As for what Rolf actually did for Rouen, that remains to be seen rather from the after state of affairs. "The founder of the Rouen colony,"
Freeman says, "is a great man who must be content to be judged in the main by the results of his actions." Rolf is not in the least a vague or shadowy personality, but it is noticeable how he has grown to us out of a great tangle of myths and very little fact. All we have to go upon is the not very authentic Roman de Rou, a few Norse legends, and sundry brief allusions by later French writers, who cla.s.s him, together with all the Rouennais, under the contemptuous term Pirate. It was a well-ordered, strong, self-dependent colony that he handed down to the long line of his successors. These carried on bravely the traditions of their founder and brought up a hardy race of fighters, although Rouen itself was never thoroughly Teutonic, never at least since the very early days of Rolf"s colony. The religion, the language, and many of the customs of the French at Laon were grafted on to the Northmen of Rouen by their leader, and thus the town stood as much apart from the rest of Neustria as from the Franks themselves. After the death of Rolf and of his successor, William Longsword, Louis from beyond Sea, of the race of Charlemagne, ruled at Laon, and cast envious eyes on Normandy, even occupying Rouen for some time during the minority of Richard the Fearless. But although Rouen was ultimately to become a town of France, the time was not yet, and for the present her destiny was averted by an outsider--Harold, King of Denmark, curiously surnamed Blue-tooth. He determined to resist the encroachments of Louis, and finally made him prisoner in the city where he had hoped to establish another capital.
The Norman dukes only deteriorated as rulers when they joined to their domain the crown of England, won by the hardiest and strongest of them all. We remember the pa.s.sionate, self-willed Robert, son of the Conqueror, and John, called Lackland, that disgrace to the English throne, the worst and likewise the last Norman duke, for the French king, Philippe Auguste, confiscated Normandy, together with other English possessions, and joined it to the crown of France, taking possession of Rouen after a siege in 1204. From this point the history of Rouen becomes the history of a French and not of a Norman town. As a reward for its submission, Philippe Auguste presented the town with a castle, of which one tower (the Tour Jeanne d"Arc) alone remains standing. Two centuries later, Rouen was in danger from the English.
Henry V., during his brilliant campaign in northern France, was not likely to leave to itself such an important place. In 1419 he set up his cannon outside the walls, and proceeded to blockade the town, which opened its gates to him after a six months" siege. Here he also built a castle, which, in the hopefulness born of youth and victory, he intended to use as a royal residence when all France should be at rest under his firm rule. But before the conquest was completed, before he had time to think about any residence other than his camp, came that last fatal sickness at Vincennes, and the castle, which seemed, like all his victories, so sure and so lasting, has been swept off the face of the earth. The years after Henry"s death, however, were significant ones for Rouen, now in English hands, and in 1431 we come to the great point in its history, the trial and burning of Joan of Arc in the market-place.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ROUEN FROM THE RIVER]
Captured near Compiegne, Joan had been sent to Rouen by the bishop of Beauvais. This was in March. The girl was examined fifteen or sixteen times, a wearying repet.i.tion of question and answer, often going round and round in a circle and never advancing any further. Joan"s replies were simple but firm. She persisted in her divine mission, and when asked whether she was in a state of grace or of sin replied, "If I am not in a state of grace, I hope G.o.d will make me so. How can I be in much sin while the saints will visit me?" In May matters were delayed by her illness, which was so serious that it seemed for a time as though her enemies were to be defeated by death; but on her recovery learned doctors were sent to her in prison to persuade her of her wrong att.i.tude of mind. Later came a warning from Cauchon, the bishop of Beauvais, to the effect that he was about to have her brought forth and made the object of a public sermon, after which, if she would recant, her safety would be a.s.sured. Worn out with her trials, the poor girl declared her submission and signed a recantation, for she saw that the end could not but come soon. A penance of perpetual imprisonment was then imposed upon her, and she submitted pa.s.sively to the injunctions laid upon her; but at her final abjuration she seemed to be overcome by a sudden access of penitence towards the saints, and resumed her old att.i.tude of determination, declaring that all she had said in submission was said in fear of being burned at the stake, of which she had a very natural horror. After this her fate was sealed. Cauchon handed her over to the secular arm, and a few hours later she was led to the stake in the old market-place. It is needless to dwell upon this last scene, because it is one of the stock dramatic occurrences in our history books, which nearly always represent Joan of Arc as suffering trial, torment and death, for the sake of her country with almost unnatural fort.i.tude; but, on the other hand, the more one reads about her, the more clear it becomes that the heroism of the Maid of Orleans, though none the less heroic, was a heroism of the simplest order, born of a pure heart, a steady, straightforward faith in her mission, and only wavering at the last from a very human and girlish horror of so infamous and dreadful a death. And as for her judges, needlessly cruel though they were, yet, as one writer points out, they were almost bound to condemn their prisoner.
