Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1
Chapter 1
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CATHEDRALS AND CLOISTERS OF THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
CATHEDRALS _and_ CLOISTERS OF THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
BY
ELISE WHITLOCK ROSE
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS
BY
VIDA HUNT FRANCIS
_IN TWO VOLUMES_
_VOLUME I._
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON The Knickerbocker Press 1906
Copyright, 1906 by G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
PREFACE.
For years the makers of this book have spent the summer time in wandering about the French country; led here by the fame of some old monument, or there by an incident of history. They have found the real, unspoiled France, often unexplored by any except the French themselves, and practically unknown to foreigners, even to the ubiquitous maker of guide-books. For weeks together they have travelled without meeting an English-speaking person. It is, therefore, not surprising that they were unable to find, in any convenient form in English, a book telling of the Cathedrals of the South which was at once accurate and complete. For the Cathedrals of that country are monuments not only of architecture and its history, but of the history of peoples, the psychology of the christianising and unifying of the barbarian and the Gallo-Roman, and many things besides, epitomised perhaps in the old words, "the struggle between the world, the flesh, and the devil." In French, works on Cathedrals are numerous and exhaustive; but either so voluminous as to be unpractical except for the specialist--as the volumes of Viollet-le-Duc,--or so technical as to make each Cathedral seem one in an endless, monotonous procession, differing from the others only in size, style, and age. This is distinctly unfair to these old churches which have personalities and idiosyncrasies as real as those of individuals. It has been the aim of the makers of this book to introduce, in photograph and in story,--not critically or exhaustively, but suggestively and accurately,--the Cathedral of the Mediterranean provinces as it exists to-day with its peculiar characteristics of architecture and history. They have described only churches which they have seen, they have verified every fact and date where such verification was possible, and have depended on local tradition only where that was all which remained to tell of the past; and they will feel abundantly repaid for travel, research, and patient exploration of towers, crypts, and archives if the leisurely traveller on pleasure bent shall find in these volumes but a hint of the interest and fascination which the glorious architecture, the history, and the unmatched climate of the Southland can awaken.
For unfailing courtesy and untiring interest, for free access to private as well as to ecclesiastical libraries, for permission to photograph and copy, for unbounding hospitality and the retelling of many an old legend, their most grateful thanks are due to the Catholic clergy, from Archbishop to Curé and Vicar. For rare old bits of information, for historical verification, and for infinite pains in accuracy of printed matter, they owe warm thanks to Mrs. Wilbur Rose, to Miss Frances Kyle, and to Mrs. William H. Shelmire, Jr. For criticism and training in the art of photographing they owe no less grateful acknowledgment to Mr. John G. Bullock and Mr. Charles R. Pancoast.
E. W. R.
V. H. F.
CONTENTS.
PAGE THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
I. THE SOUTH OF FRANCE 3
II. ARCHITECTURE IN PROVENCE, LANGUEDOC, AND GASCONY 29
PROVENCE
I. THE CATHEDRALS OF THE SEA 55 Marseilles--Toulon--Fréjus--Antibes--Nice
II. CATHEDRALS OF THE HILL-TOWNS 72 Carpentras--Digne--Forcalquier--Vence--Grasse
III. RIVER-SIDE CATHEDRALS 101 Avignon--Vaison--Arles--Entrevaux--Sisteron
IV. CATHEDRALS OF THE VALLEYS 178 Orange--Cavaillon--Apt--Riez--Senez--Aix
LANGUEDOC
I. CATHEDRALS OF THE CITIES 237 Nîmes--Montpellier--Béziers--Narbonne--Perpignan-- Carcassonne--Castres--Toulouse--Montauban
Illustrations
Page RODEZ _Frontispiece_ "Sheer and straight the pillars rise, ... and arch after arch is lost on the shadows of the narrow vaulting of the side-aisle."
"CARCASSONNE, THE INVULNERABLE" 5
"THE TOWER OF AN EARLY MARITIME CATHEDRAL"--_Agde_ 10
"A NAVE OF THE EARLIER STYLE"--_Arles_ 15
"A NAVE OF THE LATER STYLE"--_Rodez_ 19
"THE DELICATE CHOIR OF SAINT-NAZAIRE"--_Carcassonne_ 23
"A CLOISTER OF THE SOUTH"--_Elne_ 27
"A ROMANESQUE AISLE"--_Arles_ 31
"THE SCULPTURED PORTALS OF SAINT-TROPHIME"--_Arles_ 33
"A GOTHIC AISLE"--_Mende_ 35
"CORRESPONDING DIFFERENCES IN STYLE"--_Carcassonne_ 39
"FORTIFIED GOTHIC BUILT IN BRICK"--_Albi_ 43
"A CHURCH FORTRESS"--_Maguelonne_ 45
"STATELY GOTHIC SPLENDOUR"--_Condom_ 47
ENTREVAUX 52 "People gather around the mail-coach as it makes its daily halt before the drawbridge."
