The Spell of the Heart of France

the puissant harmony of verdure and red bricks announces the neighborhood of Flanders. Only the stone

torehouse, there the fa?ade of a chapel. The monks have departed; but the town has retained a monastic aspect; and it is a place where one might make a retreat. In the

e cities of the north; we look for the belfry tower, we expect to hear the chimes; but the disputatious commune of the Middle Ages is now a wise, sad and pens

sing a lamb, quivers, arrows, a hound,-symbols of innocent love and of fidelity. An inscription placed upon the monument recalls to the people of Noyon that among them Chilpéric II was buried, Charlemagne consecrated and Hugh Capet elected king. I do no

its silence and its memories, Noyon would merit the tenderness of i

style, love to hear monuments tell their history, their whole history. To this harmonious apse is joined the treasury, and then a fine structure with wooden panels of the sixteenth century, the library of the canons: its street floor was formerly arcaded and sheltered a mark

of the transept was exquisitely framed. This thirteenth-century chapel was long since abandoned; it had lost its ancient roof; but these ancient walls should have been respected.

tion. Thus has been destroyed a truly beautiful grouping, and the cathedral, quite contrary to good sense, has been isolated from the anci

ighteenth century. The canons for whom these beautiful homes were constructed had only to cross the parvis to enter the cathedral. This rises before their houses with its massive towers, which are not crowned by spires, but in which the mixture o

ecially by its picturesqueness; within, it

n. If we take up a position at the entrance of Notre Dame de Noyon, in that species of vestibule which opens on the first bay of the nave and which here rises to the height of the vaulting, we have before us an absolutely harmonious work. The glance can travel as far as the apse without being arrested by any discordance. There is, I believe, no Gothic church where the dimensions of the nave corr

ig

charming among all those charming churches which rose in the twelfth century in the valleys of the Oise and the Seine, and in which architects endowed with genius knew how to bring together the round arcs of the declining Romanesque and the pointed arches of the Gothi

ows of the clerestory are framed with semicircular arches. In the transepts, whose two arms end in apses, there are other combinations, but the two varieties of arches are always fraternally associated; the Gothic and the Romanesque alternate from the ground to the vaulting. In the choir, finally, the arcades, round-arched in the two first bays, are pointed at the back of the apse

lements of the edifice. They never make discords; they never enfeeble the impression

ion about the date of the c

the sixth century; Charlemagne had constructed the nave; then, after the year 1000, "our choir was refreshed, our nave completed, our belfries added, for the accomplishment of the work." Nevertheless he added: "At least the experts judge that these works and manufactures are of these

d the origins and celebrated the beauties of Gothic art, Vitet maintained that this cathedral was "conceived and entirely outlined from 1150 to 1170 and that it was entirely carved, finished off and completed only toward the end of the century or perhaps even a little later." These dates are not quite exact: M. Eugène Lefèvre-Pontalis has demon

architects of Noyon borrowed the idea of their transept, for until the middle of the twelfth century the two dioceses were united under the same pastoral staff. Besides, if I were an arch?ologist, I would study attentively the plans of these two churches: p

with the sacristy. The men who thus treated a venerable monument of the Middle Ages were vandals, I admit. But there is, just the same, a very pleasing and very delicate reminiscence of the Renaissance in the decoration which they plastered over the twe

ked up, but have been reopened. In short, it has been restored; and it is just for the purpose of better restoring it that they have, as I have described, demolished the little chapel of the bishopry. All this was accomplished with the rarest skill an

nds of six angels of gilded bronze and surmounted by a little circular temple. The steps of the altar, the friezes and the capitals of the l

e very end of the apse, without candles, without crucifix, without tabernacle, it was a simple table surrounded by curtains which were opened on

er of Noyon the designing of an altar "à la romaine." His project pleased the chapter, which accepted it, despite the violent o

ship came to Noyon to pacify the chapter. But Bonnedame became more and more intractable. The King remitted the affair to the council of state. The opposing parties again brought forward their liturgical arguments, and added that the sum asked for the decoration of the choir would be better employed if used to reconstruct the vaultings which threatened to collapse. Experts were appointed to examine the condition of the vaultings

aeological traditions." Let us therefore praise the canons Du Héron, Cuquigny, Bertault, du Tombelle, Antoine de Caisnes, Pelleton, Mauroy and Reneufve, who showed a meritorious zeal for the protection of

tful statuettes; the copper garlands and emblems which decorate the marble are of the finest workmanship; the little temple elevated above the tabernacle is delicate in taste, despite its Trianonesque appearance... And what an unexpected harmony between this charming bibelot and the old cathedral of the twelfth century! Yes,

ome one today decided to plan to remove the Romanesque altar of the cathedral of Noyon, it would be to substitute

rute understand that what he thought were angels were goddesses of love, that the bunches of grapes and the ears of wheat were not the emblems of the Eucharist, but those of the cult of Ceres and of Bacchus. The altar was spared

a single gallery. The rest, very dilapidated, was tom down

one their work. In the cloister itself, their zeal was more moderate and more discreet. They repa

auty has not been violated. One may still enjoy there the eternal silence, shadow, freshness and coolness.... One hears there on

s pile of stones we discover with melancholy a few admirable fragm

under these arches and deliver oneself to the pl

ly banal, we discover a name which excites our curiosity: Gresset. It was, in fact, the author of Vert-Vert whom the canons retained to compose the epitaph of their bishop. It is doubtful whether our Bonnedame, the enemy of Roman altars, wo

urgite, mortui, venite, the defunct who rises from his tomb, hangs his shroud on the arm of the cross and says to the Lord: Domine, jub

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cessary to read the epitaph to find the key to the riddle. This mandarin is Jacques Le Vasseur, canon and historian of the church of Noyon, whose name I have already mentioned in connection with the origins of the cathedral. The epitaph commences with a terrible pun upon the Latin name of Le Vasseur, Vasserius. A golden vase, it is there said, vas aureus, is hidden in this tomb, but it should not tempt the cupidity of any one, for it contains only virtues. It is this symbolic vase that is

when they keep us in the cool shadow of a cathedral,

soft green clarity fills the choir, and lends to its architecture a more subtle and airy grace; it filters through the high openings of the nave,

triple bay of the portal is framed the little square of the parvis where, ranged like canons in the choir, the houses of the chapter seem to sl