The Story of Chartres

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r, under the three curses of that age-plague, soldiers, and impositions-the exhaustion of the city increased. She was able, however, to receive with sufficient magnificence the occasional visits of kings and princes. Particularly splendid was the reception accorde

quite in its infancy; hygiene an art scarce beginning to be practised. We find mention of an order in 1526 forbidding swineherds to allow the animals in their charge (bêtes porchines de M. S. Antoine) to wander about the streets. But this was an unpopular measure, and stood r

the rotting garbage which so tempted the pigs, is not pleasant even to imagine. Little wonder that h

sons who were infected by it were obliged to carry a white wand in the streets. But people have always been curiously slow to learn the lessons of sanitation. The open sewer, the

y rate Chartres was superior to Paris. For in the sixteenth century public slaughter-houses (massacre-the name still marks a section of the river) were erected in an appropriate place. But the but

d be watered and cleaned. But on great occasions, as I have said, cleaned they were, along with the roads, passages and b

enant-General de Hérouad indeed issued an order calling upon the citizens, on pain of forfeit and arrest, to array themselves for the ceremony in velvet, satin, taffetas, and other rich ga

nd compelled them all, Lieutenant-General included, to seek refuge in the Church of S. Maurice and the neighbouring houses, in order to save their gala clothes from ruin. At the same mo

e garrison town of the French army, and was obliged to contribute

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es and delays of the law. This was done in 1552, and in 1566 Charles IX. authorised the merchants and various trades, who were groaning under the exactions of the procureurs and the ruinous procedure of the gens du baillage, to choose a merchant judge and four colleagues (consuls) in the town of Chartres. This tribunal was intended to deal with business affairs. The bailiffs and at

ver, round which, as we have seen, clustered numerous industries. The site was originally just within the old walls of the ninth century, and it is possible that the house was part of the old Tour du Roy. But it was completely rebuilt in the seventeenth century, and were it not for the fifteenth-century entrance, and the ex

triving to forget her ephemeral greatness and succouring the poor; or, and this seems more likely, it may be Bertha, sister of Count Thibault III., widow of the Duke of Aquitaine, who spent her widowhood at Chartres in this quarter of

ndow from Mai

de la Poissonnerie, No. 10, so called from the huge salmon which is carved upon one of the beams, and recalls the fact that Poissonn

mation. But the idea of reform was not new. It had appeared and been repressed many times and in many countries from the twelfth century onwards. The authority of the Councils and the rigour of the punishments directed against it had succeeded in choking the movement hitherto, for it is one of the most inaccurate of commonplaces which asserts that persecution only succeeds in promoting the cause it endeavours to check. The Reformation was for hundreds of years quite successfully checked by persecution. But it came at last when, in the fulness of time, the minds of men were enlightened by the new spirit of discovery, inquiry and learning, and when the authority of the Church was weakened by the schisms and depravity of its representatives. The country which had invented the printing press, that powerful engine for the dissemination of ideas, sent forth al

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deprecated. Pursued by the hatred of the Lady of Annet, Diane de Poitiers, of the poet Sagon and the

urent jamais confesser ny reconnoistre nostre bon Dieu et sauveur Jesus, ny la benoiste vierge Marie.' As time went on the inquisitions grew more exacting. Their increasing severity drew forth increasing resistance on the part of the Protestants. More Huguenots were burnt and hundreds were banished from the town. A bish

ning La Beauce on his way. He had vainly called upon Chartres to open her gates to him. 'Never,' was the bold reply he received from the governor. 'I hold the town for the King, and if your army attacks this place it will prove their cemetery!' Condé continued to retire northwards. The Royal army engaged him under the walls of Dreux, and there the first pitched battle of the war was fought. It resulted, after an arduous struggle, in a hard-won victory for the Catholics. Eight thousand corpses stre

e if the enemy advanced towards the town. If they were cavalry a tapering banner was to be flown, if infantry a square one, and if the Huguenots tried to rush upon the suburbs the tocsin was to be rung. A bell was placed at each gate to correspond with that of the watch, and to summon the quarter to arms. Urgent appeals were sent to the King

artillery consisted of only five siege pieces and four small culverins. The first four days of March were employed by the enemy in fortifying their positions, and by the Catholic Chartrains in skirmishing about the environs and setting fire to the suburbs of the town. M. de Linières, their vigorous leader, who was afterwards to meet his death on the batt

d, and to construct also a platform near the convent of the S?urs-de-S.-Paul, on which was mounted a cannon named La Huguenotte, which had been t

