The Cathedrals of Southern France. Mansfield Milburg Francisco

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      Charles VIII. is commonly supposed to have been the introducer of the Italian Renaissance into France, but it was to Francois I. – that great artistic monarch and glorifier of the style in its domestic forms at least – that its popularization was due, who shall not say far beyond its deserts? Only in the magnificent châteaux, variously classed as Feudal, Renaissance, and Bourbon, did it partake of details and plans which proved glorious in their application. All had distinctly inconsistent details grafted upon them; how could it have been otherwise with the various fortunes of their houses?

      There is little or nothing of Gothic in the château architecture of France to distinguish it from the more pronounced type which can hardly be expressed otherwise than as "the architecture of the French châteaux." No single word will express it, and no one type will cover them all, so far as defining their architectural style. The castle at Tarascon has a machicolated battlement; Coucy and Pierrefonds are towered and turreted as only a French château can be; the ruined and black-belted château of Angers is aught but a fortress; and Blois is an indescribable mixture of style which varies from the magnificent to the sordid. This last has ever been surrounded by a sentiment which is perhaps readily enough explained, but its architecture is of that decidedly mixed type which classes it as a mere hybrid thing, and in spite of the splendour of the additions by the houses of the Salamander and the Hedgehog, it is a species which is as indescribable (though more effective) in domestic architecture as is the Tudor of England.

      With the churches the sentiments aroused are somewhat different. The Romanesque, Provençal, Auvergnian, or Aquitanian, all bespeak the real expression of the life of the time, regardless of whether individual examples fall below or rise above their contemporaries elsewhere.

      The assertion is here confidently made, that a great cathedral church is, next to being a symbol of the faith, more great as a monument to its age and environment than as the product of its individual builders; crystallizing in stone the regard with which the mission of the Church was held in the community. Church-building was never a fanaticism, though it was often an enthusiasm.

      There is no question but that church history in general, and church architecture in particular, are becoming less and less the sole pursuit of the professional. One does not need to adopt a transcendent doctrine by merely taking an interest, or an intelligent survey, in the social and political aspects of the Church as an institution, nor is he becoming biassed or prejudiced by a true appreciation of the symbolism and artistic attributes which have ever surrounded the art of church-building of the Roman Catholic Church. All will admit that the æsthetic aspect of the church edifice has always been the superlative art expression of its era, race, and locality.

      PART II

      South of the Loire

      I

      INTRODUCTORY

      The region immediately to the southward of the Loire valley is generally accounted the most fertile, abundant, and prosperous section of France. Certainly the food, drink, and shelter of all classes appear to be arranged on a more liberal scale than elsewhere; and this, be it understood, is a very good indication of the prosperity of a country.

      Touraine, with its luxurious sentiment of châteaux, counts, and bishops, is manifestly of the north, as also is the border province of Maine and Anjou, which marks the progress and development of church-building from the manifest Romanesque types of the south to the arched vaults of the northern variety.

      Immediately to the southward – if one journeys but a few leagues – in Poitou, Saintonge, and Angoumois, or in the east, in Berri, Marche, and Limousin, one comes upon a very different sentiment indeed. There is an abundance for all, but without the opulence of Burgundy or the splendour of Touraine.

      Of the three regions dealt with in this section, Poitou is the most prosperous, Auvergne the most picturesque, – though the Cevennes are stern and sterile, – and Limousin the least appealing.

      Limousin and, in some measure, Berri and Marche are purely pastoral; and, though greatly diversified as to topography, lack, in abundance, architectural monuments of the first rank.

      Poitou, in the west, borders upon the ocean and is to a great extent wild, rugged, and romantic. The forest region of the Bocage has ever been a theme for poets and painters. In the extreme west of the province is the Vendée, now the department of the same name. The struggles of its inhabitants on behalf of the monarchical cause, in the early years of the Revolution, is a lurid page of blood-red history that recalls one of the most gallant struggles in the life of the monarchy.

      The people here were hardy and vigorous, – a race of landlords who lived largely upon their own estates but still retained an attachment for the feudatories round about, a feeling which was unknown elsewhere in France.

      Poitiers, on the river Clain, a tributary of the Vienne, is the chief city of Poitou. Its eight magnificent churches are greater, in the number and extent of their charms, than any similar octette elsewhere.

      The valley of the Charente waters a considerable region to the southward of Poitiers. "Le bon Roi" Henri IV. called the stream the most charming in all his kingdom. The chief cities on its banks are La Rochelle, the Huguenot stronghold; Rochefort, famed in worldly fashion for its cheeses; and Angoulême, famed for its "Duchesse," who was also worldly, and more particularly for its great domed cathedral of St. Pierre.

      With Auvergne one comes upon a topographical aspect quite different from anything seen elsewhere.

      Most things of this world are but comparative, and so with Auvergne. It is picturesque, certainly. Le Puy has indeed been called "by one who knows," "the most picturesque place in the world." Clermont-Ferrand is almost equally attractive as to situation; while Puy de Dôme, Riom, and St. Nectaire form a trio of naturally picturesque topographical features which it would be hard to equal within so small a radius elsewhere.

      The country round about is volcanic, and the face of the landscape shows it plainly. Clermont-Ferrand, the capital, was a populous city in Roman times, and was the centre from which the spirit of the Church survived and went forth anew after five consecutive centuries of devastation and bloodshed of Vandals, Visigoths, Franks, Saracens, Carlovingians and Capetians.

      Puy de Dôme, near Clermont-Ferrand, is a massive rocky mount which rises nearly five thousand feet above the sea-level, and presents one of those uncommon and curious sights which one can hardly realize until he comes immediately beneath their spell.

      Throughout this region are many broken volcanic craters and lava streams. At Mont Doré-le-Bains are a few remains of a Roman thermal establishment; an indication that these early settlers found – if they did not seek – these warm springs of a unique quality, famous yet throughout the world.

      An alleged "Druid's altar," more probably merely a dolmen, is situated near St. Nectaire, a small watering-place which is also possessed of an impressively simple, though massive, Romanesque church.

      At Issiore is the Eglise de St. Pol, a large and important church, built in the eleventh century, in the Romanesque manner. Another most interesting great church is La Chaise Dieu near Le Puy, a remarkable construction of the fourteenth century. It was originally the monastery of the Casa Dei. It has been popularly supposed heretofore that its floor was on a level with the summit of Puy de Dôme, hence its appropriate nomenclature; latterly the assertion has been refuted, as it may be by any one who takes the trouble to compare the respective elevations in figures. This imposing church ranks, however, unreservedly among the greatest of the mediæval monastic establishments of France.

      The powerful feudal system of the Middle Ages, which extended from the Atlantic СКАЧАТЬ