Few things are more impressive than the cathedral of Laon, even in its present state: and what must it not have been with its central steeple and the six towers and spires which once adorned its several fronts, rising, as they all did, from the summit of a mighty hill, seen on all sides for many a long mile by the dwellers in the plain which stretches away from its feet! And yet, magnificent as is the cathedral of Laon, it is one only among many; and such a city as Soissons, inferior as it is in situation, affords nevertheless in its architectural remains, matter of almost equal interest.
The general view of Soissons, obtained from the distance, is striking only for its architectural character. The effect is mainly attributable to the fact, that in addition to the cathedral, with its lofty south-west steeple, the town also contains the west front, with two towers and spires, of the ruined abbey of S. Jean des Vignes. It is to this ruin that the eye first turns in anticipation of discovering the famous cathedral of the city; but a little acquaintance with the details of the two buildings leaves no room to doubt that the cathedral, with its lonely steeple, is nevertheless by very much the most interesting and noble example of art which the city contains.
Let us at once, then, bend our steps thither. We shall find a church, the greater part of which dates probably from the end of the twelfth or the first years of the thirteenth century, whilst its plan is very remarkable, and its details in some parts of exquisite beauty. In plan it consists of two western towers (one of which only is built), nave and aisles of seven bays, transepts (of which more presently), a choir of five bays, and an apse of five sides; chapels are obtained between the buttresses of the choir, and the apse is surrounded by an aisle and five chapels; these chapels are circular in plan at the ground line, octagonal above, and are groined with a vault which covers the aisle also; this is a mode which is seldom satisfactory in execution, and a falling off from the structural truth of those plans in which the groining of each chapel is complete in itself, and distinct from that of the aisle. The south transept is finished with an apse, and has a small circular chapel of two stages in height attached on its south-eastern side. The north transept is square-ended and of later date.
It is impossible to examine Soissons cathedral without having recollections of several other churches forced upon the mind. At Noyon, for instance, we have a grand example of a church of the same date, both of the transepts of which are apsidal; but the south transept of Soissons has a great advantage over its neighbour, in that it has an aisle round the transept opening with three arches, supported upon slender and lofty shafts, into each bay, both on the ground level and in the triforium. Indeed there are few fairer works of the period than this south transept of Soissons; for whether we regard its plan, general scheme, or detail of design and sculpture, all alike show the presence of a master hand in its conception and execution;—the same hand, I suppose, as is seen at Noyon, but at a slightly later period. Then, again, a comparison of Soissons with Meaux will show so great a similarity of plan, dimensions, and design in their eastern apses, that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they were the works of the same man, and at about the same time. And each of these churches has nevertheless some one special feature of its own, wherein it is unique and unmatched; Soissons has its exquisite south transept, Noyon its western porch, and Laon its cluster of steeples, by which every one who has seen them must especially have been struck.
One of the features which most marks the churches of this school is the fourfold division in height of the main walls. There is first the arcade, then the triforium24 (which is large, groined, and lighted with its own windows), then a blank arcade which is analogous to the triforia of our English churches, and lastly the clerestory. I cannot say that this arrangement is ever pleasing. The clerestory always looks disproportionately small and dwarfed, and the blank arcade below it rather unmeaning, whilst all the divisions have the appearance of being cramped and confined. At Soissons it occurs in the south transept, but not in the nave—where we see the usual triple division. Some of the capitals here are well sculptured, though generally very simply, and in the transept they are often held with iron ties (as in Italian examples) to resist the thrust of the groining. I should notice that the whole of the walling in this transept is circular on plan; this is generally a mark of early date, and though it gave rise to some complexity in the arches and groining, it undoubtedly often produces a very charming effect. The windows of the three eastern chapels are full of richly-coloured early glass, rather rudely drawn and executed; some of it, I suspect, came from the clerestory, the eastern portion of which is still full of similar glass. The clerestory has large lancet windows and flying buttresses of two stages in height, with the arches supported upon detached shafts, and a passage behind the lower order on a level with the sill of the clerestory windows.
On the exterior, one of the most noticeable features is that the ridge of the south transept roof rises no higher than the eaves of the rest of the church. Yet such is the care with which the design is managed, that this smallness of scale is not noticed, until from a distance a general view of the building is obtained, when it looks undoubtedly very lop-sided.