"THE NEW CATHEDRAL"--_Marseilles_ 57
"THE DESECRATION OF THE LITTLE CLOISTER"--_Fréjus_ 65
"THE MILITARY OMEN--THE TOWER"--_Antibes_ 70
"THE INTERIOR OF NOTRE-DAME-DU-BOURG"--_Digne_ 77
"THE INTERIOR HAS NEITHER CLERESTORY NOR TRIFORIUM"--_Digne_ 81
"A LARGE SQUARE TOWER SERVED AS A LOOKOUT"--_Forcalquier_ 86
"A SUGGESTIVE VIEW FROM THE SIDE-AISLE"--_Forcalquier_ 87
"THE OLD ROUND ARCH OF THE BISHOP'S PALACE"--_Vence_ 92
"THE LOW, BROAD ARCHES, AND THE GREAT SUPPORTING PILLARS"--_Vence_ 93
"HIGHER THAN THEM ALL STANDS THE CATHEDRAL"--_Grasse_ 97
"THE PONT D'AVIGNON" 99
"THE INTERIOR HAS A SHALLOW, GRACEFULLY BALUSTRADED BALCONY"--_Avignon_ 103
"THE PORCH, SO CLASSIC IN DETAIL"--AVIGNON 107 From an old print
"NOTRE-DAME-DES-DOMS"--_Avignon_ 111
"THE TOWER OF PHILIP THE FAIR"--_Villeneuve-les-Avignon_ 114
"THE GREAT PALACE"--_Avignon_ 119
"ON THE BANKS OF A PLEASANT LITTLE RIVER IS VAISON" 123
"THE RUINED CASTLE OF THE COUNTS OF TOULOUSE"--_Vaison_ 125
"THE WHOLE APSE-END"--_Vaison_ 127
"THE SOUTH WALL, WHICH IS CLEARLY SEEN FROM THE ROAD"--_Vaison_ 129
"TWO BAYS OPEN TO THE GROUND"--_Vaison_ 131
"THE GREAT PIERS AND SMALL FIRM COLUMNS"--_Vaison_ 133
"IN THE MIDST OF THE WEALTH OF ANTIQUE RUINS"--_Arles_ 135
"THE FAÇADE OF SAINT-TROPHIME"--_Arles_ 137
"RIGHT DETAIL--THE PORTAL"--_Arles_ 141
"LEFT DETAIL--THE PORTAL"--_Arles_ 145
"THROUGH THE CLOISTER ARCHES"--_Arles_ 147
"A NAVE OF GREAT AND SLENDER HEIGHT"--_Arles_ 149
"THE BEAUTY OF THE WHOLE"--_Arles_ 151
"THE GOTHIC WALK"--Cloister--_Arles_ 153
"THIS INTERIOR"--_Entrevaux_ 156
"THE ROMANESQUE WALK"--Cloister--_Arles_ 157
"ONE OF THE THREE SMALL DRAWBRIDGES"--_Entrevaux_ 159
"THE PORTCULLIS"--_Entrevaux_ 160
"A FORT THAT PERCHES ON A SHARP PEAK"--_Entrevaux_ 161
"A TRUE 'PLACE D'ARMES'"--_Entrevaux_ 163
"THE LONG LINE OF WALLS THAT ZIGZAG DOWN THE HILLSIDE"--_Entrevaux_ 165
"THE CHURCH TOWER STOOD OUT AGAINST THE ROCKY PEAK"--_Entrevaux_ 169
"THE CATHEDRAL IS NEAR THE HEAVY ROUND TOWERS OF THE OUTER RAMPARTS"--_Sisteron_ 172
"THE BRIDGE ACROSS THE DURANCE"--_Sisteron_ 173
"ENTRANCES TO TWO NARROW STREETS"--_Sisteron_ 176
"IT WAS A LOW-VAULTED, SOMBRE LITTLE CLOISTER"--_Cavaillon_ 182
"THE CATHEDRAL'S TOWER AND TURRET"--_Cavaillon_ 187
"THE MAIN BODY OF THE CHURCH"--_Apt_ 191
"THE VIRGIN AND SAINT ANNE--BY BENZONI"--_Apt_ 194
"SAINT-MARTIN-DE-BRÔMES WITH ITS HIGH SLIM TOWER" 197
"THE FORTIFIED MONASTERY OF THE TEMPLARS"--_near Gréoux_ 199
"THE TOWER OF NOTRE-DAME-DU-SIÈGE"--_Riez_ 201
"NOTHING COULD BE MORE QUAINTLY OLD AND MODEST THAN THE BAPTISTERY"--_Riez_ 202
"BETWEEN THE COLUMNS AN ALTAR HAS BEEN PLACED"--Baptistery, _Riez_ 203
