CHAPTER VIIThe Cathedral

‘Car la parole et le renonDes bons vins avoit entenduQui a Chartres erent venduClers seins nes et delicieux.’

The monks, it seems, had not planted their vines in vain. But, alas! the modern vintage of La Beauce cannot claim any of the epithets assigned to it above. Thegrands clos de très bon vinof which Souchet speaks (1640), which cardinals had found excellent in 1506, and which were sold with pride and profit at theÉtape-au-vinor the various taverns, is but a thin and dreary liquor to-day. Either the soil has been exhausted and the grape lost its virtue, or the taste of the former connoisseurs was faulty. No doubt their standard of taste in wine was lower than ours. A cup of sack, I doubt, would not prove so pleasant to the modernpalate as it is to the modern ear. But even so the vintage of La Beauce must have suffered a sore deterioration. The flourishing condition of the old tavern-keepers and vintners is indicated by their generous donation of the magnificent window which records the chief events of the life of S. Lubin (second in the north aisle of the nave).

It remains to close this chapter with a bald list of the subjects of the windows, taken in order, starting from the western front and moving round the Cathedral from the Clocher Neuf along the north or left-hand side.

1. Rose Window. Last Judgment. Described above.

2, 3, 4. Below it the three twelfth-century windows, of which the one on the south side contains twelve circular panels representing the later events from the life of Christ (Transfiguration to Supper with Disciples at Emmaus). The arrangement of the windows should be compared with that of the Notre-Dame de la Belle Verrière, which, though made of thirteenth-century glass, was copied in design from an earlier one of which mention is made. The centre window of the three (32 feet 10 inches) contains the Virgin and Child in the head, and in twelve panels the chief events of the Gospel story from the Annunciation to the Entry into Jerusalem. The northern one is a Jesse window, on which the genealogical tree of our Saviour is shown. Among the branches are the first four Kings, then the Virgin, and Christ surrounded by the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost. On either side of the tree are seven prophets.

North Aisle of the Nave.

5. Story of Noah. Given by the Carpenters, Wheelwrights and Coopers.

6. Story of S. Lubin (seep. 36). Given by the Tavern-keepers and Vintners.

7. Story of S. Eustace (seep. 163). Given by the Furriers and Drapers.

8. Story of Joseph. Given by the Moneychangers and Minters.

9. Story of S. Nicholas. Given by the Grocers and Druggists.

10.La Nouvelle Alliance.Given by the Farriers and Blacksmiths. (Seven panels were removed in 1816).

Clerestory of the Nave(North).

North Transept(below the Clerestory).

18. A free version of the story of the Prodigal Son.

19. The story of S. Laurence was portrayed in this window, but the central portion of it was removed in 1791, when the Chapel of the Transfiguration was made.

20. Removed 1791.

North Transept, Clerestory(West Side).

23. Thirteenth-century grisailles, with border of the Lilies of France, and the Castles of Castile.

24. The Rose of France, and beneath,

25, 26, 27, 28, 29. The five pointed windows described above (p.159).

North Transept, Clerestory(East Side).

The Clerestory of the Choir(North).

Clerestory of the Choir(South).

South Transept(now being restored).

49. Destroyed 1791.

50. Destroyed 1792. A border alone remains.

51. S. Apollinaris of Ravenna and Hierarchy of Angels (1328).

South Transept, Clerestory(East Side).

South Transept, Clerestory(West Side).

South Aisle of the Nave(starting from South Transept).

64. This window formerly recorded the miracles of the Virgin, wrought in the thirteenth century. But only one out of sixteen medallions remains complete.

Vendôme Chapel.

(Founded 1413 by Louis de Bourbon. Two chestscontain remains of S. Piat and S. Taurin.)

65. Below, six Angels bearing the arms of Bourbon-Vendôme, and a piece of another window representing the Death of the Virgin. Above, on left, Jacques de Bourbon kneeling; S. Louis of France, S. Louis of Toulouse, Louis and Jacques de Bourbon; on right, S. James, in similar company. Above, again, the Virgin and Child, next to a lady, crowned by two angels; S. John blessing a chalice, S. John the Baptist, with the Lamb.

