V
The cathedral of Rheims is most unquestionably a very noble, I might almost say, a perfectly noble, piece of architecture, and nevertheless it seems to fail in producing so great an effect on the mind as many other French churches of smaller dimensions and less architectural pretension. The truth is, that it is a work conceived and executed at two periods and by two (if not more) architects; and though the ground-plan, some portion of the walls, and a little of the sculpture, of the first architect have been preserved, the general aspect of the church at the present day savours more of the later artist than of his predecessor. It was in the year 1212 that Robert de Coucy (a friend of Wilars de Honecort) commenced the erection of the present cathedral, and it was after his death and from circa A.D. 1250 to circa A.D. 1300 that the whole of the upper portion of the building, the western portion of the nave from the ground, and the elaborate western façade were in course of erection. There remains to us, therefore, little of genuine first-pointed work, for it has been clearly shown by M. Viollet-le-Duc that the lower stage only of the building was the work of Robert de Coucy. He seems indeed to have contemplated a building of greater height and grandeur than the present, since his work is remarkable for the great size of the buttresses and the thickness of the walls, which were diminished at once, and abruptly, by the architect who followed him, and whose work is nevertheless amply solid and massive for the existing edifice.
It will be seen from what I have said, that we must not go to Rheims expecting to see a work of the best period of the thirteenth century. We shall find a small portion of sculpture in one of the doors of the north transept, and the plan and basement story of the building throughout, of this early date, but the bulk of the structure and almost the whole of the decorative features are purely middle-pointed work of the end of the thirteenth and early part of the fourteenth century. There is exquisite grace about most of this work, but an entire lack of that stern character which makes Chartres the grandest of French churches; there is prettiness where there should have been majesty; and in parts a nervous dread of leaving a single foot of wall free from ornament, which reminds one much more of the work of an architect of the nineteenth century than of one of the thirteenth. The west front, on which all the greatest efforts of the later architects of the church were lavished, can thoroughly please none but those who see in elaborate enrichment of every inch of wall the evidence of art, whilst I need hardly say that to those who have studied the best examples of architecture in whatever style, such elaborate ornamentation is in itself an evidence of weakness. There is a kind of sacredness about the simple breadth of wall and buttress which must be reverenced by all who would produce really grand work. But for this the later architects of Rheims had not the slightest feeling, and their work seems therefore to me to be more really allied to the debased art which followed it, than to the pure early work which had immediately preceded it. As at Laon, so here, the original design was to have a grand group of towers and spires, six for the three grand façades, and a seventh over the crossing. Some of these spires were, I believe, actually erected, and in lead; and whether this was the first intention or not it is certain that the plumber’s work was in great request in this church and city, as there still remains a very fine flèche on the point of the apse roof of the cathedral, some good detail of lead work on the roofs, and a much modernized leaded steeple in the church of S. Jacques; whilst in the west front of the cathedral we see large gurgoyles of lead simulating enormous animals. The interior of the cathedral is very noble in its proportions (though the triforium might well have been more dignified), and is remarkable for the immense size of the capitals of the piers in the nave; they are very closely copied from natural foliage, and fail to satisfy me that such work is the best fitted for architectural enrichment. The decoration of the west end is not confined to the exterior, the whole inside face of the wall being divided into panels and niches filled with foliage and single figures. The stone imitation of hangings in the lower part of this wall ought to be recorded, though hardly without a protest.
On the south side of the cathedral is the archbishop’s palace which still retains its thirteenth century chapel of two stages in height, and good, though simple, character. It is a parallelogram of five bays in length with an apse of seven sides.
