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THE CATHEDRALS OF SOUTHERN FRANCE
The Cathedral Series
_The following, each 1 vol., library
12mo, cloth, gilt top, profusely illustrated.
$2.50_
_The Cathedrals of Northern
France BY FRANCIS MILTOUN_
_The Cathedrals of Southern
France BY FRANCIS MILTOUN_
_The Cathedrals of England
BY MARY J. TABER_
_The following, each 1 vol., library
12mo, cloth, gilt top, profusely illustrated.
Net, $2.00_
_The Cathedrals and Churches
of the Rhine BY FRANCIS MILTOUN_
_The Cathedrals of Northern
Spain BY CHARLES RUDY_
_L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
New England Building, Boston, Mass._
ST. ANDRÉ ... de BORDEAUX
THE CATHEDRALS OF
SOUTHERN FRANCE
By FRANCIS MILTOUN
AUTHOR OF "THE CATHEDRALS
OF NORTHERN FRANCE,"
"DICKENS' LONDON," ETC.,
WITH NINETY ILLUSTRATIONS,
PLANS, AND DIAGRAMS,
By BLANCHE McMANUS
BOSTON
L. C. Page and Company
MDCCCCV
Copyright, 1904
BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
All rights reserved
Published August, 1904
Third Impression
Colonial Press
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, Mass., U. S. A.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction 11
PART I. SOUTHERN FRANCE IN GENERAL
I. The Charm of Southern France 23
II. The Church in Gaul 34
III. The Church Architecture of Southern France 50
PART II. SOUTH OF THE LOIRE
I. Introductory 71
II. L'Abbaye de Maillezais 81
III. St. Louis de la Rochelle 82
IV. Cathédrale de Luçon 85
V. St. Front de Périgueux 87
VI. St. Pierre de Poitiers 92
VII. St. Etienne de Limoges 104
VIII. St. Odilon de St. Flour 112
IX. St. Pierre de Saintes 115
X. Cathédrale de Tulle 118
XI. St. Pierre d'Angoulême 120
XII. Notre Dame de Moulins 126
XIII. Notre Dame de le Puy 134
XIV. Notre Dame de Clermont-Ferrand 144
XV. St. Fulcran de Lodève 152
PART III. THE RHONE VALLEY
I. Introductory 159
II. St. Etienne de Chalons-sur-Saône 170
III. St. Vincent de Macon 174
IV. St. Jean de Lyon 177
V. St. Maurice de Vienne 186
VI. St. Apollinaire de Valence 190
VII. Cathédrale de Viviers 195
VIII. Notre Dame d'Orange 197
IX. St. Véran de Cavaillon 200
X. Notre Dame des Doms d'Avignon 204
XI. St. Siffrein de Carpentras 221
XII. Cathédrale de Vaison 226
XIII. St. Trophime d'Arles 228
XIV. St. Castor de Nîmes 236
XV. St. Théodorit d'Uzès 245
XVI. St. Jean d'Alais 249
XVII. St. Pierre d'Annecy 252
XVIII. Cathédrale de Chambéry 255
XIX. Notre Dame de Grenoble 258
XX. Belley and Aoste 267
XXI. St. Jean de Maurienne 269
XXII. St. Pierre de St. Claude 272
XXIII. Notre Dame de Bourg 277
XXIV. Glandève, Senez, Riez, Sisteron 280
XXV. St. Jerome de Digne 283
XXVI. Notre Dame de Die 287
XXVII. Notre Dame et St. Castor d'Apt 289
XXVIII. Notre Dame d'Embrun 292
XXIX. Notre Dame de l'Assomption de Gap 296
XXX. Notre Dame de Vence 300
XXXI. Cathédrale de Sion 302
XXII. St. Paul Troix Château 305
PART IV. THE MEDITERRANEAN COAST
I. Introductory 313
II. St. Sauveur d'Aix 323
III. St. Reparata de Nice 328
IV. Ste. Marie Majeure de Toulon 332
V. St. Etienne de Fréjus 335
VI. Église de Grasse 339
VII. Antibes 341
VIII. Ste. Marie Majeure de Marseilles 342
IX. St. Pierre d'Alet 350
X. St. Pierre de Montpellier 352
XI. Cathédrale d'Agde 358
XII. St. Nazaire de Béziers 363
XIII. St. Jean de Perpignan 368
XIV. Ste. Eulalia d'Elne 372
XV. St. Just de Narbonne 375
PART V. THE VALLEY OF THE GARONNE
I. Introductory 383
II. St. André de Bordeaux 396
III. Cathédrale de Lectoure 402
IV. Notre Dame de Bayonne 405
V. St. Jean de Bazas 411
VI. Notre Dame de Lescar 413
VII. L'Eglise de la Sède: Tarbes 417
VIII. Cathédrale de Condom 420
IX. Cathédrale de Montauban 422
X. St. Etienne de Cahors 425
XI. St. Caprias d'Agen 429
XII. Ste. Marie d'Auch 432
XIII. St. Etienne de Toulouse 439
XIV. St. Nazaire de Carcassone 449
XV. Cathédrale de Pamiers 461
XVI. St. Bertrand de Comminges 464
XVII. St. Jean-Baptiste d'Aire 469
XVIII. Sts. Benoit et Vincent de Castres 471
XIX. Notre Dame de Rodez 474
XX. Ste. Cécile d'Albi 482
XXI. St. Pierre de Mende 490
XXII. Other Old-Time Cathedrals in and about the Basin of the Garonne 495
APPENDICES
I. Sketch Map Showing the Usual Geographical Divisions of France 503
II. A Historical Table of the Dioceses of the South of France up to the beginning of the nineteenth century 504
III. The Classification of Architectural Styles in France according to De Caumont's "Abécédaire d'Architecture Religieuse" 510
IV. A Chronology of Architectural Styles in France 511
V. Leading Forms of Early Cathedral Constructions 513
VI. The Disposition of the Parts of a Tenth-Century Church as defined by Violet-le-Duc 514
