His father, so he tells us, had endeavoured to keep him from following the paths of poetry by instancing the present troubles of the country and the troubles that threatened. Poetry, he said, like many another father since, with as good reason and with as little effect, would not pay. His uncle’s good fortune was exceptional and misleading.

The clatter of drums and cannons, however, was destined soon to cease, and the voice of Régnier’s muse was before long to be heard in the land. Régnier was a true child of the Renaissance in that he not only imitated, like his uncle, the Italian poets of his day, but he also based his satire on a close study of the classical writers. For he knew his Ovid thoroughly; like Ronsard, he modelled himself on Juvenal, and, like Joachim du Bellay, he recalls the manner of Horace. But apart from the knowledge and appreciation of great models, Régnier enjoyed also the genuine inspiration of a poet. He tells us how, in his youth, he would wander in the woods dreaming of fame and fortune, and learning the mysteries of the Muse:—

This and other passages are enough to show that Régnier had the imagination as well as the temperament of the true poet. Therefore, in spite of his free imitation of the ancients, he remains original—a great poet of the order of Clément Marot. What he borrows he makes his own, and in adapting passages from the Roman writers to the Gallic manners of his own day he not infrequently improves them. And apart from his satires, he reveals in his lyrics, to a high degree, the same poetical sensibility, and he describes with a melodious melancholy the poet’s regret for the days that are no more:—

Mathurin was relieved from the restraints of paternal authority in 1591. For in that year his father was thrown into prison, under circumstances typical of the time. Philippe Desportes had chosen Jacques Régnier to farm one of his benefices, the Abbey of Josaphat, but he, instead of devoting himself wholly to the peaceful cultivation of the land, exerted himself politically on the side of the Chartrain Ligueurs. The good King Henry, whose habit it was to draw less blood than money from rebellious citizens, fined him sixteen hundred crowns, and, when he failed to pay, threw him into prison at Chartres. There he remained some months. His son, meanwhile, who had already got himself into trouble by writing lampoons on the inhabitants of his native town, and repeating them to the frequenters of a tennis-court which his father had built, took this opportunity of slipping away to Paris. There his uncle, Desportes, recommended him to the Cardinal-Archbishop of Toulouse, François de Joyeuse, and he took part in that prelate’s embassy to Rome. At the same time he was presented with the small priory of Bouzancourt. Thus one fine morning he,

He seemed to be on the high road to fortune. But though a better poet he was a worse courtier than his uncle. In ten years spent with Joyeuse and his successor, the young secretary earned nothing except experience. Of that and its fruits he earned more than enough. He indulged without restraint in the careless joy of living, and he suffered, like so many of his contemporaries, from the intense delight in life and the feverish gratification of the pleasures of the flesh which marked the Renaissance movement. For men were encouraged to give free reign to the bonne loi naturelle by the whole spirit of an age which was a revolt from the gloomy monasticism of the Middle Ages. Of the results, in his own case, of such indulgence and of his sufferings, which had nothing in common with those of the saints, Mathurin Régnier tells us in some of his passages more than we care to know.

They taught him at any rate a certain philosophy of a not very exalted sort, which he expounds to us in one of his satires. It is a kind of epicurean pococurantism, summed up in the words of Swinburne, ‘Hope thou not much and fear thou not at all,’ and expressed by the poet himself:—

The best comment on it, perhaps, is that implied in the epitaph on himself which heads this chapter.

Régnier returned from Italy, then, with an ample provision of memories, and perhaps with those poems which are based on the works of the Italian satirists. He took up his abode in his uncle’s house at Paris, and there, as in Rome, he noted in the intervals of dissipations the manners and the characters of men. He saw and knew the high personages who frequented the house of Desportes, and whose names occur in his poems. And not being a time-server himself,

he was content to draw with biting irony the portrait of a courtier bard, who,

Or of the vain beggar poets who

Renaissance Oriel Rue de la Corroierie
Renaissance
Oriel Rue de la Corroierie

Or, again, he marks down a courtier with a vigour and point which Molière could not surpass:—

A dozen other examples might be quoted to show with what satiric acid he can etch a portrait. Régnier can paint a scene, too, with same unerring detail and bitter accuracy, as, for instance, ‘Le Souper Ridicule’ and the less savoury ‘Mauvais Gîte.’ The latter poem is indeed the only one which deserves the imputation conveyed by Boileau’s phrase about the author’s rimes cyniques. Régnier is essentially a moral writer, for he makes vice, even when he describes it openly, the reverse of attractive. The worst that can and may be said of him is that, like Juvenal, he attacks vice with arms that make virtue blush. He says himself:—

and certainly the sincere and vigorous pictures he draws will prove a temptation to no one, though they may inspire, like his habit of calling a spade a spade, feelings of repugnance and disgust. But this is the aim, as these are the means of all genuine satirists. Régnier’s comment on his own failings is pathetic, but does not condone them. It reminds one of Ovid’s words, ‘Video meliora proboque. Deteriora sequor.’

For, happily, the consequences of his loose living had wrought in him a tardy repentance. His conversion was as late and as sincere as that of La Fontaine—and not less needed. As he left politics alone, and attacked not individuals but social types, he made no enemies. For most men group others in classes but not themselves, or at any rate suppose themselves to be free from the vices of the class to which they belong. So they called our satirist Bon Régnier, as later they spoke of Bon la Fontaine, and the bonhomie implied by their nickname had the same seasoning of malice. But it was not rewarded with any great share in the goods of this world. His uncle, dying in 1606, left him only a legacy of 2000 livres on the Abbey des Vaus de Cernay. Henry IV., by conferring this request, gained the friendship of the poet, who expressed his gratitude in the admirable verses of his first satire. In 1608, the year in which his works were first published, he was presented with a stall in the Cathedral of Chartres. But only five years later he left Royaumont, the abbey of the Bishop of Chartres, who always made him welcome, and found his way to Rouen. There he consulted a quack doctor, a famous empiric, Le Sonneur by name, who promised to heal him of all his diseases. But he died after dining with this too encouraging physician.

