St. Pierre

“ The church of St Pierre is illustrated here, with the cathedral beyond, but the drawing does not include the great central tower which is crowned by a pyramidal spire. This church belongs to a later period than the cathedral as one may see by a glance at the classic work in the western tower, for most of the building is subsequent to the fifteenth century. St Pierre and the cathedral form a most interesting study in the development from Early French architecture to the Renaissance; but for picturesqueness in domestic architecture Coutances cannot hold up its head with Lisieux, Vire, or Rouen. ”

“ That Pierre could ever have meant this is not to be dreamed; but when the true scholar gets thoroughly to work, his logic is remorseless, his art is implacable, and his sense of humour is blighted. In the rose above, Pierre had asserted the exclusive authority of Christ in the New Jerusalem, and his scheme required him to show how the Church rested on the Evangelists below, who in their turn had no visible support except what the Prophets gave them. Yet the artist may have had a reason for weakening the Evangelists, because there remained the Virgin! ”

“ Ely— Pierre!
Pierre— (Still looking up.) Oh, surely,
Surely the hands that lifted Oswald up,
Lifted our abbey too, and we are close
To heaven. Perhaps about us in the air
Are voices and the wings of those that hear
Our very whispers,—martyrs, saints, Saint Giles.
Ely—You make it terrible to live in flesh.
Pierre—Oh, terrible! It is terrible to live
Where every word drops in an angel's ear.
I feel that every breath should be a prayer.
Ely—I feel so too, Pierre. These acts of grace—
Pierre—Are but the sparks of power.
[Pg 79]
(He starts toward the chapel.) ”

“ And having examined them, Pierre was leaning forward to glance at the Vatican’s jumble of ruddy roofs, when it seemed to him that the shout from which he had fled was rising from the piazza, and thereupon, in all haste, he resumed his ascent within the pillar conducting to the dome. There was first a staircase, and then came some narrow, oblique passages, inclines intersected by a few steps, between the inner and outer walls of the cupola. Yielding to curiosity, Pierre pushed a door open, and suddenly found himself inside the Basilica again, at nearly 200 feet from the ground. ”

“ At the Revolution the see was suppressed, but it rose again, phoenix-like, in 1821, and endures to-day as a suffragan of Lyon et Vienne.
The cathedral of St. Pierre is a fourteenth-century edifice, with later work (seventeenth century) equally to be remarked. As a work of restoration it appears poorly done, but the entire structure is of more than ordinary interest; nevertheless it still remains an uncompleted work.
The church is of exceedingly moderate dimensions, and is in no sense a great achievement. ”

“ However, a man whom Pierre had not at first seen—a workman also of some forty years, tall, thin and bald, with scanty moustache and beard of a washed-out reddish hue—made an angry gesture—a threat as it were—to turn the priest out of doors. ”

“ The clamour of a human sea arose, the crowd was as gay and familiar as if it had found itself in some heavenly theatre where it was allowable for one to chat aloud and recreate oneself with the spectacle of religious pomp! At first Pierre was thunderstruck, he who only knew of nervous, silent kneeling in the depths of dim cathedrals, who was not accustomed to that religion of light, whose brilliancy transformed a religious celebration into a morning festivity. ”

“ At this precise moment, however, Pierre felt that the white and motionless shadow behind those windowpanes was held erect by pride, by the ever present conviction of victory. If man could not achieve it, a miracle would intervene. He, the Pope, was absolutely convinced that he or some successor would recover possession of Rome. ”

“ Tandis que, dans les églises gothiques, l'impression est de s'agenouiller, de joindre les mains avec un sentiment d'humble prière et de profond regret; dans Saint-Pierre au contraire, le mouvement involontaire serait d'ouvrir les bras en signe de joie, de relever la tête avec bonheur et épanouissement. ”

“ These were the houses of the Borgo, the jumbled piles of the Vatican and the Basilica which the huge dome surmounted and annihilated, showing greyly blue in the light blue of the heavens, whilst far away stretched a delicate, boundless vista of the Campagna, likewise of a bluish tint.
It was, however, more particularly in the less sumptuous gardens, those of a more homely grace, that Pierre realised that even things have souls. ”