To try her for sorcery and to burn her as a witch seems of course to our modern eyes not merely horrible, but absurd. Cauchon and his followers, however, did not live in an enlightened age; in their day the "Black Art" was a thing to be dreaded above all others, and death seemed a light thing in comparison with the putting down the power of the Evil One. Others besides Joan of Arc, for generations before and generations after, had died at the stake for reputed practice of magic; and in the case of the Maid, "to acquit her would have been to accept her celestial mission and place her, with some modern French historians, by the side, nay, in the place, of the Messiah." The trial and burning of Joan cannot be looked upon by the light of a modern world; they are of their time, and that time was, above all things, a superst.i.tious one. And only after her death did France realise what the Domremy peasant girl had done for her country. The French monarchy, as Louis XI. established it, is perhaps the best monument to her memory. After, and as some say because of, Joan"s death English prestige in Rouen began steadily to decline.
Two years afterwards, in 1433, came the death of John, Duke of Bedford, brother of Henry V., perhaps the only man left with anything of Henry"s strength and singleness of purpose. Rouen held out against two attempts at recapture on the part of Charles VII., but in 1449 Somerset was forced to capitulate to a strong expedition, and the English left the town for ever.
By the middle of the next century we find Rouen in the thick of religious troubles. In 1562 it was for six months in Huguenot hands, six months of warfare, oppression and persecution of all Romanists within the walls, with worse to follow; for when the Royalists recaptured the town they repaid the Huguenots in their own coin, and revenged the Catholic ma.s.sacres with a terrible revenge. After this the Army of the League held Rouen until, in 1596, Henry IV. of France effected an entrance into the town.
Nowadays the first view of Rouen is a smoky, dreary little station, surrounded by _cochers_ and porters in linen blouses; but Arthur Young, an agriculturist of the eighteenth century, visited the old city during his travels, before the days of the "iron way," and he was more fortunate in what he saw from his _diligence_: "The first view of Rouen is sudden and striking; but the road doubling, in order to turn more gently down the hill, presents from an elbow the finest view of a town I have ever seen; the whole city, with all its churches and convents, and its cathedral proudly rising in the midst, fills the vale. The river presents one reach crossed by the bridge, and then, dividing into two fine channels, forms a large island covered with wood; the rest of the vale, full of verdure and cultivation, of gardens and habitations, finish the scene, in perfect unison with the great city that forms the capital feature." To get this view to-day one must climb the long, dusty hill to the convent of Bon Secours, or rather, half-way only, since the city, river and meadows, show their beauties just as well from a lower point, and the modern convent and church upon the hilltop are not worth a further climb.
