George Wharton Edwards

“ MEAUX THE little town of Meaux on the banks of the Marne is only thirty miles or so from Paris, and was remarkable for its old mills on the bridge over the river bed, behind the Hôtel de Ville, as well as for the beautiful cathedral of St. Etienne. The beauties of the town could best be appreciated from the shady walk along the river side. Here were great shade trees overhanging the roadway, through the branches of which one got glimpses of the cream colored tower of the old cathedral, above the red tiled roofs of the town, all against a summer sky of pale blue. ”

“ Over each stream-laved promontory and every high hill there have been fought great and small battles year in, year out, through the ages since the time of Charlemagne. One could not wander far here in any direction without lighting upon some shattered monument of human passion and pride. "Here might reigned supreme with fantastic honor as its handmaid; at ambition's footstool religion and right were vassals." One stands before one of these shattered, time-battered castle walls, and tries perchance to picture the siege of old, with the crowds of iron-armed men busily sapping the walls. ”

“ Honors if they come when all is over, are for those that share thy blood. Daughter of Domremy, when the gratitude of thy king shall awaken, thou wilt be sleeping the sleep of the dead. Call her, King of France, but she will not hear thee. Cite her by the apparitors to come and receive a robe of honor, but she will be found 'en Contumace.' When the thunders of universal France, as even yet may happen, shall proclaim the grandeur of the poor shepherd girl that gave up all for her country, thy ear, young shepherd girl, will have been deaf for centuries. ”

“ For this great honor and distinction, said mine host, all the descendants had ever since been paying, for, deprived of their estates, they became "hoteliers" and "négociants," their only wealth being the good will and esteem of the countryside. Thus I had the high honor at St. Mihiel of lodging at an inn kept by the scion of a saint.
It was pleasant to arrive at this pretty hill-embosomed town when evening was drawing on and the stars, like unto glimmering altar tapers in a vast cathedral space, were shining forth one by one. ”

“ In the Cathedral since five o'clock there had been scarce space to kneel for the toll of masses unbroken at the altar. White clad priests came and went through the aisles. The air was tense and restless with murmured prayer and the incessancy of "sacring-bells." When the last "housel" had been taken, the last "Ite" said, thousands of people filled the streets, lining the narrow ways in thick serried ranks, crowding the doors and windows, and stretching in a double row across the bridge.
Over all is a sense of waiting, as for a solemn thing about to happen, and this thrills the multitude. ”

“ Somewhere in the interior sounded the rhythmic beating of heavy machinery, but save for this, the "drumming fingers of the rain," and an occasional tinkle of a bell high up in the tower of the cathedral, there were no signs or sounds of life. Meaux is not a large town, neither is it a very lively one, but it is charmingly situated. Were it farther away from Paris, I doubt not that it might attract the tourist, for it has a most delightful public promenade along the river Marne which is entered immediately before the railway station. ”

“ Then, tiring of this aloofness, one could always return to the bustle of Verdun, and find entertainment in the tortuous streets between the amorphous houses, with their aged carven doors surmounted by strange old trade-emblems, their overhanging gables; across the rough cobbled market place with the old town hall of pepperbox turret, its arcade, and its dusty hall where the "Échevins" held their courts of justice, and where the peasants chaffered their wares on market days, through the ancient gateways, and over the old bridges reflected in the eddying river. ”

“ Verdun, Amiens, Soissons, Rheims, Arras, Valenciennes!—and those others of Flanders: Bruges, Ghent, Louvain, Malines, Lille and Ypres—how full are these of grace and fancy. What ring of shield!—What clang of arms!
For forty years these towns have enjoyed peace and fancied security, while that once great power, with hypocritical words of good will towards all men, even while sending delegates to the conferences at The Hague, was deliberately planning the destruction of sleeping nations whose lands are now invaded; whose young manhood is disappearing in a storm of blood and iron ”

“ Around about Arras, the villages, once so smiling and prosperous, are now all in ruins.—Later on when glorious peace breaks upon the land of France, each hamlet shall be starred upon the pages of the golden book of history. And this black page of war once closed, that Arras-la-Morte shall rise from her ruins and ashes, more beautiful than ever, is my prayer. ”

