The Church of Saint-Maximin

So persuasive was M. Rostan that when I had read his account of all this, sitting in front of the fire at my inn, within a stone's throw of the great church that had been the scene of so many strange and moving happenings, it is small wonder that I was inclined to believe at least a good half of it. It was my first introduction to the legend, which was to colour so much of my future wanderings, and many of the facts that I have given were unknown to me then. I thought, at least, that the main facts vouching for its truth went much farther back than they seem to, and if it was difficult to accept quite that galaxy of New Testament names, or the story of the miraculous voyage, still I thought there might be some truth in the tradition as attaching to some of them.

What emerges as indisputable fact, and what moved me at the time, is that through some centuries countless people did believe in every word of it, and thronged this little town where I was resting from all parts of the then known world. And there in the church which I was to see on the morrow was—no doubt about this either—the very thing that had brought them here—princes and prelates, hard soldiers and lawyers, men and women of every degree, making journeys, some of them, of immense difficulty just for the sake of beholding what I or any other traveller coming into a dull little town could see for a few sous before passing on our way. Or would not even take the trouble to see. A man with whom I had talked at dinner came to Saint-Maximin several times in the year and had never seen it. He was 'bon Catholique,' too, and said that there was no doubt at all that it was the head of St. Mary Magdalene they had in the church there. Some day he would go and see it, but not to-morrow, for he was too busy.

You may put your finger on strange gaps in such a story; you may find the first foundations upon which it rests too weak to bear it; parts of it you may refuse altogether to believe. But make what deductions you wish, and what a lot remains.

Some poor tired body was laid to rest in the soil from which this great church has sprung at a time when there were still alive those who had walked and talked with Our Lord; and it was the body of one who was venerated. Out of the dusk of successive centuries come gleams of light that show innumerable people, who differed not so greatly from ourselves, believing that the remains they had knowledge of were those that their forbears had held in honour from the beginning. It becomes hardly more difficult to believe that they were than that they were not.

Say that there has been error, say that there has been fraud if you like, and what have you denied? Nothing in the way of strong and moving power over those who have believed. There is the church, to which men whose names stand out in history made successive gifts through two centuries and a half, until it stood the splendid monument that it is today. There is the dust that countless pilgrims' feet have trodden for two centuries past. There is the echo of prayers and hymns, sighs from burdened hearts and praise from lightened ones that have gone up through ages from this place. The Revolution, which was to sweep away all error and superstition, might despise these sanctities, and scatter the venerated human dust, but it could not destroy the least particle of the faith that had been. It did not move the iconoclasts, but it had moved the world, and its effects remain in spite of them.

The wind had blown itself out the next morning and the air was cold, but sunny and still, as I paid my early visit to the church.

Its beauty is compelling, and when I had walked round it I sat down and tried to find out for myself in what it consists.

The first impression is one of austere simplicity. There are a nave and two aisles, with chapels, no transepts, and except for the Renaissance work about the choir and the altar, and the fine pulpit, scarcely any decoration. Rows of clustered pillars carry arches between the nave and the aisles; and between the arches spring from the floor itself successive groups of three very slender pillars, like rods of stone attached to the wall, which run up uninterrupted far above the arcading, until from a simple moulding spring the delicate ribs of the vaulting, all as light as if it were a roof of leaves held up by slim tree-trunks. The sense of lightness is wonderful, gained as it is without the slightest disguise of the solid masonry, by sculpture or other suggestion; and the wonder increases when one remembers that this is not the work of one architectural genius, but the flower of many successive periods of building. It is clean and strong and beautiful, a church with a true religious significance.

The choir contains some very fine wood-carving and metal-work of the seventeenth century, and above the gilt and jasper of the high altar is a rich device of almost life-size angels and cherubs, surrounding and enclosing a little oval window on which the Holy Dove is emblazoned. The morning sun, shining through this window, made a striking effect, though it is perhaps at variance with the pure dignity of the church itself. The celestial figures are wrought with a gay and delightful luxuriance of imagination. They overflow from the main composition with its sweep and spread of angels' wings; delicious cherubic forms perch on the marble of the reredos, on the carved frames of the medallions which it encloses, on the rich screens of the choir itself; and each of them has its own attitude of devotion, or interest, or expectation, or even curiosity.[5]

The inspiration of the Gothic had begun to die away when the fabric of the church had come near to completion. We may perhaps be thankful that it was never quite finished, for it has such perfection of life as it stands: life that sprang from an impulse lasting through centuries. No such impulse exists now. It is safe to say that the most understanding and sympathetic architecture would seem like a dead thing if it were sought to complete what was left undone.

