The Story of Chartres

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magnifique expression de l'art que le Mo

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vigil of a watchman who nightly gazed over the plains of La Beauce on the look out for beacon signals of alarm, or for the first evidence of a fire in the town, that is recorded in these deep-cut letters. The foundations of the old tower at any rate were laid as early as 1091, and both the square

rnament, graceful, rich, and feminine; the latter sober, severe, robust, clad, you might fancy, like a man in armour. These giant towers, indeed, and their aerial pinnacles are not twin sisters, but rather, it might seem, sister and elder brother, with their points of resemblance

second Crusade, hailed there by bishops and barons as generalissimo of that great enterprise. The other rose, after a long peace, under the hands of the still Christian architects of the Renaissance, when al

res of

ochets pile themselves in successive stages, until the eye lose

that here in Chartres, the architects also, but by fortune rather than design, have symbolised in stone the Old Testament and the New. In that amazing window of the south transept the prophets of the former dispensation are portrayed carrying on their shoulders the na?ve evangelists. Similarly the builders have made the Romanesque crypt

sure ten feet by three, passes into the light octagonal spire, covered with its curious coat of mail or fishes' scales, by imperceptible and inevitable gradations. It is a triumph of sheer beauty of proportion unaided by the art of ornament. The transition from th

e of the town. But we know, from independent contemporary sources, how the labour required to quarry and fetch these huge masses of material was supplied. It was supplied by popular enthusiasm, inspired by religious fervour. For though the work of building, impeded by plague and famine, and a terrible fire which destroyed the town in 1134, went on

urch, the towers of which were then a-building. It was a spectacle the like of which he who hath not seen will never see again, not only here, but scarcely in all France or Normandy or elsewhere. Everywhere sorrow and humility prevailed, on all sides penitence, forgiveness and remorse. On every side you could

e form of a correspondence which passed at this time

roused this Normandy of ours. Our countrymen, therefore, after receiving our blessing, have set out for that place and there fulfilled their vows. They return filled with a resolution to imitate the Chartrains. And a great number of the faithful of our diocese and the dioceses of our province ha

ociation, and, so the bishop informs his reverend brother, admitted no one to join their company unless he had first been confessed and done penance, and laid aside all anger and malevolence, and been reco

ext to which the beautiful window in the south aisle of the choir furnishes the perfect illustration. The Abbot Haimon of S. Pie

nce reigns that not a voice, not a whisper even can be heard. And when there is a halt called on the way there is no sound save that of the confession of sins and the suppliant prayer to God for pardon. There, whilst the priests are preaching peace, all hatred is lulled to sleep and quarrels are banished, debts forgiven, and the union of hearts re-established. But if anyone is so hardened that he cannot bring himself to forgive his enemies or to beg the pious admonitions of the priests, then his offering is withdrawn from the common stock as unclean, and he himself is separated, with much shame and ignominy, from the society of the holy people. Forward they press, unchecked by

Middle Ages. The maimed and the halt recovered their powers, leapt from the waggons and flung away their crutches; the blind received thei

when you remember the spirit in which they wrought it. Such was the spirit, and such only could be the spirit, which produced the master-art of Gothic, and led the daring architects from step to step in the attainment of their triumphs, as they left b

call it still, by reason of its quality of hardness, its gift of wear, and the exquisite tones which it has taken on with years. Of the two towers the old one is the better built; many of the stones of the other were laid in too little mortar and have consequently split. These blocks of stone a

te effect of the whole, and afterwards for the exquisite details of which that whole is composed. He may, if h

e Virgin to the multitude, of illustrating for all unreading eyes the Word of the Lord. The Cathedral is a Bible in stone, and the porches a gospel in relief, a sculptured catechism, a preface and a résumé of the book. Each stone, thus understood, is seen to be a page of a great drama. This drama is the history of humanity from the creation of the world to the day of the Last Judgment. Within, the s

this marvellous whole? Who were the artists of Notre-Dame? We are in grea

c generation. We know, for instance, that in the Monastery of Tiron, which S. Bernard founded on lands given to him for that purpose by S. Ives, more than five hundred artists of one sort or another were to be found. S. Bernard insisted on the observance of that point in the Benedictine rule which recommends that 'if there be artists in the mo