VII. A Brief Definitive Gazetteer of the Natural and Geological Divisions Included in the Ancient Provinces and Present-Day Departments of Southern France, together with the local names by which the pays et pagi are commonly known 516
VIII. Sketch Map of the Bishoprics and Archbishoprics of the South of France at the Present Day 519
IX. Dimensions and Chronology 520
Index 545
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
St. André de Bordeaux Frontispiece
The Concordat (From Napoleon's Tomb) 43
St. Louis de La Rochelle 82
Cathédrale de Luçon 85
St. Front de Périgueux 87
Detail of the Interior of St. Front de Périgueux 90
Poitiers 93
St. Etienne de Limoges 105
Reliquary of Thomas à Becket 111
Cathédrale de Tulle facing 118
St. Pierre d'Angoulême facing 120
Notre Dame de Moulins facing 126
Notre Dame de Le Puy facing 134
Le Puy 138
The Black Virgin, Le Puy 143
Notre Dame de Clermont-Ferrand facing 144
St. Vincent de Macon facing 174
St. Jean de Lyon facing 176
St. Apollinaire de Valence 190
St. Véran de Cavaillon 200
Notre Dame des Doms d'Avignon 205
Villeneuve-les-Avignon facing 212
Notre Dame des Doms d'Avignon facing 218
St. Trophime d'Arles 228
St. Trophime d'Arles facing 228
Cloisters, St. Trophime d'Arles 233
St. Castor de Nîmes 236
St. Castor de Nîmes 237
St. Théodorit d'Uzès 245
Cathédrale de Chambéry 255
Notre Dame de Grenoble 258
St. Bruno 261
Belley 265
St. Jean de Maurienne 269
St. Pierre de St. Claude facing 272
Notre Dame de Bourg 275
Notre Dame de Sisteron facing 280
St. Jerome de Digne 283
Notre Dame d'Embrun 292
The Ramparts of Aigues-Mortes 320
St. Sauveur d'Aix 321
Detail of Doorway of the Archbishop's Palace, Fréjus 338
Eglise de Grasse 339
Marseilles 343
The Old Cathedral, Marseilles 345
St. Pierre de Montpellier facing 352
Cathédrale d'Agde 358
St. Nazaire de Béziers 361
St. Jean de Perpignan 368
Ste. Eulalia d'Elne 372
St. Just de Narbonne facing 374
Cloister of St. Just de Narbonne facing 378
Notre Dame de Bayonne facing 404
Eglise de la Sède, Tarbes 417
St. Etienne de Cahors facing 424
Ste. Marie d'Auch facing 432
St. Etienne de Toulouse facing 438
Nave of St. Etienne de Toulouse 445
St. Nazaire de Carcassonne facing 448
The Old Cité de Carcassonne before and after the Restoration 451
Two Capitals of Pillars in St. Nazaire de Carcassonne; and the Rude Stone Carving of Carcas 454
St. Nazaire de Carcassonne facing 454
Cathédrale de Pamiers 461
St. Bertrand de Comminges facing 464
St. Jean-Baptiste d'Aire 469
Sts. Benoit et Vincent de Castres facing 470
Notre Dame de Rodez facing 474
Choir-Stalls, Rodez 480
Ste. Cécile d'Albi facing 482
St. Pierre de Mende facing 490
Sketch Map of France 503
Medallion 510
Leading Forms of Early Cathedral Constructions 513
Plan of a Tenth Century Church 514
Sketch Map of the Bishoprics and Archbishoprics of the South of France at the Present Day 519
St. Caprias d'Agen (diagram) 520
Baptistery of St. Sauveur d'Aix (diagram) 521
Ste. Cécile d'Albi (diagram) 522
St. Pierre d'Angoulême (diagram) 523
St. Trophime d'Arles (diagram) 524
Notre Dame des Doms d'Avignon (diagram) 525
St. Etienne de Cahors (diagram) 527
St. Veran de Cavaillon (diagram) 528
Cathédrale de Chambéry (diagram) 529
Notre Dame de Clermont-Ferrand (diagram) 530
St. Bertrand de Comminges (diagram) 530
Notre Dame de Le Puy (diagram) 532
St. Etienne de Limoges (diagram) 532
St. Jean de Lyon (diagram) 533
St. Just de Narbonne (diagram) 535
Notre Dame d'Orange (diagram) 536
St. Front de Périgueux (diagram) 537
St. Jean de Perpignan (diagram) 537
St. Pierre de Poitiers (diagrams) 538
Notre Dame de Rodez (diagram) 539
St. Etienne de Toulouse (diagram) 541
St. Paul Trois Châteaux (diagram) 542
Cathédrale de Vaison (diagram) 543
The Cathedrals of Southern France
INTRODUCTION
Too often--it is a half-acknowledged delusion, however--one meets with what appears to be a theory: that a book of travel must necessarily be a series of dull, discursive, and entirely uncorroborated opinions of one who may not be even an intelligent observer. This is mere intellectual pretence. Even a humble author--so long as he be an honest one--may well be allowed to claim with Mr. Howells the right to be serious, or the reverse, "with his material as he finds it;" and that "something personally experienced can only be realized on the spot where it was lived." This, says he, is "the prime use of travel, and the attempt to create the reader a partner in the enterprise" ... must be the excuse, then, for putting one's observations on paper.
