George Edmund Street: Notes and Papers

Architectural Notes in France

(From the Ecclesiologist, 1858–59)

I

A short holiday among French churches has left so many pleasant recollections of new ideas received, new thoughts suggested, ancient memories revived afresh, that it is as impossible as it would be churlish to refuse to communicate some notes of what I have seen; and as they are asked for I proceed to give them, though they must be more slight and generalizing than I could wish; for I have a very profound conviction of the great grandeur of ancient French art, and a corresponding sense of the danger of so treating it as to convey too small a sense of its value to those who have not studied it for themselves, or of offending those who are so happy as to have realized that value to the fullest extent and from actual inspection of its remains. It is needless to say that as the France of the present day is an agglomeration of ancient and distinct provinces, so also in its ancient buildings we can trace, without any difficulty, a variety of different national or provincial styles: it would be strange indeed were it not so. Even in England we have most striking varieties in style confined, generally, within the boundaries of particular dioceses; so that to understand ancient art aright, it is necessary to have an exact acquaintance with the third-pointed work of Devonshire and Cornwall as well as that of Norfolk and Suffolk, and to be able to perceive all the difference between the first-pointed work of the Yorkshire abbeys and that of Wells and Salisbury.

And if we have such marked differences in a country like this, we may well expect a much greater variety in a country which, like France in the Middle Ages, was not as now one great nation but divided into sections antagonistic to each other and exercising little if any reciprocal influence. It is easy, therefore, to map our France into certain divisions, each containing within its boundaries a special individual style of Gothic architecture, distinguished by notable peculiarities, and each affording a separate field for very careful study. Thus we have in the north of France distinct French styles, in, first, Normandy, and secondly, the old Île de France and the surrounding country, and thirdly, in the country bordering on Germany, a style which is rather German than French in all its leading features. Then going southward, we have, fourthly, a distinct Burgundian style, and another, marked by extreme peculiarities, in Poitou and Anjou, and (judging only by drawings, for I have never myself visited the extreme south of France), again other styles, whose centres are respectively at Clermont and at Arles. Of these various styles that of Normandy presents a very great affinity to our own. It is there, and almost only there, that we see the circular abacus, there only that we see much attempted in the way of deep and complicated architectural mouldings, whilst the general effect of many—especially among the larger churches—is extremely English. The likeness is one of which we may well be proud, for the architecture of this province is full of beauty and interest to a degree second only to that of the district of the old Île de France. Its very deficiencies, too, are English in their character, for in going from Paris into the heart of Normandy, the one thing which we notice more perhaps than anything else, is the general absence of the figure sculpture to which we have become accustomed; and this is the case also in England, where we have really hardly any at all extensive remains of sculpture, and certainly none which can be named with those whose pride it is to be the guardians of such churches as the cathedrals of Chartres, Paris, Amiens, Laon, or Rheims.13 The study of the architecture of Normandy is therefore the proper and natural sequel of a complete and careful study of English architecture, and may be entered on with the less hesitation as I believe I may safely venture to say, that what is learned there will be in no sense foreign either to the precedents or the sympathies of England.

The churches of Anjou, Poitou, and Touraine, appear to me to be of much less value for architectural study: though from the connection which was maintained between our own country and those parts of France during a long period of the Middle Ages, it is impossible but they should present much that is of the greatest interest to the English student. I have looked, however, in vain for evidence, either in the general design or in the details of their architecture, of any influence exercised by the English upon their art. In fact, when we held the country, we held it as conquerors not as colonists, and we left no mark of ourselves, but let the people go on building for us and for themselves in their own way. And their way was full of peculiarity, perhaps more so than that of any other part of France. They had their own system of planning, their own system of groining: and this, it should be remarked, is sure, if it has any peculiarity, to exercise a most powerful and obvious effect upon the whole architecture. There is, however, a heaviness, a repetition of the same idea, and an absence of delicate skill, as well as of bold architectural inspiration, which to my mind marks all the buildings in these parts inferior, not only to the best French work, but also to that of Normandy and of England. And now I go on naturally to say that I believe the best work in France is that which I described shortly as that of the old Île de France and the surrounding country; it is that which I have studied the most carefully, and love the most of any architecture that I know; it is one which presents no features unsuitable for our country, or inconsistent with the demands of our climate; it is one from the study of which I believe we should all derive an immense benefit, for it were wellnigh impossible to spend much time among the works of art which it so bountifully affords without being strongly impressed with the stern grandeur and masculine character of the men who conceived it, and without being elevated in our whole tone of mind so far as we have been impressed. A district which affords examples such as Rouen cathedral, S. Quentin, Amiens, Noyon, Laon, Soissons, Meaux, Rheims, Troyes, Chartres, Notre Dame of Paris, Mantes, S. Leu, S. Germer, Senlis, Beauvais, and others, must be conceded to be, if not the best, certainly the richest field for the study of our art in all Europe; and it is mainly to this district that I will take you, with this expression of my extreme veneration for the art enshrined in its architectural remains.14...

At Beuzeville, where the Fécamp branch joins the main line of railway to Rouen, it is worth while to walk a mile and a half to the church, not because it is a fine building, but rather because it illustrates well enough the differences between French and English ideas about village churches. The unbroken nave, thirty-three feet wide and sixty-nine feet in length, with its arched boarded roof,—the central groined tower with a spire springing some four or five feet below the ridge of the nave roof,—and the hipped vestry roof, are all unlike English work, yet the whole effect is particularly good notwithstanding the poverty of style, which is late flamboyant. There are four rows of fixed seats all down the nave—modern, of course.

From Beuzeville to Rouen the railway took me over ground well known to the majority of English travellers, and I would not say a word about Rouen, were it not that the strong popular delusion which has elevated the church of S. Ouen into its great attraction deserves to be protested against always. And, this, not because the church is not very fine and very pretty—it is both—but because S. Ouen-worship leads people to miss altogether, or only to half see and understand the extreme value and beauty of the cathedral. I have seen this often, and I find that, unlike some other churches, each time I see it I discern new beauties and new value in its art; and it lies so near to us, and teaches us so much not to be learnt in England, and yet of the utmost value to all of us, that I do not know how to express myself sufficiently strongly as to the advantage of a careful study of it to all workers in the revival. Indeed I think that the Architectural Museum could perhaps do more for art by helping young carvers to go for a time to Rouen for study, than by adding to their collection a multitude of casts which are often of necessity of doubtful excellence. The thing may be difficult to accomplish, but it ought to be done, for this one cathedral contains such an abundance and variety of sculpture as would almost put to the blush all our churches combined. The western doors of the north and south aisles are, to my taste, the most exquisite portions of the church. Their style is so early, and so immediate a deduction from Byzantine or Romanesque work that I can fancy a man, who had been taught to believe in the absolute perfection of our English fourteenth-century style, would be long before he appreciated to the full their perfection. They are moreover of a kind of work which is as rare as it is excellent. In England we have nothing, to the best of my belief, of similar style. I remember that Mr. Scott once suggested to me the probability that they were executed by the same man who executed the doorways in the west front of Genoa cathedral, and the suggestion evidenced fully his sense of the extreme rarity of the work. I believe, however, that they are examples of a style which was not that of an individual only. That it owed much to Italy I have little doubt: for even if there had been no trace of an Italian influence in the extreme delicacy of the whole of the sculpture, in the twining foliage of the door jambs, and the very singular and graceful foliage of the archivolts, yet it might, I think, have been detected indirectly. For in this same church, in the aisle round the apse, there still remains a monument of an Archbishop Maurice, the Italianizing character of which is most marked, and at the same time its details show that it is a work of precisely the same school as the western aisle-doorways. None who have been in Italy can forget the almost invariable type of the finer early monuments—a simple arch, surmounted immediately by a gable of very flat pitch, and supported on detached shafts. They will remember them at Verona often, in Venice, in Genoa, in Perugia, and indeed in all directions and of all dates; well, in this monument, we have the same thing, a round arch exquisitely adorned with angels (whereof two in the centre bear up the soul of the archbishop) and immediately above the arch a very flat pediment or gable. Perhaps, too, it is an Italian influence, which is evidenced in another respect in the decorations of the western doors. The alternate orders of the arch are simply chamfered, presenting in section three sides of an octagon, and these are covered with regular sunk patterns of the simplest kind, but marvellously effective. Go from Rouen to Genoa and you find the western doorways executed in marble, every plain surface in which is inlaid with geometrical patterns,—light patterns on dark ground, and dark on light. The effect is very similar in the two places: at Genoa the very best materials were to be had: and at Rouen where nothing but common stone was used, the artist struck out a system which produced an effect all but equal to that obtained at Genoa. And yet with all this similarity I am not disposed to class these two buildings together as the work of one man. The architect of Genoa loved mouldings much more than did the architect of these doorways; and I think I have met with a sufficient number of traces of similar work to convince me that it was the style of a class, not of a man, and one of those many and glorious phases through which our art in her rapid progress passed. The western doors at Mantes are very similar in their detail; those of Chartres—what a study they are!—partake largely of the same spirit; in the western façade of Notre Dame, Paris, there are traces of it; in Notre Dame, Châlons-sur-Marne, the south doorway was identical in character, and fragments of work of the same style have been discovered in the course of lowering the floor of that church to its ancient level; and in S. Germer, in the chapter-house of S. Georges de Boscherville, in the western doorway of Angers cathedral, and in parts of S. Remi at Rheims, I think we see the same style more or less developed. Undoubtedly the work at Rouen is the most excellent of all, just as it occupies the central position in point of date.

I am not afraid to confess that the whole of these examples are largely Byzantine in their character; in my eyes this is a virtue, not a fault; for I believe that it is here perhaps more than anywhere else that we may succeed in developing from our forefathers’ work. There seems to be here a mine of untold wealth, the workings into which were no sooner commenced than they were abandoned: and the style seems to be one which affords special opportunity for meeting our great difficulty at the present day, as it indicates a mode of obtaining rich decorations without being dependent for effect entirely on a horde of slovenly carvers, who, without an idea in their heads, ruin all the rest of our work by their failure in its sculpture.

This is a digression, but the subject was tempting: I will only say further, as to these remains at Rouen, that they have the rare advantage of not having been restored, and that they are entirely covered in all parts with work of almost uniform excellence, though, to my taste, the north-west door (the tympanum of which contains the life of S. John the Baptist) is the finest. The effigy of Archbishop Maurice is singularly elaborated: the patterns on the vestments, the details of the censers, and indeed all parts, being finished with the elaboration of a genuine Pre-Raphaelite. Before modern sculptors sneer at these twelfth century works, I wish that they would themselves attempt to produce even one block of stone, a foot square, as well wrought, and I doubt not they would profit by the lesson, novel though it might be.

The western doors of the aisles are placed between large buttresses, and arches are thrown over them from buttress to buttress. Between the arches of the doors and these upper arches, a small space of plain wall remained, which has been treated in the most ingenious manner. Figures are marked in outline on the stone, which were, I think, painted, and the ground throughout is diapered with a very simple pattern sunk in the stone. Over the south-west doorway was the Last Judgement: and over the north-west, our Lord seated with angels and saints on either side. In the former our Lord is seated on a throne, between two candles: angels present souls to Him, other angels bear a soul in a sheet, and others again on the right drive the wicked into hell.

I must say little more about Rouen; but I ought not to forget to notice the fine and very varied treatment of the capitals throughout the nave, and the thoroughly Norman (and English) effect of the immense numbers of clustered shafts, of which all the piers are composed. The double division in height of the main arcade is not easily accounted for; but if it was owing to an alteration in the height of the building, while it was in progress, it is a happy instance to be added to many others, of the skill with which mediaeval architects seized upon difficulties as the best opportunities for achieving successes.