In the head of the window, the Crucifixion, and, on the right, the Holy Women; on the left, the Jewish Priests and the Centurion. Above, Christ judging the world, between Mary and John praying, and the angels summoning the dead, who rise from their tombs.

66. The Death, Funeral, Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin. Below, the donors, Cobblers.

67. The Story of the Good Samaritan. Below, the Cobblers,Sutores.

68. The Life of S. Mary Magdalene. Below, the Water-carriers.

69. The Life of S. John the Evangelist. Below, the Armourers.

The Nave, South Side, Clerestory.

The Chapels of the Ambulatory and Apse.

77. Subject unknown. Given by Geoffroi Chardonnel.

78. Life of S. Nicholas. Given by Etienne Chardonnel.

Rose, Jesus and the four beasts.

79, 80, 81, 82. Four interesting grisailles with coloured borders.

Sacristy.

83. Grisaille, fourteenth century.

Chapel of S. Joseph.

84. Story of S. Thomas.

85. S. Julian. Given by the Carpenters, Wheelwrights and Coopers.

86. Grisaille, picked out with colour.

Chapel of the Sacred Heart of Mary.

87. Story of S. Savinian, S. Potentian, S. Modesta (seep. 18). Given by the Weavers.

88. Story of S. Chéron. Given by the Sculptors, Masons and Stone-dressers.

89. Story of S. Stephen. Given by the Shoemakers.

90. Story of S. Quentin. Given by Nicolas Lescine, Canon of the Cathedral.

91. Story of S. Theodore and S. Vincent of Saragossa. Given by the Weavers.

Windows between the Chapels.

92. The legend of S. Charlemagne and S. Roland, told in great detail and with remarkable clearness, after the versions of Turpin and Vincent de Beauvais.

93. S. James, the Apostle. Given by the Drapers and Furriers.

Chapel of the Communion.

94. Grisaille, ornamented with arms of House of Castile.

95. Lives of S. Simon and S. Jude. Donor, Henri Noblet.

96, 97, 98. Scenes from the life of Christ, given by the Bakers. Nine of the panels were removed in 1791, and like those of the two next windows, which depict the incidents of the lives of S. Peter and S. Paul, they have been very skilfully restored.

Entrance to Chapel of S. Piat(seep. 44).

99. Grisaille, fourteenth century. S. Piat in ecclesiastical robes.

Chapel of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

100. Grisaille. S. Nicholas restoring three children to life (fifteenth century).

101. Life of S. Rémy. The donor below kneeling.

102. S. Nicholas.

103. Story of S. Marguerite and S. Catherine of Alexandria. Donors, Marguerite de Lèves, and her husband, Guérin de Friaise, with her brother Hugues de Meslay.

104. Life of S. Thomas of Canterbury. Given about thirty years after his murder by the Tanners and Curriers. John of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres, had been the secretary of Thomas à Becket, and an eye-witness of his murder.

Chapel of All Saints.

105. The story of S. Martin (by Clement, the glass painter of Chartres, whose name is recorded ina similar thirteenth-century window in Rouen Cathedral?). Given by the Shoemakers.

106, 107. White eighteenth-century glass.

108. Fourteenth-century grisailles. The Annunciation. Two coats of arms.

Rose, Christ blessing.

109. Signs of the Zodiac and Months of the year. The life of the Virgin. Rose, Christ crucified. Given by Thibaut VI., Count of Chartres, for Thomas, Count of Perche, killed in the Battle of Lincoln, 1217.

110. Notre-dame de la Belle Verrière (seep. 161). Above, the Virgin (whose mouth has been skilfully restored), enthroned and crowned, with Christ between her knees, surrounded by angels bearing candlesticks and censers. Below, the Marriage at Cana, and the Temptation of our Saviour in the Wilderness, on the Temple and the Mountain.

111. Scenes from the lives of S. Antony and S. Paul, the first hermit. Given by the Basketmakers.

Rose, Virgin and Child.

‘Monument unique, et qu’il faudrait comparer aux gigantesques constructions de l’Egypte, aux monstrueuses pagodes de l’Inde pour lui trouver des analogues.’—Didron.

‘Notre-Dame de Chartres! It is a world to explore, as if one explored the entire Middle Ages.’—Pater.

