George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted Papers

by George Edmund Street

There is much matter for careful study in the interior; among other things may be noticed the remarkably fine and large corbels supporting the groining shafts in the eastern part of the nave, adorned with figures of the prophets bearing scrolls and still retaining traces of their old colouring; and again, the very beautiful sculpture of some of the early capitals near the western end of the nave, and on either side of the great western doorway. In the windows of the apse are some small remains of fine early glass.

Among the other architectural remains in Rheims is the church of S. Maurice, consisting of a Romanesque nave and aisles, and a lofty groined flamboyant choir, the west front of good character, having small buttresses supported on shafts on each side of the central door, and separating the western triplet of broad lancets above the doorway. The rest of the church is very uninteresting.

There is also the church of S. Jacques, whose west front has the unusual feature of a sham gable on either side of the real central gable.[27] These gables are above the aisles, and completely conceal their roofs and the clerestory. The nave is of early-pointed date, but very much altered; only the two eastern bays appearing to retain the original triforium and clerestory,—the latter a lancet with internal jamb-shafts, which are continued into the triforium and form a portion of the arcades of four pointed arches which occupy each bay,—an arrangement very similar to that of the clerestory of S. Remi. These two bays are groined with a sexpartite vault, which is slightly domical in its longitudinal section. The alternate piers in the nave consist of coupled columns of very solid character, and with very deep capitals. Some of these columns are regularly fluted. The rest of the nave has been much altered in the fourteenth century, whilst the choir is flamboyant, with aisles of Renaissance style, but groined in stone. The crossing is surmounted by a very large flèche of timber covered with lead, almost completely modernized, but showing still some large three-light windows of middle-pointed style.

The Maison des Musiciens, in the Rue de Tambour, is a well-known example of excessively good domestic architecture of the thirteenth century.

From Rheims I made my way by railway to Châlons-sur-Marne, where I was rewarded by the sight of one of the most interesting churches I have ever seen, that of Notre Dame, and of a cathedral of inferior interest. It was the more gratifying to find such really fine work just on the extreme borders of the country to which French influence extended, and beyond which to the eastward the churches appear to be entirely German in their style.

The points of resemblance between Notre Dame de Châlons and the church of S. Remi at Rheims are too obvious to be overlooked. The planning and the general design and detail of their chevets are precisely similar, though the scale of Notre Dame is considerably smaller than that of S. Remi. The former church has however the great advantage of being of the same character throughout, wonderfully little damaged by time, and singularly fortunate among French churches in being under the care of a priest, M. Champenois, whose zeal and enthusiasm for his beautiful church is equalled by the care and skill with which he has himself carried out its restoration. It is the most conservative restoration I have as yet seen in France; it could not be more conservative, and hence it is impossible that it could be better. M. Champenois feels that every stone is a deposit entrusted to him, and I would that we saw signs of such zeal as his rather oftener in the French clergy. Unfortunately, it seems to be too generally the case that they take no interest whatever in the churches which they serve. They have been taught to look to the government as the owner and restorer of all religious buildings, and they have ceased to concern themselves about either the security of their fabrics or the character of their fittings and decorations. Fortunate indeed is it for us in England that the State is not so careful for us as it is in France, for then we should see here, just as we do there, a people utterly careless of the noble buildings which surround them, in place of—as we do here—a people whose love for their old monuments is enhanced and in part created by the fact that they are themselves perpetually invited to help in their restoration and repair.

The church of Notre Dame consists of a nave and aisle of seven bays in length, transepts, and a very short apsidal choir (an apse of seven sides), with an aisle and chapels planned like those of S. Remi, beyond it. There are four towers, two at the west ends of the aisles, and two in the angles between the transepts and the choir. The triforium throughout is large, lofty, and groined. As at S. Remi, the external effect of this church is much inferior to the internal effect. It is rather too heavy and ungainly, and savours much of the character of German Romanesque work. The four towers have the defect of being almost exactly alike, of four stages, richly adorned with round-arched arcades, and rising hardly at all above the level of the ridges of the roof. The south-west tower retains its fine leaded spire, with four tall pinnacles at its base, and a cluster of eight spire-lights about midway: it is an exquisite example of lead-work, and still more precious to us as affording evidence of the extraordinary extent to which decoration was sometimes carried in the Middle Ages. The pinnacles at the base still retain distinct traces of decoration on the lead, each side having a large crocketed canopy, below which is a gigantic figure, in one case of an archer with a bow. The whole is done in white and black only, the ground being the dark lead on which the white lines seem to have been marked by a process of tinning or soldering. It is a kind of decoration which we may well attempt to revive. A spire very similar to the other has recently been erected on the north-west tower, and the western front is now therefore quite in its old state, and singularly well does it look. I almost doubt whether the addition of similar spires to the two eastern towers, for which the Curé is now collecting funds, will really improve the look of the church. With four steeples, it is well that two at least should be pre-eminent, which is the present state of the case; whilst the completion of the others would reduce all to the character of mere turrets—a result not to be desired. The variety of string-courses and cornices throughout the exterior of this church, all filled with sculpture of foliage, gives a very ornate character to the external detail.

The principal entrance is by the south door of the nave. This has been cruelly damaged, indeed nearly destroyed, but what remains is of great interest, owing to its very close resemblance to the noble western doorways of Rouen cathedral; the doorway is double, with eight shafts in each jamb, the alternate shafts having figures in front of them, as in the west doorways of Chartres; whilst the tympanum is similar also, having a figure of our Lord, surrounded by the emblems of the four Evangelists. Portions of archivolt enrichments and other sculpture have been dug up in the neighbourhood of this doorway and carefully preserved, and they appear to me, by their vigour and grandeur of character, to be undoubtedly the work of the same artist, and possibly portions of this once magnificent but now woefully mutilated entrance.

It is in the interior, however, of this church that the effect is finest and the architecture most noble. The whole is very uniform in character throughout, marked by great solidity of construction and proportion, and by the boldness and distinctness of all its architectural detail. The triforium throughout opens with two arches enclosed within another, the spandrels being unpierced, and throughout the church it is groined; nor must I forget to say, that at the present day the spacious area it affords is turned to some account; for, when I was there, on one side they were making the organ pipes, on the other constructing the organ, and in another part the carpenters were busy upon the organ case; and the Curé assured me that he not only had the satisfaction of seeing everything executed in the best possible way, but at the same time there was no inconvenience, and no want of reverence, on the part of the workmen. The clerestory consists throughout of lancet windows, the lower portions of which are filled in with an arcade in the manner I have described in the choir of S. Remi, at Rheims. The sculpture throughout this church, though almost entirely confined to foliage, is very instructive, and at the same time a little puzzling; for we see almost side by side work of the best Byzantine character—almost rivalling the sculpture we see in Venice—and distinctly thirteenth century French work, whilst the building itself shows no corresponding diversity, and I can only suppose, either that the sculpture was in hand much longer than the building of the church, or that two sets of sculptors were at work, the one educated in a Byzantine school, the other influenced by the more developed school of the Île de France.

I have said enough, I trust, to induce others to examine carefully this very interesting church; it is valuable as being a little in advance of the most perfect period of the French pointed style, and as being much more instructive, therefore, than a building which, like the cathedral at Rheims, is in the main a little after the most perfect period, and full, therefore, of symptoms of decline, instead of promise of advance.