The ground-plan of this cathedral is, I think, altogether one of the best in France. In particular the chevet is of great beauty. The aisle round the apse, instead of being completely surrounded by chapels, has its alternate bays only so occupied, with great advantage in point of effect, both internally and externally. The arrangement is almost identical with that of the fine chevet of S. Omer cathedral, and appears to me to be a happy mean between the one chapel at the east end of Sens, and the cluster of chapels which crowd the apsidal ends of almost all the great churches in the north of France. Whilst in its plan it is more skilfully disposed than the somewhat similar chevet of Chartres, it is preferable to those of Mantes and Notre Dame, Paris, where there were no projecting apsidal chapels,15 or Bourges, where they are so small as to produce no effect.

The north-west tower (that of S. Romain), should be ascended, if only to examine the framework of the roof and for the bells, and to note, among other things, the open wooden staircase in its upper stage. The view, too, of the city is finely seen; and I know few cities that reward more bountifully any trouble taken in the attempt to see them in this way. A city it is, indeed, of desecrated churches, but still a city whose situation on the noble river winding here under great chalk hills, and there along the edge of meadows green, flat and extensive, fringed with long perspective lines of poplars, is as beautiful and as happy as it can well be.

It is not a long walk from Rouen to S. Georges de Boscherville, and the view from the hill at Chanteleu is one of the best near Rouen. The church is but of slight interest, though its flamboyant tower, with a grand open western arch, forms a fine sort of porch, and indicates a variety which might sometimes be introduced among ourselves with advantage. S. Georges de Boscherville is too well known to require description but if others have formed the same conception of it that I had, they will thank me for saying that the chapter-house is an exquisite example of the earliest pointed work, full of delicate and beautiful detail. The three western arches are circular, but not Romanesque in their character; some of their capitals have foliage, some sculpture of figures, and the thickness of the wall is supported by a miniature sexpartite vault. The vaulting of the chapter-house is also sexpartite, with additional cells at the east and west end to accommodate similar triplets. As I have before said, there is much in the detail of parts of this building, which indicates the same school as the early-pointed work at Rouen. The chapter-house is a parallelogram, fifty-four feet in length by twenty-four feet nine inches in width, and groined in three bays. Some of the western entrance shafts are elaborately carved. The vault inside is coloured buff, and diapered with red lines in a small regular pattern all over.

Between Rouen and Mantes, a pause of a few hours at Pont de l’Arche enabled me to see the interesting remains of the abbey of Bonport. The refectory is nearly perfect, and there is a great deal of simple quadripartite vaulting remaining throughout the modern-looking farm-house. But of the church, the bases of one or two columns, and one respond alone remain, and these of an excellence of design which make it very much to be regretted that it should have been destroyed. The groined refectory, of five bays in length, is well worthy of a visit. The side windows are of two lancet lights, with a circle above, and at the north end is a window of four equal lancets, with small cusped openings above. The south end and entrance from the cloister are modernized. The pulpit staircase is perfect, and very ingeniously contrived; but the pulpit itself is destroyed. Among the buildings, which are of considerable extent, are some admirable examples of domestic windows; and, to conclude, the whole is of the very best early thirteenth-century style.

The church at Pont de l’Arche is one of those ambitious but very picturesque buildings, of which we have no counterpart. It is flamboyant in style, very lofty, and intended for groining throughout. This, however, was never completed, and there is a coved wooden ceiling in its place. A good deal of late stained glass, of very poor detail, exists in the windows, the subject of one of them being the Tree of Jesse.

Of the ancient bridge over the Seine, at Pont de l’Arche, not a vestige, I think, now remains.

The cathedral at Mantes is in many ways of much interest. Your readers are, no doubt, well acquainted with Notre Dame, Paris, and with the singular changes which have been effected in it from time to time. In Mantes, I believe they may see almost the same kind of conception, left with such slight alterations as do not in any way conceal the original design. It is therefore of special value.

I have already referred to the western doors. They are much mutilated, and the south-west door was replaced in the fourteenth century by an immense and conceited composition of a doorway with pediment and flanking pinnacles which is very damaging to the general effect of the façade. The remainder of the front is uniform first-pointed, with two steeples connected by an open screen as at Paris. The north-west tower has been already nearly rebuilt, and the south-west tower is now suffering from the same process, “suffering” I say, because I believe firmly that the original design is being annihilated. In both the belfry stage, which rises above the screen between the towers, is now much smaller than the stage below; nothing can look much worse than such a sudden diminution in size, and I am convinced that the original intention must have been (as at Laon) to continue the shafts and arcading which surround the lower stage up to the top. I made as careful an examination of the work as was possible, and have hardly a shadow of doubt that this was the case; but whether the authorities did not know the glorious steeples of Laon, or whether they have a view of their own as to what looks best, they are certainly making the upper part of this unfortunate west front look as modern in its outline and meagre in its character as it is new and fresh-looking in its colour. It were better that old work perished altogether, than that it should be scraped, re-chiselled, cleaned and modernized in this heartless manner!

The most noticeable feature of the interior is the treatment of the triforium of the eastern portion of the church. This is groined with a succession of transverse barrel-vaults, the effect of which is to give an immense addition of strength to the main walls. They spring from the capitals of a succession of detached shafts which are placed across the triforium, so that the perspective of its interior is singularly picturesque. It was not very long after the erection of the church that the western portion of the triforium was altered, a quadripartite vault being substituted for the barrel vaulting, and wherever this has been done, the thrust has been too great for the principal groining shafts, which have bulged considerably, and are now held in place by iron ties. In the apse, the bays being of necessity much wider on one side than on the other, the ridge of the barrel-vault rises rapidly towards the external wall: and the triforium is lighted by a succession of immense simple circular windows. The internal elevation of one bay of this cathedral is nearly identical with the original design of that of Paris, though simple and (I fancy) rather earlier in date; but from the shortness of the church and the absence of transepts (in which one point it reminds me of the fine church of S. Leu d’Esserent) it has both inside and outside the effect rather of a choir only than of a complete cathedral. There are various additions to the church of later date, which add much to its picturesque character, especially a chapel on the south side, the chapels round the apse, and the sacristies on the north side. The stone roof above the groining of one of these is remarkable. The arrangement of coloured tiles on the roof is one of the best I have seen. The pattern is rather complicated, and is formed with dark tiles (green and black used indiscriminately) on a ground of yellowish tiles.

The church from the apse to the western towers consists of but three bays of sexpartite vaulting, each bay covering two bays of the main arcades. Between the towers is one bay of quadripartite vaulting.

Walking from Mantes across the river to the suburb of Limay, a fine view is obtained of the town and cathedral, which shows here the whole picturesque exaggeration of height as compared with length which distinguishes it. Limay church boasts of nothing save a tower and spire on the south side, of late Romanesque character throughout. The surface of the spire is covered with scalloping, and has spire-lights and fine pinnacles at its base. Some attached shafts against the face of the belfry stage, which seem to serve no purpose, are curious as being probably the type from which some similarly placed shafts in the steeples of the cathedral were derived. Here too, as in the cathedral, a most effective form of label is used, the section of which is a square cut out into diamonds like unpierced dogteeth. We see the same thing in England, and among other examples there is a good one at Lanercost. Its effect is singularly bold and piquant.

A mile on the other side of Mantes is the little village of Gassiecourt, whose cross church is of much interest. The glass in the three chancel windows is fine, and of late thirteenth-century date. The east window of four lights with twenty-five subjects has been restored, and two of the subjects—the thirteenth and eighteenth—have been quite wrongly placed. The window represents the whole Passion of our Lord. The side windows of two lights contain large figures under canopies of the early part of the thirteenth century, in a sad state, but of very considerable value. The east window of the south transept has subjects from the lives of S. Laurence and another. The internal arrangement is remarkable; the fifteenth century stalls, with subsellae and returns, being placed in the two eastern bays of the nave, leaving three bays to the west. The old altar remains in the east wall of the north transept. The walls and roof of the south transept are covered with painting; on the roof are four angels with the instruments of the Passion, one in each division of the groining; the west wall has a painting of the Last Judgement, and the east large figures on each side of the east window; on the soffit of the arch into the tower are angels playing on musical instruments. The whole appears to have been painted in the fifteenth century, and, though of no great artistic merit, is of value in France, where, as in England, such things are very rare. A grand Romanesque west doorway, and a simple gabled central tower with a good belfry stage are the principal external features of this interesting village church.

Before I conclude, I must say a few words as to the evidence of popular feeling in regard to pointed architecture in France. It is partly, doubtless, owing to the fact that all the great churches are national property, and entirely sustained by the State, that we miss so entirely any of that evidence of personal and widely spread interest in them, which so honourably distinguishes most people in our own country. But descending to the second and inferior classes of churches, we find unfortunately the same apathy, the same neglect: so that a tour among French village churches would leave an impression on the mind of any Englishman that the clergy and laity are alike careless of their fate and ignorant of their value. One of the very few village churches which I have seen in process of restoration was being done by order of the Emperor, and by a rate imposed upon the commune, aided by an imperial grant; but there, as elsewhere, the repair was entirely confined to the fabric; and pews, pavements, altars,—all remain still in their old state, ugly, dirty, and uncared for. I must make honourable exception in favour of one large parish church, Notre Dame, Châlons-sur-Marne, where, with the greatest care and love for the building committed to his charge, the excellent curé is carrying on a restoration which appears to me to be by very far the best and most faithful that I have seen on the Continent. I have seen, I grieve to say, but little evidence of any practical love on the part of the people or the clergy for their glorious churches, but I will let M. Viollet-le-Duc—than whom who can be a better judge?—say what can be said as to the real impression which they produce:—

“Dépouillés aujourd’hui, mutilées par le temps et la main des hommes, méconnues pendant plusieurs siècles par les successeurs de ceux qui les avaient élevées, nos cathédrales apparaissent au milieu de nos villes populeuses, comme de grands cercueils; cependant elles inspirent toujours aux populations un sentiment de respect inaltérable; à certains jours de solemnités publiques, elles reprennent leur voix, une nouvelle jeunesse, et ceux mêmes qui répétaient, la veille, sous leurs voûtes, que ce sont là des monuments d’un autre âge sans signification aujourd’hui, sans raison d’exister, les trouvent belles encore dans leur vieillesse et leur pauvreté.”

II

Leaving Paris for Beauvais, the first station at which I stopped was l’Isle Adam, from whence a walk of two or three miles by the banks of the Oise brought me to the fine village church of Champagne. This is very unlike an English village church in its general scheme, but full of interest. In plan it consists of a groined nave and aisles, of six bays, a central tower with a square chancel of one bay, and transepts with apsidal projections from their eastern walls. The date of the whole church (with the exception of the tower arches, which must have been either rebuilt or very much altered in the fifteenth century) is about the end of the twelfth century. It is now undergoing repair at the joint expense of the Emperor and the commune, but this is being done in so careless a manner that it is to be hoped it will not proceed further than is absolutely necessary for the security of the fabric. The western façade has a very singular doorway, the tympanum of which is pierced with a window of six cusps, whilst the abacus of the capitals is carried across the tympanum, and a square-headed door pierced below. Above is a large wheel window of twelve lights. The aisles are lighted with lancets, whilst the clerestory has a succession of circular windows, which internally form part of the same composition as the triforium, the lower part being an unpierced arcade. The chancel is lighted at the east with a circular window enclosed within a pointed arch and on either side with early geometrical windows of two lights. The finest feature is the steeple, which rises in two stages above the roofs. The belfry stage is excessively lofty and elegant in its proportions, having two windows of two lights in each face divided by a cluster of shafts, whilst other clusters of shafts at the angles of the tower run up to a rich corbel-table and cornice, under the eaves of the roof. The finish is a hipped saddle-back roof of steep pitch and covered with slate.