He rightly says, too, that nothing of perilous adventure is to-day any more like to happen "in Florence than in Fitchburg."
A "literary tour," a "cathedral tour," or an "architectural tour," requires a formula wherein the author must be wary of making questionable estimates; but he may, with regard to generalities,--or details, for that matter,--state his opinion plainly; but he should state also his reasons. With respect to church architecture no average reader, any more than the average observer, willingly enters the arena of intellectual combat, but rather is satisfied--as he should be, unless he is a Freeman, a Gonse, or a Corroyer--with an ampler radius which shall command even a juster, though no less truthful, view.
Not from one book or from ten, in one year or a score can this be had. The field is vast and the immensity of it all only dawns upon one the deeper he gets into his subject. A dictionary of architecture, a compendium or gazetteer of geography, or even the unwieldy mass of fact tightly held in the fastnesses of the Encyclopædia Britannica will not tell one--in either a long or a short while--all the facts concerning the cathedrals of France.
Some will consider that in this book are made many apparently trifling assertions; but it is claimed that they are pertinent and again are expressive of an emotion which mayhap always arises of the same mood.
Notre Dame at Rodez is a "warm, mouse-coloured cathedral;" St. Cécile d'Albi is at once "a fortress and a church," and the once royal city of Aigues-Mortes is to-day but "a shelter for a few hundred pallid, shaking mortals."
Such expressions are figurative, but, so far as words can put it, they are the concentrated result of observation.
These observations do not aspire to be considered "improving," though it is asserted that they are informative.
Description of all kinds is an art which requires considerable forethought in order to be even readable. And of all subjects, art and architecture are perhaps the most difficult to treat in a manner which shall not arouse an intolerant criticism.
Perhaps some credit will be attained for the attempts herein made to present in a pleasing manner many of the charms of the ecclesiastical architecture of southern France, where a more elaborate and erudite work would fail of its object. As Lady Montagu has said in her "Letters,"--"We travellers are in very hard circumstances. If we say nothing new, we are dull, and have observed nothing. If we tell any new thing, we are laughed at as fabulous and romantic."
This book is intended as a contribution to travel literature--or, if the reader like, to that special class of book which appeals largely to the traveller.
Most lovers of art and literature are lovers of churches; indeed, the world is yearly containing more and more of this class. The art expression of a people, of France in particular, has most often first found its outlet in church-building and decoration. Some other countries have degenerated sadly from the idea.
In recent times the Anglo-Saxon has mostly built his churches,--on what he is pleased to think are "improved lines,"--that, more than anything else, resemble, in their interiors, playhouses, and in their exteriors, cotton factories and breweries.
This seemingly bitter view is advanced simply because the writer believes that it is the church-members, using the term in its broad sense, who are responsible for the many outrageously unseemly church-buildings which are yearly being erected; not the architects--who have failings enough of their own to answer for.
It is said that a certain great architect of recent times was responsible for more bad architecture than any man who had lived before or since. Not because he produced such himself, but because his feeble imitators, without his knowledge, his training, or his ambition, not only sought to follow in his footsteps, but remained a long way in the rear, and stumbled by the way.
This man built churches. He built one, Trinity Church, in Boston, U. S. A., which will remain, as long as its stones endure, an entirely successful transplantation of an exotic from another land. In London a new Roman Catholic cathedral has recently been erected after the Byzantine manner, and so unexpectedly successful was it in plan and execution that its author was "medalled" by the Royal Academy; whatever that dubious honour may be worth.
Both these great men are dead, and aside from these two great examples, and possibly the Roman Catholic cathedral, and the yet unachieved cathedral of St. John the Divine, in New York City, where, in an English-speaking land, has there been built, in recent times, a religious edifice of the first rank worthy to be classed with these two old-world and new-world examples?
They do these things better in France: Viollet-le-Duc completed St. Ouen at Rouen and the cathedral at Clermont-Ferrand, in most acceptable manner. So, too, was the treatment of the cathedral at Moulins-sur-Allier--although none of these examples are among the noblest or the most magnificent in France. They have, however, been completed successfully, and in the true spirit of the original.
To know the shops and boulevards of Paris does not necessarily presume a knowledge of France. This point is mentioned here from the fact that many have claimed a familiarity with the cathedrals of France; when to all practical purposes, they might as well have begun and ended with the observation that Notre Dame de Paris stands on an island in the middle of the Seine.
The author would not carp at the critics of the first volume of this series, which appeared last season. Far from it. They were, almost without exception, most generous. At least they granted, unqualifiedly, the reason for being for the volume which was put forth bearing the title: "Cathedrals of Northern France."
The seeming magnitude of the undertaking first came upon the author and artist while preparing the first volume for the press. This was made the more apparent when, on a certain occasion, just previous to the appearance of the book, the author made mention thereof to a friend who did know Paris--better perhaps than most English or American writers; at least he ought to have known it better.
When this friend heard of the inception of this book on French cathedrals, he marvelled at the fact that there should be a demand for such; said that the subject had already been overdone; and much more of the same sort; and that only yesterday a certain Miss---- had sent him an "author's copy" of a book which recounted the results of a journey which she and her mother had recently made in what she sentimentally called "Romantic Touraine."
Therein were treated at least a good half-dozen cathedrals; which, supplementing the always useful Baedeker or Joanne, and a handbook of Notre Dame at Paris and another of Rouen, covered--thought the author's friend at least--quite a representative share of the cathedrals of France.
