XIX Notre Dame de Grenoble
It is an open question as to whether Grenoble is not possessed of the most admirable and impressive situation of any cathedral city of France.
At all events it has the attribute of a unique background in the massif de la Chartreuse, and the range of snow-clad Alps, which rise so abruptly as to directly screen and shelter the city from all other parts lying north and east. Furthermore this natural windbreak, coupled with the altitude of the city itself, makes for a bright and sunny, and withal bracing, atmosphere which many professed tourist and health resorts lack.
Grenoble is in all respects “a most pleasant city,” and one which contains much of interest for all sorts and conditions of pilgrims.
Anciently Grenoble was a bishopric in the diocese of the Province of Vienne, to whose archbishop the see was at that time subordinate. Its foundation was during the third century, and its first prelate was one Domninus.
In the redistribution of dioceses Grenoble became a suffragan of Lyon et Vienne, which is its status to-day.
As might naturally be inferred, in the case of so old a foundation, its present-day cathedral of Notre Dame partakes also of early origin.
This it does, to a small degree only, with respect to certain of the foundations of the choir. These date from the eleventh century, while succeeding eras, of a mixed and none too pure an architectural style, culminate in presenting a singularly unconvincing and cold church edifice.
The “pointed” tabernacle, which is the chief interior feature, is of the middle fifteenth century, and indeed the general effect is that of the late Middle Ages, if not actually suggestive of still later modernity.
The tomb of Archbishop Chissé, dating from 1407, is the cathedral’s chief monumental shrine.
To the left of the cathedral is the ancient bishop’s palace; still used as such. It occupies the site of an eleventh-century episcopal residence, but the structure itself is probably not earlier than the fifteenth century.
In the Église de St. André, a thirteenth-century structure, is a tomb of more than usual sentimental and historical interest: that of Bayard. It will be found in the transept.
No mention of Grenoble could well ignore the famous monastery of La Grande Chartreuse.
Mostly, it is to be feared, the monastery is associated in mundane minds with that subtle and luxurious liqueur which has been brewed by the white-robed monks of St. Bruno for ages past; and was until quite recently, when the establishment was broken up by government decree and the real formula of this sparkling liqueur departed with the migrating monks.
The opinion is ventured, however, that up to the time of their expulsion (in 1902), the monks of St. Bruno combined solitude, austerity, devotion, and charity of a most practical kind with a lucrative commerce in their distilled product after a successful manner not equalled by any religious community before or since.
The Order of St. Bruno has weathered many storms, and, during the Terror, was driven from its home and dispersed by brutal and riotous soldiery. In 1816 a remnant returned, escorted, it is said, by a throng of fifty thousand people.
The cardinal rule of the Carthusians is abstemiousness from all meat-eating; which, however, in consideration of their calm, regular life, and a diet in which fish plays an important part, is apparently conducive to that longevity which most of us desire.
It is related that a certain Dominican pope wished to diminish the severity of St. Bruno’s regulations, but was met by a delegation of Carthusians, whose doyen owned to one hundred and twenty years, and whose youngest member was of the ripe age of ninety. The amiable pontiff, not having, apparently, an argument left, accordingly withdrew his edict.
Of all these great Charterhouses spread throughout France, La Grande Chartreuse was the most inspiring and interesting; not only from the structure itself, but by reason of its commanding and romantic situation amid the forest-clad heights of the Savoyan Alps.
The first establishment here was the foundation of St. Bruno (in 1084), which consisted merely of a modest chapel and a number of isolated cubicles.
This foundation only gave way—as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—to an enlarged structure more in accord with the demands and usage of this period.
The most distinctive feature of its architecture is the grand cloister, with its hundred and fifteen Gothic arches, out of which open the sixty cells of the sandalled and hooded white-robed monks, who, continuing St. Bruno’s regulation, live still in isolation. In these cells they spent all of their time outside the hours of work and worship, but were allowed the privilege of receiving one colleague at a time. Here, too, they ate their meals, with the exception of the principal meal on Sundays, when they all met together in the refectory.
The Église de la Grande Chartreuse itself is very simple, about the only distinctive or notable feature being the sixteenth-century choir-stalls. At the midnight service, or at matins, when the simple church is lit only by flaming torches, and the stalls filled with white-robed Chartreux, is presented a picture which for solemnity and impressiveness is as vivid as any which has come down from mediæval times.
The chanting of the chorals, too, is unlike anything heard before; it has indeed been called, before now, angelic. Petrarch, whose brother was a member of the order, has put himself on record as having been enchanted by it.
As many as ten thousand visitors have passed through the portals of La Grande Chartreuse during the year, but now in the absence of the monks—temporary or permanent as is yet to be determined—conditions obtain which will not allow of entrance to the conventual buildings.
No one, however, who visits either Grenoble or Chambéry should fail to journey to St. Laurent du Pont—the gateway of the fastness which enfolds La Grande Chartreuse, and thence to beneath the shadow of the walls which for so long sheltered the parent house of this ancient and powerful order.