ARCHITECTURAL NOTES IN FRANCE
(From the Ecclesiologist, 1858–59)
I
A short holiday among French churches has left so many pleasant recollections of new ideas received, new thoughts suggested, ancient memories revived afresh, that it is as impossible as it would be churlish to refuse to communicate some notes of what I have seen; and as they are asked for I proceed to give them, though they must be more slight and generalizing than I could wish; for I have a very profound conviction of the great grandeur of ancient French art, and a corresponding sense of the danger of so treating it as to convey too small a sense of its value to those who have not studied it for themselves, or of offending those who are so happy as to have realized that value to the fullest extent and from actual inspection of its remains. It is needless to say that as the France of the present day is an agglomeration of ancient and distinct provinces, so also in its ancient buildings we can trace, without any difficulty, a variety of different national or provincial styles: it would be strange indeed were it not so. Even in England we have most striking varieties in style confined, generally, within the boundaries of particular dioceses; so that to understand ancient art aright, it is necessary to have an exact acquaintance with the third-pointed work of Devonshire and Cornwall as well as that of Norfolk and Suffolk, and to be able to perceive all the difference between the first-pointed work of the Yorkshire abbeys and that of Wells and Salisbury.
And if we have such marked differences in a country like this, we may well expect a much greater variety in a country which, like France in the Middle Ages, was not as now one great nation but divided into sections antagonistic to each other and exercising little if any reciprocal influence. It is easy, therefore, to map our France into certain divisions, each containing within its boundaries a special individual style of Gothic architecture, distinguished by notable peculiarities, and each affording a separate field for very careful study. Thus we have in the north of France distinct French styles, in, first, Normandy, and secondly, the old Île de France and the surrounding country, and thirdly, in the country bordering on Germany, a style which is rather German than French in all its leading features. Then going southward, we have, fourthly, a distinct Burgundian style, and another, marked by extreme peculiarities, in Poitou and Anjou, and (judging only by drawings, for I have never myself visited the extreme south of France), again other styles, whose centres are respectively at Clermont and at Arles. Of these various styles that of Normandy presents a very great affinity to our own. It is there, and almost only there, that we see the circular abacus, there only that we see much attempted in the way of deep and complicated architectural mouldings, whilst the general effect of many—especially among the larger churches—is extremely English. The likeness is one of which we may well be proud, for the architecture of this province is full of beauty and interest to a degree second only to that of the district of the old Île de France. Its very deficiencies, too, are English in their character, for in going from Paris into the heart of Normandy, the one thing which we notice more perhaps than anything else, is the general absence of the figure sculpture to which we have become accustomed; and this is the case also in England, where we have really hardly any at all extensive remains of sculpture, and certainly none which can be named with those whose pride it is to be the guardians of such churches as the cathedrals of Chartres, Paris, Amiens, Laon, or Rheims.13 The study of the architecture of Normandy is therefore the proper and natural sequel of a complete and careful study of English architecture, and may be entered on with the less hesitation as I believe I may safely venture to say, that what is learned there will be in no sense foreign either to the precedents or the sympathies of England.
The churches of Anjou, Poitou, and Touraine, appear to me to be of much less value for architectural study: though from the connection which was maintained between our own country and those parts of France during a long period of the Middle Ages, it is impossible but they should present much that is of the greatest interest to the English student. I have looked, however, in vain for evidence, either in the general design or in the details of their architecture, of any influence exercised by the English upon their art. In fact, when we held the country, we held it as conquerors not as colonists, and we left no mark of ourselves, but let the people go on building for us and for themselves in their own way. And their way was full of peculiarity, perhaps more so than that of any other part of France. They had their own system of planning, their own system of groining: and this, it should be remarked, is sure, if it has any peculiarity, to exercise a most powerful and obvious effect upon the whole architecture. There is, however, a heaviness, a repetition of the same idea, and an absence of delicate skill, as well as of bold architectural inspiration, which to my mind marks all the buildings in these parts inferior, not only to the best French work, but also to that of Normandy and of England. And now I go on naturally to say that I believe the best work in France is that which I described shortly as that of the old Île de France and the surrounding country; it is that which I have studied the most carefully, and love the most of any architecture that I know; it is one which presents no features unsuitable for our country, or inconsistent with the demands of our climate; it is one from the study of which I believe we should all derive an immense benefit, for it were wellnigh impossible to spend much time among the works of art which it so bountifully affords without being strongly impressed with the stern grandeur and masculine character of the men who conceived it, and without being elevated in our whole tone of mind so far as we have been impressed. A district which affords examples such as Rouen cathedral, S. Quentin, Amiens, Noyon, Laon, Soissons, Meaux, Rheims, Troyes, Chartres, Notre Dame of Paris, Mantes, S. Leu, S. Germer, Senlis, Beauvais, and others, must be conceded to be, if not the best, certainly the richest field for the study of our art in all Europe; and it is mainly to this district that I will take you, with this expression of my extreme veneration for the art enshrined in its architectural remains.14 ...
At Beuzeville, where the Fécamp branch joins the main line of railway to Rouen, it is worth while to walk a mile and a half to the church, not because it is a fine building, but rather because it illustrates well enough the differences between French and English ideas about village churches. The unbroken nave, thirty-three feet wide and sixty-nine feet in length, with its arched boarded roof,—the central groined tower with a spire springing some four or five feet below the ridge of the nave roof,—and the hipped vestry roof, are all unlike English work, yet the whole effect is particularly good notwithstanding the poverty of style, which is late flamboyant. There are four rows of fixed seats all down the nave—modern, of course.
