"Under the sun of theMidiI have seen the Pyrenees and the Alps, crowned in rose and silver, but I best love Auvergne and its bed of gorse."—Pierre de Nolhac.
"Under the sun of theMidiI have seen the Pyrenees and the Alps, crowned in rose and silver, but I best love Auvergne and its bed of gorse."
—Pierre de Nolhac.
Le Puy has been called—by a discerning traveller—and rightly enough, too, in the opinion of most persons—"the most picturesque spot in the world." Whether every visitor thereto will endorse this unqualifiedly depends somewhat on his view-point, and still more on his ability to discriminate.
Le Puy certainly possesses an unparalleled array of what may as well be called rare attractions. These are primarily the topographical, architectural, and, first, last, and all times, picturesque elements which only a blind man could fail to diagnose as something unique and not to be seen elsewhere.
NOTRE DAME de LE PUY.NOTRE DAME de LE PUY.
NOTRE DAME de LE PUY.
In the first category are the extraordinarypinnacles of volcanic rock with which the whole surrounding landscape is peopled; in the second, the city's grand architectural monuments, cathedrals, churches, monastery and the château of Polignac; while thirdly, the whole aspect is irritatingly picturesque to the lover of topographical charm and feature. Here the situation of the city itself, in a basin of surrounding peaks, its sky-piercing, turreted rocks, and the general effect produced by its architectural features all combine to present emotions which a large catalogue were necessary to define.
Moreover, Le Puy is the gateway to a hitherto almost unknown region to the English-speaking tourist. At least it would have been unknown but for the eulogy given it by the wandering Robert Louis Stevenson, who, in his "Travels with a Donkey," (not "On a Donkey,"—mark the distinction), has made the Cevennes known, at least as a nodding acquaintance, to—well, a great many who would never have consciously realized that there was such a place.
Le Puy is furthermore as yet unspoiled by the "conducted tourist," and lives the same life that it has for many generations. Electric trams have come to be sure, and certain improvementsin the way of boulevards and squares have been laid out, but, in the main, the narrow, tortuous streets which ascend to its cathedral-crowned height are much as they always were; and the native pays little heed to the visitor, of which class not many ever come to the city—perhaps for the reason that Le Puy is not so very accessible by rail. Both by the line which descends the Rhône valley and its parallel line from Paris to Nîmes, one has to branch off, and is bound to lose from three to six hours—or more, at some point or other, making connections. This is as it should be—in spite of the apparent retrogression.
When one really does get to Le Puy nothing should satisfy him but to follow the trail of Stevenson's donkey into the heart of the Cevennes, that wonderful country which lies to the southward, and see and know for himself some of the things which that delectable author set forth in the record of his travels.
Monastier, Le Cheylard, La Bastide, Notre Dame des Neiges, Mont Mézenac, and many more delightful places are, so far as personal knowledge goes, a sealed book to most folk; and after one has visited them for himself, he may rest assured they will still remain a sealed book to the mass.
The ecclesiastical treasures of Le Puy are first and foremost centred around its wonderful, though bizarre, Romanesque cathedral of Notre Dame.
Some have said that this cathedral church dates from the fifth century. Possibly this is so, but assuredly there is no authority which makes a statement which is at all convincing concerning any work earlier than the tenth century.
Le Puy's first bishop was St. Georges,—in the third century,—at which time, as now, the diocese was a suffragan of Bourges.
The cathedral itself is perched on a hilltop behind which rises an astonishing crag or pinnacle,—therocher Corneille, which, in turn, is surmounted by a modern colossal bronze figure, commonly calledNotre Dame de France. The native will tell you that it is called "the Virgin of Le Puy." Due allowance for local pride doubtless accounts for this. Its height is fifty feet, and while astonishingly impressive in many ways, is, as a work of art, without beauty in itself.
Le PuyLe Puy
Le Puy
There is a sort of subterranean or crypt-like structure, beneath the westerly end of the cathedral, caused by the extreme slope of the rock upon which the choir end is placed. Oneenters by a stairway of sixty steps, which is beneath the parti-coloured façade of the twelfth century. It is very striking and must be a unique approach to a cathedral; the entrance here being two stories below that of the pavement of nave and choir. This porch of three round-arched naves is wholly unusual.Entrance to the main body of the church is finally gained through the transept.
The whole structure is curiously kaleidoscopic, with blackish and dark brown tints predominating, but alternating—in the west façade, which has been restored in recent times—with bands of a lighter and again a darker stone. It has been called by a certain red-robed mentor of travel-lore an ungainly, venerable, but singular edifice: quite a non-committal estimate, and one which, like most of its fellows, is worse than a slander. It is most usually conceded by French authorities—who might naturally be supposed to know their subject—that it is very nearly the most genuinely interesting exposition of a local manner of church-building extant; and as such the cathedral at Le Puy merits great consideration.