Internally the most rare feature is a very light cusped stone arch of flamboyant character, with pierced spandrils, which spans the western arch of the tower, and no doubt originally carried the Rood. The capitals in the nave are boldly carved, and carry the groining shafts, which are clusters of three. At the west end of the north aisle, and projecting beyond the façade of the church, is the ruin of a small gabled chapel, the object of which I did not understand.

Altogether this church, owing to its fine character, and the retention of almost all its original features and proportions unaltered, deserves to be known and visited by all ecclesiologists, who travel along the north-of-France railway to Paris. A few miles farther on the left rises the fine church of S. Leu, which I have known for a long time, and which deserves, as I think, very much more notice and study than it appears to have received. The plan, situation, details, and style (early first-pointed) are all alike of the best, and I know few, even among French churches, which impress me more strongly with the thorough goodness and nobility of their style. The east end of the church rises from the precipitous edge of a rock, which elevates the whole building finely above the level of the riant valley of the Oise. It was attached, I believe, to a Benedictine abbey, the other buildings of which are all in a most advanced state of decay. The church fortunately, though much out of repair, and in some points altered into flamboyant, is nevertheless sufficiently perfect for all purposes of study. It consists in plan of two western towers (the north-west tower being only in part built) then six bays of nave and aisles, three bays of choir, and an apse (circular on plan) of seven bays; round the apse is the procession path, and four chapels, also circular on plan, lighted by two windows, so that one of the groining shafts is placed opposite the centre of the arch into each, and over the altars. In place of the fifth chapel on the north side, a circular recess is formed in the external wall of the procession path, so as to make space for an altar without forming a distinct chapel. I should be disposed to say that this was the original scheme of the church, afterwards altered and much improved by the substitution of larger and distinct chapels.16 The central chapel of the apse has the unusual feature of another chapel above it, on a level with the triforium, adding much to the picturesque effect of the east end. In addition to the western steeples there are gabled towers which rise above the aisles on each side of the choir, and the church is remarkable, like the church at Mantes, for the absence of transepts. Perhaps, as the internal length is not quite two hundred feet, this is of some advantage to the general effect. A considerable change has at some time been effected in the external appearance of the east end, for on examination I found that each bay of the triforium was formerly lighted by two lancet windows between the clerestory and the roof over the aisles. My impression is, that this must have been altered when the chapels round the apse were erected and within a very short time of the original construction of the church; but whatever the reason, the church has lost much by the alteration. The six bays of the nave appear to have been built after the west end and the choir. The latter has a noble very early-pointed doorway, rich in chevron ornament, and this seems to have had a porch gabled north and south between the towers so as not to interfere with the window in the west wall of the nave. The south-west tower and spire, though small in proportion to the height of the nave, are of elaborate character. All the arches are round, and there are two nearly similar stages for the belfry. The spire has large rolls at the angles and in the centre of each face (an arrangement seen at Chartres and Vendôme) but in addition it has the peculiarity of detached shafts, standing clear of the rolls on the spire and held by occasional bands. They have a certain kind of quaint picturesqueness of effect, but were never, I think, imitated elsewhere. The whole face of the spire is notched over with lines of chevroned scalloping. On entering the church the first thing that is remarked is the excessive width of the nave (thirty-six feet between the columns) compared to that of the aisles (about twelve feet). The result is, that a grand unbroken area is obtained for worshippers, whilst the aisles appear to be simply passage-ways. The general proportion of the building is, however, rather too low in proportion for its great width. Almost all the arches throughout the church are, more or less, stilted, and with the best possible effect. When the eye is thoroughly accustomed to this it is curious to notice how unsatisfactory any other form of arch is. The fact is, that a curve which commences immediately from its marked point of support is never so fine as where it rises even a few inches perpendicularly before it springs. The capitals throughout the church are finely carved, and those round the apse are of immense size, and crown circular shafts of very delicate proportions, much as at Mantes, and (though on a heavier scale) at Notre Dame, Paris. The construction of this part is of the very boldest character, and exemplifies in a very striking manner the extreme skill in construction to which the architects of the day had arrived.

Great effect is produced by the profusion of chevron and nail-head ornament used on the exterior of the church; a double course of the former of the very simplest kind forms the cornice under all the eaves, and is also used down the edges of all the flying buttresses. On the north side of the nave there still remains a portion of the cloisters, of fine early character; two sides only remain, with a room of the same date with groining resting on detached shafts. Some remains of gateways in the old walls of the abbey are worth noticing, as also the old walls which surround the church, built for the most part against the rock on which it stands, with here and there very small openings, which make them look as though they were intended for defence. Whilst I was in the church some boys came to toll the passing-bell. They said that they always did so on Fridays, at three o’clock.17

I saw nothing between S. Leu and Beauvais, though in the part of France bordering on the Oise, I believe that every village would afford something worth seeing in its church. My time, however, was limited.

As you reach Beauvais, the country changes; there is a great deal of wood, a very scattered population, and but few churches. Of course the first object of every one at Beauvais is the cathedral; a building from the study of which I derived less satisfaction than might be expected. It is unpleasant to find an artist striving after more than he is really able to attain, and this was conspicuously the case with the architect of Beauvais. The church was consecrated in A.D. 1272 and fell in A.D. 1284. In order to repair its defects the arches of the choir were subdivided, and from the great size of the columns, and the narrow span of the arches, the present effect is that of a church in which the arches have but little to do, and in which everything has been sacrificed to keep the building from falling again. Then when the roofs and passages about the building are mounted it is seen that the great object of the architect has been simply to obtain one grand effect—that of height and airiness, and that to this everything has been sacrificed, the details throughout being poor, coarse, and slovenly in their mode of execution. The whole gave me the impression of being the work of an unsatisfactory architect, though at the same time it is impossible to deny the excessive grandeur of the vast dimensions of the interior so far as it is completed, or the beauty of arrangement which marked the original scheme of the ground-plan, unpractical and unstable as it was. It may be right, however, to attribute some of the failures, with M. Viollet-le-Duc, to the carelessness of workmen; though no good architect allows himself to be so excused.

It seems very like presumption to criticise such a building, yet I know not the use of architectural study if it is to be pursued with that blind faith which obliges one to admire indiscriminately everything that was built in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The mere fact that the main intention of the people of Beauvais was to build something finer than their neighbours at Amiens is in itself suggestive; and I am not surprised that a building erected on such terms is unworthy of its age. It is one of the very few buildings of the kind which impresses me in this way; for usually the feeling derived from the study of mediaeval churches is one of respect for the absence of anything but the most thoroughly artistic feeling on the part of their builders. No doubt the architect of Amiens did his work in the best way he could, with little reference to what was being done by his neighbours; and it is curious that the grand success which he achieved should have led, both at Beauvais and (I think also) at Cologne, to unworthy and unsuccessful attempts at rivalry. I can quite see that a claim may be made for the architect of Beauvais, as a man of genius who was not quite so safe a constructor as his contemporaries, but who nevertheless conceived the grandest idea of his age, as far as size and height were concerned. I can only answer that this is not the character of a great architect, and would lead me to class him with the architect of the abbey of Fonthill, rather than with the architect of Amiens or Chartres. The first architect of Beauvais was, however, a better architect, in some respects, than his successor; for though his details (seen in the apse only) were not of the first order, those of the latter are about the worst I have ever met with in a French church of such pretensions.

The glass in the clerestory windows has a band of figures and canopies crossing them at mid-height, with light glass above and below: this is an arrangement often met with, and generally productive of good effect, especially in windows of such great height. A museum attached to the west side of the north transept contains a few antiquities; but the feature of most interest is a late, but good cloister, noticeable for the extreme delicacy of the shafts and piers between the trefoiled openings. In the museum is a fair embroidered mitre, which belonged to F. de Rochefoucald, Bishop of Beauvais, in 1792.

The church of S. Étienne18 is, after the cathedral, the great architectural attraction of Beauvais. Its west front has a grand arched doorway, with a sculptured tympanum, containing the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, and four rows of figures of angels and others in the arch. The jambs and central pier are completely denuded of all their shafts and statues, and the whole work is much mutilated in all its parts; nevertheless, it is the best thing remaining in the city, as far as goodness of sculpture and detail can make a work good. The gable of this porch runs back into a triplet, and the main gable has a cusped circular window, now blocked up. The date of the whole front is early in the thirteenth century. On the north side of the nave there is a fine doorway, of very ornate Romanesque; it has been carefully repaired. An arcade of semicircular arches above the doorway is diapered with a pattern sunk in the stone and marked at regular intervals by red tiles inlaid, and about two inches square. The effect is good, and it is, I suppose, a restoration. The circular window on the north side of the church is remarkable for the figures sculptured outside its label; it is evidently a Wheel of Fortune window.19 The buttresses of the aisles are valuable examples of late Romanesque work. They have a fair projection, but are weathered off some five or six feet below the eaves’ corbel-table; and from their summit in some cases one, and in others two, shafts rise to support the corbel-table. The choir is lofty flamboyant work, but ugly. The nave, of early Transition character, internally has very heavy groining-shafts, and the far from admirable peculiarity of a triforium with arches formed of very flat segments of circles, and the string under the clerestory rising in the same line, and forming, as it were, a label to the arch below.

The gateway to the bishop’s palace, with its steep and picturesque roofs; the palace itself, with its valuable remains of Romanesque work at the back; a portion of a Romanesque house near it; and a fine fourteenth-century gabled house in the Rue S. Véronique, with three pointed and canopied windows in its first floor, are the principal features of interest after the cathedral and S. Étienne. There is, too, a great store of fine timber houses, one of which, in the Rue S. Thomas, is particularly noticeable for the elaborate filling in of encaustic tiles between all the timbers.

From Beauvais I made an excursion of some ten or fifteen miles, to see the abbey church of S. Germer. It is a church little known, I suspect, to most English tourists, but of very rare interest, and equal in scale to our churches of the first class. The drive thither among woods and low undulating hills is pleasant. The church consists of a nave and aisles of eight bays, transepts, and an apse of seven sides, with an aisle and two chapels on either side. The place of the central chapel at the east is occupied by a low passage of three bays, leading to a grand Lady-chapel of four bays, with an apse of seven. The whole of the nave and choir are of fine style, in transition from Romanesque to pointed. Externally, hardly any but round arches are seen, but internally the main arches are pointed. I know few things much more striking than the treatment of the apse. The main arches have their soffits composed of a very bold round member, with a large chevron on each side; and the effect of this, in connection with the acutely pointed arches, is strikingly good.20 Above this is the groined triforium, opening to the church with an arcade of semicircular arches, subdivided into two, and supported on coupled detached shafts. Immediately under the rather plain clerestory windows is a corbel-table, and in each bay square recesses, now blocked up, but which look as though they had opened to the roof of the triforium. The groining-ribs of the apse are large, and profusely adorned with sculpture. The aisle round the apse is all built on the curve (as is usually the case in early work), and the groining, constructed in the same way, has those ungraceful and difficult curves which result from this arrangement. Very good low metal parcloses divide the choir from the aisles. In the nave some of the capitals appear to be of very early date (especially along the north wall, where the acanthus is freely used); the whole of the triforium is stopped up, but the design of this part of the church seems to have been similar to that of the choir, with the exception of the chevron round the arches. The groining, too, save of the two eastern bays of the nave, is of later date. At present the only steeple is an eighteenth century erection over the crossing; but there was evidently an intention originally to build two western towers. An altar of the same date as the church, which remains in it, is of much interest, as from its rather ornate character it seems probable that it was never intended to be covered with a cloth. It is figured at p. 180 of M. de Caumont’s Abécédaire.