From the main street of the town the Cathedral is reached by the Rue de la Grosse Horloge, which leads underneath the archway of the belfry. The Tour St. Romain rises at the end of the street like a tall white guide, and here, suddenly, we find ourselves face to face with the west facade of Notre Dame. The remark made by an American traveller, that he found Rome very much out of repair, is appropriate to many of the French cathedrals. Scheduled as historic monuments, they receive annually a dole from the Government towards maintenance and restoration, but so miserable is this contribution, and so inadequate to the possibility of early completion of the work, that a generation may pa.s.s away before the scaffolding is finally removed. The west portal of Rouen is half covered by a forest of timbering. Rheims suffers even more, and the same may be said for Notre Dame at Evreux, St. Urbain at Troyes, and many other cathedrals. Such glimpses, however, as we get of the west front of Rouen show us its glory. Ruskin writing of it says: "It is the most exquisite piece of pure Flamboyant work existing. There is not one cusp, one finial, that is useless, not a stroke of the chisel is in vain; the grace and luxuriance of it all are visible--sensible, rather, even to the uninquiring eye; and all its minuteness does not diminish the majesty, while it increases the mystery of the n.o.ble and unbroken vault."
Of the origin of this Flamboyant style a distinguished French writer, M.
Enlart, in a paper lately read before the Archaeological Inst.i.tute of Great Britain, has a.s.serted that it is to be found not in France, but in England; and specialising the west front of Rouen, he further states that, in the arrangement of its large bay enclosing the rose window and flanked by tiers of statues, it recalls absolutely the facades, earlier in date, of the cathedrals of Wells, Salisbury and Lichfield.
With one or two exceptions, viz., St. Urbain at Troyes and a chapel in Amiens Cathedral, the Flamboyant style did not appear in France until the last quarter of the fourteenth century, and when it had once taken root, it maintained its integrity until the Renaissance, having the same characteristics from one end of the country to the other. It was not the evolution of any previous French style, but it derived its origin, as above stated, from a style which existed in England a century before.
Roughly speaking, the features which distinguish the Flamboyant are, first, the ogee arch which is typical of the style, then special systems of vaulting, and flowing tracery of windows, forms of arches, "anse de panier," &c., arch mouldings dying into piers without impost or capital, and generally a love of vegetal and undulating decoration. This "decorative caprice" reigned in France in the fifteenth century at a time when the Perpendicular style became universal in England and had completely driven out the ogee arch.
The occupation of the greater part of France by the English in the Hundred Years" War would naturally result in an English influence being noticeable in its buildings, the contact of nations producing an exchange of art as of commerce. The Flamboyant may therefore be said to be the by-product of the Hundred Years" War.
There is doc.u.mentary evidence that both at Rouen and at Evreux the foreign occupation did not interfere with the work going on at the cathedrals; indeed, at Rouen, two canons of York were received with the greatest courtesy by the chapter, and contributions were made by the English towards the completion of the Cathedral. The domination of the English was no hindrance to the progress of art in France, and as soon as the latter had freed itself and realised its national unity, its architects applied themselves heart and soul to the development of this style which was "borrowed from the enemy."
A long list can be made of buildings where the ogee arch and other typical features obtained in England, from the end of the thirteenth to the latter part of the fourteenth century, during which time no parallels existed in France. One of the most ancient examples is Queen Eleanor"s Cross at Northampton (1291-1294), where Flamboyant features show themselves.
The tomb of William de la Merche at Wells (1302), Aymer de Valence at Westminster (1323), and many other early fourteenth-century examples, furnished by almost every cathedral, testify to the prevalence of the pa.s.sion for the ogee motive of decoration. These are given in detail by M. Enlart as irrefragable proofs of the English origin of the Flamboyant style.
The interior of the Cathedral of Rouen is considered by Mr. Bond to be curiously Romanesque in plan. Its nave bays are four-storied, an upper and lower pier arch with small triforium and clerestory. The upper pier arch might also be regarded as a triforium, for a pa.s.sage-way runs along the sill of the arch and is continued behind the main piers on an elegant group of shafted corbels. These were originally intended to support a vault of a lower aisle. The east end is more dignified and has simpler factors, clerestory, triforium and pier arch. The gla.s.s is magnificent, dating from the thirteenth century.
