Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris

“ It is impossible to place our cathedral in that other family of lofty, aerial churches, rich in stained glass and sculpture; of pointed forms and daring attitudes; belonging to the commoners and plain, citizens, as political symbols; free, capricious, lawless, as works of art; the second transformation of architecture, no longer hieroglyphic, unchangeable, sacerdotal, but artistic, progressive, and popular, beginning with the close of the Crusades and ending with Louis XI. Notre Dame at Paris is not of purely Roman race like the former, nor of purely Arab breed like the latter. ”

“ It is with surprise that we realize, stepping out on the tower-roof, that our standing-place is only five floors from the ground; and yet from this modest height, overtopped by the ordinary apartment house of 19 Paris, we find an outlook that is unequalled even by that from Notre-Dame's towers. For, as we come out from the sheltering hood of our stair-way top, the great cathedral itself lies before us, like some beautiful living creature outstretched at rest. ”

“ In the Middle Ages, when an edifice was complete, there was almost as much of it in the earth as above it. Unless built upon piles, like Notre-Dame, a palace, a fortress, a church, had always a double bottom. In cathedrals, it was, in some sort, another subterranean cathedral, low, dark, mysterious, blind, and mute, under the upper nave which was overflowing with light and reverberating with organs and bells day and night. ”

“ Whatever may be the carved and embroidered envelope of a cathedral, one always finds beneath it—in the state of a germ, and of a rudiment at the least—the Roman basilica. It is eternally developed upon the soil according to the same law. There are, invariably, two naves, which intersect in a cross, and whose upper portion, rounded into an apse, forms the choir; there are always the side aisles, for interior processions, for chapels,— a sort of lateral walks or promenades where the principal nave discharges itself through the spaces between the pillars. ”

“ Noyon, Senlis, Sens, Laon, and Soisson, are with Notre Dame of Paris the first cathedrals of the national art. They are far from being the complete list of Primary Gothic monuments, which includes such churches as the Trinité at Vendôme, two churches at Étampes, [63] the collegiate of Notre Dame at Mantes, the Trinité at Fécamp, and Lisieux Cathedral. There are the two towers built in an hour of religious enthusiasm: the clocher vieux at Chartres and the belfry of St. Romain at Rouen. The nave of Angers Cathedral is the Primary Gothic of the Plantagenet school. ”

“ It is pleasing and unpretentious, and contrasts only too favourably with the dull houses of the Rue du Cloître Notre-Dame, which are as undistinguished as they well can be.
The space at the back of the Cathedral is laid out as a garden. This is modern and somewhat formal, but it affords a fine view of the east end, and constitutes a welcome oasis of trees and grass in a grey waste of commonplace buildings. In the centre is a fountain with a statue of the Virgin and Child, and fragments of sculpture and carving taken from the church at different times lie about. ”

“ In Westminster Abbey we have an example of the shocking effect of inappropriate statuary in a Gothic building; we know, only too well, how terribly one of the most beautiful interiors in the world suffers from a crowd of tombs which are out of keeping with the very spirit of the place. By the removal of the memorials at Notre Dame, the church has doubtless regained the aspect intended by its designers.
The nave leads uninterruptedly to the choir, which ends in the high altar; and the high altar, with the adjacent shrine of St. Marcel, was the primary reason of the existence of the cathedral. ”

“ The Paris of magnificent vistas is at least less fascinating to the artist than the comparatively provincial city of crooked lanes which has gone to make way for a series of lofty and pretentious street fronts and spacious squares.
4
Strange it is that, where so much has been changed, the cathedral church of Notre Dame has remained almost unaltered in outline and general effect. Revolutions have surged round it; monstrous rites have been perpetrated within it; even the hail of shot and shell have left this wonderful Gothic creation poorer only in decorative detail. ”

“ Peasant and prince, crusader and scholar, humanist and mathematician, men of exemplary lives, born rulers and guides, such were the builders of Notre Dame of Paris, and their ability and sincerity live eternally in their work. [82] They gave free wing to the soul in raising their great church, while they cheerfully accepted the human law of working within limits. No cathedral in France shows more clearly the relation between builders and building, more clearly vindicates the ideals of its age. ”

“ Might not a mocking grotesque beside an angel be taken as emblem of the external antagonism of the animal and the spirit in man? The choir screen of Notre Dame of Paris is sculptured with the apparitions of the risen Lord, from Easter Day to the Ascension. “If Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain.” [83]
The cathedral of Paris during the first centuries of its existence was the setting of many national scenes. Here the kings of France deposited their crown and renewed their vow to be just fathers of their people. Before its altar their newborn heir was blessed. ”

“ And what we here say of the façade must be said of the entire church; and what we say of the cathedral church of Paris, must be said of all the churches of Christendom in the Middle Ages. All things are in place in that art, self-created, logical, and well proportioned. To measure the great toe of the foot is to measure the giant.
Let us return to the façade of Notre-Dame, as it still appears to us, when we go piously to admire the grave and puissant cathedral, which inspires terror, so its chronicles assert: quæ mole sua terrorem incutit spectantibus. ”

“ Although the first of the 425 steps leading to the summit of the dome is upon the level of the top of the towers of Notre-Dame, the view is not nearly so interesting as from the latter. There is no river winding at our feet, and none of those guardian monsters who gaze at the city from the heights of the cathedral.
The decoration of the interior is now almost completed, and, whether for good or for evil, it is irrevocable. ”

“ A series of churches exists there within short distances of each other, so superb in all their features that it is impossible to contest their superiority to any corresponding group of buildings. The old Domaine Royale is that in which French art is seen in its perfection. Notre Dame, Paris, is a monument second to nothing in the world; but for completeness in all its parts it would be better to cite the cathedral of Chartres, a short description of which must suffice as an explanation of what French art at its zenith was. ”

