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The lovely cloistered remains of Provence, Auvergne, and Aquitaine, the comparatively modern Charterhouse – called reminiscently the Escurial of Dauphiné – near Grenoble, the communistic church of St. Bertrand de Comminges, La Chaise Dieu, Clairvaux, and innumerable other abbeys and monasteries will recall to mind more forcibly than aught else what their power must once have been.

Between the seventh and tenth centuries these institutions flourished and developed in all of the provinces which go to make up modern France. But the eleventh and twelfth centuries were the golden days of these institutions. They rendered unto the land and the people immense service, and their monks studied not only the arts and sciences, but worked with profound intelligence at all manner of utile labour. Their architecture exerted a considerable influence on this growing art of the nation, and many of their grand churches were but the forerunners of cathedrals yet to be. After the twelfth century, when the arts in France had reached the greatest heights yet attained, these religious establishments were – to give them historical justice – the greatest strength in the land.

In most cases where the great cathedrals were not the works of bishops, who may at one time have been members of monastic communities themselves, they were the results of the efforts of laymen who were direct disciples of the architect monks.

The most prolific monastic architect was undoubtedly St. Bénigne of Dijon, the Italian monk whose work was spread not only throughout Brittany and Normandy, but even across the Channel to England.

One is reminded in France that the nation's first art expression was made through church-building and decoration. This proves Ruskin's somewhat involved dicta, that, "architecture is the art which disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man … a building raised to the honour of God has surely a use to which its architectural adornment fits it."

From whatever remote period the visible history of France has sprung, it is surely from its architectural remains – of which religious edifices have endured the most abundantly – that its chronicles since Gallo-Roman times are built up.

In the south of France, from the Gallic and Roman wars and invasions, we have a basis of tangibility, inasmuch as the remains are more numerous and definite than the mere pillars of stone and slabs of rock to be found in Bretagne, which apocryphally are supposed to indicate an earlier civilization. The menhirs and dolmens may mean much or little; the subject is too vague to follow here, but they are not found east of the Rhône, so the religion of fanaticism, of whatever species of fervour they may have resulted from, has left very little impress on France as a nation.

After the rudest early monuments were erected in the south, became ruined, and fell, there followed gateways, arches, aqueducts, arenas, theatres, temples, and, finally, churches; and from these, however minute the stones, the later civilizing and Christianizing history of this fair land is built up.

It is not possible to ignore these secular and worldly contemporaries of the great churches. It would be fatal to simulate blindness, and they could not otherwise be overlooked.

After the church-building era was begun, the development of the various styles was rapid: Gothic came, bloomed, flourished, and withered away. Then came the Renaissance, not all of it bad, but in the main entirely unsuitable as a type of Christian architecture.

Charles VIII. is commonly supposed to have been the introducer of the Italian Renaissance into France, but it was to Francois I. – that great artistic monarch and glorifier of the style in its domestic forms at least – that its popularization was due, who shall not say far beyond its deserts? Only in the magnificent châteaux, variously classed as Feudal, Renaissance, and Bourbon, did it partake of details and plans which proved glorious in their application. All had distinctly inconsistent details grafted upon them; how could it have been otherwise with the various fortunes of their houses?

There is little or nothing of Gothic in the château architecture of France to distinguish it from the more pronounced type which can hardly be expressed otherwise than as "the architecture of the French châteaux." No single word will express it, and no one type will cover them all, so far as defining their architectural style. The castle at Tarascon has a machicolated battlement; Coucy and Pierrefonds are towered and turreted as only a French château can be; the ruined and black-belted château of Angers is aught but a fortress; and Blois is an indescribable mixture of style which varies from the magnificent to the sordid. This last has ever been surrounded by a sentiment which is perhaps readily enough explained, but its architecture is of that decidedly mixed type which classes it as a mere hybrid thing, and in spite of the splendour of the additions by the houses of the Salamander and the Hedgehog, it is a species which is as indescribable (though more effective) in domestic architecture as is the Tudor of England.

With the churches the sentiments aroused are somewhat different. The Romanesque, Provençal, Auvergnian, or Aquitanian, all bespeak the real expression of the life of the time, regardless of whether individual examples fall below or rise above their contemporaries elsewhere.

