What a peerless jewel was this church, more beautiful even than Notre-Dame de Paris, more open to the light, more ethereal, more soaringly uplifted with its columns like long reeds, astonishingly fragile considering the weight they bear, a miracle of the religious art of France, a masterpiece which the faith of our ancestors had wakened into being in all its mystic purity before the sensual ponderousness of that which we have agreed to call the Renaissance had come to us from Italy, materialising and spoiling all. Oh, how gross, how cowardly, how imbecile was the brutality of those who fired those volleys of scrap-iron with full force against tracery of such delicacy, that had stayed aloft in the air for centuries in confidence, no battles, no invasions, no tempests ever daring to assail its beauty.
That great, closed house yonder in the square must be the archbishop's palace. I venture to ring at the door and request the privilege of entering the church.
"His Eminence," I am told, "is at Mass, but would soon return, if I would wait."
And while I am waiting, the priest, who acts as my host, tells me the history of the burning of the episcopal palace.
"First of all they sprinkled the roofs with I know not what diabolical preparation; then, when they threw their incendiary bombs, the woodwork burnt like straw, and everywhere you saw jets of green flame which burned with a noise like that of fireworks."
Indeed the barbarians had long prepared with studied foresight this deed of sacrilege, in spite of their idiotically absurd pretexts and their shameless denials. That which they had desired to destroy here was the very heart of ancient France, impelled as much by some superstitious fancy as by their own brutal instincts, and upon this task they bent their whole energy, while in the rest of the town nothing else, or almost nothing, suffered damage.
"Could no attempt be made," I ask, "to replace the burnt roof of the basilica, to cover over as soon as possible these arches, which will not otherwise withstand the ravages of next winter?"
"Undoubtedly," he replies, "there is a risk that at the first falls of snow, the first showers of rain, all this will crumble to ruins, more especially as the calcined stones have lost their power of resistance. But we cannot even attempt to preserve them a little, for the Germans do not let us out of their sight. It is the cathedral, always the cathedral, that they watch through their field-glasses, and as soon as a single person appears in the bell turret of a tower the rain of shells begins again. No, there is nothing to be done. It must be left to the grace of God."
On his return, His Eminence graciously provides me with a guide, who has the keys of the hoarding, and at last I penetrate into the ruins of the basilica, into the nave, which, being stripped bare, appears the loftier and vaster for it.
It is cold there and sad enough for tears. It is perhaps this unexpected chill, a chill far more piercing than that of the world without, which at first grips you and disconcerts you. Instead of the somewhat heavy perfume that generally hangs about old basilicas, smoke of so much incense burned there, emanations of so many biers blessed by the priests, of so many generations who have hastened there to wrestle and pray—instead of this, there is a damp, icy wind which whistles through crevices in the walls, through broken windows and gaps in the vaults. Towards those vaults up yonder, pierced here and there by shrapnel, the eyes are raised, immediately, instinctively, to gaze at them. The sight is led up towards them, as it were, by all those columns that jut out, shooting aloft in sheaves, for their support. They have flying curves, these vaults, of exquisite grace, so designed, it seems, that they may not hinder prayers in their upward flight, nor force back to earth a gaze that aims at heaven. One never grows tired of bending the head backwards to gaze at them, those sacred vaults hastening to destruction. And then high up, too, quite high up, throughout the whole length of the nave, is the long succession of those almost ethereal pointed arches which support the vaults and arches, alike, yet not rigidly uniform, and so harmonious, despite their elaborate carving, that they give rest to the eye that follows them upwards in their soaring perspective. These vast ceilings of stone are so airy in appearance, and moreover so distant, that they do not oppress or confine the spirit. Indeed they seem freed from all heaviness, almost insubstantial.