Letters of an Architect, From France, Italy, and Greece. Volume 1 [of 2]

I have at last left Paris, after having staid longer than I intended, though by no means long enough to learn all that might have been acquired by a continued residence. I took my place for Troyes in the cabriolet of the diligence, but found it so small that I could not sit upright, and therefore changed to the inside, where I had plenty of room, for the carriage was calculated for nine, and we were only four. We left Paris at three o’clock in the afternoon, and the first part of the ride was tolerably pleasant, but in the morning I found myself in one of those wide naked common fields, of which I have so often complained. At Troyes the whole visible horizon is chalk, but there is shade about the town, and a promenade ornamented with large trees all round it, with the Seine running at the bottom.

Champaine is famous for its wine; the country about Chartres for corn. After hearing this, one is rather surprised to see almost the whole of the first province a corn country, and the latter city exclusively surrounded by vineyards; yet such is the fact. Champaine is almost all chalk, a soil very unfavourable to vines. According to Cuvier, one part of it is a complete chalky desert. A similar barrenness of soil has given to another district the name of Lousy Champaine. The wine seems to be grown on the hills which form the edge of the Paris basin.

We observed in passing along, numerous traces of the campaign of 1814. Houses and villages destroyed, and the inhabitants restoring a bit of roof or a floor, as the one or the other was most necessary for their immediate accommodation, and leaving the rest to be gradually renewed, as they should find themselves able to effect it.

One of my companions had been an officer under Napoleon, and another, perhaps a serjeant, or corporal, but he seemed an observing man. Neither of them appeared to have any affection for their general, but the officer in particular was very bitter against him. He had been torn by him from all his domestic comforts, and had not been long enough in the army to cease to think about the privations it required. Both had been wounded, but not very severely, and both wished for peace. This the French think they shall have, if the English will let them be quiet; but it is difficult to persuade them that there is any correspondent wish on our part; and quite impossible to convince them that Napoleon’s return from Elba was not favoured by the English government. This is very extravagant no doubt, but not more so than the belief in England that the French wish for war. One universal cry rises from every part of France, peace! peace! This may perhaps be in some degree the consequence of having suffered by unsuccessful war; but the wish is not for the moment the less earnest or sincere. Returning strength may recall their ambition. In all nations the consciousness of power seems to produce the desire to exert it, so far at least as to make their neighbours feel it; and it would be unreasonable to expect that France should prove an exception.

Our journey to Troyes occupied twenty-four hours. I did little that evening. The next morning I walked round the ramparts and made a few memoranda. Monday was unfortunately a jour de fête, which I had not anticipated, and I was sadly disturbed in my sketches and observations by the services and by the crowds of people. The first view of the buildings at Troyes rather discontented me, but since I have left it I begin to think more highly of its architecture, and to regret that I did not spend more time there. The cathedral of course was my first object, and I endeavoured to ascertain the precise date of its architecture, but without success. I was told indeed that the chapels of the choir are older than the rest of the building, that the choir is eight hundred years old, that the nave was built twenty-five years later, and the front last of all. I was pleased with this traditionary account, because the architecture announces the same order in the erections, though not precisely at these epochs. The windows of the chapels, narrow, pointed, and without any sort of internal ornament, may perhaps indicate a building of the middle or latter end of the twelfth century. I insert these guesses at dates, because they tell in themselves several things of the style of building, and are of importance in judging of the historical evidence which I may hereafter be able to obtain; but if I were now to give to the early architecture of France all the attention it deserves, it would be some years before I went to Italy. The choir has roses in the windows, but the piers are slender to excess, and they are consequently much crippled. It must be decidedly posterior to the cathedral of Rheims and Amiens, and perhaps to the choir at Beauvais. The earliest date would be therefore the latter part of the thirteenth century, and it may class very well with the nave of St. Denis, built by Matthieu de Vendôme in 1281. In the improved architecture of that period there is usually a capital all round the pier, at the springing of the arches, which open from the body of the building into the side aisles. The capitals of the small shafts are sometimes smaller (in height) than the general capital, (perhaps this indicates a difference of date) but at Troyes they have disappeared altogether. Every column and every shaft, still has its capital; but the longer ones are not divided into two heights with a capital to each. The capitals which remain are smaller in proportion, and the pillars more slender than in the earlier Gothic. If the nave was built only twenty-five years later, a great change had taken place in a very short interval. The roses of the windows are entirely gone, and the heads filled up with rather a complicated tracery; the mullions both of the windows, and of the divisions of the arches of the gallery, have lost their capitals; the ribs of the vaulting continue quite simple, and the intermediate spaces are much arched upon them. This must be considered as an example of the third style of French Gothic, and is the most important instance I have seen. The rose windows at the ends of the transepts have a perpendicular pillar of masonry running up the middle, to support them; a precaution dictated by the same necessity as the upright mullions of our perpendicular style, when the parts became very light and the windows very extensive. The effect is by no means pleasing. That of the north transept is inserted in a square externally. I cannot venture to assign a date for these novelties, but both of them are characteristic in the history of the art. The earliest rose windows were complete detached circles; those which succeeded are more or less united with accessories, forming a pointed window. The peculiarities at Troyes are posterior to both these.

