Kitabı oku: «The Cathedrals of Southern France», sayfa 13
III
ST. REPARATA DE NICE
"What would you, then? I say it is most engaging, in winter when the strangers are here, and all work day and night; but it is a much better place in summer, when one can take their ease."
– Paul Arène.
Whatever may be the attractions of Nice for the travelled person, they certainly do not lie in or about its cathedral. The guide-books call it simply "the principal ecclesiastical edifice … of no great interest," which is an apt enough qualification.
In a book which professes to treat of the special subject of cathedral churches, something more is expected, if only to define the reason of the lack of appealing interest.
One might say with the Abbé Bourassé, – who wrote of St. Louis de Versailles, – "It is cold, unfeeling, and without life;" or he might dismiss it with a few words of lukewarm praise, which would be even less satisfying.
More specifically the observation might be passed that the lover of churches will hardly find enough to warrant even passing consideration on the entire Riviera.
This last is in a great measure true, though much of the incident of history and romance is woven about what – so far as the church-lover is concerned – may be termed mere "tourist points."
At all events, he who makes the round, from Marseilles to San Remo in Italy, must to no small extent subordinate his love of ecclesiastical art and – as do the majority of visitors – plunge into a whirl of gaiety (sic) as conventional and unsatisfying as are most fulsome, fleeting pleasures.
The sensation is agreeable enough to most of us, for a time at least, but the forced and artificial gaiety soon palls, and he who puts it all behind him, and strikes inland to Aix and Embrun and the romantically disposed little cathedral towns of the valley of the Durance, will come once again into an architectural zone more in comport with the subject suggested by the title of this book.
It is curious to note that, with the exception of Marseilles and Aix, scarce one of the suffragan dioceses of the ancient ecclesiastical province of Aix, Arles, and Embrun is possessed of a cathedral of the magnitude which we are wont to associate with the churchly dignity of a bishop.
St. Reparata de Nice is dismissed as above; that of Antibes was early transferred or combined with that of Grasse; Grasse itself endured for a time – from 1245 onward – but was suppressed in 1790; Glandève, Senez, and Riez were combined with Digne; while Fréjus has become subordinate to Toulon, though it shares episcopal dignity with that city.
In spite of these changes and the apparently inexplicable tangle of the limits of jurisdiction which has spread over this entire region, religion has, as might be inferred from a study of the movement of early Christianity in Gaul, ever been prominent in the life of the people, and furthermore is of very long standing.
The first bishop of Nice was Amantius, who came in the fourth century. With what effect he laboured and with what real effect his labours resulted, history does not state with minutiæ. The name first given to the diocese was Cemenelium.
In 1802 the diocese of Nice was allied with that of Aix, but in the final readjustment its individuality became its own possession once more, and it is now a bishopric, a suffragan of Marseilles.
As to architectural splendour, or even worth, St. Reparata de Nice has none. It is a poor, mean fabric in the Italian style; quite unsuitable in its dimensions to even the proper exploitation of any beauties that the style of the Renaissance may otherwise possess.
The general impression that it makes upon one is that it is but a makeshift or substitute for something more pretentious which is to come.
The church dates from 1650 only, and is entirely unworthy as an expression of religious art or architecture. The structure itself is bare throughout, and what decorative embellishments there are – though numerous – are gaudy, after the manner of stage tinsel.
IV
STE. MARIE MAJEURE DE TOULON
The episcopal dignity of Toulon is to-day shared with Fréjus, whereas, at the founding of the diocese, Toulon stood alone as a bishopric in the ecclesiastical province of Arles. This was in the fifth century. When the readjustment came, after the Revolution, the honour was divided with the neighbouring coast town of Fréjus.
In spite of the fact that the cathedral here is of exceeding interest, Toulon is most often thought of as the chief naval station of France in the Mediterranean. From this fact signs of the workaday world are for ever thrusting themselves before one.