From the cathedral one goes naturally to the ruined but still imposing church of the great abbey of S. Jean des Vignes. The west front of this church is exactly in a line with that of the cathedral, at a distance of about a furlong; and standing on higher ground, and still retaining its two towers and spires, it produces a greater effect in the general views of the city. It is now the centre of the arsenal, with powder-stores, piles of shot, and various other preparations all around it, which afford subject for rather gloomy forebodings, in case Soissons should again suffer (as it has so often already suffered) the danger of a siege. The remains of the church are almost confined to the steeples and west front. The lower portions of these date from the thirteenth century, but the upper portion is all of a very ornate and rather late middle-pointed style; they are very pyramidal in their outline, and have a rather heavy arrangement of pinnacles at the base of the spires. The belfry-window of the north-west tower has a very large stone crucifix contrived against its monial and tracery; there is a canopy in the tympanum over the head of our Lord, and the tracery seems to have been designed with a special view to the introduction of the figure. The spires are crocketed on the angles, scalloped on the face, and pierced with alternate slits and quatrefoils. The sculpture of this front is not of very good character. From the south of the south-west tower extends a remarkably fine portion of the domestic buildings of the abbey, two stages in height, and eight bays in length. Its south end has the favourite French arrangement of a central buttress between two large circular windows, with two lancet windows in the gable. On the west side each bay has a fine simple pointed window: whilst on the east side the lower part is concealed by the cloister, and the upper stage has a row of plain circular windows, similar to those at the south end. The steep-pitched roof still remains, and the whole building is a very fine relic, even among the relics of this kind in which France is so peculiarly rich. The remains of the cloister are in a very dilapidated state. Drawings which I had seen of it had prepared me for earlier and better work than I found. I imagine that it is not earlier than circa A.D. 1300. The sculptured foliage is in exact imitation of nature, very pretty, and no more. It is, however, singularly instructive, as it illustrates just the kind of work which our English carvers are most prone to introduce just now, and which is generally (as it is here) very ineffective for want of due architectural subordination. The windows of this cloister are of four lights, with geometrical tracery; but the chief peculiarity is the treatment of the buttresses, which are angular on the face, and above the springing of the windows crocketed on the angles. Had the sculpture been fifty years earlier in date, it would, I have no doubt, have been a singularly beautiful cloister. A doorway which opened from the cloister to the church is peculiarly flat in its mouldings and sculpture, but remarkable for the still existing traces of painting over its whole surface. The foundations of the east wall show that the church was not of any great length from east to west.
The church of S. Léger is the finest edifice after these of which the city can now boast. Anywhere its transepts and choir would be of great interest for their early thirteenth-century date, and their good architectural character. The church consists of a nave and aisles of six bays (of which the four western are Renaissance), transepts of two bays in depth, and a choir without aisles, which has one bay of sexpartite groining, and an apse of seven sides. The detail is very much the same as in the cathedral. The clerestory windows in the apse are lancets, and in the rest of the church of two lights with tracery, consisting of a cusped circle within an enclosing arch. In these Soissonnais churches the label generally has a ball or four-leaved flower at intervals. There is a procession path or passage, with openings in the buttresses, round the church outside the clerestory windows, dividing the church very markedly into two divisions in height, and recalling to memory the very similar arrangement in the church of S. Elizabeth at Marburg. The transept has fine angle pinnacles and a large three-light window with early tracery, whilst the cloister is somewhat similar to that of S. Jean des Vignes. Stepped gables are a favourite feature here even in early work. The aisles of S. Léger are so finished, as is also an early building by the side of the cathedral.
The church of S. Pierre, which is desecrated, has a west front of much interest. It has a nave and aisles, three western doorways (whereof the central is pointed, the others round), and a single wide, round-arched window over each door. The detail is peculiar,—of late Romanesque character, and effective. Only two bays of the nave remain. The labels and string-courses have a dogtooth enrichment, whilst the cornice above them is adorned with a regular acanthus-leaf. The shafts of the west door are fluted; and in this, as in the quadruple arrangement in height, which I have already noticed as a frequent characteristic of the Soissonnais churches, I suspect we may trace the influence of the grand church of S. Remi at Rheims.
Of domestic buildings there are but few traces in Soissons. The best are: a building near the west front of the cathedral, with stepped gables, central buttresses in the end, and good simple three-light windows in each bay;—a house in the Cloître S. Gervais, near the north transept of the cathedral, with a steep unpierced gable and three two-light windows in the stage just below it, and an unpierced ground story;—and an old hospital near the cathedral, of good early-pointed work, without groining, but with transverse arches from column to column,—the capitals being carved, and the arches quite square in section.
From Soissons, an excursion ought to be made to the abbey of Longpont.25 I was not aware at the time I was there that it was in this neighbourhood, but I believe that it is only some eight or ten miles distant, and that the church is of rare interest and grandeur. I regret extremely my inability to give any notes of it.
A walk of a mile across meadows took me to the remains of the great abbey of S. Médard. These are very slight and consist of some remains of crypts, in which are preserved portions of buildings or monuments which have been dug up from time to time. An old view of S. Médard shows it surrounded by fortified walls, enclosing a vast range of buildings and two or three churches. Of all this nothing now remains, beyond a modern house, converted into an asylum for deaf and dumb, in one portion of which remains an old vaulted apartment, now used as the chapel of the institution.
From Soissons, I made my way across country to Château Coucy ... and from Coucy, I made a considerable détour to visit the abbey of Prémontré. The situation is very striking, in a narrow valley, closed in on all sides with steep, thickly-wooded hills, and with only a few dependent cottages leading up to the gate of the abbey. This was the chief house of the Premonstratensian Order, which established as many as thirty-five houses in England. The abbots of the order were bound to meet once a year at Prémontré, and as there were as many as a thousand abbeys belonging to them, the wild valley must then have presented a singular contrast to its present deserted state. Until lately the buildings have been used as a glass manufactory: but they have just been purchased by the Bishop of Soissons (who seems to have a great character for piety and liberality among the people) for an orphanage. I saw the nun who holds the post of superior of the institution, and obtained permission to search for remains of the old buildings: she seemed much surprised at my demand, and with some reason, as the only traces left of them are a portion of (I think) a crypt under the church, which has fallen with its groining, and is left a confused mass of stones, just as it fell. On my way from Prémontré, I passed, between Anizy-le-Château and Laon, a very interesting example of a village church at (I believe) Chalvour. It is cruciform, with a good central gabled tower. The chancel has single lancet windows to the east and south, and the south transept a large boldly-cusped circular window, and a small projection on the east for the altar, also lighted with a circular window. The chancel, tower, and transepts, are groined: the nave (with its aisles) is of inferior work. Altogether, this is a very characteristic thirteenth century church, of bold and vigorous character, and severely simple in all its details.