"THE BEAUTIFUL GRANITE COLUMNS"--_Riez_ 207
"THE MAIL-COACH OF SENEZ" 211
"THE OPEN SQUARE"--_Senez_ 213
"THE PALACE OF ITS PRELATES"--_Senez_ 214
"THE CATHEDRAL"--_Senez_ 215
"THE CATHEDRAL"--_Senez_ 218
"TAPESTRIES BEAUTIFY THE CHOIR-WALLS"--_Senez_ 219
"BETWEEN BRANCHES FULL OF APPLE-BLOSSOMS--THE CHURCH AS THE CURÉ SAW IT"--_Senez_ 221
"THE SOUTH AISLE"--_Aix_ 224
"THE ROMANESQUE PORTAL"--_Aix_ 225
"THE CLOISTER"--_Aix_ 227
"THE CATHEDRAL"--_Aix_ 231
"AN AMPHITHEATRE WHICH RIVALS THE ART OF THE COLISEUM"--_Nîmes_ 238
"THE GENERAL EFFECT IS SOMEWHAT THAT OF A PORT-COCHÈRE"--_Montpellier_ 244
"THE FINEST VIEW IS THAT OF THE APSE"--_Montpellier_ 245
"THE CLOCK TOWER IS VERY SQUARE AND THICK"--_Béziers_ 248
"THE QUAINT AND PRETTY FOUNTAIN"--_Béziers_ 250
"THE DOOR OF THE CLOISTER"--_Narbonne_ 255
"THIS IS A PLACE OF DESERTED SOLITUDE"--_Narbonne_ 257
"THESE FLYING-BUTTRESSES GIVE TO THE EXTERIOR ITS MOST CURIOUS AND BEAUTIFUL EFFECT"--_Narbonne_ 261
"ALL THE OLD BUILDINGS OF THE CITY ARE OF SPANISH ORIGIN"--_Perpignan_ 265
"THE UNFINISHED FAÇADE"--_Perpignan_ 267
"THE STONY STREET OF THE HILLSIDE"--_Carcassonne_ 269
"THE ANCIENT CROSS"--_Carcassonne_ 272
"OFTEN TOO LITTLE TIME IS SPENT UPON THE NAVE"--_Carcassonne_ 275
"THE CHOIR IS OF THE XIV CENTURY"--_Carcassonne_ 279
"THE FAÇADE, STRAIGHT AND MASSIVE"--_Carcassonne_ 281
"PERSPECTIVE OF THE ROMANESQUE"--_Carcassonne_ 283
"THE NAVE OF THE XIII CENTURY IS AN AISLE-LESS CHAMBER, LOW AND BROADLY ARCHED"--_Toulouse_ 291
"THE PRESENT CATHEDRAL IS A COMBINATION OF STYLES"--_Toulouse_ 294
LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED.
BAYET. _Précis de l'Histoire de l'Art._
BODLEY. _France._
BOURG. _Viviers, ses Monuments et son Histoire._
CHOISY. _Histoire de l'Architecture._
COUGNY. _L'Art au Moyen Age._
COOK. _Old Provence._
CORROYER. _L'Architecture romane._
" _L'Architecture gothique._
COX. _The Crusades._
DARCEL. _Le Mouvement archéologique relatif au Moyen Age._
DE LAHONDÈS. _L'Église Saint-Etienne, Cathédrale de Toulouse._
DEMPSTER. _Maritime Alps._
DUCÉRÉ. _Bayonne historique et pittoresque._
DURUY. _Histoire de France._
FERREE. _Articles on French Cathedrals appearing in the "Architectural Record._"
GARDÈRE. _Saint-Pierre de Condom et ses Constructeurs._
GOULD. _In Troubadour Land._
GUIZOT. _Histoire de France._
" _Histoire de la Civilisation en France._
HALLAM. _The Middle Ages._
HARE. _South-eastern France._
" _South-western France._
_History of Joanna of Naples, Queen of Sicily_ (_published_ 1824).
HUNNEWELL. _Historical Monuments of France._
JAMES. _A Little Tour through France._
_Le Moyen Age_ (_avec notice par Roger-Milès_).
