The Story of Chartres

d Romans:

ssion of calcareous soil, Chartres lies along the banks o

the sixth century, but it is now also one immense field of corn in which man has planted a few scattered far

eux, to Orléans, to Paris. The twin spires of Chartres are the only landmark. The sole beauty in this country must be found in its fecundity; in the fields of standing corn, which the passing breezes curve into travelling waves, and in the endless perspective of sameness which inspires the sa

ey as forest-l

y the ocean's

hat Revolution which sowed the seed of modern French civilisation. The thick forests which were once the glory of the Druids have vanished and given place to innumerable acres of tillage, whilst the sound of the woodman's axe has been replaced by the swish of the scythe and the hum of the threshing machine. But through all these changes Chartres has remained true to her heritage. She has been always the first town of Our Lady, the chosen citadel of the Virgin. The friars of the Middle Ages, who obtained the right of coining money, stamped on their coins the legend Prima Sedes Francie, and Charles-le-Chauve, when he presented to the town the Veil of the Blessed Mary, chose the Church of Chartres as the earliest and most august s

passage which seems to echo the very words of Scripture, had long ago foretold what would be the fate of the perfectly just man upon earth; and Vergil, voicing the prevailing belief that the world's great age was soon to begin anew, and referring to an oracle of the Sybil, prayed for the speedy coming of the promised Saviour in language strikingly like that in which the prophets of the Old Testament speak of the Messiah. The Magi, the wise men and watchful

, through the mist of the ages as it were, a solemn proc

sion, and about him cluster the other priests of the Oak and the chiefs of the local tribes. For the oak, Pliny tells us in his Natural History, is the Druid's sacred tree, and the mistletoe that grows thereon they regard as sent from Heaven and as the sign of a tree chosen by God. This golden bough of mistleto

or the Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-la-Brèche, or through the crypt to the shrine of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre,[4] are curiously prophetic of the history of the place. So thinking, we shall look at the western towers and note, like Gaston Latour, the bigness of the actual ston

a garment. Hence, it is suggested, the name of Carnutes was applied as a generic term to the dwellers in those forests, and was specialised as the title of the Chartrains par excellence on account of the choice of this spot by the Druids for their deliberations and their sacrifices. It may be so. Philology is one of the most amusing diversions. It is quite as intellectual as most other p

rom being weakened and their doctrines from being vulgarised; but the result has been that, apart from the few facts I shall mention and a vast superstructure of theory and legend which has been built upon them, they have faded from the ken of mankind. Chief among their tenets C?sar mentions the belief in the immortality and the transmigration of the soul. The Druids were properly the highest of three orders

ined in Cicero's sonorous page, but Luc

, while arms ar

and barbarous

singular r

lonely coverts

als' doom the

nd to dwell in

ouls to gris

dreary silent

y fly immorta

ies in new wo

ever runs its

e death but di

can but for a

en the future

ey beneath thei

ear, the fear of

rites of the barbarous priests; their rude, misshapen images, and th

me cases, they justified by the dogma that 'unless for the life of a man man's life be rendered the

rters of Druidism, but once a year, it is recorded by C?sar, a general assembly of the order was held within the territories of the Carnutes, and there the sacred rites were celebrated, the young priests, after a prolonged course of training, initiated, and

e Celtic Gauls were subject to the Remi (Reims), took but little part in the active resistance to C?sar's arms. They had, in fact, welcomed rather than resisted the Proconsul, regarding him as their champion and

the result that most of the tribes were free, but with a constitution decidedly aristocratical or theocratic. Th

y cold in death, mounted his charger, and, riding at a gallop for twenty leagues, approached the altar of the Virgin, whom the Druids worshipped, and laid the boy at her feet. Then life came back to the lad, he opened his

fter the days of Priscus monarchy n

attacked; the Druids roused the republican spirit of the people. The doubtful success of C?sar's second expedition to Britain seemed to offer a good opportunity for successful revolt. The people rose an

des épars and Porte Chastelet. Many Roman, Gallic and Carlovingian coins[6] were found in it, and it is supposed that this mound represented