[Ill.u.s.tration: RUE DE L"HORLOGE, ROUEN]
South of the Cathedral a narrow street leads eventually to the river by way of the _halles_, the Place Haute-Vieille-Tour and its sister of the Ba.s.se-Vieille-Tour. The first square is a large open place, fenced round with solid stone buildings, and having on its south side the Chapelle de la Fierte Saint-Romain. With this monument, on which a flight of steps leads up to a Renaissance chapel of six stages, is connected a curious _privilege_ and legend, both of which have of course been recorded before, but which are interesting enough to bear repet.i.tion. The charter for this privilege was accorded to the chapter of Rouen Cathedral by King Dagobert--he who founded the Abbey of Saint Denis. Each year, on Ascension Day, the archbishop was empowered to release a man condemned to death; and therefore every Ascension Day the good folk of Rouen flocked into the streets to watch the procession of the Fierte Saint-Romain. First came the solemn visit of the arm of the Church to the arm of the Law, with the annual formal proclamation of the privilege. Then every prison in the city must be searched, and every prisoner put on oath and examined as to the cause of his imprisonment.
Finally the election of the favoured prisoner was put to the vote by the chapter, his name sent to the Palais de Justice, and the paper duly signed and sealed, after which the "messe du prisonnier" was celebrated in the Salle des Pas-Perdus; and finally, the prisoner himself was called before his lords, secular and spiritual, and formally examined; he then confessed to the chaplain of Saint-Romain, his fetters were removed, and he followed the archbishop to the Place Haute-Vieille-Tour, where, in the Chapelle de la Fierte, a solemn service made him once more a free man. A solemn and magnificent procession then bore him, crowned with flowers, to the great thanksgiving Ma.s.s, after which he was free to go whither he would. No less curious is the legend connected with the ceremony. It is said that while Romain was bishop of Rouen a terrible dragon laid waste all the land and devoured the inhabitants.
No one dared to approach this monster, who was known as the Gargoyle, until Saint Romain, armed only with his sanct.i.ty, set out to subdue it, accompanied by a condemned criminal--the prototype of those who were released on Holy Thursday--when the Gargoyle at once submitted and, with the episcopal stole round its neck, was led by the prisoner to the water"s edge. The sequel does not reflect much credit upon the bishop--at least, it seems rather of the nature of meanness to conjure the beast into good nature and then to push it, all unawares, into the river to drown. At the head of the Portail de la Calende, the north porch of the Cathedral, stands the figure of Saint Romain, and under his feet, with the stole round its neck, is the Gargoyle, craning its head round to look into the face of the bishop with the expression of a very hideous but very faithful dog--a most disarming expression if it be meant to represent that worn by the Gargoyle before it was sent to its death! In memory of this occurrence, the standard of the dragon was borne in the processions at the _privilege_--banners similar to those of the dragons at Bayeux and Salisbury. The legend, however, appears to be of later date than the festival, which is mentioned certainly as early as the twelfth century, and continued to delight the Rouennais as late as 1790.
The Abbey Church of St. Ouen is placed at the head of the collegiate churches of France so far as its beauty and perfection of architecture is concerned. In its proportion of nave, transepts and choir it is considered to outshine Cologne, its great rival and contemporary. The vast area of clerestory and glazed triforium recalls the interior arrangement of Amiens. The triforium pa.s.sage is worked between the lower mullions of the windows, which are duplicated; but, as is pointed out by Mr. Bond, care was taken that the inner and the outer tracery of the windows should be different in pattern. Freeman says: "St. Ouen goes further to unite the two forms of excellence"--external outline and internal height--"than any other church, French or English," and states that "St. Ouen is the loftiest church in the world that has a real central tower."
This central lantern is, according to Ferguson, a very n.o.ble feature and appropriate to its position; unhappily it does not enjoy the admiration of all writers: Ruskin condemns the false b.u.t.tresses of the tower, which he describes as merely a hollow crown, and declares that it needs no more b.u.t.tressing than does a basket.
The third church of Rouen is that of St. Maclou. Its most noticeable feature is the west end, which terminates in a very beautiful porch of pentagonal form, and might be taken as another example of the rich Flamboyant ornament seen in the western facade of the Cathedral. The church itself is a complete specimen of its period, and dates from the latter half of the fifteenth century.