I have spoken of Régnier as the creator of French satire, and so, in a sense, he was. But the phrase requires qualification. His satires are not indeed absolutely the first of their kind in France. They had been preceded by the terrific invectives of D’Aubigné, the vigorous outbursts of Jean de la Taille, and the less vehement but more polished satirical portraits of Vauquelin de Fresnaye. But in breadth and technical merit he far surpassed all his predecessors, and, in force, all except D’Aubigné. The longest, the best known, and undoubtedly the best of his sixteen satires, is the thirteenth. There, under the title of Macette, he describes an old woman who hides vice under a mask of hypocrisy, and corrupts youth with her evil philosophy of the world and its ways. The type is not new, but Régnier’s description of it is original and vigorous in the extreme. His Macette, in fact, is the grandmother of Molière’s Tartuffe.

Clearly the style of comedy had been found when a man could write like that, and Molière, fifty years later, had only to choose among the lines of Régnier when he wished to draw the character of Tartuffe.

becomes in Tartuffe

And in many other instances our Chartrain poet has supplied the great comedian with lines and hints, which Molière, true to his principle, Je prends mon bien où je le trouve, has appropriated as unblushingly and as successfully as a Vergil. This, apart from his other merits, and in spite of his faults, is in itself enough to justify the existence of the rimes cyniques of Mathurin Régnier.

CHAPTER XI

The Coronation of Henri Quatre

was far from being prepared as yet to accept Henri Quatre as its ruler. The throne of S. Louis could not, in the eyes of a large section of the nation, belong to a heretic, and Henri de Béarn was a Huguenot. Paris, which was devoted to the Catholic League, closed its gates to him, and Chartres, equally enthusiastic in the same cause, refused to admit him. Resolved to make himself master of a town which was regarded as a boulevard of the capital, Henri had forced the rest of the Duchy to recognise him by the end of 1590, but Chartres was still stubborn. He sent, therefore, Marshal de Biron to lay siege to the town, and he began operations on the 12th February. But, contrary to the expectations of Henri, who was in communication with many of the citizens, the resistance offered by the Catholic city was vigorous and prolonged. Instead of a few days the siege lasted two months, and the defence was conducted with such energy and skill that M. de Réclainville, who had been summoned to their aid, with some troops of the Ligue, complimented the citizens on their bravery and resource. He had taken a part, he said, in many an affair, but never had he seen a finer struggle than the siege of Chartres.

The first few days were taken up with skirmishes in the suburbs and sorties by the garrison, who endeavoured, too late, to destroy the cover which the outlying buildings afforded the enemy. On the 15th of the month the King himself arrived, and the Royalists thereupon constructed a barricade, facing the ravelin of the Porte Drouaise, and opened a trench in the Pig Market, under cover of a battery masked by the ruined houses, and directed against the ravelin of the Porte des Épars. The latter point was chosen because there the walls of the ravelin being incomplete, gave greater scope for the effective play of the artillery.

But before commencing hostilities Henri resolved to try more peaceable means of gaining possession of the town. He had no wish to be involved in the expense and delay of an unnecessary siege. A trumpeter and herald were sent therefore on the 16th, the day after his arrival, to summon the Chartrains to surrender. But Suireau, the mayor, and La Bourdaisière, the military governor, rivalled one another in the vehemence of their refusal to open the gates so long as the King remained a heretic. Their vehemence was probably stimulated by the suspicion which had recently been thrown on their sincerity. For an epigram had recently been pasted on the walls of the town accusing them of treacherous intentions—

Whether there was any truth in the accusation or not, their answer now was uncompromising enough. The Royalists retorted by pushing their trench and mines up to the ravelin of the Porte des Épars, whilst, on their side, the besieged prepared counter-mines. Meanwhile, they dealt successfully with the barricade which threatened the Porte Drouaise. Three heavy pieces of artillery were brought up, the feint of a sortie was made to distract the attention of the enemy, and when this had been successfully accomplished, the cannon were unmasked, and a few rounds ‘poured into their nest quickly turned the birds out,’ as a contemporary puts it.[95] The Chartrains completely destroyed the barricades during the ensuing night. But the besiegers quickly opened another trench, and began to run other mines against the counterscarp of the ditch between the Porte Châtelet and the Porte S. Jean. In order, if possible, to destroy the barricade which protected this trench a gun-platform was hastily erected, and some heavy pieces placed in position.

The King, who had a large number of supporters among the better class of citizens, had expected to take Chartres at the first attempt. Before beginning the bombardment he again summoned the town to surrender, and so anxious was he not to be drawn into the trouble of a siege that he engaged in still further parleyings with the governor and mayor. But it was all to no purpose. The people were determined to resist, and they cut short all attempts at negotiation.

On Ash Wednesday, therefore, February 27, the bombardment commenced. A battery of seven pieces established in the trench of the Pig Market, opened fire on the walls between S. Foy and the Porte des Épars. A furious cannonade was maintained at intervals during that day and the next, and made a serious impression upon the defences. Many houses also were levelled to the ground; the spire of S. Foy was knocked down; one cannon ball entered the room of the Bishop’s Palace, in which Henri III. had been wont to assemble his Council, and in which, it is said, the Massacre of Blois was arranged; another ball lodged between the two spires of the Cathedral, and broke one of the figures in the Gallery of Kings. A third, weighing 42 pounds, entered the old spire; and a fourth crashed through a section of the western rose window and fell into the choir. After that, the Chapter decided to perform the service in the crypt.

The resistance of the besieged was desperate. But, none the less, the enemy succeeded in a few days in pushing their trenches and galleries right up to the walls of the ravelin of the Porte des Épars. The King decided that the moment had come to deliver an assault. On the 5th of March, accordingly, a terrific bombardment took place, which had the undesired effect of knocking some of the masonry of the gate into the breach—an accident which prompted Gramont to remark, that the King of Navarre had fired five hundred rounds and only succeeded in filling the breach, but that he would have to fire fifteen hundred more to open it again. Under cover of this bombardment, a party of soldiers massed themselves behind the barricade in preparation for the assault. But an officer of the garrison, who was on guard in the Clocher Neuf espied this movement, and informed La Bourdaisière of it. His warning saved the town. The besieged concentrated their forces to repel the attack when the enemy attempted to scale the breach of the ravelin. The struggle even so was long and desperate. It lasted from three in the afternoon till nightfall, when the Royalists were compelled to retire, leaving many of their number dead in the ditch. The Chartrains had also suffered heavily. Their losses included forty soldiers and twenty citizens. The gallant De Pescheray, one of the chief defenders of the town, was mortally wounded in this fight. But an important check had been given to the besiegers, who contented themselves for some days with driving their galleries and mines.

