The Story of Chartres

by Cecil Headlam

The King standing upright, his right hand on the Book of the Gospels, replied, ‘I promise and grant you that I will preserve to you your canonical privileges and your churches, and that I will give you good laws and administer justice to you and defend you, by God’s grace, according to my power, as a king in his kingdom should do by right and reason on behalf of the bishops and their churches.’

After he had made this response the Bishops of Nantes and Maillezais raised the King from his chair and asked those present whether they wished to accept him as king. Hailed as legitimate sovereign by the whole of that vast and magnificent assembly, Henri IV. then took the oath, his right hand resting on the Holy Book.

‘I promise,’ he said, ‘in the name of Jesus Christ, three things to the Christians, my subjects. Firstly, I will take pains that the Christian people may live in peace with the Church of God. Further, I will strive that on all occasions robbery and injustice may cease. Further, I will command that in all judgments equity and pity be observed, to the end that God in His infinite mercy and pity may have pity upon me and upon you. Further, I will strive to my uttermost, in good faith, to chase from my jurisdiction and lands all heretics denounced by the Church, promising on oath to observe all that has been said, so may God and this His holy Gospel help me!’

The Bishop of Chartres, with the aid of the spiritual peers, then anointed Henri with the holy oil, and after the peers had been summoned by the Chancellor of France, taking the crown, and raising it above the head of the monarch, he gave it to the dukes and peers to hold, blessed it and placed it upon the brow of the King. Henri IV. was forthwith conducted by the Bishop and the great lords to the throne which had been erected on the Jubé, that all the people might behold him. The bishop officiating next bade the monarch be seated, and prayed to God ‘to confirm him on his throne and to render him invincible and unshaken before those who strive unjustly to snatch from him the crown which has legitimately fallen to him.’ Then he gave him the kiss of peace and cried aloud three times, ‘Vive le Roi!’ The cry was taken up and repeated by the peers and all the people. The sound of clarions, hautbois, trumpets, drums and other instruments of music echoed through the vaulting of the ancient Cathedral, whilst heralds threw amongst the crowd pieces of gold and silver ‘marked with the effigy of the King and with the date of the day and the year of his anointing and coronation.’ Mass was then celebrated, and the King, having received absolution from the bishop, partook of the communion with great humility. The service over, the bishops and lords escorted the monarch back to the episcopal palace. The Duke of Montbazon led the way, bearing the crown on a velvet cushion, whilst others accompanied him with the sceptre and the royal sword. The sacred vessel was taken back at once in procession to the Abbey of S. Père by the barons. They restored it to the safe keeping of the monks of Marmoutiers.

Meanwhile the King, clad in fresh robes of equal magnificence, ‘sat at table under a canopy of beautiful stuff, in the great episcopal hall, which was adorned with rich tapestries.’ On his right, at another table, were ranged the spiritual peers in pontifical garb; on the left, and at another table, the temporal peers in their coronation robes. Below the stage reserved for the King and these high personages, the ambassadors, the Chancellor, Knights of the Order and the principal officers of the realm took their place at yet another table. The banquet finished with a fanfare of trumpets, hautbois and clarions, and the King retired, preceded by the Marshal de Matignon, carrying before him the royal sword ‘bared outright.’

In the evening there was another splendid banquet, after which grace was said and sung as the late King Henri III. had been wont to have it.

So closed that day of solemn pomp and of ceremonies not meaningless. For they impressed upon the people the reality of a conversion which was politically of almost as much importance to France as the conversion to Christianity of Clovis and his followers. The report of the consecration of the King at Chartres was followed almost immediately by the surrender of Paris, and Henri became in fact what he had so long been in name only, King of France.

I have endeavoured to illustrate each stage of this story of a French ecclesiastical town by the mention or description of some building, and to illumine each notable building by some historic episode connected with it or with the period at which it was constructed. There is little left of the walls and gates which he bombarded to remind us of the taking of the town by Henri Quatre. But if we go to the Municipal Museum and Library we shall find pictures of this siege[98] and of the unsuccessful siege laid by Condé, besides numerous old maps and plans which show us, with varying degrees of accuracy, the town as it was in those days of storm and stress.

The Hôtel de Ville,[99] in which the museum is lodged, is a fine building of red brick and stone, composed of three sections and a very handsome gateway. It is itself connected with the period under review; for, when Henri was besieging the place nearly half the town was in correspondence with the besiegers, and, among the rest, was the important family of Montescot. Montescot was a good courtier, and he was rewarded with a canon’s stall in Notre-Dame. But he was also a good citizen, and he acted as intermediary between Chartres and the King in the matter of the pecuniary contributions levied from the town. He it was who built,[100] as a mansion for himself, the present Hôtel de Ville (1614), and in his character of good courtier he inscribed those words, ‘Henrico Magno,’ over the principal entrance. The bust of Marie de Médici figures on the doorway of the right wing, the bust of Louis XIII. on that of the left. The old Parloir aux Bourgeois, or site of municipal administration, which had been in the hôtel known as the Perron des Trois-Rois in the Rue des Changes since 1571, was moved here in 1792. One wing of the building abuts on the Place des Halles, or market-place, at the corner of which is the Librairie Selleret (Petrot-Garnier), the booksellers and publishers whose name is honourably connected with most of the publications of Chartres.

The municipal rooms, hung with tapestry, are on the ground floor; the library and museum above. The library is of exceptional interest, and it is admirably arranged. Unfortunately it is only open on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 12 to 3.30 p.m. But, if the hours are short, the visitor who may wish to study the extremely rich collection of books and manuscripts, which were removed here from the surrounding monasteries during the Revolution, will find every encouragement to do so. Without credentials or explanation I have read there myself many days, and it is with grateful pleasure that I take this opportunity of acknowledging the polite attention and the ready help proffered to me, a stranger, by the Librarian and his assistants. The collection includes over 100,000 volumes, and among the thousand manuscripts six hundred are earlier than the sixteenth century, and many beautifully illuminated.