From Beuzeville to Rouen the railway took me over ground well known to the majority of English travellers, and I would not say a word about Rouen, were it not that the strong popular delusion which has elevated the church of S. Ouen into its great attraction deserves to be protested against always. And, this, not because the church is not very fine and very pretty—it is both—but because S. Ouen-worship leads people to miss altogether, or only to half see and understand the extreme value and beauty of the cathedral. I have seen this often, and I find that, unlike some other churches, each time I see it I discern new beauties and new value in its art; and it lies so near to us, and teaches us so much not to be learnt in England, and yet of the utmost value to all of us, that I do not know how to express myself sufficiently strongly as to the advantage of a careful study of it to all workers in the revival. Indeed I think that the Architectural Museum could perhaps do more for art by helping young carvers to go for a time to Rouen for study, than by adding to their collection a multitude of casts which are often of necessity of doubtful excellence. The thing may be difficult to accomplish, but it ought to be done, for this one cathedral contains such an abundance and variety of sculpture as would almost put to the blush all our churches combined. The western doors of the north and south aisles are, to my taste, the most exquisite portions of the church. Their style is so early, and so immediate a deduction from Byzantine or Romanesque work that I can fancy a man, who had been taught to believe in the absolute perfection of our English fourteenth-century style, would be long before he appreciated to the full their perfection. They are moreover of a kind of work which is as rare as it is excellent. In England we have nothing, to the best of my belief, of similar style. I remember that Mr. Scott once suggested to me the probability that they were executed by the same man who executed the doorways in the west front of Genoa cathedral, and the suggestion evidenced fully his sense of the extreme rarity of the work. I believe, however, that they are examples of a style which was not that of an individual only. That it owed much to Italy I have little doubt: for even if there had been no trace of an Italian influence in the extreme delicacy of the whole of the sculpture, in the twining foliage of the door jambs, and the very singular and graceful foliage of the archivolts, yet it might, I think, have been detected indirectly. For in this same church, in the aisle round the apse, there still remains a monument of an Archbishop Maurice, the Italianizing character of which is most marked, and at the same time its details show that it is a work of precisely the same school as the western aisle-doorways. None who have been in Italy can forget the almost invariable type of the finer early monuments—a simple arch, surmounted immediately by a gable of very flat pitch, and supported on detached shafts. They will remember them at Verona often, in Venice, in Genoa, in Perugia, and indeed in all directions and of all dates; well, in this monument, we have the same thing, a round arch exquisitely adorned with angels (whereof two in the centre bear up the soul of the archbishop) and immediately above the arch a very flat pediment or gable. Perhaps, too, it is an Italian influence, which is evidenced in another respect in the decorations of the western doors. The alternate orders of the arch are simply chamfered, presenting in section three sides of an octagon, and these are covered with regular sunk patterns of the simplest kind, but marvellously effective. Go from Rouen to Genoa and you find the western doorways executed in marble, every plain surface in which is inlaid with geometrical patterns,—light patterns on dark ground, and dark on light. The effect is very similar in the two places: at Genoa the very best materials were to be had: and at Rouen where nothing but common stone was used, the artist struck out a system which produced an effect all but equal to that obtained at Genoa. And yet with all this similarity I am not disposed to class these two buildings together as the work of one man. The architect of Genoa loved mouldings much more than did the architect of these doorways; and I think I have met with a sufficient number of traces of similar work to convince me that it was the style of a class, not of a man, and one of those many and glorious phases through which our art in her rapid progress passed. The western doors at Mantes are very similar in their detail; those of Chartres—what a study they are!—partake largely of the same spirit; in the western façade of Notre Dame, Paris, there are traces of it; in Notre Dame, Châlons-sur-Marne, the south doorway was identical in character, and fragments of work of the same style have been discovered in the course of lowering the floor of that church to its ancient level; and in S. Germer, in the chapter-house of S. Georges de Boscherville, in the western doorway of Angers cathedral, and in parts of S. Remi at Rheims, I think we see the same style more or less developed. Undoubtedly the work at Rouen is the most excellent of all, just as it occupies the central position in point of date.
I am not afraid to confess that the whole of these examples are largely Byzantine in their character; in my eyes this is a virtue, not a fault; for I believe that it is here perhaps more than anywhere else that we may succeed in developing from our forefathers’ work. There seems to be here a mine of untold wealth, the workings into which were no sooner commenced than they were abandoned: and the style seems to be one which affords special opportunity for meeting our great difficulty at the present day, as it indicates a mode of obtaining rich decorations without being dependent for effect entirely on a horde of slovenly carvers, who, without an idea in their heads, ruin all the rest of our work by their failure in its sculpture.
This is a digression, but the subject was tempting: I will only say further, as to these remains at Rouen, that they have the rare advantage of not having been restored, and that they are entirely covered in all parts with work of almost uniform excellence, though, to my taste, the north-west door (the tympanum of which contains the life of S. John the Baptist) is the finest. The effigy of Archbishop Maurice is singularly elaborated: the patterns on the vestments, the details of the censers, and indeed all parts, being finished with the elaboration of a genuine Pre-Raphaelite. Before modern sculptors sneer at these twelfth century works, I wish that they would themselves attempt to produce even one block of stone, a foot square, as well wrought, and I doubt not they would profit by the lesson, novel though it might be.
The western doors of the aisles are placed between large buttresses, and arches are thrown over them from buttress to buttress. Between the arches of the doors and these upper arches, a small space of plain wall remained, which has been treated in the most ingenious manner. Figures are marked in outline on the stone, which were, I think, painted, and the ground throughout is diapered with a very simple pattern sunk in the stone. Over the south-west doorway was the Last Judgement: and over the north-west, our Lord seated with angels and saints on either side. In the former our Lord is seated on a throne, between two candles: angels present souls to Him, other angels bear a soul in a sheet, and others again on the right drive the wicked into hell.
