Another point to be noticed is this: Salisbury does not owe its beauty to size, nor yet altogether to the style in which it is built. This is easily proved. The great French cathedral of Amiens exceeds Salisbury in all its dimensions, and was built, allowing for the difference between France and England, in the self-same style. Both are examples of First Pointed, and Amiens is, according to Fergusson, at least twice as large in its cubic contents. “The French church covers 71,000 square feet, the English only 55,000. The vault of the first is one hundred and fifty-two feet in height, the latter only eighty-five.” There is still a more remarkable difference between the central spires of the two churches. That of Amiens rises to a height of 422 feet; that of Salisbury, the tallest in England, only to 404. Yet the great height of the roof at Amiens robs its spire of any preponderance it might otherwise boast, and leaves the comparatively small steeple of Salisbury a feature of grandeur and beauty only approached by the still lower dome of St. Paul’s, which rises at its highest part, the cross, to 365 feet above the ground level.

It will be seen, therefore, that Salisbury owes its effect to something beyond ornament or size. The extraordinary order and regularity of the masonry may have something to say to it, although the stones, as compared with what may be seen in Egypt, and elsewhere, are not very large. But you can trace the same course all round the church and the same stone, oolite from the quarry at Chilmark, has been used throughout. This communicates a certain look of stability to the structure, which is, in itself, more pleasing to the eye than any amount of ornament out of place, or intended, as in modern Gothic, to divert the eye from the poverty of the materials or the absence of proportion. The proportions of Salisbury, like those of St. Paul’s, or the Parthenon, are calculated to give the building its full measure of beauty, without anything extraneous.

That Salisbury should have this unity of age and design is owing to a curious fact in the history of the place. The “bishop’s stool” had been upon the bleak, chalk down which borders Salisbury Plain. The place was really a castle whose fortifications are still visible; the cathedral within the walls must have been Norman in design, to judge in dry seasons from the marks still visible among the grassy mounds, and from fragments of carved stone built into the wall or cross. Mr. Walcott gives its dimensions as follows: “A nave one hundred and fifty feet by seventy-two feet, a transept one hundred and fifty feet by sixty feet, and a choir sixty feet in length, in all two hundred and seventy feet.” The situation was in every way inconvenient, having been chosen for security not comfort. After the King took the fort and filled it with his own soldiers, a governor superseding the bishop, the position of the ecclesiastics became unendurable. The inhabitants in times of comparative peace and security migrated to the rich pastures by the Avon and the Bourne below, while cold winds in winter, and a scarcity of water in summer, finally determined Bishop Poore and his canons, for Sarum was a church of the old foundation, to seek a better country. The old legend says that the site of the new cathedral was determined by the fall of an arrow in Merrifield (or more likely Mirifield), shot by a stalwart archer from the ramparts. The church was raised in a green vale, surrounded by the downs. Pepys, in describing his journey from Hungerford says, “So, all over the Plain by the sight of the steeple, the Plain high and low; to Salisbury by night.”

“Of the cathedral,” Pepys remarks that it is “most admirable; as big, I think, and handsomer than Westminster, and a most large close about it.” Pepys’ comparison of Westminster and Salisbury is a very just one; both were built in the then new First Pointed style, but there is no doubt about the superiority of Salisbury in either design or completeness.