omes shapely. Above the workers appears the chapel in which the window now is. A mason in a round hat is quietly laying a cornice stone, whilst his help-mate, carrying a piece of sculpture, climbs up a little ladder. In the background four other masons, shaven and clad like the common people, are busy shaping the statues of kings-the very statues which now, representing the ancestors of Christ, stand in the porch without. The statue is as yet only blocked out: the artis

f the grateful canons, but of all the clever artists of Notre-Dame hardly one has left his name behind

and men took the Cross, not to depart to war in the East, but to labour humbly at the work of God, Our Lady and the saints. Then from the distant cloister came forth the architect, and artists and, at the voice of a bishop calling for aid, the sacred work began. The peasants quarried stone and brought material, the young men dressed it, and the masons raised the lofty piers and fashioned the groined roof beneath the eye of the 'master of the work.' The pilgrims would sojourn, perhaps, for a year in the town, labouring with such ardour that when the light

housands of sculptures at Chartres or Reims many are of very inferior merit. Many a chef-d'?uvre, on the other hand, on which the pious sculptor has lavished all his

f Durham. The nearest modern analogy to such enthusiasm is to be found in the history of Christianity in Uganda or in the building of the church at Swindon by the united, unpaid efforts of the working men of that town. It was the living fait

many pilgrims worked for the love of God, all the worker

nt pas p

l'?uvre aus o

he 'master of work,' were inspected again by a clever master from another country. The chief workers were lodged in houses of th

ten extremely gross. Similarly, while the Count of Chartres was chanting in chivalrous fashion the praises of his lady, the porches of the Cathedral were receiving into their niches here and there the representations of certain ugly vices and their punishment, such as Dante ere long was to translate into the harmonious verses of his Divina Commedia. Fallen nuns and erring queens are delivered over to grinning demons, and Satan rubs his hands at the sight

taught the lessons of dogma and belief through the personages of drama or the medium of art. The sculpted bays of a porch or the storied windows of a nave were a lesson for the ignorant, a sermon for the believer, appealing through the eyes to the heart. The representation of the mysteries and miracle plays showed to him in action and helped him to realise the persons whose figures were already familiar to him as painted on glass, sculptured on capitals, incrusted on the vaulting of the doors. Graphic and dramatic art constituted the books of those who did not know how to read.

overmuch. The bases of the pillars of the bays in th

qui V

s, Asinus ad lyram, and Ne sus Minervam doceat; warnings against the pretentious ambitions of the awkward and incompetent, equivalent to the French dictum Que Gros-Jean n'en remontre pas à son curé; a proverb of which we have some obvious but homely versions. But of infernal beasts and Vices there is at Chartres, so much is this the Church of Our Lady, a decided scarcity. Of the Vi

m'-a da?s showing a city with turrets and windows. He is clad in a long tunic covered by a mantle which fits close to his long, thin body. His hands are intended to support a disc on which a sun-dial was traced. His arms are outspread. Clearly the present dial traced on a heavy square stone, with the date 1578, which covers his breast, was an addition of that year, but does not mark the date of the angel.

Ange

ore the H?tel-Dieu, which was quite close to the Clocher Vieux, was destroyed, the gusts of wind were so violent that the passage called L'ne qui vielle had the reputation of being impassable. One Canon Brillon, a hundred years ago, wrote a poem in which he related that 'On a time Wind and Discord were travelling over th

hors l'att

the Chapter-house of the Abbey that Discord is so busily engaged, for the wind here, as in Char

f Kings. Nor, as you gaze at the wealth of statuary and ornamentation upon which, as upon the architecture, the artists have lavished all their resources and all their skill in their endeavour to illustrate the Story of the Triumph of Our

l nearly 1150, and among those who wrought the images which people it were, some think, the arti

riumph but the events which led up to it. The whole Gospel is revealed to the gaze of the Christian who is about to enter the house of the Lord. The story is taken from the apocryphal as well as the canonical Gospels. It begins with the scenes represented by the thirty-eight miniature groups of the capitals, the figures of which, in spite of their small size and occasional lack of proportion, are full of life and interest. The first series starts northwards from the central doorway, and here the chisel literall

