[1]

The couplet has been neatly translated:—

[2] In this connection, see the window, No. 6, in the clerestory of the nave of the Cathedral, north side, the subject of which is ‘Tilling the Ground.’

[3] Un Athée serait mal à l’aise ici.

[4] September 15 and December 8.

[5] For a theory of the relation of their ceremonial to that of other primitive cults, see Mr. J. G. Fraser’s fascinating book, The Golden Bough (2nd Edition), and Mr. Andrew Lang’s criticism of that theory in his Magic and Religion (New Edition).

[6] Such Roman remains as have been found at Chartres together with these coins will be found in the Musée, Hôtel de Ville (Rue de la Mairie, Place des Halles).

[7] Tibullus, i. 8.

[8] Acta SS. MM. Saviniani et Potentiani, manuscripts edited by L’Abbé Hénault, Origines Chrétiennes de la Gaule Celtique.

[9] Representations of these early martyrdoms are to be found in the beautiful statue of Modesta, with bas-relief of the well, etc., and the statue of S. Potentian, with bas-relief of his martyrdom, on the western supports of the north porch (looking towards the new tower), and in the first window of the Chapel of the Sacred Heart.

[10] The monk Paul, who lived at Chartres towards the end of the eleventh century and wrote the Cartulaire de Saint Père, speaks of it as Locus Fortis.

[11] The crypt is open and free from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., and shown to visitors by the concierge at certain hours throughout the day for a small fee. Apply to the lodge of the Maison des Clercs at the south-east corner of the church.

[12] Pintard MS.

[13] See pp. 23, 43, 64, 76.

[14] Notice in this connection the two beadwork belts dedicated by the chiefs of the Hurons, 1676, and Abnaqui Indians, 1700, which are now in the western recess, which is the Chapel of S. Savinian or the Saints Forts.

[15] Wisdom.

[16] The Rue des Changes, starting almost opposite the south porch of the Cathedral, leads in a direct line to the Place S. Aignan.

[17] The third window from the north-west corner is called the Bishop’s Window, and contains figures of S. Aignan, S. Martin of Tours, S. Denis, and S. Nicholas.

[18] See him portrayed in the beautiful brown and yellow glass of the fifth window of the south clerestory of the Cathedral nave.

[19] Third window of the south clerestory of the nave.

[20] The episcopal palace as it now stands is a handsome eighteenth-century red brick building, and was built by the Bishop de Fleury in 1760. Vast and sumptuous, with its Italian portico and flights of steps, with its gardens of which you see but a small part through the grille which opens on the cloister near the north porch of the Cathedral, with its wing ‘de la Duchesse,’ as it was called after the Duchesse de Fleury, mother of the bishop, and the wing built in 1702, wherein are the immense reception-rooms, this palace, regal almost in its size and magnificence, suggests the temporal and spiritual power of the prelates who numbered among their vassals the highest barons of the realm and whose diocese was known at Rome as the Great Bishopric. But it is little in accord with the life or the means of the twentieth-century bishops, to whom, as to their Anglican brethren, the palaces they have to maintain are usually white elephants.

[21] There is a punning saying that this church has ‘trois clochers et deux cents cloches’ (deux sans).

[22] He figures in the Galerie des Rois, on the western façade of the Cathedral.

[23] As early as 680 the Episcopal schools of Chartres were held in repute.

[24] The story of this presentation is told in the glass of the Chapel of S. John the Baptist in the Church of Aix-la-Chapelle. Charles-le-Chauve caused it to be brought thence into France.

