Bishop of Beauvais

“ M. de Beyons sought the king, and loudly complained to him of the infatuation and obstinacy of M. de la Roche Aymon. Louis XV however commanded that M. de Beauvais should be appointed to the first vacant see, and when the grand almoner repeated his objections to the preferment, the king answered, "Monsieur le cardinal, in the days of our blessed Saviour the apostles had no need to present their genealogical tree, duly witnessed and attested. It is my pleasure to make M. de Beauvais a bishop ”

“ It was possibly the first time that some of those young monks seated behind their elders had ever seen a woman's hair. She wore hose like a youth. To them her dress appeared immodest and abominable. [614] She exasperated and irritated them. Had the Bishop of Beauvais insisted on her appearing in hood and gown their anger against her would have been less violent. This man's attire brought before their minds the works performed by the Maid in the camp of the Dauphin Charles, calling himself king. ”

“ André had been confirming their inauspicious compact at the sacred feast in honor of a risen Redeemer. The Bishop of Beauvais was the celebrated Cardinal Odet de Châtillon, long suspected of being at heart a convert to the reformed doctrines. More bold than [Pg 475] he had formerly been, he now openly fostered their spread in his diocese. [1028] But even the personal popularity of the brother of Coligny and D'Andelot could not, in the present instance, secure immunity for the preachers who proclaimed the Gospel under his auspices. ”

“ In Dieppe the Calvinists once a day met in a great house, “of men, women and children above 2,000 in company.” [343] There were Huguenot outbursts at Angers, Mans, Beauvais, and Pontoise, in April, and at Toulouse in June. [344] At Beauvais when the cardinal of Châtillon, who was bishop there, caused the Calvinist service to be conducted and communion administered in his chapel, “after the manner of Geneva,” the canons and many of the people “assembled to good numbers to have wrought their wicked wills upon the cardinal.” ”

“ If the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Paris condemned Thomas, the Bernardines had, for near two hundred years, condemned Beauvais in advance. Both the "Summa Theologiae" and Beauvais Cathedral were excessively modern, scientific, and technical, marking the extreme points reached by Europe on the lines of scholastic science. This is all we need to know. If we like, we can go on to study, inch by inch, the slow decline of the art. The essence of it—the despotic central idea—was that of organic unity both in the thought and the building. ”

“ On the death of Henry de Sully, Archbishop of Bourges, the clergy of that church, unable to agree upon a successor, requested Eudo, Bishop of Paris, to nominate. For this purpose, the bishop came to Beauvais, but found it no easy matter to decide, without causing an eruption of party feeling. In his desire to choose a good man, and one who would commend himself to all, in consultation with two friends, he resolved on committing the matter to God. Accordingly, all the most advisable names were written on slips of parchment, and were sealed, and then deposited beneath the corporal on the altar. ”

“ S. Lucian was accompanied by his friends, Maximian and Julian. They suffered in different places, [Pg 100] and on different days; but they were laid by faithful disciples in one tomb, and are commemorated together. S. Lucian is called in some calendars a priest; but in an ancient one of the ninth century, he is styled a bishop, and such has been the constant tradition at Beauvais.
In art, he is represented holding his head in his hands. ”

“ Beauty falls in love with a being like a monster, who has, however, the heart of a man, and she marries him, upon which he is instantly transformed into a prince of handsome presence and noble mien.
Beauvais (19) , capital of the dep. of Oise, in France, 34 in. SW. of Amiens, an ancient town, noted for its cathedral, its tapestry weaving, and the feat of Jeanne-Hachette and her female following when the town was besieged by Charles the Bold.
Beauvais, a French prelate, born at Cherbourg, Bishop of Senez, celebrated as a pulpit orator (1731-1790) . ”

“ These blows were very sensibly felt by the other Bouillons, but it was no time for complaint. The Cardinal himself became more enraged than ever. Even up to this time he had kept so little within bounds that he had pontifically officiated in the church of Tournai at the Te Deum for the taking of Douai (by the enemies) ; and from that town (Tournai) , where he had fixed his residence, he wrote a long letter to M. de Beauvais,— bishop of the place, when it yielded, and who would not sing the Te Deum, exhorting him to return to Tournai and submit to the new rule. ”

“ The court openly expressed its dissatisfaction at this audacity, and for my own part I could not avoid evincing the lively chagrin it caused me. Yet, would you believe it, Louis XV declared, in a tone from which there was no appeal abbé had merely done his duty, and that those who had been less scrupulous in the performance of theirs, would do well to be silent on the subject. This was not all; the cardinal de la Roche Aymon, his grand almoner, refused to sanction the nomination of M. de Beauvais to the bishopric, under the pretext of his not being nobly descended. ”

“ We reached the Cathedral of Beauvais in time to witness a procession in honor of the Virgin’s Assumption. It was pleasant to see the townspeople thus making active use of their “enormous, though ill-proportioned and yet magnificent, church.”
We entered by the south transept, which is most beautiful and impressive. Standing before it, one does not see that the nave is wanting; one only admires a vast structure, richly carved. We found the choir made beautifully light and bright by its three lofty stories of stained glass. ”

“ In 1535 he obtained the Bishopric of Beauvais, which, along with ample revenues, included the dignity and privileges of a Peer of France. In 1544, being so well endowed as an ecclesiastic, he resigned all his own heritage to his brothers. His tendencies towards Protestantism arose from aspirations after religious life. ”

“ It is obvious that he means the bishops of the Churches, who were the chief preachers of those times. And it is observable that he does not think the succession a perfect guarantee of the truth being preserved, otherwise he would not have added the qualifications of sound discourse and a holy life. He does not therefore support the idea that the truth is necessarily preserved in any one Church by the succession, or that any one bishop of any particular Church (the Bishop of Rome, for instance,) is capable of deciding the sense of Scripture authoritatively. ”