The western front is of the last style of Gothic, and is a rich and beautiful specimen. Two towers were designed, but one only is built, and this is so singular, that I am induced to think it an old tower, of which the lower part has been entirely covered with work of the latter part of the fifteenth century, and the upper touched up and altered towards the latter part of the sixteenth, or beginning of the seventeenth. This last is abundantly denoted by the ornaments, and by little but the ornaments. In the earlier parts the little arches of the decorations terminate in a trefoil, and some of the mouldings pass over the others in the manner I have already described, as belonging to the fourth style of Gothic. In the second French Gothic, the crenated ornament occurs abundantly in the circular parts of the windows. In the third it is found at the heads of the divisions of the windows, and among the leaves of the tracery. In both these it is always on the edge of the opening, and close to the glass; in the fourth it occurs among the mouldings, and lies over some of the interior ones; it is even repeated two or three times in the same opening, and becomes singularly varied in its forms. One opening at Troyes has it as in fig. 1, another exhibits it as in fig. 2, or as in fig. 3,

becoming a sort of scroll, enriched with foliage; lastly, and this also may be seen in a church at Troyes, it inclines forwards from the face of the work, instead of lying parallel to it.

Two other churches at Troyes attracted my attention, that of the Madelaine and St. Urban. The former has the shape of a Greek cross in a square, the angles being filled up with double aisles. The windows are narrow and unornamented; one, two, or three together; in the last case the middle is the largest. Externally, they exhibit the triangular ornament, but this has been cut away from a great many of them. There are neither galleries nor two stories of aisles, and the ‘rond point’ is of a late Gothic, neither curious nor beautiful; so that we lose the character usually offered by that part in ascertaining the date. The groining of the vault is oblique. Across the opening of the choir is a beautiful arched screen, somewhat less complicated than at Chartres, and of less delicate workmanship, but still very rich, and well executed. One of the statues contained in it, and apparently of the same date, is very fine; but most of these have been destroyed, and one or two are supplied in painted wood. We may still distinguish that the old work has been painted. The church of St. Urban is perhaps of the end of the thirteenth century, or beginning of the fourteenth; it is small, but very beautiful inside and out. The tracery of the windows is in roses, not in leaves. The aisles are not continued to the ‘rond point,’ but there is a sort of gallery which is opened into windows, forming a continuation of the upper windows. The south and north portals offer the peculiarity of arches supported on detached columns, but these columns have a rib down each side, and are without capitals. I consider them as posterior to the body of the building, with which they do not well unite, or rather the outer half of the portico does not correspond well with the part which joins the church, and here perhaps the addition took place, in the fifteenth century.

