George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted Papers

by George Edmund Street

At the foot of the flight of steps which leads up to the picturesque entrance of this little chapel are the remains of a small detached building, probably a residence for a sacristan or priest.

Very near the Aiguille of S. Michel is a curious chapel. It is an octagon, with an apse projecting from the eastern face, the octagon covered with an octagonal domical vault, and the apse with a semi-dome. The walls are arcaded inside and out below the vault, the internal arches springing from engaged shafts in the angles. Some of the arches outside are cusped in the usual way, the cusping not starting from the cap with a quarter-circle, but with a half-circle, the same as all the rest. There are doors in the west and north sides, with tympana filled in with mosaic, and the wall in the spandrels between the arches outside is also inlaid. The exterior of the apse is not visible, but I found, on making my way into the cottage and barn built against it, that it is perfect and undamaged. The popular opinion at Le Puy is that the chapel is an ancient temple of Diana, a fiction which a minute’s examination destroys. M. Didron maintains that it was a mortuary chapel, and he refers to the chapel of S. Croix, at Montmajour, as an example akin to this. M. Mérimée, on the other hand, says that the Templars had property in the Faubourg de l’Aiguille, and compares it to the similar oratory of the Templars at Metz, and he might have added the curious Templars’ church at Laon as another case in point.[50]

This concludes my notice of early buildings in Le Puy, and I have no more than time to catalogue the church of S. Laurent, famous for the monument of the Constable Duguesclin, a large second-pointed building of poor character, and very Italian in its plan and design,[51] and with an enormous sham front; the gabled end of the hospital chapel, with its fifteenth-century bell-turret; a pretty little fountain, and a large number of picturesque houses of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and a very scanty remnant of a gateway at the bottom of the town, called, I think, the Porte de Panessac, against the proposed destruction of which I find M. Aymard protesting only a few years back in the Bulletin Monumental.

About four miles to the north of Le Puy, close to the ruins of the magnificent castle of Polignac, is the Romanesque church of the village. This is parallel triapsidal in plan, and the piers are planned, as are those in the cathedral, in the shape of a cross, with columns in the re-entering angles. The little church at Monistrol is a good example of the Le Puy style applied to a very small building; and the church at Le Monestier, which has many features of similarity to the cathedral at Le Puy, and is rich in early plate, ought not to be forgotten, but I am unable to speak of it from personal inspection.

I will now turn to the churches of Auvergne. Though numerous, they are so much alike in their character, details, and design, that a description of their peculiarities need not be so long as might be supposed. These churches all lie in a group together, Clermont-Ferrand being their geographical centre,[52] and to its north are Riom, Volvic, Menat, Mozat, and Ennezat; to the east Chauriat; to the west Royat and Orcival; and to the south S. Nectaire, S. Saturnin, and Issoire.

Beyond the bounds of the province, at Brioude, at Conques, at Toulouse, and in the church of S. Étienne at Nevers, there are, among many others, examples of precisely the same description of design and construction.[53]

It will be well to describe the general type of these churches, and then give a few notes as to particular examples. In plan they consist of a nave and aisles, western narthex and steeple, central dome and steeple, transepts with apsidal chapels on the east, and apsidal choirs with the aisles continued round them, and four or five apsidal chapels round the aisle. Under the choir is sometimes a crypt, in which, in addition to the columns under the columns of the apse, are four shafts which were intended for the support of the altar, and whose presence certainly seems to suggest that it must have been a baldachin and not merely an altar that they were designed to support.[54]

The naves are roofed with waggon-vaults, either with or without cross ribs below them. The aisles have quadripartite vaults without ribs, and the triforia above them are roofed with a continuous half barrel-vault, which resists the thrust of the vault of the nave, and is, in truth, a continuous flying buttress. The triforia galleries are lighted with small windows, and this, the only light analogous to a clerestory, being entirely inadequate, the effect of the nave roof is generally very gloomy. The transepts are vaulted with barrel-vaults like the nave, and in one or two instances are divided in height by a sort of tribune level with the triforium. At Brioude, where this arrangement is seen, there is an original thirteenth-century open fireplace in the tribune, and M. Mérimée ingeniously suggests that the noble canons of Brioude, for they all had the rank of Count, were in the habit of hearing mass before a good fire; but it is fair to them to say that the fireplace is in the east wall, and that I saw no signs of an altar near it. The crossing under the tower is generally roofed either with an octagonal vault or with a circular dome with an opening in the centre. To resist the thrust of this dome on the north and south sides the upper vaults of the triforia are continued on between the transepts and the crossing, or else vaults of the same section are introduced at a higher level, where the central dome is raised (as it often is) higher than the barrel-roof of the nave. The western steeple, as well as the centre lantern, was sometimes domed; and that at Brioude is a most valuable example of the best type of dome in the district. The choirs are vaulted with waggon-vaults terminating with semi-domes, and the apsidal chapels are also each covered with a semi-dome. The columns are generally square, with half-columns engaged on three, and sometimes on four sides, the latter only when the main vault of the nave has transverse ribs below it. The columns round the apse are circular, and detached shafts against the apse walls carry the groining, and occasionally shafts are introduced inside and outside the window-jambs of the choir. In the nave and triforia, the windows are generally very plain with a label containing a billet-moulding, though the latter have sometimes, as at Notre-Dame-du-Port and Issoire, jamb-shafts. The capitals of the columns are carved with great richness, sometimes with foliage, but often with Scripture subjects. At S. Nectaire, for instance, perhaps the most elaborate of all these churches in this respect (M. Didron is my authority), the capitals round the apse have subjects from the New Testament, four on each capital. Frequently griffins and other animals are carved, and in one case, at Brioude, is a demon holding an open book on which is written the sculptor’s name, which does not seem to be a very complimentary arrangement. It is in the earlier examples that sculpture of subjects and figures is commonly seen, and, as the style developed more towards Gothic, foliage took the place of subjects. The arcades are remarkable for their generally lofty proportions. They are of course not so lofty as pointed arcades, but they have seldom, if ever, the heavy and low proportion commonly found in the arcades of Romanesque buildings. The arches are generally semicircular, and in the apses stilted.

The walls were probably covered with paintings of Scripture subjects. At Brioude there is some of this decoration remaining in a chapel dedicated to S. Michael in the gallery over the narthex. The semi-domes of the apsidal chapels in this church were also richly painted, and in one of them traces of colour exist all over the window-jambs. At Notre-Dame-du-Port, Clermont, in cleaning the nave, after removing seven or eight coats of whitewash, considerable traces were found of gilding on the capitals, and if this portion of the church was thus highly decorated, there can be no doubt that the colouring of the choir was at least equally sumptuous.

A stone seat is in some cases continued all round the walls of the apse and its chapels inside and out, and in one or two cases the iron grilles still remain. The only instance of the old pavement that I saw was at Brioude, where it is composed of black and white stone in chequers; but this is a mere fragment and of poor design.