“WE passed LÂon in the dark,” is a confession frequently made by travellers. The Geneva express used to stop here for dinner, and during the brief interval allowed for coffee and cigarettes many a traveller has gazed up at the great buttressed hill, silhouetted against a twilight sky, and wondered what manner of place it might be, half-fortress, half-church, rising some three hundred and fifty feet out of the plain with its crest of towers and houses.

If Paris is the type of the island cities of Gaul, surely LÂon may be called the type of the hill cities. “LÂon is the very pride of that class of town which out of Gaulish hill-forts grew into Roman and mediÆval cities. None stands so proudly on its height; none has kept its ancient character so little changed to our own day. The town still keeps itself within the walls which fence in the hill-top, and whatever there is of suburb has grown up at the foot, apart from the ancient city.”

Geologically, LÂon is a limestone island in the denuded plain of Soissonais and BÉarnais, and was a Celtic stronghold, as its name, a contraction of Laudunum, shows, dun standing for a hill fortress. The town resembles in plan a blunt crescent, one horn of which is occupied by the cathedral and citadel. An electric railway connects the upper with the lower town, and a street from the market-place leads through the Parvis to the very beautiful west faÇade of the church. Cathedral, strictly speaking, it is no longer, for at LÂon we have another of those instances, always somewhat melancholy, of a deserted bishopstool. Here it is almost more pathetic, when we remember that the Bishop of LÂon was second in importance only to the Archbishop of Rheims himself, and, going back to the days of William Longsword, we find LÂon not only a bishopric, but a capital town—one of the great trio of cities which ruled northern France and fought amongst themselves for the chief mastery. There was the Duke of Paris in his capital; there was the Duke of the Normans, an outsider who by force of arms had settled at Rouen, and was a source of continual trembling to the Parisian duchy; and there was the King of the Franks on the hill-top at LÂon, nominally suzerain of both the others, but really in daily fear lest one or other, or both, should swoop down and storm his hill-fortress and add the royal city of LÂon to lands which in those days went to any man who could get possession of them.

Tradition says that St. BÉat, who lived towards the close of the third century, gathered his faithful together in a small chapel hewn out of the rock, over which was built later on the cathedral church of Notre Dame. This church, according to M. Daboval, seems to have been still in existence in the fifth century, and was even then of sufficient importance to attract thither many scholars who wished to study the Holy Scriptures. In the twelfth century the cathedral, Bishop’s palace, and many other churches were burnt down, owing to communal troubles during the bishopric of Gaudry. The present cathedral has one specially distinctive feature: the east end, instead of being apsidal, follows the English type of a square termination. There are other churches in the neighbourhood built on a similar plan, which suggests the possibility of English architects having been engaged in their construction. LÂon is, however, in one important feature, a variant from the common arrangement in English churches of the eastern wall. It has there a great circular window only, instead of the immense wall of glass usually adopted in this country. The bays of the aisles are four-storied, in pairs, with alternating piers, and of great beauty, the ribs of the vaulting springing from clusters of light shafts. There is a large ambulatory over the aisles, “which are built up in two stories, both of them vaulted, and the upper vaulted aisle giving valuable abutment to the clerestory wall.” This internal arrangement appears to have been in favour with the architects of the early French Gothic style.

The twenty-eight side chapels are enclosed by some very lovely screens of a later date, which, being erected during the latter part of the sixteenth century, and of Renaissance design, are considered by the ultra-Gothic mind to clash with the rest of the cathedral. Nevertheless they are very beautiful in proportion and appropriateness, reticent in design, and admirable in execution.

Viollet-le-Duc, in his review of the cathedral of LÂon, says that it has a certain ring of democracy and is not of that religious aspect that attaches to Chartres, Amiens, or Rheims. From the distance it has more the appearance of a chÂteau than of a church: its nave is low when compared with other Gothic naves, and its general outside appearance shows evidence of something brutal and savage; and as far as its colossal sculptures of animals, oxen and horses, which appear to guard the upper parts of the towers, are concerned, they combine to give an impression more of terror than of a religious sentiment. One does not feel, as one regards Notre Dame de LÂon, the stamp of an advanced civilisation, as at Paris or at Amiens. Everything is rude and rough; it is the monument of a people enterprising and energetic and full of great virility. They are the same men as are seen building elsewhere in the neighbourhood—a race of giants.

