colophon London:           J.    M.    Dent   &   Co. Aldine House, 29 and 30 Bedford Street Covent Garden W.C.     decorative image     decorative image       1902 ‘Quae qui non vidit jam similia non videbit, non solum ibi, sed in totá Francia.’   TO MY   FRIEND GEORGE   MONTAGU IN   MEMORY   OF   DAYS IN   THE OLD   WORLD   AND   THE   NEW  ...

It is in connection with this well that one of the most beautiful of the legends of Chartres is told. ‘A ceremony is still observed in the Cathedral’ (wrote Sébastien Rouillard) ‘which surprises many people. The reason of it deserves to be known. When the bishop officiating chants the Pax Vobis or a priest the Dominus Vobiscum , whether at Mass, Vespers or Matins, the choir does not respond in full, but only the nearest priest in a low voice. Some say that this is a perpetual memorial of the fir

The oldest portions of the crypt, and therefore of the Cathedral, that remain to us are to be found in the Martyrium or Chapel of S. Lubin. The crypt, it must be understood, was not in origin a crypt or a martyrium or a meeting-house of prayer dug beneath the level of the soil, but a tiny church set on the crest of the hill, and raised above the surface of the earth. It only became a crypt properly so-called when it had been covered up and the surrounding soil raised by the débris and deposits o

Was this Anianus that S. Aignan who founded the church which now bears his name; the S. Aignan who, with his three sisters, Donda, Monda, Ermenonda, endowed it, and was buried in the ancient crypt of that church? [16] On his tomb there was formerly to be read this couplet:— (The body of Aignan, once Bishop of the Chartrains, lies in this crypt: his soul is in Heaven.) The crypt (restored sixteenth century) and the windows of this church are well worth seeing. The lower windows have nine of them

which probably marks the site of the chief extra-mural cemetery of the Chartres of those days. This asylum of the dead was more than once profaned by the ravages of the Northmen and the excesses committed during the civil and religious wars. The nave and aisles were seriously damaged in the fourteenth century by the bands of English soldiers and marauders who overran the country at that time. The Huguenots, also, under Condé (1568) utterly devastated the church crypt, violating the tombs of the

Three years later Charles-le-Chauve, paying one of his frequent pilgrimages to the shrine which he afterwards described as the first seat of the Virgin in France, beheld the ravages of Hastings. Partly perhaps as a consolation to the inhabitants for their losses, he now made their church the depository of one of the most precious relics of the Virgin known to Christendom—her veil or inner vestment, presented [24] by the Empress Irene to the Emperor Charlemagne at Constantinople. It is and was kn

R OLO, on his conversion, gave his domain of Malmaison, near Épernon, to Notre-Dame de Chartres. The deed of gift was long preserved, and ran in these terms:— ‘I, Rollo, Duke of Normandy, give to the Brethren of the Church Notre-Dame de Chartres my Castle of Malmaison, which I have won with my sword, and with my sword I will guarantee it to them, as let this knife be witness.’ A knife in the Middle Ages was a symbol of putting in possession. It was a fitting symbol for the siècle de fer , that c

T HE town of Chartres is clearly divided into two sections—the upper ( quartier du luxe ), modern, unimpressive and inelegant, and the lower, picturesque, poor, mediæval. This lower part of the town is watered by an arm of the Eure, as a local sixteenth-century poet has it. Like most old towns, Chartres consisted originally of a small city enclosed by strong walls and of suburbs stretching along the main roads which led to it. As these suburbs increased in size and importance, the enceinte was e

There yet remains the sixth, seventh and twelfth of the statues, the absorbing, seductive, inexpressible queens of the central bay. Her sexless shape, the book in her hands, her expectant gaze, rapt as it were in a vision of the ages, proclaim the first to be a nun rather than a queen, albeit she is clad in royal raiment;—S. Radegonde, Queen of France (582), Bulteau suggests. The second is younger, and her beauty of a more earthly type. She wears a halo, and is clad like the other, save that she