On the north side of the church, in the Rue Martainville, is the Aitre de St. Maclou, an old parish cemetery of the fifteenth century. There is a small quadrangle, an old disused stone well with an iron crucifix in the centre, and round all runs a cloister with two low stories, timbered in black and white, with the famous "Danse Macabre" carved on the lower beams. It is now used as a school for the poor children of Rouen, and on working days is full of life--the life of a growing generation going on side by side with the relics of a dead and half-forgotten past, for the quaint seriousness of an old fifteenth-century builder has traced upon the lintel a constant reminder of death and the grave--skulls, bones, spades, and here and there a grim skeleton Death bearing away a human figure in his arms. Many of the most beautiful figures are headless, not from the ravages of a symbolic Death, but from those of a very real and equally unsparing hand--the hand of the Revolution.
During the Franco-Prussian War Rouen had unhappily to record its own chapter of reverses, when the French determined to dislodge Manteuffel.
Faidherbe"s army, together with the army of the Havre and General Roy"s army of the South, had planned out an admirable scheme, which, however, was lacking in one essential, actual execution. Manteuffel was to be routed and driven out of Rouen. The Prussians were equally confident of success, and it is said that Manteuffel ordered his train to take him to Amiens to be ready next day at twelve o"clock, by which time he felt sure that he would have disposed of the enemy.
[Ill.u.s.tration: RUE ST. ROMAIN, ROUEN]
"The battle began before daylight, the pursuit lasted until after dark and was resumed on the following morning; but the victory was virtually gained when the first blow was struck, or, rather, the first shot fired.
Here and there, on the road along which they were driven, or on the wooded heights by which the road is in many places commanded, they made a desperate resistance, but it was throughout a question, in regard to the French, of the rate of retreat, never a question of retreat and advance."
Chapter Five
EVREUX AND LISIEUX
We left Rouen by a "quick" train, that is, one which occupied itself in stopping at every wayside station that caught its fancy. However, this mattered little, as the road to Evreux runs through the most enchanting country, and we had plenty of time to admire it. Wonderful woods stretch over the slope of the hills and widen out into valleys scattered with old timbered farm-houses, and here and there a chateau, seen amongst the trees of its _propriete_; little poplar-shaded rivers run through the fields, decked in holiday garlands of loosestrife and meadowsweet and unmolested by any eager _pecheur_, whether boy with string and bent pin, or more "compleat angler" with rod and line. The Seine, divested of barge and steam tug, greets one by glimpses now and then; and after leaving the tunnel before Elbuf, it bursts suddenly into view--a wide sweep of river, with the busy little town by its side. Then the valley closes in all at once, and we run under the shadow of chalk cliffs with steep scarped faces and deep caverns, into whose blackness we may almost peer from the carriage window. Lastly comes a run up on to high ground again; and there below, shut in by hills, with three towers rising from its low roofs, is Evreux. The railway takes a great curve from one side of the town to the other before running into the station, so that the place pa.s.ses in review before one; and it is an impressive review, seen as we first saw it, in the light of a summer sundown, a purple haze, "mystic, wonderful," hanging like a veil over the little town.
Besides the Cathedral and the bishop"s palace, Evreux possesses little that strikes one as being either very old or very new; a cheerful, clean mediocrity prevails all through the town, which, nevertheless, dates back to very early times. Remains of a Roman settlement have been discovered some little distance away, at Vieil Evreux, then known as Mediolanum Aulercolum, and afterwards as Eburovices, whence is derived the modern name of Evreux. A bishopric was founded at Evreux by St.
Taurin, during the great movement towards Christianity in the fourth century; later, Clovis destroyed the Roman encampment and founded a town of his own, which in its turn was burnt and pillaged by the Northmen in the ninth century. After this it probably shared the bounty of its former scourge, Duke Rolf, and became part of the Norman duchy and a Naboth"s vineyard to Count Thibaut of Chartres, who did actually take possession of it in 962, though Richard the Fearless must have reclaimed the town, as he presented the "Comte d"Evreux," which was to pa.s.s later into the family of Montfort l"Amaury, to one of his younger sons. Henry I. set fire to Evreux for some mysterious reason, but with the full consent of the bishop, who must have had peculiar ideas on the subject of his pastoral duties; and in the reign of Cur-de-Lion John Lackland gave it up to the French Crown, and afterwards, filled with remorse, or more probably with alarm, at the news that his brother was returning from Palestine and might demand what had become of Evreux, ordered a general ma.s.sacre of the French garrison quartered there and ran away himself, leaving his wretched English subjects to bear the brunt of the French king"s wrath when the story should come to his knowledge.