The choir is the oldest portion, and is probably not of later date than the tenth century. The glass therein is modern. It has a possession, a "miraculous virgin,"—whose predecessor was destroyed in the fury of the Revolution,—which is supposed to work wonders upon those who bestow an appropriate votive offering. To the former shrine came many pilgrims, numbering among them, it issaid rather indefinitely and doubtfully, "several popes and the following kings: Louis VII., Philippe-Auguste, Philippe-le-Hardi, Charles VI., Charles VII., Louis XI., and Charles VIII."
To-day, as if doubtful of the shrine's efficacy, the pilgrims are few in number and mostly of the peasant class.
The bays of the nave are divided by round-headed arches, but connected with the opposing bay by the ogival variety.
The transepts have apsidal terminations, as is much more frequent south of the Loire than in the north of France, but still of sufficient novelty to be remarked here. The east end is rectangular—which is really a very unusual attribute in any part of France, only two examples elsewhere standing out prominently—the cathedrals at Laon and Dol-de-Bretagne. The cloister of Notre Dame, small and simple though it be, is of a singular charm and tranquillity.
With the tower or cupola of this cathedral the architects of Auvergne achieved a result very near theperfectionnementof its style. Like all of the old-timeclocherserected in this province—anterior to Gothic—it presents a great analogy to Byzantine origin, though, ina way, not quite like it either. Still the effect of columns and pillars, in both the interior construction and exterior decoration of these fine towers, forms something which suggests, at least, a development of an ideal which bears little, or no, relation to the many varieties ofcampanile,beffroi,tourorclocherseen elsewhere in France. The spire, as we know it elsewhere, a dominant pyramidal termination, the love of which Mistral has said is the foundation of patriotism, is in this region almost entirely wanting; showing that the influence, from whatever it may have sprung, was no copy of anything which had gone before, nor even the suggestion of a tendency or influence toward the pointed Gothic, or northern style. Therefore the towers, like most other features of this style, are distinctly of the land of its environment—Auvergnian.
This will call to mind, to the American, the fact that Trinity Church in Boston is manifestly the most distinctive application, in foreign lands, of the form and features of the manner of church-building of the Auvergne.
Particularly is this to be noted by viewing the choir exterior with its inlaid or geometrically planned stonework: a feature which is Romanesque if we go back far enough, butwhich is distinctly Auvergnian in its mediæval use.
For sheer novelty, before even the towering bronze statue of the Virgin, which overtops the cathedral, must be placed that other needle-like basaltic eminence which is crowned by a tiny chapel dedicated to St. Michel.
This "aiguille," as it is locally known, rises something over two hundred and fifty feet from the river-bed at its base; like a sharp cone, dwindling from a diameter of perhaps five hundred feet at its base to a scant fifty at its apex.
St. Michel has always had a sort of vested proprietorship in such pinnacles as this, and this tiny chapel in his honour was the erection of a prelate of the diocese of Le Puy in the tenth century. The chapel is Romanesque, octagonal, and most curious; with its isolated situation,—only reached by a flight of many steps cut in the rock,—and its tesselated stone pavements, its mosaic in basalt of the portal, and its few curious sculptures in stone. As a place of pilgrimage for a twentieth-century tourist it is much more appealing than the Virgin-crownedrocher Corneille; each will anticipate no inconsiderable amount ofphysical labour, which, however, is the true pilgrim spirit.
The château of Polignaccompelsattention, and it is not so very foreign to church affairs after all; the house of the name gave to the court of Louis XIV. a cardinal.
To-day this one-time feudal stronghold is but a mere ruin. The Revolution finished it, as did that fury many another architectural glory of France.
The Black Virgin, Le PuyThe Black Virgin, Le Puy
Clermont-Ferrand is the hub from which radiates in the season,—from April to October,—and in all directions, the genuine Frenchtouriste. He is a remarkable species of traveller, and he apportions to himself the best places in thechar-à bancsand the most convenient seats attable d'hôtewith a discrimination that is perfection. He is not much interested in cathedrals, or indeed in the twin city of Clermont-Ferrand itself, but rather his choice lies in favour of Mont Doré, Puy de Dôme, Royat, St. Nectaire, or a dozen other alluring tourist resorts in which the neighbouring volcanic region abounds.
By reason of this—except for its hotels and cafés—Clermont-Ferrand is justly entitled to rank as one of the most ancient and important centres of Christianity in France.
NOTRE DAME de CLERMONT-FERRANDNOTRE DAME de CLERMONT-FERRAND
NOTRE DAME de CLERMONT-FERRAND
Its cathedral is not of the local manner of building: it is of manifest Norman example.But the Église Notre Dame du Port is Auvergnian of the most profound type, and withal, perhaps more appealing than the cathedral itself. Furthermore the impulse of the famous crusades first took form here under the fervent appeal of Urban II., who was in the city at the Council of the Church held in 1095. Altogether the part played by this city of mid-France in the affairs of the Christian faith was not only great, but most important and far-reaching in its effect.
In its cathedral are found to a very considerable extent those essentials to the realization of the pure Gothic style, which even Sir Christopher Wren confessed his inability to fully comprehend.
It is a pleasant relief, and a likewise pleasant reminder of the somewhat elaborate glories of the Isle of France, to come upon an edifice which at least presents a semblance to the symmetrical pointed Gothic of the north. The more so in that it is surrounded by Romanesque and local types which are peers among their class.