And now that I have ventured to say so much in the way of criticism upon what I believe most Frenchmen consider their most glorious church, and without any attempt at a detailed account either of its general architectural arrangements or its sculptures (the latter exceedingly rich and suggestive), I must take my reader with me along the dreary dirty road which leads to the squalid quarter of the city in which still stands as a rival to the more modern cathedral the enormous church of S. Remi. The exterior, with the exception of the apse, has been much modernized, and presents accordingly but few features of much interest. The south transept has been all remodelled in flamboyant, whilst the nave is simple Romanesque, and the west end—recently almost entirely rebuilt—is a singular agglomeration of anomalous work, half classic or Pagan, and half Romanesque or Gothic and Christian. In the apse we have flying buttresses supported on fluted shafts, a clerestory of triple lancets, and a triforium also lighted with three-light windows. The proportions of the buttresses, roofs, and walls are however heavy and unskilful, and give evidence of the early date of this nevertheless very grand attempt. It is on entering by the transept, through a doorway covered with fine flamboyant sculpture, that we see how grand the attempt was, and how fine the internal effect. I think I know no church whose whole interior gives a greater idea of spaciousness and size, whilst the beauty of the design of the apse and the aisle and chapels round it is extreme. And indeed the appearance of size does not belie the facts, for the dimensions of the building are singularly fine. It has a Romanesque nave and aisles (groined with a pointed vault) of thirteen bays, transepts, and a choir of three bays with an apse of five. Round the apse is the procession-path aisle, and opening into this a series of chapels, whereof the five eastern are very noticeable. The Lady-chapel is of three bays in length, with an apse of seven bays, whilst the other four are very nearly circular in plan, and each of the chapels opens into the aisle with three arches supported on delicate detached shafts. The groining of each of the four smaller chapels forms a complete circle in plan, with eight groining ribs, whereof two are supported on the columns opening into the aisle. Each chapel is lighted by three windows, recessed so much as to allow of openings being pierced in the groining piers to admit of a passage all round the interior. This arrangement (as well as the beautiful planning of the chapels) is a distinct feature of the churches of Champagne. The chapels of Notre Dame, Châlons-sur-Marne, are similarly planned, and in those of the cathedral at Rheims it is clear that Robert de Coucy had the same plan in his eye, though he gave up the triple-arched entrance from the aisle; whilst at S. Quentin we see an almost similar plan at a rather later date. The whole of the nave retains the original very simple Romanesque arcades, and lofty groined triforia; but its groining throughout is fine early-pointed work and of grand dimensions, the width in clear of the vault being about forty-five feet. It is a curious fact that in this nave the triforium compartment is absolutely more lofty than that below it which contains the arch opening into the aisle. In the choir there is a sort of fourfold division in height such as I have described at Soissons and Laon, an arcade of pointed arches being introduced between the clerestory and the triforium; but as this arcade is in part a continuation of the lines of the clerestory windows, and as there is no string-course to divide the stage in two, the effect is better than in other examples of the same arrangement.
There is much matter for careful study in the interior; among other things may be noticed the remarkably fine and large corbels supporting the groining shafts in the eastern part of the nave, adorned with figures of the prophets bearing scrolls and still retaining traces of their old colouring; and again, the very beautiful sculpture of some of the early capitals near the western end of the nave, and on either side of the great western doorway. In the windows of the apse are some small remains of fine early glass.
Among the other architectural remains in Rheims is the church of S. Maurice, consisting of a Romanesque nave and aisles, and a lofty groined flamboyant choir, the west front of good character, having small buttresses supported on shafts on each side of the central door, and separating the western triplet of broad lancets above the doorway. The rest of the church is very uninteresting.
There is also the church of S. Jacques, whose west front has the unusual feature of a sham gable on either side of the real central gable.[27] These gables are above the aisles, and completely conceal their roofs and the clerestory. The nave is of early-pointed date, but very much altered; only the two eastern bays appearing to retain the original triforium and clerestory,—the latter a lancet with internal jamb-shafts, which are continued into the triforium and form a portion of the arcades of four pointed arches which occupy each bay,—an arrangement very similar to that of the clerestory of S. Remi. These two bays are groined with a sexpartite vault, which is slightly domical in its longitudinal section. The alternate piers in the nave consist of coupled columns of very solid character, and with very deep capitals. Some of these columns are regularly fluted. The rest of the nave has been much altered in the fourteenth century, whilst the choir is flamboyant, with aisles of Renaissance style, but groined in stone. The crossing is surmounted by a very large flèche of timber covered with lead, almost completely modernized, but showing still some large three-light windows of middle-pointed style.
The Maison des Musiciens, in the Rue de Tambour, is a well-known example of excessively good domestic architecture of the thirteenth century.
From Rheims I made my way by railway to Châlons-sur-Marne, where I was rewarded by the sight of one of the most interesting churches I have ever seen, that of Notre Dame, and of a cathedral of inferior interest. It was the more gratifying to find such really fine work just on the extreme borders of the country to which French influence extended, and beyond which to the eastward the churches appear to be entirely German in their style.
