FRIEZE OF OLD HOUSE IN THE RUE DE VESLE, REIMS.
Proceeding along the Rue Tronçon Ducoudray, we reached the Rue de Vesle, where the Palais de Justice and the new theatre are situated. In the adjacent Rue du Bourg St. Denis is an old house—the ground-floor of which is a wine-shop styled Buvette du Théâtre—notable for its antique Gothic doorway, containing, within the upper portion of the arch, the bas-relief of a man fighting with a bear. There is a tradition that on this spot formerly stood a hospital dedicated to St. Hubert, and intended for the reception of persons wounded when hunting, or who might have chanced to be bitten by mad dogs. In the Rue de Vesle is another old house with an ornamental frieze surmounting its façade, which looks on to one of the entrances of the Church of St. Jacques. This edifice, originally erected at the close of the twelfth century, is hemmed in on all sides by venerable-looking buildings, while above them rises its tapering steeple, surmounted by a mediæval weathercock in the form of an angel. The interior of the church presents a curious jumble of architectural styles from early Gothic to late Renaissance. One noteworthy object of art which it contains is a life-size crucifix carved by Pierre Jacques, a Remois sculptor of the days of the Good King Henri, and from an anatomical point of view a perfect chef-d’œuvre.
GATEWAY OF THE CHURCH OF ST. JACQUES, REIMS.
WEATHERCOCK OF THE CHURCH OF ST. JACQUES.
The Rue de Vesle merges into the Rue des Tapissiers, where in former times the carpet manufacturers of Reims had their warehouses. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the carpets of Reims were as famous in France as those of Aubusson are to-day, but subsequently they began to decline. Half-way up this street—where, by the way, in 1694 the first numbers of the Gazette de France, the oldest existing French newspaper, were printed, the news being duly forwarded from Paris—we pass the ancient gateway leading to the chapter-court of the Cathedral. Within the court a weekly market of small wares is now held; but in the days when the archbishops, dukes, and peers of Reims wielded sovereign sway in the capital of the Champagne, this open space was a champ clos, where trials by battle took place. The surrounding buildings comprised residences for various ecclesiastics connected with the Cathedral, together with a small farm whence these epicurean priests derived their supply of fresh milk and fatted capons. According to ancient custom, the inhabitants of the houses facing the chapter-gateway were required to keep their doors and windows open on days of religious processions, the tapers carried by the clergy on these occasions being of such immoderate length that it was necessary to incline them, and run them into the doors and windows of the houses opposite when the bearers passed under the archway.