. He immediately broke up the Council and ordered it to meet again at Paris, which was a convenient point for operating against the Senones at Sens, and thereafter against their neighbours the Carnutes at Chartres. The brilliant rapidity of his movements terrified these tribes. Acco, the leader of the conspiracy, summoned his supporters to the towns. But whilst they

n their secret woodland retreats, perhaps, indeed, at Chartres itself, and the bitterness of the Roman yoke began to seem intolerable. To regain their lost liberty all were eager for a general revolt. It was decided to begin at once in order to cut C?sar off from his army in Gaul. When the question rose as to who should incur the danger of leading the way, the Carnutes undertook this duty. They first exacted a solemn pledge of support from their countrymen by the Gallic custom of mingling their standards, then, on the appointed day, under the leadership of Gutruatus and Conconnetodumnus, they gave the signal for the great revolt by murdering every Roman citizen they could find in their chief trading town on the Loire, Orléans. With the terrible struggle that ensued between the brilliant energy of C?sar and the noble patriotism of Vercingetorix we are not h

ion of Rome, reaping the fruits of that strong administration in the form of roads and good order and th

d colony of Lugdunum or Lyons. The principal towns of this Province were still Chartres, Dreux, and, above all, Orléans, to which the Emperor Aurelian was later on to give his name when he separated it from the territory of the Carnutes, and raised it to the rank of a city. For the rest, there were a great number of villages and strongholds even in C?sar's day scattered about in the clearings of the forest. These would increase in size and importance as the great Roman roads running from Dieppe to Dr

s, had done something to prepare the soil for the seed of Christianity. As to the first sowers of that seed there

substance. For it is said[8] that S. Peter sent forth S. Savinian, S. Potentian and S. Albin to preach the Gospel to the Gallic nation. In the course of their mission they came to Sens and converted many virtuous heathen, amongst whom were Sérotin and Eodald. To these two, together with Potentian and Altin, Savinian, warned by a mysterious vision, gave this charge:-'Take unto you,' he said, 'the shield of an unconquerable faith; go through the other towns of Gaul and banish all false superstition by preaching everywhere the truth of the Gospel.' Leaving him, therefore, to organise the church at S

e identified, as on other grounds we naturally should identify it, with that of the Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre in the crypt of the Cathedral. To that impressive underchurch we wi

ughness and impartiality. He summoned the missionaries of what Tacitus called 'that pernicious religion' to his presence and demanded why they had brought hither the ignominy of their absurd doctrine. They answered him boldly, and bade him cease from the worship of idols and embrace the true faith. But Quirinus hardened his heart. He scourged and threw into prison three men 'hated for their abominations, and known to the vulgar as Christia

when they were met together to pray and sing hymns to the Lord, and falling upon them suddenly put them to the sword. Amongst those who had been foremost in the faith was a young girl by name Modesta, whom popular tradition asserts to have been the daughter of Q

and her body was then thrown along with the bodies of the other martyrs int

e easily admire than imitate the fervour of the first Christians who, according to the lively expression of

TA (SOUT

of Chartres, and, profiting by the calm which followed Quirinus's death, rebuilt above the ancient altar of the Druids the church which Potentian had consecrated and the Roman governor destroyed. This building may well have lasted down to the fin

The well down which their corpses were thrown came to be known as the Li

des Sai

l that one of the most beautiful

l, but only the nearest priest in a low voice. Some say that this is a perpetual memorial of the first Christian martyrs, in accordance with the saying of the venerable Fulbert in his third epistle, that the divine service which in times of liberty is celebrated with joy and gladness becometh mut

saphat, was Bishop of Chartres (1116), the usual devout and solemn process

h to which her son gave heartfelt, wonderful utterance. And on this occasion she, as ever, was among the crowd of worshippers, hearing only-a mother's ear is so fond and so fine-amidst the whole chorus of those soaring voices the voice of her beloved son. Suddenly, though the chant had not ceased, there was, for her, silence. She