As a seaport, Toulon is admirably situated and planned, but the contrast between the new and old quarters of the town and the frowning fortifications, docks, and storehouses is a jumble of utilitarian accessories which does not make for the slightest artistic or æsthetic interest.
Ste. Marie Majeure is a Romanesque edifice of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Its façade is an added member of the seventeenth century, and the belfry of the century following. The church to-day is of some considerable magnitude, as the work of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries comprehended extensive enlargements.
As to its specific style, it has been called Provençal as well as Romanesque. It is hardly one or the other, as the pure types known elsewhere are considered, but rather a blend or transition between the two.
The edifice underwent a twelfth-century restoration, which doubtless was the opportunity for incorporating with the Romanesque fabric certain details which we have come since to know as Provençal.
During the Revolution the cathedral suffered much despoliation, as was usual, and only came through the trial in a somewhat imperfect and poverty-stricken condition. Still, it presents to-day some considerable splendour, if not actual magnificence.
Its nave is for more reasons than one quite remarkable. It has a length of perhaps a hundred and sixty feet, and a width scarcely thirty-five, which gives an astonishing effect of narrowness, but one which bespeaks a certain grace and lightness nevertheless – or would, were its constructive elements of a little lighter order.
In a chapel to the right of the choir is a fine modern reredos, and throughout there are many paintings of acceptable, if not great, worth. The pulpit, by a native of Toulon, is usually admired, but is a modern work which in no way compares with others of its kind seen along the Rhine, and indeed throughout Germany. One of the principal features which decorate the interior is a tabernacle by Puget; while an admirable sculptured "Jehovah and the Angels" by Veyrier, and a "Virgin" by Canova – which truly is not a great work – complete the list of artistic accessories.
The first bishop of Toulon, in the fifth century, was one Honoré.
V
ST. ETIENNE DE FRÉJUS
The ancient episcopal city of Fréjus has perhaps more than a due share of the attractions for the student and lover of the historic past. It is one of the most ancient cities of Provence. Its charm of environment, people, and much else that it offers, on the surface or below, are as irresistible a galaxy as one can find in a small town of scarce three thousand inhabitants. And Fréjus is right on the beaten track, too, though it is not apparent that the usual run of pleasure-loving, tennis-playing, and dancing-party species of tourist – at a small sum per head, all included – ever stop here en route to the town's more fashionable Riviera neighbours – at least they do not en masse– as they wing their way to the more delectable pleasures of naughty Nice or precise and proper Mentone.
The establishment of a bishopric here is somewhat doubtfully given by "La Gallia Christiania" as having been in the fourth century. Coupled with this statement is the assertion that the cathedral at Fréjus is very ancient, and its foundation very obscure; but that it was probably built up from the remains of a "primitive temple consecrated to an idol." Such, at least, is the information gleaned from a French source, which does not in any way suggest room for doubt.
Formerly the religious administration was divided amongst a provost, an archdeacon, a sacristan, and twelve canons. The diocese was suppressed in 1801 and united with that of Aix, but was reëstablished in 1823 by virtue of the Concordat of 1817. To-day the diocese divides the honour of archiepiscopal dignity with that of Toulon.
The foundations of St. Etienne are admittedly those of a pagan temple, but the bulk of the main body of the church is of the eleventh century. The tower and its spire – not wholly beautiful, nor yet in any way unbeautiful – are of the period of the ogivale primaire.
As to style, in so far as St. Etienne differs greatly from the early Gothic of convention, it is generally designated as Provençal-Romanesque. It is, however, strangely akin to what we know elsewhere as primitive Gothic, and as such it is worthy of remark, situated, as it is, here in the land where the pure round-arched style is indigenous.
The portal has a doorway ornamented with some indifferent Renaissance sculptures. To the left of this doorway is a baptistère containing a number of granite columns, which, judging from their crudeness, must be of genuine antiquity.