“ Neither in full sunshine, nor in the twilight, nor when night has finally set in, will it allow its majestic proportions to be overlooked. Mr. Henley has finely spoken of “the high majesty of Paul’s,” but even our own metropolitan cathedral, with its overwhelming dome, is scarcely more predominant than Notre Dame.
5
The geographical position of the Cathedral of Paris is not unlike that anciently possessed by Westminster Abbey, and by that crown of the Fens, Ely Cathedral. We find that Notre Dame dominates an islet of the Seine. ”

“ The occasion for a new structure was the fire of 1218 which partly destroyed the Romanesque cathedral. As its old choir was preserved sufficiently to serve for a while longer, the new cathedral was begun by the nave, not the usual procedure. The nave rose in one supreme effort; from start to finish its plan never deviated. It has been taken as the typical masterpiece. “The façade of Paris, the tower of Chartres, the sculpture of Rheims, the nave of Amiens” is a popular summing up. ”

“ No city of the same size in the United States has such splendid churches. The Roman Catholic Cathedral of Notre Dame, fronting on the Place d'Armes, is the largest on the continent. It is two hundred and forty-one feet in length, by one hundred and thirty-five feet in width, and is capable of seating more than ten thousand persons. It is a massive structure, built of stone, in the Gothic style with a tower at each corner, [Pg 241] and one in the middle of each flank, numbering six in all. ”

“ The greatest glory of the Middle Ages was the saint-king himself. He was essentially of his epoch both in his love of theology and his enthusiasm for building. Under his grandfather, Philippe-Auguste, most of the Gothic cathedrals of France were begun. The majority of them continued building under Louis IX. In his reign Beauvais Cathedral was started, that of Meaux rebuilt, as was also St. Denis’ cathedral-like abbatial. There rose now a host of lesser Gothic edifices, such as the Sainte-Chapelle at Paris, the synodal hall at Sens, and the hospital hall at Ourscamp. ”

“ Of our kin were the architects, masters of the living stone, who with inspiration conceived their shrines of Notre Dame and were trained soundly enough in mason craft to achieve their dreams; of our kin were the artisans who put up the serene images at cathedral doors for the edification of the people, and chiseled with warm, loving touches the running bramble of the roadside. Even botany is to be learned in mediæval cathedrals. Not a leaf that grows in Champagne to-day but was carved on the walls of Rheims seven hundred years ago. ”

“ The shrine over his tomb became the centre of a Parisian cult, and several churches rose successively above his body. The present one was not built till 1520; it is nevertheless a good late Gothic building. But notice the decline from the purity of Notre-Dame and the exquisite lightness of St. Louis’s chapel. Handsome flamboyant doorway, one mass of sculpture: statues of 12 Apostles, with symbols of their martyrdoms, all restored, after being destroyed in the Revolution. The interior is interesting, but spoilt in 17th century: good stained glass, badly injured. ”

“ Architects and workmen put their very souls into them and they will always be of interest. It is for this reason, that the casual visitor at all times and in all moods finds them ever a source of constantly renewed pleasure, no matter how many times they may be seen.
Elizabeth Robbins Pennell has expressed this power of Cathedrals to please at all times, even after they have been often seen and are very well known, in a recent number of the Century, in describing the great Cathedral of Notre Dame, "Often as I have seen Notre Dame," she says, "the marvel of it never grows less. ”

“ It stands in the midst of the cold, white town, and has a high-shouldered look to a spectator accustomed to the minsters of England, which cover a great space of ground in proportion to their height. The impression the latter give is of magnitude and mass; this French Cathedral strikes one as lofty. The exterior is venerable, tho but little time-worn by the action of the atmosphere; and statues still keep their places in numerous niches, almost as perfect as when first placed there in the thirteenth century. The principal doors are deep, elaborately wrought, pointed arches ”

“ Long did it dispute the title of primate of Gaul with Lyons and Rheims; even down to the XVI century Paris was within its jurisdiction. To-day as the express trains rush by from Paris to Marseilles, many a traveler looks out on a cathedral that seems to over-tower and overpower a flat, sleepy little town whose name he scarcely knows. When the cathedral was building in the XII century Sens was a center of the nation’s life, and under a succession of noteworthy archbishops reached its zenith. ”

“ Note the simplicity and dignity of the choir. Note also the peculiar character of the vaulting, comparing it with the later type at Notre-Dame, and especially with the reversion to much the same form in Renaissance times at St. Étienne-du-Mont, and St. Eustache. In spite of its newness, much of the modern decorative work is extremely effective; indeed, as a specimen of almost complete internal decoration, this church, notwithstanding the cruel overlaying of its early Romanesque sculpture by gold and paint, is perhaps the most satisfactory of any in Paris, except the Sainte Chapelle. ”

“ To speak of a transition is to be metaphysical, employing words for what has no existence in reality, since there was no break in the sequence of sculpture from the first imaged portals of French Romanesque art, at Beaulieu, Moissac, Autun and Vézelay to those at Le Mans and Chartres, and to that masterpiece of Gothic sculpture, the portal of Our Lady under the northwest tower of Paris Cathedral.
For the making of his three western doors at Chartres, Bishop Geoffrey de Lèves must have obtained workers from his friend, Abbot Suger of St. ”

“ No civic monument in the land excels it; it ranks as the best with Rouen’s Palais de Justice and the Hôtel Cluny at Paris.
The same merchant-prince built in Bourges Cathedral a private chapel for his family, and beside it a rich Flamboyant Gothic sacristy. The Annunciation window in the chapel (1450) is held to be the best glass of its century, uniting the better drawing of the later day with a plain, firm, general design. The face of the Angel Gabriel has been said to be a portrait of Jacques Cœur. ”