II.
“La voyez vous croitre,
La tour du vieux cloitre?”
Before concluding our notice we must devote a page or two to the “Old Cloister Tower,” which is discernible from a considerable distance, with its four or five stories and its heraldic crown rising above the walls of the ancient borough of Solesmes. The abbey itself next appears in sight, majestically seated on the slope of a wide valley, through which flows the Sarthe, on a level with its grassy borders.
The locality, which is pleasing rather than picturesque, is fertile, animated, and cheerful. Besides several châteaux of recent construction, which face the abbey from the opposite side of the river, may be seen, at some distance off, the splendid convent of Benedictine Nuns, built some years ago by a lady of Marseilles, and on the horizon appears the Château of Sablé, with its vast terraces and (according to the country-people) its three hundred and sixty-five windows.
The Abbey of Solesmes, founded about the year 1025, has preserved, in spite of several reconstructions, the architectural arrangement, so suitable for community life, copied by its first monks from the Roman houses of the order. The enclosure consists of a quadrangle, with an almost interminable cloister, out of which are entrances into the church, the chapter-house, the refectory, the guest-chamber, and all the places of daily assembly. There silence and recollection reign supreme. Excepting only during the times of recreation, no sound is to be heard save the twittering of birds, the sound of the Angelus or some other occasional bell, or the subdued voice of a monk who, with some visitor, is standing before a sculptured saint, or examining the fragments of some ancient tomb.
It is chiefly the abbey church which attracts the curiosity and interest of artists and antiquaries. There is not an archæologist who has not heard of the “Saints of Solesmes,” as the groups of statues and symbolic sculptures are called which fill the chapels of the transept from roof to pavement. These wonderful works, executed for the most part under the direction of the priors of Solesmes, form one of the finest monuments of mediæval sculpture to be found in France. They are mystic and somewhat mannered in style, but of bold conception, vigorously expressed.
A multitude of personages, sacred, historical, or allegorical, intermingle with coats-of-arms, heraldic devices, bandrols, and all the details of an ornamentation of which the skilfully-studied arrangement corrects the redundance, which would otherwise be confused. This, however, is but the purely decorative portion; the principal works being enshrined in deep niches or recesses, in which may be seen groups of seven or eight figures, the size of life, and wonderfully effective in attitude and action.
In a low-vaulted crypt resting on pillars, to the right, is represented the Entombment. This group, which is the earliest in date, having been executed in 1496 under the direction of Michel Colomb, “habitant de Tours et tailleur d’ymaiges du roy,” is the most considerable, and perhaps also the most striking. All the figures, ten in number, have impressed on their countenances and movements the feeling of the dolorous function in which they are engaged. Most of them are represented in the costume, and probably with the features, of persons of the time. Joseph of Arimathea in particular has the look and bearing of the lord of the place, or, it may be, of the prior of the monastery. But nothing attracts the attention more than a little statue with features so refined that it might have descended from the canvas of Carlo Dolci. It is the Magdalen, seated in the dust; the elbows supported on the knees, the hands joined, the eyes closed. All her life seems concentrated in her soul; and that is absorbed in penitence and prayer, grief, love, and resignation—she is as if still shedding her sanctified odors at the Saviour’s feet.
The left transept is devoted to the honor of the Blessed Virgin. She has fallen asleep in the Lord, surrounded by the apostles. Then follow her burial, her Assumption, and finally her glorification. She tramples under foot the dragon, who, with bristling horns and claws, vainly endeavors to reach her. He is bound for a thousand years. This subject, rarely attempted, is here powerfully treated; all these heads, with horrible grimaces, appear to be howling and blaspheming in impotent fury—Et iratus est draco in mulierem[89]—but the Woman is raised on high, and with her virginal foot tramples on the enemy of mankind. Facing this subject are the patriarchs and prophets, in niches royally decorated. This work was executed in 1550 by Floris d’Anvers, after the plan given by Jean Bouglet, Doctor of the Sorbonne, and Prior of Solesmes.