The exterior affords many features of interest. It is, as I have said, almost entirely round-arched, and the choir affords a good example of the triple division in height, rendered necessary by the groined triforium and the projecting chapels of the apse. The clerestory and triforium are each lighted with one window in each bay, whilst the chapels have three windows,—a wide one in the centre, and a much smaller one in each side. There are no flying buttresses to the clerestory, but small quasi-buttresses, formed of three-quarters of a shaft, finished under the eaves with a conical capping. The eaves cornice all round the church, of intersecting round arches, resting on corbels, is so similar in its character to some of the work in the beautiful chapter-house of S. Georges de Boscherville, that I can hardly doubt that they were executed under the same influence, if not even by the same workmen.

The feature, however, which lends the most interest to the building and aids so much in its picturesque effect externally, is the grand Lady-chapel,21 said to have been built by the Abbot, Peter de Wesencourt, between the years 1259 and 1266. In plan, disposition and general arrangement it appears to be as nearly as possible identical with the destroyed Lady-chapel of S. Germain-des-Prés at Paris, built by the celebrated Pierre de Montéreau, between the years 1247 and 1255. Pierre de Montéreau built also the S. Chapelle at Paris, between 1241 and 1248, and died on the 17th March, 1266. A comparison of the design of these three buildings has induced me to believe that in this Lady-chapel of S. Germer we have another genuine work of this great architect, for it was built before his death, and is identical in many of its features with work which we know to be his. The plan of all these buildings is identical.22 They all had two staircase turrets and a large rose-window at the west end, a parapet above the rose-window, and a smaller rose in the otherwise plain gable. The design of the window tracery, the gables over the windows, the detail of the staircase turrets, buttresses and parapets, are all so similar that my suggestion really scarcely admits of a doubt. The main differences are, that at S. Germer the original western rose-window is perfect, whilst in the S. Chapelle it is a flamboyant insertion, and that the chapel is of one story in place of two. In this last point, and in its complete separation from the church, it agrees entirely with the destroyed chapel at S. Germain-des-Prés. The passage between the apse and the chapel is of three bays, with a doorway at the side, but, so far as I could see, no trace of an entrance from the apse. It is groined: the windows (of four lights) are much elaborated with mouldings, and have trefoiled inside arches: and an ascent of six steps leads from it under a fine archway into the chapel. There is a north doorway in the chapel, and the whole is groined. The dimensions appear, as nearly as I can make out, to be precisely the same as at S. Germain, but less than in the S. Chapelle, being about twenty-seven feet six inches in the clear between the groining shafts, and between seventy and eighty feet in length. The original altar of stone, supported on a trefoiled arcading, remains fixed against the east wall. This is six feet five and a quarter inches long by three feet three inches high. In the museum at the Hôtel Cluny, at Paris, one of the most valuable relics is a stone retable, painted and gilded, formerly in this chapel. I have not its dimensions, but it is of much greater length than this altar, and I have no doubt, therefore, that the principal altar stood in its proper place under the chord of the apse, and that the retable belonged to it. This arrangement was not uncommon; it was identical with that of the altars in the S. Chapelle, the same arrangement existed originally at Amiens; and we have an instance of it in England in the choir of Arundel church.

The retable has subjects from the life of our Lord, and illustrative of the legend of S. Germer. In the centre is the Crucifixion, SS. Mary and John; to the right of the Virgin is the Church, and to the left of S. John the Synagogue; then come figures of SS. Peter and Paul, the Annunciation and Salutation, S. Ouen (uncle of S. Germer) healing a knight, a noble speaking to a pilgrim, and S. Germer asking Dagobert to allow him to leave the court, in order to found his abbey. The whole of the figures are painted and gilded in the most sumptuous and yet delicate fashion, and though much damaged, are still sufficiently perfect to be intelligible.

M. de Caumont has given a drawing in the Abécédaire23 of what seems to be a remarkably fine shrine, of twelfth or thirteenth century character, still in the possession of the commune of Coudray, S. Germer. I believe this is within a few miles of S. Germer, and it ought not to be missed by ecclesiologists who take this route. It has an arcade of four trefoiled arches on each side, and one at each end, and has a steep roof with a fine open cresting at the ridge.

Of the other buildings of the abbey very slight traces now remain. Close to the west end there is, however, a very simple gate-house, and the modern conventual buildings appear to be now used for a school, superintended by nuns.

S. Germer is certainly one of those churches which no ecclesiologist who goes to Beauvais should on any account miss seeing. Its rare scale, dignity, and architectural interest, and its secluded situation afford attractions of the highest kind, and I am confident that no one who takes my advice in this matter will come back disappointed.

III

From Beauvais I made my way to Compiègne, where I found but little of much interest. The principal church is in size, plan, and general design, decidedly conspicuous; yet it is remarkable how little there is in it to detain an architect beyond the general effect. The bulk of the structure is of good uniform first-pointed character. It consists of a nave and aisle (fifty-three feet in width) of six bays, transepts, and an apsidal choir, the lower part of which has been modernized and has a very badly planned flamboyant aisle round it; and there were intended to be two western towers. The groining of the nave is flamboyant. The best feature is the apse, which has a glazed triforium of two lancet windows in each bay, and a clerestory of large single lancets. It is, I think, characteristic of many French churches of this fine scale, that they afford much less matter for study and description than our own churches of one-fourth the size and pretension. Their details are so uniform, and their planning so regular that a description of one bay is, in fact, a description of the whole church, and there is nothing in the shape of monumental effigies, screens, brasses, or other similar relics, to give a special interest to each part of the building. When we lament the general scarcity of examples of groining in our English churches, we ought not to forget that it was, in part at least, to this that we may attribute the extraordinary variety of their character; for it is undoubtedly very much more difficult to obtain those picturesquely irregular effects which charm us so justly in English examples, when groined roofs are used, than when their place is taken by roofs of wood. The points of support must be much more equally spaced, the piers more regularly planned, and each portion more exactly a reproduction of every other portion; and it has sometimes struck me as possible that we owe the much greater variety of designs in the treatment even of our groining, as compared with the French, to the great love of change and variety which our architects had imbibed in dealing so largely with wooden-roofed buildings. In this respect indeed, they sometimes ran into excesses for which they had no example, and happily, no imitators on the Continent; but on the whole, we have undoubtedly reason to be grateful for a feature in our national art which helped to place it in so high a position when compared with that of other countries.

Another church, dedicated to S. Antoine, is of large size and late flamboyant style. It has a fine font (now disused) of the same character and material as the well known fonts at Winchester, East Meon, and Southampton; the bowl of which is no less than three feet nine inches square. The floor of the nave of this church is boarded, and fitted up with very smart chairs, whilst the aisles have tiled floors and common chairs, and there is a rail fixed between the columns to shut in the select occupants of the smart chairs. It is a mistake, therefore, to suppose that the introduction of chairs will necessarily secure the annihilation of the pew system. Here, too, I saw a “mandement” of the Bishop of Beauvais, Senlis and Noyon, dated Dec. 8th, 1856, ordering the adoption of the Roman liturgy, in place of the local uses, of which he says there were no less than nine in his diocese, so that it often happened that the same priest “chargé de deux paroisses, trouve dans l’Église ou il va célébrer une première Messe une liturgie différente de celle qui s’observe dans la paroisse où il réside:”—“le chant, les cérémonies, la couleur des ornemens, les usages, tout est changé.” The Bishop interdicted, among others, the Missals of Beauvais, Noyon, Senlis, Amiens, Meaux, and Rouen, and his order took effect from Whitsunday, 1857.

Of less distinctly ecclesiastical edifices Compiègne retains some remains. A cloister in the Caserne S. Corneille is a good example. The arches have no tracery, and the piers have buttresses to resist the thrust of the groining. This is very simple but good work, though late in the fourteenth century. The old Hôtel-Dieu, too, has a characteristic gable end towards the street, divided by a central buttress, and with a pointed archway below and a large window above in each division.

The very picturesque front of the Hôtel de Ville has been recently very carefully restored, but so completely, that it looks almost like a new building. The effect of the front is very good, though the belfry tower rises awkwardly from behind the parapet of the building. There is an illustration of this building in M. Verdier’s Architecture Civile et Domestique, which will enable your readers to understand the character of this picturesque though late building better than any description that I can give. The roof of the main building, as well as that of the turrets at the angles and the belfry, is covered with slate: and it is worth notice how much the effect of these roofs depends upon the thinness of the slate, its small size and the sharpness and neatness with which it is cut. Foreign slating is in truth just as good in its effect as ours is generally bad and coarse.

The château of Pierrefonds ought to be visited from Compiègne. The ruins must be interesting, and I believe the site is very picturesque. It is a fashionable place of resort, and at a distance of some three hours through the forest from Compiègne. M. Viollet-le-Duc’s description of the buildings is known probably to most of your readers.

From Compiègne I made my way to Soissons. It was here that on this journey I came first on the grand style which distinguishes the buildings of this part of France. Laon, chief in grandeur, both natural and architectural, Noyon, S. Quentin, Meaux, and Soissons, are magnificent illustrations of the main features of the style: whilst smaller churches, remains of abbeys, such as those of Ourscamp (near Noyon) and Longpont (near Soissons), and of castles, such as Coucy-le-Château, enable us to appreciate all its varieties. It is to be hoped that the stream of English travellers will for the future set more in this direction than it has hitherto done, since it is now possible in going to Strasbourg to take the railway through this country to Rheims, and in so doing to make acquaintance with a group of churches, which impress me more and more each time that I see them. They are remarkable evidence also of the wonderful vigour of the age in which they were built: for they are all of very nearly the same date—the end of the twelfth and early part of the thirteenth century, and conceived on the grandest possible scale. Indeed, France, under Philip Augustus, affords a spectacle such as perhaps no other country in the world can show. For if we think of the wars which characterized his reign, it is almost incredible that it should nevertheless at the same time have been possible to found such cathedrals as those of Paris, Bourges, Chartres, Amiens, Laon, Meaux, Soissons, Noyon, Rouen, Séez, Coutances, Bayeux: yet such was the case, and some of them were completed in but a few years with extraordinary energy.

Few things are more impressive than the cathedral of Laon, even in its present state: and what must it not have been with its central steeple and the six towers and spires which once adorned its several fronts, rising, as they all did, from the summit of a mighty hill, seen on all sides for many a long mile by the dwellers in the plain which stretches away from its feet! And yet, magnificent as is the cathedral of Laon, it is one only among many; and such a city as Soissons, inferior as it is in situation, affords nevertheless in its architectural remains, matter of almost equal interest.

The general view of Soissons, obtained from the distance, is striking only for its architectural character. The effect is mainly attributable to the fact, that in addition to the cathedral, with its lofty south-west steeple, the town also contains the west front, with two towers and spires, of the ruined abbey of S. Jean des Vignes. It is to this ruin that the eye first turns in anticipation of discovering the famous cathedral of the city; but a little acquaintance with the details of the two buildings leaves no room to doubt that the cathedral, with its lonely steeple, is nevertheless by very much the most interesting and noble example of art which the city contains.