There is an ancient Gothic cloister, hardly embryotic, but still very rudimentary, because of the lack of piercings of the arches; possibly, though, this is the result of an afterthought, as the arched openings appear likely enough to have been filled up at some time subsequent to the first erection of this feature.
The bishop's palace is of extraordinary magnitude and impressiveness, though of no very great splendour. In its fabric are incorporated a series of Gallo-Roman pilasters, and it has the further added embellishment of a pair of graceful twin tourelles.
The Roman remains throughout the city are numerous and splendid, and, as a former seaport, founded by Cæsar and enlarged by Augustus, the city was at a former time even more splendid than its fragments might indicate. To-day, owing to the building up of the foreshore, and the alluvial deposits washed down by the river Argens, the town is perhaps a mile from the open sea.
VI
ÉGLISE DE GRASSE
Grasse is more famed for its picturesque situation and the manufacture of perfumery than it is for its one-time cathedral, which is but a simple and uninteresting twelfth-century church, whose only feature of note is a graceful doorway in the pointed style.
The diocese of Grasse formerly had jurisdiction over Antibes, whose bishop – St. Armentaire – ruled in the fourth century.
The diocese of Grasse – in the province of Embrun – did not come into being, however, until 1245, when Raimond de Villeneuve was made its first bishop. The see was suppressed in 1790.
There are, as before said, no accessories of great artistic worth in the Église de Grasse, and the lover of art and architecture will perforce look elsewhere. In the Hôpital are three paintings attributed to Rubens, an "Exaltation," a "Crucifixion," and a "Crowning of Thorns." They may or may not be genuine works by the master; still, nothing points to their lack of authenticity, except the omission of all mention thereof in most accounts which treat of this artist's work.
VII
ANTIBES
Cap d'Antibes, on the Golfe Jouan, is one of those beauty-spots along the Mediterranean over which sentimental rhapsody has ever lent, if not a glamour which is artificial, at least one which is purely æsthetic.
One must not deny it any reputation of this nature which it may possess, and indeed, with St. Raphael and Hyères, it shares with many another place along the French Riviera a popularity as great, perhaps, as if it were the possessor of even an extraordinarily beautiful cathedral.
The churchly dignity of Antibes has departed long since, though its career as a former bishopric – in the province of Aix – was not brief, as time goes. It began in the fourth century with St. Armentaire, and endured intermittently until the twelfth century, when the see was combined with that of Grasse, and the ruling dignity transferred to that place.
VIII
STE. MARIE MAJEURE DE MARSEILLES
"These brown men of Marseilles, who sing as they bend at their oars, are Greeks."
– Clovis Hughes.
Marseilles is modern and commercial; but Marseilles is also ancient, and a centre from which have radiated, since the days of the Greeks, much power and influence.
It is, too, for a modern city, – which it is to the average tourist, – wonderfully picturesque, and shows some grand architectural effects, both ancient and modern.
The Palais de Long Champs is an architectural grouping which might have dazzled luxurious Rome itself. The Chamber of Commerce, with its decorations by Puvis de Chavannes, is a structure of the first rank; the Cannebière is one of those few great business thoroughfares which are truly imposing; while the docks, shipping, and hotels, are all of that preëminent magnitude which we are wont to associate only with a great capital.
As to its churches, its old twelfth-century cathedral remains to-day a mere relic of its former dignity.
It is a reminder of a faith and a power that still live in spite of the attempts of the world of progress to live it down, and has found its echo in the present-day cathedral of Ste. Marie Majeure, one of the few remarkably successful attempts at the designing of a great church in modern times. The others are the new Westminster Roman Catholic Cathedral London, the projected cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, and Trinity Church in Boston.
As an exemplification of church-building after an old-time manner adapted to modern needs, called variously French-Romanesque, Byzantine, and, by nearly every expert who has passed comment upon it, by some special nomenclature of his own, the cathedral at Marseilles is one of those great churches which will live in the future as has St. Marc's at Venice in the past.
