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V
ST. MAURICE D'ANGERS

Historically and romantically, Angers, the former capital of Anjou, is possessed of a past (which may be said to have actively commenced in 989) that cannot fail to arrest and hold one's attention. Capital of the Dukes of Anjou, and the home of Margaret of Anjou, daughter of René, who married Henry VI. of England; likewise the cradle of the first Plantagenets; and immortalized by Shakespeare's King John, who soliloquizes anent "The flinty ribs of this contemptuous town." With all this, Angers has perhaps a supreme claim for English consideration. In spite of all this, and the added attraction of a "real castle," such as is seldom found outside the children's fairy-tale books, not to mention the Cathedral of St. Maurice, – of which more anon, – Angers leaves one with the impression that very much is wanting in order to merit preëminence in the classification of those memories which a traveller is wont to store up as a result of his travels and observations. Perhaps it is the city's pitiful attempt to be gay, to be modern, to undertake pretentious improvements, – all of which appear to fail utterly in their purpose. These things cannot be unless they are of a spontaneous growth, which here they apparently are not. Not that the city still merits the opprobrious (sic) term of "Black Angers" with which most writers and all makers of guide-books are pleased to refer to it, – it hardly does. In fact it is doubtful as to just what the term originally meant. Perhaps it was merely a reference to the gloom caused by the extensive use in the construction of its buildings of the black slate in which the neighbourhood abounds; – at any rate the expression is one of undoubted antiquity.

The two chief attractions are the cathedral and the castle, both "historical monuments." The latter, as before noted, is the ideal military stronghold of our early imagination; and if age, magnitude, and the general air of good preservation, count for anything, it must be one of the most impressive monuments of its class still to be seen. Originally its wall, now minus battlements, fronted close upon the river. It is surrounded by a dry yawning fosse, formerly a moat, and possesses no less than seventeen enormous and perfectly formed towers, each perhaps eighty feet in height, banded near the top in white and black stripes. Hardly more than a circling wall to-day, it has stood well the test of time since it was erected by Philip Augustus and completed under St. Louis in 1180. Little remains of the Renaissance portion originally occupied by the Counts of Anjou. Its charm lies rather in its exterior, the interior confines resembling more a lumber-yard than anything else, – not worth spending one's time upon, under the present facilities which are offered for its inspection. One small structure within the walls is notable as being that in which King René was born. It is recorded that Wellington received a part of his military education in Angers. If so, it is probable that he studied this military defence with some care and minuteness. To us, at least, who have not been educated with respect to military fortification, it seems to fill all demands that are likely to be made upon a building of its class. Doubtless it could have been besieged successfully, and even battered through to the extent of allowing the outside foe to enter, but it would probably have been at a fearful cost, and it is possible that the attempt would be given up before any surrender took place. Such would appear to an outsider to be the lines on which these magnificent works of feudal times were built.

One should not speak slightingly of the Cathedral of St. Maurice, though it comes upon one who journeys from the north, as a thing apart from anything he has met before; so much so that he is hardly likely to be able to judge it dispassionately until he has turned his impressions of it many times over in his mind.

The Angevine style, seen here, is representative of but a very restricted area. The Société des Monuments Historiques defined it as "a small district on both sides of the Loire between Normandy and Acquitaine." It is suggestive of the Roman manner, far more than the Gothic; though the primitiveness shown in the long, upright lines of the west front of this cathedral marks it at once as something different from either Romanesque or Transition, – though Transition it must be, unless we delimit the confines of that useful term. In any case, it points unto heaven in a truly devout manner, is not debased in any particular, and, if not a consistent style, has many of the good qualities of both. The Cathedral of St. Maurice is best seen from a point of view which will exaggerate its height, its slimness, and its straight and upright lines; but even this does not appear to work out to its disadvantage, in spite of the new note it strikes. It is an interesting work when viewed from any distance sufficient to throw its outline well into the air. From across the Maine, it is charming; from the foot of the stairwayed street which runs downwards from its western portal, it is picturesque and irresistible, while from any other view-point in the town, it is grand.

The easterly end is dwarfed by close-lying houses, picturesque enough in themselves; but the gracefulness of the buttress is wanting. The south side is, here and there, broken into by additions and interpolations, none apparently of a contemporary era. It offers a grand effect for an artist who would study gray walls and crumbling roofs, but the lack of uniformity will offend most people.