I left Troyes in the evening, but I fancied I could distinguish that we did not leave the chalk till about Bar sur Seine. In the morning I found myself in a deep valley, broken by limestone rocks, and bright little streams bursting out by the road side, and hurrying down into the Seine, which seemed here about as large as the river Lee at Ware. Woods are scattered about, but in small proportion, and not enough to prevent an appearance of nakedness. After some time we left the valley, and again entered a wide common field, but much more hilly than those to which I have lately been accustomed, and here and there with a spot of wood. At last we descended through a forest, to the little village of Val Suzon. It is situated in a very deep valley, to which I can think of no nearer resemblance than Dovedale, but the rocks are less bold, and the hills less steep and high; still however, it is a fine romantic hollow, too uniformly covered with brush-wood, which, as is the case in most of the French forests, is preserved merely for fuel; and deficient in trees. Deep and narrow ravines opening into this valley, seemed a suitable resort for wolves, but it was not a time of year, or of day, to see any of these animals. The botany for the first time differed essentially from that of England. Crossing again a range of hills, we soon arrived at Dijon, which is situated at a little distance from their base.

The cathedral of St. Benigne, at Dijon, has been called a very fine building, and Millin speaks of it as a very ancient one. I therefore was in great haste to visit it, but was very much disappointed. It is indeed, of the thirteenth century, and perhaps later in style than in date, but small, poor, and deficient in expression. An older church was crushed by the fall of a lofty central tower in 1271, and the present edifice was completed in 1291. Its want of effect is perhaps partly owing to the unstained glass, and to the whitewash. Till the period of the French revolution, an ancient domical temple existed behind the choir of this church. It was composed of two circular peristyles, one above the other, and is said to have been erected A. D. 173, under Marcus Aurelius, in honour of Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn. In later times it was consecrated to the Virgin. Near the cathedral are two other churches, one of which is now a stable, and the other the office of weights and measures. The porch of the first is pretty good. In another part of the town there is also a group of three churches.

The principal is that of St. Michel, which is said to have been built, or rebuilt in 1030, and restored in 1338. But in 1497 it threatened ruin, and the parish repaired it, and added the present choir. Here the windows are very long and narrow. Some are united in pairs, with a rose over them, but not included in any common arch. At the ends of the transept the rose windows and the openings below them are filled with tracery. The aisles are high and well lighted, but the general effect is heavy and displeasing. The western portal is the most singular part of the edifice. The architect was Hugues Sambin, a native of Dijon, who is said to have been the friend and pupil of M. Angelo Buonarotti. The porch is a return to the first Gothic style of shafts and statues; the latter indeed have been destroyed in the storms of the revolution, except those in the soffites of the arches, where angels are represented with wings and fiddles, and these are very little damaged. Many parts are ornamented with Arabesques, and some of the capitals have the Gothic trefoil topsy-turvy. The arches are semicircular, and are surmounted by an entablature in a continued line. It seems, that on the first introduction of Italian Architecture, the first period of the renaissance, as everybody here calls it, the great lines of the construction were better preserved than they were afterwards. I met a gentleman who contended that this porch was copied from a Roman arch of triumph, and presented all the characters of one, though there is in fact no resemblance. The ease with which a Frenchman seems to utter all that comes into his head, without any fear of ridicule, ought, one would think, to give him an opportunity of speedily correcting his errors, but for some reason or other this does not take place. The middle of the porch has a little cupola. Over the porch, the five orders of architecture, disposed in all ways, are heaped over one another, “as if,” said a blacksmith, in whose shop I sheltered myself from a shower of rain, “they had got hold of Vignola, and determined to execute all he had described.” This remark was the more just, as the orders really resemble those of Vignola. It would do well for a front to St. Eustache, at Paris. The two other churches of this group are no longer used as places of worship, and the outsides did not incite me to be at the trouble of examining them within.

But the church at Dijon most worthy of attention is that of Nôtre Dame. It was built, according to Agencourt, by St. Louis; and probably therefore, in the first half of the thirteenth century; and there are many circumstances which put one in mind of the church at Mantes, attributed likewise to that monarch; but we have no account of its consecration before 1334.