Its material is a soft stone of two contrasting varieties, – the green being from the neighbourhood of Florence, and the white known as pierre de Calissant, – laid in alternate courses. Its deep sunken portal, with its twin flanking Byzantine towers, dominates the old part of the city, lying around about the water-front, as do few other churches, and no cathedrals, in all the world.
It stands a far more impressive and inspiring sentinel at the water-gate of the city than does the ludicrously fashioned modern "sailors' church" of Notre Dame de la Gard, which is perched in unstable fashion on a pinnacle of rock on the opposite side of the harbour.
This "curiosity" – for it is hardly more – is reached by a cable-lift or funicular railway, which seems principally to be conducted for the delectation of those winter birds of passage yclept "Riviera tourists."
The true pilgrim, the sailor who leaves a votive offering, or his wife or sweetheart, who goes there to pray for his safety, journeys on foot by an abrupt, stony road, – as one truly devout should.
This sumptuous cathedral will not please every one, but it cannot be denied that it is an admirably planned and wonderfully executed neo-Byzantine work. In size it is really vast, though its chief remarkable dimension is its breadth. Its length is four hundred and sixty feet.
At the crossing is a dome which rises to one hundred and ninety-seven feet, while two smaller ones are at each end of the transept, and yet others, smaller still, above the various chapels.
The general effect of the interior is – as might be expected —grandoise. There is an immensely wide central nave, flanked by two others of only appreciably reduced proportions.
Above the side aisles are galleries extending to the transepts.
The decorations of mosaic, glass, and mural painting have been the work of the foremost artists of modern times, and have been long in execution.
The entire period of construction extended practically over the last half of the nineteenth century.
The plans were by Léon Vaudoyer, who was succeeded by one Espérandieu, and again by Henri Rêvoil. The entire detail work may not even yet be presumed to have been completed, but still the cathedral stands to-day as the one distinct and complete achievement of its class within the memory of living man.
The pillars of the nave, so great is their number and so just and true their disposition, form a really decorative effect in themselves.
The choir is very long and is terminated with a domed apse, with domed chapels radiating therefrom in a symmetrical and beautiful manner.
The episcopal residence is immediately to the right of the cathedral, on the Place de la Major.
Marseilles has been the seat of a bishop since the days of St. Lazare in the first century. It was formerly a suffragan of Arles in the Province d'Arles, as it is to-day, but its jurisdiction is confined to the immediate neighbourhood of the city.
IX
ST. PIERRE D'ALET
In St. Pierre d'Alet was a former cathedral of a very early date; perhaps as early as the ninth century, though the edifice was entirely rebuilt in the eleventh. To-day, even this structure – which is not to be wondered at – is in ruins.
There was an ancient abbey here in the ninth century, but the bishopric was not founded until 1318, and was suppressed in 1790.
The most notable feature of this ancient church is the wall which surrounds or forms the apside. This quintupled pan is separated by four great pillars, in imitation of the Corinthian order; though for that matter they may as well be referred to as genuine antiques – which they probably are – and be done with it.
The capitals and the cornice which surmounts them are richly ornamented with sculptured foliage, and, so far as it goes, the whole effect is one of liberality and luxury of treatment.
Immediately beside the ruins of this old-time cathedral is the Église St. André of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
X
ST. PIERRE DE MONTPELLIER
La Ville de Montpellier
"Elle est charmante et douce …
Avec son vast ciel, toujours vibrant et pur,
…
Elle est charmante avec ses brunes jeunes filles
… le noir diamant de leurs yeux!"
– Henri de Bornier.
Montpellier is seated upon a hill, its foot washed by two small and unimportant rivers.
A seventeenth-century writer has said: "This city is not very ancient, though now it be the biggest, fairest, and richest in Languedoc, after Toulouse."
