The central portal, for the erection of which the cathedral is likewise indebted to its great benefactor, Georges d'Amboise, projects beautifully and boldly, like a porch, before the rest: every side of it is filled with niches, tier over tier, all crowded with endless figures of saints and martyrs. In the middle of it rises a pyramidal canopy of open stone-work; and upon the wide transom-stone over the door, is sculptured the genealogical tree of Christ, arising from the root of Jesse. The carving over the north entrance is yet more peculiar, and evidently far older. It represents the decapitation of the Baptist, with “Salome dancing in an attitude, which perchance was often assumed by the tombesteres of the elder day; affording, by her position, a graphical comment upon the Anglo-Saxon version of the text, in which it is said, that she tumbled before King Herod.”[101] Four turrets flank the central portal: one of them only is now capped by a spire: the pinnacles of the remaining three were swept away by a storm which traversed Normandy for a considerable extent, on the twenty-fifth of June, 1683, marking its progress with a devastation that is scarcely to be conceived.[102]
The spire of the central tower, however vaunted and admired by the French themselves, looks to an unprejudiced eye mean and shabby; and principally from its being made of wood, which ill accords with the apparent solidity of the rest of the building.
The entrances to the transepts, however inferior in splendor to the grand western front, are still not such as to disgrace it; and, considered attentively as to their sculptured medallions, they are even more curious. The northern one is approached through a passage lined with rows of the meanest houses, formerly the shops of transcribers and calligraphists; and hence the singular gate-way that incloses the court, passes commonly under the name of Le Portail des Libraires. The opposite transept, (see plate [forty-nine],) is called Le Portail de la Calende, an appellation borrowed from the Place de la Calende, upon which it opens; and which, though in reality far from spacious, appears altogether so by comparison. On each side of the entrances to both the transepts, is a lofty square tower, “such as are usually seen only in the western front of a cathedral; the upper story perforated by a gigantic window, divided by a single mullion or central pillar, not exceeding one foot in circumference, and nearly sixty feet in height. These windows are entirely open; and the architect never intended they should be glazed. An extraordinary play of light and shade results from this construction.”[103] The rose windows, which are placed as well over the entrances of the transepts, as over the greater one to the west, are no less magnificent in their dimensions, than beautiful in their patterns, and gorgeous in their colors. Much of the stained glass of the cathedral is also very rich.
Mr. Dibdin, in his splendidly-illustrated Tour,[104] remarks with much justice, that “a person, on entering the church by the western door, cannot fail to be struck with the length and loftiness of the nave, and with the lightness of the gallery which runs along the upper part of it, and which is continued also throughout the choir.” He goes on to add, “perhaps the nave is too narrow for its length. The lantern of the central large tower is beautifully light and striking. It is supported by four massive clustered pillars, about forty feet in circumference; but the eye, on looking downwards, is shocked at the tasteless division of the choir from the nave, by what is called a Grecian screen; and the interior of the transepts has also undergone a like tasteless restoration.”
The cathedral at Rouen was the burial-place of many men of eminence and distinction. Rollo and William Longue Epée have already been mentioned as interred here. The church also contained the lion-heart of the first English Richard, and the remains of his elder brother, Henry; together with those of William, son of Geoffrey Plantagenet; of the Regent Duke of Bedford; and of Charles V. of France. The tombs of these, and of various other individuals of high rank, are described at length by Pommeraye; but the outrages of the Calvinists and the democrats, added to the removals occasioned by the alterations made at various times in the building, have now destroyed nearly the whole of them, excepting those raised to the two Cardinals D'Amboise, both of them archbishops of Rouen, and that which commemorates Louis de Brezé, Grand Seneschal of Normandy. These monuments are placed on opposite sides of the Lady-Chapel; the former as conspicuous for its many sumptuous ornaments, as the latter for its chaste simplicity.
The archbishop of Rouen, prior to the revolution, took the title of Primate of Neustria; and his spiritual jurisdiction then extended over six suffragans, the bishops of Bayeux, Avranches, Evreux, Séez, Lisieux, and Coutances. Not many years previously, it had also embraced the Canadian churches, together with the whole of French North-America; but the appointment of a bishop at Quebec, deprived it of its trans-atlantic sway; and the concordat, in the time of Napoléon, reduced the number of the suffragan prelates to four, taking the mitres from Avranches and Lisieux. A still more important alteration has been occasioned by modern times, in the archiepiscopal revenues. It had been customary throughout France, before the recent changes, in speaking of the see of Rouen, to designate it by the epithet, rich; an appellation that would now be wofully misapplied. The archbishop then possessed, in addition to the usual sources of ecclesiastical income, a peculiar privilege, entitled the right of Déport; by virtue of which, he claimed the receipt of the first year's proceeds of every benefice which might become vacant in his diocese, whether by the resignation or death of the incumbent.[105]
A station so enviable as that of archbishop of Rouen, has been at almost all times in the hands of some individual belonging to one of the principal families of the kingdom. Among others, those of Luxembourg, Bourbon, D'Estouteville, D'Amboise, Joyeuse, Harlay, Colbert, and Tressan, have successively held it. To sum up the catalogue, in the words of Pommeraye, “the cathedral has furnished many saints for heaven, one pope for the apostolic chair, and thirteen cardinals to the church; nine of its prelates have belonged to the royal family of France; and many others, eminent for their birth, have been still more so for their own merit, and for the services they have rendered to the catholic church and the state.”
FOOTNOTES:
[93] The destroying of dragons, or fiery serpents, or similar monsters, appears to have been the most common of all miracles, in the early ages of Christianity. After the exploits of St. Michael, St. Margaret, and St. George, ecclesiastical history abounds in similar legends. St. Romain, St. Marcel, St. Julian, St. Martial, St. Bertrand, St. Martha, and St. Clement, make but a small proportion of the saints who distinguished themselves by these acts of pious heroism. The dragons of Rouen and of Metz were of sufficient celebrity to acquire the distinct names of the Gargouille, and the Graouilli.—It has been commonly supposed, that these various miracles were allegorical, and intended to typify the confining of rivers within their channels, or the limiting of the incursions of the sea. Other authors have been inclined to account for their prevalence, as having reference to the sun, or to astronomical phænomena; but surely the most simple and satisfactory mode of explaining them, lies in considering the dragon as the emblem of evil, and the various victories gained over dragons, as so many conquests obtained by virtue over vice.—A considerable fund of curious information, on this subject, will be found in the Magasin Encyclopédique for January, 1812, p. 1-24, in a paper by M. Eusèbe Salverte, entitled Légendes du Moyen Age.
[94] Histoire des Archevêques de Rouen, p. 40.