The Cathedrals of Southern France

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.

XI

CATHÉDRALE D'AGDE

This tiny Mediterranean city was founded originally by the Phœnicians as a commercial port, and finally grew, in spite of its diminutive proportions, to great importance.

Says an old writer: "Agde is not so very big, but it is Rich and Trading-Merchantmen can now come pretty near Agde and Boats somewhat large enter into the Mouth of the River; where they exchange many Commodities for the Wines of the Country."

Agde formerly, as if to emphasize its early importance, had its own viscounts, whose estates fell to the share of those of Nîmes; but in 1187, Bernard Atton, son of a Viscount of Nîmes, presented to the Bishop of Agde the viscounty of the city. Thus, it is seen, a certain good-fellowship must have existed between the Church and state of a former day.

Formerly travellers told tales of Agde, whereby one might conclude its aspect was as dull and gloomy as "Black Angers" of King John's time; and from the same source we learn of the almost universal use of a dull, slate-like stone in the construction of its buildings. To-day this dulness is not to be remarked. What will strike the observer, first and foremost, as being the chief characteristic, is the castellated ci-devant cathedral church. Here is in evidence the blackish basalt, or lava rock, to a far greater extent than elsewhere in the town. It was a good medium for the architect-builder to work in, and he produced in this not great or magnificent church a truly impressive structure.

The bishopric was founded in the fifth century under St. Venuste, and came to its end at the suppression in 1790. Its former cathedral is cared for by the Ministère des Beaux-Arts as a monument historique. The structure was consecrated as early as the seventh century, when a completed edifice was built up from the remains of a pagan temple, which formerly existed on the site. Mostly, however, the work is of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, notably the massive square tower which, one hundred and twenty feet in height, forms a beacon by sea and a landmark on shore which no wayfarer by ship, road, or rail is likely to miss.

A cloister of exceedingly handsome design and arrangement is attached to the cathedral, where it is said the mâchicoulis is the most ancient known. This feature is also notable in the roof-line of the nave, which, with the extraordinary window piercings and their disposition, heightens still more the suggestion of the manner of castle-building of the time. The functions of the two edifices were never combined, though each – in no small way – frequently partook of many of the characteristics of the other.

Aside from this really beautiful cloister, and a rather gorgeous, though manifestly good, painted altar-piece, there are no other noteworthy accessories; and the interest and charm of this not really great church lie in its aspect of strength and utility as well as its environment, rather than in any real æsthetic beauty.

XII

ST. NAZAIRE DE BÉZIERS

St. Nazaire de Béziers is, in its strongly fortified attributes of frowning ramparts and well-nigh invulnerable situation, a continuation of the suggestion that the mediæval church was frequently a stronghold in more senses than one.

The church fabric itself has not the grimness of power of the more magnificent St. Cécile at Albi or Notre Dame at Rodez, but their functions have been much the same; and here, as at Albi, the ancient episcopal palace is duly barricaded after a manner that bespeaks, at least, forethought and strategy.

These fortress-churches of the South seem to have been a product of environment as much as anything; though on the other hand it may have been an all-seeing effort to provide for such contingency or emergency as might, in those mediæval times, have sprung up anywhere.

At all events, these proclaimed shelters, from whatever persecution or disasters might befall, were not only for the benefit of the clergy, but for all their constituency; and such stronghold as they offered was for the shelter, temporary or protracted, of all the population, or such of them as could be accommodated. Surely this was a doubly devout and utilitarian object.

In this section at any rate – the extreme south of France, and more particularly to the westward of the Bouches-du-Rhône– the regional "wars of religion" made some such protection necessary; and hence the development of this type of church-building, not only with respect to the larger cathedral churches, but of a great number of the parish churches which were erected during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

The other side of the picture is shown by the acts of intolerance on the part of the Church, for those who merely differed from them in their religious tenets and principles. Fanatics these outsiders may have been, and perhaps not wholly tractable or harmless, but they were, doubtless, as deserving of protection as were the faithful themselves. This was not for them, however, and as for the violence and hatred with which they were held here, one has only to recall that at Béziers took place the crowning massacres of the Albigenses – "the most learned, intellectual, and philosophic revolters from the Church of Rome."

Beneath the shadow of these grim walls and towers over twenty thousand men and women and children were slaughtered by the fanatics of orthodox France and Rome; led on and incited by the Bishop of Béziers, who has been called – and justly as it would seem – "the blackest-souled bigot who ever deformed the face of God's earth."

The cathedral at Béziers is not a great or imposing structure when taken by itself. It is only in conjunction with its fortified walls and ramparts and commanding situation that it rises to supreme rank.

It is commonly classed as a work of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, and with the characteristics of its era and local environment, it presents no very grand or ornate features.

Its first general plan was due to a layman-architect, Gervais, which perhaps accounts for a certain lack of what might otherwise be referred to as ecclesiastical splendour.

The remains of this early work are presumably slight; perhaps nothing more than the foundation walls, as a fire in 1209 did a considerable damage.

The transepts were added in the thirteenth century, and the two dwarfed towers in the fourteenth, at which period was built the clocher (151 feet), the apside, and the nave proper.

There is not a great brilliancy or refulgent glow from the fabric from which St. Nazaire de Béziers is built; as is so frequent in secular works in this region. The stone was dark, apparently, to start with, and has aged considerably since it was put into place. This, in a great measure, accounts for the lack of liveliness in the design and arrangement of this cathedral, and the only note which breaks the monotony of the exterior are the two statues, symbolical of the ancient and the modern laws of the universe, which flank the western portal – or what stands for such, did it but possess the dignity of magnitude.

So far as the exterior goes, it is one's first acquaintance with St. Nazaire, when seen across the river Orb, which gives the most lively and satisfying impression.

The interior attributes of worth and interest are more numerous and pleasing.

The nave is aisleless, but has numerous lateral chapels. The choir has a remarkable series of windows which preserve, even to-day, their ancient protecting grilles– a series of wonderfully worked iron scrolls. These serve to preserve much fourteenth-century glass of curious, though hardly beautiful, design. To a great extent this ancient glass is hidden from view by a massive eighteenth-century retable, which is without any worth whatever as an artistic accessory.

A cloister of the fourteenth century flanks the nave on the south, and is the chief feature of really appealing quality within the confines of the cathedral precincts.

The view from the terrace before the cathedral is one which is hardly approachable elsewhere. For many miles in all directions stretches the low, flat plain of Languedoc; the Mediterranean lies to the east; the Cevennes and the valley of the Orb to the north; with the lance-like Canal du Midi stretching away to the westward.

As might be expected, the streets of the city are tortuous and narrow, but there are evidences of the march of improvement which may in time be expected to eradicate all this – to the detriment of the picturesque aspect.

XIII

ST. JEAN DE PERPIGNAN

Perpignan is another of those provincial cities of France which in manners and customs sedulously imitate those of their larger and more powerful neighbours.