[Original]
Compiègne has a beautiful château which everybody knows, and Compiègne is a charming town which many sojourners do not know. More than one traveler has gone through it without ever having seen the chapel of the ancient Hôtel-Dieu, whose grand reredos of carved wood is one of the most brilliant masterpieces of the French sculpture of the seventeenth century.
Compiègne possesses a historical society, which shows much zeal in causing the preservation of the appearance and the monuments of the old town. Let us praise in passing the efforts of these worthy men: we must not lose a chance for exalting the good and saying evil of the wicked, On one occasion this historical society intervened to prevent that, under pretext of straightening a line, the remnants of an old bastion should be destroyed because they injured, it was said, the beautiful perspective of the subprefecture. It also undertook the defense of the old tower called the Tower of Joan of Arc, and succeeded in saving this venerable monument. Alas, it did not succeed in protecting the bridge of Compiègne against the engineers who wrapped it up in an iron apron, under pretext of facilitating traffic.... Yes, the traffic of the bridge of Compiègne!
From belfry to belfry, we continue our route toward Noyon.
At the junction of the Aisne, in a pleasing landscape, the church of Choisy-au-Bac seems to watch over the tombs of a little cemetery filled with flowers. It is Romanesque, fairly well restored, and charmingly picturesque.
At Longueil-sous-Thourotte, the poor old church is about to disappear. By its side they have built a grand new church, a copy of twelfth-century architecture. Was it worth while to demolish the modest and venerable edifice of earlier days? Could it not be preserved beside the proud modern construction, even if it were tottering and dilapidated? It contained beautiful funeral slabs of the Renaissance, which are going to be exiled, no one knows where; it contained, above all, superb stained glass of the thirteenth century. Two windows have been placed in the new church; but there remains a third, and there remain also remarkable monochromatic frescoes. What is going to be done with these precious remnants? They have not been listed as national treasures.
... Tomorrow, perhaps, they will go to decorate the dining room of a Chicago millionaire: what a disgrace! And all the windows of the new church are adorned with stained glass whose banal horror makes the magnificence of these ancient windows apparent to every eye!
The church of Thourotte—it is of the twelfth century, but has lost much of its character—contains a fine altar screen of gilded wood, representing the different scenes of the Passion. It is said to be Flemish work; judging by the types of certain personages, this might be doubted; but the shutters which close upon the screen bear paintings whose origin is not in the least doubtful. Poor paintings, whose restoration was confided by a too-zealous curate to a pitiable dauber! Now, the Commission of Historic Monuments has fisted the beautiful sculptures and has put them under glass: the effect of this is abominable, but we live among barbarians and second-hand dealers, and we are actually forced to put our works of art under lock and key to defend them. As for the painted shutters, they are hung up on the wall: a few were spared by the dauber. In the same church we may still see two beautiful altars supported by torsos of the seventeenth century. How many beautiful works of art still remain in our little churches of France, in spite of revolutions and dealers in antiques!
The Cistercian abbey of Ourscamp is now a cotton spinning mill. Behind a magnificent iron fence stretch vast buildings of the seventeenth century. In the center rises a grand pavilion. We pass through an open door between the high columns which support the balcony of the upper story, and suddenly discover that this immense construction is a mere veneer to hide the old church of the monastery. Of the nave there is no longer anything remaining; but a little farther on, in the midst of the park, the choir still lifts its arches of magnificently pure architecture. The roof has fallen, but the columns and the walls still stand. It is a picture like that of the church of Long-pont, in the forest of Villers-Cotterets. (There is also great similarity between the architecture of Longpont and that of Ourscamp.) It seems that the intimate beauty of Gothic art is better revealed to us when we thus discover the ruin of one of its masterpieces among the trunks and branches of trees; we then can better feel the living grace of its columns and the freedom of its arches.... There is so much truth in this admirable page from the Génie du christianisme: "The forests of the Gauls have passed in their turn into the temples of our fathers, and our forests of oak have thus maintained their sacred origin. These vaults carved into foliage, these jambs which support the walls and end suddenly like broken trunks, the coolness of the vaults, the darknesses of the sanctuary, the obscure wings, the secret passages, the lowly doorways, all retrace the labyrinths of the woods in the Gothic church: everything makes us feel in it religious horror, mysteries and divinity, etc...." The centuries have accomplished their work, and, in the ruins of the edifice, which is surrounded and invaded by the verdure of the forest, we recognize still better what art learns from nature. [13]