THE Cathedral of Chartres is gifted to a peculiar degree with the quality of impressiveness. This quality it owes to the living unity, the animated harmony of its members, and also to the sensation of space, not emptiness, to the impression of massiveness which is yet not heavy, suggested by the whole, whether viewed from near or afar, and equally by the parts, such as the west front or the nave.

‘Dependent,’ says Pater, ‘on its structural completeness, or its wealth of well-preserved ornament, or its unity in variety, perhaps on some undefinable operation of genius, beyond, but concurrently with, all these, the Church of Chartres has still the gift of a unique power of impressing. In comparison, the other famous Churches of France, at Amiens for instance, at Reims or Beauvais, may seem but formal, and to a large extent reproducible, effects of mere architectural rule on a gigantic scale.’

The main body of the Cathedral was completed by 1210, for it is written in the Latin version (1210) of thePoem of Miraclesthat one day there came ashining light which dimmed the candles that were lit, and a noise as of thunder that drowned the voices of the many faithful praying in the church, and that a belief sprang up that the Virgin herself had appeared to honour with her presence the Cathedral built to her praise.[74]

The north and south porches, which were not part of the original plan, as is evident from the manner in which they have been applied to the walls and the buttresses cut away to admit them, would appear to have been begun in this same year 1210.

But the dedication of the Cathedral was long deferred. It did not take place till 1260, when S. Louis himself, the devoted benefactor of the Cathedral, whose personality has filled the north transept, the Rose of France and the north porch, attended with all his family, and with multitudes of people from every side, princes and dukes and peasants, and the bishop, surrounded byhis seventy canons, joined in the solemn dedication of the temple.

By the fire of 1194 the whole of the upper church had been destroyed. The narthex, with the western porch and its three twelfth-century windows, alone remained. Beyond the church stood the two towers still, but their bells and woodwork were all gone, and the masonry was so charred that traces of the fire may be seen to this day.

Briefly, the steps that were now taken to give us the Cathedral which we have may be summarised as follows. Four apsidal chapels were added in the crypt, completing thus the favourite Gothic number of seven; all the soil of the crypt (except the martyrium) was levelled up to that of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre; aisles were constructed over the corridors of the crypt; a vast transept was added; an enormous choir, with double aisles and apsidal chapels, was erected over new vaulting of the crypt; the narthex was displaced and made room for two new bays in the nave; whilst the west porch was moved skilfully westwards, with the same object, and set in a line flush with the two towers. Traces of this latter process will be found in the fact that the three doorways, having existed before the present nave and aisles, do not now correspond with them, and traces of what was once exterior masonry of the towers may also be seeninsidethe present church, between the Chapel of the Seven Sorrows and that of the Calvary.

At the same time, above the triplet window, in a severe quadrangular framework, was inserted the splendid Rose window, which is a masterpiece of masonry, a superb creation, recalling at once to mind the magnificent circular window of Lincoln, which, however, was a good score years later, and also—for the thick radii of the circle still suggest the spokes of a wheel quiteas much as the petals of a rose—the rather earlier Wheel of Barfreston (Kent, 1180). It is 46 feet in diameter, and has been set, designedly, not in the exact centre of its flat stone frame, in order to counterbalance the inequality noticeable in the breadth of the two towers. There, with its double row of sculptured spokes, which radiate from its centre, it looks, to borrow Mr. Henry James’s fine phrase, on its lofty field of stone, as expansive and symbolic as if it were the wheel of Time itself.

Above this window stretch a noble cornice and a simple balustrade which serve for communication between the two towers, and above this again are the sixteen niched figures which have earned for this gallery the title of the Gallery of Kings. Higher still is the gable which terminates the front, containing in a niche a colossal statue of the Virgin and Child, and on the apex a statue of Christ in the act of blessing. (Both these statues were re-made in 1855).

The kings stand upright in their niches; their pose is little varied; their costumes uniform. M. Viollet-le-Duc suggested that they represent the Kings of Judah, but there is no reason to doubt the tradition that, like the royal statues at Wells and Notre-Dame de Paris and the stained-glass figures at Strasbourg, they really represent the kings of the country who were benefactors of the church.