This only substantiates the contention made in the foreword to the first volume: that there were doubtless many with a true appreciation and love for great churches who would be glad to know more of them, and have the ways--if not the means--smoothed in order to make a visit thereto the more simplified and agreeable. Too often--the preface continued--the tourist, alone or personally conducted in droves, was whirled rapidly onward by express-train to some more popularly or fashionably famous spot, where, for a previously stipulated sum, he might partake of a more lurid series of amusements than a mere dull round of churches.
"Cities, like individuals, have," says Arthur Symons, "a personality and individuality quite like human beings."
This is undoubtedly true of churches as well, and the sympathetic observer--the enthusiastic lover of churches for their peculiarities, none the less than their general excellencies--is the only person who will derive the maximum amount of pleasure and profit from an intimacy therewith.
Whether a great church is interesting because of its antiquity, its history, or its artistic beauties matters little to the enthusiast. He will drink his fill of what offers. Occasionally, he will find a combination of two--or possibly all--of these ingredients; when his joy will be great.
Herein are catalogued as many of the attributes of the cathedrals of the south of France--and the records of religious or civil life which have surrounded them in the past--as space and opportunity for observation have permitted.
More the most sanguine and capable of authors could not promise, and while in no sense does the volume presume to supply exhaustive information, it is claimed that all of the churches included within the classification of cathedrals--those of the present and those of a past day--are to be found mentioned herein, the chief facts of their history recorded, and their notable features catalogued.
PART I
Southern France in General
I
THE CHARM OF SOUTHERN FRANCE
The charm of southern France is such as to compel most writers thereon to become discursive. It could not well be otherwise. Many things go to make up pictures of travel, which the most polished writer could not ignore unless he confined himself to narrative pure and simple; as did Sterne.
One who seeks knowledge of the architecture of southern France should perforce know something of the life of town and country in addition to a specific knowledge of, or an immeasurable enthusiasm for, the subject.
Few have given Robert Louis Stevenson any great preëminence as a writer of topographical description; perhaps not all have admitted his ability as an unassailable critic; but the fact is, there is no writer to whom the lover of France can turn with more pleasure and profit than Stevenson.
There is a wealth of description of the country-side of France in the account of his romantic travels on donkey-back, or, as he whimsically puts it, "beside a donkey," and his venturesome though not dangerous "Inland Voyage." These early volumes of Stevenson, while doubtless well known to lovers of his works, are closed books to most casual travellers. The author and artist of this book here humbly acknowledge an indebtedness which might not otherwise be possible to repay.
Stevenson was devout, he wrote sympathetically of churches, of cathedrals, of monasteries, and of religion. What his predilections were as to creed is not so certain. Sterne was more worldly, but he wrote equally attractive prose concerning many things which English-speaking people have come to know more of since his time. Arthur Young, "an agriculturist," as he has been rather contemptuously called, a century or more ago wrote of rural France after a manner, and with a profuseness, which few have since equalled. His creed, likewise, appears to be unknown; in that, seldom, if ever, did he mention churches, and not at any time did he discuss religion.
In a later day Miss M. E. B. Edwards, an English lady who knows France as few of her countrywomen do, wrote of many things more or less allied with religion, which the ordinary "travel books" ignored--much to their loss--altogether.
Still more recently another English lady, Madam Marie Duclaux,--though her name would not appear to indicate her nationality,--has written a most charming series of observations on her adopted land; wherein the peasant, his religion, and his aims in life are dealt with more understandingly than were perhaps possible, had the author not been possessed of a long residence among them.
Henry James, of all latter-day writers, has given us perhaps the most illuminating accounts of the architectural joy of great churches, châteaux and cathedrals. Certainly his work is marvellously appreciative, and his "Little Tour in France," with the two books of Stevenson before mentioned, Sterne's "Sentimental Journey,"--and Mr. Tristram Shandy, too, if the reader likes,--form a quintette of voices which will tell more of the glories of France and her peoples than any other five books in the English language.
When considering the literature of place, one must not overlook the fair land of Provence or the "Midi of France"--that little-known land lying immediately to the westward of Marseilles, which is seldom or never even tasted by the hungry tourist.
To know what he would of these two delightful regions one should read Thomas Janvier, Félix Gras, and Mêrimêe. He will then have far more of an insight into the places and the peoples than if he perused whole shelves of histories, geographies, or technical works on archæology and fossil remains.
If he can supplement all this with travel, or, better yet, take them hand-in-hand, he will be all the more fortunate.
At all events here is a vast subject for the sated traveller to grasp, and en passant he will absorb not a little of the spirit of other days and of past history, and something of the attitude of reverence for church architecture which is apparently born in every Frenchman,--at least to a far greater degree than in any other nationality,--whatever may be his present-day attitude of mind toward the subject of religion in the abstract.
France, be it remembered, is not to-day as it was a century and a half ago, when it was the fashion of English writers to condemn and revile it as a nation of degraded serfs, a degenerate aristocracy, a corrupt clergy, or as an enfeebled monarchy.
Since then there has arisen a Napoleon, who, whatever his faulty morals may have been, undoubtedly welded into a united whole those widely divergent tendencies and sentiments of the past, which otherwise would not have survived. This was prophetic and far-seeing, no matter what the average historian may say to the contrary; and it has in no small way worked itself toward an ideal successfully, if not always by the most practical and direct path.
One thing is certain, the lover of churches will make the round of the southern cathedrals under considerably more novel and entrancing conditions than in those cities of the north or mid-France. Many of the places which shelter a great cathedral church in the south are of little rank as centres of population; as, for instance, at Mende in Lozère, where one suddenly finds oneself set down in the midst of a green basin surrounded by mountains on all sides, with little to distract his attention from its remarkably picturesque cathedral; or at Albi, where a Sunday-like stillness always seems to reign, and its fortress-church, which seems to regulate the very life of the town, stands, as it has since its foundation, a majestic guardian of well-being.