Let us at once, then, bend our steps thither. We shall find a church, the greater part of which dates probably from the end of the twelfth or the first years of the thirteenth century, whilst its plan is very remarkable, and its details in some parts of exquisite beauty. In plan it consists of two western towers (one of which only is built), nave and aisles of seven bays, transepts (of which more presently), a choir of five bays, and an apse of five sides; chapels are obtained between the buttresses of the choir, and the apse is surrounded by an aisle and five chapels; these chapels are circular in plan at the ground line, octagonal above, and are groined with a vault which covers the aisle also; this is a mode which is seldom satisfactory in execution, and a falling off from the structural truth of those plans in which the groining of each chapel is complete in itself, and distinct from that of the aisle. The south transept is finished with an apse, and has a small circular chapel of two stages in height attached on its south-eastern side. The north transept is square-ended and of later date.

It is impossible to examine Soissons cathedral without having recollections of several other churches forced upon the mind. At Noyon, for instance, we have a grand example of a church of the same date, both of the transepts of which are apsidal; but the south transept of Soissons has a great advantage over its neighbour, in that it has an aisle round the transept opening with three arches, supported upon slender and lofty shafts, into each bay, both on the ground level and in the triforium. Indeed there are few fairer works of the period than this south transept of Soissons; for whether we regard its plan, general scheme, or detail of design and sculpture, all alike show the presence of a master hand in its conception and execution;—the same hand, I suppose, as is seen at Noyon, but at a slightly later period. Then, again, a comparison of Soissons with Meaux will show so great a similarity of plan, dimensions, and design in their eastern apses, that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they were the works of the same man, and at about the same time. And each of these churches has nevertheless some one special feature of its own, wherein it is unique and unmatched; Soissons has its exquisite south transept, Noyon its western porch, and Laon its cluster of steeples, by which every one who has seen them must especially have been struck.

One of the features which most marks the churches of this school is the fourfold division in height of the main walls. There is first the arcade, then the triforium24 (which is large, groined, and lighted with its own windows), then a blank arcade which is analogous to the triforia of our English churches, and lastly the clerestory. I cannot say that this arrangement is ever pleasing. The clerestory always looks disproportionately small and dwarfed, and the blank arcade below it rather unmeaning, whilst all the divisions have the appearance of being cramped and confined. At Soissons it occurs in the south transept, but not in the nave—where we see the usual triple division. Some of the capitals here are well sculptured, though generally very simply, and in the transept they are often held with iron ties (as in Italian examples) to resist the thrust of the groining. I should notice that the whole of the walling in this transept is circular on plan; this is generally a mark of early date, and though it gave rise to some complexity in the arches and groining, it undoubtedly often produces a very charming effect. The windows of the three eastern chapels are full of richly-coloured early glass, rather rudely drawn and executed; some of it, I suspect, came from the clerestory, the eastern portion of which is still full of similar glass. The clerestory has large lancet windows and flying buttresses of two stages in height, with the arches supported upon detached shafts, and a passage behind the lower order on a level with the sill of the clerestory windows.

On the exterior, one of the most noticeable features is that the ridge of the south transept roof rises no higher than the eaves of the rest of the church. Yet such is the care with which the design is managed, that this smallness of scale is not noticed, until from a distance a general view of the building is obtained, when it looks undoubtedly very lop-sided.

From the cathedral one goes naturally to the ruined but still imposing church of the great abbey of S. Jean des Vignes. The west front of this church is exactly in a line with that of the cathedral, at a distance of about a furlong; and standing on higher ground, and still retaining its two towers and spires, it produces a greater effect in the general views of the city. It is now the centre of the arsenal, with powder-stores, piles of shot, and various other preparations all around it, which afford subject for rather gloomy forebodings, in case Soissons should again suffer (as it has so often already suffered) the danger of a siege. The remains of the church are almost confined to the steeples and west front. The lower portions of these date from the thirteenth century, but the upper portion is all of a very ornate and rather late middle-pointed style; they are very pyramidal in their outline, and have a rather heavy arrangement of pinnacles at the base of the spires. The belfry-window of the north-west tower has a very large stone crucifix contrived against its monial and tracery; there is a canopy in the tympanum over the head of our Lord, and the tracery seems to have been designed with a special view to the introduction of the figure. The spires are crocketed on the angles, scalloped on the face, and pierced with alternate slits and quatrefoils. The sculpture of this front is not of very good character. From the south of the south-west tower extends a remarkably fine portion of the domestic buildings of the abbey, two stages in height, and eight bays in length. Its south end has the favourite French arrangement of a central buttress between two large circular windows, with two lancet windows in the gable. On the west side each bay has a fine simple pointed window: whilst on the east side the lower part is concealed by the cloister, and the upper stage has a row of plain circular windows, similar to those at the south end. The steep-pitched roof still remains, and the whole building is a very fine relic, even among the relics of this kind in which France is so peculiarly rich. The remains of the cloister are in a very dilapidated state. Drawings which I had seen of it had prepared me for earlier and better work than I found. I imagine that it is not earlier than circa A.D. 1300. The sculptured foliage is in exact imitation of nature, very pretty, and no more. It is, however, singularly instructive, as it illustrates just the kind of work which our English carvers are most prone to introduce just now, and which is generally (as it is here) very ineffective for want of due architectural subordination. The windows of this cloister are of four lights, with geometrical tracery; but the chief peculiarity is the treatment of the buttresses, which are angular on the face, and above the springing of the windows crocketed on the angles. Had the sculpture been fifty years earlier in date, it would, I have no doubt, have been a singularly beautiful cloister. A doorway which opened from the cloister to the church is peculiarly flat in its mouldings and sculpture, but remarkable for the still existing traces of painting over its whole surface. The foundations of the east wall show that the church was not of any great length from east to west.

The church of S. Léger is the finest edifice after these of which the city can now boast. Anywhere its transepts and choir would be of great interest for their early thirteenth-century date, and their good architectural character. The church consists of a nave and aisles of six bays (of which the four western are Renaissance), transepts of two bays in depth, and a choir without aisles, which has one bay of sexpartite groining, and an apse of seven sides. The detail is very much the same as in the cathedral. The clerestory windows in the apse are lancets, and in the rest of the church of two lights with tracery, consisting of a cusped circle within an enclosing arch. In these Soissonnais churches the label generally has a ball or four-leaved flower at intervals. There is a procession path or passage, with openings in the buttresses, round the church outside the clerestory windows, dividing the church very markedly into two divisions in height, and recalling to memory the very similar arrangement in the church of S. Elizabeth at Marburg. The transept has fine angle pinnacles and a large three-light window with early tracery, whilst the cloister is somewhat similar to that of S. Jean des Vignes. Stepped gables are a favourite feature here even in early work. The aisles of S. Léger are so finished, as is also an early building by the side of the cathedral.

The church of S. Pierre, which is desecrated, has a west front of much interest. It has a nave and aisles, three western doorways (whereof the central is pointed, the others round), and a single wide, round-arched window over each door. The detail is peculiar,—of late Romanesque character, and effective. Only two bays of the nave remain. The labels and string-courses have a dogtooth enrichment, whilst the cornice above them is adorned with a regular acanthus-leaf. The shafts of the west door are fluted; and in this, as in the quadruple arrangement in height, which I have already noticed as a frequent characteristic of the Soissonnais churches, I suspect we may trace the influence of the grand church of S. Remi at Rheims.

Of domestic buildings there are but few traces in Soissons. The best are: a building near the west front of the cathedral, with stepped gables, central buttresses in the end, and good simple three-light windows in each bay;—a house in the Cloître S. Gervais, near the north transept of the cathedral, with a steep unpierced gable and three two-light windows in the stage just below it, and an unpierced ground story;—and an old hospital near the cathedral, of good early-pointed work, without groining, but with transverse arches from column to column,—the capitals being carved, and the arches quite square in section.

From Soissons, an excursion ought to be made to the abbey of Longpont.25 I was not aware at the time I was there that it was in this neighbourhood, but I believe that it is only some eight or ten miles distant, and that the church is of rare interest and grandeur. I regret extremely my inability to give any notes of it.

A walk of a mile across meadows took me to the remains of the great abbey of S. Médard. These are very slight and consist of some remains of crypts, in which are preserved portions of buildings or monuments which have been dug up from time to time. An old view of S. Médard shows it surrounded by fortified walls, enclosing a vast range of buildings and two or three churches. Of all this nothing now remains, beyond a modern house, converted into an asylum for deaf and dumb, in one portion of which remains an old vaulted apartment, now used as the chapel of the institution.

From Soissons, I made my way across country to Château Coucy... and from Coucy, I made a considerable détour to visit the abbey of Prémontré. The situation is very striking, in a narrow valley, closed in on all sides with steep, thickly-wooded hills, and with only a few dependent cottages leading up to the gate of the abbey. This was the chief house of the Premonstratensian Order, which established as many as thirty-five houses in England. The abbots of the order were bound to meet once a year at Prémontré, and as there were as many as a thousand abbeys belonging to them, the wild valley must then have presented a singular contrast to its present deserted state. Until lately the buildings have been used as a glass manufactory: but they have just been purchased by the Bishop of Soissons (who seems to have a great character for piety and liberality among the people) for an orphanage. I saw the nun who holds the post of superior of the institution, and obtained permission to search for remains of the old buildings: she seemed much surprised at my demand, and with some reason, as the only traces left of them are a portion of (I think) a crypt under the church, which has fallen with its groining, and is left a confused mass of stones, just as it fell. On my way from Prémontré, I passed, between Anizy-le-Château and Laon, a very interesting example of a village church at (I believe) Chalvour. It is cruciform, with a good central gabled tower. The chancel has single lancet windows to the east and south, and the south transept a large boldly-cusped circular window, and a small projection on the east for the altar, also lighted with a circular window. The chancel, tower, and transepts, are groined: the nave (with its aisles) is of inferior work. Altogether, this is a very characteristic thirteenth century church, of bold and vigorous character, and severely simple in all its details.

An ascent of about two miles leads up the side of the mountain, on which Laon is perched, to the western extremity of the city. And here I must pause, trusting another time to say somewhat of the architectural glories of the place, upon which I suppose I can scarcely descant too enthusiastically.

IV

The two great architectural attractions of Laon are the cathedral and its subordinate buildings, and the fine church of S. Martin. They are situated at the two extremities of the long narrow ridge on which the town is built, which towards the east falls precipitously on three sides almost from the very walls of the cathedral down to the broad vast plain which extends as far as the eye can reach, and from all parts of which the grand mass of the building, with its almost unrivalled cluster of steeples, is seen standing—just as our own glorious Lincoln—on the very spot of all others fitted for a diocesan throne.

I know no church which is altogether more calculated to leave a lasting impression on the mind than the cathedral. What is wanting in grace and delicacy is amply atoned for in force and majesty; and the completeness of the plan, the short period which seems to have elapsed between its commencement and completion, and the almost entire absence of later additions or alterations, combine to make it in every respect of the utmost value to the architectural student. The stern, solemn majesty of its art is just what we modern men ought to endeavour to impress ourselves with; but whilst I believe that all students would be enormously benefited, they must not come here under the impression that they are to see work which is pretty and attractive in the same sense or degree as S. Ouen at Rouen, or Cologne cathedral.