In the close, which occupies an extent of half a square mile, there are three gates, the South or Harnham, the East or St. Anne’s, and the North or Close Gate, built about 1327. The ground-plan of the church embraces a nave of ten bays, with aisles; a northern porch; a main and a choir transept of four and three bays each; to the east a choir and presbytery, each of three bays, and the so-called Lady Chapel, all having aisles. The cloister is on the south side, and to eastwards of the cloister is the Chapter-house. An octangular canon’s vestry and muniment room is to the south of the south-east transept. The pyramidal disposition of the leading lines is very observable from certain points of view. It is the only ancient cathedral in England begun and finished on a uniform plan and in one style. The foundations were laid under Bishop Poore, on the Feast of St. Vitalis (April 28), 1220, and it was built by Elias of Dereham, clerk of the works, and by Nicholas of Portland, and Richard of Farleigh, his successors, the last named completing the spire in 1375. The Beauchamp and Hungerford Chapels, both subsequently removed, were built in the Lady Chapel in the Fifteenth Century. Bishop Audley’s Chantry in the choir was built in 1502. In the close, near the north aisle of the nave, as at Chichester, was the Clochard or Campanile. There are several points of resemblance, of which this is one, between Chichester and Salisbury. This bell-tower was taken down in “cold blood” as we may say, or by way of “restoration” in 1799. About the same time Wyatt made many structural and other alterations, which are detailed with undisguised approbation by contemporary writers. Dodsworth gives particulars received from Wyatt himself. They are in form and language, and, I may add, conceit, so like what the “restorer” of to-day uses of a building which he has done his best to ruin, and are besides so interesting, historically, that I am tempted to quote some sentences. Wyatt was first let loose on Salisbury about 1789. He went to work without a doubt or a scruple. The Hungerford and Beauchamp Chapels were “defects.” He “expressed his astonishment at the temerity of their builders. They were destroyed, though the consent of their owners had to be obtained first. Their fragments were used in the alterations, some in the organ screen, some in the choir. The walls and buttresses of the Lady Chapel were restored, the windows brought to their proper level, the seats which disfigured it removed, and the pavement was raised a few inches to give an ascent from the choir.” The phrase “proper level” is good. Then came almost the worst of Wyatt’s “restorations.” It was found “necessary” to remove several monuments. New sites were prepared—the result being what we now see in the nave, where the mixture of the fragments of one monument with the ruins of another of a different period has not even the merit of being picturesque. The tomb ascribed traditionally to Bishop Poore and nine others were destroyed, portions being neatly arranged as in a kind of museum “along the plinth between the series of pillars on each side of the nave.” Two small porches, one at the north end of the great transept, and the other on the south side, near the Lady Chapel, “were considered as neither adding to the beauty, nor to the convenience of the building. They were accordingly taken down.” The “accordingly” is another happy expression. We might be reading a report of Sir G. Scott, or Mr. Pearson, or Mr. Butterfield. Yet this was written close on a hundred years ago. A very interesting series of paintings, representing the months or the Zodiac, were on some of the eastern bays of vaulting. They were highly admired, we are told, by those “regard the mere antiquity of an object as a sufficient title to admiration.” These are precisely the words used lately by an architect about the north transept of Westminster Abbey. Wyatt promptly wiped off the traces of these decorations, and “judiciously coloured the arches and ribs of the choir like the original stone. As the Campanile intercepted the most striking view of the structure it was taken down.”

When we enter by the west door the first view is hardly so striking as the first view of the exterior. A closer examination and a comparison with other cathedrals shows how far Salisbury is in advance of everything else of its kind. The exquisite lightness and delicate proportions of the steeple are equally apparent in the nave and its aisles, the slender columns, the pointed arches, the light triforium, the lancets of the clerestory, and the soaring vault. The same “order,” as the classical architect would say, is practically carried round the church. As we advance eastward, and reach the crossing of the transepts, we observe the curious four centred buttressing arches erected by Bishop Wayte, 1415, to increase the supports of the tower. Similar precautions are seen in Canterbury, Hereford and Wells Cathedrals. Under the tower is a brass plate in the pavement which was placed here in 1737, and marks the fact that the spire inclines twenty-two and a half inches to the south-west. This inclination, which is perfectly visible on the outside, was first calculated by Sir Christopher Wren, who put iron “bandages” round the masonry, and made other repairs. No increase of the deflection has been observed since his time, although the spire was struck by lightning in 1741. The choir screen is by Skidmore. The organ is divided. Some ancient glass may be seen in the triplet windows at the ends of the transepts. The altar stood to the eastward of the second or choir transept, and some parts of the old stalls are still to be seen, but almost everything in this part of the church is new. The Audley chantry (1524), in the latest style of Gothic, is on the north side. There are some remains of the very curious and interesting if not unique iron chantry of Lord Hungerford, formerly in the Lady Chapel, made into a kind of pew or cage, about a hundred years ago, by the heirs of the family when Wyatt destroyed it. A somewhat similar example, or part of one, the Chantry of Edward IV. in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor, has already been “restored” away.