Ill with impatience, the King swore to make the citizens of Chartres pay dearly for the powder which they made him burn. But they, looking daily to be relieved by the Ligue from the quarter of Dreux or elsewhere, actively counter-mined the Royalist sappers, and when the fire of the arquebusiers had no effect upon them, they adopted Gramont’s suggestion, and hurled bottles of burning oil and fleurs de soufre amongst the enemy.

And now the siege had lasted a month, when one morning—it was the 15th of March—Henri was amazed to hear all the bells of the town, Marie and Gabrielle and the rest, ring out in joyful peals. The streets, it was soon reported, were filled with processions of the inhabitants, who were celebrating with unwonted fervour and extraordinary pomp the anniversary of the deliverance of the town upon the investment of Condé. Yet, even as they did so, many shook their heads at the evil augury of the statue of the Virgin that had been set above the Porte Drouaise. Throughout the siege of 1568, it was pointed out, the cannon-balls of the Prince de Condé had never been able to touch it, but Henri’s bombardment had succeeded in upsetting, though not in breaking it.

Struck by the devotion of the citizens, it is said, and charmed by the melody of the bells, Henri gave orders that no guns should be fired that day, in order that the harmony of the celebration should not be troubled.

If this story be true, the garrison acknowledged the courtesy of Henri in a scurvy fashion. For on the evening of this day Gramont exploded a counter-mine before the Porte des Épars. In so doing he not only destroyed the enemy’s works, but also a large section of his own ravelin. The result might have been serious if an assault had been delivered at once. But, contrary to the King’s directions, the citizens were given time to repair the damage.

Still there was no sign of immediate succour from without. Fair words from the Ligueurs at Dreux, and promises from the Duc de Mayenne came in abundance. But those in charge of the defence knew that unless aid came quickly or provisions were thrown into the town, it would be impossible to hold out long. Already they were dependent for their flour upon the little wind-mills set up in the town, one of which had just been discovered in the Clocher Neuf, where it had lain since the days when the English besieged Chartres.[96] Those in command of the garrison were indeed by this time quite ready to deliver up the town into the King’s hands, but the inhabitants refused to entertain the idea of yielding to the heretic of Navarre. They therefore decided to gain time by any means. Negotiations were opened with this object. La Bourdaisière and Gramont held an interview with the King’s representatives on the 19th, and again on the 26th. Biron and others, with a strong escort, came to the Porte S. Michel, when Gramont went forth to parley with them. But hardly had the conference begun when a cannon-shot, fired by mistake from the Royalist camp, ricochetted near them. The people of Chartres, thinking themselves betrayed, replied with a volley, which accounted for several soldiers of Biron’s escort, and abruptly put an end to parleyings. Next day Gramont and others had an interview with the King in person at the Monastery of S. Lubin, and brought back terms which were promptly rejected by the Ligueurs, who were still in a majority in the Council. They would rather die, they said, than surrender to a Huguenot King. This reply provoked an assault from the enemy, but the Chartrains were still unshaken. They informed the King that they would recognise him when he returned to the bosom of the Church, and meanwhile proposed such terms of capitulation that Henri swore a Mort Dieu, instead of his usual Ventre S. Gris, and cried out that as soon as he had taken the town he would hang these mutinous rascals who made fun of him.

His next step was to shift all his batteries suddenly to the side of the bishop’s palace, and, concentrating his fire on a small section of the wall in that quarter, speedily to effect a new breach. Every effort had been made by the defenders during the short respite allowed them to strengthen their position against the inevitable assault. And when the assault was delivered the defence was admirable. Six times the Royalist troops rushed to the breach; six times they were flung back by the desperate courage of the besieged. They retired finally at seven o’clock in the evening, after five hours’ fighting. They had lost three hundred men. The trenches were filled with dead and dying. Among the Chartrains the losses were almost as heavy. After the fourth assault, not one of the defenders of the first entrenchment had remained unwounded. A truce for the removal of the dead was arranged, and during the following night the besieged filled up the gap in the walls with sacks and gabions. But a new trial was in store for them. The Royalists built a large wooden bridge, closed like a gallery, and this, on the night of the 7th, they rolled on barrels up to and over the moat. The garrison were filled with consternation when they woke to see it in position, and the soldiers within, safe from attack, engaged in pulling down the sacks and gabions with which the breach had just been built up. The discouragement was great. Many began openly to declare that further resistance was useless. In some cases the soldiers were only induced to enter the ravelin, which, they maintained, was now untenable, by the persuasion of their officers’ swords. The King, hearing of the growing spirit of discouragement within the walls, made yet another attempt to bring about a surrender. But such was the suicidal intolerance and obstinacy of the leading Ligueurs, that in the proposals they submitted they still insisted on the absolute prohibition of the reformed cult, a governor of their own choice, and a long truce, to enable them to inform the Duke of Mayenne of what was being done. Henri, of course, tore up the paper on which these absurd conditions were written, and proceeded to impose his own terms. They were accepted on the 10th of April, and proved to be extraordinarily lenient.

Henri authorised the practice of the Catholic religion, and forbade that of the reformed cult in the town and suburbs; he confirmed the established government and offices, and promised to punish no one for an act of war. The Ligueurs were granted permission to retire from the town, and eight days were allowed in which to warn Mayenne. If within that time a relieving force of four hundred men or more succeeded in throwing themselves into the town, the capitulation should be regarded as not having taken place. Henri took care, of course, that no force should so find its way into the town. With the object of intercepting any relief that might arrive, he himself, it is said, rode unceasingly round the environs of the town, and so wore himself out with his excessive vigilance that one day, overwhelmed by fatigue, he dismounted, made his pages lie down side by side on the ground, and, stretching himself upon them, slept thus for some hours.

It was also provided that the professional soldiers who formed the garrison should be allowed to march out of the town with their arms and baggage, colours flying and drums beating, and that they should make arrangements, in which the King would aid them, for the care of their wounded.

The clergy were still firm in their refusal to treat with the heretic and held out hopes of a miracle. But La Bourdaisière and Gramont and the majority of responsible people declared that the age of miracles was past and the day of necessity was upon them.

