TELUM LEMOGIÆ OCCIDIT LEONEM
ANGLIÆ.
After Richard's death Limoges kept on changing masters as before. In 1355, Edward the Black Prince unfurled the British flag from its battlements, but Bishop Jean de Crose, in whose charge he had left it, delivered it over to the king of France. Edward returned in wrath, recaptured it and put many of the inhabitants to the sword. Under Charles VII. Limoges became permanently a French city, retaining its peculiar form of local government by twelve consuls, which constituted it a sort of independent republic. As Jeanne d'Albret, mother of Henry of Navarre, was viscountess of Limoges, it was impossible that the surrounding province should escape being drawn into the wars of religion. At Roche l'Abeille, a few miles south of the city, is the battle-field where Admiral Coligny's Protestant army met and defeated the royal forces under the duke of Anjou. But with the accession of Henry IV. came a new order of things, and the visit of that monarch in 1605 opened an era of industry, prosperity and peace.
To this day the butchers of Limoges have good cause to remember Henry's visit. That chivalrous but improvident ruler was always pecuniarily embarrassed, and never, it appears, more so than on that October day when, preceded by the flower of the military, magistracy and ecclesiastical dignitaries of the province, he rode in through the gorgeous gateway surmounted by a colossal figure of the giant Limovex, the traditional founder of the city, which held a silver key in the right hand and a heart in the left, by way of tendering to His Majesty the submission and affections of the city. The butchers' guild was at that period notoriously prosperous and wealthy. A happy conceit entered the royal mind. For and in consideration of a handsome sum of money and so many horses he offered to accord them in perpetuity the right of heading the escort whenever thereafter royalty should enter the city. The butchers took up the offer, paid the cash, produced the required number of horses, and in return received a charter and privileges which they have jealously guarded to this day. In 1810, when the duc de Berri, and in 1844, when the duc de Montpensier, visited Limoges, the butchers, with their white flag bearing a green cross, led the van in the processions that escorted them. The butchers form a little community, living all to themselves in the heart of the city, and intermarrying to such a degree that only five or six surnames are to be found among the eighty-odd families composing them. In the crooked, narrow little street, only two blocks long, which they inhabit—it is called the Rue des Boucheries—there are none but meat-shops, and the names "Cibeau," "Malvolin" and one or two others predominate on the signs over the doorways. In this babel of patronymics nicknames become necessary to distinguish one from another, and accordingly we find one man known as "alias Louis XVIII.," another as "alias the Captain," and so on through a variety of amusing sobriquets. These butchers are richer to-day, if anything, than they were in Henry's time, and there is no impecunious monarch to levy on them now. They have their own place of worship too, a little chapel dedicated to St. Aurelien, and standing modestly aside in a court at the foot of their narrow street. It is scarcely larger than the vestibule of an ordinary church, and its exterior is as plain as that of any country barn. But step quietly in, and as soon as your eyes are accustomed to the gloom look about you. What a surprise! Frescoes, stained glass, paintings, statuary, tapestries and vessels of gold and silver are crowded together with lavish profuseness in that little sanctuary. A monolith cross dating from the fifteenth century stands just outside the portal, bearing exquisitely-carved representations of Christ, the Virgin and the apostles—a gem of sculpture rearing itself unexpectedly in the midst of a muddy and squalid neighborhood.
The history of Limoges, like that of most European cities, is closely interwoven with that of its churches. St. Michael of the Lions, familiarly known as the Church of the Boule d'Or from a large gilded ball which adorns its tapering spire, stands upon one of the highest points in the city. About its base, in the niches between its projecting abutments, cobblers and dealers in old clothes and bric-à-brac have, with the sanction of time, reared unopposed their rickety shanties, so that the church-walls, with their ancient carvings and quaint designs, seem to spring up incongruously out of a medley of combustible rubbish. On the steps at the main doorway, in careless disorder, are to be seen the three life-size stone lions which gave the church its name. They date from the twelfth century, and are so worn by time that only the outlines of their features are still discernible. St. Michael's spire, which is one hundred and sixty-five feet high and ascended by an iron ladder on the exterior, was completed in 1383. The interior of the church is richly adorned, though somewhat defaced during the Revolutionary days of '93, when it was reared into a temple of Reason and witnessed many a saturnalian orgy, during one of which one of its finest windows was broken to fragments.
But it is at the cathedral that the Revolution has left most plainly visible to future generations the marks of its iconoclastic hammers and chisels. To reach it from St. Michael's we must thread our way across the town from the heights to the plateau overlooking the river, where, in the heart of the ancient quarter known as "the Cité," stands the grand old cathedral of St. Étienne. Its cornerstone was laid June 1, 1273, though two other churches and a Roman temple to Jupiter had previously stood on the same site. Successive bishops have pushed it toward completion, but it was only in 1847 that a complete restoration of the edifice was begun. Monsigneur Duquesnay, the present bishop, has raised a subscription of half a million of francs for that purpose. The tower, one hundred and eighty-six feet high, when viewed from any point in the environs looms up a conspicuous object in the picture. Within, the church is remarkable for the boldness of its vaults and arches and the elegance of its workmanship. Numerous works of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance—among which are six bas-reliefs representing the Labors of Hercules—adorn the walls. These classical works the Revolutionists spared: it was only upon the ecclesiastical sculptures that they sought to wreak their hate. In the chancel the remains of three bishops—Raynard de la Porte (1325), Bernard Brun (1349) and Jean de Langeac (1541) repose beneath stone mausoleums, the last of which contains fourteen bas-reliefs of the Visions of the Apocalypse. These mausoleums too are sadly defaced: the full-length stone figures of the deceased prelates which lie recumbent on top of their respective tombs are minus noses and hands.
