NOTRE DAME DE ROUEN
Rouen, of all the mediaeval cities
of France, is ever to the fore in the memories of
the mere traveller for pleasure. In no sense are
its charms of a negative quality, or few in number.
Quite the reverse is the case; but the city’s
apparent attraction is its extreme accessibility, and
the glamours that a metropolis of rank throws over
itself; for it must not be denied that a countrified
environment has not, for all, the appealing interest
of a great city. It is to this, then, that Rouen
must accredit the throngs of strangers which continually
flock to its doors from the Easter time to late autumn.
In addition there are its three great churches, so
conveniently and accessibly placed that the veriest
tyro in travel can but come upon them whichever way
he strolls. Other monuments of equal rank there
are, too, and altogether, whether it be the mere hurried
pecking of a bird of passage, or the more leisurely
attack of the studiously inclined, Rouen offers perhaps
much greater attractions than are possessed by any
other French city of equal rank.
So closely, too, have certain events
of English history been interwoven with scenes and
incidents which have taken place here, that the wonder
is that it is not known even more intimately by that
huge number of persons who annually rush across France
to Switzerland or Italy.
Chroniclers of the city’s history,
its churches, and its institutions have not been wanting,
in either French or English; and even the guide-books
enlarge (not unduly) upon its varied charms. Once
possessing thirty-two churches, sixteen yet remain;
quite one-half of which may be numbered to-day as
of appealing interest. En passant, it may be
stated that here at Rouen, in both Notre Dame and
the Abbey Church of St. Ouen, is found that gorgeous
functionary, commonly called “the Suisse,”
who seeks your gold or a portion thereof, in return
for which he will favour you by opening an iron wicket
into the choir, an incumbrance unnoticed elsewhere,
except at Paris and St. Denis.
The late Gothic church of St. Ouen,
where the Maid of Orleans received her fatal sentence,
shows a wonderful unity of design even as to its modern
western towers; a consistency not equally the possession
of the neighbouring cathedral, or even of most great
churches. Altogether, this grand building is
regarded as an unparallelled example of the realization
of much that is best of Gothic architecture at its
greatest height. In its central tower alone which
may or may not be suggestive of a market-basket, accordingly
as you will take Ruskin’s opinion, or form one
of your own is the least evidence of the
developed flamboyant found. Its interior is clean-cut
and free of obstruction; the extreme length of its
straight lines, both horizontal and perpendicular,
entirely freed from chapel or choir screen, embrace
and uphold its “walls of glass” in an
unequalled manner.
In strong contrast to this expressively
graceful style is the ultraflorid type of St. Maclou,
the other of that trinity of architectural splendours,
which, with the Cathedral of Notre Dame, form the
chief ecclesiastical monuments of the city. St.
Maclou, which dates from the early fifteenth century,
though not of the grand proportions of either of the
other great churches, being rather of the type of the
large parish church as it is known in England, holds
one spellbound by the very daring of its ornaments
and tracery, but contains no trace of non-Gothic.
The French passion for the curved line is nowhere more
manifest than here (and in the west front of Notre
Dame), where flowing tracery of window, doorway, portal,
and, in general, all exterior ornament, is startling
in its audacity. To view these two contrasting
types before making acquaintance with the Cathedral
of Notre Dame itself, is to prepare oneself for a
consideration in some measure of a combination of
the charms of both, woven into one fabric. Nowhere,
at least in no provincial town of France, are to be
found such a categorical display of ecclesiastical
architectural details as here.
Rouen has from the second century
been an important seat of Christianity. St. Nicaise,
not to be confounded with him of the same name of
Reims, first held a conversion here and was shortly
followed by St. Mellor, who founded the city’s
first church, on the site of the present cathedral.
