ECOUEN
Ecouen is generally visited because of its fine château, built on the crest of a hill and entirely surrounded by a delightful wood except on the side where from a flowered terrace there is disclosed a far-reaching view out over a smiling country. But it is not the château which lures us hither, but the parish church down in the town that nestles at the foot of the castle walls. The château has lost its old glass, the two panels from its chapel showing the children of Anne de Montmorency being now in the chapel at Chantilly, which place also rejoices in the possession of the famous series of forty-four scenes from the adventures of Cupid and Psyche, which originally decorated the now destroyed Salle des Gardes at Ecouen. For us, therefore, the château has lost most of its charm; if you wish to inspect it you must obtain a carte d’entrée from the Chancellerie de la Legion d’Honneur in Paris, for it is now a school for daughters of members of that order, and is not open to the public. For those of us who have come here to see the parish church there will be no bother about permits, for none is needed. This church not only contains excellent Renaissance windows, but upon them we shall find a fine array of Montmorency portraits as well. The upper panels of the lofty lancets that flank the high altar are filled with scriptural scenes, but below they contain, that to the left, Anne de Montmorency with his five sons, and that to the right, his wife attended by five daughters. Although we have here the same family portraits as those seen in Montmorency Church, this pair is much older (1544-5), and not only shows the children as much younger than at Montmorency (1563), but also has but five daughters instead of the seven seen on the later glass. Nor are these the only similar pairs of these windows. The Constable was so proud of his children and of their number that he seemed to never tire of having them portrayed on glass. We have just referred to a third pair (dated 1544) made for the chapel of Ecouen château, but now at Chantilly, and there is still a fourth pair in the nearby church of Mesnil-Aubry which are the latest of all, for the Constable is there shown with a snow-white beard. At Ecouen we observe that the parents occupy each a separate panel from the children, but at Chantilly the parent panels are both missing. The remaining three windows on the south side of the choir bear as donors still other Montmorencys, but the work is later and not nearly so good. The high altar concealed the lower half of the central eastern windows, so they did the next most sensible thing to lowering the altar back—they transferred to a little northern chapel the panels it obscured. The whole northerly side of the choir opens out into a chapel whose northern and eastern ends are lighted by three large embrasures filled with excellent Renaissance glazing, depicting scenes from the life of the Virgin. Especially fine is the second from the east, showing in the lower half, the death of the Virgin, while above are clouds peopled with angels, all leading up to the Father in the top pane of the tracery. The traceries of the three easternmost choir embrasures are filled with blue eaglets on a golden ground, the insignia of the Montmorencys. This same treatment of the traceries may also be remarked in the chapel of the château; in fact, they are all that remains there of the original glazing. We have already admired this same form of decoration over the north portal at the Montmorency Church.
It seems a pity that the Ecouen glass now at Chantilly could not be restored to the embrasures for which it was made; it obviously does not belong where it is now found, and, besides, it loses there the historic significance which it would enjoy in its old home at the château of Ecouen.