Truly enough it is that such churches as Notre Dame du Port, the cathedral at Le Puy, and the splendid series of Romanesque churches at Poitiers are as interesting and asworthy of study as the resplendent modern Gothic. On the other hand, the transition to the baseness of the Renaissance,—without the intervention of the pointed style,—while not so marked here as elsewhere, is yet even more painfully impressed upon one.
The contrast between the Romanesque style, which was manifestly a good style, and the Renaissance, which was palpably bad, suggests, as forcibly as any event of history, the change of temperament which came upon the people, from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries.
This cathedral is possessed of two fine western towers (340 feet in height), graceful in every proportion, hardy without being clumsy, symmetrical without weakness, and dwindling into crowning spires after a manner which approaches similar works at Bordeaux and Quimper. These examples are not of first rank, but, if not of masterful design, are at least acceptable exponents of the form they represent.
These towers, as well as the western portal, are, however, of a very late date. They are the work of Viollet-le-Duc in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and indicate—if nothing more—that, where a good model isused, a modern Gothic work may still betray the spirit of antiquity. This gifted architect was not so successful with the western towers of the abbey church of St. Ouen at Rouen. Externally the cathedral at Clermont-Ferrand shows a certain lack of uniformity.
Its main fabric, of a black volcanic stone, dates from 1248 to 1265. At this time the work was in charge of one Jean Deschamps.
The church was not, however, consecrated until nearly a century later, and until the completion of the west front remained always an unfinished work which received but scant consideration from lovers of church architecture.
The whole structure was sorely treated at the Revolution, was entirely stripped of its ornaments and what monuments it possessed, and was only saved from total destruction by a subterfuge advanced by a local magistrate, who suggested that the edifice might be put to other than its original use.
The first two bays of the nave are also of nineteenth-century construction. This must account for the frequent references of a former day to the general effect of incompleteness. To-day it is a coherent if not a perfect whole,though works of considerable magnitude are still under way.
The general effect of the interior is harmonious, though gloomy as to its lighting, and bare as to its walls.
The vault rises something over a hundred feet above the pavement, and the choir platform is considerably elevated. The aisles of the nave are doubled, and very wide.
The joints of pier and wall have been newly "pointed," giving an impression of a more modern work than the edifice really is.
The glass of the nave and choir is of a rare quality and unusually abundant. How it escaped the fury of the Revolution is a mystery.
There are two fifteenth-century rose windows in the transepts, and a more modern example in the west front, the latter being decidedly inferior to the others. The glass of the choir is the most beautiful of all, and is of the time of Louis IX., whose arms, quartered with those of Spain, are shown therein. The general effect of this coloured glass is not of the supreme excellence of that at Chartres, but the effect of mellowness, on first entering, is in every way more impressive than that of any other cathedral south of the Loire.
The organbuffethas, in this instance, beencut away to allow of the display of the modernrosace. This is a most thoughtful consideration of the attributes of a grand window; which is obviously that of giving a pleasing effect to an interior, rather than its inclusion in the exterior scheme of decoration.
In the choir is aretableof gilded and painted wood, representing the life of St. Crépinien, a few tombs, and in the chapels some frescoes of the thirteenth century. There is the much-appreciated astronomical clock—a curiosity of doubtful artistic work and symbolism—in one of the transepts.
A statue of Pope Urban II. isen faceto the right of the cathedral.
At the Council of 1095 Urban II. preached for the first crusade to avenge the slaughter "of pilgrims, princes, and bishops," which had taken place at Romola in Palestine, and to regain possession of Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre from the Turkish Sultan, Ortock.
The enthusiasm of the pontiff was so great that the masses forthwith entered fully into the spirit of the act, the nobles tearing their red robes into shreds to form the badge of the crusader's cross, which was given to all who took the vow.
By command of the Pope, every serf whotook the cross was to obtain his liberty from his overlord. This fact, perhaps, more than any other led to the swelled ranks of the first crusade under Peter the Hermit.
The rest is history, though really much of its written chronicle is really romance.
Clermont was a bishopric in the third century, with St. Austremoine as its first bishop. The diocese is to-day a suffragan of Bourges.
At the head of the Cours Sablon is a fifteenth-century fountain, executed to the order of a former bishop, Jacques d'Amboise.
The bibliothèque still preserves, among fifty thousand volumes and eleven hundred MSS., an illuminated folio Bible of the twelfth century, a missal which formerly belonged to Pope Clement VI., and a ninth-century manuscript of the monk, Gregory of Tours.
Near the cathedral in the Rue de Petit Gras is the birthplace of the precocious Blaise Pascal, who next to Urban II.—if not even before him—is perhaps Clermont's most famous personage. A bust of the celebrated writer is let into the wall which faces the Passage Vernines, and yet another adorns the entrance to the bibliothèque; and again another—a full-length figure this time—is set about withgrowing plants, in the Square Blaise Pascal. Altogether one will judge that Pascal is indeed the most notable figure in the secular history of the city. This most original intellect of his time died in 1662, at the early age of thirty-nine.