In succeeding centuries this foundation gradually
took shape and form until, with the occupation by the
Norsemen under Rollo, was founded a dynasty which
fostered the development of theology and the arts
in a manner previously unknown. The cathedral
was enlarged at this time, and upon his death in 930
Rollo was interred therein, as was also his son in
943. Richard the Fearless followed with further
additions and enlargements, his son Richard being made
its forty-third archbishop. From this time on,
the great church-building era, Christian activities
were notably at work, here as elsewhere, and during
the prolific eleventh century great undertakings were
in progress; so much so that what was practically
a new church received its consecration, and dedication
to Our Lady, in 1063, in the presence of him who later
was to be known as the Conqueror. To-day it stands
summed up thus a grand building, rich,
confused, and unequal in design and workmanship.
The lower portion of the northwest
tower, called the Tour St. Romain, is all that
is left of the eleventh-century building, the remainder
of which was destroyed by fire in 1200. Rebuilding
followed in succeeding years and shows work of many
styles. Additions, repairs, and interpolations
were incorporated with the fragment of the tower, so
that the structure as we now know it stood complete
with the early thirteenth century. Viollet-lé-Duc
is the authority for the statement that the apse and
transept, chapels, choir, and two doorways of the west
façade were quite complete before the influence of
the perfected Gothic of the Isle of France was even
felt. One Enguerrand was the chief designer of
the new church, assisted by Jean d’Andeli as
master mason. The early century saw the nave
chapels built, having been preceded by the Portail
aux Libraires, a sort of cloistered north entrance,
still so referred to, one of the most charming and
quiet old-world retreats to be found to-day even within
the hallowed precincts of a cathedral. The Portail
de la Calende did not follow until a century later,
when the Tour St. Romain was completed to its
roof; at which time was also added the screen or arcade
which separates the Portail aux Libraires from
the street.
This century, too, saw the beginning
of the famous Tour de Beurre, built mostly
by the contributions of those who paid for the indulgence
of being allowed to eat butter during Lent. Its
foundation was laid in 1487 under Archbishop Robert
de Croixmore, and it was completed under Cardinal
d’Amboise in 1507. A chapel at the base
of the tower is dedicated to St. Stephen. The
ornate decorations of the west front, added by Georges
d’Amboise, are mainly of the sixteenth century
and form no part of the original plan or design.
It borders upon the style we have since learned to
decry, but it is, at least, marvellous as to the skill
with which its foliaged and crocketed pinnacles and
elaborate traceries are worked. Ruskin was probably
right in this estimate at least, “The
central gable is the most exquisite piece of pure
flamboyant style extant.” At the present
day this west front is undergoing such restoration
and general repair that the entire gable, rose window,
and part of the flanking towers are completely covered
with a most hideous array of scaffolding.
The central spire as it exists to-day,
in reality an abomination of abominations, is naturally
enough admired by all when first viewed from afar.
It certainly looks not dwarfed, or even fragile, but
simply delicate, and withal graceful, an opinion which
ultimate association therewith speedily dispels.
It must be one of the very first examples of modern
iron or steel erection in the world, dating from 1827,
following three former spires, each of which was burned.
The architect responsible for this monstrosity sought
to combine two fabrics in incoherent proportions.
More than one authority decries the use of iron as
a constructive element, and Chaucer’s description
of the Temple of Mars in the Knight’s Tale reads
significantly:
“Wrought all of burned
steel...
Was long and straight
and ghastly for to see.”
The great part of the exterior of
this remarkable church is closely hidden by a rather
squalid collection of buildings. Here and there
they have been cleared away, but, like much of the
process of restoration, where new fabric is let into
the old, the incongruity is quite as objectionably
apparent as the crumbling stones of another age. Notre
Dame de Rouen is singularly confined, but there
seems no help for it, and it is but another characteristic
of the age in which it was built, that
the people either sought the shelter of churchly environment,
or that the church was only too willing to stretch
forth its sheltering arms to all and sundry who would
lie in its shadow.