There is but one uncomfortable feature to guard against, and that is the mistral, a wind which blows down the Rhône valley at certain seasons of the year, and, in the words of the habitant, "blows all before it." It is not really as bad as this, but its breath is uncomfortably cold, and it does require a firm purpose to stand against its blast.
Then, too, from October until March, south of Lyons, the nights, which draw in so early at this season of the year, are contrastingly and uncomfortably cold, as compared with the days, which seem always to be blessed with bright and sunshiny weather.
It may be argued that this is not the season which appeals to most people as being suitable for travelling. But why not? Certainly it is the fashion to travel toward the Mediterranean during the winter months, and the attractions, not omitting the allurements of dress clothes, gambling-houses, and bals masqués are surely not more appealing than the chain of cities which extend from Chambéry and Grenoble in the Alps, through Orange, Nîmes, Arles, Perpignan, Carcassonne, and the slopes of the Pyrenees, to Bayonne.
In the departments of Lozère, Puy de Dôme, Gard and Auvergne and Dordogne, the true, unspoiled Gallic flavour abides in all its intensity. As Touraine, or at least Tours, claims to speak the purest French tongue, so this region of streams and mountains, of volcanic remains, of Protestantism, and of an--as yet--unspoiled old-worldliness, possesses more than any other somewhat of the old-time social independence and disregard of latter-day innovations.
Particularly is this so--though perhaps it has been remarked before--in that territory which lies between Clermont-Ferrand and Valence in one direction, and Vienne and Rodez in another, to extend its confines to extreme limits.
Here life goes on gaily and in animated fashion, in a hundred dignified and picturesque old towns, and the wise traveller will go a-hunting after those which the guide-books complain of--not without a sneer--as being dull and desultory. French, and for that matter the new régime of English, historical novelists are too obstinately bent on the study of Paris, "At all events," says Edmund Gosse, "since the days of Balzac and George Sand, and have neglected the provincial boroughs."
They should study mid-France on the spot; and read Stevenson and Mérimée while they are doing it. It will save them a deal of worrying out of things--with possibly wrong deductions--for themselves.
The climatic conditions of France vary greatly. From the gray, wind-blown shores of Brittany, where for quite three months of the autumn one is in a perpetual drizzle, and the equally chilly and bare country of the Pas de Calais, and the more or less sodden French Flanders, to the brisk, sunny climate of the Loire valley, the Cevennes, Dauphiné, and Savoie, is a wide range of contrast. Each is possessed of its own peculiar characteristics, which the habitant alone seems to understand in all its vagaries. At all events, there is no part of France which actually merits the opprobrious deprecations which are occasionally launched forth by the residents of the "garden spot of England," who see no topographical beauties save in their own wealds and downs.
France is distinctly a self-contained land. Its tillers of the soil, be they mere agriculturists or workers in the vineyards, are of a race as devoted and capable at their avocations as any alive.
They do not, to be sure, eat meat three times a day--and often not once a week--but they thrive and gain strength on what many an English-speaking labourer would consider but a mere snack.
Again, the French peasant is not, like the English labourer, perpetually reminded, by the independence of the wealth surrounding him, of his own privations and dependence. On the contrary, he enjoys contentment with a consciousness that no human intervention embitters his condition, and that its limits are only fixed by the bounds of nature, and somewhat by his own industry.
Thus it is easy to inculcate in such a people somewhat more of that spirit of "l'amour de la patrie," or love of the land, which in England, at the present time, appears to be growing beautifully less.
So, too, with love and honour for their famous citizens, the French are enthusiastic, beyond any other peoples, for their monuments, their institutions, and above all for their own province and department.
With regard to their architectural monuments, still more are they proud and well-informed, even the labouring classes. Seldom, if ever, has the writer made an inquiry but what it was answered with interest, if not with a superlative intelligence, and the Frenchman of the lower classes--be he a labourer of the towns or cities, or a peasant of the country-side--is a remarkably obliging person.
In what may strictly be called the south of France, that region bordering along the Mediterranean, Provence, and the southerly portion of Languedoc, one is manifestly environed with a mellowness and brilliance of sky and atmosphere only to be noted in a sub-tropical land, a feature which finds further expression in most of the attributes of local life.
The climate and topographical features take on a contrastingly different aspect, as does the church architecture and the mode of life of the inhabitants here in the southland.
Here is the true romance country of all the world. Here the Provençal tongue and its literature have preserved that which is fast fleeting from us in these days when a nation's greatest struggle is for commercial or political supremacy. It was different in the days of Petrarch and of Rabelais.
But there are reminders of this glorious past yet to be seen, more tangible than a memory alone, and more satisfying than mere written history.
At Orange, Nîmes, and Arles are Roman remains of theatres, arenas, and temples, often perfectly preserved, and as magnificent as in Rome itself.
At Avignon is a splendid papal palace, to which the Holy See was transferred by Clement V. at the time of the Italian partition, in the early fourteenth century, while Laura's tomb, or the site of it, is also close at hand.
At Clermont-Ferrand, in Auvergne, Pope Urban, whose monument is on the spot, urged and instigated the Crusades.
The Christian activities of this land were as strenuous as any, and their remains are even more numerous and interesting. Southern Gaul, however, became modernized but slowly, and the influences of the Christian spirit were not perhaps as rapid as in the north, where Roman sway was more speedily annulled. Still, not even in the churches of Lombardy or Tuscany are there more strong evidences of the inception and growth of this great power, which sought at one time to rule the world, and may yet.