. At last, on the octave of the feast, the solemn procession wound its way once more through the crypt. The mother lis

raised her eyes, half in hope and half in fear, and beheld, walking in his accustomed place and carrying in h

s rejoicing and singing in response to the prayers that were being offered in the Church of Chartres. And since tha

re made during the nineteenth century to locate it, and made in vain. But in the year 1901 it was at last discovered behind the wall of that altar. Let us take the present opportun

light struggles through the deep-set windows. Enter and behold a sacred altar. Your being is filled with a mysterious awe as you descend. Then by the light of a thousand torches the sacred place becomes visible. The s

nus, and yet undaunted by the cross, the sword, the fire of his mad rage. He snatched this heroic band from their Christ, and flung their mangled bodies into the deeps of a well. Still may be seen the well, fenced about that none may fall therein;

er the step of the new altar, so that those who knelt there, and had a particular devotion to the Martyrs' Well, appeared to be rendering homage to the Virgin. The statements of the historians to the effect that the well was behind the altar were explained away by the very canon who had superintended the filling up of the well, for he made the misleading assertion that the altar itself had been moved back in the course of the alterations. He was believed. When in the nineteenth century efforts were made again and again to find this well, they were

re-Dame-de

erected naturally upon the top of the old. The spade of the arch?ologist has proved that the soil of a medi?val European town was raised by the accumulation of dust and rubble as much as one or two feet per century. And at Chartres excavations have revealed Gallo-Roman sub-structures at a depth of some eighteen feet. When we reach the Martyrium or Chapel of S. Lubin we shall find there a piece of the Gallo-Roman walls of the fourth century. This probably is part of the apsidal wall of the church of that date. As the church, with the vicissitudes of the town

ents of the crypt may b

trengthening wall. The same year saw the addition of a double transept at the commencement of the apse. Fulbert, in 1020, developed these transepts by carrying them out westwards almost to their present extent, and by so doing he left the altar dedicated to the Virgin, though unmoved, no longer before a thick wall, but stranded as it were in a corridor-a situation which aided, and still a

of those which were blinded by the porches of the upper church. Four smaller chapels, with pointed windows, were inserted between the large apsidal chapels of Fulbert, and these still exhi

leted, the transepts were connected therewith by means of vaulted passages, of which the one on the north side is near

ou descend a stone staircase, and by the dim candlelight perceive on your left the long south gall

dedicated to S. Martin. It was not originally a chapel, but in the twelfth century was used as an entrance to the crypt. Altered in the seventeenth century, as the windows and va

ich still retain some of their original thirteenth-century colouring. Opposite the wooden nineteenth-century grille is a stone from the Church of S. Martin-le-Viandier, which was destroyed during the Revolution. Upon t

S. Calétric (see p. 36). The date inscribed upon it has been changed to suit the date

t. Opposite it is the Chapel of S. Clement, where are some mural decorations of the twelfth century. The figures

by the Cathedral porch; and the lowest and narrowest of these is one of Fulbert's original windows, which was not enlarged like the rest in the twelfth century, because it was blocked at that time by a porch erected in the e

ght of steps connects it, was built. The walls of this gallery, like that of the northern one, are decorated with modern mural paintings illustrative of events in the history of

see pp. 69 ff.), and the Sacristy. They were added in 1194; whilst the second, fourth and sixth are the Chapels of S. Anne, S. John the Baptist, and S. Joseph, and they date from 1020. The window of the Chapel of S. Anne should be noted. S. Anne is represented carrying the Blessed Mary. When we examine the up

o illustrate its history. First, the fact that you descend into it by a modern entrance, which has replaced the old staircase and doorway; and secondly, the depth of the base of the round column on the right, indicating the original level of the primitive church floor; third

altar of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre. When this wall was built and the well concealed in the seventeenth century, the circular passage by which t

and saints unnumbered have knelt at this shrine since the day when Fulbert, having completed his crypt, left, it is said, the 'Statue of the Druids' in the same place as that in which the Gallic priests had held their assemblies in finibus Carnutum, on Carnutan territory. That statue was held in honour till the year 1793, when it was burnt by the Revolutionists before the Porche Royal. The present Madonna was made on the model of the o

Others, arguing from the colour of the wood, believe that it dated from the days of the Druids. For the face of the Madonna was 'black, but comely,'[15] like that of the Vierge Noire, Notre-Dame-du-Pilier, in the Cathedral proper. But whether this blackness

it is said, intended by this device to signify that faith was still in darkness, and that she whom they worshipped was not yet born. But the eyes of the Child, whom s