[25] S. Piat preached the Gospel to the Carnutes in the third century before going to gain the crown of martyrdom at Tours. He is the saint to be invoked by farmers for fair weather in the rainy years. See the chapel dedicated to him, built out beyond the apse of the Cathedral. This chapel was added in the fourteenth century, and is a good example of that period, the doorway at the foot of the staircase which gives access to it from the Cathedral being especially beautiful. In the tympanum of this doorway is a statue of the Virgin and the Christ-Child playing with a dove. The bracket of the tympanum of the doorway at the top of the staircase once supported a statue of S. Piat. It has been destroyed, but you may see a picture of the saint in the grisaille above this door. The glass belongs partly to the fourteenth and partly to the fifteenth century, and is good, though not so good as that of the rest of the Cathedral. It has suffered from an ignorant application of oil-colour some fifty years ago. The polychrome bosses in the roof and the rich capitals are full of detail, and skilfully wrought. The exterior, unlike the interior, is unprepossessing. Before the year 1793 it could boast a spire of lead and wood, which may have done something to relieve the present effect of heaviness. The staircase which connects the chapel with the Cathedral is, however, very beautiful.

[26] Roman de Rou.

[27] Le livre des Miracles de Chartres (translated into French verse from some Latin collection in the thirteenth century).

[28] Cartulaire de S. Père.

[29] It was outside the walls of that day. The New Gate was that which afterwards formed the gate of the cloister, opposite the Renaissance clock tower, north-west of the Cathedral, destroyed at the end of the eighteenth century. Two pillars of the gate then destroyed are still visible.

[30] Le Pré des Reculés.

[31] To visit the treasure, apply to the chaplain who guards the Chapel of Notre-Dame du Pilier. (Fee, half a franc.)

[32] Cf. the phrase in the Charter of King John (1356) ‘quam-quidem ecclesiam ipsa virgo gloriosa elegit pro sua camera speciali.’

[33] Cf.

[34] Compare the castles and cathedrals of Durham and Lincoln.

[35] This monastery, south of the town, like that of S. Martin-au-Val, formed part of the domain of the Counts.

[36] Fulbert’s name in Chartres has been given to a street which runs parallel with the south-west corner of the Cathedral. A statue of the bishop, holding in his hand a scroll on which is incorrectly displayed a plan of the present Cathedral, is to be seen on the eastern extremity of the choir screen. A fresco portrait of him was discovered some years ago in the Church S. Hilaire at Poitiers. The curious portrait of him speaking to his people within his Cathedral, which is here reproduced, was painted on vellum by André de Mici in 1028, the year of Fulbert’s death, and illustrates a tombeau, or panegyric, composed in his honour by his pupil, the musician, Sigo.

[37] Migne’s Patrology, Vol. 141.

[38] Cf. York Minster.

[39] It was situated outside the walls, on the north side. Destroyed by the Huguenots in 1568, the site is still marked by the name of the Clos S. Jean, which is near the railway station, and upon which you look from the Butte des Charbonniers.

[40] Monographie de la Cathédrale de Chartres par l’Abbé Bulteau, 2nd edition, 1887-1891. Two vols.

[41] Henricus Rex hujus ecclesiæ lacunar construxit.

[42] Those who are curious on this subject will find some examples of his plain-song in a volume edited by M. Merlet and M. L’Abbé Clerval, and entitled Un Manuscript Chartrain du XI^e. Siècle.

[43] Œuvres de Fulbert, p. 177, 1608 edition.

[44] S. Eman of Cappadocia founded a small hermitage beneath the shadow of Notre-Dame, and this hermitage was afterwards turned into a chapel, fragments of the walls of which still remain (Rue S. Eman). The apse was formerly supported by the old town wall of the ninth century.

[45] It is only fair to add that the Cartulaire of Notre-Dame speaks of this bishop (Abbot of Brêmes) in terms of the highest praise. Under Arrald, among many other benefactions, William the Conqueror (1070) caused ‘a good, a precious’ campanile to be erected over the central point of the transept of the Cathedral, ‘for the repose of the soul of his daughter Adeliza,’ piously observing that ‘The gifts which we offer to God, and which we dedicate to His glory, are not for us loss or sacrifice, for thus we only preserve our riches and multiply them with the hope of eternal life.’

[46] The Pope had condemned the royal investiture by cross and ring as implying spiritual jurisdiction in the throne.

[47] Fresnay l’Évêque. The bishop’s house may still be traced in the name of a farm, Château de l’Évêque.

