XVIII Cathédrale de Chambéry
The city of Chambéry in the eighteenth century must have been a veritable hotbed of aristocracy. A French writer of that day has indeed stated that it is “the winter residence of all the aristocracy of Savoie;... with twenty thousand francs one could live en grand seigneur;... a country gentleman, with an income of a hundred and twenty louis d’or a year, would as a matter of course take up his abode in the town for the winter.”
To-day such a basis upon which to make an estimate of the value of Chambéry as a place of residence would be, it is to be feared, misleading.
Arthur Young closes his observations upon the agricultural prospects of Savoie with the bold statement that: “On this day, left Chambéry much dissatisfied,—for the want of knowing more of it.”
Rousseau knew it better, much better. “S’il est une petite ville au monde où l’on goûte la douceur de la vie dans un commerce agréable et sûr, c’est Chambéry.”
Savoie and the Comté de Nice were annexed to France only as late as 1860, and from them were formed the departments of Savoie, Haute-Savoie, and the Alpes-Maritimes.
Chambéry is to-day an archbishopric, with suffragans at Annecy, Tarentaise, and St. Jean de Maurienne. Formerly conditions were reversed, and Chambéry was merely a bishopric in the province de Tarentaise. Its first bishop, Michel Conseil, came in office, however, only in 1780.
The cathedral is of the fourteenth century, in the pointed style, and as a work of art is distinctly of a minor class.
The principal detail of note is a western portal which somewhat approaches good Gothic, but in the main, both inside and out, the church has no remarkable features, if we except some modern glass, which is better in colour than most late work of its kind.
As if to counteract any additional charm which this glass might otherwise lend to the interior, we find a series of flamboyant traceries over the major portion of the side walls and vaulting. These are garish and in every way unpleasing, and the interior effect, like that of the exterior, places the cathedral at Chambéry far down the scale among great churches.
Decidedly the architectural embellishments of Chambéry lie not in its cathedral.
The chapel of the ancient château, dating in part from the thirteenth century, but mainly of the Gothic-Renaissance period, is far and away the most splendid architectural monument of its class to be seen here.
La Grande Chartreuse is equally accessible from either Chambéry or Grenoble, and should not be neglected when one is attempting to familiarize himself with these parts.