I must say little more about Rouen; but I ought not to forget to notice the fine and very varied treatment of the capitals throughout the nave, and the thoroughly Norman (and English) effect of the immense numbers of clustered shafts, of which all the piers are composed. The double division in height of the main arcade is not easily accounted for; but if it was owing to an alteration in the height of the building, while it was in progress, it is a happy instance to be added to many others, of the skill with which mediaeval architects seized upon difficulties as the best opportunities for achieving successes.
The ground-plan of this cathedral is, I think, altogether one of the best in France. In particular the chevet is of great beauty. The aisle round the apse, instead of being completely surrounded by chapels, has its alternate bays only so occupied, with great advantage in point of effect, both internally and externally. The arrangement is almost identical with that of the fine chevet of S. Omer cathedral, and appears to me to be a happy mean between the one chapel at the east end of Sens, and the cluster of chapels which crowd the apsidal ends of almost all the great churches in the north of France. Whilst in its plan it is more skilfully disposed than the somewhat similar chevet of Chartres, it is preferable to those of Mantes and Notre Dame, Paris, where there were no projecting apsidal chapels,15 or Bourges, where they are so small as to produce no effect.
The north-west tower (that of S. Romain), should be ascended, if only to examine the framework of the roof and for the bells, and to note, among other things, the open wooden staircase in its upper stage. The view, too, of the city is finely seen; and I know few cities that reward more bountifully any trouble taken in the attempt to see them in this way. A city it is, indeed, of desecrated churches, but still a city whose situation on the noble river winding here under great chalk hills, and there along the edge of meadows green, flat and extensive, fringed with long perspective lines of poplars, is as beautiful and as happy as it can well be.
It is not a long walk from Rouen to S. Georges de Boscherville, and the view from the hill at Chanteleu is one of the best near Rouen. The church is but of slight interest, though its flamboyant tower, with a grand open western arch, forms a fine sort of porch, and indicates a variety which might sometimes be introduced among ourselves with advantage. S. Georges de Boscherville is too well known to require description but if others have formed the same conception of it that I had, they will thank me for saying that the chapter-house is an exquisite example of the earliest pointed work, full of delicate and beautiful detail. The three western arches are circular, but not Romanesque in their character; some of their capitals have foliage, some sculpture of figures, and the thickness of the wall is supported by a miniature sexpartite vault. The vaulting of the chapter-house is also sexpartite, with additional cells at the east and west end to accommodate similar triplets. As I have before said, there is much in the detail of parts of this building, which indicates the same school as the early-pointed work at Rouen. The chapter-house is a parallelogram, fifty-four feet in length by twenty-four feet nine inches in width, and groined in three bays. Some of the western entrance shafts are elaborately carved. The vault inside is coloured buff, and diapered with red lines in a small regular pattern all over.
Between Rouen and Mantes, a pause of a few hours at Pont de l’Arche enabled me to see the interesting remains of the abbey of Bonport. The refectory is nearly perfect, and there is a great deal of simple quadripartite vaulting remaining throughout the modern-looking farm-house. But of the church, the bases of one or two columns, and one respond alone remain, and these of an excellence of design which make it very much to be regretted that it should have been destroyed. The groined refectory, of five bays in length, is well worthy of a visit. The side windows are of two lancet lights, with a circle above, and at the north end is a window of four equal lancets, with small cusped openings above. The south end and entrance from the cloister are modernized. The pulpit staircase is perfect, and very ingeniously contrived; but the pulpit itself is destroyed. Among the buildings, which are of considerable extent, are some admirable examples of domestic windows; and, to conclude, the whole is of the very best early thirteenth-century style.
The church at Pont de l’Arche is one of those ambitious but very picturesque buildings, of which we have no counterpart. It is flamboyant in style, very lofty, and intended for groining throughout. This, however, was never completed, and there is a coved wooden ceiling in its place. A good deal of late stained glass, of very poor detail, exists in the windows, the subject of one of them being the Tree of Jesse.
Of the ancient bridge over the Seine, at Pont de l’Arche, not a vestige, I think, now remains.
The cathedral at Mantes is in many ways of much interest. Your readers are, no doubt, well acquainted with Notre Dame, Paris, and with the singular changes which have been effected in it from time to time. In Mantes, I believe they may see almost the same kind of conception, left with such slight alterations as do not in any way conceal the original design. It is therefore of special value.
I have already referred to the western doors. They are much mutilated, and the south-west door was replaced in the fourteenth century by an immense and conceited composition of a doorway with pediment and flanking pinnacles which is very damaging to the general effect of the façade. The remainder of the front is uniform first-pointed, with two steeples connected by an open screen as at Paris. The north-west tower has been already nearly rebuilt, and the south-west tower is now suffering from the same process, “suffering” I say, because I believe firmly that the original design is being annihilated. In both the belfry stage, which rises above the screen between the towers, is now much smaller than the stage below; nothing can look much worse than such a sudden diminution in size, and I am convinced that the original intention must have been (as at Laon) to continue the shafts and arcading which surround the lower stage up to the top. I made as careful an examination of the work as was possible, and have hardly a shadow of doubt that this was the case; but whether the authorities did not know the glorious steeples of Laon, or whether they have a view of their own as to what looks best, they are certainly making the upper part of this unfortunate west front look as modern in its outline and meagre in its character as it is new and fresh-looking in its colour. It were better that old work perished altogether, than that it should be scraped, re-chiselled, cleaned and modernized in this heartless manner!