II
THE CHURCH IN GAUL
Guizot's notable dictum, "If you are fond of romance and history," may well be paraphrased in this wise: "If you are fond of history, read the life histories of great churches."
Leaving dogmatic theory aside, much, if not quite all, of the life of the times in France--up to the end of the sixteenth century--centred more or less upon the Church, using the word in its fullest sense. Aside from its religious significance, the influence of the Church, as is well known and recognized by all, was variously political, social, and perhaps economic.
So crowded and varied were the events of Church history in Gaul, it would be impossible to include even the most important of them in a brief chronological arrangement which should form a part of a book such as this.
It is imperative, however, that such as are mentioned should be brought together in some consecutive manner in a way that should indicate the mighty ebb and flow of religious events of Church and State.
These passed rapidly and consecutively throughout Southern Gaul, which became a part of the kingdom of the French but slowly.
Many bishoprics have been suppressed or merged into others, and again united with these sees from which they had been separated. Whatever may be the influences of the Church, monastic establishments, or more particularly, the bishops and their clergy, to-day, there is no question but that from the evangelization of Gaul to the end of the nineteenth century, the parts played by them were factors as great as any other in coagulating and welding together the kingdom of France.
The very large number of bishops which France has had approximates eight thousand eminent and virtuous names; and it is to the memory of their works in a practical way, none the less than their devotion to preaching the Word itself, that the large number of magnificent ecclesiastical monuments have been left as their heritage.
There is a large share of veneration and respect due these pioneers of Christianity; far more, perhaps, than obtains for those of any other land. Here their activities were so very great, their woes and troubles so very oppressive, and their final achievement so splendid, that the record is one which stands alone.
It is a glorious fact--in spite of certain lapses and influx of fanaticism--that France has ever recognized the sterling worth to the nation of the devotion and wise counsel of her churchmen; from the indefatigable apostles of Gaul to her cardinals, wise and powerful in councils of state.
The evangelization of Gaul was not an easy or a speedy process. On the authority of Abbé Morin of Moulins, who, in La France Pontificale, has undertaken to "chronologize all the bishops and archbishops of France from the first century to our day," Christianity came first to Aix and Marseilles with Lazare de Béthanie in 35 or 36 A. D.; followed shortly after by Lin de Besançon, Clement de Metz, Demêtre de Gap, and Ruf d'Avignon.
Toward the end of the reign of Claudian, and the commencement of that of Nero (54-55 A. D.), there arrived in Gaul the seven Apostle-bishops, the founders of the Church at Arles (St. Trophime), Narbonne (St. Paul), Limoges (St. Martial), Clermont (St. Austremoine), Tours (St. Gatien), Toulouse (St. Saturnin), and Trèves (St. Valère).
It was some years later that Paris received within its walls St. Denis, its first Apostle of Christianity, its first bishop, and its first martyr.
Others as famous were Taurin d'Evreux, Lucien de Beauvais, Eutrope de Saintes, Aventin de Chartres, Nicaise de Rouen, Sixte de Reims, Savinien de Sens, and St. Crescent--the disciple of St. Paul--of Vienne.
From these early labours, through the three centuries following, and down through fifteen hundred years, have passed many traditions of these early fathers which are well-nigh legendary and fabulous.
The Abbé Morin says further: "We have not, it is true, an entirely complete chronology of the bishops who governed the Church in Gaul, but the names of the great and noble army of bishops and clergy, who for eighteen hundred years have succeeded closely one upon another, are assuredly the most beautiful jewels in the crown of France. Their virtues were many and great,--eloquence, love of la patrie, indomitable courage in time of trial, mastery of difficult situation, prudence, energy, patience, and charity." All these grand virtues were practised incessantly, with some regrettable eclipses, attributable not only to misfortune, but occasionally to fault. A churchman even is but human.
With the accession of the third dynasty of kings,--the Capetians, in 987,--the history of the French really began, and that of the Franks, with their Germanic tendencies and elements, became absorbed by those of the Romanic language and character, with the attendant habits and customs.
Only the Aquitanians, south of the Loire, and the Burgundians on the Rhône, still preserved their distinct nationalities.
The feudal ties which bound Aquitaine to France were indeed so slight that, when Hugh Capet, in 990, asked of Count Adelbert of Périgueux, before the walls of the besieged city of Tours: "Who made thee count?" he was met with the prompt and significant rejoinder, "Who made thee king?"
At the close of the tenth century, France was ruled by close upon sixty princes, virtually independent, and yet a still greater number of prelates,--as powerful as any feudal lord,--who considered Hugh Capet of Paris only as one who was first among his peers. Yet he was able to extend his territory to such a degree that his hereditary dynasty ultimately assured the unification of the French nation. Less than a century later Duke William of Normandy conquered England (1066); when began that protracted struggle between France and England which lasted for three hundred years.
Immediately after the return of the pious Louis VII. from his disastrous crusade, his queen, Eleanor, the heiress of Poitou and Guienne, married the young count Henry Plantagenet of Maine and Anjou; who, when he came to the English throne in 1153, "inherited and acquired by marriage"--as historians subtly put it--" the better half of all France."