The first seven, then, are the figures of Merovingian Kings, the eighth Pepin-le-Bref, as you may tell by his small stature and the fact that he is standing upon a lion, in allusion to his courageous feat when, after challenging the French nobles who despised him for his smallness, he slew a raging lion single-handed, and then demanded, ‘Do you think me worthy to rule you now?’ The ninth statue was broken by a cannon-ball in the siege of 1591. It was Charlemagneor Charles-le-Fauve. The others are, according to M. Bulteau, Philippe I., Louis le Gros, Louis le Jeune, Philippe Auguste, Louis le Lion, Louis IX., and Philippe le Hardi, in whose reign the gallery was finished (1280).

As at Rouen and at Bayeux, it was originally intended that six new towers, two at each corner of the north and south front, making eight in all, should be grouped round the soaring spire of a central tower which was to rest on the four huge piers at the point of intersection of the transepts of the nave and choir. But they remain incomplete, even as, in accordance it might be fancied with some inscrutable degree, almost every Cathedral in the world is unfinished.

Thus at Chartres the Cathedral type, after which, with tentative, uncertain hand, the twelfth-century architects of Poitiers and Soissons, Laon and Paris had been striving, was struck out at last. It was to serve as a model for Central Europe throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, just as the sculpture of the western porch was to be copied at Corbeil and Paris, Sentis, Laon and Sens.

The name of the genius who achieved this glorious success we do not know, though the names of the builders of Reims, of Rouen and of Amiens have come down to us. All we do know is, as has been said above, that there was an active school of architects and sculptors, drawn chiefly from the monks of the Monasteries of Tiron and S. Père, established at this time in La Beauce, who worked with humble zeal, anonymous.

But, whatever his name, he succeeded at last, after the efforts and by aid of the efforts of his so many predecessors, in striking out the cathedral type, in shaping the mould in which, with various alterations, modifications, improvements and excesses, all the cathedrals ofFrance were henceforth to be cast. In striking out the type he was himself confined by local conditions, and limited by his lack of experience. By bringing the western façade flush with the western extremities of the towers he was enabled to increase the length of that nave, which he made to leap heavenwards with almost the same joyous spring as that of Amiens, and the length and breadth, and height and strength of that nave, with its massive piers, its splendid vaulting, and its jewelled windows casting their purple and crimson rays across its dark roomy spaces, and the dim distances of the mysterious aisles, render Chartres ‘awful’ in a manner seldom or never elsewhere achieved by Gothic architect. But the proportion of the nave to the choir, or, again, to the vast transepts, is not perfect, for the builder was limited by the existing towers. As a pioneer, too, he was limited by inexperience. There is, indeed, no effect of heaviness in this nave, for the massiveness of the work, which is almost equal to that which we call Norman, is relieved by the stupendous height. And the solemnity, the overwhelming impressiveness of Chartres are due, it might almost seem, to that accident of ignorance. For if he had dared, if he had known that it was possible and safe, can you doubt that the architect would have added to the soaring spires of Chartres the soaring nave of Amiens? But what we should have gained in sheer beauty we should have lost in character. For Amiens is light and joyous; Chartres is mysterious and sad. Amiens rises as naturally as the sparks fly upward, as ethereal as the flute-like notes of a treble voice, as careless as a child’s light laughter. But Chartres it would seem has more sympathy with the sadder, deeper sides of human life; it is older, stronger, more masculine, and more wise; combining the stern philosophy of the Pagan Stoic with the comforting tidings of the Christian martyrs andsaints; combining, that is, as never before or since so harmoniously, the Romanesque and the Gothic styles, the rounded and the pointed arch, taking the best of each, and uniting them in a transition that is yet a triumph, in an attempt that is an eternal monument of success.