As we approach Rheims from Paris, LÂon, or Soissons, there is very little sign of the vineyards which one associates with the champagne country. The “vine-clad” hills lie to the south in the Epernay district. Here to the north of the city we see only well-watered, well-timbered country, lush meadow-lands, and even market-gardens, reminding us more of the upper reaches of the Thames valley than of a wine-growing country.

Rheims chiefly recommends itself to the English mind as the place where the kings of France were crowned. It would seem also as though the fact of being crowned at Rheims was a patent of royalty, so to speak, to the kings themselves, since, as Freeman remarks, their rights were never disputed after their anointing with the sainte ampoule. “Every king of the French crowned at Rheims,” he says, “has been at once a Frenchman by birth and the undisputed heir of the founder of the dynasty. Hugh and his son Robert, neither of them born to royalty, were crowned, the one at Noyon, the other at OrlÉans. Henry the Fourth, the one king whose right was disputed, was crowned at Chartres.”

THE RAMPARTS, LÂON
THE RAMPARTS, LÂON

Like Soissons, like LÂon, like Bourges even, Rheims has carried down to modern times the remains of that prestige which must always attach to a royal city, even though the royalty have long ago departed from it. It moreover brings us once again to the story of Joan the Maid. It is the scene of her mission’s fulfilment, of France’s triumph, of the beginning of that monarchy which Louis XI. established in its complete form and which the later Bourbons wrecked; and here, when the crown is safe on her king’s head and Charles VII. has his own again, does Joan ask her reward—permission to return to her flocks in the fields of DomrÉmy. And but that this boon was too simple to grant, Joan’s story might have ended with this, her greatest triumph, instead of in the market-place at Rouen.

After the relief of OrlÉans, Joan had captured Jargeau and Beaugency, and defeated the English in a great fight at Patay, in which Talbot, the English leader, was taken prisoner. Having cleared these last obstacles from Charles’s path, she now set forth to tell him that all was ready and to persuade him to make all speed to Rheims. Speed, however, was what the Dauphin either could not or would not make; and it is always the most unsatisfactory part of the history of Joan the Maid that when she had pressed on, scarcely resting by night or day, to win back his kingdom for him, Charles seemed in no hurry to enter upon his honours, but preferred dawdling with his favourites in Touraine; and it was with the greatest difficulty that he was persuaded to ride to Rheims with Joan. Selfish indulgence, foolish favouritism, petty jealousies—were such things as these to stand in the path from which the Maid had swept all other barriers? Joan, however, was resolute. In hopes of rousing him she withdrew her army into the country, and this retreat had the desired effect. Charles the Laggard allowed himself to be brought into Rheims, and on July 17 Joan, banner in hand, stood by his side in the cathedral while the Archbishop anointed him with the holy oil and crowned him Charles VII. of France. Here, so far as Rheims is concerned, the story of Joan is at an end.

Two papal councils were held at Rheims, in the days when the Gallican Church was rising to its highest power, though it had not yet gone so far as to resent the yoke of the Papacy. Pope Leo IX. in 1049 entered the city in full state to consecrate for Abbot Heremas his newly-built monastery of Saint Remi, and followed up the consecration by convoking a vast synod composed of nearly every prelate in Europe, archbishops, bishops, abbots, clergy, and laity from every quarter, who sat at Rheims for six days; but their business seems to have been connected only with the usual canonical laws. The later council, which took place in 1119 and was presided over by Calixtus, appears to have occupied itself chiefly with quarrels between Henry of England and Louis of France on matters not even ecclesiastical. It further confirmed the Truce of God which had been imposed at Caen sixty years before, and patched up a peace between the two kings, after an interview between Henry and Calixtus at Gisors, in which the English king took care to make his case good before the Pope and to represent that all his incursions upon the territory of Louis had been made solely from religious motives.

Rheims boasts as one of its early bishops the saint Remigius, who in the fifth century baptised Clovis here with great pomp, and who received from heaven, as the legend has it, a flask of oil wherewith to anoint his king before admitting him into the Church, with the stern injunction, “Burn now that which thou hast worshipped and worship that which thou hast burnt.” This flask was preserved as one of the Church’s most precious relics until the general devastation at the time of the Revolution, when it was broken to pieces by a fanatic. At the time of the consecration of Charles X. it reappeared in a mysterious fashion, and is now shown in the TrÉsor of the cathedral with various other relics.

