The Cathedrals of Southern France

by M. F. Mansfield

Le Puy

There is a sort of subterranean or crypt-like structure, beneath the westerly end of the cathedral, caused by the extreme slope of the rock upon which the choir end is placed. One enters by a stairway of sixty steps, which is beneath the parti-coloured façade of the twelfth century. It is very striking and must be a unique approach to a cathedral; the entrance here being two stories below that of the pavement of nave and choir. This porch of three round-arched naves is wholly unusual. Entrance to the main body of the church is finally gained through the transept.

The whole structure is curiously kaleidoscopic, with blackish and dark brown tints predominating, but alternating—in the west façade, which has been restored in recent times—with bands of a lighter and again a darker stone. It has been called by a certain red-robed mentor of travel-lore an ungainly, venerable, but singular edifice: quite a non-committal estimate, and one which, like most of its fellows, is worse than a slander. It is most usually conceded by French authorities—who might naturally be supposed to know their subject—that it is very nearly the most genuinely interesting exposition of a local manner of church-building extant; and as such the cathedral at Le Puy merits great consideration.

The choir is the oldest portion, and is probably not of later date than the tenth century. The glass therein is modern. It has a possession, a "miraculous virgin,"—whose predecessor was destroyed in the fury of the Revolution,—which is supposed to work wonders upon those who bestow an appropriate votive offering. To the former shrine came many pilgrims, numbering among them, it is said rather indefinitely and doubtfully, "several popes and the following kings: Louis VII., Philippe-Auguste, Philippe-le-Hardi, Charles VI., Charles VII., Louis XI., and Charles VIII."

To-day, as if doubtful of the shrine's efficacy, the pilgrims are few in number and mostly of the peasant class.

The bays of the nave are divided by round-headed arches, but connected with the opposing bay by the ogival variety.

The transepts have apsidal terminations, as is much more frequent south of the Loire than in the north of France, but still of sufficient novelty to be remarked here. The east end is rectangular—which is really a very unusual attribute in any part of France, only two examples elsewhere standing out prominently—the cathedrals at Laon and Dol-de-Bretagne. The cloister of Notre Dame, small and simple though it be, is of a singular charm and tranquillity.

With the tower or cupola of this cathedral the architects of Auvergne achieved a result very near the perfectionnement of its style. Like all of the old-time clochers erected in this province—anterior to Gothic—it presents a great analogy to Byzantine origin, though, in a way, not quite like it either. Still the effect of columns and pillars, in both the interior construction and exterior decoration of these fine towers, forms something which suggests, at least, a development of an ideal which bears little, or no, relation to the many varieties of campanile, beffroi, tour or clocher seen elsewhere in France. The spire, as we know it elsewhere, a dominant pyramidal termination, the love of which Mistral has said is the foundation of patriotism, is in this region almost entirely wanting; showing that the influence, from whatever it may have sprung, was no copy of anything which had gone before, nor even the suggestion of a tendency or influence toward the pointed Gothic, or northern style. Therefore the towers, like most other features of this style, are distinctly of the land of its environment—Auvergnian.

This will call to mind, to the American, the fact that Trinity Church in Boston is manifestly the most distinctive application, in foreign lands, of the form and features of the manner of church-building of the Auvergne.

Particularly is this to be noted by viewing the choir exterior with its inlaid or geometrically planned stonework: a feature which is Romanesque if we go back far enough, but which is distinctly Auvergnian in its mediæval use.