An ascent of about two miles leads up the side of the mountain, on which Laon is perched, to the western extremity of the city. And here I must pause, trusting another time to say somewhat of the architectural glories of the place, upon which I suppose I can scarcely descant too enthusiastically.
IV
The two great architectural attractions of Laon are the cathedral and its subordinate buildings, and the fine church of S. Martin. They are situated at the two extremities of the long narrow ridge on which the town is built, which towards the east falls precipitously on three sides almost from the very walls of the cathedral down to the broad vast plain which extends as far as the eye can reach, and from all parts of which the grand mass of the building, with its almost unrivalled cluster of steeples, is seen standing—just as our own glorious Lincoln—on the very spot of all others fitted for a diocesan throne.
I know no church which is altogether more calculated to leave a lasting impression on the mind than the cathedral. What is wanting in grace and delicacy is amply atoned for in force and majesty; and the completeness of the plan, the short period which seems to have elapsed between its commencement and completion, and the almost entire absence of later additions or alterations, combine to make it in every respect of the utmost value to the architectural student. The stern, solemn majesty of its art is just what we modern men ought to endeavour to impress ourselves with; but whilst I believe that all students would be enormously benefited, they must not come here under the impression that they are to see work which is pretty and attractive in the same sense or degree as S. Ouen at Rouen, or Cologne cathedral.
In plan this church has the remarkable peculiarity of a square east end, and consists of a nave and choir respectively of eleven and ten bays in length, transepts with an eastern apsidal chapel to each, a small cloister on the south side of the nave, and sacristies formed in the angles between the transepts and choir. The groining is sexpartite in the principal vaults, and quadripartite in the aisles; there is a large vaulted triforium, and the fourfold division in height to which I have already referred as a characteristic of many of the churches of this district. But the most noteworthy feature is that the three principal façades—on the west, north, and south—were each intended to have two towers and spires, whilst a lantern crowned the crossing. No less than four of these towers and the lantern still remain (though without their spires, shown in an engraving by du Sommerard), as well as the lower portion of the others. On the east and north the cathedral is enclosed with extensive ranges of coeval buildings belonging to the bishop’s palace, including the small private chapel, to which I must recur again.
Let us hear what M. Viollet-le-Duc says about the characteristics of this cathedral of Laon:26—“La cathédrale de Laon conserve quelque chose de son origine démocratique; elle n’a pas l’aspect religieux des églises de Chartres, d’Amiens ou de Reims. De loin, elle paraît un château plutôt qu’une église; sa nef est, comparativement aux nefs ogivales et même a celle de Noyon, basse; sa physionomie extérieure est quelque peu brutale et sauvage; et jusqu’à ces sculptures colossales d’animaux, bœufs, chevaux, qui semblent garder les sommets des tours de la façade, tout concourt à produire une impression d’effroi plutôt qu’un sentiment religieux, lorsqu’on gravit le plateau sur lequel elle s’élève. On ne sent pas, en voyant Notre Dame de Laon, l’empreinte d’une civilisation avancée et policée comme à Paris ou à Amiens; là, tout est rude, hardi: c’est le monument d’un peuple entreprenant, énergique et plein d’un mâle grandeur. Ce sont les mêmes hommes que l’on retrouve à Coucy-le-Château—c’est une race de géants.”
I am disposed to think that M. le-Duc scarcely values the architecture of Laon sufficiently highly, and that he is mistaken in his idea of the democratic character imparted to it by the turbulence of the citizens at the time of its erection. It appears to me that the peculiarity of its character is derived much more from some connection with German art, and I believe that the churches throughout this part of France show many evidences of such a connection. The planning of the towers of Laon is very German; I need hardly adduce examples from the Rhine district, where, as we all know, the steeples are treated as so many great turrets, nearly similar in size, height, and design, whilst the crossing is often marked by a low lantern. The grand cathedral at Tournai in this respect resembles very strongly that of Laon; and if we were coming from Germany into France, we might at Andernach, Coblentz, Trèves, and Châlons-sur-Marne (in the church of Notre Dame), see a regular sequence of buildings by which we should arrive without any very great or sensible break at Laon. The groined triforium is another well known German feature, and though the apse is a very general termination to German churches, it is yet not impossible that its absence at Laon may be an evidence of Germanic origin, as we do meet there with some examples of the same kind. In one particular feature I am able to trace a most singular coincidence with a German example, to which, however, I do not wish to attach very much weight, though it is undoubtedly curious. The steeples at Laon are very fine compositions—I should hardly speak too strongly of the steeple of the south transept, were I to say that it is the best-designed steeple in France,—marked by turrets at the angles, which are either octagonal or square in plan with shafts at their angles, and very beautiful in their effect. In the west front one of the stages has, in these open turrets, large figures of oxen and other animals looking out from between the shafts on the city roofs far away below,—a quaint conceit, which one would suppose to be a purely personal and peculiar device, and of which nevertheless there is an almost exact repetition in the very similar steeples of the grand cathedral at Bamberg.