Lodève, seated tightly among the mountains, near the confluence of the rivers Solondre and Lergue, not far from the Cevennes and the borders of the Gévaudan, was a bishopric, suffragan of Narbonne, as early as the beginning of the fourth century.
It had been the capital of the Gallic tribe of the Volsques, then a pagan Roman city, and finally was converted to Christianity in the year 323 by the apostle St. Flour, who founded the bishopric, which, with so many others, was suppressed at the Revolution.
The city suffered greatly from the wars of the Goths, the Albigenses, and later the civil wars of the Protestants and Catholics. The bishops of Lodève were lords by virtue of the fact that the title was bought from the viscounts whose honour it had previously held.St. Guillem Ley Desert(O. F.), a famousabbey of the Benedictines, founded by an ancestor of the Prince of Orange, is near by.
The ancient cathedral of St. Fulcran is situated in thehaute-villeand dates, as to its foundation walls, from the middle of the tenth century. The reconstructed present-day edifice is mainly of the thirteenth century, and as an extensive work of its time is entitled to rank with many of the cathedral churches which survived the Revolution. By the end of the sixteenth century, the last remaining work and alterations were completed, and one sees therefore a fairly consistent mediæval church. The west façade is surmounted bytourelleswhich are capped with a defendingmâchicoulis, presumably for defence from attack from the west, as this battlement could hardly have been intended for mere ornament, decorative though it really is. The interior height rises to something approximating eighty feet, and is imposing to a far greater degree than many more magnificent and wealthy churches.
The choir is truly elegant in its proportions and decorations, its chief ornament being that of the high-altar, and the white marble lions which flank the stalls. From the choir one enters the ruined cloister of the fifteenth century;which, if not remarkable in any way, is at least distinctive and a sufficiently uncommon appendage of a cathedral church to be remarked.
A marble tomb of a former bishop,—Plantavit de la Pause,—a distinguished prelate and bibliophile, is also in the choir. This monument is a most worthy artistic effort, and shows two lions lying at the foot of a full-length figure of the churchman. It dates from 1651, and, though of Renaissance workmanship, its design and sculpture—like most monumental work of its era—are far ahead of the quality of craftsmanship displayed by the builders and architects of the same period.
The one-time episcopal residence is now occupied by thehôtel de ville, thetribunal, and thecaserne de gendarmerie. As a shelter for civic dignity this is perhaps not a descent from its former glory, but as acaserneit is a shameful debasement; not, however, as mean as the level to which the papal palace at Avignon has fallen.
The guide-book information—which, be it said, is not disputed or reviled here—states that the city's manufactories supplysurtout des drapsfor the army; but the church-lover will get little sustenance for his refinedappetite from this kernel of matter-of-fact information.
Lodève is, however, a charming provincial town, with two ancient bridges crossing its rivers, a ruined château,Montbrun, and a fine promenade which overlooks the river valleys round about.
The knowledge of the geographer Ptolemy, who wrote in the second century with regard to the Rhône, was not so greatly at fault as with respect to other topographical features, such as coasts and boundaries.
Perhaps the fact that Gaul had for so long been under Roman dominion had somewhat to do with this.
He gives, therefore, a tolerably correct account as to this mighty river, placing its sources in the Alps, and tracing its flow through the lakeLemannus(Leman) toLugdunum(Lyon); whence, turning sharply to the southward, it enters the Mediterranean south of Arles. Likewise, he correctly adds that the upper river is joined with the combined flow of the Doubs and Saône, but commits the error of describing their source to be also in the Alps.
Philip Gilbert Hamerton, who knewthese parts well,—his home was near Autun,—has described the confluence of the Saône and Rhône thus:
"The width and depth of the two rivers are equal, but the swift-flowing Rhône discharges twice the volume of water of the slow-running Saône. They also differ remarkably in colour. The Saône is emerald-green and the Rhône blue-green. Here the minor river loses its name and character, and, by an unusual process, the slowest and most navigable stream in Europe joins the swiftest and least navigable. TheFlumen Ararisceases and becomes theRhodanus."
The volume of water which yearly courses down the Rhône is perhaps greater than would first appear, when, at certain seasons of the year, one sees a somewhat thin film of water gliding over a wide expanse of yellow sand and shingle.
Throughout, however, it is of generous width and at times rises in a true torrential manner: this when the spring freshets and melting Alpine snows are directed thither toward their natural outlet to the sea. "Rivers," said Blaise Pascal, "are the roads that move." Along the great river valleys of the Rhône, the Loire, the Seine, and the Rhinewere made the first Roman roads, the prototypes of the present-day means of communication.
The development of civilization and the arts along these great pathways was rapid and extensive. Two of them, at least, gave birth to architectural styles quite differing from other neighbouring types: theRomain-Germanique—bordering along the Rhine and extending to Alsace and the Vosges; and theRomain-Bourguignon, which followed the valley of the Rhône from Bourgogne to the Mediterranean and the Italian frontier, including all Provence.