In plan this church has the remarkable peculiarity of a square east end, and consists of a nave and choir respectively of eleven and ten bays in length, transepts with an eastern apsidal chapel to each, a small cloister on the south side of the nave, and sacristies formed in the angles between the transepts and choir. The groining is sexpartite in the principal vaults, and quadripartite in the aisles; there is a large vaulted triforium, and the fourfold division in height to which I have already referred as a characteristic of many of the churches of this district. But the most noteworthy feature is that the three principal façades—on the west, north, and south—were each intended to have two towers and spires, whilst a lantern crowned the crossing. No less than four of these towers and the lantern still remain (though without their spires, shown in an engraving by du Sommerard), as well as the lower portion of the others. On the east and north the cathedral is enclosed with extensive ranges of coeval buildings belonging to the bishop’s palace, including the small private chapel, to which I must recur again.

Let us hear what M. Viollet-le-Duc says about the characteristics of this cathedral of Laon:26—“La cathédrale de Laon conserve quelque chose de son origine démocratique; elle n’a pas l’aspect religieux des églises de Chartres, d’Amiens ou de Reims. De loin, elle paraît un château plutôt qu’une église; sa nef est, comparativement aux nefs ogivales et même a celle de Noyon, basse; sa physionomie extérieure est quelque peu brutale et sauvage; et jusqu’à ces sculptures colossales d’animaux, bœufs, chevaux, qui semblent garder les sommets des tours de la façade, tout concourt à produire une impression d’effroi plutôt qu’un sentiment religieux, lorsqu’on gravit le plateau sur lequel elle s’élève. On ne sent pas, en voyant Notre Dame de Laon, l’empreinte d’une civilisation avancée et policée comme à Paris ou à Amiens; là, tout est rude, hardi: c’est le monument d’un peuple entreprenant, énergique et plein d’un mâle grandeur. Ce sont les mêmes hommes que l’on retrouve à Coucy-le-Château—c’est une race de géants.”

I am disposed to think that M. le-Duc scarcely values the architecture of Laon sufficiently highly, and that he is mistaken in his idea of the democratic character imparted to it by the turbulence of the citizens at the time of its erection. It appears to me that the peculiarity of its character is derived much more from some connection with German art, and I believe that the churches throughout this part of France show many evidences of such a connection. The planning of the towers of Laon is very German; I need hardly adduce examples from the Rhine district, where, as we all know, the steeples are treated as so many great turrets, nearly similar in size, height, and design, whilst the crossing is often marked by a low lantern. The grand cathedral at Tournai in this respect resembles very strongly that of Laon; and if we were coming from Germany into France, we might at Andernach, Coblentz, Trèves, and Châlons-sur-Marne (in the church of Notre Dame), see a regular sequence of buildings by which we should arrive without any very great or sensible break at Laon. The groined triforium is another well known German feature, and though the apse is a very general termination to German churches, it is yet not impossible that its absence at Laon may be an evidence of Germanic origin, as we do meet there with some examples of the same kind. In one particular feature I am able to trace a most singular coincidence with a German example, to which, however, I do not wish to attach very much weight, though it is undoubtedly curious. The steeples at Laon are very fine compositions—I should hardly speak too strongly of the steeple of the south transept, were I to say that it is the best-designed steeple in France,—marked by turrets at the angles, which are either octagonal or square in plan with shafts at their angles, and very beautiful in their effect. In the west front one of the stages has, in these open turrets, large figures of oxen and other animals looking out from between the shafts on the city roofs far away below,—a quaint conceit, which one would suppose to be a purely personal and peculiar device, and of which nevertheless there is an almost exact repetition in the very similar steeples of the grand cathedral at Bamberg.

My belief is, that as we can trace a stream of Italian art coming to the south and south-west of France, and thence working on to the north in gradual and steady development, so we may also see the same thing here. Italian art first spread down the Rhine, and thence spread right and left, and in these border provinces of France influenced to a greater extent than is generally supposed the French architects. On their part there was a peculiar skill and art displayed which soon enabled them to develop from the germ which they received; but the Romanesque work out of which they developed their buildings was of a different order from that which was the ground-work on which the architects of Poitiers, Bourges, and Chartres had to work; the latter having in Italy a Byzantine origin, whilst that of the Rhine churches was rather Romanesque. Something therefore of the magnificent character of the best early French Gothic is owing to Germany, and it was the situation of the Île de France, the meeting point as it were of these two developments, which made it the centre from which the best Gothic architecture of the world naturally sprang. But whatever was the history of Laon cathedral, no one can doubt the excessive grandeur of the result. No doubt the magnificence of the situation, which recalls forcibly some of the most interesting of Italian cities, such as Siena and Perugia, has something to do with the colouring of memories of Laon; but in the church itself there is but one point on which it is possible to feel that there is any serious shortcoming, and this, as an Englishman, I am almost afraid to say is the absence of an eastern apse. It is only when one travels from church to church finished with apsidal choirs, that the eye sees the whole evil of the square east end as the termination of the vista in a large church. But there can be no doubt that there is less completeness and unity of effect, fewer fine effects of light and shade, and altogether less skill and architectural ingenuity in the English plan than in the other: and though I should be sorry to see the apse commonly introduced in small churches, yet I think it fortunate that attention has been a good deal drawn to this matter of late years, and that men have not been slow to recognize the advantage of importing this one foreign practice at any rate into our own country. Both externally and internally the east end of Laon is deficient in effect, and gives the impression of being low and awkward in proportion. There is an eastern triplet which comes down very near to the floor, and a large rose window over it; an arcade of open arches, flanked on either side by a pinnacle, conceals the lower part of the gable. This elevation is indeed the worst thing in the whole church, and contrasts unfavourably with that of the north transept. This is perhaps a little later in date and owes much to the irregularity of outline caused by the completion of one only of its steeples. It has the peculiarity of two double doors; and the large rose window composed of eight octofoiled circles surrounding a ninth, is of rare beauty. It is to be prized the more, too, because in the fourteenth century there was a plan for its removal, of which we have curious evidence: one of the side jambs and part of the arch of a large middle-pointed window having been inserted by cutting away the wall close to a buttress in such a way as to disturb very little of the original work, and yet to afford us a very curious evidence of the way in which alterations of this kind were made by the mediaeval masons, without the introduction of a single shore or support of any kind. Fortunately the alteration was stopped just where it ought to have been, after it had afforded evidence of the customs of the masons, but before it had destroyed a perfect first-pointed façade; and I suppose that by this time we have outlived the rage for middle-pointed work so far that it would be difficult indeed to find any one so wrong-headed as not to be grateful for the stoppage of the alteration at the point at which we see it now. Of the western façade I can say but little. It has been my fortune to see it twice, but an evil fate has so covered it with scaffolding at one time, and taken down and rebuilt so much at another, that I have only been able to guess at its general effect. The western doorways are adorned with sculpture, and this is almost the only place in the church in which figure sculpture still remains; but the whole exterior of the church is remarkable for the fine architectural character of the sculpture of foliage, which is used with special lavishness along almost all the string courses. I hardly know any finer work of its kind, but it is altogether conventional in its treatment, and arranged with very particular reference to architectural effect, the foliage in each bay being very nearly identical in its design. A peculiarity in the external effect of the church is the lighting of the triforium with separate windows, so that we have three heights of windows in the elevation belonging to the aisle, triforium, and clerestory.

Of the various steeples which adorn the church, and whose character is generally very similar, the most beautiful is, I think, that of the south transept. The lower stages are lighted with couplets of lancets, and have buttresses at their angles; above the roof line square pinnacles are set diagonally at the angles, and in the topmost stage the tower is an octagon in plan with octagonal angle pinnacles resting on the square pinnacles below, and lighted by lancet windows of very light proportions. The octagonal pinnacles are composed entirely of shafts supporting arches, and are of two stages in height; and within them are contrived some newel staircases of exquisite design. They consist of a series of delicate shafts—one on each step, supporting another above; the capitals of these shafts are all well carved and with great variety; the effect of this winding cluster of shafts, seen through and behind the shafts of the pinnacles, is a great lesson in the beauty of shafts and the value of scientific construction. Much of the beauty of the design is owing to the very light and airy character of these angle pinnacles, and it is much to be deplored that the spires shown in du Sommerard’s view no longer exist.

The small cloister on the south side of the nave is one of the features to which it would be unpardonable not to refer. It forms only one side of the enclosure, the east and west ends being occupied by the chapter room and a groined chapel projecting from the south wall of the nave, whilst the wall of the aisle forms the north side. The merit of this cloister is, therefore, not its extent, but the beauty of its design. The windows are of two lights, and above these is a quatrefoil opening enclosed within a circular moulding, round which are pierced sixteen small circles. The tracery was glazed, though the lower part of the windows appears to have been always open as it is at present. The whole design is a very good example of plate tracery. The outer wall of the cloister abuts on the street, and though only pierced with small square windows, is yet so skilfully buttressed and finished with a cornice so finely sculptured, as to be a very successful architectural feature. At the angle of this wall near the south transept doorway, a buttress is brought out from the transept, and against it is placed, standing on a corbel under a canopy, a grand angel which now holds a sundial; and though the dial is not old, I suppose, to judge by the position of the hand, that it takes the place of one coeval with the fabric. The angle of this buttress, coming forward rather awkwardly in front of the door, is cut back in a very skilful manner, and has two recessed shafts with capitals and bases, affording a capital example of angle decoration.

There is not much of which I need make special mention in the interior. The main columns are generally plain cylinders, with very large capitals from which the groining shafts rise; these are banded very frequently in their height with bad effect. There is the fourfold division in height to which I have already adverted, and considerable matter of study in the sculpture of the capitals, which is however in some cases rather too rude and early in its character.

There is some very fine early glass in the eastern windows of the choir. In the transept there are two arches across next the wall, supporting a floor on a level with and connecting the triforia, the spaciousness of which is quite wonderful. They are groined throughout, and the views of the church obtained from them are very good. I found some middle-pointed screens dividing the several bays of the triforium in the nave, and there was a good deal of thirteenth century glass lying on boards, and about to undergo restoration. Considerable alterations were made in the last century by the insertion of chapels between the buttresses of the choir, but these do not detract much from the general effect of the church, which exhibits a degree of general uniformity hardly to be paralleled save at our own Salisbury.

I think it admits of a fair doubt whether such a cluster of similar great steeples at regular intervals around one building, as we have here, could ever be perfectly satisfactory; but of the beauty of their design, taken separately, there cannot be two opinions. It is possible that if the central lantern had been carried up to a great height, whatever defect there is might have been rectified, but there is no sign of any such intention.

To the east and north of the cathedral are very large remains of buildings of the same date as the cathedral, and fairly perfect in their external effect. Towards the interior they all rest on open arcades, whilst on the exterior the outline is well and picturesquely broken by a series of turrets projecting from the walls of the great hall of the palace, said to have been built by Bishop Garnier in A.D. 1242.

The bishop’s chapel, a groined building with nave and aisles, and of two stages in height, still remains. It is of slightly earlier date than the cathedral, is covered with a roof of one span, and has a very small apse at the east end.

There seems to have been a communication directly from the bishop’s palace to the eastern part of the cathedral; and if the people of Laon were as turbulent as they are said to have been, the bishops were wise so to place their palace, and so to connect it with the cathedral as to enable themselves to stand a siege if need be.