My belief is, that as we can trace a stream of Italian art coming to the south and south-west of France, and thence working on to the north in gradual and steady development, so we may also see the same thing here. Italian art first spread down the Rhine, and thence spread right and left, and in these border provinces of France influenced to a greater extent than is generally supposed the French architects. On their part there was a peculiar skill and art displayed which soon enabled them to develop from the germ which they received; but the Romanesque work out of which they developed their buildings was of a different order from that which was the ground-work on which the architects of Poitiers, Bourges, and Chartres had to work; the latter having in Italy a Byzantine origin, whilst that of the Rhine churches was rather Romanesque. Something therefore of the magnificent character of the best early French Gothic is owing to Germany, and it was the situation of the Île de France, the meeting point as it were of these two developments, which made it the centre from which the best Gothic architecture of the world naturally sprang. But whatever was the history of Laon cathedral, no one can doubt the excessive grandeur of the result. No doubt the magnificence of the situation, which recalls forcibly some of the most interesting of Italian cities, such as Siena and Perugia, has something to do with the colouring of memories of Laon; but in the church itself there is but one point on which it is possible to feel that there is any serious shortcoming, and this, as an Englishman, I am almost afraid to say is the absence of an eastern apse. It is only when one travels from church to church finished with apsidal choirs, that the eye sees the whole evil of the square east end as the termination of the vista in a large church. But there can be no doubt that there is less completeness and unity of effect, fewer fine effects of light and shade, and altogether less skill and architectural ingenuity in the English plan than in the other: and though I should be sorry to see the apse commonly introduced in small churches, yet I think it fortunate that attention has been a good deal drawn to this matter of late years, and that men have not been slow to recognize the advantage of importing this one foreign practice at any rate into our own country. Both externally and internally the east end of Laon is deficient in effect, and gives the impression of being low and awkward in proportion. There is an eastern triplet which comes down very near to the floor, and a large rose window over it; an arcade of open arches, flanked on either side by a pinnacle, conceals the lower part of the gable. This elevation is indeed the worst thing in the whole church, and contrasts unfavourably with that of the north transept. This is perhaps a little later in date and owes much to the irregularity of outline caused by the completion of one only of its steeples. It has the peculiarity of two double doors; and the large rose window composed of eight octofoiled circles surrounding a ninth, is of rare beauty. It is to be prized the more, too, because in the fourteenth century there was a plan for its removal, of which we have curious evidence: one of the side jambs and part of the arch of a large middle-pointed window having been inserted by cutting away the wall close to a buttress in such a way as to disturb very little of the original work, and yet to afford us a very curious evidence of the way in which alterations of this kind were made by the mediaeval masons, without the introduction of a single shore or support of any kind. Fortunately the alteration was stopped just where it ought to have been, after it had afforded evidence of the customs of the masons, but before it had destroyed a perfect first-pointed façade; and I suppose that by this time we have outlived the rage for middle-pointed work so far that it would be difficult indeed to find any one so wrong-headed as not to be grateful for the stoppage of the alteration at the point at which we see it now. Of the western façade I can say but little. It has been my fortune to see it twice, but an evil fate has so covered it with scaffolding at one time, and taken down and rebuilt so much at another, that I have only been able to guess at its general effect. The western doorways are adorned with sculpture, and this is almost the only place in the church in which figure sculpture still remains; but the whole exterior of the church is remarkable for the fine architectural character of the sculpture of foliage, which is used with special lavishness along almost all the string courses. I hardly know any finer work of its kind, but it is altogether conventional in its treatment, and arranged with very particular reference to architectural effect, the foliage in each bay being very nearly identical in its design. A peculiarity in the external effect of the church is the lighting of the triforium with separate windows, so that we have three heights of windows in the elevation belonging to the aisle, triforium, and clerestory.
Of the various steeples which adorn the church, and whose character is generally very similar, the most beautiful is, I think, that of the south transept. The lower stages are lighted with couplets of lancets, and have buttresses at their angles; above the roof line square pinnacles are set diagonally at the angles, and in the topmost stage the tower is an octagon in plan with octagonal angle pinnacles resting on the square pinnacles below, and lighted by lancet windows of very light proportions. The octagonal pinnacles are composed entirely of shafts supporting arches, and are of two stages in height; and within them are contrived some newel staircases of exquisite design. They consist of a series of delicate shafts—one on each step, supporting another above; the capitals of these shafts are all well carved and with great variety; the effect of this winding cluster of shafts, seen through and behind the shafts of the pinnacles, is a great lesson in the beauty of shafts and the value of scientific construction. Much of the beauty of the design is owing to the very light and airy character of these angle pinnacles, and it is much to be deplored that the spires shown in du Sommerard’s view no longer exist.
The small cloister on the south side of the nave is one of the features to which it would be unpardonable not to refer. It forms only one side of the enclosure, the east and west ends being occupied by the chapter room and a groined chapel projecting from the south wall of the nave, whilst the wall of the aisle forms the north side. The merit of this cloister is, therefore, not its extent, but the beauty of its design. The windows are of two lights, and above these is a quatrefoil opening enclosed within a circular moulding, round which are pierced sixteen small circles. The tracery was glazed, though the lower part of the windows appears to have been always open as it is at present. The whole design is a very good example of plate tracery. The outer wall of the cloister abuts on the street, and though only pierced with small square windows, is yet so skilfully buttressed and finished with a cornice so finely sculptured, as to be a very successful architectural feature. At the angle of this wall near the south transept doorway, a buttress is brought out from the transept, and against it is placed, standing on a corbel under a canopy, a grand angel which now holds a sundial; and though the dial is not old, I suppose, to judge by the position of the hand, that it takes the place of one coeval with the fabric. The angle of this buttress, coming forward rather awkwardly in front of the door, is cut back in a very skilful manner, and has two recessed shafts with capitals and bases, affording a capital example of angle decoration.