[48] A Bénitier saved from it is to be found in the Cathedral crypt.

[49] Marquis, may the monks of Cluny make you their head or may you be Abbot of Cîteaux, since you have a heart so base as to prefer two oxen and a plough at Montferrat to being Emperor elsewhere.

[50] Stalls first, and then shops, were set up about the western porch as soon as it was built. Pilgrimages meant commerce. There was traffic not only in images of the Virgin, but also in the necessaries of life. Merchants found here a ready market, and one in which they were protected from the rapacity and exactions of the feudal lords.

[51] Lépinois’s Histoire de Chartres, 2 vols., 1858.

[52] The present one is on a pivot, and serves as a weather-cock.

[53] The roodloft or gallery over the entrance into the choir is sometimes called the Jubé, from the words ‘Jubé, Domine, benedicere,’ pronounced from it. (Parker).

[54] Page 25.

[55] The south tower of the west front.

[56]

[57] The octagonal spire is made of the light stone of Marboué.

[58] ‘The endless upward reach of the great west front, the clear silvery tone of its surface, the way three or four magnificent features are made to occupy its serene expanse, its simplicity, majesty and dignity—these things crowd upon one’s sense with a force that makes the act of vision for the moment almost all of life. There is an inexpressible harmony in the façade of Chartres.’—Henry James—Portraits of Places.

[59] Livre des Miracles.

[60]

[61] There were formerly five statues on the front of the south-west tower. The Ass is resting on two human heads that seem crushed by his weight. The Sow is much mutilated. A similar piece occurs on the façade of S. Pol-de-Léon (Finisterre). The motive of an ass playing a lyre is found in ancient Egyptian monuments; a dog playing a lyre occurs at Poitiers.

[62] The same legend is connected with the Imp of Lincoln and also with one of the churches at Rome.

[63] I drink—burn wood—prune vines—give grass—flowers—field sports—hay—harvest—vintage—sow corn—fatten swine on acorns—kill swine.

[64] Revelation, chaps. iv., v.

[65] La Cathédrale.

[66] ‘Cui toto par nulla hodie splendescit in orbe.’—Book IV.

[67]

[68]

[69] The window which recorded in a series of medallions many of these miracles has been sadly mutilated (south aisle).

[70] Histoire de la Peinture sur verre d’après ses Monuments en France, 2 Vols., folio, 1841. The coloured plates of this fine work give no idea, however, of the real richness of the colours of the glass. Windows, by Lewis Day, is the best English book upon stained glass.

[71] The strong iron bars supporting the glass are frequently bent to follow the outline of the medallions. This is only found in early glazing.

[72] The subject of the French apprentice is pleasantly expounded in Mr. Tighe Hopkins’s An Idler in Old France. His German counterpart I have dealt with in my Story of Nuremberg.

[73] Henry James, Portraits of Places.

[74] A similar legend is told of the consecration of Westminster Abbey. ‘One stormy Sunday night during the reign of King Sebert, the eve of the day fixed by Mellitus, Bishop of London, for the consecration of Sebert’s newly-finished church at Thorney, it happened that one Edrie, a fisherman, was casting his nets into the Thames. His attention was arrested by a voice calling from the opposite shore at Lambeth. He crossed, and found there a venerable stranger in foreign garb, who desired to be ferried over to Thorney Isle. Edrie complied with the request. The stranger landed and went at once to the church. And while Edrie waited on the bank, suddenly the air grew bright with celestial splendours, there was no darkness more or shadow in the monastery, and choirs of angels he beheld ascending and descending on a ladder which reached from heaven to earth, with song and flaming tapers and sweet odours of incense. The fisherman remained gazing at these wonders and caught nothing all night. At last the stranger returned and said unto Edrie, “I am Peter, keeper of the keys of Heaven. When Mellitus comes to-morrow, tell him all that you have seen, and show him that I, S. Peter, have consecrated my own Church of S. Peter, Westminster.” ‘

[75] Rouillard, Parthénie.