It is a sad fact to record that the most beautiful cathedral faÇade ever built is now almost entirely hidden by scaffolding necessary for the restoration of the building; and, judging by the appearance of the timbering and the paucity of workmen, it is not yesterday that the work was commenced, nor is it by to-morrow that it will be completed.

LÂON FROM THE BOULEVARDS
LÂON FROM THE BOULEVARDS

In the early part of the thirteenth century Robert de Coucy was entrusted with the rebuilding of the cathedral after the complete destruction of the early church by fire. He built it on a simple plan of a vast choir, no transepts, and a rather narrow nave. “Cet Édifice a toute la force de la CathÉdral de Chartres, sans en avoir la lourdeur; il rÉunit enfin les veritables conditions de la beautÉ dans les arts, la puissance et la grace; il est d’ailleurs construit en beaux materiaux, savamment appareillÉs, et l’on retrouve dans toutes ses parties un soin et une recherche fort rares À une epoque oÙ l’on batissait avec une grande rapiditÉ et souvent avec des ressources insuffisantes.”—Viollet-le-Duc. The beautiful portals, “deep and cavernous,” record by their thousand sculptures, in a clear and impressive manner, the creation of the world, the whole history of the Old Testament, the life of our Saviour and the redemption of mankind, and convey to all who pass by this great object-lesson of their faith. The tympana of these porches are glazed instead of being filled in with stone. This was done to guard against the possible breaking of the doorway lintel, which, if large, might very well give way under the weight of the superincumbent mass of stone.

Mr. Bond, referring to the deeply recessed porches of the French cathedrals—which, if we exclude the Galilees, find few analogues in the English churches—considers them as lineal descendants of the ancient narthex. “As a rule we did not care to develop the western doorways. The reason may be that our churches are all comparatively low; to give west doorways, therefore, any considerable elevation would be at the expense of the western windows. We needed western light badly in our English naves, especially in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and preferred to develop the western window at the expense of the western doorway, reaching in the end such a faÇade as that of St. George’s, Windsor.”

The bays of the nave consist of large clerestory windows filled with glorious deep blue glass, a small triforium and stilted pier arches; a very short chancel of only two bays and chevet hardly gives room for the priests and choristers, the sacrarium is therefore lengthened westwards and projects into the transepts.

To the south of the Cathedral lies the interesting Abbey Church of St. Remi, built in the eleventh century. Many of the French cathedral towns are fortunate in the possession of either an abbey or collegiate church, which existed some two or three centuries before the cathedral itself was built. At Nevers is the church of St. Etienne, at Evreux St. Taurin, at Tours St. Martin. At Angers and other places the old Romanesque basilicas are still to be found. Rheims has for its parent church the basilica of St. Remi. The western towers are Romanesque, and one of them has been left more or less unrestored; the interior has all the impressiveness of the basilica design; the pier arcades and triforium of the nave elevation occupy the whole space up to the springing of the barrel vault, and pilasters are carried down to the pier capitals, where they rest on quaint corbels of very early design. Like churches constructed in the early days, St. Remi has double aisles on either side of the nave; the choir is brought westwards to overlap the nave arches, an arrangement often found in short chancelled churches; the east end is periapsidal in plan, and the windows are filled with fine blue glass. Ferguson does not give France the credit of having many fine Romanesque churches sufficient to satisfy the splendid tastes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but he makes an exception in the case of St. Remi, and declares it to be “a vast and noble basilica of the early part of the eleventh century, presenting considerable points of similarity to those of Burgundy.”

Rheims has enjoyed for a long time popularity amongst travellers. As far back as a hundred and twenty years ago a writer, describing the town and its hotel accommodation, says: “The streets are almost all broad, strait and well built, equal in that respect to any I have seen; and the inn, the HÔtel de Moulinet, is so large and well served as not to check the emotions raised by agreeable objects, by giving an impulse to contrary vibrations in the bosom of the traveller, which at inns in France is too often the case.... We have about half a dozen real English dishes that exceed anything in my opinion to be met with in France; by English dishes I mean a turbot and lobster sauce, ham and chicken, a haunch of venison, turkey and oysters, and after these there is an end of an English table. It is an idle prejudice to class roast beef among them, for there is not better beef in the world than at Paris.... The French are cleaner in their persons, and the English in their houses.”