No succour arrived, and on the 19th of April the garrison marched out through the Porte S. Michel between two rows of Royalist soldiery. They were accompanied by the principal Ligueurs among the citizens. It was arranged that next day all the clergy and communities of the town should present themselves at the same gate on the morrow to receive the King and conduct him in full procession to the Porte Royale of Notre-Dame, and that there the Bishop, De Thou, should pronounce an official harangue. The King arrived on horseback with his staff at the appointed hour and was presented with the keys of the city by the mayor. ‘Sire,’ he said, ‘we are obliged to obey you both by human law and law divine.’ ‘You might add by canon law,’ threw in the conqueror, with a laugh. Thereafter, beneath a canopy of blue velvet fringed with gold and silver, and supported by four aldermen, His Majesty went in triumphant procession across the city by the streets S. Michel and Des Changes until he came to the Cathedral. But then, instead of stopping opposite the western porch, he went on his way to the episcopal palace, without appearing to notice the Bishop and Chapter who awaited him on the steps. Not to be cheated of the opportunity of delivering their address, Bishop and Chapter cut across through the church and appeared beneath the northern porch in time to stop the King, make the harangue and receive a gracious reply.

Henri Quatre made arrangements for converting the Porte S. Michel into a citadel and for levying a large sum of money from the citizens, and then, after attending the Protestant meeting-house, he left Chartres.

For the moment it must have seemed that the obstinate defence of the town had done little except add to the lustre of its arms. For the Catholic city was held now by the Protestant troops and became, next to Tours, the most important place in the hands of the Huguenot King. Henri, indeed, soon made it his seat of government. He summoned the Parliament, the Cour des Aides and the Council of State to meet here, and here they sat till the year 1594. It was in that year that he took the ‘perilous leap,’ as he termed it, which was, however, nothing more or less than a step of the highest political wisdom. He put a stop to the civil war, which was plunging France into anarchy and ruin, by reconciling himself with the Church of Rome. Amongst those prelates, before whom at S. Denis he solemnly abjured his Calvinistic errors and made profession of the Catholic, Roman and Apostolic faith, was Nicholas de Thou, Bishop of Chartres. And from that same bishop, whom he had flouted three years before, he received the royal consecration in the Cathedral of Chartres. For to prove the sincerity of his conversion, which was still much doubted, he demanded of the Church the Holy Unction which consecrates the kings. And Reims, the proper place of coronation for the French kings, being still occupied by the troops of Mayenne, Henri chose the ‘town of his good council’ as the scene of this august ceremony. ‘He was moved to make this choice,’ says a writer of his day, ‘by reason of the peculiar devotion entertained for Notre-Dame by the Dukes of Vendôme, his ancestors, and also because that magnificent temple is the most ancient in Christendom.’ But whatever the cause, it may well have seemed to the Bishop and Chapter of Notre-Dame on this occasion that the conqueror was conquered and felt his captive’s charms, that ‘her arts victorious triumphed o’er his arms.’

The occupation of Reims by the enemy rendered it impossible for the sacred vessel of oil to be used for Henri’s consecration, but as the monks of Marmoutiers possessed a phial of miraculous oil, the King sent a deputation to ask them to send it to be used for his coronation. The precious relic arrived in the capital of La Beauce on February 19, 1594, brought by three brethren, monks and officials of the monastery, and escorted by De Souvré, the King’s deputy, the Bishop of Angers and a great number of gentlemen, presidents and councillors. The Bishop of Chartres had sent to meet them all the clergy of the parishes and monasteries of the town, who were joined by Guy Robert, the Provost of Chartres, and twelve notable burgesses, carrying torches decorated with the royal arms and those of the town. A huge concourse of citizens in festal garb accompanied them.

The relic was then carried in procession through the streets, which were hung with tapestry, and to the sound of peals of bells, till it reached the Abbey of S. Père. There it was entrusted to the care of Yves Gaudeau, the prior, and four other monks. On Sunday, the 27th, the Comtes de Cheverny, D’Halluin, De Lauzun and the Baron de Termes presented themselves at the abbey and begged Brother Giron and his comrades of Marmoutiers to bring the holy oil to Notre-Dame to anoint His Majesty withal. The monks acquiesced, but first exacted from the King’s deputies an oath, which was given before notaries, to the effect that the said sacred vessel should be brought back in good faith to S. Père after the said consecration was performed. Then Brother Giron, mounted on a white hackney, bore the precious phial under a magnificent canopy of red damask, followed by the lords responsible for its safety, notable citizens and the multitude of the people. The bishop, Nicholas de Thou, received the sacred vessel from the hands of Brother Giron, and took the oath exacted from the deputies. Then commenced the ceremony of the coronation. Apart from its picturesqueness and the fact that it illustrates a really important moment in French history, the following account, drawn from a contemporary record, may prove of particular interest in this year of grace 1902. It will be not uninteresting to compare the ceremony with that which is to take place in Westminster Abbey in June. The choir of the Cathedral had been hung with rich tapestry. Two arm-chairs had been placed before the high altar, one for the King and one for the officiating Bishop. Behind these, seats were reserved for the peers spiritual and temporal, and for the seigneurs and magistrates invited to assist at the splendid ceremony, whilst the galleries of the choir and nave were expressly left for those who could find a place there through the good offices of those in charge.[97] The King, who had had to listen the previous evening to a preachment on the custom of anointing the kings of France, emerged from the episcopal palace clad in a camisole of crimson satin and a long robe of silver cloth. He entered the Cathedral by the Porte Royale, accompanied by the Bishops of Nantes and Maillezais and preceded by the archers of the Grand Provost, the clergy, the Swiss Guards, heralds, Knights of the Holy Spirit, the Scots Guards, and the Marshal de Matignon bearing the Constable’s sword. Behind him came the Grand Chancellor of France, the Grand Master, the Lord Chamberlain and the First Gentleman of the Bedchamber. The King walked straight towards the altar, accompanied by the two bishops aforesaid, and deposited there as an offering a casket of silver gilt. Then he took the seat prepared for him at the foot of the altar steps. The Bishop of Chartres now took the sacred oil from the hands of the monks of Marmoutiers, showed it to the people and placed it on the high altar. Next, turning towards His Majesty, he said, ‘We demand of you that you should grant unto each one of us, and to the churches whereof we have charge, the lawful and canonical privileges, rights and justice, and that you should defend us as a king in his kingdom should defend all the bishops and their churches.’