[Ill.u.s.tration: EVREUX]
After several vicissitudes of this kind, Evreux was in 1404 finally joined to the Crown of France, though it still seems to have been tossed about in the most confusing way, and we hear of it as belonging now to France, now to Navarre, then sold to the Darnley Stuarts and back again to France; and so on until Napoleon, having divorced Josephine, presented her out of his imperial bounty with a part of the Comte d"Evreux as a compensation for her trials. The modern town, however, has not at all the air of having been the plaything of kings and states. The only noticeable traces of its ancient warfare are the machicolated walls of the bishop"s palace, and the moat below, running between the palace and the Boulevard Chambaudin. The moat is now filled up by a kitchen-garden--a striking example of how peace has succeeded war in Evreux--but it is easy to imagine how it must have looked in the old days; the dark, still water, the steep walls rising up to their turrets, the treacherous machicolations, apparently ornamental but in reality only too useful, and above it all the grey towers of Notre Dame.
The interior of the Cathedral extends in date from the Romanesque to the Renaissance period. The nave bays offer examples of what is known as "skeleton construction"; they consist of a Romanesque pier arch (said to be the remaining work of Lanfranc) surmounted by a large clerestory and small glazed triforium; the clerestory wall, as Mr. Bond points out, is so shallow that it "ceases to exist _qua_ wall." It is in some way a.n.a.logous to the choir of Gloucester in its "attenuated construction."
The lights are filled in with gla.s.s, apparently of the late fifteenth century. As Whewell says, the transepts and part of the choir are most remarkable and most ancient examples of the Flamboyant style. The choir, burnt down in 1346, was restored in the second half of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries; the transept was finished about 1450. The English took possession of the town in 1418, but this did not in any way hinder the work from being carried on. In 1422 Tchan le Boy was made _maitre de l"uvre_, and to him is attributed the Lantern Tower, springing from a beautiful vaulted base. The _vitrail_ of the Saintes Maries and its mouldings, probably designed by Le Boy, follows the English type.
Evreux is, according to Whewell, "a mixture of Flamboyant and Renaissance. The Flamboyant dies down gradually into Italian, especially in the series of wooden screens to the chapels round the choir, where every sort of mixture is noticeable." In some of the gla.s.s and on the outside panels of the west doors the artists have attempted to show their knowledge of the newly-discovered science of perspective, but they pay little regard to the vanishing point. On the north side, the windows of the aisle, with high pediments cutting the bal.u.s.trades, are very beautiful examples of the prevailing style. The western towers "are to be considered as Gothic conceptions expressed in cla.s.sical phrases."
In the far west of the town, at the end of the Rue Josephine, lies Saint Taurin, the second church of Evreux, in its quiet little square, screened by magnificent elm-trees, a square and solid-looking building, with a good deal of work that is very interesting and undoubtedly ancient. Originally the church formed part of a Benedictine Abbey founded in 1026; an ancient crypt remains, built, as purports to be the case with so many churches, round the tomb of the patron, Saint Taurin, who in the fourth century brought Christianity into the town, and whose story may be read in the fifteenth-century gla.s.s of the choir. His relics are preserved in a wonderful carved casket of the thirteenth century, which may be seen by the curious in the church treasury. In three bays of the south nave the vaulting ends in some curious stone carving in the form of grotesque heads, which belong to the sixteenth century.
"Once a cathedral, always a cathedral" was the theory which led us to Lisieux _en route_ for Bayeux. It seemed almost as absurd that the great church of St. Pierre should not be counted a cathedral as that St.