The assertion is here confidently made, that a great cathedral church is, next to being a symbol of the faith, more great as a monument to its age and environment than as the product of its individual builders; crystallizing in stone the regard with which the mission of the Church was held in the community. Church-building was never a fanaticism, though it was often an enthusiasm.

There is no question but that church history in general, and church architecture in particular, are becoming less and less the sole pursuit of the professional. One does not need to adopt a transcendent doctrine by merely taking an interest, or an intelligent survey, in the social and political aspects of the Church as an institution, nor is he becoming biassed or prejudiced by a true appreciation of the symbolism and artistic attributes which have ever surrounded the art of church-building of the Roman Catholic Church. All will admit that the æsthetic aspect of the church edifice has always been the superlative art expression of its era, race, and locality.

PART II
South of the Loire

I
INTRODUCTORY

The region immediately to the southward of the Loire valley is generally accounted the most fertile, abundant, and prosperous section of France. Certainly the food, drink, and shelter of all classes appear to be arranged on a more liberal scale than elsewhere; and this, be it understood, is a very good indication of the prosperity of a country.

Touraine, with its luxurious sentiment of châteaux, counts, and bishops, is manifestly of the north, as also is the border province of Maine and Anjou, which marks the progress and development of church-building from the manifest Romanesque types of the south to the arched vaults of the northern variety.

Immediately to the southward – if one journeys but a few leagues – in Poitou, Saintonge, and Angoumois, or in the east, in Berri, Marche, and Limousin, one comes upon a very different sentiment indeed. There is an abundance for all, but without the opulence of Burgundy or the splendour of Touraine.

Of the three regions dealt with in this section, Poitou is the most prosperous, Auvergne the most picturesque, – though the Cevennes are stern and sterile, – and Limousin the least appealing.

Limousin and, in some measure, Berri and Marche are purely pastoral; and, though greatly diversified as to topography, lack, in abundance, architectural monuments of the first rank.

Poitou, in the west, borders upon the ocean and is to a great extent wild, rugged, and romantic. The forest region of the Bocage has ever been a theme for poets and painters. In the extreme west of the province is the Vendée, now the department of the same name. The struggles of its inhabitants on behalf of the monarchical cause, in the early years of the Revolution, is a lurid page of blood-red history that recalls one of the most gallant struggles in the life of the monarchy.

The people here were hardy and vigorous, – a race of landlords who lived largely upon their own estates but still retained an attachment for the feudatories round about, a feeling which was unknown elsewhere in France.

Poitiers, on the river Clain, a tributary of the Vienne, is the chief city of Poitou. Its eight magnificent churches are greater, in the number and extent of their charms, than any similar octette elsewhere.

The valley of the Charente waters a considerable region to the southward of Poitiers. "Le bon Roi" Henri IV. called the stream the most charming in all his kingdom. The chief cities on its banks are La Rochelle, the Huguenot stronghold; Rochefort, famed in worldly fashion for its cheeses; and Angoulême, famed for its "Duchesse," who was also worldly, and more particularly for its great domed cathedral of St. Pierre.

With Auvergne one comes upon a topographical aspect quite different from anything seen elsewhere.

Most things of this world are but comparative, and so with Auvergne. It is picturesque, certainly. Le Puy has indeed been called "by one who knows," "the most picturesque place in the world." Clermont-Ferrand is almost equally attractive as to situation; while Puy de Dôme, Riom, and St. Nectaire form a trio of naturally picturesque topographical features which it would be hard to equal within so small a radius elsewhere.

The country round about is volcanic, and the face of the landscape shows it plainly. Clermont-Ferrand, the capital, was a populous city in Roman times, and was the centre from which the spirit of the Church survived and went forth anew after five consecutive centuries of devastation and bloodshed of Vandals, Visigoths, Franks, Saracens, Carlovingians and Capetians.

Puy de Dôme, near Clermont-Ferrand, is a massive rocky mount which rises nearly five thousand feet above the sea-level, and presents one of those uncommon and curious sights which one can hardly realize until he comes immediately beneath their spell.