Until 1322 the Church in France was divided into the following dioceses:
Provincia Remensis (Reims)
Provincia Rotomagensis (All Normandy)
Provincia Turonensis (Touraine, Maine, Anjou, and Brittany)
Provincia Burdegalensis (Poitou, Saintonge,
Angumois, Périgord, and Bordelais)
Provincia Auxitana (In Gascoigne)
Provincia Bituricensis (Berri, Bourbonnais, Limosin, and Auvergne)
Provincia Senonensis (Sens)
Provincia Lugdunensis (Bourgogne and Lyonnais)
Provincia Viennensis (Vienne on the Rhône)
Provincia Narbonensis (Septimania)
Provincia Arelatensis (Arles)
Provincia Aquensis (Aix-en-Provence)
Provincia Ebredunensis (The Alpine Valleys)
The stormy days of the reign of Charles V. (late fourteenth century) throughout France were no less stringent in Languedoc than elsewhere.
Here the people rose against the asserted domination of the Duke of Anjou, who, "proud and greedy," was for both qualities abhorred by the Languedocians.
He sought to restrain civic liberty with a permanent military force, and at Nîmes levied heavy taxes, which were promptly resented by rebellion. At Montpellier the people no less actively protested, and slew the chancellor and seneschal.
By the end of the thirteenth century, social, political, and ecclesiastical changes had wrought a wonderful magic with the map of France. John Lackland (sans terre) had been compelled by Philippe-Auguste to relinquish his feudal possessions in France, with the exception of Guienne. At this time also the internal crusades against the Waldenses and Albigenses in southern France had powerfully extended the royal flag. Again, history tells us that it was from the impulse and after influences of the crusading armies to the East that France was welded, under Philippe-le-Bel, into a united whole. The shifting fortunes of France under English rule were, however, such as to put little stop to the progress of church-building in the provinces; though it is to be feared that matters in that line, as most others of the time, went rather by favour than by right of sword.
Territorial changes brought about, in due course, modified plans of the ecclesiastical control and government, which in the first years of the fourteenth century caused certain administrative regulations to be put into effect by Pope John XXII. (who lies buried beneath a gorgeous Gothic monument at Avignon) regarding the Church in the southern provinces.
So well planned were these details that the Church remained practically under the same administrative laws until the Revolution.
Albi was separated from Bourges (1317), and raised to the rank of a metropolitan see; to which were added as suffragans Cahors, Rodez, and Mende, with the newly founded bishoprics of Castres and Vabres added. Toulouse was formed into an archbishopric in 1327; while St. Pons and Alet, as newly founded bishoprics, were given to the ancient see of Narbonne in indemnification for its having been robbed of Toulouse. The ancient diocese of Poitiers was divided into three, and that of Agen into two by the erection of suffragans at Maillezais, Luçon, Sarlat, and Condom. By a later papal bull, issued shortly after their establishment, these bishoprics appear to have been abolished, as no record shows that they entered into the general scheme of the revolutionary suppression.
On August 4, 1790, all chapters of cathedral churches, other than those of the metropoles (the mother sees), their bishops, and in turn their respective curés, were suppressed. This ruling applied as well to all collegiate churches, secular bodies, and abbeys and priories generally.
Many were, of course, reëstablished at a subsequent time, or, at least, were permitted to resume their beneficent work. But it was this general suppression, in the latter years of the eighteenth century, which led up to the general reapportioning of dioceses in that composition of Church and State thereafter known as the Concordat.
The Concordat (From Napoleon's Tomb)
Many causes deflected the growth of the Church from its natural progressive pathway. The Protestant fury went nearly to fanaticism, as did the equally fervent attempts to suppress it. The "Temples of Reason" of the Terrorists were of short endurance, but they indicated an unrest that has only in a measure moderated, if one is to take later political events as an indication of anything more than a mere uncontrolled emotion.
Whether a great future awaits Protestantism in France, or not, the power of the Roman Church is undoubtedly waning, in attracting congregations, at least.
Should a Wesley or a Whitfield arise, he might gain followers, as strong men do, and they would draw unto them others, until congregations might abound. But the faith could hardly become the avowed religion of or for the French people. It has, however, a great champion in the powerful newspaper, Le Temps, which has done, and will do, much to popularize the movement.
The Protestantism of Lot and Lot et Garonne is considerable, and it is of very long standing. It is recorded, too, that as late as October, 1901, the Commune of Murat went over en masse to Protestantism because the Catholic bishop at Cahors desired his communicants to rise from their beds at what they considered an inconveniently early hour, in order to hear mass.
This movement in Languedoc was not wholly due to the tyranny of the Duke of Anjou; it was caused in part by the confiscation or assumption of the papal authority by France. This caused not only an internal unrest in Italy, but a turbulence which spread throughout all the western Mediterranean, and even unto the Rhine and Flanders. The danger which threatened the establishment of the Church, by making the papacy a dependence of France, aroused the Italian prelates and people alike, and gave rise to the simultaneous existence of both a French and an Italian Pope.
Charles V. supported the French pontiff, as was but natural, thus fermenting a great schism; with its attendant controversies and horrors.
French and Italian politics became for a time inexplicably mingled, and the kingdom of Naples came to be transferred to the house of Anjou.
The Revolution, following close upon the Jansenist movement at Port Royal, and the bull Unigenitus of the Pope, resulted in such riot and disregard for all established institutions, monarchical, political, and religious, that the latter--quite as much as the others--suffered undue severity.
The Church itself was at this time divided, and rascally intrigue, as well as betrayal, was the order of the day on all sides. Bishops were politicians, and priests were but the tools of their masters; this to no small degree, if we are to accept the written records.
Talleyrand-Périgord, Bishop of Autun, was a member of the National Assembly, and often presided over the sittings of that none too deliberate body.
In the innovations of the Revolution, the Church and the clergy took, for what was believed to be the national good, their full and abiding share in the surrender of past privileges.