The King standing upright, his right hand on the Book of the Gospels, replied, ‘I promise and grant you that I will preserve to you your canonical privileges and your churches, and that I will give you good laws and administer justice to you and defend you, by God’s grace, according to my power, as a king in his kingdom should do by right and reason on behalf of the bishops and their churches.’

After he had made this response the Bishops of Nantes and Maillezais raised the King from his chair and asked those present whether they wished to accept him as king. Hailed as legitimate sovereign by the whole of that vast and magnificent assembly, Henri IV. then took the oath, his right hand resting on the Holy Book.

‘I promise,’ he said, ‘in the name of Jesus Christ, three things to the Christians, my subjects. Firstly, I will take pains that the Christian people may live in peace with the Church of God. Further, I will strive that on all occasions robbery and injustice may cease. Further, I will command that in all judgments equity and pity be observed, to the end that God in His infinite mercy and pity may have pity upon me and upon you. Further, I will strive to my uttermost, in good faith, to chase from my jurisdiction and lands all heretics denounced by the Church, promising on oath to observe all that has been said, so may God and this His holy Gospel help me!’

The Bishop of Chartres, with the aid of the spiritual peers, then anointed Henri with the holy oil, and after the peers had been summoned by the Chancellor of France, taking the crown, and raising it above the head of the monarch, he gave it to the dukes and peers to hold, blessed it and placed it upon the brow of the King. Henri IV. was forthwith conducted by the Bishop and the great lords to the throne which had been erected on the Jubé, that all the people might behold him. The bishop officiating next bade the monarch be seated, and prayed to God ‘to confirm him on his throne and to render him invincible and unshaken before those who strive unjustly to snatch from him the crown which has legitimately fallen to him.’ Then he gave him the kiss of peace and cried aloud three times, ‘Vive le Roi!’ The cry was taken up and repeated by the peers and all the people. The sound of clarions, hautbois, trumpets, drums and other instruments of music echoed through the vaulting of the ancient Cathedral, whilst heralds threw amongst the crowd pieces of gold and silver ‘marked with the effigy of the King and with the date of the day and the year of his anointing and coronation.’ Mass was then celebrated, and the King, having received absolution from the bishop, partook of the communion with great humility. The service over, the bishops and lords escorted the monarch back to the episcopal palace. The Duke of Montbazon led the way, bearing the crown on a velvet cushion, whilst others accompanied him with the sceptre and the royal sword. The sacred vessel was taken back at once in procession to the Abbey of S. Père by the barons. They restored it to the safe keeping of the monks of Marmoutiers.

Meanwhile the King, clad in fresh robes of equal magnificence, ‘sat at table under a canopy of beautiful stuff, in the great episcopal hall, which was adorned with rich tapestries.’ On his right, at another table, were ranged the spiritual peers in pontifical garb; on the left, and at another table, the temporal peers in their coronation robes. Below the stage reserved for the King and these high personages, the ambassadors, the Chancellor, Knights of the Order and the principal officers of the realm took their place at yet another table. The banquet finished with a fanfare of trumpets, hautbois and clarions, and the King retired, preceded by the Marshal de Matignon, carrying before him the royal sword ‘bared outright.’

In the evening there was another splendid banquet, after which grace was said and sung as the late King Henri III. had been wont to have it.

So closed that day of solemn pomp and of ceremonies not meaningless. For they impressed upon the people the reality of a conversion which was politically of almost as much importance to France as the conversion to Christianity of Clovis and his followers. The report of the consecration of the King at Chartres was followed almost immediately by the surrender of Paris, and Henri became in fact what he had so long been in name only, King of France.

I have endeavoured to illustrate each stage of this story of a French ecclesiastical town by the mention or description of some building, and to illumine each notable building by some historic episode connected with it or with the period at which it was constructed. There is little left of the walls and gates which he bombarded to remind us of the taking of the town by Henri Quatre. But if we go to the Municipal Museum and Library we shall find pictures of this siege[98] and of the unsuccessful siege laid by Condé, besides numerous old maps and plans which show us, with varying degrees of accuracy, the town as it was in those days of storm and stress.

The Hôtel de Ville,[99] in which the museum is lodged, is a fine building of red brick and stone, composed of three sections and a very handsome gateway. It is itself connected with the period under review; for, when Henri was besieging the place nearly half the town was in correspondence with the besiegers, and, among the rest, was the important family of Montescot. Montescot was a good courtier, and he was rewarded with a canon’s stall in Notre-Dame. But he was also a good citizen, and he acted as intermediary between Chartres and the King in the matter of the pecuniary contributions levied from the town. He it was who built,[100] as a mansion for himself, the present Hôtel de Ville (1614), and in his character of good courtier he inscribed those words, ‘Henrico Magno,’ over the principal entrance. The bust of Marie de Médici figures on the doorway of the right wing, the bust of Louis XIII. on that of the left. The old Parloir aux Bourgeois, or site of municipal administration, which had been in the hôtel known as the Perron des Trois-Rois in the Rue des Changes since 1571, was moved here in 1792. One wing of the building abuts on the Place des Halles, or market-place, at the corner of which is the Librairie Selleret (Petrot-Garnier), the booksellers and publishers whose name is honourably connected with most of the publications of Chartres.

The municipal rooms, hung with tapestry, are on the ground floor; the library and museum above. The library is of exceptional interest, and it is admirably arranged. Unfortunately it is only open on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 12 to 3.30 p.m. But, if the hours are short, the visitor who may wish to study the extremely rich collection of books and manuscripts, which were removed here from the surrounding monasteries during the Revolution, will find every encouragement to do so. Without credentials or explanation I have read there myself many days, and it is with grateful pleasure that I take this opportunity of acknowledging the polite attention and the ready help proffered to me, a stranger, by the Librarian and his assistants. The collection includes over 100,000 volumes, and among the thousand manuscripts six hundred are earlier than the sixteenth century, and many beautifully illuminated.

The Museum, the entrance to which faces that of the Library, is open to the public on Thursdays and Sundays from 2 to 4 p.m. (gratuity). Catalogue, 1 franc, 50 centimes. I have referred already, in the course of my story, to most of the interesting things to

Place de l’Hôtel de Ville
Place de l’Hôtel de Ville

be seen there. I have mentioned some of the Roman antiquities—the coins and pottery found in the neighbourhood—the armour of Philippe-le-Bel, and of Charles V., his son, offered to Notre-Dame after the battle of Mons-en-Puelle; and among the pictures, the numerous maps and pictures and portraits that relate to the history of Chartres.