In an assignment of ranking beauty
to its external features, the decorative west front
must manifestly come first; next the Portail aux
Libraires, with its arcaded gateway and the remains
of the booksellers’ stalls which still surround
its miniature courtyard; then, perhaps, should follow
the Tour St. Romain and the Portail de la
Calende, with its charmingly recessed doorway
and flanking lancet arches. The sculptured decorations
of all are for the most part intact and undisfigured.
The gable of the southern doorway rises pointedly until
its apex centres with the radiated circular window
above, which, by the way, is not of the exceeding
great beauty of the other two rose windows, which
rank with those at Reims and Chartres as the beaux
ideals of these distinctly French achievements.
The interior, viewed down the nave,
and showing its great length and that of the choir,
impresses one with a graver sense of unity in the
manner of building than is possible to conceive with
regard to the exterior. The height and length
both approximate that of St. Ouen, and, though the
nave rises only to ninety-eight feet, an effect of
greater loftiness is produced by the unusual quadripartite
range of openings from pavement to vaulting:
two rows of arches opening into the aisles before
the triforium itself is reached. The lantern at
the crossing supports the ironwork spire, and admits
light to the centre of the church, only to a small
degree, however. The south transept, like that
of the north, with its ample double aisles, is of great
width, and, were the framing of the great rose window
of less angularity, it would indeed produce a remarkable
effect of grandeur. The other windows, and the
arcading of the triforium, are singularly graceful;
not lacking either strength or firmness, though having
no glass of great rarity or excellence. In this
transept is the altar of St. Romain, a seventeenth-century
work of little pretensions.
The north transept contains two features
which give it immediate precedence over any other,
when viewed from within: its gracefully traceried
rose window and fine glass, and the delightful stone
staircase leading to the chapter library. Mere
description cannot do this stairway justice.
Renaissance it certainly is, and where we might wish
to find nothing but Gothic ornament, it may prove
somewhat of a disappointment; but it is magnificent.
Its white marble balustrading gleams in the strong
light thrown from the western transept window and gives
an unmistakable note of richness and sonority.
It was built late in the fifteenth century under orders
of Cardinal d’Estonteville. The upper doorway
leads to the treasury, and that of the first landing
to the chamber in which were formerly kept the bibliographical
treasures, now housed in the special building which
forms the western wall of the outside court.
The north and south aisles of the
nave are broken into by a series of chapels, the chief
of which are the Chapel to St. Stephen in the base
of the Tour de Beurre and du Petit St. Romain,
where an abbe or cure speaking the English tongue
is often to be found. On the south side is a
chapel containing the tomb of William Longsword, second
Duke of Normandy, and son of Rollo.
The great attraction of the choir,
far more than its beauties of architectural forms,
shown in its graceful columns and deep graven capitals,
will be, for most visitors, its array of elaborate
monuments, including those of Pierre and Louis de
Breze, of whom the former, the Grand Seneschal of
Normandy under Charles VII., fell at Monthery, and
was buried here in 1465. More pretentious is the
tomb of Louis, his grandson, erected by his wife Diane
de Poitiers, with a significant inscription which
the curious may be pleased to figure out for themselves.
This noble monument is one of those examples hesitatingly
attributed to Jean Goujon. The piece
de resistance is the Renaissance tomb of the Cardinals
d’Amboise. Georges I. was memorialized in
1556 by his nephew Georges II., who in turn came to
share the same tomb. Both their kneeling figures
are beautifully chiselled, and the whole erection
is gorgeously representative of the late sixteenth-century
monumental work, little in keeping with the Gothic
fabric which houses it, but characteristic of the
changing thought and influence of its time. Six
symbolical figures of the virtues form a lower course,
while the canopy is surmounted by nineteen figures
of apostles, saints, etc. In 1793 the ashes
of these great prelates were scattered to the winds,
but the effigies and their setting fortunately
remained uninjured. Other archbishops of the
cathedral are buried in the choir, and the heart of
Richard Coeur de Lion once rested here, as did also
the bodies of his brother Henry, and John, Duke of
Bedford.
The choir stalls, mostly the work
of Flemish wood-carvers, are notable examples.