M. F. Mansfield

“ One may realize here, to the full, just how far a great and noble achievement of the art and devotion of a past age may sink. The ancient papal palace at Avignon—the former seat of the power of the Roman Catholic religion—has become a mere barracks! To contemplate it is more sad even than to see a great church turned into a stable or an abattoir—as can yet be seen in France. ”

“ This wonderful sixteenth-century Église de Brou, in a highly decorated Gothic style, its monuments, altars, and admirable glass, is not elsewhere equalled, as to elaborateness, in any church of its size or rank.
Notre Dame de Bourg—the cathedral—though manifestly a Renaissance structure, has not a little of the Gothic spirit in its interior arrangements and details. It is as if a Renaissance shell—and not a handsome one—were enclosing a Gothic treasure. ”

“ 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,—the rocher Corneille, which, in turn, is surmounted by a modern colossal bronze figure, commonly called Notre 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. ”

“ The climatic conditions of France vary greatly. From the gray, wind-blown shores of Brittany, where for quite three months of the autumn one is in a perpetual drizzle, and the equally chilly and bare country of the Pas de Calais, and the more or less sodden French Flanders, to the brisk, sunny climate of the Loire valley, the Cevennes, Dauphiné, and Savoie, is a wide range of contrast. Each is possessed of its own peculiar characteristics, which the habitant alone seems to understand in all its vagaries. ”

“ The nave is wide, but short, and has no aisles. At the transept is a superimposed octagonal cupola, which is quite unbeautiful and unnecessary. It is a fourteenth-century addition which finally oppresses this ungainly heavy edifice beyond the hope of redemption.
Built upon the façade is a Renaissance portal which of itself would be a disfigurement anywhere, but which here gives the final blow to a structure which is unappealing from every point. ”

“ The delightful belfry—of five octagonal stages—which rises from the crossing of the transepts, presents, from the outside, a fine and imposing arrangement. So, too, the chapelled choir, with its apse of rounded vaults rising in imposing tiers. This fine church is in direct descent from the Roman manner; built and developed as a simple idea, and, like all antique and classical work,—approaching purity,—is a living thing, in spite of the fact that it depicts the sentiment of a dead and gone past. ”

“ The feudal ties which bound Aquitaine to France were indeed so slight that, when Hugh Capet, in 990, asked of Count Adelbert of Périgueux, before the walls of the besieged city of Tours: "Who made thee count?" he was met with the prompt and significant rejoinder, "Who made thee king?"
At the close of the tenth century, France was ruled by close upon sixty princes, virtually independent, and yet a still greater number of prelates,—as powerful as any feudal lord,—who considered Hugh Capet of Paris only as one who was first among his peers. ”

“ The city is a most picturesque setting for any shrine, with the narrow, tortuous streets—though slummy ones—winding to the cliff-top on which the city sits high above the waters of the Rhône.
The choir of this cathedral is the only portion which warrants remark. It is of the fourteenth century, and has no aisles. It is in the accepted Gothic style, but this again is coerced by the Romanesque flanking tower, which, to all intents and purposes, when viewed from afar, might well be taken for a later Renaissance work. ”

“ The Église de la Grande Chartreuse itself is very simple, about the only distinctive or notable feature being the sixteenth-century choir-stalls. At the midnight service, or at matins, when the simple church is lit only by flaming torches, and the stalls filled with white-robed Chartreux, is presented a picture which for solemnity and impressiveness is as vivid as any which has come down from mediæval times. ”

“ The city conserves to-day somewhat of its ancient birthright, and is a picturesque and romantic spot, in which all may tarry awhile amid its tortuous streets and the splendid remains of its old-time builders. Few do drop off, even, in their annual rush southward, in season or out, and the result is that St. Paul Trois Châteaux is to-day a delightfully "old world" spot in the most significant meaning of the phrase.
Of course the habitant still refers to the seat of the former bishop's throne as a cathedral, and it is with pardonable pride that he does so. ”

“ A consideration of one, without something more than mere mention of the other, is not possible, and incidentally—even for the church-lover—nothing can be more interesting than the great works of fortification—strong, frowning, and massive—as are yet to be seen at Béziers, Carcassonne, or Avignon. It was this latter city which sheltered within its outer walls that monumental reminder of the papal power which existed in this French capital of the "Church of Rome"—as it must still be called—in the fourteenth century. ”

“ France, be it remembered, is not to-day as it was a century and a half ago, when it was the fashion of English writers to condemn and revile it as a nation of degraded serfs, a degenerate aristocracy, a corrupt clergy, or as an enfeebled monarchy. ”

“ The wall-paintings or frescoes are decidedly not beautiful, being for the most part crudely coloured geometrical designs scattered about with no relation one to another. They date from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and are doubtless Italian as to their workmanship, but they betray no great skill on the part of those unknowns who are responsible for them.
The pulpit is an unusually ornate work for a French church, but is hardly beautiful as a work of art. No more is the organ-case, which, as if in keeping with the vast interior, spreads itself over a great extent of wall space. ”

“ The aisles are diminutively narrow, and the window piercings throughout are exceedingly small; all of which makes for a lack of brilliancy and gloom, which may be likened to the average crypt. The only radiance which ever penetrates this gloomy interior comes at high noon, when the refulgence of a Mediterranean sun glances through a series of long lancets, and casts those purple shadows which artists love. Then, and then only, does the cathedral of St. Trophime offer any inducement to linger within its non-impressive walls. ”

“ 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 as worthy 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 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. ”