The most noticeable feature of the interior is the treatment of the triforium of the eastern portion of the church. This is groined with a succession of transverse barrel-vaults, the effect of which is to give an immense addition of strength to the main walls. They spring from the capitals of a succession of detached shafts which are placed across the triforium, so that the perspective of its interior is singularly picturesque. It was not very long after the erection of the church that the western portion of the triforium was altered, a quadripartite vault being substituted for the barrel vaulting, and wherever this has been done, the thrust has been too great for the principal groining shafts, which have bulged considerably, and are now held in place by iron ties. In the apse, the bays being of necessity much wider on one side than on the other, the ridge of the barrel-vault rises rapidly towards the external wall: and the triforium is lighted by a succession of immense simple circular windows. The internal elevation of one bay of this cathedral is nearly identical with the original design of that of Paris, though simple and (I fancy) rather earlier in date; but from the shortness of the church and the absence of transepts (in which one point it reminds me of the fine church of S. Leu d’Esserent) it has both inside and outside the effect rather of a choir only than of a complete cathedral. There are various additions to the church of later date, which add much to its picturesque character, especially a chapel on the south side, the chapels round the apse, and the sacristies on the north side. The stone roof above the groining of one of these is remarkable. The arrangement of coloured tiles on the roof is one of the best I have seen. The pattern is rather complicated, and is formed with dark tiles (green and black used indiscriminately) on a ground of yellowish tiles.
The church from the apse to the western towers consists of but three bays of sexpartite vaulting, each bay covering two bays of the main arcades. Between the towers is one bay of quadripartite vaulting.
Walking from Mantes across the river to the suburb of Limay, a fine view is obtained of the town and cathedral, which shows here the whole picturesque exaggeration of height as compared with length which distinguishes it. Limay church boasts of nothing save a tower and spire on the south side, of late Romanesque character throughout. The surface of the spire is covered with scalloping, and has spire-lights and fine pinnacles at its base. Some attached shafts against the face of the belfry stage, which seem to serve no purpose, are curious as being probably the type from which some similarly placed shafts in the steeples of the cathedral were derived. Here too, as in the cathedral, a most effective form of label is used, the section of which is a square cut out into diamonds like unpierced dogteeth. We see the same thing in England, and among other examples there is a good one at Lanercost. Its effect is singularly bold and piquant.
A mile on the other side of Mantes is the little village of Gassiecourt, whose cross church is of much interest. The glass in the three chancel windows is fine, and of late thirteenth-century date. The east window of four lights with twenty-five subjects has been restored, and two of the subjects—the thirteenth and eighteenth—have been quite wrongly placed. The window represents the whole Passion of our Lord. The side windows of two lights contain large figures under canopies of the early part of the thirteenth century, in a sad state, but of very considerable value. The east window of the south transept has subjects from the lives of S. Laurence and another. The internal arrangement is remarkable; the fifteenth century stalls, with subsellae and returns, being placed in the two eastern bays of the nave, leaving three bays to the west. The old altar remains in the east wall of the north transept. The walls and roof of the south transept are covered with painting; on the roof are four angels with the instruments of the Passion, one in each division of the groining; the west wall has a painting of the Last Judgement, and the east large figures on each side of the east window; on the soffit of the arch into the tower are angels playing on musical instruments. The whole appears to have been painted in the fifteenth century, and, though of no great artistic merit, is of value in France, where, as in England, such things are very rare. A grand Romanesque west doorway, and a simple gabled central tower with a good belfry stage are the principal external features of this interesting village church.
Before I conclude, I must say a few words as to the evidence of popular feeling in regard to pointed architecture in France. It is partly, doubtless, owing to the fact that all the great churches are national property, and entirely sustained by the State, that we miss so entirely any of that evidence of personal and widely spread interest in them, which so honourably distinguishes most people in our own country. But descending to the second and inferior classes of churches, we find unfortunately the same apathy, the same neglect: so that a tour among French village churches would leave an impression on the mind of any Englishman that the clergy and laity are alike careless of their fate and ignorant of their value. One of the very few village churches which I have seen in process of restoration was being done by order of the Emperor, and by a rate imposed upon the commune, aided by an imperial grant; but there, as elsewhere, the repair was entirely confined to the fabric; and pews, pavements, altars,—all remain still in their old state, ugly, dirty, and uncared for. I must make honourable exception in favour of one large parish church, Notre Dame, Châlons-sur-Marne, where, with the greatest care and love for the building committed to his charge, the excellent curé is carrying on a restoration which appears to me to be by very far the best and most faithful that I have seen on the Continent. I have seen, I grieve to say, but little evidence of any practical love on the part of the people or the clergy for their glorious churches, but I will let M. Viollet-le-Duc—than whom who can be a better judge?—say what can be said as to the real impression which they produce:—
“Dépouillés aujourd’hui, mutilées par le temps et la main des hommes, méconnues pendant plusieurs siècles par les successeurs de ceux qui les avaient élevées, nos cathédrales apparaissent au milieu de nos villes populeuses, comme de grands cercueils; cependant elles inspirent toujours aux populations un sentiment de respect inaltérable; à certains jours de solemnités publiques, elles reprennent leur voix, une nouvelle jeunesse, et ceux mêmes qui répétaient, la veille, sous leurs voûtes, que ce sont là des monuments d’un autre âge sans signification aujourd’hui, sans raison d’exister, les trouvent belles encore dans leur vieillesse et leur pauvreté.”