LARNED. _Churches and Castles of Mediæval France._
LASSERRE, L'ABBÉ. _Recherches historiques sur la Ville d'Alet et son ancien Diocèse._
LECHEVALLIER CHEVIGNARD. _Les Styles français._
MACGIBBON. _The Architecture of Provence and the Riviera._
MARLAVAGNE. _Histoire de la Cathédrale de Rodez._
MARTIN. _Histoire de France._
MASSON. _Louis IX and the XIII Century._
" _Francis I and the XVI Century._
MÉRIMÉE. _Études sur les Arts au Moyen Age._
MICHELET. _Histoire de France._
MICHELET AND MASSON. _Mediævalism in France._
_Monographie de la Cathédrale d'Albi._
MONTALEMBERT. _Les Moines d'Occident._
MILMAN. _History of Latin Christianity._
PALUSTRE. _L'Architecture de la Renaissance._
PASTOR. _Lives of the Popes._
PENNELL. _Play in Provence._
QUICHERAT. _Mélanges d'Archéologie au Moyen Age._
RENAN. _Études sur la Politique religieuse du Règne de Philippe le Bel._
RÉVOIL. _Architecture romane du Midi de la France._
ROSIERES. _Histoire de l'Architecture._
SCHNASSE. _Geschichte der bildenden Künste._ (_Volume III, etc._)
SENTETZ. _Sainte-Marie d'Auch._
SORBETS. _Histoire d'Aire-sur-l'Adour._
SOULIÉ. _Interesting old novels whose scenes are laid in the South of France_:--
" "_Le Comte de Toulouse._"
" "_Le Vicomte de Béziers._"
" "_Le Château des Pyrénées_," _etc._
STEVENSON. _Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes._
TAINE. _The Ancient Regime._
" _Journeys through France._
" _Origins of Contemporary France._
" _Tour through the Pyrénées._
_'Twixt France and Spain._
VIOLLET-LE-DUC. _Histoire d'une Cathédrale et d'un Hôtel-de-Ville._
_Entretiens sur l'Architecture._
_Dictionnaire raisonné de l'Architecture française du XI^e au XVI^e siècle._
The South of France.
I.
THE SOUTH OF FRANCE.
If it is only by an effort that we appreciate the valour of Columbus in the XV century, his secret doubts, his temerity, how much fainter is our conception of the heroism of the early Mediterranean navigators. Steam has destroyed for us the awful majesty of distance, and we can never realise the immensity of this "great Sea" to the ancients. To Virgil the adventures of the "pious Æneas" were truly heroic. The western shores of the Mediterranean were then the "end of the earth," and even during the first centuries of our own era, he who ventured outside the Straits of Gibraltar tempted either Providence or the Devil and was very properly punished by falling over the edge of the earth into everlasting destruction. "Why," asks a mediæval text-book of science, "is the sun so red in the evening?" And this convincing answer follows, "Because he looks down upon Hell."
For centuries before the Christian era the South of France, with Spain, lay in the unknown west end of the Sea. Along its eastern shores lay civilisations hoary with age; Carthage, to the South, was moribund; Greece was living on the prestige of her glorious past; while Rome was becoming all-powerful. Legend tells that adventurous Phoenicians and Greeks discovered the French coasts, that Nîmes was founded by a Tyrian Hercules, and Marseilles, about 600 B.C., by a Phoenician trader who married a chief's daughter and settled at the mouth of the Rhone. But these early settlements were merely isolated towns, which were not interdependent;--scarcely more than trading posts. It was Rome who took southern Gaul unto herself, and after Roman fashion, built cities and towns and co-ordinated them into well-regulated provinces; and it is with Roman rule that the connected history of Gaul begins.
From the outset we meet one basic fact, so difficult to realise when France is considered as one country, the essential difference between the North and the South. Cæsar found in the South a partial Roman civilisation ready for his organisation; and old, flourishing cities, like Narbonne, Aix, and Marseilles. In the North he found the people advanced no further than the tribal stage, and Paris--not even Paris in name--was a collection of mud huts, which, from its strategic position, he elevated into a camp. The two following centuries, the height of Roman dominion in France, accentuated these differences. The North was governed by the Romans, never assimilated nor civilised by them. The South eagerly absorbed all the culture of the Imperial City; her religions and her pleasures, her beautiful Temples and great Amphitheatres, finally her morals and effeminacy, till in the II century of our era, anyone living a life of luxurious gaiety was popularly said to have "set sail for Marseilles." To this day the South boasts that it was a very part of Rome, and Rome was not slow to recognise the claim. Gallic poets celebrated the glory of Augustus, a Gaul was the master of Quintilian, and Antoninus Pius, although born in the Imperial City, was by parentage a native of Nîmes.