“ The centuries do not count. And this explains why an old man of eighty-four has undertaken colossal enterprises whose achievement requires several lives, certain as he is that his successors will take his place, and that the work will ever and ever be carried forward and completed.
As these thoughts coursed through his mind, Pierre, overlooking that ancient city of glory and domination, so stubbornly clinging to its purple, realised that he was an imbecile with his dream of a purely spiritual pope. ”

“ The missionary sat as if paralysed, his face all grey, his eyes fixed on the half-breed. "Are you man or devil?" he groaned at length.
With a slight, fantastic gesture Pierre replied: "It was said that a devil entered into me at birth, but that was mere scandal—'peut-etre.' You shall think as you will."
There was silence. The sullenness about the missionary's lips became charged with a contempt more animal than human. ”

“ And Pierre pictured himself in some gigantic gala hall or tremendous vestibule in an immeasurable palace of reception. The broad sheets of sunlight streaming through the lofty square windows of plain white glass illumined the church with blending radiance. There was not a single stool or chair: nothing but the superb, bare pavement, such as you might find in a museum, shining mirror-like under the dancing shower of sunrays. Nor was there a single corner for solitary reflection, a nook of gloom and mystery, where one might kneel and pray. ”

“ A benevolent action brought him into intercourse with Monseigneur Bergerot, a bishop whom the Pope had recently created a cardinal, in reward for a whole life of charity, and this in spite of the covert opposition of the papal curia which suspected the French prelate to be a man of open mind, governing his diocese in paternal fashion. Pierre became more impassioned by his intercourse with this apostle, this shepherd of souls, in whom he detected one of the good simple leaders that he desired for the future community. ”

“ Pierre replied, somewhat astonished by the abruptness of the offer. “Anything of a nature to divert one’s mind is welcome when one loses one’s time in waiting.”
“No, no, you are not losing your time,” replied the prelate. “You are looking round you, reflecting, and enlightening yourself. Well, this is the point. You are doubtless aware that the great international pilgrimage of the Peter’s Pence Fund will arrive in Rome on Friday, and be received on Saturday by his Holiness. On Sunday, moreover, the Holy Father will celebrate mass at the Basilica. ”

“ Pierre took a keen interest in these particulars of the life led by a prince of the Church. He learnt that the Cardinal rose at six o'clock, summer and winter alike. He said his mass in his chapel, a little room which simply contained an altar of painted wood, and which nobody but himself ever entered. His private apartments were limited to three rooms—a bed-room, dining-room, and study—all very modest and small, contrived indeed by partitioning off portions of one large hall. And he led a very retired life, exempt from all luxury, like one who is frugal and poor. ”

“ And a sudden thought of death came to the priest as he saw her, so young and so radiant with beauty, half fainting beside that marble resting-place where fauns were rushing upon nymphs in a frantic bacchanal which proclaimed the omnipotence of love—that omnipotence which the ancients were fond of symbolising on their tombs as a token of life’s eternity. And meantime a faint, warm breeze passed through the sunlit, silent garden, wafting hither and thither the penetrating scent of box and orange.
“One has so much strength when one loves,” Pierre at last murmured. ”

“ And the unhappy Viscount, kept in Paris by the gout, had written the young priest letter after letter on the subject, whilst his rival the Baron, availing himself of the opportunity offered by the international pilgrimage, endeavoured to wring from the Pope an approval of his own views, with which he would have returned in triumph to France. Pierre conscientiously desired to keep his promise, and so he answered: “Your Holiness knows better than any of us in which direction true wisdom lies. ”

“ The priest said: "You understand, my child?"
And she answered: "I understand. Pierre, the outlaw, was her husband."
Father Corraine rose and sat beside the table, his book of offices open before him. At length he said: "There is much that might be spoken; for the Church has words for every hour of man's life, whatever it be; but there comes to me now a word to say, neither from prayer nor psalm, but from the songs of a country where good women are ”

“ Pierre answered drily.
"The devil's games: cards and law-breaking; and you sneer at men who try to bring lost sheep into the fold."
"The fold of the Church—yes, I understand all that," Pierre answered. "I have heard you and the priests of my father's Church talk. Which is right? But as for me, I am a missionary. Cards, law-breaking—these are what I have done ”