After the cathedral, the church of S. Martin, at the opposite end of the town, is the principal architectural relic still left in Laon. Like the cathedral, it is remarkable for its square east end. It is cruciform in plan, and consists of nave and aisles, choir without aisles, and transepts with chapels on the east side. Two towers are placed in the angles between the transepts and nave. The general foundation of the fabric is Romanesque work, but the choir and transepts are of a rather ornate early first-pointed, much more German than French in its character, and the western façade is one of the best examples that I know of a middle-pointed front to a church of moderate pretensions. The early-pointed work at the east is remarkable for the very heavy character of its mouldings and string-courses, the use of both round and pointed arches, and the very ingenious arrangement of the chapels in the east wall of the transept, and of the buttresses above them. Three chapels are formed under two bays of vaulting, so that the vaulting shaft and buttress come over the point of the arch. The church is well groined. The steeples are poor in character and rather insignificant, but they appear never to have been completed, and in the neighbourhood of the cathedral it was dangerous to venture upon any but the most careful and noble work.

The west front is very ornate, and is marked chiefly by the fine octangular pinnacles at the angles of the clerestory and by the large sculpture of S. Martin in a quatrefoil which fills the gable. The three western doorways are composed of a succession of small reedy mouldings, and against the buttresses beyond the central doorway are figures of saints considerably mutilated.

Almost the only other interesting church is a small building attached now to an educational institution for boys. A priest told me it had belonged to the Templars, and at any rate it is an octagonal building with a small chancel on its eastern side, and a smaller circular apse. At the west end there is a small porch. The whole is in a late Romanesque style, and very small, the external measurement of each side of the octagon being only about eleven feet.

Here and there are to be seen remains of houses and gateways, but there is nothing of sufficient interest to require a special note here, and the only other building I need mention is the very curious church at Vaux-sous-Laon, a village at the foot of the hill below the citadel and cathedral. This has a western porch or narthex, nave and aisles of five bays, transepts and low central steeple, and a choir and aisles of three bays, groined, and both loftier and wider than the nave. The east end is square, and has a triplet and a large rose window above, very similar in design to the east end of the cathedral. The columns are cylindrical, with simply carved caps of bold design. The choir is all first-pointed, the nave of earlier date and much simpler character and not groined.

I must conclude this brief notice of Laon and its buildings with just mentioning two of the existing buildings in the neighbourhood which ought to be seen and examined. These are the magnificent granary of the abbey of Vauclair near Laon, and the still more interesting hospital for lepers of Tortoir: both of these are figured by M. Verdier in his Architecture Civile et Domestique, and appear to be of rare beauty and interest.

V

The cathedral of Rheims is most unquestionably a very noble, I might almost say, a perfectly noble, piece of architecture, and nevertheless it seems to fail in producing so great an effect on the mind as many other French churches of smaller dimensions and less architectural pretension. The truth is, that it is a work conceived and executed at two periods and by two (if not more) architects; and though the ground-plan, some portion of the walls, and a little of the sculpture, of the first architect have been preserved, the general aspect of the church at the present day savours more of the later artist than of his predecessor. It was in the year 1212 that Robert de Coucy (a friend of Wilars de Honecort) commenced the erection of the present cathedral, and it was after his death and from circa A.D. 1250 to circa A.D. 1300 that the whole of the upper portion of the building, the western portion of the nave from the ground, and the elaborate western façade were in course of erection. There remains to us, therefore, little of genuine first-pointed work, for it has been clearly shown by M. Viollet-le-Duc that the lower stage only of the building was the work of Robert de Coucy. He seems indeed to have contemplated a building of greater height and grandeur than the present, since his work is remarkable for the great size of the buttresses and the thickness of the walls, which were diminished at once, and abruptly, by the architect who followed him, and whose work is nevertheless amply solid and massive for the existing edifice.

It will be seen from what I have said, that we must not go to Rheims expecting to see a work of the best period of the thirteenth century. We shall find a small portion of sculpture in one of the doors of the north transept, and the plan and basement story of the building throughout, of this early date, but the bulk of the structure and almost the whole of the decorative features are purely middle-pointed work of the end of the thirteenth and early part of the fourteenth century. There is exquisite grace about most of this work, but an entire lack of that stern character which makes Chartres the grandest of French churches; there is prettiness where there should have been majesty; and in parts a nervous dread of leaving a single foot of wall free from ornament, which reminds one much more of the work of an architect of the nineteenth century than of one of the thirteenth. The west front, on which all the greatest efforts of the later architects of the church were lavished, can thoroughly please none but those who see in elaborate enrichment of every inch of wall the evidence of art, whilst I need hardly say that to those who have studied the best examples of architecture in whatever style, such elaborate ornamentation is in itself an evidence of weakness. There is a kind of sacredness about the simple breadth of wall and buttress which must be reverenced by all who would produce really grand work. But for this the later architects of Rheims had not the slightest feeling, and their work seems therefore to me to be more really allied to the debased art which followed it, than to the pure early work which had immediately preceded it. As at Laon, so here, the original design was to have a grand group of towers and spires, six for the three grand façades, and a seventh over the crossing. Some of these spires were, I believe, actually erected, and in lead; and whether this was the first intention or not it is certain that the plumber’s work was in great request in this church and city, as there still remains a very fine flèche on the point of the apse roof of the cathedral, some good detail of lead work on the roofs, and a much modernized leaded steeple in the church of S. Jacques; whilst in the west front of the cathedral we see large gurgoyles of lead simulating enormous animals. The interior of the cathedral is very noble in its proportions (though the triforium might well have been more dignified), and is remarkable for the immense size of the capitals of the piers in the nave; they are very closely copied from natural foliage, and fail to satisfy me that such work is the best fitted for architectural enrichment. The decoration of the west end is not confined to the exterior, the whole inside face of the wall being divided into panels and niches filled with foliage and single figures. The stone imitation of hangings in the lower part of this wall ought to be recorded, though hardly without a protest.

On the south side of the cathedral is the archbishop’s palace which still retains its thirteenth century chapel of two stages in height, and good, though simple, character. It is a parallelogram of five bays in length with an apse of seven sides.

And now that I have ventured to say so much in the way of criticism upon what I believe most Frenchmen consider their most glorious church, and without any attempt at a detailed account either of its general architectural arrangements or its sculptures (the latter exceedingly rich and suggestive), I must take my reader with me along the dreary dirty road which leads to the squalid quarter of the city in which still stands as a rival to the more modern cathedral the enormous church of S. Remi. The exterior, with the exception of the apse, has been much modernized, and presents accordingly but few features of much interest. The south transept has been all remodelled in flamboyant, whilst the nave is simple Romanesque, and the west end—recently almost entirely rebuilt—is a singular agglomeration of anomalous work, half classic or Pagan, and half Romanesque or Gothic and Christian. In the apse we have flying buttresses supported on fluted shafts, a clerestory of triple lancets, and a triforium also lighted with three-light windows. The proportions of the buttresses, roofs, and walls are however heavy and unskilful, and give evidence of the early date of this nevertheless very grand attempt. It is on entering by the transept, through a doorway covered with fine flamboyant sculpture, that we see how grand the attempt was, and how fine the internal effect. I think I know no church whose whole interior gives a greater idea of spaciousness and size, whilst the beauty of the design of the apse and the aisle and chapels round it is extreme. And indeed the appearance of size does not belie the facts, for the dimensions of the building are singularly fine. It has a Romanesque nave and aisles (groined with a pointed vault) of thirteen bays, transepts, and a choir of three bays with an apse of five. Round the apse is the procession-path aisle, and opening into this a series of chapels, whereof the five eastern are very noticeable. The Lady-chapel is of three bays in length, with an apse of seven bays, whilst the other four are very nearly circular in plan, and each of the chapels opens into the aisle with three arches supported on delicate detached shafts. The groining of each of the four smaller chapels forms a complete circle in plan, with eight groining ribs, whereof two are supported on the columns opening into the aisle. Each chapel is lighted by three windows, recessed so much as to allow of openings being pierced in the groining piers to admit of a passage all round the interior. This arrangement (as well as the beautiful planning of the chapels) is a distinct feature of the churches of Champagne. The chapels of Notre Dame, Châlons-sur-Marne, are similarly planned, and in those of the cathedral at Rheims it is clear that Robert de Coucy had the same plan in his eye, though he gave up the triple-arched entrance from the aisle; whilst at S. Quentin we see an almost similar plan at a rather later date. The whole of the nave retains the original very simple Romanesque arcades, and lofty groined triforia; but its groining throughout is fine early-pointed work and of grand dimensions, the width in clear of the vault being about forty-five feet. It is a curious fact that in this nave the triforium compartment is absolutely more lofty than that below it which contains the arch opening into the aisle. In the choir there is a sort of fourfold division in height such as I have described at Soissons and Laon, an arcade of pointed arches being introduced between the clerestory and the triforium; but as this arcade is in part a continuation of the lines of the clerestory windows, and as there is no string-course to divide the stage in two, the effect is better than in other examples of the same arrangement.

There is much matter for careful study in the interior; among other things may be noticed the remarkably fine and large corbels supporting the groining shafts in the eastern part of the nave, adorned with figures of the prophets bearing scrolls and still retaining traces of their old colouring; and again, the very beautiful sculpture of some of the early capitals near the western end of the nave, and on either side of the great western doorway. In the windows of the apse are some small remains of fine early glass.

Among the other architectural remains in Rheims is the church of S. Maurice, consisting of a Romanesque nave and aisles, and a lofty groined flamboyant choir, the west front of good character, having small buttresses supported on shafts on each side of the central door, and separating the western triplet of broad lancets above the doorway. The rest of the church is very uninteresting.

There is also the church of S. Jacques, whose west front has the unusual feature of a sham gable on either side of the real central gable.27 These gables are above the aisles, and completely conceal their roofs and the clerestory. The nave is of early-pointed date, but very much altered; only the two eastern bays appearing to retain the original triforium and clerestory,—the latter a lancet with internal jamb-shafts, which are continued into the triforium and form a portion of the arcades of four pointed arches which occupy each bay,—an arrangement very similar to that of the clerestory of S. Remi. These two bays are groined with a sexpartite vault, which is slightly domical in its longitudinal section. The alternate piers in the nave consist of coupled columns of very solid character, and with very deep capitals. Some of these columns are regularly fluted. The rest of the nave has been much altered in the fourteenth century, whilst the choir is flamboyant, with aisles of Renaissance style, but groined in stone. The crossing is surmounted by a very large flèche of timber covered with lead, almost completely modernized, but showing still some large three-light windows of middle-pointed style.

The Maison des Musiciens, in the Rue de Tambour, is a well-known example of excessively good domestic architecture of the thirteenth century.

From Rheims I made my way by railway to Châlons-sur-Marne, where I was rewarded by the sight of one of the most interesting churches I have ever seen, that of Notre Dame, and of a cathedral of inferior interest. It was the more gratifying to find such really fine work just on the extreme borders of the country to which French influence extended, and beyond which to the eastward the churches appear to be entirely German in their style.

The points of resemblance between Notre Dame de Châlons and the church of S. Remi at Rheims are too obvious to be overlooked. The planning and the general design and detail of their chevets are precisely similar, though the scale of Notre Dame is considerably smaller than that of S. Remi. The former church has however the great advantage of being of the same character throughout, wonderfully little damaged by time, and singularly fortunate among French churches in being under the care of a priest, M. Champenois, whose zeal and enthusiasm for his beautiful church is equalled by the care and skill with which he has himself carried out its restoration. It is the most conservative restoration I have as yet seen in France; it could not be more conservative, and hence it is impossible that it could be better. M. Champenois feels that every stone is a deposit entrusted to him, and I would that we saw signs of such zeal as his rather oftener in the French clergy. Unfortunately, it seems to be too generally the case that they take no interest whatever in the churches which they serve. They have been taught to look to the government as the owner and restorer of all religious buildings, and they have ceased to concern themselves about either the security of their fabrics or the character of their fittings and decorations. Fortunate indeed is it for us in England that the State is not so careful for us as it is in France, for then we should see here, just as we do there, a people utterly careless of the noble buildings which surround them, in place of—as we do here—a people whose love for their old monuments is enhanced and in part created by the fact that they are themselves perpetually invited to help in their restoration and repair.