The true source of the Rhône is in the Pennine Alps, where, in consort with three other streams, the Aar, the Reuss, and the Ticino, it rises in a cloven valley close to the lake of Brienz, amid that huge jumble of mountain-tops, which differs so greatly from the popular conception of a mountain range.
Dauphiné and Savoie are to-day comparatively unknown by parlour-car travellers. Dauphiné, with its great historical associations, the wealth and beauty of its architecture, the magnificence of its scenery, has always had great attractions for the historian, the archæologist, and the scholar; to the tourist,however, even to the French tourist, it remained for many years aterra incognita. Yet no country could present the traveller with a more wonderful succession of ever-changing scenery, such a rich variety of landscape, ranging from verdant plain to mountain glacier, from the gay and picturesque to the sublime and terrible. Planted in the very heart of the French Alps, rising terrace above terrace from the lowlands of the Rhône to the most stupendous heights, Dauphiné may with reason claim to be the worthy rival of Switzerland.
The romantic associations of "La Grande Chartreuse"; of the charming valley towns of Sion and Aoste, famed alike in the history of Church and State; and of the more splendidly appointed cities of Grenoble and Chambéry, will make a new leaf in the books of most peoples' experiences.
The rivers Durance, Isère, and Drôme drain the region into the more ample basin of the Rhône, and the first of the three—for sheer beauty and romantic picturesqueness—will perhaps rank first in all the world.
The chief associations of the Rhône valley with the Church are centred around Lyon, Vienne, Avignon, and Arles. The associationsof history—a splendid and a varied past—stand foremost at Orange, Nîmes, Aix, and Marseilles. It is not possible to deal here with the manypays et pagiof the basin of the Rhône.
Of all, Provence—that golden land—stands foremost and compels attention. One might praise itad infinitumin all its splendid attributes and its glorious past, but one could not then do it justice; better far that one should sum it up in two words—"Mistral's world."
The popes and the troubadours combined to cast a glamour over the "fair land of Provence" which is irresistible. Here were architectural monuments, arches, bridges, aqueducts, and arenas as great and as splendid as the world has ever known. Aix-en-Provence, in King René's time, was the gayest capital of Europe, and the influence of its arts and literature spread to all parts.
To the south came first the Visigoths, then the conflicting and repelling Ostrogoths; between them soon to supplant the Gallo-Roman cultivation which had here grown so vigorously.
It was as late as the sixth century when the Ostrogoths held the brilliant sunlit city ofArles; when follows a history—applicable as well to most of all southern France—of many dreary centuries of discordant races, of varying religious faiths, and adherence now to one lord and master, and then to another.
Monuments of various eras remain; so numerously that one can rebuild for themselves much that has disappeared for ever: palaces as at Avignon, castles as at Tarascon and Beaucaire, and walled cities as at Aigues-Morte. What limitless suggestion is in the thought of the assembled throngs who peopled the tiers of the arenas and theatres of Arles and Nîmes in days gone by. The sensation is mostly to be derived, however, from thought and conjecture. The painful and nullifying "spectacles" and "courses des taureaux," which periodically hold forth to-day in these noble arenas, are mere travesties on their splendid functions of the past. Much more satisfying—and withal more artistic—are the theatrical representations in that magnificent outdoor theatre at Orange; where so recently as the autumn of 1903 was given a grand representation of dramatic art, with Madame Bernhardt, Coquelin, and others ofthe galaxy which grace the French stage to-day, taking part therein.
Provençal literature is a vast and varied subject, and the women of Arles—the true Arlesians of the poet and romancer—are astonishingly beautiful. Each of these subjects—to do them justice—would require much ink and paper. Daudet, in "Tartarin," has these opening words, as if no others were necessary in order to lead the way into a new world: "It was September and it was Provence." Frederic Mistral, in "Mirèio," has written the great modern epic of Provence, which depicts the life as well as the literature of the ancient troubadours. The "Fountain of Vaucluse" will carry one back still further in the ancient Provençal atmosphere; to the days of Petrarch and Laura, and the "little fish of Sorgues."
What the Romance language really was, authorities—if they be authorities—differ. Hence it were perhaps well that no attempt should be made here to define what others have failed to place, beyond this observation, which is gathered from a source now lost to recollection, but dating from a century ago at least:
"The southern or Romance language, the tongue of all the people who obeyed Charlemagne in the south of Europe, proceeded from the parent-vitiated Latin.
"The Provençaux assert, and the Spaniards deny, that the Spanish tongue is derived from the original Romance, though neither the Italians nor the French are willing to owe much to it as a parent, in spite of the fact that Petrarch eulogized it, and the troubadours as well.
"The Toulousans roundly assert that the Provençal is the root of all other dialects whatever (vide Cazeneuve). Most Spanish writers on the other hand insist that the Provençal is derived from the Spanish (vide Coleccion de Poesias Castellanas; Madrid, 1779)."
At all events the idiom, from whatever it may have sprung, took root, propagated and flourished in the land of the Provençal troubadours.
