George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted Papers

by George Edmund Street

Walking from Mantes across the river to the suburb of Limay, a fine view is obtained of the town and cathedral, which shows here the whole picturesque exaggeration of height as compared with length which distinguishes it. Limay church boasts of nothing save a tower and spire on the south side, of late Romanesque character throughout. The surface of the spire is covered with scalloping, and has spire-lights and fine pinnacles at its base. Some attached shafts against the face of the belfry stage, which seem to serve no purpose, are curious as being probably the type from which some similarly placed shafts in the steeples of the cathedral were derived. Here too, as in the cathedral, a most effective form of label is used, the section of which is a square cut out into diamonds like unpierced dogteeth. We see the same thing in England, and among other examples there is a good one at Lanercost. Its effect is singularly bold and piquant.

A mile on the other side of Mantes is the little village of Gassiecourt, whose cross church is of much interest. The glass in the three chancel windows is fine, and of late thirteenth-century date. The east window of four lights with twenty-five subjects has been restored, and two of the subjects—the thirteenth and eighteenth—have been quite wrongly placed. The window represents the whole Passion of our Lord. The side windows of two lights contain large figures under canopies of the early part of the thirteenth century, in a sad state, but of very considerable value. The east window of the south transept has subjects from the lives of S. Laurence and another. The internal arrangement is remarkable; the fifteenth century stalls, with subsellae and returns, being placed in the two eastern bays of the nave, leaving three bays to the west. The old altar remains in the east wall of the north transept. The walls and roof of the south transept are covered with painting; on the roof are four angels with the instruments of the Passion, one in each division of the groining; the west wall has a painting of the Last Judgement, and the east large figures on each side of the east window; on the soffit of the arch into the tower are angels playing on musical instruments. The whole appears to have been painted in the fifteenth century, and, though of no great artistic merit, is of value in France, where, as in England, such things are very rare. A grand Romanesque west doorway, and a simple gabled central tower with a good belfry stage are the principal external features of this interesting village church.

Before I conclude, I must say a few words as to the evidence of popular feeling in regard to pointed architecture in France. It is partly, doubtless, owing to the fact that all the great churches are national property, and entirely sustained by the State, that we miss so entirely any of that evidence of personal and widely spread interest in them, which so honourably distinguishes most people in our own country. But descending to the second and inferior classes of churches, we find unfortunately the same apathy, the same neglect: so that a tour among French village churches would leave an impression on the mind of any Englishman that the clergy and laity are alike careless of their fate and ignorant of their value. One of the very few village churches which I have seen in process of restoration was being done by order of the Emperor, and by a rate imposed upon the commune, aided by an imperial grant; but there, as elsewhere, the repair was entirely confined to the fabric; and pews, pavements, altars,—all remain still in their old state, ugly, dirty, and uncared for. I must make honourable exception in favour of one large parish church, Notre Dame, Châlons-sur-Marne, where, with the greatest care and love for the building committed to his charge, the excellent curé is carrying on a restoration which appears to me to be by very far the best and most faithful that I have seen on the Continent. I have seen, I grieve to say, but little evidence of any practical love on the part of the people or the clergy for their glorious churches, but I will let M. Viollet-le-Duc—than whom who can be a better judge?—say what can be said as to the real impression which they produce:—

“Dépouillés aujourd’hui, mutilées par le temps et la main des hommes, méconnues pendant plusieurs siècles par les successeurs de ceux qui les avaient élevées, nos cathédrales apparaissent au milieu de nos villes populeuses, comme de grands cercueils; cependant elles inspirent toujours aux populations un sentiment de respect inaltérable; à certains jours de solemnités publiques, elles reprennent leur voix, une nouvelle jeunesse, et ceux mêmes qui répétaient, la veille, sous leurs voûtes, que ce sont là des monuments d’un autre âge sans signification aujourd’hui, sans raison d’exister, les trouvent belles encore dans leur vieillesse et leur pauvreté.”

II

Leaving Paris for Beauvais, the first station at which I stopped was l’Isle Adam, from whence a walk of two or three miles by the banks of the Oise brought me to the fine village church of Champagne. This is very unlike an English village church in its general scheme, but full of interest. In plan it consists of a groined nave and aisles, of six bays, a central tower with a square chancel of one bay, and transepts with apsidal projections from their eastern walls. The date of the whole church (with the exception of the tower arches, which must have been either rebuilt or very much altered in the fifteenth century) is about the end of the twelfth century. It is now undergoing repair at the joint expense of the Emperor and the commune, but this is being done in so careless a manner that it is to be hoped it will not proceed further than is absolutely necessary for the security of the fabric. The western façade has a very singular doorway, the tympanum of which is pierced with a window of six cusps, whilst the abacus of the capitals is carried across the tympanum, and a square-headed door pierced below. Above is a large wheel window of twelve lights. The aisles are lighted with lancets, whilst the clerestory has a succession of circular windows, which internally form part of the same composition as the triforium, the lower part being an unpierced arcade. The chancel is lighted at the east with a circular window enclosed within a pointed arch and on either side with early geometrical windows of two lights. The finest feature is the steeple, which rises in two stages above the roofs. The belfry stage is excessively lofty and elegant in its proportions, having two windows of two lights in each face divided by a cluster of shafts, whilst other clusters of shafts at the angles of the tower run up to a rich corbel-table and cornice, under the eaves of the roof. The finish is a hipped saddle-back roof of steep pitch and covered with slate.