Not to the rude North, but to this society, so pagan, so pleasure-loving, came the first missionaries of the new Christian faith, to meet in the arenas of Gaul the fate of their fellow-believers in Rome, to hide in subterranean caves and crypts, to endure, to persist, and finally to conquer. In the III and IV centuries many of the great Bishoprics were founded, Avignon, Narbonne, Lyons, Arles, and Saint-Paul-trois Châteaux among others; but these same years brought political changes which seemed to threaten both Church and State.
Roman power was waning. Tribes from across the Rhine were gathering, massing in northern Gaul, and its spirit was antagonistic to the contentment of the rich Mediterranean provinces. The tribes were brave, ruthless, and barbarous. Peace was galling to their uncontrollable restlessness. The Gallo-Romans were artistic, literary, idle, and luxurious. They fell, first to milder but heretical foes; then to the fierce but orthodox Frank; and the story of succeeding years was a chronicle of wars. Like a great swarm of locusts, the Saracens--conquerors from India to Spain--came upon the South. They took Narbonne, Nîmes, and even Carcassonne, the Invulnerable. They besieged Toulouse, and almost destroyed Bordeaux. Other cities, perhaps as great as these, were razed to the very earth and even their names are now forgotten. Europe was menaced; the South of France was all but destroyed.
Again the Frank descended; and like a great wind blowing clouds from a stormy sky, Charles Martel swept back the Arabs and saved Christianity. Before 740, he had returned a third time to the South, not as a deliverer, but for pure love of conquest; and by dismantling Nîmes, destroying the maritime cities of Maguelonne and Agde, and taking the powerful strongholds of Arles and Marseilles, he paved the way for his great descendant who nominally united "all France."
But Charlemagne's empire fell in pieces; and as Carlovingian had succeeded Merovingian, so in 987 Capetian displaced the weak descendants of the mighty head of the "Holy Roman Empire." The map changed with bewildering frequency; and in these changes, the nobles--more stable than their kings--grew to be the real lords of their several domains. History speaks of France from Clovis to the Revolution as a kingdom; but even later than the First Crusade the kingdom lay somewhere between Paris and Lyons; the Royal Domain, not France as we know it now. The Duchy of Aquitaine, the Duchy of Brittany, Burgundy, the Counties of Toulouse, Provence, Champagne, Normandy, and many smaller possessions, were as proudly separate in spirit as Norway and Sweden, and often as politically distinct as they from Denmark.
In the midst of these times of turmoil the Church had steadily grown. Every change, however fatal to North or South, brought to her new strength. Confronted with cultured paganism in the first centuries, the blood of her martyrs made truly fruitful seed for her victories; and later, facing paganism of another, wilder race, she triumphed more peacefully in the one supreme conversion of Clovis; and the devotion and interest which from that day grew between Church and King, gradually made her the greatest power of the country. After the decline of Roman culture the Church was the one intellectual, almost peaceful, and totally irresistible force. The great lords scorned learning. An Abbot, quaintly voicing the Church's belief, said that "every letter writ on paper is a sword thrust in the devil's side." When there was cessation of war, the occupation of men, from Clovis' time throughout Mediævalism, was gone. They could not read; they could not write; the joy of hunting was, in time, exhausted. They were restless, lost. The justice meted out by the great lords was, too often, the right of might. But at the Council of Orléans, in 511, a church was declared an inviolable refuge, where the weak should be safe until their case could be calmly and righteously judged. The beneficent care of the Church cannot be overestimated. Between 500 and 700 she had eighty-three councils in Gaul, and scarcely one but brought a reform,--a real amelioration of hardships.
Something of the general organisation of her great power in those rude times deserves more than the usual investigation. Even in its small place in the "Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France," it is an interesting bit of Church politics and psychology.
The ecclesiastical tradition of France goes back to the very first years of the Christian era. Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, Martha, and Mary the Mother of James, are only a few of those intimately connected with Christ Himself, who are believed to have come into Gaul; and in their efforts to systematically and surely establish Christianity, to have founded the first French Bishoprics. This is tradition. But even the history of the II century tells of a venerable, martyred Bishop of Lyons, a disciple of that Polycarp who knew Saint John; and in the III century Gaul added no less than fourteen to the Sees she already had. Enthusiastic tradition aside, it is evident that the missionary ardour of the Gallic priests was intense; and the glory of their early victories belongs entirely to a branch of the Church known as "the Secular Clergy."