Whatever may have been the real extent of the influences which went out from Provence, it is certain that the marriage of Robert with Constance—daughter of the first Count of Provence, about the year 1000—was the period of a great change in manners andcustoms throughout the kingdom. Some even have asserted that this princess brought in her train the troubadours who spread the taste for poetry and its accompaniments throughout the north of France.
The "Provence rose," so celebrated in legend and literature, can hardly be dismissed without a word; though, in truth, the casual traveller will hardly know of its existence, unless he may have a sweet recollection of some rural maid, who, with sleeves carefully rolled up, stood before her favourite rose-tree, tenderly examining it, and driving away a buzzing fly or a droning wasp.
These firstlings of the season are tended with great pride. The distinctive "rose of Provence" is smaller, redder, and more elastic and concentric than thecentifoliæof the north, and for this reason, likely, it appears the more charming to the eye of the native of the north, who, if we are to believe the romanticists, is made a child again by the mere contemplation of this lovely flower.
The glory of this rich red "Provence rose" is in dispute between Provence and Provins, the ancient capital of La Brie; but the weight of the argument appears to favour the former.
Below Arles and Nîmes the Rhône broadens out into a many-fingered estuary, and mingles its Alpine flood with the blue waters of the Mediterranean.
The delta has been formed by the activity and energy of the river itself, from the fourth century—when it is known that Arles lay sixteen miles from the sea—till to-day, when it is something like thirty. This ceaseless carrying and filling has resulted in a new coast-line, which not only has changed the topography of the region considerably, but may be supposed to have actually worked to the commercial disadvantage of the country round about.
The annual prolongation of the shores—the reclaimed water-front—is about one hundred and sixty-four feet, hence some considerable gain is accounted for, but whether to the nation or the "squatter" statistics do not say.
The delta of the Rhône has been described by an expansive French writer as: "Something quite separate from the rest of France. It is a wedge of Greece and of the East thrust into Gaul. It came north a hundred (or more) years ago and killed the Monarchy.It caught the value in, and created the great war-song of the Republic."
There is a deal of subtlety in these few lines, and they are given here because of their truth and applicability.
"The cathedral at Chalons," says Philip Gilbert Hamerton,—who knew the entire region of the Saône better perhaps than any other Anglo-Saxon,—"has twin towers, which, in the evening, at a distance, recall Notre Dame (at Paris), and there are domes, too, as in the capital."
An imaginative description surely, and one that is doubtless not without truth were one able to first come upon this riverside city of mid-France in the twilight, and by boat from the upper river.
Chalons is an ideally situated city, with a placidness which the slow current of the Saône does not disturb. But its cathedral! It is no more like its Parisian compeer than it is like the Pyramids of Egypt.
In the first place, the cathedral towers are a weak, effeminate imitation of a prototype which itself must have been far removed fromNotre Dame, and they have been bolstered and battened in a shameful fashion.
The cathedral at Chalons is about the most ancient-looking possession of the city, which in other respects is quite modern, and, aside from its charming situation and general attractiveness, takes no rank whatever as a centre of ancient or mediæval art.
Its examples of Gallic architecture are not traceable to-day, and of Roman remains it possesses none. As a Gallic stronghold,—it was never more than that,—it appealed to Cæsar merely as a base from which to advance or retreat, and its history at this time is not great or abundant.
A Roman wall is supposed to have existed, but its remains are not traceable to-day, though tradition has it that a quantity of its stones were transported by the monk Bénigne for the rotunda which he built at Dijon.
The city's era of great prosperity was the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when its fortifications were built up anew, its cathedral finished, and fourteen churches held forth.
From this high estate it has sadly fallen, and there is only its decrepit cathedral, rebuilt after a seventeenth-century fire, and twochurches—one of them modern—to uphold its ecclesiastical dignity.
The towers of the cathedral are of the seventeenth century, but the so-called "Deanery Tower" is more ancient, and suggestive of much that is militant and very little that is churchly.
The interior has been restored, not wholly with success, but yet not wholly spoiled.
In plan and arrangement it is a simple and severe church, but acceptable enough when one contemplates changes made elsewhere. Here are to be seen no debased copies of Greek or Roman orders; which is something to be thankful for.
The arches of the nave and choir are strong and bold, but not of great spread. The height of the nave, part of which has come down from the thirteenth century, is ninety feet at least.
There are well-carved capitals to the pillars of the nave, and the coloured glass of the windows of triforium and clerestory is rich without rising to great beauty.
In general the style is decidedly amélange, though the cathedral is entitled to rank as a Gothic example. Its length is 350 feet.
Themaître-autelis one of the most elegant in France.
Modern improvement has cleared away much that was picturesque, but around the cathedral are still left a few gabled houses, which serve to preserve something of the mediæval setting which once held it.
The courtyard and its dependencies at the base of the "Deanery Tower" are the chief artistic features. They appeal far more strongly than any general accessory of the cathedral itself, and suggest that they once must have been the components of a cloister.
The see was founded in the fifth century as a suffragan of Lyon.
TheMastieoof the Romans was not the Macon of to-day, though, by evolution, or corruption, or whatever the process may have been, the name has come down to us as referring to the same place. The former city did not border the river, but was seated on a height overlooking the Saône, which flows by the doors of the present city of Macon.