II
Leaving Paris for Beauvais, the first station at which I stopped was l’Isle Adam, from whence a walk of two or three miles by the banks of the Oise brought me to the fine village church of Champagne. This is very unlike an English village church in its general scheme, but full of interest. In plan it consists of a groined nave and aisles, of six bays, a central tower with a square chancel of one bay, and transepts with apsidal projections from their eastern walls. The date of the whole church (with the exception of the tower arches, which must have been either rebuilt or very much altered in the fifteenth century) is about the end of the twelfth century. It is now undergoing repair at the joint expense of the Emperor and the commune, but this is being done in so careless a manner that it is to be hoped it will not proceed further than is absolutely necessary for the security of the fabric. The western façade has a very singular doorway, the tympanum of which is pierced with a window of six cusps, whilst the abacus of the capitals is carried across the tympanum, and a square-headed door pierced below. Above is a large wheel window of twelve lights. The aisles are lighted with lancets, whilst the clerestory has a succession of circular windows, which internally form part of the same composition as the triforium, the lower part being an unpierced arcade. The chancel is lighted at the east with a circular window enclosed within a pointed arch and on either side with early geometrical windows of two lights. The finest feature is the steeple, which rises in two stages above the roofs. The belfry stage is excessively lofty and elegant in its proportions, having two windows of two lights in each face divided by a cluster of shafts, whilst other clusters of shafts at the angles of the tower run up to a rich corbel-table and cornice, under the eaves of the roof. The finish is a hipped saddle-back roof of steep pitch and covered with slate.
Internally the most rare feature is a very light cusped stone arch of flamboyant character, with pierced spandrils, which spans the western arch of the tower, and no doubt originally carried the Rood. The capitals in the nave are boldly carved, and carry the groining shafts, which are clusters of three. At the west end of the north aisle, and projecting beyond the façade of the church, is the ruin of a small gabled chapel, the object of which I did not understand.
Altogether this church, owing to its fine character, and the retention of almost all its original features and proportions unaltered, deserves to be known and visited by all ecclesiologists, who travel along the north-of-France railway to Paris. A few miles farther on the left rises the fine church of S. Leu, which I have known for a long time, and which deserves, as I think, very much more notice and study than it appears to have received. The plan, situation, details, and style (early first-pointed) are all alike of the best, and I know few, even among French churches, which impress me more strongly with the thorough goodness and nobility of their style. The east end of the church rises from the precipitous edge of a rock, which elevates the whole building finely above the level of the riant valley of the Oise. It was attached, I believe, to a Benedictine abbey, the other buildings of which are all in a most advanced state of decay. The church fortunately, though much out of repair, and in some points altered into flamboyant, is nevertheless sufficiently perfect for all purposes of study. It consists in plan of two western towers (the north-west tower being only in part built) then six bays of nave and aisles, three bays of choir, and an apse (circular on plan) of seven bays; round the apse is the procession path, and four chapels, also circular on plan, lighted by two windows, so that one of the groining shafts is placed opposite the centre of the arch into each, and over the altars. In place of the fifth chapel on the north side, a circular recess is formed in the external wall of the procession path, so as to make space for an altar without forming a distinct chapel. I should be disposed to say that this was the original scheme of the church, afterwards altered and much improved by the substitution of larger and distinct chapels.16 The central chapel of the apse has the unusual feature of another chapel above it, on a level with the triforium, adding much to the picturesque effect of the east end. In addition to the western steeples there are gabled towers which rise above the aisles on each side of the choir, and the church is remarkable, like the church at Mantes, for the absence of transepts. Perhaps, as the internal length is not quite two hundred feet, this is of some advantage to the general effect. A considerable change has at some time been effected in the external appearance of the east end, for on examination I found that each bay of the triforium was formerly lighted by two lancet windows between the clerestory and the roof over the aisles. My impression is, that this must have been altered when the chapels round the apse were erected and within a very short time of the original construction of the church; but whatever the reason, the church has lost much by the alteration. The six bays of the nave appear to have been built after the west end and the choir. The latter has a noble very early-pointed doorway, rich in chevron ornament, and this seems to have had a porch gabled north and south between the towers so as not to interfere with the window in the west wall of the nave. The south-west tower and spire, though small in proportion to the height of the nave, are of elaborate character. All the arches are round, and there are two nearly similar stages for the belfry. The spire has large rolls at the angles and in the centre of each face (an arrangement seen at Chartres and Vendôme) but in addition it has the peculiarity of detached shafts, standing clear of the rolls on the spire and held by occasional bands. They have a certain kind of quaint picturesqueness of effect, but were never, I think, imitated elsewhere. The whole face of the spire is notched over with lines of chevroned scalloping. On entering the church the first thing that is remarked is the excessive width of the nave (thirty-six feet between the columns) compared to that of the aisles (about twelve feet). The result is, that a grand unbroken area is obtained for worshippers, whilst the aisles appear to be simply passage-ways. The general proportion of the building is, however, rather too low in proportion for its great width. Almost all the arches throughout the church are, more or less, stilted, and with the best possible effect. When the eye is thoroughly accustomed to this it is curious to notice how unsatisfactory any other form of arch is. The fact is, that a curve which commences immediately from its marked point of support is never so fine as where it rises even a few inches perpendicularly before it springs. The capitals throughout the church are finely carved, and those round the apse are of immense size, and crown circular shafts of very delicate proportions, much as at Mantes, and (though on a heavier scale) at Notre Dame, Paris. The construction of this part is of the very boldest character, and exemplifies in a very striking manner the extreme skill in construction to which the architects of the day had arrived.
Great effect is produced by the profusion of chevron and nail-head ornament used on the exterior of the church; a double course of the former of the very simplest kind forms the cornice under all the eaves, and is also used down the edges of all the flying buttresses. On the north side of the nave there still remains a portion of the cloisters, of fine early character; two sides only remain, with a room of the same date with groining resting on detached shafts. Some remains of gateways in the old walls of the abbey are worth noticing, as also the old walls which surround the church, built for the most part against the rock on which it stands, with here and there very small openings, which make them look as though they were intended for defence. Whilst I was in the church some boys came to toll the passing-bell. They said that they always did so on Fridays, at three o’clock.17
I saw nothing between S. Leu and Beauvais, though in the part of France bordering on the Oise, I believe that every village would afford something worth seeing in its church. My time, however, was limited.