The church lovers of the Renaissance made no such mistake. Their work was alive, too, and they spent their inspiration not on the beautiful fabric of the church but on its rich furnishing. What they wrought is as far away from us as the work of the Gothic builders was from them, and it is almost as unapproachable.

The iconoclasts of the Revolution wreaked their devastating zeal upon this Gloria, and upon any symbol or figure in the rich carvings of the choir that spoke of power or privilege. The church itself they spared, though you may see a device of fleur de lys on a boss of the roof vaulting spitefully disfigured by bullets.

What was it that they hated so? The arrogance of a church that had allied itself too much with the rich and powerful and worked on superstitions of mankind to gain riches and power and glory to itself, when there was so much wretchedness all around that it made small attempts to cope with? They would have said so, and to imagine them possessed only by the spirit of wickedness would be to make the same mistake about them as they made about the Church. In that dark hour the Church reaped the reward of its virtues at the same time as it paid for its sins. To the extent that it had been faithful those who had drawn comfort and consolation from it came to its aid; and if the fury of its attackers had been ten times as great they could not have stamped out the life that persisted through all the years of destruction; and flowered again profusely when the poor substitutes that had been planted in its place had wilted away. Religion could have done everything to heal the wrongs that had been suffered by the people who were now rising up to take the redress of wrongs into their own hands; and religion had done very little. It had been chiefly on the side of the oppressors, not of the oppressed. At its best it had given consolation in trouble that it had not sought to remove, at its worst it had committed crimes unspeakable. No wonder that a blind, insensate fury against the outward tokens of such a system seized those who thought that they had a mission to remove all oppression from the world. The buildings that enshrined it they could put to other uses, and the churches themselves were spared. But sacred relics they scattered to the dust with bitter contempt, and the treasures of art which spoke of an impotent faith that they despised, they destroyed or mutilated.

One of the minor glories of Saint-Maximin is the Altar of the Crucifixion, or the Corpus Domini, at the end of the north aisle. The high reredos, with gilded columns and pilasters, frames two large paintings and a series of sixteen smaller ones on wood, which are of the utmost interest. It has only comparatively lately become known that these are the work of a Venetian painter of the early sixteenth century, Antonio Ronzen, who stayed at Saint-Maximin two years and a half to execute them, together with the reredos itself.

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Though Ronzen came into Provence from Venice, it seems unlikely that he was an Italian. His name is Dutch, and so is his style of painting; and a striking resemblance has been pointed out between one of these paintings and an engraving of the same subject executed by Lucas van Leyden ten years before. Wherever he came from, Ronzen was a great artist, and left behind him at Saint-Maximin a great treasure.

The sixteen panels are of different scenes in the Passion. The light was not good when I was in the church, and some of them are too high to be seen easily; but most of them are wonderfully fresh and vivid and suggestive, crowded with figures, and creating that sense of intimacy which has always been the mark of the Dutch school. Each of the scenes is set in a characteristic landscape. You can pick out the Ducal Palace at Venice, the Palace of the Popes at Avignon, the Coliseum; and the figures include all the types of the period, from the aristocrat to the peasant. Many of them, no doubt, are portraits of people very well known in their time, who came in and out of the church, or wherever the artist did his work, to see how he was getting on, and had a great deal to say about the painting and about the magnificent present that the Seigneur de SemblanÇay was making to the church, and what a fortunate thing it was that so clever an artist had been available to undertake the commission. Perhaps they used a little flattery, so that he should offer to "put them in."