The façade of the west is the most effective feature, so far as genuineness is concerned. It towers to the sky, its needle-pointed spires overtopping a crooked street which rises sharply from the river. There is but one portal, and that is centred with a curious Romanesque arch half-way across its height, above which is a bas-relief of great size. The sculpture of this portal, while not as excellent as that seen in the Isle of France, is of an unusual richness and execution. The next range is unique among west fronts, being a large central window, but slightly pointed and little removed from the Romanesque. It is bare of coloured glass, and is decidedly not an attractive feature. On each side of this great window are a series of blunt pointed lancets, which form a sort of arcade which otherwise relieves the bareness which would exist. Immediately above is a row of niches which hold eight armour-clad knights of the fifteenth century, inferior perhaps, in execution, to the sculpture of the portal, but producing an effect, when viewed from the ground, undeniably fine. It is a detail as interesting, in its way, as the long "Gallery of the Kings" at Reims. Above rise the slim spires, with an octagonal cupola superimposed over a central structure, which looks to this day as though it were originally intended as one of a battery of three uniform spires. The general plan of this façade is the masterpiece of design of the building, and, except for the ludicrously diminutive clock-face, could withstand nobly the cavil of the most exacting pedant who ever read or studied architectural forms, solely out of books. In the immediate foreground falls the before mentioned street of steps. Many old tumble-down houses have recently been cleared away, and, at the present writing, the view from this point is one which has apparently not previously existed, and one which it is to be hoped will not be marred by the erection of any so-called modern improvements.

The interior fills no accepted formula of architectural expression, save that it is of the manner common to Anjou, the borderland between the Gothic aisled and the great and aisle-less southern naves, but it holds one's interest none the less. Perhaps, after all, it is the quality to interest, quite as much as that to please, which is the standard by which one makes estimates and forms opinions. There is a not very long nor very wide nave and choir, neither with aisles, and both with a vaulting which gives the appearance of being much lower than it really is, quite the contrary impression to that received from contemplation of the exterior. The bishop's throne sets midway on the right of the nave. Each bay of the side walls of the nave is composed of a wide pointed arch resting immediately upon the ground and filled with stone instead of glass; reminiscent of a similar effect in the Church of Notre Dame de la Cloture at Le Mans. The true windows of the nave rise in pairs above this arch, and contain rich, though somewhat fragmentary, glass of the thirteenth century. As characteristic of the Angevine style, there is no triforium or clerestory, and hence, it is claimed, no necessity for flying buttresses, the support being accomplished by less graceful, if as effective, heavy square piers built into the outer wall.

The transepts are not pronounced as to length or breadth, their chief beauty being their rose windows.

The choir, of the twelfth century, shows an interpolated and elaborately flamboyant doorway of a much later period.

An ornate oaken pulpit of none too good Renaissance carving is in the nave, and the organ case over the western doorway is supported on the shoulders of a series of huge, grotesque, but monstrously human, wooden caryatides. This, with the gigantic, high canopied carven wood pulpit, one of the most extraordinary in the country, forms a relief to coldly chiselled stone, certainly; – but few will consider their charms such as would warrant counting them amongst ecclesiastical treasures.

The fourteenth-century tapestries from Arras (or Paris) were made for King René and by him given to the cathedral. They represent scenes from the Apocalypse, and, though having suffered somewhat from the depredations of the Revolution, still exhibit evidences of rare qualities of workmanship in their design and colouring.

The bénitier of verd-antico marble supported by figures of lions is a Byzantine work of the eastern empire, given to the cathedral by King René.

The Dukes of Anjou and Margaret of Anjou were buried here, but the tomb of the latter was desecrated and destroyed during the Revolution. Aside from these, no other monuments of note are to be seen.

The Bishop's Palace, of the twelfth century, standing high beside the cathedral, was restored by Viollet-le-Duc and reflects a mediæval splendour unseen elsewhere in the city, with respect to any great or small domestic establishment.

The Maison Barrault in the Logis Barrault, built by a former mayor of the city, one time Chancellor of Brittany, was the scene of the magnificent entertainment offered Cæsar Borgia in 1497. Afterwards it became the residence of Marie de Medicis; later, a monastic establishment, then a seminary, and lately simply an ordinary private school. Says one writer, "No wonder its remains should be so scanty and ill preserved."

VI
ST. PIERRE DE NANTES

As a city of commercial and strategic importance, no one will deny that Nantes is supreme in the Loire valley; that its relations with the affairs of Church and State are equally important, is a debatable point. True, the edict in favour of Protestant worship, fathered by Henry IV., was a momentous and significant event; but the revocation, and the subsequent massacres of the rascally Carrier, well-nigh wiped that out. The history of the city is one long record of warfare and bloodshed. Though holding the command of the Loire, the city has ever been more closely identified with Brittany. Here, in its frowning tenth-century castle, which fronts upon the river immediately in the foreground of the Cathedral of St. Pierre, with which it forms an unusual grouping of ecclesiastical and military architecture (M. H.), lived at one time or another, most of the Kings of France, from Charles VIII. downward. Here, too, Anne of Brittany was born, and here she married Charles VIII., thus uniting the Duchy of Brittany with the crown of France. Her subsequent marriage, in the chapel of the castle, with Louis XII., made for ever impossible the future independence of the city.