The points of resemblance between Notre Dame de Châlons and the church of S. Remi at Rheims are too obvious to be overlooked. The planning and the general design and detail of their chevets are precisely similar, though the scale of Notre Dame is considerably smaller than that of S. Remi. The former church has however the great advantage of being of the same character throughout, wonderfully little damaged by time, and singularly fortunate among French churches in being under the care of a priest, M. Champenois, whose zeal and enthusiasm for his beautiful church is equalled by the care and skill with which he has himself carried out its restoration. It is the most conservative restoration I have as yet seen in France; it could not be more conservative, and hence it is impossible that it could be better. M. Champenois feels that every stone is a deposit entrusted to him, and I would that we saw signs of such zeal as his rather oftener in the French clergy. Unfortunately, it seems to be too generally the case that they take no interest whatever in the churches which they serve. They have been taught to look to the government as the owner and restorer of all religious buildings, and they have ceased to concern themselves about either the security of their fabrics or the character of their fittings and decorations. Fortunate indeed is it for us in England that the State is not so careful for us as it is in France, for then we should see here, just as we do there, a people utterly careless of the noble buildings which surround them, in place of—as we do here—a people whose love for their old monuments is enhanced and in part created by the fact that they are themselves perpetually invited to help in their restoration and repair.
The church of Notre Dame consists of a nave and aisle of seven bays in length, transepts, and a very short apsidal choir (an apse of seven sides), with an aisle and chapels planned like those of S. Remi, beyond it. There are four towers, two at the west ends of the aisles, and two in the angles between the transepts and the choir. The triforium throughout is large, lofty, and groined. As at S. Remi, the external effect of this church is much inferior to the internal effect. It is rather too heavy and ungainly, and savours much of the character of German Romanesque work. The four towers have the defect of being almost exactly alike, of four stages, richly adorned with round-arched arcades, and rising hardly at all above the level of the ridges of the roof. The south-west tower retains its fine leaded spire, with four tall pinnacles at its base, and a cluster of eight spire-lights about midway: it is an exquisite example of lead-work, and still more precious to us as affording evidence of the extraordinary extent to which decoration was sometimes carried in the Middle Ages. The pinnacles at the base still retain distinct traces of decoration on the lead, each side having a large crocketed canopy, below which is a gigantic figure, in one case of an archer with a bow. The whole is done in white and black only, the ground being the dark lead on which the white lines seem to have been marked by a process of tinning or soldering. It is a kind of decoration which we may well attempt to revive. A spire very similar to the other has recently been erected on the north-west tower, and the western front is now therefore quite in its old state, and singularly well does it look. I almost doubt whether the addition of similar spires to the two eastern towers, for which the Curé is now collecting funds, will really improve the look of the church. With four steeples, it is well that two at least should be pre-eminent, which is the present state of the case; whilst the completion of the others would reduce all to the character of mere turrets—a result not to be desired. The variety of string-courses and cornices throughout the exterior of this church, all filled with sculpture of foliage, gives a very ornate character to the external detail.
The principal entrance is by the south door of the nave. This has been cruelly damaged, indeed nearly destroyed, but what remains is of great interest, owing to its very close resemblance to the noble western doorways of Rouen cathedral; the doorway is double, with eight shafts in each jamb, the alternate shafts having figures in front of them, as in the west doorways of Chartres; whilst the tympanum is similar also, having a figure of our Lord, surrounded by the emblems of the four Evangelists. Portions of archivolt enrichments and other sculpture have been dug up in the neighbourhood of this doorway and carefully preserved, and they appear to me, by their vigour and grandeur of character, to be undoubtedly the work of the same artist, and possibly portions of this once magnificent but now woefully mutilated entrance.