Internally the most rare feature is a very light cusped stone arch of flamboyant character, with pierced spandrils, which spans the western arch of the tower, and no doubt originally carried the Rood. The capitals in the nave are boldly carved, and carry the groining shafts, which are clusters of three. At the west end of the north aisle, and projecting beyond the façade of the church, is the ruin of a small gabled chapel, the object of which I did not understand.

Altogether this church, owing to its fine character, and the retention of almost all its original features and proportions unaltered, deserves to be known and visited by all ecclesiologists, who travel along the north-of-France railway to Paris. A few miles farther on the left rises the fine church of S. Leu, which I have known for a long time, and which deserves, as I think, very much more notice and study than it appears to have received. The plan, situation, details, and style (early first-pointed) are all alike of the best, and I know few, even among French churches, which impress me more strongly with the thorough goodness and nobility of their style. The east end of the church rises from the precipitous edge of a rock, which elevates the whole building finely above the level of the riant valley of the Oise. It was attached, I believe, to a Benedictine abbey, the other buildings of which are all in a most advanced state of decay. The church fortunately, though much out of repair, and in some points altered into flamboyant, is nevertheless sufficiently perfect for all purposes of study. It consists in plan of two western towers (the north-west tower being only in part built) then six bays of nave and aisles, three bays of choir, and an apse (circular on plan) of seven bays; round the apse is the procession path, and four chapels, also circular on plan, lighted by two windows, so that one of the groining shafts is placed opposite the centre of the arch into each, and over the altars. In place of the fifth chapel on the north side, a circular recess is formed in the external wall of the procession path, so as to make space for an altar without forming a distinct chapel. I should be disposed to say that this was the original scheme of the church, afterwards altered and much improved by the substitution of larger and distinct chapels.[16] The central chapel of the apse has the unusual feature of another chapel above it, on a level with the triforium, adding much to the picturesque effect of the east end. In addition to the western steeples there are gabled towers which rise above the aisles on each side of the choir, and the church is remarkable, like the church at Mantes, for the absence of transepts. Perhaps, as the internal length is not quite two hundred feet, this is of some advantage to the general effect. A considerable change has at some time been effected in the external appearance of the east end, for on examination I found that each bay of the triforium was formerly lighted by two lancet windows between the clerestory and the roof over the aisles. My impression is, that this must have been altered when the chapels round the apse were erected and within a very short time of the original construction of the church; but whatever the reason, the church has lost much by the alteration. The six bays of the nave appear to have been built after the west end and the choir. The latter has a noble very early-pointed doorway, rich in chevron ornament, and this seems to have had a porch gabled north and south between the towers so as not to interfere with the window in the west wall of the nave. The south-west tower and spire, though small in proportion to the height of the nave, are of elaborate character. All the arches are round, and there are two nearly similar stages for the belfry. The spire has large rolls at the angles and in the centre of each face (an arrangement seen at Chartres and Vendôme) but in addition it has the peculiarity of detached shafts, standing clear of the rolls on the spire and held by occasional bands. They have a certain kind of quaint picturesqueness of effect, but were never, I think, imitated elsewhere. The whole face of the spire is notched over with lines of chevroned scalloping. On entering the church the first thing that is remarked is the excessive width of the nave (thirty-six feet between the columns) compared to that of the aisles (about twelve feet). The result is, that a grand unbroken area is obtained for worshippers, whilst the aisles appear to be simply passage-ways. The general proportion of the building is, however, rather too low in proportion for its great width. Almost all the arches throughout the church are, more or less, stilted, and with the best possible effect. When the eye is thoroughly accustomed to this it is curious to notice how unsatisfactory any other form of arch is. The fact is, that a curve which commences immediately from its marked point of support is never so fine as where it rises even a few inches perpendicularly before it springs. The capitals throughout the church are finely carved, and those round the apse are of immense size, and crown circular shafts of very delicate proportions, much as at Mantes, and (though on a heavier scale) at Notre Dame, Paris. The construction of this part is of the very boldest character, and exemplifies in a very striking manner the extreme skill in construction to which the architects of the day had arrived.

Great effect is produced by the profusion of chevron and nail-head ornament used on the exterior of the church; a double course of the former of the very simplest kind forms the cornice under all the eaves, and is also used down the edges of all the flying buttresses. On the north side of the nave there still remains a portion of the cloisters, of fine early character; two sides only remain, with a room of the same date with groining resting on detached shafts. Some remains of gateways in the old walls of the abbey are worth noticing, as also the old walls which surround the church, built for the most part against the rock on which it stands, with here and there very small openings, which make them look as though they were intended for defence. Whilst I was in the church some boys came to toll the passing-bell. They said that they always did so on Fridays, at three o’clock.[17]

I saw nothing between S. Leu and Beauvais, though in the part of France bordering on the Oise, I believe that every village would afford something worth seeing in its church. My time, however, was limited.