“ The gray old square before the Hôtel de Ville is now a yawning pit, bordered by shapeless piles of stone and ashes.
At this time we know not what other mischief the invader has committed in this neighborhood. There are endless opportunities for destruction and pillage, and we may be fully prepared for irreparable damage and losses in all of this region before the Iconoclasts are driven back to their last line of defenses.
All of Champagne, of Picardy,—all of Flanders were filled with exquisite villages, towns, and cities, each of which was unique in works of art and antiquity. ”

“ Through the great Hall of the Sorbonne, where the most famous men of the world had been honored by France, swept a storm of cheers; a reward more splendid than the Cross of the Legion of Honor, than the War Cross, than the salutes of the soldiers at the front, had come to Marcelle Semmer, of Eclusier.
LÂON MOST travelers from Paris to Geneva will recall the brief stop of the train at the station, and a glimpse perhaps of the gaunt gray towers on the top of the great hill against the evening sky, looking much more like a fortress than a cathedral from the viewpoint below. ”

“ These fair towns of Picardy and Champagne are sacked, pillaged and burned even as were the beautiful Flemish towns of Ypres, Malines, Termonde, Dixmude, and Dinant on the Meuse....
Never again shall we enjoy them: the chalices are broken and the perfume forever vanished....
The catastrophe is so unbelievable that one cannot realize it. The Seven Churches of Soissons, Senlis, Noyon, Laon, Meaux, Rheims, St. Remi; these such as man probably never again can match, are either razed to the foundations, or so shattered that it will be impossible to restore them. ”

“ Former wars have swept the little town from time to time in the past, but the cathedral remained practically untouched until the present day. Whatever the former causes, or however violent the onslaught of the opposing forces, these priceless records of art were spared by common consent, save perhaps when the Revolution swept over the cloisters, and even then the havoc wrought was reparable, but now comes one calling himself the anointed representative of God, and annihilates an innocent people and destroys the treasures of a land which he cannot conquer. ”

“ Rheims Cathedral was what may be styled a great consistency, that placed it quite in a category by itself.
It was quite completely without a fault.
All other cathedrals of France form a chronicle of splendor. They record changing epochs, times, and architectural impulse. The varying personalities of their great designers were wrought out in their details; they present the thoughts of many men, each expressing his highest thought and ideals, and the result is magnificent agglomeration, covering many years of work. With Rheims however, which was begun in 1211, the case is different. ”

“ Cathedral: Verdun
Original
For this summer end of 1910, the valley of the Meuse was to us all sufficient. Here, while dozing among these small towns and villages, bordering on the vine clad river's splash and sparkle, resting by night in quaint clean and generally well kept inns, the world beyond became a figment. Curious fortresses still were to be found among these old rocks; and on the plateau the antiquarian, the geologist, the botanist may find much food for wonder and study, if they searched. ”

“ Two years ago it was ablaze with all this sculptural splendor. Now the picture is replaced by a gray monotone of fire-swept portals empty of tracery; of gaping, blackened lancet window-panes destitute of glass; its perfectly designed Gothic arches laced with fantastically bent iron bars, and its nave buried in pulverized calcined heaps of ashes from which protrude here and there blackened, charred beams, while scattered about are the broken fragments of the great bronze bells which once pealed out pæons of sound in celebration of imperial coronations. ”

“ Money was his god, and greed his pursuit. Yet all about him nature bloomed and fructified, while he toiled and schemed, his eyes ever bent earthwards. The peasant had no sentiment. It was best therefore to view him superficially, and as part of the picturesqueness of the country, like the roofs and gables of the old town, say, without seeking out secrets of the "menage" behind the walls.
We were interested in the various occupations of these semi-Flemish peasants, and the cries of the vendors in the streets in the early morning. ”