Etienne and the other churches of Caen should be churches and nothing more. In this respect, indeed, Lisieux takes precedence of Caen, for until the days of the Empire she had a bishopstool of her own, while Caen never actually possessed the dignity of an episcopal see.
Lisieux is one stage further on the high road between French Normandy and Norman Normandy, and is some way over the Norman border; at Rouen, at Evreux even, we were in France, but here all around us, as at Bayeux, are signs and tokens of a land more closely akin to our own, and we feel that we have at last reached Normandy proper. Lisieux, both for its Cathedral and for itself, is full of interest. The general impression is that of a bright little place with a great deal of life--the life of shop and market--to be seen on all sides, but none of the modern commercial spirit, such as dominates a place like Rouen. There is a very mediaeval air about Lisieux, and the old houses, of which there are plenty, are to be found not in out-of-the-way alleys, but in the chief streets. The Grande Rue has one magnificent specimen, now a boot-maker"s shop, opposite the Rue du Paradis; down at the bottom of the hill, in the Rue de Caen, is a house where Charlotte Corday spent the night on the way to Paris to fulfil her terrible mission, and the Rue aux Fevres, where one seems to have walked straight into the Middle Ages, contains the "Manoir de Francois Ier," a beautiful sixteenth-century house, from whose name one would at least suppose that Francois once spent a night there, whereas he probably never went near the place, and its chief claim to the t.i.tle lies in the abundance of carved salamanders on the splendid house-front, and even these are mixed up with apes and other grotesque creatures.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TOWER OF EVREUX]
The Church of St. Jacques stands almost at the top of the hill, between the Rue St. Jacques and the Marche au Beurre, where most of the straggling streets converge. It was built in the last years of the fifteenth century, and is a fairly complete specimen of the French style of that period, standing upon a long, wide flight of steps, with a bal.u.s.trade running completely round the building. The floor inside follows the slope of the hill, and slants upwards from west to east.
The church contains some half-effaced frescoes on the nave pillars, and a very curious old painting on wood, representing the miraculous translation of St. Ursin"s relics to Lisieux in 1055. This picture hangs in a chapel in the south aisle, dedicated to St. Antony of Padua, not in St. Ursin"s own chapel, which is on the other side of the nave.
Lisieux looks like a town with a history, and, like most French towns, goes back to Roman times, when it was known as Noviomagus or as Lexovii, from the Gallic tribe which had settled there. Rolf obtained it as part of his Norman duchy; Geoffrey Plantagenet and Stephen of Blois fought over it and between them reduced the town to a terrible state of famine, for which Henry II. of England tried to make amends by causing his own marriage with Eleanor of Poitou to take place in the Cathedral.
Thomas a Becket took refuge at Lisieux on one occasion and left behind him some vestments, which are proudly displayed in the chapel of the _Hospice_.
During the Hundred Years" War and the religious quarrels two centuries later, Lisieux shared the fate of other towns as regards sieges and conflagrations; but after this we hear little of its history, and may a.s.sume that it emerged from its trials much as we see it now--busy and peaceful once more, with leisure to turn again to the old-world town routine which makes the Lisieux of to-day.
The interior of St. Pierre, according to Whewell, "bears a great resemblance to Early English work, although the French square abacus is still to be found here. The round abacus is noticeable in the arcades under the windows of the choir, giving quite an English look to this portion of the church." There is at the west end a large interior porch, which is referred to by most writers on architecture. The two towers vary in their openings, one having lancet lights and the other small round-headed windows. The nave is large, consisting of eight bays, and built, it is said, about 1160. The tympana of the choir triforium arches are filled with plate tracery, quatrefoil and cusped. The most beautiful interior elevation, however, is that of the north wall of the transept. Here the three large upper lights remind one of the well-known "Five Sisters" at York. The lower double-light window is deeply recessed, with elegant cl.u.s.ters of engaged shafts supporting the graceful mouldings round the opening. The transept also possesses an eastern aisle, which is said to be a rarity in France.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. JACQUES LISIEUX]