THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. POL-DE-LÉON[383]
O Dieu qui nous créas ou guerriers ou poètes,
Sur la côte marins, et pâtres dans les champs,
Sous les vils intérêts ne courbe pas nos têtes;
Ne fais pas des Bretons un peuple de marchands.
J’ai vu, par l’avarice ennuyés et vieillis,
Des barbares sans foi, sans cœur, sans espérance,
Et, l’amour m’inspirait, j’ai chanté mon pays.
—A. Brizeux, L’élégie de la Bretagne.
The most complete Gothic monument of Brittany is the whilom cathedral of St. Pol-de-Léon, one of the few important churches of the Middle Ages to be entirely carried out, with spired towers, and porches for the different needs of soul and body, one for catechumens, another for lepers. Its choir and nave differ strikingly in color and quality of stone. The nave of yellow sandstone was built first, and is decidedly the most artistic portion of the edifice. The florid Gothic choir is of gray granite.
As the XIII century closed the nave was begun, continuing building up to the dire times of the Hundred Years’ War. It has the Norman traits of sculptured bands of academic design below triforium and clearstory, trefoils cut in the spandrels of arches, multiple arch molds, each with its own support, and a circulation passage beneath the upper windows. The triforium was begun elaborately, with much foliate decoration, but economy soon forced the architect to adopt a simpler plan. The nave’s south aisle is double beyond the fourth bay where a porch opens, and the stones show that the outer aisle was originally a separate chamber, converted during the XV century into a passageway.
The Flamboyant Gothic choir, that lacks the harmony and elegance of the nave, was built from 1439 to 1472. Chapel has been added to chapel, aisle to aisle, with the profusion loved by the Breton, who would press into God’s service every foot of free land around his presbytery. The transept of the XII and XIII centuries was radically reconstructed during the late-Gothic day, retaining vestiges only of its Romanesque and early-Gothic work. It is doubtless to such repeated modelings that some of the buttresses fail to correspond to columns and vault shafts.
During a siege of St. Pol-de-Léon by the English, the church called the Kreisker, “center of the city,” was injured. When rebuilt, from 1345 to 1399, there was erected, between its nave and choir, carried merely on open arches, a grandiose tower modeled on Caen’s belfry of St. Pierre, as had been the twin towers of St. Pol’s cathedral, lesser in height than “the Kreisker.” The deeply recessed lancet openings in each face of the giant beacon serve the practical purpose of buttresses. Few cities can show three such brave towers as this little Breton town. “The Kreisker,” mantled in golden lichen, is the pride of every Breton. So sure is its poise, so supple and strong, that for centuries all the wild storms of the ocean have swept unheeded through its open stonework spire. The popular songs love to extol it:
Je suis natif du Finistère,
A Saint-Pol j’ai reçu le jour,
Mon clocher est l’plus beau d’la terre,
Mon pays l’plus beau d’alentour;
Rendez-moi ma bruyère et mon clocher à jour!
St. Pol received its name from another exile of Britain, and the good man’s little bell is rung on the days of Pardon, over the heads of the people, who believe it can cure maladies of the mind. The Revolution tried to change the town’s name to Port Pol, but the traditionalists and the independents that are the Bretons soon reverted to their St. Pol-de-Léon.
THE CATHEDRAL OF TRÉGUIER[384]
Une, deux génerations peuvent oublier la Loi, se rendre coupable de tous les abandons, de toutes les ingratitudes. Mais il faut bien, à l’heure marquée que la chaine soit reprise et que la petite lampe vacillante brille de nouveau dans la maison.