Throughout this region are many broken volcanic craters and lava streams. At Mont Doré-le-Bains are a few remains of a Roman thermal establishment; an indication that these early settlers found – if they did not seek – these warm springs of a unique quality, famous yet throughout the world.

An alleged "Druid's altar," more probably merely a dolmen, is situated near St. Nectaire, a small watering-place which is also possessed of an impressively simple, though massive, Romanesque church.

At Issiore is the Eglise de St. Pol, a large and important church, built in the eleventh century, in the Romanesque manner. Another most interesting great church is La Chaise Dieu near Le Puy, a remarkable construction of the fourteenth century. It was originally the monastery of the Casa Dei. It has been popularly supposed heretofore that its floor was on a level with the summit of Puy de Dôme, hence its appropriate nomenclature; latterly the assertion has been refuted, as it may be by any one who takes the trouble to compare the respective elevations in figures. This imposing church ranks, however, unreservedly among the greatest of the mediæval monastic establishments of France.

The powerful feudal system of the Middle Ages, which extended from the Atlantic and German Oceans nearly to the Neapolitan and Spanish borders – afterward carried still farther into Naples and Britain – finds its most important and striking monument of central France in the Château of Polignac, only a few miles from Le Puy. This to-day is but a ruin, but it rises boldly from a depressed valley, and suggests in every way – ruin though it be – the mediæval stronghold that it once was.

Originally it was the seat of the distinguished family whose name it bears. The Revolution practically destroyed it, but such as is left shows completely the great extent of its functions both as a fortress and a palace.

These elements were made necessary by long ages of warfare and discord, – local in many cases, but none the less bloodthirsty for that, – and while such institutions naturally promulgated the growth of Feudalism which left these massive and generous memorials, it is hard to see, even to-day, how else the end might have been obtained.

Auvergne, according to Fergusson, who in his fact has seldom been found wanting, "has one of the most beautiful and numerous of the 'round-Gothic' styles in France … classed among the perfected styles of Europe."

Immediately to the southward of Le Puy is that marvellous country known as the Cevennes. It has been commonly called sterile, bare, unproductive, and much that is less charitable as criticism.

It is not very productive, to be sure, but a native of the land once delivered himself of this remark: "Le mûrier a été pendant longtemps l'arbre d'or du Cevenol." This is prima-facie evidence that the first statement was a libel.

In the latter years of the eighteenth century the Protestants of the Cevennes were a large and powerful body of dissenters.

A curious work in English, written by a native of Languedoc in 1703, states "that they were at least ten to one Papist. And 'twas observed, in many Places, the Priest said mass only for his Clerk, Himself, and the Walls."

These people were not only valiant but industrious, and at that time held the most considerable trade in wool of all France.

To quote again this eighteenth-century Languedocian, who aspired to be a writer of English, we learn:

"God vouchsafed to Illuminate this People with the Truths of the Gospel, several Ages before the Reformation… The Waldenses and Albigenses fled into the Mountains to escape the violence of the Crusades against them… Cruel persecution did not so wholly extinguish the Sacred Light in the Cevennes, but that some parts of it were preserved among its Ashes."

As early as 1683 the Protestants in many parts of southern France drew up a Project of non-compliance with the Edicts and Declarations against them.

The inhabitants in general, however, of the wealthy cities of Montpellier, Nîmes and Uzès were divided much as factions are to-day, and the Papist preference prevailing, the scheme was not put into execution. Because of this, attempted resistance was made only in some parts of the Cevennes and Dauphiné. Here the dissenters met with comfort and assurance by the preachings of several ministers, and finally sought to go out proselytizing among their outside brethren in affliction. This brought martyrdom, oppression, and bloodshed; and finally culminated in a long series of massacres. Children in large numbers were taken from their parents, and put under the Romish faith, as a precaution, presumably, that future generations should be more tractable and faithful.

It is told of the Bishop of Alais that upon visiting the curé at Vigan, he desired that forty children should be so put away, forthwith. The curé could find but sixteen who were not dutiful toward the Church, but the bishop would have none of it. Forty was his quota from that village, and forty must be found. Forty were found, the rest being made up from those who presumably stood in no great need of the care of the Church, beyond such as already came into their daily lives.

