SÉES
En route from Le Mans to Sées we must pass directly through Alençon, famous for its lace, and especially for the sort known as Point d’Alençon. If en automobile we should stop here long enough to see the Renaissance glass in the church of Notre Dame. Although of a later period than that which we are now considering, we must not be so narrow-minded as to deliberately pass by fine glass, no matter when it was made. The exterior of Notre Dame struck the writer as curiously emblematic of the impression which one receives of the town. The church is squat and ugly, but it is redeemed by the lace-like Gothic of its western porch, which, fearful lest it be not remarked, thrusts itself out into the street. In similar fashion, Alençon as a town has its commonplaceness condoned by reason of the beauty of its lace, a beauty which is constantly thrust upon your attention by its inhabitants. The glass to be noticed is around the nave clerestory. A most charming stone setting is provided for this sixteenth century glazing by the broad and high embrasures of six lancets each. Particularly note how, at the top of each sheaf of lancets, the delicate lines of the traceries flow upward and inward like flames aspiring from a broad-based fire, seeking the outlet above of a narrow chimney. The picture period is here at its best, and the artist, regardless of the upright stone mullions, has spread his subject across all the lancets of each embrasure, and has lavished upon them all the shades of his richly stocked palette. Over the west portal we have the same shape of window, but here it is broader and permits of eight lancets. The subject is the well-worn one of Jesse and his descendants, but the design is distinctly novel, and an unusual amount of green foliage against a blue background lends a pleasant tone to the picture. The descendants are relegated to the upper panes, while the major portion of the great surface is divided equally between Jesse (on the right) and a large panel enclosing the scene of the Saviour’s birth (on the left). Of the rest of the glass in this church it is kindly comment to say that it is unsatisfactory.
But let us push on to Sées, 20 kilometres further. One reads but little of the cathedral there, and more’s the pity, because from any point of view it is not only admirable, but picturesquely delightful. Placed upon a slight eminence in the midst of a wide basin, this elevation suffices to make it visible from a long distance on every side. Its gracefully aspiring twin spires, its mantle of flying buttresses, the charming conformation of its eastern end, all conspire to allure us and fill us with expectations of what a nearer view may reveal. Nor does the interior fail to realise all this distant promise. What a graceful lightness of stonework is everywhere visible, supplemented by the glazier’s intelligent delicacy of touch. The nave alone lacks its ancient glass. Nowhere in France or elsewhere can the fourteenth century glass artist be seen to greater advantage than at Sées. Very happy is the way in which his light-admitting grisaille has been enlivened and decorated by coloured borders and bands of richly-toned, canopy-framed figures. At Evreux we will find him more splendid, more varied, but here, around the choir and the transepts, he has worked out more consistently, more coherently, his new idea of combining translucence and colour decoration. Dainty, almost dangerously fragile as is the stonework that supports the upper windows, the glazier’s handwork is daintier still—a film of soft grisaille held in a spider’s web of lead lines, whilst across the middle third are bands of early canopies. Not only in the clerestory of choir and transepts, but also in the choir chapels below, do we find this treatment uniformly carried out. The completeness of the scheme of decoration, as well as the satisfactory adjustment of colour to grisaille, give an ensemble which we elsewhere seek in vain. Not satisfied with the illumination provided by his airy clerestory, the architect has pierced his triforium gallery throughout. In this lower tier there has been no attempt to introduce figures, the glazier having contented himself with surrounding his grisaille by decorated borders. The only exception to this rule is where the triforium gallery passes below the lovely rosaces that decorate the transept ends—there, in each case, the row of ten lancets is filled, alas! with modern glass whose thin tones betray it at once. Fortunately one is too much absorbed in looking at the great roses above to notice them very intently. So high up are these rosaces in their respective walls that the arching of the ceiling actually passes in front of their upper corners. That in the south transept is a wheel window with medallions in the ends of the spokes, but instead of the rest of the openings being glazed in grisaille (as at Rouen Cathedral), colour is here used throughout. Very different is the north transept rose, from the centre of which six broad arms diverge, separating groups of blossom-like apertures. The colour is good, but would have been better had there been omitted the white borders that make the coloured panels seem about to start from their sockets. The luminous effectiveness of the interior is utilised and accentuated by the placing of the double-faced altar on a raised platform in the middle of the crossing where the transepts can contribute to its glory equally with the choir. The high altar carries off the unusual honour of this central position with great dignity and success.
So much are we seized and held by the charm of the general effect that we are not tempted, as is so often the case elsewhere, to solace ourselves with spelling out quaint details in individual windows. Nevertheless, that form of research is here well worth while. Three times on the south side of the choir clerestory and again in the second choir chapel on the left, do we find the donors, ingenuously holding in their uplifted hands small models of their gift windows. Several times we will note two canopy panels whose stories must be read together, as for example in the first choir chapel on the right, where a mounted man in armour is piercing with his spear the side of the crucified Christ in the next panel to the right. Interesting as are these and many other similar details, it is the softly tinted illumination of the whole interior, more than any particular feature, that makes us remember Sées Cathedral as one of the most satisfactory French examples of fourteenth century glazing.