There is not much of which I need make special mention in the interior. The main columns are generally plain cylinders, with very large capitals from which the groining shafts rise; these are banded very frequently in their height with bad effect. There is the fourfold division in height to which I have already adverted, and considerable matter of study in the sculpture of the capitals, which is however in some cases rather too rude and early in its character.
There is some very fine early glass in the eastern windows of the choir. In the transept there are two arches across next the wall, supporting a floor on a level with and connecting the triforia, the spaciousness of which is quite wonderful. They are groined throughout, and the views of the church obtained from them are very good. I found some middle-pointed screens dividing the several bays of the triforium in the nave, and there was a good deal of thirteenth century glass lying on boards, and about to undergo restoration. Considerable alterations were made in the last century by the insertion of chapels between the buttresses of the choir, but these do not detract much from the general effect of the church, which exhibits a degree of general uniformity hardly to be paralleled save at our own Salisbury.
I think it admits of a fair doubt whether such a cluster of similar great steeples at regular intervals around one building, as we have here, could ever be perfectly satisfactory; but of the beauty of their design, taken separately, there cannot be two opinions. It is possible that if the central lantern had been carried up to a great height, whatever defect there is might have been rectified, but there is no sign of any such intention.
To the east and north of the cathedral are very large remains of buildings of the same date as the cathedral, and fairly perfect in their external effect. Towards the interior they all rest on open arcades, whilst on the exterior the outline is well and picturesquely broken by a series of turrets projecting from the walls of the great hall of the palace, said to have been built by Bishop Garnier in A.D. 1242.
The bishop’s chapel, a groined building with nave and aisles, and of two stages in height, still remains. It is of slightly earlier date than the cathedral, is covered with a roof of one span, and has a very small apse at the east end.
There seems to have been a communication directly from the bishop’s palace to the eastern part of the cathedral; and if the people of Laon were as turbulent as they are said to have been, the bishops were wise so to place their palace, and so to connect it with the cathedral as to enable themselves to stand a siege if need be.
After the cathedral, the church of S. Martin, at the opposite end of the town, is the principal architectural relic still left in Laon. Like the cathedral, it is remarkable for its square east end. It is cruciform in plan, and consists of nave and aisles, choir without aisles, and transepts with chapels on the east side. Two towers are placed in the angles between the transepts and nave. The general foundation of the fabric is Romanesque work, but the choir and transepts are of a rather ornate early first-pointed, much more German than French in its character, and the western façade is one of the best examples that I know of a middle-pointed front to a church of moderate pretensions. The early-pointed work at the east is remarkable for the very heavy character of its mouldings and string-courses, the use of both round and pointed arches, and the very ingenious arrangement of the chapels in the east wall of the transept, and of the buttresses above them. Three chapels are formed under two bays of vaulting, so that the vaulting shaft and buttress come over the point of the arch. The church is well groined. The steeples are poor in character and rather insignificant, but they appear never to have been completed, and in the neighbourhood of the cathedral it was dangerous to venture upon any but the most careful and noble work.
The west front is very ornate, and is marked chiefly by the fine octangular pinnacles at the angles of the clerestory and by the large sculpture of S. Martin in a quatrefoil which fills the gable. The three western doorways are composed of a succession of small reedy mouldings, and against the buttresses beyond the central doorway are figures of saints considerably mutilated.
Almost the only other interesting church is a small building attached now to an educational institution for boys. A priest told me it had belonged to the Templars, and at any rate it is an octagonal building with a small chancel on its eastern side, and a smaller circular apse. At the west end there is a small porch. The whole is in a late Romanesque style, and very small, the external measurement of each side of the octagon being only about eleven feet.
Here and there are to be seen remains of houses and gateways, but there is nothing of sufficient interest to require a special note here, and the only other building I need mention is the very curious church at Vaux-sous-Laon, a village at the foot of the hill below the citadel and cathedral. This has a western porch or narthex, nave and aisles of five bays, transepts and low central steeple, and a choir and aisles of three bays, groined, and both loftier and wider than the nave. The east end is square, and has a triplet and a large rose window above, very similar in design to the east end of the cathedral. The columns are cylindrical, with simply carved caps of bold design. The choir is all first-pointed, the nave of earlier date and much simpler character and not groined.
I must conclude this brief notice of Laon and its buildings with just mentioning two of the existing buildings in the neighbourhood which ought to be seen and examined. These are the magnificent granary of the abbey of Vauclair near Laon, and the still more interesting hospital for lepers of Tortoir: both of these are figured by M. Verdier in his Architecture Civile et Domestique, and appear to be of rare beauty and interest.
