George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted Papers

by George Edmund Street

The ground-plan of this cathedral is, I think, altogether one of the best in France. In particular the chevet is of great beauty. The aisle round the apse, instead of being completely surrounded by chapels, has its alternate bays only so occupied, with great advantage in point of effect, both internally and externally. The arrangement is almost identical with that of the fine chevet of S. Omer cathedral, and appears to me to be a happy mean between the one chapel at the east end of Sens, and the cluster of chapels which crowd the apsidal ends of almost all the great churches in the north of France. Whilst in its plan it is more skilfully disposed than the somewhat similar chevet of Chartres, it is preferable to those of Mantes and Notre Dame, Paris, where there were no projecting apsidal chapels,[15] or Bourges, where they are so small as to produce no effect.

The north-west tower (that of S. Romain), should be ascended, if only to examine the framework of the roof and for the bells, and to note, among other things, the open wooden staircase in its upper stage. The view, too, of the city is finely seen; and I know few cities that reward more bountifully any trouble taken in the attempt to see them in this way. A city it is, indeed, of desecrated churches, but still a city whose situation on the noble river winding here under great chalk hills, and there along the edge of meadows green, flat and extensive, fringed with long perspective lines of poplars, is as beautiful and as happy as it can well be.

It is not a long walk from Rouen to S. Georges de Boscherville, and the view from the hill at Chanteleu is one of the best near Rouen. The church is but of slight interest, though its flamboyant tower, with a grand open western arch, forms a fine sort of porch, and indicates a variety which might sometimes be introduced among ourselves with advantage. S. Georges de Boscherville is too well known to require description but if others have formed the same conception of it that I had, they will thank me for saying that the chapter-house is an exquisite example of the earliest pointed work, full of delicate and beautiful detail. The three western arches are circular, but not Romanesque in their character; some of their capitals have foliage, some sculpture of figures, and the thickness of the wall is supported by a miniature sexpartite vault. The vaulting of the chapter-house is also sexpartite, with additional cells at the east and west end to accommodate similar triplets. As I have before said, there is much in the detail of parts of this building, which indicates the same school as the early-pointed work at Rouen. The chapter-house is a parallelogram, fifty-four feet in length by twenty-four feet nine inches in width, and groined in three bays. Some of the western entrance shafts are elaborately carved. The vault inside is coloured buff, and diapered with red lines in a small regular pattern all over.

Between Rouen and Mantes, a pause of a few hours at Pont de l’Arche enabled me to see the interesting remains of the abbey of Bonport. The refectory is nearly perfect, and there is a great deal of simple quadripartite vaulting remaining throughout the modern-looking farm-house. But of the church, the bases of one or two columns, and one respond alone remain, and these of an excellence of design which make it very much to be regretted that it should have been destroyed. The groined refectory, of five bays in length, is well worthy of a visit. The side windows are of two lancet lights, with a circle above, and at the north end is a window of four equal lancets, with small cusped openings above. The south end and entrance from the cloister are modernized. The pulpit staircase is perfect, and very ingeniously contrived; but the pulpit itself is destroyed. Among the buildings, which are of considerable extent, are some admirable examples of domestic windows; and, to conclude, the whole is of the very best early thirteenth-century style.

The church at Pont de l’Arche is one of those ambitious but very picturesque buildings, of which we have no counterpart. It is flamboyant in style, very lofty, and intended for groining throughout. This, however, was never completed, and there is a coved wooden ceiling in its place. A good deal of late stained glass, of very poor detail, exists in the windows, the subject of one of them being the Tree of Jesse.

Of the ancient bridge over the Seine, at Pont de l’Arche, not a vestige, I think, now remains.

The cathedral at Mantes is in many ways of much interest. Your readers are, no doubt, well acquainted with Notre Dame, Paris, and with the singular changes which have been effected in it from time to time. In Mantes, I believe they may see almost the same kind of conception, left with such slight alterations as do not in any way conceal the original design. It is therefore of special value.

I have already referred to the western doors. They are much mutilated, and the south-west door was replaced in the fourteenth century by an immense and conceited composition of a doorway with pediment and flanking pinnacles which is very damaging to the general effect of the façade. The remainder of the front is uniform first-pointed, with two steeples connected by an open screen as at Paris. The north-west tower has been already nearly rebuilt, and the south-west tower is now suffering from the same process, “suffering” I say, because I believe firmly that the original design is being annihilated. In both the belfry stage, which rises above the screen between the towers, is now much smaller than the stage below; nothing can look much worse than such a sudden diminution in size, and I am convinced that the original intention must have been (as at Laon) to continue the shafts and arcading which surround the lower stage up to the top. I made as careful an examination of the work as was possible, and have hardly a shadow of doubt that this was the case; but whether the authorities did not know the glorious steeples of Laon, or whether they have a view of their own as to what looks best, they are certainly making the upper part of this unfortunate west front look as modern in its outline and meagre in its character as it is new and fresh-looking in its colour. It were better that old work perished altogether, than that it should be scraped, re-chiselled, cleaned and modernized in this heartless manner!

The most noticeable feature of the interior is the treatment of the triforium of the eastern portion of the church. This is groined with a succession of transverse barrel-vaults, the effect of which is to give an immense addition of strength to the main walls. They spring from the capitals of a succession of detached shafts which are placed across the triforium, so that the perspective of its interior is singularly picturesque. It was not very long after the erection of the church that the western portion of the triforium was altered, a quadripartite vault being substituted for the barrel vaulting, and wherever this has been done, the thrust has been too great for the principal groining shafts, which have bulged considerably, and are now held in place by iron ties. In the apse, the bays being of necessity much wider on one side than on the other, the ridge of the barrel-vault rises rapidly towards the external wall: and the triforium is lighted by a succession of immense simple circular windows. The internal elevation of one bay of this cathedral is nearly identical with the original design of that of Paris, though simple and (I fancy) rather earlier in date; but from the shortness of the church and the absence of transepts (in which one point it reminds me of the fine church of S. Leu d’Esserent) it has both inside and outside the effect rather of a choir only than of a complete cathedral. There are various additions to the church of later date, which add much to its picturesque character, especially a chapel on the south side, the chapels round the apse, and the sacristies on the north side. The stone roof above the groining of one of these is remarkable. The arrangement of coloured tiles on the roof is one of the best I have seen. The pattern is rather complicated, and is formed with dark tiles (green and black used indiscriminately) on a ground of yellowish tiles.

The church from the apse to the western towers consists of but three bays of sexpartite vaulting, each bay covering two bays of the main arcades. Between the towers is one bay of quadripartite vaulting.