He was an important person, this Jacques de Beaune, Seigneur de SemblanÇay. He was superintendent of the finances of Francis I, whose finances wanted a good deal of looking after, and lived at this time chiefly in Paris. But previously he had been Treasurer-General of Provence, and it might have been well for him if he had stayed in his own country. For he fell into disgrace, and was put to death seven years after Ronzen had finished the pictures he had ordered from him. Probably he found time, during the period from the end of 1517 to July, 1520, when Ronzen was at Saint-Maximin, to pay him a few visits and see how he was progressing. According to the custom of the time his portrait would almost certainly have been included among the figures that still appear so lifelike after five hundred years, and remains there, if we could only tell which of them all it is. Did he have any premonition or dread of the fate that was hanging over him, and did the people who were taking such a lively interest in the work he was inaugurating think of him as having attained to the pinnacle of success, and much to be envied in comparison with themselves, living humdrum lives in their beautiful Provence?

Saint-Maximin has a fine Sacristy, furnished with presses and panelling of beautifully carved walnut, of the seventeenth century. Before the Revolution it contained many rich treasures, gold cups and chalices, silver reliquaries, ornaments jewelled and enamelled. Kings and Sovereign Pontiffs had showered gifts upon it; but in 1793 everything was rifled.

"Barras and FrÉron came to carry out the spoliation. Barras presented himself to the Popular Assembly to announce his mission, and a simple peasant, Jean Saurin, who died in 1842, Member of the Club, alone rose before the representative of the Convention to protest against the act of vandalism. He spoke honourably and with energy, but without success: the church was despoiled. Some rare and precious fragments, however, were saved from the wreck by the care and devotion of the sub-sacristan, Joseph Bastide, whose name deserves to be held in grateful memory by archÆologists; for besides the sacred bones that the Church of Saint-Maximin can still offer, thanks to him, to public veneration, he was able to withdraw from the revolutionary spoliation a few rich ornaments, some ancient reliquaries, and a textile specimen of great value, the cope of St. Louis d'Anjou, Bishop of Toulouse. This cope, of the end of the thirteenth century, left by the holy bishop to the convent founded by his father, is one of the most beautiful and curious ornaments of the period."

Thus M. Rostan, who proceeds to describe it. But alas! it is no longer there. The sacristan, worthy descendant of the pious Joseph Bastide, told me the sad story after he had made me admire the beautiful woodwork and shown me how the long drawers in the presses that held the vestments drew in and out, as if they had been made yesterday instead of two hundred and fifty years ago.

He had taken such care of the treasures under his charge, locking up everything whenever he left the church, and seeing that all was fast when he went home for the night. And often he would look out of his window, in the little ancient house in which he lived hard by, to satisfy himself that no marauders were about.

But ten years ago—how well he remembered it—the marauders had come. He pointed to the iron-barred window through which they had made their entry. They had taken I forget what from the sacristy, but not the precious cope. I think he rather wished they had. Then they had broken into the church and into the crypt, and from there they had stolen the Holy Ampulla.

"This name is given," wrote M. Rostan, some years before the theft, "to a tube of crystal bearing the characters of the fourteenth century, and containing little fragments of glass, the remains of a phial still more ancient, which enclosed, according to tradition, some of the precious blood of the Saviour, collected by St. Mary Magdalene on Mount Calvary, brought by her to our country and discovered with the remains of this illustrious penitent."

The thieves had broken into the iron-protected case in which this relic was kept, together with the skull of the saint in its rich and heavy reliquary, and a bone from the arm. They had stolen the bone, too, but had left the chief treasure intact, possibly because it was too heavy and bulky to bear away with safety.

What was the meaning of this strange crime? As far as I understand what happened, the breaking in was difficult, and nothing of great intrinsic value was taken, though many things might have been. Much money, certainly, would be paid for such relics as were stolen, if they could have been bought openly; but if the fact that they had been stolen would have to be disclosed, as it would in order to attach even a damaged authenticity to them, of what value were they to anybody?

Protestant zeal, which sometimes indulges itself in a similar way in England, may be ruled out. In France it does not act with those impulsions, and in any case destruction or contemptuous mutilation would be its object rather than theft, and I think the people who had done the damage would be rather inclined to advertise it, and themselves. The sacred skull was not damaged.

Is it not forced upon one to believe that their value to the thief, or to those who may have encouraged the theft, was precisely that which they had always had; which was not represented by money at all?

"If our tradition is well-founded," wrote M. Rostan, "the Sainte Ampoule is evidently the most precious relic of the Church of Saint-Maximin. It has enjoyed wide celebrity throughout centuries, and frequent miracles have been attributed to it. On Good Friday, after the reading of the Passion, the traces of the divine blood were seen to liquefy, to rise and fall, bubbling, and to fill the whole phial. It was called the 'holy miracle.' A great crowd of pilgrims came each year to witness it."