V
The cathedral of Rheims is most unquestionably a very noble, I might almost say, a perfectly noble, piece of architecture, and nevertheless it seems to fail in producing so great an effect on the mind as many other French churches of smaller dimensions and less architectural pretension. The truth is, that it is a work conceived and executed at two periods and by two (if not more) architects; and though the ground-plan, some portion of the walls, and a little of the sculpture, of the first architect have been preserved, the general aspect of the church at the present day savours more of the later artist than of his predecessor. It was in the year 1212 that Robert de Coucy (a friend of Wilars de Honecort) commenced the erection of the present cathedral, and it was after his death and from circa A.D. 1250 to circa A.D. 1300 that the whole of the upper portion of the building, the western portion of the nave from the ground, and the elaborate western façade were in course of erection. There remains to us, therefore, little of genuine first-pointed work, for it has been clearly shown by M. Viollet-le-Duc that the lower stage only of the building was the work of Robert de Coucy. He seems indeed to have contemplated a building of greater height and grandeur than the present, since his work is remarkable for the great size of the buttresses and the thickness of the walls, which were diminished at once, and abruptly, by the architect who followed him, and whose work is nevertheless amply solid and massive for the existing edifice.
It will be seen from what I have said, that we must not go to Rheims expecting to see a work of the best period of the thirteenth century. We shall find a small portion of sculpture in one of the doors of the north transept, and the plan and basement story of the building throughout, of this early date, but the bulk of the structure and almost the whole of the decorative features are purely middle-pointed work of the end of the thirteenth and early part of the fourteenth century. There is exquisite grace about most of this work, but an entire lack of that stern character which makes Chartres the grandest of French churches; there is prettiness where there should have been majesty; and in parts a nervous dread of leaving a single foot of wall free from ornament, which reminds one much more of the work of an architect of the nineteenth century than of one of the thirteenth. The west front, on which all the greatest efforts of the later architects of the church were lavished, can thoroughly please none but those who see in elaborate enrichment of every inch of wall the evidence of art, whilst I need hardly say that to those who have studied the best examples of architecture in whatever style, such elaborate ornamentation is in itself an evidence of weakness. There is a kind of sacredness about the simple breadth of wall and buttress which must be reverenced by all who would produce really grand work. But for this the later architects of Rheims had not the slightest feeling, and their work seems therefore to me to be more really allied to the debased art which followed it, than to the pure early work which had immediately preceded it. As at Laon, so here, the original design was to have a grand group of towers and spires, six for the three grand façades, and a seventh over the crossing. Some of these spires were, I believe, actually erected, and in lead; and whether this was the first intention or not it is certain that the plumber’s work was in great request in this church and city, as there still remains a very fine flèche on the point of the apse roof of the cathedral, some good detail of lead work on the roofs, and a much modernized leaded steeple in the church of S. Jacques; whilst in the west front of the cathedral we see large gurgoyles of lead simulating enormous animals. The interior of the cathedral is very noble in its proportions (though the triforium might well have been more dignified), and is remarkable for the immense size of the capitals of the piers in the nave; they are very closely copied from natural foliage, and fail to satisfy me that such work is the best fitted for architectural enrichment. The decoration of the west end is not confined to the exterior, the whole inside face of the wall being divided into panels and niches filled with foliage and single figures. The stone imitation of hangings in the lower part of this wall ought to be recorded, though hardly without a protest.
On the south side of the cathedral is the archbishop’s palace which still retains its thirteenth century chapel of two stages in height, and good, though simple, character. It is a parallelogram of five bays in length with an apse of seven sides.
And now that I have ventured to say so much in the way of criticism upon what I believe most Frenchmen consider their most glorious church, and without any attempt at a detailed account either of its general architectural arrangements or its sculptures (the latter exceedingly rich and suggestive), I must take my reader with me along the dreary dirty road which leads to the squalid quarter of the city in which still stands as a rival to the more modern cathedral the enormous church of S. Remi. The exterior, with the exception of the apse, has been much modernized, and presents accordingly but few features of much interest. The south transept has been all remodelled in flamboyant, whilst the nave is simple Romanesque, and the west end—recently almost entirely rebuilt—is a singular agglomeration of anomalous work, half classic or Pagan, and half Romanesque or Gothic and Christian. In the apse we have flying buttresses supported on fluted shafts, a clerestory of triple lancets, and a triforium also lighted with three-light windows. The proportions of the buttresses, roofs, and walls are however heavy and unskilful, and give evidence of the early date of this nevertheless very grand attempt. It is on entering by the transept, through a doorway covered with fine flamboyant sculpture, that we see how grand the attempt was, and how fine the internal effect. I think I know no church whose whole interior gives a greater idea of spaciousness and size, whilst the beauty of the design of the apse and the aisle and chapels round it is extreme. And indeed the appearance of size does not belie the facts, for the dimensions of the building are singularly fine. It has a Romanesque nave and aisles (groined with a pointed vault) of thirteen bays, transepts, and a choir of three bays with an apse of five. Round the apse is the procession-path aisle, and opening into this a series of chapels, whereof the five eastern are very noticeable. The Lady-chapel is of three bays in length, with an apse of seven bays, whilst the other four are very nearly circular in plan, and each of the chapels opens into the aisle with three arches supported on delicate detached shafts. The groining of each of the four smaller chapels forms a complete circle in plan, with eight groining ribs, whereof two are supported on the columns opening into the aisle. Each chapel is lighted by three windows, recessed so much as to allow of openings being pierced in the groining piers to admit of a passage all round the interior. This arrangement (as well as the beautiful planning of the chapels) is a distinct feature of the churches of Champagne. The chapels of Notre Dame, Châlons-sur-Marne, are similarly planned, and in those of the cathedral at Rheims it is clear that Robert de Coucy had the same plan in his eye, though he gave up the triple-arched entrance from the aisle; whilst at S. Quentin we see an almost similar plan at a rather later date. The whole of the nave retains the original very simple Romanesque arcades, and lofty groined triforia; but its groining throughout is fine early-pointed work and of grand dimensions, the width in clear of the vault being about forty-five feet. It is a curious fact that in this nave the triforium compartment is absolutely more lofty than that below it which contains the arch opening into the aisle. In the choir there is a sort of fourfold division in height such as I have described at Soissons and Laon, an arcade of pointed arches being introduced between the clerestory and the triforium; but as this arcade is in part a continuation of the lines of the clerestory windows, and as there is no string-course to divide the stage in two, the effect is better than in other examples of the same arrangement.
