MEAUX, SENLIS, AND BEAUVAIS
EAUX is a beautifully situated little town on the banks of the Marne some thirty miles from Paris, on the way to the Champagne country. Its general appearance can best be gathered from the delightful public promenade along the river-side which is entered immediately on the right of the station. The Cathedral dates back to the early thirteenth century, but very shortly after it was finished, either owing to the work of construction being hurried or to the foundations being insecure, large cracks and actual shifting of the masonry declared themselves, and a great deal of remodelling and alterations became necessary. The vaulting and first stage of the choir aisles—or triforium ambulatory—were removed, the aisles being thereby doubled in height. The choir elevation is a very beautiful expression of thirteenth-century design. The transept is short, and has a large rose window and a richly-decorated portal.
It is said that at one time, namely in the thirteenth century, architects conceived the idea of covering the walls on the inside of the porch with some vast design of decoration, by which the colour poured into the church through the large rose-window should be enhanced by great spaces of painted wall-surface. This conception, however, was very short-lived, and towards the end of the century painted subjects were confined almost entirely to the windows; and the internal decoration of the revers of the porches was conceived, as at Meaux, more in an architectural spirit with pilasters, arcading, etc., as motives, rather than with features suggested by the painter’s art.
Meaux as well as Lâon, Soissons, Beauvais, Noyon and other towns in the district felt the effects of the Jacquerie revolts in the thirteenth century. Indeed, many of the ladies who suffered from the horrors of the persecution at Beauvais fled at first to Meaux to escape the fury of the rebels; and once having got within the town, they did not dare to leave it, so that to all intents and purposes they were prisoners within its walls. Throughout the whole district bands of robbers and furious peasants infested the roads or lay in ambush to catch the unwary, and it was thus very dangerous to go from one town to another, even under an armed escort. Hearing of the plight of these ladies in Meaux, among whom were the Duchesses of Orléans and Normandy, the Earl of Foix and the Captal de Buch resolved to go to their aid, and set out forthwith from Châlons, to find a great host of the peasantry also bound for the same place. The rebels had heard that Meaux was chiefly inhabited by refugee women and children, also that it contained a great deal of treasure; and they were now flocking down every road, from Valois, from Beauvoisie and from Paris, towards the little town upon the Marne. Foix and his company were received with the utmost joy, for the peasants had already begun to fill the streets and to do what damage they could, and the ladies were naturally in great alarm. “But when these banditti perceived such a troop of gentlemen, so well equipped, sally forth to guard the market-place, the foremost of them began to fall back. The gentlemen then followed them, using their lances and swords. When they felt the weight of their blows, they, through fear, turned about so fast, they fell one over the other. All manner of armed persons then rushed out of the barriers, drove them before them, striking them down like beasts, and clearing the town of them, for they kept neither regularity nor order, slaying so many that they were tired. They flung them in great heaps into the river. In short, they killed upwards of seven thousand. Not one would have escaped if they had chosen to pursue them further.”
Another siege famous in the annals of Meaux is that during the wars of Henry V., when the English king encamped before the town in October, 1421, and set engines to batter down the gates and walls, having entrenched his own army meanwhile in a strong position between hedges and ditches. “The King of England,” Monstrelet tells us, “was indefatigable in the siege of Meaux, and having destroyed many parts of the walls of the market-place, he summoned the garrison to surrender themselves to the King of France and himself, or he would storm the place. To this summons they replied that it was not yet time to surrender, on which the King ordered the place to be stormed. The assault continued for seven or eight hours in the most bloody manner; nevertheless, the besieged made an obstinate defence, in spite of the great numbers that were attacking them. Their lances had been almost all broken, but in their stead they made use of spits, and fought with such courage that the English were driven back from the ditches, which encouraged them much.” This state of affairs lasted for six months; the garrison of Meaux, who seem to have behaved all through with the utmost gallantry, were in hopes of relief from the Dauphin, but at the end of April, finding further resistance impossible, they gave themselves up into the hands of Henry. A treaty was set on foot whereby, “on the 11th day of May, the market-place and all Meaux were to be surrendered into the hands of the kings of France and England.” The leaders were made prisoners of war, and the chief offender, the bastard of Vaurus, who “had in his time hung many a Burgundian and Englishman,” was beheaded and hung as a warning on a tree outside the walls of the town. King Henry himself—adds the French chronicler—“was very proud of this victory, and entered the place in great pomp, and remained there some days with his princes to repose and solace himself, having given orders for the complete reparation of the walls that had been so much damaged by artillery at the siege.”
Meaux is of course notably associated with Bossuet, the famous preacher, who was appointed to its bishopric in 1681. The study and garden where he wrote many of his sermons are still shown among his other memorials in the Évêché, near the Cathedral.