Part 8

In the interior there is a very fine high tomb of a bishop--I think S. Omer--early in the thirteenth century, about of the same date as the south transept door. The altar now stands on the east side of the crossing; either side of it, a range of music-stools affords fitting accommodation for the clergy, whilst behind, stalls are arranged in the choir around the apse, encircling an organ which stands about where the altar ought to stand. In front of this organ is a group of music stands etc., for the accommodation of the orchestra. The choir is enclosed with high stone screens toward the aisles--old but quite unornamental....

At S. Leu we had a very _maigre_ meal at a small _café biliard_ close to the station and left at 7.45 for Senlis. The road was rather pretty and took us in sight of Chantilly, a prettily situated town on the Oise with a château which belonged to the Duc d’Aumale. In little more than an hour we rumbled through the old narrow street of Senlis and took up our quarters at the _Grand Cerf_. Before dark we saw the church of S. Pierre, desecrated and used as a cavalry stable. A soldier who spoke some English insisted on our seeing the thirty “Hawks,” as he called them, who occupied the church. This we agreed to in order to see the building, which has, however, little to remark on save its elaborate west front and flamboyant architecture. Near this church is the cathedral and near this a desecrated church, but I must reserve them until to-morrow.

_June 16._

My first visit in the morning was of course to the cathedral, of which the west front with its magnificent south-west tower and spire is the most delightful portion. The rest of the church, though retaining many of its old features and arrangements intact, has been overlaid on the exterior with flamboyant work to an unpleasant extent. The two transept fronts are very elaborate and entirely in this late style. At the east end some of the chapels which surround the apse are of Romanesque date, semicircular in their plan outside and roofed with lean-to roofs of stone. The west front was intended to have two similar towers and spires: the towers are both built but only one spire. The detail of the lower portion is very simple, that of the upper part of tower and spire very elaborate and covered with ornament of varied description. The whole surface of spire and turrets is covered with patterns which contribute very much to the general richness of effect. The most remarkable features are however the open pinnacles at the point where the tower becomes octangular, and the delicate spire-lights which are set on every side of the spire and rise nearly half its height. The spire-lights are remarkable in their arrangement at the top; instead of going back horizontally at the ridge they slope down rapidly to the spire so as to produce a very piquant effect. The detail of all the sculpture and mouldings is most carefully executed throughout, and though the scale of the steeple is not large it produces a very great effect of height. The crockets and finials on the spire are very vigorously carved.

The construction of the spire is very ingenious and allows of passage-ways in the wall to the base of the spire-lights. At this point it is constructed in two thicknesses, one of which slopes and forms the outer line of the spire; the other is perpendicular from the inside face until it meets the external sloping portion and dies into it; the two are occasionally bonded together with large blocks of stone, and a passage-way is formed between them. The view from the steeple is fine.

Close to the cathedral on the south is the desecrated church of S. Frambourg, a simple parallelogram in plan and finished with an apse, rather broad and low in its proportions, but nevertheless very effective. The groining is all sexpartite. The original windows remain only in the apse, and there is but little to be said of the building farther than that its west front is remarkable for the outer line of moulding of a prodigious rose window, (now blocked up), and for a west doorway which though mutilated has much beauty. There seems to have been a tower at the north-west of the nave. This church is now used as a store by a builder....

We left the city of Senlis with some difficulty. _Imprimis_ we had an extortionate charge for a bad kind of accommodation at the _Hôtel du Grand Cerf_, and next had great difficulty in getting places in the omnibus to Pont S. Maxence. But all is well that ends well, and we succeeded, happily, in getting away. The view of the cathedral as the town is left behind becomes very fine, but it is soon lost as the road plunges into the woods through which for the best part of the way it runs. One village, Fleurines, was passed, with a poor late church; some large stone granaries are passed and then the long street of Pont S. Maxence. The Oise is crossed at its end and a few hundred yards bring us to the station; from hence we booked to Noyon, passing on the way Compiègne, which has an old town hall and two churches, one of which, as seen from the distance, seems likely to repay examination. Noyon was reached at four o’clock and we walked off to the cathedral which towers up most conspicuously above the town.