From a passage in the records left by St. Bernard, the Abbot of Clairvaux, it is learned that there was a school or seminary of physicians here as early as 1155, and the perfect establishment of a university was known to have existed just previous to the year 1200. This institution was held in great esteem, and in importance second only to Paris. To-day the present establishment merits like approbation, and, sheltered in part in the ancient episcopal palace, and partly enclosing the cathedral of St. Pierre, it has become inseparable from consideration in connection therewith.
The records above referred to have this to say concerning the university: "Tho' Physic has the Precendence, yet both Parts of the Law are taught in one of its Colleges, by Four Royal Professors, with the Power of making Licentiates and Doctors." Continuing, he says: "The ceremony of taking the M. D. degree is very imposing; if only the putting on and off, seven times, the old gown of the famous Rabelais."
Montpellier was one of "the towns of security" granted by Henry IV. to the Protestants, but Louis XIII., through the suggestions of his cardinals, Richelieu and Mazarin, forced them by arms to surrender this place of protection. The city was taken after a long siege and vigorous defence in 1622.
Before the foundation of Montpellier, the episcopal seat was at Maguelonne, the ancient Magalonum of the Romans. The town does not exist to-day, and its memory is only perpetuated by the name Villeneuve les Maguelonne, a small hamlet on the bay of that name, a short distance from Montpellier.
The Church had a foothold here in the year 636, but the ferocity of Saracen hordes utterly destroyed all vestiges of the Christian faith in their descent upon the city.
Says the Abbé Bourassé: "In the eleventh century another cathedral was dedicated by Bishop Arnaud, and the day was made the occasion of a fête, in consideration of the restoration of the church, which had been for a long time abandoned."
It seems futile to attempt to describe a church which does not exist, and though the records of the later cathedral at Maguelonne are very complete, it must perforce be passed by in favour of its descendant at Montpellier.
Having obtained the consent of François I., the bishop of Maguelonne solicited from the pontiff at Rome the privilege of transferring the throne. In a bull given in 1536, it was decreed that this should be done forthwith. Accordingly, the bishop and his chapter transferred their dignity to a Benedictine monastery at Montpellier, which had been founded in 1364 by Pope Urban V.
The wars of the Protestants desecrated this great church, which, like many others, suffered greatly from their violence, so much so that it was shorn entirely of its riches, its reliquaries, and much of its decoration.
The dimensions of this church are not great, and its beauties are quite of a comparative quality; but for all that it is a most interesting cathedral.
The very grim but majestic severity of its canopied portal – with its flanking cylindrical pillars, called by the French tourelles élancés– gives the key-note of it all, and a note which many a more perfect church lacks.
This curious porch well bespeaks the time when the Church was both spiritual and militant, and ranks as an innovation – though an incomplete and possibly imperfect one – in the manner of finishing off a west façade. Its queer, suspended canopy and slight turreted towers are unique; though, for a fact, they suggest, in embryo, those lavish Burgundian porches; but it is only a suggestion, because of the incompleteness and bareness. However, this porch is the distinct fragment of the cathedral which will appeal to all who come into contact therewith.
The general effect of the interior is even more plain than that of the outer walls, and is only remarkable because of its fine and true proportions of length, breadth, and height.
The triforium is but a suggestion of an arcade, supported by black marble columns. The clerestory above is diminutive, and the window piercings are infrequent. At the present time the choir is hung with a series of curtains of panne– not tapestries in this case. The effect is more theatrical than ecclesiastical.
The architectural embellishments are to-day practically nil, but instead one sees everywhere large, uninterrupted blank walls without decoration of any sort.
The principal decorations of the southern portal are the only relaxation in this otherwise simple and austere fabric. Here is an elaborately carved tympanum and an ornamented architrave, which suggests that the added mellowness of a century or two yet to come will grant to it some approach to distinction. This portal is by no means an insignificant work, but it lacks that ripeness which is only obtained by the process of time.
Three rectangular towers rise to unequal heights above the roof, and, like the western porch, are bare and primitive, though they would be effective enough could one but get an ensemble view that would bring them into range. They are singularly unbeautiful, however, when compared with their northern brethren.