“ And in truth it is neither quite healthy nor sound; it seems only to live by dint of aids and expedients; it struggles to be free and is not; it is long drawn and not ethereal; it has—how shall I express it?—large bones. You remember the pillars? They are like the smooth muscular trunks of beech trees, which have also the angular edges of reeds. How different from the harp-strings which form the aerial skeleton of Chartres! No, in spite of all, Beauvais, like Reims, and like Paris, is a fleshy cathedral ”

“ He therefore conceived the idea of using his influence, as the bishop of the principal Church [pg 046] in the world, to bring all Christians to one uniform rule. For this purpose he wrote to certain85 leading bishops in Asia, requesting them to convene synods of the neighbouring bishops, in order to come to an agreement; which was done accordingly; and they all, with the exception of the Churches above mentioned, wrote circular letters to the whole catholic Church, affirming that with them the apostolical tradition was, not to break their paschal fast until the Sunday. ”

“ Fatality seemed always to pursue Beauvais. After terminating a noble Flamboyant transept, the ambitious citizens were lured into the scheme of a central tower, when a church of such height should have at its crossing merely a slender spire. Instead of proceeding to build a nave, they raised a lantern that lacked merely a few feet of the enormous height of St. Peter’s dome in Rome. It was a day of tower building in France, and Beauvais, ever hopeful beyond its resources, thought to outvie all others. ”

“ The church of S. Étienne18 is, after the cathedral, the great architectural attraction of Beauvais. Its west front has a grand arched doorway, with a sculptured tympanum, containing the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, and four rows of figures of angels and others in the arch. The jambs and central pier are completely denuded of all their shafts and statues, and the whole work is much mutilated in all its parts; nevertheless, it is the best thing remaining in the city, as far as goodness of sculpture and detail can make a work good. ”

“ It is unpleasant to find an artist striving after more than he is really able to attain, and this was conspicuously the case with the architect of Beauvais. The church was consecrated in A.D. 1272 and fell in A.D. 1284. In order to repair its defects the arches of the choir were subdivided, and from the great size of the columns, and the narrow span of the arches, the present effect is that of a church in which the arches have but little to do, and in which everything has been sacrificed to keep the building from falling again. ”

“ Nor is he only to watch over it himself, he is to commit the teaching of it to trusty guardians: ‘The things which thou hast heard of me . . . the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.’ (2 Tim. ii. 2.)
If, then, the Christian bishop possesses a glorious heritage of Divine truth, a privilege indeed which he shares with the humblest believer, he assumes also a special responsibility. As ‘the steward of God,’ he is pledged in the fullest sense of the term to ‘give heed unto the doctrine.’
The principle thus set forth is a plain one ”

“ No city in the land had better cause to rejoice over peace and the invader’s expulsion than Beauvais. And nowhere did Flamboyant Gothic take on nobler expression than in the stately transept now added to the cathedral, a masterpiece worthy to be joined to the giant choir. On its north front worked Martin Chambiges, who gave to Troyes and Sens their admirable façades. Over-ornamentation was a pitfall for the late-Gothic masters, but not for Chambiges, who kept Beauvais’ strong lines of construction unobliterated by lavish detail. ”

“ We have always been free, and there is no memory of man to the contrary.’45 The citizens were resolved accordingly to close their gates against the influence of Savoy, and to elect a bishop themselves. They called to mind that when Ardutius, descending from his eyrie in the rocks of the Mole, was named bishop of Geneva, it was by the accord of clergy and people.46 ‘Come, you canons,’ said they, ‘choose us a bishop that will not let the duke put his nose into his soup.’47 This rather vulgar expression meant simply this: ‘Elect a bishop who will defend our liberties.’ They had not far to seek. ”

“ As the good man sipped a cup of wine and fanned himself after his episcopal exhortation, Basil briefly questioned the prisoners again. The bishop had shown them their errors in matters of faith; were they prepared to recant, and re-enter the fold from which they had ignorantly strayed?
These questions were plain enough, and the brothers looked at one another once more. Both heads shook. Nick spoke out. "We are not able," he said, "to judge between Pope and Parliament, or between one bishop and another. Our faith and our country are one; our home and our Church are one. ”

“ The religion of a man who belongs to the Church of England is closely connected with consols, and he looks with grave distrust on the parson who tells him seriously to lay up treasure in heaven.”
“A bishop must be a man who can wear his gaiters with dignity,” smiled Mrs, Fitzherbert.
“But has Theodore the legs?”
“If not, he can pad,” replied Lady Sophia. “Most of them do, and those that don’t certainly should. A bishop must evidently be a man who can wear lawn sleeves without feeling dressed up. He’s a Prince of the Church, and he should carry himself becomingly. ”

“ The christians finding themselves deprived of the sacrament will grow riotous, and will compel the bishop’s officers to set our friend at liberty. Thus the inhibition which we served upon the bishop in his palace, will produce its effect in despite of him.’ The advice was thought sound, they agreed to it, and everybody in Geneva waited with impatience for Easter and the excommunication. ”

“ Brighton-Pomfrey ought never to have left his practice in the hands of this wild-eyed experimenter.
Strange that after a lifetime of discretion and men's respect one should be standing on the Piccadilly pavement—intoxicated!
It came into his head that he was not so very far from the Athenæum, and surely there if anywhere a bishop may recover his sense of being—ordinary. ”

“ In Him the spirit of creation had become incarnate, had joined itself to men, summoning men to Him, having need of them, having need of them, having need of their service, even as great kings and generals and leaders need and use men. For a moment, for an endless age, the bishop bowed himself in the being and glory of God, felt the glow of the divine courage and confidence in his marrow, felt himself one with God. ”