XXIII Notre Dame de Bourg
The chief ecclesiastical attraction of Bourg-en-Bresse is not its one-time cathedral of Notre Dame, which is but a poor Renaissance affair of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries.
The famous Église de Brou, which Matthew Arnold described so justly and fully in his verses, is a florid Gothic monument which ranks among the most celebrated in France. It is situated something less than a mile from the town, and is a show-piece which will not be neglected. Its charms are too many and varied to be even suggested here.
There are a series of sculptured figures of the prophets and apostles, from a fifteenth or sixteenth-century atelier, that may or may not have given the latter-day Sargent his suggestion for his celebrated “frieze of the prophets.” They are wonderfully like, at all events, and the observation is advisedly included here, though it is not intended as a sneer at Sargent’s masterwork.
This wonderful sixteenth-century Église de Brou, in a highly decorated Gothic style, its monuments, altars, and admirable glass, is not elsewhere equalled, as to elaborateness, in any church of its size or rank.
Notre Dame de Bourg—the cathedral—though manifestly a Renaissance structure, has not a little of the Gothic spirit in its interior arrangements and details. It is as if a Renaissance shell—and not a handsome one—were enclosing a Gothic treasure.
There is the unusual polygonal apside, which dates from the fifteenth or sixteenth century, and is the most curious part of the entire edifice.
The octagonal tower of the west has, in its higher story, been replaced by an ugly dome-shaped excrescence surmounted by an enormous gilded cross which is by no means beautiful.
The west façade in general, in whose portal are shown some evidences of the Gothic spirit, which at the time of its erection had not wholly died, is uninteresting and all out of proportion to a church of its rank.
The interior effect somewhat redeems the unpromising exterior.
There is a magnificent marble high-altar, jewel-wrought and of much splendour. The two chapels have modern glass. A fine head of Christ, carved in ivory, is to be seen in the sacristy. Previous to 1789 it was kept in the great council-chamber of the États de la Bresse.
In the sacristy also there are two pictures, of the German school of the sixteenth century.
There are sixty-eight stalls, of the sixteenth century, carved in wood. Curiously enough, these stalls—of most excellent workmanship—are not placed within the regulation confines of the choir, but are ranged in two rows along the wall of the apside.