nd at the Filles-Dieu, and opened two batteries, one opposite the Porte Drouaise, masked by the walls of the house Trois-Maures, the

temple of the Church of Notre-Dame de Chartres, the terror and despair of the heretics.'[87] But in spite of this knowledge and preparation the opening cannonade took the people of Chartres, as two hundred years later it took the people of Paris, by surprise.[88] It was early in the day. A crowd of worshippers filled the Church of S. Foy (S. Faith, Rue d'Harleville), which was built partly on the ramparts. At the conclusion of the Mass the Sacrament was to be carried

d to the dignity of a parish church in the days of S. Ives. It was horribly profaned during the Revolution, being converted into a Salle de Spectacle by a decree of the Municipal Council in 1794 on the motion of one Morin, an archite

ave left little worth studying in what was once the p

ut with all its good people inside), the cannonade directed against the Porte Drouaise on two sides at

BY M. LE PRINCE DE

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prolonged cannonade, effected a breach, and endeavoured to take by assault the ravelin from which they had been repulsed the night before. They were for a moment successful, but M. de Linières bravely recovered this important position. 'Incontinent,' wrote the contemporary historian, Simon de Gives, in his Bref Discours du Siège mis devant la Ville de Chartres,[90] 'Incontinent, the said seigneur began to pledge the captains who were near him, boldly resolute, with a heart not sad but j

But not without loss to the Chartrains. The brave D'Ardelay, colonel of the Gascons, received then a wound in the e

bombardment. As the breach widened a strong entrenchment was disclosed constructed of earth and bags of wool. A thousand workmen, soldiers and civilians, worked unceasingly at the task of throwing it up and strengthening it. Under pain of cord and gibbet, the inhabitants were impressed for the work. Night and day they toiled, and their toil was crowned with success. The Huguenots, seeing that there was no chance of delivering an assault with success, contented themselves with firing some salvoes on the 10th and 11th, and then shifted their artillery opposite the Porte Morard. There they began to endeavour, by des

p. 47), to the quarter in the midst of which they had proudly raised their accursed tents.' Disappointed of the plunder of the Cathedral treasure and of the pillage of the town upon which they had counted-for Condé himself had sol

d take place on the 15th of March; that part of the street S. André should take the name of Ru

an oblation for the safety of the town, and was to burn before the said image.' Every day a piece was cut off and burnt on the town candlestick. For many years the Tour de la Ville was presented at one or other of the Church festivals indifferently, very often on the 17th of October, the Feast of the Dedication of the Cathedral. But in the seventeenth century it was decided that the presentation should take place on the 15th of March, the anniversary of the deliverance

gh which recorded the events of the siege in the Latin tongue for the instruction and example of posterity. One of the stones is, I gather, still preserved in the garden belonging to Madame Tillionbois de Valeuil and may be seen from the Pont Neuf. Pursuing their way up the Rue de la Brèche, the procession would next arrive at the

d the town. For the contemporary chronicler Duparc informs us that 'For all that the chiefs of the Huguenot army were esteemed the greatest soldiers in Europe, yet were they miraculously blinded by a manifest miracle. And the miracle was on this wise. There was on the Porte Drouaise an image of Our Lady against which the enemy fired many shots from cannon and arquebus alike, but without being able to hit it. And to show that many shots were fired at the said gate on which was

against whom they fell to firing and to hurling volleys of abuse, without being able to reach or strike her in any way terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata. On the contrary, the bullets which they fired fell harmless, without effect or force, at the foot of the wall, and they, thinking to enter, found themselves repu

pressed in the verses of M. Jolliet which I have put at the head of this chapt

eet, the procession would next arrive at the Parish Church of S. André and the adjoining Chapel of S. Nicholas, and then, after singing an

store in 1865, completed the damage begun by the Revolutionists. Take first the extremely beautiful and interesting west front, which presents, as it were, an epitome of medi?val architecture-the Norman or Romanesque arch, the Gothic beginning and the Flamboyant decadence are all represented. For the lower portion is composed of three round-headed arches, the soffits of which are ornamented with round mouldings and zigzag work,

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as a curious feature. An arch was thrown out into the Eure in the thirteenth century, and was made to carry the annexed choir and sanctuary. This portion of the church was rebuilt in the Flamboyant style by Jehan de Beauce in the sixteenth century; and in 1612 a second arch, in continuation of the earlier one, completed the span of

place is now put, it remains impressive by virtue of the sixteen massive piers which su

arved by P. Courtier, on which Jehan de Beauce had also done some work. Among the carvings, it is said, was one which represented a