er of the tale, and recount in petto scenes from the life of Christ upon earth. We have been shown Him expected, prophesied, prefigured and again realising the prophecies and fulfilling all the acts of His divine mission. If we look now above

urches; but, curiously enough, the Last Judgment before us is always interpreted as an Ascension or a Descen

nd to the angel on the left, 'Depart from Me, ye who work iniquity.' In the central section are four angels emerging from the clouds. Their open mouths, and the gestures of their arms, one beckoning, the other pointing above, indicate that they are heavenly messengers, who have come 'to gather together the elect from the four winds.' And below them, gazing heavenward in holy calm and happiness, sit the Apostles, chosen to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. They are clad in long

since there was room for only ten of the latter, the remaining two were inserted in the vaulting of the right bay, where they

ting to compare-three in the porches, one in a window of the south aisle

buildings the allegories of Time, whether in the form of the personification of the twelve months, of the four seasons, or the twelve signs of the Zodiac. The mont

are given in the

rus, Gemini, Can

, Arcitenens, Cape

uatrain attributed to the venerable

remo-de vite

m-mihi flos ser

-messes meto-

-pasco sues,-imm

ndows and porch at Chartres with that which they receive at Veni

Shepherds and the Presentation of Christ in the Temple; and above, in the vaulting which forms the frame of this picture, are, in one row, six archangels carrying incense in honour of Mary, and, in the other, the seven Liberal Arts, each of them symbolised by two statuettes, the one representing the inventor or paragon, the other the allegory of the art. Here,

urred and defaced with age, and it is perhaps partly for this reason that, in spite of many

n hundred years pass, and have passed, beneath Him into the Cathedral. With one hand He blesses, with the other He holds the book sealed with the seven seals. He is there, clad in an antique mantle, which falls in a cascade of folds about His naked feet, a bearded Christ, with long, straight hair, and an expression of sweet gr

by the four-win

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welve Apostles. And, to complete the scene from the Apocalypse, in the rows of the vaulting above, are the twelve angels and the heavenly choir of four-and twenty

of incomparable grandeur and simplicity, the conception of which reveals

It yet remains to mention those strange colossal figures, whi

hapes of sai

eared with imm

es, may strike you at first as unattractive, bizarre. But nothing is more certain than that, if you study them, you will find in them an unutterable beauty and an ineffable charm. For this is the most spiritual and fascinating sculpture in the world, wroug

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t. Over some of these a kind of dalmatic reaches to the knees. The girdles and the broidered robes, the arrangement of the sleeves and veils, and the jewellery of the crowns they wear, all demand the closest study. The hard stone has been handled with such precision and such feeling that you might almost fancy it, here, a delicate brocade, and t

es. An exception, however, must be made in the case of the three first statues of the left bay, next to the Clocher Neuf. These have no halo, and the pedestals on which they rest their feet are groups of enigmatic beings. The first, a king who has been given by some modern restorer a thirteenth-century Virgin's head, treads underfoot a man, now scarce recognisable, enfolded by

which line the porch. The fourth and fifth, counting from the Clocher Neuf, are prophets, Isaiah and Daniel perhaps, according to the suggestions of M. l'Abbé Bulteau: the eighth, ninth and tenth, Ezekiel, James-the-Less and Thadd?us; the eleventh, thirteenth and fourteenth, kings with missals and sceptres in their hands, may be Edwar

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bay. Her sexless shape, the book in her hands, her expectant gaze, rapt as it were in a vision of the ages, proclaim the firs

l. Her long hair falls in two plaits over her shoulders, and the tight-drawn body of her garment reveals the curves of her figure. Her expression is that of a rebellious, art

nd there it has left its impression. In the left hand she carried a sceptre, terminating in an ornament that still remains. She is clad in sumptuous raiment, most delicate in texture, and fringed with lace. Her figure is elong

ly call attention to the merchant on the right pier of the Porte Royale, who is being robbed by the earliest cut-purse in medi?val sculpture, and to the name Rogerus, cut a

the question. But it

-the northern one in the head of an ox, representative of sacrifice, symbolising here, it is said, the abolition of Judaism, with its sacrifices and cult; t