It is in the interior, however, of this church that the effect is finest and the architecture most noble. The whole is very uniform in character throughout, marked by great solidity of construction and proportion, and by the boldness and distinctness of all its architectural detail. The triforium throughout opens with two arches enclosed within another, the spandrels being unpierced, and throughout the church it is groined; nor must I forget to say, that at the present day the spacious area it affords is turned to some account; for, when I was there, on one side they were making the organ pipes, on the other constructing the organ, and in another part the carpenters were busy upon the organ case; and the Curé assured me that he not only had the satisfaction of seeing everything executed in the best possible way, but at the same time there was no inconvenience, and no want of reverence, on the part of the workmen. The clerestory consists throughout of lancet windows, the lower portions of which are filled in with an arcade in the manner I have described in the choir of S. Remi, at Rheims. The sculpture throughout this church, though almost entirely confined to foliage, is very instructive, and at the same time a little puzzling; for we see almost side by side work of the best Byzantine character—almost rivalling the sculpture we see in Venice—and distinctly thirteenth century French work, whilst the building itself shows no corresponding diversity, and I can only suppose, either that the sculpture was in hand much longer than the building of the church, or that two sets of sculptors were at work, the one educated in a Byzantine school, the other influenced by the more developed school of the Île de France.
I have said enough, I trust, to induce others to examine carefully this very interesting church; it is valuable as being a little in advance of the most perfect period of the French pointed style, and as being much more instructive, therefore, than a building which, like the cathedral at Rheims, is in the main a little after the most perfect period, and full, therefore, of symptoms of decline, instead of promise of advance.
From Notre Dame to the cathedral it is a descent from the finest early first-pointed to commonplace middle-pointed, full of German character in its detail. The west front and the whole of the apse have been much modernized, and the finest remaining portion of the exterior is the north transept front. The windows are geometrical middle-pointed of four lights, and the flying buttresses on a large scale, double, and surmounted by pinnacles. There is some good stained glass of late date in some of the aisle windows.
Another church, dedicated, I think, to S. Alpin, has a nave and aisles of six bays groined, without a triforium, and of the same date as Notre Dame. There are transepts and a central tower, and a choir in flamboyant style, and of a most unusual plan; the two arches east of the tower diverge from each other, so that the width of the choir gradually increases up to the point at which it is finished with an apse of three sides. An aisle surrounds the whole, the windows of which retain some very rich stained glass. This choir is the most remarkable example that I have met with of a very late revival of, perhaps, the earliest type of chevet. There are a great many altars in this church, pews throughout with doors, and no sign whatever of any improvement. In Notre Dame, where pews had disappeared and everything was being restored, all the side altars had disappeared, and there was only one altar left besides the principal altar in the choir.
And here I might well conclude these notes of French architecture. From Châlons I went to Toul, and thence by Metz to Trèves, and I found, as might be expected, nothing but German work. At Toul there are two churches, the cathedral and S. Gengoult, both of some interest, and with good cloisters; but it is very remarkable how we find here, not only German detail, but the favourite German ground-plans also; S. Gengoult is a cruciform church, with an apsidal chancel, and a small apsidal chapel on each side opening into the transepts; whilst the cathedral has an apsidal choir without aisles, and a square-ended chapel on each side opening from the transepts. The window tracery in S. Gengoult is perhaps the ugliest ever devised even by German ingenuity, and yet of early geometrical character (circa A.D. 1300), and still retaining much very beautiful glass of the same date. The nave of the cathedral has been recently seated with very smart fixed open seats, of the kind which might have been erected fifteen or twenty years ago in England.
Of Metz I can say but little more than of Toul. The cathedral is undoubtedly magnificent in its scale and general proportions; but its detail throughout is miserably thin and meagre, and the church appears to me to be utterly undeserving of the praise I have heard bestowed on it by some English authorities. Of course, however, the degree of admiration felt for such a building depends very much upon the standard of perfection which each man sets up for himself. If he comes to Metz strongly possessed with a sense of the noble character of German Gothic, of course he will admire this extremely German edifice; if, however, he have the slightest feeling for early French art, I imagine that he will turn away with disappointment and sorrow from this church, so vast, and yet, as compared with fine French churches, so tame, poor, and weak.
The best of the other churches in Metz is that of S. Vincent, a work of better style than the cathedral, and with a well-planned German east end, showing undoubtedly marks of the same hand as (or at least of imitation of) the famous Liebfraukirche at Trèves.
NAVE AND TRANSEPT, THE NEW CATHEDRAL, SALAMANCA
From Metz I made my way by Sierck (whose small church has a groined roof forty feet in clear width) to Saarburg; here the church is noticeable for a tower oblong in plan, and roofed with two thin octagonal spires which unite together at the base; and from Saarburg I went to Trèves.