It remains to call attention to the Layé collection of arms, armour, porcelain and medals, and, in the room above, what should on no account be missed, the magnificent pieces of Flemish tapestry (sixteenth century) which were brought here from the choir of the Cathedral. Five out of the original ten are to be seen in the Hôtel de Ville. The borders are rich and the work exquisite. They were presented originally to the church by that Bishop de Thou of whom we have spoken above. The designs of the five panels are based on those of the cartoons made by Raphael for the Vatican, and they represent incidents from the life of Moses.

A beautiful example of fourteenth-century French needlework should be noted in a triptych here.

CHAPTER XII

The Revolution—S. Père

An excellent college, founded by a good merchant, Pocquet by name, sprang into prominence in the life of the town, whilst the citadel, established by Henri Quatre at the Port S. Michel, is declared to be no longer needed. It is handed over, in 1600, to the citizens, and converted again into a church. And the Huguenots, so much has the spirit of the age changed, are provided with a church, so that each may worship in peace according to his own conscience.

The year 1623 saw two changes which affected the nominal position of Chartres and continue still to affect it. In the first place the diocese of Chartres became in that year the first suffragan of the newly-created Archbishopric of Paris, and, in the second place, the Duchy of Chartres, definitely and officially united with the crown, passed to Gaston, Duke of Orléans, and has ever since remained in the house of Orléans. The Duchy, it will be remembered, had been created by François I. in favour of Rénée, daughter of Louis XII. Louis XIII. now bought it back from the Duke of Nemours, and himself, Duke of Chartres, visited the town in October of the same year. (It was on a previous occasion that, as the historian Doyen narrates, he came to pay his devotions at the shrine of Notre-Dame, and thereafter was indulging in a game of tennis at the court in the market-place when he was informed that there was a certain woman there who played a strong game. He sent for her and played a set with her. But she beat him. Cette femme prit un caleçon et gagna le roi, en jouant par-dessous la jambe.) Three years later he presented his brother Gaston, on the occasion of his marriage and in exchange for the Duchy of Anjou, with the County of Blois and the Duchies of Orléans and Chartres. On the death of Gaston, the opponent of Mazarin, the Duchy of Chartres reverted to the Crown again, but Louis XIV., a few weeks afterwards, settled it, together with the Duchy of Orléans as an appanage, on his only brother, Philippe, on the occasion of the marriage of that prince with Henrietta of England. Since that time the title of Duke of Chartres has always been the appanage of the eldest son of the house of Orléans.

For the rest, Chartres passed more and more into the condition of a Ville de Province, where only the echoes of what is being said and done in Paris and France are to be heard.

The mystic heresy of the Illuminisme, propagated by the ‘alumbrados’ of Spain, appeared here in the first half of the seventeenth century, but was routed out before long. The method by which it was crushed is, however, significant. This heresy represented a revolt against the hierarchy of the Church. It rejected all dogmas and all ministers of religion. The chief exponent of it at Chartres was a hermit who took up his abode in the woods of Lèves, and soon secured a strong following among the unlettered classes. The heretics, in fact, began to make such progress in La Beauce and Picardie that Richelieu became alarmed. The Government gave orders that the sect was to be exterminated. The hermit of Chartres was therefore arrested and sent to Paris, where he recanted his errors.

He and his followers, in earlier days, would doubtless have been burnt at the stake without more ado. Now, such has been the growth of the central power, they were merely sent to Paris and converted. The punishment of heterodoxy had become generally much less severe. Very little hanging was now done for conscience’s sake. We only come across one instance of a monk being hung at this time, and that was for celebrating Mass without having been ordained priest.

Throughout the succeeding centuries, then, the political action of Chartres is reduced to that of an ordinary commercial municipality. It suffered none the less in common with the rest of France from all those causes which had issue in the Revolution. The crash of 1789 was precipitated by the coincidence of two events—the imminent bankruptcy of the Government and the great famine which, following on one of the worst winters on record, produced universal rioting throughout the country and ended in pure anarchy. For the Government, having no money and no credit, could not feed the people. The people might bring the King from Versailles and sack the Bastille but that did not make bread cheaper. The Constituent Assembly was as helpless as the King. The pressure in Paris was worse in October than during the siege by the Prussians. These famine riots continued in Paris and all over the country till good harvests came. Then the country would have settled down. But the Revolution had been begun, and, under the extreme party, with the aid of the Jacobin clubs, was destined to bring in its train the Reign of Terror. The Girondins wished for war and that the country should not settle down.

The Government had been more or less insolvent since 1715, but since 1783 the share taken by France in the War of American Independence had rendered total failure inevitable. The wealth of the country was not small and it was rapidly increasing. But the Government had for years put an immense strain upon their preposterous financial system, and the ridiculous machine had now completely broken down. Since 1783, one Superintendent of Finance after another had declared that the only possible way to avert bankruptcy was to introduce a sweeping change in the system of taxation. As soon as they came to that conclusion they were dismissed, for Louis XVI., who half knew that they were right, could not stand against his Court. But in the year 1788 the fact became too obvious. The Superintendent Necker declared that, unless some reform were undertaken, bankruptcy, in a few months, was inevitable. Now, the National Debt was held almost entirely by the official class in France, to whom, therefore, even the loss of their privileges, which consisted to a large extent in not paying taxes, seemed better than the bankruptcy of the country. Necker advised the King to summon the States-General and to carry out reforms in connection with it.

The demand for it to be summoned was already loud. It was the old Parliament of France, but it had not met since 1614. Then it had consisted of three separate houses, the Nobles, the Clergy, and the Third Estate, each acting independently of each other and enjoying the right of presenting petitions to the King. How the Third Estate asserted itself and, after the States-General had been converted into the Constituent Assembly, proceeded to fulfil its Tennis-Court Oath and to give a Constitution to France we need not repeat here. What from the point of view of the story of Chartres requires to be noticed is that the new Constitution, which was gradually drawn up between the years 1789-1791, represented to a great extent the ideas implied in the list of grievances, cahier des plaintes, submitted to the Chartrain representatives of the Third Estate. They had had a sufficiently bitter experience in past years of the heavy and unjust incidence of taxation, and the congestion and confusion of the judicial system, which, together with the existence of the official class, were the real grievances of the age. The administrative arrangements of the new Constitution embodied the theories of Rousseau, who advocated extreme democratic decentralisation. For this was a panacea which the followers of Diderot and the Encyclopædists, believing that the correction of bad laws and bad government would produce the millennium, that, in fact, you can change the character of the whole by changing the arrangement of the units, imagined would cure all the evils of Society. Almost all real power, therefore, was taken from the King and placed in the hands of municipal and village Councils, of what Carlyle called ‘forty thousand sovereign bodies.’ One need not emphasise the grim comment passed by history upon these theories.