Following the edict came the Revolution; and, as if the preliminary horrors of massacres and atrocities, which spread to Orange in Vaucluse and to Arras in Picardy, were not of sufficient stringency, the "Noyades," or drownings, carried off the poor unfortunates, a boatload at a time, until it is estimated that perhaps nine thousand were thus cruelly murdered, – women, children, royalty, and the clergy alike. The wrath which spent itself seemed to know no rank. The guillotine, disease, and famine finished the work, so that the population of the city was, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, immeasurably inferior in numbers to what it had been a decade before. The details of these significant events are recounted quite fully enough by historians generally; but, in reality, it has little to do with the aspect of the city as it exists to-day, which, if not one of great splendour, partakes in no small measure of the attributes of a large metropolis, amply planned, beautifully laid out, and possessing, in addition to the characteristics of Brittany with which it has been so long identified, not a little of the influences and attributes of the south.

Immediately to the rear of the chateau is the Cathedral of St. Pierre, ancient as to its foundation, and grand as to its general effect, both inside and out, though its exterior is marred by its uncompleted towers. Lofty, but of heavy proportions, St. Pierre de Nantes would, at first sight, appear to offer much that goes to make a satisfying ecclesiastical building. As a matter of fact, it fails in many particulars to realize any ideal which we have come to admire. The western façade is more indebted to the rich and reasonably ornate portals for its undeniable impressiveness, than to the gable of towers, which have crumbled exceedingly from the effects of wind and weather, rather than of great age, since they date only from the fifteenth century.

The choir rests on the remains of an older church, hardly to be seen to-day in any appreciable evidence, in that restoration and rebuilding have been so extensively carried on.

The windows throughout are but weak decorative elements, and lack tracery and glass of a decorative quality, an obvious detraction in any great architectural work. The south transept shows indications of four successive periods of construction, and contains the best glass in the church; otherwise it is severely plain.

The interior is by no means as incoherent as the exterior, the height of the nave, one hundred and thirty feet, giving an otherwise unapproachable grandeur; though this admirable dimension is qualified to no small degree by a triforium of a luxurious florid growth, little in keeping with the other attributes of firmness and strength.

The chapels throughout are bare and uninteresting so far as their altars or decorative embellishments are concerned, – what they may be at some future time, if the Art Nouveau gets a foothold in church decoration, is fearful to contemplate. Paintings, none too common in French churches, are here somewhat in excess of customary numbers, though, as to quality or interest, in no church in France can they vie with those of the great churches of Italy or Flanders.

Like the neighbouring city of Tours, Nantes has in its cathedral, for its pièce de résistance, a magnificent sepulchral monument, the tomb of François II., the last Duc de Bretagne, and Marguerite de Foix, his second wife, erected to their memory by their daughter Anne. This remarkable mausoleum was executed in 1502-07, after designs of Jehan Perréal, by Michel Colomb and his pupils, Regnault and Jean de Chartres, with the assistance of Jérôme de Fiesole, who contributed the ornamental portion. It fortunately escaped demolition at the Revolution, and was brought hither and placed in the south transept from the Eglise des Carmes in 1817. It is a wonderful exemplification of the very best quality of Renaissance. The main portion of the tomb is of marble, with black mouldings somewhat shattered in places, but not so much so as to affect the contour or design. The effigies lie recumbent upon a slab, their feet resting on a lion and a greyhound, upheld by a series of miniature figures of the twelve apostles in niches of red marble. At the corners are four nearly life-size figures, depicting Justice, with sword and scales, said to be a portrait of the Duchess Anne; Power, strangling the dragon of Heresy; Prudence, a double face, showing also Wisdom, with mirror and compass; and Temperance, bearing a curb-bit and a lantern. A tablet at the head bears the figures of St. Louis and Charlemagne, and one at the foot, those of St. Francis of Assisi and Ste. Marguerite, the patrons of the duke and duchess.