It seems outrageous and unfair at this late day, leaving all question of Church and creed outside the pale, but most machination of arbitrary law and ruling works the same way, and pity 'tis that the Church should not have been the first to recognize this tendency. However, these predilections on the part of the people are scarcely more than a memory to-day, in spite of the fact that Protestantism still holds forth in many parts. Taine was undoubtedly right when he said that it was improbable that such a religion would ever satisfy the French temperament.

Limousin partakes of many of the characteristics of Auvergne and Poitou. Its architectural types favour the latter, and its topographical features the former. The resemblance is not so very great in either case, but it is to be remarked. Its chief city, Limoges, lies to the northward of the Montagnes du Limousin, on the banks of the Vienne, which, through the Loire, enters the Atlantic at St. Nazaire.

In a way, its topographical situation, as above noted, accounts far more for its tendencies of life, the art expression of its churches, and its ancient enamels and pottery of to-day, than does its climatic situation. It is climatically of the southland, but its industry and its influences have been greatly northern.

With the surrounding country this is not true, but with its one centre of population – Limoges – it is.

II
L'ABBAYE DE MAILLEZAIS

Maillezais is but a memory, so far as its people and power are concerned. It is not even a Vendean town, as many suppose, though it was the seat of a thirteenth-century bishopric, which in the time of Louis Quatorze was transferred to La Rochelle.

Its abbey church, the oldest portion of which dates from the tenth to the twelfth centuries, is now but a ruin.

In the fourteenth century the establishment was greatly enlarged and extensive buildings added.

To-day it is classed, by the Commission des Monuments Historiques, among those treasures for which it stands sponsor as to their antiquity, artistic worth, and future preservation. Aside from this and the record of the fact that it became, in the fourteenth century, the seat of a bishop's throne, – with Geoffroy I. as its first occupant, – it must be dismissed without further comment.

III
ST. LOUIS DE LA ROCHELLE

The city of La Rochelle will have more interest for the lover of history than for the lover of churches.

Its past has been lurid, and the momentous question of the future rights of the Protestants of France made this natural stronghold the battle-ground where the most stubborn resistance against Church and State was made.

The siege of 1573 was unsuccessful. But a little more than half a century later the city, after a siege of fourteen months, gave way before the powerful force brought against it by Cardinal Richelieu in person, supported by Louis XIII.

For this reason, if for no other, he who would know from personal acquaintance the ground upon which the mighty battles of the faith were fought will not pass the Huguenot city quickly by.

The Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle naturally might not be supposed to possess a very magnificent Roman cathedral. As a matter of fact it does not, and it has only ranked as a cathedral city since 1665, when the bishopric was transferred from Maillezais. The city was in the hands of the Huguenots from 1557 until the siege of 1628-1629; and was, during all this time, the bulwark of the Protestant cause in France.

The present cathedral of St. Louis dates only from 1735.

Its pseudo-classic features classify it as one of those structures designated by the discerning Abbé Bourassé as being "cold-blooded and lacking in lustre."

It surely is all of that, and the pity is that it offers no charm whatever of either shape or feature.

It is of course more than likely that Huguenot influence was here so great as to have strangled any ambition on the part of the mediæval builders to have erected previously anything more imposing. And when that time was past came also the demise of Gothic splendour. The transition from the pointed to the superimposed classical details, which was the distinctive Renaissance manner of church-building, was not as sudden as many suppose, though it came into being simultaneously throughout the land.

There is no trace, however, in the cathedral of St. Louis, of anything but a base descent to features only too well recognized as having little of churchly mien about them; and truly this structure is no better or worse as an art object than many others of its class. The significant aspect being that, though it resembles Gothic not at all, neither does it bear any close relationship to the Romanesque.

The former parish church of St. Barthèlemy, long since destroyed, has left behind, as a memory of its former greatness, a single lone tower, the work of a Cluniac monk, Mognon by name. It is worth hours of contemplation and study as compared with the minutes which could profitably be devoted to the cathedral of St. Louis.