The general character of the church is, internally, much the same as that of S. Leu, etc., but it is very much loftier and has a singular arrangement into four stages in height. There are in the nave:--1. the arcades, 2. the triforium, very large, with windows and groined, 3. a small arcade more like an ordinary triforium, and 4. a clerestory. In the transepts there is no groined triforium and the two upper stages, being of similar height and both of them glazed, give the impression of a double clerestory. I do not at all like this quadruple arrangement of the interior. The columns of the nave are alternately of clustered and single shafts. The groining is divided into compartments of two bays by reason of the transverse ribs from the clustered piers being much larger than any of the others. Both the transepts terminate with apses and there are many very noble points in the internal effect. Here as at S. Leu the aisles are very narrow compared to the width of the nave, and the spaces between the columns of the arcades are also very small indeed. Of the exterior, the west end is perhaps the more striking part. It has two immense and very simple towers with a grand triple porch in front of its three great doorways. This porch was constructed weakly and has been boldly buttressed up. North of the north-west tower is a long building connected with the church, of exquisite beauty, and other old buildings enclose a considerable space on the north side of the cathedral. These buildings are remarkable, _inter alia_, for the bold foliage which is introduced beneath the parapets in a fashion very popular in this part of France.

There is a small porch of fine early pointed character on the east side of the north transept and above it a very fine rose window. The ground at the east end is planted out in a garden and the whole effect of the choir with the restored steep roofs above the apsidal chapels is very noble. There is what appears to be a distinct church (now desecrated) attached to the east side of the south transept. It is of simple early pointed and has in each bay two lancets and a round window above. It has several bays of length, and an apse, and is parallel with the choir. Careful works of restoration are going on here. I saw no trace of any other old building, saving a portion of very late domestic work.

We left Noyon at 8.40 and reached S. Quentin at 10 P.M. ...

_June 17._

I turned out early and got a sketch of the great church before breakfast. Its height is very imposing but in its general character it disappointed my rather high expectations. It appears to me to be a kind of late imitation of early work. For instance the triforium and clerestory have almost geometrical tracery differing only in slight points from the best kind of geometrical work. The proportions too are good and the groining very simple. Many of the shafts in the choir are single columns, but the carving of their capitals is very inferior to that I have seen elsewhere. The choir has, too, a triforium which seems to be much earlier than that of the nave, probably early in the thirteenth century. One of the best features is the management of the chapels and aisles round the apse. There are two transepts; the eastern one does not show however in the ground plan. The tower was central at the west end, but has been all modernized and does not now rise above the immense pointed roof of the nave, so that in the distance the church wants distinctness of character and outline, badly. The flying buttresses are very elaborate and are steadied by arches thrown across from pinnacle to pinnacle, so as to keep them from falling laterally; notwithstanding these precautions the church has fallen out so much in some parts as to look very unsafe.

In the market place there is a quaint old town hall standing on open arches and rather elaborate in its details but very late in its date. There was less to interest in S. Quentin than in most places I have visited as yet, so I was very well able to get away at 11 to Tergnier by railway; here we waited for an hour and then started in a slow diligence for Laon through La Fère and Crépy. I could not see any church in the former place, but in the latter--a good sized village--are two, both of first-pointed date and one with a remarkably good chancel having an east window and side windows of two lights with a distinct circular window above, and all adorned with dog-tooth ornaments. The other was remarkable for a very striking western porch. The road was pretty and soon after passing Crépy brought us in sight of the cathedral of Laon crowning its noble hill in right royal style. A drenching storm of rain prevented our seeing much of the beauty of the view as we climbed the steep road that winds round the hill into the town, but in the evening when we walked round the ramparts we found that it was one of most uncommon magnificence--a vast expanse of flat country generally green in its colour, dotted here and there with woods or villages, and bounded in some parts of the horizon with distant hills....

Our first object in the morning was the cathedral. The original idea of the church (which is said to have been built in the extraordinarily short space of two years) was a great nave, choir and transepts, the west front and both the transept fronts being flanked with two towers of nearly equal height and even fairly similar design. Four of these were completed, those on the east side of the transepts having been only carried up to the height of the roof gables. There is a combination of intense simplicity with an intricate and delicate transparent effect in the open pinnacles at the angles which is wonderfully fine. The scale is larger and the whole treatment though similar is finer than that of Senlis, and though it was imitated it was not, I think, rivalled, even in the magnificent steeples at Rheims.

There is a lantern at the intersection of the nave and transepts which, had it been carried up some vast height above the other towers, might possibly have helped to reduce them all to order; but there is no sign of any such intention, and the only reason for it that can be seen is the desire to elevate the groining at the intersection to a great height above the rest of the roof. I have sketched and measured these towers so carefully that I shall say no more about them, save that they are groined just below the summit and that they were evidently intended for some further finish than they now have, probably for spires like those at Senlis.

