Cathedral Cities of France

by R. W. S. Herbert Marshall; Hester Marshall

A long list can be made of buildings where the ogee arch and other typical features obtained in England, from the end of the thirteenth to the latter part of the fourteenth century, during which time no parallels existed in France. One of the most ancient examples is Queen Eleanor’s Cross at Northampton (1291-1294), where Flamboyant features show themselves.

The tomb of William de la Merche at Wells (1302), Aymer de Valence at Westminster (1323), and many other early fourteenth-century examples, furnished by almost every cathedral, testify to the prevalence of the passion for the ogee motive of decoration. These are given in detail by M. Enlart as irrefragable proofs of the English origin of the Flamboyant style.

The interior of the Cathedral of Rouen is considered by Mr. Bond to be curiously Romanesque in plan. Its nave bays are four-storied, an upper and lower pier arch with small triforium and clerestory. The upper pier arch might also be regarded as a triforium, for a passage-way runs along the sill of the arch and is continued behind the main piers on an elegant group of shafted corbels. These were originally intended to support a vault of a lower aisle. The east end is more dignified and has simpler factors, clerestory, triforium and pier arch. The glass is magnificent, dating from the thirteenth century.

South of the Cathedral a narrow street leads eventually to the river by way of the halles, the Place Haute-Vieille-Tour and its sister of the Basse-Vieille-Tour. The first square is a large open place, fenced round with solid stone buildings, and having on its south side the Chapelle de la Fierte Saint-Romain. With this monument, on which a flight of steps leads up to a Renaissance chapel of six stages, is connected a curious privilège and legend, both of which have of course been recorded before, but which are interesting enough to bear repetition. The charter for this privilege was accorded to the chapter of Rouen Cathedral by King Dagobert—he who founded the Abbey of Saint Denis. Each year, on Ascension Day, the archbishop was empowered to release a man condemned to death; and therefore every Ascension Day the good folk of Rouen flocked into the streets to watch the procession of the Fierte Saint-Romain. First came the solemn visit of the arm of the Church to the arm of the Law, with the annual formal proclamation of the privilege. Then every prison in the city must be searched, and every prisoner put on oath and examined as to the cause of his imprisonment. Finally the election of the favoured prisoner was put to the vote by the chapter, his name sent to the Palais de Justice, and the paper duly signed and sealed, after which the “messe du prisonnier” was celebrated in the Salle des Pas-Perdus; and finally, the prisoner himself was called before his lords, secular and spiritual, and formally examined; he then confessed to the chaplain of Saint-Romain, his fetters were removed, and he followed the archbishop to the Place Haute-Vieille-Tour, where, in the Chapelle de la Fierte, a solemn service made him once more a free man. A solemn and magnificent procession then bore him, crowned with flowers, to the great thanksgiving Mass, after which he was free to go whither he would. No less curious is the legend connected with the ceremony. It is said that while Romain was bishop of Rouen a terrible dragon laid waste all the land and devoured the inhabitants.

No one dared to approach this monster, who was known as the Gargoyle, until Saint Romain, armed only with his sanctity, set out to subdue it, accompanied by a condemned criminal—the prototype of those who were released on Holy Thursday—when the Gargoyle at once submitted and, with the episcopal stole round its neck, was led by the prisoner to the water’s edge. The sequel does not reflect much credit upon the bishop—at least, it seems rather of the nature of meanness to conjure the beast into good nature and then to push it, all unawares, into the river to drown. At the head of the Portail de la Calende, the north porch of the Cathedral, stands the figure of Saint Romain, and under his feet, with the stole round its neck, is the Gargoyle, craning its head round to look into the face of the bishop with the expression of a very hideous but very faithful dog—a most disarming expression if it be meant to represent that worn by the Gargoyle before it was sent to its death! In memory of this occurrence, the standard of the dragon was borne in the processions at the privilège—banners similar to those of the dragons at Bayeux and Salisbury. The legend, however, appears to be of later date than the festival, which is mentioned certainly as early as the twelfth century, and continued to delight the Rouennais as late as 1790.

The Abbey Church of St. Ouen is placed at the head of the collegiate churches of France so far as its beauty and perfection of architecture is concerned. In its proportion of nave, transepts and choir it is considered to outshine Cologne, its great rival and contemporary. The vast area of clerestory and glazed triforium recalls the interior arrangement of Amiens. The triforium passage is worked between the lower mullions of the windows, which are duplicated; but, as is pointed out by Mr. Bond, care was taken that the inner and the outer tracery of the windows should be different in pattern. Freeman says: “St. Ouen goes further to unite the two forms of excellence”—external outline and internal height—“than any other church, French or English,” and states that “St. Ouen is the loftiest church in the world that has a real central tower.”

This central lantern is, according to Ferguson, a very noble feature and appropriate to its position; unhappily it does not enjoy the admiration of all writers: Ruskin condemns the false buttresses of the tower, which he describes as merely a hollow crown, and declares that it needs no more buttressing than does a basket.

The third church of Rouen is that of St. Maclou. Its most noticeable feature is the west end, which terminates in a very beautiful porch of pentagonal form, and might be taken as another example of the rich Flamboyant ornament seen in the western façade of the Cathedral. The church itself is a complete specimen of its period, and dates from the latter half of the fifteenth century.

On the north side of the church, in the Rue Martainville, is the Aître de St. Maclou, an old parish cemetery of the fifteenth century. There is a small quadrangle, an old disused stone well with an iron crucifix in the centre, and round all runs a cloister with two low stories, timbered in black and white, with the famous “Danse Macabre” carved on the lower beams. It is now used as a school for the poor children of Rouen, and on working days is full of life—the life of a growing generation going on side by side with the relics of a dead and half-forgotten past, for the quaint seriousness of an old fifteenth-century builder has traced upon the lintel a constant reminder of death and the grave—skulls, bones, spades, and here and there a grim skeleton Death bearing away a human figure in his arms. Many of the most beautiful figures are headless, not from the ravages of a symbolic Death, but from those of a very real and equally unsparing hand—the hand of the Revolution.