The story of S. Stephen is retold in the tympanum and the first row of the vaulting; in the next five rows are twenty-eight statuettes, representing the hierarchy of martyrs; in the sixth, the parable of the wise and foolish virgins reappears, and in the gable is S. Anne seated, holding a vase, in which is a lily, the symbol of purity.
The square pillar on the left hand, which helps to support the vaulting, gives us twenty-four scenes from the Golden Legend of the deaths of martyrs. On the east face, at the top, is S. Thomas of Canterbury, whose secretary and friend, John of Salisbury, one of the most attractive characters and typical minds of the Middle Ages, was Bishop of Chartres the last three years of his life. Among the other martyrs are several whose names occur in the story of Chartres—S. Blaise, S. Leger, S. Vincent, S. Laurence, S. Chéron; on the south face, S. John the Baptist, S. Denys of Athens, S. Saturnin, S. Piat, S. Procopius, S. Symphorian; on the west face, S. Calixtus, S. Cyprian, S. Ignatius, S. Theodore, S. Eustace, S. Gervais and S. Protais; on the north, S. Clement, S. Potentian, S. Lambert, S. Vitus and S. Modesta, S. Bacchus and S. Quentin.
The right-hand bay is devoted to the confessors, and corresponds in arrangement to that of the one we have just left. Eight large statues fill the walls; on the west, S. Nicholas, S. Ambrose, S. Léon and S. Laumer (the latter a fourteenth-century insertion); and on the right or east, S. Martin of Tours, S. Jerome, S. Gregory the Great, S. Avitus (also fourteenth century). The tympanum gives the story of the lives of S. Martin and S. Nicholas. In the vaulting above S. Léon the legend of S. Giles is told, and in the outermost row of the vaulting are ten of the Apostles, crowning five rows in which is represented the whole hierarchy of confessors—warriors, monks, laymen, priests, abbots, bishops, archbishops, kings, emperors and popes, all wearing the halo of sanctity. In the gable the Blessed Mary is seated holding a book, supported by Gabriel and another archangel.
The pier on the right gives various incidents from the lives of confessors: on the west face, S. Léon praying at the tomb of S. Peter; S. Martin blessing a man who has threatened to strike him; S. Lubin (p. 36) giving extreme unction to S. Calétric; S. Avit, Abbot of Micey, reposing; S. Anthony reading the Scriptures and a devil appearing; S. Benedict seated and reading. On the south face is S. Gregory the Great writing his commentaries, inspired by the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, and his secretary Peter behind a thick curtain; S. Remi consecrating and S. Solemnis blessing Chlovis; S. Laumer healing the Abbess Ulfrade; S. Calais or Karilef digging (the cloak in which, whilst he was working in his vineyard, a wren nested and laid an egg, is suspended from a neighbouring tree); S. Hilarion visiting S. Anthony. On the east face, S. Sylvester baptizing Constantin; S. Martin restoring a child to life near Chartres; S. Calétric visiting S. Lubin; S. Benedict blessing the poisoned cup (appearing thus for the second time on this pier, first as a hermit in the Cave of Subiaco, and now as Abbot of Vico-Varo, where the monks objecting to his strict rule vainly endeavoured to poison him); S. Lié or Lœtus of Pithiviers seated, and at his feet the owner of the forest to which the holy priest retired, and which afterwards became the site of the village Saint-Lié, in the department of Loiret. The gift of this forest to the saint as a dwelling-place is symbolised by the faggot which the owner is depositing; S. Armel exorcising a dragon; a Breton saint, born in Great Britain 482, and founder of the monastery at Plouarzel.
On the north face of the pier, S. Ambrose converting S. Augustine; S. Martin healing a deaf mute at Chartres; S. Marcel of Paris leading a dragon in his stole; S. Giles casting out a devil from a man at Athens; S. Jerome translating the Holy Scriptures; S. Martinien, the hermit of Cæsarea, with the penitent courtesan Zoe.
Above the porch, in the Gallery of the Kings of Judah, are eighteen life-size statues arrayed in the royal vestments of the time of S. Louis. They are the ancestors of Christ, and that was the only merit of some of them, as their history is given us in the Books of Chronicles and Kings. Varied in age and pose but similar in costume, they are, where they stand, sufficiently decorative, but they cannot compare with the kings and queens of the western porch.
Regarded merely as works of art, a large proportion of the two thousand odd statues in the porches of Chartres deserve almost as much praise as they excite interest. But when we consider the intentions of the artists who made them, and remember the conditions under which they were wrought, as they have been suggested in the previous chapters, we shall be able to appreciate them with a more perfect sympathy and to judge them with a broader understanding. The sculptors of the thirteenth century did not aim exclusively at sensuous beauty or at anatomical perfection, and they did not attain it. They were concerned with psychology as well as and even more than anatomy, and they strove to give by their art not only pleasure but instruction also. The perfection of the human body was not so obvious to them as the imperfection of the human soul. For them the flesh was only desirable when it exhaled the odour of virtue, when it was inspired by the sympathetic sadness which springs from the consciousness of frailty and resignation to the burdens of this life, combined with a burning desire for the eternal life to come, or when it was rendered sweet by the holy joyousness of spirit which springs from peace, pity and love. They added, then, to the science of art, the science of ideas. And if, therefore, mediæval sculpture never rose to the height of artistic perfection achieved by a Phidias or Praxiteles, yet their work remains fulfilled with a quality not possessed by any Apollo, the charm of a spiritual intelligence.
Dimensions of the Cathedral.