[76]

[77] Cf. Walter Pater, Gaston de Latour.

[78] Introduction to the Study of Gothic Architecture.

[79] Chartres.

[80] The choir is the largest in France, after that of Laon.

[81] Two large statues of Leah and Rachel were formerly on the piers here, but were destroyed in 1793.

[82] Restored 1901.

[83] First used on some jettons d’argent struck for distribution on January 1, 1775. It is, perhaps, an adaptation in elegiac verse of the ‘Ob cives servatos’ found on certain coins of Augustus.

[84] Jacques Bonhomme was the nickname of the French peasantry, and his cry had been

[85] It was in this very year that Louis de Bourbon, Comte de Vendôme, in expiation of the vow which he had made when held prisoner by his brother, the Count of Marche, having come as a pilgrim to Chartres, began to build the Flamboyant chapel, in the south aisle of the Cathedral, which bears his name.

[86] Of this La Hire the following anecdote is told. He was marching to relieve Montargis, which was in dire straits after a long resistance to the besieging English. On his way he met a priest, from whom he demanded absolution. ‘Confess your sins, then,’ returned the priest. ‘I have no time,’ was the reply, ‘for I am in a hurry to engage the English; and, besides, the tale of a soldier’s sins is not a short one.’ The priest somewhat hesitatingly pronounced the sentence of absolution. La Hire immediately knelt down by the wayside and prayed aloud, ‘God, I pray Thee to do this day on La Hire’s behalf what Thou wouldst that La Hire should do for Thee, supposing he was God and Thou wast La Hire.’ His somewhat uncanonical prayer was granted. He attacked the English and obliged them to raise the siege of Montargis. I note a curious parallel between this prayer of his and the quaint old English epitaph of John Hildebrod,—

[87] Contemporary MS. (Bibliothèque Municipale), Duparc, 1578.

[88] Siège de Paris, Francisque Sarcey.

[89] This incident is represented in the engraving by Perrissim, 1570, here reproduced. It will be noticed that the artist has ignored the river.

[90] Edited by M. L’Abbé Métais, 1895.

[91] (See p. 198).

[92] Left of the Place de la Gare.

[93] Connecting the Boulevard Chasles with the Rue des Bouchers.

[94] Thus built Claudius Huvé, physician, for the adornment of the city and the benefit of posterity.

[95] Journal des Choses plus Mémorables Advenues à Chartres, 1579-1592.

[96] Histoire de Chartres, Souchet.

[97] Cérémonies observées au sacre et couronement du très-chrestien et très valeureux Henry IV., etc.—Paris. Jamet Mettayer. 1594.

[98] No. 189, a picture of the Flemish school, represents Henri Quatre surrounded by his staff and watching the effect of the bombardment of the town. The quarter of S. Jean is in flames. His soldiers are endeavouring to force their way through the breach at the Porte-Drouaise. The Cathedral, it will be observed, has here its third flêche. The towers in the fortifications are square.

[99] Starting from the Place des Épars, you reach the Place des Halles by the Rue du Bois Merrain, and enter the Hôtel de Ville by the Rue de la Mairie.

[100] On the window of the façade runs the following inscription:—‘Atavitam Montescotiorum domum qua natus Cl. restituit an. 1614.’ He built it, then, on the site of his old home.

[101] Leonard the Limousin, so called to distinguish him from Leonard the Engraver, was retained by Francois I., who gave him the post of one of his valets. He was the greatest enameller of his day, excelling chiefly in portraiture. His other work is unequal, being often inferior in colour and marred by the influence of the Italian school, the defects and absurdities of which, without its merits, he, in common with the decorators of Fontainebleau, too frequently reproduced.

[102] Les Prussiens à Chartres. Ernest Caillot. Petrot-Garnier, 1871.

[103] So called after M. Michel Chasles, the eminent geometrician, who was a Chartrain.

[104] Carriages may be hired by the Course, 75 centimes; by the hour, 1 franc 75 centimes. Outside the town the fare is 2 francs the hour.