PART IV
Central France

I
ST. ETIENNE D'AUXERRE

The entrance to the Burgundian city of Auxerre is more or less confused if one would, at the first glance, attempt to recognize its cathedral from among the three fine churches which in true mediæval fashion loom up over the river Yonne; not that the entrance is not pleasing: the reverse is actually the case, though one's way into the town lies through newly made roads. However, upon contemplation of the pleasant prospect of town and river, he would be an uninspired person indeed who would not be able to pick out the Cathedral of St. Etienne, with its singular reddish brown roof, from among its less imposing neighbours. It is the central building of the three, and it rises majestically above all, enhanced by the fine grouping of its one lone tower.

As a type to admire, the cathedral, be it said, is not of a superlative quality; but as a thing of beauty in many of its details and because of its aforesaid commanding situation, it is one not to be ignored when the really fine gems of mediæval treasures are catalogued. It is another of those types, so far as its choir is concerned, which rise to a loftiness of soaring height, which, in later days, degenerated, or were lost altogether in the fabric of the transepts and nave. The height of the choir is perhaps not so great as it really appears, when gauged by its sheer rise from the river level; but such is the suggestion, at least, which, after all, is what the eye and certain other of our senses admire, quite as much as a professed expert classification.

The western front is of unusual appearance in that the southern tower glances off into the angle of the gable in most curious fashion; not beautiful, nor as originally intended to remain, but so it is, and offers at least a comparison of how a lofty gable looks when it lacks towers of an appropriate height. At the right of this low tower of the façade, hidden behind a wall, is a thoroughly Pagan doorway, which might well pass unobserved, did one not actually stumble upon it unawares. It is a curious reminder of other days and other ways, and how it became an adjunct of this mediæval church the local records fail to state. The three main portals of the façade, as that of the transept, are somewhat bare of ornament, though the main tympanum and the spring of the arch are fairly filled. These portals are of the late thirteenth century, and exhibit no traces of the debasement which subsequently entered into the upper ranges of the tower and lateral portals.

Both the transepts and the west front contain rose windows of good, though not remarkable design, and each is exceedingly generous in size. The interior, generally, does not give the effect of the great height suggested from the rear view of the choir overhanging the river front; but both nave and choir are of unusual width, and so also is the clerestory, which is lofty, and set with rare old glass of the most splendid and valuable quality, in the main the gift of Bishop de Villeneuve in 1220.

The choir terminates with the usual apse, which is further elongated by the far-reaching lady-chapel, which adjoins the main fabric in a graceful and unusual manner. The north tower was completed as late as the sixteenth century, and that of the south was left unfinished, – as it is to-day. The gable and its portals are highly decorated with statues, niches, and crockets.

Around the aisles of nave and choir is a curiously suggested arcade with an overhanging balustrade ornamented with a series of indifferently sculptured heads. The bosses of many of the intersecting groins of the vaults are coloured with questionable effect. There are also many visible evidences of coloured wall decorations, which might perhaps as well have been left covered, inasmuch as they have suffered exceedingly in the attempted restoration; so much so, that it is impossible to say whether they ever approached acceptable perfection; possibly not, as they are supposed to date only from the period when much of this class of work was of none too good a quality.

The triforium of the nave is gracefully balustraded, and the choir stands apart from the nave, separated by an elaborate eighteenth century iron grille. The ambulatory of the choir sets three steps lower than the nave, though the platform is on the same level. The crypt beneath the choir, so often the only existing remains of an earlier church, is here grandly in evidence, and dates from the eleventh century at least.

There are a few interesting tombs of former Bishops of Auxerre and others of local celebrity.

On the whole the charm of Auxerre and its cathedral must be admitted to lie in its general surroundings and immediate environment, quite as much as because of any remarkably distinctive features of a superlative quality in the cathedral itself, though an undeniable wealth of picturesque detail exists.

The conventional guides speak of it as "highly interesting," and so it is, with its Romanesque remains, its ungainly façade, its three fine but weather-worn doorways, and its charming river view.

Beside the cathedral stands the old-time Episcopal Palace with its fine arcaded Romanesque gallery overlooking the river, where the prelates took their "constitutionals," safely guarded from wind and weather. To-day this grand building represents the officialdom of the local Préfecture.

Two other noble ecclesiastical monuments are to be seen here, the Church of St. Germain, or rather, the fragment which was spared by the Huguenots, now being used as an adjunct to a hospital; and the Church of St. Pierre. The latter is the most appalling example of a Renaissance building which one is likely to meet with, and shows in its remarkable façade, in sheer perversion of misdirected labour, the grossness of pseudo-classicism, which quite entitles it to rank with that other equally abominable example in Paris, St. Eustache.

The portail of this remarkable church, locally so called, though in reality it is only a detached gateway, far from the church building itself, is a wonderful Italian suggestion, now mellowed and weathered and undeniably charming in colour in spite of its being so manifestly out of its environment.