Its site is endowed with most of the attributes included in the definition of "commanding," and, though not grandly situated, is, from any riverside view-point, attractive and pleasing.
When it comes to the polygonal towers of its olden cathedral, this charming and pleasing view changes to that of one which is curious and interesting. The cathedral of St. Vincent is a battered old ruin, and no amount of restoration and rebuilding will ever endow it with any more deserving qualities.
ST. VINCENT de MACON.ST. VINCENT de MACON.
ST. VINCENT de MACON.
The Revolution was responsible for its having withered away, as it was also for the abolishment of the see of Macon.
The towers stand to-day—lowered somewhat from their former proportions—gaunt and grim, and the rich Burgundian narthen, which lay between, has been converted—not restored, mark you—into an inferior sort of chapel.
The destruction that fell upon various parts of this old church might as well have been more sweeping and razed it to the ground entirely. The effect could not have been more disheartening.
Macon formerly had twelve churches. Now it has three—if we include this poor fragment of its one-time cathedral. Between the Revolution and the coronation of Napoleon I. the city was possessed of no place of worship.
Macon became an episcopal see, with Placide as its first bishop, in the sixth century. It was suppressed in 1790.
The bridge which crosses the river to the suburb of St. Laurent is credited as being the finest work of its kind crossing the Saône. Hamerton has said that "its massive arches and piers, wedge-shaped to meet the wind, arepleasant to contemplate after numerous festoons of wire carrying a roadway of planks." This bridge was formerly surmounted, at either end, with a castellated gateway, but, like many of these accessories elsewhere, they have disappeared.
The famous bridge at Cahors (shown elsewhere in this book) is the best example of such a bridge still existing in France.
As a "cathedral city," Macon will not take a high rank. The "great man" of Macon was Lamartine. His birthplace is shown to visitors, but its present appearance does not suggest the splendid appointments of its description in that worthy's memoirs.
Macon is theentrepôtof the abundant and excellentvin du Bourgogne, and the strictly popular repute of the city rests entirely on this fact.
ST. JEAN de LYON.ST. JEAN de LYON.
ST. JEAN de LYON.
The Lyonnais is the name given to that region lying somewhat to the westward of the city of Lyon. It is divided into three distinct parts,le Lyonnaisproper,le Forez, andle Beaujolais. Its chief appellation comes from that of its chief city, which in turn is more than vague as to its etymology:Lugdunumwe know, of course, and we can trace its evolution even unto the Anglicized Lyons, but when philologists, antiquarians, and "pedants of mere pretence" ask us to choose betweenle corbeau—lougon,un eminence—dounon,lone—an arm of a river, anddunthe Celtic word for height, we are amazed, and are willing enough to leave the solving of the problem to those who will find a greater pleasure therein.
Lyon is a widely-spread city, of magnificent proportions and pleasing aspect, situated as it is on the banks of two majestic, thoughcharacteristically different rivers, the Rhône and the Saône.
In many respects it is an ideally laid-out city, and the scene from the heights of Fourvière at night, when the city is brilliant with many-lighted workshops, is a wonderfully near approach to fairy-land.
Whether the remarkable symmetry of the city's streets and plan is the result of the genius of a past day, or of the modern progressive spirit, is in some doubt. Certainly it must originally have been a delightfully planned city, and the spirit of modernity—though great—has not by any means wholly eradicated its whilom charm of another day.
It may be remarked here that about the only navigable portion of the none too placid Rhône is found from here to Avignon and Arles, to which points, in summer at least, steam-craft—of sorts—carry passengers with expedition and economy—down-stream; the journey up-river will amaze one by the potency of the flood of this torrential stream—so different from the slow-going Saône.
The present diocese, of which the see of Lyon is the head, comprehends the Department of the Rhône et Loire. It is known under the double vocable of Lyon et Vienne,and is the outgrowth of the more ancient ecclesiastical province of Vienne, whose archiepiscopal dignity was domiciled in St. Maurice.
It was in the second century that St. Pothin, an Asiatic Greek, came to the ancient province of Lyon as archbishop. The title carried with it that of primate of all Gaul: hence the importance of the see, from the earliest times, may be inferred.
The architectural remains upon which is built the flamboyant Gothic church of St. Nizier are supposed to be those of the primitive cathedral in which St. Pothin and St. Irenæus celebrated the holy rites. The claim is made, of course, not without a show of justification therefor, but it is a far cry from the second century of our era to this late day; and the sacristan's words are not convincing, in view of the doubts which many non-local experts have cast upon the assertion. The presentÉglise St. Nizieris furthermore dedicated to a churchman who lived as late as the sixth century.
The present cathedral of St. Jean dates from the early years of the twelfth century, but there remains to-day another work closely allied with episcopal affairs—the stonebridge which spans the Saône, and which was built some two hundred years before the present cathedral by Archbishop Humbert.
Though a bridge across a river is an essentially practical and utile thing, it is, perhaps, in a way, as worthy a work for a generous and masterful prelate as church-building itself. Certainly this was the case with Humbert's bridge, he having designed the structure, superintended its erection, and assumed the expense thereof. It is recorded that this worthy churchman gained many adherents for the faith, so it may be assumed that he builded as well as he knew.