The transition of style is to be observed on almost every side. Not, indeed, so much in the plain round pillars with capitals in imitation of the Roman composite, and with square abaci, as the eye accustomed only to English work might assume, for these in France were retained much later than in England, even throughout the period of Flamboyant. But in almost every direction you can see the tentative mason at work, leaving the old heavy style with its horizontal lines behind him, and making new experiments, discarding or developing fresh ideas which tended to the achievement of lightness and spring, but as yet hardly daring to believe to the full in the capacity of stone. Here, for instance, in the nave, the blind triforium has not broken yet into one continuous window, as it was soon to do in the Church of S. Père, of S. Ouen at Rouen, and at Amiens; nor have the heavy masses of stone been resolved into a network of delicate tracery, leaving not a span uncovered by its gossamer thread. The desire for lightness, again, which was in time to lead to the adoption of bar tracery is, in the case of the windows, evident, but not fully attained. Combined, however, with the rare opportunities offered to the architect by the excellent quality of the stone of Berchères, it has led him to invent a very simple and handsome type of window, which consists of two lancet lights under one arch, with a foliated circle in the head, the plate tracery of which is peculiarly heavy, and is cut through the solid stone. Between these circular openings, which fill a whole bay between the flying buttresses, and the headsof the lower lights, there is, as at Soissons, Bourges, Reims and so forth, a considerable interval of masonry. The foliated circles themselves are surrounded by a number of small trefoil or quatrefoil openings, not formed of bars, but likewise pierced through the solid stone.

FLYING BUTTRESSES OF THE NAVE.FLYING BUTTRESSESOF THE NAVE.

The buttresses of the nave, again, are amazingly heavy and massive, as if the workmen were still afraid to trust them to support the thrust of the vaulting of the roof at so great a height. This is borne by flying buttresses of enormous solidity, composed of an upper and a lower section, which are strengthened in turn by an arcade. The arcading is remarkable for its rugged grace, its masculine beauty. Its round-headed arches, which are supported by short, thick shafts, that remind one of the spokes of the wheel window, are composed of two large blocks of hewn stone.

Compare these flying buttresses with the later and lighter but less pleasing ones of the choir, or with the almost impudent development of the use of them in the Abbey Church of S. Père, and, without any doubt, you perceive in what direction lay the ambition of the transitional architect.

These buttresses of the nave will be best seen from the galleries of the roof, with their graceful balustrading, along which you pass, when, under the guidance of a verger from the Maison-des-Clercs, you make your ascent of theclochers, starting from a door near the north entrance and the sacristy. Passing, then, along these galleries, you come to the Clocher Neuf, with itsFlamboyant spire, the work of Jehan de Beauce (1507-1513); built after the spire of timber and lead, which replaced the one destroyed in 1194, had been destroyed itself in 1506. It was raised 4 feet by Claude Augé in 1690, so that the present height of the Clocher Neuf is 378 feet, that of the Clocher Vieux being 350. Augé, in the following year, added the enormous bronze vase on the top; the cross above that was placed in position in 1854. There is a vane in the form of a sun (Jesus, the Sun of Justice, the Light of the World) upon this cross, corresponding to the moon on the old spire (Mary, ‘clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet.’—Rev. xii.)

The third storey of the Clocher Neuf into which the gallery brings us is the beginning of the Flamboyant work of Jehan de Beauce. An elegant balustrade connects the parts of the different date. On the south wall of theChambre des Sonneurs, as the third storey is called, is graven in Gothic, but now scarce legible characters, an inscription in six quatrains, in which the clocher tells us the history of the disaster of 1506, and the event of its rebuilding by Jehan de Beauce, the skilful mason, just as the bronze vase above relates in Latin prose the further history of the spire down to 1690, and the name of the bronze-founder, Ignace Gabois.

‘Je fus jadis de plomb et boys construit,Grant, hault et beau, de somptueux ouvraige,Jusques ad ce que tonnerre et oraigeM’a consumé, dégâté et détruit.Le jour sainte Anne vers six heures de nuytEn l’année mil cinq cens et six.Je fu brulé démoly et recuytEt avec moy de grosses cloches six.Après Messieurs en plain Chappitre assisOnt ordonné de pierre me reffaireA grant voultes et pilliers bien massifsPar Jehan de Beausse, maçon qui le sut faire.L’An dessu dist après pour l’euvre faireAssouar firent le vint quatrième jourDu moys de mars pour le premier affairePremière pierre et aultres sans ce jour.Et en avril huitiesme jour exprèsRené d’Illiers évesque de regnonPardist la vie au lieu duquel aprèsFeust Erard mis par postulacion.En ce temps là que avoys nicessitéAvoit des gens qui pour moy lors vieilloientDu bon du cœur feust yver ou esté,Dieu le pardont et à ceulx qui s’y emploient.1508.’