As you reach Beauvais, the country changes; there is a great deal of wood, a very scattered population, and but few churches. Of course the first object of every one at Beauvais is the cathedral; a building from the study of which I derived less satisfaction than might be expected. It is unpleasant to find an artist striving after more than he is really able to attain, and this was conspicuously the case with the architect of Beauvais. The church was consecrated in A.D. 1272 and fell in A.D. 1284. In order to repair its defects the arches of the choir were subdivided, and from the great size of the columns, and the narrow span of the arches, the present effect is that of a church in which the arches have but little to do, and in which everything has been sacrificed to keep the building from falling again. Then when the roofs and passages about the building are mounted it is seen that the great object of the architect has been simply to obtain one grand effect—that of height and airiness, and that to this everything has been sacrificed, the details throughout being poor, coarse, and slovenly in their mode of execution. The whole gave me the impression of being the work of an unsatisfactory architect, though at the same time it is impossible to deny the excessive grandeur of the vast dimensions of the interior so far as it is completed, or the beauty of arrangement which marked the original scheme of the ground-plan, unpractical and unstable as it was. It may be right, however, to attribute some of the failures, with M. Viollet-le-Duc, to the carelessness of workmen; though no good architect allows himself to be so excused.
It seems very like presumption to criticise such a building, yet I know not the use of architectural study if it is to be pursued with that blind faith which obliges one to admire indiscriminately everything that was built in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The mere fact that the main intention of the people of Beauvais was to build something finer than their neighbours at Amiens is in itself suggestive; and I am not surprised that a building erected on such terms is unworthy of its age. It is one of the very few buildings of the kind which impresses me in this way; for usually the feeling derived from the study of mediaeval churches is one of respect for the absence of anything but the most thoroughly artistic feeling on the part of their builders. No doubt the architect of Amiens did his work in the best way he could, with little reference to what was being done by his neighbours; and it is curious that the grand success which he achieved should have led, both at Beauvais and (I think also) at Cologne, to unworthy and unsuccessful attempts at rivalry. I can quite see that a claim may be made for the architect of Beauvais, as a man of genius who was not quite so safe a constructor as his contemporaries, but who nevertheless conceived the grandest idea of his age, as far as size and height were concerned. I can only answer that this is not the character of a great architect, and would lead me to class him with the architect of the abbey of Fonthill, rather than with the architect of Amiens or Chartres. The first architect of Beauvais was, however, a better architect, in some respects, than his successor; for though his details (seen in the apse only) were not of the first order, those of the latter are about the worst I have ever met with in a French church of such pretensions.
The glass in the clerestory windows has a band of figures and canopies crossing them at mid-height, with light glass above and below: this is an arrangement often met with, and generally productive of good effect, especially in windows of such great height. A museum attached to the west side of the north transept contains a few antiquities; but the feature of most interest is a late, but good cloister, noticeable for the extreme delicacy of the shafts and piers between the trefoiled openings. In the museum is a fair embroidered mitre, which belonged to F. de Rochefoucald, Bishop of Beauvais, in 1792.
The church of S. Étienne18 is, after the cathedral, the great architectural attraction of Beauvais. Its west front has a grand arched doorway, with a sculptured tympanum, containing the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, and four rows of figures of angels and others in the arch. The jambs and central pier are completely denuded of all their shafts and statues, and the whole work is much mutilated in all its parts; nevertheless, it is the best thing remaining in the city, as far as goodness of sculpture and detail can make a work good. The gable of this porch runs back into a triplet, and the main gable has a cusped circular window, now blocked up. The date of the whole front is early in the thirteenth century. On the north side of the nave there is a fine doorway, of very ornate Romanesque; it has been carefully repaired. An arcade of semicircular arches above the doorway is diapered with a pattern sunk in the stone and marked at regular intervals by red tiles inlaid, and about two inches square. The effect is good, and it is, I suppose, a restoration. The circular window on the north side of the church is remarkable for the figures sculptured outside its label; it is evidently a Wheel of Fortune window.19 The buttresses of the aisles are valuable examples of late Romanesque work. They have a fair projection, but are weathered off some five or six feet below the eaves’ corbel-table; and from their summit in some cases one, and in others two, shafts rise to support the corbel-table. The choir is lofty flamboyant work, but ugly. The nave, of early Transition character, internally has very heavy groining-shafts, and the far from admirable peculiarity of a triforium with arches formed of very flat segments of circles, and the string under the clerestory rising in the same line, and forming, as it were, a label to the arch below.
The gateway to the bishop’s palace, with its steep and picturesque roofs; the palace itself, with its valuable remains of Romanesque work at the back; a portion of a Romanesque house near it; and a fine fourteenth-century gabled house in the Rue S. Véronique, with three pointed and canopied windows in its first floor, are the principal features of interest after the cathedral and S. Étienne. There is, too, a great store of fine timber houses, one of which, in the Rue S. Thomas, is particularly noticeable for the elaborate filling in of encaustic tiles between all the timbers.