St. Jean de Lyon dates from 1180, and presents many architectural anomalies in its constructive elements, though the all-pervading Gothic is in the ascendant. From this height downward, through various interpolations, are seen suggestions of many varieties and styles of church-building. There is, too, an intimation of a motif essentially pagan if one attempts to explain the vagaries of some of the ornamentation of the unusual septagonal Lombard choir. This is further inferred when it is known that a former temple to Augustus stood on the same site. If this be so, the reasoningis complete, and the classical ornament here is of a very early date.
The fabric of the cathedral is, in the main, of a warm-coloured freestone, not unlike dark marble, but without its brilliancy and surface. It comes from the heights of Fourvière,—on whose haunches the cathedral sits,—and by virtue of the act of foundation it may be quarried at any time, free of all cost, for use by the Church.
The situation of this cathedral is most attractive; indeed its greatest charm may be said to be its situation, so very picturesquely disposed is it, with the Quai de l'Archevêché between it and the river Saône.
The choir itself—after allowing for the interpolation of the early non-Christian fragments—is the most consistently pleasing portion. It presents in general a fairly pure, early Gothic design. Curiously enough, this choir sits below the level of the nave and presents, in the interior view, an unusual effect of amplitude.
With the nave of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the style becomes more mixed—localized, one may say—if only consistent details might be traced. At any rate, the style grows perceptibly heavier andmore involved, without the simplicity of pre-Gothic work. Finally, as one comes to the heavily capped towers, there is little of grace and beauty left.
In detail, at least, if not in general, St. Jean runs quite the whole scale of mediæval architectural style—from the pure Romanesque to the definite, if rather mixed, Gothic.
Of the later elements, the most remarkable is the fifteenth-century Bourbon chapel, built by Cardinal Charles and his brother Pierre. This chapel presents the usual richness and luxuriance of its time. If all things are considered, it is the chief feature of interest within the walls.
The west front has triple portals, reminiscent, as to dimensions, of Amiens, though by no means so grandly peopled with statues; the heavy, stunted towers, too, are not unlike those of Amiens. These twin towers are of a decidedly heavy order, and are not beautiful, either as distinct features or as a component of the ensemble. Quite in keeping also are the chief decorations of the façade, which are principally a series of superimposed medallions, depicting, variously, the signs of the zodiac, scenes from the life of St. Jean, and yet others suggesting scenes and incidentsfrom Genesis, with an admixture of heraldic symbolism which is here quite meaningless and singularly inappropriate, while still other entablatures present scenes illustrating the "Legend of St. Nicholas" and "The Law of Aristotle."
The general effect of the exterior, the façade in particular, is very dark, and except in a bright sunlight—which is usual—is indeed gloomy. In all probability, this is due to the discolouring of the soft stone of which the cathedral is built, as the same effect is scarcely to be remarked in the interior.
In a tower on the south side—much lower, and not so clumsily built up as the twin towers—hangs one of the greatestbourdonsin France. It was cast in 1662, and weighs ten thousand kilos.
Another curiosity of a like nature is to be seen in the interior, an astronomical clock—known to Mr. Tristram as "that great clock of Lippius of Basle." Possessed of a crowing cock and the usual toy-book attributes, this great clock is a source of perennial pride to the native and the makers of guide-books. Sterne, too, it would appear, waxed unduly enthusiastic over this really ingenious thing of wheels and cogs. He said: "I neverunderstood the least of mechanism. I declare I was never able yet to comprehend the principles of a squirrel-cage or a knife-grinder's wheel, yet I will go see this wonderful clock the first thing I do." When he did see it, he quaintly observed that "it was all out of joint."
The rather crude coloured glass—though it is precious glass, for it dates from the thirteenth century, in part—sets off bountifully an interior which would otherwise appear somewhat austere.
In the nave is a marble pulpit which has been carved with more than usual skill. It ranks with that in St. Maurice, at Vienne, as one of the most beautiful in France.
The cathedral possesses tworeliquesof real importance in the crosses which are placed to the left and right of the high-altar. These are conserved by a unique custom, in memory of an attempt made by aconcile génêralof the church, held in Lyon in 1274, to reconcile the Latin and Greek forms of religion.
The sacristy, in which the bountiful, though not historic,trésoris kept, is in the south transept.
Among the archives of the cathedral there are, says a local antiquary, documents of atestamentary nature, which provided the means for the up-keep of the fabric without expense to the church, until well into the eighteenth century.
On the apex of the height which rises above the cathedral is the Basilique de Notre Dame de Fourvière—"one of those places of pilgrimage, the most venerated in all the world," says a confident French writer. This may be so; it overlooks ground which has long been hallowed by the Church, to a far greater degree than many other parts, but, like so many places of pilgrimage of a modern day, its nondescript religious edifice is enough to make the church-lover willingly pass it by. The site is that of the ancientForum Vetusof the Romans, and as such is more appealing to most than as a place of pilgrimage.