‘Je fus jadis de plomb et boys construit,Grant, hault et beau, de somptueux ouvraige,Jusques ad ce que tonnerre et oraigeM’a consumé, dégâté et détruit.

Le jour sainte Anne vers six heures de nuytEn l’année mil cinq cens et six.Je fu brulé démoly et recuytEt avec moy de grosses cloches six.

Après Messieurs en plain Chappitre assisOnt ordonné de pierre me reffaireA grant voultes et pilliers bien massifsPar Jehan de Beausse, maçon qui le sut faire.

L’An dessu dist après pour l’euvre faireAssouar firent le vint quatrième jourDu moys de mars pour le premier affairePremière pierre et aultres sans ce jour.

Et en avril huitiesme jour exprèsRené d’Illiers évesque de regnonPardist la vie au lieu duquel aprèsFeust Erard mis par postulacion.

En ce temps là que avoys nicessitéAvoit des gens qui pour moy lors vieilloientDu bon du cœur feust yver ou esté,Dieu le pardont et à ceulx qui s’y emploient.1508.’

The fourth storey, lit by four large bays, contains two great bells cast in 1840, Marie (C., 13,228 lbs.) and Joseph, the tenor, who sounds the Angelus throughout the year.

The fifth storey, pierced on each of its eight sides by a large bay, contains four large bells of 1845, Anne (D., 2040 kilos.), Elizabeth (E., 1510 kilos.), Fulbert (F., 1510 kilos.), Piat (G., 870 kilos.). The first-named bell is always known as Anne of Bretagne. For she, when visiting the Cathedral in 1510, was so delighted with the voice of one of the lads singing in the choir that she begged him of the canons, and when they granted her request she thanked them in these words: ‘Messieurs, you have given me a little voice, and I in return wish to give you a big one.’ This she did, giving them the bell which has ever since been called by her name. It was known also by the name of theCloche des biens, for at one season of the year it was rung for an hour every evening to secure an abundant harvest. ‘At the first stroke of the bell,’ wrote Sablon, in 1697, ‘all the people make the sign of the cross and recite an Ave Maria for the products of the soil.’

The fifth storey marks the beginning of the spire,and is itself octagonal. The transition is ingeniously concealed by the richly-ornamented pinnacles at the four corners, which tie the balustrade to the tower and support, each of them, three colossal statues (John the Baptist and the eleven Apostles). Light flying buttresses, adorned with graceful mouldings and admirable grotesques, connect the pinnacles with the tower. Over one of the lights is a Christ in the act of benediction.

The sixth storey, surrounded by a gallery in Flamboyant style, panels of rich tracery and gargoyles, and pinnacles at the corners of the octagon, contains the room of the watchmen, whose duty it was every half-hour during the night to walk round this gallery and give the alarm when they saw a fire in the town. A Latin inscription records that by the peculiar grace of God this pyramid was preserved from the effects of a fire (1674) due to the watchman’s carelessness. This good man, Gendrin by name, finding that the hours of the night watch hung heavy on his hands, used to amuse himself by reading. One night the candle fell and set light to his straw mattress, and thence the flames spread rapidly to the timber of the room. The wooden belfry was saved from destruction by the great bravery of a workman named Claude Gauthier. A quotation from Psalms cxxvii., outside the western door, draws the moral, ‘Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’ It is signed F. Foucault. But the significance of the name has died away.

At last, after having mounted 377 steps, we reach the seventh storey, where hangs the ‘Tocsin’ bell, ‘in accordance with which,’ says an old writer, ‘all the people of Chartres order and conduct themselves.’[75]It weighs 5000 kilos., and was cast on the 23rd September, 1520, by Pierre Sayvet, as the inscriptiontells us, ‘Petrus Sayvet me fecit.’ Another and longer inscription, in beautiful Gothic characters, runs round the bell in two lines. The bell, speaking in Latin verses, tells us that it has been raised ‘to the lofty summit of this mighty building to announce the eclipses of the sun and the moon.’ And it fixes its date as 1520, with a reference to the great event of that year, the meeting of Henry VIII. and François I., near Calais, on the field of the Cloth of Gold, ‘when the Frenchmen met the English and lay down together in everlasting goodwill.’

Back to Index Next