Where is the relic hidden now? Does the thief who risked so much to possess it cherish it in secret, with his sin on his conscience, but hoping from its possession one knows not what in the way of preservation or blessing? Or is it hidden fearfully in some church—a priceless treasure that may never be displayed, but may be expected, by its secret presence, to sanctify its resting-place above other places? Do those who hold it still watch with strained attention on Good Fridays for the "holy miracle" to be performed? Do they perhaps persuade themselves that they see it, as many others must have done before them? For even M. Rostan, good and believing Catholic that he is, does not assert that the liquefaction has been plain to see within living memory.

I asked the sacristan whether the theft had been held to be the work of religious enthusiasts, but either he misunderstood me or his grievance overshadowed all such questions.

They had taken the wonderful cope out of his care. It was a unique specimen of thirteenth century needlework, and is now in safe keeping in Paris. After so many years they might have trusted him to look after it, he said, ignoring the fact that his care had proved unequal to the preservation of relics still more valuable, at least in the eyes of the Church. The Ministry of Fine Arts, or whatever authority had deprived Saint-Maximin of the cope, had been quite content that it should keep the sacred skull, showing some cynicism, it may be thought, as well as indulgence.

With much unlocking of iron grilles and doors, we descended into the crypt, the storied place that has seen so much during centuries past, where kings and popes have bent the knee, and before which so many princes and nobles have put off their arms.

It is almost square—a vaulted chamber about fourteen feet wide and a little longer, with an apse containing the altar, behind which is the reliquary enclosing the skull. The staircase leading down to it, and the side walls of the crypt itself, have been decorated with marble, comparatively recently, but the form of the chamber remains much as it always has been.

The sacred tombs, heavily carved with Biblical subjects, in the manner of the fourth century, are ranged on either side. They are said to be those of St. Maximin, St. Marcelle, St. Susan, St. Sidonius, and St. Mary Magdalene herself. They have been a good deal mutilated "by the piety of pilgrims," and in some degree made up, for the covers do not always belong to the sarcophagi on which they are fixed, or indeed to any other here.

The head of the Magdalen is contained in an elaborate gilt reliquary of the year 1860, of small artistic value. Under a heavy canopy four angels hold up a hollow metal bust with flowing hair, into which the head has been fitted.

What can one say of it? The sacristan pointed out to me the noli me tangere on the forehead, and I tried hard but could not distinguish it, though he said that it was quite plain to him. He was a believer, and I, frankly, was not, although the great antiquity of the relic and its stirring history aroused at least an endeavour to put myself in the mood of one who believed. But he, the believer, made it all appear so commonplace, holding up his stump of a candle here and there to exhibit a great curiosity, but showing no sign either in manner or speech of being moved to veneration or awe, or to any feeling outside those attaching to his customary occupation, that it is little wonder that I was scarcely able to produce any emotion at all.

One asks oneself many questions. Are not all the signs and wonders wrought by such relics as these a matter of self-deception, induced by crowds and movement and the atmosphere of enthusiasm? Or, in the rare instances in which they have been experienced by one alone, arising out of some state of ecstasy, hardly to be accepted as convincing testimony? If not, then how vaguely and arbitrarily these occult powers work! Faced by a known, even if half understood, power of nature, one knows the power to be there, and it will be felt beyond question if contact is made with it. Here, with a supposed spiritual power, there is only deadness of spirit, even with those who have the faith.

With one's facile modern venerations one is inclined to shudder at the iconoclasm of the Revolutionists, who laid rude hands on such objects as this. But may they not have been right after all? Long periods of deadness of spirit are a heavy price to pay for an occasional and questionable exhibition of arbitrary activity. And there are spiritual powers that do react to an exercise of faith, neither occasionally nor questionably, nor arbitrarily, which belief in tangible sanctities tends to obscure.

We locked and barred the grilles and doors and came up into the sunlight, leaving the much venerated relic to keep its watch in the dark crypt. With whatever lack of emotion it may be faced now, even by a believer, there has been no lack of it in the long past. And whatever view you may take of it, it is the seed from which sprang this strong and beautiful church.