There is much matter for careful study in the interior; among other things may be noticed the remarkably fine and large corbels supporting the groining shafts in the eastern part of the nave, adorned with figures of the prophets bearing scrolls and still retaining traces of their old colouring; and again, the very beautiful sculpture of some of the early capitals near the western end of the nave, and on either side of the great western doorway. In the windows of the apse are some small remains of fine early glass.
Among the other architectural remains in Rheims is the church of S. Maurice, consisting of a Romanesque nave and aisles, and a lofty groined flamboyant choir, the west front of good character, having small buttresses supported on shafts on each side of the central door, and separating the western triplet of broad lancets above the doorway. The rest of the church is very uninteresting.
There is also the church of S. Jacques, whose west front has the unusual feature of a sham gable on either side of the real central gable.27 These gables are above the aisles, and completely conceal their roofs and the clerestory. The nave is of early-pointed date, but very much altered; only the two eastern bays appearing to retain the original triforium and clerestory,—the latter a lancet with internal jamb-shafts, which are continued into the triforium and form a portion of the arcades of four pointed arches which occupy each bay,—an arrangement very similar to that of the clerestory of S. Remi. These two bays are groined with a sexpartite vault, which is slightly domical in its longitudinal section. The alternate piers in the nave consist of coupled columns of very solid character, and with very deep capitals. Some of these columns are regularly fluted. The rest of the nave has been much altered in the fourteenth century, whilst the choir is flamboyant, with aisles of Renaissance style, but groined in stone. The crossing is surmounted by a very large flèche of timber covered with lead, almost completely modernized, but showing still some large three-light windows of middle-pointed style.
The Maison des Musiciens, in the Rue de Tambour, is a well-known example of excessively good domestic architecture of the thirteenth century.
From Rheims I made my way by railway to Châlons-sur-Marne, where I was rewarded by the sight of one of the most interesting churches I have ever seen, that of Notre Dame, and of a cathedral of inferior interest. It was the more gratifying to find such really fine work just on the extreme borders of the country to which French influence extended, and beyond which to the eastward the churches appear to be entirely German in their style.
The points of resemblance between Notre Dame de Châlons and the church of S. Remi at Rheims are too obvious to be overlooked. The planning and the general design and detail of their chevets are precisely similar, though the scale of Notre Dame is considerably smaller than that of S. Remi. The former church has however the great advantage of being of the same character throughout, wonderfully little damaged by time, and singularly fortunate among French churches in being under the care of a priest, M. Champenois, whose zeal and enthusiasm for his beautiful church is equalled by the care and skill with which he has himself carried out its restoration. It is the most conservative restoration I have as yet seen in France; it could not be more conservative, and hence it is impossible that it could be better. M. Champenois feels that every stone is a deposit entrusted to him, and I would that we saw signs of such zeal as his rather oftener in the French clergy. Unfortunately, it seems to be too generally the case that they take no interest whatever in the churches which they serve. They have been taught to look to the government as the owner and restorer of all religious buildings, and they have ceased to concern themselves about either the security of their fabrics or the character of their fittings and decorations. Fortunate indeed is it for us in England that the State is not so careful for us as it is in France, for then we should see here, just as we do there, a people utterly careless of the noble buildings which surround them, in place of—as we do here—a people whose love for their old monuments is enhanced and in part created by the fact that they are themselves perpetually invited to help in their restoration and repair.
The church of Notre Dame consists of a nave and aisle of seven bays in length, transepts, and a very short apsidal choir (an apse of seven sides), with an aisle and chapels planned like those of S. Remi, beyond it. There are four towers, two at the west ends of the aisles, and two in the angles between the transepts and the choir. The triforium throughout is large, lofty, and groined. As at S. Remi, the external effect of this church is much inferior to the internal effect. It is rather too heavy and ungainly, and savours much of the character of German Romanesque work. The four towers have the defect of being almost exactly alike, of four stages, richly adorned with round-arched arcades, and rising hardly at all above the level of the ridges of the roof. The south-west tower retains its fine leaded spire, with four tall pinnacles at its base, and a cluster of eight spire-lights about midway: it is an exquisite example of lead-work, and still more precious to us as affording evidence of the extraordinary extent to which decoration was sometimes carried in the Middle Ages. The pinnacles at the base still retain distinct traces of decoration on the lead, each side having a large crocketed canopy, below which is a gigantic figure, in one case of an archer with a bow. The whole is done in white and black only, the ground being the dark lead on which the white lines seem to have been marked by a process of tinning or soldering. It is a kind of decoration which we may well attempt to revive. A spire very similar to the other has recently been erected on the north-west tower, and the western front is now therefore quite in its old state, and singularly well does it look. I almost doubt whether the addition of similar spires to the two eastern towers, for which the Curé is now collecting funds, will really improve the look of the church. With four steeples, it is well that two at least should be pre-eminent, which is the present state of the case; whilst the completion of the others would reduce all to the character of mere turrets—a result not to be desired. The variety of string-courses and cornices throughout the exterior of this church, all filled with sculpture of foliage, gives a very ornate character to the external detail.