The interior of Laon is singularly like that of Noyon, having the same double triforium, but being finished at the east with a square end instead of an apse. Going from one church to another differing only in this respect seemed to give the best possible means of ascertaining with some degree of certainty their relative merits; and certainly it seemed to me that, of the two, Noyon was incomparably the superior, and entirely on this account. The east end of Laon is nevertheless fine for a square east end, and has the windows filled with very magnificent old glass of deep colour. The altar is now brought forward one bay so as to leave a passage beneath the east window.

The capitals generally of this church are very finely treated and would afford endless examples of good work in this early style. In studying the church one of the features most to be noticed is the frequent recurrence of carved courses of foliage which everywhere take the place of moulded string courses.

The south transept has double doorways, and above them a very beautiful rose window. This has now become curious because by its side there is the jamb of a middle-pointed window, evidently inserted by some ambitious man who was going on to put in an entirely new window but who was happily stopped here; I say “here” because he was unhappily not stopped in the south transept and so we have to regret the loss of a grand window suitable to the building and the insertion of one which in no way improves it. On the north side of the choir a great alteration was made in the thirteenth century by throwing out the outer walls to the face of the buttresses in order to gain a considerable number of chapels. This was done in very good style indeed and much improves this part of the exterior.

The only apsidal terminations in the whole church are those of two chapels thrown out on the east side of the transepts. They are carried up three stages in height, one of which opens into the transept aisle and the two others form another chapel out of the magnificent triforium.

Round the east end of the cathedral are large remains of old buildings of early date, connected probably with the church (which, by the by, is said to have been built in A.D. 1113 and 1114, dates which seem to me to be at least fifty years too early for such a structure). The main portion of these buildings consists of a long pile opening to a sort of garth or cloister, north-east of the cathedral, with simple pointed arches supported on low circular columns, and showing on the other side the elevation which I have sketched roughly, and which, standing just at the edge of the cliff, looks on a vast expanse of country until the far distance is lost in mist. These buildings are now converted into some Courts of Law, store houses and lumber rooms.

The Bishop of Laon lives elsewhere I fancy, as our landlord made much of his having come expressly to join in a procession through the city which we witnessed on Sunday afternoon. This procession was new to me and may as well be recorded: it visited a number of altars got up in a temporary manner, elevated on high flights of steps, and decorated profusely with flowers, garlands and drapery. These were erected in every available space, and I suppose by the zeal of the neighbors in each locality. As the time for the procession came, all the good people of the city hung up white sheets over the fronts of their shops so that the whole street bore a most singular appearance, though the universal white was here and there relieved by the old pieces of tapestry with some sacred story on it hung out by some more well-to-do person.

Presently through the dense crowd came the procession--first, girls bearing banners and draped in white, then other banners, clergy, acolytes, censer-bearers and lastly the bishop under a square velvet baldachin carried by priests, walking between two priests, bearing a monstrance with the Host.

At intervals the censer-bearers turned and censed and then went on again, till they reached an altar, which the bishop always ascended and gave the benediction from it, displaying the Host to the people all kneeling below. The procession was followed and kept in some order by soldiers whose band, alternately with the choristers, accompanied the march. In half an hour after the return of the bishop from his rather long procession the town had resumed its old look, the white sheets were gone, and the altars pulled down or denuded of all their ornaments. All the towns we had been in had been preparing for the same fête, which was to be greatest at Lille, where “_Notre Dame de la Treille_”--whose day it was--is looked on as the patron of the city.

From the cathedral we went to the church of S. Martin at the other end of the main street. The general effect of the exterior is very good, and very superior to the interior,--which is very simple, rather bad in its design, and much modernized. The south transept front is very fine and remarkable for the boldness of the mouldings on its buttresses and strings. The west front is, after this, the finest portion of the building, being a very ornate addition in middle-pointed to the old Romanesque church. It is very picturesque and I liked it much.

From the church we turned down into a walk which follows the line of the old ramparts and nearly surrounds the city. The view, from this part of it, of the cathedral standing on a sort of promontory, with the cluster of houses around it, the vine-covered hill sloping down rapidly to the valley on the right, and then the flat vale, lined all over with rows of poplars, and finished against the horizon with fine hills, was most charming. Indeed I have never seen any town of which the views were so invariably magnificent as they are always round old Laon. We saw no other old church here, save one below the hill with a central tower and low spire, which looked at all as though it might be worth visiting. In the street close to the south transept of the cathedral is a gable end of a good middle-pointed house.