“ One is reminded in France that the nation's first art expression was made through church-building and decoration. This proves Ruskin's somewhat involved dicta, that, "architecture is the art which disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man ... a building raised to the honour of God has surely a use to which its architectural adornment fits it."
From whatever remote period the visible history of France has sprung, it is surely from its architectural remains—of which religious edifices have endured the most abundantly—that its chronicles since Gallo-Roman times are built up. ”

“ Marie is a fine Romanic-Ogivale edifice of the eleventh century, though its constructive era may be said to extend well toward the fifteenth before it reached completion. There is a remarkably beautiful Romanesque sculptured portal. The nave is doubled, as to its aisles, and is one hundred and fifty feet or more in length and one hundred and six wide, an astonishing breadth when one comes to think of it, and a dimension which is not equalled by any minor cathedral.
There are no other notable features beyond the general attractiveness of its charming environment. ”

“ The lover of architecture will interest himself far more in the thirteenth-century bridge of bricks which crosses the Tarn on seven ogival arches, than he will in the painfully ordinary and unworthy cathedral, which is a combination of most of the undesirable features of Renaissance church-building. ”

“ The Chamber of Commerce, with its decorations by Puvis de Chavannes, is a structure of the first rank; the Cannebière is one of those few great business thoroughfares which are truly imposing; while the docks, shipping, and hotels, are all of that preëminent magnitude which we are wont to associate only with a great capital.
As to its churches, its old twelfth-century cathedral remains to-day a mere relic of its former dignity. ”

“ The interior attributes of worth and interest are more numerous and pleasing.
The nave is aisleless, but has numerous lateral chapels. The choir has a remarkable series of windows which preserve, even to-day, their ancient protecting grilles—a series of wonderfully worked iron scrolls. These serve to preserve much fourteenth-century glass of curious, though hardly beautiful, design. To a great extent this ancient glass is hidden from view by a massive eighteenth-century retable, which is without any worth whatever as an artistic accessory. ”

“ Just within the left portal is preserved the old bourdon called la Non-Pareille, a curiosity which seems in questionable taste for inclusion within a cathedral.
The rose window of the portal shows in the interior with considerable effect, though it is of not great elegance or magnificence of itself.
In the Chapelle des Catechismes, immediately beneath the tower, is an unusual "Assumption." As a work of art its rank is not high, and its artist is unknown, but in its conception it is unique and wonderful. ”

“ The cathedral cities of the Riviera are not of irresistible attraction as shrines of the Christian faith; but they have much else, either within their confines or in the immediate neighbourhood, which will go far to make up for the deficiency of their religious monuments.
It is not that the architectural remains of churches of another day, and secular establishments, are wholly wanting. Far from it; Fréjus, Toulon, Grasse, and Cannes are possessed of delightful old churches, though they are not of ranking greatness, or splendour. ”

“ Whether a great church is interesting because of its antiquity, its history, or its artistic beauties matters little to the enthusiast. He will drink his fill of what offers. Occasionally, he will find a combination of two—or possibly all—of these ingredients; when his joy will be great.
Herein are catalogued as many of the attributes of the cathedrals of the south of France—and the records of religious or civil life which have surrounded them in the past—as space and opportunity for observation have permitted. ”

“ Castres will ever rank in the mind of the wayfarer along the byways of the south of France as a marvellous bit of stage scenery, rather than as a collection of profound, or even highly interesting, architectural types.
It is one of those spots into which a traveller drops quite unconsciously en route to somewhere else; and lingers a much longer time than circumstances would seem to justify. ”

“ This great church—for it is truly great, pure and simple—makes up in width what it lacks in length. Its nave and aisles are just covered by a span of one hundred and twenty feet,—a greater dimension than is possessed by Chartres or Rouen, and nearly as great as Paris or Amiens.
Altogether Notre Dame de Rodez is a most pleasing church, though conglomerate as to its architecture, and as bad, with respect to the Renaissance gable of its façade, as any contemporary work in the same style. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Among the other attributes of the interior are a tomb of the Ducs de Sabron, a marble altar of the twelfth century, a precious enamel of the same era, and a Gallo-Romain sarcophagus of the fifth century.
As to the exterior effect and ensemble, the cathedral is hardly to be remarked, either in size or splendour, from the usual parish church of the average small town of France. It does not rise to a very ambitious height, neither does its ground-plan suggest magnificent proportions. ”

“ An eleventh-century crypt lies beneath the choir. The sacristy, as it is to-day, was formerly a thirteenth-century chapel.
The organ is commonly supposed to be the most ancient in France. It is not of ranking greatness as a work of art, but it is interesting to know that it has some redeeming quality, aside from its conventional ugliness.
The tour carrée, which is set in the inner rampart just in front of the cathedral, is known as the Bishop's Tower. It is a tower of many stages, and contains some beautifully vaulted chambers. ”

“ THE CHURCH ARCHITECTURE OF SOUTHERN
FRANCE
The best history of the Middle Ages is that suggested by their architectural remains. That is, if we want tangible or ocular demonstration, which many of us do.
Many of these remains are but indications of a grandeur that is past and a valour and a heroism that are gone; but with the Church alone are suggested the piety and devotion which still live, at least to a far greater degree than many other sentiments and emotions; which in their struggle to keep pace with progress have suffered, or become effete by the way. ”

“ It had been a suffragan bishopric of Embrun since its foundation by Eusèbe in the fourth century.
The ancient cathedral of Notre Dame is supposed to show traces of workmanship of the sixth, tenth, twelfth, and fifteenth centuries, but, excepting that of the latter era, it will be difficult for the casual observer to place the distinctions of style.
The whole ensemble is of grim appearance; so much so that one need not hesitate to place it well down in the ranks of the church-builder's art, and, either from poverty of purse or purpose, it is quite undistinguished. ”