The principal entrance is by the south door of the nave. This has been cruelly damaged, indeed nearly destroyed, but what remains is of great interest, owing to its very close resemblance to the noble western doorways of Rouen cathedral; the doorway is double, with eight shafts in each jamb, the alternate shafts having figures in front of them, as in the west doorways of Chartres; whilst the tympanum is similar also, having a figure of our Lord, surrounded by the emblems of the four Evangelists. Portions of archivolt enrichments and other sculpture have been dug up in the neighbourhood of this doorway and carefully preserved, and they appear to me, by their vigour and grandeur of character, to be undoubtedly the work of the same artist, and possibly portions of this once magnificent but now woefully mutilated entrance.
It is in the interior, however, of this church that the effect is finest and the architecture most noble. The whole is very uniform in character throughout, marked by great solidity of construction and proportion, and by the boldness and distinctness of all its architectural detail. The triforium throughout opens with two arches enclosed within another, the spandrels being unpierced, and throughout the church it is groined; nor must I forget to say, that at the present day the spacious area it affords is turned to some account; for, when I was there, on one side they were making the organ pipes, on the other constructing the organ, and in another part the carpenters were busy upon the organ case; and the Curé assured me that he not only had the satisfaction of seeing everything executed in the best possible way, but at the same time there was no inconvenience, and no want of reverence, on the part of the workmen. The clerestory consists throughout of lancet windows, the lower portions of which are filled in with an arcade in the manner I have described in the choir of S. Remi, at Rheims. The sculpture throughout this church, though almost entirely confined to foliage, is very instructive, and at the same time a little puzzling; for we see almost side by side work of the best Byzantine character—almost rivalling the sculpture we see in Venice—and distinctly thirteenth century French work, whilst the building itself shows no corresponding diversity, and I can only suppose, either that the sculpture was in hand much longer than the building of the church, or that two sets of sculptors were at work, the one educated in a Byzantine school, the other influenced by the more developed school of the Île de France.
I have said enough, I trust, to induce others to examine carefully this very interesting church; it is valuable as being a little in advance of the most perfect period of the French pointed style, and as being much more instructive, therefore, than a building which, like the cathedral at Rheims, is in the main a little after the most perfect period, and full, therefore, of symptoms of decline, instead of promise of advance.
From Notre Dame to the cathedral it is a descent from the finest early first-pointed to commonplace middle-pointed, full of German character in its detail. The west front and the whole of the apse have been much modernized, and the finest remaining portion of the exterior is the north transept front. The windows are geometrical middle-pointed of four lights, and the flying buttresses on a large scale, double, and surmounted by pinnacles. There is some good stained glass of late date in some of the aisle windows.
Another church, dedicated, I think, to S. Alpin, has a nave and aisles of six bays groined, without a triforium, and of the same date as Notre Dame. There are transepts and a central tower, and a choir in flamboyant style, and of a most unusual plan; the two arches east of the tower diverge from each other, so that the width of the choir gradually increases up to the point at which it is finished with an apse of three sides. An aisle surrounds the whole, the windows of which retain some very rich stained glass. This choir is the most remarkable example that I have met with of a very late revival of, perhaps, the earliest type of chevet. There are a great many altars in this church, pews throughout with doors, and no sign whatever of any improvement. In Notre Dame, where pews had disappeared and everything was being restored, all the side altars had disappeared, and there was only one altar left besides the principal altar in the choir.
And here I might well conclude these notes of French architecture. From Châlons I went to Toul, and thence by Metz to Trèves, and I found, as might be expected, nothing but German work. At Toul there are two churches, the cathedral and S. Gengoult, both of some interest, and with good cloisters; but it is very remarkable how we find here, not only German detail, but the favourite German ground-plans also; S. Gengoult is a cruciform church, with an apsidal chancel, and a small apsidal chapel on each side opening into the transepts; whilst the cathedral has an apsidal choir without aisles, and a square-ended chapel on each side opening from the transepts. The window tracery in S. Gengoult is perhaps the ugliest ever devised even by German ingenuity, and yet of early geometrical character (circa A.D. 1300), and still retaining much very beautiful glass of the same date. The nave of the cathedral has been recently seated with very smart fixed open seats, of the kind which might have been erected fifteen or twenty years ago in England.
Of Metz I can say but little more than of Toul. The cathedral is undoubtedly magnificent in its scale and general proportions; but its detail throughout is miserably thin and meagre, and the church appears to me to be utterly undeserving of the praise I have heard bestowed on it by some English authorities. Of course, however, the degree of admiration felt for such a building depends very much upon the standard of perfection which each man sets up for himself. If he comes to Metz strongly possessed with a sense of the noble character of German Gothic, of course he will admire this extremely German edifice; if, however, he have the slightest feeling for early French art, I imagine that he will turn away with disappointment and sorrow from this church, so vast, and yet, as compared with fine French churches, so tame, poor, and weak.
The best of the other churches in Metz is that of S. Vincent, a work of better style than the cathedral, and with a well-planned German east end, showing undoubtedly marks of the same hand as (or at least of imitation of) the famous Liebfraukirche at Trèves.