T HERE are in the Cathedral one hundred and seventy-five stained-glass lights, ‘storied windows richly dight,’ and of these almost all date from the thirteenth century. Remembering the glass of the following century in S. Père and the later windows of S. Aignan, we shall not care to dispute the claim of Chartres to be the locus classicus of mediæval glass. The three western windows of limpid blue belong, as we have said, to the twelfth century. And we know that by the year 1220 all the great leg

‘Monument unique, et qu’il faudrait comparer aux gigantesques constructions de l’Egypte, aux monstrueuses pagodes de l’Inde pour lui trouver des analogues.’— Didron. ‘Notre-Dame de Chartres! It is a world to explore, as if one explored the entire Middle Ages.’— Pater. T HE Cathedral of Chartres is gifted to a peculiar degree with the quality of impressiveness. This quality it owes to the living unity, the animated harmony of its members, and also to the sensation of space, not emptiness, to the

W HILST the Cathedral was a-building, events had happened at Chartres which serve to indicate the importance of the position attained by the town in feudal France by virtue of the power of its Counts, the greatness of its Bishops and the prosperity of its commerce. The legate, Pierre Léon, who was afterwards to become the anti-pope Anaclete, held a council here and, in 1130, the legitimate Pope sought refuge at Chartres, where Henry the First of England came to prostrate himself before him. As t

P LAGUE and famine weighed heavily upon Chartres throughout the sixteenth century; not less heavily the wars of François I. and of Henry IV., and the continual contributions in money which she was called upon to make in order to enable them to be waged. Year by year, under the three curses of that age—plague, soldiers, and impositions—the exhaustion of the city increased. She was able, however, to receive with sufficient magnificence the occasional visits of kings and princes. Particularly splen

U NLIKE the English, who, in public, prefer to ignore genius, the French provincials, when they have any great men born within the borders of their town, are not ashamed to honour them. They erect monuments easily, and it even occurs to them to call their streets after the names of great writers. In Chartres you have the Rue Félibien [92] and the Rue Régnier, [93] with the house in which Mathurin Régnier was born. God has made the men of La Beauce in the image of the soil whence they have sprung

W HEN Henri III. fell beneath the dagger of the assassin, Jacques Clément, the King of Navarre was hailed King of France at S. Cloud. But the fair realm which was one day to be his was far from being prepared as yet to accept Henri Quatre as its ruler. The throne of S. Louis could not, in the eyes of a large section of the nation, belong to a heretic, and Henri de Béarn was a Huguenot. Paris, which was devoted to the Catholic League, closed its gates to him, and Chartres, equally enthusiastic in

T HE events recorded in the last chapter, culminating in the coronation of Henri Quatre in the Cathedral of the town which, as the Huguenot King, he had besieged three years before, are the last in which Chartres played a part of real importance in the history of France. She suffered, indeed, during the troubles of the Fronde, both from the massing of troops that occurred continually about her borders, and from many serious attacks of plague and famine, for which they were doubtless, to a large

O N the 26th of October 1901 a monument, standing at the entrance of the Promenade des Charbonniers, near the Place du Châtelet, and dedicated to the memory of the children of Eure-et-Loir, who laid down their lives for their fatherland, was unveiled by M. Caillaux, the Minister of Finance. The monument was designed by M. Nénot, and consists of a triumphal arch in the Classic style, crowned by a pediment bearing the arms of Chartres, Châteaudun, Dreux and Nogent-le-Rotrou. This is accompanied by

The Château de Maintenon (Duc de Noailles) lies on the line between Chartres and Paris, and, with its waterworks, is well worth a visit. Other châteaux in the neighbourhood are those of Villebon, near Courville, which belongs to the Marquis de Pontoi-Poncarré, and Éclimont, near Gallardon, the property of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld....

May 31.—Notre-Dame du Pilier. August 15.—Feast of the Assumption. September 8 and 15; December 8.—On September 15 and December 8 a magnificent procession through the Crypt takes place in the evening. {487kb} {2mb} Map A , B , C , D , E , F , G , H , I , J , L , M , N , O , P , Q , R , S , T , V , W , Z...