above all, its large central arch with _Vesica piscis_, and the added decorations of emblems of the evangels and angels. In addition to all this, which forms a gallery of artistic details in itself, the general disposition of parts is luxurious and remarkable.

As a whole, St. Pierre is commonly credited as possessing the finest Lombard detail to be found in the north; some say outside of Italy.

Certainly it is prodigious in its splendour, whatever may be one's predilections for or against the expression of its art.

The church follows in general plan the same distinctive style. Its tower, too, is Lombard, likewise the rounded apside, and--though the church is of the elongated Latin or cruciform ground-plan--its possession of a great central dome (with three others above the nave--and withal aisleless) points certainly to the great domed churches of the Lombard plain for its ancestry.

The western dome is of the eleventh century, the others of the twelfth.

Its primitiveness has been more or less distorted by later additions, made necessary by devastation in the sixteenth century, but it ranks to-day, with St. Front at Perigueux, as the leading example of the style known as Aquitanian.

Above the western portal is a great window, very tall and showing in its gla.s.s a "Last Judgment."

A superb tower ends off the _croisillon_ on the north and rises to the height of one hundred and ninety-seven feet. "Next to the west front and the domed roofing of the interior, this tower ranks as the third most curious and remarkable feature of this unusual church." This tower, in spite of its appealing properties, is curiously enough not the original to which the previous descriptive lines applied; but their echo may be heard to-day with respect to the present tower, which is a reconstruction, of the same materials, and after the same manner, so far as possible, as the original.

As the most notable and peculiar details of the interior, will be remarked the cupolas of the roof, and the lantern at the crossing, which is pierced by twelve windows.

For sheer beauty, and its utile purpose as well, this great _lanthorn_ is further noted as being most unusual in either the Romanesque or Gothic churches of France.

The choir is apse-ended and is surrounded by four chapels of no great prominence or beauty.

The south transept has a _tour_ in embryo, which, had it been completed, would doubtless have been the twin of that which terminates the transept on the north.

The foundations of the episcopal residence, which is immediately beside the cathedral (restored in the nineteenth century), are very ancient. In its garden stands a colossal statue to Comte Jean, the father of Francois I.

Angouleme was the residence of the Black Prince after the battle of Poitiers, though no record remains as to where he may have lodged. A house in the Rue de Geneve has been singled out in the past as being where John Calvin lived in 1533, but it is not recognizable to-day.

XII

NOTRE DAME DE MOULINS

"_Les Bourbonnais sont aimables, mais vains, legers et facilement oublieux, avec rien d'excessif, rien d'exuberance dans leur nature._"

--ANDRe ROLLAND.

Until he had travelled through Bourbonnais, "the sweetest part of France--in the hey-day of the vintage," said Sterne, "I never felt the distress of plenty."