But to the antiquarian the most interesting feature of the cathedral is that portion of its foundation which formed a part of the Roman basilica that stood on this site. It was transformed from a temple of Jupiter to a Christian church by St. Martial, a contemporary of the apostles, sent hither from Rome to preach the gospel to the Gentile Lemovices. St. Martial is honored to this day as the patron saint of Limoges. When he died some pious priests formed a brotherhood to preserve his tomb, and at that tomb have since knelt Popes Urban II. and Clement V., Edward of England, Blanche of Castile, Henry IV., Louis VII., XI. and XIII. of France, and many great lords and princes, who, it must be remembered, had to journey hither in days when no palace-coaches and lightning mail-trains were at their disposal. Railroads have put a heavy discount on the ancient pilgrimage business.
In the tenth century a terrible plague, known as the mal des ardents, swept off forty thousand Limousins in a few weeks. The survivors, hopeless save of divine intervention, prayed that St. Martial's remains might be brought from the tomb where they had been reposing for nearly a thousand years and exposed to public view. All the relics of other saints that could be collected in the neighborhood were brought into Limoges, as if to form a cortége of honor to the remains of the patron saint of Aquitaine. Upon a hill in the environs, now known as the Mont de la Joie, the sacred fossils of the departed just were held up that all might gaze upon them and be healed. By what particular process the manifestation of these osseous fragments of defunct ecclesiastics resulted in a banishment of the pestilence one finds it difficult to explain, save on general principles of faith and Professor Tyndall's prayer-test. Nevertheless, history records that the plague was stayed. A chapel was erected upon the hilltop, which is now tunnelled by a railroad, and from that day the public display of these saintly relics, at intervals of every seven years, has become an established ceremonial known as the Festival of the Ostension. It is celebrated on Thursday of Mid-Lent by a procession conducted with great pomp and ceremony. The flag of the brotherhood of St. Martial, an immense white banner with a red cross, is first blessed by the bishop, after which, followed by a numerous cortége, it is borne through the city to the sound of music and an incessant fusillade of musketry. It is then hoisted to the summit of the spire of St. Michael, which forms the repository of St. Martial's remains.
The procession itself is a curious and motley spectacle. So great is the emulation in the preparation of costumes that many families are accustomed to buy the materials and begin the work two years in advance. In the ranks are to be seen represented all the saints both of the Old and New Testament, the seven Maccabei, and the entire Passion, including our Saviour, the Virgin Mary and the apostles. Twenty-four angels carry the instruments of the Passion. "We participated in this festival in 1820," writes the late Abbé Tesier, "and can recall the tears, and even indignation, of the multitude when the personage representing Our Lord fell under the weight of an immense cross." On the same occasion four thousand pupils of the College of St. Mary marched in line, representing the prophets, martyrs, confessors and virgins. After them came long lines of soldiers fantastically clad in the military costumes of the Middle Ages, and equipped with crossbows, matchlock arquebuses and all varieties of ancient weapons, which had been handed down in families from generation to generation to be used on these occasions. There were in line, too, all the rulers and magistrates of the province, and scores of religious orders and brotherhoods to which successive centuries of Romanism had given birth. Chief among these latter are the Penitents, a curious fraternity which merits more than a passing mention.
Though dating from the thirteenth century in France, it was not until 1598 that the order made its appearance in Limoges. It gained ground there so rapidly, however, that in 1789 but one other city, Marseilles, contained a greater number of lodges. Each lodge, to obtain its charter, had to bind itself to rebuild some ruined church, name some special mission of good it was to accomplish and choose some special color for its costume. Thus at Limoges we find Black, Blue, Gray, White, Purple, Violet and Dead-Leaf Penitents, each charged with some special benevolent function, such as settling disputes between alienated members of one family, escorting the condemned to the scaffold and holding the crucifix to their lips, relieving imprisoned debtors, and so on. People of all ages and conditions flocked to their ranks. A unanimous election was required to obtain admission. The order grew so wealthy and powerful that at times it even dared to oppose the authority of the Church itself. The annual procession on Holy Thursday called out the entire population. It took place at nightfall, the brethren marching disguised and barefoot through the streets, holding lighted tapers and lanterns suspended from long poles, carrying a cross covered with crape at their head, and chanting a dirge as they went. But by and by trouble arose, and the Penitents found themselves in hot water. In 1742 a malefactor whom they escorted to the scaffold managed to escape, through the aid, it was believed, of the throng of disguised Penitents about him. Henceforward their interference in executions was forbidden. The Revolution dealt what was practically a deathblow to the order, for, though revived in 1804, it provoked ridicule as out of keeping with modern ideas. The Ostension procession of 1862 saw the six surviving lodges parade together for the last time. The events of 1870-71 finished the work of disorganization, and to-day the costumes and ornaments of the Penitents Noirs—who, it seems, had survived all the others—remain as curiosities in the possession of the last treasurer of the lodge.