The western front has some resemblance in its lower part, to the southern portal of Chartres. It has an open portico, of three arches in front, and two arches deep, with a little square additional piece. The central part is vaulted in oblique groins. The doorways are ornamented with columns singularly crowded together, and statues have been placed on some of those of the front row, but these, as usual, have been destroyed. I could not determine whether there had been any projection at the feet of these statues to give them an apparent support. The canopies above them are rather appended to the capitals, than forming part of them, and they consist of models of architecture; nearly the same subject being repeated in all of them. The space over these arches has been ornamented with figures, and we find also a sort of Roman or Arabesque ornament; but I consider this, not as indicating a difference of date, but as an approximation to a style I may expect to find in the South of France and in Italy, retaining much more of the ancient architecture, than that of our northern parts. Even in the north of France, we meet frequently with approximations to the Roman orders and ornaments in the early Gothic. Above the door of the southern portal a row of disks still remains, placed, I suppose, behind the heads of statues of saints, which have been destroyed. These are observed also at the porch of St. Germain des Prés, and in some other buildings, where they are considered as proofs of high antiquity.

Over this porch or portico are two ranges, each of nineteen columns, supporting little arches, and above and below, and between these ranges are richly ornamented bands. On these bands, in several places, are indications, as if there had been figures of animals projecting directly forwards, as you may frequently see in cases where they are introduced as water-spouts, and such figures are still seen at the back of this façade. The annexed sketch may give you an idea of what I suppose to have been the original design of the composition.

The plan of this building is a Latin cross, with aisles to the nave, two little chapels on each side of the straight part of the choir, and a very narrow aisle behind the choir. A gallery or triforium runs round the building at the usual height, and a second within the windows of the clerestory. In Gothic churches, the glass of the upper windows is usually over the range of little shafts forming the triforium, here it is over the wall, forming the back of the gallery. At the rond point this gallery occupies the whole width of the aisle below; a very wide gallery, though a very narrow aisle; and it is there lighted by circular windows, but whether these belong to the original design I cannot tell. One end of the transept presents an arrangement somewhat similar to that of St. Leger, at Soissons, with five equal lancet windows below, and a rose window above. The work of the rose window fell out some time ago, and it is now quite naked. The five windows below are long and narrow, and without any tracery: indeed there is no tracery in the church. They have externally six shafts, at some distance from the wall, supporting little pointed arches; internally, there are only three shafts, which of course do not correspond with the windows; and they support flat scheme arches on little blocks. Over the intersection of the cross is a square tower, with a circular turret at each angle. The inside of this tower is ornamented with very slender shafts, and arches upon them, and was certainly intended to be exposed from below to the interior of the church; the present vaulting of that part being an awkward posterior addition. The old vaulting, above these shafts, was begun, but never completed.

While I was making sketches in this church, a girl took a chair just behind me, in order at the same time to perform her devotions, and to see what I was about; but religion and curiosity combined were insufficient to keep her awake. Soon after, the same blacksmith who had so well criticised the porch at St. Michel, came up and offered to conduct me all over the church, of which he had the keys. I assented to his proposal, and was not a little struck with the extreme thinness of the walls: those of the turrets, though rising 100 feet from the roof, are not 6 inches thick, and other walls are about in the same proportion. Indeed, the architect seems to have loved lightness ‘à la folie;’ for, in ornamenting the inside of his tower, he has used shafts 20 feet long, and only 7 inches in diameter, and one of these is of a single stone: several other shafts are about 15 feet long, and 5½ inches in diameter, each of a single piece, and all perfectly detached from the wall for their whole length. They are of a very hard stone, and so are also some of the thinnest parts of the masonry: the rest of the walls and piers are of a material less hard and heavy, and the vaulting, which is in oblique groins, is of a stone extremely light and porous. They are all found within a few leagues of the place.

The rain disappointed me in a walk I had projected, in order to see a little of the country about Dijon. Just out of the town is a noble spring, clear and abundant, and the use the people of the city make of it is to wash their foul linen. A shed built over it, and rows of stones in the water, make it very convenient for that purpose. It seems almost a profanation to contaminate the crystal fluid so immediately, with dirt and soapsuds. The soil is very rocky in the immediate neighbourhood, and full of quarries, which form excellent vineyards; but till we reach this place, Burgundy has as few vineyards as Champaine. The finest wine is made a little beyond Dijon, on the road to Lyon.