“ Pierre (see Cathedral) , a church in the Byzantine-Romanesque style, dates from the 11th and 12th centuries, but has undergone frequent restoration, and was partly rebuilt in the latter half of the 19th century by the architect Paul Abadie. The façade, flanked by two towers with cupolas, is decorated with arcades filled in with statuary and sculpture, the whole representing the Last Judgment. The crossing is surmounted by a dome, and the extremity of the north transept by a fine square tower over 160 ft. high. ”

“ And now Pierre beheld all those palaces which he had conjured up around him, resuscitated, resplendent in the full sunlight. They were as if linked together, parted merely by the narrowest of passages. In order that not an inch of that precious summit might be lost, they had sprouted thickly like the monstrous florescence of strength, power, and unbridled pride which satisfied itself at the cost of millions, bleeding the whole world for the enjoyment of one man. ”

“ Pierre, who came thither opposed to the principle of the “Prix de Rome,” that traditional, uniform education so dangerous for originality, was for a moment charmed by the warm peacefulness, the limpid solitude of the garden, and the sublime horizon where the wings of genius seemed to flutter. Ah! how delightful, to be only twenty and to live for three years amidst such infinite sweetness, encompassed by the finest works of man; to say to oneself that one is as yet too young to produce, and to reflect, and seek, and learn how to enjoy, suffer, and love! ”

“ St. Nicolas de Coutances, 325. St. Mellor, 82. St. Omer, 27, 223, 225. St. Omer, Notre Dame de, 237 241, 380. St. Ouen, Church of (Rouen) , 15, 30, 80, 87, 241, 277. St. Peter's, at Rome, 20. "St. Peter's of the North," 71. "St. Peter's of the South," 13. St. Peter and Paul, Church of (at Tours) , 165. St. Pierre d'Aleth, 336. St. Pierre de Beauvais, 28, 70-76, 140, 369. St. Pierre de Coutances, 325. St. Pierre de Lisieux, 301-304. St. Pierre de Nantes, 183, 374, 375. St. Pierre de Troyes, 274-278, 381, 382. St. Pol de Leon, 255, 339, 345. St. Pol de Leon, Cathedral of, 345-347. St. ”

“ They've a thought that, maybe, Pretty Pierre has taken refuge with you. They'll little like to disturb you, I know. But with dead in your house, and you givin' the word of truth, which none other could fall from your lips, they'll go on their way to look elsewhere."
The priest's face was pinched, and there was a wrench at his heart. He turned to the others. A trooper stepped forward.
"Father Corraine," he said, "it is my duty to search your house; but not a foot will I stretch across your threshold if you say no, and give the word that the man is not with you." ”

“ It was as if after growing and radiating, like a planet ascending to the zenith, he had again sunk to the level of the soil in all human mediocrity. Again did Pierre find him puny and fragile, with the slender neck of a little sick bird, and all those marks of senile ugliness which rendered him so exacting with regard to his portraits, whether they were oil paintings or photographs, gold medals, or marble busts, for of one and the other he would say that the artist must not portray “Papa Pecci” but Leo XIII, the great Pope, of whom he desired to leave such a lofty image to posterity. ”

“ Corporal Shon McGann, at your service."
They clasped hands, and the priest said: "You have come at my call from
Fort Cypress?"
"Yes. But not these others. They are after a man that's played ducks and drakes with the statutes—Heaven be merciful to him, I say. For there's naught I treasure against him; the will of God bein' in it all, with some doin' of the Devil, too, maybe."
Pretty Pierre, standing with ear to the window of the dark room, heard all this, and he pressed his upper lip hard with his forefinger, as if something disturbed him. ”

“ One of the finest I have ever seen is the ‘Saint Pierre au Donateur,’ by Gaudenzio Ferrari; holding his keys (both of gold) , he presents a kneeling votary, a man of middle age, who probably bore his name. The head of St. Peter is very characteristic, and has an energetic pleading expression, almost demanding what he requires for his votary. The whole picture is extremely fine. (Turin Gallery, No. 19.)
[165] Milan, Brera (No. 189) .
[166] What St. Clement says is to this purpose: that St. Peter’s hearers at Rome were desirous of having his sermons writ down for their use ”