refore, the three enormous windows (34 feet by 13 feet, and 28 feet by 9 feet), and their unrivalled treasure of twelfth-century g

er Neuf, the Cathedral was destroyed by fire. Mirabili et miserabili incendio devastata, says a manuscrip

es prist

i ne fu p

grant et d

rant doule

se ardoir

e to see in the present building the Cathedral of Fulbert has led to some unpa

sent church might be built and shine in its unequalled splendour.[66] For the former one was not yet worthy to be called the "mestre maison de Marie." Completely rebuilt of hewn stone, and covered throughout its whole leng

te and of our Richard, whose lion-heart lies in the tomb at the Cathedral of Rouen, gives another expla

e. He did not even spare the Church of S. Taurin, so famous in that country. He gave orders, indeed, that it should be given to the flames, and, as no one in his army would, for fear of God, execute so sacrilegious a command, the King himself, it is said, with some abandoned men call

houses and their wealth in this disastrous conflagration. Yet their distress at their own losses was as nothing compared wi

ge

oire de

ied aloud that the glory of Chartres and of the whole country side was departed. They despaired of

called upon them to take courage and to begin rebuilding their Cathedral. He exhorted them to fast and pray that their sins

ovriers

bien et to

devoted the greater part of their incomes for three years to the

destroyed. The people fell on their knees in a transport of delight, weeping tears of gratitude and joy. For a miracle had been wrought. As Jonah was kept from harm three days in the belly of the whale, as Noah was preserved from the flood and Daniel from the lion's jaws, so these devout servants of the Lord had been saved alive

the Cathedral. And, in order that resources might not be lacking, in order that pilgrims might come from far and near, b

intrigue. Poor and mutilated, the orphan lad fled to Chartres to beg his bread. Kneeling there, on Shrove Tuesday, before the altar of Our Lady, he burst suddenly into loud praise of God, albeit he was tongueless. All the people when they heard him were filled with amazement. They crowded to the scene of his healing to render thanks and make their offer

iron and all things useful or necessary for the building of the church. Jewels also and precious things they brought. The devotion

ferunt burgens

rus cum militib

t the Cathedral, for they could not all find shelter within the Cathedral, and the clerks comin

trange lands beyond the seas, scholars from the universities and weather-beaten travellers from the New Continent, with outlandish offerings to Our Lady, they wash forever against the hospitable shores of Chartres, and break peacefully upon the gray cliffs of the Cathedral. A trace of their offerings, stranded on the sho

eneath a Virgin enthroned and the blazon of the bishop, Regnault de Mou?on, are two groups which show what manner of men were they who came to swell the tid

loquent and touching terms the disasters that had befallen Notre-Dame of Chartres. The audience was so moved by his eloquence that they all emptied their purses in response to his appeal. But the young Englishman had nothing to give except a golden necklace, which he intended for the girl he loved in London. Moved by the words of the preacher, after a long struggle, he made the offering of this necklace and, leaving Soissons, set out for the sea, p

s dont il

island, where he lived the chaste life of a hermit and enj

ilippe-Auguste, he welcomed, encouraged and endowed with alms the emissaries of the Chapter, gave them safe conduct through his lands, and himself did obeisance before the sac

Chateau-Landon, as our poet relates, stirred, man and woman alike, by the discourse of their pastor, resolved to load a waggon with wheat and take it to aid the workers at Chartres. They yoked themselves to the waggon and began to pull with all their strength, but the road was so heavy that they

e, filled with a like spirit and parting on a like errand, experienced

ith collar or trace, but ere they could regain the town with their burden the sun went down behind a thick bank of clouds; there was no moon nor any light, but in marvellous wise an obscure and dreadful night was upon them. The unhappy pilgrims soon lost their path, and wandered astray over the vast plains of La Beauce. Blind terror seized

f oil for the lamps of Notre-Dame, was made prisoner by the English soldiers of C?ur-de-Lion. To him, in answer to his prayer, the

Beauce every hamlet was eager to contribute something to its glory. Those who had no possessions to offer gave their services loading and drawing vehicles: the roads were crowded with these humble servants of the Lord. The blind, the dumb, the lame and the halt awaited in each

Cathedral is a popular and national monument, built by the free labour of the people gathered together freely from all parts of France, joining an