In England, we see sometimes written up working jeweller, working watch-maker, indicating, I suppose, the double advantage, that their employers will have to give their directions to the very individual who will execute them, and that it will be cheaper, as no intermediate profit is necessary. In France, on the contrary, we find marchands serruriers, marchands horlogers, &c.; the possessor of the shop apparently vindicating himself from the charge of being a mere workman.

I left Dijon on the morning of the 28th. One meets in French diligences, as well as in English stages, great variety of company, sometimes very agreeable, and sometimes rather the reverse. My companions from Troyes belonged to the latter class, but to make amends, I was this morning very fortunate, and met with a civil and very pleasant company. Both parties were I believe traders, going to the fair of Beaucaire. On leaving the town we observed a man sleeping under the walls of a church. He had made himself a sort of roof, and suspended to it a napkin, to keep out the rain, which descended heavily, and his goods were spread about, covered with old tapestry. It was a testimony to the honesty, or to the good police of Dijon; and perhaps if my companions had not thought it very ridiculous, I should have set it down as one of the customs of the country. On this road there was no longer any deficiency of vineyards. They lie at the foot of a range of hills almost all the way to Chalons sur Saone; these hills are of considerable height, (but not mountains) intersected frequently by deep, narrow ravines, sometimes rocky, and giving me something of the idea of the Mendip hills, between Wells and Chedder, but less bold, less lofty, and to the eye, less rich; for though the upper part is covered with wood, yet it is merely bushes and underwood. This is the famous Côte d’Or. All the lower parts are covered with the vineyards which produce the Burgundy wine, but some are much better than others, though the physical situation of all seems precisely alike. These hills were on the right; on the left was a fertile and well cultivated plain, not entirely flat, shaded with fruit trees, and here and there a little bit of wood: the vines sometimes extending also on this side. The rain did not permit me to see the extent of this lower country, or how it was bounded.

There is a cathedral at Chalons, of which the earliest part may perhaps be of the pointed architecture of the eleventh century. The choir is of the twelfth and thirteenth, and some parts of the edifice must be of the fifteenth, but I had little time to examine it. We found the floods so high, that the barge (Coche d’eau) which passes between Chalons and Lyon could not go, the tracking paths being covered with water. Three of my companions and myself engaged a voiture to take us to Macon. We breakfasted, or dined, as it is here usually called, at Tournu. In the north of France the meals are disposed pretty much as in England, but the breakfast is more solid. Here we dine at eleven or twelve, sometimes earlier, and it is the first meal. Supper is usually about eight.

At Tournu is a curious church. The body is of a rude sort of Norman architecture, apparently of high antiquity, with additions decidedly posterior, but still Norman, and some trifling alterations of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. The choir has something like pilasters, and the intersection of the nave and transept is surmounted by a dome, which I cannot doubt to be part of the original structure.

The banks of the Saone at first are flat, but the scenery begins to improve about Tournu. The road from this place occasionally passes over moderate hills, and exposes views of distant mountains covered with wood, cultivated hills, and rich and populous valleys. The weather was beautiful, and while our carriage remained waiting at Tournu, I walked on and had truly a time of enjoyment. At Macon, my companions conducted me to the Hotel de l’Europe, and I felt myself so comfortable, and was so well pleased with the place and the people, that I was quite sorry not to be able to find a good Gothic cathedral, as a reason for spending a day or two there. On the 30th we found a passage boat, and descended to Lyon. The hills which bound the valley approach as we descend, and the entrance of Lyon is like the approach to Bristol from the sea, under the Slopes of Durdham and King’s Downs, and the rocks of the hot wells, but the river is larger and the cliffs not so high. There are a few curious looking chateaus in descending the Saone, and one or two churches one might look at, if employment were wanted, but nothing is very striking, and you may easily conceive that thus going down in a boat, I can hope to catch nothing but the most obvious features.