VERNEUIL
Long before one reaches Verneuil he remarks a great tower looming high above the surrounding house-tops, a tower so commanding as to seem to beckon us from afar, and then later when we have reached its foot, to make us halt awhile in its shadow to enjoy the innumerable delicate details of its architecture, which render a near view as delightful as the distant prospect is imperious. It is not often in France that one sees so striking a landmark, which must have been vastly more significant still in those battleworn years of the middle ages when Verneuil was for so long an important post on the frontier between France and the territory held by the English. There may still be seen one of the massive round towers of the ancient fortifications, its great size bearing witness to the importance attached to the possession and defence of the city. Nor is Verneuil lacking in other and more homely charms, for it preserves many of its old timbered houses, as well as others of stone and brick decorated at one corner by a gracefully carved tourelle. On making our way to the centre of the town we find that the great tower belongs to the church of La Madeleine, which occupies one end of the spacious market-place. No more ill-assorted collection of incongruous elements were ever found in one edifice. The lofty uplift of the choir and transepts rises so much above the low roof-tree of the nave, that viewed from a little distance, there seems no connecting link between the eastern portion of the church and the great tower at the western end. The transepts are so short as to extend but little beyond the sides of the choir, and furthermore there are two sets of transepts, side by side, and opening into each other. It is to the eastern and loftier part of the edifice that we must repair. Here about the choir and the two parallel chapels that adjoin it are a dozen windows containing fifteenth century canopies, mostly arranged in two tiers, one above the other. Note that it is groups rather than single figures that appear within the enframing niches, and that the stories told by these panels are more elaborate, even if less effective than their grander contemporaries in the transepts. These latter are fine tall-pinnacled examples, each canopy enclosing a single figure, and are found in three of the four great embrasures that light the end walls of the transepts. The fourth contains Renaissance canopies. Throughout all this fifteenth century glass the deepness of the tones used in the figures within the niches is most noticeable.
There are also several sixteenth century windows, the most noteworthy one being a Tree of Jesse in the east end of the southerly chapel. A large figure of the Virgin holding the Infant Jesus is shown standing on the vine just at the point where the branches separate. Jesse’s descendants, drawn to a smaller scale, are emerging from blossoms all about the Virgin, whom they are intently regarding.
Although the fifteenth century glass in La Madeleine is not so splendid as some we have seen elsewhere, it is in such quantity and variety as to afford valuable facilities for comparison and study. There is also good glass to be seen in the church of Notre Dame. The picturesque old-world flavour of Verneuil will perhaps make it a greater favourite with us than some towns possessing more important windows.
On leaving Verneuil, whether we decide to return to Paris via Chartres, or to link this trip on to the next by passing directly to Evreux and thence to Rouen, we may, by means of a slight detour, go through Nonancourt. If we do, we should delay there long enough to enter the church to see the low fifteenth century windows along the nave aisles, as well as the larger Renaissance ones that stretch in a long row around the whole length of the clerestory. It will be worth the few additional kilometres to the automobilist, although hardly demanding the breaking of a railway journey.