‘A Chartres prist en la cité
Un feu qui ne fu pas a geus,
Car trop fu grant et domageus ...
Moult fu grant douleur dou veoir
Telle iglise ardoir et cheoir.’
It is worth while to quote this and other accounts because the patriotic desire to see in the present building the Cathedral of Fulbert has led to some unpardonable garbling of evidence, with a view to concealing the fact of this fire.
Guillaume-le-Breton, who died in 1226, records in his Latin poem, ‘The Philippide,’ written in honour of King Philippe-Auguste, that the church was burnt at this time. ‘It was so ordered,’ he infers, ‘in order that the present church might be built and shine in its unequalled splendour.[66] For the former one was not yet worthy to be called the “mestre maison de Marie.” Completely rebuilt of hewn stone, and covered throughout its whole length by a roof as it had been by the shell of a tortoise, it now need have nothing to fear from fire till the day of judgment. And from that fire springeth the salvation of the many by whose efforts the Cathedral was rebuilt.’
The account of another contemporary, William of Newbridge, the chronicler of the wars of Philippe-Auguste and of our Richard, whose lion-heart lies in the tomb at the Cathedral of Rouen, gives another explanation of the burning, and incidentally throws a vivid light upon the state of the country at that time.
‘The troops of King Philippe,’ he says, ‘had retired precipitately from Évreux on the approach of King Richard. Now the King of the French, to wipe out the dishonour of this shameful retreat, threw himself with implacable fury on Évreux, which he had already sacked a short time before. He did not even spare the Church of S. Taurin, so famous in that country. He gave orders, indeed, that it should be given to the flames, and, as no one in his army would, for fear of God, execute so sacrilegious a command, the King himself, it is said, with some abandoned men called Ribauds, entered the sacred edifice and set fire to it. It is said, further, that he transferred to Chartres the spoils of the Church of S. Taurin; but these spoils were as fire to that famous city. It fell, in consequence, a prey to the flames, and was almost completely destroyed.’
All the inhabitants of the town, we learn from the author of the Book of Miracles, clergy and laymen alike, lost all their houses and their wealth in this disastrous conflagration. Yet their distress at their own losses was as nothing compared with their grief at the destruction of the church. But when the Sainte Châsse, containing the precious relic which they called
‘la gemme
Et la gloire de leur cité’
could no more be seen, their sorrow passed all bounds. Bitter tears filled their eyes, and they cried aloud that the glory of Chartres and of the whole country side was departed. They despaired of their town, and were ready to quit forever the homes which they no longer had the heart to rebuild.
But the legate of the Pope, Mélior, Cardinal of Pisa, who happened to be at Chartres, summoned the bishop and Chapter, and called upon them to take courage and to begin rebuilding their Cathedral. He exhorted them to fast and pray that their sins, which had brought upon them this calamity, might be forgiven, and to set an example to the laity by emptying their purses,
‘Por loer ovriers et maçons
Qui sache bien et tout ovrer.’