From Beauvais I made an excursion of some ten or fifteen miles, to see the abbey church of S. Germer. It is a church little known, I suspect, to most English tourists, but of very rare interest, and equal in scale to our churches of the first class. The drive thither among woods and low undulating hills is pleasant. The church consists of a nave and aisles of eight bays, transepts, and an apse of seven sides, with an aisle and two chapels on either side. The place of the central chapel at the east is occupied by a low passage of three bays, leading to a grand Lady-chapel of four bays, with an apse of seven. The whole of the nave and choir are of fine style, in transition from Romanesque to pointed. Externally, hardly any but round arches are seen, but internally the main arches are pointed. I know few things much more striking than the treatment of the apse. The main arches have their soffits composed of a very bold round member, with a large chevron on each side; and the effect of this, in connection with the acutely pointed arches, is strikingly good.20 Above this is the groined triforium, opening to the church with an arcade of semicircular arches, subdivided into two, and supported on coupled detached shafts. Immediately under the rather plain clerestory windows is a corbel-table, and in each bay square recesses, now blocked up, but which look as though they had opened to the roof of the triforium. The groining-ribs of the apse are large, and profusely adorned with sculpture. The aisle round the apse is all built on the curve (as is usually the case in early work), and the groining, constructed in the same way, has those ungraceful and difficult curves which result from this arrangement. Very good low metal parcloses divide the choir from the aisles. In the nave some of the capitals appear to be of very early date (especially along the north wall, where the acanthus is freely used); the whole of the triforium is stopped up, but the design of this part of the church seems to have been similar to that of the choir, with the exception of the chevron round the arches. The groining, too, save of the two eastern bays of the nave, is of later date. At present the only steeple is an eighteenth century erection over the crossing; but there was evidently an intention originally to build two western towers. An altar of the same date as the church, which remains in it, is of much interest, as from its rather ornate character it seems probable that it was never intended to be covered with a cloth. It is figured at p. 180 of M. de Caumont’s Abécédaire.
The exterior affords many features of interest. It is, as I have said, almost entirely round-arched, and the choir affords a good example of the triple division in height, rendered necessary by the groined triforium and the projecting chapels of the apse. The clerestory and triforium are each lighted with one window in each bay, whilst the chapels have three windows,—a wide one in the centre, and a much smaller one in each side. There are no flying buttresses to the clerestory, but small quasi-buttresses, formed of three-quarters of a shaft, finished under the eaves with a conical capping. The eaves cornice all round the church, of intersecting round arches, resting on corbels, is so similar in its character to some of the work in the beautiful chapter-house of S. Georges de Boscherville, that I can hardly doubt that they were executed under the same influence, if not even by the same workmen.
The feature, however, which lends the most interest to the building and aids so much in its picturesque effect externally, is the grand Lady-chapel,21 said to have been built by the Abbot, Peter de Wesencourt, between the years 1259 and 1266. In plan, disposition and general arrangement it appears to be as nearly as possible identical with the destroyed Lady-chapel of S. Germain-des-Prés at Paris, built by the celebrated Pierre de Montéreau, between the years 1247 and 1255. Pierre de Montéreau built also the S. Chapelle at Paris, between 1241 and 1248, and died on the 17th March, 1266. A comparison of the design of these three buildings has induced me to believe that in this Lady-chapel of S. Germer we have another genuine work of this great architect, for it was built before his death, and is identical in many of its features with work which we know to be his. The plan of all these buildings is identical.22 They all had two staircase turrets and a large rose-window at the west end, a parapet above the rose-window, and a smaller rose in the otherwise plain gable. The design of the window tracery, the gables over the windows, the detail of the staircase turrets, buttresses and parapets, are all so similar that my suggestion really scarcely admits of a doubt. The main differences are, that at S. Germer the original western rose-window is perfect, whilst in the S. Chapelle it is a flamboyant insertion, and that the chapel is of one story in place of two. In this last point, and in its complete separation from the church, it agrees entirely with the destroyed chapel at S. Germain-des-Prés. The passage between the apse and the chapel is of three bays, with a doorway at the side, but, so far as I could see, no trace of an entrance from the apse. It is groined: the windows (of four lights) are much elaborated with mouldings, and have trefoiled inside arches: and an ascent of six steps leads from it under a fine archway into the chapel. There is a north doorway in the chapel, and the whole is groined. The dimensions appear, as nearly as I can make out, to be precisely the same as at S. Germain, but less than in the S. Chapelle, being about twenty-seven feet six inches in the clear between the groining shafts, and between seventy and eighty feet in length. The original altar of stone, supported on a trefoiled arcading, remains fixed against the east wall. This is six feet five and a quarter inches long by three feet three inches high. In the museum at the Hôtel Cluny, at Paris, one of the most valuable relics is a stone retable, painted and gilded, formerly in this chapel. I have not its dimensions, but it is of much greater length than this altar, and I have no doubt, therefore, that the principal altar stood in its proper place under the chord of the apse, and that the retable belonged to it. This arrangement was not uncommon; it was identical with that of the altars in the S. Chapelle, the same arrangement existed originally at Amiens; and we have an instance of it in England in the choir of Arundel church.
The retable has subjects from the life of our Lord, and illustrative of the legend of S. Germer. In the centre is the Crucifixion, SS. Mary and John; to the right of the Virgin is the Church, and to the left of S. John the Synagogue; then come figures of SS. Peter and Paul, the Annunciation and Salutation, S. Ouen (uncle of S. Germer) healing a knight, a noble speaking to a pilgrim, and S. Germer asking Dagobert to allow him to leave the court, in order to found his abbey. The whole of the figures are painted and gilded in the most sumptuous and yet delicate fashion, and though much damaged, are still sufficiently perfect to be intelligible.
M. de Caumont has given a drawing in the Abécédaire23 of what seems to be a remarkably fine shrine, of twelfth or thirteenth century character, still in the possession of the commune of Coudray, S. Germer. I believe this is within a few miles of S. Germer, and it ought not to be missed by ecclesiologists who take this route. It has an arcade of four trefoiled arches on each side, and one at each end, and has a steep roof with a fine open cresting at the ridge.
Of the other buildings of the abbey very slight traces now remain. Close to the west end there is, however, a very simple gate-house, and the modern conventual buildings appear to be now used for a school, superintended by nuns.
S. Germer is certainly one of those churches which no ecclesiologist who goes to Beauvais should on any account miss seeing. Its rare scale, dignity, and architectural interest, and its secluded situation afford attractions of the highest kind, and I am confident that no one who takes my advice in this matter will come back disappointed.