To look at Soissons to-day, with its pleasant walks and modern houses, few people would guess it to have played an important part in the history of north-eastern France. Yet that pleasant, modern appearance is itself a proof of what the town endured in earlier days. So fierce was the struggle it had for existence, that the old Soissons has almost worn itself out, and, seen from the outside at least, a new and prosperous town would seem to have taken its place. It might well be called the city of sieges, for few towns have suffered more in this respect. From Roman days down to the Franco-Prussian war the place has seemed good and desirable from soldiers and conquerors, and has had to pay penalty for its splendid position on the Aisne. Both CÆsar and Napoleon recognised its importance as a military station, though a stretch of eighteen hundred years divided the Soissons of one general to the Soissons of the other. Like LÂon, it was for some time a royal seat; and it was here that Clovis the Frank defeated Syagrius, “Romanorum Rex,” in 486, and turned a Roman into a Frankish kingdom, in which Soissons was for some time the capital. It was in the Abbey of St. MÉdard, which, except for some subterranean buildings, is now destroyed, that Louis le DÉbonnair was twice imprisoned by his unnatural children; and on the walls of one of these dungeons have been found some verses, apparently a description of the unfortunate prisoner, but dating only from the fifteenth century.

RHEIMS
RHEIMS

During the “Hundred Days” Soissons was twice taken and twice retaken in the course of a month. BlÜcher laid siege to the town in 1814, and but for a sudden surrender on the part of the governor, which gave it into his hands for the time, it would probably have been annihilated by Napoleon, who, as matters turned out, had not time to come up with the Prussian Army. In 1870 another Prussian force entered the town under the Duke of Mecklenburg, after a siege which closes the roll of Soissons’ struggles.

On both occasions of our visiting Soissons, we came away with the feeling that the interior of the Cathedral of Notre Dame was even more impressive than that of Rheims. It is, indeed, a worthy rival to its neighbouring sister church; the beautiful proportions of the nave, the simplicity and purity of the carved capitals, the splendid glass, render it one of the most beautiful cathedrals of France. There is a lovely little chapel in the salle capitulaire at the west end, approached by a cloister, early Gothic in design, with its vaulting supported by two graceful columns, which reminds one of some of the chapter houses of our English cathedrals.

In the Place du Cloitre is a doorway into the Cathedral, with a graceful pediment enclosing a high-springing Gothic tympanum, which is glazed. The mouldings of the arch have alternating crocketted courses, and the capitals are carved to represent vine leaves and grapes. It is not easy to understand why so beautiful a porch should occupy so obscure a position, unless it were in the early days some special entrance for the bishops or for the canons.

On the south side there is a Transition, semicircular chapel or apse, with a roof lower than that of the rest of the Cathedral. A low clerestory, with three lights, and a small triforium, whose base rakes with the main triforium of the church, form the upper members of the elevation. Below there is a graceful three-arched ambulatory, large and open, spreading backwards over a vaulted chapel. The main arches, simple and delicate in design, complete the whole bay.

SOISSONS
SOISSONS

Soissons was laid out on a plan which recalls the plan of Noyon. Its south transept, as at Noyon, dating from the end of the twelfth century, is rounded and flanked by a circular chapel. Although it is doubtful whether the Cathedral of Soissons was built in the latter part of the twelfth century, or only commenced at that time, it is certain that the nave and choir have the distinct appearance of thirteenth-century design. During this period, however, a kind of uncertainty existed in the planning of the religious edifices. These were constructed on a vast scale, and emancipated themselves from the restricted Romanesque design in obedience to the religious movement which declared itself during the reigns of Louis le Jeune and Philippe Auguste, but the cathedral type had not yet been created. The requirements of the nascent ceremonial were not yet fulfilled.

The once magnificent and now ruined Abbey of St. Jean des Vignes is situated on the hill facing the entrance to the town from the station. The west end only remains, surmounted by two towers with spires. “These are a great ornament to the town, and were spared at the entreaty of the citizens when the ruthless democrats destroyed the rest. The towers and the portal are probably of the thirteenth century, the spires more modern.” They were much damaged in the Franco-Prussian war, when the town was bombarded.