The church of Notre Dame consists of a nave and aisle of seven bays in length, transepts, and a very short apsidal choir (an apse of seven sides), with an aisle and chapels planned like those of S. Remi, beyond it. There are four towers, two at the west ends of the aisles, and two in the angles between the transepts and the choir. The triforium throughout is large, lofty, and groined. As at S. Remi, the external effect of this church is much inferior to the internal effect. It is rather too heavy and ungainly, and savours much of the character of German Romanesque work. The four towers have the defect of being almost exactly alike, of four stages, richly adorned with round-arched arcades, and rising hardly at all above the level of the ridges of the roof. The south-west tower retains its fine leaded spire, with four tall pinnacles at its base, and a cluster of eight spire-lights about midway: it is an exquisite example of lead-work, and still more precious to us as affording evidence of the extraordinary extent to which decoration was sometimes carried in the Middle Ages. The pinnacles at the base still retain distinct traces of decoration on the lead, each side having a large crocketed canopy, below which is a gigantic figure, in one case of an archer with a bow. The whole is done in white and black only, the ground being the dark lead on which the white lines seem to have been marked by a process of tinning or soldering. It is a kind of decoration which we may well attempt to revive. A spire very similar to the other has recently been erected on the north-west tower, and the western front is now therefore quite in its old state, and singularly well does it look. I almost doubt whether the addition of similar spires to the two eastern towers, for which the Curé is now collecting funds, will really improve the look of the church. With four steeples, it is well that two at least should be pre-eminent, which is the present state of the case; whilst the completion of the others would reduce all to the character of mere turrets—a result not to be desired. The variety of string-courses and cornices throughout the exterior of this church, all filled with sculpture of foliage, gives a very ornate character to the external detail.

The principal entrance is by the south door of the nave. This has been cruelly damaged, indeed nearly destroyed, but what remains is of great interest, owing to its very close resemblance to the noble western doorways of Rouen cathedral; the doorway is double, with eight shafts in each jamb, the alternate shafts having figures in front of them, as in the west doorways of Chartres; whilst the tympanum is similar also, having a figure of our Lord, surrounded by the emblems of the four Evangelists. Portions of archivolt enrichments and other sculpture have been dug up in the neighbourhood of this doorway and carefully preserved, and they appear to me, by their vigour and grandeur of character, to be undoubtedly the work of the same artist, and possibly portions of this once magnificent but now woefully mutilated entrance.

It is in the interior, however, of this church that the effect is finest and the architecture most noble. The whole is very uniform in character throughout, marked by great solidity of construction and proportion, and by the boldness and distinctness of all its architectural detail. The triforium throughout opens with two arches enclosed within another, the spandrels being unpierced, and throughout the church it is groined; nor must I forget to say, that at the present day the spacious area it affords is turned to some account; for, when I was there, on one side they were making the organ pipes, on the other constructing the organ, and in another part the carpenters were busy upon the organ case; and the Curé assured me that he not only had the satisfaction of seeing everything executed in the best possible way, but at the same time there was no inconvenience, and no want of reverence, on the part of the workmen. The clerestory consists throughout of lancet windows, the lower portions of which are filled in with an arcade in the manner I have described in the choir of S. Remi, at Rheims. The sculpture throughout this church, though almost entirely confined to foliage, is very instructive, and at the same time a little puzzling; for we see almost side by side work of the best Byzantine character—almost rivalling the sculpture we see in Venice—and distinctly thirteenth century French work, whilst the building itself shows no corresponding diversity, and I can only suppose, either that the sculpture was in hand much longer than the building of the church, or that two sets of sculptors were at work, the one educated in a Byzantine school, the other influenced by the more developed school of the Île de France.

I have said enough, I trust, to induce others to examine carefully this very interesting church; it is valuable as being a little in advance of the most perfect period of the French pointed style, and as being much more instructive, therefore, than a building which, like the cathedral at Rheims, is in the main a little after the most perfect period, and full, therefore, of symptoms of decline, instead of promise of advance.

From Notre Dame to the cathedral it is a descent from the finest early first-pointed to commonplace middle-pointed, full of German character in its detail. The west front and the whole of the apse have been much modernized, and the finest remaining portion of the exterior is the north transept front. The windows are geometrical middle-pointed of four lights, and the flying buttresses on a large scale, double, and surmounted by pinnacles. There is some good stained glass of late date in some of the aisle windows.

Another church, dedicated, I think, to S. Alpin, has a nave and aisles of six bays groined, without a triforium, and of the same date as Notre Dame. There are transepts and a central tower, and a choir in flamboyant style, and of a most unusual plan; the two arches east of the tower diverge from each other, so that the width of the choir gradually increases up to the point at which it is finished with an apse of three sides. An aisle surrounds the whole, the windows of which retain some very rich stained glass. This choir is the most remarkable example that I have met with of a very late revival of, perhaps, the earliest type of chevet. There are a great many altars in this church, pews throughout with doors, and no sign whatever of any improvement. In Notre Dame, where pews had disappeared and everything was being restored, all the side altars had disappeared, and there was only one altar left besides the principal altar in the choir.

And here I might well conclude these notes of French architecture. From Châlons I went to Toul, and thence by Metz to Trèves, and I found, as might be expected, nothing but German work. At Toul there are two churches, the cathedral and S. Gengoult, both of some interest, and with good cloisters; but it is very remarkable how we find here, not only German detail, but the favourite German ground-plans also; S. Gengoult is a cruciform church, with an apsidal chancel, and a small apsidal chapel on each side opening into the transepts; whilst the cathedral has an apsidal choir without aisles, and a square-ended chapel on each side opening from the transepts. The window tracery in S. Gengoult is perhaps the ugliest ever devised even by German ingenuity, and yet of early geometrical character (circa A.D. 1300), and still retaining much very beautiful glass of the same date. The nave of the cathedral has been recently seated with very smart fixed open seats, of the kind which might have been erected fifteen or twenty years ago in England.

Of Metz I can say but little more than of Toul. The cathedral is undoubtedly magnificent in its scale and general proportions; but its detail throughout is miserably thin and meagre, and the church appears to me to be utterly undeserving of the praise I have heard bestowed on it by some English authorities. Of course, however, the degree of admiration felt for such a building depends very much upon the standard of perfection which each man sets up for himself. If he comes to Metz strongly possessed with a sense of the noble character of German Gothic, of course he will admire this extremely German edifice; if, however, he have the slightest feeling for early French art, I imagine that he will turn away with disappointment and sorrow from this church, so vast, and yet, as compared with fine French churches, so tame, poor, and weak.

The best of the other churches in Metz is that of S. Vincent, a work of better style than the cathedral, and with a well-planned German east end, showing undoubtedly marks of the same hand as (or at least of imitation of) the famous Liebfraukirche at Trèves.

From Metz I made my way by Sierck (whose small church has a groined roof forty feet in clear width) to Saarburg; here the church is noticeable for a tower oblong in plan, and roofed with two thin octagonal spires which unite together at the base; and from Saarburg I went to Trèves.

Trèves well deserves a long notice. Its churches are full of interest, the cathedral for students of early art, and the Liebfraukirche, as being (I think) the most beautifully planned thirteenth century church in Germany. The close juxtaposition of these two churches is singularly effective in all points of view. Then there are the very fine Roman remains, and finally a really enormous number of houses of the thirteenth and fourteenth century, all in very fair preservation. From Trèves, by the interesting abbey of Laach, I reached Cologne, and at once made my way to the cathedral, anxious to see whether the opinions which have grown on me more strongly the more often I have visited it would remain unshaken now that so great progress has been made in the new work. It is impossible to overrate the excellence of all the new constructions; nor are they obviously open to any hostile criticism in regard to their conformity with the general character of the old work; but it is at the same time useless to conceal the fact, that the work is of a poor kind, and that it certainly does not improve as one sees more of it. The only comfort is that the interior will be much finer than the exterior, and that it is worth while therefore, to put up with some shortcomings in the latter in order to obtain what will, no doubt, be the sumptuous effect of space, height, and (I hope) colour, which the former promises to afford. It is much more difficult to spoil the interior than the exterior; it must of necessity be simple and uniform, and it admits of less attempt at enrichment with such crockets and pinnacles as cover the exterior. The south transept front, which is the most conspicuous portion of the new work finished, is, I think, thoroughly unsatisfactory. The crocketed gable over the great window, repeated again just above up the roof gable, is perhaps the most unhappy repetition of a leading line that could have been hit upon. If a gable was necessary over the window, it should have been different in its pitch from the other; and then again, however much the old architect indulged in reedy mouldings and endless groups of crockets, it does seem to be a sad thing that a nineteenth century artist should feel bound to emulate his enthusiasm for such worthless things. I grant at once, that he has done no more than follow precedents. In the old west front of the cathedral, there is scarcely a moulding three inches in diameter, whilst the central doorway between the steeples is very small, and made up of a repetition usque ad nauseam of orders of reedy mouldings and small flowers, and admits not for one instant of comparison with any good examples of French doorways; and, it is indeed very striking how, as one comes fresh from French churches, all this work looks thin, petty, and wanting in expression.

In the sculpture of foliage in the new works, the system seems to be to take sprigs of two or three leaves and fasten them against a circular bell, with no evidence of any kind of natural growth, and no proper architectural function to perform. They seem to require a piece of string or a strap round them to attach them to the bell. The copying of the foliage is perfectly naturalesque, even to the marking of the fibres on leaves which are to be elevated to a great height in the building. I have heard all this sculpture so often referred to in terms of the highest praise, that unpleasant as it is to criticize work executed at the present day, I feel that I am bound to express my dissent from those who so speak of it. The whole work is so famous that all the world is interested in it. English tourists, year after year, going in great numbers on their travels, admire thoughtlessly everything that they see, and architects even seem to me to follow in their wake, forgetting that our true function is not simply to admire the work, because it is a vast and noble enterprise, but to weigh and compare it with the most perfect work we can find, and to endeavour, if the faults we see in it are great, to point them out by way of warning for ourselves and others. Indiscriminate admiration of such a building does enormous mischief, just as a wild enthusiasm for the fourteenth century work which we see throughout Germany would be fatal to the eye and taste of the enthusiast.

Undoubtedly the architect of Cologne has had an office of enormous difficulty. The national enthusiasm, which has raised the funds hitherto expended, must have needed very cautious treatment. It would probably indeed be indispensable that the steeples, if ever completed, should be built exactly on the old plan so curiously preserved and discovered, but the elevation of the transepts, on which so very much of the external effect of the whole church depended, was just one of those points on which the architect might have ventured (one would have thought) to step out of the old path a little, and—just as the old architect when he wanted a perfect ground-plan went to Amiens for his example—he might at this day have gone to Chartres or Amiens, Rouen or Paris, and grafted something of their grace and grandeur on the otherwise merely German conception of façade which he has given us. That this might have been done without detriment to the old portions of the building is I am sure unquestionable; and that if well done it must have resulted in great gain and increased beauty is equally certain. If (as we all, with insignificant exceptions, admit) it is well for us to study early French art as well as English, surely some attention to it must be even more necessary in Germany, whose national art was inferior, in the thirteenth and fourteenth century, not only to that of France, but almost as much to that of England.