III
From Beauvais I made my way to Compiègne, where I found but little of much interest. The principal church is in size, plan, and general design, decidedly conspicuous; yet it is remarkable how little there is in it to detain an architect beyond the general effect. The bulk of the structure is of good uniform first-pointed character. It consists of a nave and aisle (fifty-three feet in width) of six bays, transepts, and an apsidal choir, the lower part of which has been modernized and has a very badly planned flamboyant aisle round it; and there were intended to be two western towers. The groining of the nave is flamboyant. The best feature is the apse, which has a glazed triforium of two lancet windows in each bay, and a clerestory of large single lancets. It is, I think, characteristic of many French churches of this fine scale, that they afford much less matter for study and description than our own churches of one-fourth the size and pretension. Their details are so uniform, and their planning so regular that a description of one bay is, in fact, a description of the whole church, and there is nothing in the shape of monumental effigies, screens, brasses, or other similar relics, to give a special interest to each part of the building. When we lament the general scarcity of examples of groining in our English churches, we ought not to forget that it was, in part at least, to this that we may attribute the extraordinary variety of their character; for it is undoubtedly very much more difficult to obtain those picturesquely irregular effects which charm us so justly in English examples, when groined roofs are used, than when their place is taken by roofs of wood. The points of support must be much more equally spaced, the piers more regularly planned, and each portion more exactly a reproduction of every other portion; and it has sometimes struck me as possible that we owe the much greater variety of designs in the treatment even of our groining, as compared with the French, to the great love of change and variety which our architects had imbibed in dealing so largely with wooden-roofed buildings. In this respect indeed, they sometimes ran into excesses for which they had no example, and happily, no imitators on the Continent; but on the whole, we have undoubtedly reason to be grateful for a feature in our national art which helped to place it in so high a position when compared with that of other countries.
Another church, dedicated to S. Antoine, is of large size and late flamboyant style. It has a fine font (now disused) of the same character and material as the well known fonts at Winchester, East Meon, and Southampton; the bowl of which is no less than three feet nine inches square. The floor of the nave of this church is boarded, and fitted up with very smart chairs, whilst the aisles have tiled floors and common chairs, and there is a rail fixed between the columns to shut in the select occupants of the smart chairs. It is a mistake, therefore, to suppose that the introduction of chairs will necessarily secure the annihilation of the pew system. Here, too, I saw a “mandement” of the Bishop of Beauvais, Senlis and Noyon, dated Dec. 8th, 1856, ordering the adoption of the Roman liturgy, in place of the local uses, of which he says there were no less than nine in his diocese, so that it often happened that the same priest “chargé de deux paroisses, trouve dans l’Église ou il va célébrer une première Messe une liturgie différente de celle qui s’observe dans la paroisse où il réside:”—“le chant, les cérémonies, la couleur des ornemens, les usages, tout est changé.” The Bishop interdicted, among others, the Missals of Beauvais, Noyon, Senlis, Amiens, Meaux, and Rouen, and his order took effect from Whitsunday, 1857.
Of less distinctly ecclesiastical edifices Compiègne retains some remains. A cloister in the Caserne S. Corneille is a good example. The arches have no tracery, and the piers have buttresses to resist the thrust of the groining. This is very simple but good work, though late in the fourteenth century. The old Hôtel-Dieu, too, has a characteristic gable end towards the street, divided by a central buttress, and with a pointed archway below and a large window above in each division.
The very picturesque front of the Hôtel de Ville has been recently very carefully restored, but so completely, that it looks almost like a new building. The effect of the front is very good, though the belfry tower rises awkwardly from behind the parapet of the building. There is an illustration of this building in M. Verdier’s Architecture Civile et Domestique, which will enable your readers to understand the character of this picturesque though late building better than any description that I can give. The roof of the main building, as well as that of the turrets at the angles and the belfry, is covered with slate: and it is worth notice how much the effect of these roofs depends upon the thinness of the slate, its small size and the sharpness and neatness with which it is cut. Foreign slating is in truth just as good in its effect as ours is generally bad and coarse.
The château of Pierrefonds ought to be visited from Compiègne. The ruins must be interesting, and I believe the site is very picturesque. It is a fashionable place of resort, and at a distance of some three hours through the forest from Compiègne. M. Viollet-le-Duc’s description of the buildings is known probably to most of your readers.
From Compiègne I made my way to Soissons. It was here that on this journey I came first on the grand style which distinguishes the buildings of this part of France. Laon, chief in grandeur, both natural and architectural, Noyon, S. Quentin, Meaux, and Soissons, are magnificent illustrations of the main features of the style: whilst smaller churches, remains of abbeys, such as those of Ourscamp (near Noyon) and Longpont (near Soissons), and of castles, such as Coucy-le-Château, enable us to appreciate all its varieties. It is to be hoped that the stream of English travellers will for the future set more in this direction than it has hitherto done, since it is now possible in going to Strasbourg to take the railway through this country to Rheims, and in so doing to make acquaintance with a group of churches, which impress me more and more each time that I see them. They are remarkable evidence also of the wonderful vigour of the age in which they were built: for they are all of very nearly the same date—the end of the twelfth and early part of the thirteenth century, and conceived on the grandest possible scale. Indeed, France, under Philip Augustus, affords a spectacle such as perhaps no other country in the world can show. For if we think of the wars which characterized his reign, it is almost incredible that it should nevertheless at the same time have been possible to found such cathedrals as those of Paris, Bourges, Chartres, Amiens, Laon, Meaux, Soissons, Noyon, Rouen, Séez, Coutances, Bayeux: yet such was the case, and some of them were completed in but a few years with extraordinary energy.