So far as Chartres was concerned they had their immediate and lasting effect in a decree of the National Assembly, dated January 15, 1790, which constituted our town Capital of the Department of Eure-et-Loir and gave it a departmental administration. The bishopric was preserved, and only a court of appeal was wanting. The assembly of citizens, some 1500 in number, met and elected the members of the new municipal body, which included a mayor, eleven municipal officers, twenty-four notables, and a procureur de la commune.

Besides drawing up a new Constitution, the Constituent Assembly had been busy promulgating a series of decrees, of which some, such as those bringing in a new financial system, proved inoperative, and others, such as that concerning seigneurial dues, were concerned with abolishing what had already ceased to exist. But their decrees concerning the Church had some effect, and that bad. In the first place, the whole property of the Church was confiscated and tithes were abolished. In the second place, under the civil constitution of the clergy, all beneficed clergy were, it was decided, to be beneficed by the State (July 12, 1790). Thirdly, all beneficed clergy were required to submit themselves to free election at the hands of laymen, and to undertake the discharge of their holy office only after swearing a solemn oath to obey the rules of the new Constitution. This decree was an immense blunder. It was offensive in the extreme to every good Roman Catholic, to whom the spectacle of a purely lay power interfering in questions of ecclesiastical discipline was unbearable.

The Pope intervened and forbade the bishops to take an oath which involved the renunciation of all Papal claims. The greater number of bishops and clergy obeyed the Papal order, and were supported by the majority of the lower orders in whom the love of the Church was still quite strong and deeply rooted. At Chartres, M. de Lubessac refused to take the oath, and the assembly of departmental electors met and appointed in his place Nicolas Boisnet, a doctor of theology and vicar of the parish of S. Michel. He was a worthy man who for forty years had offered an example of all the Christian virtues, and he only accepted the See of the civic episcopate on the express condition that he would render it to him who had abandoned it when he should see fit to come and take it again.

Meantime the revenues of the Church had been sequestrated, and the Chapter, yielding to force, had passed out of existence. It was after this fashion that religion, like the monarchy, was provided with a Constitution.

The Girondin Clubs had taken possession of Chartres as of the other towns. They soon had their way, and France was at war with Prussia and Austria. That war was entered into without any very definite plan or enthusiasm by the Allies, who expected a mere parade march to Paris and an opportunity of aggrandisement for themselves. But France, thinking that the victory of the Allies would mean the restoration of the old régime, took the war very seriously from the beginning. A voluntary movement of unequalled size and enthusiasm took place in the spring of 1792. Eure-et-Loir furnished several battalions of volunteers, and Chartres gave to France, as captain of their first battalion, the young and chivalrous Marceau. The vigour of this resistance surprised the Allies, who in the face of it would have been at a loss to know what to do if they had arrived at Paris. Instead of exerting themselves, therefore, they fell back upon the frontier. But their advance had proved fatal to Louis, who must have hoped for their success. As they advanced the panic in Paris had increased. The crisis came with the 10th of August, on which day a big mob rising, clearly engineered by the Girondins, drove the King to seek safety in the Assembly, whence he passed to spend his last sad hours in the Temple prison, and finally to meet death on the scaffold. Meanwhile, the Girondin leaders dictated three decrees to the Chamber. The King was suspended from his functions, the new Commune of Paris was recognised, and it was decided to summon an extraordinary National Convention, a single Chamber with powers to do what it pleased, elected by universal suffrage. To that celebrated Assembly Chartres contributed some very notable deputies. The upheaval of public opinion in the town is indicated by its representatives, for among them was Jérôme Pétion, Mayor of Paris in 1792 and President of the Convention, and Brissot de Warville. These men were Girondins, and when the party split in two they remained Girondins and suffered death in the following year at the hands of the extreme section, the Jacobins. As a Girondin town Chartres, then, was typical of the provincial towns of France. For while as to political theory Girondins and Jacobins were agreed in aiming at an ideally democratic Republic extremely decentralised, on the practical question of ways and means they differed. The Girondins insisted, in spite of the war, on carrying out their decentralising projects at once, but the Jacobins recognised that if Paris was to be defended at all in the ensuing campaign of ‘93, a strong central government, a dictatorship in fact, was absolutely necessary. The soul of the Jacobin party was Danton, the one man neither fanatic nor fool, and he saw not only the necessity for improvising a strong central government, but also how it could be done. It could be done by means of the organisation supplied by the political clubs scattered through France, and by terrorising the majority. For the numbers of the Jacobins were always small, but the audacity of their measures produced the illusion of power. Paris was cowed, the Girondin party crushed by force, and the Jacobin conquest of France, after the suppression of the risings in the Girondin provincial towns, for a while complete.

The Reign of Terror had begun and lasted till July 1794. It lasted, in other words, till the Jacobin party had done that side of its work, which was thoroughly national and popular, and, thanks to its conduct of the war, under Carnot, the danger on the frontier had ceased. Then the Jacobin Government fell at once. It was because they were doing their work with regard to the war, and no one else could do it, that France tolerated the policy of brigandage and butchery by which they governed;—for this reason, and because those most likely to resist were away at the frontier, and also through fear. For the Jacobins were an organised party, and the rest were a chaotic mass of individuals. Therefore they slew not less than thirty thousand men and women of all classes. A minority that had begun to rule by terror, they could not go back. They felt the weakness of their position, and went on increasing the pressure, themselves almost mad with terror. Individual zeal was required to make up for their lack of numbers. A scrutiny was held of their own members, and those who showed a lack of energy were expelled and guillotined. They executed also that they might confiscate, and thus provide the sinews of war. And an official theory, stated by the chiefs and formulated by Robespierre, was not lacking to justify their

Rue des Béguines
Rue des Béguines

behaviour. Owing to centuries of despotic government, it was said, the mass of Frenchmen were corrupt and unfit for citizenship in the ideal Republic that was going to be established. They must wipe out the bad blood.