Trèves well deserves a long notice. Its churches are full of interest, the cathedral for students of early art, and the Liebfraukirche, as being (I think) the most beautifully planned thirteenth century church in Germany. The close juxtaposition of these two churches is singularly effective in all points of view. Then there are the very fine Roman remains, and finally a really enormous number of houses of the thirteenth and fourteenth century, all in very fair preservation. From Trèves, by the interesting abbey of Laach, I reached Cologne, and at once made my way to the cathedral, anxious to see whether the opinions which have grown on me more strongly the more often I have visited it would remain unshaken now that so great progress has been made in the new work. It is impossible to overrate the excellence of all the new constructions; nor are they obviously open to any hostile criticism in regard to their conformity with the general character of the old work; but it is at the same time useless to conceal the fact, that the work is of a poor kind, and that it certainly does not improve as one sees more of it. The only comfort is that the interior will be much finer than the exterior, and that it is worth while therefore, to put up with some shortcomings in the latter in order to obtain what will, no doubt, be the sumptuous effect of space, height, and (I hope) colour, which the former promises to afford. It is much more difficult to spoil the interior than the exterior; it must of necessity be simple and uniform, and it admits of less attempt at enrichment with such crockets and pinnacles as cover the exterior. The south transept front, which is the most conspicuous portion of the new work finished, is, I think, thoroughly unsatisfactory. The crocketed gable over the great window, repeated again just above up the roof gable, is perhaps the most unhappy repetition of a leading line that could have been hit upon. If a gable was necessary over the window, it should have been different in its pitch from the other; and then again, however much the old architect indulged in reedy mouldings and endless groups of crockets, it does seem to be a sad thing that a nineteenth century artist should feel bound to emulate his enthusiasm for such worthless things. I grant at once, that he has done no more than follow precedents. In the old west front of the cathedral, there is scarcely a moulding three inches in diameter, whilst the central doorway between the steeples is very small, and made up of a repetition usque ad nauseam of orders of reedy mouldings and small flowers, and admits not for one instant of comparison with any good examples of French doorways; and, it is indeed very striking how, as one comes fresh from French churches, all this work looks thin, petty, and wanting in expression.
In the sculpture of foliage in the new works, the system seems to be to take sprigs of two or three leaves and fasten them against a circular bell, with no evidence of any kind of natural growth, and no proper architectural function to perform. They seem to require a piece of string or a strap round them to attach them to the bell. The copying of the foliage is perfectly naturalesque, even to the marking of the fibres on leaves which are to be elevated to a great height in the building. I have heard all this sculpture so often referred to in terms of the highest praise, that unpleasant as it is to criticize work executed at the present day, I feel that I am bound to express my dissent from those who so speak of it. The whole work is so famous that all the world is interested in it. English tourists, year after year, going in great numbers on their travels, admire thoughtlessly everything that they see, and architects even seem to me to follow in their wake, forgetting that our true function is not simply to admire the work, because it is a vast and noble enterprise, but to weigh and compare it with the most perfect work we can find, and to endeavour, if the faults we see in it are great, to point them out by way of warning for ourselves and others. Indiscriminate admiration of such a building does enormous mischief, just as a wild enthusiasm for the fourteenth century work which we see throughout Germany would be fatal to the eye and taste of the enthusiast.
Undoubtedly the architect of Cologne has had an office of enormous difficulty. The national enthusiasm, which has raised the funds hitherto expended, must have needed very cautious treatment. It would probably indeed be indispensable that the steeples, if ever completed, should be built exactly on the old plan so curiously preserved and discovered, but the elevation of the transepts, on which so very much of the external effect of the whole church depended, was just one of those points on which the architect might have ventured (one would have thought) to step out of the old path a little, and—just as the old architect when he wanted a perfect ground-plan went to Amiens for his example—he might at this day have gone to Chartres or Amiens, Rouen or Paris, and grafted something of their grace and grandeur on the otherwise merely German conception of façade which he has given us. That this might have been done without detriment to the old portions of the building is I am sure unquestionable; and that if well done it must have resulted in great gain and increased beauty is equally certain. If (as we all, with insignificant exceptions, admit) it is well for us to study early French art as well as English, surely some attention to it must be even more necessary in Germany, whose national art was inferior, in the thirteenth and fourteenth century, not only to that of France, but almost as much to that of England.