We left Laon in the coupé of a small diligence at 6 P.M. for Rheims, grateful in the extreme for the one fine day which we had as yet had--nowhere so grateful as here, where every turn disclosed some view or some subject of which a bright sun was the most indispensable adjunct.

Our going to Rheims afforded no incidents. When we crossed the hills from Laon and descended towards the broad valley of Champagne we had a most glorious view, simple in all its detail, but full of beautiful colour, and rich and verdant in the extreme. One small village we passed on the way had a church of which I managed to get a sketch while we changed horses. I went inside and found the whole church fitted with open seats on a raised wooden floor. The central tower is groined and has only a small apse to the east, and the effect of this inside is exceedingly good. The south aisle consists of a series of compartments running north and south, the roofs boarded on the under side and coved or canted, and descending not on arches across the aisle but on beams. The steeple was, I think, the only part groined. From this village to Rheims our journey was made in the dark and it was nearly eleven as we drove along under the shadow of the great walls of the cathedral and into the gate of the inn which faces its west front, where happily we found rest for our weary limbs....

_June 19._

It rained fast when I turned out early this morning and continued to do so perseveringly all the day. This was miserable and perhaps has made my recollection of Rheims less pleasant than it ought to be.

The west front with its three great doorways is very magnificent. The two steeples, which are developments from the Laon idea, and like Laon unfinished, are at present not large enough for the porch and look too much like turrets, and yet they are of immense size. The substitution of second-pointed mouldings in these steeples for the first-pointed shafts of those at Laon, is unfortunately not an improvement. The whole porch is covered in the most lavish manner with elaborate sculpture of the very finest character and detail, but it is generally spread over the whole surface and gives perhaps an effect of littleness and fritter to the whole front. The detail of the pinnacles and flying buttresses at the sides is unusually fine, and all of the same fine early middle-pointed date--that of the apse and the chapels surrounding it is equally fine. The northern transept is also a fine composition, but the parapets were intended to have flanking towers and these are carried up in the same way as those both at Rouen and Chartres, hardly on a sufficient scale to be looked on as towers. Their great open belfry windows produce a fine effect. The three doors of the north transept are all very fine, though the sculpture on some of them is of earlier date than that of the west front, and of very ingenious execution.

On entering, the impression produced is one of exquisite proportions, colour, and decoration, but perhaps a little too much of all this and not so much of that indescribable feeling which some noble churches so eminently produce. It is in fact a work of faultless art rather than religious feeling, though so noble a work of art cannot help inspiring great religious feeling. The whole design is extremely simple and as free from superfluous decoration as the west front is crowded with it. Its triforium appeared to be poor and insignificant in the extreme, after the magnificent triforia of Noyon and the other early churches with their ampler open spaces and fine groinings. The treatment of the west wall on the inside is very curious. It is divided into a great number of trefoiled niches with very little in the way of moulding, each niche having a figure; and the background being coloured white throws out these figures remarkably. Borders, spandrels, etc., are filled in profusely with much delicately carved and very flat foliage, all most accurately copied from natural forms. In the north transept is a curious wooden clock-case of the fourteenth century.... We left Rheims at 6 o’clock in the evening by railway for Meaux where we arrived to sleep at 11.

_June 20._

As is my wont, I was very early at the cathedral this morning. The scale is not large, and in particular the nave is singularly short, only three bays east of the towers. One tower only is completed, and that in a flamboyant style. The church is very open inside, having two aisles, and chapels on each side of the nave and a good arrangement of chapels, etc., around the choir. The great beauty of the interior is its generally fine style--very early third-pointed--the beauty of the triforia, and the particularly fine interior of the transepts. I managed to get some sketches to show its general character before we left, which was at 11 A.M. for Paris, and there seemed to be no old buildings of any interest in Meaux, though I saw one old pile with corner turrets near the cathedral.

We reached Paris at 12.30 having noticed a fine-looking church on our way, at the station of Lagny, which well deserves a visit....

_June 22._

Wrote letters and then to Notre Dame.... A fee gave me admittance to the new sacristy and small cloister. The detail of this is all very good, save the doorways; and the glass, which is a _grisaille_ with subjects boldly drawn on glass of very pale tincture but thick in texture, was very good indeed. The encaustic tiles used here are very inferior to ours.... On our way we just looked at the S. Chapelle, the new turret on which appears to me to be most unsatisfactory.