In this matter of wiping out bad blood a certain amount of moderation at any rate was observed at Chartres. But, short of bloodshed, every outrage and abomination conceivable by a horde of raging maniacs was solemnly proposed and perpetrated. The priceless treasure of the Cathedral was looted, and all the churches pillaged. The leaden roofs thereof, and the bells of the Cathedral, and all leaden tombs that could be found, were melted down to supply the army with money and with cannon. It was decreed that every statue within and without the Cathedral should be destroyed. The work of destruction had already begun on the north porch, when a member of the Convention, Sergent Marceau, raised his voice against the measure, and, in the interest of art, the decree was repealed. But next day, at a meeting of the Chartrain Club, a member arose, and, declaring that the Cathedral dominated this Republican city too much, proposed that it should be destroyed. The proposal was considered, and actually adopted.

But the Cathedral of Chartres was in the end allowed to stand. For a curious reason. It was found that the difficulty of getting rid of the vast masses of débris would be insuperable. No citizen would undertake to allow the fragments of the building to be cast upon his land, and, seeing that the town would be endlessly encumbered by them, it was decided that the Cathedral should not be destroyed.

But, if not destroyed, it must be profaned. Hideous orgies were prepared to celebrate the Feast of Reason. The group of the Assumption in the choir was converted into a group more conformable to the patriotic sentiments of the moment by setting a red cap on the head of the Virgin, and placing a pike in her hand. The marbles of the choir were inscribed with Republican maxims, and in the centre of the sanctuary a miniature mountain was raised. On the summit was reared a statue of Reason, leaning against an oak, on the highest branch of which was perched a cock holding in his beak a tricolour. The Temple of Reason was inaugurated by a sermon, in which the citizens were informed that they had recovered their liberty, and were once more men, pure as Nature herself. This discourse was followed by a musical drama, entitled Reason Victorious over Fanaticism, in which Watchfulness, in a robe sown with eyes, and Fanaticism in priestly garb figured, with Rousseau and Voltaire as acolytes of the former. Philosophy then engaged and easily vanquished with argument Fanaticism, who, seeing himself beaten, hurled himself, shrieking abuse, on Watchfulness. But the cry, ‘To Arms!’ was raised, and lo! the Republic, in the guise of a woman in a tricolour robe, rose from a cavern near and cast down Fanaticism, pierced him with a dart, broke the altars and trampled under foot a crucifix. Then a machine in the form of a cloud raised the Republic to the mountain top and set her beside the statue of Reason.

And M. Thirion, of the Convention, closed the proceedings with an address.

These profane and grotesque celebrations were followed up a month later (December 23, 1793) by a bonfire, which was lit in front of the Porte Royale on the day which would have been Sunday had not Sundays been abolished. Into this bonfire were hurled all ornaments of the Church which were not of precious metal—books and wooden crucifixes and statues. And with them was burnt the ‘Druidical Statue,’ Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre.

On the civil side, bread riots and brigandage were the order of the day at Chartres, but at last, under the Directory, comparative quiet began to be restored. The town, however, was accused of not supporting that highly centralised administration with sufficient warmth, and, indeed, Delarue, the deputy of the Five Hundred, made a report, in which he stated that the Chartrains ‘had furnished arms and ammunition to five hundred brigands to suppress the liberty of the legislative body.’ The municipal administration defended themselves vigorously against this charge. It was probably true enough that Chartres was not in favour of the Directory, which, from the beginning, rested on the support of the army, and thus began that process which was to end in the Consulate—when the army set up its own man. From this time forth the army is France. It had been enormously improved since 1792. Out of the unskilled rabble that had fled before the Allies without striking a blow it had been converted into an organised machine. Under Carnot, at the War Office, good men were coming to the front. In 1796 they took the offensive, and arranged a big triple advance upon Vienna. Jourdan was to advance from the Netherlands, Moreau from Alsace, Bonaparte through North Italy. The brilliant successes of the latter covered the failure of the other two, who were beaten back to the French frontier. But before their retirement the Battle of Altenkirchen had been fought, and there had fallen the young Chartrain, General Marceau—François Séverin Marceau-Degraviers—whose statue stands in the centre of the Place des Épars. He was only twenty-seven years of age at the time of his death. His praises were pronounced to the Council of the Five Hundred by his old friend and comrade in arms, Jourdan, who secured for his mother a handsome pension. Marceau represents to the Chartrains the ideal of that military ardour which is the keynote of modern France.

Nothing could be more eloquent of the difference between mediæval and modern France, of the change from the rule of Church and King to the domination of the established army, than the present state of the old Benedictine Abbey of S. Pierre, locally called S. Père, and its precincts. For the site of the old dormitory, refectory and cloisters is now used for cavalry barracks, and Chasseurs d’Afrique now stable their horses where once the cloistered monk tended his garden and fish ponds.

The church itself is one of the most remarkable in existence, and would doubtless be better known had Chartres no Cathedral. As it is, the magnificence of Notre-Dame obscures the excellence of the smaller church, and obliterates from the memory its striking characteristics. In any other town its glass alone would bring pilgrims from afar. For not only are the thirty-six great lancet windows of rare beauty, being filled, to a great extent, with thirteenth and fourteenth-century glass, but the impression which they give you on first entering the church is almost unique. The apse is ablaze with colour, the triforium of the choir glazed, chiefly in grisaille, and the delicate triforium of the nave is topped by huge lights of colour and grisaille, which are interrupted by hardly any framework of stone. It seems as if the whole of the upper part of the building were one continuous sheet of glass gloriously coloured. The effect, indeed, is scarce an illusion.

For the monks of S. Père have taken up the idea of the flying buttresses where the builders of the Cathedral had left it. We have seen (p. 189) how those builders had felt their way with the buttresses of the nave, and developed those later ones of the choir. In happy rivalry of the Cathedral, our monks now, it would appear, determined to show the full possibilities of the idea. They built a temple of glass and supported it with flying buttresses. Windows took the place of walls in their church, and the walls were set several yards outside the windows. That is the effect of this amazing tour-de-force as you look at it from the east or west. The line of buttresses show like the solid wall of the church without. Yet so cunningly were those buttresses arranged to carry the thrust of the building, that the church, windows and roof and all, still stands unimpaired.