The Lady Chapel is probably not correctly described by that name. The whole church is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. It is perhaps more correctly called Trinity Chapel. Here the colouring, modern, of the roof, and other amendments and improvements made and suggested by Scott, for the most part, though Clutton also showed himself a worthy successor of Wyatt, are exceedingly offensive.

The cloisters are entered from the south-western transept. They are slightly later, in the same style as the church, but were evidently not built till it was finished. In churches of the old foundation cloisters were an ornament, a luxury, and not a necessity, as at Canterbury or Gloucester, where they were needed for the use of the monks. The cloisters of Salisbury are the largest in England, each walk being, within, 181 feet long, or from wall to wall, without, 195 feet. Over the east walk is a fine Library, containing many illuminated and other manuscripts, including some early liturgies.

THE CASTLE OF ANGERS
HENRI JOUIN

On the 7th of September, 1661, as night was falling, a company of musketeers crossed the drawbridge of the Castle of Angers. Scarcely had they entered the fortress when these musketeers expelled the garrison. This was the King’s order. A sub-lieutenant commanded these men: it was d’Artagnan. A prisoner had been confided to him: this was Nicholas Fouquet. The superintendent’s servant, La Vallée, and his physician, Pecquet, taking pity upon Fouquet, who was the prey of a quartan fever, obtained leave to share his captivity. The Castle then had shut within it three prisoners, who were subjected to the most rigorous treatment. We know by the official account of Fouquet’s detention that the bed in which he had to sleep on the 7th of September “was not of the cleanest.” Now for the rest, d’Artagnan, and his two officers, Saint Mars and Saint Leger, maintained an extreme reserve towards their guests. There is no news from outside. Pecquet, before leaving Nantes, had, it is true, fortuitously met Gourville. It was from him that Pecquet got the news of the arrest of Pellisson and the exile of Madame Fouquet. Sorrowful presage! The accused one began first of all to prepare his defence. He wrote several memoirs, but at the end of a few days, writing was prohibited. The president of Chalain, suspected of having wished to bribe a musketeer was also apprehended to be conducted to the Bastille. Louis XIV., Colbert, Le Tellier, and Séguier kept their eyes fixed on Angers. Fouquet lived there until the first of December, having no other pastime between his two attacks of fever than to contemplate with a melancholy look “la fillette du Roi.” This was the name by which they designated an iron cage, in which, according to legend, a queen of Sicily had been shut up by her husband “for having built the church of Saint-Maurice at Angers too magnificently.” This legend was not calculated to reassure the Superintendent. He knew that he was accused precisely of having used the money of the Treasury to build Vaux-le-Vicomte, the magnificence of which had offended the King. If, through misfortune, the thought of keeping him under such good guard, between these bars, had entered the heads of his enemies, of what advantage was the little bit of liberty that he still enjoyed? Moreover, he was not unaware of the refinements of cruelty that had been practiced for the past two centuries upon the prisoners of State. The “fillette du Roi,” made at the order of Louis XI., had not been empty at any period. Had not Cardinal Balue, bishop of Angers, known this instrument of torture at the Château d’Onzain, near Blois? Fouquet might well be afraid, for there entered perhaps far more passion than justice in his disgrace. They did not go so far, however, as to put him in a cage. The vigilance and the loyalty of d’Artagnan, and the thickness of the walls of the Castle seemed to Fouquet’s enemies, a sufficient safeguard against all danger of his escape. What is then the Castle of Angers?