[193] From Saumur, eight miles down the Loire, can be visited the magnificent Romanesque church at Cunault, XI and XII centuries. It has noticeable capitals, mural paintings, and Plantagenet vaults with sculptured keystones and figurines. Two miles below it lies Gennes, whose church has Angevin vaults of the First Period. To be reached, via Doué-la-Fontaine, are both Puy-Notre-Dame and Asnières, the latter called “the most beautiful ruin in Anjou.” Its square-ended XIII-century choir resembles St. Serge’s. Slender pillars divide that wide chevet into three aisles of equal height, composing one of the most graceful specimens of the school’s Third Period. One arm of the transept has heavy diagonals of the first phase, and over the other are the eight-branch type. The Huguenots wrecked Asnières in 1569. The present nave is a restitution. A society of artists saved the choir and transept from demolition.

The abbatial of Puy-Notre-Dame is very beautiful. Heavy diagonals of the First Period cover the transept’s south arm; eight-branch vaults cover the nave and the transept’s north limb; over the choir, which resembles St. Jean’s chevet at Saumur, is a much-ramified Plantagenet vault. The lofty side aisles and clustered piers make this interior one of the best of XIII-century Angevin works extant. At St. Germain-sur-Vienne (Indre-et-Loire), two miles from Candes, the choir has the complicated multiple-ribbed vault of the Third Period, with three lines of keystones.

Congrès Archéologique, 1910, p. 128, Cunault and Gennes; p. 65, Puy-Notre-Dame and Asnières; E. de Lorière, “Asnières-sur-Vègre,” in Revue hist. et archéol. du Maine, 1904, p. 95.

[194] At the battle of Jargeau, Jeanne reminded the duke of her promise. D’Alençon himself has related the episode: “Je lui fis observer que c’était aller bien vite en besogne que d’attaquer si promptement: ‘Soyez sans crainte,’ me dit-elle, ‘l’heure est bonne quand il plaît à Dieu, il faut besoigner quand s’est sa volonté: agissez, Dieu agira! Ah, gentil duc,’ me dit-elle quelques instants après, ‘aurais-tu peur? Ne sait-tu pas que j’ai promis à ta femme de te ramener sain et sauf?’” Alas, for the deterioration of character brought about in those troubled years of foreign invasion and misrule; Jeanne’s gentil duc was later to plot with the English and to be impeached.

At Chinon are specimens of Plantagenet Gothic (Bulletin Monumental, 1869). In the Loire-et-Cher department are some fourteen churches of the school. The other Plantagenet monuments usually seen by the traveler before his arrival in Angou are the eight-branch vaults at Vendôme, in the transept of the Trinité; the vault under the northwest tower of Tours Cathedral; and in Le Mans, the cathedral nave and the church of the Couture. At Mouliherne (Seine-et-Loire) every type of the Plantagenet development is present.

Congrès Archéologique, 1910, vol. 1, p. 130, “St. Florent-les-Saumur,” André Rhein; vol. 2, “Les voûtes de l’église de Mouliherne,” André Rhein; p. 247, “Les influences angevines sur les églises gothiques du Blésois et du Vendômois,” F. Leseur.

[195] Congres Archéologique, 1910, p. 33, André Rhein, on Candes; Abbé Bourassé, “Notice historique et archéologique sur l’église de Candes,” in Mémoires de la Soc. archéol. de Touraine, 1845, p. 141; Suppligeon, Notices sur la ville et la collégiale de Candes (Tours, 1885).

[196] Congrès Archéologique, 1843, 1884, and 1903, “Poitiers,” André Rhein; H. L. de la Mauvinière, Poitiers et Angoulême (Collection, Villes d’art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1908); Abbé Auber, Histoire de la cathédrale de Poitiers (Poitiers, 1849), 2 vols.; ibid., Histoire civile, relig. et littéraire du Poitou (Poitiers, 1856), 8 vols.; J. Berthelé, Recherches pour servir à l’histoire des arts en Poitou; Alfred Richard, Histoire des comtes du Poitou, 788-1204 (Paris, Picard et fils, 1903), 2 vols.; Dreux-Duradier, Histoire littéraire du Poitou; Alexis Forel, Voyage au pays des sculpteurs romans (Paris and Geneva, 1913), 2 vols.; Raynouard, Choix des poésies originales des troubadours (Paris, Didot, 1816), vol. 5, “Richard Cœur-de-Lion”; R. P. Largent, St. Hilaire de Poitiers (Collection, Les Saints), (Paris, Lecoffre); J. Robuchon, Paysages et monuments du Poitou (Paris, 1890-1903), folio; (on Poitiers, Mgr. Barbier de Montault); Benj. Fillon, Poitou et Vendée; A. J. de H. Bushnell, Storied Windows (New York, Macmillan Company, 1914); Boissonnade, Le Poitou (Collection, Les régions de la France), (Paris, Cerf, 1920).

[197] The Vexilla regis prodeunt hymn is sung on Good Friday when the Blessed Sacrament is carried from the Repository to the main altar, and as a vesper hymn from the Saturday before Passion Sunday to Maundy Thursday. It has also been incorporated in the Roman Breviary for feasts of the Holy Cross. There have been a host of translations. In his Medieval Hymns and Sequences, London, 1813, Dr. J. M. Neale thus rendered the first quatrain:

“The royal banners forward go.
The cross shines forth with mystic glow,
Where He in flesh, our flesh Who made,
Our sentence bore, our ransom paid.”