At Paris, at the instance of Mirabeau, they even acknowledged, in some measure, the principle of religious liberty, in its widest application.
The appalling massacres of September 2, 1792, fell heavily upon the clergy throughout France; of whom one hundred and forty were murdered at the Carmes alone.
The Archbishop of Arles on that eventful day gave utterance to the following devoted plea:
"Give thanks to God, gentlemen, that He calls us to seal with our blood the faith we profess. Let us ask of Him the grace of final perseverance, which by our own merit we could not obtain."
The Restoration found the Church in a miserable and impoverished condition. There was already a long list of dioceses without bishops; of cardinals, prelates, and priests without charges, many of them in prison.
Congregations innumerable had been suppressed and many sees had been abolished.
The new dioceses, under the Concordat of 1801, one for each department only, were of vast size as compared with those which had existed more numerously before the Revolution.
In 1822 thirty new sees were added to the prelature. To-day there are sixty-seven bishoprics and seventeen archbishoprics, not including the colonial suffragans, but including the diocese of Corsica, whose seat is at Ajaccio.
Church and State are thus seen to have been, from the earliest times, indissolubly linked throughout French dominion.
The king--while there was a king--was the eldest son of the Church, and, it is said, the Church in France remains to-day that part of the Roman communion which possesses the greatest importance for the governing body of that faith. This, in spite of the tendency toward what might be called, for the want of a more expressive word, irreligion. This is a condition, or a state, which is unquestionably making headway in the France of to-day--as well, presumably, as in other countries--of its own sheer weight of numbers.
One by one, since the establishment of the Church in Gaul, all who placed any limits to their ecclesiastical allegiance have been turned out, and so turned into enemies,--the Protestants, the Jansenists, followers of the Bishop of Ypres, and the Constitutionalists. Reconciliation on either side is, and ever has been, apparently, an impossibility.
Freedom of thought and action is undoubtedly increasing its license, and the clergy in politics, while a thing to be desired by many, is, after all, a thing to be feared by the greater number,--for whom a popular government is made. Hence the curtailment of the power of the monks--the real secular propagandists--was perhaps a wise thing. We are not to-day living under the conditions which will permit of a new Richelieu to come upon the scene, and the recent act (1902) which suppressed so many monastic establishments, convents, and religious houses of all ranks, including the Alpine retreat of "La Grande Chartreuse," may be taken rather as a natural process of curtailment than a mere vindictive desire on the part of the State to concern itself with "things that do not matter." On the other hand, it is hard to see just what immediate gain is to result to the nation.
III
THE CHURCH ARCHITECTURE OF SOUTHERN FRANCE
The best history of the Middle Ages is that suggested by their architectural remains. That is, if we want tangible or ocular demonstration, which many of us do.
Many of these remains are but indications of a grandeur that is past and a valour and a heroism that are gone; but with the Church alone are suggested the piety and devotion which still live, at least to a far greater degree than many other sentiments and emotions; which in their struggle to keep pace with progress have suffered, or become effete by the way.
To the Church, then, or rather religion--if the word be preferred--we are chiefly indebted for the preservation of these ancient records in stone.
Ecclesiastical architecture led the way--there is no disputing that, whatever opinions may otherwise be held by astute archæologists, historians, and the antiquarians, whose food is anything and everything so long as it reeks of antiquity.
The planning and building of a great church was no menial work. Chief dignitaries themselves frequently engaged in it: the Abbot Suger, the foremost architect of his time--prime minister and regent of the kingdom as he was--at St. Denis; Archbishop Werner at Strasbourg; and William of Wykeham in England, to apportion such honours impartially.
Gothic style appears to have turned its back on Italy, where, in Lombardy at all events, were made exceedingly early attempts in this style. This, perhaps, because of satisfying and enduring classical works which allowed no rivalry; a state of affairs to some extent equally true of the south of France. The route of expansion, therefore, was northward, along the Rhine, into the Isle of France, to Belgium, and finally into England.
No more true or imaginative description of Gothic forms has been put into literature than those lines of Sir Walter Scott, which define its characteristics thus:
"... Whose pillars with clustered shafts so trim, With base and capital flourished 'round, Seemed bundles of lances which garlands had bound."
In modern times, even in France, church-building neither aspired to, nor achieved, any great distinction.
Since the Concordat what have we had? A few restorations, which in so far as they were carried out in the spirit of the original were excellent; a few added members, as the west front and spires of St. Ouen at Rouen; the towers and western portal at Clermont-Ferrand; and a few other works of like magnitude and worth. For the rest, where anything of bulk was undertaken, it was almost invariably a copy of a Renaissance model, and often a bad one at that; or a descent to some hybrid thing worse even than in their own line were the frank mediocrities of the era of the "Citizen-King," or the plush and horsehair horrors of the Second Empire.
Most characteristic, and truly the most important of all, are the remains of the Gallo-Roman period. These are the most notable and forceful reminders of the relative prominence obtained by mediæval pontiffs, prelates, and peoples.
These relations are further borne out by the frequent juxtaposition of ecclesiastical and civic institutions of the cities themselves,--fortifications, palaces, châteaux, cathedrals, and churches, the former indicating no more a predominance of power than the latter.
A consideration of one, without something more than mere mention of the other, is not possible, and incidentally--even for the church-lover--nothing can be more interesting than the great works of fortification--strong, frowning, and massive--as are yet to be seen at Béziers, Carcassonne, or Avignon. It was this latter city which sheltered within its outer walls that monumental reminder of the papal power which existed in this French capital of the "Church of Rome"--as it must still be called--in the fourteenth century.