CHAPTER V.
THE TRANSEPTS AND THE CHOIR.
The austere character of the nave emphasises the splendid decorations of the eastern parts. No massive screen prevents our seeing the church from the great entrance to the apse. The fact that the choir is open possibly lessens our sense of mystery and of awe, but we are more than compensated by the splendid view of the building from end to end.
The irritating custom of railing off the eastern limb of the church and demanding a fee for admission happily does not obtain at Notre Dame. It is all but universal in England, and renders an intelligent appreciation of the architectural history of our great churches a matter of some difficulty. At Paris one may wander where one will, so long as one does not interrupt the offices. That pompous and irresponsible chatterer the cathedral verger does not impose himself upon us, and disturb our study and diminish our pleasure, as he does in churches on this side the Channel. Only the Sacristy need be visited in the company of an official.
The transepts of French cathedrals are rarely such important features as they are in those of this country. The vast church of Bourges has no transepts at all. At Noyon, as at Paris, the transepts have no aisles. Of the crossing and transepts at Paris Viollet-le-Duc and Guilhermy write as follows:
“At the four angles of the crossing, massive piers, some covered with combined pilasters, others with clustered columns, rise without a break from the ground to the vaulting. The two transepts at the outset were only of two bays similar to those of the nave. They were lengthened by a shallower bay when the façades were rebuilt. The later bays are easily distinguished from the four older ones. Thin round vaulting-ribs cross at a crown deeper and more pronounced than those of the older parts. The north and south doors are set in a rich arcading, of which the divisions and the tympanums can be compared to nothing more fitly than a large window with mullions. In the south transept, statues more or less mutilated, representing Christ and the saints, remain at the points of the gables. In describing the exterior of the façades we pointed out the open gallery which extends the whole breadth of each transept, and the great rose window a little above it. The exterior arcading of the gallery is repeated by a similar arcading inside. There is a passage between the two rows of little columns, and there is another above this. The effect of the rose windows in the interior, with glowing stained glass in all their compartments, recalls the marvellous descriptions that Dante has given us of the circles of Paradise. The incomparable splendour alternately astonishes and enchants us. To decorate the side walls of his bays, Jean de Chelles continued the arcading and the mullioned windows.”
The vaulting and the rose of the south transept were repaired between the years 1725 and 1728 by Boffrand, the king’s architect, at the expense of Cardinal de Noailles. The pair of arches leading to the choir aisles with their elaborate crocketed canopies are somewhat feebly contrived in both transepts. The clustered shafts are clumsily arranged. The details on the north side differ from those on the south. On the east and west sides of both transepts there are two narrow bays of the triforium. The clerestory consists of short pointed windows with wheel windows beneath them. This is due to Viollet-le-Duc, and is intended to show us the arrangement which obtained throughout the church previous to the alterations which resulted from the fire in the thirteenth century.[12]
[12] In his “Paris” (London, Edward Arnold, 1900), Mr. Hilaire Belloc thus refers to the fire of 1218: “In 1218 a happy accident gave us the incomparable unity which the Cathedral alone possesses among mediæval monuments; for in that year, on the eve of the Assumption, four inspired thieves climbed into the roof-tree and warily let down ropes with slip-knots to lasso the silver candlesticks on the altar. These they snared, but as they pulled them up the lights set fire to the hangings that were stretched for the feasts, and the fire spread to the whole choir.” The writer gives no authority for this story.