“ Formerly there was an ideally artistic approach to the great cathedral of "Notre Dame," in a quaint narrow street lined with strangely gabled houses and small shops shown in my sketch, but these have been demolished, and a wide straight street, lined with characterless buildings, now forms a very commonplace frame to hold one's first view of this noble and magnificent structure, the master work of the architects Rob. de Coucy and J. d'Orbais, which Fergusson justly names and qualifies as "perhaps the most beautiful structure produced in the middle ages." ”

“ I have seen the soldiers in the midst of battle at the front; I have attended them in the ambulances with undreamed of wounds; I have listened to and received their agonized confidences, and attended them to the end. They are all heroes to me... I have known them in captivity, famished for food, insulted, brutalized by their captors. Our brave boys!
"Their courage, the grandeur of their souls, their indifference to pain in the face of duty, imparts to me something of their courage which inspires me.
"A country defended by such an army has no right to doubt final victory. ”

“ From the open door of the chapel stepped a holy friar, who placed a sheltering arm about the panting animal's neck, and stood with uplifted arm warning back the band of hunters. In vain did the fairhaired stranger plead with Amand to spare the deer, for the jeering voice of the knight of the scarlet hood urged him on, and dismounting from his horse Count St. Amand pushed aside the monk and was about to run the animal through with his hunting knife, when there came a burst of thunder sound that shook the earth as though the heavens had fallen. ”

“ The street now widens into a sort of "place" before the church with a square, pinnacled tower in which is a clock. The interior with low vaulting is rich with festoons of drapery, wreaths and some very ornate silk banners, all displayed with much taste in honor of la Pucelle, the sainted Jeanne. To right is a fine monument, dated fifteenth century, embellished with figures of Jacob and Didier Tierselin, who were the sons of her godmother, who, it will be remembered, was a witness in her behalf at the trial. ”

“ NOYON NOYON is really a most beautiful little town asleep amid surrounding heavy verdure and, with its dominating cathedral towers of Notre Dame, half Romanesque, half Gothic, which architects pronounce one of the best specimens of the transition period in France, is a veritable storehouse of interest. ”

“ That this sanctuary of architecture may perchance escape entire destruction at the hands of these barbarians is not too much to hope for, but that the Cathedral should be spared is inconceivable, when one remembers the fate of Rheims, Ypres, Louvain, Arras, Malines and Noyon, to mention but a few of the incomparable treasures that have vanished before their onslaught.
Soissons' magnificent monuments are now probably heaps of calcined stone and charred beams. Those marvels of painted glass will live henceforth only in the memory of those whose good fortune it was to have seen and valued them. ”

“ All the roads leading to the town, from Paris, from Beauvoisie, from Valois, were filled with bands of peasantry, all bound for the town, which they had heard contained great treasure. Arriving at Meaux, de Buch and Foix were welcomed with great joy, for the peasants had begun to pillage wherever they could. Then ensued a great slaughter in which the marauding peasants were rounded up and killed like rats by the armed warriors. "They flung them in great heaps into the river. In short, they killed upwards of seven thousand; not one would have escaped if they had chosen to pursue them." ”

“ Mihiel claimed the usual list of heroes and warriors, and her claim was granted without question.
The old market place was graced by lime trees, and the ruined walls were overgrown with ivy and vine of luxuriant leafage, hiding crack and gap cunningly. The aged towers still cleaved to the rock by leave of the roots of beech and fir tree, whose spreading roots are more lenient foes to masonry, perhaps, than German mines. ”

“ Perhaps without its destruction there have been sufficient crimes committed against the church in the name of military necessity, and it thus has been spared.
For some reason or other Ruskin was not overenthusiastic over Amiens. He described the beautiful "flèche," which rose so gracefully from the great bulk against the sky, as "merely the caprice of a village carpenter," and he further declared that the Cathedral of Amiens is "in dignity inferior to Chartres, in sublimity to Beauvais, in decorative splendor to Rheims, and in loveliness of figure sculpture to Bourges." ”

“ What is to be thought of the poor shepherd girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine, that like the Hebrew shepherd boy from the hills and forests of Judea—rose suddenly out of the quiet, out of the safety, out of the religious inspiration, rooted in deep pastoral solitudes, to a station in the van of armies, and to the more perilous station at the right hand of kings? ”